The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 242 - The Mueller Report Is Here And The Goal Posts Are Magically Shifting

Episode Date: April 18, 2019

The Mueller report is finally here. Nobody has read the whole thing. Why are we talking about it? Well I think there are a few basic takeaways we can already ascertain, and not ones the Left will like. Also, why are socialists like Bernie Sanders so stingy with charitable giving? And should teachers physically intervene when students fight? One teacher is getting flak for not intervening in a fight caught on camera. I'll explain why the criticisms are likely unfair. Date: 04-18-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the Matt Wall Show, the Mueller report is finally here. It's been released. Nobody has read the whole thing yet, so then why are we talking about it? Well, I think there are a few basic takeaways that we can already ascertain, and not ones that the left will necessarily like. Also, why are socialists so stingy when it comes to their own charitable giving? And finally, should teachers physically intervene when students are fighting in class? One teacher is getting flack for not intervening in a fight, which was recorded. and went viral online. I'll explain why I think the criticisms

against this teacher are unfair. So all of that and more today on the Matt Walsh show. Well, I know there's a big national news happening right now, but I did announce some big personal news yesterday, which I will lead with briefly out of sheer self-indulgent narcissism.

We are expecting Walsh Child number four in our house. My wife is due in October. We don't know the gender yet. honestly, how dare you even think of asking me such a question? Because of, of course, our children are allowed to pick their own genders and their own names and their own ages, which is why my oldest is named fart poop. And he's 6,000 years old and his gender is pirate. So, you know, we just, that's how we, that's how we approach things. Anyway, we're excited about that. But arguably, the bigger news nationally is the Mueller report, which was finally released, a redacted version.

A lot of, a lot is being made of the redactions, but the vast majority of the report can be read. I mean, you know, if you skim over it, most of it's there. The stuff that's redacted is clearly, is clearly omitted because of ongoing investigations, although it is kind of fun and exciting to read a report with all these redactions and stuff, because you feel like you're reading some sort of secret document or something. But other than that, I don't think the redactions mean much. Now, it is a 400-plus page report, two volumes. It's basically like reading crime and punishment or something in terms of length.

So I have not read the whole thing, obviously. It just came out a couple hours ago. Nobody right now has read the whole thing. And in fact, anybody who offers their opinion on this report at any point over the next day or two, probably has not read the entire thing. But the good news is that the report is very handily organized so that you can look at the major conclusions and other parts of it to get a general idea of what's going on.

Plus we have Barr's press conference that he held this morning, summarizing it, plus the four-page letter that he put out, summarizing it. And I think all of that gives us an idea, a pretty good idea of what's going on in the report. Now, in a perfect world, honestly, I would just say nothing to you about the report at all right now. I would just ignore it and talk about other things. And I would, maybe we would all just take a week to let the whole thing digest

and to really read it and take our time with it. But that's not the way things work now. And I don't really have that option. So I will offer a couple of very basic general points about the report. The report is, as I said, in two parts. two volumes. The first volume deals with the collusion aspect of thing and and also with Russia's interference in our election. The second part deals with claims of obstruction that Trump tried to obstruct the investigation. As for the first part, it actually seems pretty simple. Now let me read Mueller himself summarizing, if I could pull this up. Mueller says the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia or with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

Okay. So that's one's half a sentence right there. But it's in a way, that's all you really need to know as far as collusion goes, right? that they said there was, we did not establish. There's no evidence that that collusion happened. Now, obviously, the report doesn't say Trump is absolutely vindicated on this score. He's an innocent man, you know, leave him alone. That statement is not in the report. That statement wouldn't be in the report whether it was true or not. Now, on the other hand, And it also makes clear that Russia did interfere in the election. There was a coordinated campaign by Russia to try and help Trump get elected, a campaign that they hatched for their own reasons.

You know, we can theorize about why they would rather have Trump than Hillary, but they had their own reasons for it. Trump had no hand in devising it. There's no evidence at all that Trump was meeting with them or sending people to meet with them, hatching a plan about, hey, guys, how are we going to get me elected? That's not what happened. Now, that is what the left assumed happened, and that's what they claimed for two years, but that's not what actually happened. Mueller investigated this for two years himself and did not find evidence of it. How much did Russia's involvement in the election sway things? Well, again,

that's not going to be covered by this report. That's not the point of the report. I, who knows, It's all hypothetical. I tend to think that Russia's involvement probably didn't have that much of an effect at all. I think the, you know, the emails, I really doubt that there were that many people who were going to vote for Hillary, but then the emails came out and they said, never mind, I'm going to vote for Trump. I think this was, the emails functioned just as something for conservatives to talk about. And they did help Trump in the that way because there were also scandals on on on on on Trump's end you know you had the access Hollywood tape and all that kind of stuff well the emails gave conservatives and conservative media something else to focus on to try to change the subject so it did help him in that way there's no denying it but is it the reason he got

elected you know is that why voters in the Rust Belt came out for Trump is because of because of that I tend to think not All right, so that's really briefly, that's the collusion element of it. And the big takeaways, again, Russia did interfere in the election, but there's no evidence or no reason to believe that Trump was involved in colluding at all. The second section is more interesting. let me read the conclusion of that section. It says, because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not

draw ultimate conclusions about the president's conduct. This is in reference to obstruction. The evidence we obtained about the president's actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment accordingly. While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. So Mueller leaves the possibility open that Trump tried to obstruct but says that he can't arrive at that conclusion.

he's not arriving at that conclusion. He does not conclude that Trump committed a crime. He also doesn't conclude that Trump didn't commit a crime. Okay. Which is what we expected, right? That actually is what if you were paying attention to what Barr was saying. That's kind of what we expected. And even before Barr said anything or summarized the report,

this is kind of what I expected anyway. It seemed clear to me after two years and all the various leaks that were coming out, that this was not going to be a report saying, here's evidence that Trump committed a crime. And indeed, that is not what's in the report. But I also never expected that we were actually going to get a report at the end of this that has conclusive statements

of the president's innocence, whether or not he's actually innocent, right? It's significant, though, that the crime or potential crime being referred to in that section is not collusion, but obstruction. So the conclusion thing is out the window. There was no conclusion, collusion, which means that there's no underlying crime. In other words, Trump could not have been trying to obstruct justice in order to stop people from finding out about collusion because there was no collusion. and that point really matters, I think, because it goes to intent. And this is what Barr said at his press conference, and it's what Mueller mentions as well in the report,

that Trump may have been acting in ways that arguably appear adjacent to obstruction, but not out of criminal intent, but out of anger and his sincere belief that this was a partisan witch hunt. Now, the left is... If you're chasing data down and stand. of seeing it in one place, you need the Intuit ERP. Intuit Enterprise Suite. All your data in one place with built-in AI for real-time insights. Learn more at intuit.com slash ERP.

When Barr said that in the press conference, the left, of course, had a temper tantrum, like they're in a constant state of having temper tantrums, and say, well, what does that matter? What is his intent if he was angry and he was frustrated? It does matter. Of course your intent matters when we are, looking at the possibility of a crime being committed.

So, and again, that is basically what I always kind of assumed, and I think it's what probably a lot of us assumed, that Trump is not a secret Russian agent. Now, I'm glad that we have this, we have that kind of spelled out in the report now, but I never really took that seriously. It just didn't pass the smell test for me. The idea that Trump was secretly devising this plan with the Russian government. So he's not that. But he is reckless and angry all the time. And he's a loud mouth.

And he has just no prudence or discernment at all. So, and that gets him into trouble. And I already knew that also. I think we all already knew that. He's not a criminal mastermind. He's just a reckless loudmouth, which isn't good. Now, I'm not one of these people that says, oh, it's great. You know, I haven't a president out there that's acting just like us. Well, you know, I actually don't think he is acting just like normal people. Most normal people I know don't act like that. And I don't think it's good for a president to carry on that way. But it's not criminal. You know, these are, that's something that voters can take into consideration when it comes time to vote. And if they don't want a president, president that acts that way, they don't have to vote for him, but this is not a criminal thing. Let's look at one example from the report. This just, I think, kind of encapsulates it. This is one example from the report. This is something

that the left right now is taking as proof of Trump's guilt or as indication of his guilt. But then when you look in full context, you see what Trump was actually getting at and what the point really is. So let me pull this up. It's just one little portion, but I think it's pretty revealing. So in the obstruction section, we have this under the heading of evidence. We have this. It says, on May 17, 2017, acting attorney general Rosenstein appointed Robert S. Mueller as special counsel and authorized him to conduct the Russian investigation and matters that arose from the investigation. The president learned of the special counsel's appointment from Sessions, who was with the president, Hunt, and began conducting interviews for a new FBI director.

Sessions stepped out of the Oval Office to take a call from Rosenstein, who told him about the special counsel appointment, and Sessions then returned to inform the president of the news. According to the notes written by Hunt, when Sessions... I've got a cat walking around in the background, as you can see. This is a very serious... This is a professional opera. I mean, I'm talking about something serious here. And this is, we're talking about Russian collusion.

And I've got a cat walking around. All right. Where was I? So, according to notes written by Hunt, when Sessions told the president that a special counsel had been appointed, the president's stumped back in his chair and said, oh, my God, this is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I'm effed. Okay, that's what, that's what the president said. the president became angry and lambasted the Attorney General for his decision to recuse from the investigation, stating,

how could you let this happen, Jeff? The president said the position of Attorney General was his most important appointment, and that Sessions had, quote, let him down, contrasting him to Eric Holder and Robert Kennedy. Okay. And then Sessions recalled the president said to him, you were supposed to protect me, or words to that effect. Okay, so you've got that part right there. And that's the part that just one little part of the report that you're going to, if you go on Twitter or Facebook, you're going to see it all over the place. And the left is making a lot of hay out of this saying, well, hey, he found out about the special counsel being appointed. And he said he said he was effed, right?

He said his presidency was over. Obviously, it's a mission of guilt. Well, hold on a second. And by the way, even if that is what's going on in this little anecdote, nothing that I've just read to you is obstruction of justice. Now, this is under the header of evidence, or potential evidence, I suppose, of obstruction. Nothing that he said here is obstruction. Even if he is worried that he, oh, he is a secret Russian agent, now they're going to find out. And he says, oh, my God, this is terrible. How could you do this to me?

That's not obstruction. In what sense would that be obstruction? But they leave out the next part. And it's just the very next sentence. They cut this part out. It says, the president returned to the consequences of the appointment and said, everyone tells me, if you get one of these independent councils, it ruins your presidency. It takes years and years, and I won't be able to do anything.

This is the worst thing that ever happened to me. Okay. So that's some necessary context, and there's a reason why you're going to, that line about I'm F, that's going to be all over the place, it probably already is, but they're going to leave out the next part. So why did he think he was Fed? Well, he explains it. It's not because, oh, they're going to find out, you know, the jig is up. They're going to discover. No, it's he's worried about the political. implications of having an independent counsel investigating you. That's what he's concerned about. It's the political implications and how this is going to harm his presidency. And he was right to be concerned about those things. So not only is this not obstruction, but it only, I think, reinforces his case, that the thing he was worried about was just the whole spectacle of it and how this was going to hurt his ability to get things done. Um, so. So, So that's the kind of thing we're talking about.

Trump was worried about political implications. And so whatever actions he considered taking or did take or things that he said, it was all on his part, it would seem, with the knowledge that he didn't do what they're accusing him of doing. And he treated this thing like a ridiculous fishing expedition, which it turns out it was. And that is the headline. Now, I'm not, look, I'm not a Trump apologist. I think I can claim that, and I have credibility as someone who's not a Trump apologist. I have no problem criticizing Trump.

I do it all the time. And there's plenty of stuff in this report, just from what I've read. Like I said, I've only read a small part of it. But there's plenty of stuff in this report that, yeah, I wish the president hadn't said that. I wish he was, you know, could control himself more. Even that reaction there. Yeah, he was around people. that he trusted, but still, I mean, the fact that we have a president just can't control his mouth

is, it's, it's, I don't like it. I, I, I wish that he could. I wasn't one of those people that during the campaign, that's the thing they like most about him. Well, it's, it's, it is not, that is not an advantage for a president. That is not a, a, a thing that helps, right? It gets in the way, as we're seeing. So, yeah, there's, it's, it's, it's, it's not like, it's, it's, it's, it's not like, every little thing in this report is wonderful for Trump, politically speaking, but there is no evidence of a crime. He's not being charged with a crime. There is no conclusion that a crime was committed. There's no evidence of a crime. And that's it. That's the headline. And all the rest of it, even the potentially politically damaging aspects of it really won't

affect him because everything's baked into the cake at this point. If you already, at this point, at this point, we're now, you know, three years in, you feel however you feel about Trump. If you hate him, then you're going to hate him. You hated him before this report. You're going to hate him afterwards. Whatever's in the report, you're going to see in the most negative possible light, and that's just the way it is. So it doesn't even matter what the report says. If you love him, if you're a huge Trump fan, a Trump groupie, then you love him before the report. You're going to love him after. Everything in the report you're going to see in the most positive light possible. So it doesn't even really matter what the report says. And if you're like me and you're, you know, you try to take a less simplistic

approach to Trump, where you, you know, you don't see him as simplistically villainous, nor as a simplistically heroic, but you're somewhere in between, then, you know, again, this report seems to kind of fit into that paradigm. So even politically, I don't think that this is going have any effect whatsoever. If it does have some effect, I think it will probably be more on the positive end. Because although the left may want us to forget, they may want to change the subject. We are not going to be able to forget that the thing that they spent the last two years talking about was collusion, collusion, collusion, collusion, collusion. That's what they were talking about. And the fact of the matter is, if you look at the report, he is essentially vindicated of that charge.

Even if that word isn't used, even if a word like exonerated is not used, essentially for all intents and purposes, he is. He didn't do it. There is no reason to think that he colluded with Russia. And so, if anything, I think this probably is going to help because of that, because that was their focus. Now they're going to try to shift. You can hear and see the goalpost being uprooted and dragged across the field. They're shifting the goalposts now. And now you're not going to hear anything more about collusion.

is out the window. Now you're going to hear about obstruction. They want this to be a story about obstruction. But that's not what this ever was about for them. It was about collusion. And so that's got to be the headline, that there is no collusion. And the case for obstruction is obviously, even before you read that part of the report, the case for obstruction is going to be severely undermined by the fact that there is no underlying crime. that a person would be obstructing to try to hide. All right. I did have a couple other things I wanted to mention today. Here's an interesting tidbit. The charitable giving of both Bernie Sanders and Beto O'Rourke have recently come under scrutiny.

Bernie's tax returns reveal that he is now a millionaire, but he gives a very small percentage of his income to charity. Beto also gives a small percentage. and he was asked about it recently at a, I don't have the clip, but he was asked about a campaign stop about the fact that he only gave like, I don't know, I think it was like a thousand bucks or something, I mean, $2,000 to charity in 2017. And his answer was that, yeah, he doesn't give money to charity, but he has given the gift of himself to society. And so that's as good as chair.

It's even better than charity. Now, I don't know what that really achieves, practically speaking, for the homeless and the destitute who need the charitable giving. but that's the answer that he went with. Now, usually I would say that the charitable giving of a politician is really not a relevant issue for us to consider. That's between them and their conscience and God. But when the politician is someone who frequently rails against greed and demands that our

entire economic system be transformed so as to, he claims, take better care of the less fortunate, and that liberty and economic freedom have to be curtailed in that quest, then all of a sudden this person's own charitable giving or lack thereof, I think, does become relevant. And it is certainly relevant in Sanders case. It's also relevant, to a lesser extent, but still relevant with O'Rourke as well. Because this is a very significant flaw in the socialist mentality. This is where they lose the game. Because if you've got a bunch of would-be socialists in a country, if you've got a bunch of want-to-be-be-socialists, people who would favor socialism as we do in this country, according to the polls, we have a sizable portion of especially millennials

who claim that socialism is the way to go. Well, then all of these people could negate the need for socialism by instituting a voluntary form of it among themselves. They could give massive chunks of their own wealth to the poor and the less fortunate. They could give as much in taxes to the IRS as want. They could have their socialist utopia right now, but they don't. And why is that? Because for politicians like Sanders, this is what's revealed. It's socialism is about power. If Sanders really cared about the principles, if we can even call them principles of socialism, then he would, at a minimum, be doing whatever he could in his own personal life to live according to those principles and to enact them in whatever small way he can. The

that he's not, shows you that for him, socialism is about power, because a socialist government is a powerful government, and so therefore, the politicians in a socialist government are very powerful politicians. And for socialist citizens who do not, who choose not to give much of their money away to the poor or pay more in taxes than they have to, which again, they could do, but you see that socialism for them is about helping themselves, not others. Okay, so the whole thing is inherently self-interested and self-centered, and that's just what it is. All of the moral language that they cloak their socialist advocacy in,

all of that is bogus. Because whatever they're claiming, socialism would do for this country, they could start doing that now. But they choose not to. All right. One other thing, there was a video going viral yesterday, which I won't play for you because I don't think it's really necessary. But the video is, it's pretty familiar, unfortunately. It shows a fight between two female students. It looks like high school students at some school. I don't know the details. It doesn't really matter. I call it a fight, but what you see in the video is one girl smack another girl in the face with a textbook and then

start pummeling her while the girl's sitting down and the victim does not seem like she's able or willing or interested in defending herself. So it's more of a beating than a fight. The point, though, is that the students are all sitting and watching, of course, as they always do. Some of it are some of them are recording it on their phone. While the teacher is yelling for people to put their phones away, and he's telling someone else to run and go get the principal, but he's being widely criticized now. It's a male teacher, by the way, the guy.

He's being widely criticized for not physically intervening, which in the video he doesn't. He's being called a coward and so on for sending for help, but not for physically trying to stop it. And you see the teachers get criticized on these. on this ground pretty often when you see these videos of fights in school. And everyone says, well, why aren't the teacher stepping in? Now, I'm not shy about criticizing teachers, as you know, but I'm going to defend them here

because I think a lot of people just don't appreciate what these teachers are up against and the situation they're in because here is that situation. At many of these schools, fights like that happen every single day, constantly. And they happen every day because awful parents send their awful parents. kids to school, hoping that the schools will do the raising for them. But schools aren't equipped for that. Schools cannot be foster parents for your kids. All the schools can do is just damage control. All they can do is just try to control things in the moment as much as possible. But we also live in a very litigious society and a society where blame is often cast on the wrong people.

And part of the reason for that is that those awful parents are also awful people in general, and they will not hesitate, therefore, to try and ruin a teacher's life and career or worse if he, in the mind of the awful parent, goes too far in disciplining their precious awful little child. So what that means is that a teacher who makes physical contact with a student of any kind, especially a male teacher with a female student. If he's trying to break, even if he's trying to break up a fight, he could easily end up fired, sued in jail, maybe all three. And remember, this crap happens every day. So if every teacher just decided to throw caution to the wind and open themselves up to litigation or legal penalty

every time there's a fight and rush in there physically and try to break it up, then after a week there'd be no teachers left. I do think there are situations where a teacher is morally obliged to get involved, even at the risk of severe penalty, if, for instance, a mentally or physically disabled student is being physically assaulted, which does happen. And in that case, I think it's, you know, whatever the consequences are, you've got to step in. And in this situation, I have no idea what the story is between the two girls, so I can't speak specifically to it. But I'm more interested in just making a general point here.

most of the time fights between students are not cases of good guy versus bad guy most of the time it's not a case of bully versus victim that's usually not how it works sometimes it is

but usually not usually you've got two bad loud-mouthed brats who are going after each other that's how most fights work even if one is pummeling the other

you know, most of the time the one getting pummeled is also a bully and a brat who just, in this case, is getting the worst end of the deal. So my point is, do we expect a teacher to sacrifice potentially his whole career and his financial security and his freedom in order to get in between two out-of-control brats? No, I don't. And I wouldn't if I was in that position. No, I'm not going to give. I'm going to give up. I'm going to put myself in that position for these two kids. No. As long as nobody's getting killed or something, I wouldn't expect teachers to make that kind of sacrifice. Why should they? Again, I don't know if that was the case in this particular instance, but generally speaking, we have to understand what teachers are up against. They've got bad kids, bad parents, a bad system, and their hands. are tied behind their backs. There's nothing they can do or are allowed to do. So what do we expect them to do? They are, in many of these schools, especially in the worst, you know, the worst sorts of these kinds of schools, public schools, there's just, they are put in a really

impossible situation where they are constantly facing scenarios where there's no good option for them. And so what do we expect? And this, look, this is the inevitable result. When you live in a litigious society and, you know, everyone, no one takes personal responsibility, everything's being recorded all the time. And you know that parents will usually take the side of their own child, even if their child is clearly in the wrong. When you're in that position, it's just, you know, after a while, you're going to start protecting yourself a little bit, and you should. And believe me, I mean, there are, any teacher could tell horror stories, but don't think for a minute.

I mean, if a teacher gets involved in a fight and then himself gets assaulted in the process, and this happens all the time, and then tries to physically restrain the student who is assaulting, him, the parents of that student in many cases will claim that, no, their child is the victim and now they're going to sue. I mean, that's what happens. All right. Let's go to emails. Matt Walsh Show at gmail.com. Matt Walshaw at gmail.com. We'll do a couple of emails here. It says, this is from Michael. Says, good, sir. I listen to your show every day. Most of the time I agree with you. However, your statement about McDonald's being the best fast food is just wrong. Chick-fil-A is superior. Chicken so is tasty will always be better than McDonald's. Keep up the good work.

Michael, it goes without saying that Chick-fil-A has the best fast food chicken, but they're one-dimensional because all they do is chicken. And honestly, the only really excellent item on the Chick-fil-A menu is the chicken sandwich. Their fries are overrated. I'm afraid to say their salads are mediocre. Their wraps are actually bad. So they earn an A-plus on chicken sandwiches, but then they get like C's and Ds for everything else. Whereas McDonald's is just a, McDonald's doesn't get an A plus on anything, right? But they get a solid B plus, you know, maybe B, B, minus on everything. Everything they do is a B, B, minus, you know, by fast food standards.

They don't have the best chicken, that's chick-fil-A. They don't have the best hamburgers, that's hearties. They don't have the best fries, that's Arby's. But they just, they're just solid in every area. And they know what they're doing and they get you in. they get you out. And so that's why when it all comes down to it, McDonald's is, McDonald's is the king of fast food for a reason. I think they actually are, they actually are number one. Let's see here. This is from Nathaniel says, Matt, I loved your argument for beautiful churches.

I have been saying that this is one of my biggest problems with the Protestant tradition. I myself in a non-denominational Protestant. However, I think you probably mischaracterized the point about idols. I agree that nobody is worshipping the Notre Dame as a God, but it is possible to elevate beauty too highly and worship beauty itself as an idol rather than God. We need food in our lives, just like beauty,

but millennials in almost every major city have turned food into an idol and worship at the church of the next hip restaurant and join in the liturgy of brunch. The liturgy of brunch actually sounds kind of appealing. I just think you probably missed the point, of their argument or at least the better point they should have made. I love your show and thank you for the work you put into sharing good philosophy and theology. Yeah, he's responding to a point I was

making about, you know, we need beautiful churches and there are some Christians who argue that, well, if you've got a bunch of statues and art and everything, then it becomes idol worship of the statues, which I think is honestly kind of an absurd criticism because nobody in a Christian church is worshipping a statue. Like, we're not, that's just not an inclination anyone has. We know that the statue itself is not God. We know that. It's just a statue, but it's beautiful. And it symbolizes something, and it makes us think of that, which it symbolizes. So I understand your point, Nathaniel, and it's not a stupid point by any means. When you broaden it to talk about the kind of other forms of idol worship in our society, I agree with that. But I do think that

the whole people turning things into idols' criticism is sometimes overstated. What I mean is, how can you tell the difference between someone just really liking something, really appreciating it, and turning it into an idol? I think often from the outside, you can't really tell the difference because you can't know their heart. And we can sometimes confuse the former with the latter or the latter with the former. So that's the problem. You mentioned the hipster foodies, right? Well, yeah, some of them may make an idol of it, I suppose. but I think some people just really like food and they're interested in it and they like to learn about it.

They like to try it. It's an interest they have. They like to cook it. And that's fine. It's fine to have that passion. It's not idol worship. That's good. I would say that something becomes an idol when it takes an undue priority over other things in your life that should be more important. So a guy who would rather play video games than be with his family has turned video games into. an idol, not because he thinks that the video game is God, literally, but just because he has put it above, he has put it in a place where it doesn't belong, he's put it above other things that are more objectively important. So, does anyone really sort of downgrade more important things so that they can focus on beautiful artwork and icons and statues and so on at church? Is anyone in church going, well, I can't think about God right now because

I'm just blown away by this statue. I mean, maybe it's possible, but I think the whole point of religious art and icons and statues and stained glass, along with the music, by the way, is to elevate our spirits, our minds, and bring us closer into communion with the divine. That's what it does.

So when you see a beautiful... So the Pieta, I think the most beautiful sculpture ever... But when I look at that, yeah, there is a moment of just marveling at the skill and the beauty of it and what must have gone into carving this thing out of a block of stone. So there's that. But then very quickly, your mind goes to thinking about what this statue represents and what it depicts, which is the mother of Jesus holding him in her arms.

after he was taken down from the cross, and so you start thinking about that. You think about the cross. You think about this and that. So I think that's what art does. And that's why it's good to have it in a church because it makes you... Yeah, you think for a moment about the thing itself

if it's beautiful, but then it quickly brings your mind to the greater thing. As I mentioned, I really think that if we're worried about art distracting from God at church or becoming an idol, as it were, the real worry is not with paintings or sculptures, which people look at and appreciate, and then almost inadvertently from their minds,

they, you know, from there, they begin thinking about other things. I think the real worry is not with that, but with music, which is also art in a church, right? Now, music can really become an idol, I think. It can really become essentially the point of the whole experience,

and the church band becomes like a mini-rock band, and they're all little mini-rock musicians who are glorifying themselves rather than God, that can happen and does happen, and it is, in my mind, a much greater concern than some inanimate sculpture becoming anyone's idol. I think it's much more likely that the bandleader,

or even the pastor, will become an idol. All right. This is from Taylor, says, Hi, Matt, I agree with most of what you say, but I think you are hypocritical in one area. You say you want to reduce abortions, which will probably mean more children up for adoption, but you would rather leave children in orphanages

than allow loving gay couples to adopt them. Do you really think it's better for a child to be in a foster home than adopted by a gay couple? And how does this work with your pro-life beliefs? Taylor, so I think there are a few things here we have to work through. First of all, the hypothetical abolition of abortion would not result in a whole bunch of babies stuck in purgatory in the system for years on end.

There is no problem in this country with babies not finding families to adopt. them. That's a myth. And that's something you hear from pro-abortion people all the times. Well, hey, look, you know, if we don't kill the babies, then they're going to all be in the system forever. Even if that was true, it's a really bad reason to kill a child. Not that there could ever be a good reason. But it's not true. Now, there are children who sadly, tragically, end up in the system sometimes. Choice Hotels gets you more of what you value. Here's a little tune to help you remember.

Same drive, different day. Don't you wish you were getting away? Pack your bags and come on through. Texas, Ohio, Alaska, we're up there too. Comfort Inn. It's calling your name. Save on the stay. Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim.

Well, I hope you like my little song. Book direct at storeshiltails.com. Until they're 18 and are never adopted. but those are children who end up in the system when they're older, like when they're six or seven. It is hard to get a six or seven-year-old kid adopted, unfortunately. But the rush of new children into the system that would happen from abolishing abortion, these would not be six-year-old kids. These would be infants.

And there is no problem with getting infants adopted. There's a waiting list 50 miles long. of people who are just waiting to adopt an infant. So there's absolutely no problem with that. So if we ended up with 100,000 new infants up for adoption, who would have otherwise been aborted, all of those infants will get adopted in pretty short order. So there's that.

So this idea that we would need to expand adoption to gay couples in order to get all the kids adopted, just not true. The second point is that, you know, in my mind, every child needs and deserves a mother and father. And that's a biological need. There's a reason why every child in history, every person in history, has been created by a mother and father. So even if you don't want to use the word God, let's say nature, clearly intends for every child to have a mother and father. which is why every child does have a mother and father, even if their mother and father are unable or unwilling to care for them.

So what I would ask you is, if we're talking about gay adoption, which of the two is expendable in your mind, mother or father? I mean, you clearly think that one of them is expendable. So if we're talking about two gay men adopting a child, so you think the mothers, we just, you know, it doesn't need a mother. Hey, a guy can do that.

Well, here's the thing. a guy can't do that, actually. A man cannot function as a mother. And so a man can be a very loving father, but he cannot be a mother. That is just not a role that he can biologically fulfill. And there is a certain, there are certain emotional, psychological needs that a child has that, if he doesn't have a mother at home, will not be met. Now, that doesn't mean that he's doomed, doesn't mean the child's doom, doesn't mean the child is going to, you know, can't end up being happy and fulfilled in life, but he will be happy and fulfilled in spite of that disadvantage

because it is a disadvantage. So that's the point. You know, there are plenty of people that live in, plenty of kids that are in single parent homes. And now many of those kids will end up with very difficult lives. But some of them will, in the end, end up being perfectly well-rounded, well-adjusted people, but it will be in spite of that disadvantage.

It is definitely a disadvantage to be deprived of a mother or father. And what I'm saying is, if you've got a kid in the system, rather than sort of like settling and saying, well, you know, we'll probably never find a mother for this kid, And so we'll just, you know, we'll settle for that instead. Two dads, yeah, good enough. It's really not, though. You could have ten dads.

There are no number of dads that are going to amount to one mom, just like there are no amount of women that are going to amount to one dad, because the dad also fulfills certain emotional and psychological needs of the child. And child needs and deserves both. And so that's my point. It doesn't really matter how you, you know, whatever you feel about homosexuality or, you know, gay marriage or whatever, it's almost like you can put that issue to the side because this is about the needs of the child. Nothing really political about it. All right.

We'll leave it there. Thanks for watching, everybody. Thanks for listening. Enjoy your night spent reading The Mueller Report. Although, honestly, I think there are better ways to spend your night with Godspeople. I'm Michael Knowles, host of the Michael Knowles Show. Attorney General William Barr has released the Mueller report with relatively few redactions. He gives a highly entertaining press conference on the details of its release.

We will analyze all the relevant sections, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Check it out at Dailywire.com.