Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 311 ｜ Seeking the Truth in a Post-Truth Era ｜ Guest： Megyn Kelly

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Friday. Hope everyone has had a great week. So I am

00:00:14.560 so excited about this episode and this interview. I am talking to Megyn Kelly. And guys, if

00:00:24.080 you know me, you know how much I have admired her and how long I have admired her. Maybe the only

00:00:32.100 people who really know that are my husband who's listening to this and my parents who is listening

00:00:36.160 to this. But guys, I was in high school when I watched Megyn Kelly on Fox News and I always told

00:00:43.860 myself, I want to be like her. I want to do what she's doing, which of course I don't do exactly

00:00:48.640 what she did at Fox News. And I probably never will. And that's okay. I like the path that I'm

00:00:55.260 on. I am communicating about the things that I think matter and I believe are true. And that's

00:00:59.700 all I've ever wanted to do my whole life. But Megyn Kelly was the first person in media

00:01:04.480 that I admired. And so it is very, it's surreal and it's an honor to get to talk to her. She is

00:01:13.460 so composed and dignified, such a good interviewer, such a solid thinker and analyzer. And I'm just

00:01:21.680 so excited for you guys too, to get to listen to this conversation. So without further ado,

00:01:27.220 here is Megyn Kelly. Megyn, thank you so much for joining me.

00:01:31.460 My pleasure.

00:01:32.300 First of all, you are starting a podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about it and why you

00:01:36.720 decided to start it?

00:01:38.960 Well, I'm basically sick of people telling, not just me, but all of us,

00:01:43.460 what we have to feel, what we have to do, what we have to say, what's not okay. Like

00:01:48.380 who died and gave the woke skulls all the authority over who we are as humans? 0.99

00:01:54.600 Yeah.

00:01:54.840 You know, this is still America and I'm sick of them and I'm sick of the media and I'm

00:01:59.920 sick of the dishonest coverage of Trump. And then on the other side, the sycophantic coverage

00:02:05.180 of Trump, I'm just sick of it. I don't trust the media. I've been really frustrated during COVID

00:02:09.420 in particular, in terms of finding a news source I trust. And, you know, necessity is the mother

00:02:14.520 of all invention. I feel like, well, I'm going to do it. I'll be, I'll be the person. I'll go out

00:02:18.760 there. I'll get back on my horse and hopefully provide a place where we can have those conversations.

00:02:23.520 And you've been in the news world for a long time. Has it been like this forever? Or have you

00:02:28.260 seen a significant change even just since Trump became president?

00:02:31.780 Oh, there's been a huge change. When I started in news, which was 2003 at an ABC affiliate in DC,

00:02:40.680 it wasn't this way. There's always a left-wing bias in news, but it wasn't okay to show it. You know,

00:02:46.160 now they embrace it. They're not even trying to hide it anymore. You know, from the New York Times

00:02:51.640 to NBC, you name it. And that's new. It wasn't until I'd say really President Obama that I remember

00:02:59.380 people really embracing their partisanship. And then forget it. In the era of Trump, forget it.

00:03:04.700 Jorge Ramos came out before the last election and said, we have an obligation not to cover Trump

00:03:09.920 fairly. We have an obligation to cover him for what he is. Right. And then Jorge Ramos' opinion,

00:03:15.460 that's awful. And he won that argument. That is what the mainstream press decided to do.

00:03:21.760 Right. So in 2016, there were probably some people on the right who accused you of being partisan. I'm

00:03:27.060 sure there are some people today who accused you of being partisan, but that probably shows that

00:03:31.100 you're really not. You really are trying to cover both sides fairly. What do you say to the accusations

00:03:36.740 of people on either side who, you know, said then that you're anti-Trump, who say now that you're

00:03:42.440 pro-Trump? What's your response to something like that? I mean, on all these things, I call them like

00:03:47.760 I see them. And when I, when I offer opinions and I, I try to present the news in an unbiased fashion.

00:03:53.620 So my viewers can make up or my, now my listeners, their own minds. I trust my audience to make up

00:03:58.840 its own mind with actual facts, you know? And the only reason people thought I was anti-Trump is

00:04:04.600 because of that debate question, which is just absurd. Right. I mean, it's like I was anti-Ben Carson.

00:04:09.120 He also got it right between the eyes. Uh, and then Trump kept coming after me, which was unpleasant.

00:04:13.260 Yeah. So I've never been, I've never been anti-Trump. I mean, the left loved me because

00:04:17.680 they thought I was anti-Trump and then they found out I wasn't. And they were like, Oh no. Right.

00:04:21.300 The media, um, I'm not, I really don't have a partisan bone in my body. I'm just not built that

00:04:26.780 way. Yeah. Um, can you talk to me about what you thought about the debates, which as this podcast is

00:04:32.860 coming out, it was a couple of nights ago. Um, some of the coverage around that, did you think it was

00:04:38.060 fair? Did you think Pence did a good job? How'd you think Kamala did? Uh, I thought

00:04:43.160 the coverage was typical and predictable. I thought I watched some of MSNBC. I watched a

00:04:49.020 little of CBS. MSNBC actually had two anchors on there describing Pence repeatedly as quote

00:04:55.120 flaccid and lame. Now you tell me what they were trying to project with that kind of language and

00:05:03.280 whether that's appropriate and what would happen if similar language were used about Kamala, you know,

00:05:09.000 it's just out of line. But the craziest thing I saw the entire time was Gail King, who I like,

00:05:15.760 but Gail King in all seriousness said when the fly landed on Mike Pence's head, it may have been a

00:05:25.620 message because she said he was saying Donald Trump's not a, he doesn't believe it. There's

00:05:30.380 no systemic racism. And she said the fly was like, say what? Right. Yeah. Earth to Gail.

00:05:36.840 So a lot of people have said that Trump kind of broke journalists. And obviously you just said

00:05:42.120 that there has been a big shift since Trump became president in the partisanship and the media.

00:05:47.060 Why do you think that is like, what is the nature of Trump that have made journalists go that direction 0.90

00:05:53.660 and make such silly observations like that?

00:05:56.120 Well, I think he walked into an environment in which the media was not covering Republicans in general 0.92

00:06:02.340 fairly. And he accurately deduced that and understood that his main enemy, both in the lead up to the

00:06:10.840 first presidential contest he won and to this one and while governing would be the media. You know, when

00:06:16.840 he says the media is the enemy of the people, that's not exactly right. But the media is his enemy that

00:06:22.060 he's got that right. And so he needed to demonize them. So people would see what he was seeing that

00:06:27.940 they can't cover him fairly. 90% of the coverage of president Trump has been negative 90. And I

00:06:35.460 realize he tweets insane things and says insane things. But if you look at his policies, there is

00:06:41.100 stuff in there that the left should really like. We've gotten a bit more isolationist as a nation.

00:06:46.780 We he passed the anti sex trafficking law. He passed criminal justice reform. He has been very

00:06:53.540 focused and good on focused on and good to Israel. Like there's a bunch of things here that should be

00:06:59.980 celebrated by both sides. And he never gets any credit for it. So I, I think I like to say that

00:07:05.880 the media is dead. It wasn't a murder. It was more of a suicide. But Trump was like Kevorkian.

00:07:13.660 Yeah. Right. They're helping. Right. I think a huge disservice to the American people is not the

00:07:21.820 fact that Trump is criticized, because I think we would both agree. That's fine. You should hold the

00:07:27.140 people and power accountable by reporting what is actually true and factual. The problem is, is that it

00:07:33.060 doesn't seem like the other side is ever held accountable. There are a lot of things that Joe Biden

00:07:38.300 said during the debate that Kamala Harris said that they have said in general in their campaign

00:07:42.460 throughout their careers, the policies that they've put forth that deserve a spotlight that

00:07:46.900 deserve digging a little bit deeper to say, did he really say, why aren't they answering the

00:07:51.800 question about the court packing? What about this piece of legislation that never become things?

00:07:57.360 They never become moments because it seems like we don't have a media that is interested in making

00:08:03.500 them moments and making them things. And so a lot of people who think that they are very well

00:08:08.660 informed because they're reading the Washington Post and New York Times and and watching CNN,

00:08:13.400 who used to be kind of maybe a middle of the road outlet. They think that they are well informed and

00:08:19.500 that Joe Biden is completely scandal free. He's this moderate Uncle Joe and that Donald Trump is a

00:08:26.780 complete dictator. And those are people who are informed think that way. So how do you encourage people

00:08:33.220 to to to dig through the partisanship in the media and actually know what Joe Biden and Kamala are for

00:08:40.500 and actually dig into the truth when it seems like there aren't very many sources giving us that?

00:08:47.220 I think that this is where digital media comes in. I think the relationship of the future between

00:08:52.140 news consumers and those who deliver the news is going to be much more direct. You're not going to

00:08:57.100 have channels that you choose. You're going to have anchors that you choose, personalities that you choose

00:09:01.700 to give it to you straight. And it's one of the things I like about this business and why I wound

00:09:06.840 up here with a podcast instead of somewhere else. If you want to, you know, do something other than

00:09:12.980 that, what I do every morning is I go to real clear politics dot com and they post editorials from

00:09:18.420 the left and the right on every issue right there. You can go down the list and read them both and a set

00:09:24.040 of facts will emerge, but you shouldn't have to work that hard for it. You know, I'll give you one

00:09:31.560 example of something I saw at the vice presidential debate that probably would have been phrased

00:09:36.020 differently if it had been a Republican who said this. Kamala Harris said on packing the Supreme

00:09:40.560 Court, which is the hugest issue in this in this election. If Democrats pack the Supreme Court, 0.58

00:09:46.840 the Supreme Court is gone. It's basically gone. They're getting rid of the top, the top court in

00:09:51.880 the third branch of government because it will have no credibility. The Republicans will pack it more

00:09:56.820 when they get back in control. We're going to wind up with 75 justices on there. It's it's truly the

00:10:01.700 beginning of the end. So it's very controversial. It's treated like it's a nothing. So if I had

00:10:08.460 Kamala Harris in front of me, I would have said you specifically said earlier in this campaign

00:10:14.260 that you thought we should, quote, talk about packing the Supreme Court. Well, now's your chance.

00:10:20.100 Are you going to do it or aren't you? And as soon as she started to give me a history lesson,

00:10:24.640 starting an 18 something with Abe Lincoln, I 100 percent would have interrupted her and said,

00:10:29.980 I'll let you answer with your history lesson. But let's start with this. Yes or no. And if she

00:10:36.420 didn't answer, then I'd jump in just a third time, just a third. And I'd say, so you refuse to answer

00:10:41.500 it. Yes or no. That's just me protecting the audience at home. That's not me trying to badger

00:10:46.200 Kamala Harris or if I had to do it to Mike Pence. It's about me protecting the audience at home.

00:10:51.700 I'm their advocate to get answers to the questions I'm going to ask because I've been chosen to do

00:10:56.600 this role. And I just thought, like, that's a huge issue and I want to hear her answer it. And she

00:11:01.720 wouldn't.

00:11:02.920 Was there anything that Mike Pence that he kind of obfuscated that he avoided to answer that you

00:11:19.640 would have pressed him on a little bit harder? Yeah. Like, what's he going to do if Trump dies?

00:11:24.820 I mean, yeah, he he she's going to be underneath the guy who's 77 years old and he's going to be

00:11:32.200 underneath a guy who's I mean, he'll be 78 at some point in his first in his second term.

00:11:36.540 It's reelected. And and he's had covid, which he appears to be fighting well. But

00:11:42.360 we we need to know, like, what is the plan? Have you talked about it? How would you govern? What would

00:11:47.820 be I mean, I think that was a very fair line of inquiry and they both dodged it. No one would answer.

00:11:53.080 Right. What do you say to the people who have unpopular, unorthodox opinions, which you have

00:11:59.620 had several times and you very boldly and factually present those? What do you say to the people

00:12:05.800 who feel not just unprepared, but afraid to speak up? Say it's typically, I would say,

00:12:13.040 conservative who is afraid to maybe tell their liberal friends or their liberal families what

00:12:17.560 they believe or why they're voting for Trump or why they're pro-life, whatever it is.

00:12:21.600 What kind of encouragement do you have to people who are afraid to speak up and to say

00:12:27.220 things that are unpopular? I think the reason they feel that way is because the far left controls

00:12:33.300 the media and controls Hollywood. So everything they're taking in, whether it's news, it's movies,

00:12:39.520 it's television shows, it's award shows, it's the newspaper is controlled by people who do not think

00:12:45.340 like conservatives think. And that is why it's very easy to shame them about their very mainstream

00:12:51.020 opinions. And I don't think there's any way out of it. I think the left is going to maintain its

00:12:56.100 control over those industries. And so I don't think there's any way out of it other than conservatives,

00:13:01.640 forgive the phrase, growing a pair and getting out there and saying what they believe unapologetically.

00:13:08.400 You know, I don't know if you've read Douglas Murray at all. He's brilliant. And he wrote this book

00:13:12.500 The Madness of Crowds, among other things. He's been speaking out about cancel culture. And he was

00:13:17.480 talking about all these mandated inherent bias classes that you must go to at certain corporations,

00:13:23.780 which actually create bias. They create bias. They don't they don't cure anyone from it. And

00:13:29.760 he said, what you could say to your employer is, I refuse. I refuse to let you re-racialize 1.00

00:13:37.980 my country, my workplace or myself because they're trying to shame people into silence.

00:13:45.040 And so far, conservatives have have been silent. And that's not the way forward.

00:13:50.340 And I think a lot of people have been looking for exactly that kind of advice. I get messages like

00:13:55.960 that all the time. And there's, you know, times where I don't know what to say because I don't know

00:13:59.800 what's at stake for them or their family if they do speak up at work. And it's a lot of responsibility

00:14:04.580 to give someone that advice. But I think what you just said, what Murray just said is is is so good

00:14:10.320 to be able to be forthright and to use their language and their ideas back on them to say

00:14:15.720 and to be able to say, look, I'm not racist. I don't have internalized white supremacy.

00:14:21.640 And I refuse to let you project that onto me and resegregate not only my mind, but also my life

00:14:29.100 in my workplace. And so I think that's a really good piece of advice. You have dealt with cancel

00:14:35.000 culture and kind of the arbitrary double standards that are out there in the media. Can you kind of

00:14:42.100 just talk about how you dealt with that, how that felt when that was going on and what you've learned

00:14:47.640 since? Well, when I was first at NBC and, you know, came under fire for my comments on how 30 years

00:14:54.340 ago, people didn't really react that much to blackface costumes, which happens to be a fact,

00:14:59.240 right? They just didn't. And what's happened in today's society when people wear it is evidence of

00:15:04.700 that. That's what I was trying to say. Like today you will get in trouble. 30 years ago, it really

00:15:08.220 didn't turn out to be a thing. And that's why we've seen it. So on so many television shows since then

00:15:13.020 and movies and, you know, yada, yada. But I think at first the backlash was so strong. I was I'm always

00:15:21.460 quick to reexamine. I was like, do I have a blind spot? Did I say something that wasn't true

00:15:26.820 and just step in it in a way that's really offensive? I'm open minded. And all the people

00:15:32.160 around me were saying, yes, you know, not not people outside of the building, but the people

00:15:37.040 there. And so I did apologize because I don't want to offend anybody and I don't want to hurt

00:15:43.100 people, especially on an issue of race. But what I've realized since then, Ali, is that it's 0.52

00:15:48.440 I made the mistake of assuming good faith on the part of the critics who are coming after me.

00:15:54.080 And I now see that those attacks, for the most part, were not made in good faith. They

00:16:00.740 smell blood in the water and they wanted to put an end to me at NBC and they got their scalp.

00:16:08.120 Yeah. And how do you distinguish between people who are genuinely trying to solicit an apology for

00:16:14.760 something? Maybe you actually authentically did wrong and someone who just kind of wants to bring

00:16:20.720 you to your knees and get you to acquiesce to arbitrary cultural demands? I don't think you look

00:16:27.000 at them. You look inside your heart. You know, I think you ask yourself, do I feel that I said or did

00:16:34.640 something wrong? Can I stand by what I said or what I did? And, you know, I tried to explain to the

00:16:42.260 audience what I was trying to get at. And we had a roundtable discussion of blackface then and now.

00:16:47.480 But, you know, what I know is that the people who hate you don't want to hear it and the people who

00:16:53.600 love you don't need to hear it. So it's almost like speaking into the void. You know, it's not bad to

00:17:00.760 have more conversation. I believe in more conversation rather than less conversation. But it's the same thing

00:17:05.860 I tell my kids when we walk by a tabloid that's got me on the cover with something awful next to my

00:17:10.100 name. Yeah. They said, Mommy, why don't you say that that's a lie? And I say, because my fans know

00:17:15.680 who I am and the people who believe that stuff want to believe it. So it's not worth it's not a battle

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00:19:33.000 I would say cancel culture, maybe it's always existed to some extent. I'm not sure, but it 0.87

00:19:38.660 definitely seems like it has heightened over the past few years. Would you agree with that,

00:19:44.540 that this is a little bit of a newly intense phenomenon canceling people for opinions we don't

00:19:49.700 like? Oh, yeah, because corporate America bowed to the mob. They didn't used to have control of

00:19:55.020 corporate America. Corporate America wasn't like the media and Hollywood. It had a backbone and it

00:20:00.440 understood principles of free speech and that we're not going to get rid of great employees because

00:20:04.300 they say something that may be mildly controversial or even very controversial. It's just not who we are

00:20:08.920 as Americans. And now they've bowed. I think all those kids who are at those universities being told,

00:20:14.980 run to your safe spaces. No one's allowed to say anything that mildly offends you

00:20:17.980 have now moved into the workplace. And, you know, look what the employees at Spotify are doing to 0.92

00:20:22.540 Joe Rogan, trying to get him canceled and threatening to, quote, strike, which is not the right word for

00:20:27.760 what they want to do at Spotify unless he gets punished or pulled or canceled. And thankfully, so far,

00:20:33.820 Spotify has had Joe's back. But in time after time, we've seen corporations completely bow.

00:20:42.100 And a new standard is slowly but surely being set. What we need is more companies like the Wall

00:20:50.220 Street Journal that when some of its employees objected to an editorial that appeared in their

00:20:54.940 paper, the Wall Street Journal basically said, you don't like it? That's tough. Anyway, that's the way

00:21:01.940 to go. That's the way forward. Just grow a spine, stick by it. And when selecting the company for which

00:21:08.000 you would like to work, try to find one that has a proven record of not being highly partisan or weak.

00:21:15.200 So is that that's the way forward then is not apologizing for things that you don't actually

00:21:19.780 need to apologize for, not kowtowing to the emotional demands of a mob that are not actually

00:21:26.680 based on any real objective principle, but are just based on partisanship and emotions and moving

00:21:34.280 forward in the pursuit of depending, I guess, on what organization you are, quality service or truth.

00:21:41.280 If you are if you are a media outlet, you're saying that basically you just have to stick to those

00:21:49.120 things and stick to those values. Stop kowtowing to the mob and stop kowtowing to cancel culture and

00:21:54.560 apologizing for things that you're not sorry for. Is that what kind of you're suggesting for a way forward?

00:21:59.580 Yes, I think you need to fight back. And I think I know it's easy to say because no one wants to lose

00:22:05.680 their job. Trust me, I understand that, you know, everyone's paycheck is important to them. But I do

00:22:11.720 think the more people stay in silence and just get punished for it for mainstream viewpoints, you know,

00:22:17.580 like if you're if you're anti-abortion, that's mainstream, right? Like something like 80 percent of

00:22:25.860 the country or 90 percent of the country doesn't believe in abortion in the third trimester.

00:22:30.020 And yet we're still having debates about whether women can have abortions on demand all the way

00:22:34.360 through their pregnancies. What's wrong with standing up for what you believe in, even even if you don't

00:22:38.620 want any abortion, even if you don't believe in Roe v. Wade, you want it to be outlawed. There are 0.96

00:22:42.260 millions and millions of people in this country that feel that way. You're not out of the mainstream

00:22:45.700 and you're allowed to have these beliefs. It's it's some woke jerk who barely got out of college 1.00

00:22:53.600 who's trying to tell you otherwise. Yeah. And unless we start standing up like what? What if 1.00

00:22:58.040 you went in? You know, there was some guy, I think it was a radio, a DJ over in the UK who got fired

00:23:03.960 summarily for saying he didn't think that the I think that that the U.S. was systemically biased

00:23:09.980 fired. Well, we can go through the facts, right? Like I what I've been doing my time off is trying to

00:23:17.600 listen to as many black intellectuals as I can, trying to read as many as I can, because

00:23:22.980 I want the honest truth about what they think in terms of the police and, you know, our education

00:23:29.600 system and the relations with whites and the language that's being used right now about them,

00:23:34.680 about us. And I'm learning. And I think the more you can get your information for people from people

00:23:39.780 who are actually experiencing, you know, prejudice if they if they have or have interesting thoughts on

00:23:46.240 how to handle it, the better off you are. I'll give you one example. Larry Elder is so interesting,

00:23:51.900 and he sent me the movie Uncle Tom, which he he just did. And you can get it right now on iTunes

00:23:56.820 if you want it. It's on Apple. It's like 17 bucks. It's worth your time. But he's got all it's it's it's

00:24:04.640 all people of color talking about how they reject they reject this pejorative paternalistic treatment

00:24:13.240 of black people in this country and their own choices in terms of individual responsibility

00:24:19.540 and working hard and forging forward. And even even if you get turned away from a job because the

00:24:25.980 would be employer is racist, what to do there? Right. It's it's eye opening. And I think people

00:24:31.620 have to educate themselves because this is a subject that's been forced upon us. And now we've got to talk

00:24:38.000 about it because that jerk Robin DiAngelo got her crazy leanings into every boardroom and school room 1.00

00:24:44.500 in the country. Right. Right. It's infiltrating. I mean, this is I'm an evangelical Christian. We talk 1.00

00:24:50.540 a lot about theology on this podcast. It's certainly infiltrating the church, not just cancel culture,

00:24:55.400 but critical race theory and things like that. And we hear a lot from the left and more progressive

00:25:00.860 people that we need to listen to people's experiences and that the way forward is is is empathy,

00:25:06.520 which I agree with to some degree. I don't think empathy should be can stand alone. It has to be

00:25:13.340 subjected to objective truth. But people don't want to hear the experiences of the people that you just

00:25:17.960 talked about. They don't want to hear people like oftentimes Glenn Lowry or Coleman Hughes or John

00:25:24.200 McWhorter, those intellectuals that you were talking about that kind of have unorthodox views about police

00:25:30.240 brutality and systemic racism. And so really what you're seeing is just mob rule of a of

00:25:36.500 tiny group of people, not the majority, dictating what is OK to think, dictating what is an OK,

00:25:43.960 legitimate experience to build some kind of idea or ideology off of. And you make such a good point

00:25:51.200 that these things that are being canceled, that people are being canceled for are very mainstream.

00:25:56.960 And people have actually believed for thousands of years like it's OK to be against Black Lives Matter

00:26:03.220 as the organization because you're against Marxism. It's OK to be for capitalism. It's OK to be for the

00:26:10.340 preservation of of life inside the womb. It's OK to be for the Second Amendment and the First Amendment.

00:26:15.360 Like these are very traditional views and we can't be pushed into thinking that they're radical.

00:26:20.260 Right. I mean, I am thinking about even just critical race theory or inherent bias training,

00:26:27.800 implicit bias training. What the studies have shown and go and do your own research so you have the

00:26:32.100 data. But what the studies have shown is that creates racism. If you do have, let's call it latent

00:26:37.700 racism inside of you. What the studies found is that if you just leave it alone in ninety nine percent of

00:26:43.600 the cases, people never act on it. It's it's not in the frontal lobe. But these so-called training

00:26:48.860 sessions bring it to the frontal lobe and actually cause racist behavior. That's what the psychologists

00:26:55.960 have determined. And the people who have done deep studies into this method of deracializing people

00:27:02.380 have found. So get your facts before your company tries to make you do this, because it is

00:27:07.900 re-racializing us. It is taking us past Martin Luther King's dream of seeing the little white 0.99

00:27:14.160 boy and a little black boy walk down the street holding their hands and holding hands and not

00:27:18.140 and not thinking about color. And it isn't racist to not see color. It's I had somebody suggest that

00:27:24.300 my children, if they have black friends, which they do and don't see color, that's racist. That's

00:27:30.500 their inherent white supremacy. I'm sorry, but it's just nonsense. And you can't fight it unless 0.98

00:27:37.820 you have your facts. So get them. Get educated. And it makes it makes me so sad. I tell people,

00:27:42.500 you know, we hear this crazy definition of anti-racism, that you can't just not be racist,

00:27:47.380 that you have to be anti-racist, Ibram X. Kendi says. And of course, that means latching on to all

00:27:52.840 leftist policy prescriptions and feeding into the ideology of critical race theory, white privilege and

00:27:58.520 basically self-loathing for white people. And I just tell people it's really simple. If you want to 0.58

00:28:04.240 truly be anti-racist, love your neighbor as yourself. Love God, love your neighbor. That's

00:28:09.680 what we talk a lot about on this podcast. But love people, befriend people, no matter what they look

00:28:14.840 like. That doesn't mean that you have to deny that there are cultural differences. If they're from a

00:28:19.500 different culture, you can celebrate those differences. That's great. But as you pointed

00:28:24.360 out, critical race theory and these implicit bias trainings are actually telling us to elevate our

00:28:30.080 immutable differences to the point of not being able to not see them and assuming that someone who

00:28:36.020 doesn't look like us must hate us. And there is just there's there's no there's no nature of

00:28:42.500 reconciliation there. Critical race theory has the tells the white people you have to go into the room

00:28:49.020 and be silent. The black people then have to tell the white people how racism has affected them,

00:28:54.400 how that white people's racism has affected their lives and racism in the country has affected their 0.94

00:28:58.500 lives. And the white people are not allowed to say anything. And then when they're done, 0.91

00:29:03.380 you're not allowed to challenge. You're supposed to sit in the quiet of your own racism.

00:29:09.620 Right. It's like, come on. My black friends are like, this is absurd. We're not we're not doing it. 0.99

00:29:16.560 You know, it's it's black Republicans are against this nonsense to a man, to a woman. This is a not a

00:29:24.600 black white issue. It's a Republican Democrat issue now because they have very different beliefs.

00:29:29.980 You know, Democrats want to say everything is a systemic problem and the government needs to swoop

00:29:33.580 in and solve it. And Republicans say we believe in the individual and an individual has to get

00:29:38.440 himself up and get himself successful. And we have a country that will allow that.

00:29:42.540 So they're two very different points of view, but they're it's not black white. 0.93

00:29:47.020 Right. I actually saw a Pew Research article recently, a study that showed exactly what you're

00:29:52.280 talking about, that over the past just the past 10 years, if you look at the idea of systemic racism

00:29:58.920 and between Republicans and Democrats and which side agrees with the statement that discrimination is

00:30:05.160 the number one reason why black people can't get ahead in this country and America is systemically 1.00

00:30:10.100 racist today. Republicans over the past 10 years have barely changed on this. I think it's like 0.95

00:30:16.840 four to five percent who actually believe those things among the Republican Party.

00:30:20.820 Well, over just the past 10 years alone, Democrats have gone from the minority believing in those

00:30:26.140 things to the vast majority believing in those things. And I just can't understand what caused that

00:30:32.760 change. If you had any guesses, what caused that change just in the Democratic Party, not in the

00:30:37.600 Republican Party. I think it's it's slow growth. It's it's been this day by day, week by week

00:30:45.320 gravitation towards identity politics and celebration of one's identity, identitarianism

00:30:51.660 over everything else. And it's because it's not just a skin color thing. It's also gender.

00:30:57.280 You know, if you're a woman, it's all about any parts. If you're if you're black, it's all about the 1.00

00:31:00.680 color of your skin. If you're gay, it's all about your sexuality. If you're trans, it's all about 1.00

00:31:05.580 your gender. I mean, who wants to be known for the color of their skin? Right. It's like 0.98

00:31:13.440 Ben Carson used to talk about how, you know, he was the most successful pediatric neurosurgeon in

00:31:18.620 the world. He pulled himself up out of nothing. He had no money, no background, very little chance

00:31:24.020 at a good education, but he made it happen. And he didn't want to be known as the number one black 0.67

00:31:29.100 neurosurgeon in the country. He's just the number one pediatric neurosurgeon in the country. Same thing

00:31:34.240 for Serena Williams. Nobody says Serena Williams is the best black female playing. She is. I think

00:31:40.900 she's the goat, period. But at a minimum, she's the best woman because they do have a male and a 1.00

00:31:45.280 female lead. But no one no one talks about her color. So it's it's the it's the liberals. It's

00:31:50.700 sort of the far left, not even not all liberals, not all Democrats, but the far left that's tried to

00:31:55.380 inject this identity thing into everyone. And the problem with it is it's very closely tied to

00:32:00.820 victimhood, to an embrace of victimhood. And where's my where's my posse? Where's my team

00:32:05.660 that's also been victimized so we can get together and as a group try to make change.

00:32:10.800 But the change that they're affecting is always about some system that needs to be torn down.

00:32:16.320 And there is a strain of Marxism in there, which is what BLM says it stands for. And I don't know

00:32:21.000 that everybody understands that, but it's it's not about Americanism. It's not about capitalism.

00:32:26.540 I think the country was founded on very different beliefs about bootstraps. You can't say that now

00:32:31.500 it's racist about forging your own way forward, believing in the American dream. I'm not saying

00:32:37.040 it's easy for anybody, but I think the presumption now that it's a racist, awful country that would

00:32:42.660 never let it happen for people of color is belied by the facts. Yeah. Yeah. I just wish everyone

00:32:48.580 was required to read Thomas Sowell in school rather than these critical theorists like Robin DiAngelo.

00:32:54.860 Our country would be vastly different. I'm reading or I read discrimination and disparities,

00:33:00.660 and he points out that it's this logical fallacy that if you look at disparities between two groups

00:33:05.820 and you automatically assume racist discrimination, you're not actually looking at the factors that

00:33:11.220 go into that. And I think the entire argument of systemic racism and critical theory is based on

00:33:16.320 that fallacy that all disparities equal some sort of white supremacy and racism, ignoring the fact

00:33:22.220 that Asian Americans have a much higher success rate than white Americans and no one is talking

00:33:26.220 about Asian supremacy. So that's exactly right. If you look, it's funny because a lot of the 1.00

00:33:31.540 leading intellectuals on this are economists because they actually deal with facts and numbers and they

00:33:39.000 understand how to look at it factually. And the evidence isn't there. And they give the example of

00:33:45.020 mortgages, they say, but banks don't grant mortgages to black applicants as much as they do to whites.

00:33:52.020 And what people like Thomas Sowell have pointed out is they also don't grant mortgages to white people

00:33:58.060 as much as they do to Asians. So are they discriminating in favor of Asians or is it about

00:34:03.440 what's in your bank account, your history of credit and so on? And listen, we can talk about why people

00:34:09.040 wind up where they do. But just the mere fact that mortgages are easier to get if you're white

00:34:14.720 does not mean the banking system and the mortgage system is inherently racist.

00:34:19.580 Yep. Yep. OK. Can you give some encouragement to people who are afraid to wade into what is now

00:34:27.580 considered these controversial conversations like the one that we just had? But they want the courage

00:34:33.460 to not just seek truth, but also speak truth in these very crazy polarizing cancel culture times.

00:34:39.420 What would be your one piece of encouragement to them?

00:34:42.960 Um, look, I think Trump was elected in part because he was willing to fight these battles

00:34:50.240 and has. But he's not someone who has any credibility with the left. You could never point to him in your

00:34:58.420 office space and say, well, Trump says critical race theory is bad. That's not going to convince anybody.

00:35:02.980 I think if there were more of a groundswell on the other side with people who are perceived as

00:35:08.620 reasonable, just reasonable, it could help because I'll be out there saying all this stuff and so

00:35:14.820 will you. But civilians, people who are at home right now and don't have a public platform are

00:35:19.280 afraid to even like a tweet because they could get fired. And they're right. They could. So the more

00:35:24.000 people they have saying that this stuff isn't nuts, it's something we need to consider. Somebody like

00:35:30.320 Coleman Hughes is amazing because he's, he's a liberal, he's a Democrat or Thomas Chatterton

00:35:34.800 Williams. These are black men who are definitely on the left who are trying to say, hold on. And my 0.76

00:35:40.540 response has been, if, if black lives matter, if black voices matter, and we shouldn't be silencing

00:35:45.020 black voices, what about their voices? People like that need to get out there more, which is why I always 1.00

00:35:50.320 try to retweet these guys because I want my audience to see what they have to say. I'd love to give them a

00:35:56.180 voice. Um, so I think you can, you can fight the battles big and small, but I think fighting back

00:36:02.620 even gently, even to say, well, you know, this is what this person is saying about it. Maybe it's

00:36:07.800 something we can discuss. Um, and by the way, and also calling out the lack of credibility of the

00:36:12.520 people who are being held up in front of us as the reason we have to take these classes or we have to

00:36:17.720 apologize for being white. I mean, even X. Kendi the other night when Amy Coney Barrett was announced,

00:36:24.000 the first thing he did was tweet out something saying, I'm not talking about Amy Coney Barrett.

00:36:30.300 She's got two kids. She adopted from Haiti. She's got seven kids, but two of them adopted from Haiti.

00:36:34.480 I'm not talking about Amy Coney Barrett, but white people have a history of basically stealing black 1.00

00:36:40.660 babies, colonizing, uh, them and, you know, to the, to the great consternation of the black family. 1.00

00:36:47.000 And he goes on, it's, it was worse than I'm actually reiterating. I mean, this is not someone 0.68

00:36:53.300 anyone should be listening to, right? This is not somebody who should be telling you what's racist.

00:36:58.720 That was incredibly racist, right? That what he said was incredibly racist and a sacrifice of his

00:37:04.440 own credibility, or just go read Coleman Hughes's response to how to be an anti-racist to that book

00:37:09.400 by Kendi. It's amazing. So, but people are busy. They're leading their lives. But if you really care

00:37:14.240 about this stuff, study up because the fight is on. And if you think these values, which I think

00:37:20.260 almost all of them boil down to the first amendment, you know, the ability to be who you want and say

00:37:25.100 what you want and think how you want. This is America, uh, requires preparation. You have to read,

00:37:32.280 you have to get knowledgeable, get smart and be open-minded to the other, other side's arguments,

00:37:35.720 listen. And if there's something you need to learn, learn it and be open about it and be open

00:37:40.380 about your growth as you go down that lane. But you care about this. You can't sit back anymore.

00:37:45.640 Yep. You're absolutely right. Good point about credibility and hypocrisy. Ibram X. Kendi is someone

00:37:50.260 who is an anti-capitalist. He believes that that is a way that you have to be anti-racist. He makes

00:37:55.040 $20,000 per virtual session that he gives at universities for, you know, 45 minutes. And so that's

00:38:02.540 also a good thing to look at when you hear people like Bernie Sanders or Robin DiAngelo

00:38:07.220 or Ibram X. Kendi say, you know, anti-capitalism is the way to go for equality and they've got three

00:38:13.140 houses of their own. Maybe that's a good reason to take a step back and say, maybe they're not

00:38:17.660 supposed to be the moral authority in my life. And think about it in terms of your children.

00:38:22.760 Like if, if my schools that my kids are at started to say what Robin DiAngelo says,

00:38:28.980 if they started to say to my children, this is what she wants white people to do. 0.81

00:38:33.220 Every time you walk into a room with a black person, the first thing you should start with 1.00

00:38:37.940 is I'm sorry. Sorry for my racism. Sorry for my white supremacy, the white supremacy of America. 0.72

00:38:44.760 And then you should repeat that on the opposite end of the conversation. I would pull my kids so

00:38:49.320 fast. It would make your head spin because what are you doing? You're turning them into little bigots.

00:38:53.420 That's what you're doing. You're, you're telling them that race is everything and that the white 0.97

00:38:59.020 people are bad. You're the oppressors. And you're telling black people, black kids who have 1.00

00:39:03.400 no semblance in their head that they are somehow victims that they are right. You need, you need 0.99

00:39:10.220 people to go in there like a Thomas Sowell, like a Larry Elder to say, all of us can do whatever we

00:39:16.380 want to do. And here's how we do it. It's something uplifting. You don't want little kids, 0.86

00:39:21.140 black or white being taught that there's this huge difference based on skin color,

00:39:24.640 which they can't control. And somebody needs to be ashamed and somebody else needs to be

00:39:28.040 victimized. It's totally unhealthy. Well, guess what? It's unhealthy for adults too.

00:39:32.920 Yep. Yep. You are absolutely right. Well, thank you so much for all of that analysis. I personally

00:39:38.160 am really looking forward to your podcast. I have missed you being out there. I mean,

00:39:43.020 I've been following you still, but have missed you having a voice in this arena because I just think

00:39:47.560 it's so important. I hope you do interviews too, because you are probably the best interviewer in

00:39:52.440 the industry. So I highly encourage people to go, uh, uh, subscribe to your podcast. Can they do that

00:39:58.000 yet? Can they subscribe? Yeah. So if you just Google or, you know, search in the podcast app,

00:40:02.760 uh, Megan Kelly show, I'll pop up and then I guess I'm new to the podcast world, but I understand it's

00:40:08.460 subscribe, um, download. You have to do both of those things and give it a five-star rating. And then I

00:40:14.100 leave me a note in the reviews because I have been reading them and it's been super fun.

00:40:18.160 A lot of my audience has been with me for a long time and they'll reference old interviews or they

00:40:22.460 met me at some convention and it's super fun. It's a walk down memory lane in a way. And, uh,

00:40:27.240 so I'm loving it. And I hope, I hope folks come over. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Definitely go

00:40:31.560 subscribe everyone. And thank you, Megan, for taking the time to talk to me. Thanks for having me.

00:40:36.200 See you soon.

00:40:44.100 Bye.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - October 09, 2020

Ep 311 ｜ Seeking the Truth in a Post-Truth Era ｜ Guest： Megyn Kelly

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