The Megyn Kelly Show - Kids and Vaccines, CNN and Toobin, and Life After Cancelation, with Mary Katharine Ham and John Crist

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

00:00:11.700 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.

00:00:16.140 Should the COVID vaccine be added to the list of mandatory vaccines your child has to have in order to attend school?

00:00:25.000 The CDC just recommended yes, which is absolutely outrageous, given the risks to children from these vaccines and the extremely low risk children face from COVID.

00:00:38.800 Although the CDC's guidance is not binding on states, local authorities tend to follow the CDC.

00:00:45.340 That is what happened with school closures, you may remember.

00:00:47.800 And this one's even more controversial because the vaccines are potentially dangerous to children.

00:00:53.580 Young people are being injured by these vaccines.

00:00:58.160 And as I tweeted out correctly the other day, a disturbing number of children are dying after getting them.

00:01:04.180 It's rare, but it's happening.

00:01:07.240 If you are between the ages of 16 and 24, your chances of developing myocarditis, a heart infection that is potentially very dangerous, is about one in 3000, according to Dr. Vinay Prasad.

00:01:19.940 Prasad is a Johns Hopkins educated physician and expert in public health.

00:01:24.080 He's been on this program.

00:01:25.200 He is not anti-vaccine and he's been an honest broker on this.

00:01:28.740 Some studies put the chances even higher, like a recent one out of Thailand.

00:01:34.460 And that's why the relatively recent study out of Thailand is so compelling because that Thai study looked at 301 patients between the ages of 13 and 18, did antibody studies, showed that none of them had evidence of having had COVID.

00:01:51.560 They did extensive cardiac workups on these kids prior to vaccine.

00:01:56.740 None of them had any cardiac anomalies.

00:02:00.540 And then within immediately, within days after getting vaccinated, 29.4 percent, 30 percent of them had cardiac abnormalities following vaccination.

00:02:15.780 Hmm.

00:02:16.480 You don't see that all over the media.

00:02:19.280 Vinay, who was also present in that interview, Vinay Prasad, suggested it was more like one in 30.

00:02:24.140 The point is there is a decent chance that your kid could potentially contract a heart ailment as a result of these vaccines.

00:02:34.960 Moderna has higher rates of complications than Pfizer and dose two is considered more dangerous than dose one.

00:02:40.660 Several foreign countries have banned or discouraged the use of Moderna in young men altogether.

00:02:45.540 But Pfizer also has seen complications.

00:02:47.340 Sometimes the myocarditis is clinical, and that means your kid knows he has a problem.

00:02:53.360 He has chest pains.

00:02:54.160 He's short of breath, et cetera.

00:02:55.460 You can take him to the doctor.

00:02:57.280 Doctors say perhaps as many as half of all these myocarditis cases, however, are subclinical, meaning your kid might not even know he or she has an issue because there are no symptoms.

00:03:08.380 So you can't get him on medication because you don't know it's a problem.

00:03:14.300 Vaccine defenders are quick to point out that most cases of post-vaccine myocarditis are, quote, mild.

00:03:20.760 They're mild.

00:03:21.820 That wouldn't make me feel better for giving my kid a vaccine he doesn't need.

00:03:25.640 He's had COVID like most kids.

00:03:28.640 OK, but they say it's mild.

00:03:29.960 But there is a dispute in the medical community about whether any myocarditis can be considered mild.

00:03:36.560 Some say that's like saying your teen.

00:03:38.220 Oh, he just had a mild heart attack.

00:03:40.060 Oh, really?

00:03:40.400 My 13 year old.

00:03:41.300 OK, no problem.

00:03:42.920 Others say no, no.

00:03:44.220 Mild myocarditis is something that we're seeing post-vaccine, and it is something from which one can easily and quickly recover.

00:03:53.040 Do you want to take the risk?

00:03:54.180 That's up to you.

00:03:55.380 Shouldn't be mandated.

00:03:56.320 The CDC has no business telling states it should be on that list.

00:04:01.720 Dr. Prasad, back to him, interviewed a pediatric rheumatologist not long ago who has examined images of children's hearts after so-called mild myocarditis.

00:04:11.780 And here is how he described it.

00:04:14.540 There is mild transient pericarditis where people with lupus or people with other, you know, immune diseases have just inflammation of the pericardium, and that goes away.

00:04:24.620 And it's mild.

00:04:26.800 And it is truly mild.

00:04:28.400 And I think that the description of it makes some people think that this is what we're dealing with.

00:04:37.700 And I've actually had some people say, you know, well, that's all it is.

00:04:41.300 But it's not.

00:04:43.080 It's different in that, you know, it actually affects the myocardium, and it actually, in some cases, leaves imaging changes that, although we don't know the ramifications of it, and although they seem to be hopefully evolving in a positive direction in these patients,

00:05:01.560 you know, the bottom line is that I think that as a parent, you know, if you were a pediatric cardiologist or a doctor and your child had those imaging findings, you wouldn't be thrilled.

00:05:14.460 You wouldn't be thrilled.

00:05:15.260 Yeah.

00:05:17.160 Discussing myocarditis and pericarditis there.

00:05:20.180 Another complication.

00:05:21.140 A study published in September's edition of The Lancet looked at post-vaccine myocarditis in people between the ages of 12 and 29.

00:05:29.380 It found that 90 days after they got the shot and got the myocarditis, one in six had not recovered from their myocarditis.

00:05:38.600 Okay?

00:05:39.120 One in six.

00:05:40.160 Fifty percent still had at least one symptom of the myocarditis, palpitations, chest pain, etc.

00:05:45.200 One third of these young people were still missing school or work because of myocarditis.

00:05:50.240 One in four still had restrictions on their physical activity even after so-called full recovery.

00:05:56.180 Many were still on serious cardiac medications.

00:06:00.220 Why would a parent with a healthy 12-year-old give them the vaccine with these risks when the risk of contracting COVID,

00:06:09.680 unless you are otherwise immunocompromised, is next to nothing?

00:06:13.120 All of this leads me to ask, why aren't more reporters raising questions about the safety of these vaccines for kids?

00:06:22.440 And how on earth can the CDC justify adding them to its list of recommended mandatory vaccines for children?

00:06:30.460 Once it goes on this list, state after state will say, let's put it up there with the MMR vaccine.

00:06:35.800 Let's make it a prerequisite for children to attend school.

00:06:38.700 We're not there yet, but that's what's about to happen.

00:06:41.260 The problems, by the way, are not limited to negative symptoms, cardiac symptoms, and even potential hospitalization.

00:06:48.840 In our country and abroad, too many young people are dying post-vaccination.

00:06:54.360 Again, it's rare, but it is happening.

00:06:57.080 And the numbers to me are downright scary.

00:06:59.880 In New York, a 24-year-old college student recently died after getting the Pfizer vaccine

00:07:04.000 in what officials identified as vaccine-related myocarditis.

00:07:07.760 In Kansas, a 20-year-old nursing student died in late September of cardiac arrest, one day after getting the mandatory vaccine.

00:07:17.400 Her mother believed the vaccine was to blame for her otherwise healthy daughter's death.

00:07:22.660 In Michigan and Connecticut, two young teens died post-vaccination.

00:07:26.340 The pathology reports were studied by researchers who concluded that they died from a catecholamine-induced injury and not typical myocarditis.

00:07:36.440 However, they said we need more research on whether that offending injury occurred as a result of the vaccine,

00:07:41.920 which may have caused the damage that led to a fatal arrhythmia.

00:07:45.580 In New Zealand, the COVID Vaccine Independent Safety Monitoring Board said in April 2022 that a teenager died of myocarditis they believe was linked to the Pfizer-Vax.

00:07:56.000 The board also concluded the death of a 13-year-old child appeared to be linked to the vaccine,

00:08:00.140 as was the death of a 26-year-old young woman who contracted myocarditis after getting the Pfizer-Vax.

00:08:06.440 In Sonoma County, California, a 15-year-old died of a heart attack 48 hours after getting the vaccine.

00:08:11.360 Officials did not explicitly link that death to the vaccine, but simply declared the cause of death unknown.

00:08:19.600 In Vietnam, at least four children ages 12 to 16 died following their Pfizer vaccinations in late November, early December 2021.

00:08:27.460 A 23-year-old Vietnamese woman died following her second Pfizer shot in January 2022.

00:08:33.800 Officials linked those deaths to the vaccinations.

00:08:36.820 In Thailand, a 16-year-old boy died from blood clots following the Pfizer vaccine.

00:08:44.500 In Manchester, England, an 18-year-old died from a blood clot following the AstraZeneca vaccine.

00:08:49.800 These are just a few examples.

00:08:51.820 I know about these because I'm in the news.

00:08:54.420 I've been doing interviews on this time after time, and so I've got to stay abreast of this.

00:08:59.660 The average citizen doesn't hear these cases reported because the media doesn't want to talk about it.

00:09:04.180 It doesn't mean anyone who gets a vaccine is going to get myocarditis or is going to die, obviously.

00:09:11.360 But what's with the silencing?

00:09:13.800 What's with the shaming for anybody who wants to talk about these cases and ask for more data on exactly how many cases this has happened in and what the risk actually is to our kids?

00:09:24.320 These numbers, these cases, they don't even begin to cover the number of cases on VAERS where doctors and medical professionals have to report vaccine injuries or their people can report them.

00:09:37.240 They don't begin to cover the number of cases there of post-vaccination injury or death.

00:09:41.740 And keep in mind, many such injuries never find their way onto VAERS at all.

00:09:45.840 We've had vaccine-injured guests on this show whose doctors wouldn't post their severe vaccine-related injuries and others who were dropped from the vaccine clinical trials altogether after severe injury occurred during the trials.

00:10:00.600 Our public health officials and the media are so blinded by their adherence to universal vaccination at all costs, they're not being honest about the data.

00:10:13.200 More questions need to be asked.

00:10:16.440 We are talking about children.

00:10:20.100 Mandating this vaccine is morally wrong.

00:10:23.520 Putting it on this schedule is insane.

00:10:25.200 Dr. Marty McCary of Johns Hopkins called the CDC's decision to add this to the vaccine schedule for kids shameful.

00:10:32.880 Dr. Prasad used the term catastrophic.

00:10:35.720 Both say parents now will be less likely to get any of the recommended vaccines, the MMR vaccine and so on, because it undermines faith in the CDC.

00:10:44.380 This decision is going to cost lives.

00:10:48.300 The CDC cannot be trusted.

00:10:50.440 They're not being honest about the data, and they haven't been for some time.

00:10:54.760 They're not even disclosing the data.

00:10:57.580 The human trials for the current vaccine were never made public.

00:11:01.420 The vaccine companies are calling them top secret.

00:11:05.000 Why can't we see them?

00:11:06.340 Why can't we not see the data?

00:11:10.080 How can they mandate that we stick our kids with this thing without showing us these data?

00:11:14.660 All of this risk for a vaccine that shows no reduction in disease for children.

00:11:21.060 Dr. McCary of Johns Hopkins said exactly that on Fox News.

00:11:24.760 In fact, it may endanger them.

00:11:28.860 Resist this madness and demand more information.

00:11:32.460 The fight is on now at the state to state level.

00:11:35.360 That's where it's going next.

00:11:36.540 Don't let them shame you into silence.

00:11:38.840 If you don't stand up.

00:11:40.580 Who will?

00:11:41.300 We'll be right back with Mary Catherine Ham to respond right after this break.

00:11:52.080 Here with you now, Mary Catherine Ham.

00:11:54.600 She is host of the podcast Getting Hammered, which is just amazing.

00:11:59.060 And also, we think, employed by CNN, but we'll get to that in a second.

00:12:04.540 MK, how you doing?

00:12:05.960 I'm doing all right.

00:12:07.380 Hanging in there.

00:12:08.120 Good.

00:12:09.380 All right.

00:12:09.840 So where am I going wrong on this recommendation that the COVID vaccine be added to the list

00:12:15.920 of mandatories?

00:12:17.140 Look, I don't think it's the right decision.

00:12:20.640 Everything in life is a risk analysis, right?

00:12:23.860 And it should be in science, too.

00:12:25.500 And you should be dealing with the data.

00:12:26.700 And you should be dealing with what the risks are to actual patients here.

00:12:30.760 Throughout the entire COVID era, the tendency has been, especially among children who are

00:12:37.100 at incredibly low risk for serious COVID, has been to exaggerate their risk in the actual

00:12:42.440 disease and to ignore other risks, all the other risks, whether it's their social interactions,

00:12:47.760 whether it's this teenage, particularly teenage boys with the myocarditis, where they have this

00:12:52.120 increased risk, they have almost no data on these vaccines with children.

00:12:59.360 And then they just pretend that the data dictates these recommendations.

00:13:03.920 When you go scratch the data or you go listen to the HF discussions, these guys are going,

00:13:10.680 I don't think this should really be used for mandates, but I guess we're going to say yes.

00:13:15.220 And that is not heartening.

00:13:18.400 And I think for me, the risk analysis I'm concerned about is I think there's far greater risk to

00:13:24.720 the regular schedule of vaccines, traditional ones, MMR, as they call it in Raising Arizona,

00:13:32.000 these kinds of things that will suffer because trust will suffer.

00:13:36.580 You've got two things going on here.

00:13:38.300 One, a broken habit of well visits for your children because they made it so hard to go to

00:13:44.520 the pediatrician for two years, and then another broken trust with public health officials

00:13:49.560 with a lot of good reason.

00:13:52.320 There was a June meeting with ACIP, which is this advisory board that made this decision.

00:13:58.700 And there's just a perfect illustration of this, that a mom who's a data hound down in

00:14:04.800 Georgia caught Kelly in Georgia of COVID Georgia.

00:14:07.300 She caught the CDC misrepresenting the risk of death to children, to the ACIP.

00:14:15.660 It was, they were double counting COVID deaths among children over a period of time that was

00:14:20.220 longer.

00:14:20.900 They were not, they were doing apples and oranges.

00:14:22.980 It was meant to be fear mongering.

00:14:25.340 It was meant to pressure this group of people.

00:14:28.600 It was flat out wrong.

00:14:30.680 And it leads them to make decisions that are not correct.

00:14:35.000 Like they, public health needs to be straight with us and they repeatedly are not straight

00:14:40.460 with us.

00:14:41.560 That's why my, my frustration, this whole thing has been, I know I can't trust the CDC.

00:14:46.360 I can't, I can't trust the WHO.

00:14:48.660 I can't trust the NIH.

00:14:50.520 So who do I trust?

00:14:51.940 You know, I don't want to go hardcore the other way.

00:14:54.920 And I understand these are respected doctors, but I, I don't want to go hardcore full only Dr.

00:14:59.800 Malone, you know, who I realized is very much against the vaccines.

00:15:02.800 And I listened to him and I consider him, but you know, I'm trying to find a moderate voice

00:15:08.840 who I can trust.

00:15:10.060 That's why I do listen to Vinay Prasad.

00:15:12.080 I listened to Dr.

00:15:12.980 Marty McCary.

00:15:13.980 I listened to a lot of experts that we've had on this show who I try to find who are,

00:15:18.160 I think, honest brokers.

00:15:20.200 And what those people are saying is that, like I said, in the talking points memo, one dose

00:15:27.100 is far less problematic than two doses, right?

00:15:30.780 Boys are at increased risk versus girls.

00:15:34.840 And Pfizer may be mildly better than Moderna.

00:15:38.400 You know, some of some countries overseas are saying no Moderna at all for that age group.

00:15:42.400 But you heard the deaths I just went through.

00:15:45.480 Most of them are Pfizer.

00:15:46.420 And the only reason we have those reported in the news, for the most part, and the reason

00:15:50.520 that so many of them are overseas is our media and our public health officials here won't

00:15:56.760 say the vaccine led to somebody's death because they say it's impossible to prove.

00:16:01.280 But it's like, OK, perfectly healthy kid gets the Moderna vaccine or the Pfizer vaccine on

00:16:06.200 Tuesday and dies on Friday of myocarditis and had no problem with myocarditis or heart

00:16:12.720 health issues prior to getting the vaccine.

00:16:14.340 You have to make a deduction.

00:16:17.460 Authorities overseas are much quicker to say, well, obviously, that's vaccine-induced myocarditis

00:16:22.280 that led to the person's death.

00:16:23.680 Over here, we're so pro-vax.

00:16:26.360 It's you can't say that.

00:16:27.580 We don't know what caused it.

00:16:29.480 Right.

00:16:29.900 Well, and what the answer will be, and it's right.

00:16:32.640 If you're doing your risk analysis, they will say, well, this is a very small risk.

00:16:36.560 That's part of the discussion, right?

00:16:38.360 That's part of it.

00:16:39.080 But we should have the discussion about the risk.

00:16:41.000 And by the way, we've spent two years talking about a minuscule risk to young, healthy children

00:16:47.000 of bad effects from COVID, right?

00:16:49.660 So I don't want to hear just one side of the risks.

00:16:52.640 I would like to balance them.

00:16:54.600 Because that's what grownups do.

00:16:56.660 And they don't tell people to shut up about their experiences.

00:16:59.200 To the point you just raised, you know, I hadn't even thought about it this way, but

00:17:03.920 they exaggerate the risk of dying from COVID for children by overcounting kids who die

00:17:11.700 with COVID.

00:17:12.780 You know, they go into the hospital for something else.

00:17:14.700 They happen to have COVID and they die.

00:17:16.080 They count them as deaths from COVID and do the funny numbers like you point out the woman

00:17:21.540 in Georgia found them doing.

00:17:22.640 So one way they want to inflate artificially the number of kids dying from COVID, but the

00:17:27.780 other way they won't count anything unless they have proof possible.

00:17:32.820 How do you get proof positive?

00:17:34.200 It's like, that's why the Thailand study is so interesting because they took kids they

00:17:37.760 knew had not had COVID and did not have cardiovascular issues, then gave them the vaccine and then

00:17:44.940 saw the increase in myocarditis and cardiac issues like that.

00:17:49.100 I'm not talking about deaths there.

00:17:50.620 I'm talking about heart complications from the COVID vaccine.

00:17:53.540 That's like, that's as good as you're going to get.

00:17:55.580 And then if those kids wind up dying from myocarditis, what are they going to say?

00:17:58.500 We have no idea what caused it.

00:18:00.960 Well, and Prasad calls it a safety signal.

00:18:03.660 And that safety signal is something you should pay attention to and you should adjust accordingly,

00:18:08.420 which is the thing we have been totally incapable of doing in American public health since this

00:18:14.740 began.

00:18:15.180 You see places where like Sweden and Denmark, they'll go, oh, well, maybe we should just reduce

00:18:19.540 it to one shot for teenagers.

00:18:22.000 Maybe we should warn teenage boys that perhaps the second one is problematic.

00:18:27.140 Give people this information.

00:18:29.120 They don't mandate them for young people who are at very low risk and yet face different

00:18:34.620 risks.

00:18:35.020 But they say you can or sometimes they even argue against it.

00:18:40.280 But just like with school closings, we are on a completely different page than the rest

00:18:45.660 of public health throughout the developed world.

00:18:48.940 And it's this sort of maniacal myopic focus on only one risk as if COVID is the only thing

00:18:57.140 that can hurt your children.

00:18:58.740 It's just not true.

00:18:59.980 And grownups weigh risks.

00:19:02.200 They don't just consider one.

00:19:03.960 Think about how I don't know about you, but I know lots of women who postpone their annual

00:19:10.520 physical because they don't want to get on the scale.

00:19:12.960 Think about the parents who are now going to be postponing the wellness visit for their

00:19:17.800 kids because they know their doctor is going to say, well, not only should he get the MMR

00:19:24.120 or does he have to have the following vaccines, you got to get that COVID vaccine.

00:19:28.340 CDC recommended it.

00:19:29.380 And now, as a result, our state has made it part of the mandatory list.

00:19:33.840 You can't go to school without this.

00:19:35.660 And they use the CDC knows this is where it's going.

00:19:38.940 And still, those I almost said efforts trying to clean up my mouth a little bit, a little

00:19:44.280 slightly.

00:19:45.060 They voted 15 to zero for this 15 to zero.

00:19:49.440 Well, and and if you watch them discuss these things that they vote unanimously on, they don't

00:19:53.880 feel as confident as the vote reflects.

00:19:56.540 Right.

00:19:56.720 But you have to actually watch that discussion.

00:19:59.460 Some of this, I think, is just like pressure, social pressure.

00:20:02.920 And they're like, well, I'm not sure I'm going to raise a bunch of issues with this, but then

00:20:06.260 I'm just going to vote yes.

00:20:07.420 And it's it is disingenuous to say that this does not lead to mandates.

00:20:13.860 OK, sure.

00:20:14.860 They don't make the actual mandate.

00:20:16.480 But this is what states and school systems and counties and cities will use to say this

00:20:22.220 is what we use to justify what we require for activities for school, as if children haven't

00:20:27.300 had enough things taken away from them in D.C.

00:20:29.380 They tried they tried to do this before school started this year and realized it would cut

00:20:33.740 out about 40 percent of the black student community, which is a problem.

00:20:37.180 And so they postponed it till January.

00:20:40.000 What happens now?

00:20:41.840 Perhaps they look at the CDC and go, look, now we have our justification.

00:20:45.680 And again, when you make that decision to skip the wellness visit, if you're afraid about

00:20:51.240 being pressured about this particular thing, if you have justified concerns about this

00:20:55.900 particular vaccination, guess what you're going to end up missing your MMR update, you're

00:21:01.440 the ones that are the traditional real problems that can cause real problems if we skip them

00:21:07.540 in mass are going to be the things you miss.

00:21:10.760 And I have genuine concerns about what people think about the rest of this.

00:21:14.960 And those are real vaccines.

00:21:16.540 Those are things that will actually prevent you from getting measles, mumps, rubella.

00:21:20.680 You know, unlike this vaccine, which will not prevent you or your child from getting

00:21:25.660 covid at all, despite what the CDC originally said.

00:21:28.900 So you can stick your kid with this with this needle and he can very well get covid anyway.

00:21:35.080 You know, I was way down the rabbit hole on McCary and Prasad and all these guys.

00:21:40.780 And there was something of an A's it's spelled Vinay, but it's pronounced Vinay.

00:21:45.740 Forgive me.

00:21:46.140 I always forget on his sub stack.

00:21:48.980 Like he posted an article from a third year medical student and he was saying this guy's

00:21:52.640 got more sense than most public health officials out there today.

00:21:56.300 And this third year medical student had taken a look at the data and the studies and was

00:21:59.880 saying that these vaccines for children and teenagers and young people like him, he's

00:22:04.880 a third year med student.

00:22:05.760 So he's young 20s have caused more hospitalizations than they have prevented.

00:22:10.720 That that is what the study seems to show, that they've caused more hospitalizations than

00:22:15.140 they've prevented. And Vinay, Vinay was saying, I'd be happy to have this guy in the medical

00:22:21.200 profession and treating my own son.

00:22:23.260 This this is this is what is a sensible conclusion after looking at all the data.

00:22:29.180 And yet you look at your school administrator and he just says, CDC, see.

00:22:34.740 Well, they've already been boosting college students as a requirement to come back to school,

00:22:40.200 which, by the way, I ain't paying money for that, my my tens of thousands of dollars to

00:22:44.680 send this kid off and boost him before he can go sit in three masks that in a virtual

00:22:48.900 classroom. But like the cost benefit analysis on that is not good.

00:22:53.960 But like this is this is where we are that I mean, Paul Offit, who's like the most pro

00:22:59.340 vacs guy there is like, I don't know, like boosters for young people like that doesn't

00:23:03.660 make that much sense. That's not a direct quote. I'm paraphrasing. But this is but when

00:23:10.800 that when when he is telling you that it's a real issue and it's why can't we calibrate

00:23:18.340 to risk? Why couldn't we admit that an 80 year old was facing different risk than a five

00:23:23.780 year old? Why couldn't we say that outdoors was pretty daggone safe and indoors was not like

00:23:28.760 there were so many missed exits along the way. The media went along with it.

00:23:34.520 Our our industry was complicit and remains complicit. This is what's so disturbing. Like

00:23:40.460 you. You know, you you stick a toe in these waters of like, I'm concerned, I'm seeing very

00:23:48.500 troubling data. And it's like, you know, like, obviously, there's the disinformation doesn't

00:23:54.740 what's happened to all of them. But that's wrong. Our our industry is we get paid to be

00:24:00.960 curious. We get paid to say, bullshit, that's not part of the accepted narrative. And instead

00:24:06.940 say, oh, that's interesting. Where are you getting that from? Let's look at that. Let's

00:24:10.400 go down that rabbit hole. Let's why aren't they giving us the data behind these clinical trials?

00:24:14.640 But you're right. We should have that. And I do think it's one of the reasons why we just

00:24:18.920 saw that poll. And there was one saying nearly 60 percent have absolutely no faith in the

00:24:23.680 media, zero faith in 60 percent of Americans and one showing 38 percent as low as 38 percent

00:24:29.840 have no faith in the media. Independents have no faith in the media. Republicans have no

00:24:33.320 faith in the media. The only people with any faith left are some of the Democrats, M.K.,

00:24:37.720 but it's all they're working hard on it, trying to pull that number up.

00:24:41.500 Well, of course, because it's all their narratives. Yeah, it's skepticism is good for you. And it's

00:24:48.900 it's good to apply it to many large institutions, all of the government institutions. And yet media

00:24:55.400 is often very selective about how it applies skepticism or else it would listen to some of

00:25:00.920 these discussions and scratch some of the data and go, oh, wait, this is not exactly what we were

00:25:05.840 being presented. But they don't do that in particular cases. And this is one of those particular cases.

00:25:13.040 By the way, leave it to the media to have like 80 plus percent say that they're a threat to

00:25:18.320 democracy. It's like the only thing we have bipartisan agreement on, apparently in one poll.

00:25:22.980 And then in the Gallup poll, it's like seven percent have a great amount of trust for media

00:25:27.820 and media is like, awesome job, guys. That's us. Pick up your trophy. Like it's truly it's like

00:25:35.820 the introspection are like Nora O'Donnell, Don Lemon, this select group of people who are actually

00:25:43.040 in the media because nobody on the outside still believes in them. It's it's not good. And part of

00:25:47.920 it is just it's so populated by people who agree with each other. And the social pressure can be so

00:25:53.440 large to not step out. And the institutional incentives to agree with everyone are great.

00:25:59.200 Right. Right. Well, this is what's interesting about you. You I mean, correct me if I'm wrong,

00:26:05.320 but you kind of enjoy being a contrarian. You don't mind being, you know, the one in the room

00:26:09.640 saying that the different thing, the old one, these things is not like the others. You've got

00:26:15.540 three young kids, you know, that's you. So you don't mind going against the grain.

00:26:20.000 I don't. I enjoy it because I think and I tell college students this because I go to college

00:26:24.300 campuses to be the weirdo who disagrees with all of them. It's important for rooms to have weirdos.

00:26:31.060 And it's important for someone to be the weirdo in the room, sometimes just to just to mess with

00:26:36.460 the thoughts just to test them. Because if you don't test them, then you end up convincing yourself

00:26:41.940 with a lot of motivated reasoning, never testing your confirmation bias. And these things lead us to

00:26:47.120 really unhealthy conclusions. And so rooms need weirdos. I'm happy to be that weirdo. I do it often.

00:26:54.360 And if you don't have it, it can get really dangerous. And I think that's what you see in

00:26:57.760 a lot of media. All right. This is the perfect place for us to take a quick break, because being

00:27:02.380 a weirdo at CNN is kind of a thing. MK is not actually one, but there's plenty over there.

00:27:08.880 And you will not believe what happened to her as a result of her calling out one, you know,

00:27:15.220 very well. And that is Jeffrey Toobin for his love of masturbation when in front of a zoom camera.

00:27:20.720 That's where we're going to pick it up right after this. Don't go away.

00:27:26.860 Well, as many of you know, Mary Catherine Hamm is one of the top conservative commentators

00:27:31.280 in the business. We've been friends and I've known her forever, and she's

00:27:35.720 really the best at what she does. CNN hired her for that reason. Exactly, of course.

00:27:41.320 But then the problem is she had the guts to throw some truth bombs about then network legal analyst

00:27:47.000 Jeffrey Toobin and CNN was a little cool on that idea. As it turned out, if you need a reminder

00:27:54.140 on Toobin, he's the guy who left his zoom on and jerked off in front of his colleagues at the New

00:27:59.520 Yorker while preparing for election night coverage. These poor people were just sitting there pretending

00:28:03.920 to be analyzing election results when he whipped it out and started pleasuring himself. And they had

00:28:09.640 to look at that. Now, he also had a job as the chief legal analyst over at CNN. That's not where

00:28:17.740 he did it, but he was on air with them and they had to make a decision about what to do with him.

00:28:22.760 He did not get fired. Now we know why, because Jeff Zucker had his own Me Too problems and had a host

00:28:27.260 of Me Tooers over there. Toobin was just one who had sexual problems. And so he just got a suspension.

00:28:33.540 He got an eight month suspension. Mary Catherine says after she sent out some pretty benign tweets

00:28:41.660 about Toobin, she was, without her knowledge, quietly suspended. The punishment was so quiet,

00:28:49.260 they never told her about it until it was over. All right, Mary Catherine. So it started because you

00:28:55.160 had a little tweet dust up with some internal people at CNN on whether they were over covering

00:29:01.080 January 6th compared to the Capitol Hill baseball field shooting, which had taken place in 2017.

00:29:10.620 You were kind of saying, you know, we moved on from the shooting of the Republicans,

00:29:14.440 the attempted and actual shooting of the Republicans really quickly and not so much on January 6th.

00:29:19.840 Yeah, the political violence double standard is one that really sticks in my old craw. And so I bring

00:29:26.100 it up every now and then. And I just look, I tweeted something, what I thought was calm and factual,

00:29:30.660 about our coverage. I know that it's dicey to do that when you're at a media outlet.

00:29:35.700 A colleague of mine came back at me about it. And we had an argument about it that got like

00:29:40.960 medium heated, I would say. Because I think, look, it's my job to comment on media coverage on national

00:29:48.520 stories. And sometimes that is going to fall afoul of the organization you're working for. That's

00:29:54.340 always going to be a weird situation. So I try to keep it above board in that discussion.

00:29:59.700 I brought up Toobin. Toobin was still an employee of the network. This is under the Zucker regime,

00:30:06.360 not the new one. And that was deemed not appropriate. I didn't know this because no one

00:30:12.960 told me. Now, I knew that that was possible, that that was not appropriate under the rules of sort of

00:30:19.060 avoiding shooting inside the tent. However, I rejected the idea that I have to stay silent about

00:30:28.100 this obviously egregious content, the conduct, and just move on. Right? If you're going to fact

00:30:36.360 check me, if we're going to have this argument, I've got some other issues you could talk about,

00:30:40.760 right? Right.

00:30:41.300 Like, I just, the idea that female colleagues are asked to be quiet about that particular thing,

00:30:48.460 I don't, I don't buy it. And I will take the punishment. I would prefer to be told about the

00:30:53.020 punishment.

00:30:53.560 Wait, but before we get to the silent suspension, which is just so weird, it's like,

00:30:57.780 no balls. Okay? They knew what they were doing was wrong, and they didn't have the balls to tell you.

00:31:01.760 So, um, it's ironic because we're talking a lot about men genitalia in this little segment,

00:31:06.160 but in any event, um, so before, there's so much. So before, before this, the quiet suspension,

00:31:12.760 the Twitter dust up, you were trying to say, correct me if I'm wrong, but you were having

00:31:17.120 this argument with this guy, Andrew Kaczynski, who's at CNN, who was ripping on you saying you

00:31:21.560 did, you did cover and CNN using you did cover the Capitol Hill shooting of the Republicans.

00:31:27.540 You know, you were there and you were like, yeah, and we, and therefore I can tell you that we

00:31:31.500 covered it and we moved on within 48 hours. And he was kind of needling you and you were making the

00:31:36.900 point. You said, do you need the rest of my itinerary from that day and the day after, which

00:31:42.440 again, were basically the only days this was a national story, which was my point. And then he

00:31:46.520 said, got Jack to say about Cuomo and Toobin, but got a fact check me when he's got nothing.

00:31:52.720 One jacked off in front of female colleagues and one violated every conflict of interest rule in

00:31:57.120 journalism, referring to Chris Cuomo, lied about it and got fired. But I'm the issue because I

00:32:01.540 think the congressional baseball shooting was covered too lightly and taxes are too high.

00:32:05.540 Sure, dude, which was pretty brilliant. And that's a point well taken. You're basically saying,

00:32:11.160 how do I get attacked for, for saying something about Toobin? And I don't remember you out there

00:32:15.840 saying, why did Toobin jerk off in front of all his colleagues or Cuomo?

00:32:19.840 No, I'm the problem. I'm the problem for making this calm

00:32:23.720 observation about coverage that I was involved with. And we did. I mean, truly, truly, people will

00:32:30.460 tell you in media that like Giffords and the congressional baseball shooting, which are fairly

00:32:35.340 analogous, were covered the same way. It's, it's not true. They were, it is not true. And I know

00:32:42.100 because I was a block and a half from the baseball field where I lived when someone, the killer, it

00:32:48.360 turns out, or the attempted murder camped out in my neighborhood for a month looking for people of

00:32:54.100 my ideology to kill. And then he attempts it. And within 48 hours, those news vans were out of there,

00:33:00.780 man. And you can't give me the excuse that, oh, it was, it was far flung from all the major media

00:33:06.080 outlets. We're six miles away. We are six miles away. And they just, it was, it was not as big a

00:33:13.000 deal because some forms of political violence are not as big a deal. That is just, that's right.

00:33:18.600 How it's covered. This is the point you're trying to make totally legitimate. You got attacked. You

00:33:23.000 got attacked first internally by, by a colleague. So you, you were first just taking issue with the

00:33:28.560 amount of coverage at CNN. Then a CNN colleague attacked you saying you're wrong, basically. And then

00:33:34.860 you said you got a lot to say about me, but you didn't say so much about Tubin or Cuomo. So silent,

00:33:40.400 right? Silence is deafening. So then how many months go by that you, we now know were intentionally

00:33:47.740 suddenly you were, you were, you were disappeared. Like mommy dearest. If she doesn't like you,

00:33:54.340 she can. It was, it was till, it was until July. So that's a, that's seven. It was beginning of

00:34:00.220 January till July. So it's about seven months to Tubin's eight months. Uh, and you got a seven

00:34:06.840 month suspension for making a comment about Jeffrey Toobin and Jeffrey Toobin. He, he got an eight

00:34:15.380 month suspension for actually tubing. Yes. So you will, you will see what led me to want to talk about

00:34:23.260 this because I thought to myself, is this formulated to tick me off as much as possible? And you have a

00:34:30.180 couple options here. Look, Zucker's gone. Tubin's gone, or he was gone several weeks after I was

00:34:36.560 informed of this. Uh, I could let it lie. My options are I'm under contract. I can go back and do my job

00:34:43.640 with a smile on my face. That didn't feel right. I could negotiate myself out of it quietly. Also the

00:34:50.840 quiet part doesn't work for me or three. I could not be quiet. I could tell the truth because I

00:34:57.880 think it's the right thing to do. And by the way, someday when my children are old enough to hear

00:35:03.060 this story, which must be censored for them, I have three daughters. Uh, like that's how terrible the

00:35:09.460 story is. One, one day when I can tell them, I can't tell them that I shut up about it because

00:35:15.180 this was the reason given to me that in this dustup to the mentioning of Tubin required a breather.

00:35:24.540 I was not informed of the breather. This all happened under the old regime, but then I was told

00:35:29.540 just come back. I said to myself, look, I can't pretend that nothing happened.

00:35:33.320 So here's what happened. And did we not learn during me too, that institutional silence and

00:35:42.080 women's silence about these kinds of things perpetuates these kinds of things. And again,

00:35:49.780 one more, one more thing, which I told like, I'm a real say it to your face kind of person. I could

00:35:55.080 like, I guess the media thing would do to be, would be like a leak it to an outlet anonymously. Like this

00:36:01.120 is what happened to me. I just say things from me. So I told them this, which is as a woman in

00:36:09.080 media, I have been asked to comment on every errant penis in the media industry. And there were so many

00:36:16.740 for the past five years, sometimes the exclusion of all the other things I'd like to talk about,

00:36:22.220 like tax policy, health policy, I don't know, foreign policy. And yet I do it because it's the

00:36:27.020 right thing to do, even though it can be a little humiliating to be on TV talking about nothing but

00:36:30.340 errant penises of your colleagues. The indignity. I reject that. This is the one

00:36:36.640 penis that I'm not allowed to talk about. I reject it.

00:36:44.940 That penis is fair game. I don't want to do it, but it has to be done.

00:36:49.440 You are not the one who unleashed it on the zoom. It was out there for the discussion.

00:36:53.540 By the way, and you made this point at the time, and this is what it gets to me. I wouldn't have

00:37:00.780 been rehabilitated from something like this. I would have, well, I would have been relocated to

00:37:05.220 an OnlyFans page, but like, I would not have a career after that. We all know that.

00:37:10.760 No, hell no. Literally think about it. If a, forgive me for going X rated, but picture this. If a woman

00:37:19.580 dropped trowel and her underwear and started masturbating on a zoom call for the New Yorker

00:37:27.100 for, she would never work again in the news business ever. If you just had to sit there

00:37:32.560 watching her pleasure herself, you, she would never, ever be taken seriously. Certainly not in

00:37:38.120 his job. I said this at the time, like maybe, maybe like if you're the entertainment correspondent,

00:37:42.880 maybe there's a way back. Not as the guy who analyzes the Supreme court. No, no, no. And I,

00:37:51.360 I just, I can't shut up about that particular thing. Uh, and further, I was, I was informed that

00:38:00.660 I wasn't informed because I was on a maternity leave and they wanted me to like be with my baby.

00:38:05.500 And they have good policy. Yeah. Well, that's the other thing. So how did you not know you were

00:38:11.800 suspended? Right. Cause it's, I think the audience might be like, what do you mean? You know, like,

00:38:16.420 didn't you know, that's a long time not to not. Yeah, no, no. I had, I of course had suspicions.

00:38:21.000 I just wasn't told that this was a disciplinary action until after it was over. Well, in a TV,

00:38:26.400 when you're a contributor and they're not calling you, you never know why you could think like,

00:38:30.780 Oh, you know, they've soured on me, you know, suddenly they have the prerogative. They have

00:38:34.460 the prerogative to not call me, but you could like call me and break up with me or something,

00:38:39.900 or tell me why. Cause it's not like you were doing a daily show every day. What are we doing?

00:38:45.520 Right. You didn't swipe on me. So it's not like you were doing a daily show. You were a contributor.

00:38:49.400 So they, it's sort of at their pleasure that you, that you get on the air day to day. And so after

00:38:53.980 month after month after month, suddenly you're like, Hmm, it's been a long time. What's going on?

00:38:58.280 So then how did you find out? How did they reveal to you that you had been turfed all that time?

00:39:03.760 Someone called me to tell me, uh, sort of in like management or what have you. And, and

00:39:09.720 I just, I, I was taken aback, taken aback, Megan by, uh, by this, because I know, look,

00:39:20.140 we work in live TV. You're going to say stuff. We all are on Twitter. You're going to say stuff.

00:39:26.140 Right. Right. Like, so you just, I, I can take my lumps, but I have to, you have to tell me about

00:39:33.380 it. Right. And I might argue with you about whether I should say the thing or whether I should have had

00:39:38.300 the argument. Just tell me about it. My actual job is to have contentious arguments, right? So I can do

00:39:45.460 that. But wait, but the thing that they were telling you they were upset about was you shooting inside

00:39:50.240 the tent. You know, you took a shot at another CNN or forget the subject matter, but you took a shot

00:39:55.360 at another CNN or. And my, my question to you is, did Andrew Kaczynski, the guy who opened fire on the

00:40:03.760 CNN or you, he was the one who first drew blood. Did he get suspended?

00:40:08.420 I asked if there had been a talking to and I, uh, or any, anything? No, no, I, there was no,

00:40:17.720 there, it was a cagey answer, but I, to my knowledge, no. And I, I noted pointedly the

00:40:24.080 gender disparity in this treatment. Uh, let's hear it. Andrew Kaczynski. I follow you on Twitter. Um,

00:40:31.260 were you suspended or disciplined in any way for taking a shot at MK ham? Go ahead and tweet out the

00:40:37.680 answer. And then we'll know because even he must see how wrong this is, how poorly you were treated

00:40:43.880 and just how immoral that decision was by CNN. I mean, it's good that they finally rectified it,

00:40:50.480 but what if anything, do they offer you to make up for this treatment?

00:40:55.160 Well, Andrew and I, by the way, had a behind the scenes, like, because if I have a conflict with

00:41:00.540 somebody, I'll make sure we're cool. I don't mind having arguments with somebody and then just

00:41:04.300 moving on. Um, and there was some ugly trolling that got involved in the whole thing. So I said,

00:41:08.640 like, let's check in, checked in. We had a nice conversation, a little after action report. Um,

00:41:14.460 and this is my issue with like the way this was presented to me was, uh, this thing happened.

00:41:21.820 Uh, it's because of these ways that, you know, you violated the spirit of the shooting inside the

00:41:26.860 tent thing. You weren't told cause you were on maternity leave. Uh, and now you can come back.

00:41:32.940 And right again, quietly doing that didn't sit right with me. And look, I, I started my career,

00:41:43.840 uh, disagreeing with Bill O'Reilly every week. So like, it started, this is like in my nature.

00:41:49.360 It has what, it's what has served me throughout my career. I have this glitch where I'm like,

00:41:53.360 Oh, are you more powerful? And, uh, and also I think you're wrong. Uh, let's talk about that.

00:41:58.100 I love it. Like a boss of the flame. Right. So I'm, I'm comfortable with that. I was in my

00:42:02.780 twenties when I started doing that and it's not in my character to leave this be. And I knew it

00:42:08.840 would eat me up inside if I did. So you dropped it and a sub stack and a great piece, which I

00:42:16.460 recommend everybody, everybody read. It's really good. It's really powerful. In the age of quiet

00:42:21.300 quitting, I was quiet, suspended, and I can't shut up about it. And you go on. So what happened? Did

00:42:27.640 you just drop that without any warning? And then CNN read it and executives read it. And then how did

00:42:33.160 they react? I don't have a reaction. No one called you? No. My God, this is drama. So you don't know

00:42:41.860 what, do you know what your status is there? Like, are you, are you still an employee? Are you still,

00:42:45.500 like, what's happening? Yeah. I mean, to my knowledge, I am.

00:42:52.500 This is a weird professional situation, MK. Well, it is. And you know what? When you're in

00:42:59.120 a weird situation, sometimes the best and simplest answer is to tell the truth. And that is what I

00:43:04.940 did. Uh, and again, I appreciate the, the sort of attempt to say like, okay, this is sort of

00:43:12.760 the slate is clean because I think we should have been clean or that we should have had a brief talk

00:43:17.520 and then it was clean. Uh, I just can't ignore the seven months of sleep before that.

00:43:24.260 The woman should have come to you and said, I am so embarrassed to have to tell you this. I'm new

00:43:30.100 in this regime. You know, there's new management and I'm horrified to find out you've been turfed for

00:43:35.440 seven months for, for this common and Jeffrey tube. And it was wrong. I will do a public apology.

00:43:41.380 If you want, we will do a memo internally, however you want us to handle this. This is my proposal and

00:43:47.280 how we should handle it. But here are your flowers and a raise and welcome back. That's what should

00:43:52.760 have happened. If, if this was not the wrongdoer, but just the executor of the policy and the, the,

00:43:58.480 the guy who did, who made the decision, who we believe is Jeff Zucker, then he got outed. I

00:44:04.580 explained at the top why I believe he made this decision. Um, so he's gone, but the people there

00:44:09.460 can actually try to make it right for you. So are you getting booked? Like, are, are you still in

00:44:14.560 purgatory? Not at the moment. I feel, I feel like purgatory is still in action. Uh, again, there had

00:44:21.440 been an offer to just like come back, but you know, I understood that once again, talking might be,

00:44:28.340 uh, detrimental to me. Uh, but I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do. Um, and I

00:44:36.460 appreciate many of my colleagues who like among them, Alice Stewart and, uh, and, and Scott Jennings,

00:44:43.080 who do yeoman's work over there, uh, bringing our side to the table. And I, I think that some of the

00:44:48.680 changes being made are necessary and correct ones. Uh, and, and yet I'm in this weird middle ground.

00:44:56.820 They want your voice, but not your voice, but not when it's taking aim at anything they've done.

00:45:04.480 Uh, meanwhile, this is the thing about media where media demands transparency, answers, uh,

00:45:12.820 self-reflection from every other industry. Well, maybe not the age shift, but every,

00:45:18.680 other industry, but itself, but sometimes you got to have that. So here I am. Well, I mean,

00:45:26.820 listen, I'm old enough to remember when the Roger Ailes scandal broke at Fox, they did stories talking

00:45:32.720 about how wrong it is to silence women and how this culture of silence can lead to pernicious results.

00:45:40.320 And that's true that they're right, but not a moment of self-reflection over, let's face it,

00:45:47.600 who did they really care about Jeffrey Toobin? I mean, like really like he, he shot himself in the

00:45:52.240 foot. He was obviously hobbled. They had to know he didn't have much of a runway left in him and you

00:45:58.780 do. So why, like if, if forced to take a position in this fight, would they, would they side with him?

00:46:04.740 I just think it's a Jeff Zucker thing. I think he was so protective of all of his me tours because he

00:46:08.920 had his own secret. He didn't see any other way. No, I think it was, he was the priority because

00:46:14.540 he was Zucker's priority and it doesn't have to do with the new guys, but I was still went through

00:46:18.860 this thing. And I, again, I cannot be quiet about it because is again, is it calculate protecting

00:46:27.400 Toobin at the cost of me who has done nothing but tweet? Is it calculated to make me as mad as

00:46:33.260 possible? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Has, has anybody not a Republican over there been good to you in the

00:46:39.960 wake of this? Oh, uh, well, I've, I've had really good experiences with tons of people at the network,

00:46:45.180 but one of the, you know, one of the things about this is that I don't know, am I, I'm like

00:46:50.100 semi-persona non grata at least. Uh, so everyone's like, you know, I don't have close relationships,

00:46:59.380 um, partly because of COVID and we've all been, we were all benched to some degree and didn't see

00:47:04.280 each other for two years, but I've had good experiences in the past. I just, again, like

00:47:10.260 needed to air this. Wait, but did anybody do like any of the anchors or anybody reach out to you after

00:47:15.060 you posted your sub stack? Uh, few and far between. Oh my God. Seriously.

00:47:23.140 She's being diplomatic. I'm horrified by that. I mean, I know a couple of people over there. I,

00:47:27.920 the audience knows I have no love for CNN, but I, I know a couple of people over there who I would

00:47:32.760 absolutely have thought would have reached out to you and been like, this is bullshit. I am shocked

00:47:36.660 to learn nobody has. Well, there was, there were like two people who said like this, who have said

00:47:42.540 through this process, like this was wrong. Um, more than sort of management said this was wrong.

00:47:48.160 Um, but yeah, it's not, it's not a mass. I would say. It doesn't seem like your future there is,

00:47:57.760 is robust MK. And I don't think it should be. I mean, I'll ask you, I'll squeeze in a break,

00:48:02.200 but I want to ask you on the opposite side, whether you think they've got a real future

00:48:04.740 because they're trying to turn things around right now. I just don't, I think too much damage

00:48:08.800 has been done. Not necessarily just in this case, but just with the American public.

00:48:14.220 And then let's talk about some news, right? Let's talk about Fetterman, uh, in Pennsylvania

00:48:17.460 and all the other stuff that that's making headlines today as we deep, dig deep into politics,

00:48:21.760 which is her actual specialty, not to been stand by Mary Catherine Ham and more right after this.

00:48:31.740 MK, what do you think? People ask me all the time. Do you think CNN can be saved because now they have

00:48:37.380 new management and some new ownership and I think a new commitment to trying to win back some

00:48:44.040 Republican viewers? Personally, I've said it before. I think it's too late. It's just too,

00:48:49.220 too late. They've already told half the country that they hate them. Uh, but you're an insider.

00:48:53.980 What do you think? Oh, well, let's take my personal experience off the table for a moment. I'll put my

00:48:58.400 analyst hat on. And I do think, uh, look, I, when, when I went over there, uh, the brand that CNN had

00:49:06.680 in 2016, although, you know, certainly most news outlets are left of me. Like I'm comfortable with

00:49:13.140 that. That's why I'm here. Right. Uh, I get that, but it was fun. It was, it was a good time. It was,

00:49:20.200 I felt like we were presenting all the possible takes, including sort of like a critical, uh,

00:49:25.900 a Trump critical conservative, which I was more on the side of and a Trump favorable conservative.

00:49:30.400 And we were having, we were fighting the good fight. Um, now there was the part also where,

00:49:36.620 you know, Zucker was giving this like billions of dollars of airtime to Trump. And then there,

00:49:41.860 the immediate response after he's oops, elected is like, well, now we gotta be part of rectifying

00:49:49.600 the situation. Right. As I said on air many times, like you can't, you can't un-president the

00:49:55.560 president. Like you gotta impeach and convict, or you got to defeat him in an election. Those are,

00:50:00.600 those are the choices. Uh, but I do think, look, it looks like the, the new folks are trying to

00:50:08.400 bring in people who, by the way, I don't want to tar with close association with me, but like,

00:50:14.280 but Steven Gutowski, who knows, uh, guns really well, that certainly shows a different, uh, attempt

00:50:21.820 to bring in people who understand this other part of the country that many people on air in news

00:50:27.520 media and national news media just don't have contact with, and they don't understand them.

00:50:33.220 And I think there were a lot of years lost, not understanding those people to the detriment of

00:50:39.020 people you're trying to inform about the news and then get re getting really wrapped up too often

00:50:44.200 in thinking those people are the enemy of America, right? Look, there's, there are some people out

00:50:49.560 there who are bad, but not half the country is the enemy of America. Um, and so talking about them

00:50:56.300 in that way too often can be really, really damaging. Uh, and then one of the, like we talked about the

00:51:02.900 media trust numbers, one of the reasons people don't trust media is because the media messes up and or

00:51:09.080 lies to them a lot, a lot. And I think like being watching the Russia investigation and everyone

00:51:17.260 just having a conclusion that they, they had figured out in their minds. And this is like the

00:51:22.880 entire media with the exclusion of very few, they had a conclusion in their minds. They were there

00:51:29.040 before Mueller was, they were there before the facts were, and it turned out the facts like never

00:51:34.880 really got to that conclusion. And yeah. And, and the attempt since then has been sort of to

00:51:41.140 backfill the BS, right? Like, well, I don't remember the mea culpa. I do. I don't remember

00:51:46.880 one person on CNN owning, nevermind MSNBC owning any piece of that. We got it wrong and we misled you

00:51:53.220 for years. Yeah. It's, and it's, it's bad. Like mea culpas are really powerful and really important,

00:52:00.140 uh, and they can win back trust. And you see this in studies too, of, of how people, uh, treat media,

00:52:06.660 but you do have to say the thing. And that was, you know, I've, I've attempted to do this in my own

00:52:12.180 career and I'm sure there's ones I've missed and my, my Twitter trolls will fact check me, but you

00:52:16.240 know, in 2016, I thought it was important to go on the day after the election and say, look, I gave him

00:52:21.080 a 30, 40%, uh, the 2016 election. I gave Trump a 30, 40% chance of winning. Right. But I didn't think

00:52:28.400 he would pull it off. And I thought it was important if I was going to suit up the next

00:52:32.700 day to go on TV and say, I got it wrong. I got it wrong. And I want to be honest about

00:52:38.140 that. Here were my blind spots. I thought Hillary Clinton had a ground game. I was incorrect.

00:52:42.940 Uh, but being straight with people about those things is important. And the media will tell

00:52:48.520 you that they do that. Uh, and that correction, why do you think they're not like, why, why do

00:52:52.900 you think CNN has never done that? I think, because I think it's easier. And honestly,

00:53:00.860 Trump does this too. Right. Whereas like, um, if I just stick with this position and ride it out,

00:53:05.800 then we'll move on and no one will notice that I was wrong, but people do notice that you were wrong

00:53:13.580 and you should like shamelessness is not, it should not be the name of the game.

00:53:19.140 Uh, and I just think you earn far more by saying, yeah, like this is, this is the thing I goofed up

00:53:25.300 on. I mean, the 2016 election. And I think some of the Russia stuff afterwards, it's like,

00:53:29.500 it wasn't, we weren't just wrong. It was like Oprah's favorite things of being wrong. You're

00:53:34.600 wrong. You're wrong. You're wrong. And you're wrong. And you're wrong. You're all wrong.

00:53:38.660 Right. With a precious few exceptions who, by the way, should be applauded for being right.

00:53:43.440 And often are not. But I mean, that's, it's because of ideological bias, right? It's like

00:53:48.420 they, they saw what they wanted to see. They couldn't let go of it. They had a preexisting

00:53:53.660 judgment about him that colored all of their reporting. I just don't see how you, how you

00:54:00.020 recover from that. And more importantly, from, from telegraphing to the audience that you hate them.

00:54:05.440 You know, how are you going to get back Republican viewers or even just right of center when they know

00:54:10.180 you hate them? The thing is that that brilliant sage Geraldo Rivera once told me, um, people don't

00:54:18.240 watch because of the guests with all due respect to, you know, the, the new hirings they watch

00:54:23.480 because of the anchors, they watch because of the hosts, or they don't watch because of the hosts and

00:54:28.020 you, they need to like the host or they're not going to watch. That's the bottom line. So there is

00:54:34.400 no world in which people are going to tune in to anchors who said, I fucking hate you.

00:54:40.180 For four years and then say, Oh, they have a guest I like. So I'll listen. Like it's, I just,

00:54:44.900 it's not going to happen. I mean, look, I don't think, I think some of that can be overcome,

00:54:51.700 but yes, it does have to have a, you have to have the moment where you say this, I was wrong about

00:54:59.280 this, right. Or else there's no repairing everything. That's one of the things with my,

00:55:02.400 with my own personal situation. I was like, I know one thing about professional relationships

00:55:08.440 or personal relationships. If you set the bar for what you will accept and not say anything about

00:55:14.120 it there, and there is no mea culpa, then that's where the bar is for how you're treated. And I

00:55:20.040 think that's the audience media relationship sometimes too, right? If you, it's true, you have

00:55:25.040 to say that this is the thing I got wrong. And too many people in media are not great at doing that.

00:55:31.780 And again, I'm not perfect. I attempt to say when I goof up and I attempt to own up to it.

00:55:37.460 And sometimes my ideological assumptions lead me astray, but I got a lot more people testing my

00:55:42.260 ideological assumptions than most people in media. Yeah. That's right. That's right. I mean, it's,

00:55:47.060 I don't know what your experience was like before, cause I agree with you prior to,

00:55:51.840 I would put it a little earlier though, before when Trump, when CNN turned, but

00:55:55.180 2015, certainly I liked CNN a lot. I watched, I watched it every night as I was getting ready for the

00:56:00.880 Kelly file. Um, so I think they would have been nice to you then. I wonder what it was like during

00:56:05.580 the four years of the Trump administration. You know, Megan McCain talks about how awful it was

00:56:09.560 for her on the set of the view and that's no surprise. You're not as contentious as she is.

00:56:14.920 You know, you, I just think you're just generally an agreeable person, even if you're fighting,

00:56:19.200 you know, you're just a likable person all around. Um, anyway, what was it like for you during those

00:56:24.560 four years of his presidency? The, I mean, the first couple of years there were great. And I,

00:56:28.900 again, I don't mind being the only person who's saying something different and often it behooves

00:56:34.600 me cause I ended up being the one who was on the right side of the issue. Right. Um, so I don't,

00:56:40.940 I don't mind being that person. I enjoyed it. I got a chance to do it. I think it is a worthwhile

00:56:45.700 project to speak to different audiences and to not only speak to people I agree with, although I do

00:56:52.460 love speaking to people I agree with. Uh, but I think it's worth doing that work. And I think it

00:56:58.400 was worthwhile for a couple of years there. And then I, again, I think partly because I'm, I'm

00:57:03.960 not so contentious. I sort of, I get a little bit lost in the mix. And I think it was like during COVID,

00:57:10.100 it was like, yeah. And I'm, I'm over here yelling, like, I could tell you guys about Yunkin.

00:57:16.000 Uh, I can tell you what's coming. Um, but I'm not sure that was super welcomed.

00:57:24.540 That's an interesting thought though. It was like, they, they got to the point where they

00:57:29.360 didn't even want to hear it. It was like, it's like, you know, cause CNN used to have both sides

00:57:34.240 on and you'd hear both things represented and MSNBC was not really that way, but CNN has gotten more and

00:57:39.860 more like MSNBC, including not as interested in voices like yours. You know, that probably played into

00:57:45.880 your secret suspension too. It's like, well, we're not dying to hear those things said on our air

00:57:50.260 anyway. So enjoy the couch. All right. Now onto something more pleasant. Cause you mentioned your

00:57:55.440 maternity leave. That was baby number three, but you are expecting baby number four. And, uh, I

00:58:02.820 understand we've got a, a gender reveal to do. You've got three girls and this one's a boy who knew.

00:58:10.760 Yay. Congrats. I had my husband call the midwives to check on this, uh, when the, when the real

00:58:17.980 happened to us and he told me and I said, that can't be right. I don't, I'm not capable. I grew,

00:58:25.080 I grew up with two brothers and I always just assumed this is where my loud mouth comes from.

00:58:28.980 And my, my tendency to speak up, uh, I had to fight for every scrap, but I grew up with two

00:58:35.200 brothers and I just assumed I would have boys, which is not how science works by the way. Uh,

00:58:40.760 as I found out when I had three girls. And so I just assumed this one would be a girl, but no,

00:58:46.620 it's a boy. So here we go. That's exciting. Oh my God. You're going to, you're going to

00:58:51.880 so enjoy this experience. And it is, I do think dramatically different from raising girls in great

00:58:57.720 ways. You know, I just, I don't know. I think boys are easier. Am I wrong? The audience will tell

00:59:02.480 me if I'm wrong. I think generally boys are a little easier. Girls are awesome. I love my girl,

00:59:07.600 but yeah, the hard labor is definitely in that lane versus the boys.

00:59:13.460 Well, I know we, we bonded over this since the first kid that I have shortly after, I think your

00:59:18.560 first or second. Um, and just like having someone who's in the professional world to chat, chat with

00:59:24.700 about, uh, this journey has always been nice. And, uh, and here I am. Yeah. Just, just diving off the

00:59:30.500 cliff with the fourth kid. And if there's any time to just detonate a bomb in your career,

00:59:34.540 it's when you're pregnant with your fourth kid. Yes. Why not? Well, but can I say,

00:59:39.840 I mean, you would never say this, but it's just another reason why the CNN behavior is so douchey,

00:59:45.840 which is everybody knows your personal story. There's not a more sympathetic figure on the face

00:59:51.680 of news today. You know, you, for the audience members who may not be familiar, forgive me,

00:59:56.560 MK, but MK was married to a lovely man who happened to be a Democrat, which is kind of a fun

01:00:02.760 piece of their relationship and, um, had a baby girl was pregnant with their second.

01:00:09.040 And then he died suddenly in a biking accident, just a freak biking accident while you were

01:00:15.920 pregnant with your second. I mean, it's just so heartbreaking. Your best friend, Guy Benson,

01:00:22.180 which our viewers may know him from Fox. It was such a stoic and like what a rock he was

01:00:27.720 during that whole thing. He was like your number one protector. And one of the many reasons we love Guy.

01:00:32.100 But you managed to get through and you managed to find love again. That picture of the two of you

01:00:38.780 when he proposed on Twitter against the backdrop, the beautiful about the backdrop. Anyway, it's a

01:00:43.040 great love story. So it's so resilient and optimistic of you to try again. And you had a child with your

01:00:50.320 new husband. This is your second pregnancy. And CNN was like, this is so awesome. Fuck off.

01:00:56.500 I mean, look at the potty mouth going today. I'm okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

01:01:04.700 Again. I mean, yeah, the maternity leave part of that was not not my favorite part of the discussion,

01:01:10.160 because even even in my female hormonal state postpartum, I can digest basic information

01:01:18.880 without any trouble. But yeah, I appreciate you saying all that. It's, it has been a wild ride for

01:01:28.180 seven, seven years now. And ever since then, one of the one of the, I don't, I don't want to say

01:01:35.180 there's like a silver lining to this great, the two great tragedies, but you will be given tests in

01:01:42.360 your life. It's just, that's just the way the game is played. Right. And so, uh, my sort of public

01:01:49.600 visibility and speaking about what happened to me has been therapeutic to me. And it turns out,

01:01:56.300 uh, leads people to me when they're in a similar situation. I think if you Google pregnant widow,

01:02:02.300 I'm like one of the top it's a, it's an inauspicious honor. Uh, but people can find me and I can speak

01:02:11.080 about sort of going through the fire and coming out the other side. And that has proven beneficial

01:02:17.540 to other people who are in the same spot. And I'm, I'm so thankful for that part of it. Uh,

01:02:22.900 in addition to, uh, my faith and my sense of humor, helping me and my children helping me to sort of

01:02:30.760 just soldier through, uh, that single mom life and to get to where I was and to be able to meet somebody,

01:02:36.940 uh, who was a great dad to the kids and now a new brother and sister.

01:02:42.720 I think about that. There's a, we just pause, just pause for a second. The fact that CNN when faced

01:02:48.880 with a choice between this person and Toobin and this benign comment about, Hey, yo, you didn't say

01:02:57.900 anything about him. That's all you said, decided to punish you. I mean that it's so telling about the

01:03:05.780 character of the management that ruined CNN that ruined it and whether it can be resurrected from

01:03:12.220 the ashes remains to be seen, but it certainly is going to have farther to go without MK ham on

01:03:16.440 staff. If they're smart, they'll reverse themselves immediately. Come finally with the flowers on the

01:03:22.200 bended knee. It's already public CNN. We know you did it. We realize it was old management. So just

01:03:27.200 own it, try to make it right and prove to the world that you will treat the person we know best as

01:03:34.480 CNN's Republican voice, uh, with the respect and the kindness she deserves. All right. The next time,

01:03:40.800 cause I'm sure you're going to be unemployed soon from CNN. The next time we're going to get into the

01:03:45.700 news MK, cause that's what you're best at. And it's awesome. Love it. Thank you for coming on.

01:03:51.580 Thank you so much for having me and for your kind words.

01:03:54.440 Of course. And thanks for your courage in telling the story. Uh, I think this is another instance in

01:03:58.160 which you probably helped a lot of people who will wind up coming to you as well. Thank you,

01:04:02.120 my friend to be continued. Thank you. All right. Up next comedian, John Crist is here.

01:04:07.680 He's hilarious with an amazing backstory. Wait until you meet him.

01:04:16.600 A Netflix special, a book deal, a live tour. We're all in the works when comedian John Crist's

01:04:23.400 double life caught up with him. It was crushing at the time, but John claims it actually was also a

01:04:30.100 relief more on that in just a bit. John is back now and on fire with a very funny and candid book

01:04:36.820 called delete that and other failed attempts to look good online. You probably know him from one

01:04:43.600 of his viral videos like this one. Every parent at Disney world can relate to. We made it to the

01:04:50.060 happiest place on earth. It's 9am. I got a schedule every minute of our day until 9pm. Pay attention and

01:04:55.760 stay close. I just flew my family halfway across America to visit Disney and all my homeschool kids

01:05:00.440 want to do is visit the hall of presidents. We need a map. $45 for bedazzled mouse ears, baby. You

01:05:06.560 want these or you want to go to college? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. It's 9 30 in the morning. It's

01:05:12.060 too early to get wet. We're not waiting an hour and a half for impressions of France. Okay. Eat a baguette

01:05:17.920 and lose a world war. That's my impression of France. Let's go to space mountain. No, I'm not going to push

01:05:22.380 him in a stroller. Okay. He's four. No, that's not right. The splash mountain is this way. No,

01:05:27.480 you cannot have goofy shaped chicken nuggets. Sit down. Your mother brought ham sandwiches.

01:05:32.080 Oh, for heaven's sakes. Pick up your garbage and throw it away. This isn't six flags. Listen,

01:05:37.100 Rebecca, she's not coming out today. Okay. That dream to meet Elsa. You better let it go.

01:05:43.220 Let it go. John, thank you so much for being here. Great to have you.

01:05:47.980 There we go. Always one of my favorites, that video. I don't watch my videos myself too

01:05:52.300 much, but that one's funny. Oh my God. We really can all relate. The Disney experience,

01:05:57.680 the goofy shaped chicken nugget, all of it. The stroller, right? It's like, do I get the

01:06:02.840 stroller? I don't want to have to navigate with that thing. All of it.

01:06:06.360 Oh yeah. It's a nightmare. And then you don't know where the map is. You don't know the lines

01:06:09.760 are always a nightmare, but I would say, when does a kid, when does a kid expire at Disney? You say

01:06:15.100 about one or two, maybe. You mean like, when is Disney no longer interesting to them? Is that

01:06:21.960 what you mean? No. When does a kid start turning? Like, you know, I go over to, I don't have any

01:06:25.960 kids, but I go to my friend's houses. Yeah. And they're like, uh, you know, you leave your friend's

01:06:31.420 house when you're, the kid's about to have a meltdown. Like the parents kind of know they go,

01:06:35.020 Hey, it's kind of coming to an end. That's true. I have to say, I was, I think pretty smart. I never

01:06:41.460 took them to Disney when they were really little. So I kind of avoided that. And I don't, it's like

01:06:46.480 so fun that generally they stay pretty well behaved, but those lines are just absurd. I mean,

01:06:51.980 like that, when it was Disney that we discovered the game that some other parents taught us in line,

01:06:56.400 which is the, um, you have to go around the circle and it's like, um, I went on a picnic and I got,

01:07:01.980 and I brought an apple. I wanted a picnic and I got an apple and a banana. I want to pick it. I got an

01:07:05.380 apple, banana and a carrot. But then you, you know, everybody in line has to remember every single,

01:07:11.080 right? So you get down to the end of the alphabet and then you start all over with a new thing.

01:07:14.380 It could be cities. It can be, I don't want to play that game ever again.

01:07:19.060 Nah, which I should have. If I do a part two, I'll add that to it.

01:07:23.100 Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, I have to say, you can also get the VIP guide, which costs like

01:07:26.900 a mortgage. You really just have to take a second mortgage and that makes life a lot,

01:07:30.820 a lot easier. That place is expensive for sure. I still, I'm, I just came off, uh, I'm in Virginia

01:07:35.460 beach now. I came off, uh, Fox and friends this morning. So I still have the TV makeup on.

01:07:40.560 Oh, nice. You look good. Did you notice the difference when you see yourself in the camera?

01:07:44.940 Yes. I mean, you probably, uh, someone that doesn't know me personally wouldn't,

01:07:49.120 but I'm looking at myself in this reflection. I'm like, Oh man, I look like a Disney character.

01:07:53.120 You're like, I'm a handsome man. I laugh at the guys who are always like, especially on TV,

01:07:57.080 like, Oh, I'm not putting on makeup. I'm not putting on makeup. I'm like, okay. And then you pop

01:08:01.220 them up there next to you. Okay. Cause the anchor always has anchor and the other guest who said that he

01:08:05.920 would get it. And they look like something out of the walking dead. You just look so pasty.

01:08:11.480 I told, I said, I, and I, whenever I put makeup on, I go, Oh man, I go, this is unbelievable. I'm

01:08:16.780 going to wear, how long can I wear this? I've been wearing it. I'll wear it for three days.

01:08:21.020 Don't even get me started. We need our men to stay men and not be wearing makeup when they're

01:08:25.400 not on TV. So just stop it. Don't even think about it. All right. So you grow up, uh, the son of a

01:08:30.900 preacher man and you were homeschooled and you were a good boy who always watched his posture

01:08:36.820 and you know, we're eight kids. I think in the family. Hey, one of eight kids. Yep. I'm the one

01:08:43.060 of the close to the oldest. I'm the third. Okay. And you had the pizzazz. You had like this sense

01:08:47.400 of it. Like if they could tell there was something special about you to the point where your dad was

01:08:50.600 like, Hey, you know, are you into the family business? He thought maybe you would want to take

01:08:54.920 over his preacher and you, did you know, like, Oh no. Yeah. It's kind of, uh, yeah. I knew it wasn't

01:09:02.800 for me, you know, but I think my dad has told me, uh, in politics, he, uh, he's a pastor and now he's

01:09:10.120 a politician in, uh, Georgia running for, uh, uh, a house seat in two weeks. And he said a comedian

01:09:16.960 and a politician in a lot of ways are doing the same thing because they see the world and they don't

01:09:22.880 like it. They don't like the way it's headed. They don't like the direction of it. And they

01:09:26.660 would, they're trying to change it. And, uh, he said, I try to do it through, uh, laws and

01:09:32.440 legislation, and you're just trying to do it through thoughts and ideas, but it's the same thing.

01:09:36.900 It's really true. And you know what? The, the best politicians have a good sense of humor that they

01:09:40.980 can use at the right time. That that's half of Trump's charm. He's funny. Yeah. That's a, yeah,

01:09:46.820 that's a very funny. That's what that's a member. Everyone said that about Bush member. They go,

01:09:50.640 ah, he's like, he's like a guy that I'd like to have a beer with, or he'd like to,

01:09:54.160 he's like a guy I'd like to hang out with the right. We, every comedian will say this and not

01:09:59.600 to get too like divisive, but the right is great about like laughing at themselves. Like we go to

01:10:06.280 like a NASCAR race and a guy's wearing a, you know, a sleeveless cutoff and some, and some jean shorts

01:10:13.060 and some cowboy boots. And you like make fun of it, but you're like, yeah, it's a joke, but we're all

01:10:18.720 kind of here. We're all kind of joking. Everything's kind of fun. And we can even joke about

01:10:23.500 ourselves, which you don't see too much from the left. I'll just leave it like that.

01:10:30.520 The left does not mock itself. They, they only try to ruin others. That's it. They don't even

01:10:35.780 mock others. They just try to ruin them. Yeah. They just, they just, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's upsetting.

01:10:40.260 And I know you've been, as I said in the intro, the target of it, you know, you, I don't know if

01:10:45.300 you would call yourself the victim of it. Cause you kind of own, you know, your own foibles. But

01:10:49.720 can I just say like, from my standpoint, I still struggling to understand exactly what you were

01:10:55.180 doing. That was cancelable. Like I recognize you were behaving like a young man who's, you know,

01:11:01.580 succeeding and becoming famous and maybe not like treating women perfectly. I get all that, but like,

01:11:08.060 how does it make you different from any other young man in that situation?

01:11:13.020 Well, I think, uh, yeah, I wouldn't definitely not call myself a victim. I think if, if, um,

01:11:19.260 everybody's responsible for their own actions and their own choices. So if that, that all, all this,

01:11:24.560 all this stuff, and you kind of know it yourself, this stuff kind of comes with being a public figure.

01:11:29.980 And, and, and as soon as what's odd is as soon as I got canceled, every, everybody that I knew that

01:11:37.420 was a celebrity or public figure in some ways texted me like, Hey, welcome, kind of welcome to

01:11:44.700 show business in a lot of ways, which is you're like, Oh, this is just kind of a part of it. But

01:11:50.400 I think when you, when you first, you would say the same thing, like the first time anyone said

01:11:55.940 anything negative about you, Megan on Twitter, the very, very first time it was so striking and so

01:12:05.580 scary. It was so scary. But now, I mean, now it kind of just falls off your back and, and you go,

01:12:13.680 uh, this is kind of a part of the business and, and everybody has their own opinion to you and

01:12:18.560 they're, and they're, and they're also more than welcome to. Yeah, that's right. So, so you,

01:12:23.760 as I understand it, the, the takedown on you was related to the fact that you were publicly,

01:12:30.360 you know, or outwardly this Christian guy and they didn't think you were living a Christian

01:12:34.160 lifestyle. You were, you were DMing or texting with women you wanted to have affairs with who

01:12:39.440 were married, things like that, where they were like hypocritical, like two faced, but you also

01:12:44.820 kind of hit your own low. The thing about your, you know, your car and sending the tech, like that

01:12:50.740 was dark. So did all that happen at the same time?

01:12:54.200 Yeah.

01:12:54.620 Terrible accident. I should tell the audience what I'm talking about. You had a terrible,

01:12:56.980 terrible car accident where you were ejected and you were in the hospital and.

01:12:59.880 It was, it was a, uh, I would say it was kind of a, uh, uh, a three, four year downward spiral

01:13:06.840 that things got, you know, kind of worse and worse as you go, you have all these kinds of insecurities

01:13:11.980 that I grew up with. And then you kind of become successful and you become, you have, and you go out on the

01:13:19.800 road and it's like, this is not a place for someone that's not in a good mental place. And I was

01:13:24.240 obviously drinking a lot and, uh, in a position that where I should never have been, uh, out

01:13:31.020 traveling. And I, I just had a lot of demons that I was dealing with myself. And I think ever,

01:13:37.360 anyone will tell you the story, like everyone who has read anything about my story, which says the

01:13:42.040 same thing you do and not, not to let myself off the hook. I'm here to look everybody in the eye and

01:13:47.400 take responsibility for all of my actions. Of course, they're all my choosing, but everybody

01:13:52.240 goes, this sounds like something that every guy in their thirties would do. Yeah. This is like a

01:14:00.840 normal and it's, and I'm not like, what'd you say? I keep looking for the horrible, like I get,

01:14:06.640 it's not the most perfectly moral behavior, but I mean, to lose your career and then you went away

01:14:12.040 to like a rehab. Yeah. That was that, what was that? Was that tech addiction? What was that?

01:14:17.280 Um, it was, uh, it was, it's kind of, I came off the road cause it's so like, you understand like

01:14:25.180 in the faith, in the faith culture, in the faith community and, and, and back in the Me Too movement

01:14:31.640 in 2019, it was so, everyone was so scared. I was so, yeah. Like now I think of any, if these people

01:14:41.860 would say something about me now, I'd just be like, oh, okay. And I got a show tonight that's sold out.

01:14:46.620 I wouldn't pay much mind to, but back at the time people understand like in 2019, it was so scary,

01:14:52.820 but my shows are full now and they're sold out. We sell more tickets now than we did before. So

01:15:00.080 same way you, you, you would read the, the read that an article about me, like you're waiting for

01:15:06.380 kind of the ball to drop. You're waiting for something horrific and you go, yes. Oh, so there's

01:15:13.420 some people that were just, that didn't like him. Okay. But I wouldn't wish cancellation on my worst

01:15:21.160 enemy. I don't know. Some upsides to it is very painful. I can relate. Trust me, but there's,

01:15:27.740 there's some upsides to it. So you definitely, I, yeah, it's a, I wouldn't, I don't like, I don't

01:15:32.940 like to often probably say this publicly because, um, but I w I don't like to encourage, you know,

01:15:38.900 cancel culture or people being outraged at people, but it did in a lot of ways, it did save my life.

01:15:43.980 I've been sober, uh, since that day and I, and I, I'm a different person than I was then. And that

01:15:50.460 was just, I was just going down a terrible road. So you don't want to say that like, you know,

01:15:55.380 God interjected or I don't want to get too spiritual about it, but it is, I don't,

01:15:59.420 I did save my life. Yes.

01:16:00.700 I know what you mean. Honestly, like I, I was canceled and I almost feel like it was a moment

01:16:06.080 in which, you know, you know, when you're like, you're making the bed and you, you have the new,

01:16:11.800 the fresh blanket and you shake it and it snaps. Yeah. It was kind of like that, right? Like it

01:16:18.440 shakes you and like things snap. And now you have a nice, fresh, clean slate blanket. And you're almost

01:16:24.540 like, I don't know. I feel like reading your story. I feel like the same for me happened where you

01:16:28.080 kind of become more aligned with who you really are, what you were really meant to be doing.

01:16:33.340 You know, my cancellation came after I was doing something that really wasn't well aligned with

01:16:36.760 who I was. That's the best way. That's the best way to put it. Right. Like yours did too. You felt

01:16:43.000 more free when you post cancellation and post rehab came out and you were like, screw it. What do I have

01:16:48.720 to lose now? Yeah. And that, and that, that is honestly, it's just like, yeah, you would say the same

01:16:56.420 thing. It was just what you were kind of living a life that wasn't really aligned with who you were

01:17:01.460 as a person. And then you, you, when everything it's so wild, it's like looking out over a city

01:17:08.540 that is burnt to the ground and you're just like, well, nothing, what, what matters now? Like

01:17:17.280 you can kind of, in my comedy, I mean, anyone that's seen my standup show, uh, pre cancellation

01:17:23.420 in post to be like, it's a hundred times better. Cause now you can say, uh, you're not, I'm not

01:17:31.800 in, I bet I think you're the same, Megan, that you're not in any kind of fear. I have no. And

01:17:38.160 I tell a lot of people that are scared. They're still kind of, you probably know them. They still

01:17:42.180 kind of live over there a little bit and you just go, you know, come over here. It's, it's way better.

01:17:47.600 It's so nice. All right. So one of your first forays out into, I don't care anymore land,

01:17:54.620 um, was that the things that need to be canceled bit? That was it, right? Where you were like,

01:18:00.500 just went through the grocery store and just decided to do a riff on like things that need

01:18:04.680 to be canceled. Let's show the audience just a little bit of that. This is South 11.

01:18:08.720 We got rid of aunt Jemima. We got rid of uncle Ben's, but I am wildly triggered by the brands and

01:18:14.660 the photos that I see in this grocery store. Using a polar bear to sell your ice cream Klondike.

01:18:20.380 You know, polar bears were extinct. No, thank you. Canceled. Paw Patrol, mac and cheese. Listen,

01:18:26.220 defund the police, defund Paw Patrol. V8, you know, what kind of emissions an engine like that puts out

01:18:32.660 into the environment? I drive a Prius and that is canceled. Okay. I don't exactly know who this guy is,

01:18:37.240 but I don't like his look at all. I don't like anything that this guy stands for. Canceled.

01:18:41.760 White rice. Brown rice. Why do they got to be separated? Think about it. Canceled.

01:18:48.480 Quaker Oats guy. I don't like the look of him. He's canceled.

01:18:53.520 Well, I think what's funny about that is what comedy and satire does so well. Instead of kind of

01:19:01.560 like, you know, sometimes get maybe getting angry at the left or maybe, you know, fighting back with

01:19:09.660 them. You're like, Hey, okay, let's just go with this idea of, of cause aunt Jemima and uncle Ben's

01:19:17.520 really were canceled. But I like, all right, well, okay. So let me not fight with you. We'll just go

01:19:22.820 there. We'll just go down that road. And I'm going to show you what that turns into. And that's often

01:19:28.520 a very, very, uh, successful way of, uh, to improve social commentary.

01:19:34.040 Hmm. It's funny. Cause I was just yesterday was talking about Jack all willing, you know,

01:19:38.040 this just like great, amazing diehard vet. And, uh, he's all about extreme accountability and you

01:19:43.820 just, you don't blame others for anything. It's all about you and what you do. And, uh, I asked him

01:19:48.500 once about these annoying woke people. And he was kind of saying, even complaining about them as part

01:19:53.320 of the problem. He's like, just be great. Like be strong, be the best you can be. And don't spend

01:19:59.280 time thinking about them. Now in my business, it's not really an option. You know, you, I just think

01:20:03.960 they have to be fought and I'm just the right person to do it. Um, but you're, you have a

01:20:08.300 different approach. You're kind of like, well, mock them, you know, like show them through comedy,

01:20:12.720 how absurd they are. Not, if not them, then everybody else. So it's interesting. I'm kind of just

01:20:17.500 putting it together, how everybody, depending on their skillset fights them in their own different way.

01:20:23.320 Yeah. It's like, kind of, I guess it'd be kind of like, uh, you know, if we're, you know,

01:20:26.960 fighting a war, there's the, uh, you know, there's the gunner, there's a guy up on the

01:20:30.680 hill with the bow and arrow. There's the, the guys that are actually running down to fight.

01:20:34.420 And then there's the guys in the airplanes. Like we're all kind of strategically coming at

01:20:39.140 it together. I think a lot of things that the left will do, um, uh, we describe it in

01:20:48.680 comedy just to get, to get attention. My dream is for one day, some celebrity to come out

01:20:54.940 as transgender and then nobody covers it. Like they go, I'm just announcing I'm transgender.

01:21:03.680 Um, I'm already ready for the protest. I'm already ready for the hate. And everybody just goes,

01:21:08.920 all right. Like no one says a word like that. And then it'll be like, Oh, a lot of this was

01:21:17.720 just for the motivation of getting attention. And then it just like, like they throw out,

01:21:23.520 there's 37 genders. And then we go, you know what I'm saying? We, we all kind of get into it

01:21:29.100 together. It's the same thing you do with your, with your kids when your kids are being really

01:21:31.960 naughty. You know, the greatest thing is just ignore them, just ignore them. Don't,

01:21:35.360 don't give it any attention at all. Cause my mom, my mom always says a good me is the best way they

01:21:39.920 want to get attention, but they'll take it second of all from the bad me. But the worst thing you can

01:21:44.340 do to a kid is the not me, right? Like I didn't see it. It's not happening. You're not getting any

01:21:48.080 reaction out of me. I've tried that with my Strudwick, my dog. And let me tell you, there's

01:21:51.900 no version that works. Um, all right. Now I have a question for you about religion and comedy,

01:21:57.540 because I know you, the first time you tried standup, it was, I think in a church,

01:22:03.840 you were doing some standup, like at night, it wasn't like during the, the service, but it was

01:22:08.160 like, uh, like at night you were meant to be doing comedy and people laughed and laughed and laughed.

01:22:13.160 And then the first time you kind of went out of that venue, maybe it wasn't considered so funny.

01:22:18.660 So, well, yeah, that was, I would say maybe you're performing at a church or something like that. I

01:22:25.960 still, you know, work at a church in Colorado and it's kind of a, you know, if you go, if you do a

01:22:32.160 live show somewhere, all the people that show up are your friends, they know you, Megan, they already

01:22:36.980 love you. So when you go out on stage, you just like make an appearance, you go, hi. And it's,

01:22:40.800 it's a very warm audience versus if you just went into an, you know, put your hair back and then put

01:22:48.120 a hat on and went into an open mic. It would be, you didn't have the padded stats. Maybe it's the

01:22:54.100 best way to put it. So I, right. So that's what you tried. You went out and you used your same

01:22:59.800 material and not as great. So now, now the, like the post cancellation, I am just going to be me,

01:23:06.620 you, does it, um, do you still like use humor about your upbringing and the Catholic church or

01:23:14.400 the Christian, you know, religion? Absolutely. Okay. I mean, I even used, I've even used humor

01:23:21.100 humor in a way, uh, about my own cancellation. I mean, that's the only, that's the, and everybody

01:23:26.940 else, by the way, if you come to the show, uh, those are the jokes people laugh at the hardest.

01:23:33.060 So like what, tell me like, Oh, let's give me an example. I mean, I, I do a joke about, uh,

01:23:37.480 cancellation. I go, I go, uh, nah, I say something that's maybe like, uh, some people would say it'd be

01:23:44.640 across the line or something. I go, listen, I go being canceled is like getting COVID. Like you're

01:23:51.100 scared. You're really, really scared of it. Then you get it. And it's a week of symptoms to go,

01:23:56.440 man, it's not that bad. And you're back on the road. I go, I said, I got the canceled antibodies.

01:24:00.280 Now I can say whatever I want. Yes. I recommend those highly. No, I understand antibodies. Yeah.

01:24:07.200 What is your, you're not Catholic. What are, what is your, uh, religion? I'm not Catholic. I'm,

01:24:11.360 I'm, um, uh, evangelical Christian. I would say I grew up in, in a denomination that's nearest to,

01:24:17.360 uh, Pentecostal, but they would say, you would say in any kind of, any kind of joke. Like when I

01:24:24.160 first started making jokes, I was, I was kind of joking around about Christian culture. I remember

01:24:30.000 in a video specifically about Christian music, and this is before I was popular. No one knew who I was

01:24:35.260 and everyone in the comments, this is going to make sense to you. When I say it,

01:24:38.400 everyone in the comments goes, is this guy a Christian or not? Because if he is a Christian,

01:24:47.600 this video kind of, uh, mocking the subculture of Christianity. If he is a Christian,

01:24:54.400 this is hilarious. Now, if he is not, if this guy's not a Christian,

01:24:59.580 then this is wildly, wildly offensive. And I think the same thing, you're like,

01:25:05.180 oh no, it's like whether whatever subculture you're a part of, you're like, oh no,

01:25:10.460 like people can make fun of your family or your, your parents, if they are in your family.

01:25:15.560 And they like, we love this family. These are our people. But if you're outside of the family and

01:25:20.340 they make fun of someone in your family, you know, it's time to fight, you know?

01:25:23.620 No, then not. Then it's like, I'll cut a bitch. Okay. So here's a little bit of you

01:25:27.580 talking about something near and dear to my, my own heart, which is communion in church. It's sound

01:25:32.780 by 12. Remember back in the day, church, you grew up in church, sir. Remember back in the day,

01:25:37.920 communion was big, a chunk of bread. You used to have to chew. Remember that?

01:25:41.540 You want to go to lunch? No, I'm good. We just had communion. I'm straight.

01:25:50.240 Then it turned into a cracker. It's a cracker. Now it's a cracker. It's a cracker.

01:25:56.100 Then it turned into a wafer. We didn't vote on it or nothing. Just a wafer. Now it's a wafer.

01:26:01.040 I would not be surprised if soon the pastor was like, hey, we're just going to put a piece of bread

01:26:04.280 up on the screen. Okay. Just look at it and take a deep breath. I don't know.

01:26:10.600 If you're allergic, there's a safe space in section four. Figure that out.

01:26:17.320 So true. Oh my God. My little thatcher.

01:26:20.240 My little guy. First, I told the audience, he complained one time he thought the communion

01:26:24.460 wafer should have a little sea salt on it. He's just had his first commandment in May.

01:26:28.540 And now his most recent complaint, he doesn't like cheese. His most recent complaint is he

01:26:33.160 thinks the communion wafer in our church tastes like cheese. It's like, it tastes like cheese again.

01:26:38.320 It tastes like cheese.

01:26:39.880 They might have left him out for too long if it tastes like cheese.

01:26:44.860 Right? I don't know. What could be going wrong with our communion wafer? Maybe I don't want to know.

01:26:49.260 But if you, yeah, I think people, if you're, if you're, this, this is, I think that video is a

01:26:55.480 perfect example. It's like, oh, this guy like goes to church. This, this is an experience. This is a

01:27:01.200 firsthand experience. Cause there's a lot of obviously pointing fingers at the other side

01:27:07.680 and saying, they are, they are weird. They are uncomfortable, but I'm saying we are,

01:27:14.600 I love Jesus, but we do some weird stuff. And that's, that's the point of all the comedy. And by

01:27:18.920 the way, everyone in America is going to get on board with that. Everybody.

01:27:23.680 Yeah. I mean, the, the generally in general, going to church is fertile ground for funny things. I

01:27:31.540 mean, there's just like, there's just such a unspoken set of rules that you have. Like I had

01:27:37.380 a situation the other day where I was going to church and, you know, we're going there to worship,

01:27:42.100 right? We're going to praise God and Jesus and all sing and kneel and all of it. And I got confused

01:27:49.160 because I thought this person, they had their turn signal on and I thought they were going to turn

01:27:53.880 in the very next road before they got to me. Yep. And so I went forward. I thought they were

01:28:00.700 going to be gone. Anyway, long and short of it is I misjudged where they were going to turn. So

01:28:03.680 they were, they were right in front of me and I cut them off. It was bad and it was my fault,

01:28:07.620 but I had a genuine misunderstanding about what they were trying to communicate. So it was like my

01:28:10.940 fault, but I wasn't actually being a bad person, but the person was so mad, flipped me off.

01:28:16.160 It was clearly mad at me. And I was like, oh, you know, I kind of tried to say like,

01:28:19.160 sorry, but they'd already gone. And we both wound up going to the same church,

01:28:22.960 getting out of the cars right next to each other at the same time. I was like, oh my God,

01:28:26.980 this is horrible. Which is, it's funny that that is a funny, like that whenever there's,

01:28:34.560 there's a situation where, you know, somebody has to be overly pious or overly put together,

01:28:39.880 overly PC, the humanity of a human being comes out and that's, that's always the juxtaposition for

01:28:47.000 humor. Like if you, would you leave church? Like we always had a joke. When you go to,

01:28:52.300 when you drive to church, you got to put on, you know, the Christian music, you know what I'm saying?

01:28:58.320 You got to put on some uplifting family friendly music. But as soon as you leave church and you

01:29:04.480 walk out in a parking lot and you untuck your shirt, you know, you can put on some, some,

01:29:09.500 some Eminem, some Dr. Dre, some Drake, whatever you want. I don't know why that's a rule that we

01:29:16.540 always had, but me and my brothers growing up in church, we always did that. Going to church,

01:29:21.280 straight and narrow, but on the way, once you're, you're, you know, do whatever you want.

01:29:25.440 Put your freak on. Well, I was thinking, I was kind of hoping that day that like during the peace

01:29:28.660 sign, you know, this person and I could like patch it up, but it didn't happen. But there's some

01:29:33.620 grist for the mill for your next church special. Now you've also been open about, um, your concerns

01:29:39.340 about young people today. I won't set it up more than that. Here's soundbite 13.

01:29:46.400 If we had to have a draft

01:29:48.380 with this group of 18 to 25 year olds, we got running around this country.

01:29:57.200 Just a bunch of life coaches and bloggers will help.

01:30:00.040 Hmm. I don't want to get my shoes dirty.

01:30:05.060 You ever been shot? No, I've been triggered. Okay.

01:30:12.260 So good. And so true.

01:30:15.140 So true. Where you go. Yeah. Like we cannot go to war. We cannot go to war. Cause if we,

01:30:21.800 if we had to have a draft, what would be like, people would be giving away the locations of the

01:30:27.540 army. They're like, uh, they're on Apple. They, they checked in and go, Oh dude, you like, it would

01:30:32.100 be, I just, I don't see, I don't see it happening. No, let's hope you, let's hope you're right. That

01:30:38.940 one's not coming. I don't know. When you look at that group though, right? Like there's so much,

01:30:44.240 there's so much material for you there. Like what people are doing today and how sad they all are and

01:30:49.040 how they're all victims all the time. That must be so rich for you. Oh, well we, I mean, that's

01:30:55.400 the victim mentality is there's nothing more crippling honestly to society. And again, instead

01:31:03.460 of being like, that's the same type of, of bit. There we go. Hey, if you, if you're gonna, let me,

01:31:09.900 let me walk this out. Let me show you what that future is. If everybody, uh, I've been triggered.

01:31:15.540 Uh, like, like that's, let me walk, let me press. And that's what you're seeing now with

01:31:21.020 like, I make a joke in my show. I go 15 years ago, we stopped spanking kids. Like there was

01:31:27.340 no discipline for kids and no one was getting beat up at school anymore. And now you got a

01:31:33.480 bunch of people in their thirties who are taking mental health days and can't pay back their student

01:31:38.120 loans. Like this, that's the, like we, I mean, we were just raised differently not to be

01:31:45.400 there's always that comic. Like when I was a kid, not to be that comic, but like you took

01:31:50.660 responsibility for your actions. You, you, you, Lucy K has a great bit about when you got, when you

01:31:57.160 ran out of money, you were like, I guess we just can't do any more stuff now. Like that's

01:32:02.640 it. It's true. No, there was order. There's a, there was absolutely order. You knew where the lines

01:32:09.680 were and what would happen to you if you cross them and people got fired. You'd be fired. I talk

01:32:15.860 about in my book, like, you know, getting fired from jobs, getting, uh, trying out for the, for the,

01:32:22.660 uh, basketball team at, at high school and getting cut, like going up to the wall, looking for my name

01:32:29.440 and not seeing it there. I'm like asking a girl to prom, like looking her in the eye and go,

01:32:35.640 do you want to go to prom with me? And someone saying no, like all three of those are like

01:32:40.900 tough for a kid to go through, but all made me better. Like no, no one's looking at someone else

01:32:47.780 and asking them out on a date anymore. No one's getting cut from the team. If the class is too

01:32:52.880 hard, you just get the professor fired. Like it's a different, it's a, it's a different world,

01:32:58.180 right? For comedy for sure. Yeah. Oh, well, thank God we have comedians like you to take us there

01:33:03.240 and help us laugh about the things that make us insane. You know, I'm always talking to my,

01:33:07.260 my hairstylist, Sarah, she's always like, I can't, I can't look at this. I can't, I get too angry.

01:33:11.360 You know, she gets so mad about these stories and I'm more like very much inclined to laugh

01:33:16.140 about them. I mean, I'll, I'll fight the battles too, but guys like you who have that genius way

01:33:20.840 of framing it just right. You're, you're so important to that process, John. Thank you so much

01:33:26.420 for coming on. Let's do a longer interview. Cause I want to hear more about your background and,

01:33:30.560 and I want to tell the audience that you can find John's videos. You can find his book.

01:33:33.700 You can find his tour info all at John Crist, which is C R I S T John C R I S T comedy.com

01:33:42.380 John Chris comedy.com. Thanks for coming on. Love it. I'll come back anytime Megan. That was a blast.

01:33:48.420 Cool. All right. A couple of things I want to tell you. First of all, next week, we've got Senator

01:33:53.120 Ted Cruz on Monday. He's got a new book. And then on Tuesday, the return of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

01:34:00.000 Very excited to welcome him back to the show. We're going to get into all of it. He's got a new

01:34:04.920 movie out on Fauci vaccines, censorship. We talk about all of it. And then, then there was this

01:34:11.600 amazing moment where he revealed that his son, Connor unbeknownst to him had just gotten back

01:34:18.500 from fighting in Ukraine. Here's a preview. When we went in, he felt that he shouldn't be arguing

01:34:25.940 about it unless he was willing to, uh, in, in favor of war, unless he was willing to have skin in the

01:34:35.340 game and take his own risks. Um, and so he went to the Ukrainian embassy and he signed up for the

01:34:42.800 foreign legion and he's been fighting over in the Ukraine for the last couple of months.

01:34:46.880 Oh, wow. He was part of a, uh, he was part of a special forces unit, um, that, and he, so he

01:34:55.060 didn't have any military experience and he kind of talked his way into the unit.

01:35:00.340 It's unbelievable. The story was so good. You know, Bobby's sensitivities are more,

01:35:06.140 let's not get involved. And his son felt very differently and him explaining, you know,

01:35:10.960 how he reconciled that, what, how his son felt and how he found out that he was doing. It's great,

01:35:15.360 great stuff. Um, you'll love the whole thing. So don't forget, download the show in the meantime

01:35:19.720 so that you won't miss a moment of it. Apple, Pandora, Spotify, and Stitcher. Also youtube.com

01:35:24.160 slash Megan Kelly. If you want to send me an email and get my weekly email that I send out,

01:35:29.040 there's a great one coming today. Please trust me, do it. Sign up at megankelly.com. Type in your

01:35:34.980 email there. You'll get today's email and you will see the absolute nonsense that my sweet,

01:35:40.040 naughty little Stredwick put me through. Plus an update on all the week's news in 60 seconds

01:35:45.040 or less. Have a great weekend. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show.

01:35:52.100 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - October 21, 2022

Kids and Vaccines, CNN and Toobin, and Life After Cancelation, with Mary Katharine Ham and John Crist ｜ Ep. 417

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