The Megyn Kelly Show - Sean Parnell on Fighting For America, Running For Political Office, and How Military Combat Changes You

00:00:00.520 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:12.160 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.340 Today we have a treat for you, Sean Parnell.

00:00:19.100 This guy's a rising star.

00:00:20.800 He's from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and he tried to run for a house seat not long ago,

00:00:25.020 but he lost in a very narrow result to a more moderate Democrat.

00:00:30.380 He's a Republican in his district, but man, it was tight.

00:00:34.540 And Trump sort of picked him and said, you're the guy, and he almost got it over the finish line.

00:00:39.180 And now he's running for U.S. Senate.

00:00:41.680 You know, Pat Toomey's going to vacate this Republican seat, and Sean Parnell wants to fill it.

00:00:46.220 And there's a real shot this guy has, given his military service, his love of America,

00:00:51.520 just his general reason.

00:00:52.820 You're going to love the guy when you listen to him.

00:00:55.020 And Pennsylvanians, I think, respond to reason.

00:00:56.940 I know a lot of them.

00:00:57.780 I'm married to one of them.

00:00:59.340 And I don't think that they necessarily, you know, they voted for Trump first time around,

00:01:04.060 not second time around.

00:01:04.900 They may not love all of that sort of rhetorical flair, but I think they love the country.

00:01:08.360 And they like sensible people.

00:01:10.120 And that's what Sean is.

00:01:11.720 He went into the U.S. military after 9-11.

00:01:15.420 It was, he went to Iraq in 2006 and then wound up in Afghanistan,

00:01:18.860 where he led the legendary outlaw platoon.

00:01:22.440 And that was the name of his book as well that made it to the New York Times bestseller list week after week after week.

00:01:29.580 It's a firsthand account of what it's like, what it was like to fight over there with a band of brothers

00:01:34.460 that wound up taking out, I think it was over 350 insurgents who were trying to kill Americans there.

00:01:41.500 Massive, massive casualties and fights that he details in great color.

00:01:45.360 And I think you'll understand when you get to know Sean, why his bravery stood out,

00:01:50.320 why he received two bronze stars, one for valor and the Purple Heart while over there.

00:01:54.460 He suffered a traumatic brain injury as well and has been pretty open about what it's like for combat veterans

00:02:00.600 who return to the United States, something we're going to get into.

00:02:02.920 So we're going to kick it off with a little COVID discussion.

00:02:05.160 Delta, dun, dun, dun.

00:02:06.780 I almost can't joke about it because it's the reaction to this thing.

00:02:10.880 Again, just just to kick it off, over 80 percent of those who have died from COVID are over the age of 65.

00:02:17.100 Over 90 percent of those over 65 in America have received at least one jab.

00:02:22.540 80 percent have received two jabs, vaccined.

00:02:25.180 The most vulnerable population has been vaccinated.

00:02:29.080 And yet still we react to a new variant and rising cases, rising cases,

00:02:34.360 as though it's the same as rising deaths, which is not what we're seeing.

00:02:38.160 And we're going to get into all of it when Sean joins us in one minute.

00:02:46.840 Sean, how are you?

00:02:47.940 Hey, Megan. How's it going? I'm doing good.

00:02:50.020 It's great to see you. I never see you with the tats on the arm showing.

00:02:53.180 You look you look just like a soldier right now.

00:02:55.760 Not so much like a senator, but I like the idea of the soldier senator.

00:02:59.360 Yeah, sometimes I'll show up to picnics and people will be like,

00:03:02.900 did this guy escape from the Pittsburgh penitentiary or is he the Senate candidate from Pennsylvania?

00:03:09.560 So I don't I don't hold.

00:03:12.320 It's amazing because I used to look at Mitt Romney.

00:03:14.340 My feelings about Mitt have changed over the years.

00:03:15.980 I still think he's a decent man.

00:03:17.180 I just think he's a he's kind of a weak a weak politician.

00:03:20.680 And that's that's me being kind of generous right now because I've seen what he's done over the past few years with Trump.

00:03:26.540 It was just anyway.

00:03:27.500 But I used to think he was straight out of central casting for politician, right, for presidential candidate.

00:03:33.100 And I do think we what we need really is more people who look like you.

00:03:36.740 We need tough guys who have been in real battles, who understand what it means to fight in that position.

00:03:43.220 Because what we've seen is if you're too milk toasty, if you're too willing to roll over, principles go out the window.

00:03:49.580 Right. Yeah.

00:03:50.200 Nothing gets done except what the media wants done because they're they've got the loudest microphone.

00:03:54.300 No, no, that's exactly right.

00:03:56.200 And, Megan, we see this reflected in polling data as well.

00:03:59.920 The number one quality that, you know, Republicans and probably 50 percent of independents want in a candidate is their ability to fight and never back down for what they believe in and who they represent.

00:04:12.780 And isn't that the job?

00:04:14.560 Right.

00:04:14.900 Like if you're running for the House of Representatives, the job is to fight for the people that you represent.

00:04:20.180 You're running for the United States Senate is to represent the interests of Pennsylvania and Washington.

00:04:24.300 It's about putting, you know, others, the needs of others before yourself.

00:04:29.340 And it really seems like those in Washington have it reversed, as evidenced by the permanent pandemic and lockdowns and all these school closures.

00:04:40.220 People are talking about that again and masking our children.

00:04:42.600 None of this serves the people of this country well.

00:04:45.760 And, you know, I I'm not a career guy.

00:04:50.220 I appreciate you saying, you know, more politicians should should be sort of in my mold.

00:04:55.500 And I think a lot a lot are a lot are rising up all over the country to say enough is enough.

00:04:59.940 Yeah, like Dan.

00:05:01.620 And I'm not.

00:05:02.720 Yeah, exactly.

00:05:03.760 And I'm not going to be a guy in Washington for for like my entire career.

00:05:08.620 You know, I plan on going there for maybe one or two terms tops and then coming back to Western Pennsylvania, buying a farm and then probably never talking to anybody again.

00:05:17.900 Don't rule out the top job.

00:05:19.480 Don't rule out the top job.

00:05:21.140 That's see, that's the thing about Trump.

00:05:23.160 And I do want to talk to you about him.

00:05:25.980 I think I've said this before and it's not my line.

00:05:28.200 I can't remember who said originally, but it was a really good point.

00:05:30.780 Trump showed the Republican Party how to fight.

00:05:33.560 Absolutely right.

00:05:34.220 That like that may have been his greatest gift and his longest lasting legacy, because I, like you, had a lot of problems with Trump's behavior and some of the things he said when he was first running, when we first got to look at him on the national political stage.

00:05:47.380 We'd all seen him over the years, but he would say outrageous things.

00:05:50.700 He would do outrageous things.

00:05:51.800 And I think a lot of us were like, holy good Lord, what is this?

00:05:54.860 What is it?

00:05:55.580 It's different.

00:05:56.560 It sounds different.

00:05:57.460 And I'm not excusing those things now.

00:05:59.340 Um, but I think now having been exposed to him for all these years, what you see is my, my own belief, that's the package that that particular fighter, the guy who was going to just change the way things were done, had to come in.

00:06:11.840 He just didn't care.

00:06:13.360 He just didn't care if the media liked him, if the Democrats liked him or if he cared, it just didn't stop him from fighting.

00:06:20.240 So I feel like, okay, great.

00:06:21.620 Now there's a model for how to say like, I don't, you know, write what you want.

00:06:26.920 I'm going to fight.

00:06:27.740 And maybe we can fill it next time with somebody who doesn't necessarily do the tweets and the other stuff.

00:06:34.160 You're Megan, Megan, you're so spot on.

00:06:37.580 And I, you know, there was a massive cultural shift when Trump jumped, jumped into all of this back in 2016.

00:06:46.400 Right.

00:06:47.060 And, and I had always sort of been involved, um, after I came back from Afghanistan, was wounded, medically retired, but still, it was very important for me.

00:06:57.840 To continue serving my community.

00:06:59.440 So I, I volunteered on political campaigns.

00:07:01.980 I mean, I helped local state and federal candidates, knock doors, get signatures and was the chairman of governor Corbett's veterans coalition.

00:07:09.760 He's a, uh, our Pennsylvania governor back in 2014.

00:07:12.700 And I, I, uh, campaigned with Marco Rubio in 2016.

00:07:16.760 You know, back then I thought, you know, Hey, this is a young conservative.

00:07:20.740 This is the next generation of this movement.

00:07:23.060 And I want to be on the front end of it.

00:07:24.500 And you talked about Mitt Romney earlier on about what we've come to expect in a political candidate, right?

00:07:32.820 Like the guy from central casting, this is what they're supposed to look like.

00:07:36.280 Well, president Trump didn't look like that.

00:07:38.800 And so I was slow to the uptake in, in terms of recognizing what he truly represented.

00:07:45.620 And that was like, uh, you know, a kind of, he was kind of like a massive, like middle finger to both parties for real.

00:07:54.920 And I, that's what I loved about him the most, you know, Republicans in Washington, Democrats in Washington at different times.

00:08:03.200 And sometimes perhaps at the same time really didn't like them.

00:08:06.560 And I never met someone in my life who has the ability to resist group think like president Trump.

00:08:14.480 I'm sorry.

00:08:15.200 I mean, that's, that's, that's a gift.

00:08:17.320 That's a gift to be able to say, look, I don't care what the Republicans say.

00:08:20.600 The Democrats say, this is what I believe.

00:08:22.580 I don't care what the media writes.

00:08:24.100 This is what I believe is right.

00:08:25.880 This is what I was elected to do.

00:08:27.260 And I'm going to do it.

00:08:28.320 And look, you know, people, a lot of people, they don't like president Trump's comportment.

00:08:34.740 And I, and I certainly understand that.

00:08:37.120 Um, but I'm, I'm not electing.

00:08:38.800 I didn't elect or vote for president Trump twice to, to date my daughter.

00:08:42.540 Right.

00:08:43.460 To host your dinner party.

00:08:44.920 Yeah.

00:08:45.300 I elected president Trump to be able to walk into the room with president Xi of China.

00:08:50.580 Uh, the leader of the communist regime of China who puts people in concentration camps.

00:08:57.060 I want Trump to be able to walk into that room, sit down across the table and be tough

00:09:01.880 with that guy, you know, because the costs are the costs, uh, in terms of human suffering,

00:09:07.080 uh, in China, you need somebody tough, right, Megan.

00:09:11.800 And so president Trump represented that.

00:09:14.140 Even look at the media, right?

00:09:15.180 It's like, so he came after me for, for a long time, which was unpleasant.

00:09:18.420 I don't want to, I wouldn't want to go through it again, but in retrospect, you know, it's

00:09:22.280 fine.

00:09:22.540 I have a good perspective on it, but I, in a, in a way it was a harbinger of things to

00:09:27.500 come and not in a bad way, right?

00:09:29.260 Like he, he would come after a woman at Fox news.

00:09:31.820 He'd come after a person at CNN anywhere because he wasn't beholden to the media.

00:09:36.640 And that was really important.

00:09:38.460 He exposed them and their bias in a way we had not seen before.

00:09:42.260 And it's playing out day to day.

00:09:45.080 I I'm so angry as I look at the news today, Sean, the, the COVID spinning, like the, the

00:09:52.640 knee jerk instinct for mandates and lockdowns and masking and deference to our big brother,

00:09:59.660 you know, rulers supported by a media that just wants to lick boots.

00:10:04.420 As long as it's to the democratic party needed to be exposed, needed to be, it has been, but

00:10:10.420 it's not solved, right?

00:10:11.700 When you look at the headlines today about Delta and the return of the mask mandates

00:10:15.760 for all schools, CDC recommending every single school child nationwide have a mandatory mask

00:10:21.400 on.

00:10:21.960 Thank God for people down in Florida, like DeSantis and Abbott in Texas who are, who are

00:10:26.360 passing law saying, or executive order saying, you can't do that.

00:10:29.000 You cannot mandate that.

00:10:29.920 But other States like mine, they're all going to go that way.

00:10:32.940 I just think who's fighting for them, who, who in the blue states, who in states like

00:10:38.540 Pennsylvania, which is purple is fighting for them.

00:10:41.760 Yeah, it's a good question.

00:10:42.860 Me.

00:10:43.460 The answer to that is I'm fighting against that now.

00:10:46.340 I mean, and I think it's important to discuss this with context because this once in a hundred

00:10:52.580 year pandemic has had a lot of different phases.

00:10:55.320 The science has been complicated.

00:10:57.120 You know, early on when, when this thing came from Wuhan, I mean, I saw it coming back in

00:11:03.420 December of 2019 and I said, boy, we better brace for this.

00:11:07.140 And I actually called for a ban on travel from China before Senator Cotton and President Trump

00:11:12.800 did because I knew that, that this COVID or this virus or this unknown virus was going

00:11:18.840 to be here and it was going to affect us in a big, major way.

00:11:21.780 And early on, you know, when we didn't know a whole lot about what this virus was, I thought

00:11:28.340 it was pragmatic.

00:11:29.060 You know, I liked the idea of 15 days to slow the spread, right?

00:11:33.800 To flatten the curve, to make sure our healthcare system isn't overwhelmed and figure out who

00:11:39.620 this virus affects and who we need to protect.

00:11:42.760 But the thing with a pandemic response strategy, Megan, is that, you know, as, as a pandemic goes

00:11:50.840 on, you learn more about the virus, its threat, its effect upon the people.

00:11:58.460 And as the pandemic evolves, so too must your strategy.

00:12:03.580 And what I feel like our strategy hasn't evolved at all.

00:12:07.080 In fact, we're right back at square one where, where the strategy seems confounding in many

00:12:14.040 ways.

00:12:14.360 Okay.

00:12:14.500 Let's lock down our schools.

00:12:15.760 Let's mask up our kids.

00:12:17.060 Like it makes no sense.

00:12:18.920 It seems like they're going against the science, which is ironic because the left, Hey, trust

00:12:25.720 the science, trust the science.

00:12:26.900 Republicans are unscientific.

00:12:29.080 That seems to be going against the science.

00:12:31.320 And I'll tell you, like my heart aches for these little kids.

00:12:34.900 I've got three little kids, 12, 10 and eight.

00:12:38.000 And they don't remember, I, especially my eight year old almost doesn't remember what life was

00:12:44.440 like before this pandemic, before he had to wear a mask all like to school.

00:12:49.700 Right.

00:12:50.140 And which means that like, I was looking at a picture of my daughter the other day, her

00:12:54.580 when she was like five with her arm around her little friend.

00:12:57.620 And I'm thinking like that, that's a joy that a lot of children that were born in the

00:13:03.580 middle of this pandemic will never enjoy unless we radically shift policies and say, no, okay,

00:13:09.860 we did our job, we locked down, uh, we, we defeated this virus.

00:13:14.680 We have therapeutics that are effective.

00:13:16.660 We know who it affects.

00:13:17.820 We have free vaccines that are effective.

00:13:19.520 You're not going to lock down our children anymore.

00:13:22.860 You know, our children have a right to breathe the free air.

00:13:25.340 Our children have a right to enjoy and love their friends and enjoy school.

00:13:30.940 Um, and one of the things that combat taught me, Megan, is that tomorrow isn't given to

00:13:38.500 you.

00:13:38.980 We don't know what tomorrow is going to bring.

00:13:41.320 So every day that you wake up and you draw breath, you have to be thankful for the life

00:13:45.520 that you have.

00:13:46.880 And you're given in the greatest country on the face of the earth.

00:13:49.060 And what are we saying?

00:13:50.120 Like these, these government bureaucrats, these unelected bureaucrats are telling us that we

00:13:55.440 have to lock down our life maybe for another, another year.

00:13:59.280 Yeah.

00:13:59.680 And who are they to require a cloth go over my kids' faces?

00:14:05.180 I have exactly the same age kids as you do.

00:14:07.200 Eight, 10, and my son will be 12 in September.

00:14:10.000 And I am sick of seeing them put those things over their faces and go to school all day as

00:14:15.740 they sweat and they work and they try to eat and they try to talk.

00:14:19.240 And teachers who are over the top about if it slides down a little, get it over your nose,

00:14:23.620 get it over your nose, instilling fear in these kids.

00:14:26.260 Carol Markowitz in the New York Post, she's been doing great work in New York City, has

00:14:29.980 a great piece out today.

00:14:31.240 I recommend it to everybody.

00:14:32.160 The headline is masking kids and closing schools is irrational, unscientific child abuse.

00:14:38.440 And Sean, she, she talks about a study just out of the UK.

00:14:41.260 It was released last week.

00:14:42.500 She said, it proved once again, what we've known for more than a year.

00:14:45.360 Kids transmit the coronavirus at a much lower rate than do adults.

00:14:49.240 The epidemiologist who led the study found that children, quote, are not taking the virus

00:14:54.220 home and then transmitting it to the community.

00:14:56.220 These kids have very little capacity to infect household members.

00:15:00.780 And she talks about how kids who went to school last year in GOP areas, kids who went to private

00:15:05.640 schools, right, that were open, unlike the public's, did not spread the virus.

00:15:09.760 We have data we can look at to see whether opening schools and unmasking children leads to massive

00:15:14.700 outbreak.

00:15:15.060 It doesn't look this, this is a, and this is a major pillar of my campaign as well as

00:15:21.680 school choice, you know, in Pennsylvania, this is really important, Megan, because, you

00:15:26.700 know, when we locked down the first time and schools closed, suddenly kids lost everything.

00:15:32.980 If you were a junior or a senior during this pandemic, my God, my heart just aches for you.

00:15:37.640 You lost your extracurriculars.

00:15:38.900 You lost your friends.

00:15:40.580 You lost sports.

00:15:41.780 I mean, it's just a prom.

00:15:44.420 Exactly.

00:15:46.440 And in Pennsylvania, it, you know, kids, this, and this is an issue that spanned across,

00:15:52.420 you know, socioeconomic strata and politics, right?

00:15:56.840 You had kids at public schools closed in the inner cities, kids not be able to go to school.

00:16:01.720 And those kids a lot, in many cases relied on, you know, at least two meals a day at public

00:16:06.920 schools, they locked down, they had nothing.

00:16:08.640 But even rural kids in Pennsylvania, because broadband is such an issue here, when, when

00:16:13.940 our kids, when kids in rural communities locked down, they couldn't go to virtual school.

00:16:19.520 Like I was meeting with people up in the Northeast of Pennsylvania, who, whose kids had to climb

00:16:25.260 to the top of a silo in their barn in the hopes that they could get on wifi in the Starbucks

00:16:31.720 in town.

00:16:33.080 Those children were left behind.

00:16:35.600 They lost everything.

00:16:36.920 And we shouldn't allow that to happen anymore.

00:16:39.520 These unelected bureaucrats that are accountable to nobody, you know, Fauci, you know, look like

00:16:45.460 I'm not a Fauci fan, but it's not even about him.

00:16:48.800 I didn't elect him.

00:16:50.160 He doesn't get to make choices for me, you know, and look at, and look at the shift in

00:16:54.300 our thinking, right?

00:16:55.700 Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the house of representatives just yesterday puts out the CDC has the power

00:17:01.860 to extend the eviction moratorium.

00:17:03.780 Wait a second.

00:17:05.160 Since when does the CDC have any power over private property in the United States of America?

00:17:11.340 How has the paradigm shifted that much in the last year?

00:17:14.300 People wake up these, these many authoritarians in our government are not going to let up

00:17:20.840 until you demand your freedom back.

00:17:23.180 And by the way, to the liberals who are no doubt the radicals who no doubt listening to

00:17:28.200 this podcast, of course we should take the pandemic seriously.

00:17:31.920 Of course it's real.

00:17:33.460 Of course people get sick, but like that does not mean that we should not live our lives.

00:17:39.480 We should live our lives.

00:17:40.380 We, we've made, we've made choices based in freedom.

00:17:43.540 And now the CDC is saying, well, we don't like them because you've got 57% of Americans

00:17:47.880 who have at least one shot of the vaccine, at least one shot, which isn't as effective

00:17:52.040 as two, but it's better than nothing.

00:17:53.340 And it's better than most countries.

00:17:55.240 Um, the deaths, even from Delta remain very low everywhere.

00:17:59.500 The deaths do.

00:18:00.320 So we're talking about increase in infections.

00:18:02.840 Um, but it's, it's among the unvaccinated, the people going to the hospitals are not the

00:18:07.540 vaccinated people.

00:18:08.260 So these are people who have made a choice not to get vaccinated and now they will live

00:18:12.460 or not with that choice.

00:18:14.280 That's the way life works.

00:18:16.320 That's the, the reason I don't get behind, get drunk and get behind the wheel is because

00:18:19.820 I value my life and I take precautions to protect my own and others.

00:18:23.460 Not everybody makes the same choices and there's nothing I can do about that.

00:18:27.000 But what's happening now is the unvaccinated are treated like the unwashed, the scourge of

00:18:32.280 America.

00:18:33.100 And I hope they get vaccinated.

00:18:34.340 I want them to get vaccinated.

00:18:35.540 Part of me is pissed off.

00:18:36.420 My kids are going to have to wear masks because they didn't get vaccinated, but I, I don't really

00:18:41.160 blame them.

00:18:41.780 I, I blame the politicians who are punishing that choice that they're making that endangers

00:18:47.040 themselves by using my kids, right?

00:18:50.640 Like my kids aren't at risk.

00:18:52.180 My kids aren't spreading it.

00:18:53.860 My kids shouldn't have to pay the price of the unvaccinated.

00:18:56.800 They should have to pay the price.

00:18:57.680 And they are, but we're somehow we're, we're, we're, we're blaming everybody's got to pitch

00:19:02.620 in to help the people who have decided not to do this.

00:19:05.100 Well, you know, look, the position on vaccines in this country should be real simple.

00:19:09.920 If I'm pro vaccine, I'm anti mandate, right?

00:19:13.600 If you want the vaccine, consult your doctor.

00:19:16.040 If you consider yourself high risk or you want to get it, get it.

00:19:20.100 If you don't, don't.

00:19:21.620 Um, I, and I, I, the whole philosophy behind a vaccine mandate about the government being

00:19:30.600 able to tell you what you must put into your body is something that scares the living hell

00:19:36.380 out of me.

00:19:36.800 And so I think what you're talking about and the reason why people are hesitant to get

00:19:41.600 the vaccine, um, do you remember what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were saying, uh, during

00:19:46.700 the, during the 2020 election that I'm not going to take Trump's vaccine because I don't

00:19:51.680 trust it.

00:19:52.300 That's how it was phrased on the campaign trail.

00:19:55.080 Right.

00:19:55.600 And so you've seen the CDC and, and, and, and so I think the right and Trump supporters

00:20:03.220 have seen the FBI or some of these other alphabet letter agencies outright mislead the American

00:20:09.380 public year after year for the last almost four and a half years.

00:20:13.200 Now there's been an erosion of trust in our institutions because our public officials have not been honest

00:20:20.240 with the people that they serve.

00:20:22.380 And, and, and a perfect example of this is, is the election, right?

00:20:26.820 Um, you know, I'm, and I'm not talking about, you know, cracking voting machines from Mars.

00:20:32.740 I'm talking about unilateral changes to election law, right.

00:20:37.640 That were, that were imposed on people 60 days before an election that half the Republicans

00:20:43.900 and the people weren't ready for this stuff.

00:20:47.280 And they use COVID as a mechanism to change election law in a way that they knew would be

00:20:54.340 helpful to their own party.

00:20:55.740 Right.

00:20:56.100 And so people, people see that and the media makes the mistake and nothing makes me more

00:21:02.620 angry than the media saying, well, Trump is pushing, you know, the big lie, which is that

00:21:09.440 the buzzwords that the media uses are just insane and wholly irresponsible.

00:21:15.020 Um, it's just, they, Trump is pushing the big lie and therefore the people believe something.

00:21:21.920 No, the people see, they see with their own eyes, they live the experience themselves.

00:21:28.740 They can think critically and they just say to themselves, well, Hey, maybe, maybe we should

00:21:33.680 just have a conversation about how to make our elections better every cycle.

00:21:37.800 But instead one side seems to be so intent on shutting down the conversation.

00:21:42.680 And as you talked about the media being exposed, Oh my gosh, Megan, I've never seen bias like this

00:21:49.900 in my life.

00:21:51.140 And, and it, and it needs, and it needs to stop because the people in this country are suffering.

00:21:56.800 Up next, the Democrats and their media allies continue, continue to compare January 6th

00:22:02.800 to 9, 11, in which 3000 Americans died.

00:22:07.240 Okay.

00:22:07.560 There's, they continue to do it.

00:22:09.600 What does he think is somebody who actually went over and fought for the country as a result

00:22:13.400 of that attack?

00:22:14.380 What does he think about that comparison?

00:22:16.080 That's next.

00:22:19.680 I said this after January 6th, there was misinformation.

00:22:22.460 People got sucked down disinformation, rabbit holes, and showed up there in that Capitol rioting

00:22:27.700 that day, I think because they had, in part because they'd lost trust in the media.

00:22:32.880 They didn't know where to turn for their information.

00:22:34.860 They went to bad sources and they really believed this thing was going to get overturned or, you

00:22:39.160 know, that Mike Pence had the power and Trump fed that.

00:22:42.000 There's no question, but he's not entirely to blame.

00:22:44.320 It was the, it was these people disaffected from media who went to the wrong places and wound

00:22:49.880 up on Capitol Hill.

00:22:50.520 But now that same media, rather than doing introspection, um, comes out and they're saying

00:22:55.460 things, Sean, like, Oh no, no, no, no, no, January 6th, that day, it was an insurrection,

00:23:00.520 which it wasn't.

00:23:01.260 It was a riot.

00:23:02.160 Um, and it was worse than nine 11, worse than nine 11.

00:23:05.700 They continue to say that.

00:23:07.260 And I came out and said, they're insane.

00:23:09.040 They're overplaying this.

00:23:10.680 And of course I got attacked for saying that, but that you tell me as a guy who joined, who

00:23:16.200 joined the military and fought for our country because of nine 11, because you saw it on TV

00:23:20.480 that day.

00:23:21.560 You tell me whether you can compare what happened on January 6th.

00:23:24.720 No, you can't, Megan, you can't.

00:23:28.000 And, and you're right.

00:23:29.780 January 6th was bad, but it was not an insurrection.

00:23:34.100 I've seen insurrections in Afghanistan.

00:23:37.220 Uh, January 6th was not one.

00:23:39.160 And that's not to say you excuse the violence, but at least have the moral courage to condemn

00:23:46.520 the violence that happened in 2020 for nine straight months leading up to the election.

00:23:52.340 Right.

00:23:52.460 Um, people lost everything.

00:23:54.800 They had their small businesses burned, uh, riots in the cities of people died, billions

00:24:00.420 of dollars in damage.

00:24:01.660 There was a riot outside the white.

00:24:04.900 Oh, they almost burned down St.

00:24:06.240 John's church.

00:24:07.180 For goodness sake.

00:24:08.260 They had a guillotine outside the white house.

00:24:11.540 Secret service agents were injured in defending the white house while president Trump was president.

00:24:17.180 People were assaulted.

00:24:19.220 A United States Senator was assaulted leaving the Republican national convention on the streets

00:24:24.020 of Washington, DC.

00:24:24.980 You know, it, it, it, it's, I think you're right about the, the media.

00:24:30.420 So the, I talked about the big lie.

00:24:32.380 And then that's another thing, the insurrection.

00:24:34.260 It's, it's just, it wasn't an insurrection.

00:24:36.460 Was it violence is, is wrong when it's, when, when it happens on either side of the aisle,

00:24:43.240 right?

00:24:43.600 Yeah.

00:24:44.020 Well, that's the difference, right?

00:24:45.120 Because these cops testified at the hearing had disturbing testimonials about what happened

00:24:50.340 to them that, that day stabbed.

00:24:51.860 The one guy had a heart attack and it was, it would definitely tug at your heartstrings.

00:24:56.080 No question.

00:24:56.720 Anybody with a heart would have been moved by what they said happened.

00:25:00.060 But the problem is there's, there's no empathy by these same senators who are, and, and lawmakers,

00:25:05.300 you know, who are working up tears at the hearing for the 2000 cops who were stabbed and pepper

00:25:11.800 sprayed and beaten during the BLM riots that we saw over the past nine months.

00:25:16.740 There's no empathy for them.

00:25:18.080 So I, pardon me for not feeling their tears.

00:25:20.620 Listen, Megan, that, that those cops, there has been a war on cops in this country for

00:25:26.640 like the last 18 months.

00:25:29.380 And it was made possible by this radical left defund the police nonsense.

00:25:36.520 And in these senators in these, in, in these members of Congress who, who don't recognize

00:25:44.660 their rhetoric caused this assault on our police.

00:25:48.920 You know, you had presidential candidates, Kamala Harris, bailing out rioters who burned

00:25:56.440 down buildings for, for, I mean, it's just like, so.

00:26:00.140 Yeah.

00:26:00.260 She sought funds to, to, to, to a group that was doing that.

00:26:03.420 Yeah.

00:26:04.040 And so the people look at, so January 6th was unacceptable.

00:26:08.320 Right.

00:26:08.780 Um, but like, look at what happened to an entire group of people, 50% of the country for years

00:26:17.520 now.

00:26:17.920 Right.

00:26:18.400 They were called deplorables, misogynists, racists.

00:26:23.580 They were, they were marginalized by the media attacked by them almost every single day.

00:26:29.220 They were locked down, uh, uh, I would argue unconstitutionally for months on end, had their

00:26:34.900 small businesses closed, um, churches, had their churches closed.

00:26:39.680 And, and what all the while, you know, the radical left rampaged across this country and

00:26:47.460 were encouraged by elected leaders and bailed out by elected leaders that, that an election

00:26:52.980 doesn't go their way.

00:26:54.160 Right.

00:26:55.060 And so people go to the courts, the courts completely throw their hands up and say, Nope,

00:27:00.840 we don't want anything to do with this.

00:27:02.080 And I think there's, you know, Hey, look, I mean, I think the Supreme court said, look,

00:27:05.580 I, we lack the mechanisms to fix this preferring instead that any electoral changes happen in

00:27:10.900 a legislature.

00:27:11.500 I get that, but to the people, they were just, their, their, their concerns were dismissed.

00:27:16.960 And then they found themselves in the steps of the Capitol at January 6th, having gone through

00:27:21.840 all of that.

00:27:22.420 So what happened was unacceptable, but in order to prevent it from happening in the future,

00:27:28.580 you have to understand why it happened in the first place.

00:27:31.640 And, and we need, we need to be able to have these conversations, Megan, like I guarantee

00:27:36.720 you, you and I are going to get attacked.

00:27:38.660 There's going to be headlines about me, like after this podcast, Parnell's dismissing what

00:27:44.760 happened on January 6th.

00:27:46.120 No, I'm not.

00:27:46.960 It's unacceptable.

00:27:47.880 But what we need to do is have a conversation about how we got so divided in the first place.

00:27:53.960 And if we can't have a, we continue to let the media and the radical left shut down our

00:27:59.040 ability to have honest conversations and discourse about the most important things in our country,

00:28:05.200 we're just going to get further divided.

00:28:07.540 That's right.

00:28:08.000 And what you find, I think, I mean, you probably found this as a politician.

00:28:10.860 I certainly have as a media person that, that as much as you may get attacked by the left-wing

00:28:15.900 press, your core base will support you.

00:28:19.580 They'll be there even more.

00:28:20.820 You know what I mean?

00:28:21.180 I've been, I've had so many negative headlines about me over the past month.

00:28:24.280 Our numbers are bigger and stronger than ever.

00:28:26.000 They're growing by exponential rates right now.

00:28:28.180 And that's not why I say what I say.

00:28:30.540 I just say what I actually feel.

00:28:32.000 And then people make a thing out of it, but it doesn't wind up hurting you because there

00:28:35.540 are more people who understand you're a truth teller than who just want to twist what you

00:28:39.640 said and bash you for it.

00:28:41.360 So I did want to make one of the point on today's news though, on the, on the defund the police,

00:28:45.380 um, the points you were making AOC today, it comes out in the New York post from it was

00:28:50.240 yesterday.

00:28:50.580 Uh, she's spent thousands of dollars on security from a Blackwater contractor from January through

00:28:57.200 June, 2021, her campaign paid over almost $5,000, um, for their, their other clients

00:29:03.320 to this firm, Tullis worldwide protection include the Royal, the Saudi Royal family.

00:29:07.520 So this woman is out there staunchly supporting defund the police.

00:29:11.200 And, um, then she spent apparently over 28,000 locally at a New York private security company,

00:29:16.700 Cori Bush.

00:29:17.280 She's a member of the quote squad same between April and June.

00:29:21.280 She spent $70,000 on security while pushing to defund the police.

00:29:27.460 Tell it to the women in the inner city whose cops you took away.

00:29:32.880 Exactly.

00:29:33.760 Megan.

00:29:34.200 I mean, they, this, this, oh my God, you, you perfectly painted the picture of, of what's

00:29:41.480 wrong with our elites in this country.

00:29:43.140 Right.

00:29:43.660 And, and, and why a part of my goal is not to go down there for a career.

00:29:47.800 I, you know, and, and you understand now, of course, why Trump called it the swamp, right?

00:29:53.140 Uh, these people want to, to take away your ability to defend yourself and your family.

00:29:58.380 Right.

00:29:58.880 And that's just true.

00:30:00.040 You know, Joe Biden talks about this almost, you know, every day, you know, since he's been

00:30:04.120 in the white house while simultaneously defunding the police.

00:30:08.100 Like none of this makes any sense.

00:30:11.560 I mean, it just sounds like one of the worst ideas ever.

00:30:15.360 And if you would have told me four years ago, as somebody who had no plans to run for political

00:30:21.220 office at all, that defund the police would even be a thing.

00:30:26.300 I'd be, I'd laugh and I'd laugh in your face.

00:30:29.040 You know, it's just things have become so absurd in this country.

00:30:34.680 And, and that's why when, when we've been all over the state, we've only been in a race

00:30:38.840 for about two months now, Megan, but I think there is a, an unbelievable craving in this

00:30:44.940 country, uh, for more leaders and fewer politicians and leaders that are willing to stand up on

00:30:51.760 the parapet and, and tell the truth and be unafraid.

00:30:55.240 And, and that's what, that's what I hope to be, you know, I'm, I'm, let's talk about that.

00:31:00.720 Let's talk about leadership and your time in the military.

00:31:03.580 Cause I do think it's fascinating.

00:31:05.680 And as an example to all of us, so you just, I mentioned it in passing, but you decided,

00:31:11.100 I know you described in your book, you were kind of listless, like you were, you were not

00:31:16.220 really sure what you were going to do with your life.

00:31:17.800 Maybe education.

00:31:18.960 Thank God you didn't go there.

00:31:20.700 No, my dad was an educator.

00:31:22.620 I'm just saying the way we are now with these unions, but anyway, okay.

00:31:26.120 So maybe an educator.

00:31:27.100 Um, and then nine 11 happens and you were 20 when nine 11 happened.

00:31:33.460 Yeah.

00:31:33.740 Oh my gosh.

00:31:34.560 Yeah.

00:31:34.860 I was, yeah, I was, I'm 40 now.

00:31:37.820 I just turned 40.

00:31:38.820 So I'm not the greatest at math, but yeah, I was about 20 years old.

00:31:42.640 I was a sophomore.

00:31:43.440 I was a sophomore trying to figure out how I was going to student teach second grade.

00:31:47.000 And so what, so explain to me how that works.

00:31:49.860 Cause I was 30 and not, not even considering the military.

00:31:53.680 I'm, I'm too chicken.

00:31:55.260 I really, I've just, that's why I admire the men and women in the military so much.

00:31:58.460 I'm just, I'm too afraid.

00:32:00.300 And so I like my own cowardice.

00:32:02.580 It's, it makes me ashamed because I do think it takes just a certain level of guts to go

00:32:07.360 out there and defend the country and pick up a rifle and, and be ready to use it to defend

00:32:11.160 our, our principles.

00:32:12.320 You know, I have a big mouth, but it's not the same as going out there with a gun.

00:32:15.880 So you did it.

00:32:16.800 So what, so how, how did that happen?

00:32:18.800 Cause you didn't come from a long line of military people.

00:32:21.120 So were you scared at all?

00:32:23.720 Yeah, I was.

00:32:25.520 And anyone that's going into combat that tells you otherwise is not telling you the truth.

00:32:31.180 Um, I, that, that's what I felt the most, the most after nine 11 Megan was, was fear.

00:32:38.300 And, but it didn't matter.

00:32:40.360 I watched people die on national television, fallen from flaming towers in New York city and

00:32:46.600 thought, how can I sit here and do nothing?

00:32:49.620 You know, you've got ordinary Americans that are, are dying on national television and our

00:32:54.500 first responders and people, people with no training whatsoever, running into flames.

00:32:58.280 How can I sit here and do nothing when all of this is happening and ordinary Americans

00:33:01.960 are giving everything for people that they didn't know.

00:33:04.160 And so I got in the fight, joined the infantry, went to airborne school, went to ranger school.

00:33:08.680 And, um, you know, a couple of years after September 11th, I found myself on the battlefields

00:33:14.020 of Afghanistan, um, at the height of the hunt for bin Laden on the border of Afghanistan and

00:33:18.540 Pakistan with a mission of just find them.

00:33:20.400 And, you know, I was a young second Lieutenant, you know, freshly graduated from college,

00:33:26.160 second Lieutenant, second Lieutenant in charge of 40 men in the infantry.

00:33:30.760 Um, and what was remarkable about this experience, there was a formative leadership experience in

00:33:35.800 my life, but what was remarkable about it was that a lot of these kids that I was supposed to

00:33:42.020 be in charge of their job before carrying a machine gun in the mountains of Afghanistan

00:33:45.860 was high school shortstop. And I learned a lot about the human condition in Afghanistan,

00:33:52.140 but I learned a lot about also what it means to be an American. And I, I, Megan, look, I was,

00:33:57.400 I consider myself blessed beyond measure to have led, you know, the most diverse infantry platoon

00:34:04.220 that, that you could ever imagine. I mean, I mean, black next to white Christians next to atheists,

00:34:09.240 young next to old, rich, rich next to poor Democrats next to Republicans, all in the same foxhole.

00:34:14.800 And, you know, what I learned is that when Americans are united in purpose, we can accomplish

00:34:22.320 anything. And I saw it on the battlefield every single day, one triumph of the human spirit after

00:34:27.620 the next, nobody gave a damn about what color your skin was or what your politics were, um, or how much

00:34:34.020 money you made or what God you worship. We just cared about each other. Uh, and we cared about the

00:34:39.860 mission and we cared about this country and that, that, that right there, you know, because my platoon

00:34:46.080 was so diverse, I just remember thinking as I was writing outlaw platoon, I'm like, my God, like my

00:34:52.220 platoon is a microcosm of what makes this country so exceptional. And, and when you hear people talk

00:34:59.140 about diversity, diversity, I mean, that, that word is a lot, it's a buzzword in today's culture,

00:35:03.600 but they always stop short of, of the next most important step. It's not just about diversity.

00:35:09.540 Of course, diversity makes us great, but, um, it's the unity beyond all of that, that makes our

00:35:15.040 country truly exceptional. So it's not just diversity for diversity's sake. It's the fact,

00:35:20.000 it's the fact that we were united in spite of all of that. And, and that is sort of become the core

00:35:25.960 of like everything that I've done after the military, um, was just trying to bring people

00:35:33.520 together. Leadership is about bringing people together and not dwelling on differences. And

00:35:38.900 I try to take that message everywhere I go on the campaign trail because this country

00:35:43.300 desperately needs to bridge a lot of divides right now. So, well, I mean, that, that's one of the sad

00:35:50.920 things about how identity politics and people like Ibram X. Kendi's writings are making their way

00:35:55.760 into our military as doctrine, you know, that, that this is actually being taught and recommended

00:36:02.060 and prioritized. Whereas, I mean, you tell me, but it seems like at least for the past, you know,

00:36:07.900 40 years, the military has been the one place where all that stuff gets checked. As soon as you

00:36:13.400 get to bootcamp and realize this is a band of brothers and you're going to go through hell together.

00:36:18.960 Oh, it's, it's absolutely true. And in fact, I remember he talked about, reminded me of something.

00:36:24.380 You know, one of my squad leaders saying to me, you know, Hey, sir, like we need to come up with a

00:36:29.180 name for ourselves because once that first bullet cracks by your head, the individual in this platoon

00:36:35.600 doesn't matter anymore. Um, it's all about the team. We shoot, move, communicate together as a team.

00:36:42.060 And we're only as fast as our slowest member. And that conversation is what created our collective

00:36:49.920 identity as, as the outlaw platoon, which is the title of my book. Um, but it, when we had that

00:36:57.360 collective identity, you know, and that banner under which we united, I mean, it was, it was a pretty

00:37:02.260 amazing thing. And, um, you're absolutely right. You do set that stuff aside because, you know, you realize

00:37:09.740 real quickly when one of your own gets shot or wounded in combat, you, that, Hey, that we really all

00:37:15.820 bleed red. And that's all that really matters at the end of the day. And, um, you know, Megan,

00:37:23.320 we can't let forces in this country continue to drive wedges between us as a people. We just can't.

00:37:29.740 And I learned a lot about, I learned all of that in, in the United States military. I'm going to talk

00:37:34.660 about it a lot on the trail, but I was 24 years old and heavy combat for 485 days, 16 months, 85%

00:37:42.160 of my platoon was wounded some twice. I was wounded as well. Um, I fractured my skull, got blown up by a

00:37:47.860 rocket propelled grenade, which is probably why I'm running for political office in the first place.

00:37:52.940 I, I don't know. I just, you know, I, uh, but, but it was a formative leadership experience in my life

00:38:00.820 and I draw upon it often. You talk in your, in your book about, um, I want to, I'm, I'm looking for

00:38:07.480 the actual, uh, the actual moment, but where everybody was sent home, you got an R and R, uh,

00:38:14.320 after, after months and months of fighting and some guys had actually made it back stateside and,

00:38:19.820 and that can you just, and just tell us what happened because I couldn't believe it.

00:38:24.580 Megan. Oh my gosh. This was the greatest leadership challenge of my life, not fighting against the

00:38:30.120 enemy for 16 months, but it was just, so we were set to be in Afghanistan for a year and this was in

00:38:37.920 2006, right? So the eyes of our nation were wholeheartedly fixated on the Iraq war and the surge

00:38:44.060 and weapons of mass destruction. I'm sure you remember all of that. Um, so most people didn't even

00:38:48.700 realize a war was going on in Afghanistan. Most people thought it was just simply a stability and

00:38:53.080 support operation. Yeah. Yeah. And so we were supposed to be there for a year. When we got

00:38:59.960 there, we realized that Afghanistan was completely out of control. I mean, we're talking, you had Al

00:39:04.800 Qaeda, the Connie network, Ahmadir, um, the Taliban, we were fighting against all of these warring factions

00:39:11.860 sort of just thrown right in the middle of it. It was just absolute hell. And we're supposed to be

00:39:16.720 there for a year. Right. And so three days before you're supposed to go home, you know, and, and all

00:39:22.100 that, wow, like the last week we were supposed to be there, we were sending guys home in, in phases.

00:39:26.700 And so most of, I was the last guy on my base with my platoon sergeant, really. Like it was just me.

00:39:31.720 Everyone else was in various stages of deployment. Um, but about two weeks before we were supposed to

00:39:37.860 go home, there was this, uh, we built the very first combat outpost in Afghanistan. It was a place

00:39:43.640 called combat outpost Margah. And, you know, we got attacked by 300 enemy troops, you know, 250 from

00:39:52.760 Pakistan and another 50 from, uh, Northwest Afghanistan moving towards us in like a giant

00:39:59.140 pincer movement with us right in the middle. And with a half constructed base all around us had 24

00:40:04.260 troops on the ground and we caught them coming in. Uh, we just got lucky. We saw them and we stacked up

00:40:11.380 all of this air power and we just killed every last one of them. Um, but when we did what's

00:40:17.200 called a, an SSE, like a sensitive site exploitation, in other words, after the, the attack, we went

00:40:23.360 and looked at the battlefield to do a survey just to get a sense of who we were fighting.

00:40:27.580 And we found on these guys, pack Pakistani military frontier core ID cards. Right.

00:40:33.800 And we passed that stuff up the chain of command. Um, we don't know what happened, uh, after that,

00:40:41.100 but two weeks later we were extended. And, um, in other words, like my men had already made it home

00:40:48.020 and, and this was so psychologically devastating because you make it home. You there's a point

00:40:54.060 at which you turn in your body armor, you turn in your bullets, you say to yourself, Oh my God,

00:40:59.220 I get to see my wife again. I get to see my kids again. I get to hug my family. You know,

00:41:05.540 uh, I get to go on vacation or, you know, go to see my kids play soccer. And then you get home

00:41:11.620 and then all of a sudden the military tells you, Nope, sorry, you're going back. And we actually

00:41:15.480 had like MPs go to people's doors, take them from their homes, escort them to the airstrip and fly

00:41:21.500 them back to Afghanistan. I never left. I was just there on the battlefield with all my men sort of

00:41:25.640 sort of trickling back in and for another four months. But, but our orders didn't say that our,

00:41:32.300 our order said four months or until mission complete. So everybody on the battlefield was

00:41:36.940 like, Oh my God, we're never going home. And you, you, you made a point in your book. You wrote that,

00:41:43.040 um, you questioned whether your human side, once you, once you started using your gun and,

00:41:48.520 and you're killing bad guys over in Afghanistan, you questioned whether your human side could coexist

00:41:53.420 with your combat leader side. And I imagine it's not that easy, like flipping a light switch

00:41:58.220 to take off your gear, go home to your wife, see your kids, try to be a civilian going through the

00:42:04.460 drive-through at McDonald's and then right back again, right back again. Yeah. Well, combat changes

00:42:10.820 you. Um, it changes you, you know, and I remember just from my first day, um, you know, watching

00:42:18.340 little kids get hurt, you know, and it's the military trains you to go over there and, and get

00:42:22.860 after the enemy and stuff. But what really crushes the soul is watching these little kids that are

00:42:28.100 trapped in the middle. One of the things that blew me away about Afghanistan was that you go there and

00:42:32.960 those, those little ones have nothing, you know, and you know, they, they, they've been wearing burlap

00:42:38.820 sacks. They have no, they've got no shoes yet. They run around outside these little walled compounds

00:42:45.300 called collats, which is pure joy on their face, playing soccer with, you know, you know, a deflated

00:42:52.040 soccer ball. And I just thought to myself, like, my God, like kids in Afghanistan are no different

00:42:57.900 than kids in America. These kids have nothing, but yet these little ones are caught in the middle of

00:43:02.280 all of this. And, you know, I remember watching a little, a little girl lose her life on my first day

00:43:07.580 in combat. And I just thought like, Oh my God, like, I just felt the former, like my former self

00:43:14.300 just totally melting away thinking like, like, how do you experience moments like that and endure?

00:43:21.920 Up next, we're going to get into quitting and why we're lionizing it as a society. And what does

00:43:26.920 Sean Parnell think about that? And also about the Simone Biles story, which, you know, we talked about

00:43:31.860 last week, it's going on fire on YouTube, by the way, you can go check it out. We're posting clips on

00:43:36.120 YouTube now, youtube.com forward slash Megan Kelly, if you want to see it or clips from today's

00:43:42.440 interview. But before we get to that, we want to bring you a feature we have here on the MK show

00:43:46.500 called sound up, where we bring you some audio that we feel you need to hear. And today we're

00:43:51.500 bringing back our old friend, CDC director, Rochelle Walensky. Remember her who talked about

00:43:57.220 how scared she was as she cried about the impending doom. She was so terrified of that impending doom,

00:44:02.760 of course, never happened unless you go to Rochelle's mind in which she would tell you that

00:44:06.780 it's happening right now. She again, rising cases does not mean rise in deaths. And what we're also

00:44:13.200 seeing is rise in vaccinations in the cities that are most affected by the Delta variant. But some

00:44:18.840 don't want to follow the path of freedom. They want to take the thumb of big government and tell

00:44:23.280 everyone how to behave. Well, she and her CDC colleagues changed their mask guidelines, as you

00:44:28.720 know now, for vaccinated people vaccinated again late last week. Got your vaccine so you don't have

00:44:34.600 to wear your mask anymore? Sucker. Here's how she attempted to explain this massive reversal on

00:44:40.140 Wednesday during a CNN interview. Listen. So exactly what problem does the Delta variant create

00:44:47.660 that masks for vaccinated people solves?

00:44:51.520 Good morning, John. Thanks for having me back. So this is, we have new data here. We have always

00:44:58.760 seen, first of all, I want to reemphasize our vaccines are working just as we thought they would

00:45:04.120 with the Delta variant to prevent severe hospitalization and death. We should be getting

00:45:09.840 vaccinated to prevent severe disease in ourselves and to protect ourselves from the Delta variant and

00:45:15.280 from getting severe COVID. Here's the new science that we saw just in the last several days.

00:45:21.080 With prior variants, when people had these rare breakthrough infections, we didn't see the

00:45:27.460 capacity of them to spread the virus to others. But with the Delta variant, we now see in our

00:45:33.040 outbreak investigations that have been occurring over the last couple of weeks, in those outbreak

00:45:37.880 investigations, we have been seeing that if you happen to have one of those breakthrough infections,

00:45:42.380 that you can actually now pass it to somebody else. We thought that was really important for

00:45:47.600 people to know and understand because when people are out there vaccinated thinking that even if they

00:45:53.040 get mild illness, they can't give it to someone else. If they're then going to a loved one who's

00:45:57.360 immunocompromised, who isn't yet vaccinated or couldn't yet be vaccinated, we wanted them to take

00:46:02.440 the protection to protect others. Okay, protect others. Then the then the updated guidance should be

00:46:09.980 people who have had the vaccine can spread this particular variant more readily than we knew.

00:46:16.040 So you should know that if you're going to be around someone who's immunocompromised. Yes,

00:46:21.260 give us the information. It appears that Delta remains in your nose more than the previous variants,

00:46:28.540 thus making you more contagious. If you get it, even if you've been vaccinated, you're still have

00:46:35.440 next to no risk of being hospitalized or dying from it if you've been vaccine vaccinated, but you have

00:46:41.100 a greater chance of spreading it versus the earlier variants. Tell us that. Great. We'd love to hear

00:46:47.280 that. You don't then have to try to mandate masks in virtually all of the country. If you look at the

00:46:54.080 cities where they're recommending mask mandates return, it's two thirds of the country. They're telling

00:46:59.200 us that in homes with our children privately, we who are vaccinated like Doug and myself should

00:47:05.020 consider wearing masks because we're with children who have not been vaccinated, even though children

00:47:09.600 have almost no risk from COVID. They have a greater chance of dying from the flu. I don't wear a mask

00:47:16.140 in my home when I have the flu and I have children who don't have it. Do you? Does anyone, right? They

00:47:21.660 have a greater chance of dying from pneumonia. They have a greater chance of dying in a car accident.

00:47:24.900 They have a greater chance of dying from from suicide. I mean, there are all sorts of things we can go

00:47:30.100 down the list that they are more at risk to than COVID deaths. But still, they want you, even if

00:47:36.280 you've had the vaccine, to wear the mask to, quote, protect others. And this is exactly what we were

00:47:42.380 told. Don't forget that by the same people that we wouldn't have to worry about this, that if you

00:47:47.640 got the full the vaccine, you would never have to wear the masks again. You wouldn't have to worry

00:47:51.580 about protecting others and that this is all about protecting yourself. And now now that we have a fair

00:47:56.560 amount of people who won't get the vaccines, oh, we're told that we have to wear the mask for them.

00:48:01.940 Why? They won't get the vaccines for me. Why should I wear the mask for them? And by the way,

00:48:06.800 the people who won't get the vaccines couldn't give two figs whether I wear a mask at all. They're not

00:48:11.760 trying to control other people's behavior. Only Rochelle is and some of her allies, right? Like

00:48:17.360 Mayor Bowser of Washington, D.C., who implements a mask mandate and then goes to a wedding that she

00:48:23.640 performs without a mask. Rules for thee, but not for me. So it's infuriating, right? What about

00:48:31.400 freedom? What about letting people make their own choices and live or die with the consequences of

00:48:36.660 those choices? And keep your hands off of my child's face. Parents should be allowed to decide

00:48:43.780 what goes on their children's face, not these school districts who are terrified of contradicting

00:48:50.100 Rochelle. Because while it must be nice to live in Florida or Texas where you have a reasonable

00:48:54.660 governor who will let you make your own choices, where I am living in New York, temporarily in New

00:49:00.320 Jersey and moving to Connecticut, there isn't a single governor who will listen to reason. All the

00:49:05.380 kids are going to have to be masked. And I guarantee you it's going to be for much of the year because

00:49:09.100 it's not going to get any better here in the United States and certainly in the Northeast when we get to

00:49:12.980 winter. So these kids are going to have to wear a mask on their face and they're going to say it's

00:49:18.560 until they get vaccinated, which they're also trying to mandate. But mark my word, as soon as

00:49:22.660 they get vaccinated, we're going to be back to, oh, they have to be masked as well. And they're

00:49:25.800 already saying it. They don't even have to wait. They're already saying that. Some 12-year-olds have

00:49:29.280 been vaccinated. They're going to have to be masked and they go back to school too. So it's insanity.

00:49:33.760 It's insanity. And that's when you listen to Rochelle in any of her public statements, you can hear this

00:49:38.140 woman is in hysterics. She has no business running our public policy, nor does Fauci. At least when Trump

00:49:44.660 was in office, there was somebody there, a bulwark to slow it down. Now you got Biden and Harris who

00:49:50.620 are, they're double masking even when we were with the earlier variants. Right? So there's no winning

00:49:57.660 against this. When, when will this end? Right? How much longer are we going to be led by these

00:50:02.520 untrustworthy supposed health experts? And that is an addition of what we call sound up. We don't

00:50:09.340 really solve the problems, but we highlight them for you. Uh, and you can go ahead and sound off in

00:50:15.540 the comments if you, if you would like, uh, go to the Apple comments. We'd love to get your comments

00:50:20.100 because I read them all. Yes, I do read every single one. And they also help us with the Apple

00:50:25.400 algorithm, though. I don't know how. So anyway, let us know what you think about Rochelle, the mask

00:50:32.120 guidance, and in particular, what's going to happen in schools with our kids. Now back to Sean after this.

00:50:38.520 It's too gruesome to even get into here. I read it and I cried and I thought I'm not even going to go

00:50:48.220 there, but you are very open about the torture that the Taliban would inflict on young boys,

00:50:54.220 young, as young as six. I'm just, just the most horrific things you can possibly imagine.

00:50:58.640 And I think to myself, how are we now trusting that group to not kill all the people who helped

00:51:06.840 us in Afghanistan, all the, all the fighters, you know, who helped us and, and who had the

00:51:11.660 same mission we did, which is to get rid of them. We're already seeing now on the Afghanistan

00:51:15.440 withdrawal, uh, Taliban fighters, the headline was on CNN, execute 22 Afghan commandos as they

00:51:21.280 try to surrender. That's a war crime. Uh, these guys said, said they had surrendered and there's

00:51:26.540 a piece of news like that almost every day now, because we've yanked the troops, uh, per Biden's

00:51:32.620 order. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, there's no question about it. Anyone that worked with, um, Americans

00:51:40.900 and Afghanistan is now a target. You know, those who trusted a promise that your little girls can

00:51:45.800 emerge from the house and go to school and learn to read and get educated and boys and adults who

00:51:51.820 work on our bases to help us fight for their freedom. There's no question that they're targets.

00:51:56.060 Um, the, the terrible position that some of our strategic level leaders must be in, uh,

00:52:03.700 commanding generals. I don't envy them, Megan, because, you know, we've been there for 20 years

00:52:09.220 now, you know, I'm 40. So you do, you do the math, like the own, we've been at war half of my adult

00:52:14.620 life in Afghanistan. And, um, so yes, we have an obligation to the Afghan people. And I just think

00:52:21.400 the question that leaders have to ask themselves is when is that obligation fulfilled, right? Because

00:52:28.680 we also leaders in this country, and sometimes we forget about this, but we also have an obligation

00:52:32.860 to that young man or woman in Pennsylvania who raises their right hand to volunteer, serve a

00:52:38.920 country, and then go to Afghanistan and might give their life there. And the mission, when we send our,

00:52:45.980 our young men and women in this country to combat, to war, the mission better be crystal

00:52:50.960 clear with a crystal clear end state. And I'm tired, you know, of politicians in this country,

00:52:56.520 sending our men and women over to wars that just maybe the mission's not clear, the end state's not

00:53:01.660 clear. Um, and we've been there for 20 years. So it's about balancing the promises that we made

00:53:07.440 the Afghan people and whether or not that obligation was fulfilled and our obligations to these young,

00:53:12.780 America's young sons and daughters, who I would argue are our most precious natural resource.

00:53:16.380 These are, these are kids that love this country and because they love this country, they want to

00:53:21.320 serve it. And by God, if we're sending them over to fight and die for this country, it better be for

00:53:25.880 a reason that's worthwhile with a clear cut end state. So I would say we're at the point of time in

00:53:31.420 Afghanistan where we should be drawing down and looking for an exit strategy. But the way that it's been

00:53:38.820 done does not strike me as, as strategic at all. Like we, like one example is there should have

00:53:47.120 been a plan in place for what the hell we do with all the interpreters over there who fought for us

00:53:51.140 every single day. Well, aren't we, we are bringing them over, aren't we? I mean, we're bringing a lot

00:53:55.460 of them over. I saw a headline saying hundreds had been brought to the United States. Yeah, we're

00:53:59.880 bringing them over. We're trying to, but it seems like we're playing catch up. Yeah. I don't,

00:54:03.920 we just have so many places in the world where we leave troops. You know, we have troops in South Korea.

00:54:07.540 Well, like, why can't we leave some troops there just to maintain some of the game gains? I feel

00:54:12.560 like don't men and women in the military know that's part of it. They may not be active forever

00:54:17.280 more, but I don't know. I read these headlines and I think, Oh my God, it must be, it must be hard for

00:54:22.000 somebody like you who was over there fighting. I don't know, not to maintain peace in Afghanistan,

00:54:26.460 but to route the Taliban and to route and inflict punishment for what they did.

00:54:31.900 No, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. I mean, and that, that's the balance that I think

00:54:36.380 needs to be struck. The whole point that the whole reason we went to Afghanistan wants to find Osama

00:54:40.720 bin Laden and to keep that country from becoming a Petri dish for terrorists, you know, um, to stop

00:54:47.340 them from having a safe haven from which they would conduct plan and conduct attacks, uh, on the United

00:54:53.680 States or export terror around the world. You know, in a perfect world, um, you know, you would have a few

00:55:00.060 infantry battalions, ranger battalions, seal teams, and a Delta Delta teams that would just do what we call

00:55:05.900 kinetic attacks, right? Like find where these high value targets are, target them, kill them. Um, but keep the

00:55:13.820 enemy guessing, right? So that they don't ever have that base to establish. I mean, you're killing the worst of the

00:55:18.040 worst. You're killing their leadership. I think that's, that's where we need to be in Afghanistan. And I'll tell you,

00:55:23.320 this isn't just a pipe dream. When I was in Afghanistan, we, we did far more with far less.

00:55:31.240 And I would argue that the mission in Afghanistan was, was, was close to one in 2007. And then in

00:55:37.680 2007, 2008, we radically shifted our, our policy in Afghanistan from counter-terror. In other words,

00:55:42.860 going after the enemy, killing the enemy, and through that securing the people, we shifted from that

00:55:47.520 strategy from, from that counter-terror strategy to counter-insurgency and, and we lost the initiative.

00:55:54.240 And, um, so it is, but my, I, I say all that to say it is possible to do that in Afghanistan. We did it

00:56:01.860 with less. We had one brigade combat team in all of regional command East, which was the mountainous

00:56:07.280 border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And we beat the enemy down every single day. And through

00:56:14.400 that, like the Afghan people were free to live their lives. Um, so it's possible talking about

00:56:18.940 this on the show, but how the entire budget for the 20 years of Afghanistan war was $2 trillion,

00:56:25.940 which is that that's doubled by the money that congressional Democrats are about to authorize

00:56:32.900 without any Republican support. Yeah. Through reconciliation. Yeah, exactly. Through record for,

00:56:38.260 on, on various democratic, you know, wishlist items. So, I mean, we did it and we did it on the lean

00:56:43.420 over there. I have a question for you though, on the soldier who comes home. Um, because I heard you

00:56:49.420 on talking about PTSD. I think it was a piece you wrote in a federalist or an interview you gave with

00:56:54.340 them. Um, no, you wrote it, you wrote it in April of 2019. And you said, my combat service was difficult

00:57:01.140 and challenging, but I'm here to tell you that I was not broken or damaged by that experience. We need

00:57:06.340 to correct the common view that military service is psychologically devastating. So can you expand on that?

00:57:13.140 Because I know you suffered a traumatic brain injury and I know you better than I know about

00:57:17.780 some of these guys who come back who really are incredibly damaged psychologically. In addition to

00:57:23.520 physically, they, they tend to fight back. I mean, these guys just never admit, they just said they

00:57:28.000 don't admit weakness if they perceive it as a weakness, but expand on that for me. Yeah. Can I,

00:57:34.200 I'll do it with a story if you don't mind. Um, please. When I came home, I went to the welcome

00:57:39.540 home ceremony and again, 16 months of heavy combat changes you. It just changes you to the core of

00:57:44.220 who you are. I remember standing at court drum in this, um, welcome home ceremony and you have

00:57:49.660 like red, white, and blue everywhere. You have the army band playing the army song and you have

00:57:54.120 everybody up in the bleachers and this basketball court, waving American flags. And everyone in our

00:57:59.180 formation is, is nervous about seeing their family and every family member in the crowd has this

00:58:05.380 unbelievable amount of energy and excitement to see their loved ones that they hadn't seen in a

00:58:09.340 year. So you can imagine that if, if you're tuned into this sort of thing, the weird energy that's

00:58:15.020 in that room. And I remember one of my soldiers saying to me just before we were dismissed, like,

00:58:21.220 Hey, sir, how can we ever tell, how can I ever tell my family about what we went through over there?

00:58:26.380 And I didn't have an answer for him. And then our formation was dismissed and, and it was happy

00:58:31.120 tears all around. And I got to see my family again, but I felt like there was a barrier

00:58:35.000 between my family and I, like, like they didn't even know who I was anymore. And then I went home,

00:58:40.580 uh, back to Pittsburgh here. And the first thing I did was like, pull out my like little flip phone

00:58:45.460 and text my buddies. I'm like, Hey, I'm home. Let's go get, let's go get some beers. And, and no

00:58:50.220 joke. I get, I go, like they text me their address and I'm thinking, Oh my God, this is the same damn

00:58:55.140 address they've lived in for like 10 years. And then I walked into the, they're just like rundown

00:58:59.900 apartment that they're all living in. And then like, they're all sitting in the same spots on the couch,

00:59:04.580 drinking the same beer, talking about the same girl problems with Simpsons posters on the wall

00:59:09.640 and family guide magnets on the fridge. And I'm thinking like, Oh my God, nothing has changed here

00:59:16.740 at home, but I am a fundamentally different person in every way. And we went out to this bar called

00:59:22.640 Casey's in the South side of Pittsburgh. And I started trying to tell them some of the stories

00:59:26.920 about what happened to the kids in Afghanistan. And within five minutes, I found myself drinking

00:59:34.040 at the table alone. And I get it. Like, look, I'm, this isn't a pity party. Like those stories

00:59:38.200 are intense. Right. But in that moment, I said to myself, you know what these civilians, and I know

00:59:44.360 that every veteran has had a moment like this, and it doesn't matter what war they served in.

00:59:47.960 You say these civilians, they'll never get it. And then you just shut down and you lock the war

00:59:52.260 away inside yourself because you say these, these civilians just will never understand Megan.

00:59:57.120 And, um, and then one day I realized that, that storytelling was powerful. Like, like me writing

01:00:05.300 Outlaw Platoon. If you think about this, me writing that book helped me in so many ways. Um, and

01:00:12.560 basically taking the war out of myself, putting it on the page so that when people read that book,

01:00:16.940 they're helping me carry that burden, they're learning about our experience. Right. And,

01:00:23.300 and so, and, and I started asking myself very deep and fun, like just fundamental questions about why

01:00:30.120 veterans lock away that pain, because it never fails. Like before I ran for political office,

01:00:35.100 go do speaking engagements or advocate for veterans. Um, you always hear from someone in the crowd and say,

01:00:40.680 you know what, my grandfather was a world war II veteran and my God, we never even knew that he served

01:00:45.960 until after he passed away. And we found a dusty box of metals in the garage or my father was a

01:00:50.720 Vietnam vet. He never talked about the war. So why do veterans do that? Why do veterans lock away that

01:00:56.340 pain? They lock away that pain because you raise your right hand and you take an oath to protect and

01:01:00.340 defend this country and the people that you love and you care about. And when you realize that the

01:01:04.720 very story of your war hurts the people that you took an oath to protect, we lock it away and you

01:01:10.920 never talk about it because that's what we do. We protect people. We're protectors. And, and I,

01:01:17.540 and I, and that's, that needs to change, you know, that, that, that whole concept needs to change

01:01:22.220 because the bridge or the gap between people who enjoy freedom on a day-to-day basis and people who

01:01:26.840 protect it is very wide. And, and so, and so there's ways in which when our men and women come

01:01:35.200 home, you feel like you're in exile in your own country. And so that, I tell you that story because

01:01:40.540 that's where I like, I don't like the idea of post-traumatic stress disorder, right? At its core,

01:01:48.160 post-traumatic stress is a, is a human reaction to horrific events in your life, whether it was

01:01:55.080 sexual trauma, a car accident or combat trauma at its core, it's an anxiety disorder. And to say that

01:02:01.160 you're disordered for having a human, a normal human response to something horrific is, is wrong.

01:02:09.360 And so, I mean, I mean, my God, you need to be worried about the guy in combat who doesn't get

01:02:14.320 affected by losing his friends. You know, that's the guy that you got to worry about. So it's not a

01:02:20.140 disorder. I wasn't broken by this, but you're talking, you're humanizing these guys in the military

01:02:25.240 who go through, they go through more trauma than the average person ever will in their life.

01:02:29.840 And they find a way to deal with it. And I think, you know, we right now as a country need a little

01:02:35.040 bit more of that example and a little bit more of those lessons and a little bit more guys willing

01:02:39.500 to talk about how they did it. Right. I mean, we've been talking about this in the context of

01:02:44.360 not Simone Biles exactly, because, you know, I, I was talking about her last week saying I support

01:02:49.200 her. She's been through a lot. Um, but I, I think it's strange how we're celebrating the quitting

01:02:53.820 itself. That's that for me is a bridge too far. We, we can have empathy for her and say,

01:02:57.720 it's a sad day in an amazing athlete's career, but instead the media wants to celebrate the actual

01:03:02.160 quitting. Um, and I just think what you need is to look at more guys like you guys, like Marcus

01:03:08.860 Luttrell, who just quitting is not in your DNA. It's just no matter how hard, the hardship you don't

01:03:16.460 quit. Megan, you can't, it was never our men and I like, I'm not like the toughest guy in the world.

01:03:22.980 Right. Like I, like I don't come from a long line of military generals, you know, I I'm a city boy,

01:03:28.000 you know, like I, so I was wounded in Afghanistan. My men were wounded in Afghanistan and we endured

01:03:36.360 not because, not because we were tough. I mean, don't get me wrong. There were plenty of men in

01:03:42.560 my platoon that were like hardcore meat eaters, way tougher than me, but, but we endured. And I think

01:03:49.160 did extraordinary things because we didn't want to let each other down. So we were, were we going

01:03:54.440 through hell? Absolutely. Like I had a, I had a guy from Haiti is a St. Jean is his last name. Um,

01:04:03.120 and he got shot in the head, the bullet, I watched it happen. The bullet hit his helmet,

01:04:09.940 hit his skull, penetrated the skin, but the helmet slowed the round down and up where it circumvented the

01:04:15.340 side of his skull and went out the back. Okay. Two days after that happened, he was back on patrol,

01:04:21.060 manning a machine gun. Oh, wow. This guy came to this country. Wasn't even a citizen, loved America,

01:04:27.760 defended it because he believed it was exceptional. And when I asked him, I said, Hey, St. Jean, I said,

01:04:32.460 man, like, dude, you just got shot in the head. Like you don't have to go on this patrol. You could

01:04:37.080 like sleep it off or something, man. He goes, no, sir. He said, I, I'm not going to let my brothers down.

01:04:42.940 Well, that's like you, you, you're too humble to say it, but I know from having read up on you

01:04:48.440 that you too had a serious injury that you continued not to treat and not to get fully

01:04:54.640 diagnosed because you were afraid they would send you home. It's like back to the cowardly me who

01:05:00.600 wouldn't even sign up for the war. I would have been like, I'm afraid they're going to keep me.

01:05:04.960 How soon can I get the MRI? That's going to say I'm out of here. It's just a different mentality.

01:05:09.940 I just love those guys, you know? Um, and I still do this day. They're, they're like my brothers,

01:05:15.900 you know? Um, and in many ways, like I'm the oldest of four children. So, and I love my brothers

01:05:22.820 and my sister, but like, I could tell you, I was so close with my troops that I could tell you

01:05:28.860 who someone was as they were walking away in the middle of the night, just by the way that they walk.

01:05:34.360 Um, so you just, you experience hell with these guys and, and you don't want to abandon them.

01:05:40.700 You don't want to leave them to go through that hell by themselves. You know, it's, you know, it's

01:05:45.760 that, it's that line, um, for band of brothers. And if you've ever, like we stand alone together,

01:05:50.180 that's, that's just what it is. And, and really, you know, that, like that whole concept of never,

01:05:57.960 and Simone Biles, yes, she went through a lot and I, I don't begrudge her that pain. Um, and I'm sure

01:06:03.900 the trauma is, is real. Um, but for me, you just don't quit on your, your team, you know, you can't

01:06:11.360 and, and, and I'm not going to quit on this country. And, and, you know, politics is a, is a,

01:06:17.880 it's a dirty business. Like, honestly, it, it, it, if you've seen that movie, mean girls,

01:06:22.420 like I've got a daughter. So like, like we watched it once and I'm like, what the hell is this?

01:06:26.580 And I'm like, and I'm like, this is exactly like running for political office. Like the dynamic

01:06:31.440 is like the same. It's like junior high, it's like junior high, stupid. Like the stuff that the media

01:06:37.120 seizes on and the stuff that these people talk about, I'm just like, this is so, this is so

01:06:43.200 ridiculous. Um, but it's just, who cares about that? This country is so worth it. This country is

01:06:51.880 worth it. The people of this country are worth it. And by God, we need people to stand up and fight for

01:06:56.280 it. Because Megan, I, you have kids the same age as mine and I am not, it's not a foregone

01:07:04.380 conclusion to me that they're going to inherit a nation that is as rich with opportunity as you

01:07:10.000 and I have known. And that troubles me deeply. And so we have to fight for it, right? We have to do

01:07:17.340 everything we can to bring people together in this country. I heard you talking to, with my pals over

01:07:22.220 on Ruthless not long ago and you were saying how important it is to you. Um, they're great. I love

01:07:27.840 that podcast about how important it is to you to instill that in your kids, that, that freedom is

01:07:33.640 something for which we must fight. And it, you know, it was a good reminder for me, Sean, because I was

01:07:38.920 like, whatever your background is, is probably what you highlight for your kids, you know? And that

01:07:45.740 message is really important to me, but it's not something I instill every day. And it was a good

01:07:48.780 reminder. If freedom is something for which we must fight. And I think the kids today,

01:07:53.480 they don't get that, that they're not even, there is no nine 11 right now. All there is,

01:07:58.040 is this crazy boat crisis and COVID masking. And I don't think they would even understand

01:08:04.460 what that fight looks like. Yes. Yes. And I, you know, I admired Ronald Reagan when I was a young

01:08:12.880 infantry Lieutenant. And I remember his quote about freedoms ever more than one generation away from

01:08:17.020 extinction. And I never really, you know, it was just words back then, but as you get older and

01:08:23.140 you have kids and you look towards where this country is going and the fact that your children

01:08:29.140 might be in that country someday, you say, wait a second, you know, I have to stand up and I have

01:08:34.420 to fight for, for this country and the future of this country. Not, not for me, not really necessarily

01:08:39.480 even for my generation, but for them. And, and really what it's about is that I, for me, for me,

01:08:47.020 I was lucky enough to make it home, you know, from, from combat and, and my platoon like outlaw

01:08:53.220 platoon is just one really long deployment. Well, my platoon went back and back. We've lost more

01:08:58.900 members of, of my platoon to suicide than we did during two tours of combat. I mean, a very heavy

01:09:04.760 burden was being carried by a very small percentage of people in this country, but I was blessed enough

01:09:09.480 to make it home. And every day that I wake up and I draw breath, if I'm, you ever see that the end

01:09:15.600 of saving private Ryan, where Tom Hanks looks at Matt Damon and says, earn this, that's what he

01:09:21.520 means, you know, as he's passing away from this earth, earn it. Every day you wake up, every day

01:09:26.380 you draw breath, live a life worthy of the sacrifice of those who never made it home. And trying to teach

01:09:33.040 my children that there are people in this country right now out there risking their lives for our

01:09:40.200 freedom. And, and, and that is, we, we have to, we have to fight for freedom every day for them.

01:09:46.660 They're fighting over there. We have to fight for it here. And, you know, there's, we, we just have

01:09:53.180 to fight for it, Megan. We have to, we have to make sure that our children inherit a country that,

01:09:57.640 that is vibrant and free and rich with opportunity. Um, and, and it can be, it can be, it doesn't,

01:10:06.540 it doesn't have to be picking up a rifle. I mean, I was, I'm thinking about that little kid,

01:10:10.200 his video went viral. He was in the state of Florida, so he's, he's better off than a lot of

01:10:14.520 our kids are, but he was trying to get them to drop the man, the mask mandate, um, like two weeks

01:10:19.420 before the end of school. And he got out there and he talked about why he didn't like it and why he

01:10:22.840 thought his teacher was, you know, she's didn't wear hers often. And why did he, and, you know,

01:10:27.280 he's a little fighter. Like they, they actually can find a way to stand up for these ideals and push

01:10:33.120 back against people who would silence them or don't share these ideals in their own way.

01:10:37.640 I love that. I, I saw that and I'm like, that is just exactly what this country needs. You know,

01:10:44.880 uh, people who are, are unafraid to stand up and, and, and, you know, so much, so much of,

01:10:51.160 of our culture is like, Oh, like if you're running for political office, like there's no such thing

01:10:55.240 as bad media. And I'm like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. First of all, yes, there is. I mean, a lot of people

01:11:01.880 like just get on the media as much as you can, as much as you can. But I, and then you've got social

01:11:05.900 media. And so I think there's this like sense in modern day politics that you can do it all on the

01:11:11.640 media and on social media. But the reality is, is it for me? Like I like to go into town squares

01:11:18.020 and stand up on a soapbox and make my case directly to the people, you know? And I want my kids. And

01:11:25.060 that's not unlike what that little kid did talking about the school and the mask and stuff. Like

01:11:28.680 I want my kids to see that. I want my kids to see that it's okay. That in America, you can stand up

01:11:37.360 on a street corner in front of a crowd of people and make your case to the people on what you believe

01:11:42.860 is best for the country. Right. You don't, you don't necessarily need the media and social media

01:11:47.720 to do that. Now it doesn't help. Of course it does. But, um, there is a way in which it's important

01:11:52.960 for our children to see that that that's sort of why I, you know, campaigns are brutal. Politics is

01:11:58.420 brutal. Um, but, but I like the idea that my kids get to be exposed to that because they see very

01:12:05.680 clearly like, Hey, my dad's in the fight. Like this country has to be fought for. And I want them,

01:12:11.040 I want them to grow up with that. I'm starting to feel better about myself, Sean. Suddenly I'm feeling

01:12:15.000 like, okay, I do. I don't fight with a rifle, but I, but I fight with a rhetorical flair, which could

01:12:19.460 matter. It's not, it's not the same as military service, but I'm starting to feel better.

01:12:23.060 Oh, listen, you said this, you said this a couple of times in the interview. It's like,

01:12:26.780 I was too afraid. I was too, but you know, there, there are more ways to serve this country than,

01:12:31.920 you know, putting on a pair of boots and grabbing a rifle, you know, the fight for freedom takes many

01:12:37.600 forms and, and my God, like when, when soldiers are in combat, when soldiers are, you know, that's the

01:12:45.360 last 10 yards of failed foreign policy. Right. So the hope is we never get there. And with people

01:12:51.380 like you out there using your platform to talk about these, these issues, I mean, the hope is

01:12:57.160 like, we don't have to get there. Right. If you're using your voice, nor would me with a gun in combat

01:13:04.840 be doing any good for the United States. Like, Oh my God, what have we done? We're back with the end

01:13:11.340 of our show in less than one minute. Last piece of this before I let you go. Um, how's it looking?

01:13:20.260 So you lost your first race and it was very tight. Um, and to the Democrat, right? And this is,

01:13:27.380 this is a house. Okay. He's been, he's been pretending to be a Republican his whole career,

01:13:33.040 but yes, he's, he's a Democrat. He's okay. Yes. Sorry. Thank you for that clarification.

01:13:37.940 Sometimes in Pennsylvania, it can be confusing. Um, and now you're, you're going to run,

01:13:43.660 you're running for Senate for, for us Senate again. And so how do you like your chances this

01:13:47.520 time? Oh gosh, I love it. So like, so, so that race for Congress in 2020, do you know how he even

01:13:54.220 got in this? Like I running for political office was never part of my life. It was, didn't Trump

01:14:00.260 announce it before. Yeah. Well, so he came to this, he came to give a speech at the Marcella

01:14:05.800 Shale coalition. And I wasn't even there. I never met him, never talked to him. I was down in South

01:14:10.820 Carolina, giving away a service dog to a veteran. And I'm like on the stage talking and my phone is

01:14:16.740 like blown up and ringing off the hook. And I look at it. I got 56 missed calls, like texts from

01:14:22.380 reporters or political consultants. And I'm from this Italian family in Western Pennsylvania. And like,

01:14:27.200 my mom is calling me over and over and over again. I'm like, Oh crap, something's wrong.

01:14:32.120 My mom isn't calling me unless something's wrong. And I sneak off the stage and I pick up the phone

01:14:36.760 and I said, Ma, what's going on? She just starts like yelling at me. She goes, Sean,

01:14:40.700 are you running for Congress? And I said, Ma, no, I'm, I am not running for Congress. And then she just

01:14:46.200 pauses and she goes, well, president Trump says you're running for Congress. And I said, what's like

01:14:51.360 what? And she sends me this, she sends me this video and it's like, it's like Trump going

01:14:56.880 off script, like Sean Parnell, brilliant military man. He's got everything. I'm like,

01:15:02.700 what the hell is going on right now? Like, and so it's so like, I turned my life upside down and

01:15:08.660 like no political experience whatsoever. And we got in the race in PA 17, which is like one of the

01:15:13.400 biggest swing districts in the country. If you look at the cook political report, it says it's an R plus

01:15:18.520 two. But if you look at turnout demographics in 2020, it's a D plus six. And so in and around the city

01:15:25.060 of Pittsburgh, right? So Republicans don't exactly fare well in and around the city of cities, period.

01:15:30.600 Right. Yeah. Um, but even with all the big tech censorship and even with Nancy Pelosi spending

01:15:35.780 millions of dollars against me, and I did it almost all myself raised all my own money and we broke all

01:15:40.880 sorts of records doing it. Um, but even with the deck stacked against us in a district that many

01:15:46.500 considered to be gerrymandered to protect Connor land, it, I mean, they drew his own hometown in the

01:15:51.760 district for goodness sake. Um, we still almost beat that guy. We still almost beat him in a D plus

01:15:57.420 six as a Republican. And so, um, Pennsylvania is not a D plus six. And, um, you know, if you look at

01:16:06.760 all the chaos that was woven into our system here in Pennsylvania and our elections in 2020, two

01:16:11.300 Republicans, still one statewide congressional Republicans, if you pull all their votes, they

01:16:16.980 amassed over 85,000 more votes than congressional Democrats. There is a path. And that was

01:16:21.620 in 2020, right? In 2021, we elect our judges here in Pennsylvania. Um, but it's an odd election

01:16:28.140 year. Uh, there were two ballot questions, uh, on our ballot this year that pertain to governor

01:16:33.340 Wolf, who's a Democrat here in the Pennsylvania and it's unilateral authority to declare emergencies.

01:16:37.660 We won those ballot questions by 139,000 votes. And so this state going into 2022 with how radical

01:16:47.800 the Democrat party has become, Oh my gosh, I love our chances and we're going to win. We're going to

01:16:54.760 win the primary and we're going to win the general. And I just, I just feel it, Megan. And, um, people

01:17:01.800 are realizing that I think our country's on the brink that we stand on a very thin line between hope and

01:17:07.900 darkness and we better elect leaders and not politicians. And I just, I really like where we

01:17:14.380 are. I really like where we are. So your, your opponent is, is raising against you. Um, prior

01:17:20.400 comments you made that were critical of president Trump. And I have to say, whatever your beefs are

01:17:25.420 policy-wise, that is such nonsense. Isn't I like you tell me, I think I feel uncomfortable when I

01:17:30.960 watch JD Vance go out there and say, please forgive me for my, my negative comments about

01:17:34.900 president Trump. What is he doing? I love, and I love JD Vance, but I'm just saying, why would you

01:17:39.780 probably, so most people's feelings on Trump have been evolving, you know, like he came on with a

01:17:46.200 rather large splash was unlike anything we'd ever seen. And then people got to know him and see what

01:17:51.380 he did. I don't, do you feel the need to, to be defensive about the stuff? No, no, no, no, no. In

01:17:58.680 fact, I've had consultants are like, well, what, you know, not consultants that I'm working with. Uh,

01:18:03.240 but, but people, Oh, you should have deleted those tweets. Oh, hell no. I stand by everything that I say.

01:18:07.780 And, um, the reality is, is, is I said earlier, I didn't recognize what Trump really

01:18:14.720 represented. And this was everything that I talked about with president Trump back then

01:18:19.520 was in a primary before he was even president. Um, and I don't think he'd care. I mean, you tell

01:18:25.160 me, but he has enough actual enemies in today's day and age who, who never got him. Why would he be

01:18:33.740 picking enemies among people like you who had early doubts about him?

01:18:37.780 Yeah. Listen to this. So if you think, if you ever questioned like the media's narratives,

01:18:41.860 right. Um, which I know you have, but I'm sure certainly many of your listeners do as well,

01:18:46.800 but like in 2020, their main attack on me was, Oh, Parnell's a Trump bootlicker. Like

01:18:52.320 he's a Trump guy. He's just a little Trump. And then six months later, I'm going to run it like

01:18:58.140 literally six months later in the state of Pennsylvania for United States Senate. And now

01:19:01.400 the media is like, Oh, Sean's never Trump because they think it's going to hurt me in

01:19:05.140 a primary. I'm like, this is so stupid. Like this is so dumb. And, um, yeah, like citing tweets

01:19:13.140 that I made because I was with Marco in a primary, but if you look, you can go Google the article

01:19:18.200 right now. Um, there's a funny story about this. I campaigned with Marco in South Carolina. If you

01:19:23.440 remember back then, like Marco needed to win South Carolina and he had thousands of people on the

01:19:27.920 ground. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is so cool to see like a presidential campaign in full force.

01:19:33.620 I mean, knock thousands of doors. It was just amazing. And we thought that he was going to win,

01:19:38.260 but he didn't, he didn't win. He came in second. And I'm like, okay, what is going on? What's going

01:19:44.920 on in this country right now? Um, there's something that the polls or the pundits are not picking up

01:19:50.040 about president Trump, president Trump won. And I actually came back to Pennsylvania, drove from

01:19:54.240 Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and then up through the T and I wrote an article in the Hill and said,

01:19:59.060 Pennsylvania's in play and Trump's going to win it. And everyone criticized me. Oh, you're crazy.

01:20:03.520 There's no way. And I was right. Trump won it in 2016. And so I just think it's every day. It's

01:20:08.860 like Kellyanne Conway said terrible things about Trump. And so did Roger Stone, right? Roger Stone,

01:20:13.820 who the Trump's diehards love. It's just absurd, but you're right. That's a, that's a media concoction

01:20:18.240 and a political concoction by somebody who's looking to beat you. We will continue watching it and,

01:20:22.760 and rooting on your message because we love our military, love our veterans. And you,

01:20:26.840 you represent the best of the best. Hey, thank you very, very much for saying that. Um,

01:20:30.920 and thank you for having me. It's a blessing to even have the opportunity to serve this great

01:20:34.920 country again. The pleasure is all mine. And let me tell you, my husband's from Philadelphia

01:20:39.140 and one of the suburbs around there. So I have actual family who may be voters. So, you know,

01:20:45.280 you may be speaking to them right now and they get a whole new look at Sean Parnell.

01:20:48.580 So that's cool. That's cool. Vote for me. Vote for me. Everybody could have just turned it around

01:20:53.680 right here. All the best. We'll continue watching. Thanks for your. Yes. Thanks. Thank you.

01:21:02.100 Don't miss the show tomorrow. Go ahead and subscribe right now. So you don't,

01:21:05.020 because we're going to have Dr. Martin Kaldorf. He's a professor of medicine at Harvard.

01:21:08.360 He was one of the great Barrington docs who pushed for, he pushed back against lockdowns and he was on

01:21:13.920 the panel advising the CDC on vaccines until they kicked him off in April because he wrote an op-ed

01:21:19.460 in the Hill saying, um, I'm not sure you did the right thing with the J and J slowdown, six cases

01:21:24.980 who totally undermined confidence in the vaccine. Um, I wonder how that's going to work out right now.

01:21:30.320 They're just like that Trump publicans won't get vaccinated. Nobody will take responsibility for

01:21:34.560 anything they've done to cause doubt in these vaccines. He's coming back to react to what we're

01:21:39.660 seeing right now with the COVID madness. And my pal Janice Dean is back too. She's continuing to

01:21:44.720 fight against governor Cuomo and has got the latest on what's happening with that. Plus we had the most

01:21:49.140 bizarre, but somehow satisfying Twitter fight against this guy, Matthew Dowd. He was the ABC

01:21:54.800 political analyst for 20 years. I want to say chief political analyst, I think it's ABC for 20 years.

01:21:59.920 He recently left. I'm not exactly sure the circumstances. And this guy is a Twitter troll.

01:22:04.820 It's such an insight into who is controlling our media, right? He was a high, high up post

01:22:10.040 at ABC. Well, this is what he does. He attacks people like Mary Catherine Ham, Republican,

01:22:16.140 right after her husband died. And she was a new widow pregnant with her second baby.

01:22:20.320 He thought that it might be fun to attack her saying she leads a sad life. Oh, sweet. What,

01:22:25.380 what a classy guy. He attacked Megan McCain while she was on a maternity leave a couple of days into it.

01:22:30.100 Great time to go after a woman sitting at home. Then he attacked Janice Dean repeatedly,

01:22:34.160 for going after Governor Cuomo saying, why don't you come after the governor of Texas now that the,

01:22:38.260 you know, the rates are rising in Texas. Janice Dean's made clear all along. She's upset because

01:22:42.640 both of her in-laws, the parents of her firefighter hero husband who fought bravely on 9-11 were killed

01:22:50.020 by COVID in New York City, New York state nursing homes. That's why she's taking on Governor Cuomo.

01:22:55.260 It has nothing to do with Texas, Matthew Dowd. This isn't about him. She's not coming on to talk

01:22:59.140 about Matthew Dowd, but we're going to get into it because he's a troll. He's disgusting.

01:23:02.500 We were all talking about it on Twitter last night. Now he's blocked me. He's blocked her.

01:23:06.280 He's blocked MK Ham. He's blocked Megan McCain. This is what cowards do, right? They take shots.

01:23:11.740 Then they block you because you don't, they, they don't want you to see what they're saying about

01:23:15.580 you. And they don't, they, they, they just like to punch and run away. Well, there'll be some

01:23:20.740 accountability for that when she comes on and some for Governor Cuomo. Uh, and we'll have the latest on

01:23:25.840 what one of the Governor Cuomo accusers is now saying about Chris Cuomo. Don't miss that. See you next time.

01:23:32.500 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. The Megan Kelly

01:23:41.140 show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.

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The Megyn Kelly Show - August 02, 2021

Sean Parnell on Fighting For America, Running For Political Office, and How Military Combat Changes You ｜ Ep. 138

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