The Megyn Kelly Show - April 05, 2022


Silencing Free Speech and BLM's $6 Million Mansion, with Andrew Klavan | Ep. 293


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 33 minutes

Words per minute

203.18161

Word count

19,069

Sentence count

866

Harmful content

Misogyny

56

sentences flagged

Hate speech

63

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Andrew Clavin joins Megynkelly to discuss his new book, The Truth and Beauty, How the Lives and Works of England s Greatest Poets Point the Way to a deeper understanding of the words of Jesus Christ.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Now streaming on Paramount Plus.
00:00:02.860 Someone is trying to frame us.
00:00:05.160 Until our names are cleared.
00:00:07.700 We're fugitives from interval.
00:00:09.480 Like Bonnie and Clyde with better snacks.
00:00:12.840 Espionage?
00:00:13.560 You still as good a shot as you used to be?
00:00:16.580 Better.
00:00:17.400 Is there love language?
00:00:18.860 We like to walk that fine line between techno-thriller
00:00:21.360 and romantic comedy.
00:00:24.180 We make up our own rules.
00:00:25.940 NCIS Tony and Ziva.
00:00:27.400 Now streaming on Paramount Plus.
00:00:30.000 When I found out my friend got a great deal
00:00:32.300 on a wool coat from Winner's,
00:00:33.920 I started wondering,
00:00:35.580 is every fabulous item I see from Winner's?
00:00:38.680 Like that woman over there with the designer jeans. 1.00
00:00:41.400 Are those from Winner's?
00:00:42.940 Ooh, or those beautiful gold earrings.
00:00:45.380 Did she pay full price?
00:00:46.740 Or that leather tote?
00:00:47.740 Or that cashmere sweater?
00:00:48.940 Or those knee-high boots?
00:00:50.380 That dress?
00:00:51.220 That jacket?
00:00:51.880 Those shoes?
00:00:52.900 Is anyone paying full price for anything?
00:00:55.400 Stop wondering.
00:00:57.160 Start winning.
00:00:57.720 Winners find fabulous for less.
00:01:01.100 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:01:02.660 Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
00:01:11.820 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.
00:01:13.660 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:01:15.600 Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson,
00:01:17.620 one step closer to the Supreme Court,
00:01:19.880 with three Senate Republicans now supporting her nomination.
00:01:23.200 That plus, Black Lives Matter secretly bought a $6 million home 0.97
00:01:30.060 and actively worked to conceal it from the media
00:01:33.320 and then conspired when the media got a hold of it
00:01:36.060 on how to mislead them.
00:01:37.880 So we'll talk about that.
00:01:38.840 And also, a mother has now been fired
00:01:40.880 for speaking out against New York City Mayor Eric Adams' mask policy.
00:01:44.560 Remember we showed you and talked about that,
00:01:46.200 the folks that showed up to protest,
00:01:48.460 the fact that he's masking toddlers still.
00:01:50.440 He lost a legal battle.
00:01:52.580 The court said, you don't have the power to do that.
00:01:54.520 The masks are coming off the two-year-old kids in New York.
00:01:58.100 And then he filed an appeal,
00:01:59.400 and the appellate court sided with him,
00:02:00.960 and he's delighted.
00:02:02.140 And the parents are angry,
00:02:03.160 and a woman who spoke out about it just got fired
00:02:05.440 because she works for this city. 0.95
00:02:07.080 It's insane.
00:02:08.380 Here to discuss that and so much more
00:02:11.060 is somebody I've been trying to interview for a long time.
00:02:13.960 His name is Andrew Clavin.
00:02:15.700 He has a podcast over the Daily Wire once a week,
00:02:19.160 which is well worth your time.
00:02:20.960 But he's an extremely successful writer, thinker,
00:02:25.800 just one of those people who's got a lot of built-up wisdom
00:02:28.400 thanks to his time in this earth.
00:02:30.040 And it spans from faith to philosophy,
00:02:33.840 some of which is espoused in his new book.
00:02:36.240 It's just out today.
00:02:37.100 It's called The Truth and Beauty,
00:02:39.920 How the Lives and Works of England's Greatest Poets
00:02:42.340 point the way to a deeper understanding
00:02:44.560 of the words of Jesus.
00:02:46.880 Andrew, welcome.
00:02:47.700 So great to have you here.
00:02:49.440 Thanks, Megan.
00:02:49.960 It's great to be here.
00:02:51.040 Oh, I'm a big fan.
00:02:52.040 You're brilliant.
00:02:53.120 I love you.
00:02:53.600 My only complaint about your podcast
00:02:55.140 is that it doesn't come out enough.
00:02:56.560 You need to do more.
00:02:58.500 I had to cut back.
00:02:59.600 I was doing it four days a week,
00:03:01.020 and I just thought, you know,
00:03:02.100 I don't have that many opinions.
00:03:04.600 I know that's not true,
00:03:05.940 but you have other things that you do.
00:03:07.580 I mean, it's not like,
00:03:08.640 if I only believed you were doing the podcast,
00:03:10.820 I'd be on you more, 0.62
00:03:11.520 but I know you write
00:03:12.300 and you do a lot of other things,
00:03:13.480 and so there has to be time to think
00:03:14.900 and to actually build that beautiful brain.
00:03:17.400 Let me make a confession to you.
00:03:18.900 My first introduction to you
00:03:20.780 on a more serious note
00:03:22.560 was through your son, Spencer.
00:03:24.920 So a long time ago,
00:03:26.180 we first launched the podcast,
00:03:27.200 going on two years ago now,
00:03:28.640 I interviewed,
00:03:30.080 I've had him on many times,
00:03:31.280 Victor Davis Hanson,
00:03:32.400 who's a professor of classics and so on,
00:03:34.700 and a deep thinker,
00:03:35.980 and I confessed to him,
00:03:37.460 I didn't really understand what it meant
00:03:38.940 to be a professor of classics.
00:03:40.140 I'm very low bar, Andrew.
00:03:41.700 This is what you need to know about me.
00:03:43.060 That's what you're dealing with, okay?
00:03:44.840 I'm like, what does it mean?
00:03:45.920 Explain it to me.
00:03:46.720 So he did,
00:03:47.400 and I was like,
00:03:47.800 oh, I really want to know more about that.
00:03:49.600 And one of my listeners said,
00:03:51.060 you should try Spencer Clavin's podcast
00:03:53.100 called Young Heretics,
00:03:55.000 and he talks about the classics,
00:03:56.600 and he sort of gives you a,
00:03:58.660 it's actually not a base level education.
00:04:01.760 It's much, much, much more than that,
00:04:03.060 but he makes you love them
00:04:04.200 and just sort of walks you through
00:04:06.700 a lot of things
00:04:07.180 that I never learned in my schooling.
00:04:08.460 So then I got connected to you
00:04:10.800 and blah, blah, blah,
00:04:11.320 and I'm so delighted
00:04:12.360 to have the man who created Spencer Clavin
00:04:14.940 here on the show today.
00:04:16.540 One of my better works.
00:04:17.760 I appreciate that.
00:04:18.640 He's a rotten little kid
00:04:20.180 for being that smart,
00:04:21.120 but he is a brilliant, brilliant guy.
00:04:23.340 And he is also,
00:04:24.660 he got his PhD in classics from Oxford,
00:04:27.280 so he is well-educated.
00:04:29.240 Yeah.
00:04:29.500 Oh my God.
00:04:29.900 Like his resume is crazy good.
00:04:31.520 And when I started to read up on you
00:04:33.480 more in depth in preparing for today,
00:04:35.380 I realized how he got to be that way.
00:04:37.900 I mean, just your stories
00:04:39.000 about how you guys
00:04:40.160 used to spend time together
00:04:41.420 and the amount of time
00:04:42.760 you've put into your children.
00:04:45.740 And even to this day,
00:04:47.200 writing about, you know,
00:04:48.120 how you were preparing this book
00:04:49.440 that I mentioned in the intro,
00:04:51.780 sitting there with Spencer,
00:04:53.420 both of you guys now drinking a whiskey.
00:04:55.480 He's a grown up now.
00:04:56.800 Talking about philosophy,
00:04:57.980 talking about God,
00:04:58.920 talking about how to figure out
00:05:00.820 the meaning of the gospel.
00:05:03.220 It's great stuff.
00:05:04.600 It gave me an,
00:05:05.480 it inspired me to try to elevate
00:05:07.760 my own relationship with my children.
00:05:10.440 Well, it is something, you know,
00:05:12.280 he and I have been walking
00:05:13.940 and hiking and drinking a little bit
00:05:15.880 as we get older
00:05:16.640 and talking for so long
00:05:18.400 that we frequently joke
00:05:19.440 that we no longer know
00:05:20.600 whose ideas are which.
00:05:22.040 And I call him Clavin 2.0
00:05:24.040 because I expect him to take
00:05:25.320 our joint ideas
00:05:27.060 into the next generation.
00:05:28.140 And you're absolutely right.
00:05:29.440 This book would not have been written
00:05:30.660 without him,
00:05:31.280 not just because he,
00:05:32.920 not just because his ideas
00:05:34.060 are now interwoven
00:05:35.140 with mine inextricably,
00:05:36.520 but also because
00:05:37.860 I was talking to him.
00:05:39.320 The book starts
00:05:40.040 with a conversation
00:05:40.680 I was having with him
00:05:41.500 in which I was saying
00:05:42.180 some of the words of Jesus
00:05:43.400 are actually kind of puzzling,
00:05:44.620 you know,
00:05:44.920 to say, you know,
00:05:45.820 love your enemies
00:05:46.540 and I don't even like my enemies
00:05:48.020 and turn the other cheek
00:05:49.500 and I would happily like
00:05:50.600 just deck anybody
00:05:51.540 who attacked him
00:05:52.360 or his mother.
00:05:52.880 And he said to me,
00:05:54.660 you're trying to understand
00:05:56.080 a philosophy,
00:05:56.660 but you should be trying
00:05:58.020 to get to know a man.
00:05:59.480 And I realized
00:06:00.480 the minute he said it,
00:06:01.300 I thought that's the
00:06:01.840 most brilliant thing
00:06:03.360 anybody's ever said to me
00:06:04.420 because, you know,
00:06:05.180 when you know somebody,
00:06:06.280 your father,
00:06:07.500 your mother,
00:06:08.140 your wife,
00:06:08.860 whatever,
00:06:09.400 when you really know them,
00:06:10.280 you don't think,
00:06:10.880 well, this is their
00:06:11.360 philosophy of life.
00:06:12.360 I don't think this is
00:06:13.040 my wife's philosophy of life.
00:06:14.520 I just think
00:06:15.000 this is what she would say
00:06:16.460 if she were here.
00:06:17.740 This is what she would be thinking
00:06:19.020 if she were here.
00:06:19.740 And that's where
00:06:20.620 the book began.
00:06:21.500 It began with me
00:06:22.220 trying to reread the Gospels
00:06:23.960 without any theology whatsoever,
00:06:26.300 even the theology of Paul
00:06:27.540 and just try to get
00:06:28.200 to know the guy.
00:06:29.340 And it was a genuinely
00:06:30.720 powerful experiment
00:06:32.120 and resulted in this book.
00:06:33.240 And I hope
00:06:33.560 the things that I found
00:06:35.200 which have increased
00:06:35.860 my joy level substantially
00:06:37.340 will have the same effect
00:06:38.760 on other people.
00:06:39.960 Well, this is going to be
00:06:40.340 very useful to me
00:06:41.340 in my own relationship
00:06:42.440 with my youngest child,
00:06:43.580 Thatcher,
00:06:44.040 who's only eight
00:06:45.040 and he's about to make
00:06:45.780 his first communion
00:06:46.480 in the Catholic Church.
00:06:47.440 And he's got to,
00:06:49.460 they're going to perform publicly,
00:06:50.940 obviously,
00:06:51.300 in the church together.
00:06:52.240 And he's responsible
00:06:53.880 for the last two lines
00:06:54.880 of the Our Father.
00:06:55.880 Because I know you wrestled
00:06:56.820 with Sermon on the Mount.
00:06:57.700 It's right in there.
00:06:58.560 And talk about the meaning
00:07:00.100 of the words.
00:07:00.820 And you could read them.
00:07:02.080 Obviously, you're brilliant.
00:07:03.280 You understand the meaning
00:07:04.320 of words.
00:07:05.000 But you were looking for
00:07:06.360 sort of a higher level.
00:07:07.600 Like, what's really being said here?
00:07:10.360 And I thought the same thing
00:07:12.040 last night
00:07:12.480 as I was trying to explain
00:07:13.460 the Our Father to Thatcher
00:07:14.420 in those last two lines
00:07:15.460 and how, you know,
00:07:16.580 what do they mean?
00:07:17.640 And why are you saying them?
00:07:18.940 And why are we making you
00:07:19.880 memorize all this stuff
00:07:21.000 in advance of this event?
00:07:22.580 Too often we go through it
00:07:23.700 in a rote manner
00:07:24.700 as opposed to just
00:07:25.600 pausing to figure out
00:07:27.520 what is God
00:07:28.940 trying to tell me here?
00:07:30.960 It's really true.
00:07:32.260 And for me,
00:07:33.220 it's really important
00:07:34.640 because I'm one of these people,
00:07:36.300 I don't really care
00:07:37.360 that much about theology.
00:07:38.780 I like to discuss theology,
00:07:40.180 but I don't care.
00:07:41.640 People ask me all the time,
00:07:42.640 are the ends of days coming?
00:07:43.840 And I have no idea.
00:07:45.160 It actually says in the gospel
00:07:46.300 that I have no idea.
00:07:47.600 And they, you know,
00:07:48.480 they talk about other people's sins
00:07:49.980 and I don't think about
00:07:50.920 other people's sins too much.
00:07:52.480 What I really think about a lot
00:07:54.300 is what does God want me
00:07:56.000 to do today, this minute?
00:07:57.460 You know, what does he want me to say?
00:07:58.720 What does he want me to write?
00:07:59.640 How does he want me to work?
00:08:00.580 How does he want me to live?
00:08:02.400 And that's the only thing
00:08:03.420 I have any control over.
00:08:04.700 So that was kind of
00:08:05.480 my approach to the gospels
00:08:07.260 and it's kind of been
00:08:08.160 what I've been trying
00:08:08.700 to get out of the gospels.
00:08:10.260 You know, I talk about the fact
00:08:11.620 that in the Nicene Creed,
00:08:13.060 which is the basic statement
00:08:14.100 of Christianity,
00:08:14.760 it says Jesus was born of a virgin 0.78
00:08:17.120 and he died under Pontius Pilate.
00:08:18.840 And there's nothing
00:08:19.440 between those two things.
00:08:20.380 It's as if he never lived.
00:08:21.540 You know, he just was born
00:08:22.460 and he died.
00:08:23.460 And so figuring out
00:08:24.720 what he was doing in between
00:08:25.840 and why he was doing it
00:08:26.980 and what he was trying to say,
00:08:27.780 I think is a big deal.
00:08:28.720 And you're absolutely right.
00:08:29.760 When you say the Our Father,
00:08:31.240 you don't really think about it.
00:08:32.340 I mean, we can all say it by heart
00:08:33.860 and we all know it by rote,
00:08:36.640 but it just kind of goes silent
00:08:38.520 in your head
00:08:39.020 when you say it that way.
00:08:39.780 You have to stop
00:08:40.420 and look at every line.
00:08:43.640 You're so good at,
00:08:45.400 forgive the term,
00:08:46.280 but punditry.
00:08:47.300 You're really good at it.
00:08:48.420 Not everybody can do
00:08:49.820 what you do,
00:08:50.900 what Ben Shapiro does,
00:08:52.200 what Matt Walsh does,
00:08:53.400 just wind up
00:08:54.120 and talk for an hour straight
00:08:55.640 and release it as a podcast
00:08:57.060 that people actually
00:08:58.140 want to listen to, right?
00:08:59.280 They just want to hear
00:08:59.820 one man's opinion for an hour.
00:09:01.960 And so the people like you
00:09:03.080 who make that a success
00:09:04.360 are important.
00:09:05.720 Clearly you have something
00:09:06.700 valuable to say.
00:09:07.700 There's a reason people flock to.
00:09:08.740 So I was surprised to read
00:09:10.940 that you kind of recognized
00:09:13.800 that doing that,
00:09:15.420 you know,
00:09:15.640 the culture wars,
00:09:16.660 I think is how you put it,
00:09:17.880 wasn't necessarily God's mission.
00:09:20.620 It wasn't necessarily
00:09:21.680 going to make you feel more joyful,
00:09:23.980 but writing this book did.
00:09:26.060 Yeah, writing this book,
00:09:28.520 the experience of writing this book
00:09:29.700 was like standing
00:09:30.500 on a little laser dot,
00:09:31.960 you know,
00:09:32.120 in those cop shows
00:09:32.960 when the bad guy
00:09:33.840 gets the laser dot
00:09:34.740 on his chest,
00:09:35.480 you know,
00:09:35.660 that's,
00:09:36.040 I felt like I was standing
00:09:37.040 right on the dot
00:09:37.920 of where God wanted me to be
00:09:39.220 doing exactly
00:09:40.060 what he wanted me to do.
00:09:41.760 And I often feel like
00:09:42.800 that giving the podcast,
00:09:44.040 but not as precisely.
00:09:45.080 It was just,
00:09:46.080 my whole brain went silent
00:09:47.740 while I was writing the book.
00:09:49.300 I could barely even pray
00:09:50.900 in words anymore
00:09:52.280 because I felt
00:09:52.960 I didn't have to ask
00:09:53.860 any questions.
00:09:54.480 I just knew I had to finish
00:09:55.860 this book.
00:09:57.040 That's a,
00:09:57.300 it's a remark,
00:09:57.820 it was a remarkable experience.
00:09:59.960 And,
00:10:00.460 you know,
00:10:01.580 when that happens,
00:10:02.420 you just got to follow that.
00:10:03.440 And one of the reasons
00:10:04.080 I cut the,
00:10:04.680 the podcast back
00:10:06.320 to once a week
00:10:07.080 was because I wanted
00:10:08.240 to get back to my writing.
00:10:10.500 It's kind of what
00:10:11.380 I've trained myself to do.
00:10:12.580 It's what I've worked at.
00:10:13.420 It's where I think
00:10:14.000 I express myself
00:10:15.640 with the kind of precision
00:10:16.620 that matters to me.
00:10:18.120 I've been,
00:10:18.940 doing the podcast
00:10:19.780 has been a joy
00:10:21.180 and it has been a shock
00:10:22.500 as well
00:10:22.920 because writers,
00:10:23.980 as you may know,
00:10:25.020 they live very solitary lives
00:10:26.640 and most of us
00:10:27.480 are very well suited
00:10:28.560 to that life.
00:10:29.240 We're meant
00:10:29.860 to be solitary.
00:10:31.340 I would go
00:10:31.800 for weeks sometimes
00:10:33.060 without seeing anybody
00:10:33.840 but my family
00:10:34.580 and never even notice it.
00:10:36.180 It used to kind of
00:10:36.700 worry me a little bit.
00:10:37.840 And suddenly here I was
00:10:38.920 in front of a camera.
00:10:40.020 Suddenly people recognized me
00:10:41.240 on the street
00:10:41.880 which was a shock
00:10:43.140 because that doesn't happen
00:10:43.960 to writers either.
00:10:45.280 It was a real change
00:10:46.700 in my life
00:10:47.460 but I obviously,
00:10:48.540 I knew that it was
00:10:49.340 where I was supposed to go
00:10:50.420 and what I was supposed
00:10:51.120 to be doing.
00:10:52.220 I wouldn't have done it
00:10:53.460 30 years ago.
00:10:54.880 I wouldn't have known
00:10:55.560 what to say.
00:10:56.280 I wouldn't have known
00:10:56.780 what I thought about anything
00:10:57.860 but at this point
00:10:58.500 as you say,
00:10:59.060 I've been here,
00:10:59.940 I think I'm now 157 years old
00:11:02.000 and I've seen so much
00:11:03.540 and I do understand
00:11:05.780 certain things
00:11:06.520 especially,
00:11:07.220 you know,
00:11:07.400 I have a very young audience
00:11:08.460 and there are things
00:11:09.020 that they don't quite get yet
00:11:10.980 and they don't quite
00:11:11.620 know what's up ahead
00:11:13.300 and I do.
00:11:14.260 I actually do know
00:11:14.980 what's up ahead.
00:11:15.440 You can get older
00:11:17.260 and wiser,
00:11:17.860 you can get older
00:11:18.360 and no wiser
00:11:19.000 and I have kept
00:11:19.560 my eyes open
00:11:20.240 and so I do have
00:11:20.940 something to say.
00:11:22.260 It's been a gift.
00:11:23.100 The podcast
00:11:23.780 has absolutely been a gift
00:11:25.200 but I never feel
00:11:26.760 so much at home
00:11:28.400 as when I'm sitting
00:11:28.960 in front of the computer
00:11:30.440 and just putting words
00:11:31.900 on a page,
00:11:33.540 what we now call a page.
00:11:35.040 Well,
00:11:35.260 a word on your accomplishments
00:11:36.540 in one second
00:11:37.460 but I agree with you.
00:11:38.720 I'm married to a writer.
00:11:39.660 He writes,
00:11:40.620 well,
00:11:40.820 he has written fiction
00:11:41.660 but right now
00:11:42.200 he's in the middle
00:11:42.720 of a book.
00:11:44.300 It's nonfiction
00:11:44.840 and it's his favorite yet.
00:11:47.040 Anyway,
00:11:47.660 he basically describes
00:11:49.480 writing as
00:11:50.020 you observe for a living
00:11:51.540 and I like that.
00:11:52.860 That's true.
00:11:53.720 Right?
00:11:54.020 And so that's what you've done
00:11:54.960 and yet you've given us
00:11:57.200 the gift of then
00:11:57.880 repeating back to us
00:11:59.560 in the podcast form
00:12:01.080 which is so easy to consume,
00:12:02.280 right?
00:12:02.440 A book takes longer
00:12:03.300 for the person consuming it.
00:12:05.820 Those observations,
00:12:06.980 right?
00:12:07.100 Like all the goodness
00:12:07.960 of those observations
00:12:08.840 poured into today's news
00:12:11.080 and giving us perspective
00:12:12.500 on what's really happening.
00:12:13.520 That's what I find
00:12:14.260 invaluable about it.
00:12:15.180 Somebody who's
00:12:15.740 a little older,
00:12:17.280 wiser,
00:12:17.920 who's able to sort of
00:12:19.100 take all of your learning
00:12:20.600 and your exposure
00:12:21.700 to all these great writers
00:12:23.800 and all these great cultural icons
00:12:25.360 and so on
00:12:25.820 and say,
00:12:26.300 this is what's really happening.
00:12:27.360 This is why this is a problem.
00:12:28.920 This is why a moral code
00:12:29.840 is important.
00:12:30.500 This is why the Bible
00:12:31.160 is important.
00:12:31.560 This is why actually
00:12:32.620 learning religion
00:12:33.320 and understanding
00:12:33.920 and living by it
00:12:34.900 can make a difference
00:12:36.260 in your life
00:12:36.740 as opposed to just
00:12:37.380 going through the road
00:12:38.040 like, okay,
00:12:38.640 yes,
00:12:38.880 church on Sunday.
00:12:39.460 And interestingly,
00:12:41.420 it all comes from a man
00:12:42.760 who was raised Jewish
00:12:43.620 and then meandered over
00:12:45.580 into agnosticism
00:12:47.740 and then atheism
00:12:48.900 for a time.
00:12:49.980 So we'll get to the conversion.
00:12:50.940 But before that,
00:12:51.400 let me just tell the audience
00:12:52.160 about your resume
00:12:52.740 because it's great.
00:12:54.940 Author of such
00:12:55.860 internationally bestselling novels
00:12:57.200 as True Crime.
00:12:58.560 Hello, do people remember
00:12:59.380 True Crime?
00:13:00.180 They made it into a film
00:13:01.420 starring Clint Eastwood
00:13:02.320 and Don't Say a Word.
00:13:04.440 Also made it into a film
00:13:05.460 starring Michael Douglas
00:13:06.660 and Brittany Murphy
00:13:07.860 if my memory serves,
00:13:09.180 right?
00:13:09.600 Poor Brittany Murphy. 1.00
00:13:10.920 She wound up dying too young.
00:13:12.580 You've been nominated
00:13:13.300 for the Mystery Writers of America
00:13:14.980 Edgar Award five times.
00:13:16.520 You've won it twice.
00:13:18.980 Your books have been translated
00:13:20.120 around the world
00:13:20.640 and Stephen King
00:13:21.740 calls you the most original
00:13:24.120 American novelist
00:13:25.160 of crime and suspense
00:13:26.580 since Cornell Woodridge.
00:13:28.640 Woolrich.
00:13:29.260 I got to look up
00:13:29.880 Cornell Woolrich now
00:13:30.800 but it sounds like
00:13:31.620 a massive compliment.
00:13:33.360 Anyway,
00:13:33.780 so that's awesome
00:13:34.920 and it explains your writing,
00:13:36.120 your devotion to writing.
00:13:37.000 You've clearly done very well.
00:13:38.340 So talk to me about
00:13:39.260 being raised Jewish culturally
00:13:41.220 though not necessarily religiously
00:13:44.060 and how you meandered away from that.
00:13:46.880 Well, yeah,
00:13:47.100 that was the problem actually
00:13:48.260 that I was raised
00:13:49.140 to respect the traditions
00:13:50.940 and to understand
00:13:51.760 the traditions of Judaism
00:13:53.220 but God was really
00:13:54.300 not a presence in my house.
00:13:55.840 My mother was,
00:13:56.740 my mother was the most
00:13:57.700 committed atheist
00:13:58.820 I think I've ever met.
00:13:59.860 She thought the entire thing
00:14:01.080 was silly.
00:14:02.400 She never,
00:14:03.380 when I converted,
00:14:04.020 she didn't care
00:14:04.960 because she thought
00:14:05.580 it's all nonsense anyway.
00:14:07.420 My father had more
00:14:08.540 of a sort of
00:14:09.080 deal-making relationship
00:14:10.860 with God
00:14:11.400 but none of it really
00:14:12.180 informed the Jewish traditions
00:14:14.180 that I was learning.
00:14:15.580 So when I was bar mitzvahed 0.56
00:14:16.680 which I was very reluctantly,
00:14:18.060 I already knew
00:14:18.640 I didn't believe in any of it.
00:14:21.220 You know,
00:14:21.820 I was given
00:14:22.480 a lot of presents,
00:14:23.660 a lot of jewelry
00:14:24.720 and gold
00:14:25.400 and savings bonds
00:14:26.680 and after about six months
00:14:28.360 I felt so guilty
00:14:29.320 for having
00:14:29.840 gotten up on a stage
00:14:31.240 and said things
00:14:31.940 that I didn't believe
00:14:32.840 that I actually crept out
00:14:34.480 in the middle of the night
00:14:35.360 with this leather box
00:14:36.860 full of jewelry
00:14:37.520 and thousands of dollars
00:14:38.840 worth of bonds
00:14:39.380 and I stuffed it
00:14:40.460 into the garbage
00:14:41.060 and threw it away
00:14:41.800 and I thought
00:14:42.320 I am done with religion.
00:14:43.900 I don't want to
00:14:44.480 have that sense
00:14:45.520 of hypocrisy anymore
00:14:47.080 and that really
00:14:48.360 continued throughout my life
00:14:50.500 in spite of the fact
00:14:51.440 in spite of the fact
00:14:52.620 that as I trained myself
00:14:53.680 to be a writer
00:14:54.520 and read the great works
00:14:56.440 of literature
00:14:56.920 that meant so much to me,
00:14:58.400 I started to realize
00:14:59.440 that the gospel
00:15:00.080 was at the center
00:15:00.820 of all of them,
00:15:01.580 that there was no
00:15:02.520 Western culture
00:15:03.180 without the gospel,
00:15:04.020 that there was no
00:15:04.580 Western sense of morality,
00:15:05.940 no sense of freedom
00:15:06.920 without the gospel
00:15:07.860 and all of these things
00:15:08.780 started to speak to me
00:15:09.800 and say,
00:15:10.600 you know,
00:15:12.000 if all of these,
00:15:13.420 if all the things
00:15:14.200 that you think are true
00:15:15.300 are true
00:15:15.680 and if all the things
00:15:16.400 that you find beautiful
00:15:17.160 are beautiful,
00:15:18.060 the gospels must be real
00:15:19.180 or at least
00:15:19.720 there must be a God
00:15:20.660 and the problem I had
00:15:22.240 is that I was
00:15:22.660 a very troubled young guy
00:15:24.120 and I had a difficult
00:15:25.800 relationship with my father
00:15:26.900 and in my late 20s,
00:15:28.380 I went nuts,
00:15:29.640 I went insane
00:15:30.180 and it was quite an experience
00:15:33.440 and I was in so much
00:15:34.440 emotional pain,
00:15:35.260 I was suicidal,
00:15:36.100 I was delusional,
00:15:37.020 I was in so much
00:15:37.720 emotional pain
00:15:38.440 that I thought,
00:15:38.960 well,
00:15:39.040 if I grab hold of God now,
00:15:41.340 it's just a crutch,
00:15:42.440 it's just a way of escaping
00:15:43.580 this terrible pain
00:15:44.640 that I'm in
00:15:45.020 and so I had this kind of,
00:15:46.460 it was kind of this
00:15:46.960 ornery sense
00:15:47.900 that at the moment
00:15:48.740 when I needed God most
00:15:49.880 and when I look back,
00:15:51.160 I realized God
00:15:51.700 was calling to me most,
00:15:52.900 I can't embrace God
00:15:54.080 because it would be fake
00:15:55.700 because I'm just
00:15:56.360 in so much pain.
00:15:57.140 By what I now consider
00:15:59.740 to be a miracle,
00:16:00.740 I found possibly
00:16:02.200 the only psychiatrist
00:16:03.380 who has ever healed a patient
00:16:04.700 and the patient
00:16:05.280 happened to be me.
00:16:06.580 He was a brilliant man
00:16:08.180 who died only a couple
00:16:09.200 of years ago
00:16:09.800 and he made me go sane.
00:16:12.820 I've never seen anything
00:16:13.660 quite like it.
00:16:14.320 I've never met anybody
00:16:15.220 who even claims
00:16:16.900 to have gone from the place
00:16:18.200 that I was
00:16:18.840 to the sense of adjustment
00:16:20.220 and joy
00:16:20.920 and happiness
00:16:21.460 and success in life
00:16:22.600 that I then had.
00:16:24.220 And I started to think
00:16:25.780 to myself,
00:16:26.280 well, gee,
00:16:27.020 you know,
00:16:27.540 all of the logic
00:16:28.700 that I followed
00:16:29.520 to bring me to God
00:16:31.300 still stands
00:16:32.520 now that I'm no longer unhappy.
00:16:34.800 And so I thought,
00:16:36.500 well, maybe now I can believe
00:16:37.460 because it's not a crutch.
00:16:38.440 I'm perfectly happy.
00:16:39.600 So funny how we reason
00:16:41.180 with ourselves.
00:16:41.860 Keep going.
00:16:42.900 Yeah.
00:16:43.220 And I started to pray
00:16:44.640 and just kind of accidentally
00:16:47.040 started to pray
00:16:47.880 and it transformed my life.
00:16:49.480 I wasn't praying
00:16:49.940 to any specific God,
00:16:51.260 but it transformed my life.
00:16:54.060 And after about five years,
00:16:58.240 I turned to God.
00:16:59.820 I turned to God
00:17:00.720 and I said,
00:17:01.260 you know,
00:17:01.740 you've transformed my life.
00:17:02.860 You've made my life
00:17:03.420 so much happier,
00:17:04.280 so much fuller,
00:17:04.860 so much richer.
00:17:05.940 What can I do for you?
00:17:07.380 You know,
00:17:07.640 you're God.
00:17:08.340 I'm just some schmo.
00:17:09.620 You know,
00:17:10.200 there's really nothing
00:17:11.280 I can do,
00:17:11.880 but I want to respond.
00:17:13.420 And it was as if God spoke to me.
00:17:16.120 I didn't hear a voice
00:17:17.160 or anything,
00:17:17.520 but very immediately
00:17:19.140 in response,
00:17:19.900 I felt you should be baptized.
00:17:22.680 And I remember
00:17:23.560 I was driving my car
00:17:25.040 at the time
00:17:25.380 and out loud,
00:17:26.200 I said,
00:17:26.720 you got to be kidding me,
00:17:27.720 you know,
00:17:27.960 because at that point
00:17:28.740 I was working in Hollywood.
00:17:30.720 I, you know,
00:17:31.320 had a terrific career
00:17:32.540 writing very hard-boiled
00:17:33.860 mystery novels.
00:17:35.640 I had had a tough time
00:17:37.460 with my father all my life,
00:17:38.620 but now we've kind of
00:17:39.240 developed a separate piece.
00:17:40.460 We were distant,
00:17:41.000 but we were friendly.
00:17:41.880 But that's all going to blow up
00:17:43.520 if I become a Christian.
00:17:45.400 But I had to.
00:17:46.460 I went back
00:17:47.180 and I reread the Gospels.
00:17:48.340 I'd been reading them
00:17:49.000 all my life as literature.
00:17:50.000 And I went back and thought,
00:17:50.860 well, what if I read them
00:17:51.600 as the truth?
00:17:52.740 And when I did that,
00:17:53.660 I thought,
00:17:53.980 oh, yes,
00:17:54.560 this is what I believe.
00:17:55.700 This is who I am.
00:17:56.540 This is the person
00:17:57.180 I've been talking to
00:17:58.020 all this time.
00:17:59.600 And so I was baptized
00:18:00.760 and it was,
00:18:01.740 it was,
00:18:02.780 it was remarkable.
00:18:03.600 I was baptized
00:18:04.500 kind of offhandedly.
00:18:07.340 I didn't really believe
00:18:08.500 in the ritual.
00:18:09.220 I just thought,
00:18:09.700 well, I should do it
00:18:10.300 as a matter of integrity.
00:18:11.720 Within three weeks,
00:18:12.700 my wife,
00:18:13.320 who knows me quite well,
00:18:14.960 turned to me and said,
00:18:16.340 you know,
00:18:16.880 you're a different person.
00:18:17.960 You are kind of serenity
00:18:19.740 and joy
00:18:20.740 and intensity
00:18:21.600 has come over you
00:18:22.540 that hasn't been there before.
00:18:24.900 And it has continued
00:18:26.220 in that vein.
00:18:27.100 And the more I explore
00:18:28.200 the Gospels,
00:18:28.800 the more I come
00:18:29.240 to understand them
00:18:30.880 and kind of move away
00:18:32.360 from sort of
00:18:32.920 rote Christianity 0.99
00:18:33.800 to a deeper relationship,
00:18:36.540 that joy has only
00:18:38.020 deepened and expanded.
00:18:38.980 So it's been
00:18:39.300 quite an experience.
00:18:40.680 Yeah, I know you joke
00:18:42.260 that your wife
00:18:43.140 married a liberal Jewish guy
00:18:45.520 and she wound up
00:18:46.060 with a conservative
00:18:46.640 Christian guy.
00:18:48.280 She's a very patient woman,
00:18:49.620 I know, yeah.
00:18:50.560 So because that was
00:18:51.300 another transition
00:18:51.940 in your life,
00:18:52.920 all of this weaves together
00:18:54.120 in your book
00:18:54.720 and in your, you know,
00:18:55.600 presentation
00:18:56.100 and your thoughts today,
00:18:57.040 this, all these transitions.
00:18:58.020 But you used to be liberal.
00:19:00.320 I mean,
00:19:00.440 you were raised in New York
00:19:01.360 like most New Yorkers.
00:19:02.920 You leaned left
00:19:03.680 and you've been,
00:19:05.860 you've said something
00:19:06.380 to the effect of,
00:19:07.320 you know,
00:19:07.860 part of the thing
00:19:08.740 that made you rethink it
00:19:09.840 was the lies told
00:19:11.300 about Ronald Reagan
00:19:12.140 versus the truth
00:19:13.620 of his results.
00:19:15.280 Right.
00:19:15.960 Well, right.
00:19:16.480 Every, you know,
00:19:16.960 I remember when
00:19:17.540 the Berlin Wall fell down,
00:19:19.120 I thought everything
00:19:19.900 that old guy said
00:19:20.780 came true.
00:19:21.460 You know,
00:19:21.600 everything that he said
00:19:22.460 was going to happen,
00:19:23.160 happened.
00:19:23.820 But what really cemented
00:19:25.600 this was that
00:19:26.300 I left the country.
00:19:27.660 You know,
00:19:28.340 it's funny.
00:19:29.000 This is back
00:19:29.620 at the end of the 80s.
00:19:30.960 I was at a dinner party
00:19:31.860 in New York
00:19:32.520 and we had a son
00:19:33.240 and we had a daughter
00:19:33.840 and I made the remark
00:19:35.420 at this dinner party.
00:19:36.660 I said,
00:19:37.120 you know,
00:19:37.280 boys and girls
00:19:37.760 are really different
00:19:38.480 and this is way back now,
00:19:40.420 right?
00:19:40.660 It's about 89
00:19:41.900 and the table fell silent
00:19:44.460 and everybody was embarrassed
00:19:46.740 that I would make
00:19:47.400 such an inept remark
00:19:49.220 and a politically
00:19:49.940 incorrect remark.
00:19:51.120 And I remember
00:19:51.820 we left,
00:19:52.340 we were in a restaurant
00:19:53.040 and we left the restaurant
00:19:53.760 and I turned to my wife
00:19:54.400 and I said,
00:19:54.860 we're leaving the country.
00:19:55.700 That's it.
00:19:56.000 I'm not going to be
00:19:56.600 in a country
00:19:56.960 where I can't speak
00:19:57.900 the obvious truth.
00:19:59.600 And so I moved to England
00:20:00.500 for seven years.
00:20:01.400 We all went to England 0.98
00:20:02.100 for seven years
00:20:02.860 and what happened there
00:20:03.880 was I was away
00:20:04.880 from American politics.
00:20:06.580 I didn't need to have
00:20:07.460 an opinion about
00:20:08.080 what was happening,
00:20:08.800 what Bill Clinton
00:20:09.360 was doing this week.
00:20:10.680 I didn't need to have
00:20:11.500 any opinions
00:20:12.160 about American politics.
00:20:13.120 I was completely immersed
00:20:14.180 in the life of England.
00:20:15.840 And when I got back,
00:20:17.220 I suddenly realized
00:20:18.800 that all my opinions
00:20:19.860 were suddenly aligned
00:20:20.900 with people
00:20:21.460 who were on the right.
00:20:23.200 And I remember
00:20:23.960 Rush Limbaugh
00:20:25.140 became a thing
00:20:25.860 while I was in England
00:20:26.700 and I heard about
00:20:27.540 how evil he was.
00:20:28.960 And so when I got home,
00:20:29.880 I thought,
00:20:30.120 well, I want to just hear
00:20:30.700 this evil guy.
00:20:31.400 It's kind of interesting.
00:20:32.040 I was listening to him thinking,
00:20:33.400 hey, gee,
00:20:34.000 you know,
00:20:34.200 he's not really that evil.
00:20:35.480 I kind of agree.
00:20:35.960 I do him evil.
00:20:37.420 Yeah, I do him evil.
00:20:38.880 And so it was a surprise.
00:20:40.820 I'm not sure
00:20:41.500 I would have been able
00:20:42.220 to make that transition
00:20:43.400 if I had stayed
00:20:44.220 in the country.
00:20:45.360 After all,
00:20:46.040 like, as you say,
00:20:46.720 I was a liberal Jew
00:20:47.560 from the coast.
00:20:48.840 You know,
00:20:49.320 I was surrounded
00:20:49.980 in the arts.
00:20:51.020 I'm working in the movies.
00:20:51.860 I'm working in publishing.
00:20:53.860 I wasn't meeting
00:20:54.860 any conservatives.
00:20:56.280 I used to call
00:20:57.200 the guys
00:20:57.720 at National Review Online.
00:20:59.520 I used to call
00:20:59.920 my imaginary friends
00:21:01.020 because I would go on
00:21:01.740 and kind of read
00:21:02.260 their conversations online
00:21:03.540 and think like,
00:21:04.320 yeah, that's what I think.
00:21:05.140 That's what I think, too.
00:21:06.120 Yes.
00:21:06.820 And, you know,
00:21:07.840 once 9-11 happened,
00:21:11.460 I remember the moment.
00:21:12.560 It was when David Letterman,
00:21:13.660 after 9-11,
00:21:15.340 obviously the late night comic
00:21:16.620 at the time,
00:21:18.140 came on and he said,
00:21:19.200 I really have to think
00:21:20.060 about this.
00:21:20.640 Why do they hate us?
00:21:22.180 And I thought,
00:21:22.900 what do you mean
00:21:23.220 why do they hate us?
00:21:23.980 They're the bad guys.
00:21:25.100 They're supposed to hate us.
00:21:26.480 You know,
00:21:26.700 they have this backward, 0.97
00:21:28.400 angry, hateful religion 1.00
00:21:29.600 talking about these
00:21:30.200 Islamist fanatics,
00:21:31.800 you know.
00:21:32.780 They're supposed to hate us.
00:21:33.960 We're the free guys.
00:21:35.020 We're the freedom people.
00:21:35.960 We're the people,
00:21:36.440 the tolerant people.
00:21:37.720 And I realized
00:21:38.660 that something,
00:21:39.560 having been out of the country
00:21:40.460 for so long,
00:21:41.000 I realized something
00:21:41.520 had gone terribly wrong
00:21:42.800 with our culture.
00:21:44.800 And I started going
00:21:45.840 to conservative meetings
00:21:47.120 and making little speeches
00:21:48.680 about how we had lost
00:21:49.960 the country
00:21:50.440 at the movies
00:21:51.080 and how conservatives
00:21:53.100 don't pay attention
00:21:54.200 to the culture.
00:21:55.880 And Megan,
00:21:56.260 they used to look at me
00:21:57.260 like I had wandered in
00:21:58.500 off the street.
00:21:59.360 Like I was kind of,
00:22:00.180 I was kind of,
00:22:00.760 it was kind of cute
00:22:01.440 that I worked in Hollywood,
00:22:02.400 but they had no idea
00:22:03.800 what I was talking about.
00:22:05.440 Now it's 20 years later
00:22:06.760 and more
00:22:07.420 and people call me
00:22:08.960 and they say,
00:22:09.560 you know,
00:22:09.880 we remember you talking
00:22:10.880 about the culture.
00:22:11.760 We really have to do
00:22:12.640 something about this.
00:22:13.460 It really does matter.
00:22:16.320 It really does matter
00:22:17.260 what happens,
00:22:18.060 what goes into our minds,
00:22:19.740 what comes out of our,
00:22:21.220 what comes out of Hollywood,
00:22:22.260 what comes out
00:22:22.660 of the publishing industry.
00:22:23.860 The left knows it matters.
00:22:25.660 That's why they silence us.
00:22:26.800 That's why they blacklist us.
00:22:28.060 When I started speaking
00:22:29.020 out conservatively
00:22:30.120 as a conservative,
00:22:31.860 my Hollywood career ended
00:22:33.480 and it ended really fast.
00:22:35.740 I mean,
00:22:35.940 my salary,
00:22:37.620 my income
00:22:38.320 went from seven figures
00:22:39.820 to zero
00:22:40.480 in a great,
00:22:41.520 great big hurry.
00:22:42.260 And it was,
00:22:44.080 it was quite amazing.
00:22:44.880 So they know,
00:22:45.840 they have always known,
00:22:46.760 they have known
00:22:47.120 for at least 60 or 70 years
00:22:48.660 that the culture matters
00:22:50.460 and we are only now
00:22:52.220 finding out
00:22:53.080 and we're only now
00:22:53.760 fighting back
00:22:54.520 and trying to not get
00:22:55.700 kicked off Twitter
00:22:56.520 and Facebook
00:22:57.120 and not be blanked out
00:23:00.220 in the movie making business
00:23:01.480 and the book writing business.
00:23:02.460 But it's taken a long time
00:23:03.700 for us to realize
00:23:04.860 that,
00:23:05.640 you know,
00:23:06.180 my friend Ben is right
00:23:07.280 when he says facts
00:23:08.000 don't care about your feelings.
00:23:09.360 But as I always point out to him,
00:23:10.560 feelings are a fact too
00:23:11.580 and you really have to
00:23:12.480 take care of the inner life
00:23:13.960 of not just yourself
00:23:15.440 but of the community
00:23:16.260 if you want them
00:23:17.500 to want to be free
00:23:18.680 because you can't force people
00:23:19.780 to be free.
00:23:20.440 It's a contradiction in terms.
00:23:22.220 Oh,
00:23:22.600 that's,
00:23:22.920 can you expand on that?
00:23:23.800 That's a good,
00:23:24.420 that's a good line
00:23:25.220 and it's a good point.
00:23:26.180 But what do you mean?
00:23:26.860 How do,
00:23:27.120 how do we do that in practice?
00:23:29.060 Well,
00:23:29.320 I mean,
00:23:29.560 the people,
00:23:30.340 you know,
00:23:30.680 as it was noted
00:23:31.760 at the time of the founding,
00:23:33.440 they said this,
00:23:33.980 this constitution
00:23:34.740 is only for a moral
00:23:35.940 and religious people.
00:23:37.520 You have to want
00:23:38.700 to be free
00:23:39.400 in order for that constitution
00:23:40.720 to mean anything.
00:23:42.080 Once you have
00:23:42.860 the New York Times
00:23:44.020 saying,
00:23:44.500 you know,
00:23:44.700 free speech,
00:23:45.260 you're weaponizing free speech,
00:23:46.540 we have to stop
00:23:47.200 all this free speech
00:23:48.120 and people nodding their heads
00:23:49.760 and agreeing with them,
00:23:50.720 that First Amendment 0.98
00:23:51.480 is not going to protect you
00:23:52.480 from anything.
00:23:53.480 I mean,
00:23:53.820 you know,
00:23:54.240 studies have shown
00:23:55.200 that the Supreme Court
00:23:56.200 makes its decisions
00:23:57.380 mostly in keeping
00:23:58.920 with public opinion
00:24:00.600 and as Lincoln said,
00:24:01.700 public opinion
00:24:02.280 in a free country
00:24:03.020 is almost everything.
00:24:04.760 Once the culture
00:24:05.920 has transformed
00:24:06.860 the heart of people
00:24:07.920 to lose their respect
00:24:09.820 for free speech,
00:24:10.700 to lose their respect
00:24:11.500 for disagreement,
00:24:13.160 for the inner lives
00:24:14.500 of other people,
00:24:15.540 what I call
00:24:15.860 the great speculation,
00:24:17.040 the idea that
00:24:17.760 your inner life
00:24:19.140 is as important to you
00:24:20.080 as mine is to me
00:24:20.940 and they are both
00:24:21.560 equally important to God.
00:24:23.060 This is the great speculation
00:24:24.480 on which our entire country
00:24:25.840 and our religion is based.
00:24:27.340 It is the idea
00:24:28.140 that your freedom,
00:24:30.020 your inner freedom matters
00:24:31.140 and you should have the right
00:24:31.920 to speak your mind.
00:24:32.600 Once you lose the commitment
00:24:34.160 to that,
00:24:35.120 nothing's going to protect you
00:24:36.520 and we see it all the time.
00:24:38.600 We see it,
00:24:38.940 you know,
00:24:39.200 on social media
00:24:41.360 has been silencing
00:24:42.460 conservative voices.
00:24:44.680 They silenced
00:24:45.260 the President
00:24:46.120 of the United States
00:24:47.440 and nobody really protested.
00:24:49.820 I mean,
00:24:50.020 obviously people
00:24:50.780 on the right protested
00:24:51.880 but the mainstream
00:24:52.940 of the culture
00:24:53.680 did not say,
00:24:54.400 wait a minute,
00:24:55.000 you know,
00:24:55.460 I don't care how rich you are.
00:24:57.100 I don't care about the fact
00:24:58.520 that you're a private business.
00:24:59.520 You have no right
00:25:00.380 to destroy the culture
00:25:01.900 of free speech
00:25:02.620 that keeps this country going.
00:25:04.660 So culture is what,
00:25:05.980 you know,
00:25:06.500 James Joyce said,
00:25:07.620 it forms the uncreated
00:25:08.780 conscience of our race
00:25:10.840 and if our uncreated conscience
00:25:13.540 is created
00:25:14.260 in a small-minded,
00:25:15.760 punitive way,
00:25:17.280 it's going to be
00:25:17.940 a small-minded,
00:25:18.780 punitive country.
00:25:19.960 Up until the present,
00:25:21.000 up until the present,
00:25:21.840 it was really fashioned
00:25:22.880 in the open-minded,
00:25:25.020 freedom-seeking
00:25:25.940 traditions of the West
00:25:27.840 and that's who we were.
00:25:29.260 And so it was easy
00:25:31.080 to keep free speech alive,
00:25:32.380 not just keep it alive
00:25:33.300 but to expand it
00:25:34.260 continually.
00:25:35.760 Now we're really fighting
00:25:37.060 tooth and nail
00:25:37.800 to keep that culture
00:25:38.760 of free speech alive
00:25:40.940 and as I say,
00:25:42.060 if people don't want
00:25:43.000 to be free,
00:25:43.980 how will you make
00:25:44.800 them be free?
00:25:45.740 You know,
00:25:45.960 I hear people on the right
00:25:46.880 say all the time,
00:25:47.560 we need a strong man leader
00:25:49.300 who's going to,
00:25:49.820 you know,
00:25:50.000 enforce prayer
00:25:51.460 in the school.
00:25:52.460 Well,
00:25:52.620 how do you,
00:25:52.920 you know,
00:25:53.280 I think prayer
00:25:54.260 in the school
00:25:54.660 is important
00:25:55.240 but how do you enforce
00:25:56.140 it without taking
00:25:56.720 people's freedom
00:25:57.840 not to pray away?
00:26:00.360 We have to shape
00:26:01.560 people's consciences,
00:26:02.780 we have to shape
00:26:03.340 their souls
00:26:04.020 to the good,
00:26:05.060 you know,
00:26:05.300 not in a coercive way
00:26:06.720 but simply shape them
00:26:07.800 to the good
00:26:08.320 as Western culture
00:26:09.400 has been doing
00:26:10.160 for thousands
00:26:10.760 and thousands of years
00:26:11.820 and if we don't do that,
00:26:13.300 if we lose
00:26:13.820 the people's hearts,
00:26:15.340 we will,
00:26:15.920 the Constitution
00:26:16.680 won't do a thing for us
00:26:17.700 if we lose
00:26:18.140 the people's hearts,
00:26:19.060 we'll lose everything.
00:26:20.720 That is so insightful.
00:26:22.820 I,
00:26:23.240 I'm disturbed
00:26:23.960 and I'm also energized
00:26:25.020 by the new thoughts.
00:26:27.820 Of course,
00:26:28.520 I've heard,
00:26:29.120 it originally was
00:26:29.940 Andrew Breitbart's,
00:26:30.680 I've heard Ben say it,
00:26:31.820 that politics
00:26:33.080 is downstream of culture
00:26:34.180 but as a lawyer,
00:26:36.700 I practiced law
00:26:37.160 for 10 years,
00:26:37.900 I always believed
00:26:38.780 that the law
00:26:39.620 would save us,
00:26:40.520 you know,
00:26:40.680 the law would be
00:26:41.200 this bulwark
00:26:41.760 against some of
00:26:43.020 these cultural insanities 0.76
00:26:44.240 and it would hold,
00:26:45.680 the Constitution
00:26:46.220 would hold,
00:26:47.700 you know,
00:26:48.240 it takes some dings
00:26:49.160 here and there,
00:26:49.700 you don't have
00:26:50.080 a perfect Supreme Court
00:26:51.760 or courts of appeal
00:26:52.860 or judges at lower levels
00:26:54.520 but that ultimately,
00:26:56.040 you know,
00:26:56.340 when push comes to shove,
00:26:57.280 it will hold
00:26:57.860 and that,
00:26:58.920 and I've been heartened
00:26:59.680 this year to see
00:27:00.340 that the justice system
00:27:01.240 has gone,
00:27:01.740 in my view,
00:27:02.080 the right way
00:27:02.500 in some big cases
00:27:03.420 where there's been
00:27:04.200 a lot of public pressure
00:27:05.360 for it to come
00:27:06.960 to different results.
00:27:07.760 Kyle Rittenhouse
00:27:08.280 is just one example
00:27:09.200 but your point is
00:27:11.860 it resonates so deeply.
00:27:14.280 It,
00:27:14.480 it must be true.
00:27:15.640 I,
00:27:16.000 I agree.
00:27:17.080 You're right.
00:27:17.960 How could,
00:27:18.820 how can the court,
00:27:19.720 Constitution notwithstanding,
00:27:22.360 hold the line
00:27:23.740 against a culture
00:27:25.620 that if it grows
00:27:26.380 and grows and grows,
00:27:27.300 you know,
00:27:27.540 it was 10% of the people,
00:27:28.660 then it was 15% of the people,
00:27:29.800 now it's growing,
00:27:30.340 growing,
00:27:30.560 growing.
00:27:31.100 They're capturing institutions,
00:27:32.960 they're capturing,
00:27:33.660 of course,
00:27:33.920 universities and the media
00:27:35.000 and sports
00:27:35.680 and major corporations now.
00:27:38.140 How can it hold forever
00:27:39.340 if all of these cultural forces
00:27:42.020 and if it becomes the majority
00:27:43.280 look at them and say,
00:27:44.760 no,
00:27:45.020 free speech is not
00:27:45.900 what you think it is.
00:27:46.620 No,
00:27:46.940 the First Amendment
00:27:47.760 does not protect
00:27:48.600 quote,
00:27:49.140 hate speech
00:27:50.000 and hate,
00:27:50.720 hate is what I deem it to be.
00:27:52.740 You're right,
00:27:53.420 is that the writing's on the wall.
00:27:55.440 Yeah,
00:27:55.720 you know,
00:27:56.180 it's why,
00:27:57.100 it is why the founders
00:27:58.200 kept insisting
00:28:00.340 that we had to be
00:28:01.260 a religious
00:28:01.700 and a moral people.
00:28:03.300 It's because
00:28:03.620 if you don't govern yourself,
00:28:05.440 you literally can't govern yourself.
00:28:07.260 If you don't govern yourself,
00:28:08.220 you can't have self-government.
00:28:09.800 And once you lose that,
00:28:11.140 you know,
00:28:11.460 I frequently talk to people,
00:28:13.200 you know,
00:28:13.760 Lincoln said
00:28:14.500 that it's the declaration
00:28:15.660 that informs the constitution.
00:28:17.620 And that means
00:28:18.260 that our rights
00:28:18.960 are given to us.
00:28:19.840 They're endowed in us
00:28:20.600 by our creator.
00:28:21.600 The government
00:28:22.220 is simply there
00:28:23.160 to protect our rights.
00:28:24.680 It is instituted
00:28:25.640 to protect our rights,
00:28:27.000 but the rights
00:28:27.480 are already there.
00:28:28.300 The rights are there
00:28:28.800 before the government
00:28:29.580 gets there
00:28:30.140 and they are endowed
00:28:31.420 in us by our creator.
00:28:32.940 If people stop believing
00:28:34.780 in at least that creator,
00:28:36.700 you don't have to be a Christian,
00:28:37.720 you don't have to be,
00:28:38.400 you know,
00:28:38.580 you can be Jewish, Muslim,
00:28:39.680 you can be anything you want,
00:28:40.480 but if they stop believing
00:28:41.320 in that creator,
00:28:42.580 the creator who endowed us
00:28:43.900 with our rights,
00:28:45.000 then we've got
00:28:46.100 a serious problem.
00:28:47.520 You know,
00:28:47.740 I had this discussion
00:28:48.500 with Alan Dershowitz once
00:28:49.780 when he said,
00:28:50.160 no, no, no,
00:28:50.640 you know,
00:28:50.940 we can't make our rights
00:28:52.160 depend on God
00:28:52.880 because everybody
00:28:53.440 has a different God.
00:28:54.520 Well, in fact,
00:28:55.140 as an American,
00:28:55.880 you are essentially required
00:28:58.360 to have the God
00:28:59.900 who endowed you
00:29:01.060 with rights.
00:29:02.080 You don't have to believe in him,
00:29:03.300 but you have to act
00:29:04.080 as if you believe in him.
00:29:04.940 You have to live
00:29:05.460 as if you believe in him
00:29:06.320 because it's all based
00:29:07.600 on those things
00:29:08.320 and those basic things
00:29:09.760 have to be taught
00:29:10.600 and they have to be instilled
00:29:12.020 in people's hearts
00:29:12.880 and they have to be
00:29:13.980 embraced and loved.
00:29:15.740 Or again,
00:29:16.540 you know,
00:29:17.060 what's going to happen
00:29:18.000 when the Supreme Court says,
00:29:20.060 as you just said,
00:29:21.420 if the Supreme Court says,
00:29:22.420 well,
00:29:22.680 free speech doesn't include
00:29:23.880 hate speech,
00:29:24.820 like saying,
00:29:25.700 you know,
00:29:26.600 a woman is not a man 1.00
00:29:28.800 when she wants to be a man,
00:29:30.140 that's hate speech.
00:29:30.920 That has to be eliminated.
00:29:32.340 Well,
00:29:32.420 who's going to stand up
00:29:33.260 for that principle?
00:29:34.140 Not the New York Times.
00:29:35.220 They've already made it clear
00:29:36.120 they're ready to get rid
00:29:36.900 of free speech,
00:29:37.980 if it disagrees with them.
00:29:39.100 So who's going to stand up for it
00:29:40.500 if not the people,
00:29:41.380 if not a people trained
00:29:42.520 and schooled
00:29:43.700 and acculturated
00:29:45.360 to freedom?
00:29:47.440 Yeah.
00:29:47.780 And not Twitter.
00:29:48.960 Of course,
00:29:49.320 we've literally just seen that.
00:29:51.100 Right?
00:29:51.600 The Babylon Bee.
00:29:52.760 They tweet out that
00:29:53.840 Rachel,
00:29:55.340 what's her name?
00:29:56.600 Levine.
00:29:57.260 Levine,
00:29:57.740 thank you,
00:29:58.260 who's working for HHS.
00:30:01.660 She's a trans woman.
00:30:03.180 They tweet out
00:30:03.760 and she's recognized
00:30:05.000 by USA Today
00:30:05.820 as woman of the year
00:30:07.360 and the Babylon Bee
00:30:08.760 tweets out,
00:30:09.460 we recognize Rachel Levine
00:30:10.880 as man of the year
00:30:11.560 and their Twitter account
00:30:12.940 gets shut down
00:30:13.820 and they won't bend the knee.
00:30:16.000 And what does the head
00:30:17.100 of Twitter say?
00:30:17.880 He says,
00:30:18.540 yeah,
00:30:18.820 I'm not really that pro
00:30:20.080 free speech.
00:30:20.760 I actually think we should be
00:30:22.060 cutting away at free speech
00:30:23.320 around the edges
00:30:23.920 and that,
00:30:24.420 you know,
00:30:24.740 we should be cutting,
00:30:25.800 sort of cracking down
00:30:27.960 more on hateful speech.
00:30:30.320 Well,
00:30:30.900 on the bright side,
00:30:32.320 Elon Musk
00:30:32.940 had something to say
00:30:34.320 and then something to do
00:30:35.580 in response to that.
00:30:37.280 That's why I'll pick it up.
00:30:38.060 I'll squeeze in a quick break
00:30:38.920 right here
00:30:39.640 and more with Andrew Klavan
00:30:40.900 picking it up
00:30:41.720 with Twitter
00:30:42.280 and Elon Musk
00:30:43.700 right after this.
00:30:52.020 So,
00:30:52.520 Andrew,
00:30:52.920 Elon Musk,
00:30:53.840 it's been great
00:30:54.420 because he was sort of
00:30:55.340 teasing the world
00:30:56.240 about possibly
00:30:56.980 creating an alternative
00:30:58.460 to Twitter
00:30:59.100 and probably took a look
00:31:01.640 at the fact that
00:31:02.640 none of those
00:31:03.260 has worked out so well,
00:31:04.440 right?
00:31:04.640 Like Parler,
00:31:06.020 Gitter,
00:31:06.660 Gab,
00:31:07.140 whatever they are,
00:31:08.160 none of them
00:31:08.640 has really resonated.
00:31:09.500 The one that was getting
00:31:10.160 some traction,
00:31:10.780 Parler,
00:31:11.060 got shut down
00:31:11.660 and never really
00:31:12.200 totally recovered.
00:31:13.420 So now we find out
00:31:14.520 that he is making
00:31:15.800 a huge investment
00:31:16.620 in Twitter,
00:31:18.280 Twitter itself,
00:31:18.900 the Twitter,
00:31:19.700 and has,
00:31:20.640 as a result of
00:31:21.360 his latest investment,
00:31:22.440 billions of dollars,
00:31:23.400 become the largest
00:31:24.880 single shareholder
00:31:26.220 in Twitter,
00:31:27.060 almost 10%
00:31:27.640 of the company's stock
00:31:28.640 now in his hands,
00:31:29.800 which is cause
00:31:31.300 for celebration,
00:31:33.020 right?
00:31:33.320 Because Twitter's
00:31:34.300 the one that shut
00:31:34.880 down the Babylon Beat.
00:31:36.000 Twitter's the one
00:31:36.600 that silenced
00:31:37.120 the President
00:31:37.560 of the United States,
00:31:38.380 among others.
00:31:39.360 But Twitter is
00:31:40.440 controlled by the left.
00:31:41.400 It's largely leftist
00:31:42.660 and yet it is
00:31:43.840 the public square.
00:31:45.320 And so it's wrong.
00:31:46.120 It's wrong to have
00:31:46.860 conservatives shut down
00:31:47.840 there to the extent
00:31:48.700 that they are.
00:31:49.260 What do you make of it?
00:31:50.660 Well,
00:31:50.960 I have been railing
00:31:52.300 about this for years
00:31:53.780 because it just,
00:31:54.640 it drives me crazy
00:31:55.620 on the right.
00:31:56.980 You know,
00:31:57.340 I expect leftists
00:31:58.380 to be against free speech.
00:31:59.780 They're authoritarian,
00:32:00.900 they're small-minded,
00:32:01.700 and the things
00:32:02.720 they're saying
00:32:03.180 are untrue,
00:32:04.120 so they can't stand
00:32:04.900 debate or argument.
00:32:06.200 But on the right,
00:32:06.900 I expect people
00:32:07.660 to defend
00:32:08.320 the basic structures
00:32:09.960 of our country.
00:32:11.060 And what I hear instead
00:32:11.860 is, oh, you know,
00:32:12.740 Twitter, Facebook, Google,
00:32:14.320 these are private businesses,
00:32:16.100 so they have the right
00:32:17.260 to do whatever
00:32:17.860 they want to do.
00:32:18.560 We don't want the government
00:32:19.220 shutting down private business.
00:32:20.760 Well, that's nonsense.
00:32:21.600 I mean, new businesses,
00:32:22.540 and these are new businesses,
00:32:23.920 demand new regulation.
00:32:25.000 When you had factories,
00:32:25.980 they sent children
00:32:26.740 to work in factories.
00:32:27.700 The government
00:32:28.000 had to say,
00:32:29.080 no, you know,
00:32:29.560 you can't put children
00:32:30.580 in factories
00:32:31.060 and you can't have people
00:32:32.020 working 14-hour days
00:32:33.580 for no pay.
00:32:34.400 You know, everything,
00:32:35.860 everything that we do
00:32:36.740 has regulations,
00:32:38.640 but you need
00:32:39.200 intelligent regulations.
00:32:40.840 The power
00:32:42.180 that social media has
00:32:43.640 was created
00:32:44.320 by the government.
00:32:45.380 They gave them
00:32:45.940 the power
00:32:46.420 to put out content
00:32:47.620 without getting sued,
00:32:49.040 which a publisher
00:32:49.720 can't do,
00:32:51.060 but they also gave them
00:32:52.280 the power
00:32:52.760 to edit it,
00:32:54.260 which a platform
00:32:54.800 can't do.
00:32:55.400 The phone company
00:32:56.080 can't come on
00:32:56.780 and say,
00:32:57.500 I don't like
00:32:57.900 what you're saying,
00:32:58.640 Megan,
00:32:58.860 so you're not going
00:32:59.560 to be on my phone
00:33:00.440 company anymore.
00:33:01.600 They can't do that
00:33:02.480 and these guys
00:33:03.460 shouldn't be allowed
00:33:03.980 to do it either.
00:33:05.920 Obviously,
00:33:06.460 it's a new medium,
00:33:07.600 so there has to be
00:33:08.280 new regulations
00:33:09.040 and a new way
00:33:10.080 of protecting
00:33:11.040 both the rights
00:33:12.040 of the business owner
00:33:12.820 and the rights
00:33:13.320 of the people,
00:33:13.940 but most important
00:33:15.060 is protecting
00:33:15.780 free speech.
00:33:17.340 And so I'm glad
00:33:17.980 that Elon Musk
00:33:18.640 is in there.
00:33:19.220 Let's see what he does.
00:33:19.900 They just put him
00:33:20.320 on the board,
00:33:21.380 which I think is good
00:33:22.480 and gives him power,
00:33:23.280 but as you say,
00:33:24.120 the CEO of Twitter
00:33:25.480 is not committed
00:33:26.380 to free speech.
00:33:27.460 He believes that,
00:33:28.320 yes,
00:33:28.700 as he said,
00:33:29.360 well,
00:33:29.560 most people can talk,
00:33:30.760 but it's just the people
00:33:31.480 with opinions
00:33:31.980 he disagrees with
00:33:32.720 that he's going to silence.
00:33:34.340 And again,
00:33:35.180 once they silence
00:33:36.100 the president
00:33:36.540 of the United States,
00:33:37.740 no,
00:33:38.100 these are people
00:33:38.580 with too much power.
00:33:39.740 They have to be curtailed.
00:33:41.200 This is what the government
00:33:41.940 is for.
00:33:42.580 You know,
00:33:43.120 the government,
00:33:43.960 as I say,
00:33:44.400 is instituted
00:33:45.160 to protect
00:33:45.960 our God-given rights.
00:33:47.460 The First Amendment
00:33:48.380 protects those rights
00:33:49.800 from the government,
00:33:51.260 but the government
00:33:51.820 has to protect
00:33:52.500 those rights
00:33:52.940 from others as well.
00:33:54.300 And when you have
00:33:54.980 the kind of power
00:33:56.200 that social media has,
00:33:57.560 when you have Amazon
00:33:58.800 selling 90% of new books,
00:34:00.620 when you have Google
00:34:01.540 basically in control
00:34:03.480 of 90% of information,
00:34:05.160 the government
00:34:05.720 has to keep
00:34:06.680 that flowing information free.
00:34:08.460 It just has to.
00:34:09.500 And so,
00:34:10.240 you know,
00:34:10.520 I'm glad Musk
00:34:11.180 is doing this
00:34:11.780 in a free market way.
00:34:12.960 Obviously,
00:34:13.460 the less government,
00:34:14.340 the better,
00:34:14.720 the less regulation,
00:34:15.620 the better.
00:34:15.920 But that doesn't mean
00:34:17.060 that we can just let it go
00:34:18.320 and let people be censored
00:34:19.620 by venues
00:34:21.460 with this kind of power
00:34:23.080 is so massive.
00:34:24.380 I do not understand
00:34:25.580 why right-wingers
00:34:26.320 don't get this,
00:34:27.580 that they have to understand
00:34:28.900 that, you know,
00:34:29.440 the government is there
00:34:30.220 for a reason.
00:34:31.100 We don't have no government.
00:34:32.260 We need some regulations,
00:34:33.700 just like the Industrial Revolution
00:34:35.700 required new regulations
00:34:37.180 to deal with factories
00:34:38.480 and mass production.
00:34:40.020 This is something
00:34:41.300 that needs to be regulated too.
00:34:42.740 This is,
00:34:43.220 the invention of the internet
00:34:44.100 is the biggest thing
00:34:45.140 to happen to mankind
00:34:45.980 since the printing press.
00:34:47.800 It means we have to make sure
00:34:49.120 that our basic rights
00:34:50.340 and our basic humanity
00:34:51.900 is protected from.
00:34:53.460 Yeah,
00:34:53.660 because right now
00:34:54.300 we're talking about
00:34:55.040 the culture wars
00:34:56.540 and why they matter
00:34:57.480 and, you know,
00:34:58.300 sort of people's core beliefs
00:35:00.040 and secularism
00:35:00.940 and how that's changed.
00:35:01.880 I mean,
00:35:02.020 that really just set
00:35:02.640 the entire country off
00:35:03.640 down a dangerous path
00:35:04.700 of amoral behavior
00:35:07.720 and decision making
00:35:09.040 and it's infested virtually
00:35:11.000 all of our major institutions
00:35:12.660 right now.
00:35:13.200 Okay,
00:35:13.400 so people want to fight.
00:35:14.960 Now you see it.
00:35:16.460 I mean,
00:35:16.660 I don't know if it's reaching
00:35:17.460 its pinnacle.
00:35:17.920 I certainly hope
00:35:18.920 this is the pinnacle.
00:35:19.920 I have no idea.
00:35:21.000 But, you know,
00:35:21.320 the Andrew Klavan
00:35:21.860 making these arguments
00:35:22.640 in 2001 after 9-11,
00:35:24.220 if you could have seen us here
00:35:25.520 21 years later,
00:35:27.400 I wonder if even you
00:35:28.340 could have predicted
00:35:29.160 there'd be no more gender. 0.99
00:35:30.960 You know,
00:35:31.140 there'd be open racism taught.
00:35:33.300 Segregation is back. 0.97
00:35:34.320 You know,
00:35:34.540 I don't even know
00:35:35.400 if you would have foreseen that.
00:35:36.660 Okay,
00:35:36.860 so people want to fight
00:35:37.720 because things have gotten
00:35:38.480 so insane.
00:35:39.800 How do they fight?
00:35:40.700 Well,
00:35:40.860 you have to use your words.
00:35:41.920 You have to speak them.
00:35:42.980 You have to write them.
00:35:44.320 You've got to think them
00:35:45.300 and you've got to come
00:35:46.980 to understand them
00:35:48.020 so that you can think them
00:35:49.080 through by reading other people
00:35:50.900 who have written about them
00:35:52.180 and so on.
00:35:52.900 Well,
00:35:53.160 so we're talking about
00:35:53.960 how does one do that?
00:35:55.180 Through a process of going
00:35:56.420 on the internet,
00:35:56.980 through a process of buying
00:35:57.680 somebody's book,
00:35:58.580 through a process of listening
00:35:59.440 to podcasts.
00:36:00.240 They're shutting all that down.
00:36:01.900 It's the same as a boxer
00:36:02.900 going into the ring
00:36:03.480 and having both hands tied
00:36:04.360 behind his back.
00:36:04.980 He can't win.
00:36:05.920 He can't win
00:36:06.540 if you don't have
00:36:07.080 the means to fight.
00:36:09.380 And so the left
00:36:09.920 is taking away
00:36:10.760 the means to fight
00:36:11.660 that conservatives
00:36:12.260 or people who are just
00:36:13.180 open-minded.
00:36:15.400 You know,
00:36:15.900 a lot of my friends,
00:36:16.540 almost all of my friends
00:36:17.400 are New York City liberals.
00:36:19.720 They're in this with us.
00:36:21.120 They're more on our side
00:36:22.440 than they've ever been.
00:36:24.540 So we need to fight
00:36:26.200 for the process
00:36:26.880 to remain fair,
00:36:27.880 for our voices to be heard,
00:36:29.180 for us to have a chance
00:36:30.400 to opine
00:36:31.620 and listen to other people's opinions.
00:36:33.540 But then we get to the matter
00:36:35.180 of what should we say?
00:36:37.100 What should we believe?
00:36:38.040 What should we think?
00:36:39.320 What is the counter-argument?
00:36:40.340 And that leaves me to gender
00:36:42.540 because I've heard you talk
00:36:44.760 about the gender issue a lot,
00:36:45.960 both gender roles,
00:36:46.780 which I'd love to discuss with you,
00:36:48.000 and just gender as a,
00:36:49.400 you know,
00:36:49.740 is it determined by one's biology?
00:36:51.980 Is it something you pick,
00:36:52.880 like a color palette?
00:36:55.560 And let's just talk about gender
00:36:56.900 as a biological matter first, right?
00:36:59.140 Like, are there women? 1.00
00:37:00.500 Are there men?
00:37:01.060 And Ketanji Brown-Jackson,
00:37:02.440 you know,
00:37:02.660 I couldn't tell you, right?
00:37:03.860 And the fact that we've come
00:37:05.320 to that place in society
00:37:07.500 where you've got someone
00:37:08.820 who's about to take
00:37:09.580 a Supreme Court seat,
00:37:10.560 not able or willing
00:37:12.080 to define what a woman is.
00:37:15.360 Yeah, I mean,
00:37:16.140 what the left has succeeded
00:37:18.220 in doing
00:37:18.800 is they've succeeded
00:37:19.880 in convincing us
00:37:20.740 that generalizations
00:37:21.860 are an insult
00:37:23.100 to anyone
00:37:23.580 who doesn't fall
00:37:24.440 within that generalization.
00:37:26.500 So if I say
00:37:27.240 human beings
00:37:28.620 are a two-legged creature,
00:37:30.480 somebody is going to write
00:37:31.640 to me and say,
00:37:32.080 well, my beloved son
00:37:33.560 was born with only one leg.
00:37:34.860 Is he not a human being?
00:37:36.180 Well, yes, he is.
00:37:36.900 But human beings
00:37:37.520 remain a two-legged creature.
00:37:39.340 There are men and women.
00:37:40.380 This is a fact of life
00:37:41.520 that has been recognized
00:37:42.320 since the beginning of time.
00:37:44.240 Men and women have traits.
00:37:45.960 Those traits are different
00:37:47.060 from one another.
00:37:47.740 They have needs.
00:37:48.480 They have abilities.
00:37:49.340 They have powers.
00:37:50.140 They have roles,
00:37:50.940 all of which are
00:37:51.960 different from one another.
00:37:54.100 Until you secure the core,
00:37:56.300 until you secure the core
00:37:58.260 of what people want,
00:37:59.300 you can't be tolerant
00:38:00.520 toward exceptions.
00:38:01.860 So what the left does
00:38:02.640 is they say,
00:38:03.600 well, this guy is an exception
00:38:04.740 because he thinks he's a woman.
00:38:06.080 What are you going to do?
00:38:06.700 Are you going to be hateful
00:38:07.500 to this person?
00:38:08.540 Well, no, I don't think
00:38:09.440 we should be hateful
00:38:10.280 to that person.
00:38:10.800 But first, we're not going
00:38:11.580 to lie to him.
00:38:12.360 We're not going to tell him
00:38:13.040 he is a woman
00:38:13.720 just because he says he is.
00:38:15.380 So that's the first thing.
00:38:16.320 We can't lose the truth
00:38:17.820 just to make people feel good.
00:38:19.220 That's absurd.
00:38:20.300 The second thing is,
00:38:21.220 yeah, I understand
00:38:22.400 there are exceptions.
00:38:24.340 But the fact is,
00:38:25.360 the mom and dad family
00:38:26.860 is a bulwark of freedom.
00:38:28.760 It is the way people learn
00:38:30.080 to be.
00:38:30.860 It is the way people learn
00:38:31.920 to control themselves.
00:38:32.960 It's where they learn discipline.
00:38:34.080 It's where they learn values.
00:38:35.500 All of those things happen
00:38:36.660 in a family
00:38:37.400 without the government intervening.
00:38:39.100 And they keep us free
00:38:40.200 by happening there.
00:38:42.400 That other people,
00:38:43.560 that some people can't participate
00:38:44.840 in mom, dad families,
00:38:46.320 that some people are different.
00:38:47.660 All of that is fine,
00:38:48.820 but you don't have tolerance
00:38:50.820 for them until your core
00:38:52.020 is secure.
00:38:53.340 So when I think
00:38:55.220 mentally ill teachers
00:38:56.900 come in and say
00:38:58.100 they have the right,
00:38:59.440 this somehow amazing
00:39:01.280 created right
00:39:02.060 to tell our children
00:39:03.380 that they're the wrong gender 0.99
00:39:04.740 or that they get to choose
00:39:05.940 whether they're a man
00:39:06.660 or a woman,
00:39:07.160 that they may want
00:39:07.800 to have an operation
00:39:08.620 and that they should
00:39:10.580 check that out
00:39:11.200 and their parents
00:39:11.720 don't have a right
00:39:12.240 to know that.
00:39:12.940 When you see them doing that,
00:39:14.660 you really see them
00:39:16.020 violating certain core ethics
00:39:18.820 and certain core values
00:39:20.140 that without which
00:39:22.680 tolerance can exist.
00:39:24.040 So the left always gets
00:39:25.360 ahead of these things
00:39:26.240 by inventing language
00:39:27.920 to make you sound hateful
00:39:29.580 if you want to discuss it
00:39:30.500 with them.
00:39:30.800 So you're phobic,
00:39:32.000 you know, you're racist, 0.63
00:39:33.300 you're sexist, 0.85
00:39:33.860 you're all these different things.
00:39:35.220 I think that the first thing
00:39:37.500 we should recognize
00:39:38.200 is that gender
00:39:39.720 and gender differences
00:39:40.640 are one of the chief joys
00:39:42.020 of most people's lives.
00:39:43.600 They are the thing that,
00:39:44.500 they are sources
00:39:45.620 of untold beauty.
00:39:47.320 They are a consolation
00:39:48.780 for the tragic facts of life.
00:39:51.900 Most of us,
00:39:52.640 most of us find meaning
00:39:54.660 and happiness
00:39:55.380 and security and home
00:39:56.880 in the love of someone
00:39:58.680 of a different gender.
00:40:00.640 Now, that there are people
00:40:01.740 who don't do that
00:40:02.440 and there are people
00:40:02.880 who have trouble with that,
00:40:04.240 that's fine.
00:40:04.940 I can live with that.
00:40:05.960 But since this is
00:40:07.320 the vast majority of people
00:40:09.180 and since this is
00:40:09.840 the core of society
00:40:11.220 and since this is
00:40:11.980 the source of our freedom,
00:40:13.860 I think first we protect
00:40:15.040 that core
00:40:15.580 and then we can have tolerance.
00:40:17.440 And when you have people
00:40:18.100 invading that core,
00:40:19.300 I think you have
00:40:19.780 to brush them back.
00:40:21.300 So how do we do that?
00:40:22.640 Right, because,
00:40:23.500 and by the way,
00:40:24.220 all the stuff
00:40:24.720 that you just said
00:40:25.340 actually happened
00:40:26.900 to my child
00:40:27.800 at our New York City
00:40:28.920 private school,
00:40:30.180 all that stuff,
00:40:30.940 every single thing
00:40:32.280 you listed,
00:40:33.120 you know,
00:40:33.440 are you sure
00:40:34.600 you're really a boy?
00:40:35.760 You could possibly
00:40:37.020 be a girl.
00:40:37.920 Here's how you would
00:40:38.500 become a girl,
00:40:39.240 including you would
00:40:40.200 take puberty blockers
00:40:41.320 and then,
00:40:41.880 it's not like my child
00:40:42.600 had any of these issues.
00:40:43.560 They were saying it
00:40:43.940 to his entire third grade class,
00:40:45.240 third grade class.
00:40:46.940 You could take puberty blockers
00:40:48.340 and then when you get
00:40:49.120 to be 18,
00:40:49.940 you can have an operation
00:40:50.920 to have your penis chopped off 0.99
00:40:52.100 and build a vagina 1.00
00:40:53.520 and then you'll be a woman. 1.00
00:40:54.980 I mean,
00:40:55.140 this literally happened
00:40:55.940 to my son's class
00:40:57.420 of eight and nine year olds
00:40:58.760 and hence we are no longer
00:41:00.140 at that school,
00:41:00.940 which is one of the best schools
00:41:01.860 in the nation.
00:41:03.060 But it's not, right?
00:41:04.140 No, it isn't.
00:41:04.940 If they're abusing
00:41:05.720 your child ever,
00:41:06.380 they could be getting them
00:41:07.740 into Princeton
00:41:08.300 and Harvard and Yale
00:41:09.120 all day long,
00:41:10.020 which is not our goal,
00:41:11.000 but that's how they determine,
00:41:11.940 you know,
00:41:12.160 whether it's great school
00:41:12.900 or it's not.
00:41:14.140 But if they're punching
00:41:16.320 your child in the face
00:41:17.320 behind the scenes,
00:41:18.000 you would see
00:41:18.360 how abusive it was.
00:41:19.600 Well, that's what
00:41:20.040 they were effectively doing.
00:41:20.980 These are rhetorical punches
00:41:21.920 in the face
00:41:22.420 and they were every day
00:41:23.180 and they were everywhere
00:41:23.740 and they were on race
00:41:24.480 and they were on gender
00:41:25.120 and all the other favorite things.
00:41:27.500 So, but what,
00:41:28.280 this is something I,
00:41:29.360 I'm somebody
00:41:29.940 and I get a lot of crap
00:41:30.740 from my audience sometimes.
00:41:32.080 I will say somebody's pronouns,
00:41:33.960 their chosen pronouns.
00:41:34.700 If somebody says,
00:41:35.740 you know,
00:41:35.940 they're trans woman, 0.98
00:41:37.120 I'll call them she. 0.94
00:41:38.560 I'll,
00:41:39.620 I don't refer to them
00:41:41.460 as a woman.
00:41:41.840 And I'll say they're a trans woman
00:41:43.000 because facts are facts,
00:41:44.620 right?
00:41:45.020 There's a difference
00:41:45.780 between a trans woman 0.75
00:41:46.620 and a woman.
00:41:47.240 That's just,
00:41:47.860 it's trans woman means 1.00
00:41:49.000 you're a biological male
00:41:49.920 and you've decided
00:41:50.440 to walk around
00:41:51.040 and live the rest of your life
00:41:52.040 identifying as female,
00:41:53.420 which is fine by me.
00:41:54.480 I actually don't mind that.
00:41:56.120 But why would you say the pronoun
00:41:57.800 and why wouldn't you if not?
00:42:00.700 Well, you know,
00:42:01.320 it's a thing that the left
00:42:02.980 has ruined is good manners.
00:42:05.180 You say the pronoun like that
00:42:06.920 because you're polite.
00:42:07.660 You want to be nice to the person.
00:42:08.880 The person has this issue in life,
00:42:10.520 you know,
00:42:11.500 that you're not trying
00:42:12.420 to exacerbate,
00:42:13.240 you're not trying
00:42:13.600 to make his or her life worse.
00:42:16.080 You're trying to be nice.
00:42:17.800 And they use that
00:42:18.760 to essentially eradicate reality.
00:42:21.900 And that becomes unfair.
00:42:24.940 So yeah,
00:42:25.500 in talking to an individual person,
00:42:27.560 would I say,
00:42:28.100 I might well say,
00:42:29.360 look,
00:42:29.680 I don't agree with you,
00:42:30.820 but I'll call you
00:42:31.460 whatever you want.
00:42:32.220 I might preface it with that.
00:42:33.940 But of course,
00:42:34.520 I would try to be polite
00:42:35.480 and try to be kind,
00:42:36.480 but I will not let my kindness
00:42:37.860 and I will not let my politeness
00:42:39.340 be used to eradicate 0.92
00:42:41.100 basic truths
00:42:42.060 and basic values.
00:42:43.500 You know,
00:42:44.020 when you're describing
00:42:45.100 your son's experience in school,
00:42:47.120 and I find it appalling.
00:42:48.720 I mean,
00:42:48.900 I find it appalling
00:42:49.640 that you should
00:42:50.160 have that happen to you.
00:42:52.960 The left manages
00:42:54.080 to skip over
00:42:55.160 first principles
00:42:56.140 so that
00:42:56.980 when you go in and say,
00:42:58.260 you don't really have the right
00:42:59.080 to say that to my son,
00:43:00.080 they say,
00:43:00.320 well,
00:43:00.400 you're hateful
00:43:00.880 because you don't accept
00:43:01.760 transgenderism.
00:43:02.880 No, no,
00:43:03.140 you've got to go back a minute.
00:43:04.640 The first thing is,
00:43:05.620 that child is your charge.
00:43:08.260 They didn't create him.
00:43:09.620 They don't take care of him.
00:43:10.940 They're not responsible for him.
00:43:12.220 You are.
00:43:13.220 So they're violating
00:43:14.180 a basic first principle
00:43:15.880 of your rights.
00:43:16.920 I mean,
00:43:17.120 teach them to read,
00:43:18.040 teach them math,
00:43:18.980 teach them history,
00:43:19.780 but you have no right
00:43:21.080 to teach them values
00:43:22.320 that are in conflict
00:43:23.380 with the values
00:43:24.080 of his family,
00:43:25.160 not only in conflict with him,
00:43:26.380 but really completely
00:43:27.700 opposite of the values
00:43:29.400 of his family.
00:43:30.000 You don't have that right.
00:43:31.580 And so that's the first thing.
00:43:33.080 You know,
00:43:33.220 that's the first principle.
00:43:34.300 You have the right
00:43:34.700 to your opinion,
00:43:35.280 but you don't have the right
00:43:36.300 to have your opinion.
00:43:37.340 Wait,
00:43:37.360 before we move on
00:43:37.960 to the second thing,
00:43:38.660 let me give the counter argument.
00:43:39.800 It would be,
00:43:40.680 well,
00:43:40.960 I mean,
00:43:41.300 the KKK members
00:43:42.620 would have come into this class
00:43:43.840 back in the 1950s
00:43:44.900 and said,
00:43:45.340 what you're teaching
00:43:46.180 is anti my core values.
00:43:48.300 I created my child
00:43:49.100 and I don't want you
00:43:49.800 to be teaching them
00:43:50.520 that race doesn't matter, 0.97
00:43:53.180 right?
00:43:53.380 Back then,
00:43:53.960 that was controversial
00:43:54.760 to the racists.
00:43:56.540 They were the ones
00:43:57.200 who believed
00:43:57.640 that race mattered
00:43:58.560 and it mattered entirely.
00:44:00.220 So, right,
00:44:00.380 so what,
00:44:01.060 so the teacher's response
00:44:01.940 would be,
00:44:02.260 this is basic,
00:44:02.840 this is about basic goodness
00:44:03.880 and tolerance.
00:44:05.320 Those are school
00:44:06.260 and societal values
00:44:07.840 and if you don't stand
00:44:09.100 for those,
00:44:09.680 you don't belong
00:44:10.180 at this school.
00:44:11.080 Well,
00:44:11.540 there are a million
00:44:12.360 true and nuanced reasons
00:44:14.660 why that's not true.
00:44:15.720 I mean,
00:44:15.860 first of all,
00:44:16.280 there's a tremendous difference
00:44:17.540 between the color
00:44:18.760 of a person's skin
00:44:19.800 and the actions
00:44:20.600 that he takes.
00:44:21.700 Actions are,
00:44:22.560 in fact,
00:44:22.840 responsible to morality
00:44:23.840 and people have,
00:44:24.880 you know,
00:44:25.100 people of different sexualities
00:44:26.320 take different actions.
00:44:27.360 We have the right
00:44:27.860 to hold different opinions
00:44:29.460 and different values
00:44:30.540 about those actions.
00:44:31.740 We don't really,
00:44:32.680 I mean,
00:44:32.880 you have the right
00:44:33.500 to be a racist,
00:44:34.320 I suppose,
00:44:35.140 but it doesn't make
00:44:36.300 the same kind of sense
00:44:37.600 to hate someone
00:44:38.260 for the way he looks
00:44:39.160 or the way he speaks
00:44:39.980 or the way his skin,
00:44:42.040 what his skin color is
00:44:43.120 as it does to say
00:44:44.180 you are taking certain actions
00:44:45.360 which I find immoral.
00:44:46.560 So that's,
00:44:47.020 that is one important difference.
00:44:49.140 But the other important difference
00:44:50.540 is this,
00:44:51.260 all through human history,
00:44:52.640 it has been recognized
00:44:53.520 that there are men and women.
00:44:54.540 There's exactly 0% science
00:44:56.500 that says you can change
00:44:57.760 from one to another.
00:44:58.700 Every cell in your body
00:44:59.720 is gendered.
00:45:00.660 And so they're actually
00:45:01.560 teaching something
00:45:02.480 that's false.
00:45:03.740 They're telling people
00:45:04.760 something that's false.
00:45:06.040 And to say that,
00:45:07.240 you know,
00:45:07.880 it's morally okay
00:45:09.560 to be transgender,
00:45:10.560 it's morally okay
00:45:11.240 to be schizophrenic,
00:45:12.180 but you don't want to be.
00:45:13.360 It may not be something
00:45:14.360 that is desirable
00:45:15.200 and that's something
00:45:15.800 that each family
00:45:16.480 really has to decide
00:45:17.540 for itself.
00:45:18.400 So God bless them
00:45:19.560 for thinking that something
00:45:20.420 that has never been thought before
00:45:21.840 is the moral order
00:45:23.140 that they've suddenly discovered.
00:45:25.100 But no,
00:45:25.540 they don't have a right
00:45:26.300 to teach that to your child
00:45:27.700 and it is far,
00:45:28.620 far different,
00:45:29.160 obviously,
00:45:30.080 than what you're talking about
00:45:32.300 with racism in the KKK.
00:45:33.820 That said,
00:45:34.760 that said,
00:45:35.600 I do believe
00:45:36.460 that Klansmen,
00:45:37.760 as much as I despise racism
00:45:39.400 and as much as it hurts my heart,
00:45:41.420 you know,
00:45:41.700 I do believe
00:45:42.740 that people have the right
00:45:44.180 to teach their children
00:45:45.160 their values
00:45:45.800 even when those values
00:45:46.900 are bad,
00:45:48.260 you know?
00:45:48.620 And I think that in this case,
00:45:49.980 in this case,
00:45:50.600 you're talking again
00:45:51.420 about values
00:45:52.020 that have been human values
00:45:53.580 since the beginning of time.
00:45:55.020 There's zero science
00:45:55.960 to contradict those values.
00:45:57.300 All the science,
00:45:58.060 in fact,
00:45:58.320 confirms them.
00:45:59.200 So what on earth
00:46:00.280 are they talking about
00:46:01.240 except teaching your child
00:46:02.440 their delusions?
00:46:03.860 Well,
00:46:04.020 you know,
00:46:04.380 you know,
00:46:05.100 now it's,
00:46:05.920 your child's going to kill himself
00:46:06.920 if you don't get more affirmative.
00:46:09.120 You have to start affirming him.
00:46:10.880 And unlike you,
00:46:11.580 we care about him.
00:46:12.580 Unlike you,
00:46:13.180 we care about your child's mental health
00:46:15.140 and his well-being.
00:46:16.520 And,
00:46:17.000 you know,
00:46:17.120 that's really what they do
00:46:18.360 to parents now
00:46:19.120 when it comes to this
00:46:19.840 transgender stuff
00:46:20.620 and their justification
00:46:21.540 for not looping parents in
00:46:22.920 if a child
00:46:23.420 under these enormous pressures
00:46:25.420 starts to submit
00:46:26.720 and just to get these people
00:46:27.620 off the back
00:46:28.240 and be like,
00:46:28.720 oh,
00:46:29.040 okay,
00:46:29.400 yeah,
00:46:29.660 maybe I'm a girl.
00:46:30.840 I mean,
00:46:31.280 truly,
00:46:31.760 it's like they're trying
00:46:32.720 to recruit.
00:46:33.920 It's,
00:46:34.240 it's as if it's recruiting ground.
00:46:37.600 I think I,
00:46:38.620 your latest episode
00:46:39.500 of your podcast,
00:46:40.260 I looked it up
00:46:40.620 and I listened to it.
00:46:41.360 It was called,
00:46:41.900 okay,
00:46:42.300 groomer.
00:46:43.640 That's something
00:46:44.160 you can say to these teachers.
00:46:45.600 They were saying,
00:46:46.500 don't say gay.
00:46:47.120 And they were putting up
00:46:47.680 billboards that said gay.
00:46:48.720 And I thought we should put up
00:46:49.480 billboards to say,
00:46:50.080 okay,
00:46:50.460 groomer,
00:46:50.820 because really,
00:46:51.840 I mean,
00:46:52.440 there is no excuse.
00:46:53.940 There is a really
00:46:55.300 zero percent excuse
00:46:56.600 to talk to a third grader
00:46:58.720 about his sexuality
00:46:59.680 if you are not his parent.
00:47:01.240 I cannot understand.
00:47:03.180 I,
00:47:03.580 listen,
00:47:03.740 I think 90% of the country,
00:47:05.800 70% at least,
00:47:07.160 would say that that's immoral.
00:47:08.380 If you put it in those terms,
00:47:09.640 if you say you have no right
00:47:11.420 to talk to someone
00:47:12.580 who is not your child
00:47:13.880 about their sexuality
00:47:15.180 when he is little,
00:47:16.420 I think we all agree with that.
00:47:17.980 And,
00:47:18.180 you know,
00:47:18.620 when I was a kid,
00:47:19.400 the police used to come
00:47:20.800 and visit our classroom
00:47:21.760 and teach us
00:47:22.560 if anyone did that,
00:47:23.980 you should call the cops.
00:47:25.840 You know,
00:47:26.060 now they want to make
00:47:27.300 a Disney movie about it.
00:47:28.680 I think that they have gone
00:47:29.860 well,
00:47:30.780 well arrived
00:47:31.780 where the mainstream
00:47:32.600 of the country is.
00:47:33.560 And I think that's going
00:47:34.100 to be reflected,
00:47:34.860 by the way,
00:47:35.180 in the next election.
00:47:36.460 Okay,
00:47:36.880 now wait,
00:47:37.520 because this is another thing
00:47:38.700 I heard you say.
00:47:39.280 You're optimistic.
00:47:40.180 You're optimistic
00:47:40.960 about culture,
00:47:42.140 about these things
00:47:42.620 we're talking about.
00:47:43.180 And that's,
00:47:43.780 that's a good place
00:47:44.480 for a pause.
00:47:44.940 Quick Commercial Break.
00:47:46.340 More with Andrew Klavan
00:47:48.000 coming up.
00:47:54.520 Back with me now,
00:47:55.560 Andrew Klavan,
00:47:56.380 host of the Andrew Klavan Show
00:47:57.660 with the Daily Wire team
00:47:59.080 and author of the new book,
00:48:01.140 The Truth and Beauty,
00:48:03.300 in which he explores
00:48:04.560 the gospel
00:48:05.420 and the meaning
00:48:06.360 of God's word
00:48:08.060 through poems,
00:48:11.320 through literature,
00:48:12.480 through great writers
00:48:13.460 who you would know
00:48:14.960 and he found it
00:48:15.680 a very joyous exercise.
00:48:17.700 And that brings me to,
00:48:18.780 I want to continue
00:48:19.380 our discussion of gender.
00:48:20.900 One of the works
00:48:22.080 that you took a look at
00:48:23.040 was Frankenstein.
00:48:26.600 And this,
00:48:27.540 I never saw this coming.
00:48:28.960 This is what's so creative
00:48:29.920 and innovative
00:48:30.380 about your book.
00:48:32.160 Frankenstein,
00:48:32.640 the way you studied it
00:48:34.880 and the way you see it
00:48:35.960 is basically a story
00:48:38.400 about the usurpation
00:48:40.700 of the power of women
00:48:43.500 that they made a man 0.78
00:48:46.260 without a mother.
00:48:47.680 The science eliminated
00:48:48.920 the principle of femininity
00:48:50.600 from the creation
00:48:52.060 of human life.
00:48:53.400 This is so interesting to me
00:48:54.680 because to me,
00:48:55.680 this dovetails
00:48:56.320 with what we're talking about
00:48:57.560 because,
00:48:58.200 you know,
00:48:58.940 the next question
00:48:59.980 in the discussion
00:49:00.540 of our gender discussion
00:49:01.960 is,
00:49:02.220 who cares?
00:49:03.980 Relax.
00:49:04.700 If somebody wants to say
00:49:06.020 they're a tree,
00:49:07.120 they're a tree.
00:49:07.700 Like,
00:49:07.940 what does it bother you
00:49:09.160 that some guy suddenly says,
00:49:11.160 you know what?
00:49:11.560 I think I'm a woman
00:49:12.380 or some woman says,
00:49:14.080 you know what?
00:49:14.340 I think I'm a man.
00:49:15.060 I'm going to live my life
00:49:15.820 like that.
00:49:16.680 What do you care?
00:49:17.960 And you make the case
00:49:19.780 kind of through
00:49:20.620 the examination
00:49:21.480 of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
00:49:22.680 and other works here
00:49:23.880 advertently or not
00:49:25.080 that it does matter.
00:49:27.900 It matters incredibly.
00:49:29.960 I mean,
00:49:30.140 beginning with
00:49:30.860 the question
00:49:31.900 of your inner life.
00:49:33.040 I mean,
00:49:33.220 this is what you lose
00:49:34.220 when you lose your faith
00:49:35.160 is you lose the sense
00:49:36.140 that your inner life
00:49:36.960 means anything.
00:49:37.900 So we've come to a place
00:49:39.140 where either people think
00:49:40.400 your inner life
00:49:40.860 doesn't mean anything,
00:49:41.840 that your morals
00:49:43.720 are as good as my morals
00:49:44.880 and your culture
00:49:45.540 is as good as my culture
00:49:46.520 or they think it means everything.
00:49:47.660 You can change
00:49:48.240 your sex 0.99
00:49:49.000 on the spot.
00:49:50.620 Well,
00:49:51.340 one of the people
00:49:52.000 dealing with these questions
00:49:53.060 was Mary Shelley,
00:49:53.980 who was a teenage girl.
00:49:55.720 She had run away
00:49:56.560 with the poet Shelley.
00:49:57.760 He had left his wife for her.
00:50:00.060 Shelley,
00:50:00.740 both Mary Shelley's mother,
00:50:02.380 who was one of the first feminists, 0.99
00:50:04.160 her father,
00:50:05.620 Shelley himself,
00:50:06.640 they all believed in free love
00:50:08.180 and they all despised marriage.
00:50:10.460 And as a result of this,
00:50:12.060 Mary Shelley
00:50:12.600 got pregnant several times,
00:50:14.760 lost her children.
00:50:16.020 Nobody felt much sympathy for her
00:50:19.100 when her children died.
00:50:22.100 Byron was sleeping
00:50:24.320 with everybody,
00:50:25.120 man and woman.
00:50:26.440 And so she conceived
00:50:28.260 of this horror story,
00:50:29.760 this horror story
00:50:30.700 about a man
00:50:31.320 who creates a creature
00:50:32.500 out of old body parts,
00:50:34.280 basically,
00:50:34.640 and brings it to life.
00:50:36.180 And she herself said,
00:50:37.820 this is a story
00:50:38.500 about what happens
00:50:39.200 when man usurps
00:50:40.260 the rights of God
00:50:41.120 to create life.
00:50:42.180 And I point out in the book,
00:50:43.520 it's really not
00:50:44.340 because man creates life
00:50:45.540 all the time.
00:50:46.340 Men and women create life 0.98
00:50:47.300 all the time
00:50:47.800 out of the materials
00:50:48.600 they have.
00:50:49.700 What Frankenstein does
00:50:50.860 is he creates a creature
00:50:52.080 without a woman 1.00
00:50:53.140 and he takes away
00:50:54.900 the power of women. 1.00
00:50:56.320 And this is all
00:50:57.060 throughout the book.
00:50:58.580 Frankenstein becomes
00:50:59.580 a monster
00:51:00.280 because he has no parents.
00:51:01.980 He has no one
00:51:02.580 to love him,
00:51:03.420 to teach him
00:51:04.060 how to be a human being.
00:51:05.440 He hides out
00:51:06.240 the monster Frankenstein
00:51:07.480 hides out
00:51:08.060 at one point
00:51:09.040 with a family
00:51:10.060 and all he can do
00:51:11.000 is drink in
00:51:11.880 what it means
00:51:12.800 to watch a mother 0.92
00:51:13.700 raise her children,
00:51:14.640 to watch a father
00:51:15.440 take care of his wife
00:51:17.040 and his family.
00:51:18.920 And he ultimately,
00:51:19.740 the monster comes back
00:51:20.820 to Dr. Frankenstein
00:51:21.980 and says,
00:51:22.440 I will leave you alone 0.96
00:51:23.440 if you will just do one thing.
00:51:25.220 Build me an Eve.
00:51:26.780 You made an atom,
00:51:28.000 now build me an Eve
00:51:29.020 so I can become
00:51:29.680 a complete human being.
00:51:32.040 This is,
00:51:32.840 has become,
00:51:34.300 you know,
00:51:34.560 Mary Shelley,
00:51:35.160 like I said,
00:51:35.500 she was a teenage girl
00:51:36.300 when she wrote this.
00:51:37.400 She invented the modern 0.99
00:51:38.740 science fiction genre.
00:51:40.260 And this is a theme
00:51:41.200 in science fiction
00:51:42.040 to this day.
00:51:43.120 When you watch
00:51:44.360 the stories
00:51:45.700 about dystopia,
00:51:47.000 when you watch stories
00:51:48.080 like The Matrix
00:51:49.120 about machines
00:51:50.320 taking over the world,
00:51:51.640 the first thing to go
00:51:53.080 is the woman.
00:51:54.360 When you think about
00:51:55.020 Aldous Huxley's
00:51:56.100 Oh, you watch a Disney movie.
00:51:57.080 Andrew,
00:51:57.440 watch a Disney movie.
00:51:58.740 This is a running joke
00:51:59.640 in our family.
00:52:00.400 They kill off the mother
00:52:01.360 in virtually all these,
00:52:02.600 before we got to
00:52:03.380 Disney's current craziness,
00:52:04.840 we had the mother
00:52:05.640 being killed off.
00:52:06.300 I mean,
00:52:06.500 Bambi's the most famous
00:52:08.160 or infamous.
00:52:09.240 Right.
00:52:09.500 But I mean,
00:52:10.020 every other Disney movie,
00:52:12.260 the mom's dead
00:52:12.920 within the first two scenes.
00:52:14.980 This this is it,
00:52:15.800 you know,
00:52:15.980 because how do you
00:52:16.900 find your humanity then?
00:52:18.560 If if you live in a world
00:52:20.580 in Brave New World,
00:52:21.580 the dystopian novel,
00:52:23.300 the first thing they do
00:52:24.300 is they raise children
00:52:25.840 in incubators
00:52:26.600 and they get rid of mothers 1.00
00:52:27.500 in The Giver,
00:52:28.140 which is also a famous
00:52:29.100 dystopian novel.
00:52:30.200 They relegate motherhood 0.97
00:52:31.800 to the lowest
00:52:32.540 women in the society.
00:52:35.320 If you watch
00:52:36.240 The Terminator
00:52:36.960 when the machines
00:52:37.860 want to destroy
00:52:39.100 the rebel leader,
00:52:40.280 what do they do?
00:52:40.860 They go back
00:52:41.440 and hunt in time
00:52:42.440 and hunt for his mother,
00:52:44.520 who's in the first movie.
00:52:45.840 She's just a girl. 0.55
00:52:46.700 She's just a girl 1.00
00:52:47.380 who wants to date
00:52:48.180 and talk about her hair. 1.00
00:52:49.520 But her power is 1.00
00:52:50.660 that she becomes a mother.
00:52:53.020 And the poets
00:52:53.840 wrote about this
00:52:54.500 so beautifully,
00:52:55.580 Wordsworth,
00:52:56.120 especially,
00:52:56.620 who lost his mother young,
00:52:58.200 wrote in his
00:52:59.120 autobiographical poem,
00:53:00.540 he wrote about
00:53:01.120 how a mother
00:53:01.760 in communicating
00:53:02.780 with her baby
00:53:03.680 turns that baby
00:53:05.260 into a human being
00:53:06.520 and connects that baby
00:53:07.840 to the world
00:53:08.740 through her love.
00:53:09.980 This turns out
00:53:10.680 to be a scientific fact.
00:53:12.060 I mean,
00:53:12.280 babies are born
00:53:13.000 with what's called
00:53:13.560 motor neurons.
00:53:14.480 When they're born,
00:53:15.400 they're really not
00:53:16.400 distinguished in their own minds
00:53:18.240 from their mother.
00:53:18.940 They're really actually
00:53:19.760 still connected to their mother,
00:53:20.980 even though they're
00:53:21.760 outside the womb.
00:53:22.980 It's in that interchange
00:53:24.180 between the mother
00:53:25.640 and the child
00:53:26.640 that those motor neurons
00:53:27.680 come to life,
00:53:28.420 that the child realizes
00:53:29.400 himself as an individual
00:53:30.960 and as a creative person
00:53:32.360 and can go forth
00:53:33.580 on his own.
00:53:35.080 This is a spiritual task
00:53:36.760 of motherhood
00:53:37.320 that we don't think about.
00:53:38.580 I do not believe.
00:53:39.740 I know we're all supposed
00:53:40.480 to say,
00:53:40.840 oh, men can do this too.
00:53:42.200 No, they can't.
00:53:43.100 It's actually a special task
00:53:45.220 and I think it is a task
00:53:46.220 best performed
00:53:46.900 by the person
00:53:47.800 who gave birth
00:53:48.420 to that child,
00:53:49.200 even though sometimes
00:53:50.120 we have to make do
00:53:51.600 in this tragic life
00:53:53.180 without that.
00:53:54.520 This means,
00:53:55.260 this means
00:53:55.880 that when somebody
00:53:56.800 says to you,
00:53:57.540 oh, she's just a homemaker, 1.00
00:53:59.480 she's just a mom,
00:54:00.620 she's a stay-at-home mom
00:54:01.740 and relegates that
00:54:02.640 to a second tier,
00:54:03.680 they're actually relegating
00:54:05.420 the most important task
00:54:06.920 a person can do
00:54:07.900 to the second tier
00:54:09.380 of our business,
00:54:11.220 which means
00:54:11.780 that a woman 0.98
00:54:12.220 who goes in
00:54:12.820 and types words
00:54:13.560 into a computer
00:54:14.300 or shuffles paper
00:54:15.240 or goes to get coffee
00:54:16.420 for her boss
00:54:17.180 or even is the boss
00:54:18.860 is actually
00:54:20.220 not doing something
00:54:21.820 more important
00:54:22.640 than the woman 0.98
00:54:23.400 who is raising
00:54:24.160 that child
00:54:24.700 to be a full soul.
00:54:26.720 And I don't say this
00:54:27.520 in a condescending way.
00:54:28.700 One of the reasons
00:54:29.400 that feminism 0.99
00:54:30.020 became a thing
00:54:32.120 at this moment,
00:54:32.840 one of the reasons
00:54:33.540 Mary Shelley's mother
00:54:34.660 was one of the first feminists 0.82
00:54:36.180 is because
00:54:37.200 if you look back
00:54:37.920 at the Bible, Megan,
00:54:38.780 you look back
00:54:39.240 at Proverbs 31,
00:54:40.460 Christians are always 1.00
00:54:41.060 talking about,
00:54:41.540 oh, I want a Proverbs 31 woman. 1.00
00:54:43.520 Proverbs 31
00:54:44.180 is the description
00:54:44.960 of the best woman,
00:54:46.740 the virtuous woman.
00:54:47.680 It's not a description
00:54:48.740 of some 50s housewife
00:54:51.000 vacuuming in her heels.
00:54:52.900 It's a description
00:54:53.460 of a businesswoman
00:54:54.300 who buys land,
00:54:55.440 of somebody
00:54:55.880 who plants an orchard,
00:54:57.180 who sells the fruit
00:54:58.260 of that orchard,
00:54:58.920 and then also has time
00:55:00.760 to feed her family
00:55:01.700 and take care of her home
00:55:02.820 and make her husband proud
00:55:04.400 and give her husband honor
00:55:05.840 through her behavior.
00:55:07.700 That's a very extensive thing.
00:55:09.440 When the Industrial Revolution
00:55:10.460 came along,
00:55:11.360 which is right around the time
00:55:12.420 I'm talking about
00:55:13.120 in this book,
00:55:14.140 when the Industrial Revolution
00:55:15.120 came along,
00:55:15.700 all of those home industries
00:55:17.700 were taken away from women.
00:55:19.540 Suddenly clothes,
00:55:20.500 women used to be called 1.00
00:55:21.160 the distaff
00:55:21.840 because they made the clothes,
00:55:22.960 which was a major,
00:55:23.900 major industry.
00:55:25.000 Suddenly clothes
00:55:25.620 were going to be made
00:55:26.320 in factories.
00:55:27.260 Suddenly food
00:55:28.060 was manufactured
00:55:28.920 off the farm.
00:55:30.120 Suddenly children
00:55:30.960 were taken off
00:55:32.140 to the cities
00:55:32.780 to work in factories
00:55:33.580 and didn't come back
00:55:34.740 to help on the farm.
00:55:36.500 So even the children
00:55:37.380 that women were producing 0.97
00:55:38.520 weren't as valuable
00:55:39.840 as they used to be.
00:55:40.940 And I'm just talking
00:55:41.480 about economics,
00:55:42.200 but it was just true.
00:55:43.660 What you had after that
00:55:44.880 was a kind of idealization
00:55:46.740 of women.
00:55:47.580 You had this kind of idea
00:55:48.900 that was big
00:55:49.580 in the Victorian age
00:55:51.580 of the angel in the house.
00:55:53.220 And a woman was an angel 0.90
00:55:54.340 in the house.
00:55:54.980 Women weren't people anymore. 1.00
00:55:56.200 They were kind of
00:55:57.000 these high goddesses 0.95
00:55:58.320 of domesticity,
00:56:00.160 you know,
00:56:00.280 the domestic goddesses
00:56:01.360 we joke today.
00:56:02.520 Well, no wonder feminists 1.00
00:56:03.600 started saying,
00:56:04.240 you know,
00:56:04.900 I'm really a human being.
00:56:06.640 I would like to have
00:56:07.220 an important place
00:56:08.040 in my society
00:56:08.800 if you've stripped away
00:56:10.140 my home industries,
00:56:11.140 if you've stripped away
00:56:11.880 the economic value
00:56:13.060 of what I do,
00:56:14.120 all I'm left now
00:56:15.380 is as a dependent,
00:56:16.900 as we say,
00:56:17.540 in the tax business.
00:56:19.520 You know,
00:56:19.820 what is my value?
00:56:20.920 I want to have value
00:56:21.960 like men have value.
00:56:22.840 So that's why Mary Shelley,
00:56:24.360 I think,
00:56:24.620 at this moment
00:56:25.180 actually perceived
00:56:26.120 that something was happening,
00:56:27.580 that machinery and science
00:56:28.860 were actually antithetical
00:56:31.220 to the spiritual task
00:56:32.560 of womanhood.
00:56:33.800 I personally,
00:56:34.760 when you talk about
00:56:35.300 me being hopeful,
00:56:36.020 one of the things
00:56:36.440 I'm hopeful about
00:56:37.220 is that computers
00:56:37.880 have brought back
00:56:38.620 home industries,
00:56:39.500 have made it easier
00:56:40.420 to run a business
00:56:41.180 out of your home
00:56:41.940 and that women 1.00
00:56:42.360 will start to discover.
00:56:43.480 I think some of them
00:56:44.320 started to discover
00:56:45.120 during this pandemic
00:56:46.180 and its lockdowns
00:56:47.220 that they're needed.
00:56:48.180 They're needed
00:56:48.780 by their children.
00:56:49.580 You don't just create
00:56:50.280 a child in a moment
00:56:51.180 when you go into labor.
00:56:52.220 As you know,
00:56:52.880 you create a child
00:56:53.740 in every moment
00:56:54.740 that you're with that child
00:56:55.740 and every moment
00:56:56.420 that that child sees
00:56:58.260 his mother's love
00:56:59.320 or her mother's love
00:57:00.220 in her eyes.
00:57:01.860 So, you know,
00:57:02.980 what Mary Shelley perceived
00:57:04.460 was that science,
00:57:06.080 which was then
00:57:07.620 and still now
00:57:08.500 was largely
00:57:09.060 a masculine pursuit,
00:57:10.680 was somehow
00:57:11.440 undermining
00:57:12.560 the position
00:57:13.300 of women in the world,
00:57:14.360 the essential position
00:57:15.400 of women in the world.
00:57:16.920 And it continues
00:57:17.560 to do that.
00:57:18.240 I mean,
00:57:18.380 who can deny
00:57:19.160 that soon babies
00:57:20.420 can be born
00:57:21.060 out of a machine?
00:57:21.980 They probably will be
00:57:22.960 born out of a machine.
00:57:24.480 Who will be the woman 1.00
00:57:25.480 wise enough to say,
00:57:26.560 you know what,
00:57:26.940 it's painful to have labor,
00:57:28.300 but actually it's necessary
00:57:29.760 that I have this connection
00:57:30.820 to my child,
00:57:31.740 that this child grows
00:57:32.900 under my heart.
00:57:34.720 You know,
00:57:34.980 there's going to be
00:57:35.940 probably,
00:57:37.120 you know,
00:57:37.920 the fewer women 0.99
00:57:38.920 who actually say that,
00:57:39.940 but they're going to be
00:57:40.500 the most important women
00:57:41.460 in the world.
00:57:42.460 So,
00:57:43.040 I just think these,
00:57:44.140 you know,
00:57:44.840 poets aren't prophets,
00:57:45.860 writers aren't prophets,
00:57:46.760 but if they observe
00:57:47.440 the world they're in
00:57:48.440 closely enough,
00:57:50.060 it actually will tell you
00:57:51.400 where the world is going.
00:57:52.380 And I think Mary Shelley
00:57:53.540 was a seer.
00:57:54.680 I think Frankenstein
00:57:55.440 is not just the source
00:57:56.720 of great horror movies
00:57:57.740 and great jokes
00:57:59.620 and great imitations
00:58:00.460 like the Mel Brooks
00:58:01.280 Young Frankenstein.
00:58:02.300 It is also one of the wisest books
00:58:04.240 of gothic horror
00:58:05.420 ever written
00:58:06.040 and an absolute
00:58:06.780 work of genius.
00:58:08.160 It's so exciting.
00:58:09.260 I'm going back
00:58:09.980 and reading it today.
00:58:11.180 Today.
00:58:11.960 It's a great book.
00:58:12.920 It's a great book.
00:58:13.300 It gives me something else
00:58:14.480 to think about.
00:58:15.020 And this is how you write
00:58:15.620 about it in the book.
00:58:17.800 This is in part,
00:58:18.860 you say,
00:58:19.180 perhaps this is what
00:58:20.740 she's envisioning,
00:58:21.620 but perhaps the humanizing
00:58:22.820 tasks of femininity, 1.00
00:58:24.480 creating life out of matter,
00:58:26.320 homes out of houses,
00:58:27.700 minds out of brains,
00:58:29.560 and souls out of bodies.
00:58:31.100 Before I move on,
00:58:31.780 that's great.
00:58:32.380 The humanizing tasks
00:58:33.440 of femininity include
00:58:34.740 creating life out of matter,
00:58:37.060 check,
00:58:37.660 homes out of houses,
00:58:39.300 check,
00:58:40.200 minds out of brains,
00:58:42.100 check,
00:58:42.400 and souls out of bodies.
00:58:43.900 I love this definition.
00:58:45.280 Love will fall equally.
00:58:47.420 This is the sort of
00:58:48.240 dystopian future envisioned.
00:58:49.740 We'll fall equally
00:58:50.300 on the genders
00:58:50.940 or will be chosen
00:58:52.600 like a profession
00:58:53.420 by anyone who happens
00:58:54.420 to have the talent
00:58:55.020 and the proclivity.
00:58:56.120 You go on to write,
00:58:56.780 or perhaps
00:58:57.420 by losing those passions
00:58:59.400 and fears,
00:59:00.660 by losing our genders
00:59:01.840 and our mortality,
00:59:03.600 we will have lost
00:59:05.160 our essential selves.
00:59:07.820 Right?
00:59:08.040 Think about that.
00:59:08.620 Perhaps your femininity
00:59:09.580 is central
00:59:10.580 to your essential self
00:59:12.680 or your masculinity,
00:59:14.040 depending on the case.
00:59:15.080 Perhaps in eradicating
00:59:16.320 our troubles,
00:59:17.580 we will have created
00:59:18.640 nothing but a convenient
00:59:19.600 little nightmare
00:59:20.360 of purely materialistic existence,
00:59:23.220 a depersonalized personhood
00:59:25.520 in a world less fit for man
00:59:27.760 than for machines.
00:59:31.680 I never thought of my femininity
00:59:34.680 as central
00:59:37.440 to my essential self.
00:59:40.760 But it is.
00:59:41.680 I mean, just when asked
00:59:42.680 the question directly,
00:59:43.500 of course it is.
00:59:46.300 Yes, of course.
00:59:48.000 That's absolutely right.
00:59:49.300 You know, one of the things
00:59:50.300 these poets rediscovered
00:59:51.820 was that the inner life
00:59:53.060 is in collaboration
00:59:53.920 with creation.
00:59:56.380 The words were called
00:59:57.480 the collaboration
00:59:58.020 with the one great mind.
00:59:59.840 And this is an essential fact
01:00:01.520 about us,
01:00:02.040 that we're not just rattling
01:00:03.220 around in our brains.
01:00:04.240 It's not just us
01:00:05.360 talking about our sex drives
01:00:06.800 or talking about our history
01:00:08.000 or our past
01:00:08.740 or what has happened to us.
01:00:10.220 It is us in collaboration
01:00:11.640 with reality.
01:00:13.080 No matter what you do,
01:00:14.380 it is a new thing.
01:00:15.920 When Megyn Kelly
01:00:16.500 walks down the street,
01:00:17.440 it is different
01:00:17.920 than when Andrew Klavan
01:00:18.820 walks down the street.
01:00:19.620 It has never happened before.
01:00:20.920 It will never happen again.
01:00:22.020 That experience
01:00:22.640 that you're having
01:00:23.240 is unique.
01:00:24.500 It is an act of creation
01:00:25.720 and it is an act of creation
01:00:27.060 out of creation,
01:00:28.140 but it is also
01:00:28.840 a collaboration
01:00:29.600 with creation.
01:00:31.060 Not to write a poem myself,
01:00:32.360 but it's a collaboration
01:00:33.180 with the creation.
01:00:34.900 If you stop collaborating
01:00:36.140 with the creation,
01:00:37.300 you have gone off
01:00:38.240 in a way that is not
01:00:39.180 going to be healthy for you.
01:00:40.340 If you start saying,
01:00:41.100 well, I have a man's body,
01:00:42.180 but I'm not really a man.
01:00:43.480 I'm a woman.
01:00:44.100 You're just fantasizing.
01:00:45.500 It's when you collaborate
01:00:46.540 with the facts of your body.
01:00:48.640 It's when you collaborate
01:00:49.300 with the facts of your life,
01:00:50.440 including death,
01:00:51.300 that you start to understand
01:00:52.920 who you are.
01:00:54.520 And this idea
01:00:55.680 that we are free of that,
01:00:57.100 that we are liberated
01:00:58.300 from our physical selves,
01:00:59.920 it's so insane.
01:01:01.420 Well, it's basically insane.
01:01:02.620 I mean, it is insanity
01:01:03.520 when you're free from reality.
01:01:05.120 That is almost
01:01:05.860 the definition of insanity.
01:01:07.200 Well, there's a reason
01:01:07.800 it's in the DSM-5.
01:01:09.420 I mean, there's a reason
01:01:09.940 it's gender dysphoria.
01:01:12.200 It's also unhealthy.
01:01:13.400 You know, it's unhappy.
01:01:14.740 If you want to have joy,
01:01:15.780 if you want to have real joy,
01:01:17.540 ask yourself
01:01:18.220 what you're supposed to do,
01:01:19.360 what God wants you to do
01:01:20.420 with this moment in time,
01:01:21.760 and you will find
01:01:22.680 an amazing amount of joy.
01:01:24.160 And by joy, again,
01:01:24.940 I don't mean happiness
01:01:26.020 when I say joy.
01:01:26.920 I mean gusto
01:01:27.440 and life in abundance.
01:01:29.200 You know, joy,
01:01:29.760 sometimes you're sad,
01:01:30.760 sometimes you're happy,
01:01:31.480 but you can always
01:01:32.140 be deeply involved in life.
01:01:33.660 If you're escaping from reality,
01:01:35.240 you're not going
01:01:35.840 to have that experience.
01:01:37.260 Okay, but to me,
01:01:39.100 this whole discussion
01:01:39.840 explains why I personally
01:01:42.620 and many other women 0.79
01:01:44.180 and men for that matter
01:01:45.060 have such a visceral reaction
01:01:46.580 when even those of us
01:01:48.460 who are more tolerant,
01:01:49.560 right, towards,
01:01:50.360 like more supportive,
01:01:51.560 I'd say,
01:01:51.940 of, you know,
01:01:52.220 the terminology
01:01:52.720 and the pronouns
01:01:53.200 and all that.
01:01:53.640 Okay, have such a visceral reaction
01:01:55.520 when you use terms
01:01:56.300 like, you know,
01:01:57.860 chest feeding, right,
01:02:00.000 or like people who have
01:02:02.480 whatever, vaginas 1.00
01:02:03.880 instead of women, right, 1.00
01:02:05.480 birthing peoples.
01:02:07.180 It's offensive.
01:02:08.580 It deeply cuts.
01:02:10.600 I haven't been able
01:02:12.360 to actually define why.
01:02:13.820 I just know it's
01:02:14.800 really offensive to me.
01:02:16.740 That is not an inclusive effort.
01:02:19.820 That is an effort
01:02:20.780 along the Mary Shelley lines
01:02:22.520 of eradicating women, 0.92
01:02:24.320 of erasing us entirely,
01:02:26.300 of changing things
01:02:27.840 that I know
01:02:28.240 are fundamental to me,
01:02:29.260 although I hadn't totally
01:02:30.440 been able to articulate why.
01:02:32.820 You know,
01:02:33.340 the left is always talking
01:02:34.340 about social constructs.
01:02:35.580 Gender is a social construct.
01:02:37.300 That's a complete falsehood.
01:02:38.640 I mean,
01:02:38.980 what gender is
01:02:40.040 is a social construct
01:02:41.400 in collaboration
01:02:42.500 with the reality of gender.
01:02:44.420 So in other words,
01:02:45.400 there's no inherent reason
01:02:47.320 why a woman should wear a dress 1.00
01:02:48.720 and a man should wear pants.
01:02:50.060 That is a performance
01:02:51.160 to remind us
01:02:52.220 of who we are.
01:02:52.940 We perform our gender roles,
01:02:55.140 but they are enhancing
01:02:56.340 something that's already there.
01:02:58.340 The idea that we should
01:02:59.400 create a world
01:03:00.380 that has no reference
01:03:01.520 to reality
01:03:02.200 is a Marxist idea,
01:03:04.020 the idea that we can correct
01:03:05.160 our false consciousness
01:03:06.220 because then Marx
01:03:08.100 will have been right
01:03:08.880 about everything
01:03:09.480 instead of wrong
01:03:10.280 about everything.
01:03:11.460 This is the problem
01:03:13.100 the left is trying to solve,
01:03:14.380 the fact that Marx
01:03:14.980 was wrong about everything.
01:03:16.520 And so what they want to do
01:03:17.360 is they want to change
01:03:19.060 the rules of reality.
01:03:20.220 But no,
01:03:21.120 social constructs
01:03:22.660 grow out of reality.
01:03:24.060 These are our traditions
01:03:25.060 and our traditions
01:03:26.160 are the wisdom of the dead.
01:03:27.700 Our traditions
01:03:28.100 are passing down
01:03:29.180 things that we've
01:03:30.180 already figured out.
01:03:31.460 When we say,
01:03:32.380 oh, all men are created equal,
01:03:33.820 meaning all are equal
01:03:34.720 in God's eyes,
01:03:35.780 we don't have to figure
01:03:36.620 that out again.
01:03:37.260 We don't have to go back
01:03:38.000 and debate whether whiteness
01:03:39.520 is a terrible thing
01:03:40.520 and people who are white
01:03:41.500 are somehow demons.
01:03:42.840 We're done with that.
01:03:43.840 That's our tradition.
01:03:44.680 We can now move on
01:03:45.760 in keeping with that tradition,
01:03:47.440 just like we move on
01:03:48.860 in keeping with our genders
01:03:50.220 when we say,
01:03:51.200 you know what,
01:03:51.880 now because of technology
01:03:53.200 and because times have changed,
01:03:54.700 women can have a fuller role, 1.00
01:03:56.160 more choices,
01:03:56.900 they can be free.
01:03:57.980 That is in keeping
01:03:58.920 with the traditions
01:04:00.240 of freedom
01:04:00.880 and respect for women
01:04:01.780 that have been with the West 0.56
01:04:02.800 since forever.
01:04:03.820 We've always been
01:04:04.740 a society
01:04:06.220 that was basically
01:04:07.320 respectful of women,
01:04:08.600 even though women 0.95
01:04:09.180 had a certain role.
01:04:10.380 So all of those things
01:04:12.080 are collaborations
01:04:12.840 with reality.
01:04:13.800 When the left says,
01:04:14.440 oh, it's just
01:04:14.960 a social construct,
01:04:16.000 ask yourself
01:04:17.100 what it's constructed of.
01:04:18.620 It's constructed
01:04:19.280 of an interaction
01:04:20.280 between the human heart
01:04:21.640 and the spirit,
01:04:23.260 the heart that made
01:04:24.180 the human heart.
01:04:25.120 And I think that,
01:04:25.840 you know,
01:04:26.060 we don't just take
01:04:26.800 those things down
01:04:27.560 and throw them away.
01:04:28.440 You don't tear down a fence
01:04:29.360 until you know
01:04:29.980 what's on the other side of it.
01:04:30.980 And as the left has proved,
01:04:32.160 what's on the other side
01:04:33.020 of it is misery and chaos.
01:04:34.780 I know you're big.
01:04:36.240 You've mentioned it
01:04:36.760 on the husband-wife,
01:04:38.660 you know,
01:04:38.940 male-female partnership
01:04:40.480 at the helm of the family.
01:04:43.200 Of course,
01:04:43.720 I'm living my own life that way,
01:04:44.940 but I have lots of friends
01:04:47.160 who are in same-sex couples
01:04:48.700 who are not just living joyfully,
01:04:50.920 as you would say,
01:04:51.560 but have children.
01:04:52.800 You know,
01:04:53.020 they've either used
01:04:54.840 artificial insemination
01:04:55.980 or they've used a surrogate
01:04:57.120 or what have you.
01:04:58.380 And I know this is personal to you.
01:05:00.160 Spencer's out as gay 0.96
01:05:02.080 and he's written in The Atlantic
01:05:04.460 a great piece
01:05:05.220 about telling you about it
01:05:06.440 and how awesome you were,
01:05:07.520 by the way.
01:05:08.400 Now, you know,
01:05:08.880 people thought maybe
01:05:09.540 you weren't going to be great
01:05:10.920 because you were
01:05:11.260 a conservative Christian,
01:05:11.980 but you were great.
01:05:13.380 So how does that,
01:05:14.880 how do we process that?
01:05:16.220 Because at the beginning
01:05:16.780 of that LGBTQ 0.99
01:05:17.520 is the LG, right?
01:05:19.940 And to me,
01:05:21.600 I think a two-parent household
01:05:24.060 is what's important.
01:05:25.460 I don't think it's as important
01:05:27.260 that they be a man and a woman.
01:05:28.800 I can see the pluses,
01:05:29.860 clearly.
01:05:30.280 You know,
01:05:30.460 I can see it just in my own marriage.
01:05:31.520 I've got certain gifts.
01:05:32.260 My husband's got others.
01:05:33.820 We meld together
01:05:35.500 like a yin and yang.
01:05:36.520 But I can see two gay men
01:05:37.880 having a lot of those same
01:05:39.460 differences that I have
01:05:40.800 for my husband,
01:05:41.460 you know,
01:05:41.660 from one another
01:05:42.320 and same for women.
01:05:43.440 So how do you look at that?
01:05:45.600 Well, first of all,
01:05:46.460 I've lived my life in the arts.
01:05:47.660 So half the people I've known
01:05:49.160 and worked with are gay. 0.56
01:05:50.100 They've been my respected colleagues
01:05:51.800 and my very,
01:05:52.940 very close friends.
01:05:54.000 And again,
01:05:55.320 Spencer,
01:05:55.780 who is as close to me
01:05:56.700 as my own beating heart
01:05:57.840 is a gay guy.
01:05:59.280 And I knew that,
01:06:00.460 I suspected that
01:06:01.460 from the time he was three years old.
01:06:04.200 So,
01:06:04.420 so yeah,
01:06:05.240 of course,
01:06:05.940 we should love one another.
01:06:07.460 We should treat one another
01:06:08.380 with respect.
01:06:09.140 I don't see anything wrong
01:06:10.840 with saying
01:06:12.020 that the best thing
01:06:13.780 for a child
01:06:14.820 is a loving
01:06:15.720 male and female
01:06:17.520 or loving male
01:06:19.140 and female parents.
01:06:20.800 You know,
01:06:21.360 life is,
01:06:21.940 life is very unfair
01:06:22.880 and it's very tragic.
01:06:23.980 And in America,
01:06:24.760 we want to say,
01:06:25.420 well,
01:06:25.500 this is just as good.
01:06:26.680 That's just as good.
01:06:27.940 I don't think it is.
01:06:29.080 I think this,
01:06:29.680 this is the best thing.
01:06:31.240 That doesn't mean
01:06:32.420 that there is not a,
01:06:33.360 there are not accommodations
01:06:34.600 that can be made.
01:06:35.540 If a gay couple 1.00
01:06:36.260 adopts a child
01:06:37.940 who would not have
01:06:39.100 no parents
01:06:40.020 if he didn't adopt them,
01:06:41.240 if they weren't adopted,
01:06:42.400 you know,
01:06:42.820 I think that's an improvement.
01:06:44.020 That's a step up
01:06:44.920 in the world.
01:06:46.200 But there's nothing wrong
01:06:47.620 with saying
01:06:48.100 this is the best situation.
01:06:49.700 And I actually think
01:06:50.740 that society
01:06:51.700 has a right
01:06:53.360 to privilege
01:06:54.840 male,
01:06:55.620 female families 0.95
01:06:56.860 to elevate them
01:06:58.260 in,
01:06:58.640 in the eyes
01:06:59.420 of the society
01:07:00.220 without discriminating
01:07:02.680 necessarily
01:07:03.220 against other kinds
01:07:04.660 of families.
01:07:05.960 Again,
01:07:06.640 when your core
01:07:07.340 is strong,
01:07:08.380 you can be very
01:07:09.240 accepting of exceptions.
01:07:11.720 And I think
01:07:12.140 that we should understand
01:07:13.300 that, yeah,
01:07:13.800 this is a value.
01:07:14.800 This is a natural value.
01:07:16.480 It is a natural thing
01:07:17.760 for man and woman
01:07:19.100 to come together.
01:07:19.960 It is a natural thing
01:07:20.900 for them to want
01:07:21.540 their child
01:07:22.080 to form a family
01:07:22.900 as they formed a family.
01:07:24.520 All these things
01:07:25.400 are part of nature
01:07:26.480 and we can collaborate
01:07:27.400 with that nature
01:07:28.120 without excluding
01:07:29.520 or attacking
01:07:30.560 or bullying the people
01:07:31.860 who don't fit in
01:07:33.080 with that basic pattern.
01:07:34.740 This idea
01:07:35.600 which originates
01:07:36.420 I think with Nietzsche
01:07:37.600 that we have to make
01:07:38.600 allowances
01:07:39.700 for every exception
01:07:41.000 and chain,
01:07:42.320 rewrite the rules
01:07:43.100 of society
01:07:43.720 and rewrite the rules
01:07:44.560 of nature
01:07:45.080 for every exception
01:07:46.480 that comes along
01:07:47.060 is ridiculous.
01:07:47.700 We can be loving
01:07:48.360 to people
01:07:49.100 who don't,
01:07:50.340 who don't fit the mold
01:07:52.040 but we shouldn't
01:07:53.000 get rid of the mold.
01:07:53.700 The mold was actually
01:07:54.540 given to us.
01:07:55.240 It actually,
01:07:55.800 when you talk about
01:07:56.240 gender assignment,
01:07:57.240 we have a gender assignment. 0.99
01:07:58.480 It's our gender. 1.00
01:07:59.220 That was assigned to us.
01:08:00.420 We didn't choose that.
01:08:01.380 It was given to us.
01:08:02.540 But again,
01:08:03.340 you know,
01:08:03.780 the guy who doesn't fit in,
01:08:05.200 the lady who doesn't fit in, 1.00
01:08:06.340 the person who's not going to,
01:08:07.300 you know,
01:08:07.500 has no domestic,
01:08:09.060 the woman who has 0.84
01:08:09.660 no domestic feeling,
01:08:11.020 the guy who's a gay person
01:08:12.900 who doesn't want to,
01:08:13.780 you know,
01:08:14.880 have a female partner.
01:08:16.840 These are things
01:08:17.420 that can all be accepted
01:08:18.420 and all be loved.
01:08:19.360 You know,
01:08:19.800 I think America
01:08:21.600 has been traditionally
01:08:23.720 very accepting
01:08:24.720 of eccentrics
01:08:25.500 and offbeat people.
01:08:27.340 But the idea
01:08:28.420 that that
01:08:29.220 should then become
01:08:30.440 the center of life
01:08:32.040 which cannot support life,
01:08:33.740 cannot create life
01:08:34.680 and is not the thing
01:08:36.200 that got us
01:08:37.040 to the place
01:08:37.600 that we,
01:08:38.480 to which we have come
01:08:39.760 is absurd.
01:08:40.820 This is one of the key things
01:08:42.160 and one of the things
01:08:42.820 that Wordsworth,
01:08:43.760 a poet in my book,
01:08:45.020 discovered
01:08:45.420 is that
01:08:46.200 your traditions
01:08:47.540 make you who you are.
01:08:49.120 So when you tear down
01:08:50.420 a statue
01:08:51.000 of Thomas Jefferson
01:08:52.480 because he held slaves,
01:08:54.380 you are tearing down
01:08:55.260 the statue
01:08:55.740 of the person
01:08:56.440 who taught you
01:08:57.180 that slavery is wrong.
01:08:58.960 You come,
01:08:59.420 we live in time,
01:09:00.640 we travel through time,
01:09:02.040 we become who we are
01:09:03.240 both as an individual
01:09:04.220 and as a society
01:09:05.380 over time.
01:09:06.640 And if you get rid
01:09:07.740 of the people
01:09:08.360 who brought you here
01:09:09.480 because they weren't
01:09:10.640 here themselves,
01:09:11.840 you're getting rid
01:09:12.640 of the shoulders
01:09:13.820 on which you stand.
01:09:15.400 And I think that this is,
01:09:16.820 you know,
01:09:17.040 if we have a tradition
01:09:18.200 as we do
01:09:18.940 of male-female families,
01:09:20.500 if we have
01:09:21.340 a natural connection
01:09:23.060 to male-female families,
01:09:24.280 there's nothing wrong
01:09:25.260 with privileging that
01:09:26.180 without excluding
01:09:27.100 or bullying
01:09:27.680 or hurting
01:09:28.220 or harming
01:09:28.860 people who are different.
01:09:30.360 I don't see
01:09:31.180 how you can have tolerance
01:09:32.460 when every single
01:09:34.060 exception becomes the rule.
01:09:36.500 That doesn't make sense to me.
01:09:37.780 This is how it's described
01:09:39.060 by activists,
01:09:40.300 both sort of BLM,
01:09:42.120 sort of woke people
01:09:43.020 and people who are pushing
01:09:44.780 the sort of crazy
01:09:46.600 gender ideology. 0.99
01:09:48.200 You need to center me now.
01:09:50.800 Me and my people,
01:09:52.420 like, you know,
01:09:52.840 they need to be centered.
01:09:54.280 You are not centering
01:09:55.360 the LGBTQ community
01:09:57.820 in that comment.
01:10:00.220 He's like, right.
01:10:01.440 This is absolutely true,
01:10:02.600 by the way,
01:10:03.000 that we're not centering them.
01:10:04.040 And if you talk to Spencer,
01:10:05.160 he would say,
01:10:05.560 I'm not in the center.
01:10:06.360 I'm, you know,
01:10:06.900 I'm not in the center.
01:10:08.060 I'm an artist.
01:10:08.620 Most people aren't artists.
01:10:09.660 You know,
01:10:09.840 I live in the house
01:10:10.900 made by ordinary people.
01:10:12.340 I shouldn't say ordinary people, 1.00
01:10:13.500 but people who aren't artists.
01:10:15.020 If there are no,
01:10:15.840 look,
01:10:16.300 we could get rid
01:10:16.860 of every male artist
01:10:17.860 on earth and survive,
01:10:19.200 but we can't get rid
01:10:19.960 of soldiers and cops.
01:10:21.340 You know,
01:10:21.660 we could get rid
01:10:22.320 of every lady doctor
01:10:23.340 who's around,
01:10:24.000 but we can't get rid
01:10:24.660 of moms.
01:10:25.240 You know,
01:10:25.440 there are certain things
01:10:26.080 that are absolutely essential
01:10:27.460 and those essentials
01:10:28.220 need to be kept in place.
01:10:30.440 I live in the house
01:10:31.400 made by people
01:10:32.160 who are not eccentric
01:10:33.280 artists like me.
01:10:34.520 I respect them.
01:10:35.500 I work for them.
01:10:36.320 My job is to entertain
01:10:37.520 and amuse
01:10:38.240 and hopefully
01:10:38.800 enlighten them.
01:10:40.420 But if I say,
01:10:41.380 put me at the center,
01:10:42.740 that society
01:10:43.500 is not going to last
01:10:44.520 very long.
01:10:45.160 You do not want me
01:10:46.060 at the center.
01:10:46.740 I wasn't made
01:10:47.480 for the center.
01:10:48.020 I was made
01:10:48.420 to be what I am.
01:10:49.180 And I think
01:10:49.780 the same thing
01:10:50.280 is true of gay people. 0.93
01:10:52.580 Andrew's got
01:10:53.080 a special relationship
01:10:53.980 with his wife
01:10:54.600 and writes
01:10:55.300 some very funny things
01:10:56.440 about their process
01:10:57.280 when he writes his books.
01:10:58.280 I want to ask him
01:10:59.040 about that.
01:10:59.900 And then speaking of BLM,
01:11:01.640 more trouble
01:11:02.760 coming their way
01:11:03.800 on how they spend
01:11:05.100 the money they get
01:11:05.900 and their attempts
01:11:06.880 to cover it up.
01:11:12.120 All right, Drew.
01:11:13.020 So New York Magazine,
01:11:16.080 to its credit,
01:11:16.800 because you're not
01:11:17.120 expecting this story
01:11:17.920 to come from New York Magazine,
01:11:19.500 reporting now
01:11:20.660 that Black Lives Matter
01:11:22.700 secretly purchased
01:11:24.360 a $6 million house.
01:11:28.420 And not only
01:11:29.500 was it $6 million,
01:11:30.700 but it was spectacular.
01:11:33.340 So they got a lot
01:11:34.820 for their money.
01:11:35.380 Apparently,
01:11:35.860 they got,
01:11:36.560 it's in Southern California,
01:11:38.080 6,500 square feet,
01:11:40.000 more than half a dozen
01:11:41.160 bedrooms and bathrooms,
01:11:42.940 several fireplaces,
01:11:44.020 a soundstage,
01:11:45.080 a pool,
01:11:45.980 a bungalow,
01:11:47.020 parking for more
01:11:47.660 than 20 cars,
01:11:49.140 and so on and so forth.
01:11:50.240 They paid for it
01:11:51.180 in cash
01:11:52.200 in October 2020
01:11:54.100 as the donations
01:11:55.300 were pouring in
01:11:56.720 post-George Floyd.
01:11:59.160 They report that they,
01:12:00.860 the transaction
01:12:01.340 has not been
01:12:01.840 previously reported.
01:12:02.760 BLM's leadership
01:12:03.580 had hoped to keep
01:12:04.760 the house's existence
01:12:05.720 a secret.
01:12:07.040 Well,
01:12:07.320 then they shouldn't
01:12:08.000 have filmed
01:12:08.540 their little promo videos
01:12:09.860 for YouTube
01:12:10.680 sitting in front of it
01:12:12.280 because somebody
01:12:13.260 noticed.
01:12:13.980 Look at that.
01:12:14.460 That's the BLM
01:12:15.360 three leaders
01:12:15.920 sitting in front
01:12:16.920 of their beautiful home,
01:12:18.200 Patrice Cullors,
01:12:19.000 Alicia Garza,
01:12:19.940 and Melina Abdullah.
01:12:21.460 In that video,
01:12:22.140 which we're showing
01:12:22.600 a picture of
01:12:23.120 for the YouTube watchers,
01:12:25.120 Patrice Cullors,
01:12:26.260 who was under fire
01:12:27.240 for having $3 million
01:12:28.420 worth of homes,
01:12:30.340 again,
01:12:31.320 linked to her
01:12:32.060 charitable work
01:12:33.200 as the head of BLM,
01:12:34.560 she was lamenting
01:12:36.360 the right-wing media
01:12:37.660 attacks,
01:12:38.960 saying,
01:12:39.700 I've just been
01:12:40.640 in survival mode
01:12:42.160 as she sat before
01:12:43.200 a $6 million home
01:12:44.960 that the donations
01:12:46.800 had purchased,
01:12:47.920 the New York Magazine
01:12:48.780 points out,
01:12:49.640 to the benefit
01:12:50.980 of Black Lives Matter
01:12:52.580 leaders personally.
01:12:54.580 A little bit of
01:12:55.200 extra flair here,
01:12:57.740 New York Magazine
01:12:58.300 reached out to BLM
01:12:59.540 on March 30th
01:13:00.540 asking about the house,
01:13:01.660 which is known
01:13:02.080 internally as,
01:13:02.820 quote,
01:13:03.040 campus,
01:13:03.580 and the writer,
01:13:05.740 Sean Campbell,
01:13:06.840 writes,
01:13:07.200 quote,
01:13:07.380 afterward,
01:13:08.400 leaders circulated
01:13:09.760 an internal strategy memo
01:13:11.060 with possible responses
01:13:12.440 ranging from
01:13:13.620 can we kill the story
01:13:15.160 to our angle
01:13:16.840 needs to be
01:13:17.660 to deflate
01:13:18.660 ownership
01:13:19.240 of the property.
01:13:20.760 The memo also describes
01:13:21.820 the property
01:13:22.240 as a safe house.
01:13:23.300 It's a safe house
01:13:23.940 for leaders
01:13:24.400 whose safety
01:13:25.320 has been threatened.
01:13:26.700 Then he writes
01:13:27.340 that the notion
01:13:28.640 that the house
01:13:29.140 is simultaneously
01:13:30.120 a confidential refuge
01:13:32.280 and a place
01:13:33.560 for broadcasting
01:13:34.240 to the widest
01:13:34.940 possible audience
01:13:35.640 with their YouTube
01:13:36.460 videos
01:13:36.980 might be somewhat
01:13:38.380 in tension.
01:13:40.080 So what are we
01:13:40.540 to make
01:13:40.900 of BLM now
01:13:42.560 with the benefit
01:13:43.100 of hindsight
01:13:43.620 and the number
01:13:44.620 of investigations
01:13:45.520 into this group
01:13:46.400 state after state
01:13:47.860 after state
01:13:48.640 for them misusing
01:13:49.640 funds and not filing
01:13:50.700 the proper reporting
01:13:51.560 and failing to disclose
01:13:52.460 what they're doing
01:13:53.180 with people's dollars?
01:13:54.000 There's always been
01:13:55.080 a con grafted
01:13:56.220 on the larger
01:13:56.780 con of the
01:13:57.440 mainstream news media.
01:13:58.980 I mean they call
01:13:59.580 themselves Black Lives
01:14:00.860 Matter because the
01:14:01.700 left is so good
01:14:03.060 coming up with
01:14:03.940 these titles
01:14:04.540 like so good
01:14:05.600 with language
01:14:06.220 you know making
01:14:07.460 the good sound
01:14:08.740 evil making
01:14:09.480 the evil sound
01:14:10.200 good.
01:14:10.480 They're just great
01:14:11.080 at it.
01:14:11.300 So Black Lives Matter
01:14:12.080 I got to give them
01:14:13.080 applause for that.
01:14:14.600 If you went on
01:14:15.160 their website
01:14:15.680 early on before
01:14:16.640 they got caught
01:14:17.400 and changed it
01:14:18.120 it was not just
01:14:18.880 a Marxist website
01:14:19.940 it was a Maoist
01:14:20.900 website.
01:14:21.340 It was dedicated
01:14:22.340 to the destruction
01:14:23.500 of the family
01:14:24.220 dedicated to the
01:14:25.060 destruction of the
01:14:25.720 culture
01:14:26.080 dedicated to the
01:14:27.500 destruction of most
01:14:28.580 of the things
01:14:29.320 that people in this
01:14:30.420 country hold dear
01:14:31.720 but they call them
01:14:32.440 Black Lives Matter.
01:14:33.380 I wanted to start
01:14:34.200 my own organization
01:14:35.560 called Kittens Are Nice
01:14:36.880 and have you send
01:14:37.800 money to me
01:14:38.500 because if the
01:14:40.120 mainstream media
01:14:41.020 would fall for that
01:14:42.080 I thought they would
01:14:42.620 fall for anything.
01:14:43.760 You know again
01:14:44.220 they skip over
01:14:45.180 they manage
01:14:46.180 the left always manages
01:14:46.960 to skip over first
01:14:47.900 principles.
01:14:48.520 Is there such a thing
01:14:49.080 as a Black life?
01:14:50.380 I mean is that really
01:14:51.220 something that
01:14:51.780 Americans accept
01:14:52.680 as a reality
01:14:53.380 to begin with?
01:14:54.420 When I moved
01:14:55.480 recently and I was
01:14:56.340 looking for a new
01:14:57.060 church the first
01:14:58.000 thing I excluded
01:14:58.860 was any church
01:14:59.780 that had a banner
01:15:00.420 on it saying
01:15:01.180 Black Lives Matter
01:15:02.020 because I thought
01:15:02.540 you know in Christ
01:15:03.760 there is no black 1.00
01:15:04.780 and white.
01:15:05.300 In Christ we're all
01:15:06.140 one part of this
01:15:07.200 one body.
01:15:08.120 So if you believe
01:15:08.760 Black Lives Matter
01:15:09.540 you don't believe
01:15:10.560 in Christianity
01:15:11.340 and I think that
01:15:12.640 this is a very
01:15:14.320 it's always been
01:15:15.240 it has always been
01:15:16.160 a con
01:15:16.640 and the problem
01:15:17.640 we're facing
01:15:18.320 and this is a
01:15:19.280 genuine bigger
01:15:20.080 problem is we're
01:15:20.860 in an information
01:15:21.980 crisis.
01:15:23.040 The left is right
01:15:23.840 about this when
01:15:24.340 they talk about
01:15:24.880 misinformation
01:15:25.480 the problem is
01:15:26.380 they're the ones
01:15:26.900 who generate it
01:15:27.640 but when we have
01:15:29.120 a news media
01:15:30.400 I started out
01:15:31.660 in newspapers
01:15:32.220 I started out
01:15:33.020 working in newspapers
01:15:33.880 with guys who were
01:15:34.520 left-wing and right-wing
01:15:35.520 half the time
01:15:36.120 you didn't know
01:15:36.580 where they stood
01:15:37.220 and if you strayed
01:15:38.640 and I was a liberal
01:15:39.280 then and I would
01:15:39.900 stray to the left
01:15:40.620 if somebody would
01:15:41.800 take you outside
01:15:42.580 and say hey
01:15:43.040 that is not the way
01:15:43.740 we do this here
01:15:44.400 we report the facts
01:15:45.560 and just the facts
01:15:46.400 the media has
01:15:47.560 become corrupt
01:15:48.340 our news media
01:15:49.740 is vividly
01:15:50.980 vividly corrupt
01:15:52.000 and deeply corrupt
01:15:53.000 and so when you
01:15:53.740 come along
01:15:54.160 and you say
01:15:54.560 Black Lives Matter
01:15:55.480 and you participate
01:15:56.440 in riots
01:15:57.420 with the open
01:15:58.520 intention of
01:15:59.220 destroying our
01:15:59.820 society
01:16:00.260 and you have
01:16:01.120 clowns on the
01:16:02.360 media saying
01:16:03.000 oh well these
01:16:03.520 riots were mostly
01:16:04.440 peaceful
01:16:04.920 you know
01:16:05.500 it's like
01:16:06.440 you have a
01:16:07.880 serious problem
01:16:08.760 I'm not sure
01:16:09.540 the problem
01:16:10.040 is these particular
01:16:11.060 con men and women
01:16:12.080 they are con men
01:16:13.340 they are con women 1.00
01:16:14.160 but really I think
01:16:15.340 the larger problem
01:16:16.380 is a media
01:16:17.360 that has lost
01:16:18.180 touch with
01:16:19.080 its actual job
01:16:20.700 its job of
01:16:21.540 reporting the news
01:16:22.900 not objectively
01:16:24.240 just fairly
01:16:24.980 all they have to do
01:16:25.880 is give both sides
01:16:26.700 and tell both sides
01:16:27.420 and when you see
01:16:27.880 violence
01:16:28.280 you call it violence
01:16:29.060 this is a violent
01:16:30.420 Maoist organization
01:16:31.820 and the fact that
01:16:32.780 it uses your money
01:16:33.680 to buy themselves
01:16:34.620 a six million dollar
01:16:36.200 house doesn't surprise
01:16:37.080 me even a little bit
01:16:38.060 yeah same
01:16:39.080 so what would you
01:16:40.780 recommend
01:16:41.220 you know a lot of
01:16:42.220 a lot of people
01:16:42.700 are still being subjected
01:16:43.980 to this DEI
01:16:45.180 mandatory training
01:16:46.240 at their workplace
01:16:47.220 or it's being foisted
01:16:48.600 on their kids
01:16:49.260 at their school
01:16:50.240 you know you see it
01:16:51.080 in the books
01:16:51.560 that come home
01:16:52.460 with your kid
01:16:52.980 or you find out
01:16:53.620 they have to go
01:16:54.320 to these mandatory
01:16:55.060 DEI trainings
01:16:55.980 even to get into
01:16:56.860 some of in particular
01:16:57.880 the New York City
01:16:58.480 private schools
01:16:59.160 what would you say
01:17:00.440 to people faced
01:17:01.260 with that command
01:17:02.880 in order to work
01:17:03.880 in order to send
01:17:05.260 their kid to school
01:17:06.020 the two things
01:17:08.200 I would say
01:17:08.620 the first thing is
01:17:09.400 courage is required
01:17:10.620 it is a requirement
01:17:11.640 we got here
01:17:12.440 by people dying
01:17:13.580 face down in the mud
01:17:14.680 fighting tyrants
01:17:15.960 in order for us
01:17:17.140 to be free
01:17:17.680 you don't have to do that
01:17:19.000 I hope
01:17:19.460 all you have to do
01:17:20.620 is you have to speak up
01:17:21.620 you have to tell people
01:17:23.060 what you think
01:17:24.000 when you say it
01:17:26.040 when in those moments
01:17:27.040 when it matters
01:17:28.140 right
01:17:28.500 now that doesn't mean
01:17:29.500 that you stick your head
01:17:30.420 in the cannon's mouth
01:17:31.200 that doesn't mean
01:17:31.740 you get your kid
01:17:32.320 thrown out of school
01:17:32.980 doesn't mean you get
01:17:33.560 fired from your job
01:17:34.420 what it does mean
01:17:35.460 is you start to find
01:17:36.500 the people who agree
01:17:37.360 with you
01:17:37.740 and band together
01:17:38.740 so that you have
01:17:39.420 some force
01:17:40.180 in the workplace
01:17:41.200 I mean this is something
01:17:42.080 that happened
01:17:42.640 at Disney
01:17:43.500 at Disney
01:17:43.960 they have
01:17:44.480 this LGBTQ
01:17:45.920 minority
01:17:47.220 that is vicious
01:17:48.600 and will destroy you 0.99
01:17:49.940 and will take your job away
01:17:51.220 well the people
01:17:51.980 who are conservatives
01:17:53.340 at Disney
01:17:53.820 and there are many
01:17:54.480 many of them
01:17:55.020 are cowering away
01:17:56.380 I saw it in Hollywood
01:17:57.380 when I worked in Hollywood
01:17:58.680 and people would come up
01:17:59.620 to me in meetings
01:18:01.020 and they would whisper
01:18:01.900 and say you know
01:18:02.740 I saw you on Sean Hannity
01:18:04.520 you were great
01:18:05.200 I'd say why are you whispering
01:18:06.440 we're in the right
01:18:07.540 why are you whispering
01:18:08.720 you know
01:18:09.060 and I think we have to stop that
01:18:10.680 we have to stop assuming
01:18:11.880 that we're going to blow
01:18:13.260 ourselves up
01:18:13.920 just by speaking the truth
01:18:15.160 but again
01:18:15.900 that doesn't mean
01:18:16.540 to be foolish
01:18:17.400 that means strategize
01:18:18.700 find people
01:18:19.860 to gang
01:18:20.400 to gang together
01:18:21.840 with you
01:18:22.300 and fight back
01:18:23.560 because what they're doing
01:18:24.780 is wrong
01:18:25.500 they are in the wrong
01:18:26.640 not you
01:18:27.200 it is wrong
01:18:28.100 to teach people
01:18:28.820 that whiteness 0.99
01:18:29.620 is an essential quality
01:18:30.880 just like it's wrong
01:18:31.640 to teach people
01:18:32.240 that blackness 1.00
01:18:33.200 is an essential quality
01:18:34.480 it's wrong
01:18:35.040 to teach people
01:18:35.780 that you have to
01:18:37.180 you know
01:18:37.760 believe in
01:18:39.080 that somebody can change
01:18:40.080 his gender
01:18:40.540 when in fact
01:18:41.300 they can't
01:18:41.980 so I think
01:18:42.800 these are things
01:18:43.420 that we can do
01:18:44.240 hopefully it doesn't
01:18:45.160 have to go into court
01:18:45.860 but maybe it does
01:18:46.480 have to go into court
01:18:47.260 if you can fight
01:18:48.460 back against this
01:18:49.260 as long as you don't
01:18:50.040 fight alone
01:18:50.580 and as long as you
01:18:51.280 have courage
01:18:51.800 and I think those
01:18:52.400 are the two things
01:18:53.140 we have to do
01:18:53.820 we can't let it go
01:18:54.900 you know
01:18:55.380 I've been fighting
01:18:56.240 now for American culture
01:18:58.060 I've been talking
01:18:58.740 about American culture
01:18:59.640 for all this time
01:19:00.720 for decades
01:19:01.340 but American culture
01:19:02.380 is not just the movies
01:19:03.560 and it's not just guys
01:19:04.480 like me writing novels
01:19:05.460 and it's not just plays
01:19:06.960 and all that
01:19:07.420 it's every single thing
01:19:08.560 that we do
01:19:08.980 every single one of us
01:19:09.880 has a little piece
01:19:10.840 of the flame
01:19:11.360 of our culture
01:19:11.940 in his hands
01:19:12.600 and has to keep
01:19:13.520 that flame alive
01:19:14.360 and you can't do it
01:19:15.480 by hiding it
01:19:16.140 under a bushel
01:19:16.700 you can't do it
01:19:17.600 by saying
01:19:18.420 oh I'm going to fly
01:19:19.600 under the radar
01:19:20.320 I'm going to stay safe
01:19:21.340 you have to do
01:19:22.420 what people have done
01:19:23.160 for freedom
01:19:23.700 from the beginning of time
01:19:25.200 which is you have
01:19:25.740 to fight for it
01:19:26.480 and that means
01:19:27.100 fighting the domestic battle
01:19:29.260 as well as battle
01:19:30.080 sometimes overseas
01:19:30.980 you know
01:19:32.420 I said last week
01:19:33.160 in the wake
01:19:33.600 of the Will Smith slap
01:19:34.560 I felt like culturally
01:19:36.220 we lost a little
01:19:37.060 something that night
01:19:37.880 you know
01:19:38.220 that 30 years ago
01:19:39.960 that wouldn't have
01:19:40.680 happened
01:19:41.040 that just the
01:19:41.840 the guardrails
01:19:42.900 that were up
01:19:43.500 would have made
01:19:44.240 very clear
01:19:44.900 to any actor
01:19:45.660 thinking about doing
01:19:46.460 that your career
01:19:47.200 will end
01:19:47.760 if you do
01:19:48.400 even if you win
01:19:49.040 best actor later
01:19:49.840 it will end
01:19:50.840 you will be shunned
01:19:51.560 we don't tolerate
01:19:52.340 that kind of behavior
01:19:53.180 and we saw something
01:19:54.980 very different
01:19:55.660 with Will Smith
01:19:56.340 that night
01:19:56.920 now
01:19:57.280 now that the Hollywood
01:19:58.340 crowd has realized
01:19:59.100 people didn't like that
01:20:00.780 and you shouldn't
01:20:01.760 support it
01:20:02.380 they're
01:20:03.000 they're more like
01:20:03.560 oh it was horrible
01:20:04.240 horrible
01:20:04.600 and then you've got
01:20:05.520 the glommers
01:20:06.120 like Amy Schumer
01:20:06.860 like I was deeply
01:20:08.020 triggered and traumatized
01:20:09.340 like lady 0.95
01:20:09.860 it's not your trauma
01:20:10.780 just stop it
01:20:11.500 take a seat
01:20:12.460 this isn't about you
01:20:13.860 hello
01:20:14.380 sorry sweetheart
01:20:15.400 this one's not about you
01:20:16.460 but I do think
01:20:18.720 culturally
01:20:19.300 it said something
01:20:20.700 not good
01:20:21.420 about where we are
01:20:22.540 right now
01:20:22.920 as Americans
01:20:23.740 what did you make of it
01:20:25.040 yeah I think it said
01:20:26.420 something essential
01:20:27.180 you know
01:20:27.600 it's not that the people
01:20:28.540 in old Hollywood
01:20:29.560 were necessarily
01:20:30.600 better people
01:20:31.640 it's that the people
01:20:32.580 in charge
01:20:33.260 were businessmen
01:20:34.120 and they were
01:20:34.620 deeply responsible
01:20:35.480 to the American public
01:20:36.600 they wanted to give
01:20:37.700 the public what they wanted
01:20:38.820 so they could have
01:20:39.420 people in the seats
01:20:40.320 when the movie business
01:20:42.120 was taken over
01:20:43.220 by the artists
01:20:44.000 when the studio system
01:20:45.340 was destroyed
01:20:46.100 and when the movie business
01:20:47.700 became an international business
01:20:49.160 so that they're making
01:20:49.860 more money in China
01:20:50.700 than they're making it here
01:20:51.580 they no longer feel
01:20:52.920 that responsibility
01:20:53.760 so Will Smith knew
01:20:55.340 that he could get up
01:20:56.180 and smack Chris Rock 1.00
01:20:57.280 or thought he could
01:20:58.040 without any consequences
01:20:59.620 whatsoever
01:21:00.360 these people have been
01:21:01.540 getting up
01:21:01.880 you know
01:21:02.120 the Oscars
01:21:03.000 used to be watched
01:21:04.140 by 55 million people
01:21:05.660 these were watched
01:21:06.220 from between 10
01:21:07.100 and 15 million people
01:21:08.780 and the reason is
01:21:09.880 is these guys felt
01:21:10.840 it was okay
01:21:11.640 to get up
01:21:12.460 and tell us
01:21:12.960 that we were idiots
01:21:13.760 if we voted
01:21:14.380 for somebody
01:21:14.880 that they didn't
01:21:15.780 support
01:21:16.540 they're actors
01:21:17.580 you know
01:21:18.100 I mean they're actors
01:21:18.940 they're writers
01:21:19.840 they're talented
01:21:20.800 they're blessed genetically
01:21:21.960 they look great
01:21:23.080 that's their job
01:21:24.340 it's just like
01:21:25.240 news people
01:21:26.540 have to do their job
01:21:27.400 and report the news
01:21:28.280 entertainers have to
01:21:29.340 do their job
01:21:29.820 and entertain
01:21:30.280 we don't care
01:21:32.000 what they think
01:21:32.740 and the same spirit
01:21:34.120 that made them think
01:21:35.220 that they could get
01:21:35.840 on stage
01:21:36.460 and lecture us
01:21:37.180 and we would continue
01:21:37.880 to watch their
01:21:38.560 crummy award show
01:21:39.540 where they patted
01:21:40.340 each other on the back
01:21:41.320 is the spirit
01:21:42.280 that made Will Smith
01:21:43.120 think that he could
01:21:43.800 get up and smack 0.98
01:21:44.620 a guy smaller
01:21:45.460 than he was
01:21:46.140 who was holding a mic
01:21:47.260 and trying to run a show
01:21:48.300 so it was essentially
01:21:49.420 a sucker punch
01:21:50.280 and show himself
01:21:51.920 to be some kind
01:21:53.160 of chivalrous man
01:21:55.020 after allowing
01:21:56.020 or basically agreeing
01:21:57.800 to his wife
01:21:58.400 sleeping around
01:21:59.180 and saying I'm not
01:22:00.120 in a monogamous
01:22:00.740 relationship
01:22:01.340 it's like he said
01:22:02.160 keep my wife's name
01:22:03.080 out of your mouth 0.72
01:22:03.660 but you could put
01:22:04.340 other pieces of her
01:22:05.180 in your mouth 0.76
01:22:05.660 so I mean
01:22:06.040 I don't really think
01:22:06.980 that that was
01:22:07.420 an act of chivalry
01:22:08.420 we were watching
01:22:09.180 it was an act
01:22:09.700 of entitlement
01:22:10.280 and our entertainers
01:22:11.860 have become so rich
01:22:12.840 so protected
01:22:13.540 so elite
01:22:15.560 that they no longer
01:22:16.720 feel entitled
01:22:17.420 to the audience
01:22:18.140 who made them
01:22:18.700 what they are
01:22:19.240 and it is
01:22:19.740 it's amazing to me
01:22:21.500 it is amazing to me
01:22:22.420 to watch late night comedy
01:22:23.580 like Stephen Colbert
01:22:24.620 and have him tell you
01:22:25.840 like hey
01:22:26.520 you know
01:22:26.800 you shouldn't be
01:22:27.260 complaining about gas prices
01:22:28.340 drive a Tesla
01:22:29.020 like I do
01:22:29.700 I mean
01:22:30.140 that's a guy
01:22:30.780 who hasn't been
01:22:31.940 outside much
01:22:32.680 he's not getting out
01:22:33.520 enough and talking
01:22:34.220 to the people
01:22:34.740 who make him
01:22:35.900 what he is
01:22:36.640 that is such a great
01:22:38.800 take
01:22:39.180 God I really appreciate
01:22:40.160 that
01:22:40.420 I was just thinking
01:22:41.120 you know
01:22:41.380 my husband
01:22:42.280 I wrote about this
01:22:42.900 in my book
01:22:43.220 but my husband
01:22:43.740 has defended my honor
01:22:44.760 more than once
01:22:45.720 but he's never
01:22:46.600 punched somebody
01:22:47.140 in the face
01:22:47.560 or sucker punched
01:22:48.240 anybody
01:22:48.580 but he certainly
01:22:49.520 when I was under attack
01:22:50.440 like somebody shouting
01:22:51.360 right at me
01:22:52.200 has gotten in people's
01:22:53.400 faces saying
01:22:54.040 you talk to my wife
01:22:55.440 you know like that
01:22:56.280 and you're gonna get it
01:22:57.260 I appreciate that
01:22:58.920 I to me
01:22:59.500 that's what a real man does
01:23:00.600 yes he will stand up for you
01:23:01.780 but he won't sucker punch
01:23:02.860 somebody who's just trying
01:23:03.820 to make a joke
01:23:04.340 who's literally getting paid
01:23:05.240 to tell jokes
01:23:05.920 and be up there
01:23:06.880 and keep the crowd entertained
01:23:08.300 it's not all about one person
01:23:09.820 it's about entertaining
01:23:10.600 the greater crowd
01:23:11.660 and you understand
01:23:12.740 sometimes it involves
01:23:13.600 you taking a couple of licks
01:23:14.780 because it's fun to make fun
01:23:16.160 of the rich and famous
01:23:16.960 we all sort of understand
01:23:18.280 that going into these Oscars
01:23:19.920 they lost it for a minute
01:23:21.560 but anyway
01:23:22.400 I so I
01:23:23.020 I like chivalry
01:23:24.000 that wasn't chivalry
01:23:25.140 that was a big ego
01:23:27.380 who saw an opportunity
01:23:28.400 to try to make himself
01:23:30.120 look like a big man
01:23:31.360 and it wound up
01:23:32.380 having the opposite effect
01:23:33.500 absolutely true
01:23:35.400 and I myself
01:23:36.420 have done that
01:23:37.380 what you're talking about
01:23:38.360 stood up for my wife
01:23:39.260 and gotten in people's faces
01:23:40.400 but in that case
01:23:41.580 I think
01:23:42.260 if it had really bothered me
01:23:43.500 or if it had bothered her
01:23:44.520 which seemed to be the case
01:23:45.480 because Smith was laughing
01:23:46.580 at the joke
01:23:47.060 until he looked at his wife
01:23:48.040 you know
01:23:48.800 I would have spoken
01:23:50.000 to the guy afterwards
01:23:50.800 and I think in that case
01:23:52.160 I really would have put my arm
01:23:53.300 around his shoulder
01:23:54.260 and said my brother
01:23:54.980 you know
01:23:55.460 you went over the line there
01:23:57.120 that's the way you handle
01:23:58.480 that particular situation
01:23:59.540 because the guy is not being hostile
01:24:00.860 he's not
01:24:01.620 he doesn't mean to do
01:24:03.240 anything insulting
01:24:04.400 he meant to tell
01:24:05.180 what sounded to me
01:24:05.980 like a friendly joke
01:24:06.880 so it was a complete overreaction
01:24:09.000 I think it came from the fact
01:24:10.540 that Smith has been humiliated
01:24:11.820 by his wife in public
01:24:13.020 where she went on podcasts
01:24:14.460 and talked about
01:24:15.320 the affair she was having
01:24:16.480 you know
01:24:17.460 and I think
01:24:18.140 his career
01:24:19.140 has been undermined
01:24:20.260 Denzel Washington
01:24:22.040 said to him
01:24:22.520 when you get to the top
01:24:23.340 that's when the devil
01:24:24.000 comes after you
01:24:24.660 and that's exactly
01:24:25.560 what happened to this guy
01:24:26.680 this guy was one of
01:24:27.440 you know
01:24:27.840 he was really the last movie star
01:24:29.240 he was the last guy
01:24:30.460 who could open a movie
01:24:31.480 the last guy
01:24:32.100 that where he went
01:24:33.020 to a Will Smith movie
01:24:34.540 you know
01:24:35.040 there aren't that many stars
01:24:36.040 like that anymore
01:24:36.740 I mean you might like
01:24:37.660 somebody in movies
01:24:38.400 but you don't go to his movie
01:24:39.580 necessarily
01:24:40.320 Will Smith was the last guy
01:24:41.660 where he actually went
01:24:42.520 to a Will Smith movie
01:24:43.540 and he has blown that
01:24:44.920 entirely
01:24:45.720 and he will never
01:24:46.500 he'll never get it back
01:24:47.480 because nobody is going
01:24:48.920 to forget
01:24:49.340 that they saw that
01:24:50.520 and they're not going
01:24:51.260 he can no longer be
01:24:52.940 the hero in the film
01:24:54.700 without us
01:24:55.220 bringing that to mind
01:24:56.840 so it was really
01:24:57.820 a big big mistake
01:24:59.080 now you and your wife
01:25:00.620 do not have an open marriage
01:25:01.740 I presume
01:25:02.280 we do not
01:25:03.680 only because I fear
01:25:05.260 for my life though
01:25:05.980 you have to explain to me
01:25:07.840 so you and Ellen
01:25:08.500 have been married
01:25:08.900 since 1980
01:25:09.780 solid marriage
01:25:11.020 you met her hitchhiking
01:25:13.080 yeah
01:25:13.920 what
01:25:14.700 she was
01:25:15.140 she was hitchhiking
01:25:16.760 I kept my car
01:25:17.960 I lived in San Francisco
01:25:19.020 and went to school
01:25:19.680 in Berkeley
01:25:20.160 I kept my car
01:25:21.260 in a garage there
01:25:22.280 and I was walking back
01:25:23.440 and she was
01:25:24.760 an absolute beauty
01:25:26.000 she was a model level
01:25:27.080 beauty
01:25:27.440 very tall
01:25:28.620 and I saw her hitchhiking 0.68
01:25:30.140 and I said to myself
01:25:31.060 look at that gorgeous Amazon 1.00
01:25:32.640 those are the words
01:25:33.340 that went through my mind
01:25:34.200 I thought
01:25:34.680 I gotta get my car
01:25:36.020 and I ran up
01:25:36.740 to get my car
01:25:37.780 so I could pick her up
01:25:38.560 so you weren't even
01:25:39.080 naturally driving
01:25:39.960 oh you made the driving happen
01:25:40.800 I wasn't even driving the car
01:25:41.500 no
01:25:41.720 and it was a one way grid
01:25:43.200 I had to go all the way
01:25:44.060 around the corner
01:25:44.740 I went through this
01:25:45.380 I went through this
01:25:46.960 residential area
01:25:48.820 at 50 miles an hour
01:25:49.920 I can still see
01:25:51.240 the old lady 0.99
01:25:51.980 I almost ran over
01:25:53.240 like looking at me
01:25:54.160 with terror
01:25:54.720 as I kind of
01:25:55.460 swerved around her
01:25:56.760 and yeah
01:25:58.060 I pulled up
01:25:58.640 and then
01:25:58.880 of course
01:25:59.580 I was very suave
01:26:00.260 I said
01:26:00.640 you know
01:26:00.860 going my way
01:26:01.520 my dear
01:26:01.920 you know
01:26:02.200 and she got in the car
01:26:03.300 and she sat down
01:26:04.480 and I immediately
01:26:05.180 I just felt this little click
01:26:06.840 and I just thought
01:26:07.640 huh
01:26:07.940 you know
01:26:08.240 this is actually new
01:26:09.540 and we were
01:26:10.220 living together
01:26:11.460 very shortly after that
01:26:12.700 and married a couple
01:26:13.560 years later
01:26:14.120 and we really
01:26:15.200 it really has been
01:26:16.120 a gift from God
01:26:17.560 you know
01:26:18.220 it's been 42 years
01:26:19.420 of marriage
01:26:19.860 we had
01:26:20.700 we have had one fight
01:26:21.980 about 35 years ago
01:26:23.480 it's not that we always agree
01:26:25.360 it's not that we don't have
01:26:26.180 to discuss things
01:26:26.940 it's just the only time
01:26:27.680 we ever like lost
01:26:28.460 our tempers with each other
01:26:29.560 it's been a romance
01:26:30.920 and I
01:26:31.560 we frequently joke
01:26:33.540 that we did everything wrong
01:26:34.720 we lived together
01:26:35.760 you know
01:26:36.100 we sort of
01:26:37.040 just didn't pay attention
01:26:38.240 to the rules
01:26:38.760 but we just
01:26:39.840 were chosen
01:26:40.820 to be together
01:26:41.660 like this
01:26:42.160 and it has been
01:26:42.820 one of the great gifts
01:26:43.980 of my life
01:26:44.480 it really has
01:26:44.980 love hearing that
01:26:46.820 this is what you write
01:26:48.060 about her
01:26:48.520 she is one of
01:26:49.760 you say wonderful things
01:26:51.340 and she is also
01:26:52.020 one of the best editors
01:26:53.180 I've ever met
01:26:54.100 my process is
01:26:55.560 she reads it
01:26:56.380 critiques it
01:26:57.060 I scream at her 0.99
01:26:58.060 and tell her
01:26:58.420 she doesn't know
01:26:58.860 what she's talking about
01:26:59.720 then I do what she says
01:27:00.820 it works great
01:27:01.860 which wait for me
01:27:04.320 I say
01:27:04.660 wait and then you go on
01:27:06.780 then you go on
01:27:07.300 this is from the truth
01:27:08.320 and beauty prologue
01:27:09.460 my wife Ellen
01:27:10.680 to her
01:27:11.180 to her alone
01:27:12.240 falls the unenviable
01:27:13.420 task of reading
01:27:14.220 my shambolic first drafts
01:27:16.260 into which I seem to throw
01:27:17.100 every thought I ever had
01:27:18.020 since childhood
01:27:18.580 when she heroically
01:27:19.780 took on my earliest effort
01:27:21.180 at the truth and beauty
01:27:22.180 she told me
01:27:23.060 it was such a mess
01:27:23.940 that there were times
01:27:24.860 while reading it
01:27:25.560 when she actually
01:27:26.480 doubted my sanity
01:27:27.440 my serene reply
01:27:29.360 should be printed on t-shirts
01:27:30.540 and sold at writers conferences
01:27:31.840 quote
01:27:32.280 no no
01:27:33.380 it's a great book
01:27:34.220 I just have to cut out
01:27:35.320 all the bad parts
01:27:36.120 it's true
01:27:39.440 she is
01:27:39.740 you know
01:27:40.000 I've written two
01:27:40.960 non-fiction books
01:27:41.880 my memoir
01:27:42.340 and this one
01:27:43.100 and both of them
01:27:44.260 were twice the size
01:27:45.480 in the first draft
01:27:46.940 and I essentially
01:27:48.280 handed Ellen a pen 0.51
01:27:49.300 and said
01:27:49.720 just tell me
01:27:50.440 tell me what parts
01:27:51.380 have to go
01:27:51.940 and you know
01:27:53.260 it's funny
01:27:53.640 in both cases
01:27:54.580 more this one
01:27:55.540 more the truth and beauty
01:27:56.320 I knew I had
01:27:57.340 a wonderful book
01:27:58.620 at the core
01:27:59.920 and I just had to
01:28:00.820 take away
01:28:01.640 all the other stuff
01:28:02.560 that I thought
01:28:03.060 I thought was so important
01:28:04.220 that I put in there
01:28:04.940 but it's
01:28:05.620 it's wonderful
01:28:06.620 to have an in-house editor
01:28:07.840 like that
01:28:08.300 she is great
01:28:08.880 yes
01:28:09.340 that's how it goes
01:28:10.340 between my husband
01:28:11.000 and me too
01:28:11.480 so he writes his draft
01:28:12.560 and then I'm
01:28:13.680 you know
01:28:13.940 I'm pretty honest
01:28:15.060 on my feedback
01:28:15.640 and I'll write
01:28:16.400 in the margin
01:28:16.780 boring
01:28:17.400 boring
01:28:18.100 boring
01:28:18.740 and I'll be like
01:28:19.660 wow
01:28:19.960 okay
01:28:20.340 I didn't have to be
01:28:21.160 quite so brutally honest
01:28:22.820 I'm like
01:28:23.160 you know what
01:28:23.620 better you hear
01:28:24.120 from me now
01:28:24.920 than you hear
01:28:25.560 from some editor
01:28:26.500 or some would-be publisher
01:28:27.460 or some critic
01:28:28.600 later
01:28:29.480 and he's always happy
01:28:30.720 but you know
01:28:31.200 was it Hemingway
01:28:32.060 he said little darlings
01:28:32.920 no writer wants to get rid
01:28:34.080 of his little darlings
01:28:34.900 and you need your actual darling
01:28:36.440 Samuel Johnson
01:28:37.080 yeah
01:28:37.340 okay
01:28:37.840 you need your actual darling
01:28:38.860 to help you separate
01:28:40.220 and realize
01:28:41.400 they're not all that important
01:28:42.700 to you
01:28:42.900 absolutely
01:28:44.600 absolutely true
01:28:45.460 and it really does
01:28:46.660 it really does make
01:28:47.660 a huge difference
01:28:48.840 to have somebody
01:28:49.440 who cares about you
01:28:50.520 even though
01:28:51.120 as you say
01:28:51.780 frequently
01:28:52.280 my wife is blunt
01:28:53.520 as well
01:28:53.940 but it makes a difference
01:28:54.900 that you know
01:28:55.860 it's really a gift
01:28:57.120 to have somebody
01:28:57.600 who will criticize you
01:28:58.560 while rooting for you
01:28:59.620 not everybody gets that
01:29:01.020 you know
01:29:01.280 a lot of times
01:29:01.780 people who criticize you
01:29:02.580 are actually trying
01:29:03.240 to tear you down
01:29:04.040 but when someone's
01:29:04.800 trying to build you up
01:29:05.640 criticism is actually
01:29:06.700 a beautiful thing
01:29:07.440 yes that's exactly right
01:29:09.040 okay so now
01:29:09.700 on that sunny note
01:29:11.040 talk to me more
01:29:12.200 about your optimism
01:29:13.340 because I know
01:29:14.160 you're feeling actually
01:29:15.160 unlike so many
01:29:16.700 pretty good
01:29:17.820 about where we are
01:29:19.040 right now
01:29:19.320 in the culture wars
01:29:20.160 in the country
01:29:20.780 it's not that you don't
01:29:21.880 recognize the problems
01:29:22.840 not at all
01:29:23.740 but you're seeing
01:29:24.760 some signs of hope
01:29:25.620 and so
01:29:26.660 like some green shoots
01:29:27.740 what is it
01:29:28.740 that's making you feel good
01:29:30.060 well for one thing
01:29:31.400 we have a party
01:29:32.480 the democratic party
01:29:33.580 is now
01:29:34.240 as their central platform
01:29:36.220 is is we have the right
01:29:38.300 to take your children away
01:29:39.420 and tell them to
01:29:40.520 you know
01:29:41.000 be mutilated
01:29:41.740 to change their sex 0.99
01:29:42.940 that's actually like central
01:29:44.320 to their point of view
01:29:45.640 it's not like a side thing
01:29:47.040 that they're saying
01:29:47.920 everything that they have done
01:29:49.760 has been exposed
01:29:50.620 so for instance
01:29:51.460 the green new deal
01:29:52.500 was a major component
01:29:54.280 of the ukrainian invasion
01:29:55.680 Russia would never have 1.00
01:29:57.260 invaded ukraine
01:29:58.100 if we were still
01:29:59.060 doing what we've done
01:30:00.220 under trump
01:30:00.780 and producing enough energy
01:30:02.400 to share with the world
01:30:03.640 so we can undercut
01:30:04.620 his petro economy
01:30:06.360 so that's
01:30:07.380 that's pretty much
01:30:08.260 kind of done
01:30:09.040 globalization
01:30:09.860 which was a real threat
01:30:11.240 because globalization
01:30:12.020 doesn't make sense
01:30:13.140 unless
01:30:13.760 unless it is
01:30:14.980 colonized by
01:30:16.240 american values
01:30:17.200 or western values
01:30:18.440 of freedom
01:30:18.920 globalization
01:30:19.880 we now understand
01:30:21.260 was a mirage
01:30:22.260 and
01:30:22.980 and of course
01:30:23.960 the economy
01:30:25.020 is a mess
01:30:25.760 the inflation
01:30:26.380 i loved
01:30:27.080 in the washington post
01:30:27.920 jennifer rubin wrote
01:30:28.760 if it weren't for inflation
01:30:29.960 you know joe biden
01:30:31.060 would be doing
01:30:31.640 a great job
01:30:32.440 you know it's like
01:30:32.880 if i weren't dead
01:30:33.620 i'd be alive
01:30:34.240 yeah that's all true
01:30:35.620 so so the failure
01:30:37.100 you know republicans
01:30:38.020 get thrown out of office
01:30:39.000 when they don't do
01:30:40.120 the conservative things
01:30:41.520 they say they're going to do
01:30:42.480 democrats get thrown
01:30:44.000 out of office
01:30:44.560 when they do do
01:30:45.480 the leftist things
01:30:46.500 they're going to do
01:30:46.980 because not only is leftism
01:30:48.260 wrong per se
01:30:49.560 and wicked per se
01:30:50.640 it also doesn't work
01:30:51.800 i mean this is
01:30:52.360 also a gift from god
01:30:53.760 that the thing that is bad
01:30:54.820 also makes things worse
01:30:56.220 so i'm looking at
01:30:57.660 a genuine red wave
01:30:59.580 in the midterms
01:31:00.640 but more important
01:31:01.520 than that
01:31:01.900 more importantly than that
01:31:02.820 i'm looking at
01:31:03.580 a culture
01:31:04.360 that is turning the corner
01:31:05.620 that is starting to say
01:31:06.900 you know what
01:31:07.500 we've had enough
01:31:08.260 this is enough
01:31:09.540 you cannot
01:31:10.200 take my child
01:31:11.400 and do that to my child 0.76
01:31:12.620 when you have
01:31:13.360 you know
01:31:13.840 when mom comes home
01:31:15.260 when you wake up mom
01:31:16.320 and you're messing
01:31:17.040 with her kid
01:31:17.700 it's not a good look
01:31:19.280 you know
01:31:19.540 i mean ever since
01:31:20.240 ever since you were a kid
01:31:21.320 you know that when mom
01:31:21.980 comes home
01:31:22.320 you got to straighten up
01:31:23.060 when these school board
01:31:24.360 people started saying
01:31:25.640 you've got to investigate
01:31:26.380 parents as terrorists
01:31:27.660 the democrats
01:31:28.860 like a bunch of idiots 0.89
01:31:29.860 actually did it
01:31:31.060 they actually did it
01:31:31.940 you know
01:31:32.180 what do you think
01:31:32.880 the parents are going to do
01:31:33.800 they're going to go
01:31:34.480 yeah i want to
01:31:35.040 i want to vote for those people
01:31:36.100 who see us as terrorists
01:31:36.980 but but i think more importantly
01:31:38.460 is the culture
01:31:39.080 the daily wire is taking strides
01:31:40.800 in the culture
01:31:41.440 i think a lot of conservatives
01:31:43.040 suddenly understand
01:31:44.260 that you you cannot
01:31:45.340 it's not free
01:31:46.200 to go to some toxic
01:31:47.780 left-wing movie
01:31:48.820 uh and have them
01:31:49.820 pour this garbage
01:31:50.720 into your brains
01:31:51.680 or your child's brains
01:31:52.740 or any of our brains
01:31:53.940 and i think that
01:31:54.560 that turning point
01:31:55.700 uh has been a long time coming
01:31:57.480 but time's up for these guys
01:31:59.120 they're creeps
01:31:59.880 and they're wrong
01:32:00.560 about just about everything
01:32:02.120 and it is time
01:32:03.260 to take the culture 0.98
01:32:03.940 back from them
01:32:04.480 and look
01:32:04.760 like i said
01:32:05.340 i've been talking about it
01:32:06.020 for 20 years
01:32:06.680 now i see it happening
01:32:07.960 and it does make me
01:32:08.900 extremely hopeful
01:32:09.980 love it
01:32:11.840 great note to end it on
01:32:13.360 i hope you come back
01:32:14.660 will you come back
01:32:15.260 oh it's been a delight
01:32:16.680 yes i would love to come back
01:32:17.760 anytime
01:32:18.020 oh awesome
01:32:18.920 it's so it's truly
01:32:20.300 it's the chewing rubies
01:32:21.540 in my mouth
01:32:21.980 listening to you speak
01:32:23.080 it's like yes
01:32:23.700 great more
01:32:24.460 i just just go
01:32:25.460 every topic
01:32:26.380 we need two more hours
01:32:27.380 and hopefully we'll get them
01:32:28.800 on another day
01:32:29.480 andrew clavin
01:32:30.020 thank you so much
01:32:31.020 uh again
01:32:32.040 the new book is called
01:32:33.000 the truth and beauty
01:32:34.480 how the lives and works
01:32:35.780 of english
01:32:36.240 england's greatest poets
01:32:37.920 point the way
01:32:38.900 to a deeper understanding
01:32:40.240 of the words of jesus
01:32:42.100 and he writes in the book
01:32:42.960 that it advanced
01:32:44.120 his heart's journey
01:32:45.100 toward god
01:32:46.060 okay advance
01:32:47.220 your heart's journey
01:32:48.560 toward god
01:32:49.540 by reading a book
01:32:51.100 that will help you learn
01:32:51.920 on so many different levels
01:32:53.920 right
01:32:54.260 uh anyway
01:32:55.320 our thanks to andrew
01:32:56.080 i want to tell you that
01:32:57.060 uh we're gonna have
01:32:57.820 gary kasparov
01:32:58.840 tomorrow for the full show
01:33:00.480 we wanted to do
01:33:01.120 an in-depth profile
01:33:02.360 of him
01:33:03.000 and all the crazy
01:33:04.640 crazy chess success
01:33:06.140 he had at such a young age
01:33:08.020 in russia
01:33:09.160 uh he's a fascinating guy
01:33:11.040 and what's his take
01:33:12.060 on where things stand
01:33:12.880 right now
01:33:13.340 in ukraine
01:33:14.240 we're gonna go through
01:33:14.920 all of that together
01:33:16.240 there are updates there
01:33:17.300 and across the country
01:33:19.020 on several items
01:33:20.160 and if you want to post
01:33:21.380 a comment about the show
01:33:22.440 just go to the review section
01:33:23.900 in apple podcasts
01:33:25.240 make sure you subscribe
01:33:26.460 to the show
01:33:26.780 and give us five stars
01:33:27.520 por favor
01:33:27.960 and then give us a review
01:33:29.500 i love reading them right now
01:33:30.800 i read them every day
01:33:31.700 and uh love all the guest
01:33:33.360 suggestions on there
01:33:34.380 i go through them
01:33:35.140 all the time
01:33:36.060 and i screen grab
01:33:36.760 the ones that are good
01:33:37.660 and for me
01:33:38.720 and i forward them to my team
01:33:39.880 so you could be of help
01:33:41.020 thanks for listening
01:33:41.900 see you tomorrow
01:33:42.400 thanks for listening
01:33:46.220 to the megan kelly show
01:33:47.340 no bs
01:33:48.240 no agenda
01:33:48.980 and no fear
01:33:50.120 you