The Megyn Kelly Show - Biden's Title IX Sham, Abolishing the Department of Education, and Hard Work, with Betsy DeVos ｜ Ep. 375

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00:00:30.600 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:32.540 Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:42.000 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:00:43.820 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:45.560 On the program today, former Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.

00:00:51.160 I am so excited to talk to her.

00:00:53.440 I've been wanting to talk to her for forever, it seems.

00:00:57.420 She's here for the full episode, and there is so much to cover.

00:01:01.920 We're going to get to her thoughts on the nationwide teacher shortage

00:01:05.980 and the teachers' union boss, Randy Weingarten, blaming Republicans for this.

00:01:11.240 Republicans.

00:01:12.180 We'll also tackle Joe Biden recently scrapping DeVos' Title IX regulations.

00:01:17.880 These are the ones that, among other things, restore due process for men who get accused

00:01:22.760 on college campuses of sexual harassment or assault.

00:01:26.140 Well, the Biden administration is about to throw those out.

00:01:28.720 And not only that, but they're saying that schools have to now respect students' gender identity,

00:01:37.020 and they could impose penalties on students who don't use the declared pronouns of choice

00:01:44.400 by their classmates.

00:01:45.960 We're becoming Canada.

00:01:47.520 This is what got Jordan Peterson in trouble in Canada.

00:01:50.500 They made it a law.

00:01:51.680 This is the next best thing.

00:01:53.220 Betsy herself has also been in the news lately.

00:01:55.080 The January 6th committee reportedly wants to hear from her, so will she cooperate?

00:01:59.320 So we'll get to all of that.

00:02:00.820 And we are also going to get into why, in her new book,

00:02:04.500 she calls Elizabeth Warren one of the coldest people she's ever met.

00:02:08.260 Her book is titled Hostages No More, The Fight for Education, Freedom, and the Future of the American Child.

00:02:21.700 Betsy, so great to have you here.

00:02:23.560 Thanks for coming on the show.

00:02:24.900 Thanks so much, Megan.

00:02:25.940 It's great to be here with you.

00:02:27.800 Oh, my gosh.

00:02:28.180 There's so much I want to go over with you.

00:02:29.640 What's happening to education under this administration has been downright alarming.

00:02:35.280 And every other week, I'm like, we've got to get Betsy DeVos on. 1.00

00:02:37.880 And I want to talk to her about this.

00:02:38.800 And I want to talk to her about that.

00:02:39.720 So, so much to go over.

00:02:40.820 But if you don't mind, let's just start with news of the day,

00:02:42.940 because the Liz Cheney defeat is making all sorts of news.

00:02:48.100 And you were in Republican politics for a long time before you became education secretary.

00:02:53.800 So you know something about, you know, wins and losses and what they mean.

00:02:57.220 The left wing press is calling her a martyr.

00:03:00.820 They're talking about a presidential run for Liz Cheney.

00:03:04.100 She went down in flames by 30 points to her Trump back opponent. 0.69

00:03:07.880 For this congressional seat.

00:03:10.240 And I really wonder, first of all, what your reaction is to her loss, but also why you think she lost.

00:03:18.140 Well, it's a very good question.

00:03:20.340 I think that originally her work to really look into January 6th and all of the happenings that day was a very valid pursuit.

00:03:34.280 But I feel like she continued to make it more and more about herself.

00:03:38.980 And then, you know, the race in Wyoming, her home state, it became clearer and clearer that the national, everything that was going on nationally was going to sort of supersede everything going on there.

00:03:54.820 And I just I feel sorry for her personally.

00:03:58.740 But, you know, this is this is, I think, an instructive time for all Republicans.

00:04:06.020 You know, I, for one, have been involved many years and I've always been one looking through the windshield to the next election.

00:04:12.760 Republicans need to be focused on the policies that Joe Biden and his administration have been laying on this country.

00:04:20.140 And the people in America are suffering under their policies.

00:04:25.040 We need to be attacking those policies and and framing up debates and issues around policies that are going to matter to families at the kitchen tables across America.

00:04:36.980 We need to be looking ahead, not in the rearview mirror.

00:04:40.420 And I think it's, again, another an instructive moment for Republicans across the country.

00:04:47.180 There was a CNN poll not long ago released late July that found 36, just 36 percent of Republicans believe January 6th was a crisis or a major problem.

00:04:57.120 That's down seven points since February, since, you know, we've had eight hearings on this in prime time, some of them and so on.

00:05:04.680 But so this is not resonating with Republican voters.

00:05:07.600 And Liz Cheney is the face of it.

00:05:11.460 Do you think, you know, because you say she made it about her, do you think she forgot what actually is important to voters in Wyoming?

00:05:19.280 Things like inflation and gas prices and so on, as opposed to just, you know, a never ending obsession with what, of course, was a bad, bad day.

00:05:28.860 But, you know, was it the worst day?

00:05:30.260 Was it the day that deserves all this critical coverage forevermore, primetime hearings and so on?

00:05:35.720 I'm getting the feeling that Wyoming voters didn't think so.

00:05:39.100 Well, I think Wyoming voters didn't think so.

00:05:41.440 And I think voters in states all over the country are focused on the issues that they're facing every day.

00:05:47.480 As you said, higher prices for all of their groceries, higher gas prices, higher prices for everything across the board.

00:05:55.280 And then not to mention all of the other policies that are impacting families, such as the continued politicization of everything to do with schools.

00:06:06.940 You know, the last two years have really laid bare all of these issues.

00:06:10.780 And parents have had a front row seat. 0.67

00:06:13.960 And those are some of the things that, you know, I talk about in the book, but they're more real to parents today than they ever were before the pandemic.

00:06:22.940 And those are the things that are on the minds of voters.

00:06:25.600 We're seeing it in primary races all over the country.

00:06:28.880 So that's this is exactly what I want to talk about.

00:06:31.420 But this is what I think her problem was.

00:06:33.940 OK, she she didn't like January 6th.

00:06:36.100 I mean, there are very few people who liked January 6th.

00:06:38.420 OK, and and it definitely deserves some scrutiny.

00:06:42.160 We have to figure out exactly who did it and why and how cops got hurt and so on.

00:06:46.220 However, the view on Trump, especially with some distance and, you know, a couple of years under Joe Biden, I think is shifting pretty rapidly to his policy successes, especially now that we don't have his tweets every day and so on.

00:06:59.860 Right. It's like he's back in the news because of the raid this week.

00:07:02.740 But I do think people are starting to see the difference in policy between his administration, which you were a part of, and the Biden administration, which we're living under right now.

00:07:12.240 And I think there's like we get it January 6th.

00:07:15.540 It's not getting it's getting outsized coverage versus the BLM riots and all everything else that we went through during those years.

00:07:22.540 But we're focused on really catastrophic things right now from the numbers, the economic numbers to, yes, absolutely.

00:07:30.200 What's happening to our children on a daily basis under this administration in the schools and around just general children issues, health care and so on.

00:07:39.260 So it gets to the point where you're like, do you understand what we care about?

00:07:43.780 Get over your obsession with this one terrible day.

00:07:47.960 Move on to the things that will affect me and my children.

00:07:50.300 Well, we've seen in primary contests all across the country, the things that are on voters' minds are those issues that are impacting them daily.

00:07:59.700 And the one that I've been closest to education is top among them, only second to inflation and all the impacts of inflation.

00:08:08.300 And these are policies that Joe Biden and his administration and all of his colleagues in Congress have been laying heavily on Americans that are unhappy about what they're doing.

00:08:22.240 And we have got to stay focused on beating Democrats and winning for Republican policies and Republican issues this fall.

00:08:31.560 I definitely I mean, we're going to talk all about that.

00:08:34.540 But before we do, let me spend one more minute on news of the day, because there's the Trump raid and the raid of Mar-a-Lago or search, whatever you want to call it, pursuing to a warrant.

00:08:44.980 But it looked like a like a raid with 30 FBI agents going in there.

00:08:48.780 Now Trump has come out and said to it was actually Fox News Digital.

00:08:54.040 He said that he reached out to the DOJ about working together, saying, quote, whatever we can do to help, because the temperature has to be brought down in this country.

00:09:03.000 If it isn't terrible, things are going to happen.

00:09:05.440 The people of this country are not going to stand for another scam.

00:09:10.020 What do you make of that?

00:09:11.000 And what do you make of the raid?

00:09:11.880 Well, first of all, it was unprecedented.

00:09:16.260 And I think it just is.

00:09:19.000 I mean, the FBI has a lot of explaining to do, as does the DOJ.

00:09:23.280 I mean, this is the same FBI that has gone out to investigate parents for speaking up at school board meetings on behalf of their kids.

00:09:32.440 I mean, the trust level there has been has taken a major hit on multiple different occasions and for multiple reasons.

00:09:39.300 And so there is you know, this is an issue that we have got to grapple with and and that the DOJ and FBI have got to address forthrightly with the American people.

00:09:51.420 We we have got to be able to trust the highest legal body in our country.

00:09:57.840 And yet some of the moves they've made in the last year and a half have have left us, you know, dumbstruck over what's been happening, not the least of which is parents who have been made to feel or called it literally called domestic terrorists for simply caring about and wanting answers about their children's educations.

00:10:18.820 Do you think Merrick Garland has gone full partisan?

00:10:21.300 Well, it certainly appears that he has.

00:10:25.700 It feels that way.

00:10:27.400 And and again, I think these are really serious issues that everybody's got to take a step back and and look objectively at what's been going on and really address the concerns that Americans validly have about that entity and about the FBI.

00:10:46.800 Betsy, what's going to happen if these guys put Donald Trump in handcuffs and actually indict the former president of the United States on some presidential records act charge related?

00:10:57.660 It's not even a criminal statute, but they're kind of using the criminal law to get after him for allegedly keeping classified and other documents down at Mar-a-Lago.

00:11:04.820 What what's going to happen if they do that to him?

00:11:06.580 Well, I don't want to go to a hypothetical like that, but again, I think the the actions by the DOJ and the FBI on this and other matters have really put a lot of Americans on edge.

00:11:23.360 And and rightfully so there are answers that have not been forthcoming and there are actions that have just made normal Americans made to feel like they are somehow out of step.

00:11:37.820 And again, I think of those parents for whom investigation investigators were sent in by the FBI when when we have other matters of serious domestic terrorism and other terrorism incidents or threats thereof that go on unresponded to and or unaddressed.

00:11:58.260 So, again, the the the DOJ and FBI really do have a lot of explaining to do and and a long way to go to regain their credibility.

00:12:10.040 Yeah, they want to investigate the people protesting outside of conservative Supreme Court justices homes, including, you know, the one guy who showed up to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh.

00:12:19.180 But they have plenty of time to go raid Mar-a-Lago and spend time on documents.

00:12:23.500 It's it's infuriating for a lot of people who who even even Trump critics.

00:12:28.620 It's just infuriating to watch how these wheels of justice are applied to run over certain people, especially if they have an R after their name on the subject of Jan 6th.

00:12:38.500 There are reports that you're cooperating with the committee and may testify.

00:12:42.440 Is that true?

00:12:44.320 Well, I've not had any contact with the committee.

00:12:47.060 And really what I have to say about it is recorded in my book.

00:12:51.820 I, you know, the the day of January 6th was an awful day on many accounts by, you know, from for many different reasons.

00:13:01.000 And I ultimately felt the need to step away from my position as a result of a lack of action taken on the part of the president to put an end to it or to call for an end to it.

00:13:16.160 And as I have reflected upon in my book, it was a difficult day for all of us.

00:13:22.960 But leaders have to step into moments like that and make sure that we are doing everything we can to, you know, right the ship to stabilize things.

00:13:33.740 And that was that was very much what I felt my part to play in that particular moment was.

00:13:40.800 So just to be clear, CNN is reporting that you have been in talks with the House Select Committee investigating January 6th.

00:13:46.920 Are you denying that?

00:13:48.760 I have not been in contact and nor has any of my team been in contact with CNN or anyone.

00:13:55.080 And so once again, that was CNN, but you you in contact with House Select Committee.

00:13:59.880 No, that was inaccurate.

00:14:01.920 That is inaccurate.

00:14:03.480 OK.

00:14:03.900 Oh, you're telling me CNN got the facts wrong about a member of the Trump administration?

00:14:07.440 Surprise.

00:14:08.020 Surprise.

00:14:08.820 Yes.

00:14:09.160 OK, so what about that?

00:14:12.060 Can let's spend a minute on the fact that you resigned early.

00:14:14.980 I mean, you're only going to be there for another 12 days or so, but you you, Elaine Chao, and there was one other person can't remember who it is off the top of my head, but you resigned after January 6th on January 7th.

00:14:26.900 And I understand why the fever was high and it was just the whole thing was overwhelming emotionally for a lot of people.

00:14:32.140 But do you have any regrets about that now with some distance between the event and today?

00:14:37.520 I do not.

00:14:41.360 I really felt that it was the right thing to do at the moment.

00:14:47.180 First of all, all the work that I could have accomplished in that job, in that office, serving the American people had been accomplished at that point.

00:14:56.260 And there was nothing more that we could really do on behalf of students.

00:15:00.800 And I just felt very I put myself in the position of a young child watching what was going on on TV that day.

00:15:12.040 And it was it was hard to see.

00:15:14.380 It was difficult to to watch and to and and and, you know, almost impossible to understand in many ways.

00:15:22.480 So I just felt that it was a point at which I could no longer continue to remain in the role I had and serve in the way that I was.

00:15:33.180 And I, you know, I did what I thought was the right thing at the moment.

00:15:37.440 And no, I don't have regrets looking in in in hindsight on it.

00:15:42.440 I think, you know, as expressed in my letter of resignation, this was a moment where I felt it was important to side with the longevity of our Constitution and support what had to happen that day from a procedure standpoint.

00:16:04.180 And I was I was I was especially I was especially concerned about and and disappointed and and in many ways felt hurt for how Mike Pence was sort of thrown under the what was thrown under the bus that day.

00:16:23.200 And and that was that was a particularly poignant moment as well.

00:16:29.660 So it's pretty crazy how he's been demonized by some in the hardcore MAGA crowd, right?

00:16:34.680 It's like, what was Mike Pence's sin again?

00:16:37.540 I can see why you don't like him if you're on the left.

00:16:40.300 But really, if you're on the right, you'd be hard pressed to find a guy more loyal to Donald Trump than Mike Pence.

00:16:47.300 That's just the one thing he would not do was contest the certification of the vote, which was not his role.

00:16:52.800 He was not allowed to do that no matter what Trump had been advised or was telling his people.

00:16:58.040 So it's not truly tough to like, why, why does this hardcore group within the MAGA most, you know, avid MAGA fans hate Mike Pence?

00:17:10.720 Yeah, I think it's a very good question.

00:17:13.180 I mean, he was unfailingly faithful to and loyal to President Trump for the whole time in the administration.

00:17:22.240 He was a huge asset to the administration and and really was a great spokesperson for the president's policies, as were many others in the cabinet and in the administration.

00:17:34.780 So, again, I just I don't have any regrets in hindsight about having, you know, resigned on that day after the January 6 happenings.

00:17:49.280 But I just hope that as a party, a whole party, that we can turn around and move forward and look ahead instead of continually looking in the rearview mirror and second guessing everything.

00:18:03.680 We have we have we have real foes to defeat in the policies and people that are represented in the opposite party.

00:18:12.360 And we have real harms to point to being being levied on Americans across the country in terms of the policies that this this administration has put forward.

00:18:25.100 And so that's where our focus really needs to be moving ahead and moving our party forward to win elections and reclaim, you know, majorities so that we can put policies back in place that are going to actually help and improve Americans lives.

00:18:42.560 Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, in your field in particular, it's amazing how much the policies have differed administration to administration.

00:18:49.820 Obama, Obama, Trump, now Biden and the pendulum keeps swinging back and forth to the point where I'm sure a lot of these schools are like, oh, my God, you know, like, don't get too comfortable with any of these guidelines because they're going to switch in four years.

00:19:02.200 Can I ask you, though, because you do write about this in your book about your you considered possibly trying to invoke the 25th Amendment after January 6th?

00:19:10.360 And it sounds like although, you know, you didn't want to reveal substance of conversations with people like Mike Pence, it sounds to me like he stopped it.

00:19:18.220 Like Mike Pence was the one who he was loyal to Trump and said, that's not going to happen.

00:19:25.300 Well, I yes, I don't want to talk about my conversations with him or others.

00:19:31.180 But again, I think in moments of crisis, leaders need to lean in and step forward and look at what the options are to ensure that the ship is steadied and things are stabilized.

00:19:43.400 And and so my conversations were with others to ensure that we were doing everything we could in our roles to do just that.

00:19:53.520 Did you think President Trump was unsteady?

00:19:56.380 You know, I thought over the last weeks after the election, the times that I had to interact with him, I felt first of all, I felt very sorry for him in that he was very isolated in the White House.

00:20:11.960 And, you know, it was a different time during a lot of the COVID protocols where, you know, you could do things and then not do things again.

00:20:22.800 Anyway, the isolation, I think, was was not helpful.

00:20:26.240 And he listened to fewer and fewer people around him.

00:20:31.720 And I think that was that was tough.

00:20:34.060 That was tough to see.

00:20:35.320 It was tough to watch.

00:20:36.600 And and so I, you know, I had concerns about that continued isolation and and taking advice and counsel from fewer and fewer people.

00:20:47.960 You know, it's like you get feedback.

00:20:50.080 And I realize when you're president, when you're the actual candidate, you get it from more than the media.

00:20:54.860 But on election night and thereafter, the media tends to be the main vehicle through which we get election results and we find out, you know, what happened in places like Arizona, Michigan, what have you.

00:21:06.780 And I just wonder, you know, you think about Trump alone in the White House and isolated and four years of vicious attacks and impeachments and Russiagate, all of it.

00:21:15.220 And then he's kind of being asked to just trust what these people are saying about him while the pylon reaches epic levels.

00:21:22.560 Right. I mean, yes, in part because of what he was saying about the election and so on.

00:21:26.520 But the trust was so fractured.

00:21:29.500 There was no trusting it.

00:21:30.960 And I don't think he trusted a lot of these state officials either who were giving him this feedback, Republican or Democrat, because even within the Republican Party, you had never Trumpers.

00:21:39.500 You know, it just reminds me of almost a soldier who doesn't really know who his constituency is and doesn't really trust a lot of people around him and really for good reason.

00:21:52.840 Yeah. You know, I guess the reference to a soldier in the fog of war, you know, we were in unprecedented times trying to navigate through covid and everything surrounding that.

00:22:04.240 And and and I do think with the continued scrutiny and pylons on at every turn and every front, it was difficult.

00:22:16.520 I mean, the entire time of President Trump's administration, all of us had to continually battle what seemed to be incessant attacks on everything that we did.

00:22:30.700 And, you know, there was there was less and less focus on the merits of the policies that were being presented and promoted and more and more on personality and who said what about whom.

00:22:44.320 And and so the erosion of trust was was across the board.

00:22:48.840 And that's you know, that's understandable.

00:22:51.220 And we are in that same kind of an environment today.

00:22:55.340 And so it's even more important for leaders.

00:22:58.840 And I would encourage all leaders within our party to really step up and and and lead constituents around platforms that people will be confident of and and and demonstrate trustworthiness by being your same self in public and in private.

00:23:23.540 And, you know, the issue of trust is one that goes very wide and deep in our country, I'm afraid.

00:23:33.040 And I have you know, I continue to have real concerns about where we go from here if we do not come back together and talk honestly about policies that are going to make a difference for families, but from a platform of being able to trust and have have valid discussion and debate of ideas.

00:23:54.760 And, you know, this is one of the things that I think about when we talk about the lack of free speech on campuses.

00:24:02.260 This ability to discuss and debate ideas openly and without fear of retribution, but to be able to openly debate and and share ideas and thoughts and helping equip students to be able to do that in a way that is going to be constructive for them.

00:24:22.440 These are these are these are really important foundations that I think way too many students are not being afforded.

00:24:31.220 They aren't being challenged by not getting it in K through 12.

00:24:33.980 They're not getting it in college education now, even in law schools.

00:24:37.020 Now they're trying to shut down debate and give people safe spaces if they hear arguments that upset them.

00:24:41.640 Welcome to being a lawyer.

00:24:43.200 Sure. So, yeah, it's not just an education problem, though, and then it follows you out when you get into the business world.

00:24:48.340 And if you go into government and, you know, we're seeing it, this problem is becoming truly ubiquitous.

00:24:53.420 One word on the Democrats, I will never forget the moment where President Trump signed prior to his State of the Union that year, the Anti-Sex Trafficking Act.

00:25:03.480 And you had people like AOC sitting cross armed, refusing to clap when he mentioned it.

00:25:09.240 It's like, really, you can't spare a moment of applause for the Anti-Sex Trafficking Act.

00:25:15.660 That's too far a bridge for you to cross to just say, hey, I realize it's Trump and I hate him, but I I support.

00:25:23.380 That's just how hardcore partisan things have gotten and and just crazy.

00:25:28.000 It's annoying.

00:25:29.040 Now, I was I was actually encouraged when many Republicans stood up and applauded Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan.

00:25:37.240 And I thought that was it. That was a good moment.

00:25:40.060 That was a little glimmer of hope.

00:25:42.240 But, no, we have got to we have got to come around to being able to applaud good ideas, no matter where they originate from and to being up, being able to debate those ideas.

00:25:54.500 So do we think to put a pin on it that what would you think about Donald Trump being arrested?

00:26:00.520 Do you think he should be prosecuted for January 6th, which is what they're really trying to do?

00:26:05.660 You know, I don't have any knowledge of what is going on in that investigation or what the you know, what the foundational allegations are.

00:26:17.520 And so I I would not speculate what next steps might be.

00:26:21.920 What I would go back to is that the erosion of trust in the FBI and the DOJ are very serious matters and whatever their next steps or moves are, they had better be thinking very carefully about what what they're going to do and what impact that's going to have across the country.

00:26:42.140 And, you know, I think this is a very, very difficult moment.

00:26:48.240 And people have valid concerns about this, you know, highest legal body in our in our nation, not doing things on behalf of all people, but having a politicized agenda.

00:27:03.880 And so, you know, let's let's make sure let's urge them to be very circumspect about what whatever their next steps might be.

00:27:13.740 I do think it's kind of curious that are you open minded to a criminal prosecution of trauma?

00:27:19.580 And even as in my position, I can say it's never been done before.

00:27:23.400 You're going to try to get him for a bad legal theory on Jan 6th or you're going to get him for having documents he was cooperating over on the on the Mar-a-Lago front.

00:27:30.540 Like it'll tear this country apart. It will tear us apart.

00:27:35.680 It is there is prosecutorial discretion, even if he has committed a document crime.

00:27:40.380 I guarantee you a bad legal theory does not make a crime on the Jan 6th lane.

00:27:44.140 I'm surprised that you won't go that far.

00:27:47.660 No, I mean, I can't I cannot imagine a scenario under which there's grounds for that to happen.

00:27:52.600 But I have been shocked and surprised by the moves that the DOJ and the FBI have made in these most recent days.

00:28:01.780 And frankly, in the months before this, again, going back to when parents.

00:28:07.340 I know, but I was asking, should they should they not will they?

00:28:10.640 I mean, will they? Yeah, I think they will.

00:28:12.140 But should they?

00:28:13.980 That's the question.

00:28:14.800 I don't I mean, I'm certainly not aware of anything that would would warrant that.

00:28:20.240 And and and I would be shocked if there is grounds to do it.

00:28:25.040 Yeah.

00:28:26.000 You seem like you're close to Mike Pence.

00:28:28.220 It seems like he's going to run.

00:28:29.760 He's certainly, you know, intimating that.

00:28:32.360 So we very well could have a primary with Pence and Trump running against one another.

00:28:39.080 Would you who would you support?

00:28:40.480 Well, I'm focused right now on the elections this fall, and I think that's where all Republicans should be focused.

00:28:48.560 We need to win races and win back majorities in both chambers and at state houses and in governor's mansions across the country.

00:28:57.140 And I think that 24 will be very much informed by who is supportive of what and how and how how we are actually working in tandem to move the party and the ideas of the party forward.

00:29:14.500 And then I think after this this November, we're going to have lots of time to talk about what next.

00:29:21.980 But there's there's certainly no end of speculation about what the matchups might be.

00:29:27.580 So you could you could vote for Donald Trump.

00:29:31.820 I'm not going to speculate.

00:29:33.400 I don't do hypotheticals.

00:29:35.480 I really don't.

00:29:36.480 I never have.

00:29:37.100 Well, no, I understand.

00:29:38.240 I'm just wondering because because you resigned, you know, does that make it impossible that you would support him if he were to run for another term?

00:29:47.020 Well, I don't I'm not at all convinced that he is going to run for another term.

00:29:53.120 And I may be a minority of of among a minority of Republicans that feel that way.

00:29:59.760 But again, I think we need to stay focused on this fall's elections and and let's see what happens then.

00:30:07.560 And and then what is, you know, what unfolds beyond that?

00:30:10.920 We have a lot of issues to deal with as a party.

00:30:15.840 But more importantly and more broadly, this country has a lot of issues to deal with because we have we have a formidable opponent and opponents in the Democrats that are continuing to wreak havoc on our country and on families across the country.

00:30:32.020 And we have got to turn the tide and and, you know, reverse course on policies that are harming families and that are precluding kids from getting a high quality education and preparing for the future.

00:30:46.940 Well, you're not wrong.

00:30:47.840 I mean, what we see happen in these midterm elections definitely will affect who's going to be the chosen Republican nominee and potentially who's going to be the Democratic nominee if Joe Biden doesn't run or even if he just gets primary in that.

00:31:00.840 You know, I was thinking about it today because the latest polling for a lot of the Trump backed Republican candidates in several of these states, even J.D.

00:31:09.780 Vance in Ohio, who was and I think still is, you know, in general favored to win this race, is behind by five points.

00:31:19.660 Carrie Lake is showing behind in her general election battle, though she's got tons of GOP enthusiasm behind her.

00:31:26.600 So I'm I'm be fascinating to see how that one comes out.

00:31:29.880 Um, Pennsylvania, you got Mehmet Oz, who's struggling against this guy who's basically been off the campaign trail dealing with the after effects of a health scare.

00:31:39.120 And I so it's like all these guys lose and the Republicans don't take back the Senate because they went to Trumpy in the nomination of their candidates that that could affect presidential politics.

00:31:54.220 We'll have to see, as you point out.

00:31:55.680 OK, let's turn the page from the politics discussion to the education discussion.

00:32:00.020 And let me squeeze in a quick break before we do that, because there's tons, tons to get through.

00:32:05.280 And Betsy DeVos is somebody who actually did some good when she was in this office.

00:32:08.660 So what does she think about what's happening in it now?

00:32:10.820 Betsy, this is just in The New York Times putting out an article about the CDC.

00:32:23.480 I think you'll find this interesting since what they did directly affected what you did and what what people under your auspices had to do during the pandemic.

00:32:30.700 Uh, Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC Centers for Disease Control, uh, delivered a sweeping rebuke today of her agency's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, saying it had failed to respond quickly enough and needed to be overhauled.

00:32:47.860 She outlined in broad terms a plan to reorganize the agency structure to prioritize public health needs and efforts to curb continuing outbreaks and to put less emphasis on publication of scientific papers about rare diseases.

00:32:59.820 This grew out of an external review she had ordered in April after months of scathing criticism of the CDC's response.

00:33:06.620 Its public messages on masking, points out the Times, and other mitigation measures were sometimes so confusing or abruptly modified that they seem more like internal drafts than carefully considered proclamations.

00:33:18.880 Leaders of the agency's COVID team rotated out over a few months, leaving other senior federal health officials unsure about who was in charge.

00:33:27.980 Well, you and the audience and I know that one of the people in the room making decisions, quote, in charge, was Randy Weingarten and the teachers unions, which had their fingerprints all over the guidance that was being handed down to American schools.

00:33:45.940 Even though they didn't have the children's best interests at heart, they cared only about themselves.

00:33:52.520 And I don't think this is going to change any of that.

00:33:55.400 The CDC's one liner about how it could have done better isn't going to change anything, including the American public's faith in it.

00:34:03.440 What do you think?

00:34:04.740 No, you're absolutely right, Megan.

00:34:06.080 And the notion that the teachers unions with Randy Weingarten leading the pack were editing the proposed CDC guidance over months and had a direct pipeline to the CDC to shape and form what came out of there.

00:34:24.240 That impacted millions of kids' lives and kept schools shut down months longer than they should have been.

00:34:31.940 Parents aren't going to forget.

00:34:33.480 Grandparents aren't going to forget.

00:34:34.760 And importantly, kids who have suffered aren't going to ultimately forget.

00:34:40.840 This, you know, the implications of how this was navigated aren't going to be fully known for years.

00:34:48.600 The kids who were shut out for up to two years from their school in person are forever impacted.

00:34:57.000 And all kids, no matter how well their school responded or their system responded,

00:35:02.960 are impacted negatively in some way.

00:35:05.540 We know that the mental health issues, the social and emotional well-being of kids has been negatively impacted regardless.

00:35:15.480 And so this seems like very little, very late. 0.94

00:35:19.520 And it is, I think, trying to put a little bit of lipstick on a pig. 0.99

00:35:24.640 Can I ask a basic question?

00:35:29.020 Why?

00:35:29.520 Why does Randy Weingarten care only about her union and, I guess, some of the teachers in it and not at all, apparently, for the children who they're teaching?

00:35:40.300 Well, I mean, let's be honest.

00:35:43.220 This is about power and it's about resources and it's about ability to impact, you know, decisions regarding power and resources.

00:35:52.980 And the teachers unions, I prefer to call them the school unions because I don't think they represent teachers, certainly not good teachers, who have a focus on and heart for kids.

00:36:04.000 They are focused totally on adult issues and protecting a system that for years, for decades now, has not been serving a lot of kids.

00:36:15.380 A high percentage of kids in this country has not been serving them well.

00:36:19.520 They have resisted change at every step.

00:36:22.020 They have, you know, tried to strong arm and muscle elected officials to fall into line with their agenda,

00:36:29.960 which basically protects their livelihoods and their power and their ability to continue to expand their livelihoods and their power.

00:36:38.840 I mean, it's a vicious circle.

00:36:41.780 And, you know, that was revealed the last couple of years.

00:36:45.620 They have definitely overplayed their hand at every step.

00:36:49.680 And now they're trying to, you know, wind it back in some way and suggest that it's the parents and it's that, you know, it's the other party that was actually politicizing all of this.

00:37:01.100 No, it was not.

00:37:02.100 It was the teachers unions at the core of all of, you know, what happened to kids these last two years.

00:37:08.820 And parents had a front row seat and they know it.

00:37:11.180 But I'm going to play that soundbite in a second.

00:37:13.300 But can you just tell us, because this is in the book, about your experience with Randy Weingarten and touring the schools of choice, yours and hers?

00:37:22.740 Yeah.

00:37:23.200 So on my first day in office, I called both Randy and Lily Eccleston Garcia, who was head of the NEA then.

00:37:31.060 Lily refused to even speak with me or meet with me ever.

00:37:34.740 Wow.

00:37:34.980 And I never did have a conversation with her, although I reached out and said, I know we have some things we can find and work on together in common on behalf of students.

00:37:44.880 Unbelievable.

00:37:45.380 That's the largest teachers union in the country, just refusing to meet with the secretary of education.

00:37:50.140 Okay.

00:37:50.740 Right.

00:37:51.220 Yes.

00:37:52.340 Randy did take my call and we had a pleasant conversation.

00:37:56.540 We both agreed that she would visit a school of my choosing with me and I would visit a school of her choosing with her.

00:38:07.000 We scheduled her school visit first and it turned out to be a very nice visit to a rural school district in Ohio, Van Wert.

00:38:17.760 And we had, you know, we had a pleasant visit, a pleasant day, and it was, you know, it was great to see kids, you know, working, learning, great, meet great teachers.

00:38:30.240 I think she took me to that district because it was a heavily Republican district, a, you know, a stereotypical, you know, rural school, one high school in a, you know, a large geographic area.

00:38:46.900 And was pretty emblematic of what some rural Republican legislature legislators have maintained that, you know, there really aren't choice, other choices for kids in rural districts.

00:39:02.380 But I think, you know, what we saw there was that actually there were 20 or 25% of the kids in that area whose parents were choosing something different for them because that particular assigned school didn't work.

00:39:17.080 But all that to say, the visit was fine, it was great, but she refused then to actually schedule a visit to a school of my choosing.

00:39:28.800 And so that never did happen, unfortunately.

00:39:31.780 She broke her work.

00:39:32.720 Because it would have been, it would have been, I would have made sure that, you know, she had a good experience and that, and then hopefully would have learned something.

00:39:40.520 Again, focusing on students brings you to a lot of different kinds of solutions than focusing on a system and on adult issues.

00:39:52.400 She's not in the market for solutions, right? 0.82

00:39:54.320 She's in the market for politics. 1.00

00:39:56.340 And she didn't want to photo op with you on your terms, you know, on your turf of your school of choosing.

00:40:01.640 And frankly, it reminds me of the Elizabeth Warren story from your book.

00:40:04.500 The book is full of interesting anecdotes about people whose names our audience will be very familiar with.

00:40:09.620 And Elizabeth Warren, during her confirmation hearing, this is unbelievable.

00:40:14.680 So nasty.

00:40:15.980 You have a tough back and forth during the confirmation hearing.

00:40:20.380 She's obviously not a fan.

00:40:22.180 But like the classy lady you are, you go over to her at the end and offer your hand.

00:40:28.240 Actually, we have videotape of this.

00:40:29.940 Is it a soundbite, Deb, or is it a videotape?

00:40:32.800 It's a, okay, yeah, it's rolling.

00:40:34.480 Okay.

00:40:34.860 You go over, you try to shake her hand.

00:40:36.760 She doesn't shake your hand. 0.88

00:40:38.920 I'm like.

00:40:40.020 What do you make of that?

00:40:41.440 Why?

00:40:42.380 Why wouldn't she?

00:40:44.140 I don't know.

00:40:45.100 I mean, I can't get into her head and I don't want to, frankly.

00:40:48.320 But it was just another indication to me of an unwillingness to really focus on what we were there for, which is for what is best for students and their futures.

00:41:01.380 How are we going to prepare our kids to take their place in leadership in the coming generations if we cannot work together to ensure that they have a great quality K-12 education experience?

00:41:16.400 You know, Elizabeth Warren was very single focused in her ability to zero in on issues that were important to her.

00:41:28.720 And she has, I think, to a large extent, she has overtaken President Biden and his administration in getting her way with what's happening at the Department of Education today.

00:41:42.320 I mean, we see this back and forth on what they're going to do with student loans and student debt and loan forgiveness.

00:41:50.880 And, you know, it is Elizabeth Warren's mission to forgive all student debt, essentially.

00:41:57.580 And so, you know, that is antithetical now to what we've heard President Biden say on more than one occasion, that you can't just go and forgive student debt.

00:42:08.400 So, you know, I think she has continued to wield her way.

00:42:14.200 And and this is ultimately to the detriment of students and families and taxpayers across the country.

00:42:21.700 You point out in the book that it's it's absurd to think that the Senate actually confirms nominees for the position you held, at least when it's a Democratic administration, that, in fact, it's the teachers unions who will approve or disapprove of someone nominated to your position.

00:42:41.360 That's how much control they have.

00:42:43.600 And you're right to make the distinction between the teachers and the unions.

00:42:46.680 I know a lot of great teachers who don't want to join the union, who say the union doesn't speak for them, who don't share the union's politics.

00:42:54.240 But it's a near impossibility to to really distance yourself from them on Randy Weingarten.

00:43:01.320 Yeah, go ahead.

00:43:02.200 I was just going to say and think about how many teachers have left the profession out of frustration because of the heavy handedness of the union.

00:43:10.900 And hold that thought.

00:43:12.560 Hold that thought, because I'll get you that to say that on the opposite side of the Randy Weingarten.

00:43:15.640 And reasoning for the teacher shortage, according to the unions, we're short 300000 teachers going into this year.

00:43:23.940 That's the unions.

00:43:25.160 The Wall Street Journal puts it as at tens of thousands, which is ambiguous.

00:43:29.060 But we definitely have a teacher shortage.

00:43:30.760 I mean, that is true.

00:43:32.000 And how bad it is, it's it's bad.

00:43:34.280 We just don't know quite how bad.

00:43:35.800 So here's Randy Weingarten speaking on why why we have a teacher shortage.

00:43:39.980 Listen.

00:43:41.540 You have fewer people going into the profession.

00:43:44.400 You have a hot labor market where teachers can get 20 percent more for the skills and knowledge they have teaching in non-teaching jobs.

00:43:54.680 You have all of the pandemic stress and strain, particularly that kids are coming in with greater needs because of two years of disruption.

00:44:05.780 And then you have all of the politics, the culture wars, the shaming and blaming, the banning of books, the censoring of curriculum.

00:44:15.360 And because of the hot market, we have to have salaries where teachers, teachers, you know, salaries that are competitive.

00:44:24.800 What do you make of that?

00:44:29.460 Well, she's trying to blame a shortage of teachers on factors that don't they weigh into it, but they're not the reason for teacher shortages or the why teachers are leaving the profession. 0.87

00:44:44.120 I mean, I think about, you know, great teachers who wanted to be in the classroom while their schools continue to be shut down for months on end.

00:44:51.460 I think about the I think about the you know, the teachers that I met with who for a year were, you know, the teacher of the year in their district or in their state and had taken their victory lap.

00:45:05.980 And then a few months after getting back into their classroom, left the profession, I wanted to know why.

00:45:12.000 And they said almost to a person, they were so frustrated with the fact that they were told to kind of get back in their box after they came back from their year of acknowledgement and recognition,

00:45:23.020 instead of being given more opportunities to help mentor others or prepare younger teachers for the kind of experiences that they have had.

00:45:33.060 And, you know, I think the teacher unions, the school unions have deprofessionalized what should be a highly honored and respected profession and great teachers need to have the opportunity to be great and to help other teachers be great.

00:45:51.260 The system doesn't allow for that because the system doesn't acknowledge merit, the system doesn't acknowledge that some teachers are really great and other teachers maybe should be finding a different profession because they aren't particularly effective.

00:46:05.840 And I think the it all goes back to be, you know, having to conform within this one size fits all, you know, public government run system that too many kids have been subjected to and are being ill served by.

00:46:25.260 I realize teachers probably generally lean left, but not all of them.

00:46:31.300 There's a healthy percentage that just, you know, if you look at the way the country's divided, will be Republican or will be conservative.

00:46:37.180 And I have to imagine those teachers have had it with woke ideology being thrust upon them, upon their students.

00:46:43.760 I mean, you look at what's happening in the military where we're having massive recruitment problems in various branches.

00:46:48.740 And one of the reasons they cite is, you know, we're being lectured on our white rage.

00:46:54.140 We're being forced to read Ibram Kendi.

00:46:56.920 You know, while all we want to do is risk our lives for our country, we don't really want to talk about skin color and things like that.

00:47:01.260 And to say, oh, well, that's definitely not happening amongst the teachers who are being forced to do exactly the same thing, I think, is to have your head in the sand.

00:47:08.520 What do you think?

00:47:09.800 No, absolutely.

00:47:10.880 There are teachers who are leaving the profession because of being forced to teach curriculum they don't agree with.

00:47:16.760 And, you know, there's just a myriad of reasons.

00:47:22.040 And, again, I think the last two years really have laid bare these reasons and brought them into focus for everyone to see in ways that had been there for many years before.

00:47:34.700 You know, I felt like the lone, you know, voice calling the emperor has no clothes for many years, for 30 years before.

00:47:42.480 But this has been laid bare in the last two years.

00:47:46.260 And all of these issues, including, you know, celebrating and supporting effective teachers to be professional in their profession, these have been issues that have been brought well into the light and an opportunity for us to deal with them in ways that are going to empower families, teachers, and students like never before.

00:48:09.680 Well, we hope we hope we hope so. But all right.

00:48:12.760 We have to go over student loans. We have to go over trans issues in schools, which is about to get regulated by the federal government.

00:48:18.840 We've got to go over the changes to Title IX and sexual harassment cases on campus and school choice.

00:48:24.680 Betsy DeVos is staying with us.

00:48:26.140 Things have gone absolutely insane in our schools, as you know, and that was one blessing of the pandemic was we got to see it.

00:48:38.420 You know, parents suddenly got thrust inside the classes that were open thanks to Zoom and were stunned to see what was happening, to hear what was happening on race, on gender issues.

00:48:52.680 And I was one of them. I was one of the parents who was just absolutely horrified at the way my school was behaving.

00:49:00.300 It wasn't that I saw it via Zoom. It was just a slow boil over 2019, 20 and 21 for us.

00:49:07.460 But I will tell you, let me start it this way. I've told my audience before we were in private schools in New York City.

00:49:13.820 I have two boys and a girl. My boys were at an all boys school, one of the best in the country.

00:49:19.160 And they were not only asked on a weekly basis whether they were still sure that they were boys, the entire class, not just, you know, any individual.

00:49:28.840 This is my son's third and fourth grade class. Are you still your boys? Share your boys. You might not be a boy.

00:49:34.900 They got rid of the term son. 0.92

00:49:36.120 But when it came to race post George Floyd, they circulated what they wanted to be mandatory reading for the faculty, saying in every classroom where white children learn, there is a future killer cop and white mothers indoctrinate their children in black death.

00:49:53.180 OK, so how did that happen? How did how did that kind of instruction wind up in what was traditionally one of the more traditional schools in Manhattan?

00:50:06.720 And why is it happening all over the country? And what can we do to stop it? That's a loaded question for you.

00:50:12.980 Well, I mean, it's these are great questions and ones that parents are grappling with in ways that they had never envisioned a few years ago.

00:50:21.900 These are not new issues. These curriculums and these tendencies have long been seeded in our traditional public education system, and they've spilled over into many private schools.

00:50:37.800 And you can wind it back to the preparation that many educators have in the teachers' colleges where, you know, the very left-leaning tendencies take root and are taught explicitly and implicitly.

00:50:55.680 And we have seen now, and again, I think importantly so, families have seen firsthand what, you know, the kinds of things their children have been subtly or not so subtly subjected to in years leading up to the pandemic.

00:51:12.420 And thankfully are now raising their voices and saying, this is not for our children and we want alternatives and we demand alternatives.

00:51:22.320 So this is an ideal time to put policies in place that actually do put parents back in control and give students the opportunity to have an education experience that's very different than the 175-year-old model of education that is failing too many kids and that is ridden with ideology that is antithetical to so many families.

00:51:49.320 I think about the internet and how you don't want your kids, mine are 12, 11, and 9.

00:51:55.260 You don't let them go on the internet without some supervision, certainly not for long periods of time.

00:52:00.060 You don't let them get sucked into Reddit rabbit holes, you know, like that's, bad things happen.

00:52:04.620 Even when they're playing their games on like an iPad, got to keep one eye out there because these predators do pop up in these forums and once it, if there's a chat feature, you got to watch it like a hawk.

00:52:14.120 Why? Because you don't want your child to be hurt or groomed, you know, or subjected to somebody who is dangerous for them.

00:52:22.160 That's what's happening in schools.

00:52:24.220 We're subjecting them to somebody who may be dangerous for them, who wants to create something out of them other than just a loving, good citizen.

00:52:33.020 They want to create somebody who's a left-wing activist and that's not their purview.

00:52:40.220 That's not their remit, right?

00:52:41.980 I mean, it's infuriating, especially for parents who can't homeschool because they have two parents who work or they have a single mom in the family or for whom private school is not an option because they don't really have school choice in their area.

00:52:53.940 Yeah, no, absolutely. But this is the silver lining in that 26 states in this last year expanded school choice, education freedom programs, expanded or created ones in states where they didn't exist before.

00:53:09.540 And they're more on the cusp of doing so. And so education freedom policies.

00:53:16.280 Where the money follows the student? Is that what you're talking about?

00:53:18.880 Yes, where the money follows a student. I like to use the metaphor of the backpack where the kids go to school every day with what they need for the day.

00:53:27.560 Metaphorically, we attach the funds that are already being spent on that child to that backpack for the family to decide where they're going to buy their children's education.

00:53:37.380 And I think about the school, the school that really sort of set me off on the whole journey of activism in education policy.

00:53:46.720 The Potters House School in Grand Rapids, Michigan, it's a faith based school in the heart of the city that serves that immediate vicinity, mostly low, all low income families, students there.

00:54:00.280 They have to raise 90 percent of the operating funds from benefactors every year because the families can't afford it themselves.

00:54:07.100 But these kids are in an environment where they're thriving.

00:54:10.700 There could be five more of those Potters House schools today when families are empowered with those resources to make those choices and to choose a school like the Potters House of one that matches their family values.

00:54:23.700 And we're seeing progression toward this in lots of states, including and importantly, Florida, that's the furthest along in the range of choices.

00:54:33.600 And importantly, also Arizona, that just passed a universal statewide education savings account program.

00:54:42.820 So any family that wants to send their child to a different place for school can do so with 90 percent of the money that's spent on that child annually in Arizona.

00:54:54.180 So around $7,500 a child could be spent, whether they want to do a homeschool, you know, a hybrid homeschool, kind of a one room schoolhouse thing, or they want to go to a school like a Potters House.

00:55:08.020 They would have they will have those options. And importantly, more options like that will be created as families are empowered with those with the money following their children.

00:55:21.620 Fun little aside here. So Betsy DeVos used to be Betsy Prince. She's from Michigan that your family's from Michigan. 1.00

00:55:28.020 Your dad was in auto parts, self-made, grew up in a humble house. But then things really started to take to take off for him.

00:55:35.360 And by the way, your your brother's Eric Prince of Blackwater, which is also a fun fact about you.

00:55:39.900 But I did not realize that one of the key to your dad's success was coming up with the lighted mirror on the car visor.

00:55:48.320 It's brilliant. You come from a long line of brilliant people. That's amazing.

00:55:53.880 Yes, yes. I recall fondly working in the early stages of that factory.

00:55:58.980 First of all, when I was in junior high, the first year of the factory was in operation, we were making very few visors then because it was just getting off the ground.

00:56:09.620 But I inspected, packed and shipped the visors that summer between my I think my seventh and eighth grade years.

00:56:16.580 And and then went on and worked the third shift in the visor plant when it was up and running more, you know, robustly a couple of years later.

00:56:26.060 And and I had I had the worst job in the plant since I was the boss's daughter.

00:56:30.760 But I took the core of the visor off the injection molding machine and put a rubber edge band around it, a steel plate in the corner where it connected to the car and then closed it and riveted it in about 10 or 12 places.

00:56:46.700 And doing that third shift, I was amazed that I never actually riveted any fingers through those night hours from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.

00:56:55.340 It was it was a great experience.

00:56:56.720 That's good. Your parents made made they wanted you to have values.

00:56:59.780 They wanted you to work hard.

00:57:00.800 This is before. I mean, you're you're known now as a wealthy woman, but you it wasn't always thus. 0.99

00:57:05.640 Your dad was self-made, wound up employing 5000 employees in the town like he was a businessman who gave back to the community.

00:57:12.820 That's from what you come.

00:57:14.740 And you've been successful.

00:57:16.260 Your brother's been successful.

00:57:17.180 Your husband's successful.

00:57:18.520 My researcher tells me that you guys are the 88th wealthiest family in America.

00:57:23.900 But it's you come by it.

00:57:25.720 Honestly, it's not bootlegging.

00:57:27.280 It's something every woman needs. 0.86

00:57:29.420 We all need the visor mirror at night when we're trying to put on our lip gloss.

00:57:33.720 It's not just that product.

00:57:35.200 I'm just saying it was interesting to me to see your background and see how hard you and your family worked for it.

00:57:40.680 And, you know, people like to take shots at you now if you have if you have money.

00:57:44.480 But you work for years.

00:57:45.880 No, I was very blessed to grow up in a home where my parents taught us the value of hard work.

00:57:52.820 They also taught us the value of generosity and giving back.

00:57:57.740 And they modeled that so well.

00:58:00.820 My mom's still alive.

00:58:01.940 She's just about 90 and continues to model that for me today. 0.81

00:58:05.760 And my husband's family, the same way we we appreciate and value work of all kinds.

00:58:14.720 And my my parents, again, really set that tone for me early on.

00:58:20.540 And I'm very grateful to them for that.

00:58:22.580 Well, that's what first got you into education.

00:58:24.960 As I understand it, you created a foundation.

00:58:26.600 You started to make a lot of donations.

00:58:28.420 And then you realized there's no amount of donations that's going to solve this problem.

00:58:33.560 Like we have we need massive overhaul.

00:58:35.920 It's government.

00:58:36.640 That's the problem.

00:58:37.540 And I heard you speaking to Moms for Liberty, a group I also love and have spoken to, saying

00:58:43.380 we need to abolish the Department of Education.

00:58:45.900 Like what happens?

00:58:47.880 I mean, I didn't realize it's only been around since Carter until I read you.

00:58:51.460 Is it been that recent that the Department of Education was created?

00:58:55.120 So what happens if we get rid of the Department of Education?

00:58:59.420 Well, we could still spend the same amount of money and attach it to families so they could

00:59:05.340 make those decisions for their children.

00:59:06.860 What most people don't know is the Federal Department of Education, the federal budget,

00:59:12.360 only supplies or provides eight or nine percent of all of the funding for education, for K-12

00:59:18.640 education in our country.

00:59:20.420 We spend about $750 billion every year for K-12 education.

00:59:26.160 And yet only eight or nine percent of that comes from the federal government.

00:59:31.340 But all of the strings come from the federal government.

00:59:35.040 So the monies that go into the department for redistribution are churned around there.

00:59:42.580 The philosophical bent of those career bureaucrats that work there year in, year out, administration

00:59:50.940 to administration are put on top of, you know, we did everything we could in our time there

00:59:58.760 to redirect and reorient everything that we did around doing the right thing for students.

01:00:04.840 That is not how the department generally operates.

01:00:08.900 It really does operate with a very ideological bent and that is exacerbated in an administration

01:00:16.480 like the Biden administration, where they tried to, you know, essentially kill any charter

01:00:22.720 school expansion with rules that would make it impossible to open new charter schools.

01:00:27.980 They're trying to do it now with the Title IX rule that we put into place, which made dealing

01:00:34.700 with matters of sexual misconduct on campuses, one that we put a framework together that was

01:00:41.200 fair and balanced, predictable, and put the accuser in charge of how that would unfold, not putting

01:00:52.640 them at the, as, as, as, as was the case before, um, they sometimes became almost victim to the

01:00:58.920 process and due process was thrown out the window before we put the rule in place.

01:01:04.860 They're trying to undo all of that.

01:01:06.840 And I know you want to get into that more.

01:01:09.000 So I'll just stop and just say this, uh, this administration doubles down on the ideology.

01:01:15.360 And so doing away with and putting, uh, the, the monies back into the hands of state and

01:01:23.060 local government, if that's the, uh, the route or better yet into the hands of families for

01:01:29.180 their children, for children with, uh, children with disabilities, um, having their, the, the

01:01:34.800 monies that support that through IDEA going to the families to make those decisions would

01:01:40.360 be a much better use and much more effective use of taxpayer dollars.

01:01:45.360 The teachers unions and a lot of Democrats don't like putting the money behind the student

01:01:50.640 because they don't want them to have the choice because I, I've heard you point out, they don't

01:01:55.500 think they'll win the competition.

01:01:57.100 They don't, they, they don't think they'll be the one chosen.

01:02:00.740 And so that doesn't help them in their power.

01:02:03.780 Um, the charter school thing is interesting.

01:02:05.900 Joe Biden came in and really, unlike Obama, like Republicans wanted vouchers, uh, and they

01:02:11.440 liked, they liked, uh, charter schools too.

01:02:13.620 And then Obama came in and he didn't like vouchers.

01:02:15.840 He didn't like the money following the student, but he said, okay, charters could be all right.

01:02:20.000 Um, not to the extent a Republican would, but he was more open-minded to it.

01:02:23.900 And Joe Biden has come in and said, no, no charters are bad.

01:02:28.100 And he's pushing through this massive agenda item that would say, you can have a charter

01:02:34.260 if the local public school approves it and says it's good.

01:02:37.660 I mean, I'm really short forming here, but it was so aggressive that even some top Democrats

01:02:43.200 just came out.

01:02:44.220 This just is, this is happening right now and said, this is too much.

01:02:47.900 You've gone too far because his proposed revision of how charter schools could get permission

01:02:52.960 to operate and could exist is going to hurt black and brown people more than anybody. 0.99

01:02:57.580 It's like the big charter school systems.

01:02:59.860 They'll be fine.

01:03:00.280 They'll be able to find a way to comply, but it's like the mom and pa operations who 0.79

01:03:04.320 are in the inner city, who see a need, who have a bad public school, who say, I can do

01:03:08.480 better.

01:03:08.840 I'm going to try and help these kids.

01:03:10.320 They can't.

01:03:11.580 And so they're the ones who are going to get hurt.

01:03:12.780 And so like so many of his policies, he's going to wind like defund the police for as

01:03:16.880 another one, it's going to come back and bite the very people he claims to care most

01:03:21.420 about.

01:03:22.400 No, absolutely.

01:03:23.880 Absolutely.

01:03:24.240 But we have to remember, he is married to a member of the NEA and he has pledged his

01:03:30.500 support to the NEA and the teachers union, school union agendas.

01:03:35.780 And so this is not a surprise, but people should wake up and acknowledge that this is what's

01:03:42.100 happening there.

01:03:43.160 There is an attack all across the board on any option and any alternative that isn't the

01:03:49.680 government run, top down, federally, you know, federally focused and, you know, state

01:03:56.560 executed system that so many kids are stuck in today and were let down by in the last two

01:04:04.060 years.

01:04:04.480 So this is not a surprise, but parents support their, you know, their ability to have the

01:04:12.600 choices and the options they need to wake up and support those for elective office, both

01:04:18.760 at the federal and the state level who support their ability to do that as well.

01:04:23.500 They need to understand that the Democrat Party is totally bought and paid for by the

01:04:30.600 school unions and all of their allies.

01:04:33.020 It's happened in a vicious cycle for many, many years, and it's become ever more evident

01:04:38.780 just recently.

01:04:40.780 I think people are waking up at least to the ideology in the school.

01:04:43.840 I'm not sure everybody's got the charter system figured out and all of that, but for sure

01:04:47.900 we saw during COVID, the anger over these senseless mask mandates on children and the

01:04:53.960 vaccine mandates, which they're now basically admitting were senseless because they're saying

01:04:58.200 treat the vaccinated and those who have had COVID the same and virtually everybody's had

01:05:02.700 COVID now.

01:05:03.300 So it's like, why are, why were people fired?

01:05:05.800 Why were kids expelled from schools for not getting them?

01:05:08.860 And so on.

01:05:09.780 We're never getting apologies for that.

01:05:12.280 And so I do think they're paying attention.

01:05:13.800 So one of the things that's gotten the attention is this so-called critical race theory in

01:05:17.500 schools.

01:05:18.340 That's basically just a term that covers this, you know, race essentialism in schools, making

01:05:23.520 everything about skin color.

01:05:25.000 You know, you're, you've got inherent characteristics because you're black or you've got them because 1.00

01:05:28.720 you're white or because you're Hispanic and so on. 0.94

01:05:30.720 And we see it every day.

01:05:32.440 And just yesterday that was in the news, I'm sure you saw this, but there was a story out

01:05:36.160 of Minneapolis public schools where the union there negotiated a deal.

01:05:40.740 Apparently it was reached in March, but it's only making the headlines now saying that, 0.97

01:05:45.540 um, you're going to fire the white people first, get a fire. 0.98

01:05:48.500 Anybody, the white teachers go first. 0.99

01:05:50.320 We don't care about merit.

01:05:52.500 We don't care about seniority. 0.94

01:05:54.460 All we care about is skin color because we don't have enough black teachers here. 1.00

01:05:59.500 They say that, um, the, they want the teaching staff to better mirror the demographics, demographics

01:06:05.180 of the pupils.

01:06:05.920 More than 60% of these students are of color, only 16% of the tenured teachers and 27% of

01:06:13.580 its probationary teachers are people of color.

01:06:16.680 And so as it always is with some on the far left, we get to this sort of quota system where

01:06:23.000 just the raw numbers must go up no matter how bad some of these teachers may or may not

01:06:28.420 be or great.

01:06:29.880 Some of these teachers may, that doesn't, that doesn't matter.

01:06:31.900 Right.

01:06:33.460 Well, uh, what they're proposing to do is simply wrong and it's, uh, illegal.

01:06:38.560 Um, and I'm sure that will be pursued, but it's also wrong for the kids that are supposed 0.91

01:06:43.380 to be served.

01:06:44.760 Kids need to have great teachers.

01:06:46.660 And the only way they're going to have great teachers is when merit is recognized and

01:06:50.960 acknowledged.

01:06:51.860 And ultimately the only way that you're going to have, uh, ensure great teachers is when

01:06:57.340 you have an open marketplace for education.

01:06:59.720 The fact that we have had a government run, uh, a monopoly that has, uh, today yet it, you

01:07:07.860 know, there are more and more students leaving the system, but pre pandemic, it was roughly

01:07:13.260 90% of the kids are in government assigned schools or government run schools that, uh, that

01:07:19.880 dynamic, that number, that percentage needs to change.

01:07:25.060 And more families need to be able to make a decision to leave those schools.

01:07:29.340 If they're not working for their children, policies that support that are ultimately

01:07:33.820 going to get at that and ultimately going to ensure that kids have great teachers, no

01:07:39.640 matter where they go to school, because the families are going to be choosing them and

01:07:44.000 they're going to choose what's best for their kids because they care about and love their

01:07:48.140 kids the best.

01:07:50.100 Not no matter what Terry McAuliffe, uh, the, the now losing governor of Virginia of that

01:07:56.540 race says, um, one of the reasons people are seriously looking at homeschooling or alternatives

01:08:02.580 to this public schooling and what's available to them.

01:08:04.620 And as I point out, it's not just public schools.

01:08:06.380 I mean, we've been in the private schools and there was horrific in New York city, what

01:08:10.280 they're doing.

01:08:10.640 The indoctrination is this weird, inappropriate, I, you know, I use the term grooming.

01:08:16.020 It may or may not be that, but it's inappropriate sex talk and gender talk with children who 0.87

01:08:20.440 are too young to handle that.

01:08:21.860 And, and really shouldn't be discussing that with their teachers at all.

01:08:24.600 And there was an example in the news today.

01:08:26.280 I wanted to run by you.

01:08:27.200 Now this is out of Montgomery County, Maryland, not just outside of DC, where they selected the

01:08:33.940 book Rick by Alex Gino, G I N O as their anchor text, making it required reading for all incoming

01:08:44.520 sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students.

01:08:46.480 Now I haven't, I have a rising sixth grader and I have a rising seventh grader.

01:08:50.900 So I am interested in this story.

01:08:53.500 Um, they think that you're going to love exploring your own identity through the eyes of Rick.

01:08:59.200 Uh, this book will enable you to enjoy it, to explore your gender identity, self-expression,

01:09:03.540 friendships, and learn the importance of standing up for one another.

01:09:05.660 Okay.

01:09:05.880 So let me just give me one minute on what this book is about.

01:09:08.640 12 year old Rick becomes convinced he is a sexual about hearing about various sexual

01:09:14.620 orientations at the rainbow spectrum afterschool club for LGBTQ IAP plus rights.

01:09:22.100 After hearing the definition of asexuality, he searches the term on the computer, assures

01:09:25.760 himself he is asexual because he's never had a crush on a girl or a boy.

01:09:29.060 And he's never quote, had that tingling in his pants.

01:09:32.120 Grownups talk about when thinking about another person, this is absurd.

01:09:36.600 Many children of this age haven't even touched puberty and also have not had a tingling in

01:09:40.840 their pants and don't want to discuss asexuality. 0.95

01:09:43.260 They're little children, they're children.

01:09:45.640 That's why they haven't had it.

01:09:47.400 Rick's grandfather also reveals to him that he likes to cross dress and takes Rick to an

01:09:53.740 event while he's dressed as a woman. 0.61

01:09:56.120 So it's not enough that they got to make the kid's grandpa into a transvestite like pop 0.99

01:10:01.640 up.

01:10:02.080 Why pop up?

01:10:02.800 What are you doing?

01:10:03.480 What are you doing?

01:10:04.340 At the end of the book, the students put on a cabaret for money in which one student dresses

01:10:09.940 and dances as a drag queen.

01:10:13.700 Required reading public school.

01:10:17.460 Montgomery County, Maryland was a very large area right outside of D.C.

01:10:20.900 All right, let's pause.

01:10:22.940 We'll take a quick break and we'll pick it up with Rick and his cross dressing grandpa

01:10:27.880 right after this.

01:10:30.460 Don't go away.

01:10:34.260 OK, so the question is, how do we stop that kind of nonsense?

01:10:39.020 Well, parents need to speak up clearly for sure.

01:10:42.580 And as they have been doing, and it is amazing to me that this kind of curriculum keeps popping

01:10:51.140 up all over the place, this hyper-sexualized, age-inappropriate approach to discussing these

01:10:58.760 subjects.

01:11:00.300 Whatever happened to actually helping kids learn to read and write and do their math and

01:11:05.600 get prepared for the things that they need to know and need to learn in school, that's

01:11:10.180 where they should be focused.

01:11:11.400 And parents are rightfully angered by this as these kinds of examples have been popping

01:11:19.480 up all over the country and continue to.

01:11:22.700 I just saw a story today about a suburban district outside of Milwaukee, the same issues for earlier

01:11:31.140 grades.

01:11:32.820 Parents have a right to know what's going on in their children's classrooms, and they have

01:11:36.860 every right to speak up and demand that these kinds of materials are not taught to their

01:11:45.580 children, or they're given very clear options to take their children out if and when they

01:11:51.800 are taught.

01:11:52.780 But let's go back to the appropriateness of some of these things.

01:11:56.400 They are inappropriate.

01:11:57.080 It is inappropriate.

01:11:58.020 It is inappropriate in kindergarten through second grade to be having children, suggesting

01:12:03.720 to children that boys might not be boys and girls might not be girls.

01:12:07.540 Those matters are for older children if and when families think they're appropriate to be

01:12:16.440 discussing.

01:12:17.660 And again, the focus in too many schools and in too many of these cases has been on matters

01:12:25.480 that are not core to kids actually learning and progressing in their preparation for adulthood.

01:12:33.220 Absolutely right.

01:12:36.120 And you talk about, you know, why don't we focus on reading and writing and so on?

01:12:40.420 That story that we talked about out of Minnesota, Minneapolis, where they're saying fire all the

01:12:45.920 white teachers first, doesn't matter what kind of a teacher they are. 1.00

01:12:48.740 You could be firing the best teacher in the district. 0.73

01:12:50.740 Just make sure she's white. 0.99

01:12:52.200 That's all they really care about.

01:12:54.180 That in Minnesota and Minneapolis public schools, the high school students there, only 39 percent

01:12:59.300 are testing at or above the proficient level for reading.

01:13:02.340 23 percent, 23 percent testing at or above the proficient level for math.

01:13:09.580 I mean, that is dreadful.

01:13:11.300 But hey, let's focus on the race of the teachers. 0.94

01:13:13.400 That's where our attention should go.

01:13:15.680 Yeah, exactly.

01:13:16.640 And, you know, our our standings internationally vis-a-vis our competitors around the world before

01:13:23.180 the pandemic were dismal.

01:13:25.200 I mean, we were we were at 18th in in in science, at 13th in reading and 37th in math.

01:13:35.300 And and yet we're we're sitting and spending time talking about these issues that aren't

01:13:42.140 preparing kids, that aren't teaching them how to learn, that aren't, you know, setting

01:13:46.580 them on a path to success.

01:13:48.300 We are focused on issues that should be left to families to discuss and certainly not discussed

01:13:54.640 until an age appropriate time in a school setting.

01:13:58.260 And so, again, parents, parents had a firsthand front row seat to this and and they're letting

01:14:04.520 their voices be heard and their voices are going to be heard at the ballot boxes.

01:14:08.760 And they're going to be heard in school board races and they're going to be heard in many

01:14:13.740 different dimensions of how kids ultimately get their education.

01:14:19.160 The you mentioned the Wisconsin story, it's like crazy, you know how everyone DeSantis passed

01:14:24.560 this bill down in Florida, I'm sure you followed that whole thing where he said, you can't do

01:14:28.140 this.

01:14:28.480 Don't talk about gender identity or sexual identity with children in curriculum under third

01:14:34.700 grade, like third grade and under.

01:14:36.380 That's not an age appropriate level.

01:14:38.000 And people say, well, you know, teachers aren't going to be able to say I went out with my

01:14:41.180 partner.

01:14:41.580 No, in curriculum.

01:14:42.920 That's the rule under that law.

01:14:44.800 But Wisconsin now offering this program.

01:14:47.040 This is for a National Review article in this very affluent Milwaukee suburb.

01:14:53.500 I don't know how to pronounce it.

01:14:54.980 Wawa Tusa.

01:14:56.860 They've brought in a private program developed by the National Director of Education for Planned

01:15:02.000 Parenthood, which trains students in gender ideology starting in kindergarten. 0.97

01:15:06.660 By second grade, a child's expected to know that not all boys have penises, not all girls 1.00

01:15:12.160 have vaginas. 1.00

01:15:13.360 In third grade, they're permitted the opportunity to understand the granular nature of the gender 0.99

01:15:18.940 spectrum.

01:15:20.180 You've got a Venn diagram offering boys on the left, girls on the right with, quote, anyone

01:15:24.380 in the overlapping section.

01:15:26.740 And it goes on to, there's a bunch, but here's just a highlight from it.

01:15:29.660 It says to the children, you might feel like you're a boy, even though you have body parts

01:15:34.240 that some might tell you are girl parts.

01:15:36.420 You might feel like you're a girl, even though you have body parts that some might tell you

01:15:40.040 are boy parts.

01:15:40.940 And you might feel like you're a boy or a girl, like, or, or you're, or, but you may

01:15:46.840 be a little bit of both.

01:15:48.280 No matter how you feel, you are perfectly normal.

01:15:52.040 And then they go on to talk about when, how you get sexually transmitted diseases in high

01:15:57.520 school.

01:15:57.880 Okay, that's fine, but they will only refer to a person with a cervix or a person with 1.00

01:16:03.360 a penis. 0.99

01:16:03.900 And they want you to discuss penetrative sex by being specific, forgive me, Betsy, but 1.00

01:16:09.820 saying penis vagina sex, as opposed to just saying heterosexual sex, which is intended to 0.99

01:16:16.240 make the curriculum inclusive of all genders and gender identities. 0.99

01:16:19.980 I'm so uncomfortable.

01:16:20.920 I'm sure I've made you uncomfortable, forgive me, but this is beyond, this is in the heartland.

01:16:26.880 This is what's going on in schools more than just the ones we've cited and talked about.

01:16:32.000 This is happening all over the country.

01:16:34.520 And if parents haven't awakened to this, they need to, and they need to demand that their

01:16:40.940 schools get back to focusing on teaching kids what they need to learn and know in order

01:16:46.960 to be able to take over as leaders in future generations.

01:16:50.300 I mean, this is, this is, again, a representative of an ideology that has taken root for many

01:16:58.340 decades now in teacher school, teacher education schools, and now seeded into schools across

01:17:06.160 the country.

01:17:06.760 And I think, again, many parents have awakened, many more have to, and we need to demand to

01:17:15.800 get refocused on kids learning and kids being kids.

01:17:20.360 I mean, it's hard growing up as a kid today.

01:17:22.900 And I'm thankful mine are all grown, but now I have grandchildren the same ages as your children

01:17:28.320 and the things that they have to deal with on a daily basis, not to mention, you know,

01:17:35.060 subject matters like this being forced on them in schools.

01:17:38.540 It's tough enough to be a kid growing up today.

01:17:41.620 Let's, let's stay focused on preparing them to be actual contributors to society in the future

01:17:47.780 and do that in ways that are going to work and unleash their opportunity, their, their potential

01:17:53.320 and their opportunities.

01:17:55.680 You've got the Biden administration now weaponizing Title IX.

01:18:01.280 I mean, they're weaponizing Title IX to, which protects girls and at the college level from 0.80

01:18:06.340 discrimination in sports and otherwise.

01:18:08.620 And they are trying to use an expanded definition of harassment now.

01:18:12.620 And just generally under that title to include possibly misgendering a trans person who says

01:18:21.720 that he's a girl, you know, a male to female who says, I'm a woman and somebody uses a he

01:18:26.360 pronoun, you could potentially get in trouble for that.

01:18:28.660 We're seeing that already at some universities.

01:18:30.240 Stanford is one of them.

01:18:31.660 But they are expanding.

01:18:33.080 They're trying to expand Title IX to give trans girls all the rights that biological girls have, 0.99

01:18:40.180 which could be potentially problematic.

01:18:41.620 And they've tabled sports for right now under their Title IX revisions, but that's coming

01:18:46.620 where they're going to mandate equality for these trans girls in sports as well. 1.00

01:18:51.760 What do you make of it?

01:18:52.880 Well, I, there's no way you can separate sports out from the rest of the implications of a Title IX

01:19:00.000 rule because it's all one in the same.

01:19:02.740 And so what they're proposing to do will essentially destroy women's sports. 1.00

01:19:07.040 I think about the, you know, the swimmer at University of Pennsylvania.

01:19:12.580 I was a swimmer.

01:19:13.600 I swam competitively for nine years.

01:19:15.580 I was a good swimmer, not a great swimmer.

01:19:17.720 I can't imagine I would have pursued swimming and going to those early morning cold swimming pool

01:19:23.680 practices if I knew I was not only going to have to compete against good females, but against 1.00

01:19:29.740 biological males as well.

01:19:31.360 I think of the tens of thousands of young women who are working hard at their sports today 1.00

01:19:37.420 and face the prospect of having to deal with competing against biological males.

01:19:43.060 It's not right.

01:19:44.400 And it's, it's absolutely wrong for the Biden administration to say they're going to separate

01:19:49.140 out women's sports from a Title IX rule.

01:19:53.080 One that they're trying to decimate anyway and do away with due process, basically turn over

01:20:00.000 activist Title IX coordinators to be a detective, a judge, a jury, and an executioner, all without

01:20:08.680 sharing evidence against the accused, the definition of unfair.

01:20:14.620 I just want to urge all of your viewers to speak into this rule.

01:20:19.500 This is the public comment time right now.

01:20:22.660 There's a site you can go to called protecttitle9.org.

01:20:26.960 And please speak into this and say, this is, this is not where we need to go.

01:20:32.980 Um, we need to protect the rule that we frankly put forward, which is a very fair and balanced

01:20:40.020 approach to these issues that are tough, that are regrettable, but that happen.

01:20:45.880 And we need to have a reliable and fair way to deal with them.

01:20:50.620 The Biden administration will decimate them.

01:20:54.500 Protecttitle9.org.

01:20:55.620 I think we only have until September 12th to get comments in, and then the comment period

01:21:00.220 will be closed.

01:21:01.140 So you put your money where your mouth is, folks, if you don't want this, just go on

01:21:05.840 there, offer a quick comment.

01:21:06.820 It's not going to take you all day.

01:21:07.680 It's just going to, it'll be a quick event.

01:21:09.160 We got to get on there because they need to hear from people.

01:21:12.140 Um, you are very right.

01:21:14.000 I'm glad to hear you point that out about the fact that they say they're staving off the 0.61

01:21:17.920 decision on gender is not true because I was actually just looking more closely at what

01:21:23.320 the proposals are on the trans issue under Title IX because there's the sexual harassment

01:21:27.140 issue too, which we'll get to.

01:21:28.240 But, um, on the trans issue, they say the new regulations are going to cover all forms

01:21:34.020 of sex-based harassment, which in their view would include harassment of a trans girl,

01:21:39.100 um, and any hostile environment against such people, uh, which would include denying or

01:21:45.480 limiting a person's ability to participate in a school's activity.

01:21:51.000 Now, you know, that's going to be used to encompass sports and all sorts of things.

01:21:56.600 So while they may say sports isn't in here as a lawyer, I could drive a truck through that.

01:22:01.860 Um, so yeah, you got to comment now.

01:22:03.520 So let's get to the sexual harassment thing because this is a cause near and dear to my

01:22:07.140 heart.

01:22:07.560 And I cheered you, cheered you openly.

01:22:10.100 And then Arne Duncan sent me some nasty notes when you, you created due process.

01:22:16.160 Arne Duncan was Obama's secretary of education.

01:22:19.140 Uh, you create, you restored due process for men, acute young men accused on college campuses.

01:22:26.780 Just, can you just give us like a couple highlights of what you did and what they are undoing right

01:22:34.740 now on college campuses when it comes to people accused.

01:22:37.060 And, and as you point out, it hurts the accusers too.

01:22:40.040 Well, the Obama administration basically stripped away due process rights from those who were

01:22:45.880 accused and you're right.

01:22:47.640 Most often men, but I actually heard from a young woman who had been accused and had been an accuser

01:22:54.640 in one case and an accused in another.

01:22:57.260 And, uh, in both cases, she said the school got it wrong because of that framework.

01:23:02.360 So what, what we did was restore a framework of rights that respects both the accuser and

01:23:10.880 the accused and gives them the ability to, uh, and gives the accused the ability to know

01:23:17.120 what they're, what, what is being alleged to see the evidence, to, to hear the evidence

01:23:22.460 and to question the accuser back, not directly through third parties.

01:23:28.420 Um, so there, you know, there's not the, uh, in your face back and forth, but it, it guarantees

01:23:34.660 that, uh, the, all of the facts have the opportunity to get out there and then decisions are made.

01:23:41.220 And it also segments, um, from a single investigator model, which is what the Biden administration

01:23:47.600 wants to go to where an activist title nine coordinator will be the detective, the judge

01:23:55.840 and the jury, and then the executioner, the sentencer in the situation, um, where the accused

01:24:04.500 will, will not be privy to all of the information and not be able to argue back.

01:24:09.600 Uh, it will take away due process rights, which the courts have already applied on in many, many

01:24:16.060 cases must be a part of these cases.

01:24:18.960 So I don't know how they think they're going to survive challenges to what they propose

01:24:24.240 because it's absolutely contrary to what the laws are and what the courts have said,

01:24:30.100 but this is what they're trying to do.

01:24:32.160 And, um, it's unfair to everyone involved.

01:24:35.680 And it ultimately hurts those who are bringing accusations because they have to go through

01:24:40.920 it all again when it's done improperly.

01:24:44.200 Because what happens is these boys get expelled by a kangaroo court.

01:24:49.060 They get labeled a sex offender in a proceeding in which they've had no opportunity to see

01:24:53.440 the evidence against them or to cross-examine the woman accusing them.

01:24:57.380 I'll just go with the, the sex stereotype in this case.

01:25:00.060 And in some cases we've, we've covered them here.

01:25:03.100 There are text messages by the accuser saying it was all me.

01:25:06.980 I wanted it.

01:25:07.920 And the guy has no idea this is even out there because he had no right to discovery.

01:25:12.520 Then he gets labeled a sex offender.

01:25:14.020 He gets kicked out of school, loses football scholarship, what have you.

01:25:16.960 Then he gets a lawyer who appeals into federal court.

01:25:18.940 And from what I read in your book, there's an over 40% reversal rate by those federal courts

01:25:26.700 of these kangaroo court rulings.

01:25:28.800 So to your point, the accuser now has to go through the whole thing all over again.

01:25:34.940 Yeah, exactly.

01:25:36.120 It doesn't work.

01:25:37.800 It doesn't, it's not right.

01:25:39.160 It's not fair.

01:25:39.940 And to double down on this political agenda of the Biden administration, you know, piling

01:25:48.960 on top of the Obama administration's agenda to weaponize Title IX, it is, it is just unconscionable

01:25:56.860 to me.

01:25:57.380 And I just hope that people will speak up.

01:25:59.960 You know, I, I just have to add here, if I've only had one encounter with Joe Biden and

01:26:06.480 it was while he was, before he decided to run for president again, I was in a wheelchair.

01:26:12.880 I was backstage after speaking.

01:26:15.420 He came up to me.

01:26:16.400 I'd never met him before in my life.

01:26:18.160 He came up to me, put his hands on my shoulders and his forehead on my forehead for several

01:26:24.080 seconds and had conversation with me.

01:26:27.760 If, if he had done that as a student on a college campus under his proposed rule, I would

01:26:34.960 have a Title IX sexual harassment allegation to, to, you know, levy against him because

01:26:41.800 of his conduct.

01:26:42.880 I heard from many students who had lesser encounters or lesser situations than what I had to encounter

01:26:50.780 with him.

01:26:52.100 And yet he wants this for college students, but will not acknowledge and, and, and, you

01:27:00.400 know, agree to probes into allegations of much more egregious conduct, uh, on his part against

01:27:08.480 other women. 1.00

01:27:09.020 I'm just using it as an example to say, this, uh, administration is so bent on trying to politicize

01:27:18.280 and weaponize a law that was meant to protect women and to give them access to education, not 1.00

01:27:26.740 to weaponize it, to harm others.

01:27:29.220 And the, you know, this is a really, really bad, uh, direction that they're taking with

01:27:36.980 their proposed Title IX rule.

01:27:38.860 And I hope people will speak up about it.

01:27:42.140 Wait, let me just back up.

01:27:43.900 You were in a wheelchair and he came over and he touched foreheads with you.

01:27:48.840 Yes.

01:27:49.980 Oh my God.

01:27:50.920 Why were you just, it was no disgusting.

01:27:54.480 You don't want to touch foreheads with anybody.

01:27:56.720 I don't, I don't even touch foreheads with my husband.

01:27:58.920 I mean, that's bizarre.

01:28:00.300 And another example of his inappropriate boundary crossing.

01:28:04.420 Exactly.

01:28:05.120 What was it that he had to do?

01:28:06.640 Was he saying like, I have a terrible headache and you feel like, what was he saying?

01:28:10.160 How, how is this in any way okay to do in public?

01:28:14.020 Good question.

01:28:15.360 Um, he asked if I had any hardware as a result of my injury and I had had, uh, I had broken

01:28:22.780 my pelvis, uh, then he told me that he had nine screws in his shoulder, but everybody

01:28:28.860 thought they were in his head.

01:28:30.420 And he was doing this while holding onto my shoulders with his forehead pressed to mine

01:28:35.980 and you couldn't get away.

01:28:38.020 I mean, it's like, so you were basically harassed the, the legal definition of sexual harassment

01:28:47.460 by Joe Biden, uh, while in a wheelchair.

01:28:49.640 That's, that's our takeaway here.

01:28:51.200 And as you point out under his rules, he'd, he'd get expelled from something for it.

01:28:55.920 Um, it's crazy.

01:28:57.100 Like what they're doing to young men is absolutely crazy and it's unfair.

01:29:00.800 And these guys shouldn't have to worry.

01:29:03.100 And women, as you point out too, can get accused.

01:29:05.040 I had a client who was harassed by a woman, but when I practice law, they shouldn't have 1.00

01:29:09.180 to worry about whether they're going to get due process based on who's in the white house.

01:29:13.680 You know, that's just like, Oh, I hope my son graduates high school when there's a Republican

01:29:18.100 in office.

01:29:18.700 This is nuts.

01:29:20.820 Yeah, exactly.

01:29:22.000 And I, I actually heard stories from, uh, couples who had, had a third party observe something

01:29:29.400 that happened and file a title nine, uh, you know, uh, allegation against the guy when both

01:29:36.680 of them said, well, no, you're wrong.

01:29:38.600 There was nothing going on there.

01:29:40.240 And then being told, well, you're just under such trauma that you don't really understand

01:29:45.540 what happened to you. 0.97

01:29:46.740 Well, this is just ludicrous.

01:29:48.680 And again, it is, uh, it is a weaponization of a rule that is meant to give all students

01:29:56.720 the opportunity to pursue their education equally.

01:30:00.320 Let's spend a minute on student debt.

01:30:02.820 Uh, the Biden administration is hot on this.

01:30:05.180 I mean, something that he was supposedly against, but now we've got midterms coming up.

01:30:09.320 So you know how that works.

01:30:10.580 He's considering there's, they're saying we're going to get a decision decision on this by the

01:30:14.140 end of August, considering using executive action to provide $10,000 of debt relief

01:30:18.680 per borrower.

01:30:20.080 Many progressives want it to be closer to 50,000.

01:30:22.520 He's weighing it.

01:30:23.800 Um, for those who make a hundred, 125,000 as an individual up to 250,000 for families.

01:30:30.060 So those people do not need debt forgiveness.

01:30:32.480 They are very well off by American standards, but that's, who's going to get it under this

01:30:36.720 potential proposal.

01:30:38.980 Uh, they also are looking in how they could automate loan forgiveness without requiring

01:30:44.240 borrows to even fill out an application form.

01:30:46.580 Just one swoop of the magic wand.

01:30:50.180 They're looking at ways to cancel debt for borrowers who are in default.

01:30:54.600 Okay.

01:30:54.940 So just anybody who didn't pay, they get to get their loans paid off, which is of course 0.73

01:30:59.300 an incentive not to pay them while they're under consideration, um, versus those suckers

01:31:04.180 like me who actually paid my loans off, uh, by working hard.

01:31:08.200 Uh, they're talking about maybe roughly 8 million borrowers who are in default right now who could

01:31:13.180 potentially benefit from this.

01:31:15.940 Um, all of this, Betsy seems like it seems drastically unfair to people who actually paid

01:31:21.000 their bills and doesn't seem like we can afford it, but it seems like a political pitch that

01:31:26.600 they feel will help them in advance of November.

01:31:29.440 What do you think it's about?

01:31:30.540 And what, and do you think it's a good idea?

01:31:33.060 Well, first of all, uh, it's illegal for the president to just wipe away and forgive a bunch

01:31:38.900 of student debt.

01:31:39.860 We, we believe there's no basis in law to do that.

01:31:44.380 Secondly, it's patently unfair.

01:31:46.440 Two out of three Americans did not go to college and take out student loans to do so.

01:31:51.440 Uh, not to mention the fact that people like you have faithfully paid on student loans and

01:31:57.880 have done so, um, and paid them off or the veterans that have served our country and earned

01:32:03.980 their tuition as a result.

01:32:05.880 Um, to just say we're going to wipe away a bunch of student debt is, uh, patently unfair

01:32:11.960 for all of those.

01:32:13.760 It's unwise.

01:32:15.100 It is a wrongheaded policy.

01:32:17.400 And, um, and I, I, I, you know, you can see the, the, um, influence that Elizabeth Warren

01:32:26.200 has had is having in this administration with all of her folks that have, uh, invaded the, 0.97

01:32:32.980 uh, the student loan portfolio and the student, you know, uh, federal student aid infrastructure

01:32:38.280 and are working on every way possible to try to wipe away and forgive student loans, student

01:32:45.360 debt, um, based on whatever they can find to try to do it with, but it's, it's wrong because

01:32:51.840 it is, it is, uh, not fair to all of those who are ultimately going to have to foot the

01:32:58.060 bill to do this.

01:32:59.320 And, um, and I, you know, I have said many times that Congress really needs to get a grip

01:33:05.220 on this and, uh, step back and reassess the whole process of student lending, uh, which

01:33:12.580 they, you know, took in inside the federal government.

01:33:15.380 The Democrats did as part of Obamacare, um, ostensibly to pay for Obamacare.

01:33:21.000 And now, uh, we have a loan portfolio that is bleeding debt and all of these promises being

01:33:28.500 made to students, most of whom, um, it is actually a reverse Robin hood approach, uh, paying 0.60

01:33:36.320 off the, the loans of high income earners at the expense of those who have not taken out

01:33:41.860 loans or who don't have the ability to pay.

01:33:46.180 I think of the trucker who said, I could go to college and take out a bunch of debt, but

01:33:49.380 I'm worried about my ability to pay it.

01:33:50.840 And I don't want to not pay my debts.

01:33:52.240 And so he doesn't do it.

01:33:53.240 And now he's got to pay for the debt of this couple making $250,000.

01:33:56.940 It's BS.

01:33:57.700 All right.

01:33:57.860 We've got one minute left and I got to get to this story.

01:34:00.200 You mentioned Elizabeth Warren.

01:34:01.520 Some of the stories in here about your experiences on Capitol Hill are amazing.

01:34:04.960 Uh, and one of them is with Bernie Sanders.

01:34:06.780 And can you please leave us on a laugh with what you noticed when you went into Bernie

01:34:11.660 Sanders Senate office?

01:34:14.020 Uh, well, my, my, my meeting with him was great, but my takeaway was the office was a lot

01:34:21.800 full of lots of different kinds of plaid and it smelled like a lot of mothballs.

01:34:26.920 I love the color, you know, like that's something you don't really get from Bernie Sanders, uh,

01:34:34.600 when you see him from a distance and all the memes and so on plaid and mothballs, it really

01:34:39.500 brings the audience there.

01:34:41.360 Look, you touch on everything in this book and I appreciate it.

01:34:44.300 And I feel like there's just so much you've learned so much from your various roles in

01:34:48.920 education.

01:34:49.580 You're a wealth of information.

01:34:51.200 Let me ask you this parting question.

01:34:53.300 Whoever gets in there next time around, if it's a Republican as a president, would you be

01:34:56.700 willing to serve again?

01:34:59.360 Um, I've been willing to do whatever it takes to advance opportunities for kids.

01:35:04.620 And if that would mean to serve in some way, I would do that.

01:35:08.380 Great.

01:35:09.220 Good.

01:35:09.880 I'm glad to hear it because we need more people like you who are unafraid.

01:35:13.940 And frankly, being independently wealthy is a plus in this situation where it's like they

01:35:19.260 can throw their, you know, little arrows and so on, but you'll be just fine.

01:35:24.000 You're doing what you believe is right for the country.

01:35:25.960 Betsy DeVos.

01:35:27.120 What a pleasure.

01:35:28.000 Thank you so much for coming on.

01:35:30.060 Thank you so much, Megan.

01:35:31.220 It's been great to be with you.

01:35:34.220 So Betsy DeVos was sexually harassed by Joe Biden. 1.00

01:35:38.200 That's what we learned among many other things on today's show.

01:35:41.940 Unbelievable.

01:35:42.840 Think about it.

01:35:43.280 I know we're laughing.

01:35:44.180 Think about yourself in a wheelchair, unable to move and having this guy come over, lean 0.99

01:35:49.480 down, put his hands on your shoulders and put his forehead against yours, his sweaty

01:35:53.580 forehead, breathing on you right in your face.

01:35:56.160 I mean, come on.

01:35:57.700 The poor woman. 1.00

01:35:58.760 Betsy DeVos has been through a lot.

01:36:00.160 She would have preferred the Elizabeth Warren treatment. 0.97

01:36:02.300 Don't touch me.

01:36:03.420 Walk the other way.

01:36:04.640 One of the many things we can talk over with our friends from the Ruthless podcast who are

01:36:09.680 coming back on tomorrow.

01:36:11.180 Don't miss that.

01:36:12.320 Download the show.

01:36:13.020 In the meantime, The Megyn Kelly Show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify, and Stitcher.

01:36:16.460 Go to youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly and hit subscribe so that you can watch us if you

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01:36:22.920 In the meantime, thanks for being with us and we'll see you tomorrow.

01:36:28.540 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

01:36:30.660 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - August 17, 2022

Biden's Title IX Sham, Abolishing the Department of Education, and Hard Work, with Betsy DeVos ｜ Ep. 375

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