The Megyn Kelly Show - Inside the Jimmy Fallon Toxic Workplace Allegations, Karine Jean-Pierre’s “Glitzy” Vogue Exclusive, with Jesse Kelly and Sasha Ayad

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00:00:30.680 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:32.540 Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:42.160 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:00:44.020 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, everybody.

00:00:46.640 It's Friday.

00:00:47.940 And we have a special treat for you in studio today.

00:00:50.100 Stredwick is here with me.

00:00:51.260 Yes, Stredwick has come to the new studio.

00:00:54.100 I'll tell you how it started.

00:00:55.100 I was actually in another room doing my work.

00:00:57.640 He's here with me.

00:00:58.420 And I got a panicked text from Canadian Debbie saying,

00:01:02.140 Are you aware that Stredwick is in the studio?

00:01:04.060 Stredwick is in the studio.

00:01:05.060 It's not good.

00:01:06.040 So here he is.

00:01:07.040 You'll get a...

00:01:07.640 Oh, he's licking the fake gas fireplace right now.

00:01:10.680 He's so bad.

00:01:13.140 I don't...

00:01:13.680 We don't know what to do.

00:01:15.320 In any event, we have actual news today,

00:01:17.180 including Mayor Eric Adams

00:01:18.840 going from promising to lift migrants up,

00:01:22.080 quote,

00:01:22.280 as high as Lady Liberty lifts her torch

00:01:24.780 to now saying,

00:01:26.060 They're destroying New York City for the love of God.

00:01:28.040 Get them out.

00:01:29.200 Corrine Jean-Pierre gets a glitzy feature in Vogue.

00:01:33.380 What?

00:01:33.800 Have they done this for another White House press secretary?

00:01:35.780 I don't remember Kayleigh McEnany.

00:01:37.380 Not even Melania Trump was featured in Vogue.

00:01:39.700 But Corrine Jean-Pierre gets it.

00:01:41.480 And wait until you hear how they characterize her.

00:01:43.460 And some thoughts for you coming up

00:01:45.660 on the Jimmy Fallon controversy.

00:01:47.540 Have you heard about this?

00:01:48.800 They're saying he's responsible

00:01:50.000 for a toxic work environment over at NBC.

00:01:54.260 Hello, pot calling the kettle black.

00:01:58.580 Having worked in the building,

00:02:00.160 how would you know?

00:02:01.960 How would you know that it becomes especially toxic

00:02:04.480 inside the Jimmy Fallon studio?

00:02:06.660 It's Friday and we're going to have tons of fun.

00:02:08.660 I've got the perfect guest with me today.

00:02:10.420 He is host of The Jesse Kelly Show.

00:02:13.460 And I'm right.

00:02:14.940 Jesse, welcome back.

00:02:16.980 Megan, I buzzed all my hair off.

00:02:19.140 Well, actually, Aubrey buzzed all my hair off this weekend.

00:02:23.040 She likes it too.

00:02:24.440 I'm not sure.

00:02:25.380 But she swears she likes it.

00:02:27.200 I feel like she's lying though, Megan,

00:02:28.840 just to make me feel better.

00:02:30.660 No, I got to get down low so I can see the top.

00:02:33.200 No, no.

00:02:33.500 What do you mean?

00:02:33.920 What do you not like about it?

00:02:35.340 I don't know.

00:02:36.980 I don't know.

00:02:38.140 All right.

00:02:38.620 I'm forging ahead.

00:02:39.500 I'm forging ahead.

00:02:41.180 Look at us.

00:02:41.860 With my red background and your red background and my red dog here,

00:02:45.220 it's like we plunge into the gates of hell for this special Friday.

00:02:49.040 It's true.

00:02:49.480 And you're wearing red.

00:02:50.460 If I'd known, I would have found something red, too.

00:02:52.620 And let's just go totally dark.

00:02:54.820 Yeah, I'm leaning in.

00:02:55.580 Although I'm wearing my red T-shirt.

00:02:57.040 Kelly J.

00:02:57.480 Kelly Keene sent this to me.

00:02:58.480 She's like a pro-woman's activist who's pushing back on the craziness and the trans stuff.

00:03:03.160 And you can't see it in this light, but it says woman.

00:03:05.700 It says woman in sparkles here, Jesse Kelly.

00:03:07.940 Look, can you see it now?

00:03:09.320 I'm kind of leaning.

00:03:09.620 I can't.

00:03:10.160 I can't see it.

00:03:11.420 Woman!

00:03:11.680 I can't see it.

00:03:12.380 I can't see it, Megan.

00:03:13.580 I don't know what it is with you women in the sparkles.

00:03:15.620 No, I can never read them.

00:03:16.960 I can't see it.

00:03:17.460 Well, trust me, I don't know why I'm wearing a shirt that reads woman.

00:03:23.120 It's very clear that I am.

00:03:24.300 But every once in a while, you want to remind people it's a word.

00:03:27.760 It exists.

00:03:28.840 It's an actual thing.

00:03:30.020 Notwithstanding what these crazy lunatics tell us.

00:03:32.740 OK, where to begin?

00:03:34.020 I guess maybe the Kareem Jean-Pierre controversy is as good as any.

00:03:39.420 So she gets this spread in vogue, Jesse.

00:03:42.400 I mean, honestly, you would think that she were like the first lady or some prime minister

00:03:47.880 the way they they give her sort of the royal treatment.

00:03:51.340 And they have covered her like she is, you know, our true next leader who's going to take

00:03:56.020 us rhetorically into the next season.

00:03:58.100 Trying to find my my OK, here they are.

00:04:00.860 They talk all about her her fashion sense, how her her style at the White House lectern is

00:04:07.960 to disarm with a smile and then lay out facts.

00:04:12.620 OK, that's that's what they say she's known for.

00:04:15.240 The headline is she has made history and waves and they go on to say, OK, she she gets some

00:04:27.860 criticism from the White House press corps that she sounds rehearsed, writes Vogue.

00:04:32.820 That is because she does rehearse in prep.

00:04:37.340 She chooses adjectives and verbs with fastidious care.

00:04:42.880 Did you have any idea that this?

00:04:45.720 I mean, honestly, she's got to be the worst White House press secretary ever.

00:04:49.660 And I include Sean Spicer in there that she is up there rehearsing those banal answers,

00:04:57.180 allegedly choosing her adjectives and verbs with fastidious care.

00:05:01.520 Megan, she can't even talk.

00:05:03.320 She can't even talk.

00:05:04.440 And you and I have had this discussion before.

00:05:07.180 This is the press secretary.

00:05:08.620 Her job is to talk.

00:05:10.060 She should be better at talking really than most people, because that's her job is to

00:05:14.020 be the voice.

00:05:14.560 And when she gets up there, you've talked about it before, how she has to read everything.

00:05:18.820 She's up there and she's when someone asks her a question, she's looking down and she's

00:05:22.420 referencing her notes on just basic questions of the day.

00:05:26.420 She's she is easily the worst I've ever seen in my life.

00:05:30.120 I don't know how you could find a worse one than Corinne diversity higher.

00:05:35.400 Although you would there's no evidence of any of this fastidious preparation, choosing

00:05:39.860 her adjectives and verbs, if you actually take two minutes to listen to her, our team

00:05:45.560 put together just a short little montage of examples.

00:05:48.680 Watch.

00:05:49.880 When the PRC government surveillance balloons trans trans trans trans transited the continental

00:05:55.560 U.S. briefly at least three times, as you just mentioned, during the president's prior

00:05:59.620 administration and once that we know of the beginning of this administration's but never

00:06:05.540 for this duration of time, the NORAD is part of like a part of it's a it's a what you call

00:06:11.500 a coalition, a consortium, a pact, exactly.

00:06:14.360 We did it in in in clearly in in in step with Canada.

00:06:19.680 Three U.S. winners of the 2022 Nobel Prize, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, who won

00:06:26.840 the Nobel Prize in physics, who won the Nobel Prize in economic sciences.

00:06:31.980 I don't have anything.

00:06:33.220 I don't have anything.

00:06:34.240 I don't have anything.

00:06:35.440 I don't have anything.

00:06:36.180 I just don't have anything.

00:06:37.360 I don't have anything.

00:06:38.020 We don't have anything.

00:06:38.720 We just don't have anything here.

00:06:39.620 He tripped over a sandbag on the stage and briefly he tripped and got up and he he got

00:06:46.640 got right back up.

00:06:47.660 And so I'll just leave it there.

00:06:53.200 She's such a wordsmith.

00:06:54.580 So good with the verbs like transit transit.

00:06:57.100 You want a scary thought, Megan?

00:07:00.880 It hit me when I was watching that little montage.

00:07:02.760 OK, so obviously we all know Corinne diversity hire was not hired because she can speak well.

00:07:08.400 She just cannot.

00:07:09.120 So she was hired for diversity reasons.

00:07:10.880 OK, so that OK, that's embarrassing.

00:07:12.280 And it makes it makes for funny montages.

00:07:15.080 How many critically important positions in this government have been filled in the exact

00:07:20.360 same way?

00:07:22.200 Just take it.

00:07:22.920 Take it.

00:07:23.660 Take a minute.

00:07:24.200 Think about how many vice president.

00:07:26.120 Yeah, really, really senior official at HHS who's trying to trans all our children.

00:07:32.540 Yes, yes, yes.

00:07:34.580 Pete Buttigieg.

00:07:35.480 We can keep going.

00:07:36.320 Now, same exact reasons.

00:07:38.840 And these people matter.

00:07:40.220 They matter a lot.

00:07:41.580 The last guy who was stealing women's luggage and wearing thongs around the airport.

00:07:45.940 That dude had the nuclear codes.

00:07:49.900 You have to let it's laugh or cry.

00:07:51.800 That's why we're in the circle of hell.

00:07:53.740 We're in the seventh circle of hell today.

00:07:55.760 Sam Brinton, who who still how many like they're coming out of the woodwork to this day.

00:08:01.160 New people alleging him of having stolen their luggage and worn their clothes.

00:08:05.400 You're right.

00:08:06.280 It's terrifying.

00:08:06.800 Here, here's a little bit more from the Vogue treatment of Kareem Jean-Pierre.

00:08:15.260 They got a statement from Dr. Jill Biden as a pioneering White House press secretary.

00:08:21.600 So I appreciate the honesty.

00:08:22.820 That's yes, pioneering.

00:08:23.900 That's the reason she's there.

00:08:25.560 Very first black and lesbian White House press secretary, because we really needed those boxes

00:08:30.020 to be checked as a pioneering White House press secretary.

00:08:33.140 She brings grace, integrity and insight to the podium with her calm, quiet confidence.

00:08:41.260 Kareem inspires us all.

00:08:44.120 Does she, Mitchell?

00:08:45.240 We've been watching a lot of Modern Family in my family.

00:08:47.280 Does does she, Mitchell?

00:08:49.740 Integrity and insight to the podium.

00:08:51.660 I mean, it's just a basic lie.

00:08:53.220 I realize it's like a white lie.

00:08:55.040 She's trying to be kind, but it's literally the exact opposite of what she does.

00:08:59.980 She lies.

00:09:00.640 They all do.

00:09:01.480 But she lies every other day about Hunter Biden.

00:09:04.160 She never answers a question.

00:09:05.880 There is no integrity there.

00:09:07.040 And there's certainly zero insight she's provided since she took over the job.

00:09:12.080 And all these journalists, Megan, are OK with everything you just said.

00:09:16.080 That's the thing.

00:09:17.020 It's not like Joe, who's hiding, said they can't really get to him.

00:09:20.800 They stand in front of this woman and sit in front of this woman every single day.

00:09:24.120 And there's a shockingly low amount of hostility coming her way.

00:09:29.100 Wouldn't you say, Megan?

00:09:30.080 I mean, she's essentially spitting in their faces.

00:09:32.640 That's who she's insulting.

00:09:33.700 But they're not really insulted.

00:09:35.680 I'm wondering why that is.

00:09:37.300 Yeah.

00:09:37.620 Well, it's amazing because they actually managed to find a couple of reporters to push back on this.

00:09:41.820 The White House press corps saying she what what is happening here?

00:09:45.200 Like, since when do we do this with a White House press secretary?

00:09:47.940 And she's been very anti press.

00:09:49.600 She's given no like her job is actually to funnel real information to the press corps who represents as much as we hate them.

00:09:55.140 Us.

00:09:55.960 They're out there trying to get answers for the American people.

00:09:58.160 So her middle finger every day to them of I just don't have anything for you on that.

00:10:01.500 I just don't have anything for you.

00:10:02.560 I have nothing for you.

00:10:03.800 Consult Hunter Biden.

00:10:05.140 Consult.

00:10:05.540 You know, it is a middle finger and the press should be angry at her.

00:10:09.680 All right.

00:10:09.840 Let's shift gears because here in New York City, it's the second day of public school.

00:10:13.300 And the New York City school system, like so many school systems in blue America today, is a hot mess.

00:10:21.260 Um, the the liberal woke policies are taking over from the mass influx of illegal migrants to the mass influx of wokeness.

00:10:32.480 I'll tell you something.

00:10:33.320 A friend of mine was just talking to her very dear friend.

00:10:36.320 They're both in the New York City public schools.

00:10:38.980 And that friend's child went into class yesterday and he was asked on day one public school in New York.

00:10:43.780 What are your pronouns?

00:10:45.080 And he didn't say that he didn't he didn't say them.

00:10:47.960 He wanted to name a pronoun and he just said his name.

00:10:50.620 And the teacher said, what's your pronoun?

00:10:52.280 What are your pronouns?

00:10:52.880 And he said his name again.

00:10:54.960 And she said, what are your pronouns?

00:10:56.660 And he said, I'm not comfortable with that.

00:10:58.740 And she said, you have to say them to be respectful.

00:11:01.860 And he refused.

00:11:03.080 The mother was very proud of him.

00:11:04.960 I am very proud of him.

00:11:06.760 My kids ask me this all the time.

00:11:08.300 Like, they know that this is a dangerous game.

00:11:10.840 These adults are asking them to play.

00:11:13.060 And we're going to have somebody on in the second hour where we talk about this.

00:11:15.680 But I say to them, you can say, I'm not comfortable with that discussion.

00:11:20.600 I am not comfortable with that discussion.

00:11:22.320 Like, who the F is looking at minor children and asking them to start the school day by thinking about gender identity?

00:11:29.840 Well, that's the problem, Megan, with the teaching profession right now.

00:11:33.460 And, well, it's many professions.

00:11:35.180 Journalism is probably the foremost.

00:11:36.340 But with the teaching profession especially, we automatically assign a certain level of respect to somebody when they tell us they're a teacher.

00:11:43.800 Understandably so, right?

00:11:44.800 Okay, so your job is to look after the next generation, educate people.

00:11:48.620 So with just teacher, automatically, you give them something.

00:11:51.700 But we have to adjust our thinking.

00:11:53.720 And we have to understand that a lot of these people go into teaching just to be predators.

00:11:58.720 And I don't even just mean in, like, a really gross, you know, sexual kind of a way.

00:12:02.640 They go into the teaching profession because they want to break children away from their parents.

00:12:08.680 They want to take children who have been given values by their parents and break those.

00:12:12.900 That's why they're there.

00:12:13.940 They're there to break you from your kids.

00:12:16.540 And we have to accept that and start interrogating these teachers and challenging them a lot.

00:12:21.420 And I'm glad the kids are getting some guts out there because they're going to need them in this new country we have.

00:12:26.100 What would you do if you found out that a teacher had asked your kid pronouns, tried to force your kid to say the pronouns, and then, God forbid, in the worst-case scenario, you know, your kid expresses some sort of gender confusion to the teacher, and the teacher starts agreeing to socially transition your child without telling you?

00:12:44.400 Because this battle's starting to unfold in district after district, including in places like California.

00:12:48.740 Like, what would you do?

00:12:49.400 Megan, I don't know if I'm allowed to say a lot of what I would do if somebody actually tried to harm either of my sons, but I will tell you this, and this is what sucks.

00:13:01.700 You ask me, I would just shank my kids out of school.

00:13:04.280 Whatever that meant for us, if that meant, you know, we have to move jobs, quit jobs, move areas, whatever, but my kids are not going to go to school where they can be prey for people.

00:13:14.080 And that's the hardest adjustment parents have to make in places like New York and California and various places where they're really going crazy.

00:13:21.820 Are you going to have to make some sacrifices and some changes in your life to keep your kid from getting sent off to a place where they are prey for seven, eight hours a day?

00:13:30.160 That's how a lot of these places are, and it's going to mean people have to make adjustments, really hard adjustments.

00:13:34.920 That's right. Prey is exactly the right word, especially when you consider the number of so-called trans women who are doing this because it's a sexual fetish and they're actually getting off on dressing like women.

00:13:47.680 So we're letting our children participate in their sexual fantasy, like that Kayla Lemieux up in Canada.

00:13:53.460 So my kid has to be there, what, when you're getting off?

00:13:55.900 Like, you're going to get off that my kid is looking at you?

00:13:58.280 No, it's a no.

00:13:59.280 Yeah, that's that. Yeah. And look, it's OK to judge a book by its cover sometimes, too.

00:14:05.600 I realize a lot of people, especially people on the right, they tend to either either they're nice or they pretend to be right.

00:14:12.560 They want to be. They at least want to appear to be nice. People want to be nice.

00:14:16.260 But look, if you if you take your kid into kindergarten, first grade, and it's some woman in there with the crew cut and half her head shaved and she's got 15 rings in her face and tattoos all over her neck.

00:14:26.740 OK, you're going to have to make a judgment call there that that human being is probably not the person you should be leaving your child with for seven, eight hours a day.

00:14:33.460 It's time to start judging books by their cover. It's not like a lot of these freaks are very subtle about it.

00:14:38.180 Half of them are pretending to be a different gender with weird makeup on it.

00:14:42.280 But like you just pointed out, the one guy, we all saw the guy in Canada with the gigantic fake.

00:14:47.600 Well, we won't go into all that, but you can tell if your kid's teacher is a freak. Go talk to your kid's teacher.

00:14:52.380 Yeah, it's not just gender, of course. The immigration problem now in New York and elsewhere is exploding.

00:14:59.800 And this plan by Governor Greg Abbott of Texas and others along the southern border to ship migrants north is working.

00:15:06.000 New York City is at its breaking point. We've had over 100000 migrants come in over the past year, illegal migrants from all over the place.

00:15:12.520 And I I've been talking about how all these kids now, 20000 of them are going to the New York City public schools as of yesterday and have these kids at least don't speak English.

00:15:23.040 So they're trying to find desperately Spanish speaking teachers. But it's not just Spanish.

00:15:28.200 These kids are coming from all over from African countries.

00:15:31.600 And there's a new mandate from the Department of Education that each school just kind of deal with it on their own.

00:15:36.760 And but they have to have at least one person at the school who can speak whatever language is now represented at their school.

00:15:44.820 So you got to run. I mean, it's like basically you got to move in over at Rosetta Stone and try to find a little A.I.

00:15:50.620 person who can speak Swahili for every new migrant who comes in, who happens to speak it, even though these kids are unvaccinated.

00:15:58.040 And I don't just mean COVID. They can go to the schools without the MMR vaccine, the chicken pox vaccine.

00:16:03.660 And even meanwhile, my kids and your kids 100 percent have to have all of those just to step across the schoolhouse door.

00:16:11.880 Megan, this is the thing of it in our country.

00:16:14.860 We have gotten so far away from actual border policy that most Americans on left, right, middle, doesn't matter.

00:16:21.240 They couldn't stomach what actual border border policy should be.

00:16:24.560 Most nations in the history of the world understood you stop people at the border and don't allow them in.

00:16:30.960 And it's not just, oh, well, what about the felons? No, no, no, all of them.

00:16:34.000 None of them are allowed in. That's not Australian or mean or evil.

00:16:38.380 Of course, it's not mean or evil.

00:16:41.260 Look, it doesn't look wonderful. It's not something you celebrate, but that's the way to preserve a country.

00:16:47.540 And honestly, I'm thrilled at what's happening to New York City, not because I wish ill on New York City, which I love, as you well know, Megan.

00:16:54.360 Because it finally takes an issue that southern states, the border states have been suffering from forever.

00:17:01.340 And it finally puts it in front of the media. So they're forced to cover what New York City is going through right now.

00:17:07.140 That's Texas. That's Arizona. That's Southern California. That's New Mexico. That's what it is.

00:17:12.420 There are places that shoot, Megan, I'm 15 minutes away as I sit here right now from a place that has an entire wing in their K through 12 school,

00:17:20.180 an entire wing just for Spanish speakers because they have so many freaking illegals in the school.

00:17:25.160 They just had to bring it to build a whole new wing for them in the school.

00:17:28.320 Sane countries do not do that. You don't bring in everybody who shows up and house them and feed them and medical care and education.

00:17:36.120 They're giving them freaking Xboxes. One dude I read it from Venezuela.

00:17:40.160 He gets specialized Venezuelan cuisine every day.

00:17:42.700 Not only do we not send him back, we say, come on in. We'll make you your pupusas or whatever you want fresh for you every day here in this country.

00:17:49.880 That's not a country that is going to continue existing, Megan. Our border policy is insane to me. It drives me nuts.

00:17:55.800 There's a story today. I used to live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

00:17:58.240 There's a story about how there's a hotel up there on 70th on the West Side where they'd been housing all these migrants, including mostly single men.

00:18:05.760 Great. That's exactly what young families who live on the Upper West Side, a bunch of single male migrants moving in from God knows where.

00:18:12.440 So now all these families have migrated in illegally, allegedly seeking asylum.

00:18:17.620 And under Trump, at least they had to prove that they had tried to seek asylum someplace else before they came.

00:18:22.640 You crossed through how many countries before you tried to seek asylum here?

00:18:25.740 Why didn't you seek asylum someplace else if you were really fleeing conditions that were so bad, right?

00:18:30.520 You would have gone to the first country you could. No, they all want to be here. It's here.

00:18:33.440 So if it's just about here, it's a preference. It's not a true asylum claim.

00:18:37.200 In any event, they had to kick these guys out because the families were taking over and they wanted to move them into the hotel.

00:18:42.360 And the men got moved to Randall's Island, which is where our kids had to play sports for a long, long time because there are no athletic fields in Manhattan.

00:18:48.400 You get there. This is my favorite Doug Brunt story. I'm at Randall's Island.

00:18:52.180 He walks in with his buddy who they were coaching our kids when they were young.

00:18:56.060 And our friend Jonathan goes, my God, it's so beautiful here. Look at these amazing fields.

00:19:00.920 Why don't more people? What's that? What's that?

00:19:05.520 It's right by a sewage treatment center that just, oh, it reeks to high hell of sewage.

00:19:11.800 This is how your kids grow up in New York. Anyway, my point is the migrants are pissed.

00:19:16.800 They're mad that they're moving from the Upper West Side to Randall's Island to continue their free housing and free meals.

00:19:24.080 Because there is they preferred the beautiful hotel on the Upper West Side, Jesse.

00:19:29.640 Megan, that's honestly, it's embarrassing for me just as a patriot, what our border policy is, what our immigration policy is.

00:19:38.300 It is it is embarrassing because we are so disrespected by other nations, as you just pointed out, by the illegals themselves.

00:19:45.180 And we deserve that disrespect. That's the worst part of it.

00:19:48.040 It's not just it's not that guy. It's that that guy has every right to go complain about that the fields aren't OK and my meal wasn't hot enough in this.

00:19:56.200 And he has every right because in this country, our politicians, Democrat and Republican, are so pathetic and spineless and weak.

00:20:02.960 They don't want to do anything to actually stop these people.

00:20:05.400 Even Republicans don't. They always pretend they do and they don't.

00:20:08.540 The best you can get out of some loser Republican, some low T GOP or today, the best you can get out of him as well.

00:20:14.020 We should definitely deport the criminals. They're all criminals. The men, women and the kids.

00:20:18.260 They're all criminals. They all broker immigration law and every single one of them should go home.

00:20:23.260 But you can't say that in this namby pamby society.

00:20:26.160 Low T GOP. That's amazing. That should be on a bumper sticker. Low T GOP.

00:20:32.120 All right, wait. So Eric Adams, who was just absolutely open the doors, people.

00:20:39.420 Come on, let him in. Don't be so heartless. Who were Americans.

00:20:42.600 They always reference back to the Statue of Liberty.

00:20:45.600 My my grandpa came over. Both grandpas came over, passed the Statue of Liberty.

00:20:49.700 They did it legally and they didn't do it illegally.

00:20:52.480 This is a different story. Boy, oh, boy.

00:20:55.440 Mayor Adams has changed his tune.

00:20:58.300 He was totally in favor of New York City being Sanctuary City.

00:21:01.360 Welcome. Give us your tired, your poor, your hungry. All of it.

00:21:04.160 Now this made news yesterday. He said it on Wednesday.

00:21:07.020 Take a listen to the New York City mayor.

00:21:09.280 Started with a madman down in Texas, decided he wanted to bus people up to New York City.

00:21:17.960 Hundred and ten thousand migrants.

00:21:23.060 We have to feed, close, house, educate the children, wash their laundry sheets, give them everything they need.

00:21:32.900 Health care. Month after month, I stood up and I said, this is going to come to a neighborhood near you.

00:21:37.920 Well, we're here. We're here. We're getting no support on this national crisis.

00:21:48.540 Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to.

00:21:54.880 I don't see an ending to this.

00:21:57.920 I don't see an ending to this.

00:21:59.240 This issue will destroy New York City.

00:22:04.380 One time we were just in Venezuela.

00:22:07.640 Now we're in Ecuador.

00:22:09.780 Now we're in Russian speaking coming through Mexico.

00:22:12.520 Now we're in Western Africa.

00:22:15.160 Now we're getting people from all over the globe have made their minds up that they're going to come through the southern part of the border and come into New York City.

00:22:23.200 Every community in this city is going to be impacted.

00:22:27.180 The city we knew.

00:22:29.400 We're about to lose.

00:22:32.600 That that literally could have been Donald Trump.

00:22:34.580 That could have been Donald Trump saying all of that.

00:22:36.760 What a what a different message now that he's had to live the consequences, Jesse.

00:22:41.980 And let me just add this to that to that news.

00:22:44.360 Bill Malugian of Fox News now reporting he's citing from the L.A. Times reporting, actually, with a scoop reporting that the Biden administration is now considering forcing some migrant families who cross the border illegally to remain in Texas, limiting their ability to travel within the U.S.

00:23:02.360 as bipartisan criticism grows.

00:23:05.640 This is his solution.

00:23:06.820 Listen, just I will appease the blue state mayors and governors by making this remain a Texas problem, F-Texas.

00:23:16.040 Well, of course, these people are so evil, Megan, the people who run this country that they look at everything now as simply power.

00:23:24.380 Everything's about allies or enemies.

00:23:26.620 So if you're the Biden administration, I'll use the administration because Joe's not actually making any decisions, as everyone knows.

00:23:32.600 If you're the Biden administration, what are you?

00:23:34.740 You're a bunch of commie dirtballs, Lisa Monaco, Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett.

00:23:39.340 Everybody knows the names of the real, real, real committed commies behind the scenes.

00:23:43.920 So what do you want?

00:23:44.600 You want to flood the country with illegal immigrants because it's going to help you break America, which you hate anyway.

00:23:49.260 So you start flooding America.

00:23:50.780 The red state governors actually do something smart, which is something they rarely do.

00:23:54.280 And that's they send them to the sanctuary places.

00:23:56.520 Now the sanctuary places freak.

00:23:58.320 Well, that's not going to that's not going to sway the communists from his goal.

00:24:01.660 Remember, he has a goal.

00:24:02.620 His goal is to burn down the country.

00:24:04.060 So he's not going to stop.

00:24:05.540 He's just going to stop making you have to deal with it.

00:24:08.160 Let's just send all of them to my enemies so we can bankrupt the red states.

00:24:11.680 That's how evil these people are.

00:24:13.320 And people think I'm over the top and I say that stuff.

00:24:15.560 But I'm telling you, that's how they look at the country.

00:24:17.380 They look at this region and that region.

00:24:19.340 That's why Joe Biden hops on a plane right away and goes and sees Maui.

00:24:22.800 Still hasn't been to East Palestine.

00:24:24.680 It was all about how they vote.

00:24:25.880 The New York Post had a report this morning about how the first day of school went at some

00:24:34.240 of these high schools.

00:24:35.040 I mean, imagine what these poor kids are going through, right?

00:24:37.000 You and I can sit here pissed off, but these kids actually have to deal with it.

00:24:41.320 So they show up to school, for example, in one Queens high school, newcomers high school

00:24:46.060 on Long Island City to overflow.

00:24:48.720 Look at this.

00:24:49.200 These are lines of the teenagers trying to get into their school.

00:24:56.280 These schools were historically under attended because of chronic absenteeism, because of

00:25:01.800 community problems and so on.

00:25:03.140 But now you can't even get in as they expect at least 21,000 migrant students to enroll.

00:25:09.800 They the report says it's unclear how many of the kids were asylum seekers because the Department

00:25:15.240 of Education doesn't keep those records.

00:25:17.120 It does not track the immigration student or status of the students.

00:25:21.200 It doesn't want to know.

00:25:22.740 And so they are moving a lot of the legitimate students, you know, the Americans whose parents

00:25:28.320 pay taxes, which is why they're allowed to attend there to other off campus buildings

00:25:33.340 where they're crammed in like sardines so that the migrants, non-paying and unvaccinated

00:25:40.160 can mix into the normal classrooms with the air conditioning and get their 45 different translators

00:25:46.040 so that they can receive the lessons.

00:25:47.800 I mean, these poor parents who are now having to deal with this and the kids as well.

00:25:53.860 This is why the blue states are going to empty, Megan, of everybody who can.

00:25:58.080 And it's going to be such a sad it's going to be such a sad state of affairs going forward

00:26:02.180 in this country in the blue areas like New York, where New York's only going to be for

00:26:06.160 the mega rich or the dirt poor and everybody middle class is going to pack up and leave because

00:26:10.980 what parent, I mean, you don't have to be a political person to want that to stop.

00:26:15.360 Imagine sending your kid to that every day.

00:26:17.120 If you can afford it, if you have to move down to a shanty, you're getting your kid out

00:26:22.340 of that environment.

00:26:23.160 And these blue areas, as they continue to descend into whatever crap they're going to finally

00:26:27.820 turn into, it's going to really, really suck as people have to pack up and uproot their

00:26:32.600 lives and leave.

00:26:33.340 But people are not going to live under that.

00:26:35.100 I wouldn't live under that.

00:26:36.060 Forget that.

00:26:36.600 I never would.

00:26:38.440 No.

00:26:38.720 And then, as we pointed out, once your kid finally makes it into the classroom, he sits

00:26:43.000 down ready to do some learning and is asked what his pronouns are.

00:26:47.640 That's the state of not just our New York City schools, but I mean, I hear from parents

00:26:52.580 across the country more and more in the blue states.

00:26:55.480 It's starting to happen and it's really driving up rest, even in blue states like California

00:27:00.280 and New York.

00:27:01.300 Let me put a pause in it there.

00:27:02.760 We'll take a quick break and we'll come back much, much more to discuss with Jesse Kelly,

00:27:05.740 including the revelation of who the grand jury, the special grand jury down in Georgia

00:27:11.760 wanted to indict.

00:27:13.440 Remember that lunatic grand jury foreperson who was everywhere?

00:27:16.440 Now we know some of the people she was all excited about.

00:27:19.740 But alas, the D.A. did draw the line at a couple of sitting U.S. senators.

00:27:25.760 All right.

00:27:25.960 Stand by.

00:27:26.460 So they just released information on who that Georgia grand jury, it was a special grand

00:27:34.900 jury that was more of an investigative tool for this Fannie Willis, who's now going after

00:27:38.400 Trump and 45 other defendants, 19 others.

00:27:41.560 She wanted to make it even more than the 19.

00:27:43.880 She wanted to include.

00:27:44.720 I mean, the grand jury was asked to consider and gave her a thumbs up on including for

00:27:50.420 criminal indictment people like Lindsey Graham, Kelly Loeffler, David Perdue.

00:27:55.740 These are Georgia, I mean, senators.

00:27:58.820 And of course, Lindsey Graham sitting South Carolina U.S.

00:28:02.160 senator.

00:28:03.000 They in the end, Fannie Willis decided not to do it.

00:28:05.980 But, you know, the whole thing makes you remember how absurd the process was to begin with, how

00:28:11.880 sweeping it was.

00:28:13.280 I mean, everyone committed a crime.

00:28:14.480 Is that really?

00:28:15.240 That's really what was presented to the grand jury.

00:28:17.200 The grand jury didn't come up with Lindsey Graham on its own, the special grand jury.

00:28:20.540 They were presented that as, hey, here's another criminal.

00:28:23.860 And here's Kelly Loeffler.

00:28:25.220 Anybody who questioned the election process was presented to this special grand jury as a

00:28:31.820 potential criminal and you had morons like this woman on the special grand jury who were

00:28:38.540 like, sure, another ham sandwich.

00:28:40.800 Sure.

00:28:41.200 Another ham sandwich.

00:28:42.080 Remember her?

00:28:42.680 Watch.

00:28:44.140 Did the grand jury recommend indictments of multiple people?

00:28:56.100 Yes, I will tell you, it's it's not a short list.

00:28:58.880 I mean, we saw 75 people and there are six pages of the report cut out.

00:29:05.760 So we're talking about more than a dozen people?

00:29:09.160 I would say that.

00:29:10.420 Yes.

00:29:11.340 Are these recognizable names, names that people would know?

00:29:15.400 There are certainly names that you would recognize.

00:29:18.640 Yes, there definitely are some names that you expect.

00:29:22.160 And she was talking about how excited she would have been to swear in President Trump.

00:29:26.520 She's literally, for the listening audience, raising her eyebrows like playfully in response

00:29:31.700 and rocking back and forth and looking coyly at the interviewer.

00:29:36.740 The whole process is becoming very clear, Jesse, on how this all went down.

00:29:41.600 Yeah.

00:29:42.000 And how it's going to look going forward, Megan.

00:29:44.140 That's what worries me so much, because the more we learn about how it all went down.

00:29:48.680 Well, it's the same jury poll going forward.

00:29:51.180 And this these these freaks like that, that poor thing right there.

00:29:55.740 My goodness, I don't know what's wrong with her.

00:29:56.980 But these people, this these are the people who are going to be sitting in there in Trump's

00:30:01.720 trial, deciding whether or not he's guilty or not guilty.

00:30:04.300 And what's crazy is they've all already made up their minds.

00:30:07.220 They haven't even picked the jury yet.

00:30:08.560 And all 12 of Trump's jurors in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta, Fulton County.

00:30:13.740 May he might get a little bit of a break there because of northern Atlanta.

00:30:16.380 But all these jurors have already made up their mind that Trump's the Antichrist, Adolf

00:30:20.760 Hitler, white supremacists and threat to democracy, and that he needs to go into a cage.

00:30:25.860 This whole thing has already been decided and written like the Moscow show trials.

00:30:30.680 I wonder whether there's anything to be gleaned, though, because they voted, I think, 13 to

00:30:34.520 seven to indict Senator Lindsey Graham.

00:30:36.960 So they could have done it.

00:30:37.880 Fannie Willis could have done it.

00:30:38.880 She decided not to.

00:30:40.060 Smart move.

00:30:40.600 But there was like one juror actually, according to the footnote in the report, wrote a dissent

00:30:46.640 or dissented or dissented openly saying that these people were just pandering to their

00:30:52.740 base.

00:30:53.520 They weren't actually interfering with an election.

00:30:56.120 They didn't commit a crime.

00:30:58.140 And so you might get you know, you still could get that person on the Trump jury to saying,

00:31:03.120 what are we doing?

00:31:04.380 You know, what is this about?

00:31:05.740 Um, not to excuse, you know, like all the craziness around January 6th, but it wasn't

00:31:11.460 criminal.

00:31:11.940 So Vivek Ramaswamy, I want to talk to you about because he's somebody who got very he was openly

00:31:17.620 critical of Donald Trump on June 6th, very openly critical.

00:31:20.280 But now he seems to be running as Trump's chief complimenter, the bootlicker in chief to

00:31:28.440 Donald Trump.

00:31:29.280 And yet reporters on the left and the right are going back and looking at his prior statements,

00:31:33.600 trying to figure out who's the real Vivek.

00:31:35.540 Like, does he love Trump?

00:31:36.560 Does he credit?

00:31:37.060 Does he does he think Jan 6th was deeply problematic or like, what's the truth?

00:31:41.600 And this guy, Mehdi Hassan, who I can't stand over on MSNBC, had a very contentious exchange

00:31:46.680 with Vivek.

00:31:47.580 I would submit it doesn't reflect well on our friend Vivek, but I want to know what you

00:31:51.300 think.

00:31:51.660 Here's what happened.

00:31:53.440 You say he behaved in downright abhorrent behavior that makes him a danger to democracy.

00:31:58.200 What was it that was downright?

00:31:59.200 Let's tell me what he did that was downright abhorrent.

00:32:00.860 Let's actually be let's actually be really fair to your audience.

00:32:04.480 So on January 10th, 2021, thereabouts, days after that incident, I wrote an op-ed in the

00:32:09.680 Wall Street Journal arguing that censorship was the real cause of what happened on January

00:32:14.440 6th.

00:32:15.240 When asked in response, somebody asked me the question, are you that that's that's well,

00:32:19.360 that's what I wrote.

00:32:20.000 I'm giving you the facts of what I said.

00:32:21.260 That's a hard fact that was published in the Wall Street Journal.

00:32:23.640 When pressed on, was that condoning what Trump did?

00:32:26.780 My answer was no.

00:32:28.060 There's a difference between a bad judgment and a crime.

00:32:31.680 And you're avoiding my question.

00:32:32.820 We need to be able to tell the difference in this country.

00:32:34.220 What did Donald Trump do, in your view, that was downright abhorrent?

00:32:37.640 Second time I asked that question.

00:32:38.220 I think that the thing that I would have done differently if I were in his shoes is I would

00:32:42.720 have declared re-election on January 7th.

00:32:46.020 That's not what I asked with respect.

00:32:46.120 I'll ask you a third time.

00:32:46.720 That's exactly the thing I would have done.

00:32:48.000 What did Trump do that was egregious, quote, downright abhorrent, and a danger to democracy?

00:32:53.500 Can you just explain to our viewers your words?

00:32:56.020 So you're mixing two different quotes.

00:32:58.300 But what did I think was reprehensible about what happened that day?

00:33:01.380 Look, I think that the way a true leader should have handled that situation should have been

00:33:06.540 to actually say, this is me running for re-election, not actually litigating what is

00:33:11.640 already passed in behind us.

00:33:12.900 And I would have done things differently.

00:33:14.180 That is not a crime, though, what he did.

00:33:15.640 And the reason I have been so vehement-

00:33:17.760 You keep saying what you would have done.

00:33:19.040 I just want to hear from your mouth.

00:33:20.540 No, no.

00:33:20.980 Unless you're scared of him, why wouldn't you say what he did that was downright abhorrent?

00:33:24.900 I'm not going to let you stitch, you're stitching together three things with three

00:33:29.100 replaces to create a caricature.

00:33:30.940 Do you want to have an actual conversation?

00:33:34.040 Yes.

00:33:34.420 I want you to answer my question, Vivek.

00:33:35.900 Three times I've asked it.

00:33:36.940 What did Trump do that was downright abhorrent?

00:33:40.100 It's a simple question.

00:33:41.440 It's your words.

00:33:42.360 It's on screen.

00:33:43.020 What did he do that was downright abhorrent?

00:33:45.640 I believe that failing to unite this country falls short of what a true leader ought to

00:33:52.240 do.

00:33:52.820 That is why I'm in this race, is to do things differently than any prior president has done

00:33:57.420 them.

00:33:57.980 That's the hard truth, OK?

00:33:59.500 And that's what made him a sore loser and a abhorrent.

00:34:01.620 Yes, your words.

00:34:03.520 Well, the reality is none of that is a crime.

00:34:05.800 And the reason I have been so vocal-

00:34:07.740 OK.

00:34:08.120 The reason I have been so vocal is because when somebody actually prosecutes somebody for

00:34:13.040 a bad judgment, and I've been clear.

00:34:14.460 I understand your objections to the litigation.

00:34:16.340 I would have made different judgments.

00:34:17.840 That's all I ask, but I understand.

00:34:18.520 That is a distinction we have to draw.

00:34:20.760 Understood.

00:34:23.780 What's your reaction to that, Jesse?

00:34:26.280 Megan, the right has a condition right now that they're going to have to be very careful

00:34:31.400 of, if you don't mind, I'll take a minute if you don't mind with this one, but our condition

00:34:36.320 on the right right now is desperation.

00:34:38.700 We look around.

00:34:39.740 If you're somebody, just a relatively normal person, and your country just lost its mind

00:34:44.760 like 15 minutes ago, you don't have any cultural institutions.

00:34:48.160 You can't watch a football game or put your kid in the Boy Scouts without having to talk

00:34:51.720 about transsexuals.

00:34:53.060 This is not the country you grew up in, and now you're desperate.

00:34:55.280 And desperate people will oftentimes grab a hold of something that they should not grab

00:35:01.100 a hold of because it just sounds like any port in a storm, as the old saying goes.

00:35:06.260 That's Vivek.

00:35:07.160 That's what Vivek is for the right.

00:35:09.020 I have a theory.

00:35:10.060 It's only a theory.

00:35:11.200 I have nothing to back this up.

00:35:12.820 I have a theory that the Trump campaign brilliantly, if they actually did this, it's a brilliant

00:35:17.360 move, which I totally support, that they got him.

00:35:19.940 I know he knows Jared Kushner.

00:35:21.420 Vivek and Jared are friends.

00:35:22.940 I think they talked him into the race.

00:35:24.240 So he'll get into the race and take a bunch of the far right-wing votes away from DeSantis.

00:35:29.100 That's why Vivek will attack every candidate and does in the race all the time.

00:35:33.160 But he can't stop giving Donald Trump foot rubs every single day.

00:35:37.180 Anybody paying attention can see Vivek is there on behalf of Donald Trump, whether that was

00:35:42.500 designed and planned or whether he just did it because he wants to be BP or something like

00:35:46.800 that.

00:35:47.320 That's why he's in the race.

00:35:48.680 And that's why he changed positions on things within the course of six months.

00:35:52.680 He just looks around and sees whatever the right wants to hear because we're desperate

00:35:56.240 to hear something right now.

00:35:57.540 And that's what he decides to say.

00:35:59.340 And it's obviously not what he believes.

00:36:00.940 But look, desperate people, they reach out and they grab a hold of anything that looks

00:36:05.220 nice.

00:36:07.440 I'll say I mentioned this to my audience.

00:36:09.160 You know, I have conflicting feelings on Vivek because I love his anti-woke stuff.

00:36:12.080 But this like his behavior as a candidate has been less than stellar to be charitable.

00:36:15.680 Uh, and one of the things that's jumping out at me is it's, it's annoying.

00:36:19.460 Like he is sort of the smartest one in the class who's always correcting everybody else.

00:36:23.420 I know better than you do.

00:36:24.620 I know I'm the only one who can do it.

00:36:26.240 I'm the only courageous one out here.

00:36:27.920 All the rest of you suck.

00:36:29.300 And there it's, maybe you think that maybe you think every other Republican candidate sucks

00:36:33.500 and you think Vivek is, is the shining light.

00:36:35.960 I, in my experience, the seven foot center doesn't tell you how tall he is.

00:36:39.960 And yet that is exactly what you hear from Vivek on his own courage and bravery.

00:36:46.360 We've cut a soundbite.

00:36:47.560 Listen.

00:36:48.820 I'm the only person on the stage who isn't bought and paid for.

00:36:51.340 So I can say this, the climate change agenda is a host.

00:36:54.780 I am the only person bringing clear strategic vision to our foreign policy.

00:36:59.060 Pardon Donald Trump.

00:36:59.800 I'm the only candidate on this stage where the courage to actually say in the conversation

00:37:03.700 I'm having with you guys, being far more honest than any politician that I know in

00:37:08.600 the last 10 years in this country, we have to offer an affirmative vision of our own.

00:37:13.060 I think I was the only candidate in this race that's been doing that so far.

00:37:15.740 How do you navigate DeSantis versus Trump?

00:37:18.040 So I navigated by saying that what we really need is a courageous leader.

00:37:21.000 You don't think the two of them are?

00:37:22.380 I don't think so.

00:37:24.920 There are additional, I could have listed 25 tweets where he, I'm the only one with the

00:37:28.540 courage.

00:37:29.000 I'm the only one with the courage to tell you what's real.

00:37:31.200 And then it will be insert some new position that he changed over the past week because

00:37:35.840 he got hit by the media or by the right or by his competitor on having an untenable position.

00:37:42.080 Yeah.

00:37:42.560 Look, Megan, he's a used car salesman.

00:37:45.520 It is what he is.

00:37:46.320 I haven't liked him at all from the very beginning.

00:37:48.220 It's he just, it smells slimy to me.

00:37:51.060 It always has smelled slimy to me.

00:37:53.240 So I'm not a, I'm not a Vivette guy, but at the same time, I understand why people are

00:37:58.080 right.

00:37:58.500 I really do.

00:37:59.380 He, because he takes a lot of the correct positions on issues now, at least takes a lot

00:38:04.020 of correct positions on issues and people are dying for somebody that'll step up and

00:38:08.900 say, you know, Hey, we don't have to pussyfoot around this.

00:38:11.200 Yeah.

00:38:11.300 We should eliminate the FBI.

00:38:12.880 This is an organization that has become a clear and present danger to the national security

00:38:17.000 of the United States of America.

00:38:18.100 And they should be eliminated completely.

00:38:19.980 That's, that's an appropriate position to have.

00:38:22.080 And when he's the only one who's willing to say it in a race, then it does make him appealing.

00:38:26.420 So I get the appeal.

00:38:27.580 I just, that he's the first of many Megan who are going to come.

00:38:33.940 I think 2024 is very likely going to go real, real ugly for us.

00:38:37.560 And so we're going to be real desperate after that.

00:38:40.440 And there'll be many, many Viveks in the future who are going to come in and sound just so perfect

00:38:45.700 and say all the right things.

00:38:47.140 And they're probably not going to be.

00:38:49.400 Yeah.

00:38:49.900 Be careful.

00:38:50.520 Be careful of the man who tells you everything you always wanted to hear.

00:38:53.480 Um, the, the, the age issue in politics has been everywhere, right?

00:38:59.640 Nancy Pelosi comes out today to add to the issue.

00:39:02.300 Number one, claiming she's going to run again.

00:39:04.980 Okay.

00:39:05.400 She's 83.

00:39:06.320 She says she's going to run again.

00:39:07.680 And number two, claiming that the criticism of Dianne Feinstein as needing to step down

00:39:13.920 is sexist.

00:39:16.220 It's you're a sexist jerk.

00:39:18.380 If you think DiFi, who literally has forgotten how to vote in the U.S. Senate, should step down.

00:39:25.220 Uh, Megan, I actually am a huge admirer of Nancy Pelosi.

00:39:31.460 I mean, I hate her just like everyone else does, but I just love the gumption.

00:39:36.100 I think you'd say, uh, on the woman, she's always been this way.

00:39:39.100 Just like blatant right out there about Dianne Feinstein.

00:39:42.860 Well, yeah, that's sexist.

00:39:44.220 She's just like this Terminator Democrat robot.

00:39:46.960 And she always has.

00:39:48.140 And I guess I kind of want, I wish for somebody like that on our side.

00:39:51.280 One thing I don't get though, Megan, is why you would run again and stay in Congress.

00:39:56.680 Now I understand it's not exactly a brutal life for her, but they're worth millions and

00:40:01.220 millions and millions of dollars.

00:40:02.480 The Pelosi family is, why would you want to be in Washington, D.C.?

00:40:06.760 Why do these people want to die in office, Megan?

00:40:09.520 I don't understand it at all.

00:40:11.040 Go die on a beach in Italy or something somewhere.

00:40:14.580 Why, why do they all do this?

00:40:15.940 I don't get it at all.

00:40:17.260 They can't step away from power, right?

00:40:20.180 It's fair.

00:40:20.540 Oh, my God.

00:40:20.880 Strabuck is right now opening the door to the studio and letting himself in.

00:40:23.660 OK, what could possibly go wrong?

00:40:26.440 So let's talk about Jimmy Fallon, because having worked at NBC, I understand people saying

00:40:31.780 it's a toxic place to work.

00:40:32.940 I do.

00:40:33.440 Trust me.

00:40:34.160 However, it's rare to see somebody like Jimmy Fallon, who's supposed to be everybody's

00:40:38.660 favorite late night guy, though not according to the ratings, come under this kind of scrutiny.

00:40:42.860 And the controversy is getting bad.

00:40:44.700 Now, I will tell you, he's not the worst.

00:40:47.280 The Daily Show has the worst ratings.

00:40:48.600 They only have three hundred and sixty six thousand people watching that show during

00:40:52.040 the Jon Stewart years.

00:40:53.040 It was over two million.

00:40:54.280 Now it's down to three hundred thousand.

00:40:55.940 Seth Meyers, absolutely dreadful.

00:40:58.140 He's got he doesn't even have a million seven hundred and seventy eight thousand.

00:41:01.200 I mean, for network television, this is you know, you don't have to pay for it's there

00:41:05.500 when you turn on your TV, you plug it in.

00:41:07.820 That's a dreadful number.

00:41:10.160 Greg Gutfeld on cable, which you do have to pay for.

00:41:12.700 It has more than double the numbers of Seth Meyers.

00:41:15.320 There's Jimmy Kimmel, one point five million averaging also equally horrible.

00:41:19.540 And then there's The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, who back when I was there, twenty seventeen,

00:41:24.280 eighteen, he was averaging two point three million a night.

00:41:26.540 Now he's down to one point three million, Jesse, and he cannot afford the you are toxic

00:41:32.860 controversy because he's also pulling in reportedly over fifteen million dollars a year.

00:41:36.840 I think it's probably more than that's probably more than probably closer to twenty twenty five

00:41:40.340 million a year.

00:41:41.260 So you've got all that money for one point five million in audience, which is a nothing.

00:41:45.260 I mean, the middle of the day on Fox News gets that or at least used to before the Tucker

00:41:49.180 controversy.

00:41:50.200 And the reporting out of Rolling Stone is people.

00:41:55.500 Now, I don't I'm conflicted.

00:41:57.140 I'm going to be honest because kids today, they're so dramatic, Jesse.

00:42:01.380 They left due to their mental health.

00:42:03.740 They were fired.

00:42:04.380 Rolling Stone reached out to 80 current and former staffers.

00:42:08.640 Not a single one had positive things to say about working on The Tonight Show or for Jimmy

00:42:13.340 NBC and defending the story did not defend Fallon.

00:42:17.360 They just said, we're incredibly proud of The Tonight Show and that providing a respectful

00:42:21.240 working environment is a top priority.

00:42:23.680 But then you get to this paragraph reporting things like having nightmares related to work

00:42:29.980 in a constant state of fear, being put on anti-anxiety medication, hair thinning, weakened

00:42:35.800 nail beds, going to therapy.

00:42:39.680 Some claim they had suicidal ideation as a result of the working environment.

00:42:44.620 They reported I'm like, what the hell did Jimmy Fallon do?

00:42:46.860 What do you do?

00:42:47.600 I read the next paragraph says they reported Jimmy snapping at people.

00:42:51.820 He snapped at people.

00:42:53.420 What do you mean that caused suicidal ideations?

00:42:55.900 Then I said, what?

00:42:56.580 What seriously?

00:42:57.200 Like what specifically?

00:42:58.060 They have some examples.

00:43:00.480 One employee said Fallon would write personal insults to staffers as opposed to constructive

00:43:05.000 criticisms such as, are you OK?

00:43:07.600 Seriously, do you need help?

00:43:11.100 He's laughing and ugh, lame.

00:43:14.880 What's going on with you?

00:43:15.980 You've outdone yourself.

00:43:17.660 The horror, Jesse.

00:43:20.780 Megan, see, this is what I struggle with, too.

00:43:23.780 And are we dealing with somebody who's an actual jerk or are we dealing with this new generation?

00:43:29.580 So I have this friend of mine.

00:43:31.300 He manages this big auto dealership and he's looking for sales guys.

00:43:35.220 This happened last weekend, weekend before.

00:43:37.480 And he has this applicant come in.

00:43:38.960 He sits down with this guy, Megan.

00:43:40.620 And the guy says, the interview's going well.

00:43:43.380 And they ask him, hey, why are you leaving your other job?

00:43:46.000 You got another job.

00:43:46.860 And the guy said, well, I'm looking for a better work-life balance.

00:43:49.480 And they said, oh, wow, OK, well, what kind of hours are you working?

00:43:54.080 And the guy said, man, they have me working Monday through Friday from 8 to 5 every single

00:43:59.320 day.

00:43:59.980 And that for this guy, that didn't strike the correct work-life balance in his mind for

00:44:05.840 what thing?

00:44:06.320 8 to 5, Monday through Friday, you know, a normal job, 40 hours a week.

00:44:09.900 So whenever I hear these complaints about I left because he was mean or I left because

00:44:15.140 he was mean, I do keep in mind that this generation was not raised by my father.

00:44:20.180 I could never go home and tell my dad that somebody snapped at me at work.

00:44:23.860 That would not have gone over well in the Kelly household.

00:44:26.660 So yeah, I don't, I don't know.

00:44:28.240 I don't ever know what to make of them, Megan.

00:44:30.180 Same.

00:44:30.740 I feel the same.

00:44:31.760 I've got serious questions about whether any of this is true.

00:44:34.740 I mean, I, in every job I've ever worked, I've, I've had people who would jump through brick

00:44:38.700 walls for me and I can be a tough boss.

00:44:41.200 I'm not an asshole, but I'll say like, that was a shitty packet.

00:44:44.020 Like we need to do better.

00:44:45.520 That was not okay.

00:44:46.240 And the team, my team loves me and I love my team because we are all about putting out

00:44:50.500 great work product.

00:44:51.920 And I'm quick to compliment too.

00:44:54.160 Like, what did he say?

00:44:55.500 He basically said, are you okay?

00:44:57.180 Seriously?

00:44:57.520 Do you need help?

00:44:58.720 That's causing people to lose their hair.

00:45:01.900 That's the people need to toughen up.

00:45:04.080 Your workplace is not your Nana's lap.

00:45:06.280 Like it's, they're not there to make you feel good.

00:45:09.260 They're there to make the consumer feel good.

00:45:12.780 Yeah.

00:45:13.280 I don't understand.

00:45:14.380 This has got to be a parent thing from today.

00:45:16.600 Right, Megan?

00:45:17.360 Cause I just, every time I hear stories like this, I, again, I think about my folks and

00:45:21.920 how they would react if I ever said something like that.

00:45:25.120 If I ever said, well, my boss asked me what was wrong with me and I'm very upset.

00:45:29.600 I think they would try to, I think they'd be looking at me like I was some kind of an alien.

00:45:33.680 And they'd probably say, well, what is wrong with you?

00:45:35.680 What's your problem?

00:45:37.400 I think this is a parent thing.

00:45:39.880 I think this is a helicopter parenting thing, Megan, where you're never allowed to yell at

00:45:44.460 little Billy and Aiden, Jaden and Brayden have to be taken care of at all times.

00:45:48.600 And I think that's really what we're dealing with now in this weird age.

00:45:52.600 It's really true.

00:45:53.780 It's like, I've joked before about how you, you need to criticize your own children somewhat.

00:45:58.180 Like you got to kid your kids.

00:45:59.500 You got to make sure they know how to take a joke and some constructive feedback and,

00:46:04.100 you know, occasionally some insults.

00:46:05.880 We, we actually have practiced insulting our kids with our kids.

00:46:09.780 Like, how would you deal with it?

00:46:11.400 Like if a bully came up to you and said, you're stupid and you suck and nobody likes you.

00:46:15.280 You have no friends.

00:46:16.060 How would you handle it?

00:46:17.180 And we went down the line on our, our eldest Yates had like a clever retort.

00:46:21.100 Our daughter Yardley had, I'll never forget what she said.

00:46:23.940 Her response was, it doesn't matter what you say because I know who I am.

00:46:28.040 You know, she went like ethereal and like profound.

00:46:30.420 And then our little guy, Thatcher, after we did it to him, like, you're stupid.

00:46:33.880 You suck.

00:46:34.460 And nobody likes you.

00:46:35.760 He looks at us and he goes, bye.

00:46:38.660 Like, that's the best.

00:46:39.760 That was the best one.

00:46:41.720 That's the way to handle it.

00:46:43.440 But we need to toughen up these kids because like they're manifesting in the work.

00:46:46.760 Maybe he's a complete prick and he's bullying everybody.

00:46:48.800 I leave open that possibility.

00:46:50.580 But I mean, the way this sounds, Jesse, we have another bunch of snowflakes who are running

00:46:54.580 to Rolling Stone to try, I guess, to get Jimmy Fallon out of there.

00:46:59.280 Yeah, well, they'll probably succeed.

00:47:01.420 And in the end, no matter what, it won't even be the ratings that brought him down.

00:47:04.740 It'll be because some 25-year-old fresh out of college got her feel-feels hurt.

00:47:08.900 That's what it'll be, Megan.

00:47:10.060 Her poor anxiety medication.

00:47:12.500 Yes, honestly, like, all I can tell you is yes.

00:47:17.140 Jesse Kelly, it's always so fun talking to you.

00:47:19.380 I like the hair.

00:47:20.240 I think you should embrace it, lean in.

00:47:23.580 You look good.

00:47:24.280 And I loved being in the seventh circle of hell with you.

00:47:27.020 Thank you, ma'am.

00:47:27.860 We'll talk soon.

00:47:29.160 See you soon.

00:47:30.400 OK, and thanks to all of you.

00:47:31.760 Remember, you can find The Megan Kelly Show live.

00:47:33.600 There's much more coming in our next hour on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111.

00:47:38.440 We're on every weekday at noon east.

00:47:40.520 You can listen to us live there.

00:47:41.980 And then if you missed it, you can check out the full video show later.

00:47:44.900 You can watch us.

00:47:45.640 You can see what I'm talking about with a red background at YouTube.com slash Megan Kelly.

00:47:50.580 If you prefer an audio podcast, simply follow and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher,

00:47:55.840 or wherever you get your podcasts for free.

00:47:59.300 And there you will find our full archives with more than, count them, 600 plus shows.

00:48:05.000 Our next guest is a licensed professional counselor who has worked with hundreds of trans-identifying

00:48:14.700 adolescents.

00:48:15.780 But she says she does not affirm her patient's gender identities and tells parents they should

00:48:20.840 not either, that if that is what they are looking for, they should look elsewhere and

00:48:24.960 they should look someplace other than her new book, which is an essential blueprint for

00:48:30.480 parents on how to navigate all of this.

00:48:33.140 This is really important that these books are coming out.

00:48:34.820 Let me tell you, because when Abigail Schreier wrote her book, Irreversible Damage in 2020,

00:48:39.380 there were precious few resources out there for parents struggling with this issue.

00:48:43.400 All you got was affirm, affirm your kid will commit suicide.

00:48:46.580 And so these desperate parents started doing it.

00:48:48.680 And that's in part how we got to the place we are now.

00:48:51.980 This book today that we're going to talk about is called When Kids Say They're Trans,

00:48:57.420 A Guide for Thoughtful Parents.

00:48:59.720 And it's out right now in the UK.

00:49:02.440 It's coming out on October 17th in the US, so you can get your pre-order going right now

00:49:07.140 if you're here in America.

00:49:09.400 Sasha Ayyad joins me now.

00:49:11.100 Sasha is one of the co-authors of the book, and she joins me live.

00:49:14.400 Sasha, great to see you.

00:49:15.320 Welcome to the show.

00:49:16.160 Thank you so much, Megan.

00:49:17.780 I'm really happy to be here with you.

00:49:20.280 So you are a licensed, what, family therapist?

00:49:24.200 I'm a licensed professional counselor.

00:49:26.780 Okay.

00:49:27.500 And why did you feel the need to write this book?

00:49:31.100 Well, my co-authors and I, we started to notice in the mid-2010s something very unusual happening.

00:49:38.640 And by the way, at the time, we didn't know each other.

00:49:40.860 We had never met.

00:49:41.600 We were kind of working in our separate fields.

00:49:43.940 But we all started to track this cultural phenomenon, which, as probably your viewers

00:49:49.200 know now, we saw a huge spike in the number of young people identifying as trans, often

00:49:54.660 for the first time with no history of gender issues.

00:49:57.860 And what we know, Megan, is that exploring your identity in adolescence is a very normal

00:50:02.520 thing.

00:50:03.180 You know, kids get into all kinds of different identity explorations.

00:50:06.620 They're exploring style and creativity.

00:50:08.860 And in this day and age, you know, kids are also experimenting with gender and sexuality

00:50:13.960 labels.

00:50:14.800 So there's nothing really unusual about that.

00:50:17.400 But what Lisa and Stella and I started to find in these online parent reports was something

00:50:22.660 very unusual, which is, as you mentioned, parents were, you know, noticing that their

00:50:27.620 kids were, you know, also very distressed about other things.

00:50:31.280 Maybe they had histories of, you know, eating disorders or cutting or some other kind of mental

00:50:36.940 health distress.

00:50:37.840 And when they were announcing that they were transgender, rather than taking an exploratory

00:50:43.780 way of looking at it, when they took their kids to therapists or doctors, the therapists

00:50:49.460 and doctors were saying, we need to affirm this child, meaning we need to kind of take this

00:50:54.920 distress literally and almost rubber stamp the new identity that has that has evolved.

00:51:00.200 So we thought that this was very unusual.

00:51:02.680 And when you think about the kind of complicated and heavy medical burden involved with a pathway

00:51:09.760 towards hormones and surgeries, we thought, wait a minute, there's something really wrong

00:51:14.580 here.

00:51:15.120 And it is not appropriate for therapists and doctors to be taking these trans declarations

00:51:21.360 literally.

00:51:21.980 So we connected with each other because we were writing and talking about our concerns.

00:51:27.720 And honestly, Megan, this was in the mid 2010s.

00:51:30.840 There was not a lot of infrastructure for people to speak out.

00:51:34.160 So when I started my practice in 2016, and just to make sure I kind of correct the statement,

00:51:39.400 I've worked with dozens of trans identified kids, but I have worked with hundreds of families.

00:51:43.940 So in 2016, when I started to speak about this and write about this, I connected with Lisa,

00:51:49.900 who also wrote about social contagion and psychic epidemics.

00:51:54.340 And then Stella O'Malley made an incredible BBC film in 2018 called Trans Kids, It's Time

00:52:00.560 to Talk.

00:52:01.280 So we kind of found each other doing this similar work and connected.

00:52:05.720 And since then, since speaking about our concerns, we ended up each getting completely flooded

00:52:11.540 by thousands and thousands of messages and emails and voicemails from parents who were describing

00:52:17.560 this very thing, like my kid was really distressed setting.

00:52:20.940 They have nowhere to turn.

00:52:22.320 We talked about this with Dr. Miriam Grossman about how there are so few and far between

00:52:26.040 honest therapists who will use talk therapy and explore what's going on with the child

00:52:31.760 as opposed to a firm.

00:52:33.660 You're right.

00:52:34.080 You're in the wrong body.

00:52:35.700 Right, right.

00:52:36.480 And I think there's a kind of black and white narrative here, too.

00:52:40.220 Right.

00:52:40.420 So we have people saying that either you affirm, which means you literally agree with your child

00:52:45.600 or you kind of allow them to experiment with gender in this way, or you say, no, this is

00:52:50.760 impossible.

00:52:51.220 This is not going on for you.

00:52:53.260 You're just a girl.

00:52:54.240 There's nothing we can do about that.

00:52:55.600 And actually, most families that we meet are kind of somewhere in the middle, which is coming

00:53:00.040 from a place of, I see that you're distressed.

00:53:03.100 Tell me more.

00:53:04.060 I love you.

00:53:04.960 We will always be your parents.

00:53:06.580 We will get through this together.

00:53:07.900 So there's a very compassionate way to take this suffering seriously without literally

00:53:14.320 agreeing that the conclusion is I'm trans.

00:53:17.640 I was born in the wrong body.

00:53:19.700 It's so important to handle it just right, because the child can easily become untethered

00:53:27.260 from you and immerse themselves further in this world of gender ideology.

00:53:31.920 So you do even if you're as anti all of this with children as I am, you have to be smart

00:53:39.240 and you have to thread the needle just right.

00:53:41.220 If you have a kid coming to you saying they are feeling this, it's almost like, OK, by this

00:53:46.200 point, you've already missed something with your child.

00:53:47.920 Like, I think there's been a bit of a fail because, you know, you should kind of should

00:53:52.620 have been on top of it and on top of your child's well-being and their time online and

00:53:56.400 all that.

00:53:56.800 But we all fail.

00:53:57.700 I mean, none of us is a perfect parent and in today's day and age, these kids get sucked

00:54:02.180 into this stuff, even with a great parent.

00:54:03.980 So in any event, at that point, now that the only decision you have to make is how do I

00:54:07.440 handle this in the most savvy fashion to help this child exit out the other side?

00:54:14.700 Yeah.

00:54:14.840 And I want to talk about something else.

00:54:17.480 You know, we tend to focus a lot on the kind of rapid onset gender dysphoria stories because

00:54:22.780 I think they're the most stark and they're the most shocking.

00:54:25.740 So if you have a child who's historically been, let's say a girl who's historically been incredibly

00:54:30.300 feminine.

00:54:30.720 Right.

00:54:31.400 And then she starts struggling with body image or eating disorders.

00:54:34.660 And then during COVID, she's on her computer for, you know, 12, 15 hours a day.

00:54:38.920 And she's binge watching transition timelines and, you know, trans YouTube and TikTok.

00:54:44.440 And she announces trans.

00:54:45.920 I think most people, reasonable people will say there's something really unhealthy about

00:54:51.120 that and we should help her reconcile with her body.

00:54:53.660 But I also want to point out that any child these days who is naturally gender nonconforming

00:54:59.500 and maybe gay or lesbian or bisexual and has always had a pattern of kind of being a little

00:55:05.540 bit outside of the box when it comes to gender and gender expression, they are also incredibly

00:55:10.560 vulnerable.

00:55:11.560 I mean, this is even happening for adult women I know who part of the lesbian community, for

00:55:16.940 example, were noticing all their female friends were transitioning.

00:55:21.400 So I want to be really clear.

00:55:22.880 This is not just about kids with no history of gender nonconformity.

00:55:27.220 This is for anybody who may be vulnerable to the belief that if I'm different, it means

00:55:33.540 my body is wrong.

00:55:34.580 If I'm feeling ambivalent about my sexuality or my gender nonconformity, it means I need

00:55:39.960 to change my body.

00:55:41.180 And we have a problem with that belief because we want to celebrate people's expression and

00:55:46.620 their creativity.

00:55:47.580 We don't feel like we need to message that it means your body is wrong or that there's

00:55:51.520 anything wrong with your biological sex.

00:55:54.860 It's we've talked about this before, but I just had Glenn Greenwald on the show a few

00:56:00.380 days ago and we were talking about how he is a gay man really objects to this.

00:56:03.540 That's what's happening to the children, because he really feels like in today's day

00:56:06.880 and age, the little Glenn would have been forced over into you're a girl.

00:56:11.600 You're not gay.

00:56:12.680 You're a girl.

00:56:13.680 And I was saying I feel the same because I was a tomboy.

00:56:16.820 You write about tomboys in the book and you had a good point.

00:56:20.020 This is me when I was a kid.

00:56:21.060 I look like a boy.

00:56:21.860 If you didn't know this is Megyn Kelly, you would say this is a little boy in a tire

00:56:24.660 swing and my dirty jeans and my ripped sweatshirt and my boy haircut.

00:56:28.280 And I was all girl.

00:56:29.960 I was just a gender nonconforming girl who didn't like dresses.

00:56:33.340 Like, it's absurd that this version of me would be told you're not actually a girl who's

00:56:38.640 going to grow into a woman and be a fully feminine.

00:56:41.000 And even if I didn't turn out totally feminine, who cares?

00:56:44.700 Our tent's very big.

00:56:47.400 Yeah, I mean, that's such a great point.

00:56:49.440 And I think one of the things we've really tried to do is understand the arguments coming

00:56:54.280 from the other side.

00:56:55.200 Right.

00:56:55.400 So let's say to play devil's advocate, someone might say to you, but Megan, you weren't

00:56:59.700 distressed about being a tomboy.

00:57:01.720 But if you were, that would be maybe a reason to kind of consider a different gender identity.

00:57:06.320 But, you know, the cultural context is really different.

00:57:09.560 So any kid who is gender nonconforming is surrounded by kind of cultural prompts to question their

00:57:15.980 biological sex, right?

00:57:17.940 So asking a kid's pronouns all the time or being taught certain kind of health ed curricula

00:57:23.940 in school, which says, you know, we all have a gender identity and you may actually be a

00:57:29.800 boy trapped in a girl's body.

00:57:31.460 And, you know, this language is odd because I think it could be metaphorically valuable to

00:57:35.880 understand like a transgender adult's experience, right?

00:57:39.640 But when we start kind of suggesting these narratives to kids, you know, going through

00:57:44.960 adolescence is hard for everyone.

00:57:46.500 So if you have a history of that gender nonconformity, you might be really convinced that this explains

00:57:52.100 why you're different or why things are difficult for you.

00:57:55.180 And it's interesting to see your photo from childhood because one of the co-authors of the

00:57:59.880 book, Stella O'Malley, she lives in Ireland.

00:58:02.860 She's a psychotherapist there.

00:58:04.700 And she had a very intense experience of gender distress as a kid.

00:58:09.260 And I would say today, a hundred percent, she'd qualify for a gender dysphoria diagnosis.

00:58:14.280 And she was not just a tomboy.

00:58:16.540 She adamantly insisted that she was a boy and thought she was a boy.

00:58:21.400 And she describes, you know, we have a podcast called Gender, A Wider Lens.

00:58:25.200 And she often talks about this on the show, going through puberty was an excruciating experience

00:58:31.400 for her because she didn't want to become a woman.

00:58:34.680 So she had this kind of classic gender dysphoria.

00:58:37.700 And she often says, when I came into my own sexual awareness of like my attractions and

00:58:44.420 developing relationships and having crushes, that actually pulled me out of my gender dysphoria

00:58:49.900 because I realized biology is bigger than me.

00:58:53.660 So even for kids that have a long history of these kind of gender identity issues, we

00:58:58.800 really think it's very dangerous to gamble with what their future looks like by imposing

00:59:04.420 a medical identity on them before they have a chance to reconcile with their bodies.

00:59:09.360 You know, and Stella, for example, she's married and she has two children.

00:59:13.040 And being a woman and being a mother is such an important aspect of who she is.

00:59:17.440 Of course, it's not all of who she is, but had that decision been made on her behalf by

00:59:23.380 doctors, therapists, parents, all of that opportunity would have been stolen from her.

00:59:29.380 There's so much in there that I want to get to.

00:59:31.260 I want to start with something from the book that's on point to what we're discussing.

00:59:35.500 You write about how gender nonconformity is a gift.

00:59:41.840 We should be celebrating it.

00:59:43.980 This can actually be an ace in the hole for your child.

00:59:47.440 And no, not a reason to try to, quote, transition him or her to the opposite sex.

00:59:54.660 You have sort of an advantage, potentially, if you're gender nonconforming in a kid.

01:00:00.420 Yeah.

01:00:00.780 I mean, we know there's not a lot of research out there, but we do know that there's some

01:00:04.600 overlap with gender nonconformity and intelligence and creativity.

01:00:08.380 And I mean, I think people from my generation or other generations can remember some of the

01:00:13.200 most creative artists and actors and writers have always kind of thought outside of the

01:00:20.140 box when it comes to the way they express themselves.

01:00:22.660 So we absolutely think that this should be celebrated.

01:00:25.460 And we certainly don't believe that people should try to force their kids into a certain rigid

01:00:32.180 idea of what does it mean to be female or what does it mean to be male?

01:00:36.680 But we just have an issue with conflating kind of gender expression and gender creativity with

01:00:42.440 medical transition.

01:00:43.840 And why those things overlap is really not clear to me.

01:00:47.540 And as you mentioned earlier, a lot of gay adults who themselves kind of look back at

01:00:53.880 their experiences and their childhoods and their adolescence recognize that there's actually

01:00:58.460 something quite homophobic in the belief that feeling some sort of distress around your

01:01:04.100 gender means you should transition.

01:01:05.920 Right.

01:01:07.820 So one of the things that resonated with me in the book on the gender nonconformity being

01:01:11.720 a gift was you wrote about how, for example, a little girl who's more of a tomboy might

01:01:18.980 be very comfortable hanging out with boys and come to understand in a very familiar way,

01:01:24.780 the way boys interact, the way young men interact, because she's totally comfortable being immersed

01:01:28.680 in that.

01:01:29.460 And that's 100 percent the case for me.

01:01:31.820 I had lots of girlfriends, too, but I had lots of guy friends.

01:01:34.440 And growing up, just immersed with, you know, just boys and sports and boys sports, boys

01:01:40.980 things.

01:01:41.400 So now I always was very comfortable around men and I remain very comfortable around men.

01:01:46.760 And that has been a professional advantage to me.

01:01:49.060 So, like, people don't ever think about it in that way now.

01:01:54.420 Now it's like, oh, you feel comfortable with the boys.

01:01:56.660 That's because you are one.

01:01:58.200 And even on the guy front.

01:01:59.640 And I know the book does a good job putting this out, too.

01:02:01.800 We stigmatize the boys who are gender nonconforming.

01:02:04.440 It's OK to be a tomboy, but it's not OK to be.

01:02:06.780 And you say there's not even a term for, you know, Tom girl or Jane girl, whatever doesn't

01:02:12.620 exist because we kind of stigmatize it.

01:02:14.700 But they, too, might have advantages.

01:02:16.060 Look at Prince.

01:02:16.780 You know, like some gender nonconformity may lead to some creative expression or some sort

01:02:21.160 of special line into some field you can't anticipate.

01:02:24.560 I see that all the time about Prince specifically with his, like, frilly shirts and his very eccentric

01:02:30.700 look, you know.

01:02:32.140 And I think what's important to realize, too, especially with the kind of sudden onset gender

01:02:36.700 dysphoria cases, there isn't always the history of gender nonconformity, right?

01:02:41.520 So, so far we've been talking about tomboys or, you know, guys who are more effeminate or creative

01:02:46.500 or sensitive.

01:02:47.020 And so where do they fit in?

01:02:48.620 But a lot of the stories we hear from parents of boys, for example, they are describing boys

01:02:55.020 who have a history of being pretty gender typical.

01:02:58.000 Now, these are not the alpha male, super athletic types.

01:03:01.760 They're usually the kind of maybe quirky, geeky gamer, really intelligent.

01:03:07.980 They might be kind of creative kids.

01:03:10.300 And so they're, they're not showing a history of being really into, like, let's say, you

01:03:15.760 know, fashion or very kind of feminine things, as we would imagine them.

01:03:20.400 And these are boys who tend to be sensitive and a little bit socially awkward and maybe

01:03:25.700 a little bit naive.

01:03:27.080 And what we often hear from these parents and from the kids themselves is that they really

01:03:31.660 struggle to fit in.

01:03:33.240 They had a really hard time coming to terms with, you know, liking a girl and how to interact

01:03:38.200 with girls and they're vulnerable in a very different way than a gender non-conforming

01:03:42.940 boy because there's no place for him in society.

01:03:45.580 They're vulnerable in a way of trying to understand why is this so difficult for me?

01:03:50.420 Why am I having a hard time in these peer groups?

01:03:53.540 And frankly, there's a lot of kind of difficulty around developing attractions and what it means

01:03:59.980 to like somebody and have a crush on somebody and have an interaction with a girl that might

01:04:04.220 be kind of challenging and contentious.

01:04:06.440 So there are a lot of different stories represented here beyond just the history of gender non-conformity

01:04:13.220 getting wrapped up in the trans issue.

01:04:15.100 There's a lot of different stories.

01:04:17.000 But the takeaway on this piece of the discussion is if you have a little boy who wants to play

01:04:23.080 dress up with a dress or who wants to play with dolls or a Barbie, go for it.

01:04:27.220 You don't need to say, no, boys play with trucks because you're worried he's like getting

01:04:32.040 sucked into the trans ideology.

01:04:33.400 It's kind of exactly the opposite.

01:04:36.220 Let him not think the boy lane is only this very limited group of things.

01:04:43.140 Let him let him play with whatever the hell he wants to.

01:04:45.720 Just because he wants to put on a dress for a day doesn't mean he's a girl or that he's

01:04:49.540 going to say he's trans.

01:04:50.580 And same for the girls.

01:04:51.840 And the more you allow them to have this full expression of themselves, you know, playing

01:04:57.560 with whatever they the less likely you are potentially to develop this this problem.

01:05:03.400 Yeah, I think we've really intertwined sex and gender expression in a way that doesn't

01:05:08.320 make sense.

01:05:08.960 So with your example, I think it's perfect to say, if you like to play with Barbies and

01:05:13.980 you like to play with dolls, that's great.

01:05:16.660 And don't lie to him about his body and his biology.

01:05:20.220 Right.

01:05:21.080 He's a boy and boys can express themselves in lots of different ways.

01:05:24.880 And puberty is coming.

01:05:26.460 And when puberty comes, here are some of the changes that will happen to you.

01:05:29.920 And you don't have to change anything about your preferences or your personality or what

01:05:34.700 you find interesting.

01:05:36.000 So I really like that example, because parents, as we talk about in the book, we encourage

01:05:40.940 them to basically let their kids be themselves without imposing all of these kind of adult

01:05:47.440 labels.

01:05:48.180 And, you know, while we're on this topic, I think there are a couple of ways people misuse

01:05:52.480 the term transgender.

01:05:54.060 Right.

01:05:54.280 I wonder if we're going to talk a little bit about this.

01:05:57.420 I tweeted recently about a clip from a Chris Cuomo special from about 29 months ago.

01:06:02.780 Wait, I have it.

01:06:03.120 I'll play it.

01:06:03.740 OK, I'll play it.

01:06:04.800 And then you can offer your commentary on it.

01:06:06.540 Here it is.

01:06:06.960 OK.

01:06:10.420 In terms of the concern that, yeah, but when they're young, they don't know.

01:06:14.620 And you should wait.

01:06:16.280 We wait with kids on everything else.

01:06:17.620 We don't like to make decisions about where they're going to go to college, let alone what

01:06:21.460 their identity is response.

01:06:24.860 My response is that kids know their genders unequivocally.

01:06:30.620 Cisgender kids know their genders and transgender kids know their genders.

01:06:33.660 And there shouldn't be really a difference between them.

01:06:37.840 Think about how sure you felt of your gender from some of your earliest childhood memories.

01:06:44.420 It's no different.

01:06:45.440 This is Dr. Meredith McNamara claiming your kid knows, your kid may know better than you

01:06:52.680 do, and we should just be trusting these children and offering this so-called affirming care.

01:06:57.440 Go ahead.

01:06:58.580 Yeah.

01:06:59.200 Well, a couple of things really stood out to me.

01:07:01.160 I watched the entire program to refresh my memory.

01:07:04.760 And, you know, when I tweeted about this, I said, well, the cultural context has changed,

01:07:10.040 right?

01:07:10.280 We touched on this earlier, Megan, you know, Chris Cuomo as a little boy was probably not

01:07:15.040 being shown the gender unicorn at school and being told that if you feel distressed about

01:07:20.240 your sex, it might be because you're born in the wrong body.

01:07:22.580 And he probably wasn't asked his pronouns every single day at school or, you know, in peer groups.

01:07:29.760 And as we know, a lot of these kids are going online and really imbibing a lot of beliefs

01:07:35.060 about biology, identity, biological sex, and gender dysphoria, which kind of equates distress

01:07:42.500 with being trans.

01:07:44.020 So I'm sure that that was not the context Chris Cuomo grew up in.

01:07:47.900 So maybe that's why he didn't feel confused about his gender, right?

01:07:51.460 But I think, you know, in the piece in general, Chris Cuomo talked a lot about transgender kids.

01:07:56.940 He kept using the phrase transgender kids.

01:07:58.840 And he said something like, you know, transgender people have been around as long as our culture.

01:08:03.860 And I think that's really interesting.

01:08:06.560 And I think when people use the term trans kids, they might be referring to one of two

01:08:11.240 things.

01:08:11.780 And I'd like to just take a minute to parse these out.

01:08:14.580 They might be referring to the phenomenon that a young person is experiencing gender dysphoria.

01:08:20.120 And as they get older, it doesn't get alleviated.

01:08:24.040 And they end up medically and socially transitioning.

01:08:27.320 And so it's almost like we're retroactively applying this adult label to the child.

01:08:32.600 Like it's a predictive label, right?

01:08:35.560 And then the second thing is what we've been talking about so far, which is a kid who's

01:08:39.600 so gender nonconforming that they are kind of different, right?

01:08:43.680 And people viscerally see them.

01:08:45.500 They just sense like, this is not a typical girl.

01:08:47.760 This is not a typical boy.

01:08:48.880 But the problem is that we really don't know which kids with severe gender dysphoria will

01:08:56.080 outgrow it and transition and which ones will, or sorry, which ones will outgrow it and not

01:09:04.320 transition versus which ones will actually transition.

01:09:07.380 So we're playing a bit of a gamble when a kid's experiencing gender dysphoria and we call them

01:09:13.080 a transgender child, because that's a narrative.

01:09:16.900 It's a framing that adults are using to help this kid explain their distress rather than

01:09:22.960 something maybe more neutral, which is, you know, you're experiencing some distress around

01:09:27.500 your gender.

01:09:28.380 There could be lots of reasons for that.

01:09:30.940 And there are also lots of ways to help you feel better.

01:09:34.160 But when we call kids transgender kids, we're kind of locking them into this identity.

01:09:39.260 And frankly, when a kid is very young, they believe what adults tell them.

01:09:44.780 So, you know, if you tell a child that's female, you are really a boy.

01:09:49.740 And don't worry, when puberty comes, we'll take care of it with puberty blockers, and you

01:09:53.580 won't have to deal with that.

01:09:55.000 And when you get old enough, you can have this or that medical intervention and surgery.

01:09:59.280 I mean, kids will believe what we tell them.

01:10:02.240 So it's not that the distress isn't real, but the way adults help kids frame their distress

01:10:08.380 matters a lot.

01:10:10.420 Because as we know, the bottom line is just because your child may have some gender dysphoria,

01:10:15.840 some confusion around the gender issue does not mean he or she is trans.

01:10:20.160 It doesn't mean that don't slap the label on them.

01:10:23.320 It means your child may need some help.

01:10:26.600 And what what issues causing that confusion is really the big question.

01:10:31.460 I mean, it seems in the vast, vast majority of cases, it's not a true trans kid.

01:10:38.840 It's not somebody who's really got the disorder that people have when they're two and they will

01:10:44.300 never be happy unless they transition into the opposite sex or at least give it their best

01:10:49.080 shot.

01:10:49.460 It's not that it's a kid who the book does a great job of pointing this out in like half

01:10:54.760 of the cases, maybe on the autism spectrum or maybe gifted, gifted kids have an unusually

01:11:02.260 high percentage of flirting with this kind of, well, problem or issue.

01:11:06.940 Right.

01:11:07.360 So like you're you're just saying, like, don't label them because you're if a high likelihood

01:11:12.020 you're going to get it wrong.

01:11:12.980 They're not trans.

01:11:14.260 They have an issue.

01:11:15.200 They have a gender issue.

01:11:17.240 Yeah.

01:11:17.660 I mean, there's so much there, too, that you said, Megan, these kids are quite intelligent.

01:11:22.920 Many of the kids I work with are brilliant.

01:11:24.780 And I think they're they're kind of speaking to something they metaphorically feel.

01:11:28.960 You know, have you ever been in a situation that is so difficult and so overwhelming that

01:11:33.020 you think this isn't supposed to be happening to me?

01:11:36.300 You know, and when you're going through puberty and your breasts are developing, you're feeling

01:11:39.960 awkward and maybe you've had some sort of like a sexual assault or maybe you're dealing

01:11:43.560 with serious body image issues.

01:11:46.020 Metaphorically, you can feel like you were born in the wrong body.

01:11:49.480 It's a metaphor.

01:11:50.520 Right.

01:11:50.720 So we should not be taking metaphors literally.

01:11:54.160 And, you know, another thing that you said is we may be getting it wrong if we label the

01:11:58.460 kids as trans kids.

01:11:59.800 And I think our framing is a little bit different here.

01:12:02.320 We've met a lot of transgender adults through this work who feel like transition benefited

01:12:07.140 them.

01:12:07.980 But I have a hard time saying, well, they were the true trans people because I've also met

01:12:13.560 adults who, let's say, transitioned and lived as transgender for 10, 15, 20 years.

01:12:18.220 And then for whatever reason, that stopped serving them.

01:12:22.260 And so they started living a different way.

01:12:24.800 So instead, in the book, we talk about transition, both social and medical transition is a kind

01:12:30.500 of strategy, right?

01:12:31.720 It's a set of steps.

01:12:32.840 It's a set of actions.

01:12:34.160 And I have no moral or ethical qualms with those actions that some people take to feel

01:12:41.760 better and to live their lives.

01:12:43.020 Now, we do emphasize that there's a serious medical burden and really complicated consequences

01:12:49.260 for the body.

01:12:50.100 So these are not a neutral set of steps.

01:12:53.000 But we don't think it's really appropriate to say this person's truly trans and this person

01:12:58.540 got it wrong, right?

01:12:59.720 Or this person wasn't actually trans.

01:13:02.260 Because there's a huge variety of narratives and stories that people have about how they

01:13:07.720 interacted with gender medicine and their own sense of identity and what happened after

01:13:11.680 five years and what about after 20 years?

01:13:13.740 So we just think it's way more complicated than either correctly identifying trans kids

01:13:19.060 or not.

01:13:20.080 But the knee jerk in today's day and age is to say you're trans.

01:13:24.300 You're having the confusion.

01:13:25.780 You're trans.

01:13:26.520 That's it.

01:13:26.920 Like Cuomo was loosely doing in this segment.

01:13:29.460 You point out in the book, like for lack of a better term, this is mine, the overreaction,

01:13:35.260 the over-treatment when a child expresses this.

01:13:39.860 You point out if your kid comes in and says, I've had chronic headaches, you don't bring

01:13:45.420 him to the brain surgeon, right?

01:13:47.240 Like in the sort of watchful waiting approach that a lot of parents take.

01:13:51.220 You don't bring him to the brain surgeon.

01:13:52.920 You watch him.

01:13:54.200 And if he continues coming back and then he starts throwing up regularly and he gets debilitated

01:13:58.760 at school, then maybe you go to a neurologist and you say, I've got a real problem on my

01:14:02.520 hands, but with the trans community in kids who are expressing any sort of confusion, it's

01:14:08.860 the equivalent of going to the brain surgeon immediately and performing brain surgery on

01:14:13.860 the child.

01:14:15.020 Yeah, yeah.

01:14:16.080 I mean, I think on one hand, parents don't realize that going to a therapist is maybe

01:14:21.860 the equivalent of going to a brain surgeon.

01:14:23.760 Like they don't realize that oftentimes the therapist's big recommendations will put a

01:14:29.920 kid on a medical pathway.

01:14:31.040 I think parents rightly think, oh, well, a gender clinic will help my kids sort out their

01:14:36.320 gender issues.

01:14:37.140 And as we know, it's a conveyor belt, unfortunately, in the vast majority of cases.

01:14:41.680 So I think on one hand, they don't realize that they're doing that.

01:14:44.900 And then I think secondly, you know, a lot of the parents we work with, they are very,

01:14:49.340 very responsive to their kids' needs.

01:14:51.340 Every time their kid is distressed or struggling with something, they just want to figure out

01:14:55.660 how to help them feel better.

01:14:56.880 And we think that comes from a really good place.

01:14:59.000 But as you were just talking about with your previous guest, you know, we also have to

01:15:03.060 help kids kind of tolerate that sometimes life is hard.

01:15:07.080 Sometimes you are going to have discomfort with your body.

01:15:10.180 Sometimes you'll feel alienated from a sense of who you are.

01:15:13.380 And it's not to dismiss them and say, oh, you'll get over it.

01:15:16.460 But there's a way to lean in with care and compassion that is not the same thing as like,

01:15:21.960 oh, no, we need professional help right now.

01:15:24.100 Right. So, I mean, that's why we wrote the book in the first place, Megan, we want to

01:15:27.960 give parents some of the confidence and tools to essentially do what is, you know, pretty

01:15:33.380 basic parenting stuff.

01:15:36.200 And you're so right that when gender comes into the picture, it kind of scrambles everyone's

01:15:41.020 brain and they don't know how to think about this issue anymore.

01:15:44.300 And that's why we use these examples of other kind of very common parenting scenarios to help

01:15:49.740 parents realize, OK, let's get this in perspective.

01:15:52.040 You know, a phrase that I used to hear a lot growing up is that teenagers act out, right?

01:15:57.560 Like I remember, you know, if some kid was doing something that seemed really out there

01:16:01.900 or seemed self-destructive, society had a term for that.

01:16:06.000 It was acting out and it meant that it was a cry for help, right?

01:16:09.360 That it wasn't really about the surface story.

01:16:12.500 And that's the last chapter in our book.

01:16:14.560 It's not really about gender.

01:16:16.260 So we see that this is often an expression of other things going on.

01:16:20.400 So if we run with the gender piece, we miss all the stuff that's going on beneath the

01:16:25.700 surface that might be the real issue.

01:16:29.200 And you do sound the alarm like so many other thoughtful therapists have about do not do

01:16:35.540 not trust the therapy industry on this and do not trust a therapist who's knee jerk is

01:16:40.900 affirm, affirm, affirm when your parental instincts are telling you, no, that's not what's happening

01:16:46.220 here.

01:16:46.480 We're being told at every turn to ignore our instincts, whether it's the parents who know

01:16:52.560 that's not what this is or the girls in their female spaces who know this is not safe to

01:17:01.100 have this man in our spaces.

01:17:03.560 I don't feel safe.

01:17:05.580 Like we are being taught to ignore those gifts.

01:17:09.140 This is huge.

01:17:11.760 I mean, the parents who rightly recognize that something isn't quite right with their kid

01:17:18.020 and they have an instinct, a strong instinct that says affirming is not going to help my

01:17:23.340 child feel better.

01:17:24.840 What's so sad is that they are being treated like they're coming from a hateful place or

01:17:29.740 a bigoted place when actually it's their love and their knowledge of their child which creates

01:17:35.540 that hesitancy and that concern in the first place.

01:17:38.340 And there's so much about the kind of reality denial that is part of these gender beliefs

01:17:45.440 that we find so destructive.

01:17:47.180 And frankly, it's just like we talked about earlier, destructive to lie to kids about what

01:17:52.040 their eyes are telling them, what they see around them, what their bodies mean, what is

01:17:57.820 the reality of their body.

01:17:59.420 So there's a lot of instinct squashing elements here, which is not healthy.

01:18:05.060 And, you know, we often say, you know, feelings aren't facts.

01:18:08.560 So sometimes we might have an emotional reaction that we need to think about and deliberate on.

01:18:13.660 But that's very different from kind of blatantly gaslighting parents that actually everything

01:18:18.920 is fine with their kid.

01:18:19.960 And if you go along with it, everything will be better.

01:18:22.200 I mean, that is a real gaslighting and it is a squashing of intuition.

01:18:25.840 And that's why we want parents to, you know, read this book, get the information they need,

01:18:31.480 right?

01:18:31.700 We talk about the latest research, the information they need to know to make informed decisions.

01:18:38.240 And then we talk about some of the delicate and practical situations that a lot of families

01:18:42.780 find themselves in so that they can kind of lean in with a more confident stance and help

01:18:48.460 their kid move through the situation.

01:18:50.180 Now, it's not very good tips in that way.

01:18:53.040 They're like, they're one of them.

01:18:55.000 Well, they're one of them.

01:18:55.920 I mean, there's some of this like an Abigail's book, but there's not a ton of helpful tools

01:19:00.900 out there for parents looking to divert instead of a firm or, you know, like actually help

01:19:06.520 instead of a firm.

01:19:07.340 And this book actually offers some real solutions, which we'll get into.

01:19:10.360 I'll take a great break and we'll get into it.

01:19:11.800 But one of them just as a tease was, you remember when your toddler like kept going over to play

01:19:16.980 with like the outlet trying to stick his finger in there and you wouldn't just hit the finger

01:19:21.800 and say, no, you'd be like, look at this fun little Tonka truck.

01:19:25.540 Look over here.

01:19:26.240 You'd, you'd kind of distract him.

01:19:27.940 You offer him something else to catch his interest.

01:19:31.220 Um, and I do it to this moment with Stradwick, uh, who's lying like a sweet little puppy right

01:19:36.040 next to Abigail.

01:19:36.780 You never know he's the hassle.

01:19:38.120 He is, uh, in any event, Sasha's got strategies, uh, a little bit more sophisticated than that

01:19:43.060 on how you can use that same technique on a child going through this.

01:19:47.200 It's all in her book.

01:19:48.360 When kids say they're trans, a guide for thoughtful parents, uh, stand by more with her after this

01:19:54.900 quick break here in the United States, Sasha, more and more, we're seeing even left wing

01:20:03.460 school districts getting serious pushback from parents on the attempt to keep this a secret

01:20:10.660 from the parents.

01:20:12.320 Um, I've had arguments online with so-called social workers who, who maintain it's completely

01:20:19.760 appropriate for a social worker at a school or a guidance counselor at a school to whom

01:20:25.760 a child says, I'm secretly trans and I want to transition here at school.

01:20:29.740 And I don't want you to tell my parents to keep it a secret.

01:20:32.580 And in the New York city publics and privates now it's policy, it's policy.

01:20:38.180 And not just in New York, it's happening more and more and more, um, out in Los Angeles,

01:20:42.740 near Los Angeles, I think this is orange, orange County.

01:20:45.200 Um, just last night they were in the news because the school board was forced to take

01:20:51.620 a vote on whether they should be required as the parents were demanding to notify the

01:20:57.260 parents.

01:20:57.640 If this happens, it passed, I think four to three, it was, it just got through the three

01:21:03.280 who were against it as I'm, um, if I'm remembering correctly, got up and walked out.

01:21:08.120 They were so angry that they were about to lose.

01:21:10.420 One of them was very vocal about how wrong this vote was to keep parents in the loop.

01:21:16.080 We have a little bit of her.

01:21:17.340 She was on the losing side.

01:21:18.380 Thankfully.

01:21:20.480 As a teacher, I oppose this policy.

01:21:22.620 Any student comes out to me, I will not out them.

01:21:25.480 I will not do it.

01:21:26.960 It's not in their best interest.

01:21:29.760 She wasn't on the board.

01:21:30.780 She was a teacher.

01:21:31.480 If you don't, if you don't tell my child, you want to have a secret with my child, I'll

01:21:35.500 get you fired.

01:21:36.220 I will make it my, I will sue you.

01:21:38.240 I'll sue you personally.

01:21:39.080 I'll school your, sue your school district.

01:21:40.760 I will make your life a living hell.

01:21:42.120 I will.

01:21:42.660 I trust me.

01:21:43.860 I mean, and I will do it for other parents too, because guess what?

01:21:46.380 I have plenty of money to do it.

01:21:48.200 And I have a vicious pit bull lawyer.

01:21:50.220 I will get you.

01:21:51.680 That is, I want to create a nonprofit so I can help all parents in this position.

01:21:55.700 Even those who don't have deep pockets, it's deeply, deeply, deeply wrong.

01:21:59.680 And I know you agree that it's wrong, but can you explain why?

01:22:04.380 Yeah, I mean, I think there are some serious misunderstandings about what it means not to

01:22:09.220 tell a parent if their child is questioning their gender.

01:22:11.440 I think people take it similarly to like if a kid says to you, you know, I think I might

01:22:16.220 be gay.

01:22:16.800 You know, I don't think in every case that the teacher needs to kind of warn the parent

01:22:21.280 that their child is gay.

01:22:22.400 But this is so different because it's not the same.

01:22:25.460 For many reasons.

01:22:26.640 I mean, first of all, a kind of basic fundamental principle is that parents love and know their

01:22:31.960 children best.

01:22:32.760 And they're the ones entrusted with making every single decision about this child's

01:22:36.300 care.

01:22:37.080 So when a child is saying that they're questioning their gender, it actually requires a great

01:22:41.600 deal of participation from everyone around them.

01:22:43.840 So that means putting them in different changing rooms and lockers, changing the way you address

01:22:47.840 them at school, changing their name and pronouns.

01:22:49.740 So it's a very different situation.

01:22:52.040 And if a kid is going through that, absolutely, their parents need to be aware and they need

01:22:57.380 to be working with the family to actually take guidance and cues from the family about what

01:23:02.720 they want the school to do.

01:23:04.340 Yes.

01:23:04.620 They are depriving you of their opportunity.

01:23:08.600 They're depriving parents of their opportunity to intervene and help in and potentially, if

01:23:14.320 appropriate, and it is appropriate, steer the child away from this towards something that

01:23:19.540 looks more like actual mental health care to resolve their issues.

01:23:23.560 This is where your book comes in.

01:23:25.120 Um, I, I offered the tease before about sort of the redirect and the book talks about how,

01:23:30.740 okay, if we're going to be obsessed with identity issues, here's how about this one?

01:23:34.660 Let's talk about our cultural heritage.

01:23:36.500 Let's talk about where you're from.

01:23:37.840 Let's talk about what it means to be, you know, Syrian American or Irish American, whatever

01:23:42.100 you like.

01:23:43.220 That's actually worked for some of the parents and other parents that I know you interviewed

01:23:47.200 talked about how we're going to immerse our kid, like our kid's going hardcore chess

01:23:51.240 club.

01:23:51.720 Like we are going to, we're going to wean him off of the Reddit and the YouTube, and

01:23:56.420 he's going to become a mathlete or something like this.

01:23:59.800 Can you talk about it?

01:24:01.460 Yeah, sure.

01:24:02.000 I mean, over the last maybe seven or eight years, I used to tell people early on parents

01:24:07.080 who contacted me, I'd say we're learning together because we don't have any precedent

01:24:12.260 for what to do in these situations.

01:24:14.720 Rapid onset gender dysphoria is a brand new phenomenon.

01:24:17.440 And luckily Lisa Stella and I, you know, we were advising parents and talking with them,

01:24:21.720 them early on.

01:24:22.500 And a lot of our clinical instincts turned out to be right because we've kept in touch

01:24:26.220 with families over the last seven or eight years and parents report back to us what was

01:24:30.860 helpful, what was not helpful.

01:24:32.540 And ultimately what we want is to help these kids thrive and be happy and be more themselves

01:24:37.900 and have a broad perspective on what it means to be a person, what it means to be a human,

01:24:43.140 right?

01:24:43.380 So we encourage parents to keep things broad.

01:24:47.800 If your child is going down the tunnel vision path of getting obsessed with gender as this

01:24:53.460 kind of magic solution to their problems, make sure their life is actually full of interesting,

01:24:58.380 enriching, valuable activities that they like, right?

01:25:02.120 Support their gender nonconformity.

01:25:04.000 It's okay to express yourself in different ways.

01:25:06.280 But if your child is pretending to be someone they're not, and it's making them more self-conscious

01:25:12.060 and hate their body more, that doesn't seem to be a healthy road.

01:25:16.000 So we want to make sure that parents really lean in with a lot of quality time and bonding

01:25:20.980 and keeping their kids busy with fun and interesting things and really broaden their world,

01:25:25.780 right?

01:25:26.040 Getting tunnel vision is never a good idea.

01:25:27.900 And you point out too, I talked about this recently, but work on yourself too.

01:25:34.940 And Dr. Laura says that she follows me on SiriusXM.

01:25:37.400 I love Dr. Laura, I love her.

01:25:38.980 But she always says there's, in all her years of doing family therapy, she's never met a kid

01:25:44.100 with a problem.

01:25:44.780 She's met tons of kids with parents who have problems, right?

01:25:48.400 Like, look at yourself.

01:25:50.060 How are you living?

01:25:50.940 How is your marriage?

01:25:51.800 How is your mental health?

01:25:53.140 How is your household before you just sort of rain down on your kid?

01:25:56.680 Yeah, and I mean, frankly, most of the parents we talk to aren't trying to rain down on their

01:26:01.860 kid per se, but it's just that the kid is such an obvious, glaring distress that it's

01:26:06.600 so easy to focus on.

01:26:08.500 And to be fair, I mean, it's really hard when you are a parent who sees something going on

01:26:14.360 and all of society around you says you're bad for thinking that way.

01:26:18.680 So I think even when there were challenges in the family, it can get exacerbated when a parent

01:26:23.980 feels so isolated and alone and ostracized.

01:26:27.140 But you're absolutely right.

01:26:28.640 There's a whole chapter about mental well-being for the parent, because this can become a rabbit

01:26:34.740 hole that kind of the kid falls down the rabbit hole, and then the parent falls down the rabbit

01:26:38.560 hole too.

01:26:39.460 So the same kind of philosophy about making sure you are a well-rounded, whole person.

01:26:44.440 Don't get too obsessed with this idea.

01:26:46.800 And, you know, Helena is a brilliant detransitioning young woman, detransitioned young woman, who

01:26:52.760 talks about this on our podcast and lots of other media appearances.

01:26:56.100 But for her, the gender distress was a kind of signal that something else was going on in the

01:27:02.040 family structure.

01:27:03.340 You know, she was feeling a bit abandoned because her mom was really busy with this or that

01:27:07.080 thing.

01:27:07.460 And so, you know, that's not the exact story that we see.

01:27:10.380 But parents who do really well in this situation, they often say stuff like, this gender thing

01:27:16.600 was a wake-up call for our family.

01:27:18.520 And we really started to think about what was going on.

01:27:21.280 You know, maybe the sibling had really complicated medical issues, and so everybody was focused

01:27:27.880 on her brother for three years, and she kind of got neglected.

01:27:30.880 So it was a wake-up call to see that there is something else going on that might be the

01:27:35.300 root cause of this.

01:27:36.180 So I think you're right.

01:27:37.280 It's a family system that needs to be looked at and thought about, and some, like, minor

01:27:44.280 changes here and there can make a big difference.

01:27:47.140 Mm-hmm.

01:27:47.580 And beware, like, if you have a kid who's gifted, which is amazing and awesome, just keep an

01:27:53.840 eye on them because there's an unusually high percentage of kids who are gifted who fall

01:27:57.940 prey to this.

01:27:58.960 And as I mentioned, too, kids on the autism spectrum, same.

01:28:02.060 And the book goes into in-depth why that is.

01:28:04.680 You can read it to find out why, but just be aware that's a thing.

01:28:08.920 The other huge thing is the online presence.

01:28:12.040 I mean, all these kids who get sucked into this.

01:28:14.740 And by the way, Rapper to Onset Gender Disrophoria was a term coined by Dr. Lisa Lippman of Brown.

01:28:20.880 She's brilliant.

01:28:22.100 It was her work on which Abigail Schreier based Irreversible Damage in large part.

01:28:25.680 If you want to go back and hear those episodes, Schreier was one of our first episodes.

01:28:29.100 We didn't even have video back then.

01:28:30.320 It was episode 12.

01:28:31.700 Lippman came on episode 188.

01:28:34.060 Both so, so worth your time.

01:28:37.060 Yeah.

01:28:37.520 But in any event, so the kids, like, it happens and it happens quickly.

01:28:42.140 And you've got to, like, know what you're talking about as the parent.

01:28:46.660 What else can parents do, right?

01:28:48.220 So you've got sort of, for lack of a better term, distraction.

01:28:51.340 You've got, you know, identity leaning in.

01:28:55.620 And then the online thing, like, how exactly?

01:28:58.240 How do you get your kid offline?

01:28:59.560 Because a lot of parents say, oh, great.

01:29:01.740 That's going to be really easy.

01:29:03.260 So give me your phone.

01:29:04.060 Give me your iPad.

01:29:04.740 No more YouTube.

01:29:06.240 It's very hard.

01:29:07.020 I mean, this is one of the things we refer to as mitigating unhelpful influences.

01:29:12.520 And that can come from online.

01:29:13.980 It can come from therapy.

01:29:14.960 It can come from a lot of different places.

01:29:16.320 But, you know, we recommend thinking about this as a digital wellness issue, right?

01:29:21.420 And if you make it punitive and you say, like, you're not allowed to look at so-and-so types

01:29:25.900 of YouTube videos, you're going to have a really hard time managing that interaction with your

01:29:30.060 child.

01:29:30.420 But if instead you frame it as, you know, we've been doing some research and thinking

01:29:35.720 and all of us are on our screens too much.

01:29:38.220 So we might implement a couple of kind of household ideas to get us all off screens a little bit.

01:29:44.720 So that way you are not really focusing just on the child of their maladaptive internet

01:29:50.200 use.

01:29:50.620 You're treating it like a wellness issue, just in the same way that you're feeding your

01:29:54.340 kids vegetables, but you're not scarfing down like three pizzas every night, right?

01:29:57.980 Like all of us want to be healthy.

01:30:00.360 So again, you know, we're trying to take the focus off of the gender piece because it's

01:30:05.020 really distracting.

01:30:05.880 And think about the wellbeing of this family, of this child overall.

01:30:10.700 The problem is when they go online, when they spend all these hours online, they, especially

01:30:15.000 in these trans community sites, you get a lot of mental illness.

01:30:20.320 I mean, it's very clear.

01:30:21.720 There was a clip that went viral over the past weekend from this woman who was incredibly

01:30:26.580 distressed.

01:30:27.060 She looks like a woman.

01:30:28.100 I think she is a biological woman.

01:30:29.760 I don't know what she wants us to think she is, but she was very, very upset that she wasn't

01:30:33.700 referred to the way she wanted to be referred to.

01:30:36.460 I'll play just a little bit of it.

01:30:39.460 Basically, I was just getting a drink at the bar and they called both Azul and I ladies.

01:30:45.680 After they were done drinking the drink, I went up and I was like, some people don't

01:30:51.020 refer to themselves as ladies, but it's okay that you didn't know.

01:30:54.820 I'm in a gay bar, so we should be safe.

01:30:57.700 Too bad, turned it around.

01:30:59.420 They got so mad at me and they took the drink away from my wife and I and then they kicked

01:31:08.500 us out.

01:31:09.840 This was the first time that I've like told somebody I felt brave enough to tell somebody

01:31:14.640 my identity.

01:31:16.100 But you're still mad at me for being myself and for my wife being themselves.

01:31:23.460 Just her.

01:31:24.420 Can you imagine subjecting your child to that person's influence when they see this woman's

01:31:35.020 posts online?

01:31:36.100 I'm sure they have no idea she's this disturbed that they think they're getting kind, loving

01:31:41.500 advice from somebody on this issue.

01:31:43.620 And it's anything but.

01:31:45.440 Yeah, I mean, that is a remarkable clip precisely because it seems so disconnected from reality,

01:31:53.820 right?

01:31:54.560 And I think in there are different kids who find themselves in online spaces and their

01:32:00.140 level of vulnerability is really different, right?

01:32:02.580 So, you know, there are lots of kids who are questioning their gender who would look at

01:32:06.500 that clip and say, that's patently ridiculous.

01:32:08.640 You know, that doesn't represent me.

01:32:10.320 But some kids are really vulnerable.

01:32:13.540 They might be naive.

01:32:15.020 If they're on the autism spectrum, they may have a hard time distinguishing between like

01:32:19.100 social situations and dynamics that are more subtle.

01:32:22.140 So, you know, especially in a text-based online space, these ideas and beliefs about your identity

01:32:28.240 and what others see in you or not see in you are really hard to reality test, you know?

01:32:33.240 And that's what makes it so hard when a parent is dealing with a child who has very warped

01:32:39.240 ideas about what these things mean.

01:32:41.480 What does it mean to have an identity that's completely separate from your body?

01:32:44.920 And you also think that the way people see you can be modified just because you said you're

01:32:49.220 not a woman.

01:32:49.780 I mean, that is a very bizarre and almost like high-level concept that if it's not reality

01:32:55.280 tested regularly, like it's going to be hard to communicate with your child about it.

01:32:59.040 The book goes into this medicalization we've been doing of the children and how deeply problematic

01:33:06.160 it is.

01:33:08.180 And I mean, I think, you know, we have to end on the fear-mongering about suicide because

01:33:13.460 the reason so many parents have been pulled into affirming when they don't want to is the

01:33:19.240 lie that your kid's going to kill themselves unless you do it.

01:33:21.860 Yeah.

01:33:22.680 Yeah.

01:33:22.860 We have to talk about that.

01:33:24.380 We run these in-person parenting events.

01:33:26.420 And there's another one coming up actually later this month with a couple spots open.

01:33:30.520 But it was shocking when we got together with parents in person, story after story after

01:33:35.860 story, parents were saying they were given that kind of live son or dead daughter framework.

01:33:42.160 And not only does the evidence have no reason to support that, it's just simply not true.

01:33:48.060 It's a bullying tactic, right?

01:33:50.300 And it's so irresponsible for therapists and doctors to use a line like that because you're

01:33:56.040 creating, you know, incredible duress and you're making it impossible for parents to

01:34:01.400 make informed decisions about their kid.

01:34:03.300 And so we do see a lot of families who kind of get pressured and bullied and terrified into

01:34:08.500 affirming when their gut says, no, this is not right.

01:34:11.940 And so it's a real manipulation of parents' emotions, especially if their child has been

01:34:18.360 struggling with mental distress, right?

01:34:20.420 So they're already on edge about it.

01:34:22.420 And we just find this to be so egregious.

01:34:25.600 All of these truths are laid out articulately and kindly and beautifully in When Kids Say They're

01:34:34.060 Trans, Sasha's book, When Kids Say They're Trans, a guide for thoughtful parents.

01:34:39.220 Um, it's a book liberals and conservatives can love, uh, which is hard to do in today's

01:34:44.820 day and age.

01:34:45.280 Sasha, thank you so much for writing it to you and your coauthors.

01:34:48.820 Thank you, Megan, for having us.

01:34:50.340 It's been great to talk with you and we hope that this helps a lot of parents because we

01:34:53.880 know it's a hard road out there.

01:34:55.920 Absolutely right.

01:34:56.740 All right.

01:34:56.960 So you can go on Amazon now and buy it or pre-ordering it, order it depending on where

01:35:01.160 you are and other booksellers too.

01:35:02.900 Okay.

01:35:03.160 When Kids Say They're Trans.

01:35:05.180 Uh, okay.

01:35:05.840 Next week, don't forget where it's Fridays.

01:35:08.080 We're going to the weekend.

01:35:09.560 Donald Trump will be here.

01:35:12.060 That ought to be fun.

01:35:13.300 And I would love to know what you would like me to ask him.

01:35:17.460 We did this with DeSantis and you guys wrote in such great things.

01:35:21.300 Uh, so email me, Megan, M-E-G-Y-N at MeganKelley.com.

01:35:25.480 And if you go to MeganKelley.com, you can sign up for my email from you with an update

01:35:29.420 on my Strudwick, among other news.

01:35:31.640 Do that now.

01:35:32.280 Have a great weekend and I'll talk to you Monday.

01:35:36.720 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

01:35:38.620 No BS, no agenda and no fear.

01:35:41.400 No BS, no agenda and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - September 08, 2023

Inside the Jimmy Fallon Toxic Workplace Allegations, Karine Jean-Pierre’s “Glitzy” Vogue Exclusive, with Jesse Kelly and Sasha Ayad ｜ Ep. 623

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