ANDREW CHAPADOS ｜ Hilary Kennedy of BlazeTV： Your medical privacy is gone
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Summary
Former sports broadcaster and host Hillary Kennedy joins host Andrew Yang to discuss the growing crisis at the southern border, including the number of migrants crossing into the United States from Central America, and the lack of resources to handle them.
Transcript
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Hillary Kennedy is a former sports broadcaster and host making appearances on shows like Access
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Hollywood, Extra and Rachel Ray. She now hosts the four minute buzz on the Blaze Network. Thanks
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for joining me, Hillary. How are you? I'm doing great, Andrew. Thanks so much for inviting me on.
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No problem. Now, the first thing I wanted to ask you is what made you want to transition
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from sports and entertainment to the world of news? Or have you always been into it? Because
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when I was going back and looking at some of your other stuff, I think I've seen you mention that you
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love MMA. I know you did soccer related work. And there's something else I'm missing in there. But
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what made you want to transition? Or have you always been involved in news?
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You know, I've always been an avid news watcher. I specifically tried not to get involved with hard
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news when I started my career, because I did have such a passion for sports and entertainment.
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But there's something about where we are today that really made me go, well, wait a second.
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I'm not sure I can rely on what I'm hearing from the news media outlets, because I worked on a morning
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news show that had a lot of entertainment and lifestyle stuff. But we also covered the hard
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news of the day as well. And I started seeing how bits and pieces of the main facts were being left out
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of news stories. And it was truly the first time in my life where I thought, well, wait a second,
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they're leaving out some of the meat of this story. And it completely changes the narrative.
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And it was the first time that I realized, am I contributing to this in some way working here?
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And I started to really analyze what I was saying, what was being put out there. And I wanted to be
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part of news media that I felt like was trying their absolute best to tell the truth. And so that's how I
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ended up here. I'm sure that story can go for a lot of people, including myself,
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given my previous career. There's so much going on. The border is a mess. And that's where I want
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to start. There's a video from a few days ago about clearing the mass amount of migrants from
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under a bridge. And I think it's Del Rio, Texas. They've now been cleared. And I just want to play
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this news clip. It goes to a bit of what you're saying, how I think we're just glossing over a lot
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of the strong storylines here that we need to be addressing. So let's go ahead and play that clip,
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guys, please. Tonight, the camp that was once packed with 15,000 migrants gone. Bulldozers working
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to clear the remnants near the bridge. There are no longer any migrants in the camp. The Homeland
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Security Secretary now detailing where the migrants have gone. The majority from the camp, over 12,000
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released into the U.S. and asked to go to immigration centers to make asylum claims.
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2,000 were deported to Haiti and 8,000 migrants returned voluntarily to Mexico.
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Like Jean and his wife, Jessica, now crossing back, fearing deportation.
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He says he's decided to come back and stay in Mexico because he's scared that they might send them
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back to Haiti. They'll join hundreds still sleeping across the Rio Grande in Ciudad Acuna.
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Men, women, and families with children now under growing pressure to relocate away from the border.
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Meanwhile, President Biden addressing those images of Border Patrol agents on horseback.
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Now, I'm interested to point out that they had to include the part of the video of the guy
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changing his pants. That was an interesting part there. But Hillary...
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Yeah, a little bit. We have all these people being, you know, commuted out of from under there.
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I think for optics reason, it was a bad story for the administration.
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But now we're expecting them all to voluntarily, or at least 12,000, I think,
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voluntarily report to immigration centers across the country.
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I know there's videos of them being flying, being flown out to all over the country.
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Can we expect people to actually report to immigration centers and just on good faith?
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Oh, absolutely not. And I think, too, for the few that do, how many of those judges are going to
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send those, that small percentage of people back and turn them away because they did actually follow
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the rules and do the right thing? I'm sure a lot of those people will be allowed to stay as well.
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I think that what's going on there is not only sad for the people who are believing that they can
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come into our country and stay indefinitely, but for all of the people that live in those border
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towns, so many of them are fearing for their safety because they have all of these illegal
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immigrants crossing onto their land, many of them with weapons. A lot of them are people who are on
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the run from their own governments, murderers, rapists, that kind of thing. And so it's a sad
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story all the way around. And we really aren't hearing from those people as much as I think we
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should, the people who live there at the border and whose lives are being negatively affected.
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And it's just going to be a trickle down, you know, from what's happening to them. It will
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soon be happening to all the rest of us as they just set people free and allow them to roam
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throughout the country. You know, they say they're sending so many people back, but they really
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aren't telling us about how many thousands and thousands of people they are just busing or flying
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Yeah, it's interesting you say that because the math in that very report didn't make any sense. I wrote
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it down. 12,000 being led into the country, 2,000 being deported, and 8,000 are going to Mexico. So
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already we've gone up to 22,000, which is, and they said there's 15,000 underneath the bridge.
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The bigger question I think here is how did so many Haitian migrants get to the U.S.-Mexico border
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all at once? Do we have an answer to this question?
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You know, I don't know the answer to that question. And what I keep hearing from many different sources
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is it's not just Haitians. You know, we're going to be seeing a lot more Nicaraguans and people from
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all of these other countries, even from the Middle East, that are making their way here because they keep
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hearing how lax the rules are, that we're just kind of giving people a free pass and saying,
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well, you're not supposed to be here, but they just can't control what's going on. They have
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absolutely lost control of the situation. And it's quite frankly, very scary. And I think something
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else that isn't being addressed, too, it's not just people that are coming in, but it's
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thousands and thousands of pounds of drugs like fentanyl that have been funneled into our country since
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the beginning of the year. And that's also terribly frightening. I mean, it's enough
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opioids and fentanyl, things like that, to kill millions of Americans. And that's also flowing
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freely. Yeah, it's been a terrible, terrible run situation by this administration. Two months in
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the summer, back-to-back consecutive records for migrants crossing the border, which is always,
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you know, it's always a difficult situation. But when you're setting records like that negatively,
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I don't think people can look away from it. Now, the press secretary I want to talk about,
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Jen Psaki, lover, hater. I think the press secretary job is always a very divisive position. But I think
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she's objectively not as good as her predecessor, Kayleigh McEnany. And I think about clips that I
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want to show you regarding things she said, like testing at the border. I think these are things we
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can point to where, you know, people used to make fun of Kayleigh for having this binder full of
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answers with tabs on them. At least she's giving you answers that are straightforward. Whereas I
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think we can show this clip now where I don't think it makes, I don't think there's any way to,
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you know, wordsmith it into something that makes sense. To our national security team and see what
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that process will look like. And then the question about what's going on at the border, is somebody
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asking the foreign nationals who are walking into Del Rio, Texas and setting up camps on this side of
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the border for proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test? Well, first of all, I can readdress for
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you or re-talk you through what steps we take. That is the policy for people who fly into the
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country. So if somebody walks into the country, right across the river, does somebody ask them to
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see their vaccination card? Well, let me explain to you again, Peter, how our process works. As
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individuals, as individuals come across the border, and they are both assessed for whether they have
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any symptoms. If they have symptoms, they are, the intention is for them to be quarantined. That is
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our process. They're not intending to stay here for a lengthy period of time. I don't think it's the
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same thing. It's not the same thing. These are individuals, as we've noted and as we've been
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discussed, we are expelling individuals based on Title 42, specifically because of COVID, because we want
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to prevent a scenario where large numbers of people are gathering, posing a threat to the community and
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also to the migrants themselves. So those are the policies that we put in place, in large part,
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because, again, the CDC continues to recommend Title 42 be in place, given we're facing a global
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pandemic. So again, we have 10,000 out of 22,000 who are being deported, less than half. We're not
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testing these people at the border. She says they're not going to stay long enough to be tested,
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even though we just saw that 12,000 were released into this country. Is there any way to explain our
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way through here? Because let me paint a picture of what I'm thinking. I'm thinking, obviously,
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she can't sit there and say, no, this is a double standard. This doesn't make any sense. What would
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I say if I'm in her position? Do you think this just comes down to having an honest policy, or is
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there something here that I'm just missing? Well, I think you're right, Andrew. I mean,
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the sad thing is, whenever Jen Psaki first took this role, you can look back at some of her old
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tweets, and she was talking about how excited she was to bring back honesty and transparency to the
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White House. And we're still waiting on that, apparently. Because, yeah, it makes absolutely
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no sense. What is the difference between you coming to visit me here in Dallas, Texas, and someone
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running across the border and not planning to stay for longer than a few days, a few weeks? There's
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absolutely no difference. It's ridiculous that we can't get any straight answers from
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her. And I'm ashamed because she's a fellow redhead. I was expecting more from her. I want
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to support you, Jen Psaki, because you're a fellow ginger, but you're really letting me down in every
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possible way. Unbelievable, Jen Psaki. Now, I think the reason that people want to point out these
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double standards, and that's Peter Doocy from Fox, who does a good job, I think, at least, let's say,
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80% of the time, he's doing a good job. Got to leave room for improvement for everybody.
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But I think people are hoping that these hypocritical policies where, you know, illegal immigrant doesn't
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have to follow the rules that a citizen has to, I think they're hoping that they don't turn into
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the more restrictive policies that the government just doesn't have to explain. And what I'm getting
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at is what's happening in Australia. They've gone to the point where restrictions don't have to make
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any sense. The government can come out and say whatever they want, and you have to follow it.
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Grandmothers are being pepper sprayed. SWAT teams are being released on construction workers.
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So I want to play a clip from one of our reporters, Avi Yamini, our chief Australia reporter,
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and get your reaction from that. Let's go ahead and play that.
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They've separated the groups, firing tear gas. It just suddenly kicked off. There are hundreds
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of riot police now. The crowd has separated. Half have gone that way, the other half in there.
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Yep. Come out of the way. And we've just seen what has unfolded here, where riot police in an
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armoured vehicle that they have not deployed till now in protest. In fact, I've covered protests here
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for years and haven't seen that. That was meant to be counter-terrorism, I believe. And now they are
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marching towards the crowd again to engage them, unprovoked. There was zero violence from protesters.
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Let's make that clear. There was no violence from protesters.
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Now, in other reports, Hillary, on yemenireport.com, which is Avi's website there,
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BLM supporters are saying, well, now you understand, but also this isn't the right cause. What do you
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say to an argument like that where it's, you know, BLM gets different coverage because, you know,
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it's a good protest for the right reasons, but a protest against losing our rights, literally calling
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construction workers Nazis. What's your thinking of this, again, a media double standard?
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It makes me sick, honestly. It makes me sick to my stomach because I feel like what we're seeing is
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only the beginning. You know, if this is allowed to go on in Australia, it's just going to spread
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to other places. And I feel like it's going to be coming to other places like Canada, the United States
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a lot more quickly than we even anticipate. But it makes me sick to see the way that people are being
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treated. And I think that when Australians voluntarily gave up their guns several years ago, this is what
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it's led to. They have no way to defend themselves. They were peacefully protesting and being treated
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so violently. And it's horrific to watch. I mean, you can listen to some of the sound bites of the
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military personnel and they're saying, hey, we're just doing our jobs. Well, I mean, there were
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Nazi guards that said the exact same thing during the Holocaust. So it's horrible to see people's
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freedoms being taken away and they feel so helpless. I have a couple of friends that live in Australia
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and it has been heartbreaking to watch how depressed and hopeless they felt over the past year. Many of
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them now taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication because they just can't remember what
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life was like when it was normal anymore, because this has been going on so long and getting to be
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so much worse. Yeah. And you guys have other Australian commentators at blaze like Sydney Watson. I know
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that give a good perspective on that. And I agree with you. A lot of this has gotten out of hand to
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the point where, you know, sometimes you have to think is comparing this to like Nazism, even though
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that's what they're calling the protesters, is comparing this to these fascistic governments fair.
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And I think, you know, when we're calling Trump a fascist three years ago or whatever, it's too far when
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you're calling even maybe BLM or Antifa riots Nazis. I think that might be, you know, an unfair comparison.
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But we've gotten to this point where what is the line? And I ask this all the time on on things I
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comment on TV shows. Where is the line where we can stop saying, you know, I'm just doing my job? Is it
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we're 18 months into restrictions now? Is it three years? Is it 10 years? Is it when we become a colony
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of China? What is the point where we're allowed to say to police officers in Australia, I'm just doing
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my job is no longer a valid excuse? I think that moment has come and passed now. And I hope to see more
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people like there's another video, there's a cop saying, I am just doing this to feed my family.
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And I agree with you, but he's still doing it. So I think maybe the tides are turning
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a little bit on that, just to give my own two cents there. Another place people are giving,
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you know, some pushback is the NBA. And I wanted to talk about this with you because I know you love
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sports. We have some of the biggest star power in people who are against mandatory vaccinations in
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players like Jonathan Isaac, Bradley Beal, Kyrie Irving and Andrew Wiggins. The latter two are
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some of the biggest stars. And I want to play for you what Andrew Wiggins said when he was asked
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why he won't just explain his beliefs to the press pool in Golden State there.
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Vince, what's the reason for not just explaining what you believe?
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It's none of your business. That's what it comes down to, you know. I don't ask you guys what your
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beliefs. I don't ask you guys what you think is right or wrong. You know, we're different people.
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Now, Isaac and Beal are going more in-depth routes in explaining what they mean. But do you think it's
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fair that these journalists are now, you know, asking vaccination status and medical history?
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Why are you making this medical decision? Yeah, I don't think it's fair. In fact,
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I just had this conversation with someone the other day because I have a lot of friends that live in LA
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and work as actors. And they are now being required when they submit an audition, whether in person or
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virtually, they are asked to declare what their vaccination status is when they audition for a
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project. Well, what are the odds that they are going to book that job if they say they're
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unvaccinated? I mean, asking those sorts of questions used to be complete taboo. What you do
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with your own body, what you've put in your own body is your own personal business. And so I applaud
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these athletes for standing up and saying, hey, I don't owe you any answers about that. You know,
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you ask me anything you want to about the game, about my teammates, you know, things that are
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relevant. But I just don't see how someone's personal health history is relevant.
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Now, San Francisco said they won't grant a special exemption for him. I believe that's Andrew
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Wiggins from the Golden State Warriors. Kyrie Irving is in Brooklyn. And so the basically they're
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debating whether or not they should trade these players or, you know, keep them and they're missing
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out on half of their home games. Do you think the NBA sorts of takes a step back or do you think
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they're going to start granting exemptions? How do you see this playing out?
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I think it's in their best interest to grant these exemptions and let people have their own
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personal liberties. But as we've seen over the past year and a half or so, major league sports
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hasn't always made the best decisions when it comes to these sorts of things. They've lost a lot
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of fans, a lot of viewership. So they may double down. I don't know. I hope that they don't. I hope
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they let people continue to just live their lives, play sports and not get political.
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I don't know if that's going to happen. As I'm sure you're aware, Black Americans are among the
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least to get vaccinated. Even BLM New York. I spoke with one of them recently. They're against
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a vaccine passport. What are your thoughts on that? How are you taking that enemy of my enemy
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situation? I don't know how else to describe it. What's your take on BLM, you know, getting support
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from right-wing sources about standing out against vaccine passports?
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That's kind of an interesting turn of events, isn't it? I definitely think that when we keep
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having these conversations about racism and discrimination, if you've got a large group
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of people, you know, groups of color who have decided that they do not want to get the jab,
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to be able to force them in places like New York or San Francisco to not be able to eat at a restaurant
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or go to an event, that is blatant discrimination right there. So I think it's very interesting that,
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you know, a year ago it was such a different mentality, but now these people are public
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enemy number one. It is just a, it's like you can't make this stuff up. Every day it's something
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different that contradicts what we've been told, you know, six days prior, six weeks prior. It's,
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it's absolutely ridiculous. But I do think it is discrimination for sure to, to not allow anyone,
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no matter what color they are, to not live their life if they're unvaccinated.
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Yes. It, it takes a right-wing news and BLM to explain to people what civil rights are in 2021.
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It's a crazy time. That's right. You brought up a very serious topic on another show recently.
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I want to show this clip of what you said, and I want to get your follow-up on the thoughts you
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expressed here. My anger towards the people that developed these emojis started a long time ago,
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because they had every hair color except the redheads until like two years ago. We are a very
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underrepresented group. Wow. Yeah. So we do finally have some redhead emojis, but it took them long
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enough. So you are a victim of the society, this dark hair and blonde, uh, patriarchy.
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It's true. That's keeping you down. I think we got an answer to your question. My question before of
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who your hero is in the ginger community, but I hear these things all the time, Hillary. I have
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two ginger close friends. Uh, we can't go out in the sun. Uh, people can't see our eyebrows. We
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love orange soda. Um, I want to ask you who your ginger ginger hero is between the following Chuck
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Norris, Conan O'Brien or, and Ed Sheeran. You have to choose one. Oh, Chuck Norris by far. I mean,
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he is the ultimate American hero. Uh, but yeah, there are very few of us. And I would like to point out
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that you only mentioned male gingers, whereas female gingers, I feel like we are always portrayed
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in movies and TV shows as the psycho or the murderer. It's always the crazy one. Some of us
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are very normal. Is it wrong or? Uh, I mean, my husband might tell you that spot on, but there
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were some examples in there. There was, um, Adele, I think was one on there, but these weren't the
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ones that I, that I wanted to list. There was, um, what's her name? Emma Stone was one on this list
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that I saw, but I had to go. I, I love Conan O'Brien. I couldn't ignore him. Chuck Norris.
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I mean, you chose him. You can go off the board if you want to go with, uh, Jen Psaki. I won't hate
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you for it. You know, I, I will say about Jen Psaki, I respect anyone who has the bravery to do that job
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to be the press secretary is a really, really tough job. I could never do it. So I do respect that she
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has stepped up and taken it on. I wouldn't call her my hero, uh, by any stretch of the imagination,
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but, uh, I do get basically any redheaded celebrity. Someone will say, do you know who
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you look like? So I get a lot of Amy Adams or, uh, Isla Fisher that was in Wedding Crashers. I get
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a lot of that, but we're not all totally crazy. I mean, maybe just a little bit crazy, but not
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completely. All right. I'll keep that in mind for whoever my next ginger guest is. I'm gonna have
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to look back in the archives and see if I've had any other ginger guests. Hillary, thank
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you for coming on. Thank you for joking with me and being serious with me. Anything else
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you want to say in closing to this Canadian audience that loves you? Can I just say that
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Canadians are some of my favorite people in the world. I went on a flight, uh, from Dallas
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to Toronto, fell asleep on the flight. And the lady next to me who was a Canadian was flying
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home. She woke, when I woke up, she tapped me on the shoulder and said, you were sleeping
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when they brought around the snack cart. So I got you a snack and a drink. Cause I thought
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you might wake up and be hungry or thirsty. And that was the first moment that I realized
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Canadians, nicest, kindest people in the world. And I have loved every Canadian I've ever met.
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I will accept your generalization. Hillary Kennedy on the blaze every morning. Thanks for joining
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me. Have a great day. Thanks a lot. You too. Thank you, Andrew.