The Megyn Kelly Show - Arrogance of the Elites and Our Alarming Digital Future, with Chris Arnade, David Zweig, and Tracey Follows ｜ Ep. 240

00:00:00.400 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.860 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.100 We begin today with CDC Director Rochelle Walensky continuing to tell a wildly misleading study

00:00:22.880 that the CDC knows has been discredited as a reason why millions of children across the country

00:00:29.580 should be masked indefinitely. On December 17th, we interviewed journalist David Zweig.

00:00:35.200 He writes for The Atlantic, New York Magazine, among others, regarding his months-long investigation

00:00:39.980 into the study published by the CDC in September. Okay, it suggested, the study did, that schools

00:00:47.060 in Arizona that did not mandate masking were three and a half times more likely to have

00:00:53.840 COVID outbreaks. This appeared to confirm the CDC's own obsession with masking, and the

00:01:00.700 agency's director, Walensky, was quick to promote it nonstop all over the news.

00:01:05.440 We also published a study out of Arizona that demonstrated that places that had no masks in

00:01:12.280 place were three and a half times more likely to have outbreaks than places that did have masks in

00:01:18.220 place. A study that was done in Arizona published on Friday that demonstrated that in jurisdictions

00:01:24.040 that had masking early in their school year this year were three and a half times less likely to

00:01:30.300 have outbreaks in the school. But the study that you're referring to in Arizona demonstrated that

00:01:35.440 schools that had masks were three and a half times less likely to have a school outbreak than

00:01:41.340 schools that didn't have masks. We have new science.

00:01:43.680 You see, it goes on and on. But David Zweig, having dug into the previous studies touted by

00:01:50.660 the CDC on masks and found them wanting, had questions. Three and a half times is a huge factor.

00:01:58.020 Not even the previous, albeit largely unsound, studies touting masking had suggested that masks make a

00:02:04.580 difference that big. So he decided to investigate the study's methodology. And here are a few highlights

00:02:10.260 highlights of what he found. One, the study cited more schools than exist in the counties observed.

00:02:17.720 It compared schools that were open for three or four weeks with some that were open just two weeks.

00:02:25.160 In other words, how do we know if a no mask mandate school, a more free school that saw more COVID cases

00:02:31.520 had an uptick because of its no mask mandate policy or simply because it had, say, two extra weeks of

00:02:39.120 classes factored into the results than the fully masked schools did. If I want to compare one school

00:02:44.380 for 30 days that didn't have any masks with a school over one day that had masks on, guess how it's going

00:02:51.000 to turn out? The school that's open 30 days is going to have more COVID cases. That doesn't say anything

00:02:55.620 about masks. The study even cited masking data from schools that were still in virtual learning.

00:03:02.900 OK, I'm sure that a school the children never step foot into, but which happens to have a mask

00:03:08.480 mandate, is very effective at stopping the spread of COVID. One scientist David spoke to called the

00:03:14.600 study so unreliable that it probably should not have been entered into the public discourse at all.

00:03:21.740 Walensky's team knows all about David's investigation. Again, this is not a Fox News partisan

00:03:27.640 host or even straight news journalist that they can easily dismiss as of the right wing.

00:03:32.940 He's not. He's been a straight shooter right down the middle from the beginning of this,

00:03:37.220 and they're trying to blow him off. He says they were made well aware of his findings.

00:03:42.440 His article made major headlines. And when he asked them to explain why they are touting this study,

00:03:48.420 despite its obvious and serious flaws, they went dark on him. So did Walensky or the CDC retract

00:03:54.260 or update their findings? No. Did Walensky at least quietly stop talking about it? No. Instead,

00:04:03.620 this week she promoted it again during a U.S. Senate hearing. We have new science that has

00:04:10.500 demonstrated the value of masking three and a half times increased risk of school outbreaks

00:04:15.320 if you're masking and if you're unmasked in schools versus if you're masking in schools.

00:04:19.720 She can't stop herself. Meanwhile, she's wearing 40 masks for people who aren't watching this. I

00:04:24.780 mean, she's she's mummified her face. David Zweig is back with me now. It's crazy. These people like

00:04:34.360 I'm OK. A lot of masks, a lot of masks. When you heard her do that once again at a Senate hearing,

00:04:43.120 no less, mention this discredited study. What was your reaction?

00:04:50.180 I was, I guess, a combination of astonished yet also not surprised considering the track record

00:04:57.120 that's happened thus far. It's I have a couple of sources inside the CDC. And to me, the main thing

00:05:04.560 I'm trying to find out is, does she actually not know what's going on or does she know and is making

00:05:14.100 some sort of strategic or political decision to continue to cite a finding from a study that I

00:05:21.280 think any reasonable scientist or academic would say is widely discredited at this point?

00:05:27.180 Mm hmm. Would have abandoned by now. What what light, if any, does it shed on your query

00:05:32.560 watching her with Brett Baer this past Sunday, dodging and weaving on just calling out Sonia

00:05:39.540 Sotomayor, which even the left wing fact checkers have been willing to do, falsely asserting that

00:05:45.380 100000 children are in the hospital because of covid right now?

00:05:48.620 Yeah, I think there's something that is deeply unsettling when you see someone who is ostensibly 1.00

00:05:58.800 grounded in being a scientist communicate in a manner that we typically would associate with a

00:06:06.660 politician. And I think as Americans, we need to think about and decide, is the CDC itself a

00:06:14.260 political organization and is the head of the CDC essentially a politician or is this person a

00:06:20.600 scientist and trying to communicate the science to the American public? Because those things

00:06:26.520 together don't seem to be working right now. Mm hmm. There was a question when you last came on

00:06:32.200 about just how far she'd gone in defending that three and a half times number. And we played this

00:06:39.420 soundbite between Rochelle Walensky and Chris Hayes of MSNBC, where she went even further.

00:06:44.880 You had given her maybe a little wiggle room. Let's see that she went even further. And it was

00:06:49.100 a stunning moment. I want to play for the audience who had who hadn't seen that exchange. You should go

00:06:53.420 back and look at our interview with David on December 17th. But this is the longer soundbite,

00:06:58.860 Deb, where we've got Chris Hayes pressing her and what she says. OK, listen.

00:07:04.320 The study that you're referring to in Arizona demonstrated that schools that had masks were

00:07:09.280 three and a half times less likely to have a school outbreak than schools that didn't have masks.

00:07:15.740 Just as a follow up, are we sure that's not a correlation issue and not a causation, which is

00:07:21.740 to say, like, there's higher levels of community transmission in the school districts that are also

00:07:26.940 the ones most inclined to not have a masking policy? See what I'm saying? Yeah, no. And that's

00:07:33.880 actually been studied as well. And we've examined those correlations for exactly the concern you raise.

00:07:38.760 This is an independent effect of masks. That that wasn't true. And did you ever follow up with

00:07:45.420 them? And did they ever give you a response as to why she said something? I mean, that not even the

00:07:50.240 studies authors, I think, were claiming that that was the case. Yeah, I mean, they you know,

00:07:55.480 they stopped responding to me after a while. In fact, my editor at The Atlantic had to start

00:07:59.980 communicating with the authors and with a with that PR person at Arizona State University where

00:08:06.980 the lead author is located because they they wouldn't even reply to me, which to me, when I

00:08:12.820 talk about it in the article, or at least you and I had spoken about this, which is that's the thing

00:08:17.700 that I find in some regards the most troubling is that, again, a public health agency, if nothing else,

00:08:24.620 should be based in transparency. This is not part of the security apparatus. This is not the CIA.

00:08:30.720 You know, we're talking about they're supposed to be for us, the people. And they were presented with

00:08:36.200 very clear evidence of significant discrepancies. Not this is not about the pesky journalist bothering

00:08:44.540 them. This is not about scientists quibbling over the methodology. These are significant discrepancies

00:08:51.740 in the numerical, you know, in the statistics of the study that I found from the state of Arizona

00:08:57.880 and from the county of Arizona that were very, very different from what from what was in the study.

00:09:04.160 And they wrote back to me and said, there are no errors. We're done.

00:09:08.240 Right. OK, I'm definitely going to use that approach in my future journalistic matters. If I

00:09:13.440 ever make a mistake, I'm just gonna say I didn't I didn't I don't care what you say, whatever you say.

00:09:16.720 I don't care who you are. You pointed out in your original article on this when it comes to,

00:09:22.540 well, did they rule out other explanations for the increased spread in the schools that don't

00:09:28.900 require masks? That's basically Chris Hayes was kind of saying, you know, did you rule out the fact

00:09:33.260 that in a community that doesn't require masks, maybe there is a lower vaccination rate? That's

00:09:38.220 basically what he's saying. You know, like maybe it's a community in South Florida where it's a

00:09:42.420 bunch of Republicans who don't see these issues the way Chris and Rochelle do. And that's when

00:09:46.820 she said, absolutely not that that's not it. We factored all that in and we still got three and a

00:09:51.020 half times, which isn't true. Just to be clear, that was not true. But you put out your original

00:09:55.020 article. You cited a guy, Jason Abelok, economics professor at Yale, who was the lead investigator

00:10:00.680 on a three hundred and forty thousand person randomized trial of masking in Bangladesh, who called

00:10:05.400 this study ridiculous. You write for failing to control for the vaccinations, vaccination status of

00:10:11.680 staff or students. And why would that have mattered? I mean, explain. Chris Hayes is saying,

00:10:18.160 did you just look at like the community's attitude toward covid or anything? You know,

00:10:22.080 but this is talking about specifically vaccinations. Why would that have mattered?

00:10:26.560 Well, I mean, anytime you're studying the the incidents of something, you need to look at what

00:10:32.440 factors are going to affect that. These are different confounding variables. So when you're looking at

00:10:37.380 the incidents of cases or specifically for this study, what they called outbreaks, which is just

00:10:42.180 two or more cases, is that, of course, the vaccination status of the staff and of the students

00:10:49.200 is going to impact the degree of outbreaks in the school.

00:10:55.020 More certainly last summer, it would have right now.

00:10:59.220 Yes, exactly. Now it's very, very good point. Right. With Omicron, not so much. But back when

00:11:04.600 the study was conducted, that certainly was a significant factor. And on top of that, they

00:11:09.180 also didn't account for the change in community rates over time. So, I mean, it's it's such a long

00:11:14.960 list of things. And I think, as you noted in the beginning, they also included more than 40 schools

00:11:20.000 that literally don't exist. They were virtual schools. It was like a like a VOTEC program for,

00:11:28.240 you know, metal worker, automotive repair, things of that nature that are not schools. This was a

00:11:33.680 program, a class you could take in your regular high school. If they listed that as its own school,

00:11:38.900 and they did that more than 40 times. The question is, how does that affect the results of the study?

00:11:44.860 And the answer is, no one knows, because they've refused from day one, all the way to now to release

00:11:51.860 their data set. No one knows where how they put all this data together, because they won't let us see

00:11:57.840 it. It's getting nuts. And and Walensky Walensky and others are trying to ramp up the masks now rather

00:12:05.520 than dial them back in any way, just at a point where a lot of us are at the breaking point in the

00:12:09.380 masks. The news now is that the CDC is getting ready to recommend N95 or KN95 masks for everyone

00:12:17.300 if you can tolerate it. So I'm like, great, I can't buy. But more and more schools are already

00:12:24.260 saying we have to. We're seeing it pop up in district after district saying, well, college level

00:12:28.200 saying the kids have to wear KN95s or N95 masks. What are your CDC contacts saying about that? Are we

00:12:35.320 about to get that push? Because sometimes it starts with a with a suggestion and it turns into a

00:12:40.420 mandate. I can tell you that a number of infectious disease doctors who I'm in a little text group with

00:12:46.900 with a bunch of them are not pleased about this. And that exactly as you indicated, everything about

00:12:53.340 Omicron suggests to these people that it's time to start winding things down, not ramping them up.

00:12:59.360 And it's sort of that, you know, be careful what you wish for. We finally got this sort of

00:13:04.100 mainstream public health establishment with people like Leanna Nguyen finally coming out and saying,

00:13:09.780 cloth masks, they don't work. They really, you know, at best are marginally affected. This is

00:13:14.640 something that we've known for a very long time. People like Michael Osterholm and others had been

00:13:20.780 mentioning it, but it was kind of tamped down. But it's finally kind of reached the mainstream.

00:13:24.820 Now, I thought when we found out that, you know, it was finally made known that they aren't

00:13:31.040 particularly effective. Well, I assume that meant, okay, so we don't have to make kids wear masks

00:13:34.800 anymore. They're not working. I hadn't fully anticipated that it would be the opposite

00:13:39.740 direction. Oh, since those don't work, now we need children wearing masks that are designed for

00:13:44.880 healthcare professionals and, you know, specific workers in particular professions, you know,

00:13:50.360 where you have to have these things fit tested. It's, it's kind of alarming. Once again, we are

00:13:57.080 the outlier in many regards to many other nations around the world. It's the mask you would wear if

00:14:02.380 you went to visit Chernobyl about two decades ago. And there, I said this on Twitter and I say right 0.95

00:14:08.640 here, there is zero chance of me wearing an N95 or KN95 mask and zero chance of me putting one of those 0.93

00:14:16.220 of my kids. I, this is a hill I wish to die on and I won't die because I've been double vaxxed and had

00:14:22.680 a booster and my kids aren't going to die either because they're healthy and they don't need the

00:14:25.720 vaccine. I haven't gotten it for them yet. I haven't totally ruled it out. But my point is they don't

00:14:29.260 need an N95 mask. I'm not putting it on them. I refuse. And I am not alone because I saw something 1.00

00:14:34.940 extraordinary on CNN, on CNN with Erin Burnett, who is probably, I definitely think she's less

00:14:45.620 crazy than some of the other anchors there. Her sin was never that she was sort of a

00:14:51.140 hard left-wing partisan. It was just kind of a little milk toasty. But anyway, fine. I respect

00:14:57.000 her. I like Erin Burnett. She seems like a perfectly fine person. And she had on a doctor 0.90

00:15:02.060 to talk about masking. I think, I think he's a doctor from Harvard. Watch the clip.

00:15:07.460 So your tweet says, quote, eight degrees in Boston, no outdoor activities at school.

00:15:12.400 My nine-year-old, quote, so no mask breaks today? That's worse than freezing.

00:15:17.860 Then you continue. Don't tell me two years of masking doesn't impact kids. Their risk is low.

00:15:23.000 Vaccines avail for all adults and kids. Anyone who wants can mask. It's time.

00:15:27.700 And the hard data I'm referring to here is on the risk to kids that has been consistent since day one.

00:15:32.280 Their risk is low. New data out of New York State during the peak of the Omicron surge

00:15:37.260 shows that child hospitalization rates are on the order of one in a hundred thousand if you're

00:15:42.160 unvaccinated. If you're vaccinated, a child's risk is on the order of two to three per million.

00:15:49.180 These are low rates. On top of that, adults, all teachers and staff had to have 10 months or more

00:15:54.540 to get vaccinated and take the precaution they need to. We're coming up on two years of disrupted

00:16:00.820 school, kids in mass. To think there's no harm there or no loss in socialization,

00:16:05.520 no impact, I think is incorrect. We've been prioritizing adults at the expense of kids.

00:16:10.800 That guy is the head of Harvard School of Public Health. So, yay. It makes me have a little hope,

00:16:18.340 David, that, you know, as I said last Monday in an opening monologue that's that's gone viral.

00:16:25.380 There's reason to hope that the center left is starting to break away from the far left who are

00:16:30.940 really leaning into their COVID fear and realize we don't need to be doing this craziness anymore.

00:16:38.960 Yeah. Joe Allen, that's who is in that clip. He's been really great and he's been at, you know,

00:16:43.640 the forefront of this for, you know, in the sort of mainstream public health community. So

00:16:47.680 it's great that he has such a platform and a voice. I think, you know, and I'm familiar with the data he's

00:16:53.760 talking about where it really is. It's something like 0.3 per hundred thousand, which, you know,

00:16:59.760 equates to like three per million if the kid is vaccinated. And that gets to the heart of the

00:17:05.480 issue, I think, Megan, which is reasonable people could have disagreed in the beginning of the

00:17:10.960 pandemic whether or not it made sense to wear masks and do all sorts of other mitigation measures.

00:17:16.120 But the reason why I believe that's not necessarily a reasonable debate anymore is that these are what

00:17:23.340 are known as temporizing measures. These are things that delay the inevitable. And once vaccines came

00:17:31.100 out and all the adults were able to protect themselves and children who already were at an incredibly

00:17:37.100 risk lower than the vaccinated adults, they could protect themselves even more. Once the vaccines came

00:17:42.820 out, now we are just delaying things. These are just temporizing measures. So we have to ask ourselves

00:17:48.840 or ask officials, what are we delaying this for? Initially, you delay because we're waiting for the

00:17:56.400 magic bullet for the, not the best metaphor, but we're waiting for the vaccines to come. But once we

00:18:01.860 have that, what else are we pushing for? And these are the conversations I'm having with a lot of the

00:18:07.100 experts I know, you know, off the record and behind the scenes is people are starting to say,

00:18:11.240 we need to figure out how to unwind this thing because we are not going to stop it. You could

00:18:16.960 close the school for a day. You could close the school for a week. The virus isn't going to wait

00:18:21.440 and then disappear. It's there. It's not going away. So we need to figure out how to function

00:18:27.240 as a society. Now, perhaps some people would like to live in a society where kids are wearing masks all

00:18:33.800 the time to reduce, you know, or at least theoretically reduce the risk. That's not a society that I would

00:18:39.120 like to live in. You know, I don't want my kids to be harmed. I don't want other kids to be harmed. But

00:18:43.520 part of living is carrying some degree of risk. And to me, I'm willing to have a low grade fever for a few

00:18:52.020 days, you know, once a year or whatever it is, if it means that I don't have to wear a mask every day. And I

00:18:57.560 certainly would hope the same for my kids. And he was pointing out that if the data show if you wear a mask,

00:19:04.800 if you want to wear one of those lunatic masks, go right ahead, because the studies do show that 0.73

00:19:10.480 they're effective at protecting you. I don't have to wear one to protect you. And whether I'm

00:19:17.100 vaccinated or unvaccinated, I can spread this virus. So it's at the point now where if you want to

00:19:21.980 prevent yourself or your child, if you're that paranoid about it, you can slap one of those on

00:19:26.680 your kid's face. I won't do it. Honestly, I don't I'll come up with another plan. I don't know what 0.70

00:19:31.180 it is, but you know, you you know, your lines. And I'll tell a story that I told David privately,

00:19:35.960 because I texted him with the story. But I'll tell you, kids have had it, including my own.

00:19:40.320 So my little eight year old got in a bit of trouble last week because he went to school second grade.

00:19:44.680 And he he he took off his mask. He just took it off. He's had it. I mean, he's had almost no school

00:19:51.100 history without a mask on. He was in kindergarten when this damn thing broke. Now he's in second grade. 0.99

00:19:56.380 And he's still got the face covering. And so he just took it off. And the teacher said, Thatcher,

00:20:01.580 you have to wear your mask. And do you know what he said, America? He said,

00:20:06.180 the CDC did a study of 90,000 children in Georgia that showed that masks do nothing.

00:20:15.300 And so she sent him to the principal's office.

00:20:17.560 And my little Norma Ray.

00:20:20.980 I can have him as an assistant. If he's looking to get into journalism, you know,

00:20:24.080 he and I, we should talk, right? If he wants to begin to some more studies with me.

00:20:28.400 It's sad to me, David, because it's like I did. I had to round back to him and I had to tell him,

00:20:32.360 Thatcher, I have to tell you, I think what you did is kind of badass. But the next time we're going

00:20:37.120 to have to make the argument with the mask on, because right now I need you in school. You need to

00:20:41.400 be in school. We don't have another option. It's infuriating, but it's also somewhat

00:20:45.660 exciting. Right. Yes. That's the weird thing. When you look at your kids, you sort of want them

00:20:52.880 to be courageous and rebel, but yet you also not, not too much necessarily. So there's,

00:20:58.660 there's that balance of pride and a little bit of like, that's great, but you know, dial it back

00:21:03.180 next time. I will say this, you know, I can, I'll give you a nice epilogue to it. I had a very nice

00:21:08.180 exchange with the school about it. Like they were actually really cool and they, they saw it too,

00:21:11.840 and they understood where the kids are and you know, they're under a mandate from the governor.

00:21:16.200 So there's only so much they can do. It's the governor. We need to be writing our letters to

00:21:20.400 here in Connecticut and so on. Anyway, um, I I've been laughing and sending pictures of Norma Ray,

00:21:25.400 Sally Field. If you haven't seen the movie with the union sign, my relatives, David, it's a pleasure.

00:21:32.060 Thanks for having me, Megan. Anytime soon. Okay. Coming up, we are joined by someone. He's like a J.D.

00:21:38.560 Vance, although not quite as conservative. Uh, and he's got a lot of insight into Americans,

00:21:43.400 uh, and why they voted for Trump or why they don't vote at all and why they're disillusioned by the

00:21:48.920 system completely run by elites who have no connection to them. Right after this break,

00:21:53.460 Chris Arnotti. Don't miss him.

00:21:55.260 To prove how little DC insiders know about the state of the country this week, two of the most

00:22:08.680 insane op-eds were published. The first one proposed that what Americans really need to see

00:22:14.300 in the 2024 presidential race is a Joe Biden slash Liz Cheney ticket. Okay. I just choked on my tongue.

00:22:23.460 And then another by my pal Doug Schoen, who I love, um, explored why Hillary Clinton is the

00:22:31.400 Democrats most viable candidate in 2024. Oh my God. A supposed change candidate. Doug,

00:22:37.920 my pal Doug. He was, I'm not sure what happened. Uh, what does this say about how out of touch DC

00:22:44.480 is? My next guest probably knows better than anyone else in the country. Chris Arnotti is a writer,

00:22:50.120 photographer, and author of dignity seeking respect in back row America. Welcome, Chris. So good to

00:22:57.720 have you here. Uh, thank you very much for having me. So I love your background. I know a lot of guys

00:23:02.720 like you who, uh, spent a lot of time on wall street doing really well and then sort of became

00:23:06.860 disillusioned with what's, what is this all for? Is, does this have real meaning? Is this how I want

00:23:12.080 to spend my life? Um, but unlike you, most of them do not then take to their car, take out the back row,

00:23:19.920 start driving around to some of the poorest, most ignored communities of America to figure out

00:23:25.600 why the disillusioned are disillusioned. Why people who have it probably rougher than anyone in this

00:23:32.020 country don't bother to vote, why they feel loathed by pretty much everyone in the media

00:23:37.560 and on the political stage. But that is what you, how you've spent your past, uh, X, how many years?

00:23:44.200 12 years, 12 years, 12 years now. Okay. So a dozen plus years. Um, and you divide them into the

00:23:49.080 back rowers and the front rowers. And just explain that for our audience who hasn't read your book.

00:23:53.600 Yeah. So I, it's easier to explain in terms of what the front row is. That's basically me,

00:23:58.040 um, PhD in physics, worked on wall street, um, lots of education, left my home to, to, to move to New York

00:24:04.600 city, um, travel all around the world. Um, you know, and focus on getting, you know, focus on

00:24:11.440 building a resume or had focused on getting, building a career, um, left the church at some

00:24:16.980 point, um, lots of education. Um, you know, a lot of people in the media that, you know, you can think

00:24:23.300 of lawyers, bankers, people who went to Harvard, um, Cornell, um, you know, Stanford, um, that's the

00:24:30.320 front row. You can think of it as a schoolroom analogy. Um, you know, the, the kid who always

00:24:34.080 raised their hands and wanted to be a teacher's pet and want to get ahead through education.

00:24:37.520 And then basically the back row is everybody else, which is what I used to call it normies.

00:24:43.220 Um, people who, you know, if they have any high school, if they have any college, it's usually

00:24:47.840 community college, maybe a few, few, few years of trade school, but you know, that's the,

00:24:52.620 that's the majority of people. It's the front row of people like me, we're the weirdos.

00:24:56.620 Um, and so, um, that's, and I think that division between, you know, the front and the back between

00:25:02.680 the educated, highly educated and then the rest, you can use, you know, DC insider as what,

00:25:07.440 as another proxy that, that, that, that gap is really what drives so much of what's going on

00:25:12.960 in this country right now. It's, um, I mean, it definitely can help explain the Trump election

00:25:18.520 in 2016. I know you, you've said that and you saw that coming. You were one of the few who saw that

00:25:22.840 coming. Um, whereas most people in the sort of mainstream press said never could never happen.

00:25:28.820 Um, but you were talking to quote real Americans and, and describe sort of the cities that you've

00:25:34.140 been going to. I know you say you spent years going into the McDonald's and, um, the Bronx,

00:25:39.600 for example, every day, cause that's where the folks were. And that's, that's, you wanted to

00:25:43.400 actually understand people as opposed to doing a two week flyby, like some of these quote in depth

00:25:47.820 magazine pieces too. They were, we're talking years of research on your part. So where'd you go

00:25:52.440 and who are you talking to? Um, I went, you know, the back row is everywhere. It's not just, you know,

00:25:58.620 as I say, you don't have to get out of the, you don't have to get out of the, um,

00:26:02.880 Ocelic corridor. You just have to get off the Ocelic. I mean, the Ocelic goes through a lot of

00:26:07.000 back row communities. It goes, you mentioned one of them in the Bronx Hunts Point where I spent two and

00:26:10.860 a half years. Um, it goes through, um, you know, Western Baltimore, um, yeah, Kensington,

00:26:16.720 Philadelphia, and it just, for instance, Anacosta right across from the DC insiders in Anacostia,

00:26:22.300 which is where I was, um, four days ago walking. Um, I walked across Anacostia, um, and, uh,

00:26:29.360 Indianapolis, you know, everywhere. I went absolutely everywhere. Um, and I went into communities where

00:26:35.460 people, you know, the front row, um, certainly makes policy for these places, but don't actually

00:26:41.460 go and interact with people. I spent a lot of time in, you know, McDonald's, Applebee's, Walmart,

00:26:46.720 you know, things that shouldn't be weird for people to do, but for the front row, that's weird.

00:26:52.440 Um, and, um, you know, I just talked to people, um, and I got to know them and got, I got to listen

00:26:57.740 to them and, um, and try to write about what I saw and take pictures of what I saw to give a sense to,

00:27:05.200 to, to, to the other people in the front row, how out of touch we are, how, um, how much privilege we

00:27:10.600 have and how, um, how arrogant we are and, uh, how clueless we are about the people we make policy

00:27:15.740 for, or we claim to know what's better for, um, completely. A lot, a lot of folks in towns

00:27:21.420 basically ruined by globalization. The factories that once made them vibrant and sources of pride

00:27:27.300 have been long closed. Society's moved on. There's not a source of industry. And not only has society

00:27:34.500 moved on from these towns, they've turned their noses up at them. You know, these people get categorized

00:27:39.600 pretty frequently as deplorables by people like Hillary Clinton and others, but there's really

00:27:44.500 no moment of stopping and thinking and looking back at them and saying, wait, how can we help?

00:27:50.780 How can we help create opportunity for folks who used to enjoy it abundantly in towns where they

00:27:57.500 were willing to work? Yeah. I mean, what I would say is the only answer they ever have is the old,

00:28:04.760 you know, learn to code or, or move. Um, we, you know, it's like, we've destroyed your community.

00:28:11.380 We, we shipped your jobs overseas. We, um, we devalued everything we find meaningful,

00:28:16.620 such as faith place and family, um, and nation. We, we, we, we, we, in the front row, we find these

00:28:24.740 things awful. And so then we tell them, oh, I'm sorry. I guess just, uh, now that your drug town is

00:28:31.200 filling up with drugs and in despair, I guess, just move or, or learn to code. And that's

00:28:35.420 extraordinarily offensive. And so many levels, the whole idea of just moving like, no, this is,

00:28:40.480 you know, place matters to people. It's, it's some of the few things they have that really,

00:28:44.980 you know, it, it's meaningful to them in a way that's not meaningful to the front row.

00:28:49.880 Like, you know, being at, being a resident of, um, you know, of Texas or being, uh,

00:28:54.940 or having grown up in Portsmouth, Ohio, that really matters to somebody that's, that's, that's,

00:29:00.800 that defines who they are. And to say, you can just get rid of that and just move someplace else,

00:29:05.540 um, forcing people to become economic migrants in their own country, because the policies that

00:29:11.460 benefit the wealthy, that's just offensive. And so, you know, the other solution is, you know,

00:29:17.580 just get more education and, you know, not everybody wants to just get more education. It's not,

00:29:22.560 it's not how everybody thinks is that we should just, you know, be careerists running around

00:29:27.100 building resumes. Some people just want to live life and, you know, and define themselves through

00:29:32.080 things like family, faith, and nation. It's, it's crazy now because more and more our universities

00:29:37.980 are a place you go to get a four-year credential in liberal orthodoxy, you know, not so much to

00:29:43.760 actually learn something that's going to set you up for a future career, like a vocational school

00:29:47.360 would be. And I, what I've seen on the right half of the country is people becoming more and

00:29:52.120 more reluctant to put their children into that system where they just say, it's all it's going

00:29:57.640 to do is turn them against me and the beliefs that I've tried to raise them with. Um, so that's an

00:30:02.300 additional problem, but you're right. There's an elitist system that prizes a four-year degree, 0.96

00:30:06.440 something beyond that. And I do think all of this is when I, when I was reading about you and

00:30:12.540 listening to you and a bunch of podcasts you've done and so on, all I kept thinking about was Roger

00:30:16.940 Ailes, my old boss and founder of the Fox news channel, who was a ditch digger in Ohio back when

00:30:22.280 he was a young boy. And he understood the back row, whatever his flaws. And I could talk to you

00:30:29.480 about those too. He understood the back row better than anyone. That's why when he hired primetime

00:30:34.080 anchors, he did not want to see a Harvard credential. He loved the fact that, you know, I went to Syracuse

00:30:39.820 undergrad in Albany for law school and Hannity dropped out of college and, uh, O'Reilly went

00:30:45.880 to Marist. Oh, now he claims to go, I've gone to Harvard, but he didn't really. He did like the

00:30:49.740 Harvard Kennedy thing later in life. Um, anyway, that's what he was looking for. Contrast that with

00:30:54.240 what happened at NBC where everybody's got an Ivy league degree. Yeah. You know, I mean, the ability,

00:30:59.180 what are, what are the lessons of my last 12 years of work? And what I try, if I had to put a bumper

00:31:04.160 sticker about what I think about, you call it the DC elites. I call it what I call it the overeducated

00:31:09.460 front row is, or the political classes. They don't understand the people they make policy for.

00:31:14.800 And that's really bad. Now, I think, you know, I happen to think I'm not a, like, you know,

00:31:19.140 throw all the elites over the bridge because, you know, I'm an elite myself and I'm very open about

00:31:23.320 that. And I have a lot of friends. I, I'm, um, you know, I'm very much, there's a lot. And I think

00:31:29.340 a lot of the people who are front row are good people and well-intended. Um, but I think a lot of us

00:31:35.980 have gotten completely out of touch with America completely out of touch. And I, I don't just mean

00:31:41.140 that in a, you know, we, we don't, we don't go into McDonald's and we just don't know what people

00:31:46.100 value and how they think of themselves and how they comprehend the world. And consequently,

00:31:51.880 when we make policy or we, you know, think, I always think about the phrase, um, when it says

00:31:57.720 there's a lot of, when, when, when, when, when a party, a party loses an election, the elites in

00:32:04.300 the, in the parties say, well, the voters are voting against their self-interest. What an arrogant 0.82

00:32:08.760 phrase, phrase to say, the idea that voters don't know what's best for them. The answer is no,

00:32:16.300 actually the voters are voting in their best interest. They, it's you who don't know what

00:32:21.420 their best interest is. It's you who are making a, it's a very colonialist attitude. This idea that

00:32:26.260 Americans somehow are voting against their best interests. Like it's really fucking 0.99

00:32:30.140 insulting. And I don't think people realize how insulting it is. 0.99

00:32:35.080 Oh no, it's reflected. I mean, if you watch any cable news, it's, it's evident and the,

00:32:41.000 and folks know it. I mean, I don't know how many of these folks are still engaged in watching cable

00:32:45.440 news because it's so, I, there's so much hatred for middle America and fly over country or back row,

00:32:51.620 however you want to put it, um, by most of the channels and, and in particular when it came to

00:32:56.800 Trump and in particular, um, you know, when there's an election on the line and the, the,

00:33:01.100 the clip that embodies it all, it's like the worst slash best cable news clip ever for showing how out 0.99

00:33:09.740 of touch these cable news anchors are is the one with Don Lemon, uh, Wajahat Ali and Rick Wilson of

00:33:16.480 the Lincoln project. Um, here, watch. Donald Trump couldn't find Ukraine on a map. If you

00:33:22.460 had the letter U and a picture of an actual physical crane next to it, he knows that this

00:33:27.680 is, you know, an, an administration defined by ignorance of the world. And so that's partly

00:33:33.560 him playing to their base and playing to their audience. Uh, you know, the, the, the credulous

00:33:38.580 boomer Rube demo that backs Donald Trump, um, that, that wants to think that, that, that

00:33:44.120 Donald Trump's a smart one in there. Oh, y'all, y'all elitists are dumb. You, you elitists with 1.00

00:33:50.040 your geography and your maps and your spelling, even though my math and you're reading. Yeah.

00:33:55.780 You're reading, you know, your geography, no one, other countries, sipping your latte,

00:34:01.480 all those lines on the map. Only them elitists know where Ukraine is.

00:34:08.680 I find that clip disgusting. I just, it makes myself, you know, imagine if they had done

00:34:15.880 that in a, you know, one of the things that frustrates me is, um, I write about the back

00:34:21.120 row, which I call us people without a high school education or without a college education.

00:34:25.480 That's a lot of minorities. That's a lot of African Americans.

00:34:28.040 And so when you're mocking the back row, you're mocking minorities, which, which of course 0.99

00:34:34.280 they wouldn't do on CNN, but you're allowed to mock the, the, the, the working class whites, 0.95

00:34:39.340 you know, you're allowed to make fun of them, but it's just so offensive at so many levels.

00:34:43.700 You know, the thing is, the other thing that's kind of fascinating to me, um, is when I, when

00:34:48.400 I saw that clip, I was just, uh, this idea that we all should be focused on the news all

00:34:54.200 the time. You know, one of the things that I try to write about a lot is how a lot of,

00:34:58.880 a lot of people, we in the political class, and I, I put, I use we cause that's me and

00:35:03.200 certainly you, we, we, our job is news. Our jobs is politics. That's not how people approach

00:35:09.000 the news and politics. They, you know, like, like I said, the largest block voting block

00:35:13.580 in the country is, is none, is, is none of the above people who don't vote because quite

00:35:18.600 honestly, you know, people, people have lives. They don't live and die by what, um, you know,

00:35:25.500 what Don Lemon says or what, um, or what, um, the president even says. Um, and, and, and,

00:35:32.720 and I quite honestly, I'll defend that. Um, I mean, we shouldn't expect people to have to

00:35:36.920 spend all their delay. Like why do we, we're the weird ones who, who obsess over, um, the news

00:35:43.160 and, and all the time and people just want to live their lives, man. They want to focus on

00:35:47.340 their family. They want to focus on their church, their community. They want to focus on their,

00:35:52.060 on, you know, on being a decent father or being, uh, uh, you know, having a, running the best hair

00:35:58.080 salon. They don't want to just focus on politics all the time. It's so true. And that's why if you

00:36:03.480 find yourself on the political stage or on the news stage, you know, you get into one of these more

00:36:10.320 prominent posts in terms of visibility, it's so important to maintain your friendships and your

00:36:15.700 relationships with people who are not of that world, who can keep you grounded, who can remind

00:36:21.280 you of what's important, who I just, you know, as one of the things where I, I, I feel like I've

00:36:26.260 always made this a priority in my own life. Cause I come from a middle-class background and I have all

00:36:31.140 the things that the back row has in my family, you know, that you write about, like we definitely have

00:36:36.100 in my family had addiction and had alcoholism and had bankruptcies and had all this stuff.

00:36:41.480 And it's important to, to remind yourself that not everybody is obsessed with AOC's latest tweet,

00:36:51.320 right? That shit doesn't matter. Twitter does not matter to the average person, even a little. 0.99

00:36:59.400 You know, it's so funny because what I, I, for the, for the listeners who don't know exactly what I

00:37:04.540 spend a lot of time in writing about addiction. Uh, I spent a lot of time in crack houses, um,

00:37:09.380 not using, but, um, documenting people who use, I spent a lot of time in, I'm, I'm a white guy and

00:37:14.880 I spent a lot of time in minority communities where I'm the only white person. I spent a lot

00:37:18.800 of time in people who have a lot of problems and a lot of complications and a lot of places where

00:37:22.660 they're, they're, you know, are stigmatized as having high crime. And I take pictures. I have a

00:37:26.840 camera, I'm a photographer and I've been in, you know, I've been in situations where I'm, I'm, I'll tweet

00:37:33.120 about what I'm doing. Cause I'm, I also, I'm active on Twitter, like a lot of people in the front

00:37:36.880 row and people ask me like, yo, what are you doing? And I'm like, Oh, I'm using Twitter. Like

00:37:40.260 what's that? Like, I can't tell you the number of people who are like, you know, Trump, Trump helped

00:37:47.640 raise profile. People now know what Twitter is, but you know, one of the most disconcerting or

00:37:53.840 jarring things for, for the work I do is to, to, to jump. Cause I, I spend two, two lives. I go around

00:38:00.460 doing what I do, photographing and hanging out at McDonald's and Applebee's and all that. And then I,

00:38:04.600 then I jump on Twitter at night and it's just so jarring. I can't even begin to describe how

00:38:09.460 different, how out of touch, um, the kind of, you know, credential class, the front row is how we

00:38:16.720 are with, with, with quote normies for the back row. And it's just, and it's just, it's really

00:38:23.860 shocking. And so sometimes I just go on Twitter and I just, I just want to tweet LOL because that's

00:38:28.340 all I can say. I just look at the craziness. I just want to go, this is just absurd. This is not

00:38:32.980 what people care about. No, people are worried about putting food on their table, taking care of

00:38:36.800 their kids, making sure the schools stay open. Uh, especially now with an economy that's 7%

00:38:41.300 inflated, right? Inflation is at 7%, a record over 40 years. They're not worried about whether, uh,

00:38:46.640 a biological woman should be allowed to play the part of a transgender, whatever, you know, what, 1.00

00:38:51.780 whatever the latest freak out is on Twitter from Hollywood, what have you. Um, and yet you wouldn't

00:38:57.160 know that if you just lived in sort of these more elite in particular left wing circles, but

00:39:02.860 then the right wing gets sucked into it too. I will say that, um, COVID is the case where, um,

00:39:08.980 everybody is impacted by COVID. So, you know, it's the case where the back row has strong opinions on

00:39:15.480 it because it's, it's, cause you can't, you, you can't hide from COVID policy. And so it's touched

00:39:21.140 everybody. So it's going to be a huge, huge issue in the politics going forward.

00:39:26.800 It's, uh, right now, according to the latest poll, it's the number two most important issue

00:39:30.860 right after the economy, um, economy, let's see, I have it in front of me. Let's see, uh,

00:39:37.280 the Associated Press, 68% say the economy is their top priority, especially with these inflation numbers

00:39:42.880 and 37% say it's COVID. So, and the third issue is immigration. You know, it's not like even racism

00:39:49.960 and racial inequity, which we hear a ton about these days. And I think that's more woke a vacation

00:39:55.520 than anything is only 15%. It's dropped by nine points, uh, climate, the environment, 21%,

00:40:02.140 which is dropped by three points. Uh, and I could go on, but the number one by far is economy. Number

00:40:06.400 two is COVID. And you've got a lot of interesting insights on COVID and how people figured it out,

00:40:10.920 notwithstanding what they were being told. That's where I'll pick it up right after I squeeze in this

00:40:14.960 quick break. Pleasure to have you here, Chris. Uh, really interesting discussion. And don't forget,

00:40:19.860 folks, you can find the Megan Kelly show live on Sirius XM triumph channel one 11 every weekday

00:40:25.760 at noon East and the full video show and clips. When you subscribe to my YouTube channel,

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00:40:40.640 archives with more than 230 shows. If you add a comment on the Apple, uh, when you subscribe on

00:40:46.680 Apple, and then you can comment underneath, I will read it. I promise. I read them all this morning,

00:40:51.480 all the new ones. And I really appreciate the feedback. Some of them are so eloquent and beautifully

00:40:55.800 said, and I've just, it's great to hear from you guys. So please do it.

00:41:04.960 Okay, Chris, so let's continue the discussion about how they figure things out the back row,

00:41:09.340 even without the Harvard education. Uh, these folks say they talk sense and they, they speak

00:41:16.220 sense and they see sense, uh, when they see it, they know it when they see it. And you talk about

00:41:20.600 this, you, you've written about this, uh, when it comes to COVID. And I think this is, this is really,

00:41:25.720 um, this is good. This is from one of your pieces called among the unvaccinated. You're talking 0.55

00:41:30.720 about how you've spent a lot of time among that subset of the population. That's just not going to get

00:41:35.540 vaccinated period. End of report. You did. You're not saying you're one of them. You're just saying

00:41:40.280 you, you, uh, you made an effort to understand them, which would a shocker. And you write about

00:41:45.260 how, um, these people sort of came to their conclusions, um, in part because the messaging

00:41:53.740 was not trustworthy. It was all over the map. And you write, for example, what do you mean it didn't

00:41:59.120 come from a lab? They got a goddamn COVID lab right in the city. It started in, what do you mean my 0.98

00:42:04.460 kids can't go to the skate park? It's outdoors. People may not be fully educated, but they've got

00:42:09.720 common sense. That's it. Right. That's it. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, you know, you know,

00:42:17.520 I'll use the term normies or back or what have you. I mean, they operate by focus, like common sense,

00:42:23.400 experiential, like, you know, it's kind of that midwit, wit, midwit mean, like, you know, it's like, 0.99

00:42:28.660 what are you fucking talking about? Like, you know, how can you, you know, stop, 0.96

00:42:33.120 stop your book smarts. Like it's so fucking obvious what's going on here. And, you know, 0.73

00:42:37.780 and over time it became pretty clear to a lot of people that COVID policy was not only all over the

00:42:45.220 map and confused, but it was directly beneficial to the front row. It was, it was done. Everything

00:42:54.320 about what we've done in COVID around COVID has been to the point where it has had the least harm

00:43:01.640 to what the laptop generation, the front row and has harmed the back row the most, you know,

00:43:06.080 you think about from the early stages, you know, sheltering in place from a person who had, you

00:43:11.160 know, you know, uh, uh, second home and four deep freezes to, you know, someone in the Bronx live in a

00:43:18.480 four, four walk up with three generations in one bathroom, like sheltering in places, very different

00:43:23.040 things in that context. And then I was, you know, back then I was writing about, about the laundromat

00:43:27.780 gap. It's like people in the political class don't realize that people use the laundromats. You know,

00:43:32.200 we don't have, a lot of people don't have, they, they can't, they can't hide from people. They can't

00:43:37.960 sit in their room and zoom. Um, it's not only can't they, because their job won't allow it,

00:43:43.640 but that's not how they operate. That's not how people in the back row operate community and one

00:43:48.540 on one interaction is central to who they are. It's central to what they do and how they think

00:43:53.780 and how they live. And it's central to how they actually see the world. And that's where, that's

00:43:59.280 where the, um, the common sense comes, you know, you, you, you learn from other people, you learn

00:44:04.040 from interactions and you build a catalog of interactions. And it was pretty clear that COVID policy

00:44:09.080 has, you know, they've gotten the short end of the stick, um, when it comes to COVID policy,

00:44:14.860 but also they suffered the most in terms of, uh, the deaths, you know, um, but also at the same

00:44:19.940 time, they're also being asked to, you know, I think that the phrase I used in one of my pieces

00:44:23.880 was, you know, you, you, you, you have to go into the office, keep on working at the Amazon warehouse,

00:44:28.800 but you can't barbecue with your friends, you know, like, you know, it's just, it's so unjust

00:44:33.680 and they know it. And so eventually, you know, it's just like, it, it, it became this thing where

00:44:38.820 one of the ways to rebel against that was not to get vaccinated. Now I happen to think that's

00:44:43.860 a mistake. I think that's, you know, I, I I'm vaccinated, I'm boosted. I think, uh, I think a

00:44:50.660 lot of the political discourse around a vaccine is really sad. And I'm not saying that I, I don't,

00:44:56.400 I'm not, I'm not, um, pro anti-vax, but I understand why people feel like they've been pushed in that

00:45:02.720 corner. Um, and that's really frustrating and really sad that we've gotten to a place where

00:45:07.620 it's a hill that some people feel they're forced to die on. And that's sad.

00:45:12.660 I know that's how I feel. I want them to know. I mean, I've got a lot of Republicans who watch our

00:45:16.880 show and listen to our show and I want, I want them to know the vaccine actually is doing a great

00:45:22.920 job. It's not perfect, but it's doing a great job at reducing the severity of COVID for those who get

00:45:28.800 it and greatly reducing the chances of death. So look at it like that. No, it's not going to

00:45:34.220 prevent you from getting COVID, but it really can make COVID like a nothing for you. If you do get

00:45:40.400 it, it really can. So I know people, it's gotten weird. People online talk about how like my blood's

00:45:46.240 pure, you know, I haven't gotten the vaccine. My blood is pure. It's like that it has nothing to do

00:45:50.760 with purity of blood. It has to do with you living. You got to live, you got to live to make these

00:45:54.640 arguments and raise your kids and be with your buddies and go to the bowling alley and go to

00:45:57.940 the Applebee's. And as much as they politicize the vaccines on both sides, I do hope people see that

00:46:04.680 I I'm pro vaccine. I just, I'm not, I'm anti mandate and I'm certainly anti, anti anybody telling

00:46:09.980 me what to do with my kids. So I can understand these folks. One of my frustrations is what I try

00:46:15.140 to get across in the piece is, um, if you want to get people vaccinated, vaccine mandates, it's not the

00:46:23.280 way to go. Yelling is not the way to go. Scolding is not the way to go. Laughing when somebody who's

00:46:28.600 not vaccinated dies is not the way to go. It's only pushing people more into a corner. The way to go 0.98

00:46:34.300 is to actually hold that, hold that thought. Cause that's a good place to leave it before we squeeze

00:46:37.720 in a break and who exactly you need to convince if you want to get somebody to take that back.

00:46:43.520 So Chris, the only person who can convince a vaccine hesitant or somebody who doesn't want

00:46:57.040 to get the vaccine to take a vaccine is who is somebody in their community. Somebody, you know,

00:47:02.960 it can't be a talking head. It can't be a politician. It can't be, you know, LeBron James.

00:47:09.260 It can't be anybody like that. It has to be somebody who just, you know, is in the community

00:47:13.660 as part of the kind of basketball pickup team they play on or part of the, you know,

00:47:19.320 go to the hair salon they go to. It has to be somebody who kind of just, you just have to

00:47:23.220 basically, you know, family member who kind of just talks and who knows them and talks people

00:47:28.060 through in a, you know, in a non-political way, man, just like, you know, just kind of just, Hey,

00:47:32.860 you know, I, I have these conversations all the time because I, I, you know, I'm, I,

00:47:37.400 and places like that. And I just, you know, I, I basically try to be very polite and just say,

00:47:42.660 Hey, you know, Hey, probably better. You get it. You know, it's, it's gonna, it's,

00:47:45.840 it makes it, makes it, makes it less likely you die. You know, that's a good thing.

00:47:51.020 Well, and it's like, I mean, hopefully people are starting to feel a little bit more comfortable

00:47:53.880 with it now that it's been out for so long. You know, I mean, there absolutely have been deaths

00:47:57.580 and there have been complications from the vaccine, but they're, they're minuscule compared

00:48:02.100 in number compared to the number that have had it without incident.

00:48:05.260 I guess one of my frustrations about the whole COVID debate is I think, again,

00:48:09.780 it's another example of how the extremes can, can dominate the conversation. I think that the

00:48:15.060 normal, the normal view, the bulk view is, is been, you know, Hey, get the vaccine,

00:48:23.160 get boosted if you're in a high, high risk group and, and move on, you know, and, and,

00:48:30.180 because that's, that's what, that's what the vaccines allow you to do is to,

00:48:35.260 is to move on and, yes. And, and that's kind of where most people are. And that's where,

00:48:42.520 you know, and you don't hear that view a lot because it's, it's not, you know, cause it's not,

00:48:48.000 it's not politically convenient. And the thing is, is it's just, you know, people and people,

00:48:54.620 again, it's a common sense view is that doesn't mean there aren't going to still be deaths.

00:48:58.300 It doesn't mean COVID is still not a big issue. It just means that the, the reality is that the

00:49:07.260 bulk of the people want to live their lives and they have a vaccine that allows them to go on and

00:49:11.300 live their lives with, with, with moderate to very, very low risk. And that's, and that's,

00:49:17.680 that's where people are. And I think it's, I think unless, unless the administration gets there,

00:49:22.840 it's going to, I mean, I think there are, this administration is already toast. I think the 22

00:49:27.120 elections are going to completely crush the Democrats because, because COVID policy is,

00:49:32.180 is impacts everybody. And so does inflation. Those are two things that, you know, that,

00:49:36.580 that are, are here and working against the back row. So, but I think there's a chance that,

00:49:41.900 you know, if, if the Biden administration were to, were to get some sensible, you know, sensible

00:49:47.280 thoughts on this and move on to where most normal people are, he, he, he could survive, but I doubt

00:49:54.340 he will. And so what is he doing? What is Joe Biden doing in the wake of that poll? I just read in

00:49:59.500 terms of priorities and what you just said, he's focused on voting rights. He wants to federalize

00:50:03.760 elections, which is not even close to on the front page for, as you say, the back row.

00:50:10.820 Yeah. You know, again, news trickles down. It has to be a big event. People like politics has to

00:50:19.640 impact people for them to care about it. And COVID and inflation has impact people. And you, you know,

00:50:24.620 I'm really tired. I'm really tired of the front row. Well, actually inflation. Well, actually,

00:50:29.300 well, actually, you know what? Inflation is fucking annoying. It's hurting people. It's impacting their 0.98

00:50:35.400 lives. It's messing up their world and they don't like it. So, you know, they're going to vote,

00:50:39.820 they're going to vote whoever's in power out. If there's inflation, they're going to vote whoever's

00:50:43.560 in power out. If COVID continues to linger and COVID continues to impact their lives and it impacts

00:50:48.940 if, if they can send their kids to school, it impacts, if they can go into a mall, it impacts,

00:50:54.240 you know, if they can have the back, you barbecue, et cetera, et cetera. And those two things are going

00:50:59.860 to, I don't think there's anything Biden can do at this point. I think it's, I mean, I think it's,

00:51:03.840 I think the 22 elections, the Dems are toast because, you know, again, it's not, people think about

00:51:09.600 politics. You can't unleash, you know, you can't give five speeches at Georgetown or Harvard and

00:51:16.240 that's not going to change. People don't care. It's what's impacting their life. And right now,

00:51:20.420 COVID and inflation are impacting their life. So, you know.

00:51:23.620 Well, and on inflation, his policy has been to just sort of tell us not to believe our lion eyes.

00:51:28.420 You know, it's transitory, it's transitory. No, it's not bad. And then the press is writing like,

00:51:31.760 well, you should shut up. You're mad you can't get a Peloton right now. Oh my God, 0.68

00:51:36.200 that's not, that's not who's being affected by inflation. The rich people are not the ones who

00:51:41.920 are really impacted by inflation. The ones buying Pelotons, right? It's the people who have to watch

00:51:47.340 it very carefully when they have to go buy their groceries every week. They're worried they're not

00:51:51.740 going to be able to make their car payment. I understand. I have these people in my family.

00:51:55.120 I understand this. That's not the right group. You know, going to the TNA and your pump bill is

00:52:04.620 now 40 instead of 30, 30. It's a big deal, man. You know, like, and so. They can't be told that it's

00:52:12.080 a lie. You can't, well, actually inflation. You can't go, well, actually, because, you know,

00:52:17.400 again, it's people see through the shit. They see through the bullshit. And it's just like this 1.00

00:52:22.400 common sense, man. Inflation is bad. Like, and so it impacts them. And so they don't want it. And so

00:52:28.200 they're going to throw it out. Whoever is responsible for it and Biden's the president.

00:52:32.340 So he's responsible for it. I also think these vaccine mandates are, are not, you know,

00:52:37.220 they're not going to bode well for folks in the back row when it comes to voting time, because

00:52:42.180 a lot of these folks are more working class folks who are getting swept up into this vaccine mandate

00:52:47.240 and they don't want to have to lose their job if they don't want to get it. You know,

00:52:51.880 we've seen that too. Let me, let me shift gears and just ask you a little bit about what I kicked

00:52:56.220 it off with, because I do think some of the press and the way they're going with our political

00:53:02.280 narratives, it really makes me think they're more out of touch than ever, Chris. I mean, that,

00:53:06.460 that New York Times piece suggesting that what we need, the answer to the problem right now

00:53:11.340 is a split ticket of Joe Biden and Liz Cheney. I mean, it's obviously like that. That's insane.

00:53:19.840 So that's clearly written by a Democrat. Was it? Who was it? Was it Tom Friedman? Who was it?

00:53:23.780 It was Tom Friedman. So obviously written by a Democrat, somebody who doesn't understand the

00:53:30.440 right, because the right hates Liz Cheney. I'm sorry, but they do. That's a reality. Only the left

00:53:36.500 likes Liz Cheney at this point because she's been very condemned. She's been quick to condemn Trump

00:53:41.960 and Republicans who believe his story about the election and so on. I actually had my team pull

00:53:46.180 the numbers for me just so I could see. Overall, only 7% of Americans, nevermind Republicans,

00:53:52.040 have a favorable, very favorable view of Liz. And they say amongst Republicans, CBS poll, 69% say

00:54:00.120 she is not on message with our party. So nobody like, what do you want? That's not the answer.

00:54:07.020 And then you got Doug showing what I love. I just, when I, when I saw that, when I saw that

00:54:10.400 headline, all I could think of is remember what the elites wanted the 2016 election to be. They

00:54:15.840 want it to be Hillary versus Jeb, you know? Yeah. Like, you know, I, I actually said Tom Friedman

00:54:21.880 got it wrong. He, he was shooting for the Hillary versus Jeb energy. That's what he should have

00:54:25.560 proposed. Like, I mean, it's just, it's, it's just, it's laughable at this point. Like, you know,

00:54:32.620 it's like, it's kind of the, it's, you know, Tom Friedman is a perfect Davos kid. Like, you know,

00:54:37.180 it's like, he's just, he's like, he's so out of touch. I mean, the only time he, again, it's like,

00:54:41.800 it's that joke. The only time he ever tells a story about a real person is it's their cat, his cab

00:54:46.080 driver. Like, you know, like he doesn't know anybody else. I mean, it's just, I mean, it's like this

00:54:54.160 generation of playing, they're playing like sim politics, you know, they're just like,

00:54:57.940 they're sitting in their little room in front of their computer, scared of normal people. So they

00:55:01.860 can't talk to them playing, coming up with fantasy politics. Like, you know, sure. You Biden versus

00:55:08.920 Cheney. Yeah. By the way, one of the points you raised, I wanted to, I wanted to ask you about,

00:55:17.620 because you're talking about the back row and COVID policy and so on. My experience with the back row

00:55:22.260 is they don't scare easy. And I do think that explains some of the difference in attitude

00:55:27.480 between them and those so-called front row when it comes to COVID. Like they're, A, they're not

00:55:33.060 terrified about losing their lives and B, they're used to taking risk and having some negative

00:55:38.340 consequences and they realize it tends to end fine. Yeah. I think, I think the big issue is that

00:55:45.280 they're better judges of risk assessment than people realize because they have to do that. I mean,

00:55:50.660 they, they, that's their lies, risk assessment. You know, you, you, and they understand the

00:55:56.580 consequences of a bad action because it's, they've had bad actions and they, they, they suffer the

00:56:01.040 consequences more, you know, it's kind of the sheltered versus unsheltered meal. And the other

00:56:05.220 thing is like, you know, what, what, what a lot of people in the, in the, the elites are scared to

00:56:12.080 admit or won't admit is that they kind of like the sheltering in place. They kind of like the,

00:56:16.240 the, the, um, the restrictions. Um, they're not, you know, that it, it may, it's comfortable for

00:56:21.620 them. Um, because that, you know, and it's not necessarily, the restrictions are not comfortable

00:56:27.140 for the back row. So, um, so it's convenient. There was a quote from Rose Kennedy, you know,

00:56:33.400 the matriarch of the Kennedy family, the mother of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and all that

00:56:37.880 crew. And it, it was, um, better, a broken bone than a broken spirit, you know? So she let her

00:56:46.660 kids take big risks. And of course they did come back to both help and haunt those children, but

00:56:52.240 that's the way life goes. But I, I feel, I feel like these people who want to shelter in place all

00:56:56.920 the time and want the most restrictive policies and are terrified of getting a little virus and

00:57:00.360 what, and like want to control everybody else's behavior. They're in the, they're,

00:57:04.220 they have broken spirits. They didn't take enough risks. They don't understand. You can

00:57:07.840 break a bone and you, it will heal and you'll be fine. I mean, the, the, the degree people are

00:57:15.820 going to me, to me, the most frustrating thing is in this whole thing is they don't, they haven't

00:57:22.420 factored in, in their calculations. And that's what it is. It's calculations for the people, how

00:57:28.660 important human on human interaction is for people, how, how central community is. So one of the things I

00:57:35.520 write about my book is the central role of McDonald's and what I, what, what, what I keep

00:57:39.640 on showing is that McDonald's are community centers and their community centers, because think about

00:57:44.620 that. McDonald's are made, are fast food franchises. They're meant for a quick, immediate

00:57:48.560 transactions, but their community centers tells you how much people want community. People need to be

00:57:54.420 around other people. Like you can't, you can't play this game of policy where you build a spreadsheet

00:58:01.160 and say, this, this is more efficient. This is, this saves X lives. So therefore let's do it.

00:58:05.040 You're not calculating the cost of people being removed from people. Like, you know, the stories

00:58:09.920 I've heard of people, especially during the early lockdown phases of things that were denied of people

00:58:15.060 and how, how impactful that's been. And I will say, and this will probably anger some people on the

00:58:19.620 right, that I think a lot of the increase in the crime that we've had in 2020 and 2021 is due to the

00:58:26.400 fact that a lot of children are out of school, especially working class, poorer kids, where

00:58:31.240 a lot of the crime is, are, they're, they're denied the structure of, of schools and they're denied

00:58:36.820 being with their friends and they're denied being in communities. And it was, it leads to depression,

00:58:43.160 boredom, bad behavior. And so I don't think, I really worry like in five, six years, we'll, we'll,

00:58:51.540 won't fully understand until then the full cost that we've, we've done, especially to teens and

00:58:57.500 children, when we've basically denied people, the bill, the ease of, of getting together.

00:59:04.220 Yeah. I think the right would agree with you on that, Chris. I think, I think all of America is

00:59:09.060 starting to realize that the, the consequences of shutting schools are catastrophic. I mean,

00:59:15.140 they're beyond. And even I, I've been so outspoken about, I can't stand the masks. Um, I am just

00:59:24.140 at one. Yeah, I'm very, I know I'm very lucky to be at a school that's open. Yeah, go ahead.

00:59:28.840 One quick thing is, um, part of the reason that recent schools are closing is because of

00:59:32.920 teachers are getting ill. So, um, I myself recently signed up to be a substitute teacher.

00:59:38.880 I haven't gotten, I haven't got called yet. Um, I haven't, my application went in like three weeks

00:59:44.040 ago, but a teacher, you know, if, if, if people out there are actually concerned about school

00:59:48.060 closing, some of it is due to the fact that staff shortages, um, and you can't go in like COVID

00:59:54.460 spreading like wildfire right now. And you can't go in for at least five days if you've got it and

00:59:58.080 blah, blah, blah. It's like, we've got to think of a different way for these teachers. Cause you

01:00:01.080 know, now that COVID for most people is basically a cold, we can't stop, can't keep making them stay

01:00:06.040 at home every day and expect society to function. But I, you know, someone called me out when I,

01:00:10.900 when I was yelling about school closings and they said, well, put your money where your mouth is.

01:00:15.100 And he, that person was right. So I signed up to be a substitute teacher. Cause I should be willing,

01:00:18.960 if I'm calling out saying school closings are bad, I should be willing to go in and teach.

01:00:22.960 Um, so I would tell other people that, you know, that's, that's one, one thing to think about

01:00:27.740 doing is, can you just do it? Can you just, can you can just like sign up to be a substitute teacher?

01:00:32.320 I haven't, I haven't, I put the application and I have, I, that was two weeks ago. I haven't got

01:00:36.100 pulled back, but they've, they have relaxed. I happen to have a PhD. So, you know, um,

01:00:41.380 Oh yeah, that helps. Yeah. Um, but, um, they, they do, they do have reached, they have relaxed

01:00:48.200 assist, the, um, the, um, requirements to become a substitute teacher.

01:00:53.240 Yeah. They still do have the box on there. That makes you prove that you're a Democrat,

01:00:56.600 however, so you could get in, but I could not.

01:01:00.400 They did not have that box.

01:01:01.560 Oh, that's awesome. Chris, I would love to have you back and continue this discussion. You're

01:01:05.940 fascinating. Really, really appreciate all the great work you've been doing.

01:01:10.260 All right. Well, thank you very much for having me again.

01:01:12.400 Yeah. All the best. Wow. All right. Coming up, we are going to spend the last block of our show

01:01:17.400 looking into the future and the future that's already here. Our next guest is going to talk to

01:01:23.080 you about what your identity is going to look like in this new digital era and how a face scan

01:01:28.520 might be able to show you what age you'll be when you die, what diseases you're likely to get,

01:01:35.980 uh, and more. Uh, you do not want to miss futurist Tracy follows. She's here next. 1.00

01:01:46.520 So what does our future look like? Deep fakes, the metaverse, get ready because the future's here.

01:01:53.180 Joining me now is futurist CEO of future made and author of the book, the future of you. Can your

01:02:00.520 identity survive 21st century technology? Tracy follows Tracy. So good to have you here. So

01:02:06.740 I'm fascinated by all of this, right? Like where it's going. And let me just start broadly because

01:02:13.760 this is your area of expertise. When you think about what's coming 10 years down the line, you know,

01:02:18.820 15 years down the line, what, what gets you most excited, scared, or intrigued?

01:02:25.780 Um, all of it, I guess. Um, thank you for having me here today. Um, yeah, all of it. I mean,

01:02:31.100 there are some really big trends. Obviously we've talked about globalization for a long time. Um,

01:02:36.200 we've had, uh, technology, digital technology, so digitization, we've got increasing feminization,

01:02:42.000 but I think the thing that really intrigued me was how we think about ourselves in the future,

01:02:48.500 how we represent ourselves, how we treat ourselves, um, biologically, psychologically.

01:02:54.280 And I came to the conclusion that actually we're heading towards a future where the psychology of

01:03:00.700 the self and the biology of the self are, are really going to be now joined by another dimension,

01:03:05.840 I suppose, which is the technology of the self. And so as we head down, as you say, into the next,

01:03:11.540 next 10 years, um, I can very well see us getting to 2030 and needing something like,

01:03:18.860 I don't know, digital bill of rights, because we're using so much technology, not just externally,

01:03:24.900 but internally to, to the self now. And actually we need to have probably more rights over that than,

01:03:31.700 um, than we will, we seem to have at the moment even. Yes. Okay. So speaking of putting things

01:03:38.100 inside of you in terms of technology, there's wearable tech now, and there's a TikToker who

01:03:43.980 goes by the name of chip girl, um, who's a great example of this. And you, you, um, you, you just

01:03:49.880 touched on it. This woman, she's got 2.6 million followers. She makes videos about her techie life 0.87

01:03:54.060 and she and her husband have RFID chips implanted in their hands to make their home accessible only

01:04:01.560 to them. We have a clip of her. This is soundbite nine. I call myself chip girl because I have an

01:04:06.860 RFID chip inside of my hand that unlocks things around our house. Today, somebody asked me what

01:04:11.880 I can open with my hand. So I'm going to show you. This is also a door that it opens. We've got

01:04:16.560 another door that it opens. It also opens our bedroom door as well as our office, as well as

01:04:22.740 the drawers in our office. This is our nightstand, which can also be opened with a chip. Our closet is

01:04:29.680 chips. And this is really cool. We can chip all of the doors. Look, look at it. He can even lock

01:04:37.100 up our towels. See what the chip block. My makeup room chip guy has an even cooler chip. He's got a

01:04:44.040 dual chip and he can hold information like a website or social media page. My hand can also open every

01:04:51.180 door in my house. I just grabbed the handle and turn it. Why is this necessary? Well, clearly this is

01:04:57.000 the new normal. I think this isn't necessary. I do know somebody with a chip like that, my friend

01:05:02.700 Nick. I think, you know, it's an experiment. We always want to upgrade our bodies, well, some of us

01:05:08.820 do, and to upgrade our cognition. And I think that's being applauded in some areas. Obviously,

01:05:17.620 it gives you a story to tell about yourself in social media, which is increasingly important

01:05:22.180 when it comes to the representation of the self, of course, to sort of invent oneself and reinvent

01:05:27.500 oneself in these new media. But also, I think people are just curious and they want to know what

01:05:32.700 this technology will do. I did interview people and talk to people in the book who are absolutely

01:05:39.960 clear that they think that at some point in the future, we'll be getting these sort of upgrades,

01:05:46.180 if you like, over time. And that as humans, a lot of us will want these upgrades.

01:05:51.140 This is what people think is going to happen if you take the vaccine. Some people think that

01:05:55.600 Bill Gates is putting one of those chips in you. It's not true.

01:05:59.080 Well, exactly. Exactly that. So there are many people who are very enthusiastic about it,

01:06:03.540 and many people who are incredibly reticent about it and are worried and quite terrified. It all comes

01:06:09.340 down to this idea of how much autonomy do you have over this technology? Do you have the rights to

01:06:15.680 use it in the way you want to use it and have the control over your own data so it's user-centric,

01:06:21.780 or does a technology platform, the provider, the service that offers this you, do they have the

01:06:27.040 control over it? I think that's pretty much what it comes down to.

01:06:29.580 Well, what about that? Because I read that you tried this sort of biomarker, that's how it was

01:06:37.460 described, is something that scans your face and analyzes and rates your face according to age,

01:06:42.520 beauty, gender, emotional state, and life expectancy. Is it going to tell you how beautiful

01:06:47.320 you are, what your main emotional state is, and how long you're going to live? What is this thing?

01:06:52.900 Well, I think that this is a project. It's on my blog, but this was a project that's been rolled

01:06:57.560 out as a research project, and I think it had European, like EU funding. But it is fascinating.

01:07:03.460 Obviously, you hold your phone up, and it basically reads you. I mean, this is the whole thing.

01:07:09.740 Yeah, it is an app. And it's pretty scary, because what it does, I mean, I don't want to spoil it for

01:07:15.080 you, but as you go through it, it then tells you towards the end some of the things that you didn't

01:07:19.720 know it was kind of testing you for and checking you for and reading you for.

01:07:23.540 Yeah, don't tell us. What's the name of the app?

01:07:26.820 Oh, I can't remember what it is now.

01:07:28.920 Oh, we've got to find out.

01:07:30.360 I'll tell you. You can put it in the notes. But yeah, I mean, this is exactly it. But this is,

01:07:36.160 we are becoming machine readable. And so whether it's RFID tags, or it's an app,

01:07:41.360 or it's logging into Facebook, wherever it might be, and of course, this will be exacerbated,

01:07:45.300 because we'll be in a sort of immersive 3D media when we're in the metaverse. These are all

01:07:53.160 important things that I think we should be thinking about. What regulations do we want?

01:07:57.460 What ethics do we want? What privacy, what autonomy do we want? And at the moment,

01:08:02.780 probably the public aren't engaged in any of this.

01:08:06.020 Even just like a retina scan, it's like, well, who's going to have access to it? And who else could

01:08:09.400 use it? And where could it be used against me? I read on this in the same report about you,

01:08:15.020 and taking this test. It said your dominant expression was sad. What? Yes.

01:08:21.820 How long did you stare at it for? And what are you supposed to do? Like grin like a moron while

01:08:25.500 you're looking at your phone? I think it's because I was in my pajamas doing it. I don't know. 1.00

01:08:31.420 Yeah, it said I was sad. And quite frankly, when it came back with my age, it was older than I am.

01:08:36.340 I was not happy. Oh, it said you look older than you actually are. Is that what you're saying?

01:08:42.920 Oh, no. And it told you you were going to live to be 81. How did you feel about that? Good or bad?

01:08:49.800 Well, you know, this is an interesting thing, because I've been looking at this idea of,

01:08:54.000 you know, predicting longevity or mortality, because increasingly, we're getting to the point

01:09:00.080 where people want to use biomarkers. So data, but biomarkers to to work out how healthy we are.

01:09:09.140 So for example, we've known for a long time that whatever our cholesterol levels are,

01:09:13.600 might be an indication to whether we might suffer heart disease or something. Well,

01:09:17.060 there's a whole plethora of these biomarkers now. And increasingly, people are kind of saying,

01:09:21.920 well, actually, if you have enough of these biomarkers, then you don't necessarily have to

01:09:26.440 have, we don't need to talk about lifespan in a chronological age, we can talk about healthspan.

01:09:33.220 And increasingly, I'm reading lots of reports about how, you know, 270 year olds, if you like,

01:09:39.720 one healthy and one less healthy are going to be treated in very different ways, not just by

01:09:44.840 insurance companies, but by anyone really. And we can get to this point where, you know,

01:09:49.680 we are so tracked, or we're tracking ourselves, as we saw in your video, that actually, you know,

01:09:55.220 we are wanting to get feedback all the time on, you know, well, how healthy am I? How many years

01:10:00.960 left have I got? How many? What might I, what might I die of? What, what might I survive?

01:10:07.920 You know, I don't even know if I do it. I didn't, I don't want to get that 23andMe sort of DNA,

01:10:13.580 like, I might do like the background thing, but not to know, they'll tell you, like, these are the

01:10:18.820 latent diseases that could come out in you. Like, I'm not sure I want to know. And I definitely don't

01:10:22.660 want somebody looking at me telling me what age I'm going to die, though, I don't think this app can

01:10:27.020 actually do that. But it might be just fun to try. Okay, my team tells me the app is

01:10:30.840 called How Normal Am I? Available at Sherpa, S-H-E-R-P-A dot E-D-U. So it could be fun for,

01:10:38.840 you know, just to check out for kicks. But let's talk about one area in which, like,

01:10:44.320 the future is here, and it's scary. And that is deep fakes. As a newswoman, these terrify me. I mean,

01:10:51.560 I, it's not too long in the future that everything we run, we're going to have to ask ourselves,

01:10:56.220 is that the actual Rochelle Walensky, Anthony Fauci, Joe Biden? Or is that a deep fake? The I

01:11:03.800 have two that my team put together to show the audience and people who are listening to this,

01:11:07.920 go check out our YouTube. We posted about two hours after the show ends, youtube.com slash Megan

01:11:12.200 Kelly, because you've got to see these examples. One I've seen one I haven't. The first is Richard

01:11:17.840 Nixon. So apparently, they released a transcript recently of the speech Richard Nixon was going to

01:11:22.440 give if Apollo 11 didn't end well, if everybody died. And it was a paper transcript. He never,

01:11:31.240 thank God, had to deliver that speech. But they put together a deep fake showing him allegedly doing

01:11:35.920 it, you know, quote him allegedly doing it. And here it is, part of it.

01:11:40.180 Good evening, my fellow Americans.

01:11:44.720 Faith has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon

01:11:52.180 to rest in peace. For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come

01:11:58.720 will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

01:12:08.100 So that never happened. I mean, that's like, we have to remind ourselves that that looks like it

01:12:14.580 happened, but it didn't happen. It's a deep fake. It reminds me of the one that the Times put together

01:12:21.140 of JFK delivering his speech that he would have given in Dallas. So they managed to put that the

01:12:27.680 voice fakery together. But there are many companies working on this. So voice deep fakes, as we might

01:12:34.520 might think of it, that are building these interactive AI that are taking all of these snippets from

01:12:41.200 people's speeches or conversations or appearances, logging it, recording it, in anticipation of when that

01:12:49.100 person is no longer alive, they'll still be able to create a conversation and create a language and

01:12:55.540 get the correct intonation. So that there is some sense of, they'll call it the digital afterlife.

01:13:01.940 So if somebody passes, then you can still have a conversation with them. I mean, there are so

01:13:07.120 many apps now doing this and quite a lot of services.

01:13:09.700 Who thinks of the responses? Is it, you know, sophisticated?

01:13:14.100 Yeah, but like, I can see how they could fake, you know, okay, read the Richard Nixon speech.

01:13:18.600 But how do they have somebody have a conversation with you? I mean, somebody has to do the thinking

01:13:22.800 in terms of responses.

01:13:25.180 Yeah, and that's what the AI does, because it's so sophisticated, you can do that. There's a company

01:13:29.840 called Hereafter AI. The guy lost his father, but before he did, because he knew he was terminally ill,

01:13:35.220 he recorded a lot of conversations so that when he passed, he could still have these conversations.

01:13:40.820 Now, one knows they're not real, of course. But in terms of having some value, it turns out that

01:13:47.720 it's of some comfort to some people, and that they can feel that somebody's still with them and around.

01:13:54.340 Well, it's kind of like Kim Kardashian had that birthday party in Kanye West when they were still

01:13:57.340 together, had a hologram of her dead dad, Robert Kardashian show up and with a message, which,

01:14:03.240 no, no, thank you. I don't, I would not want that. Okay, two more on this front, because we do have

01:14:09.240 the voice as well, this Adobe voice Photoshop. It was so realistic, they didn't release it,

01:14:15.940 because they knew it could be misused. I'll get to that in one second, but I'm dying to see my team

01:14:20.340 has one of me, a deep fake of me from the movie Snow White and the Huntsman, which I haven't yet seen.

01:14:26.980 We will see it together. Now, here we go. Oh, it's just showing my face.

01:14:33.240 Oh, that's so weird. Oh, well, this version of me is much more attractive than the real deal.

01:14:40.500 Whoever played Snow White and the Huntsman was a very good looking, had a very good looking body.

01:14:46.160 That one I didn't find as realistic. Okay, it's fine. They kind of just smushed my face into this

01:14:49.780 body. But let's listen to the Adobe voice Photoshop, where they, you set it up, Tracy,

01:14:54.800 because apparently they, like this technology is so good, they realized they could never release it

01:14:59.940 to the public. It would be misused. I don't think I've seen this one, actually.

01:15:03.860 Oh, you haven't. Okay, then let's just listen to it together. Let's comment on it. Let's have a look

01:15:07.360 at it, yeah. Here we go. Introducing Project Vocal. Project Vocal allows you to edit speech

01:15:14.980 in text. So let's bring it up. So I'll just load this audio piece into a vocal.

01:15:22.960 I jumped out of the bed and I kissed my dogs and my wife, in that order.

01:15:31.720 Yeah. So how about we mess with who he actually kissed? And here we go.

01:15:39.120 And I kissed Jordan and my dogs. 1.00

01:15:54.260 Well, you're a witch. 0.99

01:15:57.220 We can actually type small phrases. So let's say and play back. 0.97

01:16:04.280 And I kissed Jordan three times.

01:16:10.940 So Jordan Peele is one of the guys involved there. So those phrases were never uttered by

01:16:17.600 the speaker. They were made up by the computer and they sound exactly the same.

01:16:22.720 I think this could be misused, not only the voice, but the visual and the deepfake in general in ways

01:16:33.300 that, forget, news people have to deal with. This could lead to wars. This could be, I mean,

01:16:38.780 it could be potentially catastrophic.

01:16:40.960 Oh, it could be. And first off, it will become a massive industry. And then, obviously, it can be

01:16:46.640 weaponized, as you quite rightly point out. And it is to some extent already.

01:16:50.960 There's a thought that we will have to have some kind of digital forensics around this,

01:16:57.160 some tools, because we're not going to be able to tell the difference between the real and the

01:17:01.700 fake ourselves. It's going to pass us by. We just can't do that as humans. But we will need some sort

01:17:08.120 of algorithmic tools. We'll need some sort of AI as an assistive service, probably, to try and detect

01:17:14.440 what's real and what's fake. But, of course, then you're becoming very, very dependent upon more and

01:17:20.300 more machine learning, more and more AI, and not making these decisions or these judgments oneself

01:17:25.440 because one can't.

01:17:27.940 Well, that's what worries me. So I like technology. You know, I feel like it's exciting. And for the

01:17:32.740 most part, it can enhance your life. But as with the iPhone, I tend to love it and hate it in equal

01:17:38.440 degrees. So technology can be used against us. And I was thinking about it when I was looking at

01:17:44.420 the Apple AirTag, right? And this is something where you can use it to track every movement

01:17:55.240 that you make. So if you don't want to lose your keys or your dog or your wallet, you could put an

01:18:03.260 Apple ID tag on it. But this has already potentially been used, I guess, by stalkers

01:18:09.400 against victims or thieves, right? So there's, you know, what, how do we reconcile that conflict?

01:18:19.020 We have to get more engaged in this. And people need to understand some of this technology better,

01:18:23.940 or certainly its implications. I think one of the things that's happening a lot with the internet

01:18:29.660 is it's incredibly, obviously, it's connected, and it's making us all interconnected. But it's

01:18:34.820 pushing us all together to behave in a certain way together, and really creating a collectivism.

01:18:41.860 And that is in turn, creating a groupthink. And anybody who has a dissenting voice or a different

01:18:48.000 opinion, isn't kind of going along with this, this collectivism. And what I'm trying to say is

01:18:55.280 it's very, it's very important that we have our individual identity and autonomy over our identity.

01:19:02.000 So if we feel some of these technologies are sacrificing that, and I think with some of the

01:19:08.280 stuff you've just been talking about, deepfakes, or even tracking or surveillance, you know, it can be

01:19:13.640 that we then succumb to this technology that then has become so powerful or has a sense of control over

01:19:20.240 us, rather than us controlling it. And there's no other way around it, other than us trying to make

01:19:25.500 ourselves more cognizant of it, more aware of it, and understand the implications and bring that to

01:19:30.980 the debate and the discussion.

01:19:33.400 Well, one of the things that interests me about it is promotion of longevity, right? I mean,

01:19:38.880 if they can use tech to extend our lifespan, you know, the pill that makes you age slower,

01:19:46.080 or maybe that's more medicine and not tech. But they are, this is a tech thing. And it's a piece

01:19:51.980 of the futuristic business, extending our longevity. So what's happening there? And is there any reason

01:19:57.540 for, you know, celebration?

01:20:00.620 Well, I think there's a certain set of people who are looking at that. It's usually billionaires,

01:20:05.600 isn't it? Who want to extend their life. I think it's probably because it's the only thing they

01:20:13.560 can't overcome. I mean, with, with so much wealth, you can overcome so many of the barriers and

01:20:18.120 obstacles in life, but you know, death is going to get us all.

01:20:21.620 The great equalizer.

01:20:23.080 Yeah, exactly. Death and taxes, although not taxes anymore, just death. So I think this is,

01:20:30.780 this is why they're looking at longevity. And there's a real resurgence in the likes of

01:20:36.840 cryogenics. So the ability to freeze oneself, or even just freeze one's

01:20:45.080 head, basically, if it's not the whole body, and then hope that there's going to be a sophisticated

01:20:53.320 technology that can revive one. And there's an awful lot of investment going into both,

01:20:58.740 as you say, the longevity science, trying to slow down the degradation of our cells and the aging of

01:21:05.280 the body. And also this idea of reviving us after we are sort of dead. There's a lot of work going on

01:21:13.300 in Berlin, biostasis. So yeah, so we seem to be, we seem to be, we want to keep our identity going as

01:21:23.760 long as possible. I think that's what it is. Some do. I mean, I definitely would like to live longer,

01:21:29.500 but I don't, I don't just want to, you know, I don't definitely don't want to be frozen and brought

01:21:33.260 back. That would be very scary. I don't want to, can you imagine somebody like George Washington

01:21:36.560 being brought back in today's day and age? He'd be terrifying.

01:21:40.480 Well, this is one of the things actually, because when, when you die, of course you,

01:21:44.200 you are handed over as human remains and you lose your identity. It's not like you can come back.

01:21:49.280 You have lost your identity then. So who are you coming back as and who are your friends and where

01:21:54.440 do you get a job? You know, there are some practical considerations.

01:21:57.440 Yeah. And what makes you, you, right? Like what makes you, you, is it just what's inside this

01:22:04.400 human frame or is it the timeframe in which you live and the people you surround yourself with and

01:22:10.020 the sum of your, in my case now, 51 years experience?

01:22:14.220 Exactly. And that's a very Buddhist way of thinking about it. You, you only are you really towards the

01:22:19.540 end of one's life because you are the sum of all of your experiences and interactions with everyone

01:22:23.860 you've ever known. Maybe I'm Buddhist. I don't know. I I'm, I'm kind of into Buddhism when I

01:22:29.440 hear about it. Um, okay. So I want to talk about 23andMe for just one second, because I do think

01:22:35.380 that's a fascinating concept. And I know some people who have gotten the health tracking done

01:22:39.120 where it's like, they say you've got, it's not like, I don't know if you could call it a latent

01:22:43.000 disease, but they can say you're more prone to get this disease. Predisposition. Predisposition.

01:22:48.740 Exactly. So how far has that technology come since, um, since it was unleashed?

01:22:55.240 I think that's probably gone a lot further than we, we know. Um, certainly that I know. Um,

01:23:01.560 but I, I did my own DNA testing because I did it because I wanted some, um, sort of functional

01:23:07.240 nutrition and I did that and I felt that was fine. And I checked out the company when I did it, that, uh,

01:23:12.240 I understood their, their privacy around their data, data principles and policies. Um,

01:23:17.700 but I think a lot of this sort of biological data, um, which is really valuable now, I mean,

01:23:24.480 it's so valuable to companies and let's think about it. There's more data in the, in the biological

01:23:29.420 world than there is anywhere really. Um, that they, that we don't really know what's happening

01:23:34.780 with this data. Um, in the UK, there was quite an uproar when, um, we found out, we were told by the

01:23:41.980 government that our GP data was going to be given to third parties for research.

01:23:46.540 What's GP data?

01:23:48.640 The general practitioners, so our doctors, so the patient records, our patient data was going to be

01:23:54.480 shared with third parties for research purposes. Yeah. And people were in uproar. It's now gone

01:23:59.700 back into consultation because people just did not understand that this has gone this far. Um, so it

01:24:06.140 is now in consultation as I understand. But one of the interesting things about this is that to my

01:24:11.520 point about the collectivism as being a good thing and individuality and identity, personal identity

01:24:17.880 being a bad thing or a selfish thing, what we're seeing is this, um, mantra now and a narrative about

01:24:23.600 the solidarity approach for biological data. So we heard it around COVID and we're hearing it around

01:24:30.920 other things and it equates quite well with the, um, the, uh, the world economic forums report on shaping

01:24:39.020 the internet of bodies, that there is somehow some sense of, um, common purpose and, um, and community

01:24:47.780 spirit to make one's personal biological data, um, ready and available to be used in the public forum for the

01:24:56.040 public good. Now I can see all the advantages of that. And there are indeed advantages of it, of course,

01:25:00.800 in research particularly, but I think there's definitely a pressure to, to give over more and

01:25:06.300 more and more biological data without really thinking it through. Um, and I think, you know,

01:25:10.940 the COVID passports, um, uh, area is, is just a glimpse of, of what's to come there.

01:25:17.320 That's right. Because people are worried. I mean, there was a proposal not, not long ago,

01:25:20.500 just this week, I think in the news from, um, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who's the brother of Rahm Emanuel,

01:25:26.260 former Obama chief of staff and mayor of Chicago. But Zeke is a big time medical guy and he and some

01:25:32.060 others issued these papers and they were talking about some sort of medical registry or some,

01:25:37.620 some roving medical squad that might sort of keep track of your medical information.

01:25:42.820 And it's, it's going to be electronic. I mean, I don't know that it's going to happen, but if it does,

01:25:47.420 it will be electronic and they will know a lot more about you than just whether you've gotten the COVID

01:25:50.920 vaccine. Then, you know, you, you have to worry somebody like Zeke Emanuel, he doesn't think you

01:25:55.060 should live past 75, that we should be extending people's lives past that point. Cause he thinks

01:25:59.160 you're kind of kind of out of gas at that point. As far as Zeke says, well, I don't want him to know

01:26:03.180 what's in my medical profile. What if I need a lung transplant? Zeke says I can't have it cause I'm

01:26:07.320 74, right? Like, I don't know. I just, I realize they already make these decisions every day, but

01:26:11.380 I, I think a lot of people don't want to give any more info to the government in particular

01:26:14.880 than they already have. Let me switch to something else. Cause I do, I want to ask you broad brush

01:26:19.100 the dumb, but fun questions. When you look ahead to the future, you know, you, when we were kids, 0.97

01:26:25.280 back in the 1970s, we used to watch the Jetsons and we saw Judy Jetson talking on the phone,

01:26:30.880 quote unquote, quote unquote phone with video. And you thought, Oh, that's so cool. Like,

01:26:35.620 imagine if you're talking to the phone, you can actually see the other person. Well,

01:26:39.280 of course we do that every day now, thanks to the iPhone. Our kids really don't know any other way.

01:26:44.180 They don't even understand really the landline. Um, you watch something like, uh, the back to the

01:26:48.900 future, you know, which was, I think in 1985, they had this hovering skateboard. Well, we have that,

01:26:54.600 we have it on land and we have it on water. We, so I, I wonder what you think the cool new tools

01:27:01.520 we might be using in the near or longterm might be, is there anything that virtual reality,

01:27:08.300 you know, glasses, what is it? Yeah. I mean, yes. Audio visual virtual reality or augmented

01:27:13.720 extended reality glasses. They're coming, they're already in the pipeline, but actually what's more

01:27:18.000 interesting is contact lenses. So the companies that working on the contact lenses that can give

01:27:23.120 you the sort of virtual reality, sorry, augmented reality overlay onto the, uh, physical world

01:27:29.080 through, um, through some really sophisticated contact lenses. I mean, one may or may not want

01:27:35.700 to want to use that sort of thing, but I think one of the things I'm most interested in is how the

01:27:40.700 smartphone or the device that you were just talking about disappears. Um, so that we have more

01:27:46.860 connected clothing and we have things like really innovative, um, shape-shifting materials so that

01:27:54.120 anything can portray imagery and anything can be connected. So I don't need my smartphone. I can just

01:28:01.640 have a gesture on my jacket or something like that. And that allows me to call someone or talk to

01:28:07.420 somebody in a sort of ambient context. So, yeah, so moving to sort of ambient computing and spatial

01:28:13.500 computing where the actual devices and the hardware sort of disintegrate, they, they move away and the

01:28:20.540 communication happens, you know, ambiently.

01:28:23.820 How would you do, you know, games, right? I have a 12, 10 and eight year old. They like to do games on an

01:28:29.700 iPhone. You think that can move into your jacket sleeve? I mean, how, how?

01:28:34.520 Oh yeah, definitely. So that, I mean, that's sort of happening already with virtual reality so that, um, if

01:28:40.000 you're doing body scans, it's as you move your body, that's you in the virtual reality game moving,

01:28:45.880 um, it, it kind of physically in the, in the immersive environment. So that's kind of happening.

01:28:52.240 And also there's a layer of biofeedback on that. So it's always, it's your point about surveilling us

01:28:58.780 and our body and our physicality. There's always a feedback loop with the data going from our body.

01:29:03.880 It's being measured. It's, um, the obs are being measured, if you like, and it's feeding back,

01:29:09.000 um, into how you're behaving and how you need to behave in my, how you might change. And one of

01:29:14.040 those sorts of things will be very interesting for the future of training and learning.

01:29:18.400 Wow. I can't imagine walking around with contacts in that augmented my reality. Uh, though I think it

01:29:25.260 would have been very useful for me during my 14 years of cable news. Well, there's always tomorrow.

01:29:31.440 Tracy follows. You're fascinating. Thank you so much for all the good information.

01:29:35.920 Oh, thanks for having me. All right. And don't forget her book is the future of you. Marco Rubio,

01:29:42.820 Senator Marco Rubio is here tomorrow. First time on the show. Don't miss that. We'll see you then.

01:29:48.940 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - January 13, 2022

Arrogance of the Elites and Our Alarming Digital Future, with Chris Arnade, David Zweig, and Tracey Follows ｜ Ep. 240

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