The Megyn Kelly Show - Lara Logan on Overcoming Trauma, Political Operatives in the Media, and Dangers of Technology

00:00:00.600 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.980 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. This is going to be one of

00:00:16.420 the best ones we've ever had. I think you're going to agree with me that it was. Lara Logan.

00:00:21.860 I have always admired her and have wanted to talk to her since we launched this podcast and we

00:00:27.180 finally managed to make it happen and it did not disappoint. I think that might have been the

00:00:32.020 longest one we've done. Maybe tie with Steven Crowder. I have a feeling it's going to do just

00:00:37.700 as well because that episode did really well. An incredible conversation we just had. You know

00:00:43.080 it's good when Steve, who's like, he's slow to give praise. I feel like I do a lot. No, no, I could

00:00:50.820 use more. Okay. You know it's good when he instant messages you. Instant classic episode in the middle.

00:00:58.860 This is our 105th excellent show. There we go. It doesn't work. It has to feel more organic.

00:01:05.820 All right. Sorry. Okay. Anyway, she was amazing. We talked about everything. This is a woman who

00:01:12.540 has been through it all, you know, came up, spent her career at CBS for, you know, I think she said

00:01:17.660 16 or 18 years and was put through the ringer between what she's, you know, disclosed very

00:01:24.080 publicly. And it was a major news event when it happened, um, being gang raped in Egypt during the

00:01:30.980 Arab spring, right after a live report or during the middle of her reporting to being completely

00:01:36.500 smeared unfairly by CBS and others in the media for a report she did on Benghazi. Um, we'll get into

00:01:42.920 that in detail. I don't, I have never heard her talk about it in this much detail with anybody

00:01:46.620 to who at 60 minutes sold her up the river and who didn't, what she thinks about where

00:01:51.100 we are in terms of the media today. What we're going to get into Fauci. We're going to get

00:01:54.340 into what's happening at the border. Uh, we're going to get into masks and all the nonsense.

00:01:58.740 We're going to get into everything. And somebody who I affectionately refer to on this podcast

00:02:02.960 is Joe F and Hagan, who you're going to need to know more about and not in a good way.

00:02:07.980 Anyway, you're going to hear from her in one minute. And I promise this doesn't disappoint,

00:02:12.260 but first this.

00:02:16.620 I am so excited to talk to you. I have been your fan for so long and followed your career where

00:02:25.820 I think almost exactly, if not exactly the same age and have had similar career trajectories,

00:02:31.900 um, and not the same problems, but in some way, the same problems, right?

00:02:37.220 Yes, absolutely. I, I feel the same way I've watched from a distance and, you know, really felt for you.

00:02:43.940 It's, it's almost like, it seemed to me almost like, you know, they set you up to fail. I know

00:02:49.300 that sounds conspiratorial, but when you've seen the tactics and in play, um, you know, it's, I mean,

00:02:56.040 look at it even happened to Christiane, right? I mean, um, come into the network, um, you know,

00:03:01.700 and then, uh, get cut down at the knees. Yep. Yeah, I know. Well, that's, and I have a lot of

00:03:09.300 thoughts on what's been done to you and I'm going to make a confession to you upfront. So I've been

00:03:14.800 reading your reports. I always try to prepare well for these interviews so that they're more thoughtful

00:03:20.160 than the average exchange, right? That's my goal. Yeah. And I, I've been neck deep in Laura Logan

00:03:26.440 reporting articles about you and so on. And last night I said to my husband, it's, it's weighing

00:03:32.960 on my heart. Like, I hate this word, but I'm going to use it. I was a bit triggered by what's happened

00:03:40.000 to you. It was so familiar and it was so upsetting and it felt so unfair. It made me angry. And I just

00:03:50.380 feel like you were this shining star and you are an amazing journalist and they took out their knives

00:04:00.760 and cut you down totally unfairly. And it's, it's like the situation where there's very little you

00:04:07.720 can actually do to reverse this when the mob comes for you. And I, and I mean the internal mob,

00:04:13.500 not even the outside mob. There's very little you can do. People don't realize how powerful these

00:04:18.220 machines are in taking you down once they've decided that's what they want to do.

00:04:23.100 They really don't. And they also don't understand how much, um, infrastructure goes into it. You know,

00:04:29.800 I mean, uh, look at, look at David Brock and media matters. You know, I, I listened to all these execs

00:04:35.160 say, oh, media matters doesn't matter. And it's not true. It's a complete lie because they do matter

00:04:40.980 and they're very effective and they, they get paid millions and this is all they do. And then they get

00:04:47.200 allowed, you know, they're allowed to get away with saying that they, you know, support honesty

00:04:51.320 and accuracy and journalism, but they're assassins and they're paid assassins, you know, and it's okay

00:04:58.260 because honestly, Megan, I'm, I'm really shocked at how insulated I was in that bubble. You know, I grew up

00:05:07.080 sort of, not that it was easy. I mean, they always made it hard, but it really was a charmed existence

00:05:12.460 in a sense, because I had no idea what it was like to be on the outside. And I don't think I

00:05:18.880 would have been a very effective voice. Um, if I'd never experienced that it's actually, it's taken

00:05:24.880 a very long time, but I'm, I'm actually at the point where I can see that like, I truly am better

00:05:30.280 off and it doesn't mean, you know, I miss, I miss my team, uh, so much. And, um, of course I miss

00:05:38.060 everything that went with, um, with being at 60 and doing these, you know, what we really worked

00:05:43.740 that we were really proud of and everything. But I, I, I really understand. And when I saw the

00:05:49.060 dissenters hit piece and I saw the profile on Bill Gates and I saw the piece on the head of the Ford

00:05:54.620 foundation, I mean, I can honestly tell you, uh, without any hint, um, of anything but sincerity

00:06:03.380 that I am truly glad not to be associated with that broadcast anymore, because they've, uh, I mean,

00:06:11.440 you, you can't do stories like that. I, I couldn't be who I am and, and stand up, uh, for, you know,

00:06:17.980 what is really, and honestly, the truth. If I was part of that, I'd be a hypocrite.

00:06:23.180 Let me ask you this, because when I watched you and you're, you know, you're this amazing

00:06:27.120 war reporter who has been, you lived in Iraq, you lived in Afghanistan for a number of years,

00:06:32.140 you've seen it all. And this was the only time I've ever seen you get emotional on camera.

00:06:37.280 Maybe I missed it in the other times, but you really, you felt when for these young women,

00:06:43.140 you were interviewing who were being trafficked at that time, who gave you an interview along with

00:06:48.260 their pimp, their trafficker was an extraordinary piece of journalism. It's on the internet right now.

00:06:52.860 People want to Google it, but what was it like? Cause sometimes, sometimes these things catch you by

00:06:58.260 surprise, right? And your emotions get the better of you and you're not expecting it. But what, what

00:07:02.780 was it about that interview that took you there? The, the hardest part of that interview was knowing

00:07:09.340 that those girls were going to stand up and they were going to walk out of there and they were going

00:07:13.960 to be raped that night and I could do nothing. I had never, I realized in that moment that I had

00:07:20.420 literally never been in a situation like that. You know, you go to a refugee camp and women have come

00:07:26.720 out of hell. You go into any situation, you deal with any person who's, you know, been through some

00:07:33.080 traumatic event or you're in a war and, you know, people have made it by the time you get to them,

00:07:39.040 they have, they're normally out of that situation. And this was different because these girls were not

00:07:46.980 they, um, I just, I, it was just the worst, most helpless feeling that I've ever had. And I felt

00:07:55.820 at the same time ashamed and guilty and horrified and, uh, helpless. Um, and I wanted, you know,

00:08:07.540 I, I really think that I, I was drawn to journalism in the very beginning because I really like to,

00:08:14.420 I do everything I can to help people. Um, and that's really the driving force behind the stories

00:08:21.840 that I choose and, um, and the way that I do them. And I know that sounds kind of cliched and trite,

00:08:28.740 but, um, for me not being able to do anything for those girls, um, was a, was a truly terrible

00:08:37.140 feeling. And when I asked them about, you know, what happened and they told them, they both said

00:08:42.840 their mothers had been the ones who had sold them, you know, had been the ones who explained to them

00:08:47.780 what was happening. The ones who had, you know, asked them to do this and played on that love and

00:08:53.000 lied to them. Um, and then when I asked them, you know, what is the one thing you would do if you had

00:08:59.800 your freedom? And they both said, you know, find my mother. And when I asked them, what's the thing

00:09:06.800 that, you know, causes you the most pain, what do you miss the most? And they both said, my mother,

00:09:12.480 that, that was just unbearable. I know. And it's like, they don't, they, they didn't know if they

00:09:21.700 could get out. They didn't know if they would be accepted by their families and their mothers,

00:09:25.280 if they did get out. Uh, and they didn't see getting out as any viable option because they,

00:09:31.340 they recognize if they even complained about it, they said to you that they would be punished by,

00:09:36.200 by having to be with more men on any given night. Like the, the, the number of rapes would just

00:09:42.360 increase for any girl who complains. And these are young girls. The one was 17 and had been taken

00:09:47.640 into this business, um, at 12 or 13. I mean, it's, it's happening in America. I think people think

00:09:56.440 this is not happening in America. It's happening in America. And, and a lot of them, one girl I spoke

00:10:01.740 with, she was lured into it by her college professor. Some girls see ads on, you know,

00:10:07.400 back page, thankfully was shut down by Trump, but on these sort of websites where they say,

00:10:12.620 Oh, do you want to be a model? You know, it's an easy way to make money. Or maybe they'll say

00:10:15.840 escort service. And some girls are too naive to realize what that means. But the next thing,

00:10:20.220 you know, you have a pimp and you're, you're going to get hurt or your kid's going to get hurt

00:10:24.040 unless you do what they say. And bam, you're off to the races. And it's really hard to extricate

00:10:29.320 yourself once it happens. It's really true. And, um, people are not paying attention to this in the

00:10:35.300 U S because they do sort of think it's a, it's a foreign thing and it doesn't affect them.

00:10:39.660 And, you know, I was shocked to discover this weekend that, um, a parent in my town had just

00:10:45.460 been at the police station with his daughter. They had noticed someone who had come to their school

00:10:50.160 who, uh, seemed a little bit too old for the grade and had befriended their daughter and some other

00:10:55.900 girls. And, uh, they really believe that this individual was there to recruit kids into sex

00:11:02.580 trafficking to lure them in. And, um, and for this latest season of my show, which is about privacy

00:11:09.140 in the digital age, one of the people I interviewed was this hacker who's worked on sex trafficking

00:11:14.500 in the dark web and, you know, uh, beneath the surface, um, of the society around us. And I really

00:11:21.920 grilled him on this and was horrified to find out that one of the biggest places that sex traffickers

00:11:28.580 recruit kids is online in these video chat rooms or in some of these apps where you can watch a movie

00:11:35.040 with a bunch of kids together. And, um, and that they groom these children over months and months

00:11:41.560 and months. So, you know, people think data is just about advertising and just about selling you

00:11:46.240 something that maybe you want, maybe you don't want. So what, who cares? And I'm not doing anything

00:11:50.380 wrong. So it doesn't matter if they collect my information and spy on me and, and so on. But what they

00:11:55.600 don't realize is all the different ways that information can be exploited. And one of the ways

00:12:00.840 is for people who are sex trafficking, um, who study your data, they know what kind of relationships

00:12:07.940 that you have with your parents and, um, and they figure out the ways to, um, earn your trust and earn

00:12:15.680 your favor and to groom you and to lure you out to a party. You know, there's an example of a young

00:12:21.520 girl that, uh, we use who was 16, I think when she was lured out of her home thinking she was going to

00:12:27.440 a Christmas party and ending up not able to leave. And, you know, that poor, um, girl was, uh, raped and

00:12:34.800 beaten to death and her throat slit in the end by someone she was sold to. So, um, this is really,

00:12:41.820 it's a threat that's right with us in our homes today. And it's very, you know, what I find frightening,

00:12:49.080 Megan, I think you can really relate to this is that when you look online, you know, it doesn't

00:12:54.160 take much to see on Twitter that there's an ideological movement to separate children from

00:12:59.240 their parents. And to say that your children, you know, your children are not your children

00:13:03.960 and, um, all forms of parental power are a form of parental abuse. And the traditional family is

00:13:10.040 bad. Traditional family is evil. Traditional roles of mother and father and stereotypes of male and female

00:13:16.100 are evil. And it's, it's really not hard to see how closely related this is to the grooming that

00:13:22.680 these sex traffickers use where they try to separate you from your family. And so the seeds of distrust

00:13:29.080 and mistrust and, you know, alienation, it's, it's exactly how kids get recruited into cults and just

00:13:35.360 satanic cults or the moonies, these cults of old, it's very, it's really no different. And it's very

00:13:41.620 troubling because, you know, as technology advances and social media takes our kids at lightning speed

00:13:48.140 into, um, the future, we get, you know, further and further from them and then politics comes in

00:13:54.980 and we get more divided. And I, I keep hearing parents say that my, my children, you know, don't

00:14:00.400 want to talk to me anymore. Oh, my daughter in college now thinks that I've, you know, that I'm

00:14:04.360 some crazy right winger because, um, I don't, you know, uh, understand everything or agree with

00:14:09.940 everything that they're learning in college and being taught in, you know, um, in school. And

00:14:15.880 you start to see some very troubling, um, ideas being pushed that should really alarm every parent.

00:14:22.080 I mean, honestly, I try very hard with my kids to say there aren't 153,000 genders, you know,

00:14:28.220 and I'm not judging you on just the way you look, but keeping those doors open, you know, so that when

00:14:33.660 my 11 year old or my 12 year olds is, is talking about pansexuality and, you know, transgenderism

00:14:40.880 and everything that, that you don't, um, let them, um, be taken away from you by somebody else

00:14:47.640 filling their heads with other ideas. I completely agree with you. I mean, same thing. We counter

00:14:52.720 program at home all the time. They, they were, we, they were taught that there are over a hundred

00:14:55.860 genders that some people consider there to be over a hundred. And I, and I said to my kids,

00:15:00.020 no, there aren't, there are only two genders and people who don't identify with those genders are

00:15:05.500 to be supported and loved and not bullied. Um, but there are only two genders, male and female.

00:15:10.380 That's the truth. That is there are two biological sexes, male, female period. And we can go from

00:15:15.660 there, but I do think you're right. The strain of alienation and control, you can see it in, um,

00:15:21.000 abused women, a hundred percent women who are abused. The first thing the abuser will do is try to

00:15:25.620 rest control of the woman's life away from herself and get her away from her family. So she doesn't

00:15:31.300 have any of these lifelines of support and you see it in sex trafficking, uh, and beyond. Uh, so it's,

00:15:37.120 it is by design. And when they're trying to transfer that tactic to your children and they are the

00:15:44.340 internet in various ways is trying to do that between you and your children. The, the solution

00:15:48.780 is multifolded, but one is fight back counter program with your child, make sure that they're aware,

00:15:54.700 but also you've got to get the monitoring software. You've got to make sure that you are,

00:15:58.380 you are spying on your children and what they're doing online. It's for their own good or, or not

00:16:03.780 letting them do it. You know, I mean, there's secret option number three, which is they're not allowed to

00:16:09.180 go onto these websites. They can, they can Google, they can go on while they're in your house. They can

00:16:14.460 have a phone. That's a flip phone. We don't actually necessarily need to surrender to all of these

00:16:19.420 lures that are currently out there. No, it's a very good point. And you know, unfortunately for

00:16:24.800 a lot of people, they've already done it, right? The door has been opened and we've all walked through

00:16:29.500 because we were lied to and we were deceived. Nobody told us that we were really the product.

00:16:35.540 Nobody said, this isn't a phone. Hey, I've got a great idea. We're going to get you to carry a

00:16:40.360 surveillance device with you everywhere you go. And we're going to document every bit of your life

00:16:45.280 and we're going to sell it to whoever we want. We're going to let the government use it whenever

00:16:49.720 they like. And any company, um, anyone who's got anything that they want to get over you can have

00:16:55.160 access to it. And Oh, by the way, criminals might get access to it as well. And guess what? It can

00:17:00.380 make some phone calls coming up next. We're going to talk about social media and it's pernicious effect

00:17:06.880 on our society, ourselves and our children and some reporting that Laura's doing on it right now that

00:17:12.720 you're going to want to hear about. Uh, first this though. It's like the people in Europe who are now

00:17:20.380 learning, um, not to give their kids alcohol at age 13 in social drinking because they used to think

00:17:26.360 that's fine. That'll teach them not to abuse it. And now even the Europeans have learned from all the

00:17:31.060 data. That's actually not true. The younger you introduce alcohol to a child, the more his or her odds,

00:17:36.380 the higher they go of becoming an alcoholic and becoming an addict or becoming an abuser. And it's the

00:17:41.420 same with this, like Abigail Schreier who wrote irreversible damage, which every parent in the

00:17:45.520 universe should read as far as I'm concerned. She's, she made the point of if someone came to

00:17:50.600 us as moms, and I know you're, you're a mom of three kids too. If someone came to us and said,

00:17:55.400 here's a device that you could give to your young child, your tween or early teen, and it will

00:18:00.580 increase stress, anxiety, depression, pretty much guaranteed bullying and could drive suicidal

00:18:07.500 thoughts and alienation. Um, enjoy. Would you say, yeah, I'm going to pay $1,200 for that and

00:18:12.360 make them carry it at all times and make them addicted to it and let outside bad guys have

00:18:17.740 access to my young child so that they can influence his or her mind. And they can spend hours and hours

00:18:22.480 going down rabbit holes on YouTube and elsewhere that are completely damaging for them way worse

00:18:27.180 than toking up on a jewel, right? That we've spent so much energy fighting. Would you, what sane

00:18:33.000 parent would ever say yes to that? Not one. That's it. I mean, it's, I, I cannot, as a parent,

00:18:40.500 I cannot think of anything that is more important than this right now, because for us, we at least

00:18:47.700 have the benefit of having what, 20, 30 years on the earth before we had anything like this,

00:18:53.260 tracking us and following us. Imagine our children, they've been mapped and tracked from the day they

00:18:58.140 were born. And the other part that people really don't understand is that when you look at the

00:19:03.360 patterns of behavior and you take these little pieces of information, it reveals so much about

00:19:09.960 a person. I know from intelligence people that the, the art of intelligence collection was really about

00:19:16.160 creating a human terrain map that gave you the information you needed to target someone accurately.

00:19:21.860 And that is exactly what all these digital companies have been doing from the beginning

00:19:27.320 is creating an, a detailed human terrain map that tells them, even when our, you know, we change our

00:19:34.460 patterns of behavior, it's an indicator of something. And if you think about all the ways that we're being

00:19:40.820 forced now at an accelerated speed into the digital age, how long is it going to be before we don't have a

00:19:48.520 choice? I mean, I bought a, you know, I know it sounds stupid, but I got a dishwasher recently and

00:19:53.920 it's a smart dishwasher and smart. I now understand as a euphemism for, for making me dumber and having

00:20:01.320 less control, anything that's smart on it gives, yes, that's exactly it because it's somebody else

00:20:07.840 control, spying and control. And what is the spying really about? It's about controlling us,

00:20:13.420 controlling our behavior. I mean, how far away are we from a social justice score,

00:20:18.880 a credit system like China is implementing, has already implemented. I mean, look at the vaccines,

00:20:24.740 you know, if you don't have a vaccine and a vaccine digital health passport, will you be allowed to

00:20:29.660 travel into certain countries? Will you be allowed to go into public places? Will you be allowed to work

00:20:35.180 at certain companies? You know, I mean, it's, it's, it seems so far fetched in one respect,

00:20:40.860 and yet it's right here already. We're living with it right now. And, um, one, one hacker I spoke to,

00:20:48.320 Megan, who really, it was an extraordinarily interesting guy. I mean, I think everybody

00:20:52.720 should talk to Jacob Applebaum, I got to say, because, um, he's got an interesting past with

00:20:57.620 WikiLeaks and, and Assange. And, um, you know, while a lot of people may react to that in a political

00:21:03.780 sense, I try really hard to transcend the politics. I think you do as well, right? Get past the politics so

00:21:10.120 you can really get to the substance of who people are and what are these things that they're talking

00:21:14.560 about. And he's an extraordinary mind when it comes to digital security and online privacy.

00:21:20.600 And he said to me, we're really becoming two classes in a sense, the monitored class and those

00:21:27.100 who are monitoring us. And if you want to know who the future, you know, rulers are of this global

00:21:32.140 world that we're in, right? Because in the digital world, there is already one world. It's not a

00:21:36.460 conspiracy. It actually exists one world, no borders. Um, and where a small group of people

00:21:43.040 have an extraordinary amount of power. So you're either part of the monitored class or you are the

00:21:48.240 part of the class that's monitoring people. And, and really these are social control systems that for

00:21:55.320 the first time in our history are able to impact people all across the planet in exactly one moment.

00:22:02.100 So don't you find it crazy that you can go to, you know, Africa or you can go to Europe or you can

00:22:07.300 go to Latin America and you're having the same conversations about wokeism and cancel culture as

00:22:13.840 you're having right here in the United States. That's an indication for you of the power and reach

00:22:19.360 of these companies.

00:22:21.040 Twitter made Black Lives Matter trend. They made that trend. And then what did we see after George Floyd?

00:22:25.980 We saw protests, uh, in Europe, uh, in response to that death. And, and of course the media is it's,

00:22:33.040 it's handmade to steal a term, right? In, in doing the bidding of big tech, their, their ideological

00:22:38.460 goals are completely aligned. So they're in favor of this. That's not why you don't see enough pushback

00:22:43.600 from these mainstream outlets is they're fine with it because it's their agenda too. It's their

00:22:49.360 agenda. Before I get you to comment on that, can I just make one point? We just bought a new house

00:22:53.180 because we're moving, we're leaving New York and, um, we're making our home a dumb home. I'm like,

00:22:57.780 I want, I want no smart home technology. I'm going back to dumb home living and I can't wait. I hate

00:23:05.000 my damn dishwasher right now. It's not, I always say to it, you are not in charge of me. You are not

00:23:10.180 the boss of me. I am not getting a big network that anybody could potentially tap into. I don't want,

00:23:16.820 I want a TV that has one remote control that has an on and an off and a channel up and a channel down

00:23:21.480 that even my seven-year-old can do without having access to my iPhone to turn it on.

00:23:25.540 I can't wait to move in. I know, but you can still find those things. Imagine how many years

00:23:31.940 from now will those appliances not exist? That's, you know, that's the terrifying part. Our children

00:23:38.800 are moving into a future where they won't have those choices. And, and that's the responsibility

00:23:45.020 that I carry with me day and night. Honestly, since, since I started looking, you know, into this and

00:23:50.940 really understanding what we've done, I have not slept one single peaceful minute because I feel

00:23:59.400 so betrayed in a sense, you know, we tell our children, yeah, do, you know, online school,

00:24:05.900 right? It's fine. But is it fine? Who owns their, their records now of their academic years? You know,

00:24:13.280 when they're sitting there waiting to come online or in between breaks in the classroom and they're

00:24:17.160 talking to their friends, who owns that? I'll tell you who owns that. Whoever owns the software

00:24:22.240 and the hardware own a perpetual worldwide royalty-free copy of everything that you do and

00:24:29.980 they can do whatever they want with it, you know, and who's going to stop them? Even if they're breaking

00:24:35.120 the law, who's going to stop them? I mean, can any politician get elected today without Facebook and

00:24:39.620 Twitter? No. Well, right. Exactly. And when we talk about a rigged election and Trump, that's where

00:24:45.500 I usually go because I don't, I saw no cracking, but I definitely saw suppression by Twitter and

00:24:49.980 Facebook and other outlets that was unwarranted and unfair to team Trump. But here's my question

00:24:56.500 for you since you're studying it right now. Can we ever go back? Because I sometimes wonder whether

00:25:02.900 if you flash forward 25 years or 30 years, there, there isn't a smartphone. There's only

00:25:08.540 at best a flip phone. You know, my mom's almost 80. She uses the jitterbug. It's like a flip phone

00:25:13.540 with really big numbers. That's basically all. And her texts reflect that. But I wonder if by that

00:25:20.460 point, you know, you and I at that point are 80 and we're looking back and we're like, remember that

00:25:24.520 crazy period where we surrendered our lives to Mark Zuckerberg and he was monitoring everything.

00:25:30.740 And so is, you know, Google and so are all these other companies and we damaged our kids and we

00:25:35.980 actually thought that would be a good idea. Like, is there any chance we come out going back to being

00:25:40.780 relative Luddites? You know, it's really the $64 million question. And, um, and I, you know,

00:25:48.560 everybody needs something to work towards. Right. And so what I cling to is I know that, uh, that I know

00:25:56.500 nothing really relatively speaking, um, when on this subject. And so I, I, I'm not a good person

00:26:03.460 to offer, um, practical solutions. I've talked to lots of people, you know, they've advised about

00:26:09.040 digital hygiene. You've got to clean out all your cookies. You've got to change the laws. Other

00:26:13.660 people say the laws can't keep up. You need real time monitoring systems. And I think all of those

00:26:18.700 things are true and all of them, um, are valid. I come back to the principles because the principles

00:26:25.720 never change. That's why Shakespeare is still relevant today. In spite of what the world crowd

00:26:29.480 say, it's why, you know, the Spartans fought for freedom and we're still fighting for freedom today.

00:26:34.500 Right. I mean, the principles are the only things that survive organizations and politics and,

00:26:41.620 and parties and all of that. And so what are, what are the principles here is that if you,

00:26:47.200 if you fight to protect those things that are God-given rights, not the human rights that we're

00:26:51.880 trying to substitute for God-given rights today, like the right to migrate. No, these are our human

00:26:56.780 rights, our rights to be treated equally, our rights to freedom. And we try and we, and we, we realize that

00:27:04.640 if we don't address, um, the changes and the advances in technology, um, effectively,

00:27:11.840 then all of that is lost, then we are truly heading into a very dark time. I tend to believe ultimately

00:27:19.260 in the good in all of us. And I do believe that good is more powerful than evil. Um, I just don't

00:27:26.340 know the cost and I really don't know if I'll be around to see the other side of this.

00:27:31.780 Hmm. Well, it, to me, it, it plays in right into what we're seeing in response to the pandemic,

00:27:39.420 the surrender of control, the shoulder shrug at big government taking over one's life. I mean,

00:27:46.960 in the most intimate ways, mandating that you keep a piece of fabric over your face in any public space

00:27:55.180 indoors and outdoors. I mean, not just you either your child. And, and frankly, it was reminding me

00:28:02.280 of, uh, we had Andrew Gutman on this parent who sort of blew the whistle at Brearley school in

00:28:06.680 Manhattan is a, you know, Tony school. I printed his letter that he wrote. That was just, it was

00:28:12.800 amazing. One extraordinary man. I have to say, thank you, Andrew. I don't know if you listen to this,

00:28:17.740 but, but on behalf of parents everywhere, I literally do want to just say from the bottom of my heart,

00:28:23.800 thank you for articulating that. I think anyone who wants to, you know, stand against this can just

00:28:29.160 add their school's name to your letter and say, besides a few details, we support you.

00:28:35.360 He was incredibly brave. I love talking to him and it was a great episode, but one of the things he

00:28:39.840 revealed in addition to all the critical race theory nonsense was Brearley, he thinks is about to

00:28:45.300 make, um, the not only COVID, uh, vaccines mandatory, but they are requiring double masking of the

00:28:52.840 children. And then on the critical race theory stuff, not only do you have to sign a pledge that

00:28:57.380 you're going to, that you're on board with the critical race theory and you're going to take a class,

00:29:01.000 you know, an anti-racism quote unquote class, which is a total BS term, but that you are going to teach

00:29:06.760 it at home. So it's just more and more that, you know, big government or these far left organizations

00:29:12.600 like academia want to get between the parent and the child. And, and on the COVID stuff, let me just

00:29:17.980 ask you about this because you're a newswoman and, and I am too. And we both have children only you

00:29:23.660 got smart and moved to Texas and I'm still stuck in New York city. And I am going and I got screwed

00:29:29.960 and moved to Texas. Well, however it landed, it landed. Well, uh, I'm going insane here in New York

00:29:37.460 with the school situation because now they're saying, um, our school and we, we, we just moved to the

00:29:43.620 school, our boys. And I liked this school. It's actually not in New York. Um, we're, we're, I

00:29:48.840 haven't revealed this, but we're moving to Connecticut. Um, and they're now saying that

00:29:53.280 there are likely to require masks in the fall for all unvaccinated children, whether they're

00:30:00.780 vaccine eligible or not. So children like my little guy, who's seven, who is not vaccine eligible,

00:30:07.040 nor would I give it to him, even if he were, uh, have to wear masks. So be beyond their control,

00:30:13.600 right? Even if you were somebody who wanted to vax your children, your child would have to be in

00:30:17.240 a mask because he's too young for how long till he's 12 for five years. Is he going to have to

00:30:22.560 wear a mask on his face while he's running around? It's insane. And down, down in Florida, even there

00:30:29.780 are some schools, which is closer to Texas and it's approached to this. They're still requiring masks

00:30:35.660 in school, even though the, the transmission rate is nil, it's nil in schools that, which leads me

00:30:41.800 to a 10 year old boy named John from the Felix A. Williams elementary school in Martin County,

00:30:46.800 uh, speaking before his school board just this week saying, I realized there's only two weeks

00:30:52.240 left to school, but I'm going to take a stand. The masks should come off. Here's his soundbite.

00:30:56.500 Listen to this kid. I know my teacher has asthma and everything, but I understand why it's hard for

00:31:01.420 her to wear a mask. And I think she should have that choice, but I should too. I have allergies and I

00:31:07.560 feel really anxious with my face covered, but I'm not allowed a mask work like her. It seems unfair. All

00:31:13.500 this seems unfair and it doesn't make sense. I miss seeing people's face. I miss the way things used

00:31:20.380 to be. I'm scared they'll never go back to normal. Breathing freely doesn't seem like something we should

00:31:25.380 have to ask any other people for permission for. Please make masks optional today. It would be

00:31:31.760 so awesome to end the school year on a really happy note like that. Thank you for your time.

00:31:39.440 And the school board voted and he was rejected four to one.

00:31:45.000 Amazing. That's amazing. You know, I heard two things there that were the key to me. One, breathing

00:31:51.000 freely. So if you think about your freedom, breathe freely, right? This is part of our freedom as human

00:31:56.660 beings, free to breathe and free to interact and, and all the rest of it. But the other part is that

00:32:03.140 he said optional. He's not saying ban masks, you know, no one is allowed to wear them. And I think

00:32:09.840 what this really comes down to is the principle that they've tried to is it's not a principle. It's a

00:32:15.580 policy that they have of control that they have tried to instill where now you're no longer

00:32:20.540 personally responsible for your own actions. You are now responsible for the actions of everybody

00:32:26.520 else and the wellbeing of everybody else. And what is that tied to? That is a Marxist

00:32:31.100 concept where, you know, we must have equity in outcomes. So your personal responsibility

00:32:37.920 is to the, is to the all, to the, to the crowd, to the masses. And it's no longer defined by,

00:32:45.840 uh, you know, your needs and, uh, and what is expected of you in society. So that is, that goes

00:32:52.980 to the core to me of what we're looking at here is that, um, we're being, uh, indoctrinated into a

00:33:00.440 system of control over which we can never ever affect, um, any outcome, right? It's not decided by us.

00:33:09.120 And, and on top of that, we're being given one problem after another that cannot ever be solved.

00:33:15.480 So, you know, it's one minute, it's the COVID-19 virus, then it's a variant, then it's other

00:33:21.840 variants and, and other viral threats. You know, there's one thing after another, then if this

00:33:26.460 doesn't work, it's the climate, you know, now we have to save the planet. And now for the benefit of

00:33:30.500 everyone, we have to stop eating beef. And for the benefit of everyone, we have to stop driving,

00:33:34.680 you know, gas cars and, you know, to save the planet, we have to accept that a third of the

00:33:39.540 population will starve to death from attacks on meat. Um, but it's for the benefit of everybody.

00:33:44.100 So we all have to accept it. And, and, and, you know, um, it's just like critical race theory.

00:33:50.360 We can't change the color of our skin, but the color of our skin is a problem that we can't fix.

00:33:56.260 We can never change the past. You can't be less white. You can't change the past. You can't make

00:34:02.180 people, people gravitate towards their own. That's why there's a Chinatown in New York. That's why

00:34:07.060 there's, you know, the Irish, right. All used to live together. That's why the Italians, you know,

00:34:11.800 like to be in little Italy. That's it. It's a human instinct. And whether it's across cultures or

00:34:17.140 whether it's across religions or class or whatever, people gravitate towards those who understand them

00:34:22.620 can be a shared understanding from coming from the same neighborhood or maybe going to the same school

00:34:27.500 or whatever it is. So we have those natural human instincts. That's not an endorsement of racism or

00:34:33.700 white supremacy or prejudice of any kind. I cannot stand those things. I have lived my entire life in

00:34:40.580 opposition to them. That's my only red line is racism, but I'm not going to be, uh, you know,

00:34:46.340 manipulated and, uh, enforced into a false position. That is a political construct. And the Marxists going

00:34:53.640 back to, you know, the early 1900s, um, recognized race as a way in to exploit the division and create

00:35:01.840 divisions in American society. And this is well-documented. The guy even wrote a book about

00:35:07.180 his tasking to do this. So this is not stuff I'm making up. And anybody who really wants to look at

00:35:12.760 this, um, history is a very interesting look as a TV series that you can get on Amazon prime called

00:35:18.400 hidden agenda, the real conspiracies sort of, and the, the way they've affected our lives. It was

00:35:23.600 made in the 1970s. That's what I love about it. It's not infected by the eighties and the nineties

00:35:30.100 and the politics of today. This is a look back at history from the point of view of those in the

00:35:35.420 seventies. And I learned so many things from that, Megan. I learned that, you know, for example,

00:35:40.460 the national lawyers guild was defending those accused of being Marxist during the McCarthy era.

00:35:46.300 Well, the national lawyers guild coincidentally is also the people that's paying for the legal bills

00:35:50.960 of Antifa and other groups who are arrested, were arrested during, you know, the, the, uh,

00:35:57.100 summer of love and peace, right. Burning cities in this country to the ground. And, uh, that's

00:36:02.900 fascinating for me. The ACLU went after the, um, the, the congressional committee that was tasked

00:36:09.540 with oversight of internal security threats in the wake of the McCarthy era. They went after them and

00:36:14.460 had that dismantled and then the subcommittee and look at what the ACLU was doing today.

00:36:19.040 Do you see, you know, overlap there? I mean, history is so important to us in understanding

00:36:24.080 how we got here. And, and when you look at the science and you look at what has happened with

00:36:29.020 the pandemic, you know, what we were told was the danger in the beginning. And I'll never forget,

00:36:33.720 um, Bill Barr, when he was attorney general, citing the constitution and, and showing that

00:36:39.880 all of these restrictions to people's freedoms and rights and liberties were justified on two

00:36:46.520 conditions under two conditions. One was that they had to be temporary and, and two was that you had to

00:36:53.360 show that there was a real basis for them. Well, the real basis has evaporated. Now it's, is gone

00:36:59.780 and it's not temporary anymore. People are trying to make this, you know, never ending and indefinite

00:37:05.660 and that's not constitutional. So what I would say. And they won't, they won't look at facts. You

00:37:11.100 know, you're, you're in Texas, Texas, which Joe Biden said, you, Oh, your, your plan to reopen and

00:37:18.160 drop the mandates for masks and so on. That's Neanderthal thinking. Neanderthal. Texas is reporting

00:37:23.280 zero deaths, zero deaths, lowest seven day positivity rate ever, lowest COVID hospitalizations in 11

00:37:30.480 months. They have put the lie to Joe Biden's smear of them. And then even on the kid front,

00:37:38.220 the reason our kids are still going to have to wear masks, you know, when they go back to school in the

00:37:41.860 fall is ostensibly, you know, for their own safety, right? Cause the teachers, they can get,

00:37:45.680 they can get vaccines. Um, there's a piece out. It was actually a New York magazine citing, uh,

00:37:50.480 reporting to two big studies now that the number of COVID hospitalizations for children has been

00:37:55.020 quote, grossly inflated according to these studies, at least by a, by at least 40%. And it's going to be

00:38:01.620 much more. They were counting kids who got to the hospital who just happened to have COVID, but were

00:38:06.400 there for other things as they're because of COVID, which is of course a lie and unsound. And now the

00:38:12.780 doctors, they quoted a Johns Hopkins physician who wrote in the British medical journal saying when it

00:38:17.780 comes to vaccinating children, the risk benefit calculus of vaccinating children against a disease

00:38:23.120 quote that poses a very low likelihood of severe outcomes, um, does not meet the definition of an

00:38:29.700 emergency, which is the only way they got approval for this vaccine for us and for our children by

00:38:34.320 declaring it an emergency. Uh, it's not one, it's not one for them in particular, they shouldn't need

00:38:39.900 to be mandatorily vaccinated and they shouldn't be forced to wear these damn masks in termal interminably

00:38:45.460 for parents who choose not to vaccinate them or for kids who are too young for it. And that brings me

00:38:50.300 to Dr. Fauci, the biggest, I feel like he's the biggest loser of this whole thing. After Andrew

00:38:56.340 Cuomo, Dr. Fauci, who came into this with no political profile, much to speak of has now been

00:39:02.320 exposed as a fool. He not only has he gotten so much wrong, but he, he has lied to us repeatedly

00:39:10.480 about you. You don't need a mask. You don't, I mean only to reverse himself and say, actually,

00:39:14.820 you do need a mask. And I was lying before. And now he's been exposed yet again. He got into,

00:39:19.800 he was cross-examined by Rand Paul in March about why the hell he was wearing a mask after being

00:39:25.880 vaccinated and whether wearing a mask after vaccination is just theater. So we've teed

00:39:32.320 it up. Here's Fauci with Rand Paul in March, budded to, uh, Fauci this week in May. Listen,

00:39:39.120 and if we're not spreading the infection, isn't it just theater? No, it's not vaccine and you're

00:39:44.060 wearing two masks. Isn't that theater? No, that's not. Here we go again with the theater. Let's get down

00:39:49.100 to the facts. Let me just state for the record that masks are not theater. Masks are protective

00:39:55.720 and we have immunity there theater. If you already have immunity, you're wearing a mask to give comfort

00:40:00.940 to others. You're not wearing a mask because of any science. I totally disagree with you.

00:40:06.540 Before the CDC made the recommendation change, I didn't want to look like I was giving mixed signals,

00:40:12.440 but being a fully vaccinated person, the chances of my getting infected in an indoor setting is

00:40:20.060 extremely low. That was him in point two with the mask off explaining why he doesn't need to wear. I

00:40:25.480 mean, Laura, it's infuriating that these people are in charge of us because they are. I'd like to say

00:40:31.800 they're not, but they are. It's having a real effect. My kid cannot go to school without that

00:40:37.120 damn mask on because of him. You know, I mean, to me, you're being charitable when you describe

00:40:42.320 Fauci as a fool. I would call him Dr. Evil because Fauci has known all of this from the beginning. I

00:40:49.400 mean, does anyone really believe he just made one blunder after another? Give me a break. Look at if

00:40:54.180 you really look at the gain of function research and Fauci's role in that, you know, just I try to tell

00:41:00.880 people, remember that Fauci knew this from the beginning, right? And they kept passing their words

00:41:06.140 by saying, oh, no, this came, you know, this did not come from a lab. It came from a bat. Well, that was

00:41:10.820 another thing that Fauci knew was a total lie because the way these viruses are cultivated in the lab is

00:41:18.300 inside a bat. That's how they actually do it. They get the bat from the cave and then they

00:41:24.160 do research on the bat in the lab. That's how it works. And inside that virus is cultivated inside

00:41:29.820 the bat. So the only place it can come from is from the bat. So they know perfectly well that when

00:41:35.640 they say, oh, it came from a bat for sure, that they're deceiving people because it came from a

00:41:41.980 bat in the lab. So it's the same thing. And then on top of that, you know, the thing that Fauci has

00:41:48.760 also known from the beginning is that hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin and all of these

00:41:54.680 drugs are very effective in treating COVID and have been available to people all over the world

00:42:02.360 from the beginning. And they're very, very cheap. And there is a protocol for how you use

00:42:07.620 hydroxychloroquine. It is effective when used, you know, together with a Z-pack, with an antibiotic,

00:42:14.140 and also when used early. So, you know, and there's a few other things that go along with

00:42:18.980 that. So, but what they did was isolate it and incite studies that tested it on patients. For

00:42:25.880 example, one study tested it on patients who were already on ventilators and already dying. And I

00:42:31.240 don't say this to you as a doctor. I say to you as a person who had COVID and was treated with

00:42:36.220 hydroxychloroquine and took hydroxychloroquine and recovered very quickly and effectively. And that's

00:42:42.580 how I learned that there is an ambulatory protocol that is being used all over the world. When you

00:42:48.700 combine, you know, something like hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin with other things like

00:42:54.280 steroids, and you use it very early on, you take vitamin D3 and you take correlated zinc. These are

00:43:00.300 ambulatory protocols that have been extraordinarily successful. And, and there, you know, no one has

00:43:06.680 asked Fauci or the CDC or the administration why they're not talking about the effective treatments

00:43:13.860 of COVID. Why does everybody have to get vaccinated? You can't. This is what's upsetting to me, right?

00:43:19.780 Because it's like, you're not allowed to have that opinion. You may, and honestly, if you even put out

00:43:25.320 a piece trying to raise questions about it, I don't know. I don't know what hydroxychloroquine does or

00:43:31.120 doesn't do. I do know that my one doctor who treated me during the peak of the pandemic told

00:43:36.280 me he had 40,000 layers on him. And he told me, uh, that he and every doctor he knew was taking it.

00:43:42.500 He and every doctor he knew. Okay. So that's my, my, this is, this is one of my doctors.

00:43:46.400 Many doctors who've done that. My husband took it. My children took it. I mean, and people,

00:43:51.580 lots of people that I know took it. My, uh, uncle-in-law took ivermectin. I mean,

00:43:56.820 we take ivermectin every couple of weeks because my, uh, father-in-law is a veteran. Uh, he's a vet

00:44:02.460 and, uh, a very well-renowned, uh, wildlife veterinarian. And most, uh, farm animals, domestic

00:44:08.920 animals in America are treated with ivermectin to prevent parasites and viruses. I mean, it is one

00:44:14.720 of the oldest, cheapest drugs around, and I'm not advocating for anyone to take a drug. I say again,

00:44:19.840 I'm not a doctor, but I know from speaking to doctors and speaking to scientists that these drugs

00:44:25.460 actually do work. I know from taking it myself that it worked for me. And I also know that

00:44:30.360 doctors will tell you, this is not a vaccine. This, uh, this has RNA, which, um, directly targets

00:44:38.160 your DNA. And, and there is really, there are a number of medical professionals who are urging

00:44:44.320 people to stop calling this a vaccine. They're not saying don't take it. Um, they're not saying it,

00:44:49.700 it cannot be effective. They're not saying for, you know, for people who look into it and decide they

00:44:55.040 want to take it, that it shouldn't be an option. What they're saying is we need to understand what

00:44:59.880 it actually is. There've been no studies of what it can do to children. There've been no studies of

00:45:05.140 what, well, there've been very few studies of what masks actually do to people, what it does to deprive

00:45:10.380 your brain of oxygen, even if it's small amounts of oxygen. What is the impact of that long-term?

00:45:15.580 What is the impact of that for people who like me, you know, I'm always late for everything. So when

00:45:19.820 I'm running, I actually, uh, get dizzy with a mask on.

00:45:23.000 You're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to do that. I mean, I, my, my own

00:45:26.200 doctor said, do not do that. Do not run or let your children run with the mask on. That's far

00:45:30.880 more dangerous to you. And in particular to your children, then COVID would be, but you,

00:45:35.840 this is what's so insane. You, you cannot tweet that this conversation we're having cannot be

00:45:41.940 repeated in a tweet and remain on Twitter, nor can even just the phrase stop the steal that you

00:45:47.380 can't have that. What you can have is hashtag Hitler, the great, what you can have is a CNN

00:45:55.440 freelance contributor tweeting out the world needs a Hitler hail Hitler. Uh, and others like him in the

00:46:02.620 wake of this Israeli Palestinian conflict tweeting out, it's apparently a fake Hitler quote, but who the

00:46:07.700 hell could tell the difference? Uh, but, and I quote, this is from Vina Malik, who's a popular

00:46:12.040 Pakistani actress from Tuesday, May 11th. I would have killed all the Jews of the world, but I kept

00:46:17.020 some to show the world why I killed them. Adolf Hitler again, apparently made up, but again, who

00:46:22.320 could tell tweeting out, she tweeted out hashtag iron dome is doomed with a laughing emoji. Um, so she

00:46:28.860 gets in trouble and she takes them down. So Twitter is allowing Hitler, the great to, to trend, but you

00:46:35.080 cannot say any of the stuff we just said, because that violates the rules. Laura, I know it's like,

00:46:42.700 I'm getting myself worked up now. I try intentionally not to do this because the news business really can

00:46:46.640 work you up, but I don't feel it's getting any better. I feel it's getting worse. It is getting

00:46:52.520 worse. And I tell you why, what, what is actually happening is that, um, these companies are doubling

00:46:59.140 down on the censorship when in the wake of, you know, people's reaction and criticism in that after

00:47:05.520 they suspended, um, the, uh, president Donald Trump's account and others, um, Twitter didn't

00:47:11.480 say, Oh, you're right. Yeah. We care about the first amendment and we're worried about our two

00:47:16.520 section two 30 protection that protects us from liability and gives us, um, extraordinary

00:47:22.020 protections that normal companies don't get, um, and normal, you know, media companies don't get.

00:47:27.040 No, they're not saying that they're actually saying, and this was, um, there's a leaked video

00:47:32.120 that project Veritas put out with Jack Dorsey, where he says, we're going to be doing more of

00:47:36.140 this. This is just the beginning. Those are Jack Dorsey's words. And to my knowledge, he hasn't

00:47:41.400 denied them or refuted them. Yeah. The head of Twitter. And, um, and you're seeing that all over,

00:47:46.600 right? It's not just Twitter, it's Facebook as well. And so what that tells you, what that tells me as

00:47:51.540 a journalist and an observer of society is that these people have no intention of going back to a

00:47:56.720 world where your opinion or my opinion matters. Right. And they don't fear anything from people,

00:48:02.820 um, like you or I who don't agree with them or, um, or think that, uh, that their policies are wrong.

00:48:09.600 And, and so then I asked the question, well, why don't they fear it? And, and that to me is the

00:48:14.420 really troubling part of this. They don't fear it because we don't matter in their world. Literally

00:48:20.660 the people that say they're worried about hate speech, um, are amplifying the, the views of

00:48:26.300 people who think that people like you and I should be exterminated, right? We should be eradicated.

00:48:31.540 We don't have a right to exist. And, and, you know, these things can be traced right back to

00:48:35.640 the basket of deplorables because anyone who fits in that basket, right? Anyone who voted for-

00:48:40.760 It's a big basket, big basket. If you ask big tech or media. Yeah. And what they don't, you know,

00:48:46.700 and while we're having these arguments about censorship, you know, what we really are not

00:48:51.660 doing is having any substantive conversations about things like the fact that there are,

00:48:57.300 you know, uh, a number of Americans sitting in solitary confinement in Washington DC today because

00:49:04.440 of, um, their, the charges against them for what happened at the Capitol on January 6th.

00:49:09.380 But these are people who haven't been convicted of any crime. They, and they're being subjected

00:49:14.860 to a form of punishment that even, uh, democratic senators like Elizabeth Warren and Dick Durbin

00:49:20.760 have said is the most extreme form of psychological torture and should only be used in very rare and

00:49:28.180 isolated cases. American, I just want, I have to say that again, because after being in the middle

00:49:34.060 East, I lived in Iraq for five years, living in Afghanistan and all over, right? In the

00:49:39.240 United States of America today, there are several dozen American citizens sitting in prison in

00:49:46.480 solitary confinement in the nation's Capitol and no one is talking about it. And they haven't

00:49:54.220 actually been convicted of any crime. Does anybody remember innocent until proven guilty?

00:49:59.780 You know, I mean, it is just extraordinary to me that while meanwhile, but meanwhile, to your point

00:50:07.600 earlier, you've got people like the ACLU defending the, the rioters who, who burned government buildings

00:50:14.220 and police stations and hurt a lot of people over the summer, right? Because they were affiliated with

00:50:18.180 black lives matter or Antifa. And you've got people like Justin Timberlake bailing those people.

00:50:22.740 Like they get bailed out by celebrities, right? They get Kamala Harris calls for that. She supports that

00:50:28.380 to bail these people out. But, but you're at the Capitol Hill riot. You're in solitary, right? You're

00:50:33.220 sort of thrown out without the key and no one gives a damn to the double standard you were talking about

00:50:38.940 because are you a deplorable? And that term is as wide as it could possibly be. It encompasses about

00:50:44.620 80 million Americans or aren't you? At least, at least 80 million Americans. And you know, this is on

00:50:52.140 all of us, I have to say, because, um, on the one hand, I mean, you can see people who've sold their souls

00:50:57.980 and think, you know, the principles don't really matter here because my side is winning and we're the only

00:51:03.200 ones that matter because on Twitter, you know, the voices that we don't like have been suppressed and

00:51:08.740 sidelined. And in the media space, you know, if we, if, um, if we don't agree with you or you don't, you know,

00:51:15.180 follow the narratives, then you get pushed to the confines of media that doesn't matter, like right

00:51:20.480 into the space that's defined as a threat to democracy, which is so ironic because, you know,

00:51:25.560 the very essence of democracy is supposed to be freedom and liberty and, you know, different points

00:51:30.140 of view. And yet, uh, the existence of Fox news is supposed to be a threat to democracy. To me, it's not a

00:51:36.200 left, right divide. It's being presented as that, you know, and, but I see Marxism and these other

00:51:41.480 things used as a tool to recruit people and to bring them along because, you know, Marxism is the

00:51:47.220 ideology for the good idea fairy, right? Free education. Great idea. No one starved to death

00:51:52.580 ever again. Great idea. Right. And, and, and yet we know how that works out because the, the history

00:51:58.980 is littered with examples of what that really ends up as. And, and so for me, it's about people who are in

00:52:06.100 favor of tyranny and people who are against it. And, you know, it, I know it's hard because none

00:52:12.180 of us want to be, um, you know, none of us want to be derided and pushed out as outliers and our

00:52:18.120 credibility attacked. And I mean, you've been through it. I've been through it and they'll come

00:52:22.520 for both of us again. I have no doubt they come for me all the time. Um, but at the end of the day,

00:52:28.160 what I know is I don't have a choice. I don't have a choice. These are uncharted waters. We have never

00:52:35.300 been in a situation where the, where the law, the rule of law in this country has been totally

00:52:40.460 obliterated and no one is saying a word where the border has been completely opened. And regardless

00:52:47.940 of how you feel about whether, you know, about immigration and, and who's good and who's bad.

00:52:53.860 And, you know, whether it's good for the economy or bad for the economy, the one thing that nobody

00:52:58.260 can actually deny is that when you open the border like that, along with the good people come the bad.

00:53:05.300 And so you've opened the doors to the most powerful criminal cartels anywhere on the

00:53:10.820 planet. You have more narcotics, illegal narcotics flooding this country than any time in human

00:53:17.300 existence. And we have no idea what the impact of those is going to be. And these are manufactured

00:53:22.760 in laboratories where they can be produced in quantities that we've never, ever seen so much

00:53:27.760 that they're giving them away free. And nobody is, you know, we talked opioid deaths, opioid deaths,

00:53:32.680 the opioid crisis, poor parents, blah, blah, blah. And no one is talking about it. I mean,

00:53:37.640 it's over 300 Americans dying every week and no one is saying a word. We're not talking about the

00:53:42.280 strategic alliance that these cartels have made with the Chinese and in all the ways in which the

00:53:48.940 Chinese is already at war with the U S in a silent war. It's described by two Chinese colonels who wrote

00:53:55.780 the book on unrestricted warfare in 1999 and have, have published an update to that. You know, the

00:54:01.820 Chinese were buying up agricultural land all across America. We're not talking about any of these things.

00:54:07.740 And, um, and at the same time, you have the power of big tech and the power of media working hand in

00:54:14.560 hand with governments to silence and suppress and turn millions of Americans into criminals.

00:54:20.700 Up next, we're going to get into CBS and Benghazi and the smears of Lara Logan and the destruction,

00:54:27.440 the attempted destruction of her, of her career, how it happened, how it works and how it,

00:54:32.760 how it reflects what's happening in the larger media, um, to, to people outside of media, right?

00:54:39.640 It's not just Lara. It's not just me. It's not just people who work in this industry.

00:54:42.900 The media is trying to destroy half the country. They're trying to destroy anybody who doesn't

00:54:50.500 buy into their pre-existing narrative, their approved world view. And you'll hear about how

00:54:58.720 it, how it works from an insider's perspective. That's coming up in one second.

00:55:08.880 I've got to throw the stat out there because you've done a lot of reporting on what's happening

00:55:12.720 at the border and this is how it works, right? Everybody was reporting on this. This looks bad.

00:55:17.000 It looks bad. It looks like a crisis at the Southern border. Then suddenly it goes radio silent. The

00:55:22.400 media, nothing in April, there were a record. There was a record number of border crossings

00:55:29.320 in April, record number. It's not the kind of record we want to be setting. And yet all ice had

00:55:35.360 the lowest number ever of deportations. So these are not, these are not good figures for the Biden

00:55:39.440 administration. The media research center, which does a great job there. Um, they go by newsbusters.

00:55:43.940 They had a report out just today saying ABC, CBS, and NBC from May 1st to May 14th,

00:55:50.020 zero coverage of the border and these numbers, despite the fact that these April border numbers

00:55:55.600 were the worst ever zero. How much of their time did they devote to Liz Cheney losing her, uh,

00:56:03.140 her leadership post a combined 33 minutes because quote Republican parties, civil war as your old

00:56:11.140 police CBS evening news news put it is so much more interesting and juicy and fun for them than

00:56:18.600 issues like inflation or issues like our border and how high the numbers are. And this, while the media

00:56:23.520 is celebrating that, Oh, you know, the, the border patrol facilities and the number of teens and kids

00:56:28.680 in custody, it's dropped. It's dropped from 5,700 to less than 500 because they just moved them to

00:56:35.040 something called an emergency shelter site. They're not, it hasn't been resolved. They've moved them

00:56:40.200 from point A to point B and the media helps the Biden administration try to spin this as a win as

00:56:47.220 progress. And if it's actually not spinnable, they just don't report on it. Liz Cheney, Liz Cheney.

00:56:52.920 Well, you know, the, the problem for the Biden administration is that they don't have truth

00:56:57.220 on their side. And it's the same problem that all of these organizations have,

00:57:01.240 because they can try to make it that Liz Cheney is more important to Americans than the border.

00:57:06.900 And it's still not true. And what I can tell you, I live right here in Texas and, and we are dealing

00:57:13.860 with, um, higher levels of theft that the sheriff and, you know, local groups keep putting out these

00:57:20.820 warnings. We've had all kinds of crime that's going up in Houston. It's bad. Um, a lady, uh, my housekeeper

00:57:27.520 here, her nephew was just murdered, um, in, in the last couple of days in Houston, uh, one of, uh,

00:57:34.120 four kids murdered in an apartment, you know, all the cartel, all the indicators of cartel activity

00:57:40.560 and presence are climbing every single one, um, in every single town. And it, and this is replicated

00:57:47.460 across America, even if it's not felt as acutely in other places just yet. And, you know, so no amount

00:57:53.920 of reporting on Liz Cheney is going to change that. And I knew this was going to be the Biden

00:57:58.940 administration strategy. The moment they said that Kamala Harris was the person that they had

00:58:05.700 appointed for the border and she showed zero indication of coming down here. And then her

00:58:10.300 office came out and said, no, no, no, not that kind of, you know, border person. She's going to be

00:58:14.600 dealing with the root causes and go to Latin America. And, you know, we've seen none of that.

00:58:18.400 And I saw that they were doing absolutely nothing to change what was happening. And, um, and I knew

00:58:25.400 that the media would follow dutifully in, uh, you know, along with their instructions and that they

00:58:31.620 would let the whole thing die and disappear. So this was the strategy. You know, they had Jake

00:58:36.660 Sullivan and Susan Rice out in December before the inauguration telling people on the biggest Latin

00:58:42.580 American news channel EFFE, um, FA that they were going to reverse all of Trump's policies. So that

00:58:49.260 was the invitation, right? That was the dog whistle to all the cartels and anyone to come to America.

00:58:55.480 And they knew, you know, there's, I find it very hard to believe that they didn't know precisely what

00:59:00.600 they were doing. Why? Because when I talked to the cartels, they tell me they knew. And, uh, and then

00:59:06.200 what happened is they opened the border up the moment they came into office. Biden already said before he

00:59:11.680 came in that it was going to be a hundred days of no deportations, et cetera, et cetera. They actually

00:59:16.100 put policies in place to back that up. And, uh, and then they let it happen. And they wrote out the

00:59:22.140 media storm with a bunch of lies and hogwash, and they kept it from view. They created all these

00:59:28.040 temporary facilities that by the way, they started building. They had the border agencies start

00:59:32.420 rebuilding these temporary facilities back in December. When I was down on the border, agents were

00:59:37.280 telling me about it. And I saw one of them. So this is what I mean by planned. They knew exactly

00:59:42.660 what they were going to do. There's a number of people in this administration that are, you know,

00:59:47.320 vehement and strong voices in favor of open borders. And that's really the policy that is being

00:59:53.460 implemented. So while you see the bureaucracy being overwhelmed, the policymakers planned on this,

00:59:59.260 they wanted it to happen. So that comes to the very disturbing question of why, how does it benefit

01:00:05.080 the Biden administration to have these cartels proliferate narcotics, lethal narcotics all over

01:00:11.640 America? Well, you just go to San Francisco and take a look less than two miles from Nancy Pelosi's

01:00:16.220 house. As we documented in one of the, my shows on, on Fox nation, um, you have the streets are full of

01:00:23.260 people whose brains have been obliterated by narcotics. I went into the homeless camps. You know,

01:00:29.260 I had to go to three different camps before I could find someone who could string a sentence

01:00:33.460 together cohesively enough to actually put on television. So, but how does that help Nancy

01:00:39.800 Pelosi? I mean, cause what's it, what person who would vote for her if they weren't on drugs?

01:00:44.980 Well, I know, I'll tell you what they're creating is people who don't write letters to their

01:00:50.660 congressmen and complain about anything. People who don't join the military.

01:00:53.960 I totally believe they want, they want open borders, but I don't believe it's part of some

01:01:00.680 massive conspiracy to allow drugs to come in and this is not, well, I'm not saying it's a

01:01:05.620 conspiracy. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying you're not seeing these people take any

01:01:10.720 action on illegal narcotics. And when you're in San Francisco and when you're in the homeless camps

01:01:16.880 and you're talking to these people, you see, they've abolished the prison in Oakland. They just let

01:01:21.160 people out because they say they don't have money to even keep the prison open anymore.

01:01:24.620 And you have people who just exist on welfare. They don't care about them. I don't think they're

01:01:30.460 trying to hook them on drugs, but they just don't give a shit. They, they want us to believe that

01:01:34.100 they're this beneficial, you know, they're looking out for everybody. They're going to, they're part of

01:01:37.520 the, the welfare state. They're going to reinstate it and take care of all that you're poor,

01:01:40.840 you're, you're downtrodden. And it's a lie. There are policies from the mandatory minimum wage

01:01:46.320 to when it comes to ignoring the massive problem that we have with the homeless and opening up all

01:01:51.000 of these facilities, like get them out of the prisons and get them out of the mental hospitals.

01:01:54.640 Where are they going to go? Oh, how about the street? Okay, sure. That seems more humane.

01:01:59.160 When you sort of put their, their policies to the test so often, this is the result you see. So

01:02:06.060 their rhetoric doesn't match up with their results and it's completely, you know, and, and I want to

01:02:12.200 get to the compliant media because I do think you and I have both seen it ourselves. Um, we've lived it.

01:02:17.860 We've been inside the industries, you know, you've been at CBS for a number of years, number, how long,

01:02:23.740 how many years were you there? Oh, 16 years. Okay. And I was at NBC for just two, but I was at ABC

01:02:30.020 for a time before that. I don't think Fox is this way. Fox has got its problems. Don't get me wrong.

01:02:34.740 They're not perfect, but they're not trying to, um, push these narratives on you. They're trying to

01:02:39.780 counterbalance. They're the only one on television trying to counterbalance all the nonsense that the

01:02:45.480 mainstream tries to shove down your throat. So yes, they're partisan. You got to know that when

01:02:49.300 you watch them. But, uh, if you only take in ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC, you're going to have

01:02:55.660 one point of view. That's very misleading as we're trying to show you right now that they get

01:03:00.240 manipulated, um, depending on who's in office. And if it's a Democrat, it's all about running cover

01:03:04.640 and vice versa. If it's somebody, God forbid, like Trump who really drove them nuts. Um, so that takes

01:03:10.120 me to you, that takes me to, to you as a journalist. Okay. Now let me just start here. Cause I, I,

01:03:15.020 I want to talk about you personally slash professionally. Um, before I did this interview

01:03:20.300 last night, I'm talking to my husband, Doug, and he said, he reminded me of this. He said,

01:03:24.980 I remember when you were up and coming in your career, he said, I think it was around 2010. Um,

01:03:31.500 I asked you who are the female journalists that you really respect. And I, I looked around, I said,

01:03:40.120 I can only think of one and it was you. And he reminded me of that, that I, and it was true.

01:03:47.560 I really admired and have always admired you. And back then I had no idea what your politics were.

01:03:55.460 I knew nothing about you. I just knew you electrified the screen. You penetrated that lens

01:04:01.440 and you were substantive and smart. And it was gold. It was TV gold. And it was an exciting

01:04:10.100 time in my career. I think it was an exciting time in your career. And I was thinking about coming

01:04:15.360 into this interview. Here we are 10 years later, if it was 2010, 2011. And I feel like both of us

01:04:21.840 hopefully are a little older and a little wiser, but also let's be honest, a bit, a bit chewed up

01:04:28.560 and spat out too, by what I think is a largely disgusting, toxic industry that has a habit of

01:04:36.100 building up in particular strong women and then killing them when they get just a little too

01:04:42.100 strong and a little too threatening. You know, for me, I think, I mean, I definitely experienced

01:04:48.900 every step along the way, you know, I had to fight. Um, I had to fight my ground to be taken

01:04:54.840 seriously and just to be allowed to do my job. Um, and I always did it. You know, I am, I'm, I'm not an

01:05:01.760 unkind person. I'm an, I'm a very kind person. And one of the easiest labels for anyone to slap

01:05:07.240 on a woman in this industry is diva, right? That's the first thing you get is diva. And it really

01:05:12.340 doesn't matter what the truth is. I mean, I have always treated people with respect, both in my

01:05:17.380 personal life and my professional life. And as a journalist, and I think if you talk to anyone I've

01:05:21.940 ever interviewed and been around, they'll always tell you that. And it's been consistent because it's

01:05:27.080 part of who I am. And I, and, and so for me, you know, putting that aside, what I found, um,

01:05:33.660 just really disappointing about the industry, it wasn't so much the feeding frenzy, you know,

01:05:38.380 of people who just want to feed on each other's bodies and, and are so glad to see somebody brought

01:05:43.600 down. It was really the dishonesty of, uh, people who could stand on the moral high ground and, and,

01:05:50.400 uh, claim, you know, this authority over you while not ever doing their jobs themselves. I don't know

01:05:57.060 about you, but it was sort of like nobody who, who had wrote about me or attacked me appeared to

01:06:03.540 have even watched the piece that I did on Benghazi, because if they had, they wouldn't have written

01:06:07.920 things that were blatantly false. And you have this sense that you have no power. You know, I, um,

01:06:14.600 I was left in a situation where I couldn't defend someone who wasn't around to defend themselves.

01:06:19.520 And, um, you had all these anonymous sources, you know, going to the New York times and others and

01:06:23.980 saying what we were told in our story wasn't true. And so I did what I thought was the right thing to

01:06:29.800 do. And I did it for, um, the team and I did it for the show and I put my personal needs aside. And

01:06:36.720 I'm, uh, I'm really, you know, proud of myself for having done that. I don't regret it for one single

01:06:42.840 second. And in a way I feel about after the report. Yes. Because even though we didn't actually know the

01:06:49.300 truth, we still don't know the truth. We don't know whether this guy lied or not, but can I just

01:06:53.720 stop you there just, just to get the audience up to speed? Cause they may not remember what we're

01:06:57.880 talking about. You were correspondent, uh, for 60 minutes. And I think chief foreign affairs

01:07:03.060 correspondent for CBS news at the time, you did a report on Benghazi. It's a couple of years after

01:07:08.340 Benghazi went down. And as I understand it, you tell me, but I understand that you're reporting on the

01:07:14.780 strength of Al Qaeda, uh, in this region and how the Obama administration wasn't paying enough

01:07:20.380 attention to it stands up. The part of it that was controversial was you cited as one piece of this.

01:07:28.420 It wasn't the whole thing as one piece of this. Um, one man's account that it came from a book that

01:07:34.920 was being published by Simon and Schuster owned. That's your sister company at CBS news, right? You

01:07:38.860 have the same owner, um, and presumably vetted. You were told it was too. You guys tried to run down

01:07:44.280 whether his story was true and had indications that it was and his story. We don't know whether

01:07:49.820 it was true or not, but we have reason to believe perhaps not. And that's, that was pinned around

01:07:55.360 you. Like, even though the, the point of your story stood, this guy's one account perhaps did not

01:08:01.140 match up with what he told the FBI that he had seen the body of the dead ambassador or that he had

01:08:05.480 scaled the wall. Um, it's possible he was just sitting in his hotel room when it all happened.

01:08:11.600 Although I don't think he would say that today. Anyway, my point is you tell me whether, because

01:08:16.360 after that, all hell broke loose. It was like, Laura Logan can't be trusted. And you know, God

01:08:21.080 forbid you're a mainstream reporter doing a story like that, that doesn't reflect well on Obama or

01:08:26.580 Hillary. They're, they're soon to be nominee, um, on Benghazi, which is already a hot rod. And you have,

01:08:33.440 they, you give them any reason to kill you and they will kill you. And man, they did. They can't,

01:08:38.480 everyone came for you knives out in sort of the mainstream and even within CBS.

01:08:42.980 Yeah, that's a pretty, that is actually a great, uh, summary, probably the best that I've heard.

01:08:47.860 And the only thing that I would say is, um, that his story, this guy in particular,

01:08:53.140 everything about his story checked out. The only two pieces that they cast out on

01:08:58.040 were the, were his actions that night. So people tried to say afterwards that he wasn't who he said

01:09:03.880 he was and he, he didn't, he wasn't there and you know, all these other things. And none of that was

01:09:08.940 true. We even confirmed his job title and, um, his contract and everything with the state department,

01:09:15.280 you know, that, that he was at, um, the, the special mission compound in Benghazi when he said

01:09:20.000 he was, we had, you know, photocopied the stamps in his passport. So we knew he was there in that time.

01:09:25.740 I mean, we went, we had copies of his, you know, we'd gone and confirmed his, his military record

01:09:30.600 with his unit, um, in the UK. We did everything we possibly could outside of, uh, contacting the

01:09:37.080 two Libyan guards. He said he was with that night and, you know, they didn't want to speak to us

01:09:41.640 because it, uh, it was really dangerous in Benghazi and Al Qaeda had pretty much taken over and, uh,

01:09:48.200 and look where Libya is today. Right. I mean, the government of Libya is still, you know, on a,

01:09:52.180 on a boat offshore and the U S embassy is closed and has been operating from a neighboring country,

01:09:59.060 you know, almost since, since a short time after our story aired. So, you know, those were not

01:10:04.340 unreasonable conditions. Plus the big thing that everybody left out that CBS left out of their own

01:10:10.760 investigation was that we signed an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement with the publisher that

01:10:17.900 said that we would not disclose his actions, the details of what he did that night with anybody

01:10:23.660 prior to the story going to air. And we, you know, stupidly naively, if you like, actually took that

01:10:31.140 NDA to, you know, the letter. We actually thought this is a legal document. It was written by CBS. It

01:10:37.100 wasn't written by us. It was approved by the CBS lawyer. He signed off on it, the CBS division, um,

01:10:43.280 that dealt with these things, they, uh, signed off on it. And so we respected that. And afterwards,

01:10:49.080 everybody hammered us for, Oh, you didn't confirm, uh, you know, this detail with the FBI. Well,

01:10:54.320 because it fell under the NDA. And, and so, you know, we were really mugged by, um, by, you know,

01:11:00.520 anyone with a political agenda who conveniently had been briefed, you know, the New York times was

01:11:06.860 supposedly briefed by the FBI on what this guy had really, uh, said, what really happened when,

01:11:13.420 you know, that he'd supposedly told them. But of course, you know, the New York times said that

01:11:18.400 they were briefed by two officials from the state department who were in turn briefed by two anonymous

01:11:23.860 officials from the FBI. And that's the basis on which, you know, everything comes crashing down

01:11:29.420 around you. So it was extremely frustrating for me because I knew that, you know, to this day,

01:11:34.800 I still don't know whether this guy lied. You know, he might have lied. That's very possible.

01:11:39.620 But when he disappeared, there was nothing that we could do. You've got anonymous reporting from

01:11:43.980 the New York times and you've got, you know, this guy not defending himself. So, you know,

01:11:48.740 it's over. And I put my personal instinct is always to fight and to fight for the truth,

01:11:53.600 but I've lived with that injustice. And then I saw that really opened my eyes though,

01:11:58.400 to the injustices that were coming to Carter page, to Mike Flynn, you know, and to all the others

01:12:04.060 who've been persecuted and targeted by this very organized and orchestrated machine that comes

01:12:11.960 after people. They take bits and pieces of things, you know, that they can knit together.

01:12:17.400 Yes. I'm like, I'm cheering you in my head as you're talking. Persecuted is the right word. Keep

01:12:21.500 going.

01:12:22.140 Yes. And really what it's about is silencing people and intimidating them. So there's been almost no

01:12:28.540 reporting on Benghazi. I know, you know, a former diplomat who's been trying to get a book

01:12:33.700 published about Benghazi and the failures that really happened in policy because he doesn't

01:12:38.600 want those to be repeated. He said, you know, he's a hardcore Democrat. He's not a Republican

01:12:43.280 at all. He cannot get his book published. And, and the more concerning part to me is how everything

01:12:49.880 that was being, you know, that I realized was in place already at that time has only consolidated

01:12:55.180 and strengthened its hold on journalism and information and the, you know, the, the workplace

01:13:01.260 of ideas. There's been more people that have been targeted, uh, since me. And what I take

01:13:07.160 from it though, that gives me strength is that people have seen it happen too often and they

01:13:13.260 recognize the tactics people. So it happened with you. And, you know, I really want to say

01:13:17.740 that I respect you so much for the way that you, uh, put yourself, you know, back out there

01:13:24.220 and rebuilt your career after they tried to take you down. I, I told my husband, strangely enough,

01:13:30.840 we had conversations about you and I said, watch how long it takes for them to destroy her at NBC

01:13:37.940 because I knew it was coming. I absolutely knew it was coming. You were a voice, um, at Fox that stood

01:13:45.060 out from the others. And because you, you had so many people that were drawn to you from both sides of

01:13:51.180 the aisle. You were not the lightning rod, for example, that say maybe Hannity is, or, you know,

01:13:56.040 Bill O'Reilly was, and they, they went after you for that. And they were going to make sure, um,

01:14:02.500 that they took that what they're after is people that they can't control. So it doesn't matter if

01:14:07.660 you're young or old or established or not, they want the journalists, the voices out there that do as

01:14:14.220 they're told that follow these narratives without questioning. And what people I think

01:14:19.140 underestimate is the degree of organization and funding behind all of this, that there are, you

01:14:26.280 know, real political operatives out there who are planting these false narratives. No journalist

01:14:31.020 made up the Russia collusion narrative on their own, right? They didn't hire Fusion GPS to, uh,

01:14:37.680 write the Steele, uh, dossier and to come up with misinformation. And they, they weren't the ones that

01:14:43.180 were paying, you know, Glenn Simpson from Fusion GPS to go out and brief reporters on all this, um,

01:14:48.920 disinformation, but these are organized campaigns that take real funding and, uh, that take powerful

01:14:56.240 people to keep them alive and to sustain them, you know, without Adam Schiff and John Brennan and,

01:15:02.460 uh, Clapper, would they have been able to keep those stories alive? Would they have been able to keep

01:15:08.000 the light going? They wouldn't have without people within the FBI who, you know, case agents who I'm told

01:15:14.320 from one source, um, that there are, the reason people haven't been charged in the Capitol, um, event

01:15:20.480 on January 6th with insurrection yet is that there are case agents who are having real issues with what

01:15:26.220 they're trying to do, who don't see the evidence there. And, uh, and that's one reason that this is

01:15:31.520 being held up. Now, um, that's a very difficult thing to verify and confirm. My source is, is solid on

01:15:39.540 that. Um, however, you know, going to the FBI, can you imagine they're not going to confirm that?

01:15:44.820 And, you know, you know, the stranglehold, what they're trying to do is to create such fear and

01:15:50.060 intimidation and make it so costly for anyone to speak up that all of us self-censor, that journalists

01:15:56.880 self-censor, that scientists who know, you know, that what they're pushing on the climate, um, where it's

01:16:02.600 nonsense and where it's valid, that they, they just stay quiet, that no scientist ever asked for a

01:16:07.940 grant to challenge, you know, some of these assumptions on global warming that no, um, you

01:16:13.140 know, scientists ever asked for a grant to challenge the studies on, on COVID or mask wearing or the

01:16:19.220 vaccine, you know, that everything. The self-censorship is really the, the ultimate goal

01:16:24.240 and they're, and they're achieving it. It's funny because after, um, I had my terrible end at NBC,

01:16:30.480 a very well-known person who, uh, his name, I will keep silent for now, but she's awesome. And I love

01:16:36.260 her. And she texted me the following, your only problem is that you're a little too honest and

01:16:42.180 that is not allowed or rewarded. If what you're going to be honest about doesn't align with the

01:16:47.080 Democrat causes, um, or their new narratives, you know, whatever the narratives are. And I,

01:16:52.680 I think that's really, you had committed the sin of honest reporting on Benghazi when it comes to

01:16:59.860 Al Qaeda. That was really what they're upset about. It wasn't that guy's story. It was about the substance

01:17:05.460 of course of the piece for understanding that. Oh, I can see it the same way you could see what

01:17:12.080 was happening to me. I could see it clear as day and your CBS colleagues. It wasn't just the rest of

01:17:17.420 the mainstream media, CBS colleagues internally took the knives out and plunged when you were down.

01:17:23.860 Now I wouldn't know what that is like. Not, not at all, but I was thinking about it and I thought,

01:17:32.640 Hmm, I think they may have seized the opportunity to achieve a preexisting goal. I, I would imagine

01:17:38.700 that that would make a person, a journalist, a female journalist in your position feel incredibly

01:17:43.140 rageful and betrayed. I would imagine you had numerous negative stories, uh, that you could have

01:17:49.180 unleashed on your colleagues, colleagues, but had the dignity not to do it. Right. I would,

01:17:53.340 I would imagine that the network does its level best to portray all of these stars that you worked

01:17:58.840 with as, as squeaky clean, beloved journalists, you know, tough, but likable, but perhaps behind the

01:18:04.640 scene, they were backstabbing petty, fragile middle schoolers. And I would imagine all of that

01:18:09.340 because I did read some reporting saying people like, uh, Steve Croft came, went in there and officially

01:18:15.620 stuck a knife in you morally safer demanded that you get fired. By the way, Steve Croft went in there

01:18:19.660 as the moral arbiter of 60 minutes. Same guy who was having an affair with a woman 20 years younger

01:18:23.600 than he was exchanging filthy sex messages about jerking off and wanting to 69 with her and all of

01:18:29.860 his favorite tastes on her body. He thought you were inappropriate. Well, I mean, Steve Croft,

01:18:37.080 the list of producers that had, um, that had, you know, uh, begged not to ever have to work with him

01:18:42.860 again was long. Um, he was notorious, uh, for the way he treated people. Um, you can ask anyone there

01:18:50.300 who's honest. And I, I will say that, you know, I had, uh, there was some truly great people that I

01:18:57.340 worked with there. I really loved, um, my team and I loved, uh, my bosses. And even though it was

01:19:04.640 brutally hard, you know, we just kept our heads down and the work itself was so demanding and so

01:19:11.340 all consuming to get it right and to do it right. That I never really paid much attention to any of

01:19:17.440 that. I spent most of my time out in the field and, uh, most of my, that's what winners do.

01:19:23.140 That's what winners do. They focus on their own game. Well, and, and, and also because I just wanted

01:19:28.340 to get it right. I wanted to live up to the legacy of that show, you know, and, um, of Mike and Morley

01:19:34.500 and all these like great journalists and then defined, you know, that, that they were some of

01:19:39.880 them, Bob Simon, you left out of that list of people who really stuck the knives in. Um, you

01:19:45.900 know, the thing is Megan, honestly, it took me a long time to get here, but I can tell you they did

01:19:51.440 me a favor. They really and truly did me a favor because I was in a bubble. I had no idea what it was

01:19:57.820 like, um, to be outside of that. You know, we all had shared the same worldview, which is, you can call

01:20:05.500 it Democrat if you want. It's really a kind of leftist worldview. And I didn't realize that my

01:20:10.580 boss said to me afterwards, when, you know, when I spoke up and when I was asked about bias and I,

01:20:15.840 I spoke up honestly on, um, Mike Rutland's podcast, Mike drop, um, and said, you know, most journalists

01:20:22.220 are liberal. I didn't think that that was a headline. I mean, to me, that wasn't even a blip,

01:20:27.400 right? I wasn't even answering the question at that point. And yet that went viral all over the

01:20:32.680 world. And, um, and my boss wrote to me after that and he said, you know, my single greatest

01:20:38.340 achievement running that show was making us aware of our own bias. And it was underappreciated by

01:20:44.620 everyone except the audience. And, uh, that was, you know, yes, that was, that was Fager who said that.

01:20:51.740 And, you know, I know he got forced out, um, you know, in a, in another dramatic way, but I can tell

01:20:57.280 you for, for me, from my point of view, this is not because I was, uh, Fager's darling as they tried

01:21:02.520 to make out. I mean, he was brutally hard on me. And after the hit pieces that, that painted, you know,

01:21:08.600 him that way, he was even harder because he wanted to prove to everyone it wasn't true. So I'm not saying

01:21:13.920 that because, uh, you know, I'm some sort of sycophant. I'm saying it because, um, think about it,

01:21:19.540 you know, if you can, if you can bring down 60 minutes and you can make them self-censor and

01:21:24.260 kowtow to you, you've taken out one of the most powerful voices in real journalism and they've

01:21:29.660 succeeded. I have nothing but gratitude for my years at that show. It's some of the best work

01:21:35.660 that I've done and I'm so proud of it. And I really do appreciate, um, the, the extraordinary

01:21:41.640 talented people that I worked with there, many of whom are like family to me. Um, but I have to say

01:21:47.600 now I'm, you know, I, I really couldn't hold my head high and say that I honestly, um, am, am doing

01:21:56.040 and standing up for the principles that I believe in and for the truth. Um, when you're putting out

01:22:02.260 things, um, of that caliber and people will say, Oh my gosh, well, you're on Fox looks what they're

01:22:07.640 putting out. And, you know, I don't control everybody else. I don't, but I have, I have a show

01:22:13.940 where I just, I do the same thing. I keep my head down and I do my very best to do the show

01:22:19.560 is called Laura Logan has no agenda, which I love. And by the way, just in, in terms of Fox,

01:22:24.740 yes, they do have some partisan hosts who, who have, you know, their own worldview, but I will say

01:22:29.980 Fox will put on both sides. Fox, some shows are better at it than others. You know, some shows will

01:22:37.040 put up sort of a democratic, you know, I don't know, straw man, but a lot of them will put up a real,

01:22:42.260 a smart left leaning person to have meaningful arguments. I certainly did that when I was there

01:22:47.700 and I just don't see that. I mean, you look at the post debate coverage on the other networks,

01:22:52.600 CNN, MSNBC, they don't even bother putting a Republican on data. They don't want you to hear

01:22:57.020 the other worldview. So the Fox is that they do the best of anybody when it comes to that. And

01:23:03.400 you're right. 60 minutes today is an embarrassment of its former self. I, the Leslie Stahl interview with

01:23:10.120 Trump, the hippies on DeSantis. Those are, those are just a couple of examples. Did, did she,

01:23:15.920 by the way, did she stand by, did anybody stand by you or stand up for you?

01:23:20.600 Um, not publicly. No, they really didn't. Um, you know, they all, uh, ran like rats, um, off the ship.

01:23:30.180 And, you know, I stayed at 60 minutes for years after that, because believe me, you know, if they

01:23:34.960 could have found if one single thing they reported was actually true and I had, um, and I had been,

01:23:41.280 you know, uh, biased and, and had, uh, manipulated things knowingly or, you know, all the other things

01:23:47.280 that they wrote, um, they would have fired me. If CBS had had cause, I have no doubt with David Rhodes

01:23:53.700 at the helm there that they would have fired me, um, on the spot. But, um, but it really wasn't true.

01:24:00.620 You know, we really didn't have a political agenda. If anything, our biggest crime was being

01:24:05.240 completely naive about the politics of the moment. I had just never been a political reporter and I

01:24:10.840 don't look at the world in political terms. I don't, I really don't have a political bone in my body.

01:24:16.080 So, um, that was the part that I underestimated completely because I was so focused on the

01:24:21.080 Al Qaeda reporting and on getting that right. Um, but, you know, and I would say about Fox, I just,

01:24:28.200 I do want to say that, you know, I have been, uh, I have been under pressure and questioned and

01:24:33.260 criticized for, for example, being a guest on Hannity's show. And my response to them is, you

01:24:38.200 know, um, if what Hannity was reporting was, was a lie, if it was factually incorrect, if he was saying

01:24:45.380 that Trump, um, was a Russian spy and a traitor and, you know, and working for Putin and he was putting

01:24:51.680 people on his show saying that kind of thing, then I wouldn't be on his show. The reason that I,

01:24:56.980 that I go on his show or Tucker's show or Laura's show, you know, all these shows that drive the

01:25:02.580 left crazy is that I don't hear them reporting things that they know are completely untrue the

01:25:09.120 way they do on CNN and MSNBC and others. And that's my real issue is that if you're reporting

01:25:15.580 stuff that you know is not true, then you are being fundamentally dishonest just because you report

01:25:20.840 things, your opinion, people don't like, or they don't agree with it. That's, you know, that's your

01:25:25.720 opinion. And what people forget about Fox is that Roger Ailes created it because there was no, um,

01:25:33.920 conservative opinion on any of these other programs. Not one channel. Right. And so the left

01:25:39.920 had total information dominance and, you know, without Fox in the television realm that until

01:25:45.840 you had OAN and, you know, Newsmax come up, they really still do. Right. Because now what they've

01:25:51.200 successfully done is now, okay, now there's a Fox, but they say, well, it's not credible.

01:25:55.560 So before there was no Fox, there was nowhere in television. Now there is somewhere in television,

01:26:00.280 but if you go on it, you're a threat to democracy. So you see how the strategy has evolved. So, you

01:26:05.360 know, in a sense, you could say, why should Fox, um, have to, you know, put people on, um, and give

01:26:11.600 both sides? Because really the idea behind Fox that Roger Ailes had was to create a place where you

01:26:17.580 could hear these opinions because you weren't hearing them anywhere else. And I'm not advocating

01:26:21.300 for or against that. I'm just saying there is a reason that Fox came to being in that form.

01:26:27.140 Oh, I mean, there's some of his closest friends were Democrats and it was Roger who made sure that

01:26:32.700 Bob Beckel, uh, got on the air because they went way back to their campaign running days. And Susan

01:26:38.340 Estrich, who is a lawyer and ultimately his lawyer, you know, before his downfall, uh, got on the air,

01:26:43.940 you know, Alan Combs, who we picked out of nowhere to go across from Hannity and was on the air and

01:26:49.000 worked there until the day he died. You know, Roger was deeply committed to having that. Now he,

01:26:54.840 he did not lean left in his politics, but he did not think that the audience would benefit by only

01:26:59.600 presenting one point of view. Now, wait, I'm going to, I'm going to take it back to you for a second.

01:27:04.680 Um, here's what I wanted to ask you about. Like, this is, this is really something I wanted to ask you

01:27:09.980 because I, again, going back to sort of being triggered and what was happening to you at CBS.

01:27:15.900 Was there a moment when this was happening? And, and I just, we don't have time to get into all

01:27:20.900 of it, but just, you had built your career so diligently. You had just blood, sweat, and tears

01:27:25.180 in the field, war zones at great risk to yourself. You had, by this point, Ben, forgive me. I know I've

01:27:32.600 heard you say it this way, so I'm going to say it this way, but Ben gang raped during the Arab spring.

01:27:36.980 Um, you had breast cancer the year before. I mean, you had been through a lot,

01:27:42.160 fucking stressful time. And then this happens with the Benghazi and the pile on. It's like a

01:27:48.600 different kind of pile on, you know, a different kind of assault. And I was just thinking about you

01:27:54.520 and your husband when it was going down and whether I confess, I, I had this experience of just

01:28:03.060 sleepless nights and not totally understanding what was happening. As you feel this thing that

01:28:09.440 you've worked so hard to build starting to crumble and no allies there to stand up for what's real and,

01:28:17.300 and who you really are. You know, this is the thing that got me through. I had the certainty of

01:28:24.640 knowing that we hadn't done any of the things that they accused us of. And it's not true that there

01:28:31.180 was no one in a sense, because my producer, Max McClellan was at my side. And we had the certainty

01:28:39.840 of knowing that no matter who spoke to us, you know, during the investigation and all the rest of

01:28:45.620 it, that we never had to worry about what we were going to say or what the other person was going to

01:28:52.060 say, because we had the absolute, absolute certainty that both of us would tell the truth.

01:28:57.460 And we knew the truth would align. And that's the benefit, right? I mean, my mother used to say a

01:29:03.480 lie has no legs. And the problem with people who tell lies, you see it happening all around, you see

01:29:08.940 it with Russia, you see it with Ukraine impeachment, they have to keep telling more lies to keep those

01:29:12.920 lies afloat. But but how extraordinary that Max and I never had one single argument, or one single

01:29:21.440 bad word to us or anything else. And when my boss at the time told me that I had to take a leave of

01:29:26.980 absence, he said, it's not a suspension. It's you're not being punished, he said, but if I don't do

01:29:32.660 something, they're going to, you know, they're they're never going to stop coming after us. So I need to

01:29:39.880 ask you to take a leave of absence. And my first thought was, and I said this to him, please, can it

01:29:46.020 just be me, not Max? Because I, I didn't want him to go through that. And that was a very difficult

01:29:55.540 moment for my boss. He just it took him a while before he could speak. And then he said, you know,

01:30:01.840 I knew you were going to say that. And, and that's, you know, that really is the spirit of it. And that's

01:30:10.100 really what what got me through. It's the injustice of the fact that you have to live with this lie out

01:30:15.040 there. And that you have all these journalists saying you didn't do your job. And not one of

01:30:18.860 them has done their job, right? Because they're all printing things that are complete and utter

01:30:22.940 nonsense. And not one of them has confirmed anything with the FBI, because the FBI to this day still

01:30:28.560 hasn't confirmed what they leaked off the record to the State Department who leaked off the record,

01:30:33.600 you know, to not off the record to the New York Times. And, and, yes, it is very hard on me personally,

01:30:41.080 you know, I ended up in hospital six times in eight months. I mean, there I was, I had been this,

01:30:47.220 you know, after I was attacked and sodomized and raped over and over and beaten and all of that,

01:30:55.580 you know, living through that, where I'd had such tremendous support, both from CBS and from the,

01:31:00.820 you know, our whole industry, so many people that I'm grateful to still, for all the support that they

01:31:07.060 gave me. And then to find you're completely and utterly on your own, you know, it's the day before

01:31:12.200 I'm flying to Liberia to the height of the Ebola epidemic. And I am at the doctor's office finding

01:31:18.880 out if, if my surgery is still intact, because I was having such trouble healing, that's the

01:31:26.400 hysterectomy I had to have after Egypt, you know, couldn't heal. And my organs ended up, you know,

01:31:32.480 all joining together and my bowel was halfway up my body and they had to be surgically separated.

01:31:38.000 So, you know, I'm going through all of this and I'm flying into Ebola at the height of the,

01:31:43.140 into Liberia, at the height of this terribly, absolutely terrifying epidemic. And nobody cares,

01:31:50.200 right? You just now, for the first time, have this feeling that it literally doesn't matter if you live

01:31:54.540 or die, leaving two small children at home, you know, and, and Max again at my side, you know,

01:32:00.580 this really extraordinary man and producer and the people on my team, the people, my true friends,

01:32:07.800 you know, some of them at 60 minutes, um, those outside, they all stood by me. And fortunately,

01:32:13.600 I've always been a person that has been very grounded, you know, and, um, and that got me

01:32:19.160 through too. I know who I am as, um, as a person, I know what I stand for. I know what I believe in.

01:32:25.000 And, uh, and it was torture. I mean, really, you know, it was torture, but, um, but it was one

01:32:33.060 worth fighting for me because I wasn't going to go quietly into the dark night.

01:32:38.820 Well, I wondered how you were able to talk about all this. Did CBS not make you sign a

01:32:44.180 nondisclosure or confidentiality or an NDA before you left?

01:32:47.100 Um, I did. Yes, they did make me, uh, sign that. Oh, whoops.

01:32:53.780 Oh, well, I, I mean, to me, that doesn't prevent me from talking about what, you know, what I, uh,

01:32:59.300 went through, right. I'm not talking about the minutia of what, you know, CBS, uh, the decisions

01:33:05.520 and things that were made. I mean, the NDA stuff, you know, I've, I've, uh, talked about that. I mean,

01:33:10.420 that's just a fact of what happened, um, without going into the details of, you know, all the decisions

01:33:16.280 Oh, I'm sure you can say a lot more. I'm sure you can say a lot more. Let me talk about this. So

01:33:20.740 part of what is so irritating about the people sticking the knife in is how sanctimonious they

01:33:25.640 are. It applies in your case, in my case, and in general, as we've been discussing, right. It's

01:33:29.960 like Joy Reid's going to lecture all of us on, on racism. And meanwhile, her racism is on display

01:33:34.860 every night, right? She's never, I'll just give you a couple just, just, just cause I wrote it down

01:33:38.800 earlier. Republicans would trade all the tax cuts in the world just to be able to say the N word.

01:33:42.240 Sure. Sure. Okay. Um, that red States only care about black people and minorities if they make

01:33:48.300 their stakes, otherwise they can die that she calls Clarence Thomas, uncle Clarence. She called

01:33:53.480 Tim Scott, a token who's just offered for the patina of diversity. And at NBC, what's clear is

01:33:58.460 that it's fine to say racist things, um, even about black people, certainly about white people,

01:34:02.620 but even about black people, just as long as they're Republicans. Um, so anyway, so, but part of what

01:34:08.080 the overall problem here and the irritation is how awful these sanctimonious judging people are.

01:34:15.880 And that brings me to Joe effing Hagen. I listened to your interview with Glenn Beck and it was a

01:34:22.680 great interview by the way. Um, classic Glenn. I love the way he asked questions. I love the gun. He

01:34:27.460 has every question from Glenn is like, it sounds like it's the most profound question ever asked.

01:34:32.280 Isn't it? He loves his style and I love him. But so it was a great hour and a half if people have

01:34:39.220 time after this three hours, but he, he mentioned it, but I, I really want to ask you about it because

01:34:46.060 I was like, okay, I know this was a thing. He wrote this when you were down, but not out at CVS,

01:34:50.240 CVS, you, you had issued the report, but they had not really turfed you out. And, um, you wound up

01:34:56.340 filing a lawsuit over this and it went on and I was like 30 pages. I, I, it was, it was the longest,

01:35:02.600 most in-depth infuriating hit piece. I think I've read. And that says a lot cause I've read a lot of

01:35:07.220 them. So this guy came after you. I'm, I think he's that my opinion is this man is secretly in

01:35:15.180 love with you because no one could work up this much animosity over somebody unless there's something

01:35:21.060 underlying. And I'm just going to give people a cup. So this guy who's clearly trying to get you

01:35:26.160 fired. I'm just going to give a couple of samples. So the audience understands the piece is titled

01:35:31.440 Benghazi and the bombshell. Um, this just going to pull some randoms for 60 minutes. Logan delivered

01:35:38.500 the kind of muscular reports that inoculated CBS against charges of a leftist agenda. That's your

01:35:43.500 real sin. He says it right up front. She also happened to have a telegenic sexual charisma,

01:35:48.180 a highly useful attribute for a woman who wants to succeed in TV journalism. He, her father cheated

01:35:53.700 on her mother. He treated his daughter, Laura, like a princess. She told a friend, I'll always

01:35:59.100 be a princess. I call bullshit. Um, she got her college degree. Of course it's not. It's so

01:36:04.500 obviously a fucking lie. Her father, uh, her, she got her college degree in South Africa while working

01:36:09.080 part-time as a newspaper reporter and also earning money as a swimsuit model. Thanks for telling us that.

01:36:14.640 I appreciate that. Hey, you know, that was important to my understanding of who she is.

01:36:17.640 Um, she was eclipsed by Amanpour covering the Balkans, uh, who Logan believed purposely

01:36:23.580 stifled her chances from the start. She had two qualities that seemed right. Just goes out and

01:36:29.600 pitting the women against each other. That's part of it too. From the start, she had two qualities

01:36:33.200 that seemed to mix profitably if uneasily exceptional courage. And of course her looks

01:36:39.360 while in London, she'd become a local sensation when the tabloids published swimsuit pictures of her

01:36:43.840 and dubbed her 34d Lara. Okay. I'm ready to punch you in your fat face, Joe Hagan. Okay. Here we go.

01:36:50.900 There would be a time in Logan's career, uh, when her beauty cut both ways, she deployed it to charm

01:36:58.300 and persuade colleagues and sources to great effect. You're going to have to walk me through how that is

01:37:02.240 on how the one's beauty is deployed. Okay. There was eventually a bidding war for her. Um, here she

01:37:10.020 was a captivating beauty with a smoldering presence in the war zone. Joe, put it back in your pants. I

01:37:16.340 understand you're a married man. You're making, you're creeping me out now. Now you're just getting

01:37:19.820 creepy. Um, when she first got to 60 minutes, this is classic. She was quote, considered difficult

01:37:26.280 by some producers. Oh my God. I don't know how many times they say this about women in our industry.

01:37:31.100 Um, then here's another piece. She was not shy about letting people know she had a direct line

01:37:34.440 to the boss. She was fond of saying I could end your career with a phone call. That is an obvious

01:37:38.780 lie. This shit is printed about strong feet. That's I know it's a lie. You don't have to say

01:37:42.920 I know it's a lie. I know it's so painful that that's so annoying. I know it's so annoying,

01:37:48.220 right? You're a diva to your point earlier. You're difficult. I never made a single phone call.

01:37:52.400 Of course you didn't. Well, like I know it and I can see the lies. The problem is not everybody

01:37:57.420 can see it. And a lot of people want to want to want to believe it. And then, and then the ultimate

01:38:03.280 taking the gang rape that happened to you in, in the midst of your Arab spring reporting and

01:38:10.460 describing it as follows. This guy is a misogynistic prick quote. Logan said she was separated from her

01:38:17.900 handlers and then assaulted by a mob of men who ripped off her clothes and groped her.

01:38:25.980 Groped. So I'd love to get your reaction. Of course not. You were, as you've said, you would,

01:38:32.340 you would already revealed you had been gang raped. You'd been sodomized. And this guy,

01:38:36.760 after saying all that other shit, has the nerve to describe it like that. And he is still out there

01:38:42.620 right now. He's reporting for vanity fair and has never apologized for this nonsense.

01:38:47.000 You know, I'm so glad that you asked me about this because I will tell you that I, you know,

01:38:51.840 I don't, the other stuff, um, is one thing, but the part that, uh, was really hard for me to live with

01:39:00.720 was him, uh, deliberately reducing what happened to be in Egypt to being groped a it's inaccurate,

01:39:08.700 right? It's not true. It's factually incorrect. And there's plenty of evidence and reporting out

01:39:13.320 there, including my own words on 60 minutes, um, to show that that was not true. So that was a

01:39:19.260 deliberate, conscious, intentional choice, right? Because there's no way that you were reported that

01:39:24.420 way if you did your homework. And, um, and this is a very detailed piece and it's very long. So there's

01:39:30.300 no way that that was a mistake. Um, and secondly, you know, this is something that happens to victims of

01:39:37.320 rape, um, and sexual assault all the time, right? Where people deny what has happened to them.

01:39:43.200 And you realize that, you know, when your leg is blown off or, you know, you get shot and,

01:39:47.660 you know, like Dan Crenshaw has got a missing eye, right? You can see that wound. It's there. No one

01:39:52.180 disputes it, but with sexual violence and rape and sodomy, these things, you know, the, the, the,

01:39:59.800 the wounds and the scars are invisible to the outside world. And so to take that away from someone

01:40:06.240 is a, is about the epitome of evil. It doesn't get more evil than that. And you know, what it's,

01:40:13.020 what it speaks to me about the way that this article was constructed, it has always struck me

01:40:17.560 that this was the second tier. If you, you'll notice this as a pattern in people who've been

01:40:22.460 attacked, right? There's the flurry of reporting, you know, all the sharks at the feeding frenzy

01:40:26.780 with the knives, a two Brute, right? I mean, it's like Caesar being stabbed. And, um, and then

01:40:32.760 comes the second tier follow-up hit piece to make sure that they finish you off. If the first flurry,

01:40:40.040 if you, if you weren't, you know, um, gone then, if they didn't succeed in getting you fired and

01:40:44.260 destroyed and canceled and never breathing, then they come with the second tier. And, you know,

01:40:49.680 CBS and my boss had indicated that I would be coming back and I was only on leave. I was still being

01:40:55.040 paid and, you know, I wasn't suspended, um, in spite of the reporting. And, um, and so they made

01:41:01.240 sure, um, that they were going to, uh, to end my career. And I know this because one of the,

01:41:07.900 one of the CBS producers who was a source for this actually told somebody that I know, um, that I would

01:41:14.340 never work again after this piece came out and it would be the end of my CBS career. Those were the

01:41:19.280 two things, um, that I heard. So I knew before the piece came out that that's what was the objective.

01:41:24.300 And I heard from other reporters, um, they're doing a hit piece on you. Uh, and this is, you

01:41:29.580 know, this is people who some of them weren't even my friends. I didn't even know some of them,

01:41:34.260 but they were telling other friends of mine, Hey, I was contacted by this guy. Let, you know,

01:41:37.940 let your friend know that this is coming out and this is the objective. And what that speaks to really

01:41:42.740 is if you look at New York magazine as a whole, I mean, Joe Hagan loves to do hit pieces. He's done,

01:41:48.500 he had done a lot of them before the piece on me, but the only piece he had done that wasn't a hit

01:41:53.300 piece. That was a, thank you. Thank you. Exactly. I mean, that's why, you know, that's why I have so

01:42:00.420 much respect for you, Megan. You know, you do, you really are, um, thorough and you do your homework

01:42:05.220 and you are, you know, you have that legal mind, those skills that you bring to it. And that's very

01:42:10.300 impressive because, um, nobody, you know, puts those pieces together. And it is absolutely true.

01:42:16.140 He had done a glowing piece about her, that it was her destiny to be a president of the United States.

01:42:21.900 Right. And so we were all supposed to just expect, accept it and go along with it because it was

01:42:26.380 destiny. And, um, and people like Joe Hagan, they operate as, um, as political operatives,

01:42:33.360 not as journalists and as assassins, right. They're, they're going out there to destroy you.

01:42:38.240 And what he did so, you know, slyly in that piece was to bring in Les Moonves, um, who had had no part

01:42:45.900 in any of this, who I didn't have any relationship with other than having, um, said hello to him for

01:42:51.580 a few awkward seconds at the occasional Christmas party. And he ran all of CBS just so that for the

01:42:56.820 audience, Fager ran 60 minutes and Moonves ran all of CBS. Right. And this article completely and

01:43:04.040 utterly, uh, 100% false made up things and made up a relationship between me and Moonves,

01:43:10.360 made up quotes and things that I never said, made up things about my past. My father never called

01:43:14.880 me a princess and what he's talking about. In fact, my father was the opposite. I'm such a tomboy

01:43:19.380 because my father raised us that way. He wanted us out in the bush.

01:43:23.480 Can I just interject here? Here's what they do. They find any loser who's got an ax to grind with

01:43:29.380 you and they will put their allegations in print because the whole article is replete with blind

01:43:34.480 quotes, right? Blind quotes. He won't attribute it or attribute it to anybody. And, and you can see

01:43:39.500 what he's doing with his poison pen, trying to, you're a diva, you're a prince. I mean, no woman would

01:43:44.600 ever talk about like, and the, of course, to your point, the only person he loves more than you is

01:43:50.300 Hillary. And now maybe Beto, cause he also wrote the glowing profile on him. Um, but yeah, so, so

01:43:56.360 the blind quotes are used in a way that is journalistically unfair and deeply unsound.

01:44:04.100 Precisely. And, and of course they're anonymous to hide the motivation, right? And because people,

01:44:09.600 because people saying these things that aren't true, they don't want their name attached to it.

01:44:13.980 And so, you know, that's where you get to a real misuse of anonymity, right? I always tell people

01:44:18.540 that we source things so that people can assess motive, you know, because you want to give them

01:44:24.180 that information so that they can make, they can listen to your reporting. They can watch it and

01:44:28.620 they can make up their own minds. That was sort of the guiding principle and standard. I thought for the

01:44:33.600 whole industry, you know, obviously not talking about tabloids and, you know, and other kinds of

01:44:38.080 journalism and reporting, but, but these people like Hagen, you know, they wield anonymity as a

01:44:43.740 weapon, right. For a, for a propaganda piece that is designed to destroy you and to make you

01:44:50.020 unemployable. And that's why, you know, you're standing up after what happened to you and having

01:44:55.760 your own show is so important. And that's why it's a real source of strength to people like me.

01:45:01.340 And, you know, for all those young reporters out there, you know, who look at this and think,

01:45:05.280 well, you know, it's never going to happen to them, or I'm so glad that's not me.

01:45:09.300 One day you'll find that you'll be turning to us. If we allow these tactics to continue,

01:45:14.740 if people, you know, look at, look at politics and they don't look at principle, that's what you're in,

01:45:21.060 what you're really sanctioning is truly evil people who get paid a lot of money and have a lot of

01:45:27.700 resources to take us down one by one with negative things. You know, look, now they're going after

01:45:33.200 these young reporters that were reporting on Antifa over the summer. You know, great people.

01:45:38.860 Totally unfair.

01:45:40.180 Yes. Like Richie McGinnis and Drew Hernandez and Shelby Talcott. Yes. And I mean, there's Kyle.

01:45:47.920 There's, there's a bunch of them, right. Who did really amazing work. They don't get paid a whole

01:45:52.580 lot. They risk their lives and they get tortured for it. You know, Twitter is fine with people saying

01:45:58.320 murder Andy, no, you know, or over their accounts. And Andy knows another one. He'll never be anointed

01:46:05.000 by the journalist establishment because, you know, he started out with the wrong narrative. Right.

01:46:10.060 And so we, we are an example to people that these tactics don't work because I can go and get,

01:46:18.660 you know, to a speaking venue and fill a venue with 2000 people in a heartbeat. Why? Because people see

01:46:25.100 through the tactics. They see through these patterns. They know what the truth is that,

01:46:29.820 you know, and when, when Joe Hagan did that in New York magazine, when he tried to reduce rape to being

01:46:35.800 groped, what he was trying to do was to take away the one thing that made me sympathetic to both Democrats

01:46:42.800 and Republicans. That one moment where, yeah, it was, it was a political decision. It was intentional.

01:46:48.840 It wasn't a mistake. It was designed to make me a less sympathetic figure. Um, because in that one

01:46:55.560 moment, Americans got to see who I was and what I was made of and nobody can take that away. Right.

01:47:03.600 You can't make that, you can't unmake that. And, and that's why I'm still breathing and I'm still

01:47:09.140 going. And that's why people, you know, still want to watch my work and want to talk to me. And it's the

01:47:14.720 same thing with you. They can say what they like about you, but you're not racist, you know, and

01:47:19.360 that's just the fact. And, um, and all these fake constructs that they put in here in the end,

01:47:25.600 they're building, you know, a house of cards that is going to come crashing down, you know, but a lot

01:47:32.000 of people are paying the price in the meantime. And so I urge people, you know, whatever it is that

01:47:36.600 you can do, stand up to it. Don't let them take everything from you.

01:47:41.040 And when it's happening to you, you don't know that there could be life on the other side,

01:47:47.700 you know, professional life on the other side, you know, this, this industry in particular is

01:47:54.460 very good at taking, and I will say in particular, a strong woman's mistakes or even alleged mistakes

01:48:02.080 and gleefully using them to ruin her. And I've said before, it is a very thin read upon which

01:48:09.540 powerful women dance in particular in media. And if you add in a perceived or real right-leaning bias,

01:48:19.480 you are totally effed. And that can be true in virtually any industry right now, because it is

01:48:25.300 considered deplorable, right? To, to be anything other than hard left. And it's, it's part of what

01:48:30.760 is appealing about seeing the mass come down so heartily on media, right? The part of what is

01:48:36.420 appealing about figuring out why somebody like Joy Reid is allowed on an, on an NBC property.

01:48:43.180 But I am not, I have not said anything racist. I have not said anything racist. And yet I don't

01:48:49.500 have my job there anymore. You know, Rachel Maddow, who completely botched the Russia reporting on

01:48:54.440 Trump, lied to her audience night after night. She's still there. Don Lemon, for that matter,

01:48:59.040 who is credibly accused of shoving his hands down his own pants, fondling his balls and his genitalia

01:49:04.480 and rubbing them all over some poor guy's face in a bar. And there's an independent eyewitness to

01:49:09.460 talk about it. He still got his job, right? Like how, how is that possible? Yes. No, I mean,

01:49:14.800 I could go on, right? But it's, it, it, it does, I think in the end land in a good place because

01:49:21.300 Don Lemon's exactly where he belongs. He, he's, he's going to have a long and successful career at CNN.

01:49:27.180 And that's exactly where he belongs. Same for Joy Reid, same for Rachel Maddow and same for you.

01:49:33.020 And for me, I mean, we've gotten out, Laura Logan has no agenda. I love it. Neither do I. And now

01:49:38.680 we've gotten to a place where Fox nation doesn't control you. You've got your own thing going on

01:49:43.460 and they'll air it, but you, you do your produce, you're producing your, your reporting same here.

01:49:49.120 So it lands if you're, if you're at all resilient and that opens up a whole other lane, right? Like how do

01:49:54.800 you get resilient, take punches in the face, get back up, repeat, lather, rinse, repeat over and

01:50:00.700 over. But if you're resilient and you make it through, you can land in a better place. You,

01:50:05.260 you shouldn't be at CBS. You shouldn't be at the 60 minutes doing the hit pieces on DeSantis. And I

01:50:09.940 certainly shouldn't be at NBC news doing fluff in the mornings, right? It was, it took these steps in

01:50:16.280 life to realize that and wind up in a place where hopefully you wind up a bit healthier or at least

01:50:22.660 if not healthier. I think I'm healthier than I've been in years, but certainly wiser.

01:50:26.220 I'm definitely older and fatter. But you know, for me, I think what it's given me is, is the ability

01:50:36.160 to step back and look at the bigger picture. Because if you've only been on one side of the argument,

01:50:42.700 it's, if you haven't lived on both sides, it's really hard to understand it enough to figure it

01:50:49.460 out and to share that in a way that means something. And we're in a fight for our lives

01:50:55.460 right now. I mean, we have never been in such a bad place, you know, not just in terms of the media,

01:51:01.960 but in terms of so many other things that are happening all around us. I mean, our children

01:51:06.920 are being taught that being born white is a, is an evil, evil sin and a crime for which they have to

01:51:14.540 atone for the rest of their existence. I mean, that is, you know, I, I just, when I think of

01:51:20.820 the Nelson Mandela that I grew up lucky enough to grow up in his time and lucky enough to know and

01:51:27.760 lucky enough to have lived through that transition in South Africa, where really what Mandela was all

01:51:35.020 about was forgiveness and unity of people, right? You don't hear Mandela's name in the critical race

01:51:41.660 theory conversation because the man who did, you know, things that no one else had ever done. I

01:51:47.420 mean, brought a country from one political system to another through a peaceful revolution without

01:51:52.860 burning down, you know, the, the entire nation. I mean, it's just extraordinary. There was no one

01:51:58.660 like Mandela. I mean, he's one of the greats of all time. And yet his name is left out because he was

01:52:04.100 about unity. He was about not being racist. And what is happening today isn't about not being racist.

01:52:10.380 It's not about justice or anything else. And so I, you know, I see what is happening with the media

01:52:16.840 in this biggest sense of what is happening all across our society. And I realized that, you know,

01:52:23.640 the ones that are going to be left standing are the voices that stay true to principle, because

01:52:29.060 in the end, it's only the principles that are left standing. Right. And so, and so, you know, I,

01:52:35.620 I, I don't think I would have ever really been able to understand that if I hadn't lived through

01:52:42.900 it. And that's why I feel I'm getting to that point where I'm actually grateful that it happened

01:52:47.560 to me. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's an extraordinary statement. I, I, I guess I am too. I certainly am

01:52:55.260 glad to be out of there. You know, I've said before, when you're dying death by a thousand cuts,

01:52:59.380 the machete is a, is a mercy. And that's, don't get me wrong. It took a long time and I plotted,

01:53:06.360 well, I plotted many deaths in the hours of the night. Well, so this is a weird question. Will

01:53:12.880 you forgive me this question? This is such a weird question, but I have to ask it. It's fine. Ask me

01:53:17.560 anything. Which would you say like had a deeper effect on you? Which was more traumatic? What happened

01:53:24.020 to you in Tahrir Square or what happened to you back here, you know, with, with your career and

01:53:31.620 your job and CBS and the knives? It's a very good question because in Tahrir Square, without a doubt,

01:53:40.760 those were the worst moments that anyone can live through. You know, um, I mean,

01:53:50.020 being sodomized by a mob, uh, is on my top, uh, three, right. Um, and the terrible fear that I lived

01:54:00.840 through, um, being raped with flagpoles and, uh, sticks and, you know, and the indignity, um, of that

01:54:09.260 and the sheer terror of, uh, realizing that you're dying. Um, and then having a moment, you know,

01:54:18.680 maybe you can live and, but you're still within the grasp of the mob. And that was the worst fear

01:54:24.380 I've ever experienced. And I, I don't want to, for one single moment, give people the impression

01:54:31.060 that it hasn't been, um, a searing wound, uh, that I had to heal and figure out how to live with. Um,

01:54:43.180 but I was, you know, truly lucky enough to have been raised by an extraordinary woman and, um, my father

01:54:51.500 too extraordinary, but my mother just was such a, uh, a powerful force for what is real and what is not

01:54:57.460 in a person's life. And I, uh, was lucky enough to know from the first moment that, uh, this was never

01:55:05.180 about me. And these people, um, were truly, uh, evil and evil exists everywhere. And, um, I never had

01:55:14.280 even a single moment of anger or an expectation of justice. I really didn't care about them. Um, I care

01:55:22.700 about it not happening to other people, but I really didn't care about them. And, um, and I made a decision

01:55:28.540 from the very first moment that this was never going to be my dirty little secret to carry in shame.

01:55:34.460 This was not my burden. I, I was, I had absolute clarity, um, in that. And, um, and I made a very

01:55:42.800 easy decision, um, that I wasn't going to give them more than they'd taken from me. I learned this

01:55:49.900 from a rape victim in South Africa years before who said at her trial of the men who raped her and

01:55:55.880 disemboweled her and slit her throat. She said, um, when the judge asked her how she could be so strong,

01:56:00.860 she said, they took so much from me that night. Why would it give them the rest of my life as well?

01:56:05.320 And that was, you know, such a powerful force for me that I, I held onto that. And I realized that,

01:56:11.960 you know, with that, you're not a victim because you decide what you give them. And sometimes they,

01:56:17.320 you know, sometimes they've taken more from me than I would like in, in my, um, in my memories and

01:56:23.160 my ability to, uh, to deal with this, but you don't have to erase it to heal for me. I didn't

01:56:30.520 have to get rid of it. I didn't have to pretend it didn't happen. I just had to find a way to live

01:56:34.880 with it. And I did because I have, uh, children. And for me, life is for living and I had so much

01:56:40.860 to live for. So whereas with what happened to me with Benghazi, I mean, I am a person who was

01:56:46.660 literally born to stand against injustice. That has been my defining DNA from my first breaths.

01:56:53.520 That's just how I'm built. And so to live with all these lies about Benghazi, to have reporters

01:56:59.180 like Nancy Youssef from McClatchy, um, write a whole hit piece to say that at the very end of our

01:57:05.320 piece where we had a page from Chris Stevens's, um, schedule that day that was still lying in the

01:57:09.980 rubble. And she said that the, the building had been renovated and everything had been cleaned up and

01:57:14.420 planted this. And it was total lie. I mean, you know, this moron, right. Hadn't even been there

01:57:20.320 herself. There were three buildings and only one was renovated. And it wasn't the one where Chris

01:57:24.840 Stevens lived. She didn't even know that. And everything she printed was a lie. That was another

01:57:29.240 hit piece, you know, that came out and one after another, after another, these reporters just printed

01:57:34.100 stuff, people standing in judgment of you who haven't even done four and a half seconds of journalism,

01:57:38.560 you know, and knowing that these political operatives that did this hit piece, David Brock got to do a

01:57:43.520 glowing profile, um, in the New York times celebrating how he'd taken me down and how he

01:57:49.120 was going to do it to more reporters. Disgusting man. Disgusting man. Disgusting man to know that

01:57:54.900 they get this, uh, victory and that I couldn't fight for myself and that I couldn't, um, you know,

01:58:01.400 I mean, I had to fight all those natural instincts and, um, and that was extremely frustrating. And if you

01:58:07.580 look at all the things that happened since, and all the things that have happened because of it,

01:58:11.660 um, it has had, you know, in, in many respects a much more profound impact on my life, uh, because

01:58:19.140 I have been, uh, people have tried to define me by that and falsely define me by that and push me

01:58:25.880 into a political box that, that I don't belong in. Um, and you know, there's, you know, I used to get

01:58:32.000 asked to go to speak at colleges all the time. There was, you know, colleges all over America. It was

01:58:36.740 constant. I couldn't even do all the requests, you know, and now colleges, because they're so, um,

01:58:42.320 indoctrinated and, uh, infiltrated and completely taken over, um, almost by, um, you know, this very

01:58:49.480 radical, uh, progressive ideology. Um, they, you know, they don't want to hear, um, from me anymore.

01:58:57.820 Right. And so there's many different ways in which it's impacted me, um, and had, uh, a much more

01:59:04.520 damaging effect on many aspects of my life because in a sense, I have to live with a lie. I have to

01:59:10.300 live with a lie that I didn't do my job. I have to live with a lie that I'm some kind of right-wing

01:59:14.720 person. You know, I have to live with a lie that I allowed politics to, uh, interfere with a story.

01:59:20.520 And, um, and I'm, and, you know, people like you and I were held to a completely different standard

01:59:24.820 to, um, these people who can come out and say all kinds of things. I mean, how do they get to say

01:59:30.160 that Donald Trump is a, is a Russian spy? And how does Brian Williams still have a job?

01:59:35.560 Like we're going to talk about a lie. I know I have no idea. Like it's insane. It's really

01:59:43.040 insane. But I love, I love that line. I wrote it down and I'm going to, I have a little piece

01:59:49.280 of paper next to my desk. And when I interviewed the guys, um, from the fifth column who are amazing

01:59:54.840 and have a great podcast and, and, uh, the line is be brave, call bullshit. It's just, I like pithy,

01:59:59.720 you know, inspirations. And I wrote down what you just said. I wasn't going to give them

02:00:05.300 more than they taken from me, man. That's easier said than done. I, I love that. It's that is an

02:00:13.000 ongoing struggle. I mean, I'll, I will confess to you in right after I left NBC, I was so unhappy.

02:00:20.780 I was so depressed. It was, and I'm not a depressed person. You know, I'm, I'm not one of those,

02:00:26.260 like, I say like Hoda and Savannah, they tell you like, they're, I'm a 10 out of 10 happy.

02:00:32.260 No, that's not me. Um, I'm fine, but I'm a serious person and I'm not running around like,

02:00:38.460 yay. Um, one of the reasons why my stint there didn't work out, but I was depressed. There's

02:00:44.060 no question. And my therapist at the time said, do you, do you want to consider an antidepressant?

02:00:49.020 And I was like, I can't do it. I, I won't let Andy Lack put me on antidepressants. I won't do it.

02:01:00.420 And I understand this is not to stigmatize antidepressants, which brought a lot of people.

02:01:04.700 I know a lot of relief. And, and by the way, my mom is a lifelong therapist and, you know,

02:01:08.760 would a hundred percent say if you need it and your doctor thinks you should have it, go for it. But

02:01:12.620 for me, it was the setup. It was NBC's not driving me to antidepressants. And it was,

02:01:19.900 it was under the heading you just gave me of, I wasn't going to give them more than they'd taken

02:01:25.100 from me. I felt like I had to pull myself out of that pit. I, I had to prove to myself

02:01:32.420 that I could do it, you know, and I ultimately did do it. And for me, it's just like a small

02:01:38.520 moral victory. And I'll just give you one other. I was, I was at yoga one night. I got into exercise

02:01:44.620 for once, once in my life, um, my adult life, actually, when I was younger, I was into it, but

02:01:49.100 I never went that far down.

02:01:51.740 Yeah, exactly. So I was at yoga and it was the night that the story broke about Justin Trudeau and

02:02:02.540 his innumerable instances with blackface. And those pictures came out of him wearing it.

02:02:08.520 And I knew of course that people had worn this in the past and it hadn't created a big deal,

02:02:12.620 which is what I said at NBC and then was excoriated for. Um, but like there it was like

02:02:17.420 somebody who's so well known in black and white, so to speak. And I went to yoga and for the first

02:02:24.180 time ever at an exercise class, I started crying, like tears just started rolling down my face.

02:02:31.680 And I was like, I'm getting upset to just think about like this, this has been a lie. You know,

02:02:37.200 this, this has been a lie. I, I have been gaslit and I, I try not never to admire myself in unfairness

02:02:44.400 is unfair. It's a bad thinking, you know, it leads to more bad things in your life. But for me,

02:02:49.240 it was like the first moment of a real breakthrough in like, this wasn't okay. What happened? And I am not

02:02:56.760 the villain they are portraying me as, you know, I didn't know that right from the beginning, the way

02:03:00.820 you did. And it's taken years, like literally now we're years past it for me to finally get to the

02:03:07.500 place of like, I understand who the villains are and aren't. And I'm on the good list.

02:03:13.680 I understand. I know. And I, you know, the good news is you just will care less and less with time

02:03:20.900 because they're being exposed. People are seeing it now. There's a real political machine behind it.

02:03:28.020 And that unless we stand up and do something about it, it's going to eat us all alive and everything

02:03:34.240 that we love and care about. I mean, it's eating America alive. I mean, look at the 1619 project.

02:03:41.040 That was a hit on the founding fathers and the constitution, right? I mean, that's what all of

02:03:47.140 these things are. They're, they're meant to suck the life out of us. And what you cannot believe

02:03:52.840 is the degree of vindictiveness in it. You know, their ultimate goal is to make you completely and

02:03:59.880 utterly unemployable, right? They don't want you to have the ability to feed your children. They want

02:04:05.680 you to lose your house. They want you to lose everything that's dear to you. There were people in

02:04:11.020 I think it was that horrible magazine. I don't know. It was like salon.com or slate or something

02:04:16.700 like that. One of those was basically the same. No, it was Jezebel. I think Jezebel saying that

02:04:22.120 they hope I get divorced from my husband. Right. I mean, this is the kind of people that we're

02:04:27.340 talking about dancing on other people's graves, you know, hoping, um, for blood, right. They don't

02:04:33.900 just want you to lose. It wasn't good enough for you to lose your show. You have to lose,

02:04:38.100 not just your job. You have to lose your whole career for the crime of what, for the crime of

02:04:42.960 having an independent mind and reporting independently for not being controlled and

02:04:48.620 seduced by these false narratives and not being a moral coward, you know, um, and getting mugged

02:04:54.420 by reality along the way. Right. I love that Dave Rubin's quote, um, another liberal mug by

02:04:59.240 reality. And, uh, and that's kind of what we're talking about. And look at that. There's someone

02:05:03.740 like Dave Rubin, you know, who, who was doing, hosting a gay radio show. Right. And now he's

02:05:09.160 passed this great traitor. Look at Glenn Greenwald. I mean, that's what, you know, now it's not just

02:05:14.620 people like you and I, where people didn't know my politics. And quite frankly, I don't know my

02:05:18.880 politics. You know, I'm not a party person and, um, and I don't define it that way. And now you've

02:05:25.120 got people like Glenn Greenwald who actually, you know, couldn't be further left. Jacob Applebaum,

02:05:29.720 he couldn't be further left. Look how these people are standing up and saying, you know,

02:05:34.700 wait a minute, hold on. I, I, I'm on the left, but I'm not an, you know, I'm not blind.

02:05:40.100 Andrew Sullivan, Matt Saiby, Barry Weiss, it goes on. I feel like that if I have a media tribe,

02:05:46.560 that's the tribe. It's people who have just pushed back against the bullshit and she gets

02:05:52.920 completely demonized, but she's totally fearless. I mean, Candace is like a quintessential

02:05:58.080 example of fearlessness, right? She doesn't care. Absolutely. Yeah. What you say.

02:06:02.780 I love that woman. She is, I love her courage and you know, they want to paint her as a white

02:06:07.960 supremacist, right? And that's just shows you the lie of all of this. You know, when you say that

02:06:12.700 you're, um, you're, you, you don't like white cops, but you're standing in front of a black cop

02:06:17.280 and you're screaming in his face about, you know, being a pig and you hope he dies and raping his wife

02:06:22.580 and you know, one is children to die and everything else. That's what these paid, trained agitators

02:06:28.300 do, right? That's what they actually do. And then, you know, it's not about being black or white. It's

02:06:34.080 about the abolition of the police force, you know, and, uh, and you see that happen, um, over and over

02:06:40.260 again. There's, you know, honestly, the, the battlefield of hypocrisy is just littered with

02:06:45.040 examples that show you how these, uh, things are not real, uh, principles and they're not real

02:06:50.380 policies. They're, they're just euphemisms of hiding a real agenda. The way Antifa uses masks,

02:06:55.720 the way Antifa uses black clothing and hoods, you know, the black block is what it's called the way

02:07:01.880 they encourage all of their followers and all the different units who have different tasks in these

02:07:06.120 riots. Um, the way they use that to hide their identities and hide their, their real agenda.

02:07:12.240 That's exactly what all of these organizations are doing. I mean, people might not realize it within

02:07:18.180 them because there are different levels. Some of them really, you know, they're, they know what

02:07:22.740 they're doing and some of them have a little bit of knowledge and some of them actually believe

02:07:26.900 completely, you know, they've been completely seduced and conned themselves, but what they're all

02:07:31.680 doing is hiding their real agenda, what they're really looking for. And, um, you know, if people in

02:07:37.740 this country really don't wake up and stand up to that, they're going to have lost so much by the

02:07:44.520 time that they do wake up that the options left are, uh, they're already narrowing by the day.

02:07:51.500 And, you know, there's almost no good options left at this point.

02:07:55.360 You can't lament your circumstances unless you fight. It's like when your children,

02:07:59.040 this happens all the time with mine, like they'll complain about something. I'll say,

02:08:02.020 well, here's a solution. Here's three to choose from. Um, then they'll complain again,

02:08:06.480 having done nothing. And I say, I hear the three solutions again, or you can come up with one in

02:08:10.300 your own and they'll complain again. And I say, you lost your right to complain. That's it.

02:08:13.280 You're not going to do anything about it. You're on your own kid. And that's us right now. You're

02:08:17.500 not going to do anything about it. You're on your own. You you're, we're going to lose and you can't

02:08:21.380 complain about it. You submit by being silent. You submit. Well, and you know, I really worry about

02:08:26.680 this with, with my children and social media, because a few years ago, I noticed that in,

02:08:33.120 in a lot of these memes and games and things that my children were, they didn't really play video

02:08:38.300 games when they were little, but they liked the memes that go along with the games.

02:08:41.600 And one of the recurring themes is suicide. It's over and over and over again. You just see these

02:08:49.340 characters and, or, or characters who have been killed, but who are still in the game or still in

02:08:55.140 the story from the afterlife, right. Or who return. I mean, it's, it's all over. And, you know, my son

02:09:02.480 asked me the one day, why does this bother you so much? I know that suicide isn't good and it's not a

02:09:08.000 solution and blah, blah, blah. You know, you repeated all the things back to me that I would

02:09:11.380 say. And I said to him, because it's, it's making you think that it's totally normal. It's, it's

02:09:18.580 instilling this in your psyche and in your thought in the game, you keep coming back from suicide or

02:09:25.000 there's life after suicide because these characters still keep playing, but in real life, you don't come

02:09:30.740 back from it. And, you know, lo and behold, it's, it's not a few years later and look at what

02:09:37.080 the studies are out now about the higher incidences of anxiety and depression and suicide in young

02:09:44.060 kids since the rise of social media. I mean, those things are tied. There are links to them. And you,

02:09:51.480 you know, you really have to wonder about what kind of society we've become when, when children are not

02:09:57.800 learning about these things in a context that really makes them understand them. In fact, if

02:10:02.780 anything, they're being misled. And it's the same thing when it comes to, you know, pedophiles and

02:10:07.460 all these subjects that really used to be very black and white that now on the internet, you know, are not

02:10:14.780 black and white at all. And kids make jokes about them all the time. And it's sort of like, you know,

02:10:20.540 through this process of humor and memes and things like that, we really are becoming sort of

02:10:26.460 immune. I just interviewed a Facebook insider. And one of the things he said to me was, I really

02:10:32.520 became kind of desensitized to pedophilia because I saw so much of it as a content moderator.

02:10:37.900 Oh my goodness.

02:10:39.120 Yeah. Think about that for a moment, right?

02:10:42.020 Can I ask you, how old are your kids now?

02:10:44.560 11, 12 and 16.

02:10:46.780 Oh yeah. So we're basically in the same spot. Mine are 11, 10 and seven. So we're fighting the

02:10:52.480 same battles. I have a different question on that for you because one of the things I've always

02:10:58.320 admired about you and one of the things I said to Doug last night was, I got to get out of the house

02:11:03.000 more. This woman's life has been so extraordinary. I've never even been in the Middle East. Never

02:11:10.400 mind, live in Afghanistan and Iraq for five years. Plus just all the war zone coverage you've done.

02:11:16.020 You've lived an extraordinary life and you're my age. I have done none of that. I've been in a

02:11:20.760 different arena, a weird political arena, which is also awful. Political news in its own way.

02:11:26.540 Terrifying. Terrifying arena.

02:11:27.460 But yours is exciting and adventurous and you clearly have a Jones for, I don't know,

02:11:32.680 excitement and travel and being on the story. And I wondered if now that you're the mother of

02:11:40.040 three children and you're living down in Texas and you're not necessarily in Afghanistan, these places,

02:11:46.000 you know, because motherhood in general requires a different lifestyle. It does, right? So

02:11:49.180 how are you handling that?

02:11:52.040 You know, I'm so mad about my children. Honestly, it's that, you know, you know,

02:11:57.560 from being a mom, right? You think, how could you ever come back from a trip, a work trip and walk

02:12:04.160 into the house and not collapse, you know, but you do, when you're a mom, you walk into the house

02:12:08.500 and you pick up that baby and you don't sleep for the next two weeks, right? You don't catch up on

02:12:13.300 that sleep. And what is that thing when you're, when you've got a new baby and, you know, you,

02:12:18.100 you can barely stand, but you make, you somehow find it a way to get up and get there and, and do

02:12:24.940 all the things that your child needs. It's that love that, that drives you. And I am just so consumed

02:12:34.280 with all the things that I'm trying to do better every day and seem to fail at constantly as a mom

02:12:41.160 that I don't ever get a lot of time to dwell on it. I mean, I'll be honest. It's, you know, when,

02:12:49.140 when I see things happening in the news, I have to fight every instinct in my body. I was born to rush

02:12:57.920 to the fire, not away from it, right? That's how I'm designed. And, and I don't mean that in a sense

02:13:05.540 of, um, of adventure. I mean it in a sense of that urgency to get to the heart of something that

02:13:12.460 matters and see it for yourself and to understand it and learn about it and then share that. I mean,

02:13:19.920 as much as I do, you know, interviews and, and I am, uh, sort of, you know, out there,

02:13:25.860 it really, for me is about the stories that I get to tell. That's the thing that I love more

02:13:32.340 than anything else. The reason I don't have a podcast is really that I've just, I've never

02:13:37.420 been able to come up with a way that I can, I can still do the storytelling. And that's what I do in

02:13:43.200 my, in my show, you know, is to be that traditional old reporter where, um, I think that all these

02:13:49.800 things that I've been given, all these experiences, the, the, the ability to survive in Egypt,

02:13:55.860 and live through, uh, you know, um, going over a landmine and my vehicle blowing up and all the

02:14:02.020 firefights that I've been in where, you know, I could have been killed. Um, all of those things

02:14:06.940 were given to me because I was, uh, meant to be this, um, this vehicle where I can tell the stories

02:14:14.780 of people who maybe sometimes otherwise their stories wouldn't be known. And that's what I love

02:14:20.860 to do. That's really, and truly what I love to do. So it has been hard without any shadow of a doubt.

02:14:28.180 I mean, Syria was torture for me because I, I mean, although I went there, um, once or twice,

02:14:32.960 I really wasn't in the heart of the war, but, um, you know, now I have a child who looks at me

02:14:39.000 when I'm walking out the door, going to Mexico and says, mom, is it safe? Can I come with you?

02:14:45.300 If it's safe then, you know, and that's so hard. So I think it's just that overwhelming love for my

02:14:51.660 children that, and the difficulty of being a working mom and, um, and, you know, still trying

02:14:58.340 to do everything. Um, those things combined don't really give me enough time to lament, um, my,

02:15:06.540 you know, I have a suspicion. I have a suspicion about you. I feel like when I was just picturing

02:15:12.280 Lara Logan, mom, right. And, and still reporter, but not, you're not the chief foreign affairs

02:15:17.540 correspondent all over the world. Um, I'm like, I bet she, she takes out the butcher knife and does

02:15:22.760 all the chopping, the vegetables. I bet she is like the first to say she'll jump. So bungee jump when

02:15:27.280 they go on a vacation. She, she drives in the fast lane. Um, you know, like you're probably working

02:15:32.640 out this need for excitement and adrenaline in ways you're not even conscious of,

02:15:36.540 and then I thought, um, listen, I, I, not to dump on myself too much, but you, you get back to me,

02:15:41.960 sister, when you walked around the upper West side with a Fox news hat on. Okay. Cause that takes

02:15:45.440 real courage. You know who my heroes are like those mothers that, you know, that when's a doctor and

02:15:53.020 her kids eat sushi every day at school and they're never late and they do all their work and they do

02:15:59.960 19 after school events. I hate those people. They're your heroes. I can't stand them.

02:16:04.520 I know because I'm like, Oh my gosh, if my underwear isn't safety pin together,

02:16:10.220 you know, I'm having a good day. Right. Seriously.

02:16:13.740 That could end badly. I don't think that should be your go-to.

02:16:17.660 I mean, because that's, that's my thing is, I mean, I, I hear you, you know, and then they work

02:16:23.060 out on top of everything else. And they always look perfect and they wear accessories. How do they

02:16:28.900 have time for accessories? That's so true. Seriously. I'm still in my pajamas. Thank

02:16:34.780 goodness. This isn't on camera. I honestly, I'm going to reveal that I am in the same outfit I've

02:16:40.180 been in three days in a row. He's like, Oh, you are. I am. And it's black sweatpants and a white

02:16:47.220 t-shirt. That's the, as much effort as I decided to tell you when you're the one doing the laundry,

02:16:51.880 laundry, you know, that's what happens. Right. Well, I'm not the one doing the laundry for

02:16:56.220 full disclosure. I'm just living like this. I live in the countryside and, uh, and I am very

02:17:03.140 often doing the laundry and cleaning the toilets and digging out the trash and trying to fix the

02:17:08.960 dishwasher and all that stuff. Yeah. That's yelling at you that you're doing it wrong. Yes.

02:17:15.360 Listen, I'm so happy for you. I'm, I'm so, this is what I love about Fox. I mean,

02:17:19.180 obviously I have some issues with my time there, but, uh, overall I have gratitude in my heart for

02:17:23.380 my time at Fox news and the people who work there and the mission that they are pursuing and Fox

02:17:27.840 nation gave you a great platform and you're doing important work, which I saw firsthand as I went back

02:17:33.640 through your reporting and so many good issues that get ignored. So I recommend everybody check it out.

02:17:38.880 And I really hope this is the first of many, please come back. Oh, Megan. Thank you so much. You

02:17:45.620 know, I'm grateful too. And honestly, uh, I don't care, um, any more about sort of the detractors and

02:17:52.700 all of that. I really don't care. They don't have the power, um, to upset me. I care about injustice,

02:17:58.780 but we're, there's something much bigger ahead of us. And, you know, I have no doubt that when the

02:18:05.520 dust settles, we'll be the ones still standing. Amen. See you soon. I hope. Thank you.

02:18:15.620 Oh, don't miss the show on Monday. Daryl Davis is coming on. Do you remember when Barry Weiss

02:18:20.440 came on the show and she was, we were talking about fair, that organization that I'm, you know,

02:18:24.520 she and I are both connected to foundation against intolerance and racism. And she was saying,

02:18:29.180 look at the people who are on this show, like people like Daryl Davis and Daryl Davis. He's,

02:18:35.300 there's a documentary about his life, which is really good. We'll get into it. But he, he has

02:18:39.380 basically spent part of his life trying to convince Klan members to leave the Klan. He's collected

02:18:46.180 like dozens, I think he said, of Klansmen's robes. They leave the Klan and then they give

02:18:52.500 Daryl Davis, a black man, their Klan robes. The stuff he has done and how he's gone about it are

02:19:00.860 so fascinating. Um, I, I made my kids watch it because it's actually kid friendly for my older

02:19:06.760 ones. And his story is totally inspirational. And he is a big proponent right now that we are

02:19:12.780 focusing on race the wrong way. What we need to be focusing on is the human race and not black race

02:19:21.900 or white race or skin color in general. And he's a guy who's lived it. You're going to love him.

02:19:27.680 It's Monday. Have a great weekend. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS,

02:19:33.120 no agenda and no fear. The Megan Kelly show is a Devil May Care media production

02:19:38.820 in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.

The Megyn Kelly Show - May 21, 2021

Lara Logan on Overcoming Trauma, Political Operatives in the Media, and Dangers of Technology ｜ Ep. 105

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