The Naked Hypocrisy of the Emmys, Crazy Mask Policies, and the LuLaRoe ‘Cult’ with Leonydus Johnson, Roberta Blevins and Derryl Trujillo ｜ Ep. 163
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 37 minutes
Words per Minute
184.26706
Summary
Informed Dissent's Leonidas Johnson joins Megynkellekis to discuss the hypocrisy behind the face mask ban, and why it s so hard to see the hypocrisy from Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industry. Megyn and Leonidas also discuss the ongoing crisis at the border with the border patrol.
Transcript
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Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
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More COVID hypocrisy over the weekend as 500 of the biggest celebrities crammed inside a small tent.
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For the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, while thousands of L.A. County students, K through 12,
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are forced to wear face masks all day at school, irrespective of vaccination status.
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We're going to dive into that and the ongoing crisis at the border, among many other things.
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And I'm very excited to be joined for the first time today
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by a political commentator and host of the show, Informed Dissent, Leonidas Johnson.
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You're one of the wonderful people who I've learned about on Twitter and then discovered
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you in the digital world and now finally get the pleasure of speaking too.
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We talk about how disconnected we are sometimes with the digital world, but I've met so many
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people just through Twitter and Facebook, so it's amazing.
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Just when you think Twitter's all bad, you have a relationship like this for me and you
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Let's kick it off with these hypocrites out in Hollywood who, you know, despite lecturing
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all of us and their virtue signaling with the masks and on and on, and the kids sitting
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in L.A. County masked up all day, same as you saw with the Met Gala here in New York,
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Irrespective of vaccination status, these Hollywood celebrities are basically on top of each other,
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hugging one another, no masks anywhere in sight.
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And if they hadn't been lecturing the rest of us all the time, I wouldn't care, right?
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I'm like you, get your thumb off of me, but they are lecturing us.
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And it's truly yet again, rules for the year and not for me.
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We want people to go out and have their liberties and do what they think is best for themselves
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But the problem is that they're the ones that who are lecturing us and they're the ones who
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are telling us, oh yeah, we have to have your kids masked.
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And then we see these images on TV of them celebrating on the, on the red carpet and
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having their pictures taken, hugging each other after winning awards.
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And when, and you see the staff standing around wearing masks and it's just, it's such a disconnect
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And I can't believe, I can't, I can't, can't believe people aren't catching on to what's
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happening because I think it's just, isn't like Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael, aren't
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they embarrassed to be standing across from the masked serfs?
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You know, as Glenn Greenwald put it last week, something like, well, see their, their faces
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And, and yeah, you said the masked serfs, there was a picture from the Met Gala.
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She was wearing a dress and she had equal rights.
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And you see in the background, like there's all these women dressed in black and, and they're
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wearing masks, but yeah, but she's, she's the important one.
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So I, I, I would just hope that more people see what's happening.
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They're, they're making you wear a mask while they don't want, while they're not going to
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And there should, it should cause a, a, a, a revolution.
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I mean, and not, not saying like a violent revolution, but it should cause a revolt.
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Like should people push back and say, stand up.
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I mean, France, like recently where people are taken to the streets to protest all the
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Here's two points I wanted to make on the COVID mask hypocrisy.
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Number one, you've got, um, you know, the, the sort of second class citizenry there,
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Like the, the serfs with their, with their masks on.
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And, and while our kids are in school, so that what, what they, the way they defend not
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wearing masks, people like AOC, people like these celebrities is they say, well, everyone
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was vaccinated, everyone was vaccinated at the Met, everyone was vaccinated at the award
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First of all, you're supposed to wear your mask at the Met, even if you're vaccinated,
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which, you know, apparently if you're with Anna Wintour, you don't have to.
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Um, but everyone in like the, the, the school situation, like at our school, for example,
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everyone's 16 and up and up has to be vaccinated.
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So why in New York and Connecticut, New Jersey and California, why do the high schoolers, all
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of whom have to be vaccinated, have to keep their masks on all day when these people who
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are putting the, the policies in play don't, I mean, it's, it's naked hypocrisy.
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The hypocrisy has been happening the entire time.
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Even before we had vaccines, they were doing the same things.
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They were going out when we, they were supposed to be having lockdowns.
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They weren't wearing masks except when the cameras were on.
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I mean, they have been doing this the entire time.
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So it's not like they just started and trying to use the excuse, oh, we're vaccinated now.
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No, you, you've been doing this the whole time.
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You've been, you've been shirking the rules and, and putting them on other people while
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It makes no sense that we would do this to our children at all.
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Like, like you talk about adults and people who are more at risk.
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Like we can, we can talk about the risk and talk about whether it's beneficial for them,
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but we, we have the science on children and we know that COVID is not a risk for children
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and they're not at risk to get it, uh, and not have, uh, uh, a severe symptoms, not, not
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Like, and so why are we doing this to our children?
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New York that passed the, passed the law that said that, um, or, or passed the mandate that
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said that the children above the age of two have to be masked.
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Like what you have a three-year-old, like in, in a daycare that's being masked.
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I can't understand the motivation other than Megan.
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So it seems like these people are on a power trip and adults are harder to control, but
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children, you, you can, you can exert your will over them.
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Like why pass these policies that are uniformly harmful to kids?
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It's like, to your point, yes, you can potentially get COVID from a child.
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What all the studies have shown is that they're very inefficient vectors of the disease.
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That's why you have CDC studies that study the 90,000 kids in Georgia and find masks really
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Kids, unless they're right on top of you, the odds of you getting COVID from a child
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And yet we treat them like they're, they're dragons whose breath, every molecule of it
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And that's why we're shoving masks on these babies.
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There was a video, the United side tweeted it out on Friday, I think, of this little boy
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We have it queued up crying as the teacher over and over in daycare refuses to let the
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And that teacher, though she's trying to comport with policy, is abusing him.
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You can see permanent damage being caused to that child.
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And it makes people do just insane, ridiculous things.
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It makes people lose their capacity for rational thought.
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And what I try to explain to people is that we all have the capacity to do evil things and cause suffering in other people, even when we think that we're righteous and we're in the right.
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And a lot throughout this entire pandemic, we've been seeing that we've been seeing people who've been driven by fear, who've been making completely irrational decisions.
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And otherwise rational people making completely irrational decisions to control other people and to control children and to exert this insane power dynamic.
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I mean, the things like the things that have been happening from like shutting down schools, making kids wear masks.
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And now like there's even the Pfizer is trying to approve their vaccine for kids from five to 11.
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So they're trying to push all of this stuff on kids.
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It's based on this sort of religious right kind of thing.
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And, you know, like I said, I've tried to get people to understand that that look like you have to have some perspective with this stuff.
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There was another story about a woman got kicked off an airline.
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I think she had a two year old who was asthmatic and the flight attendant would not let him pull down his mask.
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And they ended up kicking kicking them off the flight.
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And it's just like, how how do we get to this point where we we let ourselves become these monsters because we're afraid?
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And that's really the question people need to ask themselves, because it's not it's not a left to right issue.
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And we need to we need to get a handle on it before it gets really, really out of control.
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Are we getting to a breaking point because you've got, I guess, Vogue, you know, Anna Wintour runs Vogue.
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And they followed AOC behind the scenes as she was getting ready in her stupid tax the rich dress.
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You know, she's really sticking it to the man by wearing that dress as she licked the boots of the billionaires left and right.
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But like when people see this woman who's trying to claim that she's a socialist, she wants to impose these socialist policies on us.
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And everybody's kids has to be masked because it's the right thing to do.
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Meanwhile, like look at these women on their knees in the masks as they adorn her with the proper fixings on her dress and her hair and her.
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OK, when they see that, when they see people like the San Francisco mayor, London Breed.
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Did you see that video and the dancing in the nightclub?
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The San Francisco mayor during a mask mandate that applies while you're inside.
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And I think it's sad that this is even a story.
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I was eating and I was drinking and I was sitting with my friends and everyone who came in there was vaccinated.
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So the fact that we have turned this into a story about being maskless.
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No, I'm not going to sip and put my mask on, sip and put my mask on, sip and put my mask on, eat and put my mask on.
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While I'm eating and I'm drinking, I'm going to keep my mask off.
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But I just had to do that on my on my flight down to Houston for a convention with Dan Crenshaw.
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She's on the dance floor having a good time without her mask while she forces all her constituents to keep their masks on.
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They're not allowed into the black cat and to take their mask off.
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Only she can do it because the rules don't apply.
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Meanwhile, the kids in San Francisco masks all day once they can finally get their asses into school because they've been out of school for the better for the entire last year.
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She was she's been doing it all over the place.
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And like you said, every time they always have excuses.
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Oh, well, you know, I was drinking or I was eating.
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Whereas if it were us, if it were me or you, then the hammer would come down on us.
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Now, you ask if I thought it was there was at a that whether we're at a breaking point.
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And not that I want to see things collapse, but more and more people are starting to speak
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out and more and more people are starting to push back against this stuff.
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And I work in health care and there's been a bunch of nurses in my area who have been
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protesting the vax mandates and and everything that's been going on.
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And so we're seeing more and more that more and more of that happen.
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I don't want to see people recognize that we're being manipulated.
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And, you know, and Jesse Kelly always says the people who are telling you to be afraid
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Obama can have his parties and do whatever he wants to do.
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They can have the Met Gala and the Emmy Awards and do whatever.
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Let's take the mask off the kids and, you know, let's let's just make our own personal
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And OK, but let me ask you as a practical matter, as a practical matter, how does that
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And yet I want my children to continue going to school.
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And if I send them without a mask, they're going to get bounced right out.
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And I'm not allowed unless I show in New York a vaccine card and have a mask on.
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You know, I I don't really want to be the person in the YouTube video who, you know,
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gets punched or gets in a fight because I refuse to comply.
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But I don't like I like the idea of civil disobedience.
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And yet, realistically, am I going to do that with my kids in school or, you know, not buy
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It is because people are losing their jobs and things like that.
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There's there's real sacrifice associated with it.
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And anytime you have authoritarianism, anytime you're dealing with tyranny, it's going to
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So, again, it's a personal decision that needs to be made, you know, what you're willing to
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tolerate and what you're not willing to tolerate.
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Like, like I said, there's a lot of nurses that are that are protesting the vax mandate
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This is one area in which status as, you know, a disenfranchised group, a minority group
00:17:21.100
Because we used to we heard first about how it was very important to get everybody
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Then you had a lot of objections in particular from the black community.
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And now we have a situation in New York where there's all these videos coming out of a white
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hostess or a white waiter kicking out black patrons of these restaurants and get out, get
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And suddenly this whole like, oh, you know, we've got to understand there's been a history
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in the black community of distrust of vaccines and so on.
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No, it's the white workers saying, get out to the black people.
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And I haven't heard boo from these groups who have been talking about, you know, systemic
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Ibram Kendi has been very quiet lately about this.
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It's kind of interesting because, you know, his whole his whole stick is that any system
00:18:13.360
that creates disparate impact in between races, that that's a racist system.
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So vaccines may I forget what the percentage is, but there's a large percentage, much, much
00:18:25.140
larger percentage of black people who are unvaccinated.
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So you're shutting them out of society now saying they can't go to restaurants or bars
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And so according to Ibram Kendi, that should be considered a racist system.
00:18:40.260
And I don't know, Megan, what I normally say about it is that they they don't have they
00:18:45.480
don't the people who adhere to these kind of things, they don't seem to have actual principles.
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It's they don't believe anything that they say.
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They just know what they can use in the moment to manipulate other people.
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So if today racism has the power and then I'm going to use that against you, if it's
00:19:07.720
vaccines today that has the power, then I'm going to use that against you.
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And then so whatever I believe yesterday or said, I believe yesterday, all of that's out
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It's only what I can use today right now in the moment to manipulate you and and like
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You see that with race, the critical race theory.
00:19:34.160
How many times have we heard that health care is a right and we need universal health care
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And now all of a sudden it's OK to kind of push out this idea that maybe we should deny
00:19:47.660
It's like, well, how can you hold both ideas at once?
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There was a landlord in Florida that said that he was he was going to evict people for
00:19:59.220
being unvaccinated and Occupy Democrats retweeted that tweet and said, yeah, yeah, retweet this
00:20:08.300
It's like now all of a sudden the progressive wing is supporting landlords and evictions.
00:20:13.320
So they don't wouldn't you love wouldn't wouldn't you love to get like a P.I.
00:20:18.140
on that guy and just just follow him for 48 hours.
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I guarantee you're going to find that guy speeding way above the speed limit, eating food
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that's terrible for him, having a cocktail, you know, or maybe four or five.
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I don't know who this guy is, but I'm just saying all of should all of that count.
00:20:37.500
This guy who's going to be the moral arbiter of everybody who's declined to get a vaccine,
00:20:41.040
including those who have natural immunity because they had covid, you know, does this
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guy have some superhuman powers against heart disease, against speeding deaths?
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It's just if we want to start doing this to each other, it's not going to end well.
00:20:58.320
And, you know, one of the things they'll say is, well, obesity isn't contagious.
00:21:03.100
So what heart disease kills six hundred fifty thousand people every year?
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So if you if it's truly about saving lives, then, hey, let's mandate exercise.
00:21:15.240
You know, if we want to do this, then then let's do it.
00:21:20.300
I mean, if I speed and I get in a car accident, you know, I'm going to hurt more than just
00:21:24.520
So it's not all of these can be dismissed as just a risk you take to you and you alone.
00:21:29.060
You know, society has gotten a place where we do tolerate some level of risk.
00:21:32.060
And by the way, if you've got, you know, a lot of morbidly obese people taking up a lot
00:21:36.260
of hospital beds, don't tell me that doesn't affect other people in the same way a lot
00:21:39.720
of covid patients might affect other people's health care when they go to the same facility.
00:21:43.420
So, you know, if you really want to take these are these arguments to their logical
00:21:49.860
We don't judge people for their individual medical decisions, their individual liberty.
00:22:05.740
Wait, I want to pick it up with you right there because I'm going to squeeze in a quick break.
00:22:10.660
He is Leonidas Johnson, and he has hosted the podcast Informed Dissent.
00:22:15.840
Up next, the Biden administration seems to be focused on everything, everything, except
00:22:19.760
the surge of 10,000 immigrants down in Texas that even Democrats are starting to call them
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00:23:01.840
Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show, everyone.
00:23:06.160
He's a political commentator and host of the Informed Dissent podcast and has been very brave
00:23:12.000
about pushing back against some of these nonsense narratives we've been fed over the past year,
00:23:17.360
whether it's, you know, the COVID virus doesn't attack people who are at a BLM protest,
00:23:23.060
or that we're suffering an epidemic of police attacking and killing unarmed black men.
00:23:28.920
And he's gotten some pushback for the positions he's taken, but he doesn't seem to care about
00:23:33.300
pushback, which is one of the things I love in anybody.
00:23:35.780
All right, let's start with what's happening at the southern border, because the Biden administration
00:23:39.880
does seem very firm on talking about anything other than this crisis at our southern border,
00:23:44.320
where we've had 200,000 people come across the border in July, another 200,000 in August.
00:23:49.380
We only used the COVID mandate that Trump issued, saying we're allowed to send people right back
00:23:56.420
So we've got 200,000 new immigrants across the southern border in just the past 60 days alone.
00:24:01.440
And now we have this crisis at basically in Del Rio, which is a bicultural city that's used
00:24:08.060
to cross-border traffic. And there are some 10,000 illegal immigrants, undocumented workers
00:24:14.960
from Mexico sitting underneath this bridge. And only when Fox News got a drone down there
00:24:21.540
and started showing us the pictures, which then the Biden administration banned, did they finally
00:24:27.140
start to do something about it. And now some flights are starting to bring these migrants
00:24:30.640
back to Mexico. But the overwhelming majority of these folks and others who come into the country
00:24:37.420
saying, I want asylum, I want asylum, will either, will likely have a hearing at which they won't get
00:24:44.420
it, right? 85% are denied. And the other 15% will then just be released into the United States to
00:24:50.700
wander, to be molested, to have to work illegally in terrible conditions, right? Because when you don't
00:24:56.580
have papers, things don't go so well for you. And we're not supposed to pay any attention to that
00:25:01.260
humanitarian crisis at all. What's happening under the bridge? Or what's going to happen to these folks
00:25:05.040
once they're released in the United States without papers or any pathway to anything?
00:25:10.700
It's really quite something that this is happening at such a large scale. And we're not hearing too much
00:25:18.340
about it. Like you said, the Fox drone, it's unbelievable how many people were under that
00:25:23.980
bridge. I think you said 10,000. I saw somewhere even upwards to 15,000. And like all these people,
00:25:30.400
and it wasn't that they were just coming in either. They were able to come in and they were able to go
00:25:34.600
back freely. So they were like piss passing back and forth. And they weren't, you know, they're not
00:25:42.160
able to be apprehended. And the border patrol is completely overwhelmed. And we're just not hearing
00:25:48.500
about it. It's incredible. And, you know, so you wonder what the Biden policy is.
00:25:53.360
If you look at the White House website, it says that, you know, the White House wants to reform
00:25:59.120
the long, broken and chaotic immigration system. And Biden's going to somehow do this. Okay, when?
00:26:05.720
How? What's the plan? What's the policy here? Because right now, we're in full crisis mode.
00:26:12.560
And nothing seems to be done. Nothing seems to be done about it. His messaging is what brought them
00:26:18.840
here. His his open borders message brought them here. And you don't have to believe me just to ask
00:26:22.680
them. The immigrants who have been crossing the southern border say openly, we think now's our
00:26:26.520
chance. Joe Biden seems very open to us being here in a way Trump was not. And that's why we made a run
00:26:32.240
for it. But this is to to their own detriment. I mean, we are endangering these people with these
00:26:39.220
messages because there's not even any running water for these folks down underneath this bridge. We're not
00:26:43.900
handling it. We're not equipped to handle it. This wink and a nod open border thing is not safe for
00:26:49.840
these folks. But we don't we don't seem to be worried about that. And I ask you between that the
00:26:54.740
southern border between it. Now we have to admit that this drone we used over in Afghanistan killed
00:26:59.580
a bunch of innocent people and no bad people, including a bunch of children. And the Biden
00:27:04.580
administration is doing like a collective shoulder shrug like, whoops, sorry. Paris and France,
00:27:09.880
they've recalled their ambassador because they're so ticked off about this deal we struck with the
00:27:13.580
Australians on submarines. The Senate parliamentarian just said you cannot shove through
00:27:19.100
the immigration reform bill, sorry, House as part of reconciliation. That's actually something
00:27:26.620
that's not going to be able to. You can't just say that's an economic measure and grant citizenship
00:27:31.240
effectively to all these millions of people. So Biden's taking it, you know, on this front,
00:27:35.780
the other front, the other front and so on. And I wonder whether you look around and think
00:27:39.860
this is true chaos right now. It absolutely is true chaos. And it I can't believe we knew the Biden
00:27:48.600
administration was going to be problematic. And we knew that there was going to be a lot of a lot
00:27:53.540
of issues with him coming in just from his campaign and the things that he ran on. But I didn't I
00:27:59.440
didn't anticipate it being this bad this quickly. I mean, like we're into September and it's already
00:28:07.380
just just falling apart, whether we're talking about immigration, Afghanistan, COVID. I mean,
00:28:12.800
everything you hate to say it, but like everything is just seems like it's just imploding right now in
00:28:19.120
our country. And we don't have a leader. I don't know who who who behind the scenes is telling Biden
00:28:25.100
what to do or guiding him. But like he's empty. Yeah, he's his eyes are empty. His head is empty.
00:28:32.480
Like he's he's just a he's he's an empty suit up there just doing things that he's apparently told
00:28:38.180
to do. And the things that the things that are happening in our country are very concerning.
00:28:43.760
So then and like I said, it's not just immigration. Like you look across the board and we have all of
00:28:49.400
these things that are happening that are just it's unbelievable that we what about crime?
00:28:55.100
We haven't even talked about crime. So I'm too. Yeah. Right now. OK, this is from Time magazine on
00:29:01.240
September 13th. Across the U.S., more children and teens are being caught in the crossfire
00:29:06.020
in crime. But this is how they finish the sentence. Just interestingly, are being caught in the crossfire,
00:29:11.780
a byproduct of gun violence. Do you mean criminals? Is that what you mean? A byproduct of criminals.
00:29:20.140
It's like the guns got up out of their cases, went out to the streets of Chicago and fired themselves,
00:29:25.240
a byproduct of gun violence that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Again, do you mean
00:29:31.080
criminals with too much time on their hands? Is that what you're trying to say? They're talking
00:29:35.860
to emergency room physicians and so on. Gunshot injuries, a pediatric pediatric trauma center
00:29:40.340
spiked 50 percent across Houston, 300 percent in Hartford, Connecticut, down in Fort Worth.
00:29:46.180
They're up as well, up to record numbers in Memphis. They're talking about the number of shooting
00:29:51.000
victims, record highs. Some experts attribute the rise of violence to pandemic related school
00:29:57.340
closures and unemployment. Strains in emotional and mental health have led to poor conflict
00:30:01.600
resolution and so on. We're not supposed to care about any of those effects of the pandemic.
00:30:04.640
They don't count. Those those that led to dead kids, those don't count. All the only ones that
00:30:10.160
count are the deaths. If you happen to have covid, you don't even have to die of covid.
00:30:14.540
If you happen to die and you have covid at the same time, those count. And I'm telling you,
00:30:20.700
I'm getting angry because the crime, having just moved from New York, is out of control.
00:30:26.400
The number of shootings and what I get instead of honesty is opinion pieces like we saw from NBC
00:30:33.340
and like some report from Democratic Party aligned think tank third way saying,
00:30:38.700
oh, there's a hysteria about crime waves, suggesting there isn't. And there is.
00:30:44.700
Wow. There's absolutely a crime wave. And NBC News is putting out falsehoods.
00:30:49.300
Just downplaying it. That's unbelievable because it's not even debatable that that crime is up.
00:30:55.040
That's the question is why. I mean, you can focus on robberies like, oh,
00:30:59.740
in-home burglars are down because everybody's home. But they're ignoring murders and shootings.
00:31:04.240
Yeah. I mean, it's awful. And, you know, here's something interesting. I live in rural Ohio and
00:31:10.440
there's more guns here than people and we don't have shootings. No, nobody gets shot here. And if
00:31:17.060
there is a shooting, it's once in a great blue moon. It just doesn't happen. But there's guns
00:31:22.720
all over the place. Everybody has guns around here. So so to come and say that, well, it's it was
00:31:28.340
coupled with firearms and the pandemic and say that's gun violence. Yeah, it's gun violence.
00:31:35.300
No. Then why aren't the places with the most guns having the same rise in crime? We're talking about
00:31:41.440
cultural issues. It's a cultural problem. I've been keeping a list. I haven't tracked all of the
00:31:47.640
all of the inner city violence, but I keep a list of the kids who are killed in inner city violence,
00:31:53.220
kids who are under the age of 13. So 13 and younger. And last year, there were 78. And this
00:32:00.840
year so far, there's been 55. And this is all over the country, mostly in like places like Chicago.
00:32:07.420
Of course, we talk about Chicago all the time. But I mean, these kids, these kids are mostly victims
00:32:12.820
of like stray bullets. So and that's not even including kids who were just shot and recovered.
00:32:18.400
Then we're talking about hundreds. And then once you expand that to under 18, then we're talking
00:32:23.080
multiple hundreds. We're talking about five, six hundred kids that are being killed in street
00:32:26.420
violence. And so that's just kids. That's not even looking at the adults in which you get up to like
00:32:32.580
7000, 7000 plus 7500. And so to say to ignore this problem and to just downplay it and say, oh, it's just
00:32:42.100
hysteria. Whereas, you know, we look at COVID deaths. Kids are much more like kids in those
00:32:48.380
neighborhoods are much more likely to be killed by some other dude, some other guy with a gun
00:32:53.680
than they are to die from COVID. But we're ignoring it. And so it's crazy.
00:32:59.360
Even to bring it up, even to bring it up is considered controversial. Meanwhile, here to
00:33:04.880
your point, and I know I appreciate the running list you've been keeping because no one seems to
00:33:09.340
care about these kids who die on the receiving end of a gang member's bullet. In Baltimore, stray bullets
00:33:16.600
have injured a five year old sitting in his bathtub, a 10 year old buying a bag of Cheetos
00:33:24.120
earlier this year. And nearly half of all murders in Baltimore took place in the daytime in 2020
00:33:30.840
in the daytime. So the criminals are getting more brazen, more bold. And as our little ones get shot
00:33:38.660
in their bathtubs, I just how is it not on the nightly news every night? How is it not the lead?
00:33:45.880
We've grown totally immune to inner city violence. I know you've said there's something called this is
00:33:52.480
your term hood culture that we seem totally unwilling to call out. Yeah. And I'm not suggesting
00:34:01.240
that we that we dwell all the time on tragedy and, you know, just depress, depress ourselves,
00:34:08.220
because I'm just keeping that list. It's been it's weighed heavily on me. Yeah. And I tried to
00:34:13.980
update it maybe once a week. And I don't mean to be tried about it, because obviously, the people that
00:34:19.160
are dealing with that stuff directly, obviously, that's much more horrible for them. And I don't mean
00:34:24.300
to, like, compare myself to them, but to say, but, you know, dwelling on that, it weighs on you. But
00:34:29.400
still, to ignore it completely. That's just outrageous. And, you know, to say that, you know,
00:34:36.920
like you said, the kid that was shot in his bathtub, or Jazlyn Adams that was shot in Chicago,
00:34:42.260
in a McDonald's drive through, like she was in a drive through with her dad, getting a Happy Meal,
00:34:48.520
and somebody started shooting into their car and ended up killing her. And there's all kinds of
00:34:53.940
stories that like that, but kids out playing in their yard or sleeping in their bed, babies in
00:34:58.980
strollers, babies in strollers getting shot, because these people are just shooting indiscriminately
00:35:04.680
into crowds, not caring who they hit. And I heard a detective say one time that the ideology behind
00:35:12.820
it is that they know where their target is. And they know that if they just shoot indiscriminately,
00:35:20.280
they're going to hit somebody that they care about, they may not get them specifically,
00:35:24.940
but they're going to hit somebody else that they care about. And that's why they go shoot up funerals
00:35:29.300
and birthday parties and things. I mean, it's just the lack of humanity is incredible. And it's
00:35:34.940
unbelievable that we're not talking about it, at least on a cursory level, just to say,
00:35:41.600
oh my gosh, this is happening. The only reason I began keeping that list, and I'm embarrassed to admit
00:35:47.440
it. The only reason I started keeping that list last year was because so many kids were killed on
00:35:52.820
July 4th. And I realized how big of a problem it was, and I didn't know it. I didn't know how bad
00:36:00.160
it was. And I started doing the research to see how many kids were being killed, and it just blew me
00:36:05.440
away. And I was like, somebody has to put this out there, especially with all the stuff going around
00:36:11.220
about how many unarmed Black people are killed by police and how awful that was. Because I think last year,
00:36:16.040
it was like 12 or 13 or something like that. And then you have 78 kids who are killed in street
00:36:22.920
violence and nothing. There's nothing. No national news, no outrage, no talk about we need to change
00:36:32.200
the culture. Nothing. Well, and you talk about this. You talk about how this isn't necessarily a
00:36:38.540
Black-white thing. This so-called, quote, hood culture. It can be white. It can be Latino. It can be
00:36:43.900
Black. The point is, why aren't we taking a hard look at these crime rates and trying to help the
00:36:49.920
little five-year-olds in their bathtubs so they don't have to live like this?
00:36:53.900
Right. There's no kids should have to live like that. Not in America. This is not our country. We
00:36:59.260
should not have little kids being shot in bathtubs because somebody shot through their apartment wall
00:37:03.960
with their house or whatever it may be. And yeah, it is. It is cultural at its root and it's not
00:37:12.300
racial. And I try to explain that to people pretty often that a lot of times we like to conflate race
00:37:17.380
and culture. And particularly you think about hood culture and you say, oh, like, well, you're
00:37:21.880
criticizing Black people. No, no, I'm not. I'm criticizing a certain segment of our society that lends itself
00:37:28.920
to this violent behavior. And that's not a racial thing because there's white people involved with
00:37:34.740
that. There's Black people. Like you said, there's Latino people. There's Asian people. It's all across
00:37:40.140
the spectrum. People who adhere to these ghetto hood values, this lack of respect for authority, this
00:37:49.320
dismissal of education, this external locus of control, this idea that things happen to you instead
00:37:58.560
of you being in control of your own life. No sense of personal responsibility, promiscuity. I mean,
00:38:05.100
all of these things are indicative of a toxic culture that runs rampant through our inner cities.
00:38:12.320
And that's what needs to be addressed. That's why crime rates are going up. And, you know,
00:38:18.080
that coupled with pulling back our police and not allowing them to do their jobs and the whole defund the
00:38:24.280
police movement. I mean, these are the things that need to be addressed. And if we really care about
00:38:29.500
saving lives, that's where we would put our focus, Megan. Okay. Up next, I'm going to ask you about
00:38:36.280
something. I don't think you even know this is coming and our audience definitely doesn't know
00:38:40.160
it's coming, but I'm going to talk about how my reliance, my admiring of Leonidas got me in trouble
00:38:48.860
with my own Hall of Fame membership at my high school and what I said to the school and what
00:38:56.920
they said back to me. That's up next after this quick break.
00:39:00.860
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00:39:22.620
works for you. Visit CanadaLife.com slash employee benefits to learn more. Canada Life, insurance,
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investments, advice. Welcome back to the Megan Kelly show, everyone. Leonidas Johnson is with me today.
00:39:38.920
He's a political commentator and host of the Informed Dissent podcast. So I have a story for you.
00:39:44.760
Um, so as I mentioned at the top of the show, I'm a big fan of yours and have been, and I just think
00:39:48.960
you're very brave in your commentary. And I think if you were saying things that were more supportive
00:39:53.620
of BLM and less supportive, not that you've been a cop supporter, but you've been just calling out
00:39:59.020
disinformation about them. Um, you'd be all over television. You know, you're smart. You're,
00:40:05.040
you're fearless. You happen to be a person of color and somebody like you would be all over MSNBC,
00:40:12.600
CNN, Fox news, whatever. Um, but you won't get any invitations from ABC or, or NBC or MSNBC or CNN
00:40:19.960
because you're not saying the things that they like. And this drives me nuts. It drives me nuts,
00:40:26.060
whether it's Thomas soul, Jason Whitlock, you Glenn Lowry, I could go on because I see really amazing
00:40:34.980
people who happen to be black, totally silenced by the mainstream media. Cause you don't go along
00:40:39.580
with the narrative being pushed. So if, if I see a good tweet or whatever, I'll, I'll retweet it.
00:40:45.260
And it's both because I tend to agree with this stuff. And also because I just try to amplify
00:40:49.960
voices, um, that are being ignored. So believe it or not, there are some students at my home high
00:40:57.440
school, my high school in Bethlehem, New York, Albany, New York, which is the town of Bethlehem,
00:41:01.880
Bethlehem central high school. And they complained about me retweeting you and retweeting Jason Whitlock.
00:41:10.160
And said, it was insensitive to me that these tweets added pain and offense to the national
00:41:18.160
conversation. And my school to its credit, didn't just say, Oh, we're afraid, we're afraid we're
00:41:23.540
going to, and they want to be bounced out of the Bethlehem central hall of fame. Now it's not that
00:41:27.520
this was a hugely important role in my life, but it was kind of bullshit because it's a free speech
00:41:31.500
matter, right? It's like, it's about so much more than just whether you agree with the tweets that I
00:41:35.660
retweeted. And so to my school's credit, they reached out to me and said, do you care to defend
00:41:41.360
yourself? And I responded and said, look, I will respond to your questions out of respect for my
00:41:47.580
Bethlehem school community, which I love. Uh, and I'm just going to, I'm not going to read the whole
00:41:51.240
letter, but I read, I wrote in part, um, the fact that I'm asked to explain anything that I post or
00:41:56.500
discuss in my podcast is a reflection of the dangerous times in which we're living. Free
00:42:00.460
speech is under assault. Divergent viewpoints are being disallowed. There's only one way to look at,
00:42:05.640
look at, or discuss subjects like race, gender, sexual identity, sexism, and more without becoming
00:42:10.080
the target of the woke outrage mob, which derives its power by canceling people for the thought crime
00:42:15.080
of disagreeing with them. And I wrote my position in the Bethlehem hall of fame was delightful to
00:42:19.320
receive, but I wish to be clear. Nothing will stop me from enthusiastically engaging in the ongoing
00:42:24.980
free and open exchange of ideas, not folks claiming offense, not the threat of an honor being revoked,
00:42:30.860
not anything. Here's paragraph two for what it's worth. The two tweets you raise for which I make
00:42:37.500
no apology are in fact, retweets of comments by prominent black broadcasters. One Leonidas Johnson has a
00:42:44.360
podcast called informed dissent. The other Jason Whitlock is a former ESPN journalist who is
00:42:48.900
currently with outkick sports. Both have a heterodox view of the black lives matter movement.
00:42:53.180
And for that have been attacked with racist terms like uncle Tom by those who disparage black
00:42:58.420
Americans at sellouts. If they do not tow a certain political line, I say, I believe this shaming of
00:43:04.340
alternative viewpoints is deeply wrong. And on and on I go and wound up saying this at the end,
00:43:10.200
the bottom line is that this country by its very design was meant to celebrate and encourage
00:43:14.880
divergent viewpoints, not punish them. That remains my mission. One, I pledge to continue in
00:43:20.120
the many public venues in which I appear reporting all news without fear or favor, a principle I first
00:43:26.160
learned at Bethlehem central. And I heard back from the school Leonidas and guess what? They sided with
00:43:33.300
me. Oh, good. I'm glad to hear that. I know. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate you retweeting me,
00:43:40.680
first of all, and then including me with all those great minds. My gosh, that's that that was a
00:43:45.320
compliment in and of itself. But, you know, it's funny. People people accuse me of having internalized
00:43:51.320
white supremacy. And I'm sure Jason Whitlock and Glenn Morey, they get the same kind of thing.
00:43:56.540
And so what happens is if white people retweet me, if I have a view that goes against the accepted
00:44:07.900
narrative and somebody like you retweets me, then all of a sudden, since I have internalized white
00:44:15.440
supremacy, that means that you're supporting white supremacy. So in this twisted view, even though
00:44:22.800
you're you're retweeting a black guy, you're actually supporting white supremacy, because that's
00:44:29.580
that makes sense in this in this upside down world. That's how they silence you. They silence you at
00:44:35.320
every turn. You don't get an invitation to appear. And then when somebody like me who has a large
00:44:39.520
platform tries to amplify your voice, we get shamed because they don't like you being amplified in any
00:44:46.160
larger form than the one you happen to have. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And like I said, they don't like I
00:44:52.060
said earlier in the show. They don't believe what they say. They only use what they think they can
00:44:55.840
use in the moment to to exert control over you. So it is what you had what you said in that tweet
00:45:03.500
where what I said in tweet and what you retweeted, they probably it was probably not an issue that what
00:45:10.800
they just disagreed with it and then wanted to silence you for it. Well, and let me let me read your
00:45:16.500
tweet. Let me read your tweet. OK, this is how controversial it was. I'm so sick of talking about
00:45:21.960
race. I'd be ecstatic to never talk about race ever again. This religious, cultish obsession with
00:45:27.960
racial issues and racial identity and victimhood inevitably drives racial hatred and hostility.
00:45:32.940
It is quite literally making the world worse. That's it. That's it. You're not allowed to have
00:45:39.160
that viewpoint as a black man in America. And I'm not allowed to think it's worthy of amplification.
00:45:45.380
Yeah, it's incredible that that's even a controversial viewpoint.
00:45:48.640
Right. Like, hey, guys, let's stop talking about race. Let's get let's get past this idea that race
00:45:54.840
has a massive impact on our identity and let's start treating each other by like Dr. King wanted
00:46:01.500
us to by the content of our character. It's like, oh, that's a white supremacist viewpoint. It's like,
00:46:05.760
what are you talking about? It's unbelievable that that's even even controversial. But yeah, I mean,
00:46:11.860
this is where we are. Like when you when you have these kind of ideas, and you have this obsession
00:46:18.520
with racial identity, it only ends up driving enmity. And, you know, I really am like, well,
00:46:26.080
like I said, in that tweet, I really am tired of talking about it. But I feel but we have to,
00:46:30.240
we can't stop talking about it. Because the other side is talking about it all the time. And that's all
00:46:36.040
they that's all they care about. So I've actually had people accuse me of being obsessed with race
00:46:40.720
myself. And I'm like, listen, I'm not obsessed with I'm not obsessed with racial identity. I'm
00:46:45.720
only trying to push back on what what the other side is saying. I'm trying to offer a counter
00:46:51.020
viewpoint here, because they won't shut up about it. Everything they say is has some racial element
00:46:56.900
to it. And yeah, it is making our our world worse. It's making everything worse. It's toxic. And it's
00:47:03.760
divisive. And yeah, we need to get past it. And I can't, like I said, I can't believe it's
00:47:08.100
controversial. Whenever I tweet something that, you know, pushes back on on any female's narrative,
00:47:13.660
any woman's narrative, whatever it is, I tell somebody to toughen up, what have you,
00:47:17.480
then I get accused of internalized misogyny. That's my intern. So yeah, this is what they do
00:47:21.580
to anybody sort of who's not woke, or pushes back against these narratives. And you do have to be
00:47:26.600
okay with these names. I'm sure you have been called an Uncle Tom and all the other names.
00:47:30.260
And it's not pleasant. But to other people like you who would like to speak out, but don't want
00:47:36.520
to be called the names. What's your message? You have to have tough skin. You know, you have to,
00:47:44.180
if you want to speak out, you have to know that they're going to come for you. And you have to be
00:47:48.920
okay with that. If you if you can't handle being called the names, you can't handle the the personal
00:47:56.340
attacks, then, you know, it's not going to go well, because they're going to come for you. Anytime
00:48:03.620
you disagree with the narrative, like you said, whether it doesn't matter if it's race or gender
00:48:08.500
or what it may be. As soon as you disagree with it, they're going to bring out the bring out the
00:48:13.820
gloves, and they're going to, they're going to attack you for it. So you just have it. I mean, you
00:48:17.420
have to you have to find some tough skin. And you have to know that their opinion doesn't matter.
00:48:21.740
Like, yeah, you know, the truth, speak the truth. Skin matters, but it's not the color. It's the
00:48:27.660
thickness. I like what a pleasure. So great. Finally getting to talk to you. Thanks so much
00:48:33.320
for being here. Yeah, thank you. Very good to talk to you. And thank you to Bethlehem Central
00:48:38.300
standing up for free speech and the divergence of ideas. Up next, we're going to talk to two stars
00:48:42.840
from the viral Amazon documentary Lula Rich, a company that promised women financial freedom through
00:48:48.960
the sellings of leggings that quickly turned into a cult like multi level marketing or pyramid scheme.
00:48:55.740
That's next. Your business doesn't move in a straight line. Make sure your team is taken care
00:49:02.260
of through every twist and turn with Canada Life savings, retirement and benefits plans. Whether
00:49:07.740
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00:49:12.980
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00:49:18.820
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00:49:32.320
Welcome back everyone to the Megan Kelly show. We're taking a break from politics for the moment to
00:49:36.000
talk deception, fraud and lies. I swear it's a break from politics. A few years ago, the clothing
00:49:43.700
company Lula Row became wildly popular for their colorful leggings. I am so into this story. The
00:49:51.600
company promised women who sold their products, the dream of working from home and seeing their kids
00:49:57.500
more often. You could have it all. You could raise your kids, you could be with your husband, and yet you
00:50:01.440
could still make a fortune. You could actually wind up supporting your family, even better
00:50:05.640
potentially than your working spouse, all from the comfort of your own home. In the end, however,
00:50:12.240
it wound up costing so many of these women their home, their life savings, and even their marriage.
00:50:20.160
And the company is now the focus of a must-see Amazon docuseries called Lula Rich. Watch.
00:50:29.980
I had achieved the dream. I was selling magic leggings.
00:50:33.460
This is a huge opportunity in America. Women were selling breast milk so they could afford
00:50:39.780
startup costs. It had just become a circus. Mark starts spouting off passages from the Book of
00:50:45.940
Mormon. A mass delusion. Oh my God, I'm in a cult. Did any of them have a clue how to run a company of
00:50:51.620
this size? No. What is the real story of LuLaRoe?
00:50:58.220
We want to see women succeed. That's where the business started. There's magic in the air,
00:51:03.460
but most people have not sold anything. There became the push to put off a successful image.
00:51:09.360
Deanne said, I got the weight loss surgery. I can hook you up. What the f***?
00:51:13.500
They wanted them to drink the Kool-Aid. Let's just shower people with events. In 14 months,
00:51:21.820
They're using cheap language of feminism. We were empowered, and then the husband was
00:51:26.040
supposed to take over. What inspired the empowerment of women for you?
00:51:31.140
Can I jump in there, and then you can talk? Yeah.
00:51:33.040
Oh my goodness. If you're just listening and didn't actually see that trailer, you can just
00:51:54.180
click on it on Amazon. It's well worth watching. Joining me now, Roberta Blevins, a former retailer
00:52:00.020
for LuLaRoe, and Daryl Trujillo, a former LuLaRoe employee. Roberta, thanks for being here.
00:52:06.360
Daryl, thanks to you as well. So Roberta, you're in that trailer as saying, oh my God, I'm in a cult.
00:52:14.540
And when we say retailer, what it basically means is you were one of the women who was at home saying,
00:52:20.380
you know what? I'll do this. I'll spend $5,000 to $9,000 on an initial supply of these leggings
00:52:26.100
that I then will sell to women at house parties, on Facebook Lives, what have you,
00:52:32.600
and maybe improve my family's bottom line. So that's basically how it started for you, yes?
00:52:41.700
It was around $9,000 after all was said and done.
00:52:45.940
Wow. All right. And what was so attractive about LuLaRoe? It's like, at first I thought it was a play
00:52:50.260
on Lululemon, but LuLaRoe kind of coincides with the grandchildren of these two people who founded
00:52:56.180
the company. Why do women love these items so much initially?
00:53:00.860
You know, I think the problem here was that they targeted women who were stay-at-home moms,
00:53:07.020
who maybe already felt a lack of community. And these leggings came with what they called a
00:53:14.160
sisterhood, a community. It was a really amazing opportunity, or so it looked. And it was very easy
00:53:21.600
to sort of fall into it and say, you know what? Like, I can do this. And when you've got every
00:53:28.360
single person in the company behind you saying, you definitely can do this, girl. You know, you have
00:53:32.920
this sort of like false feminist women empowerment that makes you think that this is a really good idea
00:53:38.960
when, in fact, we find out that it was not. Mm-hmm. Because this isn't going to a good place,
00:53:44.320
as the audience has already surmised the fact that we're doing a story on it, and Amazon did a
00:53:48.080
documentary on it, and you two are here. So let me ask you, Daryl, because you got, you're like the
00:53:53.400
star of the documentary. You're so like, matter of fact, and all your comments, you're very amusing.
00:53:58.600
And you said that you were a referee before you got, you saw an ad on Craigslist for data entry,
00:54:06.380
right? What were you refereeing? I was a high school volleyball referee at the time. I had
00:54:11.740
made a couple straight CIF Southern Section Final Fours as a line judge. I'd started breaking into
00:54:17.980
college assignments. At the time, my real, I guess you could say, adult job was working at a Steve
00:54:25.120
Madden. So I was working Steve Madden retail and refereeing at the same time and making it work.
00:54:31.380
But, you know, I just needed something full-time for benefits and for, you know, all those things.
00:54:35.880
Yeah. You get sucked into this company, run by this very dynamic, you can't take that away from
00:54:42.380
them, couple, Deanne and Mark Stidham. They founded it, I guess it was founded in 2012. She started
00:54:49.840
making maxi skirts in her own home and selling them like crazy. And the couple realized, hey,
00:54:55.360
we're onto something. You know, there's a business to be had here in women's fashion. And here,
00:55:00.440
you heard a little bit of the soundbite in that trailer, but I just want the audience to see them
00:55:05.160
and hear them. This is a question. This is from the documentary where they're being asked
00:55:10.300
about the empowerment of women, female empowerment. Listen to Mark and Deanne.
00:55:16.900
What inspired the empowerment of women for you?
00:55:21.400
Can I jump in there and then you can talk? Yeah. Yeah. Because, yeah. Yeah. I know I have
00:55:29.240
something. No, I watched my wife shatter glass ceilings. I mean, there was no, she was able
00:55:38.160
to make the money she was willing to go out and make. I started thinking when I did that.
00:55:45.720
No, she, she, she literally went out on the road and sold 20,000 maxi skirts and made hundreds of
00:55:53.160
thousands of dollars profit in a very short period of time. And so the empowering women came from me
00:55:59.140
being married to a powerful wife. I love that he steals the answer. So, all right. So let me get
00:56:05.140
back to you and ask you, Roberta. So you're like, okay, cool. I'm going to sell these legs. I'm going
00:56:08.660
to make some extra cash. But there was a second secret, not really that secret strain of income.
00:56:15.020
That was really what the business was all about. And it didn't really have to do with you getting
00:56:20.420
out there and pushing the leggings on people. What did it have to do with recruitment? Just like any
00:56:26.180
pyramid scheme, it was 100% about recruitment and getting more people involved, more people on board
00:56:31.980
than I thought it was about sales. So explain what that would entail.
00:56:36.700
So the recruitment for LuLaRoe was basically to get more people to join underneath you and to
00:56:41.700
create your own team. You would get a percentage of sales or a percentage of their, their sales
00:56:47.300
essentially, but the way that it was structured, it wasn't. As you learned, there were a lot of
00:56:52.880
sort of nefarious things going on, but what happens is you, you get people to join underneath
00:56:58.720
you and you build this sort of leggings empire.
00:57:02.640
So you get, if you get, let's say 50 people to spend $5,000 on LuLaRoe leggings that they're
00:57:09.600
then supposed to go out and pedal. Do you get a percentage of their initial purchase or do
00:57:16.640
you have to wait until they actually start selling?
00:57:19.280
Oh no, you definitely get anything that they purchased. You would get a percentage on. So
00:57:24.360
that first initial onboarding package between five and $9,000, you would get a nice, I want
00:57:30.740
to say it was probably $400 minimum in a bonus for one person. So when it was at the height,
00:57:38.120
you were getting so many people joining at once. Those, those bonus checks were super duper padded.
00:57:42.820
Plus you would get percentages on people that joined under those people at infinium. Um, it was,
00:57:48.680
it was just really, it was all about building the most powerful pyramid possible.
00:57:55.120
So this is what they say. And I should say that, uh, that the couple denies is a pyramid scheme
00:57:58.820
and we'll get into that. But, uh, the thing about a pyramid scheme is the only people who make money
00:58:03.040
and you can make money are the people who join early. You got to be at the top of the pyramid and
00:58:07.140
have all those people underneath you because eventually you reach the point of saturation where there's
00:58:11.840
just too many people out there doing it. There's not enough people to recruit and, you know,
00:58:15.560
the market won't warrant 50,000 sellers of LuLaRoe leggings in Cincinnati. And so if you're at the
00:58:23.200
bottom of that scheme, it's not going to work out for you. And that's kind of how this came to the
00:58:27.140
light of the authorities and the lawyers and even the people pushing the leggings, uh, Daryl. So you
00:58:32.680
worked, you take a job for data entry and you're dealing with emails and tell us about the family.
00:58:37.740
Cause it wasn't just Mark and Deanne. It was like their entire family running this thing. And
00:58:42.560
this winds up being a billion dollar company. Yeah. Um, so yeah, lo and behold, we jump into,
00:58:49.000
you know, LuLaRoe, we start working for this company and we find out that basically the entire
00:58:55.580
upper management structure is their family and a couple of, shall we say close hires, I guess is
00:59:01.520
probably the way to describe it. But as we start to, you know, you start to watch the documentary
00:59:08.140
and I live this personally, you start to figure out that none of them have a clue how to run a
00:59:13.620
corporation of this size. I mean, look at, look at their backgrounds. Mark was a concrete, uh,
00:59:18.600
contractor before, uh, becoming LuLaRoe's, you know, COO or president or whatever you want to call him.
00:59:24.260
Um, and you look at the issues that they've had, no credible retailer has had these issues. Look at
00:59:32.560
the fact that they've been sued by the state of Washington that settled out for 4.75 million. Look at
00:59:38.280
the fact that they're under lawsuit by the state of Alaska for improper sales tax collection, which
00:59:43.560
if, um, Alaska wins, the maximum penalty is $36 million. Actually it's like 36 and a half million
00:59:50.920
dollars. Cause they were allegedly charging sales tax in States where you can't charge sales tax,
00:59:56.760
which is correct. That's one way of making money. They deny it. And the maximum penalty under Alaska
01:00:02.060
law is, I think it's like 500 bucks per occurrence. So it could be a big number. So you're walking
01:00:07.880
around and you're like, there's nobody here who really knows how to run a billion dollar company,
01:00:10.880
but success came quickly. They say, um, they did $9.8 million worth of sales in 2014 with
01:00:19.880
750 distributors. I think that means people like you, right? Is that, that means people,
01:00:25.080
um, like you, Roberta, right? When they're using distributors is you. Yeah. So they had 750. Okay.
01:00:31.660
Then, so that's 2014, uh, 750 people helping them out. 2015, 2000 distributors, 2016, 26,000
01:00:42.060
distributors and a billion dollars in sales. By 2017, they had 80,000 independent distributors,
01:00:49.020
meaning women, mostly women, some guys selling their product and it peaked and who knows what
01:00:53.900
the sales were, but I'm sure it was over a billion dollars that year. So it wasn't just,
01:00:58.560
okay, you're going to make a bunch of money. It was several things that are a little cult-like,
01:01:03.040
like the, the, the cruises, the celebrity, the sisterhood, the empowerment talk. Can you,
01:01:11.300
can you talk a little bit about that, Roberta? Yeah. Um, you know, it was very culty and,
01:01:18.260
and I didn't really notice it at first because I was so vulnerable when I joined and I was just so
01:01:23.960
happy to have a community of women who supported me and thought I was awesome and thought I was just
01:01:30.220
as cool as I thought I was. Um, and so in the beginning I sort of ignored it, you know, it was
01:01:34.960
just like, yeah, I have friends. This is awesome. Um, as I got deeper into the organization and sort of
01:01:41.980
climbed the ladder, so to speak, um, I started to have a pretty good vantage point of things that
01:01:47.820
were happening and I could see things and there was a lot of culty stuff that was happening and
01:01:52.760
it didn't sit well with me. And I have friends who have left cults. And so I sort of was seeing a lot
01:01:57.620
of red flags, um, and it started making me feel very uncomfortable. And so I started asking questions
01:02:03.760
and in a cult that is not allowed, I learned the hard way that asking questions, uh, was not going
01:02:10.720
to get me anywhere in this organization. Like what were the, some of the things that you thought were
01:02:14.680
culty? Well, um, so if I started researching Steven Hassan's bite model after I left LuLaRoe.
01:02:23.600
And so a lot of things that I experienced in LuLaRoe, I didn't even realize were culty until I had
01:02:28.260
educated myself after the fact, the fact that they control what we wear. That's a cult tactic.
01:02:33.900
The fact that they control what we do, who we spend time with the, the amount of time that we're
01:02:40.040
on zoom calls and conferences, the sleep deprivation that you get. These are all cult tactics. These are
01:02:46.740
all tiny little things when put together equal a gigantic cult. Um, the fact that LuLaRoe can never
01:02:53.340
be at fault for anything. And every single thing that goes wrong is someone else's fault.
01:02:58.260
And never LuLaRoe's fault. That is a huge cult tactic. When, and when you first signed up,
01:03:03.860
can you tell us a little bit about your family situation? Yeah. When I signed up, um, I, I had
01:03:10.520
joined the MLM complex, which is what, what we call it. The MLM complex about a year or so earlier
01:03:15.880
selling a different company. Um, my father MLM stands for multi-level marketing, which is very common
01:03:23.120
in the United States. It's not always a pyramid scheme, but it's at least a red flag. If you find
01:03:27.400
out you're working for an MLM company, sorry, go ahead. Of course. So, um, I was a young mom. I
01:03:34.280
want to say my daughter was about three or four at the time. My father had just recently passed away.
01:03:39.280
I was still a newlywed. It was a very, very tumultuous time in my life. And I just really
01:03:45.980
was looking for something that made sense. And what did your husband think? I felt like I was
01:03:53.560
just a mom. I was just a wife. I had felt that I had lost my identity as a woman. And I was looking
01:04:00.040
for something that could give that to me. And I was a hairstylist and I was traveling all over
01:04:05.860
California from San Diego to Los Angeles doing hair. And it took me out of the home a lot.
01:04:10.100
And I really just wanted more normalcy in my life. Ironically.
01:04:18.600
Um, no, he, he didn't, he was not interested in it. He said that if I was going to do it,
01:04:23.560
it needed to be 100% my thing. He was not going to be involved in it and, uh, any failures would be
01:04:29.300
mine. So, you know, I said, okay, I think I can do this. And I went and joined.
01:04:36.160
So then you, you start doing it. And, but I, the reason I asked you that question is because
01:04:40.920
in the documentary, there's another gal who's on camera saying, my husband was like, this is a
01:04:45.760
pyramid scheme. And, and the woman's like, and I told him this is not a pyramid scheme. And
01:04:50.660
what the documentary missed was the soundbite from the husband going, I tried to tell her that's what
01:04:56.440
I wanted to see. But anyway, um, so you start actually doing it and talk to us about the kind
01:05:03.500
of dough you were making. And like, as the riches started to come in, what you and your husband
01:05:09.180
start thinking about this whole gig. Well, I will say that I was not one of those people in the
01:05:13.300
documentary that was making a hundred thousand dollar checks. I was right in the middle of that
01:05:17.120
Kool-Aid flavored primordial ooze, um, right in the middle. So I made decent money for a normal
01:05:24.060
person that lives in Southern California. It was nothing astronomical. I want to say I was selling
01:05:28.960
five to $10,000 a month. And my bonus checks were anywhere from, I think my smallest was 400
01:05:35.540
and my biggest was 6,000. So I was definitely not one of those big people that was building dream
01:05:40.920
houses and buying, you know, vacation homes or anything like that. Um, it basically allowed me
01:05:47.700
to quit traveling and going between salons through Southern California and be able to just stay home.
01:05:53.620
And so leaving that one job, LuLaRoe replaced that income. So I was never rolling in the dough.
01:06:01.960
Um, it really, it just sustained my current life and brought me home.
01:06:07.100
Well, what's crazy is the, the women who really crushed it. And again, there were a few men, but
01:06:12.780
the ones who really crushed it to me, this is like, Oh God, they seem to take advantage of how social
01:06:19.980
women are and, and how really one of our ways in which we are powerful is our ability to connect
01:06:26.620
socially and emotionally with other people. This is why women are very good at the get out the vote
01:06:30.780
campaigns, right? Like they know a lot of people, they stay connected to a lot of people through
01:06:35.600
their kids' schools, through the PTA, through whatever it is. And a lot of women themselves saw
01:06:42.080
that as an opportunity, like, okay, this is working out well for me. I sold my $5,000 worth of inventory
01:06:47.420
like that. So I'm going to tell my other, you know, moms in my book club, in my wine club, in my
01:06:54.160
school club about this. And then each one of those moms is kind of under that woman. She gets a piece
01:07:01.080
of their sales and then they recruit women and she gets a piece of their sales, sort of the
01:07:06.060
grandchildren, and then the great grandchildren and down and down it goes. Um, and so if you're at
01:07:11.700
the top of that, you do become Lula Rich, as they say. Um, but as we saw with Bernie Madoff, it only
01:07:18.480
lasts while people are still putting into the pyramid and then it can come down in tatters. Okay. Um, I'm
01:07:25.280
joined today by Roberta Blevins and Daryl Trujillo. They star in Amazon's new documentary series, Lula
01:07:31.760
Rich. Up next, we're going to start talking, we're going to talk about what happened when these leggings
01:07:35.760
started to smell and realized that all over them, certain things had what looked very much like
01:07:41.200
penis designs, which is not really what you want on your leggings. Uh, and coming up in just a little
01:07:46.920
bit, we're going to be taking your calls. Are you a daycare worker forced to shove masks on the faces
01:07:52.540
of young children? Are you feeling ticked off at the Emmy hypocrisy? Give me a call. 833-44-MEGYN.
01:08:00.240
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01:08:37.960
Welcome back to the show, everybody. Uh, we're joined today by Roberta Blevins and Daryl Trujillo,
01:08:42.980
stars of the new Amazon documentary, Lula Rich. And by the way, we're going to be taking calls in our
01:08:48.180
next segment. Uh, if you want to talk about this poor little guy, we'll play the soundbite for you
01:08:53.200
again in a minute and the masking of our children against their will when they're two. I mean, okay,
01:08:58.220
we can talk about the 17 year olds, the two year olds. Anyway, we're upset about it. And we're
01:09:02.640
taking your calls at 833-44-MEGYN, 833-446-3496. Okay. So Roberta, I'm reading your numbers here.
01:09:11.820
And this is from the documentary. You say, I purchased like eight, 78,000 worth of wholesale inventory in
01:09:17.860
the year and a half I was there and I sold 83,000. So you really didn't make much money selling the
01:09:25.400
leggings, but in bonuses, I made over 65,000, you say so that the bonuses are from recruiting the
01:09:32.140
other people. So, I mean, the, the reason that the owners say this isn't a pyramid scam is because
01:09:38.280
they say you got inventory. You had goods to sell. You did make some money. There's, you know,
01:09:44.880
other goods being exchanged. Some people were better at it than others. Why is that not true?
01:09:49.740
Well, you know, the deck was stacked. Um, there are a lot of issues and even things that weren't
01:09:56.940
shown in the documentary. There's so much to the story and we've been working on it for so long.
01:10:01.900
There's just so much to tell. And there just, just didn't seem to be enough time, but
01:10:05.120
a lot of things happened. You know, these were stacked. This was stacked against a lot of women.
01:10:10.600
I was never encouraged to sell. I was always encouraged to be building my team and training
01:10:17.020
my team. Um, and just have one sale a week, just have a sale, just have like one sale a week.
01:10:21.580
Don't worry about it. You're focusing on a team. You're focusing on training. And so I never worried
01:10:27.660
about that kind of stuff. This, the sales kept my boutique afloat and the bonuses, you know, took care
01:10:34.460
of my bills. So for me, it really, it worked in that way because I didn't understand what was
01:10:40.440
happening and they didn't understand what was going on. And those numbers were actually evidence
01:10:44.800
in the lawsuit in Washington as proof that this is a pyramid scheme.
01:10:50.700
Because if you can't get enough recruits below you, you're not going to make any money is really
01:10:54.320
the allegation once it gets too ubiquitous. But the problems as I understand it with these leggings
01:11:00.340
wasn't just that it became too ubiquitous, that too many women were trying to sell in these
01:11:05.620
communities. And there's only so many women you can get below you and so much inventory you can
01:11:09.540
peddle before people are like, all right, there's not enough market for that. Um, the other problem
01:11:14.780
was the quality and you tell me, did it, cause I, I saw in the documentary that it was not so good,
01:11:20.860
but did it deteriorate? Was it, did it start off good?
01:11:24.920
That's a hard question, Megan. Maybe, maybe it started off good. Sometimes I got good stuff in my
01:11:31.100
boxes, thick quality prints, uh, yeah. Thick fabrics, quality prints, things like that. Um,
01:11:36.880
and sometimes I got stuff that stunk so bad, uh, my entire house smelled. Um, and so for me,
01:11:45.260
you know, I, I still had, when I left, I still had inventory from my initial inventory purchase.
01:11:52.320
Oh, wow. So it wasn't all that popular. All right. So, so what they say in the documentary is that
01:11:57.020
once there was so much demand, when you have all those quote retailers out there, women selling it
01:12:03.460
at their little parties or on Facebook live, um, they had to meet the demand, the demand that they
01:12:08.900
allegedly artificially, artificially created, you know, that the demand is really just from the quote
01:12:14.260
retailers buying it, then trying to pedal it off, but they weren't doing so great in the sales as it
01:12:18.960
turns out. Um, but they say, uh, the allegation is that they had to supply so many of these quote
01:12:25.380
retailers with the product that they started cutting corners and the product became super thin
01:12:31.180
and it would rip all the time. And some of the, they didn't have room in the warehouses to store
01:12:37.140
the product before it got shipped. And so therefore some of the products got wet before it got shipped.
01:12:42.540
It sounds like you may have been on the receiving end of that as in the trailer there, we heard you
01:12:46.160
talking about it smelling like, shall we say dead gas, the smell of gas, someone who's particularly
01:12:52.120
gassy arriving in your home. How bad was it? It was so bad. Um, in the numerous interviews that
01:13:00.680
I've done in the last four years, talking about these leggings, I have called them a variety of
01:13:04.540
things, but they've always somehow included the word dead. Um, oftentimes we talk about rats,
01:13:10.740
the way that dead rats smell or chlorinated items, something like, you know, being in pool chlorine.
01:13:19.040
It just, it felt very chemically smelly. Um, it just was, it was really bad. And I wish that I could
01:13:26.900
come up with a more eloquent way of saying what they smelled like than I did in the documentary,
01:13:33.420
but I've tried and I can't. No, you nailed it. I have to say it really brought it home. Well,
01:13:37.920
your, your terminology. So did you, well, you'd call them up, you call the home office and say,
01:13:43.260
I can't sell these. They smell like dead rats. So, and what would they tell you?
01:13:47.920
So I didn't actually call them. Uh, it was very hard to get through on the phones. Uh,
01:13:51.940
Daryl can probably attest to that as he was on the other end of them. Um, hour long wait times.
01:13:56.400
I realized that it was a waste of my time to even try to do that. So I always went with email.
01:14:00.700
I sent an email. I said, Hey, I can't sell these. They stink really bad. They asked for photos
01:14:05.860
of the damages, which I thought was just ridiculous. I said, I don't know how to take pictures of stink,
01:14:11.340
but they stink real bad. They told me to put them in the freezer. They told me to wash them.
01:14:15.880
They told me to sell them at a discount. None of those things seemed like a viable professional
01:14:20.500
option for somebody running a business. Um, so I just sealed them up and kept them and, uh,
01:14:27.140
they've served me well. Oh my God. It's like Monica Lewinsky in the blue dress. You never throw out
01:14:32.700
the evidence, but you're, you raise a good point. Who the hell wants to put leggings that smell like bad
01:14:37.520
gas in their freezer right next to their kids popsicles. That is sick. Okay. So now I will
01:14:44.720
offer, um, the defense of the company among others is that, you know, some people know how to hustle
01:14:51.740
and some people don't, some people are good salespeople and some people aren't. And if you
01:14:55.020
couldn't manage to sell the, you know, the leggings that occasionally were too thin or didn't have the
01:14:59.700
greatest design that's on you here is, um, Mark, Mark Stidham sort of making that point from the
01:15:06.340
documentary. Listen, I have threatened to lobby Congress to pass a bill that in every single
01:15:12.420
maternity ward of every hospital, you have to put a sign over the door that says, welcome to life.
01:15:18.840
Your experience may vary. We have equal opportunity. We do not promise equal outcome.
01:15:29.920
What people did with it, how they saw it, how they participated in it is up to them.
01:15:37.700
It's just the same rhetoric that Mark always is talking about. It's the same rhetoric you'll get
01:15:43.040
from any MLM when anybody decides that the 99.7% loss rate just isn't for them. So you're going to
01:15:49.620
get people from the top of all of those cults telling you that you're the reason that this didn't work.
01:15:55.600
Um, and it's just simply not true in a, in a system that is systemically designed for you to fail,
01:16:01.840
that has a 99.7% loss rate. That's worse than gambling. That's worse than actual pyramid schemes
01:16:08.820
that are actually illegal. That's the odds are stacked against you. It's unfair for somebody to
01:16:15.200
tell you that you're a failure in an industry that is designed for you to fail.
01:16:19.680
Yeah. The whole thing is based on it. And what's so infuriating about the language he uses there is
01:16:24.080
I think a lot of people, um, in this country right now agree you're entitled to an equal chance and not
01:16:30.220
to a perfectly equal outcome and equity versus equality, all that he's sort of stealing terms
01:16:35.640
that are being, that are being used in the public debate right now and applying them to justify this
01:16:41.580
scheme that was used against women who are just trying to help their families. And the, the term
01:16:47.640
used in the documentary, and I think it's apt is gaslighting that you're being gas lit. Cause
01:16:53.520
whenever you go to them and say, Ooh, smells really bad. The ripping women don't want some,
01:16:58.760
what looks like penises all over their leggings. I think we have a picture of that. It was supposed
01:17:02.320
to be a little Eiffel tower. So the Eiffel tower placed in the wrong part of your body can look an
01:17:06.800
awful lot like it. Yeah, there it is. Can look an awful lot like, like a penis. And they're looking at
01:17:12.700
you saying you're a shitty salesperson. Yeah. It's on you. It's your fault. It's your fault.
01:17:20.060
You can't smell, or I'm sorry. It's your fault that you can't sell stinky clothes. It's your fault
01:17:26.020
that you can't sell things that have holes in it that are soaking wet. It's your fault.
01:17:30.360
You should be trying harder. So what was happening internally, Daryl, during all of this, like as the
01:17:35.340
lawsuit started coming, because finally the women started to get smart as they always do. We might not
01:17:40.220
always get there immediately, but we get there eventually. Um, they start connecting with
01:17:45.640
lawyers and class action start to get filed against the company, which was all over the
01:17:50.440
place. First, it said, Oh, give us your $5,000 and we'll give you our leggings. And we guarantee
01:17:54.780
you get your money back. If you want to exchange them, you decide you don't want to be a Lulu,
01:17:58.080
uh, Lula Rose. I shouldn't say Lulu. That's totally different company. Lula Rose seller. We'll give
01:18:03.260
you your money back. And then suddenly when like the shit was starting hitting the fan and people
01:18:07.140
started bailing, they were like, yeah, forget about that. You're not getting your money back.
01:18:10.580
And they started gouging the people who are at the top of the, you know, scheme and sort of saying,
01:18:14.840
you're not getting any commissions, blah, blah, blah. Lawsuits came. You were internal in the company
01:18:19.420
for some of this. What was the reaction inside by the family? The reaction from the family was they
01:18:27.540
were the ones who came up with this, the, you know, the whole revocation of buyback from a hundred to
01:18:32.880
90. Um, and my floor was the one that had to deal with the, uh, outcome, which was between
01:18:40.600
that and any number of issues that this company was going through at that time. You could conceivably
01:18:46.920
clock in at seven 30 in the morning, go home at four 30 or five o'clock in the afternoon. And every
01:18:53.440
call you took in the time in between minus your lunch, you would get yelled at by an angry retailer.
01:18:57.180
Um, these people didn't care. This family did not care about the welfare of their, um, employees,
01:19:02.400
um, that were making pittance wages for defending their policies. Um, they just cared about their
01:19:08.840
greed as evidenced by the fact that I saw numerous breakdowns on the retailer services floor,
01:19:13.160
my own supervisor during a power outage on a Monday morning, um, somebody in our own department,
01:19:19.680
um, probably I want to say a week or two before that. And the head of accounting, Deanne's son,
01:19:26.400
Michael Brady, threatening that girl's husband with his job for helping us to try to take care
01:19:31.980
of these women. At that point, I kind of figured out what was, you know, the writing was on the wall
01:19:37.960
and, uh, these people were all about their greed and being celebrity and, um, not about taking care
01:19:44.900
of the, the, the women that signed up to sell these clothes. The documentary does a good job of
01:19:51.020
talking about the thing with celebrity, like they hired Mario Lopez for one of their events. They hired
01:19:55.740
Katy Perry for something reportedly in the, in the piece around $5 million, even though, uh,
01:20:02.600
they were already falling into some trouble. They hired, uh, Kelly Clarkson and you had an issue
01:20:09.000
with that. You had one of the lines of the movie, Daryl, when you're talking about Kelly Clarkson,
01:20:11.920
how you're never going to go see Kelly Clarkson again. Why is it Kelly Clarkson's fault? I didn't
01:20:16.320
understand why, why, why did you change your feelings on her?
01:20:19.820
Megan. Um, for me, it's, it's not her, it's the PR people know who you're performing for. If you're
01:20:29.820
at that level of, um, celebrity, um, all it would have taken was probably a two minute Google search
01:20:37.220
for that PR person to figure out, Hey, Lula Rose in the crapper. They've had got, you know, 40, 50,
01:20:42.060
some odd lawsuits against them in a span of, um, let's see, at that point, it would have been 2018.
01:20:48.460
So three and a half, four years. Um, and then you look at what they're being sued for. And,
01:20:54.820
and then at that point, all he would have had to say is, look, this doesn't align with us. Let's
01:20:59.580
not do it. Or she would have had to say, Hey, this doesn't align with what I want. Let's not do it.
01:21:04.640
But no, that's not what happened. That PR rep probably did not do that two minute Google search
01:21:09.240
step that PR rep probably cared about, um, what Kelly's check was going to be for that concert.
01:21:13.940
Um, and said, okay, we'll do it. And obviously four years later, three years later, look at where
01:21:20.040
we are. Well, it was 2017, early 2017, that the better business bureau downgraded the company's
01:21:25.720
rating to an F to an F in response to all these complaints that started coming in from customers
01:21:31.440
about rips or holes or what have you. And Daryl, can I ask you about the designers? Because
01:21:36.800
the filmmakers got one of the designers who, you know, the, the patterns on the leggings were one
01:21:42.200
of the things that made them so attractive to a lot of women. I'm from New York, so we only wear
01:21:46.940
black, brown, gray, or Navy, but most people in America like colors and patterns and fun, happy
01:21:54.360
clothing. And, um, the designers, the woman in the piece was talking about the incredible pressure
01:22:01.640
she was under. She kept talking about having the figurative gun to her head to come up with so many
01:22:08.320
designs per day and they could never be the same. Yeah. And that's how it was in, uh, any retailer
01:22:14.260
services department at LuLaRoe and probably how it still is right now. Um, for like, for example,
01:22:19.540
my department and the email department, we had to hit 150 emails per day and they didn't care if you
01:22:25.660
were answering the person's question on the other end. They didn't care if, um, you were completely
01:22:30.920
resolving their issue. They just wanted their 150 emails in eight hours and go home at the end of the
01:22:35.200
day. Um, whether you were taking care of somebody or not. And, um, like my whole team, we cared about
01:22:41.160
trying to take care of the folks that we were trying to serve. Um, all they cared about upstairs on the
01:22:45.620
sixth floor was the number. Um, and we, we, we would take, uh, hits on numbers just to be able to solve
01:22:53.160
things. And that would get us, you know, reamed into by our supervisors, um, because they were
01:22:58.760
hearing it from upstairs. Um, we had to help enrollments, um, the enrollment folks, when, uh,
01:23:06.040
there was that mass onboarding of, uh, 2016, 2017. Um, which if there's time, I, I do have a story about
01:23:13.800
that, which is in the documentary. What do you mean? When you talk about mass onboarding, they got a lot of
01:23:19.380
people to come in like Roberta, the people under Roberta that when they were saying, well, we'll
01:23:24.340
guarantee everything, we'll give you a refund. You know, it's no problem. You know, there's basically
01:23:27.400
no risk to you be part of our family mass onboarding. And what's your story?
01:23:32.260
So, um, they have come in on a Saturday. Uh, it was like a eight to four 30 kind of thing.
01:23:39.280
Lunch was catered. Whoever wanted to come in, it was optional over time. So I'm like, okay,
01:23:42.660
I'll jump on the overtime. Right. Um, and at one point towards the tail end of the afternoon,
01:23:48.240
I remember placing a call to Florida and literally, literally getting ahold of a lady to enroll
01:23:54.700
in this company in the middle of her bachelorette park. So obviously I'm hearing, you know, the sounds
01:24:00.100
of a club in the background and all that. And she steps out to take the call. We complete the
01:24:05.840
onboarding call and, you know, I hang up the phone and then I just, I start to chuckle at myself and I
01:24:10.920
look at the rest of the floor and I'm like, I just enrolled a lady in the middle of her bachelorette party.
01:24:15.480
I just chuckle for the next hour. Basically. It was a huge deal. Roberta, you talk about that in
01:24:21.820
the film. Like they made it feel like it was hard to get. So you felt like you were being led into an
01:24:28.480
exclusive club. Absolutely. They use FOMO or the fear of missing out as a way to manipulate dopamine.
01:24:38.540
Hmm. It's like Bernie Madoff. Bernie Madoff never went around and said,
01:24:44.000
please, please invest your money with me. He made it seem like you couldn't get in. Like he didn't
01:24:48.960
need your money. And if you hinted, he'd be like, no, that's all part of it. Not, you know, we'll see
01:24:53.940
how it plays out, but these guys have now settled to your point earlier, Daryl. Uh, they've settled
01:24:57.680
with the state of Washington, which is, uh, was accusing them of all sorts of bad things. And
01:25:01.340
they've got several class actions against them. One of them, by the way, is, um, suggesting that,
01:25:06.840
uh, they was reported in the documentary that they inappropriately took designs off of Google
01:25:12.720
to, because their designers were under so much pressure to come up with new designs,
01:25:16.380
a hundred a day and so on. Uh, but I mean, the number of class action law school lawsuits goes
01:25:20.740
on and on. So your thought now, cause Roberta, they're not out of business. They're not out of
01:25:24.360
business. They've had, they've taken a big hit in the PR campaign. A lot of women like you left,
01:25:29.980
there's some in the documentary talk about how they lost their husband. They lost their house.
01:25:34.100
They had to give back those big cars. They got repoed. So lives have been destroyed,
01:25:38.060
but they're still in business. And your thoughts on that or what?
01:25:41.500
I mean, you know, that's why I continue to speak out. And that's why I continue to be a voice for
01:25:46.360
the victims of not only LuLaRoe, but multi-level marketing. You know, I have a podcast where I talk
01:25:51.380
to victims of multi-level marketing and we share these stories and Megan, they are all the same.
01:25:55.640
They are all the same from inception to the end. These women and men, 76% of women, uh,
01:26:04.680
or I will say it's about 76% of participants in multi-level marketing are women. So there are men
01:26:10.540
in this as well, and they're targeted in a completely different way. That's just,
01:26:14.840
just as just as disgusting on the other side of the coin. Um, it's heartbreaking to me that people
01:26:21.280
continue to think that this is the answer to the prayers, to their desperation, to anything that
01:26:28.860
they've been looking for. They think that these businesses are going to change their lives for
01:26:32.500
the better. And it's it, they will change your life, but it's not going to be for the better.
01:26:37.500
Um, and so, yeah, you know, I speak out, I share my story. I share the other stories. I think a lot
01:26:43.060
of people are probably sick of hearing mine. So I like to share other people's stories because
01:26:46.380
it is so unbelievably important that we know, and we understand what these companies are capable of
01:26:52.660
doing. And the fact that they're allowed to continue to exist through these, you know,
01:26:58.260
basic loopholes. Yeah. There's an expert in the film saying nine times out of 10,
01:27:03.040
they get away with this, that it is legal if sketchy. And that's why they don't get immediately
01:27:07.780
shut down. Um, and if you're making revenues like they're making maybe $5 million in a payout,
01:27:13.760
isn't so bad, though, they've got some master or massive other lawsuits still pending. And those
01:27:19.800
will play out in the courts. Um, watch the documentary because it's got interviews with
01:27:24.280
Deanne and Mark giving more of their side and with a lot of the women who got sucked in.
01:27:29.120
And Daryl, I do think that you were the star and I'm not going to steal your closing line.
01:27:34.240
I'm going to let the, the audience enjoy that as I did organically as they watch the film.
01:27:40.880
Thank you both so much for being here. All the best to you.
01:27:45.420
And don't forget you guys, Lula Rich is now streaming on Amazon prime video. Again,
01:27:50.100
the same people who did fire festival, which is another documentary absolutely should watch.
01:27:54.040
And up next, we are going to take calls on this video that we showed at the top of the show
01:28:01.480
Who's side are you on Mason or the crazy teacher insisting on enforcing this policy that's been
01:28:22.700
handed down to her? I mean, I don't, you tell me, call me 833-44-MEGYN. 833-446-3496. We're taking
01:28:34.100
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01:29:07.560
Welcome back, everyone. The phone lines are open. I'm ready to take your calls. It's 833-444.
01:29:14.320
It's an homage to Syracuse University where I went. Megan, M-E-G-Y-N, 833-446-3496.
01:29:24.620
And we're going to take our first caller who is Michael from North Carolina. Michael,
01:29:30.660
Hi, Megan. I'm definitely on Mason's side on this whole thing with the masking because I think what
01:29:37.660
these teachers were so happily doing is indoctrinating these children and indoctrinating
01:29:43.700
our kids all over the country because, well, it worked very well in China. A good example of this
01:29:50.700
was in 1990 and 1992. The idea of a homosexual serving openly in the military was unheard of.
01:29:59.520
But after President Clinton's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy went for 20 years, pop culture started
01:30:05.180
plugging homosexuality into comedies and dramas and TV shows everywhere. And over that course of 20
01:30:13.160
years, everybody just came to accept it. And now nobody thinks twice about it. It's just part of
01:30:19.200
life. So I think what they're doing is they're indoctrinating our kids to think everybody has
01:30:24.700
to wear a mask. You have to comply. You have to obey. I think it's atrocious.
01:30:29.960
That's fascinating. I mean, I don't know if you're complaining about gay and lesbian serving openly in
01:30:36.540
the military. I happen to think that's a great thing because I do think that they should have equal
01:30:40.420
rights and they should have the right to marriage. And I realize not everybody agrees with that,
01:30:43.720
more conservative Christians in particular. But this, to me, doesn't feel like the same thing
01:30:47.820
because it isn't good to have the hand of big government over your face all day. You know,
01:30:52.780
I don't want my kids or Mason to have what is it does seem almost like a stand in for the hand of
01:30:59.860
big government over their faces all day. It should be up to me, especially given that the science is not
01:31:06.280
there to support it. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Because in response to what you said,
01:31:12.900
honestly, homosexuals have been serving in multiple armies for hundreds of years. It's just
01:31:19.920
they were quiet about it. There's no issues with anybody serving because if they're going to step up
01:31:24.680
and serve, it's fantastic. But the hypocrisy that we're seeing, like you were pointing out,
01:31:30.160
where the mayor is going to go out and party at the black cat and be unapologetic about it and say,
01:31:37.980
oh, look, I have my own rules, but you all have to do what I tell you because my, you know, me and my
01:31:45.000
influential friends all tell you to. Right. And meanwhile, she's in California where
01:31:50.720
the governor's office specifically sent out a tweet saying, we expect you to pull your mask up in
01:31:56.580
between bites and in between sips, which is absurd. And by the way, if you've flown at all lately,
01:32:01.260
you know, the policy is the same on all of our U.S. airlines. And if you don't, you get this,
01:32:06.480
the flight attendants coming down like your mask has to be up in between bites. Your mask has to be up
01:32:10.920
in between sips. It's like, are you kidding me? I mean, it's like, well, what about when I'm actively
01:32:15.400
chewing? I've put the peanuts in my mouth. Now I'm chewing up or down, up or down. Let's let's go
01:32:21.180
through it together. We're at that point of micromanagement of ourselves and our kids.
01:32:26.400
And it's infuriating. Michael, thank you for the call. I want to get down to Tony in Texas. Hey,
01:32:30.980
Tony, what's on your mind? Hey, Megan, I'm glad to hear you're back. I wish you were back on
01:32:36.280
the networks. You have a great voice. Thank you. And a very reasonable person. I'm sorry,
01:32:43.580
whatever happened, happened. But I just think it is. I know everybody says it's not right or left,
01:32:48.800
but I do think it is a party issue. And I do think the Republicans have demonstrated
01:32:52.620
a resistance to big government and the Democrats have pushed it further and further. I think you
01:32:59.440
could see that by the governors across the country as we've dealt with COVID. And it's really up to
01:33:05.580
the American people. In my view, you got to vote and you got to vote people out, you know, who want
01:33:11.280
to run your life or, you know, I guess we'll just become a country where the government runs
01:33:15.600
everything. Well, of course, it depends on the Republicans, right? There was a story.
01:33:22.000
It's like, where was it? I feel like it was in New York State or it was Connecticut,
01:33:26.000
but it was the Northeast where they just bounced out three Republican members of the school board
01:33:31.480
because they were too weak and they weren't standing up against some of this nonsense. It was
01:33:36.780
either on CRT or COVID. I think it was CRT. And so some some stronger, you know, Republicans came in
01:33:44.520
and said, we got to get rid of them. So I do think when the Republicans are weak need,
01:33:48.500
people have to stand up. When the Democrats are pushing this nonsense, people have to stand up.
01:33:52.820
But I'm always careful not to sweep in all Democrats to this nonsense, because whether
01:33:56.880
it's critical race theory or the COVID lockdowns, because one of my dearest friends, she was diehard,
01:34:02.800
diehard Democrat. She describes herself as a flaming liberal with flames on her Twitter,
01:34:06.980
you know, emoji. She's not on board with any of this. And now, you know, she sends me pictures
01:34:12.940
of her hanging out with David Marcus of the Federalist, who I love, because all this sort
01:34:19.260
of big government overreach has brought them together. She's seen the world through a different
01:34:22.900
lens. And I don't want to I don't think we should sort of alienate people who want to be on our team
01:34:27.280
of reason just because they have a different team sweater on. Anyway, thank you for the nice comments.
01:34:32.160
Want to go to Robert in Oregon. Hey, Robert, what's happening? Hi, Megan. Thanks for calling. What's on
01:34:37.220
your mind? Basically, I don't really have a question for you. I just wanted to compliment you because
01:34:42.000
I listen to a lot of podcasts. And you're kind of like a trifecta where it's beauty,
01:34:49.400
intelligence, as well as humbleness. And I just wanted to compliment you on that, because I think
01:34:53.540
your political and ideological views, along with mine, where I describe it as I'm like an
01:34:59.060
investigator. I don't really care who the murder is, but I want to make sure I get the right one
01:35:03.120
subjects, you know. Yes. Thank you so much. That's a lovely compliment. And I especially appreciate
01:35:10.660
out of Oregon. It must be tough for you to live there with this kind of approach to the news.
01:35:15.840
Let me tell you something about Oregon. I live in southern Oregon, and the majority of Oregon is
01:35:20.180
red. However, we've got a big blueberry up north called Portland. Yes. And so there's a slogan. It's
01:35:26.740
on T-shirts around here. And it says, I'm from Oregon, not Portland. I can understand why you wear
01:35:32.620
that, because I look at a state like that. I think, how can you possibly live there? I mean,
01:35:36.280
if you're anything, you know, to the right of AOC, it feels like an inhospitable state. But maybe I've
01:35:43.200
been misjudging the southern part of the state. Southern, middle, east, west. It's mostly like
01:35:48.980
mostly just Portland and kind of Eugene. Okay. Well, this is good to know from my future travel
01:35:55.060
plans. Thank you for the kind words. Want to squeeze in Matt from Ohio. Matt, what are your
01:36:00.120
thoughts? Well, first off, I want to say I'm a huge fan. I actually told my wife the other day
01:36:06.880
that you were my celebrity crush, and she made fun of me by saying that I'm closer to your age than I
01:36:12.540
into hers. So I just thought that was really, really witty of her. That's awesome. I work at a
01:36:20.320
college, and we have a mask mandate where we are. But it's one of those things where everyone in the
01:36:28.260
office, they don't have to wear a mask. But I work in janitorial, so I have to have it on all day.
01:36:36.140
It's this thing we've been talking about, right? Like, you're part of the surf class,
01:36:40.100
so you have to cover your meaningless face, as Glenn Greenwald criticizingly said.
01:36:45.260
It's absurd. I hope, Matt, you find a way out of it. I hope we all do.
01:36:49.660
Thank you for watching. Thanks to your wife for supporting your love. I'll take it however I can
01:36:55.080
get it. And listen, don't forget to watch the show tomorrow because we've got Dr. Drew Pinsky back
01:36:59.440
with us today. He's actually bringing his daughter, which will be fun. They have a book about wokeness.
01:37:04.440
She's woke. He's not. It's going to be interesting. Download the full episode on any podcast and
01:37:10.640
youtube.com slash Megan Kelly to watch it. See you tomorrow.