Bridget Phetasy on the Value of Regret, Who Can Get Pregnant (and Her Own Baby), and Tua's Awful Injury | EP. 402
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 31 minutes
Words per Minute
181.42328
Summary
Bridget Phetasy is a comedian, a brilliant writer, and host of a couple of different podcasts and shows. She has a hilarious show on YouTube called Dumpster Fire, and she recently launched a brand new podcast, Factory Settings, with her husband, a husband who the world learned about during the first time we had Bridget on this show in December of 2020.
Transcript
00:00:00.540
Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
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Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.
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It's the end of our two-year anniversary week and we have a great show for you today with a guest.
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I'm so excited to welcome back for the first time in almost two years.
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Bridget Phetasy is a comedian, a brilliant writer, and host now of a couple of different podcasts and shows.
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She has a hilarious show on YouTube called Dumpster Fire.
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In addition to her podcast, Walk-Ins Welcome, and she recently launched a brand new podcast.
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A husband, by the way, who the world learned about during the first time we had Bridget on this very show
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We were like her New York Times announcement, only better.
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We wound up rerunning that episode a couple of times just by popular demand, and everybody loves Bridget.
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We talked about her family, about the Me Too movement, the media, and so much more.
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And so much has changed since then, so there's a lot to get to today.
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So good to be with you, and now we're doing it via video.
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Yes, this is a little unnerving being the first media hit I've done, I think, postpartum.
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You're not going to show us your boobs, are you?
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We don't have the explicit warning on the YouTube, only on the podcast.
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Yeah, well, I mean, that's, I will say, and I'm not embarrassed to tell the world, as like a normal B cup, I was so excited to go up to a C cup when I had my kids.
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And then, of course, was the come down after the fact.
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As somebody who has shown her breasts and loves the boobs in general as a source of joy and happiness for the world, have you been pleased with what's gone on since you became a mother and started breastfeeding?
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Like, you realize the body is actually functional.
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There's like a utilitarian aspect to it and not just some kind of vanity project.
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That was really the most amazing thing about pregnancy was just how, what a miracle our bodies are, the female bodies.
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And even just breastfeeding, I've only, she's been breastfed only.
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It's, I know, I was worried because I've heard so many stories from women who struggle and it's not always that easy.
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And just the fact that I can keep this little being alive just with the milk I'm making is so crazy.
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And she's, she's a big, she's a little, she's a big little girl.
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After I, right after I had her, they, the, the nurses were like, your nipples are amazing.
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And I had to stop myself from like the comedian in me was like, well, the internet knows.
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But are they as good as the nipples of that Canadian shop teacher, Bridget?
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And then there's like enormous protrusions coming out of the bottom of like two watermelons.
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I mean, there was something going around and who knows what's real because it was on the internet
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where there's, there's some, someone said that this person was in their class and that this guy
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And he was, he was getting in trouble for his toxic masculinity.
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And this was his way of trying to make the administration eat their own policies.
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And his long game was to get fired and then sue for discrimination.
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Well, I mean, either way, the point is this is bad for kids.
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But if that's true, I mean, some, some level of respect to the guy is owed because he got
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international attention and Canada looks ridiculous and the school looks ridiculous.
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So, but if it's true, the big reveal needs to come like ASAP.
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Maybe he needs to say, okay, a hundred percent.
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I feel like I, who's talked about it more than I have.
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Very few, if any, I'm horrified by what he did.
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If this is real, he's a sick mofo who belongs nowhere near children.
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Cause you know, there are certain ways you can draw attention to stories like this and
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they don't get anywhere near as much attention as the way this guy went about it.
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Like what if the kids are in on it and they're also anti-woke little Canadian, like prisoners
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I'm trying to save their children from being subjected to this nonsense.
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When I heard that it was Canada, I was like, uh, no, it's probably true.
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No, they're not saying you can parade around your giant false nipples as a man who's dressing
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as a woman, but they're are, they're doing these, they instituted this crazy gender protocol
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that's, I mean, K through five that the parents cannot opt out of saying the kids will be subjected
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to gender, uh, ideology and sexual identity discussions.
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And you can't opt out because this is important.
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So you can't drag your kindergartner out of this nonsense, even if you want to.
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I mean, this is part of the reason I need to get out of California.
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I was, you know, the culture wars were something I was able to mock and had take us almost like
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that sneering nineties chick in the back of the class.
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Who's like, Oh, everybody's such a, you know, cares so much.
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And then I had a kid and now suddenly the culture wars come to you.
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And there's, there's no, the kind of mama bear in me really got activated because I don't,
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I don't want her to be distracted about gender and all of this stuff.
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I wanted to learn math and science and why, what, why this, this hyper focus on this gender
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I didn't think about any of that stuff when I was a kid, they, it just feels like, let
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I suddenly, I suddenly am like, maybe, maybe I'm a mom activist.
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And, and becoming a father, I mean, it's just becoming a parent changes the way in which you
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look at the world, but here's what they're doing in San Francisco.
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And Chris Ruffo got his hands in these documents because people leak to him now.
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They've created a system for facilitating child sexual transitions for the K through five
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students telling children, they may choose a different name and set of pronouns than the
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And that this new identity will be kept secret from their parents.
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Like, how dare you talk to him that way and tell him you can have a secret with him.
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That's, that is the road to hell, creating secrets between weird teachers and young single
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The, again, parents don't have the right to opt out of the lessons on gender identity
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And then in middle school, they begin promoting a program called Q Groups, which is designed
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to quote, connect students to mental health professionals and clinics.
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And so far I'm like, okay, mental health professionals, this is good.
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Then it goes on and clinics that offer gender affirming health services, such as puberty
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So they promote this program, which will connect your kid to the gender surgery clinic and effectively
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creating what one critic has called a school to clinic pipeline, beginning in elementary school
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with secret child sexual transitions and concluding in middle and high school with referrals to
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This is outright child abuse in the public school system.
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If the people of San Francisco who recalled Chesa Boudin do not get this pulled, then they
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It's so unsettling because they're still pushing a lot of this transitioning and surgery when
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in Europe, they're backing off all of this stuff.
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You know, the science is showing them that maybe don't give these kids puberty blockers.
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Maybe you can't reverse some of these drugs that you put them on young.
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Maybe the gender affirming care isn't the way to go and the best solution when it proves that
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it often doesn't have any effect on their mental health.
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So why in America does it seem like there are places where it's still full steam ahead?
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They deserve what they get because it's really about the kids.
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And no kid deserves to be abused and parents who are allowing this are effectively allowing
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So I'm less sympathetic to the parents who allow it, but I am sympathetic to the children
00:10:10.080
who get pulled into this by authority figures and told, you know, pick your gender like it's
00:10:16.300
And by the way, I thought of you, Bridget, because I'd read the whole packet.
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You know, my team gets me ready for these interviews and they give me a big packet and
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It had so many of your articles, many of which I want to talk to you about.
00:10:26.340
But this article on the news was given to me after I'd read it all.
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And this is this part stood out to me and you'll know why this district.
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Not only do they have International Pronouns Day that they celebrate, but they they teach
00:10:44.920
Here's the term that they can diverge from, quote, vanilla sexuality and become part of the,
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quote, bisexual umbrella, which includes fluid, pansexual, omnisexual, homocurious and heteroflexible.
00:11:00.800
They are intent on, quote, affirming students who use the pronoun it.
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It needs to wear something other than the uniform today.
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They say this used to be a way of dehumanizing trans and gender nonconforming folks.
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It was our N-word, but it can be reclaimed as African-Americans have done with the N-word.
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So your kid could go to school, be told that he's potentially an it, be put on the gender
00:11:38.520
affirming care clinic pipeline, and the promise will be made that no one will tell.
00:11:45.020
At the same time, they're talking to your daughter or your son, but your daughter, this
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is where it's relevant, about how she might diverge from vanilla sexuality.
00:12:09.220
I just don't think you should be teaching children about this, particularly at such a
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They're already exposed to so much in their teen years and on the internet.
00:12:18.760
But at this young age, when they're so innocent and impressionable, the first thing you teach
00:12:24.400
your kid is not that if somebody says, you know, keep this a secret from mommy, it's they're
00:12:31.700
So why is this suddenly OK for schools to do to keep these things?
00:12:41.220
This is this is this is like parenting 101, I feel like, and raising a child to be healthy.
00:12:48.260
And it feels like we're it's it would be very confusing as a child to have all of this gender
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And they I mean, a lot of people push back and say, oh, no, they get it.
00:13:03.920
I feel I feel some some compassion for the parents, because I know in these situations
00:13:09.400
when their kids are coming home and they're threatening to, you know, they're saying they're
00:13:14.120
depressed and that they're maybe suicidal, that these desperate parents don't know what
00:13:20.300
to do and they turn to professionals who are giving them an oftentimes horrible advice.
00:13:24.760
And they're in a community that's very, you know, open to all of this.
00:13:30.540
And I I feel like I just what I don't understand is how it's become so institutionalized.
00:13:40.360
And then you point out the difference between us in Europe, San Francisco and Europe.
00:13:45.380
It's not like they've abandoned their liberal values.
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They're just open minded to science in a way our liberals are not, whether it was covid
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or these gender clinics like why is our left gone so crazy and their left is still willing
00:14:00.200
Yeah, that's that's when people say, you know, it feels like a cult.
00:14:03.580
That's what why people say this, that that it feels like a cult, because you're not looking
00:14:09.060
at facts and it's like everybody's just walking off the cliff the cliff together.
00:14:14.180
And I don't know, it just it's so unsettling to me because I I know people who work with
00:14:22.260
the youth population and I see just how confused they are coming after two years of the pandemic
00:14:27.640
where they're already seem so lost and they lost years of education.
00:14:36.080
What are what are the numbers in California for literacy and for math?
00:14:41.680
No, the proficiency on a national level for reading and math is in one third.
00:14:45.500
One third of eighth graders are at the proficient level.
00:14:50.100
And that puts us something like 22 on the list of international countries.
00:14:57.320
OK, somebody recently said China is giving their children broccoli and they're exporting
00:15:07.500
We willingly shove the opium down our kids throats.
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And this is a different form of it in schools where we poison them.
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And the Chinese are laughing all the way to number one positions in education and soon
00:15:20.020
Just as a second point, Chris Ruffo, again, it was on Tucker the other day and he he explained
00:15:25.900
to Tucker that the NEA, the National Education Association Union, is, quote, mainlining queer
00:15:31.040
theory in the into the public schools, promoting a how to guide on fisting for children, for
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If you don't know what it is, you can figure it out.
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It has no no place in a classroom, in an education facility or in front of children.
00:15:48.340
We if we don't fight this, honestly, like moms, dads, get the get up, get up off your couch.
00:16:04.800
Do you see from from what you've been hearing and just do you feel like people are fighting
00:16:12.480
I think we were for a while, you know, with the whole center of Virginia thing and the
00:16:16.500
mask thing that got people out there like it spurred parents to action.
00:16:20.540
They were ready to fight because they could see that mask and the damage it was doing on
00:16:24.960
But I feel like we've taken our foot off the gas and we've kind of forgotten there's a lot
00:16:29.180
to fight like the deeply damaging things are ongoing.
00:16:33.660
Maybe we started to look away once the masks came off.
00:16:36.560
But that damage is ongoing and hasn't stopped even a little.
00:16:40.620
Yeah, I wonder, too, if do you think it's the Roe v. Wade that that have people take their
00:16:49.360
foot off the gas or feel you feel like the momentum was lost a little or I think parents
00:17:00.400
You know, they they want their kids to be taught the right things.
00:17:03.660
And it's not like schools don't teach any math or history or reading.
00:17:06.800
So, you know, they're they're going back to work.
00:17:12.520
Just think like unless this is in your face, you're watching Tucker, you're listening to
00:17:16.420
me, Ben Shapiro, you, you know, you're reading Chris Ruffo's tweets, which look, we're all
00:17:23.360
But the vast majority of Americans are not consuming news like this.
00:17:29.280
And you've really if you've got a kid, it's like your parental responsibility to stay tuned
00:17:34.220
in right now, because we have, in some cases, enemies of wellness teaching our children.
00:17:42.300
Is this just in public schools or are they finding this in private schools, too?
00:17:48.560
I mean, that's I came from the New York City private school system, which was as crazy
00:17:57.220
Our old boys school doesn't refer to boys as boys anymore or sons.
00:18:01.460
They refer to them as your student, your student.
00:18:04.100
And that was another thing that came out of this San Francisco report from from Chris Ruffo,
00:18:09.760
which was one of his documents revealed that they urge teachers now to refer to parents
00:18:14.520
as caregiver one and caregiver two, because God forbid you say mom and dad, you've offended
00:18:20.240
Meanwhile, it's like two of my best friends are in a lesbian marriage.
00:18:23.680
They couldn't give a shit whether you use the term mom and dad.
00:18:26.220
There's no normal person who's offended by that.
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There's people getting offended on behalf of a population that's usually not offended
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And they're like, stop dragging us into this crazy shit.
00:18:43.780
OK, so it's not just in the schools, of course.
00:18:48.200
I mean, it really has crossed over to like a place where, again, you can't worry about
00:18:59.680
They dragged this guy from Planned Parenthood in front of Congress the other day.
00:19:07.420
And they get into one of these discussions about who can become pregnant.
00:19:11.160
And I do think this is an important discussion to have.
00:19:17.180
The fact is only biological women can become pregnant.
00:19:26.040
Listen to this guy who shows up in front of Congress on that question from Planned Parenthood.
00:19:30.120
Dr. Kumar, can biological men become pregnant and give birth?
00:19:39.420
So men can have pregnancies, especially trans men.
00:19:43.080
Somebody with a uterus may have the capability of becoming pregnant, whether they're a woman
00:19:49.540
Not every person with a uterus has the ability.
00:19:54.360
But men cannot get pregnant and cannot give birth, regardless of how they identify themselves.
00:20:03.260
The question was, can biological men, biological men?
00:20:07.980
I love men can have pregnancies, especially trans men.
00:20:15.740
So you're positing doctor that biological men can get pregnant?
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This is I don't know how it's got to this level.
00:20:50.660
That mantra, you can repeat it as often as you want.
00:20:56.000
It is it is a biological man cannot get pregnant.
00:20:59.840
That is that should not be something we are arguing about as a society.
00:21:09.560
I just always keep coming back to how is this something that we're fighting about?
00:21:17.060
They they well, I mean, they like to police language as a way of controlling us, the discussions
00:21:23.040
we have and so on, and then there are just who they be like the AOCs of the world, the
00:21:28.280
people who are, quote, woke or in this 10 percent of the left who have this bizarre agenda
00:21:34.760
that they want to shove down our throats and they want everyone to submit.
00:21:37.640
And their way of getting us to is to call us names that historically have been deeply
00:21:48.740
The same folks who tell who tell us and told us that COVID COVID's just a flu, that climate
00:21:58.860
change isn't real, that January 6th was nothing but a tourist visit are the same are now trying
00:22:06.160
to tell us that transgender people are not real.
00:22:09.980
And I would say that their claim is probably just as legitimate as all their others, which
00:22:21.200
So if you say only biological women can get pregnant, you're positing that trans people
00:22:29.280
What we're positing is that biological sex is real and that only women, only biological
00:22:35.360
women can do one miraculous thing, which is give birth to a baby.
00:22:42.480
Yeah, it's that that is not the correct argument.
00:22:47.120
You're not saying that trans people aren't real.
00:22:50.080
If you're saying biological women can have children, only biological women can have babies.
00:23:01.380
Also, it's good to know that AOC and I have a similar like my background is about as good
00:23:07.960
I just want to say I felt a little bit comforted.
00:23:12.100
I noticed in her in her little bit, she's looking off to the side.
00:23:18.780
She's not able to get through a 20 second little bit that she wants to go viral without
00:23:24.120
All right, Bridget, let me stand you by because there's much, much more to get to.
00:23:27.100
And we're going to go someplace weird with Bridget next.
00:23:33.640
I'm really interested in what happened with this Miami Dolphins quarterback, and I want
00:23:40.140
First, though, we want to bring you another of our memorable moments from the first two
00:23:48.500
We are told with you, our audience, because we asked a lot of people to weigh in on what
00:23:53.840
It's from the show after a traumatic event had my son Thatcher in the hospital last March
00:24:03.540
And it remains our most viewed YouTube video ever.
00:24:09.580
If you just search my name with son, it should come up or you can download the full episode
00:24:15.080
It's from March again of this year and episode 287.
00:24:19.960
It wasn't until we walked out of the hospital and I hugged the nurse, Alyssa, that it finally
00:24:34.380
You know, the amount of stress and the love that you have for your children and the fragility
00:24:41.820
of these little bodies who totally depend on you and the enormous responsibility you have
00:24:48.280
for their well-being, you know, for making huge decisions and the importance of family
00:24:59.880
I don't know what people who are single parenting do.
00:25:04.760
It must be so hard, you know, and I'm sure you've had the feeling of loving your friends
00:25:13.440
My two older, Yates and Yardley, were so delightful.
00:25:23.760
So Bridget, I don't know if you're a sports fan.
00:25:29.100
I only discuss sports if they cross over into my realm, which is news.
00:25:35.740
And one of those times was a few years ago when I was at NBC and CTE was in the news.
00:25:42.180
You know, it stands for chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
00:25:46.540
And it's this brain injury that you get if you're a sports player.
00:25:50.200
It could be a baseball player who gets hit in the head too many times, a soccer player
00:25:53.900
who heads the ball too many times, too roughly.
00:25:56.500
And most often a football player who gets hit in the head, you know, as a part of the normal
00:26:04.820
And I had Brett Favre, Kurt Warner of, you know, formerly the St. Louis Rams, Abby Wambach,
00:26:13.140
one of the most famous, successful soccer players in American history, come on to talk
00:26:24.000
But the thing about CTE is it can't be diagnosed until you die.
00:26:35.080
This is, they made the NFL, or the movie about the NFL was made, Concussion.
00:26:39.320
And the NFL has made reforms since it got outed for not paying anywhere near enough attention
00:26:46.000
to the health of its players, just putting them out there like they weren't humans, and
00:26:51.620
over and over and over again, subjecting them to danger.
00:26:53.800
Brett Favre told me personally, made news, tons of news when he said it, that he believed,
00:26:59.180
he thought he only had three to four concussions in his 20-year career.
00:27:02.580
But 17 years into it is when they first started to test for concussions and learn more.
00:27:07.440
And he later found out that what's referred to in the NFL as being dinged, as getting dinged,
00:27:12.160
D-I-N-G-E-D, is like, you know, you get your bell rung, and you get sort of like ringing
00:27:19.240
And he said, once he learned that, he told me he believes he had thousands of concussions
00:27:29.480
I've been thinking about it lately because I have, well, I have three kids, and my oldest
00:27:34.120
He's in seventh grade, and they had to choose one of three sports to play after school.
00:27:43.040
And he'd done flag football, so he's like, I'm going to do tackle football.
00:27:46.900
And I'm not worried about CTE from, you know, a year at seventh grade sports.
00:27:50.560
But it's been on my mind, you know, since I'm a newswoman.
00:27:52.820
So I always think we're going to get eaten by sharks, and we're going to get mesothelioma,
00:27:56.460
and we're, you know, going to get CTE in seventh grade.
00:28:05.900
And this is the reason why participation in tackle football has gone way down at the peewee,
00:28:10.580
in the lower school level, because moms and dads don't want CTE happening to their kids,
00:28:17.100
and they don't trust officials like the NFL to take care of their kids.
00:28:26.220
So there's a guy, forgive me to the sports fans.
00:28:47.500
And this guy's a star quarterback for the Miami Dolphins.
00:28:51.860
So on Sunday, Bridget, he goes out there and he plays a game as the quarterback.
00:29:00.580
So for those of you listening, go watch it on YouTube later.
00:29:08.980
And then four days later, Thursday night, they put him back out there.
00:29:15.840
We're going to play the videos back to back in a second.
00:29:17.680
But four days later, they put him back out there.
00:29:20.440
And it is the most disturbing tape I've seen in a long time.
00:29:25.620
And everybody knows after you have a concussion, you're not supposed to go back out there.
00:29:28.920
The second concussion is the one that can kill you and seriously damage you.
00:29:32.760
So most doctors looking at this were saying, you should not go back out there.
00:29:38.600
And here is what happened when he went back out there last night and got hit.
00:30:11.860
And, of course, the last thing the Dolphins wanted to see.
00:30:19.660
Everybody thought head injury, concussion, passed the protocol, came back second half, led him to a victory.
00:30:29.500
I mean, you're thinking about the back, the ankle, but he gets thrown to the ground.
00:30:33.820
And, again, wrenching that back, which was the issue last week.
00:30:41.820
So his fingers are like, they are bent back in a way I can't even do.
00:30:53.520
I mean, what's happening to him is a brain response.
00:30:56.960
They call it a fencing response, which suggests potentially a serious brain injury.
00:31:09.380
And he was later released almost immediately so he could fly home with his team.
00:31:14.960
The Dolphins coach, Mike McDaniel, is saying, okay, well, when I saw that just last night,
00:31:25.200
And then when he saw me, I could just tell that this was not the same guy I'm used to seeing.
00:31:29.720
And he and others are blaming this person called the unaffiliated neurological consultant
00:31:41.940
And after he got knocked down on Sunday, he tried to get back up and he stumbled.
00:31:45.800
He looked like he'd had, you know, a singularly drunk, a keg of beer.
00:31:52.100
Then they sent him to the unaffiliated neurological consultant who's supposed to give you honest
00:32:01.300
And there was all this hubbub online about why the hell did they return him to the game
00:32:06.240
after anybody with two eyes could see the guy had what was clearly a head injury.
00:32:17.640
No football player I've been listening to online believes that.
00:32:22.740
And then the people were stunned they played him again Thursday night, four days later.
00:32:32.840
She will not be doing physical activity for a week, 10 days, maybe two, four days later
00:32:39.100
to send him into an NFL football game as the quarterback.
00:32:44.400
And now people are the players association is saying this unaffiliated neurological consultant
00:32:53.800
We don't care if he seemed lucid in the second half.
00:33:01.780
They've had a lifetime of conditioning to do it.
00:33:04.060
It's up to the officials, the authorities, the medical personnel to say, I'm sorry, buddy,
00:33:16.420
I'm upset for this guy, for America's kids, for the sport, which is a great American sport.
00:33:25.840
I mean, I'm not a doctor, but and I love football and it's always just heart wrenching to see
00:33:31.920
these injuries and just soul wrenching to watch them.
00:33:36.360
And I, you know, they get paid a lot of money and know that it's their choice to play knowing
00:33:44.480
But there does have to be somebody who is saying, like you said, they'll play no matter what.
00:33:51.540
They love playing and somebody has to be there has to be kind of a grown up in charge who's
00:34:00.800
It's dangerous for you because then it does start feeling very exploitative of these players
00:34:12.160
You know, there's so much danger in that sport.
00:34:14.920
And like you said, more and more people are just opting out of letting their children
00:34:23.500
They did more damage to their sport last night.
00:34:36.460
And there's no way of knowing until much, much later.
00:34:40.940
I mean, you do wonder what the 44 year old Tua is going to be thinking about this.
00:34:44.940
But they did more damage, not just to him, but to the sport.
00:34:53.180
There was a player on ESPN, former player named Rob Ninkovich.
00:35:01.720
He played for the Dolphins and the Patriots for eight years.
00:35:08.340
And I looked at everything and I looked at what Dolphins fans were saying.
00:35:12.040
It doesn't seem to be like a partisan or a game, like a game lovers thing.
00:35:19.280
I haven't seen many people defending Miami on this.
00:35:24.840
In any event, here's what Rob had to say about it.
00:35:27.740
For a player to go down, when you get knocked out, you don't know what happened.
00:35:40.560
It's up to someone else, a medical expert or someone that witnesses that to say, no,
00:35:52.460
So the NFL has to do a better job in knowing what to do if they see someone get injured
00:36:01.600
You don't sit up, shake your head to get the cobwebs out.
00:36:06.020
Start to run and stumble on yourself if you have a back injury.
00:36:13.120
He plays Thursday night, four days later, and gets a massive concussion where he's froze
00:36:23.540
After you watch that, you don't want your kid to play football.
00:36:26.640
And you see all these commercials on safety of the game and future of the game.
00:36:31.240
Technology is shaping the future of the game with helmets.
00:36:35.100
But how do you protect the player on the field so where he doesn't have to fight through
00:36:48.180
We need to have a better protocol in place to make sure that players don't put themselves
00:36:53.060
Because the 44-year-old Tua is going to look back at the 24-year-old Tua and say, why did
00:37:00.700
Now I have people that rely on me to be around.
00:37:03.680
And I've seen too many guys that are going through a lot of stuff.
00:37:08.600
I sat in that junior sale with my locker mate next to me.
00:37:11.580
And I had to see things that you don't want to see that happen to people.
00:37:30.320
But it's your families that are going to be by your side down the road.
00:37:34.400
You know, the head coach can go up and tap you on the shoulder, give you, you know, hold
00:37:38.660
He's not going to be there 20 or 30 years down the road when you're dealing with a problem.
00:37:55.400
So I really, I defer to the players and all the people who are outraged about this on this
00:38:01.580
I think, like you said, it doesn't seem like there are many people pushing back.
00:38:16.560
You know, my husband and I were just talking about this because of this injury.
00:38:20.740
We watch football and I'm, that's a good question.
00:38:25.380
If he loved it, would I stop him when he was young?
00:38:27.980
I don't know, but it is so dangerous and I'm such a nervous Nelly as it is.
00:38:34.500
I don't know that I'd be able to even watch a single game.
00:38:37.700
It's got to be so stressful for all of the wives and kids of these players to just even
00:38:50.220
I'm not, I know a lot of, um, I have a good friend.
00:38:53.940
All of his sons are pretty high level football players.
00:38:57.240
He coached it and kind of had to deal with a lot of just the anti football.
00:39:03.640
Um, the, there's a lot of just the losing ground.
00:39:08.460
This game is, is taking, but they love the game and they want to work hard at it.
00:39:13.940
So if I had a son who loved it, I, I don't know.
00:39:18.600
That's the other thing, as I point out, unless you're going to put them into like, I don't
00:39:22.000
know, swimming, you know, the, the head can get hit.
00:39:26.200
You know, like I say, Abby Wambach was one of the women I interviewed on NBC about CTE.
00:39:34.340
What she said, this is the Washington post writing it up.
00:39:37.680
She said as a cavalier attitude toward concussions earlier, early in her career reflected a real
00:39:43.540
naive kid who didn't really want to face the truth about what her current situation was.
00:39:48.440
Uh, Kurt Warner for his part said there were numerous times he played through brain injuries
00:39:53.120
because the prevailing stance among football players at the time was I'll do whatever I
00:39:59.240
And I remember Kurt Warner telling me if you didn't, you were considered a sissy.
00:40:05.540
And that's still the mentality of the players, no matter what the new concussion protocol is.
00:40:11.260
And he was not put in the concussion protocol, which they've instituted now under pressure
00:40:15.040
after they were exposed for repeatedly endangering the players.
00:40:18.020
He was not because again, this neurological consultant, I guess said, this is a back slash
00:40:24.560
And, um, but like, that's why they have the protocols in place because of course the player
00:40:33.760
It's a tough guy scenario for a lot of these men.
00:40:36.700
So there needs to be a layer of security behind them that said, and by the way, as that, as
00:40:40.300
that other player was pointing out, um, you don't know what's happened to you.
00:40:45.200
So you need, you know, like you don't, you have no idea whether you're okay.
00:40:47.880
You need other unhurt professionals to say you're sitting out.
00:40:55.780
And I think there's the pressure to just be in the game while you can.
00:40:59.520
And because there's always that fear of being injured, you want to make the money while
00:41:04.740
And you see these career ending injuries and you think, you know, what these people have
00:41:08.740
devoted their lives to this, these moments and to then have their, they're afraid of losing
00:41:15.280
Obviously in that moment, that can probably seem bigger than thinking, you know, the long-term
00:41:20.380
repercussions of these repeated brain injuries.
00:41:23.560
That second hit, the one that happened on last night, Thursday night, where his fingers
00:41:30.360
bend back in a way that is not human without anybody touching them.
00:41:36.600
He's holding his hands in front of his face after having been knocked to the ground and
00:41:41.200
his fingers are bending in the most disturbing angle.
00:41:44.700
It's clearly a brain injury and I'm with the majority online.
00:41:50.740
Sunday's injury appeared very much to be a brain injury as well.
00:41:55.140
I can't, I can't pass this moment without talking about, forgive me, but somebody else who clearly
00:42:00.900
is suffering from the effects of maybe not a brain injury, but the deterioration of one's
00:42:08.340
And that is the sitting president of the United States.
00:42:10.980
I've got to talk to you about this because yesterday, President Biden was at the FEMA
00:42:15.560
They're dealing with what's happening in Florida, now South Carolina.
00:42:18.760
He was seen walking, walking, wandering away from the podium, the wrong direction.
00:42:28.160
This comes after Wednesday when Dr. Jill had to help her husband at a White House event
00:42:32.440
when he once again began wandering off in the wrong direction.
00:42:38.880
Last week, President Biden was at a global fund event.
00:42:43.080
He left the podium, began wandering around while he was still being spoken to by another
00:42:58.240
He left a North Carolina Agricultural Academy event.
00:43:01.160
He started to attempt to shake hands with no one, no one while wandering aimlessly around
00:43:07.800
And then we pulled this one from August of last year when he appeared to get lost while
00:43:11.100
on his way back to his house, meaning the White House.
00:43:22.000
And honestly, Bridget, I don't know what to do.
00:43:27.300
Jackie passed in August and every person in there who still has their, you know, brain
00:43:36.060
She was just top of mind, top of mind, top of mind.
00:43:38.500
If she was top of mind, he would have known that she had passed in August and that he shouldn't
00:43:44.260
So how, how disturbed do you think we should be?
00:43:46.580
I mean, the gaslighting that occurs in the aftermath of these events, like that one you
00:43:53.080
just described where the, the press secretary has asked about it and it's just, oh, top of
00:44:00.060
This is another instance where people are being told not to believe what they see with their
00:44:06.140
And it's, we used to make a lot of fun of, of, you know, the deterioration, his gaffes
00:44:19.280
You know, you can't, I, I don't, how, how are people okay with this on a, on a human level,
00:44:25.560
not take away what party you belong to, take away your ideology, whatever team you are.
00:44:31.980
How are you okay with somebody who clearly should just kind of be enjoying his grandkids
00:44:38.440
and, uh, and also running a country in a condition that is clearly not, um, you know, he's not
00:44:47.480
functioning at a hundred percent or firing on all cylinders and we're all just supposed
00:44:56.040
It's like the, the Democrats need to do what's right and save him from himself.
00:45:05.700
He should not for his, for his wellbeing and the wellbeing of the country.
00:45:10.440
Yeah, no, I mean, aside from the fact that he's running the country, let's take it down
00:45:16.580
This person should not be in this position at all.
00:45:19.920
He should be, somebody should be taking care of him.
00:45:22.740
It is, it is that similar vibe of if somebody needs to say, you need to sit this game out,
00:45:35.000
The, the well professionals on the side need to step in and say, you cannot do it.
00:45:43.220
Well, if you heard him yesterday, I mean, you know, you heard that, that soundbite of
00:45:49.620
I don't know if we have that one here, but he's like, like, he can't even get the words
00:45:54.760
It was like, on top of the fact that he was calling for a woman who has been dead now
00:45:59.180
for a few months, he was like, well, she's August, August 6th, like Ben Shapiro makes
00:46:13.460
You understand this as a comedian, it's become the reality.
00:46:20.400
It does seem like the, there's been a big deterioration, even just in the past couple
00:46:26.120
of months, uh, it feels, and I'm not sure how they, they, they really think that he's
00:46:35.120
That's well, maybe they feel as, as most people do, which is if he goes while he's still in
00:46:41.000
his first term, like goes voluntarily steps down, you know, we sort of declare him incompetent,
00:46:57.620
It's like, it's like a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode.
00:47:08.040
Listen, he can't even string the words together.
00:47:11.440
And I want to thank all of you here for including bipartisan elected officials like
00:47:15.740
Representative Gover, Senator Braun, Senator Booker, Representative Jackie, are you here?
00:47:29.300
I mean, that really could be, that could be the bumper sticker of whoever takes him on.
00:47:34.940
Oh, and her, her family handled it so well saying we feel sorry for him.
00:47:42.060
We're going to dive deep into Bridget's latest feelings on motherhood, on a past that she
00:47:48.060
would describe as perhaps more promiscuous than she would like.
00:47:52.000
She came really clean about it and in a very powerful essay, so powerful that, speaking of
00:47:56.120
Ben Shapiro, he read the whole thing live on his show.
00:47:58.020
We've got the real Bridget here to talk about it in moments.
00:48:01.300
Remember, you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel, 111, every
00:48:07.680
The full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megyn
00:48:13.220
If you prefer to get your news via audio podcast, follow and download us.
00:48:20.460
Somebody said, MK, you've got to tell people to download because that's what helps you on
00:48:24.820
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00:48:27.640
And that's where you'll find our full archives with now more than 400 shows.
00:48:37.120
Your piece on Substack just about a month ago, entitled, I Regret Being a Slut, is, as Ben
00:48:50.640
And something near and dear to my own heart, because I've said this before on the show, I
00:48:55.700
was in a much different place than you were, and our backgrounds are different, of course,
00:48:58.560
too, but we're very aligned on virtually everything now.
00:49:02.240
But the one piece of advice I give everyone's daughter going off to college is the same, and
00:49:13.960
Like, having sex, you don't have to be in love, but it should be something really precious,
00:49:18.080
and you don't just want any Tom, Dick, or Harry jumping on top of you, so to speak.
00:49:23.900
You are there, too, but you got there through a much more traumatic road.
00:49:28.940
And I will just read this one piece of your amazing Substack piece to our audience.
00:49:35.220
If I get really honest with myself, I'd say most of these usually drunken encounters left
00:49:40.420
me feeling empty and demoralized and worthless.
00:49:45.800
At the time, I would have told you I was liberated, even while I tried to drink away the sick feeling
00:49:51.020
of rejection when my most recent hookup did not call me back.
00:49:54.360
At the time, I would have said one-night stands made me feel emboldened.
00:50:01.620
You go on, the lie I told myself for decades was,
00:50:14.040
Like, how did you spend so much time in that dark place?
00:50:25.980
And I think, yeah, a lot of when I think about this, I know a lot of it is tied up with my
00:50:36.040
A lot of that behavior, I don't think I would have engaged in had I not been drunk or high.
00:50:47.400
Also, post-sexual assault, when I was pretty young, 18, I really felt dirty and ashamed.
00:50:58.480
And I felt like it was my fault because I was drinking underage.
00:51:07.680
And it wasn't like I hadn't already lost my virginity.
00:51:10.820
But I had really only just lost my virginity when this happened.
00:51:21.920
And then I responded to it by being kind of hyper-promiscuous, which is very common for
00:51:39.700
And it was also just a way of, and at the same time, feeling like I had no value and ashamed
00:51:52.340
And so it's been a really, I mean, the emails I've received from women and men and gay men
00:51:58.500
since I wrote that piece, I'm still getting them.
00:52:03.260
The stories people are telling me, the response, the, I think that there was a generation,
00:52:10.060
Gen X, older millennials, and we were raised with that kind of girl power.
00:52:15.400
You can sleep your way to empowerment and you can unyoke your heart from sex with no consequence.
00:52:22.740
And a lot of those women are coming back saying, you know, it's a trap.
00:52:31.020
I always felt like if I have sex with a guy, he's always going to have that over me.
00:52:38.000
That's kind of how, I don't know if that sounds weird, but I just felt like it has to be with
00:52:43.500
somebody who I trust to never misuse it against me.
00:52:47.760
And, you know, who's not going to like, whatever, if I wind up being a lawyer, I wind up being
00:52:53.540
a journalist who's not going to be able to sit there being like, I did her.
00:52:56.620
You know, I never wanted to give that power to anybody who I didn't really trust.
00:53:07.040
Where, where did you get your sex messaging from?
00:53:10.280
You know, I'm Catholic like you for sure, but I don't know.
00:53:17.820
I just was monogamous and I was judicious and how many people I, you know, offered that
00:53:28.880
I thank God I never did suffer a sexual assault.
00:53:33.700
And I did have, you know, great messaging from my parents and an example of a very loving
00:53:42.180
But prior to that, my parents were very much in love.
00:53:46.980
I mean, I, I was built up in terms of my ego and all, you know what I mean?
00:53:50.280
Like, not overly, but I think that is important.
00:53:53.880
And I know you talk very openly in this piece about how you had a very different experience.
00:53:57.280
You had a traumatic divorce in your family when you were young and an undiagnosed mental
00:54:02.420
And things started to go south for you when you were on the same track I was on for a
00:54:09.320
And I kind of get to the point at the end that you just said, where I, I regret that
00:54:16.920
And that there's, that's, I mean, I've dealt with that even after I went on Joe Rogan, the
00:54:22.920
number of guys that reached out and were like, oh, nice to be able to say I like bang someone.
00:54:34.560
And moments like that have made me reflect on, you know, having to look at that, that
00:54:40.320
feeling that comes up when I hear from a guy who's like, oh, I got to say that I slept with
00:54:55.120
But you know, in your case, I see it very differently because I feel like that was a younger
00:54:59.220
me anticipating how, you know, I wanted my life to go and how I didn't want it to go.
00:55:04.160
But the older me looks at your life and says, there's zero point in regretting all of that.
00:55:11.020
All of that went into making you this really thoughtful, wise beyond your years person who
00:55:21.180
I mean, all the times I've said, don't be a slut.
00:55:23.540
I haven't done anywhere near as good for women thinking about it or who might've been tempted
00:55:31.300
But it's because I think partially and because I'm being honest about how I regret it.
00:55:37.740
And there's been a weird reaction to that word regret.
00:55:40.820
And I don't know if this is like an American thing.
00:55:43.360
We're just kind of like YOLO and regret is almost a dirty word.
00:55:48.720
And people are like, you shouldn't, you know, one of the biggest feedback I get on this piece
00:55:53.320
is the people reacting to me saying that I regret this.
00:55:57.060
And I think that, you know, I look at the arts and life is filled with regret.
00:56:02.240
I feel like that's an emotion that weirdly has become something we're not supposed to have.
00:56:08.100
And that's like a whole other piece that I could think about and consider because I do regret these things.
00:56:14.380
When I had those guys reach out to me and say, oh, I got to blah, blah, blah, the feeling that I have is regret.
00:56:29.440
And of course, I did the best that I could with wherever I was at and all of that stuff.
00:56:34.300
But there was always an intuition that I was ignoring.
00:56:37.920
There was always and that's really what I would say to young women.
00:56:40.640
And don't ignore that intuition and and having the culture be so I grew up during sex in the city.
00:56:49.260
But all my friends watched it and everybody that the messaging that there was like, have sex like a man.
00:56:57.800
And the double standard is something that really always bothered me.
00:57:02.740
And I'm not sure if I'm just now resigned to the double standard or I don't.
00:57:09.100
I know that me getting naked and sleeping with men isn't going to change it.
00:57:16.200
Now we're getting to it because it's it's so what what do you regret about it?
00:57:21.120
Like if it had worked for you, if you'd been working something out and you went to have sex with, you know, one night sand or some guy you didn't know.
00:57:28.520
And the next day you were like, I feel amazing.
00:57:33.620
But so for those who think that that is the feeling you're going to get, well, you're sounding a different alarm.
00:57:43.000
But I'm also, you know, the the book I want to write or somehow the essay I want to write, because there's a piece out there that anyone can access, which is what I learned from putting nudes online on Playboy.
00:57:55.740
And there's some stuff I read that piece before I posted, I regret being a slut.
00:58:01.300
And I there's still some stuff in there that I don't disagree with in my in my what I learned from getting naked online.
00:58:10.320
And there have been moments where I felt like, yeah, you know, empowered by my own sexuality, but it was for the right reasons.
00:58:21.400
It was not because I was I was weaponizing sex because there's a there's a whole, you know, there there's a whole man eater kind of side to my persona that I leaned into pretty hard for a long time.
00:58:38.120
And to I'd be lying if I said that at the time, I didn't think there there was some fun in that.
00:58:45.520
And it's just that over time, I realized that a lot of that persona, it was like my party girl image, that it was just a lie.
00:58:54.860
And at the end of the day, I was feeling pretty empty.
00:59:01.880
And then it's kind of a there's a lot of at the time I went, I didn't regret it.
00:59:11.880
And you write in your piece, there's a great line.
00:59:14.000
The culture was right there to pick me up and dust me off every time you dealt with what you call the overwhelming shame.
00:59:21.620
And so I doubled down on being a proud slut, a proud slut, part of the divine feminine.
00:59:33.180
You write that the saddest realization is how low I set the bar.
00:59:37.400
A lifetime of allowing myself to be the other woman taken for granted or treated like a doormat under the false pretense of being, quote, empowered, came to a head one night with the arrival of a text message from an on again, off again lover.
00:59:53.420
It said quickly followed by, quote, wrong person.
00:59:56.960
Rock bottom doesn't always look like losing everything or ending up in jail.
01:00:01.680
Sometimes it can be that sick feeling in your gut when you know emotionally you're done.
01:00:12.480
It's like I remember when I quit heroin vividly in my mind, that moment that the rock bottom, whatever you want to call it.
01:00:31.740
I had to walk out and like give him something after he came to my place after this text message.
01:00:41.380
And so it's actually way worse than than I actually even express in in the piece.
01:00:47.800
And I remember walking back into my house feeling so, you know, they say in the 12 step books, pitiful demoralization.
01:01:05.740
I can't pretend that I'm OK being the other woman or that I'm OK just being someone's sex doll, basically.
01:01:15.600
And it took a lot of therapy and a long time because there's so much shame.
01:01:25.060
And I think in women in particular really shows up in our bodies.
01:01:28.380
And so there's just so much shame that I had to unpack and try and overcome.
01:01:35.900
You see, I read the piece for YouTube and I hadn't read it since I had written it.
01:01:40.420
And I I was getting, you know, fighting back tears the whole time.
01:01:48.980
And and that was there before and you were trying to heal it.
01:01:51.520
I mean, in a large to a large extent, it was all about trying to heal pain.
01:01:55.280
And only once you realized, which many people don't, that that was not a cure, that in fact, that was an exacerbator.
01:02:02.320
Or did you ultimately come to abandon it and try something else like love and taking care of yourself?
01:02:10.840
You know, I've I've heard from a lot of one of the emails that I read and in the piece when I read it, I talked about some of the responses I had received.
01:02:18.840
And one of the emails was from a man who said he had watched his mom deal with a lot of what I dealt with, with drugs and alcohol and rotating cast of men.
01:02:29.360
And and she died of an OD and I always get emotional.
01:02:38.640
I have a rule, though, like don't ugly cry on the Internet.
01:02:44.280
That's why I can cry on your last podcast, because there's no there's no video screen.
01:02:59.520
Otherwise, it's going to come out in an ugly way.
01:03:02.860
But this I think that there's that expression there.
01:03:06.840
But for the grace of God, go I and reading these stories from people about what I would say is kind of this body count to the sexual revolution.
01:03:25.540
I was given the opportunity to get sober because in between getting sober for the first time and getting sober this time, I'll have nine years actually in a couple of weeks.
01:03:38.520
There was plenty of time for me to OD or die or worse.
01:03:44.420
And there were little moments where I think I was able to pull myself back off the cliff.
01:03:49.820
But I'm not really sure why I had that clarity at those moments.
01:03:56.840
Yes, our audience should know that while you had straight A's and were destined to go to Georgetown or some other equally revered school, you we've talked about this the last time.
01:04:11.000
But you started smoking weed, drinking daily at age 12 to 13, eventually led to heroin, and you barely graduated from high school.
01:04:19.880
And you wound up getting drugged and raped, which we talked about as well the last time.
01:04:24.720
And then at 19, after high school, entered a state-funded halfway house in Minneapolis for seven months, by that point weighing just 89 pounds.
01:04:33.620
Well, you should have been at Georgetown and you were in a halfway house.
01:04:37.220
And so it really could have gone a different way for you.
01:04:40.480
I mean, the fact that you're sitting here telling your story and explaining the revelations you've had is in itself a miracle, but it's also a huge gift.
01:04:50.400
It's a gift to people who are following on that path without thinking, who are dabbling, dabbling on that path.
01:04:56.860
You know, you may have sort of path-adjacent people who are like, oh, that's not me, but there's a piece of it that sounds familiar.
01:05:01.180
And one of the things I wanted to ask you about is somebody who is clearly much closer to, you know, women who are more out there, I guess, than I have been, is the following line.
01:05:14.800
I know many women with a solid sense of self who happily have loveless sex.
01:05:19.080
Okay, now this, I've been having this debate with various people in my life after our friends told us a story about their 20-something-year-old son who was ordering Tinder dates to the house like a pizza.
01:05:37.580
And the parents were like, okay, that needs to stop.
01:05:41.960
You know, like you're going to move out and you're going to do what you're going to do in your home, but you're not going to be doing that in our home.
01:05:45.700
But they were describing, I was like, beautiful woman after beautiful woman, night after night was showing up at the house.
01:05:51.860
Meanwhile, half the audience is like, what was that website?
01:05:57.920
And my, I mean, I'm a sexist pig, I guess, because my first reaction was no woman's actually enjoying that.
01:06:04.540
Like that's a woman fishing for a husband, a boyfriend, you know, as a rich kid or a good-looking kid or an athlete or like you see something in that guy's Tinder profile that says, okay, I want to land him.
01:06:15.840
I could not get it in my head that a well-adjusted, healthy young woman would swipe left on Tinder and show up and just randomly have sex with the guy and leave totally happy.
01:06:27.960
And I've had many people be like, you're old, you know, you don't understand.
01:06:32.880
I believe what I believe about women and our own sort of inherent nature.
01:06:36.760
But I'm very interested in what you have to say on it.
01:06:39.760
I know a lot of women who are very well-adjusted and they are happy to have sex and just walk away.
01:06:49.400
And I have to take what they tell me at face value.
01:06:54.800
I can't project my own feelings about the lies I've told myself onto other people.
01:07:05.980
And I, I mean, I know well-adjusted porn stars and they seem great and have businesses and seem happy and are in relationships.
01:07:17.800
So you're talking about just the like average, you know, run-of-the-mill Tinder, Tinder gal.
01:07:27.140
I, I just don't believe that it's in a woman's nature to want totally loveless sex with a stranger one night and maybe a different stranger the next night.
01:07:40.680
I'm just saying, I think we're built differently to where the way we really enjoy it is if there's an emotional connection with the person.
01:07:46.520
And I, I just don't see us becoming men in that way.
01:07:53.240
I have no problem believing their program, their biologically program and want to spread their seed to as many places as possible.
01:07:58.700
It's like those of us on the other side are like, no, don't do that.
01:08:03.480
But we've been raised a different way for thousands of years.
01:08:07.040
And I just don't think you can get over it that easily.
01:08:08.760
And I do have a judgment and it could be totally wrong that those women are working something out and it's going to come back to haunt them.
01:08:18.440
So that's when you work stuff out and that's, but I, I still, I don't know if, yeah, if they'll come to the same conclusion inevitably that I came to, maybe, maybe they don't need to come to that conclusion.
01:08:33.800
Maybe like you said, they're, they're, I think so, so many times we just don't know what we want because we are so capable of lying to ourselves.
01:08:44.640
And that is, I guess, maybe what always makes me a weird, I feel insecure in this space that I'm in being a media personality or a pundit because I, I'm so hyper aware of my ability to lie to myself being in recovery.
01:09:02.700
And as we just talked about my, around my sexuality, I don't necessarily trust myself.
01:09:09.580
And I look at people like you and people who had well-adjusted parents usually, and they have this inner core of kind of self that I just don't have.
01:09:22.780
And I don't think, I think a lot of people don't have it, but they don't even know that they don't have it sometimes for decades, sometimes ever.
01:09:31.780
You know what though, what's so great about you when I was reading your writing, as I read a ton of Bridget Phetasy pieces in advance of today, and I was like, God, she's good.
01:09:41.240
I mean, I have writing, I have little notes on the sides of this packet, like she's amazing.
01:09:52.420
And I do think your life experience and having had a lot of this trauma, while not fun at all to go through along the way, has produced this beautiful, creative person.
01:10:02.280
You know, I'm much more linear, lawyer, fact-driven, you know, I have my own set of skills, but it takes all kinds, you know, to, to make beauty in this world.
01:10:16.060
I feel, I was just talking to some editors and editors are always trying to get me out of memoir.
01:10:22.500
I don't know why they just want, and I understand that because from their perspective, they want me to maybe do something more journalistic or maybe do something.
01:10:32.760
And I've done these pieces, by the way, but the pieces that always resonate with people are the navel gazy ones.
01:10:39.640
And, and I've always been insecure about this as a writer.
01:10:42.980
I would love to be a great, you know, journalistic writer who can write some piece that flows and has great prose and also has facts and is interesting.
01:10:53.120
And I try to write all kinds of different things.
01:10:56.200
I've tried to write scripts, but the pieces that just resonate and go out into the world, it's always when I'm self-reflecting.
01:11:03.960
And, and yeah, that, that's something that I, I, and I do love writing these pieces.
01:11:13.240
You know, this one took many years for me to be able to write.
01:11:17.120
And I think part of it was just, I didn't have the right framing.
01:11:21.340
I didn't have the courage to stand behind that piece.
01:11:24.360
And as we talked about in the last time we talked, having a loving husband and being in a nice relationship, those things are healing.
01:11:33.040
And that gives me the courage to have, to go out into the world.
01:11:42.480
And also it can give you the courage to examine your old self in a way that was too scary prior to having that, you know, having that support and feeling loved and feeling whole.
01:11:50.920
Like, it's not as scary to look back on your old behavior and be like, what was I doing?
01:11:55.480
I mean, I've definitely had that, maybe not in the sex field, but just in terms of my own choices in life and things I've done that I'm like, why, why would I, I wouldn't have done that today.
01:12:05.340
I want to ask you about, well, a couple of things.
01:12:09.540
So we talked a little bit jokingly about the boobs, but how do you think that factors in, right?
01:12:15.800
So if you're saying, if it's like, don't be promiscuous, don't have loveless, well, or just meaningless sex with just any old guy.
01:12:23.940
But like, then there's something else, which is celebrating the human body, being titillating, owning your sexuality.
01:12:31.440
Like, I love all that stuff in the, in that second lane, that second category.
01:12:36.360
But then for me too, that one can cross over to the place where I'm like, I never want to see another picture of Kim Kardashian again.
01:12:45.560
I am so sick of seeing her boobs and her ass every time I open the New York Post, the Daily Mail, whatever.
01:12:58.200
And I'm sick of these Hollywood actresses showing all their body, like the stupid award show.
01:13:03.300
You're at a, wear, wear some sparkles, cover your navel for the love of God, act like a woman.
01:13:09.720
You know, I just feel like it's, it can cross over to the point where even though I love boobs too, and I have no judgment about where I feel like you're in that middle lane, you know, you're in that middle place.
01:13:20.000
But it goes to the place where it just becomes like, so in your face, it bothers me.
01:13:24.400
And it's so, I think this is a really interesting, you know, we could talk for hours about this because, and I've been, I vacillate between, I've been having this conversation with this writer, Thomas De Zangotita.
01:13:37.360
He wrote this book, Mediated, and I'm talking to him chapter by chapter on Watkins' Welcome because the book has been my Bible for a mediated world.
01:13:45.400
But he always tells me that I have to caution myself about the curmudgeon effect, as he calls it, where it's like, get off my lawn, you know, like the kids these days.
01:13:56.080
And I do have to, is that just us being, I remember talking to some young women and it was during the whole Me Too era.
01:14:03.680
And they were, they, they were like, just because you old bags let guys grab your butt while you were waiting tables doesn't mean we have to do that.
01:14:12.220
And that was a kind of revelatory moment for me where I realized that I was just older and of a different generation.
01:14:19.400
And they weren't going to put up with some of this stuff.
01:14:26.400
Is this a culture that is hyper-sexualized and it's everywhere?
01:14:32.180
And now, you know, we led off the show talking about how this creepy gender stuff and, and sex talk with kids is, it's so hyper-sexualized that that seems somewhat normal and it's not, it shouldn't be normal.
01:14:46.760
And I also think that we're weird in America, you know, in Europe, they're not weird about boobs.
01:14:53.940
I don't know if they're just like, we've seen some titties in our time.
01:14:58.520
Or, you know, why they're just, they don't have that weird, the weird puritanical kind of, that we have in America.
01:15:11.240
So I think there's a lot to this and, and it has become a commodity.
01:15:15.660
You see so many women on OnlyFans and there was a teacher recently, I guess, who got fired because she was on OnlyFans.
01:15:28.860
And I recently did this, I, I was on an interview when I was pregnant and the, the guy was pushing me.
01:15:39.340
It was Elijah Schaefer at the, who was at the blaze.
01:15:42.940
And he was pushing me about getting naked and being pregnant and how I was going to talk to my daughter about that.
01:15:50.400
And, you know, I think it's a good opportunity for me to have conversations with her when she's old enough about if the school hasn't already had them for me.
01:16:00.660
Um, to talk about things like sending guys nudes and, you know, all these hard conversations, not that I have any idea how I'm going to talk to her about this, but I'm out there.
01:16:10.980
She's going to be able to know this and it's uncomfortable.
01:16:13.440
And then I half jokingly said, and I hope to raise her that she doesn't feel the need to do that, which was revealing to me in that moment.
01:16:23.080
You know, there's, there's something to be said for that too.
01:16:25.860
So I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm in a bit of a sticky situation.
01:16:40.560
Um, Trump sent it around to the world after we had our exchange on women, but, um, I, it was my 40th birthday and I was pregnant for this photo.
01:16:48.520
And they were like, do you want to sauce it up?
01:16:59.060
I thought it was really, I thought it was saucy, but it was classy and it wasn't too, but I've had many journalists be like, that was a mistake.
01:17:12.780
And it, for me, it's like a keepsake, you know, it was like, I was still young enough that I still felt like I still got it, even though I'm having all these babies and all this, I'm still a serious news person.
01:17:22.700
And I don't want to be like, but everybody else sucks.
01:17:27.460
But as you were talking, something occurred to me.
01:17:32.880
I object to like JLo and Shakira showing their vag at the Superbowl.
01:17:37.820
It's gotta be a situation appropriate, but I don't really object to just like women embracing their bodies or showing off their bodies.
01:17:43.700
Like the pictures you see Paulina Portskova just had a really interesting post.
01:17:50.780
Um, what I object to back on the Kardashians is the unrivaled vanity, like the self promotional out of control focus on one's self ego clicks.
01:18:06.920
They're hugely responsible for that in our society.
01:18:10.320
They didn't do it by themselves, but more than any other, they've had a terrible effect in that lane.
01:18:17.500
I asked them, I interviewed them and I said, are you a force for good or are you a force for evil?
01:18:23.580
But the more I've watched them over the years, the more I think net net it's evil.
01:18:30.400
It's like they're disgusting vanity, which has spread like wildfire in our society.
01:18:38.500
I think that's what I'm responding to as opposed to some titillation from a beautiful woman here and there.
01:18:46.920
I mean, I've been on record screaming on dumpster fire.
01:18:54.200
I'm always like, this is all the Kardashians fault.
01:19:01.380
But there's something I've, I have written pieces in defense of her when everybody came after her for getting naked or something at one point.
01:19:09.320
And what I react to is that, like you said, you did this kind of tasteful nude and.
01:19:29.440
But people in your field, I was imagining like you as like the Demi Moore, you know, and she was naked on the cover.
01:19:35.140
No, by the time I was as pregnant as she was in that photo, I look like a house.
01:19:38.820
I was, that was not, nobody needed to see that.
01:19:41.560
Um, yeah, I think that people in your field said that was a mistake.
01:19:48.640
Because somehow it makes you a less serious journalist.
01:19:53.000
And that's something that I react to, that a woman can't be sexy and be taken seriously.
01:19:59.200
And I'm not sure, you know, Kim, Kim Kardashian is getting a law degree.
01:20:03.960
I mean, maybe she's shattering glass seerlings on that.
01:20:07.680
She's getting a fake law degree after failing the bar three times.
01:20:14.600
Kim Kardashian is never going to be a great legal mind.
01:20:17.100
It's fine to try to improve oneself, but it doesn't counteract all the damage she's doing on a daily basis.
01:20:31.500
So like that, like just like the name of that family now brings up this like in me.
01:20:37.560
I'm like, no, I need magazines and newspapers to stop obsessing over them.
01:20:43.280
You want to follow them on Insta like the other hundreds of millions of Americans who do go for it.
01:20:47.780
But I need them to stop holding up these women as an example to our young girls.
01:20:52.540
Because you open the paper just trying to find the news.
01:20:55.660
And there they are again with another absurd self-promotion.
01:20:59.220
I mean, my instinct is like, don't hate the player, hate the game.
01:21:03.660
You know, that's a bit of my, they're playing a game and they're succeeding at it.
01:21:12.400
Everybody's trying to get clicks in whatever way they can.
01:21:16.060
All of us are looking for more followers, more downloads.
01:21:24.100
I would say what bothers me the most is the lie that is their bodies usually.
01:21:30.320
And Nikki Glaser actually did a hilarious kind of call out on her Instagram.
01:21:35.380
She's a comedian about Kim had posted a picture.
01:21:45.100
And you, if you think that you can look like this, just doing squats and eating well, you
01:21:51.780
And that's what's so bothersome is that these girls, young girls and women are chasing after
01:21:58.740
And really what they have is a crap load of money and work.
01:22:06.840
Maybe I'm trying to ask myself, is that what I'm responding to?
01:22:18.080
I'm going to think about it over the commercial break.
01:22:19.820
Let me squeeze that in and then we'll come back.
01:22:25.980
But first, another one of our memorable moments.
01:22:28.600
This one is from April of this year in episode 301.
01:22:33.200
You see, I decided, as you may remember, to give up swearing for Lent and it didn't go
01:22:43.720
You want to talk about that piece of, and I can't say the word because I'm not swearing
01:22:59.700
Those who know anything about me know that I can take an enormous shitstorm in my life
01:23:08.700
He must have been sitting there learning all the lessons going, oh shit.
01:23:18.540
I asked somebody if you can sub in a new something to give up in the middle of Lent and the answer
01:23:23.520
So I've just got to see it through to the end, ladies.
01:23:27.800
I'm in Lent and I'm trying not to swear, but I'm really doing poorly in it.
01:23:30.920
He'll hit some agreement with the Academy that has real teeth in it with money for some
01:23:35.920
We can not, not some bullshit woke cause that half of us hate.
01:23:40.100
I've got to find something else to give up for Lent.
01:23:42.720
The greatest part of that clip is where Arthur Idalla at the end is like, you give up swearing
01:23:54.880
That's one of the many things I'll, I'll raise with the priest when I finally find one
01:23:58.840
who will absolve me of all my sins and not just the swearing.
01:24:01.500
If you listen to my episode with Father Mike, you know what I'm referencing.
01:24:04.100
Remember the first time that it had been revealed that Justin Trudeau, for people who don't
01:24:10.620
know he's a Canadian prime minister, many people may not because Canada is a silly and
01:24:14.260
consequential place, but he had done blackface and he was being interviewed by reporters.
01:24:19.180
So he's doing this press conference and he says, I did do this.
01:24:23.000
I did go in, in, in dress up one time and it was a very poor judgment, a mistake.
01:24:30.660
And as he's walking out, someone says, excuse me, Prime Minister Trudeau.
01:24:34.760
Was that, uh, were there any other moments where you did blackface?
01:24:37.780
And he turns back, he goes, uh, there was one time where I did wear makeup and I sang
01:24:47.440
Like he knew that was in his past and he was just trying to, and he has this, so he was
01:24:59.040
And he had to answer the question because he knew they were going to find it.
01:25:02.500
People here, they thought I was going to need a ventilator.
01:25:10.320
I love seeing pompous, uh, authoritarians taken off their pedestal.
01:25:15.060
So my God, if you don't love Steven Crowder, it's undoubtedly because you haven't exposed
01:25:20.340
yourself to enough of his material because he is hysterical.
01:25:36.820
I want to tell you that we're going to take your calls in a minute.
01:25:39.060
Call in, love to hear your thoughts about two is horrible head injury in the NFL or
01:25:43.160
any of our two year anniversary week interviews with Ben Shapiro, father, Mike Schmitz, Mike
01:26:02.220
So Bridget, you tweeted on 926 recently had a baby.
01:26:05.400
So I guess I'm a fascist now you did a, you did a satirical piece.
01:26:16.500
You say, uh, my husband and I talked about adopting, but after watching that fascist Amy
01:26:21.120
Coney Barrett parade, her black children in front of America at her Supreme court confirmation
01:26:24.900
hearing to prove she's not just a racist bootlicker for the patriarchy.
01:26:36.740
It's so much more than I could have expected and everything that everyone tells you.
01:26:41.160
And yeah, my heart just burst open when she was born.
01:26:49.420
I feel so grateful and blessed to be able to be her mom.
01:27:02.180
It is a shit show and I'm trying to balance being a mom and working and that is proving
01:27:09.360
to be challenging as, as you know, and I don't have very much help at the moment either.
01:27:24.100
Um, we had that, I don't know if you had any of your children or colleagues, but the people
01:27:34.480
I remember looking even just at my first, who was, I mean, in retrospect, the easiest
01:27:38.900
But it's still your first, so you don't know what you're doing.
01:27:42.600
It was middle of the night and like, you don't know who to call.
01:27:46.980
And I just remember looking at him going, I'm sorry.
01:27:56.620
You know, when you're a little older, it's really going to work out well.
01:28:06.260
You know, the thing that, uh, another like hard truth that I had to come to terms with
01:28:12.420
was just how insanely self-absorbed I was when I was single, when, when my siblings, sister
01:28:20.880
in-laws, friends, when they were all talking about their pregnancies, I'm like, why didn't
01:28:36.080
And, and I didn't know what was required when, you know, you have a baby and just, it's something
01:28:45.380
And then in postpartum, because it was a, we had a tough, um, it was, she was amazing
01:28:54.260
But there was just a string of, she was colicky and a string of events that my OBGYN tragically
01:29:03.440
He had a heart attack and, um, my dog, we found out my dog had cancer.
01:29:07.680
So I'm in postpartum and it's just like, it felt like I kept getting hit by wave after
01:29:14.240
And I, I kept looking at her being like, I'm sorry, I swear I'm not usually this sad.
01:29:23.420
And I would say you're, you're probably still not your real self.
01:29:29.440
You're still not like, don't base anything on this.
01:29:33.020
Don't, don't, don't make any big life decisions right now.
01:29:38.080
It's just, it was, it's just been so eyeopening in a different way.
01:29:42.900
And, and I, I really, you said it on one of your clips, you know, I don't know how single
01:29:50.160
I have God bless all the single parents out there.
01:29:56.600
Well, you know what they say to the LGBTQ community?
01:30:03.560
I would say right around four or five, they become.
01:30:07.780
It's not like, like I was just saying the other day about my Strudwick, my, my dog.
01:30:15.460
It's exhausting, but you do get to this wonderful point at which they're like really interactive.
01:30:20.820
They're not like the sweet, good smelling baby, but I love the current phase of motherhood
01:30:30.980
The one and only Bridget Phetasy, my God, so brilliant in so many ways.
01:30:46.320
Uh, and thanks to all of you for joining us today and all week.
01:30:55.600
And then we've got Mark Garagos and Adam Carolla.
01:31:01.000
In the meantime, you do have to download, not just subscribe, download and follow us on