Free Speech Under Fire and Vaccine Mandates, with Michael Knowles and John Kass | Ep. 191
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 31 minutes
Words per Minute
171.18591
Summary
When asked repeatedly about whether he will now withdraw a memo threatening to investigate and potentially prosecute parents whose behavior he does not like at school board meetings, Merrick Garland refused, saying threats of violence and violence are fair game for the DOJ.
Transcript
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest and provocative conversations.
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Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
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Merrick Garland in the hot seat yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee
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Michael Knowles will be here in one minute to react.
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Asked repeatedly about whether he will now withdraw his memo
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threatening to investigate and potentially prosecute parents
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whose behavior he does not like at school board meetings,
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Merrick Garland refused, saying threats of violence and violence are fair game for the DOJ.
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The National School Boards Association wrote a letter to the White House
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complaining about loud parents whom they suggested might be treated as criminals and domestic terrorists
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after many failed to comply with various protocols at school board meetings.
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Parents understandably upset about CRT lesson plans shaming children for their race,
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about radical trans ideology being shoved down the throats of children as young as single digits,
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mask mandates everywhere despite the CDC's own comprehensive study of 90,000 children showing they do nothing,
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vaccine mandates for children irrespective of medical risks,
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X-rated books in school libraries that literally celebrate child rape, and on and on it goes.
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So, yes, parents are especially concerned right now, and to their credit, they're voicing it.
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Well, after that National School Boards Association letter, which we now know was coordinated in advance
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with a White House that is clearly cognizant of the political damage these clips of angry parents
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could do to the president and Democrats nationwide, the DOJ immediately set to work,
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affirmatively declaring, without investigating at all, that, quote,
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there has been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school board administrators,
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Attorney General Merrick Garland warned parents nationwide that he would, quote,
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use the DOJ's authority and resources to discourage these threats,
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identify them, and prosecute them when appropriate.
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In other words, he'll sick the FBI on you if you get out of line.
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Since then, outrage has spread across this country and across political lines.
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A recent poll showed only 19% of Americans support the FBI monitoring and investigating parents in this way.
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Some 57% oppose, including the vast majority of Republicans and 63% of independents.
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Ultimately, school boards began bailing from the NSBA,
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and the group was forced to apologize for its incendiary letter and withdraw it,
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leading to demands that Attorney General Garland,
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who again admitted that the DOJ's involvement was based on that NSBA letter, stand down.
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What does the National Security Division have to do with parents at school boards?
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This is not, again, about parents at school boards.
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Okay, let me turn to that, because you've said that phrase repeatedly throughout the morning.
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They said that they were facing violence and threats of violence,
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this memorandum is aimed at violence and threats of violence.
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First of all, this is a misrepresentation of what the NSBA alleged in its letter.
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The NSBA cited 26 alleged problematic incidents that it said warranted the DOJ's attention,
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the vast majority of which involved items like parents refusing to put masks on
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or cede their microphones when ordered to do so,
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not threats of violence, nor any incidents of actual violence,
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The only real allegation of this kind had to do with what happened in Loudoun County, Virginia,
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when the cops decided to arrest Scott Smith, a man we now know was upset because his superintendent
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was there lying about there never having been a rape in a school bathroom
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when Mr. Smith's ninth grade daughter had just been raped a week or two earlier,
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a crime for which the defendant boy has now been convicted.
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Other than that, there was one incident of alleged threats in Worthington, New York,
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in which a letter sent to the board there said, quote,
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we are coming after you and all the members of the board.
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You all should be tried for treason, end quote.
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This is not the stuff of federal law enforcement.
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For another, it is not within the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice.
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As Merrick Garland well knows, the DOJ cannot investigate or prosecute parents for alleged
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threats, threats of violence, or as he claimed in his October 4th letter, quote,
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efforts to intimidate individuals based on their point of view, are free speech, protected
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Incitement is speech that law enforcement can potentially attack as unlawful, but the bar
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In America, you are allowed to say things like, I could kill you, or you should be afraid,
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The law recognizes that in the vast majority of those cases, those are expressions of upset
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In order to cross a legal line, the speech must, one, unambiguously, two, call for the
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use of force, three, that the speaker clearly intends, four, under circumstances in which the
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likelihood of violence is both real and imminent.
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And there's no allegation that any of these alleged threats were ever acted upon.
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Same goes for Garland's other focus in his statement, efforts to intimidate someone's
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That's protected by the First Amendment as well.
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Even if any of the examples at issue here rose to the level of, quote, incitement, the DOJ
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That is left to the states and local authorities.
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Even an actual attack on a school board member or a parent at a meeting would be handled by
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That is what happened in Loudoun County, though Scott Smith did nothing wrong.
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Former prosecutor Andy McCarthy recently had a column in National Review outlining all of
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this and pointing out that this is an incredibly politicized DOJ, just like the one under the
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Obama-Biden administration, which is Andy Nodes, quote, made the process the penalty.
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The investigation process, coupled with the threat of federal criminality, you're going
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They did it with the IRS scandal, threatening conservative groups with the loss of their
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tax-exempt status, with the threatened takeovers of police departments that Ben A.G.
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Eric Holder deemed problematic, with the Dear Colleague letter they used to scare universities
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into eliminating due process for young men accused of sexual assault, and on and on.
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The end result is to silence and control those who could undermine this president's agenda.
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And that is why Merrick Garland is standing by his threats of investigation and prosecution.
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He and his pals at the White House want to stop the debate altogether.
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Joining me now, Michael Knowles, the host of The Michael Knowles Show on The Daily Wire,
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It was incredibly outrageous and disingenuous of that A.G. yesterday to keep looking at those
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lawmakers and act like this is about the violence and threats of violence that these school board
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Merrick Garland is like a meek, mild-mannered, diminutive Al Capone in the way that he's speaking.
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The corruption is that Merrick Garland's son-in-law runs a company that peddles critical race theory
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Senator Cruz absolutely nailed Garland on this point.
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Garland refused to answer the question because he knows that Cruz had him dead to rights.
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But then even more thuggish, you have the only threat, the only real threat in this entire
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And the threat is, if you speak out in any way, if you question the radical racial and
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sexual theories that are being peddled in these schools, we're going to come after you.
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Just as you said, Megan, the FBI is going to come knock on your door.
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The DOJ is going to call you a domestic terrorist.
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And so this is now beyond the scope of politics.
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It's actually the difference between political debate and what is sometimes called the regime,
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Sure, we can debate raising taxes or lowering taxes, right?
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But we are not permitted any longer to debate the radical racial and sexual theories in schools.
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And if you do, the DOJ is going to investigate you and possibly prosecute you.
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Yes, the White House has weaponized the DOJ against parents who have every right to speak
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out about what is being done to their children.
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And let's just spend a minute on the conflict of interest that Merrick Garland has in this.
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So his son-in-law, the man married to Merrick Garland's daughter, has a company that pushes
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Our research says his company made $27 million last year doing exactly this, getting CRT programs
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That, folks, importantly, is very much part of what those parents are complaining about
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and are arguing about, and all those incendiary clips that Merrick Garland is so upset about.
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Ted Cruz, as you point out, goes after Merrick Garland, pushing him on, did you run that by
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Did you have somebody advise you on this before you decided to start threatening those parents
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Judge, you know how to ask questions and answer them.
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You asked me whether I sought an ethics opinion about something that would have a predictable
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This has no predictable effect in the way that you're talking about.
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So if critical race theory is taught in more schools, does your son-in-law make more money?
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If critical race theory is taught in more schools, does your son-in-law make more money?
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This memorandum has nothing to do with critical race theory or any other kind of curriculum.
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Will you answer if you sought an ethics opinion?
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What's happened is you've threatened the parents who are objecting to the programs your son-in-law
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And let me just tell you, Michael, because I looked it up.
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I went and actually looked up the ethics requirements.
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And I didn't even look at the ones for a judge, which he is.
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At the Department of Justice, every employee of the DOJ, including Merrick Garland, one,
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shall endeavor to avoid any actions or creating the appearance that they are violating the
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OK, you can't even have the appearance that you're violating one of the ethical standards
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And here is one of the many ethical standards that applies to him under misuse of official
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You may not use your public office for the gain of persons with which you are associated
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So if there is even an appearance that that Merrick Garland letter threatening parents
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was potentially advantageous financially to his son, not only did he need an ethics opinion,
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The fact that not more is being made out of this by the mainstream press is yet another
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Well, after that exchange, I was tempted to call the DOJ myself to report a murder because
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And you can tell Merrick Garland is a pretty clever politician because he won't answer the
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Senator Cruz was not asking him, is this an ethics violation?
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The question was simply, did you ask for an opinion or not?
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He certainly should have, but that's beside the point.
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He didn't do it and he doesn't want to give him the answer.
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As you point out quite aptly, Megan, this is not some small little company.
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It's not some mom and pop shop that the mom and pop CRT shop that is going into one or
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This is a company that's bringing in tens of millions of dollars.
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So this kind of national policy is going to have an effect on the company.
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But then the layers of deception go even deeper because I don't know about you, Megan, I'm
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old enough to remember, oh, two months ago when the left in this country and the elected
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Democrat officials told us that critical race theory is not being taught in schools.
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Critical race theory is simply being taught in certain law schools.
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Now what we're being told is critical race theory absolutely is being taught in schools
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And actually the government should enforce it and stop people from questioning that being
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I think that Republicans are right over and conservatives and even just ordinary moderate
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The entire basis for Merrick Garland injecting himself into this situation has evaporated.
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The school boards group is falling apart day by day.
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More and more school boards across the country are withdrawing from this group for getting
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And you can see in that poll the reason why 57 percent of Americans are against this.
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They don't want the DOJ or the FBI investigating parents who are upset for understandable reasons.
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And so the school board association letter has fallen apart.
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And yet that was the basis for Merrick Garland getting involved.
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Yesterday when questioned, Merrick Garland said, well, I was responding not just to the
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letter, but public reports of violence and threats of violence.
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Jim Jordan, Jim Jordan asked him about this last week.
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You said in recent months there's been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, threats
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When did you first review the data showing this so-called disturbing uptick?
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So I read the letter and we have been seeing over time threats.
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And then his addendum was and the newspapers, the news.
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So when he says yesterday, oh, public report, also public reports of violence, he's talking
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Because you would think that the National School Board Association would have the best
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And I already walked the audience through the fact that of the 20 plus examples in there,
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the vast majority were about people not wearing masks or seating their mics.
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There was one, one alleged incidence of violence.
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He got arrested because when a woman questioned whether his daughter was in fact raped, he called
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her a bitch and then the police put their hands on him in a scuffle between Smith and
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And by the way, if if Scott Smith were brought to trial for this, if he were put in front
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of a jury and the jury were told what happened, what led up to that incident, not a jury in
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the land would convict him because the real story here and it's another story that Merrick
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And it's a story coincidentally that the Daily Wire happened to break because the mainstream
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media didn't didn't want to investigate it is that this girl was raped by a man who wears
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girls clothing in the girls bathroom and the school covered it up and they covered it up
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because it raises questions about their radical transgender policy questions that now parents
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not just in Loudoun County, but around the country are asking.
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In the case of Scott Smith, he had this horrible personal experience with his own daughter, but
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parents around the country are absolutely right to question this.
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And what we are what we're seeing play out in real time is a cover up.
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One new piece of information on that and two thoughts.
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I think it was in The Washington Post that this young rape victim was assaulted by a boy she
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knew and that she, according to The Washington Post, had voluntarily met up with in the bathroom
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two times prior for some sort of fooling around.
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She didn't wish to fool around and he did forcibly rape her as he's now been found guilty of doing
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It's disgusting to me because now you've got some in the left wing press trying to diminish
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this claim of rape because two times prior she had been with him voluntarily.
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That's not how it works, as the left damn well knows.
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Number two, they're sort of saying, well, the fact that he had a skirt on is irrelevant
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since she had met him voluntarily twice before and he was her boyfriend.
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That's it's not about whether this kid's transgender or not.
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It could be because he didn't want anybody to bother him when he was going into the girls
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But the point is not really so much about whether trans people are going into the bathroom
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The point is that there had been a rape inside of the school bathroom two weeks earlier,
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and this superintendent stood up and told everyone not to worry about the transgender
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policy because these bathrooms are safe and they're not.
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A rape had just been committed by a guy wearing a skirt.
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I don't really give a damn what his motivation was.
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And he went on to rape again, according to the authorities.
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The refusal to acknowledge facts and to downplay the genuine concerns of parents in these circumstances,
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Michael, I think is what's driving things like the now dead heat between McAuliffe and
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This is the really important part of the story, which is not whether the kid is transgender
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It's about the schools protecting the transgender policy.
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So right now, the media are actually victim blaming because they're saying because this
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girl had had a relationship with this guy before and she explicitly said, I do not want
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They're saying, oh, well, basically she was asking for it.
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But the schools here, regardless of the motivations for the incident or even the particulars
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of it, why do you think the schools covered it up?
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Obviously, they're covering it up because there's this controversial policy and the action has
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And it might throw the gubernatorial race in Virginia.
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That's the reason that they covered it up, because this policy was under debate and their
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sort of woke ideology didn't want them, didn't allow them to offer any facts that might be
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They're not thinking about the rights of children, young girls to be safe.
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And this guy was a predator because he went on to the very next school and did it again,
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And by the way, they didn't tell the new school that he had just been arrested for doing this
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So parents' rights are out the window, as are children's rights.
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And by the way, now, today, there's a report about a woman seeing a Homeland Security vehicle
00:21:47.880
We're going to pick it up there and also get into the latest COVID madness.
00:21:52.620
Now your kid, as young as five, has said, you know, he can get a vaccination, right?
00:21:57.980
But already we're seeing reports of schools mandating it.
00:22:05.700
And by the way, even the officials behind the, you know, thumbs up on this thing are
00:22:21.460
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Joining me today, Michael Knowles, the host of the Michael Knowles show on The Daily Wire,
00:23:04.340
I was listening to you the other day and you were like, I was in middle school 19 years
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ago and they were already pushing all this crazy indoctrination identity politics.
00:23:21.480
Whenever I listen to you, I feel intellectually enriched, hence my fandom.
00:23:25.600
So let's talk about how this is manifesting now still.
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So before you think this woman's nuts, she actually posted a picture to her social media
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on Twitter of a Homeland Security car stationed outside of her school, Fairfax, Virginia.
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This is Fairfax, Virginia, the very jurisdiction we're talking about with Loudoun County Schools.
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And she led the charge to remove sexually explicit books from the school libraries.
00:23:58.560
And again, I just want the audience to know we're not talking about like, I don't know,
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they had an interlude and she lost her virginity.
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I'm we played the soundbite like glorifying the rape of children, pedophilia, glorifying
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talking about like man boy rape like it's totally normal and something everybody does.
00:24:26.040
Anyway, she led the charge to remove these books from their school libraries.
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And she says she's seen federal law enforcement flying helicopters and stationing cop cars outside
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of a school board meeting in Virginia meant to intimidate parents, she believes that picture
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of a Homeland Security car stationed outside the school.
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She claims there was a heavy federal law enforcement presence just days after she and others protested
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She says she has received death threats in response to the protest.
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She's got threats against her children by name.
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I'm sure that's the kind of threat he's definitely going to look into, Michael.
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I would not necessarily hold your breath for that.
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Frankly, with all of the political realignments now, I'm finding myself on the side of defund
00:25:09.220
If funding the police means that DHS is going to come kick in my door because I don't think
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we should have explicit pedophilic porn in the classroom, then then I guess we ought to
00:25:19.720
But the way we got here is, I think, because conservatives in this country fell for a trap.
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They fell for a trap in the 1960s and 70s, and it's really only grown since then, which
00:25:35.020
We've been told that the most important thing students can learn is to be open-minded, so open-minded
00:25:42.000
And so how dare you say we shouldn't have porn in the classroom?
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How dare you say that we shouldn't have radical racial theories in the classroom?
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Students just need to be exposed to everything.
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That's never been true in any educational institution.
00:25:56.860
Actually, the modern conservative movement began with a book by William F. Buckley Jr.
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making fun of this idea of academic freedom and openness.
00:26:05.220
And so when you look at something like porn in the classroom, that does not help a kid's
00:26:11.300
That actually harms a kid's education because it arouses all the lusts and the appetites
00:26:16.620
And the whole point of liberal education is to tamp that down and become a free person.
00:26:20.300
When you look at critical race theory, that doesn't help a kid's education.
00:26:24.800
It undermines the basic ideas of our government and our civics.
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In some cases, it undermines the idea that there's objective truth itself.
00:26:34.320
And I think if we really want to fight back against this, we need to take a lesson from
00:26:44.400
But the only book you can't read in the classroom is the Bible.
00:26:46.960
The Supreme Court told us that the most important book ever written is the one thing you can't
00:26:51.780
So I think what we need to do is go back in there and reimpose some standards.
00:26:56.120
And this is what parents are doing all around the country.
00:26:58.760
They're saying, hold on, you're telling me I'm going to send my kid to an institution for
00:27:02.100
eight hours a day for, what, 12, 13 years, more than that now, because there's pre-K and
00:27:09.320
So you're telling me I've got to send my kid to your institution for most of his life.
00:27:13.860
And I don't have any say in what he learns there, the way he's brought up spiritually,
00:27:18.860
physically, intellectually, and all of the above.
00:27:22.020
If parents don't have the right to educate their kids, then they don't have any parental
00:27:26.580
So you've got, as we mentioned before the break, this very fight leading to a dead heat
00:27:33.200
in the Virginia gubernatorial race, which is now being seen as potential bellwether on
00:27:42.000
This should be an easy win for the Democrat McAuliffe, who's already been governor of Virginia.
00:27:46.700
He's going to take over for governor, either blackface or KKK wearing hood guy, Ralph Northam.
00:27:52.880
I mean, his biggest sin is what he wants to do babies once they've been born on the on
00:28:00.420
So you'd think a state that would put him in office would easily put Terry McAuliffe back
00:28:05.960
But it's now down to a dead heat when he was leading by, I think, seven points about 10
00:28:13.320
He's to see a Democrat having having to beg for votes on education, defend themselves on
00:28:19.980
education. He's gotten Barack Obama down there, Joe Biden down there.
00:28:27.320
He even danced on the stage, which is something he promised he would never do.
00:28:31.160
He's so desperate as he to hold on to what was once a lead.
00:28:35.540
And now the line that the Dems are using on him, Youngkin, who's a moderate Republican,
00:28:41.240
you can't win as a far right guy and Republican these days, is as follows.
00:28:47.480
Listen to how they're now trying to dismiss Glenn Youngkin.
00:28:50.920
Extremism can come in many forms, can come in the rage of a mob driven to assault the
00:29:11.200
So, yeah, extremism can come in a fleece vest with a smile.
00:29:15.320
It can come in the form of, you know, somebody in his late 70s who doesn't seem to be paying
00:29:19.880
attention or able to express his thoughts a lot, too.
00:29:23.180
Joe Biden makes a good point here, actually, not about Glenn Youngkin.
00:29:28.760
So I and he's run an excellent campaign and he obviously should be the next governor of
00:29:37.320
They they accuse their opponents of things that are true of them.
00:29:40.140
And nowhere is it clearer that extremism can come in a vest with a nice, quiet voice than
00:29:53.140
We're getting a massive expansion of the government.
00:29:55.140
We're getting radical gender and racial theories everywhere.
00:29:58.020
We're getting the IRS looking into everyone's bank accounts if they've got more than 600
00:30:02.100
We're getting a push to get rid of the Hyde Amendment abortion on demand up until the moment
00:30:07.800
This is by far we're getting, I mean, radical transgender theory from the State Department
00:30:12.900
This is the most radical administration we've ever seen in this country.
00:30:18.480
It's because his party is is in that direction.
00:30:21.820
And he is that merely the the moderate, modest facade that's covering up a really radical
00:30:29.080
Merrick Garland was supposed to be the moderate judicial.
00:30:31.600
He was going to be the moderate attorney general.
00:30:40.740
But Tom Cotton was going off about how I am so glad that you said, thank God you're not
00:30:47.420
And as I saw this attorney general sitting there trying to do, oh, we do have it.
00:30:53.680
This testimony, your directive, your performance is shameful.
00:31:04.420
Listen, if that's his understanding of the law, that you can just willy nilly start going
00:31:08.340
into school boards and monitoring parents and then sticking the FBI on them and and prosecuting
00:31:13.700
them for threats or expressing opposition to a point of view.
00:31:24.020
You look at Merrick Garland and you look at Joe Biden and the scariest part of it is that
00:31:32.560
It just so happens that the center has moved radically to the left.
00:31:37.060
And it's not just rock ribbed Republicans who are recognizing that now.
00:31:41.720
And so what they're trying to do in this race in Virginia is is turn Glenn Youngkin into
00:31:47.560
Donald Trump, who you might recall, does not currently hold any office.
00:31:51.360
Even MSNBC called them out for this the other day.
00:31:53.540
They said, you've got to run on something other than the old bad orange man is is really,
00:31:59.080
And if you look on the issues and that's what they're really doing in Virginia, the Democrats
00:32:06.060
There was one issue that Joe Biden was holding on to, and that was covid.
00:32:09.800
He was a little bit above water on covid that has collapsed as well.
00:32:15.580
They've got no accomplishments they can run on.
00:32:17.660
And the best they can do is scaremonger about a nice guy wearing a fleece vest.
00:32:22.840
So Trump is promising, threatening, suggesting he might go to Virginia.
00:32:27.900
Uh, the vote is on Tuesday and I saw so many Republicans, including MAGA loving Republicans
00:32:38.460
For the very reason you just said, it sort of plays right into the hands of Terry McAuliffe,
00:32:44.000
who's been saying Youngkin is a is a Trump accolade and he's not.
00:32:52.680
So your thoughts on whether he should go, I love Trump.
00:32:56.100
I voted for him in 2016 and 2020 and 2020, despite him having made some decisions that
00:33:02.080
I didn't agree with, I said that I would crawl over broken glass to vote for the guy.
00:33:08.200
However, there is a very important rule in politics.
00:33:12.720
The Buckley rule is that you support the most right, viable candidate.
00:33:20.160
I sort of wish he were more of a Trump Republican because I am much to the right of Glenn Youngkin.
00:33:26.760
But a Trump style Republican would not have a chance in this election in Virginia.
00:33:32.300
A Trump style Republican would not have a chance in California.
00:33:35.520
You sort of saw that happen during the recall race or the recall that didn't actually happen
00:33:41.660
And so it would seem to me much more prudent to focus on the schools, focus on the issues
00:33:50.520
There will be plenty of time to push lots of good conservative policy afterward.
00:33:55.080
But first, we've got to win the seat because the winners go and make laws and the losers go home.
00:34:00.580
Now you've got this at the school board issue, which has gotten Virginia voters so fired up,
00:34:06.400
understandably, and national voters as well, because it Virginia is just one example.
00:34:10.160
I mean, we could we could go through state by state and talk about the school board meetings
00:34:15.700
And in or in that vein, let's talk about Minnesota.
00:34:27.100
It's not it's not exactly like, you know, New York or Vermont.
00:34:31.780
So Minnesota, Minnesota school board now is ordering parents to announce their home addresses
00:34:37.440
before they can speak at these public meetings.
00:34:44.420
And here is a soundbite reflecting that demand.
00:34:48.960
I want to remind everyone this is a business meeting of the school board.
00:34:53.080
It is not a meeting that belongs to the public.
00:34:56.280
Each speaker is asked to state his or her name and address for the record.
00:35:00.300
Failure to do so will result in an individual not being allowed to speak.
00:35:04.500
John, can you give us your name and address, please?
00:35:10.500
I'd rather not, since you guys don't give your address.
00:35:16.440
And I get so much property damage and eggs and everything else from fun people and their
00:35:38.280
I mean, oh, Jodi Sapp, the chairwoman of the Mankato school board.
00:35:55.580
They operate through intimidation, in this case, doxing someone.
00:35:59.220
I suppose the purpose of asking for the address is to make sure that you're in the district.
00:36:03.540
But there was no question that that was the case here.
00:36:06.820
They did this a number of years ago in New York on the gun issue.
00:36:11.220
One of the newspapers decided to publish the addresses of people who owned guns.
00:36:16.300
What possibly could be the purpose of that is are they I can't even think of a reasonable
00:36:22.500
answer other than to get people to go and harass them or to get law enforcement to go
00:36:27.120
and harass these people or to show burglars exactly where they should go to go get the
00:36:33.460
We started out the show talking about how thuggish things have become.
00:36:38.800
This is like a local little mob boss sitting there at the school board meeting.
00:36:42.780
And, you know, I'm sorry that that parent gave the address because I would have three
00:36:49.860
And that would be those words would be very similar to let's go, Brandon.
00:36:55.920
So for us to go that way, you know, I got a mouth like a sailor, as my audience knows.
00:37:02.620
I mean, our audience would never do anything to that guy, but some people might.
00:37:07.200
And it's the same reason I will do Jody the favor of not releasing her public address
00:37:15.080
And it's one thing to make sure the parent lives within the jurisdiction, right?
00:37:20.320
Same way as like you need to need to be in the jurisdiction you're going to vote in.
00:37:25.100
By the way, when the New York Times did that or when they when they published the
00:37:27.900
addresses of the names of the people owning guns, I remember lamenting.
00:37:35.980
I had a bad stalker and I was mad because most you're not really allowed to have a gun in
00:37:41.460
You have to go through all these extra steps to prove that you're under threat of your
00:37:50.220
I was basically identified to my stalker as not having a gun, you know, back then.
00:37:56.720
So, yeah, the school board thing is infuriating and it's not getting any better.
00:37:59.860
And it's amazing to me because the Democrats don't seem to be reading the polls well.
00:38:03.560
Like once that the school board association took down that letter, they should have said,
00:38:07.440
oh, thank God, this is our this is our ability to get off the hook for a very stupid decision.
00:38:12.540
And not just on that, Michael, they're doubling down on covid policy because not only did the
00:38:17.260
news break yesterday that now that they're approving the vaccine for five to 11 year olds.
00:38:22.080
But I mean, my phone lit up with friends in New York who had immediately gotten notifications
00:38:29.660
I mean, it's like it was like approved on an emergency basis two seconds ago.
00:38:35.940
And now, unless I stick it in my five year old's arm, we're out.
00:38:39.860
That's where we're picking it up right after this quick break.
00:38:43.960
And remember, folks, you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel
00:38:48.080
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00:38:52.960
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00:38:55.680
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00:38:59.480
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00:39:04.740
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00:39:08.360
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00:39:11.360
Got full archives there with 100 and 190 plus shows so you can check out hours and hours of
00:39:26.380
An FDA panel of 17 people has unanimously advised the FDA to recommend that they regulate or that
00:39:34.740
they authorize the Pfizer vaccine for five to 11 year olds.
00:39:38.360
So it hasn't officially been authorized even on an emergency use basis yet, but it's coming.
00:39:49.060
And that's where my friends were picking up their schools in New York already sending out
00:39:53.820
notices saying as soon as the FDA gives us a thumbs up, it's mandatory and you have no choice.
00:39:59.380
And more and more, we're seeing state after state.
00:40:01.180
They're eliminating medical and or religious exemptions.
00:40:06.800
I mean, you can't raise a medical or religious exemption, you know, objection to sticking
00:40:16.040
So on this one, though, Michael, it's interesting to me because it's not just, you know, and
00:40:23.200
It's not just people like me who are questioning the mandates.
00:40:26.220
It's even people who have been pushing mandates when it comes to adults.
00:40:38.960
Listen, I think it's way too early for us to be talking about mandates in this age group.
00:40:43.200
So far, we have an important study, but the study by Pfizer is just over 2000 kids.
00:40:48.500
I think the right next step is to have the parents who really want to get their kids vaccinated
00:40:56.560
And then if we have more information, including about what it is that vaccines can replace,
00:41:02.160
for example, can vaccines replace the need for masks in schools?
00:41:05.960
Can vaccines help to prevent outbreaks and then stop the need for quarantining and having
00:41:12.620
Then maybe then we can have a conversation about mandates.
00:41:23.580
They don't listen to, you know, any doctor they perceive is fair and balanced.
00:41:29.620
When a former head of Planned Parenthood and CNN contributor is the voice of reason,
00:41:35.200
you know that you are through the looking glass.
00:41:38.800
There is an epidemiologist at Yale, Harvey Reich, who's who's just come out and said that
00:41:43.740
if he were forced to vaccinate his children, he would pull his children out of school.
00:41:51.440
You mentioned those medical and religious exemptions, which are becoming harder and harder to get.
00:41:55.920
Let's not forget, there are plenty of good reasons not to get the vaccine.
00:42:04.640
But there are plenty of good reasons to avoid it as well.
00:42:08.620
We know that women in particular died of blood clots.
00:42:12.040
And that's why they paused the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
00:42:14.360
We know that there have been cases of myocarditis and pericarditis.
00:42:17.100
There was a study out of UC Davis, which suggested that some young men could actually face greater
00:42:22.180
risk from the vaccine than from the virus itself.
00:42:27.400
All of this has been acknowledged by the FDA and the CDC.
00:42:32.840
All of the vaccines were at least developed with, and in some cases also produced with,
00:42:39.520
They were tested on, they were tested on clones of stem cells.
00:42:44.720
And that is problematic if you are a Catholic like you or I am, or a Christian.
00:42:49.180
They don't want stem cells involved in this process at all.
00:42:53.640
And so, you know, you've got plenty of reasons to object to this sort of thing.
00:43:00.460
You've got plenty of scientific, expert, genius, exalted scientific voices saying perhaps we
00:43:06.520
should use some caution here, especially when you look at the infection fatality rate, especially
00:43:15.420
It is infinitesimally small for very young people, for older people, for people with comorbidities,
00:43:24.120
So the question that a lot of people have is, given the extraordinarily low risk of hospitalization
00:43:30.680
or death from the virus in kids, is there any risk in taking the vaccine?
00:43:35.180
And although this FDA panel voted unanimously to approve the vaccine for kids, one of the
00:43:41.380
members of the panel came out when asked about the safety of it, and he said the only way
00:43:45.540
to know if it's safe is to test it on the kids.
00:43:52.140
This is straight from the panel that's deciding whether this is safe for our kids.
00:44:04.960
We're never going to learn about how safe the vaccine is unless we start giving it.
00:44:15.440
I can't wait for your kids and the kids of all the people who are pro-vaccine mandates
00:44:22.440
And we will sit back and we will wait and we will see what happens.
00:44:25.120
And if it turns out to be safe, then maybe we'll consider it.
00:44:29.040
And I'm not responding to any mandates saying he must be.
00:44:32.060
My question is, did these people run out of beagles?
00:44:35.160
I remember just a couple of days ago, we heard about all these awful animal experiments
00:44:40.240
But now we're told that we're going to experiment on kids.
00:44:43.180
And it seems that, frankly, in some quarters, especially on the left, there's a greater
00:44:47.320
uproar about performing medical experiments on animals than there is on performing medical
00:44:52.380
experiments on little kids who face a very, very low risk from the virus.
00:44:56.900
And in the face of that, it's quite clear that Harvey Risha's advice from Yale is pretty
00:45:02.660
good advice, that you really shouldn't give in to this sort of thing.
00:45:07.960
Already you're seeing them move the goalposts on what fully vaccinated means.
00:45:11.680
Already they're moving the goalposts on exactly who needs to get the vaccine.
00:45:17.500
And we are not a country, last I checked the Constitution, that is run by the whims of the
00:45:27.620
We should be able to exercise that and tell these people who are making the mandates to
00:45:34.060
You know, our school, our private school in Connecticut, they brought in a Yale, I think
00:45:38.440
he was an epidemiologist specialist to talk to parents to like calm concerns because they
00:45:45.260
You'd get it or you get expelled at our school as of age 16 or up because for that group, it's
00:45:51.580
been, quote, permanently approved or so they believe.
00:45:54.600
Um, so they brought in, um, this guy from Yale to talk to us about how, how safe it is, you
00:46:03.320
And then as you point out, you know, as it turns out, it's not entirely agreed upon by the
00:46:08.620
We have that soundbite of Dr. Harvey Rich, Rish, Rish, um, speaking to Mark Levin.
00:46:17.220
If the child has chronic conditions that make their risk appreciable, then there's a reason
00:46:24.720
that they would, should be considered for vaccination.
00:46:27.700
Other than that, if it were my child, I would homeschool them.
00:46:32.600
Honestly, I would organize with other parents to take them out of the school and create homeschooling
00:46:42.800
Vaccination is not a high risk that's going to kill every child by doing so.
00:46:47.360
However, it's enough of a risk that on the average, the benefit is higher for homeschooling
00:46:52.120
than it is for, for vaccination and being in school.
00:46:56.480
So your, your message to parents as we close out the break.
00:47:00.800
My message to parents is to listen to Harvey Rish, to listen to people like Glenn Youngkin,
00:47:05.720
to listen to all of the other parents who are focusing on education.
00:47:08.960
That seems to be the through line in all of these issues.
00:47:12.260
Whether we're talking about COVID or CRT or gender theory or whatever.
00:47:16.420
And it's because education represents the future of the country.
00:47:20.400
That is why the left, that is why the people who are right now in power are so focused on
00:47:25.020
taking more and more of it, getting your kids in these schools for longer and staying there
00:47:29.340
longer and exerting more control over them while they're there and keeping parents further
00:47:35.400
This is a moment where I think there is a, a real critical mass to try to grab some of that
00:47:41.180
power back on the crystal ball of our country, which is our nation's classrooms.
00:47:54.760
Over in Chicago, it's the mayor versus the cops.
00:47:57.920
John Cass, one of my favorite journalists there.
00:48:10.940
John Cass worked as a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune for 38 years.
00:48:15.300
He left a few months ago so he could write whatever the heck he wants to with no boss
00:48:32.960
He recently called Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Chicago's little Napoleon in pants.
00:48:40.840
But he has been covering politics and lawlessness in Chicago, a city I also hold dear for a long
00:48:46.940
And he's fighting mad right now about the mayor pushing her vaccine mandate on first responders
00:48:51.880
instead of being solely focused on the city's ever growing problem of crime.
00:49:01.680
So I want to get into all of that, but I just want to pick it up where I left off with Michael
00:49:06.500
We were talking about Merrick Garland and the DOJ and his refusal to withdraw his crazy
00:49:12.480
statement threatening parents with prosecution, even though the school board has withdrawn,
00:49:17.300
association has withdrawn its letter because you wrote a beautiful column recently about
00:49:25.040
the dangers here and how, as the DOJ continues to crack down, parents are scared.
00:49:32.420
You know, a lot of them, we should we highlight the ones who speak up, but a lot of them are
00:49:35.460
scared and it's getting harder and harder for parents to find the temerity to do it.
00:49:40.540
I mean, who wants to face a federal investigation?
00:49:50.960
The lanky man in Norman Rockwell's painting, Freedom of Speech, was produced in 1943 and
00:49:59.280
Some on the left will dismiss it as propaganda.
00:50:01.920
Others might get that Norman Rockwell feeling, that craving for the glow of nostalgia that
00:50:06.540
encourages people to crave for what they think were simpler times.
00:50:10.380
But there wasn't anything simple about the time.
00:50:12.400
The world was at war and millions were being slaughtered.
00:50:15.600
And you went on to say, in the midst of all of this, all the chaos and the turmoil at that
00:50:22.240
time, early 1940s, while we were at war, the Rockwell painting was all America once, a man
00:50:34.020
We welcomed Americans speaking their minds, even protesting without dropping the federal
00:50:38.720
hammer on them as if they were terrorists, without canceling them or harassing them.
00:50:42.400
At work or at home without killing their careers.
00:50:45.620
And you went on to highlight a woman who I'll let you talk about.
00:50:49.900
She, G Van Fleet, I think is her name, out of Loudoun County, Virginia, which you've been
00:50:55.260
watching from Chicago as well as we have from the Northeast.
00:50:59.780
So what was important to you about her situation and the country's situation behind this column?
00:51:06.080
Liberty, liberty, freedom, the ability to advocate for your own children with government now occupied
00:51:17.300
by the left, reaching ever increasingly into our lives and into the lives of our children.
00:51:29.740
She had lived through the Cultural Revolution of China.
00:51:35.000
And I found her comments to be heroic and moving.
00:51:40.920
And as you can see, I think the entire country has picked up on this feeling.
00:51:46.560
Here is just a small sound by a Xi Van Fleet, Loudoun County parent, who had some thoughts
00:51:55.120
on what we're seeing in our country, having grown up in Mao's China.
00:52:02.020
The Red Guards destroy anything that is not communist, old statues, books, and anything
00:52:08.500
We are also encouraged to report on each other, just like the student equity ambassador program
00:52:16.520
This is indeed the American version of the Chinese communist, the Chinese cultural revolution.
00:52:22.320
The critical race theory has its roots in cultural Marxism.
00:52:34.420
And today, October 28th, back in 1940, it was the day of Oji.
00:52:43.180
When Greece and my father and others there said no to fascism and would not allow the Italians
00:52:56.660
But they delayed that war, delayed the German advance into Russia by six or eight critical
00:53:09.060
And I think we're at a point now where Americans have to understand.
00:53:14.680
They have to ask themselves, are we not like the bears in the woods?
00:53:24.860
I mean, if you get between a grizzly bear and her cubs, well, if you've seen Revenant or
00:53:36.860
And I think that the people who've been pushing this, pushing the FBI, pushing Merrick Garland
00:53:46.640
to investigate parents as if they were domestic terrorists, and then now saying, oh, we're
00:53:56.700
People have seen the other side of your face, just like a playing card, like a jack.
00:54:06.360
And I don't know what will happen on Tuesday or the, you know, in the Virginia election or
00:54:16.200
Well, but I think that if parents care about their children, they won't care much about
00:54:23.640
And like, like the bear, like the grizzly bear, they will, they will defend their cubs.
00:54:31.680
What I love about the piece is it captures even more than that, because it's, it's about
00:54:37.240
It, yes, what's happening to our children is deeply wrong and has activated parents who were
00:54:46.820
But as you point out, it's about more, it's, it's also about cancel culture and harassing
00:54:53.360
parents and ruining careers and lives over speech we do not like, or a thought we might
00:55:01.240
not like, or, you know, a movie that's shown in the college classroom to celebrate something
00:55:07.580
like music that happens to have one offensive scene or what have you.
00:55:11.600
We used to do all those things because we're free to do them.
00:55:17.320
Then one would be free to express one's offense, but it wasn't the end of anyone.
00:55:30.700
They're taking David Chappelle and they're trying to break him.
00:55:37.820
And I think it takes people like you, like me, those of us who've been through cancel
00:55:44.360
culture, uh, like I was, which is why I left the Chicago Tribune.
00:55:49.640
I didn't leave the Tribune as much as it left me.
00:55:52.960
And I'm happy now where I am writing what I want, but I think, uh, not everyone has, you
00:56:00.580
know, not everyone is Megyn Kelly or John Kess.
00:56:03.020
And they need these examples of people standing up and saying, no, no, or she, no, we're not
00:56:13.900
You write, um, we let that freedom wither from that Rockwell painting, 1943, Freedom of
00:56:21.580
We let that freedom wither because so many are afraid to speak up.
00:56:25.000
We let it shrink away with our exhausted shrugs, but she, Van Fleet did not seem tired.
00:56:33.600
This mom who had seen it and lived it as a girl in communist China.
00:56:39.480
She stood up like the man in the painting because she's an American with something to
00:56:46.000
Oh, my audience guys, can't you see why I love this man?
00:56:49.040
He said like the way, the way with the word things is really moving.
00:56:57.060
No one wants to poke the bear at the school board meeting.
00:57:01.880
You want them to love your kid, especially I see it now.
00:57:04.880
We don't have kids in high school, but I, I talk to the parents who do.
00:57:08.340
They're worried about juniors, college propositions.
00:57:14.120
Megan, they lured that, uh, unidentified, unexplained fear.
00:57:24.320
You're going to open up your mouth, Megan Kelly?
00:57:26.740
Well, your child will need good grades and, you know, to get to college.
00:57:33.080
I mean, I'm from Chicago, Megan, where force and the democratic party has always been, you
00:57:45.000
It's a two by four across the back of the head when you're not looking to your business,
00:57:49.640
to yourself, to your children, to your family, to your life.
00:57:53.400
And sooner or later, I think as in Chicago, as in Virginia, as everywhere, there, there
00:58:01.800
comes a tipping point, you know, where you say, do I really, do I really want to, uh,
00:58:09.800
subscribe to this publication when they, when it's so woke or do I really want to live here
00:58:20.960
And I think, uh, some people of course, with means have left for Florida, Tennessee, from
00:58:30.860
The average middle-class family doesn't have that kind of money.
00:58:36.460
You put them in a corner, Megan, you put people in a corner with, and you take sharp sticks
00:58:43.620
Well, some dogs will lie down and whimper, but some dogs won't.
00:58:49.580
And I, and I worry about the reaction to it because I think that this overreach by the
00:58:56.140
left is irresponsible and is driving people to a bad place.
00:59:03.120
And what we want is a country where we can all speak, where David Chapal can tell his jokes
00:59:08.740
and I can write my column and you can do your show.
00:59:14.440
Tell me why you don't like it, but, but you're going to shut me down.
00:59:21.480
You're going to make me give my children vaccines that are experimental.
00:59:39.940
I just think at, at heart, we as Americans are used to that freedom.
00:59:46.180
And that's why you see these angry parents at the school board meetings.
00:59:49.420
And the, and then you've got Barack Obama trying to save Terry McAuliffe's political
00:59:53.440
fortunes going down there saying, we don't need these phony culture wars.
01:00:03.340
Hey, Barack, how did you buy that mansion in Kenwood?
01:00:07.520
And did Tony, did the bag man, Tony Resco help?
01:00:13.420
I mean, I don't understand the, you know, we, these are politicians and they create myths
01:00:21.740
And unfortunately many in the media, uh, propagate the myth, but Barack Obama is just a guy who's
01:00:31.860
And, uh, I've, I've knew him back when he was a phony and when he became a God and stopped
01:00:41.520
I've stopped the seas for, you know, I knew him when he was, I knew him when he was hanging
01:00:49.060
So I'm not, uh, enamored of him or his temple of love and fealty that we're building a taxpayer
01:00:58.820
But I just, I just want people to stop and think of that grizzly bear.
01:01:14.020
We, uh, go out to Montana on vacation and, uh, we were pulling out, we were actually there
01:01:22.200
And the whole time when we got to the spring, my kids were like, where are the bears?
01:01:25.280
Cause there's grizzlies in two states, Alaska and Montana.
01:01:31.100
And we're finally pulling out of Montana to go to the airport.
01:01:35.320
It's one of those 5am trips where it's still black outside.
01:01:39.120
And sure enough, we look up on the mountainside and there are three baby grizzlies.
01:01:48.860
Oh, as we stopped the van, we're looking, the windows come down.
01:01:53.180
We're like, Oh, and then it doesn't like, what the hell are we doing?
01:01:58.760
And you can't see the mama, which is a bad sign.
01:02:04.600
And finally we're like, we are, we got back to our senses and said, let's get the hell out
01:02:09.120
This van is going to be no match for a mama grizzly that is separated from her cubs.
01:02:16.120
And before I got married, before Betty and I got married 36 years ago, we went on a fishing
01:02:24.780
And so one day we didn't go get up, you know, at five o'clock in the morning, we were going
01:02:34.400
I can smell coffee and all I hear saying out from the cabin door is, Oh, they're so cute.
01:02:42.280
And the hair rose on the back of my neck and I got, you know, I, I got up as best I could
01:02:56.060
If she, if the mother came, yeah, it's fair, but you know what?
01:03:01.440
I think that this mother that you bring up, uh, see Van Fleet, the, the mother from Loudoun
01:03:08.040
County, Virginia, where, you know, I know a lot of people from Loudoun County.
01:03:12.280
So do you, these are mostly federal bureaucrats, senior bureaucrats, mostly I'd say liberal
01:03:20.200
in nature, or at least supportive of government, government, you know, government is the answer
01:03:28.540
And, uh, you know, you gotta wonder if they're turning on the Democrats, then they have a problem.
01:03:36.940
Well, and, and this is a sound, I didn't tell my team was going to be calling for this.
01:03:41.460
It's number six, but look at the anger as the Loudoun County parents there are going
01:03:47.280
after that superintendent who lied to them about the risk of sexual assault in the school,
01:03:53.740
in the bathrooms, the, the, to understand the description.
01:03:58.040
Understanding the description you just gave, which I completely agree with you.
01:04:02.260
Um, the parents are not normally going to be, it's not, it's not MAGA country.
01:04:06.060
They wouldn't be out there, you know, screaming, but look at the anger now amongst those parents.
01:04:17.540
You are clearly aware of the sexual assault at Stonebridge.
01:04:22.780
I have lost almost all confidence I've had in this system that I have championed for so long.
01:04:30.680
I do not trust you to ensure the education or the safety of my daughter.
01:04:36.600
Props to all the kids who called you out today.
01:04:49.220
Just resign, just like your bestie, Beth Bartz.
01:04:52.660
We have gay, black, white, Indian in our family, and we are all rooting together for Virginia to put children's safety first.
01:05:15.880
And it's not about, you know, what tribe you're on.
01:05:23.860
And actually, I hope there's something that comes out of this other than just, you know, sending Terry McAuliffe to the ninth circle of hell where he belongs after what he said about parents in schools.
01:05:39.000
I hope that they're, yeah, like, don't get involved with, you know, we don't want to say what their children are.
01:05:47.600
But the, what I hope happens is that people realize that the schools and the education system, and I, I'm a father of a teacher and the husband of a teacher.
01:06:05.060
But the, the education crats who are, who are doing this, um, have lost their authority.
01:06:14.380
And the only way out for parents is real national school choice.
01:06:19.680
And in my column, I'm going to begin, uh, advocating for that even stronger than I have before.
01:06:26.020
Because it has to, because something to save, not only the, uh, Loudoun County, you know, it's one of the richest counties in the country, but also the poorest children in Chicago, in Cleveland, in D.C., wherever.
01:06:44.860
And the people that have led us to this have no, they have no standing as far as I'm concerned anymore.
01:06:52.680
The teachers, yes, but not the bureaucrats and that whole political structure.
01:07:00.820
The fact that that superintendent of that school, uh, in, in Virginia and Fairfax County still has his job in Loudoun County.
01:07:15.740
How dare pundits join forces with, uh, that superintendent and condemn parents who are standing up for their children who had been raped?
01:07:35.060
The poster boy for alleged threats or violence on school campuses, thus warranting the DOJ's investigation.
01:07:46.420
There's one incidence of alleged violence and it was with him and he hurt no one.
01:07:52.400
He was the one placed in cuffs by the cops because he got upset when that woman attacked his daughter's story.
01:08:07.620
And I'm starting to think Merrick Garland needs to go, too, if he does not stand down in that memo, because he's not sorry.
01:08:13.780
In fact, he's doubling down on it and it cannot stand.
01:08:19.900
But that's not the Merrick Garland that Barack Obama sold as the Supreme Court justice.
01:08:27.120
That's the Merrick Garland who's an apparatchik, who's going along when he knows better.
01:08:34.940
To use and to pretend that I'm going to bring in the FBI and the Justice Department on parents, but really it's not a threat.
01:08:50.060
This is, you know, in Chicago, people treat us like chumbalones, the politicians.
01:08:59.400
In years ago, in federal court, there was a cop, former cop who turned bad and became an enforcer for the mob,
01:09:09.160
was being interviewed on the witness stand about what he said on tape, where the mob boss was telling him,
01:09:17.500
we're going to get cattle prods and we're going to take care of these witnesses with cattle prods, right?
01:09:30.700
His name was Anthony Passiofumi, but his police name was Tony Doyle.
01:09:42.100
He probably had like a bar of Irish spring under his arm when he took the oath.
01:09:47.180
But anyway, so on the witness stand, he was asked, why did you agree to all this?
01:09:55.640
Why did you keep nodding your head to cattle prods and all this?
01:09:59.240
And he said, because I didn't want to look like no chumbalone, you know, idiot, stupid.
01:10:04.340
And hence the term chumbalone became, I just loved it.
01:10:12.680
Because the politician, political class, whether Chicago or Washington, name it, they think we're chumbalones and they treat us as such.
01:10:21.680
And because of what you're bringing up and what I'm trying to do and what Steve Van Fleet has done and the other parents is to say, we're not chumbalones.
01:10:37.120
And we believe in freedom, which leads me to the war between Mayor Lightfoot and the cops.
01:10:45.940
That's we're going to pick it up right after this quick break.
01:10:50.200
John, let's talk about your mayor in Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and this push.
01:11:01.760
Now, she, like our mayor in New York, is pushing the mandates on everyone, the teachers, the cops and so on.
01:11:12.600
They have not yet all reported their vaccine status, as she's requiring.
01:11:15.800
They say 71 percent have reported their vaccine status of those.
01:11:23.380
So you've got a lot of cops now who aren't saying and presumably aren't vaccinated.
01:11:28.820
They say per Chicago FOP, more than thirty five hundred officers have so far declined to report their vaccination status.
01:11:39.700
Well, the plan is, I wish if I could have a magic wand, I'd I'd expect that media in Chicago, which is now totally woke, would examine what's really going on.
01:11:55.260
Which is all this, the attack on cops, the demonization of police, the you will do what I say, you know, whether they're they're not they're already vaccinated, whether they've already had COVID.
01:12:09.640
You know, they went out and had to work for the past year with no protection.
01:12:13.280
Just go out there, first responders, get COVID and struggle through all that is a distraction from the real issue in Chicago, which is crime, violent, violent crime.
01:12:28.000
And the and also the the Democratic Party, Lori Lightfoot endorsed Kim Foxx for reelection.
01:12:37.540
One of these George Soros back prosecutors, I wrote about her when I worked at the paper and that and quoted it was I wrote about her mentioning what other newspapers from The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, HuffPol, name it, had mentioned that she took money from George Soros, two million dollars in campaign contributions.
01:13:04.460
And I got for my pains, I was defamed by the woke union at the Tribune and I left.
01:13:12.860
So you're not seeing any more of that in Chicago questioning Kim Foxx, Lori Lightfoot, their relationship, the permissiveness and the and the and the lawlessness.
01:13:30.040
So the people of Chicago are angry, Megan, and the cops are angry.
01:13:36.860
They were they were they were pushed around by Lori Lightfoot while she was giving benefits and money to the Chicago Teachers Union.
01:13:47.680
They had to put their hands on people with COVID.
01:13:54.780
And the teachers union stayed at home while the kids stayed at home.
01:14:01.100
This is this reminds me of my very favorite video of the entire COVID shutdown, which was the Chicago teachers doing their dumbass interpretive dance, leaping through the air on camera.
01:14:16.320
We can't go back into the classroom because it's unsafe.
01:14:18.880
And this is a celebration of our bodies that we'd like to keep saying totally able bodied young people who refuse to teach the kids while the cops are out there dealing with the real criminals day by day.
01:14:31.220
35 years ago, 36 years ago, I fell in love with Betty Ann Castiglia, a beautiful Sicilian dancer.
01:14:38.520
And she stole my wife today and she hated, she hated, she's a dancer and choreographer and she hated that, you know, she was just sick of it.
01:14:50.860
But so much of the woke nonsense is embarrassing.
01:14:55.280
It is, you know, look, you could go, okay, in Chicago, you could, you could go to the, you could go to the store and get, you know, a half pound of American cheese.
01:15:08.220
And these poor deli workers had to be there because they were essential workers, right?
01:15:15.160
I guess they sat at home, you know, while the kids were falling behind in school.
01:15:26.680
Public order has been broken by, by special interest politics, by people like Lori Lightfoot who endorsed Kim Fox.
01:15:43.980
So she needs to beat up on the cops to distract from the fact that carjackings are up like what?
01:16:01.720
But, you know, let's, let's go wag our fingers at those coppers.
01:16:08.760
Many of whom, cops and firefighters and paramedics have already had COVID.
01:16:12.880
So they, I'm not a scientist, but I keep hearing if you had it, your, your immune system is, you know, it's better than if you got the vaccine.
01:16:25.180
No, I mean, we, we talked about a study in the Lancet showing that six months after your second Pfizer jab, you only have 47 percent protection against the against COVID.
01:16:32.680
And if you had a strong case of COVID, you know, four months ago, you're way more protected, according to that, than you'd be if you were in the status of somebody like me, six months post the second jab.
01:16:44.180
She, so, so one of the problems that we have with Kim Fox, and it's under this mayor's watch, is she doesn't have much interest in prosecuting crime whatsoever.
01:16:53.160
This is the one who let Jussie Smollett go, though she was, ultimately the charges were brought by somebody else and he's facing that now.
01:16:58.900
But she, like, when I was reading your columns about what's gone on with her dropping charges after charges, she won't prosecute shoplifting cases.
01:17:13.240
And then you talked about, there was a street, deadly street gang battle, five suspects, all around video.
01:17:28.600
So I guess the theory of mutual combatants is if you're shooting each other, that will, no, no blood of innocence, no foul or something, but innocence get killed.
01:17:39.440
There was a woman driving home from the White Sox game back when the White Sox were playing before they got run out of the playoffs.
01:17:48.560
She was in the, on the Dan Ryan expressway driving to the suburbs.
01:17:53.040
She got caught in the middle of gunfire to get rival gangs.
01:18:00.300
They had, they had the, the shot spotter found the car and the, they thought they had the driver, but no, no charges.
01:18:10.120
And see, it comes to the point, like what you mentioned on the permissiveness, like what you mentioned, Michigan Avenue, the crown jewel of shopping in Chicago.
01:18:26.700
That's where I wouldn't be dragged to, to, to, you know, drop a few money that I didn't have for, because she likes something, you know, like, uh, I don't know what.
01:18:39.700
Marshall Fields, Bloomingdale's there, all your favorite stores, McMile, they call it.
01:18:44.040
Beautiful lace, uh, lace dresses from Burberry.
01:18:51.640
I mean, you can, but the police have issued a warning to patrons.
01:18:57.840
If you go on Michigan Avenue, just came out a week ago, you go on Michigan Avenue, you could be robbed because the robberies are continuing.
01:19:06.140
So Kim Fox does not want to, uh, prosecute shoplifters because in her mind, they're all Jean Valjean and they're just stealing a loaf of bread.
01:19:17.020
I was going to say, what if like I shoplifted, do you think she'd come for me?
01:19:20.660
If I shop, if you and I shoplifted, if we hit Burberry and shoplifted, I don't think we'd get away with it, but.
01:19:27.740
We'll have Abby videotape it with under her trench coat, her Burberry trench.
01:19:32.480
But it's not only, it's not only the fact that they're not prosecuting those people, uh, the, the perpetrators.
01:19:39.760
It's that if you're down there, like if my wife was down there and there was a gang of shoplifters coming in, you know, say she's at a, uh,
01:19:49.640
you know, boutique on, on, uh, Oak street and a gang of shoplifters come in, grabbing everything and run out.
01:19:56.760
I don't think that shoppers are willing to go back to a place like that.
01:20:02.580
So it's like the poor shopkeeper loses money, the loses business, the city loses business, but you know what they, they, they save, they save their cred, their, their, you know, their progressive credit.
01:20:21.700
Does he have any, any concerns about crime shoplifters, gangs?
01:20:26.740
I think he's pretty good, even though he's, he's endangered an entire city and beyond.
01:20:31.600
But it's not only, it's not only Soros in, and again, I tell you this as I wrote about it and they came after me and tried to defame me, my own paper, my own colleagues, not the, not management, but the, my colleagues.
01:20:46.760
So I left, but it's not only in Chicago, it's in San Francisco, it's in Philadelphia.
01:20:53.300
It's everywhere, everywhere Soros has reached out and spent money to put in people in prosecutorial jobs who are not, I guess you wouldn't call them law and order types.
01:21:11.660
And you're, and you know what, I don't want to see people sent to prison who aren't, who are innocent.
01:21:17.360
I don't want to see somebody sent to, kept in jail for a nonviolent crime, but there comes a tipping point and the tipping point is happening.
01:21:29.460
Like we talked about with, on education, it's happening in urban, suburban America right now.
01:21:37.260
And you, are you reading about it in the local newspapers?
01:21:42.040
Well, here's what's, here's what's crazy here in New York.
01:21:44.640
We just were joined by a woman named Maude Marin, who's running for city council and she's a lifelong Democrat.
01:21:51.820
And she spoke up against some of this crazy CRT stuff and the racial indoctrination, lifelong public defender.
01:22:00.920
So she's the one who you get assigned to when you get arrested, perhaps wrongly, you're indigent, whatever.
01:22:07.480
And the other public defenders came for her guns blazing after she wrote an op-ed speaking out about, about CRT and said, she's a racist bigot for writing that.
01:22:22.160
So it's like, okay, so you can't arrest the criminals.
01:22:24.320
And then when they, when they go and they do get arrested and they go through the system, you can't, you're, now we're going to go down on public defenders because anybody who hasn't said only woke thing has got, things have got, has got to go.
01:22:35.560
Um, and the public is the one that winds up paying.
01:22:39.280
And, but it's not just the thought of you and me doing a fun, fake shoplifting experiment.
01:22:52.100
One time when I was very young and new, newly had money, um, I decided I needed a, an umbrella from Burberry and I bought, I got it.
01:22:59.740
It was one of the things I got it to the cash register and they told me how much it was.
01:23:04.500
You know, you ever been there and you're like, I'll just return it later.
01:23:14.640
And I was like, how can you charge $200 for an umbrella?
01:23:17.200
They were like, we will replace it in perpetuity.
01:23:21.940
So like, if I lose it, you'll just keep giving me new ones.
01:23:26.740
What if I just give one to, and they're like, no, no, no.
01:23:28.840
If any of its parts break, we'll just keep, I'm like, this is the biggest scam I have ever fallen for.
01:23:35.060
But it's like Alan Edmund's shoes, but those are, those are a good deal.
01:23:53.600
Can we talk about, can we talk about what Steve Krakauer, he's in my ear.
01:24:07.080
Let me tell you something, because I do want to get back to Chicago crime first.
01:24:10.160
But just as a footnote, in New York City, we're having the same problem between our mayor and
01:24:15.440
About 30% of them are not going to get the vaccine, or so they say.
01:24:18.560
He's trying to make them, or otherwise they're going home without pay.
01:24:24.280
The police commissioner was asked how the NYPD would handle a potential drop in staffers
01:24:35.580
And police commissioner, quote, would not say how they're going to handle that.
01:24:43.780
They've done it in the past by ordering cops to work 12-hour shifts as opposed to their
01:24:50.740
Let's just dump more stress on the cops who have had a totally stress-free couple of years.
01:24:55.060
I think that's a great advertisement for Marco Island, for Naples, for Tennessee, you know,
01:25:06.700
People, I keep saying, people vote with their feet.
01:25:11.280
They vote with their feet, and you're going to see it.
01:25:16.720
Look at the north, in Chicago, the near north side was a high-end, high-end condos, you know,
01:25:30.540
When you say near north side, what do you mean?
01:25:32.380
I'm saying like River North, you know, like North Michigan Avenue, where people, you know,
01:25:39.640
And the condo prices dropped because she allowed looting the second, or was it the third time,
01:25:55.740
I've got one of my favorite Italian restaurants is closing for lunch.
01:26:01.180
It's just not, the guy says, it's just not worth opening at lunchtime.
01:26:06.300
It's in the schools, it's in the justice system, this crazy intolerance ideology.
01:26:14.720
But now, can I ask you about this story that I saw online?
01:26:17.620
One of my, this is a poet who follows me on Twitter and I follow him, and sometimes he
01:26:23.040
sends me interesting stories, and I was like, this is insane.
01:26:25.420
And it's the thing about the Chicago docents, who are all basically being pushed out because
01:26:37.620
That it was, I'm trying to remember, which museum is it?
01:26:44.320
One of the great museums of the world, where Mrs. Potter Palmer went over to France and
01:26:50.260
bought up all the Impressionists, you know, and shouted that her husband could spit over
01:27:03.580
Basically, it's a bunch of older women who had to go through a lot of training to become
01:27:08.120
a docent because you need like a couple of years and tons of courses, and it's an unpaid
01:27:14.160
These are the people who take you around the museum and try to educate you on what's in
01:27:17.040
It's great, but they're all being pushed out because they're white, literally just
01:27:33.440
So the people who are being pushed out do this voluntarily.
01:27:43.160
But middle-aged, maybe older woman, liberal, studied liberal arts in school, loves art,
01:27:53.240
you know, maybe a turtleneck with those wooden beads or whatever.
01:28:03.660
My wife tells you, look at him, dressed like a college professor from 1940.
01:28:07.880
So I'm not Mr. Style, but they loved their work.
01:28:15.380
And anyone who's been lucky enough to have one or, you know, the services or be near when
01:28:23.340
a docent is explaining one of the great paintings like Greco's Assumption of the Virgin in the
01:28:34.840
Art Institute or something like that, two-head side of beef, surrounded by side of beef by
01:28:44.280
But you can hear them talking, put the painting in context.
01:28:53.400
You know, it's, they bring value to the experience.
01:28:57.340
And they're tossed out because they're too white.
01:29:03.840
They, um, they're the fired docents who had, who had offered all this time and devotion
01:29:08.900
to the museum for years were offered a two-year free pass to the museum as gratitude for their
01:29:14.260
previous service, literally fired because they were white.
01:29:17.060
They had tried to diversify the docent staff by incentivizing people of color to apply and
01:29:25.140
So now the answer is just to fire everybody, fire everyone.
01:29:29.540
And then I guess you can only get hired if you have the right melanin.
01:29:34.160
Why do you think they're going to do any better filling, you know, a hundred positions than
01:29:41.540
I'm, I'd rather go to, I'd rather, you know, I love that the Art Institute is one of the
01:29:51.300
I love the miniatures when you first walk in, the little miniatures.
01:29:54.120
I love it all, you know, and, uh, the lions, everything, but they, their wokeness ruins the
01:30:11.220
As you, as you've seen, it ruins, uh, our cultural life.
01:30:18.280
People, I've just, you know, I don't have enough time to deal with their nonsense and
01:30:30.280
As you say, vote with their feet and you can help support with your fingers, uh, journalists
01:30:45.160
I'll talk to you anytime because you know what, Megan Kelly, you are not a chump along.
01:30:57.180
So we get to have a special ghost show for you.
01:31:01.900
Meantime, download the Megan Kelly show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify, and Stitcher, youtube.com