Former White House correspondent for The Daily Wire Andrew Klavan joins Megyn on The Megyn Kelly Show to discuss the Biden Student Loan Debt Forgiveness Plan and why it s a one and done payoff. Plus, Megyn and Andrew discuss why the media should be embarrassed to be credentialed.
00:16:15.620You know, I believe that so much of the misery that comes out of politics comes out of this from the simple fact that human beings have a very sharp sense of justice and fairness.
00:17:50.080All it can do is treat everybody equally and let people rise as they will.
00:17:54.320And that is what we've gotten away from.
00:17:55.820That was kind of the idea, the basic idea of the country, that the government to keep its hands to itself and let each person rise and fall on his own work and his own merit.
00:18:05.780And that idea is being crushed under this idea that somehow, somehow the government is going to make everything fair.
00:18:32.560And so when the government promises to fix them, hold on to your wallet because they're coming for your dough and they're not going to do anything.
00:18:39.400If I may say, though, you can fix the fact that you do not look good before you post your Instagram video.
00:19:11.240I mean, I was just some random video and I learned just like anybody else can learn.
00:19:14.640I'm just saying it's it's a small point, but it's indicative of a larger one, which is a little effort goes a long way.
00:19:21.520And yes, you might choose to put your efforts into getting a college degree or a law school degree or an advanced degree of some kind and then work your ass off because you want to make a lot of money.
00:19:54.440That person's got a lot more fun time, free time, relaxation time, probably a lot less stress in his life than the people in the first category.
00:21:14.640They live in this fantasy where money, you know, you just print it and there's more of it and prices will never go up.
00:21:20.560And it has nothing, you know, that inflation has nothing to do with the fact that we've been printing money like crazy for 10 years.
00:21:26.860It is really weird that people don't question basic things like that.
00:21:33.880And while they're sitting on their couch, while they're playing video games all day, and while they're saying, send me the money, nobody ever says, where does that money come from?
00:22:53.880By delivering historic targeted student debt relief to millions of borrowers, more working families will be able to meet their kitchen table needs as they recover from the pandemic.
00:23:02.020What happened to he does not have the power?
00:23:31.580And so this will be challenged in court, and it's very likely to be struck down, this executive overreach.
00:23:37.820I actually, I'm not at all confident it's going to stand.
00:23:40.400And I'll tell you, I don't know if it does stand how we recover exactly.
00:23:45.620I'm not, I think this is like a deeply, this is a deep tear at our basic principles.
00:23:51.020That's part of the fabric that was holding us together.
00:23:53.220Rule of law, contracts, obligations that you undertake willingly and then must live up to.
00:23:59.100That is the way, you know, you're the lawyer, so I didn't want to go off about that.
00:24:04.540But it just seems to me that contract law is a kind of sacred vow between two people.
00:24:09.620I mean, obviously, if you're making a legal contract, that's one thing.
00:24:12.160But if you make a legal contract, isn't that kind of part of the sacred relationships of freedom, one of the sacred relationships of freedom, that if you and I enter into an agreement together and sign that agreement, put our signatures on that agreement, that agreement stands.
00:24:28.060If I haven't cheated you in some way, that agreement stands.
00:24:44.140I always like, is there really such a thing as no fault divorce?
00:24:46.880I mean, if you have a vow that you are going to live together forever, isn't there some kind of fault that isn't somebody at fault when those vows collapse?
00:24:55.500I think that that that war on contract law is part of the war on freedom.
00:25:00.900You know, it seems it just seems to me, again, you're the lawyer here.
00:25:03.720So I don't I don't want to, like, step on your territory.
00:25:07.020But it just seems to me that contract law is kind of sacred.
00:25:10.020It's not just it's not just something you study in law school.
00:25:14.460It actually is one of the binding relationships between two free human beings.
00:25:20.720And to just kind of crush that with a wave of your hand seems incredibly morally dangerous.
00:25:25.720But then again, I'm not sure they care.
00:25:28.080And I almost feel like he's our fiduciary.
00:26:05.580He's lost several of these attempts at overreach under the covid emergency release valve.
00:26:10.940This could just be the latest in an effort to appease his base again right before the midterms as the Democrats creep closer to doing better than they were to almost equaling Republican Republicans in the generic congressional ballot, which we'll get to in just a bit.
00:26:26.700By the way, the Department of Education also ruled in twenty twenty one, quote, the president does not have the statutory authority to provide blanket or mass cancellation, compromise, discharge or forgiveness of student loan, principal balances and or to material materially modify the repayment amounts or terms thereof.
00:26:49.500One of the things I was going to mention is Jason Furman.
00:26:51.980He was the former chair of Council of Economic Advisors under President Obama, Joe Biden's old boss.
00:26:57.900And he pointed out a couple of things.
00:26:59.260Number one, pouring roughly half a trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire that's already burning is reckless.
00:27:05.300Number two, why design a policy that would provide up to forty thousand dollars to a married couple making two hundred and forty nine thousand?
00:27:11.580Why include law and business school students if you want us to believe this is about the construction worker making thirty eight grand?
00:27:17.940And so even people from his former administration are saying this makes no sense.
00:27:26.600And it's obviously the messaging full of lies.
00:27:29.920OK, so I want to talk to you just for a bit about the raid, because today is the day done at Mar-a-Lago that this judge is waiting for the DOJ to submit its proposed redactions from the supporting affidavit.
00:27:43.740In order to get a warrant to go in there and search Mar-a-Lago, they had to have an affidavit, presumably from an FBI agent who laid out the case against President Trump.
00:28:12.880It was due at noon down in this the South Florida court.
00:28:18.560You know, still, I think Republicans are very fired up about this issue.
00:28:22.260But I also think that Trump being back in the news to the extent he has been for the past month has been a good thing politically for Democrats.
00:28:29.840As much as it fires up the base to see Trump persecuted yet yet again, making no comment on whether he has records he shouldn't have.
00:28:37.100The guy, it's a string of persecutions against him.
00:29:23.740And I agree with you that his presence is all in all probably a benefit to the Democrats.
00:29:29.940But the recklessness of this, you know, a million times during the Trump administration, I got emails from people saying, when is Hillary Clinton going to go to jail?
00:29:40.720And I would say, you know, Hillary Clinton has broken the law repeatedly, but you don't actually want her to go to jail.
00:29:45.740You don't want your political candidates to go to jail if you can help it.
00:29:49.240You don't want them persecuted by the DOJ because it makes the DOJ more political than it is in danger of being to begin with.
00:29:56.060That they would storm into a former president's home, a duly elected president's home, no matter what story they want to tell themselves, is so incredibly reckless that it genuinely makes me concerned that what they're trying to do is demonize half the country.
00:30:13.280They are trying to declare half the country terrorists.
00:30:16.980Already on MSNBC and other left wing outlets, they are saying the civil war is here.
00:30:22.000It's not we're not in danger of a civil war.
00:30:25.460And I'm worried that they're trying to do this, that they they'll gin up a couple of nutbags, we'll go after the FBI in a violent way and then say, see, we were right.
00:30:34.100It was these right wing crazies who are showing up at school board meetings, demanding that we can't change the sexes of their children.
00:30:40.840You know, we knew they were terrorists and now we've proved that they're terrorists.
00:30:45.120Unless Trump, I don't care what Trump papers Trump had and they can pull all these leaks to the press.
00:30:50.920Oh, he was holding the nuclear code, you know, not, you know, he was going to call up the White House and tell them to launch a nuclear weapon.
00:31:18.780And Merrick Garland, who had this reputation for being a company man, a guy who took care of the institutions, a guy who obeyed the law, has shown himself to be just an absolute pushover for the left.
00:31:30.260And, you know, not only did he go after parents and start investigating them as possible terrorists for taking care of their children, but now he storms the home of a former president.
00:31:38.680I mean, really, I feel like I'm living somewhere in Central America, some unnamed country in Central America.
00:31:49.660You know, even though I oppose the left with all my heart, I understand that some of the people on the left are good people.
00:31:56.580I understand they're my fellow citizens.
00:31:58.100I have to pay them at least the respect of arguing with them.
00:32:00.880But the left just feels that they're going to snap their fingers and turn us and declare that we are all terrorists, we're all white supremacists.
00:32:08.480You know, January 6th is the violence to end all violence, but the violence of the George Floyd riots that burned down half the country, that doesn't count.
00:32:43.600My old impressions of Merrick Garland when he was nominated by Obama for that seat are so different from what they are today.
00:32:50.640And to your point about encouraging or baiting, baiting, you know, the Republicans or the MAGA crowd into doing something violent, couldn't agree more.
00:32:58.600Jared Kushner was on the show on Tuesday.
00:33:00.620He has a new book out and he he makes the point in the book about how unfortunate January 6th was.
00:33:07.820Yes, for the obvious reasons, but also for this reason, because the media had been painting the Trump rallies as this, you know, carnal, debased, disgusting, violent, awful gathering of people deplorables.
00:33:25.240Right. And if you if you actually looked at the Trump rallies, it was a bunch of truly patriotic people who loved Donald Trump and they loved the country and they were waving flags and they were wearing flag regalia.
00:33:35.900And with one or two small exceptions, there really wasn't violence at these things.
00:33:41.000And yet this group got baited into January 6th.
00:34:02.120And that was like part of the horror of watching it is it's like, oh, my God, you've now you've now given the media the excuse to sit back.
00:34:40.120It's it's you know, there used to be a saying that there's the stupid party in the evil party and we're clearly the stupid party.
00:34:46.040I mean, I think that if we really do feel as I do feel that we are the party more likely to stand up for the Constitution, more likely to stand up for American freedoms, more likely to stand up for American traditions.
00:34:58.120Then we have to take conscious care of how we behave.
00:35:01.680They can stomp back and forth and they can rage and they can burn down cities and get away with it because they don't care.
00:35:07.440They're not trying to preserve anything.
00:35:09.720To be a conservative is to try to conserve something.
00:35:11.920To be an American conservative is to try to conserve something extremely specific, which is the Constitution and limited government.
00:35:56.980What they want is to be taken care of.
00:35:58.720They want to be able to have their pleasure and exercise their lust and their greed and all the things that human beings do.
00:36:04.780And what we're saying is, no, you have to actually be self-restrained.
00:36:08.140That's a hard sell from the very beginning.
00:36:10.640And once you start storming the Capitol, once you start looking like a bunch of idiots, once you start allowing the worst of the worst to join your movement, you basically weaken yourself.
00:36:19.320It feels like strength in the moment because it feels like, yeah, we're going to be just as tough as they are.
00:36:27.760And the fact that it came after a summer of riots, which the press and the left, but I repeat myself, the press and the left encouraged, not just said was OK, they encouraged that violence.
00:36:40.380Nobody cares because they're not the good guys.
00:36:43.900We are the good guys and we have to behave like the good guys.
00:36:48.460But, you know, like basically it is the Reichstag fire.
00:36:52.260I mean, not to compare anybody to Hitler, but it was, you know, the asocialists burned fire to the Reichstag and Hitler used that to seize absolute power.
00:37:01.040The left has played this January 6th card until I hope it's basically run out.
00:37:05.620It's like a credit card that is way over its limit.
00:51:37.660If you don't have that tradition, then basically you've left yourself open to being shaped by whoever happens to be in power at the moment.
00:51:45.860And the people who have been in power for the last 50 years are materialists who want to teach you that basically you're just a meat puppet filled with a chemistry set.
00:51:54.940And therefore, the most important thing about you is how you have sex and when you want sex and whether you get the sex you want when you want it.
00:52:01.360That is a tradition in Western philosophy.
00:52:06.460Schopenhauer called sex the lord of the world.
00:52:08.920Freud obviously thought that sex was behind everything.
00:52:11.620The Marquis de Sade, from whom we get sadism, believed that sex was the essential engine.
00:52:16.080But there's an entire other tradition which teaches us that we are spirits.
00:52:20.980We are actually, our body is the expression of something greater than itself.
00:52:25.860And that tradition teaches us that love is at the center of everything.
00:53:40.540You have academics who either won't teach the great books or silence those books by smothering them under their own banal and unfounded critical theories.
00:53:47.680Even worse, they threaten you with bad grades if you don't lie and pretend to believe those theories.
00:54:43.480That when you say, I will stand for this, you stand.
00:54:47.320And when somebody says, tells you to lie, you don't lie.
00:54:51.120And I've gotten very disappointed in conservatives who say, keep your head down until you get out of college, because then you've got the degree and you can do anything you want.
00:55:10.980But you cannot, you cannot say what you don't mean and you can't put what you don't mean down on paper and you can't put your name to lies.
00:55:20.180And if it means it's going to cost you, that is the lesson of the Gospels.
00:55:24.420The lesson of the Gospels is if you speak the truth, if you exemplify the truth, you're going to pay a price.
00:55:29.460That is the lesson for the Gospels, but you're also going to get a reward.
00:55:32.800And so I think you just have to live by that and take the hits.
00:55:36.740And listen, Megan, you know, I'm not saying this.
00:55:38.980I lost millions of dollars in Hollywood by being who I am.
00:55:42.840I don't think that anybody can actually argue with that.
00:55:45.760No one ever said I'm blacklisting you, but I was making a whole lot of money writing screenplays until I started speaking politically.
00:55:51.880And then my phone stopped ringing on the instant.
00:55:55.520And so, you know, I got to be honest, like I wasn't happy about it, but I never lost a minute's sleep about it.
00:56:01.020The idea that I should be going up to guys like Harvey Weinstein and pretending one thing when I knew something else was true would just be despicable.
00:56:08.980And I feel really good about my life because I've lived that way.
00:56:14.520And I know the people who didn't live that way.
00:56:17.340I know the guys in Hollywood who basically mouthed off and said things they didn't believe.
00:56:22.520And I can look in their eyes and see that they paid a price that was much worse than money, a price that I would never want to pay.
00:56:28.340And so, yes, if you don't actually start to teach yourself your tradition, why you believe what you believe, you're not just a conservative because you're a cantankerous, you know, bold person or because you're crusty or whatever.
00:56:40.380You're actually conservative because, you know, American conservatives are very different than European conservatives.
00:57:45.420The priests and teachers and artists of all the generations past are still right here walking by your sides.
00:57:52.040For thousands of years, the best of them have been working in the midst of life's suffering and evil to write books and compose music and develop religion that are still lying at your feet like a bright trail through the present darkness.
00:58:03.000It is up to you to do what the old men have not done for you.
00:58:19.440If we're not going to go to the colleges necessarily that they want us to go to because we're all going to be indoctrinated, we do not have the professors of yore.
00:58:27.000Or even if we are going to go, we're going to have to find a way to sort of educate ourselves on the side.
00:58:31.320Or if you're somebody like me who I went to college and I went to law school, but I wasn't taught the classics.
00:59:42.760You have to go to the places where people have expressed themselves in their absolute best way over a period of time, over a length of time.
01:01:04.760Maybe you're interested in a period in history.
01:01:06.420If you start reading about World War I, which I was fascinated by for quite a long time, then you start to wonder, well, what happened before World War I?
01:01:13.980And you start reading about the Victorian era.
01:01:16.200You know, I would say start with the West because that's your tradition, but you shouldn't be afraid to branch out and read about other things too.
01:01:48.320You know, there aren't a million great books.
01:01:49.740There may be a thousand, but there aren't a million.
01:01:51.640So you can read them all if you want to.
01:01:53.720And then you will find that you actually know stuff that other people don't know.
01:01:57.980One thing that happened to me as I began to become an educated person, I would be reading magazines and think, oh, this guy's talking about Rousseau, but he's never read Rousseau.
01:02:07.060I've read Rousseau, but he's just he just took a class in Rousseau.
01:02:10.440You know, and so that that was you put you make that point in your in your remarks about Ibram Kendi, who's got the nerve to let the words Thomas Sowell come out of his pen, but has clearly never actually read Thomas Sowell like you have.
01:02:23.080Listen, I want to say even I sit up straight when I mentioned Thomas Sowell.
01:02:27.260Oh, I mean, we all we all have to know what he's national treasure.
01:02:45.780You mentioned a love of reading and becoming an expert sort of organically.
01:02:49.600And that actually describes Doug Brunt, my husband, perfectly the man I love and the man who is obsessed with World War One and World War Two and has read everything and now is a true authority on everything from Stalin to the Russians.
01:03:02.980I mean, I like I could go deep into that rabbit hole thanks to him.
01:03:06.320But I've seen his world come alive as he taught himself so much about that era.
01:03:11.460And I mentioned it in particular today because it's his birthday.
01:03:32.280And you are somebody who's helped me understand the value of love and how it can change everything.
01:03:38.700When we come back, we'll meet with an attorney fighting back against a racially hostile work environment that was supposed to be about something very, very different.
01:03:48.320My next guest is a family law attorney who represents domestic violence victims in Philadelphia.
01:03:57.540Now, Nicole Levitt is suing her employer, Women Against Abuse, alleging that the organization created a racially hostile work environment in the aftermath of George Floyd's death.
01:04:23.880OK, so your story is not unusual, sadly, in the aftermath of George Floyd when we lost our minds.
01:04:30.420And our previous guest, Andrew Claver, was just talking about how, you know, when you when you hire a bunch of diversity consultants to come in and find diversity problems, they never walk out saying you're good.
01:04:40.780Like they're getting paid to find them.
01:04:42.720So Women Against Abuse, a group focused on domestic violence, nonetheless thought this was a good idea.
01:04:49.000And what happened after these equity consultants came in?
01:04:53.180So we had equity consultants and DEI consultants and like in workplaces across the country after George Floyd was killed, they came in to start doing trainings.
01:05:05.760And what followed was discrimination, stereotyping and scapegoating, which, in my opinion, is not what DEI is supposed to be about.
01:05:17.120And it ended up being very divisive for our organization.
01:05:21.360Now, I understand that one of the things they they took issue with was the messaging.
01:05:27.120W your group started to say to say to the messaging to women who have been abused needs to be very anti police.
01:05:33.780Yes, that is is something that we debated for a long time.
01:05:40.860My stance on that always was, well, the police are imperfect.
01:05:44.480We all know that we would all like to have to have to improve the police and their response to domestic violence.
01:06:29.520So now there's another group that's supposed to be helping victims of abuse is considering what's going to happen to the abuser who may or may not be black or brown.
01:06:40.520And and they did say, you know, if your client wants to call the police, call the police, but give them these other options.
01:06:46.740Well, there's no other options that are really ready.
01:06:49.260I don't know of any restorative justice program that's actually working and helping domestic violence survivors.
01:06:56.240You think of just on Monday, we had on Marsha Clark, a famed prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson case, which began with domestic violence and escalated into murder.
01:07:04.900And, you know, you think about those 9-1-1 calls with Nicole Brown Simpsons, you know, scared out of her mind, desperate for the police to come.
01:07:12.820Oh, let me refer you to our restorative justice unit and somebody will come out there and give them a bunch of counseling.
01:07:20.500Or even a social worker, we know that domestic violence calls are some of the most dangerous calls for police to attend to.
01:07:27.080So I don't see how adding an unarmed social worker is going to help that situation at all.
01:07:32.400So then internally, in addition to the messaging to how to handle domestic violence victims and the messaging toward them, internally, the dialogue started changing in a way that I understand was very negative, including this declaration or contract they wanted you to sign about white people in general and yourself in specific.
01:09:14.860Like, we need to be helping survivors, not debating, you know, who's racist and who isn't.
01:09:21.980What, what whole, um, race needs to be, um, talked about that way.
01:09:28.380Like, we just need to focus on our mission.
01:09:30.460And I find that these DEI programs completely get companies and organizations off of their mission and they create more division and frankly, more racism.
01:10:14.660I know it's pending right now before the EEOC and what you have to do.
01:10:17.720That's a step you have to take before you can file in federal court, which good on you because this is the only way to stop this nonsense.
01:10:23.680You know, if these woke administrators won't stand up for what's right, then you've got to go to the courts and the law is still, thank God, the law.
01:10:32.180I mean, thanks to the civil rights progress we made in the 60s with a law, it's, it still stands.
01:10:37.000And now we've gone so far the other way.
01:10:39.140Now white people are taking advantage of these laws.
01:10:43.760And I found that a lot of people don't even realize that white people can and should take advantage of these laws, that the civil rights laws are for everyone.
01:10:51.560So in addition to being white, you are, um, in a minority group, which is you're Jewish.
01:10:58.720And I understand there was an incident where there was a general, uh, sentiment.
01:11:03.760Uh, they circulated an article about antisemitism.
01:11:07.540Um, a member of the legal center circulated an article about antisemitism in the black lives matter movement.
01:11:13.580And, and, and you chimed in on this, tell us what happened.
01:11:18.740I chimed in on this and expressed my discomfort that, um, I had asked for an article on antisemitism to be included with our anti-racism resources.
01:11:28.860And, um, that, that suggestion was shot down.
01:11:33.000And what, what followed from that was just a barrage of angry emails from my colleagues, accusing me of furthering white supremacism and taking the spotlight away from black and brown people by bringing up antisemitism within this movement.
01:11:51.100And the reason why I thought it was important is because they were asking us to espouse this ideology, hook, line, and sinker, while I find, I found it to be hurting, um, a lot of other minorities like Jews, like Asians.
01:12:07.380And I wanted that to be part of the discussion that was shot down.
01:12:45.600And I didn't want to have an oppression Olympics.
01:12:47.980Um, I just wanted antisemitism to be part of the discussion, but, um, I found that.
01:12:57.740If any offender, um, against any other minority happens to be a person of color, if you bring that up, then you're furthering white supremacy.
01:13:24.500I think we need to be able to, you know, say what is true and not sugarcoat anything.
01:13:31.460That's the only way we're going to get to the bottom of any of these issues.
01:13:35.200Uh, Washington free beacon did an article on this, uh, and they pointed out though you're, you're, I admire your, uh, reluctance to go there, but you actually did experience, um, violence in your life based on the fact that you're Jewish.
01:13:53.340As I understand it, you lived in Israel during the second Intifada and actually had, you were shot at and some of your friends died.
01:14:01.020So you're probably weren't feeling so good about the lecture about how whatever Jews feel, nothing compares to what black Americans feel.
01:14:09.760Um, most of whom have not been personally shot at or seeing their friends killed based on race or religion.
01:14:17.360Right. Um, that was exactly how I was feeling. Um, but I, I didn't want to make it about that. And it was a spotlight. I didn't want. All I wanted was for that to be part of the conversation.
01:14:31.860And that was shot down because anything that wasn't about black lives matter was not going to be part of the conversation. It just wasn't.
01:14:40.980So in addition to trying to force you to say something that isn't true and you didn't believe and change the way you counsel victims to steer them away from law enforcement, um, and the vitriol you experienced and trying to raise an issue that is legitimate and deserves some scrutiny.
01:14:58.140If we're going to go down the identity lane, they also started offering money to so-called BIPOC people and not white people.
01:15:07.920BIPOC is, um, black, indigenous, uh, people of color, black and indigenous people of color.
01:15:14.300So that was for the racial equity audit. The premise of the racial equity audit was where does white supremacy manifest in your organization? So not, is it there, but where does it manifest?
01:15:26.720And for the racial equity audit, they wanted people to volunteer. And if you volunteered, you would receive a stipend.
01:15:33.760They said the stipend for black and brown people would be higher because of the emotional labor that they would have to do in this audit.
01:15:42.740Um, I was astounded. I was shocked. I knew that was clearly illegal. And I was wondering when the adults were going to rejoin the room because it was crazy.
01:15:52.660Yeah. You as a lawyer must've known this is not going to stand. They can't get away with this. So when you first went to them and said, I object, but also I want you to know you've crossed many, many legal lines that weren't, they didn't immediately fall on their swords.
01:16:11.240Uh, no. In fact, they doubled down on, on their commitment to being an anti-racist organization.
01:16:16.660Yeah. Whatever that means. It's, it usually means exactly the opposite. So now you've filed in the Kendi and sense. Yes.
01:16:24.480Yeah. You, you have right. Exactly. Cause Kendi believes the only solution to past discrimination is, is present and future discrimination. Um, now you're still working there. So that's awkward.
01:16:34.140It is. Um, but I keep my clients and their interests in the forefront of my mind. Um, I know that my colleagues do that as well. And, um, we are still working for the benefit of my clients. Obviously, I really hope that we can settle this, but I need these practices to stop and I need a guarantee that they're going to stop.
01:16:55.800Um, you know, and I think that this isn't about me at all. This is about whether the civil rights act is going to continue to govern our country.
01:17:05.320Mm. And so since you filed your complaint, have you received more backlash?
01:17:11.600Um, not exactly, but I, I really just try to compartmentalize that away and keep my eye on the ball.
01:17:21.060What do you think is more important at your group right now, uh, helping victims of domestic violence or this obsession with so-called racial justice?
01:17:32.340I think it would depend on who you're talking to. Um, I think the legal center as a whole would say that, um, helping victims of domestic violence is more important, but I think they would also say that you can't truly help black and brown victims unless you're anti-racist.
01:17:51.660Wow. Wow. It's not enough for you to say there. This person's race is irrelevant to me. What's relevant to me is she's being hurt by someone she trusts and probably loves and doesn't see a path out. You've got to focus on her skin color and yours.
01:18:10.280This is horrible. I'm sorry this is happening to you. I, you know, you remind me of Jody Shaw, right? The, just one woman who's at a large organization who just says quietly at first and then loudly, I'm not going along with this. I'm not doing this. I, I object, I refuse. Right. And she's involved in litigation now too.
01:18:31.480So Jody and I have become friends and she's really helped me a lot throughout this circumstance. It's, it's an unusual circumstance to find yourself in. So I, I really found her advice to be very helpful.
01:18:45.020Good. There are other pioneers in this. Paul Rossi is also one. Yeah. So I'm not alone, but I couldn't abide by all this and keep my integrity. And that was more important to me in the end.
01:19:00.580That's right, Nicole. And if they don't do right by you, you're going to win. But if you don't, another organization is going to scoop you up, who will treat you better and respectfully and within the bounds of the law. All the best to you. Keep us, keep us updated.
01:19:14.880We're going to be right back with someone who's fighting back against Google censorship and suppression in a fascinating new way. There is now an alternative. Todd Ricketts, who used to run the finance, he was the finance chair at the Republican National Committee.
01:19:29.620He co-owns the Cubs. He's fighting back and is on the side of the angels on this. He's up next.
01:19:40.820My next guest is Todd Ricketts. He's the co-owner of the Chicago Cubs, and he was the finance chairman of the Republican National Committee under President Trump.
01:19:49.680He recently launched a new search engine, a competitor to Google called FreeSpoke, F-R-E-E-S-P-O-K-E, that provides unbiased and uncensored information to users, and it doesn't track or spy on them.
01:20:09.600So novel. Todd, thank God somebody finally did this. How'd you get the idea?
01:20:14.800You know, I got to tell you, Megan, thanks for having me, first of all.
01:20:18.440And I would just start by saying that I've always been a little skeptical of just large companies that have a lot of control.
01:20:27.180And really, when you get into the technology world, these companies that have these platforms have such control over the news we see.
01:20:35.440And oftentimes, I would find, like when I was searching on Google, that I would get results that I didn't expect or that I felt like were manipulated or put out in a way to kind of lead me into a way of thinking.
01:20:45.760And really, as the time went on, I thought I was alone at first.
01:20:49.860And as I talked to more people, and I started to realize I was not alone, and that other people felt that same way.
01:20:56.100And really, you've seen that explode in the last few years, where we have this idea of free speech is really under attack in our country.
01:21:04.280And we need outlets that are willing to put up all sides and have that debate of ideas and have these intellectual discussions instead of a more Russian-style thought police that tells you what to think and tells you what to say and so on and so forth.
01:21:20.100So your idea is not to create a conservative search engine.
01:21:23.780It's to create what we all used to think Google was, which is just a fair search engine that doesn't censor one side.
01:21:32.760I mean, at its heart, free spoke might attract more conservative people at first, but it's really for everybody.
01:21:39.600And we call all the people who use free spoke, we call them free fokers.
01:21:42.740What we're really trying to do is put everything in front of people so they can make their own decisions about the issues of the day.
01:21:51.360And really, if you search for something that's a little more mundane, like maybe lawnmowers or cars or those things, you're going to find similar results as you might find on Google or other search engines.
01:22:01.320But it's really when you dig into the news a little bit that you'll see that we're trying to present content from multiple sources and label that content as best we can, whether that to put a little context in it.
01:22:14.520No, I like this. I'll get to that one second. I'll get to the label because I like this. That's an important piece.
01:22:18.800But can you just stay for a minute on what you noticed?
01:22:20.900I think it's interesting to have an actual conservative created a platform like this, because, you know, so often it's just if you have something that might appeal to the right or just fair minded people, it's somebody who's like a little squishy in the middle, like you're an actual conservative.
01:22:35.260So what did you see when you were Googling on Google that led you to say, I know I'm not getting, you know, fair search results?
01:22:43.280Well, the greatest was I was talking to someone who was like contemplating investing in Freespoke.
01:22:49.860And I said, look, look, let's just go on Google, pull up your computer, let's go on Google and type NRA.
01:22:56.080And so he did. And the actual NRA website was below the fold.
01:23:01.360It was like the seventh or eighth thing on there after a whole list of like a couple of anti-gun ads and then anti-gun groups.
01:23:09.260And so it really just reinforced that idea. It was really it was kind of I was a little bit shocked myself.
01:23:13.920I'm like, I didn't, you know, I didn't realize we're going to be down so far.
01:23:17.240And so that, you know, that that changes over time and changes on like what who Google thinks you are and like showing you the results, which is just you find out that when you start digging in deep and digging in deeper that you're seeing you're only seeing one side of these issues.
01:23:31.920It's almost hard if you're more centrist to stay a centrist because you're being manipulated in ways you don't even know, whether it's Twitter trying to send the content.
01:23:43.780It likes in front of you or Google trying to send the content it likes in front of you or we've had John Stossel on the program talking about how Facebook has has been censoring him and anything he posts on climate change.
01:23:56.300They challenge him even when the challenge falls down on the facts, they won't rectify the situation.
01:24:02.000It's like you have so many people working against you, understanding different points of view.
01:24:07.480No, it's it's 100 percent true. I mean, there's a there's a couple of things you hit on there.
01:24:10.820I mean, first and foremost, keep in mind that a lot of these platforms, they make their money by keeping you in their platform.
01:24:19.320Right. And so they're going to show you stuff that they're going to try to get you to click on to stay inside of their platform.
01:24:25.280And so they're going to show you the stuff that is the most shocking thing that they that that you might see.
01:24:30.140And then, you know, conversely, or on top of that, you see a lot of these platforms are saying things like we're not going to show anything or we're going to suppress things that go against the.
01:24:40.820Right. Consensus on climate science. And it's like, well, that is not the free flow of ideas.
01:24:46.020This country was built on free speech and this country was built on the free flow of ideas.
01:24:50.540And I think that anything that harms that is incredibly dangerous to us.
01:24:54.760And really, especially when you get in the climate climate change, for example, I don't think I'm going to die or anything, but I'm also an intellectual who wants to see the facts and lay it out and be thoughtful about it.
01:25:05.360And to say that there's some sort of consensus or that people who disagree with the consensus can't be heard.
01:25:11.160It's just dangerous. And really science that can't be questioned isn't really science.
01:25:15.460It's just it's religion in a different package.
01:25:17.520This is the perfect time for this service to be born.
01:25:22.200Freespoke, again, is the name of the company and the search engine in the wake of covid and all of the lies we were told and the suppression that we suffered and the, you know, just inability to question anything.
01:25:33.380Right. I think YouTube this week just changed its policy.
01:25:36.300Now you won't get censored if you suggest that masks do not prevent the spread of covid.
01:25:41.320But finally, you can say that without getting said. And by the way, YouTube and Google, that's the same same pair of company.
01:25:48.180Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it's that's the that's the mindset of your competitor that we should be censored for saying things like that.
01:25:54.520So to pretend that YouTube would be doing that to us and Google would be totally open minded and there'd be no manipulation is naive.
01:26:01.100So you're actually providing both sides of it.
01:26:04.220And what I love is the thing we just talked about, which is you will if you Google climate change on Freespoke, you'll get a bunch of news articles.
01:26:13.320You can either hit all or hit news just like you can on Google.
01:26:16.160And if you hit news, you'll get a CNN article.
01:26:18.680You get a Vox article. What you may get a Fox News article.
01:26:21.400And Todd's service, Freespoke, will say, right, if you click like the Fox News link shows in a little red, right, CNN will show.
01:26:29.820I think it's left. Yeah. That's not D. I'm trying to think of it.
01:26:32.300I think it's L. And so finally, people who used to think CNN was just the news get a warning, a disclosure, I guess, warning or disclosure, depending on your point of view.
01:26:43.620This is leftist. OK, so proceed at your own risk.
01:26:46.820Take it in Fox News. Same thing. I love that.
01:26:50.920Yeah, no. So we thought it was important to try to give context to the news that we're putting out there, too.
01:26:55.220It's like we're not trying to lead anybody down a particular path, but just want to note that, you know, the sources have an agenda and they have a bias.
01:27:03.000And so when you're reading from those sources, it's good to know that it's like I said, started to say before, it's it's not really meant to be a panacea to like say like, oh, well, this is ultimately super left.
01:27:12.660That's super right. It's just a little bit of a guide to give the context.
01:27:16.120So when you're reading these stories, you have that background to know where they're coming from.
01:27:21.080Well, I laugh because I know that middle M is also an option.
01:27:24.760And I my first skeptical thought was nobody going to be in the middle.
01:27:29.940I don't know who he's going to cite for in the middle.
01:27:31.840So I actually did look and it was like Us Weekly.
01:27:37.220Yeah, that's my you know, when I get a little personal, say my daughter and I were at the airport and she picked up at Us Weekly and she's like, this is the only truthful news in this whole store.
01:27:51.100Well, one of the I know, as I pointed out, used to be finance chair for the RNC.
01:27:55.120And I know so you've lived this personally and found out after the last election, Google was indeed manipulating what its users were seeing and were not seeing.
01:28:09.860And specifically, I'll shift over to the emails that if you had a Gmail account and you received an RNC fundraising email, there was an 85 percent likelihood that that got put into your spam folder.
01:28:22.460And if you receive that same email from the Democrat National Committee, there was only a 10 percent chance it would go into your spam folder.
01:28:28.660So they were actively working to to suppress the effectiveness of the RNC's fundraising abilities in the last election.
01:28:37.660And I guess I just keep coming back to the same word.
01:28:39.900It's just dangerous and it's shocking.
01:28:41.880Our country should be about free speech.
01:28:44.100You know, I think there was Patrick Henry said, I may not agree with what you say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it.
01:28:50.060And I feel that is under attack in our country today.
01:28:52.780And we need to have some outlets that are that are willing to say, right, no, we're going to show all the sides and let people make their own decisions.
01:28:58.360It's really it's really what our society and our culture and our country were founded on.
01:29:20.500And next thing you know, you're off to Google and your laptop and so on.
01:29:23.340So if people want to try free spoke, number one, how do they do it?
01:29:27.760How do they get it as their default surgeon or engine?
01:29:30.440And number two, are they going to be getting as good a service by us to the side, you know, as plentiful results, as meaningful results as they would with this huge, massive corporation?
01:29:43.220No, I would I'd be willing to put our search results up against Google's.
01:29:46.460I think we have a pretty robust engine itself.
01:29:49.920We're still working on the product, you know, and adding things every day.
01:29:52.740But the best way really to to to use our product is to go to free spoke dot com or go into one of the app stores and download the free spoke app.
01:30:02.880And then you can have it on your phone.
01:30:04.480Does it cost money or because how can you not be monitoring people?
01:30:09.640Because I've been using it and I'm like, I must have just I must be paying a bill that I didn't realize I was paying because I know you're not spying on people.
01:30:58.660He said he that was Eric Schmidt's own line.
01:31:00.580He said, we try to walk up to the creepy line and and not cross it.
01:31:05.280And my response is like, well, who gets to decide where the creepy line is?
01:31:08.700Yeah, who gets to decide what's creepy?
01:31:10.080And so I've always felt that what they decided wasn't creepy was creepy.
01:31:13.940No, it's like a woman walking down the street with, you know, a dress on and there's some guy trying to sneak underneath the dress like I stop before the line gets creepy.
01:31:34.680Because like how will people have to enter it each time?
01:31:38.540There is a browser extension that you can put in Chrome to make it your default browser.
01:31:43.740And it's a little bit more involved, but we'll put we'll put it up on the side so people can find it easily.
01:31:49.660OK, all right, good, because we need to make an active choice to do this, to support this organization so that we're not ruled by this people who hate anybody who's not a leftist.
01:31:59.660While I have you, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about politics a little bit, given your prior role and just your closeness to a bunch of Republican politicians.
01:32:08.420A lot of buzz in the news this week about the special election in New York's 19.
01:32:13.780And for the audience members at home, this is upstate New York, where the Democrat Pat Ryan has prevailed over the Republican Mark Molinaro.
01:32:59.140And what do you think can be done about it?
01:33:01.680Well, I would call it all really, really normal.
01:33:05.320I feel like this is a narrative that we go through every two years in every election.
01:33:08.580And, you know, right around August at some point, people start saying like, oh, well, it looks like Republicans were going to win, but now they're not going to win and so on.
01:33:15.880But really, ever since 1994, when Newt Gingrich became the Speaker of the House, he was the first Republican Speaker in 40 years.
01:33:27.760And really, before that, Democrats had really controlled Congress.
01:33:31.560And so that was the first time that everything just became razor thin.
01:33:34.720And ever since then, every every House seat, every Senate race, every race has become just so razor thin and everything is decided in the margins there.
01:33:46.180And that's, I think, what has led to kind of like this viciousness of politics in our country that we've seen grow is that is that there's a real battle going on in our country about where the direction of our country is is going to go.
01:34:08.700I won't I won't mock you if you get it wrong.
01:34:10.600What's your prediction on the House and the Senate?
01:34:12.840Well, I mean, I'm not big into making predictions, but I think it's pretty clear that that Kevin McCarthy will be the speaker come January.
01:34:20.660I don't I don't think there's a lot of question on that.
01:34:22.400And when it comes to control of the Senate, you know, this was always something that was going to be up in the balance.
01:34:28.360I think there's four states where Republicans need to hold on to their seats and and then gain one more and in either Georgia or Arizona and so on.
01:34:37.860So it's it's always it was always going to be like a kind of a tough year, I think.
01:34:43.360And that gets I think it's showing itself to be that tough year.
01:34:45.880And then really, we'll just kind of wait and see where it goes and come October.
01:34:49.320Now, what about presidential who will be the Republican nominee?
01:34:54.580What what's your guess if you had to say right now?
01:34:57.680You know, I really I I'm not going to say anything right now just because I don't I don't have somebody and I don't nobody's actually announced.
01:35:03.600And really, I feel like every election, you have to focus on what's right in front of you because you can't count any chickens before they hatch.
01:35:20.440Oh, well, I mean, as of today, I think that President Trump will run again.
01:35:25.260Ron DeSantis has made it clear that he's going to run.
01:35:27.880And then there's a whole bunch of people that are out there, you know, kind of like your Tim Scotts or your Greg Abbott's or your Glenn Youngkins, who I'm sure are kicking around right now that wait and see what happens.
01:35:39.060But there's there's a lot of a lot of work to be done before then.
01:35:42.260And what do you think about the chances of a Republican overtaking Joe Biden if he runs again?
01:35:49.340You know, I think it's just such a such a long ways away.
01:35:54.300You know, a week is a lifetime in politics, as they say.
01:35:57.220And we've got we've got a lot of weeks in between now and then.
01:36:00.720I think the administration has shown itself to be a little more left wing than the country.
01:36:06.880So we'll see. We'll see how that takes place in the next.
01:36:10.220See what takes place in the next year or two to shape that up.