The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 1739 - We Live Next to a Failed Narco-State. Why Are We STILL Focused on the Mid-East?

Episode Date: February 24, 2026

Today on the Matt Walsh Show, chaos erupts south of the border as Mexico descends further into anarchy and violence. What if anything should the United States do about this, to protect its own citizens? Also Gavin Newsom says that Democrats need to be more "culturally normal." But is that even fundamentally possible for the modern Democrat party? And the education system has spent many billions of dollars replacing books with screens for students. The results are in, and they are catastrophic. Ep. 1739 - - - Click here to join the member-exclusive portion of my show: https://dwplus.watch/MattWalshMemberExclusive - - - Today's Sponsors: Hillsdale College - Start learning today. Go to https://hillsdale.edu/walsh to sign up for over 40 free online courses. Boll & Branch - Get 15% off your first order + free shipping at https://BollAndBranch.com/walsh with code walsh. Equp Foods - Equip’s Prime Bar is a real food protein bar with nothing to hide: just 11 ingredients and 20g of clean protein - made from ingredients you can pronounce like collagen, beef tallow, colostrum, cocoa butter - and sweetened naturally with just date and honey. Bringing good, clean habits into 2026 is made simple with Equip. Matt Walsh listeners will get 25% off one-time purchases, or 40% off first subscription orders for a limited time by heading to https://equipfoods.com/mattwalsh and using code MATTWALSH at checkout. ExpressVPN - Go to https://expressvpn.com/walsh and find out how you can get 4 months of ExpressVPN free! - - - DailyWire+: Become a Daily Wire Member and watch all of our content ad-free: https://dailywire.com/subscribe The Real History of the American Indians is available now, exclusively on DailyWire+! Watch now: https://dwplus.watch/RealHistoryAmericanIndians Subscribe here: https://dwplus.watch/RealHistorySubscribe The Real History of Slavery is now available for free on youtube: https://youtu.be/UivhqdhcHNI 🍿 The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin is now streaming exclusively on DailyWire+ https://dwplus.watch/ThePendragon 🔥 Friendly Fire is here! No moderator, no safe words. Now available: https://dailywire.com/show/friendly-fire 👕 Get your Matt Walsh flannel here: https://dwplus.shop/MattWalshMerch - - - Socials:  Follow on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3Rv1VeF  Follow on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3KZC3oA  Follow on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3eBKjiA  Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RQp4rs - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, the Matt Wall Show, chaos erupts south of the border as Mexico descends further into anarchy and violence. What, if anything, should the United States do about all this to protect its own citizens? Also, Gavin Newsom says that Democrats need to be more culturally normal, quote-unquote, but is that even fundamentally possible for the modern Democrat Party? And the education system has spent many billions of dollars replacing books with screens for students. The results are in, and they are catastrophic. All that, and more today at the Matt Wall Show. There are a lot of different ways to make the point that securing the border is the single most important goal that the United States can pursue at the moment. You can point to the horrific crimes that are committed by illegal aliens.

You can talk about the crowded job market or welfare programs that are being overloaded or the fact that housing becomes much more expensive when tens of millions of new residents move into the country. This is all very important and very familiar territory. But in the wake of the cartel violence that's unfolding throughout Mexico, there's a new way to illustrate. just how important our border is and how volatile our hemisphere has become. So take a look at this graphic. It's from a map on the official website of the U.S. State Department. So check me on this. If you pull up the State Department website right now, you can see it for yourself.

But there's the image. And the map shows a portion of the southern United States bordering the Gulf of America, as we call it now, along with several states in Mexico. And as you can see, the Mexican states are shaded with various colors. Directly bordering Texas, the Mexican state of Tamil, Tamalapas, probably mispronouncing that, is shaded in a very deep red. And that deep shade of red is a level four travel advisory, which is the highest level that the State Department is able to give any country. Now, just to be clear about the significance of a level four designation, it means that you should not travel to this particular location. under any circumstances for any reason.

And if you decide to travel to a level four location anyway, the State Department advises that you, quote, consider hiring a professional security organization, prepare a will, and designate appropriate insurance beneficiaries, and power of attorney. And also develop a, quote, communication plan that should, quote, include a proof of life protocol with loved ones so that if you're taken hostage, detained, and or tortured,

your loved ones will know specific questions and answers to ask the hostage takers to confirm that you're still alive. Other level four countries include such wonderful locations as Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen. That's the status of a Mexican state that sits directly on the Texas border. Now, you may not have heard about this because no one in our government has really mentioned it, but it's true.

According to our State Department, the United States of America borders a state. that is as dangerous as a war zone filled with jihadis. This level four no-go zone, it's not located thousands of miles away in the Middle East. There's no ocean separating us. The narco terrorists in this Mexican state are seconds away from entering the country via Brownsville or Laredo. Many of them, of course, have done that.

They've entered the country. And now that Mexico has descended into open warfare over the killing of El Minchot, the head of one of Mexico's most powerful cartels, the risk is greater right now than it's been at any point in recent history. Dozens of Mexican police and national guardsmen are dead. Stores are being looted and set on fire. And what's significant about the latest bloodshed in Mexico is that historically, cartels have avoided direct attacks on tourist destinations.

Tourism is central to Mexico's economy. made accounts for around 10% of their GDP, it employs millions of people. Cartels would lose a lot of money and a lot of domestic popularity if they made it unsafe for foreigners to travel to Mexico on vacation. So there's been a tendency generally for cartels to stay away from the golden goose and kind of leave the foreign travelers alone for the most part. Well, that's all changing now, because the cartels are killing people and torching vehicles. Tourists and people, Puerto Valerata and Guadalajara are being forced to shelter in place. Their flights are being canceled.

Cabs won't pick them up. Military helicopters are buzzing around their resorts. Watch. They're saying the taxis are operating at this time. We did see two of them and they said, no, this is our work vehicle. So we can't use them. Uber's are not working. The buses that we normally use as well.

you don't see them at this point, but there's still blockages. There's still burnt buses and burnt cars in certain areas, like in the road right down here, about three-minute walk down here. There's still cars and buses incinerated on the road. I got stuck right there before they looked a truck on fire. Are the fire trucks like just a beautiful day in Puerto Vallarda? Now, as dramatic as these stories are, they pale in comparison to the plight of Platinum Elite Marriott members with over a thousand confirmed lifetime reservations who are currently staying in Mexican resorts that are rapidly running out of food and availability. This is a post from the Marriott subreddit.

And here's what it says. It says, quote, Weston Puerto Valerata won't honor late checkout with streets closed. I am Platinum Elite with over a thousand lifetime Marriott nights. Cities on fire due to cartel setting cars and buses on fire all over the city. The airport is closed and Ubers and taxis are not running. I asked for 4 p.m. checkout, which I'm entitled to, based on availability. They won't extend past 2 p.m. and said we would have to use the hospitality suite. We're supposed to be leaving this afternoon, but this isn't looking very good.

worst bonvoy property I have ever experienced. I don't think anyone will be checking in today, so there's no reason not to at least extend us to 4 p.m. Now, I had to check to confirm that that was real, and indeed it is. Most of the posts in the Marriott subreddit sound the same. One person responded with this, quote, we're literally sitting on a plane in Guadalajara Airport and are not moving. Been here for 20-ish minutes. A large black cloud of smoke was near the airport. My advice, side and don't try to go out. Another person writes, start tracking your expenses from that point onwards so you can file a claim with your travel insurance. Now, it's easy to kind of mock these posts, but the reality is that this sentiment is extremely bad for Mexico's economy. Well-off,

entitled morons are the backbone of any tourism industry. They're the ones who spend unreasonable amounts of money when they go on vacation, and Mexico is supposed to host the World Cup in, what, four months. So many, many more tourists are about to stream in. The fact that the cartels no longer care about this revenue is a sign that our southern border has just become much more dangerous than it already was and much less stable. And it was already very unstable and very dangerous. Just a year ago, Canadian politicians and outlets were encouraging people to vacation in Mexico instead of Florida. Supposedly, it was a way to get back at Trump. And you can see the headlines right there. One of them reads, why Canadians should go to Mexico instead of Florida. Another headline

from the Canadian state broadcaster CBC says, more Canadians head to Mexico for winter getaways, vacation travel to U.S. down as Canadian tourists make strategic decisions on where to spend time and money. CBC also ran this story, which is in the running for worst-aged segments in all of television news history. There's a lot of competition for that title. This is from last year. watch. Charles Bert and Merrily Mollard are getting advice from their travel agent on where to travel this winter. So have you guys decided on where you would like to go?

Well, on the bucket list is Porto Viarda. The Manitoba couple usually spends weeks or even months at a trailer park in West Lico, Texas, but not this year. Since the election of Trump and the insults that he placed on our country, 50 for state and all of that garbage, we decided that, no, we're not going to spend money down there. They're not the only ones making that decision. According to the Mexican Ministry of Tourism, the number of Canadians flying to Mexico increased by 11.3% between January and September compared to the year before, an increase of almost 200,000 tourists.

So they didn't want to spend money in Texas or Florida because Donald Trump wrote some mean tweets. And now they're hunkering down in their resorts, hoping that they don't get murdered. These are the kinds of videos Canadians are currently uploading from their vacations, which really hit Donald Trump where it hurts, I guess. Watch. So I don't know if you can see that, but I can see the flames underneath that black smoke. Major flames there. Huge plumes everywhere. another big one over there another one directly behind this resort we're staying at

pretty much surrounded by by this right now really intense scene happening here in Portaverita hopefully we're able to get out tomorrow but the airports are shut down as it is right now I'll tell you. It's probably not surprising that at the moment no one in Canada's government actually seems to care about the Canadians who are now trapped in Mexico. They aren't getting regular updates from the Canadian government. And meanwhile, a member of Canada's parliament named Heather McPherson, who is currently running to lead one of Canada's major parties, put out this message, quote, many Canadians, especially members of the 2SLGBTQIA plus community are in Puerto

Vareta, Vairta, is that it? Where violence is quickly escalated and shelter-in-place order is in effect, please stay vigilant. So needless to say, you know, that doesn't help the tourism industry either. Prominent politicians are publicly declaring that Puerto Vallerta is where the gay Canadians go. And at the moment, all of those gay Canadian tourists have to do. deal with the Mexican cartels, which, among other things, the Mexican cartels are known,

I'm told, for misgendering everyone in their path. But for her part, the president of Mexico, Claudia Scheinbaum Pardo, does seem to be taking the cartel seriously. And that's a surprise because, and a change of pace, because just a couple of months ago, she declared that it would be unlawful to wage war on the cartels because they're entitled to due process and civil liberties. Let's watch. and treat the cartels like criminals rather than enemy combatants. She says, returning to the war against the narco is not an option, first because it is outside the framework of the law.

There's no need to belabor how absurd this reasoning is. I think we all kind of get it. Cartels of Mexico have better weaponry and technology than the Mexican military. As you can see, here they're equipped like the special forces. Those are the cartels right there. They routinely murder politicians, law enforcement, civilians. If Mexico's government is committed to treating these narco-terrorists like common criminals, then they're not going to last very long.

That is, the Mexican government's not going to last very long. And millions of Americans, particularly Americans living near the border, will suffer the consequences. Frankly, the only way that the Mexican president could disagree is if she's owned by the cartels. Apparently, though, the Mexican government has changed its strategy, at least to some degree, because I had no choice. This is how the Wall Street Journal describes the Mexican government's raid on the town of Topalpa, which took out the Mexican cartel leader on Sunday morning.

This area is known as the Magic Town because of its romantic pine forests, and apparently El Muncho was spending the weekend at this place with one of his girlfriends. And here's what it says, quote, just before dawn, the quiet of the Jolisco Hills was jolted by the sounds of combat helicopters, military aircraft and then gunshots ripping through the air. El Mancho's security detail fired back. Dozens of soldiers and armored military vehicles plowed into the forest amid the sound of heavy gunfire. The ground team chased El Mancho's men into the forest, forcing them to abandon their high-powered weapons in the cabin complex. El Mancho's forces were pinned down and surrounded,

but continued to fire back for about five hours. A military helicopter was hit by the gunfire had to make an emergency landing at a military facility. When shooting stopped, five cartel members were dead on the ground. Three others, El Menscho and two body guards, were seriously wounded and then died in a military helicopter later. There were no military losses during the raid between beyond two injured soldiers. Afterward, Mexican forces seized heavy weapons, including high caliber, Barrett rifle, munitions, mortar grenades, two rocket launchers, and eight vehicles. In other words, this was not a law enforcement operation. The Mexican government, with the assistance from U.S. intelligence, sent in the military

and killed one of the most dangerous cartel leaders in the hemisphere. And these raids need to continue until the rule of law is secured in Mexico. There should be no terrorist states on the U.S. border under any circumstances. And one of the reasons the United States hasn't collapsed in the same way that most of Europe has collapsed, is that an ocean separates us from the many dysfunctional elements of the third world. But with the latest cartel violence in Mexico, it's impossible to deny that we are now directly threatened by narco-terrorists on our doorstep. They've already killed tens of thousands of Americans, primarily with fentanyl, as well as meth and cocaine,

and now they're threatening to murder American tourists and everybody living near the southern border. Right now, as all this is going on, near Iran, we've stationed an armada that includes multiple aircraft carrier strike groups, including the most advanced carrier in the Navy, the USS Gerald Ford, along with at least 13 destroyers, multiple warships with Tomahawk missiles, F-35 fighters, F-A-18, attack planes, and so on. We've stocked nearby airbases with drones, reconnaissance planes, tankers, bombers, electronic warfare jets. We have a lot of hardware that's about to strike Iran to all appearances. And even if you fully support those deployments

and even if you believe that Iran needs to be attacked, you have to wonder when the Pentagon is going to devote similar resources to defending the U.S. border with Mexico. The Mexican government may be outgunned by the cartels, but we aren't. And rather than another war in the Middle East, a military campaign to dismantle and destroy these cartels would easily be a defining legacy of the second Trump administration. It would save American lives, which is the whole reason we have a military. So for once, we should follow the lead of Mexican government, which is not something I ever thought I'd say, change our strategy and kill these narco terrorists before they know what hit them.

Now it's good to our five headlines. The American Revolution was born from 150 years of colonial experience, tensions, and transformation. And if you want to dive even deeper into the history of our country, our sponsor Hillsdale College offers a free miniseries on Colonial America that tells the full story. Hillsdale College has created a fascinating six-part documentary series where their professors explore the religious, political, cultural, and economic ideas that shaped America's unique character during the colonial period. You'll discover why the idea of liberty drove settlers to risk everything crossing the Atlantic, how early Americans built local governments to rule and protect themselves, and why America became a place where virtue could lead to peace and prosperity. While most of us know the Declaration of Independence as the birth of our nation,

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Well, he was on CNN last night, and he's now going back to his reasonable moderate schick. And here that is, listen. No doubt that the Democratic Party needs to be, dare I say, more culturally normal. I believe that. Less prone to spending disproportionate amount of time on pronouns, identity, politics, more focused on tabletop issues, things that really matter, the stacking of stress in terms of electricity bills and child care costs

and health care and obviously housing costs, and how easily we get trapped in that. How I've fallen prey to that. I mean, here I was, way out front on marriage equality. So I understand this from both in the receiving end of this. The Democrat Party needs to be more culturally normal, he says, and he says they need to be less focused on pronouns. Very boldly, very bravely, very bravely coming out against the pronoun fad like three years after it peaked. The year 2026, Gavin Newsom, taking the bold stands that they shouldn't be too focused on pronouns. And of course, Newsom wants us to forget that as governor of California, he was one of the primary drivers of this stuff. He's one of the primary drivers of the trans-crate. and he's, of course, retconning all of that now, but we know that. But that's not what I want to focus on.

Instead, I think it just, this needs to be said, that it's actually impossible for the Democrat Party to be culturally normal. That's not possible to do. In theory, if it were possible, it would be the politically smart thing for them to do. It would make them more politically formidable. But they actually can't do that. It's not possible. It can never happen. You know, it's not like the Republican Party. I mean, I'll be the first to say that there are some, shall we say, weird elements among conservatives. Conservatives can get drawn down some very bizarre paths. That can happen. It does happen. But even when conservatives start doing and saying weird stuff, you can always, at least in theory, draw them back into normalcy.

But with the left, it's totally different. The left can never be culturally normal because by definition, leftism is a force of destruction. It's a force of perversion, subversion. It inherently opposes everything that can be considered culturally normal. It opposes the culture. It opposes all aspects of normalcy. It seeks to dismantle. I mean, that is the banner that it marches under, literally. And there's a version of what I'm saying that even leftists would agree. agree with openly. I mean, they wouldn't necessarily describe what they do as perversion and subversion, even though that's what it is. But they would agree if I framed it this way. If I said progressivism is, by definition, a vehicle for perpetual social transformation. It's not a vehicle for preservation. It's a vehicle for, I mean, that's conservatism by definition. It's right there in the name, conserve, conserving something. Progressivism, Right there in the name. Progress. We're moving. We're continuing. We keep going. Right. So even framing it as positively as I possibly can, there is no normalcy there.

Progressing means constantly, continuously changing. It means continuously forming new normals, which is to say it means not having a normal. If there's a new normal and then tomorrow there's another new normal, then that just means that there's no normal. So that's why this moderating attempt on the left won't work, it can't work, it can't happen. It's why leftism will never, ever be a force for the preservation of or defense of normalcy. Progressivism progresses. As I always say, it progresses in the same sense that cancer progresses, eating away, destroying. So when a leftist politician says that they want to be more normal, all he really means is we want to pull back a little bit.

We want to rain things in just a little bit, and we want the progress to be a little bit slower. We want to slow down the progress of the cancer. Now, Gavin Newsom, he doesn't have a problem with the trans stuff, obviously. He just believes now that the trans stuff came on too fast. The transformation was too rapid. Society rejected it. So for strategic and political reasons, he wants to slow it down a little bit, make it more gradual.

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Plus, free shipping at bolandbranch.com slash Walsh with Code Walsh. That's BowlingBroll and D branch, B-O-L-A-N-D branch.com slash Walsh. To unlock 15% off exclusions apply. Okay, moving on to this, there is right now in Tennessee an interesting bill that's been proposed. it's an equal protection bill in Tennessee. It's a draft amendment which would extend equal legal protections to children in the womb.

They'd be protected legally the same way that humans outside of the womb are protected. Which would also mean that the killing of these humans in the womb would be classified under the law as murder and would be treated that way. And here's how local news in Tennessee

reported on this watch. Republican state lawmakers are backing legislation legalizing the prosecution of women who receive an abortion for the crime of homicide. Good evening and welcome to News 2 at 5. I'm Bob Mueller. And I'm Haley Wilkes. If past, women convicted of receiving an abortion in Tennessee could face years in prison or even the death penalty. State Capitol reporter Tori Gessner explains. When it comes to abortion laws, it doesn't get much stricter than Tennessee. has a near total ban with no exceptions for rape or incest. Now, a new bill would make those laws even tougher,

giving fetuses the same legal protections as those living outside the womb. That individual, in my personal opinion, has the same right to live than someone who has already been born. I don't think there's some magic threshold that you cross whenever you pass through the birth canal that suddenly bestows you as an actual human being. Republican Representative Jody Barrett talking about what he calls his equal protection bill on his podcast, The Woodshed. His proposal would make it so a woman who gets an abortion would face the same ponderments as a woman who kills her baby after birth. There would be limited

exceptions if a life-saving procedure unintentionally results in an unborn baby's death or if the woman has a, quote, spontaneous miscarriage. All we're saying is, if you kill someone that is a life and being, you can be charged with whatever crimes or criminal charges that are on the books currently. And with equal protection for unborn, that means if you kill a child in the womb, you should be subject to the same penalties or same charges. Well, I couldn't agree more. I think that this is, I think it's great. The logic is unassailable here. Either unborn babies are human beings or they aren't. And if they are, then killing them is murder.

And if killing them is murder, then there should be criminal prosecutions. I mean, one thing leads to another. One logical step leads to the other step. The only way that you don't end up with the same conclusion as the people who wrote this bill is if you disagree with the first proposition, which is that unborn babies are humans. But if you agree with that proposition, I don't see how you can logically end up any other place. It's inevitable. It's logically inevitable. So is the first proposition true? Our unborn baby is human? Well, yes, obviously they are. It's not even a debate. They're living beings of the human species. If they aren't human, then what species are they? They've got to be some. You can't exist in some sort of limbo state where you belong to no species. That's not a thing.

it's not possible. Human unborn babies are conceived by two humans. And two humans cannot conceive anything but another human. And so unborn babies are human beings. That's it. That's all there is to it. It really is not a debate. It just is true.

It's simply true. It's a, it is a matter, it's a scientific fact. Okay, so then if that's established, then directly and intentionally killing a human, what do we call that? We call that murder. If it's a human life that's being killed and it's being done intentionally, directly, then that's murder. That's what that is.

That's the definition of it. Okay, well, then what do you do with murderers? Okay, so if that follows, so onborn baby is a human, directly intentionally killing, therefore is murder. therefore the person who's doing the killing is a therefore a murderer therefore what do we do with murderers well we punish them one follows from the other very clearly now if you want to get into the question of moral culpability

obviously it's true there could be different levels of moral culpability so we're not talking about the intrinsic morality of the act itself, it's murder. It's depraved, wicked, evil. Moral culpability for a person committing an act can have varying degrees. And we all know that. That's true of every kind of murder, right? Like, there's not anyone who would say that, well, we should have a mandatory sentence

where all homicides get the exact same sentence no matter what, no matter the circumstances. Nobody thinks that. You have first degree murder, second degree of, you have different degrees, right? And you can murder someone and in some circumstances reasonably receive a much lighter sentence than someone else who murder someone in a different circumstance. Just like you could murder someone and get a much worse sentence. sentence than someone else depending on the circumstances. The whole point of the sentencing is to assess these things in theory. The whole point of the sentencing process is to assess, okay,

well, we've established, you did this thing, you're guilty of it, it's a crime, and now for the sentencing, we're going to look at moral culpability. We're going to look at all kinds of different factors. Remorse. How likely are you to offend again? I mean, all these things should be factored in. Now, we know that judges these days, often come up with very bad assessments, but that is how the system is supposed to work. So you have to assess moral culpability. But the point is that still, no matter what, an unborn child is a human, killing that human on purpose is murder and should be legally classified that way. It should be a criminal

matter with criminal penalties because it is a homicide. And yes, of course that means prison time for everybody involved. And again, if you don't agree with that, then I can only assume it's because you don't actually think that abortion is murder. If it is, then

all we're saying, all this argument is saying all this bill is saying is, oh, if it's murder, like, do we actually think it's murder or not? Because if it is, why are we treating it that way? This episode is sponsored by Equipped Foods. People often pick up protein bars, assuming that they're making a quick and healthy decision. But if you've ever taken the time to actually read the label, you're probably surprised to see how much sugar is in these bars.

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This is an important headline here from Fortune. The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets. The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents. The article says in 2002, Maine became the first state to implement a statewide laptop program for some grade levels. Then Governor Angus King saw the program as a way to put the Internet at the finger-tenth. tips of more children who would be able to immerse themselves in information. By that fall, the Maine Learning Technology Initiative had distributed 17,000 Apple laptops to seventh graders across 243 middle schools. By 2016, those numbers have multiplied to 66,000 laptops and tablets

distributed to Maine students. King's initial efforts have been mirrored across the country. In in 2024, the U.S. spent more than $30 billion putting laptops and tablets in schools, but more than a quarter century and numerous evolving models of technology later, psychologists and learning experts see a different outcome than the one King intended, rather than empowering the generation with access to more knowledge, the technology had the opposite effect. Earlier this year in written testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, science, and Transportation, neuroscientist Jared Cooney-Horvith said that Gen Z is less

cognitively capable than previous generations, despite its unprecedented access to technology. He said Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized tests than the previous ones. While skills measured by these tests like literacy and numeracy aren't always indicative of intelligence, they are reflections of cognitive capability, which Horvath said has been on the decline over the last decade or so. Ultimately, Horvath said the loss of critical thinking and learning skills is less of a personal failure and more of a policy one, calling the generation of Americans educated with gadget victims of a failed pedagogical experiment. Whenever I work with teenagers, I tell them, this is not your fault. None of you asked to be sat in front of a computer for your entire K-12 schooling. Or if I said, that means we screwed up.

And I genuinely hope Gen Z quickly figures that out and gets mad. The whole argument is worth reading because it goes into some of the science here and some of the data. But yes, the screens are making kids dumber, a lot dumber. And quickly. If there's anything that's surprising about this, it's not that it's making kids. It's dumber. We all should have known that. I've been shouting that from the rooftops like a lot of people have for a long time. If there's anything that's surprising, it's how quick this is happening. I'm surprised by that. I mean, the deterioration is real and it's happening very fast. This is idiocry at warp speed. I mean, I've always said that idiocracy, I think, is in a lot of ways, one of the most prophetic works of fiction of our time. But it this society full of retards like 500 years in the future. And I've always said, well, that's, you know, Mike Judge got that wrong because it's not going to take 500 years.

But I didn't think it would take five years. I mean, this is way faster than I think anyone anticipated. And this is not just one person saying this or one study. The empirical evidence that screens are making kids dumber and less focused, less competent, less able to concentrate, all these things. The evidence is absolutely overwhelming. I mean, there have been studies, just you name it, studies showing that higher screen time is linked with lower academic achievements, studies showing the exposure to screens before age five leads to weaker executive functions in the brain. Screens cause attention problems a lot. There's been a lot of research on that, shortening attention spans. It destroys your memory.

destroys your impulse control, lowers your language skills and comprehension. Screen use is tied to emotional problems, psychological problems, depression, so-called mental health problems, so on and so on. There's reams and reams of research showing all this. It's all documented over and over and over again. And if you don't believe the studies, believe your own eyes. Believe your common sense. Look around you. Believe your own experience.

I mean, we've all experienced this. I noticed it in myself. Things like memory, like you feel like you don't remember things as well. Now, it's true also. I'm getting older. So there's some of that, true. But I think if you look at your own experience, you would also see this. And it really seems like, and you hear this in big talk, you know, you've probably

pointed out, had many conversations with people where you talk about this. So it's like it seems like you can't remember things as well as you used to. even for adults having trouble focusing in ways that you didn't before. And for a long time, we'd always talked about, oh, there's an epidemic of adult ADHD. What's going on here? Oh, let me think about this. Well, we've got an epidemic of kids with ADHD and an epidemic of adult ADHD. And it seems like that epidemic, like, there was an onset of this epidemic kind of like at the same time.

What happened? What is the big change? Is that we all just like contracted this disease out of nowhere mysteriously? Or can we point to exactly when screens became ubiquitous and everybody started carrying them around in their pockets? Like exactly that moment is when you see this epidemic really kick into hyperdrive. So this is something we all experience. it's and if you if you don't trust your own experience, if you think that's too anecdotal, then, okay,

they just look at the research, look at the data, it's all there. It is incredibly obvious. And, you know, and then you look at the younger generations. You look at kids today. As a generally speaking, this isn't true of all the, I mean, I have kids. I wouldn't say this about my own kids, but we also, as you know, go to great lengths to make sure their lives are not dominated by screens. But generally speaking, younger people today are, well, the data shows are dumber.

They just, they're not as good at comprehending things. They're just kind of more numb, less vibrant, less excited about life, less kind of earnest and sincere, less innocent, less able to communicate their thoughts and feelings coherently. You know, every day I see these posts on X, we all see them. Speaking of screen addiction. But, you know, you see these things like a clip or a montage, a slice of life video from the early 2000s or from the 1990s or from the 80s. And the caption is always like, look at what we lost. Look what we lost. Look at this.

See what it was like before. and the skeptical response to those kinds of posts is always like, well, this is just nostalgia. Every generation feels this way. And sure, maybe they do, but it's also true. There is a real thing here. Like, we did lose something. It's not just nostalgia. It's not just that.

It's more than that. I saw one today. It was a video, some random clips from a montage of some, you know, high school in like 2003 or something, I think it was. And it was different. The kids were much more vibrant, alive, joyful, energetic, happy, communicative. They were. I was there. I mean, I hated school.

Don't get me wrong, but it was different. School was not, it was not, you go back 20 years ago, 30 years ago. It was not a utopia. And you might have been a kid and go to school and hate it every day. I mostly did. But you also, this is part of the thing. Like, you don't know, you don't know what you have. have until it's gone, right? The cliche, it's true. And so there are a lot of things that we just

didn't appreciate because they were part of life. Like, just the simple fact that everybody is present in the room at the time and you're not staring at a screen and you're like interacting with each other. Being able to go through life and go into, like every room you go into, every room you go into, everybody is in the room or they're just there, they're present with you. And you would, and they're just, they would talk to you. Even if they didn't talk to you, we're all just like in this room together present. And that's the kind of thing that at the time, there's no way to have possibly appreciated that. Because how, what else? You couldn't imagine any other scenario. You would never walk into a room and say, well, I'm just so glad we're all present together. You would never say that because, well, what else are we going to be? Of course, we're present together. The concept of a future where we're all just doing this all the time, staring at phones and no one else exists. It was like it wasn't even on the radar. So, um, You know, things have changed. And there are a lot of reasons for it, but the screens are the main reason. I fully believe that. And there are a lot of reasons why the screens cause this change. Screens give a constant dopamine stimulation. Our brains reward systems are rewired. You've got kids now and adults who actually cannot sit and read. They can't sit and think, contemplate. Just the very concept of that. And we know that people have stopped reading.

It's like it doesn't even exist. I think we have a whole, we already have an entire generation of Americans who are subliterate. Even if they can read, they don't. And that's only going to get worse. We are very soon going to have whole generations of Americans who have never read a book, ever. Not ever. I think we already have that. So we know that, but I think even more disturbing is you think about the number of

of people, especially young people, again, not just them, but who have never had the experience, I mean, honestly, have never had the experience of sitting somewhere and just thinking. Just sit down and think. Like, you're not doing anything. You're just kind of sitting there. And you're just thinking. Like, that concept is foreign. I think a lot of people today, it's foreign. Why would you ever do that? But you're just sitting there? You're like sitting in your living room and just sitting there. You're not talking to anybody. You're not looking at your phone. You're not watching anything, you're just sitting there? Yeah. People used to do that. You should still do it. Maybe not for 10 hours a day, but yeah, this should be like multiple times in your day when you're

just kind of sitting somewhere and you're thinking. Like thinking is an activity that you should do. You should actively do and enjoy it. So, but that doesn't happen anymore. So, and you have people that just can't do it. They're like crack addicts. They need constant stimulation. They need the images, the sounds, the light, right? That's part of the problem. The other part is the way that our attention is fragmented, multiple screens going at the same time now, you know, notifications, the feed, infinite scrolling, a million bits of information bombarding us at all hours of the day. We were never made, human beings are not adapted to this. We were never made to consume this much information. I mean, you consume more information in a week than most humans did an entire lifetime.

It's not making us smarter. We're not built for it. And probably most of all, the screens are a vector for passive consumption. Why is everybody so passive these days? Why are kids, young adults, in particular, are so passive, so nihilistic? I don't care about anything. I have no ambition, no goals. Just don't care about anything. What we spend all day passively consuming. Look at the phone at the screen. Passive consumption. It's not active. You're not engaging.

You aren't doing. Even reading is much more active. You are doing something. You're reading. I know you might say, well, if I'm scrolling through the phone, I'm reading things, it's not the same. No, that's just you receiving. It's like it requires no effort. There's a reason why, and again, you should try this sometime if you've never done it or haven't done it a long time.

if you late at night sit down on the couch or sit up on your bed and read a book an actual real book, physical book, you'll get tired pretty quickly. You'll start to feel tired.

If you sit there though and pull out your phone, we could sit there for, even though you're kind of tired, you can sit there for three hours staring at your phone and not fall asleep. why is that? Well, because the reading is active. You're actually using your brain and it makes you tired, especially if you're already tired at the end of the day. That's a good thing. But the phone is not, you're not actually using your brain. So why it doesn't make you tired. And this is only going to get worse. And then AI is the death knell. I hate to be such a bummer. I know you're used to it by now if you listen to the show. But the education system is over. In its current form. Hopefully there's some other form that we can develop that will rescue this thing. I think we already have it. It's called homeschooling. The education system, the mass education system, it's over. It's just done. It is done. If you're a parent today, if you're a parent about my age and you have young kids and you're trying to decide what to do for their education, you cannot put them

in the public school system. You can't do it. It's over. Your kid will not learn anything. That is over. That's a thing of the past. It doesn't exist anymore. It really doesn't. Because you've got all the problems we've already gone over, including all the problems that already existed with the education system. I mean, it's been a left-wing indoctrination center for a long time, even when I was a kid. But you had a eye into this thing now. It's like no one's going to learn anything. The kids are just not going to learn. They don't have to. They got this thing that will think for them. And so it's done. It's over. And there's no way for a mass education system with millions and millions of kids in it, 50, million kids or whatever it is, there's no way for them to control for that. At a very localized

level, you can. At a very localized level, you can, for the most part, control for that. You can provide an education to your kids where that is not going to be supplanted by AI. You can prevent them from using AI to do everything, right? You can take the screens away. You can control how much they use the screens. You can do that at a very localized controlled level. In some circumstances, in some private schools, you could do it too. But public, kind of assembly line, factory-style education, over, done, doesn't work, it's over. And if you send your kid to public school now, then you're just choosing for them not to learn anything because they won't, I promise you that.

You may as well not send them to school, honestly. You may as well just do whatever, unschooling. Just keep them home and they'll learn what they pick up on their own, which isn't much, but it's really the same thing. Honestly. And that's not me being dramatic at all. It's just a fact. So. And if you're sitting there and you're thinking as a parent, well, I have no choice but to send my kids in public school, you know, okay, but I'm just telling you the truth of the matter. You're starting your six-year-old kid, five-year-old kid on the public school journey right now in the year of 26. They're not going to learn anything. It's a waste of time. Did you know the U.S. government once classified encryption as a weapon? That's right. Protecting your own privacy was treated like owning a missile. But here's the thing. Encryption is a weapon. A

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I hadn't seen it or noticed it until now. There are these clips going around of Team Canada after the hockey game, which they lost, in case you forgot, they lost. But they were receiving their silver medals. And as part of the medal ceremony, where they received the medals, they also each of them received a stuffed animal. They're handing out stuffed animals to these grown men, these hockey players, along with their Olympic medals. And I saw this clip and I thought maybe it was AI or something at first because it just made no sense. But it's not. It's real. This is what they've been doing at the Olympics.

Apparently they've been doing it the whole time where they've been giving stuffed animals to all of the participants. USA Today reports the medal ceremonies that the 2026 winter games have looked different from past Olympic ceremonies, not only do athletes get their medals, but they earn a commemorative stuffed animal as well. The animal in question, Tina the Stote, one of the official mascots of the Milano-Kratina games. I don't know what a Stote is. There's a stout. Let's find out. The Stote, also known as the Eurasian ermine or ermine, is a species of mustalid native to Eurasia in the northern regions of North America.

Okay, so I still don't know what it is. I just read what it is and I still, I know even less now what a stote is. It looks like a, it's like a ferret. Okay, it's a ferret. So they have a stuffed ferret to all the athletes. And here's what that looked like, a quick clip. Let's watch it. It's a grown man giving stuffed animals to other grown men who are visibly confused by the whole thing.

I've never felt bad for Canadians before, but I actually do a little bit watching that. and who thought this was a good idea? Who thought it was a good idea? I want to know what the conversation was. What was the conversation over at the Olympic Committee where they decided to do this? Because someone had to suggest this. Somebody had to have this idea, this bright idea,

and then persuade everybody else. I assume it wasn't all of them together spontaneously coming up with the idea to give stuffed animals to all of the grown adult athletes. somebody at a meeting had to go, hey, you know what would be really cute? You know what would be really fun? Let's give the athletes stuffed animals. You know stuffed animals, like those things you give four-year-olds? You know the things that if you gave a four-year-old, the four-year-old would be really happy?

Let's give those to grown adult male athletes on camera. And somehow everybody else in the room didn't respond by saying, what? What the hell are you talking about? Should we give them coloring books next? Should we give them coloring books and lollipops? Is that maybe we break like at the dentist? There's like a basket of trinkets. And you can get a coloring book or a lollipop or like a little bouncy ball.

No, they didn't respond that way. Instead they said, hmm, you know, that's a great idea. I don't think that's weird at all. Now, that couldn't possibly be weird. You know this idea had to come from a woman. It just did. No offense, but we all know. And I looked it up, and sure enough, the Olympic Committee is headed by a woman for the first time ever.

So a woman took over the International Olympic Committee like a year or two ago for the first time ever. And it's just a coincidence that now we're giving stuffed animals to the athletes. This is, I don't know, if I were to try to come up with an illustration of the continued feminization of every aspect of society, I don't think I could come up with a better illustration than that. Hockey players handed little plushies. Male hockey players bleeding, bleeding from their faces, teeth broken, having just battled on the ice in the Olympic gold medal hockey game, being handed cute little commemorative plushies.

It is pretty humiliating. Speaking of humiliating, AOC, last thing I'll mention, embarrassed herself last week on the global stage, among other things, she didn't know where the equator is located. And she was asked a question about, I think, China and completely froze. It just embarrassed herself in general. Well, all the criticism has really gotten to her. And so she posted this clapback, as they say. And here it is. If you think that I don't understand foreign policy, because out of hours of discourse about international affairs, I pause to think about one of the most sensitive geopolitical issues

that currently exist on earth. I'm afraid the issue is not my understanding, but rather the problem is perhaps you've gotten adjusted to a president that never thinks before he speak. What was the sound in the background? That's really the headline here. What was the sound in the background? How was that not the headline?

What was that? I don't know if that was on our playback or that was in the video. I think that was in the video. Was AOC just blowing farts the whole time? Was she blowing a succession of farts shamelessly through the whole video? It's her husband snoring? Oh, suppose it. Well, how do you know that?

We don't know that. It could have been farts. We don't know. What? Ben talked about it. Well, how does he know? Does he have like insider info? into this? Did anyone ask

AOC? I don't know. It could be. I mean, to me it sounds like farts. I don't know. I'm not an expert in these things. It sounded like she was, I was going to say, I was actually going to give it a little credit for that, honestly. It'd be the only relatable thing she's ever done. Just shamelessly, she's up

at night, talking into her phone, blowing farts, shameless. Maybe if somebody playing the trombone in the room, It could have been that too. Okay, so it was her, she's not even married. Her boyfriend, whatever, snoring. So then what is that?

So her boyfriend is asleep, passed out, snoring, and she decides to just get up and film a selfie video in bed next to the guy? In any case, if we can leave aside whoever was farting, snoring, snorting there, her response is pretty weak, I think we have to say. She didn't know where the equator is. She didn't know anything about geopolitics. And her response is to say, hey, you know, the problem is you. Hey, if you think I'm the dumb one, because I don't know what the equator is, well, the problem is you.

You might think I'm really stupid because I don't know anything. You might think that. But hey, jokes on you. You might think that I am the dumb one because I have the IQ of a sea urchin, but actually, actually the problem is you. No, the problem is you for being dumb. All we're doing is noticing it, Congresswoman. I'll tell you one thing.

If this woman actually wins the presidency, because obviously she's running, if she actually wins, it really is over. You're just talking about the education system is over. The whole country's over. It's just over. And not because she'll destroy the country,

although she will, but more because only a country that is already destroyed would elect someone who is this aggressively, gratuitously incompetent and unimpressive and unintelligent

and frivolous. That's just waving the white flag. You elect somebody like that. That's America signaling that it's given up. That's America saying, all right, we're about done here. We're about finished. You elect some ditsy

Instagram influencer apparently with irritable bowel syndrome to be your next president, that's just waving the white flag. But I don't think that will happen. That's the good news. So I'll end on a glimmer of hope. I really don't. I can't believe that that will happen or could happen.

And I will do what I can to fight to make sure it doesn't happen, as we all must. As we all must. And that will do it for the show today. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. you tomorrow. A great day. Godspeed. They told you America invented slavery. They told you the Indians were peaceful. They told you colonialism was evil and that Joseph McCarthy was a bad guy. And guess what? They lied.

Graphic century generations of American school children have been taught to hate our history, hate our country, and hate themselves. Time to set the record straight. And since no one else is going to do it, I will. Who sold us the slaves? What were India and Africa like before Europeans arrived? What caused white flight? Some of the most well-known stories from American history are designed to demoralize you. Trail of tears, smallpox, blankets myth, the red scare. It's all baseless. It's time for a lesson on what they're not teaching in public schools. On the real history of

slavery, of colonialism, of the Indians, of America, and the world. It's time for real history. with Matt Walsh. Now streaming only on DailyWire Plus.