The Megyn Kelly Show - Predators Exposed at Nickelodeon, and Democrats Abandoning the Working Class, with Alexa Nikolas and Batya Ungar-Sargon ｜ Ep. 751

00:00:00.560 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:12.100 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today we have two big interviews for you. 0.53

00:00:18.300 Later, Bhatia Anghar Sargon is here to talk about her new book about class in America.

00:00:23.580 This is on the heels of these other guys, former New York Times guy writing a book about white rage.

00:00:30.000 In the rural America and among the working class, Bhatia has some different research for you about how the electorate is shaking out

00:00:38.560 and what the real concerns are from people going into 2024 and the election.

00:00:44.400 But we begin today with an interview focused on a documentary series that has taken our culture by storm.

00:00:52.040 I watched it in full yesterday and I am still reeling from what I saw.

00:00:58.400 It's called Quiet on Set, The Dark Side of Kids TV.

00:01:03.360 It dives into the dark underbelly of Nickelodeon.

00:01:07.660 Yes, Nickelodeon, the premier children's television network that rose to prominence in the 90s and 2000s.

00:01:14.240 The documentary showcases a hostile work environment, sexualized jokes and sketches in shows featuring very young children

00:01:24.280 where they were obviously exploited and made to engage in sexualized behavior that adults would fully get,

00:01:32.660 but the children only knew they felt uncomfortable.

00:01:35.240 All of which was created by then show creator and network golden boy, Dan Schneider.

00:01:42.200 He's the man of Nickelodeon, or at least was for all these years.

00:01:48.000 The documentary reveals for the first time in a stunning reveal the identity of a child star whose name you may know,

00:01:58.560 who was alleged to be sexually abused at the hands of Nickelodeon dialogue coach Brian Peck.

00:02:05.320 I don't think we have to say alleged.

00:02:07.080 Brian Peck wound up pleading guilty to two of the charges and served time.

00:02:12.600 But that was just the beginning.

00:02:14.740 And we'll get to who that was and what he said.

00:02:16.480 He's on camera in the documentary.

00:02:18.800 Before we get to our guest, here's just a bit of the trailer.

00:02:21.700 Take a look.

00:02:22.100 This is when Dan Schneider arrives, Nickelodeon's golden boy.

00:02:26.980 For 20 years, he shaped children's entertainment.

00:02:30.460 Working for Dan was like being in an abusive relationship.

00:02:35.120 How safe can any kids be in that environment?

00:02:38.720 There would be even bigger problems down the line.

00:02:41.340 These are three predators who worked at Nickelodeon all in a short amount of time.

00:02:45.700 I had no idea what I was saving my son from.

00:02:48.960 It's a house of horrors.

00:02:51.440 They find this enormous trove of child pornography.

00:02:55.760 11 charges of child sexual abuse related to a child actor.

00:03:00.620 It made me wonder who was being hurt.

00:03:06.460 I've been waiting 17 years for today.

00:03:11.240 It wasn't dealing with anybody on the shows or anything, right?

00:03:15.000 It was a child actor.

00:03:16.820 On one of our shows.

00:03:18.960 Yes.

00:03:20.440 And now I'm joined by one of the former Nickelodeon child stars from Zoey 101, who was featured

00:03:26.300 in the docuseries, Alexa Nicholas.

00:03:29.280 She's the creator of the movement Eat Predators now and host of the Eat Predators Daily show.

00:03:36.520 Alexa has been very vocal about her experience at Nickelodeon for years and how she says the

00:03:41.860 network failed to protect her and other children as well.

00:03:45.500 We want to warn you up top that some of what you may hear today may be disturbing as it concerns

00:03:51.240 language of sexual assault and abuse of minors.

00:03:57.600 Alexa, thank you so much for being here.

00:03:59.380 Welcome to the show.

00:04:00.480 Thank you so much for having me, Megan.

00:04:02.100 Oh, well, I appreciate you telling your story and speaking out in this docuseries and more

00:04:08.940 broadly on YouTube.

00:04:10.160 And so this cannot be easy for you to acknowledge what happened to you, what's happened to these

00:04:15.540 other children, what looked like such a lovely, wonderful experience at a place like Nickelodeon,

00:04:21.360 which now we know behind the scenes was very, very different for far too many kids and with

00:04:27.700 far too many predators.

00:04:29.820 When I started to watch the docuseries, I thought it was all about this guy, Dan Schneider, who

00:04:35.220 was like, I kind of saw him as almost the Roger Ailes of Nickelodeon in that he wasn't like

00:04:40.460 the top executive, but he was the chief show creator.

00:04:43.200 The guy was like a goldmine when it came to ideas and what would work on television.

00:04:47.320 But it wasn't as episode and episode goes by, you learn that guy and that guy and this

00:04:55.740 kid and this kid and this kid and this.

00:04:57.940 It I can't believe Nickelodeon is still in business in the wake of this scandal.

00:05:03.860 It may not be for much longer.

00:05:05.520 Your thoughts on all of that.

00:05:07.840 Well, first of all, I was going to say, yeah, me too.

00:05:10.420 I cannot believe it is still in business, to be quite honest with you.

00:05:14.100 I mean, watching the documentary was also shocking for me as well, because I sat down for an

00:05:21.780 interview, you know, very early on, and I wasn't sure who else was going to sit down.

00:05:27.960 And I think for a lot of survivors in general, you always think you're the only one.

00:05:33.820 And that could also be a reason why survivors don't come forward is because you think you're

00:05:39.500 the only one.

00:05:40.200 And so when I sat down in that seat, I wasn't sure who else was going to follow.

00:05:44.380 And so when I watched the documentary, not only was it extremely sad to to witness all

00:05:50.640 of these kids being affected, but also it was very validating in a very scary way, obviously.

00:05:56.260 But it was very validating.

00:05:59.780 You know, the kids on set talk about it because you got cast in Zoe 101, as I understand, when

00:06:05.740 you were 12, that is very young and you were definitely exposed to inappropriate content

00:06:11.960 and, you know, it was happening all around you, Jamie Lynn Spears.

00:06:15.380 And we'll get to some of what they had her do that you witnessed at the time.

00:06:19.800 Do you remember feeling that's uncomfortable or that's inappropriate?

00:06:23.720 Or did you just have the feeling, you know, for me, my the most vivid memory that I have

00:06:33.580 of being extremely uncomfortable was when it came to the skirts that I had to wear on

00:06:39.880 Zoe 101. 0.98

00:06:41.020 And they were so short that I remember the wardrobe, you know, department telling me I

00:06:47.440 had to wear biker shorts underneath.

00:06:49.800 And when I tried on the biker shorts, the biker shorts were too long and you could see the

00:06:55.800 biker shorts past the skirt.

00:06:57.680 And I remember her saying, we're going to have to cut these biker shorts. 0.79

00:07:01.720 And when she cut the biker shorts, you know, once you get rid of the seam, it would start 0.99

00:07:07.000 to fold.

00:07:08.020 And so every single day I was constantly pulling down these biker shorts.

00:07:13.500 And I remember complaining about it. 0.96

00:07:15.440 And she was like, well, it's to make sure that, you know, your butt doesn't show. 1.00

00:07:20.440 And, you know, then you feel like, oh, they're looking out for me. 0.52

00:07:25.080 And now when I look back at that, I'm like, why was I wearing a skirt where, you know, my 0.97

00:07:30.980 my my butt could show as a child? 0.75

00:07:34.380 And the fact that the biker shorts alone were still too long for the skirt. 0.97

00:07:39.020 You know, that was one of my first very vivid memories of just being uncomfortable, even

00:07:43.900 physically uncomfortable, because I was constantly having to pull them down.

00:07:47.900 And no one really did anything about it.

00:07:50.380 And then my other vivid memory was just Dan Schneider's behavior on set.

00:07:56.220 I mean, he really did create a toxic work environment.

00:07:58.920 And he made me feel always deeply uncomfortable.

00:08:02.160 I never knew what version of him I was going to get that day.

00:08:06.760 And usually when you think about toxic work environments, you think about adults having

00:08:11.500 to sadly experience that.

00:08:13.380 But this was children.

00:08:15.660 And this is a time when your brain is still, you know, forming.

00:08:19.640 And it became, you know, essentially childhood trauma.

00:08:23.560 Well, that explains a lot, right, because we've seen what's happened to not just the stars of

00:08:30.120 Nickelodeon, many of them, but child stars in general don't have a great track record of

00:08:34.420 growing up to be perfectly healthy onscreen actors.

00:08:38.240 You know, poor Amanda Bynes is probably the best example. 1.00

00:08:42.000 And she indeed was a Nickelodeon star.

00:08:44.520 I actually didn't even realize that, to be honest with you.

00:08:47.000 I I just knew her when she hit the big screen as this incredibly talented actress.

00:08:51.140 And today, I mean, that poor girl has had so many mental health problems. 1.00

00:08:56.520 She looks nothing like her former self.

00:08:58.460 And those clips of her are heartbreaking because it all really started when Dan Schneider found

00:09:03.520 her and she got cast with her own show on Nickelodeon.

00:09:06.420 And she was extremely talented.

00:09:07.620 But the environment was not conducive toward wellness.

00:09:11.940 Let me show the audience a little bit of you in the documentary talking about some of

00:09:16.440 your experiences.

00:09:17.080 And this will also show them some throwback clips to you back during the Zoey 101 years.

00:09:23.540 It's at 12.

00:09:25.000 I was 12 years old when I started Zoey 101.

00:09:28.000 Ooh, cute boy to the left, green shirt, backpack.

00:09:31.360 When I look back at it, my character was there for the boys.

00:09:36.560 Nicole was the archetype of male gaze, female, where she was girly, very short, short skirts 0.89

00:09:48.320 and pink, like kid eye candy.

00:09:52.860 How about this top?

00:09:53.800 You like this top?

00:09:55.120 It makes me look chesty.

00:09:56.480 We don't need to be hyper conservative of bodies, but that didn't represent even me as

00:10:01.220 a girl at that age.

00:10:04.260 And it wasn't just you.

00:10:05.880 I mean, it's amazing how many, like from Amanda to Ariana Grande did not realize she was a Nickelodeon

00:10:14.360 star first either.

00:10:16.740 Several well-known names went through the same machine where the exploitation, the sexual references

00:10:22.460 to these young versions of these girls were ubiquitous. 0.95

00:10:26.580 Was that, that was all a Dan Schneider thing?

00:10:28.880 Yes.

00:10:30.940 I mean, from my personal experience, that was a Dan Schneider thing.

00:10:35.080 You know, I even have memories of Dan Schneider, you know, at wardrobe fittings where he would

00:10:41.620 ask to have the Polaroids of, you know, they would take Polaroids basically of your outfits.

00:10:48.740 And, you know, that's actually kind of normal when it comes to a creator or executive producer

00:10:53.000 kind of figuring out the color palette for the episode.

00:10:55.880 But thinking about Dan Schneider being in there and asking for kid Polaroids to have and taking them

00:11:03.840 was pretty bizarre.

00:11:06.860 And I just, you know, as I got older, I realized that that wasn't necessarily normal.

00:11:12.540 Like you don't usually see the handover directly, but I would see the handover directly quite often.

00:11:18.820 And so for me personally, it was Dan Schneider.

00:11:21.760 But I know that this was happening on other kids sets as well.

00:11:25.660 He was the one who created that Amanda show, the Ariana Grande show.

00:11:30.940 Was she also on Zoe 101?

00:11:33.180 No, she was actually in Victorious, which was the spinoff, not like a spinoff, but Victoria

00:11:39.420 Justice was in Zoe 101.

00:11:41.460 And then Dan Schneider gave her her own show called Victorious.

00:11:44.440 And Ariana Grande was her friend in that show.

00:11:48.400 OK, so this is all during his era.

00:11:50.980 He got bounced out, the highlight, during the Me Too movement.

00:11:54.920 But he was there for, I mean, from the beginning of, you know, the 2000s, running herd over all

00:12:00.200 these shows and all these kids.

00:12:01.520 And here is from the documentary, a clip showing some of the inappropriate behavior

00:12:08.200 he had the kids engage in, including Ariana Grande in SOT 2.

00:12:12.340 People were looking back at old scenes and saying, Dan Schneider is obsessed with feet.

00:12:18.360 Check this out.

00:12:19.040 It's all very gross and possible to escape children's feet.

00:12:22.360 Dan Schneider. 0.99

00:12:23.180 Absolutely disgusting. 1.00

00:12:24.700 He's a grown ass man. 1.00

00:12:25.580 What the f*** are you doing? 1.00

00:12:28.320 There's one video of Ariana Grande making a joke about a potato. 0.99

00:12:32.980 Sometimes I wonder if you can get juice from a potato.

00:12:37.360 No.

00:12:43.740 Did that air on Nickelodeon?

00:12:46.740 Come on, give up the juice.

00:12:50.640 Yikes.

00:12:51.760 I'm thirsty.

00:12:53.500 In another video, Ariana's pouring water on herself in what seems like a very sexual manner. 0.88

00:12:57.880 And people started saying, this feels inappropriate for children.

00:13:04.160 Yeah, that's an understatement.

00:13:05.920 Your face is so shows what we all feel.

00:13:10.540 It's like disgust and concern as you watch this young girl really being exploited.

00:13:16.920 Can I just ask you something?

00:13:18.280 I'm sure a lot of people are wondering and going to wonder throughout our discussion.

00:13:21.740 Where are the parents as all of this goes on?

00:13:24.300 You know, because I think most of us would like to believe.

00:13:25.860 And I know you're a mom yourself now.

00:13:27.800 We'd run in there and be like, no.

00:13:30.420 But where were they?

00:13:32.580 You know, when it came to Nickelodeon specifically, a lot of the parents weren't even allowed on set.

00:13:37.540 So they would be, you know, beside Video Village, which is, you know, the tent where, you know, the executive producers are in and the creator and, you know, they're watching while we're filming.

00:13:48.480 The parents weren't ever in Video Village.

00:13:51.960 And so sometimes parents weren't even really necessarily aware of what was happening.

00:13:57.680 So I think it's really important to note that because you think, oh, the parents right there beside, for example, Ariana Grande.

00:14:03.900 But that wasn't always the case.

00:14:05.620 I would say more so, there was no parents, honestly, on set.

00:14:10.660 And they were told to step out because there wasn't enough room to have everybody in there, like the crew included.

00:14:19.860 And so parents were around, but they weren't around in the way that we think they were around because Nickelodeon would actually not have them present.

00:14:30.520 And some of the parents are interviewed in this series.

00:14:33.380 And I give them credit for just being really honest about the fact that their kids were living their dream.

00:14:41.700 These are not easy roles to get.

00:14:45.660 You know, a million kids would kill to have these roles.

00:14:48.420 And the parents didn't want to do anything to screw up their kid's dream.

00:14:53.880 Because if they crossed this guy, Dan Schneider, they knew very well that their kid would get fired and would never be asked back for another Nickelodeon show.

00:15:02.720 And these aren't parents who saw abuse happening, but just uncomfortable moments that, you know, it's easy for us now to be like, oh, I would have stormed in there.

00:15:10.820 But realistically, in the moment, I can see how it was a difficult thing to handle.

00:15:16.860 Yeah, I mean, the power dynamic, even for an adult, you know, after the Me Too movement, we've learned a lot about power dynamics and how they have an impact on consent.

00:15:27.120 And so when you think about the adults, a lot of these adults, for example, and parents, some of them like would quit their jobs, right?

00:15:35.920 Because not that their child's career was a full-time job, but even the auditioning process itself.

00:15:42.580 I mean, I have so many memories, my whole childhood, driving, you know, five hours, six hours, you know, a day to and from auditions.

00:15:52.100 And a parent could not have a full-time job while taking their children to all of these auditions.

00:15:57.940 So by the time they land a role, the child ends up being essentially the breadwinner, the person who is putting food on the table.

00:16:08.020 And so for the kid, obviously, that's extremely stressful, even if they're not fully consciously aware of that.

00:16:14.360 And then for the parent, they're aware that if the kid loses the job, you know, that there might not be any electricity that's, you know, staying on in the house or food on the table.

00:16:26.140 And so I think the financial pressure of it all adds to the parent's position when it comes to speaking up for their child, sadly.

00:16:38.340 Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense.

00:16:40.040 My dear friend, Melissa Francis, was a star back in the day on Little House on the Prairie, across from Jason Bateman.

00:16:46.800 She played one of the new Ingalls kids brought in when the original ones kind of aged up.

00:16:51.560 And she's got a lot of these same stories in her memoir, which is called Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter.

00:16:58.860 And she had enormous earning pressure put on her during those years.

00:17:03.500 She was obviously the primary wage earner and felt a lot of the same, but no allegations of abuse like these.

00:17:09.340 Before we get into the details and some of the most disturbing stuff that was alleged among some of these other actors outside of Dan Snyder,

00:17:16.620 I want to spend another minute on him because I don't want to be too dismissive of the alleged hostile work environment that he created,

00:17:23.480 not just with the children, but with adult females.

00:17:26.920 The first episode spent some time with two female writers who, I have to say, seem like very cool people.

00:17:34.820 Like they're, as writers on any comedy show might be, they're self-deprecating, they're funny,

00:17:39.760 they clearly don't take themselves too seriously, but they're like, oh my God, this stuff happened.

00:17:45.520 And as a third party watching, I'm like, yeah, that's gross.

00:17:48.780 Here is the story of writer Christy Stratton in part.

00:17:52.400 Listen to what she said he asked her to do.

00:17:54.620 We were in the writer's room and Christy was talking about high school,

00:18:00.480 which is relevant because we're writing for a young girl.

00:18:02.520 And Dan was just said, you know, it'd be funny if you leaned over the table

00:18:10.120 and acted like you were being sodomized and told that story about high school.

00:18:17.220 She said no at first.

00:18:19.000 And then he was kind of like, oh, come on, come on.

00:18:20.880 It'd be so funny.

00:18:21.680 Just do it.

00:18:22.320 It'd be so funny.

00:18:23.340 And everyone's kind of laughing too, because he's making it like this big joke.

00:18:27.560 She couldn't get out of it.

00:18:28.720 You know, he's begging her.

00:18:29.580 So she just leaned over the table and did what he asked her to do.

00:18:35.800 Do you remember Dan asking you to act out being sodomized?

00:18:42.980 I'd rather not.

00:18:44.800 I'd rather not.

00:18:46.000 I don't want to talk about that.

00:18:48.300 I just think of that poor girl and what she had to, you know, go through.

00:18:55.900 And that was Christy in a second soundbite tearing up.

00:18:59.580 Because that's humiliating.

00:19:01.280 It's a it's definitely a power play.

00:19:05.360 And it's a humiliate, a public humiliation that he was willing to do, according to the

00:19:10.580 docuseries, to two female employees for him who talk about power dynamic. 1.00

00:19:16.860 Yes, he had power over them.

00:19:17.900 But think of the power he had over the children.

00:19:19.960 If he's willing to do that to the women. 0.78

00:19:22.800 Right.

00:19:23.320 Think about what kind of a person we're dealing with here.

00:19:25.520 Yeah, I mean, essentially a predator in in my in my opinion, because the way that he

00:19:34.020 was not only behaving towards the children, but the adults breaks my heart because I am

00:19:40.320 a survivor myself.

00:19:42.840 And, you know, sodomy was was part of that of my sadly my life. 0.98

00:19:49.360 And so to see somebody make a female do that in a work environment is so beyond disgusting.

00:19:58.140 And the fact that it did end up, I mean, from my knowledge, it did end up becoming part of a lawsuit.

00:20:04.520 And so Nickelodeon was aware that he was like that.

00:20:08.840 And I just can't imagine allowing someone like that to continue working for a kids network.

00:20:16.640 You know, this wasn't like this, like, this is not the first time Nickelodeon has heard

00:20:21.240 her story.

00:20:22.560 Her story was told to Nickelodeon a long time ago, and they continue to enable him.

00:20:29.400 And I mean, essentially, I feel like Nickelodeon is complicit when it comes to all of this.

00:20:34.460 Right.

00:20:34.980 Because they knew and, you know, they just they let him continue.

00:20:38.880 And that's why, you know, when I heard that story, a lot of the memories also just came

00:20:43.420 back for me personally, having to watch, you know, Dan Schneider get massages constantly

00:20:49.640 by, you know, a female employee. 1.00

00:20:53.080 And, you know, just to think that that was the culture that Nickelodeon was allowing for

00:20:58.260 me as well as a as a young girl to hyper normalize female employees massaging their bosses as if 1.00

00:21:06.660 it's no big deal, you know, that can groom essentially children into thinking that that's

00:21:12.660 OK behavior when it's absolutely not.

00:21:15.020 That's that's sexual harassment.

00:21:17.920 Yes, that this is how it's done.

00:21:20.500 There's no allegation in the docuseries that this guy, Dan Schneider, is a pedophile, to be

00:21:24.500 clear, just that he allegedly created a hostile work environment.

00:21:27.340 As I point out, he eventually got turfed out during the Me Too movement and ultimately siloed

00:21:33.840 from the shows that he had created and so on.

00:21:35.900 But but this is how predators start with the vulnerable would be victims.

00:21:42.800 They start taking down their defenses bit by bit.

00:21:46.780 And with children and we'll get to this, it's done by introducing inappropriate topics at

00:21:52.420 an inappropriate age or inappropriate setting, crossing boundaries that shouldn't be crossed

00:21:56.660 to get the child used to that.

00:21:59.200 You know, talking about sex in a way that is totally inappropriate, you know, not

00:22:03.480 not not like a normal way that you might find in seventh grade health class, but like

00:22:08.620 in a work setting, bringing it up and trying to get the kid used to it.

00:22:12.300 And then before you know it, it takes the next step.

00:22:14.400 And that I guess we should get to it is the pattern I think we've seen with probably the

00:22:20.240 most shocking story of the docuseries.

00:22:23.260 And that that's the story of Drake Bell.

00:22:24.760 So we knew that.

00:22:29.900 Somebody and the viewers may not know him, but his name is Brian Peck, and he worked as

00:22:35.400 like a dialect coach or a script coach with the kids on lots of shows at Nickelodeon.

00:22:40.700 We knew that he had ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of endangering a child.

00:22:46.760 Let me let me see exactly what they were so I don't misstate it.

00:22:49.480 Um, I will get it.

00:22:52.820 I'll read it in a second.

00:22:53.940 I'll find the specifics, but he pleaded guilty.

00:22:56.160 And but we didn't know who the John Doe was because it was a minor.

00:22:59.240 They don't put that out.

00:23:00.360 And in the docuseries, uh, Drake Bell, who was a very large child star, very big star

00:23:05.920 at the time, um, when it had the band had his own show was the victim.

00:23:13.160 And this story is absolutely heartbreaking.

00:23:16.060 It was last night, I'll tell you, I was, I was in my bed, Alexa, kind of like falling

00:23:21.240 asleep and I needed to go to bed, but I really wanted to see the fourth episode.

00:23:24.940 And I was like in the like twilight where you're still, you're still hearing it.

00:23:28.560 And then I heard the update on Drake.

00:23:30.320 And I mean, my eyes popped open, like, oh my God, no.

00:23:34.640 So anyway, here is Drake sharing in part what happened to him at the hands of this man,

00:23:40.740 Sadi.

00:23:42.040 I was sleeping on the couch where I would usually sleep.

00:23:44.480 And, uh, I woke up to him.

00:23:53.400 Um, I, I just opened my eyes. 0.58

00:23:58.160 I woke up and he was, uh, he was sexually assaulting me.

00:24:03.760 And I froze and was in complete shock and had no idea what to do, no idea how to get out

00:24:18.580 of the situation, I had no car, I didn't drive.

00:24:24.560 I was 15 at this time.

00:24:26.680 You know, he's so apologetic.

00:24:28.040 Oh, this will never happen again.

00:24:29.400 I'm so sorry.

00:24:30.400 You know, that I, I don't know what got into me.

00:24:32.340 And, and, and, and I, I crossed the line and I, this will never happen again.

00:24:38.060 The abuse was extensive.

00:24:43.400 And it got, uh, pretty brutal.

00:24:49.580 Why don't you do this?

00:24:50.760 Yeah.

00:24:51.340 Why don't you think of the worst stuff that someone can do to somebody as a sexual assault?

00:24:55.780 And that'll answer your question.

00:25:00.820 Oh my God.

00:25:03.040 Um, just to fill that out.

00:25:05.380 He was charged Brian Peck on August 19th, 2003, 43 years old, uh, for committing lewd acts

00:25:13.420 with a child.

00:25:13.980 Again, trigger warning here, honestly, a legit one on what the charges were alleging that

00:25:19.440 he had molested Drake or at that time, John Doe over a six month period charged with 11

00:25:24.940 counts against a child, including lewd act upon a child, sodomy of a person under 16,

00:25:31.480 attempted sodomy of a person under 16, sexual penetration by a foreign object, four counts 0.56

00:25:35.520 of oral copulation of a person under 16, or a copulation by anesthesia or control substance, 0.94

00:25:41.940 sending harmful matter and using a minor for sex acts.

00:25:45.060 He ultimately in a deal because they always try to spare the child, the necessity of taking

00:25:52.300 a stand and testifying, pleaded no contest to two charges of child sexual abuse and served

00:25:58.940 just 16 months in jail, was ordered to register as a sex offender.

00:26:05.300 And the epilogue to Brian's story is equally horrifying, but for different reasons.

00:26:09.640 When you found out that Brian Peck back then, before you knew it was Drake, had been arrested

00:26:16.160 and charged with all of these acts, what did you think?

00:26:21.120 You know, I, Brian Peck wasn't around, obviously, on the set of Zoey 101 because Zoey 101 happened,

00:26:30.040 you know, a little bit after.

00:26:32.020 And so I didn't even know about Brian Peck, which is honestly very scary to think about,

00:26:38.260 that Nickelodeon knew that they had, you know, a predator on set and that they weren't giving

00:26:45.520 any type of education to the children when it came to being aware of, you know, the possibility

00:26:51.860 of someone being on set and being a predator and what to do and how to make a complaint,

00:26:56.720 a formal complaint.

00:26:58.100 It's really weird to know this now and know that Nickelodeon knew that that happened and

00:27:03.740 that, you know, the next generation, Zoey 101, none of the kids were taught anything when

00:27:09.280 it came to this at all.

00:27:10.360 We never even thought in a million years that, you know, a predator could be on the set.

00:27:16.520 You know, I think we knew at least a little bit that there was a such thing as background

00:27:20.200 checks, you know, and all of this.

00:27:22.180 And so we thought we were protected every single day.

00:27:25.060 So that was really shocking for me because Nickelodeon wasn't doing the proper measures

00:27:30.400 to make sure it didn't happen again.

00:27:32.160 And, you know, when you fast forward to my story about Ian, who was the talent coordinator

00:27:38.700 bringing me into a trailer without my mom's knowledge, you know, it was Britney Spears

00:27:43.580 and Jamie Lynn Spears in there. 0.99

00:27:45.160 It was still traumatic, but thank God it wasn't someone like Brian Peck.

00:27:49.220 Right.

00:27:49.620 And when you think about them knowing, you know, that this has happened before and not

00:27:54.380 doing anything to prevent it in the future is really it really freaked me out, to be honest.

00:28:00.540 Right.

00:28:01.740 They were not protecting children.

00:28:04.280 It seems very clear.

00:28:06.100 And this guy, Brian Peck, there's a chilling scene in the docuseries where they show Drake

00:28:12.460 Bell's dad, who you just wind up feeling so sad for.

00:28:17.160 He was Drake's main caretaker.

00:28:20.600 And then this guy, Brian Peck, allegedly inserted himself between the two, got in Drake's ear about

00:28:26.980 how the dad was a bad influence.

00:28:28.620 The dad couldn't be trusted.

00:28:29.700 You know, you really shouldn't let the dad manage you.

00:28:33.440 Got Drake back in the custody of his mom temporarily, who was a parent, this is my opinion, much

00:28:38.480 more checked out than the dad was.

00:28:40.320 And that before you knew it, the dad had told the mom, the one person you should not let

00:28:44.580 him spend any alone time with is this guy, Brian Peck.

00:28:46.760 I don't trust him.

00:28:48.140 And what happens?

00:28:49.300 He she allows it.

00:28:50.720 And Brian Peck basically takes over in Drake's life.

00:28:53.460 Drake starts sleeping over there because he lived in Orange County and the work was in a

00:28:58.440 different city and so on.

00:29:00.120 And this is when it happened.

00:29:02.660 So this guy, Brian Peck, did all the things he slowly but surely inserted himself between

00:29:06.980 the child parent relationship and took advantage of a child of divorce.

00:29:11.820 And he he was on camera, says Drake's dad, Joe, in a situation with Leonardo DiCaprio.

00:29:21.300 I'm going to tie this all together.

00:29:23.280 But two of the people who wrote letters we now know, thanks to the docuseries and Business

00:29:27.660 Insider, who wrote letters on behalf of Brian Peck when he stood up in court and said, OK,

00:29:33.340 guilty on two counts, were Alan Thicke and Joanna Kearns, the parents on Growing Pains.

00:29:39.760 He had worked apparently on that series.

00:29:42.200 And it's disgusting what they wrote.

00:29:43.960 I'm ashamed of them.

00:29:45.800 She's now since tried to walk it back.

00:29:49.480 Who else was on Growing Pains?

00:29:51.140 Leonardo DiCaprio as a young kid was on that series for a time.

00:29:54.420 And there's a video of a young DiCaprio with this guy, Brian Peck.

00:29:59.180 This is pointed out by Drake's father.

00:30:01.820 And we're going to show you the clip.

00:30:03.400 Look at this guy rubbing DiCaprio's arm.

00:30:05.880 He's just a kid at the time.

00:30:07.400 Watch.

00:30:08.480 I know there is.

00:30:09.220 Yeah.

00:30:09.760 Muscles.

00:30:10.840 I saw this video of Brian Peck on Growing Pains with Leonardo DiCaprio, grabbing his shoulder,

00:30:16.960 running across him and going down his arm.

00:30:21.100 That's the kind of behavior I saw him with my son. 0.99

00:30:24.420 Same freaking behavior. 0.98

00:30:29.840 Alexa, that is so disturbing. 0.98

00:30:33.140 What does that bring up for you?

00:30:35.460 You know, what it brings up for me is that when Drake's dad says that that was the type

00:30:41.280 of behavior that Brian Peck was behaving like on the set of Nickelodeon, that means so many

00:30:48.380 people were witnessing just that.

00:30:50.620 And, you know, a normal person, anyone would go, what is going on here?

00:30:56.800 You know, there's a clip also where Brian Peck then starts to talk about Leonardo DiCaprio

00:31:01.260 being a teen hunk and and like displaying his body.

00:31:04.680 And this is all on set, that footage.

00:31:07.440 And that's what terrifies me is that so many people were witnessing this type of behavior.

00:31:12.460 And from my knowledge, I'm kind of pretty sure that, you know, Drake's dad was going to

00:31:19.340 Brian Robbins and Brian Robbins is now the president of Nickelodeon and Paramount.

00:31:25.760 And so when I hear Drake, Drake's dad, you know, say that he was looking out for his son and

00:31:31.440 most likely it was Brian Robbins who he went to out of concern, you know, and you think

00:31:37.560 about his dad getting shunned, but then Brian Robbins becoming the president of Nickelodeon

00:31:43.500 and Paramount.

00:31:44.300 That's what really upsets me.

00:31:45.800 And meanwhile, they had restored Dan Snyder, the guy we started on, to a position of power.

00:31:52.340 He got sued by those two female writers.

00:31:54.760 They understood what he was accused of doing.

00:31:56.720 And I believe there was a settlement on it.

00:31:58.720 And they put him right back in a position.

00:32:00.620 In fact, he went on to have even more power there.

00:32:02.720 So he he was restored.

00:32:04.940 And this guy, Brian Peck, after serving his time, he's back out there.

00:32:08.920 He he wasn't shunned forever.

00:32:10.340 Like, these guys go on to have second acts in a way that is totally inappropriate and

00:32:17.640 dangerous.

00:32:19.160 Yes, it is, because essentially it's financially rewarding abuse.

00:32:23.580 So when you constantly are financially rewarding abusers, they will not stop.

00:32:29.620 They will not stop because they know that even when they do the most horrific acts, that

00:32:35.980 they're going to be financially rewarded and that they're going to be protected.

00:32:40.340 Which is why, you know, one of my main slogans for eat predators is protect survivors, not

00:32:45.620 predators, because in the entertainment industry, it's been quite the opposite, where the industry

00:32:50.900 has been protecting the predators and not protecting the survivors.

00:32:55.700 OK, so just as to as to underscore the point, Brian Peck was released from prison in 2005.

00:33:02.920 It was 2004.

00:33:03.780 He pleaded guilty.

00:33:05.080 A year later, he was hired by Disney.

00:33:08.560 I'm not kidding you, folks.

00:33:10.340 To work on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, starring Dylan and Cole Sprouse, where he did

00:33:16.460 voiceover work for three episodes, but had no interaction with the cast or crew on set

00:33:22.100 or variety.

00:33:23.240 The outlet reports that he was immediately terminated after Disney learned of his conviction and

00:33:28.880 his voiceovers were replaced.

00:33:30.220 He continued to appear on a variety of projects, including 2008's Bedtime Stories, 2015's Freaks

00:33:37.300 of Nature and the 2012 series Anger Management.

00:33:39.820 His last role was in 2018 for a miniseries titled Animal Showdown.

00:33:44.140 Today, he reportedly resides in L.A. for TMZ.

00:33:46.840 This is unbelievable that he would have any sort of access to the industry, never mind to children's

00:33:55.100 programming after serving time for child molestation.

00:33:57.640 Yeah, I mean, one thing to note, though, is one of the individuals who wrote a letter in defense

00:34:07.320 of Brian Peck worked on Suite Life.

00:34:09.820 And so when Disney says that they didn't know, well, Rich Carell knew.

00:34:15.240 And he wrote in his letter that it would be a pleasure to work with Brian Peck again.

00:34:20.300 And so when I see the fact that Brian Peck ended up on Suite Life of Zack and Cody, and that

00:34:25.680 Rich Carell worked on that show consistently, and that Rich Carell said in his own letter

00:34:30.820 defending Brian Peck that it would be a pleasure to work with him again, that's how something

00:34:35.760 like this happens, by the way, that's how it happens.

00:34:39.000 And Rich is not held accountable, you know, for enabling that type of behavior.

00:34:43.960 But, you know, that's what really scares me is that we know that he's complicit.

00:34:50.100 He's complicit.

00:34:52.000 He's complicit.

00:34:53.160 I mentioned you mentioned Carell and I mentioned Joanna Kearns and Alan Thicke.

00:34:59.000 There were others.

00:35:00.260 James Marsden, who's very well known.

00:35:02.400 He wrote a letter for Brian Peck.

00:35:03.580 I assure you what Brian has been through the last year is the suffering of 100 men.

00:35:07.700 What Brian's been through.

00:35:08.920 Who cares what Brian's been through?

00:35:10.500 We care about what Drake Bell has been through.

00:35:12.600 Brian was the perpetrator pleading guilty to child molestation.

00:35:15.940 Correct.

00:35:16.400 Taryn Killam.

00:35:17.720 I've seen the effects the situation has had on Brian, and I know that he regrets any mistakes

00:35:23.420 made.

00:35:24.740 Mistakes.

00:35:26.180 Here's Joanna Kearns's letter.

00:35:28.320 Again, Business Insider got, they petitioned the court to unseal the letters, 41 of them that

00:35:32.940 were written in Brian's defense.

00:35:35.120 Joanna, I only can believe that there must have been some kind of extreme situation or

00:35:42.040 temptation exerted upon him to influence his actions.

00:35:48.900 And just to add to that, Kimmy Robertson, an actor, wrote,

00:35:52.200 I believe with all my heart that Brian was pressured and pushed beyond belief before he

00:35:58.340 caved in.

00:35:59.200 This is unbelievable.

00:36:00.680 Drake Bell was 15.

00:36:02.140 This guy was in his 40s, 47, something like at the time of the abuse, I think 47 years old.

00:36:08.820 There is no situation in which a 15 year old boy pressures a 47 year old man to do anything.

00:36:14.800 No, no, there's no such thing as a consent with the child. 0.97

00:36:19.520 It's ridiculous. 0.69

00:36:20.900 And that's why now they're trying to step it back. 0.50

00:36:23.240 And, you know, everyone's like, if I knew all of the details at the time, you knew enough

00:36:28.340 and you still wrote the letter.

00:36:30.700 And that's what's also pretty annoying.

00:36:32.900 Currently, it's all these individuals stepping back, you know, and saying they didn't know

00:36:37.260 all the details.

00:36:38.620 When you read these letters, it's pretty clear that they knew enough.

00:36:42.500 You know, even with pleading guilty to.

00:36:44.960 It's not like you're pleading guilty to like running a red light.

00:36:48.200 No, it was a child.

00:36:50.240 And even in Rich's wife's letter, she mentions Drake Bell by name.

00:36:55.940 And she was working on Drake and Josh working with Drake every single day.

00:37:02.540 And in the letter, she tells the judge that he's OK, that he looks unaffected by it.

00:37:09.020 Imagine Drake working with this adult thinking, you know, he can trust her.

00:37:13.240 Meanwhile, she's writing a letter to the judge defending the predator and telling the judge

00:37:18.620 that he looks unaffected.

00:37:20.200 And that's someone also who was hired by Nickelodeon.

00:37:23.320 Oh, my God.

00:37:24.620 Yeah, it's horrible.

00:37:25.860 Before we move on from Drake, I want to tell the audience that the thing that made me

00:37:29.460 wide eyed in the middle of the night was the update.

00:37:32.240 Of course, like we've seen, his life went significantly downhill after all of this.

00:37:38.900 He drugs, alcohol, arrests for DUI.

00:37:43.840 It's, you know, people understand they could fill in those blanks without me even telling

00:37:47.980 them, but then came his own charges of alleged inappropriate behavior with a minor, with

00:37:57.020 a girl beginning when she was 12.

00:37:58.940 It's so heartbreaking.

00:38:00.860 It's not, by the way, it's not that everybody who who is the victim of childhood sexual abuse

00:38:05.820 goes on to commit childhood sexual abuse.

00:38:08.100 That's not true.

00:38:09.220 Some small portion does some.

00:38:10.620 I think it's some 30 percent.

00:38:11.840 But, you know, that still leaves the vast majority who do not go on to do that.

00:38:15.700 And I don't want to even attribute the reasons behind the alleged abuse.

00:38:20.300 But he that was one of the charges against him.

00:38:23.520 And I can't help but feel like Alexa, this is this part of the danger.

00:38:26.420 Like this is the cycle when when kids get sucked into this devastating world of abuse

00:38:33.620 that were sentencing them, them, just Drake, to a lifetime of awfulness.

00:38:38.600 And then others, others like the little girl who he wound up hurting.

00:38:45.220 Yeah, I mean, you know, when it comes to abuse, like, as you said, not every single person

00:38:51.680 ends up, you know, recycling the trauma on to others, but it does happen.

00:38:57.520 And the most important, that's why when people don't take this seriously, it's it's really

00:39:05.460 beyond devastating for the future, because this is how things do recycle.

00:39:11.020 I really do believe that I really do believe that.

00:39:15.200 I know there's that saying her people hurt people, but it is very true. 1.00

00:39:18.900 And if we don't take people's trauma seriously and we don't try to prevent, you know, harmful

00:39:24.660 things happening to children, especially then, you know, we can't be surprised when things

00:39:30.620 happen, you know, out of the blue, someone harming someone, because usually people are

00:39:35.720 learning this type of behavior.

00:39:37.380 And this behavior is a learned experience for them.

00:39:40.920 And they end up taking back their power in a very, very weird way.

00:39:47.820 By doing that act and being in the different position this time.

00:39:51.460 And I'm not saying that's necessarily Drake Bell, for example, but that happens regularly,

00:39:57.200 where that's how trauma can manifest in the mind.

00:40:00.460 And we need to take it more seriously.

00:40:02.540 We really, really do.

00:40:04.740 Right.

00:40:04.960 Because it's like, people know this, but just because it may not be your child doesn't mean

00:40:10.200 it's not going to be someone, you know, or the next generation of children coming up who

00:40:15.960 you might know, like, this is widespread and it gets covered up and people know this.

00:40:21.460 It's Nickelodeon.

00:40:22.480 And by the way, can we spend a minute on how that's probably no accident?

00:40:26.440 You know, the, these pedophiles, there's a reason they went in and exploited the Boy

00:40:31.540 Scouts for so many years.

00:40:33.100 There's a reason so many of them pop up at a place like Nickelodeon.

00:40:36.720 They go where the children are.

00:40:39.800 That's why the organization has a heightened duty to be vigilant about background checks

00:40:46.420 and protection mechanisms and checking in with the children and making sure no one's

00:40:51.100 ever unsupervised and certainly not spending the night at anybody's house because of this

00:40:56.820 problem, this very foreseeable issue.

00:40:58.760 Yeah, I mean, that's, that's a red flag.

00:41:03.640 Number one for me personally, when I see people, you know, wanting to hang around children,

00:41:09.380 even though children are amazing, you know, it's always a little bit bizarre when someone's

00:41:14.100 an adult, you know, is really wanting to constantly hang around children.

00:41:18.520 And so that should be honestly the first red flag for me personally.

00:41:22.380 And then obviously you look further, but you know, that's number one for me, just because

00:41:27.880 some adults wanting to hang out with children 24 seven is a little bit concerning, you know,

00:41:34.140 unless this is your child or this is your child's friend and they're having a play date, you

00:41:39.320 know, those things are normal, but it is a little bit of a red flag when an adult is so

00:41:42.960 interested in children.

00:41:44.480 And we know from the Catholic church, for example, you know, this is how these things happen.

00:41:49.120 They're, they're looking for access to children.

00:41:52.140 And so they'll gravitate towards environments that give them access to children, which is why

00:41:57.500 Nickelodeon has the responsibility where they're on the lookout for that and not even on the lookout

00:42:03.180 for that being extremely protective to make sure that no one's getting too close.

00:42:08.120 No one's acting in a type of way that could lead to actual abuse.

00:42:12.740 Yes.

00:42:13.900 Yes.

00:42:14.540 And, and yet it wasn't just the hostile work environment alleged against Dan Schneider.

00:42:21.640 It wasn't just Brian Peck and Drake Bell.

00:42:25.480 It, the, the names keep coming.

00:42:28.200 Jason Handy.

00:42:30.040 I mean the name, but he was responsible for shepherding the children from A to B on set.

00:42:37.380 Of course, there's going to be somebody who says like, now you're going over here for your,

00:42:40.300 you know, homeschooling and now you got to go over here and work your lines with Brian

00:42:44.880 Peck.

00:42:45.340 And now you got to go out here and do the scenes.

00:42:47.280 And he was the guy and the pictures of him in the docuseries.

00:42:50.540 He's like kind of attractive.

00:42:52.660 He's got a million dollar smile.

00:42:54.520 He seems really upbeat and fun.

00:42:57.000 And you know what?

00:42:57.960 He describes himself as a pedophile and he was caught because a little girl named Brandy

00:43:05.340 who had been guest starring just, she appeared, I think in an episode or two on one of the

00:43:09.960 popular shows.

00:43:11.420 Uh, he struck up a relationship with her, like work with me.

00:43:14.020 I can get you connected.

00:43:15.160 I've got, you know, all these industry connections.

00:43:16.640 And the mom was like, yeah, okay.

00:43:18.160 I thought that would be great.

00:43:19.220 You know, this connection from her stint on the show. 0.99

00:43:22.200 The next thing, you know, he sends her a naked picture of himself masturbating. 0.86

00:43:26.880 She's a little girl and God bless this family because a lot of parents were like, I don't 0.97

00:43:33.960 want to participate.

00:43:34.800 I don't want to pursue the charges.

00:43:36.400 I don't want my kid involved any further than she's been, but she did testify against him.

00:43:41.780 And this guy, he went down as well.

00:43:44.520 He pleaded no contest to multiple charges, was ordered to serve a six year prison sentence

00:43:49.020 released in 2009, moved to North Carolina, registered as a sex offender 2014, arrested

00:43:55.320 on three counts of indecent liberties with a child and two counts of sex offender registry

00:43:58.700 violations.

00:43:59.760 Now he's serving a sentence at the federal correctional institution in Virginia.

00:44:03.340 They'll be released in 2038.

00:44:05.900 These are the staffers around these children at Nickelodeon, right, right around the time

00:44:10.580 that you were there.

00:44:12.020 I don't, it just seems, I don't know, because let me ask you this.

00:44:15.680 When I read these statements that the docuseries producers put up at the end of every episode,

00:44:20.120 and I'll read some of them too, to make sure that the defenses are aired here.

00:44:25.320 What I hear is Nickelodeon's changes policies to try to do better.

00:44:30.320 That's literally like, and like, yeah, what, what have they done?

00:44:35.900 Who's been fired?

00:44:37.020 Who's taking responsibility?

00:44:38.720 Where's the accountability?

00:44:41.100 Yeah.

00:44:41.400 I mean, again, we must remember that most likely the person who Drake, Drake's dad went to was

00:44:49.680 Brian Robbins.

00:44:51.660 And so it's, it's, it's kind of a joke to hear Nickelodeon say that when, you know, their

00:44:56.260 president, president, their current president, you know, was a person who did not protect

00:45:01.600 Drake Bell in, in my opinion.

00:45:04.040 And if anything got promoted and is behind that statement today.

00:45:07.440 So, you know, when I hear these things, this is just the entertainment industry in a nutshell,

00:45:12.040 where they are constantly promoting, financially rewarding the people that do not protect their

00:45:18.900 employees, do not protect the children, and they discard the survivors, the victims of abuse.

00:45:24.820 And that's just the pattern time and time again.

00:45:27.600 And listening to Nickelodeon, you know, you can just tell it's a bunch of lawyers in a room, finding the 0.62

00:45:33.120 right words to protect their, I want to say asses, protect themselves, and not actually protect the 0.88

00:45:40.000 children. 0.97

00:45:40.500 You know what I mean?

00:45:41.180 That's what it sounds like to me.

00:45:42.840 And I think in that statement, they also talked about formal complaints, like, when a formal

00:45:47.740 complaint happens, we take it really seriously.

00:45:49.860 Well, for example, Drake's dad went to Brian Robbins, most likely, and they blocked Drake's

00:45:58.300 dad from making a formal complaint.

00:45:59.940 What should have happened, what Brian Robbins should have done was say, wow, I hear you.

00:46:05.420 Let's make a formal complaint.

00:46:07.120 Let's get rid of this guy.

00:46:08.960 If he is a concern to you, and that's what, that's what should have happened.

00:46:12.560 But no, instead, they gaslit the dad and eventually let the dad get cut out of the whole picture,

00:46:18.380 because who else does that benefit?

00:46:20.740 Nickelodeon.

00:46:21.980 Yeah.

00:46:22.380 Well, here's what happens time and time again.

00:46:25.740 They hire an outside law firm, and then suddenly everything goes away.

00:46:30.480 Oh, you know, we looked into it.

00:46:31.920 Nothing came of it.

00:46:32.900 Or like, we looked into it, and something was done.

00:46:35.580 No, we're not going to share it with you.

00:46:36.780 Or they don't hire an outside law firm, and they investigate themselves, which we all know

00:46:40.620 how that always works out.

00:46:42.140 Yeah, that's not going to be a trusted source whatsoever.

00:46:46.480 I mean, when you think about Jeanette McCurdy's book, for example, right, and you think about

00:46:50.260 Nickelodeon's statement, when it came to Dan Schneider saying, we did not find any type

00:46:55.720 of behavior like this when it came to our investigation with Dan Schneider.

00:46:58.900 Oh, hello.

00:46:59.480 Didn't you try to get Jeanette McCurdy to sign NDA? 0.99

00:47:02.980 Didn't you try to get her to sign NDA before she left Nickelodeon?

00:47:07.180 And did you talk to Jeanette McCurdy?

00:47:08.720 Because she sure sounded like she had a lot to say about her experience at Nickelodeon.

00:47:13.240 So when I hear statements in general from these lawyers, corporations, institutions,

00:47:18.600 their main goal is to protect the company and protect their money, their property, essentially.

00:47:24.780 And so, you know, you just look at it and go, okay, cute, cute, cute, but we know what

00:47:33.180 really happened.

00:47:34.800 Okay, so I want to read Nickelodeon's statement regarding the alleged behaviors of on past

00:47:40.220 production sets. Though we cannot corroborate or negate allegations of behaviors from productions

00:47:45.160 decades ago, Nickelodeon, as a matter of policy, investigates all formal complaints as part of

00:47:51.120 our commitment to fostering a safe and professional workplace environment free of harassment or other

00:47:54.620 kinds of inappropriate conduct. Our highest priorities are the well-being and best interests

00:47:58.400 of not just our employees, cast and crew, but of all children. And we have adopted numerous

00:48:02.620 safeguards over the years to help ensure we're living up to our own high standards and the

00:48:08.320 expectations of our audience. Other statements we will post on our show page on YouTube and on my

00:48:16.100 megankelly.com. And there are multiple statements from Dan Schneider as well. He regrets and he

00:48:26.780 apologizes and expresses regret and embarrassment and holds himself accountable for his previous

00:48:31.940 behavior. He wants some of his old jokes to now be cut from the reruns of his own show,

00:48:37.060 but he denies having been cut off from the child's stars while there. Says he, there's a reason they

00:48:42.740 turfed him to some other room other than that they didn't want him to have any ongoing contact.

00:48:47.320 Look, what's the bottom line? What, what, what's the bottom line here, right? Do we, does somebody

00:48:53.260 still need to be fired? Is this guy, Brian, we'll reach out to him. We didn't get a comment from him,

00:48:57.240 but I mean, what's the takeaway? Is it safe for children to be working in these environments?

00:49:00.540 What? Uh, I don't think so. I don't think so. Cause I don't even think it's safe for adults

00:49:06.360 per se. So when you put children into these environments that we have learned now adults

00:49:10.820 are not safe in, like how, how can we believe that children are safe? And also just the Hollywood

00:49:17.200 industry in general for a child, I just personally don't think is appropriate. I'm not pro child stars

00:49:23.880 in general. I do not believe that children should be working. I like child labor laws and I want them to

00:49:29.220 be very strict. I don't want to see any children working whatsoever. And so no, I don't think

00:49:34.700 children are safe because I can see still today that adults aren't safe. Yeah. I gotta say, I

00:49:41.860 wouldn't do it with my kid. Uh, having knowing what I know, but listen, you're so brave. Thank you so

00:49:47.300 much for telling your story, for being here. People find her work at eat predators, YouTube channel

00:49:53.240 and all the best to you.

00:49:59.220 Former RNC chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel officially fired by NBC news. By the way, CAA has also fired

00:50:06.940 her reportedly her agent. Agents are the worst. They're the worst. Someday I'll tell you my agent

00:50:14.940 story and you will not believe how horrifying it is. Okay. Meantime, uh, joy read and Rachel Maddow.

00:50:22.800 So gleeful, so thankful last night to NBC management for axing McDaniel and making her a national

00:50:30.340 laughing stock. They really, really, really love that and saving their sacred air. I am grateful

00:50:37.660 to Caesar for actually making the right decision. I think it was the right decision, but I want to get

00:50:41.480 your take as well. Oh, thank you for asking me about it. I will just say that journalists are a

00:50:47.380 fractious bunch to see the executives and the leadership hear that and respond to it and be

00:50:54.040 willing to change course based on it, based on their respect for us and hearing what we argued.

00:51:00.000 I, I have deep respect for that. And I think it's a show of strength and I'm, I'm grateful that our,

00:51:04.840 our leadership was willing to do the, I think the, the bold, strong, resilient thing.

00:51:10.500 Rachel Maddow. It's always a pleasure. Uh, my friend, thank you very much. I now release you to

00:51:14.780 your evening because we cannot get enough Rachel. Can't we? Shows like Morning Joe can now go back to

00:51:20.280 featuring voices. They prefer to the terrible election denier, Ronna McDaniel. A few weeks ago,

00:51:27.340 they had on the authors of a new book. They really want you to read called white rural rage.

00:51:33.320 It's a book all about how those pesky white rural voters who they hate pose a threat to the country. 0.78

00:51:41.700 Watch. They're the most racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-gay geodemographic group 1.00

00:51:48.300 in the country. Second, they're the most conspiracist group. QAnon support and subscribers, 1.00

00:51:52.920 election denialism, COVID denialism, and scientific skepticism, Obama birtherism. Third,

00:51:58.800 anti-democratic sentiments. They're also the most strongly white nationalists and white

00:52:03.360 Christian nationalists. And fourth, they are most likely to excuse or justify violence. 0.55

00:52:07.860 So you mentioned a lot of negative factors about, about this, this demographic. Um, Tom,

00:52:13.600 what else do they have in common? Democrats have been told that in order to get rural voters to get

00:52:19.480 them to listen to you, you have to go there. You have to really empathize with them. You have to

00:52:23.040 show them that you understand their lives. You have to, you know, put on a Carhartt jacket and

00:52:27.060 go down to somebody's farm and yeah, maybe milk a cow. Yes. And it turned out that none of that was

00:52:32.580 true. All that he gave them was a way to essentially give a big middle finger to Democrats,

00:52:37.760 to people who live in cities. I'm sorry. I know you heard me. We keep the mic on during the

00:52:42.220 soundbites. Fuck them. That's so obnoxious. They're so, you have a beer, those losers in 1.00

00:52:48.000 the rural communities is, you know, they sit around getting drunk all day, just living off 1.00

00:52:52.700 of my paycheck. Okay. Uh, we've got thoughts on all of this and we have a great guest today to

00:52:58.100 discuss it all. She's got an in-depth knowledge of the media and working class voters too. She 0.83

00:53:02.900 just wrote a book about the latter. Uh, Batya Angarsargon is the opinion editor for Newsweek.

00:53:08.220 In 2021, she was on this program after she wrote the book, Bad News, How Woke Media is

00:53:14.000 Undermining Democracy. Obviously still very relevant today. And now she's out with a brand 0.99

00:53:19.580 new book next week. It's called Second Class, How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men 0.97

00:53:25.760 and Women. It's available for pre-order now. This is her first interview about it. Batya,

00:53:31.040 welcome back to the show. Great to have you.

00:53:32.540 Oh, Megan, it is so amazing to be here with you. You are such a role model to me personally,

00:53:38.960 but I think to so many journalists, um, I'm so honored to be here and I am so excited to

00:53:45.260 talk about the book. This is the first interview I'm doing about it. And I just could not be more

00:53:49.940 happy to be here. You are so sweet. I admire you. I admire your writing and your fortitude.

00:53:55.640 And I've been watching you light up the internet clip after clip over the past year plus,

00:54:00.220 really enjoying getting your take out there and having people be introduced to your very smart

00:54:05.040 thinking. Um, let's start on the second point before we get to the NBC drama. That clip is so

00:54:11.920 offensive. We've been trying to get to it now for the better part of a month because it happened a

00:54:16.120 while, a few weeks ago, but the dripping disdain for these disgusting white rural voters, just a 0.99

00:54:26.460 broad brush on how gross they are with their Carhartt jackets and their beer. That's what you'd have to 0.99

00:54:33.000 drink in order to get along with them. Right. It's certain male gesture is basically being done under

00:54:38.900 the table is stomach turning and they are not alone. It's not just the set of, and the crew of

00:54:44.300 mourning jail. Absolutely. Um, this book, white rural rage is the Democrats fantasy about why they

00:54:53.580 are losing because it gives them an alibi for what actually happened, which is that they abandoned the

00:55:00.280 working class, which is now flocking to Donald Trump. And instead of acknowledging all of their 0.64

00:55:06.620 failures, which stem from the very contempt that you are pinpointing, Megan, they come up with this

00:55:13.500 fantasy that the other side are racists or fascists or election deniers or this or that, whatever the

00:55:23.140 insult of the month is as an alibi for themselves. So they don't have to do the hard work of looking

00:55:31.400 inside and analyzing how they lost the working class and how they came to develop hatred for the

00:55:38.580 Americans who we rely on to survive. They're just, as I said yesterday, when they were discussing the

00:55:46.080 Ronna McDaniel thing, they ooze sanctimony. They're holier than thou approach to the news, to Americans,

00:55:55.800 to Republicans is on its sleeve. You it's readily available for all to see. And they are clueless

00:56:03.500 about what a turnoff this is to normal people. I mean, I'm not, I'm not working class. I come from

00:56:10.220 a middle class family, but I'm disgusted by them. I mean, you don't have to be in the working class 1.00

00:56:15.280 to hate what they're doing, which brings me to your book. I mean, your book is the opposite of their

00:56:19.720 book of that book that they were promoting there. Your book does this radical thing of actually trying

00:56:24.800 to figure out who are the working class and what is driving them. What does concern them? Is it all

00:56:33.140 the things that they just listed there? As it turns out, you have found the answer's no.

00:56:39.080 That's absolutely right, Megan. Their contempt for the working class, they dress it up as though it is

00:56:46.720 some sort of moral sanctimony or some sort of political ideology. It's just money, right? They're

00:56:54.180 all millionaires and they sit there on their cable news channels and sneer at the people who clean

00:56:59.460 their toilets, right? That that's what's happening there, right? Make no mistake about it. That

00:57:04.540 sanctimony stems from the clash between their economic privilege on the one hand and their belief that they

00:57:11.580 are the good guys on the other hand, which don't often go hand in hand. What I found in my book was

00:57:17.060 the exact opposite of white rural rage. I spent a year traveling across America interviewing working

00:57:24.500 class people in all industries of all races, religious persuasions, family breakdowns, what

00:57:31.540 have you. And what I found was that whether or not a working class person votes Democrat or Republican,

00:57:39.460 they by and large have a very similar ideology and view of the world. First of all, these are the most

00:57:45.940 tolerant people you will ever meet. And that tolerance stems from a number of places. First

00:57:52.260 of all, this country is finally becoming the great nation that we were promised to be at our founding.

00:57:58.240 And that is very important to working class Americans. I write a lot about how they've been

00:58:01.880 abandoned by both sides, by the elites on both sides. These people are so patriotic. They still love

00:58:07.620 this country, even though so many people have given up on them. And they also are very similar when it

00:58:14.480 comes to politics. So one of the major headlines that I found in the book, Megan, was that the vast

00:58:20.700 majority of working class Americans want basically a total moratorium on immigration, right? Because 0.71

00:58:26.900 they understand the truth, which is that these immigrants are lowering their wages. But they also 1.00

00:58:32.000 want some sort of government backed health care. They feel like they can't afford good health care,

00:58:37.520 and it bothers them a lot. So you see how neither party is really representing them, right? One party has

00:58:42.840 open borders, but we'll talk about health care. The other party has the immigration piece, but doesn't

00:58:48.260 have a health care policy. On other issues, they're so united, whether they're Democrats or Republicans.

00:58:53.820 For example, I found that working class Americans are extremely pro-gay. I spoke to a lot of 0.99

00:58:58.980 Christians who have a gay person in their life who they want to be treated with dignity, but they're very 0.94

00:59:05.440 worried about the transgender ideology. They don't like seeing it in sports. They don't like seeing it in 1.00

00:59:11.360 schools. They don't want to hear teachers talking to their kids about sexuality. And this really

00:59:16.400 unites both conservative and liberal working class people. In short, what I would say is, is that

00:59:22.020 polarization is a totally elite phenomenon, Megan. Working class Americans are so much more united than

00:59:28.340 they are divided. That is so interesting and just confirms a general feeling. One of the things I love

00:59:34.400 about, you know, we put the show as a podcast and the YouTube, but we were also live on SiriusXM during

00:59:39.080 the day. And so we get such a wide variety of listeners calling in when we take calls. You know,

00:59:44.640 you'll get doctors and lawyers and that, and you'll, you get the truckers and they, they have so many

00:59:49.620 similar views. It's like people who are on the right side, I think generally are more right leaning.

00:59:53.760 They have a lot of similar views because I don't think that there's that many, there are some

00:59:57.620 conservative elites, but this elite thing seems to be rather unique to the Democrat party. I understand

01:00:04.360 the Republican party fractured because there were too many elites on the GOP side with the chamber of

01:00:07.880 commerce and all that kind of thing. But the way things stand today, the Democrats do.

01:00:13.120 They have the majority of the so-called elites who are lecturing us at every turn. And I think most of

01:00:18.600 my listeners are disgusted by it and see the same problems that you just outlined, no matter what

01:00:23.340 their income is. Just to put a couple more points on it, here's a little bit more of them talking

01:00:28.620 about this is because this is not just MSNBC. This is how the left sees the problem with the pesky

01:00:33.960 Trump voters, the annoying half of the country that continues to try to back Trump and put him

01:00:40.240 in office. And, and like the problem with the American electorate. Here's top 27.

01:00:46.280 We spent a couple of years after Donald Trump got elected, you know, journalists went to every

01:00:51.100 single diner in middle America to try to talk to red-hatted MAGA folks about what, what concerned

01:00:56.560 them, what they were mad about. Nobody went to the rural African-Americans, rural Latinos,

01:01:01.660 rural Native Americans to find out what's mad, what they're mad about. And they have every reason 1.00

01:01:05.840 to be mad, but you know what they're not doing? They're not overrunning the Capitol. They're not

01:01:10.120 going down to their state Capitol carrying AR-15s. They have, and nobody treats them the way we do

01:01:16.760 right rural Americans as though we have a moral obligation to know what they're angry about and

01:01:22.260 to cater to them. Oh my God. Do you know what's so funny, Megan, is that, you know what Black Americans 1.00

01:01:30.900 are really angry about? The open border, right? They would never let them talk about that on MSNBC

01:01:38.520 or CNN, right? They are really, really angry that the Democrats abandoned them to open the border and

01:01:45.500 welcome in an entirely new slave cast from failed socialist states to do working class jobs. And by 0.99

01:01:52.420 the way, that signals to working class people that you are nothing. That's what happens there. When you 1.00

01:01:59.760 take in 10 million people to compete with people who clean toilets, which is not actually an inherently

01:02:05.840 bad job, if it pays well, you signal to Americans, an American doesn't do this job. Why would we do that

01:02:14.560 to people who work so hard? Why would we tell people who clean diapers of the elderly, right? 0.99

01:02:21.540 People we rely on so much to do these hard, hard jobs that you are nothing. An American shouldn't

01:02:28.680 be doing this job. It's so appalling. Contempt everywhere you look, Megan, from these elites,

01:02:34.160 you are so right. It's amazing to hear. I love to hear them say it. I love it when they just put it

01:02:40.240 out there. But just to pull out a couple of the quotes, which we ran in the opening soundbite,

01:02:45.700 this is Tom Schaller talking about it. They're the most racist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, 0.66

01:02:50.320 anti-gay geodemographic group in the country. Most conspiratorial, COVID denialism. 1.00

01:02:59.460 I'd love to hear what specifically, what? They denied that COVID began in a wet market? Because

01:03:08.380 that's not what happened. They should have denied that. They denied that the vaccine would stop the

01:03:13.160 spread. They were right about that, too. They don't believe in an independent press

01:03:20.420 or free speech. It's the white, rural voters who don't want free speech, not the elite leftists who

01:03:32.200 are trying to police what we say at every turn on the Internet and on college campuses and elsewhere.

01:03:40.580 There's a psychological term called projection, right, where you don't want to admit your own

01:03:44.740 faults. And so you see them in everybody that you interact with. And that's exactly what this is.

01:03:49.840 Everything that the Democratic elites try to push onto rural voters, onto the working class, onto the

01:03:55.880 MAGA voter, is true about them. And it's so funny because when I try to convince Democrats like,

01:04:01.880 hey, maybe we shouldn't be throwing these people out, right? They'll say to me, well, don't any of

01:04:06.540 these working class people care that, you know, Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy? And

01:04:12.220 honestly, Megan, what I heard a lot was it's kind of a threat to our democracy to take the most popular

01:04:17.720 politician in the entire country off of the ballot, right? It's kind of a threat to democracy to wage

01:04:24.280 lawfare against the most popular politician in the country because you are terrified that he is

01:04:30.520 appealing to the very voters that used to be your base. And it's not just the white working class,

01:04:35.160 right? So, for example, in 2020, Trump was polling at 8 percent of black men. He got 18 percent of black

01:04:41.740 men in 2020. Today, he's polling at 30 percent of black men. You can imagine how many black men are

01:04:47.620 going to actually vote for him. He's polling at the majority of Hispanics, which is the majority of that

01:04:52.360 community is working class. I mean, this is no longer a white working class party. The Republican

01:04:58.020 Party now is the party of the working class. And that divide in the GOP is going to be crucial to the 0.60

01:05:03.340 future. I mean, Megan, you get it, right, that there's no returning to the Chamber of Commerce, Nikki Haley

01:05:08.260 version of the party, right? But I think a lot of people are sort of in denial about it. And they have to

01:05:13.420 realize, like, these voters, these are the best voters because they're the majority of the country,

01:05:18.000 right? If the Republican Party can seize on what does it mean to be working class today and how can

01:05:23.400 we protect these workers and their labor and their dignity, they will have the ruling majority that

01:05:28.420 the Democrats always dreamt of. By the way, on that front, this is what they're doing instead over on

01:05:34.760 the left to raise money and gin up enthusiasm. This just came across the wire. On Thursday, tomorrow,

01:05:42.240 Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton will hold a fundraiser in New York City for Joe Biden and his

01:05:49.680 2024 race. The cheapest tickets are $225. If you would like a photo with all three men, it will cost you

01:05:58.580 the low, low price of $100,000. Access to more intimate receptions will cost $250,000 or $500,000. So

01:06:13.940 they're really going for the plumbers of America. That's the class they're really trying to appeal to

01:06:20.780 here with their $225 tickets and their $100,000 photos. It's so amazing because prior to Bill

01:06:33.620 Clinton, the Democrats used to be the party of the working class. And then Bill Clinton showed up and

01:06:39.860 said, actually, let's have a trade deal called NAFTA. Let's send 5 million good middle class American jobs 1.00

01:06:47.700 to China and Mexico, build up their middle class, and then import cheap products for our new base,

01:06:54.900 who are the college-educated elites. Barack Obama shows up and says, those jobs aren't coming back.

01:07:00.420 Maybe your father worked in a factory. You're not going to work in a factory. And so they ship all

01:07:05.120 the good-paying jobs overseas. And then Joe Biden shows up and says, actually, the remaining jobs,

01:07:10.820 we're going to open the border and bring in an entirely new slave cast to compete with you here for 1.00

01:07:15.440 the jobs that are still here. So it's like this, you know, it's really a gallery of rogues. When

01:07:20.400 you think about the process the Democratic Party went through to abandon the working class and instead

01:07:26.020 cater to the college-credentialed elites who consume cheap products from China and consume cheap labor of

01:07:32.360 illegal immigrants, right? That's literally what that photo would be. I've told this story before,

01:07:38.600 but there was an event I went to out where I stay in Montana. And I wasn't actually attending the

01:07:46.440 event. I just went by it because I have a house there. So I was like, okay, I'll swing by. I was

01:07:51.340 invited to swing by. And there was this debate. This is in 2019, I think, or 2020. It was a debate

01:07:56.540 under folding. It was all the elites. It was all the who's who's from Republican politics, Democratic

01:08:01.540 politics, and tech, and Hollywood. I mean, it was one of these muckety-muck situations.

01:08:05.820 And they were having a debate about our relationship with China. And you know who stood up

01:08:11.680 and said, I've got real questions about them. I don't trust them. I think they're spying on us.

01:08:17.440 I think the relationship has cost working class jobs. It was Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher's wife. 0.97

01:08:25.220 She's an actress. She was there with him. And she stood up and I was like, you go, girl. Well,

01:08:30.980 the crowd turned on her. Like, how dare you? Right? Some guy who stood up like, I have a PhD

01:08:40.880 in Chinese studies. And I can tell you, we're making real progress. And we're at the dawn of

01:08:44.360 a new age with China. Okay. Then we got a spy balloon. We got COVID. We got all the lies. 0.79

01:08:49.480 And it was just such a good microcosm into how these elites, about whom you write in your book,

01:08:55.080 Second Class, just see the world and stifle dissent. They don't want to hear it. They don't 1.00

01:09:00.660 want to hear any voices that question their master plan because they genuinely think they know better.

01:09:07.060 It's so true. And, you know, Trump really, you know, he took an ax to the handshake agreement

01:09:12.880 between both parties that, you know, we should be shipping good American jobs overseas. But he also

01:09:16.880 really took an ax to the pretensions of the expert class. And nothing reveals this more than the way

01:09:22.900 economists talk about immigration. So every time you bring up the fact that these people are literally

01:09:28.020 competing with Americans for jobs and driving down their wages, every single PhD economist will show

01:09:34.340 up and lecture you and say, aha, but immigration raises GDP in the aggregate. Therefore, it is good.

01:09:41.660 And it's like, people don't live in the aggregate. There's a class divide in this country.

01:09:46.180 One part of the country is consuming cheap labor. And one part of the country is trying to raise a

01:09:51.680 family by working that cheap labor job that no longer pays a living wage, right? Obviously,

01:09:57.780 all of the gains of immigration have gone to the top 20%, the top 10%, which are now hoarding over 50%

01:10:04.420 of the GDP. So you have these like college credentialed democratic elites who love to rail about the 1%.

01:10:10.520 But it's not really the 1% that's hoarding the majority of the GDP. It's actually them. And they

01:10:16.960 are hoarding the American dream. They are preventing working class people from being able to have 1.00

01:10:21.580 the most modest things, Megan. I mean, it brings tears to your eyes. All these people want is to be

01:10:28.020 left alone, to work very hard and raise a family in dignity, own a home, maybe have a vacation once a

01:10:34.860 year and retire in dignity. It is so modest. It is everything that the college elites take for

01:10:40.660 granted. And yet it is increasingly impossible for working class people to achieve the American 0.80

01:10:45.820 dream, despite the fact that they are doing the jobs that we all rely on to survive.

01:10:51.100 And yet what do you have? You have a president who right now is focused on student loan, quote,

01:10:57.920 forgiveness, which is a wealth transfer, where those truckers I was just talking about are going to pay

01:11:01.880 for some snot nose, nose kids, student loans that the trucker wisely did not take out because he

01:11:07.400 realized that would probably be a waste of money, whether you're going on to, you know, an elite

01:11:12.360 job in media, or you're going to drive a truck. It's becoming more and more obvious that you're not

01:11:17.360 getting a lot of bang for your buck in these institutions. But in any event, so he's trying

01:11:21.100 to get the youth vote by the wealth transfer. And he's doing the, oh, we're all going to be driving

01:11:27.020 electric powered cars by 2032. And that's, I mean, that's a direct punishment of the working class. 1.00

01:11:33.620 They're not going to pay $80,000 for a Tesla. They can't. They can't pay $225 for a ticket to

01:11:41.560 meet you either, Joe Biden. That's, that's the difference between eating that month and not.

01:11:47.540 They don't get it, right? So it's like, all of the president's policies seem ginned at,

01:11:52.620 at, um, it's in gear toward ginning up support amongst those core elite groups that we were

01:11:57.820 just talking about, like the rich soccer moms, the elite college grads and, you know, higher 0.93

01:12:03.940 education grads, uh, and the people who are driving Teslas who are definitely not working class.

01:12:11.000 That's absolutely right. Uh, when the Democrats abandoned the working class, they created an 0.96

01:12:15.340 entirely new agenda that was meant to appeal to the college educated. So for example, you know,

01:12:20.880 green new deal climate stuff, the kind of stuff you can worry about when all of your direct needs

01:12:25.540 are being met, right? When you are a person who, you know, doesn't even notice that groceries are

01:12:30.160 up by 18%, right? You have time to worry about things like, you know, the climate so-called climate

01:12:35.200 crisis, right? So that's a perfect example of a, an elite obsession that is actually a tax on the

01:12:41.980 working class. As you point out, Megan, I mean, it goes beyond just the cost of the cars, which is huge

01:12:46.460 in rural America. You can't drive an electric car because you can't stop every three hours and,

01:12:51.700 and, and, and put energy in it, right? You, you got, you have to drive much, much further to get

01:12:56.120 to work, to get back. And you don't have an hour to sit there. I mean, that's time, that's money,

01:13:00.300 right? And even if you can stop, you can't sit there for at best, at best 20 minutes if they found

01:13:04.860 a super fast charger, but it's not going to be super fast in most of these stations.

01:13:08.720 That's exactly right. And, and even from the point of view of the auto workers,

01:13:14.280 an EV takes so much less time on the line to produce. So they know that these EVs signal less

01:13:20.880 working hours for them, less money, less take-home pay, and they're not selling. They're just sitting

01:13:26.740 on the lots, right? So again, an upward transfer of wealth to the elites that the working class is 0.94

01:13:32.380 supposed to pay for because the elites get high on this sense of we are the virtuous ones. We're

01:13:37.540 protecting the planet. You mentioned student loan forgiveness, another upward transfer of wealth,

01:13:42.100 the open border, right? Which is wage theft of the working class. I interviewed in the book,

01:13:49.340 you will meet people, janitors, Americans, black Americans who take so much pride in this work,

01:13:55.360 and yet they cannot make a living because they are competing against people who will do it for seven,

01:13:59.960 eight, $9 an hour. It is wage theft. Of course, the person hiring the janitor, he loves that, right?

01:14:06.900 So they took an agenda, policy agenda, that was geared towards protecting the working class,

01:14:13.760 and they abandoned that and transformed their agenda into protecting the vanity of the elites.

01:14:19.460 And you know who stepped in and picked up that exact agenda, working class agenda? It was Donald Trump,

01:14:24.520 who sounds more like a New Deal Democrat than he does like a Republican. I mean, think about it. Trade

01:14:30.440 war with China, tariffs, closing the border, 15 weeks on abortion. He's courting black voters. He's 0.62

01:14:37.520 courting union voters. He got a historic $45,000 donation out of the Teamsters for the RNC. If you

01:14:44.360 want to look for a consensus candidate, somebody who showed up, looked at where the electorate was,

01:14:51.360 where 70 percent of Americans were at. If you just look at policy, Donald Trump is the consensus

01:14:57.340 candidate that Joe Biden pretended he was going to be. It's so true. And yet this is why they don't

01:15:03.760 understand on the left why people aren't completely outraged over the latest comment of the day from

01:15:11.060 Trump, the latest tweet or truth. So like, I don't get it. How can they vote for him? I've told the

01:15:16.440 viewers that I met Barbara Streisand years ago. It was 2016. And, um, she's, I, I know, I know her

01:15:25.320 politics, but I love her talent and I love a lot of her movies. So I'm able to separate the two,

01:15:30.700 unlike these lunatics on the left who want to condemn everybody for their politics. Um, but she 0.92

01:15:35.200 said to me, how, how did, how did the coal miners vote for Donald Trump? I said, Barbara, Hillary

01:15:43.560 promised to take away their jobs. She made it a pillar of her campaign to wipe out coal. But you 1.00

01:15:50.740 know, Barbara Streisand lives in a multimillion dollar cliffside estate out in the Santa Barbara

01:15:58.480 region. And she's, her life is made forever. She's got more money than she could ever spend

01:16:04.060 in her or her children's or grandchildren's lifetimes. They can't get themselves out of their

01:16:09.520 bubble. Robert De Niro out there are talking on the late night shows about how he would never

01:16:13.540 play Donald Trump. He's so disgusting. There's nothing redeeming in him. How could people vote 0.99

01:16:17.540 for him? Same. He's, he's adorned with acting awards and red carpet ceremonies and visits to con

01:16:25.020 where everybody kisses his ring and all of his, you know, Oscars and the Godfathers and everything

01:16:29.480 surrounding him with all of his wonderful millions and George Clooney meetups. That's not how the people

01:16:36.860 you met are living. They're worried about their paychecks, about their food, about their health

01:16:44.200 care. And they don't give a damn about his tweets or all the allegedly horrible things De Niro sees in

01:16:52.300 Donald Trump. And it's so disgusting the way that they sneer at these people. Like, I want to tell you 0.98

01:16:59.940 about a person that I met in Florida. Her name is Amy. She's in the book. She's gay. She's married to

01:17:05.240 a woman and her wife's mother is an evangelical Christian. And when I walked into the home where

01:17:12.620 the mother was, she, when she saw my Jewish star, she flipped out. She'd been waiting her whole life

01:17:18.180 for a Jew to show up for her to proselytize to. And she was so excited to meet me and tell me about

01:17:24.180 Jesus. And I was, you know, totally happy to hear it. And on my way out, she handed me a Bible and

01:17:30.160 she said, this is my favorite Bible. I want you to have it. And I, we get in the car and Amy said to

01:17:35.280 me, I was worried that would happen. Uh, you can leave the Bible. You don't have to take it. And I

01:17:40.520 said to her, are you kidding me? This is so precious to me. She's an evangelical Christian. One of the most

01:17:47.700 religious people I've ever met in my life. She loves you. She loves her daughter. She would never occur to

01:17:53.580 her to judge you guys. She supports you. They, they live in a, in a home on her property. This is so

01:17:59.140 precious. This is America. I mean, this Bible represents to me, America. And Amy voted for Biden.

01:18:06.060 Her wife voted for Trump because she felt that he couldn't be bought. And she really respected that

01:18:10.900 about him. And Amy said to me at some point, you know, I have to admit Trump put money in my pocket.

01:18:16.560 And the only reason that Amy votes for Democrats and not for Republicans is because she says she can't get 1.00

01:18:22.060 a meeting with the Republican for her union. She's unionized. But Amy believes that parents

01:18:27.020 who bring children to, um, a, a, a drag show should be put in prison. She does not believe

01:18:33.680 in transitioning. Um, she thinks that illegal immigration is stealing jobs and lowering wages. 0.95

01:18:38.660 She's opposed to the funding of the war in Ukraine. Um, you know, she's in every other way, she's,

01:18:44.000 you know, very much aligned with where, you know, that sort of 70% of Americans are at. This is

01:18:49.820 America. This is the American working class. Yes. I, and I think like, I think about media

01:18:56.060 and the fact that people like, you know, Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid are so far removed from anyone

01:19:02.880 who's actually living like that, that they can't even think about, they can't conceptualize it

01:19:07.520 anymore. It's just so far gone from, for them. And I will say like, this is, I feel like one of the

01:19:13.180 advantages I have as a journalist is I never got too far afield from that. You know, my stepfather,

01:19:18.000 my mom's husband, 30 years, um, plumber, you know, my mom was a nurse, uh, at the Albany Veterans

01:19:25.780 Association for her entire career. My sister was a teacher, um, you know, who then got addicted to 0.81

01:19:33.660 drugs and had a lot of problems that many of our working class friends have. Um, it helps,

01:19:39.640 it helps to stay connected to people who have those lives and are working hard to make sure they can

01:19:46.340 eat dinner and pay the healthcare bills and have to watch, you know, what's in the pot, uh, in the

01:19:51.540 checking account every month, or the bill collectors are going to come. If you get too far afield from

01:19:56.880 that, you wind up like Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow and Mika Brzezinski. You do. You live your life as

01:20:03.260 Mika and Joe do in New Canaan, Connecticut, and you're surrounded only by the most fabulous. You don't

01:20:09.180 flutter an eyelid at the a hundred thousand dollar photo with the presidents or the 250 or $500,000

01:20:15.760 meeting with them. And you forget what's actually bothering people. You obsess over things like skin

01:20:21.840 color, gender, climate, right? You obsess over it. And then you don't understand anybody who disagrees.

01:20:28.940 It's sad. All right, wait, I want to tell the audience you're not leaving, but just to remind

01:20:32.560 the audience because that we need to support you. It's called second class, how the elites betrayed

01:20:37.880 America's working men and women. It's kind of like, it's kind of like, it reminds me of JD Vance's

01:20:45.020 hillbilly elegy. You know, it's kind of like that, uh, in its tone and who you're talking to second

01:20:49.720 class, how the elites betrayed America's working men and women. All right, you stay with us and, uh,

01:20:54.320 we're going to do a quick break before we come back. I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly show

01:20:59.700 on Sirius XM. It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting

01:21:06.000 and important political, legal, and cultural figures today. You can catch the Megan Kelly

01:21:10.420 show on Triumph, a Sirius XM channel featuring lots of hosts. You may know, and probably love

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01:21:50.160 slash MK show and get three months free. Offer details apply.

01:21:59.540 All right, let's talk about speaking of elites, the latest from NBC. I love how in the clip,

01:22:06.400 you know, Joy Reid is like, now I'll release you to your evening, which Rachel Maddow has plenty of

01:22:12.200 because she works one day a week for $30 million a year. Speaking of not being in touch with regular

01:22:20.800 working class folks. And then you've got Chris Hayes, who also doesn't work too hard,

01:22:27.560 getting on the air last night, Tuesday. Why? Because every weekend is a three-day weekend for

01:22:34.460 Chris Hayes, but he really wants to weigh in on the horrible Ronna McDaniel. Listen here.

01:22:41.460 As you might know, we don't have a show on weekends or Mondays. And most of what I wanted

01:22:45.260 to say about all this has already been said very well by my colleagues. In the end, all you can really

01:22:50.320 ask of people in our profession is diligence and open-mindedness and critical thinking. And above all

01:22:55.140 else, and this is really important to me, good faith. When I'm speaking to you here right now,

01:23:00.920 I'm not putting on a show about what I think and believe. This is it. I could be wrong about things.

01:23:07.440 Lord knows I must be sometimes. I might have opinions you think are wrong. We might tell stories

01:23:12.480 in ways that you think leave stuff out or emphasize a wrong angle. But the key to this entire enterprise

01:23:16.880 is a kind of bedrock trust, the trust that we really are acting in good faith.

01:23:23.160 We really are trying to get it right. We are not feeding you lies to be good team players.

01:23:30.400 Hmm. I am not putting on a show about what I believe and think. That's actually exactly what

01:23:35.420 you're doing. And I love that it all boils down to good faith. And we know that's not true because

01:23:40.140 if it were true, they would have gone back and corrected the record on, for example, Russia,

01:23:45.340 a lie they told over and over for three years. And if it were a good faith mistake, Bata, you and I

01:23:52.100 know they would have gone back and said, we got it wrong. We gave you the best reporting at the time.

01:23:57.220 It turned out to be false. Never. Not Chris Hayes, not Rachel Maddow, not Nicole Wallace,

01:24:04.100 obviously not Joy Reid, none of them. Everybody who's listening right now should go back and watch your

01:24:09.200 video from yesterday because you did such an amazing job of teasing out the deep hypocrisy

01:24:15.040 that goes on here. You were saying earlier, you know, these people are out of touch, right?

01:24:20.380 Barbra Streisand out of touch. It's totally fine. If God rewards you and makes you somebody who never

01:24:25.800 has to talk to people who are working class again, you know, say thank you to God. But what used to be 0.98

01:24:30.600 was people who had achieved that level of success, like Joy Reid, like Chris Hayes, like Rachel Maddow,

01:24:37.020 they had a level of humility that came along with that. It used to be called noblesse oblige,

01:24:43.380 like this sense that you owe something back to the community, to the nation that made you so

01:24:49.300 successful. And the difference with these people is they don't believe in that. They don't believe

01:24:54.420 in God. They believe that it was their own merit that got them these millions and millions and

01:25:00.320 millions of dollars. And as a result, they don't feel that they owe anything to anybody.

01:25:04.060 The opposite. They have to protect the system that they believe elevated them. And so the way

01:25:11.240 you do that is by silencing anybody who dares to object. And so instead of saying to working class

01:25:17.380 people, look, I'm so successful. I know I get it. But what can I do to make sure that you have the

01:25:22.520 modest things that you want? They silence them and call them racist and call them fascist. And which

01:25:28.600 brings me back to Rona McDaniel. It's so funny because, you know, she's not even that representative 0.96

01:25:33.380 of where the GOP is out, right? Donald Trump doesn't like her. He feels like she was sort of

01:25:37.540 working against him to bring back the old GOP. But even that kind of a person, they cannot stomach

01:25:44.700 because, as you rightly pointed out yesterday, Megan, they cannot stand the idea of giving the

01:25:49.860 other side a fair hearing because they know that if they do, it's going to be curtains for them.

01:25:56.180 Yeah, it's exactly the same thing as the lawfare that they're unleashing against Donald Trump because 0.99

01:26:02.280 they don't want the voters, those racist, white, rural, dumb, beer-drinking voters to have a say 1.00

01:26:11.140 because they're too stupid. Joy and Chris and Rachel need to decide. They're the smart ones, 1.00

01:26:18.960 okay? That's really the message behind everything they say. You know what? They do say that in good

01:26:25.380 faith. That is something they actually believe and telegraph night after night. We played this

01:26:31.760 soundbite recently. It was, oh God, was it after, it was after Trump lost one of the many legal

01:26:38.660 challenges, or when Trump won one of the legal challenges. It was on immunity. It was on immunity.

01:26:43.180 And the Supreme Court took the case. That's what it was. He had lost the immunity argument

01:26:47.040 at the lower court. And the liberals were banking on the Supreme Court, not reviewing that decision.

01:26:51.760 So he'd have to go pedal to the metal on the J6 case and others. Well, the Supreme Court took it

01:26:57.500 and the left freaked out. And this is Chris Hayes after that decision came down.

01:27:02.260 That they would rob the People's Department of Justice the opportunity, present all the evidence

01:27:07.380 of his guilt. That the voters of this country, you and I, the hundreds of millions of us,

01:27:13.120 might be robbed of the information we need to determine whether the man is guilty of the

01:27:18.520 gravest crime any politician has been accused of since the Civil War. If you were hoping that 0.98

01:27:24.720 Donald Trump's authoritarian disregard for the rule of law was going to be stopped by Americans'

01:27:28.960 institutions and the court at the highest level, that hope is severely diminished today.

01:27:38.900 The Mueller investigation didn't stop him. Two congressional impeachments did not stop him.

01:27:42.480 Today is the starkest proof yet that in the zero-sum battle between MAGA and democracy,

01:27:47.040 there was and is only one thing that could ever truly stop Donald Trump, and that is we the people.

01:27:56.520 Americans voting against him, a majority.

01:28:01.500 Hey, right? He's like, oh, shit. 1.00

01:28:05.380 Oh, no. 1.00

01:28:06.380 He's almost there. You know, he's almost there, right? Like, he's three quarters of the way there.

01:28:12.000 Of course, Donald Trump prevailing over a host of competitors in the primary who outspent him two to

01:28:20.400 one. Like, if he were a Democrat, they would be noting this for what it is, which is a triumph

01:28:26.520 of the will of the people, right? If you think about Donald Trump, and this is my plug for people

01:28:31.840 who are really, really don't like him, you know, like, and they're really upset that he's, you know,

01:28:36.660 possibly going to win again. I get it. I get that a lot of people don't like his character.

01:28:41.480 But if you care about democracy, and we should all care about democracy, you have to admit that

01:28:46.920 seeing him crush a competition that is outspending him two to one is nothing short of a triumph of the

01:28:53.940 will of the people. You have to admit that him triumphing over the lawfare and the billions of

01:29:00.160 dollars and the institutional might that the Democrats have thrown at him, that a person

01:29:04.980 in America can still beat those odds, just through the will of the people showing up and casting their

01:29:11.300 ballot. If you care about democracy, I'm begging you to acknowledge this is a win. This is what

01:29:18.020 democracy looks like.

01:29:20.200 I love how he says it's between MAGA and democracy.

01:29:23.860 democracy. Um, like you say, you're almost there. Oh, believe it or not, they have a role in the

01:29:33.140 democracy too. All right. Now I've got to get to this today because there's in other news,

01:29:37.880 more protests going on with these pro Palestinian protesters who continue to bother random civilians,

01:29:43.200 just trying to live their lives. The latest is at Vanderbilt, which like all the other universities,

01:29:48.320 or a lot of them didn't used to be like this, you know, down South, but it's woke and annoying just

01:29:54.360 like the others now. So these students showed up to protest. Um, I don't know what exactly they want

01:30:01.600 the chancellor to back the divestment movement out of Israel. They hate Israel. They think that they're

01:30:07.560 committing a genocide and they want the chancellor to do exactly what they want him to do. So they tried

01:30:11.600 to get into his office. They demanded to meet with him. And first they shamed a black cop for not

01:30:19.480 joining them because the cop's black. Then they started, then they called nine one one because 0.97

01:30:27.280 somebody needed to change her tampon. I'm not even kidding you. And they felt it was an emergency

01:30:34.960 that she'd be allowed passage. I'm going to start with the second one because there's no way we can end

01:30:39.320 without getting to South 35. Watch toxic shock. Yeah. There's a currently a female student who's 1.00

01:30:45.500 being denied the right to change her tampon, uh, that has been in for multiple hours, which leads

01:30:50.460 to an increased risk of toxic shock syndrome. So while you're saying, right. So then you should

01:30:57.000 understand. Okay. What you are not hearing, what you're not hearing is that if she stands up to use

01:31:03.940 the restroom to change her tampon, they are threatening arrest. So it is not an option for her.

01:31:08.320 Ma'am, do you have an emergency? Yes, ma'am. I do. That is an emergency.

01:31:12.760 I don't know. Do you have an emergency? Not your friend that's inside. Do you have an emergency?

01:31:17.820 That is my emergency. Yeah. I don't, I don't remember the time that I needed to have an

01:31:21.860 emergency personally to call nine one one for help. Yeah. But neither, you know, your friend has

01:31:27.060 one. This is, this is important. Can you believe how stupid, I mean, Vanderbilt is a good university,

01:31:32.620 at least on paper. Can you believe just the narcissistic, dumb behavior happening on these 1.00

01:31:38.960 campuses? I mean, so much to say, but, um, I'll just try to narrow it down. Um, um, I'm an Oda who 0.99

01:31:47.920 is an Arab Israeli politician used to quote, I believe it was the, the Palestinian poet, uh,

01:31:53.040 Mahmoud Darwish, who used to say, uh, we Palestinians are lucky that our enemies are the Jews because

01:31:59.240 otherwise nobody would care about us. And it's totally true by the way. And, um, and I think

01:32:05.300 we American Jews are very lucky that these are the people who have taken up the other side. You 0.66

01:32:11.840 know, there's a lot of talk about rising antisemitism, antisemitism on campus. And I just

01:32:15.880 keep telling my fellow Jews, like, you don't understand who these people are. Like, I, I'm

01:32:21.180 going to keep this video so I can show it to them. You know, like, come on, you know, these

01:32:26.380 are the American Jewish students aren't in danger. You can't be in danger from somebody

01:32:30.520 like that. You're in danger of like being unpopular with people like that. And honestly,

01:32:35.520 that is a good thing. That should be a marker of pride. Stand up for what you believe in.

01:32:40.260 The vast majority of Americans are behind us. You know, you go out into working class Americans,

01:32:44.980 they don't support this nonsense. In fact, it's often coming at their expense, all of this activism,

01:32:50.620 which has, by the way, these activists have no interest in convincing anybody. You know,

01:32:54.400 they, they want to upset people. They don't want to convince them. And they've done, you know,

01:32:58.000 they've done us a big favor and shown their true colors. Obviously there's people in Congress who

01:33:02.380 are saying disgusting things and, and, you know, they should be voted out in a democratic way,

01:33:06.840 in a democratic way, if they're, if they're, you know, residents don't like them anymore.

01:33:10.440 But, you know, to me, I look at this and I'm like, you know, as Jews, like, thank God that this is

01:33:14.980 what we're dealing with. It is unbelievable how philo-Semitic and pro-Israel, the American working

01:33:19.880 class remains to this day, how marginal antisemitism is in this great country. And I just urge my

01:33:27.220 fellow Jews to, to see it through this lens. Cause this is the truth. I don't know about the 1.00

01:33:31.820 antisemitism. That seems obvious too, but it's definitely, I'm feeling anti-stupidism watching 0.87

01:33:36.520 the clip. I'm, I'm feeling it strongly. It's ubiquitous. I'm going to squeeze in the one about 0.97

01:33:41.440 the black cop too. Watch this. I hope you know that you're protecting a terrible man 0.99

01:33:47.680 and a coward, an absolute coward who is aiding and abetting a actual genocide. Show your morality. 1.00

01:33:54.780 What if it was your kids? Would you care? It will be your kids. It will be our kids.

01:34:00.520 Is a job worth it, sir? Is a job worth it? You're a black thorn. We're already dealing with this. 1.00

01:34:09.280 32,000 dead and you don't care. You can stand with us right now and be on the right side

01:34:14.840 of history. But you won't. Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame. You are black in America and 1.00

01:34:24.800 you're not standing with the marginalized people of the world. What does that make you? What 0.90

01:34:29.560 does that make you? A coward? Coward. Shame. Shame. Free, free Palestine. Free, free Palestine. 0.99

01:34:37.400 Okay. All right, Bajay. Let's

01:34:39.280 let's talk Turkey. It's not really about their nonsense chant and shaming of the black cop. 0.99

01:34:44.440 Who are the young college girls going to sleep with? Because they've run out of real men. 0.99

01:34:50.540 Who would ever even consider going to bed with any of those mealy mouth, weak knees, cross-legged,

01:34:57.920 elbow holding mask wearing lightweights? I'm terrified for the future of the human race.

01:35:04.140 I love that that is where your mind went. I was going to have a whole thing about how the Democrats

01:35:11.040 keep abandoning black Americans for other pet projects, but you're totally right. It's both the 1.00

01:35:17.180 problem for who are the girls going to be with and also a problem for who are the young men going to be

01:35:20.980 with because young women come out of college much more liberal than young men and Democrats now are

01:35:27.720 refusing to date conservatives. And so you're going to have a growing sector of the population who has

01:35:32.260 literally nobody to sleep with on both sides. And it's going to be a disaster.

01:35:37.640 No, you can't. Girls do not look for a man who sits cross-legged when he's beyond age 10. That's

01:35:43.900 number one. Or who's wearing a mask unless he's like elderly and has a disease and who links arms

01:35:50.580 and nevermind all the other stuff he said. You need a real man. Trust me, when you get between the sheets

01:35:55.280 and it's time to do business, you need a real man up there, ladies. Those guys are not it.

01:36:00.660 Baja, such a pleasure. Love you. Please come back.

01:36:04.040 Thank you so much, Megan. Thank you. God bless you.

01:36:06.860 Oh, you too. Again, the book is called Second Class, How the Elites Betrayed America's Working 1.00

01:36:10.780 Men and Women. Go get it right now. Thank you all so much for joining us.

01:36:14.820 Tomorrow, live from SiriusXM with the fifth column again in person.

01:36:21.560 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - March 27, 2024

Predators Exposed at Nickelodeon, and Democrats Abandoning the Working Class, with Alexa Nikolas and Batya Ungar-Sargon ｜ Ep. 751

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