The Megyn Kelly Show - Cohen Admits to Stealing From Trump, and Protecting Women's Sports, with Sens. Ted Cruz and Katie Britt, and Riley Gaines

00:00:00.600 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:11.660 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, coming to you live from Sirius XM HQ in New York City today.

00:00:18.840 And that is because we have a big program for you, including my first conversation ever with Riley Gaines.

00:00:24.840 Can you believe she and I have never spoken? It's bizarre to me.

00:00:27.700 But she's got a new book coming out tomorrow, and she is coming on with her very first interview about it.

00:00:33.440 That's an hour or two.

00:00:34.840 And we have breaking news happening just blocks away from where I am right now with Michael Cohen back on the stand and stumbling through cross-examination again.

00:00:44.400 I'll tell you what's happening right now.

00:00:45.800 What's happening right now is the mainstream media is waking up to some of the weaknesses that you all and I have been discussing for weeks on this case.

00:00:52.440 And they're stunned, absolutely stunned, that Michael Cohen stole from the Trump Organization with that $50,000 payment from Red Finch.

00:01:00.320 Remember we discussed this? We talked about it last week, how part of it was to create some group called Women for Cohen.

00:01:06.380 Anyway, they're just stunned that this guy would steal from Trump.

00:01:10.860 Well, everybody who listens to this show knows that.

00:01:13.340 We've been talking about it, but it was brought up by the defense today.

00:01:16.840 So finally, the mainstream is paying attention.

00:01:19.560 The judge this morning talking about whether this case, whether and when this case will wrap up, saying it's not going to be this week, as originally predicted.

00:01:29.600 Closing arguments are actually going to happen sometime next week now.

00:01:33.460 And so I don't know what that means for the defense's case.

00:01:37.720 Originally, they said they might have one witness.

00:01:39.980 There was speculation it could be this guy, Costello, who was very helpful to the defense.

00:01:44.420 Could it be an expert witness?

00:01:46.100 They had more arguments about that, about whether they should be allowed on the defense side to call Brad Smith.

00:01:50.840 Remember him, the Federal Elections Commission guy who would put definitions to the terms of contributions, campaign contributions?

00:01:58.980 That may happen.

00:02:00.460 It could happen outside the presence of the jury or just in front of the jury.

00:02:04.060 We'll find out.

00:02:05.000 But we're going to kick off the day today with two names and faces you likely know well.

00:02:09.980 United States senators here to talk about their new proposed legislation on IVF.

00:02:15.480 You remember this became a big issue in Alabama after that Supreme Court ruling down there.

00:02:20.800 And we've got the senator from Alabama, one of them, and a senator you know as Ted Cruz of Texas with us.

00:02:27.080 He's a frequent guest on the show.

00:02:28.400 He was with us at episode four.

00:02:30.040 That's how much we like Ted Cruz.

00:02:31.560 And Senator Katie Britt of Alabama is here, too, making her first appearance.

00:02:37.780 Senators, great to have you both.

00:02:39.140 Megan, great to be here.

00:02:39.860 Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you.

00:02:40.880 Thank you so much.

00:02:41.100 Appreciate you having us on.

00:02:42.240 Welcome.

00:02:43.020 All right.

00:02:43.200 So we'll get to everything in Alabama because I'm very interested in this.

00:02:46.000 And the audience knows that this is something near and dear to my own heart, given the way I had my three kids, too.

00:02:50.900 But let's just start with the news of the day because you're both lawyers.

00:02:54.100 And we've got Michael Cohen still on the stand.

00:02:56.520 And the big news of the day, they're both listening audience.

00:02:58.940 They're both shaking their heads and laughing.

00:03:00.280 The big news of the day is they finally got to cross-examine him on whether he skimmed.

00:03:07.160 There was a 50 grand payment that he wanted Trump to reimburse him for, Michael Cohen.

00:03:10.700 And it went to this company called Red Finch, which Cohen paid to rig two polls in Trump's favor, I think, when he was running against you, Senator Cruz.

00:03:18.480 I remember.

00:03:19.300 And some extra services in there were to create a hashtag women for Michael Cohen online social.

00:03:29.220 He couldn't get that going naturally.

00:03:30.840 I know you're shocked.

00:03:32.440 I would think that would just be organic.

00:03:34.280 Right?

00:03:34.760 Really?

00:03:35.540 So he told Trump that he paid them 50 grand and he wanted to be reimbursed for it.

00:03:40.980 Well, it turns out Michael Cohen only paid them 20 grand.

00:03:44.560 He paid them in a brown bag of cash and then he demanded Trump reimburse him for 50.

00:03:51.220 So he stole $30,000 from President Trump, which is a felony in and of itself.

00:03:56.640 And last week I was whining about how he didn't get his full bonus that year.

00:04:00.600 Okay.

00:04:01.760 And this is very shocking to the media.

00:04:04.660 I don't know why.

00:04:06.020 But let's talk about the bigger issue today, which is the judge pretty much boot slapping them again on their attempt to get Brad Smith to testify.

00:04:16.040 The defense wants the jury to hear from an official about campaign finance law and what it really is.

00:04:21.540 And the judge is not allowing it, Senator.

00:04:22.920 What do you make of it?

00:04:23.660 Well, listen, with Michael Cohen admitting that he stole from Trump, I tweeted just a few minutes ago, they finally found a crime at the trial.

00:04:30.020 Yes.

00:04:30.280 Like, there's something that actually is a crime.

00:04:32.560 Arrest him.

00:04:33.300 Nailed it.

00:04:34.040 But, you know, look, that's the prosecution's star witness.

00:04:37.240 This is—this whole thing makes the bar scene at Star Wars look good.

00:04:43.200 I mean, this is the biggest collection of grifters and people who are shakedown artists.

00:04:50.100 And, and listen, it's designed to be a political circus.

00:04:53.020 So it's, so it's driven by a rabid left-wing prosecutor who wants to make a name for himself, who wants to go after Trump because he hates his guts.

00:05:01.300 It's in front of a left-wing partisan judge who, who is ruling against Trump every chance he gets.

00:05:08.600 And, and it has a jury pool drawn from New York that is likely to be pretty hostile to Trump as well.

00:05:13.740 And, and this, this is not about law.

00:05:15.980 This is not about facts.

00:05:18.120 This is about a political smear job to go after Trump.

00:05:22.600 And in particular, the, the, the target is the voters.

00:05:25.100 The, the reason Trump has been indicted four times is because Democrats are terrified the voters are going to vote for him in November.

00:05:31.260 This is all about trying to interfere with that election.

00:05:34.640 So do you think this guy, Brad Smith, should be allowed to get up there?

00:05:36.940 I think he should get up there and say to the jury, because there's a window, because the judge, maybe I'll let him testify on the definition of campaign finance or like what a campaign expense is.

00:05:46.220 That could do it because if he gets up there and says what he said to us, what he said to National Review, what I think he said in a Wall Street Journal editorial, what he's going to say is a former FEC commissioner who was appointed under Bill Clinton is it's, it's not what was in the defendant's head.

00:05:59.900 His motivation is irrelevant to determining whether there was a campaign finance expense.

00:06:04.760 All that matters is the nature of the payment.

00:06:06.740 And if this is the kind of payment that could be made outside of the electoral context, then it doesn't fall within campaign finance law.

00:06:13.800 And hush money payments have been made for a very, very long time.

00:06:17.740 Wasn't Alexander Hamilton in trouble for making one of these?

00:06:20.440 I mean, it may have cost him the president.

00:06:22.460 So I don't know.

00:06:23.680 What do you make of it, Senator Britt?

00:06:24.600 I haven't heard you speak to this yet.

00:06:25.780 You know, I think what we're seeing is just politics play out in front of us.

00:06:29.340 And it's a sad day for democracy.

00:06:31.340 It's a sad day for America to continue to see them attack a former president like this.

00:06:37.040 And, you know, when you watch this and to the point, no crime, you look at the judge who's clearly partisan.

00:06:42.180 I mean, the things that Ted just spoke to, it makes you know if they could do this to a former president, they can do it to any one of us.

00:06:48.760 And I think that they continue to do these things to keep him off of the campaign trail and to try to shift the narrative.

00:06:55.640 But I believe that that will backfire on him because I think the American people have had enough.

00:06:59.420 We are sick of two tiers of justice.

00:07:02.120 We are sick of watching these things that we would may see in a banana republic play out in the United States of America.

00:07:07.660 And I think that the voters are going to go to the ballot in November and they're going to speak very decisively to this very issue.

00:07:13.020 Yeah, I think there's outrage growing.

00:07:14.480 I'll tell you this. Michael Cohen was just they just finished the cross finally after a few days.

00:07:19.140 They ended their cross and redirect is beginning.

00:07:21.420 But he was a disaster.

00:07:23.200 He was. Let me tell you, it gets worse.

00:07:24.740 Even Anderson Cooper admitted how bad it was because of the 14 year old text, that whole thing.

00:07:29.380 We talked about it last week.

00:07:30.100 But if you didn't hear the program, it came out on cross last Thursday.

00:07:33.500 The last day they were in court that Michael Cohen is getting harassed by a teenager, a 14 year old.

00:07:37.860 It was really bothering him.

00:07:39.260 It really got under his skin.

00:07:40.460 And he went to Trump's bodyguard saying, how do I get in touch with the Secret Service?

00:07:44.780 I want to crack.

00:07:45.420 Like, no one cares about you.

00:07:47.100 Secret Service is not going to help you.

00:07:48.300 And he claims that really what he called the bodyguard was for was to get Trump on the phone so he could tell him that he'd made the Stormy Daniel payment.

00:07:57.340 And then it came out that moments before that he was getting harassed.

00:08:00.140 He was complaining and threatening the kid.

00:08:01.840 And he was like, I'm going to call the Secret Service.

00:08:03.180 And then he calls Keith Davidson or Keith, whatever's last shiller, the the the bodyguard.

00:08:09.520 So it was very clear he was calling him about his own little harassment problem and not Stormy.

00:08:14.400 And that's what had Anderson saying.

00:08:15.940 Every time he speaks, he discredits himself every time.

00:08:18.940 I mean, it's remarkable.

00:08:20.420 So he really should learn a lot not to lie when he's lying.

00:08:23.540 That's true.

00:08:23.980 It's a simple rule.

00:08:24.740 Yeah.

00:08:25.560 He just mentioned for The New York Times on the stand before they wrapped that he is considering a third book and stand by.

00:08:32.260 Hold your hats.

00:08:34.040 A run for Congress.

00:08:35.380 No.

00:08:35.960 Yeah.

00:08:36.140 He wants to be with you guys because he has some of, quote, the best name recognition out there.

00:08:41.120 He says his name recognition is affiliated with Trump because of the journey he's been on, but that it's not because of Trump.

00:08:49.240 Not clear whether that's a real distinction.

00:08:51.400 Yes, this morning.

00:08:52.180 On the stand.

00:08:52.800 So I got to ask, where is Anthony Weiner's old district?

00:08:56.000 Oh, crap.

00:08:56.500 That's New York.

00:08:57.440 Here we go again.

00:08:58.300 He might be a perfect congressman.

00:09:00.160 I don't know who.

00:09:01.200 I feel sorry for the poor constituency.

00:09:03.360 How about George Santos?

00:09:04.040 He could run out Long Island.

00:09:05.020 You know, George Santos, that maybe they could run as a ticket.

00:09:07.660 Can you, how high can you go in the U.S. government if, I guess, all the way to the president as a convicted felon?

00:09:14.180 We had that discussion when Trump got indicted.

00:09:16.100 Could do it.

00:09:17.000 Certainly as a matter of law, yes.

00:09:18.920 And he'd have to run as a Democrat.

00:09:20.380 I don't think his affiliation with Trump is going to be helpful.

00:09:22.540 So worse than that, I don't know if you know the story of Alcee Hastings.

00:09:26.640 What happened to him?

00:09:27.360 Okay, so Alcee Hastings was a federal judge who was indicted for taking bribes, and he was convicted of taking bribes.

00:09:34.980 So he was impeached and removed from office as a federal judge, and he served jail time for taking bribes as a judge.

00:09:41.560 That's right.

00:09:42.440 And then he turned around and ran for Congress and got elected.

00:09:44.820 He was a Democrat member of Congress after having taken bribes as a federal judge and been—

00:09:50.260 Do you remember what jurisdiction or what state?

00:09:52.120 Oh, it was in the South.

00:09:52.980 I don't remember where.

00:09:53.940 So there was a similar thing happening with this mayor of Bridgeport we discussed.

00:09:57.080 Like, a lot of people get—there are a lot of ex-cons in Congress.

00:10:01.120 They put the con in Congress.

00:10:03.020 You know, it means their parole officer only has to go one place.

00:10:06.680 There you go.

00:10:07.640 All right, so that leads me to the nonsense that happened on Friday in the House of Representatives.

00:10:13.220 I wonder how you guys were looking at this nonsense.

00:10:15.360 So it relates to an important issue, and I do want to talk to you about this important issue.

00:10:19.340 And it's whether Merrick Garland should be held in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over the Joe Biden audio tapes in an interview that we've already gotten to see.

00:10:27.500 Why can't we hear it?

00:10:28.900 It was his interview with Special Counsel Herr on his confidential and classified documents case, which Herr said, you know, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory can't sell it to a jury.

00:10:38.800 There it is.

00:10:39.000 But definitely a felon.

00:10:40.120 And now we all want to see and hear the tapes.

00:10:44.940 So Biden asserted executive privilege, and Merrick Garland is honoring that.

00:10:49.120 And now Congress is looking into, and approved at least at the committee level, a contempt vote against him.

00:10:54.320 But before we got to that correct result, all hell broke loose over there.

00:11:00.280 Yep.

00:11:00.580 And I'll just show the audience some of the nonsense that we all had to witness.

00:11:04.040 We saw it, so you have to.

00:11:05.080 We resumed the madcap comedy mystery series called Combers, High Crimes, and Misadventures, an avowedly low-budget but multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded production, which most Americans assumed it ended two months ago.

00:11:18.560 You mean like the January 6th committee?

00:11:20.880 I'd like to know if any of the Democrats on this committee are employing Judge Merchant's daughter.

00:11:26.860 Do you know what we're here for?

00:11:28.600 You know we're here about A.B.

00:11:30.400 I don't think you know what you're here for.

00:11:32.560 Well, you're the one talking about.

00:11:33.820 I think your fake eyelashes are messing up.

00:11:36.280 No, ain't nothing.

00:11:37.100 Hold on, hold on.

00:11:39.280 Order, Mr. Chairman.

00:11:40.480 That's beneath even you, Mr. President.

00:11:42.560 That is absolutely unacceptable.

00:11:44.460 How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person.

00:11:48.500 Are your feelings hurt?

00:11:49.540 Move her words down.

00:11:50.880 Oh, girl, baby girl.

00:11:53.420 Oh, really?

00:11:54.360 Don't even play.

00:11:56.000 Baby girl, I don't think so.

00:11:57.480 We are going to move.

00:11:58.200 Why don't you debate me?

00:11:59.980 Mr. Chairman.

00:12:00.620 I want you to better understand your ruling.

00:12:02.580 If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody's bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?

00:12:12.180 A what now?

00:12:12.880 I have no idea what you just said.

00:12:15.080 No, don't tell me to calm down.

00:12:17.080 Because y'all talk noise, and then you can't take it.

00:12:19.640 You're out of control.

00:12:20.520 Because if I come and talk shit about her, y'all don't have a problem.

00:12:24.380 Okay, yeah, so that was, for the listening audience, MTG, she was the one saying, you mean like the January 6th committee?

00:12:31.960 First it was Jamie Raskin saying this is like Comer's Highcrime and misdemeanors.

00:12:35.560 Then in pipes, MTG, and she mentions this woman, Jasmine Crockett, Democrat of Texas, I think Southern Dallas, her eyelashes.

00:12:44.600 Then Crockett comes out to say, you have a butch body to MTG, AOC pipes in, and finally we have Crockett dropping the S-word inside the halls of Congress saying, y'all talk noise, and then you can't take it.

00:13:02.360 When was the last time you had that happen over in the U.S. Senate?

00:13:04.480 Aren't you glad you're not in the house?

00:13:07.320 Yes!

00:13:08.300 Like, wow.

00:13:09.420 I'm sorry.

00:13:10.640 It's just a circus.

00:13:11.960 Actually, my favorite, though, is James Comer midway through, leaning forward, going, uh, what now?

00:13:16.360 He doesn't know what he's doing.

00:13:17.020 He doesn't know what he's doing.

00:13:18.240 He's a baby girl.

00:13:20.600 Like, what are we doing?

00:13:22.420 Like, it really, and I think you probably saw John Fetterman tweeted that he had compared the house to the Jerry Springer show, and he said, I now need to apologize to Jerry Springer.

00:13:32.240 Yeah, he ran an order court.

00:13:33.600 So, I will tell you, one virtue of serving in the Senate, that would not happen in the Senate, and part of it is the median age is about 106.

00:13:42.000 That helps.

00:13:42.580 So, like, if you ever want to feel young, come to the U.S. Senate, you will feel spry.

00:13:47.520 Like, Katie and I, our colleagues are reminiscing about Eisenhower.

00:13:50.780 So, it really...

00:13:52.380 So, no one's ever looked at you and said, baby girl, baby girl.

00:13:55.380 I haven't gotten that yet.

00:13:56.720 Haven't gotten that yet.

00:13:57.640 Now, Schumer might.

00:13:58.240 Chuck Schumer just might.

00:13:59.740 Grassley.

00:14:00.720 I mean, basically, he could be his great granddaughter.

00:14:02.640 That's what someone was telling me, the median age in the Senate is, like, 67.

00:14:06.620 I mean, seriously.

00:14:08.540 So, it lends itself to a greater air of dignity on the plus side.

00:14:13.620 And more sleeping in the job.

00:14:15.600 Can I ask you?

00:14:16.120 Yeah, I understand that.

00:14:17.320 I'm getting there myself.

00:14:19.300 Why is it, like, truly, why does it look like that?

00:14:23.520 Remember when we used to admire elected members of Congress, and this would have been unthinkable?

00:14:28.300 Yeah.

00:14:28.500 Is this because of social media?

00:14:30.100 What's happening?

00:14:30.780 I do.

00:14:31.140 I think there is an element of social media that drives these types of things.

00:14:34.940 You know, people are rewarded for being social media stars versus statesmen or stateswomen in this case.

00:14:42.340 And I think, you know, the country truly, I think, wants us to get back to a place where we can show people respect that we may not agree with.

00:14:49.040 And so, how we find that common ground, how we move it forward, I had a very different interaction with a Democrat the other day in a committee hearing for appropriations.

00:14:59.160 Secretary of Commerce was there, and we were talking about the ways that we, you know, work together.

00:15:03.580 Interestingly, we were talking earlier, you know, on the places where we share a common goal with someone else, even if we have a different idea on a pathway to get there, I think we have an obligation as elected leaders to sit in a room and to try to figure out a path forward.

00:15:15.580 Now, where we don't share a common goal, obviously, that's where we diverge.

00:15:19.020 But I really do think the American people want more of us getting back in a room, creating, having tough conversations, and actually creating solutions for the American people.

00:15:28.620 And, Megan, I am a big believer that you're never – that we need a lot of tough conversations in this country.

00:15:34.260 But no tough conversation will ever be had and actually yield solutions if it's not honest.

00:15:39.500 And we can't have honest conversations with people that we don't trust and respect.

00:15:43.520 And so every interaction we have with our colleagues, whether it's the same side of the aisle or a different one, is an opportunity to earn that trust and respect.

00:15:50.580 Don't you think it's easier in the Senate?

00:15:51.920 I'm sorry.

00:15:52.520 But, like, I can't – Jamie Raskin started it, not to sound like a third grader myself, but he opened that hearing with a ridiculous pronouncement on what it was.

00:16:02.100 And MTG fought back by saying, oh, you mean, like, the January 6th hearing, and it went downhill from there.

00:16:08.640 But, like, it was childish remark after childish remark, Senator.

00:16:12.340 Look, I mean, I think it is good advice for anyone to follow.

00:16:16.400 Just don't be a jackass.

00:16:18.060 Like, treat people with civility and respect.

00:16:21.380 And can I just say something?

00:16:22.360 And then I'll let you finish your point.

00:16:24.140 I mean this in the nicest way.

00:16:25.700 You can be.

00:16:26.780 Like, if you wanted to be, I know you personally.

00:16:29.580 You're not above dropping a swear.

00:16:31.840 I'm just saying, like, you know, you can be salty.

00:16:33.960 That's malarkey.

00:16:35.940 But we don't see that when you're on the Senate floor.

00:16:38.440 It's a different place.

00:16:39.480 You should have a level of decorum and a level of respect for each other.

00:16:45.400 And I will say, listen, I have a lot of friends who serve in the House.

00:16:49.580 I don't know many of them that are actually really happy there.

00:16:52.080 It has devolved into such nastiness that it appears to me they genuinely loathe each other.

00:16:59.760 And they walk down the hall and will, like, curse each other out.

00:17:03.220 Like, it's really ugly.

00:17:06.640 And I'm glad to say the Senate is not like that.

00:17:08.960 I mean, we've got stark disagreements.

00:17:11.600 But some of it is the nature of the Senate.

00:17:13.440 You serve six-year terms.

00:17:14.660 There are only 100 of you.

00:17:16.020 And it's very evenly divided, which means if you're slugging it out with someone today, you might need their vote tomorrow.

00:17:22.720 But can I ask you a question about that?

00:17:25.840 Because I came recently with my fam.

00:17:28.680 And you guys were not in session.

00:17:30.100 Otherwise, I would have said hi.

00:17:31.180 But we were told a story about Kyrsten Sinema.

00:17:34.800 This is before she left.

00:17:35.980 And how the Dems, in the same way, the Dems will fight with the Republicans and it'll be knocked down.

00:17:41.980 That's fine politically.

00:17:43.260 But when one of their own is insane.

00:17:45.740 Oh, they're mean to their own.

00:17:46.820 Right?

00:17:47.360 When one of their own doesn't say the right stuff, it's especially vicious.

00:17:50.960 And I heard she got it especially bad from her team.

00:17:54.440 That doesn't surprise me.

00:17:56.000 I don't know that independently.

00:17:57.220 She was eating alone.

00:17:58.660 They all eat together.

00:18:00.480 Look, in a lot of ways, the Senate is like a junior high.

00:18:03.580 So it's mean girls.

00:18:05.700 And, all right, on the Republican side, we have lunch together every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in a little room.

00:18:11.040 And there's all sorts of little politics of who you sit with and the cool kids.

00:18:15.580 And you have the jocks and the nerds.

00:18:17.080 And, I mean, it's not even high school.

00:18:19.140 I mean, it really is.

00:18:20.860 That's fair.

00:18:21.760 You know, there's an odd dynamic.

00:18:24.060 Aren't they all nerds?

00:18:26.160 No, we actually have quite a few jocks.

00:18:28.560 Interestingly enough, there are probably, what, a dozen of our colleagues who played college basketball, football.

00:18:35.640 I mean, we get, you know, Dave McCormick, who's running for Senate in Pennsylvania,

00:18:40.280 I did a rally with him.

00:18:41.480 And, I mean, he was all state in football and wrestling and captain of the wrestling team at West Point.

00:18:47.840 And so when I did the rally with him, I said, look, I was captain of the debate team,

00:18:51.960 which means Dave is the kind of guy who would have stuffed me in the locker.

00:18:57.380 And, by the way, to be clear, Katie's husband, Wesley.

00:19:00.360 That's so true.

00:19:01.140 Who's a total stud who played football in Alabama and then in the NFL.

00:19:04.660 How long was he with the Patriots?

00:19:05.860 He was here about four and a half years, a little bit over that.

00:19:07.840 And he's a giant of a man.

00:19:10.200 Yeah, he's 6'8", 320, Megan.

00:19:12.140 Oh, my goodness.

00:19:12.240 So he takes up most every doorframe.

00:19:14.360 Wow.

00:19:14.820 And he played basketball with Cruz.

00:19:16.340 So he played hoops with us.

00:19:17.700 And, okay, Wesley showed pity on us because if he really had moved his elbows with any force,

00:19:23.540 we would all be hospitalized.

00:19:24.960 It could have been a constitutional crisis, is what you're telling me.

00:19:27.040 Yeah, you know, it was, he was very kind and kind of, we would foul him and he'd just sort of,

00:19:31.140 sort of laugh and little man, like it was, it was fine, but we had fun.

00:19:34.280 I love it.

00:19:34.840 I love it.

00:19:35.280 I love to picture Chuck Schumer with his little burn book, you know, in the back, like, yeah,

00:19:38.680 we'll get him, we'll get her.

00:19:40.200 Speaking of mean girls.

00:19:41.280 Now that's believable.

00:19:42.280 All right.

00:19:42.480 So let's go back to that hearing because the underlying thing and the resolution by that,

00:19:47.280 at least committee to proceed on contempt hearings against Merrick Garland is important.

00:19:52.560 Yes.

00:19:53.020 Amazing.

00:19:53.420 I heard you on your podcast talking about this.

00:19:55.560 I agree with you.

00:19:56.380 It's amazing that they're trying to sell Biden's interview by a special counsel as protected

00:20:04.480 by executive privilege.

00:20:06.540 So explain why that's such BS.

00:20:08.480 And then could you please tell us what can be done about it?

00:20:11.120 So it is utterly ludicrous.

00:20:12.960 And they're counting on the fact that people don't understand the legal terms for them not

00:20:17.840 to realize what a frivolous claim it is.

00:20:21.600 So executive privilege is actually something very important.

00:20:23.840 And it's a privilege that protects conversations that the president has with his senior advisors.

00:20:29.400 And we want to protect executive privilege because we want a president to get good and

00:20:33.560 candid advice.

00:20:34.320 We don't want the national security advisor to be worried about, well, if I tell the president

00:20:38.700 what I really think, I'm going to be hauled in front of Congress.

00:20:40.880 I'm going to be hauled in front of a court and have to testify about what I told the president.

00:20:44.680 We want unvarnished advice to the president.

00:20:47.460 It's why we've had executive privilege going back to George Washington, because it's critical

00:20:51.680 to making the presidency work.

00:20:54.400 Now, Democrats don't give a flip about executive privilege if it's the other team.

00:20:58.620 So we've got right now, Peter Navarro is in prison because he claimed executive privilege

00:21:04.400 and the Democrats subpoenaed him.

00:21:05.900 And he refused to testify about his confidential communications with Trump.

00:21:09.920 And he's in jail.

00:21:11.000 And Steve Bannon is getting ready to go to jail.

00:21:12.800 So when there's real executive privilege, and both of those claims were serious executive

00:21:17.680 privilege claims, they didn't care at all.

00:21:20.360 And the Biden Department of Justice locked him up.

00:21:22.980 In this instance, if Biden were talking with, say, Merrick Garland and telling him, here

00:21:28.260 are the priorities for the Department of Justice, that would have a real claim of executive privilege.

00:21:34.980 You could have an arguable claim.

00:21:36.420 You're talking about how the administration is run.

00:21:39.920 Biden was not talking to Robert Herr with her as his subordinate.

00:21:43.980 He was not instructing her, presumably, here's what I want you to do.

00:21:48.060 Herr was a special counsel appointed to investigate Joe Biden on whether he committed multiple

00:21:53.640 felonies.

00:21:54.200 And Joe Biden was in that conversation essentially as a criminal defendant being interviewed

00:21:59.260 by a prosecutor to determine whether or not to prosecute Joe Biden.

00:22:03.840 And as you noted, Robert Herr concluded, yes, Biden committed multiple felonies.

00:22:09.960 He did so repeatedly.

00:22:11.460 He did so knowingly.

00:22:12.600 He did so over an extended period of time.

00:22:14.580 He did so brazenly.

00:22:16.560 And mind you, the exact same felonies the Biden Department of Justice is prosecuting Donald

00:22:20.940 Trump for.

00:22:22.200 But the explanation the Biden DOJ gave is, well, we're not going to prosecute him because

00:22:27.380 Joe Biden is not competent to stand trial.

00:22:30.320 He's too old and senile.

00:22:31.600 We could never convict him.

00:22:33.840 That's an astonishing statement.

00:22:35.620 But go back to executive privilege.

00:22:38.080 There is no universe in which Biden was getting advice from Robert Herr.

00:22:43.400 Biden was instructing Robert Herr.

00:22:45.880 And so the claim is absurd on its face.

00:22:48.840 It's a lie.

00:22:49.620 If you made that argument in court, you could be sanctioned for making that argument in court.

00:22:55.740 But Merrick Garland's perfectly happy to make it.

00:22:58.440 I think he'll be held in contempt.

00:22:59.880 And then you know what will happen once he's held in contempt?

00:23:02.440 Nothing.

00:23:02.760 Nothing.

00:23:03.260 Yeah.

00:23:03.560 He's not going to sit next to Navarro.

00:23:05.280 Well, the reason is once Congress holds someone in contempt, DOJ has to prosecute them.

00:23:10.880 So Eric Holder was held in contempt when Obama was president.

00:23:13.820 That's right.

00:23:14.280 But Eric Holder's DOJ refused to prosecute himself.

00:23:17.380 And so he just stayed in contempt.

00:23:18.780 Is there any way of getting the tapes, most importantly?

00:23:21.360 I mean, can there be a legal challenge in a federal district court where we can say,

00:23:25.080 all right, this is a BS claim and we want to hear those tapes?

00:23:28.540 Frankly, the odds of that happening.

00:23:30.640 Look, the House can litigate in federal district court and try to get them.

00:23:37.100 The odds of their coming out before election day are pretty slim.

00:23:39.960 The wheels of justice move slowly.

00:23:41.240 Yeah, and also, Jimmy, this is what you're seeing from the House.

00:23:45.400 I mean, this is why there's that level of frustration on the Republican side in the House is because

00:23:49.220 we continue to see this administration play politics at every turn.

00:23:53.940 People who are supposed to be unbiased, people who are supposed to apply the law, aren't doing

00:23:58.980 it.

00:23:59.220 I mean, and we've seen this all the way back.

00:24:00.640 Merrick Garland, speaking of a very different hearing with me and a Democrat, was Merrick Garland,

00:24:04.980 you know, and kind of going back and forth with him about what he did to our Supreme Court

00:24:09.100 justices when there was the picketing out in front of their homes, trying before when

00:24:12.940 the leaked Dobbs opinion had come out.

00:24:15.200 He, the marshals were clearly instructed, encouraged to not arrest individuals.

00:24:20.120 He was saying, well, we can't prosecute people who weren't arrested.

00:24:22.640 When we pulled up all of those slides, Megan, it showed that they had been actively deterred

00:24:27.900 from doing that.

00:24:28.560 We sent a letter to Merrick Garland along with Senators Cotton and Lee.

00:24:32.120 We never got a response for over a year from him.

00:24:35.240 So the complete and total disregard of the oversight action of the Senate by this administration

00:24:39.320 is just unbelievable.

00:24:40.860 So the frustration you're seeing on the House, the things that you're seeing bubble up, it's

00:24:44.740 because this administration continues to play politics at every turn instead of what's

00:24:48.300 doing right, what's right for the American people.

00:24:50.100 Well, I hope there's a way of getting those tapes.

00:24:52.160 But you mentioned Merrick Garland in the Supreme Court.

00:24:55.840 It's happening again.

00:24:57.000 So you tell me, I mean, you're a constitutional expert, Senator Cruz, and had a very, very

00:25:04.980 successful career as a lawyer before he became a senator.

00:25:07.180 You tell me why they're now in 2024, what are we, May, almost June, bringing up the fact

00:25:14.980 that right after Trump lost, Mrs. Alito, Samuel Alito's wife, a justice of the Supreme Court,

00:25:23.560 flew an American flag upside down for a couple of days, is what we can tell.

00:25:28.560 The New York Times runs this article trying to say she did this and she's some sort of

00:25:33.380 an insurrectionist is the implication.

00:25:36.120 And maybe he is too.

00:25:37.540 And therefore, now you've got all these top Democrats, senators, their allies in the press,

00:25:43.200 Laurence Tribe saying that he should recuse himself.

00:25:47.460 So convenient.

00:25:48.180 Now, if he had put up a Palestinian flag, they would say there, he's a patriot.

00:25:50.580 Yeah, there you go.

00:25:51.220 He's a patriot.

00:25:51.500 Right on.

00:25:52.240 You know, a Hamas or Hezbollah flag, that'd be great.

00:25:54.180 We're here for it.

00:25:54.720 That's what they would say.

00:25:55.800 That he should pull himself from all the Trump cases, like the immunity decision and the

00:26:01.040 J6 cases, which is another case that could gut that one federal case against him in Washington,

00:26:05.900 D.C., Trump.

00:26:06.480 He's not involved in the case, but he would benefit if the court goes for the J6 protesters.

00:26:12.000 And that not only that, but Laurence Tribe was saying he should be hauled in front of Congress

00:26:16.060 in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

00:26:18.440 That's your committee.

00:26:19.540 And made to answer why that flag was there.

00:26:22.460 Meanwhile, he already gave an interview to Shannon Bream saying it was there because there

00:26:26.720 were some rowdy neighbors who had lawn signs with expletives on them.

00:26:32.200 They were very upset, I guess, that, I don't know, Biden won?

00:26:35.500 No, they were Biden supporters.

00:26:36.640 I don't know why they had the nasty signs up, but they did.

00:26:39.320 And she had a confrontation with them in which they called her the C word.

00:26:44.080 Yep.

00:26:44.500 And then for a couple of days, as best the New York Times could find, she hung the flag

00:26:50.440 upside down.

00:26:51.400 And he's, I mean, for him to come out explicitly and to speak to it and say, my wife did it.

00:26:56.040 It was that this is why she did it.

00:26:57.640 And by the way, do we even know what the upside down flag always means?

00:27:00.140 It means different things depending on when you fly it.

00:27:03.000 It doesn't mean she does, you know, Biden won.

00:27:05.620 It was used for Vietnam.

00:27:06.700 It was used for gun violence by some.

00:27:08.500 Anyway, your thoughts on the whole thing.

00:27:10.340 Well, I will say all of this noise is not organic.

00:27:13.560 It's not occurring spontaneously.

00:27:15.080 This is organized.

00:27:16.520 And this is a deliberate effort from the left to try to undermine the Supreme Court.

00:27:20.860 They look at the Supreme Court as the one institution of the federal government that they do not

00:27:24.540 control.

00:27:25.080 And they want to destroy the Supreme Court.

00:27:27.760 We see this going back several years.

00:27:29.640 We see an orchestrated effect.

00:27:31.400 We saw Chuck Schumer go to the steps of the Supreme Court and threaten the justices by

00:27:35.880 name, threaten, threaten Kavanaugh by name and saying, you are going to unleash the whirlwind

00:27:41.260 if you rule the way Chuck Schumer doesn't want you to rule.

00:27:45.080 We've seen in recent months, the incredible smear attack directed at Justice Thomas that is vicious.

00:27:52.500 Justice Thomas, I think is an American hero.

00:27:54.580 He's an extraordinary justice.

00:27:56.360 He's got a remarkable personal story.

00:27:58.040 He's one of the greatest justices ever to serve on the court.

00:28:01.000 The left loathes him.

00:28:02.660 And they have a special degree of hatred for him because he's a black man.

00:28:06.660 They never heaped this vitriol on someone like Antonin Scalia because it was acceptable for a white

00:28:13.540 guy to be a conservative.

00:28:14.460 But they view Clarence Thomas as a traitor to his race.

00:28:18.620 And they're particularly vicious to him.

00:28:20.660 They're now targeting Alito for the same reason.

00:28:23.560 And look, this is in many ways the aftermath of something I've talked about a lot, which is I think Trump broke the Democrat Party.

00:28:32.180 They hate Trump so much.

00:28:34.900 They've convinced themselves he's Adolf Hitler.

00:28:37.760 And so anything, anything, anything is justified to get Hitler, including destroying whatever norms we have.

00:28:43.780 So indict the president one, two, three, four times.

00:28:46.180 That's all fine.

00:28:46.960 Ignore the rule of law.

00:28:47.980 That's all fine.

00:28:49.400 Demonize the Supreme Court.

00:28:50.840 Tear down the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

00:28:52.720 Threaten the Supreme Court.

00:28:53.940 Look, and actually what you just asked is very connected to what Katie said.

00:28:58.620 Katie was talking about the protesters who night after night were screaming in front of the justices' houses, threatening their families.

00:29:05.100 And by the way, it wasn't harmless.

00:29:06.960 One lunatic from California flew all the way from California to Bethesda, Maryland with duct tape and knives and a gun to murder Justice Kavanaugh and his family.

00:29:15.780 He was arrested just blocks away from the justices' home.

00:29:19.840 It is a felony to protest in front of a judge's home.

00:29:22.740 Merrick Garland and the Biden Justice Department refuses to prosecute it.

00:29:27.120 And so the justices are subject to harassment.

00:29:29.300 So Justice Alito tells us about his wife being harassed by vicious Democrat jerks.

00:29:37.340 Yeah.

00:29:37.540 These are men.

00:29:39.520 I'm sorry, any man who to a woman yells the C word at her.

00:29:43.580 Yeah.

00:29:44.240 Like that's disgusting.

00:29:45.640 That's reprehensible.

00:29:46.640 I believe it was the same man who had a flag flying outside of his house saying F Trump.

00:29:53.260 So this is a hard, angry partisan that is threatening Justice Alito's wife.

00:29:59.360 Especially she's no spring chicken.

00:30:01.040 I mean, I remember her from the confirmation hearing.

00:30:03.100 She's got to be in her 60s or early 70s.

00:30:05.280 I would guess she's in her 70s and she's being screamed and cursed at by this left-wing Democrat.

00:30:13.280 I'm sorry, in what realm is that normal or acceptable?

00:30:18.980 Look, if any of us encountered some left-winger, we wouldn't start screaming expletives at them.

00:30:24.880 Even if we disagree with them.

00:30:26.760 I'd like to see my spouse if somebody called me the C word.

00:30:29.880 You know, never mind me.

00:30:31.360 Like, good for her for kind of handling it in the way she did.

00:30:35.160 I tip of the hat to Justice Alito for not clocking the guy.

00:30:38.400 It must have taken everything inside of him.

00:30:40.620 And you see the pattern, though, from this Department of Justice under Merrick Garland,

00:30:45.680 where they do not—they only protect the justices when they feel like they're on their side or move that law forward.

00:30:52.600 Because they're back now, Senator Britt.

00:30:53.940 They're back at Alito's house.

00:30:55.340 It's unbelievable.

00:30:56.800 It is unbelievable.

00:30:57.300 And by the way, that's orchestrated harassment.

00:31:00.120 I'll tell you, at my house, for four months, every Saturday morning, I've had anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protesters.

00:31:09.220 They're there at 7 a.m. every Saturday.

00:31:11.480 They come with cowbells and whistles, and they're screaming and cursing.

00:31:15.340 What?

00:31:15.820 They wake my daughters up.

00:31:17.220 You know both my girls well.

00:31:18.640 They're now 13 and 16.

00:31:20.060 It's terrifying their teenagers.

00:31:21.220 They need to sleep.

00:31:21.840 And our neighbors are woken up.

00:31:26.880 Our neighbors have young kids.

00:31:28.380 One of our neighbors is a mom who has little kids.

00:31:30.980 They were there till 11 p.m. on a Friday night.

00:31:33.960 She went out and asked the police officers, can you do anything about these people screaming and keeping my kids up?

00:31:39.400 And they actually yelled at her the same expletives they yelled at Justice Alito's wife.

00:31:44.000 And my point about these people that are showing up every weekend at my house for four months, it's not spontaneous.

00:31:51.600 It's paid for.

00:31:52.640 It's a job.

00:31:53.800 They clock in.

00:31:54.780 I think they have a time card because they show up at 7 a.m. sharp and they leave at 8.

00:31:58.380 I mean, it is a job.

00:31:59.820 And I'm willing to bet it's paid for by the same people who are paying for the protests on campuses.

00:32:04.780 It's paid for, I believe, by the George Soros of the world, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Bill and Melinda Gates and the Pritzkers.

00:32:12.200 All of those we know are among the people funding the groups that are paying for these anti-Israel protests.

00:32:19.000 And this is a strategy of the left to harass people and threaten people.

00:32:23.340 And you see them not do anything, Megan.

00:32:25.220 I mean, you look at Title VI, and we know that this Department of Education, this Department of Justice should be doing more to protect Jewish students on campus.

00:32:33.960 They should be able to go to class.

00:32:35.060 They should be able to go to the dining hall.

00:32:37.640 They should be free of anti-Semitism.

00:32:39.980 And they're just not.

00:32:40.820 And I said this the other day when I was going back and forth with the Secretary of Education.

00:32:45.020 You know, when it comes to this discrimination based on race and, you know, just and really, you know, linking arms and not letting them into class, this wasn't OK in the 1960s.

00:32:55.660 And it's not OK now.

00:32:57.280 And why this—

00:32:58.280 And trans rights are the only thing that guy cares about.

00:33:01.760 And it is—

00:33:02.300 He doesn't care about women.

00:33:03.840 That's clear from those Title IX revisions.

00:33:06.120 Clear.

00:33:06.600 And he doesn't care about white people.

00:33:09.060 He cares about certain protected groups, and that's it.

00:33:12.120 But whites are protected, too, if not for the record.

00:33:14.260 It's illegal to discriminate against white people on the basis of their skin.

00:33:17.140 And they think Jews are white.

00:33:19.260 They may or may not be, depending on the person.

00:33:21.280 But this is, like, the calculation for these people.

00:33:23.700 White, bad, brown, protected.

00:33:26.300 You know, vagina, you're out.

00:33:28.160 You're out.

00:33:28.560 Penis in a dress, you're in.

00:33:29.960 Sorry.

00:33:30.380 But that's the—

00:33:31.060 And we're seeing that, honestly, with everything.

00:33:32.680 So you look at Title IX and you look at women's sports.

00:33:35.080 Obviously, I have a daughter who plays volleyball, who plays basketball, who runs track.

00:33:40.100 And I think about how hard she works.

00:33:41.880 And, you know, I asked the other day, I mean, under these new rules, allowing a biological

00:33:45.560 male to take a scholarship of a female.

00:33:47.960 I mean, you look at even in this new proposed rule, them saying that if your child tells them

00:33:51.820 at school that they are transgender, that the teacher can't, you know, is not obligated to

00:33:56.100 tell the parent, well, they tell me when they make a bad grade.

00:33:58.120 They tell me if they got in a fight, you know, out on the, you know, out in the playground.

00:34:02.400 So those types of things.

00:34:03.600 But women, too, I mean, you look at the FDIC and what's happening with Marty Grunberg.

00:34:07.480 It's crazy.

00:34:08.020 It's insane that a culture that is called misogynistic and toxic, that you have all of

00:34:12.560 these Ds saying, no, he needs to stay.

00:34:15.980 Let me tell you, if a woman says that she's not welcome to have a child and stay in the

00:34:20.480 workforce or the way that they're talked to, the environment that they work in, it's despicable.

00:34:25.200 I mean, the FDIC was created in order to create confidence in the banking system for Americans.

00:34:30.460 Isn't that like their one thing?

00:34:31.720 Why is there all this harassment going on from the top within the FDIC?

00:34:34.720 And now they're okay with it.

00:34:35.580 That's going to be boring.

00:34:36.040 Now they're okay with it.

00:34:36.820 Because it's ideology.

00:34:37.980 So like you said, they only care about you if you have dark skin.

00:34:40.960 Well, that's only if you're a leftist.

00:34:42.680 Clarence Thomas is not black.

00:34:43.960 I'm not Hispanic in their view.

00:34:45.480 No.

00:34:45.640 It doesn't matter.

00:34:46.360 You have to obey what they say.

00:34:48.940 And if you dare deviate, Dave Rubin is not gay.

00:34:51.520 Peter Thiel is not gay.

00:34:52.340 That's right.

00:34:52.740 But like, if you deviate.

00:34:54.980 You and I are not women.

00:34:55.960 You know, in their book, you are literally not, they do not consider you women.

00:35:00.280 Yeah.

00:35:00.860 Unless you agree with Elizabeth Warren on anything, you are not in fact a woman in their world.

00:35:06.980 She's not an Indian.

00:35:07.920 It never stops.

00:35:11.800 Stand by.

00:35:12.500 We're going to take a quick break.

00:35:13.560 And we'll have more with Senators Britt and Cruz right after this.

00:35:16.860 We'll get into their new bill on IVF.

00:35:18.900 This is actually very interesting.

00:35:24.160 I do have my suspicions.

00:35:25.680 I'm not ready to say them yet.

00:35:26.920 But I actually do.

00:35:27.880 I have a woman in mind that I just think he's going to choose.

00:35:31.020 And we'll see whether I'm right.

00:35:33.400 I'll be honest with you.

00:35:34.520 If he chooses somebody, if he picks a young woman and it's not mine, I'll tell you.

00:35:38.120 And if it is mine, I've told my team.

00:35:40.320 So they'll back me up on whether I have it right.

00:35:42.880 But I don't want to get ahead of my skis.

00:35:44.200 Okay, so that was yours truly back in January with my prediction of who Trump would pick as his running mate.

00:35:50.620 I didn't say her name.

00:35:51.500 As I said at the time, I didn't want to cause an S-storm in her life because she wasn't getting mentioned a lot back then.

00:35:56.520 But I just had a kind of feeling she's from the South.

00:36:00.280 She's a rising star within the Republican Party.

00:36:02.980 She's a darling of many people who are powerful within the party and young enough that she doesn't have a huge legislative record that could be problematic for Trump.

00:36:11.420 So I am going to tell you who that person is now because she's sitting on this set next to me.

00:36:17.840 And it was Senator Katie Britt.

00:36:20.780 So would you like to make your announcement now?

00:36:23.740 That's right.

00:36:24.100 That's actually why we've come.

00:36:25.200 Surprise.

00:36:26.100 No, I appreciate you even thinking that I would be capable of something like that, truly.

00:36:31.360 I mean, honestly, to be mentioned as someone who could lead potentially now or in the future is always really an honor and humbling.

00:36:40.300 But as I have said, I've got my work cut out for me fighting in the U.S. Senate and fighting for the people of Alabama.

00:36:46.840 We've done a lot of good things in the first 17 months, but I think there's a lot more work to do.

00:36:51.060 And I stand alongside Ted here and figuring out how we can do everything possible, not only to make sure that President Trump takes back the White House, but we take back the Senate, which I think is critically important to us preserving the country and making sure that we can move some good things forward.

00:37:06.240 All right. So in full disclosure, then I reversed my prediction after the State of the Union response, which my audience does.

00:37:12.960 I was not a big fan.

00:37:14.620 Now, can you just tell me, like, what happened there?

00:37:17.240 Because just talking to you today, you know, you don't have that same affect.

00:37:21.000 So was that nerves or walk us through what was going on?

00:37:24.460 You know, it's it's a real honor to be able to speak on behalf of the party and to be able to speak to so many of the issues that we think are important and to really be able to talk about what Joe Biden isn't doing.

00:37:38.900 You know, I think about what we're looking at right now and where we were before he got here and what he's done on the border, whether it's 94 executive orders in his first 100 days, whether it's him coming in and saying we're going to halt deportations, stop building the border wall, or even we're going to give amnesty to millions, of which we know acts as a magnet.

00:37:56.920 We see that hurting our communities, whether it's fentanyl overdoses or whether it is tragedy.

00:38:03.880 Maybe you do kind of have that affect now.

00:38:05.640 I'm actually just watching you.

00:38:06.740 It is kind of similar.

00:38:07.680 Tragedy is like Lake and Riley.

00:38:09.800 You know, my daughter just called me right before I came in here.

00:38:12.300 And I think you know this as a mother.

00:38:14.120 And she said, Mom, I'm about to go on a run.

00:38:15.640 She's home.

00:38:16.660 And to think about, you know, just the innocence of that young woman who went on a simple run that morning and come back.

00:38:23.940 And listen, after you see Joe Biden literally yell for almost an hour and turn it into a political speech, what was supposed to be a dignified statesman speech at the State of the Union, it's just truly, Megan.

00:38:36.840 It's infuriating.

00:38:38.220 And so whether you're talking about that, whether you're talking about what we're doing just at home with prices going through the roof, you know, I mean, literally just went to the grocery store on Saturday.

00:38:47.560 And it's absolutely unbelievable.

00:38:49.560 So but what are you saying that you were you were so affected by what, you know, when you when you watch him yell for over an hour and also just, you know, take shots at Trump's take shots.

00:39:01.880 So just be dishonest.

00:39:04.020 It's incredibly frustrating, but certainly was honored to do it.

00:39:08.000 Well, wait, you didn't really answer.

00:39:09.700 Was that the real you?

00:39:10.980 I gave it all I've got.

00:39:12.140 I mean, that is a really, a really high honor and felt very passionately about it.

00:39:17.300 I gave my best.

00:39:18.140 I understand on that evening.

00:39:19.660 And I understand that.

00:39:20.820 Would you just call me the next time you get asked?

00:39:22.840 I can help you.

00:39:23.900 Yeah, I just I you know, you shouldn't have said yes to that.

00:39:26.940 But go ahead after she gave the response, which I thought she did a terrific job and the media went nuts and savaged her.

00:39:36.260 And at lunch the next day, I told you we're like a junior high.

00:39:38.640 So we had lunch the next day and I was pissed off.

00:39:41.840 I'm like, they're coming after you.

00:39:43.420 It is ugly.

00:39:44.420 It is vicious.

00:39:45.780 And just spur of the moment, I said, well, you know what?

00:39:48.940 Come to my podcast tonight.

00:39:51.060 Let's go talk about it.

00:39:52.280 And so so she came on the podcast.

00:39:54.540 We did it as an audible.

00:39:55.560 It was actually Monday.

00:39:56.100 It was that it was the Monday.

00:39:57.440 So it had happened the week before.

00:39:58.900 It was the next Monday.

00:39:59.600 I said, come tonight.

00:40:00.320 Let's do the podcast tonight.

00:40:02.160 And and so she did it.

00:40:03.720 And it's actually very funny because CNN was pissed because she didn't go on CNN.

00:40:07.100 And look, the joy of the podcast.

00:40:08.700 We just set up the microphone and talk through it.

00:40:10.820 And it was I remember it was Monday because it was right after Saturday and it was SNL.

00:40:15.240 How cool is it that they get Scarlett Johansson to play you like that?

00:40:18.620 That's that's a big deal.

00:40:19.880 It was.

00:40:20.420 And and she rocked.

00:40:22.060 Look, a response to the State of the Union is kind of by its nature.

00:40:25.660 It's a little bit artificial and stilted.

00:40:27.860 And there have been lots of people who have had rough times, whether Bobby Jindal or, you

00:40:33.360 know, Marco Rubio.

00:40:34.420 Sorry, I did get some live action comedy.

00:40:38.280 Megan, I do hope that people, though, honestly take time to get to know me.

00:40:42.400 It was an interesting kind of sort of window into how quickly the media can jump on a narrative

00:40:48.940 and then how they work to spread to spread that.

00:40:53.380 And so I think if anyone takes time to get to know Katie Britt and get to know the work

00:40:58.160 that I've done, the relationships I've built with my colleagues, the issues I stand on.

00:41:02.100 You've got a lot of career.

00:41:03.300 Hey, I am.

00:41:04.300 I am.

00:41:05.240 I am.

00:41:06.040 I am a passionate person and I'm unafraid to fight for the things that I care about.

00:41:10.740 You're not a career politician, but I do want to get to your bill.

00:41:13.800 So what does your bill do?

00:41:16.500 So it is a very simple bill.

00:41:18.120 It protects IVF.

00:41:19.920 It prohibits any state from banning IVF.

00:41:22.620 And the reason we did it, as you remember, the Alabama Supreme Court several months ago

00:41:26.940 had a decision that was widely covered nationally as threatening IVF.

00:41:32.440 What actually happened there was a couple who wanted to have kids and had embryos frozen

00:41:37.840 in a clinic, that clinic was negligent in protecting them.

00:41:42.160 And someone ended up destroying the embryos against the couple's wishes.

00:41:45.280 And so they brought a lawsuit because they were mad at the clinic for destroying their embryos.

00:41:49.080 They didn't want them destroyed.

00:41:49.860 And the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in favor of the couple.

00:41:54.620 Well, immediately that was interpreted by a lot of people who, frankly, had political

00:41:59.620 agendas, a lot of Democrats with an agenda, a lot of people in the media, as saying these

00:42:04.620 are crazy right-wing Republicans that are trying to get rid of IVF.

00:42:07.800 Now, the Alabama legislature immediately stepped in and passed a law clarifying, no, IVF is perfectly

00:42:13.860 legal in the state of Alabama.

00:42:16.320 But that has not stopped Democrats across the country from wrongly claiming that there are

00:42:22.620 Republicans who want to take away IVF.

00:42:24.220 I still can't believe this beautiful girl is ours.

00:42:27.820 Our little IVF miracle?

00:42:30.480 Hey!

00:42:31.540 Sorry.

00:42:32.440 She's not yours anymore.

00:42:34.220 What are you talking about?

00:42:35.240 Who are you?

00:42:36.180 I'm your Republican congressman.

00:42:38.200 We made IVF illegal.

00:42:40.480 And we're not letting you criminals raise her.

00:42:43.020 You're getting too busy.

00:42:44.680 She's our baby!

00:42:45.820 I won the last election, so it's my decision.

00:42:49.680 If you want a baby, you have to make one the old-fashioned way, and I'll be watching.

00:42:56.620 So Katie and I teamed up to draft this bill, and it's a very simple bill that says if a

00:43:01.620 state receives Medicaid funding, that they cannot bar IVF.

00:43:05.380 That a state can and a local government can't.

00:43:07.280 That it is a federal right.

00:43:08.460 That you are entitled to have access to this technology and a state cannot bar it.

00:43:12.860 And we drafted it because both of us strongly and unequivocally support IVF.

00:43:19.020 I think IVF is a miracle.

00:43:20.780 I mean, it has given 2% of all live births in America come from IVF.

00:43:25.640 We've seen now over 8 million children born from IVF.

00:43:30.560 And the beauty of being able to give parents the chance to have a child when they couldn't

00:43:38.200 otherwise, to have a little girl, have a little boy, to raise with love.

00:43:41.720 I think IVF is profoundly pro-family.

00:43:44.920 And so we drafted this together to put into federal legislation a protection and a protection

00:43:51.240 that is there.

00:43:52.720 And importantly also, this gives an opportunity for Democrats to decide.

00:43:57.460 It does.

00:43:58.220 Where do they stand?

00:43:59.580 That's right.

00:44:00.200 Because what we're seeing is Democrats—look, part of the reasons Democrats are leaning in

00:44:06.740 on this issue so aggressively—is because their position on abortion is really extreme.

00:44:14.240 Our colleagues in the Senate, the Democrats in the Senate, every single one of them, without

00:44:18.400 exception, supports unlimited abortion on demand literally up to the moment of birth, in the

00:44:24.980 39th or 40th week partial birth abortion.

00:44:28.060 Now, as you know, that is a radical and extreme position.

00:44:31.360 Absolutely.

00:44:31.640 Nine percent of Americans nationally support that position.

00:44:35.080 Ninety-one percent of Americans.

00:44:36.600 The majority of people who consider themselves pro-choice say, look, abortions in the 39th

00:44:42.060 and 40th week, that is crazy.

00:44:44.380 No, that's too much.

00:44:46.560 Every single Senate Democrat has voted in favor of that position of striking down any limitation

00:44:52.560 on abortion.

00:44:53.400 So they don't want to talk about that.

00:44:55.240 Does the bill pass, do you think?

00:44:56.620 Because the Democrats should want this, but they're not going to want to give you the

00:44:59.520 win.

00:44:59.660 I hope we can build some bipartisan support.

00:45:02.580 They should absolutely want this because this protects IVF.

00:45:05.560 It protects people's opportunity to bring life into the world, to grow their families.

00:45:09.540 And that's what we're all about.

00:45:11.400 And that's what the Democrats say that they're for IVF.

00:45:13.820 So I think they have an opportunity to show it and being part of this.

00:45:16.800 On the merits, this should be 100 to nothing because every senator supports IVF, every Republican,

00:45:22.100 every Democrat senator.

00:45:23.260 We're going to try to pass it.

00:45:24.800 The question, and we don't know yet, is what are the Democrats going to do?

00:45:28.240 On the substance, they don't have any issue with it, but they might very cynically block

00:45:34.160 it because they want an issue in November rather than actually pass the law.

00:45:38.700 But Katie, I would love for you to tell the story.

00:45:40.980 So the reason we partnered on this, it's actually kind of a cool story inside the Senate.

00:45:46.260 So at our Senate lunches, right after the Alabama Supreme Court decisions came out, Katie stood

00:45:52.360 up at lunch and gave this impassioned speech telling what happened that day.

00:45:56.900 Would you share that story?

00:45:58.240 So I happened to be, it was state work period.

00:46:00.500 So I was home.

00:46:01.240 So on that Wednesday when the ruling came down, I went to a soccer game.

00:46:04.940 And, you know, soccer games last forever.

00:46:06.740 And as I was there, it would be parent after parent, man after woman coming and saying,

00:46:12.360 what's happening?

00:46:13.000 What's going on?

00:46:14.100 There was a lot of confusion swirling and a lot of uncertainty.

00:46:17.420 The next day I went to Birmingham and at a lunch, I had three women come up to me, two

00:46:22.140 together, one different with tears streaming down their face because they were in the middle

00:46:26.460 of the IVF process.

00:46:28.080 And that for them had been halted.

00:46:30.180 And then, you know, went on to another soccer game that night and was inundated, didn't

00:46:35.140 get to watch my son at all.

00:46:36.880 And so I really, you could feel it.

00:46:39.080 I got started getting calls from friends and who said, this is my journey.

00:46:43.560 And this, or my sister is about to have implantation and we've gone through all of these things.

00:46:48.240 And, you know, that these people are holding on to the possibility of being able to be a part

00:46:53.580 of the miracle of life.

00:46:54.860 And it was clear that we needed to give absolute certainty to that.

00:46:59.100 I was really grateful to President Trump for speaking so decisively on IVF.

00:47:04.240 That was huge.

00:47:05.660 And then the Alabama legislature for quickly acting, like in the Alabama legislature is

00:47:09.420 the most conservative legislature in the nation.

00:47:11.800 This is not like California.

00:47:14.080 They quickly acted to make sure that they knew that we were going to protect women's

00:47:18.260 rights, couples' rights to IVF.

00:47:21.140 And I think this is very smart.

00:47:22.420 It not only does it, what you did in Alabama, restore people's rights when it comes to IVF,

00:47:26.040 but you're sending a message to everybody that the caricature that's being painted of

00:47:29.860 Republicans on this is just that.

00:47:31.760 I got to go.

00:47:32.240 I got 10 seconds left.

00:47:33.340 Thank you.

00:47:33.820 Thank you both so much.

00:47:35.200 Thanks for taking my hard time, too.

00:47:36.600 Thank you.

00:47:36.940 But you know I'm a big believer because of the January plan.

00:47:39.040 Well done.

00:47:42.180 Sayonara.

00:47:43.000 I like it.

00:47:43.600 All right.

00:47:43.820 See you soon.

00:47:44.240 So excited for this next segment.

00:47:50.140 We have a first-time guest to the show, which I cannot believe, and one you surely know.

00:47:54.900 It's Riley Gaines.

00:47:56.020 Yay!

00:47:56.760 She is a former collegiate swimmer at the very, very top of her game.

00:48:00.380 She rose to fame after she, well, she placed fifth in the NCAA finals.

00:48:05.580 And she tied with a man, Leah Thomas, who was posing as a woman and was allowed to compete with

00:48:13.700 the women and entered her women's race, not to mention her women's locker room.

00:48:20.440 And she and the other women were told to just deal with it or they'd be labeled as bigots.

00:48:24.880 But Riley did not stay quiet.

00:48:27.940 She left a career behind that she hadn't entirely planned for herself to fight for fairness in

00:48:33.580 women's sports, even though she'd left them.

00:48:35.500 She understood about the young women coming up behind her.

00:48:38.220 She continues to lead the charge today and works to implement change across the country

00:48:43.040 for your daughter and mine.

00:48:45.220 Today, she's here to share her story in a new book that goes into her childhood,

00:48:49.520 the unfair advantage transgender athletes have, and her advice for not just women and girls,

00:48:54.280 but everyone.

00:48:55.400 The book is called Swimming Against the Current, fighting for common sense in a world that's lost

00:49:01.820 its mind, and it's out tomorrow.

00:49:04.740 Okay?

00:49:05.020 Riley Gaines, Swimming Against the Current.

00:49:07.380 Please support her.

00:49:08.540 This is her first interview on the book.

00:49:11.320 I'm so happy to meet you.

00:49:13.700 I feel like I know you.

00:49:15.900 Of course, you have been at the forefront of this issue, a voice that I constantly look to.

00:49:21.860 So I am a huge fan.

00:49:23.680 Like I said, I can't believe we haven't done this sooner, but I'm thrilled to be in this

00:49:27.440 chair next to you.

00:49:28.220 Thank you.

00:49:28.720 And, you know, your story helped activate me on all of this, because while I was speaking

00:49:33.780 out and I'd had a change of heart from where I used to be, it was when you got attacked

00:49:39.480 in San Francisco that, I mean, for the first time in my life, I said, I might need to form

00:49:44.040 like a 501c3.

00:49:45.480 I might like, I, cause you know, as a journalist, you're not used to being an activist.

00:49:49.420 I don't really like that word, but I couldn't believe what they did to you as a woman who

00:49:56.440 has standing to speak about this issue, as a woman who was directly affected by a man

00:50:00.020 competing in her sport at the highest level.

00:50:02.680 And they treated you like a villain.

00:50:05.720 You were literally assaulted.

00:50:07.420 How pivotal was that moment for you?

00:50:09.560 Cause I know you write it about, about it in the book.

00:50:11.240 It was a huge defining moment for me, uh, up until that point, I kind of just figured

00:50:16.700 I would speak to this issue, um, say my piece, speak about the unfairness of the competition,

00:50:22.800 the locker room, the silencing that we face, but swiftly move on.

00:50:26.520 This is not something that I ever wanted to do.

00:50:29.020 I still don't necessarily want to be doing with my life.

00:50:32.320 Um, but when I was ambushed, I mean, I was being shoved.

00:50:38.360 I was being pushed.

00:50:39.060 I was punched in the face by these men wearing dresses, which fortunately for me, their punches

00:50:44.940 really don't hurt that bad.

00:50:46.600 Uh, they held me for ransom throughout the night.

00:50:49.340 I mean, four hours, um, held me for ransom demanding that if I wanted to make it home to

00:50:54.500 see my family safely again, I had to pay them money.

00:50:57.960 And you might be wondering, okay, well, where are the police?

00:51:00.760 It's San Francisco.

00:51:01.800 The police were being held for ransom with me.

00:51:05.120 It was a wild experience.

00:51:06.800 And it was in that moment I realized, oh my gosh, this is what we're up against.

00:51:12.400 And let's be very clear.

00:51:13.840 My message from the beginning has been that there are two sexes.

00:51:18.920 You can't change your sex.

00:51:20.700 And each sex is deserving of equal opportunity, privacy, and safety.

00:51:26.180 Nothing controversial, nothing hateful.

00:51:28.140 I mean, it's, it's really the bare minimum.

00:51:29.980 Yeah.

00:51:30.280 What I'm advocating for.

00:51:31.280 Uh, but for saying that the amount of vitriol and violence that I was met with,

00:51:36.140 that's when it, I was really reassured, uh, that what I was speaking to was in fact the

00:51:42.840 right thing, the fair thing, just moral ethical thing.

00:51:46.220 Um, what was it?

00:51:48.200 What was the name of the university again?

00:51:49.660 San Francisco State University.

00:51:51.040 We pulled the tape just to refresh the audience.

00:51:53.180 It was, it was bad.

00:51:54.860 Here's a little.

00:51:55.260 The mob's chasing her.

00:52:10.800 Oh my God.

00:52:33.460 So that's only a snippet of what I endured for hours, hours, uh, hundreds of these protesters,

00:52:41.520 again, so disorienting at that because they, they come in the room that that's after I had

00:52:47.000 been escorted, kind of carried off out of the room after having already been ambushed.

00:52:52.320 Um, but they come in the room, they turn the lights off, rush to the front.

00:52:56.540 The lights are flickering before they're indefinitely turned off.

00:53:00.020 Again, men and dresses running at me, women with beards.

00:53:04.300 I was so confused, uh, incredibly disorienting.

00:53:08.500 And again, that's what I endured for hours.

00:53:10.980 Some of the most heinous, profane things you could possibly imagine being said were said to me.

00:53:19.180 They were yelling at the officers, calling the officers racist pigs for protecting a white

00:53:23.520 girl like me for hours.

00:53:25.380 That chant trans women are women is behind all of the problems we're seeing that they believe

00:53:33.780 that's true.

00:53:35.060 And we don't, we know it isn't.

00:53:37.940 That's the whole premise of the entire gender ideology debate.

00:53:42.180 So whether it's the sports side, whether it's what we see in corporate America, whether it's

00:53:46.940 the medicalization side of things, that's, that's the premise of the whole debate.

00:53:51.020 And we spent so much of our time on this issue saying, or, or hearing trans women are women,

00:53:57.360 women, but it's, it only seems like it goes one way, especially in sports and prisons and

00:54:03.160 different places.

00:54:03.780 We don't hear of, of women identifying as men infiltrating into men's spaces.

00:54:09.800 No, this is only happening one way.

00:54:11.460 The, I know you went, uh, our audience may remember we covered the Kappa Kappa Gamma lawsuit.

00:54:16.060 Um, they claimed that this man, biological man, well, we know that he got into Kappa Kappa

00:54:23.200 Gamma out in Wyoming and a bunch of the sorority sisters objected and they objected mostly to

00:54:29.400 their own sorority, allowing it.

00:54:31.060 And now they filed a lawsuit against Kappa Kappa Gamma national saying you've, you've changed

00:54:35.980 the definition on us.

00:54:36.960 You've done a bait and switch that you said we were only going to allow women.

00:54:39.840 And now you haven't, you've allowed a man and you went to the arguments that that simple

00:54:46.780 concept of what is a woman, does it include more than women is now being argued in front

00:54:55.560 of the 10th circuit court of appeals.

00:54:57.580 That's one step down from the U S Supreme court.

00:54:59.760 And they were really wrestling with it.

00:55:03.240 Well, we shouldn't be surprised considering when a sitting Supreme court justice was asked

00:55:07.640 this question, what is a woman by, by Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn.

00:55:12.040 She said, well, I, I don't, I can't answer that because I'm not a biologist.

00:55:16.780 Well, guess what?

00:55:18.100 Ketanji Brown Jackson, I'm not a biologist.

00:55:20.540 Um, I'm, I guess thinking of an analogy here, I'm not a veterinarian either, but I know what

00:55:25.280 a dog is.

00:55:26.300 That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

00:55:28.540 And it's no surprise that this is the same Supreme court justice who recently said she felt

00:55:33.700 like our, uh, first amendment rights were hamstringing the government precisely.

00:55:38.600 That's precisely what our first amendment rights are supposed to do.

00:55:41.260 But nonetheless, um, it was wild to sit in that court.

00:55:45.700 There were, they pulled a panel of judges, uh, three judges.

00:55:49.960 Uh, one was a Biden appointee.

00:55:51.660 One was a Clinton appointee.

00:55:53.120 One was an Obama appointee.

00:55:54.920 So they, that's a nightmare.

00:55:56.440 It's like some sort of like joke.

00:55:58.440 Like you walk into a bar and, and this is your scenario, but that's what the girls drew.

00:56:02.560 So, so we don't know the verdict yet, but I'm not overly hopeful just based on, uh, the,

00:56:07.740 the panel of judges, but to sit there and listen to, to the Kappa attorney say that woman has

00:56:14.740 multiple definitions.

00:56:16.220 It's not a word with one singular definitions.

00:56:18.840 It can mean anything.

00:56:19.940 She was even then pushed back by the Biden appointee judge who said, okay, well, if you're sitting

00:56:24.740 here telling us that woman can mean anything, does that include the definition of, of cisgender

00:56:31.280 men, men who identify as men, is that a reasonable definition for woman to which she responded

00:56:36.420 back with, I don't have enough research right now to tell you if a male who identifies as

00:56:40.720 a male, if that's a reasonable definition for the word woman, it's a promising thing

00:56:45.680 that the judge, that the judge pushed back a little.

00:56:47.800 I mean, she's recognizing that there must be some limitations a hundred percent on how

00:56:51.380 we define it, but I don't have high hopes.

00:56:52.920 I mean, the 10th circuit normally is not the most liberal court in the country, but I don't

00:56:57.140 have high hopes.

00:56:57.700 I do have high hopes for the Supreme court.

00:56:59.680 I realized the audience is thinking Gorsuch title seven.

00:57:02.900 He said, you have to be able to hire trans people, but that I do think is very different

00:57:06.740 from this issue.

00:57:08.100 It's just very different.

00:57:09.200 I do not like the chances of the trans activists.

00:57:12.580 If cases like this go up to the high court.

00:57:14.960 I agree.

00:57:15.960 The Supreme court hasn't heard a title nine case yet.

00:57:18.860 There's a couple I think that are on, on the docket that could hopefully get there.

00:57:22.880 And I say hopefully, because I, I am in full agreeance with you.

00:57:26.380 Oh, I think the Supreme court would rule in our favor on this, that they would understand

00:57:30.980 that sex-based categories and protections and rights are necessary when again, opportunities

00:57:36.480 are threatened, when, when privacy or safety are threatened.

00:57:40.520 Um, how do you think about that rally?

00:57:42.320 So if the Supreme court were so to rule, or if, you know, we just had complete sanity reign

00:57:46.620 at the Olympic level, at the NCAA level, I know I've read the, the, the stories in the

00:57:53.160 book about your dad, you don't look backward.

00:57:56.400 You only look forward, but how do you think it would make you feel as somebody who actually

00:57:59.740 came up in the time of madness in the time where we were forcing young women to deal with

00:58:06.260 this?

00:58:06.620 Well, it's wild to me that so much of what we see now by the Biden administration, um,

00:58:12.940 this new title nine rewrite from the, the administration and the department of education,

00:58:17.280 not to mention all of the other things, whether it's the sports issue or not, that they're doing

00:58:24.080 under the guise of progress, right?

00:58:26.300 Indicating we are moving in the positive forward direction.

00:58:29.940 Let's be very clear.

00:58:33.020 Uh, what we are seeing is not progress.

00:58:35.980 This is regressive.

00:58:37.340 It's taking us back in time, uh, at least half a century title nine was implemented in

00:58:41.960 1972.

00:58:42.600 So 52 years ago, um, that's what we're going back to by asking women to smile, to step aside,

00:58:50.640 to allow these men onto our podiums, telling us that we're the problem if we don't want to,

00:58:56.000 or feel totally comfortable undressing next to a fully naked, fully intact man.

00:59:01.900 That's not what progress that actually happened to you, that you were at the NCAA, uh, championships

00:59:07.700 where Leah Thomas was present, who was 550 something as a man, but was coming in fifth

00:59:14.000 in your race, quote, as a woman, um, you had to change in a locker room with him.

00:59:19.680 That's right.

00:59:20.800 Fully intact.

00:59:21.600 There was no surgery.

00:59:22.760 Fully intact.

00:59:23.400 No, not at the time.

00:59:24.820 I don't know now, but no, not at the time.

00:59:27.380 And keep in mind, we knew going into this beat, this was in March of 2022.

00:59:32.740 We found out a couple of weeks before the meet, the NCAA, of course, they were pandering

00:59:37.220 back and forth, sitting on the fence.

00:59:38.940 Do we let him compete with the women?

00:59:40.600 Do we not?

00:59:41.260 Ultimately they just, they decided like three weeks before they announced that he is, his

00:59:45.900 participation in the women's category was non-negotiable.

00:59:49.140 So we knew we would be competing against him.

00:59:51.740 We did not know we would be changing in the locker room.

00:59:55.300 There was no forewarning.

00:59:56.920 There was no ways that we could have made other arrangements for ourself.

01:00:01.580 If this was something that we felt uncomfortable with the first time that we became aware, we

01:00:07.540 would be undressing next to this six foot four, 22 year old man, fully intact, fully exposing

01:00:13.140 himself was when we were inches away from said man, fully exposing himself.

01:00:20.160 Oh my gosh.

01:00:20.580 And I'll kind of set the scene because the swimming locker room, it's not a place of

01:00:24.540 modesty.

01:00:25.400 These suits that you put on it, I mean, they're skin tight, they're paper thin.

01:00:29.420 It takes about 15, 20 minutes, your racing suit to, to really poke and prod yourself into

01:00:34.120 these suits.

01:00:35.380 20 minutes of what you're fully exposed, very intimate.

01:00:38.360 You have friends oftentimes like helping you get yourself into these suits.

01:00:42.240 Then I think we can all agree, you know, a locker room is not a comfortable place, but

01:00:47.960 growing up a swimmer, you almost become comfortable feeling vulnerable in that environment.

01:00:53.040 But I want you to put yourself in our shoes or, or your daughter in our shoes.

01:00:58.200 You have your back turned again, putting on your suit.

01:01:00.900 And all of a sudden you hear a man's voice in that locker room, you turn around, you look

01:01:08.280 up because he's so tall and there's a six foot four man undressing, taking off his women's

01:01:13.280 swimsuit and putting on his street clothes.

01:01:16.580 Wow.

01:01:17.080 It's feelings of, of course, it's awkward.

01:01:19.100 It's embarrassing.

01:01:20.200 It's uncomfortable.

01:01:21.140 It was innate, inherent for every girl in that changing space to, to cover themselves,

01:01:26.060 whether it was with their hand or their clothes or their towels and to get out as quickly

01:01:31.480 as they could.

01:01:33.180 But I, I think the best way to describe how we felt was, I mean, it was an utter violation.

01:01:39.580 It felt like betrayal and really it was traumatic and not even just traumatic because of what

01:01:45.740 we were forced to see or how we were forcibly exploited.

01:01:48.420 It was traumatic for me to know just how easy it was for those people who created these policies

01:01:54.180 and forced these policies to totally dismiss our rights to privacy without even a second

01:01:59.300 thought, without even bare minimum forewarning us that this would be the arrangement.

01:02:04.840 And when you think about, about the messaging before he got to you, he was swimming with

01:02:09.440 the UPenn swimmers on their team and those girls had quietly tried to raise objections because

01:02:15.400 they'd been going through this all season and were told they needed therapy to work on their

01:02:20.140 bigotry.

01:02:20.780 They were told they were the problem.

01:02:22.120 16 of the girls signed on to an email to university of Pennsylvania.

01:02:27.200 Some of these girls, even victims, um, previous victims, survivors of sexual assault.

01:02:32.940 Uh, I know of one girl who was raped in a bathroom setting prior to going to college.

01:02:37.600 And so this was understandably a very triggering and traumatic experience for her.

01:02:44.060 And so 16 signed on to the school expressing their discomfort in the locker room to which

01:02:49.580 the school, I swear I have a screenshot of the email, the school responded back with,

01:02:53.660 if you feel uncomfortable seeing male genitalia, here's some counseling resources that you should

01:02:59.880 seek in an attempt to re-educate yourselves.

01:03:02.500 They had to go to mandatory LGBTQ education meetings weekly to learn about how just by being

01:03:08.080 cisgender, they were oppressing Leah Thomas, uh, their school even went as far as to tell

01:03:14.200 these girls that if they did speak out, uh, and any harm whatsoever were to come towards

01:03:20.720 Thomas's way, whether it was physical harm, um, mental harm, emotional harm, self-inflicted

01:03:26.040 for that matter, they said, then understand you girls are solely responsible and that

01:03:31.660 would make you responsible for a potential death.

01:03:33.840 And that would make you a murderer.

01:03:35.420 Oh my gosh.

01:03:36.420 And you don't want to be a murderer.

01:03:38.040 Do you know?

01:03:39.200 So I suggest you be kind and I suggest you be inclusive.

01:03:43.280 This is so stomach turning just to hear you describe it is deeply alarming because it's

01:03:48.820 happening right now to much younger girls too.

01:03:51.960 Not that it was easy at the college level, but you and I both know it's happening to 10

01:03:56.000 year olds to 12 year olds who don't have any sort of maturity yet to deal with this

01:04:00.180 kind of a thing and not for nothing, but there's no question in my mind and in the minds of

01:04:05.760 many experts on this issue that it's not normal in any way for an actual gender confused person,

01:04:11.440 an actual trans person to show off his penis in a women's locker room.

01:04:16.540 The people who are make up the 2% of trans people who are legitimately gender confused and

01:04:21.140 have been since birth and have lived their lives like that.

01:04:23.760 They don't want you to see their penis.

01:04:25.760 They're actually trying to hide that and to blend in with women.

01:04:30.700 People who do what Leah Thomas did tend to be overwhelmingly autogonophiles who are aroused

01:04:37.260 sexually by dressing as women and being around women while they're pretending to be women.

01:04:41.900 And so the odds of this guy getting off on the fact that you were uncomfortable are extremely

01:04:47.060 high.

01:04:47.960 A hundred percent.

01:04:48.500 And, and yeah, to your point, which I haven't really thought of it this way, but it's such

01:04:53.100 a good point because someone who is gender dysphoric, they're so uncomfortable with their

01:04:59.120 own body that they would never expose themselves out in the open in that way because they're

01:05:04.280 dysphoric about that.

01:05:05.620 Right.

01:05:05.980 Um, that was not the case with Leah Thomas, which he's actually been on social media and

01:05:10.860 liked posts and commented on posts and reposted things that say he is an AGP.

01:05:15.980 Oh, they're very dark.

01:05:17.140 Oh, I mean, they, they make it very clear.

01:05:19.020 The daily wire did a whole expose on it, pardon the pun.

01:05:22.560 And it was deeply alarming.

01:05:23.840 And we've invited Leah Thomas to come on the show and talk to us about it and deny it if

01:05:27.700 he wants to, uh, he hasn't taken us up on that.

01:05:30.280 No, but what we're doing to our young girls, it's morally wrong.

01:05:35.540 It's evil.

01:05:36.480 There was just a story.

01:05:37.700 I know you saw this out of West Virginia.

01:05:40.040 Um, that's so that court ruled against the young woman.

01:05:45.760 That's a 13 year old girl, I think, who was playing against a male.

01:05:50.480 Hold on.

01:05:50.780 Let me get my notes.

01:05:51.600 And this young boy said, I'm a girl and I, um, I've been a girl.

01:05:58.880 I've been taking the hormones and all that, but this, the young actual girl said, okay,

01:06:04.320 you may say you're a girl, but you're, you keep threatening to do things to me with your

01:06:09.860 penis in the most vile and offensive terms possible.

01:06:13.880 And you keep winning races with faster times than most of the girls have in all of that.

01:06:19.240 And the court in West Virginia sided with the trans student.

01:06:25.280 It goes to show you, no one is immune.

01:06:27.900 Um, and this is something I see across the board.

01:06:31.040 I live in Tennessee, which is a very right for the most part, conservative state.

01:06:35.120 Uh, we've got great leaders in our state who do wonderful things.

01:06:38.160 Um, but I, in talking with people, community members, parents, even kids in the state,

01:06:45.040 they say, oh, well, well, that's not happening here.

01:06:47.040 We're in Tennessee.

01:06:48.120 Well, that would be your first, that would be your first mistake because it certainly

01:06:52.140 is.

01:06:52.600 I think complacency is ultimately how we've got here because we said, oh, it won't affect

01:06:57.080 me.

01:06:57.480 This isn't happening to me.

01:06:59.540 And then it does.

01:07:01.220 Um, but those West Virginia girls, um, that case is, is the girls who refuse to do the shot

01:07:07.340 put against this guy, right?

01:07:08.900 Um, it's, you were there for that too.

01:07:10.620 Yeah.

01:07:11.000 Yes.

01:07:11.460 I feel everywhere.

01:07:13.260 Um, but really I couldn't be more proud of, of those five girls because look, these are

01:07:18.240 five 13, 14 year old girls in middle school.

01:07:22.280 Um, they reached out to me a few weeks prior to, to ultimately conceding and the video that

01:07:28.040 went totally viral.

01:07:28.860 And they said, Riley, we're set to compete against a boy.

01:07:32.780 Uh, he's also in middle school.

01:07:34.880 He's 13 years old.

01:07:36.200 He goes by the name of Becky pepper Jackson or Becky Jackson pepper, whatever his name

01:07:40.380 is.

01:07:40.560 And they said, but we don't want to compete against him.

01:07:43.600 They said, Riley, it's not because we don't like him or, or that we're hateful towards

01:07:47.540 him or people who act in the way he does.

01:07:50.220 No, it's not that.

01:07:50.980 But Riley, are we not worthy of being called champions?

01:07:54.020 Why do we have to fight for second place?

01:07:56.240 And my heart broke middle school age girls.

01:08:00.100 How sad is it that they're left to contemplate if they're worthy enough to be called champions.

01:08:07.140 Um, but anyways, they decided on conceding, uh, five of those girls, they got up in the

01:08:13.520 circle.

01:08:14.160 They had their shot put, they, they loaded up as if they were going to throw.

01:08:17.540 And then they stepped out.

01:08:18.960 Yeah.

01:08:19.260 I could not be more inspired.

01:08:21.080 I mean, I hate to even say that.

01:08:22.520 I hate to say I'm inspired by girls not competing in sports because I know the benefits of playing

01:08:29.040 sports.

01:08:29.220 I read the moral stance for sure.

01:08:31.300 For something far larger than just winning that one meet or, or far larger than even

01:08:35.400 themselves.

01:08:35.920 The allegations against this man claiming he's female, uh, included that he, again, haven't

01:08:43.540 received his response to this, assuming it's a denial, but, uh, alleging that he made multiple

01:08:49.680 sexually explicit remarks to, um, this one girl in particular, Adelia Cross, two to three

01:08:55.540 times per week was looking at her saying, suck my D, um, same thing to her other teammates

01:09:01.200 as well, saying, I'm going to do this with my D and to you here or there and elsewhere

01:09:05.440 that he would taunt her after beating her in competitions.

01:09:08.400 Uh, and then he eventually took her spot away from her by her eighth grade season, uh, puberty

01:09:18.100 appeared to be setting in and he was suddenly taller than her and throwing 20 feet farther

01:09:22.740 than she could.

01:09:24.080 Uh, and the school did next to nothing that looks like they worked to get the comments

01:09:28.220 shut down, but he was never removed from the team.

01:09:30.820 And these girls too are forced to change in a locker room with this intact young man.

01:09:36.280 Now, the problem is the courts in that one case in West Virginia seem to say, well, it's

01:09:43.300 somebody who tried to live as a girl for, you know, since age nine.

01:09:47.440 And if they go on the puberty blockers, uh, and then cross sex hormones, I mean, the court's

01:09:52.660 basically saying they're kind of a woman except for the penis.

01:09:56.680 And so they have no advantage.

01:09:58.380 Yeah.

01:09:58.620 Except for that thing.

01:09:59.360 And then so they have no advantage.

01:10:01.300 And I was, I had a couple of left wingers on my show recently who I like, but they were

01:10:05.620 like, do you think jazz Jennings should have to use the boys room and playing the boys sports?

01:10:10.820 And I said, yes, I do.

01:10:12.300 I'm a hundred percent there.

01:10:13.860 Yes.

01:10:14.440 So what's your answer to the people who say, well, he got, you know, he started the puberty

01:10:18.980 blockers, didn't have male puberty or jazz Jennings had the operation.

01:10:21.960 It's really kind of a girl now.

01:10:23.400 Here's the thing.

01:10:25.100 Every decision has consequences.

01:10:26.680 First and foremost, even, even a decision as simple as if I don't get out of bed in the

01:10:31.360 morning, it has a consequence to it.

01:10:33.140 And so look, I'm not here to police on what someone does.

01:10:36.820 I think a child, anyone under the age of 18, um, chemically or surgically castrating themselves.

01:10:43.080 I think that's criminal, but an adult, that's the beauty of America.

01:10:47.460 You can do what you want as long as it's not costing my taxpayer dollars and it's safe for

01:10:54.600 everyone else.

01:10:55.020 Who cares?

01:10:56.080 Um, so I'm not here to police that, but that decision has consequences.

01:11:01.720 So if your girl, let's say who begins taking testosterone, no, I don't think it's fair for

01:11:09.000 you to compete with the girls because that's, that's cheating.

01:11:11.600 That's, that's called using performance enhancing drugs.

01:11:14.280 What do we call Lance Armstrong?

01:11:15.260 We called him a cheater.

01:11:17.240 Um, but that might be a decision that you have to make.

01:11:20.400 That's a consequence of the decision.

01:11:22.680 Okay.

01:11:22.860 Do you want to transition?

01:11:24.640 Fine.

01:11:25.440 But you might not be able to play your sport, um, anymore.

01:11:29.680 And so I hear all the time.

01:11:30.920 Okay.

01:11:31.040 Well, what about a third category?

01:11:33.160 Uh, honestly, I thought for a while, sure, let's just have a third category.

01:11:36.780 But the more I think about it, if safety and fairness still matter, which to me, every person,

01:11:43.640 whether trans identifying or not, I think every person is entitled and should strive

01:11:49.260 for safety and fairness.

01:11:50.700 Um, if we create a third category, it's still very much going to be males competing against

01:11:56.360 females, um, therefore safety and fairness.

01:11:59.180 Wait, why do you think that?

01:11:59.880 Because you think female people posing as males will go into that category and just get beaten

01:12:05.200 by the guys who are.

01:12:06.740 Yeah.

01:12:07.000 I mean, the binary still exists.

01:12:08.380 Even if you have this third category for non-binary or, or males identifying as women

01:12:13.760 or females identifying as men who have begun taking testosterone, it's still going to be

01:12:19.540 males versus females.

01:12:20.580 I don't think we're going to have the females who posing as males who compete in that, right?

01:12:23.620 They haven't done a lot of the competition.

01:12:25.040 They are not the problem.

01:12:26.300 That's another thing.

01:12:27.180 My leftist friends were pushing me on.

01:12:28.600 They're not leftist.

01:12:29.140 They're center left, but they, they were left a little bit on a couple of things.

01:12:32.580 And you know, I, it's look, it's not, the problem is not with women who poses men.

01:12:38.660 Making their way into men's faith spaces, nor is there a danger posed by that, nor is

01:12:42.620 there an unfairness issue posed by that.

01:12:44.320 It's always the other way around.

01:12:46.160 I don't know whether the third category could work.

01:12:48.340 I just know it's not, it shouldn't be my daughter's problem until they figure it out.

01:12:52.080 No, I don't care.

01:12:53.320 We shouldn't be, it shouldn't be up to the women to create a solution.

01:12:57.060 Plus it's like, look, my daughter loves sports, but she also really likes to act in the school

01:13:04.840 plays.

01:13:05.440 They happen at the same time.

01:13:06.920 So she has to make a choice.

01:13:08.260 She has to create a hierarchy of what is most important to her on her value list.

01:13:13.500 That's what these trans people are going to have to do.

01:13:15.840 Exactly.

01:13:16.640 Yeah, no doubt.

01:13:17.940 And then let's say a third category.

01:13:19.380 Okay.

01:13:19.560 You have, do you then split it?

01:13:22.580 Okay.

01:13:22.880 Males who identify as women, women who identify as men.

01:13:25.840 Okay.

01:13:26.240 Then if, if fairness and safety still matter, do you split the men's division?

01:13:29.980 Men who begin taking hormone blockers before puberty and men who take HRT after puberty.

01:13:36.280 If you really want to get fair.

01:13:37.320 And sports are the one place that you go to abandon all identities.

01:13:39.860 We don't look at religion.

01:13:40.840 We don't look at race.

01:13:41.660 We don't look at sexual orientation.

01:13:43.080 And, and rightfully so, because those things don't matter when we're playing sports.

01:13:47.620 Well, look at the blowback against Caitlin Clark, right?

01:13:50.260 I know.

01:13:50.580 Like somehow she's committed a sin just by being so popular with the WNBA.

01:13:53.940 Just by existing.

01:13:54.820 Well, now off to the WNBA.

01:13:56.800 Um, well, what do you think of the testosterone things?

01:14:01.600 I, in the book you address, what does it really mean when there's a biological male who's taking

01:14:06.820 estrogen to lower his testosterone or puberty block, whatever, they're trying to lower their

01:14:11.420 testosterone.

01:14:12.080 And then there's still many athletic bodies that say that'll work.

01:14:15.720 Yes.

01:14:16.140 I think that's the most misogynistic thing, reducing women down to a testosterone threshold.

01:14:23.200 Is that all we are?

01:14:24.300 Is that what makes someone a woman?

01:14:25.540 How much testosterone you have?

01:14:26.900 What a silly standard.

01:14:28.180 Um, so by no means, and even if, even if a male could get to zero nanomoles per liter

01:14:35.360 of testosterone, um, which is incredibly dangerous for a man to, to reach and achieve these levels

01:14:41.700 that are being set by these governing bodies.

01:14:44.560 Um, but nonetheless, if a man could get to zero, there are still advantages that males possess

01:14:50.760 that testosterone doesn't affect that women will never have like lung capacity, like your

01:14:55.720 heart size, like your height, like your limb size.

01:14:58.180 It even sounds silly, but in swimming, your throat size matters.

01:15:02.860 Um, this is a sport where you're grasping for air.

01:15:06.480 Men on average have a 40% larger throat than women.

01:15:09.920 Wow.

01:15:10.180 That's a huge advantage.

01:15:11.680 Um, so these, I think the whole testosterone threshold, again, it's just, um, incredibly

01:15:18.620 misinformed as to what it is to be a woman.

01:15:22.260 Um, yeah, it's silly.

01:15:24.160 I remember, um, we did a show on sexual health.

01:15:27.520 We did an hour on men's and then we did an hour on women's.

01:15:30.400 And I was asking the expert about women taking testosterone because a lot of the women I know,

01:15:36.460 I, I do not take testosterone, but some of the women I know are taking it.

01:15:40.740 It helps with libido and whatever.

01:15:43.840 And they, she said, you, you can do it, but you certainly couldn't let your child get anywhere

01:15:48.680 near it because those patches are like powerful and you wouldn't want a child coming near you.

01:15:53.240 And I remember asking, well, what about, you know, your husband?

01:15:56.580 And she was making the point that if you had any idea how much testosterone is raging through

01:16:02.500 the average male body, your husband can rub the patch all over him and he's fine.

01:16:08.280 He's brimming with it.

01:16:09.880 The average man, not, not guys who have a problem, but brimming with, with testosterone.

01:16:13.760 And we're just not, we're just not.

01:16:16.600 And the refusal, because there's still many sports out there that don't require any lowering

01:16:20.340 of testosterone by these men.

01:16:22.300 Like soccer, which soccer, um, yes, I I've, when talking about swimming, I often forget

01:16:29.520 the safety aspect of things because swimming isn't a sport where you're colliding or running

01:16:34.880 into one another, throwing something at one another.

01:16:37.020 But in sports like soccer or softball or volleyball, again, where you're hitting a ball at each

01:16:43.940 other or what have you, you do have to worry about safety.

01:16:47.900 So could you imagine on a soccer field, uh, a male running up, um, with his forceful and

01:16:54.700 powerful kick 10 times?

01:16:56.200 I imagine the amount of power a woman can exert with her kick, kicking you in the shin or

01:17:02.960 volleyball.

01:17:03.580 We we've seen several instances of this now.

01:17:05.600 Um, what about Peyton McNabb in North Carolina?

01:17:09.120 Yes.

01:17:09.440 A high school senior who, uh, playing on a girl's team has a boy playing on the opposing

01:17:15.220 team.

01:17:15.900 The boy jumps up, spikes the ball, hits Peyton in the face.

01:17:19.000 She's immediately knocked unconscious where she laid for, for minutes before finally coming

01:17:23.940 back around.

01:17:24.580 This was in September of 2022, still to this day.

01:17:29.060 I mean, almost two years later, a year and eight ish months later, she's partially paralyzed

01:17:34.140 on her right side.

01:17:35.840 Her vision is impaired.

01:17:37.140 She has to have special accommodations for testing at school because her memory is impaired.

01:17:41.520 She can't retain information like she once could.

01:17:44.360 And he's never apologized to her.

01:17:45.760 Oh no.

01:17:46.460 He's actually done the exact opposite and has continued to mock her through social media,

01:17:51.320 uh, messaged her and said, Oh my gosh, you know, you can't stop talking about me.

01:17:54.500 Can you, I'm living rent-free in your head.

01:17:56.320 I mean, awful, but it goes to show the narcissism.

01:18:00.980 Yes.

01:18:01.360 My gosh.

01:18:01.980 This is why we have to fight.

01:18:03.780 This is why Riley is not in dental school right now, which was your plan.

01:18:08.820 Were you, what were you going to do exactly?

01:18:10.500 What was your, what was your dream?

01:18:11.600 Nice.

01:18:12.100 Which is, um, basically root canals.

01:18:15.000 Oh gosh.

01:18:15.860 I know.

01:18:16.480 Well, you're kind of doing that in some, in a different way, in a metaphorical way.

01:18:19.160 Yeah.

01:18:19.880 Getting to the root of the problem coming out of people's mouths.

01:18:22.100 That's right.

01:18:22.640 It's probably just as painful as one.

01:18:24.020 You, you never.

01:18:25.520 All right.

01:18:25.780 I'm going to take a break, but I want to get into your backstory because I, I love some

01:18:28.520 of the stories in your book about you and your dad and creating mental toughness.

01:18:32.140 All of this is with, these are the building blocks of the Riley gains.

01:18:35.020 We now know are all in there and there's some good advice on how to toughen up your

01:18:39.360 kid, lest he or she wind up being forced into activism on an important story or cause.

01:18:45.640 Her new book is called swimming against the current quick break back with Riley right

01:18:51.160 after this, go order it today.

01:18:52.300 Swimming against the current Riley gains.

01:18:54.640 I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly show on Sirius XM.

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01:19:51.500 Offer details apply.

01:19:58.220 Here with me still, Riley Gaines, author of the brand new book.

01:20:02.060 It's out tomorrow.

01:20:02.780 Go get it now.

01:20:03.640 Swimming against the current.

01:20:06.020 And there's all sorts of amazing facts and stats and reality in this book about what's

01:20:11.080 really happening with the gender cult.

01:20:12.560 But it also has some fun stories about Riley and how she got here.

01:20:16.440 And you're so young.

01:20:17.920 A lot of people may not know any of this stuff.

01:20:20.480 So tell us about mental toughness and how your dad made sure you had it.

01:20:25.460 Well, I'm so fortunate to have, I didn't realize this at the time, but of course, as you get

01:20:29.900 older, I realize now how fortunate I am to have two amazing parents who love each other

01:20:36.320 very much, who taught me how to be an independent thinker, how to call out an injustice when you

01:20:43.360 see it.

01:20:44.740 So I could not be more grateful for my parents who were both high level athletes.

01:20:48.920 My mom, she was a division one softball player.

01:20:50.900 My dad, he's an SEC Hall of Famer football player, went on to play for the Eagles.

01:20:58.020 It's been a good bit in the NFL.

01:20:59.720 And so them having that background inclined was a big part in me playing sports, I guess

01:21:07.580 I'll say.

01:21:08.600 But when I was young, probably eight years old, my dad, he did some different business endeavors.

01:21:15.520 And so I went with him on a business trip to Memphis, Tennessee.

01:21:18.520 And I will never forget, we're at this hotel, I normally, of course, you know, never really

01:21:25.100 traveled with just my dad, it was always all of us as a family, but it was a fun little

01:21:28.360 bonding trip.

01:21:29.420 So we're at this hotel.

01:21:30.740 And he says, Riley, come, come down to the lobby with me.

01:21:33.380 And I'm like, okay, you know, what are we doing?

01:21:35.940 He takes me to the the pool at this hotel.

01:21:39.120 It's outside.

01:21:39.960 It's in the middle of December.

01:21:41.100 And he's like, jump in.

01:21:42.700 I'm like, Dad, I'm not jumping in that pool.

01:21:45.400 It's freezing.

01:21:45.960 He pulled back the tarp.

01:21:46.840 He said, No, you're going to jump in.

01:21:47.820 This is your first lesson of mental toughness.

01:21:50.640 You're going to jump in.

01:21:51.900 And you're not going to say you're cold.

01:21:53.740 You're not going to to shiver.

01:21:55.640 And I'll tell you when you can get out.

01:21:57.280 I'm like, Dad, this is child abuse.

01:21:59.020 You can't make me do that.

01:21:59.860 I'm calling mom.

01:22:02.040 But I listened to him.

01:22:03.160 I jumped in, confused.

01:22:05.320 You know, what is this for?

01:22:06.440 Finally, after five minutes or so of treading in the water, he said, Okay, you can come out.

01:22:11.020 And then we go back to the room.

01:22:12.540 I'm still shivering.

01:22:13.340 I'm like, Dad, what was that about?

01:22:15.600 He said that, like I said, you need to learn mental toughness because physical toughness.

01:22:20.380 Yeah, it's important.

01:22:21.340 But mental toughness will take you further.

01:22:24.700 There's no such thing as cold, Riley.

01:22:26.940 He said there's such thing as an absence of heat, but there's no such thing as cold.

01:22:30.740 It's a mental state.

01:22:31.760 You think you're cold.

01:22:32.620 He said you're not really.

01:22:33.920 And I will never forget that.

01:22:35.120 It has stuck with me since.

01:22:36.800 And every time when I was swimming or practicing and I began to, you know, your legs burn, you

01:22:41.760 feel your body filling with lactic acid, you're tired, you're in pain.

01:22:45.380 I thought to myself, pain isn't real.

01:22:47.220 Just a feeling that I'm having.

01:22:48.640 It's fleeting.

01:22:49.140 It's in the moment, but not real.

01:22:52.480 So this is the difference between you and virtually everybody.

01:22:54.900 I mean, I remember talking to some Navy SEALs about this and that's how they get through

01:22:58.320 training.

01:22:58.740 Like, I don't feel the pain.

01:22:59.960 I don't feel the lactic acid.

01:23:01.620 I tried that at my very next workout and it was not true.

01:23:05.220 It's not true.

01:23:06.920 We mere mortals do feel pain.

01:23:09.560 But it's those lessons that I learned when I was young.

01:23:13.360 My dad was right because they have transcended beyond athletics.

01:23:16.960 Um, I'm able to do what I do now with a smile on my face with an incredibly light heart, not

01:23:25.100 worrying, not caring, not feeling anxious or stressed about, um, what we're up against

01:23:31.060 because I know what I'm standing for is the right thing.

01:23:34.620 This brings me to something I've always wanted to ask you.

01:23:37.900 So my audience knows I used to be on the wrong side of this whole issue, you know, and I played

01:23:43.620 clips of myself at NBC feeding into all of this.

01:23:47.320 You know, I, I was still in the mindset of be compassionate.

01:23:50.920 It's a very small group.

01:23:52.420 They're very badly bullied and using the pronouns.

01:23:54.700 Even when I launched the show, um, not so much on the other stuff, but on the pronouns,

01:23:58.920 I was still using, uh, when I launched the show.

01:24:01.140 And then I started, you know,

01:24:03.460 I remember when you, I, like, it was a defining moment for me to watch you kind of go off on,

01:24:10.540 it was, it was very powerful.

01:24:12.160 It was very fiery, but I needed to see that.

01:24:14.400 So I don't know if, if you know, just how many people you've inspired and influenced

01:24:19.460 since taking that stand.

01:24:22.180 That was a big decision for me to turn on the pronouns.

01:24:25.300 Naturally.

01:24:25.840 And, you know, like you, there've been so many women who have inspired me.

01:24:28.620 You're one of them, but Kelly J Keen, Helen Joyce, Abigail Schreier's book.

01:24:33.520 There's just been, you know, all these other great women who were to this party nice and

01:24:37.760 early and have been waving the flag saying, hold on, hold on, hold on.

01:24:41.440 Um, JK Rowling, how, how brave she's been all of it.

01:24:44.700 But I always wanted to ask you about when you were swimming and Leah Thomas, you found

01:24:52.160 out you're going to have to swim against him.

01:24:54.060 So what, how did your mind work at the time to say, I'm going to do it?

01:25:00.300 So we found out in about November of 2021, actually, let me take you a little further

01:25:06.060 back.

01:25:06.320 So I finished my junior year, um, at university of Kentucky, ultimately placing seventh in

01:25:11.920 the country, which it wasn't the best time, but I was proud of this.

01:25:15.920 You're top eight.

01:25:16.520 You're an all American.

01:25:17.060 It's a pretty high honor, but I knew I was capable of more.

01:25:20.640 So it was kind of right then and there that I placed seventh, my junior year that I set

01:25:24.540 a goal for my senior year to win a national title.

01:25:26.780 And so I'm right on pace to achieve this goal about midway through my senior season.

01:25:31.880 I was ranked third in the nation in the 200 freestyle trailing the girl in second, a girl

01:25:36.220 I knew very well, uh, by a few one hundredths of a second.

01:25:40.380 But the swimmer who was leading the nation by body links, my dad was a swimmer that none

01:25:47.260 of us had ever heard of before.

01:25:48.540 Not me, not my teammates, not my competitors, not my family, not my coaches, none of us.

01:25:53.140 It was the first time we became aware of a swimmer named Leah Thomas.

01:25:57.060 Lots of red flags at the time.

01:25:58.980 Keep in mind, we hadn't seen a photo of this person or else things probably would have been

01:26:02.180 a little more clear.

01:26:02.940 Um, but we really continued to stay in the dark until an article came out disclosing that

01:26:10.460 Leah Thomas is actually Will Thomas and swam three years on the men's team at UPenn before

01:26:15.200 deciding to switch to the women's team.

01:26:17.000 Whereas you said ranked, I mean, was mediocre at best, but he was a less than average male

01:26:23.180 swimmer still competing at the division one level.

01:26:25.360 So obviously he was a good swimmer.

01:26:27.660 Yeah.

01:26:27.820 But just not compared to the other men, but not when it came to national rankings or achievements.

01:26:32.940 Um, when I found out about this, naturally we were shocked.

01:26:39.000 Um, but really when I think about how I felt, it was like this, this overwhelming sense of

01:26:44.700 relief, like, Oh, that makes sense.

01:26:48.420 Duh.

01:26:48.640 It's a man.

01:26:49.340 That's why he's beating everyone in the country by so much in multiple events.

01:26:53.060 Duh.

01:26:54.000 And I didn't think much about it because I thought surely, I mean, it didn't even cross

01:26:58.060 my mind that the NCAA wouldn't see a problem with this.

01:27:00.480 They won't let him compete with us at NCAAs that the pinnacle of our sport, they'll put

01:27:05.820 a policy in place.

01:27:06.780 I'm sure they already have one in place.

01:27:08.140 This isn't really an issue.

01:27:09.520 He's a man.

01:27:10.560 Uh, so I was, I was very relieved, um, until I found out that the NCAA did not see it that

01:27:16.820 way.

01:27:17.040 They didn't see it the same way that me, again, my teammates, my coaches, uh, anyone with

01:27:21.580 any amount of brain activity saw this issue.

01:27:23.720 They saw no problem with it, but even still those three weeks, I mentioned how we found

01:27:29.380 out about three weeks before that meet in March of 2022, even after finding out leading

01:27:35.060 up to that meet, I am almost ashamed to admit it, but I still felt this like sheer sense of

01:27:43.200 curiosity, almost intriguement.

01:27:45.340 You know, what is this going to look like?

01:27:47.380 Is he as tall as Instagram pictures make him look, uh, is he going to sandbag it?

01:27:51.880 Will he be in our locker room?

01:27:53.000 I mean, there were so many questions that we didn't have answers to that there was a

01:27:57.380 sense of intriguement, but I'm ashamed for feeling intrigued.

01:28:00.720 I really am because upon getting to that meet, um, seeing the tears that I saw from the girls

01:28:07.920 who placed ninth and 17th and missed out on being named an all American by one place, seeing

01:28:12.700 the tears from the moms in the stands, watching as their daughters are being obliterated in the

01:28:17.880 sport that they once loved feeling the extreme discomfort in the locker room, hearing,

01:28:21.880 hearing the whispers, cause that's what they were.

01:28:24.380 They were whispers of, of anger and frustration from these girls who just like myself had worked

01:28:30.800 our entire lives to get to this meet.

01:28:33.700 Uh, I remember specifically actually when my feelings really shifted because, um, this was

01:28:39.160 like a week long meet and you swim prelims in the morning.

01:28:41.960 You have to qualify top 16.

01:28:43.280 You come back that evening, you swim finals, and that's where you'll achieve your overall

01:28:46.760 national ranking.

01:28:47.940 And so that first day of competition, I'm watching prelims of the 500, um, which is the

01:28:54.580 event that Thomas would that evening go on to win a national title in, and I'm watching

01:28:58.300 prelims.

01:28:58.940 There's about eight heats or so.

01:29:00.940 Um, my team was sat next to Virginia tech.

01:29:03.000 One of the, the swimmers from Virginia tech, she swam in one of the, the earlier heats she

01:29:08.400 had just finished.

01:29:09.220 She came back to the pool deck said by me, I knew her, I didn't know her that well.

01:29:14.620 I really only knew her name and what event she swam.

01:29:17.840 Uh, we're watching the final heat swim.

01:29:20.640 This is the event where she knew she was right on the cusp of making top 16.

01:29:25.560 The final heat concludes Thomas is swimming.

01:29:28.300 Thomas dominates.

01:29:29.060 She looks up at the scoreboard and she realized she placed 17th and I will never forget because

01:29:34.020 she looked at me again, not even really knowing her.

01:29:36.980 And she grabbed me, my hand with tears running down her face.

01:29:40.880 And she said, Riley, I just got beat by someone who didn't even have to try.

01:29:44.360 I mean, I have chills telling it again.

01:29:45.660 I have to, I have chills listening.

01:29:46.860 And that's when those feelings shifted to utter heartbreak.

01:29:50.420 And I realized the severity of what we were dealing with.

01:29:53.400 This wasn't just a circus or a funny ha ha, like SNL skit moment anymore.

01:29:57.260 This was real life.

01:29:58.120 And that's when, that's when I decided what cowards we have leading us, our coaches,

01:30:05.140 even coaches who I love and respect and who knew this was objectively wrong.

01:30:10.660 But then it was very hard for you to say anything about it as the competitors that they knew

01:30:14.600 what would happen to you.

01:30:15.400 Of course.

01:30:16.240 Yeah.

01:30:16.640 But they were more worried about their own heights.

01:30:18.140 Of course.

01:30:18.980 And again, I understand because the risk and the threats, they're real.

01:30:21.860 I'm not sitting here saying that it's easy.

01:30:23.660 Well, actually I am.

01:30:24.700 It is easy to say that there are two sexes.

01:30:27.560 That's not hard to say.

01:30:29.080 But very few have said it, right?

01:30:30.180 Paula Scanlon spoke out.

01:30:32.180 You Penn swimmer, you spoke out.

01:30:34.520 But almost no one, no one else that I know of.

01:30:37.620 No, there's been very, very few.

01:30:39.800 Very few.

01:30:40.240 People think it's either, either, of course, they're terrified.

01:30:42.980 They're scared.

01:30:43.580 They believe it.

01:30:44.300 When their universities or administrators tell them they won't get a job or they won't get

01:30:48.700 into grad school or they'll lose their friends or people genuinely think it's not their problem.

01:30:53.220 They think, oh, well, I'm done competing.

01:30:54.620 It happened to me, but I'm moving on.

01:30:57.360 It's on to the next thing.

01:30:58.440 It won't happen again.

01:31:00.340 Really?

01:31:01.220 No, it's incredibly selfish.

01:31:02.820 Yeah.

01:31:03.000 And there's a story out of Oregon that I saw.

01:31:06.920 I know you've seen it and have tweeted about it, but this is kind of reminding me of this.

01:31:11.540 It's a track star.

01:31:13.640 The Oregon Track and Field State Championships were this past weekend, high school track.

01:31:18.200 And a biological male, 10th grader at McDaniel High School, ran.

01:31:24.180 He ran as a woman.

01:31:26.380 This guy comes out and wins.

01:31:30.360 He just won the 200-meter state championship.

01:31:33.980 He was booed, thank God, when he crossed the finish line against the girls.

01:31:39.580 He was booed when they announced the first place winner because these girls fully understood

01:31:44.120 what had just happened to them, similar to your 17th place friend.

01:31:48.680 And this guy came out of nowhere, too.

01:31:52.600 He had a background in weight training, reports the Washington Times, but had not even competed

01:31:59.300 in track and field before joining the girls' team this season.

01:32:04.400 And now he's a state champion.

01:32:06.080 The fastest girl or woman in the state of Oregon.

01:32:10.680 The whole state.

01:32:11.820 And he's never ran before.

01:32:13.620 It's the same story every single time.

01:32:16.260 Mediocre men, less than mediocre men, become record smashers on the women's side.

01:32:21.740 It's the same story every single time.

01:32:23.920 Again, it breaks my heart.

01:32:26.620 I think we should take a minute and recognize the real state champion, Astor Jones.

01:32:31.380 Yeah.

01:32:31.640 The girl who got second, but the rightful state champion.

01:32:36.040 That's right.

01:32:36.500 He also plays second in the 400-meter behind a girl who is going on to be an SEC runner.

01:32:43.840 So, I mean, these aren't scrubs.

01:32:45.000 It's not like these girls are bad at running.

01:32:47.720 Um, no, these girls are incredible.

01:32:51.280 And him being mediocre, uh, is still able to beat even the most, I mean, the fastest

01:32:57.420 girls in the state.

01:32:58.460 The, the, uh, the mother of one of the female runners told the Publica, a publication that

01:33:06.220 the Oregon School Activities Association threatened to ban any students who complained

01:33:11.680 about this male.

01:33:13.620 She said, my daughter is in her senior year.

01:33:16.360 She has to compete against this person who just won, uh, at state and took spots away

01:33:22.860 from our girls and he doesn't deserve it.

01:33:25.360 He needs to be with the men.

01:33:27.340 Uh, and you know, more and more what we're being told by some is the girls don't mind.

01:33:33.940 They didn't say anything.

01:33:34.900 Look at the UPenn swimmers.

01:33:36.140 They didn't mind.

01:33:37.360 It's just you bigots who complain.

01:33:39.020 They're much more tolerant.

01:33:39.920 And look at Megan Rapinoe.

01:33:41.300 She, she says it's fine.

01:33:43.880 Like this isn't happening.

01:33:44.720 They're not just entering to steal the medals.

01:33:46.780 So take a seat.

01:33:48.540 It's so silly when people say that, because first of all, it's people who have never played

01:33:52.620 sports in their entire lives who are saying that.

01:33:55.140 Um, and second of all, that could not be further from the truth.

01:33:58.480 Um, again, 16 of those UPenn swimmers signed onto an email saying that they weren't okay with

01:34:03.500 this, but their voices aren't heard.

01:34:05.620 They're stifled.

01:34:06.360 Their speech is stifled.

01:34:07.220 Um, they're forced into submission, um, through emotional blackmail and gaslighting, being told

01:34:13.500 they literally have blood on their hands.

01:34:15.820 If they speak out telling them that they will be murderers, that's why these girls are quiet.

01:34:21.180 And the loss of everything they've trained their whole lives for everything.

01:34:24.200 Exactly.

01:34:24.820 And the number of hours in the pool, I can only imagine.

01:34:27.200 Oh gosh.

01:34:27.840 Um, yeah, it's, I mean, at the collegiate level, we practice six hours every single day

01:34:33.260 with three of those hours being before 8am.

01:34:35.580 So you wake up, you go to the pool, you swim from 5am to 8am, you go to class, you come back,

01:34:40.980 you practice again from one 30 to four 30.

01:34:43.740 Ate your dinner, did your homework, iced your shoulder, went to bed, woke up, did it all again

01:34:47.820 the next day.

01:34:48.760 It's very easy for people on the outside to say, you should, you should stand up.

01:34:52.560 And that's why it's so hard for those girls.

01:34:54.120 You know, you show the shop putters, we talked about them in West Virginia, but it's

01:34:57.820 really, ideally this comes from the outside.

01:35:00.240 It comes from women and men totally on the outside to stand up for these athletes who

01:35:05.940 shouldn't be asked to sacrifice everything to stand up against the insanity.

01:35:10.520 Riley, you're so brave.

01:35:12.620 I'm so happy you exist and that you've taken this on and that you're not in dental school

01:35:17.540 and not doing endodontics or whatever.

01:35:20.620 I'm thrilled.

01:35:21.500 This was your calling and your purpose.

01:35:23.280 And I can't wait to see what you do with all this talent and drive.

01:35:26.860 Well, I'm inspired by women like you.

01:35:29.860 So thank you.

01:35:31.140 Again, this was long overdue, but I'm thrilled to be just next with you in this fight with

01:35:35.280 you.

01:35:35.940 And I imagine we'll see each other again soon.

01:35:37.820 Right on.

01:35:38.660 By the book, Swimming Against the Current, out tomorrow.

01:35:42.780 Back tomorrow with Bill Maher.

01:35:46.840 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.

01:35:49.020 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - May 20, 2024

Cohen Admits to Stealing From Trump, and Protecting Women's Sports, with Sens. Ted Cruz and Katie Britt, and Riley Gaines ｜ Ep. 796

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