Ep 167 ｜ The Levi's Exec Who Sacrificed EVERYTHING to Stand Up for Kids ｜ Jennifer Sey ｜ The Glenn Beck Podcast
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 17 minutes
Words per Minute
162.53334
Summary
As a child, Jennifer Say was an elite gymnast. She was considered a U.S. hopeful for an Olympic Gold Medal when she was just 19 years old. But beneath the surface, she was battered by injuries that still impact her today, both physical and emotional. She had to make a tough decision: keep suffering, keep hurting herself for the chance of Olympic gold, or quit, put herself back together, and hope for redemption.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
As a child, today's guest was an elite gymnast.
00:00:04.380
She was considered a U.S. hopeful for an Olympic gold medal when she was just 19 years old,
00:00:13.140
But beneath the surface, she was battered by injuries that still impact her today,
00:00:20.300
She had to make a tough decision, keep suffering,
00:00:23.560
keep hurting herself for the chance of Olympic gold,
00:00:26.060
or quit, put herself back together, and hope for redemption.
00:00:31.480
Well, she quit, and since exposed her abusive coaches and trainers
00:00:41.380
She would not let them control her life, which seems to be a trend with her.
00:00:47.320
After a 23-year career at Levi Strauss & Company,
00:00:51.140
she rose to the rank of brand president and had the chance to become the next CEO of Levi's.
00:00:58.120
But when Levi's went woke, she was faced with another decision,
00:01:02.860
fall in line and continue climbing the ladder, or quit and keep her voice.
00:01:10.720
She also gave up a million-dollar exit package,
00:01:13.780
which would have required her to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
00:01:17.340
But she still remembers that sensation from her gymnastic years of flying through the air
00:01:26.260
And she wasn't going to let anyone take that from her.
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Today's guest, on a personal note, also led me to a destructive seven-figure decision
00:01:46.480
Her latest memoir, Levi's Unbutton, The Woke Mob, Took My Job But Gave Me My Voice,
00:01:54.040
details the whole wild story in the chronicles of the secrets of woke capitalism.
00:02:00.700
Today's guest on the Glenn Beck Podcast, Jennifer Say.
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When the alarm clock goes off in the morning and you open your eyes,
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It used to be for me, how am I going to face another day of this, of pain?
00:02:14.580
I suffered every day from debilitating pain in my hands and it made everything I tried to do
00:02:23.680
But I'm happy to tell you I don't have that problem anymore.
00:02:26.040
Since I started taking Relief Factor, I got my life back.
00:02:29.720
And that's why I have agreed to talk to you about Relief Factor.
00:02:34.460
I can write, I can think, I can wake up in the morning without my first thought being about pain.
00:02:39.340
Relief Factor, it's not a drug developed by doctors to help fight inflammation in a way that won't knock you out.
00:02:48.880
It's only $19.95, it's a trial pack, and hundreds of thousands of people have ordered Relief Factor.
00:02:55.980
So go to relieffactor.com or call 800-4-RELIEF.
00:03:24.040
I've wanted to talk to you for a long time for a couple of reasons.
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I find you fascinating from the beginning of your life.
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And you also, one of, I believe, your decisions caused a domino to fall in my personal life.
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And it was a seven-figure decision that I made, I think, because of something that you did.
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However, if this was your decision, in my mind, you were a villain.
00:04:06.280
Let's start with your childhood, because I think if we don't understand your childhood, we don't really understand you.
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I started gymnastics at six years old, and by the time I was 10, I qualified for the elite level.
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That's the level to get on the national team and, you know, travel around the world.
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I was on the national team for eight years, national champion in 1986.
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It is a brutal sport, an incredibly cruel training environment, absolutely physically, emotionally abusive,
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and as I think now the world knows, rife with sexual abuse as well.
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And especially, and maybe not, I don't know, but talking about the physical and mental, back in the 80s, we were going up against the Soviet Union.
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So I don't know if it's changed at all, but we knew what they went through, not thinking that we did that to our own people.
00:05:11.300
Well, you know, in 2016, the story of Larry Nassar broke, and he was the USA team gymnastics doctor for 30 years, and he sexually abused hundreds, over 500 young athletes.
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So that sort of blew the door wide open on the story, and I had written a book about the abuse in the sport in 2008, and was just, I mean, that was my first sort of taste of being canceled.
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Kind of prepped me, I guess, for being canceled on a larger stage, if you will.
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So, you know, I think we like to present an image in the United States that we were different, and we did it because we loved it.
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The national team coach for the 80s, the Olympic coach in 1984, he was a sexual assaulter.
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Yeah, I mean, the one specific case that I know that he was actually banned from the sport for is one of my closest friends.
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And I wrote about it in the book, and everybody said, how dare you, you know, tarnish this man's reputation.
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They're all the same terms they always use, liar and grifter.
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And this was before me, too, so no one had to believe women.
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We were just, you know, I mean, I was considered, you know, a failed ex-gymnast, that it was bitter and trying to get back and make money.
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And to bring you back on track, it wasn't, you weren't a failed gymnast.
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You were at the height, and I assume your parents were there, obviously, from six, which is a huge commitment for a whole family.
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You're ready to go to the Olympics two years away from it.
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I actually quit just a month before the Olympic trials in 88.
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And I really was so broken at that point that I could not continue.
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Explain that, because you had several things going on.
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I had broken my femur at the World Championships in 1985.
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Yeah, I mean, having had four children, I will tell you, it's worse than childbirth.
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I came back from that nine months later to win the national championship.
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So, you know, I wasn't letting my injuries heal, and I just kept getting one injury on top of the next.
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And by 1988, I had been training on a broken ankle for two years.
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But more than that, my mind was, I was just unraveling.
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And I just lost the ability, frankly, to do the sport.
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The Germans, it was against the law for you to feed a Jew anything over, I think it was,
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600 calories a day just to keep them completely weak.
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But to maintain the weight that I was asked to maintain, that's what was required.
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And we were, you know, weighed twice a day and screamed at over the gym's loudspeaker.
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I mean, the humiliation and the bullying, it's pretty horrific.
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And so, yeah, I mean, I was on a starvation diet, but so were all the members of my team.
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We were told, lose weight by tomorrow, by any means possible.
00:09:09.980
You know, you're not going to do that in a healthy way if you're already 98 pounds and 18 years old.
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And I, you know, I'd like to say it was an empowering decision to walk away, but it wasn't.
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I mean, I left feeling ashamed and just like a complete failure.
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Everybody, you know, you mentioned the parents.
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My parents had given up so much, arguably too much, you know, and they were really upset with me.
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I mean, I didn't talk with my mother for over a year after I walked away.
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Everybody was disappointed and angry and felt they'd put so much into this career.
00:10:06.700
You told them about, you know, fat-shaming and not when it was happening.
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I mean, I think she knew, but it was so normalized.
00:10:22.160
Do you know how you can be in this, like, microcosmic world and suddenly these completely horrific behaviors become normal?
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And I even thought it was normal, but I was suffering.
00:10:39.240
And the problem is, and this is what abusers do, they, if you weren't bad, I wouldn't have to treat you this way.
00:10:45.560
If you weren't fat, I wouldn't have to treat you.
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And that's what was so hard to get over that took me two decades, really, was to not kind of internalize the shame and make it about me being a bad, weak person.
00:11:06.460
Tell me what you pursue, where do you go from here?
00:11:11.840
You know, I was 19 and I felt like I was going to a retirement home.
00:11:14.880
And I get there and all the kids are, you know, excited to be out on their own for the first time.
00:11:26.800
You know, I wouldn't have gotten into Stanford, but I wasn't a very curious or I had a lot of insecurity about my intellect.
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And I got, you know, I was pretty, I was rebellious, as one can be when they're young.
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And I sort of learned what I was interested in academically.
00:11:48.160
But I was still, I lacked confidence to actually pursue what I wanted to.
00:11:57.980
The, I don't think people realize the importance, if you're in a position of authority or people just look up to you,
00:12:18.160
People, I think all of us have this, this view of ourselves that we kind of hide that we're not worthy or we're not good enough or smart enough.
00:12:27.360
And when somebody, somebody says to you, or you have to eventually prove it to yourself, that you are smart enough, it's incredibly freeing, isn't it?
00:12:45.860
I always felt not smart enough and not good enough.
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I did, I had terrible imposter syndrome, as it's called.
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I was waiting for them to throw me out of school.
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And I probably had it well into my late 30s, you know.
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I know I had, I might, I might be one of them, but I could, because I had it real for a very long time.
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So how did you, somebody said to me, you know, you're, you're smart enough to figure this stuff out.
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And, and then couple that with being called everything under the sun and being a decent human being that doesn't just blow that off.
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Because once you've self-examined enough, which should never stop happening, but you really know who you are, then you don't care.
00:14:04.220
I was 32 when somebody said, you're smart enough.
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And I was, and, and I didn't care anymore because I had, like you, I had been attacked from every angle.
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And even your allies that you thought were allies attack you from behind.
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I don't think I had that person to say that to me.
00:14:39.240
Um, and in fact, as I was kind of coming up the ladder in corporate America, which, you know, we'll talk about, it was sort of the opposite, you know, it was.
00:14:48.540
Cause they, you're, you know, you're this, that, and the other, you're not this, you'll never be a leader.
00:14:54.660
Um, you know, you're a good number three and you can do the appointments and the, you know, the tactical stuff, but you have no vision.
00:15:02.400
And it took me until I was probably in my early forties to say, you're wrong.
00:15:12.780
And those are the people that changed the world.
00:15:15.060
It's, it's amazing to me how many people, I didn't understand, um, Frank Sinatra's New York, New York until I actually lived there.
00:15:25.380
And the way, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.
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What he means is there were thousands of people who will shiv you in the back for that opportunity.
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You have to come in and just, I don't care what anybody else says.
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And corporate and political and everything is geared to make you feel small, I think.
00:16:03.740
And I started in a hole, you know, with the training that I described.
00:16:07.460
And that's part of why I lay all of this out in my new book to say, if I can get there.
00:16:12.760
Having started in this deep hole and didn't even, you know, start to climb out of it really until my mid thirties, then you can do it too.
00:16:24.520
And it's not to say, I think you raise a really good point, that you don't listen to what other people have to say who are offering feedback in good faith.
00:16:31.900
But you get to decide what's true and what's true and what's not and what you need to work on.
00:16:37.240
And even if they say things about you that are not true, if you can figure out, if more than one is saying it, maybe there's something I'm doing that is causing people to feel that way.
00:16:57.660
Yeah, you have to kind of integrate it and kind of, am I presenting myself this way?
00:17:07.220
But it takes great, you have to really, you have to have a lot of self-knowledge to be able to do that.
00:17:14.640
Do you think you can do that without severe setbacks of some sort, without your childhood, without what just happened at Levi's?
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Can you get there if your life is pretty charmed and there's no real resistance?
00:17:41.360
I mean, I've certainly encountered lots of folks that are sort of the opposite that I think it's called Dunning-Kruger syndrome that like, you know, overestimate their abilities and their capability and certainly never listen to any feedback because they're so confident.
00:17:55.040
And that's a problem also in the opposite direction.
00:17:59.220
I don't know if that's a function of a charmed life, though, or just a sort of innate personality disorder.
00:18:05.940
Every minute in this country, babies are dying from abortion.
00:18:09.240
It is perhaps the worst stain on our country's conscience in her long history, bringing shame and tragedy into the world every single day.
00:18:18.220
But in the midst of darkness, there is always a light, and that light is pre-born.
00:18:23.920
Pre-born introduces mothers considering abortion to their unborn babies through ultrasound.
00:18:29.520
Once they hear that heartbeat and see the precious life with their own eyes, 80% of the time they choose life.
00:18:37.380
Pre-born, the pregnancy clinics are positioned in top abortion areas where most abortions, unfortunately, still take place.
00:18:47.860
They love and support the mothers and the children with maternity clothes, diapers, counseling, so much, so much more for up to two years.
00:18:57.200
Pre-born is completely dependent on you, the pro-life community, as they fight these giants.
00:19:05.360
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00:19:14.980
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00:19:17.440
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00:19:52.280
And you joined Levi's because you love the product.
00:20:01.320
I mean, almost everyone has a pair of Levi's in their closet.
00:20:19.160
They really didn't cross into the East Coast until like 84, 85.
00:20:25.480
And, you know, they were a big sponsor for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
00:20:29.800
And that was really when the distribution opened wide in the U.S.
00:20:51.560
I became chief marketing officer in 2013, in the fall of 2013.
00:20:56.300
And, you know, it's interesting because I had risen the ladder and I was a vice president.
00:21:04.420
But when the CEO that is the current sitting CEO started in 2011, his name is Charles Berg,
00:21:24.060
You know, he hadn't known me since I was an assistant.
00:21:29.040
You know, because if people have known you for 12, 13 years, they have all this data.
00:21:33.680
And they remember when you were 29 and maybe said something dumb.
00:21:37.080
The best thing kids can do at 18, I think, is move away from their hometown.
00:21:45.500
Not what everybody, I'm still, my sisters are still not impressed with their little stinky brother.
00:22:00.540
You know, he came in and he took me as I was in the moment.
00:22:08.360
And I sat in that chair for eight years, which is really long for a CMO.
00:22:12.480
Most, I think the average tenure is 18 months, 20 months.
00:22:16.620
So then you were not the person that made the decision.
00:22:20.180
You may have been on the team that affected me.
00:22:45.880
Best representation of what we think of as America.
00:22:56.900
The people would give their arm for a pair of 501s.
00:23:01.380
Did you know, we had pictures in the hallways at the plaza, as we called it, when the wall
00:23:07.240
came down, men atop the wall, all wearing Levi's 501s.
00:23:10.860
Not product placement, because some smart marketer would try to do that today, but because it was
00:23:48.380
And if you are going to take that stand, I don't love another pair of jeans.
00:23:58.380
I will make the jeans that Levi's used to make.
00:24:10.080
I was so angry at, how dare you take that position when there's lots of us that don't have that position.
00:24:26.500
I was the recipient as the commercial leader of that content and was like, what?
00:24:50.800
And this was like this desperate attempt to appeal to younger consumers by capitalizing on their perceived activism.
00:25:03.700
And to his credit, the CEO did not like it either.
00:25:11.320
And I think some stuff was already about to go.
00:25:14.600
And that was, you know, why he put me in the role.
00:25:18.180
He was like, we got to get back to marketing the jeans in a relevant way with a focus on the product.
00:25:34.320
But so I want to, because there's so many labels and none of them are ever defined.
00:25:42.920
And I'm convinced that so many people have so much more in common than they have.
00:25:48.180
You say you're a progressive and I, I define progressive clearly as the 19, early 1900s.
00:25:57.720
Most people don't even know the origin of progressives.
00:26:01.820
But I, instead of using labels, do you, do you believe in the Bill of Rights?
00:26:16.340
I would say, um, I formerly identified as a lefty left.
00:26:23.980
I would have said left of left of center, use progressive in that place.
00:26:27.520
You know, given the last few years of my life and what we've all experienced, um, you know,
00:26:36.980
And I wouldn't use any of the labels anymore because I still believe in the idea of progress and, you know, making life better for the most possible people, including as many people as possible in the American dream.
00:26:50.620
I believe in this project, I believe in free speech, which does not seem to be a progressive value right now.
00:26:56.840
So I would just shy away from using any of the labels.
00:27:04.500
I just want to conserve the Bill of Rights and the amendments.
00:27:15.320
And, and I think where we collectively, I mean, my belief sometimes fails, we don't include everybody in that Bill of Rights or in what it means to move forward and have opportunity.
00:27:33.620
Progressive is not itself a bad, I believe in progress.
00:27:36.780
If you just think of progress as the root of that word.
00:27:39.780
And I think while we've failed at times to include everybody in that dream, I think we continue to work hard to make that better and make progress.
00:27:54.800
I, I've changed in that I reject the left, right binary.
00:28:06.200
I don't, I just believe in everything you just articulated.
00:28:13.800
I think we lost the understanding of e pluribus unum from many one.
00:28:25.720
And they should be life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, you know, first amendment, second amendment, third amendment.
00:28:30.920
We can argue about some of these and where they go, but generally speaking, that was what brought us all together.
00:28:43.320
Everything out of free speech, we can argue about.
00:28:47.240
We'd argue all day long about those things and still love each other and still be one.
00:28:51.460
Yeah, I feel like what is most concerning to me is, I think this is sort of where you're going, what I've seen in the last three years, let's say, is a vast majority of people do not believe in individual rights.
00:29:07.820
And we're completely fine giving them up and demonizing anyone who said, hey, wait a minute.
00:29:13.440
What about the right to gather, the right to worship, all of it, you are a horrible person.
00:29:20.860
And there seems to be this lack of, you know, respect for our humanity and the individual, which is why we need individual rights.
00:29:30.480
It was like, I don't, I worry that younger generations are willing to give that up.
00:29:41.000
When I left Fox, one of the reasons I left Fox was Roger Ailes said to me, Glenn, we all love the Constitution, because I was pounding on the Bill of Rights to the right.
00:29:51.620
And he said, we all love the Constitution, but there are things we have to do.
00:29:57.380
No, no, that that's what leads you to internment camps.
00:30:04.800
If it's outside of that, you're going to have to find a legal way to do or just not do what you're planning on doing.
00:30:12.060
Anyway, so you were doing fine and trying to pull the company back out of its hole of the revolution.
00:30:29.060
Um, we put ourselves on a trajectory and I, you know, I'm proud.
00:30:40.860
We set, um, in the beginning, you know, 2013, I sort of look at that as the beginning of our kind of March.
00:30:46.920
We called it the 20 mile March, improve every year, bit by bit, top and bottom line.
00:31:00.960
I definitely, um, you know, was a huge part of that process in rebuilding the brand's image and connecting to more and more people around the world and driving sales.
00:31:14.220
We set a goal for ourselves to hit a billion in sales for women's in five years.
00:31:18.560
I mean, we were on fire and I was definitely kind of the public face of the brand as the chief marketing officer.
00:31:33.760
From day one, probably even before day one of shutdowns, as I sort of saw it coming, I was very outspoken, um, about how wrong it was to close the public schools.
00:31:47.880
Now, I was alarmed about all of it, lockdowns, all of it.
00:31:52.740
I knew somewhere in my brain, this was controversial.
00:31:59.100
And I thought I'll keep my advocacy to children because to your point, can't we all agree on our kids?
00:32:07.060
And if I can get people, I thought of myself as pretty logical and diplomatic.
00:32:11.420
You know, you learn that as a woman in corporate America.
00:32:14.260
I thought I can get people to see it through our children.
00:32:18.140
Um, so I had feelings about all of it, lockdowns and everything, but I focused on kids and restrictions to kids from, from March 13th, uh, 2020, which is when...
00:32:39.020
No, you know, and I was, you know, I, you know, what does that look like to be outspoken?
00:32:47.420
Um, but it sort of evolved and I was on local news shows by the fall of 2020.
00:32:55.380
Um, no one reached out to me at the company until September of 2020.
00:33:02.260
So I had a six month run where I was like, maybe no one noticed.
00:33:08.800
Um, I should mention my husband was also very outspoken and that'll be part of the story in a bit.
00:33:13.540
And he was, you know, he is a more aggressive communicator than I am.
00:33:28.440
Um, although I did get a lot of criticism for the things he said.
00:33:32.260
I said, he doesn't work here, but you know, um, so yeah, I was very outspoken from the very
00:33:37.400
And then, um, you know, I got that first call from the head of corporate communications.
00:33:41.560
You know, she sees her job and it is her job to protect the company's reputation.
00:33:50.060
So I get a phone call, which no one called anyone, you know, they just sent emails and
00:33:58.000
And she said, people are noticing your Twitter.
00:34:04.180
Um, when you speak, you speak on behalf of the company.
00:34:07.740
I said, I don't, I don't have Levi's in my bio.
00:34:12.380
I'm a mom, four kids, public school children in San Francisco.
00:34:17.220
She said, you never went on TV as anything Levi's dress.
00:34:21.840
And at this point, I don't even think I'd been on, but I always ask them explicitly, do
00:34:26.200
not identify me as, and usually they said, oh, we didn't even know you were because I
00:34:31.000
wasn't out there waving my arms around as the head of Levi.
00:34:39.020
She went on for a bit and I said, are you telling me I need to stop?
00:34:47.180
And I don't know if she meant because, you know, we were peers and she wasn't my boss or
00:34:50.840
because I actually have a right to say or a little bit of both.
00:34:55.480
And I said, okay, then I'm not going to, you know, this is a continuation of the advocacy
00:35:02.580
I've done for children in sports because I became very outspoken about that after my
00:35:08.560
And I wish as a child, someone had stood up for me and these kids aren't going to do it.
00:35:13.460
And it sort of petered out because neither of us wanted to really keep talking.
00:35:18.900
And then this is the part that just lit me on fire.
00:35:22.960
Um, around that same time, all the private schools in San Francisco opened.
00:35:27.820
So she and all of my other peers were sending their kids back to school.
00:35:36.880
And the nerve of waving your arms around and talking about equality, because this is after
00:35:43.020
the summer of 2020 and the murder of Joy Floyd and everybody's posting black squares
00:35:47.180
and all you remember, um, we're going to do our part in defeating racism.
00:35:51.800
And they're saying to me, you can't advocate for what we have.
00:35:59.320
We are wealthy white folks in San Francisco, sending our kids to $60,000 a year, private
00:36:12.700
Like you cannot advocate for the 50,000 children in San Francisco public schools, 60% of whom
00:36:29.420
And it's the same thing with, um, don't go out.
00:36:35.420
You can't be any crowds, but go ahead and protest.
00:36:44.160
Cause my husband had, um, led a few rallies and participated in a few anti-lockdown rallies
00:37:00.120
So from that first call in September, it went on that way for another year and a half that
00:37:11.080
They had the unfortunate job of calling me and having me be rather intransigent and just
00:37:18.820
Um, head of HR, a board member, my boss avoided the call.
00:37:25.180
He doesn't necessarily like having those, but eventually he did.
00:37:27.800
I mean, he called me a Trumper and an executive team meeting.
00:37:32.480
I mean, I don't know what that has to do with anything.
00:37:42.620
I had been a registered Democrat my entire life.
00:37:45.760
If anything, they criticized my views as to, you know, Warren, the anti-business, you
00:37:50.760
know, um, but I was never told I couldn't say things.
00:37:54.600
I was never told not to post about any of, you know, my political leanings until, um,
00:38:10.620
The head of legal, you know, said, you might want to think about it when you speak on behalf,
00:38:14.880
when you speak, you speak on behalf of the company.
00:38:16.720
And he said an interesting thing, the head of legal, when he called me, he said, okay,
00:38:21.640
I understand, but make sure you get to him first.
00:38:29.000
Um, and I realized, cause at this point I was on some local news shows.
00:38:33.100
He meant I needed to tell Chip, my boss, if I was going to say something publicly, because
00:38:39.380
this woman in corporate communications was running to him and basically updating him on
00:38:46.600
a weekly basis on my, he wasn't on social media.
00:38:51.500
Um, and of course it was very slanted, you know, the way she was doing that, but it went
00:38:57.080
I chose to move my family to Denver in February of 21 so that my youngest children could be in
00:39:03.020
Um, and at that point, you know, I posted about that on social media and I got a call
00:39:28.320
Um, I didn't need to, I knew I didn't watch any news at this point.
00:39:32.140
And I was like obsessed with reading COVID data.
00:39:35.500
Um, I called my little group of open schools, moms, you know, across the country.
00:39:41.000
Cause at this point we were all kind of in it together.
00:39:43.280
Most of them came from the same political leanings I did.
00:39:50.020
We'd been trying to get ourselves in the mainstream.
00:39:57.180
We were just billed as these like racist, horrible people who, QAnon.
00:40:16.220
So, you know, I'm a trained media professional.
00:40:19.900
They said, well, you're going to get dragged for it, but do it.
00:40:22.980
You know, represent the open schools moms and go on the show.
00:40:30.840
And that's when things started to get really bad for me at work.
00:40:35.080
I mean, they were pretty bad before, but they got really bad then.
00:40:41.500
Have you been told to just go home and get used to your progressives?
00:40:46.140
I use Rodenstock glasses from Better Spectacles Now.
00:40:52.000
Better Spectacles, a conservative American company, is now exclusively offering Rodenstock
00:41:00.600
And Rodenstock is this 144-year-old German company that's been considered the world's
00:41:08.620
Rodenstock scientists use biometric research to measure the eye in over 7,000 points.
00:41:15.380
And they've taken the findings from over a million patients and combined them with artificial
00:41:22.400
And the result is this, the biometric intelligent glasses or big glasses, which gives you a
00:41:28.380
seamless natural experience that works perfectly with your brain, improves your vision and
00:41:33.560
sharpness at all distances, including up to 40 percent better at near and intermediate
00:41:39.160
distance, as well as providing you with better night vision.
00:41:42.560
98 percent of the people who have these glasses recommend them.
00:41:50.920
You don't even have to leave the comfort of your home.
00:41:52.800
Offering an introductory 61 percent off their progressive eyewear plus free handcrafted Rodenstock
00:42:18.800
They wrote to you, Jen, who is it that's writing to you?
00:42:21.980
Well, I'm not going to tell you a name because I'm not going to be mean.
00:42:24.640
But it was somebody in corporate communications and between HR and corporate communications,
00:42:31.300
they were suggesting I needed to do an apology tour.
00:42:34.000
So this was meant to kindly prepare me for said apology tour.
00:42:39.400
The thing about this and my sense is that there are people who just don't like what you're
00:42:49.160
It's in conflict with a good, bad world we're living in.
00:42:55.600
That we shouldn't be living in a good, bad world?
00:43:00.920
Was going on Fox and that show in particular an endorsement of what they stand for?
00:43:25.800
I don't think you actually need to address each of those, but I'm guessing the following
00:43:30.660
is pretty close to a list in an apology tour, right?
00:43:43.120
Do you endorse, do you endorse the views of Fox News and Laura Ingram?
00:43:56.820
You're being held, you're being held to an impossible, if I went on MSNBC, do you endorse
00:44:08.560
Well, and I would go on those now, and I don't endorse anything they did for the last
00:44:12.560
three years, but I'm fine to have a conversation.
00:44:21.500
I had been outspoken about masking of very young children, toddlers.
00:44:30.960
But we had a policy, and I didn't talk about it.
00:44:46.720
Yeah, because you're conspiring against me, so I think it's not a theory, clearly.
00:44:51.260
Yeah, there's a difference between conspiracy theory and conspiracy fact.
00:44:59.560
Is advocating for school reopenings perpetrating systematic racism, mostly white moms?
00:45:09.980
Is there a conflict of interest between your role as Levi's brand president and what you're
00:45:16.080
That's the only one that I would push you on their behalf.
00:45:23.680
If you are the, you're the, are you the spokesperson?
00:45:28.940
So I got, amidst all of this controversy internally, in October of 2020, I got promoted to brand
00:45:35.740
And that's probably next in line for CEO if you do a good job.
00:45:47.260
Can I just tell you, I still get, like, I had a book come out two weeks ago.
00:45:51.560
I still get people writing to me now and say, I didn't even know you work for Levi's until
00:46:02.500
I was just this mom saying we need to open the schools.
00:46:08.040
So as a business person, if the president of my company is saying things that are against
00:46:14.800
me, and I'd just like to hear your response, do I have any rights because you're causing
00:46:21.480
disruption with everybody who works here and my, you know, my clientele?
00:46:40.200
So all the fears and, you know, all the arm waving and hysteria around, you're going to
00:46:48.360
destroy our business and our reputation was false.
00:46:54.620
You know, our business had been down 70% in the spring and summer of 2020.
00:46:58.960
But we were emerging strong because of the strength of the brand, which is what I led.
00:47:03.240
So I think that's the first and most important point is it was not impacting the business.
00:47:08.340
The second is, if you're going to have a rule that your leaders can't do this, then you
00:47:16.100
Some sort, you better have some sort of policy in place because you had no issue with me being
00:47:20.700
very outspoken on other issues and politics when they aligned.
00:47:24.420
And so now, and I promise you, if I was up screaming about keep all the schools closed
00:47:32.680
or you're going to kill all the teachers, it would have been fine.
00:47:41.120
And then I will end by saying, I guess they have that right.
00:47:47.420
I said, I decided for myself, this was more important.
00:48:00.060
But it also, if you were the, if you were the uniform of the revolution, I would understand
00:48:06.100
But if you were trying to dig yourself out of that hole, it would have made people like
00:48:15.080
What I believed about Levi's, you hadn't made that impact on me.
00:48:19.420
And if they would have said, Hey, we really disagree with her, but we believe in the right
00:48:28.540
I think it could have all been handled so easily.
00:48:31.220
And, you know, you mentioned if you've lost, lost the trust of employees and certainly that
00:48:36.160
as a leader in a company, you know, you have to be aware of that.
00:48:39.280
But it was a tiny, tiny percentage of very vocal employees.
00:48:56.720
So, you know, after I appeared on Ingram's show, the noise, I'll call it noise, got kind
00:49:04.300
But again, I think it's a small minority of people and they're complaining and they're
00:49:08.980
And so a friend came to me who was on my team and said, we might want to do this.
00:49:19.040
And then HR got involved in corporate communications.
00:49:21.560
And I was like, you know, my husband said you should refuse.
00:49:26.400
I won't bend a knee, but I will explain myself.
00:49:29.360
I still had this sort of naive faith in my ability to explain myself and build a bridge.
00:49:36.360
You had a naive, not in your ability, in the ability of others being honest.
00:49:50.400
I explained, you know, my background and history and, you know, my advocacy for children in sport
00:50:01.240
The fact that two of my children are mixed race, which shouldn't matter.
00:50:25.560
And so I did it and there were three questions only.
00:50:32.220
One was about, you know, the racism of school advocacy as a white mother.
00:50:37.700
Although our group of moms in the Bay Area was always diverse.
00:50:41.720
So that was a lie perpetrated by the press saying it was just this movement of rich white yoga moms.
00:50:49.520
One was about my husband and his voice, which, you know, the short answer is he doesn't work here.
00:51:01.640
I support his right to speech and yours and yours and he can say what he wants.
00:51:07.100
He has no constraints, nor should I, honestly, as an employee of this company.
00:51:21.380
And then the third was a comment that was just, thank you.
00:51:25.300
And I got a couple of emails the next day, people saying, I really get it now.
00:51:31.300
So I thought it was like a moment that we kind of, I was like, let's get on with the work.
00:51:40.300
You know, we would have these town halls at work and people would submit, they were all
00:51:43.960
virtual questions about my racism and my conspiracy theorizing.
00:51:49.620
I was called anti-trans, which I don't even understand where that came from.
00:52:01.840
Although, you know, then in the summer, he and I had dinner, my boss and I had dinner.
00:52:12.240
It might have been bait to get me to stop, which I didn't do.
00:52:18.240
He said it was standard operating procedure, which I believe to be true, but did one on
00:52:21.740
my husband as well, which included social media.
00:52:26.080
And by January, you know, reported back to me and said, you're going to have to leave.
00:52:35.000
It was solely on my advocacy, my social media presence.
00:52:57.880
I was going to say more than that, but I don't.
00:53:02.740
You know, it would make a big difference in my life, certainly.
00:53:05.720
I certainly would be less nervous about the future.
00:53:13.700
But everything I'd been fighting for for two years, beyond the children, was free expression,
00:53:29.280
I just wouldn't have been able to look myself in the mirror.
00:53:38.120
And then, the next day, publicly published a piece on Barry Weiss's Common Sense of Sec.
00:53:53.640
I just, you know, I followed her story closely.
00:54:02.760
You know, she famously wrote, Twitter's not on the masthead of the New York Times, but I might get the quote a little wrong.
00:54:09.680
But they're certainly kind of driving the policy and content.
00:54:16.900
You know, it was this Twitter mob demanding my ousting and hashtag boycott Levi's and all of this.
00:54:31.740
There are a few people that are stepping away from, I don't know.
00:54:47.320
I mean, I think it's funny that she's always billed as this, like, right...
00:54:58.660
And she's been amazing and supportive and wanted to tell the story.
00:55:03.480
And I just felt like we were of like minds, you know.
00:55:14.780
What it is and the lie that you now think it is.
00:55:23.100
In many ways, it's illustrated by that campaign that you hated.
00:55:32.920
I think the first is it is corporate America's attempt to profit off of Gen Z activism.
00:55:43.920
I know that's a cynical take, but it's factually correct.
00:55:51.300
To either create a need in you or to exploit a need you already have.
00:55:58.440
So, you know, they're not even exploiting a need.
00:56:13.640
You know, for many, many years, it was assumed that corporate leaders were Republicans.
00:56:22.700
And now, really, a lot of corporate leaders in some of the biggest industries are Democrats.
00:56:35.920
And, you know, even Goldman Sachs is waving their arms around being woke.
00:56:45.140
I say, I used to hate things like Blade Runner, where, you know, the bad guys worked for the corporation, which was the government.
00:57:10.660
Now, we're like, wait a minute, you, the bad guys, and they don't recognize it, or they...
00:57:21.620
And so, there's this real desire for these leaders to distance themselves from the, you
00:57:27.080
know, robber barons of the past, from the greed is good of the past, and to say, no, I'm
00:57:36.520
I would have been in philanthropy, or I'm an altruist.
00:57:41.180
I just happen to make billions of dollars, which never happens on accident, let's be
00:57:45.920
They're just as greedy as the ones that came before them.
00:57:50.200
And they have their children who they've sent to these very woke elementary schools and high
00:57:55.380
schools and colleges, and they want to impress them.
00:57:57.220
There's this new dynamic between parents and children.
00:58:06.760
Although, I do think, I believe in my heart of hearts, they do believe it about themselves.
00:58:12.080
I think they come to believe it about themselves.
00:58:15.580
You have to, or you recognize, or you're recognizing that you are the evil you say you're trying
00:58:26.080
That is too big, I think, for you have to convince yourself you're on...
00:58:30.200
And that's why it is quite convincing, because they really believe it.
00:58:34.240
But at the end of the day, there is a real disconnect and dissonance, because what does
00:58:45.760
During COVID, Levi's, we laid off 15% of our workforce, perhaps required, right?
00:58:56.340
Same time period, the CEO cashes in $43 million of stock.
00:59:02.820
Tell me it wasn't just about the money, because those layoffs bolstered the stock price.
00:59:08.380
The socially just thing would have been to find a way to keep people employed, possibly
00:59:13.640
demand that the world open up so that we could keep people employed.
00:59:18.500
So that's why I say I think they believe it, because deep down they also know they're going
00:59:25.720
for the money, and they don't want it to be exposed.
00:59:31.520
The thing that I think we're missing here on this conversation is the fact that they've
00:59:39.500
I don't know who has added, but there's another level to this delusion, and that is some people
00:59:50.560
So if they're part of the decisions, and we're all going woke, we're better than these people.
00:59:57.400
So making money, yes, but we're making things so much better in the long run.
01:00:11.640
I believe that somewhere in their brains, they still kind of maybe know.
01:00:18.860
When I wrote a formal proposal in October of 2020 saying, let's take a stand on this.
01:00:24.960
We've done taking stands on all sorts of things, as I'm sure you know.
01:00:27.960
Let's write an op-ed from Levi's in the local paper.
01:00:46.720
It'll make executives look bad because our kids go...
01:00:50.120
So it's like, it will reveal that we are really elitist.
01:00:54.280
I'm like, first of all, who doesn't think you are?
01:00:57.500
I'm the weirdo sending my kids to public school.
01:01:03.260
And why is it bad to say, my kids go to private.
01:01:07.420
I want the same thing for every child in San Francisco.
01:01:14.060
It's like being in the Carnegie organization and being against when he decided to build libraries
01:01:26.460
Everybody knows you are so wealthy you can do this.
01:01:32.220
But it revealed the lie, which is ultimately it's all about reputation laundering.
01:01:41.360
It's laundering of reputation so that, hey, don't look over here.
01:01:47.640
And it works so well that even when they lay off 15% of the workforce, they say they're
01:01:53.040
doing it with empathy and everybody's like, oh, thank you.
01:02:01.420
I think one of the reasons why they attack so viciously and relentlessly is because they
01:02:16.000
So, if there's someone that threatens to reveal the lie...
01:02:28.460
You know, like, let's do this and we get our big bonuses and we've got to lay these people
01:02:34.040
off so that we can get our bonuses so that the stock, you know, continues to go up.
01:02:40.080
And I think that my quitting and not accepting the money was so astonishing because no one gives
01:02:51.820
When I walked out, the last thing Roger Ailes said to me when I walked out, they were offering,
01:03:15.200
And I said, hmm, I would have thought you would have understood because one guy who did leave
01:03:25.860
And that was the first moment I saw the fear in his eyes of, this guy's leaving.
01:03:38.900
And they can't even fathom or imagine that somebody else would do different.
01:03:43.300
And that makes them hate you even more, I think.
01:03:47.240
I keep thinking about what they're saying to themselves now.
01:03:57.620
She didn't care most about the money, first and foremost.
01:04:00.760
We say we care about the other stuff, but let's be honest, guys.
01:04:04.120
We all know what we really care about is the money.
01:04:18.600
I mean, the smartest things that the Uber Uber left, those who hate everything America
01:04:26.920
stands for, the smartest thing they did was get into the boardroom.
01:04:32.420
You know, they got in and they infiltrated everything.
01:04:36.060
Once they got into the boardroom, everything changed because even I buy Apple products and
01:04:46.800
What they're doing in China and the Uyghurs, it's inexcusable.
01:04:51.000
What they just did with turning off the air, what do you call it, you know, where you download
01:05:13.560
It's also proof that, you know, consumers don't really care, right?
01:05:18.220
Like, Levi's is thinking they're taking all these stances because that's going to, you
01:05:22.020
know, that's aligned with these young people's values.
01:05:38.720
You know, they burn their Nikes and then they go back to buying Nikes the next week.
01:05:45.740
One of the biggest things I think conservatives wrestle with is, do you still have Disney Plus?
01:05:54.180
I mean, if you are really, morally, this is wrong, but what else do I do?
01:06:06.560
I just want the old stuff, but it's still feeding the same beast.
01:06:14.600
I think they hold out as many times as they possibly can and then still take their kids
01:06:22.660
I mean, there's, there's like, I don't give up my Apple product because it would dramatically
01:06:33.420
At my age, with my kids' age, Disney doesn't change my life.
01:07:03.620
And, you know, the issue now, and we've seen it writ large during COVID, is corporations,
01:07:13.040
either directly or indirectly, are furthering, are colluding with government to further their
01:07:22.400
And, you know, we've seen now with Twitter that it's direct, with the Twitter files being
01:07:27.380
published, although we kind of knew before, there's literally direct communication from
01:07:31.700
government operatives to Twitter saying, take these people down.
01:07:37.420
My own husband has been banned from Twitter for saying the following.
01:07:41.040
The vaccines have known side effects, myocarditis, blood clots, and strokes.
01:07:53.420
He then offered an opinion, which said, that is not my idea of, quote unquote, safe, banished.
01:08:02.720
Whether or not he has a lawsuit that's active with two other men who were kicked off for similar
01:08:14.900
So you have direct communication, but I would argue that the alignment is so tight that there
01:08:24.420
Now, with Levi's in particular, there are family connections to Gavin Newsom.
01:08:38.080
But I don't even think there has to be a direct communication.
01:08:42.140
There's just, they're like this, they're in lockstep.
01:08:46.900
I said at one point, got a lot of heat at one point that there would be a caliphate and
01:08:56.120
you would see communist Marxists, capitalists, and Islamists all working together to forward
01:09:07.340
And they all said, oh, conspiracy theory, blah, blah, blah.
01:09:16.040
Working together doesn't mean they call each other.
01:09:25.760
And I would add to that the press is also in lockstep.
01:09:29.560
And I think, you know, what we're watching now with Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX is really
01:09:40.280
And even today, when we see the fraud and what appears to be obvious criminality, he's on
01:09:49.720
stage at the New York Times Deal Book Summit last week with Andrew Ross-Surkin.
01:09:53.460
People are saying, oh, he asked tough questions.
01:09:56.720
The guy got like a standing ovation or at least like a round of applause for his aw shucks.
01:10:05.480
And, you know, the press's glowing articles about him for the last two years is why he
01:10:14.900
He says, we take these stances so people like us.
01:10:24.860
To a Vox reporter who, by the way, he thought was in on the pact.
01:10:31.520
Now, obviously, she doesn't have the kind of money he had, but he still thought of her
01:10:43.620
The last question is we're way over time already.
01:10:51.480
If I'm listening to this and I'm like, okay, I know, I know, I know, I know.
01:11:06.640
I really am at a little bit of a loss, but I just will not stop talking about it.
01:11:14.120
I mean, I think most people are followers, I think we've learned, and will do whatever
01:11:23.780
They would rather stand with the group than stand apart and alone and do the right thing.
01:11:34.300
And if you have a few outspoken, brave people who are willing to keep saying it and make
01:11:39.680
it make sense, and despite the opprobrium and name-calling, keep going, it happens slowly
01:11:49.020
Now, they don't, if they come over and say, yeah, this is wrong, the 65% of Americans who
01:11:54.060
are quiet right now or confused, they don't really, they'll believe the next thing, too.
01:12:04.260
It was, I was vile and hated, and suddenly, 10 years later, they pretended they always
01:12:13.940
I also think that companies, look, I'm the first real insider that's come forward, but
01:12:26.640
There are, I have no doubt there are conversations happening.
01:12:32.300
How do we avoid this PR nightmare in the future?
01:12:36.320
Now, they might decide that the way they avoid it is make everybody sign something that says
01:12:49.640
I think what, I think your solution of, you know, courage is courageous, contagious, and
01:12:58.540
for the 65%, you know, there's always 19 to 20%.
01:13:05.040
I think the far, far I hate everything about America is less than 20%, and it's not going
01:13:13.720
I think it's less than, I think it's less than 10 on either side.
01:13:23.580
And if, if those who wake up, who truly value the Bill of Rights, and because I don't, at
01:13:34.760
this point, that's all I want to preserve for my kids.
01:13:43.300
If those who believe that, even if we disagree on absolutely everything else, would come
01:14:01.660
You wouldn't be on the show if I didn't know you believed in the Bill of Rights.
01:14:09.120
And we have to come together with people that make us a little afraid of, I don't want to
01:14:20.840
No, I'm not afraid of, look, I have met every sort of conservative in the last few months
01:14:32.820
And that is, I've found, to have amazing conversations.
01:14:38.060
And I have easily found the commonality with no struggle whatsoever.
01:14:45.020
I've had the same thing with people who, you know, were, I thought, Marxist professors.
01:14:55.300
I mean, I guess I feel like, you know what, you may be fine with this, you know, for me,
01:15:08.940
I guess if enough people get canceled, then we can all live on canceled island and we
01:15:34.100
It just seems like the group will keep growing and growing and growing and you can't cancel
01:15:39.300
everybody and that we on canceled island find the commonality because we're forced to
01:15:46.420
and we just become a bigger and bigger force over time.
01:15:50.200
I mean, look, even in China, they're protesting now.
01:16:03.020
I wrote it in like two months in a fever dream.
01:16:07.980
But I recommend doing it that way instead of dragging it out for five years.
01:16:14.500
I'm making a documentary film about the impact to kids from the prolonged school closures.
01:16:28.080
You know what I will say is I do think that some folks are trying really hard to kind of
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distance themselves from having either been silent or advocated for closures.
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So we may find some brave streamer who wants to distance themselves and put the film on.
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And then, I mean, I'm going to figure out what to do.
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