The Megyn Kelly Show - Biden Confused Again, and CNN Plus Already Getting Shut Down, with Fifth Column Hosts Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch

00:00:00.540 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.720 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Oh my gosh, we have an unbelievable program for you today.

00:00:17.520 News just broke that CNN Plus is shutting down after three weeks.

00:00:22.720 The official closed date, according to The New York Times, is April 3rd, I think.

00:00:25.900 It lasted one month. April 30th. Okay.

00:00:30.520 It literally just launched. They're in their third week. No one subscribed. No one wanted more CNN. Absolutely no one.

00:00:38.560 So it's shutting down. We'll get to that with our guests in a moment.

00:00:42.040 And there's so much more to go over today, including this. We'll have a story that you will hear first right here on our show.

00:00:48.020 As you know, we have been covering the Leah Thomas controversy for months, many have.

00:00:52.420 But now the debate over transgender swimmers is beginning to impact younger children, too.

00:00:57.780 In Seattle, a prominent summer swim league is expected to vote on a plan that would allow biological boys to compete in the girls division.

00:01:07.340 We're going to speak with two parents who are sounding the alarm.

00:01:09.320 But first, we begin with the CDC's mask mandate.

00:01:14.280 The Biden administration is appealing the decision, striking down its mask mandate and all federal transportation, including airlines, buses, trains and so on.

00:01:24.560 This, despite the ubiquitous images of people literally dancing in the aisles of airplanes, celebrating the end of this pointless thing.

00:01:32.240 Not only is this appeal a colossally stupid political move, it is also a legal loser.

00:01:39.540 The left had a meltdown this week over the judge who killed the mandate.

00:01:44.220 But I've now had the chance to read the entire decision.

00:01:46.340 And the reason they are attacking the judge and not her judgment is that the opinion was entirely sound.

00:01:52.480 It is well reasoned. It is methodical. It is well supported legally.

00:01:55.460 And in its descriptions of this administration's executive overreach, it is absolutely devastating.

00:02:02.180 Here is what the judge, Catherine Kimball Mazzell of the Middle District of Florida, found.

00:02:06.280 First, the CDC had no independent authority to issue such a sweeping mandate and any powers it did have would have to have been granted to it by Congress.

00:02:17.700 So did Congress empower the CDC to enact such a broad mandate?

00:02:23.060 No, found the court.

00:02:24.600 See, back in the 1940s, Congress authorized the CDC to enact regulations aimed at preventing the spread of communicable diseases.

00:02:32.700 This is what the DOJ relied on in arguing the CDC does have the power to mandate masks on federal transportation.

00:02:40.560 But the law at issue provides examples of what the CDC could regulate.

00:02:45.680 And it doesn't come close to gargantuan powers like forcing private citizens to wear garments on their faces for hours at a time.

00:02:53.300 It covers things like fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, and so on.

00:03:00.440 Sanitation. That's our hook. So thought the CDC. That's how we'll get a mask up.

00:03:05.200 But the court was not convinced that a mask sanitizes anything.

00:03:12.260 Sanitize, it found, means to clean something, which a mask clearly does not.

00:03:17.800 But zoom out a bit. All right. And it is clear that neither Congress nor the CDC themselves ever envisioned powers like this for this regulatory agency.

00:03:27.560 Prior to covid, this law had been very rarely invoked.

00:03:31.720 The most radical thing it had been used for was to prevent the import of small turtles due to salmonella risks.

00:03:38.680 That's it. Then covid hit and the CDC was suddenly drunk on its own power, using this 75 year old statute to shut down the cruise ship industry,

00:03:48.320 to stop landlords from evicting tenants who hadn't paid their rent and then to enact this mask mandate.

00:03:54.660 All three moves have now been struck down by the courts.

00:03:57.820 The court looked at the CDC's behavior and said to agree that it has such power would be to bestow the CDC with newly discovered, quote,

00:04:10.540 breathtaking, unheralded authority, something more akin to state police power than to an agency regulation over cleaning.

00:04:20.620 So, no, Congress never intended to grant little Rochelle Walensky or her predecessors with the powers of a king.

00:04:28.580 And even if it did, the CDC went about it all wrong, found the court.

00:04:34.000 You see, it would have had to provide the public with a chance to comment on this proposal for a period of 30 days.

00:04:40.820 Why didn't the CDC do that?

00:04:42.740 The CDC claimed, quote, given the public health emergency of covid, it simply couldn't.

00:04:48.620 Judge Kimball Mazzel saw right through that lie.

00:04:52.320 This mandate was not issued until until nearly a year into the pandemic, 11 months after the president had declared covid a national emergency.

00:05:02.640 And at a time when covid cases were on the decline, 30 days now couldn't be spared for the public to weigh in on an agency rule that had the power to send them to jail.

00:05:15.940 Well, no, nor did the CDC comply with the requirement that in dispensing with that 30 day notice and comment period, it provide a brief statement of the reasons why involving the peons of the public was allegedly impracticable.

00:05:34.140 Instead, it offered a single conclusory sentence about this being a public health emergency.

00:05:41.800 And that's it.

00:05:43.000 The court pointed out that when another federal agency mandated that certain health care workers get the vaccine, that agency provided four pages of reasoning and four justices of the Supreme Court would later find even that was insufficient.

00:05:56.900 The CDC here, one line, public health emergency.

00:06:01.860 They didn't respect the public enough to even explain why the people should have no say whatsoever in, quote, a regulation that would constrain their choices and actions via threats of criminal and civil penalties, including a thousand dollar fine, a year in jail and civil penalties from the FAA for, quote, unsafe behavior.

00:06:25.340 Finally, the court found that the CDC failed in its obligation to explain why it rejected viable alternatives to mandatory masking.

00:06:36.260 The CDC's only response was to repeat its oft cited belief that universal masking reduces transmission of covid.

00:06:44.700 OK, said the court.

00:06:47.220 But this mandate did not require universal masking.

00:06:50.300 It allowed anyone under two years old not to mask people with certain disabilities not to mask.

00:06:55.340 It exempted people who were, quote, eating, drinking or taking medication, as well as those who were, quote, experiencing difficulty breathing or feeling winded.

00:07:02.340 The court pointed all of this out, getting right to the heart of what we've all known from the start of this thing.

00:07:10.640 How does any of this make sense when we can have the mask down for long periods while we're eating and drinking?

00:07:16.720 What you knew was nuts while on board that airplane?

00:07:20.340 The court saw, too.

00:07:21.480 You weren't crazy.

00:07:22.860 It was all a farce.

00:07:24.520 And the court saw right through it.

00:07:26.920 Thus, the court concluded that in addition to being not authorized by Congress and not being appropriately enacted because it skipped the necessary notice and comment period, this rule could not stand because it was arbitrary.

00:07:38.840 It was capricious.

00:07:39.960 It was unnecessary.

00:07:41.200 It was nonsensical.

00:07:43.100 For all of these reasons, the mandate was found unlawful, which is why I believe this ruling will be upheld on appeal.

00:07:50.000 It'll go up to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is a more right leaning court.

00:07:54.080 Court and the U.S. Supreme Court is more right leaning these days as well.

00:07:58.220 So one, if not both of those courts is going to wind up upholding this.

00:08:02.020 I do not believe the Supreme Court, if it gets there, will strike down this ruling.

00:08:06.800 Finally, a word on this judge.

00:08:08.960 Her left wing critics excoriated her because she never tried a case before reaching the federal bench.

00:08:13.980 But the real problem they have with her is that she was a Trump appointee who once clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas.

00:08:19.260 As Glenn Greenwald pointed out yesterday on this program, you know who else never tried a case before getting to the federal bench?

00:08:26.020 Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, who is now two levels above Judge Mazzel on the federal bench.

00:08:33.200 Don't remember the liberals complaining about that then.

00:08:35.460 It is true that the American Bar Association rated Judge Kimball Mazzel not qualified, despite her extensive experience clerking for federal judges in the most prestigious courts in the United States and her time litigating at one of the best firms in the country.

00:08:50.580 But make no mistake, the ABA cannot stand conservatives.

00:08:54.180 It has a long history of reading as unqualified conservative judges whose positions on abortion, affirmative action and the like it opposes.

00:09:03.900 Its bias toward conservatives has been the subject of books, articles, endless commentary and so on.

00:09:09.600 It has deemed not qualified some of the most respected judges in the country and has a particular penchant for doing so to conservative women and minorities.

00:09:20.000 Because as we all know, the left reveres identity, skin color, sexual identity, gender, gender identity, unless the person is a Republican or not woke.

00:09:29.260 But Judge Kimball Mazzel does not seem to care about currying favor with the left, the ABA or any particular group.

00:09:37.320 She cares about the law.

00:09:39.200 And thank goodness, by the way, for Mitch McConnell and President Trump, who, despite their differences, worked together to get judges like her on the federal bench.

00:09:51.420 Thank you so much.

00:10:21.420 I mean, you said it exactly right.

00:10:23.340 No one is talking about the actual ruling, which is usually a good sign.

00:10:27.040 They talked about two things that she was appointed by Trump and that she's 35 years old.

00:10:32.340 And then sometimes a very clever legal analyst would say, that's it.

00:10:36.360 I can't believe that an unelected judge bypassed the will of a federal agency.

00:10:42.580 I'm glad that people have realized that judges are unelected.

00:10:47.100 That's that's interesting.

00:10:48.180 But the point being on her ruling that if people wanted elected officials to pass a law, that's how you should do this rather than have an administrative agency just make some ruling that sanitation is going to be upheld by a mask, which doesn't make any sense.

00:11:04.240 Then Congress, go ahead and pass it.

00:11:07.560 You got Democrats run Congress still pass that law.

00:11:10.860 You must wear a mask on airplanes and on trains and in the subway forever and then run for reelection in November.

00:11:17.860 Let's see how that goes.

00:11:18.760 The fact is, they're not.

00:11:20.960 And because they know that they would get hammered because of it, they're trying to use the administrative state to tell people what to do with their lives.

00:11:28.500 And the judge was right to tell them to go take a long walk off a short pier.

00:11:32.480 Isn't it amazing that prior to this, the most expansive thing the CDC had ever done with this law that now it claims it can mask us all interminably was to say the little turtles can't come in.

00:11:43.020 I mean, that's 75 years.

00:11:45.660 That's as far as they went.

00:11:46.500 And now it's like we have unending powers.

00:11:49.540 We can, I mean, the rent, the cruise ships, the federal mat, like who do they think they are?

00:11:55.760 Well, I mean, the weirdest thing about this, as Matt was pointing out, is that you're not talking about the ruling.

00:12:00.800 No, but we've also given up on the idea of the science behind this.

00:12:04.160 I mean, we have not had super spreader events on planes.

00:12:08.940 This is not a place where people are getting COVID.

00:12:11.940 Trust me, if people are getting COVID on planes, you'd hear about it.

00:12:14.380 And so, like, you know, in New York City, of course, you know, Eric Adams, we're keeping the mask mandate on public transportation, which, by the way, your biggest worry on New York City subways?

00:12:24.540 Absolutely not COVID.

00:12:25.880 I mean.

00:12:26.220 I've been on so many times recently.

00:12:28.460 I'm like, oh, my God, COVID is really not my concern.

00:12:31.300 It is the guy swinging a knife at me.

00:12:33.600 They're not enforcing the pants mandates on the subways.

00:12:36.460 Or the mask mandate.

00:12:37.720 I mean, it's 50% of people on the subways aren't wearing them.

00:12:40.780 I mean, I just took a 10-hour flight in which everyone gave up on the mask.

00:12:45.860 It was a transatlantic flight.

00:12:46.840 And it was an Eastern European airline where they're like, you know, it's fine.

00:12:51.220 Take a mask off.

00:12:51.800 No problem.

00:12:52.640 And, like, everyone did.

00:12:54.060 And so when everyone was celebrating the other day, Jen Psaki was asked about it.

00:12:57.800 And she said, you know, this is not data.

00:12:59.980 This is anecdote.

00:13:01.100 And it's like they do understand that this is a popular move.

00:13:06.060 People at airports go do this and just go tomorrow, go the next day, the next flight you're on.

00:13:11.600 You're not going to see people wearing masks.

00:13:14.020 You can wear them.

00:13:15.000 There is a woman on Twitter, I'm an epidemiologist, and I am just going to flight dysregulation.

00:13:19.820 It's like, yeah, of course you can.

00:13:21.020 Nobody's telling you you cannot wear a mask.

00:13:23.260 That is not the ruling.

00:13:24.380 It is saying that the rest of us who understand that we're not at risk in a situation like this aren't going to wear them.

00:13:30.600 Right.

00:13:31.100 And you've got people like Roland Martin who tweeted out yesterday.

00:13:34.200 Oh, my God.

00:13:35.080 You saw this, right?

00:13:35.940 He's got his double mask and goggles.

00:13:38.820 No, but they're not even goggles.

00:13:40.520 They were glasses.

00:13:41.780 It's just you can get under them.

00:13:43.600 I mean, he was wearing like shooting glasses and then five Roland Martin T-shirts and hats.

00:13:48.980 Because if you didn't know it was Roland Martin, because who the hell knows who Roland Martin is these days?

00:13:53.060 Is he on CNN Plus?

00:13:54.600 Do you think he dresses like that every day?

00:13:56.220 Do you think he dresses like that every day?

00:13:57.380 Or he plans to take this shot in order to try and put it out there?

00:14:00.940 I'm not sure.

00:14:01.660 Please go to YouTube later.

00:14:02.460 Please go to YouTube and look at this picture.

00:14:04.280 You've got to see it.

00:14:05.140 Wait, let me read his tweet.

00:14:06.460 I don't give a damn what some grossly unqualified Donald Trump judge said, because Roland has a, you know, a prestigious history on the bench.

00:14:13.660 I'm double masked and wearing goggles on this Nashville to D.C. play.

00:14:17.560 I had COVID in December.

00:14:18.880 Y'all can kiss my ass about me not wanting it again.

00:14:21.100 Well, did he get COVID in December?

00:14:22.700 No, thank you.

00:14:23.060 And any fool saying they don't matter is a damn liar.

00:14:26.280 Okay.

00:14:27.000 Okay.

00:14:27.860 All right.

00:14:28.920 I want to know how he got COVID if he's wearing seven masks and goggles and Roland Martin T-shirts.

00:14:34.400 It doesn't make sense.

00:14:35.340 I did.

00:14:35.940 I did see one of the replies in that tweet thread was someone who said they saw him at like the new edition concert and he wasn't wearing a mask there.

00:14:43.080 We don't know if that's true.

00:14:44.540 Allegedly.

00:14:45.180 Allegedly.

00:14:45.460 It was like Valerie Jarrett.

00:14:47.220 Valerie Jarrett did the same thing.

00:14:48.420 And she tweeted out as follows, wearing my mask, no matter what non-scientists tell me I can do.

00:14:55.000 She's sitting alone, it looks like, in her car.

00:14:57.580 I don't know.

00:14:57.960 It's like, okay, no one gives a shit what you do in your own private car by yourself.

00:15:02.000 But she was at the, what was it?

00:15:04.220 South by Southwest.

00:15:05.440 There she is.

00:15:06.160 Look, with Jonathan Capehart.

00:15:08.140 Together.

00:15:08.740 Really close.

00:15:09.360 Three inches apart.

00:15:09.560 It looks like less than six feet.

00:15:10.780 I'm not sure.

00:15:11.620 I don't know.

00:15:11.860 Last month, no masks, right?

00:15:13.800 Like, so spare me.

00:15:15.020 Spare me your virtue.

00:15:15.780 Yeah, something about the timetable here is just uniquely frustrating.

00:15:20.840 I mean, we're talking about the beginning of last year.

00:15:23.860 This is the first thing that Biden does when he comes into office.

00:15:26.600 It was already the case that most of the airlines were already requiring folks to wear

00:15:30.000 masks.

00:15:30.360 They'd already been doing the spacing, which they actually started to phase out by that

00:15:34.120 point.

00:15:35.020 And there was not an urgent demand for this.

00:15:38.300 There was this desire for some sort of performative muscle flexing, some kind of COVID public health

00:15:45.180 theater.

00:15:45.740 And he keeps doing this sort of thing over and over again, like pushing the executive

00:15:50.300 branch to in any way possible, you know, bend the law, forcing the courts to take some

00:15:55.540 sort of action.

00:15:56.500 But in this particular case, the new wrinkle is, I can't imagine that he actually wanted

00:16:00.120 the CDC to reach the conclusion that, yeah, we want these mandates.

00:16:04.860 Let's go to court.

00:16:06.500 Let's appeal this.

00:16:07.340 You saw all of these videos of Americans on planes celebrating of every race, color, and

00:16:14.180 creed, like ripping their masks off, throwing them in the trash, airline attendants walking

00:16:19.500 through the aisles, singing songs, collecting these disgusting things from people.

00:16:24.100 I am flying tomorrow.

00:16:25.340 I am delighted to not have to wear the mask, although it's a fairly short flight.

00:16:29.820 But in either case, people have been over this for the longest time.

00:16:33.520 And I imagine one or two extensions ago, if the Biden administration had decided we're

00:16:38.600 not going to do this, they could have owned this victory instead of been at odds.

00:16:42.480 Right.

00:16:42.960 And, you know, here's what's exciting to me about this.

00:16:45.880 I'm I'm all for this.

00:16:47.640 Appeal it.

00:16:48.300 Do it.

00:16:48.980 This is a great appellate court and Supreme Court to be hearing this issue.

00:16:54.860 You guys would agree is a bunch of libertarians.

00:16:57.500 They're not going to reverse this judge.

00:16:59.780 And so as the ruling goes up, it only gets more important and more difficult to ignore.

00:17:06.900 Let's make it Supreme Court precedent with the 11th Circuit decision.

00:17:11.340 Upholding this will be a lot tougher to dismiss than a federal district trial court, basically

00:17:17.040 is what she is.

00:17:18.180 So and this is what Jen Psaki said to it.

00:17:20.880 OK, this is how what she said to Chris Wallace in his three week old show that is dying in a

00:17:25.900 week. She said the appeal is important not only to preserve the mask requirement, but

00:17:31.960 also, quote, to ensure the CDC's authority and ability to put in mandates in the future

00:17:39.760 remains intact.

00:17:41.860 The CDC does not want to lose any of its newfound alleged power.

00:17:47.260 It's like we used to deal with the fucking turtles and now we can mask everyone.

00:17:53.640 It's amazing.

00:17:54.680 Let's fight and no one to figure out they're not going to get this decision reversed.

00:18:00.800 Do you know who who that sounds like to my ear immediately is Dick Cheney, right?

00:18:06.180 Dick Cheney went even before 9-11 and certainly afterwards said repeatedly that one of our

00:18:11.560 purposes in by our he meant him and George W.

00:18:14.220 Bush, but I don't know if George Bush really thought that one through is to imbue the office

00:18:19.560 of the presidency with the executive power that it had lost after Watergate.

00:18:25.040 Like we want to we want to build more power for the ability to have more powers sake and

00:18:30.320 we're going to look for opportunities to it is.

00:18:33.280 I mean, he thought that it was we were defrocked after 1974 and Watergate.

00:18:38.220 That's what she's doing here.

00:18:39.240 And that should be even a bigger alarm for the Neil Gorsuch's of the world.

00:18:43.320 My God, Neil Gorsuch's career is all about trimming the sails of a runaway administrative

00:18:48.720 state that can just point to any law enabling regulation or a regulatory agency from 50 years

00:18:55.780 ago and start inventing stuff, start inventing laws.

00:18:59.060 Neil Gorsuch rightly has said over and over again, wait, you can't do that.

00:19:02.120 Congress has to pass actual laws that affect the thing that you're talking about directly.

00:19:06.980 So this is a warning shot from Jen Psaki, and that's why we should be celebrating this

00:19:12.580 regardless of what whether we think the underlying policy is good or bad.

00:19:16.060 I haven't the underlying policy is terrible and laughable, but but that is a power grab.

00:19:21.580 And if you if you even if you are a super Roland Martin pro master, just imagine President

00:19:26.960 Trump having the power to do whatever he wants in any kind of next, you know, avian flu coming

00:19:33.980 your way.

00:19:34.340 Now, listen, in in defense of the president, Jen Psaki, that was just her opinion.

00:19:40.000 How does President Biden feel about this appeal?

00:19:42.700 What is what does he say this is all about?

00:19:44.700 Well, he was asked about it today.

00:19:47.620 I.

00:19:50.080 OK, he was.

00:19:51.000 Oh, yeah, I see how that actually my team is.

00:19:53.180 I followed his same confusion.

00:19:54.320 He was asked about Title 42, the immigration basically rule that says we when we're in a

00:20:01.580 pandemic, we don't have to entertain anybody's asylum claim down at the border.

00:20:04.880 OK, this thing that he's going to lift in May and it's controversial because we're already

00:20:08.380 having a crisis at the southern border and so on.

00:20:10.040 OK, so he's asked about Title 42.

00:20:11.780 And you tell me because I heard an answer about the mask mandate and they've spent now hours

00:20:17.080 trying to clean it up.

00:20:17.940 And I'm deeply concerned.

00:20:19.580 Listen here.

00:20:20.080 No, what I'm considering is continuing to hear from my my first of all, there's going

00:20:31.460 to be an appeal by the Justice Department because as a matter of principle, we want to be able

00:20:37.100 to be in a position where if, in fact, it is strongly concluded by the scientists that

00:20:44.200 we need Title 42, that we'd be able to do that.

00:20:48.440 But there has been no decision on extending Title 42.

00:20:52.820 Thank you.

00:20:53.800 Oh, my God.

00:20:54.620 Thank you.

00:20:55.080 He's going to run.

00:20:56.080 He's going to run.

00:20:56.960 God, is that real?

00:20:58.600 Yeah.

00:20:58.860 It's not a deep fake.

00:21:00.060 I thought that was a Megyn Kelly deep fake.

00:21:02.420 I wish my audience could have seen the three of you while that was playing.

00:21:07.100 One by one, the faces were.

00:21:09.060 I thought he was going to start talking about Pearl Harbor.

00:21:14.460 The man is just not in the same universe as the rest of us.

00:21:18.160 I mean, you remember how many jokes.

00:21:20.620 I mean, we should.

00:21:21.100 There's probably some service that can tell you this for us.

00:21:23.340 How many jokes there were about the dumb things that came out of George W. Bush's mouth?

00:21:28.320 Right.

00:21:28.680 I mean, it was every single night.

00:21:31.280 And, you know, justifiably so in some ways.

00:21:34.100 I mean, he's a president.

00:21:34.880 You should make fun of him if he's, you know, misstating things, using the wrong words.

00:21:39.840 You know, was it the one that became part of the lexicon, one of George Bush's malapropisms.

00:21:46.380 But this is never mentioned by, you know, late night hosts, by anyone.

00:21:52.100 It's the unspoken thing is that this man, it's kind of concerning that the president does not seem to know what is going on about 50 percent of the time.

00:22:01.900 And has a person in a bunny suit pulling him away from questions about Afghanistan, which sounds like, you know, some acid trip fever dream in, you know, a Jefferson Airplane song.

00:22:13.180 There's a giant rabbit taking the president away from a question about Afghanistan.

00:22:18.280 This is the place that we live now.

00:22:20.020 As long as it's not Donald Trump, we're fine.

00:22:22.160 Well, no, I mean, Donald Trump is in the rearview mirror for me.

00:22:25.440 And I'm concerned about the current president who doesn't seem to have his faculties about what's going on around him.

00:22:32.140 But before we get to that, I want to issue I want to read you the statement that President Biden issued clarifying what we just heard.

00:22:41.140 I want to clarify that in comments at the conclusion of my remarks this morning.

00:22:45.540 Keep in mind, this is today.

00:22:47.440 I was referring to the CDC's mask mandate.

00:22:51.000 We know.

00:22:52.040 And there is no Department of Justice action on Title 42.

00:22:56.820 We know.

00:22:57.720 You're the only one who didn't understand.

00:23:01.380 So, OK, the Easter Bunny thing.

00:23:04.180 We haven't discussed that yet on this program.

00:23:05.700 And it's too delicious not like not to spend some time on.

00:23:08.340 So he was at this event.

00:23:10.060 He's working the rope line and he's talking to somebody in the audience about Afghanistan.

00:23:13.960 And, you know, he's not allowed to talk about Afghanistan for all the obvious reasons.

00:23:18.600 So you can't be.

00:23:19.300 Don't revisit that and don't say how you really feel and stop spewing nonsense about how it was the greatest success ever.

00:23:25.180 And apparently it was a press aid inside of the Easter Bunny costume who goes over to, like, literally pull him away and start, like, jumping up and down.

00:23:36.360 Like, look over here, over here.

00:23:37.720 You can gather some from the listen and you can certainly gather some from watching it.

00:23:42.240 Here it is.

00:23:43.960 Did you see the front?

00:23:52.200 Here's the bunny.

00:23:54.180 Literally started waving in front of his face.

00:23:56.340 It was like, no, no, you're done.

00:23:58.140 He jumped.

00:23:59.680 There's a big bunny in front of me.

00:24:01.280 I have to leave now.

00:24:02.540 Did someone even ask him about Afghanistan or was he just volunteering his insights about Afghanistan at the road there?

00:24:08.800 It doesn't seem like that those kids in the masks asked about Afghanistan.

00:24:11.980 They needed that bunny and his comments about Title 42.

00:24:15.980 No, no, no, it's just a deal.

00:24:19.620 Different controversy.

00:24:21.480 Where's the bunny in the line of succession?

00:24:23.220 That is what I want to know.

00:24:24.260 Can we just go back for one second, though, because I do have to don't you think it's a freak?

00:24:28.620 We talked about why it's it's legally just foolish to appeal the ruling for them.

00:24:32.500 But politically, I mean, I know the far left is still holding on to their covid restrictions.

00:24:38.100 They love them.

00:24:39.180 But, you know, more sane liberals are against this.

00:24:42.800 All of the conservative party and independents are against this.

00:24:45.820 So truly, like what?

00:24:47.100 And I realize, OK, preserve the mandate, preserve the power of the CDC.

00:24:50.060 But for Joe Biden, doesn't he think this is politically this is stupid?

00:24:54.560 Like, why why would they do it?

00:24:57.260 This is the thing.

00:24:58.260 Yeah, they're constantly talking to Twitter.

00:25:01.220 I mean, they're constantly talking to a very, very small number of people on Twitter, which is their echo chamber.

00:25:06.480 And this is actually works out perfectly for them, because as you mentioned, Megan, this is going to go up the appeals chain and it's going to get knocked down.

00:25:12.460 And it's going we're going to not have masks on plane.

00:25:14.820 That mandate is going to be gone.

00:25:16.080 And they kind of slide out of it. Right.

00:25:17.940 So they get to say to their their, you know, Twitter fans that we tried and we failed.

00:25:24.420 It was a 35 year old Trump judge.

00:25:26.200 And then it was more conservative judges above us that are just screwing us.

00:25:30.900 And then, you know, they get rid of it because it's not terribly popular.

00:25:33.840 But it's something that's incredibly popular with the people that they care about, which aren't in any way reflective of the American people as a whole.

00:25:41.860 So, look, Joe Biden doesn't seem to have it all together.

00:25:44.340 I don't know if he's not making the right call there politically or legally.

00:25:47.400 He clearly doesn't understand what he's talking about when he gets asked questions by a rope line, by members of the press.

00:25:53.320 But we have the vice president.

00:25:55.160 We've got vice president Kamala Harris.

00:25:57.500 And the benefit of Kamala Harris is she can explain everything to us in a way that even a two year old could understand.

00:26:04.040 Guys, that's what people love about her.

00:26:06.020 And even when speaking to the actual Space Force, right, the Trump created Space Force guy, like I first heard this clip.

00:26:14.760 I'm like, she sounds like a moron.

00:26:16.280 And then I'm like, wait a minute.

00:26:17.280 She was talking to actual Space Force guys.

00:26:19.780 This is her explaining space to members of the Space Force.

00:26:24.600 Yes.

00:26:24.860 Listen, Abby's horrified.

00:26:25.940 Whether it is satellites that orbit the Earth, humans that land on the moon, or telescopes that peer into the furthest reaches of the universe.

00:26:41.940 Space is exciting.

00:26:46.760 It's so exciting.

00:26:47.920 It gets worse after that, by the way, Megan.

00:26:50.480 I don't know if you kept listening.

00:26:52.400 And it gets less and less coherent.

00:26:54.300 We at The Fifth Column did, in an episode not too long ago, have a bit where we just did Kamala Harris speeches off the cuff because they're so wonderfully weird and incoherent.

00:27:06.180 It's the recitations.

00:27:07.200 Yeah.

00:27:07.440 Yeah.

00:27:07.640 You just talk about things are great and how great that is to me, the feeling that I get.

00:27:13.720 It's like, wait, if this woman's the vice president, it's pretty alarming.

00:27:17.920 She's the coherent one, by the way.

00:27:19.660 Yes.

00:27:20.240 I want her to explain the decision we just got on mask.

00:27:23.440 It's a big decision and a bad decision because masks are good.

00:27:30.440 Now, back to the president.

00:27:31.700 That is why we're here.

00:27:34.140 About the masks.

00:27:36.000 There's always the nod and the slope.

00:27:37.900 It was October of last year, right, where there was that weird drama that played out where they had this YouTube original series and it featured Kamala Harris.

00:27:47.240 And she was with these four or five kids who all turned out to be actors, the worst child actors I've ever seen.

00:27:53.340 It was so clear that these were questions that they had been fed and been practicing and rehearsing.

00:27:58.240 And she was the one who was supposed to be natural.

00:28:00.360 And I do have some of that copy here.

00:28:02.140 I just love the idea of exploring the unknown.

00:28:04.520 We're going to learn so much as we increasingly are curious and interested in the potential for the discoveries and the work we can do in space.

00:28:13.320 Yes.

00:28:13.880 What are you talking about?

00:28:15.500 What does that mean?

00:28:16.940 Stop it right now.

00:28:18.200 Where's the funny?

00:28:18.520 I get it, Camille.

00:28:19.240 That's the scripted?

00:28:20.140 Funny fact here.

00:28:21.480 You know what?

00:28:21.860 This just in, CNN Plus has offered her a show.

00:28:25.660 Oh, that's funny.

00:28:27.520 She's going to rock it for the next week.

00:28:29.920 All right.

00:28:30.220 That's where we're going to pick it up after we squeeze in a commercial break.

00:28:32.620 CNN Plus is dead after three weeks of launch.

00:28:37.960 Turns out nobody wanted more of CNN.

00:28:41.300 Are you shocked?

00:28:42.260 More with the Fifth Column, guys, in just one second.

00:28:44.560 Okay, so CNN Plus, it's unbelievable.

00:28:53.520 It's done.

00:28:54.360 It just launched.

00:28:55.500 It's in its third week.

00:28:57.460 The reports are absolutely devastating about the lack of interest in this thing.

00:29:01.140 They said 150,000 total subscribers, only 10,000 watching on any given day.

00:29:08.940 I mean, I've seen it promoted so many different places.

00:29:11.520 They are doing their level best to get people to watch that Chris Wallace show.

00:29:16.180 Mostly, it's the CNN anchors doing things other than their normal show, like Don Lemon

00:29:21.580 had a talk show, which apparently nobody wanted to watch.

00:29:24.740 I'm shocked.

00:29:27.480 Brian Stelter was given a daily show.

00:29:32.300 I can't.

00:29:32.620 How did this fail?

00:29:35.500 It's running so much new talent.

00:29:38.220 So they fired the head guy, the guy who was running it.

00:29:40.940 Because Discovery just took over CNN.

00:29:42.480 And I guess they're basically like, we never agreed to this.

00:29:44.580 You shouldn't have launched this right before we took over.

00:29:46.940 We didn't want this.

00:29:47.980 And clearly, the American public didn't want this.

00:29:50.520 It wasn't even like a, I don't know, they didn't even give people CNN.

00:29:54.200 So it's like, at least you could watch it digitally, you know, if you're a CNN fan.

00:29:57.840 It's just weird offerings by random people on CNN.

00:30:01.560 And Wallace is probably the biggest question, because they're paying him reportedly $10 million

00:30:05.700 a year.

00:30:06.520 He left Fox.

00:30:08.360 Now what?

00:30:09.300 You know, they're not going to put Chris Wallace in Chris Cuomo's old spot, which is

00:30:12.640 still open at 9 p.m.

00:30:14.020 No, no one would watch that.

00:30:15.540 So they're not dumb.

00:30:17.200 So I don't know what happens there.

00:30:18.520 I do feel for all the people who are now laid off, who went over there in good faith and

00:30:23.000 thought, oh, great, a good opportunity.

00:30:24.980 You know, this used to be a great brand.

00:30:26.800 And now we're out of a job.

00:30:27.860 What do you guys make of it?

00:30:29.000 I mean, hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the corporate entity to try and achieve

00:30:33.320 something in the space.

00:30:34.360 This is obviously just a difficult time for streaming.

00:30:36.400 I suspect most people listening or watching know that Netflix is also struggling with some

00:30:41.840 of its subscriber numbers.

00:30:43.100 But the reality is that the space has just become a heck of a lot more competitive.

00:30:47.880 And what you actually have to be able to do is deliver some original content, some unique

00:30:52.400 value, or have a significantly important archive of content.

00:30:57.160 And CNN Plus didn't offer any of those things.

00:30:59.380 These were total retreads of the same shows that you could get for free, featuring most

00:31:04.260 of the same people.

00:31:05.360 And to the extent they even had other kinds of documentary content there, most of that

00:31:09.280 stuff you could get on other platforms.

00:31:11.060 This is just not interesting.

00:31:13.100 Yeah, the one horrifying thing that somebody tweeted out, guys, I even knew Coke had a

00:31:17.880 longer lifespan than so I go ahead a little faster, at least.

00:31:23.540 No, it's there's, I think, a new thing that people are trying to tap into, which is, for

00:31:30.720 lack of a better word, the affinity economy of of media.

00:31:34.020 People like Megyn Kelly and like what she does.

00:31:38.100 Let's pretend she's not here.

00:31:39.460 And and so they affirmatively will subscribe to it because they want to, like, give you

00:31:44.700 a high five.

00:31:45.380 They identify with you personally in some way.

00:31:48.060 And that is a lot easier for an individual or small group of individuals like us to do

00:31:54.360 than it is for a big corporation that's been around forever.

00:31:58.660 Most big media organizations are kind of like, eat your Wheaties, you know, democracy dies

00:32:03.440 in darkness.

00:32:04.120 If you don't subscribe to this newspaper, we'll shoot your dog.

00:32:07.520 And that works for a couple of titles.

00:32:10.140 It works at this moment for The New York Times, arguably for The Washington Post, but not for

00:32:13.980 very many legacy media outlets.

00:32:16.900 It certainly has no reason to work for CNN or MSNBC.

00:32:21.440 I don't even know if they can work exactly for Fox unless you change the models or offering

00:32:26.420 a lot more documentaries.

00:32:27.480 I guess that's what Tucker's been doing.

00:32:30.400 The end of getting down to the tanning industry.

00:32:33.020 Oh, tanning your balls.

00:32:34.420 That's what he's saying.

00:32:35.200 To be to have more testosterone, you get a tan.

00:32:37.540 That I would subscribe to.

00:32:39.000 I do want to point out.

00:32:40.420 I do want to point out, by the way, because neither Matt nor Camille did toot our own horn

00:32:45.440 here, we do have more daily listeners than CNN Plus, and it did not cost us $300 million

00:32:51.520 to do so.

00:32:53.080 Although I would like to have $300 million that we could spend.

00:32:56.340 If anybody wants to give it to us, I mean-

00:32:58.560 I would do better than them, for sure.

00:32:59.980 Does anyone remember Quibi?

00:33:02.320 Quibi!

00:33:02.760 We were just talking about this off-air.

00:33:04.140 That's right.

00:33:04.420 Do you know how much money they raised?

00:33:06.700 No.

00:33:07.140 Three quarters of a billion dollars.

00:33:09.140 No.

00:33:10.000 Who was the filmmaker behind that?

00:33:13.000 Katzenberg.

00:33:13.420 That was Jeffrey Katzenberg.

00:33:14.560 Yes.

00:33:14.900 And it shows you one thing that has been apparent to a lot of us for a long time.

00:33:19.880 People at the tops of these companies have no idea what the American people want.

00:33:24.820 How long did it take for Spotify to sign Joe Rogan?

00:33:29.140 Joe Rogan was running the tables on everybody for years, but nobody wanted to reach out and

00:33:35.020 say, well, those are the icky people that listen to Joe Rogan.

00:33:38.220 Either they're the MMA types, or they're these kind of libertarian conservative types.

00:33:43.080 We don't want them.

00:33:44.020 As Matt says, it's the eat your readies type.

00:33:46.180 I mean, we know what's good for you, and we're going to tell you what you should like

00:33:50.780 and what you should listen to.

00:33:52.480 And you know what?

00:33:53.180 I mean, CNN is getting their money as part of a legacy cable package.

00:33:57.800 People know the brands.

00:33:59.320 That's why they survive.

00:34:00.480 It's not because everyone is champing at the bit to watch Don Lemon every night.

00:34:04.540 Please.

00:34:05.280 And they definitely aren't going to pay five bucks a month for it.

00:34:08.180 Five dollars.

00:34:09.300 I paid more for that, like for my coffee this morning.

00:34:11.580 And I still wouldn't bring them up.

00:34:12.340 Steven L. Miller tweets out as follows.

00:34:14.300 Libs of TikTok is alive and CNN Plus is dead.

00:34:18.780 Pretty good.

00:34:19.700 Pretty good.

00:34:20.320 And that brings me to the Libs of TikTok scandal.

00:34:24.480 I'm dying to get Camille's thoughts on this because I know you did some battle with, or

00:34:28.680 at least had some thoughts on this, Taylor Lorenz.

00:34:31.220 Okay.

00:34:31.580 This, this, I don't, I don't even know if we call her a reporter.

00:34:34.860 She calls Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize winning Glenn Greenwald, an online influencer.

00:34:40.560 What?

00:34:41.620 Oscar winner too, by the way.

00:34:43.920 Okay.

00:34:44.600 So Taylor Lorenz makes her a living by doxing and outing private citizens whose identity

00:34:50.000 she wants us to know more about.

00:34:51.700 Teenagers, young girls who are big on Insta who don't want you to know that their mom is

00:34:56.360 a right winger.

00:34:57.500 They need to be outed.

00:34:58.700 They need to be canceled.

00:34:59.900 She loves the cancellation and the doxing when it's, it is Taylor doing it.

00:35:04.260 However, when it happens to Taylor in response to her nasty, mean girl reporting, she plays

00:35:11.460 the victim because there's so much currency in doing that in today's day and age.

00:35:15.740 Here's just a reminder.

00:35:16.880 Our audience was here literally this month sobbing about when people say the mean thing

00:35:23.480 soundbite three.

00:35:24.460 I've had to remove every single social tie.

00:35:27.620 I had severe PTSD from this.

00:35:29.780 I, I contemplated suicide.

00:35:31.340 It got really bad.

00:35:32.320 You feel like any little piece of information that gets out on you will be used by the worst

00:35:38.940 people on the internet to destroy your life.

00:35:41.320 And it's so isolating.

00:35:44.580 And terrifying.

00:35:46.120 It's horrifying.

00:35:49.320 I'm so sorry.

00:35:51.920 It's okay.

00:35:52.780 You can laugh.

00:35:53.620 Gosh, you guys are terrible.

00:35:55.080 No, it's, I think the, the, the, the so-called reporter who, who feeds her another line.

00:36:00.860 She's terrifying.

00:36:02.160 I'm glad you mentioned that.

00:36:03.340 I'm glad you mentioned that's Morgan Radford of NBC who she was a nightmare when I worked

00:36:07.220 there.

00:36:07.740 Um, here's more of, of that exchange where Morgan, the reporter has to make herself a victim

00:36:13.020 of the story as well.

00:36:14.100 I'll watch friends and digital reporter Kate Sausin say these types of attacks have changed

00:36:19.500 their lives and their work.

00:36:22.140 There's reporting that I know that I would like to do, or that other journalists would

00:36:26.000 like to do that.

00:36:27.080 We're not able to do because it's not safe enough for us to do them.

00:36:30.700 And they're not alone.

00:36:32.500 This is after I did a report on an increase in the number of white supremacists running

00:36:36.960 for office.

00:36:38.380 Condescending journalists, C word deserves a rope.

00:36:42.880 Obviously I'm a person of color.

00:36:44.300 Obviously there's a reference to a news.

00:36:47.780 Okay.

00:36:48.940 So let's not, I'm a victim.

00:36:50.660 I'm a bigger victim.

00:36:51.680 I'm a worse victim than you are.

00:36:53.100 Hey, who's raise your hand if you're the worst victim ever, right?

00:36:55.420 Like it's a, it's a, who can out victim one another and it's fine.

00:36:58.640 Okay, fine.

00:36:59.260 If that's what you want to do, that's not my job.

00:37:00.700 But that's their jam, but then don't run around victiming, victimizing other people.

00:37:04.780 Right.

00:37:05.260 Because if you really want us to feel sorry for you and care about internet harassment,

00:37:09.020 then don't do it.

00:37:10.560 Don't be a purveyor of it.

00:37:12.100 And Camille, that's, that's what Taylor Lorenz's history is.

00:37:16.340 Yeah.

00:37:16.820 I've had a couple of encounters with Taylor in her capacity as a journalist, um, or professional

00:37:22.680 tattletale, um, which I think is a probably a better job description.

00:37:26.120 And, um, and, and really difference between like libs of Tik TOK and Taylor Lorenz is libs

00:37:30.920 of Tik TOK for the most part, surfacing stuff from Tik TOK that people are posting publicly

00:37:36.100 and putting that video out.

00:37:38.780 And it's not as though it's being robbed of context.

00:37:41.020 If it's just a 15 second video, sometimes there are things on there that are a little

00:37:44.180 less than savory, um, and people respond to it.

00:37:47.620 Taylor Lorenz on the other hand is working at mainstream establishment.

00:37:52.640 These storied media organizations is a highly compensated journalist using all of the power

00:37:57.380 and prestige of these institutions to in many instances, go after individuals, publicize

00:38:04.640 embarrassing moments of theirs.

00:38:06.500 In some cases, unmask them, rob them of their anonymity and present them as the worst possible

00:38:13.300 monsters while insinuating all sorts of things without substantiating it, um, about how influential

00:38:19.000 and important they are to the conservative movement as a whole and making assertions about

00:38:22.980 how they are, they're endangering trans people or how they're constantly going after trans

00:38:27.020 people, um, or, or, uh, generally opposed to, to gay people.

00:38:31.400 And there's, there's something very disingenuous about the way that she goes about this, but I

00:38:38.200 do think it's worth saying that there is an online culture that can get pretty aggressive.

00:38:43.860 I suspect that every single one of us present here has been harassed, has been threatened,

00:38:49.460 has received abusive comments online that actually comes with the territory.

00:38:53.500 And there are things that one can do to shield themselves from that, but it becomes a very

00:38:58.280 different thing when the Washington post is doing a story about you is, is pursuing all of your

00:39:04.580 personal contacts and family is interested in outing you so that they can embarrass you.

00:39:11.240 Um, and is doing things like publishing your address on the internet and then denying that

00:39:16.540 they've done this.

00:39:17.320 Um, that is something else entirely.

00:39:19.440 That is a miscarriage of justice in some respect, um, because there is supposed to be some

00:39:26.460 kind of code, some sort of honor associated with the work that journalists do.

00:39:30.340 And for whatever reason, institutions like the New York times, like the daily beast, now

00:39:35.700 the Washington post where Taylor works have all decided that this is the kind of person

00:39:40.200 that they want working for them.

00:39:41.320 And this is the kind of reporting that they're going to be doing.

00:39:44.220 And let me add on to that because Taylor in her piece going after lives of Tik TOK relies

00:39:50.060 as a source on media matters, an organization designed to take down any, you don't even have

00:39:59.040 to be right, a Republican, like right leaning, non leftist in the news.

00:40:03.680 That's what they were born to do.

00:40:05.480 That's what they've been doing.

00:40:06.980 No one would ever look at them as a fair source to be cited in a Washington post article.

00:40:12.980 And she relies on them.

00:40:14.720 And guess who else relied on them?

00:40:17.140 Morgan Radford in a piece she did on me when I left NBC and she, and it appeared on nightly

00:40:24.320 news.

00:40:24.680 So those two, two out of those three people sitting in that segment, both went to a conservative

00:40:30.580 hating joke of an organization called media matters to try to make sure that the grave

00:40:37.160 was buried, you know, that the person was buried in the grave, um, in doing their supposedly

00:40:42.240 straight news journalism.

00:40:43.740 So I have zero sympathy for them, zero going out in their little cry session, talking about

00:40:50.700 how sometimes the internet, which as you point out, has much lower standards for what it says

00:40:55.600 about you is mean none.

00:40:57.720 And by the way, here's the kicker.

00:40:59.000 So the third person who was there is now mad because NBC apparently misgendered this person

00:41:05.440 in the Kate was her name, but she goes by they anyway, they misgendered her.

00:41:11.600 So she's bad.

00:41:12.800 They are mad.

00:41:13.760 Um, and Taylor Lorenz is mad again.

00:41:16.980 She claims she was victimized by even that segment.

00:41:19.820 She comes out and says, instead of using me for clickbait, NBC news needs to educate

00:41:23.700 their journalists on how to cover these types of campaigns.

00:41:25.900 Their segment lacks crucial context and only serves to fuel the right wing smear campaign.

00:41:31.180 I've been dealing with for a year.

00:41:33.140 The media must do better.

00:41:34.580 If your segment or story on online harassment leads to even worse online harassment for your

00:41:40.340 subjects, you've fucked up royally and should learn how to cover these things properly before

00:41:46.180 ever talking about them again.

00:41:48.900 Complete battle.

00:41:50.800 That's utterly incoherent.

00:41:52.380 I mean, the thing about it is I laugh when watching that segment and I don't think it's

00:41:55.740 funny that people get, get beaten up online.

00:41:58.520 I laugh because I see somebody who traffics in this herself.

00:42:03.120 And, you know, as you pointed out, Megan, it was not just media matters, it was media matters

00:42:06.480 and the ACLU were the two sources mentioned in that so-called story.

00:42:10.240 And I imagine at a big reputable newspaper that does, you know, says it's not politically

00:42:15.300 biased or anything, um, outside of the opinion page, if I were going to write a piece about

00:42:20.880 an anonymous Trump hating, uh, uh, Twitter or TikTok account, and I used as my two sources,

00:42:27.440 like National Review and The Federalist, I didn't think that would, would get through.

00:42:31.620 I mean, we, we, yeah, Breitbart, something like that.

00:42:33.820 We know that that's not going to happen.

00:42:36.280 I mean, the thing about Taylor Rents is, you know, she's, when she's crying and I think

00:42:39.040 she says, you know, it's, they're trying to ruin my career.

00:42:41.780 Good Lord, do you know the journalists who would love to have the career of going from

00:42:46.040 the Daily Beast to the Atlantic, to the New York Times, to the Washington Post?

00:42:50.580 I mean, good, I mean, your, your career is not being affected by this.

00:42:53.720 You're being elevated every time you write one of these stories.

00:42:56.560 And if, and I think story is being very generous with what that sort of scribbling was all

00:43:01.540 about.

00:43:02.080 It was typing, it was not writing.

00:43:04.060 It was literally something that said, this is the woman's name.

00:43:07.300 There was no context.

00:43:08.680 There was no, you know, this is quantifiable that this is actually having this effect on

00:43:13.900 policy, et cetera.

00:43:14.740 There was nothing about the actual account and the effect it has on policies.

00:43:19.740 It was just an excuse to out somebody.

00:43:22.020 And that is precisely what she says that she doesn't do.

00:43:25.060 So that's her reporting, Regina George Byrne books.

00:43:28.020 That's Taylor Lorenz's approach to quote the news.

00:43:31.440 So hopefully people understand that now.

00:43:33.660 And she turns her ire on you.

00:43:35.780 She deserves no sympathy for any blowback she gets.

00:43:38.600 And I was with you on the laughing because it's laughable for them to paint themselves as

00:43:42.380 victims, given what they do for a living.

00:43:44.380 And I said yesterday, if she can't take the heat, she should get out of the kitchen, get

00:43:47.260 out of media.

00:43:47.920 It's, it's not beanbag, right?

00:43:49.540 It's a tough profession and there's a lot of toxicity.

00:43:52.320 Sorry.

00:43:52.820 That's the way it is.

00:43:54.220 Okay.

00:43:55.320 Can we talk, speaking of media, about Nicole Wallace?

00:44:00.320 Actually.

00:44:01.680 Okay.

00:44:02.260 Maybe I should just let it play and let you guys hear it.

00:44:05.260 Can you just listen to Nicole Wallace from MSNBC?

00:44:09.540 Listen to this.

00:44:09.980 I worry that in covering Glenn Youngkin and his politics of parental choice, all the

00:44:15.480 focus was on how well it worked.

00:44:17.260 And even in our conversations about DeSantis, it's about how well they're serving him.

00:44:21.260 The truth is dehumanization as a tactic for politics is from war.

00:44:29.820 Dehumanization is a, it's a, it's a tactic.

00:44:32.800 It's being used right now.

00:44:34.900 The Russians get their soldiers to rape children by dehumanizing them.

00:44:39.620 And dehumanization as a practice is a tactic of war.

00:44:44.920 You guys, again, I wish the audience could see this because all three of you look like

00:44:49.060 my little Strudwick, you know, when I say like Strudwick, no, no.

00:44:52.420 And you do the head cock.

00:44:53.820 Like, huh?

00:44:55.380 You heard what she did there.

00:44:57.460 That's a paragraph where it starts with Glenn Youngkin and parental input on public education

00:45:05.040 and ends with Russian soldiers raping children.

00:45:08.440 That's a short paragraph.

00:45:09.620 It's like 30 seconds in a row.

00:45:10.860 It's insane.

00:45:12.000 Wow.

00:45:12.980 Yeah, that was an attempt of a, you know, moron on cable news.

00:45:17.740 And she certainly ranks up there.

00:45:19.580 Somebody who was a Republican when it suited her job prospects and who decided that she

00:45:25.540 was no longer a Republican.

00:45:26.740 I don't know people who shed that much politics in such a short period of time.

00:45:30.240 But when there's a good paycheck on the other end, I understand that people do.

00:45:34.320 But, you know, she's trying to say, I guess she's trying to sound like academic or something.

00:45:38.400 This is, you know, this is dehumanization.

00:45:40.660 Like, I literally have no idea what she was talking about.

00:45:44.220 It's almost as bad as about the Biden's Title 42 mask mandate soundbite.

00:45:48.360 Almost as bad.

00:45:49.020 It was a version of that.

00:45:50.520 Yeah.

00:45:50.700 But somebody who's 50 years younger.

00:45:53.340 Who did Glenn Youngkin dehumanize?

00:45:54.860 I followed that race kind of closely.

00:45:56.780 And I don't recall him talking about any group of people as, I don't know, cockroaches or

00:46:02.580 saying these big, wide sweeping things.

00:46:05.080 What I do recall is that just prior to that surprise victory from a Republican in a seat

00:46:10.340 that boring old Terry McAuliffe was supposed to buy his way into, as he usually does, in

00:46:14.660 a Democratic-leaning state that has voted Democratic presidents the last four presidential

00:46:18.740 elections, the only, like, broad dehumanization I saw in that was from media commentators, especially

00:46:26.700 on MSNBC, saying that, well, this is just an example of white supremacy.

00:46:32.680 Like, this is, I'm not exaggerating, there's no hyperbole here, that this is an, this electorate

00:46:39.080 here is just showing that, you know, this whole parental choice and input stuff, no, that's

00:46:43.940 just a dog whistle, another phrase that was used for whites.

00:46:46.960 If you're calling people, whites are huge, broad swaths of Americans as white supremacists,

00:46:52.740 supremacists, is that not dehumanizing?

00:46:55.900 This is one of the worst things that you can say about a person in America is that they

00:46:59.840 are racist, that they're white supremacists, that they're Nazis.

00:47:02.180 This is a way to make you hate a huge group of people.

00:47:05.620 I saw that on one side in the Virginia election, and it wasn't coming from Democrats.

00:47:09.800 You know who would say that?

00:47:10.760 Introspection.

00:47:11.280 A white supremacist.

00:47:11.540 All right, guys, I'm going to leave it at that.

00:47:13.060 Camille, Michael, Matt, you were awesome, as always.

00:47:15.840 So fun talking to you.

00:47:16.740 Please come back soon.

00:47:17.800 Thanks, Megan.

00:47:18.640 All right.

00:47:19.020 We'll be right back after this.

00:47:24.180 We've been covering the Leah Thomas controversy for months now, but now that debate over transgender

00:47:29.900 swimmers is impacting young children, one example is in Seattle, where a prominent summer swim

00:47:36.160 league is expected to vote just days from now on a plan that would allow biological boys

00:47:41.020 to compete in the girls division.

00:47:43.500 The policy has divided parents and not only raises questions about fairness to little girls,

00:47:49.160 but whether or not biological boys should be forced to take drugs if they identify as female,

00:47:57.120 which some suggest this policy encourages joining me now, two members of the greater Seattle

00:48:02.580 summer swim league, Ken Alfonso, a coach and Lisa Marquardt, both are parents and former

00:48:09.200 college athletes themselves.

00:48:11.100 Let's just start with outlining what happened here.

00:48:15.020 Ken, you're a coach in addition to being a parent and a former swimmer in the league.

00:48:20.040 So what happened?

00:48:21.460 I guess it was October of 2021 that the swim league, this is like a rec league that has

00:48:29.940 kids in all the grades in it, formed, this task force formed.

00:48:34.880 And what was the purpose of this task force that you were not on and you were not made

00:48:38.600 aware of?

00:48:39.500 Right.

00:48:40.400 So at the time, as I understand it, the task force was formed to create a policy to be compliant

00:48:51.140 with the state of Washington's laws in the WIAA, which is the Washington Interscholastic

00:48:57.760 Activities Association, and to be compliant with their law with regards to transgender and

00:49:04.860 non-binary athlete inclusion.

00:49:08.440 And so, yeah, the task force was formed from the league board that had a fall meeting back

00:49:15.720 in October.

00:49:17.320 And so they formed, created a policy, and then presented that policy to the board, I

00:49:23.820 believe, March 1st.

00:49:25.680 And then I was made aware of it as a coach later that day.

00:49:29.660 So all these months, they're meeting, they're debating what's going to happen with the children,

00:49:33.500 with the trans policies.

00:49:35.160 And do the parents know anything about it?

00:49:37.480 Do the coaches know anything about it?

00:49:39.660 At this point, no.

00:49:40.680 Just the folks who are on the board.

00:49:43.580 It's about seven or eight people.

00:49:46.180 Now, as I understand it, those on the board include only one woman.

00:49:51.880 There's someone who I think is trans, and then biological men.

00:49:57.360 Correct.

00:49:57.820 One woman on the task force.

00:49:59.940 There's, at the time, three women on the board, but only one woman on the task force.

00:50:05.000 So, I mean, that's relevant because the people who get, you know, who arguably could get hurt

00:50:10.780 from allowing biological boys who then say that they're trans to swim against cisgendered

00:50:16.860 girls or girls who are biological girls who still identify as girls are biological girls.

00:50:21.480 Like, you need a biological woman.

00:50:23.220 You need more than one, in my view, on the task force to sort of be bold and say, let me

00:50:28.400 represent what some of the concerns might be.

00:50:30.420 And they only had one, and she was not on, she was very pro having the trans swimmers

00:50:35.580 swim in the lane.

00:50:37.480 So, as a coach, what concerns you about this?

00:50:42.220 Because, you know, I could see somebody saying, well, they need to have a policy, for sure,

00:50:45.480 because this is happening more and more.

00:50:46.860 So, somebody's going to have to sit down and have a policy.

00:50:50.080 Right.

00:50:51.120 Speaking as a coach, really, the main concern to me is a couple things.

00:50:56.760 One, if we're going to have this policy, it's worth doing, then it's worth doing right.

00:51:02.400 I think the policy's a bit rushed, a bit too quick.

00:51:09.060 It's missing some things.

00:51:10.380 There's some flaws in it.

00:51:11.900 And then the biggest thing for me, really, as a coach, too, is just fairness.

00:51:17.580 The WIAA policy has zero, for example, zero restrictions with regards to hormone mitigation.

00:51:27.820 There are no requirements.

00:51:30.320 Our task force has tried to create something a little more restrictive by implicating or implying

00:51:37.000 a hormone mitigation therapy for at least one year.

00:51:41.960 For example, if you're a transgender girl swimming against biological girls, you have to be on

00:51:48.720 this therapy for at least 12 months in order to participate if you've made specific qualifying

00:51:54.880 post-season times, you know, faster times, so more elite swimmers.

00:51:59.360 But to me, it completely ignores the bulk of our population in this rec league are not elite swimmers.

00:52:09.620 The bulk of our kids don't qualify for the post-season.

00:52:12.700 And half of our some 2,000 or so swimmers are biological girls.

00:52:17.640 And so they are tremendously impacted by this.

00:52:21.260 So let me just try to ask you to explain.

00:52:24.640 So if you are not an elite swimmer and you are 13 years old under this new policy and

00:52:33.280 you're a biological girl, you could definitely be swimming against biological boys who will

00:52:40.060 not have had any testosterone like suppression, no, no puberty suppression, nothing.

00:52:45.580 There's they're going to be allowed to swim against you at 13, 14, 15, just as long as you

00:52:49.540 don't all cross over to elite athletes.

00:52:53.040 Correct.

00:52:53.520 That's correct.

00:52:54.640 Hmm.

00:52:55.780 Yeah, I see the problem.

00:52:57.320 And then the problem on the on the flip side is in a way by saying those who are elite

00:53:03.820 who then have to take the puberty blockers or what have you, it's almost like encouraging

00:53:09.500 them to take the puberty blockers, because if they want to, if the trans kids, the kids

00:53:15.860 who think they might be trans want to swim at the elite levels, they have to now take some

00:53:21.980 sort of a drug.

00:53:22.640 Right, you're exactly right.

00:53:25.440 Many of the parents and other coaches feel this way.

00:53:28.140 The language within the policy does state that they don't encourage that to happen.

00:53:34.540 However, you know, again, if you want to participate as a trans athlete and you're an elite swimmer,

00:53:40.360 you're going to have to take these hormone suppressants.

00:53:44.880 Hmm.

00:53:45.440 It's really fraught.

00:53:47.340 It's just it's very fraught.

00:53:49.440 And I know, Lisa, one of the things you've been objecting to is there's no doctor involved

00:53:55.680 in this at all.

00:53:57.660 When we became aware of the policy and the policy changing over time as well, that was certainly

00:54:08.180 one of our questions as parents that are concerned on on all points of view on transgender and

00:54:16.860 swimming.

00:54:17.200 But it's a much it's a it's a much richer issue than than simply putting the policy out

00:54:24.920 there.

00:54:25.400 Yes, we have yet to see medical review.

00:54:28.500 Is this the right thing to mandate hormone therapies?

00:54:32.000 At at what age is that appropriate?

00:54:35.080 How do we accommodate for that?

00:54:36.540 How is this gender inclusive task force going to monitor therapies?

00:54:43.080 We as parents do not have any of those answers to those questions.

00:54:48.160 And in fact, we've been trying to find some spaces to ask these questions, have them answered

00:54:55.300 by professionals.

00:54:56.200 We're trying to look at this this comprehensively.

00:55:01.180 We don't want to have just one perspective.

00:55:04.360 We we are all families that care, but we have not been able to have this platform to

00:55:09.900 sit down together and really look at the issue.

00:55:13.660 I mean, that's one of the things that jumped out at me in reading the background on your

00:55:18.040 stories is you guys you live in Seattle.

00:55:20.240 It's not exactly Texas.

00:55:22.920 It's not a conservative bastion.

00:55:24.960 And I would imagine most of the coaches and the parents are pretty progressive and open

00:55:29.480 minded to, you know, how to find a way forward on this.

00:55:32.560 But it seems to me they're treating you like you just don't get a voice unless you automatically

00:55:38.720 subscribe to the most progressive thing possible.

00:55:41.780 And any objections on behalf of cisgendered or biological girls will be treated as bigoted,

00:55:49.140 will be treated as you're somehow anti trans as opposed to these are complex issues.

00:55:54.460 And they require thoughtful debate and discussion.

00:55:58.600 What do you think, Lisa?

00:56:00.640 I think they absolutely command thoughtful debate and discussion.

00:56:05.300 I have yet to meet one family that is exactly the same as another.

00:56:10.180 We present with different needs.

00:56:12.200 We have children that are unique.

00:56:15.100 And to be shut out from the discussion is a red flag.

00:56:20.140 I'm I'm for every child.

00:56:23.300 I'm for every family.

00:56:24.500 That is a part of my my life principle.

00:56:27.860 And when I see families knocking on my door, which is why I'm here, they said, Lisa, are

00:56:34.400 you aware of what's going on?

00:56:35.780 And I used to coach in the league.

00:56:37.460 I have I have multiple children myself.

00:56:40.660 And they said, did you hear about this policy?

00:56:43.360 They asked me that.

00:56:44.580 No, I I haven't.

00:56:46.620 And then, as Ken mentioned, some of this was going on months ago during covid while we were

00:56:51.980 all shut down.

00:56:53.540 And yet it the policy to be implemented is going to take all of us.

00:56:59.340 And yet the families where my children will be, they'll dive into this pool literally of

00:57:06.140 families that are required to implement a policy that we do not yet understand.

00:57:10.480 And what, Lisa, do they say like when they come to the door?

00:57:13.800 What is it they're worried about?

00:57:15.000 They're they're afraid of having a face to questions related to transgender.

00:57:21.660 They're afraid that they're asking of a question will be put out there publicly saying that because

00:57:28.380 they're asking a question of concern, for example, they wanted some medical data.

00:57:33.360 They are afraid of being labeled as transphobic.

00:57:36.540 Mm hmm.

00:57:38.160 And it didn't seem to me.

00:57:39.840 My producer, Kelly, put together sort of a mashup of when they finally had this meeting

00:57:45.060 and they allowed some parents to comment, some coaches to comment.

00:57:48.740 But to me watching it, it didn't really seem like they wanted your input.

00:57:53.100 It seemed like the parents and the coaches got shut down whenever they poked the bear,

00:57:59.100 even mildly, the one that jumped out at me was somebody saying something like, what about

00:58:08.860 the fairness to cisgendered girls?

00:58:10.500 And there was the one guy like, well, they don't need to worry.

00:58:13.400 There's no problem to the cisgender girls that the trans girls will be swimming in a

00:58:16.400 different lane.

00:58:16.900 It's like, well, we're not saying it's like wrestling where there's a biological boy who's

00:58:21.900 going to hurt.

00:58:23.280 It's where no one's saying that about swimming.

00:58:25.040 It's just about biological advantages.

00:58:27.220 We have a little soundbite, a mashup of what happened.

00:58:30.740 So the audience can hear for themselves.

00:58:32.380 Standby.

00:58:33.900 No one is asking anyone to be trans or non-binary.

00:58:38.500 That is not appropriate to be asking about why a swimmer is swimming in which category.

00:58:46.020 What if my team doesn't have any transgender swimmers?

00:58:51.540 Kind of like what I was talking about earlier, you probably do.

00:58:54.240 Even if you don't, you're going to swim against a team that does.

00:58:57.860 But he's diverse in multiple ways, obviously.

00:59:01.700 There's always going to be someone faster or stronger or more committed.

00:59:05.940 This is not the NCAA or the Olympics.

00:59:08.900 Believe it or not, several people have asked us how will people compete in this.

00:59:13.060 And it's the same that you always do.

00:59:15.480 You get behind the blocks, you get up, and you swim.

00:59:17.520 The next one was, have we considered an open gender category?

00:59:20.380 The answer is nope.

00:59:21.440 And girls aren't harming cis girls by competing.

00:59:24.700 They don't work.

00:59:27.220 They're swimming in separate lanes.

00:59:29.360 So if somebody is choosing not to participate, that's the choice that they have.

00:59:33.440 So somebody asked about how many reports has the GSSL received from trans athletes so far about experiencing discrimination.

00:59:43.640 And so we have not received any at this time.

00:59:46.100 Okay, so there's a lot in there.

00:59:50.200 But let's just start with the one comment.

00:59:52.740 There will always be someone faster.

00:59:54.320 This isn't the Olympics.

00:59:55.740 Like, calm down.

00:59:56.820 You know, there's a lot of disadvantages.

00:59:58.420 Somebody's taller than you, and she's a cisgendered girl.

01:00:01.140 Get over it.

01:00:01.840 Stop your whining, is basically what he was saying.

01:00:04.360 I mean, as a coach, Ken, who watches these kids train and helps them, what do you make of that claim?

01:00:08.980 Oh, yeah, that one really stuck out.

01:00:13.640 Of course, there's always going to be someone faster, stronger.

01:00:16.520 I was taught that as a young swimmer myself.

01:00:19.620 Within a category, though, right?

01:00:21.800 There's always going to be a bigger guy that's a faster guy or a bigger girl, faster girl.

01:00:26.780 But they're completely ignoring the fact that biological boys and biological girls aren't, especially after puberty, don't start at the same level.

01:00:38.260 Well, it's just science shows that.

01:00:41.360 And so to just sort of, you know, off it as, hey, look, you know, there's always going to be someone faster.

01:00:47.160 You know, get over it.

01:00:49.040 Just it didn't sit well with a lot of folks, especially biological girls.

01:00:54.180 Yeah.

01:00:54.580 And the claim that, you know, that I introduced it with Lisa of no one's harming anybody.

01:00:59.640 They're going to be in another lane.

01:01:01.140 It's like such a dodge.

01:01:03.460 That's just such a like, why wouldn't you just confront the actual issue of our concern is that the biological girls will not have a meaningful chance of winning?

01:01:13.900 That's that's it's not about someone's going to hurt me.

01:01:16.680 It's about I will no longer be in a fair competition.

01:01:20.560 I think that that's a good point.

01:01:23.800 However, I can actually understand the statement made by that gentleman.

01:01:30.200 And and I'm thinking a little bit deeper on this.

01:01:33.100 OK, well, maybe maybe there are people that are faster and bigger and stronger.

01:01:37.460 And I'm saying this as a former swimmer.

01:01:39.440 It's true.

01:01:40.300 But the issue right now is we are not in a place to culturally as a community to say that's how we want to race.

01:01:49.780 We as families haven't been able to say this is what we agree to.

01:01:53.940 Are we competitive swimming, competitive GSSL?

01:01:58.280 Are we using a WIAA competition rules so that we're trying to find the fastest and having the racing be equitable?

01:02:07.320 OK, well, then let's talk about that.

01:02:09.380 Or are we trying to have more of a rep perspective where everyone is open to all?

01:02:15.000 I think both of those perspectives are valid.

01:02:18.820 And I think that the people that are using their voices are trying to use their voices because they care.

01:02:25.520 What we're doing, though, is we're dividing Seattle even more when we're already feeling divided.

01:02:32.340 And people are becoming very defensive and trying to say that one way is right when if you ask and you look at the process, we haven't even sat down with one another to say this is what we want our leg to look like.

01:02:47.960 This is what racing in the GSSL is like.

01:02:52.820 People are just assuming that we're all on the same page and we're not.

01:02:57.500 Not yet.

01:02:58.360 Not yet.

01:02:58.960 What do you make of the 13 years as a somewhat arbitrary point at which they would have to use some sort of hormone suppression therapy if they wanted to compete at the elite level?

01:03:11.160 To me, I mean, I have a 12 year old boy and I have an 11 year old girl.

01:03:15.260 So I have kids right in this sweet spot here.

01:03:18.360 And while my 12 year old boy is he's he hasn't reached puberty yet.

01:03:23.500 One of his best buddies is well into it and is he looks like a man.

01:03:29.020 And, you know, he's got the he's got like growing a mustache and he's got a foot on my kid and he's got the hair.

01:03:35.320 I mean, like this, he looks like a man.

01:03:36.720 And so he's just started puberty earlier.

01:03:38.480 So that kid under this policy, I think, could swim against a biological girl and nobody would be objecting to it, Ken.

01:03:49.180 As it stands now, yes, that that's that's exactly right.

01:03:52.520 And it's interesting in our in our swim league, if you if you look at the times that are needed to qualify for the postseason to move on after the regular season,

01:04:03.720 12 and under boys and 12 and under girls have exactly the same qualifying times.

01:04:10.000 You touch on it.

01:04:11.040 It's right when that 13 and over happens, you start seeing a dramatic difference in how much faster boys swim.

01:04:20.860 The qualifying times to get the postseason are drastically different.

01:04:25.320 You know, in a sport where fractions of a second can really be in an eternity.

01:04:29.660 I mean, some of these times are eight, 10, 15 seconds faster than than the fastest girl.

01:04:35.960 So, yeah, it just speaks volumes to like like Lisa is saying, we need to figure out, is this how we want to swim?

01:04:44.340 Is this exactly the way we want to do it?

01:04:46.400 And there hasn't been a discussion that the meeting you showed the mashup there was it was a Q&A, but it was controlled.

01:04:53.200 Only the only the task force was allowed to speak.

01:04:55.940 They were, in a sense, cherry picking some questions, but there wasn't there wasn't a free flow dialogue there.

01:05:02.260 There was no you know, there was a few follow up questions that were able to to be answered.

01:05:07.240 But again, there hasn't been a dialogue as to is this is this what we want for our parents, for our community, for our kids?

01:05:14.040 Yeah.

01:05:14.180 Somebody said in one of the prepared questions, did you consider a division for sort of open gender?

01:05:22.820 And the answer was just no, like no discussion, Lisa.

01:05:26.160 It's just like that's not that's not happening.

01:05:28.600 They even made a slide that just said, nope.

01:05:32.300 And there was nothing to support that answer at all.

01:05:36.000 It looks to me like you have the lead person on this task force looks like an activist like this.

01:05:42.380 This the jury seems rigged.

01:05:45.440 Yes, I do think he's an activist and I know him, you know, we swim against each other and I respect him and admire him.

01:05:57.640 And I think it's great that he has a voice, but he is.

01:06:00.500 And this is a personal opinion, of course, I think he is operating as an activist here.

01:06:06.640 And in fact, I think the entire task force really kind of is, you know, there's there's there's a feeling that this is more about social change than actually implementing a sound swim policy.

01:06:18.780 That's the feeling that some are getting.

01:06:21.300 I'm not saying that's the intent necessarily.

01:06:23.220 But the optics of it and the sound of it really, it just feels that way.

01:06:29.580 So so his name is Brennan, the lead of the task force, and he is also, as I understand it, a public school teacher in the city of Seattle.

01:06:38.560 Is that right? Is that right? Not right, Ken?

01:06:40.540 I believe he's the health specialist for Seattle public school, so I don't think he's a classroom teacher.

01:06:46.660 OK, so he he's been he's on tape introducing himself to kindergartners.

01:06:53.200 And and talking about what it means to be trans and at a very, very young age.

01:06:59.060 I mean, there's you know, that that's what Ron DeSantis is trying to ban right now in Florida or did ban discussions of gender identity at the very, very young age, thinking it's better for parents to discuss that with their children if they think that's an appropriate thing to do.

01:07:13.000 So this is I think we have a soundbite of him, 19 or 20, sort of showing young, young children a trans book.

01:07:23.340 And he's got the purple hat on. Here it is.

01:07:25.440 Now, take a look at this picture we see here on the cover of this book, a really sad looking teddy because teddy has a little sad face and has a bow tie.

01:07:36.500 We see a mirror here and then we see a teddy with a bow and a really big happy face.

01:07:42.680 So what do you think this story might be about?

01:07:44.480 Well, I'm very excited to share it with you.

01:07:46.740 It's a very special story.

01:07:48.800 So the thing is, Lisa, I used to practice law and what you would do if you have and it's fine for him to have the positions that he has.

01:07:54.780 You would get a more J.K. Rowling type representative to be on the task force as well, just so you have both opposing views represented.

01:08:01.920 And it seems to me they didn't do that.

01:08:04.480 And then they shut down parental views that might have raised questions about that.

01:08:09.100 And in your case, it would have been really great to hear from you.

01:08:13.820 And it would have been really hard to shut you up as someone who can't stand trans people, because I know you've shared with with our producers that you actually had and sadly lost a baby who was actually non-binary.

01:08:29.920 Who actually had just an X chromosome.

01:08:34.280 So can you share a little bit of that with us and how that affects the way you view all of this?

01:08:39.640 Oh, absolutely.

01:08:42.200 Wonderful, wonderful human life.

01:08:44.540 And born as far as I knew at the time as as a little girl.

01:08:50.220 But lo and behold, she was truly single X.

01:08:54.080 She would have been in that in that umbrella, that medical umbrella of needing some type of hormone therapy.

01:09:01.720 And I think one of the lessons as a mom who sat on the other side and can relate to where all of us are as parents on this issue is.

01:09:12.900 I have yet to meet any parent that doesn't want the best for their child and for other children.

01:09:19.940 And when we are starting to talk about hormone therapies, we are also talking about the involvement of psychologists, social emotional supports.

01:09:33.400 How do we work as families, nuclear and extended to support the well-being of children?

01:09:40.600 What do the medical professionals say?

01:09:43.140 When is the right time to introduce therapy?

01:09:45.800 Do you want to wait until it truly is the child's choice or not?

01:09:51.660 These are big questions.

01:09:53.840 And I sat in rooms with multiple professionals debating these very questions.

01:10:01.760 And not one of us had the exact same answer.

01:10:06.440 Yet all of us had the same value, which is we wanted the very best for this child.

01:10:13.360 And I still, if she were still alive or he, whatever Ella would have chosen, I still would have wanted the best for Ella.

01:10:21.260 I would have loved for her to have raced in the GSSL if that was what was wanted.

01:10:27.740 But to think that one group knew what was right for Ella?

01:10:32.980 Absolutely not.

01:10:34.660 These decisions are not made in silos.

01:10:37.860 These children do not grow up in isolation.

01:10:41.020 They grow up with their families over time in family-based organizations like all of these pools are.

01:10:49.740 And it requires all of us.

01:10:51.460 It requires consistency in how we implement policy.

01:10:55.960 And you bet when it came to the well-being of Ella, I wanted people to ask very hard questions because I did not, nor do I, have all the answers.

01:11:09.240 Ken could have been Ella's coach.

01:11:11.020 And I would have wanted Ken to be asking very hard questions about what it means for Ella to succeed in racing, just as I would want my other kids to succeed.

01:11:21.740 And I would want to hear from the medical professionals as well.

01:11:25.500 These are big commitments.

01:11:27.560 And if we think that this is small potatoes and that the decisions can be made by five people who volunteer out of good faith to try and do the right thing.

01:11:40.140 But if we think that that is healthy policy and we haven't heard from families and we haven't heard from medical professionals, big red flag to me, big red flag.

01:11:50.500 And I know you have four children in addition to Ella, three boys, 14, 16, 18, and a daughter who's 12.

01:12:00.920 She's a swimmer.

01:12:02.380 And Ella was your fifth.

01:12:04.600 May I ask you a follow-up question about sweet Ella?

01:12:07.720 I'm so sorry.

01:12:08.340 Absolutely.

01:12:08.740 So I don't think most people understand what that means, you know, to be born with just an X chromosome and how, like, how would that have manifested in her life?

01:12:20.840 She looked like a girl.

01:12:21.680 I guess they did a blood test that showed this, but you tell me.

01:12:24.880 But how is it identified and how would she have developed, you know, if she had lived?

01:12:32.040 Great question.

01:12:34.740 A lot of how she would have developed, and I'm an advocate of the social-emotional first, would have had to do with partnership with her family in the community settings where Ella was growing up.

01:12:48.540 That means her school, that would have meant the summer swim league, because that takes months out of the year.

01:12:56.360 That was the first, that's the very first space.

01:12:59.260 Could she have developed into a woman that had children of her own?

01:13:04.740 No.

01:13:05.680 Could she have developed into a man that would have had children of his own?

01:13:11.400 No.

01:13:11.840 But could she have eventually developed into a beautiful human being with or without some of the hormone therapies?

01:13:21.880 We don't know.

01:13:23.220 She didn't get the opportunity.

01:13:24.540 But I can say that what I learned is as big of ideas as I've always had, I did not know enough.

01:13:37.300 I knew that my job was to be a loving, loving mother who could help Ella navigate a very difficult environment.

01:13:46.340 And that would have been in school, that would have been in sport, and I would have wanted my community activated.

01:13:54.780 And I would have wanted them to know her or him or they now.

01:14:00.180 We didn't have those options when Ella was younger.

01:14:02.860 But I would have been, I would have had to have been a part of the picture too.

01:14:08.180 And medical professionals would have been a part of her life throughout her life.

01:14:14.160 I hope that answers your question.

01:14:16.060 It does.

01:14:16.680 To me, what I'm feeling is she was born to the right mother, first of all.

01:14:21.480 Well, thank you.

01:14:22.220 And secondly, how sad it is that no one wants to listen to you.

01:14:28.160 I mean, why wouldn't they listen to you?

01:14:32.040 With all due respect to Ken, I mean, like you are the perfect person to weigh in on this.

01:14:38.300 So empathetic toward kids who are struggling with some of these issues, but having cisgendered kids who could, you know, like your daughter, who could be on the losing end if the policy isn't handled in a certain way, but with empathy toward all.

01:14:54.780 Like, why wouldn't they listen to you?

01:14:57.240 What do you think the reason is?

01:14:59.460 I think you're asking a really good question.

01:15:01.860 And trying to come from a very optimistic perspective of problem solving, I think we see a need.

01:15:09.460 I think people want to make the right decisions.

01:15:13.260 But you know what happens when you see a need and you rush?

01:15:16.780 All of a sudden, oh, I can do that.

01:15:18.800 I'll jump right in.

01:15:19.840 Let's do this.

01:15:20.740 I know what's right.

01:15:22.540 Well, we're not listening because we're not slowing down.

01:15:25.760 And we're we're not providing places of meeting where we're assuring that we're hearing different perspectives.

01:15:33.720 Right now, we're dividing people and we're rushing.

01:15:38.240 We're rushing, rushing, rushing.

01:15:39.860 And when we rush and when we provide a webinar versus an open discussion platform, we prevent voices like myself from being heard.

01:15:49.960 And we have great fear, certainly here in Seattle, of speaking up out of concern that someone with some other potential agenda is going to say, because we use our voice, we're saying that we are phobic of some group of people, which is not the truth.

01:16:11.620 But that has happened to others in this area.

01:16:14.900 And I suspect that's at play.

01:16:17.420 You know that's a tactic, right?

01:16:18.700 I mean, you know that that is used as a tactic to silence dissenting voices.

01:16:23.460 And that's why it does take a lot of courage to to speak up.

01:16:27.080 And we're seeing it now with the swimmers at UPenn who are up against Leah Thomas, who have found every way they can other than coming out themselves to register their objections to what's happening.

01:16:40.380 You know, they've gone through their parents writing letters to the school.

01:16:43.760 The school's response was, here's the number for the school therapist.

01:16:47.960 Like your daughters can go to therapy to deal with their anger, but no one's going to address the actual complaints that literally happened.

01:16:57.060 And some have spoken out anonymously, like one here, one there to a various publication or another.

01:17:02.920 But they're terrified.

01:17:04.680 And if anybody, you know, has the right to say, here are my concerns, it's those girls.

01:17:10.380 They're at the most elite level of swimming you can get.

01:17:12.820 So, of course, parents are feeling nervous because, you know, we've seen a pattern of that.

01:17:19.080 Listen, Ken and Lisa, there's so much more to go over, including what they're asking the young coaches to do, many of whom are teenagers themselves who are supposed to be enforcing some of these policies when it comes to the bathing suits, the pronouns, all of it.

01:17:34.320 It's complicated and it's fraught.

01:17:39.840 Ken, let's talk about what's happening with the coaches now.

01:17:42.860 The task force had a little bit of a little bit to say on the coach's role in all of this.

01:17:49.080 This is Soundbite 15.

01:17:50.920 Another question we got was, how do we know if someone's telling the truth?

01:17:53.540 And I think, like, the best place to come at this question is from a place of sort of love and trust.

01:18:00.940 The likelihood that someone is trying to, like, game the system, poke fun, you know, if that were to happen, then that's something that a coach hopefully would have a relationship with the athlete and be able to kind of interrupt.

01:18:14.740 The policy requires that a young person is consistently asserting this truth about themselves.

01:18:21.920 Coaches will be trained in our trainings on how to make those determinations and provide support.

01:18:28.000 All right.

01:18:28.660 So the coaches are going to be trained in how to assess whether somebody's actually trans and living their life as a trans person or not.

01:18:35.760 Is that realistic?

01:18:37.120 Well, I don't know.

01:18:38.940 I think that's part of it.

01:18:40.220 It's the task force has created their own training.

01:18:45.260 I think they're basing it off of OSPI, the public school system, and the training there.

01:18:51.240 I know the task force lead has been trained in that and I think is certified to be a trainer in that.

01:19:00.620 But, you know, a lot of our coaches, you know, I'm an old coach.

01:19:04.780 There's a few of us.

01:19:05.660 But some of our coaches, my assistants are 19 and 20.

01:19:10.460 I know there are some clubs who literally have teenage coaches.

01:19:14.900 You know, they're 18 and even participate on the team as well.

01:19:18.740 You know, they're coaching and swimming at the same time.

01:19:20.640 But I'm not sure when and where these trainings are supposed to take place in a very busy summer season anyway.

01:19:28.400 You know, other coaches do have, I have a daytime job.

01:19:33.320 We coach in the morning.

01:19:34.480 We have swim meets at night.

01:19:36.620 You know, what that training looks like, that in and of itself has not been vetted.

01:19:41.460 What is the procedure of this?

01:19:44.320 How do we go about obtaining it?

01:19:46.840 They just have basically said, hey, there's going to be some training available and you can take it.

01:19:51.360 But also training for for swimmers who are having some issues with, you know, handling the policy as well.

01:19:58.020 They can be available for some or they can be trained on kind of how to cope.

01:20:03.920 That's a lot to ask, no matter what your age of of these folks who are just trying to coach swimming and, you know, have a good time with the swimmers.

01:20:12.900 That's a lot to ask.

01:20:13.840 Um, the issue of Leah Thomas has come up.

01:20:17.580 We've had coaches in, uh, division one swimming, come on this show and talk about how they think Leah Thomas is that what's the way that's been handled is wrong.

01:20:26.860 And that there's no way that these cisgendered girls competing against her biological girls, you know, can, can realistically win.

01:20:34.640 There's a lot of thoughts about whether Leah Thomas threw a couple of her meets, um, so that she wouldn't look like the dominant force she is.

01:20:42.780 Um, this was addressed in part from this one guy, Rob on the task force.

01:20:47.860 Here's what he said on the subject of Leah Thomas.

01:20:51.900 If we tell them that they can compete, but what they do doesn't count, we're just telling them that they don't matter.

01:20:58.080 And that to me is goes against everything that we believe in, in terms of including and supporting, um, these young people as human beings.

01:21:05.760 So, um, I think personally with the Leah Thomas press and stuff, people have been so fixated on something that is so small, so unlikely.

01:21:16.740 And also Leah Thomas made their team as a male, like Leah Thomas worked hard as a swimmer and was an amazing swimmer, male and then female.

01:21:25.240 And so I think that people are not really looking at the bigger picture in that case.

01:21:30.320 So we've covered that case a lot in this show, uh, Leah Thomas in the last season, she competed as a member of the Penn men's team, ranked 554th in the 200 freestyle, 65th in the 500 freestyle and 32nd in the 1650 freestyle.

01:21:47.320 Uh, as she moved over to the women's team, she moved up to fifth, first and eighth in those respective events, uh, while swimming as a woman.

01:21:58.440 Now she says she plans to compete for a spot at the 2024 Olympics.

01:22:02.920 And, um, I mean, now that's next level, right?

01:22:05.400 It's like now these women have been working their entire lives to make, to get into one of those lanes and they will have to compete against somebody who's gone through male puberty.

01:22:13.640 Who's got male femurs, you know, male height, male muscle advantages.

01:22:19.220 And yes, has done some testosterone, um, suppression has done some hormone therapy, but still looks like a biological male, even though she doesn't identify as one.

01:22:28.880 And, you know, for him to even be defending that as perfectly fair and Leah was amazing when she was a man, she really wasn't.

01:22:36.380 She's been amazing while swimming as a woman.

01:22:39.520 It, to me, it shows this guy's, he's a dishonest broker.

01:22:42.400 What are your thoughts?

01:22:44.480 Ooh, um, yeah, to a degree, you know, I'm not here to cast aspersions on, on a, on a volunteer, but his initial response was with regards to, uh, record setting.

01:22:56.840 Meaning if a transgender girl swimming against girls sets a record that the record should stand.

01:23:04.200 And his response was, well, yeah, it should stand because if we can, if we tell them they can compete, uh, but that their effort doesn't count, then we're telling them that they don't matter.

01:23:15.100 Well, the other side of that coin is, you know, if that transgender girl, the biological boy beats out a girl for the record, that's the exact same message we're telling that biological girl.

01:23:27.540 That, Hey, you, you did your best.

01:23:29.860 And if it wasn't for this biological boy, you'd have the record.

01:23:33.100 So now you don't matter.

01:23:35.120 So I, that, that particular argument really was just empty for me.

01:23:40.180 That was one of the, one of the moments of that meeting that really stuck out because it's such a, you know, we have the bulk of our swimmers as well.

01:23:46.900 I'll swim in exhibition heats, right?

01:23:49.220 We have a ton, you know, most, most clubs have like my club has about 140, 150 swimmers.

01:23:54.120 There's only three official swimmers in each event.

01:23:56.500 I might have five to eight, even 10 exhibition swimmers.

01:24:01.080 Well, the exhibition swimmers don't score points in the meet, but they swim and they're there to do their best.

01:24:06.420 And it's part of learning and being a lifelong swimmer, but we don't tell them that their effort doesn't count because they don't score points.

01:24:14.000 So it was just a really feckless argument, if you ask me.

01:24:18.820 Is the exhibition swimmer, what, what, uh, this policy says you can be if you're 13, 14 and you don't get that hormone there.

01:24:29.300 Like if you choose not to go on puberty blockers, there was something they said you could still do.

01:24:33.440 You could still swim, um, and you could swim in your preferred genders lane, but you'd have to be, what was it?

01:24:40.960 An exact exhibition swimmer.

01:24:42.360 I'm trying to remember.

01:24:43.100 Yeah, it's a little confusing.

01:24:44.980 So you can swim in a scoring heat.

01:24:48.840 And then if you reach a qualifying time, then from that point on, you need to swim, uh, in an exhibition heat to not score any points.

01:25:01.380 However, you would still be eligible for the post-season because you've made that qualifying time.

01:25:06.260 If you can prove that you've been on these, uh, hormone suppressants for at least 12 months.

01:25:11.840 Now back to the question of no MD and I, I am, I'm going to finish up on the coaching in one second, Ken, but you raised puberty blockers and we're talking about hormone, you know, puberty blockers basically is what now even the Biden administration is recommending these for kids who are unsure.

01:25:27.940 Am I a girl, am I a girl, am I a boy?

01:25:29.160 And this very controversial is a brand new study out saying this is, this tends to be a transitory thing for kids.

01:25:35.360 You know, suppressing puberty actually can have lifelong consequences, um, on, on genital development, on fertility and so on, on how you look for the rest of your life.

01:25:46.180 I mean, it is not a harmless thing as, as some would suggest.

01:25:49.940 So there is no medical doctor advising this task force.

01:25:54.340 A question about, you know, the use of puberty blockers was asked, here's how they handled it.

01:25:59.780 It's soundbite 16.

01:26:01.440 One person said like, well, is there a doctor on the task force?

01:26:04.280 No.

01:26:04.840 So we, what we have instead is like proof of consistency.

01:26:07.760 So, um, our elite athletes, um, are, uh, would be required if they are assigned male at birth, would be required to show proof of puberty blockers for at least one full year.

01:26:19.160 This was a really hard part for us to kind of get our head around and our hearts around.

01:26:24.700 Um, but I think that it comes from a place of wanting to, um, find a place where the league can come together.

01:26:31.820 What's also really interesting about, um, hormone blockers, uh, puberty blockers, excuse me, um, is that, um, it, they are 100% reversible.

01:26:40.680 Puberty blockers are only effective if somebody hasn't reached puberty or has only reached the beginning parts of puberty, at which point the, um, all of the prog, or not, that's not the right word.

01:26:50.500 All of the changes that have begun to happen in the body, like don't like continue to persist.

01:26:54.580 So after that point, uh, puberty blockers wouldn't be effective necessarily.

01:26:58.640 So, um, that would be, uh, like a doctor wouldn't, wouldn't prescribe that.

01:27:02.920 So we still require proof of medical intervention.

01:27:05.480 Um, and so if like a doctor wouldn't prescribe puberty blockers to somebody who's already been through puberty.

01:27:09.580 So we still need proof of medical intervention, which would be, um, de facto, like hormone replacement therapy.

01:27:14.660 And so they wouldn't be eligible if, um, they didn't have that proof of medical intervention.

01:27:20.000 Okay.

01:27:20.440 So they're, they're talking about this, like it's an aspirin and, you know, we went to the Mayo Clinic to, to figure out, is there, is,

01:27:28.020 is it like an aspirin?

01:27:29.220 I mean, is, are there real risks?

01:27:30.840 And while they say that for a child who's genuinely confused about his or her gender identity, suppressing puberty could improve one's mental wellbeing and reduce depression and anxiety and so on.

01:27:41.720 Um, it also does have possible side effects that need to be factored in, by the way, you first, you typically get it through injections or an implant.

01:27:48.460 So it's not like an oral pill.

01:27:50.920 Um, they say that, uh, this will, I'm just looking at the list, um, decrease the growth of facial and body hair, prevent voice deepening in a boy.

01:28:02.960 Uh, this is, these are boy side effects, limit the growth of genitalia and, uh, somebody who's biologically female, it will stop breast development.

01:28:11.380 It will stop menstruation and then long-term, um, and, but while you're taking them, you can suffer weight gain, hot flashes, headaches, long-term effects can include, um, like the, the depression of growth spurts, bone, bone growth and density can be affected future fertility, depending on the, when the puberty blockers are started.

01:28:32.260 And then they go on to say, if children with male genitalia begin using this early in puberty, they might not develop enough penile and scrotal skin for certain gender affirming genital surgical procedures later.

01:28:46.420 So whether you decide to have a surgery for that or not, the, the absence of sufficient penile and scrotal skin stands out as something that really needs to be discussed by a doctor.

01:28:57.600 Um, and in addition, they say delaying puberty beyond one's peers can be stressful.

01:29:02.840 Children might experience lower self-esteem if they're the only one not going through it.

01:29:06.780 And, you know, so this is, to me, it's crazy that they wouldn't have included medical professionals on this task force.

01:29:13.240 What do you make of this?

01:29:15.300 I'll speak to that because you're exactly right, Megan, you know, and one of the questions that I'd had on this, you know, where did the data come from to make their choice?

01:29:24.840 For example, why, why, why, why, uh, why the 12 month timeframe?

01:29:29.580 Um, and when I asked the question, the response was, well, we consulted other policies.

01:29:35.100 Well, well, what other policies did those have those policies ever been reviewed?

01:29:39.900 What science were those policies, uh, using what research?

01:29:43.400 Because there's current updated research on this.

01:29:45.660 And as far as puberty blockers, again, you know, to say that, to say that they're a hundred percent reversible, that to me is reckless.

01:29:53.580 I don't think that the, the science has settled on any of this.

01:29:56.680 There, there's not a, there's just not enough data to even make a decision from the research that I've done.

01:30:02.400 And back to the coaches, what do you make of the fact that they're saying to the coaches, you, you have to say your pronouns at the beginning of every season.

01:30:08.860 You have to ask everyone on the team to say their pronouns.

01:30:12.360 Um, you have to use the proper pronoun.

01:30:14.400 It's like, right.

01:30:16.460 In fact, the, the, the term there is, you know, that these kids have a right to that.

01:30:21.940 Um, I didn't know that was a granted right per se, but, uh, yeah, that's certainly something that's, that's been talked about that, you know, we need to acknowledge whatever pronoun.

01:30:31.580 That may be illegal.

01:30:32.680 That may be illegal.

01:30:33.360 Some guy just filed a lawsuit about this because it doesn't comport with his Christian beliefs and he won, um, that sort of forced speech is potentially legally problematic.

01:30:42.700 And I know you guys are looking at the legal implications of all of this as well.

01:30:47.160 You know, forcing this on parents and the swim league could have implications one way or the other.

01:30:52.380 Lisa, let me, let me ask you, uh, last word, cause this vote's coming up on the 26th.

01:30:57.180 What's the one thing you want this, the board, the task force, and the people of Seattle to think about as we approach the date of the vote?

01:31:06.240 Oh, that's a, that's a great question.

01:31:10.060 I think, I think Seattle as progressively minded as it is and as love all as it is focused needs to ask this question.

01:31:21.620 Have we heard vigorous discourse on this issue and are we hearing from different members of our community, the medical professionals and the families, particularly prior to our voting?

01:31:39.780 We, you know, we're voting in a policy that requires, um, or incentivizes even the interventions of hormones.

01:31:49.840 And we have a task force that has a potential position of oversight on our children and Seattle.

01:32:00.280 Are you using your voice or are you afraid to speak?

01:32:03.980 Because if you are afraid to speak, we have a problem with policy that we're going to introduce to our, our community.

01:32:12.200 So where there's fear, we do not have healthy policy.

01:32:15.440 And right now I think we have fear.

01:32:18.760 Well said.

01:32:20.080 Thank you both so much for coming on, telling us this story.

01:32:23.240 We'll watch it.

01:32:23.800 The votes in five days.

01:32:25.300 Ken, Lisa, all the best to you.

01:32:27.060 Thank you.

01:32:27.740 Thank you.

01:32:28.840 Tomorrow, tune into this show because my good friend, Steven Crowder is back.

01:32:32.720 Everyone loves Crowder.

01:32:34.780 You're going to love it.

01:32:35.800 And we'll see you then.

01:32:39.600 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show.

01:32:41.520 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - April 21, 2022

Biden Confused Again, and CNN Plus Already Getting Shut Down, with Fifth Column Hosts Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch ｜ Ep. 305

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