The Megyn Kelly Show - September 19, 2022


Biden Says COVID is Over, and Martha's Migrants, with Victor Davis Hanson, and a Powerful Tribute to Blake Barklage | Ep. 393


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 33 minutes

Words per Minute

179.12738

Word Count

16,693

Sentence Count

1,245

Misogynist Sentences

14

Hate Speech Sentences

28


Summary

Joe Biden says the Pandemic is over, and the White House is not happy. Plus, a story about a Florida governor who is doing exactly what he said he would do, and why it s not good at all.


Transcript

00:00:00.520 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
00:00:11.720 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Monday.
00:00:15.760 We have a packed show for you today, a great, great show, including a really personal and amazing, inspiring story that we've been working on for a long time that we're going to bring you in our second hour.
00:00:28.000 But I want to begin with the news. The 50 migrants, 50. Okay, 50. We've had 2 million. We're on pace to hit 2 million trying to get into the country this year.
00:00:38.420 50 were sent to Martha's Vineyard and all hell broke loose. Governor Ron DeSantis was responsible for it.
00:00:45.280 He made sure that they had the bus rides and the ferry rides they needed to get to the vineyard.
00:00:49.020 And the migrants have left the island. But the story's not going away.
00:00:52.820 The incident has brought the entire immigration crisis in America into focus because it's very easy to be pro-immigration when you don't have to deal with any of the consequences of it.
00:01:03.420 And quite something else when it's on your doorstep.
00:01:07.240 So we'll get into all of that. But we've got to start with the big news overnight.
00:01:10.740 Did you hear the pandemic is officially over?
00:01:14.560 That's according to President Joe Biden. And that's about as official a pronouncement as we're going to get.
00:01:19.500 Yes, the president himself made that admission during a 60 Minutes interview that made quite a bit of news.
00:01:25.780 We'll go through it with you. News the White House is now trying to clean up again this morning.
00:01:30.820 He says one thing and then the White House team of advisors says something very different.
00:01:35.720 So what's real? What's the what's the end result?
00:01:39.640 Turning us now to discuss all of it is one of our favorites, Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
00:01:49.500 Victor, great to have you back. How are you?
00:01:51.960 Thank you for having me, Megan.
00:01:53.480 President Biden gives an interview with 60 to 60 Minutes last night when we'll get to immigration in a second.
00:01:59.100 He was not asked about the crisis at the southern border.
00:02:02.100 It didn't didn't come up. Didn't think that was important.
00:02:05.040 But he did declare the pandemic is over, which was music to my ears because I've been listening to their denialism on this for quite some time.
00:02:14.780 And finally, he said it. Here it is for those who need to hear it as well.
00:02:19.300 Sat one.
00:02:21.240 Miss President, first Detroit auto show in three years.
00:02:24.820 Yeah.
00:02:26.000 Is the pandemic over?
00:02:28.420 The pandemic is over.
00:02:30.520 We still have a problem with COVID.
00:02:32.380 We're still doing a lot of work on it.
00:02:34.900 It's what the pandemic is over.
00:02:38.360 It's over.
00:02:39.420 He said it.
00:02:40.260 Now, the White House aides are reportedly trying to push back, but this has all sorts of implications, Victor.
00:02:46.320 And I, for one, am so glad that he was walked into it by Scott Pelley, whether Scott Pelley expected that or not.
00:02:54.060 Yeah, I am, too.
00:02:54.860 And this is an issue that's very dear to his base, as you know, Megan.
00:02:58.960 His base, the swing suburban voter or the solidly left-wing voter is dedicated to a perennial plague and a nonstop COVID because they like the idea of government control.
00:03:14.320 They like the idea that they are the model citizens and everybody else are renegades and don't follow the rules.
00:03:20.980 And Joe Biden did this, remember, when he was inaugurated.
00:03:24.020 He bought into the idea that the Trump vaccinations were going to be bulletproof.
00:03:29.980 It was all over.
00:03:31.000 He announced, I think it was in January, the last week in January, he said that by July, we would all have a normal July 4th.
00:03:38.500 And we don't, you can't really predict this COVID.
00:03:41.940 Nobody knows.
00:03:42.880 We don't know anything about these new shots for these two new Omicron variants.
00:03:47.060 It's pretty scary when they say the shot's going to have a double whammy.
00:03:50.840 It's going to be really two shots in one when a lot of people had reactions to the first two and the booster.
00:03:56.420 So it's all up in the air.
00:03:58.020 But I don't know why he had to say that because his voter is the one that has been insisting that schools have to be locked down, the country has to be locked down because COVID is going to be with us forever.
00:04:09.080 And for him to just reasonably dismiss it, I think his handlers are pretty upset about it.
00:04:15.000 Okay, so, yeah, exactly.
00:04:19.580 So now the White House is upset.
00:04:21.300 Apparently, the aides are upset about his admission on COVID because there are a lot of policies in place that depend on the pandemic not being over, right?
00:04:28.040 This student quote debt forgiveness, right?
00:04:31.780 A renter is going to have to pay his rent.
00:04:34.640 A student might have to pay his bills.
00:04:37.180 So there's a whole series of obligations and contractual arrangements that were all suspended because of the supposed COVID-ubonic plague that was never going to leave.
00:04:46.980 And we were in a state of crisis, which they like.
00:04:49.120 And remember, Megan, it was everybody from Gavin Newsom that said during COVID, we have to have a new progressive capitalism.
00:04:56.040 And Hillary said, we can't waste this crisis.
00:04:58.180 We have to really go for single payer health care.
00:05:00.540 So a lot of the left's strategic planning was based on using the COVID pandemic as a cover to really enlarge government and take away freedoms and turn them over to the select group of platonic guardians.
00:05:14.420 And for him just to lightly say something like that, it's like, wow, we don't have an excuse anymore to coerce people to a particular way of thinking.
00:05:24.280 Exactly.
00:05:24.880 So it does have potential implications on this, quote, student debt forgiveness program, which was explicitly based.
00:05:32.700 At least one of the main rationales was that we're in an emergency because we're in a pandemic.
00:05:37.220 So he's just declared that that's not true.
00:05:39.820 And that's going up on legal challenge right now, not to mention some of these other policies.
00:05:44.640 I mean, just in New York City, they just laid off 850 teachers because they wouldn't get the vaccine mandate because of the emergency.
00:05:51.340 Yes.
00:05:51.660 And remember Molly Ball in that time, February 2021, gushing essay about how they had changed the voting laws because of COVID.
00:06:00.140 And they used that basically, and this is a person of the left, wrote that Mark Zuckerberg had given $419 million and da, da, da, da.
00:06:08.280 And the net result, she bragged that only 30% of the people showed up on election day.
00:06:12.760 The other 70% for the first time in history either voted mail-in or early ballot.
00:06:17.700 And that this, as she gushed, was a windfall for the left.
00:06:22.820 And so, or what are we going to do now when they continue this strategy for 2024?
00:06:30.180 But even for the midterms, are they going to say, you know what, we need more early voting.
00:06:33.580 We need more lax mail-in voting.
00:06:36.520 We need to have private mail drops.
00:06:39.500 We need to have more vote harvesting because of COVID.
00:06:41.920 And now he says it doesn't really, it's over with, so maybe we could return back to the pre-2020 voting protocols in which, you know, about 70% showed up on election day.
00:06:53.700 Under Joe Biden, election day has become, and under the COVID scare, it had become a construct.
00:06:59.740 It didn't really mean anything anymore.
00:07:01.500 That's right.
00:07:02.120 It really had a matter of implications.
00:07:03.420 Remember, Donald Trump's second debate, 60 million people had already voted.
00:07:06.860 He had a disastrous first debate, but the second debate was pretty good, but it was irrelevant the way that voting had progressed.
00:07:14.180 Yeah, that's right.
00:07:15.040 We're looking at this in Pennsylvania right now where Fetterman refuses to have a debate.
00:07:19.780 Maybe he'll have one, but he'll have it at the end of October.
00:07:22.440 Meanwhile, voting will have been underway for almost a month by that point already.
00:07:26.240 This is, again, is in the state of Pennsylvania where they changed the rules on mail-in votes.
00:07:30.140 They did.
00:07:30.480 So it's interesting to me because the White House, they're having to walk back what Biden said on Taiwan because there, again, for the second time, he said we would have boots on the ground in Taiwan if China invaded.
00:07:43.880 And he's already done that, and the White House has already come out and said, no, no, that's not official policy.
00:07:49.040 Exact same thing happened in 60 Minutes last night with Taiwan.
00:07:51.600 Then he says the thing about the pandemic being over, and today the White House is running around saying, well, that wasn't planned.
00:07:58.480 That wasn't a planned remark.
00:08:00.340 And I said to my team, Victor, this reminds me of the scene in Animal House, which anybody who's got good taste in movies has seen, and this particular moment with John Belushi.
00:08:09.940 Remember this?
00:08:11.080 Yeah, I do.
00:08:12.280 Nothing is over until we decide it is.
00:08:15.120 Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
00:08:18.440 Hell no!
00:08:19.040 Sherman, forget it, he's rolling.
00:08:23.640 That's the White House staff today.
00:08:26.060 Yeah, I mean, it was really funny because there was a reason that Barack Obama said, remember, don't underestimate Joe's ability to F things up.
00:08:37.280 And because Obama had carefully cultivated this idea that as a staunch Christian, he did not believe in gay marriage.
00:08:44.200 Remember that?
00:08:44.720 He said a marriage between a man and a woman, and he was going to use that all the way to his re-election campaign.
00:08:50.900 And then Joe Biden went before a crowd and said, oh, yeah, gay marriage is fine.
00:08:55.580 And he kind of burst this pseudo veneer of Obama's, and he got angry about it.
00:09:02.540 And Biden did that all the time during the Obama administration.
00:09:05.220 So he's reckless.
00:09:08.320 And we had this thing called strategic ambiguity with Taiwan.
00:09:11.260 We never really let the communists know what we would do.
00:09:14.520 We may or may not have boots on the ground.
00:09:16.680 We may or may not have, you know, strategic nuclear responses, tactical.
00:09:22.240 We didn't tell them what.
00:09:23.280 And then Biden comes along and basically says that.
00:09:26.280 The only thing that's in our interest, and maybe we'll excuse him, they are pretty convinced that he's non-composmenta.
00:09:33.960 So when he says something like that, the Chinese are now huddling and saying, but unfortunately, we can't take him at his word because he doesn't know what he's saying.
00:09:42.260 So maybe they're as confused as we want them to be.
00:09:45.400 That's a good point.
00:09:46.380 So I'll clarify.
00:09:47.860 He didn't say boots on the ground.
00:09:49.540 That was my term.
00:09:50.120 He said the question was, well, we have it.
00:09:53.320 Let's just play it sound by two.
00:09:55.900 But would U.S. forces defend the island?
00:09:58.600 Yes.
00:09:59.100 If, in fact, there was an unprecedented attack.
00:10:01.280 After our interview, a White House official told us U.S. policy has not changed.
00:10:07.820 Officially, the U.S. will not say whether American forces would defend Taiwan.
00:10:13.300 But the commander-in-chief had a view of his own.
00:10:17.660 So unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir, U.S. forces, U.S. men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
00:10:26.880 Yes.
00:10:28.280 So how do they get out of this by saying that policy hasn't changed, but the commander-in-chief is saying explicitly, yes, we will defend them if there is an attack?
00:10:39.200 I mean, he's the commander-in-chief.
00:10:40.780 We can't declare war without Congress, but he can certainly send troops over there and get us involved in this conflict as the commander-in-chief.
00:10:48.960 Yeah, but again, I think we have now had him as president for nearly two years, and we've all been acculturated to what he says, and it's gibberish.
00:11:00.100 And so when people hear him, whether he weighs in on Ukraine or he weighs in on Afghanistan or he weighs in that there's zero inflation, nobody believes him anymore.
00:11:09.660 And that works to his advantage because otherwise we concentrate on his cognitive disabilities.
00:11:16.520 But now we say, you know what, if he slurs a word or he does something, turns around and shakes somebody's hand that doesn't exist, or he gets a little bit too close to somebody, that's Joe.
00:11:27.880 We know what he does, and we don't pay any attention to it.
00:11:30.480 And that's bad.
00:11:31.140 He's our commander-in-chief.
00:11:32.480 But abroad, people have the same reaction.
00:11:35.620 So, and it's bad.
00:11:37.540 I mean, we've got to remember that Mark Milley told us that because the president of the United States, in his professional medical opinion, without a medical license, that if he determined that Donald Trump was erratic, then he was going to contact his Chinese counterpart to warn them.
00:11:56.300 But Donald Trump, compared to Joe Biden, I mean, it's not even close.
00:12:00.100 So, you wonder what the chairman, the joint chief, is doing now, and you wonder what the military is doing because they've had this activist role where they've assumed rules that are not constitutional in the joint chiefs, and yet they're selective about how they do that and how they evaluate a problem with the president.
00:12:18.260 Indeed.
00:12:18.840 The question of Joe Biden's mental fitness was raised last night in the interview, and the president's answer, I thought, was somewhat revealing.
00:12:27.140 Here it is, soundbite four.
00:12:28.280 Some people ask whether you are fit for the job, and when you hear that, I wonder what you think.
00:12:38.080 Watch me.
00:12:41.320 Honest to God, that's all I think.
00:12:43.140 Watch me.
00:12:44.440 If you think I don't have the energy level or the mental acuity, then, you know, that's one thing.
00:12:51.040 That's another thing.
00:12:51.860 You just watch and, you know, keep my schedule.
00:12:55.260 Do what I'm doing.
00:12:56.120 How would you say your mental focus is?
00:12:59.500 Oh, it's focused.
00:13:01.800 I think it's, I haven't, look, I have trouble even mentioning, even saying to myself, my own head, the number of years.
00:13:10.560 I no more think of myself as being as old as I am than fly.
00:13:14.980 I mean, it's just not, I haven't observed anything in terms of, there's not things I don't do now that I did before.
00:13:23.920 Oh, my God, Victor.
00:13:26.940 What?
00:13:29.000 There's, I, I don't even, I no more think of myself as being old as I am than fly.
00:13:34.980 My mental focus is focused.
00:13:37.300 Just, just watch me.
00:13:38.980 What?
00:13:39.280 Well, we are.
00:13:39.880 Yeah, the Romans had a phrase, the thing speaks for itself, and that's what it does.
00:13:45.440 I mean, he's trying to explain that he's cognitively sharp, and he, he can't explain why he's cognitively sharp.
00:13:52.080 So we know that.
00:13:53.200 So we have watched him.
00:13:54.300 He dared us to watch him.
00:13:55.440 We've watched him.
00:13:56.040 We know that he is not cognitively sharp, but in his defense, Megan, he was always erratic, and before he had this problem with age, there's two things going on.
00:14:07.380 One is age, but this myth of Joe Biden is this, on top of things, nice guy, competent, going all the way back to his plagiarism problems, his lies about law school, his really venomous attack on Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, his,
00:14:24.780 all of these stories, you know, about put you in chains, corn pop sagas, you ain't black, Barack Obama's the first clean, articulate African-American.
00:14:37.000 He's got a bad history, even when he was not non-compositive.
00:14:41.020 So it's very strange.
00:14:42.980 We all have this image that sad Joe Biden is not Joe Biden from Scranton, the good, lovable guy that was going to unite us.
00:14:49.940 But that was a complete myth that was fabricated.
00:14:52.860 And he was always a hard, very, I think, very rude, tough, mean SOB.
00:15:03.560 Well, that's that's the irony of Scott Pelley.
00:15:06.280 He led him down a path of, you know, Washington wasn't always like this.
00:15:10.860 It used to be you didn't, you know, you hate the message, not the man.
00:15:14.400 I can't remember how Pelley put it.
00:15:15.920 And Joe Biden's like, right, right, right.
00:15:17.060 So he didn't ask him about the dark Brandon speech, you know, in front of the red lights and the towers.
00:15:23.220 He didn't follow up by saying just a couple of weeks ago, you basically said half the country is awful.
00:15:27.700 Nor any of those comments that you make.
00:15:31.340 Right. He let him he gave him a pass on the fact that Miss President Unity has been disparaging literally half the country since he took the oath of office and before.
00:15:41.460 He has. And I think what Scott Pelley and the left really mean is that in the old days, when John McCain ran and they said he couldn't remember how many houses he had or he had an affair with this woman or when Mitt Romney ran and they said he put a dog on the top of his car or he's going to put you all in chains.
00:16:02.740 That was a very accomplished group of professional African-Americans he was talking to in a very condescending fashion or his wife was an equestrian or he had an elevator.
00:16:13.160 They just did that. And the Republicans played by the Marcus of Queensbury rules.
00:16:17.540 They said, you know what, we're never going to win like George H.W. Bush did in 1988 under Lee Atwater.
00:16:23.080 We just don't do that anymore. No more Willie Horton, no more Boston Harbor, no more tank commercial.
00:16:27.980 We're going to play by the Marcus of Queensbury. And they lost six out of the seven popular votes.
00:16:35.120 So now I think the Republicans are starting to push back. And all of a sudden, this is not fair.
00:16:40.780 There used to be a good old time in politics when everybody was friendly.
00:16:44.380 No, it was basically the left had a blank check and nobody replied.
00:16:48.440 And Trump came along for good or evil. He brought in a bare knuckles.
00:16:52.600 We're going to reply tit for cat. And suddenly it's, wow, what happened to America?
00:16:58.360 Well, what happened to America is somebody emulated the tactics that they had used.
00:17:03.820 So interesting. And you're not wrong at all.
00:17:06.840 The I can't get off of Biden on 60 Minutes without talking about inflation.
00:17:11.820 The downplaying of what the country's going through right now with their grocery bills through the roof.
00:17:18.960 Their gas bills are still high, maybe not as high at the pump as they were in June, but very high.
00:17:25.680 Not to mention what they're paying for electricity back at home.
00:17:28.740 He gets asked about it by Scott Pelley and basically pooh-poohs it. Here it is.
00:17:34.080 As you know, last Tuesday, the annual inflation rate came in at 8.3%.
00:17:40.240 The stock market nosedived.
00:17:43.240 People are shocked by their grocery bills.
00:17:46.520 What can you do better and faster?
00:17:49.500 Well, first of all, let's put this in perspective.
00:17:52.340 Inflation rate month to month is just an inch.
00:17:56.400 Hardly at all.
00:17:57.260 You're not arguing that 8.3 is good news.
00:17:59.720 No, I'm not saying it is good news.
00:18:01.100 But it was 8.2 or 8.2 before.
00:18:03.740 I mean, it's not, you're acting make it sound like all of a sudden, my God, it went to 8.2%.
00:18:08.500 It's been...
00:18:09.240 It's the highest inflation rate, Mr. President, in 40 years.
00:18:12.480 I got that.
00:18:13.640 But guess what we are?
00:18:14.840 We're in a position where for the last several months, it hasn't spiked.
00:18:18.820 It has just barely...
00:18:20.320 It's been basically even.
00:18:22.260 Oh, basically even.
00:18:24.760 Hurrah!
00:18:27.340 That's like you fall in a pit and you're 10 feet in a pit and you can't get out.
00:18:31.860 But maybe the water's coming up and you float up two inches and you say, well, I'm not as
00:18:37.320 bad as I was, you know, two inches below, but you're still in a pit and we have hyperinflation.
00:18:43.500 What Pelley didn't say is that we've also had two quarters of negative growth.
00:18:48.440 So we're in a recession and now we're in a quandary because if we raise interest rates,
00:18:53.480 which we have to do to stop this hyperinflation, which Biden discounts, then we're going to
00:18:58.100 get a third quarter of negative growth.
00:19:00.360 And if we don't raise interest rate, the inflation rate's going to go back up.
00:19:03.780 And the only reason the inflation rate is it's hyperinflation, but the reason it hasn't
00:19:09.620 even gotten higher is because we're in a recession and people know that.
00:19:14.300 And you can see it with the housing market, the days of houses on the market, you can see
00:19:18.460 it, the unemployment rate's starting to creep up.
00:19:21.900 You can just feel it, that we're in a recession.
00:19:24.680 And I think we're going to get three and four quarters of negative growth and we're going
00:19:28.480 to have stagflation.
00:19:29.520 We haven't had that since Jimmy Carter.
00:19:31.860 He did that.
00:19:32.960 He didn't have to do that.
00:19:33.960 He printed all of this money, quantitative easement.
00:19:36.560 We had a natural demand coming out of COVID.
00:19:39.220 And rather than just let the economy deal with it naturally, he pumped it up with all
00:19:43.580 these programs.
00:19:45.180 And we had these huge $4 trillion in new money that was spread around.
00:19:50.200 And then he cut back energy, which was still the life force of the economy and war.
00:19:56.060 No president in history has had fewer new federal leases for gas and oil bill than Biden did.
00:20:01.520 So he deliberately got what he wanted, a restrictive carbon market.
00:20:08.240 And that's what he did.
00:20:09.300 And he got what he wanted.
00:20:10.420 I don't know why he's surprised.
00:20:13.140 It's a very strange logic, Megan, that when you have this high inflation and you're not
00:20:19.580 worried that it hasn't dipped down from a year ago.
00:20:22.480 And then yet you just look at month to month and you say, well, it could be worse.
00:20:26.700 I've never seen a president do that.
00:20:28.820 You know, even Jerry Ford said whip inflation now.
00:20:31.440 And Jimmy Carter turned loose Paul Volcker to kill it.
00:20:36.680 And he did.
00:20:37.540 He killed the economy, but he killed inflation in the process.
00:20:40.400 Yeah, we went up to nine and eight percent under you, under your leadership.
00:20:48.020 Megan, don't you think there's something, though, about Biden, his demeanor, that when
00:20:53.420 he says these things and Pelley asks these questions or anybody and they look at his face
00:20:59.060 and he looks confused and he gets angry and he's given the floor and he says these crazy
00:21:05.720 things and there's never a counter because the people think, well, why would I counter
00:21:10.760 that?
00:21:11.240 What would he say?
00:21:12.040 I would embarrass him.
00:21:13.000 He would look frustrated.
00:21:14.000 He'd get off the grass, confusion.
00:21:16.360 So I'm just going to let him go.
00:21:18.420 And that's what's really scary about this.
00:21:20.400 He can never answer a follow up question.
00:21:23.920 And people don't pose it because they know that they're afraid that if they do, he has
00:21:28.240 no answer.
00:21:28.960 He's going to get really flustered.
00:21:30.820 So in a very strange way, his cognitive challenges have really worked to excuse his record.
00:21:39.200 It's true.
00:21:40.040 Even a follow up question, I will say, you're not arguing that 8.3 is good news is kind
00:21:45.940 of phrased in a gift.
00:21:47.080 Like, I'm telling you, Mr. President, don't argue that, you know, it's he Scott Pelley could
00:21:53.100 sense that he was out on a limb and, you know, kind of threw him an olive branch there.
00:21:58.100 And Biden didn't understand and continued to defend his 8.2 or in his 8.3.
00:22:04.260 The final question I wanted to ask you about was it was an interesting exchange on whether
00:22:08.840 Biden's going to run again.
00:22:10.160 And there was so many qualifiers in here.
00:22:12.860 There were so many.
00:22:14.320 It finally occurred to me the Democrats have gotten to him and he may know it's not possible
00:22:20.180 for him.
00:22:20.680 Here it is.
00:22:21.100 Sir, are you committed to running again or are there certain conditions that have to
00:22:28.360 be right?
00:22:29.120 Look, if I were to say to you, I'm running again, all of a sudden a whole range of things
00:22:33.480 come into play that I have requirements I have to change and move and do.
00:22:37.540 In terms of election laws.
00:22:38.520 In terms of election laws.
00:22:40.020 And it's much too early to make that kind of decision.
00:22:43.200 I'm a great respecter of fate.
00:22:45.020 And so what I'm doing is I'm doing my job.
00:22:47.860 I'm going to do that job.
00:22:48.900 And within the time frame that makes sense after this next election cycle here, going
00:22:53.900 into next year, make a judgment on what to do.
00:22:56.840 You say that it's much too early to make that decision.
00:23:00.600 I take it the decision has not been made in your own head.
00:23:03.960 Look, my intentions I said to begin with is that I would run again, but it's just an intention.
00:23:10.540 But is it a firm decision that I run again?
00:23:13.300 That remains to be seen.
00:23:16.700 I don't know.
00:23:18.600 He can't run again.
00:23:19.880 He'll be lucky to finish the next two years.
00:23:22.360 And everybody knows that.
00:23:23.780 He's not going to.
00:23:24.240 Gavin Newsom is all he here in California has basically announced he's going to run.
00:23:29.480 And they know that the people that were in that primary, Megan, in 2020 are not capable.
00:23:34.680 And that's how we got Joe Biden.
00:23:36.700 You and I are critiquing Joe Biden, but it's on the premise that compared to the other people
00:23:42.580 that were in that field, whether it was Cory Booker or Beto or Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth
00:23:48.640 Warren, he was the best they had, the most presentable.
00:23:51.920 But now they have a new group of younger people, I think, and he's not going to run.
00:23:55.920 And he can't run if he wanted to.
00:23:57.500 They're not going to let him.
00:23:58.380 So even with his approval reading, you saw what they did with Jim Clyburn and what they
00:24:04.900 did with Biden.
00:24:05.640 They just decided that he was going to be the nominee and he was going to be old Joe Biden
00:24:10.500 from Scranton.
00:24:11.200 And then all of a sudden, mysteriously, Warren dropped out and, you know, Buttigieg dropped
00:24:16.420 out and Bernie dropped out almost on cue.
00:24:20.720 And Biden was was anointed.
00:24:22.220 Even with his approval reading inching back up, it's nowhere near as low as it used to
00:24:29.140 be.
00:24:29.620 And now on his string of legislative victories, you know, half of which may be struck down
00:24:33.900 in court.
00:24:34.440 But OK, his numbers are creeping back up.
00:24:38.740 Yeah.
00:24:39.160 But, you know, I went back and I think a lot of people have.
00:24:41.620 If you go back to the two greatest setbacks of the Democrats in the House in the last,
00:24:45.880 you know, quarter century, it was Bill Clinton's 1994 wipeout by Newt Gingrich and the Contract
00:24:52.580 for America.
00:24:53.180 And then 2010 Tea Party rebuke of Barack Obama and both of those cases.
00:24:58.220 It was pretty clear that entire summer that they were going to really suffer.
00:25:02.460 But after Labor Day, all of a sudden the media said, we have new polls.
00:25:07.540 The red wave is disappearing.
00:25:09.880 There's going to there's a renaissance by Obama's now more popular.
00:25:14.420 Clinton's got his mojo back, kind of like the Aviator Joe stories.
00:25:18.260 And that was not true.
00:25:19.500 And I think the same thing is true now.
00:25:22.140 I mean, we're going to have the cycle dramas, Megan.
00:25:24.260 We're going to have the return of January 6th.
00:25:27.100 That was exhausted.
00:25:28.140 Now they got their second win.
00:25:29.700 We had the Trump raid that kind of fell out for a while.
00:25:32.780 Then we had the Phantom of the Opera speech with all those sets.
00:25:37.580 And then we and then we have now the January 6th.
00:25:41.100 So they're going to do anything other than talk about.
00:25:44.420 The issues, but they know what's coming.
00:25:46.700 And I don't think anybody that's listening should be fooled.
00:25:49.740 They're going to be they're going to really suffer a really big rebuke.
00:25:53.540 And I think a lot of the polls, as we know from those two critical years in 94 and 2010,
00:25:58.980 were off by about four or five points in every race.
00:26:01.800 Mm hmm.
00:26:03.760 The Phantom of the Opera speech is an interesting way of referring to dark brand.
00:26:08.120 And that play, that show by Andrew Lloyd Webber is now closing after 30 plus years on Broadway.
00:26:15.400 I didn't know that.
00:26:16.080 Yeah, I didn't know that.
00:26:17.260 It's an interesting parallel there, Victor.
00:26:19.420 It is finally closing.
00:26:20.820 The Phantom goes on no more.
00:26:23.720 It's going to be closed soon.
00:26:24.960 So if you haven't seen it and you want to get to New York, now's the time.
00:26:27.900 And that may be the case for you and your relationship with President Biden, if you like him, too.
00:26:32.020 May not be here for that much longer.
00:26:33.700 I don't mean alive.
00:26:34.860 I mean president.
00:26:35.820 All right.
00:26:36.560 More with the brilliant Victor Davis Hanson as we pick up what happened in Martha's Vineyard
00:26:40.420 and is still happening, an update on what they're doing right now after this very quick break.
00:26:53.160 Victor, the immigration crisis has taken a turn I've never seen before in the years I've been covering this
00:26:59.540 as our southern state governors fight back.
00:27:04.280 Governor Abbott in Texas, Ducey in Arizona, and now DeSantis in Florida,
00:27:08.460 taking migrants and bussing them to sanctuary cities in blue states like New York City,
00:27:16.260 like now we see Martha's Vineyard thanks to DeSantis, Washington, D.C., and so on.
00:27:23.480 And Governor DeSantis just said those first two flights that he sent to Martha's Vineyard
00:27:27.180 were, quote, just the beginning.
00:27:30.000 This is we get news that another six buses from Texas have just left to bring more of these migrants
00:27:36.700 to New York City as the shelter system here reaches its tipping point.
00:27:42.340 But the Martha's Vineyard reaction is what made all the news, right?
00:27:46.680 Like this town, and I get it, it's a small town.
00:27:50.220 They only had 50, 50.
00:27:52.480 They reacted as though 50,000 had been sent to them declaring a, quote,
00:27:58.400 humanitarian crisis on Martha's Vineyard because 50 people showed up.
00:28:03.580 What do you make of it?
00:28:05.480 Well, it was almost like a character.
00:28:07.860 I mean, 50 people, and they all virtue signaled.
00:28:10.920 They all took pictures.
00:28:12.160 They said they were all patting each other on the back, and then they shipped them out.
00:28:16.820 Right.
00:28:17.320 You know, and then everybody went back and calculated how many empty bedrooms were on
00:28:21.120 these empty vacation rooms.
00:28:22.360 They came up with like 100,000.
00:28:24.520 How many people could possibly be there in the summer if they had no facility?
00:28:28.480 There were 200,000, and they could have a million.
00:28:32.100 I, you know, I'm at ground zero here in Central California, rural California, and right over
00:28:36.520 there, Megan, there's two or three houses about a quarter mile away, and there's old farmhouses
00:28:42.340 that somebody purchased, and then they have sheds, shops, garages, barns, Winnebago's that
00:28:50.980 don't run, trailers that don't run, and there's 50 or 60 people in each one of these places.
00:28:55.220 So I can tell you that 50 people can live exempt from regulation, at least in California,
00:29:01.780 and not every blue city, and they can, they're fine, I guess.
00:29:05.340 And so this community that I live in has been inundated with people who came illegally across
00:29:11.400 the border, and nobody cared.
00:29:13.480 And so, you know, it's, it's, it was a brilliant stroke because on a lot of levels that Ron DeSantis
00:29:20.500 is trying to show, I think, the Republican constituencies that he's Donald Trump's mega
00:29:26.400 agenda.
00:29:27.340 You can have the mega agenda, but you don't have the Twitter cul-de-sacs or the gratuitous
00:29:34.060 insults.
00:29:34.640 And then people threw it back at him and said, yeah, but you don't, you won't, nobody can
00:29:39.240 fight the left, and gets up every morning thinking, I got to fight the left, goes to bed
00:29:43.380 every day, say, I didn't do enough.
00:29:45.400 But when he took on Disney and people like that, and then he does this, they're starting,
00:29:52.000 that's what this is intended to show you that he's, he's as fiery as Trump, but he's more
00:29:57.660 focused and honed in on the message.
00:30:00.320 And the message is that we have a bi-coastal leak that's never subject to the consequences
00:30:05.520 of their own ideology.
00:30:06.660 Maybe it'll start a trend that maybe we can say, you can't be on a private jet if you
00:30:11.900 vote for the new Green Deal, or we should say everybody should take a pledge not to live
00:30:16.820 in a house with greater than 5,000 square feet so we don't use too many carbon fuels.
00:30:23.100 Or, you know, we could, if you, if you are against charter schools and you're pro-teachers
00:30:28.600 union, then maybe you shouldn't put your kids in prep school, stuff like that.
00:30:32.320 And it could start a whole chain of events.
00:30:34.160 I'm sure that people in Florida are thinking about what's next.
00:30:37.540 And then, you know, another thing is that they're, they're kind of emulating the left
00:30:41.240 because the left has dominated the news cycle, as I said, with January 6th and the raid and
00:30:46.820 the, and the semi-fascist and the, and the speech.
00:30:50.300 And now all of a sudden we haven't heard that they, it's performance art on the part of the
00:30:54.580 Republicans and it's, but it's more effective because they're, it's connected with a real
00:30:58.800 issue, an open border rather than just Donald Trump's supposed melodrama.
00:31:04.660 Some on the left and soft right, uh, have been pushing back against DeSantis' tactics saying,
00:31:10.980 this is very wrong.
00:31:12.620 You're using human beings to make a political point.
00:31:15.800 I mean, I will say, I mean, there's been hysterical people.
00:31:18.060 Some are referring to this as like the Holocaust.
00:31:20.760 That was Ken Burns on MSNBC.
00:31:22.600 I mean, okay, this is not like the Holocaust, but the way I see this every day, because we
00:31:28.040 cover the border a lot here, sometimes with you and you're living it.
00:31:31.800 Um, this humanitarian crisis is happening to the States along the Southern border and the
00:31:37.760 people who get pulled across by coyotes or drug gangs or bad dealers, uh, who are endangering
00:31:45.520 the lives of kids and women and innocent guys every day.
00:31:49.560 We're trying to look after their families.
00:31:50.920 This message of open borders is getting people killed.
00:31:53.620 And so if 50 people need to get on a plane to Martha's Vineyard, which by the way, the
00:32:00.400 reporting is that it was consensual and it was voluntary and it was disclosed.
00:32:04.480 Um, there's some question about that, but that's what the majority of reporting is in
00:32:09.200 order to send a message to people that this isn't going to end well, and that your policies
00:32:13.620 in your sanctuary, sanctuary city, so-called, are actually getting people killed.
00:32:17.740 Then there's a very good argument that it's worth it.
00:32:20.940 These 50 people are not going to get killed.
00:32:22.640 They're going to get well taken care of.
00:32:23.980 No, I mean, if you say to people in my community that are here illegally and just cross the border
00:32:29.460 and I see them every day, a quarter mile from my home and in my home, I mean, people come
00:32:34.080 by and knock on the door and they, you know, and I said to you, I can give you a ticket right
00:32:40.440 now to go to a seaside resort called Martha's Vineyard.
00:32:43.780 That's one of the wealthiest places in the United States.
00:32:46.020 And it's got more, they would love to go compared to what they're living in now.
00:32:50.500 And so that was one of the things that DeSantis deliberately did.
00:32:53.840 It was very hard for them to make the argument that they're being exploited when they're being
00:32:57.660 ushered into one of the most, uh, Tony, uh, communities in the United States.
00:33:02.760 The second thing he did, which was smart was he didn't create these tactics.
00:33:07.500 He just emulated what the federal government's been doing for a year and a half.
00:33:11.240 They have been busing and flying people in non-transparently, but unlike DeSantis who did
00:33:17.340 it during daytime, they do it at night.
00:33:19.640 And they're in this area of Iowa, they have flights that come in and then people, and who
00:33:24.740 does it impact?
00:33:25.600 When you talk to people, they say the following, Megan, they say, you know, we're really worried
00:33:29.800 about our schools because we fought hard for advanced placement and we can't have advanced
00:33:34.360 placement because we don't have the resources if we have all these non-English speakers.
00:33:38.540 And these are not white prep school parents.
00:33:41.800 They're Mexican-American parents.
00:33:43.220 And this is one of the reasons they're going to vote against.
00:33:45.700 A lot of them are going to vote against the democratic agenda.
00:33:48.660 And they say things like my mother, uh, is on dialysis and all of a sudden there's people
00:33:53.400 coming across the border and they swarm the health facilities, or they'll say, you know what?
00:33:57.920 These people are coming across the border and they're M13 or Norteños or Sireños gangs.
00:34:03.020 And they go rough up my kid because he doesn't speak Spanish.
00:34:05.700 They call him a gringo.
00:34:07.220 And so there's all these other problems that the left doesn't care about.
00:34:12.080 It's basically an elite problem that this, I don't want to use that word too often, but
00:34:16.420 a bi-coastal left-wing elite, mostly white, that virtue singles and performance art, they're
00:34:22.540 carrying as a psychological mechanism.
00:34:25.100 Because I don't, I really want to be very careful, but I don't, I work with them at
00:34:29.920 Sanford University.
00:34:30.880 I don't think they feel comfortable with people who are poor or non-white and they know that.
00:34:37.900 And that's why they create this, this entire alternate universe of caring.
00:34:42.700 And you could really see it.
00:34:44.180 That was what was so interesting.
00:34:45.600 You never really saw an example like Martha's Vineyard, where if you looked at their faces,
00:34:51.280 they were shocked.
00:34:52.140 Like, what are we going to do now?
00:34:53.860 They knew they had the resources.
00:34:55.280 They knew they had rooms.
00:34:56.800 They knew they had empty hotels.
00:34:58.600 They knew they had empty homes.
00:35:00.240 You could have put them all in a beautiful tent city on the Obama's lawn.
00:35:04.060 It's so huge.
00:35:04.800 OK, we lost his mic, so we're going to try to fix it and break and we will be right back,
00:35:10.060 we hope, with more Victor Davis Hanson right after this quick break.
00:35:12.940 But I will tell you, there's much, much more because I've got to play you the soundbite
00:35:15.780 of what the woman, the coordinator in Martha's Vineyard said about these migrants and now
00:35:21.520 where they went.
00:35:22.980 And some of the Martha's Vineyard residents who shoved these immigrants out of their town
00:35:26.740 so fast, if you blinked, you would have missed their stint there, are now saying they're
00:35:31.220 going to go visit them in their new location.
00:35:33.740 OK, sure you are.
00:35:39.560 So we were talking about these coastal elites who are they support these policies in theory,
00:35:45.440 but not in practice when it comes to their neighborhoods.
00:35:47.840 And just to set you up, just a couple of items on the news.
00:35:52.240 El Paso, Texas, right now, completely overwhelmed.
00:35:56.680 Thousands are already filling the local local shelters there, which are at capacity of
00:36:01.120 illegal migrants.
00:36:03.380 Children as young as two being forced to sleep on the street in El Paso because they do not
00:36:08.460 have the facilities to house them.
00:36:10.600 The Border Patrol in one week alone released 1,000 migrants onto the streets of El Paso.
00:36:18.540 And now you've got Martha's Vineyard with 50, 50 migrants bused there reacting as follows.
00:36:27.220 Here's Lisa Belcastro, the coordinator for Martha's Vineyard, Martha's Vineyard's homeless shelter,
00:36:33.940 Harbor Homes.
00:36:34.860 Watch.
00:36:35.500 The difficult challenges are we have at some point in time, they have to move from here
00:36:42.860 to somewhere else.
00:36:44.360 Right.
00:36:44.500 We cannot we don't have the services to take care of 50 immigrants and we certainly don't
00:36:52.040 have housing.
00:36:52.640 We're in a housing crisis as we are on this island.
00:36:55.300 And so we don't we can't house everyone here that lives here and works here.
00:37:00.980 We don't have housing for 50 more people.
00:37:02.620 And then just just to follow it up, Victor, Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington, D.C., the
00:37:08.960 nerve of this woman.
00:37:10.380 Listen to her soundbite eight.
00:37:12.780 We're not a border town.
00:37:14.220 We don't have an infrastructure to handle this this type of level of immigration to our
00:37:21.420 city.
00:37:21.900 But we don't have the ability.
00:37:23.980 We're not Texas.
00:37:25.280 Because Texas, you see, Texas is set up to handle 1000 migrants a day in El Paso and
00:37:33.500 kids drowning in the in the Rio Grande trying to get over.
00:37:36.600 Sure, they're set up.
00:37:37.540 It's so bad in Eagle Pass, Texas, they estimate they're recovering one dead migrant body a
00:37:42.740 day as people try to get into the area or get there and can't survive.
00:37:46.500 And so like this is absurd for these other towns, these sanctuary cities to say like, hey,
00:37:50.560 we're not Texas.
00:37:51.300 Yeah, I think the subtext is that these are a bunch of Mexican people and this is a Mexican
00:37:57.380 person problem and they live along the border or Mexican-Americans.
00:38:01.580 So this is this is people coming in from the country they used to come in.
00:38:05.800 So let them handle it.
00:38:06.680 We're not going to handle it, even though the people in these communities had no vote or
00:38:11.000 no say in who set border policies, which came from Washington, nor do we we don't discuss
00:38:17.620 that the people in Martha's Vineyard, if you pull them, say, I don't know.
00:38:21.300 A month ago, they would be for open borders.
00:38:24.180 That's why we have open borders.
00:38:25.700 The left likes the idea for a variety of reasons.
00:38:27.920 They feel that they're creating a constituency that will be dependent on the federal government
00:38:32.720 for a generation.
00:38:33.500 And that's in their interest.
00:38:34.720 They feel they flip California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, maybe Arizona and Texas someday.
00:38:42.260 So they see that as a as a electoral strategy.
00:38:46.580 And they've talked about it and they've always talked about the new democratic majority.
00:38:51.200 And so they created this and they let it go on because they want it to go on.
00:38:55.680 And what they're angry now is they've been exposed that they don't like these people.
00:39:00.220 They don't want them near them.
00:39:01.320 And she says we don't have the resources you want to say.
00:39:04.280 Well, how did you have the resources to welcome in 200,000 wealthy visitors just a month ago?
00:39:10.220 Who took care of them?
00:39:11.720 Where did they stay if you can't have 50 people?
00:39:14.840 And we have Michelle Obama and Barack Obama about every six weeks come out of their Colorama
00:39:20.960 mansion or their new Hawaii mansion or their Martha's Vineyard mansion.
00:39:25.820 And then basically indict America for being illiberal.
00:39:30.020 You want to say to them, just give us one bed, one bedroom and one bath, or just give
00:39:36.740 us one quarter of an acre on your lawn and and let's see what you could help.
00:39:42.860 They can do it.
00:39:43.540 Look what Poland's doing for the Ukrainian refugees, right?
00:39:47.880 Like people are opening up their their spare bedrooms and letting them stay there.
00:39:52.380 I have some American friends overseas who are opening up their homes to house these refugees.
00:39:57.080 But these people who have a sanctuary city who try to pride themselves and claim to be
00:40:01.940 our moral betters by saying they would that they they're ready to take care of these people
00:40:06.040 when the when push came to shove refused to do it.
00:40:08.540 They shoved they shoved them off to a military base on Cape Cod.
00:40:13.260 I did.
00:40:14.040 And everybody has to make it.
00:40:15.120 This is the policy.
00:40:16.040 Everybody has to make an adjustment.
00:40:17.320 I walk every night on my 40 little 42 acres and every other night I see somebody from
00:40:24.280 Oaxaca, Mexico who does not speak English and wants to walk around or he wants to take
00:40:30.040 his 22 and shoot something.
00:40:32.360 And I just say, you know what?
00:40:33.660 Go ahead.
00:40:34.220 Go ahead and do it.
00:40:34.960 That's the new reality.
00:40:36.080 Everybody.
00:40:36.640 You're not going to go back now and say, get off my grass, that type of attitude, because
00:40:41.840 you can't because there's three million people who come across the border and you can see
00:40:45.840 it everywhere in my community.
00:40:47.760 You can see all through rural California and all the rules.
00:40:52.040 And just to clarify, so it's two million encounters, but that does not include the so-called getaways.
00:40:57.540 So it could be as many as three million who have come into this country over the past year
00:41:00.980 or attempted to.
00:41:01.940 And they don't care.
00:41:03.020 They don't care about the people who suffer on the communities.
00:41:06.260 They don't care about the immigrants.
00:41:07.940 They don't care about the fentanyl that's going to kill 100,000 people a year.
00:41:11.580 They don't care about the cynicism of the Mexican government that uses this as a safety
00:41:16.240 valve and likes to cause problems to the United States.
00:41:20.220 They don't care about what the Chinese are smiling with their drug conduits.
00:41:24.540 They don't care about any of that.
00:41:26.300 And they do care that they're seen as progressive and enlightened from a distance.
00:41:31.600 But this is why they're so angry, because they can't get out of it.
00:41:34.900 They're trapped.
00:41:35.420 And no matter what they say, every argument turns out to implode.
00:41:40.240 They say, you know, this is treating people like commodities.
00:41:43.320 And then you say, well, Joe Biden's been busing them.
00:41:46.040 We got the idea from Joe Biden.
00:41:47.720 And we're doing it at day.
00:41:48.920 He did it at night.
00:41:49.600 And they say, well, we don't have a facility.
00:41:50.940 Well, you did have those facilities for tourists and mansions.
00:41:55.500 When they were rich white people.
00:41:57.260 Yeah, exactly.
00:41:58.940 And so it doesn't, they're squirming and squirming and squirming.
00:42:03.060 Well, now, now those same Martha's Vineyard residents are looking back at their 12 hours
00:42:09.380 with these migrants as though they were the Polish taking in the Ukrainians.
00:42:14.140 They say, this is the headline from CNN.
00:42:17.440 They enriched us.
00:42:19.620 Migrants, 44 hour visit leaves indelible mark on Martha's Vineyard.
00:42:24.340 Somebody's actually saying they enriched us in their day here.
00:42:27.580 Remember, they have a piece, one piece of the article says, one asylum seeker in his
00:42:32.740 early 20s ventured down the street to explore.
00:42:35.160 He asked about the price of a hamburger at a fancy eatery.
00:42:37.960 When told it was $26, he noted that was more than he earned in a month in Venezuela when
00:42:44.120 he could find work.
00:42:45.480 And you've got this nugget.
00:42:49.360 The governor, one guy says, the governor of Florida got it all wrong.
00:42:52.660 He thought we wouldn't know what to do.
00:42:53.960 And actually, people here really give a damn.
00:42:55.860 They really care as you as they booted these people off to a military base again in under
00:43:00.440 two days.
00:43:01.500 One woman, Jackie Stallings, says she hopes to visit the migrants at the Cape Cod base,
00:43:06.680 a temporary accommodation.
00:43:08.360 She's going to visit.
00:43:09.080 And that's going to make Jackie feel better about her sanctuary city message.
00:43:13.660 While at the border, women are being raped and kids are drowning in the Rio Grande every day.
00:43:24.140 I just want to show this video.
00:43:25.180 I think we have time.
00:43:26.600 I'll describe it for the listening audience.
00:43:28.740 Deeply disturbing.
00:43:29.920 You can see a young boy.
00:43:31.200 He looks to be about maybe 10 to 12.
00:43:33.480 He's in the middle of the Rio Grande and he is going under.
00:43:36.520 He's splashing violently.
00:43:37.760 A passerby jumps in, has to swim over.
00:43:42.280 And the guy narrating the video and the original, you can hear his concerns and he's going to die.
00:43:46.440 He's going to die.
00:43:47.320 He didn't die.
00:43:48.040 He was rescued by this one person.
00:43:50.240 But as I say, up to one person a day is dying in just one of these towns, Eagle Pass, Texas,
00:43:57.380 not to mention all the others who die in the back of trucks who get raped and sold into sex traffic.
00:44:01.780 So why doesn't Jackie spend some time thinking about how to stop the lure to these people and taking these risks
00:44:08.960 instead of talking about going to visit the people at the military base who she helped kick out?
00:44:14.880 Well, it's a permeate.
00:44:17.020 This idea is permeating.
00:44:18.920 It's the same ideology why John Kerry flies around in this gas guzzling, carbon polluting private jet to save us from fossil fuel.
00:44:28.940 It's the same idea of these people that I have to work with at Stanford University.
00:44:33.760 Those kids are in the most tony prep schools, which I have no problem with, except they damn charter schools.
00:44:39.940 They damn Catholic schools.
00:44:42.120 They damn any public school that tries to reform.
00:44:47.360 And they love teachers union, but they never would put their children there.
00:44:51.060 And we've created this entire, I know it's a trite term, ruling class, but they really do believe that because they were the winners in globalization,
00:45:01.420 that they have skills or money or influence that allows them to pontificate without ever suffering any of these consequences,
00:45:10.240 whether it's shutting down the fossil fuel industry, opening the border, hyping this inflation.
00:45:17.080 They always are protected.
00:45:19.200 And now that that veneer was torn off, Megan, that scab.
00:45:23.300 And we looked at this wound.
00:45:24.460 It's pretty ugly, these people.
00:45:26.220 It really is.
00:45:27.100 They don't care about anybody but their lifestyle.
00:45:29.560 When that woman said we're not equipped, what she meant was we demand a particular type of lifestyle that we earned,
00:45:36.680 and nobody else has it, and we're not going to give it up for anybody, and that's our birthright because we're superior to everybody.
00:45:44.080 And that's where you really get into this.
00:45:45.240 The notion that Texas is equipped is completely ignorant, and the notion that Arizona is and that Florida is completely ignorant.
00:45:53.600 They are not equipped to handle this either.
00:45:55.400 No, they're not.
00:45:55.800 So before you set these lures, you have to think about our friends down in the south.
00:45:59.920 I should apologize to Miss Jackie because I don't know whether she helped push the immigrants out.
00:46:03.840 I just know that her town did.
00:46:05.000 And I've got to squeeze in a quick break, but I've got to play for you Kareem Jean-Pierre's reaction to all of this, Victor,
00:46:11.840 because it may be her lowest moment yet, and that's saying something.
00:46:17.180 She went off notes.
00:46:18.260 It didn't end well.
00:46:19.340 More with Victor Davis Hanson.
00:46:20.780 We'll be right back.
00:46:21.380 So, Victor, on the subject of these kids and their families who try to make it across the border to get into the country right now,
00:46:32.340 and we're expecting to set a record this year on the number who are crossing or attempted to cross,
00:46:37.080 Fox News went down there and interviewed—it was Griff Jenkins, my old pal Griff Jenkins from Fox—and interviewed one of these migrants
00:46:46.080 and listened to the following very telling exchange.
00:46:49.300 Oh, this is in D.C., actually.
00:46:50.560 Okay, so this is somebody who had been bused to D.C. by one of the southern governors.
00:46:54.080 Take a listen.
00:46:54.420 Is the border closed?
00:46:56.680 Do you believe that the border is closed, or is it open?
00:46:58.620 It's open, not closed.
00:47:00.040 The border is open.
00:47:01.400 The border is open.
00:47:02.460 Do you believe that all the migrants believe that the border is open?
00:47:05.080 Yeah, everybody believes that the border is open.
00:47:07.700 It's open because we enter.
00:47:09.380 We come in free.
00:47:11.940 No problem.
00:47:13.740 But it's open for you to come illegally, right?
00:47:17.040 Illegally, yes.
00:47:17.840 Illegally.
00:47:18.280 That's true.
00:47:19.320 And you came illegally.
00:47:20.760 Yeah, we came illegally, not legal.
00:47:23.220 I mean, there it is.
00:47:23.900 Black and white?
00:47:25.480 It begs the question, when we see this every night that the border is open,
00:47:30.480 and we see the people entering illegally say, confirm, the border is open,
00:47:34.960 and then they say it's closed, like Kamala Harris or secure, they're lying.
00:47:40.080 And everybody knows they're lying, but we don't know what to do about it
00:47:43.540 because they control the border.
00:47:45.800 And so it's almost Orwellian.
00:47:47.520 You know, it's what you see, what you know, what people say is an alternate reality.
00:47:52.100 And it's so ironic because they kept saying that Donald Trump lived in an alternate reality.
00:47:57.880 But this is just bizarre.
00:48:00.380 Well, I mean, it's crazy when you think about the fact that 60 Minutes did not bother to ask Joe Biden
00:48:03.900 about this crisis.
00:48:04.900 Like, of all the things that made the list, this wasn't one of them.
00:48:08.240 Thank goodness, Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about the crisis and asked whether the White House
00:48:15.100 stands by its comments direct from Kamala Harris, direct from Karine Jean-Pierre,
00:48:20.620 the White House spokesperson, that the border is, quote, secure, that it's secure.
00:48:25.360 And truly, this may have been her lowest moment yet.
00:48:28.240 She made the mistake of going off of those notes, which she so desperately needs.
00:48:32.060 It didn't go well.
00:48:33.240 Here it is.
00:48:35.080 Does the White House stand by those comments that the border is secure?
00:48:39.200 What we stand by is that we are doing everything that we can to make sure that we follow the
00:48:47.280 process that's been put forth.
00:48:49.040 That's why we have historic funding to do just that, to make sure that the folks that we encounter
00:49:03.900 at the border be removed or expelled.
00:49:08.180 These are the people in charge.
00:49:11.140 There's no one left to root for.
00:49:13.720 No, I mean, what does she mean, the process?
00:49:16.120 The process means that somebody legally comes across the border and they get across, and
00:49:21.020 then everybody knows you get across, so more come and more come.
00:49:24.740 And she calls this a process, and then she calls it secure, and everybody knows she's
00:49:28.840 lying, or she's either lying or she's so incompetent that she doesn't even know what
00:49:33.260 is going on, but it doesn't really matter.
00:49:35.740 They're doing this, and the only thing that's mysterious, Megan, is why are they doing this?
00:49:40.840 Why are they doing this?
00:49:42.220 And I don't know the answer other than I feel if they want a constituency, they feel.
00:49:48.920 It would be highly ironic that within a generation, these immigrants, if they stay, may become
00:49:55.820 a little bit more skeptical of the people who welcome them in because of other issues that
00:50:00.860 they're not compatible with.
00:50:03.060 But nevertheless, in the short term, they're right.
00:50:05.080 This is the constituency they want, and they feel that it will bring dividends in the near
00:50:11.720 future for them.
00:50:12.660 So they're willing.
00:50:13.340 If the border is not porous, it doesn't exist.
00:50:16.260 They destroyed it.
00:50:17.020 They destroyed federal immigration law.
00:50:19.160 And this really is going to be interesting because if the House Republicans take over,
00:50:24.380 and there's going to be a lot who are going to talk about impeachment.
00:50:27.520 I'm not sure that's wise politically.
00:50:29.000 But if they were to introduce articles of impeachment, it wouldn't be over a phone call to a foreign
00:50:35.520 leader.
00:50:35.980 It would be over the deliberate destruction of federal immigration law and the inability
00:50:40.160 or unwillingness of the commander in chief to faithfully execute the laws as he swore.
00:50:45.980 He wouldn't go anywhere in the Senate, probably.
00:50:48.300 But the point is, if there is such a thing as an impeachable offense, this is it, to just
00:50:53.320 deliberately destroy federal law the way that Biden has.
00:50:56.600 The Democrats now are crying foul, saying this is human trafficking.
00:51:03.380 It's not even close.
00:51:04.340 I'll just give you my legal opinion.
00:51:05.600 Not even arguably human trafficking.
00:51:08.400 Gavin Newsom, who's challenging Ron DeSantis to a debate, is also urging Attorney General Merrick
00:51:16.400 Garland to investigate DeSantis and other GOP governors who have been sending migrants in
00:51:21.220 sanctuary cities for alleged kidnapping and civil rights violations.
00:51:27.060 Meanwhile, everybody, we're told, who gets on these buses signs a consent form and is
00:51:31.800 told where you're going.
00:51:32.620 I mean, like, to your point, who wouldn't want to go to this beautiful, you know, coastal
00:51:35.460 beach town?
00:51:36.100 But OK.
00:51:37.440 So Gavin Newsom looking for attention.
00:51:40.220 And Eric Adams, again, Sanctuary City, New York, his city mayor, says this is a humanitarian
00:51:45.260 crisis now here.
00:51:46.620 Right.
00:51:46.740 So Martha's Vineyard had one with just 50 migrants.
00:51:50.280 New York City says it's suffering a humanitarian crisis.
00:51:54.820 Texas has shipped more than 7,700 illegal immigrants to Washington, D.C. and more than 2,000 to New
00:52:01.320 York since April.
00:52:02.880 So 2,000 plus in a city of 8.5 million.
00:52:06.640 By the way, we have 20 million a day when people come in to do their jobs.
00:52:10.200 Can't handle this, according to Mayor Adams.
00:52:12.600 And meantime, you compare that to what's happening in the Texas towns.
00:52:16.820 Del Rio, Texas had almost 50,000, 49,500 migrant encounters in July alone, 50,000 in July
00:52:27.220 alone.
00:52:27.660 That is more than the population of the city itself, which is just over 34,000 people.
00:52:35.180 Think about that.
00:52:36.300 Martha's Vineyard, humanitarian crisis with 50, they have 17,000 people there.
00:52:40.600 And just one other stat for you, McAllen, Texas has a population of 142,000.
00:52:46.100 They also took in more than the population of their entire city in migrants during the
00:52:52.100 past year.
00:52:53.820 So these sanctuary city mayors have a lot of nerve saying humanitarian crisis.
00:52:59.900 And they know what it means.
00:53:00.920 It means that you have people arrive in these communities along the border from the poorest
00:53:06.020 regions in the world, Central America, Oaxaca, Mexico, and they come and they have no English
00:53:11.880 skills and they don't have a high school diploma.
00:53:16.340 And they have many cases.
00:53:18.200 They bring their families.
00:53:19.240 And then immediately what happens?
00:53:20.840 They have to go to school.
00:53:22.120 So then the school districts have to provide non-English instruction.
00:53:26.060 And then where are they going to live?
00:53:27.640 They don't have any money to pay rent.
00:53:29.820 And so you're going to have to find rental agreements for them.
00:53:33.660 And then you've got problems of law enforcement.
00:53:36.520 You've got problems of health.
00:53:38.160 A lot of people come with a lot of health problems.
00:53:40.780 And the system is already dysfunctional for poor people anyway under Obamacare.
00:53:45.560 And so these people and Martha Vineyard know exactly what they're talking about when they
00:53:49.880 say, get them out of here, because it's inconvenience for everybody.
00:53:54.200 If we just had 200,000 people come legally and we vetted them, it would work, but not
00:54:00.520 3 million.
00:54:01.280 And then think of the disparities.
00:54:02.780 We're telling people in the U.S. military and the federal workforce, if you don't get
00:54:07.000 vaccinated, you're going to lose your job.
00:54:09.220 And yet we're welcoming foreign nationals across the border without a vaccination test,
00:54:15.040 a test for COVID or a vaccination.
00:54:17.840 So actually, the citizen is of less importance to this government, this administration, than is
00:54:23.520 a foreign national, because we don't apply the same rule.
00:54:26.860 If I just came in, you know, in June, and I saw a person that had lost his passport on
00:54:32.420 the plane coming in from the Middle East, and they were not able to go in the United States.
00:54:37.180 They had to go in a special room.
00:54:38.460 What does that say that a person is not a citizen, just walks across?
00:54:42.840 And so they understand all too well all of the difficulties, economic, social, cultural,
00:54:48.900 political, that happens when you swarm people without any audit or any background checks.
00:54:55.100 And that is why they don't want them in their communities, because they know too well what
00:54:59.760 they're doing to other communities.
00:55:01.460 And they don't mind because they don't like these border communities.
00:55:04.660 They do not like red state America.
00:55:07.840 They don't like the governors.
00:55:09.240 They think it's kind of cute and neat that their open border policies fall exclusively on
00:55:14.820 these people, and I won't get into what they mean by these people, but I think we all know.
00:55:19.760 And now there's a little tiny boomerang, just an iota, and they go hysterical.
00:55:24.700 And I think it's kind of continuing.
00:55:27.300 To your point earlier, if they're so upset about the busing of migrants or the plane fulls
00:55:32.260 of migrants from Texas, from Arizona, potentially funded by Florida even now, to these northern
00:55:39.040 towns, why weren't they upset when Joe Biden was doing it?
00:55:42.700 Why weren't they upset about the plane loads of people who were coming to Westchester County,
00:55:46.880 New York, overnight that the New York Post got on camera?
00:55:49.760 They couldn't have cared less when it was their leader doing it.
00:55:52.760 But when the towns that actually have to deal with the crisis do it, it's the Holocaust.
00:55:58.420 Chris Hayes of MSNBC, deeply, deeply sick and dehumanizing to fling human beings somewhere
00:56:06.180 vindictively.
00:56:07.320 I mentioned to you, oh yeah, here's a CNN reporter, former CNN reporter, Jackie Schneckner,
00:56:12.960 who tweets, the Nazis also had a relocation program, referring to DeSantis.
00:56:18.740 And so they're really actually comparing this to Nazi-esque behavior.
00:56:22.740 So your bottom line on whether this actually is working and whether it was a good move by
00:56:29.140 DeSantis et al.
00:56:30.240 Absolutely.
00:56:31.660 It showed them up for what they really are.
00:56:34.500 They're elitist and they have no concern about anybody other than their selfish self.
00:56:38.940 And they liked it.
00:56:40.260 They thought it was cute.
00:56:41.200 It wasn't that they were indifferent.
00:56:42.460 They knew exactly what these communities were struggling, mostly Mexican-American people.
00:56:47.120 They understood what they were undergoing.
00:56:48.940 They thought it was kind of neat that they lived in red states and that their policies, not
00:56:53.160 theirs, their policies of open borders and blue state open borders especially, fell on these
00:56:59.580 people.
00:57:00.560 And they loved the idea that Texas and Arizona and Florida were dealing with these problems.
00:57:07.300 And then it came around to bite them and they went hysterical.
00:57:09.640 And you can always tell that when they have the reducto ad hitlarium argument.
00:57:13.600 Every time the leftist gets trapped and they have no means of escape, they always evoke
00:57:19.400 Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler.
00:57:21.440 Ken Burns did it the other night with his Holocaust documentary.
00:57:25.880 He did.
00:57:26.100 Well, DeSantis, as I said, he says those two flights were, quote, just the beginning.
00:57:30.540 So this is not over.
00:57:31.360 I hope so.
00:57:31.960 Not by a long shot.
00:57:33.500 Victor, thank you so much.
00:57:34.500 Great to see you.
00:57:35.720 Thank you for having me, Megan.
00:57:37.760 We're going to be right back with a story we've been working on very hard.
00:57:41.820 And I'm really, really looking forward to sharing with you.
00:57:44.580 I knew a lot about Allison and Tom Barclidge before I actually met them.
00:57:51.760 They were the couple suffering through life's worst nightmare.
00:57:56.040 Eight months earlier, their teenage son had died suddenly and mysteriously.
00:58:02.060 At first, I was feeling a little nervous.
00:58:04.780 Our mutual friends introduced us.
00:58:06.700 What would I say?
00:58:08.120 What if I misstepped?
00:58:09.100 And to be honest, there was also this question looming.
00:58:13.720 How will I handle being around people whose struggle is likely to remind me of my and most
00:58:19.360 parents' most terrible fear?
00:58:23.220 But what I soon noticed about Allison and Tom and their daughter, Alexis, turned their story
00:58:28.960 into a story for this show.
00:58:31.620 Because what I felt around this family, what they exuded, was not darkness.
00:58:38.480 It was joy.
00:58:40.740 It was love, friendship.
00:58:44.040 They taught a master class at the beach this summer in how to grieve and how to live in
00:58:50.740 the wake of a tragedy.
00:58:52.640 A lesson I needed to share with you.
00:58:56.280 One, two, three.
00:58:57.100 Let's go.
00:58:57.800 Let's go, boys.
00:58:58.640 It was October 30th, 2021.
00:59:03.040 The LaSalle soccer team was on a roll.
00:59:06.280 The All-Boys Catholic High School had been dominating the playing fields outside Philadelphia
00:59:10.580 all season.
00:59:12.780 That was the day they clinched the league championship.
00:59:16.760 No one was happier about the win than team manager Blake Barklage.
00:59:20.460 As he headed to the post-game party, his mother Allison checked in, the usual back and forth
00:59:27.100 between a mom and her teenage son.
00:59:29.780 I had been texting him about when he was getting home or whatever, and I was like, I love you,
00:59:36.360 have fun.
00:59:37.080 And that was the last text I sent him.
00:59:38.800 I love you, have fun.
00:59:41.020 That text, those words, would be the last Allison would say to Blake.
00:59:45.360 She and her husband, Tom, were about to lose their only son.
00:59:50.700 Their daughter, Alexis, would have to turn 16 without her big brother, and Blake's friends
00:59:55.700 and teammates, Kyle and Hayden, would never be the same.
00:59:59.140 We all pretty much had perfect lives and anyone's normal standard.
01:00:03.560 And then after that day, I don't know, it kind of, it was like, it was life-changing.
01:00:11.140 The day had been picture perfect, a winning game and the gathering of a brotherhood, young
01:00:16.460 men all going through the rites of passage of a high school senior year.
01:00:20.200 We won the Philadelphia Catholic League championship, and then we went to a team party at someone's
01:00:26.020 house after we won.
01:00:27.920 And did he seem fine?
01:00:30.420 Yeah, he seemed also perfectly fine.
01:00:32.700 So what happened?
01:00:34.920 Pretty much, we were only at the house for about, I would say like 15 minutes.
01:00:39.520 We were all like sitting around a table.
01:00:42.040 And I just like felt, because we would always like joke around and like hit each other and
01:00:45.940 things like that.
01:00:46.580 So like, I thought he was just like hitting my shoulder just to like tell me to move out
01:00:51.000 of his seat or something.
01:00:53.480 So he like grabbed onto my shoulders a little bit.
01:00:56.020 And then like a second later, I turned around like with a smile on my face, like seeing what
01:01:01.540 he was doing.
01:01:02.700 And he just like collapsed onto the floor.
01:01:06.960 And what happened next?
01:01:10.600 For like, I would say like a minute or two, I was, we were all kind of like freaking out.
01:01:18.280 Not really sure.
01:01:19.420 Not really sure if it was just like he passed out or something.
01:01:22.400 Well, I understand some of the guys tried CPR on him.
01:01:27.000 Yeah.
01:01:29.080 Sean Martin.
01:01:30.160 Yeah, Sean Martin.
01:01:31.100 He was a goalkeeper on the team and he was the lifeguard.
01:01:33.740 So he tried giving him CPR.
01:01:37.020 But he never, he never came back.
01:01:39.900 No.
01:01:40.440 Did you guys have any idea what it could be?
01:01:43.260 I mean, at first I thought, well, he was eating.
01:01:46.180 We stopped at Wawa after the game.
01:01:48.160 So I, and he was eating a hoagie.
01:01:49.720 So at first I thought maybe he could have been choking.
01:01:52.820 That was, that was one possibility.
01:01:55.280 And then the other was fainting.
01:01:57.440 But then it was clear that after like, you could see what was happening to his body, that
01:02:02.700 it was clear that it wasn't either of those.
01:02:05.640 Yeah.
01:02:06.780 I texted my mom and then my mom called Mrs. Barklage.
01:02:12.960 And I was like, is everything okay?
01:02:14.360 And I could just tell that it wasn't.
01:02:16.160 That's the last person he touched was Kyle.
01:02:18.360 And he put his hand on Kyle's shoulder and then he went down.
01:02:21.700 So, but just that drive to the party first in the hospital, just like, you got a thousand
01:02:26.960 things going through your head.
01:02:28.040 We're driving and Allison's talking to one of the moms and then we get a call from the
01:02:32.500 police.
01:02:33.580 Like, don't go to the party, go to the hospital.
01:02:35.240 So we're just like, wow.
01:02:36.100 So everything just starts going and we pull into emergency room and we got put in a room
01:02:40.600 and we're sitting there like, and I just kept saying like, this, this isn't good.
01:02:43.580 This isn't good.
01:02:44.660 And then the, uh, the, the doctor came in tears just so they, we'd been trying for 42
01:02:49.640 minutes and just, she, she didn't make it.
01:02:52.240 So we're just like, like, like a thousand things.
01:02:55.680 Just first of all, I go numb, but then he's just like, what, what just happened?
01:03:00.080 Like, this is the nightmare.
01:03:01.500 Lexi was at a Halloween party, then got the message to come home.
01:03:05.040 And I remember we, I like ran inside cause I was like, what is going on?
01:03:09.660 So like, I run through the garage door.
01:03:11.320 I just get out of the car, run in, I opened the, I opened the door and I'm like, like,
01:03:14.820 where is he?
01:03:15.220 Like, is he okay?
01:03:15.780 Is he here?
01:03:16.440 And then like, it just, my mom was like, no, like he didn't make it.
01:03:19.600 Like I would just collapse, fell to the floor.
01:03:22.760 Like couldn't breathe.
01:03:24.420 Like it was the worst feeling ever.
01:03:27.100 Couldn't even like stand to like literally stand.
01:03:29.980 I couldn't even stand up.
01:03:30.900 Like I was just sitting on the floor, like hyperventilating.
01:03:33.780 Like it was, it was just unbelievable.
01:03:36.300 How, how were your parents at that moment?
01:03:39.360 My dad, um, you would stop crying for about like 30 seconds.
01:03:43.420 And then you would just think like, this is real.
01:03:45.840 Like this actually happened to us.
01:03:47.800 Like, and then it just a repeat.
01:03:50.500 It was like a loop right again.
01:03:52.040 Like it was just, I remember looking at my parents and like thinking like they just lost
01:03:57.440 their kid.
01:03:57.980 Like, this is unbelievable.
01:03:59.600 It would take months before they understood what happened.
01:04:02.500 And I want to ask you about the cause because you did ultimately get an actual diagnosis
01:04:08.420 of what led to his death.
01:04:11.540 So what was it?
01:04:14.100 Lymphocytic myocarditis.
01:04:15.680 What does that mean?
01:04:17.160 An infection went to his heart.
01:04:19.340 His pediatrician was wonderful.
01:04:20.700 Spoke to the medical examiner for hours on my behalf.
01:04:23.780 And I spoke with him as well.
01:04:25.520 And during the investigation and everything, um, ultimately, I guess, uh, he had some sort of
01:04:31.160 infection.
01:04:31.680 We'll never know.
01:04:32.300 This is the part we'll never know.
01:04:33.400 I don't know how long ago a virus would have been in a system to have, but he had no symptoms.
01:04:39.200 He didn't have any allergy like symptoms.
01:04:41.260 He had no symptoms right before he passed.
01:04:43.780 So we'll never know that piece, but, um, he had fluid in his lungs.
01:04:46.980 His heart was enlarged and the ultimate cause of death on his death certificate was, um, natural
01:04:52.200 lymphocytic myocarditis.
01:04:53.680 Of course, people will ask, was it related to COVID?
01:04:57.640 Was it related to the vaccine, which he had?
01:05:00.640 Um, do we know the answer to that?
01:05:02.940 No, unfortunately we'll never know.
01:05:05.240 I mean, he was vaccinated in, uh, that May or end of April, second dose in May, um, of
01:05:12.440 2021.
01:05:12.900 So he died in October of 2021, but he donated blood at LaSalle, um, just in a blood drive
01:05:18.340 the March of 2021 and he had the antibodies for COVID.
01:05:22.560 So he had never, we never tested him for any COVID early on.
01:05:26.360 We think he had it, but, um, he, he didn't really have any strong symptoms in July of
01:05:31.380 2020.
01:05:32.620 Um, he had strep in August of 2020.
01:05:35.740 Um, and those were the last times he ever had any symptoms of being sick.
01:05:39.260 So little over a full year of him passing away.
01:05:42.900 And I think they say within five days, if it's something to the vaccine, someone else had
01:05:47.000 mentioned, it could be up to 40, which we are so certainly out of that window.
01:05:50.940 Um, but we'll just, we'll never know the cause infection that went to his heart.
01:05:56.240 Impossible as it was to believe an enlarged heart took down a kid already known for his
01:06:01.600 big heartedness.
01:06:02.740 Let's introduce Blake to the audience.
01:06:04.780 So they know a little bit about who he was and what he was like, because I've gotten to
01:06:10.060 know him this past summer.
01:06:11.580 And I feel like I know him now.
01:06:13.660 I feel like I met a new friend and, you know, you spent a lot of time.
01:06:17.000 You spent enough time talking to you guys, talking to his, his friends, his sister, and
01:06:21.040 you really have this person come alive for you.
01:06:23.420 And I know that's important to you guys.
01:06:25.000 So tell us a little bit about him.
01:06:26.960 He was so witty.
01:06:28.440 His friends have lots of funny stories, um, you know, of him.
01:06:31.860 And so I, I really wouldn't have thought of that initially, but I think he was funny.
01:06:35.380 He was extraordinarily intelligent, kind.
01:06:38.220 He was your, your typical son, your child, because he would, he would love to challenge
01:06:42.740 us.
01:06:43.060 Like he always thought that he had the gift of gab, that he could outsmart us out, outwit
01:06:48.500 us.
01:06:48.740 And I would always try and get him follow some of the footsteps, some of the things I did
01:06:52.320 when I was growing up, like in terms of being a caddy.
01:06:54.360 And I always wanted him to be a caddy at the local golf course.
01:06:57.080 And he loved it.
01:06:57.920 He embraced it like I did.
01:06:59.480 And he met some great people on the course and I received some great messages, but he
01:07:04.520 was just a, a kid that I would love to sit on the couch and watch a football game with
01:07:09.560 and be like, okay.
01:07:10.700 And I remember a great story with him, which we were watching a Clemson, Georgia football
01:07:14.440 game.
01:07:15.180 And he goes, dad, whoever wins this game, that's going to be my number one choice to go to school.
01:07:19.720 And I'm like, no, it's not.
01:07:22.320 It's going to be based on a lot of other things, but he was just, just the conversations
01:07:26.700 that we had and, and that, that's something that's missed is just the, the times that
01:07:31.380 we had with him was unbelievable.
01:07:33.060 I would say he was like super caring, like in a way that you don't see in a lot of people.
01:07:37.840 He was, I'd say hardworking, hilarious, outgoing, outgoing.
01:07:48.520 He was very smart.
01:07:50.380 He was the smartest in a friend group.
01:07:52.500 He was always there for me.
01:07:53.740 And that's just the type of person Blake was.
01:07:55.460 He was always just like the life of the party, um, always cracking jokes and, uh, making
01:08:00.120 everybody laugh and smile.
01:08:01.960 He was always so intentional with everything that he did and said, and that he always made
01:08:09.120 you feel cared for.
01:08:10.420 I think also in addition to his wit that really, uh, you know, was, it was critical to me as
01:08:15.720 his passion, looking for service, um, which really he developed entirely on his own in high
01:08:21.400 school.
01:08:21.660 Blake was a volunteer at Treest Hall.
01:08:24.260 It's a home for men with intellectual disabilities.
01:08:27.420 He sat a lot with this one gentleman who had Down syndrome and we've started to volunteer
01:08:33.160 there since.
01:08:34.300 I love it.
01:08:34.840 And the guys there missed him so much.
01:08:37.720 Talk about him.
01:08:39.320 Even in death, he gave to others.
01:08:41.660 Or they must not have seen the organ donor on his license, but we were about to walk out
01:08:45.580 and I was like, wait, he's an organ donor.
01:08:47.040 And they're like, oh my gosh.
01:08:48.180 And so.
01:08:48.540 We got a call a couple of days later that somebody who knows somebody who worked in a
01:08:52.400 local hospital down in Philly and they said a angel delivered life to a few kids down at
01:08:58.500 a certain hospital.
01:08:59.200 And they said, we can't know for sure, but we know it's Blake's.
01:09:04.060 Do we know even the number of recipients?
01:09:06.200 I think they said like 71 or 75 recipients.
01:09:09.740 I mean, it's, it's incredible.
01:09:12.920 As touching as Blake's gifts were, I couldn't help but wonder if any of this would really ease
01:09:17.360 the pain of a grieving parent.
01:09:20.280 Can anything be of comfort after you lose a child?
01:09:23.260 How are you functioning?
01:09:24.340 How are you like this?
01:09:25.400 How can you talk?
01:09:26.160 I'm not good, but still brutal.
01:09:28.280 I mean, the pain, the pain is just like, you wake up every day.
01:09:31.620 It's just like, okay, here we go.
01:09:33.580 Here it is again.
01:09:34.580 And it's, it's how you choose to handle it.
01:09:36.860 And again, I'm emotional.
01:09:38.460 I'm a very emotional guy, but I go through the day and it's some good days, some bad days,
01:09:42.560 but it's just like, I know Blake is sitting there like that.
01:09:46.080 Just keep moving forward.
01:09:47.240 You just don't have a choice.
01:09:48.160 I mean, we have this situation.
01:09:49.320 We have, I mean, someone said to me recently, unfortunately, another, a girl, 20, I think,
01:09:56.160 she was 20, passed away of a sudden cardiac arrest in the area as well, July 9th.
01:10:02.920 And her mother, when I was talking to her, the father actually spoke at the eulogy and
01:10:07.940 he had, he had said in there, you know, you could be bitter or better, you know?
01:10:12.380 He was only 17 years old.
01:10:15.400 It's hard to make sense of.
01:10:17.460 And as I've watched the Barclay family this summer, all I could think is there's such
01:10:25.000 goodness surrounding them at every turn.
01:10:27.220 There, there's something about this family.
01:10:29.640 And there was something about Blake that has brought out the very best in everyone around
01:10:35.420 them.
01:10:35.960 That's, that's Blake's gift.
01:10:38.120 That's their gift.
01:10:39.160 You know, you hope it doesn't happen in the wake of a tragedy.
01:10:43.040 You hope it doesn't take a tragedy to see that in your life, but you guys are part of
01:10:46.760 that.
01:10:47.700 And I just wonder if you could tell me what the LaSalle community has gone through in
01:10:53.480 the days after you lost Blake and, and then the weeks and months to follow.
01:10:58.100 They say it's a brotherhood at LaSalle.
01:11:01.040 And that was after what we experienced.
01:11:04.080 I definitely believe it seeing like all the guys come together to support us.
01:11:08.420 And even we had a game for Blake and like the amount of kids that came out was unbelievable.
01:11:14.640 Learned yourself another day in by far the most difficult circumstances any of us could
01:11:20.580 imagine.
01:11:21.280 Everyone supports each other and just pushes you.
01:11:24.520 It's awesome.
01:11:24.960 Always made me feel like one of the guys, even though I was some little freshman.
01:11:28.820 He was just a big, loving, friendly giant.
01:11:30.920 He was always smiling.
01:11:32.800 Even when he wasn't having his best day, he was there to make somebody else feel better.
01:11:37.260 Blake had like a way of making literally anything we were doing fun.
01:11:41.580 Blake's friends, they're a huge part of this story.
01:11:44.900 The way they've rallied to openly talk about him, to keep his memory alive, to support you
01:11:53.120 too, and Lexi has been inspirational.
01:11:56.980 I know they used to call you guys, the group that hung out together, the Divine Nine.
01:12:03.020 And Tom saw you recently and said, hey, the great eight.
01:12:07.280 And what did you guys say?
01:12:09.420 It's a campy.
01:12:10.600 It can't be that because you still got Blake.
01:12:12.840 It has to be nine.
01:12:13.860 It's always going to be the nine of us.
01:12:15.280 This picture was taken of the guys last October.
01:12:18.760 Within a month, eight of them would be pallbearers at Blake's funeral.
01:12:23.180 They remain a constant presence in the Barkledges' lives.
01:12:27.060 I kept spending time with them.
01:12:29.820 Like, guys, this is where we need to lean on each other.
01:12:32.220 Like, I need you as much as you need me because I want to hear about the stories.
01:12:37.540 I want to hear about the funny stories.
01:12:38.940 Maybe not in front of Allison, but you can tell me those stories.
01:12:41.660 I want to hear about Blake when I didn't see what he hid for me.
01:12:44.660 After what happened, we're literally, like, family now.
01:12:49.200 Yeah, especially with Alexis.
01:12:50.840 Like, she said to us early on that, like, she gained, like, eight new brothers.
01:12:54.940 Like, her birthday was a week after Blake passed away.
01:12:57.600 So we all, like, came together really quick just to, like, try and make her birthday special for her.
01:13:02.900 Divine Nine came into the house, snuck into the house with presents.
01:13:06.920 We got video of them walking up the stairs.
01:13:08.880 Tiptoeing.
01:13:09.460 Tiptoeing up the stairs.
01:13:10.500 Banging on her door and then going in.
01:13:11.940 And she's like, and they all sang happy birthday to her.
01:13:14.460 Happy birthday to you.
01:13:19.140 Happy birthday to you.
01:13:23.760 Happy birthday, dear Alexis.
01:13:29.200 Happy birthday to you.
01:13:33.440 Oh, thank you, guys.
01:13:35.600 Just trying.
01:13:38.400 Thank you.
01:13:38.920 Come on, get clothes on.
01:13:39.940 We're going to Wawa.
01:13:41.360 Are we actually?
01:13:42.060 Yes.
01:13:43.080 How divine are they?
01:13:45.460 Oh, they're divine.
01:13:47.640 They're great.
01:13:48.400 They're, like, the best guys.
01:13:49.940 Like, I don't even know how to describe them because they're all so different.
01:13:52.720 But they all, like, come together.
01:13:54.040 And they're, we each add, like, a little different sprinkle of personality to the group, which is funny at some times.
01:14:00.000 Which annoys me at sometimes, like, a little older brother would.
01:14:03.860 Like, they actually are, like, my older brothers now, which is so crazy to me.
01:14:07.320 Because they treat me like a little sister.
01:14:09.040 Like, they'll embarrass me in public like an older brother would.
01:14:12.260 They'll make sure I'm having no boy problems.
01:14:14.680 Like, they make sure of it every time I see them.
01:14:16.960 They're like, no boy is mistreating me, right?
01:14:18.960 And I'm like, oh, my gosh, no.
01:14:20.380 And they're like, all right, we just have to make sure.
01:14:21.980 Like, we have to ask.
01:14:23.100 Even, I remember one day putting up Christmas ornaments, the lights outside.
01:14:26.740 Blake and I would always do that.
01:14:27.740 I started to put the lights up, broke down in tears, walked away, couldn't do it.
01:14:30.980 Next day, seven, eight of the boys are over at the house helping me put the lights on.
01:14:35.320 They're just such good kids.
01:14:36.960 Good kids who will never forget a good friend.
01:14:40.180 Whenever we would see them, it would just, like, light up the whole hallway.
01:14:43.240 But he would always make sure that he was supporting his friends to the highest standard.
01:14:47.300 Especially in the beginning of this year, I set, like, a list of schools that I was going to apply to.
01:14:51.880 And, like, almost every day, he, like, kept asking me.
01:14:54.580 He was like, so did you put your stuff in for that school yet?
01:14:57.400 Did you apply here?
01:14:58.160 Did you apply there?
01:14:58.980 Did you write this?
01:15:00.440 So stuff like that where it's, like, where I was getting forgetful or I didn't really want to apply to that school.
01:15:05.760 But I set it on my list.
01:15:07.280 He just, like, kept motivating me and kept pushing me to get it all done.
01:15:10.620 He would love to debate on things, on certain topics.
01:15:14.280 And I loved that.
01:15:15.140 I loved his passion for politics.
01:15:17.720 He was an advocate for what he believed in, even with people he loved, right?
01:15:22.340 So it's easy to challenge someone you dislike, whether it's a president or a corporate head or even a parent with whom you don't get along.
01:15:30.020 Maybe you feel more emboldened.
01:15:31.320 But when you're at an institution like LaSalle, his high school, that you love and you really consider yourself part of a brotherhood within, it's harder.
01:15:40.520 It's harder to raise your voice in challenging decisions.
01:15:43.240 And he did.
01:15:45.200 I know he sent an email to the administrators at the school challenging and asking serious questions about the mask mandate.
01:15:54.180 And, I mean, this is a cause near and dear to my own heart.
01:15:57.440 But what I love about the way Blake did it was it was done 100% out of love and respect.
01:16:04.020 He really had questions about why they had promised the kids that if they got the vaccine, they could take off the masks.
01:16:10.840 And then it was revoked.
01:16:12.200 And he said, I received my Pfizer shots in May and was told I did not need to wear a mask because of my vaccination status.
01:16:19.820 Fast forward till midsummer and the first rumors about vaccination status being non-important while considering masks were being spread.
01:16:26.920 Now those rumors are harsh reality.
01:16:30.020 The government, state and national has been mandating me to do certain actions for the past 18 months.
01:16:34.980 And now I feel that my freedom to choose and autonomy is gone.
01:16:38.920 Freedom without autonomy is imprisonment.
01:16:42.660 Amazing.
01:16:43.480 What did you make of that when you saw it?
01:16:45.660 So we were blown away because we didn't know.
01:16:48.740 Tom and Allison found out about the letter when the head of LaSalle read it at Blake's funeral.
01:16:53.060 It took me at least two months to read it.
01:16:54.740 I couldn't get myself to read it.
01:16:56.100 But it was just amazing how he respectfully challenged.
01:16:59.920 And that's the key word that Brother James said, that he did in such a respectful way that we wanted to listen.
01:17:06.620 We had to listen.
01:17:07.340 So, yeah, I mean, you read further in the in the mail and he and he writes as follows.
01:17:12.760 I love America.
01:17:14.320 America is a shining beacon of freedom, liberty and justice across the globe.
01:17:19.320 Freedom is probably my most important virtue in our society.
01:17:23.080 I also believe order in a society is needed.
01:17:25.640 So I'm not against government in the slightest.
01:17:28.680 I just have a problem that after all this time and multiple assurances that my personal freedoms would not be infringed, the government overreached.
01:17:36.740 Blake got it.
01:17:38.000 Yeah, he loved his country.
01:17:39.220 I mean, he loved everything about it.
01:17:40.640 I mean, down at the shore house with the American flag always up there.
01:17:45.300 It was just you go into his room and that's what you can tell.
01:17:48.660 He was a back to back World War champion.
01:17:50.880 Yeah.
01:17:51.380 Things like that was just unbelievable about him.
01:17:53.760 And even the books that he read.
01:17:55.540 I mean, he read a lot of books about the American history and things like that.
01:17:58.480 Blake's patriotism was well known to his friends who introduced our family to Tom and Allison.
01:18:04.460 That reminds me, Tom, of, you know, this year.
01:18:07.520 And I told the audience about this after we did it.
01:18:09.520 But we we've been having annually now a Fourth of July celebration that's patriotic and celebrates our country and our values at which we have taken to reading the Declaration of Independence.
01:18:19.620 And we asked you if you would be one of the readers this year, just getting to know you.
01:18:24.460 We didn't we didn't know you prior to this summer.
01:18:26.840 And you said yes immediately.
01:18:28.480 That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such forms as to them shall seem most likely to affect the safety and happiness.
01:18:58.480 All of his friends show up wearing like basically head to toe American flags.
01:19:04.520 And we talked about it afterward.
01:19:06.160 We were telling me how much Blake loved America and how, you know, you see these signs.
01:19:10.760 It's like, why did we ask you?
01:19:12.340 We didn't really even know you that way.
01:19:13.500 We just thought you'd be amazing.
01:19:15.100 And you were and you got up there and you felt a connection with him.
01:19:18.480 And all of his friends came decked out into the American flag and they felt the connection.
01:19:23.000 And then we felt it, too.
01:19:24.180 Even though Blake's applications to college were withdrawn, an acceptance letter came from Clemson, his number one choice.
01:19:31.560 One day I come home from work and I walk in.
01:19:34.000 This is maybe a month after Blake passed and I see a big package from Clemson.
01:19:38.200 So I open up this package and I open it up and the letter says, congratulations, Blake, you're in.
01:19:43.820 You have a congratulation to class of 2026, whatever it may be, and you have an academic scholarship.
01:19:48.380 And I was like, again, what I do, I went to the couch and just started bawling.
01:19:54.220 And Allison was like, that's got to be a sign from Blake.
01:19:57.280 That's got to be a sign.
01:19:58.420 And I'm like, I don't know, but it's still, it hurt.
01:20:01.160 Signs, often in orange, Clemson's color, came to them time and time again.
01:20:06.560 The LaSalle soccer team had already made orange wristbands to honor Blake and magnets with his initials.
01:20:12.460 There was the sunset Blake painted as a boy, which looks remarkably similar to the view from shore of a sailboat not far from where friends were scattering Blake's ashes.
01:20:24.460 There was the family friend who felt drawn to the orange corner flag on a soccer field.
01:20:29.080 She gets the flag and she like, she realizes it's red.
01:20:31.560 And she's like, oh, well, like, you know, because the corner flags and soccer fields are red.
01:20:35.520 But she gets there and she's like, all right, well, like, I guess it wasn't a sign or whatever, the orange flag.
01:20:39.320 And she glances down and out of the corner of her eye is an orange golf ball.
01:20:44.000 There was the time Tom was in downtown Philly for a meeting.
01:20:47.420 We were just going through sales, whatever it may be.
01:20:49.780 And we're talking about emptying your cup.
01:20:51.660 And we talked about, break down what's on your mind right now.
01:20:55.300 And again, I sort of write about Blake and I get choked up.
01:20:57.400 I leave.
01:20:57.900 I walk out of, I mean, 300 people in there walk out.
01:21:00.500 My boss comes out and says, Tom, let's talk about it.
01:21:02.500 Blake is still giving, even though he's not here.
01:21:04.720 So we go walk back in the hotel and the door is locked.
01:21:07.040 So I walk around the front of the hotel and I bump into a car and there's a BB magnet right on that car.
01:21:12.840 And I'm like, this is, my boss is like, Tom, that's a sign.
01:21:16.780 My manager is like, that's a sign from Blake that he is here.
01:21:19.800 And then it just so happened that the manager of the hotel comes walking out.
01:21:24.160 And I'm like, what's the significance of the BB?
01:21:26.760 Oh, my son goes to LaSalle.
01:21:29.040 And one of his great friends is Blake Barclay, who passed away.
01:21:31.300 And she's like, and you are?
01:21:32.560 And I said, I'm Blake's dad.
01:21:33.860 And she almost fell down.
01:21:35.380 And she's like, I got chills.
01:21:37.120 So that's where going through a rough moment was just, it was just like, okay.
01:21:40.580 What kind of signs have you seen?
01:21:44.540 Too many to count.
01:21:47.580 A big one for me and tying it into LaSalle is like, as a senior, we go on Kairos, which is like, it's called like God's time.
01:21:54.900 It's a three-day retreat that all the seniors go on for like, all of us getting close out of the class, but also getting close with God.
01:22:04.260 And I was lucky enough to go a second time and lead a small group.
01:22:08.360 And one of the things that we have to do is we have to give a talk.
01:22:12.560 So my talk was based on God's friendship.
01:22:15.040 So obviously, I spoke a lot about Blake and I's friendship and how it's changed now and how it's developed.
01:22:22.780 But a big thing for me was I was so nervous to get up there and basically prepared to cry in front of 50 kids in my grade.
01:22:33.020 And as soon as I got up there and like said the first word, as I went throughout my entire speech, I kept having to look over to my left.
01:22:41.780 Because the presence of Blake standing right next to me was so strong, where I like had to keep looking over and be like, are you like standing right next to me right now?
01:22:50.880 Alexa sees signs too, a cardinal suddenly in her path, for example, which many believe represents a lost loved one.
01:22:59.140 But she wrestles with whether it means what she wants it to.
01:23:03.000 Part of me doesn't want to believe in these signs.
01:23:06.080 And it's just like the other part of me, like the part that I can't control.
01:23:08.640 Like, it's just like, I know these are signs.
01:23:10.860 And you say, I don't, I don't want to believe in these signs.
01:23:13.240 Why?
01:23:13.480 What are you wrestling with?
01:23:14.960 I just feel like if this hadn't happened and I saw a cardinal, like, I feel like life would be the same.
01:23:20.880 And while more private in her grief, she misses her brother constantly.
01:23:25.940 I love to see the sunsets.
01:23:28.300 And whether that's just going on my back deck and seeing the sunset or I do go to the grave site, that's a little more emotional for me.
01:23:38.440 If I'm feeling a little more down, I'll go to the grave site.
01:23:41.180 I feel the most connected there.
01:23:43.180 But actually, that's not true.
01:23:46.100 I actually feel the most, I've, every time that I'm home and it's an anniversary, I'll like sleep in his room or whatever.
01:23:52.780 For Tom and Allison, option B, the book Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg wrote in the wake of losing her husband, has been a comfort.
01:23:59.820 It really helped a lot.
01:24:02.400 I mean, it talks a lot about loss and devastating loss.
01:24:05.360 And so just that you're not alone and different things she went through that we could certainly relate to.
01:24:11.880 But there's the one part of it where she had, her daughter was going to, I think, a father-daughter dance and her friend was over.
01:24:19.640 And she was like, I want my husband here.
01:24:21.560 And he was like, well, we don't have that as option, you know, that is an option.
01:24:26.020 So we have to kick the shit out of option B.
01:24:28.480 And that really resonated with me because we have Alexis, who we love more than anything.
01:24:32.220 I mean, and we're grateful for the 17 and a half years that we had with Blake.
01:24:35.820 But Alexis is super, super amazing.
01:24:38.540 And we can't get stuck.
01:24:40.540 I mean, we can't.
01:24:41.360 We have to get out of bed every morning.
01:24:42.620 We have to, you know, and we have so much joy with her still, so much laughter.
01:24:46.700 And we all, three of us, miss Blake terribly.
01:24:49.400 But he's with us and we need to continue on.
01:24:53.720 Cheryl wrote that book after her husband died unexpectedly of a heart attack.
01:24:57.760 And I know I was struck by the way you talked about its role in your life at Blake's memorial service this summer at the shore.
01:25:05.700 And she's done exactly that.
01:25:09.640 This past weekend, Cheryl Sandberg got remarried and managed to find love.
01:25:16.320 And I don't know if we can say her broken heart was healed, but it's certainly soaring in its own new way.
01:25:24.580 And I reached out to her and she sent a video message for the two of you, which there's a little bit of background noise because she's literally going to her wedding within 24 hours.
01:25:36.540 But I have a message for you from Cheryl Sandberg.
01:25:39.900 Hi, Alison and Tom.
01:25:41.920 I am so inspired and saddened by your story.
01:25:46.720 The loss of a child is a truly tragic thing, but you've worked so hard to keep this memory alive.
01:25:52.200 And I know that so many people will remember Blake for the loving the way that he was.
01:25:59.580 I know you're inspiring so many people because when people face real loss, real grief, it is how we persevere through it that changes our lives and the lives around us.
01:26:12.640 I hope you take care of yourselves.
01:26:14.360 I hope you take care of each other.
01:26:15.620 I hope you know that it does get better.
01:26:18.920 It never goes away in the same thing, but it does get better.
01:26:22.900 And that makes memory live on not just in your heart, but in so many hearts.
01:26:28.180 My thoughts are with you.
01:26:29.800 My prayers for your resilience are with you.
01:26:33.560 We never know how much strength we have until we face that situation that brings it out in us.
01:26:40.960 And we all can see how much strength we have.
01:26:43.240 That's great.
01:26:45.300 It's incredible.
01:26:45.900 Thank you.
01:26:47.020 It's like she knows you.
01:26:49.480 Sheryl Sandberg advocated for more flexible and humane bereavement policies in corporate America.
01:26:55.560 Tom has tried to do the same at his company, Johnson & Johnson.
01:26:58.540 She changed the bereavement policy at Facebook.
01:27:01.420 And that gave me the, with that and with Blake's story about challenging, respectfully challenging, that was my second pain of purpose is really looking into the bereavement policy at J&J.
01:27:13.560 Many companies were five days, five days.
01:27:16.400 And I was talking to my boss.
01:27:18.280 Again, J&J was phenomenal.
01:27:20.280 Tom, you take the time.
01:27:21.780 But I'm like, but it's not about me.
01:27:23.880 I have, I've got 18 years at J&J and they've been great with it.
01:27:27.660 And my boss and they're all the way up on our side.
01:27:30.420 Then you take the time.
01:27:32.120 We'll work this out.
01:27:33.120 But I just, I just remember what Blake did by respectfully challenging a, something that was out there.
01:27:39.420 And I decided to write a few letters and I wrote a few letters to everybody on the board at J&J saying, here's my story.
01:27:46.300 Here's my story.
01:27:47.620 And I said, I'm not fighting for Tom.
01:27:50.660 I'm fighting for everybody else that doesn't, who may not have the management that I have, that, that has helped Alice and I and Alexis through all this.
01:27:58.320 So I wrote a few letters and, and I found out that they are looking into it, which is great.
01:28:01.700 With Blake never far from their hearts, the Barclages now partner with Simon's Heart, a group that screens children for cardiac issues.
01:28:10.400 A phenomenal organization.
01:28:11.940 People ask all the time, like, what, if Blake had been to a screening, would you, would he have been, would he be here?
01:28:18.460 I will never know that, but, but somebody else might be.
01:28:22.380 LaSalle High School was among the first to do a screening.
01:28:25.460 There was a wait list for the screening that evening.
01:28:27.520 And the last person to get in via the wait list, they found the condition in.
01:28:32.660 Wow.
01:28:33.160 So I don't know any particulars.
01:28:35.020 The mother said that she felt like there was definitely divine intervention.
01:28:39.260 Although my big brother isn't here with me, doing what big brothers do, he is now my guardian angel.
01:28:45.320 He's yours too, watching over all of us every day.
01:28:48.340 With every orange sunset and every orange rubber band worn on her wrist, he's with us.
01:28:55.300 Alice and Tom and Alexis will soon mark the first anniversary of Blake's death.
01:28:59.840 Four seasons on Earth without him.
01:29:02.360 And eight of the divine nine by Alexis's side.
01:29:06.200 They took Alexis to Blake's senior prom.
01:29:08.800 I obviously knew I wanted to, like, wear orange to the prom, which was, like, a big thing for me because it was just kind of, like, it felt right to just, like, wear orange dress to my first prom.
01:29:16.080 So Kyle and Hayden struck the same pose in this shot as they did the year before with Blake.
01:29:21.900 And so, like, we recreated that.
01:29:23.780 And it's just, like, it felt like the thing I was saying before, like, good and bad.
01:29:28.980 They walked with Alexis at graduation as she accepted Blake's diploma.
01:29:33.720 Blake Barkledge.
01:29:43.880 What do you think the meaning of this is?
01:29:46.240 What lessons has this taught you about why we're here?
01:29:52.360 What your purpose is?
01:29:54.100 I mean, every time I'm hanging with my friends now, I, like, I always just take a second just to, like, look around.
01:30:01.340 Because I feel like when I used to hang out with them, with my friends, I wouldn't, like, live in the moment, I guess you could say.
01:30:08.320 And it would go so fast.
01:30:09.440 And then it's over.
01:30:10.100 Or now, like, we're all leaving for college, the hangouts before last few weeks.
01:30:15.520 Like, I just look around and just, I can enjoy it so much more.
01:30:19.620 Because, like, you never know when you'll see your boys again.
01:30:22.600 Like, with what happened.
01:30:24.280 Anything can happen.
01:30:25.080 So, we just live life to what we can.
01:30:32.240 Clemson's man down going into this freshman year.
01:30:36.040 Yeah.
01:30:36.240 They lost a good one.
01:30:39.260 Yeah.
01:30:39.580 They lost a good one.
01:30:39.980 They did.
01:30:40.260 We'll be right back.
01:31:10.260 We'll be right back.
01:31:40.240 We'll be right back.
01:32:10.240 For example, it's a blueprint for anyone dealing with tragedy.
01:32:14.680 Don't retreat.
01:32:16.240 Reach out.
01:32:17.140 Be with others.
01:32:18.280 Keep your lost loved one's memory alive.
01:32:21.440 My thanks to Tom and to Allison, to Lexi, to Kyle and Hayden for helping put together the piece, and to Mary Murphy, one of my favorite producers who helped me put the whole thing together.
01:32:34.820 I'm very grateful to everybody who worked on it.
01:32:37.860 And don't forget, Simon's Heart advocates cardiac screenings in children at their annual physicals, and those really can detect a lot of problems that parents might not otherwise have thought of.
01:32:48.340 It's worth considering, especially in this day and age when we're seeing such a spike in cardiac incidents.
01:32:54.620 Thank you all for joining us today.
01:32:56.360 If you have feedback on our piece or thoughts for the Barkledges, you can email me now, megan, M-E-G-Y-N, at megankelly.com.
01:33:04.720 Thank you so much.
01:33:05.720 And check out this piece on youtube.com where you'll see the pictures.
01:33:08.960 All the best.
01:33:10.320 Thank you.
01:33:11.320 Thank you.
01:33:11.380 Thank you.