The Megyn Kelly Show - Parents Fighting Back and COVID Policy Hypocrisy, with Dr. Joseph Ladapo and Brian Echevarria

00:00:00.560 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:12.020 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.360 Coming to you live from the SiriusXM studios right in the heart of New York City today.

00:00:21.060 This is the first time I've actually done the show from this location and I feel like a grown-up.

00:00:25.840 Usually I'm sitting in my house. I have a studio in my house. It's just me and Abby sitting there.

00:00:30.360 My team's all over the country. And now, look at this. Here we are. Very cool.

00:00:36.020 It's actually funny because the Sirius studios are right across from where Fox News was.

00:00:40.260 So, you know, it's like my car drives itself to this location. I feel like I've been here for a long, long time.

00:00:45.300 It's great to be here in this new location with you and we'll see how the show goes from here.

00:00:50.100 So we've got a whole great show of guests for you today. Highly recommended by you, our guests have been.

00:00:57.620 We, I keep telling you, if you want to leave a comment on the show, go to the Apple podcast, sort of download the show on Apple and then leave a comment.

00:01:05.580 And I do read them all. There's over 22,000 of them. I read every single one.

00:01:09.260 And we get some of our guest suggestions or just other suggestions. Some people are like, there's a technical difficulty or what have you.

00:01:16.420 And today's guests have come highly recommended by you, our listeners.

00:01:21.840 In just a bit, we're going to be joined by Dr. Joseph Ladapo. He's the Surgeon General of Florida. He's a rock star, right?

00:01:28.100 Love, love, love this guy. They call him the anti-Fauci for a reason.

00:01:32.360 He speaks a lot of sense and he's become just sort of a hero to a lot of us during this whole pandemic.

00:01:38.460 So he's going to be joining us. But first, a story out of Knox County, Tennessee, brought to you by Popular Demand.

00:01:45.380 We looked into this case and really found it deeply disturbing on a number of levels.

00:01:49.500 And it's basically about a federal lawsuit that has forced the masks to stay on students in this school district,

00:01:56.460 despite a governor's order saying that they can come off and a vote by the school board saying that they can come off.

00:02:04.100 But a judge intervened. And now the parents and the students in that school district are at their wits end,

00:02:10.420 trying to figure out what their options are. And joining me to discuss all of it is Heather Carroll.

00:02:14.840 She's a mom of two students in Knox County who is fed up with the situation there. 0.97

00:02:20.140 Heather, thank you so much for being here.

00:02:22.340 Oh, no, thank you, Megan. I'm glad to be here speaking with you today.

00:02:25.980 I cannot believe the number of times you've had sort of this ray of hope shining down on you,

00:02:33.100 only to have it covered up. And the pushback, that's really starting to get crazy down there in Knox.

00:02:39.640 So tell us about your community, Knox County. Where is that? What kind of community is it?

00:02:44.940 Sure. Knox County is actually the home of Knoxville, Tennessee, the University of Tennessee.

00:02:50.980 We're about two and a half hours west of, I'm sorry, east of Nashville.

00:02:55.980 So we're one of the bigger cities in Tennessee. So it's a great family community. I mean,

00:03:02.320 a lot of it centers around the college here, but great place to raise a family. So yeah,

00:03:07.720 we love living here. My husband's originally from here. And so I've been here about 10 years and

00:03:11.860 love Knoxville.

00:03:12.880 Okay. And I know you've, you've got two kids,

00:03:16.040 how old are they and what are they in the public school or what's the story?

00:03:20.300 They were. So at the beginning of the school year, we did enroll them. They're five and seven. So I

00:03:24.260 have a kindergartner and a first grader. And they were enrolled at an elementary school here in Knox

00:03:28.680 County. And originally, you know, there was no mask mandate. The board of education had voted more

00:03:36.760 than once, twice, I believe three times to keep it parental choice. If you wanted to mask your kid,

00:03:42.620 you were absolutely able to do that. So for seven weeks, Megan, our children went to school unmasked.

00:03:49.160 And then this federal case happened. Um, and since September 24th, um, which has been 151 days,

00:03:58.060 um, children in Knox County have been masked, uh, K through 12.

00:04:01.820 Must've been pretty glorious when you had the school board on your side voting to remove the masks,

00:04:06.140 but I know it was tight. I mean, you think 10, I think Tennessee, I think, okay, it's,

00:04:10.520 it's probably mostly Republican, uh, in your area. And, you know, probably most people be in favor of

00:04:16.360 taking the mask off, but it was tight, right? It was like four, three or five, four,

00:04:20.620 five, four, five, four, which it's actually changed. Now there's it's, um, six, three,

00:04:25.180 uh, one of the first, one of the board members that originally voted for a mask mandate has since,

00:04:30.240 um, changed their mind, but, um, yeah, it was five, four, but that's all we needed to keep it

00:04:36.200 parental choice. Um, and it, yeah. And, and honestly, it's an elected board and they voted more than

00:04:42.620 once. It wasn't a one-time thing. Um, they voted three times and again, they all had the same, um,

00:04:49.580 uh, solution was to keep it parental choice. And my girls attended one of the bigger, um,

00:04:55.180 elementary schools in the County. And I can tell you probably going to school those seven weeks

00:05:00.480 unmasked about 90 to 95% of kids were coming to school unmasked. And this is right at the end of the

00:05:06.540 summer and the beginning of the fall, you know, when the Delta surge was happening. And, um, so,

00:05:12.560 you know, it was, it was really a really sad day in Knox County for a lot of families.

00:05:16.960 So then, right. So everything's going along swimmingly as we've seen in every jurisdiction

00:05:22.120 that has lifted the mask mandate or refused to impose one in the first place in no County,

00:05:27.780 not one, have we seen some massive surge or even detectable or reportable surge in COVID cases.

00:05:34.520 It's just not happening. Um, contrary to those who want to pretend otherwise. So in your school,

00:05:40.680 you got what we've been covering now, um, is a trend. You got a lawsuit filed, uh, by first three,

00:05:48.940 now four students claiming that they have a recognized disability under the Americans with

00:05:53.740 disabilities act. And that the only reasonable accommodation that the school can provide to

00:06:00.840 protect them is mandatory masking of all students, teachers, staff, and so on. And it went to a

00:06:10.080 federal district court, a George W. Bush appointee. And, and what did he rule?

00:06:16.220 Um, well, he ruled an injunction. So the trial is still occurring, um, or going on, I should say,

00:06:21.440 um, he imposed a preliminary injunction, meaning you're, the masks have to stay on.

00:06:28.180 Yes. Yes. Um, with, and he stated very little, uh, exemptions originally when he sent down the,

00:06:35.160 the mask mandate on the 24th of September, he said that children with autism and trachs could have an

00:06:41.060 exemption. Um, but then you have several families that's, you know, you know, that, that, that their

00:06:47.860 children need exemptions as well, and they were not included. And so you have a lot of parents also

00:06:51.660 fighting like the Dickens to try to get their children, um, out of the mask because they have,

00:06:58.040 whether they have special needs. Um, we have over 3000 kids in our County that receive some sort of

00:07:02.580 speech therapy or speech services from Knox County schools, and they can't even get mask exemptions.

00:07:07.600 Um, you have friends that, um, that their children do get a mask exemption, but their teacher is masked.

00:07:14.240 And so they also don't realize that these children rely on being able to see their teacher's

00:07:18.680 expressions in their teacher's mouth to understand what they're saying. Right. Um, so it's really sad

00:07:24.040 that children that really need a mask exemption are struggling to get them. So here's my question

00:07:28.400 because of the judge, the judge, we covered this at a Pennsylvania a week or two ago and the

00:07:33.160 alleged disabilities were, they range from like obesity to ADHD, which ADHD does not make you more

00:07:42.120 prone to a negative outcome from COVID obesity may, but it depends. Um, but in any event that's,

00:07:51.480 they were unspecified in this case, you've got three kids who sound very, um, troubled in terms of

00:07:57.240 the physical issues that they're up against. I accept that these are disabled children based on

00:08:01.740 what I read in the complaint. Anyway, there's one with chronic lung disease and autoimmune condition,

00:08:06.280 autism, they use a feeding tube. I mean, it goes on another one, a 12 year old, um, just so the

00:08:13.140 audience understands has something called, I think it's Jaubert syndrome, rare genetic disorder,

00:08:17.460 brain malformation uses a wheelchair, feeding tube, and so on. And then a 10 year old fourth

00:08:21.720 grader with Schoen's complex, rare congenital heart disease, restricts blood flow, uh, feeding tube,

00:08:26.920 and so on numerous open heart surgery. So I think we can both accept that these are legitimately

00:08:31.440 disabled children. A hundred percent. And that, you know, I certainly would not want to discount or

00:08:36.960 devalue those children and what their needs may be where I have issue with is that according to the

00:08:43.520 ADA, it's ADA, it's a reasonable accommodation. And I just, I find it hard to believe that the

00:08:49.540 reasonable accommodation is to mask 60,000 other children. And I mean, I'm not like you, Megan,

00:08:54.340 I'm not a lawyer, but I did read about the ADA and, and I don't know how my child's face can be a part

00:08:59.800 of making an accommodation for other children. And with these families, um, I believe a few of those

00:09:06.960 children are learning virtually. Um, and why not, why can't we make a solution that doesn't impact all

00:09:13.160 of 91 schools in Knox County? So I am for, let's find them a reasonable accommodation. I am for, let's

00:09:18.820 do something that can get these children back in school. I just don't think masking the rest of the

00:09:23.620 children in Knox County is the solution. Right. I mean, even if, uh, if you really want to, you know,

00:09:28.940 accept that other people have to wear masks to accommodate the children, what about just those

00:09:33.840 classes or even just those schools, the entire school districts, 60,000 kids, but that makes no

00:09:38.720 sense. But what about the fact that, you know, more and more doctors now, and these are people who

00:09:43.060 are, you see them on CNN, they went to Harvard. These are not sort of right wing doctors. I hate to

00:09:49.140 make medicine a right wing left thing, but you know, it has become it in COVID. They're saying

00:09:54.460 one way masking works. One way masking, if it's an N95 is sufficient to protect the wearer.

00:10:00.620 And this lawsuit was filed at a time when COVID was surging and not it, you know, the way it stands

00:10:06.620 today, it doesn't take recognition of the fact that Omicron has come through and gone and created

00:10:11.940 probably herd immunity and we're not dealing with the same situation. So can't you get the lawsuit

00:10:17.300 thrown out on that basis? Cause I know it's pending in front of the sixth circuit of court of

00:10:21.160 appeals. You guys have filed it and you're waiting to argue it, but there's new information the court

00:10:24.800 needs to hear. I would agree. And also when the court or the judge Greer issued his injunction,

00:10:31.240 the day that he issued it, there were zero new cases and five to 17 year olds of COVID that day.

00:10:37.260 Cause I watched the COVID database pretty regularly. And now, and also back then vaccines weren't

00:10:43.740 available for five and up and now they're available for those school age children. So my question is,

00:10:47.980 can these, these disabled children, are they able to get the vaccine that would help protect them?

00:10:52.660 I mean, so there's a lot of variables that were not in play that are in play now. And I think where

00:10:58.320 a lot of parents have a lot of frustration is we are handcuffed to this case. And you know,

00:11:03.740 we have a law director that's also an elected official that, that has been defending this case

00:11:08.040 for the Knox County school board. And then the attorney general of Tennessee is doing it for

00:11:12.480 Governor Lee. So we, as parents, we're just, we're just clueless as what, what can we do? We feel so

00:11:19.720 helpless because my husband and I actually ended up pulling our children after the holidays and putting

00:11:24.320 them in private school. Um, just because with a kindergarten or first grader, you know, how can

00:11:30.120 you learn how to read and understand phonics when it's, when you're masked up, um, eight hours a day,

00:11:34.560 they did get a break, uh, weather pending when they were at recess and at lunch. Um, so it really was

00:11:41.600 heartbreaking and there's tons of families that, you know, really their children are struggling with

00:11:45.980 sensory issues, high anxiety from the mask. And I just feel like judge Greer's not even taking those

00:11:50.760 children into consideration. Right. Right. They, they cater to the most vulnerable denominator, which

00:11:56.120 in some circumstances might make sense, but now we've got vaccines and we've got therapeutics and we

00:12:01.140 know a lot more about COVID and it's like, well, how are these children functioning outside of the

00:12:05.100 school? Does the, do the parents ever bring them anywhere? Did they, because you cannot mask

00:12:09.060 society indefinitely? Well, and that's the, the interesting thing, Megan is, um, like I mentioned,

00:12:15.240 the university of Tennessee is here. Um, so we were going to football games and indoor basketball

00:12:20.060 games with thousands of other people. Nobody wears a mask anywhere else in Knox County. There's not a

00:12:25.260 mask mandate in grocery stores and churches, the university and workplaces. So, but our children have

00:12:31.940 to go eight hours a day and they have to be masked. So that doesn't even make sense because even though

00:12:37.420 they're masked at school, they're not masked the other hours of the day that they're not at school.

00:12:40.620 Well, and these other students, these others, the vulnerable students that have filed the lawsuit

00:12:45.500 presumably have been at school either in the beginning of the school year when masks were not

00:12:50.820 required or prior to COVID when we've had outbreaks of things like pneumonia or, you know, transmissible

00:12:57.760 diseases that could be problematic for them. I mean, this is an individual decision that parents in the

00:13:03.160 unfortunate position of having kids who are this vulnerable have to make, but in no world did we

00:13:08.080 ever look around and say every single other person in my district, in my state must change the way they

00:13:14.940 behave for the majority of the day with their children to accommodate me.

00:13:20.200 Exactly. And I think we have to take a holistic view of it. I mean, it's not just our physical health.

00:13:24.840 And as we've seen with speech therapy, you know, that that's on the rise for kids because they've been

00:13:31.420 long-term masks. You have other issues that are going on social behavioral. And just even for my, like

00:13:37.000 for young children that are learning to understand expression and relate to their peers, you know, it's not

00:13:43.120 just about our physical. And so again, you know, do you want to drive home that I don't, I empathize with

00:13:48.860 these families. I can't imagine what that's like to have to make those choices. But judge, the judge

00:13:53.120 Greer's injunction to mask all 60,000 kids and 9,000 members of staff. That's, I mean, that's just

00:13:59.680 not acceptable. No, it's not. It's not. And there's got to be some way of protecting those children while

00:14:05.000 letting the rest of the school district get back to normal. Now, I want to ask you about this law

00:14:08.880 director, because this is an interesting piece of the case. This guy is supposed to be representing

00:14:12.940 the school board and your interests, which as expressed by the school board are unmasking the

00:14:19.460 children. And this guy sounds like he's on the other side to me. I know you guys, you

00:14:25.480 know, the couple of the school board members have made a motion to either get him off the

00:14:30.980 case, or now I realize, I hear there's been an accommodation of at least bringing in a second

00:14:35.580 attorney. Because his proposals for like what should happen to the children inside of the

00:14:42.760 district right now who don't perfectly comply with this mask mandate sound draconian. Can you

00:14:48.200 tell us about that? Yeah, he had some suggestions that quite honestly, we're not going to fly

00:14:55.320 suspending children if they were not masked properly. Yes, they voted at the county commissioner's

00:15:01.120 meeting last night, I was there and spoke and they did vote an agreeance that that the board of

00:15:07.020 education can now vote to bring an outside counsel, which would act as an advisory would not be a co

00:15:13.580 chair or co counsel, excuse me. But it would be an advisory to the law department and to the law

00:15:19.440 director. And then I think ultimately, who they pick, that relies on who the law department chooses.

00:15:26.760 So we're looking at a lengthy uphill battle ahead of us, Megan, because we're not even on the Sixth

00:15:31.680 Circuit Court of Appeals for our appeal date. You know, and we're moving into the latter part of the

00:15:36.920 school year. And I know that federal cases, I wonder if you could reopen the trial court case,

00:15:43.500 like the case at the district court level, because of the change in circumstance, you know, it's almost

00:15:47.920 like the appeal is moot at this point, the information has changed so much. I almost feel like you need to

00:15:54.880 go back into the district court and ask for a rehearing with based on the new information. And hopefully this

00:16:00.420 new lawyer, because it doesn't sound like this law director was really even on your side. I mean, this guy,

00:16:05.000 I'm looking at his proposals, you mentioned, suspend the children for not wearing their masks properly. Okay.

00:16:11.760 Do you know anything about a kindergartner? Anything at all? I mean, does this guy have children? Not allow the

00:16:16.700 parents to attend any sporting events, shutting the lights off and sending everyone home at extracurricular

00:16:22.680 activities where the parents and the students are not in full compliance. And then, as I understand it, when

00:16:29.840 arguing the case, this guy did not introduce a single medical expert for the court to consider who would make

00:16:36.880 clear, clear that universal masking in schools does nothing. And even if you could make the argument that it does a

00:16:43.140 little something, the harm far outweighs the good.

00:16:47.160 Exactly. And that was my question. I actually called the law department back before the holidays and spoke with one of the

00:16:53.440 attorneys that's on the case. And I said, I'm not a legal expert, but where's where was the medical experts in this

00:16:57.980 case? There's a plethora of data out there that does not support long term masking for children that does not support

00:17:04.560 the stop of transmission of COVID. You know, and it's to me, it's what's comical is that this is the most dangerous

00:17:12.260 virus in history, but, you know, a Scooby Doo mask is going to stop it. So that's why I have, I think we have to look at

00:17:18.680 like a holistic approach and how it's truly affecting the kids. I mean, we have over 7,000 children in our system

00:17:24.820 that have either an IEP or a 504, excuse me, and they can't even get exemption. There's been 375 exemptions

00:17:33.440 given by the law department. The law department ultimately has to approve and then submit the names

00:17:38.380 of the children to Judge Greer. And he stated in the very beginning that he wanted as little as a few

00:17:44.960 exemptions as possible. So I think it's a... How can it be that in a state like I'm, you know, normally in

00:17:50.760 Connecticut, which is far bluer than Tennessee, our mask mandate is going to come down 228 and

00:17:56.300 hallelujah, our school just agreed that it will come, that the mask will come off on March 1st.

00:18:01.860 How can a state like mine be first to take off the masks before a state like yours, before a school 0.52

00:18:09.460 district like Knox County, Tennessee? I mean, it's not like all these other school districts in LA and New York

00:18:14.880 and so on, which are talking about taking down their mask mandates, don't have disabled students.

00:18:18.880 I mean, you guys are going to be the last ones with it. For what? Because Greer won't take another

00:18:22.980 look at the case? That's probably a better question for the law department. I've called down there,

00:18:28.420 I don't know how many times and tried to get some sort of update and response. And, you know,

00:18:34.040 it's baffling. It's baffling. I don't, I have yet to sense any kind of sense of urgency from this

00:18:40.020 law department. I don't know that they're aware. I'm just, I'm maybe I'm being naive,

00:18:45.080 but I don't know that they're aware of the struggles that this is causing. They say they

00:18:49.560 don't want the mask mandate. So you had a lot of parents last night at the county commissioners

00:18:54.200 meeting speaking and asking the county commissioners to please approve for the board

00:18:57.780 to bring an outside counsel. And as in, it's twofold. So as a secondary, there's parents that

00:19:02.700 are talking like, can we bring in our own case? You know, it's like, what can we do? You know,

00:19:07.620 I mean, I don't see how the ADA can justify masking another person without their, you know,

00:19:14.520 without their will. You've got to get a new lawyer. This guy, David Buck, the Knox County

00:19:18.400 law director is, is not doing an effective job. You need a new lawyer and you need to go outside of

00:19:23.660 this board, you know, lawyer and his advisor altogether and file your own lawsuit and get a,

00:19:29.520 get another case started. And if it has to be in another court, then so be it. But this court

00:19:33.240 is just fine too. There's new information. The court has an obligation to act.

00:19:37.760 And I mean, I would also try to push for emergency relief at the sixth circuit. You've got to stay

00:19:41.920 on them. But if you don't have an aggressive lawyer, none of this is going to happen. You

00:19:45.280 know, I think we're seeing now when parents get involved, when parents get aggressive,

00:19:48.720 they get results because the science is not there. It's not there. So I admire you speaking

00:19:55.860 out. I admire all the moms who wrote to me on the Apple comments. Otherwise I wouldn't have known

00:19:59.500 about this. You're popular with us, Megan. Oh, well, I appreciate it. And I appreciate hearing

00:20:04.600 these stories because you're not alone. You know, as we started, we look into it and again,

00:20:07.980 Pennsylvania, a couple of other states, we've seen the same thing, trying to use the ADA to get around

00:20:12.260 laws, executive orders, and so on, school board mandates. And that's not the way forward. There's

00:20:18.040 going to have to be a different accommodation for these kids besides making thousands and tens of

00:20:23.520 thousands of kids, you know, wear masks for 12 hours. Heather, thank you. We're going to continue

00:20:28.280 to follow. Yeah, I'll give you the last word. Oh, I was just going to say, I think we're the

00:20:31.780 only federal case in the country where our school board had actually elected not to have a mask

00:20:36.440 mandate. And then a federal case was brought against us versus where a lot of the other similar

00:20:41.260 cases was that the board wanted to implement a mask mandate and then federal cases were brought

00:20:47.200 forward. So it's a very unique situation. And we really are at the mercy of this judge until. So

00:20:52.220 hoping and praying that maybe we can find an aggressive attorney for the parents here in

00:20:56.740 Knox County. It is crazy because the other side has been insisting on things like they want

00:21:00.720 monitors throughout the school to make sure. Oh, yeah, the mask monitors. Yes, mask compliance.

00:21:06.080 I mean, come on, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's sad. And then what's happening is that teachers are

00:21:11.800 spending most of their time focusing on masking and not educating the children. So we need to get back

00:21:18.540 to normal as soon as possible. Yeah, we do. And that does not include I mean, what they want from

00:21:23.540 this mask monitor is make sure that everyone has the necessary training for proper masking and a

00:21:28.800 disciplinary plan for those who don't follow it. It's like, are you like this is not the way children

00:21:33.940 are. This is not the solution to your problem. If your child's health or God forbid life depends on

00:21:40.240 my child wearing his mask perfectly all day long and the other 60,000 doing the same, you're in the wrong

00:21:45.460 school like you're that that is not a child who should be in public school. I'm sorry, but that's

00:21:50.400 the truth. And that's a burden for both children, right, for the child with the disabled, the

00:21:55.060 disabilities and then also making sure that I mean, these children are now starting to be like, am I

00:22:00.480 going to get sick if I don't wear my mask? And, you know, we have safety patrols in elementary school

00:22:04.600 and fifth graders at one of the elementary schools are being told, make sure your peers are keeping their

00:22:08.180 mask up. I mean, that's not their burden to carry. So, you know, I just want kids to be able to be

00:22:12.820 kids and hopefully we can find a solution sooner than later. Yes. Oh, Heather, all the best. We'll

00:22:19.400 stay on it. Okay, Megan, thank you so much for having me. All right. Good luck to you. Wow. Up next,

00:22:25.460 I don't know if you saw this video. It went totally viral online. It was dad at a school board meeting

00:22:30.540 with a very powerful message about CRT and his kids and how destructive this has been within his school

00:22:40.140 district and elsewhere. And he is here to bring us that message firsthand next.

00:22:47.280 Welcome back to the Megan Kelly show. For far too long, we have witnessed governments and even

00:22:51.160 school boards attempting to divide and control our children and their parents too. Now, one fed up

00:22:56.640 father of three says he's taken back the wheel. Here is just a little of what he told his North Carolina

00:23:02.960 school board in what's now become a viral moment earlier this month. I'm biracial. I'm bilingual.

00:23:10.100 I'm multicultural. The fact is, in America, in North Carolina, I can do anything I want. And I teach

00:23:15.120 that to my children. And the person who tells my little pecan colored kids that they're somehow

00:23:19.560 oppressed based on the color of their skin would be absolutely wrong and absolutely at war with me.

00:23:25.100 What the mask showed us is that the parents, the most powerful group of people in our country,

00:23:31.080 that they're taking back the wheel. You believe in CRT. I want to tell you, you're a liar,

00:23:35.580 because that means you look at your black neighbor and say that they're oppressed. And you look at

00:23:39.700 your white neighbor and say that they're evil, regardless of the experience that you've had with

00:23:44.400 them. And we're not going to do that. I have an eight year old daughter who is absolutely dynamic,

00:23:49.900 who can do anything athletically, intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally. She is a dynamo. 0.91

00:23:55.780 And I don't want a man swimming against her in the pool. The fact is, I don't want her playing

00:24:01.600 against boys in soccer. I don't even let my sons rough her up. Do you think I'm going to let your 1.00

00:24:06.580 son rough her up? This is what we're talking about. Policy going back to the parents. 0.77

00:24:15.120 That dad is Brian Echeverria, and he's my guest now. Brian, thank you so much for being here.

00:24:20.640 Thank you. I loved what you said and the way you said it and how powerfully you did it.

00:24:27.820 I mean, I feel like the people in that room must have been on their feet cheering you for being so

00:24:33.280 clear in your messaging. So let me just start with a little bit of background on you so that the

00:24:37.860 audience understands who you are, where you came from, how you got to this fiery place.

00:24:43.340 What's your background? Where'd you grow up? Tell us about your family.

00:24:45.720 Oh, man. I have the most awesome family. So I'm biracial. Born in Miami, Florida. I moved around

00:24:54.120 quite a bit because I was born to a teenage mom. So I stayed with aunts and uncles and my parents are

00:25:01.000 in the military. So I ended up in Spain and Alaska. So I grew up a little bit of everywhere, actually.

00:25:06.920 But that's me. I've been loved by people who look like everyone we cross in our path every day.

00:25:14.240 You know, it's fascinating to me because Glenn Lowry was on my show about a year ago and I said,

00:25:19.040 Glenn, what is the solution to all of this? You know, he doesn't he doesn't like CRT or any of

00:25:22.640 that stuff either. Like, what is the solution? And he said, honestly, Megan, we need more biracial

00:25:26.400 marriages, more biracial unions. You know, so it's like in the same way I feel like a mothers of both a

00:25:34.800 boy and a girl could be the solution to like the Me Too problem. Right. Parents of, you know,

00:25:40.360 who are kids of biracial couples could be the solution to the CRT problem. 0.51

00:25:46.520 It it really could be. I mean, that'll definitely contribute because, you know, you can't teach me

00:25:52.440 that white people or black people or anything because they're all in my family and I know them

00:25:57.460 very well and they love me and I love them. I read something that you said something like,

00:26:02.020 I know black people and white people have been getting along since 1977 because that's when I was

00:26:05.960 conceived. At least 1977. I know that for a fact. Okay. So you, you grew up all over the place,

00:26:14.440 military brat, and you, you get married. You actually had a very sweet posting about

00:26:19.940 meeting your wife and seemed like true love. And then how many kids do you have total?

00:26:25.320 We have three, 14, 12, and my dynamic daughter just turned nine yesterday. 0.92

00:26:30.820 Okay. Awesome. I've got a 10 year old, so I know what it's like. And you, you have them in public

00:26:36.140 school in North Carolina? No, they're going to public school next year for football. So we,

00:26:42.880 we homeschool here. We're involved with the local school system by way of sports.

00:26:48.460 And that's, that's what really upsets me is the kids that are out there on the teams. They are,

00:26:55.020 I mean, they're being taught this and they share it with my children. You know, some of the racial

00:26:58.500 things that are said to them that they've learned in school is just amazing. Like what?

00:27:05.100 Like, you know, you know, you're only here because you're black, you know, your father's only doing 1.00

00:27:10.280 well because he's black or they only like him because he's black. They've been told that I'm

00:27:14.460 the token and all of those sort of things. I mean, it's just, it's just amazing things. You know,

00:27:18.920 obviously children can be mean, but they're learning that you're either oppressed or you're evil

00:27:24.740 at school. Hmm. So this is pernicious. And I do think this is related to what they're teaching

00:27:32.160 in school. I mean, you could definitely say that's, that's old fashioned racism. You could

00:27:35.720 have heard that 20 years ago, um, as a, as a student or what, what have you, but I do think

00:27:41.360 the constant focus on race and the constant knee jerk elevation of, you know, a black student or a 0.72

00:27:47.260 black person, or, you know, like what's the Supreme court, you know, justice we need to have,

00:27:50.840 has to have black skin. It has to be a woman has this, has this backlash effect of people just 1.00

00:27:56.360 assuming then that people of color or women, what have you, they've, they've gotten to where they're

00:28:01.060 getting because of those things, right? Like it has a reverse whiplash effect of undermining the

00:28:07.860 very people these woke liberals claim to want to support. It's absolutely. So, you know, next year

00:28:14.740 when my son goes to the local high school, it's like, they, they undermine everything. They pretend

00:28:20.780 like they want to build up minorities and everything else, but they're the ones who really stand in the 1.00

00:28:24.380 way. It's like the anti-Dr. King theology or something where Dr. King says the content of your

00:28:30.420 character, and now they're teaching the color of your skin. And it's just the opposite of everything 1.00

00:28:37.000 I've taught my children. My children have seen me prosper. They've seen me do well. They've seen me

00:28:41.960 get through adversity, bounce back. And all of a sudden they're being told, no, they can't when

00:28:48.460 I've been telling them, yes, you can all of this time. Right. You've been living it. That's the

00:28:53.460 thing. I've seen this done too. Like it, I don't mean to sound dismissive of actual racism, but

00:29:00.080 attitude, whether it's racism, sexism, or what any of the isms plays a massive part, you know, that your

00:29:06.560 belief that you can, that you will, that no one will stop you. It does matter. We're being told

00:29:11.820 today it doesn't, but it does. It, it, it's, it absolutely does. And Megan, I'm actually what I

00:29:17.880 describe as a super minority, meaning being biracial, I've never been a part of the majority

00:29:23.740 in any room. And so I find solidarity and heart and thought and hearts and thoughts don't have

00:29:29.980 colors. So I've taught my children that you just love everyone. Obviously there's bad people on earth.

00:29:36.600 There's, there's good people on earth, but you love everyone. You deal with them for who they are.

00:29:40.960 And that's the opportunity that they've lived through. And when I'm talking to parents, I'm

00:29:46.040 saying, why don't we just all believe our lives? Let's believe our lives. You're interacting one

00:29:51.500 with another. We're at football games, basketball games, everything. And all of a sudden, someone's

00:29:56.680 telling us that there's racial tension and that by virtue of color, you're either going to succeed 0.88

00:30:01.500 or not. And now I'm sending my kid into that system. And that's, that's absolutely, I mean,

00:30:08.260 it's, it's terrifying that my, my child is going to be told the exact opposite. They're going to be

00:30:13.240 left there. Like who's lying, dad or the teacher?

00:30:15.440 Yes, that's right. That's right. You it's, you've lived it. I mean, you're, you're walking the walk

00:30:21.940 because I know I read your bio, your biological dad, I understand, went to prison for a stint.

00:30:28.520 You had a stepdad come into your life who is massively helpful and influential, I gather,

00:30:34.420 but the way you talk about your dad and all these characters in your life is very uplifting. You

00:30:40.140 don't, you don't write about your dad, like, Oh, you know, I went to prison. It's like he overcame

00:30:45.280 that. And I overcame my challenges and I had great role. Like, I don't know, were you born with that

00:30:50.880 sort of sunny optimism or how was that instilled in you?

00:30:53.760 I think my family believed it. I mean, everyone who loved me from my grandfather down to my mother,

00:31:00.220 to my, to my aunts, no one ever told me there was something I couldn't do here.

00:31:04.240 You know, they, they made me believe apparently some people think wrongfully,

00:31:08.920 but they made me believe that if I wanted to do something, I could, I put in the work,

00:31:14.720 I figure it out. I keep the character and I get out there and give it a shot. And I passed it on to

00:31:20.540 my children saying they're going to have greater opportunities. You know, I expect this next

00:31:25.160 generation that they're going to be a force of nature. I mean, they're the most dynamic generation.

00:31:31.720 And now we have people trying to mess that up. They're, they're past a lot of the racism.

00:31:37.240 They were not victims of anything in our history. The sky is the limit. And I'm like, this is a great

00:31:45.460 opportunity. Don't tell my children, don't tell anyone's child that there's something they can't

00:31:50.780 do based on their ancestors or based on their, their color or anything, because the poorest man

00:31:57.460 in America can become the richest man and the richest man can become the poorest man with bad

00:32:01.840 decisions. You have an opportunity to do what you want here. Yes. It's poison. It's their,

00:32:07.720 they want to poison their brains from being these optimistic can do believe in self little people

00:32:14.240 to I'm oppressed. I'm victimized. The system's against me. I don't have a tail. You're right.

00:32:23.340 No personal accountability. Right. It's totally defeating.

00:32:27.800 You know, what's shocking is, you know, when all of this happened, obviously I was just,

00:32:31.580 I'm just a parent that showed up at a, at a school board meeting. I'm saying my kid is going to be here

00:32:35.760 and I want certain protections for my kid. Okay. It was in my announcement speech that I felt that

00:32:41.480 way. The surprising thing was the number of teachers who have sent me messages and they've

00:32:48.880 seen what has been taught and they've seen some of the curriculums and the, and the ideas being passed

00:32:53.820 around. And I just want to say that not even the teachers union is really speaking on behalf of the

00:32:59.140 teachers. The teachers don't want this stuff either. No one wants to talk about the sins that their

00:33:04.880 great, great grandfather committed every time they talk about their family. And, and that's what we

00:33:11.480 need to move on with. Okay. Great, great granddaddy in someone's family was not a good guy. He was an

00:33:17.840 alcoholic. We know that. Let's move on. Yeah. And honestly, like it, it doesn't even necessarily

00:33:24.920 matter in the destitution derby that we've turned our country into like, well, my great, great grandfather

00:33:30.320 was an Irishman who had it pretty bad when he first came over to America. The Irish weren't even 1.00

00:33:36.180 considered white and they were the subject of a lot of scorn and bullying and so on. And, uh, I wouldn't

00:33:43.220 spend two seconds thinking about that. It's like, okay, you know, he had a tough, that they're with

00:33:47.860 all the respect they're gone. Those people are dead and gone. It doesn't mean we're perfect in America

00:33:52.160 right now, but like if the more time you spend mired in that kind of negativity, the less, you're less

00:33:56.800 far you're going to get in life. So you mentioned your announcement speech. We should explain that

00:34:00.860 because you're not just a concerned dad. You actually decided to throw your hat in the political

00:34:04.920 ring to, to have a bigger, more impactful voice. So what do you, what are you running for?

00:34:10.740 I'm running for district 73 general assembly in North Carolina. And the reason I'm running is

00:34:16.600 I'm a parent. I'm a, I'm a son. I'm a grandson. And every political issue is a family issue. Every

00:34:24.380 policy is a parenting issue. And I've come to experience that. So, you know, I step out there.

00:34:31.580 I'm like, there's parents everywhere. I feel like I can get in there and help us win because so many

00:34:38.700 times politically people are, are into the big fight, you know, but if you're fighting and you're

00:34:43.860 0 and 13, you know, I appreciate your willingness, but we need to get someone in there who can win a

00:34:48.680 little bit. And, and on the conservative side of the conversation, there tends to be a losing public

00:34:55.460 debate with a lot of issues. And I'm saying, but we, we free enterprise is great. Parents' rights

00:35:00.940 are great. It's a shame. We have to even have words like parents' rights. It used to be understood.

00:35:06.420 Right. So the, the, I'm the dad, I'm in charge. You know, that, that was the, the culture before.

00:35:14.440 Now we need a word and we have to go to court for parents' rights. So I'm saying I'm going to run

00:35:19.860 and we're going to get in there and we're going to focus not on fighting, but on winning because

00:35:24.900 our families need it. And no, when it comes to parents, uh, Megan, you know, this, there's no

00:35:30.700 D's and R's. It's all about the opportunities, the safety of my children and parents all over my

00:35:37.320 district, all over America are like-minded in that way.

00:35:40.200 Especially in today's day and age, because the latest data coming out, according to, I think

00:35:45.380 it was Politico had a report, even the Democrats polling is showing them now that their voters

00:35:50.520 don't care about this. When they ask them like, what do you care about? CRT is at the bottom of

00:35:55.900 the list. All of this race essentialism, even the Democrat voters, they don't care about that.

00:36:00.940 It's these activists who are trying to stir up their, their voters, black voters in particular,

00:36:06.980 because they misunderstand their black voters. They think this is what the black voters want.

00:36:10.360 None of the voters wants this. Only the activists do.

00:36:14.560 Only the activists.

00:36:16.260 So your story reminded me of this, uh, this, when I was in college, I went to Syracuse and they had

00:36:21.700 great lacrosse team still do. And, uh, one of the guys in the team told me his dad was a,

00:36:27.500 was a high school football cage coach in the area. And he was telling me a story about how one day

00:36:32.600 they were watching the films of the football game. And, you know, he's like, you know, some kid on

00:36:37.720 the team, I go, Nelson, you know, you missed that block, Nelson, you cost us that interception,

00:36:42.180 Nelson, you're, and Nelson looks at the coach and says, I'm trying coach. I'm trying. And the coach

00:36:48.360 says, I know you're trying son. You're just not very good. To your point, you try, it's not enough.

00:36:57.020 You got to win. You got to win some of these fights.

00:36:59.060 We've got to win on these issues, you know, because our children aren't an experiment. We

00:37:03.900 can't wait for failed Democrat policies when it comes to kids. You might be able to do that with

00:37:09.560 something like planning and zoning, but you can't do that with the life of a child. And parents know

00:37:15.400 that, you know, and, and, and America is a lot like, uh, I had a neighbor in Florida. They had a

00:37:21.020 tree, a ficus tree, and they were from Portugal. Actually, the father comes over to prune the tree

00:37:26.620 because the, the gentleman wanted the tree to be round. And what occurs is he prunes the tree

00:37:32.000 and it looks crazy. And I'm like, okay, that's not quite right. Then he comes back and he prunes

00:37:38.840 the tree again. And it looks crazy. And what ends up occurring is after the third pruning, it grew into

00:37:47.240 a perfect circle, but you had to have patience. If you wanted it to be that perfect circle, everything

00:37:52.640 that needed to happen had already happened to the tree. And that's what America's like. So they want 0.84

00:37:58.280 to demonize the history and people don't want to wait for the results of the pruning, but America's

00:38:05.360 future says it's going to be a beautiful, fruitful place for everyone here. And if I didn't believe

00:38:11.700 that, I wouldn't be telling that to my children. That's where we're at. I love that. All right. So the

00:38:18.140 question is, what do you do when you're a man like you and you've got kids who are not, not yet in the

00:38:22.760 school system and you don't want this stuff taught and you don't want them undermined. And so you show

00:38:26.940 up at the meeting and you run for office, but schools are coming and the messages to them may

00:38:32.180 be coming too. Um, what's your advice for other parents who are in that circumstance? That's where

00:38:36.900 I'm going to pick it up after I squeeze in a quick commercial break, uh, more with Brian after this.

00:38:41.860 And don't forget folks, you are watching and listening to the Megan Kelly show. We are live

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00:39:30.760 All right. So Brian, let's just go through, cause I mean, you were ready to, to tear down some of

00:39:35.280 these things that we hear all the time in that, in that learning remarks at the school board meeting.

00:39:38.840 And you know, for those, I mean, I'm in New York city today, like the heart of New York city and the

00:39:43.700 people here, they don't see the world as you see the world. The white liberals who run this city

00:39:48.360 have a very different message and it does not include. I live in America and opportunity is

00:39:54.160 everywhere. It's about America is a racist country that there are racists everywhere and that you are

00:40:00.900 disadvantaged because you may be half white, but you don't have white privilege because your skin

00:40:06.840 isn't white like theirs is. And they feel guilty about that. And they want you to know, they feel 0.89

00:40:10.800 guilty about that. And they really want to tear down the country because it's been built on that

00:40:14.920 privilege that, that must be destroyed. So what do you say to people who think that way?

00:40:21.460 Uh, what I say to them is number one, don't believe the lies, believe your life.

00:40:26.040 You know, you have, I've, I've been to New York and you have, uh, places like Brooklyn that are

00:40:30.820 highly prosperous. So if you just believe your life and your interactions with your neighbors and,

00:40:36.620 and the commerce and, you know, you're going to the school sporting events, just believe your life.

00:40:42.420 Don't, don't live your life and then watch the news and let someone tell you that your life is

00:40:46.540 actually not your life. And I think that actually solves the problem because wherever you find people,

00:40:52.160 you find imperfection. However, America is the greatest place on earth. If you're, if,

00:40:57.160 if you're a minority, I mean, where are you going to find greater opportunity than in America? If

00:41:03.080 you're a majority, where are you going to find greater opportunity than in America? This place

00:41:08.280 has become what it is. We've all made it this way. And let's simply believe the life we live every day.

00:41:14.080 But you're, you know, you come from North Carolina. This is a traditionally a Southern state.

00:41:18.020 You're telling me you haven't bumped into some racists in your time and you're 40 plus years

00:41:23.180 bouncing around with your family state to state. Like you must have run into

00:41:26.960 people who treat you differently because of the color of your skin.

00:41:30.000 Absolutely. It, it happens. It doesn't happen every day. It doesn't even happen every month,

00:41:34.340 you know, but I don't assume if someone doesn't like me, it's automatically because I'm black.

00:41:39.060 You know, maybe they just don't like me and I've met racists and encounter things. And I'm like,

00:41:44.800 that was a little odd, but that's all it was, was odd. Like I go live my life. You know,

00:41:49.220 you live life with the people who say yes, not the people who say no, you know, your life is,

00:41:53.560 is made up of the people who are your friends, not the people who aren't your friends.

00:41:57.540 And that's, that's the way it goes.

00:42:00.460 What about, um, what you were saying in your remarks about, uh, transgender swimmers and so

00:42:06.040 on? Like that is a big issue for a lot of parents who are too afraid to say anything about it. But

00:42:12.420 that's why I think this Leah Thomas swimming and crushing all the women in these races is actually 0.99

00:42:16.900 a good thing. I'm like, go Leah, go, you do it. You know, and the, and the women, I'm sorry, 1.00

00:42:21.480 I understand it's hard for the women on her swim team to speak out. They're worried about getting 0.78

00:42:24.400 jobs. Let them learn the lesson firsthand of what happens when you stay silent.

00:42:28.100 This is what happens.

00:42:29.900 This is what happens. And, and, and Megan, that's actually, you know, that's why we homeschooled.

00:42:36.300 You know, that's why I love school choice because what occurred was I didn't know how to go to a

00:42:41.980 school board. I didn't even know that existed, you know, as a younger man. So when they were bringing

00:42:46.900 into sex education and saying they wanted to talk to my kid, I'm like, how about you're not going to

00:42:51.600 talk to my kid. And, and, and now I'm saying, oh, I'm going to fight for this because my kid is going

00:42:58.800 to go there, you know, and the, the, it's just ridiculous, the common sense part. And I'm not

00:43:05.420 telling anyone how they should feel. I'm saying how it needs to be for my child, my daughter,

00:43:11.260 no dude is going to push around my daughter. I don't care what he thinks about himself. I'm not

00:43:15.600 going to argue with how anyone feels about themselves, but I am absolutely vested in how

00:43:22.260 my daughter is treated and the opportunity she has. Right. And if we, if we don't speak up,

00:43:27.620 this is what happens. You know, I mean, I understand the position that these swimmers

00:43:31.380 are in, you know, they need to get jobs and so on. And the school has been totally against them

00:43:34.960 and unsupportive of them. But when push comes to shove, there comes a point at which you have to

00:43:40.100 fight. You must fight, let the chips fall where they may. There are enough employers out there who

00:43:44.840 would have empathy for these biological women speaking out about this cross, this transgender 0.99

00:43:50.740 swimmer, that they will get a job. And ideally at a company that shares their values, which are just

00:43:55.920 American values of fairness, of justice. That's why I like to see you speaking out because it's a good

00:44:00.900 example of other people for other people of how to do it. So for the people who are afraid,

00:44:05.080 right, who are afraid, they don't, they don't want to go to the school board meeting on CRT,

00:44:09.620 on masking, on the inappropriate sex ed that's being, you know, this isn't your normal sex ed.

00:44:15.020 This is weird. Like let's teach and celebrate. King. Yes. Like, no, how about no? As you said,

00:44:19.700 what do you say to them? I say you get with parents. We have a local parent here who made a

00:44:25.460 very big deal and got a lot done with the mask mandates. He actually is teaching me how to do this

00:44:30.860 as far as getting active in the school board. His name is Kenny Wartman. And Kenny really led the

00:44:37.400 the charge against the mask mandate. So you get with each other. And this is what I mean by,

00:44:42.060 I'm saying parents are taking back the wheel. So they've overstepped their boundary because while

00:44:47.920 they have their policies and their theories in application, parents are standing up everywhere.

00:44:53.800 And parents, they, your neighbor agrees with you, your neighbor with a daughter, with a son agrees with

00:45:01.460 you, talk to them and then show up to the school board meeting, show up to the commissioner meetings

00:45:06.140 and tell them, tell them you agree. We need laws in place, not just resolutions. There's no

00:45:12.540 consequence on a local school board resolution. We need laws in place that carry consequences

00:45:17.960 so that our children can be safe, so that they can have the future that we've envisioned.

00:45:23.220 So not to pressure you, but why just at the North Carolina State Assembly, why aren't we going for

00:45:29.640 something more federal so that you could make a difference on a national level? Go big.

00:45:35.060 Okay. I'm trying to win 73.

00:45:39.200 No, forget that. We need you at a higher level. We need you outside of North Carolina too.

00:45:43.400 I just think, you know, when you see somebody who's got the guts to speak out in the way that

00:45:48.600 you have and isn't afraid to take the wheel, as you're saying, you could help a lot of people.

00:45:53.660 I don't, let me, let me ask you this. What are you thinking about for the presidential race next

00:45:58.120 time around? Do you have any idea who you'd like to see win?

00:46:02.260 Well, I don't have an idea who I like to see win. I do have a prediction that on my side of the

00:46:09.020 conversation, we're probably going to see a DeSantis-Nikki Haley ticket.

00:46:12.880 Oh, could be. Could absolutely be.

00:46:15.600 I don't have a, you know, that's my prediction. I think that that's going to be what it is.

00:46:19.880 Obviously we have other guys who are fantastic, like Tim Scott and all that. But one thing is

00:46:24.200 for certain, we're going to have this red wave and then we're going to take it straight into 24

00:46:28.180 so that we can, we can breathe in America again and buy groceries.

00:46:35.240 Right. Maybe go into our children's classrooms. Wouldn't that be a joy to actually see the classroom

00:46:41.300 for ourself? I mean, you're going to have to fight for that too. Having homeschooled your

00:46:44.740 children and be like, what the hell is going on? Anyway, I love, you know, teaspoons in the ocean,

00:46:49.180 but we'll take them a bit by bit. We're turning these policies around and it's working. Brian,

00:46:53.300 all the best to you. Thank you. Yeah. Stay on it. I'll tell the audience at home that I did hear

00:46:59.340 from a well-placed official over the holiday weekend. Keep your eyes on Glenn Youngkin. Maybe

00:47:07.380 it's not going to be DeSantis. Maybe it's going to be Glenn Youngkin. What would you think of that?

00:47:12.200 Call me later and we'll talk about it. Next up, Surgeon General of Florida.

00:47:19.320 Welcome back to the Megyn Kelly Show. Well, as you know, Florida has been a favorite target of 1.00

00:47:23.660 the establishment media when it comes to COVID for some time now, largely thanks to its outspoken

00:47:28.400 governor, Ron DeSantis, who has fought mask and vaccine mandates successfully, not to mention

00:47:35.420 touting monoclonal antibodies and other treatments and more. So the man behind DeSantis has also

00:47:42.340 attracted a fair amount of attention, and that is Dr. Joseph Lodipo. He's Florida's Surgeon General,

00:47:49.080 and he's also found himself in the crosshairs for backing these policies while seeing massive success

00:47:54.780 in the state, which the mainstream media will not cover. And he joins me now to talk all of it.

00:47:59.980 Dr. Lodipo, great to have you here. Thank you for being on.

00:48:03.380 Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me.

00:48:05.400 Oh, it's been fun to watch you, and I'm sure it's been interesting on your end, too,

00:48:09.820 becoming the target of the national media. Once you start to say the things you're not supposed to

00:48:15.260 say, they don't tend to react very kindly to you. Have you experienced any of that?

00:48:19.940 You know, every now and then people ask me that, and I think I've seen maybe two or three negative

00:48:25.700 articles. But, you know, it's been a very rapid education into politics for a guy who came from

00:48:34.620 a background of clinical research and taking care of patients.

00:48:38.700 Right, right. It's like most doctors grow up being kind of nerdy. It's like, you don't get attacked,

00:48:44.140 you just study a lot and get good grades. Right, right. All right. So before you were

00:48:50.460 down in Florida with DeSantis, you were in California. And not just California, were you in

00:48:56.380 actual L.A.? Yeah, yeah. We were in the belly of the beast, if you will. You know, I was actually

00:49:03.340 working in the hospital the week that the governor, in March 2020, shut down the state. So, you know,

00:49:10.360 working in the hospital, we had our first COVID patients. I took care of some patients with COVID

00:49:14.360 that week. And then we did what pretty much every other parent was doing, which was figuring out what

00:49:20.120 to do with the kids. Now that, you know, they were, schools were shutting down also. So definitely in

00:49:27.520 the belly of the beast. And, you know, somehow they're still at it. You know, two years later,

00:49:34.340 they're still at it in Los Angeles. Well, and you were an early skeptic. I mean,

00:49:38.520 if my information is correct, maybe as early as March of 2020, you were saying,

00:49:43.460 closing the schools, not sure that makes a lot of sense. You know, the way we're sort of doing

00:49:49.920 these knee-jerk lockdowns may not be the way forward. Yeah, that's exactly right, Megan. I mean,

00:49:56.560 it was just fortuitous. You know, I think really God's blessing and plan that I was working in a

00:50:02.660 hospital that week. So I had the firsthand experience of taking care of patients with COVID

00:50:07.720 with my medical team, who was, my team was terrified. And I remember, you know, we sat down,

00:50:15.940 we looked at the data from Wuhan and looking at the data, it was very clear early on. I want to say

00:50:23.060 this because we keep hearing people say things like, well, now we know that, you know, the masks aren't

00:50:27.860 stopping Omicron. No, this, almost all of this information was very clear from, from early on that

00:50:34.780 it was, it was, there was a specific population that was unfortunately at high risk and it was older

00:50:39.720 people. So I had that experience of working my team. We looked at the data. Everyone was still

00:50:45.520 really scared. I'm pretty much everyone on my team. And, and after that week, I wrote an article.

00:50:53.940 My wife and I talked about it, everything that was happening. So much was changing, you know,

00:50:58.460 if you remember back then. And, um, you know, we wrote, I wrote about the schools and, um,

00:51:03.980 and the shutdowns and the lockdowns. Um, but yeah, no, it's, and it's kind of obvious, you know,

00:51:09.060 this stuff is, again, people are like saying, talking about how the lockdowns and the school

00:51:14.160 shutdowns hurt kids. I mean, we've known that that, that was exactly, that's the only thing that

00:51:18.480 could have happened. And we, we've known that.

00:51:20.260 I love you. You, uh, I read that you said something to the effect of my colleagues at UCLA

00:51:25.900 went from, thanks so much, Joe, for providing us with another perspective to how can we make

00:51:31.520 Joe stop writing? Stop, stop it.

00:51:35.560 You know, I mean, I wish I were like exaggerating, but that's exactly what happened. And, you know,

00:51:43.540 you know, and I mean, I, I actually have a recording still of one of our, um, division

00:51:50.500 meetings and my department meetings where grown men and women who had MDs and other advanced degrees

00:51:58.820 were talking about how to stop Joe from writing. I just, I just, you can't, it's, it's hard to,

00:52:06.280 I don't even know how to wrap my head around that.

00:52:08.400 What do you, what do you think explains it though? I mean, why did we get doctors like

00:52:12.260 Jay Bhattacharya, you know, of the great Barrington declaration and Dr. Marty McCary at Johns Hopkins

00:52:19.080 and you, and these really well-educated, well-credentialed, sane doctors who can see very

00:52:25.560 clearly what works and what doesn't. And they're not afraid to challenge the establishment line,

00:52:29.820 like a Dr. Fauci edict. But then we have so many in the medical establishment, not only attacking

00:52:36.340 doctors like you for speaking out, but totally going along with and towing the line,

00:52:42.260 on lies we've been told, like, you know, yes, the little cloth mask is going to do something for

00:52:47.960 you.

00:52:49.080 Yeah. Until Omicron came around, then it stopped working suddenly. Um, yeah, no, you know, Megan,

00:52:54.420 I, I think I, I ponder the same question and I don't, I think there's more happening than I can

00:53:00.600 imagine, but one, at least one component of it is I think sort of buy-in politically, um, sort of people

00:53:08.340 having difficulty separating their ideals or political ideals and perspectives from science

00:53:15.720 and what science was saying. So I think that's at least part of it where there was such a desire

00:53:21.180 to believe that, you know, we're all in it together. And, you know, if we all just, you know,

00:53:26.900 coordinate our behavior and do certain things, it'll work. Um, and I think that just kind of

00:53:33.660 got sort of wrapped up with, you know, what tends to be sort of a liberal perspective on life and,

00:53:40.680 and, um, in politics and medicine and in science in general. And I, I think, you know, some people,

00:53:47.880 some people were recovering, some people still haven't recovered. Um, that's a component of it,

00:53:52.560 but, you know, obviously there was a Trump factor too.

00:53:55.100 I feel like certainly into the rise of Anthony Fauci as sort of this non-Trump, this other than

00:54:00.920 Trump sort of leader, but I do feel like there's been a collapse of trust in, in public health

00:54:06.560 officials and bodies as a result of this. Like I, no one's looking at the CDC or Anthony Fauci's group

00:54:14.720 the same and probably never will until new leaders are in there. And there's been a complete

00:54:20.460 ownership of what they've done to us. You're, I mean, you're at, you're absolutely correct.

00:54:26.100 Megan. Jay is a good friend of mine. Um, Jay is a very good friend of mine. We, I knew him before

00:54:31.220 the pandemic and we got closer during the pandemic and, you know, we've, we've talked about what you

00:54:37.900 just said also, and it's, you know, there's just, they've really just completely sold their

00:54:44.380 credibility. I mean, they, you know, some of these studies, I don't know if you know, Dr.

00:54:48.580 Vinay Prasad, but he had a great piece, um, like a week ago about how the CDC has just,

00:54:57.300 you know, sort of systematically misrepresented data to achieve an objective that was political.

00:55:05.600 And you, you want to throw up when you see this stuff, you know, it's just so gross.

00:55:11.180 The, the Rochelle Walensky almost, you know, it's like a robotic thing on the, yes,

00:55:18.320 you must mask. The mask must stay on. The mask may not come off. The unwillingness to answer

00:55:24.080 for the flaws in this, in this so-called studies that in surveys that she's been touting,

00:55:29.040 right? It's like, we know those studies don't hold up. We know they're not worth the paper

00:55:33.220 they're printed on. And now she won't even speak to the mistakes she's made to the errors. She's 0.81

00:55:39.160 lies. She's told about, Oh no, no, no. That study out of Arizona, that proves that masks provide

00:55:44.460 three times the protection that you get when you don't have a mask on. I, what do you make of her?

00:55:51.400 You know, I, I am. So I trained at Harvard and she was there when I was there. She was,

00:55:56.260 she was senior to me, um, while I was a graduate student. Um, she was part of the PhD program and

00:56:01.680 in the piece because she did, uh, in a way, because she did a lot of HIV modeling. And I was also doing

00:56:07.820 mathematically mathematical modeling in the, in the PhD program. So I was familiar with her work

00:56:13.860 before, you know, I've never met her personally. I have, you know, no idea what, um, what makes her

00:56:20.080 tick or what her, uh, motives are. I really have no idea, but, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's been

00:56:27.260 dastardly the dishonesty and the, the scientific dishonesty that we've seen out of the CDC. You know,

00:56:36.420 everyone knows, for example, like this, particularly with this mask session, everyone knows that in

00:56:44.040 general, randomized clinical trials provide the highest quality evidence. So you have randomized

00:56:48.860 clinical trials that basically show either no benefit of masking or this much benefit of masking.

00:56:55.260 I mean, very little. And then, you know, they put out studies that show like a 70% reduction. I mean,

00:57:00.780 give me a break, you know, it's, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's laughable and it's sad.

00:57:06.500 It's a joke. And not only that, I mean, I'm sorry to get personal, but what's with like the crying and

00:57:12.900 the, I feel a sense of doom. I mean, you're a public health leader. What kind of behavior is that?

00:57:20.880 Yeah, I know the, you know, and this is, this is, you know, this is another piece, right? I mean,

00:57:24.820 this fear, um, that has been like, literally, you know, you study public health, you know,

00:57:31.160 like chapter one is, um, is that fear and coercion are not tools that are part of public health.

00:57:37.540 Oh, wow. I didn't know that they really are violating the playbook.

00:57:41.720 Yeah. This, this, it's like, and now we see why, right. Like, you know, mistrust, right. Um,

00:57:48.640 uh, conflict, um, that we're, we're reaping the products of those tools. And then of course,

00:57:55.260 just, um, just, um, uh, burden. So, you know, you've still got young people who are afraid

00:58:01.440 of contracting a virus that they probably have already contracted and recovered from.

00:58:05.980 You've got people who've, you know, received three vaccines and still are afraid to go outside

00:58:12.680 and eat at a restaurant. Um, and I witnessed it firsthand when I, with the young residents on my

00:58:18.400 team, when I was, um, first working in the hospital with patients who, you know, you look at the data

00:58:24.260 and it's right there in front of you, you're young, your risk is extremely low, but they're

00:58:29.720 terrified. Um, it's, it's just this, the whole approach, this fear, use of fear as a, as a tool

00:58:38.180 has just been a complete catastrophe and so harmful and will continue to be harmful for a while.

00:58:45.680 Yeah. Because we do need to trust them. That's the scary thing. It's like, it's not just like

00:58:50.660 breaking up with an ex-boyfriend and you say, Oh, okay. I learned something about him. I'm moving

00:58:53.900 on. We need to trust them. There there'll be other situations in which their input is important.

00:59:00.020 And just the overall undermining of messaging from our, from our leaders. I mean, it's deeply

00:59:05.360 troubling on a number of levels. So what about Fauci? I I'd love to know your thoughts on him. I,

00:59:10.140 I don't believe he's been honest about the origins of this virus. And I, he certainly misled us

00:59:14.760 numerous times in the course of the pandemic. He's admitted that, but you'll talk to different

00:59:19.780 people. You get a different answer. He's a villain. You know, he's in the pocket of big pharma. He's

00:59:24.860 about himself and his ego versus no, he's well-meaning. He's just made mistakes. You know, he, he,

00:59:31.140 he sort of got out over his skis. How, how would you, how do you see him?

00:59:36.120 Well, you know, Dr. Fauci actually has a long history and, you know, and it's unknown to most,

00:59:43.600 um, I think most physicians and it was unknown to me before the pandemic until I started reading

00:59:50.160 more and learning more, um, because he was, um, he's been around for a while. And, uh, if you go

00:59:57.020 back to the, you know, to, to the HIV epidemic is particularly in the early period, you know, I,

01:00:04.100 Fauci, Dr. Fauci had a pretty significant role during that time that, um, that is in some ways

01:00:12.340 analogous to what he's been doing now. So one of the things that, um, Dr. Fauci did, and, you know,

01:00:18.380 this is sort of on, on record, you know, this is, these are, um, you know, things that facts that

01:00:24.140 can be verified is that he basically, he, he has a history of sort of having drugs, um, particularly

01:00:33.380 drugs that are under patent that, um, that may or may not be particularly effective, but he promotes,

01:00:40.280 uh, whereas drugs that may, that may be effective. And in fact, often later proved to be effective,

01:00:47.820 but are not under patent are not, he doesn't promote and sort of right. So in this case,

01:00:55.260 you know, back, back early on in the HIV epidemic, um, you know, so one of the things that people

01:01:01.860 were dying from is, is PCP. It's called something different now, but it's basically, pardon me,

01:01:07.160 a pneumocystis pneumonia that, that people develop with HIV when their immune systems are compromised

01:01:13.020 enough. And it's deadly. I mean, I've taken care of many patients with it. Um, it's, it's,

01:01:18.860 it's deadly. Uh, but at the same time, it has a very effective treatment that is cheap called

01:01:25.840 Bactrim. So doctors in the community were having good. That's like, that's how you take that when

01:01:31.020 you have a UTI. Right, exactly. Exactly. And it just turns out to be extremely effective for treating

01:01:38.260 this infection. So doctors in the community were having a lot of, um, a lot of seeing good outcomes

01:01:46.660 from treating patients with HIV with Bactrim, but Dr. Fauci back then basically refused to support it.

01:01:54.300 He said things like, you know, you know, you need a double blind randomized clinical trial.

01:01:59.520 And I love those, but when you're in a crisis, you need to be able to look at the totality of

01:02:05.020 evidence and make what the, make the best decisions for people who are, you know, who are counting on

01:02:10.280 you to help them, not just stick to some arbitrary standard of, of, you know, this is how good the

01:02:16.560 evidence has been. I mean, it's probably reasonable to set the bar slightly lower when you're in a

01:02:21.700 crisis. And he got in the way of, of people using this medication and recommending this medication.

01:02:28.280 So we've, you know, so he, this is, he's, this is the kind of thing that he's done in the past,

01:02:34.280 um, favoring drugs that are expensive and, and sort of poo-pooing drugs that, you know, are cheap

01:02:41.260 and may be effective. And we're seeing it again here. I've never met the guy, but, um, but I have,

01:02:48.020 you know, I, I can't say that I would trust what he, um, you know, I can't say I would trust his,

01:02:53.980 his advice or his assessment.

01:02:55.580 Is he, is he compromised? I mean, does he have a financial stake in this? Like why,

01:03:00.040 what, what would make him get only behind AZT and get only behind the vaccines?

01:03:06.300 Right. Uh, I, I truly, I mean, I don't know, Megan. I mean, I think, you know,

01:03:11.400 I actually really appreciate Senator Paul, Ron Paul and, and others who are willing to ask him

01:03:16.960 questions. I, it's, it's, it's a shame that, you know, that people who are in the media in general

01:03:23.060 don't ask him tougher questions. Um, but, um, you know, we just, we need to keep, um, I hope that

01:03:30.040 people continue asking questions. Me too. It's a great frustration of mine as a journalist

01:03:36.320 that somebody won't put it to him. They're, they're dying for ongoing access. You know,

01:03:42.200 King Fauci removes himself from your, uh, questioning. If you ask him too many hard

01:03:46.960 questions and he won't come back on, maybe not your show, maybe not your network. So they're in

01:03:51.760 a tough position. They, they think because they, they think they need ongoing access. Whereas I'd much

01:03:56.800 rather be in a position of having no access and being able to be honest with my audience about

01:04:01.440 his lies. And, and really, I don't know if the word is corruption. Um, but he is definitely

01:04:08.420 compromised in some way because he misleads a lot and it always goes in one direction.

01:04:13.760 Uh, I don't think that people are listening to him anymore. I do think he's got to sort of his

01:04:17.240 diehards on the left, but I think that in the, in the polls show that the trust in Dr. Fauci,

01:04:21.800 uh, I was down in like the thirties on a national basis now. Not surprising.

01:04:26.040 Good. Yeah. The guy speaks out of both sides of his mouth and, uh, you know, depending on what

01:04:31.080 day of the week it is and what message is popular. So what, so let's go through a few of the things

01:04:35.620 that are still out there. And I'd love to get your, you know, your professional opinion on whether we

01:04:39.900 need to be doing any of them, right? Like for example, I'll give you my school district. We're

01:04:43.480 taking down the, taking off the masks. Thank God. Finally, uh, on March 1st, which is so unnecessary.

01:04:49.780 We, my kids go to these big, these private schools in Connecticut. They have acres of land.

01:04:54.340 They've been socially distanced. They don't have to get anywhere near one another, but still we

01:04:57.980 pretend like they're stuck in a Manhattan high rise, you know, on top of one another with the

01:05:02.060 masks. Okay, fine. We finally won that. Uh, I'll take the W, but there's still going to be plexiglass.

01:05:09.440 There's still going to be social distancing. They still have to wear the masks during choir.

01:05:13.880 I mean, you tell me, is any of that necessary?

01:05:17.760 I mean, I think it depends on what your objective is, you know? So this is, this is, um, one of the

01:05:24.560 problems with the pandemic. So you've got young people, super low risk, right? And, and there's

01:05:30.380 all this, um, I mean, it's absurd how much attention there's been put on that has, has been put on

01:05:38.220 sort of protecting the very young, incredibly low risk, um, versus where the attention really should

01:05:46.260 be, which, um, which is older people and people who are more vulnerable. So, I mean, I think in a

01:05:54.740 society where you're sort of trying to balance the overall experience for young people, for the

01:06:00.300 children, the answer is absolutely not. It's completely silly to be doing all of those things,

01:06:05.600 making them, making them adhere to any restrictions whatsoever when they're low risk. I think people

01:06:11.840 who are concerned, look, we've got vaccines available, you know, and, you know, if you're

01:06:17.260 concerned, you can wear an N95 mask. If, you know, if you, if you want to do that, I mean, I've warned

01:06:22.760 them taking care of patients. I can't do it for very long. Most doctors cannot, but, um, but, you know,

01:06:28.360 but there, you know, there are options that people have, but yeah, from young people, none of that makes

01:06:34.820 any sense. And what about, I mean, I've heard you say good things about the vaccines. People call

01:06:39.380 you anti-vax because you're anti-mandate. This is what they do to try to discredit anybody who

01:06:44.320 doesn't see the world just as Anthony Fauci does. Um, but I've heard you say nice things about the

01:06:49.340 vaccines. And before we talk about natural immunity, cause I definitely want to get there.

01:06:54.420 Can you speak to that? Cause I, I definitely have a lot of audience members who don't,

01:06:58.320 who will not really admit that the vaccines have any benefit at all. They're very skeptical about it.

01:07:03.360 I mean, should they be skeptical about it? What you're somebody they can hear as a straight 0.97

01:07:08.520 shooter on this stuff. Are the vaccines a force for good and, and why?

01:07:16.320 Oh, that's yeah, that's a, that's a loaded question, Megan. I mean, I, I think in, in some

01:07:21.500 ways, you know, the, so there are a few things going on. So one thing that is, that I've learned

01:07:29.620 during my career in medicine is that there's always more to know and to find out. So, you know,

01:07:36.860 you remember that we've seen some of that already. You remember, you know, you know,

01:07:41.300 vaccines, they stopped trends, you know, they, they, they, they, you know, you're not going to

01:07:45.700 get COVID, you know, and, and, um, and then, and then, oh, you know, the breakthroughs are rare,

01:07:50.780 but it was very obvious. In fact, you know, that they weren't rare. There were many people who were,

01:07:57.700 you know, celebrities who were getting them. And then eventually the flood dams gave way there.

01:08:02.300 And it was very obvious they weren't rare and that they weren't, um, they weren't, um, providing

01:08:08.200 a lot of much protection at all from infection over time. So there's always more to know in, um,

01:08:16.080 in medicine, in healthcare, in science. So what we do know is that they, you know,

01:08:23.840 substantially reduce the risk of becoming severely ill from, um, from COVID. Same thing for,

01:08:30.340 same thing is true for natural immunity. Okay. Let me ask you a question there. Let me ask you,

01:08:34.220 how do we know that? Right. How do we know that? Because I, I, I have somebody who I love,

01:08:39.740 who is very vaccine skeptical. And what this person would say is, you know, you don't,

01:08:45.500 you don't know that. Like what, what if those people in the hospital right now,

01:08:49.840 you know, because of COVID, if they'd gotten the vaccine, you don't know that they wouldn't

01:08:54.100 be in the same bed in the same situation. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, I think from my perspective,

01:09:02.260 I totally get the distrust. Again, this is one of the products of using fear and coercion in public

01:09:08.960 health is that it completely fuels distrust as it should. Um, but, um, you know, from my assessment

01:09:16.200 of sort of different studies from different, um, research groups in different countries,

01:09:21.880 they generally align on that, the reduction in the risk of, of hospitalization and death from COVID

01:09:28.980 specifically from COVID. So, you know, do I know it for a fact, you know, as well as I know anything

01:09:36.840 else scientifically for, for, for a fact that I read a journal. Um, so, I mean, I, I, I do think

01:09:43.480 that's the case, but again, I don't blame people for not trusting, not believing. Yeah. It's not

01:09:48.480 their fault. They've been, they have been misled. Yeah. I'm with you. I mean, it's like the vaccine.

01:09:53.480 I don't, I don't know whether, you know, a COVID case in somebody who's vaccinated would have been

01:09:59.780 just as mild if they hadn't gotten the vaccine, but you can see the numbers on the hospitalizations,

01:10:05.020 you know, the unvaccinated far, far, far outweigh those who are vaccinated and in the hospital.

01:10:10.900 And so even for a lay person like me, I can read data. I can see that that's a troubling

01:10:16.280 statistic for somebody who is both unvaccinated and doesn't have natural immunity. And that's

01:10:22.380 where I want to pick it up after I do a quick break, natural immunity, how it's been totally

01:10:25.920 ignored and what it means for people who have it, right? Are they, are they less likely to get

01:10:30.840 another version of COVID, uh, right now or aren't they? Cause it could, you know, we've seen people

01:10:34.780 who have had COVID get it twice to stand by, uh, more with the one and only Dr. Joseph

01:10:39.980 Ladapo right after this, he's going to stay with us and he's going to take your calls in

01:10:43.920 just a minute too. So, uh, you're going to want to stay on the line and call us, uh, and

01:10:47.840 let us know what you want to know about vaccines, about masks, about therapeutics. Uh, you've got

01:10:52.340 an honest doctor here. Isn't it a joy? Uh, who's going to answer some of those questions

01:10:56.440 for you? 833-44-MEGYN. That's 833-446-3496. Okay. So vaccines, we believe that they can prevent

01:11:10.540 a severe infection or hospitalization. Um, but what about natural immunity? First of all,

01:11:15.820 have, have you had COVID? Megan, before, um, before I see anything else, I just, I got to do a shout

01:11:20.960 out. So we have a wheeze. Corey in my team is a huge fan of you. So she, she asked me to say,

01:11:28.100 you know, to do a shout out for her. So what's her name? What's her name?

01:11:33.780 Wheeze Corey. Wheeze, my girl. I look forward to meeting her in person.

01:11:38.520 All right. All right. Okay. So, you know, have I, if I had COVID, so, um, I've never tested positive

01:11:47.020 for COVID, but I'm sure I've had COVID. Yeah. It's just too much exposure to too many people

01:11:51.620 and in Florida too. And as a doctor. So what do you believe that people who have had COVID,

01:11:58.580 let's say Omicron in particular, right? Cause the, what the New York times told me is that if I,

01:12:02.500 if I get Omicron, I might be immune from Delta, but not the other way around. But do you believe,

01:12:08.360 uh, that that coat, that natural immunity is as powerful as the vaccine and staving off COVID

01:12:15.360 less powerful or the same? It's comparable in terms of, um, severe illness, which ultimately is

01:12:23.400 kind of, you know, that's what we want to avoid. They're very comparable, you know, they're, I mean,

01:12:28.020 they're very comparable in terms of, um, and that's what the data show, you know, there's data

01:12:32.860 from Israel, there's data from the United States. I think there was a Cleveland clinic study. Um, the

01:12:37.860 CDC finally came clean and, uh, and published a study, you know, a few weeks ago that, that showed that,

01:12:44.180 you know, shockingly natural immunity was, um, was effective, very effective, comparable to the

01:12:50.480 vaccines at preventing severe illness. It's just so obvious, right? It's like now that the politics

01:12:55.100 have changed and they need to get off of this COVID death train that they've been touting at every

01:12:59.800 turn. Now it's like, Oh, let's take a look at natural immunity. That might be a very effective

01:13:04.180 thing too. And this is, you know, that's exactly the formula for completely blowing your credibility

01:13:11.220 and, um, and seeding distrust in the U S population. It's, it's just, I don't even know how these things

01:13:17.080 happen. Honestly, I go between despair and crying almost, you know, I can't, you know, I can't

01:13:25.140 understand it. All I can think is that we need to get, you know, another leader in there and I don't

01:13:29.060 care. It could be a Democrat, could be a Republican, but we need to get a new leader that will get rid of

01:13:33.780 these two and anybody who enabled them, you know, Fauci and Rochelle Walensky and anybody who enabled

01:13:39.100 them because they've, they've done so much harm. Uh, people will die as a result of their

01:13:44.060 dishonesty. They already have, and they will continue to. Um, and, and the, but let's talk

01:13:48.960 for a minute about the, the, the vaccine injuries and the VAERS system, right? Cause I get a lot of

01:13:54.800 viewers and listeners who write in and say, you know, people are dying. They're dying from the

01:13:58.840 vaccines. Go check the VAERS system. And I don't know if I should trust the VAERS system

01:14:03.520 cause it's just self-reported. You know, anybody could go on there and post anything. Nobody's

01:14:07.260 checking it as a journalist. That wouldn't exactly be your first choice for solid reporting,

01:14:12.540 but what is, where do we go to figure out how many vaccine injuries there have been and how

01:14:18.300 severe they've been and how big a risk that is? Yeah, that's a great question, Megan. So,

01:14:24.780 you know, the first problem is that there hasn't been any demonstrated interest in the CDC and our

01:14:31.640 leadership in this country to even honestly investigate that, you know, these things happen.

01:14:36.820 Um, there's a gastroenterologist, for example, in Los Angeles who, um, you know, I got in touch

01:14:43.380 with kind of, you know, I think she reached out to me early on in the, um, in the pandemic after

01:14:48.960 the vaccines were released and she's a gastroenterologist, right? You know, this is not

01:14:53.500 someone who's denying science. And unfortunately she developed debilitating symptoms, um, kind of

01:15:00.840 neurologic symptoms and symptoms that, you know, that the NIH and I've seen, um, email correspondence

01:15:07.500 between, between scientists at the NIH and individuals who have sort of had this syndrome

01:15:13.760 of these, uh, kind of neurologic, um, uh, injuries after vaccination with the COVID-19 vaccines,

01:15:21.640 um, who, you know, it's just like swept under the rug. It's sort of pushed behind the curtain,

01:15:28.040 ignored, you know, we can't hear you, you know, we're not listening right now, you know, and all

01:15:33.480 because like none of that stuff can be true because, you know, everyone's got to, you know, just, you

01:15:38.620 know, the vaccines are safe and effective and that's the only, that's the only thing you can say.

01:15:42.840 Um, it's been very dishonest. These things happen. Um, I think one good thing is that we're actually

01:15:48.980 going to be seeing more research coming out. That's providing a more accurate, um, accurate

01:15:54.740 assessment of the scope and depth of injuries. Where are we going to get that from?

01:16:01.760 Well, uh, fortunately, you know, as there are, um, you know, there are, they're the minorities still, 1.00

01:16:07.020 but there are honest, courageous, uh, scientists out there. And, um, many of those scientists have

01:16:13.820 kind of banded together. We sort of have our informal network. Um, and I've been in touch

01:16:19.060 with some of them and, um, you know, these are scientists at universities around, around the

01:16:23.880 country who, um, have done research that they're, you know, that is literally there. Um, it's like,

01:16:30.540 some of it is literally coming out very, very soon. And my, I'm going to, I'm going to ask my team

01:16:34.860 to tweet it out. Actually, some of the, some of the studies when they come out.

01:16:38.120 Wheeze, wheeze has got to send it to me. I want a heads up.

01:16:42.420 And that's really just the beginning. I mean, you know, the thing, the thing about beers is that

01:16:48.020 it is self-reported as you said, but something that was known before COVID is that it's wildly

01:16:55.100 underreported. So, you know, myocarditis, like there's a signal for that, um, that's higher,

01:17:01.580 that's stronger and people who are young and male as other, you know, as, as, as has been

01:17:07.480 acknowledged more widely, but that's, that's like a fraction of the cases. Most doctors in my

01:17:13.660 experience don't touch beers. They don't, they don't, they don't enter into anything in there,

01:17:18.220 even when they see issues come up after vaccination.

01:17:21.580 Let me ask you about myocarditis. And then I'm going to ask about boosters, myocarditis. Um,

01:17:25.660 what you'll get from the, you know, Fauci crowd is you have a risk of myocarditis from COVID too.

01:17:30.860 You know, your kid, get him vaccinated because yes, yes. Okay. I've got two boys. I've got two

01:17:35.980 boys and a girl, but my boys are 12 and eight. And, uh, they said, well, they get him vaccinated,

01:17:39.860 even though there's a risk of myocarditis because they could get that from COVID as well.

01:17:45.060 Yeah. That's some weird thinking, you know, that's like, and I've seen, you know, I've seen this

01:17:51.680 and it's been annoying because that's not how you make a decision. Um, it, you don't say,

01:17:57.360 oh, you should do this because, you know, you can get this, you know, you can get this condition.

01:18:02.680 The question that you're interested in is what is in the best interests of the, you know,

01:18:07.800 of this particular individual. So sure. You know, the, the vaccines, particularly in young people,

01:18:15.540 particularly in young boys and adolescents, much higher rate of myocarditis. And it's not benign.

01:18:22.340 I mean, I've got three boys, you know, as a dad, you know, I get worried if there's anything that

01:18:27.280 is a confidential health problem, I would be terrified if my kids had myocarditis. And so,

01:18:34.980 so that's, that's a real risk in terms of COVID. I mean, first of all, COVID is not the only virus

01:18:40.040 that can cause people to develop myocarditis when they're kids and there, there are other, um,

01:18:45.460 viruses such as, for example, uh, the Coxsackie virus that can, they can cause that. But, um, but,

01:18:51.800 you know, the overall risk is what you, what you're looking at, the overall risk associated

01:18:56.560 with the decision. And by the way, many of these kids have already had COVID.

01:19:00.760 Well, that's my problem. So all three of my kids have had COVID and they're not vaccinated. And I

01:19:05.880 don't think they need to get vaccinated. They're little, they're eight, 10 and 12. They've had COVID.

01:19:10.880 So why do I need to vaccinate them? Because I mean, the schools are certainly telling me I must,

01:19:15.620 and the arenas, if you want to go out for a sports game and so on here in the Northeast,

01:19:19.600 in many of these States, you must, I don't want to. Um, and I really don't want to now that they've

01:19:25.640 had it. So what, I mean, what, what do parents like me do? What are the considerations?

01:19:31.320 Well, look that this actually, um, lets us round out the other, another piece of a question you asked

01:19:38.240 earlier, which is that, um, you know, sort of about what we know about, um, the vaccines.

01:19:44.200 And I mentioned that in science, we always learn more. And I think I've got three boys. There's

01:19:51.020 like no way I'm giving them a vaccine that is, um, that's been developed using a relatively new

01:19:57.920 technology for this specific purpose. I mean, that's just ridiculous. Um, you know, they're

01:20:02.820 extremely low risk. And, um, so the likelihood that they would even benefit even for its stated

01:20:10.400 purpose related to COVID is you would, you would have a very hard time demonstrating with any good

01:20:18.600 data that they actually have a clinical benefit from it. So, you know, and then, and we don't know

01:20:26.360 what else there is to, to be known about the safety of the vaccines. That's just a fact. And we're going

01:20:31.500 to learn more because that's just how it works in medicine. Right. Over time. Well, that's the

01:20:36.400 problem because since I don't believe I'm, I have a database I can go to, to see all the negative

01:20:42.400 effects that have happened from the vaccine. And there have been, there have been, I realized that

01:20:46.620 we've had, you know, hundreds of millions of vaccines given and so on. And in the vast majority

01:20:51.100 of cases, it appears to have gone very well and no side effects and people prevent serious disease,

01:20:56.240 but in a, some portion, I can't say what portion, uh, it's gone another way. And since I can't know

01:21:03.140 because they won't be honest with me about these cases, it's disconcerting. I don't know what to do.

01:21:08.480 I mean, I've had people on the show have had serious vaccine injuries who said that they're

01:21:12.900 basically, they, they just like the CDC cut off contact with them even after verifying that they

01:21:18.700 had a vaccine injury, which is they went dark on them and that they were kicked out of the clinical

01:21:22.820 trial once they had a negative result. So their negative result isn't even in the official data

01:21:28.260 about the vaccine. It's, it's just, it's such a dishonest time for, um, for science that,

01:21:36.200 you know, it's, it's just that much more important that people who care about truth

01:21:40.340 never stop looking and asking questions. I mean, I've had, I've had, I've said public,

01:21:47.140 I had the vaccine, I had the booster. Um, but I am not prepared to say it had absolutely no

01:21:53.460 negative effect on me. I don't know. I guess I have to wait like all these other hundreds of

01:21:58.260 millions of people. I'm putting my trust in the same people who invented the vaccines are going

01:22:02.800 to have to invent a cure. If some large portion of us have something terrible happened to us,

01:22:08.160 because that's just good business. Forget, you know, a lovely heart, you know, the people at Pfizer

01:22:14.400 would like to stay in business and they would like to provide us with some curative product if

01:22:18.280 they've screwed us up. Oh, it's, I know. I mean, you know, it's, it's, I don't know. It's been such

01:22:25.280 a tough, tough, uh, tough, uh, tough period of time. You know, and I certainly hope that, you know,

01:22:31.460 that, um, that there's, there are no, you know, serious adverse events that we've learned about over

01:22:38.500 time that, um, that, um, that are associated with them. But, you know, the truth is we don't know,

01:22:45.100 which is why it always made more sense to prioritize people who were at most, at greatest

01:22:50.080 risk. Right. Then it makes sense. What about though? I've read that you, you've asked about

01:22:54.920 the boosters and whether there could be, um, uh, could they weaken your immune system? I mean,

01:23:02.020 I have concerns about that too, right? It's like you, you take two, two shots, then you take a third

01:23:08.800 shot, then you likely get COVID because Omicron was everywhere. So what does that do to you? That's a

01:23:14.780 lot of messing with your immune system, uh, potentially in a short amount of time.

01:23:19.720 Yeah. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's a fairly advanced area of study. You know, I've read, um, things that,

01:23:25.900 um, you know, some scientists, even in the New York times, uh, wrote that, um, they, they quoted

01:23:31.580 scientists that raised concerns about, um, potential harms from sort of, um, over boosting doing too many,

01:23:39.420 um, boosters. I mean, it's a legitimate concern. We're in uncharted, you know, waters. Um, and for

01:23:48.760 me, it, to me, it, it never made sense to just kind of continue doing boosters that just didn't seem

01:23:56.360 like a, it just didn't seem healthy. You know, like what, what exactly are we doing here? You know,

01:24:01.160 what, what are we doing? Um, so why though, why, why wouldn't it be healthy? Like what,

01:24:06.220 what could potentially happen to your immune system? So again, it's, it's a fairly specialized

01:24:12.780 area, but what I've read from immunologists is that there is, um, concern that, um, that you might,

01:24:19.740 that your sort of immune cells would, would sort of stop responding to, um, um, to the boosters to,

01:24:27.300 um, and then potentially that relates to, um, their recognition of, um, of antigens of, of the virus

01:24:35.480 itself. Uh, but it's, it's, it's kind of this, it's a more, it's not a science one-on-one question.

01:24:41.980 Um, so, and we can, I can kind of maybe get with my team and sort of maybe talk to some experts,

01:24:47.600 but I'm not, I don't have enough experts. I appreciate that. That's, I appreciate your honesty,

01:24:52.040 right? What's so lovely to have a doctor say, I don't know the answer to that. I'd have to research

01:24:55.360 that. God bless you. Thank you for that. All right. So let's, one thing I know you know a fair

01:25:00.340 amount about is this monoclonal antibodies. And, you know, that was a big thing in Florida. Florida

01:25:06.420 was providing these things to people who got COVID actually a member of our team had them and he's in

01:25:12.920 Florida. And, um, then suddenly the Trump, I mean, the Biden administration shut it down, including in

01:25:19.140 Florida. They said it was because it doesn't help with Omicron. They said that there have been studies

01:25:25.100 out there saying nice maybe with Delta, but no, not with Omicron doesn't do anything. So do you accept

01:25:32.800 that? Um, you know, so, um, you know, they made the decision. So certainly I accept that, you know,

01:25:42.040 that we can't, we can't use it, uh, based on the fact that EUA for was revoked. I think they may be

01:25:48.920 correct. And we looked at studies where we were aware of the studies that they, um, that they cited

01:25:54.740 and they were laboratory studies. And from my perspective, you know, when you're in, this is,

01:26:00.380 it's just kind of another example of poor judgment. So, you know, when you're in the surge

01:26:08.000 and there is not wide availability of other treatments, and you're not certain that something

01:26:16.080 doesn't work, a treatment doesn't work clinically. Like no one's, no one was certain. And in fact,

01:26:20.600 in some of those, um, studies, the laboratory studies, they, the, the authors wrote that,

01:26:26.640 you know, sort of these, this finding in the lab needs to be confirmed in patients, you know,

01:26:33.140 and that's, you know, that's just, that's how it is. Sometimes what you find in the lab

01:26:38.060 isn't what you see in patients. So in a surge, you know, limited availability of alternatives,

01:26:45.260 unless you are certain that if something doesn't work, you know, you should allow doctors who think

01:26:51.920 that a treatment may be effective to keep using it. I don't think that's very complicated. I think

01:26:57.460 that's the correct decision from a public health perspective, especially if you care about, you

01:27:02.060 know, doing the best you can for patients and, you know, not surprisingly, unfortunately, they made

01:27:06.900 a different decision. Hmm. What about, where do you stand? Last I checked in with a doctor I trust

01:27:12.680 on, uh, hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. He said they have, that the studies were ongoing,

01:27:18.200 that they were less positive on hydroxychloroquine and more positive on ivermectin, but he felt like

01:27:27.380 we needed, you know, sort of the double blind, real big study and so on on ivermectin to continue

01:27:32.920 playing out or to finish up. Where do you stand on those two? Hydroxychloroquine, I know a little

01:27:39.080 bit more about. Um, so what you basically had was a number of clinical trials, most of them,

01:27:45.960 which found a small benefit when used early in treatment, not late, not in the hospital, but early,

01:27:53.860 um, that didn't reach statistical significance. So that was a common finding. And with Dr. Harvey

01:28:00.340 Reich, I did a meta-analysis that basically pooled these results and found that there was a, there was a

01:28:08.020 benefit, which is what you would expect to find if multiple studies are finding a small, but

01:28:14.120 statistically insignificant benefit. That's not quite reaching the levels that we, you know,

01:28:20.140 like to hang our hats on. So that, that's what, that's what we found. That's what the data showed.

01:28:26.260 Um, ivermectin, I don't know it as well.

01:28:29.360 Before we move on to ivermectin though, but there are downsides to hydroxychloroquine in terms of one's

01:28:34.340 heart. Right. So this is, um, this is a very good example of, um, of, you know, the nice dance,

01:28:43.600 uh, the unpleasant dance between politics and science. So, you know, basically, um, this,

01:28:52.560 the drug was sort of, you know, this campaign was initiated to make it appear to be this unsafe

01:28:59.320 drug. Um, but in reality, compared to other drugs that we give patients, it's, it's, it's safety is

01:29:05.740 comparable. Um, yeah, they use it for a lot of things already.

01:29:10.540 Right. Right. And it's used in pregnant women. You know, how many drugs can you use in pregnant 1.00

01:29:15.060 women? You know, the other thing is doc, you know, as well as I do, whatever drug they put you on for 1.00

01:29:20.700 whatever it is, it could be something mild and stupid. You go and you Google the side effects.

01:29:24.300 You're going to be like, Oh my God, don't know. Nevermind. I won't take it. Right. So it's like

01:29:29.260 you really, I mean, I'm not saying that's necessarily what they're doing with hydroxychloroquine. I don't

01:29:34.160 know. I haven't done that research, but I do know that you could scare anyone with any drug, uh, in

01:29:40.240 terms of science. I've done the research and that's exactly what happened. And, and then, you know,

01:29:45.180 the sort of the playbook was, uh, was dusted off for ivermectin. Um, another drug that, you know,

01:29:50.580 I'm not sure we have ongoing clinical trials. A study was just published in JAMA that, um, the

01:29:57.020 primary outcome was reduction in, um, and severe, severe illness. So interestingly, it didn't reduce

01:30:04.100 severe illness, but the number of people who died in the ivermectin arm was lower than the number of

01:30:10.060 people who died in the control arm. This was published in a leading medical journal. Um, so,

01:30:16.000 you know, death is what you're saying. It was lower. It was lower. The difference wasn't

01:30:21.840 statistically significant, but when you see something like that, what you want to then see

01:30:27.040 is whether you're seeing the same pattern or a similar pattern in other studies. So, you know,

01:30:34.120 so that drug, however things shake out, whether it's found to be effective or not, it's like super

01:30:40.160 safe. Like, you know, it's totally, it's a very safe. I mean, I would take it before I took ibuprofen.

01:30:45.640 It has a, it has a safer, um, it has a better safety profile than ibuprofen. But then, you know,

01:30:52.360 this campaign started again to like sort of smear this drug as being unsafe. And it's completely

01:30:58.980 insane, Megan. I mean, from a, from a doctor's perspective, if you're running around telling

01:31:04.740 people that a drug like ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine is like unsafe and scary, like that just,

01:31:11.320 that's just not what the data, that's not what the data show. That's like, that's politics.

01:31:16.740 Well, and you, and it's coupled with, you know, in the very, in the very next lane of traffic,

01:31:20.480 there's Fauci with vaccine, vaccine, vaccine to get your fifth booster, the vaccine. It's like,

01:31:27.380 does the guy own stock and Pfizer and Moderna or what? Cause he is a one trick pony. It's like,

01:31:34.220 we get it. You want us to get jabbed and over and over again to the end of time. We got it.

01:31:40.260 And for somebody like me, I'm like, I got three. That's all you get. I don't want more. I've done

01:31:45.400 my part. I didn't even really want those three to be perfectly honest with you, but I want to function

01:31:49.320 in New York city. And you can't, if you don't, um, okay. Stand by because our phone lines are

01:31:54.420 lighting up. People want to talk to you, doc. I can see why. Uh, and so Dr. Ladapo is going to take

01:31:59.500 your calls. Uh, when we come back, what would you like to know about masks, vaccines, medicines?

01:32:05.660 Call us now. 833-44-MEGAN, M-E-G-Y-N. That's 833-446-3496.

01:32:15.820 We've got a couple of callers, doc. So we're going to kick it off with Holly in South Carolina. Hi,

01:32:20.740 Holly. What's your question? Hey, so last January, I got pretty sick, uh, two COVID tests, four days apart,

01:32:28.360 got nothing. Um, they were both negative. I went and had an antibodies test, show positive rehab,

01:32:35.720 um, had another antibodies test in September. It showed that my antibodies were still 598.

01:32:40.880 Got sick again in January, went and had my antibodies done after another negative test

01:32:46.100 and they exceed 2,500. My question is, is anybody keeping track of these antibodies? I mean, there's,

01:32:55.360 I've had two negative, you know, situations and both times it's showing that I had it.

01:33:01.240 Okay. What's the answer to that doc? Hey, well, the answer is that, um, you know,

01:33:07.000 first I'm glad you're doing, you're doing well now. Um, and, um, uh, I'm sorry that you had to deal

01:33:14.680 with illness, but the answer is that, uh, is that Dr. Fauci has misled you. So this obsession with

01:33:21.040 antibodies is, is completely, um, misplaced. No one should go out and, and worry about checking

01:33:28.700 antibodies. Basically, if you test positive and you have risk factors, you should get treatment

01:33:34.020 and your immune system is way more than antibodies. So your immune system includes B cells, T cells,

01:33:41.220 and, and ultimately those cells are what prevent people from becoming seriously ill,

01:33:47.460 not your antibody level. All right. It's been so refreshing. Thank you so much. Please come back.

01:33:53.960 Really appreciate it. And thanks to all of you for listening. And don't forget tomorrow because we've

01:33:57.800 got Mike Pompeo. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - February 23, 2022

Parents Fighting Back and COVID Policy Hypocrisy, with Dr. Joseph Ladapo and Brian Echevarria

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