Outrageous Casey DeSantis Attacks, CNN's Whiny Newsroom, and Surviving Cancelation, with Jesse Kelly and Joseph Massey | Ep. 566
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 35 minutes
Words per Minute
184.9392
Summary
Chris Licht's profile on CNN chief executive officer Jeff Zucker was supposed to prove his brilliance and journalistic integrity. Instead, it shows him as self-aggrandizing and insecure, uttering phrases to a reporter like I m a machine while pumping iron in the gym.
Transcript
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Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
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Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
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An in-depth profile by The Atlantic's Tim Alberta on CNN.
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It's led to a lot of consternation and backlash, and that is where we begin today.
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The profile was on CNN chief Chris Licht. It was supposed to confirm his brilliance and
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journalistic integrity. This is the way back for CNN, which is at the bottom of the barrel
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in the ratings these days. Instead, this piece may be the death knell for Licht's career.
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In the piece, Licht comes across as self-aggrandizing and insecure, uttering phrases to a reporter like,
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I'm a machine, while pumping iron in the gym. My God. Can you imagine? What kind of a man does
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that? A man oddly focused on the guy who held his job before him, Jeff Zucker, while lifting a weighted
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pole at said gym, where he is said to be obsessed with his trainer, from whom he takes advice on
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how to run CNN. By the way, the trainer is some far-left guy who prefers MSNBC. Licht is said to
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have exclaimed, Jeff Zucker couldn't do this. What? The piece includes much criticism by Licht
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of the CNN he inherited, and I actually happened to share those criticisms. How it hyped the CNN
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COVID virus and the death toll to the point where it became absurd. How CNN joined the resistance
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during the Trump years. How it became a player on the field during Trump's presidency, costing the
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network its credibility and trust as a neutral journalistic outfit. Now, the CNN staffers are
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reportedly in full revolt. Their little feelings, already tender from the CNN town hall where Trump
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was platformed and spewed lies, are now extra hurt by the criticism they are receiving via the Atlantic
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from their boss. Brian Stelter, who Licht justifiably fired as one of the most biased, worst offenders of
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these sins, writes now that the COVID hype allegation really stung some inside CNN who maintain they did
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no such thing. They did not hype it. Well, I watched the whole thing unfold. And if CNN was not hyping the
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COVID death toll, et cetera, for ratings, then it must have actually been that hysterical. Either way,
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it is an embarrassment and a journalistic fail for them. To call that a black eye would be the
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understatement of the year. I'm with Licht all the way on those criticisms and his observations.
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Obviously, he is right about their failures on Trump, too. That is why he was hired by the new
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owners to try to right that ship. In fact, I found myself agreeing with much of what Licht found faulty
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in the CNN he was inheriting after Jeff Zucker's ouster. It is clear that Licht fancies himself as a
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mini Roger Ailes wannabe. But as I said on Friday, there's only one Roger Ailes and Chris Licht ain't
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it. Roger's genius came to him authentically and organically as he grew up digging ditches in
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Youngstown, Ohio. Licht, the piece points out, was raised in Connecticut. That's where I am. I'm not
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judging it, but I'm just saying, please. The son of a doctor and a physician's assistant. His career
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before CNN had him executive producing The Morning Show at CBS, not exactly known for its fair and
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balanced approach to news. And then Stephen Colbert, his late night propaganda machine for
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the left. This is not exactly man of middle America stuff. He has clearly read about Ailes and his
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approach to the news and in trying to satisfy his bosses at Time Warner Discovery, who wants CNN to
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return to its nonpartisan roots, is trying to act the part. But you cannot imitate your way to
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greatness. For one thing, Ailes new talent. How to find them, how to manage them, how to make them
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household names, and then how to manage their egos once they became those household names. Better than
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anyone in the news business. Licht? His biggest accomplishments so far seem to be casting Don Lemon
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in that disastrous morning show on CNN, which has already basically imploded, and gotten Lemon fired.
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And elevating Caitlin Collins as his next big star. Collins seems like a fine reporter with
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potential, but she doesn't have anything close to the it factor that has thrust many others into
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cable news stardom. Chris Licht would have been better off leaving her in the White House reporting
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gig, letting her cement her reporting chops instead of tying her to the morning anchor desk with Lemon
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and Poppy Harlow, where she exudes approximately zero warmth. Next up, he gave Collins the
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high wire act of trying to manage Donald Trump in a CNN town hall. That, too, was an utter fail,
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as anyone who's watched Trump for two minutes prior to that town hall could have and did predict.
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Now, he has tarnished his only rising star at the network, just as he gave her the nine o'clock
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In reading the Atlantic piece and now the follow-up reporting by The New York Times over the past few
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days, The Daily Beast, Brian Stelter's writing, and then today CNN's own Oliver Darcy in his
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Reliable Sources newsletter, he took that over from Stelter, what is clear is that the CNN staff
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cannot stand Chris Licht. As he brags in the piece about his new svelte body allegedly being a machine,
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he fails to disclose that he apparently did it with Ozempic, according to The New York Post,
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which quotes several people to whom Licht has apparently been admitting for years now that
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he's been using the drug. As he takes CNN staffers and anchors out to dinner to get to know them,
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he obsessively checks his phone reading press coverage about himself. This is a guy who seems
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more focused on promoting himself in the press than any of the stories or the staff on CNN.
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He wants to inspire greatness in his employees and young journalists, but keeps repeating the same
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tired, uninsightful lines, per Tim Alberta. Like, we can disagree on whether we like rain or not,
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but not on whether it's actually raining outside. Okay, go! Let's go, team!
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The news is so much more complex than the than that these days, as evidenced in his CNN Trump town
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hall, right? Where where his star reporter taking on Trump stated as a matter of fact,
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it is raining outside that the 2020 election wasn't rigged. Really? Tell it to The New York Post
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and its audience who did not get to read the Hunter Biden story after it was suppressed by Twitter and big
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tech, etc. We could go on on the rigged point and have no need to belabor it again.
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Licht is now moving his office from the 22nd floor to the newsroom like Jeff Zucker did. But that is no
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answer. The children don't need moment to moment access to daddy. The chumminess of Zucker with his
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CNN staff was actually a problem, not an accomplishment. He wanted to be liked. He didn't
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want to lead. Sometimes being the boss means you have to ruffle some feathers. You have to treat the
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staff like underlings. You have to fire people, right? Like Jeffrey Toobin, like Don Lemon, like
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Chris Cuomo, all these things that Jeff Zucker was so reluctant to do. And later we found out why he had
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his own problems in the Me Too department. But it is evidence of the fact that Licht does not know how
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to appease his minions. He's flailing. And the minions are apparently done with the machine.
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Joining me now, one of our favorites, Jesse Kelly, is author of the brand new book,
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The Anti-Communist Manifesto, which is out today. He is host of The Jesse Kelly Show.
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And also, I'm right. Jesse, welcome back and congrats on the book.
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Thank you, Megan. This is old news stuff for you, but it's the first time for me. So yes,
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I'm an author now, very world famous author, a big celebrity now, Megan.
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Yes, I hear you're getting wonderful blurbs and reviews by Anonymous,
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tweeted out by Jesse Kelly on the Jesse Kelly Twitter feed.
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Yes, I actually reviewed the book myself on the back of the book as well and just gave credit to
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myself there. I wanted to make sure those reviews were just the way I wanted them, Megan.
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Perfectly on brand. I love it. So let's kick it off there. CNN, now they're in a new spiral over
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the Atlantic piece. They're mad that the boss, apparently he's not sharing these criticisms
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directly with the staff. He's only telling them to Tim Alberta of the Atlantic. And here are just
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some of the details. On Monday morning yesterday, in the wake of this in-depth, I mean, I showed this
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on Friday. Look at, look at this. My team printed out the Atlantic article. Look at how thick this
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thing is. I mean, this is like this. It went on and on and on. It was like a book. They've got their
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own book coming out today. So he held a call with CNN staffers. Apparently people phoned in. They were
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so anxious to hear what he was going to say about this. Says he is staying put, that he wants to earn
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back their trust. Reportedly said, this news cycle and my role in it overshadowed the incredible week of
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reporting we just had and distracted from the work of every single journalist at CNN. And for that,
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I am sorry. I should not be in the news unless it's taking arrows for you. Your work is what
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should be written about. I will fight like hell to win back your trust. This is all just drivel.
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This isn't going to do it. This guy, he's been to too much therapy, trying to learn exactly what to say
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or read too much Roger Ailes. You know, you are the message books, which are great,
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but only work if you're really a believer, if you're actually a disciple of Ailes.
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He's acting and he doesn't know what he's doing. Your thoughts on it?
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Yeah. This is something I'm actually struggling with society-wide right now, Megan. I don't know,
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maybe you are too. Maybe your listeners are too. When you picture CEOs or these big shot people,
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senators even, CEOs, senators, these people who are important, for lack of a better way to put it,
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in society. Even if I picture it ones that I disagree with, I still picture people who are
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highly intelligent, relatively emotionally put together. You know, you, you picture somebody
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who is accomplished and mature and put together, but I'm having a hard time adjusting to this modern
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society where you can rise to be the chief of CEO or chief of CNN. And really you're just a big child
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and you're texting with your life coach and you want to know if you had enough soy that day and
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are your, is your pH perfectly? And so I picture the head of CNN as maybe being someone I disagree
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with, but being highly intelligent and switched on and ready to go. But because we have such a society
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that has run away from meritocracy for too long, that now you can rise to the highest levels and
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probably will by being a total goober. And that's, that's what I see when I see Chris. Like,
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does that make sense? I, that's what I'm feeling everywhere. It does. That's the problem. So it's
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like having grown up under Roger Ailes professionally. I, I know what, look, this isn't to excuse the
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things that ultimately brought Roger down, but I know what a leader looks like. I know somebody who
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can actually make a decision without consulting some focus group or poll testing or, you know,
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staffers around him or even somebody above him. Cause the piece pens spend a lot of time talking
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about how he's really just executing the orders of the new owners and the guy in particular named
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David Zasloff. Um, so he's just, he's a puppet. This, this is like, this guy's not a leader. If
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all he's doing is, you know, throwing darts at the board and just trying to say like, we need to be
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more fair and balanced. We got it wrong the last time he needs to have a vision. And what, and the
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main problem is Jesse, apart from the failure to lead and understand leadership, I don't have to tell
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you that as a military guy, um, CNN's identity crisis starts well before Chris Licks enter into
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this picture. How, how do you regain any viewers when you still have all these biased hosts in the
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chairs from which they betrayed the American people to begin with? I think they're going to go through
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the same thing. Bud Light is going through right now, Megan. I I've said that Bud Light's damage to its
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brand will be generation. It'll take a generation to fix it. CNN's going through the same thing
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because of how they conducted themselves, as you just pointed out under Donald Trump. And the
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problem is these, these news organizations, they got hooked on the Trump drug meeting. I mean,
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everyone knows that our job, your job, my job, everyone's job. My job is to be interesting. I do
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a radio show. I do a TV show. I want people to listen. People have a million options. I want them to
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listen to me. I have to be interesting. CNN has a job to be interesting. Well, Trump is so interesting,
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whether you love or hate him, that people were watching CNN, hate watching it. So to watch them
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trash Trump every day. So they spent four years, not improving, not bringing in top tier talent,
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not bringing in people who are interesting or charismatic. You have Brian, you had Brian
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Stelter waddling into the CNN offices for four straight years. What are you doing? That guy
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shouldn't be on television, but you didn't use that four years to improve because you could put any
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idiot, you could have put a gerbil on TV to trash Trump and people would watch CNN for it.
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Well, eventually Trump goes back to Mar-a-Lago to play golf. And now you're stuck with this list
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of losers here. You haven't developed top talent. You haven't found top talent. How many talented
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news anchors have you seen locally nationwide, Megan? They're all over the place. There's talented
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journalists everywhere. You didn't go find them. You didn't use the scouting team. You're stuck with
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the same group of losers. And now you want to change your image, but you have all the same losers in
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the building. You should probably fire everybody is what they should do.
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Well, here's the other thing. So the difference between what Chris Lick is trying to do with the
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CNN staff and what Roger Ailes did at Fox News that made it such a juggernaut is Roger picked the right
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people. Like he plucked Sean Hannity out of doing, I think it was local radio in Oklahoma, right? Very
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small market. Heard him, plucked him out of obscurity, made the guy a star. O'Reilly had been hosting a
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current affair, right? It was either a current affair or inside edition. I always get those two confused.
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Um, and he gave him an opportunity in the prime time. We go on, you know, I, I had done one year
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part time at the ABC affiliate in Washington, DC when he hired me. So what, how did those people become
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well-known people like under Roger Ailes? And would they all have had the same result under Chris Lick
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or Jeff Zucker? No, we wouldn't have because what Roger did was he hired the right people whose values he
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understood and whose potential star talent he could judge. And then he let them loose. Then he
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said, go be yourself, do your thing. I'm not going to interfere with you. Like I believe in you. And
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of course we understood the mission of Fox news channel was not to put the New York times on the,
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on the air. What Chris Lick is trying to do is take a bunch of avowed leftists and make them fair
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and balanced reporters now and try to stop them from being their selves, right? Being themselves.
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He's trying to undo the programming that Jeff Zucker let loose and realizing that what he really had
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was a bunch of wannabe MSNBC anchors. And now those horses have left the barn and Chris Lick
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is trying to shove them back in the barn and fool the American people that they never left the barn
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and that they're totally fair and balanced on all issues. And you should trust them because now
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they're going to say the right things. None of it works. It's a recipe for disaster. And the ratings
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are showing it. They are showing it. Corporate America feels it the same way. This is what has
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happened, Megan, when you're bringing all these communists into your corporation, you're bringing
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in foot soldiers, you're bringing in religious zealots, and you're going to now approach Don
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Lemon and tell Don Lemon to be more non-biased. Don Lemon can't be more non-biased on top of being a
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total world-class piece of crap. Don Lemon's a foot soldier. Don Lemon sees himself as a warrior for
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the cause. He can't be non-biased. It's not in his being. It would be like approaching a devout
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born-again Christian and telling that person, hey, I really need you to be super pro-Muslim today.
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All right? That person can't do it. It's not in their nature. You can't walk in. And the corporations,
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as I pointed out, are doing this all across the country, and they're suffering for this
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for many different reasons. I actually write about this in the book as well. They bring in these
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poisonous people, these people straight out of college, or because they went to Harvard or
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Stanford, and they're true believers, right? They're true believers in the leftist cause.
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And then these corporations get frustrated when they torpedo them from the inside. Well,
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you're not bringing in the newest smart grad from Harvard like it's 1980. You're bringing in a
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communist foot soldier. You can't have a well-run corporation with these people in your corporation.
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It's like inviting an inoperable brain tumor into your office and then wondering why you're dying.
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You've got to start cutting these people out and being a lot more aggressive with censoring these
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people out of your business. You can't make it. They won't make it. All it takes is one of these
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people to blow up your corporation, Megan, let alone if your whole Friday night lineup is these
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Especially, I'm going to give you a quote that really underlines this in one second, but especially
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because Trump is running again. Trump right now looks very much like he's going to be the
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Republican nominee. And we'll get to the latest polls that just dropped. And so it would be one
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thing to say to, let's say, the Anderson Coopers of the world, who prior to Jeff Zucker and Trump
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was doing a decent job of towing the line, of not letting his politics dictate every facet of his
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coverage. But then Jeff Zucker let the freak flag fly. Like, you go. You be as liberal as you really
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are. Get Trump, be part of the resistance, which Cooper did, as well as all the primetime lineup.
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And now, you know, now they're trying to ask him to be something else. Maybe Cooper could do it.
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Maybe Cooper could resort, revert back to the pre-Trump Anderson Cooper. But Trump is out there again.
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He can't just be fair because it's like Mitt Romney running, who liberals can love. It's Trump
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again. There's zero chance, you tell me, of them containing their bias in trying to talk about
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this guy. Just look at the meltdown after the CNN town hall.
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Donald Trump, the hatred of him on a broader scale has done more to damage this nation than
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if Trump was the antichrist than he could have ever done himself. And a big part of that is what it's
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done to the media in this country. Even Jake Tapper, Megan, speaking of CNN, you brought up
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Anderson Cooper. Jake Tapper, he's never been Rachel Maddow, right? He was never Don Lemon. He was
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never one of these far left kooks. Now, he was not one of my people, but he's never been totally a
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nut job. But Donald Trump, you can see it. It seeps out of his pores like an angst-ridden 12-year-old
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girl. He cannot stand him to a level that he can't possibly speak about him. These people have
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convinced themselves that Trump is Hitler. They have. And so it would be like you or I trying to
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objectively cover Hitler. Now, that's an absurd comparison, obviously, Trump and Hitler. It's
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ridiculous. But these people are so ingrained with their own mental illness that that's what
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they've convinced themselves of. So how could Megan Kelly sit down and ever have even a little
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bit of objectivity if she was covering Hitler? How could I? Right? You can't. You find the person to
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be so despicable that you can't even speak about them without coming across, without all the hatred
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and bitterness coming across. That's how they all are with Trump. And as a result, they've alienated
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half the country that likes Trump. And it looks terrible every day. They can't. Yeah. They see it
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as a true character defining moment, like before him or against him. And there's no neutral ground,
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even as a reporter. And so if you're not openly working against him, you're evil. You're bad.
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You're part of it. You're you're complicit in Hitler's rise. In this case, Trump's rise.
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I'll say this about Jake Tapper. I always defend him. Yes, I'm friendly with him. So that's part of
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the reason I like him personally. But I agree with you that he doesn't like Trump and that he's shown
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that on the air. But at least I'll say this for Jake Tapper. He loves our military. He understands
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more about middle America than I think any other anchor there and tries to do stories that reflect that.
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And he will push back. You know, when he sees something bad for Joe Biden, he'll call it out.
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So I this is one of the reasons why I say of the CNN anchors, I think he's the fairest and he's
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probably the most rehabilitatable. But in his defense, he he spent four years under under Jeff
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Zucker being told, get him, get him, get him on the Trump thing. And that's that's why I blame
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Jeff Zucker for all of this. Jeff Zucker is now in The New York Times in this piece that hit over the
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weekend. Clearly trying to say Chris Lick sucks. And I'm really the one who had the answers. And
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all the CNNers are calling me saying how bad he is. But Jeff Zucker is the one who ruined CNN.
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He is the one. Chris Lick didn't ruin it. He's just struggling to fix it again. And back to the
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point I was going to tell you on this, like what you were saying about hiring the communists and
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and like, how are you going to change them? You needed a new cast because the communists are going
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going to communist. This is from the Atlantic piece. So the reporter, Tim Alberta, was given
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extraordinary access to the anchors, to Chris Lick, to the producing staff. And he was there when
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Don Lemon was rehearsing that morning show with the two female anchors and got a chance to talk to Don
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Lemon. So he says, I asked Lemon whether his approach to news meshed with Licks. Specifically,
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I mentioned the outrage porn conversation that Alberta had had with Lick. Lick thought CNN was
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too immersed in outrage porn. If everything's an 11, how can there ever be an 11? Right? And Lemon
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squinted at me, writes Tim Alberta. Here it is. Quote, some people may want to qualify it as outrage
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porn, but there was a lot to be outraged for these last few years, he said. There was a tweet or a
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statement or an action or something that was outrageous a few times a day for five, six years.
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What we were doing is we were fighting for democracy, Jesse. Okay, here it is. We were fighting to set
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the record straight on us being attacked and called fake. That may have put us back on our heels and made
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us a bit more aggressive with calling it out, but it doesn't mean it was outrage porn.
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I think he nailed it there at the end, Megan. That's something that you and I actually haven't discussed
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today. You and I have discussed it before is the arrogance and self-importance of these people a little
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bit. Did you hear what he said? He was calling us fake. These people, they go into journalism and they
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see themselves on TV and you know what that's like. And people are like, ah, Megan, I love you. And people
00:22:54.780
were asking, but hey, can you take a picture with me? And you eventually get to feel, if you're not
00:22:58.860
careful, you eventually get to feel like you are actually something important. And Don Lemon gets
00:23:03.360
to be on CNN and he's just better than everyone. And he's important because he's on television.
00:23:07.980
How dare you call me fake when I'm a journalist on TV? These people just think too highly of
00:23:13.580
themselves. A lot of this stuff comes down, I think, to basic arrogance. They couldn't stand it
00:23:18.160
that someone finally came along and treated them like crap, which is what they are. But they've never
00:23:23.480
been told that before. They've been told they're defenders of democracy. And remember how many times
00:23:28.080
they've compared themselves to firemen? And who was that one? I forget who this was,
00:23:31.880
compared themselves to Navy SEALs. Like Navy SEALs were the tip of the spear when it comes to
00:23:36.920
defending democracy. You're outside of your mind. You're a blogger on television. Let's not make
00:23:42.180
too much of it here. It's so true. And the piece, of course, Lemon, of course, got fired and he reveals
00:23:48.300
that Lemon had been threatening behind the scenes. I will go get Al Sharpton and Benjamin Crump to say,
00:23:54.520
to make this a referendum on CNN's whiteness, if you fire me. He's like the most. And now,
00:24:01.180
just today, it was in page six. Don Lemon's back. He is down, but not out. He's going to be hosting.
00:24:05.600
And I'm like, what? What, a show on News Nation? You know, like whatever, where you expect him to
00:24:08.840
pop up. No, he's going to be hosting some event for people who are both black and gay. It's not just
00:24:16.180
like raise money. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. So good luck, CNN. You're not going to have anywhere near
00:24:24.540
the success of Jesse Kelly's book, which we're going to talk about. Because one of the main
00:24:28.540
things in the book is something that's near and dear to my own heart. And that is how colleges and
00:24:34.100
beyond, but especially the university system and now the younger school systems too, want to control
00:24:39.760
our language. They want to control what comes out of our mouths. It's well beyond political
00:24:45.840
correctness. And today, I don't, we have, I should have counted them. We've got maybe three,
00:24:52.300
four stories in the news about people getting canceled because they didn't submit Jesse. They
00:24:58.420
would not submit. Here's one. This is out of Kellogg, Idaho. Student barred from graduation ceremony
00:25:06.220
after stating there are only two genders. So this kid, um, his name is Travis Lohr, 18 years old,
00:25:15.420
was not allowed to walk through his own graduation after he departed from pre-approved remarks during
00:25:20.140
an assembly speech, offering advice for underclassmen. What he said was quote, guys are
00:25:24.580
guys and girls are girls. There is no in between. So kicked out, can't walk in graduation. Uh, and then
00:25:30.060
on top of that, this is, this is the real rub. He says a job offer that he had to fight fires for the
00:25:37.040
forest service out there in Idaho was rescinded, was rescinded. This is just disgusting. And this
00:25:44.460
is, this is the point of your book that it's all part of the plan. Language has to be controlled.
00:25:49.200
That's a piece of the, the left's approach to managing all these controversial issues.
00:25:53.720
That's how the communists have done it forever, Megan. And it's, it's wild when you see the
00:25:58.900
parallels, which I do a lot in the book of history, like the Bolsheviks and the Chinese
00:26:03.120
and how it directly connects to what they do today. They build these language fences around us
00:26:09.700
and they're always closing in. So to, to censor what you can and can't say, and they're always
00:26:15.160
changing. It's crazy. When you read some of the historical stories and things like that,
00:26:19.560
I put in there of people who were, they would say something that, that was approved language.
00:26:23.660
At the time approved by everyone. You know, the communist said, this is okay. This is the
00:26:27.100
language you use. And then to keep people on their toes. And as a method of really control
00:26:32.620
and power more than anything else, they will wake up one day and decide that that language is no
00:26:37.240
longer acceptable. And then they'll go back to you using language that was acceptable at the time.
00:26:42.820
And they'll say, why were you using unacceptable language off to the gulag to you men becoming women
00:26:48.500
and women becoming men. That was not even a thing like 15 minutes ago. It seriously wasn't even a
00:26:54.760
thing in 2010. I, I understand trainings existed then, but it was very rare. It's not something you
00:27:00.360
talked about. It certainly wasn't something that dominated the news. Now your doctor will tell you
00:27:06.000
that men can become women. The, the, the latest Supreme court justice basically said the same thing.
00:27:12.440
God, I don't know what a woman is. Kid gets denied a job fighting fires and walking in his graduation
00:27:18.080
because he wouldn't say the newest thing that just came around five minutes ago. And I've tried to
00:27:24.000
explain this to people. I actually explained it in the book that they, people look at all this
00:27:28.320
training nonsense. Now this madness with kids mutilating themselves and stuff. And they think,
00:27:33.280
man, this is so crazy. This is so evil and crazy. Gosh, these guys, they've reached the end of the
00:27:39.080
road. And I'm trying to explain to everybody, there is no end of the road. This, the, all this
00:27:44.340
transsexual stuff, this will be yesterday's news. Five years from now, there'll be something new
00:27:48.660
and worse because they, they never stop because they can't stop. It's an endless path of destruction.
00:27:54.640
Let's, as Lennon said, revolution without end, the revolution can never stop.
00:27:59.040
This reminds me of when I was, um, I don't know, a sophomore at Syracuse university back in the
00:28:03.080
olden days. Um, I referred to, I said, he's a black author and she, and the professor stopped me
00:28:08.900
and said, it's African-American now. It's like, I believe you need to refer to black people as
00:28:14.660
African-American. So I was like, Oh, okay. I didn't know, whatever. Fine. This African-American
00:28:18.880
author. And then, and now you look at it today, a lot of people find that term offensive and we're
00:28:23.740
back to black, but it has to be capitalized, but you don't capitalize the W and what, okay, whatever,
00:28:28.060
who the hell can keep up? Let me give you another one. Um, via Fox news news, a university of
00:28:33.220
Cincinnati student is now speaking out after her professor allegedly failed her failed her Jesse
00:28:40.140
for using the term biological women. Olivia Krolczyk says her gender studies teacher gave her a zero
00:28:50.120
on her essay proposal about transgender athletes competing in women's sports because in the proposal,
00:28:56.760
she used the term biological women. The response from the professor reads as follows quote, Olivia,
00:29:02.920
this is a solid proposal. However, the terms biological women are exclusionary and are not
00:29:10.120
allowed in this course as they further reinforce heteronormativity. Please reassess your topic
00:29:16.800
and edit it to focus on women's rights, not just females. And I will regrade women's rights,
00:29:25.340
not just female. You must accept that in the women category are the trans people,
00:29:31.300
which therefore undermines the entire thesis that this university of Cincinnati student was
00:29:36.640
trying to take a look at. This is what scares me about where we're going. Megan is what have we
00:29:43.480
just talked about in the last five minutes, the people who are proclaiming this new insanity to be
00:29:48.080
real. That's a university professor. It's not just university of Cincinnati, by the way, as everyone's
00:29:52.520
seen, this is Columbia law. This is Stanford. This is Harvard. These. So, okay. So we have a Supreme court
00:29:58.100
justice. We have professors. We have the president of the United States of America, one of the two
00:30:03.540
major parties and half of the other low T loser GOP party will admit to that, that this is something
00:30:09.300
you can do. You can just change the gender you were born with. It's not that we have nutters in our
00:30:14.520
society. Every society has nutters. That's, that's, that's, that's the way the human beings are. It's that
00:30:20.460
our nutters run our society. It's become institutionalized. Your doctor in the future, shoot, probably now,
00:30:28.220
but in the future for sure, will not be allowed to practice medicine or graduate medical school unless
00:30:34.140
your doctor asserts that the 12 year old boy can cut his penis off and become a woman. That is so beyond
00:30:40.840
absurd. But again, it's not some nut job on the street corner out in front of my studio, Megan, screaming at the, at the
00:30:47.340
sky that men can become women. These are the leaders of our institutions in our society. It shows
00:30:53.200
how far gone we are and how crazy it really is. It's really disturbing. I'll give you just a couple
00:30:59.840
of examples because we like to stay on top of the news on this stuff. Uh, out of Canada, they've really
00:31:04.260
lost their minds. Student arrested at a Catholic school after saying there are two genders. Josh
00:31:09.960
Alexander was suspended this past November over comments he made saying there are two genders. He was
00:31:15.380
told he could not return to class unless he recanted that position. He decided to return anyway to get the
00:31:23.980
education he was paying for at this Catholic school and they had him arrested and charged with
00:31:32.600
trespassing. That, I mean, that's, it's too much. It's too much. And lest you think it couldn't happen in
00:31:39.360
America in Massachusetts, uh, Boise's setback. This is a, uh, headline for the daily mail Boise's setback
00:31:46.220
in free speech lawsuit against school over two genders, a shirt, a Boston judge ruled that 12 year
00:31:53.260
old Liam Morrison cannot wear a shirt that reads. There are only two genders while the case over the
00:31:58.000
garment is still being decided. Thank God for the Alliance defending freedom. They filed suit on his
00:32:02.020
behalf after he was denied the right to wear the shirt at all at school. Thank God there are warriors
00:32:06.020
like Alliance defending freedom. I'm telling you, like, if I wanted to hang back out my legal,
00:32:10.480
my law shingle, I'd go join these guys and help them in these battles. They got another one.
00:32:14.800
There's a professor who refused to say the preferred pronouns in his class and a lawsuit
00:32:20.160
was filed against him as I recall, or either way, he was challenged and threatened with his livelihood
00:32:24.920
for refusing to go along with it. And more and more, Jesse, we're seeing state laws that say in the
00:32:30.940
workplace setting, you basically have to use the preferred pronouns. You have to, or it creates
00:32:36.640
hostile work environment. And even if there's not a law in the light of the Supreme court decision
00:32:40.980
that Gorsuch joined the, you know, the, the Trump appointee joined, uh, Bostock, they saying you can't
00:32:48.100
discriminate against trans people in hiring. They can make a claim now that if you don't use their
00:32:52.560
preferred pronouns in the workplace setting, you have violated the law. They've been sneaking all
00:32:59.380
these things into statutes and judge made law and so on for years. Now, their whole goal was to stay
00:33:05.980
under the radar while they captured society. And now we're starting to see all the results of it.
00:33:12.760
The two scariest things they're taking over and maybe have taken already, Megan,
00:33:17.260
are the medical profession and the legal profession, as you just pointed out. It's one thing for
00:33:21.480
someone you were, you and I to get in an argument with somebody about this stuff. It's another thing
00:33:25.880
entirely to have this stuff written into law, basically making me a criminal for disagreeing
00:33:32.800
with the insanity of yours. You just saw, I mean, everyone talks about New York city and the crime
00:33:36.800
problem they have right now, how they're turning rapists or murderers loose, and they're hurting
00:33:40.960
more people. But they did find that one dastardly criminal, Megan, they tracked him down and they
00:33:45.980
threw the cuffs on him and he went to jail. What did this guy do? They tracked down the homeless guy
00:33:51.080
who took his pants down and took a CNN on a pride flag. That guy was immediately charged with hate
00:33:57.220
crimes, immediately charged with hate crimes. This stuff is being ingrained into the legal profession,
00:34:03.440
which is why they're going after the law school. So all these vicious little monsters who will be
00:34:07.880
judges and prosecutors one day will prosecute this stuff. Everything they're doing is designed right
00:34:14.900
now to turn any opposition thought into enemy of the state and illegal thought. Everything they're
00:34:22.860
doing from nationally, statewide, anywhere where the blue areas that control things, the end goal is to
00:34:29.240
make you an enemy of the state to justify using state power against you. That's what they really want
00:34:36.300
to do, just like communists have always done. They want to send the FBI to your door for opposing the
00:34:42.180
policies of Democrats. They want it to be legal. They want to declare you an enemy of the state.
00:34:46.920
That's why the FBI is cooking the books. That's why all this hate crime law when it comes to the
00:34:51.740
rainbow brigade is getting ingrained into law in blue states. They want to send the cops after you to
00:34:56.920
arrest you for what you believe. And it's hard for Americans to accept that. It's true. If you don't
00:35:01.640
believe it, just look at New York City, where a few years back they passed a law making it
00:35:07.060
unlawful to refer to someone in this country illegally as an illegal alien. It was that if
00:35:15.020
your intent was to be cruel or to harass. So it's it's this is America. If I want to call somebody an
00:35:22.520
illegal alien, I can do it no matter what's in my heart. Illegal alien, illegal alien, illegal alien.
00:35:27.480
It's fine. You're offended too bad. That's your business. And this is the point of your book,
00:35:32.160
the anti-communist manifest manifesto. I just want to read this because you raise this point.
00:35:37.000
You talk about how by classifying words is correct or incorrect. The communist is limiting the scope
00:35:41.520
of acceptable speech. If he doesn't want you to say something, he will forbid you from using the
00:35:45.320
words needed to say it. He's building walls around you and boxing you in. For example,
00:35:49.700
it becomes much more difficult to oppose illegal immigration if you cannot use the term illegal.
00:35:55.260
We live in a country where the language we are being told to use no longer has any basis in
00:35:59.560
objective reality. And what I like about the book is you give in these chapters,
00:36:03.820
quote, action items. The ones here include eliminate politically correct language from
00:36:09.000
your vocabulary, even if it makes the people you communicate with uncomfortable. Ignore name
00:36:15.040
calling and charges of racism, sexism or homophobia, transphobia. They're meaningless.
00:36:20.720
Don't apologize. It only encourages the mob and embrace cancel culture. It's a powerful weapon.
00:36:26.080
We should be using it against our enemy. I want to talk about that last one. There's a debate within
00:36:31.440
conservative circles on whether that's true. Stand by. That's what we call a tease.
00:36:36.000
Jesse Kelly stays with us and we pick it up there on whether the right needs to be doing more canceling.
00:36:45.340
Cancel culture. There was a debate on this a couple of years ago on Candace Owens podcast
00:36:51.380
on whether this should be used. I think Candace was in favor of it, at least with respect to Chrissy
00:36:56.840
Teigen at the time, who she was going after. Yay, go Candace. And I and there are others in the
00:37:02.340
conservative movement who do not think this is a good tool for the right, that this is only what
00:37:06.920
leftists do. I'm much more with you. I feel like what like what is this? We're going to take the high
00:37:13.380
road while they just keep slicing everybody with a right wing opinion.
00:37:16.740
Well, this is why we've had too much conservatism on the right, Megan, and not near enough
00:37:21.300
anti-communism. That's why I'm an anti-communist. The traditional conservatism, and I sympathize with
00:37:26.960
this because I'm 41 years old. It's been this way my whole life, has been thinking that we're in a
00:37:32.620
debate, of course, a serious debate, but we're in a serious debate with Democrats. And in the end,
00:37:38.140
hey, we all want what's best, right? Hey, we all agree that we all want America to be good. And we all
00:37:44.260
want everything to be prosperous and we want everyone to be happy. And that's where conservatism
00:37:49.260
has failed so painfully so, because we're not sharing a country with people who share our values
00:37:56.240
at all in any way. And now I'm not talking about every citizen, talking about the people who lead
00:38:01.420
our society. We are sharing a country with people who are trying to burn it down, not accidentally,
00:38:07.500
not a whoopsie. They're trying to burn it down. And when you're dealing with religious zealots,
00:38:12.540
the only thing religious zealots understand is fear and pain. I don't like cancel culture. I think
00:38:18.140
that's freaking horrible that you can be canceled for something you say. They've tried to do it to
00:38:21.940
me a thousand times because I'm offensive, of course, but that you should be canceled for something
00:38:26.500
you say, lose your job for something you say, your kids can't go to school anymore. I've always
00:38:31.240
thought that's a terrible place to be. I don't want to be there, but I know this. The communist has no
00:38:36.580
intention of stopping ever by my polite example to him. He's going to try to destroy me every day,
00:38:43.540
and I will say things like, that's not who we are. That's not our principles. We're above that.
00:38:48.200
He's not inspired by that. He thinks that's weak and pathetic. Either he will fear that being visited
00:38:55.200
back on him, or he will never stop. Again, think of the communist you share a country with more like
00:39:00.860
an Islamic jihadist than anything else. Some guy who's got a bomb strapped to his chest going to blow
00:39:06.820
up a school is not going to look at you and how good you are and be inspired by your example. You will
00:39:13.740
stop that guy from blowing up the school using fear or pain, and he will understand nothing else
00:39:19.280
because they're religious zealots. It's a religion. Until people understand it's a religion and not
00:39:23.560
politics, they will never be able to take these people on, and most of the right still thinks it's about
00:39:28.400
politics. I saw you tweeting out about the New Mexico governor signing into law a bill that would
00:39:35.120
permit minors to access cross-gender care, I mean, these operations and so on, and abortions without
00:39:43.160
parental knowledge or consent. So what? Now, my 13-year-old can get a double mastectomy without my
00:39:50.320
knowing or my... I mean, I want to take a look at the specifics, but to your point, how do we reason her
00:39:57.860
out of that? Yeah, you're not going to. That's the problem. We want America to be, because people
00:40:06.680
on the right or even in the middle, really, are generally patriotic. They understand how blessed
00:40:11.360
we are by God to live in this country and how wonderful America is. And so we long, I'm the
00:40:17.180
same way, we long for the days of, you know, 50 states in America, and we're all hands over our chest
00:40:23.100
watching the planes fly over as they sing the national anthem and getting a little misty. And
00:40:27.700
we want to believe that we can go back to the America we had, and our dads had, and our grandfathers
00:40:33.540
had. We want to believe that. We almost need to believe that. But that America is gone, and it's
00:40:38.020
not coming back. And I don't celebrate that. I think that's awful. It breaks my heart. If I had a heart,
00:40:43.800
it would break it. That's the real honest truth of it. But we're not going to share a society,
00:40:49.640
and shouldn't share a society with people who believe my 14-year-old son should chop his penis
00:40:55.040
off and pretend he's a woman. There's no common values there at all. And therefore, if you don't
00:41:00.960
share common values, you shouldn't live together. We are the couple right now where the husband wants
00:41:06.420
to settle down in the burbs and raise the kids and go to church on Sunday and white picket fence,
00:41:11.560
and the wife wants to tour with the Rolling Stones and do black tar heroin. Okay, they shouldn't be
00:41:16.880
together anymore. It's not healthy for the home. It's not healthy for the kids. They're different
00:41:21.580
people. We are separate people now, and we should be separate. I don't want to share a nation with any
00:41:27.520
demon who wants these young girls and young boys mutilated. These girls who are coming out now,
00:41:32.760
Megan, who've been, they were put through the shrinks, and their parents are almost always demons.
00:41:37.280
And then they have a doctor that's taking their breasts off. And I heard one of them giving
00:41:41.440
testimony about how she made this decision. I think when she was 16, she had both of her breasts
00:41:46.620
removed. And now she's heartbroken because she will never be able to nurse a baby one day.
00:41:54.100
That's exactly right, Chloe Cole. And you know how horrible and cold-hearted I am, Megan. I dang near
00:41:59.420
cried. The thought of a decision you make or your parents made and your doctor made at 16, and now
00:42:05.180
you'll never be able to nurse a baby in your life. That's not bad, Megan. That's evil. I don't
00:42:11.760
know what that is, but that's evil, and I stand against it.
00:42:14.340
It is so evil. Can I tell you, Jesse, just a personal moment? Of course, I believe you become
00:42:20.540
a mother when you find out you're pregnant. You're a mother. Like, my God, that's when motherhood began
00:42:24.540
for me. And then you deliver the baby, and you certainly know you're becoming a mother at that
00:42:28.540
moment. But it wasn't until, as soon as you have the baby now, they give you the baby,
00:42:33.700
and they tell you to put the baby on the breast so that the baby can latch, and you can get the
00:42:38.240
milk going and all that. And that, for me, is like the true crossover from the before to the after.
00:42:44.560
Like, when you really know you are a mother, when you are like feeding another human off of your
00:42:50.920
breast, which, let's face it, for most women prior to that moment feels more like a sexual organ
00:42:54.780
than a sustainer of life. And it's a beautiful moment. Not to get too weirdly intimate, but it is
00:43:01.520
a beautiful moment. It's an important moment. And so to, like, diminish it, you know, like people,
00:43:06.020
there was this one trans doctor activist who was like, so what? You can have your breasts put back.
00:43:11.640
You can have the fake breasts put back on. That's not the same. You will never be able to breastfeed
00:43:16.060
once you have that double mastectomy. And Chloe Cole's got a series out right now where she features
00:43:20.020
a 13-year-old, someone who was a 13-year-old, when they chopped off both of her breasts.
00:43:25.560
All of them denied this beautiful opportunity that's important for mother and child.
00:43:32.100
Megan, you just brought up your kid. My wife, our boys are 12 and 14 now. On occasion,
00:43:38.400
she will still bring up how much she misses those days and treasures those days because of that
00:43:43.400
lifelong connection. And just like you mentioned, just how real being a mother became. And to know
00:43:50.540
that there's this huge industry now, there's this huge evil industry doing that to teenage girls
00:43:55.880
and these teenage boys. And then they're messed up for life, not just physically. They've got these
00:44:01.220
kids, they're injecting them with things, and then they're all messed up. And then, of course,
00:44:05.480
they're all going to be on antidepressants. The suicide rates are through the roof. And we're doing
00:44:09.980
this to kids. I mean, it's not just adults. It's not just some mixed up adult who had a bad childhood.
00:44:15.280
We're doing this stuff to children. And then people come to me and say, well,
00:44:18.740
we can come back together again. Why do you think I want to come back together with you?
00:44:22.720
We're enemies. If you're the type of person who wants to do that to children,
00:44:26.800
we're not friends. And I don't want to be friends. In fact, I want to defeat you. We are enemies and
00:44:31.240
we are mortal enemies. And I intend to win. I don't even, you know, I look at it now
00:44:36.660
and I don't get how you could vote for the party that's supporting that. I really don't. I mean,
00:44:42.920
I don't mean to reduce all the big issues in our country down to the transgender debate,
00:44:47.460
because I realized there are a lot of big issues that really affect people's families
00:44:50.520
from the economy. We mentioned immigration, of course. But I mean, how do you vote for a party
00:44:56.280
that is in favor of letting minors chop off their breasts, their penises, cut up their vaginas
00:45:04.160
and cross over, quote, cross over to another gender that they will never be and that will
00:45:09.640
has a high likelihood of actually depressing them further?
00:45:11.820
Megan, maybe this is wishful thinking, but I've thought on what you just said, I've thought
00:45:19.040
that there's a tremendous opportunity for the right, whatever you want to consider that,
00:45:23.960
to reach out to older Democrats. Now, I understand tradition is powerful. You voted Democrat your
00:45:30.000
whole life. Maybe your dad was in a union and he did too. And you're raised Democrat and you're
00:45:33.900
raised to think Republicans are pieces of trash. And you're not necessarily wrong about that because
00:45:38.700
most Republicans are pieces of trash. But I think a lot of these older Democrats really genuinely
00:45:45.120
don't know. Megan, I get emails because I talk about this a lot. I get emails from people and
00:45:49.580
I'll say, man, you've got to tell your mom, you got to tell your dad. And they say, Jesse, I am
00:45:53.700
telling them they don't believe me. They don't believe that this is what the party stands for,
00:45:57.560
or they'll get mad at me and kind of cut me off. I think a lot of 60, 65 year old Democrats,
00:46:02.920
I'm sure some are listening to your show right now. I'm sure they really don't realize that when they go
00:46:07.500
in and hammer straight ticket Democrat anymore, you're voting for it. That's what you're voting
00:46:11.780
for. I think that's a bitter pill for these people to swallow. These same Democrats like AOC who were
00:46:17.220
there performatively crying at the Southern border in her white outfit, you know, because the children,
00:46:22.860
the children had been separated from their parents. Now we're in favor of things like this New Mexico
00:46:26.860
law. Now they're fine separating the children from their parents when it comes to issues like this,
00:46:31.340
like self mutilation. They're fine with the abuse of children and allowing them to make these
00:46:35.100
decisions before they can buy a pair, a pack of cigarettes, nevermind vote or drink alcohol or
00:46:40.900
even drive a car. It's just total insanity. All right. Stand by. Jesse Kelly stays with us. And I do
00:46:47.860
want you to go out and buy the anti-communist manifesto. This just in, okay, this just in
00:46:54.080
the anti-communist manifesto. Tomorrow, June 6th is a day that might just change the world.
00:47:01.000
It might save the world. It is the day the anti-communist manifesto comes out by anonymous.
00:47:09.080
That's how good it is. Rush, run, don't walk to the nearest store and get this book or just
00:47:14.320
go online and get it via Amazon. Don't forget to listen to the Megan Kelly show. You can do that
00:47:19.040
live on Sirius XM triumph channel one 11 every weekday at noon East. That's a fun way to consume
00:47:23.780
our show live without a net. The full video shows at youtube.com slash Megan Kelly. And the audio
00:47:29.460
podcast is available wherever you get your podcasts for free. Check it out.
00:47:37.540
So let's talk politics. The latest poll just dropped today morning consult, and it shows that
00:47:44.820
about a week or so after DeSantis officially launched his campaign, his support is stagnant.
00:47:51.440
He has not moved the needle his first week out on the trail, despite some ubiquitous presence of
00:47:57.580
staffers in places like Iowa, et cetera. He trails Trump by 34 percentage points among
00:48:02.600
GOP primary voters. Trump has 56. DeSantis has 22, which is very similar to his standing right
00:48:09.200
before he launched on May 24th. I just looked at the sort of a graph that shows you the Trump line
00:48:16.580
goes like this and the DeSantis line. There it is. The DeSantis line was kind of even, not even,
00:48:22.040
but kind of going along the same path with Trump back in December, though 20 points below.
00:48:29.060
And then there was a huge gap where the Trump one starts to go up and the DeSantis one starts
00:48:33.300
to go down. And you know, when that happened, April of 2023, guess what date Trump was arraigned?
00:48:41.060
April 4th. The indictment, I think, came down at the last day of March. It just it was a runaway
00:48:47.460
home run for Donald Trump. The people saw him as persecuted. The GOP has sided with him more than
00:48:53.580
ever. And DeSantis has not been able to make up the difference. This as now Mike Pence is officially
00:49:00.040
getting into the race. And let's not forget about Chris Christie and also the governor of North
00:49:06.480
Dakota, whose name I can't remember right now. So what do you make of those stats, Jesse?
00:49:11.460
Well, this is the challenge that DeSantis camp faces. And the trouble with this is some challenges
00:49:17.380
don't have a good answer, Megan. It's not that Donald Trump has been arraigned and got more
00:49:22.500
popular. It's that Donald Trump is going to be arraigned again, probably twice. Donald Trump is
00:49:28.960
in serious legal trouble in Washington, D.C. He's in legal trouble in Georgia as well, as you well know.
00:49:35.840
And I want to explain people this thing to people because people get caught up in their emotions.
00:49:40.380
I know it's unjust. I know it's not right. Set that aside. Washington, D.C., New York City,
00:49:46.380
places like that are not America anymore. We're talking communist judges, communist juries,
00:49:51.100
over 95 percent Democrats who think Donald Trump's the Antichrist. There's a chance, not zero. In fact,
00:49:57.480
I would argue it's over 50 that Donald Trump's going to jail. But the problem for the DeSantis camp is
00:50:03.140
what do you do about that? The second Donald Trump gets arraigned, the trials are going to begin.
00:50:09.720
He's going to possibly even be sentenced. There's no answer that DeSantis campaign can give to the
00:50:16.500
people that's going to calm their fears down or calm their anger down, I guess I should say,
00:50:21.820
and turn towards him. It is the challenge they face. I think DeSantis so far from what I've seen
00:50:27.380
has run a great campaign. I'm impressed by his staff. I think their messaging is good. But again,
00:50:32.460
they can do everything perfectly. But if the GOP primary voter continues to feel that Donald Trump
00:50:39.620
is their guy because he's being so persecuted by a corrupt system, what can DeSantis say, Megan?
00:50:45.440
Nothing. What can he say? What's he supposed to do? Go out there and say, this is wrong. I'm sorry,
00:50:49.720
but vote for me instead. He can't take advantage of it. That'll just defend people. I don't know that
00:50:55.500
there's a good answer. I don't know that there is one. Maybe he could get indicted.
00:51:01.460
Can everybody indicted? Everybody gets persecuted. You say that, but that's probably what it would
00:51:06.500
take, Megan. Think about that. OK, let's assume Donald Trump has 30, 35 percent of the GOP primary
00:51:12.480
base. They are tempered. They are with him. It doesn't matter what happens now. They will vote
00:51:16.600
for Donald Trump. What more of a percentage does he get every single time that people see the DOJ,
00:51:23.360
the FBI, these Soros prosecutors come down and politically persecute him? You get a big
00:51:29.460
middle finger vote just based off of that, based off of how the fact that they are persecuting him
00:51:35.380
so badly. But again, this is why I don't get it's why I don't stress about the GOP primary too much.
00:51:41.300
One, we have much bigger fish to fry, bigger things going on than Trump or DeSantis ever could
00:51:47.220
be. And two, look, just like Democrats who go vote Democrat every time in New York City and then watch
00:51:53.500
it turn into a hellhole, the GOP primary voter is going to have an opportunity to choose the
00:51:59.180
candidate they want, and we will get the candidate we deserve 100 percent of the time. There won't be
00:52:05.200
cheating to blame in the GOP primary. There will be no fingers pointed. Whoever comes out of that
00:52:10.780
GOP primary as the candidate, that is the candidate the GOP deserves, and we're going to get him.
00:52:16.960
The everything you just said reminded me of Jim Comey, who's out there. My God,
00:52:21.800
help us. He's also marketing a book, Jesse. He's marketing a book. He's written some novel
00:52:26.080
and sat down with Jen Psaki and just a stomach turning exchange where they're discussing the
00:52:34.620
possibility of Trump being indicted many more times and also Comey's fears, fears about Trump
00:52:42.160
potentially becoming the nominee and winning again. Listen to this.
00:52:45.500
Can you envision a scenario where Trump manages to win back the White House and justice is delayed?
00:52:50.520
I could. I don't I don't want to, but I could. I mean, it's this crazy world that Donald Trump has
00:52:56.180
dragged this country into, but he could be wearing an ankle bracelet while accepting the nomination.
00:53:00.500
Well, think about what four years of a retribution presidency might look like. He could order the
00:53:09.540
investigation and prosecution of individuals who he sees as enemies. I'm sure I'm on the enemies list
00:53:15.880
because the president constitutionally does oversee the executive branch entirely, which includes the
00:53:21.780
Department of Justice, prosecutors and investigators. And so he could commission direct that individuals be
00:53:28.240
pursued. That the president could influence the DOJ to go after private citizens, Jesse. The horror.
00:53:36.460
Could you imagine if we lived in a country, Megan, where the president of the United States would
00:53:41.080
politically prosecute his opponents? For instance, if, say, you were walking by the Capitol on January 6th,
00:53:48.640
what if we had a president who sent the FBI after you? If you were a pro-life activist and you
00:53:53.560
happened to be reading Bible verses or singing worship songs out in front of an abortion clinic,
00:53:58.540
what if we had a president who sent the DOJ after you? What if we had a president who, while the other
00:54:04.100
guy, the presumptive nominee was running for office, had the DOJ working up multiple cases against you?
00:54:10.520
Can you imagine if we lived in a country like that? What a banana republic that would actually be,
00:54:14.780
Megan? Not to mention if you're a parent who speaks out about the COVID restrictions at a school
00:54:18.580
board and get labeled a domestic terrorist after the White House coordinated a letter to the DOJ about
00:54:23.740
you or you're a parent who went to that church out in California during the COVID restrictions and
00:54:30.760
worshiped anyway while you got spied on in your prayer circles by the FBI. Imagine what the horror,
00:54:40.160
And he mentioned that ankle bracelet thing you played at the very beginning there, Megan. I heard
00:54:44.320
that yesterday and the first thing I thought, maybe I'm paranoid by this point in time, the first
00:54:48.720
thing I thought was that was a warning. James Comey is not some outsider, sadly. I know he's a gigantic
00:54:54.980
goober, but he's not some outsider. Quick side note, it chaps me that right now his book is two spots
00:55:01.320
ahead of my book on the Amazon bestsellers, so everybody better go to jessikellybook.com. I better
00:55:07.060
overtake that dork by the end of the day. Anyway, he's not some outsider. This guy is as wired in as
00:55:13.480
anybody out there. I took that as a warning, and I'm going to warn everybody right now. I'm sure
00:55:18.940
people already realize this. You're going to face an election cycle like nobody has ever seen in the
00:55:23.620
history of the country where perhaps the nominee, maybe the likely nominee, is going to be on trial,
00:55:29.700
going to be arrested, going to be arraigned. I don't think people have mentally prepared
00:55:34.440
themselves for what's coming over the next year, Megan. It's going to be wild.
00:55:38.240
Mm-hmm. Although the Democrats are salivating at the imagery, just salivating at it. Be careful.
00:55:43.980
Be careful what you wish for. Anything could happen, like Biden falls. Trump gets it. Biden
00:55:49.520
falls. Nobody wants Kamala. And Bob's your uncle. We got a President Trump again. I don't think the
00:55:54.240
left has thought it through. There's so many things I want to get to, but let me talk about another
00:55:59.300
candidate. You didn't bite on Chris Christie, so I'm guessing you're not feeling the tingly feeling
00:56:04.620
about his entry. Well, I don't care about, honestly, I don't care about any of them but
00:56:09.720
Trump and DeSantis, because I don't think any of them can win. And most of them I have really
00:56:13.800
nothing but scorn for. Chris Christie presents something that may be interesting in the race,
00:56:18.840
not that he in and of himself is interesting, but Christie is the first of the candidates to get
00:56:24.200
in the race that is a publicly declared enemy of Trump. All the other candidates, since they've
00:56:29.620
gotten in the race, they've done nothing but attack DeSantis. All of them are clearly just
00:56:33.620
trying to be Trump's VP. Some of them probably got in at the behest of Trump, which is really
00:56:37.660
smart campaigning, by the way. But Chris Christie is not only an open opponent of Trump. I know people
00:56:43.160
hate Chris Christie, and I do too. He's a really good debater, and he can savage you in the debate.
00:56:47.780
People forget that he ended Marco Rubio's presidential run last time, absolutely ended it in that one
00:56:52.880
debate. What if Christie does that to Trump? That may be a wild card people aren't thinking about. He is
00:56:58.300
a publicly declared enemy of Trump. That actually could get ugly for Trump in one of the debates.
00:57:03.620
I don't hate Chris Christie. I see that he hasn't been successful at all in his presidential runs.
00:57:08.700
But you're right. It's going to be interesting. And I'd like to see because Trump's he's so wily on
00:57:13.080
the debate stage. He's so tough to pin down and score points against. And yet that's Christie's
00:57:17.540
forte. But he fights the old fashioned way, you know, with facts and points and waiting for
00:57:23.780
counterpoints and counter punches. And, you know, Trump will basically just be like, you're fat.
00:57:27.700
You've you've always been fat. You're fatter than like, how do you respond?
00:57:32.140
How do you? It's going to be the big challenge as we go. Now, wait, well, I do think it's
00:57:37.580
interesting who one of these guys might be in the VP role. I think you're right. All these guys really
00:57:41.360
want to be the VP Nikki Haley. She also, by the way, had a town hall on CNN that, you know, it was
00:57:45.840
crickets. Listen to it. Made no news. No news. The truth is, people aren't interested in Nikki.
00:57:50.280
Again, I respect her, but it's not going to happen. Tim Scott, though, goes on The View.
00:57:56.240
And this got interesting. The View, like literally a week ago, Joy Behar made the point that Clarence
00:58:04.160
Thomas and Tim Scott don't understand the plight of what it's like to be a black man in America.
00:58:10.160
She made that point. Then I think she missed yesterday when he came on. But Sonny Hostin was
00:58:17.080
there to do her bidding in this exchange that's gone viral. Watch this.
00:58:21.060
One of the reasons why I'm on the show is because of the comments that were made, frankly,
00:58:23.920
on this show, that the only way for a young African-American kid to be successful in this
00:58:28.000
country is to be the exception and not the rule. That is a dangerous, offensive, disgusting message
00:58:33.940
to send to our young people today. And if my life is the exception, I can't imagine.
00:58:42.280
Yeah. So the fact of the matter is we've had an African-American president, African-American
00:58:45.740
African-American vice president. We've had two African-Americans to be secretaries of the
00:58:49.320
state. In 1975, there was about 15 percent employment in the African-American community
00:58:54.740
for the first time in the history of the country. It's under 5 percent.
00:58:57.080
40 percent homelessness of African-Americans get 13 percent of the population.
00:59:02.520
You had a chance to ask the question. I've watched you on the show that you like people
00:59:05.600
to be deferential and respectful. So I'm going to do the same thing.
00:59:08.300
So here's what I'm going to suggest. I'm going to suggest the fact of the matter is that
00:59:12.000
progress in America is palpable. It can be measured in generations.
00:59:15.240
So what I'm suggesting is that the yesterday's exception is today's rule.
00:59:21.300
And for us to suggest that has met its promise.
00:59:23.540
No, of course, the the concept of America is that we are going to become a more perfect
00:59:28.400
union. But in fact, the challenges that we face 50 years ago and 60 years ago should
00:59:39.480
We've made no progress. Black people are, I guess, as embattled as they were during Jim
00:59:44.380
Crow, this this millionaire woman whose son is at Harvard, who lives in a huge mansion,
00:59:48.900
who, you know, to her credit, worked her way up to all those things from from working class
00:59:53.040
background from what she says. I think she grew up in the Bronx.
00:59:56.080
But still, still, just like Michelle Obama, the country sucks.
01:00:00.080
The country is disgusting. It's just as racist as it ever was.
01:00:03.800
I write about this, actually, in the book, Megan, about the different fingers of American
01:00:07.560
communism, how the how you have the feminists and the climate change nutters and the feminist
01:00:11.920
and the the LGBTQ people and the Black Lives Matter, quote, civil rights movement.
01:00:17.400
And the truth is, they're all just fingers of the same communist fist.
01:00:21.600
Communism is just the religion of the malcontent.
01:00:23.760
That's all it is. That's why it's taken a different form in every country it's ever been.
01:00:28.920
It's about the gays and the civil rights and things like that.
01:00:31.940
Sunny, actually, she's a great example of this.
01:00:34.640
You cannot, you cannot under any circumstances, if you're an American communist trying to wreck
01:00:40.380
the country, trying to achieve power and money for yourself, you can never at any point in time
01:00:45.200
look at the malcontents who you're claiming to lead and tell them, hey, guys, it's all good now.
01:00:54.680
The malcontents are your source of power. It's your source of destruction.
01:00:58.620
So at no point is some loser like Sunny ever going to get up there and say, wow, you're right.
01:01:04.120
I am the American dream. And she's not alone with all the, quote, civil rights leaders that
01:01:09.080
try to be on the try to take the same tactic in this country.
01:01:13.000
You look at somebody like LeBron James or Oprah Winfrey or something like that.
01:01:18.300
These people are the American story, the biggest inspiration in the world.
01:01:24.340
And now I think he's a billionaire with hard work, a billionaire.
01:01:28.160
It's got private jets. That is it's a story of success.
01:01:32.900
And yet LeBron James wants to be oppressed. Oprah Winfrey.
01:01:37.960
They they need that because you can't ever get to the place where you say, hey, man,
01:01:54.640
First black female billionaire in America way back in 2003.
01:02:00.060
But we're still like we're supposed to ignore it.
01:02:05.220
Of course, you got a black president of the United States, Supreme Court justices,
01:02:13.640
Now vice president, we could go to no, they're all exceptions.
01:02:17.340
At what point do the exceptions become the rule, Sonny?
01:02:30.540
That's why the communist is so vague about his goals.
01:02:34.900
You ever notice, Megan, none of these people can describe what is the diversity achievement
01:02:44.200
Because the second you give someone an actual goal, then once you meet that goal, you have
01:02:51.520
That way you can always continue to move the goalposts along somewhere.
01:02:55.520
The diversity and equity and achievement, these things, they make things ill definable.
01:03:01.560
So the revolution, as we mentioned earlier in the show, so the revolution is without end.
01:03:14.280
That's why when Mao was doing his cultural revolution, he was doing it on old ideas and
01:03:22.560
Whatever Mao wanted them to mean in any given moment.
01:03:26.320
Well, as soon as Mao's done, he'll decide when they've been achieved.
01:03:30.980
There will never be a moment when the feminists decide women have it good.
01:03:34.260
There will never be a moment when the LGBTQ demon mob decides we have equality.
01:03:39.160
The civil rights, the, quote, civil rights side of this country, the whole black activism
01:03:45.340
The leaders of that movement, they can never get to a place where they say, we can make
01:03:53.480
Because the second they do that, they've given their power away.
01:04:00.460
That's why these gay rights groups have now switched over to the T because they, we have
01:04:06.280
That's why the human rights campaign now just means it's basically trans rights activist
01:04:13.600
It's why the California reparations push is such a joke.
01:04:16.180
Like, oh, I'm sure everyone's just going to go away satisfied saying you did right by
01:04:20.320
These people who were not descended from slaves at all.
01:04:22.440
California was a free state are going to get what?
01:04:24.680
Five million dollar checks, two million dollar checks.
01:04:29.200
The agenda is much bigger and it includes never being satisfied.
01:04:34.500
You know, yeah, it took a long time for the South to produce a black senator.
01:04:40.440
And on that earlier segment with Joy Behar, she was like, they don't get it.
01:04:43.440
They don't understand the black experience in America because they're Republicans.
01:04:46.240
OK, because the Democratic Party has been such an example in civil rights and progress
01:04:52.060
Who do you think was pushing all the Jim Crow laws?
01:05:04.020
The Daily Beast did the most laughable, absurd piece on Casey DeSantis.
01:05:12.640
I can't remember a more absurd hit piece that just checked every box of what the left thinks
01:05:20.740
I recommend it just because I think people will enjoy it, like for, you know, hate reading
01:05:25.660
The headline is Casey DeSantis is the Walmart Melania.
01:05:32.700
Let's rip on those poor, fat middle Americans who shop at Walmart.
01:05:41.420
She's like a disgusting, lame Melania is the Daily Beast suggestion.
01:05:48.780
First Lady of Florida showed up on the campaign trail in Iowa this weekend wearing a ghastly
01:05:53.140
black leather jacket, American flag on the front, an alligator in the silhouette of her
01:05:57.840
state on the back with the sneering words where woke goes to die.
01:06:03.320
That brought to mind nothing so much as the racks of a red state big bin store where it
01:06:10.820
Not like the Bergdorf Goodman where I shop, you losers.
01:06:19.640
Goes on to say it reminds the writer of Melania's coat.
01:06:23.400
I really don't care that she wore when she went down to the border crisis situation.
01:06:27.680
The message on Melania's coat, like the one time model herself, was sphinx like.
01:06:32.740
And then she talks about the speculation about what that jacket meant.
01:06:36.260
Like her spokesman insisted, maybe like Melania herself, a cipher whose eyes seem to betray
01:06:45.720
By contrast, Casey DeSantis' coat is just like her husband Ron DeSantis' campaign.
01:06:51.900
Crude, grasping, saying the ugly part out loud.
01:07:02.800
DeSantis had one of the highest COVID death rates.
01:07:05.000
No mention of the fact that Florida is full of old people who were affected by COVID more
01:07:09.800
She brings up the horrific Pulse nightclub mass shooting in Orlando, which was go go read
01:07:15.440
Glenn Greenwald on the Pulse nightclub and the Islamic extremists and the motivation there.
01:07:22.820
Their shameful history of Jim Crow era lynch mobs.
01:07:27.440
But of course, DeSantis and his cronies want to pervert kids from learning about any of
01:07:33.920
that, any of the history in Florida by censoring their library books and AP curricula.
01:07:44.540
The AP African-American history course that he didn't what like promoted Kendi, D'Angelo
01:07:51.240
And once they took that stuff out, he said, I'm totally in favor of it.
01:07:57.960
I got to keep going and then I'm going to give you the floor.
01:08:04.660
Jackie and JFK symbolized the opposite of vulgar pettiness.
01:08:09.400
They embodied youth energy, a commitment to moral progress in the struggle for civil rights.
01:08:15.560
I'm sure Kennedy's record with his wife would stack up really nicely against DeSantis' with
01:08:21.800
The DeSantis' are more like posers, fake Birkins, Mar-a-Lago imitators.
01:08:29.000
She says, we've got a Sunshine State Lady Macbeth in her green cape and white gloves with her
01:08:37.540
And we've got a guy who wants to be sitting in a corner mumbling about the Federalist papers
01:08:52.240
He's going to make all of us pay for how he had no friends in third grade.
01:09:00.320
As I said, clicks all the boxes, checks all of them.
01:09:03.840
Well, this is how they treat all the GOP first ladies.
01:09:08.280
And it just goes to show you once again, they never mean anything that they say.
01:09:20.680
And you can tell this because the second a Republican one steps up, she gets smeared.
01:09:26.560
I'd love to hear all the things they've said to you over the years and things they've emailed
01:09:32.580
I remember all the things they said about Melania.
01:09:35.680
I've seen the things they say about Congresswomen like Boebert or any female Republican senator.
01:09:41.940
The second you come out against the cause, you become Walmart Melania.
01:09:46.700
You become some worthless piece of trash who offended God himself, some heretic.
01:09:54.480
But again, I think the real, the person who's failed the most in all this, Megan, has been
01:10:05.460
And we've always assumed that we could just, you know, we could do enough to earn their approval
01:10:12.880
Maybe if I'm more pro-women, that they won't act like that I'm the Antichrist.
01:10:16.720
Maybe if I run enough black candidates that they'll finally accept that I'm not a racist.
01:10:21.280
And we haven't accepted yet that those days will never come.
01:10:23.960
Because again, if the communist reaches his destination, then he has to stop.
01:10:36.900
They appear to be, I don't know them, but they appear to be a loving couple.
01:10:40.480
So whether you're a DeSantis fan or not, they appear to be wonderful.
01:10:46.080
But the thing is, she's on the wrong side of the whole communist agenda.
01:10:49.780
So you have to belittle her, make fun of her clothes.
01:10:52.860
I bet you that was a woman who wrote that article, though, Megan, because you women are terrible
01:11:01.500
It reminds me of a line, by the way, from Pride and Prejudice.
01:11:08.520
And that's exactly how I feel about the left and what you're saying.
01:11:14.020
It's not available to you, no matter how good you try to be under their standards.
01:11:19.660
Of course, neither Melania Trump nor Casey DeSantis, you're not going to believe this,
01:11:24.860
could ever embody the class and effortless elegance of Michelle Obama or Dr. Jill Biden.
01:11:34.160
Those first ladies have used fashion not as a punitive tool to stick it to political enemies,
01:11:39.940
nor as a bored, nihilistic shrug, but as something generous and welcoming.
01:11:45.240
Think the pure sweetness of Michelle's Jason Wu floral gown for the Obama's first inaugural,
01:11:51.140
or Jill's pastel blue coat that echoed the colors of Ukraine's flag when Zelensky visited the White House.
01:11:58.220
Literally, she says, neither Melania nor Casey DeSantis could ever embody the class and effortless elegance of Michelle or Dr. Jill.
01:12:07.760
Now, first of all, Dr. Jill Biden's fashion has been the subject of much criticism all over Twitter.
01:12:17.040
This woman is not exactly the next Cindy Crawford.
01:12:24.020
She's got the sneakers with the yellow and green flower dress.
01:12:27.740
And I don't know what's happening on the shoulder there.
01:12:29.520
But the left and the right have had a lot of fun at Jill Biden's expense thanks to her fashion choices.
01:12:35.060
So to talk about them like it is effortless elegance wherever she goes is ridiculous.
01:12:39.760
As for the class that she and Michelle so effortlessly embody, I don't remember Casey DeSantis or Melania Trump ever calling Latinos little burritos in a national speech.
01:12:53.780
I don't remember either one of them bashing America as racist.
01:12:58.380
Michelle Obama, first time in my adult life I'm ever proud of my country.
01:13:02.080
I didn't wear my hair naturally because I wasn't I didn't think America could handle natural black hair.
01:13:06.800
Or made up stories about being subjected to racism when she went into various Walmart or Kmart.
01:13:12.140
I can't remember the name of the brand store that she was allegedly subjected to when she was speaking to a black audience.
01:13:16.760
Then laughed about it as a non-racist incident when she was on one of the late night shows.
01:13:21.000
Is that classy really to be in a country that helps you become first lady, not to mention a successful lawyer beforehand,
01:13:27.600
to be married to the president of the United States who's also a black person and to use your big platform to bash the country as still just as racist.
01:13:38.800
Oh, yeah. Boy, I tell you what, every time I saw Michelle Obama take a dump all over this country, I was blown away by her class.
01:13:46.420
I can't I can't stand these people. Jill Biden is the exact same way.
01:13:50.460
But the Obamas were maybe the worst at this. I remember that video.
01:13:53.680
I remember it like it was yesterday. I believe it was a Memorial Day celebration.
01:13:57.540
And don't quote me on that, Megan. I may have it wrong where they caught Michelle Obama on camera standing there by Barack Obama.
01:14:03.460
And she leans in and she says to him, all this for a damn flag.
01:14:06.880
And you could see the scorn on her face and the scorn in his face as he leaned back and agreed real, genuine America haters.
01:14:14.500
And frankly, the authors of much of what we see now, because it's all Obama's America hating staffers working for old president poopy pants now as he just wanders through the hallways.
01:14:24.560
So the Obamas and their America hating fingerprints are still all over things.
01:14:29.080
And I never saw class. That's for sure. I don't give a crap how they dress.
01:14:32.600
I can hardly dress myself anyway, but I never saw class and how they spoke about this country.
01:14:37.380
That's for sure. And I do. I miss a time when presidents, Democrat and Republicans spoke lovingly about America.
01:14:43.920
I miss those days. But those days are sadly probably gone.
01:14:46.920
You know who needs a lesson in class? The author of this piece, Katie Baker, who actually finishes the piece by mocking Casey DeSantis's status as a breast cancer survivor.
01:14:59.600
She has the gall to bring up her breast cancer in this hit piece.
01:15:04.840
This is absolutely the worst part. She says, so what does Casey DeSantis want us to know about her?
01:15:09.980
What does she stand for? Well, we know she's a woman who has high ambitions for her awkward husband.
01:15:14.880
Oh, unlike Hillary Clinton, when Bill Clinton was running, where she said we're going to get two for the price of one.
01:15:19.580
We know she's a woman who understands the power of the image.
01:15:22.540
We know she's a woman who has overcome the great trials of a breast cancer diagnosis.
01:15:26.400
Anyone going through that must have strength and grit.
01:15:28.360
But still, we've all met people who stared death in the face and came out the other side incandescently glowing with life and with love.
01:15:36.740
Perhaps that is the case in Casey DeSantis's private and personal life.
01:15:40.160
But on the public stage, with that black leather jacket, she's telling us she stands for something else.
01:15:46.160
She's telling us she is cheering on a spouse who gets his kicks off targeting his fellow Americans.
01:15:52.640
She's telling us she's down with his message of division and dehumanization.
01:15:58.060
She's telling us they are ready for far more power.
01:16:02.340
She's incandescent in her black leather jacket at her husband's side, both of them seething with hate.
01:16:14.620
Look, the second you oppose these people in the smallest way, you're hateful.
01:16:19.020
You're hateful and you're bigoted and you hate women or you hate black people or you hate the planet or you hate something.
01:16:30.840
That piece is a great example, Megan, of how they put their people.
01:16:34.720
The communists always put their people in the right mindset.
01:16:41.100
They'll look at me and they'll say, look at that Nazi white supremacist.
01:16:44.240
And their people will get in the mindset that they're fighting against some inhuman evil that must be defeated at all costs.
01:16:50.900
Our people will still say things like, well, I think it is hard.
01:16:54.780
And look, we all we all kind of want the right things.
01:16:57.480
And he's not a George Soros prosecutor who's turning criminals loose to intentionally burn down society and cause chaos.
01:17:06.840
We constantly put our people in the wrong mindset.
01:17:09.940
They'll look at Casey DeSantis, who just survived breast cancer.
01:17:12.560
And they'll rip her to shreds because they know they're prepping people.
01:17:17.260
And that's part of our failure is anti-communists.
01:17:23.820
They raise it as we would have expected you to be nicer after surviving it.
01:17:28.840
But then you wore that jacket about Florida being where woke goes to die.
01:17:41.300
And any self-respecting editor at The Daily Beast should have told Katie Baker, that undermines everything else you wrote.
01:17:49.040
Maybe you have a point on this, that or the other thing.
01:17:54.800
But it's indicative of what we're dealing with here on the left in the media in particular today.
01:18:05.200
Help him surpass Jim Comey, for the love of God.
01:18:17.920
If you want a signed copy, a regular copy, book tour info, it's all at jessikellybook.com.
01:18:35.940
Coming up, our friend Joseph Massey has a new book to it.
01:18:39.760
He's this incredibly talented poet who was canceled in the Me Too movement.
01:18:45.060
His life was practically ruined, and he decided to self-publish a book of poems.
01:18:49.820
Not long after that, dealing with depression and so on, thanks to what had happened to him.
01:18:53.720
Well, all of you helped him support himself and actually helped that book do really well.
01:18:58.540
He's got a new book, and we're going to talk to him about that and where his life has gone next.
01:19:08.980
He was on the show last year, I think it was April of 2022, to discuss his attempted cancellation in the literary world.
01:19:18.160
Well, he has a new book out of poetry called The Light of No Other Hour, and we would love for you to help support Joseph.
01:19:27.060
After the mob tried to cancel him and ruin his career, we are bringing it back, and it's working.
01:19:40.360
So just to refresh people who didn't see the April of 2022 episode, you were doing very well for a poet.
01:19:49.120
You know, it's like very few poets wind up being multi-multi-millionaires, but you were making your bones as a working poet reviewed by the New York Times, important partnerships in the poetry world.
01:20:00.020
Then an ex-girlfriend, with whom you had an affair, started to try to take you down online very successfully and started writing all these poetry organizations, calling you a predator.
01:20:11.760
It was vicious, and it worked because, let's face it, the poetry publications, they're not exactly known for their steely spines.
01:20:20.480
So, you know, we can laugh about it now, but it was extremely traumatic for you.
01:20:25.080
So extreme, yeah, that's the right word, because I didn't just lose this career that I had built.
01:20:32.120
I didn't even realize I had a career until maybe that last year of things going really well, and I knew, wow, I could make money doing this.
01:20:44.480
And, yeah, then that was ripped away, but it wasn't just that that went away.
01:20:50.100
It was also my entire, almost my entire friend group, and it just kept rolling out and out over the course of a year.
01:20:58.640
You know, a book would be taken down by one of my publishers, it would be memory hold, but that wasn't enough for this mob of people and this particular ex-girlfriend.
01:21:09.300
And so they would then go to, you know, the next book that hadn't been erased, and they wouldn't stop.
01:21:16.260
It went on for at least a year, and it was devastating.
01:21:22.120
But I think the important thing to note is that I didn't stop writing throughout that whole nightmare, and it just proved to me that, you know, poetry for me is not about a career in the first place.
01:21:37.360
You know, it's about what it's always been for me, which is survival and being in the world and seeing the world in a way that makes it more livable for me and hopefully for the people who read my work.
01:21:51.040
We discussed it more at length in our first interview, and everyone should go back and listen to that episode.
01:21:57.340
But one of the objections you had was you were being canceled in place after place without them even wanting to hear your side.
01:22:06.360
It was, and she was playing the believe all women card.
01:22:10.100
She actually was writing, you know, in this era of believe women, believe me.
01:22:14.300
And they were without even no even purported attempt at equal justice or allowing a defense.
01:22:24.460
You read parts of that letter out loud the last time we were on, and it's so absurd, and it becomes more absurd as the years go by looking at it.
01:22:34.020
Like, this letter could have been the thing that catapulted the attempted destruction of my life.
01:22:41.900
I was accused of calling a woman hot at a poetry reading, and that was enough to, it was like a fly trap.
01:22:48.620
It's like all the people from my past, even though I made amends and changed my life, because I was, you know, I was quite a bad drunk in my 20s, but not a predator by any means.
01:23:02.020
And, yeah, that it was that effective is shocking.
01:23:07.740
It's shocking that poets would behave, like, you know, with such herd mentality, because I never imagined poets behaving that way.
01:23:18.200
I always thought poets were mavericks and people who stood out and stood against, you know, the current.
01:23:29.180
This is a weird question, maybe, but first of all, I totally understand and can relate to, as the years go by, post-cancellation, you start to see how absurd the thing was.
01:23:40.900
Like, my God, how does such a thing upend my life so dramatically?
01:23:45.920
But it's hard to have that perspective in the moment when you're losing so much that's important to you, right?
01:23:55.620
But my weird question is, do you think in any way, because, you know, artists who've been through painful things, it can help their art.
01:24:08.140
Yeah, because having only poetry to rely on for a sense of self, because my, well, I hate to use the word identity, but my identity, my sense of self was threatened to be, you know, totally atomized and fragmented beyond recognition by the cancellation.
01:24:31.380
But by writing poetry, I was reminded of who I am, and I dedicated my life to poetry at a very young age.
01:24:38.740
And so the work became very concentrated, and I noticed that certain things I let myself get away with in poetry in the past and writing, you know, they went away because the stakes were so high.
01:24:53.160
It was life or death for me, and poetry kept me alive through those horrible, horrible months of just utter destruction.
01:25:08.140
Because you've gotten more outspoken on Twitter.
01:25:20.180
And then you see a Joseph Massey tweet, which has got something beautiful for you, because your photography is equally beautiful, where you just get these little moments of like the reflection of this gorgeous building in a puddle, or the snow just after it's fallen, just so.
01:25:33.320
And these things that we all see all the time, we take a moment, ideally, and we notice it, but we don't memorialize it.
01:25:39.320
And you bring that into my daily timeline, which is one of the things I love about you.
01:25:47.280
You've been critical of the Biden administration.
01:25:49.100
So I'm going to guess the friends didn't come back, because I'm just making an assumption they were leftists.
01:25:54.540
Well, the friends that did come back, you know, or stayed, a few stayed during the cancellation.
01:26:02.580
For example, one who I've been friends with for 15 years, much older poet, certainly I'm not going to name him.
01:26:08.400
But he wouldn't even be seen with me in public during the cancellation.
01:26:14.400
You know, we would have to meet in the back room of the coffee shop or, you know, meet at a bench behind a building, things like that.
01:26:24.380
Some people stuck around, but it was in that conditional kind of way.
01:26:27.880
But definitely when I became more outspoken politically on Twitter, those friends went away completely because they were terrified of any kind of guilt by association.
01:26:42.720
They're worried their careers would be horribly affected if they were seen communicating with me or seen having coffee with me, as it turned out.
01:26:51.400
So it's I think it's Jay, the initial Jay Massey, M-A-S-S-E-Y poet, right?
01:27:02.700
It'll be the best Twitter follow you've ever you ever had.
01:27:05.540
And nobody else is injecting beauty into my timeline.
01:27:10.080
And it can be I know there's I know that you talked about how you were hospitalized and I know you've talked about how it's been a rough time even since you last came on the show.
01:27:20.620
But there's something beautiful about that, too.
01:27:23.340
And I don't mean to sound like I'm reveling in your struggle with depression, but I think a lot of us have those moments, you know, where we feel really blue or you feel hopeless.
01:27:32.500
You know, you look at our society, look around and there's a lot of pain and there's a lot of reason to feel down.
01:27:38.600
And there is something worthwhile about having that feeling also captured and revealed via photography or a poem, too.
01:27:54.360
I mean, during the well, even before I was canceled, I dealt with major depression is the diagnosis.
01:28:02.360
And when I read art that delves into the artist's depression or sorrow or melancholia, I like that word quite a bit better than depression.
01:28:20.280
And certainly when I was being canceled, reading, for instance, the work of the poet Ovid, who I think I'm pronouncing that correctly, OVID, who was exiled, reading his poetry written in exile, reading poets who've been cast aside.
01:28:38.620
I had company, you know, I had friends again in the art, you know, in the poetry.
01:28:45.640
And I hope that my work, especially people who are suffering with depression or anxiety, that they can find some kind of similar company in what I do.
01:28:57.140
So, and that's really the aim with the new book, The Light of No Other Hour, was many of those poems were written during a deep spell, one of the deepest spells of depression over the last year, which has broken, thank God.
01:29:16.000
And it's not therapy, you know, it's not therapy.
01:29:19.040
It's finding a way to live with the sorrow and transcend it, hopefully, by grace.
01:29:29.860
I wanted to find a way to say the present moment or now.
01:29:37.740
Well, The Light of No Other Hour, the light that is cast upon us right now, whether it's night or day, it can be an internal light as well, if you see it from a spiritual perspective, which I certainly do too.
01:29:51.580
But even just very literally, all we have is now, and all we have is the light of this particular moment, the light of no other hour.
01:30:08.060
Okay, I just want people to get a flavor for the beauty of how you write.
01:30:15.240
Forgive me, because I'm sure I'm not going to read this the way Joseph Massey would.
01:30:19.480
It is enough to be nothing, porous to what appears.
01:30:24.480
It is enough to sit on a bench and watch a contrail dissolve into dust to make a day of it.
01:30:29.940
It is enough to look in order to see and to know there's a difference.
01:30:34.320
It is enough to walk myself awake in sub-zero wind, snow-blind and heartbroken.
01:30:43.040
It is enough to borrow from the dead a voice to sing through, to survive the season.
01:30:48.820
It is enough the poems cramped in the margins of a water-stained notebook, leave them there to be revised by time.
01:30:56.340
It is enough alone at the end of the year, engulfed by a presence I am not compelled to name.
01:31:07.860
We get so wrapped into everything, utter stimuli wherever we turn.
01:31:15.080
And you are the antidote to that in all of your postings, your writings, your photography.
01:31:24.600
Like, sometimes you tweet about that too, that enables you to remind us that this is okay and this is actually beautiful.
01:31:35.080
You read the poem beautifully, by the way, better than I would have read it, certainly.
01:31:38.820
But, yeah, that's, it's, I don't know how anyone can exist in this world of constant noise, you know, constant bombardment with, you know, news is breaking 24 hours a day.
01:31:53.740
I remember, I'm old enough to remember when, you know, there would be breaking news maybe once every couple of weeks, special report.
01:31:59.260
You know, now it's every second's a special report.
01:32:01.940
And how essential it is to notice the sacred and the ordinary.
01:32:07.700
And if one doesn't do that, how does it affect, how does it affect your quality of life?
01:32:12.460
You know, I know that I need that quiet space and that quiet activity of simply noticing things to ground myself, to be anchored in a world that would otherwise be untenable.
01:32:31.400
I remember my primary care physician, who I love, he's quite a character, talking about how one of the things that's important to do is look out the window when you're in the back of a taxi cab or a bus, what have you.
01:32:45.320
Like, stop staring down at your damn phone, always trying to get more information, the latest this, more stimuli.
01:33:00.720
You know, do something that will ground you because we can become untethered.
01:33:05.800
Too much time spent in the make-believe leads to an untethering.
01:33:10.240
And the grounding, you know, that you write about in Capture for us, that's an important part of staying human.
01:33:17.740
Yeah, that's what I want my work to do, to help ground.
01:33:25.940
But to draw the reader into a keener sense of awareness of what's immediately around them.
01:33:33.520
And that, to me, seems to be the task of most artists that I love in various fields, painting, music, poetry.
01:33:49.420
I want people to survive this world and to find grace.
01:33:55.440
Now, is this book self-published like the last one?
01:33:59.280
Yes, it's published by my in-print, The Exile Press, and it's only available on Amazon.
01:34:14.020
You should add it because it will bring some beauty and thought into your life.
01:34:17.680
And you should add it, buy it, because you want to support Joseph Massey and fight back against these cancellation bullies
01:34:24.440
who annihilate people they don't think have any power.
01:34:41.480
And make sure you buy lots of copies, ideally being a lovely gift.
01:34:54.820
We will be back tomorrow to continue the conversation with all of you.
01:34:58.600
Thank you for supporting Joseph and Jesse, too.
01:35:01.500
Two guys in two very different places, but equally important in the national conversation.