The Megyn Kelly Show - A Wuhan Lab Admission and White House Coordination Against Parents, with Hugh Hewitt, Melissa Francis, Allie Beth Stuckey, and Nicki Neily ｜ Ep. 187

00:00:00.560 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:12.220 Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.200 We have a big Friday show for you today.

00:00:16.820 Turns out there was a ton of news overnight, and we've got it all for you,

00:00:21.980 including the latest on emails that show the Biden administration knew about

00:00:26.560 and may have helped coordinate that letter from the National School Boards Association

00:00:32.140 about parents being described as domestic terrorists.

00:00:34.540 Remember when I said that? Remember when I said this looks coordinated,

00:00:37.440 doesn't look organic like it just came from the school boards?

00:00:40.620 Well, now we know it's true. They've been working with the White House to make it happen.

00:00:44.560 We'll get into that and the person who broke it.

00:00:46.940 And there's news today on the lab leak theory and gain of function research,

00:00:51.120 where they take back coronaviruses and try to find a way to make them more transmissible

00:00:55.000 and or more lethal to humans. You know, Fauci's been denying that they funded this from his group

00:01:00.740 all along. Well, it's not true. They did fund it. And the proof already came out thanks to The

00:01:06.980 Intercept, you know, weeks ago. But now it's in writing admitted by the National Institution of

00:01:12.760 Health. So we'll go over that. Plus, my friends Melissa Francis and Ali Beth Stuckey are both here.

00:01:17.920 That's gonna be fun to talk Kamala Harris and her surprise party. Alec Baldwin,

00:01:23.700 did you hear about this bizarreness? And there's news actually just breaking on what happened

00:01:27.540 as he shot two people accidentally, one of whom died on the set of his new movie.

00:01:35.240 So we've got all of that covered for you. But we want to begin today with the latest

00:01:38.260 from President Joe Biden's town hall last night, where he made news on the southern border,

00:01:44.760 the filibuster and his desire to eliminate it and vaccine mandates. Joining me now for all of it,

00:01:51.380 syndicated radio host, Hugh Hewitt. Hugh, great to have you here.

00:01:55.540 Thanks for having me back, Megan. Good Friday to you.

00:01:57.960 And to you. All right. Let's start with this on first responders and Anderson Cooper of CNN

00:02:03.180 asking him about the fact that it looks like about one in three first responders,

00:02:07.700 cops, firefighters, paramedics and so on. And that doesn't even encompass prison guards,

00:02:13.840 corrections officers and so on, are not getting the vaccine, even though vaccine mandates are already

00:02:19.620 kicking in in their respective cities. They don't want to do it. And we've seen every day more and

00:02:23.840 more stories of folks just leaving the job at a time when we need we need our cops and so on.

00:02:30.140 Anyway, so he decides to do Anderson Cooper decides to ask him about it. This is soundbite for

00:02:35.480 and here is how Biden responded. I'm wondering where you stand on that. Should police officers,

00:02:41.060 emergency responders be mandated to get vaccines? And if not, should they be stay at home or let go?

00:02:48.080 Yes. And yes. By the way, I waited until July to talk about mandating because I tried everything

00:03:03.740 else possible. The mandates are working. I have the freedom to kill you with my COVID.

00:03:11.400 No, I mean, come on. Freedom. 1.00

00:03:12.880 Oh, so callous. It was incredible, Hugh, right? It's like we're talking about cops

00:03:19.220 and already nurses and so on have been included in this. He couldn't care less that these guys got

00:03:24.480 us through a pandemic. The cops dealt with the riots, so on and so forth. Now their kids at Christmas

00:03:29.600 will have nothing thanks to this. And he doesn't care. I was pretty stunned by that, Megan. Now I'm

00:03:36.080 fully vaccinated and I've had a booster. I'm over 65, so I get to get the booster with the Pfizer. So I'm a

00:03:41.220 big believer in it. The first question the president should answer is, does he have the authority to

00:03:45.880 say anything directly to local and state police officers? The answer is no. You know that. You're

00:03:52.820 a lawyer. I know that too. He can't issue an edict that they've got to be vaccinated. He can only

00:03:57.340 encourage governors and local authorities to the extent that they don't conflict with collective

00:04:02.320 bargaining agreements to do that. But the throw off at the end, freedom, give me a break, come on,

00:04:08.500 whatever it was, the classic Joe Biden diversion from actually explaining what he has on his mind.

00:04:13.220 That is so contemptuous, even of people who have been vaccinated like me. We used our freedom to make

00:04:20.320 a choice. And I think we had a lot of bad moments last night. He had a couple of good moments, but he

00:04:26.040 had a lot of bad moments. That was one of them. I have the right to kill you with my COVID. As if that's

00:04:31.980 what unvaccinated people are saying, if you don't want to die from COVID, you get vaccinated like you

00:04:37.460 did, like I did. If I choose not to do it, it is not me killing you with my COVID. The people who are

00:04:45.000 not vaccinated are not vaccinated because they don't want to be or because they're kids at this

00:04:48.820 point. Right. And kids are at absolutely no risk. Seriously, no risk from dying from COVID. More kids

00:04:55.360 were killed by the flu last year than they were from COVID. So that's a misstatement. And it's

00:04:59.440 so callous to the thousands of Americans who just recovering from this devastated economy we had

00:05:06.000 during the shutdown are now about to get fired thanks to his unlawful edict. It is. It's callous.

00:05:12.200 It is also extraordinarily tinier because some of the reason that people have not gotten vaccinated

00:05:18.380 is because Conal Harris and Joe Biden said they would hesitate to take a vaccine produced by Donald

00:05:22.760 Trump, which these vaccines were under Operation Warp Speed. It's because of a completely bollocked up

00:05:27.780 messaging machine over at the CDC and the FDA, which really does not know how to send out easy

00:05:34.600 to follow guidance, something that will get people in line and the failure to use nonpolitical,

00:05:40.340 highly effective communicators. I mean, I would have lined up everyone from Oprah to Megan. I would

00:05:45.800 have gotten, you know, if you're aiming for a demographic, use the demographic. If you're aiming

00:05:49.820 for older people, go find John Boyd. Go find people like that to make a pitch for it. But

00:05:55.760 to blame people for not getting vaccinated without having any idea what the deal is,

00:06:01.420 is not the president's job.

00:06:04.580 And it's so amazing to hear him talk about like, you know, look, I held off on the mandates

00:06:08.480 as if this is a power. This is a tool in his arsenal. He had it all along and he knew it.

00:06:13.620 You know, he just he held off until the children really wouldn't behave in the back of the car.

00:06:17.460 And then he really just had to turn the car around like he didn't want to do it. But the

00:06:21.180 vacation's off. He doesn't have this authority. He talks about it like it's very well accepted.

00:06:26.580 And we talked about this on the show yesterday, but he intentionally appears to have withheld

00:06:31.080 having OSHA issue that regulation that's actually going to impose the mandate because that would 0.52

00:06:37.160 prevent a legal challenge. There's nothing to challenge when the regulation is not in place.

00:06:41.280 And so all these corporations have been doing it and doing it and doing it. And there's been no

00:06:46.120 legal challenge. Meanwhile, when one is filed, it could I believe it will fall apart.

00:06:50.420 I do, too. And that's because we are a federal government of limited and express powers. And

00:06:55.280 one of those powers is not the police power, which is what state local governments use in a plague or

00:06:59.860 something like that to get people to stay inside scarlet fever quarantine. What President Biden can

00:07:04.820 mandate, he has federal employees and military work for the federal government. He can mandate that.

00:07:10.280 That's his job. He's allowed to do that. He can't issue this sweeping edict. It's sort of like I know

00:07:15.200 you'll get to the filibuster. He also implied in the town hall last night he has anything to do with

00:07:19.760 the filibuster. He doesn't. It's the Senate. I know. It's what I thought the same. I'm like,

00:07:25.640 does he know he's not in the Senate anymore? Like he's become vice president since then. He's been

00:07:29.680 president. I thought the same. And I do want to turn the page to that because, you know, the word

00:07:34.120 I was thinking the word filibuster sounds kind of boring, like filibuster. I don't know. It's like

00:07:38.120 you have the images of people standing there droning on and on. But it's really important.

00:07:43.320 It's important. It's important for minority rights in the Senate. And basically, the Senate

00:07:47.080 is where, you know, the hot cup of tea goes to cool in the saucer. I can't remember the exact

00:07:52.520 saying. That's it. It's right. It's there's a reason that they have these longer terms versus

00:07:58.620 their colleagues over in the House that they have to run for office every two years. It's supposed to

00:08:03.120 be the more, I don't know, austere, thoughtful, reserved body that cools the tempers that fire off

00:08:11.300 in the House where you got to go face your constituents and give them red meat every two

00:08:14.440 years. And the filibuster is part of it. And it's a way for letting the minority in the Senate stop

00:08:19.960 legislation that doesn't have sweeping support in the Senate from going forward. And they already got

00:08:26.500 rid of it when it comes to judicial nominees. The Democrats started it. The Republicans took it

00:08:30.540 further. And now they're talking to take it next level. It was already big to get rid of it for

00:08:35.900 judicial nominees, but to take it next level and get rid of it altogether, which some have proposed

00:08:41.880 or to get rid of it for he mentioned last night voting rights. But there is a couple of other

00:08:47.160 wish list items that we'll talk about in a minute that he seems open minded on. So here he is speaking

00:08:53.360 about his newfound position on the filibuster. This is soundbite one. Are you saying once you get

00:09:00.040 this current agenda passed on spending and social programs that you would be open to fundamentally

00:09:08.380 altering the filibuster or doing away with it? Well, that remains to be seen. Exactly what that

00:09:16.660 means in terms of fundamentally altering it, whether or not we just end the filibuster straight up.

00:09:22.360 There are certain things that are just sacred rights. One's a sacred obligation that we never

00:09:27.360 going to renege on a debt. We're the only nation in the world. We have never, ever reneged on a

00:09:32.380 single debt. But when it comes to voting rights, voting rights equally as consequential. When it

00:09:37.440 comes to voting rights, just so I'm clear, though, you would entertain the notion of doing away with

00:09:41.720 the filibuster on that one issue. Is that correct? And maybe more. And maybe more. So what's he talking

00:09:48.400 about? Well, the big pushes in the Democratic Party are to eliminate it when it comes to immigration

00:09:52.440 reform, prison reform and climate change. And their justification, Hugh, is, and I quote,

00:09:59.180 this is a thing from The Washington Post right up, quote, if the filibuster remains intact,

00:10:04.440 these are Democrats explaining themselves, Mr. Biden will leave office with half his priorities

00:10:09.420 unmet. Right. That's that's what it's doing there. Yeah. Yeah. The answer you think about the

00:10:16.300 filibuster, I'll come back to it. It's a it's a rule of the Senate. So it's up to the Senate to make

00:10:21.120 or break it. They haven't broken it for, I think, 140 years on legislative matters. They broke it,

00:10:25.660 broke it with Harry Reid on on nominations, advising consent in 2013. Leader McConnell warned

00:10:32.220 them at the time, don't do it. You'll regret Amy Coney Barrett is on the Supreme Court because of 1.00

00:10:35.740 Harry Reid. People should remember that. Unintended consequences of what you end up with is you got

00:10:40.640 to live with whatever rule you make. But what I if you watch the video, I watch it a few times.

00:10:46.100 Anderson Cooper sets it up with a very, you know, you've hosted these things forever. You heard that

00:10:52.160 set up. He led him right to where he wanted him to go. And the president wandered off to talk about

00:10:57.020 something else without looking and not making eye contact, wandering around to say Anderson Cooper

00:11:01.520 brings him back to the subject. And then he says he wanders off again. And in the course of it assumes

00:11:07.560 an authority over the Senate that his hundred buddies up there could say, well, you know, maybe he could

00:11:13.440 lean on Kamala Harris as president of the Senate in a 50-50 deadlock to change the rule to vote. Yes,

00:11:19.560 but even that isn't guaranteed to him by the Constitution. Joe Biden struck me as grandpa at

00:11:25.980 Thanksgiving a lot this week. Who sits next to grandpa at Thanksgiving? Who's going to hear him

00:11:31.460 talk about how he would be running the world if he were king, not queen, not duke, not earl?

00:11:36.240 Abby is objecting on behalf of her grandpa who listens to this show every day, Hugh. What are you

00:11:40.360 saying about grandpa? Well, I'm a grandpa. I'm a grandpa. And I know that in 15 years,

00:11:43.940 I'll be the one that my grandkids are all on single digits now. They're going to be asking my daughter,

00:11:48.100 do we have to sit next to grandpa? You know, we don't want to do that. He's going to tell us about

00:11:51.700 all the debates he moderated. No, I get it. I get it. But he's wandering again, right? Right. The same

00:11:57.440 stuff. That was classic. He's not impaired. He's 79 years old. And it was just, wow.

00:12:06.140 Wait, I have another example. So we'll get back to the filibuster, but I do have another soundbite of that.

00:12:10.160 This is number five of him appearing to get confused, losing words and getting an assist from the

00:12:14.920 anchor. Watch. 40% of all products coming into the United States of America on the West Coast go

00:12:22.960 through Los Angeles and and what am I doing here? Long Beach. Long Beach. Thank you.

00:12:31.520 Now, look, Megan, I do this. I'm 65. I do it every day on my show. Yesterday, I could not

00:12:39.700 remember David Axelrod's last name. I was talking about his book, Believer. I was talking about

00:12:44.220 excerpts from it. But when you get to be 65, the elevator stops at a couple of floors on the way

00:12:49.400 up. So Joe Biden's elevator, he's not losing it. It's just stuck. But Anderson Cooper,

00:12:55.480 we call that a basket catch in baseball or a one hand OBJ Jarvis Landry catch in football.

00:13:01.240 You don't have to bail out the president. You shouldn't have to bail out. Would you have

00:13:04.680 bailed out the president there, Megan?

00:13:06.100 No, that's sadly you got to let him twist in the wind. You're not his assistant.

00:13:09.320 That's exactly right. Silence is a is a wonderful thing.

00:13:14.660 Yes. Let it play out. How long is it going to take him? How is he going to recover? You're making

00:13:18.220 news just by letting it play out. I laugh because my mom's 80 and she loves when I tell these stories,

00:13:24.280 but she's she's taken to doing this. You know, you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm what am I

00:13:31.440 saying? That she wants you to tell her what she's actually saying, which usually you can. But,

00:13:36.400 you know, she doesn't have access to the nuclear codes. So back on the filibuster,

00:13:39.860 he's confused about the fact that he can change it, but he can he can lean on them. And he he

00:13:45.180 mentioned he mentioned three senators who he he has to sort of get the reconciliation bill on the

00:13:51.380 filibuster. I mean, in the infrastructure bill through before we can sort of go to them for support.

00:13:56.760 I think that's what he was trying to say on getting rid of the filibuster. We know Manchin,

00:14:01.720 we know Sinema. I'm not sure who the third was there, but can I make a guess? Yeah,

00:14:06.100 I think if Senator Hassan of New Hampshire votes to abolish the filibuster, she's out of a jock. 1.00

00:14:11.220 She's already facing a tough uphill challenge from Governor Sununu in that state. And that state

00:14:17.360 is a deeply culturally conservative and very educated state that follows constitutional stuff.

00:14:22.720 David Souter came out of New Hampshire when he went down to the court and everybody talked about

00:14:25.920 what a Yankee is. If Maggie Hassan votes to do away with the filibuster, she's done. She's retiring. 1.00

00:14:31.020 And so and Dianne Feinstein is also allegedly but we don't know how much she's involved in day to day

00:14:37.200 work of her office. She has also allegedly dead set against him. Well, he he this is a complete

00:14:44.240 reversal on for Joe Biden, because when he's been in the Senate for most of his career and what he

00:14:49.460 has said in the past is that this is this would be a naked power grab. The abolition of the filibuster

00:14:53.940 would show the senators don't understand that they're merely temporary custodians of the Senate

00:14:57.900 said it would be catastrophic to do and it would destroy America's sense of fair play.

00:15:03.500 Now, he says he's had a change of heart because he feels it's been abused for the past 20 years

00:15:07.640 and that it's a relic of Jim Crow. OK, it's it's racist, too. And you heard him mention maybe the

00:15:12.880 debt ceiling. You heard him mention voting rights, which which is a you know, that that has real

00:15:17.840 concerns, right? He wants to get rid of these laws that we're seeing in places like Georgia and Texas

00:15:21.940 and elsewhere that let states set their own voting priorities. He wants it to be a federal matter,

00:15:25.940 which would basically preempt the states from having control. He hasn't been able to pass it

00:15:30.820 so far. The Senate's been saying, no, they're all 50 Republicans are aligned saying you're not doing

00:15:35.520 that to get rid of the filibuster. He's got control of that. And I just wonder whether people are paying

00:15:41.780 attention to like how sweeping the changes could be if they go ahead and get rid of the filibuster on

00:15:49.480 those things or never mind climate change or immigration.

00:15:53.120 Yeah, they should never get rid of the filibuster, in my view, because it adds to the world's greatest

00:15:57.560 deliberative body aspect of the Senate. But you're right. They would have a 51 to 50 vote on the most sweeping

00:16:05.420 legislative changes. One of the reasons the filibuster has worked so well for the country, it was broken when it

00:16:10.360 needed to be broken for the Civil Rights Act in 1964. And it took a big effort. And and people, the Republican

00:16:16.440 Party led that effort and some Democrats came with them. But the reason you want 60 votes on massive

00:16:22.460 big policy changes is it reflects that this isn't a small group of people advocating from a position

00:16:29.240 of power within one of the two parties, which it would be with climate change legislation that is

00:16:33.840 sweeping each proposing, which it would be with the child tax credit, which especially it would be

00:16:38.240 with the OSHA rule you mentioned earlier. The first question is always, is it constitutional?

00:16:42.720 The Voting Rights Act that they've been putting forward is not. It divests states of their

00:16:48.420 authorities over their elections. And it's just the the filibuster has provided a very useful

00:16:56.280 obstacle to rapid partisan advances on the bet on the on the back of a very narrow legislative

00:17:03.780 majority. We know Nancy Pelosi is going to lose. We know the House is going to become Republican.

00:17:07.540 So they're trying to rush through in 15 months because the House will change over in January 23

00:17:13.240 16 months. They're trying to rush through in 16 months on the basis of one vote in the Senate and

00:17:17.980 five in the House changes to the fundamental architecture of the laws of the United States.

00:17:22.060 It's not. They better watch it because, you know, 2024 is around the corner. And so he may get

00:17:26.500 things through. But as as was warned when the Republicans were in the minority, you mentioned that Mitch McConnell

00:17:31.760 moment, he warned that the Republicans would one day take control of that chamber back and Harry Reid

00:17:37.560 would brew the day he got rid of the filibuster on lower court judges. And indeed, that's what happened.

00:17:42.640 The Republicans got rid of it for Supreme Court nominees. And as you point out, that's why we have

00:17:46.680 a Justice Amy Coney Barrett, which the liberals hate. They hate the fact that she's on that court. 1.00

00:17:50.640 OK, before we squeeze in a break, I want to talk quickly about the southern border.

00:17:54.020 Um, it was a speaking of the wandering grandpa, again, with all due respect to grandpas,

00:17:59.780 um, he went. Oh, well, I'll just let it play. You can see where he went. Uh, when Cooper asked

00:18:05.520 him about the crisis at our southern border right now. Do you have plans to visit the southern border?

00:18:10.380 I've been there before. I haven't. I mean, I know. Well, I guess I should go down. But the

00:18:16.240 but the whole point of it is I haven't had a whole hell of a lot of time to get down. I've been spending

00:18:21.480 time going around looking at the nine hundred billion dollars worth of damage done by, uh,

00:18:27.880 by hurricanes and floods and, and weather and traveling around the world. But, uh, I plan on

00:18:34.920 now my wife, Jill has been down. She's been on both sides of the river. She's seen the circumstances

00:18:40.560 there. She's looked into those places. You notice you're not seeing a lot of pictures of kids

00:18:45.700 lying on top of one another with, uh, you know, with, with, with, with blank, with, uh, um, you

00:18:51.820 know, uh, looks like tarps on top of them. So the wife's been, well, the wife somehow got kids

00:18:59.120 out from under those tarps. I, what? It is the wandering grandpa. Look, we got, you've come up

00:19:05.860 with the name for the syndrome I want, which is wandering grandpa. And I'm a grandpa. So people can

00:19:10.780 understand, I can say this with a little bit less self-consciousness. He started, I should probably

00:19:16.000 go down there, which is what now we've got a Joe Biden on the clock when he should go down there.

00:19:21.040 Second, he ends up, this is a week in the week where the news came out that, uh, American 0.77

00:19:26.860 authorities have, have taken into custody 1.7 million people on the Southern border in fiscal

00:19:32.960 year, 2021, the highest number ever recorded, ever recorded. So it's the worst year for unpermitted

00:19:39.840 immigration. I no longer call it illegal immigration because I don't want to get off 0.99

00:19:42.880 top. I just say unpermitted, unlawful entry into the United States ever is this year. And he's,

00:19:48.300 and he's talking about, I'm too busy. It's, it's an epic crisis, Megan.

00:19:52.920 It's so weird. What are you talking about? Like, Oh, there's been hurricanes and stuff. Like what,

00:19:56.560 why are you listing your agenda for? If you wanted to go, you would have gone. You didn't want to go.

00:20:00.940 And by the way, Fox news apparently asked the white house if Biden actually has ever been to the

00:20:05.320 border as he claimed in the beginning of that soundbite, you know, I've been like in the

00:20:09.420 past. It just haven't been recently. And the white house so far has refused to answer.

00:20:14.940 So I don't even know if Biden's ever been to the border, but rest easy. Cause Jill's been there and

00:20:20.360 the wife's got all sorts of reports about tarps. I mean, as you point out, tell that to the people

00:20:25.680 along the Southern border who are dealing with this massive influx of illegal immigrants who at

00:20:31.060 least 160,000 are said to have been released by the Biden administration into the country so far.

00:20:36.060 That's a, that's such a generous estimate to them. I think it's way higher than that.

00:20:40.600 The arrests. I didn't hear that. It was highest ever. I heard it was at a 35 year high since 1986.

00:20:45.900 And I actually just for kicks went back and looked at what was happening in 1986. I was 15 years old.

00:20:51.000 The number one song in the country is that's what friends are for, but Dionne Warwick and friends,

00:20:56.680 the Oprah show launched nationally. This is how long ago it's been. It was the challenger exploded.

00:21:01.840 And so did Chernobyl. Um, so that's the last time we got anywhere near 1.7 million arrests at the,

00:21:07.400 at the Southern border. And that's just the number arrested. Nevermind those who actually crossed and

00:21:11.040 made it without being detected. And he's talking about tarps and Jill and apparently misleading us

00:21:15.800 about whether he's ever been there.

00:21:17.520 Yeah. I have subsequently read that, uh, in 1986, I was working in the white house with Ronald Reagan.

00:21:22.700 So I was a young lawyer, so I can remember this very well. The amnesty year that was,

00:21:27.160 that was not the number they've gone back and found that that 1986 was not 1.7. It was under

00:21:33.120 1.7. And so I'm, I'm pretty confident when I say that, I don't want to put you in the box of not

00:21:37.120 ever what I read, but I, I am confident that it's the worst year ever in any event. It's a terrible

00:21:42.900 year. We had, uh, you know, hundreds of Haitians, thousands of Haitians under a bridge in Texas two

00:21:47.000 weeks ago. Uh, they didn't have tarps over them. They had nothing over them. And then they vanished.

00:21:51.160 Right. Like we just saw that those images are burned into our minds and he's like, Oh, no,

00:21:56.360 the kids aren't under the tarps. Well, no, they're under a bridge and there's no clean

00:22:00.040 water. And they're there because you of your messaging that the border is basically open.

00:22:05.380 Yeah. And you know, they, they announced this morning that near a tandem, a very competent,

00:22:10.500 very effective, progressive, uh, staffer who had been nominated to be the OMB director is going

00:22:16.420 to be over the staff secretary. That's like being the OMB director. Arguably it's more powerful

00:22:20.180 than being the OMB director without the honorable in front of your name near is going to bring

00:22:24.300 message discipline. I think she is being brought in to help the president stop doing this. And

00:22:29.300 they're going to have to figure out a difference. That's that's a friendly audience and a friendly

00:22:33.120 host. That is not what the president should be trying to do near a tandem, the one who couldn't

00:22:38.260 get confirmed because of her divisive Twitter fights. And the fact that she clearly hates anybody 1.00

00:22:43.920 who's a Republican in this country is now getting another position. And it's in charge of

00:22:48.500 White House messaging. Yeah, I, it's, they'll say the comms director is, but the staff secretary

00:22:54.480 sees every piece of paper. I look, I've gotten a number of saber strikes from Nira over the years

00:22:59.320 from Twitter. I never would vote not to confirm something, someone for somebody because of, uh,

00:23:05.080 because of their Twitter account. I know, but you didn't win the presidency by promising unity,

00:23:09.080 unity. She hates Republicans. She hates Bernie Sanders liberals. Like she basically only likes 1.00

00:23:13.940 the Joe Biden lane of Democrats. And this is why she couldn't get confirmed. But, uh, I wouldn't

00:23:19.480 promise unity and then put somebody like that in charge of messaging. I can't wait to see what she

00:23:23.020 has to say to unify us all. Yeah. Well, I, I, I do get along with Nira. I'm one of those Republicans

00:23:28.200 that don't take anyone too seriously, but yeah, I just think it's better to have competent people

00:23:32.800 than incompetent people inside the White House. She's competent. And I think that will help the

00:23:37.120 president. She, I have no doubt. She'll be very competent in her nasty messages about half the country. 1.00

00:23:41.900 All right. More with you, Hewitt, after the break, because we got to get to this explosive

00:23:45.460 admission. Admission by the National Institute of Health about gain of function research in that

00:23:51.520 Wuhan lab, right? Dr. Fauci said, no, no, no, no, no, never, never, never to Rand Paul. Well,

00:23:55.980 we knew it was true after the intercept released those documents. And now the National Institute of

00:24:00.720 Health is admitting it. We'll get you up to speed next.

00:24:03.180 Let's talk about Fauci and so-called gain of function research. This is research where they

00:24:15.560 take a coronavirus and they actually work to make it more transmissible and or lethal. And it was being

00:24:22.820 done in that Wuhan lab funded by our government, which gave 600 plus thousand dollars to EcoHealth

00:24:30.920 Alliance, a nonprofit. This is taxpayer funded organization run by this guy, Peter Daszak,

00:24:36.820 who is not a good guy. I'm this guy. It stinks to high heaven, his behavior in this whole thing.

00:24:43.120 And it really was had his knees cut out by 60 minutes and a great report by them. I'll give

00:24:48.100 them credit where it's due. But he needs to be ousted from that job. And there's a push for it because

00:24:52.340 he's not it doesn't appear to be an honest man. Anyway, we did fund this research. He's connected

00:24:57.880 with Fauci. Fauci's basically the guy who got him the money. Fauci's been denying all along that

00:25:02.600 Daszak or anybody else did this so-called gain of function research because that would not be good,

00:25:07.360 given that we have several million people dead now from a coronavirus that came from bats.

00:25:12.860 All right. So that's the setup. What happens now is the National Institute of Health,

00:25:17.200 that's the oversight, that's the umbrella group under which Fauci works, is now admitting

00:25:21.760 in a letter that it did fund gain of function research through EcoHealth Alliance. But what

00:25:27.700 they're claiming, Hugh, and you tell me because my take on this is it's the CYA. They're saying we

00:25:33.540 did it. We did it through EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Daszak, but we didn't know. EcoHealth Alliance

00:25:39.980 did it and they were supposed to get back to us on whether, you know, that kind of thing happened

00:25:44.140 and they never did. And we just learned this past August that, in fact, gain of function had happened

00:25:51.180 and poor Peter Daszak, you know, he never got back to us. So that was bad. And now we're going to

00:25:55.840 EcoHealth Alliance saying, give us all your documents because, you know, now we don't now we

00:25:59.620 don't know if we can trust you. This is all huge CYA. The Intercept got them. They got the documents.

00:26:04.360 They proved it happened. Now this is these guys being like, shit, it happened. But oh, maybe we'll go 1.00

00:26:09.280 with. We didn't know. You tell me. The other part of the letter, which was the second CYA is

00:26:15.140 and the gain of function research we funded was on a different coronavirus, not the one that caused

00:26:21.720 COVID-19. And therefore, our hands are clean. It's not how it works. If you fund a lab in one part,

00:26:28.040 you're funding the lab in all parts. It's like taking a part off of an airplane. The lab works

00:26:32.080 when everything is funded. So we gave all this money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. I have myself

00:26:38.040 asked Dr. Francis Collins, who I cannot overstate my admiration for, the head of NIH and Dr. Fauci

00:26:44.200 here on the show, on my radio show, about gain of function months ago. Both of them told me with

00:26:50.180 great vigor, as the Kennedys would say, that that had never happened. There were rules against gain

00:26:54.840 of function. We would never have done it. I personally believe that neither man actually

00:26:59.780 had a clue, but their staff told them, and it was a deputy director that signed that letter,

00:27:05.000 Megan. Their staff told them, don't worry about it, doc. We didn't do that. And Rand Paul came

00:27:10.880 after them. You brought it up. I've talked about it on the air. Many responsible people have said,

00:27:16.320 wait, this doesn't add up. So they've gone back and done the third check. And the third check proves

00:27:21.500 that the first denials were all wrong. They learned about it in August by their own admission.

00:27:27.300 It is October. And so they have, again, impeded the operations of the Congress to provide oversight.

00:27:35.100 And I believe the intelligence community to come to conclusions about Wuhan.

00:27:39.520 I'm stuck.

00:27:40.560 But I got to jump in. That is the most generous interpretation one could possibly give to Fauci,

00:27:45.180 Collins and the NIH. The most generous possible. Because as you know, Rand Paul in Congress has

00:27:51.040 been pushing, has been pushing Fauci on gain of function because lots of respected scientists have

00:27:55.340 taken a look at what we know happened in Wuhan, never mind what we don't know, and said it was

00:27:59.960 gain of function. And then the intercept got those documents showing that it looked very much like

00:28:04.140 gain of function. And Rand Paul got Fauci again. It said it's gain of function. And Fauci keeps saying,

00:28:08.640 no, you're telling me at that point, that man had an obligation if he hadn't already done so to go to

00:28:12.680 Peter Daszak and EcoHealth, because that's how we're saying that we funded it through his group

00:28:16.340 and say, do I have everything? Show me everything. This is not some small deal. We get six million

00:28:24.220 people dead. I need to see the documents and know everything you did and we funded. This is not

00:28:28.960 like, OK, by now, the third time we'll go back and check. I don't believe that for one second, Hugh.

00:28:34.320 Yeah. Here's where I think you might be under estimating the duplicity of EcoHealth Alliance.

00:28:41.300 I believe they have probably filed report after report with the NIH saying we didn't do anything

00:28:46.720 wrong. We didn't do anything wrong. And the NIH believed them. If they're bad guys, and I sense that

00:28:52.660 your intuition is my intuition about this place, whatever gets us the money and whatever establishes

00:28:58.320 it, sometimes research institutions become this way and grant dependent organizations become this

00:29:03.180 way. What do they need? Don't tell them anything. And so they have sent back and forth, fraught with

00:29:08.660 ambiguity, lawyer's letters that have, I read that one that came from the NIH yesterday. It's just a

00:29:13.920 marvelous lawyer's letter. It's been in the general counsel's office for a month.

00:29:16.680 Yes. And it doesn't admit or deny. But that doesn't excuse any. Being as kind of Fauci as

00:29:22.620 one can possibly be, there were huge gaps in oversight of a U.S. government funded projects

00:29:30.180 in the Wuhan lab, which, of course, we have the CCP in there. We've got we've got the military,

00:29:36.020 the Chinese military in there. And and we knew that they were focused on digging up dangerous 1.00

00:29:41.420 viruses. And that's Fauci. That's on him. That's the best case scenario is that he was

00:29:46.800 grossly negligent or reckless in his oversight of this group. And that when red flags were all

00:29:52.020 over Daszak, thanks to 60 Minutes and others, he didn't he didn't do his homework. He still

00:29:57.240 testified before Congress with certainty rather than saying, I have to be honest, if I am basing

00:30:03.820 this on the word of Peter Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance, I have had a good history with him.

00:30:08.500 But I don't know that at this point whether we can try. That's not what he said.

00:30:12.280 Watch him with Rand Paul. We have the zombie. Watch.

00:30:14.600 Dr. Fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress, do you wish to retract your statement

00:30:19.720 of May 11th, where you claimed that the NIH never funded gain of function research in Wuhan?

00:30:25.660 Senator Paul, I have never lied before the Congress.

00:30:29.560 But all the evidence is pointing that it came from the lab.

00:30:32.380 You there will be responsibility for those who funded the lab, including yourself.

00:30:36.460 I totally this committee will allow the witness to I totally resent the lie that you are now

00:30:43.000 propagating. No one's saying those it is caused it. It is molecularly those virus caused the

00:30:48.620 pandemic. What we're alleging is that gain of function research was going on in that lab

00:30:53.180 and NIH funded it. That is not away from it. It meets your definition and you are obfuscating the

00:30:59.160 truth. And you are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individual.

00:31:05.380 I totally resent that. And if anybody is lying here, Senator, it is you.

00:31:11.560 No, no, no. OK, let me make the argument for Dr. Fauci. Lassitudinous recklessness and his

00:31:19.540 absolute moral indignation tells me from my evidence class, the witness believes his own

00:31:25.820 story. Dr. Fauci often believes his own story. I don't really that conclusion at all. Sometimes

00:31:31.380 you're more vociferous when you're guilty and you know it. I mean, I know that from my own

00:31:35.180 investigations as a lawyer. When I threw a bunch of real allegations up against people I was

00:31:39.480 investigating, they'd say, no, no, no. When I threw one that was made up and then the personality

00:31:44.780 would totally change. You can tell it could go either way. But I'm telling you, that was not a

00:31:48.980 guy trying to hedge because he he had reason to believe he didn't know all the facts there as

00:31:53.380 you're positing. He should have. He should have allowed for the ambiguity. And Rand Paul was making

00:31:58.040 a much bigger argument than he was answering. Rand Paul was saying we sent money to a gain of function

00:32:03.540 research and researching institution in China. And you should have known that he was saying

00:32:07.200 whatever we did, it didn't cause the Wuhan coronavirus 19. They can both be true.

00:32:13.340 But what is that? Rand Paul seated that you heard him see that in the argument. No one's saying that

00:32:18.740 he's saying. But you did do you did fund gain of function research and Fauci wouldn't admit it.

00:32:24.260 And now some underling at his shop without Fauci's name on it is admitting that they did do it.

00:32:29.860 But it's only because we already knew that we found that out in September. They were publicly

00:32:34.960 humiliated. And these guys look around now, Hugh, and say, why doesn't anybody believe us?

00:32:41.160 Why is the vaccine hesitancy? Freedom, my ass. Right. Like Joe Biden. No, we don't trust them. 1.00

00:32:48.520 The the the erosion in trust of our public health officials is directly linked to testimony like

00:32:55.520 that. Certainty proposed, you know, supposed certainty like that by Dr. Fauci under really

00:33:01.940 high stakes where people's lives are at risk. We don't trust them anymore. And they they are to

00:33:07.460 blame. You are exactly. And this is an important point. This is why the CDC and the NIH have forfeited

00:33:14.400 decades of credibility is pseudo certainty. As we have in talk radio, frequently wrong,

00:33:20.740 never in doubt. That's fine for pundits. That's OK for journalists. It is not OK for the CDC, the NIH

00:33:26.460 to be frequently wrong, never in doubt. It takes away the ability of them to persuade us in a time

00:33:31.620 of crisis to go get vaccinated. And so when they when they ask, when we do an after action report on

00:33:37.520 this terrible pandemic, we're going to look at the fact that the CDC blew the testing originally.

00:33:43.080 We're going to look at bad guidance on masks. They knew to be wrong. We're going to look at the

00:33:46.720 the funding of gain of function research. We're going to look at the failure to fund

00:33:52.000 ivermectin efficacy. We're going to look at the fact that they've changed their messaging 30

00:33:55.840 different times. You are you could not be more right. And here's the scary ending. Well, it's not

00:34:01.700 the ending, but it's the ending for this segment. The overarching group that actually, you know,

00:34:06.660 gives the funds, the U.S. Agency for International Development, we gave we've given 65 million of

00:34:12.620 taxpayer dollars to eco health over the years as part of like an effort to study pandemics and so

00:34:17.540 on. We continue to that. USAID continues, according to Josh Rogan of The Washington Post,

00:34:23.700 whose reporting is impeccable, continues to ignore congressional requests for documents

00:34:27.420 about its extensive collaborations with the Wuhan lab. All right. So they're not going to this is

00:34:32.640 they're not giving us information. And yet the USAID sees no problem announcing this month that it

00:34:37.460 intends to spend an additional one hundred and twenty five million to expand its work hunting

00:34:42.320 viruses and bringing them back to labs all over the world. You know, you just you just prompted me

00:34:49.180 I'm going to go online and pull up the nine ninety form for eco health alliance and find out how much

00:34:54.080 their top three executives. That's got to be disclosed on a form nine ninety for any not for profit.

00:34:58.320 How much their top three executives are making? That's an astonishing amount of money.

00:35:02.060 I would like to know that, too. And I think we've done enough of pulling the bats out of their caves

00:35:06.120 and seeing how we can make them more lethal to us. I think that that really needs to stop.

00:35:10.960 It doesn't need another hundred and twenty five million until we get to the bottom of exactly

00:35:14.320 how this thing started and whether it was linked to somebody doing exactly what Peter Daszak was

00:35:19.320 doing in that lab. So good to talk to you, Hugh. Always fun sparring. And thank you, Megan. Good.

00:35:24.520 Good to see you. Look forward to doing it again. OK, coming up, we're going to be joined by

00:35:28.500 Nikki Neely, her organization, Parents Defending Education. You probably heard me talk about it. I love

00:35:32.840 these guys. They're helping parents in the K through 12 system fight all this

00:35:36.020 crazy CRT stuff and trans stuff and blah, blah, blah. Filed a bunch of lawsuits. Nikki Neely

00:35:40.980 got the idea of FOIA-ing the National School Boards Association to see exactly who they talked

00:35:47.280 to about that letter trying to target parents as domestic terrorists. And boy, oh boy, did

00:35:51.760 she hit the mother load. She's here to talk about the links to the White House that she uncovered

00:35:55.800 right after this. Joining me now is Nikki Neely, the president and founder of Parents Defending

00:36:05.820 Education. And if you haven't checked out this group online, you need to. They're on the side

00:36:10.320 of the good guys. Her organization obtained emails from members of the National School

00:36:14.800 Board Association. You remember, this is the group that wrote to the White House saying,

00:36:18.760 parents, they are domestic terrorists. Help us. And sure enough, the FBI got involved.

00:36:22.880 Well, her organization got emails from them that revealed the National School Boards Association

00:36:27.980 had been working with the Biden White House before that group would wind up submitting its letter

00:36:33.400 and setting off what's become a national firestorm. Ultimately, this led to Attorney General Merrick

00:36:38.640 Garland enlisting the help of the FBI to monitor parents' activities at school board meetings,

00:36:42.400 or at least to threaten that they're going to go after parents they deemed inappropriate in some

00:36:47.060 way. Once again, Nikki, great to see you. Once again, very questionable about whether the DOJ has

00:36:52.240 any jurisdiction here whatsoever to go after parents in this way or to try to criminalize, quote,

00:36:59.140 threats that aren't inciting immediate lawless action. You know, just going to your school board

00:37:04.820 saying, you know, if you continue this, I'll show up here every day. You know, not getting out of the

00:37:08.960 room when they tell them to. This is sort of what the school board association was

00:37:12.380 listing. Like we told them to leave and they wouldn't. They had masks on or they wouldn't

00:37:16.720 put masks on and we objected. OK, anyway, so let's start with. So you get the idea to

00:37:21.980 FOIA the group, the school board association. And what did you find?

00:37:26.960 Right. So NSBA is actually a private entity. We didn't FOIA them. I FOIAed every single board

00:37:32.000 member on their personal district email accounts. So those are all public. Those are all publicly

00:37:36.720 accessible. And so I reached out to all 24 members of their board, their ex-officio members,

00:37:43.480 and those are still coming in. But yeah, from that, we got a correspondence that was sent by

00:37:48.160 Chip Slavin, who is the executive director of NSBA, informing everybody on September 29th,

00:37:53.740 after the letter was sent, just a heads up, guys, this is what's going on. And he notes that in talks

00:37:59.640 over the last several weeks with White House staff, they requested additional information on some of the

00:38:04.880 specific threats. And so this started to smell a lot like there was a pretext and that, you know,

00:38:09.360 the White House is requesting specific information that, you know, the cake was already baked. You

00:38:14.220 know, the fact that the Department of Justice turned around five days later. I mean, the Department

00:38:18.940 of Justice moves at the speed of molasses. And so there is just a lot of this smells very, very bad.

00:38:24.080 All right. I'm going to give myself credit. I'm giving myself credit. This sound by number eight,

00:38:28.520 because when this broke, here's what I said. There's a reason there's that expression. Well,

00:38:32.140 I'm not going to make a federal case out of it because that's an elevation. That's an elevation.

00:38:37.080 And normally the DOJ would absolutely laugh at this kind of a thing. And the fact that they're

00:38:42.820 taking it on makes me wonder how it was orchestrated in the first place. Did the DOJ request a letter

00:38:48.160 like this? Right. Were they just the innocent recipients or did they orchestrate the Biden

00:38:52.600 administration, the whole thing? And now we know the answer. They did. This wasn't organic from the

00:38:57.740 school boards. This is the White House saying, send us a letter, put the specifics in there.

00:39:02.600 And it seems to me the fix was in that that Merrick Garland did this because the White House

00:39:06.580 wanted him to do it. And the White House had absolutely no problem, according to what

00:39:11.120 your documents show, with labeling parents as potential domestic terrorists.

00:39:15.720 Right. I mean, let's look at the NSBA letter cited interstate commerce is like, well, that's not just

00:39:20.620 the magic bullet that you can drop in to have the federal government get involved in anything they want.

00:39:24.740 We also reached out to all of the state school board associations that are members of NSBA asking,

00:39:29.960 did you know about this? Did you have any input on this? They're all appalled. And at this point,

00:39:34.640 over 20 of them have distanced themselves saying, you know, this is a local issue. We want local

00:39:39.280 involvement. We want parent and citizen involvement. We've been clamoring for this for years. And so

00:39:43.720 this blindsided the state chapters. It blindsided the board members. And as you said, the fix is in.

00:39:48.900 So there's definitely further investigation is merited.

00:39:51.820 And the White House was so cagey about any association with the school board letter

00:39:56.920 or connection to it. Peter Doocy of Fox News pressed Jen Psaki on, look, this letter came

00:40:03.100 domestic terrorists and so on. And she just kept saying, well, you know, I don't speak for the

00:40:07.580 school board association. Meanwhile, the White House had been coordinating with them from the very

00:40:12.240 beginning on this letter. And Merrick Garland, the attorney general, gave it up yesterday and

00:40:18.000 admitted the association. Here's we've put together sort of a longer butted soundbite that sort of shows

00:40:24.320 the progression in the story. Watch. The National School Boards Association wrote to the president to

00:40:29.280 say that their teachers feel like some parents protesting recently could be the equivalent to a

00:40:34.300 form of domestic terrorism. And then the attorney general put the FBI on the case.

00:40:39.160 The National School Board Association is not a part of the U.S. government.

00:40:42.240 The Department of Justice does now have the FBI on this. It's something that the School Boards

00:40:46.420 Association is asking for. I don't speak on behalf of the National School Board Association.

00:40:50.820 I speak on behalf of this government. Very first sentence. You said in recent months,

00:40:54.600 there's been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, threats of violence. Yes. When did

00:40:58.260 you first review the data showing this so-called disturbing uptick? So I read the letter and we have

00:41:04.800 been seeing over time. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn't ask you. So you read the letter. That's that's your

00:41:10.060 source. Is there some study, some effort, some investigation someone did that said there's been

00:41:14.040 a disturbing uptick? Or you just take the words of the National School Board Association.

00:41:18.000 Well, the National School Board Association, which represents thousands of school boards and school

00:41:22.440 board members, says that there are these kind of threats. When we read in the newspapers reports of

00:41:27.760 threats of violence, when that is in the context of threats of violence. The source for this,

00:41:32.920 for the very first line in your mouth. Time of the gentleman has expired. Was the School Board

00:41:37.640 Association letter. So that's it. There's been no independent investigation of any of this. This

00:41:42.640 is basically the school board's word coordinated pregame with the White House and Merrick Garland

00:41:47.520 doing what he's been told to do. Yeah. And America First Legal actually just sent a letter to the

00:41:51.940 Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General asking them to look into this because they have

00:41:57.180 insider information that between the White House as well as the Department of Justice,

00:42:01.620 there was concern that parental involvement was going to have political implications. And so

00:42:05.900 looking at a very tight race in November in Virginia, as well as looking ahead to 2022,

00:42:10.980 if you are trying to actively discourage parents from being involved in the political process,

00:42:14.860 that is a damning indictment. And it is something that the American people deserve answers to.

00:42:19.060 And Merrick Garland's come under fire, too, because it turns out his son-in-law

00:42:22.500 is the head of some big organization that's pushing CRT in schools, critical race theory in schools,

00:42:28.000 and has made the organization something like 27 million bucks. So the way it works is the

00:42:32.400 son-in-law pushes this sort of agenda into the schools, then Merrick Garland, whose daughter

00:42:37.840 is married to this guy, sends a threatening, you know, issues a threatening statement saying,

00:42:42.780 parents who are objecting to this stuff in any way that we find threatening are going to have to deal

00:42:46.760 with me and the FBI. I'm not saying he actually did it for that reason. It seems like he had more

00:42:50.680 pressure from the White House on this than from his son-in-law. How do I know? But at least it's the

00:42:55.700 appearance of impropriety and it's grossly irresponsible.

00:42:57.940 Yeah. I mean, it's small wonder that people have lost faith in our federal government when

00:43:03.120 things like this happen. That was another tip that we received from somebody who was very concerned

00:43:06.620 about the surveying and the data mining taking place in schools really without parental knowledge

00:43:11.220 or consent. And so the fact that this is something that came out, it just, again, it raises so many

00:43:15.740 questions about how these decisions were made, why they were made. And, you know, as you said,

00:43:19.960 the fix is in.

00:43:21.380 So can I ask you on a larger scale about parents defending education? Because we've seen so many

00:43:27.200 disturbing, disturbing headlines lately. And I know that you guys have been involved in

00:43:32.140 in pushing some some lawsuits that have been successful. One, you just filed a lawsuit against

00:43:38.720 the Wellesley public schools. This is Wellesley Mass. Can you tell us about that one?

00:43:42.680 Sure. We sued them on Tuesday because they have maintained a policy of having

00:43:46.540 racially segregated affinity groups where they have allowed or not invited students to attend or not

00:43:53.020 attend groups based on the color of their skin. I mean, this is in direct violation of Brown 0.99

00:43:56.800 versus Board of Education. The fact that this is taking place in American schools in 2021 should

00:44:01.160 appall and sicken everyone. I mean, this is not a political issue. This is like an American civil

00:44:06.580 rights issue. And the school also has what a lot of parents in the district have started to call a

00:44:10.740 snitch line. They have a biased speech policy where they encourage students and teachers to report on

00:44:15.040 each other for biased speech. And so somewhat surprisingly, students out of an abundance of caution

00:44:20.560 self-censor because they don't want to be they don't want to be dragged into a star chamber.

00:44:24.620 They can be referred to the Wellesley police as well as punished by this by the school.

00:44:28.500 So they just they just don't talk about anything remotely controversial at all.

00:44:32.420 This is so insane. So is it a federal court lawsuit or state court?

00:44:36.060 Federal court. Yeah. And it's based on free speech, right? Like they're not allowed to do

00:44:40.300 the students have free speech rights on campus. They can say things that are offensive,

00:44:44.360 shocking, but they're allowed by the Constitution.

00:44:46.980 Yeah. Not up to the school to decide what is or is not OK. And then on the segregated affinity groups,

00:44:52.300 we're saying that that's a violation, both of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act,

00:44:55.660 as well as of the Equal Protection Clause. All right. Now there's this Fairfax County,

00:44:59.820 that's Virginia lawsuit, or at least not a lawsuit, but a controversy where the public schools there are

00:45:05.680 apparently asking kids as young as 10 if they had sex, if they identify as trans, if they've attempted

00:45:14.600 suicide. I don't I don't know if you guys are involved in this, but yeah, you are. You are because

00:45:19.440 you guys, that's how I know about it. You obtained the survey. So what on earth is happening in Fairfax

00:45:24.560 County? Yeah. And these are the surveys that are taking place by companies like Panorama Education

00:45:29.640 and others. Merrick Garland's son-in-law. Yes. Gathering all this information on our children.

00:45:35.140 Parents don't know that these surveys are taking place. This is deeply, deeply intrusive

00:45:38.880 information, obviously, that's being gathered. And, you know, one concern that it raises is,

00:45:44.340 aside from parents not knowing about it, is who owns this information? Where is it going?

00:45:47.980 And then just looking at statistics about leaks and data breaches that take place. On average,

00:45:53.340 last year, there were two data breaches a day in schools or their vendors across the country. And so,

00:45:58.760 you know, do we want this kind of information getting out onto the dark web or being used against

00:46:02.740 us and our children in the future? Absolutely not. Data breaches of what? Like what information

00:46:06.480 could they get? Personal information, Social Security information. Last year, the Broward County

00:46:11.400 schools, I think there was a ransom for several million dollars because they gained a bunch of

00:46:14.880 student information. And so there's not only the Social Security numbers, but information like this

00:46:19.700 that's out there. I mean, how will that be used against our children in the future?

00:46:23.020 I'm so glad that there are people like you out there, Nikki, doing. I'm telling you,

00:46:26.020 Parents Defending Education is a great organization. Check them out. A lot of parents don't know where to

00:46:29.720 go. Great first place to start. They can help on a number of fronts. And I've known you guys from

00:46:34.820 the beginning. So stay with it and thank you. Up next, going to be joined by my pals, Melissa Francis

00:46:40.420 and Ali Beth Stuckey. We're talking about the horrific breaking news about Alec Baldwin accidentally

00:46:45.080 killing someone on a movie set, Vice President Harris's cringeworthy birthday celebration, and much

00:46:50.880 more. Joining me now are my old friend, Melissa Francis, and my new friend, Ali Beth Stuckey, host of

00:47:02.020 Relatable on Blaze TV. Ladies, so good to have you here. My gosh, there's a lot to go over. 0.98

00:47:07.560 Thanks for having me. Absolutely. I think you just called me old. Was that it?

00:47:12.740 It was a reference to the length of our friendship, as you well know. All right. So news involving an 0.98

00:47:18.860 actor who's found himself yet again in trouble. And so I'll start with you, Melissa, because you

00:47:23.280 are a recovering actor yourself. People may know that you had a starring role in Little House on the

00:47:27.380 Prairie as little Cassandra Cooper Ingalls, next to Jason Bateman as the second round of 1.00

00:47:31.680 Ingalls kids when the first round aged out, in addition to your news career. But that's where

00:47:35.420 I first fell in love with you. So this is horrifying. Alec Baldwin shot two people, one of whom is now

00:47:41.240 dead, on the set of a movie called Rust in New Mexico yesterday. He killed the film's director of

00:47:48.920 photography, and he wounded the movie's director. The director of photography also referred to the

00:47:55.420 cinematographer. Helena Hutchins was 42, and the director, Joel Sousa, 48, was wounded. He's

00:48:00.920 apparently okay, because I think he's been released from the hospital. So, Melissa, what do we make of

00:48:05.140 it? Well, I think there's a lot we don't know about this story, because like you said, I am back in the

00:48:10.520 entertainment industry now, actually, but behind the camera. But I was an actor in my past life,

00:48:16.580 and I was actually on a show called The Gun in the House, where we had guns on the set. And we were

00:48:21.420 always told that these weapons were lethal, even with flanks in them, that just by virtue of how much

00:48:27.900 gunpowder is loaded into the prop itself, it still is lethal. So if I know that, Alec Baldwin

00:48:34.240 certainly knows that. So I think we're just missing a lot of details about this horrific accident right

00:48:39.460 now. It just doesn't make any sense to me, because any prop master goes out on the set and hands out

00:48:45.840 a gun for this purpose, warns everybody in the vicinity how dangerous it was. So I have to think that

00:48:51.660 this was some sort of horrific accident and not, you know, some people are thinking, was it a prank?

00:48:58.300 Did he do something, you know, wild with the gun? It's hard for me to imagine that's true,

00:49:02.820 because we all know that that even as props, they're very dangerous.

00:49:06.320 The only evidence I could say toward that at this point is the fact that it was the cinematographer

00:49:12.660 and this other crew member, the director, who was killed. I mean, the cinematographer's killed,

00:49:18.680 and the other guy got shot. Because I would think if it were just a pure accident and a weird freak

00:49:23.200 thing, wouldn't it be the person on the receiving end of the fake shot? Who would it be? It doesn't

00:49:28.120 seem strange that it's too cruel. Well, unless he's shooting at the camera. I mean, what if he was

00:49:31.300 shooting at the camera? If you think about how many different times you've seen that shot, you know,

00:49:35.100 where they're sort of aiming right at you. So to me, that seems possible as well. I think we just

00:49:40.060 don't know enough details about what this, it has happened before. I mean, if you look it up,

00:49:44.820 this has happened before, where prop guns have killed people. And there's been other times when,

00:49:48.900 you know, there was a bullet inside of what was supposed to be a prop gun, but

00:49:52.480 That's what they're saying right now, Melissa. They're saying a local union, because of course,

00:49:57.500 I'm sure that, you know, the tech unions that represent these guys who work on the sets,

00:50:01.080 the prop masters and so on, local union that covers prop masters, according to IndieWire,

00:50:05.900 sent an email to its members Friday morning saying that the gun Baldwin fired,

00:50:09.360 I'm quoting here, contained a live round, meaning a live bullet. And that's bizarre,

00:50:16.740 you know, no idea why that would be the case. Allie Beth, he put out, but Alec Baldwin just put

00:50:20.900 out a statement. It reads as follows. There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding

00:50:25.540 the tragic accident that took the life of Helena Hutchins, a wife, mother, and deeply admired

00:50:31.160 colleague of ours. I'm fully cooperating with the police investigation to address how this tragedy

00:50:35.520 occurred. And I'm in touch with her husband, offering my support to him and his family.

00:50:39.240 My heart is broken for her husband, their son, and all who knew and loved Helena. It's like,

00:50:45.600 it's just stunning because it's Alec Baldwin. It just seems like a cloud follows the guy.

00:50:50.720 There's always some sort of news around him that's explosive in some way.

00:50:55.120 Yeah, that's true. Gosh, hearing that she is a mother, I just can't even

00:50:58.680 fathom what her family is feeling right now. And of course, Alec Baldwin, I can't imagine what he's

00:51:04.180 feeling. I saw that Pierce Morgan tweeted out a couple pictures of him. He's on the phone. He is

00:51:08.280 doubled over, distraught. Can't imagine what he's going through right now. Some people, however,

00:51:13.440 bringing up some previous tweets, he tweeted out something in 2017, trying to kind of, I don't know,

00:51:20.220 snarkily come at this police officer who apparently accidentally fired his firearm and killed a suspect

00:51:28.080 and said, oh, imagine what it's like to feel like you're, you know, you're responsible for someone's

00:51:33.780 death accidentally. People are pointing out that, okay, well, maybe Alec Baldwin and all of us need

00:51:39.480 to have a little bit of humility when it comes to situations with police officers or situations that

00:51:44.700 we don't really understand because you never know what can happen. Alec Baldwin obviously didn't

00:51:49.700 intend for this to happen. So there's a lesson there in humility. There's a lesson there also,

00:51:54.060 obviously, in the most practical sense in firearm safety. I'm thankful for Melissa's insight. I don't

00:51:59.420 know what goes on behind the scenes there, but I would think that there would be firearm experts.

00:52:03.620 That is their specific job when it comes to being on set and making sure that there is not a live

00:52:10.000 round in these firearms, making sure that those safety precautions are being taken beforehand.

00:52:14.620 I just can't imagine how something like this happens.

00:52:17.080 The people responsible for that, like if it's the prop master, I mean, those people could wind up getting

00:52:21.540 charged potentially. Certainly if there was a live round in a gun they handed to an actor

00:52:25.820 in a scene that was supposed to, you know, have blanks, that somebody could actually get charged

00:52:30.520 not named Alec Baldwin. It doesn't seem like right now he's on the hook for anything legally or

00:52:37.040 criminally. But it's, you tell me whether there is still going to be, there's still going to be

00:52:45.100 blanks and guns, Melissa, because now aren't, they're saying that CGI is usually used in a lot of these

00:52:49.900 movies to just make it look like a gun was fired, you know, where they just sort of lay it in

00:52:54.460 graphically later. And, and very few people are actually using blanks and guns anyway.

00:52:59.280 Yeah. I mean, maybe after this, they will go ahead and change, you know, the way that they

00:53:02.820 operate. I know there's always the thought, you know, crossed my mind that this is supposed to be a

00:53:08.120 Western, you know, they may be looking for an older sort of authenticity. Maybe the actor wants to

00:53:13.740 have a blank in there so that they can, you know, react properly. And, and I don't know, I'm not an

00:53:19.180 expert in, in shooting guns, but certainly it seems like this would cause a lot of productions to

00:53:26.500 change the way that they operate when they're using guns for sure.

00:53:29.920 Yeah. It seems like in modern day America, you just don't, you don't need it. And now that we've

00:53:33.320 had, you know, this tragedy happen, not to mention Brandon Lee back in 1993, he was shot by a gun that

00:53:39.580 was supposed to have blanks in it. The son of, um, um, Oh God, who's the Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee. Thank you.

00:53:46.200 Um, yeah. And he died at a young age from this sort of weird accident. So we'll continue to follow

00:53:50.960 it. They said it happened during a scene. The County Sheriff's office spokesman said this shooting

00:53:55.080 happened quote during a scene that was either being rehearsed or filmed. The authorities are

00:54:00.020 interviewing people on the set to figure out how the pair had been shot according to the New York

00:54:03.520 times. Uh, okay. So, uh, thoughts with her, her family and thank God at least the one guy is doing

00:54:09.600 better. Let's switch to politics and talk about Kamala Harris. So she had a birthday and they threw her a 1.00

00:54:15.840 birthday party and she was turning 57 years old. Uh, Melissa threw me a surprise birthday party for

00:54:21.100 my 50th birthday, uh, last year. Thanks to Melissa and her husband, Ray and my husband, Doug, we had a

00:54:26.120 great celebration. And when I walked in, they did yell surprise and it was super fun. And I was stunned.

00:54:31.920 I was stunned. I genuinely did not expect it. And that's the way it's supposed to work. The guests

00:54:36.780 say surprise. And then you say, Oh, and yet it's happened a little differently with Kamala Harris,

00:54:41.720 who it seems to be awkward in virtually every situation. Watch she for the, for the listeners

00:54:55.720 right now, she walks in and yells surprise. Now she's kissing her husband with both of them wearing 0.98

00:55:01.180 masks. Can we just, I wonder if we can re-rack it. I really, I want to see it again. I don't need to hear

00:55:06.400 the song. I wonder if we can re-rack this thought so that people can hear her yelling. Surprise!

00:55:13.240 Alyssa. I mean, I love mass theater just as much as the next girl. I mean, we all love some good

00:55:21.760 mass theater and clearly that's what this was. I haven't consumed politics for about a year

00:55:26.880 since I left Fox, which I'll talk about in great detail at another point, not today.

00:55:31.820 That's another podcast. So I've been consuming politics. It's like when you grow up in California,

00:55:36.700 when I was growing up, they had this program where you could, if you're, it was aversion therapy. And

00:55:42.740 if you were trying to get over something, they would lock you in a room, like with a mountain

00:55:45.780 of chocolate and you would eat all of it until you vomited. That's how I felt about politics

00:55:49.480 after the last political cycle. So I haven't watched any politics for about a year. Like most of the

00:55:56.280 American public, it sort of makes me vomit. So I wasn't even sure who was the vice president at this

00:56:00.520 point. When I watched the clip, I still didn't know because everyone's in mass. It could be

00:56:05.960 anyone. Um, but I have never seen the person who's being surprised, yell surprise, lots of confusing

00:56:12.280 things about this clip. I like that. Yes. She is a very, you know, she's a very strange person. Like

00:56:18.700 you said, she's awkward in almost every situation and she comes across as very unsure of herself and

00:56:23.720 insecure because it's one thing to be awkward. You don't know what to do with your hands. I understand

00:56:27.700 that that's not everyone's gift, but she always does the exact opposite of what you're supposed

00:56:32.600 to do in a certain situation. So in this situation, she says, surprise, when everyone else is supposed

00:56:37.360 to say surprise. A few weeks ago, when she was asked by a reporter, Hey, have you visited the

00:56:41.680 border? And this is when, you know, we really had a spotlight on the humanitarian disaster that was

00:56:46.160 going down there. What's her first response to cackle. She says, it's so strange. I think that she

00:56:53.160 does have some kind of a personality issue going on there. She just doesn't know how to react in 1.00

00:56:57.840 normal interactions. It's relevant because she's probably going to be the democratic nominee next 0.99

00:57:03.800 time around. Melissa, just to clue you in on what's going to happen. Joe Biden said he's only going

00:57:07.880 to be one term president. She's only joking. She hasn't done a lot of politics, but I understand the

00:57:11.980 cleanse, the need to cleanse and Kamala Harris, maybe, you know, she's obviously the sort of front 1.00

00:57:17.020 runner for the job. Okay. Let's switch over to this. Now I'm going to get you up to speed.

00:57:21.840 Rachel Levine is with HHS. Rachel Levine is a trans woman. Um, she is the U S assistant secretary

00:57:32.360 for health. Most of us have never heard of a lot of these positions. So I'm just going to walk you

00:57:35.600 through it. She is the first openly transgender official to have been confirmed by the Senate.

00:57:41.020 She already got that feather in her cap and she's just been named to the U S public health 0.97

00:57:46.440 services, commissioned cores core and says, she says, okay, so at the, at the ceremony,

00:57:53.920 follow, I'm going someplace with this. Um, so she gets a ceremony, ceremonial title, a four-star

00:58:00.520 admiral when they announced this. Okay. And listen to how she described this moment in her career

00:58:07.060 and sort of the barrier breaking that went on. I stand before you in this uniform, ready to be

00:58:12.160 a beacon in these dark days of COVID-19 working to serve you and this great nation. I am honored to

00:58:20.360 serve as the first female four-star officer of the U S public health service commissioned core.

00:58:27.180 And then she goes on to say in the first transgender person, but to celebrate herself as the first

00:58:33.120 female as the first woman, right. To hold this role. To me, it was very jarring and I support trans people

00:58:40.500 and I support trans rights, but Rachel Levine lived 54 years as a man. She was born in 1957 in 2011.

00:58:51.460 She transitioned 54 years as a man, became a doctor as a man, went to Harvard as a man,

00:58:56.380 went to med school as a man residency and fellowship at Mount Sinai as a man and grew up in a time in the

00:59:03.260 medical profession when there were very few women and it was very tough on women. That's why if she 1.00

00:59:07.560 had been a biological woman appointed to this position, it would have been a perfect time to 1.00

00:59:11.900 spike the ball and say, yeah, women, right. That's what she was basically doing for me. This was a 1.00

00:59:17.140 bridge too far. This was not a powerful woman, a woman moment. This was a powerful moment for a trans

00:59:23.640 woman. And I don't mean to be nasty, but to me, there was a falsity in it because the women who 0.99

00:59:28.960 actually came up during those times had it really damn hard. They were expected to take care of their

00:59:34.200 kids. They were expected to go to med school. They were in a small minority. There were newspaper

00:59:37.660 articles written about how hard it was for women in the medical profession at the time. She went

00:59:41.480 through none of that because she was a man who dominated medicine. So I just had a strong reaction to

00:59:47.460 it, which is unusual for me on trans stuff. But this one brought something out and I wonder what you

00:59:51.640 think of it. Allie Beth, I'll give that one to you. Yeah, I'm going to do my best not to get you

00:59:54.860 kicked off YouTube because I think I'm probably a little bit more conservative even than you,

01:00:00.300 which I agree with everything that you just said. So let me be as charitable as I possibly can. I

01:00:06.520 agree with you. Not only has Levine not had the experiences that we have as women and they're

01:00:13.180 almost unquantifiable. You can't even list all of the different experiences you have when you're

01:00:19.440 growing up as a girl and as a woman, whether it's today or 50 years ago when Levine was

01:00:24.300 growing up. But it's offensive in the sense that apparently a woman is now reduced to growing your 0.99

01:00:32.000 hair out, putting lipstick on. And that now gets you this high honor of being the first. Is that

01:00:38.140 really what it means to be a woman? Just pronouns, just declaration, just self-identification.

01:00:43.880 Our biology doesn't matter. Our experiences don't matter. Our trials and triumphs don't matter,

01:00:48.900 which are unique to women because of our biology. None of that matters. You have a really good deal. 1.00

01:00:54.520 You can be a white man. One second, you can be part of the so-called cis hetero patriarchy that's

01:01:00.740 oppressing women. The next minute, you're a moment of the oppressed class and you get the highest honors 0.99

01:01:06.180 because you now have declared that you are a woman. It's certainly not fair.

01:01:10.840 Yeah, it just feels, Melissa, like the reason we say first female, you know, vice president,

01:01:16.720 first female Supreme Court justice, whatever, is because the achievement is emblematic of overcoming 0.99

01:01:22.440 the struggle that women have had historically, not present day so much, but historically in our

01:01:27.240 society, some present day. And so we sort of recognize that, wow, you overcame the odds.

01:01:32.600 That's why Ruth Bader Ginsburg story was so amazing, right? She was like one of only nine women 0.67

01:01:37.240 at Harvard Law School. And there was massive misogyny toward her at the time. And it's been

01:01:41.360 well-documented. So you celebrate that. But this woman, with all due respect, Rachel Levine has not

01:01:46.600 gone through any of that. She's gone through, I'm sure, a lot as a trans person. And that's great.

01:01:50.780 We can mark that. But this is not a celebration of women sort of pushing through to the powerful 0.96

01:01:56.340 positions despite the odds against them. I don't know. This might be one where I disagree with you

01:02:00.960 both, because as I watch Levine make this speech, all I can think of is no matter what, this person has

01:02:06.740 been through a lot and is breaking some kind of a barrier. So I don't know. I mean, I almost feel

01:02:11.400 like by parsing it, we're getting trapped in that who's the biggest victim, you know, that whole

01:02:17.720 mentality as opposed to just celebrating someone who's obviously gotten through something huge in

01:02:23.900 their own life. So I don't know. I'm going to be the odd man out on this week. No, I like that.

01:02:28.100 Oh, I like disagreement. But I just think it's not to sort of lean into victimhood. It's that she,

01:02:35.300 she chose to say she was a woman. She chose to claim the accomplishment. And I suppose at some

01:02:40.260 point we're going to have another woman, a biological woman who's a four star admiral, 1.00

01:02:44.720 who actually will be the first cis woman to achieve this role. And I guess she's not going

01:02:50.240 to be able to say she's the first woman to do it because Rachel came before her after 54 years as a

01:02:55.680 man. I don't know. OK, I'm going to steal the last word on it because there's much, much more to go

01:03:00.720 over, including while we're on the subject of trans backlash and so on. Margaret Atwood of

01:03:07.060 Handmaid's Tale, which I love. She tweeted out an article that asked why we can't say the word

01:03:13.560 women anymore. The article begins by replacing well-known lyrics with that have the word women 0.99

01:03:18.700 in them with ridiculous substitutes like you make me feel like a natural person with a vagina. 1.00

01:03:25.440 Yeah. And there was backlash against Margaret Atwood, who just yesterday basically was a 1.00

01:03:33.260 liberal icon. But now, Melissa, she's out because she tweeted this article.

01:03:38.300 Well, I have no idea how you got through the last segment with all of the different terms that you

01:03:42.560 used there. I know I'm just tongue tied anytime I try and talk about gender at this point, because I

01:03:47.340 have no idea what we're supposed to say about anyone anymore. And it is so easy to get off track.

01:03:51.920 I do know that I like to call people jackass when they cut me off in traffic. I don't know,

01:03:57.280 that's probably male sensitive. So I probably can't say that. I've never been able to say the

01:04:02.760 C word. So I don't know much about that. And also, my kids are listening. So, you know, I can't say it.

01:04:08.540 But are we supposed to say, what do you say for fishermen now? Is it fisher person? This is all

01:04:13.660 getting so confusing to me. So I don't know. Woman is sort of the least of my concerns. I know that we 1.00

01:04:18.580 can't call the book Moby Dick anymore. I have a sister-in-law who is an oyster. I say oyster

01:04:26.320 fisherman on Cape Cod. Maybe I'm misgendering. I don't know. I still say oyster fisherman. Maybe so.

01:04:32.240 I'm not sure. But Margaret Atwood, she's standing her ground right now, Ali Beth. Like she got a 0.99

01:04:37.020 bunch of backlash and she's defending herself saying, deal with it. She's going J.K. Rowling on. 0.63

01:04:41.300 Well, Margaret Atwood obviously is a leftist. Like if you go to her Twitter timeline, she's talking

01:04:47.840 about climate change and all that good stuff. And she just asked the question, you know, why can't

01:04:51.920 we say woman anymore? And you had all these people slamming her, saying you're a TERF, which is 1.00

01:04:56.400 trans-exclusionary, radical feminist, and you're a bigot, and you're this bad person, this person who 1.00

01:05:01.360 has been hoisted up as a, you know, anti-Trump, liberal feminist icon, certainly for the past few 0.99

01:05:06.620 years. It's interesting that you're not even, it's like the thing that cannot be asked, the thing

01:05:14.220 that cannot be talked about. Why can't we use certain words? It's so funny. I mean, this newspeak

01:05:19.780 that now we're saying, oh, people with a uterus, people without a uterus. Team Vogue did something

01:05:24.960 like people without a prostate. It's like, that's so funny. There used to be a word for that. There used

01:05:30.300 to be a word for people with a uterus and people without a uterus. Okay. But let me ask you,

01:05:34.080 as somebody who's, who's been outspoken on this issue, the, the argument from, uh, the trans

01:05:40.180 activists is no, it's about inclusivity that you can say, you can still say woman, nobody's taking

01:05:45.620 away the word woman, but when it comes to things that trans, uh, women also do, or even trans men

01:05:55.740 also do, you got to use language that's more inclusive so that you're more sensitive. That's

01:06:01.900 basically the, I'm sure they could make it better than I just did, but I gave it a shot.

01:06:04.800 Yeah. Yeah. Well, of course I don't agree with that because I don't agree with this idea that

01:06:09.940 gender identity is detached from sex and that you can change your gender just by declaration and

01:06:14.820 self-identification for all of human history. Most of the world today agrees with this,

01:06:19.100 that there is male and female that is fixed. That doesn't change by what you say. And so I just don't

01:06:25.720 play around with the language games at all. I don't really even worry about trying to keep up with it

01:06:30.400 because there is male and female. That doesn't mean that someone shouldn't be legally free to

01:06:34.760 quote, identify how they want to identify, but women have certain anatomy. Men have certain anatomy. 1.00

01:06:41.140 Therefore women have certain function. Men have certain function. I like to celebrate these

01:06:45.360 differences, but I'm not going to play along with the language game. Culture follows language policy

01:06:50.160 follows culture. If I don't like some of the policies, if I don't like some of the policies,

01:06:54.380 like you talked earlier this week. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry. Well, I don't think that,

01:06:58.180 no, that's fine. You talked earlier this week though, about the policies and, you know, prison,

01:07:02.660 women's prisons, and they're being put in unsafe situations because of these self declarations of 1.00

01:07:07.680 men identifying as women. If I don't like those policies because they make women unsafe, well, 0.99

01:07:12.320 I'm not going to change my language, which then changes the culture, which then changes the policy.

01:07:17.660 And if I'm interacting with someone, I don't typically use their pronouns. I'm not going to go out

01:07:21.700 of my way to offend them. Of course. See, so I'll use somebody's pronouns, but we talked about

01:07:26.120 this with Dave Rubin. I get really hung up on they. It was Demi Lovato goes by they now. And I just feel

01:07:30.940 like that one's taken and that's confusing and it's improper English. And so I just, it's like the

01:07:35.980 brakes are hit like, no, I can't. I got to find it. So I just kept saying Demi Lovato, Demi Lovato,

01:07:41.220 because I, I actually don't want to misgender somebody. I don't want to be disrespectful. And yet

01:07:46.360 it's not appropriate grammar. Okay. Is one actress too smart for Hollywood? I could be talking about 1.00

01:07:53.040 Melissa, but I'm not, I'm not in this particular instance. The gals are staying with us to talk 0.99

01:07:57.820 about who claims she is the one. Let's kick it off with Kate Beckinsale because Melissa actually 0.64

01:08:07.600 is the hardest, hardest working person and the smartest person to ever grace Hollywood. But Kate

01:08:13.960 Beckinsale says it, she is the one. She says she has a 152 IQ. I looked up the average is apparently

01:08:22.860 between 85 and 115. And, uh, so she's claiming she's a, you know, Mensa member and that this

01:08:29.780 has made her life very difficult in Hollywood, which is not exactly known for having the smartest

01:08:35.260 collection of people. Melissa, what say you? Well, I don't know this. I was a little puzzled

01:08:39.680 by this one because I mean, she's an actress. She can't play dumb if she needs to. I would think 1.00

01:08:44.980 she would be able to do that, but seriously, that's a joke. Um, I don't know why this would be

01:08:49.880 such a handicap to be a smart woman in Hollywood right now. As I said, I'm pitching a dramedy 1.00

01:08:56.280 and you know, you, you go into these meetings and they're asking you questions from every single

01:09:01.820 side. It's like my husband's in finance and it's like being on a road show when you're bringing a

01:09:06.180 company out, you have to know absolutely everything. I understand that. You're the showrunner,

01:09:10.020 the creator, the writer, the creator, the showrunner. She's an actress. She's dealing with other

01:09:14.480 actors. I, I understand. I don't, I just don't think it's a dumb business. So I don't know

01:09:18.960 what she could possibly be talking about. I mean, who's asking her to be dumb? She's 0.99

01:09:23.680 smarter than her coworkers. It just seems like I I've never seen it. It wasn't my experience

01:09:29.580 growing up. You and Ray are both so smart. Melissa and her husband both went to Harvard

01:09:34.020 and just having known them for something like they're really smart people. They always get

01:09:37.460 it. They get it before you get it. And your little brain is like, wait, so I'll be there

01:09:40.720 in one second. Um, and so you have, you never felt the frustration separate and apart from

01:09:45.860 our dinners of the person you're with just not being there yet. Like, come on. Come

01:09:52.380 like, I think that's what she's talking about. Then she's ahead of everyone who's around her.

01:09:56.820 Then she's outsmarting them. She's out thinking them. I just don't know where I've never seen

01:10:01.660 it as a disadvantage to be smart unless you're trying to use that to as an excuse for some

01:10:08.960 other sort of failure. I don't know. I don't understand it at all. I mean, if she really

01:10:13.760 feels like it's necessary to not intimidate people, then she could tone it down and perhaps

01:10:19.500 not tell people she has 152 IQ. I mean, maybe you start there if you feel like it's such

01:10:25.000 an impediment to be so bloody smart. But also, I mean, this was like, it wasn't in an interview

01:10:29.780 with Howard Stern. I mean, this is, he once attacked me and said that, you know, he thought

01:10:34.980 I was a stripper and I don't know, like these things get called, they get way out of context

01:10:40.100 by the time they come off Howard's show. So, so I don't know. I mean,

01:10:43.960 Attack, attack may be too strong. He might've been trying to pay you a compliment.

01:10:47.840 I have to know more. Maybe. I mean, I definitely took it that way.

01:10:51.660 What do you make of it? Because she's saying she, uh, he was asking her whether she's had

01:10:56.160 difficulty like in the dating world and, um, that she thinks it's been, it might, if she can find

01:11:03.140 somebody who's funny, she thinks that helps. But she says every single doctor, every single person

01:11:08.100 I've ever come across has said, you'd be so much happier if you were 30% less smart.

01:11:14.340 Yeah. I don't think that the thing that's holding her back is that she's smart, but that she thinks

01:11:18.140 about the fact that she's smart and that she talks about the fact that she's smart and that she knows

01:11:22.440 and shares her IQ. I don't think most smart people do that. They're pretty secure in their intellect. 0.97

01:11:27.840 I think that I don't actually think that this has been an impediment for her. I think that this is

01:11:33.000 a seemingly humble way for her to bring up the fact that she is smart. It's a humble brag.

01:11:37.960 So it's just a tactic for her. She's not actually sad about it. She's been very successful in

01:11:42.340 Hollywood. So obviously it didn't hold her back that much, or it's a way to try. Maybe she feels

01:11:48.320 like she's less successful than she should be in Hollywood. So her reason for it isn't that she

01:11:53.920 isn't as talented maybe as other actresses, but that she's just too dang smart. And we need to talk

01:11:59.240 about anti-smart bias. That is the real discrimination happening in this country.

01:12:03.540 And Kate Beckinsale is our new spokesperson. Maybe Melissa can join it too, because she is,

01:12:08.700 she's one of those brilliant people. But unlike Kate, she never talks about it.

01:12:13.400 She never talks about any of her accomplishments. It's so annoying when she got to Fox and I was such

01:12:17.380 a diehard Little House fan. I was like, oh my God, holy shit, it's Melissa Francis. It's Cassandra. 0.99

01:12:21.260 She's here. And they were like, she doesn't like to talk about it. I'm like, she was at like

01:12:25.140 the most successful show in the nation for years. What do you mean she doesn't like to talk about it?

01:12:28.880 And they're like, and then I found out years after knowing she went to Harvard. I'm like,

01:12:31.960 if I went to Harvard, I'd be telling everybody. I'd be like,

01:12:35.180 Kate Beckinsale, I'd be like 152 and Harvard. How do you like me now?

01:12:39.560 Stop. You're embarrassing me. You have to stop this, Megan.

01:12:42.740 All right. Let's talk about Gwyneth Paltrow, who really thinks she's found the secret of sleeping

01:12:47.380 well. And you tell me, Melissa, what did, what does she say we should do?

01:12:53.140 I know she, she had a whole bunch of really smart things. One thing that she said was that

01:12:57.800 having an orgasm helps her sleep better. Now this is where I need my son, 0.81

01:13:01.680 Grayson to turn this off, but come on, having an orgasm helps her sleep. Duh. I mean, 1.00

01:13:06.920 I hope nobody paid her for that tip. Wow. Talk about a rocket scientist. That is really 0.95

01:13:13.220 revolutionary. She also said that she sleeps better after she does this regimen with like 500 million

01:13:19.560 scrubs and oils and all these different things. Well, cause she's exhausted. I mean,

01:13:25.100 the routine that she's talking about before bed sounds like it's completely tedious and it would

01:13:29.860 take me about 10 hours. I don't know how she's getting any sleep. Of course she falls asleep 0.95

01:13:34.380 when she gets in bed after her 10 hour booty regimen and a nice orgasm. I bet she doesn't 0.94

01:13:39.240 wake up for days. I think, Allie, I'm going to parlay what you said in the last bit onto her,

01:13:45.940 because I don't know if she's really having orgasms every night before she has a good sleep.

01:13:51.480 I think this is her trying to titillate to sort of sound sexy and get people to pay attention to her. 1.00

01:13:58.860 Yeah, probably so. I think it's just a way to sell her products. Maybe not the orgasm part, 1.00

01:14:03.580 but the part about all of her creams, I think I read that it was like $400 worth of facial stuff

01:14:09.680 that she puts on every night. And of course, this is stuff I think that you can mostly buy from her

01:14:13.820 brand. And so I was thinking the same thing Melissa said, you know, she probably starts this at 10 PM.

01:14:18.220 She's not done until about 6 AM going through all of this. So of course you're super tired after

01:14:23.560 that. But I think it's, it's brilliant marketing. It's brilliant marketing. This is the woman who I

01:14:28.420 guess sold out candles that smelled like her genitalia. So I, I feel like we can't even 0.98

01:14:33.700 criticize her. If this kind of thing works for her to sell goop products, go for it. 1.00

01:14:38.000 It's so great. I have to tell you, she, she tries so hard and she, it shows, but literally when I,

01:14:44.120 when I get ready for bed at night, I wash my face with either Dove moisturizing soap or this

01:14:50.580 SkinCeuticals cleanser, which is very gentle. And then I use all may oil pads to take off my heavy

01:14:57.240 eye makeup. And then I use a washcloth as my exfoliator. And then I put on some random

01:15:03.960 moisturizing cream. That's it. And then I sleep like a baby because I'm exhausted for just from

01:15:09.740 living my life and having three kids and having a job and not because I had an orgasm and I slept

01:15:14.820 on a copper pillow and I made naked cuddles and was sober. Those are the things she wants us to do.

01:15:22.180 I don't know. I have a sneaking suspicion that she's also selling vibrators on her website. That 0.70

01:15:26.940 would be my bet. She is a hundred percent. Have you ever seen the goop website? Oh yeah. That's

01:15:31.720 I mean, she's like, she was like, Oh, I don't, those ladies don't have to go to sharper image 1.00

01:15:36.020 anymore. Pretending that they want to massage her. I got them. Um, okay. Now there's a scandal

01:15:41.340 involving, um, a reporter who works where you used to work, Melissa CNBC. Um, I had never heard of

01:15:49.600 this woman before. I'm going to confess, I guess she's based in Abu Dhabi. Her name is Hadley Gamble.

01:15:54.780 And she did something I too have done, which is she went overseas to interview Vladimir Putin.

01:15:59.980 It wasn't like a one-on-one. It was sort of on a stage in front of a group of people at his energy

01:16:06.920 forum in Moscow. He does it every year. So, okay, that's normal. That happens. But what's not that

01:16:13.120 normal is, um, the response. So he made a comment about her looks in the interview. He did that with

01:16:19.740 me too. That's kind of his thing. He gets, he tries to get you off her game. He insinuated she

01:16:23.020 couldn't comprehend what he was telling her because she was a beautiful woman. Uh, I tell her one thing and

01:16:27.660 she tells me the opposite. If she didn't hear what I said, that's him. That's he's a KGB operator.

01:16:32.320 Um, but the reaction by the journalists in Russia, which is there, you know, it's basically sort of

01:16:37.780 state TV over there. I mean, it is Russia state media accuses her of quote, positioning herself

01:16:43.160 as a sex object in order to distract him host Olga Skabiva. And there's a bunch of folks who said

01:16:49.600 similar things claim. Gamble was taking part in an American special operation and went through all

01:16:56.260 she done. And I'll have more on her quote in a minute, but you tell me whether as pro Kremlin,

01:17:00.340 pro Kremlin, uh, propagandist, Dmitry Kislyov said, gamble quote, worked her body language to the

01:17:08.300 fullest by playing with her hair, rolling out her tongue, concluding that she behaved boldly, 0.97

01:17:13.340 opening, positioning herself as a sexual object. Your thoughts on that, Ali Beth, man, what I'm 0.94

01:17:20.420 thinking when I'm listening to this is how different the rest of the world is from the West and

01:17:25.380 specifically from America. Like we are so Americanized when we think about the, uh,

01:17:31.840 when we think about feminism or when we think about the women's movement or all of these different

01:17:35.640 political and cultural issues that we're dealing with talking about, you know, Rachel Levine in

01:17:40.380 most places in the world, people are not thinking that way. They don't see men and women, feminism,

01:17:46.800 all of our cultural issues, the same way that we do. Anyone who says that America isn't progressive

01:17:52.480 enough. We are so progressive, so pro woman compared to the rest of the world. It's almost

01:17:57.640 like, I mean, they are speaking a different language, but they're speaking a different 0.73

01:18:00.800 cultural, political language, something that is so unfamiliar to most Americans in the 21st century.

01:18:05.900 It's pretty crazy.

01:18:06.860 That's funny. Well, I was actually looking at, I'm like, this is wow. I mean, what, what's going on?

01:18:10.500 Then you look at some of the video. I don't like, we'll run it. So by the way, if you're just

01:18:14.000 listening to this, you can check out the show on youtube.com forward slash Megan Kelly,

01:18:17.860 because we're putting it out. We usually put it out around four o'clock Eastern the video of the

01:18:21.900 show. And you can see this woman, we've queued it up. Like I will say she's really close to him

01:18:26.400 with the leg. I it's like her leg is, it's like she's trying to touch him with her leg across that

01:18:32.600 lectern. I don't, it's, it makes me feel a little uncomfortable. I I'm all for the nice outfits and I

01:18:40.160 don't mind showing some skin as an anchor. I don't know that I would have done it in that particular

01:18:45.320 setting, Melissa. Well, I don't know. I mean, I sat on the outnumbered pervy couch for quite some

01:18:51.340 time. So far be it for me to talk to anyone about how they're sitting, wearing a skirt and the show 1.00

01:18:56.940 regardless. I was a little bit afraid to click the link when you sent it to me, Megan, because

01:19:02.300 when it says Putin, you know, you think you're going to click through and see him like shirtless

01:19:06.100 wrestling a saber tooth tiger. He is the strongest man alive. So I don't know how a mere woman's legs 1.00

01:19:12.500 could possibly distract him. And he is used to, if you ever watch those press conferences.

01:19:17.600 So we used to watch them at the business channel at Fox business and roar with laughter at the end

01:19:22.120 of the day when they were on, because he would go on for hours and he would take questions like

01:19:25.920 how handsome are you Vladimir Putin? I mean, he's just so, yeah. I mean, the questions are

01:19:32.000 ridiculous and that's what he's used to. So I don't know. I think he got the headlines he wanted 0.57

01:19:37.940 by making this comment. And I think that like you, Megan, I had no idea who this woman was.

01:19:42.980 I don't even know. Hadley Gamble. Is that her real name? I mean, it sounds like it could be like

01:19:46.800 Poison Ivy or Villanelle or, or one of the, or Red Herring. I mean, I have a couple of good names

01:19:52.100 for her to get in there as the villain, but you know, nobody knew who she was before and now they

01:19:56.660 do. So I don't know. This was, this situation was a win for everyone involved.

01:20:00.220 Well, I'll tell you. So I, this guy, this gal, Holst Olga Skabiva, Ali Beth says, okay,

01:20:07.060 she was part of an American special operation adding quote, let me remind you only a short time

01:20:11.400 ago. It was a huge scandal when it turned out that Putin brought translator Daria

01:20:15.700 Boyeskaya to his negotiations with Donald Trump. Look at Comrade Gamble. She is also a beauty. 0.97

01:20:22.940 Aha, here I come. Look at Megan Kelly. She is the woman the Americans brought last time. 0.96

01:20:27.920 She was a blonde. This time it's a brunette. They are the same age and weight category. 1.00

01:20:32.380 They keep trying to get to Putin. I'm like, wait, what? Wait, what?

01:20:37.500 Is that a real quote? Yes. That's not you adding something to that?

01:20:41.260 No, I swear to God. That's it. End quote.

01:20:43.900 Oh my goodness. Well, I don't, I mean, I don't know about the PR propaganda team for Russia.

01:20:50.420 It sounds super weird to me. I don't know what, what is the point? And I'm curious what you guys

01:20:55.260 think, like, what is the point of them saying something like this? Is it just to try to like

01:20:59.660 slam Americans? Is it trying to make Americans look bad in Russia that we're the America is the

01:21:05.720 real spies, not the Kremlin, not the Russia or not the Russians? We're the ones who are actually

01:21:10.840 sketchy and launching these kinds of, I don't know.

01:21:13.900 I mean, I think that Russian state TV, they pivot off of his queue. So he made a comment about the

01:21:18.800 looks. And I think that's sort of like, this is where he wants us to go. I mean, it is state TV. And

01:21:25.240 so, you know, he gave the marching order essentially. And then they reacted. Although I did, it did

01:21:30.080 remind me, I went over there when I went over there a couple of times and interviewed him in St.

01:21:33.700 Petersburg for his economic forum and interviewed him one on one. And then I went back and we met in

01:21:38.180 Kaliningrad and Moscow. Kaliningrad is where they keep their nukes. And but this you can see a 0.66

01:21:43.740 picture here of me sitting with Vladimir Putin. There's a translator there. And there's India

01:21:48.280 Prime Minister Modi. And there I have a saucy dress on and a slit, which made international news. And

01:21:55.060 let me and people are like, look what she wore to interview Vladimir Putin. And I was like, yo,

01:21:58.920 dumbasses. That is not what I wore to interview Vladimir Putin. Every time I interviewed Vladimir 0.99

01:22:03.000 Putin, I had my body entirely covered. And the pictures will prove it. That was a crazy situation

01:22:10.840 where there I am in my long pants and my long shirt for the actual interview. So that was a

01:22:15.740 situation where he invited me to go meet with Prime Minister Modi, who was also going to be part of the

01:22:20.460 economic conference at this at his palace in St. Petersburg. So I went and they said it was a state

01:22:27.180 dinner and that it was going to be sort of this big festive thing. So that's why I wore a dress.

01:22:32.780 It was supposed to be like dancing, I thought, and like a party cocktail party.

01:22:36.880 Then I realized the crazy story. I get there and it's and they're not there yet. Putin and Modi

01:22:43.220 are not yet there. And all the handlers are there. And they're like, OK, you need to stand right here.

01:22:47.740 Oh, they're coming. They're coming. OK, get her, get her, get her. And they're like, they place me in

01:22:51.500 front of the door of the palace. I'm like, holy shit, I'm the welcoming committee. Like I, I don't know 0.98

01:22:56.280 what's being done here, but they're relying on me to like host these guys. Am I the state dinner?

01:23:01.240 Am I on the menu? What's happening? So they come in. It was very nice. I practiced how to properly

01:23:06.900 greet Putin, which is you have to say his name like it's you have to say Vladimir Vladimirovich.

01:23:12.740 And he was very gracious. It was fine. I agreed to Prime Minister Modi and said something stupid

01:23:17.080 about, oh, you're on Twitter because he said he follows me or something. And then it turns out 0.99

01:23:20.080 he's got like 400 million followers like, oh, never mind. Speaking of awkward moments. And

01:23:27.680 then Putin's like, would you like to sit down and join us for tea? I'm like, what the fuck 1.00

01:23:32.980 is going on here? Is it tea? Is it a state dinner? Is this the interview? I don't know 0.99

01:23:37.120 what's happening. We sat down on this little tiny table reflected in that photo and we

01:23:41.600 had a lovely social time and it was not a state dinner. And anyway, the whole thing was awkward,

01:23:47.380 but awesome. And the press got it wrong because I wasn't actually dressing for an interview.

01:23:51.520 I don't know that they've got it wrong in the case of the Abu Dhabi Hadley gamble, but Melissa

01:23:58.260 fake news in my case, fake news. Definitely. I think that it is all about trying to diminish

01:24:04.460 the interviewer or whatever they have to say. Of course. I mean, it's it's an a reporter in all

01:24:09.600 honesty. We all know this, that he's not used to facing reporters that he can't control. So when he

01:24:14.840 is sitting with someone he can't control, he has to diminish them in some way. And that's how he did it

01:24:20.220 with this woman. I was glad that they mentioned you in the article, because actually, to be honest,

01:24:25.300 when I read it at first, I said, Megan went to see him and she's much prettier than this woman. But 0.95

01:24:29.720 that's OK. Anyway, they they did mention the whole thing. And, you know, this is just the way

01:24:34.740 that he likes to spin things so that he can insult whoever it is that he's with. Yeah. Well, I mean,

01:24:41.560 it was I guess, you know, the thought that you'd be using your sex appeal to sort of disarm him.

01:24:46.200 A is not that complimentary of you, but B is an impossible task anyway. He's Vladimir Putin.

01:24:52.500 He was in the KGB. He cannot be disarmed by beauty. He's a man. He might appreciate it. But

01:24:57.960 you know nothing about him if you think that he's so weak that he's going to give you a,

01:25:02.220 you know, a good answer that you wouldn't have otherwise gotten because you put some

01:25:06.100 self tanner on your legs. Ladies, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much, Megan. For the

01:25:12.180 record, I thought you looked great. Thank you very much and have a great weekend. All right.

01:25:16.560 Monday, Dr. Lisa Littman will be here. She was most recently a physician scientist at Brown

01:25:22.340 University, and she is really the expert on rapid onset gender dysphoria, the sort of craze,

01:25:30.000 the contagion that she says is sweeping teenage girls when it comes to trans issues. Well, now 0.99

01:25:34.240 she's left Brown. Why is that? Join us to find out. I'm really looking forward to this.

01:25:40.200 Download the show, Megan Kelly, on Apple, Pandora, Spotify, and Stitcher. Go to YouTube

01:25:43.780 and have a great weekend. Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - October 22, 2021

A Wuhan Lab Admission and White House Coordination Against Parents, with Hugh Hewitt, Melissa Francis, Allie Beth Stuckey, and Nicki Neily ｜ Ep. 187

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