Daily Wire host: Poem on the Statue of Liberty “in no way represents any kind of core American value”
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From the March 18, 2025, edition of The Daily Wire's The Matt Walsh Show
MATT WALSH (HOST): Now, of course, when this dumb politician says that America no longer represents what the statue symbolizes, he's talking mainly about the poem on the statue. Like, what does the statue symbolize in his mind? Well, he's talking about the poem. Right? And especially the part that says, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these the homeless tempest tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door. Right? That's the poem. And the French politician actually quoted that poem when he was saying that we no longer stand by what the statue represents. And so, clearly, that's what he was referring to. And we hear this all the time. The Statue of Liberty poem is quoted all the time as though it represents some fundamental American value.
But can we just say this about the poem? First of all, it wasn't even initially part of the Statue of Liberty. The statue was built in the 1870s and 1880s. The poem was added to the base of the statue in the early 1900s, like 1903, I think. And the poem is just a poem that somebody wrote. It's not a founding document. It's not the Constitution. It's not the Declaration of Independence. Some poet wrote it in, you know, in the late 19th century, and it was then put on a plaque and added to the pedestal of the statue. The poem in no way represents any kind of core American value. It is the work of one woman named Emma Lazarus. And so the the poem speaks to the core values of Emma Lazarus, not of the United States of America.
Personally, if we could just be honest about it, I think the poem is pretty lame. I think it sucks. The poem sucks. Let's just be real. It's a mediocre, bad poem. It's not a great poem. So how about this? Let's take the poem off of the statue and send that to France. Now they didn't write the poem. It's not — it wasn't originally on the statue, but let it — they want the statue back, so they didn't say what part of the statue. So let's take the poem off and ship them that. I mean, shipping and handling on that's gonna be a lot cheaper. I'll tell you that. So they can have that. Put it on the Eiffel Tower if you want. How about that? I mean, on a pure artistic level, it's a C+ poem at best. On its merits, judging the content, judging the message, it's an F- effort. I totally disagree with the sentiment of — it's not un-American. Well, how could you disagree? It's a poem on the Statue of Liberty. I don't care. Some woman wrote it and just put it on the Statue of Liberty. It doesn't mean I — just because I'm American, I have to agree with it. It does not speak to any core value of this country at all.
You know what? I — no. I don't want your tired, poor, homeless masses — I don't want your wretched — what's the phrase exactly? The wretched refuse? I don't want the wretched refuse of any country. Why the hell would we want that? No. I do not want that. No. Please, keep your wretched refuse. I do not want them. We don't want them. Why would we want them? We — no. Please no. America is not an international homeless shelter. It's not. So — and nobody ever thought of America as an international homeless shelter until that dumb poem was added to the Statue of Liberty, that stupid awful poem. We are a country. We are a nation. We are allowed to prioritize our own well-being. We are allowed to care more about our own people than about the huddled homeless masses and wretched refuse of third world immigrants.