The Megyn Kelly Show - September 13, 2021


Rebellion Against Wokeism, the Loss of Patriotism, and the Vaccine Push with Peter Boghossian, Janice Dean, and Adam Carolla | Ep. 158


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 35 minutes

Words per Minute

185.92468

Word Count

17,674

Sentence Count

1,351

Misogynist Sentences

40

Hate Speech Sentences

42


Summary

Peter Boghossian, a professor at Portland State University, quit last week. He talks about why he decided to walk away from a job he's been teaching for over 25 years, and why he thinks it's time to fight back against woke leftists in education.


Transcript

00:00:00.520 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
00:00:12.040 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:00:15.220 So excited to be back with you on this Monday. There's so much to go over.
00:00:19.360 Today we are tackling one of the most asked questions I receive from listeners and fans,
00:00:24.960 which is how to fight back against woke leftists in education.
00:00:29.280 If you have a kid going off to college, you are a kid in college.
00:00:32.320 I just spent the weekend with a bunch of them.
00:00:34.100 You know exactly what the problem is, or if you pay any attention in the news at all.
00:00:38.080 And my guest today is a professor who has been in the midst of it for a long time.
00:00:42.160 He's been teaching for over 25 years.
00:00:44.960 Taking on the regressive left is not new to him.
00:00:48.160 He's been doing it in Portland, by the way, Portland, Oregon,
00:00:52.800 and trying to teach his students to stand up against it as well.
00:00:57.020 He's fighting against indoctrination.
00:00:58.840 How do you like that for a change?
00:01:00.340 But last week, Peter Boghossian, a professor at Portland State University, quit.
00:01:07.020 And boy, does he have some stories to tell about why and how he got to the point where
00:01:12.040 he didn't think he could go on another day at that university.
00:01:15.460 Good for him.
00:01:16.820 But it also leaves our students out there right now with professors like Jen M. Jackson of Syracuse University,
00:01:23.920 my own university.
00:01:26.240 That's where I went.
00:01:27.700 Jen tweeted, September 11th was nothing more than, end quote, attack on the systems many
00:01:34.120 white Americans fight to protect.
00:01:36.500 Over at Princeton, meantime, several of the school's own alumni and current professors
00:01:41.060 are outraged today after learning that an orientation video for new students.
00:01:46.100 It's like, welcome to Princeton.
00:01:47.240 So happy you made it in one of the best universities in the world.
00:01:49.580 No, no, that's not what it says at all.
00:01:52.500 It encourages the students to tear down this university.
00:01:55.900 The very school the students fought so hard to attend, probably gave up all of their fun
00:01:59.880 in high school to attend and describes free speech as a privilege and not a right and encourages
00:02:06.000 students to exercise that privilege so long as they do it to advance social justice causes.
00:02:10.960 This is America's universities right now.
00:02:15.900 It's upsetting.
00:02:17.240 I think it's disgusting.
00:02:19.020 And a lot of people are asking as they get ready to fork over $100,000 a year to send their kids to these schools.
00:02:26.080 And by the way, even if you don't have a kid, it's your problem because these kids graduate from these schools
00:02:30.160 and then take over cultural institutions in America.
00:02:33.560 Is there any stopping this madness?
00:02:36.900 Well, Peter Boghossian joins me now.
00:02:38.320 Peter, so, so good to talk to you.
00:02:39.960 Thank you so much for being here today.
00:02:41.760 Thanks, Megan.
00:02:42.380 It's great to be here.
00:02:43.720 Well, congratulations on your decision.
00:02:46.060 I know it couldn't have been easy.
00:02:48.100 It took a lot of courage.
00:02:49.820 It happened on September 8th.
00:02:51.260 How are you feeling about it now on September 13th?
00:02:54.480 Phenomenal.
00:02:55.020 I have the very unusual problem.
00:02:57.240 I've never had it before.
00:02:58.200 I wake up in the middle of my sleep from pure happiness.
00:03:01.700 At least you think it's happiness.
00:03:02.860 Probably going to take you a while to recognize it again.
00:03:05.020 It's just it's I feel free.
00:03:07.800 I've never felt this free in a long time, so it feels wonderful.
00:03:11.560 The future is, of course, uncertain, but the decision, it was the right thing to do.
00:03:15.520 And staying there was just compromising my integrity.
00:03:18.700 I couldn't teach students in the way I wanted.
00:03:20.780 I was constantly being investigated.
00:03:23.040 More investigations on more investigations.
00:03:25.860 I just couldn't I couldn't take it anymore.
00:03:28.320 There was a breaking point, but it feels great.
00:03:31.920 I'm so happy for you.
00:03:33.620 Honestly, I realize these things can be traumatic.
00:03:35.720 It's sort of like a divorce from a bad marriage.
00:03:37.840 It's traumatic to get out.
00:03:39.620 But then being out is a very, very good thing and far better for your mental health and well-being
00:03:44.940 than being in the midst of this terrible, abusive relationship, which I didn't realize that.
00:03:50.560 And I've been watching you these past few years.
00:03:52.500 You've been amazing.
00:03:53.620 And I'm thinking to myself, this guy, he doesn't.
00:03:56.100 And I know that you're you're not some conservative.
00:03:58.100 You're you're a Democrat, you're you're a liberal, you're a liberal, yeah, but you push
00:04:03.000 back against a lot of this orthodoxy.
00:04:05.360 And I'm thinking, how is he doing that at Portland State in one of the most liberal pockets
00:04:10.800 of America?
00:04:12.180 And so I wasn't totally surprised to see it caught up with you, but I was stunned to read
00:04:17.200 about the abuse they put you through.
00:04:19.060 So let's just start a little bit earlier than than your resignation letter to get our audience
00:04:22.840 up to speed.
00:04:23.620 How many years were you a professor at Portland State?
00:04:25.740 Oh, I think my official position was 2010 when it started, but I had been teaching there
00:04:31.700 before that.
00:04:32.960 So basically, I think I had 2010.
00:04:35.480 And where'd you grow up?
00:04:37.360 Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, right outside of Boston.
00:04:40.380 OK, so it's not a mystery to you that Portland State is a pretty far left place.
00:04:47.220 No, it wasn't a mystery to me at all.
00:04:50.080 And it wasn't even the leftism that bothered me.
00:04:52.800 It was just the the monoculture that they created and the calling out of voices, alternative
00:04:59.340 voices, people's voice, you know, the whole German first they came for, you know, first
00:05:03.740 they came for the conservatives and they came for the moderates and they came for the liberals
00:05:07.580 and then they came for me.
00:05:08.640 And I think the important thing to remember in these conversations is what they view the
00:05:17.540 institution as.
00:05:18.600 So, for example, the president of Portland State University, Stephen Percy, issued a
00:05:22.640 statement and he said, racial justice is our highest priority.
00:05:27.700 Really?
00:05:27.920 I think.
00:05:28.400 Yeah, I think it's it's worth everybody's time to just think about that for a moment and
00:05:33.580 let that percolate.
00:05:35.340 Racial justice is the university's highest priority.
00:05:38.120 That means that if something else comes along, so there's a hierarchy, right?
00:05:43.520 So some other value comes along, like free to speech, freedom of expression, open inquiry,
00:05:49.200 racial justice will always trump that.
00:05:51.640 That's an astonishing statement.
00:05:54.180 And I think we need to have that conversation.
00:05:57.940 Not even a debate, just the conversation.
00:06:00.500 Should racial justice be the highest priority at a public institution?
00:06:03.760 I think that's a reasonable question for taxpayers to ask.
00:06:06.380 So it's a state school, hence Portland State.
00:06:08.720 OK, so it is.
00:06:09.260 Correct.
00:06:10.060 Correct.
00:06:10.740 So just as an aside, so this past weekend I was in Houston, Texas at the Crenshaw Youth
00:06:16.040 Summit.
00:06:16.940 So Dan Crenshaw puts on this event for thousands of young people coming up the ranks and figuring
00:06:21.500 out who they are in this world.
00:06:22.580 And most of them are conservative and figuring out how they can be conservative college students
00:06:26.140 and young people.
00:06:27.640 It was fascinating.
00:06:28.560 It was great.
00:06:29.100 And I really enjoyed the whole thing.
00:06:30.360 But one of the things Dan and I talked about on stage was how people who are what I will
00:06:35.480 say is our side, your side, my side.
00:06:38.020 I'm not a liberal, but I'm not a conservative either.
00:06:40.520 I'm just I'm not woke is process.
00:06:43.540 That's one of the things that's binding us together.
00:06:45.600 You know, you and Dan Crenshaw, who is a conservative, probably don't see eye to eye on a lot of things.
00:06:50.040 But I think you're 100 percent aligned and I'm certainly there with you on the need to preserve
00:06:55.560 processes that thus far have helped to find America as a free state of liberty.
00:07:03.660 Right.
00:07:04.200 And that's what I see in, for example, your resignation letter.
00:07:08.000 And let me just quote from it.
00:07:08.980 You talk about how you noticed signs of illiberalism on campus quite early.
00:07:14.520 Students refusing to engage with different points of view.
00:07:17.300 Questions from faculty at diversity trainings that challenged the approved narratives were
00:07:22.180 instantly dismissed.
00:07:23.940 Those who asked for evidence to justify new institutional policies were accused of, quote,
00:07:29.060 microaggressions and professors were accused of bigotry for assigning canonical texts written
00:07:35.680 by philosophers who happen to have been European and male.
00:07:38.940 Ninety five percent of those right there are about the process starting to erode.
00:07:43.620 No questions can be asked.
00:07:44.900 No pushback is allowed.
00:07:45.980 No request for data or evidence will be tolerated.
00:07:49.820 Right.
00:07:50.020 And I think the thing to know is that that's by design.
00:07:54.060 And the idea is from Aubrey Lord, the master's tools cannot disable the mat to disassemble the
00:08:00.520 master's house.
00:08:01.320 So the master's house is patriarchy, misogyny, privilege, oppression.
00:08:07.100 And the goal is to not let those processes be allowed to systematically discredit them because
00:08:15.400 you can't disable the patriarchy and systemic oppression by the very tools that got you there.
00:08:21.580 And the tools reason epistemic adequacy, which basically means knowing we're talking about
00:08:26.900 evidence, all of the due process, all of the tools that we use to build a society that you
00:08:33.540 and I think are wonderful in the freest society the world has ever seen.
00:08:37.680 They want to prevent people from using those tools.
00:08:40.600 And that's not a small thing because they're teaching people that they're teaching students
00:08:44.960 that.
00:08:45.280 Yeah, we saw this over the Black Lives Matter protests after George Floyd, where these sweeping
00:08:51.760 statements would be made about how every black man can't leave their house in America without
00:08:56.560 getting shot every day, which isn't true by the police.
00:09:00.480 And when you would confront these these advocates with facts about police shootings and actually
00:09:08.460 how they've gone down.
00:09:09.460 And the number in, you know, last year, I think it was 12 of unarmed black men who were
00:09:13.520 killed by police out of 10 million, 11 million encounters with police and arrests.
00:09:18.660 They you would get scolded as having said something bigoted.
00:09:23.040 And you're like, facts, you mean facts are bigoted?
00:09:26.400 And the answer is yes.
00:09:27.700 That's what they say.
00:09:28.340 Yeah.
00:09:28.480 So so let's talk about that for a second.
00:09:30.560 So my own when I wrote how to have impossible conversations.
00:09:33.840 So the literature is very clear about this.
00:09:36.300 When you, quote unquote, confront someone with facts or evidence, it elicit elicits what's
00:09:41.640 called the backfire effect.
00:09:43.360 And that is that people hunkered down in their beliefs and become more confident in them.
00:09:47.780 So what I like to do instead is I like to ask people a question.
00:09:50.740 And the litmus test question that I've that I have is in 2019, because that's the latest
00:09:56.360 data point that I had.
00:09:57.600 But I think there's something more recent that how many unarmed black men were killed by police?
00:10:02.060 Now, when you ask someone that it's kind of a scale for wokeness, I asked one of my neighbors
00:10:08.020 in Portland, and she told me twenty two thousand five hundred in a year.
00:10:13.780 That's what she said.
00:10:14.820 Yeah.
00:10:14.980 Twenty two thousand five hundred.
00:10:16.360 I've also asked other people that have said seven, eight thousand, nine thousand.
00:10:20.420 So the problem is that people are coming into the they're formulating their beliefs,
00:10:25.520 not only not on the basis of evidence, but just wildly untethered to reality.
00:10:30.440 And that skews the whole belief system they have.
00:10:34.400 It changes the way they view the system and the process.
00:10:38.340 So, you know, if twenty two thousand five hundred unarmed black men, that's that's basically
00:10:42.520 a holocaust.
00:10:43.400 We're being killed by the police every year.
00:10:45.300 That's just an astonishing.
00:10:47.520 It's an astonishing way to think about the world.
00:10:51.120 But I think it's under two dozen.
00:10:53.160 I mean, this this past year before under two dozen.
00:10:56.260 You see different numbers based on how many they include.
00:10:58.480 But, you know, the Washington Post has been keeping a running tally.
00:11:00.940 Could be twelve, could be fifteen, could be eighteen or nineteen.
00:11:03.520 But in no event over the past couple of years has it been over twenty.
00:11:07.620 And it's and you do see stats like, oh, more more than die in car accidents.
00:11:13.800 Again, car accidents.
00:11:15.620 That's thousands and thousands of people die.
00:11:18.660 Black men die in black people.
00:11:20.840 Anyway, so we're seeing it not just at the university.
00:11:23.400 We're seeing it across the board where facts are considered bigoted just for being facts
00:11:27.200 that can't contradict the narrative.
00:11:29.720 So, right.
00:11:30.840 Can we linger on that for a second, please?
00:11:32.860 So the reason that facts doesn't.
00:11:36.500 So these young people in general are being taught that their lived experience is more important
00:11:43.740 than the facts.
00:11:44.460 So if there's a conflict between there and that's the word that's used from the literature,
00:11:49.520 lived experience, lived experience must always trump facts.
00:11:54.080 And if you bring up the facts, then you're being hurtful to them.
00:11:58.920 It's an issue.
00:11:59.520 It's called safetyism.
00:12:00.500 It's an issue of their safety.
00:12:02.280 I know this.
00:12:02.760 We talked about this when Piers Morgan had his argument on the set on Good Morning Britain,
00:12:06.340 where he was saying Meghan Markle's claiming that her son's not getting a royal title because
00:12:10.960 of the color of his skin.
00:12:12.720 And the response and Piers was saying, that's not true.
00:12:16.120 This has been in the cards.
00:12:17.620 Whatever's going to happen to the little baby, Archie, was going to happen long before
00:12:21.840 he was even born.
00:12:23.120 And the weather guy who was out there giving Piers a hard time said, but that's her lived experience.
00:12:29.720 Exactly.
00:12:30.620 Who cares?
00:12:31.220 I don't care for lived experiences.
00:12:33.320 She's the actual queen of England.
00:12:35.080 She isn't.
00:12:36.400 Right.
00:12:36.980 But that's what happens when you start privileging, when you tell everybody, oh, your lived experience
00:12:41.540 is more important.
00:12:42.340 That's your reality.
00:12:44.120 In philosophy, you call it a subjective turn.
00:12:46.920 It's the turn towards subjectivity.
00:12:49.180 It's making everybody's lived experience trump anything in reality.
00:12:53.800 The problem is that we have to live together as a society, right?
00:12:57.300 So you can't have someone walking around think, well, you can.
00:13:00.340 And we do, to a certain extent, thinking that they're the queen of England, that they're
00:13:03.660 entitled to something.
00:13:05.060 But when we've taught a whole generation of people this, and now we're reaping the consequences.
00:13:10.600 So those ideas, we know where they come from.
00:13:13.520 It's not a mystery.
00:13:14.600 They come from the university system.
00:13:16.620 Now, what about the students?
00:13:19.120 Did the student body change over those 10 years in any way?
00:13:22.780 Dramatically.
00:13:23.480 Yeah.
00:13:23.780 The student body changed dramatically.
00:13:26.040 And I think it could be that it could be kind of self-selection.
00:13:30.060 In other words, people will self-select to certain universities if they think that they
00:13:34.320 have the ideologies that are there.
00:13:36.700 You know, Portland State University keeps pushing this diversity, equity, and inclusion,
00:13:40.300 which, by the way, those terms don't mean what people think that they mean.
00:13:43.480 But the student body over time became more intolerant.
00:13:48.900 I don't know.
00:13:50.740 So Portland State can't take all of the blame for that because they've come up in a K-12
00:13:56.900 institution.
00:13:57.720 We should probably talk about this.
00:13:58.820 where even if you had a wand and you could wave it and you get rid of all wokeism from
00:14:05.660 K-12 systems, the problem is that you can't just go in there.
00:14:10.100 Nobody can just start teaching.
00:14:11.840 You need a teaching certificate.
00:14:13.580 And all of those teacher ed programs, they're all predicated on this book, Paolo Ferreri's
00:14:18.600 Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which is you teach to liberate oppressed, not to educate, not
00:14:23.600 to, in fact, he calls it a banking factory, not to put things in, but to, you know,
00:14:28.140 in modern terms, level privilege.
00:14:32.240 So just as common, there's a lot I'm packing in here, but it's important.
00:14:35.520 So just as communists tried to level the economic playing field, the woke tried to level the
00:14:41.180 privilege playing field, the privilege hierarchy.
00:14:43.740 So all of K-12 education is rooted in these notions.
00:14:48.860 So even if you had a wand that got rid of all wokeism from schools, it would be repopulated
00:14:53.780 with people who went through these teaching programs and then they'd be re-indoctrinated.
00:14:58.940 So when they get to Portland State, they've already been sufficiently indoctrinated.
00:15:02.860 I see it here with my kids, everything constantly, equity, equity.
00:15:06.960 In every one of their classes, they're learning about, you know, Malcolm X or what have you,
00:15:13.440 or very specific types of quote unquote black liberation.
00:15:17.300 And so we have a problem that's a deep rot in our educational institutions.
00:15:23.880 And it's not just the university system.
00:15:27.100 It's, as you know, with Paul Rossi and many others, it's the K-12 system.
00:15:31.360 Right.
00:15:31.460 Paul Rossi was a guest on the show, which you should definitely go back and listen to if
00:15:35.220 you haven't.
00:15:35.580 But he's out of a New York City private school and was a math teacher who really spoke out
00:15:39.980 against this.
00:15:40.600 And things didn't end well at the school, but they're going to end well for Paul.
00:15:43.820 Um, okay.
00:15:45.180 So you say in your letter and your resignation letter, I never once believed the purpose of
00:15:49.400 instruction was to lead my students to a particular conclusion.
00:15:52.200 Rather, I sought to create the conditions for rigorous thought to help them.
00:15:55.880 I love this.
00:15:56.540 Gain the tools to hunt and furrow for their own conclusions.
00:16:00.360 Freaking love.
00:16:01.420 Then you write, but brick by brick, the university has made this kind of intellectual exploration
00:16:07.200 impossible.
00:16:08.260 It has transformed a bastion of free inquiry into a social justice factory.
00:16:13.160 Whose only inputs were race, gender, and victimhood, and whose only outputs were grievance and
00:16:19.500 division.
00:16:20.060 And my, my note in the margin, Peter, is these people are mentally ill.
00:16:24.380 You know, that's not well thinking.
00:16:27.520 Right.
00:16:28.660 You know, I do think it's a kind of a mental illness, but, but it's not merely a mental illness.
00:16:34.160 It's so you have to, there's just so much in this conversation that we need to talk about.
00:16:40.320 So a lot of this is that these are very well intentioned and very well-meaning people and
00:16:46.620 they, they get together in groups and because they're smart, they're better at rationalizing
00:16:53.680 or they're better at coming to conclusions, which are not true.
00:16:56.680 And so part of the thing that we see these in these social justice factories is they look
00:17:03.080 at the purpose of the education is to, it's like an indoctrination mill.
00:17:07.460 Students need to adopt certain conclusions.
00:17:09.760 And if they don't adopt certain conclusions after it's like a catechism, right?
00:17:13.740 Or, or kind of a kind of Marxist ideological training.
00:17:16.880 It's not that they weren't given the information, but it's that they're bad people.
00:17:20.780 So you have to agree with us.
00:17:23.320 You have to agree with these, these, um, the principles of social justice or else there's
00:17:28.480 some kind of a moral problem.
00:17:30.140 And one of the consequences of that is if you keep taking away voices that challenge that
00:17:36.020 orthodoxy, people become, basically they become fanatics.
00:17:40.260 They become completely positive in the things in, in, in, but that's the other thing that
00:17:45.760 I was thinking about recently.
00:17:46.760 It's so interesting to me, I was doing chin-ups, uh, just yesterday and I ran into a, uh, a
00:17:53.720 professor at Portland State University and it was a very heated conversation.
00:17:57.100 Somebody actually came in and asked, is everything okay over here?
00:18:00.460 Um, but in, within that, within that conversation, I think part of it is that.
00:18:08.100 There we've, we've managed to create people.
00:18:11.620 We've managed to make genuine disagreements into moral monsters.
00:18:16.760 Somebody holds us.
00:18:17.840 They're just a Nazi.
00:18:19.640 They're a horrible person.
00:18:20.840 We should inflict violence on them.
00:18:22.960 And it's just so tragic.
00:18:25.420 We've lost something so fundamental, the ability to talk to each other, the ability to communicate
00:18:30.620 across divides, telling people it's okay.
00:18:32.860 You don't have to share every view in common.
00:18:35.140 It's okay.
00:18:36.060 If, if you have a disagreement, you can still be friends.
00:18:39.060 In fact, it's probably good for you to have disagreements.
00:18:41.240 That's it.
00:18:42.440 It's something wonderful that we, I don't want to say we've lost, but certainly are losing.
00:18:47.520 Douglas Murray talks about this, about how he told me when he came on, he, he used to
00:18:51.660 go out and about to be debating on stage and he'd look forward to it.
00:18:55.380 He knew it was going to be a wonderful, he'd know it'd be a wonderful exchange.
00:18:58.960 You know, the intellectual firepower going on back and forth, learning, debating, defending
00:19:03.860 your position.
00:19:04.400 I know you love the Socratic method.
00:19:06.260 So do I, as a graduate of law school that used that.
00:19:09.120 And now it's to disagree or challenge this orthodoxy is offensive.
00:19:15.940 It makes you a bad person.
00:19:17.500 The other person needs a trigger warning for you to even see it.
00:19:20.760 They feel unsafe.
00:19:22.300 Right.
00:19:22.800 I honestly, like, I mean, look, I'm not a college professor, but I couldn't care less
00:19:27.140 that they feel unsafe.
00:19:28.060 Get used to it.
00:19:28.860 It's called life.
00:19:30.020 You're not going to feel much more safe when you go out there into the real world.
00:19:32.460 I mean, I've talked about this, but at Columbia University during the Ferguson, Missouri protests
00:19:36.980 after the death of Michael Brown, Columbia University in Manhattan gave the law students
00:19:42.600 a pass on their exams because they didn't think that they could function in the face of a
00:19:47.900 perceived injustice.
00:19:49.120 I'm like, do they have any idea what actual lawyers do?
00:19:53.600 They should have been kicked out of school immediately, nevermind given a pass on the
00:19:57.280 exams.
00:19:57.880 All right.
00:19:58.080 Let me stand you by right here.
00:19:59.140 I got to squeeze it as got to squeeze in a break.
00:20:00.960 Um, but we're going to talk to Peter about what the students have told him personally
00:20:04.540 about being afraid to speak up.
00:20:06.060 And he's also got a message for Rachel Maddow.
00:20:08.300 That ought to be interesting.
00:20:09.240 And then later, Adam Carolla and Janice Dean are here.
00:20:12.340 And a reminder to everybody, we're going to make this show available as a podcast later
00:20:16.900 in the day in case you want to listen back on any and all podcasting platforms.
00:20:21.560 And we also have a video version now at youtube.com slash Megan Kelly.
00:20:26.740 If you want to actually see it, we'll be right back.
00:20:30.960 Welcome back to the Megan Kelly show.
00:20:37.400 Everyone back with me now, Peter Boghossian, a Portland university professor who resigned
00:20:42.340 because he says his university has become a social justice factory and he is not alone.
00:20:48.740 One of the things I read in your letter, Peter, was that, um, the, the faculty and the administration,
00:20:53.240 you say they have abdicated the university's truth seeking mission.
00:20:56.860 And instead they drive intolerance of divergent beliefs and opinions.
00:21:00.160 This has created a culture of offense where students are now afraid to speak openly and
00:21:06.160 honestly.
00:21:06.640 And I did, I wonder to myself, so there are still some there who want to do that.
00:21:12.160 They're not all woke and on board with this ideology.
00:21:15.760 No, most people, as Aristotle said, they just want to know, right?
00:21:20.160 People just want to know, but it's a combination of being held hostage to the most intolerant
00:21:25.800 of voices and true believers.
00:21:29.180 I mean, you have people in the administration of my colleagues, like the person I ran into
00:21:33.420 when I was doing chin-ups yesterday, they truly believe this.
00:21:36.700 They are all in.
00:21:38.420 And so you, why would, you wouldn't need to hear the other side.
00:21:42.440 In fact, you shouldn't need to hear the other side.
00:21:44.980 It's a kind of catechism, right?
00:21:46.360 Where there are correct answers to moral questions.
00:21:48.980 They know the answers to moral questions.
00:21:51.060 And if somebody disagrees that they're a bad person, it's, it's really not that complicated.
00:21:55.340 Ultimately, they look at the university system, not to find truth or as a truth seeking enterprise,
00:22:00.260 but to liberate from oppression, to teach people about injustices, grievances, racism, patriarchy, etc.
00:22:08.940 And it's, when you start thinking like that, you understand the mindset.
00:22:12.480 It's key to, Megan, to really think, okay, what is their actual belief and why do they believe it?
00:22:18.440 And then they teach it.
00:22:19.360 And then those kids get out, you know, four or five years later after having been indoctrinated
00:22:24.100 and they go into the workforce and they take this nonsense with them.
00:22:26.840 Is there any counterculture developing, you know, like in the, in the sixties and the
00:22:32.400 seventies, colleges were, were big on the counterculture where the more the narrative is thrust on you,
00:22:36.940 the more they wanted to say F the man and find a different way.
00:22:41.120 Is that, is that happening at all?
00:22:42.960 I think there are a new, well, I know there are new institutions that are, that are being
00:22:47.080 built, but I don't think that there are any, there are movements.
00:22:50.160 And I think you and I are in certain spaces in which people are speaking honestly and openly
00:22:55.500 in their forthright in their speech, but I don't think that there are any actual counterculture
00:23:00.100 and movements.
00:23:00.940 I think that takes a little time.
00:23:02.580 This was, this was like a blitzkrieg without a war.
00:23:04.860 It just came upon us.
00:23:06.640 And so due to the rapidity that it took over our institutions, it's going to take some time
00:23:11.500 to develop a meaningful resistance.
00:23:14.220 Well, and that's why we'll see somebody like you, you know, you published your resignation
00:23:17.500 letter with Barry Weiss at her substack.
00:23:19.400 You're here, um, the Fox news will cover this story, but, uh, MSNBC will not.
00:23:26.140 And you sent out an interesting tweet about that.
00:23:28.100 Speaking of your message for Rachel Maddow, what?
00:23:31.220 Right.
00:23:31.760 Well, one of the reasons that I'm on sample, I went on Tucker or what have you to be very
00:23:38.540 candid is because they called and invited me.
00:23:41.000 And so I said, sure, I'm happy to go have a conversation with you, even though we have
00:23:44.940 some pretty significant ideas, but just by the way, that's one of the reasons that we
00:23:50.300 need discourse, because I do think that my ideas are better.
00:23:53.120 And I'm more than happy to, to talk to people who are across the divide.
00:23:57.480 And if I'm wrong, I'll change my mind, but that's why we need discourse.
00:24:00.820 That's why we need to talk to each other.
00:24:02.320 And so the, the resignation letter was picked up all across the world, German papers, translations,
00:24:08.380 you know, of course, Fox went crazy over it, but no, no one on the left, no left of
00:24:14.260 censor media, nobody, no Rachel Maddow, no CNN, no MSNBC, no, none of it.
00:24:20.100 And so then I put out a tweet.
00:24:23.140 I'd really like to have a conversation with you about our universities.
00:24:26.140 I'd really like to have a conversation with, I put out Oregon, the Oregonian, finally, the
00:24:31.320 Oregonian put something out about it, but there is.
00:24:35.820 So here's the problem.
00:24:37.000 Part of the problem is that if we just criticize one thing, everyone will say, well, you don't
00:24:42.780 criticize the other thing.
00:24:43.940 Why is it that the problem, well, okay, well, well, maybe could it be that there's just
00:24:50.180 more of a problem on one side with one particular thing?
00:24:53.620 That doesn't mean that the right doesn't, of course the right is everybody, every ideology
00:24:57.380 has its problems, but it tells me that the media ecosystem on the left is, is also like
00:25:04.420 the universities.
00:25:05.040 It's experiencing the kind of sickness.
00:25:07.200 They don't want to entertain views that go against the narrative.
00:25:10.640 They don't want to, they don't want to talk about the illiberalism and the censoriousness
00:25:15.520 that's happening in academia because they view themselves as part of that movement.
00:25:19.980 So it tells me that there's a problem when I'm more than happy to have, and not even
00:25:25.140 a debate, just a conversation.
00:25:26.440 I'm more than happy to have a conversation with Rachel Maddow about what's going on in
00:25:30.200 our universities, but they don't want to cover it.
00:25:32.180 They don't want to hear it because they're, they're not willing to stand up for process
00:25:40.340 and process makes it sound too small.
00:25:42.840 Process is important.
00:25:43.800 Process means do process process means free speech and the ability to engage in the intellectual
00:25:49.120 exchanges we're talking about.
00:25:50.740 But I did think I mentioned at the top of the show, this comment from this Princeton professor
00:25:56.920 was very telling, you know, she, it basically revealed the whole philosophy without trying
00:26:04.440 to hide it.
00:26:05.000 Like what, sure.
00:26:06.040 We're, we love free speech.
00:26:07.440 Free speech is really important.
00:26:08.720 We're, we're in favor of it.
00:26:10.080 However, what we're talking about is free speech.
00:26:12.900 That's that's that advances social justice.
00:26:15.560 I think, do we have that soundbite?
00:26:16.920 Let's, let's listen.
00:26:17.600 Hold on.
00:26:18.040 But when I speak about the privileges that we have, I am particularly intent on one of
00:26:24.920 those privileges.
00:26:26.080 This is the privilege, especially for those of us who have the benefits of tenure to exercise
00:26:33.640 free speech.
00:26:36.620 But I, I, I don't mean free speech in the masculinized bravado sense, um, that, um, it, it seems to
00:26:45.560 have been stapled, um, uh, with, um, in, uh, the, the minds, um, of colleagues with whom
00:26:51.980 I've had disagreements over the years.
00:26:53.680 Um, I envision a free speech in an intellectual discourse that is flexed to one specific aim.
00:27:00.720 And that aim is the promotion of social justice, um, and an anti-racist social justice, um, at
00:27:06.240 that.
00:27:07.240 And in order for, um, that work to be realized richly, um, and capaciously, um, it behooves
00:27:14.440 all of us who are on the faculty to think about ways in which we can, um, provide effective
00:27:19.420 mentoring to our students, not with a view to habituating them into a practice of assimilation
00:27:25.520 or indoctrinating them in the belief that somehow this is the best damn place of all, but in order
00:27:31.200 to provide them with the tools by which they can tear down this place and make it a better
00:27:35.160 one tear down, tear it down.
00:27:38.160 This is, um, correct.
00:27:39.160 This is classics professor Danell Padilla Peralta, who really gives it to us straight.
00:27:44.760 And can I just say just the way he speaks and the way a lot of these university professors
00:27:48.780 who consider themselves woke speak, it's so alienating, right?
00:27:52.160 Like they use 25,000 words to say two things and they, you know, all of the terminology
00:27:58.160 that they throw in there, this useless word salad to try to make their ideas sound better
00:28:02.440 than they are.
00:28:03.240 But you heard it right there.
00:28:04.360 Free speech.
00:28:04.840 As long as it's in advance of his ideas, that's it.
00:28:07.720 Correct.
00:28:08.260 It's like Tyrone Lannister said anything before the, but it doesn't matter.
00:28:12.620 And I think that the key thing to think about that, my own view is that he should be thanked
00:28:18.900 for his honesty because very rarely are academics so honest about what they actually want.
00:28:23.980 They're very good at obfuscating.
00:28:25.880 They're very good at, at kind of step aside, stepping the issue, but it's nice to hear someone
00:28:30.900 say, we should tear this place down.
00:28:33.160 Okay.
00:28:33.460 Well, well, it's good.
00:28:34.520 Now, now there's a person with whom you're going to, you can have a conversation with them,
00:28:37.440 right?
00:28:37.600 Good luck getting your next paycheck after they do.
00:28:41.780 Right.
00:28:41.920 Cause remember the, the main thinking there is that the, and what they've done to my friend,
00:28:46.780 Joshua Katz is absolutely horrific.
00:28:49.180 They've put him through an insane ideal.
00:28:51.960 Well, you should have him on to speak with that, but you know, the, the, it's the same
00:28:56.080 thing every time, Megan, here's, here's the trajectory of this.
00:28:59.540 Somebody questions the orthodoxy.
00:29:01.620 Then they start accusing them of creepy sexual stuff.
00:29:04.740 They can't get them on the creepy sexual stuff or someone on the sexual stuff.
00:29:07.600 Then they start investigating them for other things and more investigations and the threat
00:29:12.080 of investigations.
00:29:13.220 And I was just, I just recently had another investigation right before I quit.
00:29:17.980 I was under investigation, trying to throw me out in disgrace, but it's never that they
00:29:22.120 randomly do this to somebody.
00:29:23.700 It's always, you speak out against the orthodoxy.
00:29:27.980 We wet, we come after you, the threat of investigation, the theft of your time, going through your personal
00:29:33.940 life, going through, finding students that you've had years ago, bringing them in for
00:29:39.220 interrogation.
00:29:40.160 I mean, it's a, it's an intense thing.
00:29:42.420 The whole system is really set up.
00:29:44.320 Amy Chua and her husband at Yale Law School right now.
00:29:46.420 Correct.
00:29:47.120 Right.
00:29:47.340 And they're not even, same as you.
00:29:48.740 They're not conservatives.
00:29:49.820 They're just, I wouldn't describe them as woke.
00:29:51.960 They've pushed back a little on some of this, but they're beloved by the students and loathed
00:29:56.720 by the administration.
00:29:57.840 And bit by bit, they're trying to.
00:29:59.160 Having, having, having dinner, students at dinner.
00:30:01.660 But my, my, my, I don't know, Amy, but my, um, I'm, I'm sorry that's happening to her.
00:30:07.180 And I hate to say this, but this is just the beginning of your investigatory hell.
00:30:11.960 Oh, gosh.
00:30:12.720 So can you, I didn't, I didn't know they'd been doing that to you.
00:30:16.200 I mean, I, I assume that you had been getting pushback because this is a whole other story
00:30:20.280 and it's awesome.
00:30:21.020 But you, um, and James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose had done this amazing experiment in putting
00:30:27.220 out papers, um, that were basically fake the grievance studies papers, where you put
00:30:32.720 out papers with, um, that were, that were about things like, quote, dogs engage in rape
00:30:38.060 culture and the, the penis as a social construct.
00:30:41.540 And you got them published by all these magazines that are so woke.
00:30:45.500 They didn't realize it was a hoax.
00:30:47.160 It was a joke that they weren't supported.
00:30:48.640 One of them was written by an algorithm and that got published.
00:30:51.760 So your point was just that it woke enough and any publication will take it.
00:30:55.700 But was that the beginning of your status at Portland state as a pariah?
00:31:00.900 Once it was, once, you know, it was outed that you'd been behind that.
00:31:05.060 No, this predated that the beginning was simply asking sincere questions.
00:31:09.200 What is the evidence that trigger warning safe spaces and microaggressions are, are legitimate
00:31:14.440 or good educational practices?
00:31:16.100 How do they help students?
00:31:17.480 Where's basically, where's the evidence for this?
00:31:19.500 The thing that I've been trained to do in philosophy and through the Socratic method
00:31:23.340 is just basically to ask questions.
00:31:25.140 And one thing ideologues don't like, well, they don't like humor.
00:31:28.540 So it's two things, but they don't like questions.
00:31:30.560 They don't like difficult questions when you ask them to justify the policies that now govern
00:31:37.660 the institutions.
00:31:38.820 I mean, that's when it started.
00:31:41.100 That's when, that's when the, when the pariah status started, but it wasn't until I published,
00:31:47.380 started publishing fake papers, bogus, completely morally horrific papers about mind comp, translating
00:31:53.680 mind comp for chain, leashing men, like we leash dogs or forcing white men to sit on the
00:31:58.580 floor and change as a form of experiential reparations.
00:32:01.160 It's not in terms of when that happened, then the cat was completely out of the bag.
00:32:06.680 And then my life, then they really came after me.
00:32:09.560 I just want people to, we got to do a whole other episode on this, Peter, please promise
00:32:14.000 we can do that because just going back and reading like the conceptual penis as a social
00:32:18.740 construct.
00:32:20.460 So this is, this is published in a cogent social sciences.
00:32:24.600 You got this published.
00:32:25.820 The penis should not be seen or should be seen not as an anatomical organ, but as a social
00:32:31.120 construct, isomorphic to performative toxic masculinity.
00:32:34.720 Oh my God, you got it exactly right.
00:32:36.300 All the unnecessary words and the sort of multi-syllabic words to try to make it sound
00:32:40.360 smarter.
00:32:41.280 We argue that the conceptual penis is better understood not as an anatomical organ, but as
00:32:45.880 a gender performative, highly fluid social construct.
00:32:50.380 Well done.
00:32:51.120 I got it.
00:32:51.700 I got what you did there.
00:32:52.960 Highly fluid.
00:32:54.080 Okay.
00:32:54.340 And then I got to read this.
00:32:55.780 The conceptual penis is, quote, exclusionary to disenfranchised communities based upon gender
00:33:02.180 or reproductive identity.
00:33:03.720 It is an enduring source of abuse for women and other gender marginalized groups and individuals.
00:33:10.080 It is the universal performative source of rape and is the conceptual driver behind much
00:33:15.880 of climate change.
00:33:19.140 It's amazing.
00:33:20.980 Thank you.
00:33:22.020 The paper should really be read in full.
00:33:24.900 It's very funny.
00:33:26.400 Thank you.
00:33:27.200 I'm glad you also find it funny.
00:33:29.780 So funny.
00:33:30.740 But the people at Portland State felt differently.
00:33:33.940 And next thing you know, you're getting investigated by, I guess it was under Title IX and they didn't
00:33:42.180 even tell you that what you were being investigated for, give you the chance to defend yourself.
00:33:48.160 Right.
00:33:48.400 So the timeline goes like this.
00:33:50.340 So we we realized that there was a problem in these bodies of literature.
00:33:53.720 And Alan Sokol in the late 90s published a gibberish.
00:33:57.620 He was a physicist and mathematician at NYU, New York University.
00:34:01.380 He published a gibberish paper, basically lampooning postmodernism, but it had all the right buzzwords.
00:34:08.500 So we published this paper, The Conceptual Penis is a Social Construct.
00:34:13.480 The paper received a lot of criticism.
00:34:16.380 And I think a lot of that criticism was justified.
00:34:19.220 You didn't you didn't do this paper doesn't prove what you think it proves it in order for
00:34:24.240 it to prove what you think it proves.
00:34:25.940 You have to do X, Y and Z.
00:34:27.340 You have to publish more papers and better journals, et cetera.
00:34:30.520 So I thought, OK, this is great.
00:34:31.820 They've given us a roadmap.
00:34:32.960 Let's do it.
00:34:34.020 Challenge accepted.
00:34:35.300 A hundred percent.
00:34:36.340 And if I'm wrong.
00:34:37.300 So that's this is the basis.
00:34:38.820 This is one of the things that I think differentiates ideologues from not ideologues is changing your
00:34:44.460 mind, saying, hey, and doing it publicly and say, listen, you know, I made a mistake.
00:34:47.940 I thought this.
00:34:49.560 That's the kind of humility that we need to cultivate as a virtue in our institutions.
00:34:53.700 So I so we did that.
00:34:56.420 We published or we wrote 20 papers.
00:34:59.340 Helen Plucker was James and ZMSL.
00:35:01.060 We wrote 20 papers.
00:35:02.820 We got seven of them accepted until we got busted by the Wall Street Journal.
00:35:06.560 And there were some doozies in there.
00:35:08.920 And then the moment that happened, well, when I published the conceptual penis, then the
00:35:14.380 swastikas and the feces and all that stuff started happening.
00:35:17.300 And then the lack of collegiality is the least of it, the spitting, et cetera, et cetera.
00:35:22.400 But when we did the the so-called it's called became called so-called square.
00:35:26.860 That's when that's when something hit the fan.
00:35:29.400 That's when the real problems started happening.
00:35:32.020 So when you took it next level, so did your detractors on campus, including your own colleagues.
00:35:37.860 Right.
00:35:38.280 Because part of it, most of my own colleagues, most of my colleagues, part of the idea was
00:35:42.720 that this wasn't just something that was happening to me.
00:35:46.520 This was something that I was fighting back.
00:35:49.960 You know, give a punch and take a punch.
00:35:52.460 And reason is worth standing up for.
00:35:54.600 And these bodies of scholarship, they're leading us astray, our public policies.
00:36:00.060 And we have to fight back against this.
00:36:02.740 There's just simply no other option.
00:36:05.040 Or the America, I mean, it sounds like hyperbole, but it's not.
00:36:07.240 Or the America that you think, you know, is gone.
00:36:09.940 Already, there's a crisis of confidence, a legitimacy crisis in our institutions.
00:36:14.400 People don't trust their institutions anymore.
00:36:16.880 Well, there's a reason they don't trust their institutions is because those institutions
00:36:20.640 are not worthy of trust.
00:36:22.140 Right.
00:36:22.660 That's exactly right.
00:36:23.540 So, you know, somebody tells you that there's a Title IX investigation against you.
00:36:29.540 You know what it's really about.
00:36:32.040 And this speaks to another problem that we've been having on campuses, which is a lack of
00:36:37.000 due process in particular for men accused of anything under Title IX.
00:36:40.760 And what I gleaned from your letter is all you find out through the grapevine is some student
00:36:45.780 says, oh, they were asking me if it's true he beats his wife and family.
00:36:49.400 I mean, that's correct.
00:36:50.040 No, more than one.
00:36:51.140 Yeah.
00:36:51.600 So you don't have there's no due process.
00:36:53.540 So you don't have access to the accusations.
00:36:56.160 You have to infer them from what the the chief diversity officer asks you.
00:37:01.600 And when I was walking up on campus, people telling me I was mortified by it, particularly
00:37:06.840 given that my daughter's adopted from China.
00:37:08.780 And these are just horrific allegations that they became rumored after a while.
00:37:15.000 Absolutely libelous.
00:37:16.120 I mean, they're lucky that you didn't sue them.
00:37:18.220 And the investigation did not sustain any of that.
00:37:20.600 We should we should make clear that that's the case.
00:37:22.960 But you tell me, because it seems like even though they couldn't prove any of these bogus
00:37:26.280 charges, they still said, well, he should be counseled.
00:37:29.840 And by the way, don't ever talk about your view of minority class again.
00:37:34.460 Yeah.
00:37:34.760 Protected.
00:37:35.140 You should never be speaking about protected classes.
00:37:37.200 Meanwhile, you're like, what was my original sin that led to my discussion of protected classes
00:37:41.140 being a thing?
00:37:42.140 You don't get to know.
00:37:43.440 But they they think they've done a good job of silencing you on any sort of minority group.
00:37:48.760 But that that was the weird thing.
00:37:50.580 And I requested a meeting subsequent to the the conclusions that the investigator found.
00:37:56.920 I mean, the whole thing was sort of absurd.
00:37:58.880 It was it would be I'm trying to laugh.
00:38:00.620 I can laugh about it now, but I wasn't laughing then.
00:38:03.180 I can assure you.
00:38:04.140 Of course.
00:38:05.300 Why is it that I can't render my opinion or talk about protected classes?
00:38:09.500 But the whole university is present.
00:38:12.500 Everybody's constantly talking about systemic racism.
00:38:15.460 It's what what what is it about my opinion?
00:38:17.820 And that's I read a statement, a multi page statement.
00:38:20.740 But there was something so grotesque about it, you know, not having something so slimy
00:38:26.980 about it.
00:38:27.840 But again, it's it's the even the threat of investigation.
00:38:30.780 And I think this is important to know, keeps people in line.
00:38:34.620 Yeah.
00:38:34.800 Well, I mean, it's amazing that feces on your office door, people spitting on you on campus,
00:38:41.240 all of the verbal harassment, the swastika that that didn't do it.
00:38:46.200 And so they they truly tried to shut you up.
00:38:49.620 They tried to close your mouth on any issues that were important to them.
00:38:53.620 And you finally reached your breaking point.
00:38:55.460 All right.
00:38:55.720 Stand by.
00:38:56.340 We're going to squeeze in another break.
00:38:57.540 And when we get back, we're going to talk about what's next for Peter.
00:39:00.880 And then later, Adam Carolla and Janice Dean will both be here.
00:39:03.920 There's a clip of Adam taking on Governor Newsom that you have got to hear.
00:39:07.620 Don't go away.
00:39:11.240 Welcome back, everyone, to The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:39:14.600 Here with me now, Peter Boghossian, a Portland State University professor who just resigned
00:39:19.160 because he says all the students are being taught is victimhood.
00:39:23.740 Can I just round back with you on the students, Peter?
00:39:26.280 Are they like, would they come to you and say, I want to say something else?
00:39:30.540 I have questions about this, but I'm afraid.
00:39:33.280 I mean, how did you come to understand there were people who weren't buying all this woke
00:39:38.240 indoctrination?
00:39:39.460 I think people are genuinely confused, but there's a culture of fear.
00:39:43.960 So so few people are afraid to say anything.
00:39:46.680 And I also think that the process of tenure makes that particularly difficult.
00:39:50.200 So people, they learn over time to be docile and to not speak openly and honestly about
00:39:57.540 things.
00:39:57.900 And so often people would come to me during office hours or in class and just say, I just
00:40:05.020 want to have a conversation.
00:40:06.160 Like, I just honestly want to talk about these issues.
00:40:08.380 And I feel I can't voice my opinion.
00:40:10.900 I did something called a reverse Q&A where I list at Portland State where I listen to people's
00:40:15.580 experiences of social justice and anybody could speak.
00:40:18.220 And it's it's quite telling.
00:40:20.460 Before we went to break, though, if I may pick up on something you said, yeah, I did
00:40:25.460 I did have a breaking point.
00:40:27.500 I did have a singular moment when someone said something to me.
00:40:30.960 It's like, well, I simply cannot work here anymore.
00:40:33.520 And that was when I try.
00:40:35.660 I tried to arrange a meeting with the president of the university, Stephen Percy, who for five
00:40:40.980 minutes and he wouldn't speak with me like he just repeat his office kept saying he's
00:40:44.480 just too busy.
00:40:45.080 He's too busy.
00:40:45.680 Oh, come on.
00:40:46.120 For five minutes.
00:40:47.020 The guy's too busy.
00:40:48.240 OK, you've been there for 10 years.
00:40:50.800 Yeah.
00:40:51.320 Yeah.
00:40:51.760 It was it was ridiculous.
00:40:53.880 He obviously just didn't want to talk to me.
00:40:55.520 So that's the other thing.
00:40:56.240 It's a type of dishonesty to say, no, I don't want to talk to you.
00:40:58.900 Right.
00:40:59.120 Don't don't lie to people.
00:41:00.900 Just don't be a sneak.
00:41:02.020 Just be honest.
00:41:02.700 You didn't have the stones.
00:41:04.100 Yeah.
00:41:04.440 So I finally managed to get a meeting with one of the deans and I said, you know, the
00:41:10.680 Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has labeled Portland State University one
00:41:15.780 of the top 10 worst colleges for free speech in the United States.
00:41:20.120 And he turned to me with total sincerity.
00:41:23.420 Oh, I wish you could bleep out his pronoun.
00:41:25.360 Could you?
00:41:25.660 Because I didn't want I don't want people to know who it was.
00:41:28.060 So if you could bleep out the heap.
00:41:29.900 Well, we're live on the radio.
00:41:31.060 So it's going to be out there.
00:41:31.760 But I will.
00:41:33.300 Okay.
00:41:33.840 Well, in today's day and age, one never knows.
00:41:35.820 He, she, they.
00:41:36.540 I'm trying not to dox anybody.
00:41:38.400 You know, I don't want, you know, people to gang up on anybody and I don't want to contribute
00:41:42.520 to that culture.
00:41:43.280 But anyway, so this individual I'm supposed to do right now turned to me with total sincerity
00:41:48.040 and said, it's a good thing to be on those lists.
00:41:51.660 Oh, come on.
00:41:53.000 I was just, so like you, it just, it just hit me like a ton of bricks.
00:41:58.280 Like you actually want to create this environment.
00:42:01.660 Like you want to create the environment that puts you on a list of places opposed to freedom
00:42:09.480 of speech.
00:42:10.440 And how can I maintain my integrity and be part of that institution?
00:42:15.820 It's, I can't do it.
00:42:17.620 And that was the moment.
00:42:19.320 Well, that was, I mean, your, your, um, your resignation letter really struck me.
00:42:25.600 I tweeted this out because I read the whole thing as soon as you sent it.
00:42:28.760 And this is how you ended it.
00:42:30.260 It has become clear to me that this institution is no place for people who intend to think
00:42:35.020 freely and explore ideas.
00:42:37.340 Keep in mind, this is Megan Kelly saying, uh, this piece, this is a university.
00:42:41.800 It's a university.
00:42:43.640 Back to you.
00:42:45.840 For 10 years, I have taught my students the importance of living by your principles.
00:42:49.720 One of mine is to, is to defend our system of liberal education from those who seek to
00:42:54.860 destroy it.
00:42:56.140 Who would I be if I didn't?
00:42:57.880 And that's why you felt you had no choice but to leave.
00:43:02.140 I, I have to ask you because having been through something like this, I mean, I have been through
00:43:07.740 something like this.
00:43:08.900 Uh, in fact, when I was reading about your professors turning on you and pulling out the
00:43:12.700 microphone, when you had people like Christina Hoff Summers and Brett Weinstein and his wife,
00:43:16.100 Heather come speak, um, put, you know, trying to silence your guests and silence discussion
00:43:20.580 and, you know, basically make a pariah out of you, I thought, my God, this is like being
00:43:24.420 a former Fox news anchor at NBC news.
00:43:26.460 Um, but anyway, I, I understand as you write me in the letter, it did take a human toll.
00:43:32.480 You, you say, I wish I could say it didn't, you know, be the tough guy kissing the muscles.
00:43:36.840 I'm good.
00:43:37.600 But this does take a human toll on you.
00:43:40.900 It does.
00:43:41.800 But I want to make crystal clear to you that I am not a victim here.
00:43:44.900 I knew, I knew I didn't understand exactly what I was getting into, but I made the decision to
00:43:50.040 fight back.
00:43:50.700 I could have easily kept my mouth shut and things would have turned, turned out much different.
00:43:55.320 I have a very comfortable life.
00:43:56.660 I'd be very chill.
00:43:57.960 So I'm not a victim.
00:43:59.540 I knew exactly what I was doing and I did it because it was the right thing to do.
00:44:03.120 And I would do it all over again.
00:44:05.640 Um, maybe I, I, I would, um, I, I would do it all over again to, to, to be sure.
00:44:13.320 Um, but I'm not a victim here.
00:44:16.000 And I think that there's something important about standing up and speaking out.
00:44:21.080 And when you hear an injustice, you, you know, don't remain silent about it.
00:44:26.140 Speak up, be bold, be forthright in your speech.
00:44:29.400 And if, if you're not, then what's this whole thing about?
00:44:33.140 Why, what, what are you doing?
00:44:34.560 What kind of relationships do you want to have?
00:44:37.020 I couldn't agree more.
00:44:38.420 That's, it's like somebody was asking me recently, how do you handle the criticism that you receive
00:44:45.500 online and elsewhere?
00:44:46.580 And my response was the goal is, is not for it not to bother you.
00:44:51.740 The goal is to get to the place where you do it anyway.
00:44:54.700 Right?
00:44:55.240 Like, correct.
00:44:56.300 We're humans.
00:44:57.180 It doesn't feel good to have terrible things said about you or to have your colleagues treat
00:45:00.860 you like that.
00:45:01.500 The, but that, that, the goal can't be universal love.
00:45:05.140 Otherwise you'd be taking very different positions.
00:45:06.960 If you have any ethics at all, right?
00:45:08.360 You have to follow your ethical code.
00:45:09.600 You have to take the positions that you believe in and less, let the dust settle, right?
00:45:14.380 Where, wherever it may.
00:45:15.820 And I feel like that's the, that's all of that led you to the place you are right now.
00:45:19.440 Right.
00:45:19.880 And so I want to comment on the hate you get.
00:45:22.240 So I love your Twitter feed.
00:45:24.020 Follow you on Twitter.
00:45:24.900 Thank you.
00:45:25.460 Thanks for wishing me happy birthday.
00:45:27.140 That's really nice.
00:45:28.620 I'm a big fan of yours.
00:45:30.060 And so, well, thank you.
00:45:30.840 I appreciate that.
00:45:31.740 And, and I look, and I look at the criticism and I, I, I just, sometimes I just, I marvel
00:45:36.420 up, I marvel at it.
00:45:37.780 And I think it's two things that are going on.
00:45:40.300 I think it's tall poppy syndrome from the Australians.
00:45:43.020 You know, like when, when somebody achieves something, everybody just wants to cut them down.
00:45:47.640 But I think this is really important because it ties the conversation back into the university
00:45:52.680 system again.
00:45:54.100 So one of the things that we, we see happening is that when people are under accomplished,
00:46:02.120 they, they can't take responsibility for that.
00:46:06.420 And yeah, there are systems that have screwed people over.
00:46:09.120 There's just no question about it.
00:46:10.400 But when people think that they should rise to some kind of social, I don't know, privilege
00:46:18.180 or more money or what have you status in society, when that doesn't happen, it's very easy to
00:46:23.840 blame the system.
00:46:25.460 Right.
00:46:25.740 And so when they see someone like you as success, instead of saying, wow, this person worked
00:46:33.420 really hard.
00:46:34.580 And that's the other thing.
00:46:35.360 I think often people don't understand what it takes to be successful.
00:46:38.860 Like the crazy amount of hours you've put in the crazy amount of work you've put in,
00:46:43.900 but it's very easy to rip people down.
00:46:45.840 It's very easy to blame the system.
00:46:47.940 It's very easy to do all of these things as opposed to taking accountability.
00:46:52.880 Now, that doesn't mean we shouldn't fix the system to, to, you know, give everyone a public
00:46:56.900 education of the first rate, et cetera.
00:46:58.620 Of course we need to do these things, but we also need to be mindful of, of our own efforts
00:47:07.240 in making a contribution to things.
00:47:09.300 And it's very easy to sit and tweet about what a horrible person is, as opposed to actually
00:47:14.940 doing some work, right?
00:47:16.440 As opposed to actually-
00:47:17.520 And trying to make yourself a tall poppy.
00:47:19.220 You're a tall poppy too.
00:47:20.720 So, so last question, I have a minute left.
00:47:23.160 What's next for you?
00:47:24.180 Because I really hope it involves jumping into this space, right?
00:47:27.180 Brett's done so well after being booted out of Evergreen.
00:47:30.180 You were born to, to be in the podcasting or digital space.
00:47:34.240 I think I'm, I'm a pugilist by nature.
00:47:37.920 I'm kind of a fighter by nature.
00:47:39.420 Yes.
00:47:39.900 And so I've started a national progress Alliance and it's nationalprogressalliance.org.
00:47:46.020 And we're pushing back on this ideology.
00:47:47.940 We have a team that's we've, we've put together and we're really going to fight back against
00:47:53.720 illiberalism and censoriousness and make a meaningful contribution to what's going on.
00:47:58.540 So that's my next thing.
00:47:59.520 That's what I'm diving into right now.
00:48:01.900 Let us know how we can help.
00:48:03.840 Tall poppy, Peter Boghossian.
00:48:05.360 What a pleasure.
00:48:06.200 Thank you so much.
00:48:07.020 Thanks, Megan.
00:48:07.920 Wow.
00:48:08.820 What are your thoughts after hearing from Peter?
00:48:10.980 Feeling encouraged?
00:48:11.860 A little scared?
00:48:12.940 Call me at 833-44-MEGYN.
00:48:16.020 That's 833-446-3496.
00:48:20.120 Love to hear from you.
00:48:25.160 Welcome back everyone to the Megan Kelly Show.
00:48:27.080 Joining me now, Adam Carolla, host of the Adam Carolla Show, and my pal Janice Dean, who
00:48:32.360 is the Fox News senior meteorologist and also the woman I call bully slayer.
00:48:37.460 Bye, Governor Cuomo.
00:48:39.040 Bye.
00:48:40.360 Sorry.
00:48:41.680 Not sorry.
00:48:42.960 Okay.
00:48:43.300 So fun to have you both here.
00:48:44.900 This is going to be a good time.
00:48:46.220 Let me start with this.
00:48:47.580 Since we are just coming off of the 9-11 20-year anniversary, it's hard to believe and talk about
00:48:54.640 some of the insane reaction that we're seeing now to that.
00:48:58.780 I'm going to start with this weirdness from Jezebel that it's just a hideous website.
00:49:03.060 I'm sorry to even mention them, but they're not the only place we've heard this kind of
00:49:06.360 reaction.
00:49:07.360 They're upset with Disney saying Disney committed the sin after 9-11 of selling patriotism to
00:49:15.620 children with the following ad, which had a bunch of celebrities talking about how they
00:49:21.420 felt proud when they saw the flag.
00:49:23.940 Listen to the ad.
00:49:25.200 The flag means everything to me.
00:49:27.700 It means life.
00:49:28.680 It means freedom.
00:49:29.560 It also means unity.
00:49:30.820 And it means love.
00:49:32.620 You see American flags everywhere and it just, it reminds you, but it also makes you really
00:49:37.700 proud.
00:49:38.100 I spent my whole life pledging allegiance and I don't think I can ever look at a flag the
00:49:43.260 same way.
00:49:43.680 The flag stands for us as a group of people being united and being with each other in a time
00:49:50.460 of need.
00:49:50.900 I saw a fire truck pass by the other day and it had an American flag on it and it was blowing
00:49:54.940 in the wind.
00:49:55.360 It was so amazing.
00:49:56.260 Everyone just started clapping and cheering and it was really special.
00:49:59.520 I had to drive cross country.
00:50:01.220 We saw the flags, saw the proud to be American flashing signs on the highway.
00:50:05.800 All the flags, you know, you ride down the street and it makes you feel connected like
00:50:11.560 we're in this together.
00:50:13.280 And the reaction from Jezebel is that these clips eerily mirror a nation drunk on jingoism
00:50:21.820 and going off.
00:50:23.560 And we're going to go on with other examples of people who are upset about any expression
00:50:27.160 of patriotism or loving the flag.
00:50:29.680 We'll do ladies first, J.D.
00:50:30.920 Well, my husband is a 9-11 survivor.
00:50:33.940 And if you're watching this on video, I've got his helmet.
00:50:36.540 He worked for 4035 that day, right across from Lincoln Center.
00:50:40.800 They lost all of the men that were on duty that day.
00:50:43.880 My husband actually had the day off.
00:50:45.700 He went to go get his driver's license.
00:50:47.220 So his driver's license is September 11th, 2001.
00:50:50.380 He got back to his apartment, which was right across the street from his firehouse and saw
00:50:55.540 the first plane hitting the North Tower and ran across the street, got in his gear, put
00:51:01.940 his helmet on and got a ride with a Red Cross truck.
00:51:06.180 And as he went down there, he got out.
00:51:09.660 And as he was walking down towards the buildings to try to help others, it fell.
00:51:14.080 And he was down there for both towers.
00:51:16.580 They both fell, and he spent days and weeks trying to find the remains of his brothers
00:51:22.540 that died that day.
00:51:24.340 So, you know, I'm a proud wife of an FDNY, and we took our children on the 20th anniversary
00:51:31.780 to 4035 to listen to the stories that were told that day and to see my husband each time
00:51:39.000 the bell rang four times in front of his firehouse to salute all of those that were lost that day.
00:51:45.820 So that's what I have to say.
00:51:48.720 And that's what we should be thinking about, those who we lost and the way the nation rallied
00:51:53.920 to fight back, the way we came together in unity for, you know, a brief moment and remember
00:51:58.960 what it meant to be an American.
00:52:00.400 And instead, Adam, of doing that, we're hearing things like this from the Huffington Post, which
00:52:07.180 is upset about the 9-11 Museum, saying it promotes an excessive sense of patriotism and
00:52:13.520 nationalism, saying it makes only cursory mention of 9-11's complicated legacy and things like
00:52:19.640 the wars, the U.S. as a surveillance state, and not more, they're upset not more, is said
00:52:25.400 at the 9-11 Museum about Islamophobia and racism.
00:52:28.360 Well, you know, I didn't have any direct connection to 9-11, like Janice did, of course.
00:52:36.820 But it seems to me as I just sort of stand back and look at what's going on, it is a general
00:52:44.780 attack against America and sort of what America used to be.
00:52:49.860 And I'm not talking about 9-11.
00:52:51.900 I'm talking about HuffPo and all these other websites, you know, if you did it from a sort
00:52:58.680 of macro to a micro example, it would be as if I said, you know, I love my wife.
00:53:05.980 My wife is fantastic.
00:53:08.260 Of course, I want a great marriage, but there's all these things she's done wrong in the past,
00:53:13.340 and I have to bring it up every 10 seconds.
00:53:15.860 And then I would stop and go, but of course, she's a wonderful woman, and of course, I
00:53:21.700 want our family to be the strongest it can be.
00:53:24.680 But here's a bunch of other crap she did in the past that was wrong, and here's what she
00:53:29.100 continues to do.
00:53:30.260 And at a certain point, you'd have to say to yourself, well, wait a minute, do you really
00:53:34.660 love your wife?
00:53:36.000 I mean, do you really want what's best for your family?
00:53:38.720 And I'd go, of course, I love my wife.
00:53:40.640 Of course, I want what's best for my family.
00:53:42.820 Everyone wants what's best for their family.
00:53:45.780 It's just, here's a bunch of other stuff she did from the past.
00:53:49.860 And a theme starts to emerge.
00:53:52.700 Like they are, they're constantly saying, you know, this is a great country.
00:53:56.260 I love my country.
00:53:57.260 And then here's a bunch of crap.
00:53:59.000 And the flag just represents the country.
00:54:01.840 So look, the flag represents every country.
00:54:05.560 Every country has their own flag.
00:54:07.100 And you wave that flag that suggests you're proud of this country.
00:54:10.780 Why do they get so upset every time someone waves a flag?
00:54:16.080 What, where's that coming from?
00:54:18.280 If in fact, they do love this country as they claim to do.
00:54:22.640 Oh, yeah.
00:54:22.900 Now it's considered racist.
00:54:24.540 Now you're considered absolutely a Republican if you display an American flag.
00:54:28.400 And possibly also, you might be racist to display an American flag.
00:54:32.960 JD, there was a story out of Washington State High School out there, East Lake High School,
00:54:37.520 where the kids on Friday, the day before the 20-year mark, wanted to wear red, white, and blue
00:54:42.520 in honor of the fallen and to honor our country and the flag.
00:54:46.440 And it got canceled because some unknown, unnamed staffer said,
00:54:53.160 people are going to find this offensive and racist if the kids wear red, white, and blue to school.
00:54:58.120 And the school caved and said, oh, never mind.
00:55:00.980 You're right.
00:55:01.660 Oh, I don't even know what to say to that.
00:55:03.760 You know, I'm so grateful that both of my kids' schools had a whole lesson about 9-11.
00:55:11.720 And they were taught about what happened on that day.
00:55:15.640 And both of them came home and told us what they learned.
00:55:19.860 And I was just so proud that those schools did that.
00:55:23.900 And when we took Matthew and Theodore down to my husband's firehouse,
00:55:28.440 you know, my husband told them the story of what happened to him that day,
00:55:32.700 something that he doesn't do very often, as you know.
00:55:35.400 No, he never talks about it.
00:55:37.040 He's a very quiet man, a very private person.
00:55:40.220 But it's very important for him to tell our children what happened.
00:55:45.080 We cannot erase the history.
00:55:47.540 It's 20 years.
00:55:48.380 And last week, for Fox and Friends, I went out to different memorials all week,
00:55:53.160 you know, and talked to people who were part of the memorial or, you know,
00:55:57.460 talked to firefighters who had been down to ground zero that day.
00:56:03.680 And it was very difficult for them to come and talk about that history.
00:56:08.900 But they said it was important because we can't forget about it.
00:56:14.160 I love that your school taught your boys about it.
00:56:17.360 You know, we pulled our kids, as you know, from their old, crazy, woke schools.
00:56:22.200 And my our oldest dates was saying that they were talking about I'd mentioned Todd Beamer.
00:56:27.400 And I'll just I'll never forget his story from Flight 93 and the guys who were aboard and gals and the flight attendant,
00:56:32.640 all of whom worked together to help prevent that plane from going into the U.S. Capitol.
00:56:38.380 And they saved who knows how many lives.
00:56:40.720 And he his face lit up and he said, I know about him.
00:56:43.760 I know about him.
00:56:44.940 Let's roll.
00:56:45.900 And I was so thankful that the school was teaching lessons like that, you know, to reminding the kids about the American patriots who helped.
00:56:51.480 They were the first soldiers in the war.
00:56:52.900 But it doesn't go that way everywhere, Adam, and including at my old university, Syracuse University.
00:56:59.480 That's where I went.
00:57:00.400 My dad had been a professor there in the education department when I was a little girl.
00:57:04.320 And then I went there for college and majored in poli sci.
00:57:07.380 And this professor there, it's so infuriating to me.
00:57:13.260 Jen M. Jackson decides to tweet out again on 910, the same day that the little kids weren't allowed to wear red, white and blue in Washington.
00:57:21.900 And calling 9-11 a strike.
00:57:25.160 It was a strike against heteropatriarchal capitalistic systems.
00:57:29.360 OK, a series of tweets one day before the 20 year mark on which two thousand nine hundred and seventy seven Americans were murdered.
00:57:36.460 Quote, we have to be more honest about what 9-11 was and what it wasn't.
00:57:41.420 It was an attack on the heteropatriarchal capitalistic systems that America relies upon to wrangle other countries into passivity.
00:57:49.380 It was an attack on the systems many white Americans fight to protect.
00:57:56.880 Matt Taibbi, formerly, you know, on the Rolling Stone, and now he's got a great sub stack going, tweeted out, of course, because if Osama bin Laden was about anything, it was striking down heteropatriarchy.
00:58:07.780 But the insanity, the insanity and the disrespect to try to make 9-11 about the white race.
00:58:14.780 Well, I mean, obviously, those folks convert everything into racism.
00:58:21.000 They essentially have goggles they put on that are essentially everything viewed through those goggles is racism.
00:58:29.820 So COVID ends up taking a turn for the racist climate change, turn for the racist education.
00:58:37.920 Everything they see is racism and it's not that they're finding it in certain places is that they literally just put on their virtual reality goggles and all they see is racism.
00:58:51.880 So it doesn't really matter where they turn or what they see.
00:58:55.560 It gets converted to racism and I don't understand, A, why they don't have more self-awareness about this, just to literally call everything racism.
00:59:09.420 It's embarrassing to me.
00:59:11.160 They should be humiliated that they're adults and especially in a position of being professors and being in the college system or politicians.
00:59:21.620 The fact that they speak to young people and they control a lot of the thoughts and minds and hearts of young people.
00:59:28.760 But this and also how could we possibly ever function as a country if every single subject that came up took a racist turn to it?
00:59:40.200 And they're always talking about uniting this country.
00:59:44.140 Why are the people who are always talking about uniting the country?
00:59:47.820 How come they never shut up about racism?
00:59:50.320 How come they find it under every rock and at every turn?
00:59:54.160 It's literally impossible to unite and constantly bloviate about racism.
01:00:00.940 It's so infuriating when you think about all all the people who died on 9-11, all the people who died thereafter in the wars.
01:00:07.700 And J.D., as you know, the firefighters who contracted cancer after working at Ground Zero.
01:00:12.060 I know it's a threat you guys live with every day.
01:00:14.480 Thank God Sean's OK now, but I know we worry just to turn around into a race or a male thing.
01:00:19.860 It's like, you know, Sean is a white male and Todd Beamer was a white male.
01:00:23.420 And it's just like, stop it.
01:00:24.600 Just stop making everything about people's gender and people's skin color.
01:00:28.520 But speaking of your point, Adam, on how everything gets turned into like a racism thing, the most amazing clip ever of you taking on Gavin Newsom on your show.
01:00:38.400 This is 2013, I think, where he was trying.
01:00:43.200 Well, I think it actually explains itself.
01:00:45.200 You tweeted it out, but he was trying to espouse the plight of black and Latinos within either the city of San Francisco or the state at that point.
01:00:55.580 When it comes to financial difficulties, I'm trying to set it up without giving the whole thing away.
01:01:01.520 And you decided to push him on it.
01:01:03.280 Listen.
01:01:04.040 Half of African-Americans in the state of California, roughly half of Latino families, have no access to a checking account or an ATM.
01:01:10.380 Things we take for granted.
01:01:11.360 They don't have a check.
01:01:11.920 What's wrong with them?
01:01:12.880 Well, because they don't have the resources to sock those things away.
01:01:16.520 Why do we have them?
01:01:17.440 A lot of different reasons, but roughly half those families don't.
01:01:21.820 Why do Armenians have them?
01:01:23.380 But where they end up is in Czech cashing places.
01:01:25.640 But I want to know why those two groups don't have access.
01:01:28.880 It just happens to be that.
01:01:31.180 Do Asians have this problem?
01:01:32.820 I mean, a lot of communities have this problem.
01:01:34.800 A lot of whites have these problems.
01:01:36.240 So that's not just black and Hispanic.
01:01:38.040 No, but I'm giving you...
01:01:38.980 But why did you bring up black and Hispanic?
01:01:40.180 Because the magnitude is ominous.
01:01:42.140 But why so many of them?
01:01:43.360 It just happens to be the magnitude.
01:01:45.380 That's the way God planned it?
01:01:46.300 Not at all.
01:01:47.000 What about Asians?
01:01:48.020 They were put in internment camps.
01:01:50.020 Yeah, we, in fact, did all initiate out at San Francisco.
01:01:52.620 All right.
01:01:53.000 And the Chinese Exclusion Act came out.
01:01:54.320 So are they the Czech cats?
01:01:55.940 Are they the Czech cats?
01:01:56.900 A lot of Asians certainly do.
01:01:58.540 So why don't you conclude them?
01:02:00.500 Because the only reason why is the magnitude of the problem.
01:02:04.380 There's so many more.
01:02:05.860 The magnitude and percentage camps.
01:02:07.340 But there's no way to figure out how that happens.
01:02:08.700 Of Africa.
01:02:09.580 We could talk about...
01:02:10.700 You know what I'm dealing with?
01:02:11.980 I don't want to have a sociological debate.
01:02:13.780 Sure, why would you?
01:02:15.380 No, here's why.
01:02:16.080 Why would you want to do that?
01:02:17.000 Because the person from the Times wouldn't write good things about you if you did that.
01:02:19.820 Oh, God.
01:02:19.840 No, no, that's not the case.
01:02:21.080 Because I want to deal with reality.
01:02:21.540 You don't want to get into that.
01:02:22.460 No, no, no.
01:02:23.040 You want to deal with reality?
01:02:23.960 I want to deal with the reality of people that are struggling, people are suffering.
01:02:27.200 I want to deal with the problems in a pragmatic way.
01:02:28.660 Why are they struggling and suffering?
01:02:29.920 I don't want an idea.
01:02:30.420 We can hold hands and surmise about all these underlying reasons.
01:02:32.920 I don't want to do that.
01:02:33.520 I want to know why they're struggling.
01:02:35.060 Why are they struggling?
01:02:35.760 A lot of folks are struggling because they can't find jobs.
01:02:37.820 Why blacks and Hispanics?
01:02:38.420 Because they're working.
01:02:39.380 Why blacks and Hispanics?
01:02:40.740 Across the board.
01:02:41.600 Why?
01:02:41.840 All social...
01:02:42.320 Okay, so everybody.
01:02:43.580 Everybody's struggling.
01:02:44.340 So Asians are suffering just as much as blacks.
01:02:47.120 The face of welfare is not an African-American family.
01:02:50.700 It's Asian, Jewish, it's all of them.
01:02:53.340 Caucasian, it's a lot of folks in society.
01:02:55.480 A lot of folks are struggling.
01:02:57.800 That's amazing.
01:02:59.700 Right.
01:03:01.260 Yes.
01:03:01.940 That was so well done.
01:03:04.260 My favorite part is we could hold hands.
01:03:05.960 I don't want to do that.
01:03:06.940 I just want to know why.
01:03:08.040 It was like a dog with a bone.
01:03:10.240 It was brilliant.
01:03:11.460 Amazing.
01:03:11.820 And so your takeaway from that clip and that exchange that you had, Adam, was what?
01:03:16.200 Well, he came in and he just thought he was going to get the usual friendly softball treatment
01:03:22.100 he gets everywhere when he does an interview.
01:03:25.540 And then he does this thing where he panders.
01:03:29.020 So he spits something out.
01:03:31.340 And I wasn't planning on attacking him or sparring with him.
01:03:35.860 You know, I do a show.
01:03:37.220 All guests are welcome.
01:03:38.840 We'll have a congenial discussion.
01:03:41.840 It wasn't a setup in any way, shape, or form.
01:03:44.780 He then, in the middle of an interview, just brought up that half of Black and Hispanics
01:03:51.540 who live in California don't have access to checking accounts, which is a lie.
01:03:57.380 By the way, don't have access?
01:04:00.220 Maybe choose not to get checking accounts, but not don't have access to checking accounts.
01:04:06.000 But either way, it's a gross lie that he said half don't have access.
01:04:11.180 That's insane.
01:04:12.360 You know, California is probably half Hispanic.
01:04:15.140 You think half of the people who live in California, half that group doesn't have access
01:04:21.000 to a checking account?
01:04:22.500 You couldn't function.
01:04:23.580 But either way, he said it.
01:04:26.020 I knew it was a lie.
01:04:27.180 So I wanted to drill down on it with him.
01:04:29.500 And he thought he was just going to toss it out there.
01:04:32.820 I was going to nod my head because I had, you know, white guilt.
01:04:36.240 And we're going to get on to the next subject.
01:04:38.720 But I pressed him.
01:04:39.960 And when I pressed him, he obviously, as you heard, could not summon an answer.
01:04:45.560 I just said, why?
01:04:47.100 I wasn't interested in what was going on.
01:04:51.680 I was interested in how do we remedy this?
01:04:54.680 He, of course, had no rebuttals or answers as to how we could remedy this.
01:05:00.760 It was amazing.
01:05:01.900 I just kept asking why, why, why?
01:05:04.160 And he couldn't answer it.
01:05:06.260 And now we're on the EJD of his recall possibility.
01:05:11.000 The election is tomorrow in California to see whether he'll be recalled.
01:05:14.660 If he does get recalled, Larry Elder is the overwhelming favorite.
01:05:17.880 And Larry was in the news a couple of days ago.
01:05:21.160 He came on my program last Tuesday.
01:05:22.800 And later that day, somebody tried to egg him.
01:05:26.600 It was a white woman wearing a gorilla mask who tried to egg Larry.
01:05:32.900 And as it turns out, that's not the only abuse he suffered.
01:05:35.820 Earlier in the day, a member of his staff was shot with a BB gun.
01:05:41.040 Somebody else was harassed and threatened.
01:05:43.660 And what's crazy to me as a lawyer, I'll tell you,
01:05:45.860 they're not investigating that egging thing as a hate crime of any sort
01:05:49.180 because they said they're not sure of the motivation.
01:05:50.880 I'm like, the woman was wearing a gorilla mask.
01:05:53.840 We're not sure whether she had any racism going on there.
01:05:58.380 Larry, to his credit, as usual, was a class act and said,
01:06:01.380 I'm not going to say it was about racism.
01:06:02.640 Look, there she is hitting the guy who confronted her.
01:06:04.940 This woman is still at large.
01:06:06.360 And this is the state of our American media
01:06:07.960 because it was not a front page story everywhere.
01:06:09.900 Well, I think if he was a Democrat, that would be on every single newspaper
01:06:14.880 on the front page, including the New York Times.
01:06:17.600 I think even Larry said that if he was a Democrat,
01:06:22.060 people in Bangladesh would know about that story.
01:06:24.820 But because he's the Republican, no one knows,
01:06:28.140 except here on your program when you're bringing it up.
01:06:30.620 It's quite, I mean, hypocritical doesn't begin to describe
01:06:33.600 what happened on that day.
01:06:35.500 And I'm just glad, you know, Adam, I wish every American could hear that clip
01:06:40.300 of you and Newsom going at it so that they could really get the flavor
01:06:45.280 of this guy in a suit with his hair.
01:06:48.700 That's about all he has to offer.
01:06:50.880 That's right.
01:06:51.260 That's right.
01:06:51.620 He would never debate Larry Elder because look what happened
01:06:55.320 when Adam had a shot at him.
01:06:56.800 Totally fair shot.
01:06:58.060 Asking the tough questions like, why?
01:07:00.300 Why?
01:07:01.280 Why?
01:07:01.960 Right?
01:07:02.220 He couldn't even answer that.
01:07:03.880 He needs to have that answer, you know, memorized
01:07:08.960 because that's the type of question that he needs to be asked.
01:07:12.980 Why does he not have an answer for why?
01:07:16.300 Well, it's like, then don't bring it up if you can't back it up.
01:07:18.620 And here's the other thing.
01:07:19.780 Larry came out yesterday with Rose McGowan.
01:07:22.200 And, you know, I know Rose and she's been obviously very pivotal
01:07:26.120 in this cultural shift we've had against rapists like Harvey Weinstein,
01:07:31.060 right, who were sort of allowed to get away with it for a very long time.
01:07:34.980 And she is alleging that Gavin Newsom's wife basically tried on behalf of Harvey Weinstein's
01:07:42.760 lawyer to buy her off.
01:07:45.200 Here's Rose McGowan with Larry Elder yesterday.
01:07:48.400 So when I finally got on the phone with Jennifer Siebel Newsom for what I assumed was about
01:07:53.860 movie projects, imagine my surprise when she says, what can Boyce Schiller do to make you
01:07:58.700 happy?
01:07:59.360 And I, again, I had no idea who that was.
01:08:02.080 So I just said nothing and hung up on her.
01:08:05.520 That was my last contact with her.
01:08:06.780 So this is while Rose was trying to get The New York Times to report on the Harvey Weinstein
01:08:11.100 as a rapist story.
01:08:13.220 And you tell me, I'll ask you this, Janice, whether you think this is going to get any
01:08:17.460 sort of coverage in the mainstream media that's done its level best to absolutely kill Larry.
01:08:22.120 Of course not.
01:08:23.320 Of course it's not going to get any leverage whatsoever.
01:08:25.920 And, you know, the Democrats are supposed to be the ones that are so pro me, too.
01:08:30.720 But, you know, just within the last couple of weeks here in New York, we've realized that
01:08:34.640 some of these groups like Time's Up are completely bogus.
01:08:39.360 They're just there to help their own.
01:08:41.620 Right.
01:08:41.960 And if it happens to be someone who is a Republican, then, yes, they're all in.
01:08:46.680 But if it's someone who happens to be a Democrat or someone that runs Hollywood like Harvey
01:08:51.180 Weinstein and there's skin in the game, well, they're going to be very quiet and probably,
01:08:55.680 you know, go even further than that and try to, you know, disgrace the people who are trying
01:09:00.160 to rise above it.
01:09:01.680 Mm hmm.
01:09:02.560 Even if you are a Democrat woman complaining, you won't be listened to by a group by Time's
01:09:07.080 Let Up if who you're alleging hurt you is a more important Democrat to them.
01:09:12.340 That's what we saw with Cuomo.
01:09:13.740 That's what we saw with Biden.
01:09:18.020 What am I saying?
01:09:18.600 With Biden and Tara Reade.
01:09:19.880 And we could go on.
01:09:20.660 All right.
01:09:20.820 Listen, stand by, because up next, we're going to talk about Dr.
01:09:23.520 Fauci, who might have given his most honest answer yet in an interview when it comes to
01:09:27.780 why those who have had COVID allegedly need to be vaccinated.
01:09:33.060 We're going to play you the tape and we would love to hear from you.
01:09:35.400 Did you observe a patriotic moment on 9-11 that you want to tell us about?
01:09:39.320 Call me at 833-44-MEGYN.
01:09:42.500 That's 833-446-3496.
01:09:45.740 Taking your calls in a minute.
01:09:46.640 Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show.
01:09:53.240 In about 10, 15 minutes, we're going to be taking your calls at 833-44-MEGYN.
01:09:59.180 That's 833-446-3496.
01:10:03.440 Would love to get your thoughts on this next segment.
01:10:05.540 Joining me now, again, are Adam Carolla and Janice Dean.
01:10:08.860 Now, before we get to Dr. Fauci, in an unbelievable soundbite, unbelievable.
01:10:12.440 I got to ask you, J.D., because since you slayed the governor of New York, who is no longer in
01:10:17.980 office, Governor Cuomo, his replacement, Kathy Hochul, has taken over.
01:10:22.120 We were told she's a moderate Democrat.
01:10:24.600 And I don't think you think she's doing the greatest job based on your Twitter feed.
01:10:29.540 So what's going on with her?
01:10:31.600 I'm a little disappointed.
01:10:32.640 Now, it's only been three weeks, right?
01:10:34.420 And I feel like I have to give her a little bit more runway here.
01:10:38.320 But from the last few weeks that she has been in power, she has an impressive Twitter feed.
01:10:44.160 You know, she's at every fair in New York State.
01:10:46.900 And we had, of course, the remnants of Ida last week.
01:10:51.440 And we had a ton of flooding here, you know, catastrophic flooding in the New York area.
01:10:56.500 So she was doing, you know, a lot of outdoor press conferences and events about how they're
01:11:01.760 going to change that and a lot of talk about climate change.
01:11:04.700 But the fact that, you know, Governor Cuomo, after Sandy, never put a shovel in the ground
01:11:09.800 to actually help after, you know, help the infrastructure after that destructive storm,
01:11:14.760 you know, that, of course, was never brought up.
01:11:17.360 You know, I'm disappointed.
01:11:18.920 And the first thing that she should have done as governor, which I believe would have been,
01:11:23.280 you know, really important, was to meet with families whose loved ones died in nursing
01:11:28.280 homes.
01:11:28.680 Over 15,000 elderly died in New York nursing homes.
01:11:32.840 Governor Cuomo had a mandate for 46 days to put COVID positive patients into nursing
01:11:38.160 homes.
01:11:38.900 My husband lost both of his parents in separate elder care facilities.
01:11:42.920 And it would have been, you know, wonderful if she had met with some of us just to say,
01:11:48.360 you know what, we're going on with the investigation.
01:11:50.560 We're going to make sure we're transparent with the numbers, unlike the guy before me.
01:11:54.880 But she has yet to do that.
01:11:56.660 She needs to fire Howard Zucker, the health commissioner.
01:11:59.920 He was, you know, the also the architect and the author of that March 25th order to put
01:12:05.300 infected patients into nursing homes.
01:12:07.200 And then the fact that the governor covered up the numbers for months, at least by 50 percent
01:12:11.600 for his five point one million dollar book.
01:12:14.560 So, you know, I'm I don't see anything from this governor that's leading me down the road
01:12:20.500 to think that she's any different from the guy before her.
01:12:23.180 Yeah, like we like we used to say in another context, welcome to the old welcome to the
01:12:27.620 new boss.
01:12:28.220 Same as the old boss, the old boss.
01:12:29.980 Exactly.
01:12:30.960 All right, Adam.
01:12:31.720 So we got to talk about Dr. Fauci because, I mean, he he said the thing you're not supposed
01:12:35.380 to say all along.
01:12:36.820 So many people have been asking, especially in the wake of Biden's, you know, 100 million
01:12:39.740 vaccine mandate.
01:12:40.980 What about people with natural immunity?
01:12:42.700 What the hell is the was the point?
01:12:44.560 Like if there's any silver lining to getting COVID is that you have natural immunity.
01:12:49.280 And now that's being not recognized by the government, saying you still have to get the
01:12:53.440 vaccine.
01:12:54.000 And if you don't, you get fired.
01:12:55.020 So you get COVID, you don't get the vaccine and then you get fired thanks to Biden's OSHA
01:12:58.900 order.
01:12:59.840 Well, Fauci was asked about this.
01:13:02.120 Like, what about the people with natural immunity on CNN this weekend?
01:13:05.000 Listen to what he said.
01:13:06.860 And just real quickly, there was a study that came out of Israel about natural immunity.
01:13:11.840 And basically, the headline was that natural immunity provides a lot of protection, even
01:13:16.380 better than the vaccines alone.
01:13:18.260 Um, what do what are people to make of that?
01:13:21.920 So so as we talk about vaccine mandates there, I get calls all the time.
01:13:25.880 People say, I've already had COVID.
01:13:28.100 I'm protected.
01:13:29.020 And now the study says maybe even more protected than the vaccine alone.
01:13:32.840 Should they also get the vaccine?
01:13:34.680 How do you make the case to them?
01:13:36.200 You know, that's a really good point, Sanjay.
01:13:37.820 I don't have a really firm answer for you on that.
01:13:40.720 He doesn't have a firm answer.
01:13:42.640 He doesn't know.
01:13:43.880 Adam, he doesn't know why we are insisting that that people who have had COVID get vaccinated.
01:13:50.260 He goes on to say, like, you know, we don't know how long it lasts.
01:13:53.420 We don't know how long the vaccination immunity from the shot lasts either.
01:13:57.960 Well, first off, it's a weird time that we're living in where somebody in the press actually
01:14:05.800 does their job and asks a coherent question.
01:14:09.800 It took, you know, 18 months for somebody in the press to ask a question.
01:14:15.360 Now, the problem is, is Rand Paul's been asking questions for a long time, except for they go,
01:14:20.880 oh, well, he's just being combative because he's a Trumpian or something.
01:14:26.080 And so we can ignore his questions because his questions aren't valid because he's being
01:14:30.840 combative.
01:14:31.880 But when you go over to our friends at CNN, they don't ask questions.
01:14:37.220 Well, finally, they ask the question.
01:14:39.160 Now, here's I like to play a little game called stupid or liar.
01:14:43.400 Is Fauci saying, well, we don't really know about natural immunity?
01:14:48.180 Really?
01:14:49.140 You haven't considered this.
01:14:51.280 This isn't something that came up.
01:14:53.280 It should have come up day one.
01:14:55.140 You guys should have reams of information.
01:14:58.700 This will, by the way, it's always a lie when they go, well, yeah, but we have to sit back
01:15:03.840 and take a look at the data.
01:15:05.140 The data's in.
01:15:07.120 It's much more effective than the vaccine.
01:15:09.780 You, Fauci, of all people should have known this before anybody else in America knew it.
01:15:16.320 And you're doing this.
01:15:17.520 Hey, not a bad idea.
01:15:19.060 We should look into this.
01:15:20.360 We'll wait for some of the data to come in.
01:15:22.580 He's either stupid, in which case he needs to be removed from his job or he's lying.
01:15:28.760 I'm assuming he's lying.
01:15:30.600 He did the same thing about Black Lives Matter marches and demonstrations.
01:15:35.620 Remember a year and some months ago when he was asked, well, can't go to a church, can't
01:15:41.800 go to a stadium, can't go to a concert.
01:15:44.540 But what about Black Lives Matter rallies?
01:15:47.040 What about these?
01:15:47.960 Is that okay?
01:15:48.700 Well, yeah, I don't know.
01:15:50.380 I don't have an opinion.
01:15:51.920 So you have a very strong opinion about people going to the ballpark to watch a game or kids
01:15:56.960 playing basketball at the park.
01:15:59.300 But you have no thoughts about other gatherings and rallies of that nature.
01:16:05.320 Obviously, he's lying at this point.
01:16:08.840 They want you to take the vaccine.
01:16:11.580 And by the way, I'm not against the vaccine.
01:16:13.700 But when it comes to Fauci, we want the data, we want the truth, and then we'll make our
01:16:20.140 decisions.
01:16:21.180 They're doing the same thing they did with AIDS all those years ago when they said it's
01:16:25.380 an equal opportunity killer.
01:16:27.320 Heterosexual couple, gay couple, it's an equal opportunity killer.
01:16:31.960 They know the data.
01:16:33.700 They know they're lying.
01:16:35.360 They're doing it because they look at themselves as the parents.
01:16:38.740 They look at us as the children.
01:16:40.700 And they want us to eat our vegetables.
01:16:42.380 So they're going to tell us about the boogeyman.
01:16:45.360 That's the way they do it.
01:16:46.660 Third hand smoke is a killer.
01:16:49.000 50,000 Americans die of second hand cigarette smoke every year.
01:16:53.480 They know they're lying.
01:16:54.760 But they believe that the good is we want everyone to not smoke and to put a condom on
01:17:01.220 and to get the vaccine.
01:17:02.840 So we need to lie in order to move a noble agenda.
01:17:07.540 Yep.
01:17:07.800 Yeah, that's the same thing he did at the beginning of the pandemic when he says when he was saying
01:17:11.260 you don't need to wear a mask, masks don't do anything.
01:17:13.540 And then he later admitted that he in his head he was lying because he didn't want to
01:17:18.800 see a run on N95 or surgical masks, which were in short supply at the time.
01:17:23.580 So he's already proven that if he thinks it's a noble lie, he'll tell it.
01:17:26.680 And by the way, the other way you can tell he's lying is the oh, that's it.
01:17:30.100 That's a very good question.
01:17:31.160 He's stalling, right?
01:17:32.080 He's stalling.
01:17:32.760 And you raise a great point.
01:17:33.980 He 100 percent knows the answer that that there is no good reason.
01:17:37.220 And it's one thing when people were just pressuring folks who were unvaccinated but had COVID.
01:17:42.780 There's another one when you're now saying by power of the federal government, your ass
01:17:46.400 is fired.
01:17:47.120 You're fired.
01:17:48.060 I'm going to make sure you're fired unless you get this vaccine, which you may not need
01:17:52.580 at all.
01:17:53.500 And therefore, I will end it on this legal point and this piece of our discussion.
01:17:56.980 If you are a person who has had COVID, who wants to object to Biden's sweeping announcement,
01:18:03.360 his executive order, make them fire you.
01:18:06.100 Make them fire.
01:18:06.600 Don't quit.
01:18:07.780 Don't hold on to your rights.
01:18:09.640 If you quit, you're probably giving up your right to sue.
01:18:12.480 But if they fire you, you have a legal leg to stand on.
01:18:15.260 So fight, fight, because this is baloney.
01:18:17.640 They don't know what they're doing.
01:18:18.680 All right, let me shift gears and talk about.
01:18:20.640 Did you guys watch the VMAs last night at all?
01:18:23.600 I confess I did not watch.
01:18:25.020 I didn't.
01:18:25.440 But I saw the coverage today.
01:18:26.680 I know Adam, you always talk about this on your show that when they do this stuff out
01:18:29.140 in Hollywood where you are, Holly weird.
01:18:31.820 But I have to tell you, J.D., I got to talk to you about Madonna's ass.
01:18:35.000 But I that there is 100 percent that that is fake.
01:18:41.220 There is absolutely no way that's a real bottom.
01:18:43.680 And I got to tell you, I know that the right thing to say is like, you go, girl, 63.
01:18:49.040 And that's what 63 looks like.
01:18:51.160 And you're still holding it together.
01:18:53.000 That's not how I feel.
01:18:54.100 I feel like woman, cover up.
01:18:56.700 It's too much.
01:18:57.860 Like she doesn't have to quote age gracefully.
01:19:00.400 She doesn't have to go out there looking like, you know, driving Miss Daisy.
01:19:03.940 But could she just show a little a little bit more dignity for a 63 year old woman?
01:19:08.900 You can still be sexy without being vulgar.
01:19:11.080 And I just think her old brand was vulgarity and it worked, but it's working less for me
01:19:16.200 as she gets into her mid 60s and is officially a member of AARP.
01:19:20.860 I have not seen her ass.
01:19:23.760 I miss my God.
01:19:25.040 What?
01:19:26.100 How you've got to Google it right now.
01:19:28.340 It's like a Kardashian.
01:19:30.140 Yes, it's huge.
01:19:31.900 It's perfectly round.
01:19:33.260 It's hard.
01:19:34.160 You can almost see the implant.
01:19:35.760 Adam, am I wrong?
01:19:36.660 You as I'm sure you've looked at the aspect.
01:19:38.440 Well, now, as much as I love asses, you have to understand that yesterday was the opening
01:19:47.920 season of the NFL, which is the greatest day of the year for me.
01:19:53.400 And all I did was watch NFL highlights and I missed the highlight of Madonna's ass.
01:20:00.000 Where are your priorities?
01:20:01.760 I, yeah, unfortunately, I'll have to, I'll have to take a deep dive into her ass.
01:20:08.440 After we wrap this up.
01:20:09.780 You know what?
01:20:10.420 I don't need you to.
01:20:11.460 I don't need you to.
01:20:12.220 In like five minutes, I'm taking audience calls.
01:20:14.540 For those of you who saw Madonna's ass last night and anybody who watched the program could
01:20:18.280 not have missed it.
01:20:19.200 Please call me at 833-44-MEGYN.
01:20:22.060 833-446-3496.
01:20:23.820 You tell me, 446-3496, whether that ass is real.
01:20:27.080 It was not real.
01:20:28.200 My position is not real.
01:20:29.460 And I did not need to see it.
01:20:30.580 And by the way, Megan Fox was 100% naked, which I also frankly didn't want to see.
01:20:35.160 Yeah, she's beautiful, but it's like, it's too much.
01:20:37.560 It's gone too far.
01:20:38.940 All right.
01:20:40.120 Right.
01:20:40.580 I just, you'll see the highlights later.
01:20:42.600 Let's talk about Monica Lewinsky while we're talking about inappropriate behavior.
01:20:46.400 The press on Monica Lewinsky has done a full 180.
01:20:50.420 Yep.
01:20:50.640 And they're now, she's getting the Ryan Murphy treatment out of Hollywood.
01:20:54.460 He's the guy who did the People vs. O.J. Simpson, which was amazing, that series.
01:20:58.740 And then he did another one.
01:20:59.880 And now he's taking on the Monica Lewinsky thing with Bill Clinton through the eyes of
01:21:03.440 the women.
01:21:04.400 And so we're going to see Linda Tripp and Monica and I guess Janet Reno.
01:21:08.900 I don't know who else is going to be involved.
01:21:09.980 Um, but you tell me whether, because, you know, Monica Lewinsky, basically you listen
01:21:15.500 to her today, JD, and it's all about, you know, she was sort of the first Me Too victim
01:21:19.580 and the press killed her, Fox News killed her, Drudge killed her.
01:21:23.580 And I got to be honest, that's about all I've heard Monica Lewinsky talk about for the past
01:21:26.760 20 plus years.
01:21:27.680 I think that's, she sort of stuck in that place.
01:21:29.760 I don't know whether this is a good thing for her or not, but what do you make of the
01:21:33.000 way that story is being covered in the wake of the, or covered now in the wake of Me Too?
01:21:36.820 Have you seen the first episode of, of, uh, impeachment?
01:21:41.520 No.
01:21:42.560 So I did watch it.
01:21:44.080 I mean, listen, I remember when that was all happening.
01:21:47.460 I mean, the Drudge Report obviously was, was where you got the information, uh, with the
01:21:52.680 scandal.
01:21:53.720 Listen, it made Drudge.
01:21:55.320 It made Drudge.
01:21:56.580 It did.
01:21:57.320 And going through that, you know, during that time, we were all transfixed on this story about
01:22:05.300 an intern and the most powerful leader in the free world, Bill Clinton.
01:22:10.220 And I recently watched an interview that she did as a young woman, still in her mid twenties.
01:22:15.540 Uh, and, and she, you know, was so well-spoken for that, you know, time of her life.
01:22:21.100 I remember being in my mid twenties.
01:22:22.600 I didn't know what was going on, you know, to be in that kind of position of being an intern
01:22:27.880 at the White House.
01:22:28.980 That's quite incredible.
01:22:30.360 He's a predator.
01:22:31.060 There, there's no question.
01:22:33.460 Uh, and there were many women besides Monica Lewinsky.
01:22:37.020 So I have a soft spot for her and I only wish her the best because she was put in this
01:22:41.820 situation, which was quite impossible.
01:22:44.040 And she, you know, said that she was in love with him.
01:22:46.980 Well, you know, being that impressionable woman in the White House with this powerful
01:22:51.580 man, uh, you know, it's, it's hard not to be affected by that.
01:22:55.880 And so I watched the first episode and all I got from that was he is disgusting.
01:23:02.860 And the fact that I saw him at ground zero with Obama and president Biden, he's still
01:23:10.820 getting a pass today.
01:23:12.440 And he is the original predator, uh, and, and the most powerful predator that we've really
01:23:18.520 ever had in this country.
01:23:20.020 Now you give yourself too hard a time when you talk about the 25 year old you, because
01:23:23.200 you and I both know you were out there, you were, was that before or after you were a
01:23:26.060 dog catcher?
01:23:28.260 The bylaw officer?
01:23:30.960 Yeah.
01:23:31.840 I love it.
01:23:32.260 Giving out tickets.
01:23:33.060 It's a very fun history.
01:23:34.780 Go back, go back and listen to my very first long form interview with JD.
01:23:37.420 It was amazing.
01:23:38.540 Adam, what do you make of it?
01:23:39.700 Monica Lewinsky through the new, the post me too lens.
01:23:42.980 Well, I mean, obviously it's always tough because Clinton is such an icon of the democratic
01:23:49.700 party.
01:23:50.320 And yet, you know, what he did arguably is a thousand times worse than Cuomo.
01:23:56.500 Yeah.
01:23:57.020 I mean, if you really just break down the actions, you know, it's important that we sort of separate
01:24:04.560 the Al Frankens from the Harvey Weinsteins or even the Clintons from the Cuomos or Bill Cosby
01:24:13.320 from the Cuomos, you know, the big problem with the times up in the Me Too movement is
01:24:19.480 to take everyone and throw them in the same hamper.
01:24:23.600 You know, we'll put them all in the same together.
01:24:25.720 I don't care if you're Al Franken and you're playing a joke on a USO tour or you're Bill
01:24:33.140 Clinton who did what Bill Clinton did.
01:24:35.300 You're all in the same hamper.
01:24:37.320 This is part of the problem with the zero tolerance committee.
01:24:41.040 You know, they just have zero tolerance for everything.
01:24:43.420 So if you comment on a woman's appearance or you pat her on the behind, you're in the
01:24:49.100 same boat that Clinton was, what he did in the Oval Office.
01:24:53.820 It's a, it's a big mistake.
01:24:55.660 I, you know, you could never prosecute a case this way.
01:25:00.020 This isn't the way our system is set up.
01:25:03.280 So, you know, fundamentally we have a problem in not being able to parse out and sort of
01:25:09.300 nuance what are sort of jaywalking tickets versus murder one.
01:25:15.560 And what Bill Clinton did was murder one.
01:25:18.920 It also shows he has an addiction.
01:25:23.000 I mean, it shows he has a problem because there are plenty of guys and there are plenty
01:25:28.200 of historically plenty of cases where older guys like younger women.
01:25:33.280 I think we can all sign off on that premise and where guys in power abuse their power.
01:25:38.860 But here he is, the president of the United States, and he couldn't keep it under control
01:25:45.840 for a very short period of time.
01:25:49.000 You know, he literally couldn't, you know, it'd be like saying, you know, are you an alcoholic?
01:25:54.520 Well, I like to drink.
01:25:56.120 Yeah.
01:25:56.320 But are you an alcoholic?
01:25:58.000 Well, having a few beers when you're watching football doesn't make you an alcoholic.
01:26:03.100 But if you have to fly a commercial jet airliner and you drink that day, then you are an alcoholic.
01:26:10.320 And what we were saying to him is you got to fly for the next four years or eight years.
01:26:16.760 Can you stay off the stuff while you're in this incredibly important position?
01:26:22.180 And the answer was no.
01:26:24.040 So by definition, he has an addiction.
01:26:28.480 Well, and it's like because we're not just talking about Monica Lewinsky when we talk about
01:26:31.280 Bill Clinton as the original Me Too, or I mean, sadly, not the original.
01:26:35.200 You could go way back.
01:26:36.140 There's a lot of them.
01:26:36.760 But, you know, there's Juanita Broderick.
01:26:39.420 There's Kathleen Willey.
01:26:40.620 You could go down the list, J.D., because, you know, Paula Jones, allegations of rape,
01:26:45.260 sexual assault and so on.
01:26:46.780 I mean, very severe and criminal that and he paid a lot of women off to make them go away
01:26:51.960 with the help of his wife, Hillary Clinton, and a whole band of brothers.
01:26:56.280 I mean, the truth is George Stephanopoulos was one of them.
01:27:00.460 And George Stephanopoulos is hosting morning TV right now, despite the fact that he put together
01:27:05.880 the Clinton war room that was dedicated to tearing down every single one of those women.
01:27:12.100 And I really wonder whether these Me Too advocates are one day going to turn to George Stephanopoulos
01:27:17.220 and say, where's your apology?
01:27:20.440 Where's your accountability?
01:27:21.860 Right.
01:27:22.000 It's not just about him, but he's somebody who's completely escaped the questioning that
01:27:28.240 came in the wake of that movement.
01:27:29.820 But I do want to ask you, Janice, because, you know, I say I don't know that this is a
01:27:33.140 great thing for Monica Lewinsky that all these years after, it's still what she focuses on
01:27:37.500 when she pops up.
01:27:38.240 She talks about bullying in the context of what happened to her.
01:27:40.560 Can I jump in?
01:27:41.640 Sorry, Janice.
01:27:42.280 You know, the whole Me Too thing, and you talk about Stephanopoulos and Clinton and Hillary
01:27:48.640 Clinton and all their discussions about everyone, every woman needs to be believed and marching
01:27:55.080 with Time's Up and Me Too and all that.
01:27:57.640 It's no different than the Larry Elder case where the woman dons the gorilla mask and throws
01:28:03.360 the egg at the black man who, by the way, will be the first black governor of California
01:28:09.140 in over 150 years.
01:28:10.960 Do you guys not like racism because that's all you talk about?
01:28:15.440 And are you for women and women's rights and believing all women?
01:28:20.860 Because it seems like that's all you talk about except for when it happens to your own and then
01:28:26.780 you zip it.
01:28:27.800 Or in the case of Larry Elder, when it happens to a Republican, in which case you zip it.
01:28:33.180 So CNN, are you against racism?
01:28:35.900 Are you for women's rights?
01:28:37.400 And the fact that you have to weigh it out and figure out whose side of the aisle each case is on
01:28:43.060 before you weigh in suggests to me you don't really care.
01:28:46.380 A hundred percent right.
01:28:47.740 I mean, Janice, we've seen this so many times.
01:28:50.040 I've told the story before, but, you know, even when Trump and I got into our weird thing,
01:28:54.820 I asked him that tough question about women and he started calling me a bimbo and retweeting all
01:28:58.360 these like crazy attacks on me that were based on gender.
01:29:00.660 And National Organization of Women, Bob Kiss, they said not that I needed their help, but
01:29:05.320 I'm just saying they why?
01:29:06.680 Because I was a Fox News anchor, right?
01:29:08.220 These the situational ethics of those who have a partisan agenda.
01:29:12.760 And again, Monica Lewinsky, she was too low on the totem pole.
01:29:14.980 She was a Democrat working in a Democrat White House, but she was accusing their main man,
01:29:18.700 King Bill.
01:29:19.320 And therefore she had to be ruined.
01:29:20.640 Well, you know, I hope that this, whatever they call it, a docudrama, I hope that it reaches
01:29:27.440 a new generation of people who don't maybe know the story.
01:29:31.200 And again, to see Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton just walking around and going down to
01:29:36.980 ground zero and still being hailed as, you know, one of the greatest leaders of our time
01:29:42.040 when he has got so much baggage behind him.
01:29:45.460 And then we haven't even talked about the Epstein stuff.
01:29:48.020 I mean, you know, it just drives me crazy that we're still talking about this and he
01:29:55.180 really hasn't suffered any repercussions at all.
01:29:58.820 Yeah.
01:29:59.040 And meanwhile, her name became a verb and she's still talking about it because it's still a
01:30:05.180 verb.
01:30:05.520 And that's what people still think when it comes to Monica Lewinsky.
01:30:08.320 So we'll see.
01:30:08.860 The Ryan Murphy treatment is usually a fascinating treatment and a usually pretty fair one.
01:30:12.900 So we'll we'll find out in this case.
01:30:14.480 You guys, so wonderful talking to you.
01:30:15.920 Thank you so much for being here, Adam and JD.
01:30:18.340 So nice to see you.
01:30:20.100 All right.
01:30:20.360 What did you folks think about Madonna's?
01:30:22.480 It says entrance.
01:30:23.740 I mean, it's really more like the exit when she turned around.
01:30:25.820 She walked out.
01:30:26.980 And do you feel differently today about Monica Lewinsky than you did back during the scandal?
01:30:31.560 Call me.
01:30:32.540 Eight, three, three, four, four.
01:30:33.660 M.E.G.Y.N.
01:30:34.600 Eight, three, three, four, four, six, three, four, nine, six.
01:30:37.500 We're taking calls right now.
01:30:41.120 Welcome back to the Megyn Kelly show.
01:30:42.560 Our phone lines are open.
01:30:43.340 Call eight, three, three, four, four, M.E.G.Y.N.
01:30:45.600 That's eight, three, three, four, four, six, three, four, nine, six.
01:30:47.720 I can see the board lighten up.
01:30:48.940 We're going to take our first caller.
01:30:50.520 I got to talk to Ed in Ohio who wants to talk about Madonna.
01:30:53.500 Me too.
01:30:54.140 Ed, your thoughts?
01:30:55.720 Hi, Megan.
01:30:56.620 I didn't see the VMA Awards, but I'm looking at her pictures.
01:31:00.340 She looks like she has soccer balls implanted in her butt.
01:31:03.300 Totally.
01:31:03.580 And it just looks so fake.
01:31:07.180 And then you see the front of her, there's not one wrinkle on her face.
01:31:12.200 She's had a boob job.
01:31:13.760 I mean, this is a really a completely like plastic woman.
01:31:17.560 I don't see anything real on her at all.
01:31:20.500 You know, it's the thing.
01:31:22.260 It's like, I'm fine.
01:31:23.360 Whatever work you want to have done, you go, girl.
01:31:25.680 It's fine by me.
01:31:26.540 But like people are talking about the butt like it's some sort of modern miracle.
01:31:30.700 And it's really just a miracle of modern medicine.
01:31:34.160 Right.
01:31:34.760 And it's, you know, I know that she works out and that, you know, she's tries to keep in
01:31:39.960 shape as part of her trademark.
01:31:41.640 But this is clearly not something that's natural.
01:31:45.140 And it's just really, it's sort of like when people get their lips overblown.
01:31:50.260 That's kind of what this looks like.
01:31:52.200 And like the amount of nudity, honestly, like I feel like I'm turning into Tipper Gore.
01:31:56.940 But like it was just a lot, it's like leave a little to the imagination between Megan Fox
01:32:02.220 and then I don't know.
01:32:03.660 It was just like I was certainly not something I would watch with my children or really by
01:32:07.460 myself at all.
01:32:08.640 No.
01:32:09.180 And there's something to be said about growing old with a little dignity.
01:32:12.760 And I know Madonna's really never had any dignity.
01:32:17.300 You know, she's I've never thought she had a very good voice, but she was incredible as
01:32:22.740 far as self-promotion and that took her a long way.
01:32:27.920 And I just I still don't think she can sing, but, you know, she's still out there self-promoting.
01:32:32.600 But she's she's a right.
01:32:34.500 She's a great entertainer, but it's just it's starting to feel uncomfortable.
01:32:37.420 And I realize it sounds ageist, but I mean, what when does it start at 83?
01:32:41.760 Is it like is it I just I'm not sure.
01:32:44.120 I just know I'm starting to feel a little weird when I see it.
01:32:46.860 OK, let's just with my grandchildren.
01:32:48.840 And so and I don't even have any grandkids and I feel I feel uncomfortable.
01:32:52.960 All right.
01:32:53.380 I want to get a couple of other calls in.
01:32:54.880 Jim, let's go to you in Pennsylvania.
01:32:56.240 Caller number two.
01:32:57.440 What do you want to talk about today?
01:32:58.780 Yeah, Miss Kelly, I'm just talking about your racism segment.
01:33:02.920 And for a long time, I believe that these Democrats to see racism everywhere.
01:33:09.000 Some people said beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I think racism is in the eye
01:33:14.020 of the beholder.
01:33:14.600 I think they're more racist than what they see.
01:33:16.700 Hmm, that's the thing is it's like if you choose to make that the prism through which
01:33:21.060 you view all of life, it's like the hammer that sees only nails, you know, and the surgeon
01:33:26.060 who only wants to cut like you can find that there was a that movie boomerang back in like
01:33:31.920 the 90s.
01:33:32.640 Eddie Murphy was in it and they had a character in there who is like that.
01:33:36.500 And he was looking at like the pool table, you know, billiards.
01:33:39.140 And he's like, see, like the green table, it's the earth.
01:33:42.060 And like the goal is like they hit the black ball and the white balls, the ultimate one
01:33:45.880 that stays on the table.
01:33:46.840 It was like, yeah, it's it's definitely possible if that's what you're looking for, that you're
01:33:51.840 going to find it.
01:33:52.800 All right.
01:33:53.140 Let's get down to Chris in Florida, who's got a thought on Dr.
01:33:56.820 Fauci.
01:33:57.280 Hey, Chris.
01:33:57.960 Hey, Megan.
01:33:58.740 Good to talk to you.
01:34:00.200 Great to see you back on the air somewhere.
01:34:02.360 And I think, you know, back on the, you know, the box there, the four by three.
01:34:07.640 Well, I guess nobody has a four by three box.
01:34:09.560 But you get what I'm saying.
01:34:10.520 We'll be very soon.
01:34:12.780 OK, so, you know, on the Fauci thing, I mean, how much do you put up with, you know, moving
01:34:18.900 the goalposts?
01:34:19.920 And this has gone from the beginning, from two weeks to start to spread.
01:34:23.200 And remember when they said if everybody on Earth wore a mask for 14 days, that was another
01:34:27.800 thing that this thing would just disappear.
01:34:29.340 So it's constantly been moving the goalposts the whole way here.
01:34:34.440 And, you know, they're losing people like Bill Maher and stuff.
01:34:37.180 So how far do they let it go?
01:34:38.540 Isn't it, you know, that don't they see what they're doing?
01:34:41.460 Yeah, I think they do.
01:34:42.720 And I think this was an extraordinary admission by Fauci on the wake, in the wake of the president's
01:34:47.560 order.
01:34:48.240 And I do think people have had about enough of this.
01:34:50.720 We'll see.
01:34:51.180 Thank you for calling you guys.
01:34:52.160 And thanks for everybody who joined us today.
01:34:54.420 And for those of you who listened, don't forget to tune in tomorrow where we've got Brett
01:34:57.500 Weinstein and Heather Haig, his wife.
01:34:59.820 They're here to talk about the challenges of modern life.
01:35:02.840 Don't miss it.