Fox News' Post-Tucker Existential Crisis, and Brave Young Women Speaking Out, with Buck Sexton, Payton McNabb, and more ｜ Ep. 539
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 33 minutes
Words per Minute
179.74754
Summary
Fox News is in a downward spiral in the key demo, and it's getting worse by the day. Megynkelly gives us the latest Fox News numbers and explains why it's so bad, and how it's happening.
Transcript
00:00:08.560
Like that woman over there with the designer jeans.
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Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.
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We thank you all, by the way, for turning to our show
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Subscribe and get us over that million dollar mark.
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co-host of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.
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All right, so I just looked at the Fox News ratings
00:01:59.460
And just a couple of the terms that came to mind,
00:02:13.280
There's virtually no one there at 8 p.m. anymore.
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Just as bad as I'm sure Fox News worried it would get.
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I tweeted out yesterday they lost half their audience.
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They've lost almost two-thirds of their audience
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On Monday, Kilmeade got 2.6 million in the overall.
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Tucker had been getting 3.2 the previous Monday.
00:03:15.680
I mean, we're talking about, what, 330,000 loss in the key demo?
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That's the one they use to run advertising dollars.
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That doesn't happen at 8 p.m. on the Fox News channel.
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On Wednesday at 8 p.m., this is just shocking to me.
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And compare it with Tucker's the previous week of 3 million.
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3 million down to 1.3 million in a week's time.
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In the key demo the previous week, Tucker had gotten 357,000 in the key audience demo.
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The 8 p.m. is now losing to Anderson Cooper and Chris Hayes.
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It's never, it doesn't happen unless somebody else has got, like, live video of an earthquake in process or a car chase in process.
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That's the only way, progress, that the other channels beat Fox.
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Fox News is in a downward spiral that they're going to have to claw to get themselves out of.
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Just by way of context, all right, these numbers overall are so dreadful.
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We went back and looked back at when I was number one in the key audience demo when I was at nine hosting on Fox News.
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You know what my demo was in October right before I left?
00:05:02.280
That's what I was getting in the key audience demo.
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They are down at 124,000 right now at the 8 p.m.
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And this is an existential crisis for the channel in its prime time, which is how they make money.
00:05:21.740
They live off of their prime time and the food has dried up.
00:05:27.100
Look, I think that this is the first time that Fox is having to deal with an audience that because of the way a host has has exited in this case, feels like their best interests are not being taken into account.
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I think that this is the first time that you've seen.
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I mean, with the O'Reilly situation, I think it was very different.
00:05:57.420
And everyone that I talked to on this issue, it says kind of the same thing, which is, one, we have no explanation for it, like no official explanation.
00:06:06.440
I know there's all these different news stories about it, but it feels like this was a decision that came very suddenly and that the audience wasn't really a factor.
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And I think when you break that bond with the people who are supposed to be watching, consuming your content, and when all of a sudden it feels like decisions are being made that are not in their best interests, but actually some kind of personality conflict maybe at the top of the organization, that's a huge challenge.
00:06:33.640
Also, Tucker gave legitimacy to much of the rest of the Fox primetime lineup, I think, in terms of being willing to – he was the guy who was willing to run into issues that were, you know, too hot to handle.
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I mean, he was the guy who was willing to actually, I think, push the envelope, and that meant that there are people like me.
00:07:01.740
Some days I'll do an additional podcast, right?
00:07:06.940
I have almost no time to consume anyone else's content.
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But Tucker's monologue, I would make a point to watch it when I could.
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So people like me, for example, we're not going to get there early and maybe catch more of Jesse's show.
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We're not going to get there later or stay later and, you know, watch more of Sean's show.
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If you were coming for Tucker's monologue, now your reason for turning on that primetime channel is – that channel at primetime feels like it's faded away.
00:07:40.220
Look, I think they have to bring Tucker back, quite honestly.
00:07:42.600
That's where – I don't know what they think is going to happen here.
00:07:45.760
Right, I mean, I think that's what has to happen here because, first of all, Brian Kilby – you know Brian.
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Brian is such a good dude and he's being put in such a tough spot here.
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It's like they found their most likable personality and put him in the spot sort of saying, you'll watch Brian, right?
00:08:08.640
This is the audience with the double-barrel middle finger saying, you can F right off Fox News.
00:08:17.820
I mean, I'll tell you just from my own experience, right, stepping in for – there are really – there's primetime at Fox and there's being on one of the big four radio shows.
00:08:29.960
But really, the biggest, obviously, was Rush Limbaugh for over 30 years.
00:08:33.860
And when Rush passed, there was this understanding with the audience that they're – again, what I was saying before about their interests, that relationship, that bond that Rush had with that audience was so respected, was so respected by Premier, by iHeart, and just everybody involved that the decision was made.
00:08:59.640
They did a tribute to Rush pulling his – some of his best stuff for months, for months.
00:09:05.860
And that was done intentionally just to say, look, we want all of you to know that Rush was the greatest that's ever done this.
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People said, well, why is it like the Clay and Buck show?
00:09:17.160
I mean, the joke I always make is that Rush's shoes were too big to fill so that they put Clay in one shoe and me in the other, and we're running as fast as we can in it.
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And I think the audience knows that we have that level of respect for Rush and what he did.
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But what I'm saying is that there was this real plan to transition and this understanding of no one's filling Rush's shoes, but we're going to try to serve this audience anyway.
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Megan, right now, the 8 p.m. Fox audience – and I know because I'm one of them and I talk to so many people who are – they feel disrespected.
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They're like, well, what do you mean you're taking our guy off the air?
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But for what? They haven't even told anybody for what yet.
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I think short of that, this is not an issue that can be easily fixed.
00:10:02.360
And, you know, when you departed, Bill departed, there was the Trump wave that happened, right?
00:10:11.360
I mean, honestly, all you had to do was sort of get on TV and cover Trump and be like, wow, this is kind of an amazing political reality we've got here.
00:10:21.420
And it's not going to be there even if Trump, I think, wins the primary because it's just a different attitude and a different time.
00:10:26.680
So I think that for the first time, Fox to me is in an existential crisis when it comes to viewers.
00:10:33.100
And I've been watching Fox since I was in high school.
00:10:37.320
I used to laugh that those big numbers I was getting at nine, I was very proud of them.
00:10:42.440
I got those during the Obama years, the Obama years, Buck.
00:10:47.100
OK, it wasn't during the Trump cup run over years.
00:10:51.460
It was hard to put points on the board back then.
00:10:53.880
The man was nine times out of 10 quite boring, not as boring as Joe Biden, but he was a bore compared to Trump.
00:11:02.920
Not only do they is Trump not going to be quite as exciting this time around, even if he gets it, but Fox has turned on Trump.
00:11:09.640
Maybe the Murdochs will eventually say, OK, we'll submit and we'll go along with him if he becomes the GOP nominee.
00:11:16.800
Take one look at The Wall Street Journal or The New York Post or Fox's editorial.
00:11:22.000
They've turned on Trump and the message has come down.
00:11:24.620
So they're not going to be taking the Trump pressers and, you know, his rallies and the way they did in 1516.
00:11:35.520
And what they have right now is a broken trust with the audience who they helped introduce to Tucker, who they made love Tucker.
00:11:43.100
Tucker did it on his own, but I'm just saying they gave Tucker the opportunity and he hit it out of the park, he and his team.
00:11:48.140
And then they yanked the rug right out from under them, from from under Tucker, from under Justin Wells, his producer from under the audience.
00:11:55.700
As you point out, with zero attempt to even tell the audience why, you know, with me, it was different.
00:12:08.700
OK, he paid out 69 million bucks in sexual harassment settlements.
00:12:20.900
And I get from an H.R. perspective, Buck, how you, you know, you don't want to say much just in case you get sued.
00:12:31.100
And instead, what they're doing is just leaking a different smear every day.
00:12:35.780
You know, we talked about yesterday how in The New York Times it was, oh, you know, we've been provided with we've gotten our hands on a videotape showing Tucker referring to some random woman as yummy, talking about his, quote, post menopausal audience and whether they'll like the way he looks.
00:12:51.900
I'm telling you, that's Fox calling through his commercial breaks while he's sitting there making small talk with his staff, pulling stupid comments.
00:13:01.720
None of those would reflect well on any of us if they did that.
00:13:08.380
That's how they're trying to take him down without just telling us.
00:13:11.920
Well, yeah, I think that, you know, Fox is in a really difficult position here because they're setting a standard now.
00:13:22.540
So so, you know, for you are are an exception in this regard.
00:13:28.020
And, you know, there are some others, too, where you can really say what you want and there's not some concern that you're going to get, you know, booted.
00:13:36.800
I mean, you know, within reason, I think a lot of us who do this for a living and are trying to, you know, and I'm saying things on radio on a regular basis that I think are pushing the envelope.
00:13:50.340
But when the 8 p.m. at Fox just gets tossed like this and again, without and by the way, Bill, you know, Bill was on on TV and did this.
00:14:00.340
Like Bill wasn't somebody who it wasn't it didn't feel like his run was cut short or in the same way.
00:14:10.160
I just mean, you know, he got a good run at Fox.
00:14:12.680
Tucker had been doing this for what, six years in the 8 p.m.?
00:14:20.580
O'Reilly was, you know, I think 70 when he got pushed out.
00:14:25.560
It's just a different, you know, when a player, when the captain of the team who's, you know, been to, you know, 10, you know, 10 or 15 All-Star games or something, you know, moves to a different league.
00:14:34.840
That's one thing when the guy who feels like he's in his just sort of hitting his professional stride and just sort of touching on some of these issues that were opening up some of these issues that I think Tucker was doing.
00:14:50.600
So there's there's a lot of complications for this.
00:14:53.440
And I think that for people who would like to believe that conservative media has.
00:14:59.820
I mean, I refer to like our radio show, for example, because, you know, in all honesty, and Clay says this all the time.
00:15:05.620
Like we have phenomenal we have phenomenal bosses like we're lucky.
00:15:11.320
And as long as I'm sort of staying within the principles of who I am and, you know, what I do, I know that I'm I'm supported.
00:15:17.980
But Fox, we I used to say that our show is like an unsinkable battleship of free speech.
00:15:24.000
Right now, nothing's truly unsinkable if it's out in the water.
00:15:26.400
But you get the idea for the 8 p.m. to go down like this.
00:15:32.040
And one of the reasons it's so upsetting to people is, OK, well, if Tucker can't talk about maybe the GOP is going astray on corporatism or the war.
00:15:39.900
Ukraine or or big pharma donor money or whatever it may be, if he can't get away with that and whether that was why there was any pressure on him or not, that's a whole other discussion.
00:15:52.440
Right. I mean, this is you're the 8 p.m. at Fox.
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And you get summarily dismissed without real explanation.
00:16:01.460
Everybody else in this business feels like how long before there's some corporate pressure that gets me booted.
00:16:07.700
It's it feels like a shot that affects the psychology, I think, of a lot of people who are trying to shed light on on troubling issues.
00:16:16.300
And yeah, and also, you know, Tucker was he was kind of blocking and tackling for a lot of people to follow in and to say these things and ask these questions.
00:16:25.400
So with that gone, there's a piece of the movement that feels like has been taken out.
00:16:31.580
Here's the other thing, here's the other thing.
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The digital lane has got, you know, so many great voices from Ben Shapiro.
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Glenn, there are so many people to choose from now.
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If you are in the center, center right or right.
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So many people, Dan Bongino, who they fired so many great choices.
00:16:59.960
They are not the monopoly in conservative media that they used to be.
00:17:09.380
The one thing that really is different over there.
00:17:16.280
Why do I need to tune in to Fox News in the evening now?
00:17:21.040
Now I can listen to a show that I've downloaded on my show on my on my phone.
00:17:24.960
Like they're taking away the the one unique, truly unique draw they had.
00:17:31.440
I think also, you know, you know this from coming up with with rundowns night in and night out on cable and now on this show.
00:17:39.060
But you could tune in and look, I, you know, Sean Hannity has always been amazing to me.
00:17:44.700
And he's, you know, one of the most successful people in this medium of all time.
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And so no, no, nothing but but love for him and Jesse Waters, who's now stepped into seven o'clock.
00:17:54.960
But, you know, you kind of generally know with those shows, I feel like you kind of know what you're getting a little bit where you're going to have.
00:18:02.580
I knew what the I knew what the top story was going to be on those shows any time that I tuned in.
00:18:09.380
It's just, you know, you're kind of this is what this is kind of where the Republican media focus is today with Tucker.
00:18:16.580
Sometimes you start the show and you're like, wait, what are we what are we talking about today?
00:18:20.280
You know, it was and that sense of both, you know, of adventure and discovery that you had from tuning into that monologue was, to your point, very unique.
00:18:30.280
And and I think it was a whole draw. It was a draw, but also it made people stay around more for other things.
00:18:37.800
And it also made it feel like the rest of, you know, if you think of the primetime network, I mean, the primetime shows as almost like a team.
00:18:44.380
Right. There was always at least one guy on the team who was really who was really throwing punches.
00:18:50.200
You know what I mean? Who was who was taking shots at the other side and everyone was kind of playing their playing their role, I think.
00:18:55.920
And now without that, it's like, well, I can get a lot of this.
00:19:00.500
The media landscape has changed dramatically since the beginning of the Trump era.
00:19:05.240
You know, there were those huge changes. Right. Obviously, L's is pushed out, passes, passes away.
00:19:10.860
You know, you and and O'Reilly leave. But then you had the Trump phenomenon.
00:19:14.600
But you also now have so many more ways. I mean, look, I was watching.
00:19:19.060
I watch Fox on YouTube TV and I wasn't watching. I don't know. I don't have a cable box.
00:19:23.720
I don't subscribe to cable and I'm 41. So I'm kind of maybe in the you know, that era where people are just my age or are switching and becoming more and more cord cutters.
00:19:34.500
Content on demand and content from people that are really trying to serve the audience has gotten better as an experience and more varied overall across the whole landscape.
00:19:43.760
And content creators have more leverage, as you know. Right.
00:19:47.140
I mean, you know, you're sitting here as a perfect example of somebody who gets to do what she wants to do on her show and you'll partner with established platforms and brands and things.
00:19:59.240
And I feel like Fox in just a business sense, maybe maybe learning that.
00:20:04.660
I mean, why would you cut ties with your one unicorn at a time when people are cord cutting digital media is on the rise?
00:20:11.620
It's so user friendly. If you want to listen to me, to you guys, to Ben, you can do it whenever you want.
00:20:16.640
You don't have to tune in and sit in front of your your cable box at 9 p.m. or whatever the time.
00:20:22.340
You know, it's just it doesn't make any business sense.
00:20:24.920
And we still don't know the reason. That's why people speculate.
00:20:27.500
Was it his ideology? Was it the fact that he pushed back against elites like the people who run Fox?
00:20:33.400
You know, what was it? The fact that he was too open to the MAGA base.
00:20:37.500
Could that have been it since they've turned on MAGA over there to some extent?
00:20:41.980
I had one reliable person tell me it's because something in those text messages is negative about the Murdochs.
00:20:49.200
Please tell me that that thin skinned. Please tell me they're not that thin skinned.
00:20:53.300
That an employee venting about them in a private message never meant to be seen by them would lead them to fire the guy.
00:21:01.180
If you're out there and you have negative texts about me because I've been a bitch one day, you know, privately, you go for it.
00:21:06.720
People need to vent. It's like getting mad at your kid because he said to his sibling, God, she's a nightmare after you yell at them.
00:21:13.180
Like people need to vent. If that's what it is, it's actually totally absurd.
00:21:17.920
And I can see why they're embarrassed about it and they want to pin it on 10 other different things.
00:21:22.180
I don't know. Can I say this, though, just to move it forward?
00:21:24.960
Of course, the left is reveling in this. They're reveling in the fact that that Tucker in particular was fired because they hated him.
00:21:37.720
I'm sorry to have to put you through this, but here's just a bit.
00:21:40.520
I know of Jimmy Kimmel reacting to Tucker's video.
00:21:44.660
We put out a video two days ago, didn't address the Fox situation directly, but talked about how we're all run by elites now and there are no more even two parties.
00:21:55.140
Those who are in the elite cabal and those who are not, and they will decide what gets to be discussed and talked about.
00:22:01.160
And if you call her outside the lines, you'll be punished.
00:22:03.480
So it's pretty, you know, not so veiled message, I think, about why he thinks he got the boot.
00:22:12.660
These texts were said to be so offensive, Fox didn't know whether to fire Carlson or to give him another hour on primetime.
00:22:20.080
It's easy to forget how much Tucker Carlson has accomplished over his career.
00:22:30.820
But punks of scrawny Phil emerged from his hole last night with a video message addressing his fans.
00:22:36.820
Wait until you hear about this guy named Tucker Carlson.
00:22:44.580
This video, it looks like he made it while waiting for a table at the Cracker Barrel.
00:22:49.300
As long as you can hear the words, there is hope.
00:22:55.660
Okay, you know how much it costs to produce Jimmy Kimmel's show?
00:23:01.640
I guarantee you it's tens and tens of millions.
00:23:06.260
I have no idea, but it's tens of millions of dollars to produce that show.
00:23:14.020
You know how much Jimmy Kimmel, how many people he gets tuning in on average night?
00:23:17.520
Um, just last week, his average was in the overall, meaning all viewers, 1.5 million in
00:23:25.680
Tucker would have been embarrassed to pull that on any night he was on the Fox News channel.
00:23:29.400
That's what they're getting now with the APM that nobody's watching.
00:23:32.980
Tucker's numbers were three times what Jimmy Kimmel gets.
00:23:35.980
And Tucker's little basement video that he did from clearly like his cabin that he broadcasts
00:23:40.560
out of Maine in, um, literally has 21 million views.
00:23:47.220
Whereas as I point out on ABC, a massive network that comes into your home for free
00:23:52.940
that you have to make no effort to find at best, Jimmy Kimmel can get 1.5 million.
00:23:58.980
So this guy, he needs to have a little self perspective before going out there and hurling
00:24:11.360
And, and I think, look, there's, there's a couple of things here, right?
00:24:14.360
There's on the one hand, um, there's obviously the jealousy, which I think you're, you're
00:24:20.620
getting at, which is that Tucker Carlson is able to, was able to create such a, now granted
00:24:26.960
Fox is a great platform and we, we would all admit that, but he became even a phenomenon
00:24:31.540
within that, within that realm and, and became such a big part of the national conversation.
00:24:36.440
I mean, Jimmy Kimmel is an unfunny comedian who was handed a big break.
00:24:40.900
And instead of actually using a really phenomenal opportunity to entertain people, to bring
00:24:46.780
people together and make them laugh, he became a low IQ political hack who also makes jokes
00:24:52.720
And it's kind of sad to watch, but that's what the guy who used to be, you know, running
00:24:56.700
around asking women inappropriate questions on the man show has become.
00:25:00.740
I mean, I've, I've tried occasionally to watch that.
00:25:02.640
I'm just like, what happened to the late night comedy shows?
00:25:04.820
By the way, Greg Gutfeld show crushing those shows.
00:25:08.320
And I think it's because, uh, well, a number of reasons, one of them is that Greg actually
00:25:12.220
tries to be funny more than to please the, uh, political corporate masters that are demanding,
00:25:18.100
you know, constant attacks on Trump or something like that.
00:25:20.700
So there's the vanity component of it, which, you know, is very common in, in media.
00:25:25.080
Um, and, and then also, I just think that there's, uh, uh, you know, that, well, there's
00:25:31.360
And then we can go to the vanity of they hate Tucker because he made fun of them.
00:25:37.720
Um, Tucker was able to laugh at the elites and laugh at silly people in the media who
00:25:44.520
are generally very overpaid, deeply unimpressive, lack gratitude for the fact that they, and
00:25:51.020
I, you know, you go the women of the view, the late night, uh, you know, comedian shows
00:25:57.440
These are people who are entirely replaceable, who are nasty and often lead very sad and selfish
00:26:04.500
Um, and certainly aren't doing anything, I think, to benefit any political conversation
00:26:09.380
It's just the most hackneyed talking points you could ever find.
00:26:12.240
And instead of being grateful for the fact that they're paid these salaries and given
00:26:16.780
these opportunities, it's like, they just become increasingly bitter.
00:26:20.380
Um, and they have no sense of humor about themselves at all.
00:26:23.740
You'll notice, and this is true of all totalitarians, by the way, but it's certainly true of the,
00:26:30.780
We didn't even notice that Megan, that, that term faded away.
00:26:33.580
And I think it's because they're not the mainstream media really anymore because the media has
00:26:39.740
So it's really a misnomer to call them the MSN.
00:26:42.960
Um, I sometimes will call them Democrat, Democrat, corporate media, or, you know, leftist corporate
00:26:47.640
Uh, but I really do think that they, you'll notice, they hate Tucker, right?
00:26:53.300
I mean, you know, they, they might've, I'm sure they were taking shots at you when you,
00:26:58.080
Um, but they hate Tucker in this literally like visceral way because he would openly and
00:27:06.460
And that's the, that is the sin that they shall never forgive.
00:27:09.320
So it's, it's weirdly personal for all of the people who are making these, uh, these comments
00:27:17.420
And, uh, I think that's just a testament to his effectiveness, but we need more people
00:27:23.480
The, even the bit at the end where they, if for the listening audience, there's a, the
00:27:28.680
Kimmel ended that bit by pulling off what he was suggesting was a toupee off of Tucker
00:27:41.260
He does have great hair, but it just shows Kimmel's bitterness.
00:27:46.840
Like you can make fun of Tucker, however you want, but like, why go personal?
00:27:58.280
He's reveling in the fact that Tucker's been pulled from Fox news and talk about short sighted.
00:28:03.960
You know, you just wait, you just wait until Tucker resurfaces.
00:28:07.580
He will crush your numbers again and you'll be just as bitter as you are now with just as
00:28:14.400
It's only a matter of time before this guy, Seth Meyers gets pulled from the air.
00:28:18.860
The only reason that they still have their hours, notwithstanding these dreadful ratings
00:28:23.460
is because there, there's still the hangover from Trump.
00:28:28.060
They changed from comedy into political assassins.
00:28:31.860
But at some point the, these businesses need to make money and it's not happening with Jimmy
00:28:36.440
I think, I think that those late night political shows, it really, it was, it was actually sad.
00:28:42.220
I mean, yeah, it's pathetic, but it's sad because for comedians, it's like they're making,
00:28:46.660
you know, hostage proof of life videos every night, you know, comedians are supposed to
00:28:51.400
be pushing boundaries, you know, smashing sacred cows, you know, doing things that are, are on
00:29:00.160
And they became, they became really like the conformist political Stasi, you know, they
00:29:05.720
were the ones that were the same tired Trump jokes every night, the same BS jokes about,
00:29:11.580
you know, Republicans and guns and, and Bibles and all this stuff.
00:29:16.520
And I think that for comedians in particular, you know, I, I think that there was a time when
00:29:21.280
someone like Jimmy Kimmel was trying to be funny, like in back in the day with Carolla on
00:29:27.540
I think that, you know, he, he was a comedian, he's not a comedian anymore.
00:29:30.800
So I think that there's a sense from some of them of, of like tremendous resentment at
00:29:37.400
their present circumstances, because they don't want to admit that they've essentially, uh,
00:29:44.360
I mean, they have given up what they're supposed to really be, which is a source of levity,
00:29:48.720
entertainment, and even insight, uh, as comedians.
00:29:51.960
And instead they just became, as you said, uh, political hit men.
00:29:54.940
And same for Jon Stewart, you know, he, he used to be acerbic, but he used to make people
00:30:01.360
Now he's just a nasty, bitter guy who hates everybody who doesn't share his own worldview.
00:30:06.900
I guess there's a market, very small market for that, but good luck.
00:30:11.080
You know, like making, making jokes and everything else back in the day was something that he
00:30:17.540
A lot of these comedians, they get used to having a big audience and a lot of influence
00:30:20.440
because of the jokes, but if you're really going to play with the big boys, that was
00:30:24.060
the thing about Stewart that even in his heyday, I was found very, a little bit off
00:30:29.600
So I was somebody who, you know, I thought that the Jon Stewart show when I was in college
00:30:35.380
Um, but there was a, I think Kevin Williamson of national review called it once clown knows
00:30:39.920
on clown knows off where, you know, it's all jokes and then, and then it's like, well,
00:30:45.880
let's talk about why you're in climate denial and you're like climate denial.
00:30:50.020
Like, do you really think the world's going to end?
00:30:54.980
That's the part of it that always sort of, at least back then he could bring you the
00:31:01.460
Now he's like an angry man who's like completely racist against white people who don't share
00:31:09.700
You know, it's like, he's become one of those totally woke activist liberals who thinks we
00:31:13.480
need to coddle black people and that if you're not so in support of quote trans rights, then
00:31:18.120
you're a bigot and he will lecture you because he, you know, his white privilege and that
00:31:26.080
When we come back, we've got to talk about quite a few things.
00:31:28.440
I want to get to Randy Weingarten and I want to get to why president Biden did not remember
00:31:38.000
Before we get to Randy, I've got to start with President Biden, who like literally what
00:31:47.580
10 days ago was in Ireland and was asked by a child because he only takes questions from
00:31:55.900
He needed the help from a child, but he was, well, I'll just show it.
00:32:02.280
The last country I've traveled, I'm thinking once for the last one I was in.
00:32:05.820
And I, I've been to 89, I met with 89 heads of state so far.
00:32:12.500
So I'm trying to think what was the last, where was the last place I was?
00:32:31.060
Oh, that Biden is 80 and an old 82, you know, he's somebody who is, uh, not at the peak
00:32:46.580
Um, I, I, I have to say this is, this is actually telling us a lot about the Democrat party mindset
00:32:53.240
these days and what, what I call the, the apparatus and how it functions.
00:32:57.800
I do not believe that there's really any significant number of Democrats, uh, out there
00:33:06.800
Um, and I also think that they would be willing to vote for Joe Biden again in the same numbers.
00:33:12.380
If we got to the point where, um, they had to like roll him out with a blanket across
00:33:18.020
his knees and he was kind of muttering nonsense.
00:33:21.040
Uh, there's a recklessness and a ruthlessness in the way they approach all of this and how
00:33:28.640
So I thought maybe it was too much for them in the Democrat primary in 2020 to put this
00:33:36.200
So I, now I will never underestimate their ruthlessness again.
00:33:39.920
And that was why with the whole Fetterman thing, I was trying to raise the alarm.
00:33:44.760
They don't care that John Fetterman, for example, had had a severe stroke, was having trouble
00:33:49.480
speaking, which was really based in trouble and cognition because of what was going on
00:33:53.760
And as we know, he just went into, uh, you know, hospitalized depression therapy for
00:34:06.040
And so they're perfectly comfortable with Joe Biden being a buffoon and well, he's always
00:34:12.280
been a buffoon, uh, but being somebody who on top of that is really not capable of thinking
00:34:17.320
things through and remembering things and having senior moments.
00:34:20.160
And this is the same group that tells us over and over who played the soundbite the other
00:34:25.680
He's the most fit cognitively and otherwise in the white house, which of course we know
00:34:30.380
are lies and the, and the same group that then acts shocked and horrified at all the
00:34:38.380
I'm not saying he doesn't, but you've got people like Sam Harris, who I like on here
00:34:44.020
There's no comparison to say sort of Trump versus Biden.
00:34:50.520
And that's what leads me to Randy Weingarten, who, I mean, this week has been the liar in
00:34:54.540
I mean, the biggest, boldest faced lies we've heard publicly.
00:34:58.600
I have to say in a long, long time, it was very, very just ambitious in, in its deceit
00:35:10.600
She, uh, she actually testified before Congress this week.
00:35:13.820
She's the head of the American federations of teachers, uh, union, and she actually testified.
00:35:21.700
I've said that over and over again, teachers wanted to be in school.
00:35:25.660
They knew that in-school learning was important, but they needed it to be safe.
00:35:31.420
We needed both teachers to be safe and kids to be safe and went on from there.
00:35:39.780
Now, before I get to the sound of the day, I'll tell you this, uh, we did go back and
00:35:47.080
Here she was in July of 2020, looking at whether we'd be opening up anywhere in September.
00:35:56.320
She was the education secretary and Weingarten said, if Trump and DeVos want to create chaos
00:36:08.460
The call to reopen the schools, their, their recklessness scared people so much that now
00:36:12.520
I fear a brain drain of people basically opting out of teaching.
00:36:19.440
Maybe she saw the light when we had some months behind us.
00:36:23.100
Um, August of 2020, she said, huge judge strikes down Florida's school reopening order.
00:36:30.600
So glad there not won't be reopening, uh, schools in August.
00:36:33.760
Let's fast forward for six months or so, February, 2021.
00:36:38.400
Um, she claimed what that, what she needed was just a bit more time to bring her rank and
00:36:43.380
I'm confident that we will overcome the fear, but it's not going to happen in two and a half
00:36:59.660
Now she wants us to believe she was behind reopening the whole time, which leads me to this extraordinary
00:37:07.360
She, I don't know if you've seen this today, but she went on CNN and a senior political
00:37:12.560
commentator, Scott Jennings was sitting at the table with her and said what so many millions
00:37:23.160
Um, we don't know each other, but speaking on behalf of millions of American parents,
00:37:32.780
I am stunned at what you have said this week about your claiming to have wanted to reopen
00:37:41.840
I think most, you'll find that most parents believe you were the tip of the spear of school
00:37:46.760
There are numerous statements you made over the summer of 20, scaring people to death about
00:37:54.380
And I hear no remorse whatsoever about the generational damage that's been done to these kids.
00:38:01.340
Do you know how hard it is for them to learn at home and not in a classroom that was designed
00:38:07.500
And for you to sit in front of Congress and the American people and say, oh, I wanted to
00:38:18.240
And there are millions of parents who feel the exact same way.
00:38:21.640
I knew and understood the importance of reopening schools and the importance of making sure
00:38:30.800
And poll after poll that we did of parents, and I spent a lot of time with parents, said
00:38:37.040
that they basically understood and supported that we needed to do both.
00:38:51.580
So I call Randy Weingarten the chief education commissar because her job is not, has nothing to do
00:39:01.960
with your kids and making sure your kids are educated.
00:39:04.460
She is a part of the political apparatus of the Democrat Party, representing the adults
00:39:11.320
in the teachers unions who are a massive source of Democrat political power, both through
00:39:18.640
donations and through the mobilization they do for voting.
00:39:26.440
And I don't like to get angry at people or individuals.
00:39:33.240
The Biden White House and all the people around him who push for school closures, they did
00:39:43.240
And they did it for the adults who were either too paranoid and or too lazy to do their jobs
00:39:50.860
when it was clear that, first of all, everybody was going to get COVID and they should have
00:39:56.680
That's a whole other conversation because everyone did get COVID.
00:39:59.460
But beyond that, including all the kids, none of the kids were prevented from getting
00:40:07.620
But why was it that, you know, the, you know, EMS and fire and my grocery store clerk, the
00:40:13.820
guy who worked at CVS, they were all going into their jobs.
00:40:16.400
They were going into their jobs in April and May of 2020.
00:40:23.100
You know, they really, by the way, to do this, part of it was the completely false proposition
00:40:28.640
that they forwarded that like children were the we're going to be spread.
00:40:31.740
It turns out children actually don't spread this to adults very readily at all.
00:40:37.720
But Randy, Randy had special scientific knowledge.
00:40:47.620
We knew that remote education was not a substitute for opening schools, but we also knew that people
00:40:55.980
And maybe it's because I live in New York City.
00:41:09.760
And what we were simply looking for was clear scientific guidance.
00:41:16.240
And when we couldn't get it, we did it ourselves.
00:41:26.520
You see here ambulances all the time, in part because they don't fight crime anymore.
00:41:31.980
It's not because they were running to get all the kids who got COVID in schools.
00:41:36.000
They wanted teachers to have a taxpayer-funded, long-term, longer than just the summer vacation,
00:41:47.620
Randy Weingarten was 100% involved with the Biden administration in crafting, and little
00:41:55.620
They push for something, and they go to the levers of power, and they push toward lockdowns.
00:42:06.000
No, especially with the teachers thing, by the way.
00:42:08.200
We knew in the summer of 2020 that schools should be open.
00:42:13.040
Sweden kept schools open and had already opened schools.
00:42:17.000
You could see countries where it was clearly no risk to children.
00:42:21.020
And the adults, it's not like you have a lot of 75-year-olds who are teaching third grade,
00:42:26.120
They never had any basis for this whatsoever, other than it was advantageous to Joe Biden
00:42:35.860
They'll vote for old man Biden in the basement, which is what they did.
00:42:39.260
And then beyond that, they realized, oh, we can just play a Zoom lesson and stay at home
00:42:44.220
and get our full pay and benefits and do nothing all the time.
00:42:47.080
The only people who are as bad in my mind in terms of the rank and file as the teachers
00:42:53.120
who were so excited to stay home were the airline attendants who were so excited to threaten
00:42:57.180
to kick everybody off the airline forever for letting the mask slip beneath their noses.
00:43:00.920
But no one was worse than the Chicago Teachers Union.
00:43:08.240
We don't do Teachers Union stories without running this video.
00:43:11.420
These are the people who are so desperate to reopen the schools.
00:43:13.860
Remember their interpretive dance, showing us how these totally fit and able-bodied teachers
00:43:47.540
These are the people who were desperate, desperate to reopen.
00:43:51.700
And by the way, on Randy's lies, Buck, we all know that the reason that the CDC modified
00:43:58.400
its guidance on when you could open or close schools was because of Randy.
00:44:03.160
She admitted that she was BFFs with Rochelle Walensky, that other hysteric who was running
00:44:13.440
Do not talk to representatives of the government.
00:44:19.080
Do you have a direct number to Director Walensky?
00:44:34.660
What they did to children with the lockdowns, the shutdowns of the schools, obviously, as
00:44:42.180
part of that, the masking of children, it was child abuse.
00:44:55.920
The data was very clear that schools should be open.
00:44:58.800
And the data was clear, really, by May of 2020, you could argue even sooner than that.
00:45:06.180
They kept the school shut for, you know, the 2020 to 2021 school year.
00:45:10.080
And then some of them kept it, were trying to close it even beyond that.
00:45:13.780
So what you see here, and, you know, this is also, it's enraging because I know parents
00:45:19.180
that have special needs kids who are the ones who are the most harmed by this, parents of
00:45:26.160
children, you know, who are low-income households, the people that the teachers, oh, by the way,
00:45:31.140
I've sat on, like, I've seen Randy Weingart before, and, you know, years ago, I interviewed
00:45:37.760
She doesn't give squat about the children, okay?
00:45:42.200
The teachers' unions, honestly, should all be disbanded.
00:45:44.900
That's a whole other conversation because they don't care about your kids.
00:45:51.860
They're trying to raise money and trying to make sure that you don't have any accountability
00:45:56.040
in the public school system in these Democrats strongholds in cities all across the country.
00:46:01.440
You know, I had a speech impediment, Megan, when I was a kid.
00:46:06.180
The kids who needed the help the most, and by the way, the masking thing, as we all know,
00:46:12.240
And even Fauci's admitted now, maybe it helps at the margins, maybe 10%.
00:46:17.040
And that's not, that's not even, and by the way, that's not even true.
00:46:19.240
They just keep walking it back slowly because of the mask lunatics.
00:46:22.520
But honestly, every single parent in the country who didn't hold Democrats accountable just
00:46:27.200
over the school lockdown issue, they should look in the mirror.
00:46:30.760
I mean, this, I am legitimately furious that Fauci, who is probably the worst person in the
00:46:37.400
country in terms of policy that results in misery, destruction, and despair, that they
00:46:43.720
It was a little Fauci, Walensky, Randy Weingarten apparatus of evil and child abuse and economic
00:46:50.900
and psychological devastation with no health benefit whatsoever, none.
00:46:55.720
And Biden's running around saying, if you won't get the shot, you're like a menace to
00:46:59.060
society and should be treated as, you know, typhoid Mary.
00:47:05.540
What she said there was so indicative and triggering of what we all went through with them.
00:47:10.520
Remember Rochelle Walensky, like crying, like, I just have this impending sense of doom.
00:47:15.940
And then you hear Randy Weingarten, like you say, with a scrunched up face.
00:47:21.240
I guarantee you, she's probably my old neighbor on the Upper West Side.
00:47:32.440
I don't care about your mental health issues unless they affect me.
00:47:37.760
They affected an entire nation full of schoolchildren.
00:47:51.580
They're still they're still running these these operations.
00:47:54.780
And the American people had the chance to elect new leaders.
00:47:58.160
And they have another chance in 2024 to elect somebody who could possibly get rid of these
00:48:06.960
It doesn't look like they're necessarily inclined to do it.
00:48:11.000
Yeah, I'm I'm never going to let this go, by the way.
00:48:14.080
I just I've made this statement to my audience, to my friends and family, the people that did
00:48:21.360
And I will continue to push because they're going to try to rewrite Soviet style, the history
00:48:26.880
They are child abusing, hysteric, lunatic totalitarians.
00:48:30.640
And it was it became very clear this was the Democrat playbook.
00:48:34.000
The Democrat Party should be held responsible for this.
00:48:38.440
But I do enjoy very much talking to you, Megan.
00:48:44.660
I didn't even give you the questions in advance, like the L.A.
00:48:55.960
We're going to be right back with the high school volleyball player who was severely injured
00:49:03.180
Now, she's decided to speak out about her injuries and about the fact that they made her play
00:49:13.980
We'll bring you that guest and the update next.
00:49:19.780
Our next guest is high school volleyball player Peyton McNabb.
00:49:24.020
She suffered severe head and neck injuries this past fall when a transgender athlete spiked
00:49:32.760
This month, Peyton decided to speak out about her experience to encourage lawmakers to take
00:49:37.760
action to keep biological males out of girls' sports.
00:49:51.860
And were you 17 or 18 when this injury occurred?
00:50:03.040
I'm high school in Murphy, North Carolina, but I'll be graduating this spring.
00:50:08.900
And were you a volleyball player for most of your life or did you come to it, you know,
00:50:15.380
I played all throughout middle school and high school.
00:50:19.780
I mean, how was your how are you and how was your team?
00:50:28.000
I was on varsity for three years out of my four.
00:50:32.940
Is it like I have a daughter who plays soccer and generally you get a position in soccer and
00:50:38.680
Is it the same in volleyball or can you go to any one of the spots if you make the team?
00:50:49.020
So because I am a lot shorter than everybody else.
00:50:52.320
So I just set the ball up for our power hitters.
00:50:58.820
OK, and so you'd been playing against other schools, I assume, from it for all the times
00:51:06.980
So now you there comes this time when you're going to play against this other team that
00:51:14.460
And did you know that there was a trans player at Highland High School?
00:51:33.820
So we went into the game knowing that it was a transgender athlete.
00:51:38.280
And was there any concern at that point going into the game?
00:51:47.520
Um, they hit it so hard that we didn't really know.
00:51:57.680
So you knew that this person was going to have extra firepower because it's it's obviously
00:52:07.040
He's going to have who went through male puberty, as I understand it, with, you know, longer
00:52:14.320
Do you know any background on the trans player, like when they transitioned, et cetera?
00:52:19.200
Um, I don't I don't know any of their like, you know, life or anything.
00:52:23.920
But I just know, uh, cause they had to tell all the schools when they started playing.
00:52:32.760
And does this person, it described as person's physical appearance.
00:52:50.140
So more like a girl, but identifiable as a biological male.
00:52:57.040
So did you were you at all afraid going into this match or did you feel like I'm it'll be
00:53:04.120
I was, um, I know a lot of the girls where I was just kind of used to it because it was
00:53:09.820
But I knew all the younger players that were really scared, but they just knew that they
00:53:16.560
So you've played against this team and this particular player in the past.
00:53:25.640
But of course, this person like you is aging, is getting older and stronger and growing into
00:53:32.200
what is a biologically male body as you go into your biologically female adult body.
00:53:40.780
So what happened in the game when you got hurt?
00:53:49.920
Um, my teammates and coaches said I was unconscious for about 30 seconds while my team was huddling
00:54:01.180
Um, but when I came back to consciousness, a trainer took me to the sign lines and checked
00:54:08.340
me for a concussion and told me I was fine and could go back in.
00:54:19.880
I was really, um, my adrenaline was really hot and I was really, I don't know, I just
00:54:28.780
I was really angry, but I was just hoping that it wouldn't happen to anyone else after
00:54:37.600
Did they pull the trans athlete, the other school, the other team?
00:54:42.300
So this person continued playing against your teammates, even after you were hurt?
00:54:47.940
What was the reaction in the stands with the parents?
00:54:50.560
You know, I go to these games all the time with my kids.
00:54:52.580
I feel like there would have been a revolt by the parents.
00:54:56.000
Everyone went silent and no one really knew what to do.
00:55:05.360
Actually, that was the only game they didn't go to.
00:55:07.020
But my grandma was there and she, um, she was just so upset.
00:55:13.060
She came down to the court and made sure I was okay.
00:55:20.220
We do have video of the moment, which I'll play for the watching audience.
00:55:24.020
You don't need to look at it if it's upsetting to you, but I just want to show them what
00:55:28.460
You're on the, that's the trans player that we have the green circle around spiking the
00:55:35.580
So the trans players, obviously larger, very power, powerful spike.
00:55:40.740
And I mean, it doesn't look like you even had a chance to, to respond to that.
00:55:45.180
I mean, looking back, do you feel like you did?
00:55:47.700
Was there any chance of you to defend that ball?
00:55:51.480
Um, a lot of people say that there was, and I should have protected myself better, but
00:55:56.100
I had, I seriously had no time to even think of that.
00:56:01.040
Do you, when you watch that back now, is it upsetting to you?
00:56:06.320
Um, yeah, it's upsetting, but I think I've seen it so much.
00:56:13.540
I think our society has kind of gotten used to it, which we, we cannot.
00:56:17.180
And that's one of the reasons it's so important.
00:56:20.140
So I'm going to get to your testimony this week and what you're doing to make some good,
00:56:36.020
No, I, I was out for the rest of my volleyball season.
00:56:40.360
Um, uh, came back like halfway through my basketball or a little bit in my basketball, but it wasn't the same as it has been the last three years.
00:56:53.460
Um, and I was really, I just wasn't playing like I used to.
00:57:02.620
I've been trying to heal and take my time with it so I can get a hundred percent back.
00:57:08.660
But it's hard because, you know, I want to still do things and, um, have fun and stuff.
00:57:18.440
This happened in September, this past September.
00:57:24.300
What are the lasting effects from what happened to you?
00:57:30.200
So I have to, I had to get my glasses, uh, redone.
00:57:43.040
Um, I, I have really bad headaches and, but not as bad, but they just, they've getting, they're getting better.
00:57:53.020
I have to have accommodations at school and test in separate rooms and get extra help when that's never been a problem before.
00:58:10.820
I had a really long depressive episode and I have anxiety now.
00:58:18.160
Um, but you know, I'm, I'm trying to get better from it, but it has affected me, you know, mentally and emotionally.
00:58:28.700
It was, it was, it was just really sad because this is my last year and it was nothing like I imagined it was going to be.
00:58:38.040
I can't do things that, you know, I've had no problem doing in the past.
00:58:46.980
This became a national news story pretty soon after it happened.
00:58:52.180
Did the person who hurt you ever reach out to you and say, my God, I'm so sorry.
00:58:58.960
They did reach out about a week ago, um, for the first time ever, and there was no remorse.
00:59:09.920
It was kind of just a little hateful comment, but that's, that's the only time they've directly reached out to me.
00:59:17.460
I understand there was a message to the effect of, I, I appear to be renting space in your head.
00:59:33.420
And this person never reached out to you between September and now at all to say, I'm sorry, or are you okay?
00:59:44.100
That's like, when you talk about this with your parents, I feel like the parents would be like, what the hell?
00:59:49.780
We're not only should the trans person be reaching out, but the parents should be reaching out.
00:59:54.060
The school, all of them should be reaching out to make sure you're okay to offer help with your medical bills and to make sure this doesn't happen again.
01:00:06.100
That is just a disappointment on a human level.
01:00:09.140
And the one reach out is a snarky comment after you went on Fox News with Laura.
01:00:18.140
This is not the way for, for trans people to get others to be more open-minded to their participation in sport.
01:00:27.180
We shouldn't be open-minded because it shouldn't happen.
01:00:31.040
So you ultimately decide, oh, can I ask you first before we get to your new activism, which is great.
01:00:39.800
Sometimes in these stories, people turn against the victim.
01:00:44.540
Surprisingly, there has been an overwhelming support.
01:00:48.500
Everyone that I live around, they've all been so supportive.
01:00:54.100
And there's been so many people reach out and be really, really, really nice and kind.
01:01:05.080
But everything they say, they don't actually know what happened.
01:01:09.040
And so they're just kind of going for me and calling me transphobic and, like, hateful and things like that.
01:01:19.680
You know, like, if you want to be any of those things, like, that is your business.
01:01:26.940
It's just trying to protect women and women's sports.
01:01:30.760
Did that come after you spoke out publicly about it or while you were just still suffering silently and privately?
01:01:39.780
Yeah, God forbid you actually use your voice to say, I have a few objections to this setup.
01:01:47.780
Or were you scared to, like, because now there's this bill in North Carolina to try to keep biological boys out of girls' sports,
01:01:55.080
which seems like the perfect opportunity for you to say, I would like to comment.
01:02:12.680
But, you know, I thought it would be so wasteful not to use my story to try to do something good from it.
01:02:21.860
So, you know, I don't want my sister to have to deal with this anymore.
01:02:26.460
I don't want my, the rest of my family, my teammates, my future daughters,
01:02:31.320
I don't want them to ever have to even think about this stuff.
01:02:37.440
You're fighting for my daughter, too, right now.
01:02:49.300
And then I went before other people, too, but I don't really know who it was.
01:02:54.500
OK, and we have a clip of you in front of the state legislature.
01:02:58.600
I guess it was the House, a committee hearing offering a bit of your testimonial.
01:03:04.360
Due to the North Carolina High School Athletic Association policy allowing biological males to compete against biological females,
01:03:15.120
On September 1st, 2022, I was severely injured in a high school volleyball game by a transgender athlete on the opposing team.
01:03:24.720
I suffered from a concussion and neck injury that, to this day, I'm still recovering from.
01:03:29.720
I could go on and on about how this incident has affected my life, but I'm not here for that.
01:03:35.620
I'm here for every biological female athlete behind me.
01:03:39.640
Allowing biological males to compete against biological females is dangerous.
01:03:45.120
I may be the first to come before you with an injury, but if this doesn't pass, I won't be the last.
01:03:54.180
Do you first of all, what do we know the outcome of the bill?
01:03:59.820
They said that it had passed through the Senate and that's the last I've heard.
01:04:09.760
We at the federal level, unfortunately, have a president who's fighting against you,
01:04:13.180
who's trying to erase the 19 state bans against biological boys participating in girls' sports.
01:04:22.900
The president doesn't think we should have bans, even if it's decided on a state-by-state level.
01:04:30.500
My message to him is he doesn't know what it's like.
01:04:37.520
And for him to make those decisions for women, it's kind of mind-numbing because he's never had to experience that, so he doesn't know.
01:04:53.800
I think he is putting my sister, you know, in danger.
01:04:58.580
I think he's putting every other biological female in danger by doing that.
01:05:03.020
Did the other school continue letting the trans player participate in this sport against other schools?
01:05:19.640
Did they say, hey, in light of what happened with Peyton, we're not playing you?
01:05:28.640
Almost every school was super supportive around here.
01:05:39.240
Because I would imagine, you know, if you're running a school district, you have to worry about liability.
01:05:43.820
You know, you have to worry about, you know, getting sued once you've seen that this person is hurting other girls, girls on other teams.
01:05:51.600
You've got to do something about it or you're on the hook.
01:06:03.060
So we haven't really thought about any of that stuff.
01:06:05.420
Two other girls who may be in the position of having to play against this trans person, should they do it?
01:06:15.100
No, they should not put themselves in danger like that if they can.
01:06:21.900
We're getting forced to, really, but if they have the decision, I wouldn't do it.
01:06:26.560
Do you think there's a risk girls are going along with it just so they're not called names like transphobe?
01:06:33.860
I think the people that throw those terms out and try to bring you down like that, they're so focused on including those kind of people and everything, and they're potentially excluding women.
01:06:56.080
There are a lot of women and men sitting at home right now agreeing with everything you've said, but they're worried if they speak out, they're going to get called names, their boss is going to think less of them, they're going to suffer some backlash.
01:07:11.040
So they let people like you and Riley Gaines stay on the front lines of this kind of a battle and just kind of wish you luck.
01:07:21.540
That there is a lot more support than you think.
01:07:28.980
Obviously, if the world is against you, then it's the right thing.
01:07:39.380
So all, all these people need to come together and stand up for it because there's no need to go on any longer.
01:08:00.100
I can think of another activity that may be taking up your time.
01:08:03.060
I hope I see you next to Riley with the independent women's forum, speaking out, using your voice to help others.
01:08:12.400
Congrats on learning such an important lesson at such a young age on how important it is to speak out.
01:08:21.900
When we come back, another brave young woman speaking out.
01:08:29.200
Now, another very brave young woman speaking out.
01:08:37.360
Our next guest has chosen to stay anonymous, which sadly she really does have to do in order to protect herself to talk about this issue.
01:08:50.140
That's her brand dove, kind of like Brandon, but not exactly.
01:08:53.500
She is a 14 year old high school student in Ireland who has been absolutely unafraid to speak out against gender ideology being taught in her classrooms and just shoved down the throats of young women who don't want it.
01:09:09.240
She attended the Let Women Speak rally in Belfast this month with Kelly J. Keene, who you'll remember as Posey Parker.
01:09:17.620
She came on our show, I think, two Fridays ago and Brand Dove shared this amazing poem.
01:09:26.600
The poem's called I Am Not a Dress and my producer, Kelly McGuire, forwarded it to me.
01:09:33.520
I have played it privately numerous times since then.
01:09:37.800
I just go on and I click the video of Brand Dove reading this poem at the Kelly J. Keene event and you're going to find out why I love it so much.
01:09:47.460
Listen, I can't believe that she came up with this.
01:09:50.640
She's so young and the messaging is so spot on.
01:09:54.560
If you are looking for the motivation to use your voice in the way Peyton was just asking you to listen to this two minutes and this powerful poem.
01:10:47.300
So while my rights are trampled every day of the week,
01:10:59.000
There is more to a woman than that shallow lies.
01:11:20.320
Who will not let her rights be put up for sale?
01:12:24.680
Brandov, thank you so much for coming on and thank you for your beautiful words.
01:12:34.240
I can hear it in your voice and I understand why you don't want to go on cam with your face
01:12:48.460
I first came up with the idea when I attended an event in Ireland in November.
01:12:56.360
Like one woman shared a poem she had written and I was like, hey, I think I could do something
01:13:05.740
I came up with the first couple of lines that night.
01:13:10.720
I mean, I know your mother has been your advocate and helper along.
01:13:14.840
When you read that to your mother, did she weep?
01:13:18.960
I mean, if it's got if it got me, I can imagine it got her.
01:13:27.440
It's a battle cry for women to remember who they are, what they're capable of and what
01:13:41.400
When I read about what's happening to you, Brando, I thought, my God, we have it easy
01:13:47.900
They the the indoctrination that you are being subjected to is absolutely breathtaking.
01:13:54.140
So walk us through when it started to seep into your life, like in school and how.
01:14:00.080
OK, so I started secondary school and that's high school in America.
01:14:07.780
And so my first year there and I was there for maybe eight weeks when my school celebrated
01:14:18.540
And we were told that stand up week was this week where we basically try to show members
01:14:27.700
of the LGBTQ plus community in our school that they're welcome there.
01:14:34.760
It was about shoving TQ plus propaganda down our throats.
01:14:38.880
In one class, my teacher gave us this booklet published by an organization called Belong To.
01:14:51.860
It said stuff about gender identity and gender expression and how your sex is assigned at birth,
01:15:03.880
And many women have it observed in utero before the baby is even born.
01:15:08.680
So I asked some questions about this and it all went from there.
01:15:13.300
So you you challenged you said, what do you mean?
01:15:22.760
The next week, I got pulled out of class by my science teacher.
01:15:32.080
She told me that the previous week I had made some offensive comments about trans people.
01:15:39.520
So she basically told me that I was being transphobic.
01:15:44.920
In particular, what what in particular did she object to?
01:15:47.860
She didn't say she just said I'd made offensive comments.
01:15:55.960
I said something about men shouldn't be in women's prisons, even if they identify as
01:16:05.260
I asked about questions about what was in the plus and the LGBTQ plus.
01:16:21.000
But OK, so you were questioning this questioning itself.
01:16:24.960
And you were told by the science teacher, no, don't do that.
01:16:28.580
Yes, I so I argued back with my science teacher.
01:16:33.380
So she expected me to be terribly repentant that I'd been transphobic.
01:16:42.620
At one point, she told me that being a man or a woman has nothing to do with your reproductive
01:16:56.720
Now, how had you prepared yourself for that kind of exchange?
01:17:01.060
Like a lot of 14 year olds are not even thinking about gender and this whole gender ideology
01:17:07.140
You know, how were you up to speed on the insanity that was being spooned to you?
01:17:12.880
My mom had been telling me about this for a while now, but by that point.
01:17:18.800
And so before I started high school and she told me that they might celebrate this thing
01:17:29.860
But we had no idea it would be as bad as it was.
01:17:32.740
But just in case, mom told me about all this trans stuff.
01:17:39.940
And she backed you up like you don't have to buy into this or pretend that you buy into
01:17:48.420
I mean, that's I think for mothers out there, that's half the battle.
01:17:50.940
Like I say to my kids, too, you you do not actually need to participate.
01:17:56.660
You don't need to buy into these discussions at all.
01:17:59.240
So I do think there's an important lesson there with your mom.
01:18:02.520
Now, it wasn't without consequence, because as I understand it, not only did your teachers
01:18:07.160
not appreciate your boldness on this issue, but your classmates turned on you in large
01:18:15.520
What happened after the class where I asked about men in women's prisons, a couple of
01:18:21.120
my classmates came up to me and they started telling me about how I had been very transphobic.
01:18:28.820
But then suddenly after that, they stopped talking to me and they had reported me to my
01:18:35.060
they had they reported me for what I'd said in that class.
01:18:39.540
So your your friends turn on you and then ultimately you have a conversation with the
01:18:50.180
So after I refused to give in to my science teachers and sanity and I got pulled out of
01:18:57.700
class again a few weeks later by my year head, he told me again that I'd made some very
01:19:04.300
offensive comments and I said that no, I'd stated reality and yeah, that's not offensive.
01:19:13.400
And if you find that offensive, that's not my problem.
01:19:18.420
He said, well, because this school is really inclusive, it's not the right atmosphere for
01:19:26.680
So in other words, he told me that because the school is so inclusive, my beliefs aren't
01:19:32.440
Well, I mean, did do you think he was in any way cognizant of how absurd what he was saying
01:19:41.640
Did he he just didn't care because he's woke and he's assigned on to this other ideology?
01:19:47.560
Well, when you when you can't I mean, the whole trans ideology is just a walking pile of
01:19:54.540
So I suppose one more wasn't going to be too much to him.
01:20:04.920
There were a couple of disturbing incidents with some unkind people.
01:20:08.880
So I went into class one day and this happened a few times, actually.
01:20:13.000
But yeah, I went in one day and someone had scrolled trans rights or human rights across
01:20:20.180
Another time I went into class and someone had scrolled the same slogan across a whiteboard.
01:20:27.840
And in classes where there's no seating plan, I sit on my own.
01:20:33.780
If I arrive first, I sit on it at a table and everyone else actively avoids that table.
01:20:40.680
Because you just can't associate with a transphobe.
01:20:52.780
I like I can't believe that all the students feel as you know, the woke trans advocates
01:21:03.840
Are there boys who are seeing it the way you're seeing?
01:21:05.880
Is there anybody there or do you think you have supporters?
01:21:13.520
They see it for the madness, but they still don't associate with me.
01:21:16.780
They just think it's a joke and they're like, oh, she's because like being a transphobe
01:21:27.320
I remember being a 14 year old girl and getting targeted by the rest of the grade doesn't feel
01:21:37.880
So at lunch, well, I might write a Twitter thread just to, you know, show of defiance.
01:21:44.440
I'm going to, you're not going to stop me talking about this issue.
01:21:52.620
Sometimes I think of the suffragettes and what they went through because women fighting
01:22:04.260
And I think what would have happened if they hadn't spoken out?
01:22:08.540
Like we would, we still would not have the vote if the suffragettes had not spoken out.
01:22:17.940
I don't want her to have to deal with this rubbish at school.
01:22:27.960
You, um, I mean, you have what, three more years to get through until you're out of there?
01:22:35.080
I'm in second year now, so I've got four more years.
01:22:42.220
I can speak to this as having been very badly bullied in my seventh grade year.
01:22:49.300
I feel like you're going to find, even if you find them in an outside activity, you need
01:22:53.680
And you know, where you have so many fans and supporters around the world now, Brando.
01:23:03.200
Always remember that those haters inside your school are not your world and just people
01:23:07.180
you have to get through to get to the rest of us on the other side.
01:23:10.560
Um, let me ask you this, cause I want to ask you about some of the lines in your, in your
01:23:19.980
Um, this to me brought up things like Dylan Mulvaney, um, the pictures, there is more to
01:23:27.440
women than shallow guys where you say, I am not defined by sexist lies.
01:23:35.760
When I read that, I was thinking about people like Dylan Mulvaney, who I don't know about
01:23:41.400
you, but I find particularly offensive because Dylan's version of womanhood reduces women
01:23:50.680
But Dylan's defenders would say, well, that's Dylan's experience of what it's like to be
01:23:57.680
And Dylan's full of love and is a joyful person.
01:24:04.680
And why are you all feeling so offended by Dylan?
01:24:06.940
Who's expressing womanhood in the way that feels real to him?
01:24:12.800
Well, he's not expressing womanhood cause he can't cause he's a man.
01:24:16.440
I just don't get why he can't be a man who wears dresses, who wants to wear makeup.
01:24:21.440
If he tries to say he's a woman when he's not, we have every right to object to that.
01:24:28.460
Well, if he's a woman, if, if any, if any man can declare himself a woman, where does
01:24:40.640
And if we, we have to accept that, well, we're told we have to anyway, then it brings
01:24:48.360
If we have, who's a man in women's prisons, who identifies as a woman.
01:24:56.140
We say he's a woman, maybe he's not harming anyone, but then what about this man?
01:25:02.880
But, but this man Kardashian, why isn't he a woman?
01:25:06.980
If Dylan's a woman, it's just a slippery slope.
01:25:10.240
Once you, once you engage in the fiction, you're in the fiction.
01:25:15.900
So are you anti pronouns, you know, preferred pronouns?
01:25:20.540
I wouldn't use them because I thought it'd be a lie.
01:25:24.240
And I was given a form once in school and I was asked to fill it out.
01:25:29.100
And so everyone in the class was, it was a form about pronouns.
01:25:33.600
And I was asked, would I use someone's preferred pronouns?
01:25:39.680
The options were definitely, probably, probably not.
01:25:45.620
They didn't give you an option to say, no, I definitely would not.
01:25:55.440
Well, you know that there are a lot of people who say it's discourteous.
01:25:59.780
You know, it's not about truth versus real, you know, non-truth.
01:26:04.100
It's about being kind, being considerate of somebody.
01:26:18.380
You know, the, well, what does it hurt, you know, to just be kind and not offend somebody
01:26:28.760
And we've, since when do we affirm someone's delusion?
01:26:33.120
People have always had misconceptions about who they are.
01:26:38.940
We don't tell them that they're fat because it's not true.
01:26:44.660
So we shouldn't tell men who think they're women that they are women.
01:26:48.380
And what if you met a trans person who said, oh, I'm a woman.
01:26:54.000
And he's sitting right there with you at, you know, a table.
01:27:03.100
If I was talking to him, I probably wouldn't be using she, her or he, him.
01:27:08.340
Anyway, but if I have to use a pronoun in his presence, I would still use he, him because
01:27:18.820
I admire your courage and I'm working on finding my own in the wake of conversations like this.
01:27:26.640
I've spoken with so many people over the past months and years on this, and I'm really starting
01:27:32.780
I'm seeing the light because of courageous young women like you.
01:27:37.560
So while your message gets rejected and labeled negatively by your teachers and your classmates,
01:27:45.200
just know you're influencing people like me with very powerful platforms who have millions
01:27:51.900
And I know my audience is listening to you feeling the way I am feeling.
01:27:59.300
Don't let them hurt you so much that you submit or, or silence your voice.
01:28:12.600
We're going to be seeing a lot more of you, especially once you hit the age of majority.
01:28:17.280
And I can't wait to see at that point, your beautiful face and learn much, much more about
01:28:31.120
All of her courage and bravery, which is available to us all.
01:28:35.380
We're going to be right back with a closing message.
01:28:37.420
Before we go, I want to give you some entries in the, from the MK mailbag.
01:28:52.040
If you want to email me, it's Megan, M E G Y N at Megan Kelly.com.
01:28:58.020
If you go to Megan Kelly.com, they'll make it easy for you.
01:29:00.900
And you can subscribe to our American news minute with a crazy story about Strudwick this
01:29:13.300
So this like got a lot of mail about Tucker this week.
01:29:17.700
Kathy in Pennsylvania writes, I came to Fox to watch Tucker after Afghanistan was not being
01:29:23.720
And I couldn't understand why I stuck with Fox, got Fox nation and loved Tucker's specials.
01:29:32.420
Mark in New York writes your show and Tucker's show were the only reasons I
01:29:42.720
I was only keeping Xfinity TV account to watch Tucker F them all.
01:29:48.620
I have talked with so many people today about Tucker and they all feel the same as me.
01:30:01.040
I mean, the overwhelming majority of you guys felt that way.
01:30:05.820
Nick appreciate the voice of dissent because it's always great to have opposing points of
01:30:10.040
He writes in Fox did the right thing by getting rid of Tucker.
01:30:13.140
The text messages showed he was putting forth propaganda he knew was false on the stolen
01:30:18.700
He lied to his audience on purpose for ratings.
01:30:22.120
He may be an opinion show, but that is still no excuse.
01:30:25.700
This also puts more pressure on MSNBC to ditch Maddow and Joy Reid for the same reasons.
01:30:32.160
I don't think that that's accurate, that that his text messages showed he was putting
01:30:35.780
forth propaganda he knew was false on the stolen election claims of 2020.
01:30:41.760
There was never a show he did or that even Dominion claimed he did that showed that he
01:30:50.240
And I think the term rigged has come to mean different things to different people.
01:30:54.280
You know, he talked about the change of rules in Pennsylvania when it came to the mailing
01:30:59.500
And so we could go down the list, but there's nothing in his text messages that shows he
01:31:04.900
did not believe that there's been a conflation, I think, in the way a lot of the mainstream
01:31:10.660
But in any event, I appreciate the feedback either way.
01:31:19.580
OK, wait, she's I'm going to show you what she's reacting to because it's worth playing.
01:31:22.960
Um, she got a kick out of this soundbite we ran this week.
01:31:26.780
So I think it's very important, as you have heard from so many incredible leaders for
01:31:35.320
us at every moment in time and certainly this one to see the moment in time in which we
01:31:42.840
exist in our present and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history
01:31:51.840
and in the moment as it relates not only to the past, but the future.
01:32:07.980
All that was missing from that rambling was the use of a Venn diagram.
01:32:18.000
I just had to take a moment to tell you how much I love when you go after AOC.
01:32:22.900
He writes, I may not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but she is absolutely an idiot to
01:32:31.740
We have different guys from National Review or gals.
01:32:36.360
Mary writes, loved the fiery exchange with Noah Rothman on Wednesday's show.
01:32:40.120
I don't always agree with everything on your show, but I listen because you engage in good
01:32:42.880
faith with points of view I don't hear in other places.
01:32:47.140
Tony also writes, love the spicy back and forth between you and Noah from National Review.
01:32:55.720
It's kind of fun to hear people disagree, right?
01:32:57.780
It gets boring if it's always like, yes, I agree.
01:33:01.120
So we try to bring you different points of view and help keep it a little spicy and a
01:33:05.920
little sweet, a little sweet and spicy, just like yours truly.
01:33:11.420
I'm going to Miami and it's going to get very sweet and spicy there.
01:33:15.600
I'll have a full rundown for you when I come back on Monday.
01:33:19.200
Go ahead and subscribe to the show on YouTube while I have it.