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Governments Are Telling Citizens To Prepare For The Worst... Here's What You Need To Know · The Matt Walsh Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, the experts are unanimous. We are all doomed.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: You need to stock up on food, water, gasoline, ammo
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: as soon as possible. Pay $ 10, 000.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: For a generator.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Don't forget to build a solar-powered farmhouse somewhere far away
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: from the city just in case the fuel supply completely
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: runs out and or the Chinese detonate an EMP over
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: your neighborhood or.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Something like that.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: These are all basic steps that you should be taking
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: right now so that in the event of a total catastrophe,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: you won't be overtaken by the inevitable zombie horde that results,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: at least not right away. These are the kinds of
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: messages that we have all been bombarded with, I've been
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: bombarded with over the past few days as the algorithm
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: has decided to confront me and I think many of
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: us with every imaginable doomsday scenario all at once. Now,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: on one level, this is nothing new. There's always been
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: a market for hysteria and paranoia. Fear is, as we know,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: a lucrative industry. And now this market is bigger than ever,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: thanks to amplification from the various big tech platforms. You know,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: if you interact with just one post on X about how, say,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: the UK government is telling people to prepare for an emergency,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: as I did, then as I was, you will be
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: quickly overwhelmed with all of this kind of stuff. And
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: this is what my feed looks like right now, more
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: or less. It's just full on apocalyptic, nonstop. Every story
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: is something along these lines. Once you're swept up by
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: the algorithm, it just floods you with a fire hose
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: of doom slop.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: And this is how the algorithm works, of course.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: You interact with one kind of piece of content, and
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: it just feeds you only that for weeks at a time.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: And as you can see, various governments, as we are
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: seeing on X, including America and the UK, are warning
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: of an impending disaster. The power grid's about to get
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: wiped out, and so on. There's no way to see
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: content like this day after day and remain unaffected by it.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Even if you're a rational person, as I try to
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: be on my good days anyway, it still gets in
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: your head.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: None of us are immune.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: You're either going to take the warning seriously or you're
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: going to try to tune them out. But even then,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: it's hard to ignore what you're hearing. After all, if
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: there's even a small chance that some terrible calamity will occur,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: then it's reasonable to make some basic preparations beforehand. like
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: what we're being encouraged to do. The cost-benefit ratio seems
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: to favor a cautious approach. On his show the other day,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Dan Bongino, the former deputy director of the FBI, weighed
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: in with a somewhat measured.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Take on the issue. I think a very measured take, actually.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: He didn't endorse any of the apocalyptic predictions, but he
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: didn't dismiss them either. And instead, he encouraged his audience
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: to prepare themselves for whatever's coming. And we should pay
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: attention to this because he's not just a random person
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: on X.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: So watch.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: There have been some warnings put out by the UK
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: government and elsewhere about 30 days of preparedness and have
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: food ready and power. You know I am a firm,
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: committed believer in the don't hit the bed theory. hit
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: with an S in front of it. In other words,
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: we were young agents. If you panicked on a security
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: detail with the Secret Service, you were out. That was it.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: They would never take you on a protection assignment again.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: Panic kills. I was not in the military. I haven't
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: been in combat, but ask your heroes who have been.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: They will tell you, you can't panic. I can't even
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: imagine what that scenario is like. However, The way to
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: reduce anxiety and panic in tumultuous times is to be prepared.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: Have yourself an emergency radio. Have yourself some batteries. Get
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: yourself some emergency food. Get yourself a rain collection and
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: water filtration, some filtration tablets. The best day of your life,
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: you don't need them. And in 10 years, you're like, ah,
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: I wasted a thousand bucks or whatever. And you throw
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: it out. The worst day of your life is, God forbid,
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: something were to happen. The worst day of your life
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: is your kids are looking you in the face like, hey, dad, mom,
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: you know, where's the water?
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Well, we don't have any.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: There are plenty of credible commentators who are basically saying
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: the same thing. They're saying that it feels a lot
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: like February 2020 all over again, just before the COVID
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: lockdowns began.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Kind of has that feeling.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: And once again, it's an election year where the Trump
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: administration is clearly vulnerable. There's a threat of a new
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: development that could fundamentally change the economy.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: In this case, it's AI.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: There are scattered reports of a pending crisis, but no
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: one's sure how to verify any of it or even
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: what the nature of the potential crisis even is. And
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: in general, just like in 2020, there's a sense that
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: we can't trust anything we're told. None of the experts
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: have any credibility whatsoever. So what do you believe? The
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: problem is that since we're all buried in constant slop
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: and propaganda, it's very difficult to separate the wheat from
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: the chaff, the signal from the noise. How do you
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: identify which threats are real, if any of them are,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: and which threats are fabricated or exaggerated? Is there a
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: possibility that all of this hysteria is a psyop designed
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: to demoralize voters, especially conservatives, right before an election? Your
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: challenge is to separate what's a real risk versus doom-slop
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: and paranoia-driven panic and social contagion. So what's needed, I think,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: is a blow-by-blow analysis of the leading theories for why
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: the apocalypse is approaching and what sort of apocalypse is approaching,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: if any. So we need to go through each claim,
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: try to make sense of it one way or the other.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: We have to determine the credibility of as many of
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: these claims as possible. And that's what we'll try to do. Now,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: I have no special insight or sources here. I can't
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: claim that I can definitively set the record straight on
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: any of this stuff. But I can try to use
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: some basic common sense as far as that goes. And
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: that's what we will do today. So we'll start with
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: an ultra viral post from an account called Live Door News,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: which racked up more than 20 million views. And it says, quote,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Because this post doesn't provide any context, you can map
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: whatever theory you want onto it, as a lot of
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: people are doing. In truth, what's happening, though, on November
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: 2nd is that Japan is launching a new disaster prevention
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: agency to deal primarily with earthquakes. They are, after all,
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: a volcanic island in the middle of an ocean that
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: regularly gets hit by tsunamis, and they're situated directly next
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: door to a rogue nuclear state. And not to bring
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: up a touchy subject, but they have been hit with
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: nukes before on two occasions. And therefore, Japan's government routinely
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: issues guidance like this, telling people to prepare for disasters.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: In fact, every year since 1960, Japan has held a
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: disaster prevention day where millions of people perform synchronized evacuation drills.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: This has been going on for a very long time.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: And they began the tradition on the anniversary of the
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, which destroyed nearly 400,000 homes in Tokyo.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: On Disaster Prevention Day, government officials wear jumpsuits. Kids put
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: on fireproof hoods in school. It's part of the culture.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: And they issue plenty of guidance, and they hold many
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: other drills on top of this. A decade ago, after
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: a major earthquake and tsunami, Japan formally implemented a policy
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: where people need at least three days, and ideally seven days,
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: worth of supplies in case of another earthquake. And before that,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: the three-day standard was the norm, and now it's just
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: kind of the baseline. So this is how disaster management
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: works in Japan. They've been issuing new guidance on preparing
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: for disasters for a century.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: It's nothing new.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: But when you remove all the context and you combine
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: it with other reports, it's easy for hysteria to take over.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: For the account Live Door News, this all works out.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: They get a ton of money from ad revenue because
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: so many people clicked on their story. like I did,
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: which was deliberately misleading. And the problem with the incentives
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: created by the algorithm is that it inspires copycats, lots
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: of them.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: So another round of viral.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Posts were created in which large accounts warned that various
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: other governments around the world were telling their citizens to
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: prepare for some unspecified apocalyptic scenario. And so now through
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: the algorithm and through people's imagination, you're connecting all these threads,
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Japan with this country, with this country, What's going on?
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: One viral report mentions that the UK government is involved
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: in this. And once again, some of the posts were
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: more accurate than others. Polymarket, for example, published the following
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: warning that was seen by nearly a million people, quote, breaking,
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: UK government urges citizens to stockpile at least three days
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: of emergency food and water amid the global cybersecurity crisis. Now, Polymarket,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: of course, is a gambling platform, but lately, as you
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: might have noticed, especially if you spend any time on X,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: they pop up. up a lot with non-gambling related content.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: They're getting into the business of posting breaking news, which
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: seems kind of weird. It seems like a strange pivot.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: But it's actually a very smart marketing strategy. One way
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: to ensure that your brand is always showing up in
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: people's feeds is to post some splashy headline about current events.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: It also helps push the idea that PolyMarket is a
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: prediction market, a tool for serious policy analysts, and not
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: just another betting website, which is what it is. Meanwhile,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: the account Unusual Whales, which normally focuses on noteworthy trades
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: in the stock market, especially by insiders like Nancy Pelosi,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: weighed in on the situation as well. They posted this message,
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: which was seen by millions of people.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Quote, break it.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: UK government has requested that citizens stockpile canned food and
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: drinking water for at least three days per BBC. So,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: and one thing you know, of course, we've seen on
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: social media for a long time, especially on X, is
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: that the word breaking is just, has lost all meaning.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: So you'll have an account that posts breaking and then
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: it's information that has already been reported for three days
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: by a million other accounts.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: So not exactly breaking news.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: But anyway, they cite a source, the BBC, and we're
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: now led to believe that The UK state broadcaster is
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: making this proclamation. Other accounts didn't bother with the attribution.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Here's a post by a guy named Ethan Levins, for example.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: It racked up nearly 2 million views as well. Quote,
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: something very bad is brewing in Europe. UK advising citizens
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: to stockpile food, German hospitals prepping for mass casualty events,
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: and German troops moving towards Lithuania.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: This is not normal.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: NATO is preparing to fight Russia. This has to stop.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: So you notice also, you know, various different explanations being
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: offered by these random posts. You know, the Polymarket mentioned cybersecurity.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: This guy is saying, oh, it's Russia. Then there's this
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: post from the account Watcher Guru, which also received millions
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: of views. Quote, just then, UK government urges citizens to
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: stockpile three days of emergency food and water due to
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: growing cyber attack threats. Okay, now we're back to cyber attack.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: And there's many more posts like this. And then several
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: of them, unlike the warnings about Japan, are actually legitimate.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: There has been a change in the UK's messaging on
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: preparing for disasters. A month ago, for example, this was
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: the kind of content that the state broadcaster was producing
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: on the topic.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Watch.
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: Stock up on food for extreme weather. That's what the
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: UK government says we should be doing because climate change
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: is making food supplies more unpredictable. But what food should
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: you be buying? You should keep some healthy options at
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: the back of your cupboards. Things like whole grain cereals, crackers, pasta,
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: and oats. For protein, you can stock up on things
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: like lentils or tinned pulses, whilst canned fish like tuna
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: or mackerel is also a really good option. You might
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: be surprised to hear that fruit in a tin is
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: actually quite nutritious, as are pickled eggs and vegetables. But
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: there are some things to avoid. Things tinned in brine
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: or syrup, instant noodles, and processed meats such as corned
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: beef or hot dogs which provide extra salt, sugar, and
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: saturated fats that we don't need in our diets. And
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: if you're worried about these foods lacking flavor, be sure
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: to keep some herbs and spices around for extra seasoning.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Now it needs to be said not to get too,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: you know, into the technicality, into the weeds too much,
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: but this is utterly horrible advice on many levels. She
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: says that in an emergency, when the world is ending,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: you don't want to eat instant noodles or hot dogs.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: not because they might be difficult to prepare, but because
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: they have saturated fats that are bad for your diet. Now, personally,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: when I'm experiencing the apocalypse, I'm not worried about having
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: saturated fat in my diet, okay? When there's a nuclear
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: bomb falling in my neighborhood, saturated fat is really the
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: least of my worries. I'm also not gonna be obsessing
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: about cholesterol or salt intake. What I want above all
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: is to have food, preferably food that doesn't taste terrible,
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: that contains a lot of calories, in a very small package.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Hot dogs are a pretty good option in that regard.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: But she wants everyone eating lentils instead, which is a
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: good way to make people even more depressed than they
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: already are in this scenario. All of your friends are dead.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: The world's falling apart. Climate change, zombies, AI, robots, everything's happening.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: And on top of that, you're stuck eating lentils because
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: you threw away all the hot dogs because you listened
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: to the BBC. I mean, what's the point of staying
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: alive in that scenario? It creates kind of a paradox.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: You know, if there's a nuclear holocaust and you're safely
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: hidden away in your bunker and all you have to
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: eat are healthy vegetarian options, then why exactly would you
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: want to survive the nuclear holocaust in the first place? Like,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: I'd prefer to be incinerated and just get it over with. Well,
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: she never grapples with this paradox, but she does explain
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: helpfully enough that she's offering this advice on behalf of
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: the state broadcaster because of the threat of climate change. Now,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: everybody watching this video knows this is a pretext. Even
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: in the UK, the climate scam has played out. The
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: real point of the video was to get people ready
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: for another emergency that the British government might think is likely,
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: although they don't want to say it out loud. And
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: to that end, within the last month, the British government
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: launched a more comprehensive Be Ready campaign, which dropped the
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: climate change rhetoric for the most part. This is a
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: three-year campaign that they're committing to. where the British government
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: is partnering with hundreds of organizations and agencies. They also
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: published this website just a few days ago. You can
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: see it on your screen there. The website reads, here
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: are some simple and effective steps you can take to
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: be ready for emergencies and the disruption they cause. Many
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: of these activities can be helpful across a range of
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: different types of emergency. And some of the activities include
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: having enough bottled water for three days.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: They estimate three liters per person per day.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Plus non-perishable food for three days, along with a torch,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: which I believe is a flashlight, although you can never
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: underestimate how primitive the UK is, plus a battery-powered FM
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: radio and cash in case electronic payments or ATMs are disruptive.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: And you also need baby formula, pet food, etc. Now,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: this is much more general advice than the climate change guidance.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: And it's getting the attention of millions of people in
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: the UK. This is reporting from the British outlet LBC, quote,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: bottled water, baked beans and batteries are selling out at
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: some supermarkets after Britons were urged to prepare for short-term
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: disruption to essential services. The rush follows the launch of
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: the government's Be Ready campaign, which advises households to keep
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: a three-day supply of long-life food, drinking water and basic
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: emergency equipment at home. Shoppers using Hokkaido found several essentials
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: unavailable shortly after the announcement, including bottled water, batteries, and
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: baked beans. Some soup ranges were also listed as out
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: of stock, alongside brands of bottled water.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: So they got everyone's attention.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: This is obviously a situation that most people in Britain
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: recognize as out of the ordinary. But according to British
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: government officials, including their security minister, the point of the
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: campaign is just to bring the UK in line with
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: other countries in Europe.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Watch.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: Now, our research shows that just 13% of people in
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: the UK feel that they're prepared