The Megyn Kelly Show - Dr. Laura on Marriage Secrets, Protecting Your Kids, and the Value of Personal Responsibility

00:00:00.420 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:12.020 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. We have got a great and fun

00:00:17.860 Friday program for you today. Later, Kelly's Court is back in session with some really interesting

00:00:23.000 cases, but first, the signature event since the show has launched. Joining me today, she

00:00:31.260 really needs no introduction, Dr. Laura Schlesinger, host of the Dr. Laura program on Sirius XM,

00:00:38.980 Triumph 111, and author of 13 New York Times bestselling books. Dr. Laura, I am so excited

00:00:45.760 to have you. Thank you for doing this. You know, Kelly, if you weren't so nice and sweet

00:00:51.300 and brilliant and kind and thoughtful, I'd hate you for being so gorgeous.

00:00:58.840 You're amazing. It's true. Thank you so much. I have been interviewed on TV by more people

00:01:07.540 than I wished I had been. And when you interviewed me on Fox, I left saying, wow, she's smart.

00:01:18.000 She's strong. She's nice. I haven't dealt with too much of that in the industry. You're amazing.

00:01:25.920 You are amazing. That is high praise. And a good mommy. And a good mommy. You know what? Let's

00:01:32.360 kick it off there because I don't want to, you know, be too bootlicky, but a good mommy, not totally

00:01:40.380 independent from some of your advice. I was one of those women who, I don't know, maybe was sold

00:01:47.300 a bill of goods by my generation, by women around me and led to believe you can do it all. Sure. You

00:01:53.740 got it. And I had this thriving career at Fox and I took the job in the prime time knowing that I had,

00:02:00.180 you know, at the time, two kids and one baby on the way, the third on the way,

00:02:04.260 and that it was going to be very disruptive. And I took it because I was ambitious. It was a big

00:02:09.800 raise. It was more power. And I lasted three years before I said, holy, what am I doing? And I,

00:02:17.400 I had been listening to you for, for years. I had always been a fan of yours. So one of the reasons

00:02:21.840 why I wanted to talk to you on the, on that show and this, and you had a gift early on in your life

00:02:27.460 of just understanding you have to be there. If you have children, you have to raise them. You owe

00:02:34.160 that to them. Don't bother having them unless you're prepared to do it. So I'll just keep it out

00:02:40.440 there because I feel a little bad now because, oh great, now I've made my money. Now I've, you know,

00:02:46.420 I sort of established a name. Now I can make other choices to be with them more. And so I feel,

00:02:52.520 I don't want to look at the women out there, single moms working so hard inflation and say,

00:02:56.940 you too must do that. But I've heard you and I've read enough of your books to know you,

00:03:01.420 you do say even to those moms, there are solutions that can get you more time with your kids. Even

00:03:07.920 you, even you working the double job with a deadbeat dad.

00:03:13.760 Well, we dump the dad and go home to mom and dad and try to make it work. I remember I

00:03:18.740 was giving a little talk and I don't remember what the group was at all. And one lady stood up and she

00:03:26.440 was in her late twenties, same thing. No guy, uh, had a kid, little baby. And she just reamed me.

00:03:34.540 And I said, it's just not good for your kid not to be loved all day.

00:03:39.880 Find a way. So she stormed out. I got a letter from her about six months ago when she finished

00:03:46.460 being angry. She realized it was because she was being defensive. And you know what she came up with

00:03:51.260 in the Valley. There are a million tall businesses with lots of offices. She made cupcakes and donuts

00:03:57.900 and stuff like that. Sort of like the Mildred Pierce movie and brought her kid with her everywhere. It

00:04:04.100 was a baby. So the baby was with her all day and she made good money doing that. She found a way and

00:04:10.400 she thanked me and apologized for, you know, going crazy at me, which I didn't mind. It was okay. I knew

00:04:17.100 she was being defensive because she didn't have a thought then. But when people are willing to

00:04:24.040 realize that their babies need them for goodness sake, uh, they've listened to you for nine months

00:04:30.980 inside. You felt all your moods. They come out, they suckle at your breast, your voice, the way you

00:04:38.360 look at them. Their brains are still forming for the first five years. Do you want their brains to make

00:04:43.860 connections about love and safety and contentment and enthusiasm and everything else with somebody

00:04:51.340 else? Hired help. So, you know, to me, it seems logical. People get upset if you take puppies away from

00:04:59.880 their mommy too soon. Yes. Moving along. No, it's true. And I would say in my case, I had to live it and

00:05:09.940 learn it from myself. You know, I had believed the narrative that I could do it all, that I could

00:05:15.720 staff it up. And I have a husband who's a writer. So he was at home and that was great. And that's,

00:05:21.360 and my children did have a primary care, you know, giver as a parent, as a primary caregiver

00:05:25.420 while I was at work, but it wasn't good enough for me. I, I knew they needed me. They needed their mom

00:05:33.720 and I also needed them. And, and I remember somebody saying, but you're in such a powerful

00:05:38.260 position. You know, why would you ever leave? And I just kind of laughed like you don't get

00:05:43.680 it. I, I, if you don't understand, I can't explain it to you. I'm not going to miss their

00:05:48.880 childhoods. Right. Because if you miss their childhoods, they don't care about missing your

00:05:54.960 old age hoods. Yeah. My situation was, uh, I was there, I was there, I was there. And I would work

00:06:07.860 at night on radio on KFI, some other place first. And then KFI was the main one. And then they were

00:06:14.600 going to shift things around. And I heard a rumor that I was going to be put in drive time, which of

00:06:21.600 course in radio is considered the big deal. It's not such a big deal anymore. At the time,

00:06:27.060 it was a big deal. And I went home and cried because I knew if they offered me that I'd have

00:06:32.160 to say no, because that means my, I would not be picking my kid up from school. He was in

00:06:37.600 second grade, third grade. And then I wouldn't be there for dinner and I wouldn't be there to put

00:06:43.400 him to sleep. Well, that was a no. Fortunately, they never offered me the job, but I wouldn't have

00:06:49.020 taken it. I stayed midday. How did you have him to school, picked him up? He didn't even know I

00:06:53.880 worked. How did you have that knowledge? Because your generation was the first to be told, do it

00:07:00.400 all. You can have it all, right? My mom was born in 1941 and she tried and was very stressed out,

00:07:07.580 didn't have any help and tried to do it all. And really, it wasn't easy. So how did you have that

00:07:12.960 wisdom, you know, when you were raising Derek? It just seemed logical. I wanted to be there for

00:07:19.000 him. I wanted to nurture him, comfort him, challenge him, have fun with him. It, it just

00:07:25.320 never occurred to me to do anything but that. I mean, I enjoyed the hell out of him. We used to go

00:07:32.240 into the woods, semi-woods near a park and pick up sticks and challenge the dragons. I mean,

00:07:39.920 we did all kinds of crazy stuff. I loved it. And when I started publishing books, I went on one book

00:07:45.800 tour for a week and said, well, this isn't happening again. And then I heard that they were starting to

00:07:50.720 do something on what they call satellite, where you sat in a room all day. You got to pee now and then,

00:07:56.740 but you sat in a room all day and took interviews off the satellite. So I did that. And he was at

00:08:06.920 school. I did that. He didn't even know his mother was working. That's the time he was growing up. He

00:08:12.280 had no clue what his mother was. Right. And that's good, right? He doesn't need the pressure of that

00:08:18.860 one way or another. But it's, to me, it speaks to a philosophy I've gleaned from you when it comes

00:08:24.900 to parenthood, but also to relationships, you know, love relationships with a spouse or a partner.

00:08:31.080 Um, it's about the everydayness of it. It's not about the grand gestures. You can't,

00:08:38.400 you can't do your parenting just on the weekends or on a vacation or when you have the time and you

00:08:45.000 can't build a healthy marriage or relationship by just bringing in the big roses and the surprise

00:08:50.840 trip to the tropics. It's the everydayness of it that makes it or breaks it. Right. There was one

00:08:57.340 man who called me many years ago and he said he was going to leave his wife and kids. Of course,

00:09:01.960 I wanted to crawl through the phone and strangle him. But anyway, uh, I said to him, well, we do,

00:09:07.440 there's no affection and it's, you know, it's this, that, and the other thing. And I said, okay,

00:09:10.840 this is what I want you to do. This one thing. And then you call me tomorrow. Most of the time,

00:09:17.000 people don't call back. I think they feel defensive, scared, this or that. They didn't try it. What have

00:09:21.380 you? So I said, I just want you to get up sometime during dinner, go to the refrigerator, get the

00:09:27.080 margarine or butter, whatever the hell it is. And as you walk by, touch the back of her neck.

00:09:32.300 Now, you know, on we women types, on us women types, whatever on us. Yeah. Uh, back of the neck,

00:09:39.340 just a stroke. Oh my God, that lights up your whole body. So he walked by, did that. And he felt

00:09:46.700 like an electric shock went through his whole body because it's the everyday little things.

00:09:53.720 He called me the next day and he goes, I don't know how you do that, but I feel like I'm in love

00:09:56.760 with her again. Hmm. Small, small. It is. And the last thing you want to do is have big,

00:10:02.680 long discussions with your husband. There's nothing they hate worse than a big, long discussion.

00:10:08.100 Can we discuss the relationship? Oh God, they wish they had a heart attack.

00:10:11.500 It's so true. We used to joke, my, my husband and I, uh, you know, he's from the main line in

00:10:17.380 Philadelphia. He's sort of buttoned up. And, um, we used to joke in the beginning where I'd be

00:10:21.900 looking at him, he'd be looking at me and I'd say, can we discuss our feelings? Roll his eyes.

00:10:29.420 Oh, I have a stomach ache. I'll be back. Yeah. Do we, do you feel we must?

00:10:35.020 It's the little things it's touch. Touch is probably the number one most important thing. You don't have to

00:10:39.940 hear anything, see anything, say anything. It's touch. When I see people and I don't often

00:10:44.960 walking as couples holding hands and I don't see it often. I walk up to them no matter where I am,

00:10:52.060 no matter who they are. And I just go, it is so lovely to see you guys holding hands.

00:10:56.840 And they both start beaming and telling me how long they've been married and how much they love

00:11:01.000 each other holding hands. I hardly see people doing that anymore. It's so sad.

00:11:05.940 Mm-hmm. And I feel like we're going a different way as a society in general. We, we have movies,

00:11:12.420 we have TV shows, we have moments where we prize the wife ripping on her husband, mocking him,

00:11:18.720 you know, running toward her girlfriends. This is the model they show. And I know that you're

00:11:23.000 against that. You're, you talk, I mean, this is one of your, your greatest sort of pieces of advice

00:11:28.240 to be a girlfriend for life. Um, even when you're the wife. Um, but I do think we've gotten

00:11:33.580 you a habit as a society of accepting that a husband and a wife are very separate. They're

00:11:38.200 very different. Men and women, very separate, very different. And not reminding people that

00:11:43.520 it doesn't have to be that way. You could be your husband's number one defender, number one champion,

00:11:47.000 and you could be the girlfriend slash wife that he does not want to leave every Saturday and Sunday

00:11:52.640 to play golf for. Well, what I say to women in particular, because I think we have the power in

00:12:00.440 a relationship because we create the mood, uh, we're harder to please. They're easier to please.

00:12:05.620 You slurp them and they are just will melt for you unless you're married to a sociopath. But other

00:12:11.620 than that, which is rare, uh, I say, be the kind of wife. I remember when I floored one woman,

00:12:18.380 that's when I used it for the first time and I've been using it ever since because it was so powerful.

00:12:22.260 I said, are you being the wife you want to come home to? No. Well then, why do you expect that he

00:12:32.780 stops for a drink with his buddies? He doesn't want to come home to you either. Change that.

00:12:40.680 That's what's so great about you is personal responsibility and the reminder to everyone

00:12:46.220 that it's, it's back to you. I've told this story before in my own life, when I started off in

00:12:51.080 journalism and I was at Fox news, I was very green and we were working on a package that was going

00:12:56.360 to air that night in the 6 PM news with Brit Hume then. And it got screwed up. My package didn't,

00:13:01.760 it didn't have, the soundbite was wrong. And, uh, I talked to the, the managing editor, Kim Hume

00:13:07.500 after the show. And she said, how did it happen? And I said, well, you know, I told the editor,

00:13:13.560 this is how I wanted to cut. And this was the bite that he was supposed to use. And he didn't

00:13:17.160 put it in there. You know what I told? And she said, not him, you, what could you have done

00:13:23.420 differently to ensure that your package aired the way you wanted it to? And it was truly a light bulb.

00:13:29.800 It was like, yes, she's right. I should have budgeted my time better. I should have sat in

00:13:34.720 the edit bay with the guy and made time to watch the final product before it aired. I wasn't in that

00:13:39.320 much of a time crunch. I could have done it. Not him, you, you ask that of everyone pretty much

00:13:45.020 in every situation. Yes. Because most of the time what they're complaining about in their spouse

00:13:51.740 is that the spouse is reacting to them. So I say to people, well, what do you think would have

00:13:59.500 happened if you had sat on his lap, put your tongue in his ear, hugged him and said, sweetie pie,

00:14:05.160 I would really like if you would. Do you think he's going to say no, bitch, get off my lap?

00:14:11.840 I don't think so. So women just need to treat their men like they would have, like they did

00:14:20.120 hopefully when they were dating and were desperate to have him like her. Please. It's not complicated.

00:14:27.240 How do you get to that first step though? Because when people are calling you

00:14:30.060 or asking themselves this, they're in a bad spot. The relationship has gotten sour or down. It's

00:14:37.920 just not doing that well. And they feel resentful and they don't want to sit on the lap. There's

00:14:43.280 already so much resentment build up. It's hard to get one, the woman or the man to take the first step.

00:14:49.580 I browbeat them into doing it. Basically, that's my job is to say, okay, then get a lawyer and get the

00:14:56.580 hell out of there. But don't call me bitching about how he or she is not giving you what you want when

00:15:02.600 you're not being sweet, adorable and letting them know in the most loving way possible what you'd like

00:15:06.700 and what you'd appreciate. Not what you want. You don't do this for me. And you're, you know,

00:15:12.100 you talk like that and you're only going to feel negative. So the nastier you are to your spouse,

00:15:18.120 the angrier you get inside your heart. So it's all in how you talk, sweetie.

00:15:26.580 Yes, because men respond to tone, right? Very much so.

00:15:32.860 Oh, I got something funny to tell you. A woman called me. She's in the car with her husband and

00:15:37.560 they were having some problems, you know, and they would argue and he would argue. He's a little

00:15:42.480 stubborn, blah, blah, blah. So I told her next time he starts that, rip open your blouse or lift your

00:15:49.860 sweater. Just do it. Don't say a word. Just go flash him. So I can't tell you how much mail I got from

00:15:56.180 across the country. It works. Men are easy. Ladies, it's not, it's not difficult to get a guy

00:16:06.460 on the happier side of things. What about the, for the guys? It doesn't work in reverse, men out

00:16:13.300 there. No, he drops his pants and she goes, all you think about is sex. Exactly. They should do the

00:16:22.340 finger on the back of the neck. Like, what's the one thing they can do to change the mood?

00:16:28.240 You're not going to believe this one. Cry.

00:16:33.620 Because what I've seen is that when a man totally breaks down into vulnerability,

00:16:39.820 that cuts through all her garbage. Compassion. Compassion. So a man really has to show how hurt,

00:16:49.920 how devastated he is. And if there is no reasonable, compassionate response to that,

00:16:57.000 you married the wrong person. As I have said many times since I got a letter from a gay man

00:17:02.940 wondering, wondering, wondering why so many people are against gay marriage when straight

00:17:08.220 people don't seem to be doing it very well themselves. And he added at the end, and I've

00:17:13.120 been using it ever since. He wrote, it's very simple. Choose wisely, treat kindly. There's a lot

00:17:22.280 of not choosing wisely. Now, and you can say, you can speak to this firsthand, as can I. We both

00:17:29.080 had starter marriages before we met the loves of our life. And I wondered that, like, when you was,

00:17:35.280 forgive me, I think I have the names for it, but before there was Lou, there was Michael.

00:17:39.280 And do you think that your first marriage, would you have selected Lou? Would you have had such a

00:17:46.100 strong 30 years with him if there hadn't been Michael beforehand and the experience of that?

00:17:52.680 I'm thinking. I was in such different parts of my life. I was a graduate student getting my PhD at

00:18:02.980 Columbia University in New York City, and I severely injured my knees. And he was like Sir Galahad. He'd

00:18:08.980 throw me over a shoulder and take me to a movie. My knees are great now. I mean, I deadlift and play

00:18:13.400 tennis and all of that sort of stuff. But at the time it was up in the air as to how strong I'd ever

00:18:21.780 be with my legs. So he was just wonderful, wonderful, wonderful until I got completely healthy.

00:18:29.940 That's when the problem started. He needed to be the hero. And I no longer needed one. I was

00:18:36.280 literally on my feet. So that was troublesome for both of us. Lou was a very caretaking guy.

00:18:47.180 And I think that that was the original attraction. I really wanted the snuggly feeling of a very

00:18:53.840 caretaking guy. So I don't know how much they were connected. One needed to be needed, but it was

00:19:01.100 maybe not on the healthiest level. Lou didn't need to be needed. He just liked taking care of me.

00:19:09.820 And you've always been able to say that you needed that and wanted that, notwithstanding the fact

00:19:14.440 that you're a strong woman. I mean, there's space. There's space for all of that. And you talk about

00:19:19.240 that all the time about how what women want is the guy who's going to put his his jacket down over the

00:19:24.680 puddle, you know, for them so they can so they can walk on the other side. It's so refreshing to hear

00:19:28.700 you say the things that we all know are true when we're being told other stuff by society, right?

00:19:33.300 Like, you know, women don't need men. You can do it. You can have perfect happiness without them.

00:19:36.920 No, we do want a chivalrous guy and we do want to be taken care of when we can be strong and smart,

00:19:41.240 have great careers and all that stuff and still say all that's true.

00:19:45.540 I mean, you know, I'm widowed now. If you know a nice guy for me, let me know. OK,

00:19:50.760 Megan, you need to give me a break here. It's so hard to get a date.

00:19:53.900 Um, so, uh, you know, I'm I'm who am I looking for? Let me think. Let me think. Gone with the

00:20:01.240 wind. Rhett Butler, if you can find me a guy who has that temperament, strong, opinionated,

00:20:08.160 has convictions, um, and can lift me off over a puddle. Yeah. And his huggy kissy. Yeah. You got

00:20:18.080 one of those for me, Megan? I might actually. I'm actually very good at this. Yeah. Don't ask unless

00:20:23.280 you're really serious. Oh, I am serious. My husband, Doug hates it. He's like, babe,

00:20:28.720 this never, it doesn't end well. And then, you know, we don't know which one to go out to dinner

00:20:32.460 with. But in your case, I would. So I'd still go out to dinner. It's fine. Good. OK, so I'll find

00:20:40.080 somebody I can sacrifice if it doesn't work out. But it will because I am. I have a secret matchmaking

00:20:44.860 talent that people don't know about me. All right. Stand by. And I should have called you a few years ago.

00:20:49.260 I'm going to squeeze in a break and so much more with the one and only Dr. Laura.

00:20:53.600 P.S. This is a dream come true. This is so exciting. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

00:21:03.740 OK, so, Dr. Laura, let me let me stick with relationships for one minute.

00:21:08.100 I have this philosophy with my husband now and we're going on. I know we got together in 2006.

00:21:13.120 What is it? I don't know. A lot of years. Anyway, married in 08. That most of our problems and most of

00:21:19.500 our relationship can be saved by just looking at each other with the most generous lens. Like I if

00:21:25.560 I feel slighted by him, if I feel like he's whatever, not paying me enough attention, I just

00:21:31.460 sort of rejigger my brain to remember this is Doug, you know, look at him through the most generous lens

00:21:36.320 because that's actually the one that does apply. That helps me a lot. It helps me treat him better

00:21:41.880 and then I get better results and so on and so forth. But I think a lot of people struggle to

00:21:47.900 do that again because of prior resentments or maybe they don't have a Doug or maybe, you know,

00:21:53.140 like men aren't always the most thoughtful creatures. So I do wonder, other than the physical

00:21:57.820 touching and sort of that, is there some sort of relationship rescue for couples that are just

00:22:03.920 feeling like they don't like each other anymore? Sometimes, sometimes they chose poorly and or

00:22:11.380 they have too much psychological problems that they can't be generous. That's a problem because if

00:22:22.820 you've had experiences from childhood, you're traumatized instead of the other thing, then it's

00:22:27.800 very difficult for you to be generous because you're spending most of your psychic time protecting

00:22:33.900 yourself. So that's why I nag and cajole and threaten to pinch people's heads off

00:22:41.320 when they don't do what I ask them to do and that is to get out of themselves and imagine how the other

00:22:48.660 person feels. When I was in private practice, I would take a couple and say, I'd have to explain this a

00:22:55.360 couple of times because they're both so angry, and I'd say, okay, one of you now is going to be a defense

00:23:01.980 attorney. The other is going to be your spouse. So defend your spouse against what you're thinking

00:23:12.300 and saying and doing to him or her. And it was remarkable because when they had to defend the

00:23:20.840 spouse, they had to recognize that some things they were cause and effect, that they were behaving in a way

00:23:29.300 which made the other person back up, get angry, not talk to them, go to bed late, that they weren't

00:23:35.000 being treated sweetly or they had done something or said something callous. So when they had to defend

00:23:41.140 the other person, they came to see outside of themselves. The number one problem in my never to

00:23:48.940 be humble opinion is that the problem most likely is not thinking about the other person first.

00:23:57.200 Okay, I'm really angry. But let me think. On their side of this, what are they feeling? What are they

00:24:05.860 thinking? What did they do? Now, if you really married a bad person, you got to get out or tolerate

00:24:11.960 it quietly until the kids are grown and then get out. But assuming, as most people have, you married a

00:24:18.820 reasonably nice person, then you need to come out of yourself because it's so easy. We're animals in the

00:24:26.180 kingdom. And what we do first is make sure we're safe. You can't do that in a marriage.

00:24:34.080 It's the opposite, right? Wake up thinking, how can I be the best possible wife to him today? How can I

00:24:39.580 make him happy today? And you don't even have to be particularly optimistic about your husband and

00:24:46.560 your relationship to do that. You only have to want to make yourself happy, right? Like, how do I get

00:24:52.040 happier? I will treat him better because it does come back to you. I mean, it's just human nature for

00:24:57.360 it to then come back to you. Well, the moment you're being sweet, you feel better. Does not make

00:25:03.200 you feel better. Does. So when women or men turn on the charm. It affects them immediately, even if they

00:25:15.160 don't get the response they'd like, it makes them more peaceful inside. And when you're more peaceful

00:25:20.020 inside, the other person reacts to that. And it's not just that your spouse is independently behaving

00:25:26.480 a certain way, unless they're psychotic, then they're independently behaving a certain way and

00:25:32.180 has nothing to do with you. Okay. Cause it's the world is just in their head, but assuming you have

00:25:40.020 a reasonable person to be married to like everybody else, then you have to realize that you're hurting

00:25:47.920 them. And that's why they're behaving this way. And the other thing is for women in particular,

00:25:54.380 have sex with your husband. I mean, it, it does a lot. It's like women, I think withhold sex very

00:26:01.240 often as a punishment. They it's their, I don't know, quiet way of saying you're not treating me

00:26:05.780 right. Or I'm not happy, but I just, I, you tell me, but I feel like sex, they say it's like what

00:26:11.780 it's when the sex is good. It's 10% of a relationship. And when it's bad, it's 90% of

00:26:16.780 the relationship. And it's such a relatively small gesture between, you know, spouses that can go a

00:26:23.600 long way toward restoring some intimacy, some trust, some, you know, endorphins, a lot of good things

00:26:29.480 about it. Yes. I, they snipped out from one of my calls, uh, this little exchange and they use it as

00:26:37.440 a promo, uh, hither and thither. And basically I'm telling this woman, you've got to be affectionate

00:26:43.780 and sensual and sexual with your husband. If you want to make this connection again. And she says,

00:26:48.940 I don't have time for that. And you hear me say, honey, you better make the time or you're going to

00:26:57.260 have a lot of free time when he divorces you. Right. That's not a chip you can bargain with,

00:27:06.080 like you, you lose. Everybody should get up in the morning, look at their spouses. I know you

00:27:10.180 haven't brushed your teeth or peed yet, but look at your spouse and say to yourself, what can I do

00:27:15.680 today? Small, tiny to make them happy and happy. They're married to me. That's the point. I want

00:27:25.180 him or her to be happy, married to me. Lean over and say, I love you. This woman was in the middle of

00:27:32.880 her hot flashes. I read her email yesterday. So she's sleeping naked without a blanket.

00:27:38.660 He gets up in the morning, sees her like that and just stands there and looks at her. And she got a

00:27:44.020 little self-conscious and said, what are you doing? And he goes, you're so beautiful. And she says,

00:27:51.400 Oh, I'm 50 something. I'm going through menopause. I'm sweating my brains out.

00:27:56.360 And you think that's sexy. And he goes, yes, because I love you.

00:28:03.140 And that was the end of her. We play these games in our own heads, right? It's like women,

00:28:06.360 we're always so judgmental of ourselves. We have a little extra weight. We have something on your

00:28:10.920 skin, whatever it is. And you think that's all he's looking at. And I've had talked to enough men

00:28:15.600 on this show, comedians and others who are so funny about this stuff. And they say, just so you know,

00:28:19.900 we don't, we don't give a shit about any of that. We just want to get on top of you.

00:28:22.980 Couldn't care less about your extra 10 pounds or, you know, whatever it is that you're self-conscious

00:28:28.580 of. Trust me, we're not seeing it. As long as you're naked and up against him, he doesn't care

00:28:34.940 about the little inconsistencies in tone or anything else. I don't care as long as you're

00:28:44.100 naked and next to them. That's exactly right. It's, it's a blessing. Truly. It's like you're,

00:28:48.960 you got your ace in the hole there, so to speak. Oh dear. Oh dear. How much, how much power is it

00:28:54.860 clear to your listeners right now? How much power do we have? All we have to do is smile

00:29:00.980 and come close and be nice. It's not complicated and it's frankly not difficult. I don't have the

00:29:10.140 time. I'm irritated. Well then get an attorney. He's going to get a girlfriend. Oh, one woman called.

00:29:15.140 I just don't feel like having sex with him anymore. And I said, okay, uh, I just need to

00:29:21.020 know if he calls me what I should tell him to do. Should he get a girlfriend? Should he

00:29:27.240 go to prostitutes? Should he masturbate to porn or should he leave you? None of those. He

00:29:34.200 should just be understanding. Okay. Let's go through the four things again. Back to planet

00:29:39.640 earth. Yeah. Yeah. Let's come down to earth. The, um, one of the things you talk about is

00:29:46.480 the children, right? Like you've got, you've, you do have to be there for your children and

00:29:51.360 divorce is very hard on children. And that's one of the things, that's one of the reasons

00:29:55.180 I never had children with my first husband is I think in the back of my head, I had a suspicion

00:30:00.240 it wouldn't last. And that was one thing I knew I couldn't do. And it's, I understand a lot of

00:30:05.840 people have had divorces while they've had children and you know, they do the best they

00:30:09.520 can. And sometimes you do realize you're married to a sociopath. You got to get out. But I do think

00:30:14.760 it's interesting listening to you talk about stability in a child's life and how we owe it to them

00:30:19.300 to try to keep things as steady as possible. I started feeling guilty about it. Cause I was

00:30:23.460 listening to you and you were advising against moving them in the middle of their upbringing.

00:30:28.820 And I was like, Oh crap, I just did that. Shit. Uh, but I had to Dr. Laura, because our schools in

00:30:34.560 New York went hardcore left on the critical race theory. And it was abusive toward my children

00:30:39.120 that we had to go. No, you're supposed to protect your kids, which precludes everything else.

00:30:45.220 Okay. I feel better. Yeah. Not to worry. But can you spend a minute on that? Just the importance

00:30:50.360 of sort of that stability and routine and predictability in a child's life.

00:30:56.440 Just like we talked about the first three years, when somebody is there to kiss, to hug,

00:31:02.140 to hold, talk, and there's consistency, the brain, which if kids were born with their brains

00:31:08.320 totally finished, they'd have adult size heads and they'd never come out. So, you know, they're born

00:31:14.400 with the brains. They can't even roll over. Uh, they, they can't do anything. They're totally

00:31:20.020 helpless. So their brains are forming. That means that all the connections are being made,

00:31:25.260 not only for motor activities, but emotional and psychological. If there's a lot of yelling

00:31:32.060 and screaming and anxiety and stuff going on, that's going to influence how connections are

00:31:38.120 made in the brain. For a person to come out more or less anxious, uh, withdrawn can go in many

00:31:43.960 different directions. And then after birth, you know, all the time that we spend with kids,

00:31:49.720 the experience they have with the family lead them to feel secure, safe, trust, love. That's probably

00:31:57.400 the number one reason people call me. They don't trust love. They don't trust being loved. They don't

00:32:02.560 trust making a decision about love. Mostly they don't trust being loved because there was so little

00:32:07.520 of it at home. Uh, and when there's going to be a divorce happening, I always ask the women,

00:32:14.880 because it's mostly women who call not totally, but mostly. And I ask them, well, how bad is the

00:32:20.980 situation? Well, we just don't talk. So there's no yelling, screaming, alcoholism, beating on each

00:32:28.320 other. None of that stuff. It's just dissipated. And I say, you know, you really need to stay till

00:32:33.780 all the kids are 18, be nice to each other. They need the stability or their future. Even if they do

00:32:40.940 well academically, their emotional future is going to be dented severely.

00:32:47.180 Now, what about people who say, oh, but if you do that, you're teaching them how to be in a bad

00:32:54.900 relationship, what they're learning on a subliminal or otherwise level.

00:32:58.660 Yes. They're learning that once you make a commitment and have moral obligations,

00:33:02.700 that you sacrifice your own happiness because you have a moral obligation to somebody else.

00:33:09.500 Does a fireman running into a burning building to rescue a kid think, oh, this is fun. I'm so glad

00:33:15.800 to be doing this. You know, of course I'll never get hurt. No, the fireman takes the risk for the

00:33:21.900 benefit of someone else. We have situations like this all over the world where people, uh, doctors

00:33:28.760 without borders and, you know, the religious groups that go to feed starving people, um, they're likely

00:33:34.620 to get sick from some disease, die because there's violence, uh, sacrifice, having some lives, people

00:33:41.580 who go into the military. I mean, isn't that kind of standard that one of the elevated things about

00:33:47.800 human beings is that we're willing to give up something of ourselves for somebody else's benefit.

00:33:54.300 That's what a hero is. A hero is not somebody who makes a hole in one or plays basketball. A hero is

00:34:02.280 somebody who risks something for the benefit of someone else. That's what it ultimately would

00:34:09.180 teach them. Now, unless the home is dangerous or destructive, if the home is dangerous or destructive,

00:34:16.400 then we don't have that ability to do that. That's a different story. Yeah. So let's switch it to

00:34:24.300 little older kids, tweens, teens. This is more my wheelhouse now. Uh, and I, and all my friends

00:34:30.820 are talking about the same thing right now, which is how do we avoid bullying of our children? How do

00:34:35.980 we avoid our children being the target of the so-called mean girls? It could be mean boys too.

00:34:42.840 And I'm with you. I've read so much of what you read. I've read so many of your books, but

00:34:46.960 I'm with you on the, you know, part of the reason we send them to school is so that they can have some

00:34:51.600 challenging social interactions where they learn how to deal with those. And that's a good thing.

00:34:56.920 That's, we want that. But how do you figure out, okay, this is something she or he has to navigate

00:35:03.480 on their own. I'll be there to advise. And this is a situation I need to step in and protect my child

00:35:09.540 from because lasting damage is going to be caused here. The stepping in thing we need to talk about,

00:35:17.500 but I love you asking me this. You and I, without going into the details, have been bullied all to

00:35:27.700 hell in our professional lives. You would agree that's true. 100%. Bullied to the point of wanting

00:35:36.940 to hide under the bed or, you know, live under a rock somewhere. And I remember one time it got so

00:35:44.900 gross. I sat down with my son and husband and I said, okay, I'm going to quit. We're going to move

00:35:51.720 somewhere else. And you can change your name. My son who was eight stood up, put his hands on his

00:35:59.960 hips. I'll never forget this moment and said, I didn't raise my mother to be a weenie. So what are

00:36:07.140 you teaching your kids? When I was about eight, I was bullied all to hell because I lived in a

00:36:15.340 predominantly Jewish neighborhood and my father was Jewish, but my mother was a gorgeous Italian

00:36:21.120 from Italy that he liberated at the end of the war. He was in the military and brought here and the

00:36:29.040 jealousy and what have you and marrying outside of your religion, all that was pretty gross. And a lot

00:36:34.700 of it was taken out on me where I got into fistfights, all of which I lost. Of course, now I have a

00:36:42.820 back black belt in martial arts, but I also have guns all over the house. Anyway, so you can deadlift

00:36:48.460 85 pounds. We have video of that, but well, we're up to 100 now, but okay. Yeah. So I could, I guess I

00:36:55.260 could deadlift somebody and toss them. Um, it's worse now because there are so few parents

00:37:04.300 parenting. So you really need to tell your own personal stories of being bullied to your kids

00:37:10.060 so that they know it's something they can survive because they respect you and admire you. But the

00:37:15.300 bullying is worse than it's ever been. Reason being, if that's proper English, reason is that

00:37:22.800 so few parents parent, because I have said there's only one cure, only one, all this nonsense they do

00:37:29.680 in the schools. It's meaningless. There's only one cure that when person A starts bullying, threatening,

00:37:38.720 saying bad things to person B, that everybody standing around there stops them. Now I brought up

00:37:45.980 my kid, somebody's getting hurt. I expect you to step in and protect them. I expect you to do that.

00:37:55.580 Don't hit anybody, but if they hit you or somebody else, hit them twice at heart. So twice when he was

00:38:03.420 in middle school, somebody was being picked on. He stepped in, you know, and then they call your house

00:38:09.180 house. And I said to him, uh, what was happening? The kid was picking on the other kid, uh, who started

00:38:15.280 it? No, no, no, no. Who finished it? Me. I said, where do you want to go out to dinner?

00:38:22.640 So it takes parents parenting, which they don't do much of. They give their kids cell phones that go

00:38:27.300 on the internet, iPods, let them go into a world that is disgusting and dangerous and addictive

00:38:34.300 because they're lazy. Parents two generations ago, we're not lazy to parent. If you said to somebody,

00:38:41.320 I'm going to tell your mother, oh, geez, you knew the world was going to come to an end.

00:38:46.820 True. You say, I'm going to tell your mother. You say, go find her. She's busy. Go ahead. And when

00:38:52.680 you find her, she's going to go, what did that kid do to you to force you to do that? So they defend

00:38:58.440 their kids, even though they're wrong. So parenting has changed. Our culture has changed.

00:39:05.080 Um, and that's why bullying is worse, worse, and it's not going to get better soon.

00:39:13.100 It's so hard. I feel I'm, I'm so torn because I want my kids to fight their own battles and

00:39:18.360 navigate their own difficult situations. And yet you also have this motherly instinct to try to

00:39:23.220 protect them from severe upset. You know, you don't want, want them to just be strong without

00:39:28.320 having to go through the things that actually make you strong.

00:39:30.960 That's mommies. We're mommies. Anything that has breasts that has milk, that's how we act.

00:39:37.320 It's so true. All right. Stand by on that note. I'll just leave you thinking about the breasts and

00:39:43.000 we'll squeeze in a quick break. Be right back with the one, the only Dr. Laura. And don't forget,

00:39:50.400 folks, you're getting all this goodness right here on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111. That's where I am

00:39:56.780 with the Megyn Kelly show every weekday at noon East. And Dr. Laura is my neighbor. She comes on

00:40:01.980 right after the show ends. And you can see the full video show of the MK show. If you would like

00:40:08.020 to, by going to youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. If you prefer an audio podcast, you can subscribe and

00:40:13.460 download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts for free. And there

00:40:18.660 you'll find our full archives with more than 245 shows down. This is what I would ask you today if

00:40:28.660 I were to call in and get on with you, although I do it a lot more succinctly. I, as you mentioned,

00:40:34.380 I have been bullied in my professional life, but also as a child, I was in my entire seventh grade

00:40:38.960 year was very rough. And I do think there are upsides to it in that I, I kind of have a career

00:40:45.500 devoted to taking on an often case bad people and holding them to account. And I enjoy doing that.

00:40:51.840 Good point. But in my personal life, it has had some negative outcomes. And one of them is I am

00:41:01.240 very reticent to reach out to anyone with a social invitation. I am very fearful of rejection. I would

00:41:09.680 rather just sit at home alone, not alone, but with my, my husband and my kids and not take any

00:41:15.120 social risks because I'm terrified of being rejected. And I know rationally, it, it's not

00:41:21.780 going to happen in every case. Well, just explain one thing to me before you go on. If you're getting

00:41:24.940 an invitation, that's the opposite of a rejection. No, but I, the reason it's coming up is because

00:41:32.400 I need to make the invitations. I've moved to Connecticut. I've, my kids are new.

00:41:37.540 Oh, reaching out. Yes.

00:41:38.860 Yes. And I have to be the one to do it. And it's, I'm terrified. And now I have to do it for my kids

00:41:44.220 too, because they're new and they need help. You know, they're not having mixers anymore because

00:41:48.680 of COVID. So I really need to be more of an aggressive, assertive person when it comes to

00:41:53.880 my social life. No, I know. I'm having. No, no, no, no, no, no. You do it within your comfort zone,

00:42:01.760 which means you join. Uh, I don't know if you run. I'll just say, let's just say you run and

00:42:08.520 you find a group of women who run COVID or not, you're running. You're not going to catch it while

00:42:13.380 you're running outside. I don't care about catching it, but you know how these, a lot of people are

00:42:17.540 terrified. Okay. So, uh, you, you join a group, so it has nothing to do with you sending out, you

00:42:25.720 reaching out and seeing who's going to say yes for political views, for just envy, uh, whatever the

00:42:32.280 hell motivates people to do stupid, ugly stuff. You go join things and you set that up for your

00:42:37.700 kids. Go join that chess club. So you don't intervene. You're not setting it up for them.

00:42:45.460 You're not risking anything at all. So you look at what your comfort zone is and your comfort zone does

00:42:52.900 not include you being the reach or outer, but if you joined a group of women running,

00:42:57.740 they would invite you to things and then that would grow. So it's okay that you're scared. I'm

00:43:03.140 not going to try to fix you from that. You just need to find a way to connect, avoiding what makes

00:43:09.680 you nervous. So get off your back woman. I like that. If you just see my sparkling personality,

00:43:17.440 then they will reach out to me and I'm back in my comfort zone. Well, yes, yes.

00:43:23.300 Yes. That I can do. I know. I don't know if it'll be money. I know you can. It'll be something.

00:43:28.960 I love how into exercise you are. You have a rocket body. I mean, you celebrated your 75th on the air.

00:43:35.100 So I feel comfortable saying your age. Some women don't like it, but you're cool with it.

00:43:38.460 Three. No, I like to say three quarters of a century.

00:43:41.500 Have you ever looked better?

00:43:42.740 More important.

00:43:43.820 Or been stronger, right? Like how you sail, you deadlift, you do martial arts. Is that what you

00:43:49.420 said earlier?

00:43:50.340 I don't anymore, but if I have to, I will.

00:43:54.140 It's crazy how fit you are. So what do you get out of that? And have you always been this way?

00:43:59.180 I've always been this way. I just like the feeling of exertion and the muscles. You know,

00:44:07.920 I like the feeling of being fit. And I like when I can lift more and more. I did a row today and I

00:44:17.980 went, what the hell? How much weight is my lifting? He said, 35. I said, do you notice how small I am?

00:44:23.080 He goes, shut up. Just lift it.

00:44:25.760 Now, are you still sailing? I hear you.

00:44:28.000 I race. I'm a skipper. I race a sailboat.

00:44:31.740 I've heard you talk about this and I picture your life as just like nailing it, like in California with

00:44:38.060 water views, working the hours you want to work, doing the show you want to do while sailing what

00:44:44.080 you love in the midst of great beauty. We talked about the love thing, which I'm going to fix for

00:44:49.180 you. But thank you. Do you feel a big space in my life? Yeah, of course. But do you recognize you feel

00:44:58.000 like you're nailing it? I mean, you're nailing it. No, no, because for me, it's the norm. And which brings

00:45:04.020 me to something else. You will be rejected sometimes because of your looks, because of your success.

00:45:14.080 You have to realize that being rejected sometimes has nothing to do with the quality of you. It has

00:45:22.320 to do with the lack of quality of them. See, I have always liked strong women because I get along

00:45:29.340 with strong. There's no competition. I don't compete. And that's why you and I, if we live next door,

00:45:36.600 we'd be bosom pals. And because you're a strong, kind, nice woman. My best friend, Patty, is a very

00:45:44.740 strong and unbelievably sweet person. And when you're like that, folks who don't have much esteem

00:45:55.500 become jealous. And take it out. So some of that you can't avoid.

00:46:03.580 Right. You just have to call me up and say, is this me or them? And I'll go to them. Okay, bye.

00:46:08.720 I'm with you. I feel like the more, and I use this term broadly, attractive a woman is in terms of her

00:46:17.460 personality, her accomplishments, her self-confidence, the more attracted to her I am,

00:46:22.280 the more I want to be with her. I want it to rub off on me. I want to learn. I want to probe it. I

00:46:27.660 want to get to know it. And I want it. I want to be just like it. Because you got a good soul.

00:46:31.480 You don't think your light gets brighter by dimming somebody else's. So that's the kind of

00:46:38.320 person you are. And that's why you do what you do. This is such an honor. I'm actually getting

00:46:43.720 therapized by Dr. Laura. My life is complete. There's so much more to go over. We're not done.

00:46:49.120 And she agreed to stick around for an extra block. I'm the luckiest person in America today. And so are

00:46:54.460 all of you, because you are the beneficiaries of having her sage advice today, not just for her show,

00:46:59.460 but for this extra time with us. Don't go away. More with Dr. Laura in just a few minutes. Stay

00:47:04.140 with us. Okay, so Dr. Laura, you are a straight talker in a woke world. And it's one of the reasons

00:47:21.360 why you're so popular. But I'll give our listeners an example of one of the ones that jumped out at me.

00:47:28.100 I'm listening to Dr. Laura's show one day. This woman calls up, says something's wrong with her

00:47:32.480 marriage. She's upset. She doesn't like the way the husband's behaving, etc. And she says,

00:47:36.860 this is my second marriage. Dr. Laura says to her, well, why did your first marriage end? Hold on.

00:47:42.240 Hold on. Why did your first marriage end? And she says, this, that, and the other thing she gets

00:47:46.200 around to saying, well, I cheated on him with this guy I'm married to now. And Dr. Laura,

00:47:52.040 so you say to her, so what you're saying is you're a scumbag.

00:47:59.260 I died. I died. I'm driving my car like, oh, I need to know her. I can't. It's not enough just to

00:48:05.480 listen. And I could go on, right? I mean, this has happened to a lot of people who call in and

00:48:10.620 realize they're going to get called a limp dick or limp chick.

00:48:13.040 That's because they were little kids. Right. Yeah, I don't tolerate that when they're little

00:48:18.760 kids. So how does that fly, you know, being a straight talker in a woke world? And do you ever

00:48:24.080 try to stay within these crazy bounds of speech that they're trying to throw on us now?

00:48:31.260 Do I sound like it?

00:48:33.760 Would that be a no?

00:48:34.720 No. No, I'm a little Miss Contrary. If you tell me I can't do something, it's going to happen in

00:48:42.100 spades. Let me give you a funny example. When I was on terrestrial radio, which I do not miss,

00:48:47.920 I was on a fabulous station in Dallas. And I just started and they hadn't had a woman on.

00:48:54.380 So this was new already. And got a call some woman, old lady called. I'm 75 now. I don't know what

00:49:03.040 the whole lady is anymore. But anyway, she calls and is terribly upset that I said penis.

00:49:10.480 And so I shouldn't say penis again. So my business partner calls and told me what happened.

00:49:16.980 He listened to the tape and it was appropriate. I didn't just go penis, penis, penis. You know,

00:49:21.880 it was appropriate to the conversation. So that's on a Friday. Over the weekend,

00:49:31.920 I'm scouring the news. And I found this great medical news piece about sizes of penis and functions

00:49:40.660 of penis and this, that, and the other thing. You know, I'm Dr. Laura Schlesinger, right? So

00:49:45.960 Monday, I start out with that piece of news.

00:49:50.980 About the penises.

00:49:52.880 Yeah. But it was a medical article. I mean, legitimate.

00:49:56.540 Damn it. This is not the way society is going. If I had a nickel for every time we've had to say

00:50:04.740 to our kids, you're not allowed to say that. You're not allowed to say that either. And it's

00:50:08.180 not that we're trying to speech police them. It's just we don't want them to get caught up in the

00:50:12.860 web too early in their young lives of, you know, you're bad, you're terrible. That means you're this

00:50:18.240 or the other thing. Oh, by the way, this just can I share this with you? This just came in

00:50:21.980 on my phone from my husband. Apparently, he's in the car with our eight year old. He just picked

00:50:27.760 him up from school. They get out early on Fridays. That's our eight year old. I said penis, penis,

00:50:33.300 penis. No, no. Earlier, Doug writes, Thatcher heard, quote, have sex with your husband. He said,

00:50:41.120 Dad, can we not listen to this anymore?

00:50:43.000 Oh, the truth about mom and dad.

00:50:55.560 I mean, you still have sex. Ew.

00:51:00.540 It's amazing. They know everything. So we're going in the wrong way on so many fronts in terms of our

00:51:07.460 society. And one of the ways that I know bothers you as it does yours truly is victimhood, the

00:51:12.140 embrace of victimhood. You wrote a whole book about this, many, but one of them is called Bad

00:51:17.640 Childhood, Good Life. Good Life. And it talks about how you this leaning into victimhood,

00:51:24.040 seeing yourself as a victim is not a healthy thing. And you go so far as to say calling yourself a

00:51:29.760 survivor. That's not good either. Totally unorthodox now. Right. You be kicked out of the main square

00:51:35.980 for saying that because all it's all the rage these days, as you know, the kids find currency

00:51:40.300 and saying just the opposite. Yes. Right. Well, you probably know I had

00:51:45.760 unilateral breast cancer. So I said, just take it off. Take it off. And I didn't have a fake one put

00:51:53.220 in. So I'm a little lopsided looking, but you can't tell most of the time. So anyway, somebody

00:51:58.540 called in and had the same sort of thing and said, I'm a survivor. And I said, no, you and I are just

00:52:03.820 lucky. I don't like survivors. There's something about that. It's like I was drowning and I survived. I

00:52:09.400 don't know. We got lucky. Unfortunately, too many other women don't. And I don't take pride in it.

00:52:17.960 I'm simply grateful for it. So there's an amount of pride taking with survivor. Makes it sound like

00:52:24.660 you did something to make it be OK. And we don't. We get lucky or we don't. The medicine works or it

00:52:30.840 didn't. The surgery works or it didn't. We got lucky. And we should be grateful rather than seeming

00:52:37.200 prideful about it. That's how I look at it, because I feel bad about all the women who weren't

00:52:42.420 lucky. Well, it's like to me, the term survivor is used often in terms of sexual assault, that kind

00:52:49.120 of thing. And if it makes a woman feel better, OK. But I think it does sort of saddle you with just an

00:52:55.980 ongoing reminder, a label that this thing somehow has to continue to play some sort of a significant

00:53:04.080 role in your life. And and I don't know that it necessarily does. I I've had enough bad things

00:53:09.220 happen to me in my life that I can say you're not in total control, maybe of how you react to an

00:53:14.560 event as traumatic as that. But you are in some control and how you choose to think about it

00:53:19.880 does matter. And the words you use around it matters. Well, when you say survive like a sexual

00:53:25.620 assault, what does that mean? You weren't killed. To me, that's the only thing it would mean

00:53:30.800 to say I was sexually assaulted and I work hard every day to enjoy the life I have in spite of

00:53:38.260 what happened to me. And I'm getting justice for what happened to me. This sounds like a stronger

00:53:43.900 position where I'm taking I am the one who has to take on the burden of making my life good in spite

00:53:51.780 of this evil thing that was done to me. I guess if you have no negative feelings about something

00:53:57.940 horrible that happened to you at all and you're just going on with life beautifully, I guess that's

00:54:02.640 a survivor. To me, it means you just weren't murdered. So now it's your responsibility to

00:54:07.760 grab your life back. Women have called me about having been molested and they're not enjoying sex

00:54:13.940 as adult women. And I go, you you damn well have to get your sensuality back. This is something God

00:54:19.660 given that you be able to enjoy your sensuality and enjoy sexuality and enjoy making love. You've got

00:54:25.760 to grab this back. So let's talk about how we do that. So you're right. That's a different perspective

00:54:32.420 than I'm just a survivor because what did that mean? I'm walking around feeling miserable, but

00:54:37.740 I didn't die. You know, today's I don't even know if it's millennials so much as the the early

00:54:46.240 end of Gen Z, but they seem to enjoy finding alleged diagnoses on the internet that may apply to them.

00:54:54.680 Talk about how, you know, they've survived this, that or the other diagnosis on this, that or the

00:54:59.160 other thing. I have some some syndrome I've never heard of having to deal with anxiety, having to

00:55:03.520 do with depression, what have you. And it definitely does bear some social currency in today's day and

00:55:09.780 age to say that you are a victim of something, that you are oppressed for some reason, whether

00:55:14.600 it's the patriarchy or what have you could go down the list. And I do wonder, where's this going to

00:55:19.360 get us? You've been fighting against this for years. Where is this going to get us?

00:55:23.080 Get us a country that can't compete on any level already. We're the 25th in the world behind some

00:55:28.420 so-called third world countries in math, science, reading, and writing. 25th. This is supposed to be

00:55:37.620 the most magnificent country in the world. We're putting the important things aside for eliminating

00:55:44.100 all emotional distress. See, people have asked me, who is my, who do I think about as so amazingly

00:55:56.680 esteemed that I would want to be like them? You know, who do you respect the most in all of history?

00:56:02.600 And it's Harriet Tubman. She was a slave. She was sold like a bag of potatoes. I don't think she

00:56:11.140 knew her parents. From what I have read about her, she got the hell out of the South somehow,

00:56:17.200 and then was very involved in the Underground Railroad and in getting food to slaves who had run

00:56:24.940 away. To me, this was the epitome of one of the worst things that could ever happen to you.

00:56:32.980 And she rose above it to help others. That is something to aspire to.

00:56:40.020 It's not at all the way the kids talk. No, no, because they're not taught these stories.

00:56:50.320 Well, but they also get snaps, as they say, for getting up there and talking about whatever,

00:56:56.360 their struggle with an eating disorder. Or, you know, we saw when, and I understand Simone Biles

00:57:01.840 and why she couldn't compete at the Olympics fully. I've interviewed her. I've interviewed a

00:57:05.840 lot of the gymnasts that Larry Nassar was a disgusting pig criminal and thrilled he's behind

00:57:11.720 bars forevermore. So I get that there was a lot going on for her there. And she deserved our empathy.

00:57:16.080 And I said this at the time, but what we did when she decided to quit in the middle of the event was

00:57:20.140 celebrate the quitting. You know, we're in this place now where we're celebrating the quitting

00:57:24.040 as it happened with the tennis player, Naomi Osaka, too, where we celebrated, oh, you won't,

00:57:31.260 you won't do the thing that everybody else is doing, the press conferences, because that's,

00:57:35.140 that's what you need to protect your mental health.

00:57:38.060 Are you aware of any men doing this in sports? Because you being in news would know this more

00:57:44.520 than I. Probably not. And I don't think it's good. If I had been with Simone, I would have said,

00:57:51.020 it is a far, far better thing you do to lose than to quit. You will respect yourself for trying,

00:58:00.340 for rising above the pain, the worry. First of all, I thought what an insane amount of pressure

00:58:06.400 on a young person. She was considered the top in the world. I mean, how do you top that?

00:58:12.800 You know? So I thought that pressure alone was enough to squash your brain. You know?

00:58:20.160 Yeah.

00:58:20.380 I felt bad for her and then found out about the other stuff. But I would have told her, fail,

00:58:25.620 but don't quit. Because you'll teach young girls to just stay with it in spite of and do the best

00:58:31.980 you can in spite of.

00:58:34.180 Because now we're saying, no, protect your mental health. If your job's too much, protect your mental

00:58:38.580 health. If the, you know, the Olympic team is too much, protect your mental health. I understand maybe

00:58:44.060 we didn't prize mental health enough back in the seventies. I can, I can accept that. I'll go

00:58:48.820 along with that. But we did prize toughness and grit. It's kind of what has made America great.

00:58:54.620 Well, that's one of the reasons we have held sports people, athletes in such high esteem,

00:59:00.920 because they push through pain. We admire that. I like people even who are not athletes push through

00:59:07.860 emotional and physical pain. This is your life. It's limited between now and dead. What's the view

00:59:13.820 you want to have yourself? And what do you want to experience? So whatever is within your ability

00:59:19.080 to function, damn well, do it. Yeah. Can I ask you about the meaning of life?

00:59:27.080 No. We mentioned Lou. No. I'm just kidding. Go ahead.

00:59:29.980 We mentioned Lou, and I love the way you talk about him. By the way, I'm loving this. I'm loving this.

00:59:34.440 This is the only interview in my life I have loved doing. No, go ahead. We'll be here till four in the

00:59:40.980 afternoon. We'll play a tape for my show. We'll just keep going. Oh, my God. Let's just keep it

00:59:46.180 rolling. I'm in. That's truly high praise and a relief because I've listened to I always if I hear

00:59:53.660 you're going to be on somebody's show, I listen. And you're not afraid if somebody asks you dumb

00:59:57.520 questions to say so. Yeah, that's me. I know. Love it. I'm so politically correct. Yeah. But I was

01:00:06.620 thinking about Lou's death because I've heard you talk about it on the air a number of times and in

01:00:11.300 very open and honest ways. And I've heard you choke up. And I wondered whether someone as brilliant as

01:00:18.100 you who spent a life digesting lessons and offering them to other people and being thoughtful about life

01:00:24.620 and how to navigate it, whether any new lessons came to you. He died in 2015, whether something about

01:00:32.900 the meaning of life or how we're supposed to be living when we're here came to you.

01:00:37.780 To be truthful, no, because I think I was pretty evolved by that point to put everything in its

01:00:43.620 perspective. I mean, I was like a sucker punch. He had been various stages of ill and brought all his

01:00:51.040 body systems for over two decades. And, you know, I was sole support. And so it was, and I had somebody

01:01:04.100 there. And I remember coming home in the afternoon because I, unfortunately, I don't think I should

01:01:11.520 have looked at him after he was dead. That was very hard. That was very hard. If I had to do all over

01:01:18.960 again, I wouldn't do that part. But I came home and just stood in the kitchen. I had two dear friends

01:01:24.400 with me. And I just stood there and went, what am I supposed to do now? I mean, I had, it was like

01:01:31.020 the world got, the slate was just cleaned off. And I had to figure out what, where to go from here.

01:01:38.000 And sort of made me sick to my stomach, literally, for quite a while. But God bless my work.

01:01:44.860 I would sit down and help people for three hours a day. And that was my best therapy, that I was,

01:01:53.800 I was still, I was useful. I had a purpose. I had something to do. And friends being supportive.

01:02:02.440 I don't know how people do stuff like that without friends. I have no idea.

01:02:05.840 I just don't know how they do it. But no, so I didn't learn anything, because I was already pretty

01:02:14.680 evolved in that way. That you need to have purpose in your life. And you need to have people in your

01:02:21.660 life. And don't underestimate the value of either one of those things.

01:02:25.340 That's perfectly said. You've had wisdom from an early age, you've made really good choices,

01:02:33.600 prioritized your family, your son, the love in your life, you found a way to have this

01:02:39.320 brilliantly successful career, and still nurture those relationships in a robust and meaningful way.

01:02:47.200 Not everyone can say that. And you know what, for those that are out there doing it in a different

01:02:51.240 way and have that voice in the back of their head saying, try something else. Let it be an

01:02:55.640 inspiration. You have been to me, you have been to millions of people who absolutely adore you.

01:03:03.160 Delighted to count myself among them. Delighted to know you. And I'm 100% taking you up on this and

01:03:08.220 going out to California and being your neighbor and falling in love.

01:03:12.020 Hi. Good. Let's do it.

01:03:15.260 It's done.

01:03:16.140 I hope you're not kidding.

01:03:18.180 Honestly, you're the first person I'm calling the next time I go out there.

01:03:20.920 Thank you so much. Thank you for the warm welcome to Sirius and just for all the advice

01:03:26.060 that you've given me and so many others in ways you don't even know.

01:03:29.080 Thank you. And by the way, your producer, Mike, great guy to work with.

01:03:33.140 Oh, that's nice to hear. Thank you. Class act.

01:03:42.160 It is time for Kelly's Court. Today on the docket, the fight against mask mandates,

01:03:47.700 Sarah Palin versus the New York Times and the return of Stormy Daniels and her weird doll.

01:03:54.680 I'll explain. Joining me now, two of my favorite lawyers from back in the Fox days,

01:03:58.300 John Spilboer, who's a criminal defense attorney and founding attorney of John Spilboer Law,

01:04:02.920 and Mark Eiglash, who is a former prosecutor and a current criminal defense attorney.

01:04:06.760 And he's a civil attorney, too, just in case you find yourself needing to sue somebody for a bunch

01:04:10.100 of money. OK, let's let's kick it off with the mask mandates. And Virginia in particular is kind

01:04:17.520 of interesting because Glenn Youngking got elected promising he was going to get rid of these mask

01:04:21.260 mandates. He did it. He issued an executive order saying they're done by it's over. And now the more

01:04:27.740 left leaning school districts in Virginia are disobeying him, defying him, saying,

01:04:34.140 you don't have the authority to revoke these mask mandates. We want them to go on and on.

01:04:39.980 Mark, who's in the right? I read something about the school board being the ones responsible for

01:04:45.720 this decision. I think that's going to be the issue in which will make them stay away from that

01:04:49.880 classic balance of, you know, the need to protect versus individual rights. I think they've got them

01:04:56.580 on a potential technicality like, hey, doesn't the law say that the school board should decide?

01:05:01.600 So that's what I'm going. Jonna, I thought it was that there's a law in Virginia that says

01:05:06.840 that the school districts are supposed to do basically the most extreme things,

01:05:12.380 whatever precautions the CDC recommends they're supposed to do in the Virginia schools. And

01:05:17.580 they're saying you can't trump that with an executive order. You can't trump the law

01:05:20.900 that the legislature passed with the last governor by an executive order.

01:05:25.360 Yes. That's a really interesting point, because the reason why they have

01:05:28.840 Yunkin as the governor is because he ran on basically this exact thing, putting some power

01:05:34.640 back in the parents. I know you guys are parents. I am not a parent. But I can tell you that if I

01:05:39.400 were a parent, I'd be sending my kid to school in Virginia and any other place without a mask.

01:05:44.980 At this point, we are over two years into this pandemic. I think the governor can make masks

01:05:51.120 optional, which is what he's done. That's all he's done. Look, nobody can ever wear a mask.

01:05:55.600 He's making them optional so the parents can decide what is best for their children.

01:06:00.960 And I think he's legally sound on that decision. This state has been told to parents in it time

01:06:06.460 after time. We don't want your input. Parents input isn't relevant. We don't care for it. That's why

01:06:11.320 Terry McAuliffe was not elected. And Glenn Youngkin was. And these poor parents in these counties who

01:06:17.040 want to take the masks off are so incredibly frustrated. We had a woman on the other day.

01:06:21.080 Her son went to school without the mask. He was shoved into some cafeteria where he sat there all day.

01:06:25.740 They had the temperature controls off. So they were sitting there in like 55 degree temperatures

01:06:29.760 anyway. And this is a 10 year old boy and he got sent home. Right. It's humiliating. The kids don't

01:06:35.080 understand what's going on. The teachers won't teach him if they don't have the masks. Don't get me

01:06:39.080 started. And they took to a school board meeting in Fairfax County, Virginia last night. Here's just a

01:06:45.100 little bit of how that school board meeting went. Watch.

01:06:48.580 Across Virginia right now, adults are gathering in gyms, bars and clubs and laughing together maskless.

01:06:54.660 Yet my five kids spend all day today, eight hours in masks in Fairfax County public schools.

01:07:02.060 My first grader has never been inside his school without a mask. He's never had a chance to smile

01:07:06.580 at his friends or hear his teacher's unmuffled voice. And it is outrageous and ridiculous.

01:07:12.340 And Governor Youngkin respects that. He respects parents' rights to make choices for our children.

01:07:16.700 He gave parents like me the right to mask out of forced of your forced masking. Why then when I went

01:07:24.040 to my friendly local elementary school to exercise that right, did some poor kind woman have to tell

01:07:29.720 me that my kids were suspended? Why are you putting them in this position? Fairfax spends $15,000 about a

01:07:36.840 kid per each year. You've gotten hundreds of millions of dollars in the emergency funds. And Virginia still

01:07:42.900 has $3 billion in unspent school relief funds. Instead of that money going to you, so you can initiate

01:07:48.620 lawsuits and hire security guards and press aides to keep taxpaying citizens from seeing what's happening

01:07:54.140 in the schools, it's time you get loud that money to follow each child. Parents should be given control

01:08:00.160 of that per pupil spending so that we can find educators who respect us and so that we don't have to come

01:08:06.940 here begging to you to have some decision making. This week is known as National School Choice Week,

01:08:12.200 and it's time for Virginia to give parents like me the ability to just leave this school system

01:08:17.520 that very clearly doesn't want us anyway.

01:08:23.460 Wow. A for passion. That's a lot of passion there.

01:08:27.220 I feel her frustration. Mark, you get it. It's like the parents have to pay the taxes. That's supposed to

01:08:31.860 get your kid into school. And most people can't afford private school, so it's not another...

01:08:35.660 The money doesn't follow the child. And the mask mandates are going on forever. They had an

01:08:41.460 election. They elected the guy who said he was going to get rid of them. And even still,

01:08:46.240 the school boards are saying, no, treating this like we're at the height of the pandemic.

01:08:51.140 I feel her passion. I respect it. I admire it. But this is one of those issues, I got to tell you.

01:08:57.620 I also respect and admire the other side.

01:09:02.180 The one that wants to mandate masks on everybody?

01:09:04.060 Absolutely. I think that they are entitled to their opinions. I think that people who are

01:09:09.540 condemning others for... They're entitled to their opinions, but that we're talking about a legal

01:09:14.360 case. It's not just like you're entitled to your opinion. Somebody's right. There has to be a ruling.

01:09:19.020 Well, somebody's right. You mean some judge is going to make a ruling, typically balancing people's

01:09:26.000 rights and then finding which tips in favor. And in different jurisdictions, there's a different

01:09:31.060 ruling. I don't know about right or wrong. I think that people have strong opinions about this.

01:09:35.640 And I don't think that people are that crazy for having an opinion on one side or another.

01:09:39.600 And I think, quite frankly, if we bring that energy to other issues, whether it be abortion or capital

01:09:44.020 punishment or the many other myriad of issues that divides this country, we'd be a lot better off as

01:09:48.520 humans. Oh, my gosh. You're off point. You are way off point. Go ahead, Jonna.

01:09:53.020 You know what, though? Mark is speaking from Florida, where that governor has made several

01:09:59.240 very correct decisions over the course of this pandemic, in my opinion. And Governor Youngkin

01:10:05.360 is trying to do the same. I do not know why the school board thinks that it should be in

01:10:12.520 loco parentis and stand in the shoes of the parents on issues affecting children's health. And by the way,

01:10:18.680 the poor kid who got sent to the temperature controlled safe room at the school, did he have

01:10:26.720 COVID? Did he test negative? I mean, why are we doing this to our children when they survived a year

01:10:33.380 and a half of remote learning, which was bad enough? It is time that we get back to life. And this is not

01:10:39.100 a bad or unhealthy or unfair decision by the governor in Virginia. And I'm with him. And I don't blame the

01:10:46.180 parents. I would love to meet the mother that spoke so eloquently at that school board meeting

01:10:49.880 because she speaks for a lot of parents in Virginia. That's right. Well, what's going to

01:10:54.120 happen now is a court will rule on whether that preexisting law makes this executive order null

01:10:59.620 and void. And if, in fact, that is the case, then the Virginia legislature is prepared, from what I read,

01:11:05.900 to pass a new law revoking that old law and allowing the governor to set the policy and which will be

01:11:12.080 no masks. So if you're in Virginia, get used to it. The masks are coming off. You want to mask

01:11:16.020 your kid? Go for it. That's your choice. You're the parent. You don't get to say what's on my kid's

01:11:21.440 face. I am 100 percent at that place on this pandemic, as my audience knows. New York is

01:11:26.960 having a similar battle where the governor, Hochul, she issued an emergency order or had somebody issue

01:11:33.420 an emergency order saying mask mandates for everybody. And it just got struck down as

01:11:37.880 unconstitutional by a judge on Monday saying, nope, you those powers had been had not been renewed

01:11:42.940 and you didn't have the authority to issue that mandate when you did it. Now they filed an appeal

01:11:48.560 and it's her the declaration that the mask mandate is unconstitutional is being held in abeyance

01:11:57.520 while they litigate the appeal. So you do still have to wear the masks now in New York. But it's

01:12:02.940 absurd because what happened when they brought it up to the appellate court, her people, she had the

01:12:07.160 attorney general go in there and contest his ruling. And they argued if that ruling is not stayed,

01:12:12.660 it will allow individuals to refuse to wear face coverings in indoor public settings where the risk

01:12:17.660 of COVID-19 spread is high, including in schools where many children remain unvaccinated. This is a

01:12:23.180 farce, Jonna. Kids, yes, they remain unvaccinated. Kids have next to no risk from COVID. Why are you

01:12:29.680 talking about that? Like we should all be saying, oh, they could take the face coverings off their

01:12:34.420 their their faces, the children. They're fine. Look how you went to Jonna because you know you'll

01:12:40.040 get support. I agree. But I'm also in New York and I got to tell you, I have had masks thrown in my

01:12:47.680 face when I have entered establishments without wearing one, even establishments where five feet

01:12:53.420 from where I was, I was going to sit and be allowed to take the mask off. And not to mention that the

01:12:59.220 mask mandate that this governor put into place was supposed to end anyway, Tuesday.

01:13:04.420 Tuesday. But she had to go and get a stay for a week. Like, why couldn't she just say, you know,

01:13:10.000 oh, OK, we'll let this appeal go on. We won't request a stay of the status quo. And if she thinks

01:13:15.800 she's going to expand this mask mandate past Tuesday, somebody who you're both looking at is

01:13:22.320 going to be marching in Albany with a sign unmasked and pissed off because enough is enough.

01:13:28.840 I'll go with you. We can stay at my mom's. We can visit my mom.

01:13:31.580 Oh, good. We'll do that. All right. All right, Mark, I'll let you have this one. Sarah Palin

01:13:39.540 is let's kick it off with what's happening with her mask situation, her vaccine situation.

01:13:45.320 She's suing The New York Times in a very interesting case that I do want to talk about. But

01:13:49.300 first of all, she gets pinged for being out at a restaurant and she didn't show her papers. And

01:13:55.140 the reason she didn't show her papers because she's not vaccinated. So then she goes back to

01:14:00.480 the same restaurant two nights later and the poor restaurant gets written up again in the papers

01:14:04.260 because apparently she wanted to go back to apologize for getting them in trouble. It's

01:14:08.920 like, you know what, lady? Don't help me. Don't apologize. Stay home. Anyway, so what's happening

01:14:15.040 with her with Sarah Palin versus The New York Times?

01:14:17.620 Well, aren't we talking about that other issue, that other bigger one? I mean, there was something

01:14:24.380 more major with her where she was connected with some type of big scandal. And you're talking about

01:14:31.240 this one? What are you talking about? What do you mean? What are you talking about?

01:14:37.160 Right. She's suing The New York Times for defamation. I was just taking it off.

01:14:41.320 Okay, good. Because you brought up this vaccination and her going back to the restaurant. And I thought

01:14:45.900 that somehow had something to do with the lawsuit. It doesn't.

01:14:48.960 Now that I got mad at you and it really threw you off your game.

01:14:52.480 Totally.

01:14:54.700 All right. So she's suing The Times for defamation because

01:14:57.660 several years after the Gabby Giffords shooting, they ran an editorial suggesting that her PAC

01:15:08.980 had specifically targeted with sort of the crosshairs that you see in a gun.

01:15:16.620 Certain districts sort of leading to violence against people like Gabby Giffords. They knew

01:15:21.440 it wasn't true. They did take it down within 24 hours after she complained. I mean, it really made

01:15:26.620 her look like she was some sort of a crazed murderer trying to get Congress people like Gabby

01:15:30.960 Giffords murdered. It was six years after the fact. And it was the guy, James Bennett, who wound up

01:15:35.380 getting fired for running the Tom Cotton editorial at The Times. He did it six years. He knew it wasn't

01:15:42.240 true because they made it a deal at the time. And she complained, saying this is bullshit.

01:15:45.780 This isn't right. So six years later, he makes the same mistake that had already been corrected

01:15:49.840 previously, not his organization. And he takes it down within 24 hours. I'm of two minds on it,

01:15:56.120 right? Because that's like I'm mad on her behalf. But the the I also think freedom of the press is

01:16:03.380 really important. And the actual malice standard is extremely hard to meet for a reason. Right.

01:16:09.140 For a reason. They don't want willy nilly defamation suits being fired. Right. So where

01:16:12.480 do you stand? That's it with the analysis starts there. Obviously, we start with freedom of press,

01:16:16.520 big fan of that. And there's a specific standard under Sullivan where you have to prove actual

01:16:21.080 malice. That's going to be a challenge for her. So now it's fact sensitive. It's not so because

01:16:25.860 Megan Kelly says it. So it's so because the facts show that they knew it to be false at the time.

01:16:32.100 Did they? Did they knowingly put this out there knowing it to be false? Maybe they did.

01:16:37.020 The fact that they took it down right away doesn't necessarily prove that.

01:16:40.660 So the question is, did they know at the time that it was false or were they reckless and disregarded

01:16:46.600 the truth? If that's the case, then yeah, they should pay out. The question is really what's

01:16:50.940 her damages? Well, I think, Jonna, that the well, what's really at risk, though, here is

01:16:56.520 the defamation standard for public figures. I mean, if that standard gets changed right now,

01:17:01.620 it's actual malice. The reason that no public figure realistically ever sues for defamation

01:17:06.480 is because if you're a public figure, you can't win. The standard of proof that the person

01:17:11.880 maligning you had actual malice in their hearts in doing it is so high, you know, that they knew

01:17:17.880 it was false when they printed it and they had actual malice. So it's so high. But this case

01:17:22.740 could redefine it. It could redefine it. What she's trying to say is that, you know, six years after

01:17:28.480 the fact, the New York Times knew very well that her pack had nothing to do with the shooter who went in

01:17:34.400 and shot up Gabby Giffords event. And yet this is what appeared in their paper. Was this attack

01:17:41.580 evidence of how vicious American politics has become? Probably. In 2011, when the shooter opened

01:17:48.440 fire in a supermarket parking lot, grievously wounding Representative Gabby Giffords and killing

01:17:52.680 six people, including a young girl, the link to political incitement was clear. Before the shooting,

01:17:59.900 Sarah Palin's political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put

01:18:04.860 Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized crosshairs. That wasn't true. And the fact that the

01:18:12.080 New York Times pretended that it had no idea that this had been a big story. This had been a big story

01:18:16.460 when people did this to Sarah Palin in the wake of the Giffords shooting. And she had to run around

01:18:20.700 trying to correct other people. She called it a blood libel. Remember, that too made news.

01:18:26.160 It's it's a jury might disbelieve that this guy didn't remember that they might believe

01:18:31.540 he did have actual mass against Sarah Palin and maligned her for that reason.

01:18:36.880 I think it's important for Sarah Palin to bring this suit for a whole other reason. I agree that

01:18:42.640 she's probably not suffered damages. Oh, sometimes if you can prove the defamation,

01:18:47.200 you don't really need actual damages, you can get money anyway, punitive, for example. But it's

01:18:52.420 important, Megan, because we are coming off a period and it pretty much began or at least was

01:18:58.460 exacerbated with Trump, where the media is under fire, when they do something that is untoward. And

01:19:07.540 this is more this is going to have more of a political fallout than anything. Because if she's

01:19:11.940 successful in this lawsuit, or even bringing the lawsuit, anyway, it shows that the media can be

01:19:18.400 biased, which you know, they want to be that's fine. It shows that they do things perhaps to color

01:19:25.000 politics to color upcoming elections to color these sort of things. And Sarah Palin is saying,

01:19:31.780 you can't always believe what you see and what you read in our press, which used to be very esteemed,

01:19:38.180 and now seems to have taken sides politically and doesn't care, is reckless, has abandoned when it

01:19:44.680 comes to factually printing truth. And if she illustrates that, she's won. She doesn't have

01:19:51.460 to get a dime. Yeah, that's right. And that's probably what's motivating her.

01:19:55.520 We don't need her lawsuit to teach us that the media is biased. I mean, I think that that's readily

01:20:01.680 acceptable by any reasonable, intellectually honest person. The question is whether, I'm curious,

01:20:07.700 whether you think that she's got actual malice here, which is the standard and will only change

01:20:12.200 unless and until she takes this up to the Supremes, and it changes.

01:20:16.980 You know, she might. I mean, they're basically calling her a crazed lunatic who wanted somebody

01:20:24.180 dead by making up these facts that weren't true. What if they had said-

01:20:29.700 The other thing on your side is this guy, James Bennett, worked for the Atlantic at the time

01:20:37.560 they originally printed this lie about her. Because again, the New York Times piece was six years after

01:20:42.120 the Gabby Giffords shooting. When the shooting took place, Sarah Palin was maligned in this very

01:20:48.140 same way. I remember I was on the air. It was a very big deal. She was very angry because her map had

01:20:54.340 absolutely nothing to do with the Gabby Giffords shooting. That's a fact, just so the audience

01:20:57.700 understands that. People just hated Sarah Palin. They wanted to use her little crosshairs map.

01:21:02.680 And it meant, like, these are the ones we want to target in terms of getting them out of office.

01:21:06.940 They tried to use it against her in a false way. He worked for the Atlantic at the time,

01:21:10.720 and the Atlantic ran the piece. The Atlantic was one of the ones, if not the one, that got this lie

01:21:16.100 started. And he's claiming, apparently, oh, I don't remember that. I didn't see any of that.

01:21:20.960 But now we know it was James Bennett, they learned in Discovery, who specifically inserted that

01:21:25.660 paragraph I just read to you into the New York Times editorial. A woman wrote it. Somebody else

01:21:31.080 on the Times editorial board wrote it. And he took it and said, oh, wait, I want to insert this one

01:21:36.140 special paragraph. So her position is going to be he couldn't stand me. He knew very well from his time

01:21:41.360 at the Atlantic because this was a big deal. I was at Fox and I knew. You're telling me he's at the

01:21:45.200 paper that did it and he doesn't know that? I don't know. I think she's got a shot.

01:21:49.580 I think I did, too. Yeah, that's good. It just depends on what the facts are. He gets up there

01:21:55.220 and he says something different in terms of what his motivations were. Then that could be sold to

01:22:00.340 the jury, too. He's going to say it was on deadline. Let's put it this way. He had a short

01:22:03.560 turn. Maybe this guy will never do it again to somebody else. And let's change the facts a little

01:22:09.820 bit. What if a reporter doesn't portray Sarah Pell in that way? What if a reporter says she

01:22:14.960 molests children? She kicks puppies? I mean, take the politics out of it for a minute,

01:22:21.540 even though that's why this was happening. It was very, very political. Celebrities and people who

01:22:26.660 are public figures should have the right to stop this kind of malignment. They should have the right

01:22:34.060 to do that because it does hurt reputation. Maybe politically, we're all always going to have a

01:22:39.160 side, whatever. That's fine. But if it's something that's even more personal than politics,

01:22:43.460 then you're damn right. Public figures should have a right to stop, put a stop to it. And this

01:22:48.120 is maybe one step in the right direction there. That that does that. That is what Stormy Daniels

01:22:54.540 believes, because she is now suing. Well, she's not suing, but she's testifying. She's testifying

01:23:00.520 in the case against, as Tucker called him, creepy porn lawyer, Michael Avenatti. It's amazing what's

01:23:07.300 gone on. Now, this case gets weirder and weirder. So as I understand it, it's a criminal

01:23:12.940 prosecution of Avenatti. And so she just testified. It's not a defamation case. It's a criminal case

01:23:20.100 alleging he stole $300,000 from her when she was in the news. And we were all like, what? She was

01:23:27.120 President Trump's alleged lover. She's a porn star. And she made all this news because Michael Cohen had

01:23:35.580 allegedly documented this deal, paying her $130,000 to stay quiet about the fact that she had this

01:23:42.840 affair with President Trump, who wasn't president when he had the affair. And I had Michael Avenatti,

01:23:47.800 who represented her on my show at NBC. And I had the lawyer representing basically Michael Cohen and

01:23:54.100 Donald Trump, that side. And it was great because I just killed them both. I encourage you to go look

01:23:58.520 at those on YouTube audience. You'll enjoy my interview with Michael Avenatti because unlike

01:24:01.680 the rest of the press, I didn't roll over for the guy and think he was the second coming.

01:24:06.100 To the contrary. In that instance, I knew what I was dealing with. And he was stealing from her,

01:24:12.380 says the prosecutor, while he was out there like Stormy, poor Stormy. This is he stole on her book

01:24:18.040 advance. And what they're alleging is that she was emailing him saying, where the F is my money?

01:24:25.380 She's a colorful character. Where's my money? Where's my 300,000? And he was like, oh, I don't

01:24:29.320 know. I don't know. Meanwhile, St. Martin's Press, which was her publisher, is like, she finally went

01:24:33.380 to them directly. They're like, dude, we paid your lawyer several times. I mean, it's the most

01:24:38.640 unethical thing you can possibly do, Mark, as a lawyer. And what do you think the odds are of him

01:24:44.400 managing to avoid a conviction here? Yeah, a low chance, especially because he

01:24:49.640 has a fool for a client. He's representing himself. Really? You're that likable? You think

01:24:54.820 you can handle both jobs? The problem is just follow the money. So they're going to see where

01:25:01.240 the money went. They're going to see messages where he's saying, I haven't gotten it. Clearly,

01:25:05.420 he's deceiving her. And then the other side of his mouth, he's going to say, oh, no, no, no. We had

01:25:09.340 this agreement. We had this agreement that I was supposed to get a portion of this money for what I was

01:25:14.200 doing. I don't have it in writing or anything, but we had this oral agreement, pardon the pun.

01:25:18.460 And, you know, she promised me that. And that's why he's talking about this puppet and he's making

01:25:25.160 her look really bad because he needs to make the jurors feel that she's not trustworthy.

01:25:31.560 Jonna, they say, let's say Thursday was the fourth day of testimony. He actually got up there and

01:25:36.280 cross-examined Stormy Daniels. It's so crazy. You know, he's the defendant. He's up there cross-examining

01:25:41.280 Stormy, who's the alleged victim. And it went to a weird place, Jonna. It went to a very weird place.

01:25:49.760 Did you see you saw the update? Yeah. With her doll. I guess Stormy Daniels decided to leave the

01:25:56.500 porn industry. And now she is part of some paranormal show on some cable network. And she uses some little

01:26:06.680 doll named Susan, who looks like just a normal American girl doll to me. I have no idea. It doesn't

01:26:12.200 look creepy. And they go all over the country. And she claims like Susan can speak and Susan's eyes

01:26:17.720 move. And this was the nature of his cross. Yeah. Yeah. To try to discredit her. And, you know,

01:26:26.180 I thought the porn made her weird. But Spooky Babes, which I think she actually has a show,

01:26:31.540 and I believe that's the name of it, where she channels other worlds through this damn doll.

01:26:39.280 It's so, it's bizarre beyond, it's bizarre beyond measure. But you know what else is really,

01:26:43.400 like, just from a legal standpoint, though. Go ahead.

01:26:46.260 No. We, Michael Avenatti is a disgusting tool and a giant stain on our entire profession,

01:26:57.300 number one. But I knew that way before he started representing himself in the second

01:27:01.660 criminal case. This isn't his first criminal case. He was convicted when he tried to shake

01:27:06.080 down Nike, if everybody remembers. He should be serving time for that now. But instead,

01:27:10.300 he's allowed to cross-examine his former client, which should also be illegal because she was a

01:27:15.760 former client. And attorneys are forever, we have rules with what we can and cannot discuss when it

01:27:21.900 comes to former clients. Some of them go out the window if your client is suing you for money,

01:27:26.900 which she's not. This is a criminal case, but I'm sure that will come next if it doesn't.

01:27:31.600 And for him to get up there and really make fun of her is what he's doing. Like, this has nothing

01:27:39.600 to do with whether they had an agreement. We have agreements all the time. Attorneys are required

01:27:43.200 to have fee agreements in writing. You are not permitted to have an oral agreement. And so I don't

01:27:49.620 know why he's going to claim that he was entitled to this money. But to just embarrass any witness,

01:27:55.100 even if it's easy to do, and this was easy to do, and I don't like Stormy Daniels any more than I

01:27:59.620 like him, but have a little decorum in the courtroom. But he's incapable of it because he's a disgusting

01:28:06.880 human being.

01:28:07.860 Okay, so we have the pictures. For the listening audience, go check out our YouTube later and you

01:28:12.260 will see the pictures of little Susan, the allegedly spooky, scary doll. There she is sitting on a piano

01:28:18.080 next to Stormy, looking normal.

01:28:21.260 Megan, I want to know who's...

01:28:22.860 Go ahead.

01:28:23.900 I'd like to pay to see an interview of people who are paying to see her

01:28:27.980 do this. That I don't care. I know. How did this become a thing? I don't know,

01:28:33.900 but she's got her own show. And he was basically saying, you believe that you have the ability to

01:28:40.540 speak to dead people and a doll and trying to discredit her, right?

01:28:45.040 I think that's fair game. I would do it. If my life's on the line, if I'm cross-examining someone,

01:28:50.500 I can get that in and the judge isn't going to prevent me from doing it, great. What I do take

01:28:55.120 exception to is exactly what Jonah raised earlier about him being able to cross-examine her and say,

01:29:00.760 isn't it a fact that you told me X, Y, and Z? Well, wait a second. What happened to the sacred

01:29:05.120 attorney-client privilege? That dynamic is really weird. And I don't know how that's happening.

01:29:13.240 Yeah, it is bizarre. Well, apparently she defended herself by saying, well, a lot of people have

01:29:18.840 spoken to Susan. It's not just, oh, normal. Susan has her own Instagram, guys. She's got her own

01:29:25.460 Instagram. I'm sorry to tell you, I actually wasted five minutes of my life looking at that today.

01:29:30.900 Okay. On to, listen, there's a big Supreme Court nomination that's going to have to come up this

01:29:36.360 year now that we know that Justice Breyer's retiring. Joe Biden says that he's going to pick

01:29:40.320 Breyer's replacement by the end of February. And we don't know who it's going to be, but we

01:29:47.260 appreciate that it will be a left-leaning, you know, probably a more liberal ideologue that he'll

01:29:53.100 use to replace pretty much a liberal ideologue. He's a little bit more moderate than some of the

01:29:57.780 others Breyer is. But anyway, the ideological balance of the court doesn't change. But there

01:30:02.960 are some liberals who are just upset that the court is 6-3 conservative to liberal now. Anyway,

01:30:08.400 some liberals like that legal scholar, Joy Behar, who for some unknown reason felt the need to give

01:30:18.000 us her legal opinion on the Supreme Court and how unhappy she is with it. Listen to this, you guys.

01:30:25.760 The Supreme Court is like this dictatorial branch of the government. These are people who are appointed

01:30:32.240 by their own people. They do not answer to the country. They are there for life. The only way

01:30:38.900 to get rid of them is to impeach them, which is a long process. I always feel like that particular

01:30:43.320 branch of government is so anti-democracy. The fact that there are no term limits, the fact that you can

01:30:49.560 put your people on because they agree with you, and then they're there forever, influencing maybe

01:30:55.800 three, four generations of Americans. Well, I think that to call that a democratic institution

01:31:00.840 seems a an oxymoron. You mean the judiciary? Yes. She's an idiot. She's an idiot. It's at the top

01:31:09.960 of the third branch of government, sweetheart. And not only that, but there are democratic representatives

01:31:15.520 involved because you don't get to be on the Supreme Court unless the Senate confirms you.

01:31:19.920 And guess how you get to be a U.S. senator? We'll wait, Joy. We'll wait. Oh, wait. You have

01:31:26.260 to be elected. I looked it up just for kicks. Joy does not have a law degree. She got a degree in

01:31:32.300 sociology from Queens College and her M.A. in English from Stony Brook, which means we really

01:31:38.120 don't give a shit what she has to say about the Supreme Court. But that's just me. I'll let you

01:31:42.500 guys take it. Mark, John, any feelings? I'm defending her, taking away some of the things that

01:31:47.080 might have gotten wrong factually. That's her feeling. And I hold on one second.

01:31:52.000 Oh, you and your feelings. I think that her feelings about the Supreme Court are ones that

01:31:58.120 are shared by many people on both sides of the aisle. That's fine. You keep saying that as

01:32:02.780 a defense. I don't care if she has feelings. She's just a dumbass. Jonna, I'll give you the

01:32:07.420 quick last word. I don't know if I made my point, but that's okay. Go ahead, John.

01:32:11.240 She needs to study the organizational chart of the United States. The Supreme Court is what

01:32:16.620 it is for a reason. She wouldn't be talking out of her backside if it were reversed and it was

01:32:21.940 majority liberals on it. So bye, Joy. That's right. You got that right. Okay.

01:32:28.360 It's been a pleasure. I still love you, Mark.

01:32:35.860 We're back now. We got a quick question brought to us by Steve Krakauer, my EP. Go ahead, Steve.

01:32:40.820 Hey, Megan. Yes. Cynthia from Instagram wants to know, what do you love most about living in

01:32:44.480 Connecticut now? So much, Cynthia. I love having a house. I love having a pantry. I love having a

01:32:49.980 closet that actually fits my clothes. It's like the laps of luxury out here. I have windows. I can

01:32:54.880 see nature. I love having neighbors who I can see and talk to and get to know and who hire my boys to

01:32:59.700 shovel their walks. That's exciting, right? I just love being part of nature and drive my kids to

01:33:04.360 school in the morning and not being surrounded by big buses and all the scary traffic in New York.

01:33:09.000 It's just, I love everything about it. It's actually the best move we've made and I wish I

01:33:13.700 had done it a lot earlier. So thank you for asking. Don't forget to join the show on Monday because

01:33:18.240 we're going to have Clay Travis and Rick Grinnell. That's a bunch of A-listers. Excited to see those

01:33:23.280 guys and get their input, especially with what's happening in Russia and Ukraine. Can't wait to hear

01:33:27.600 what Rick has to say on that. And in the meantime, don't forget to download the show and you have to

01:33:33.640 subscribe, subscribe to it, right? You can do it on Spotify. You can do it on Apple, Pandora

01:33:39.420 Stitcher. If you go to Apple, leave me a review and I will read it. I promise to read it. I read them

01:33:45.540 all. They're lovely. Sometimes they have feedback. Sometimes they have guest suggestions, but I have

01:33:50.820 read every single one of them and would love to hear from you. Also, you can go to our YouTube

01:33:57.420 channel, youtube.com slash Megan Kelly, and you can check out Stormy Daniel's weird little doll.

01:34:03.640 Among other things. And would love your subscription there because that helps us

01:34:07.820 generate more support and then it's harder for them to block us. When I go to YouTube to yell at

01:34:13.540 them, I have more power right behind me. In any event, have a wonderful weekend. If you're in the

01:34:17.880 Northeast, watch out for this storm. I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to stay home and I'll

01:34:20.860 watch the big snowflakes fall and hope for as much as possible, but stay well, stay safe,

01:34:25.260 and I'll see you Monday. Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:34:33.640 Bye.

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01:34:44.920 Bye.

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01:34:51.860 I'm Ting Süley.

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The Megyn Kelly Show - January 28, 2022

Dr. Laura on Marriage Secrets, Protecting Your Kids, and the Value of Personal Responsibility ｜ Ep. 250

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