The Megyn Kelly Show - 2021 Year in Review： The Best of The Megyn Kelly Show

00:00:00.500 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.860 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today is our year in review show where we look back at 2021 and some of the biggest stories in the news through some of my favorite episodes of The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:24.640 And what's fun is this will be our all-new show for our SiriusXM listening audience. Today, we are pulling from our archives on the podcast from shows between January and September before we launched on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111.

00:00:42.820 I want to start with the biggest story in the world for a second year in a row, and we hope the final year in a row, COVID.

00:00:51.480 As recently as earlier this year, you could not put out a social media post or a YouTube video claiming COVID originated in a Wuhan lab.

00:00:59.740 You couldn't even question whether it did. Never mind claim that it did.

00:01:04.260 But slowly, that started to change, and in no small part thanks to Josh Rogan of The Washington Post.

00:01:10.860 Mainstream media is not all bad. They've got some great players here and there, like Josh.

00:01:14.840 Josh joined me in April in what became a viral interview because he spoke clearly and honestly about the origins of COVID.

00:01:22.620 I mean, he was truly one of the first to actually say this stuff out loud.

00:01:26.620 But also, as he says, how the story got all screwed up.

00:01:30.820 Knowing how it started is important, and I think there are still, there's sort of three categories of people.

00:01:37.560 One that believes it came from an animal in a wet market over in China where they serve, you can walk through and see live animals, people like to eat.

00:01:46.620 Number two is from a lab in Wuhan, China, where people were creating intentionally some sort of virus, the coronavirus, COVID-19, to hurt people, potentially as a military weapon.

00:02:00.800 And number three, it was in a Wuhan lab being studied and accidentally got released, right?

00:02:08.680 Do I basically have the three possible sources outlined?

00:02:11.960 And your belief after all your reporting is what?

00:02:15.060 So basically, what I lay out in the book is that there's plenty of evidence to support the still unproven theory that COVID-19 originated from an accidental leak from one of the labs in Wuhan that was doing what we call gain-of-function research.

00:02:32.240 That's where they collect all the bat coronaviruses they can find, take them 1,000 miles from where the bats live to Wuhan, which is 1,000 miles away from the bats, by the way.

00:02:40.640 And then they experiment on them to make them more virulent, make them more dangerous.

00:02:44.560 Why do they do that?

00:02:45.440 Well, they're trying to predict the next pandemic, right?

00:02:48.720 And this is a program supported by $200 million of U.S. taxpayer-funded research, okay?

00:02:55.020 And what it was was hundreds of scientists, American scientists and Chinese scientists, going around, scooping up all the most dangerous viruses that you could find and bringing them to this very lab that happened to be 10 miles before the outbreak broke out and playing around with them in ways that we understand are risky and dangerous and have very little to no oversight, okay?

00:03:15.560 And if you came to this story, if you were an alien and you dropped down on Earth, not knowing how this issue of the origin had become hyper-politicized for a couple of important reasons I'm about to get to, and you just looked at that set of facts, okay?

00:03:30.600 You've got bats 1,000 miles away, you've got the number one bat coronavirus research lab, which was doing research on how to make these viruses more infectious on humans, and that's where the outbreak broke out.

00:03:42.060 Well, Occam's razor would tell you that we should probably check out that lab, okay?

00:03:45.560 That's right, it seems so obvious to hear you say it like that, like, oh my God, wait a minute, this is the number one lab in the world researching bat coronaviruses, and that's where the outbreak was?

00:03:56.400 And it gets worse, because two years before the outbreak, U.S. diplomats traveled to that very lab and took a look at it, three trips, and said they didn't have enough safety procedures, they didn't have enough staff, and they warned about the very studies that they were doing, because they were publishing some but not all of their studies,

00:04:12.740 about making these viruses more susceptible to infect humans in a very specific way, that is, an S-protein with an ACE2 inceptor.

00:04:21.180 What they would do is they would take these mice, and they would give them, like, human-like lungs, and then they'd run the virus through them a few hundred times and see what happens, okay?

00:04:28.520 Now, the virus that caused the pandemic infects the ACE2 inceptor with the S-protein.

00:04:35.240 It's the exact same thing that the diplomats warned about in these cables that I wrote.

00:04:39.960 But, okay, so now I'm going to tell you how the story got all screwed up.

00:04:42.740 And this is also in the book.

00:04:44.640 Basically, what happened is that, you know, when the virus broke out, it became a battle in the media between, on the one hand, Trump and Pompeo, who, you know, as you know, most of the media didn't like and wanted to discredit, or, you know, there were some reasons that they had lost credibility, to be honest.

00:05:02.320 And then you had these scientists, and these scientists were the friends of the Wuhan lab, and they were led by this guy named Peter Daszak, who works at the EcoHealth Alliance.

00:05:10.660 But basically, there's a whole group of them whose life work was invested in this.

00:05:14.840 This is what they had spent their last 20 years doing.

00:05:17.360 They had raised $200 million doing it.

00:05:19.240 If the lab were found to be guilty, their careers and legacies would be ruined forever.

00:05:24.240 And they know this.

00:05:24.960 So they immediately tell everybody, there's no way it could be from the lab.

00:05:28.300 And we know this because we know everything that happened in the lab, which, by the way, is not true.

00:05:32.300 And we talked to the lab people, our best friend, the Batwoman, Dr. Shenzhen Li, and she said we didn't do it.

00:05:37.820 Case closed.

00:05:38.620 It must be the market, okay?

00:05:39.900 And because of the, if you just remember, we were all going through this crazy time in April, May 2020.

00:05:46.580 It was very disruptive and very dystopian, I remember it.

00:05:50.340 And it was hard to know really what was going on.

00:05:52.680 And there was a campaign going on.

00:05:54.420 People were getting sick.

00:05:55.360 Everyone said, don't worry about the origins.

00:05:57.200 By the way, the reason we need to know about the origins is not because we're trying to blame China, because you can blame them for a number of things.

00:06:04.560 Either way, that's what people don't get.

00:06:05.900 It's like there's plenty of blame on China without the origin thing even being involved.

00:06:10.340 We need to know because we need to know how to prevent the next pandemic, because if we don't know how it started, then we can't prevent the next one, which is pretty important.

00:06:17.100 So listen to this.

00:06:18.780 So these scientists, again, Peter Daszak, EcoHealth Alliance, they go everywhere, 60 minutes, you name it.

00:06:26.100 There's no way the lab could be involved, okay?

00:06:28.140 And then Trump and Papaya were like, well, we're pretty sure it was the lab, which may have been going beyond the evidence.

00:06:33.820 But, you know, that's kind of their style, right?

00:06:36.040 So the media, most of us, most of the media were like, oh, yeah, I'm going to believe the scientists over Trump and Pompeo.

00:06:41.720 And they wrote that that way and they called Tom Cotton a conspiracy theorist.

00:06:45.620 And then, you know, that was it.

00:06:47.340 And now we're here a year later and there's a ton more information and there's a ton more we know about it.

00:06:51.880 And, you know, there's a lot more evidence now pointing to the lab.

00:06:54.680 I'm not saying we know the lab did it.

00:06:56.240 We don't know.

00:06:56.760 I'm just saying we should investigate it.

00:06:59.020 And all of a sudden, these journalists can't they can't think again.

00:07:02.720 They can't, you know, resist the they have they must resist the idea that they might have been wrong a year ago, you know, which I say if I'm wrong and then tell me I'm wrong and I'll change my mind.

00:07:13.600 If I get new information, I think new things.

00:07:15.920 That's just how I think the honest journalism should work.

00:07:18.540 But for a lot of people, it's just like, no, Pompeo is not credible.

00:07:23.960 The scientists said this.

00:07:25.520 And then we get to the WHO report, which I know you want to talk about.

00:07:28.160 But I'll just I'll intro it here by saying this.

00:07:30.600 The guy that the WHO gets to do the investigation is Peter Daszak, who has a clear conflict of interest, as I've ever seen in my entire life.

00:07:38.520 They rejected the people that the U.S. government wanted them to put on.

00:07:42.140 Then they had an investigation that was determined.

00:07:46.220 The scope was determined by the Chinese government.

00:07:48.240 The investigation was overseen by the Chinese government.

00:07:51.040 Tony Blinken said the report was written by the Chinese government.

00:07:53.420 And then you have the same scientists who've been denying this the whole time, who have the clear conflict of interest, say, oh, no, it couldn't have been the lab.

00:08:00.860 We don't need to investigate the lab.

00:08:02.060 Forget about the lab.

00:08:02.860 We went to the lab.

00:08:03.560 It's ridiculous.

00:08:04.620 This is Peter Daszak.

00:08:06.320 We have the soundbite.

00:08:07.480 This is just from March 28th.

00:08:09.700 So it's very recent.

00:08:10.880 It really is.

00:08:11.440 It's like so the Chinese got to pick who was going to write the report, who was going to come over.

00:08:17.360 They chaperoned their chosen investigators the entire time they were there.

00:08:21.640 Never let them alone.

00:08:22.400 It wasn't an independent thing.

00:08:24.460 And not surprisingly, OK, yeah, then maybe they did the report.

00:08:27.420 Maybe they.

00:08:27.920 Yeah.

00:08:28.240 And then not surprisingly, the lab theory was dismissed.

00:08:31.380 And in a report that's 123 pages, they spent two lines, you know, saying, oh, it wasn't the lab.

00:08:37.620 Like they didn't.

00:08:38.420 It's a total white, total whitewash and a service to CCP propaganda.

00:08:42.580 Unlike I've ever seen China Communist Party.

00:08:44.780 OK, so here's that guy you've been referring to, Peter Daszak, who is one of the, quote, investigators that's supposed to get to the bottom of all this.

00:08:50.680 For all of us, 2.7 million people dead.

00:08:52.820 He's over there trying to figure out how it got started on our behalf and the world's behalf.

00:08:57.260 And here he is talking to Leslie Stahl on 60.

00:08:59.420 Something like 75 percent of emerging diseases come from animals into people.

00:09:04.580 We've seen it before.

00:09:05.540 We've seen it in China with SARS.

00:09:07.380 Is the lab leak theory any more or less speculative than your pathway?

00:09:15.640 For an accidental leak that then led to COVID to happen, the virus that causes COVID would need to be in the lab.

00:09:24.020 They never had any evidence of a virus like COVID in the lab.

00:09:28.900 They never had the COVID-19 virus in that lab?

00:09:32.160 Not prior to the outbreak, no.

00:09:34.220 Absolutely.

00:09:35.040 No evidence of that.

00:09:36.100 Were there Chinese government minders in the room every time you were asking questions?

00:09:43.000 There were Ministry of Foreign Affairs staff in the room throughout our stay.

00:09:47.760 Absolutely.

00:09:48.580 They were there to make sure everything went smoothly from the China side.

00:09:51.520 Or to make sure they weren't telling you the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

00:09:55.220 You sit in a room with people who are scientists and you know what a scientific statement is and you know what a political statement is.

00:10:02.960 We had no problem distinguishing between the two.

00:10:06.440 Oh, my God.

00:10:07.720 Okay.

00:10:07.940 So there's a lot of things to unpack there.

00:10:10.140 Let me just go through the top ones.

00:10:11.580 Okay.

00:10:12.160 So, and you didn't even play the part where she asked him, to her credit, don't you have a clear conflict of interest?

00:10:17.700 And his answer was something like, well, don't you want the people who know the lab best to investigate the lab?

00:10:22.140 Which is like absurd when you think about it.

00:10:23.840 It's like having Robert Kardashian investigate OJ.

00:10:26.560 He's like, I know OJ.

00:10:28.360 I'll do the investigation.

00:10:29.500 You know what I mean?

00:10:30.440 It's crazy.

00:10:32.180 But anyway, the other things that he said that were wrong is like, they didn't have it in the lab.

00:10:36.580 They didn't have it in the lab.

00:10:37.500 Well, they wouldn't be able to admit it or they would get killed.

00:10:41.540 This is the thing about the Chinese system that people need to understand is that those scientists may be very nice people.

00:10:48.560 They may be trying to solve the pandemic.

00:10:50.540 They may be mortified that they might have actually sparked the pandemic while trying to solve the pandemic.

00:10:55.580 But they don't get to make these decisions.

00:10:57.080 They've got a general sitting up behind their shoulder who's got a party guy sitting behind his shoulder who's got Xi Jinping sitting behind his shoulder.

00:11:04.120 And if they had a smoking gun, they would destroy it and bury it and we would never find it, which is a separate problem.

00:11:11.180 And the whole idea that we shouldn't investigate the lab, by the way, was refuted during that exact day by Peter Daszak's boss, Dr. Tedros, the head of the WHO, who I don't think anyone would call like an anti-China pro-Trump conspiracy theorist.

00:11:26.420 Quite the contrary, right?

00:11:27.360 This is the head of the WHO who said, you know what?

00:11:30.080 They didn't really investigate the lab.

00:11:31.440 We're going to have to investigate the lab.

00:11:32.800 And you have to think to yourself, why would Dr. Tedros say that?

00:11:35.680 Why would he take a big, you know, crap on his own report as they're releasing the report?

00:11:42.300 It's unprecedented.

00:11:43.460 And the only reason that makes sense is because he's trying to salvage the credibility of this organization that Peter Daszak is trampling on.

00:11:50.420 OK, and he knows that the United States is about to release the statement saying this is not going to end all the investigation.

00:11:56.260 We don't think it was a real investigation, which is exactly what Blinken, to his credit, said.

00:12:00.180 He said, well, because if you think about it, the Biden administration, they're not they they weren't there.

00:12:05.540 Right. They're not married to this one theory or another theory.

00:12:08.300 They don't care which way it turns out.

00:12:09.640 They're not like, you know, unlike a lot of the like 60 Minutes, they don't they don't they didn't get it wrong the first time.

00:12:15.960 Right. And, you know, the media is now trying to, like, tiptoe into this idea of, oh, well, maybe it could be the oh, no.

00:12:22.600 Oh, how dare you say it? Oh, that's racist.

00:12:24.880 And then here comes Robert Redfield. Right.

00:12:27.520 Who is the head of the CDC at the time of the outbreak.

00:12:30.840 Now, not a perfect person, not didn't go through the pandemic making zero mistakes.

00:12:35.240 I'm not here to say he's a saint, but he's a virologist.

00:12:38.040 He's seen the intelligence. And he says on CNN, he says, yeah, I'm pretty sure it was the lab.

00:12:42.100 It was this gain of function research.

00:12:43.380 He's saying that based on how the virus acted. That's evidence.

00:12:47.040 He's saying that I saw how the virus acted. I saw the intelligence.

00:12:50.300 By the way, the intelligence is also evidence.

00:12:52.740 The Trump administration put out a lot of facts about secret work at the lab.

00:12:56.440 In other words, the Trump administration confirmed by the Biden administration called Peter Daszak a liar.

00:13:01.760 OK, they can't both be telling the truth.

00:13:03.840 Now, Peter Daszak is calling the Biden administration a liar.

00:13:07.200 They're all liars, according to Peter.

00:13:08.680 Peter's like, everybody's a liar except for me.

00:13:10.320 Oh, and by the way, the Chinese people who are my my chaperones, they were just there to make things go smoothly, go smoothly.

00:13:16.100 And we all know what that means. Come out the way we wanted to.

00:13:19.200 Right. So that's why, you know, it's actually in a way good that you weren't following this at the time because you had an open mind when this all happened a month ago.

00:13:26.480 And common sense and Occam's razor point you towards, oh, we should probably take a look at the lab.

00:13:30.460 And again, I create a fourth category of people.

00:13:32.940 These are people who just want to figure it out.

00:13:34.880 You don't believe that any that's me.

00:13:37.080 OK, I'm that category. I don't care how it started.

00:13:40.040 I but I do care that we figure it out because you know what the plan is to respond to this virus.

00:13:44.940 This is going to blow your mind.

00:13:46.880 The plan is to take that research, that Peter Daszak research and spend one point two billion dollars expanding it sixfold.

00:13:53.260 OK, what the global viral project.

00:13:56.060 That is the response.

00:13:57.100 That is the plan response.

00:13:58.260 Two hundred million dollars, which failed to under the predict program.

00:14:01.580 It's called predict, which failed to predict much less preempt the pandemic.

00:14:05.400 They're now going to times it by six and throw one point two billion dollars into it.

00:14:10.260 And I swear to God, dig up five hundred thousand new viruses that are transmissible to humans in the wild and take them to labs and play around.

00:14:18.140 And that's the no that is the plan.

00:14:20.640 Whose plan?

00:14:21.140 The world's plan, global viral project is an international project, heavily supported by guess.

00:14:26.120 You guessed it, Peter Daszak and Anthony Fauci and all the rest of them, all the people who have made their careers in virology based on this idea that the best way to stop pandemics is to dig up a bunch of viruses in the wild.

00:14:37.020 But you know what?

00:14:37.580 Maybe maybe that's not the best way.

00:14:39.320 Maybe we should spend that money on monitoring and surveillance that when outbreaks happen, we can squash them easily.

00:14:43.840 And on placing, you know, medical resources and things in the places where the bats are rather than dragging the viruses to a lab.

00:14:51.400 And then there's an outbreak next to the lab.

00:14:53.060 And everyone's like, oh, I must be in the market or something like that, by the way.

00:14:56.300 That's what so sweet.

00:14:57.140 I want to I want there's a lot to unpack in what you just said, too.

00:14:59.260 So, by the way, so so you said earlier that we put American money into this lab in China, which we believe.

00:15:03.940 All right. So that's so how much American money is going into this fake solution, which is actually probably another cause of yet another pandemic to come.

00:15:12.760 Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to expand the program that, again, we don't know, but may have caused the current pandemic as opposed to where you could spend that money.

00:15:23.020 And just just to back up.

00:15:24.000 So let's just back up and make it super simple for people to understand.

00:15:26.220 Crazy, right?

00:15:26.680 What we're being told by people like Daszak, the World Health Organization, is now that after all the study and thought and investigation, quote unquote, in China, we think we think the virus came from bats in a cave was a thousand miles from the lab.

00:15:39.300 Is that what you said?

00:15:40.340 That's right.

00:15:41.360 OK.

00:15:42.240 Researchers, you know that, yes, they were in Wuhan researching bat coronaviruses.

00:15:46.440 They were doing that.

00:15:47.180 But a thousand miles away, what we had was bats in a cave.

00:15:50.320 And we think maybe the bats somehow infected.

00:15:54.040 It's called a pangolin.

00:15:55.200 It looks like a ferret.

00:15:56.220 Right.

00:15:56.560 Or a rabbit that wound up in a in a Wuhan wet market.

00:16:01.360 Right.

00:16:01.600 It's just like for those of us who don't totally understand what is what exactly is a wet market.

00:16:05.340 My understanding is live animals that people want to eat.

00:16:07.880 But do they eat them like how?

00:16:09.720 I don't know.

00:16:10.940 You know, I again, I think this is like a trope because, you know, I've been to China.

00:16:15.000 I've been to a lot of these Southeast Asian countries.

00:16:17.020 Their markets, they got all you know, you go to the market, you can buy anything you want.

00:16:20.040 You can buy some fish, buy some meat.

00:16:21.580 Some of the animals are alive when they're in the market.

00:16:23.500 They're not alive when they sell them to you.

00:16:24.800 These are how markets work.

00:16:26.180 OK.

00:16:26.540 And so this whole and again, if you think about it, it's kind of crazy because people like,

00:16:31.100 oh, well, unfortunately, people have associated this lab accident theory with like a rise in

00:16:35.660 Asian-American hate.

00:16:36.940 But if you think about it, isn't it more racist to say that like, oh, Chinese people eat weird

00:16:41.980 stuff and that caused the virus?

00:16:43.380 Especially if it's not true.

00:16:45.720 When we come back, one of my favorite guests ever.

00:16:50.120 I was so looking forward to this interview.

00:16:52.800 He didn't disappoint even a little.

00:16:56.000 If you're not already madly in love with the intellect and musings of Douglas Murray,

00:17:02.640 you're about to be.

00:17:04.200 We'll be right back.

00:17:04.860 Early in the new year, last January, Douglas Murray came on our show for a two-plus hour

00:17:20.040 conversation.

00:17:21.400 I loved it.

00:17:23.320 Loved it.

00:17:24.240 I've listened to this on my free time just for kicks more than once.

00:17:28.580 It was a conversation that wound up becoming the blueprint for so much that would happen

00:17:33.060 in 2021.

00:17:33.960 Frankly, Murray's book, The Madness of Crowds, which you have to read, tells the story about

00:17:41.180 gender, race and identity.

00:17:44.020 And in this part of our conversation, Murray says the line I have repeated so many times

00:17:48.660 on this show in response to people's questions about how you deal with being shamed for not

00:17:56.500 being the right member of the right identity group with the right past that you can claim

00:18:01.420 you've been victimized by.

00:18:02.660 The famous Douglas Murray line of, we can all do that.

00:18:07.440 Listen to how it unfolded.

00:18:09.120 In pushing us to be, quote, anti-racist, of course, the language is incredibly racist.

00:18:15.020 The positions being taken are incredibly racist.

00:18:17.680 And in an attempt by some of the wokesters to fight for what they would say is equality of

00:18:23.160 women, that they need to denigrate men and they need to elevate women.

00:18:28.920 It's not, as you've pointed out repeatedly, these this movement isn't about equality for

00:18:33.860 various groups that have been targeted historically.

00:18:36.520 It's about better than.

00:18:38.420 It's about elevating them above.

00:18:41.500 And people can feel it.

00:18:43.640 And if you're in one of the targeted groups, maybe you like it if you're a wokester.

00:18:46.780 But I think most people understand this isn't about equality.

00:18:50.840 It's about subjugation of a new and different group.

00:18:54.220 And it feels unfair.

00:18:55.820 It feels wrong.

00:18:57.300 That's right.

00:18:58.120 Yes.

00:18:58.480 It's I mean, to sort of steel man what's been happening.

00:19:03.040 I think it's just worth saying at the outset, you know, the whole ideology of wokery, I mean,

00:19:09.180 starts from a reasonable place.

00:19:11.200 And I always think it's worth crediting when an opponent or somebody you think has come

00:19:16.980 to reprehensible conclusions, nevertheless, has started with a serious question.

00:19:22.140 There has been in our societies historically racism.

00:19:25.620 There has in every society.

00:19:27.480 But American society has had a particular issue with racism in the past.

00:19:32.260 And so there is a legitimate argument that some of that may be lingering still in the present

00:19:37.700 day.

00:19:38.160 That's the thing to contend with.

00:19:39.520 It's true that women have been prejudiced against in career options, among other things,

00:19:46.820 in not that far off memory.

00:19:49.660 You know, it's not ancient history.

00:19:53.000 It's true that gay people, LGBT people, to use a term I don't like, have been prejudiced

00:20:00.720 against until, again, not that far ago.

00:20:05.340 I mean, we're only talking about the 60s and 70s that legalization occurs in countries like

00:20:11.160 ours.

00:20:12.040 So these are serious things to contend with.

00:20:14.560 And an element of the left says, look, just because you've got full, equal legal rights,

00:20:19.240 does not necessarily mean that the whole thing's been sorted out.

00:20:22.960 Sure, you know, people are equal under the law.

00:20:25.720 But there are still these inequalities and inequities that will be existing.

00:20:32.140 That's a serious point.

00:20:34.500 And it's worth considering.

00:20:36.540 The problem is, is that two things happen.

00:20:40.620 Firstly, people on the political right, broadly speaking, don't like to concede points the political

00:20:48.780 left are onto and have thought about a lot in case the political left then uses it to push

00:20:54.200 through their own agenda.

00:20:56.100 It's the same with people on the political left with the political right.

00:20:58.780 People on the political left don't like to concede that there are problems around, for

00:21:02.680 instance, immigration, because they fear that the political right has been thinking about

00:21:07.280 this.

00:21:07.560 And when the political left conceives that it's an issue, it's not just open borders and,

00:21:12.060 you know, kumbaya.

00:21:13.520 Once it conceives that it's an issue, then the political right will be playing some nasty

00:21:17.920 game and will smuggle in bad stuff.

00:21:20.660 So everyone's got this fear and it paralyzes real discussion.

00:21:25.700 But so as I say, let's concede the political left is onto something with this whole issue

00:21:30.340 to do with historic injustice that may have still been percolating down into the present

00:21:37.160 day.

00:21:37.840 The problem is the political left has been answering this on its own, unaided, I think, by

00:21:44.720 any serious contestation by the political right, and has been making assertions that by this

00:21:50.200 stage, as I identify in the matters of crowds, by this stage, are really at a stage of overcorrection.

00:21:57.660 Whereas I say, it's not enough to say women are the equal of men.

00:22:02.480 They've got to be better for a bit.

00:22:04.240 And we see this endlessly, weirdly, in the political realm with that, you know, that one that comes

00:22:12.060 up occasionally, why female leaders have done better in the era of COVID, for instance.

00:22:18.560 This is a constant one, you know, because the Prime Minister of New Zealand is a woman, and

00:22:26.580 New Zealand has done rather well in the COVID era.

00:22:28.520 So that's because New Zealand's led by a woman.

00:22:34.760 This sort of thing.

00:22:35.820 And of course, lots of people just don't notice it.

00:22:39.800 I think a lot of people notice it and just let it go by.

00:22:43.120 But the implication of it is that there's something better about women, that if we just had more

00:22:48.300 women in charge, there'd be a lot of things that were better dealt with, better handled.

00:22:55.400 I think that people don't think you like that kind of chat.

00:22:57.940 You're either equal as men and women, or you're not.

00:23:02.160 It's possible as well, which is what I submit, that there might be different competencies around

00:23:07.280 the edges of different tendencies, different directions people go in, depending on their

00:23:14.320 gametes and chromosomes.

00:23:16.620 It seems to be the case.

00:23:18.520 But if you just assert that one sex is just better than the other, as well as being equal,

00:23:24.860 the position I say, equal and better, then people again notice there seems to be an unfairness.

00:23:30.580 You can play this in each of the identity groupings.

00:23:32.680 I mean, the only one I have a social crampon on is the gay one.

00:23:36.340 Not that it's ever done me any good.

00:23:39.240 But it's only caused me pain.

00:23:43.560 But, I mean, you know, I don't like it when I see some gay people talking about themselves

00:23:55.720 and being talked about by others as if they're magically better than the straights.

00:23:59.600 It's not as common as the men and women one, because it's much more of a minority issue.

00:24:06.380 We're not talking about a 50-50 thing here.

00:24:08.420 We're talking about a sort of 3% of the population issue.

00:24:11.100 But I don't like it when I hear, you know, gay people being talked about as if it's just

00:24:15.100 so much more fabulous and better than the boring straights.

00:24:19.540 There was a magazine in America the other day that ran a piece about the, you know,

00:24:23.800 the problems we all know about heterosexual partnerships.

00:24:28.700 You know, if you keep talking like that, it sounds like you want to do away with heterosexual

00:24:33.600 partnerships.

00:24:34.160 And if you do away with heterosexual partnerships, you'll do away with the human species quite

00:24:37.840 fast.

00:24:38.900 Right.

00:24:39.640 So I wouldn't go down.

00:24:41.220 Yeah, I wouldn't go down that route.

00:24:44.120 But I don't like that talk.

00:24:47.240 I don't think anyone does.

00:24:48.340 I think they notice there's an unfairness.

00:24:49.880 It was unfair when people talked about the gays as being less than straights.

00:24:54.080 And it's unfair if you talk about the straights being less than the gays.

00:24:57.360 And then you get to the worst one, which, of course, I jumped straight into in the Mans

00:25:00.760 of Crowds, which is what you do on the race one with this.

00:25:03.820 It is so despicable.

00:25:05.160 And I think we recognize, everyone in public life recognizes, it would be so despicable

00:25:09.260 to talk about anyone who was black, whether they were a public figure or a private figure,

00:25:15.540 and just talk about them with contempt because of this, what was it, happenstance of birth.

00:25:24.520 Some people are black.

00:25:25.600 Some people are white.

00:25:26.360 The idea that you would talk about someone in a derogatory manner simply because they

00:25:31.940 were black is so morally reprehensible that the people who do it, and there are some,

00:25:40.820 are just pushed to the farthest margins of public life, and we don't want to be around

00:25:44.900 them.

00:25:45.720 So how did we get to this position, and why should we tolerate it, that there are very,

00:25:51.240 very prominent figures who seem eager not just to demean white people because of the

00:25:57.020 color of their skin, but to actually cause them hurt, to deliberately provoke them, to

00:26:02.280 say, we're actually not going to listen to your concerns.

00:26:05.300 And by the way, this isn't a fringe thing anymore.

00:26:08.580 That's why I write about it.

00:26:09.660 That's why I'm interested in it.

00:26:10.820 If it was just a few tenured academics at a few low-grade American universities whose

00:26:18.400 students, unfortunately for the students, have to listen to their professors trotting

00:26:23.300 out a load of divisive stuff like this, well, that would be bad.

00:26:27.160 But it's not the position we're in.

00:26:29.060 We're in the position where the now president of the United States, who has talked so importantly

00:26:34.680 thinking about trying to unify the country, a week before his inauguration, releases a

00:26:39.880 video saying, we are going to focus on those small business owners who suffered this year

00:26:45.680 because of the virus and of the shutdown.

00:26:48.060 We're going to focus on small business owners, and we're going to have a special focus and

00:26:52.680 prioritize black-owned businesses, Latino-owned businesses, women-owned businesses, Native American-owned

00:26:59.880 businesses.

00:27:00.880 And you look at this and you think, why can't you say, we will, as a government of all of

00:27:07.780 the people in the United States, prioritize anyone whose business has suffered?

00:27:13.080 We will be looking after you all.

00:27:14.740 We'll be looking out for you all.

00:27:16.900 Why do this game of leaving out one group of people, white men?

00:27:22.220 Why do it?

00:27:24.740 Why say your concerns are secondary?

00:27:31.400 And that's what I say.

00:27:32.340 We're in this strange period because I think that the thing I diagnose is that some people,

00:27:40.600 primarily on the left, have been going for an overcorrection on each of these issues.

00:27:46.120 And the problem with going for an overcorrection is you don't know when you've overcorrected

00:27:51.680 too far.

00:27:52.840 You don't know when you've done it for long enough.

00:27:55.380 Who would you follow to tell you you've got to go back to equal?

00:28:00.140 I think that they won't.

00:28:01.780 I think the overcorrection will cause a swing the other way.

00:28:05.740 Because what man wants to be denigrated just because he's a man and be ignored?

00:28:10.540 And when people say, look at male suicide rates, and prominent female voices and others

00:28:15.880 say, why are you talking about male suicide rates, you loser?

00:28:21.660 Why would you just put up with that endlessly?

00:28:25.240 Why would you put up endlessly, whatever your skin color, with being denigrated because of

00:28:30.800 your skin color?

00:28:31.660 Why would anyone put up with if they're heterosexual being talked about as if they're some kind

00:28:36.300 of second class citizen?

00:28:37.340 So this just has to stop.

00:28:41.940 We have to find a way to get back to equal.

00:28:45.180 But I think it's going to require people of all sides to work really hard on this and to

00:28:50.540 try to resist very deep instincts that we all hold.

00:28:56.220 Well, I think you're right.

00:28:57.900 Because I've said in the context of the Me Too movement, and I think it applies to the Black

00:29:03.940 Lives Matter thing, all of these identity politics issues, if you really want advancement

00:29:08.860 for a group that's been historically unequal in some cases, you're going to have to have

00:29:15.420 buy-in from the group that's in power.

00:29:17.620 Women who want to find themselves in more corporate board suites aren't going to get

00:29:23.040 there by just summarily ruining the career of men for one stupid comment in an elevator.

00:29:29.620 That's just going to make the men afraid of us.

00:29:32.840 And it's fine.

00:29:34.780 I can say that as a woman.

00:29:35.980 If I say that about Black people need white people's buy-in in order to achieve true equality,

00:29:42.660 it sounds racist.

00:29:43.740 But I believe it's true there too.

00:29:46.160 I think the answer to remedying whatever disparities that are actually there because of systemic

00:29:53.260 bias, what have you, not this widespread everything's biased and everything's systemically

00:29:58.000 racist, but whatever, if we want to take a hard, honest look at what systems could be

00:30:01.800 improved or where is bias still lingering in a way that's problematic, then you need

00:30:06.680 buy-in from both sides, from the people in power and the people who aren't.

00:30:11.560 Instead of what we're getting, as you point out in your book, the pushing of classes at

00:30:18.700 the University of Wisconsin in Madison, you point out there's a course on, quote, the problem

00:30:24.340 of whiteness and this group effort to demonize one group, I guess, in an attempt to elevate

00:30:32.700 the other.

00:30:33.820 But all that does is demoralize and probably anger people who are now being judged thanks

00:30:39.880 to their own immutable characteristics and is utterly unhelpful.

00:30:44.820 And yet it's growing.

00:30:46.280 It's growing.

00:30:47.240 It's such a strange late empire thing to be doing.

00:30:50.100 And that's one of the things I just can't get out of my mind in all of this is it feels

00:30:55.580 so late empire to be doing things that are so self-destructive and divisive at a time

00:31:05.240 when we're in real trouble economically.

00:31:09.700 We're in real trouble financially.

00:31:11.860 You know, I mean, it's no longer some kind of weird sci-fi fear that China will overtake

00:31:21.340 America as a global power in our lifetimes, certainly in the lifetimes of your children.

00:31:28.800 That's not some nightmarish dystopian thing anymore.

00:31:33.640 And the country that is vying with America for global dominance is one which currently has

00:31:42.480 a million people in concentration camps because of their religion and ethnicity.

00:31:47.860 Right.

00:31:48.160 It's one where Western companies outsource labor that is slave labor, where prisoners unpaid

00:31:59.760 who've done nothing wrong, work for free at all hours for companies that are subcontracted

00:32:07.220 to major American companies where all of the money and profits goes to a few people at

00:32:11.560 the top.

00:32:13.060 Is this an acceptable moral situation?

00:32:15.360 Is it something we want to encourage?

00:32:17.860 Having seen what's happened in Hong Kong in the last year, I mean, for the last many years,

00:32:24.820 ever since the handover, but in the last year in particular, after seeing how the Chinese

00:32:29.940 Communist Party cracks down on the people of Hong Kong, is anyone happy about the idea

00:32:34.580 of China overtaking America as a global power?

00:32:37.660 Does anybody think that China will be prevented from doing that if America just completely nixes

00:32:45.940 the whiteness studies courses at certain low-grade or top-grade universities?

00:32:50.680 Does anyone think that the advance of the Chinese economy and of their ability to snuff out human

00:33:01.340 rights around the world using a checkbook is going to be lessened if there are more performative

00:33:10.040 feminist dance studies courses at Berkeley?

00:33:14.560 You know, what exactly do people think the end goal of all this is going to be?

00:33:19.700 That's why I say it feels so late empire.

00:33:22.660 It feels like a totally unwinnable and dangerous and unhelpful, nasty, retributive cycle that an

00:33:33.680 empire gets stuck in just before it becomes irrelevant.

00:33:38.400 When I listen to these protesters and what's happened on the college campuses in particular,

00:33:45.080 I'm mystified because they don't seem to see that bigger picture.

00:33:48.560 This is America.

00:33:49.520 We're part of a global economy.

00:33:51.700 There are real problems happening around the globe that we can and should be focused on.

00:33:55.740 Perhaps our generation could help fix them.

00:33:58.420 They seem to really think they're in a revolution right now to upend the patriarchy and, you know,

00:34:07.080 fight for racial equality once and for all.

00:34:09.380 Social justice is what it's all about.

00:34:10.740 And the anger, the anger from folks who have grown up at the best possible time in American

00:34:18.280 history to have been a woman, to have been a person of color, like the best.

00:34:22.000 And yet we've got a couple of examples of this since I knew you were coming out and we're going

00:34:25.520 to talk about the madness of crowds.

00:34:26.840 And I know you've written about this and I've talked about it on the show.

00:34:29.380 But what happened to Brett Weinstein at Evergreen College up in Washington State, where we're

00:34:34.840 all just for background for people who aren't familiar, all Brett did was to to students

00:34:41.180 of color who had been doing sort of a voluntary sick out once a year to make a point about what

00:34:46.240 life would be like without people of color on college campuses and their value and their

00:34:49.740 contributions.

00:34:50.460 One year they came and said, now we want it to be reversed.

00:34:53.880 Now we want the white people to not show up.

00:34:56.200 And Brett Weinstein, a professor there, a very liberal guy, said, that's different.

00:35:00.500 And I think I'm going to object because I think one race telling another not to show up is

00:35:04.420 problematic.

00:35:05.680 Well, you would have thought the guy showed up in a KKK hat, you know, wearing blackface

00:35:10.880 underneath it.

00:35:11.960 And it was insane, the reaction to him.

00:35:15.980 But what I want you to listen to for the audience in this soundbite is the anger over that.

00:35:23.100 All right.

00:35:23.280 So listen.

00:35:23.720 Hey, hey, ho, ho, these racist teachers have got to go.

00:35:27.940 Fuck you and fuck the police.

00:35:30.280 That's how whiteness works.

00:35:31.940 Whiteness is the most violent fucking system to ever breathe.

00:35:35.300 When somebody's talking, you are not listening.

00:35:37.600 In your head, if you're thinking of a response, while somebody is talking, that is not listening.

00:35:42.580 It's not an accident that all of our administration is white.

00:35:45.280 Because the thing is that my ancestors were slaves and your ancestors were not.

00:35:51.960 Your ancestors came here of free choice and decided to bring along my people, not of their

00:35:59.020 own free will, to work and build this country.

00:36:02.700 Okay?

00:36:03.100 And so I'm just letting you know that slavery still has repercussions in society today.

00:36:09.180 And that is what we're here about.

00:36:11.740 Those repercussions.

00:36:13.080 It doesn't go away.

00:36:14.160 It's not over.

00:36:15.520 Thank you.

00:36:18.720 Yeah.

00:36:19.500 I mean, right?

00:36:20.700 How do you argue against that?

00:36:22.900 I think, I mean, what we saw at Evergreen, I got to know Brett and his wife, Heather, in

00:36:29.020 recent years.

00:36:29.760 They've become good friends.

00:36:31.400 I really admire them both.

00:36:33.460 They're just really extraordinary and kind and good human beings, as well as being extraordinarily

00:36:39.140 clever.

00:36:40.140 I thought that what happened at Evergreen was a sort of prelude to the main event of what

00:36:47.780 has happened subsequently in America.

00:36:49.540 because it showed, it showed what happens when a mob crowd becomes hysterical.

00:36:58.160 We've known that the title of the madness of crowds comes from the subtitle of a book from

00:37:06.080 the 1850s called Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by a Scottish journalist

00:37:12.360 who described this sort of thing.

00:37:15.000 It's why I use the title crowd madness is what happens when people get whipped up into believing

00:37:21.920 that what they see is just impossible to cope with, impossible to tolerate, and then they

00:37:29.160 go off.

00:37:29.720 And that was what happened at Evergreen.

00:37:32.900 And what also happened was basically the disappearance of the adults from the room.

00:37:39.960 You know, there's an important point to make here about the nature of political disagreement,

00:37:46.640 which is that historically, certainly for the last few hundred years, the left advances a set of claims,

00:37:56.300 propositions, and more, and conservatives temper them.

00:38:03.560 That's one analysis of the way in which, to use an old-fashioned term, the political dialectic works,

00:38:11.020 that the conservatives say, hang on a minute, because you've got to be careful when you stampede.

00:38:19.860 You've got to slow it down at the very least.

00:38:22.440 Now, of course, saying slow it down, whoa, is a less sexy and appealing thing, particularly for young people.

00:38:31.960 Because, as we all know, when you're young, it is a wonderful thing to also feel that you are in a moment of great change.

00:38:41.140 Everybody wants to be in a moment of great change.

00:38:44.100 When they're young, when they're young, in particular, to be in, what is it, the words were said, bliss it was in that dawn to be alive,

00:38:51.320 about the beginnings of the revolution on the continent.

00:38:57.200 That's what it feels like when you're young, when you haven't seen the revolution,

00:39:02.520 when you haven't seen the blood on the streets, when you haven't seen what happens afterwards.

00:39:07.480 The desire to turn over the whole damn thing is an instinct of the young.

00:39:15.460 To say, things are so totally intolerable on my liberal arts college in Oregon that I'm going to pull the whole damn thing down.

00:39:24.120 I'm going to burn down the whole building.

00:39:26.900 That's what happens when you're young and you've never seen the results.

00:39:30.960 And, unfortunately, it happens again and again throughout history.

00:39:36.360 We both know this.

00:39:37.260 We can think of examples in our own lives and careers.

00:39:39.700 And there are many cases from the past, you know.

00:39:44.280 And there were serious cases where this same truth held.

00:39:49.920 The French kings were pretty incompetent.

00:39:53.480 But once the post-revolutionary famines occurred, the French peoples learned that there were new levels of incompetence that they had never dreamt of.

00:40:06.200 You know, the Shah of Iran had quite a lot of people in prison who were political opponents.

00:40:12.120 Some thousands of people were in prison who were political opponents of his.

00:40:16.480 And many people thought it just couldn't be worse until they met the Ayatollah in person.

00:40:23.480 And they realized that a few thousand people being in a prison system was nothing compared to a system which decided to just shoot people on sight and hang them arbitrarily in the street for reported offenses against the new regime.

00:40:39.300 I mean, these may sound like extreme examples, but they're not.

00:40:43.260 They are on a continuum.

00:40:44.560 When you say this thing is intolerable and the whole damn thing has to be pulled down, you are inviting people to join you in relearning a lesson that people in history have had to learn again and again.

00:40:59.720 And I simply suggest, as a small c conservative, that people are better at understanding the risks of very, very violent and sudden change, that they step back from that impulse, that they weigh up the pros and cons of this.

00:41:19.860 That they don't say, that they don't say, I mean, also, by the way, when you say what should one say to a person who says these things, I think this is what the adults say.

00:41:31.680 We can all do that.

00:41:34.100 We can all do that.

00:41:36.340 You know, I mean, I'm not denying for a moment that the history of American slavery was bad.

00:41:43.220 But who exactly was the past Rosie for?

00:41:48.140 Back in a minute, we're going to lighten things up with Tim Dillon.

00:41:51.660 He is wonderful, totally hilarious, incredibly smart.

00:41:56.300 You are not going to want to miss this.

00:41:57.680 Love, Tim.

00:42:03.240 Tim Dillon came on in February and had me and my team laughing for hours.

00:42:09.680 My husband loved this interview.

00:42:11.400 Tim goes up in like this higher register when he does this one voice and you're going to die laughing.

00:42:17.040 He also, however, it wasn't all jokes because he spoke some real truth about the way comedians, particularly the sort of establishment approved comedians on late night TV these days, have become heralded as these brave truth tellers.

00:42:31.520 Now they're teachers, says Dillon.

00:42:34.040 And he hilariously explained why that is such a mistake.

00:42:38.280 I've always been interested in where this started.

00:42:42.020 And I think that it might have started with when Tina Fey did that really brilliant and funny impression of Sarah Palin on SNL.

00:42:50.400 And it may have also started with Jon Stewart, an equally brilliant guy who did a very funny show called The Daily Show.

00:42:56.400 But what started to happen eventually was that people started to believe that their job was to be a teacher, was to be somebody who would affect culture with political humor.

00:43:18.640 And that it would not be for the sake of being funny.

00:43:22.320 I mean, there's been political humor forever.

00:43:24.040 And I'm sure some of it was written with the intent that it would, would, you know, affect people.

00:43:29.360 But there became this idea, and it became rather explicit, that the job of a comedian was to move the needle in a meaningful way in the political world.

00:43:41.260 And I don't know where that happened.

00:43:42.600 But those are two good examples of where it may have began, where it was Sarah Palin.

00:43:47.860 And because that nailed Sarah Palin, that impression was viral, and people talked about it.

00:43:53.380 And people were saying that, you know, I don't know if she could recover from that.

00:43:57.080 It was so good, and it was kind of right on.

00:44:00.320 And then, of course, Jon Stewart did kind of a great job at being this political comedian that did provide real information.

00:44:08.160 But what has happened, like everything else, is that it has grown into a cottage industry of people who are putting their opinion in front of their comedy.

00:44:22.280 And this is a big problem, because it's not always funny.

00:44:26.900 And in fact, it rarely is funny.

00:44:28.700 And that's why you just used the word dark, which is a great word for it, because when you're putting your opinion out first,

00:44:35.760 and you're not worrying about the content, the humor, you're not recognizing the humanity of your opponents.

00:44:43.820 You're not seeing the other side, which is what comics should always do.

00:44:47.600 It's how you can really be funny, especially about meaningful topics, is looking at someone else's.

00:44:53.160 I mean, there's not a great lawyer out there who can't argue the other side of their case.

00:44:58.220 I mean, it's essential, right?

00:44:59.480 It's the whole point of a great attorney, a great litigator, is that they know what the other side is going to do,

00:45:05.320 and they understand the strengths of the other side.

00:45:07.940 And I think he's a great comedian whose job is to make, you know, large numbers of strangers laugh.

00:45:14.040 You have to kind of have some baseline respect for them as human beings.

00:45:20.640 And when we turn everything into this endless, you know, festival of politics and politicized identities,

00:45:33.700 we forget that the people that disagree with us are human beings and that those people, you know, are not enemies.

00:45:44.640 They're people that, for whatever reason, have a different experience than you.

00:45:48.080 So when I watch those late-night hosts, I go, the best way to say it is they're not really doing their job

00:45:54.800 and they've carved out this, you know, group of people that want to hear them say things they agree with,

00:46:03.240 similar to somebody on maybe Fox or MSNBC.

00:46:06.740 And to me, it's not interesting and it's, and it does get dark and it gets sad because they don't want to do it.

00:46:12.320 You know, when you look at Jimmy Kimmel, he doesn't really want to do it.

00:46:15.120 You're just making so much money and you become a cog in this Hollywood machine and you're getting $20 million, $30 million.

00:46:22.640 You, you're expected to do it, but they don't want to do it.

00:46:25.160 You could see it in their faces that nobody got into comedy to lecture people about what, who to vote for.

00:46:31.920 Are you surprised to see like that these guys being treated as these sage advisors in this serious suit?

00:46:40.420 I mean, to me, it's just, it's antithetical to what a comedian generally looks like and projects like and wants to be perceived as.

00:46:48.220 Yeah. Well, what it is, is also, you know, people have Google, people can remember that Chelsea Handler made a living doing race material.

00:46:58.620 And now Chelsea Handler does documentaries about white privilege.

00:47:01.780 Jimmy Kimmel had a show called The Man Show where they like, you know, did wet t-shirt contests and now he's talking about health insurance.

00:47:08.100 Stephen Colbert did a show where he was a very funny, you know, kind of guy that was impersonating Bill O'Reilly.

00:47:13.260 And then now everything, you know, and he got away with a lot of saying a lot of crazy things because it was satire and it was very funny.

00:47:20.000 And now a lot of these same people exist, they act like satire doesn't exist.

00:47:24.200 And if you say something, you're dead serious about it.

00:47:26.620 And if you make a racial joke, you're a racist.

00:47:28.820 Or if it's a homophobic joke, you're a homophober.

00:47:31.100 If you make a joke about trans people, you're diminishing your trans identity.

00:47:34.420 And all of these people are very Google-able.

00:47:37.180 They've all had long careers.

00:47:38.700 None of them felt this way years ago.

00:47:40.300 And I mean, I don't mean, you don't have to go back 10 years.

00:47:43.340 You can go back right before Trump got into the primaries.

00:47:47.080 Like this is a new, relatively new phenomenon in mass where all of these people are every day tweeting.

00:47:53.840 I mean, I have comedian friends of mine that are tweeting about trade agreements all day.

00:47:57.740 And it's like, what are you doing?

00:47:59.080 They're tweeting at Mayor Garcetti.

00:48:01.020 They're like, you better, these people have roommates.

00:48:03.540 They're on drugs.

00:48:04.460 It's like, and they're going, what's the budget of LA?

00:48:06.880 The cops better be not getting more than this percentage of the budget.

00:48:09.920 I'm like, the budget, you can't afford a car.

00:48:14.220 So it's a mind virus.

00:48:17.560 Truly, it's a mind virus.

00:48:18.860 And people like me have been, I think, pretty well-received kind of pointing it out because a lot of people are going like, oh, yeah, man, that's kind of the way I feel.

00:48:28.140 Like they grew up watching these comics.

00:48:30.060 These guys were very funny.

00:48:31.100 Colbert, Kimmel.

00:48:31.940 These guys were really, really funny people.

00:48:33.400 But now I think they feel that for whatever reason that that isn't their job.

00:48:38.800 They have to do what they're doing.

00:48:40.880 And I read something.

00:48:42.460 It was you.

00:48:43.740 It was a bit you were doing about him saying something like, the comedians are the ones who get on stage and basically say, we're fucked up.

00:48:50.040 We're fat.

00:48:50.860 We can't stop doing horrible things.

00:48:53.040 Because only a psychopath would look at us and say, yes, show me the way.

00:48:58.260 I mean, it's crazy.

00:48:59.300 I mean, could you imagine going out to a nightclub and then asking the guy on stage for tax advice?

00:49:03.520 We've lost our minds here.

00:49:05.280 I mean, this is completely insane.

00:49:07.580 I don't go to my dentist laying the chair and go, let's be funny now.

00:49:10.940 You know, people got to specialize in things.

00:49:13.160 You can't be everything.

00:49:14.180 And this flies in the face of a lot of the ethos of young people today who want to be everything.

00:49:19.780 You know, they're like, I want to be a YouTuber and a rapper and a stock mogul.

00:49:24.040 And I want to start an app.

00:49:25.120 And I want to be a venture capitalist.

00:49:26.820 And I want to be an artist and write three books.

00:49:28.900 And I want to be a chef and have a line of, I mean, it's like, guys, we need to get good at a thing here.

00:49:34.020 And then we need to start there and then maybe move on.

00:49:36.900 But like this idea that you would ever look at the comedian, hopefully we say things that are smart.

00:49:44.180 Hopefully we say things that are funny.

00:49:45.580 Hopefully we make you think.

00:49:46.680 I didn't tell anyone to vote.

00:49:48.260 I mean, this is what, I got flack for this.

00:49:49.540 People are like, people go like this to get a voting plan.

00:49:53.260 I had comedians were going on Twitter going, get a vote, get a voting plan.

00:49:57.620 What are we doing?

00:49:59.100 What is, what is a voting plan?

00:50:01.340 Get to the poll and vote.

00:50:03.020 I mean, you all got a Popeye's chicken sandwich.

00:50:05.640 You can vote.

00:50:06.280 Like this idea that no one knows how to vote.

00:50:08.900 We got to come up with a plan.

00:50:10.880 We got to, the idea that I,

00:50:13.200 who put on wigs and say crazy things and I'm funny and a goofball and,

00:50:18.140 and admit all these embarrassing things about my life.

00:50:20.740 I'm going to tell you who to vote for.

00:50:22.080 It's just not my job.

00:50:23.380 It's not my job.

00:50:24.640 If you want me to do that, then go somewhere else,

00:50:27.780 go find another person who's going to tell you to vote.

00:50:31.000 And then it's so important to vote.

00:50:32.360 It's just, to me, it's patronizing.

00:50:33.740 I'm not patronizing it.

00:50:34.640 If you're going to vote, you're going to vote.

00:50:35.840 If you're not going to vote, you're not going to vote.

00:50:37.020 It's absolutely none of my business.

00:50:39.220 You know, it would be insane.

00:50:40.100 It would be like me being on stage and like, you know, you know,

00:50:43.160 looking at my audience and pointing out a guy in the audience and going,

00:50:45.480 Hey, why don't you call your brother?

00:50:47.820 Have you spoken to your brother recently?

00:50:50.200 Why don't you call him?

00:50:51.580 What about your wife?

00:50:52.920 Have you gone, have you taken her out?

00:50:54.320 It's like, dude, what am I, a life coach?

00:50:57.260 I'm trying to be goofy.

00:50:59.460 When we come back,

00:51:00.260 we're going to take a look at one of the Megan Kelly show debates.

00:51:03.280 This one was on a term you likely had not heard a year ago,

00:51:07.700 but has now become a household name.

00:51:10.340 Critical race theory.

00:51:11.600 That's next.

00:51:16.600 Since the launch of the podcast,

00:51:18.440 that was September of 2020.

00:51:21.460 And we launched with Sirius in September of 2021.

00:51:24.680 But since the launch of the podcast,

00:51:25.980 we have embraced being a platform for respectful debate.

00:51:29.920 Love that.

00:51:30.720 Love that people will trust us with that.

00:51:32.340 And we've done a good job of it.

00:51:34.540 We've had both sides of the Israel Gaza debate on.

00:51:37.580 We've had both sides of the transgender athlete debate.

00:51:40.460 And over the summer with critical race theory on the tips of everyone's tongues.

00:51:44.180 Suddenly we had two guests on who had vastly,

00:51:47.560 we had two guests on who had vastly different opinions on how best to productively fight back

00:51:51.900 against the racial drift in schools.

00:51:54.500 They both wanted to fight back,

00:51:56.280 but had very different views on how it was best done.

00:51:59.100 Camille Foster and Rich Lowry have been on before multiple times.

00:52:03.700 And truthfully,

00:52:04.160 they probably agree on a variety of topics,

00:52:06.260 probably more than they disagree on.

00:52:07.800 But when it comes to CRT,

00:52:09.600 what it is,

00:52:10.560 what states are doing about it,

00:52:11.600 and how to counter it,

00:52:14.220 they had vastly different opinions.

00:52:16.260 Let me kick it to you,

00:52:17.460 Rich,

00:52:17.600 on the concept of this,

00:52:19.920 this way to fight back,

00:52:21.720 right?

00:52:21.980 As opposed to,

00:52:22.720 because what David French has said,

00:52:24.560 and what your op-ed in the New York Times said,

00:52:28.200 Camille,

00:52:28.580 was,

00:52:29.600 you know,

00:52:29.860 a meaningful way of getting back at this is by filing lawsuits.

00:52:33.640 And I'm all for that,

00:52:34.820 by the way.

00:52:35.260 I've been saying this is part of the solution for sure.

00:52:37.380 Just,

00:52:37.780 you know,

00:52:37.960 it's currently not lawful to discriminate on the basis of race.

00:52:42.000 And so if you're dragged into some training session as a teacher and told that you're

00:52:45.480 less than because you're white,

00:52:47.920 your school's violating the law.

00:52:49.500 So I'm all for the lawsuits.

00:52:51.100 But what the conservative movement and the non-woke people have said is,

00:52:55.660 it's not good enough.

00:52:56.700 We need these laws because we need immediacy.

00:52:59.960 It's not a free speech issue at all.

00:53:02.060 This is about the citizenry telling the government what it can teach their kids.

00:53:06.380 And that this is a useful tool in the arsenal that should be unleashed ASAP for the well-being

00:53:13.160 of our children.

00:53:13.940 So let's start with that,

00:53:15.580 Rich,

00:53:15.720 on whether you agree that this is a,

00:53:18.100 this is,

00:53:18.880 without putting aside the wording of the laws,

00:53:21.100 whether this is a good way of fighting back.

00:53:23.720 First of all,

00:53:24.200 I appreciate the conversation and Camille,

00:53:25.840 congratulations on the op-ed.

00:53:27.080 There are not many op-eds that people are discussing two or three,

00:53:30.420 three weeks later,

00:53:31.220 whatever it is,

00:53:31.940 all of us columnists are very jealous.

00:53:34.080 So congratulations on that.

00:53:36.140 I think this is a,

00:53:36.920 this is a worthy effort on,

00:53:39.060 on the lawsuits.

00:53:40.480 It just puts incredible pressure on individual teachers or,

00:53:43.920 or parents to undertake what could be a years long effort to try to push back

00:53:49.240 against the stuff through the courts.

00:53:52.380 And if we're admitting that actually that is in play,

00:53:54.860 as the authors of,

00:53:56.040 of this op-ed do,

00:53:57.920 we're admitting that this is,

00:53:59.200 this is poisonous and toxic.

00:54:01.620 And why should we tolerate that in our public schools and public schools are

00:54:08.740 public institutions.

00:54:10.400 Teachers are state actors.

00:54:12.040 They're,

00:54:12.580 they're teaching state curricula in state owned buildings that parents,

00:54:19.780 if they don't,

00:54:20.540 aren't pursuing some other alternative,

00:54:22.560 have to send their kids to.

00:54:24.060 So they,

00:54:25.740 they are profoundly small D democratic institutions and forbidding these poisonous

00:54:31.940 concepts from being foisted on children is an appropriate democratic,

00:54:38.260 small D democratic action.

00:54:40.060 So I don't see in theory,

00:54:42.000 any problem with this at all.

00:54:44.720 In fact,

00:54:45.120 I,

00:54:45.420 I welcome it again,

00:54:46.960 Megan,

00:54:47.220 as,

00:54:47.500 as you've stipulated that the wording in some of these cases is problematic and

00:54:52.800 could have been crisper and more clear,

00:54:55.300 but I just reject the idea that that is out there,

00:54:59.540 that this is going to stop,

00:55:01.040 you know,

00:55:01.180 the teaching of slavery or,

00:55:03.380 or civil rights.

00:55:04.240 If you look at Tennessee,

00:55:05.740 which the authors of the op-ed spend some time on that statute,

00:55:10.900 what they forbid is the promoting of,

00:55:13.740 of the concept that individuals should feel ashamed or discomfort because of

00:55:20.820 their race.

00:55:21.400 So that's different than saying,

00:55:23.940 Oh,

00:55:24.080 here's,

00:55:24.560 here's the Atlantic passage,

00:55:25.740 which was this horrifying,

00:55:26.980 nauseating,

00:55:27.800 uh,

00:55:28.660 human rights abuse.

00:55:30.140 And you might feel uncomfortable learning about it because it's a terrible

00:55:33.060 topic.

00:55:33.840 That's not it.

00:55:34.760 It's,

00:55:35.100 it's going,

00:55:35.700 a teacher going out of his or her way to say,

00:55:38.440 you should feel guilty because you are white,

00:55:41.640 uh,

00:55:42.360 or you're black or whatever it is that is forbidden.

00:55:45.900 And it just seems to me,

00:55:47.060 uh,

00:55:47.820 with public schools,

00:55:49.060 you know,

00:55:49.700 which we don't need adventurous instruction in public schools.

00:55:54.240 That's something for colleges and universities.

00:55:56.540 When you're dealing with adults,

00:55:57.840 when you have instructors who are engaging in academic research,

00:56:01.640 where academic freedom is,

00:56:03.640 is a core value.

00:56:05.160 This,

00:56:05.480 this is different.

00:56:06.140 This is supposed to be between,

00:56:07.660 you know,

00:56:07.980 the 40 yard lines.

00:56:08.900 This is kind of consensus values and instructions in,

00:56:13.460 in our society.

00:56:15.100 So,

00:56:15.380 uh,

00:56:15.980 the,

00:56:16.320 the,

00:56:16.600 these efforts strike me as worthwhile.

00:56:18.620 And I wonder about the,

00:56:19.680 the way that you just characterized that though,

00:56:21.200 Rich,

00:56:21.380 because especially when you say,

00:56:22.620 you know,

00:56:23.340 this shouldn't be taught in schools.

00:56:25.520 Well,

00:56:25.940 what is this?

00:56:27.060 I mean,

00:56:27.280 we are,

00:56:27.760 we are talking about a sprawling catalog of practices and,

00:56:32.840 and issues that,

00:56:34.520 that people have serious concerns about.

00:56:37.160 And when we talk about K through 12 education,

00:56:39.040 we're talking about,

00:56:39.960 you know,

00:56:40.460 children as young as four and five,

00:56:42.160 um,

00:56:42.620 and children as old as 17 and 18.

00:56:45.680 And in a high school class,

00:56:47.180 there are certain things that young people ought to be exposed to.

00:56:50.620 It seems the way that this is talked about,

00:56:53.180 even,

00:56:53.400 even what you just said there about the Tennessee law,

00:56:55.480 if your interpretation of this is correct,

00:56:57.860 it might be the case that,

00:56:58.920 that kids in a civics class couldn't watch a presidential debate because the,

00:57:03.940 someone in one of those debates might talk about,

00:57:06.340 say white privilege,

00:57:07.340 white supremacy,

00:57:08.080 structural racism,

00:57:08.780 or some of these other concepts and might make an assertion to the fact,

00:57:12.360 to,

00:57:12.580 to the possibility that one might make an assertion along the lines of white

00:57:16.980 people have unique particular privilege.

00:57:19.700 It is a reality that people are talking about this now,

00:57:23.600 that many Americans feel a particular way about these issues now and finding

00:57:28.420 constructive ways for students to be able to engage with these questions and

00:57:33.500 issues in a classroom setting with one another is,

00:57:37.840 it seems to me that it's,

00:57:38.780 it's urgently important that our,

00:57:41.280 that our institutions are kind of up to that task.

00:57:44.000 And that,

00:57:44.660 and one of the things that I want to point here,

00:57:46.600 highlight here is that the editorial doesn't only suggest that we can go

00:57:50.560 pursue lawsuits.

00:57:51.280 It also says explicitly that a better approach to trying to ban things,

00:57:56.160 this kind of negative approach to curriculum,

00:57:59.160 you can't do this.

00:58:00.500 You can't do that is to build better curriculum that is more thoughtful and is

00:58:05.700 more constructive and affirmatively gives us a sense for how to navigate these

00:58:09.800 complex issues together and,

00:58:11.760 and not imagine ourselves as just kind of pushing approved knowledge into young

00:58:17.140 brains,

00:58:17.620 but equipping,

00:58:18.780 equipping young people with the talent and the skills necessary to grapple with

00:58:22.260 hard issues.

00:58:23.420 Let me ask you.

00:58:23.760 So that's,

00:58:24.140 that's,

00:58:24.720 that sounds nice,

00:58:25.500 but what we're up against is a teacher's union.

00:58:27.360 I mean,

00:58:27.920 both of the largest teachers unions in the country are determined to teach this

00:58:31.840 despite their gaslighting of us now,

00:58:34.440 right?

00:58:34.640 Saying no,

00:58:35.140 no,

00:58:35.480 no,

00:58:35.680 no,

00:58:35.780 no,

00:58:35.880 we're not.

00:58:36.340 I mean,

00:58:36.520 they,

00:58:36.860 they lifted the dress up this month when the national education association,

00:58:40.940 that's the largest teacher's union.

00:58:42.380 They had an annual conference this month.

00:58:44.500 This is a great story.

00:58:45.620 And they,

00:58:46.720 because the official word sort of out of the left,

00:58:48.680 right?

00:58:48.920 The media,

00:58:50.060 the pundits,

00:58:51.060 democratic lawmakers has been,

00:58:53.300 we're not teaching CRT in K through 12.

00:58:57.940 That's not happening.

00:58:59.260 And then the national education association at their annual conference is like,

00:59:03.860 we have a six figure campaign.

00:59:05.740 We're unleashing to,

00:59:07.000 to fund a team of staffers for members who want to learn more and fight back

00:59:11.200 against those who are fighting our CRT rhetoric,

00:59:15.000 right?

00:59:16.100 Basically saying it's very reasonable.

00:59:18.500 They said it's reasonable to teach us critical race theory.

00:59:21.160 And we're going to fight back against those who are pushing against us.

00:59:24.040 They forgot.

00:59:24.580 They forgot about the official talking point.

00:59:26.380 And then the heritage foundation reported on it.

00:59:28.920 And they promptly,

00:59:29.700 the NEA removed all the items on their website that mentioned CRT.

00:59:33.620 Like,

00:59:33.820 whoops,

00:59:34.120 we didn't say that.

00:59:34.760 You didn't see that,

00:59:35.780 but it was too late.

00:59:36.600 And the second largest teachers union,

00:59:38.360 American Federation of teachers,

00:59:39.480 that's Weingarten's unit union.

00:59:41.420 They've said to,

00:59:42.260 they're investing.

00:59:42.880 I think it's $5 million into future legal fees to defend teachers who insist on

00:59:47.480 teaching CRT,

00:59:49.500 even though Weingarten is also insisting that CRT is not being taught.

00:59:52.500 Okay.

00:59:52.680 It's being taught.

00:59:53.480 And even the polling NBC had a report on this recently.

00:59:55.640 It was over 50% of teachers that either want to teach it or admit privately that they

00:59:59.660 are teaching it.

01:00:00.720 So it's,

01:00:02.200 I would love to just build better curricula,

01:00:04.400 but we're up against a group of people who really wants to shove this down our kids' throats.

01:00:09.400 Yeah.

01:00:09.480 And I think you raise an important point.

01:00:12.680 The reality,

01:00:13.200 as I mentioned earlier,

01:00:14.380 it is,

01:00:14.780 it would be wrong not to acknowledge one,

01:00:17.520 that there have already been sort of activist excesses in various schools across the country.

01:00:22.520 It is hard to quantify this problem.

01:00:24.360 I can't say how many schools this is happening in or where the worst things are happening.

01:00:28.780 And I think that's really important that we,

01:00:30.560 nobody can really quantify this just yet.

01:00:32.740 So it isn't,

01:00:33.380 it's,

01:00:33.580 it's important to kind of keep our concern constrained in that way,

01:00:36.720 but at least to be aware of this reality.

01:00:39.000 And you're right to point out what the teachers unions have done.

01:00:41.820 Ibram Kendi was speaking at one of these events and they pledged to buy copies of his book stamped

01:00:46.740 and to,

01:00:47.200 to pollute schools with it all over the country.

01:00:50.320 That bothers me.

01:00:51.520 I have serious problems with that.

01:00:53.680 At the same time,

01:00:54.900 one wonders about the appropriate approach to this.

01:00:57.200 And one has to also wonder about the degree to which the way that concern has been generated about

01:01:03.420 these issues and the way that it's being focused at the moment,

01:01:06.280 if that isn't contributing to just kind of a spreading of a brush fire,

01:01:10.860 as opposed to really constructive approaches to trying to address this problem.

01:01:15.940 I think what's not talked about often enough is the practical limitations of a strategy of trying to pass statewide bans on various things.

01:01:23.460 Like how many states can we actually get these things passed in?

01:01:26.880 What percentage of states won't,

01:01:28.280 won't have this protection at all?

01:01:29.680 I imagine if you don't have like a red,

01:01:31.820 Yeah.

01:01:32.560 I imagine if you don't have a red legislature and a red governor's office,

01:01:36.420 like that's not happening.

01:01:37.460 And it's also the case that the most awful excesses seem to be concentrated in particular places.

01:01:43.400 Like I've seen a lot of stories out of New York.

01:01:45.460 I've seen a lot of stories out of California.

01:01:47.160 I haven't seen quite so many out of Tennessee.

01:01:49.040 In fact,

01:01:49.340 what I've seen out of Tennessee recently is a teacher who got fired,

01:01:52.740 who seemed to be kind of hankering for the opportunity to get fired over these things.

01:01:57.280 And it turns into a national news story.

01:01:59.580 And it seems to me that that isn't necessarily what we want.

01:02:02.400 I'm thinking,

01:02:02.920 I think a lot about the missed opportunity here.

01:02:04.780 I imagine these angry parents going to these meetings,

01:02:10.460 these school board meetings and demanding something better.

01:02:14.340 Like, I don't know, school choice, for example.

01:02:16.880 Like it is not as though the statewide ban initiative,

01:02:22.060 this haphazard project isn't one that will cost a tremendous amount of resources and energy.

01:02:27.460 And it's not as though there aren't meaningful risks associated with it.

01:02:30.200 And it's not as though it's guaranteed to work.

01:02:32.500 If these bans are sufficiently,

01:02:35.640 if they're sufficiently narrow so that they don't run afoul of the constitution and so that they don't run afoul of making it difficult to teach complicated materials,

01:02:45.300 they're probably not going to be able to stop most of the things that people are concerned about.

01:02:50.140 The reality is that this is a cultural issue, that there is a broad societal issue here.

01:02:55.740 And we have to be meaningfully engaged in our local school boards, going to meetings, meeting with teachers.

01:03:02.920 There are no shortcuts here.

01:03:05.420 And anyone who is telling you what there are is wrong.

01:03:08.020 So I've been I've been working with a bunch of groups on this.

01:03:12.380 Fair is one of them.

01:03:14.120 And also Parents Defending Education, which is a nonpartisan group, just trying to represent parents who are struggling with all this.

01:03:22.320 And I know that one of the things that Parents Defending Education really wants is for concerned parents to run for school boards.

01:03:28.660 Yep.

01:03:28.940 You got to get on school boards.

01:03:30.160 You can't just sit at home and lament.

01:03:32.460 You got to get in the positions of power.

01:03:34.900 So, Rich, why isn't that the answer?

01:03:36.880 Like grassroots efforts, taking advantage of this enormous energy we've seen among parents who are outraged about this to get them on school boards and change the change the curriculum that way, as opposed to at the state level.

01:03:48.860 Oh, it has to be a huge part of the solution.

01:03:51.760 So I disagree with Camille about these laws.

01:03:57.760 Most of them, you know, I think they're legitimate concerns about some of the wording.

01:04:02.060 But let's say we, and I take his point, you know, this is only happening in red states with red legislatures and Republican governors.

01:04:10.520 Let's say we do this in 15 states.

01:04:13.540 That one that leaves a huge part of the country, right?

01:04:16.360 35 states where you haven't done it.

01:04:18.020 Two, if all we do, even if we pass these kind of laws in 50 states, just keeping teachers from making kids feel guilty from over their race, that's not a huge victory, right?

01:04:31.760 That's a really minor and defensive victory when you think about it.

01:04:35.180 So absolutely, these school board fights are essential and developing curricula or that teaches truthful versions of American history or protecting curricula that already do that is absolutely the ultimate name of the game.

01:04:53.920 And the beauty of our system and having a highly localized system of education is you can be a parent in, you know, a small town somewhere or, you know, a suburban county and you can go get 200 signatures on your petition to get on the ballot or whatever it takes.

01:05:13.840 And then you win 800 votes in a school board race and you are hugely influential in how the education of your children, your neighbor's children, is going to be carried out.

01:05:24.140 That's a beautiful thing.

01:05:25.660 And parents who are concerned about this should absolutely take advantage of that.

01:05:30.040 And that's something that can happen not just in red states.

01:05:32.220 It can happen in states all around the country because, you know, you look like a look at a county by county political map and, you know, there's swaths.

01:05:40.740 The country, if you break it down that way, is mostly red because there's so many red localities.

01:05:47.600 And so that should be the name of the game more than these state laws.

01:05:53.380 I defend these state laws.

01:05:54.720 I think what they're trying to do is righteous.

01:05:57.540 But, again, it's really kind of a defensive and prophylactic action compared to taking over these school boards and preventing the education blob from imposing this stuff on our schools.

01:06:12.720 And I also take Camille's point that mostly, you know, you look at where this is happening.

01:06:16.980 It's happening a lot of places.

01:06:18.400 But, you know, it's Cupertino, it's Portland, as you point out, it's a lot of New York.

01:06:23.480 But it's coming everywhere unless you stop it.

01:06:26.480 And this is the history of these sort of things.

01:06:28.400 Not that we want to get into trans, but, you know, we would have a lot of us would have said, oh, look, 10 years ago, Berkeley says biological males should be able to go into female bathrooms.

01:06:36.800 Isn't that insane?

01:06:37.780 You know, that would never happen here.

01:06:39.300 But it's spread everywhere.

01:06:41.280 So I think while this debate can be won and before it's too late, it's important to undertake these state measures in the places where you can pass them and fight school board race by school board race all around the country.

01:06:55.100 Because if you get control of the school boards, you can you can go as broad as you want.

01:06:59.240 I mean, one of the things about these laws is they don't stop the indoctrination on trans issues.

01:07:04.820 You know, they all this stuff about letting your kid leave in the middle of the day to go get cross gender hormones without telling the parents and not looping the parents in.

01:07:12.240 If your kid decides one day to go from being a girl to being a boy, they don't tell the parents like it's crazy how at our school, our all boys school that we left, they were literally asking the boys every week whether they still felt like boys.

01:07:26.400 That is what my son and his friends told me.

01:07:28.740 It was insane.

01:07:29.960 Like gender is just something that's completely fluid.

01:07:32.580 It could change day to day and just checking back in at an all boys school with these boys to see whether that changed for them.

01:07:38.840 Like, could you just stop it?

01:07:40.340 Stop it.

01:07:41.000 If my kid's got an issue, I want her to be supported.

01:07:44.080 You don't need to keep suggesting it.

01:07:46.340 Right.

01:07:46.540 It's like, is anyone feeling suicidal?

01:07:48.940 Anyone today?

01:07:49.660 Anyone feeling it a little like some of these things are suggestible.

01:07:52.520 We've seen evidence on that with the trans craze through Abigail Schreier and Lisa Lipman, who did the study and so on, especially with respect to girls.

01:07:59.040 Anyway, my point is none of these laws address any of that.

01:08:02.580 But you get control of the school boards and you can.

01:08:05.440 You can.

01:08:05.800 So that I think we all agree that that would be a nice way of fighting back, getting more local control.

01:08:10.380 Moms for Liberty down in Florida, this group I spoke to, they're all about that.

01:08:14.020 And that's awesome.

01:08:14.940 But like it or not, for good or for worse, there is a push with the states, you know, more and more to do this.

01:08:21.300 I should point out states on the other side have done it, too.

01:08:23.360 Several states have mandated the inclusion of this CRT education into their education systems like California, but several others as well, all blue states.

01:08:35.040 And now red states are doing it the other way.

01:08:36.940 And I do think it's it's worth noting they have discretion.

01:08:40.960 The states do have discretion to set the curriculum in their schools.

01:08:44.600 They can banish texts.

01:08:46.340 They can restrict teacher speech.

01:08:48.240 It's different from colleges.

01:08:50.320 You know, the the K through 12 kids are a captive audience.

01:08:53.580 There's a great piece on National Review of Rich by Stanley Kurtz saying there's a good reason that we we can do more to silence or control K through 12 teachers than we can college professors.

01:09:05.880 They're a captive audience.

01:09:07.220 They're minors.

01:09:08.100 They're vulnerable to the authority of these teachers.

01:09:10.620 They, you know, they're held in much higher esteem than college professors are.

01:09:14.800 And Stanley said this is abuse what's happening to them.

01:09:17.640 I've said that, too.

01:09:18.600 I do think this is child abuse.

01:09:20.200 So to you, Camille, what of the argument that this is this is an emergency?

01:09:25.680 Like we we wouldn't let schools all over the country say the KKK wasn't all wrong.

01:09:33.260 They had a lot of good points.

01:09:34.460 Hitler, he made some good points.

01:09:35.900 Like we would never allow that.

01:09:38.000 And and I think people view this kind of messaging.

01:09:41.780 You know, I mean, there's just one.

01:09:42.920 This is actually out of Oklahoma.

01:09:44.420 Red State teacher told his students to be white is to be racist, period.

01:09:48.200 You know, that we covered this school, the public schools in Buffalo teaching five year olds about racist police, making them watch videos of dead children, allegedly sort of coming back from the grave to talk about racist cops and so on.

01:10:02.500 So you can see that the feeling by folks who oppose this, this is an equal emergency to stop.

01:10:07.460 Well, well, again, my my perspective on this emergency, however, is, you know, does a sledgehammer actually fix those problems?

01:10:14.580 And it seems to me that it that it does not, in fact, fix those problems, that that is almost certainly the case that in these in this with this local system that we have, a solution that does make a lot of sense is for parents to get involved in a circumstance like that, to go to their school board, to make the issue known to to local officials and to create a bit of a scandal at that institution.

01:10:38.260 And achieve the change that they want, that that's what makes sense here, a statewide ban, again, it seems to me is going to cause no shortage of problems.

01:10:49.360 And while I know Rich has some disagreement about this, the reality is that the way many of these pieces of legislation are written today, they're going to have a number of far reaching consequences that can't really be anticipated and could further politicize issues.

01:11:05.640 I have good reason to believe that the degree to which folks are actually kind of overreaching here and creating a bit of a panic is probably inspiring more controversy and will and will inspire more concern.

01:11:19.660 And will make the states that are more interested in these policies, perhaps even go a bit further and kind of cementing their perspective here.

01:11:27.660 And to the extent folks who are interested in bans go too far in their attempts to try and restrain some of these things, it is entirely possible that they could turn public opinion against them very quickly and sort of cement some of these things in the institutions and create a great deal of sympathy for someone.

01:11:44.780 The last thing that you want, if you're someone who's concerned about creeping racial essentialism in public schools, is kind of a sympathetic victim who is fired for something that seems rather frivolous to people looking at it from the outside, that makes people very suspicious about these restrictions.

01:12:04.960 And I don't want to create the perception of, you know, Ibram Kendi's book being secret knowledge.

01:12:11.780 If, you know, 16-year-olds have access to this book, what if they bring them from home?

01:12:16.340 You know, are you going to take those things away from them?

01:12:18.640 Are they forbidden in the library?

01:12:21.260 I mean, I think it's really important to just bear in mind the kind of limitations of what these schools can actually do.

01:12:28.000 It's not the worst thing in the universe if there is something in the library, say, at the school that is perhaps somewhat questionable from all of our shared perspective, but that a kid might have access to.

01:12:42.700 Like, there are going to be questions.

01:12:44.320 These conversations are going to happen.

01:12:46.260 It is impossible.

01:12:47.340 It is impossible that students won't have conversations about Black Lives Matter in their college, you know, government and politics, in their high school government and politics courses.

01:12:56.980 I mean, my wife in her second year in high school participated in a debate club and debated affirmative action back and forth.

01:13:04.480 These things will happen.

01:13:06.360 And I don't think it is an even realistic possibility that we can put the genie back in the bottle and sort of put a shield around ourselves and not have these conversations.

01:13:18.140 The question becomes how to do these kinds of things productively, not to try to ban them out of existence.

01:13:22.820 Next up is one of my favorite and most moving interviews we have done on this show with two inspirational heroes, true heroes.

01:13:32.780 People overuse that term.

01:13:33.900 These guys are true heroes who happen to be identical twins, the Luttrells.

01:13:39.000 Stay with us.

01:13:39.580 Marcus and Morgan Luttrell are identical twin brothers, Texans, Navy SEALs, and wise and unfiltered men who have been through some truly horrific experiences.

01:13:57.180 When they came on to talk with us in August, it was one of the most powerful interviews I have done since launching the Megyn Kelly show since before that.

01:14:03.880 I mean, in my career, you can find the full interview in our archives.

01:14:07.900 It's episode 149.

01:14:09.340 And man, is that worth your time?

01:14:12.420 But we kicked off the show with the Afghanistan debacle, which was happening as the interview was taking place.

01:14:19.560 And that story, the botched withdrawal by the Biden administration, became a major topic in 2021.

01:14:25.640 We spoke with Robert O'Neill, the man who killed bin Laden about it.

01:14:29.060 And he was amazing.

01:14:30.580 My gosh, that interview that was from Memorial Day.

01:14:32.460 Please go back and listen to that because it's freaking amazing to hear him tell the story of how he shot bin Laden.

01:14:37.640 But the Luttrells had quite a deep and impressive take on it.

01:14:42.340 God, listen to these guys.

01:14:44.140 It's tough to watch.

01:14:45.860 Obviously, we have a all of us have a connection there.

01:14:48.880 But the scenario that's unfolding right now with Americans still there waiting, feeling that that that lost feeling, that sense of hope, not hopelessness, I wouldn't think because we're still here.

01:14:59.700 I've had that.

01:15:00.780 I mean, literally over there by myself, not knowing what to do.

01:15:03.720 And y'all came and got me.

01:15:05.040 I never forgot that.

01:15:06.140 I spend the rest of my life trying to make my soul bleed, showing each American how precious that is to me.

01:15:12.320 And when you get when something like this happens to you, you have a taste for what America truly is.

01:15:17.900 I mean, I wanted to hug the first person I saw and to it ought to let you know how wonderful this place is.

01:15:24.960 And in America, it is a place, but moreover, it's the people.

01:15:27.740 And there are people literally holding on to the outside of our aircraft trying to get here and falling from the sky just to meet y'all, just just to hang out here.

01:15:35.000 Because all they have access to so far is just the people in the military.

01:15:38.760 We're kind of regimental.

01:15:39.620 The true spice of this of America is our people back home and people are flooding to get here.

01:15:45.880 We not only have Americans over there that we have to get back.

01:15:49.100 Just bottom line, you got to get them back.

01:15:50.600 Now call Stallone, send in expendables or send in just the rest of the military and put us in there.

01:15:55.020 We'll go do it.

01:15:56.360 Y'all have truly never seen the full weight of what what we're capable of because you just never had to implement that.

01:16:02.820 But it's I think the emotion that I'm feeling more over than anything else and most of the veterans are as a man.

01:16:10.660 There's still people back there.

01:16:11.600 We don't leave anybody behind.

01:16:13.400 I never had PTSD, but I started to get it thinking that there's some of our countrymen stranded somewhere and they need our help.

01:16:19.280 And I know that first hand sprint because y'all came and got me.

01:16:21.520 So I know it's possible.

01:16:22.640 Y'all sent the entire military in to get me and I was in hell.

01:16:26.540 They're on the border of it.

01:16:28.120 So it's it kind of resonates real, real, real close to home here.

01:16:32.820 Yeah, I would say you've got a deep appreciation of what it means to be stranded out in the middle of a country.

01:16:38.000 Oh, somebody come get you trying to kill you.

01:16:39.800 People trying to kill you.

01:16:41.500 Yep.

01:16:42.260 Right.

01:16:42.480 You can't even imagine what it's like when you set foot back here.

01:16:44.360 It looks different, feels different.

01:16:46.420 I mean, we're we got we're going through some stuff here in America.

01:16:49.780 And we're a family.

01:16:50.660 Families do that.

01:16:51.720 And we'll get through this.

01:16:53.360 And as I've been we've gone through it, the way I always look at it, man, nothing will ever change how much I love everybody here for coming to get me and what I try to do to show that.

01:17:04.520 Biden's now saying that we'll go back.

01:17:06.480 We'll get we'll get the military guys and we'll get the Americans.

01:17:08.740 Americans, the promises are less explicit on getting those who helped us, the translators and sort of the Afghan people who were in support roles to our men and women in uniform over there.

01:17:20.500 I wonder what you think about that, Morgan.

01:17:22.160 Let me ask you that one, because we heard from a lot of military guys who are upset about that and, you know, knew how much we relied on those helpers when we were over there.

01:17:31.120 You couldn't tell the difference between ourselves and our translators or our support rounds come down rage.

01:17:36.500 They they they did not discriminate.

01:17:38.620 And those that those that were tasked to us fought just as hard as we did.

01:17:44.260 And we've always said and I always wanted them to have the opportunity to come over and be here because they defended our country just like it was their own.

01:17:53.660 So it's very disheartening to see or hear, excuse me, that that's a possibility that that won't happen.

01:17:59.680 And I'm maybe call me eternal optimist that there's enough people surrounding the administration that says, no, they're they're they need the opportunity and they must have the opportunity to come.

01:18:10.860 We need to rescue them just like we need to rescue all the Americans that are that are waiting on us.

01:18:15.860 Period.

01:18:16.440 Let me tell you something.

01:18:18.040 Not only do they serve us over and help us overseas, they were in the front there.

01:18:22.880 We watched those those terms and especially the ones that are signed of us at thousands of missions.

01:18:28.100 We pinned a couple of those guys with SEAL tridents.

01:18:31.340 They were such great operators.

01:18:33.820 I mean, they gave it everything they had.

01:18:36.460 Those are the ones you definitely want to bring back.

01:18:39.820 Otherwise, why else would anybody help you?

01:18:41.560 And if they're if they're willing to help you in the worst situation ever.

01:18:45.400 They'll obviously help us over here when things are good, too.

01:18:47.540 And when things are bad.

01:18:48.340 I was actually listening to The New York Times podcast The Daily today, and they were talking about this soldier who had served in Afghanistan.

01:18:55.800 He was talking about the relationship that you develop with the translator.

01:18:59.240 Here he is.

01:18:59.940 His name is Colin Daniels.

01:19:02.380 Served in the army for six years.

01:19:04.000 Twenty eight years old.

01:19:05.080 Here's just a little bit of that guy.

01:19:06.580 Listen, we would tell the Afghans whether they were interpreters or civilians or Afghan army.

01:19:14.140 That they could trust us as Americans.

01:19:17.860 You know, I joined the military because I, like, truly believed that America was the.

01:19:24.620 I believed in America.

01:19:31.280 And they did, too.

01:19:38.920 And and like we we told them on an individual level.

01:19:43.600 Trust us.

01:19:45.700 Trust us on this patrol.

01:19:47.080 Trust us on this.

01:19:49.040 K.L.E.

01:19:49.640 Trust us on on all this.

01:19:51.440 We have your back.

01:19:54.160 Because they just were aspiring to be free.

01:19:59.080 What's more American than that?

01:20:01.280 And, you know, when push comes to shove, like, I don't disagree with having to leave Afghanistan.

01:20:09.040 Like, we can't do it forever.

01:20:10.480 But when push comes to shove, these people that soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines told, hey, man, you can trust me.

01:20:21.480 It's a lie now, you know.

01:20:29.080 Excuse me.

01:20:31.280 You can hear that guy's pain.

01:20:32.960 You can you can hear it.

01:20:35.520 There is.

01:20:36.120 We because the relationships, they're most certainly carved out in and pain and misery and most certainly blood.

01:20:43.700 So the fact that you look and it's just as important looking left and right and seeing who's standing there with you.

01:20:48.660 They're there.

01:20:49.380 So I can empathize with him knowing that we did.

01:20:56.000 We did.

01:20:56.700 That was always conversations that you had with those individuals that supported us.

01:21:00.360 You know, some of them wanted to come blank.

01:21:01.900 Yes.

01:21:02.280 I mean, because that's how it was always articulated to us.

01:21:05.060 Like, you'll have that opportunity.

01:21:06.580 I would I would say the vast majority of Americans still believe that.

01:21:12.640 And I won't maybe preface this with saying I don't think we there was an intentional lie to the individuals that supported us over there from Afghanistan.

01:21:21.620 The locals that supported us and the army and the interpreters.

01:21:24.540 And I don't think we intentionally lied to them.

01:21:26.400 I think once again, if you look at the administration, they.

01:21:29.780 They weren't prepared.

01:21:33.040 And I think their decision making was not orchestrated properly.

01:21:36.680 And then it just came completely off the rails.

01:21:39.640 What do you make of that?

01:21:40.720 Because because Biden's out there today saying that it could not have been done better.

01:21:45.160 He says he does not think it could have been handled in any better way.

01:21:49.220 Do you agree with that?

01:21:50.460 No, no, no, no, not at all.

01:21:51.940 I most certainly I think they absolutely got everything backwards.

01:21:55.100 I think we should have remained in place and started evacuating civilian population.

01:22:01.580 Those are the ones that can defend themselves properly.

01:22:03.240 And then you come to the interpreters, then you and then the army and then whomever else.

01:22:06.820 And where do you leave behind?

01:22:07.840 It's it's system.

01:22:08.760 We can handle ourselves.

01:22:09.700 We're designed for that part.

01:22:11.260 You get everybody else and then we go.

01:22:14.180 I don't know if he's if he was.

01:22:15.780 I saw the ABC interview and I don't know why he won't.

01:22:18.380 You know, this is something Trump would have done.

01:22:20.060 He's like, I would because he's like he would never answer.

01:22:22.860 Hey, August 31st is at the deadline.

01:22:24.360 Will you will troops remain in place?

01:22:26.340 And he kept dancing around it.

01:22:27.740 Trump would have been like, we'll stay there until the day I die.

01:22:31.160 Until every American's out of there and every support staff's out of there.

01:22:34.180 I don't understand why that's a problem.

01:22:35.720 Yeah, we're going to stay.

01:22:37.040 If we got to go back, you know, we did this wrong.

01:22:39.260 We we messed up.

01:22:40.500 We effed up.

01:22:41.780 But I'm going to course correct this and I'm sending in the Marines and the airborne.

01:22:45.200 And we're staying and we're staying to the last person's out.

01:22:48.080 And then we'll put a date.

01:22:49.320 I don't know why that's so hard.

01:22:50.500 We heard a very different message from President Biden.

01:22:52.400 And let me just give the audience a sample of what he said to George Stephanopoulos so

01:22:55.520 they know what we're talking about.

01:22:56.440 But it was very deflecting.

01:22:58.120 It was not a message of I'm taking responsibility.

01:23:00.560 It was basically reminding me of Kevin Bacon in Animal House.

01:23:03.720 All is fine.

01:23:04.440 All is calm.

01:23:05.200 Remain calm.

01:23:05.780 All is fine.

01:23:06.380 All is well.

01:23:06.860 No, no.

01:23:07.080 I got one better than that, Megan.

01:23:08.620 They had one of the spokesmen's out.

01:23:10.380 And there was a Jim Carrey movie where he works for a global company like Fleming with Dick

01:23:16.140 and Jane.

01:23:16.500 He's on there trying to tell you what a great company it is.

01:23:18.380 And then they have the other the real life stream going and it's all falling apart and

01:23:22.500 they're doing their level best.

01:23:23.780 I heard him say, we have we got communications with Taliban and we let guys coming in and

01:23:29.000 out of the airport.

01:23:29.600 That's probably a gate guard outside the airport saying, yeah, come on, bring him up in here.

01:23:35.260 We don't negotiate with Taliban.

01:23:36.800 They don't negotiate with us.

01:23:37.700 That's that's the whole point.

01:23:39.340 That's that's why we can just go in there and get our Americans out.

01:23:41.920 We don't have to ask for permission.

01:23:43.700 There's no stable government.

01:23:45.080 And the president bailed.

01:23:46.340 Right.

01:23:47.460 He grabbed a bunch of coin and hauled.

01:23:49.200 But America is a lot of things.

01:23:51.180 Do we have our bad part?

01:23:52.100 Yeah, we do.

01:23:53.080 But the only time you have to stand up and be recognized as an American to understand

01:23:57.540 its values is when we say the pledge.

01:23:59.280 And when and that, because if you are stranded somewhere, just one of us, if one of our people

01:24:04.860 is stranded somewhere and needs help, we will send the entire country to come get

01:24:08.460 you.

01:24:09.320 That's the blessing to be an American.

01:24:10.740 And the trust level goes, they sleep in the camps with us, those turps and everything.

01:24:14.900 They position a position of watch.

01:24:17.420 I mean, if they can't trust us and we go there and we go on the missions and it's like I have

01:24:21.040 half trust with them.

01:24:22.680 Well, man, that doesn't make you feel too safe.

01:24:25.640 Yep.

01:24:26.300 Let's let me stand by because I want to get the audience up to speed on Biden.

01:24:30.000 Let's just listen to a sampling of what he said on ABC.

01:24:32.380 When you look at what's happened over the last week, was it a failure of intelligence,

01:24:37.220 planning, execution or judgment?

01:24:40.740 Look, I don't think it was a failure.

01:24:42.360 Look, it was a simple choice, George.

01:24:44.560 When the Taliban, let me put it another way.

01:24:49.440 When you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government getting a plane

01:24:56.740 and taking off and going to another country.

01:24:58.440 When you saw the significant collapse of the Afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000

01:25:07.360 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off.

01:25:11.400 That was, you know, I'm not, that's what happened.

01:25:15.180 That's simply what happened.

01:25:16.420 But we've all seen the pictures.

01:25:17.740 We've seen those hundreds of people packed into a C-17.

01:25:20.980 We've seen Afghans falling.

01:25:23.040 That was four days ago, five days ago.

01:25:25.420 What did you think when you first saw those pictures?

01:25:27.140 What I thought was we have to gain control of this.

01:25:30.520 We have to move this more quickly.

01:25:32.840 We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport.

01:25:36.860 And we did.

01:25:38.200 So you don't think this could have been handled, this actually could have been handled better

01:25:41.980 in any way?

01:25:42.780 No mistakes?

01:25:44.080 No, I don't think it could have been handled in a way that there, we're going to go back

01:25:49.740 in hindsight and look.

01:25:50.860 But the idea that somehow there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't

01:25:57.200 know how that happens.

01:25:58.920 I don't know how that happened.

01:26:00.360 So for you, that was always priced into the decision?

01:26:02.880 Yes.

01:26:03.800 What do you make of that, Marcus?

01:26:05.240 I think it's been a few days now.

01:26:07.000 So my hindsight is, we see what happens.

01:26:11.180 I don't have to say anything.

01:26:12.820 I don't have to suggest something.

01:26:15.120 I don't have to belittle anybody.

01:26:16.520 I don't have to talk smack about anybody.

01:26:17.860 I don't do that anyways.

01:26:19.460 It's right there in front of your face.

01:26:21.240 I mean, you can literally turn on television and watch it.

01:26:24.100 You don't have to have somebody tell us.

01:26:25.920 It's there, right?

01:26:26.940 I think every one of his answers was taking a political stance instead of the stance of

01:26:32.360 the commander-in-chief.

01:26:34.400 And a commander-in-chief would not shift blame and point fingers.

01:26:38.460 A commander-in-chief would stand up and say, mistakes were made.

01:26:42.260 We own it.

01:26:43.720 And this is what we're doing to course correct it.

01:26:47.060 I will say that the only reason you know that that's happened is when someone tries to

01:26:51.700 explain it.

01:26:52.140 In any situation that you get into, when the outcome presents itself, there's no explanation

01:26:57.080 and that's the way it was supposed to go.

01:26:58.860 And even when it snowballs, it continues.

01:27:00.620 People can pick that up.

01:27:01.440 You can see it.

01:27:02.380 If you just constantly happen to defend and try to explain, not defend it, just try to

01:27:06.740 explain it, then that's how you know.

01:27:09.120 Yeah, something's gone wrong.

01:27:10.820 Can I offer something from my level?

01:27:15.240 When I say my level, my rank, when I was in the military and we were serving over there

01:27:18.640 and that was at an operator's level on the ground.

01:27:20.940 And the day one, week one, when I first stepped foot in Afghanistan in the early 2000s, talking

01:27:27.300 with the villagers, talking with the army, what you're seeing as far as the Taliban coming

01:27:36.220 in and how they've taken back the country, in my opinion, that was always inevitable.

01:27:40.560 It was going to happen.

01:27:41.540 It's happened over millennia.

01:27:44.120 Alexander the Great got stopped there.

01:27:46.760 Throughout time, everybody stops right there.

01:27:49.200 Uh, what was not inevitable was how it happened now.

01:27:58.120 We could have done it differently where we wouldn't be in the position of American lives

01:28:03.660 are in jeopardy.

01:28:04.520 That most certainly would have changed, in my opinion, in Morgan's opinion.

01:28:07.940 But the fact that we've, we fought in that war and the Taliban has come back, they just

01:28:14.220 waited us out like they did everyone else.

01:28:16.640 That was going to happen.

01:28:19.100 And I think you've heard a lot of leadership say that.

01:28:21.120 Well, the, the amazing, when you see something spread that fast, it means people are allowing

01:28:24.980 it to take that because Afghanistan is a little bit smaller than Texas and to consume it like

01:28:30.020 that would have meant there were the little to no resistance.

01:28:32.160 And when you watch TV and you see all of them, the, the Taliban on the road with those,

01:28:37.360 with our weaponry, the way they're, they're moving and walk in, where they're carrying,

01:28:40.940 carrying themselves just the way they, they carry themselves.

01:28:44.040 You know, we trained them.

01:28:45.140 That's the Afghan army.

01:28:46.660 So they were already, that was our, that whole thing was going on underneath the watch.

01:28:52.260 It spread like a wildfire.

01:28:53.420 I mean, coming from the North down to the South, it could go districts ahead.

01:28:57.640 Hey, the Taliban is moving in.

01:28:58.920 Americans aren't here anymore.

01:29:01.020 I don't have any backside support.

01:29:02.560 I'm Taliban now.

01:29:03.920 That's right.

01:29:04.360 Well, a lot of people, they do have to self preserve, right?

01:29:06.680 They do to save their own lives, to save the lives of their families.

01:29:08.800 They always said that.

01:29:10.240 It's like, what are we supposed to do when you leave?

01:29:12.760 They're doing it.

01:29:13.240 And we weren't there to stay.

01:29:14.900 That's not, I mean, we didn't go into, to occupy.

01:29:17.360 That's the only way you can truly change it is to get the people to take control or we have to stay.

01:29:21.620 And then you just, you build a society there.

01:29:24.320 And you said it best, Megan, it's self-preservation.

01:29:26.840 If I have to survive and the Taliban is coming through, I need to conform.

01:29:32.100 And so is that a good thing or a bad thing?

01:29:33.580 Or is it just a thing?

01:29:34.740 I'm curious how you guys, because you sound different about it.

01:29:38.480 When I talked to Rob O'Neill, for example, you know, the SEAL who killed bin Laden, one of the guys who went in on that mission, the guy who tried the shot.

01:29:45.700 And he's pissed off.

01:29:47.920 And he said, you know, what did, what did, what did our guys die for?

01:29:52.420 What was I there for?

01:29:53.480 You know, he's like, I don't like the whole country's now back in the hands of the guys we were sent over there to fight.

01:29:57.740 You know, Al Qaeda is going to get another stronghold there, another foothold there and launch more terror attacks on us.

01:30:03.460 So what did our guys die for?

01:30:04.720 He said, I'm angry.

01:30:05.820 I'm, I'm pissed.

01:30:08.000 Do you, have you talked to anybody like that?

01:30:10.120 Like, what do you think, what do you make of that perspective?

01:30:12.460 Dr. Robbie, I've been, I've been filled in phone calls since this kicked off.

01:30:16.820 And I think I might have a little different response than most people.

01:30:19.680 And I don't mean to anger anybody, but I tried to level this, the situation saying we lost our brothers and sisters over there.

01:30:26.860 And we, we, we, we went over there and we fought for 20 years and now it, it, is it all for nothing?

01:30:31.740 I, I always, and I've been saying since all this happened, it's like, I'm proud to have gone over there and served.

01:30:38.060 And I tell everybody, hold your head high because you did exactly what you were supposed to do that your country asked you to do.

01:30:44.400 And is it tragic that we've lost or the, are the, are the, are the, the loved ones that lost someone, are they hurting and dying?

01:30:50.900 Yes, they are.

01:30:51.420 But their loved ones in my, and I always, and this may not be the case, but I try to, I tell myself this every day.

01:30:55.980 They, they died doing what they love doing to, to, and support because they lost their lives, others lived.

01:31:02.720 And then I, I tell all the individuals that served with me, it's like, Hey, look, you know what?

01:31:05.980 We did exactly what we were tasked to do.

01:31:08.320 Is it over?

01:31:08.980 Did we, did we lose or did we time out?

01:31:11.320 Because inevitably, if you don't have anybody to surrender to you, there there's really no, there's no end of the quarter.

01:31:18.000 Yeah.

01:31:18.360 There was never going to be a spike the ball in the end zone moment in Afghanistan.

01:31:21.060 Well, that's when there was, it was, yeah.

01:31:22.760 So when, when that dude came down to get some milk and cookies and found Rob O'Neill in his kitchen, blasting right in the face, that's, that, that kind of ended that.

01:31:29.940 Love Lillotrell brothers.

01:31:31.980 Okay.

01:31:32.160 Last one.

01:31:32.800 We're bringing you by buddy Janice Dean.

01:31:35.380 JD is up next in an emotional triumphant moment.

01:31:39.300 Stay with us.

01:31:43.800 Janice Dean is not just a frequent guest on the show.

01:31:47.020 She is one of my closest friends.

01:31:48.600 In fact, I was listening to one of the podcasts from the guys at Ruthless and they thought she should have been time's person of the year.

01:31:55.760 I love that.

01:31:57.020 They are such good judges.

01:31:59.100 Wish they'd been in charge.

01:32:01.400 JD bravely fought on behalf of her in-laws who tragically lost their lives in New York state nursing homes in the midst of the pandemic.

01:32:09.900 Thanks in part to that order assigned by Governor Andrew Cuomo, sending COVID positive patients back into nursing homes.

01:32:17.480 15,000 seniors would later die.

01:32:20.860 And she went from meteorologists at Fox News to a leader of the group speaking out against Andrew Cuomo.

01:32:26.860 As Letitia James' attorney general report was released in August, what ended up becoming the beginning of the end for Cuomo, Janice came on and took a much deserved victory lap.

01:32:38.280 I don't know about you, but I'm reeling, I'm kind of reeling in my seat about what we just heard, the specifics of what these women alleged and what he and his office allegedly did in response.

01:32:53.700 I don't even know how to put this into words, you know, I always assumed that the sexual harassment charges would be the thing that might get him for many reasons.

01:33:06.500 And I am so proud of those brave women today, you know, those young women who really risked their careers and their livelihoods and their reputation to go against this powerful monster.

01:33:24.180 And to see our attorney general, Letitia James, who's a Democrat, go up there and just line by line, you know, deliver the information, the disgusting behavior.

01:33:40.120 It's all about power.

01:33:42.220 And, you know, it doesn't matter if we're talking about the nursing homes or we're talking about him giving out friends and family COVID tests.

01:33:51.280 It's all about abuse of power with this guy.

01:33:54.760 And I think today is the first day that we're going to hopefully see some accountability.

01:34:02.220 It's already starting to happen.

01:34:03.720 The New York State Senate majority leader, a Democrat, has has already said he can no longer serve.

01:34:10.760 He himself said this.

01:34:13.920 This tweet is making the rounds May 17th, 2013, quote, there should be a zero tolerance policy when it comes to sexual harassment.

01:34:21.280 And we must send a clear message that this behavior is not tolerated.

01:34:28.660 There's no room for any of this in any workplace and certainly not in the statehouse of the great state of New York.

01:34:37.620 I want to go through with you some of the specific allegations because we learned a lot, a lot from Tish James, that presser and the document, the executive summary and so on that they put out, which is over 160 pages long.

01:34:50.340 So just so people don't have to take your word for it or my word for it.

01:34:54.580 Let's let's see exactly what the women went in and told Letitia James.

01:34:59.300 And by the way, her independent investigators, a lot of these, they take pains in the report to point out, are corroborated by independent texts.

01:35:07.180 Friends who came forward, aides who admitted they saw it, state troopers who witnessed some of the behaviors.

01:35:14.900 It's not to say Andrew Cuomo doesn't deny it, but just know this isn't just I mean, with all due respect to Christine Blasey Ford, it isn't just somebody coming forward after 30 years and saying, this is what I remember without any corroboration.

01:35:26.920 This is painstaking executive assistant number one had close.

01:35:33.640 This is her allegation, according to the executive summary, had close and intimate hugs with him, kisses on the cheeks, forehead, at least one kiss on the lips, touching and grabbing of her butt during hugs.

01:35:44.660 And on one occasion, while taking selfies with him, comments about her personal life relationships, calling her and another girl mingle mamas, inquiring multiple times about whether she had cheated or would cheat on her husband, asking for her, her help, finding him a girlfriend.

01:35:58.960 And then there was this at the executive mansion, November 2020, when the governor, during another close hug with this young executive assistant, quote, reached under her blouse and grabbed her breast.

01:36:12.160 That's sexual assault. It doesn't even have to be that egregious, an unwanted physical touch is a sexual assault under the law.

01:36:19.000 That is clear if, in fact, that happened. And it's pretty detailed under the blouse, grabbing a young woman's breast, who is a lowly executive assistant for you.

01:36:29.440 There's a reason that's number one in the complaint against this guy.

01:36:33.940 You know, it's it's hard for me to listen to because I had that happen as well in an office in New York, Will the Superior.

01:36:42.160 He did the same thing to me. Grabbed my breasts from behind.

01:36:46.920 So. So I feel for these women, I really do.

01:36:53.760 I know it's kind of triggering. It is kind of I hate that word, but God damn it, it is you.

01:36:59.440 You say that and it brings me right back to that office.

01:37:02.620 And I know it's not about me. It's about these strong women.

01:37:05.300 But you have to understand that this kind of behavior, we can't put up with this or tolerate it anymore.

01:37:12.120 These brave women. I remember that what I was wearing that day when my boss did that.

01:37:17.660 Um, so to hear that, uh, and to be, to be in an office with an attorney and to, you know, they're strangers, right?

01:37:26.680 And you're telling them your deepest, darkest secrets that you don't even tell your boyfriend or your husband.

01:37:33.120 Oh my gosh. He, I mean, I just having gone through this, you've gone through this.

01:37:37.660 You just want him to go away and shame.

01:37:41.340 He, he allegedly did this to this woman and the complaint says for over three months, this executive assistant kept this groping incident to herself and quote, planned to take it to the grave.

01:37:54.440 Been there, right? Been there.

01:37:56.540 But she found herself becoming emotional while watching the governor's state at a press conference on March 3rd, 2021, the following.

01:38:07.500 Listen to the comment that brought this woman forward.

01:38:10.060 I want New Yorkers to hear from me directly on this.

01:38:17.860 I fully support a woman's right to come forward.

01:38:22.400 I now understand that I acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable, but this is what I want you to know.

01:38:35.180 I never touched anyone inappropriately.

01:38:40.540 I never touched anyone inappropriately.

01:38:45.880 She wasn't going to tell.

01:38:48.740 Even though other women had come forward already, the dam had already broken.

01:38:53.600 This young woman wasn't going to tell because, you know, very well, as along with me, that women are terrified of getting this label slapped around them, that they're a complainer, that they're going to be a me tour.

01:39:05.240 They don't want to get hired.

01:39:06.660 They're afraid that they won't get hired.

01:39:09.180 And that was the thing that did it.

01:39:10.820 And she went to the investigators.

01:39:12.060 She actually confided to colleagues who reported her allegations to senior staff in the executive chamber who, honestly, J.D., the stories about the senior staff are almost as concerning.

01:39:23.880 The web of aides who couldn't have cared less about the 11 women staffers and outside the department as well who came forward.

01:39:33.660 I don't know what to say.

01:39:34.840 It's they all need to go.

01:39:37.800 They all need to resign in shame.

01:39:39.600 And the fact that these people, his administration, continued to try to smear these women, you know, up until a couple of weeks ago when Rich as a party, his top aide, was saying, I don't know if we can trust, you know, what's going on in the AG department.

01:39:55.180 I don't know if we could trust these women and what they're saying.

01:39:58.540 And, you know, the governor, too.

01:40:00.200 I remember a couple of weeks ago saying, you will be shocked when you find out, you know, what happened to me.

01:40:07.640 You know, like the truth.

01:40:10.040 Yeah.

01:40:10.600 Yeah.

01:40:10.880 Like, yeah, he's still, you know, it goes back to don't be mean to me.

01:40:15.260 You know, he's the victim.

01:40:17.540 Give me a huge effing break.

01:40:21.820 We think back in your past year, you know, when you first sort of took up this mantle.

01:40:26.880 As an activist, when it comes to him and this issue.

01:40:31.140 How do you think you've changed?

01:40:33.200 I can't give up.

01:40:34.340 I mean, there have been so many times where even Sean, my husband, has said to me, how long are you going to keep doing this for?

01:40:42.480 And I won't give up.

01:40:45.200 I won't give up.

01:40:46.080 I can't.

01:40:48.000 I've gone this far, right?

01:40:49.420 I mean, this is over a year in and the dam is breaking.

01:40:55.520 You know, like, what if I hadn't gone on Tucker Carlson's show in May and said, this is what I think is going on.

01:41:04.000 You know, I've become friends with these women who have come forward.

01:41:09.620 You know, we have become friends.

01:41:11.960 And I've messaged several of them today and told them I am standing in solidarity with them.

01:41:17.820 And we've got this.

01:41:19.540 I feel, you know, people think I'm political.

01:41:22.500 This has nothing to do with politics.

01:41:25.060 I don't care who they voted for.

01:41:27.540 I'm so proud of these young women.

01:41:30.000 Megan, I'm I'm so proud of those young women.

01:41:35.380 So proud of Janice for all she did fighting so publicly this year.

01:41:39.540 Honestly, you guys, I mean, it took a toll.

01:41:41.380 You know, she's an emotional gal, but she's strong.

01:41:44.660 She's stronger than she looks.

01:41:46.400 That's for sure.

01:41:47.060 And, you know, here we are now.

01:41:49.400 What a difference a year makes with Andrew Cuomo pushed out of office.

01:41:53.020 Chris Cuomo fired.

01:41:55.340 Chris Cuomo's book deal, radio deal done.

01:41:58.920 Andrew Cuomo having to have give give back his five point one million dollars of his book.

01:42:03.960 I mean, it's like, oh, my gosh, that weather bitch knows what she's doing.

01:42:07.820 Remember, that's what Cuomo turned out to be calling her.

01:42:09.600 Chris Cuomo is calling her the weather bitch.

01:42:11.080 We've decided to own it.

01:42:12.180 I'm going to get a T-shirt.

01:42:13.420 I'm going to get one for her that says the weather bitch.

01:42:15.020 I'm going to get one for me that says I'm with the weather bitch.

01:42:18.740 You know, it's like owning your term of disparagement.

01:42:21.420 In any event, she's amazing.

01:42:22.960 And I love her and I hope you do, too.

01:42:25.580 And I'm very grateful to all of you for spending the time with J.D., with me, with all of us this year.

01:42:31.660 My team and I think about you guys every day.

01:42:33.560 What what do you want to hear about?

01:42:34.700 What would interest you?

01:42:35.940 What's interesting in terms of the the news diet?

01:42:39.280 It can't be all hard news.

01:42:40.600 Can't be all soft news.

01:42:41.980 Get to get to get some features in there.

01:42:43.800 We need stuff for our souls.

01:42:45.120 Right.

01:42:45.380 We think about those balance balances we strike on a daily, weekly, monthly and now yearly basis.

01:42:51.080 And we love to do it.

01:42:52.640 Love to do it for you.

01:42:53.340 And thank you for allowing it.

01:42:54.600 Twenty twenty one has come to a close, but we're coming back January 3rd.

01:42:58.640 In the meantime, please, if you would be so kind, give me the Christmas or New Year's present of downloading the Megan Kelly show.

01:43:07.080 Do it now.

01:43:07.500 Would you really help me?

01:43:08.480 On Apple, Pandora, Spotify or Stitcher, it's free.

01:43:13.480 And if you hit that little download button, it helps.

01:43:16.000 And it also lets you write me a comment, which I read all of them at the Apple site.

01:43:20.480 So if you do it on Apple, I will read your comment, I promise.

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01:43:25.420 Also, go to YouTube dot com slash Megan Kelly.

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01:43:30.480 Got some exciting things planned for you there in the new year.

01:43:33.320 Thank you for listening and happy new year.

01:43:36.040 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show.

01:43:40.040 No BS, no agenda and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - December 27, 2021

2021 Year in Review： The Best of The Megyn Kelly Show ｜ Ep. 230

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