The Business of RACE Hustling | Matt Walsh & Justin Folk

they going to say I'm racist but they call everybody racist I guess that mean nobody is racist now it doesn't mean much when you say it when you say it they going to say you racist racist hey everyone it's Andrew claven with this week's interview with Matt Walsh and Justin folk Justin folk is the director of the new film am I racist I don't know what Walsh did that he just hanging around in the picture wandering from place to place bother people like he did in what is a woman I have to say what is a woman you know because I work here I watched what is a woman as a favor and then I was after five minutes I was completely locked in am I racist looks absolutely terrific I cannot wait to watch it and I say that not really having any affection for Walsh whatsoever Matt it's semi good to see you how are you uh I appreciate the introduction and uh and uh you know doing well and we're you know we're excited about this movie coming out there's a we're talking off here just a second ago but some some you know some some nerves as well as this as we get closer to the their Premiere it's like it's a pretty big deal we're put a movie in theaters but the response so far has been like overwhelmingly positive and we're really thrilled by that I have to say we're taping this I'm going to see it on Monday but so we're taping this before I get to see it the trailer and the clips I've seen are absolutely hilarious I mean the minute I saw this I thought wow maybe Walsh does have some talent I mean this is like I mean it is really an amazing Enterprise to have journeyed into this cesspit did this you know you brought out what is a woman and it was a smash and it was great this got to be pressure when you start to do a second film can I live up to that I mean how did you kind of maneuver yourself from there to here yeah well that was there was a big part I mean that was that was like the main subject of conversation when we decided to make a second movie and well we knew that we wanted to like what once you especially when you're in the the the podcast game uh as you well know and you're kind of churning out content uh and one of the one of the the the you know it's the nature of the business that uh the new cycle moves fast and so whatever your podcast is about today nobody cares about it tomorrow right uh and then you make a film and you see that it's like it's possible to spend time creating one piece of content and it'll have an impact that lasts longer than 5 seconds and that's that's quite fulfilling actually so I knew once once you kind of get a taste of that it's like you want to keep doing it so we wanted to make another movie um and we knew that we wanted to talk about race because that's the other sort of big area of cultural controversy after you after you deal with gender and the LGBT you know gender ideology world but you know it it at least I discover this is this is really the first time in my career that I had anything that would qualify as a smash success so I was never I was never burdened by any successes prior to that but then then you have a success and you realize okay it is a little bit of a gift and a curse here because uh it's great that it was a success but now everything you do has to live up to that and measure up to it and we were very aware of that it's very much cognizant of it the whole time and that's one of the reasons why we decided to uh to not attempt to just do the same thing again um to not do you know what is a woman reloaded or whatever a sequel but to try a whole new approach um different subject whole new approach just just going about it really kind of like radically different way and uh and I think it I think it paid off you kind of got lucky in the sense that when you see what as a woman you think well they can never come up the problem for you is that they can never come up with any idea as stupid as the idea that a man can turn into a woman and then be an actual woman but in fact they they actually came up with a good one which is that we can solve racism by racism by hating by hating people for the color of their skin and you sort of entered into that insane world I mean where did you go to make this film we went uh we went all over I mean we went all across the country um we we we were filming for over a year and you know Coast to Coast we we went wherever we went wherever kind of the story took us and that was the thing going into it was that we were going to let these people sort of guide us on the journey because the the premise I suppose of the film is that I'll start by asking questions just like we did in what as a woman but in what as a woman I remained sort of blank slate skeptical the whole way through until the end uh this one we thought um what happens if rather than being skeptical I accept and believe everything that I'm told and then try to put it into practice and let them kind of guide us down the rabbit hole yeah and that's what we decided to do did they did they fall for it I mean I don't want you to give anything away but I mean do you you you put on that that wig but other than that you look just like yourself and by the way the wig suited you I thought you should wear all the time but thank you but you you look just like you did anybody recognize you yeah it looked just like me sound just like me I didn't even we didn't put on a new voice or anything uh it was a very you know maybe Trump would call it a very low it was a very low energy disguise in many ways uh low energy and low effort but um that was also that part of that was like necessity because I absolutely refused to shave my beard and if I'm not going to shave my beard that really limits the kind of the kind of disguises we can employ here because I'm always going to have the beard uh and that was a deal breaker for for me but we also discovered that it end it ended up being kind of a a meta a joke within itself that I could put such little effort into disguising myself and it was enough to fool them and I think one of the reasons for that is that these people are so arrogant and so high on their own Supply I suppose intellectually that they they just can't imagine that anybody would ever challenge them they can't fathom ever being in a room with someone who doesn't automatically agree with everything they say um so I think going into it it just never occurred to them that this could be anything other than an opportunity for us all to admire and celebrate their great intellect and their moral Clarity like they just they never even thought that it could be anything but that uh and that's that's I think worked to our advantage quite a bit what what exactly are they trying to achieve when you say they you mean like the the DI grifters the anti-racist yeah expert uh I you know I think it's this might oversimplify it but I think it's it they're getting they're getting paid they're making money and we even put in the film we put up on screen how much how much money we paid them to appear in our film because we're not hiding from that um so they're making money they they they have power and influence that they're getting out of it and also they are being looked to as these kind of gurus the this these moral experts people are going to them what what do they what do they say they're trying to achieve what what are they telling you that that that you're going to get out of this well well they they say they're trying to achieve the um the the deconstruction of whiteness In America which which means you know making America a less racist place but but but that that's actually one of the problems because it's a good question like what are you to ask them what are you trying to achieve they we discovered they have they have trouble articulating that because you would think they would say well we want to help people not be racist anymore we want to have a country that isn't racist you you think that'd be their answer but they don't exactly say that because part of the whole game here is that if you're white you can never be not racist uh in fact I asked Robin theangel of this and she says well in any in any given moment you can be more racist or less racist but you can never be not racist um which means that you know they can't even claim that they're going to help you not be racist anymore instead they can it's almost like they treat it like uh like like if you're white and it's it's almost like for it's like a moral terminal cancer that you have and we you can't be cured of it but you it can be managed and so they're going to manage it's like a hospice care and they're going to manage you with your racism until you mercifully die which they would like you to do sooner rather than later now I you know I don't want to I don't want to be too nice to you but in case I need to borrow money from you later I I do want to say that you you are a master of deadpan humor I mean you have some of the best dead pan you know jokes I've ever seen could was it hard to keep a straight face while you're listening to this no I mean yeah people ask me that and I I honestly it's not because it's not because well you know Jeremy says I'm a I'm a sociopath and that's the reason well that's obviously true yeah yeah yeah so there there's that I mean that helps but then also in truth in real time making a film like this you know yeah it's it's it's it's an hour and 40 minutes on screen but obviously you know when we're in the room and we're doing these interviews or we're at these events it's we're talking an hour two hours that I'm there in real time and actually being there it's really quite depressing being in the room it's it's certainly uncomfortable and awkward and it's just depressing being around these people and hearing what they're saying and watching as these these grifter are like breaking down these these hapless white people that come for these sessions and race to dinner and all that kind of stuff and they're sitting there getting broken down and and brainwashed and and and bered and it's not funny know at at the time in the moment it's actually not funny I I think it's it's more the problem is less keeping a straight face and more prevent stopping myself from yelling at them and and uh lashing out so that that's more of the challenge you know repeatedly as we're speaking you call them grifters they're literally grifters I mean ibam X kendi has been accused spending all the millions of dollars that he's getting in donations and Robin D'Angelo who's actually in the film and is basically the doen of the entire movement she has now been accused of plagiarizing authors of color which is an amazing uh act if that's true it's an amazing Act of grift do do do you get the feeling that they know that this is what they are or do you think that they feel Justified within themselves I kind of think I I mean I think psychologically nobody can just look at themselves as a villain I think that at some level you have I I assume you have to convince yourself at some level that you're doing the right thing but I also don't think that they believe a lot of what they're saying they can't believe it because it's so it's so obviously absurd um it's it's almost as absurd as what the grifters in the gender ideology side of things like what they say um it's not quite as incoherent on that level you know that they literally can't Define the word woman um but it's still it's still totally ludicrous so I don't think that they totally if I had to guess I think that they know that a lot of what they're saying is not true they know that they're lying but they've told themselves that it's for the greater good and this is what these people this is how these people need to be treated uh so they can be less racist so that's I imagine that's how they justify it to them to themselves you go out on this thing and you you know it's not written you don't know what you're going to see was there anything that really shocked you that surprised you that you thought I you did not think you were going to B bump into it um it's it's more the degree it's not it's not the thing itself that if I was surprised it wasn't by a thing that happened it's the degree of it it's like how vicious these people are in so many cases how Despicable um the the again you you have the grifters and then you have the people that go to those grifters uh to be healed of their racism and those people to see how sucked into it they are I mean to be in a room where you've got white people as this happened multiple times filming the movie you white people kind of like going around in a circle confessing their racial sins and breaking down in tears as they as they talk about incidents of them being racist and none of those and none of the stories are actual stories of racism you know it's just them being normal and they are broken up with with with you know just just beating themselves up with this idea that they've been racist so I I think maybe that part of it it's like it's it's actually to see the grifters they don't surprise me but the people that buy into it to see how much they've actually I think bought into it that they really believe it they're True Believers um maybe that's the most surprising thing and and they're obviously they're all white people did they did you get a sense that of what their economic status was who where they were coming from yeah I think that these are mostly upper middle class uh middle to upper class probably even mostly like upper class white people that that get into this we also in the film we we went we wanted to get a good cross-section of America and so we went to lower income we went to a biker bar um in the South uh you know and these allwhite people the Confederate flags hanging on the walls uh certainly not I don't think financially upper class people by any means we talked to them we went down to the poor black communities in New Orleans and talked to people there and um and in that case we got a very diff a very different picture and these were people both the white and black group were people who are really very far outside of this bubble they you know they don't know who Robin D'Angelo is they they bar have even heard of Dei uh you talk about systemic racism and they don't even know what that word means uh because they've just never encountered it it's not part of their daily life and uh so I do think that this is you know this is an upper class thing and and if you're in you know if you went to college you're going to be exposed to it if you're in Corporate America you get exposed to it and uh so yeah this so I I have to ask last question you go to these people and some of these people are big they're making big bucks have you heard or has Josh from legal heard any any response from them I mean are they after you to shut this down or do they you do you expect to get some lawsuits out of this who knows I mean who knows what the future holds it's always it's always it's always an adventure I as far as I know we haven't heard anything um they haven't you know the trailer's been out and we put Clips out and they haven't said anything in fact it's been the opposite uh Robin D'Angelo took her Twitter down s Cyra Ral who runs race to dinner is in the movie she took her Twitter down so I think their strategy right now is to say nothing at all the truth is that I don't know if that will last I think they're probably going to have to say something but there's not a lot that they can say because we didn't now if they could go come out and claim oh I was deceptively edited I never said that they put words in my mouth then they would certainly say that but they can't say that because we didn't do that and all we did was portray them as they are and it's we captured what they actually said and what they did we have it on screen um there's not a lot they can say about it so I think that their strategy right now is to kind of hide under their beds and wait for this to go away um I I don't know if they're going to be able to do that for very long though yeah well listen what does a woman really change the conversation in the country there's no question I have no doubt this will do the same thing and it's only it's the only thing that's kind of amazing is that nobody else is doing this that you know that no one else has the the guts basically to go out and face these people in their dens and bring them out you are a sociopath I think that does help I mean that's that's really it's it's your gift I think to the world is your sociopathic it's my secret it's my secret weapon I admit well it's good to see I know the picture's going to be Smash and I hope you'll still talk to us you don't have to but like you know if you think of it it would be nice if you still talk to us after you become even bigger success well you can you can talk to my one of my assistants and they'll pass along I appreciate that it's good to see to thank you nothing matters more than your health but it isn't always easy to prioritize your health if you're not sure where to start that's why I want to tell you about Lumen Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach it's a device that measures your metabolism through your breath all you have to do is breathe into your Lumen first thing in the morning to know what's going on with your metabolism meaning whether you're burning mostly fats or carbs once that's been determined the app gives you tailored guidance to improve your nutrition workout sleep and even Stress Management forget those one siiz fits-all diet fads what sets Lumen apart is its ability to understand you on a personal level I've used it first of all it's a lot of fun it's a lot of fun to see this thing and you don't have to stress about what you should be eating in the morning after you take those late night romantic walks to the fridge and succumb to the Cravings I never do that but some of you I know may do that like me lum's ability to craft a personalized nutrition plan for each day tailored to my body's needs and goals is revolutionary with Lumen you're not just getting a device you're getting a health companion breathe into it before and after a workout or a meal and gain realtime insights into your body's me metabolic response if you want to take the next step in improving your health go to lumen.me claven to get 15% off your Lumen that's len. mekl v n Noe for 15% off your purchase thank you Lumen for sponsoring this episode so I also want to talk to the director of the film Justin folk and of course when I say I want to talk to Justin folk it's a little bit of an exaggeration I I've worked with Justin folk I know Justin Folk and no one would say that he want to work you want to talk to him I uh Justin I I think got his start I me he can correct me if I'm wrong when I was getting my started as a commentator doing my claven on the culture videos for pjtv what made those videos work as well as they did and they really did work Gang Busters was that chest was not only directing them but also animating them and uh so I was working very closely with them and after years of rehab and Psychotherapy I've gotten over that experience so that I can almost face him you may notice I get a little twitch when I talk to him but aside from that Justin it's good to see you pal I I I have to tell you I am not surprised at all to see you turning out what looks like a great film thanks Andrew thanks for having me on and I'm sorry for bringing up the the PTSD and making you suffer through this all over again um no listen I mean yeah we got into this we we seem to kind of get into this together and uh here we are years later looking back and I really actually looked back fondly to what we did together on claven on the culture we uh you know really kind of got this political commentary stuff going your monologues were always dead on I mean they still are but I I just I just really appreciated that time of being able to be creative in the war of ideas and uh you know we still are we still get to do that but that was that was a really great experience and a Growing Experience for me and uh really really value those years and uh kind of looked up to you as a creative Mentor in a lot of ways way so thanks for that that's uh you know ruins my reputation but uh but it's kind of you to say and you know I don't think it is bragging at all to say that those videos changed the way people did commentary and really set a new tone on the right which I was really proud of and you know when I I I was hired away from PJ by Glenn back and I I love Glenn to death but he wouldn't bring you with and I said you don't understand it's it's not me doing these videos it's me and Justin and those they never worked again as like they did uh when you were doing them and it just it was it was great work it really was and you you drove me insane as you can see but I think I'm glad I'm glad we could fail I'm glad we could fail upwards together so ex exactly so so let's talk about this this this is really I mean first of all you have Matt Walsh who walks into these situations he seems to be unflappable as he goes into to confront these people how do how do you feel about that cuz you always had a strain of that yourself you used to tell me about some of the pranks you would pull on people and I won't say them because I know the police there's still warrants out for you in several States but right but you really have no qualms about going into these situations do it's just a lot of fun I mean you're right I mean I think the statute limitations has worn off on some of those things but um I I always enjoyed sort of challenging Authority and uh in doing so just sort of like getting into places and situations that maybe I shouldn't be and and and challeng in authority and uh uh it's it's great to make a living at it now honestly and and really when you look at it it's the left that is the authority today I mean they control all the major institutions um they run Academia and the media and everything else and so um it's a real opportunity for me to sort of be that same guy I used to be uh have some fun have some laughs but actually do maybe some good work and and attack some bad ideas and Matt has just been a phenomenal partner on all that we we basically share the same sense of humor and um in in a lot of ways we encourage each other and and um embolden each other a bit although he's a uh he is a stone cold killer in those in those moments and and he needs treatment nobody can yeah yeah exactly but uh I just I'm happy to provide the uh the playground for him to play in and uh it so far it's turned out pretty well um yeah it you know there's a lot of stuff we can't talk about that I you know kind of wish we could but uh it's just been a lot of fun it's been challenging but it's been a lot of fun so so you walk into these places where they're selling this idea that they're going to sort of cure your whiteness or I I I still don't I asked Walsh about it he couldn't explain it either what what exactly is that they're offering is a service what are you what are you looking at what are you seeing that were you stunned shocked surprised or just you expected it yeah you hear about this stuff but when you see it playing out in the real world the way these people think it it does set you back a moment you're like wow these people are serious right now and um the ideas they're pushing the the sort of pseudo kind of Neo racist ideas that they're uh they're essentially corporatizing these ideas and and and feeding them to people and the thing that surprises me the most is that there are people out there that are just willing to accept these ideas and go along with it uh for some kind of sense of virtue I don't know uh because it's absolute uh nuttiness and Madness and and and and racism in in a different form truly um and so getting Matt into uh for example a support group Workshop where they're talking about white grief how to grieve your white privilege essentially um you would think that like we made that up like like we we conjured that but it's a real thing and all we had to do is convince them uh for uh to to allow us to to film it and then just sort of parachute Matt Walsh into the situation um and um so it was a lot of fun but it it it is opening once you meet these people in person and hear what they actually have to say and and ultimately that was our idea I mean we let's just show Americans and show the public what these people are preaching and what they're trying to force down all of our throats and in doing so I think you know hopefully it uh it it basically sends sends a message to America this needs to stop so is is it difficult to shoot something like this because you're basically shooting it as a documentary H how creative can you get and what what are you thinking when you walk in to that the those change well we know there's no second takes you know and uh and there's a lot that goes into these things right there's there's uh sometimes months of preparation to get this all set up and just right and to have sort of the Buy in from them and the the crew and everything just needs to really work and you're not going to get a second chance and so uh the thing I CR credit Matt for is he actually does prepare well he really does think this stuff through and so um obviously my my crew guys are all total pros and I can totally count and rely on them but we also need to know like uh what we're going to do when we get in there what Matt is going to do and so it's almost like a Choose Your Own Adventure ahead of time we kind of lay out what might happen in these situations uh how we're going to Pivot if this happens versus this and um essentially have a plan where Matt can sort of navigate whatever comes up because we truly don't know what these people are going to do or what they're if they're going to recognize Matt within the first minute um if they're not going to recognize him you know just all these different scenarios that we we sort of we roleplay those ahead at times so that Matt's ready to go um but yeah just the the Clockwork between the the technical team and then with Matt and our preparation um it uh it's not easy but I think you know we we uh we have a great team and I think we pulled out some some really great stuff in this case so so you know when we started out basically there was Andrew Breitbart and that was it you know Breitbart kind of went around like the pi Piper and sort of collected all of the conservative talent in California and then pjtv poached all the people that he found because they could pay us and and Andrew couldn't and we went over there and we started doing this and there really wasn't anything else like us around at that moment now obviously the left has gone insane and they're doing things that are you know unbelievable that we even we could not have expected them to do but there's also a m we have a much bigger Voice or or that's my impression that we have a much bigger voice than we did how do you feel about that do you feel that we've in some ways made progress or do you feel it's all been a a a rear guard action no I think I think there's a real path that's been cleared here and I think uh you know that that path was forged with the stuff that was being done there at pjtv and and and some of the other things going on I I look back at that and I'm I'm amazed still to this day who was coming in and out of those doors uh yeah it's really incredible and here we are you know we some of us were kind of coming from the ENT entertainment industry you were I was other people were just kind of getting started and um it's really amazing to look back it kind of like there there was there was really not we were starting from the ground level there and now we're no longer on the ground conservatives are no longer on the ground level when it comes to this kind of thing and uh and so if you're a newcomer to this um I think they will say hey they're going to look back in the shadow of Andrew claven and be like yeah uh the you know guys like that cleared the way uh created this this uh opening of course that all coincided with the technology and uh with with uh what was going on with with social media and this new media that had been created so um in a lot of ways you know we were kind of lucky I look at myself as kind of Lucky uh for being at the right place at the right place the right time um but it also took a lot of talent and hard work and um and you know I'm I'm thankful to be a part of it and uh really appreciate what everybody's sort of gone on to do uh like you said in the shadow of Breitbart you know it is amazing the I look at my resume now and 80% of it is doing stuff that literally did not exist when I started my career all I wanted to do was write books and now there you know I look at these things that I've done and I just think wow that stuff I couldn't have imagined doing it I couldn't have wanted to do it it couldn't have been my ambition cuz it wasn't there looking ahead I mean now you've got so much more technical knowledge than I do because you're in the technical side of this and you know you're in the place where the technical side meets the creative side what do you see going forward what do you think the opportunities are for the young Justin folk he's you know he's waiting outside the door he's just thinking that's what I want to do what would you tell them uh is the next big thing well I mean the biggest thing is to get the craft to develop that craft uh because it doesn't matter what the technology is it doesn't matter what what what's out you know right now or 10 years from now or 10 years ago you just have to be good at what you do you have to be a good Storyteller you got to be a good communicator and um so I would say listen you're GNA find that right uh whatever that is whatever that platform is whether it's a film whether it's a podcast whether whatever it is it's uh there's going to be ways for you to get your message across but your message damn well better be good and um to do that you just have to you have to do you have to make you have to go out and make things and and you know not everything is going going to be a winner but you have to develop that craft and so that's what I would tell them is is listen the technology stuff is just a it's a very expensive recording device but that's all it is so we need to go out and and be good at what we do and um almost the way the left has always been good at storytelling up until now now they're humorless and insufferable but uh no but we could we can take that baton and run with it but we have to be good at storytelling and and and doing what we do technically speaking and in in you know in the sense of uh being good storytellers people don't know realize how much of a movie is made in the editing room and how much of it is constructed now if you're doing a fiction piece you tell the actor I'm going to need this shot I'm going to need that shot please do it five more times or if you're Jeremy please do it 57 more times and and then and then you have stuff to cut because there is not going to come a point when you oh I need him smiling but I don't have him smiling you got all that you only have one day here as you said what is the editing process like harder or is it easier because you have less to work editing process is always difficult because you have to be willing to let let go of things um so whether you have one take or many takes it it it sort of is the same process and uh you know we also have scenes that we shot that we didn't we didn't use that didn't that didn't uh Advance the story that way the way we needed it to um of course we collaborated with Jeremy on this but we we sort of had a another take at this film and tweak some things because some of the scenes that we had early on even though they were highly entertaining they didn't uh they didn't function in our story the way they needed to and so you just have to have that discipline to be able to walk away uh when you have something in the edit that just doesn't that doesn't uh work you know for the greater uh good of the story so that is a discipline that you develop over time you know because when you start out and and you probably realize this as a writer you just are so in love with your work starting out yeah and you you need to be able to kind of step away from that um and say okay you know that was good but it just doesn't it's not working in this case um and uh yeah so I credit you know Jeremy for collaborating with us on that um and I also of course I credit the daily wire for making a film like this you know being you know who else would make a movie like this who else would pay money to let uh Matt Walsh and I go and have Shenanigans and uh you know you know get a message across uh in in a funny way so yeah you know it's funny because because we've been successful because the daily wire has taken off we get a lot of flak from people you know who think that that we only do it for money or we're in in League with somebody or what whatever they say all this crazy stuff but it's just absolutely true the courage that it is taken and the kind of vision that is taken which we all credit Jeremy with and and everybody look book writers need editors and PE you know filmmakers need somebody to look on on but it's just an amazing thing that has happened here when we think about where you and I started out doing this it's an amazing place I I hate to say this and if you ever tell anybody I say this said this I will tell you them it's a lie but I'm proud of you buddy I think you've done a great job and I think it's it's terrific whereever you've come thanks Andrew it's an honor to come back as many years later and and be on your show and talk about this stuff and and look back very fondly at the journey and uh you know that Journey started with you and I really appreciate that and uh you know as much as I regret talking to you too it's good to it's good to do it every so often so REM you what you escaped Justin it's great to it's great to see you I I really believe this movie is going to be a smash and good luck thanks Andrew appreciate it all right the film obviously is am icist it opens on Friday this coming Friday I have not seen it as we're taping I will have seen it by then and I hope you will go out and get yourself some tickets am I races.com it I can't tell you how much it helps the film for you to pre-order tickets it makes a huge huge difference because it shows the theaters that people are interested the people are coming it has it mean it has meant already that we've gotten many more theaters to show this than we had at the beginning your support is what makes it work uh it the film just looks terrific everything I've seen of it looks great I hope you will go to am icist go to am irc.speedrunslive.com waiting see you then [Music]