The Megyn Kelly Show - Afghanistan Accountability and COVID Misinformation at Supreme Court, with Stuart Scheller and Robert Barnes ｜ Ep. 236

00:00:00.420 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.680 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.

00:00:16.700 We are keeping a very close eye right now on the United States Supreme Court

00:00:21.240 where the vaccine mandate cases, two of them, are being argued right now.

00:00:27.800 We could get a ruling on this within days.

00:00:31.460 There's the Biden vaccine mandate.

00:00:34.180 They used OSHA to effectuate, saying any employer that has more than 100 employees

00:00:40.100 has to either require vaccinations or mandate testing and masking.

00:00:45.380 That's under challenge.

00:00:47.180 And then the separate vaccine mandate imposed by the federal government on health care workers,

00:00:53.120 saying if you work in a hospital and it receives taxpayer dollars,

00:00:57.300 you must, you have no choice but to get a vaccine.

00:01:00.880 All of that's being disputed right now.

00:01:02.760 It's been pretty heated at times and there's been a lot of nonsense,

00:01:06.280 a lot of nonsense thrown out by some of the justices on this subject.

00:01:10.500 I think it was Sotomayor who suggested we've got 100,000 children right now in the hospital because of COVID.

00:01:17.360 I mean, it's like getting her facts from Terry McAuliffe.

00:01:23.700 Remember him down in Virginia when he was running for governor and he just misstated,

00:01:27.960 grossly overstated the numbers in the hospitals every other day and then finally lost.

00:01:33.020 In any event, you can't be kicked off the Supreme Court, really.

00:01:35.660 So it's not going to happen.

00:01:36.520 But she does have a lot of power and we're going to get an update to you on how the vaccine mandates are looking. 0.96

00:01:44.380 Do we think they're going to fare well or do we think they're going to be struck down?

00:01:48.040 I've got some thoughts and we're going to be joined by Robert Barnes with some legal analysis just a bit.

00:01:53.300 First, however, I'm excited to be joined today by a special guest.

00:01:57.740 First, now former Marine Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller is here with us today and he's going to talk to us for the first time about his experience and speaking out about the debacle in Afghanistan

00:02:10.360 and about the fact that he is now officially the only, the only person to be held responsible for that nightmare.

00:02:18.620 Not a senior officer has been disciplined, has been fired, has been held to account for the way that was handled.

00:02:25.800 Just now, again, former Marine Lieutenant Colonel Scheller, who had the nerve to speak out about it and say, this is wrong.

00:02:34.480 Can I call you Stuart?

00:02:36.600 Absolutely.

00:02:37.600 It's a pleasure to have you here, Stuart.

00:02:38.880 Thank you so much for being here.

00:02:40.220 Thank you for your 17 years of service.

00:02:42.220 And thank you for having the guts to speak out on something that has cost you a lot.

00:02:47.860 Excuse me, a lot.

00:02:49.120 I do want to say this.

00:02:50.740 It strikes me that just yesterday was January 6th on Capitol Hill.

00:02:53.880 We saw a prayer vigil.

00:02:55.900 We saw moments of silence.

00:02:58.080 We saw speeches by politicians, the vice president, the president, members of Congress.

00:03:03.320 We have a congressional investigation underway into how it happened.

00:03:07.240 We saw lawmakers invited to speak about their, how they were personally affected by this riot.

00:03:14.320 What are the chances we're going to see anything close to that on the anniversary of the deaths of those 13 service members in August of 2022?

00:03:25.960 Right.

00:03:26.100 When we see, do you think a year from that debacle, we're going to see anything like that sort of reverence for a solemn event from these same players?

00:03:35.540 No, Megan, the point you're making is obviously we won't.

00:03:39.560 We've lost thousands of service members over the last 20 years.

00:03:44.060 But I think, you know, the reason you're having me on right now and the reason this conversation is so important is not only to remember those 13 service members that lost their lives, but hopefully we can have conversations that prevent putting service members in situations like that and hopefully prevent the next loss of life that is preventable.

00:04:02.660 Right. It seems to me that the members of Congress and the administration are very quick to spend the day marking, marking an occasion that makes Republicans look bad.

00:04:15.000 But when it would be something that would hold them to account, that would remind people of their own malfeasance, I don't think we can expect anything like that.

00:04:22.760 And I think it goes to the very point you've been making, which is who has been held accountable, who where is the administration's desire to hold someone accountable, not just for the death of those 13 service members, but of for the entire debacle and the way it went down.

00:04:40.240 So let's start at the beginning for you and just help us get to know you since we've we covered you a lot while you were in the brig for having the nerve to speak out.

00:04:48.720 But this is my first chance getting to talk to you. How old were you when you joined the Marine Corps?

00:04:55.080 Twenty three. I joined after college. I graduated from the University of Cincinnati with an accounting degree.

00:05:00.120 At the time, I thought I was going to go be an FBI agent and I was working as an accountant and that was in 2004.

00:05:06.980 So the war was going on. I saw the Marines on TV and I just had a call to serve to go have an opportunity to be a leader in combat.

00:05:14.520 So in 2004 is when I called up my Marine recruiting office.

00:05:18.980 Wow. I always I always have even a greater respect for somebody who signs up to serve in the middle of a war and in particular one that wasn't going very well back then.

00:05:28.700 So, I mean, it takes a lot of guts, takes a lot of patriotism. Do you come from a military family?

00:05:34.720 No, I don't. My grandfather did land in Normandy when he was 18.

00:05:39.700 He was only like third generation American. He's a German-American.

00:05:45.400 And so they actually didn't trust him. And he was in like the third wave and he ended up getting out.

00:05:49.340 But he went into the federal service. He was a U.S. Marshal. I had an uncle that was in the FBI.

00:05:53.920 And so they kind of pushed me towards being, you know, serving my country.

00:05:57.960 And that's why I got the accounting degree. I was following in his footsteps.

00:06:01.000 So my father was an insurance salesman. I've got two brothers and a sister and none of them are in the military.

00:06:05.140 So I was really only the first one in a couple of generations that joined the military.

00:06:09.820 Nobody that I knew was in the Marine Corps, but I pursued it because it seemed to me like a good challenge.

00:06:14.920 And I was always an athlete and I liked being a part of teams. And I loved America.

00:06:18.820 I loved Americans. And it was something that I wanted to do to challenge myself.

00:06:22.800 And how'd you become an officer?

00:06:25.700 Well, I went into actually, I didn't know the difference between enlisted and officers.

00:06:29.320 That's how lost I was. I went into an enlisted recruiting station, said I wanted to be an officer and had to talk to them.

00:06:34.500 And then they directed me to the officer recruiting station. But ultimately, I wanted the opportunity to lead.

00:06:39.340 I was a soccer captain. I was all state in soccer. I was always a captain.

00:06:43.660 And I just felt like I had leadership abilities. I was smart.

00:06:47.840 You know, I never had 4.0s, but I had like three fives, you know, all through my academic career at school.

00:06:53.400 As long as I put in the work, it came pretty easy to me.

00:06:56.220 And I just wanted to have the opportunity to be a leader. So that's why I chose to become an officer.

00:06:59.940 Hmm. Okay. So you were deployed, as I understand it, both to Iraq and Afghanistan. How many times?

00:07:07.080 I deployed to Ramadi, Iraq in 2007 for seven months. And then I deployed to Afghanistan.

00:07:14.220 It was a year deployment from June 10 to June 11. And then I've done three other deployments.

00:07:19.000 So I did two MUSE, that stands for Marine Expeditionary Units, where a bunch of Marines get on ships and they sail across the ocean.

00:07:25.220 So on one of those, I conducted an American evacuation in Lebanon in 2006 in the Israeli-Lebanese conflict.

00:07:33.380 And then I ended up in Kuwait and we actually sent some snipers up into Iraq in 06.

00:07:37.940 Got a couple of snipers killed. It was very much a sniper fight then.

00:07:41.500 And then I went on another Marine Expeditionary Unit deployment. That was a 10-month deployment in 2010.

00:07:47.260 We did a lot of bilateral stuff.

00:07:48.980 I was in Egypt when the president got put in prison and Al-Sisi took over and I had to evacuate out of there and did a bunch of bilateral training operations.

00:07:57.840 And then I did a UDP. They put Marines in the Pacific and Okinawa to be part of the war plans if we were ever to go to war with North Korea.

00:08:07.280 And so we were part of that planning. And then we went to Korea and a couple other places.

00:08:11.080 So five total deployments is my deployment background.

00:08:15.300 Meanwhile, you get married. You have a few children, right? How many kids?

00:08:21.740 I have three boys, 11, 9, and 7. I got married.

00:08:25.360 I was actually, I was dating her as a senior in college.

00:08:28.320 We got married within six months of me being in the Marine Corps.

00:08:31.180 So she was with me the whole time.

00:08:32.800 Okay. And so you're trying to maintain a family life and you're trying to serve your country and you're going all over the place.

00:08:38.000 And we get to the summer of 2021.

00:08:41.880 And what were you doing at that point?

00:08:43.320 So, yeah, I was in MARSOC from 19 to 20 for one year.

00:08:50.600 And then I was an operations officer in 6th Marine Regiment for one year.

00:08:54.860 And then I had just gone from my operations officer billet into a battalion commander billet.

00:09:00.000 So I was at the School of Infantry, Advanced Infantry Training Battalion.

00:09:03.260 And that's where they teach sniper school, squad leader school, all the advanced schools that infantrymen go through was in my battalion.

00:09:11.920 And so I only had that job for about six weeks, which brought us to August 26th, where I made that first video.

00:09:18.140 And where physically were you?

00:09:20.040 Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. It's in Jacksonville. It's just above Wilmington, North Carolina.

00:09:24.040 Yeah, yeah, sure. I've been down there. OK, so you decide to to issue a post.

00:09:32.320 And where did you on social media? I think it was Facebook. Was that where you primarily were posting?

00:09:38.040 I had I had two social media platforms. It was Facebook and LinkedIn.

00:09:42.520 And most military officers don't have social media. In fact, I didn't have social media until 2018.

00:09:47.820 But I had launched a business as a major. And because I had launched that business, I needed social media.

00:09:53.320 So I had a couple thousand followers on each platform. I think I had just enough to kind of light the fire when I ended up posting what I did.

00:10:00.740 So, yeah, it was Facebook and LinkedIn were the two platforms.

00:10:04.840 And the first post was in August. And was it before or after the death of the 13 service personnel?

00:10:12.520 It was the same day. So I was in my office. You got to understand it. I didn't just make that decision that day.

00:10:18.580 I mean, this is something that had been building up. So I have a master's in military science.

00:10:24.060 I specialize my thesis on foreign diplomacy. I've been thinking about how we could do this more effectively for a long time.

00:10:30.600 Obviously, I have the experiences in the countries where I saw some things that we did that were highly ineffective.

00:10:35.200 And then, you know, in current day, I was watching the Afghanistan fallout real time on social media, on the news.

00:10:43.280 And I was getting frustrated. And then my senior leaders were making messages that basically said, go to the therapist if you're struggling.

00:10:50.000 But they weren't accepting accountability as far as I saw it.

00:10:54.080 And so when the deaths happened, you got to also understand it was the unit one eight was my first unit.

00:11:00.720 That was the unit I went to Ramadi with. My best friend got hit with the suicide vest.

00:11:04.600 It was very personal for me. Also, when I was the operations officer, they were in my regiment.

00:11:09.880 I'm the one that trained, manned, equipped them and sent them out on deployment from what a higher headquarters does.

00:11:15.380 Obviously, they do all the training themselves. But from a higher headquarters, like I knew everybody in that unit.

00:11:19.740 And so when it happened, I just got to a place where I knew without a doubt that no senior leaders were held accountable.

00:11:27.060 And I knew based on all my experiences that this was very preventable.

00:11:31.440 And so I just felt like no one else is going to address this.

00:11:35.260 And I think a lot of American people don't understand the true fundamental problems that are plaguing the military.

00:11:41.000 And I know you started the interview with January 6th and political.

00:11:45.160 And I know there is some politicalization in the military.

00:11:48.300 But the truth is the systemic problems go, you know, through both parties.

00:11:53.520 Yeah. The problem facing the military in the White House.

00:11:58.440 Yes. And so I just want to make sure that we understand that people have been lionizing and saying thank you for so long because they want to be supportive.

00:12:07.060 And we appreciate that. But because of the lack of criticism, it's just created these problems that nobody was addressing.

00:12:14.400 So that led me to the day of the attack.

00:12:17.160 I posted a video and the takeaway from the video was, you know, you abandoned Bagram Air Base.

00:12:22.360 You didn't have to do that.

00:12:24.240 You allowed the situation to deteriorate to a place where you were relying on the Taliban for security.

00:12:29.340 And then there was an attack that was preventable that took the lives of service members.

00:12:33.140 And I demand accountability for this.

00:12:34.760 And that was the video I posted.

00:12:36.760 Let's let's take a look at some of that.

00:12:38.600 Here's soundbite one, which is an excerpt from Stuart's video, August 26, 2021.

00:12:45.200 I'm not saying we've got to be in the in Afghanistan forever.

00:12:48.480 But I am saying, did any of you throw your rank on the table and say, hey, it's a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield, the strategic air barriers, before we evacuate everyone?

00:12:57.360 Did anyone do that?

00:12:58.520 And when you didn't think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say, we completely messed this up?

00:13:02.700 And then just to add on, here's a little bit more.

00:13:07.600 Same day, soundbite number two, adding on.

00:13:10.080 Stuart.

00:13:11.400 I want to say this very strongly.

00:13:13.800 I have been fighting for 17 years.

00:13:18.520 I am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders, I demand accountability.

00:13:26.840 Wow.

00:13:28.200 What a moment that was.

00:13:30.040 So when you did that, did you realize you could get in trouble?

00:13:35.200 Oh, absolutely.

00:13:35.900 So after I made the video, I actually didn't post it right away.

00:13:39.880 I drove back to my house.

00:13:41.820 There's a soundbite in the middle that says, you know, I know I'm jeopardizing my family, my retirement, my job.

00:13:48.660 And so, I mean, I articulated even in the video that I had thought through it.

00:13:52.160 But even after I made that video, I drove back to my house, hadn't posted it, and was pacing around my house, deciding whether or not I really wanted to go down that route because I knew how life-changing it would be.

00:14:04.280 But like I said, this is just very personal.

00:14:06.220 I'm very passionate.

00:14:07.260 I've spent my whole adult life thinking, living this.

00:14:10.700 And there just wasn't anything that was more important.

00:14:13.080 And so, you know, with a click of that button, you post it, and then it kind of took off from there.

00:14:18.360 I know you felt like nobody was really calling them out, demanding accountability within the military.

00:14:25.920 Outside of the military, there were many people doing it, right?

00:14:29.160 It was half the country who was outraged, and even Democrats, and even some of the mainstream press that would normally be more protective of President Biden were not as protective in the wake of all of this.

00:14:41.480 So why wasn't that enough?

00:14:43.880 Why did you feel it had to come from a man in uniform?

00:14:47.400 Yeah.

00:14:48.360 Well, first of all, even though, let's just use Congress, for example, all got opportunities to use their soundbites of anger towards the generals, they didn't do anything.

00:14:57.900 You know, so talk is not enough.

00:15:00.700 So I'll give you an example.

00:15:01.820 Each one of those apolitical Congress people that demanded accountability, six days previous to that congressional testimony to the three generals,

00:15:11.180 they approved one of the largest DOD budgets, and nobody stood against the DOD budget and demanded metrics of effectiveness or accountability, because that would have taken courage.

00:15:20.860 So it was easy to tap into the people's anger, but it was much harder to actually use the leverage of control that they have against the DOD budget.

00:15:30.980 And so, you know, I get it, people in the aftermath are going to talk about it, but then the news cycle is going to move on and nothing happens, i.e. Vietnam.

00:15:39.360 So these problems have plagued us post-World War II, and quite honestly, nobody is doing anything.

00:15:46.560 And I thought a guy in uniform with the experiences that I have, with the education that I have, it was very important to start this conversation.

00:15:55.120 And I'm one of these guys that's not going to let it go.

00:15:56.640 You know, once I'm in the fight, I'm going to fight to the end, and I'm going to make sure that we bring the changes that are needed,

00:16:02.480 because quite honestly, all those people that talked about it right after the fact, they're on the talking about other things.

00:16:08.520 And here I am still doing the rounds, because this is still very important, and these are problems that need to be fixed.

00:16:14.080 That's so true.

00:16:15.440 What were the other options available to you?

00:16:18.180 So if you want to speak out and say, where's the accountability?

00:16:21.480 Was there a way of doing it that would not have gotten you in trouble?

00:16:24.120 There are always ways within the system to address it.

00:16:29.740 You could have done an IG complaint.

00:16:31.420 You could have just talked to your boss.

00:16:32.580 You could have requested masked.

00:16:34.220 But I did all those things after the fact, to be fair, about other things.

00:16:39.180 And I don't know if it was just based on, you know, everyone was mad at me, but they basically just denied all of those things.

00:16:44.120 So to me, it was just an example of the system doesn't work the way you think it will.

00:16:48.320 And, you know, I calculated, everything I did was calculated.

00:16:51.200 And I knew, had I gone through those processes, that they would have been stonewalled.

00:16:55.420 They wouldn't have got the attention.

00:16:56.480 The whole point of this was to start a conversation.

00:16:58.740 And going through the appropriate channels wouldn't have started the conversation that's needed.

00:17:02.600 There's still professional articles that are coming out within the military circle saying exactly what you just said, Megan.

00:17:07.740 Like, why didn't he go into a professional publication and voice it?

00:17:10.600 And he could have saved his career.

00:17:11.540 But the bottom line is all these professional publications are mostly controlled by retired generals.

00:17:16.720 And even the ones that aren't, my question would be to all the people in these professional publications, how many of those articles have prevented failure over the last 60 years?

00:17:24.740 None of them, right?

00:17:25.820 So if we keep doing the same thing and we keep having the same failures, at what point do we do something differently?

00:17:31.660 What about, you know, I'm not in the military, but I know that obviously the whole thing requires people to follow orders, people to respect command.

00:17:42.960 And so that's sort of what they seem to rely on.

00:17:45.620 Like, you didn't follow orders to stop doing this.

00:17:48.180 You were disrespectful of senior officers and so on.

00:17:51.060 And that there's a reason, you know, it's like the movie, A Few Good Men, you know, maybe you only get to follow the orders that, you know, really mean something.

00:17:59.800 And the smaller orders you can ignore.

00:18:01.960 And of course, it's like, wait, follow orders or people die.

00:18:05.360 Sorry to use a commercial movie.

00:18:08.080 You can't handle the truth.

00:18:10.540 And so, you know, I think that's both ways.

00:18:12.700 But what about that?

00:18:13.620 Right.

00:18:13.800 The need to follow orders, the need not to break command.

00:18:16.640 You know, that's why the military would say we had to go so hard on him.

00:18:21.060 I just fundamentally disagree.

00:18:25.080 Now, I accepted accountability.

00:18:27.280 So I'm not saying that I didn't break the rules.

00:18:29.780 I did.

00:18:30.460 And I should have been held accountable.

00:18:32.100 But to say that we can't have this open conversation, to me, it just doesn't make sense.

00:18:38.600 If everyone agrees with what I say, but then remains quiet, the system might actually implode faster.

00:18:45.420 If you actually care about the system and you agree with the content of my statements, you have a moral obligation to speak up, in my opinion.

00:18:53.360 Yeah, listen, it's fascinating to hear you say all this.

00:18:58.580 We've debated this without you.

00:19:00.540 You know, we've had people coming on saying, no, we shouldn't have done it.

00:19:03.640 And more than that, people who are saying good for him, someone needed to.

00:19:08.420 And this was such an extraordinary circumstance where you had all the top generals, all the secretary of defense and, you know, all the players, chairman of the Joint Chiefs coming out there and sort of uniformly telling us this was going well and that it was the right call and that they were handling it well.

00:19:27.240 And it was like, you know, gaslighting, to use an overused term.

00:19:31.280 It really felt like gaslighting.

00:19:32.540 You know, it's not going well.

00:19:33.800 And even before the 13 service members died, we all knew it wasn't going well.

00:19:37.860 We knew when we saw those Afghan citizens trying to hold on to the wheel well of that jet as it took off. 1.00

00:19:44.280 There's nothing about this that's going well.

00:19:46.860 And yet there was no accountability.

00:19:48.940 And here's the thing that's really still bothering Stuart.

00:19:52.320 There still hasn't been.

00:19:54.020 And that's where he and I are going to pick it up when we come right back after this quick break.

00:19:59.180 And we're also going to talk about what happened to him, what happened to him after he posted that video.

00:20:04.160 How did the, you know, you know what storm start raining down on him?

00:20:08.680 Don't go away.

00:20:09.380 We'll be right back.

00:20:17.420 Stuart, so you post the video and what happens?

00:20:21.400 Your commander says to you what?

00:20:23.720 Yeah, good question.

00:20:24.440 So I came in the next day and my commander at first did exactly what I thought he would do.

00:20:29.340 And he said, hey, go home, take a little time off.

00:20:32.240 There's going to be an investigation and then we'll reassess.

00:20:34.560 And that was very fair.

00:20:35.600 I thanked him.

00:20:36.480 I went home and then he called me back to work two hours later and just said, you're relieved.

00:20:41.040 I don't know what changed.

00:20:42.420 My assumption is that the general officers called him and just said, you got to get him out of there.

00:20:46.640 But there was no investigation and I was relieved.

00:20:48.900 But still, you know, I understood it.

00:20:51.060 I anticipated it somewhat.

00:20:52.520 So I walked away.

00:20:53.860 I made a post that thanked the Marine Corps and I understood what was happening.

00:20:57.800 But then I got on my social media when I made that post thanking everybody and I saw some old bosses had got on my public platform and made the statement, if Stuart Scheller was honorable, he would resign.

00:21:10.360 And that's kind of where I diverged ways, because if they were willing to relieve me within 12 hours, no investigation.

00:21:17.180 And then I had previous mentors publicly attacking me, not identifying that they were my previous boss or that they knew me, but just calling me out.

00:21:26.300 I got to a place where I was like, I don't know if this organization cares about me as much as I care about them.

00:21:31.360 And I knew what my future was.

00:21:33.360 I could be moved up into Quantico and sit in a cubicle and best case, maybe limp to retirement for another three years as a failure.

00:21:40.900 And I just I decided I couldn't live my life like that.

00:21:43.880 And I believed in what I was saying and I believed in what I was doing.

00:21:47.240 So I thought the only way through this is all the way.

00:21:51.900 And so if they're going to attack me, I'm going to keep speaking truth.

00:21:55.060 It may hurt and we'll just let the chips fall.

00:21:56.960 And that's where it became this series of escalating posts and events that ultimately culminated with me in jail.

00:22:03.420 My gosh.

00:22:04.380 And putting you in jail to me was very clear to shut you up.

00:22:07.880 I mean, they claimed you were a flight risk.

00:22:10.880 It was like absurd.

00:22:12.160 There was zero evidence of that, as a judge would later find in scolding them for their behavior toward you.

00:22:18.180 But, yeah, they wanted to shut you up.

00:22:20.200 And and as I understand it, you know, the rhetoric in the videos, I think there were four in total, started to escalate a little.

00:22:26.540 You felt definitely emotional at time.

00:22:28.780 Most service personnel did.

00:22:31.920 The guys who served in Afghanistan in particular went through a lot watching that withdrawal and the giving up of everything.

00:22:40.280 I mean, we just walked away and we did leave people behind.

00:22:43.560 I interviewed Marcus Luttrell and his brother right in the midst of all of it.

00:22:47.500 And, you know, obviously he sacrificed a lot and he was talking about his feelings.

00:22:51.680 You were not alone in your emotion about it.

00:22:54.600 So I think you could be and should have been forgiven for some more incendiary rhetoric.

00:23:01.360 However, they used it against you.

00:23:03.380 Boy, oh, boy, did they.

00:23:04.800 Here is soundbite three.

00:23:06.680 The last part about committing violence.

00:23:09.320 They decided to make your entire message unfairly.

00:23:12.700 But take a listen.

00:23:13.340 The post-war movement after Vietnam was pro-love, anti-war.

00:23:19.820 And as I've contemplated on it, I think that's wrong.

00:23:23.440 You definitely want pro-love, but it's not anti-war.

00:23:26.840 It's pro-love from a position of strength.

00:23:29.740 You have to have the ability to project violence for somebody that's throwing acid in a woman's face. 1.00

00:23:34.900 You can have all the celebrities in the world come up with a video telling him to stop doing that.

00:23:41.040 And guess what?

00:23:41.540 That's not going to work.

00:23:43.120 You need patriots that are going to go out there and commit violence when evil is not listening to reason.

00:23:47.740 So they would later suggest, you know, you were suggesting revolution.

00:23:53.740 There was another quote about that and that you wanted sort of an uprising, a revolution within the United States, violence against command and so on.

00:24:01.660 And you tell me whether that's what you meant.

00:24:04.980 I mean, I never stated that I wanted a violent overthrow of the government.

00:24:09.860 I don't feel like I ever even came close to that.

00:24:11.900 In fact, some of my posts, I went on to clarify because people were saying that, Kelly, and I said in one loud voice in a constitutional manner.

00:24:19.100 I went on to quote the Declaration of Independence that says the power of the government comes from the people.

00:24:24.220 And if the government no longer serves the interests of the people, it's the people's obligation to throw off that form of government.

00:24:30.100 And people were calling me a violent extremist.

00:24:33.180 And I was like, look how far we've come, guys.

00:24:35.540 I'm quoting our foundational document, like quoting it.

00:24:39.400 And you're calling me a violent extremist.

00:24:41.160 Like, how is that possible?

00:24:42.320 And so this whole process was really eye-opening for me.

00:24:46.280 You know, I did have a bunch of teachers in school tell me that violence was never the answer.

00:24:52.500 I got into a lot of fights as a kid, and I won about half of them.

00:24:56.540 But I always was told the same thing.

00:24:58.140 There's no time for violence.

00:24:59.540 Violence is never the answer.

00:25:00.540 And, you know, I wish some of those teachers were in Afghanistan teaching to see the depths of their misguided worldview. 1.00

00:25:07.640 And you don't want to use violence, but you need to have strength so that you can prevent evil out there.

00:25:15.200 Because evil doesn't always just listen to your views that violence isn't the answer.

00:25:19.460 So no one is seeking violence, but you need to have the capability to use it if evil isn't listening.

00:25:25.160 Was the point that we needed to have some sort of residual force in Afghanistan?

00:25:30.280 No, I don't think – I think where we got wrong over the last 20 years was fighting the counterinsurgency.

00:25:39.180 I mean, we've celebrated the generals of the last two decades was counterinsurgency.

00:25:45.220 And the secret to counterinsurgency is to not get involved in an insurgency in the first place.

00:25:52.120 So what happened is all our service members have won every single battle on the tactical level,

00:25:56.980 but our senior leaders can't figure out how to achieve success on the operational through the strategic level.

00:26:03.080 And part of that is their willingness to engage in these insurgencies or to think they can export democracy or an American view on another population that just doesn't see the world through the same lens.

00:26:18.420 So I don't think we should have been in Afghanistan forever, but to your earlier point about the senior leaders gaslighting about how well it was going,

00:26:26.000 it very quickly went from a withdrawal to an evacuation.

00:26:28.340 Those are two different things.

00:26:29.880 And it went to an evacuation because they poorly planned the withdrawal.

00:26:33.920 I don't think we should have had people in Afghanistan forever, 1.00

00:26:36.460 but I think I deserve senior leaders that are competent and capable enough to plan a withdrawal absent of a PR headline to have everyone out by September 11th,

00:26:45.420 if it means protecting our service members to get them out of there safely because you had them over there fighting an insurgency for 20 years that obviously wasn't effective.

00:26:54.240 You know, Rob O'Neill came on the program and said something very similar.

00:26:59.000 It was saying, obviously, for the listeners who don't know, the guy who shot bin Laden, former Navy SEAL.

00:27:04.820 And he he was making the same point that we have these leaders of the military would never denigrate the service personnel themselves.

00:27:11.820 But the leaders, he said something similar to you to the effect of they're very good at staying in power and they're very bad at winning wars.

00:27:18.560 And I know you one of your points was we need to fire more of these generals.

00:27:22.600 We need to start firing leaders and understanding that those who managed to make it to the top now may be these great sort of diplomats or butt kissers.

00:27:32.140 That's not necessarily who we want commanding troops.

00:27:34.240 And it's one of the reasons why we're not winning wars anymore.

00:27:37.740 A hundred percent.

00:27:38.880 There's a great book.

00:27:39.840 It's called The Generals by Rick Scott.

00:27:41.380 It outlines the exact problem.

00:27:43.700 World War Two, we were firing generals at the rapid rate.

00:27:46.340 And since post World War Two, we just have gotten away from that.

00:27:50.580 And exactly like you said, Megan, our senior general officers are hardworking.

00:27:55.020 They're intelligent, but they're conformist and they know how to, you know, navigate a career and not necessarily win a war.

00:28:03.620 And we deserve better.

00:28:05.620 So you're one of your biggest beefs was the fact that we gave up Bagram Air Base and you want accountability for the person who made that decision, which obviously even the lay person.

00:28:16.340 Here in America could see, boy, it's a problem that we don't control an air base like that one anymore.

00:28:23.500 As we see the Taliban take over what's left and we were not in control and we were begging them for permission to get in and out and to evacuate people.

00:28:32.280 And we actually wound up leaving people behind.

00:28:34.940 We would later claim our administration would tell us everybody who wanted to get out, did get out.

00:28:39.240 And that wasn't true.

00:28:40.520 But explain why Bagram Air Base and our abandonment of it made you so mad and was so consequential.

00:28:48.140 I've been to Bagram Air Base.

00:28:50.100 It is it's hard to even fathom if you've never been there, how big and important and critical this was.

00:28:55.720 You could have done that whole evacuation and maintain security and never had a problem.

00:29:00.480 The arguments right now, I know the operational planners that were over there when they submitted plans to the National Security Council and Biden's administration, they submitted plans to maintain Bagram.

00:29:12.480 The decision was made by President Biden, the National Security Council to close down Bagram because of they wanted to shrink the force in Afghanistan very quickly.

00:29:21.780 And even in the general's testimony, they all stated we wanted to keep twenty five hundred and that was shot down.

00:29:27.520 And the reason that twenty five hundred was so significant, significant is because they were saying had they had that force number, they would have been able to maintain Bagram Air Base.

00:29:36.520 But because that was shot down, they felt the best course of action was to shrink into Kabul airfield.

00:29:41.340 But even with that plan, they still didn't fully appreciate the speed with which the Taliban could advance into Kabul.

00:29:48.200 So my position is once the generals, General McKenzie specifically, submitted the plan, it's his responsibility to make.

00:29:58.560 He was CENTCOM commander. He oversaw Afghanistan.

00:30:01.700 That's right. He's the CENTCOM combatant commander, General Frank McKenzie.

00:30:05.880 He's the one, in my opinion, that's ultimately responsible.

00:30:08.760 So when he recommended to the president that we should have twenty five hundred troops,

00:30:12.680 there is a responsibility for the military advisor to get the boss to take his plan.

00:30:17.300 But he can't control that. Right. So he failed in that soft diplomacy on figuring out how to get him to take his plan.

00:30:24.140 So at that point, General McKenzie had a choice. He could have resigned because if he thought, all right, here's the restraints on my plan.

00:30:31.100 And I can't execute this out without a speedy advance by the Taliban and getting people killed. 0.74

00:30:36.080 Then he had a moral responsibility to resign if that's what he thought. 0.53

00:30:39.600 But he didn't do that. So he obviously thought based on the restraints that he had, he could still pull off the plan.

00:30:45.320 And in my opinion, at that point, he is responsible.

00:30:49.040 He is the military guy that's in charge of that plan, doing the withdrawal.

00:30:53.700 He doesn't get to go back after the fact, which is what he did, and say, no, I told the president twenty five hundred and he didn't listen to me.

00:31:00.500 Well, you didn't resign, did you, Frank? And you didn't get him to agree to your plan, did you, Frank?

00:31:04.580 So guess what? You're responsible at this point.

00:31:08.600 And so it just kind of breaks my heart that this is where we're at, where we're looking at these general officers.

00:31:12.920 Their plans are obviously failing and we don't have anyone saying, hey, we messed this up.

00:31:18.140 Mm hmm. What we had instead was the commander in chief looking at us over and over, you know, leading up to this saying, don't worry, it's good.

00:31:25.000 But don't worry that the Taliban is not going to take over. 0.63

00:31:27.640 The Afghan National Army has got this.

00:31:29.480 There's nothing to fear. And then when it all started to fall apart, as we mentioned, Biden looking into the camera and saying that this mission was an extraordinary success, extraordinary success.

00:31:40.860 While you've got Afghan service members of ours, of our military who have served in Afghanistan in tears and and calling suicide hotlines and wondering what the hell was this for?

00:31:52.860 Why did I go over there? Why did I lose my buddies?

00:31:55.760 Why? Like the what you one of the things you complained about was you were effectively told by leadership within the military.

00:32:03.940 It was worth it. Go lean on your buddies and your families if you're feeling bad, but just trust us.

00:32:11.940 It was worth it. And you you were like not good enough.

00:32:17.900 Explain why.

00:32:19.600 Absolutely. General Berger, the commandant of the Marine Corps, you could Google it.

00:32:23.260 On 17 or 18 August, he released a white letter that said exactly that.

00:32:28.180 Hey, guys, I can see that you're upset, but your sacrifices were worth it.

00:32:32.180 If you're struggling, go seek therapy.

00:32:34.320 And I read that and it was just it rang so false.

00:32:37.900 He didn't either understand or he just didn't care why service members were upset.

00:32:42.500 They were upset because the plan fell apart because it was a terrible plan.

00:32:45.680 Like anyone can see that.

00:32:46.780 And so after Vietnam, the story told in the military today is that the generals had to fix the service.

00:32:54.420 The generals had to clean up draft class, the drug use, and they never went back and addressed the operational strategic failures in Vietnam.

00:33:02.240 There was many mistakes that were made by general officers and none of them were held accountable back then.

00:33:06.620 And the same thing is happening now.

00:33:09.040 They're focusing on tactical fixes to the problem.

00:33:11.520 When we've won every tactical battle, no one is addressing the breakdown at the operational and strategic level, which is the four star general level.

00:33:18.800 And those people need to be held accountable.

00:33:20.560 And to go back to the combatant commander, the CENTCOM commander, General McKenzie, I just I've been on a gag order for four months.

00:33:27.220 So I haven't been able to fully articulate some of these points.

00:33:30.600 Just two days ago, after I started doing the interviews, the White House came out and said that General McKenzie was going to be replaced this spring by another army general.

00:33:40.740 And the timing of it, it seems very coincidental to me that this guy is now racing to the exits that I'm going out and pointing out to everyone that he should be held accountable.

00:33:48.260 Hmm. Do you think I mean, do you think he's being pushed out because it just doesn't seem possible that Joe Biden would be blaming anyone other than himself for the outcome?

00:33:59.680 But you tell me.

00:34:01.500 Yeah, if I was Joe Biden, I would say the buck stops with me.

00:34:05.020 If I was General McKenzie, I would say that the buck stops with me.

00:34:08.240 If I was Lloyd Austin, I would say the buck stops with me.

00:34:11.000 All three of those leaders could stand up and be a leader and all three have shirk responsibility.

00:34:14.980 Right now, it looks like General McKenzie is trying to run to the exit, enjoy his retirement, which is not something that I received.

00:34:22.200 But I think before he goes, he undermines his whole career if he can't stand up and say, I mess this up.

00:34:27.700 He'll get out with the full honorable discharge.

00:34:30.800 He'll be celebrated and he will not be falling on his sword and taking responsibility for anything before he leaves.

00:34:38.760 That's no one has.

00:34:40.540 That's the thing that's so nuts.

00:34:41.860 So you you did get thrown in the brig for nine days, and that really caused a national outcry.

00:34:49.040 I mean, we're not used to seeing people thrown in jail because they exercise their First Amendment rights.

00:34:53.600 And I realize there are restrictions because you're a military member, but that doesn't make you a criminal.

00:34:58.980 It doesn't make you a criminal who belongs in prison.

00:35:01.800 And and then you effectively lost your position in the military.

00:35:06.920 You were, as I understand it, there's one step below honorable discharge that's like discharged with honor.

00:35:15.060 And you got that general under honorable, correct?

00:35:18.300 It's the step down from honorable.

00:35:19.540 But but none of that's going to happen to McKenzie or to Millie or to Austin or to any of these guys.

00:35:27.560 You're the only one who will have paid a price for the way Afghanistan's withdrawal went down.

00:35:34.300 And really, all you did was comment on it.

00:35:37.560 That's that's correct.

00:35:38.760 Does it make you angry?

00:35:44.060 I've gone through a lot of emotions the last four months, Megan, but ultimately, anger doesn't serve us.

00:35:49.340 So I've got to move through it.

00:35:50.420 They through this whole experience made me stronger.

00:35:53.660 And so, yes, obviously, I wanted an honorable discharge.

00:35:57.040 Obviously, I would have liked to hit 20 years and gotten a retirement.

00:36:00.160 But, you know, everything that's happened to me, I believe, happened for a reason.

00:36:04.180 I believe that we as the people can make change.

00:36:08.720 And so I'm going to keep moving forward.

00:36:11.060 I'm not going to look back.

00:36:12.760 And I think even if General McKenzie goes off into retirement and takes a board director job somewhere and gets his honorable, at the end of the day, he and I will see each other again and look eye to eye.

00:36:23.500 And I feel like I'll be standing taller at that point.

00:36:26.440 Yeah, I honestly, I mean, you you may have broken some rules, but you did not break any code of honor.

00:36:33.760 I mean, that just seems so clear to me.

00:36:36.560 And and yet the Marine Corps appears to have in coming after you.

00:36:43.020 They betrayed you, as I understand it.

00:36:45.780 And I want you to help me fill in the blanks here.

00:36:48.660 But Colonel General Hines, the Marine judge who oversaw your trial, was very critical of how the Marine Corps handled your case.

00:36:56.960 First of all, he rejected the prosecution's request for further punishment.

00:37:00.440 They wanted you to what?

00:37:01.720 Do more time in the brig?

00:37:03.760 They wanted me to be fined.

00:37:06.520 Thirty thousand dollars.

00:37:08.980 Yeah.

00:37:09.800 So, yes, they wanted a lot more.

00:37:12.240 But the judge said no.

00:37:14.420 OK.

00:37:14.860 And then he said the combination of your pretrial confinement, with which he was not happy, along with alleged leaks to the press by the Marine Corps about you, raised the specter of unlawful command influence over you.

00:37:30.500 And and in this case.

00:37:32.480 And so to me, it sounds like the judge was very much on your side when it came to the fact that though you may have broken these rules, you were treated unfairly by your own command.

00:37:42.480 So what did they leak to the press about you?

00:37:44.740 So two things on that.

00:37:48.500 I'll go back to the leak press thing that the judge, Colonel Hines, in my opinion, didn't believe that I was guilty or he thought legally I could have beat the charges based on the undue command influence.

00:37:59.080 But you've got to understand it wasn't a, you know, somewhere in the middle is a binary choice.

00:38:04.220 When I was in jail, they offered me a special court martial with five charges.

00:38:09.040 I plead guilty to all five charges or I go to general court martial and I tried to beat all of them.

00:38:14.140 And I do believe that I could have beat all five of those charges.

00:38:17.140 But again, the whole point of this was my message.

00:38:21.800 And I do feel like deep down I broke some rules.

00:38:24.740 So if I were to go to general court martial and beat some of these or all of them on legal technicalities, even though I did break the rules, but they had a disproportionate response.

00:38:34.740 Therefore, I can get off of the charges.

00:38:37.180 It seemed like it would take away from my message.

00:38:39.700 And so I agreed to plead guilty at special on all five charges.

00:38:43.720 But to your point, the judge was like painstakingly going through and making sure that I understood everything that had happened to me and that why I was pleading guilty, because it was clear he didn't want me to plead guilty.

00:38:57.020 But that was a choice I made.

00:38:59.540 The Marine Corps did, the week before my trial, leak my full command investigation to a publication.

00:39:08.800 And in the in the investigation, they put my medical record.

00:39:13.020 So I don't know if they selectively leaked pieces, but the the publication stated they had my full investigation, which includes my medical records, which is obviously a huge deal.

00:39:25.080 Wow.

00:39:26.080 So I was very frustrated.

00:39:28.560 And so the judge scolded them for that.

00:39:31.080 And so then they did another investigation on my leaked investigation.

00:39:35.740 And so then I asked for that investigation and they told me, no, they're like, you can go through Freedom of Information Act to get that investigation.

00:39:43.320 I was like, let me just get this straight.

00:39:45.360 You created another investigation for how you improperly leaked last investigation.

00:39:50.720 It is completely about me, but I can't get it unless I go through Freedom of Information Act.

00:39:56.460 And they're like, yeah.

00:39:58.000 Did you do that?

00:39:58.980 We need to do that.

00:40:00.220 I'm going to.

00:40:01.460 I mean, I've my life's been crazy, Megan.

00:40:03.520 I'll help you.

00:40:04.880 We will help you.

00:40:06.040 We can get it.

00:40:07.160 The investigation is about me, about you doing it improperly.

00:40:10.420 And you're saying I can't have it without going through Freedom of Information Act.

00:40:13.680 Like, yeah, that's how it works.

00:40:14.800 I was like, all right.

00:40:15.280 But that's disgusting.

00:40:17.280 And clearly the judge saw it.

00:40:20.040 Colonel Glenn Hines saw it and to his credit called it out because otherwise the public not paying attention might be stuck with this.

00:40:28.480 Well, he broke the rules.

00:40:30.200 He pleaded guilty.

00:40:31.220 He's held accountable.

00:40:32.180 That's that.

00:40:32.620 No, the Marine Corps turned on you.

00:40:34.480 They turn.

00:40:35.120 And obviously it was those who were in command wanted to punish you, wanted to publicly humiliate you.

00:40:39.940 They they went outside the rules, too.

00:40:42.040 Only they all still have their commissions.

00:40:44.260 They have they're going to retire with a full honorable discharge.

00:40:46.880 They're going to get their pensions.

00:40:47.980 You were three years short of yours.

00:40:49.780 So there's again, even at that level, no accountability for wrongdoing by anyone.

00:40:57.000 And that leaves Stewart really just the one honorable man trying to fight this fight within this system.

00:41:03.500 You're not alone, but the one who we know about and being wrongly punished for it.

00:41:07.920 I want to talk about the other losses because I know they've been considerable.

00:41:11.260 And I want to ask you about your parents who have been such good advocates on your behalf.

00:41:16.380 We're going to do that when we come back right after this break.

00:41:19.000 And don't forget, folks, you can find the Megan Kelly show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.

00:41:25.700 And the full video show and clips are available on our YouTube channel.

00:41:29.600 Just go ahead and subscribe when you get there.

00:41:32.360 YouTube dot com slash Megan Kelly.

00:41:33.860 If you prefer an audio podcast, subscribe there, download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:41:41.000 If you care to issue a comment on the Apple podcast comments thread, I read them all.

00:41:47.280 And if you want to, while you're there, scroll down.

00:41:49.820 You'll see our full archives, more than 230 shows, including some very powerful shows last August with Robert O'Neill and Marcus Luttrell and his brother Morgan on the botched Afghanistan withdrawal as it was happening.

00:42:03.860 You mentioned earlier this isn't political for you.

00:42:11.540 It never has been.

00:42:12.300 And I have looked and you have been critical of Democrat and Republican presidents in command.

00:42:18.420 You you issued an interesting post about President Trump.

00:42:22.280 And as I understood it, you may have gotten wind that he was about to say something about you or maybe respond because you've been critical not just of Biden, but of Trump as well.

00:42:32.380 And then something kind of extraordinary happened.

00:42:36.460 He didn't.

00:42:37.940 And you commented on it.

00:42:39.760 So explain what you what you felt when you understood that he was going to stand down on coming coming for you and how you think this has been politicized by others.

00:42:51.060 I appreciate that.

00:42:52.400 Yeah, I.

00:42:53.900 You got to understand the world is crashing down on me.

00:42:56.580 It was apolitical, just like you said.

00:42:58.840 And I attacked the last four presidents apolitically.

00:43:01.680 But the media only ran with the comments I had about President Trump, which bothered me.

00:43:08.540 And it also bothered him rightfully so.

00:43:11.380 And so President Trump actually called a member on my team and said that he was planning on attacking me in the media and or defending himself.

00:43:20.040 And the member of my team said, hey, Stu's going through a lot.

00:43:23.980 You would mean a lot for us if you could exercise restraint.

00:43:26.580 And he did.

00:43:29.420 And so I, you know, as I got through all my anger and emotion, I thought about it and I was like, wow.

00:43:34.540 You know, I attacked him unwarranted and he chose not to come back and publicly come after me.

00:43:39.920 And I pointed out how that demonstrated he had more character than me, which was humbling for me.

00:43:44.820 And I and I just appreciated it.

00:43:46.980 And I, you know, I think he and I come from different worlds and we may not agree on everything, but I think we need to have more humility and figure out how to develop common ground.

00:43:54.900 And I really appreciated what he did for me.

00:43:56.980 So I thank him for that.

00:43:58.020 That's extraordinary.

00:43:59.180 In the meantime, you I know still have questions about whether people are listening on your phone calls, whether there's a campaign to discredit you that goes on.

00:44:08.500 Why do you believe those things?

00:44:09.840 Because because there are people sending me messages that are pretty crazy and I've had them validated by the best of the best and, you know, their VPN burner numbers.

00:44:21.820 I don't believe it's the government, even though that's everyone's assumptions.

00:44:25.040 I believe there's, you know, nefarious players out there.

00:44:28.480 I don't understand what they gain.

00:44:29.820 Quite honestly, I'm a pretty strong guy.

00:44:31.560 You're not going to intimidate me if that's not clear by now.

00:44:34.180 But there's things I can do to protect myself and my electronics that I just haven't done because I've never had to worry about it.

00:44:40.140 And so, you know, my life's changing and I just need to figure that stuff out.

00:44:43.860 My goodness, it's crazy.

00:44:45.740 It's crazy how everything gets politicized.

00:44:47.540 It's like who in their right mind would be attacking you?

00:44:52.260 You've paid more than the price of your job and, you know, your your 20 years and the benefits you would have gotten had you stayed with the Marine Corps.

00:44:59.640 I understand you've been pretty open about the fact that your marriage has fallen apart.

00:45:04.320 Your wife is taking your sons, I guess, away for a bit just to try to spare them some of the bullying that they then received as a result of you speaking out.

00:45:13.460 The family toll seems significant, Stuart.

00:45:17.420 Yeah, so I'll just say I still love my wife.

00:45:21.380 She was with me for 17 years.

00:45:23.120 She's a fantastic mother and she's a fantastic person.

00:45:25.660 And this was one of those situations where I think if we could go back, you know, maybe we all would have done slightly different things.

00:45:33.420 But she has always been supportive of me and she had to do what was in the best interest of the kids.

00:45:37.840 My kids were leaving the playground crying because everyone was I mean, it was crazy here in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

00:45:44.260 I mean, there was parades for me.

00:45:45.700 It was so they had to leave the school.

00:45:48.100 And, you know, my I am going through a divorce, but, you know, we as a family spent all of Christmas together.

00:45:54.560 It's very amicable.

00:45:55.460 And I think the reason we're going through a divorce is just because in a lot of ways, the situation illustrated that we are going down different paths.

00:46:04.220 You know, my wife has sacrificed so much over the last 17 years and she was looking forward to some stability and, you know, some retirements and things that she is entitled to.

00:46:16.140 And once she kind of saw the trajectory of my life changing, we had an adult conversation.

00:46:22.340 And, you know, ultimately, we want to do what's within the best interest of our children.

00:46:25.780 And that means co-parenting and always having nice things to say about each other.

00:46:30.000 So that just is what it is.

00:46:32.360 The news wasn't all bad, however, because as your parents pointed out, while you lost some support in your immediate circles, boy, oh, boy, did you gain some coast to coast.

00:46:42.180 Here are your parents on Fox News.

00:46:44.820 I think it was on Christmas talking about you.

00:46:49.480 Listen.

00:46:50.940 We didn't have a town rallying around us.

00:46:53.720 We had America rallying around us and they sent their prayers up.

00:46:57.720 They made their phone calls.

00:46:59.060 Over 40,000 people made donations.

00:47:01.880 And they our son is at home with his children today because of America.

00:47:06.520 And I would like to say thank you.

00:47:09.380 And it is a wonderful life.

00:47:10.820 And I could not be happier for them today.

00:47:13.220 And his journey forward will be what it will be.

00:47:16.420 He is his own man.

00:47:18.480 I love them.

00:47:19.840 I love her.

00:47:21.160 Your thoughts on, you know, the support you did receive from your parents to the citizens of this country who were rooting for you.

00:47:29.740 Yeah, for the parents, I have spent more time with my parents these last six months than I have the last 17 years.

00:47:39.000 Their love just it just showed the unconditional love that they have for me.

00:47:43.020 And they stepped up when I really needed it.

00:47:44.680 I just I couldn't have done this without them.

00:47:46.760 And quite honestly, I never asked them to do anything.

00:47:48.600 This was them seeking me out and just stepping up and being a critical part of my team when I needed it the most.

00:47:56.320 And for Americans, that's this whole endeavor for me was about love of America and to see 40,000 people donate to the Pipe Hitter Foundation.

00:48:06.680 So shout out to them.

00:48:08.080 Eddie and Andrea Gallagher helped me out a tremendous amount while I was in jail.

00:48:12.000 But having people of all political parties, ethnicities, genders, you know, it's just United States, Americans supporting me.

00:48:19.700 It felt kind of like God was helping me move on to the next step.

00:48:24.100 And it just filled my heart with love.

00:48:25.640 And all I can say is thank you.

00:48:27.800 And I hope to meet every person that helped me through this and give them a hug.

00:48:31.940 Wow.

00:48:32.520 All right.

00:48:33.120 Now, quickly, because we're up against a break.

00:48:36.060 AuthenticAmericans.com is where you're putting your energies today.

00:48:40.280 What is that?

00:48:42.600 AuthenticAmericans.com is my platform that kind of outlines my political views.

00:48:46.260 It gives us a chance to talk freely.

00:48:48.280 It's also if we just start getting social media censored.

00:48:52.180 It was my place where I was going to start putting my messages.

00:48:54.420 But ultimately, it just outlines my thoughts, beliefs.

00:48:57.600 I probably will write a book.

00:48:59.160 There's a preorder of a book on there.

00:49:01.220 And so it's my place that's not censored.

00:49:03.940 And so you can check that out.

00:49:04.700 And it's a way that we can support you.

00:49:07.060 To steal a line from Sean Hannity, you're a great American, Stuart.

00:49:10.860 And I'm blessed to have met you.

00:49:12.880 And thank you for everything you've done for my country.

00:49:15.680 All the best.

00:49:16.400 Wow.

00:49:16.940 Wow.

00:49:17.240 Coming up, how's that vaccine mandate argument going before the U.S. Supreme Court?

00:49:22.700 Don't go away.

00:49:23.300 The U.S. Supreme Court right now is hearing oral arguments regarding President Biden's vaccine mandates for private businesses nationwide.

00:49:38.560 But apparently some of the justices are getting their facts, I mean, grossly wrong, stating false statistics when it comes to the pandemic.

00:49:49.380 I have to tell you, as somebody who practiced law for 10 years and covered the high court for Fox News for three years and then, you know, since then has been following it closely, I'm shocked to hear how wrong they are.

00:50:01.180 I mean, it's one thing to get the decision wrong and to have a, you know, boneheaded judicial philosophy or take on a case.

00:50:07.220 It's quite another to just be grossly misstating the facts.

00:50:11.340 Joining me now to do the opposite of that is Robert Barnes.

00:50:15.020 He's founding attorney of Barnes Law.

00:50:16.820 He heard the proceedings this morning.

00:50:18.360 They're actually ongoing.

00:50:20.180 Great to see you, Robert.

00:50:21.120 Thank you for being here.

00:50:21.960 So this is I speak, of course, of Justice Sotomayor, who I mean, like, I don't know what's going on.

00:50:28.440 She she forgot to take, you know, her morning vitamins. 1.00

00:50:31.380 Something's going on there because what she's saying about the state of covid, the hospitalizations is looney tunes.

00:50:39.740 And I'll just kick it off with soundbite number 13.

00:50:42.480 Justice Sotomayor, we only have audio.

00:50:44.160 They don't allow video in the Supreme Court.

00:50:46.080 They allow audio on the big arguments.

00:50:48.260 Listen to how she's for she's describing the pandemic at this moment.

00:50:53.220 Hospitals that are almost at full capacity with people is severely ill on ventilators.

00:50:59.640 We have over 100000 children, which we've never had before in in serious condition and many on ventilators.

00:51:08.600 So saying it's a different variant just underscores the fact.

00:51:14.360 No, we don't.

00:51:17.460 Robert, like, hello, Justice Sotomayor.

00:51:19.940 No, we don't.

00:51:20.380 I'm just looking at Phil Kirpin.

00:51:21.760 He's a great follow on on Twitter and is an expert when it comes to these health care things.

00:51:25.600 And he just tweeted out this is absolutely astonishing.

00:51:28.080 He said the current national pediatric covid census numbers per HHS is three thousand three hundred and forty two who are in the hospital.

00:51:34.700 Well, many most are incidental, meaning they're just there because they broke a leg and they test everybody.

00:51:39.680 And if they happen to be positive because there's a there's a wave with Omicron, then they're positive.

00:51:43.140 But to suggest 100000 children are in serious condition in the hospital.

00:51:47.120 That's a lie.

00:51:47.940 What is she saying?

00:51:48.680 Yeah, she made up a lot of facts.

00:51:51.300 Justice Breyer did as well.

00:51:52.520 Justice Breyer said 750 million new cases took place.

00:51:56.560 He got 750000.

00:51:58.140 Somehow went to 750 million.

00:52:00.080 Oh, my God.

00:52:00.320 So you saw a lot of the effect of a lot of the censorship that's taken place in the social media space and the news media space is translated to judges thinking they know things they don't know, because that's not in the record, as was detailed by the Fifth Circuit.

00:52:12.540 When they initially granted the stay, there was actually very little evidence in the record to support the idea that vaccination would provide this complete protective umbrella against the spread of covid.

00:52:23.520 And in fact, they said it might work.

00:52:25.020 They didn't know if it would work.

00:52:26.100 They didn't know if it how it would work.

00:52:27.880 So the it's not in the record what these statements that they were making.

00:52:31.100 They were sort of was just making up claims to some degree.

00:52:34.500 Justice Breyer, frankly, did the same.

00:52:37.080 Justice Kagan was treating this as if any emergency justifies any departure from the Constitution.

00:52:43.120 So it was a little frightening where they were going, but it was re encouraging where the key three centrists appear to be going.

00:52:50.400 Roberts, Barrett and Kavanaugh appear to be leaning towards striking down the mandate.

00:52:54.840 It's clear that Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch are already there by the nature of their questions.

00:52:58.740 So you get the three conservatives, we think, ready to strike down the mandates, the three liberals ready to uphold the mandates.

00:53:04.540 And it comes down to the three center righties and how they're going to see this issue.

00:53:09.140 But I will say they've been the Supreme Court's been very supportive of the state mandates.

00:53:15.840 I mean, those challenges like raising, you know, can the state mandate me to do this, that or the other thing with respect to the vaccine?

00:53:23.300 They have not been going the way of those who are anti-mandate, including at the U.S. Supreme Court.

00:53:30.180 Yeah, no doubt. And I think it's been disappointing.

00:53:34.200 I mean, the history of when the Supreme Court fails is when a so-called emergency is present or they defer to the executive branch too much.

00:53:40.440 So you go back to the forced sterilizations in the Connie Buck case.

00:53:44.760 The Supreme Court celebrated that decision as if it was a great decision that went down as one of the most ignoble decisions in judicial history.

00:53:51.620 Then with the same thing of Korematsu, where they locked, they allowed forced detention camps based on where somebody's grandfather was born.

00:53:58.660 These are the, there's an unfortunate history of the Supreme Court being scared to get involved in emergencies.

00:54:04.560 And that was the entire argument today by the feds.

00:54:07.180 Their entire argument was scary, scary virus.

00:54:09.600 If you don't do what we tell you, a whole bunch of people are going to die.

00:54:12.400 So you better just stay back, stay out of it.

00:54:14.540 And in fact, Justice Breyer kind of made that argument explicitly as to why a stay shouldn't be granted.

00:54:20.200 So I think the sad thing is that 90 percent of the questions today had nothing to do with the law.

00:54:25.680 It was about a policy debate taking place.

00:54:27.960 And many of the.

00:54:29.320 Right. And that's not appropriate.

00:54:30.800 OK, so speaking of Justice Breyer, one of the longest serving sitting right now and one of the most liberal.

00:54:36.720 Here's here's Justice Breyer trying to talk about the covid pandemic and how the hospitals are just full.

00:54:43.580 They're full with covid patients right now.

00:54:45.940 Take a listen. This is soundbite 17.

00:54:48.680 Are you still asking us to issue a stay and stop this from taking effect?

00:54:53.620 Like issue a stay today or tomorrow or Sunday or Monday or Tuesday?

00:54:59.420 I mean, the reason I ask that is there are several elements.

00:55:01.900 We have some discretion there.

00:55:03.720 And and, you know, it was brought up.

00:55:05.620 I mean, there are three quarters of a million new cases yesterday.

00:55:09.120 New cases, nearly three quarters of 700 and some odd thousand.

00:55:14.040 OK, that's 10 times as many as when OSHA put this ruling.

00:55:20.180 The hospitals are today, yesterday full, almost to the point of the maximum they've ever been in this disease.

00:55:28.280 OK, and you heard references, studies.

00:55:32.140 I mean, they vary, but some of them say that the hospitalization is 90 percent or maybe 60 percent or maybe 80 percent.

00:55:42.100 But a big percent filled up yesterday or the day before with people who were not vaccinated.

00:55:50.540 OK, so that's what we're talking about now.

00:55:55.920 And think of the stay requirements.

00:55:58.720 It's both the balance of harms.

00:56:00.480 It's also public interest.

00:56:02.960 Can you ask us or is that what you're doing now to say it's in the public interest in this situation to stop this vaccination rule with nearly a million people?

00:56:12.560 Let me not exaggerate.

00:56:13.740 Nearly three quarters of a million people.

00:56:16.840 New cases every day.

00:56:18.320 I mean, to me, I would find that unbelievable.

00:56:20.540 Justice Breyer, we are asking for a stay before enforcement takes up, in fact, Monday.

00:56:27.260 OK, so, Robert, the again, going back to Phil Kirpin, who's been right his reign on this, he he points out he says hospitals are full almost to the point of the maximum.

00:56:38.380 Phil's response is these people know absolutely nothing.

00:56:41.540 Zero.

00:56:42.340 He says they're growing by factors of 10 times what it was.

00:56:45.400 The National Hospital census is apparently, he writes, quote, flat as a pancake.

00:56:50.280 In terms of the number of hospitalizations.

00:56:52.460 And that's what we've been looking at when it comes to Omicron.

00:56:54.880 Way more contagious than Delta.

00:56:56.460 We all know that.

00:56:57.660 But is it more deadly?

00:56:59.340 And the experts have been saying no.

00:57:01.900 And we're not seeing huge spikes in the hospitalizations.

00:57:04.840 But these justices seem to be getting their information from The New York Times.

00:57:08.540 Yeah, I mean, it's clearly not.

00:57:11.280 It didn't come from the record because it's not in the record.

00:57:13.220 As the Fifth Circuit made clear that the even the CDC couldn't establish the basis for this.

00:57:18.360 OSHA couldn't establish the basis for this.

00:57:19.960 They were just guessing.

00:57:20.700 They were hoping.

00:57:21.760 And in fact, there was I mean, to Justice Alito's credit, to Justice Thomas's credit.

00:57:25.980 They both raised the question about how effective these vaccines actually are.

00:57:30.280 Do they actually prevent transmission to the degree that OSHA presumed they would, given the new information that's come out and it's been present?

00:57:36.580 Because, as you note, Omicron is like most coronaviruses and like most pandemics.

00:57:42.260 What happens is it becomes in order to evolve and survive, it becomes more transmissible but less lethal.

00:57:48.420 And that's what we're seeing happen.

00:57:49.720 We're seeing it from all the data from South Africa.

00:57:51.600 But they clearly don't know it.

00:57:53.140 I mean, you had liberal judge justices today who are just making up factual claims.

00:57:57.900 And later on, Breyer would actually take that 750,000 and increase it to 750 million.

00:58:02.800 750 million people a day are getting COVID.

00:58:06.580 I was like, I don't know where he got that from.

00:58:08.740 But then I realized, oh, he just he just kept adding it up in his head.

00:58:12.120 Right.

00:58:12.520 It's scary how much they're willing to allow emergency fear to justify circumventing the Constitution, because the questions today should have been all about the law.

00:58:20.480 Do they have even Sotomayor even said Omicron is as deadly as Delta?

00:58:25.200 I mean, that's not true.

00:58:27.580 What is she saying?

00:58:28.640 It's more contagious.

00:58:29.800 They didn't seem to understand either.

00:58:31.300 They're talking about how, you know, we've got to protect the unvaccinated, the liberal justices.

00:58:35.200 We've got to protect the unvaccinated. 1.00

00:58:36.780 Sorry, we've got to protect the the vaccinated from the unvaccinated.

00:58:41.280 And then the more conservative justices were saying that's not the issue.

00:58:44.320 We don't have to protect the vaccinated from anybody.

00:58:46.420 We've we're talking about whether unvaccinated people are going to get infected by other unvaccinated people.

00:58:51.600 But the point is, right now, given the explosion of Omicron, we're all the same, vaccinated or unvaccinated.

00:58:59.500 You can get it.

00:59:00.520 You can spread it.

00:59:01.400 And the vaccine now may be your friend in preventing deadly disease.

00:59:04.520 But if we're justifying this mandate as saying we have to stop the spread, that no longer applies.

00:59:13.440 Exactly.

00:59:14.220 And it's a rare circumstances, just as Thomas pointed out, that where you're basically mandating something, usually OSHA rules are to protect employees and force employers to do things to protect employees.

00:59:25.700 Here, that's not what's happening.

00:59:27.180 They're forcing things on employees that employees don't want.

00:59:29.880 And as Justice Alito pointed out, that you're forcing the employee to take on a risk because even if the risk is small, there's at least some risk of an adverse event from this vaccine.

00:59:39.600 And as you pointed out, that's historically unprecedented and unparalleled.

00:59:42.860 And the government, the Solicitor General, could not identify any prior example where that had ever occurred before.

00:59:48.300 Yeah, yeah, because Alito, sorry, Alito seemed to be saying, well, give me a circumstance in which OSHA has passed some regulation that makes you, as opposed to just putting on a hard hat when you're on the assembly line, take the risk home with you.

01:00:02.340 You've got to put something in your body that may indeed cause an injury.

01:00:07.300 Exactly. It's like a permanent, he compared it to a wand, sort of a permanent effect that a permanent hard hat that you have to wear all the way home, wear the shower, wherever you go.

01:00:18.660 And he's like, this has never been done before.

01:00:20.480 So it's highly unusual to mandate something for an employee's benefit that the employee doesn't want.

01:00:26.020 That it's for the, in particular, OSHA said that they did this solely for the unvaccinated because they're operating under the assumption that being vaccinated works.

01:00:33.540 The problem for them was that means you couldn't argue that the vaccinated needed the unvaccinated to get vaccinated, which is kind of where they're really going.

01:00:42.660 But they can't admit that because that would be to admit the vaccine doesn't work like they say it does.

01:00:47.120 And that's where they got caught in factual traps today.

01:00:49.700 Well, Robert, if we have 750 million people a day getting COVID, clearly the vaccines aren't working as intended.

01:00:55.540 I wish somebody had said that to Justice Breyer.

01:00:57.720 OK, so let's back up because we kind of started right kind of at the end, not this, not the end, but maybe the penultimate chapter of this legal battle, which is the arguments.

01:01:06.740 Let's back up to what they're really arguing about there.

01:01:09.440 It's this is the President Biden.

01:01:10.840 I'm going to mandate every business in America that has 100 employees or more has to either require vaccines, issue a vaccine mandate or require mandatory masking and testing, I think, once a week.

01:01:26.320 And this would affect affect, I think it's two out of three American businesses.

01:01:31.080 And then separately, there's a vaccine mandate saying any.

01:01:35.240 And is it any hospital that receives federal dollars?

01:01:37.960 But all health care workers have to have to get the vaccine. 0.91

01:01:41.760 Exactly. If you're within six degrees of separation of Medicare and Medicaid funding, you have to get the vaccine.

01:01:46.960 Yeah, that was that on top of it.

01:01:48.920 And one of the things that even Justice Breyer noted was he was like, really, this should be for Congress to a certain degree.

01:01:54.760 He was recognizing where Justice Roberts was coming from.

01:01:57.600 Justice Roberts has long had a Commerce Clause concern about the expansion of the federal government.

01:02:02.400 And he correlated it to the major question, doctor.

01:02:05.200 And if so, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop saying Commerce Clause and major questions.

01:02:09.980 Let's let's take it down to one on one.

01:02:12.540 So the vaccine mandates come out.

01:02:15.100 They haven't yet been implemented.

01:02:16.240 They're about to be January 10th.

01:02:18.240 You know, for all of the fanfare over Biden's announcement, he didn't actually do it.

01:02:22.260 Then all these employers who I think kind of wanted to do it anyway, were like, oh, we have to because of Joe Biden.

01:02:26.980 But there are a lot of employers out there.

01:02:28.760 I'm thinking about my pal Ben Shapiro over the Daily Wire, who was like, we're not doing this.

01:02:32.620 And they immediately filed lawsuits saying this is unlawful.

01:02:35.380 You don't you, President Biden, don't have the authority to mandate this of us.

01:02:39.020 And the argument was, you know, normally if somebody if you're going to make a business do something like this, it has to be Congress that has the power via they call it the commerce power.

01:02:49.360 If an item touches interstate commerce, Congress can generally do it.

01:02:53.560 But they're saying Congress didn't really issue this kind of authority to OSHA, which is an organization that regulates workplace safety.

01:03:02.240 And if Congress did say, OSHA, you can regulate things like this, they needed to be a lot more specific than what they've done here.

01:03:10.580 Does that basically encapsulate the argument?

01:03:14.280 Yeah, exactly.

01:03:15.180 It's what Congress have the power to do it under the commerce clause in the first place.

01:03:18.660 And even if they did, they needed to say so specifically and clearly in ways that is not by the very sort of generic provisions they're using, kind of ambiguous or cryptic language, because under their interpretation, they could issue almost any edict just by executive order.

01:03:34.780 They could short circuit the entire Administrative Procedures Act, not do notice and comment, not recognize citizen petition process, not go through Congress, the legislative branch, not even allow it to be adjudicated because they'll claim there's no standing to contest it.

01:03:47.040 And that would be a sort of a terrifying prospect if the executive branch in the name of an emergency could just declare anything they wanted, including to the degree of imposing something on a person's body and requiring they take medical treatment.

01:03:58.860 So that's the core constitutional and legal issue at play.

01:04:02.620 And it's bigger than the vaccine because it will impact executive power writ large and agency power in general.

01:04:08.820 My gosh, I mean, I hesitate to think what OSHA could mandate us to do if they're allowed to do this.

01:04:14.200 So if it's like, well, anything, anything in the name of workplace safety, as long as I can say it's an emergency and it's in our best interest, there was a good back and forth on this.

01:04:23.440 Here first is soundbite 14.

01:04:25.100 It's Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioning those who are challenging the mandate.

01:04:31.140 So I think she and they are aligned, but she's trying to say this OSHA rule, it's too broad and it should be more targeted for us to be able to uphold it.

01:04:38.980 Take a listen to our most recently confirmed Supreme Court justice.

01:04:44.360 I think what you're saying is that even if there are some industries or some people who would face a great risk and this might be necessary to address that risk.

01:04:53.480 So in other words, if OSHA had adopted a more targeted rule, you might not be contesting that or you would not be contesting that.

01:04:59.900 That the problem here is its scope and that there's no differentiation between the risk faced by unvaccinated 22 year olds and unvaccinated 60 year olds or industries.

01:05:10.360 You are just talking about landscapers and people who work primarily outdoors.

01:05:14.700 Those and workers who work in an inside environment all day long.

01:05:19.800 So is that the distinction that you're making?

01:05:21.940 They're not disputing what Justice Kagan said that, you know, this is a grave danger and that in some circumstances this rule might be necessary, but just the scope of it makes it different.

01:05:32.280 That's right, Justice Barrett.

01:05:33.240 But I just want to be very clear about this.

01:05:36.280 Wherever that line is, this ETS is so far beyond that line.

01:05:40.820 So what's the point there, Robert, that they haven't this this order, you know, that Biden got OSHA to issue is so sweeping, it makes no distinction between the fact that, you know, an unvaccinated 18 year old has a lower risk than a fully vaccinated 50 year old.

01:05:58.980 I think based on their prior their questions today and their prior rulings, both Roberts and Barrett would like to save and salvage vaccine mandates, but they're not comfortable with this method of doing so.

01:06:09.380 So they're not comfortable with the Biden administration, just writ large, circumventing Congress, circumventing citizen petition process, circumventing all the rules and just saying we can declare whatever we want.

01:06:19.180 And sort of as Roberts made clear, you're just picking, you know, one agency, then the next agency, then the next agency all has this buried hidden power.

01:06:27.180 As Justice Alito pointed out, basically, there's all these elephants in these mouse holes everywhere that federal agencies are claiming.

01:06:33.540 And I think they're uncomfortable, both Roberts and Barrett are uncomfortable with that assertion of power, even though they feel that some degree, they want to protect some degree of vaccine mandates or emergency power.

01:06:43.740 I think that's the where they're sort of at the cusp of what to decide.

01:06:49.040 Do we think Amy Coney Barrett is less conservative than we expected her to be?

01:06:52.220 I was more of a skeptic of her when she was coming in because she had favorably cited the Jacobson decision in a lockdown-related case while she was on the Seventh Circuit.

01:07:02.920 And so I was one of the few critics who said that she's not going to end up, she's going to be more like a Roberts than she's going to end up like an Alito or Thomas or a Gorsuch or Scalia.

01:07:15.160 Even though she came in as the female Scalia, her background on the Seventh Circuit said she's more of what some people in the law would call a centrist. 1.00

01:07:22.440 Center right, I think, is appropriate, but tends to be an institutionalist.

01:07:26.400 So not the biggest advocate for civil liberties, at least in the Seventh Circuit.

01:07:30.920 And I think we're seeing signs of that now in the Supreme Court.

01:07:33.140 I have to say, so I covered the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for both Roberts and Alito and many others, frankly.

01:07:39.160 But Roberts and Alito, I was on the air every day for every single minute of the of the hearings and had studied everything.

01:07:45.640 And on Roberts, I thought he was like born in a crib with a justice's role on.

01:07:50.980 I mean, if you look back at his history, it was just perfection in terms of getting a Supreme Court seat.

01:07:56.740 Never mind chief justice. Yes, yes, yes.

01:07:58.560 And he was extremely conservative in his prior rulings and he was a Bush appointee.

01:08:01.880 And I thought you could ask for no better.

01:08:05.120 Maybe the problem was he became chief justice, but he's been really wishy washy and hasn't been at all.

01:08:11.760 I think the justice President Bush was hoping for.

01:08:15.060 But Alito, he's a he's a superstar.

01:08:18.240 I mean, I said to the audience before, I'm much more of sort of with the Federalist Society when it comes to my own judicial approach.

01:08:24.220 Alito, he doesn't get enough credit for how smart and strong he's been on this bench.

01:08:28.140 No doubt. I mean, he's earned his reputation of Scalido that they used to call him on the third circuit, because he's in fact, he's been a better advocate than even some conservatives thought he would be.

01:08:39.140 He's ended up much more same with Gorsuch, for the most part, with the with one or two decisions, except they have been particularly in this context.

01:08:47.120 They've been very good. They have been warning about Jacobson.

01:08:49.660 They've been warning about the misapplication of emergency power, that just because you have a pandemic doesn't mean you throw the Constitution out with it.

01:08:57.220 And in the ask, very good question today. Justice Thomas has more questions than he normally does.

01:09:02.180 Yeah. So all of that was a good indicator, as long as they can get Barrett, Roberts, Kavanaugh or two of the three to go with.

01:09:08.500 So if they if they uphold the mandates, then they go forward, then they kick in on January 10th and all these employers have to start complying with them immediately.

01:09:22.260 Yes. And I think you'll see a lot of EEOC complaints because a lot of employers are today.

01:09:27.040 The government said, you know, you have to recognize religious accommodations as one of the groups that may stay unvaccinated.

01:09:34.420 But there's a lot of employers that are not enforcing that law, despite what Title VII and the Civil Rights Act said.

01:09:39.800 So I think it will just invite a new wave of litigation in a broader context and substantially disrupt the economy, as both the National Federation of Independent Businesses and the state said today pointed out it's going to be billions of dollars lost.

01:09:52.840 And the supply chain that already has problems is going to be major disruptions because of the labor market issues.

01:09:57.980 They anticipate anywhere from two to 10 percent of employees would rather quit than for something in their body that they don't feel is appropriate for them.

01:10:06.140 Didn't you think it was odd how I thought there'd be more of a focus on Omicron and how incredibly contagious it is and how that's really been a that's a game changer for this whole thing?

01:10:16.280 You know, the vaccines don't stop you from getting Omicron, from getting COVID.

01:10:21.680 They didn't even before Omicron.

01:10:23.920 But I mean, there's no question that this variant breaks right through the vaccine and the booster and all of that.

01:10:30.880 And the vaccine mandate has really kind of been just rendered obsolete.

01:10:35.520 I I would have hit that harder had I been representing one of the teams that was in there challenging the mandate.

01:10:41.540 I think there's been this sort of fear factor with litigants not to challenge judges misapprehensions about the about COVID in the pandemic because they think they'll undermine their legal argument.

01:10:52.680 But I agree they would have been better off and better situated had they pointed out just how ineffective this vaccine is and how much more effective other means are.

01:11:00.260 You're really concerned about COVID.

01:11:02.400 As Sotomayor mentioned, if you're if you're symptomatic, she acted like this was weird that that nobody knows that if you're symptomatic, you should stay home.

01:11:09.420 And that's been a policy for two years everywhere.

01:11:13.060 That's a more practical policy than a than forcing a vaccine that may not be effective, that has an unusual risk profile for the history of vaccines with a lot of people who don't want to take it for a wide range of reasons, some religious, some medical.

01:11:26.420 That seems to make a lot more sense than what the Biden administration is doing.

01:11:29.900 And they're using every pretext to do it.

01:11:31.600 But I think they're also trying to establish the precedent that they can use these little loopholes, these little mouse holes to put in every elephant they want, including probably environmental legislation, climate change, emergency.

01:11:42.860 That's probably if this gets affirmed, that's what's coming next.

01:11:45.760 If they if they strike down the mandates, then it doesn't mean you cannot have an individual employer or individual hospital issue a mandate.

01:11:59.740 What they're saying, if they strike it down, we expect would be Biden didn't have this power.

01:12:05.880 Congress didn't delegate this much authority to OSHA.

01:12:09.300 Everyone's on their own with respect to setting policy.

01:12:12.260 Is that right?

01:12:12.840 Yes, exactly. And the same with they'll probably whatever they rule in the OSHA mandate will probably be the same in the Medicare mandate and federal contractor mandate as well.

01:12:22.140 Maybe not the federal employee mandate. That's slower to go up the food chain currently. 0.82

01:12:26.240 But I think but that's basically what it means.

01:12:28.040 Now, I think a lot of employers were surprised at how many people didn't want to take the vaccine.

01:12:32.540 So there were like people like Boeing, people like Disney were reconsidering their options.

01:12:36.760 And if OSHA that made it is withdrawn, a lot of big employers that were planning on doing it probably won't.

01:12:43.280 But there will still be some employers that legally can there.

01:12:46.440 You're still have rights to medical accommodations and religious accommodations under both state and federal law.

01:12:51.780 But they still can. But I think probably half or more would decide not to go forward with it if the OSHA mandate falls.

01:12:57.700 Well, I hope you're right, because it's you know, I I just feel like at this point when the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission of the virus and we've got great therapeutics now, thank goodness, available to those who choose not to get the vaccine because the vaccine definitely does prevent severe disease.

01:13:16.220 Not in all cases, but preventive in most severe disease or death, which is what we're trying to fight.

01:13:21.080 But if you choose not to, you know, afford yourself of that benefit by not getting the vaccine, you do still have therapeutics as an option.

01:13:30.080 So I guess an employer saying you're going to be an expensive employee for me.

01:13:33.380 Therefore, I want to mandate that you get the vaccine, because if you do get severe disease or wind up on a ventilator, that's going to cost our health insurance a lot of money.

01:13:41.320 Now you get the therapeutics, you know.

01:13:42.820 So it's like the reasons behind these mandates are dwindling in strength and persuasiveness by the day.

01:13:50.360 Let's hope the Supreme Court and in particular Roberts and Coney Barrett and Kavanaugh are cognizant of that in the same way the liberal justices seem to be cognizant of things outside the record, but maybe slightly more factual.

01:14:04.640 Robert Barnes, it's a pleasure.

01:14:07.180 Absolutely.

01:14:08.120 All right.

01:14:08.400 Next up, we're going to be joined by one mom who's fighting back over masks and wait till you hear what her school district did to her when her mask fell slightly below her nose. 1.00

01:14:22.080 We've lost our minds and she's fighting back.

01:14:26.060 I am joined now by Shannon Joy.

01:14:33.900 Shannon's a mother of three who lives in upstate New York, and she's planning to file a lawsuit next week against her school system after she says she was pulled out of a school board meeting and arrested for improperly wearing her face mask.

01:14:51.740 Shannon, thank you so much for being here.

01:14:53.900 Hello, Megan.

01:14:54.440 And thank you so much for having me.

01:14:57.100 I'm such a big fan of your work, so it's super exciting to be on with you.

01:15:01.340 Oh, that's nice.

01:15:01.900 Thank you.

01:15:02.360 I know we have a lot in common because you're from upstate New York around the Rochester area, I gather.

01:15:06.920 Yes.

01:15:07.180 And I was raised first 10 years in Syracuse and the rest in Albany and back and forth as it happened after that.

01:15:12.380 And you also, I think, do you have a radio show?

01:15:15.780 I do.

01:15:16.180 I have a daily radio show on iHeart, on the terrestrial radio station, WAM 1180 here in Rochester, and also on podcasts.

01:15:23.780 So, yeah, I've been doing that for about a decade.

01:15:26.260 Okay.

01:15:26.420 So, obviously, you are a person of sense.

01:15:28.680 And that truly was on display when you went to the school board meeting.

01:15:33.840 So, before we show the tape and let the audience see and hear what happened, just set it up for us.

01:15:39.060 You're like the rest of us.

01:15:40.280 You're going through the pandemic.

01:15:41.960 And what is the school doing?

01:15:43.560 Like, you're showing up at the school board meetings.

01:15:45.260 Was that normal for you?

01:15:46.300 Were you, like, a school board activist all your whole life?

01:15:50.720 So, I call myself an accidental activist, which I think a lot of people have become in the past two years since March of 2020.

01:15:59.420 And I began attending school board meetings shortly after they opened them up to the public.

01:16:05.240 And it was because I was very concerned about what was happening within our schools, a whole host of reasons, critical race theory, the masking, the distancing, the sex ed curriculum coming down the pike.

01:16:17.100 And so, in Monroe County, not just in my school district, there were many parents organizing.

01:16:22.180 They were attending school board meetings.

01:16:24.180 They were speaking out in public comment.

01:16:26.960 And the testimony of these parents was absolutely heartbreaking.

01:16:31.880 The relationship between the board and the parents of these students, concerned about what is happening in their school, was deteriorating, I think, over the past five or six months.

01:16:43.420 And so, that led to this particular school board meeting.

01:16:46.200 Not only was I a taxpayer, I was also a parent in the Fairport School District.

01:16:50.740 And also, I had a large media platform.

01:16:53.300 So, I think in some ways, I was a triple threat.

01:16:56.040 They did not like that we were speaking out.

01:16:58.180 They did not like that we were dissenting.

01:17:00.540 They did not like that we were organizing.

01:17:02.840 And we believe, you know, the lawsuit that we're filing on Wednesday, we're very confident about this lawsuit.

01:17:10.220 We are filing it federally.

01:17:11.840 If we need to take this to the Supreme Court, we will do so.

01:17:14.700 But we are very confident that we can prove that the school board, the superintendent, and other actors within our school system conspired potentially with the private security company and outside political organizations linked to BLM to set up the conditions at that meeting that led to my arrest.

01:17:33.500 And so, we believe it was malicious.

01:17:36.520 And we are very confident when we move into discovery, we can depose these individuals and have them testify under oath.

01:17:45.560 We're going to shine a light on this entire system.

01:17:47.980 And we're going to stand up for parents across the country who have been bullied, school boards who have used the police to suppress their voices and to intimidate them into silence, which is what we believe they tried to do on that day.

01:18:01.040 But it's crazy.

01:18:02.060 In any other world, the audience might be sitting here saying, nah, no, the school board wouldn't use police to silence parents.

01:18:10.940 But now we know at the very highest levels of our government, we've had a White House coordinate with an attorney general to accept that these parents speaking out of these meetings may be domestic terrorists and may be the subject of FBI investigations.

01:18:23.900 And who pushed them to do that? School boards.

01:18:26.760 So, there's no question these school boards don't like dissent.

01:18:29.760 They don't like objections to critical race theory, to masking, to vaccines, to, like you point out, this weird, I hate to call it sex ed.

01:18:38.020 It's not sex ed. 0.54

01:18:38.840 It's like kink that they're trying to force on our young kids. 1.00

01:18:41.780 It's weird stuff that has no place in the school room.

01:18:45.260 Okay, so you show up at the meeting, and you're there doing your part as a mom listening.

01:18:49.820 And let's just show, we're going to show the first video where someone's irritated that the mask is not, they can see nostril, I guess.

01:19:00.220 I don't, watch, watch and listen to our audience at home.

01:19:02.940 And I'm surprised, I'm going to make a move for a recess for 15 minutes.

01:19:06.580 Why?

01:19:07.200 Why?

01:19:08.880 Because the people are still refusing to wear masks, unfortunately.

01:19:11.680 What?

01:19:12.000 Nobody is.

01:19:12.720 We have places to be, Mary, okay?

01:19:14.980 And other things to do.

01:19:15.960 You can't just stop a meeting.

01:19:17.780 Can I get a second for that, listen?

01:19:21.300 This is unbelievable.

01:19:23.480 This is not leadership.

01:19:24.620 You asked us to be respectful of you, and you can't respect the taxpayers and citizens.

01:19:33.800 You can't take it to something else.

01:19:35.480 Mary can't write emails. 0.96

01:19:37.200 This is silly. 0.70

01:19:40.480 You could have prevented it by being a grown-up and doing what you're supposed to do. 0.97

01:19:44.460 I've got my mask on.

01:19:45.780 It's 95 degrees out.

01:19:48.400 Mary is uptight. 1.00

01:19:50.000 Mary is like, we've got to adjourn the meeting.

01:19:55.180 And by the way, she says people weren't wearing the masks.

01:19:57.340 But what is your side of that?

01:20:00.380 Well, the interesting part about this case, we have an enormous amount of documentary footage.

01:20:06.000 So not only did, when I got the, when they called the recess, I got this sinking feeling

01:20:11.360 that they were going to arrest potentially me.

01:20:16.060 And why?

01:20:16.600 Why would you have thought that at that point?

01:20:18.020 This particular meeting was very different than previous meetings.

01:20:23.800 The board had worked with an outside organization called Black in the Burbs, which is a suburban

01:20:30.160 version of BLM.

01:20:31.780 And they brought in about 25 activists, all with red shirts.

01:20:36.860 When I came into that meeting, there were probably six or seven cameras on me from the

01:20:42.800 second I walked into that room.

01:20:44.160 So everyone sensed that something was very different about this meeting.

01:20:48.800 And when they called that recess, my mask was over my face.

01:20:52.420 We had 10 minutes of video that shows I was sitting very quietly.

01:20:56.100 As a member of the press, I wasn't supposed to be speaking.

01:20:59.340 The mask was over my nose the entire time.

01:21:02.760 The only time it came underneath my nose was when I took it down to put a piece of gum in

01:21:06.940 my mouth.

01:21:07.440 And in that moment, that's when Mary White, who was a school board member, signaled to

01:21:13.640 security and other members of the board that they wanted to go to recess.

01:21:17.720 They then went to recess.

01:21:19.820 And I was told by the arresting officer that they called 911 and requested specifically that

01:21:26.740 Shannon Joy is arrested.

01:21:28.000 And so there were six or seven security people there.

01:21:32.260 There were five Monroe County sheriffs, cars, and multiple officers.

01:21:37.740 They came in, SWAT team style, swooped me up. 0.91

01:21:41.100 But when I realized that, I decided to take control of the situation.

01:21:45.160 And I FaceTime lived.

01:21:46.840 Once I realized they were going to arrest me, I'm like, I'm not going to let them do this

01:21:49.820 on their terms.

01:21:50.580 Love it.

01:21:50.940 And I, I went live and it went viral and that kind of, um, led to, uh, the daily wire

01:21:59.020 coverage and the PJ media coverage.

01:22:01.020 And by the time we left that meeting, the entire community was outraged.

01:22:04.660 They had seen what had happened because of the footage that I put out on the live and public

01:22:09.100 sentiment changed, um, very quickly.

01:22:11.460 And the board had a lot of egg on their face.

01:22:13.960 All right.

01:22:14.560 Let's watch that second video of the cops, the sheriff's deputies coming to get you.

01:22:19.380 We all came here to hear public comment, the school board staff, the meeting, they limited

01:22:26.800 it to 10 individuals and they stacked it with pro mask individuals.

01:22:31.580 So they kicked out all of us who were anti mask and here come the cops.

01:22:35.560 And so I'm just going to ask.

01:22:38.080 Hi.

01:22:38.900 Hi, how are you?

01:22:40.080 My name is Shannon.

01:22:41.060 Nice to meet you.

01:22:42.040 Thank you for coming out.

01:22:43.060 I know you don't want to be here today.

01:22:44.480 So there are about 20, um, pro maskers here who are applauding the cops here who are 0.97

01:22:49.280 now going to, I suppose, arrest us for, okay, so, so I have their hands on me now.

01:22:59.700 And I guess this is the way it is now.

01:23:01.980 I can't believe this is happening.

01:23:04.460 I don't have my purse.

01:23:05.800 I'll get it.

01:23:06.180 I'll get it for you.

01:23:06.980 And so we're all on Facebook live right now, guys.

01:23:10.280 These are the officers.

01:23:11.760 Okay.

01:23:12.600 Um, Monroe County sheriffs.

01:23:14.700 And I can't believe this is happening.

01:23:16.440 I really, they're good.

01:23:17.500 Oh, no.

01:23:18.280 Oh, they put you in cuffs.

01:23:24.560 Yeah.

01:23:25.040 The huge, the unnecessary humiliation of that is outrageous.

01:23:34.320 It's, um, you know, I've been in, in my community for over a decade.

01:23:38.740 Um, I've never had a parking ticket.

01:23:41.040 I've never been to jail.

01:23:43.320 I'm an upstanding citizen.

01:23:45.180 My husband is a psychologist, a doctorate at, you know, a neighboring school.

01:23:50.900 I have three kids in the community and it was, when you say humiliating, it was one of

01:23:56.800 the most uncomfortable situations that I have ever endured.

01:24:00.900 And I'm glad that it happened because it exposed, um, what these school boards are capable of.

01:24:06.980 But, um, it was, it was terrifying, humiliating, um, the conversations I had to have that evening

01:24:15.380 with my kids and my husband, my neighbors.

01:24:18.140 Um, it's, uh, divided a lot of our neighborhood and it is, it's, it's a difficult battle.

01:24:26.160 I mean, but I'm not going to back down.

01:24:29.140 That's the thing.

01:24:30.540 Um, what they did was wrong.

01:24:33.680 And this is why we are filing this federal lawsuit.

01:24:38.800 Um, I'm so blessed the attorneys of Hogan Willig, Corey Hogan out of Buffalo, New York.

01:24:43.760 They were with me, Megan, from day one.

01:24:46.920 They've never charged me a penny.

01:24:48.380 They've represented me pro bono.

01:24:51.060 Um, this case was thrown out.

01:24:52.940 The, the DA, Sandra Dora Monroe County, when we went, um, to, I was charged with a trespass,

01:25:00.420 which was a violation.

01:25:01.660 And she sent one of her top prosecutors, uh, to that hearing. 0.97

01:25:06.160 And the prosecutor asked the judge to throw out my case in the interest of justice.

01:25:12.360 And the judge did.

01:25:13.760 So we had a huge win in, in that situation.

01:25:18.140 But, uh, Corey Hogan and my attorneys at Hogan Willig, um, we want to use this.

01:25:23.500 We are so confident that we have a rock solid case and that we can win this.

01:25:27.820 We want to fight for every parent in the United States of America.

01:25:31.020 There have been arrests on the basis of trespass at school board meetings in Florida, California,

01:25:36.600 Texas, and across the country.

01:25:38.300 And we want to, we want to answer that question and we want to do it with a lot of sunlight

01:25:43.020 and a lot of transparency.

01:25:44.800 And that's what we're, we're willing to do.

01:25:46.980 It's going to take about a year as we move through this process, but, um, we're not going

01:25:51.100 to back down.

01:25:51.980 That's not accountability.

01:25:53.560 Dropping the case against you is a no brainer.

01:25:55.980 That's not accountability for the people who called the cops and for the police doing the

01:26:01.520 absolute wrong thing and slapping the cuffs on you and dragging you away like some criminal 0.95

01:26:05.640 because your mask may have fallen below your nose.

01:26:08.580 You may have taken it down to have a piece of gum.

01:26:11.040 I mean, this is, this is totally outrageous and, and it's wrong.

01:26:14.800 And I know you're tough.

01:26:16.260 I can see you're tough, but that doesn't mean you're incapable of being humiliated or upset

01:26:21.160 or your kids aren't capable of being embarrassed or, you know, having sort of the storm rain

01:26:26.760 down on them.

01:26:27.620 And I understand your husband, he's been targeted as well.

01:26:31.280 Cause he's a school psychiatrist.

01:26:33.640 Yeah, he's a, he's the school psychologist at a neighboring school and this organization,

01:26:39.000 uh, black in the burbs that the school board works very closely with, uh, doxed him and, 0.69

01:26:45.440 uh, put out, you know, my, my middle name is joy.

01:26:47.840 And so I use that as, as my show name, but they put out our full name and his name, um,

01:26:54.520 and where he works.

01:26:55.480 And, you know, there were multiple phone calls that, that he's had to deal with over the past

01:26:59.540 year.

01:26:59.760 He's tough too.

01:27:00.900 You know, I guess there isn't a better person for this.

01:27:05.140 He's so supportive of, of what I do and it's uncomfortable for him, but, um, he is behind

01:27:12.300 me 100%.

01:27:13.100 But yeah, I mean, it's wrong.

01:27:14.980 It's wrong what they've done.

01:27:16.420 And they wanted to make an example out of me so that other parents would never stand

01:27:22.560 up and speak out.

01:27:23.680 And what we seek to do is to make an example out of them.

01:27:27.480 We want to, uh, make school boards across the country think twice and sheriff's departments

01:27:33.740 as well.

01:27:34.360 Police officers, um, think twice next time they seek to suppress, um, parent voices.

01:27:40.100 I mean, this goes back to basic constitutional issues.

01:27:42.620 Um, you know, we operate in a, in a constitutional Republic.

01:27:46.380 It is representative.

01:27:48.080 And in order for, for them to obtain consent of the governed, you have to have an, the ability

01:27:53.880 to speak out and to dissent at these public.

01:27:56.600 Yeah, of course.

01:27:57.300 And it's chilled.

01:27:57.920 If you've got to worry about the, the cops dragging you away in cuffs.

01:28:01.020 All right.

01:28:01.180 A few questions for you quick.

01:28:03.020 Um, did you stop going to the school board meetings after that?

01:28:05.800 Did the others?

01:28:06.720 No, absolutely not.

01:28:08.460 They kicked me off the school grounds.

01:28:10.400 They sent me a letter telling me that I could not attend my son's volleyball games or go to

01:28:14.200 school board meetings.

01:28:14.840 And we called their bluff very quickly, sent them a letter.

01:28:18.160 And absolutely the next school board meeting I was at, I, I spoke and I addressed them and

01:28:24.900 we informed them that we will be litigating, organizing and activating, uh, to bring light

01:28:31.000 to the entire issue.

01:28:31.920 So absolutely.

01:28:32.740 I've been at every school board meeting since.

01:28:34.960 Good.

01:28:35.160 I like that.

01:28:36.100 Um, why is black and the burbs an antagonist in this?

01:28:40.100 I don't like, I have the same question in New York city.

01:28:42.620 I have a good friend whose child children didn't go to school the entire year.

01:28:46.840 I mean, they did, they didn't have school open in New York city for the vast majority

01:28:49.740 of last year.

01:28:50.660 So she and her husband, lifelong Democrats went to an open the schools rally, you know,

01:28:54.860 please open the schools.

01:28:55.680 We want our children to be in school.

01:28:56.800 And they got called white supremacists.

01:28:58.960 Wait, how did it become a racial issue?

01:29:01.920 And I have the same question for you.

01:29:04.880 The meetings, the, I would say the two hottest issues at these meetings, not just in Monroe

01:29:12.300 County, but in New York city and across the country have been the masking and the critical

01:29:18.060 race theory and the, the BLM organizations and their subsidiaries that pop up in the suburbs

01:29:26.060 are fully committed to the implementation of culturally responsive learning, critical race

01:29:33.260 theory, anti-racist curriculum, whatever you want to call it, because there's a lot of

01:29:38.540 money involved with that.

01:29:41.240 It is essentially blowing up the entire curriculum in the country and replacing it with cultural 0.99

01:29:48.360 Marxism that is focused mainly on equity.

01:29:51.400 And they're using the race issue in order to, to get that into the schools.

01:29:55.220 Well, that leads me to my next question though.

01:29:57.460 Sorry to interrupt you, but I have a couple of things I want to hit before we have to let

01:30:00.440 you go.

01:30:00.720 Um, I know you said you think this larger thing when it comes to masks also has to do

01:30:06.480 with other considerations besides, you know, COVID protocols and not spreading the deadly

01:30:11.220 disease.

01:30:11.900 You said it has to do with CARES Act funding.

01:30:15.660 So explain that.

01:30:17.000 I, I like this theory.

01:30:18.500 I hadn't kicked this one around as much prior to today.

01:30:21.520 So talk us through that.

01:30:23.120 A few months ago, the Associated Press released and then subsequently took down a few weeks later,

01:30:29.640 but we have the documentation, a breakdown of the amount of CARES Act money.

01:30:35.640 So this was the emergency federal money that was distributed to public and private education

01:30:41.740 systems across the country, private schools, public schools.

01:30:45.240 And it was the emergency spending for COVID mitigation in the schools.

01:30:50.400 And it essentially hundreds of millions of dollars were dispersed.

01:30:55.240 It's a slush fund.

01:30:56.880 And the Associated Press broke down by school district.

01:31:01.200 We found that the Fairport Central School District received in about one year, a 12 month

01:31:06.360 time period, well over $10 million just in that federal CARES Act funding.

01:31:12.960 There's a whole host of state funding.

01:31:14.620 I mean, there's a lot of money being thrown around, but all of that money is contingent upon

01:31:18.840 the school district complying with any and all CDC or state health guidelines.

01:31:24.980 So the reason we believe that they are so committed to muzzling the children really has to do about 0.67

01:31:33.400 cash to the tune of $1,500 to $2,500 per student.

01:31:38.000 There are districts across the country that got a lot more than $10 million.

01:31:42.080 That is so wrong.

01:31:44.200 It's like a lot of us are looking at our still muzzled children thinking, why?

01:31:48.640 Why?

01:31:48.860 And I mean, yes, I realize there's a surge with Omicron, but the mask isn't going to prevent

01:31:53.880 it.

01:31:54.100 And most of the kids are in these cloth masks, which do nothing.

01:31:57.500 And there's been no confirmed science at all behind these masks.

01:32:00.900 And yet they're still so committed to it.

01:32:02.680 They're scaring the children.

01:32:04.120 I know I read in my prep materials for you.

01:32:06.340 Apparently, in your district, there was some five-year-old girl in a 90-degree day who couldn't 1.00

01:32:13.520 breathe, and she threw up in her mask on the bus.

01:32:17.080 And when the bus driver tried to take off the mask, the girl was so scared she wouldn't.

01:32:20.620 I mean, this is how we've gotten with our children.

01:32:23.020 Like, the mask is some be-all, end-all to save your life.

01:32:27.480 It's nonsense.

01:32:28.380 Megan, that testimony was given at a school board meeting by a bus driver, Fairport Central

01:32:35.020 School District bus driver, and she wept as she gave that testimony. 1.00

01:32:39.880 And that was the last time the school board allowed us to speak freely.

01:32:43.480 It was the subsequent meeting, the following meeting, where they limited all the speakers.

01:32:47.980 You can't speak at a Fairport school board meeting unless you go through the superintendent

01:32:51.660 and they approve you.

01:32:53.380 And they only allow 10 speakers, and they only allow three minutes.

01:32:57.440 They changed.

01:32:58.020 They do not want to hear.

01:33:00.100 That's icky for them, to hear what their masking policies are actually doing to small children,

01:33:05.520 the abuse.

01:33:06.820 And yes, this young girl was so afraid of spreading COVID and hurting someone that she sat on a

01:33:14.120 90-degree day in a mask full of vomit, refusing to take it off.

01:33:18.240 It was heartbreaking, heartbreaking testimony. 0.95

01:33:20.700 But these board members are so corrupt and so toned up to the abuse.

01:33:30.160 And that's just one example of what these masks are doing to children.

01:33:34.940 I can't believe that so many of them have not seen a smile from a teacher or an aide or their

01:33:40.540 classmates.

01:33:41.380 Or haven't even seen each other's faces.

01:33:43.760 A lot of these kids, they don't even know what their friends look like.

01:33:47.240 They never get to see them without the masks on, except for a few seconds at lunch while

01:33:52.000 they're shoving food in.

01:33:53.520 All right.

01:33:53.640 What is so crazy is that what we were asking these board members, we were ready to bring

01:33:59.340 them medical doctors, scientists, studies, industrial hygienists, witness experts that

01:34:05.400 have testified who understand air quality and OSHA regulations.

01:34:09.440 We were saying to them, listen, if you're going to do this, let's have some discourse here.

01:34:14.380 This that was all that we as parents were asking for.

01:34:17.360 And they just refuse.

01:34:19.760 They refuse to hear any other dissenting argument.

01:34:23.460 And that's where that frustration comes from.

01:34:25.680 But if it's all team Fauci, team CDC, whatever Rochelle Walensky says is golden.

01:34:31.880 And that's the frustration of parents like you, like me, who are looking at actually independent

01:34:36.960 data from doctors who are not working as a government bureaucrat and really just doing whatever

01:34:42.900 Joe Biden or the teachers union wants them to do and just dismissing it.

01:34:46.960 It's so frustrating.

01:34:48.260 All right.

01:34:48.420 So now, last thing.

01:34:50.120 What are you what is the basis of your claim?

01:34:51.980 What are you claiming they did to you?

01:34:53.860 And I know you want to send a message, but could you get some dough?

01:34:57.560 And if you did, what would you do with it?

01:35:00.420 So we are we there are six claims and we're looking at wrongful arrest, emotional distress.

01:35:10.200 What do we have here?

01:35:10.980 We're false arrest, false imprisonment, battery, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional

01:35:16.760 distress.

01:35:17.660 We're filing in federal court and we're really, you know, there there isn't.

01:35:24.020 I mentioned that Hogan Willig, my attorneys, that they have supported me pro bono up until

01:35:29.740 this point and they continue to do so.

01:35:32.580 They are so committed to this because they believe it's the right thing to do and I do

01:35:35.980 as well.

01:35:36.920 But it really isn't about the money.

01:35:38.660 This is about we want to ask for damages because we want this school district. 0.97

01:35:45.300 We want them to feel a little bit of pain on this and we want to send a message to other

01:35:49.840 districts that this could happen to you, too, if you abuse your power and seek to suppress

01:35:56.340 the voice of the people of your district.

01:35:58.360 And so we're asking for Hogan Willig dot com.

01:36:03.840 We're asking anyone in the country who wants to kind of support these efforts.

01:36:08.580 It is expensive to bring these type of suits.

01:36:10.780 We have paralegals and multiple attorneys and likely, you know, detectives.

01:36:18.140 There are a lot of parents who would like to see you succeed in this.

01:36:21.760 And if they want to support you, they can check out that website.

01:36:24.700 Last quick question.

01:36:27.360 Your message to other parents who are afraid, who do not want to tick off the school board,

01:36:32.660 who do not want to sour the relationship they have with the school, lest it affect their

01:36:36.720 children, but have the same concerns you do.

01:36:39.600 What's your message to them?

01:36:42.100 So I would say one of the things that I've done throughout the past couple years, always

01:36:47.900 be respectful, always be nice, but you have to be firm and don't be afraid.

01:36:55.540 You know, I love to be able to do this because I love to show people, look, they arrested me.

01:37:01.000 They they hauled me out.

01:37:02.720 They tried to intimidate me, but I'm still here.

01:37:05.160 I'm doing fine.

01:37:06.640 If anything, I'm doing better.

01:37:07.780 You might lose a little bit in the short run, but in the long run, it's the right thing

01:37:13.280 to do.

01:37:13.660 And if people don't continue to stand up, then we will not get out of this.

01:37:19.160 I mean, it is going to take peaceful noncompliance, some civil disobedience, and and perhaps some

01:37:26.240 uncomfortable discussions with your superintendent or your school board.

01:37:30.300 But if you're nice and kind and firm, then then you can do this.

01:37:35.580 And and hopefully you can look at someone like me and see that it'll be OK.

01:37:40.460 We spoke with Stuart Scheller, Marine, now former Marine, a little earlier, and there

01:37:44.720 was a quote that he gave at the time this all happened to him.

01:37:47.900 He was put in the Briggs.

01:37:49.280 What you believe in can only be defined by what you're willing to risk.

01:37:54.520 So good.

01:37:55.520 Shannon, thank you so much.

01:37:57.000 We'll continue to follow it.

01:37:58.240 We appreciate you being here.

01:37:59.300 Megan, thank you for having me.

01:38:00.920 I so appreciate it.

01:38:01.560 Thanks for joining us today, everybody.

01:38:03.640 Don't forget, Monday, we've got Matt Taibbi here with us.

01:38:06.580 You're not going to want to miss that.

01:38:07.720 In the meantime, download the show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify, and Stitcher.

01:38:10.480 Go to youtube.com slash Megan Kelly for the visual.

01:38:13.220 Thanks for listening and have a great weekend.

01:38:16.940 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

01:38:19.340 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:38:22.560 We'll see you next time.

The Megyn Kelly Show - January 07, 2022

Afghanistan Accountability and COVID Misinformation at Supreme Court, with Stuart Scheller and Robert Barnes ｜ Ep. 236

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