The Megyn Kelly Show - Meghan and Harry's Neediness and Disloyalty, and New Free Speech Case, with Tom Bower and Lorie Smith ｜ Ep. 407

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00:00:30.980 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:42.640 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday.

00:00:47.540 Later in the show, we're going to be joined by a graphic artist and website designer

00:00:51.460 who is taking her free speech case all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court this fall 0.98

00:00:57.120 in one of the biggest cases this term.

00:01:01.200 She says she has a religious objection to designing websites for LGBTQ couples who are getting married

00:01:10.040 because it doesn't align with her Christian faith.

00:01:13.540 Remember the case that went up with the baker who didn't want to bake the Christian, 0.87

00:01:18.000 he was a Christian baker, didn't want to bake the wedding cakes for LGBTQ weddings a couple years ago? 0.96

00:01:23.020 Um, this is kind of the next iteration of that.

00:01:27.060 And this case could have huge implications on when the government or colleges taking government money

00:01:36.180 can force you to say or do things that don't align with your own beliefs.

00:01:42.120 It's happening more and more in America today.

00:01:45.100 And, uh, this woman decided to do something about it. 1.00

00:01:47.600 The high court is taking the case.

00:01:49.160 The lower court ruled against her.

00:01:51.020 So, uh, she will give us an interview along with her lawyer from the group that is also representing

00:01:56.340 that baker whose dispute goes on.

00:01:58.460 I'm looking forward to that.

00:01:59.380 That's second hour.

00:01:59.980 But first, uh, as I mentioned, it's Friday and we're going to dive into the,

00:02:03.780 the ongoing saga of Megan and Harry.

00:02:07.100 Megan Markle's latest episode of her archetypes podcast had, um, hashtag Megan Markle is a racist

00:02:14.580 trending on Twitter.

00:02:16.300 However, we'll get into why and more with someone I have been dying to interview.

00:02:21.560 Tom Bauer is the investigative journalist and biographer in Great Britain.

00:02:26.100 I mean, this is the guy you get scared if he wants to profile you because you know, he's

00:02:30.420 going to keep receipts.

00:02:31.760 It's going to be tough to dispute.

00:02:33.500 And the man does his homework.

00:02:35.440 Uh, his latest international bestseller is called revenge.

00:02:39.620 Megan, Harry, and the war between the Windsors.

00:02:42.140 And it is available this week in the United States.

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00:03:20.420 Tom, thank you so much for being here.

00:03:23.040 Well, thank you very much for having me.

00:03:24.820 Welcome to the program.

00:03:25.820 So I'm fascinated by this whole thing.

00:03:27.720 My biggest takeaway in reading the book is these two are as thin-skinned as they come when it

00:03:38.600 comes to their public image, whether they matter, what people write about them, and whether they

00:03:45.420 are being adequately protected by those around them in the maintenance of these images they

00:03:52.060 believe they have.

00:03:53.920 What do you think?

00:03:54.800 Well, you're absolutely right.

00:03:57.080 I mean, they are so hypersensitive and very, very aggressive to those who criticize them,

00:04:03.640 and they love those who praise them.

00:04:06.300 It's all part of the business for Meghan.

00:04:08.380 That has been what she's believed in from a very early age.

00:04:12.940 She has always wanted celebrity, but doesn't want to control the narrative.

00:04:17.580 And anyone who gets in the way with her is ghosted and attacked.

00:04:23.500 And Harry has become hypersensitive and hates the media and yet seeks approval from the media

00:04:30.420 by going on Netflix or Spotify or Apple TV.

00:04:33.800 So the contradictions, the hypocrisy is enormous.

00:04:37.800 I was shocked at just how thin-skinned Harry is.

00:04:40.580 You know, Meghan and I almost understood she's a Hollywood B-list to be charitable actress. 0.93

00:04:46.400 She was a social climber.

00:04:48.640 Her whole thing is about image, so I can see why she's so easy to upset when it comes to

00:04:54.940 bad press.

00:04:55.520 But Harry is, you know, he's the grandson of the king.

00:04:59.140 He's a prince.

00:05:00.060 Like, I was surprised at how much, according to your reporting, he follows the media and

00:05:06.340 follows social media and cares about every word that's written.

00:05:10.180 And your reporting and other reporting has now suggested he believes he's got a limited

00:05:14.300 time to be on the world stage because Prince George is aging by the moment and will overtake

00:05:21.040 him as the next best thing in the British tabloids and so on.

00:05:25.000 I just, I was shocked to hear that.

00:05:27.040 I mean, is that who he is?

00:05:28.360 Well, I think Harry is a very complicated person because he's not very intelligent and

00:05:34.260 undoubtedly remains damaged by the early death of his mother, Diana.

00:05:39.200 And he very foolishly blames the media for her, in his words, murder her, which is complete 0.93

00:05:44.660 nonsense. 0.96

00:05:45.700 But I think he loved the adulation.

00:05:48.120 He loved it when he was being praised, especially when he was a soldier.

00:05:51.980 But then he became criticized, firstly because he became drunk in public.

00:05:56.300 Then he wore a Nazi uniform at a party.

00:05:59.220 Then he was wearing absolutely nothing in the nude at the party in Las Vegas.

00:06:04.060 And he couldn't cope with the criticism because, in his view, he is a target.

00:06:10.800 And it didn't help that his telephones were hacked by News International, Rupert Murdoch's

00:06:17.200 group here in London.

00:06:18.640 And so he became hypersensitive and blamed the media for the crashes of his relationships,

00:06:25.480 never thinking that they could have something to do with himself.

00:06:29.300 So he's a very complicated, depressed, unintelligent man who is seeking a role and has got really

00:06:38.120 nobody on whom he could rely, which is in the end where Meghan stepped in.

00:06:42.420 A needy man met a woman who could help you with his needs.

00:06:46.880 I had always looked at it more as, oh, she landed this prince.

00:06:50.560 That's what she was out for.

00:06:51.800 We know that she was hunting for someone of wealth, of notoriety in Great Britain.

00:06:57.980 And she landed, you know, the biggest you could land.

00:07:00.800 But it worked the other way, too.

00:07:02.520 He was feeling irrelevant.

00:07:04.720 She comes along.

00:07:05.820 She's a, you know, somewhat well-known person, or at least that was his impression.

00:07:12.060 And she's mixed race. 1.00

00:07:14.400 She could elevate his star as well.

00:07:17.440 It worked both ways.

00:07:19.980 Well, you're absolutely right.

00:07:21.380 I mean, what I discovered was, of course, that she was hunting for a man in England from

00:07:27.140 2013 onwards when her marriage had crashed and she couldn't find anyone in Canada at the

00:07:32.780 time.

00:07:33.060 And she wanted wealth and she wanted fame. 0.97

00:07:37.320 And she targeted, there's no doubt, she targeted Harry and found someone who was a childhood 0.61

00:07:42.220 friend of his who could introduce them.

00:07:45.740 And then on the days before they met at their blind meeting in a club in London, she researched

00:07:53.700 Harry very carefully and knew exactly what buttons to press, that he would like Africa, was interested 0.78

00:07:59.280 in animals, was interested in philanthropy.

00:08:01.740 And she landed him on the first night, even on his own admission.

00:08:08.900 He says, I realized on the first date, she was the one.

00:08:12.920 And of course, that's because she's also a great, in that sense, an actress.

00:08:17.060 She knew exactly how to play.

00:08:19.000 And the point about Meghan is, it's easy to dislike her.

00:08:24.960 But the point about her is that in her own terms, she is an astonishing success.

00:08:29.500 She came from nothing, not a very successful actress.

00:08:33.380 She had no money.

00:08:34.760 She had no future after the Suits series in Canada.

00:08:39.020 And suddenly she's an international star with quite a lot of money.

00:08:43.940 And of course, in her terms, that's a great success.

00:08:46.360 Now, of course, she lied about never having Googled Harry when she gave an interview early on.

00:08:52.140 We know from her friends that's not true, that she was very focused on the royals and had visited

00:08:56.920 Buckingham Palace and had watched Harry at length after his mother died.

00:09:00.580 So we know that's not true.

00:09:02.360 And she turns out to be a serial fabulist, as your book outlines brilliantly.

00:09:05.500 I mean, the lies from this woman come regularly and they're bold. 0.97

00:09:09.360 They're big and they're bold.

00:09:10.740 But I want to go back to something you said about Diana, because I was saying to my husband,

00:09:14.600 I said, Tom, he spares no one.

00:09:16.780 He's very honest about what he has found and what's real and what's not, whether it's positive

00:09:21.080 or negative.

00:09:21.820 And the thing about Diana actually surprised me, Tom.

00:09:24.400 From over here, the narrative has always been, oh, poor Diana. 0.99

00:09:27.820 The media, they basically killed her.

00:09:29.920 The paparazzi chased her into this tunnel in France.

00:09:32.420 And that's what led to her death.

00:09:33.860 And you just touched on it.

00:09:34.900 There's much, much more to that story, too.

00:09:37.900 And Diana very much had a role in manipulating the press and inviting the press to hound her 0.99

00:09:44.680 in a way few have really spent time on in the press.

00:09:48.100 Can you spend some time on that here?

00:09:49.820 Yes.

00:09:50.160 I mean, I think you've got to go back very briefly to the beginning that Diana herself

00:09:54.000 was the product of a very broken family.

00:09:56.660 Her mother literally dumped the children, ran off with somebody else. 1.00

00:10:00.400 And her father was interested in his children.

00:10:03.080 And nor was her stepmother, really.

00:10:05.700 So she was a very broken woman when she met Prince Charles.

00:10:10.160 And that was, as we all know, a terribly unhappy marriage.

00:10:12.660 But she then became glamorous. 0.97

00:10:14.980 She suddenly discovered her fame because she was very beautiful and very charming.

00:10:19.880 And she loved the attention.

00:10:21.820 And she obviously spotted particular journalists who not only attracted her, but would do what she wanted.

00:10:29.060 And that was, of course, Andrew Morton in the writing of that amazing book.

00:10:32.900 And then Richard Kay of the Mail, Daily Mail in London, and also the famous BBC interview.

00:10:40.040 And she fluttered her eyelids.

00:10:42.440 But most important of all, in that last meeting with Dodi Fayyad in the south of France,

00:10:49.020 she would telephone or text the photographers and the journalists to tell them where she would be and when she could be spotted.

00:10:56.500 So she encouraged the paparazzi.

00:10:59.960 And don't let's forget, it wasn't the paparazzi that killed her in the tunnel.

00:11:03.220 It was a drunken driver hired by, employed by Mohammed Fayyad. 0.68

00:11:07.280 And that was the cause of the death.

00:11:08.880 And she wasn't wearing a safety belt.

00:11:11.400 So, but Harry doesn't want to know any of that truth.

00:11:14.440 That's the trouble with Harry.

00:11:16.100 He just likes, because in a simple way, the paparazzi murdered my mother.

00:11:20.520 Well, it wasn't as simple as that at all.

00:11:22.660 And she was a person who not only manipulated, but also went through quite a lot of men after Charles.

00:11:29.380 I mean, she was a beautiful woman.

00:11:32.480 There were many men who chased her and she reciprocated.

00:11:35.580 She was having a good time, too.

00:11:37.520 Right.

00:11:37.880 Of course, you spend some time in the book on how there's been so much speculation about whether Charles is indeed the biological father of Harry.

00:11:45.700 And how some were trying to get a hair sample of some of her lovers to see whether, well, to get a hair sample from Harry to see whether it matched up with the biology of another lover.

00:11:56.220 Something that Harry's had to live with, too, wondering in the speculation.

00:11:59.700 So there are similarities between Diana and Meghan Markle in that way, in that they've suffered some they both suffered some negative coverage, but they both have manipulated the press.

00:12:11.700 I mean, Meghan is one of the first to manipulate the press. 0.99

00:12:14.300 She claims she wants privacy, but she's working press opportunities every day.

00:12:18.460 I mean, she loved to see herself on the cover of Vanity Fair.

00:12:21.420 There's no reason in the world they would have ever put her on that cover had it not been for the fact that she was dating Harry, but she pretended like she had accomplished something wonderful as a philanthropist that would land her on the cover.

00:12:34.760 So Harry himself has been guilty of this, trying to compare her to Diana, compare her to Diana.

00:12:39.900 The same thing's going to happen to her if the press keeps writing negative things. 0.83

00:12:43.100 And you you point out that these two misunderstand Diana entirely, both what most especially what made the press interested in and what made many love her.

00:12:55.660 Well, yeah, I think that's that's the problem.

00:12:57.960 But they play the Diana card, just as I would say that, unfortunately, in some way, Meghan plays the race card is always the victim. 1.00

00:13:06.620 And the victim is always gets unquestioned sympathy without question.

00:13:11.520 And that's the way it plays at the moment in society.

00:13:14.400 And Harry likes to portray Meghan as Diana, but they've got actually nothing in common at all, because Diana, for all her criticism of Charles, was always absolutely loyal to the Queen and completely loyal to the monarchy.

00:13:29.220 And although obviously she thought about herself in terms of her life, she would never put herself above the monarchy, which, of course, was the downfall of Meghan in Britain, that she wanted to be number one.

00:13:41.980 She didn't want to be part of a team.

00:13:44.280 And they play the Diana card to suggest that when she is criticized, her fate will be the same as Diana's.

00:13:51.080 But I think most people have seen through that now.

00:13:53.580 They were shocked at the beginning and sympathetic.

00:13:55.720 But I think to that extent, the sympathy is running thin now.

00:14:00.480 Well, you spent some time on how Meghan Markle didn't quite understand or, if she understood, wouldn't accept that there is very much a hierarchy inside of the royal family.

00:14:11.860 And Harry's had to abide by it and she needed to abide by it.

00:14:15.400 But it was one of the things that most frustrated her.

00:14:18.080 Well, I think frustrated is the right word, but on the other hand, also annoyed her.

00:14:25.800 The point is that Meghan, being an intelligent woman and educated and by then already 34, she knew exactly when she joined Harry and moved into Kensington Palace that there was a hierarchy and that she was he was number six in line to the throne.

00:14:41.800 I think she was disappointed, to say the least, that he wasn't very rich, because she couldn't understand how a prince in Britain could not have a huge amount of money.

00:14:51.700 And I think she thought she would be using her platform, as she put it, to campaign for her causes.

00:14:58.580 But she was told long before they married that that was out of the question.

00:15:02.660 She had to be uncontroversial.

00:15:05.100 She had to be neutral.

00:15:06.520 But that didn't suit her.

00:15:07.580 But that didn't matter to her.

00:15:09.660 She wanted the label.

00:15:10.900 She wanted the position.

00:15:12.640 She wanted the authority and the fame. 0.92

00:15:14.940 And I always believe, and that's how I described it in my book, that she kept all the relationships in Hollywood going.

00:15:22.360 She had them all to her wedding because she wanted to celebrate with them and do them the favor of coming to Windsor Castle, that spectacular event.

00:15:30.220 She always intended to go back. 0.99

00:15:32.420 She never intended to disappear as a dumb duchess. 0.99

00:15:37.260 She was always going to be the diva in Hollywood. 1.00

00:15:39.780 And then she banished it.

00:15:41.280 That's it.

00:15:42.240 And she didn't care about the damage caused.

00:15:44.940 And that's the other huge difference.

00:15:47.220 Diana was very sensitive about causing damage, although, of course, she caused a lot of damage to Charles.

00:15:51.840 But Meghan Markle has never shown any compunction, any sorrow for those she crushes.

00:16:00.500 And it's all part of the cause for her.

00:16:02.060 No, she's definitely not sorry.

00:16:04.520 And I do want to talk about the cultivation of celebrity because it's remarkable what you what you report in the book.

00:16:11.120 But there one of the things that's that jumped out at me was she didn't want to have to walk behind Kate Middleton.

00:16:18.480 You know, the future queen.

00:16:21.140 She she felt that they should be treated as equals.

00:16:24.540 And yet she joined an organization in which they're they're not equals.

00:16:29.000 Well, I think the big shock came to her in a way when she moved into Kensington Palace and Harry has got a two stroke three small cottage in that complex.

00:16:41.760 And literally on the other side of the corridor, Kate and William have a 22 room apartment with two kitchens.

00:16:50.260 And so that came as a bit of a shock to Meghan.

00:16:53.640 But I think that was a shock she could overcome because she didn't intend to stay.

00:16:58.420 And that was the other part of the problem, so to speak.

00:17:01.740 But, of course, the two women didn't get off and are not surprised. 1.00

00:17:05.880 And I don't blame Meghan entirely for that, because Meghan was a self-made woman. 1.00

00:17:10.880 She'd come from a tough background.

00:17:13.920 Every penny she had, she earned.

00:17:16.220 And and she had got to the top using her wiles and her clever way of working people and things. 1.00

00:17:24.600 Whereas Kate just waited patiently for William finally to propose and marry her.

00:17:29.780 Now, Kate is a remarkable woman.

00:17:31.320 And she is going to be and is now a terrific ambassador for the monarchy and for Britain in a way that Meghan could never be a representative of anybody because there's only one person she can represent.

00:17:43.820 But they weren't going to get on, especially at the time that Meghan arrived, when Kate already had two children, was pregnant with a third.

00:17:52.440 She had suffered very bad morning sickness.

00:17:55.760 So she didn't have the time, which Meghan felt that she was entitled to, to be to be look after Meghan.

00:18:03.060 And Meghan thought that she was entitled to be treated like royalty plus.

00:18:07.440 And that wasn't going to work.

00:18:09.600 Right.

00:18:10.200 She didn't.

00:18:10.760 She wanted Kate to cater to her, take care of her. 0.82

00:18:13.980 Harry complained to William's staff that it wasn't happening.

00:18:19.080 She didn't like walking behind Kate.

00:18:21.200 And the fact that Harry had to walk behind William, the future king.

00:18:25.120 And then we saw in the Oprah interview, she claimed that the truth of the relationship with Kate Middleton is that Kate abused her, that Meghan never made Kate cry.

00:18:37.860 And that what was so infuriating about watching the press coverage for Meghan was that she was, in fact, the victim and the media was reporting that she was the aggressor and that Kate was so out of line with Meghan.

00:18:52.220 She brought Meghan flowers to apologize to her. 1.00

00:18:55.940 And that shows that Kate was in the wrong and she had to sit back and and be powerless, feel powerless with the media reports that she was the one antagonizing Kate.

00:19:06.160 She went, as she did in every chapter of your book.

00:19:08.800 I mean, like she continues to go to everybody at the palace saying, get that lie out of the press. 0.94

00:19:12.940 Get that lie.

00:19:13.480 Get that.

00:19:13.840 They've said something else negative about me.

00:19:15.600 Hello.

00:19:16.180 It's called being a public figure.

00:19:18.740 But she was very frustrated that the palace wouldn't go out there and start bashing Kate in the press by saying, oh, no, no, Kate's the bully.

00:19:25.260 So what really happened?

00:19:26.500 Who who wronged whom in that relationship?

00:19:30.100 Well, I think we've got to start with the Oprah interview.

00:19:32.020 I mean, I think that we've all counted here in Britain about 17 what we might call inaccuracies or lies that Meghan told Oprah and Oprah didn't challenge Meghan on any of them.

00:19:45.020 And I think on the Kate front, I have absolutely no doubt at all that it was Kate who cried because Meghan, as I show in the book, is a bully. 0.98

00:19:54.000 And Kate's unhappiness really stemmed from the fact that Meghan's staff, which she shared with Kate, were constantly complaining that Meghan was treating them appallingly and bullying them, cutting them dead, isolating them, humiliating them.

00:20:10.880 It was terrible.

00:20:11.600 And if there's any doubt about Meghan's ability to her treatment of people, you've got to read the chapter of her photo filming in Montreal for the Reitman's ad, a department store in Canada, where she bullied the crew mercilessly.

00:20:31.900 And so I think there's no doubt in my mind, and I don't think anyone else does, that it was Meghan who was cutting up Kate, who's a very polite, humble person.

00:20:43.820 She wouldn't treat anyone badly.

00:20:46.300 And Meghan has a history of treating people badly.

00:20:50.260 So I think we can count on that.

00:20:52.400 The trouble is that the turnover of staff in Kensington Palace, as they all left because of Meghan, seems to be replicated in Montecito.

00:21:04.440 You constantly read of Meghan's staff in California resigning or retiring or leaving and being replaced or not being replaced.

00:21:14.380 She seems to have an ability to get through her staff with extraordinary speed. 0.96

00:21:20.020 Mm-hmm.

00:21:21.080 And once again, she just fired her PR team and hired a new PR team. 1.00

00:21:25.100 And she doesn't seem to realize that the problem is not your PR team.

00:21:28.260 The problem is your behavior.

00:21:29.840 The problem starts with you because the PR was absolutely wonderful.

00:21:34.160 The book takes us back and reminds us about how the press, there was, when she married Harry, the press was wonderful for her.

00:21:43.720 The British people loved Harry, and they were delighted to see him so happy and in love.

00:21:50.280 And she was playing the role of demure, supportive partner to a T.

00:21:56.140 I mean, very well.

00:21:57.540 It wasn't until she started to make her positions clear and continuously play the victim from the palace that people started to get a feel of who she really was.

00:22:08.960 And then the public opinion turned, and so did the press.

00:22:13.260 Well, I think you're right in giving me two, I think, two things which are important.

00:22:18.060 First of all, remember, she leaked this extraordinary story to People magazine about how she was being mistreated by her father and by the palace.

00:22:27.020 And that was absolutely something which was absolutely extraordinary.

00:22:29.920 But I talked for two days with Meghan's father, Thomas, in Mexico.

00:22:36.760 And at one moment, he turned to me and said, you know, it's all my fault.

00:22:42.800 I spoiled her rotten as a child.

00:22:45.200 Everything Meghan wanted, I gave her.

00:22:47.640 I gave her everything.

00:22:49.320 And I, by that way, made her feel that she was not only the queen, but the empress.

00:22:55.320 And therefore, in a way, that is why she behaves in the way she does towards other people. 1.00

00:23:02.600 And I think that's it.

00:23:03.900 And she, obviously, she's treated her father appallingly.

00:23:06.620 She's treated boyfriends appallingly, husband pretty badly. 0.52

00:23:10.800 There's no loyalty, except if she thinks there's something she can get from somebody.

00:23:15.600 And that's a rather sad trait.

00:23:17.240 I mean, it's a survival of the fittest in Hollywood.

00:23:20.720 But even even megastars treat people well on the way up because they might need them on the way down.

00:23:27.340 An old cliche says, but it's rather sad.

00:23:30.620 But it is the reality of Meghan's life.

00:23:33.960 That comment about, you know, whatever she wanted, she could have reminds me of your other reporting.

00:23:39.020 And I think Dan Wooden reported this as well on Tiara Gate and Harry's behavior in stepping into that same role.

00:23:45.620 You know, she's going to have what she wants. 1.00

00:23:48.580 And his behavior and hers around the tiara she was going to wear to the royal wedding was dreadful with respect to, in particular, the queen's dresser.

00:23:59.340 I think her name is Angela Kelly.

00:24:01.120 Yes, but that shows you not only Meghan's demands, but also that she could manipulate Harry to fear that if she didn't get what she wanted, in this case, the tiara,

00:24:15.620 and being able to use it for a hairdressing appointment before the wedding, that Meghan would be unhappy. 0.95

00:24:24.940 Harry is always terrified that Meghan would leave him.

00:24:28.260 He was terrified during their courtship.

00:24:30.780 He was terrified even before the wedding.

00:24:33.060 I think he's probably scared now as well that she might just dump him.

00:24:37.120 She's very good at making men feel they're dispensable. 0.99

00:24:42.540 After all, she has a good track record of treating men like that. 0.89

00:24:45.620 And so, whereas I, for example, think that they did an extraordinary job in trying to help her understand Britain, understand her new role,

00:24:56.040 she is contemptible of people who are nice to her. 1.00

00:25:01.460 She sees niceness, in my view, as weakness.

00:25:05.020 She doesn't fear people who are kind to her.

00:25:08.900 And she only shows those she fears some respect.

00:25:12.740 That's the survival gene.

00:25:15.000 That's the battling gene of this woman. 1.00

00:25:16.560 She wanted this tiara and her hairdresser came over from the United States and they wanted the tiara for a dress rehearsal for not even a dress rehearsal, 0.85

00:25:26.580 just for the stylist to do Meghan's hair in practice. 0.93

00:25:29.760 And he wanted to work with the actual tiara.

00:25:32.540 And they didn't arrange it with Angela Kelly, who dressed the queen and oversaw the use of the crown jewels on the monarch or a family member.

00:25:41.580 And they hadn't arranged it.

00:25:43.380 And so this woman, Kelly, said to Meghan, that's not how this works. 1.00

00:25:47.760 It's the crown jewels.

00:25:48.960 You can't just call up and demand that I run them right over to you.

00:25:52.640 Didn't go over well.

00:25:53.860 And Harry behaved worse than anyone.

00:25:56.200 And interestingly, it was the queen who called him up and told him to start behaving properly.

00:26:03.640 I think there was a very interesting quote in my book where her most important oldest lady in waiting, a woman called Susan Hussey,

00:26:12.300 long before the wedding, told a group of actors at a lunch for a theatre,

00:26:18.420 this will all end in tears.

00:26:20.980 The idea that the queen was thrilled with Meghan is, of course, nonsense.

00:26:25.380 She had her own fears, as did William, who told Harry, aren't you rushing it too much?

00:26:32.480 As did Charles Spencer, Diana's brother, who feared that Harry was going too fast.

00:26:39.300 And if I can push forward to Prince Philip's funeral, I got this astonishing quote from the queen

00:26:46.120 as her hair was being prepared to appear at her husband's funeral in Windsor,

00:26:53.140 where she suddenly said, thank goodness, Meghan isn't coming. 1.00

00:26:58.340 They were all sick of her, but they just put on a good show. 0.99

00:27:02.380 And Harry's friends, too.

00:27:03.440 You report on their first meeting with her, which was absolutely dreadful,

00:27:08.460 even though they were excited to meet her.

00:27:10.080 Well, this is the shoot at Sandringham.

00:27:14.700 Sandringham is one of the royal family's palaces, a huge house in Norfolk,

00:27:20.600 where there's a very good partridge shoot.

00:27:23.620 And he invited, I think, eight friends with their girlfriends and wives.

00:27:27.900 And it's a traditional English-British weekend, where you arrive on Friday,

00:27:33.980 have dinner, then you go shooting on the Saturday, big dinner,

00:27:37.400 and then Sunday, romp around and leave after lunch.

00:27:40.740 And the friends, after they were going on their way home,

00:27:44.760 were all texting each other, OMG, oh my God,

00:27:48.120 because Meghan had spent the weekend telling each of them off

00:27:52.200 when they'd said jokes which she thought were unacceptable.

00:27:57.340 She behaved like a woke. 0.98

00:28:00.020 She was a prissy, prissy woman who was just reprimanding them, 1.00

00:28:04.060 telling them off all the time, when they weren't being politically correct. 0.96

00:28:08.160 And they just couldn't understand how Harry, who really is one of the lads,

00:28:12.680 you know, he's one of these Englishmen who loves joking and boistering around

00:28:17.200 and telling dirty jokes and the rest of the whole thing,

00:28:20.540 had this woman who was so difficult and so censorious, 0.69

00:28:25.820 kept on telling his friends they weren't behaving properly.

00:28:29.260 And that, of course, happened again when they afterwards go to the wedding

00:28:34.740 of his best friend in Jamaica, where she behaved very badly.

00:28:39.340 And the mothers of his friends, who were obviously there for the wedding,

00:28:44.280 were quite shocked by the way that Meghan behaved,

00:28:46.920 how she constantly complained or refused to engage with them.

00:28:50.900 You know, she didn't make any effort. 0.73

00:28:53.460 That's one of the slightest things one could say about her.

00:28:56.740 It's not hard to believe because she continues to lecture the world

00:29:00.620 on their language and their behavior and how she wants them to do better

00:29:06.580 because she's taken yet another offense at how someone is.

00:29:11.080 And instead of Harry challenging her in any way, he's joined her.

00:29:14.820 I mean, he seems now as woke and insufferable as she is.

00:29:20.520 Absolutely.

00:29:21.580 And what's so terrible about it is that, of course, as you said,

00:29:26.100 he was so much loved because he was a happy-go-lucky.

00:29:30.760 He played with children everywhere.

00:29:33.280 There was a very famous occasion in Jamaica where he was,

00:29:36.940 Erson Bolt, the famous sprinter, where they joshed around together.

00:29:41.280 And he's changed.

00:29:43.420 When he came for the funeral of the Queen last month,

00:29:48.340 he looked very, very sad, not only because of the Queen's death,

00:29:52.100 but he looked sad about being relegated to the sidelines.

00:29:55.980 Many people thought he suddenly looked as if he realized what he had lost.

00:30:01.920 But he clings to Meghan.

00:30:04.160 That's the interesting point that now is raised by many people,

00:30:10.200 whether he's clinging too much and whether she'll get tired

00:30:14.680 of this limpid hanging on to her and she'll move on. 0.92

00:30:18.840 I don't know the answer to that at all.

00:30:20.560 But there's no doubt that his constant confessions of mental disturbance,

00:30:28.820 of chaos in his life, thinking that somehow it's manly,

00:30:34.100 I think it worked at the beginning,

00:30:36.400 when he first made his Apple broadcast about his mental health.

00:30:42.100 There were many men, I think, who sympathized, were grateful,

00:30:44.780 that their own plight was brought out to the public attention.

00:30:50.560 But by now, he seems to be fixed on one track.

00:30:54.320 His mental health, or say two tracks,

00:30:55.900 his mental health and his hatred for his own family.

00:30:59.580 And I think that is really where the dividing line has come,

00:31:04.420 that you might have your gripes about your family in private,

00:31:08.260 but to spill it out into public, the way that Harry has done,

00:31:13.040 is terribly disloyal.

00:31:15.400 It's appalling behavior.

00:31:17.780 And that is annoying people in Britain.

00:31:19.440 Especially when you know, I mean, the one goal of the Queen was to protect the monarchy 0.90

00:31:23.920 and protect the continuation of it.

00:31:25.960 And the way of doing that is to say very little, remain mysterious,

00:31:30.960 don't take political positions, don't be irritating.

00:31:34.020 And he's blown all that up.

00:31:36.160 He and she have done their level best to change all of that.

00:31:39.800 Tom raises questions in the book about whether we should believe Meghan's mental health claims,

00:31:45.340 that she was suicidal in the palace and went to an HR manager about it,

00:31:51.980 because that's where you go when you're living in the palace, you go to the HR person.

00:31:55.340 Because Harry's whole thing was mental health for seven years.

00:31:58.160 Mental health this, mental health that.

00:32:00.160 And now this couple wants us to believe that she was in the palace suicidal.

00:32:03.020 And once the HR person said, I can't help you, they just stopped and did nothing.

00:32:08.500 One of the many good questions that he raises.

00:32:10.700 Standby because we're going to talk to Tom about what's coming next.

00:32:14.080 Because now there are reports that these two after the Queen's funeral are getting very scared

00:32:17.780 about what's in this Netflix documentary that they've been filming for the better part of a year.

00:32:22.000 So we'll pick it up right there after this quick, quick break.

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00:33:02.200 So Tom, there are a couple things in the works with these two.

00:33:05.560 She's got her podcast, which is basically just a victimhood episode every week.

00:33:10.380 It's about the toxic stereotyping of women. 1.00

00:33:14.600 One week it was divas, the other she focused on race, 1.00

00:33:18.720 now it's about Asians.

00:33:20.100 Every week it's another very rich, successful person who should be thanking America

00:33:24.820 for the opportunities that she's received.

00:33:27.060 And instead, Megan manages to bring out the one incident in the woman's past

00:33:30.800 that reflects badly on the country and extrapolates that into a larger narrative

00:33:35.200 about how tough it is to be this woman, what a victim she is, how bad America is.

00:33:40.600 I mean, it's insufferable.

00:33:41.600 But she's also, in addition to her podcast, working on a Netflix documentary along with

00:33:46.460 Harry.

00:33:47.060 And it is believed, yes, it's about their life, but also about the royals.

00:33:50.300 And the reports this week are that they're wobbling.

00:33:55.060 Page Six or New York Post is reporting that they're now going back to Netflix saying,

00:33:58.980 we've got to take huge chunks of it out in the wake of the Queen's death.

00:34:03.200 It doesn't feel appropriate.

00:34:04.400 We don't maybe not want to go as hard on the family as we did.

00:34:07.820 And that Netflix and the film's producers are saying, no, you know, you said this stuff.

00:34:13.480 This is the film.

00:34:14.340 This is why you're getting $100 million.

00:34:16.340 Too bad.

00:34:17.020 So what do we think is likely to happen here?

00:34:20.500 Well, I think that what happened is they made a pact with the devil when they first got to

00:34:24.680 the United States from Canada in 2020.

00:34:28.500 They needed money.

00:34:29.720 They wanted fame.

00:34:32.020 They wanted to be able to tell their story in their terms.

00:34:36.460 And I think what's changed is that in their trips to Britain, first earlier this year when

00:34:43.180 they met the Queen and then certainly during the funeral, they suddenly realized that they're

00:34:48.680 going to lose not just their own reputations, but I think they've been given an ultimatum.

00:34:56.440 First of all, I don't think their children will get titles if they go ahead and slander the royal

00:35:04.500 family.

00:35:06.120 But they also have got to consider that their own titles, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex,

00:35:11.380 could be taken away by Charles if they misbehave.

00:35:16.840 And I think that's something that Meghan and Harry are very worried about, because after

00:35:20.380 all, although she pours dirt on the royal family the whole time, whenever she introduces 0.77

00:35:28.020 herself, she says, I am Meghan Duchess of Sussex.

00:35:31.940 Now, with Netflix, that is a great problem, because Netflix, of course, also reflects what's

00:35:38.160 in Harry's autobiography, which has been ghosted for him.

00:35:42.540 I don't know if you've actually read it, but I'm sure that it contains a lot of very damaging

00:35:47.620 material about Charles, William Cade, and of course, against Camilla, Charles's wife.

00:35:54.560 And so the whole package is now really a time bomb for the royal family and filled with poison.

00:36:03.220 And I think one of Charles's, King Charles's, greatest challenges is to somehow defuse that

00:36:11.700 time bomb.

00:36:12.820 And I think he's made various threats to Meghan and Harry and warned them that they go ahead

00:36:21.640 and they're going to find themselves ostracized in a way which they can't believe.

00:36:26.980 And so they're worried.

00:36:29.860 And yet they want their $100 million from Netflix and their reported $50 million from Spotify.

00:36:35.720 And I don't know what he's gotten as the advance for his book.

00:36:38.820 But I heard you with Dan Wooden saying he's going to go forward with that biography and

00:36:44.180 his memoir, whatever, autobiography.

00:36:46.900 And that's full steam ahead.

00:36:49.160 Yes, I think so.

00:36:51.600 I mean, I think the reports that they're wobbling might be true, but I think they might want

00:36:59.340 to temper it a bit.

00:37:00.120 But in the end, I think they left Britain after the Queen's funeral feeling as angry as ever,

00:37:07.380 if not more, because they had been excluded from various events, especially a reception for

00:37:14.340 all the 100 heads of stage who came to the funeral.

00:37:17.040 They had been, he had not been allowed to wear his uniform when he wanted.

00:37:23.300 There was still a lot of tension, no reconciliation between them and Kate and William.

00:37:29.520 So they went back to Montecito.

00:37:31.480 And in my view, when the photograph of Harry, of William and Charles was shown with Camilla

00:37:41.280 and Kate, a very nice photograph taken on the day of the Queen's funeral, within hours,

00:37:48.500 the Sussexes had released a photograph of themselves, Meghan in a red dress.

00:37:54.340 And clearly, this was the resumption of hostilities, but from Montecito towards the royal family in

00:38:02.200 the Windsors.

00:38:02.760 Right, because they were calling Charles and William and their wives the Fab Four, which

00:38:09.400 is what they had called Meghan and Harry and Kate and Will before their sort of breakup.

00:38:14.940 And now that label's being used to describe the King and the future King.

00:38:19.440 So yeah, that was their response.

00:38:20.740 It's sort of a middle finger.

00:38:23.080 Absolutely.

00:38:25.420 And it was a good photograph.

00:38:27.260 But it was a photograph saying we're a power couple.

00:38:30.000 It was a photograph saying we can exist and flourish without you lot.

00:38:34.680 But Meghan's a fighter. 1.00

00:38:37.040 She spent her whole life fighting.

00:38:38.940 And she's fighting again now.

00:38:41.020 And Harry is, I suppose, brainwashed, would be the politest way of saying it, into going

00:38:47.940 along with it.

00:38:49.020 He thinks that he has been badly treated.

00:38:51.840 It's easy.

00:38:52.620 He's the victim.

00:38:54.420 It is the most astonishing story.

00:38:56.580 But there's no doubt they are a great threat to the royal family.

00:39:00.260 I mean, you know, Meghan's allegation in Oprah's interview that she was the victim of racism

00:39:08.180 rebounded across the whole world.

00:39:12.540 And one of the results of that, I think, totally untrue statement was that the Caribbean countries,

00:39:20.580 which are part of the British Commonwealth, where the monarch, the queen, now the king, is the

00:39:24.880 head of state, wanted to distance themselves and become republic.

00:39:28.220 That was, I think, very much fuelled by Meghan's damnation, which people believed.

00:39:35.760 And I think it's very unfair that the royal family is racist.

00:39:39.620 I think the opposite.

00:39:41.160 I think that the king has spent an enormous amount of time developing extraordinary relationships with all the diverse communities in Britain.

00:39:49.620 And I must tell you that here in Britain, we think it's a bit rich for Meghan in California, a state which has got his own racial problems, to blame the British or racism.

00:40:02.420 You know, we're, on the whole, a pretty tolerant society.

00:40:06.360 Well, it's amazing.

00:40:07.340 There was a chapter here where we had Prince Harry lecturing the world on white privilege.

00:40:13.280 It was like, maybe you should take a seat on white privilege.

00:40:17.940 That moment with Oprah, where she accused the royals, she refused to name the person of being a bunch of racists.

00:40:27.400 She wouldn't even say, because Oprah did not follow up in the moment by saying,

00:40:32.280 can you at least rule out the queen or Prince Philip, who is dying at this moment in hospital?

00:40:37.800 Oprah didn't follow up and they didn't rule him out until the next day when, you know, the clamor had reached fever pitch.

00:40:44.320 Um, so we, we never got a name, but you have extraordinary reporting in your book on what this was likely based on and how it doesn't match up to what Meghan said.

00:40:55.200 Here's the clip sought six from the Oprah interview.

00:41:00.260 In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time.

00:41:06.100 So we have in tandem the conversation of he won't be given security.

00:41:10.820 It's not going to be given a title.

00:41:14.320 And also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born.

00:41:24.160 What?

00:41:25.700 And who, who is having that conversation with you?

00:41:36.980 What?

00:41:37.620 So, um, there is a conversation, hold up, hold up.

00:41:46.540 There's several, there's several conversations.

00:41:48.360 There's a conversation with you.

00:41:51.860 With Harry.

00:41:53.740 About how dark your baby is going to be?

00:41:58.160 Potentially.

00:41:58.700 And what that would mean or look like.

00:42:00.260 Ooh.

00:42:00.700 And you're not going to tell me who had the conversation.

00:42:08.120 I think that would be very damaging to them.

00:42:11.760 Hmm.

00:42:12.120 So tell us what you actually, what your reporting shows happened.

00:42:17.000 Well, well, of course, that was brilliant of you to bring that clip up because the body language just showed her discomfort as she dug deeper into her own hole. 0.99

00:42:26.940 I mean, the truth is this, that there are two truths.

00:42:30.020 So the first truth is that the conversation I'm told and I believe was very early on in their relationship when Harry is bowled over by Meghan and is desperately in love and already is talking about marriage.

00:42:44.160 But long before their engagement is even announced, let alone they're married and she's pregnant.

00:42:51.300 And he's sitting in Clarence's house with then Prince Charles and Camilla.

00:42:56.580 And Camilla just laughingly says, well, any child you'll have will probably have brown skin and ginger hair.

00:43:03.100 And they all laugh, including Harry.

00:43:05.760 I mean, it's not because of racism.

00:43:07.240 It's just one of those things everybody imagines.

00:43:09.880 When somebody is pregnant close to you, you wonder what the child will look like. 0.99

00:43:14.160 But it was not said as anything other than.

00:43:17.200 Like a concern.

00:43:18.700 That's what Meghan's.

00:43:19.680 No, not a concern.

00:43:20.200 A concern about how dark the baby would be.

00:43:23.600 No, no, he wasn't concerned about that.

00:43:26.000 And no one cared about the colour of the skin.

00:43:27.960 It was just a joke.

00:43:29.120 It was just a passing comment, which Harry probably told Meghan much later.

00:43:35.200 But Meghan, you see, gets her story wrong deliberately because she suggests is when she's already pregnant with Archie.

00:43:44.160 And Oprah fails to pick her up when Harry then turns up on the set and contradicts Meghan's whole timeline.

00:43:52.600 And that's very, very important.

00:43:54.760 And secondly, I don't believe and no one has believed that there was any conversations about the colour of Archie's skin or taking away privileges because of his colour, potential colour.

00:44:06.460 Well, in any case, it's completely white.

00:44:08.420 But, I mean, it just didn't occur.

00:44:10.800 But she used Harry's reporting of this one comment in the kitchen, you know, which was totally harmless in my view.

00:44:21.380 But conjured it up, built it up into something horrendous.

00:44:26.020 And that was part of her rehearsed speech to Oprah.

00:44:30.380 I mean, nothing that came out of Meghan's mouth in that interview had not been rehearsed.

00:44:36.080 All very carefully planned.

00:44:38.460 And that was one of the headlines that she wanted.

00:44:43.460 She sought to damage Camilla and to his disgrace, disloyalty, while telling the truth, Harry, about the timeline, did not say that it wasn't intended as racist.

00:44:59.380 But there we are.

00:45:00.000 That's how it occurred.

00:45:00.960 So, and by the way, just to back you up on that, Harry comes out and says, I'm not going to share the conversation, but at the time it was awkward.

00:45:10.700 I was shocked.

00:45:11.580 Oprah says, can you tell us what the question was?

00:45:13.520 No, I'm not comfortable, he says.

00:45:15.840 But he says, but it was right at the beginning.

00:45:18.660 Right at the beginning, he says.

00:45:20.420 He wasn't going to get security and all this other stuff.

00:45:23.240 So this is, and he said that there was some real obvious signs then before we got married that this was going to be really hard.

00:45:29.220 This is long before she's pregnant. 0.76

00:45:31.660 He seems to be talking about the conversation you're relaying, where she's trying to amp up the victimization.

00:45:37.940 I'm pregnant.

00:45:38.520 I'm expecting the baby.

00:45:39.660 He's going to get no rights.

00:45:40.840 He's not going to be a prince.

00:45:42.180 They're taking everything away from him because of his brown skin. 1.00

00:45:45.040 And it dovetails perfectly with her most recent claim to the Cut magazine, Tom, about how, oh, the British press has been calling my babies the N-word, my children the N-word.

00:45:56.220 Which to me is an obvious lie.

00:45:58.580 Because if the British press had called her children the N-word, it would have been an international scandal. 0.96

00:46:05.840 What I believe probably happened, if anything, is some moron commentator may have said something racist in one of the many comments below one of the many articles. 0.93

00:46:15.060 And these two, who are so obsessed with their press coverage, may have seen the comment and, like they did here, blown it up into the larger narrative about how they're being treated by the evil family or the evil press. 0.69

00:46:31.400 And I think what you must add as well into this is that, of course, when Archie was born, within 24 hours, Megan made a statement that she did not want Archie to have a title.

00:46:44.540 And when she was visited by an official and told that automatically Archie would be called Lord Dumbarton, she said, no, no, no child of mine is going to be called Dumb and refused to accept the title.

00:46:57.820 So she had already said that she didn't want any titles for her children. 0.99

00:47:02.600 But more importantly, she knew that the children while in Britain would always get protection and were protected.

00:47:10.640 The whole thing was a lie by her.

00:47:12.460 And it doesn't show well on opera that she didn't challenge these falsehoods.

00:47:17.600 But the idea as well that Megan put around at that time in the interview, that they take away her passports, take away her keys, take away her liberty.

00:47:28.540 She went to a baby shower in New York.

00:47:31.820 She went to see a Williams play in a tennis match.

00:47:36.180 She went to Morocco.

00:47:37.320 She went to Elton John in the South of France.

00:47:39.240 She went to someone else, to George Clooney in Lake Como.

00:47:45.320 It always was travel and all the rest of it.

00:47:48.080 She was just not telling the truth.

00:47:51.000 Like we've seen so many times.

00:47:53.340 And you mentioned Clooney.

00:47:55.260 The book explains what the heck George Clooney was doing at her wedding, why Amal Clooney showed up at her baby shower, her absolute zero connection to Oprah.

00:48:06.780 Why was she at the wedding?

00:48:07.900 Tom's got the backstory and all of that.

00:48:10.300 This woman's obsessed with being a star. 1.00

00:48:13.000 She ghosted all of her friends.

00:48:14.540 She ghosted her family.

00:48:16.080 And the book reveals it all.

00:48:17.460 Tom Bauer, what a pleasure.

00:48:18.700 Thank you so much and good luck with it.

00:48:21.040 Thank you very much for having me.

00:48:22.800 Yeah, I'm sure it's going to be a big hit over here as well.

00:48:25.380 Okay, we're going to be right back with a website designer whose case is going up to the U.S. Supreme Court in what is likely to be a landmark decision on just what they can force you to say when it may conflict with your religious beliefs or other beliefs for that matter.

00:48:41.540 It's not really a religious case.

00:48:43.500 And remember, folks, you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.

00:48:49.640 Our full video show and clips at YouTube.com slash Megyn Kelly.

00:48:53.160 Our audio podcast wherever you get your podcasts for free.

00:48:56.500 Plus, while I've got you, today is the best day to sign up for my American News Minute.

00:49:02.500 If you haven't signed up for it, it's all the week's news in one minute or less.

00:49:06.460 Plus, really fun links, including the latest on my poor little Strudwick.

00:49:10.720 See if you can guess what the ugly brown thing is next to him in today's edition. 1.00

00:49:15.920 It's not what you think.

00:49:17.260 Go to MegynKelley.com, enter your email address, and I will shoot you an email later today. 1.00

00:49:24.300 Okay, would love to talk to you.

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00:49:56.060 The U.S. Supreme Court began its new term this week, and the justices will hear cases on some of America's hottest issues, including race, elections, and free speech.

00:50:10.660 Our guests today are no strangers to free speech litigation.

00:50:15.240 Lori Smith is a graphic artist, a website creator, and the owner of a company called 303 Creative. 0.84

00:50:21.240 Lori wanted to expand her work to create wedding websites that celebrated marriage between a man and a woman. 0.99

00:50:27.520 But a Colorado law says she must promote all messages, regardless of whether they violate her religious beliefs.

00:50:34.820 And so if a lesbian couple comes in and says, we want you to do a website promoting that, you have to do it. 0.99

00:50:40.440 Lori decided that that law was unfair, and she challenged it. 1.00

00:50:44.500 And after a lower court ruled against her, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against her, she asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her case, and now they have agreed to, and this case will be one of the biggest cases to follow in this term.

00:50:59.740 Lori Smith joins us now, along with her attorney, Kristen Wagoner, who is president, CEO, and general counsel of ADF Legal.

00:51:07.420 Welcome to the show, Kristen.

00:51:08.520 Good to have you here again.

00:51:10.220 Thank you so much for having us.

00:51:12.600 You bet.

00:51:13.060 Kristen, first of all, I love that you take these cases on.

00:51:16.140 God bless Alliance Defending Freedom, because you take on these cases, you have, what, like 400 lawyers now?

00:51:21.260 And I think if I were a young lawyer burned out at my old law firm, which I was for a time, I would have been glad to join you.

00:51:27.840 I just really respect what you guys do, and you've been winning.

00:51:32.500 You're the person who argued that cake case, right, with the baker who I interviewed on NBC.

00:51:37.480 Yes, we have been winning, and we're grateful to God for it and grateful to a Supreme Court.

00:51:42.200 That is returning to the text of the Constitution.

00:51:44.660 We've had 14 wins since 2011, and hopefully Lori's will be the 15th.

00:51:50.420 We're praying that to be so.

00:51:51.640 You are standing up for constitutional principles.

00:51:55.440 If they happen to align with your religious beliefs, that's what makes you fight, what makes you interested in the fight.

00:52:00.680 But this is not a court that's just deciding things based on religion.

00:52:03.820 They're taking a look at your arguments and saying, no, she's got a point.

00:52:07.640 Like the Baker case, didn't that go 7-2 in your favor?

00:52:12.100 Yes, it did.

00:52:13.280 Yeah.

00:52:13.560 So we had liberals and conservatives joining to say, no, we're not going to make the baker bake the cake for the gay couple when it contradicts his religious views, although that one's ongoing.

00:52:24.660 So we'll get back to what's happening with him.

00:52:26.580 Let's start with you, Lori, and thank you so much for being here.

00:52:29.160 So just give us a little bit about your background.

00:52:31.500 You're a graphic designer.

00:52:32.740 Like what were you doing before you caused all this trouble?

00:52:34.900 Well, I've always been creative.

00:52:38.600 I have been creative since I was young.

00:52:40.880 I had two parents who encouraged my creativity, and they were both entrepreneurs.

00:52:45.800 I spent a good deal of my early childhood with my mom.

00:52:50.500 She owned a women's boutique here in the Denver metro area. 0.99

00:52:53.880 I'm a Colorado native.

00:52:55.280 And we spent a lot of time just as a child in her store watching her run her business.

00:53:02.760 And as I got older, I would help create artwork and storefront displays and even the artwork on the postcards that we used to hand stamp and mail out.

00:53:12.820 So I've always been creative.

00:53:15.120 I continued with that creativity and attended college and really honed in on my creativity skills.

00:53:22.200 And I've always wanted to own my own business.

00:53:25.280 And I think a lot of that comes from when I worked in my mom's store.

00:53:29.000 And I learned at a very early age that I have to work hard.

00:53:33.840 And I would graduate college with a degree in business marketing.

00:53:39.240 And after many years in the corporate world and nonprofit world, I decided it was time to start my own business.

00:53:45.620 So I launched 303 Creative.

00:53:48.300 And I did that because I wanted to design and create websites and pour my time and my talent into things that I was passionate about.

00:53:56.820 I love what I do.

00:53:58.460 The best part of my job is that I get to work with people from all walks of life, including those who identify as LGBT.

00:54:05.360 And that's an important piece of this.

00:54:07.060 You're not you're not refusing to help anybody who's in the LGBTQ community.

00:54:12.880 You just don't want to make a wedding website for them because that's where it conflicts with your religious beliefs.

00:54:20.060 Yes, I work with people from all walks of life.

00:54:22.320 And I currently have clients who identify as LGBT.

00:54:25.360 So my case is is always been and always will be about the message that I'm being asked to pour my time and my talents into promoting.

00:54:34.200 It's never about the individual.

00:54:35.840 It's always about the message.

00:54:38.880 So to be clear, did anybody ask you to make a lesbian wedding or a gay wedding website for you or you just saw the Colorado law and realized trouble was coming?

00:54:48.420 It was actually both.

00:54:50.160 I have had requests for same sex weddings, but I think the biggest issue for me is, as I looked around at the way the state was treating other people of faith, it was obvious that the state is censoring my speech.

00:55:03.600 So I really didn't feel like I had much of a choice other than to stand to protect my right to speak freely, because this is not only about protecting my speech.

00:55:13.180 It's about protecting everyone's speech, even the LGBT web designer who doesn't want to be forced to, you know, oppose same sex marriage in their work.

00:55:24.060 And this is about protecting speech.

00:55:26.140 Yes, for me, but ultimately for every American.

00:55:29.680 And let me let me just put a little meat on the bones. 1.00

00:55:31.760 When we talk about a wedding website, what is that?

00:55:35.240 Like what, you know, back in my day, you'd have like maybe a registry, but there wasn't like what is what is a wedding website?

00:55:41.340 I know they've come a long ways even since my own wedding, but wedding websites are a way to tell a story.

00:55:48.660 I'm a storyteller that began back in my mom's boutique many years ago when these brides would come in with their mothers and tell the story of their relationship.

00:55:59.200 And so a wedding website, yes, it incorporates a wedding registry, but it's artwork for me.

00:56:05.520 Each and every client that I take on or project that I take on is unique and one of a kind.

00:56:12.260 I'm not creating template websites or or plug and play type websites.

00:56:17.080 Clients come to me because they want a story to be told.

00:56:20.660 So in this case, telling the story of marriage between a man and a woman is important and unique.

00:56:27.660 Like, yeah, they wouldn't want you because, you know, you want somebody who gets it and, you know, feel supportive of it.

00:56:34.820 You wouldn't want somebody who's like, well, I've got some problems with this doing your wedding.

00:56:38.620 So like it's it doesn't work out even if it's forced, especially if it's forced.

00:56:42.740 Now I know what you're talking about, because this reminds me of back when I was at Fox, my pal Brett Baer.

00:56:46.820 It came out. Somebody in the newsroom discovered that Brett and Amy had one of these and it told the story of their love and fall.

00:56:55.000 And we mocked him mercilessly. It was the sweetest thing.

00:57:00.080 It was super fun. They are very much in love.

00:57:02.740 OK, so now Laurie said they're censoring my speech, Kristen.

00:57:08.040 But they're they're doing two things like this law.

00:57:10.400 It's censoring her. It's telling her you cannot post certain things on your own website, your business website.

00:57:15.640 And it's also trying to compel speech, which is also unconstitutional, by saying you must say the following things.

00:57:24.660 So can you just frame for us how they're doing those two things?

00:57:29.040 Sure. Well, there are two different components of the law.

00:57:32.380 The first component basically says that if Laurie decides that she wants to speak on the issue of marriage to use unique stories,

00:57:40.580 to share her faith vision of what marriage is, then she actually has to share the opposite view as well.

00:57:46.620 So if she decides to go in and design custom websites and again, I think it's important, Megan, to understand these are not plug and play websites.

00:57:54.580 They are custom, unique websites.

00:57:57.080 Every one of them is different.

00:57:58.240 If she decides to do that to show the beauty of marriage as her faith teaches her, then she also has to show and do custom websites that shows the other view of marriage in terms of being between same sex marriage.

00:58:12.380 And so that's one way that the law compels her speech. 1.00

00:58:15.100 It says if you're entering this area, you have to speak messages that violate your convictions.

00:58:20.040 A second component of the law, though, also says, and you can't speak out in terms of what your own beliefs are on your own website because it might make a customer feel unwelcome.

00:58:31.660 So Laurie's view of marriage, she's not able to share on that website either.

00:58:35.420 And I do think that it's important to point out that Laurie's position, as she said, is the position that we should all take in terms of regardless of our view on a particular issue.

00:58:45.580 If the government can censor Laurie, it can censor any one of us.

00:58:50.180 So you you're not even allowed, Laurie, to put to post on your website.

00:58:55.300 You know, I'd rather not do the same sex marriages because I'm a Christian. 0.91

00:59:00.580 It doesn't align with my worldview, my my my religious beliefs.

00:59:03.980 Forget whether or not you would be forced to.

00:59:06.500 You can't even state that as as your own feelings on your website.

00:59:12.440 I cannot communicate my view on the topic of marriage on my own website.

00:59:18.800 Wow.

00:59:19.320 I mean, this seems rather extreme to me, Kristen, and the Tenth Circuit's ruling, which is a two to one ruling, seems out there even by, you know, looking at sort of more liberal jurists standards.

00:59:32.040 Well, you're right in the sense that the Tenth Circuit's decision itself in terms of how far it went was much further than any other decision.

00:59:41.080 But there have been a number of decisions in other states that have reached essentially the same result in terms of practical purposes.

00:59:47.200 So we know about Jack Phillips case litigated in Colorado.

00:59:51.100 But just last week, we were in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York with a photographer who's actually facing criminal penalties for declining to do custom photographs for same sex weddings.

01:00:04.440 And she's facing actual criminal fines and criminal penalties for that. 0.99

01:00:09.160 And then, of course, I know you're familiar with the Washington florists who essentially had to retire.

01:00:13.860 And there are a host of others who have been victims to this law, which is why we need to be able to stop activists and government officials from misusing public accommodations laws to essentially punish and ruin those who don't hold their viewpoints.

01:00:28.540 Because this is what the court is saying, that that Lori's free speech rights have clashed with the anti-discrimination provisions of their of Colorado's civil rights laws that you may not discriminate.

01:00:41.580 You can't offer lesser or no services to somebody because of their sexual orientation.

01:00:46.820 That's what they claim this is, even though she is servicing LGBTQ people for any website they want, except for this one. 0.57

01:00:55.820 But they claim that's that's close enough.

01:00:57.760 You can't you know, that's the same as telling a black person no service, period.

01:01:03.120 That analogy is offensive.

01:01:05.600 First of all, the decisions that Lori's making are based on what the message is that she's being requested to create, not who the person is that is requesting it.

01:01:14.180 And even the United States Supreme Court has recognized the difference between interracial marriage and same sex marriage.

01:01:20.260 It is said in the Loving versus Virginia case that, you know, interracial marriage laws were about systematic oppression and subjugation of an entire class of people, that it was about white supremacy.

01:01:31.220 And in Obergefell itself, the court's decision on same sex marriage, the court said decent and honorable people hold the belief that marriage is between a man and a woman and that actually all of the Abrahamic faiths still have this belief.

01:01:44.560 And so that it's not based on animus or anything else.

01:01:47.660 It truly is a core conviction about how God created marriage.

01:01:52.220 And in Lori's faith, for example, the marriage analogy is the analogy between Christ and the church.

01:01:58.820 So it holds a very sacred place in many of these faiths.

01:02:03.440 Lori, why, you know, you have people and I know this because I had Jack Phillips on my show and interviewed him before his case went up.

01:02:10.420 That was the case for my audience.

01:02:11.700 I mentioned this the other day where there was a there was a producer at NBC who'd been there for about two minutes who who wanted me to use all of her questions in questioning Jack Phillips.

01:02:21.280 I said, I don't. You're not a lawyer. You're a young producer. You've been here about two minutes.

01:02:26.440 I'm not going to be using your questions. I'll be using my own questions since I practiced law for 10 years.

01:02:30.580 And I and I covered the high court for three years. And this young twit, forgive me, had a freak out that I wasn't going to ask her questions. 0.88

01:02:36.380 And I didn't ask her questions in my mood. We're just fine. 0.98

01:02:39.580 OK, sorry. Just bringing it all together for the audience. It's been following my journey on the story.

01:02:44.160 Well, I remember that. I remember that. You were there to know that interview.

01:02:47.940 And you were very fair to us, but you were also tough. And I think that that produces people should hear both sides of these things and make their own decisions.

01:02:55.540 Exactly. So and he did just fine. And that, as we pointed out, that wound up going his way seven to two.

01:03:01.980 But in any event, so what is it? You know, people would say to you same way they say to Jack, I can't just do it.

01:03:07.500 You know, like what? Just do it. You know, the law says you have to.

01:03:11.160 Like, can't you just do it? And what do you say to them?

01:03:15.660 My faith inspires every everything that I do. I can't separate my faith from my work.

01:03:23.180 It inspires what I do. And so because of that, the artwork that I create, the designs that I create, the way that I work with my clients,

01:03:32.980 all of that must be glorifying and honoring to God. So no, I cannot communicate a message that goes against my deeply held beliefs.

01:03:41.340 Nobody should be put in a position of having to do to do so.

01:03:46.680 Nobody should be in that position, whether your views are the same as mine or whether they're different.

01:03:51.900 Nobody should be in a place of the government telling them they must communicate a message that violates their core beliefs.

01:03:58.600 And what, if anything, has happened to your business as a result of this law and in the wake of this controversy?

01:04:06.960 Well, this journey has been going on for six years, and it certainly has been a roller coaster.

01:04:14.880 I have received quite a bit of just vile hatred my way, as I'm sure you, speaking with Jack, have heard through his story.

01:04:25.460 It's been very similar for me.

01:04:26.920 My clients have been harassed by those who oppose me.

01:04:34.260 I have people who attempt to hack into my website, but to make matters worse, my family's been threatened.

01:04:41.360 I've had people driving by my house, sending things to my home.

01:04:47.760 I've had to put a security system on my home and put my daughter's school on alert.

01:04:52.380 I've had people wish incredibly just rotten things, death threats, like I've said, but threats of physical harm, too.

01:05:03.660 It's certainly been a challenge.

01:05:05.220 And I think what's hardest for me is that those who oppose my stance.

01:05:11.660 I've always been hopeful and treated people with love and kindness and respect.

01:05:16.840 And I'm hopeful that we can get back to a point where we can disagree about topics like marriage, but to do so in a respectful way, because it's really awful.

01:05:27.940 We can't have a dialogue.

01:05:30.000 Instead, they go to the Internet or they send threats.

01:05:34.280 It's it's it's been really hard.

01:05:36.240 It's been a hard and difficult journey for me.

01:05:38.180 Oh, I'm I'm sure it is.

01:05:40.140 And I remember in that interview with Jack Phillips, he was teary when he was talking about what had been done to his employees and how much they'd lost.

01:05:49.480 His business was basically destroyed because he refused to bake that cake for a gay wedding. 1.00

01:05:55.040 Um, what's happened with him?

01:05:58.060 Because that case seemed it was definitely a victory for him, but it's been ongoing.

01:06:03.840 He's also in Colorado.

01:06:05.440 Colorado and this law continue to cause a lot of problems for people who have genuinely held religious beliefs.

01:06:12.140 Well, yesterday, Megan, we had an oral argument at the Colorado Court of Appeals because Jack is still in court today.

01:06:18.600 This is his third case.

01:06:20.060 Shortly after the court agreed to hear his first case, which was in 2016, he received a call on that same day from a transgender attorney who asked him to design a custom cake to celebrate the attorney's gender transition with blue on the outside and pink on the inside.

01:06:38.920 And Jack declined to design that cake.

01:06:41.220 In addition, that attorney called back and asked also for a cake celebrating Satan and having him smoking a marijuana, assuming that maybe that would trigger some sort of religious discrimination claim.

01:06:52.980 And Jack declined that cake as well.

01:06:55.360 In terms of his journey, Colorado came after him three weeks after we won the case at the U.S. Supreme Court.

01:07:02.060 They again asserted charges based on the incident with the transgender attorney.

01:07:06.480 And that third case is now at the Colorado Court of Appeals.

01:07:09.980 So it's not just Lori.

01:07:12.080 It's not just Jack.

01:07:13.280 It's Emily Carpenter, as I said, in the in the Second Circuit.

01:07:16.820 There are artists out of Arizona and it just keeps coming.

01:07:20.560 Chelsea Nelson out of Kentucky, who's also a photographer.

01:07:23.740 So we need the court.

01:07:25.060 Explain why, Kristen, explain why the 72 decision did not put an end to this.

01:07:30.540 Because, as you recall, that term was Justice Kennedy's last term.

01:07:37.180 Justice Kennedy wrote the majority decision and the court's decision focused on free exercise rather than free speech in that case.

01:07:44.240 In fact, the court said that Colorado was so hostile in how it treated Jack during the process that it didn't even need to actually reach the free speech arguments.

01:07:53.560 It didn't touch those because it said that kind of hostility is impermissible.

01:07:57.260 It actually the Colorado Commission compared Jack's beliefs to those of slave owners and those who perpetrated the Holocaust in open court.

01:08:06.560 And then shockingly, what we found out through the second case after the Supreme Court case was that that commission again doubled down on that hostility as well, even after the Supreme Court ruled in our favor.

01:08:19.120 So, in a sense, we won on free exercise, we advanced free exercise jurisprudence, that, in other words, religious freedom, but we still need the court to address the free speech issues.

01:08:29.300 Because, you know, the market can do what it wants to do.

01:08:32.020 If people don't want to purchase products or purchase custom speech in other areas because they don't agree with Lori or Jack or others, that's up to them.

01:08:42.100 But what we're talking about here is government power.

01:08:45.120 It is the force of the state to silence, to coerce, to punish, and even to ruin people that don't agree with its ideology.

01:08:54.780 And that should frighten all of us, no matter what we think about this particular issue.

01:08:59.120 Well, because the high court did not accept this case as a free exercise challenge.

01:09:04.100 They're not saying, let's decide this as religious rights and get into our religious rights jurisprudence.

01:09:09.760 They're deciding this one as a free speech case.

01:09:12.420 So, is that what you wanted?

01:09:15.200 And do you, because the court's free exercise jurisprudence, you know, where do your religious rights end and somebody else's rights begin, is a mess.

01:09:24.600 It's a nightmare.

01:09:26.340 The court's been totally inconsistent.

01:09:28.020 They have a new standard every case.

01:09:29.920 They expand it.

01:09:30.740 They contract it.

01:09:31.620 It goes left.

01:09:32.540 It goes right.

01:09:33.120 It's very hard to follow.

01:09:34.300 So, do you like where it stands right now and you're glad that they're not touching it?

01:09:39.440 Or would you prefer that they reevaluate free exercise and free speech?

01:09:44.900 Well, I do think that free exercise needs to be reevaluated, but I'm not at all disappointed they're looking at free speech in this case.

01:09:51.700 Because I think that we win on free speech and for our purposes, it is an essential issue that needs to be resolved today.

01:09:58.740 I mean, every other day on your podcast, you're addressing some sort of censorship or speech, whether it's through policy, through private power.

01:10:05.800 It impacts every profession, the medical profession, the academic profession, those who are experiencing any professional licensing.

01:10:13.480 We have a ton of students.

01:10:15.020 We do more work for students on public campuses than any other conservative institution or law firm.

01:10:21.640 And every day they're facing all kinds of new harassment and coercion from schools.

01:10:26.320 So, we need a solid, strong, robust decision that says it's wrong for the government to punish people because they disagree with what the government says on a particular topic.

01:10:36.660 That is exactly where I'm going next.

01:10:39.120 All right.

01:10:39.380 Stand by, Lori and Kristen, because this is not just a Lori Smith problem.

01:10:43.400 This is your problem, too.

01:10:45.120 Whether you're on a college campus or at a company that's forcing you to say certain things in your DEI training or what have you, compelled speech is all the rage right now.

01:10:56.100 Can you imagine how you'd feel if your college made your kid say something, you know, Black Lives Matter or, you know, trans rights or human rights?

01:11:07.640 It's happening.

01:11:08.680 If they made them say it, if they try to make you say it, we'll pick it up right there.

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01:11:43.780 So, Kristen, we talk about this all the time, but the case that I'm thinking about is Jodi Shaw, who was at Smith College, and it's just a gal with her microphone.

01:11:58.980 And she sits down at the mic and starts talking about how they're making me say these things I don't believe.

01:12:06.700 They're making me participate in these classes which are spewing nonsense that I don't think is right, and I think it's really racist, and I don't want it.

01:12:16.080 And what I'm basically saying to Smith College is, you may not racialize me, my colleagues, and my work setting.

01:12:24.520 This is wrong.

01:12:26.640 Things went from bad to worse with Smith.

01:12:28.720 They found an excuse to turf her, and the litigation ensued thereafter. 0.78

01:12:32.000 But that's compelled speech.

01:12:33.840 They were trying to make her say things about white people, about race, that she did not believe in.

01:12:41.140 And it wasn't, in that case, a matter of her religion.

01:12:44.600 It was just a matter of her morals and her character and what she believes is right and wrong.

01:12:49.160 So in a case like that, you guys would take a case like that because that may not be a free exercise case, right?

01:12:55.440 But that's a free speech case, a compelled speech case.

01:12:58.640 Well, we need to understand that civil liberties travel together, right?

01:13:01.440 So if you want to have religious freedom, you have to have free speech.

01:13:04.180 Even if you want to advocate for a certain side of immigration laws or you want to advocate be pro-life or be pro-abortion, speech is fundamental to that, that we're able to exchange freely in the ideas that we have and to pursue truth.

01:13:19.720 So all of our civil liberties are connected.

01:13:22.160 And just as important, when you look across the world, you see that those countries that don't protect speech don't protect the other rights either,

01:13:30.280 whether that's the freedom of the press or even how we protect our minorities, those who are vulnerable, as well as our economic freedom.

01:13:38.140 So it really is a linchpin that's very important to the stabilization and really just a free nation.

01:13:44.840 Now, it's one thing if the government does it in a public school. 0.88

01:13:47.820 That's a no-brainer.

01:13:48.620 They're not allowed to do that.

01:13:49.700 I mean, they really are not allowed to do that.

01:13:51.620 It gets less clear when you go over into the private sector.

01:13:55.340 But most of these colleges take federal money.

01:13:58.400 So they're on the hook, too.

01:13:59.980 They're not allowed to violate the First Amendment while taking government money.

01:14:04.180 Is that correct?

01:14:05.680 Well, there are some distinctions that can be made.

01:14:08.200 So in terms of I'm not a big fan of the government imposing its own ideology when it comes to the strings that are attaching.

01:14:14.960 And you're seeing the Biden administration do that left and right now.

01:14:18.140 Like we just had a case where they tried to use strings with Title IX,

01:14:22.080 where private schools were giving lunch money or lunches through federal funds to kids that needed food.

01:14:28.320 And they were going to withhold those monies unless the school embraced the gender identity ideology that the Biden administration is perpetuating. 0.87

01:14:37.120 So there are some nuances.

01:14:39.100 Yes, yes.

01:14:40.600 It's astonishing the lengths that they're going to right now, that they will deny food to kids.

01:14:45.480 They will deny equal opportunities to women. 1.00

01:14:47.820 What they're doing is deciding what side they want to be on, passing laws and policies,

01:14:52.760 and then putting criminal punishments against those who disagree.

01:14:56.320 But in terms of your question about how the First Amendment applies, it applies to public institutions.

01:15:01.880 And in addition, private institutions, they can't engage in discrimination.

01:15:06.660 So when some of the cases that you've mentioned involve race discrimination, potentially,

01:15:11.660 they involve sex discrimination, potentially.

01:15:13.760 And many of these instances involve religious discrimination as well under civil rights laws.

01:15:19.180 So let me ask you a question.

01:15:20.400 Let me ask you a question there.

01:15:21.500 So, yes, correct.

01:15:23.360 But but my question whenever I engage in this analysis is if it is a purely private institute,

01:15:31.300 that's not taking government money, because that's the case with a lot of these K through 12 schools.

01:15:37.260 They don't take government money.

01:15:38.920 Colleges do for the most part.

01:15:41.240 Can they engage in discrimination?

01:15:44.040 I know that we've got discrimination laws that say you take any government money, you're on the hook.

01:15:47.860 You cannot say white people are bad.

01:15:49.860 You can get sued and you'll lose.

01:15:52.220 But if they if they're purely private, can they do it?

01:15:56.380 They cannot engage in discrimination.

01:15:58.860 Civil rights laws apply to private entities as well as to public entities.

01:16:03.700 And they routinely you know, the Biden administration is attaching all kinds of federal strings to these laws

01:16:09.900 that are actually forcing them to engage in discrimination in terms of the gender identity component of it.

01:16:16.320 So and again, the speech component is even more concerning.

01:16:19.920 Megan, we have been litigating for years on public against public universities.

01:16:24.640 And predominantly, it's been about speech codes and speech zones.

01:16:27.740 Right. You can't say this or that.

01:16:29.260 You have to say it in a certain place.

01:16:30.600 You have to have a permit before you do it.

01:16:32.120 But now we're seeing them even get more aggressive where they're issuing like no contact orders without due process to students and saying you can't be anywhere near these students.

01:16:43.100 If you're making them feel at all uncomfortable, even though you just simply articulated a conservative idea in the classroom.

01:16:49.540 Wow.

01:16:49.640 Oh, my gosh.

01:16:50.900 I mean, that is that is anti-American.

01:16:53.720 But this so this concerns me, though, because free speech is in a different lane.

01:16:58.320 It's not necessarily the same thing as the anti-discrimination laws.

01:17:00.940 You need a you need a government actor.

01:17:03.060 And if it's a purely private institute, they can get away with this.

01:17:08.140 Well, they can't to some extent in the sense of they can't engage in, again, religious discrimination.

01:17:14.980 So in Maggie de Jong's case, for example, you know, the university was essentially putting penalties against her because of her religious views.

01:17:24.920 And most private universities have policies in place that prohibit this type of discrimination.

01:17:30.480 There are very few private schools that actually don't take some sort of federal funds where these civil rights laws clearly apply that Americans with Disabilities Act applies.

01:17:39.300 There are many laws that apply to private universities that prevent this kind of discrimination.

01:17:44.200 And in addition to that, most of them have policies that are supposed to be embracing academic freedom and a free speech culture.

01:17:51.420 The problem is that they don't do it on the ground.

01:17:53.820 And that's why we have to keep litigating these cases on the speech, speech codes and speech zones side of things.

01:17:59.220 There's really strong case law that protects students and faculty members.

01:18:04.220 But as soon as the case is resolved and we win, the university usually tries to go back to its old policy or just discriminates in a different way.

01:18:12.960 And that's why we have to stay vigilant about this.

01:18:15.440 It's crazy. You really do have to stay vigilant about it.

01:18:17.540 It reminds me of when Californians passed that initiative several years ago that they no longer wanted the universities to use race in admissions.

01:18:26.360 And and they said, OK, that's the new law.

01:18:29.640 And then the colleges started to do it anyway.

01:18:31.520 They just found another way of doing it.

01:18:32.760 It's like they they are run by people with an agenda and they will not let go of their agenda, even when ordered to do so by a court of law or the voters.

01:18:41.640 So you really do have to keep an eye on them and make sure you're constantly on them.

01:18:46.420 So, Laurie, can I ask you about you and your politics?

01:18:48.520 Are you in an area that is heavily Christian that like, you know, do you have support there or is everybody like, why don't you just move to Texas or, you know, move to Oklahoma?

01:18:59.300 Get out of Colorado.

01:19:00.360 I have actually heard that comment before, to which I say free speech is guaranteed to all of us, regardless of the of the state you live in.

01:19:09.340 But I would say that we have a lot.

01:19:12.240 I have a lot of supports here locally, the state.

01:19:16.080 I'm a native, so the state has certainly changed over my lifetime.

01:19:20.100 But I receive quite a bit of support from people in the area, even support from those who don't agree with me and my views on the topic of marriage, which is eye opening because we do not have to agree on the topic of marriage to understand that what's at stake impacts all of us.

01:19:41.040 So I'm certainly grateful for the support that I have had and the prayers.

01:19:45.460 It means a lot to my family and I.

01:19:46.960 Now, it's a good sign for you that the Supreme Court took this because you lost at the lower level.

01:19:53.520 So you you want to be in the position of having someone review that if they thought this 10th Circuit clearly did the right thing, they probably wouldn't have accepted the case.

01:20:01.460 Doesn't guarantee a win, of course, but rather be in your position than the other side's.

01:20:06.500 However, if it doesn't go your way, maybe Kristen, you know, falls down on the job. 1.00

01:20:13.020 Not likely, but let's just say it doesn't go your way.

01:20:16.960 What what will you do?

01:20:19.020 Well, I'll be deeply saddened, of course, and I am concerned now, but I'll be even more concerned than my dream has been to step into creating for weddings.

01:20:29.280 That's what I've wanted to do for six very long years now.

01:20:32.700 And if the court does not protect speech for myself and for others, then I will remain uncensored.

01:20:42.260 That's concerning.

01:20:43.260 It's concerning to me, but it's concerning.

01:20:45.760 For my daughter and those who are younger, who may have an interest in doing what I'm doing now in future generations, steeply unsettling.

01:20:58.540 And if you see a world in which you would do it, you know, you'd be faced with either doing it or closing up shop.

01:21:07.520 I cannot communicate a message that violates my belief.

01:21:11.740 No one should be put in that position.

01:21:13.740 I can't I can't do it.

01:21:14.720 What about Kristen?

01:21:17.980 As a practical matter, like, could she kind of phone in the website?

01:21:22.100 Would that be unlawful?

01:21:23.300 You know, like what's to stop Jack Phillips from baking a lame cake or, you know, like you, Laurie does the website, but it's like not so great.

01:21:33.480 Like, this is what you're going to get because I I did it.

01:21:36.340 I never promised you a rose garden.

01:21:37.680 I think a couple of things would be in play.

01:21:41.400 Laurie and Jack believe that all people should be treated with dignity and respect and they want to bring their best to their work.

01:21:46.980 And they believe that God calls them to do that.

01:21:48.960 I mean, the scriptures tell them that we're called to excellence in all things.

01:21:52.500 And so doing a subpar job would violate their faith as well.

01:21:55.980 In addition, we can't live by lies.

01:21:58.560 And that is what that is.

01:22:00.320 You know, I don't know if you saw.

01:22:01.680 I'm sure you probably did, Megan.

01:22:02.880 In the recent story involving Judge Ho out of the Fifth Circuit, who gave recent remarks lately, who just essentially my favorite quote in what he said was simply that, you know, silence is contagious, but so is courage.

01:22:15.780 And what's at stake in allowing censorship of free speech is self-government itself.

01:22:22.180 And it is this concept that we would live by lies.

01:22:24.700 We all have a role to play in this, whether that role is having the privilege of talking to you and sharing Laurie's story, or it's having the privilege of sitting in our kitchen table with our kids who are being fed, you know, a bunch of lies themselves and need their parents to help educate them in ways that maybe previous generations didn't have to do.

01:22:45.300 Judge Ho, for the audience, just recently made public remarks in which he said he's not going to hire any law clerks from Yale Law School because that school has just gone around the bend when it comes to cancel culture and cracking down on free speech.

01:23:00.820 And he's trying to teach them a lesson.

01:23:02.600 I'm sure he would love to get some clerks in the Federalist Society at Yale Law School who think about the world more the way Kristen and I do when they look at the law.

01:23:09.640 But he's trying to teach them a lesson, and he hopes other judges do as well, which is this should be a principle we can all agree on, that there are certain standards.

01:23:17.500 There's certain constitutional standards that we live by and that are written down and that we must live by.

01:23:23.380 Can I ask you, Kristen, what is the next area that you see popping up as the biggest, I don't know, sort of the future of this litigation?

01:23:32.200 Because I've been watching California and its law on what doctors may and may not say when it comes to, quote, misinformation on the vaccine and COVID, which is, to me, insane.

01:23:43.020 I mean, it's science.

01:23:44.740 You're allowed to revise your old opinions as new information comes in.

01:23:48.660 But more and more we've seen in COVID, the crackdown on the Internet, crackdown on the medical community with all the race essentialism and the trans stuff. 1.00

01:23:56.700 We've seen crackdowns in schools on what you can and cannot say and the free flow of discussion.

01:24:00.740 So where is it going?

01:24:03.660 I think you're right to ask those questions, but I think they all come back again to speech.

01:24:08.300 I do think that speech is a significant issue of our day.

01:24:11.020 Obviously, religious freedom is, too.

01:24:13.000 But, I mean, we've even seen one of our cases at the Supreme Court was a case called NIFLA, which involved whether religious pro-life centers could have to speak messages about abortion that violate their convictions.

01:24:23.540 And we won that case as well, but that was a five to four win.

01:24:26.960 And so now in the post-Roe world, we're seeing activists, attorney generals starting to go after pro-life clinics on their speech. 0.56

01:24:35.000 We saw California pass a recent law on that.

01:24:37.580 And it just keeps going.

01:24:39.000 So I think that we have to be able to stand up for the right to hold beliefs about human sexuality, including that we're men and women and that we're different and that that's a good thing.

01:24:49.060 We're complementary, but we definitely are equal because this gender identity ideology is really threatening to swallow up the rights of women, equal opportunities for our daughters, and just basic differences that make a civil society great and diverse. 0.99

01:25:05.860 How can people support Lori and Alliance Defending Freedom?

01:25:09.100 Well, all of our work is pro bono, and we would love the support.

01:25:13.500 They can go to our website at ADFlegal.org to find out more.

01:25:18.040 Good. Good for you.

01:25:19.480 We're going to be watching.

01:25:20.440 Lori, good luck.

01:25:21.400 And we'll watch the whole thing.

01:25:23.320 Come on back after we get a result.

01:25:25.580 All right.

01:25:25.860 Thank you.

01:25:26.820 All the best to you and you as well, Kristen.

01:25:28.620 See you soon.

01:25:29.600 Quickly, before we go, Andrew Sullivan's coming back next week, and we'll do pumpkin spice latte live tasting with the PIPGOM guys.

The Megyn Kelly Show - October 07, 2022

Meghan and Harry's Neediness and Disloyalty, and New Free Speech Case, with Tom Bower and Lorie Smith ｜ Ep. 407

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