The Megyn Kelly Show - Failures of Elite Media, and Hypocrisy of Left on Mob Behavior, with Bari Weiss and Nellie Bowles ｜ Ep. 788

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00:00:02.860 Someone is trying to frame us.

00:00:05.140 Until our names are cleared.

00:00:07.700 We're fugitives from interval.

00:00:09.480 Like Bonnie and Clyde with better snacks.

00:00:12.880 Espionage?

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00:00:16.600 Better.

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00:00:18.860 We like to walk that fine line between techno thriller

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00:00:27.400 Now streaming on Paramount Plus.

00:00:30.660 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:32.580 Live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:41.760 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:00:43.600 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.

00:00:46.360 The anti-Israel and in some cases anti-American

00:00:49.220 campus protests that began a few weeks ago

00:00:51.780 have continued as finals and graduation approaches.

00:00:54.900 It's happening in big cities like New York

00:00:57.140 but also throughout the country.

00:00:58.560 And just wait until these brats go home for the summer 1.00

00:01:00.920 and the 2024 campaign really heats up.

00:01:03.440 They're going to be so sad.

00:01:04.360 No more attention.

00:01:05.180 Back to us.

00:01:06.540 The Free Press has been doing some great reporting on all of this

00:01:10.000 which we will get to in a minute.

00:01:11.260 But first,

00:01:12.320 joining me now is Nellie Bowles,

00:01:14.500 author of the brand new book

00:01:16.240 Morning After the Revolution.

00:01:19.200 Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History.

00:01:21.820 Great title.

00:01:22.320 And it actually really conveys what the book is about.

00:01:25.000 It comes out next week.

00:01:26.120 You can go pre-order it right now.

00:01:28.360 Nellie is also a reporter with the Free Press

00:01:30.260 and the head of strategy for the Upstart Media Company

00:01:33.520 which was founded by our pal Barry Weiss.

00:01:35.960 Happens to be the wife of our guest today.

00:01:39.520 And she's going to be joining us in a minute.

00:01:41.200 Welcome back to the show.

00:01:44.660 It's a pleasure to be here.

00:01:45.880 It's a pleasure to be here in person.

00:01:47.280 I know.

00:01:47.900 It's so fun.

00:01:48.360 I came out here from the Mr. Burcham premiere

00:01:50.820 and now I'm spanning it into two days of shows.

00:01:53.540 That's so fun.

00:01:54.160 We'll stay in L.A.

00:01:54.800 It's a good town.

00:01:55.480 I don't understand what you and Barry are doing in L.A.

00:01:57.580 I don't get it.

00:01:59.840 Everybody who's not a far lefty

00:02:01.400 seems to have moved to Texas or Tennessee.

00:02:04.420 I'm long on California.

00:02:06.080 I think there's problems here.

00:02:07.660 There's issues.

00:02:08.220 I write about some of those in the book.

00:02:09.540 But I think to give up on California,

00:02:12.440 I mean, it's like to cede the most beautiful land in America.

00:02:15.800 That is true.

00:02:16.660 It's to cede all this ground.

00:02:17.440 No way.

00:02:18.200 This is stunning.

00:02:19.100 Just driving around,

00:02:20.340 once you get past all the homeless people in the tents,

00:02:23.700 you just think, why doesn't everybody live here?

00:02:25.960 And then the next thought is,

00:02:26.980 don't ever let your children to come here. 0.89

00:02:28.500 Otherwise, they'll never leave.

00:02:29.760 Like, I need them to be East Coasters.

00:02:31.680 But it is gorgeous.

00:02:32.780 And I would say it's better than the lifestyle of Manhattan.

00:02:35.860 Like, when we were living in the Upper West Side

00:02:38.800 and the stress of 2020

00:02:41.040 and all the intensity of the New York media world was happening,

00:02:43.760 getting out of that scrum.

00:02:45.460 I mean, California, for all of its eccentric politics,

00:02:49.420 it's also just like a less...

00:02:52.020 Politics are not like the center of your life here.

00:02:54.860 Or the media world is not the center of the universe here

00:02:58.180 in a way that's very relaxing.

00:02:59.800 What is that like?

00:03:00.840 Walk me through that.

00:03:01.480 It's wonderful.

00:03:02.500 What happens at dinner?

00:03:04.320 We just cook.

00:03:05.400 We hang out.

00:03:05.960 We've got a deck.

00:03:07.420 We talk about other things.

00:03:08.760 You and Barry don't talk about other things.

00:03:10.380 But when you have guests over.

00:03:11.460 Yeah.

00:03:12.020 We have other conversations, all sorts of stuff.

00:03:15.200 Do you have to know about Hollywood?

00:03:16.600 Is it one of those things where like,

00:03:17.820 did you check out?

00:03:18.360 No, and it's great that we don't.

00:03:19.560 We're sort of on the outside of that, too.

00:03:21.140 So it's all just sort of light.

00:03:23.960 They still like you,

00:03:25.300 even though you can't do anything for them?

00:03:28.240 Well, maybe as like entertainment,

00:03:30.040 as sort of their local entertainers who are here.

00:03:33.020 And we bring like a headline or two along with us

00:03:35.380 and like talk about a news story

00:03:38.740 and then move on to, I don't know, Botox anecdotes.

00:03:42.900 Yeah, okay.

00:03:43.340 I'm into that, too.

00:03:44.420 Not that I've had any,

00:03:45.560 but I'm thinking it's probably soon time.

00:03:47.800 I can spam both worlds.

00:03:49.600 So I might be able to last for a week out here.

00:03:52.160 All right.

00:03:52.340 So why did you write the book?

00:03:54.860 Wow.

00:03:55.880 That's a good question.

00:03:57.420 I wrote it because I had been a reporter at the Times

00:04:01.000 and I'd been a features reporter

00:04:02.180 who'd been given a lot of autonomy to write features.

00:04:05.640 And then 2020 came

00:04:06.920 and there were all these amazing stories

00:04:10.560 and the world was kind of spinning into this wildness,

00:04:15.460 into what you could describe as insanity,

00:04:17.900 but it was definitely a revolution.

00:04:19.620 And I wanted to cover it.

00:04:20.960 And it was becoming very hard to do that

00:04:23.520 within the confines of a paper

00:04:24.720 that for a while decided not to cover

00:04:26.920 those most interesting stories.

00:04:29.020 Now I think they're trying to pivot,

00:04:30.320 but that's another conversation.

00:04:32.000 But I wanted to write about it all.

00:04:35.780 I wanted to write about what was happening in Seattle

00:04:37.600 and Portland and what was going on on the streets.

00:04:39.960 And I ended up quitting the paper and writing this book.

00:04:45.660 It's crazy.

00:04:46.380 It kind of gave me an excuse to cover the revolution.

00:04:49.340 Well, because you wanted to write about it in an honest way.

00:04:51.920 You didn't want to go cheerlead it necessarily.

00:04:53.740 You wanted to just report what you found on the ground.

00:04:56.080 Yeah.

00:04:56.740 But that wasn't exactly what they wanted.

00:04:58.600 I think, and again, there's a small correction that you're starting to see happen.

00:05:04.280 But for a long time, it was very explicit within mainstream American publications

00:05:09.360 that we were not covering what was happening.

00:05:12.380 And it started around in 2019, but really 2020, it was said out loud.

00:05:16.240 You know, NPR put out a statement saying,

00:05:17.880 we are not reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop.

00:05:20.380 That is the rule of the newsroom.

00:05:21.960 That is stated explicitly.

00:05:24.720 It wasn't like subtly said.

00:05:25.960 It was proudly said.

00:05:28.260 And I think within the Times, within every mainstream American liberal media institution,

00:05:33.600 it was quite proudly stated, we are not going to cover the most interesting stories.

00:05:39.180 And that was really frustrating as a reporter who was curious about the world.

00:05:45.280 And I didn't go to write propaganda.

00:05:49.220 I wrote to cover things with curiosity and open mind and a sense of humor.

00:05:53.640 And I just couldn't help myself.

00:05:57.940 Yeah, they weren't in the market for that.

00:05:59.120 Yeah, there wasn't a market for that.

00:06:00.980 Did they send you to Chaz?

00:06:02.480 Did they send you to San Francisco?

00:06:03.980 Because, you know, the book is replete with these stories of what you found there.

00:06:07.800 So they did eventually send you, but how did the...

00:06:10.780 A couple of the first chapters and a little bit in the beginning of the reporting, I managed

00:06:17.660 to kind of eke that through.

00:06:19.000 And then that became untenable.

00:06:21.240 It basically became impossible within the world of the paper.

00:06:25.820 I mean, most of this was done sort of socially.

00:06:27.760 It was done kind of by colleagues.

00:06:29.320 It wasn't a top-down thing.

00:06:30.540 The editors of all these institutions, the leaders of all these institutions don't want

00:06:34.320 this kind of closing of the journalist's mind.

00:06:37.180 They want the old values, but the closing was a kind of communal effort of the staffers.

00:06:46.720 Explain that.

00:06:47.060 So you're saying, I don't like, what's the line of command?

00:06:49.220 Because wouldn't it just be your boss?

00:06:50.400 You go to your editor, your assignment editor, and they say, this is what you're doing, Nellie.

00:06:54.060 Sort of.

00:06:55.000 How does somebody who's lateral to you shut down your reporting?

00:06:57.920 Well, there's a couple of reasons.

00:06:59.320 But I think the big, really interesting one that happened was the creation of these huge

00:07:05.300 Slack rooms that all staffers were in.

00:07:09.720 Oh, the infamous New York Times Slack room.

00:07:11.580 But I think every single one of these institutions has them.

00:07:13.520 Where all bullies go.

00:07:14.220 Yeah, where they all go.

00:07:15.240 Do not create a Slack channel at the free press.

00:07:18.180 No, absolutely not.

00:07:19.660 So I know we have like a tiny one, and I was like, watch that Slack.

00:07:23.480 No, don't do it.

00:07:24.600 No.

00:07:24.920 If people want to complain at my show, they have to text me.

00:07:27.480 Perfect.

00:07:27.880 It's great.

00:07:28.100 It's as it should be.

00:07:29.320 But it flattened the hierarchy.

00:07:31.240 So you had like a 3,000 person Slack channel where someone, like a junior editor on the

00:07:38.800 Wirecutter section, could be like just reaming a top politics reporter.

00:07:44.700 And that politics reporter would then have to respond.

00:07:46.920 That's annoying.

00:07:47.740 And it was like kind of this crazy flattening of the hierarchies.

00:07:50.300 No, that's bad.

00:07:50.960 We want hierarchies.

00:07:51.840 They work.

00:07:53.040 Yeah, hierarchies are useful for a lot of reasons.

00:07:55.220 Especially now that you're at the top of it.

00:07:56.700 Don't you see?

00:07:57.140 Now I'm like, we need, you should have to ask my permission to even post anything in Slack. 1.00

00:08:02.400 It's like these idiot White House interns who think they're going to set Israel policy. 1.00

00:08:05.820 Shut up. 1.00

00:08:06.320 The White House interns, I can't get enough. 1.00

00:08:08.040 And get the coffee. 0.99

00:08:08.120 No one gives a shit what you think about the Mideast. 0.99

00:08:10.420 They won't even put their names on it. 0.99

00:08:11.960 It's like if you're releasing a public letter, you got to, you got to name yourself.

00:08:15.760 No, and otherwise it's like, you know what, you know what your thoughts, where they go, they go in your journal.

00:08:20.660 Dear diary, I'm so angry about the evil Israel. 1.00

00:08:24.280 That's fine.

00:08:25.020 You can have that face as a kid.

00:08:26.520 You can't try to hijack the White House and demand policy change.

00:08:30.700 Anyway, this is why I'm against Slack channels.

00:08:32.600 I'm with you.

00:08:33.680 I don't mind, like, I don't mind if my staff complains about me or policy at the show.

00:08:38.040 That's part of, you know, being a corporate person, right?

00:08:40.740 You got to vent.

00:08:41.540 I mean, and I don't begrudge anybody that.

00:08:43.420 But allowing a forum where they can go and do it publicly foments insurrection, you might say.

00:08:49.760 And that's bad.

00:08:51.120 Anyway, so the problem, the Times Slack channel is infamous for leading to this kind of problem.

00:08:55.440 Complete flattening of hierarchy, complete flattening.

00:08:57.900 And then basically the 5% of loudest, craziest voices get to decide editorial policy.

00:09:03.360 Because you don't want to be yelled at by a thousand people in a Slack room.

00:09:07.780 And it's a little...

00:09:10.020 Maybe you do.

00:09:11.540 And, yeah.

00:09:13.820 Depends on the person.

00:09:14.660 But I think within these leftist circles, it does matter.

00:09:18.600 You know, they're still obsessed with reputation and standing.

00:09:21.920 And certainly, I'm sure, at the Times, even more so.

00:09:24.280 And prestige and goodness and the appearance of good and writing this book and, like, doing this reporting and going to these places required giving up a little bit of my need for prestige and good standing and being good in the eyes of people who I'd spent most of my life trying to be good in the eyes of.

00:09:46.000 Yeah.

00:09:46.280 And that's very honest.

00:09:47.600 That was really jarring.

00:09:50.420 And that was really jarring.

00:10:21.200 The sort of Substack, Free Press, all of the independent media outlets get a full two years to report on that before the mainstream media decides it's safe to touch it.

00:10:29.620 It's pretty great.

00:10:30.100 Or the lab leak.

00:10:31.400 You get two years.

00:10:32.360 Or the laptop.

00:10:32.860 So you really get a big head start on a lot of these stories.

00:10:34.960 The laptop, exactly.

00:10:36.020 Yeah.

00:10:36.220 You get a big head start.

00:10:37.340 So in a lot of ways, it's very fun as a reporter because there's so many stories that the old institutions are scared to touch.

00:10:42.700 Well, let me ask you a question on that because, and I could bring this up when Barry comes too, but so there's a piece of that that is fun because you have a corner on the market.

00:10:51.480 But then there's another piece.

00:10:52.660 It's like, I really like Bill Ackman and I love what he's doing on X now.

00:10:55.520 And I love watching his awakening, this, you know, billionaire investor who's realizing how pernicious DEI is.

00:11:01.280 But I would be lying if I didn't say there's a piece of me that is also like slightly like, all right, Bill, you're a little late to the party.

00:11:08.180 Like, welcome.

00:11:09.540 But the way, you know, it's like people write about it like he's finally Bill Ackman is going to bring down.

00:11:14.400 It's like, you know what?

00:11:15.420 A lot of us have been fighting this fight a very long time and we're called a bunch of names for it.

00:11:20.500 Yeah.

00:11:20.860 Like, fine that you're here now.

00:11:22.540 OK, but you're a little late.

00:11:25.540 But a lot of people, I'm late to the party.

00:11:27.960 A lot of people are late to the party.

00:11:29.080 I have some feelings about you.

00:11:29.540 No, you should.

00:11:30.860 You could.

00:11:31.640 I don't.

00:11:32.540 But you want more people at the party.

00:11:35.880 Yes.

00:11:36.700 I don't know.

00:11:37.180 This reminds me of when, sorry, just a one off.

00:11:40.220 No.

00:11:40.520 Charlize Theron.

00:11:41.580 Yeah, I love her.

00:11:42.460 So she played me in a movie and it was about sexual harassment. 0.99

00:11:46.960 Yeah.

00:11:47.460 The Me Too movement.

00:11:48.440 And when she went on her media tour to promote the movie, people said to her something about like, well, Megyn Kelly wasn't first.

00:11:56.260 You know, she she had been harassed by him years earlier and she didn't come out with it until years later.

00:12:01.360 And she had the nerve to say Megyn Kelly was late to the party. 1.00

00:12:05.260 She said, no question. 1.00

00:12:06.240 She was bitch. 1.00

00:12:07.100 You weren't even at the party. 1.00

00:12:08.260 You never fucking came forward with any allegations. 0.99

00:12:10.560 I'm sure you were harassed, but you're too pussyfooted to say anything about it. 0.99

00:12:13.940 So take a seat. 0.98

00:12:15.320 All right. 1.00

00:12:15.720 I don't want to hear about the fucking. 0.99

00:12:16.760 But there was no party for Fox News and then the New York Times exposing Harvey Weinstein. 0.99

00:12:22.180 So I was like so pissed about it.

00:12:23.740 So I have like some tolerance for people like you who are legitimately on the other side of just liberalism and like sort of with those people and of those beliefs who then were open minded enough to see.

00:12:37.020 Wait a minute.

00:12:38.100 I have questions.

00:12:39.060 Wait, this I may not be on the factual side of this particular issue.

00:12:43.300 And I have that same tolerance for Bill Ackman.

00:12:45.060 And I just don't like the lionization of people like Bill because it's like, no, of course, of course.

00:12:50.760 Yeah.

00:12:51.360 And I mean, it's fair.

00:12:53.580 But at the same time, like I think of it in terms of like seeing evidence and responding to evidence.

00:12:57.640 Like I was always lockstep in being a sort of good progressive in the good progressive movement.

00:13:09.380 And I don't consider it that my politics have radically shifted in any which way, although, of course, the progressive movement doesn't allow any questioning.

00:13:18.620 So that they would consider me as having done so.

00:13:21.720 But it's more like.

00:13:24.260 I have a chapter about San Francisco.

00:13:25.840 If you live in San Francisco and you still believe that drug legalization, which I believe for many years, that drug legalization is a good idea after walking for years along the streets and seeing people dying on the streets as you're walking around.

00:13:39.840 And that being the ideal progressive outcome where it's the freedom people have to just do drugs, die on the streets, be given cash every month to just sort of continue to live there.

00:13:50.060 Like, if you look at that and say, this is working and my ideas here were right and I shouldn't change my mind on this, you're fooling yourself.

00:14:00.980 I mean, it's almost religious at that point.

00:14:02.920 It's not based in reality.

00:14:04.260 You're not an evidence based person.

00:14:05.680 Yeah.

00:14:06.060 And emotionally, I want to say drugs should be legal because I'm like the government should get out of as much of people's lives as possible.

00:14:12.020 And if people want to do drugs, whatever, but the lived experience, the reality you see on the streets, you're like, you know what, this isn't working.

00:14:20.040 Right.

00:14:20.240 Harm reduction is not working.

00:14:21.360 You write about how you, you know, you walk around San Francisco these days and you realize that this is what it's like to be in a failed city, a dying city.

00:14:28.820 Is it because of that, because of the open air drug use?

00:14:32.180 I think that plays a huge part.

00:14:33.700 The crime?

00:14:34.180 Yeah, I think, I think it's a bunch of factors.

00:14:37.920 One is the open air drug use and San Francisco is a good example of there's a reformation happening there legitimately right now.

00:14:44.280 So it's pretty interesting.

00:14:46.460 I mean, it's.

00:14:46.980 There's an awakening.

00:14:47.760 Yeah.

00:14:48.200 By the formerly woke.

00:14:50.440 Yeah, exactly.

00:14:51.500 But yeah, you've got the open air drug use.

00:14:54.220 You've got the crime because of the policies around petty crime, basically not being prosecuted.

00:15:00.700 Um, you have the destruction of the public school system through basically, um, the belief system that any standardized testing is white supremacy and any, um, let's say accelerated math.

00:15:16.660 This is the really, the thing that really lit the city on fire, that offering accelerated math class, um, is racist, racist.

00:15:24.160 And so you, that kind of got, got it, although now is starting to be reformed.

00:15:29.180 Um, and then you have the housing policy, which is sort of the progressive movement is actually also very anti building housing because it's always about like butterflies in backyards and chicken coops and things like this.

00:15:48.420 And building an apartment complex doesn't sound very like green and lovely, even though it of course is green and lovely.

00:15:54.920 But so the housing costs have gotten crazy.

00:15:57.480 So you don't have a middle class in San Francisco anymore.

00:15:59.520 So it's kind of a vortex of all the wackiest ideas.

00:16:03.220 But I think you can look at San Francisco as maybe five years ahead of the rest of the country in terms of, no, but I mean this in a good way, actually, because now you're seeing the reformation and the waking up of people who are saying, this isn't working.

00:16:18.440 And so I write about that, about the recalls that you saw in the city for the first time in decades, where the citizens stood up and said, this is enough, this is insane.

00:16:28.940 It was amazing.

00:16:29.700 And it was amazing.

00:16:30.620 And so I think you could see that in other liberal spaces.

00:16:33.240 In San Francisco, there's a fair share of Asians in American, you know, Asian descent.

00:16:38.860 And they tend to be very hardworking, you know, stereotypically, they would be a very hardworking group and who believe in merit.

00:16:46.660 So I wonder, will it happen in other cities that are more full of like the Upper West Side, where I live for 17 years, which is not a bunch of Asians. 1.00

00:16:53.440 It's a bunch of woke leftist women in Lululemon. 1.00

00:16:56.920 I don't have as high hopes for them.

00:16:58.940 Well, well, you're right that San Francisco, the revolution, the moderate reforms that happened there very much were driven by the Asian community getting very galvanized and getting pretty pissed off. 0.99

00:17:11.360 Yeah.

00:17:11.640 Because some of the school board members were basically calling them like white supremacists, whatever.

00:17:16.040 Longer story.

00:17:16.700 Right.

00:17:16.800 Um, I think, I mean, for the Lululemon ladies who you live among, I would say the person who best describes that is a Rob Henderson with the idea of luxury beliefs, which is this concept of people advocating for politics that have nothing to that that don't impact their lives, but that sound really nice to them.

00:17:38.880 So like, let's say you live in a doorman building, the police, you live in a doorman building, but you want to abolish the police.

00:17:44.300 Well, that sounds very nice for you.

00:17:47.360 Yeah.

00:17:47.800 But for the rest of us who don't have a doorman, it's more of an issue.

00:17:53.000 Yeah.

00:17:53.320 And it's, and it's a perfect example of what you were saying before, which is like, oh, you know, I care.

00:17:58.260 I care about the people.

00:17:59.020 So I don't want to see them arrested for drug use. 0.98

00:18:00.940 I just want to see them die in the street so I can step over them. 0.87

00:18:03.480 I want to bypass their corpse on the way to my multimillion dollar townhome. 0.96

00:18:08.240 And in, in the Upper West Side, it's the same thing where we have to defund.

00:18:12.680 We have to defund.

00:18:13.520 And the police are evil and they'll go to home to their door man building on the Upper

00:18:17.320 West or the Upper East. 0.99

00:18:18.680 And they'll be completely ignorant of what's happening in the Bronx, where the black population 0.98

00:18:22.940 does not want fewer cops. 0.99

00:18:25.840 Yeah.

00:18:26.100 That's how they stay alive in some pockets.

00:18:29.160 And they're, they're showing up to meetings saying, don't defund our police, but give us

00:18:33.140 more police, not less.

00:18:34.080 We want them in the vestibules.

00:18:35.060 We want them everywhere.

00:18:35.660 But if the money's not there because they listen to these rich ladies in the Lulu's 1.00

00:18:40.620 who are having liquid lunches, but they feel really good about themselves, folks.

00:18:45.140 I imagine you just wandering around the Upper West Side glaring at the Lulu ladies. 1.00

00:18:47.380 Oh my God.

00:18:47.800 Probably also wearing Lulu's.

00:18:48.980 Nellie, I would be walking down the streets there and people would be like, we signed this

00:18:52.240 for Greenpeace?

00:18:52.900 We signed it for Planned Parenthood?

00:18:54.260 I'm like, do you watch the news?

00:18:56.040 Do you have any idea?

00:18:57.540 Like, no, I know.

00:18:58.360 I don't want to, I, I walked around Fox with my first child, um, you know, Fox news onesie

00:19:03.660 and I felt like a revolutionary.

00:19:05.600 I, I really did.

00:19:06.840 I mean, I was like, I felt like a Navy seal.

00:19:08.540 I was like, bring it Fox news crazies.

00:19:13.640 Yeah.

00:19:14.300 Yeah.

00:19:14.660 The, um, the abolish the police is a good luxury belief example.

00:19:18.100 The, all the sort of public school faux reforms that actually like make the school worse

00:19:24.260 when the people who are pushing for them tend to send their kids to private school.

00:19:27.740 Like these, these, these are the classic hypocrisies of the moment.

00:19:31.740 But one of the other things you have in the book is a little journey to Chaz, which remember

00:19:35.480 when the left thought that would be a great idea.

00:19:37.820 Yeah.

00:19:37.960 Now we're seeing it every college campus in America.

00:19:40.420 Yes.

00:19:40.680 It's, it is mini Chaz's. 0.98

00:19:42.360 Mini Chaz's. 0.96

00:19:43.600 No one's been shot so far, but if this is allowed to continue.

00:19:47.580 No, they're just doing hunger strikes and complaining a lot about missing lunch.

00:19:51.740 Did you see, like, there's been a couple of soundbites of these students saying they're

00:19:55.640 checking our vitals regularly.

00:19:57.040 Oh my God.

00:19:58.020 You literally, I shouldn't be laughing.

00:19:59.560 In two minutes, you could have Chipotle here.

00:20:01.800 Just stop it.

00:20:02.540 Oh, we have it.

00:20:03.220 Oh, okay.

00:20:03.560 Let's play that one.

00:20:04.560 Here we go.

00:20:07.120 You know, we have people regularly checking our vitals.

00:20:09.280 We have people, you know, constantly worried about us.

00:20:11.320 We have people, uh, donating stuff all the time, like, uh, rain boots, you know, all the

00:20:16.260 stuff that we need to stay warm.

00:20:17.500 He doesn't actually care about, you know, doing good or being altruistic.

00:20:21.280 What they care about is if they look bad.

00:20:22.660 So let's make them look bad.

00:20:23.460 Oh, sweetheart.

00:20:26.300 They're not the ones who look bad.

00:20:27.680 I mean, they also look bad, but this, the absurdity of this.

00:20:31.180 So in Chaz, that was an autonomous zone that was created in Seattle by, autonomous zone,

00:20:36.140 sorry.

00:20:36.480 It, a group of anti-fascists called Antifa, written about by Andy Ngo very beautifully,

00:20:43.340 um, took over a neighborhood in Seattle.

00:20:46.160 They actually took over the gayborhood. 1.00

00:20:47.680 The gayborhood. 0.98

00:20:48.260 The gay neighborhood. 0.98

00:20:48.800 The gay neighborhood. 0.99

00:20:49.380 The nerf. 0.98

00:20:50.060 The nerf.

00:20:51.280 And, and, um, they declared it an autonomous zone and wouldn't let police in, ambulances

00:20:57.260 in.

00:20:57.820 And I think there's a lot that was interesting about what happened in that moment and in,

00:21:02.080 in that time when they had that, the city of Seattle embraced it.

00:21:04.880 The mayor said it was like a beautiful, it was like summer of love.

00:21:09.440 Obviously there were shootings.

00:21:10.760 Obviously people died.

00:21:11.820 Till, till all the murders.

00:21:13.220 Yeah.

00:21:13.560 And then it was less lovey.

00:21:14.360 But I think that the thing that lasted from that moment and that we're seeing now is Antifa

00:21:21.860 believes that violence and the threat of violence is a very acceptable part of a political conversation

00:21:31.100 in America.

00:21:32.420 And there was a lot of work at the time to pretend like Antifa wasn't part of the BLM movement

00:21:37.800 and just pretend like this, these two groups were totally separate, but, but they were, they

00:21:42.600 were working together for a while and, and you saw it very clearly in, in the autonomous

00:21:48.060 zones in Chaz because there were guys with guns wandering around, guarding those new borders.

00:21:53.800 And I think now with what we're seeing on college campuses and with the comfort around,

00:21:58.020 let's say chanting for Intifada or chanting for violence, you're seeing that kind of anti-fascist

00:22:05.500 notion of like, let's bring the threat and the frisson of a little violence back into

00:22:11.420 the American conversation in a way that I don't think we've seen for a while.

00:22:14.880 And so that's become quite widespread and quite acceptable.

00:22:19.520 We've got a bit on the latest, uh, with this young, the Columbia chapter of the Lawyers

00:22:24.620 Guild and their latest ridiculous accusations against the NYPD.

00:22:29.320 And by the way, we have an exclusive statement from the NYPD responding and it's on fire.

00:22:33.420 We'll, we'll get to it in a minute, but you are seeing the parallels there too.

00:22:36.780 They're calling for more violence.

00:22:38.300 They don't care.

00:22:39.420 Yeah. 0.91

00:22:39.680 They would like to see some bodies hurt.

00:22:41.540 It's described as an anti-war movement, but it's very much a pro-war movement, which

00:22:45.640 you can be pro-war, but just say what you are and you should, and the mainstream press

00:22:49.940 ought to describe you as what you actually are.

00:22:52.700 And also I don't really want to send plan B pills or dental dams to your aunt, to your war

00:22:57.580 effort.

00:22:58.200 I like, I should know what I'm getting, like first, soon you're going to need Chipotle and

00:23:03.360 pizzas and also condoms and HIV tests.

00:23:07.260 Literally they're asking for that.

00:23:08.500 All right.

00:23:08.920 But wait, I want to talk a little bit about more about the book, because you also talk

00:23:11.980 in there about Barry and I've talked to both of you about this separately, but this is sort

00:23:17.720 of a piece of your, your awakening on where you were working, what your own values were

00:23:24.320 and whether these people who were so accepting of so many and so, you know, so many things and

00:23:29.020 people were in fact accepting of you.

00:23:32.640 They couldn't have cared less that you were a lesbian. 1.00

00:23:34.780 That's of course big.

00:23:35.860 No, it was a good thing.

00:23:36.560 Yeah.

00:23:36.700 That's big, big on the left.

00:23:38.780 No, I think the right's fine with it now.

00:23:40.040 Oh yeah.

00:23:40.500 For the most part. 0.96

00:23:41.220 No, the gays have won. 0.98

00:23:42.220 They won. 0.99

00:23:42.660 The gays have won. 1.00

00:23:43.200 That's why they had to move on to the weird trans stuff and abandon the gays. 1.00

00:23:45.600 And now it's, there's the divide. 0.82

00:23:47.080 But anyway, it was the fact that she is not a hard lefty.

00:23:52.460 She's more heterodox in her approach to issues.

00:23:54.860 She was very controversial.

00:23:56.460 She was a Biden voter who never voted Bernie or never wanted Bernie.

00:24:00.640 It was really, you know, she's within the New York Times community.

00:24:04.100 She was considered a radical right winger.

00:24:06.780 I mean, it was, yeah.

00:24:10.740 So basically in tandem with reporting on some of this stuff that was happening, I also fell

00:24:19.560 in love with someone who was on the wrong side of the movement.

00:24:22.180 And I, for a while, was a little naive about it.

00:24:27.540 I didn't think it would be an issue because I was sort of like, I still believe in these

00:24:33.180 core beliefs.

00:24:34.020 I still, I'm like, I'm still pro-choice.

00:24:36.560 I still want universal health care.

00:24:37.900 These are the things that matter.

00:24:39.120 This is what defines politics, right?

00:24:40.900 But no, because the political movement is a social movement.

00:24:45.300 It's not a checklist of policies.

00:24:46.700 And by falling in love with someone outside of it, I had violated kind of the social contract

00:24:54.620 of it.

00:24:55.620 And I just, I mean, I couldn't, I couldn't change that reality.

00:25:03.660 I just.

00:25:04.560 So this other reality changed you?

00:25:07.520 Yeah, a little bit.

00:25:08.440 But I think it just was a wake-up call for me to realize that, that pleasing this movement

00:25:18.180 and pleasing this really increasingly tight, increasingly strict group was not going to

00:25:25.880 make for a happy life.

00:25:27.100 And it was a impossible ask of myself and a miserable ask of myself to, to squelch curiosity

00:25:35.360 as a reporter and then to, to, to not love someone who was just a fraction of the way

00:25:41.540 politically different from this movement. 0.93

00:25:43.060 It was, it seemed ridiculous. 0.97

00:25:44.300 And I just couldn't go along with it. 0.93

00:25:46.740 And yeah, then I ended up marrying her.

00:25:50.640 So I don't know.

00:25:51.240 It all kind of worked out in the end.

00:25:52.600 So did people fall away?

00:25:54.740 Oh yeah.

00:25:55.820 People who surprised you?

00:25:57.100 Yeah, of course.

00:26:00.580 Of course.

00:26:01.540 I mean, I would, yeah.

00:26:09.480 Yeah.

00:26:10.100 I'm just wondering if you have, because I, of course I've been through controversies in

00:26:12.860 my own past.

00:26:14.460 And for me, when the people fall away, you don't realize it immediately.

00:26:20.540 It's like.

00:26:21.540 Some of them told me right away.

00:26:22.960 Oh, they did.

00:26:23.580 Okay.

00:26:23.840 In my case, it was like several months went by or a year or two.

00:26:26.300 And I'm like, Oh, whatever happened to that person?

00:26:28.120 And then you realize, Oh yeah. 1.00

00:26:29.660 Fuck them. 1.00

00:26:30.540 The main thing when I really, there was no, like, I was never canceled. 1.00

00:26:35.460 I'm not, I don't have like a sob story to tell.

00:26:37.500 Like I feel very empowered by my life.

00:26:40.220 And even leaving the Times, I left.

00:26:41.820 And then we started, Bear had started an amazing, at the time, very little newsletter.

00:26:48.700 And I joined and it was growing.

00:26:50.180 And so like, things didn't feel, I don't feel like I'm like here with my violin, but there

00:26:57.680 was the one moment when there was a real sort of fracture was when everyone on staff at

00:27:03.740 the Times was supposed to tweet about this one young editor who had somehow contributed

00:27:09.060 to the Tom Cotton op-ed that ended up getting all, you know, the opinion editor fired and

00:27:15.160 all of this.

00:27:15.500 And we were all supposed to tweet that this op-ed puts our black colleagues in danger.

00:27:19.900 And basically we were all supposed to kind of join a call to get this young guy fired.

00:27:24.560 Was this the guy who wrote the piece coming out with how they made him choose the starburst?

00:27:28.940 Exactly.

00:27:29.360 Yeah.

00:27:29.560 Okay.

00:27:29.800 And I just wouldn't send the tweet.

00:27:31.560 What's his name?

00:27:32.400 Adam Rubenstein.

00:27:33.260 Rubenstein.

00:27:33.560 It's fabulous.

00:27:34.440 Okay.

00:27:34.700 I just couldn't send the tweet.

00:27:36.460 I couldn't do it.

00:27:37.440 I just didn't believe, I just didn't want to cancel him.

00:27:39.620 And I had been part of canceling people before, so I wasn't opposed to the idea, but I just

00:27:43.940 couldn't do it.

00:27:44.580 I was too weak.

00:27:45.620 I think I was too soft at that point.

00:27:47.620 Whatever, whatever the word, maybe too strong.

00:27:49.400 And I, and by not doing that, then I got, people in my life wrote me basically saying, 0.93

00:27:56.260 by not doing this, you are endorsing violence against black people. 0.75

00:28:01.580 Oh my lord. 0.99

00:28:02.900 Yeah, no, seriously, I'm dead serious.

00:28:04.440 I'm dead serious.

00:28:05.560 And so I write about it in the, and I write about it in one of the last, in I think the

00:28:11.020 last chapter.

00:28:12.220 And it, yeah, I mean, at a certain point you just.

00:28:20.340 No, anything I say, I sound, I make myself sound like too like heroic in this.

00:28:24.060 I'm not.

00:28:24.720 What?

00:28:25.060 Say what you're going to say.

00:28:26.060 The audience would decide if you're a hero.

00:28:27.940 Most of the book is not flattering of me.

00:28:29.880 I think, and I think rightly so.

00:28:32.020 I'm, I'm, I'm implicated in a lot of it.

00:28:33.720 And, but I, at a certain point you have to say like enough is enough.

00:28:39.060 And I'm not just going to go along with what my friends are doing, even, even if I really

00:28:44.480 love these people, because it's a frenzy.

00:28:46.600 And that year and those two years, and I think what we're seeing right now is a frenzy.

00:28:51.620 It's not reasonable.

00:28:52.940 It's not rational.

00:28:53.720 It's lying about what it is.

00:28:55.120 It's lying about what its intentions are.

00:28:57.720 And you just have to take a breath and step out of it.

00:29:01.320 It's very Salem witch trial-y, you know, where we're just being told over and over again,

00:29:05.480 this one's a witch and this one's a witch. 1.00

00:29:07.040 And the mob is following ready to stone her to death or burn her to death. 1.00

00:29:10.740 And then there are a few fallouts who are like, hmm. 0.98

00:29:13.700 I know.

00:29:14.260 Maybe she just really likes the moon.

00:29:16.140 I don't, I'm not sure.

00:29:17.440 She makes fire with like sticks. 1.00

00:29:19.500 That's not a thing.

00:29:20.340 That's fine.

00:29:24.040 But it's good.

00:29:24.960 I mean, net, net, I think you're right.

00:29:26.300 It's good.

00:29:26.740 Again, I want the audience to know the name of the book is Morning After the Revolution.

00:29:31.720 That's a good name.

00:29:32.860 I hope you're right that the revolution has kind of closed to the point where we are the

00:29:37.920 morning after.

00:29:38.440 I know you're the morning after.

00:29:39.460 Well, I would say that the revolution, like the intensity, the loudness, the city's burning

00:29:46.180 part has passed largely.

00:29:48.420 Although let's see what these college kids do, but I don't think they're going to be.

00:29:50.760 Or it's on pause.

00:29:52.080 But it's only because it's now in the institution so fully, it doesn't need to be so loud.

00:29:58.300 So you don't need to scream so loud if to be hired at a university, you have to write

00:30:04.280 a DEI statement.

00:30:05.120 And that actually is the only criteria that's considered for the first.

00:30:09.380 They just stopped that at MIT.

00:30:10.880 It's starting to be slowed down.

00:30:12.560 These things completely imbued themselves within institutions to an extent where you

00:30:19.480 didn't need protesters.

00:30:20.880 When you have Raytheon doing Robin DiAngelo-inspired trainings, you don't need to be breaking the

00:30:28.800 windows anymore.

00:30:29.560 You won.

00:30:30.340 You won.

00:30:31.140 So it won.

00:30:32.700 And I think quite fully.

00:30:35.060 And one thing I try to do in the book is to write about the movement from the movement's

00:30:40.680 perspective and to help explain why it won. 0.99

00:30:43.920 Because you can't just say, oh, it's dumb. 0.99

00:30:45.380 Oh, it's bad. 0.99

00:30:46.160 Because that doesn't explain why it won.

00:30:47.900 It won the day.

00:30:49.500 And so, yeah, I try to wrestle with that and help explain part of the appeal of it.

00:30:54.580 I just think it's so fragile, though, because have you really won when what you've really

00:30:58.520 done is force the hostages to their knees with a gun to their head?

00:31:03.840 And so making a smart move of like, okay, I'm either going to die or I have to get to

00:31:07.660 my knees right now and say the words, most human beings would comply.

00:31:13.060 But have you really won when it's not willing?

00:31:16.900 Their hearts aren't in it.

00:31:18.020 Your hostages are doing what you've told them to, but they're not really on your side.

00:31:21.800 Does anyone really think Raytheon cares about DEI or making people issue these statements?

00:31:28.700 I believe the universities are in.

00:31:30.780 But corporate America, I don't know, the random Americans who felt like you did, not necessarily

00:31:36.860 about James Bennett and that piece with Tom Cotton, but about like posting the black square.

00:31:41.780 I don't think so.

00:31:43.640 I think for adults, maybe it's more kind of swayable and they could be swayed in which

00:31:53.000 way and that.

00:31:53.740 But I think once an institution is changed, it's very hard to change it again.

00:31:58.160 Inertia is powerful.

00:31:59.940 I also think that it is one so fully in our education system that those kids are being

00:32:07.100 raised to be true, true believers in really the most eccentric versions of these ideas

00:32:16.120 and these politics.

00:32:17.140 And so.

00:32:18.380 It's very scary.

00:32:20.040 What now you, may I call attention to your condition?

00:32:23.600 Are we going to?

00:32:25.560 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:32:26.380 I'm super pregnant.

00:32:27.360 For radio listeners, I'm super pregnant.

00:32:29.880 It took an inch of makeup to hide the melasma.

00:32:33.280 Welcome to my world.

00:32:34.180 So I think about this sometimes.

00:32:37.600 I mean, I think about it because my kids are older, 14, 13 and 10.

00:32:40.660 But, you know, you and Barry at some point are going to have to direct your children on,

00:32:44.760 OK, it's time to choose a college.

00:32:46.660 Do they do you encourage college?

00:32:48.960 College is not the way it was when we went.

00:32:51.060 It's not four years of, well, yes, fun, but intellectual stimulation and learning how to

00:32:55.660 think, not what to think and having your ideas challenged and learning some of the classics.

00:32:59.620 As you well know, well, no, it's not about that anymore.

00:33:02.740 So do you encourage them to go and where?

00:33:06.520 If so, where?

00:33:07.940 Well, given that we have some time, I think that by the time this one is 18, well, there

00:33:18.400 should be new institutions.

00:33:19.420 I mean, one of the things that has happened with the kind of collapse of the old institutions

00:33:23.980 and with the hollowing out of our old media empires and whatnot is that there's been a

00:33:30.740 blossoming of new stuff and cool new stuff that's obviously we see that the free press

00:33:36.920 with the growth of a little newsletter into a media company.

00:33:41.820 But I think you're going to start seeing it in higher ed.

00:33:45.220 You're going to start seeing it in a lot of places in American life where just new things

00:33:48.740 are going to be built to stand up some of those old values.

00:33:53.620 So I'm hopeful that one of those will be great around then.

00:33:57.640 I have less time than you do.

00:33:58.820 I don't know.

00:33:59.440 But I'm really like, I look at it all the time because I think there's no way my, our

00:34:04.580 eldest is such a, she has such a beautiful mind and there's no way I'm going to let one

00:34:11.100 of these institutions start to corrupt it, even though he's been inoculated.

00:34:14.900 I can imagine.

00:34:16.320 I can imagine.

00:34:17.080 But no way.

00:34:17.800 Why would I put this beautiful person in their clutches?

00:34:21.220 I just won't.

00:34:22.200 And so millions of Americans feel as I do, and we are going to find other institutions,

00:34:27.820 you know, whether it's non-college or it's a different institution that I look at the

00:34:31.800 University of Florida run by Ben Sass, which just seems like it's on a great course.

00:34:36.400 But there are a lot of universities that are stepping up.

00:34:39.960 And I think those really might be the future recruiting centers.

00:34:44.180 Very much.

00:34:44.680 For the biggest and most successful companies in America.

00:34:48.440 Prestige is a thing that can be lost.

00:34:50.220 And I think we'll see that.

00:34:53.420 And I think we're starting to see that.

00:34:54.820 Not to say that Harvard's going to be a name that never means anything, but it, it will be

00:34:59.400 a name that means something different.

00:35:00.860 Yeah.

00:35:01.300 And it already is.

00:35:02.700 And that's okay.

00:35:05.920 And if I ran a university, if I ran the University of Chicago, I would make clear there are zero

00:35:12.140 race-based admissions.

00:35:14.300 You get no extra points for being, and not just race, but for being a woman, for being 0.92

00:35:19.860 trans, for being black, for being Hispanic, zero, none. 1.00

00:35:24.880 Not in our hiring of professors and not in our admissions for students.

00:35:28.740 And then if I were a young black or lesbian or woman, whatever, somebody in any protected

00:35:35.200 group, I would make sure I got in there.

00:35:38.700 And then I would run around the country saying, I went to the University of Chicago.

00:35:43.420 That's where I graduated from.

00:35:44.980 And you know what that means.

00:35:46.760 Yeah.

00:35:47.300 I didn't get the plus.

00:35:49.620 I got in based on my own merit.

00:35:51.360 We're putting people in minority groups in this impossible situation now where if they 0.99

00:35:56.780 are completely talented and qualified to get into a Harvard or Yale or Stanford on the merits

00:36:02.180 and would have gotten in, had they not checked any box, they'll always be looked at like,

00:36:06.140 you did.

00:36:06.720 I know how you got in there.

00:36:08.440 Right?

00:36:08.680 You're not a white man.

00:36:09.760 I get, that's, we're completely undermining them. 1.00

00:36:12.920 And there's a huge selection of folks in those categories who don't give a shit. 0.99

00:36:17.140 They're like, fine, just give me the fancy degree and I'll work it. 0.99

00:36:20.220 And then I'll work all these same advantages, racial, demographic, gender, at my next job too.

00:36:26.640 You know, I'll get my straight A's at Harvard because that's what they give.

00:36:29.200 And then I'll parlay of that in the medical school.

00:36:30.760 They've turned into, they've intentionally turned into pass fail institutions.

00:36:34.160 And now I'll do it in medical school.

00:36:35.400 The average GPA is now, but that, that's for, that's for all kids. 0.96

00:36:38.520 And then when I kill some people out as a doctor, I'll just claim you're a racist for 0.92

00:36:41.540 saying it was my incompetence. 0.99

00:36:43.060 This is the game right now.

00:36:44.060 It's insane.

00:36:44.660 All right, standby.

00:36:45.560 We're going to take a pause.

00:36:47.280 Don't forget to order the book.

00:36:48.320 Okay.

00:36:48.540 It's called Morning After the Revolution.

00:36:51.400 A lot of deep thinking in there.

00:36:52.620 And it's kind of interesting, right?

00:36:53.960 To see the process of the light bulb coming on.

00:36:56.220 A lot of Americans have been through this exact same journey over the past few years.

00:36:59.760 I think you'll find it very enriching.

00:37:01.500 Morning After the Revolution by Nellie Bowles.

00:37:03.760 And Nellie's wife, Barry Weiss, is up next.

00:37:06.260 Don't go away.

00:37:11.180 Welcome back to the Megyn Kelly Show.

00:37:12.780 Back with me now, Nellie Bowles.

00:37:14.300 And joining the two of us, Barry Weiss, founder, CEO, and editor of The Free Press.

00:37:19.500 And the host of Honestly With Barry Weiss, a great podcast.

00:37:23.240 Welcome.

00:37:23.760 Hello.

00:37:24.240 I'm so excited.

00:37:25.440 Aw.

00:37:25.900 How'd she do?

00:37:26.420 She did well, didn't she?

00:37:27.340 She did great.

00:37:28.380 I get so nervous.

00:37:29.660 She gets nervous.

00:37:30.680 She's, she's, she can roar like a dragon. 1.00

00:37:34.620 Oh, I roared plenty.

00:37:37.300 She crushed it. 0.92

00:37:38.620 Okay.

00:37:39.000 Okay.

00:37:39.400 Here's the thing.

00:37:40.000 Because I'm the ultimate wife guy and because I know how brilliant she is and how brilliant 0.71

00:37:43.500 this book is, I am just going to say that for anyone looking around at the world and wondering

00:37:48.000 how the hell everyone supposedly who is smart and intelligent descended into, into total

00:37:55.220 and utter madness and has capitulated to insanity.

00:37:59.580 This is the book you need to read.

00:38:01.920 And I think the thing-

00:38:02.420 Morning After the Revolution.

00:38:03.360 And I think the thing that-

00:38:04.220 You have to say the name.

00:38:04.780 Yeah.

00:38:04.980 The Morning After the Revolution.

00:38:06.300 Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History by my wife, Nellie Bowles, who's also seven and

00:38:10.300 a half months pregnant as she is doing this book tour and looking gorgeous. 0.51

00:38:13.320 There's nothing she can't do.

00:38:14.460 And I think the thing that came through and, and is maybe kind of still evolving is like,

00:38:21.300 she was a part of, she was part of it just naturally.

00:38:25.940 Like she's a San Francisco lesbian. 1.00

00:38:28.080 So like those were the waters she was swimming in.

00:38:30.360 At the New York Times, my God.

00:38:31.820 But I think one of the-

00:38:32.740 Trifecta.

00:38:33.300 I think, I think one of the things that's really unique about this book is how vulnerable

00:38:37.620 it is.

00:38:38.300 I don't think you're going to find, there's a lot of excellent reporting out there from

00:38:42.640 a lot of our friends, Megan, on what's going on and how it all came to this.

00:38:47.540 There's not a lot of voices out there who are like, I saw it from the inside.

00:38:52.040 And in some ways, speaking for Nellie, like I was swept along by it.

00:38:57.060 And, and here's what got me to wake up.

00:38:59.360 And, and it's, it's very, very vulnerable and true.

00:39:03.100 And I, I'm just enormously proud of her.

00:39:05.460 And now we're going to talk about the news.

00:39:06.620 Well, no, but I think there has to be that, that journey.

00:39:10.380 And then that reckoning about one's journey in order for everyone to work together.

00:39:14.660 Right.

00:39:14.860 Because there, I do think there's resentment on the right.

00:39:16.620 I see it.

00:39:17.360 I'm sure you see it too online for some people who are like, you know what?

00:39:21.960 I mean, I've seen in the wake of the Israel Hamas thing, right. 0.94

00:39:24.380 Where there are some on the right who are like, where were you?

00:39:27.460 Where were you?

00:39:28.220 Yeah.

00:39:28.400 I mean, you asked Nellie about that, right?

00:39:29.700 Like you were like, and Nell said, like I was late to the party and compared to, you

00:39:34.600 know, I remember so clearly when our friend Abigail Schreier, um, I said to her at a dinner,

00:39:40.920 like, I didn't defend you early enough.

00:39:44.240 Now, if she were here, she would generally, generously say that I did.

00:39:48.420 And I was, you know, loudly, sort of proudly standing up with her, but I told her and have

00:39:53.280 said in public, I was scared to do so.

00:39:56.240 So like everyone has someone.

00:39:58.300 It was only 2020.

00:39:58.920 I don't remember that, Barry.

00:39:59.980 That wasn't that long ago.

00:40:01.240 You were still enough on the other side that Abigail's book was.

00:40:04.760 It's just that I knew the social and reputational ramifications that I might suffer.

00:40:09.900 And so it's easy for anyone to sort of look to someone slightly to their left, let's call

00:40:16.100 it that for the sake of this conversation and say, you were late.

00:40:19.620 I suffered the ramifications.

00:40:21.600 Like I ran, like, I like, you know, broke down the wall so you could walk or whatever

00:40:25.560 the right metaphor is.

00:40:26.680 And I, but I do think that that resentment, um, is understandable, but it kind of doesn't

00:40:32.400 get you anywhere.

00:40:33.420 It's counterproductive.

00:40:34.240 It's really counterproductive.

00:40:35.280 And I really think the right response to anyone at any stage, especially those who

00:40:41.980 say, I got it wrong.

00:40:43.800 I mean, Bill Ackman, we were talking about him before.

00:40:46.080 He has said, I got it wrong.

00:40:48.160 That is a very rare thing for people to say right now in American life.

00:40:50.360 The right response is welcome.

00:40:51.900 Exactly.

00:40:52.580 Great to have you.

00:40:53.360 Exactly.

00:40:53.940 It's coalition building.

00:40:54.540 What I was trying to say is I, I pause at, and you're our new leader.

00:40:59.100 I was like, right.

00:41:00.760 Yeah.

00:41:01.360 The fetishization of the newcomer who still has a little bit of the sheen of the old 0.92

00:41:05.260 prestige.

00:41:05.900 Yes.

00:41:06.360 Right.

00:41:06.700 Totally got that.

00:41:07.480 You said it much, much better.

00:41:08.900 Because you're like, you haven't been damaged by the movement yet.

00:41:12.200 You haven't been.

00:41:13.200 Exactly.

00:41:13.780 Where are your war wounds?

00:41:15.060 You know, it's like, where are all your stabbings and your jousting scars?

00:41:18.020 I don't see any yet.

00:41:19.480 Exactly.

00:41:20.020 Yeah.

00:41:20.260 I know.

00:41:20.480 And then I like Ackman, but I do think he got very, very focused on the plagiarism

00:41:24.920 allegations against his wife in a weird way.

00:41:26.640 It was like kind of off mission, like care about the wife, but not that much.

00:41:29.460 Kind of care about the main mission more.

00:41:31.700 That's fine.

00:41:32.440 Go, Bill.

00:41:33.000 Um, so let's talk about the news.

00:41:36.120 Let's not criticize wife guys.

00:41:37.140 No.

00:41:38.060 I will say.

00:41:39.300 We've got, we've got an ultimate wife guy right now. 1.00

00:41:40.400 When I see him there and going to the barricades for his wife, I'm like, yes.

00:41:45.000 Like I do.

00:41:45.640 I do like that quality in a person.

00:41:47.300 I had a different response to that.

00:41:48.700 I feel like Doug would do that for you.

00:41:49.980 I wouldn't let Doug do that for me.

00:41:51.760 But he would.

00:41:52.740 No, but I wouldn't like him.

00:41:53.940 Isn't he on Twitter?

00:41:55.040 Doug's on Twitter a million times. 0.87

00:41:56.600 Doug's like, I'm going to hit this person.

00:41:57.760 And I'm like, don't you dare because I really feel it's important to fight my own battles

00:42:02.300 as much as he would love to.

00:42:04.220 And I realize Bill has a much bigger platform than his wife does, but she's also a very powerful

00:42:08.160 person in her own right.

00:42:09.660 And had it been me, I would not have let my husband fight my battle. 0.99

00:42:12.020 I would have been out there fucking scalping people and standing up for myself. 0.98

00:42:16.400 And I don't like, like, there's just whatever in me that's like a little, like you back 0.98

00:42:21.200 her up, but let her lead the way or, or just don't let her, Hey, yo, you lead the way. 1.00

00:42:27.560 Yeah.

00:42:27.740 That'd be fun.

00:42:28.380 I would watch that.

00:42:29.420 They should.

00:42:30.000 They should do it.

00:42:30.540 I would like them.

00:42:31.360 Maybe they will.

00:42:32.380 Maybe they will.

00:42:32.900 I mean, I'm in their, I'm in their camp.

00:42:34.080 I think it'd be great.

00:42:34.920 All right.

00:42:35.220 So, um, on the college campus front, we've had so much craziness and I want to, and you

00:42:39.260 guys have been breaking all sorts of news of the free press.

00:42:41.260 You got the custodian and now there's more than one custodian who was held hostage by the

00:42:45.520 lunatics of Columbia.

00:42:46.580 The one that came out today.

00:42:47.720 Um, there was two more that, uh, our wonderful reporter, Francesca Block has been breaking

00:42:52.100 this story.

00:42:52.760 First, she got more Mario Torres who was in that viral photo.

00:42:56.220 And it's, it's, it's the perfect encapsulation of this movement because on the one hand you

00:43:01.960 have a 40 year old self-described anarchist that lives in a brownstone in Brooklyn, or at

00:43:07.680 least owns it worth more than $2 million.

00:43:10.320 His parents own one worth more than three up against a custodian who has two children.

00:43:15.940 Age five and seven.

00:43:17.580 And the average janitor at Columbia or average facilities worker makes $19 an hour, right?

00:43:23.080 Who's, who's the victim in this photo?

00:43:25.260 And it's kind of a really, really interesting Rorschach test.

00:43:28.420 So we got him on the record on this really, really moving interview.

00:43:32.200 I felt where he talks about being scared to go back on campus because the mob is still

00:43:37.780 there at the gates and now being fearful that Columbia is going to retaliate against him.

00:43:42.240 And today two more spoke on the record to, to Franny, our reporter.

00:43:46.340 And one of them said that he was scared he was going to get killed in the building.

00:43:49.820 And this is in Hamilton hall.

00:43:51.040 Exactly.

00:43:51.480 We have a little bit of Mario.

00:43:53.040 Let me run this out by, we have just an excerpt.

00:43:55.080 Let's watch.

00:43:55.440 I was on the third floor.

00:43:58.740 Initially, I thought it was about five, five or six students.

00:44:01.960 And I was just trying to kick them out.

00:44:03.520 When I look back, they, they just multiply.

00:44:07.800 They came from, you know, both sides of the staircases.

00:44:10.660 They came through the elevators and, and they were just rushing.

00:44:14.900 You see people with bags with duct tape and, and, and zip ties.

00:44:18.460 And then, and then they put tables and chairs to block it.

00:44:21.900 Like they stuffed that elevator.

00:44:23.860 I was freaking out.

00:44:24.920 How was I going to get out through the window?

00:44:27.420 No, it's just scary.

00:44:29.060 Just thinking that you're locked in with a bunch of crazies.

00:44:32.640 You know, we don't expect to go to the work and, and, and get swarmed by an angry mob with rope and duct tape and masks and gloves.

00:44:42.360 Wow.

00:44:43.040 That's so, and this is unlike on January 6th, where we saw the left super empathetic for the cops who had to deal with that mob.

00:44:51.300 And I felt it too.

00:44:53.400 They're not speaking out about Mario.

00:44:54.980 They don't care.

00:44:56.000 This is not, not a problem.

00:44:57.040 They're on the side of the other, of the mob.

00:44:58.800 I mean, just before I came on here, I was looking at, um, there's like a internal Columbia app.

00:45:05.260 It's almost like Slack, but for Columbia students.

00:45:07.620 Don't get me started.

00:45:08.400 I won't.

00:45:08.800 You have to have a .edu.

00:45:10.560 Um, email to be on, to be on it.

00:45:13.860 So it's like an internal Columbia conversation and they shared this story.

00:45:18.000 And you know what the response is on the part of the students I was saying?

00:45:21.180 The Columbia custodians need to grow a pair.

00:45:23.980 No.

00:45:24.580 Yeah.

00:45:25.460 He's unarmed.

00:45:26.640 How's that for worker solidarity and all of the other things that the kids in the encampment pay?

00:45:30.920 This guy is, he's not even a cop.

00:45:32.660 I would, I wouldn't like it any better if you were, but I certainly don't like it when he's unarmed

00:45:36.320 and these, he's not lying about all the ropes.

00:45:38.960 And we've seen them request more on the, that of those same supplies.

00:45:42.540 Right.

00:45:42.960 This is not a mostly peaceful crowd.

00:45:44.900 Well, I don't know what they were doing behind closed doors, but I certainly wouldn't want to have to fight them one handed like this guy did.

00:45:49.260 Right.

00:45:49.740 And it's, it's just, again, I just think it's such a powerful litmus test of, you know, the 40 year old anarchist who seems to be, you know, LARPing as some kind of like campus jihadi versus a guy who's trying to provide for his family.

00:46:06.800 And as he just said in that video, like he doesn't expect to go to work at an Ivy League school and get swarmed by organized protesters who are barricading themselves in buildings, who broke glass to get in there and are shouting, you know, shouting in praise of the Intifada.

00:46:26.180 Right.

00:46:26.560 And beyond. 0.96

00:46:27.240 I mean, death to America. 0.80

00:46:28.580 All of it.

00:46:28.920 And so we've heard all of it.

00:46:29.940 If I were that guy, I would sue Columbia University to within an inch of its feet.

00:46:33.480 So the, the, I think the news broke, I think the New York post broke this story.

00:46:37.880 I don't know if it was today or yesterday.

00:46:39.220 I've really lost track of time since October 7th, I have to say, but they are, they are organizing a lawsuit, the union of custodial workers at Columbia.

00:46:47.680 So that'll be very interesting to see how it plays out.

00:46:49.980 I hope it's a beauty.

00:46:50.900 Violence and the threat of violence.

00:46:52.680 And like we were talking about earlier, the frijon of violence is part of what this movement wants to bring. 0.97

00:46:57.220 So the fact that he was scared, of course, the Columbia chat isn't apologetic about that.

00:47:04.020 That's sort of proof that they're doing a good job.

00:47:06.960 They're not bringing zip ties in for, for peace, duct tape, rope and zip ties.

00:47:11.940 Maybe they just broke some of those tables, Nellie. 1.00

00:47:13.620 And they want to, you know, put them back together.

00:47:15.540 It's, they're saying they want violent armed revolution.

00:47:19.080 They're saying Intifada.

00:47:19.940 They're saying, you know.

00:47:21.100 And they're saying, don't feel bad about it.

00:47:22.680 Like we actually read them say, we need more violence.

00:47:25.480 We shouldn't feel bad about it.

00:47:26.700 This is part of the revolution.

00:47:27.980 And also whatever the cause du jour is becomes the only priority.

00:47:31.640 So like whatever was the old cause of labor rights or whatever is washed away.

00:47:36.960 Now it's just this pro-war movement, whatever you want to call it, pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas. 0.63

00:47:43.480 It's just whatever is good for that.

00:47:45.320 So you see this in the way that like Zadie Smith is now, she wrote a somewhat complex, really interesting essay about the movement.

00:47:55.600 And she's had been sort of celebrated on the left as an amazing writer, black woman, like kind of held up as an aspirational figure.

00:48:08.160 I still think of her as that.

00:48:09.720 And now she's completely thrown to the side and hated because she goes against the most extremes on this one movement.

00:48:18.460 So whatever the cause du jour is becomes the only cause.

00:48:21.560 And you see it time and again.

00:48:22.740 You see it with Defund the Police.

00:48:23.740 You see it with each of these movements.

00:48:25.020 It becomes the only thing.

00:48:27.020 I think the other thing that's really important to pay attention to is just this kind of breathtaking double standard, right?

00:48:33.460 When we see the people marching in Charlottesville with tiki torches, shouting, Jews will not replace us. 0.88

00:48:41.740 Everyone respectable.

00:48:43.660 Everyone in intelligent society in the chattering class says, take them seriously. 0.97

00:48:49.300 Take what they say seriously.

00:48:51.180 And by the way, I agree with that.

00:48:52.840 We should take them seriously.

00:48:54.060 That was the mentality that drove the neo-Nazi into Tree of Life, the synagogue where I became bat mitzvah and murder 11 of my Jewish neighbors in Pittsburgh.

00:49:04.040 But by the exact same logic, take what these young revolutionaries, I don't know what else to call them, are saying seriously.

00:49:12.760 They are saying globalize the intifada. 0.98

00:49:15.680 You know what's hard about it is there's so much video of them being absolutely pathetic. 0.96

00:49:19.840 You know, I mean, truly, like the guy with the midriff exposed the other day and his little, as Joseph Massey called him, Osama non-binary. 0.98

00:49:29.580 Right.

00:49:30.100 I mean, it's hard to feel threatened by that.

00:49:32.520 Well, when they're doing like their interpretive dancing and talking about their gluten-free bread and like how they need their melatonin gummings.

00:49:38.400 Yes.

00:49:39.220 But there is a hard, and let's just say, let's call it 80% of the people that are going along with it are there for the vibes.

00:49:46.640 They're there for the fun.

00:49:47.520 They're there to like sleep in a tent one night and go along with the cause.

00:49:51.300 Sell my envy.

00:49:52.260 For sure.

00:49:53.280 But for the hardcore group, and I include a lot of professors in this group, that are shouting from the river to the sea, that are shouting globalize the intifada.

00:50:04.060 What do they think intifada means?

00:50:05.620 I lived in Israel in 2002 during the intifada.

00:50:10.580 I know what that means.

00:50:12.060 Yeah.

00:50:12.420 That's not vibes.

00:50:13.920 No, I remember watching Jennifer Griffin reporting from Israel through all of that.

00:50:17.920 It was terrifying.

00:50:19.340 She was there with her flak helmet on and the flak jacket, and the reports were more and more dire by the day.

00:50:24.160 It's just—

00:50:24.920 They have no knowledge of the history.

00:50:26.360 It's being honest.

00:50:26.780 It's like they're calling for war.

00:50:29.600 But some of the people who repeat that slogan are clueless.

00:50:33.540 But there are—what did you say?

00:50:35.580 Midriff guy looked very strong.

00:50:37.320 No, he did not.

00:50:38.040 No, he—that guy could fight.

00:50:40.160 That is your compromised state of pregnancy talking. 0.91

00:50:43.980 You would be an easy target.

00:50:46.980 I—you know, I wouldn't want to take him on.

00:50:50.020 Osama non-binary is not going to hurt anyone.

00:50:52.820 He is the one who's going to get hurt when he—as soon as he gets home to his friends in Palestine and Hamas. 1.00

00:50:58.700 Some people—I agree with you, Megan, just to give them the benefit of the doubt.

00:51:01.980 Some people are saying it—are saying it in the same way that they said every other thing.

00:51:06.960 Every other current thing.

00:51:08.100 For sure.

00:51:08.560 They have the best slogans ever.

00:51:09.720 Let's be real.

00:51:11.360 But some of the people saying it know exactly what they mean.

00:51:14.980 And there is no—there is no foreign word in Jews go back to Poland or you're all inbred. 1.00

00:51:23.980 Those are some of the things that Colombia— 0.99

00:51:26.380 Death to the Jews seems on the nose. 0.99

00:51:28.200 That's—I got it. 0.99

00:51:29.200 You don't need a debate about what that means, right?

00:51:30.920 That means what it means.

00:51:32.620 And somehow there is an unbelievable pass being given to the students saying those things as if they are righteous.

00:51:40.720 When—if you said them about—I'll give you just one example because I—I really, like, this example killed me.

00:51:47.440 Do you remember in 2021, there was a Native American student at Yale named Trent Colbert who invited his fellow students to a Constitution Day bash in his trap house? 0.73

00:51:58.960 Okay?

00:51:59.440 This was his sin.

00:52:00.780 Oh, yeah.

00:52:01.180 Oh, I do remember this.

00:52:01.580 Do you remember this?

00:52:02.020 Yeah, yeah.

00:52:02.300 Amy Chua got involved in this. 0.70

00:52:03.160 Within 12 hours, he had been like—

00:52:05.620 She gets involved.

00:52:06.780 She gets involved.

00:52:07.740 We love her.

00:52:08.280 I love her.

00:52:09.020 Within 12 hours, he had, like, been hauled into a disciplinary meeting.

00:52:13.100 I believe the dean of Yale had put out a statement.

00:52:15.780 He was, like, pressured to a—for trap house in an email after 12 hours.

00:52:21.940 For using the term.

00:52:23.280 For using the term.

00:52:24.120 Yeah.

00:52:24.580 Okay?

00:52:24.780 That was his sin.

00:52:25.380 And now, like, where are all of the people—

00:52:28.420 Right.

00:52:28.960 —who had all of their sensitivity sessions—

00:52:30.800 How is Death to the Jews just fine? 1.00

00:52:31.660 —about, like, offensive Halloween costumes and bad tacos? 0.97

00:52:35.380 Yeah.

00:52:35.820 Barry, you came out—we just referenced it.

00:52:37.780 After I first launched the show, we didn't have video.

00:52:39.800 You remember this?

00:52:40.260 It was early 2020.

00:52:41.460 Well, I launched the show in September of 2020, so it was—

00:52:43.400 I remember where I was sitting, actually.

00:52:44.700 I remember where I was, too.

00:52:45.620 I remember, like, this is our first real conversation on the air.

00:52:48.900 And you said—we talked about anti-Semitism back then.

00:52:51.360 And you said—and I've quoted you many times on it—

00:52:53.660 Jews don't count. 1.00

00:52:55.760 We don't, quote, rate.

00:52:57.060 We're not factored in.

00:52:58.220 And I know you fought very hard and continue to right now, saying the solution is not to

00:53:02.980 make us part of your DEI crowd.

00:53:04.320 No.

00:53:04.500 We don't want into your weird little cult.

00:53:06.480 We want you to just recognize when we actually are being threatened and not to be excluded

00:53:11.820 because we don't count.

00:53:13.280 That's right.

00:53:13.740 It's been very obvious for the past six months.

00:53:16.500 Yes.

00:53:17.080 I mean, to me, it's really simple.

00:53:18.920 Like, the radical proposition of America and the thing that has allowed for the Jewish 1.00

00:53:25.560 community to flourish in this country, unlike we have in any other diaspora in all of history,

00:53:32.180 is because of the things that are found in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

00:53:35.800 And the solution is not for Jews at this moment to argue for a slightly better status in this

00:53:42.780 new caste system, really, ideological caste system, in which victimhood points get you

00:53:49.080 more status and, frankly, more protection.

00:53:51.980 It's to go back to a world in which we follow the law, in which the law and social mores,

00:54:00.140 frankly, are—especially when you think about these campuses, you know, the codes of conduct

00:54:04.580 are enforced equally and not less so for Jews as they are in this moment.

00:54:09.740 And to get back to a world, frankly, in which we judge people based on their individual merit

00:54:16.100 and not based on whether or not they're part of a particular group or not.

00:54:19.940 I'll give you just one example that, like, really brought this home for me.

00:54:22.880 Abigail Schreier wrote about it brilliantly in our pages, which was, you know, one of the

00:54:28.140 leaders of the encampment at Columbia—Hamani James is his name—four months ago took part

00:54:35.320 in a disciplinary hearing at Columbia, in which he said—in which he openly fantasized,

00:54:41.880 you're lucky I'm not going out murdering Zionists, okay? 1.00

00:54:45.600 You're lucky I'm not going and murdering Zionists, which is, with rare exception, basically a synonym 1.00

00:54:50.480 for Jew. 0.95

00:54:51.020 And the mask is falling more and more every day.

00:54:54.320 Nothing happened to this student until it went viral, right?

00:54:58.820 Because he posted it, because he was proud of it.

00:55:00.160 He was proud of it.

00:55:01.360 Like, the school itself didn't do anything about it.

00:55:04.960 Now, imagine if someone—

00:55:06.140 Until it—yeah, and then they did.

00:55:07.720 Then they—

00:55:08.200 Right.

00:55:08.580 It was like a slap on the wrist.

00:55:09.300 He hasn't been expelled.

00:55:10.480 But it only happened because it went public.

00:55:13.180 So you have a bureaucracy right now at one of the most prestigious schools in the country,

00:55:19.660 supposedly, where a student is saying that to the administration of the university and nothing

00:55:26.280 is happening.

00:55:27.660 That's an enormous problem.

00:55:28.880 I do feel like—not the Jewish students who are there, I feel for what they're going 1.00

00:55:33.380 through—but I do feel like their parents, I hope, are having a big wake-up call right 0.99

00:55:37.860 now, because it was a dumb, dumb thing to send your child to Columbia. 0.99

00:55:42.200 It was. 0.99

00:55:42.860 If you were anything other than a member of one of these groups who are hard left or weird,

00:55:47.800 you knew what you were going to get.

00:55:50.040 As weird people.

00:55:51.420 No, no.

00:55:52.480 We're not weird.

00:55:53.220 We're weird.

00:55:53.860 Okay.

00:55:54.280 I'm sorry.

00:55:54.780 You saw my bit.

00:55:55.600 Why are they all so unattractive? 1.00

00:55:56.900 They're either unattractive or they're dumb. 1.00

00:55:58.880 I don't make the rules. 1.00

00:56:00.760 I just report on what I see.

00:56:02.560 But if you are one of these families that's in any way normal and you're sending your kid

00:56:08.120 to Columbia, even within the past four years, you knew what you were getting.

00:56:10.920 They're insane there.

00:56:12.300 Or Berkeley. 0.96

00:56:13.200 Don't go there.

00:56:14.340 Like, but let's steel man it, right?

00:56:16.240 Why are they doing it?

00:56:17.380 Because they want the prestige of a Columbia degree.

00:56:19.620 That's right.

00:56:20.000 And I really believe that, like, part of what needs to happen, and we talk about this all

00:56:26.440 the time over dinner, like, part of the, if we're really honest, like, the difficulty

00:56:32.460 of leaving a place like the New York Times, you know, is that you're giving that up, okay?

00:56:38.380 Like, you're giving up the, at least in our circles, the cool thing to say at the dinner

00:56:44.240 party.

00:56:44.560 Totally get it.

00:56:45.080 Right?

00:56:45.460 You're giving up, like, being with the beautiful people and at the right party.

00:56:48.800 David Zweig has talked about that, too.

00:56:50.260 Well, beautiful people, I'm not sure.

00:56:52.740 Yeah, no, you're right.

00:56:53.660 The beautiful people are at, are definitely in, like, Florida at state school.

00:56:58.640 Okay, fair, fair enough.

00:56:59.440 They're way hotter.

00:57:00.460 But the giving up the prestige is really hard.

00:57:04.460 Yes.

00:57:05.700 Yeah.

00:57:06.480 It's like breaking an addiction.

00:57:07.860 And it's absolutely incumbent, though, upon anyone who wants to, I'll say it, like, save

00:57:17.220 the country to, like, like, give it up.

00:57:21.680 But that, too, is not your fault, right?

00:57:23.780 It's a society that's indoctrinated generations into believing those are the right circles to

00:57:28.360 be in.

00:57:28.900 Yeah.

00:57:29.160 Like, those are the right elbows to rub.

00:57:31.000 And there's fair fights, also, between the ideas of abandoning ship, like, us leaving

00:57:36.400 the Times.

00:57:37.700 Or fight for it.

00:57:38.180 Or fight for it.

00:57:38.980 Like, us being in California right now and trying to, you know.

00:57:43.620 I'm sorry to tell you that's going to go the same way.

00:57:46.720 You think we're all going to end up in Texas?

00:57:48.300 Megan, you're talking to a seventh generation Californian.

00:57:51.760 She will go down to finance.

00:57:52.780 No, no.

00:57:52.980 It's beautiful.

00:57:53.880 But I think.

00:57:55.160 Wait until your kids get told they're secretly boys when they're girls or girls when they're

00:57:58.440 boys.

00:57:58.620 I think a lot of these people genuinely think, well, if we all leave, if we pull, like, a

00:58:02.900 lot of the donors, if we pull out our money and lose our seat at the table, then I won't

00:58:06.700 have sway over this direction.

00:58:08.380 I personally think that they're too far gone, these institutions.

00:58:12.240 Money or no money, they have sway.

00:58:13.080 Yeah.

00:58:13.660 But it's not insane, even if the result is sort of self-harming and sort of putting their

00:58:23.520 kids in positions to be kind of tortured by these institutions, by these professors, by

00:58:29.220 these colleagues, these classmates.

00:58:31.560 Yeah.

00:58:31.980 I will say everything's a risk benefit.

00:58:33.540 I mean, that was when we were in New York and thinking about do we stay or do we go with

00:58:38.100 all the school craziness?

00:58:39.460 Because I actually made several phone calls to several billionaires in New York who I

00:58:44.500 knew were not woke.

00:58:45.740 They were either reformed leftists on this issue or these, you know, social issues, or

00:58:50.980 they were on the right already.

00:58:52.700 And to a man, they said, it's not winnable.

00:58:56.080 You know, I was like, well, Doug and I, you know, we've donated.

00:58:58.720 It's like, oh my God, these people have donated.

00:59:00.840 It's not winnable.

00:59:01.520 A hundred million dollars.

00:59:02.860 You know, like they won't listen to them.

00:59:05.040 They are too busy on their mission.

00:59:06.860 So we reached the conclusion.

00:59:08.840 It's not, it's not winnable.

00:59:10.480 Right.

00:59:10.720 And I think that's why, you know, we're spending all of our waking hours trying desperately to

00:59:18.220 build something new.

00:59:19.340 Like that's, that's the whole name of the game right now, you know, and I'm on the board

00:59:24.620 of this new university in Austin.

00:59:26.500 I always screw up its name.

00:59:27.380 What's it called again?

00:59:28.160 It's hard.

00:59:28.960 It's just like another university.

00:59:30.640 That's right.

00:59:31.280 There's the University of Texas at Austin.

00:59:33.080 This is the University of Austin.

00:59:35.040 Um, that's in Texas, but we call it UATX.

00:59:37.160 We'll work on it.

00:59:37.640 It will work on it.

00:59:38.380 But the, the thing itself, I mean, it started off, uh, with a meeting with me, Joe Lonsdale,

00:59:44.880 Neil, Neil Ferguson, Pano Canales from St. John's.

00:59:48.260 Arthur Brooks was there.

00:59:49.460 This was like two and a half years ago now.

00:59:51.320 And that, and then it was like a July boiling hot.

00:59:54.640 I thought to myself, this is really important now.

00:59:58.320 I'm like, this is of civilizational importance that this succeeds.

01:00:01.500 Yeah, it really is.

01:00:02.480 Because it was, it was really simple.

01:00:04.300 Like we looked at our daughter and we were like, we're not, like I was saying, where

01:00:08.440 are you going to send her to school?

01:00:09.920 Not everyone can go to Hillsdale.

01:00:11.320 It's not big enough.

01:00:12.180 Like we have, we need alternatives who are not crazy and who aren't going to try to indoctrinate

01:00:17.060 us.

01:00:17.280 Again, it's like so, uh, it's so offensive, right?

01:00:19.460 Because most of us, we don't, we don't need them to indoctrinate them in right wing thinking.

01:00:23.920 I know we speak for you too.

01:00:24.780 When I say that, just stop indoctrinating them.

01:00:27.460 Yeah.

01:00:27.720 Teach them the classics.

01:00:28.780 We just want our kid to like know how to read, write, know things about history and

01:00:34.840 do math.

01:00:35.620 Debate.

01:00:36.300 Yeah.

01:00:36.700 Like it's not, we don't, we don't want politics at all actually.

01:00:40.280 Yeah.

01:00:40.560 How about some debate?

01:00:41.760 I love in our, um, new school, our son is just finishing fourth grade.

01:00:45.360 And this year, first of all, they say the pledge in the morning in the lower school,

01:00:48.660 uh, throughout the school.

01:00:49.680 I love that.

01:00:50.580 And second of all, he spent the whole year studying, uh, the formation of the country,

01:00:55.200 the American revolution and, you know, the various players, all the founding fathers,

01:00:59.220 the documents, um, they've done, you know, in, in science, they're doing like the solar

01:01:03.620 system.

01:01:04.020 They're doing normal things.

01:01:05.440 They did a whole play on the American revolution, the 50 States, the capitals, right?

01:01:10.340 Like, this is like, we joke a lot about like, just be normal.

01:01:16.260 Like, that's it.

01:01:17.000 It's really simple.

01:01:18.220 It's just be normal.

01:01:19.380 Yep.

01:01:19.860 And that's no, it's like, when I think about like, how, how's the free press succeeding?

01:01:24.820 It's like, we're the just be normal people.

01:01:27.360 Yeah, that's right.

01:01:28.000 That's it.

01:01:28.440 Like we're for reality.

01:01:30.400 And you know, it's, it's, it's, it's amazing.

01:01:33.300 Like there's such a market for that because everyone else seems to have given up on reality

01:01:37.380 and normalcy.

01:01:37.960 Like if you started a new school that was like, we're just going to teach math and history

01:01:42.020 and like radical, like actual math where the numbers add up to what they've always added

01:01:47.940 up to.

01:01:48.260 Right.

01:01:48.480 Yeah.

01:01:48.780 Where you can help yourself to your taxes a little bit and like function in the world.

01:01:54.260 Well, like that would be very successful.

01:01:56.200 Like that people still want that.

01:01:58.440 They're thirsty for it.

01:01:59.340 They're very thirsty for it.

01:02:00.660 Are they calling the two plus two equals five indigenous math?

01:02:04.000 Oh, is that what they call it?

01:02:05.000 There was something that came up recently.

01:02:06.920 I mean, you would know more because you write about all of these things in TGIF.

01:02:10.240 I'm obsessed with the math wars.

01:02:10.960 Well, the math wars are amazing.

01:02:12.220 I mean, speaking of San Francisco.

01:02:13.600 Math is the thing that upsets this movement more than anything.

01:02:16.040 Math classes, because it, because it's so measurable.

01:02:19.840 And so it's very upsetting.

01:02:21.160 It's knowable.

01:02:21.400 And teachers don't like these things because they don't want their work measured and whatever.

01:02:25.640 It's like the Craig T. Nelson line from The Incredibles.

01:02:27.800 They changed math?

01:02:29.460 Right.

01:02:29.700 Why did they change math?

01:02:31.120 Right.

01:02:31.520 Right.

01:02:31.740 When they went to whatever new method.

01:02:33.920 But now they really abandoned math is what they've done.

01:02:36.740 I'm Megan Kelly, host of The Megan Kelly Show on Sirius XM.

01:02:40.900 It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and

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01:03:38.660 All right.

01:03:41.420 I've got to get to this because it's just too good a story.

01:03:44.020 All right.

01:03:44.640 Here's the thing.

01:03:45.540 So there's this group at Columbia and it is the Columbia.

01:03:51.360 It's like the young lawyers.

01:03:53.420 It's the legal law guild.

01:03:55.220 And they have written the following insane letter that I want to read you because the

01:03:59.120 cops gave us a statement back.

01:04:00.800 But these are not honest brokers.

01:04:02.640 OK, I have so many papers and so little desk.

01:04:06.120 OK, it's the National Lawyers Guild, but it's the Columbia law chapter of them.

01:04:09.540 And these people are, to say, far left would be very generous.

01:04:14.360 They are complaining about the cops going into Hamilton Hall and reclaiming the hall that

01:04:20.400 belongs to Columbia University and not these nutcases who are there.

01:04:23.720 And they write as follows.

01:04:25.220 I'm going to give you some highlights.

01:04:26.320 Our team of legal observers tried to enter campus repeatedly.

01:04:29.420 We remain stuck outside, facing a wall of riot police, unable to bear witness to the violence

01:04:38.180 that was about to unfold.

01:04:39.200 Hello, that's the situation of Jews on the campus of Columbia, not of your weird lawyer

01:04:43.520 guild people.

01:04:45.080 We felt a deep dread knowing that without any witness, the police could do whatever they

01:04:49.540 pleased.

01:04:50.340 This moment eerily echoed the telecommunications blackouts Israel has imposed on Gaza.

01:04:54.540 Oh, my God.

01:04:55.580 Oh, my God.

01:04:56.200 That's exactly what it is.

01:04:57.560 Yes.

01:04:57.900 You're kidding.

01:04:58.300 No.

01:04:58.440 Oh, they really went full Hamas. 0.95

01:05:00.120 The police unleashed violence upon the unarmed students.

01:05:04.880 One was thrown down a staircase and knocked unconscious.

01:05:09.020 At least one cop fired his gun inside.

01:05:12.120 All protesters were arrested in prison.

01:05:15.040 Some had their hijabs ripped off by cops.

01:05:17.480 Many were denied water.

01:05:18.580 Some have been hospitalized.

01:05:20.060 The letter goes after the trope of the outside agitator calling it beyond tired.

01:05:24.720 I'm going to get to the NYPD's response to law professors.

01:05:28.860 Tenured Columbia law professors enjoy some of the greatest job security in the world.

01:05:32.260 Their response has been overwhelming, deafening silence.

01:05:35.980 To those professors, you have forfeited the respect of your students.

01:05:39.540 Denounce your virulently genocidal colleagues.

01:05:43.400 Do something.

01:05:44.120 They go on to say on the safety of Jews. 0.99

01:05:47.100 You guys are the problem. 0.99

01:05:48.340 In case you haven't been told.

01:05:49.200 Oh, we know. 0.91

01:05:49.680 You're the problem.

01:05:50.080 Okay. 0.63

01:05:50.580 We have repeated to the point of exhaustion that the protection of Jewish students and faculty

01:05:56.780 is a dangerous, flimsy pretext for Columbia's violence.

01:06:01.920 Any Jew speaking out against genocide, Israel, or the U.S. war machine is not safe.

01:06:08.420 To Jewish students, faculty, and trustees blocking divestment and urging the violent crackdowns

01:06:12.200 on campus, you threaten everyone's safety.

01:06:15.960 Yet you continue to claim to speak for all Jews. 1.00

01:06:19.420 Keep our names out your damn mouths. 1.00

01:06:21.740 It says that? 1.00

01:06:22.160 They didn't say damn. 0.95

01:06:23.260 Yeah. 0.99

01:06:23.560 It does say, keep our names out of your mouths.

01:06:26.900 No Jew is safe until everyone is safe. 1.00

01:06:30.240 And no Jew is free until Palestine is free. 1.00

01:06:34.000 These people are off their rocker.

01:06:38.540 These are not well.

01:06:39.540 I hadn't read that before.

01:06:40.480 It's crazy.

01:06:41.900 And so the NYPD decided to respond to this, giving us an exclusive statement.

01:06:48.680 All right.

01:06:48.940 Hold on.

01:06:49.600 It's very long and we're going to post it, but I'll read you the highlights.

01:06:54.660 Let's discuss the facts.

01:06:56.680 The allegations outlined by this Columbia Law student group are scurrilous, deceitful, and

01:07:00.880 have absolutely no basis in reality.

01:07:02.600 The writers are in league with the unruly mob that broke into Hamilton Hall, doing all

01:07:07.180 the bad things.

01:07:08.160 The protesters illegally locked themselves inside, securing the doors with clamps, heavy

01:07:11.600 duty bike locks, chains.

01:07:12.760 They disabled interior surveillance cameras so that their criminality could not be documented.

01:07:17.260 I'm just giving you highlights here.

01:07:19.180 Every police officer on the scene that night had a working body worn camera and everything

01:07:23.360 was recorded.

01:07:24.560 Also recorded, a protester dramatically rolling himself down the wide front steps.

01:07:30.500 His flop of a performance was worth, at a minimum, a yellow card from a professional

01:07:37.160 soccer referee or at most, a gold statue from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

01:07:42.760 At the end of the night, no injuries had been seen or reported.

01:07:46.780 What we learned a long time ago is that reversing the roles between offender and victim is a tactic

01:07:50.580 often employed by professional demonstrators and their sympathizers.

01:07:53.320 The same method exploited by sex offenders and perpetrators of domestic violence.

01:07:57.860 It is an insidious form of psychological manipulation, gaslighting.

01:08:02.220 And one plain fact remains, those arrested at Hamilton Hall were not victims.

01:08:07.140 And despite their urging, their urgent imploring to the contrary, they never will be.

01:08:12.920 Boom, NYPD.

01:08:14.960 That's the way it's done.

01:08:16.540 How great is the NYPD?

01:08:17.500 And then they say, keep our names out your mouth. 1.00

01:08:20.000 Out your damn mouth. 1.00

01:08:23.580 Can you believe that? 1.00

01:08:25.400 That letter is bone chilling.

01:08:28.380 That letter.

01:08:29.260 Go back to the letter for a second.

01:08:31.100 The letter's one.

01:08:31.620 The letter says that no Jew, I just want to make sure I understand it.

01:08:37.180 Yeah.

01:08:37.820 That unless you were a Jew that denounces Israel, you will not be safe? 0.60

01:08:41.540 Yes, correct.

01:08:42.140 No Jew is safe until Palestine is safe or until Palestine is free? 1.00

01:08:45.640 Also that.

01:08:46.360 Yes, hold on.

01:08:47.960 Um, I'm pulling it back up.

01:08:49.540 So many papers.

01:08:49.780 It's just so unbelievable.

01:08:50.600 So many papers.

01:08:51.260 You know it's not good when you're starting a sentence, no Jew is safe.

01:08:54.160 Uh, yeah.

01:08:55.160 Just, just, just stop there.

01:08:56.600 Just stop what you're writing.

01:08:57.700 They're exhausted of saying that the protection of Jewish students and faculty is a dangerous,

01:09:02.400 flimsy pretext for Columbia's violence.

01:09:04.660 Columbia is now committing the violence.

01:09:06.360 Any Jew speaking out against genocide Israel or the U.S. war machine is not safe because they're 1.00

01:09:12.280 saying like, all the Jews are on our side is what they're saying.

01:09:15.120 If you, if you're a Jew, like Jewish voices for peace, which we all know is not really 1.00

01:09:19.500 Jewish nor for peace, um, that those people are not safe because, you know, to the Jewish 1.00

01:09:25.520 students, faculty and trustees blocking divestment and urging the violent crackdowns, you threaten

01:09:29.660 everyone's safety.

01:09:30.740 So if you don't want to divest, if you're the predicate to violence, if you want to end

01:09:34.700 the crackdown, if you want to end the, the campus encampments, then you threaten everyone's

01:09:40.580 safety.

01:09:41.080 Exactly.

01:09:41.500 That's what they, this is what's so important here is they are saying that by being yourself,

01:09:48.520 in other words, the fundamental part of 95, let's even be conservative, 90% of Jews identity,

01:09:56.320 which is a connection to forgetting the two state solution, forgetting all the modern

01:10:01.480 politics, Jewish identity is fundamentally tied to the land of Israel.

01:10:07.820 That's like basic.

01:10:09.820 Anyone that denies that is a historical revisionist.

01:10:12.260 We could have another two hours about all of that.

01:10:15.220 They're basically saying that unless you cut off an absolutely essential part of your religious,

01:10:22.340 ethnic peoplehood identity, you yourself are a threat to humanity and to peace. 1.00

01:10:32.840 Haven't we heard, haven't we heard that before?

01:10:35.980 I mean, the, the historical echo of this is just, it's, it's just so scary to hear that

01:10:42.320 in 2024, because it's, again, it's just a predicate to violence.

01:10:46.860 They're justifying their revolutionary violence by saying that in order to stop this thing

01:10:52.440 that we have declared a genocide, which is actually a just war that was started by Hamas, 0.56

01:10:59.380 the way that we solve that problem and make the world safe is by essentially a modern forcible

01:11:07.220 conversion of Jews out of Zionism.

01:11:10.300 And so the very same bargain that was put to Jews in other times and places, right? 0.80

01:11:16.000 Where back then there was no state of Israel.

01:11:18.780 So it was, hey, you want to remain a Jew and safe in the Soviet Union?

01:11:23.320 No problem.

01:11:24.080 We're a communist society.

01:11:25.260 You have to renounce God in your religiosity.

01:11:27.580 Now it's, you want to be safe and be a Jew in progressive 21st century America?

01:11:32.580 No problem.

01:11:33.400 You just have to denounce the state of Israel. 0.61

01:11:35.380 It's the exact same bargain.

01:11:37.680 Again, it's just the terms of it are different.

01:11:39.300 So let me add this.

01:11:40.840 The original post from the Columbia Group was first reported, as far as we know, by

01:11:44.660 National Review's Buckley fellow, Zach Kessel.

01:11:50.660 That's how we found it.

01:11:51.580 Like, to give credit to the news sources.

01:11:55.220 So where does this go, you guys?

01:11:57.140 I mean, we're going to go into the summer.

01:11:59.340 Where does it go now?

01:12:00.560 The summer's coming.

01:12:01.720 They have to get off campus.

01:12:03.800 And summers are usually when things quiet down.

01:12:07.560 You're joking.

01:12:08.480 We got a DNC coming up.

01:12:12.300 So where does it go?

01:12:14.800 Because it doesn't look like Israel's exactly ending thing soon, right? 0.56

01:12:18.480 With Rafa happening.

01:12:19.420 Although hopefully that will lead to an end.

01:12:22.380 And I do, I don't know.

01:12:24.580 I feel I'm a little worried because I've seen the polls.

01:12:27.560 I've realized America is still overwhelmingly pro-Israel.

01:12:29.780 And this isn't, I'm not asking you how the war ends.

01:12:31.580 But I do feel like there's a real risk on the right, too.

01:12:37.900 Oh, yeah.

01:12:38.500 Of this whole thing.

01:12:40.120 And I include what's happening on the campuses and the anti-Semitism looking like Ukraine.

01:12:44.800 Like, we're done.

01:12:47.600 You know, we're not really into it.

01:12:50.260 It's not our problem.

01:12:51.040 So I'm a little worried.

01:12:52.800 I know you're worried, too.

01:12:53.920 That vibe already exists strongly in major precincts of the online right, which basically

01:12:59.400 goes from a sort of like neutral isolationist position to a out-and-out sort of very old-school

01:13:08.860 anti-Semitic position that is now, like, masks have fully come off on a lot of these people.

01:13:14.800 Not hard to find online at all.

01:13:16.220 Right.

01:13:16.620 And they're talking openly about, you know, the Jews killing Jesus. 0.61

01:13:21.420 I mean, like, the oldest tropes in the world.

01:13:23.840 It's really over that.

01:13:25.220 Well, yeah.

01:13:26.220 We're really fighting over Jesus now.

01:13:27.920 Yeah, that's where it's come to.

01:13:28.820 As if they're finally coming to realize that Jews do not believe Jesus is Christ. 0.84

01:13:32.000 We know.

01:13:32.940 But, Megan, go for it.

01:13:34.640 Explain a little bit more what you mean about how, like, draw that out for us of, like,

01:13:37.940 how it will look like Ukraine.

01:13:39.920 Well, I'm worried that, you know, in the horseshoe principle of, like, sort of the hard right

01:13:44.900 is going to come together with a hard left and be like, yeah, we don't care about the

01:13:48.160 Jews. 0.94

01:13:48.480 And to the extent we do care, we don't like them.

01:13:51.060 And not support Israel the way at least the right always has. 0.68

01:13:56.640 You know, the left, I think, large sections of it have.

01:13:59.440 But the right has always been very pro-Israel.

01:14:02.720 And leave it to itself, possibly not support with, you know, arms and other,

01:14:07.940 support.

01:14:09.300 And here, domestically, not really do anything about these protesters and actually

01:14:14.560 start to side more and more with them and start to, like, both sides it.

01:14:22.760 Yeah, I think that that is probably what's going to happen.

01:14:26.200 I think that's already happening.

01:14:28.360 So what's next?

01:14:29.320 What comes of that?

01:14:30.160 That's what I'm like.

01:14:31.040 I think what comes next is more of what we're seeing in Europe, which is kind of

01:14:34.640 a full movement to overthrow local governance.

01:14:42.660 I mean, I think we'll see some of these folks become elected officials.

01:14:45.420 We'll see.

01:14:49.340 We'll see the revolution here start to win more.

01:14:52.760 What do we do with that?

01:14:56.300 Because Jews are not, it's not a big number. 0.53

01:14:58.860 No.

01:14:59.680 And I think the threat of violence is going to continue and grow.

01:15:02.800 Like, I don't feel super optimistic about this topic right now.

01:15:05.740 I know.

01:15:06.040 I wish I could, like, be, like, the counter to you guys on this.

01:15:10.060 I don't feel super optimistic.

01:15:13.180 And I think now it's kind of latching into a broader movement to hate America, to overthrow

01:15:21.200 America.

01:15:21.780 You're seeing a lot of that rhetoric become part of it, that Gaza is lighting the fire 0.95

01:15:27.800 to overthrow the empire, and the empire being American empire.

01:15:31.680 And I take that as a serious part of the aspiration here, to do away with our value system, to

01:15:44.640 do away with Western liberalism, and the idea that that maybe is tired and old.

01:15:49.240 And I think there's a lot of people on the right who also think Western liberalism is tired

01:15:53.300 and old and played out, and who are willing to toss it to the side.

01:15:57.080 And so I think, yes, you'll see a horseshoe.

01:16:02.700 It's like we're seeing the beginning of it right now.

01:16:04.740 Yeah.

01:16:05.180 I don't know how to stop it.

01:16:07.640 Well, we have to stop it.

01:16:10.200 We have to.

01:16:11.500 I regard this as the fight of our lives.

01:16:15.820 I don't know.

01:16:17.840 I think for most people going about their lives, they might look at what's happening on campus,

01:16:22.320 it's crazy campus kids, or they might hear about something that happened where a Jewish

01:16:28.240 store gets vandalized, or, oh, that's unfortunate, and they go about their day because they're

01:16:33.440 not Jewish, or the Jews are such a small minority, and, oh, they're fine anyway, they have a lot 0.99

01:16:38.320 of money, or they're so successful, or they're smart.

01:16:41.400 I guess I would just implore those people, and I think this case needs to be made much more

01:16:45.580 articulately.

01:16:46.300 Perhaps the best person doing it right now on the scene, maybe in the world, is Douglas

01:16:50.280 Murray.

01:16:50.580 He's the best.

01:16:51.340 He's the best.

01:16:51.820 I mean, at everything.

01:16:52.320 He is so good.

01:16:52.600 He's the best at everything.

01:16:53.460 Yeah, everything.

01:16:53.840 He really is.

01:16:54.700 We're seeing him for Shabbat dinner on Friday night.

01:16:57.220 Not Jewish. 1.00

01:16:58.400 He's the best at talking.

01:16:59.780 He's the best.

01:17:00.120 Yes.

01:17:00.640 But he's the best.

01:17:01.520 It's unbelievable.

01:17:02.040 He's the best at explaining how the fate of this tiny minority, 100% of the time, for 0.96

01:17:11.740 all of recorded history, is bound up with the fate of a civilization.

01:17:16.440 And that is why this should matter to everybody, because if the Jews are not, however you want 0.74

01:17:26.900 to phrase it, if we're going down, it is simply a sign that the society is deeply, deeply diseased

01:17:35.960 and dying.

01:17:38.040 And that's why this matters. 0.61

01:17:40.100 Like, the Jews here right now seem like they're the main character. 0.99

01:17:44.560 America's the main character.

01:17:46.440 Like, what is at stake here is, do we believe that this country remains exceptional?

01:17:54.680 Would we rather live here than Putin's Russia or Hamas's Gaza? 0.82

01:18:01.600 Like, that's what I think needs, that's the framing, I think, that's really necessary and

01:18:07.620 important in this moment.

01:18:09.040 And when I see people on the right, I mean, we have an excellent story today in the Free

01:18:12.920 Press by Peter Savodnik about the American men on the right.

01:18:16.780 It's a handful, but really interesting and emblematic, I think, moving to Russia to pursue

01:18:21.880 the American dream.

01:18:22.720 In other words, they've so given up on America and they so think that, you know, what's happening

01:18:28.260 in terms of some of the madness we've been talking about is so impossible to sort of restore

01:18:34.980 normalcy that they've headed all the way to live under Putin's regime.

01:18:40.260 And you see the same phenomenon sort of on the left of, as Nelly just said, like the turn

01:18:44.740 against America, I think, is what this is about.

01:18:47.040 The turn toward nihilism, whether on the left that wants to burn it all down or on the right

01:18:53.200 that's glorifying right-wing authoritarianism, where there are none of the liberties that

01:18:58.480 we get to enjoy here.

01:19:00.720 And for those of us whose entire lives, like, look at our life, not possible anywhere else

01:19:06.900 in the world to have the kind of freedoms we have, you know, that's what this is all

01:19:12.480 about in the end.

01:19:13.320 And I think a lot of the times Nelly and I are looking at each other and are like, we

01:19:16.680 get called conservative, like, are we conservative?

01:19:19.140 It's like, no, we're just trying to, like, conserve liberalism.

01:19:23.440 We're trying to...

01:19:24.440 That's a good thing we got going here.

01:19:26.180 Yeah.

01:19:26.380 Like, this is really good.

01:19:27.600 This is really good.

01:19:28.320 It's not hard to imagine.

01:19:29.420 It doesn't get better.

01:19:30.120 It's actually more surprising that fundamentalist Islam has aligned with sort of Western progressivism 0.94

01:19:37.040 because it's very easy to imagine the American right, the Western right, aligning with fundamentalist

01:19:42.780 Islam.

01:19:43.180 The values are quite easy to see as compatible in a lot of ways.

01:19:47.420 You're talking about that weird slice on the right, not normal.

01:19:49.480 Yes, yes.

01:19:50.340 I'm not talking about the moderate conservatives.

01:19:52.940 I'm talking about that.

01:19:53.540 Because you are one now.

01:19:54.200 I'm talking about the faction of the online right that we're talking about.

01:19:58.680 Yeah, yeah.

01:19:59.060 Who's turned...

01:20:00.000 So this sort of alliance against Western liberalism is not hard to imagine.

01:20:07.720 It's already there.

01:20:08.920 It's already there.

01:20:09.860 I hate to make it so dark, but I mean, this is the reality.

01:20:12.400 On my own show, we focused on Israel when the attack happened for a while, but I've always,

01:20:18.580 since the beginning, been much more interested in what's happening here.

01:20:21.180 Like, how are we reacting?

01:20:22.160 And very poorly in many ways, and it's not limited to left or right.

01:20:27.920 I just, it's a, unlike anything I've seen before, I've been covering Israel for a long

01:20:31.480 time as a journalist, I've never seen the right start to turn on Israel the way I'm starting 0.97

01:20:37.540 to see.

01:20:38.640 And I'm, I don't know where, I'm asking genuinely because I'm searching on where,

01:20:42.860 where does it end?

01:20:43.520 How does, how does it look, you know, in 10 years?

01:20:46.880 I've had Jewish friends of mine actually say, yeah, we think we'll eventually be pushed

01:20:51.700 out of the United States.

01:20:52.800 Oh yeah.

01:20:53.340 That's, that's our history.

01:20:54.620 That's an open conversation.

01:20:55.500 To steal me on the right on this a little bit with this, I think some people are looking

01:20:59.060 at the last couple decades of American wars and thinking that didn't really work.

01:21:06.160 Look at Afghanistan. 0.93

01:21:07.000 The Taliban's running it again. 0.97

01:21:08.220 Look at Iraq. 0.93

01:21:08.980 That's true.

01:21:09.780 Look at, look at, and so they're thinking, we don't exactly have American success stories

01:21:15.120 in the Middle East.

01:21:16.360 And why do we think it'd be different now?

01:21:18.520 I think obviously Israel is a lot different than Afghanistan and Iraq.

01:21:20.940 But the difference in those cases is there's no American soldiers being asked to do anything

01:21:25.160 at all.

01:21:25.720 Obviously, of course.

01:21:26.680 But I'm, to, to steel man that argument, I don't think it all comes from like just,

01:21:32.400 um, I don't think it's all necessarily like antisemitic or hateful.

01:21:36.800 I think some of it is from people who are just like exhausted with.

01:21:39.920 Well, and I make a distinction between the more isolationist, right?

01:21:44.700 Yeah.

01:21:45.020 Who they don't want involvement in any foreign conflict.

01:21:47.180 And I get, I get that entirely.

01:21:48.560 I think that's a real, but they're like, I, we've talked on the show before about like

01:21:52.240 the Nick Fuentes is of the world.

01:21:53.640 Oh, well that's.

01:21:54.180 No, but he is rising in popularity.

01:21:56.420 Very much.

01:21:57.140 Not only did he have the sit down, you know, with Trump, but people I follow on Twitter

01:22:02.200 and who follow me regularly like retweet him and they'll slide like a video into

01:22:09.840 your mentions.

01:22:10.960 So you've got to watch this.

01:22:12.040 I have zero interest in hearing anything he has to say other than to respond with scorn.

01:22:18.860 But I rarely try to mention him on the show because he deserves to be ignored.

01:22:22.880 However, he's rising in popularity.

01:22:25.540 He's not waning.

01:22:27.080 And there's a reason for that, you know, and people I formerly knew like at Fox news,

01:22:32.480 like the one woman in particular, I work with very closely is like now an open griper. 0.61

01:22:38.240 Like I, I don't, I just, I don't know where it ends.

01:22:42.700 Well, I don't like where we are.

01:22:44.000 I will say that I think, I think one of the important principles here is like, it's really

01:22:53.180 easy for people on the left to look at, he's a Nazi, look at Nick Fuentes, a Nazi and say,

01:22:59.640 aha, the problem's on the right.

01:23:01.640 And it's so easy for someone on the right to look at what's going on on the left and

01:23:04.840 look at Ilhan Omar and say, aha, the problem's on the left.

01:23:07.920 And I think it's really important for those of us who care about the future of the country,

01:23:14.520 not just like our Jewish friend, like the literal future of the country to like police

01:23:19.980 your own side of the street.

01:23:21.620 And I, I find that the incentives to do that are just very low.

01:23:25.640 And it's so easy to point to the other side and say, the problem's there.

01:23:29.700 And I have been, I would say heartbroken by the lack of that impulse.

01:23:37.300 Like, you know, I, I have sent personal notes to people saying, you know, the guys that run

01:23:42.880 the Babylon Bee, I saw how much, I've never met them. 0.90

01:23:46.280 I saw how much shit they were taking online for standing up against antisemitism from the 0.99

01:23:51.760 right. 0.99

01:23:51.960 And I just wrote them a note saying like, thank you.

01:23:55.660 They've been awesome.

01:23:56.880 But there, but I can count the people that have been awesome.

01:24:00.340 And that's what really worries me on both the right and the left.

01:24:04.360 And, and most people are just sort of like going along with it.

01:24:08.380 I, if I, if I'm honest, cause I obviously have nothing against the right.

01:24:12.280 I do have my issues with the left.

01:24:14.700 My own perception is it's, this is overwhelmingly a leftist problem.

01:24:18.600 And there's a smaller percentage on the far right that's titillated by it, interested

01:24:23.520 with it, starting to kick it around more, starting to make it more like some sort of

01:24:26.880 a, well, aren't we technically against the Jews because of the whole Jesus thing?

01:24:30.240 No, no, we're not.

01:24:31.580 Look at Candace. 1.00

01:24:32.600 This is not where this comes in.

01:24:34.440 You know, I have.

01:24:35.820 She's not no one.

01:24:36.920 No, she's not.

01:24:37.880 She's not no one.

01:24:38.900 So there are people at.

01:24:40.240 But let me ask you about Candace because I, she's been on the show.

01:24:43.600 I don't know her personally, but she definitely had some criticisms of Israel, which you would

01:24:50.580 defend, right?

01:24:51.580 Like, you don't agree with them, but you would defend the criticism of Israel. 0.63

01:24:56.740 So I actually went and looked like, what are the specific tweets?

01:24:59.780 And there was that one where she clicked the tweet on like drinking Jewish blood, right? 0.87

01:25:04.440 I was like, okay, that's what got her in all the trouble.

01:25:06.720 That's one of the things.

01:25:07.980 But that was the biggest thing.

01:25:09.440 And I can under, I was like, oh, that's bad.

01:25:10.900 But then when I looked at it more, she seemed to be defending herself saying that wasn't

01:25:14.120 what I was liking.

01:25:15.540 I was liking the fact that this guy was defending me on a previous argument that didn't get

01:25:19.640 circulated.

01:25:20.540 I didn't take a deep dive into it.

01:25:21.980 I just think I really, I want the bar to be high before we dismiss somebody as an anti-Semite.

01:25:28.100 Here's what I'll say.

01:25:29.540 I think there is a 100% correlation pretty much between people that seem to be, or minds that

01:25:39.540 seem to be vulnerable to conspiracy-minded thinking and the line between that and open

01:25:47.520 anti-Semitism.

01:25:48.700 And sometimes that path takes a while to get to, but it always gets there.

01:25:52.800 That is so interesting, Barry.

01:25:54.060 You're not wrong about that.

01:25:55.280 That is, those two things do tend to go hand in hand.

01:25:57.580 Well, there's a reason for that.

01:25:59.080 It's because anti-Semitism is the oldest conspiracy in the world.

01:26:02.760 Like the cabal of powerful Jews controlling everything. 1.00

01:26:04.900 Sure, and now it's the Jewish state instead of the Jew themselves standing in for that 0.75

01:26:11.880 exact same thing.

01:26:13.260 But it's, if you are openly talking about how Bridget, is her name Bridget Macron?

01:26:21.140 Yeah.

01:26:21.600 Yeah.

01:26:22.260 How Bridget Macron is a man.

01:26:24.340 Okay.

01:26:24.920 Okay.

01:26:25.340 I'm like, okay, it'll be, I don't know when it will get there.

01:26:28.720 So those are the indicators to you that someone's going down that line.

01:26:31.440 Alex Jones is a great example.

01:26:33.000 Right?

01:26:33.440 I don't think I'll, I've never met Alex Jones.

01:26:36.580 Don't watch him that much, but notice some things he's been saying recently.

01:26:40.720 Is he starting to go?

01:26:41.900 Oh, yeah.

01:26:43.080 And it's like, well, yeah, like, like, look at, look at the, look at the pattern.

01:26:47.880 Like, it was only amount of time before that.

01:26:51.960 Like, it's, again, I will never attempt to get into someone else's mind or psychology.

01:27:00.180 I will just say that there is a very clear, there's a very clear pattern at play, which

01:27:05.280 is that when you start to make yourself susceptible and it's easy in a moment where everyone's

01:27:12.140 lost trust in everything.

01:27:14.160 Yes.

01:27:14.380 Like, I get how it's happening.

01:27:15.880 Right.

01:27:16.000 Like, I have some questions about the fluoride in our water.

01:27:19.320 Alex Jones has been railing about that for a long time.

01:27:21.800 So, I'm just.

01:27:22.940 I don't know.

01:27:23.420 Now, what do you, what do you, really?

01:27:24.780 Can I tell you, not for nothing, but when I went down to interview Alex Jones, I've told

01:27:28.600 this story before, but he said all this crazy stuff.

01:27:31.220 I'm like, oh, my God.

01:27:33.640 And you guys got onto water quality.

01:27:35.760 I mean, you were like, I'm there with you.

01:27:37.340 Well, there were a few.

01:27:38.100 I mean, clearly, you know, there were some that were very serious and I pressed him very

01:27:41.580 hard on those.

01:27:42.140 And, you know, he's later apologized for some of those positions.

01:27:44.180 But when we ran the fact check at NBC and NBC's fact check is no joke.

01:27:48.760 You know, when they really want to do it on something that's not political, where they've

01:27:51.640 got a thumb on the scale, they'll they have a team that's very good that will actually

01:27:55.180 figure out whether somebody's got the basis for what they're saying.

01:27:57.480 And he was all coming back as supported.

01:28:00.660 It was like there is a goat that has a human face and there is a problem.

01:28:06.360 OK, I was like, oh, my God, I think as and there are aliens in the no, there is a goat

01:28:12.640 with a human face. 0.98

01:28:13.440 I'm telling you, maybe it's a pig. 0.96

01:28:14.640 I can't remember one of those two. 0.93

01:28:16.120 The old gatekeepers have lost so much credibility and so much power because of that.

01:28:23.300 And and it's really in this situation, it becomes very sad that they've lost that power

01:28:28.400 because so many things.

01:28:33.760 That the old gatekeepers now declare as conspiracies aren't conspiracies, right?

01:28:38.780 So, like, how do you figure out?

01:28:40.040 Like the lab leak theory is not a conspiracy theory.

01:28:43.100 That's a really, really fair thing to talk about.

01:28:46.000 And for years that was called a conspiracy.

01:28:47.720 Obviously, we've all talked about this ad nauseum, but it's true and it's really interesting.

01:28:51.980 And by losing the credibility to say this goes beyond the pale.

01:28:55.220 Brigitte Macron is a man conspiracies.

01:28:57.500 Those are separate.

01:28:58.300 Those are worse.

01:28:59.020 Those are real ones.

01:28:59.740 If you've already said everything you don't like is a conspiracy theory, you don't have

01:29:04.680 you don't you don't have any more juice left to then fight something like that.

01:29:08.660 And so I think we're in a really tough situation where the the old gatekeepers, the mainstream 0.99

01:29:14.660 media, there's no like Walter Cronkite.

01:29:16.720 There's no sort of confident voice who can set the record straight, set the record straight

01:29:23.060 that we all trust.

01:29:24.220 There's no central trust in American society anymore.

01:29:27.380 I really think that it's been lost.

01:29:30.080 It's been lost, willfully lost, proudly, happily lost of this.

01:29:33.340 You know, COVID didn't help, you know, people locked inside in small, isolated pockets of

01:29:37.880 America and just spending hours on the Internet.

01:29:39.840 That's not that's not a healthy thing.

01:29:41.600 But I do at its core blame the collapse of the media for most of this.

01:29:47.740 Yeah.

01:29:48.240 Yes, it was important to have an Uncle Walter.

01:29:51.000 And it's not to say he shared the politics of most people over on my side of the aisle,

01:29:54.900 but he played it straight.

01:29:56.200 And there were we could go back or we could go back and pick apart his coverage for sure.

01:30:00.520 Yeah.

01:30:00.740 But it was important to have a news media that in general was earnest in its effort to chase

01:30:07.820 facts instead of agendas.

01:30:09.940 That's gone.

01:30:11.400 It's gone.

01:30:12.360 And people don't know where to turn.

01:30:15.540 They've been so burned by that media that hated them.

01:30:20.500 They told them their gut instincts.

01:30:22.620 They told them they were deplorable and conspiracy theorists.

01:30:23.840 And now they're understandably rushing into the arms of.

01:30:26.580 Yeah.

01:30:26.920 Yeah.

01:30:27.160 They've been right about so much and they don't know where to turn for information there.

01:30:30.500 You know, it's like Reddit or some guy on Twitter or, you know, it is my OBGYN.

01:30:35.980 I know.

01:30:37.920 It's a problem.

01:30:39.040 It's a or it's an issue.

01:30:40.300 Or Nick Flint.

01:30:41.280 I mean, it's.

01:30:41.840 Yeah.

01:30:42.920 So what do you.

01:30:43.560 I mean.

01:30:44.680 And all the old terms have lost all their power.

01:30:46.860 Right.

01:30:47.000 Like terms like racist terms, like sexist terms, like transphobic.

01:30:50.840 And so then when a real bigot walks onto the scene, there's like, how do you.

01:30:54.960 Oh, no.

01:30:55.340 He's got a pass.

01:30:56.200 He's like, oh, they always use that word.

01:30:57.680 Exactly.

01:30:58.380 So that's why all of this always mattered.

01:31:00.620 The weapons are weakened.

01:31:01.540 That's how we got to where we are.

01:31:02.920 Yeah.

01:31:03.540 So what do you think?

01:31:04.760 I think we should go get a drink.

01:31:06.380 Yeah, I know that.

01:31:07.000 Yeah, you're good.

01:31:07.760 That's how we.

01:31:08.380 It's by the way, it's two in the afternoon here in L.A.

01:31:10.920 What the hell are we going to do?

01:31:12.280 Reddit says it's fine.

01:31:13.280 I can have a margarita.

01:31:14.140 Yeah, you're good.

01:31:15.000 So I'm going to go to state school.

01:31:16.040 It's fine.

01:31:19.440 Like me.

01:31:20.360 Well, no, not really.

01:31:22.300 I don't have the solution.

01:31:24.440 Thankfully, I am not in the business of providing solutions.

01:31:27.080 I'm just in the business of shining the light on the problems and having honest discussions

01:31:30.420 about them, which eventually leads us to the right place.

01:31:33.200 Um, I do think we have to rebuild some sort of media center.

01:31:37.740 You know, you guys are doing it at the free press.

01:31:39.720 Independent journalists are doing it in the digital lane, and that's working.

01:31:43.040 I do think we have to be careful about building up, whether it's like me as a host or you guys

01:31:49.500 at the free press, people who have become untethered.

01:31:52.240 I agree.

01:31:53.120 And, you know, I'll I have certain people on that list who are, you know, people who I care about,

01:31:58.560 but I don't have to be promotional of the product.

01:32:01.540 Right.

01:32:01.740 Um, and then at night, honestly, I pray, I pray, I pray for all of them.

01:32:07.760 And I pray for the country and I pray for the wisdom to know what to do and how to handle

01:32:12.140 it and how to check my own hubris on whether I'm the wrong one.

01:32:17.020 Not about like Jude being evil, but like, am I being too judgmental?

01:32:20.000 Am I being too harsh?

01:32:20.840 Do let me listen to their arguments.

01:32:22.860 Don't, don't come into it as a know-it-all thinking you, you are better or, you know,

01:32:26.640 better, like hear them out.

01:32:28.880 Be, have a kindness and a generosity of heart, which is number one, if you want to convince

01:32:32.660 somebody to come over to your side anyway, right?

01:32:34.740 Like whether they're right or I'm right, I'm not going to get them if I'm the right one

01:32:38.740 by being nasty to them and judgmental of them.

01:32:41.300 I am sometimes that I'm not perfect at this and I don't know, Barry and Nellie, I think

01:32:46.280 part of it also goes back to just foundational values of spending more time with your family,

01:32:51.000 having family, having kids, believing in the future of America, believing in each other,

01:32:55.000 having true love, nurturing it.

01:32:56.760 Like just turning away from this device for large amounts of the day, just having dinner 1.00

01:33:02.580 together, holding each other, watching a stupid movie together, having dumb ass laughs over 1.00

01:33:06.920 some stupid comedy. 1.00

01:33:08.220 I think those things are really important and they're integral to fixing everything. 0.99

01:33:13.760 We have some dinners.

01:33:15.020 Yes.

01:33:15.360 Good.

01:33:15.800 Who's the chef?

01:33:17.340 It's not Barry.

01:33:18.100 Barry's the chef.

01:33:18.880 No, she is.

01:33:19.740 She's a really good chef. 1.00

01:33:20.720 I'm like a line cook.

01:33:21.520 I'm sorry, but God is a fair guy and he wouldn't give her that many gifts.

01:33:24.520 No, no, no.

01:33:25.220 She's really good.

01:33:26.120 But I mean, I'm going to be honest, her sister Susie's better.

01:33:28.600 My sister's the best.

01:33:29.180 I love Susie Weiss.

01:33:30.360 Susie Weiss is the best chef in the family.

01:33:32.980 She's the greatest chef in the family. 0.99

01:33:33.000 She's like a professional.

01:33:33.760 She's really good.

01:33:35.000 I need to talk to her more.

01:33:35.860 But Barry's very good.

01:33:36.540 Wow.

01:33:37.140 I'm good.

01:33:37.640 There's nothing those Weiss parents didn't give you.

01:33:39.200 No, that's not true at all.

01:33:40.760 Are you kidding?

01:33:41.540 I see a number and my mind goes blank.

01:33:44.720 I do our home economics.

01:33:48.140 100% of it.

01:33:49.160 I don't even know how to log on to our bank.

01:33:51.380 I keep our house.

01:33:52.080 No, she really doesn't.

01:33:52.940 It's ripe for fraud.

01:33:54.800 No, yeah.

01:33:55.200 Don't say that.

01:33:55.760 I agree with everything you just said.

01:33:59.100 And I just, I don't know.

01:34:00.860 Having kids, I think, has clarified everything for us.

01:34:05.200 Yeah.

01:34:05.980 Everything.

01:34:06.340 I do think, you know how these far leftists are like, no kids, we're going to save the

01:34:09.400 environment.

01:34:09.940 Part of the problem.

01:34:11.140 You were at a dinner party.

01:34:12.820 Oh, God.

01:34:14.000 Well, yeah.

01:34:14.520 This is very common.

01:34:15.860 I mean, it's not just women. 1.00

01:34:17.400 Yeah, this is a very common idea.

01:34:18.920 Yeah.

01:34:19.120 That we shouldn't have kids.

01:34:20.140 And it's irresponsible.

01:34:20.840 It's irresponsible.

01:34:22.220 The argument goes for the child.

01:34:25.760 Like, you're putting a child into a worse world because it's a very pessimistic worldview.

01:34:29.160 And it's irresponsible in terms of the environment.

01:34:33.460 That one kid is, you know, X number of carbon units.

01:34:37.980 Well, you're doing the right thing.

01:34:39.080 That's certainly how we look at our daughter. 0.56

01:34:40.380 We need to have more children.

01:34:43.680 If I were a younger woman, I'd be doing what we're doing right now.

01:34:46.180 I wish Doug and I could have had five or six, but three is a good.

01:34:49.460 You did a good contribution.

01:34:51.280 Time stops for no woman. 1.00

01:34:52.380 Three is very good.

01:34:52.920 For no woman's ovaries. 1.00

01:34:54.820 It's been a pleasure.

01:34:55.940 Let me hold up the book.

01:34:57.000 Oh, that's a money shot, baby.

01:34:59.300 Morning after the revolution.

01:35:02.240 And the revolution is ongoing.

01:35:04.100 Please join.

01:35:05.000 Join our side and help.

01:35:06.700 It's by Nellie Bowles.

01:35:07.760 Well worth your time.

01:35:08.540 And it's available for pre-order right now.

01:35:10.320 We'll get your copy today.

01:35:11.540 Have a great weekend.

01:35:12.780 I'll see you guys Monday.

01:35:13.480 Thank you.

01:35:16.180 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

01:35:19.920 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - May 10, 2024

Failures of Elite Media, and Hypocrisy of Left on Mob Behavior, with Bari Weiss and Nellie Bowles ｜ Ep. 788

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