The Megyn Kelly Show - September 20, 2021

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

Word count

18,043

Sentence count

1,333

Harmful content

Misogyny

47

sentences flagged

Hate speech

27

sentences flagged

Summary

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

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

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).

Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .

Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .

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00:00:31.000 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:33.140 Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:42.500 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:00:44.380 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:45.980 More COVID hypocrisy over the weekend as 500 of the biggest celebrities crammed inside a small tent.

00:00:53.300 But that's outside, you see. It's outside.

00:00:55.460 For the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, while thousands of L.A. County students, K through 12,

00:01:00.720 are forced to wear face masks all day at school, irrespective of vaccination status.

00:01:07.060 We're going to dive into that and the ongoing crisis at the border, among many other things.

00:01:11.180 And I'm very excited to be joined for the first time today

00:01:13.660 by a political commentator and host of the show, Informed Dissent, Leonidas Johnson.

00:01:20.400 Leonidas, so nice to meet you.

00:01:21.740 How are you?

00:01:22.680 I am doing great.

00:01:23.760 How nice to meet you as well, Megyn.

00:01:25.160 Thank you for having me on.

00:01:26.580 I'm thrilled.

00:01:27.260 You're one of the wonderful people who I've learned about on Twitter and then discovered

00:01:31.240 you in the digital world and now finally get the pleasure of speaking too.

00:01:34.380 So, honored to have you here.

00:01:35.820 I'm honored to be here.

00:01:36.900 It's crazy how that happens.

00:01:38.360 We talk about how disconnected we are sometimes with the digital world, but I've met so many

00:01:45.820 people just through Twitter and Facebook, so it's amazing.

00:01:49.380 I know.

00:01:49.660 Just when you think Twitter's all bad, you have a relationship like this for me and you

00:01:53.140 think, all right, well, maybe not all bad.

00:01:55.980 Not all bad.

00:01:56.720 Yeah.

00:01:56.820 Let's kick it off with these hypocrites out in Hollywood who, you know, despite lecturing

00:02:01.460 all of us and their virtue signaling with the masks and on and on, and the kids sitting

00:02:05.820 in L.A. County masked up all day, same as you saw with the Met Gala here in New York,

00:02:10.020 kids masked up all day.

00:02:12.300 Irrespective of vaccination status, these Hollywood celebrities are basically on top of each other,

00:02:17.460 hugging one another, no masks anywhere in sight.

00:02:21.140 And if they hadn't been lecturing the rest of us all the time, I wouldn't care, right?

00:02:24.840 I'm like you, get your thumb off of me, but they are lecturing us.

00:02:28.620 And it's truly yet again, rules for the year and not for me.

00:02:32.280 Every time, every single time.

00:02:34.300 And you're right.

00:02:35.400 Like it wouldn't be a big deal.

00:02:37.000 Like we want people to be unmasked.

00:02:39.000 We want people to go out and have their liberties and do what they think is best for themselves

00:02:42.480 and make their own decisions.

00:02:44.220 But the problem is that they're the ones that who are lecturing us and they're the ones who

00:02:48.860 are telling us, oh yeah, we have to have your kids masked.

00:02:51.260 This pandemic is horrible.

00:02:52.880 People are dying.

00:02:53.560 And then we see these images on TV of them celebrating on the, on the red carpet and

00:02:58.840 having their pictures taken, hugging each other after winning awards.

00:03:03.040 And when, and you see the staff standing around wearing masks and it's just, it's such a disconnect

00:03:09.360 and it's so absurd.

00:03:10.760 It's so ridiculous.

00:03:11.840 And I can't believe, I can't, I can't, can't believe people aren't catching on to what's

00:03:15.760 happening because I think it's just, isn't like Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael, aren't

00:03:21.660 they embarrassed to be standing across from the masked serfs?

00:03:25.480 You know, as Glenn Greenwald put it last week, something like, well, see their, their faces

00:03:29.480 are pointless.

00:03:30.400 Who cares about their faces? 0.90

00:03:32.640 Right.

00:03:33.000 They're like royalty.

00:03:33.980 Right.

00:03:34.180 And, and yeah, you said the masked serfs, there was a picture from the Met Gala.

00:03:39.420 I don't even know who she was.

00:03:40.880 She was wearing a dress and she had equal rights. 0.92

00:03:43.660 Carolyn Maloney.

00:03:44.940 She's my congresswoman on the Upper West Side. 0.97

00:03:47.480 Okay.

00:03:47.920 Okay.

00:03:49.500 And you see in the background, like there's all these women dressed in black and, and they're 0.65

00:03:54.260 wearing masks, but yeah, but she's, she's the important one.

00:03:57.420 She's, she's above that.

00:03:59.040 She's our, she's our royalty.

00:04:00.820 She's the crowned princess.

00:04:02.140 We can't, we can't have her in a mask.

00:04:04.260 So it's just absurd.

00:04:05.380 So I, I, I would just hope that more people see what's happening.

00:04:09.180 That's really the key.

00:04:10.360 Like, look and see what's happening.

00:04:11.840 Well, look what they're doing.

00:04:13.480 They're, they're making you wear a mask while they don't want, while they're not going to

00:04:16.500 do it.

00:04:16.700 They're exempting themselves.

00:04:18.040 So it's just, it's, it's ridiculous.

00:04:19.880 And there should, it should cause a, a, a, a revolution.

00:04:24.100 I mean, and not, not saying like a violent revolution, but it should cause a revolt.

00:04:27.840 Like should people push back and say, stand up.

00:04:29.960 It's like we saw in France.

00:04:31.100 We're not doing this.

00:04:31.880 Yeah.

00:04:32.180 It's crazy.

00:04:32.660 Like we're not, not like at the revolution.

00:04:34.200 I mean, France, like recently where people are taken to the streets to protest all the

00:04:37.360 BS lockdowns.

00:04:38.820 Here's two points I wanted to make on the COVID mask hypocrisy.

00:04:41.580 Number one, you've got, um, you know, the, the sort of second class citizenry there,

00:04:46.360 right?

00:04:46.560 Like the, the serfs with their, with their masks on.

00:04:49.760 And, and while our kids are in school, so that what, what they, the way they defend not

00:04:53.520 wearing masks, people like AOC, people like these celebrities is they say, well, everyone

00:04:56.960 was vaccinated, everyone was vaccinated at the Met, everyone was vaccinated at the award

00:05:01.360 ceremony.

00:05:02.000 Well, that doesn't matter.

00:05:02.840 First of all, you're supposed to wear your mask at the Met, even if you're vaccinated,

00:05:05.680 which, you know, apparently if you're with Anna Wintour, you don't have to.

00:05:08.340 Um, but everyone in like the, the, the school situation, like at our school, for example,

00:05:15.480 everyone's 16 and up and up has to be vaccinated.

00:05:17.940 So why in New York and Connecticut, New Jersey and California, why do the high schoolers, all

00:05:24.360 of whom have to be vaccinated, have to keep their masks on all day when these people who

00:05:29.600 are putting the, the policies in play don't, I mean, it's, it's naked hypocrisy.

00:05:34.780 They don't give a damn about children. 0.98

00:05:38.580 They don't give a damn.

00:05:40.300 Absolutely not.

00:05:41.320 Absolutely not.

00:05:42.080 And this isn't new.

00:05:43.100 This has been going on the entire pandemic.

00:05:45.680 The hypocrisy has been happening the entire time.

00:05:48.580 Even before we had vaccines, they were doing the same things.

00:05:51.640 They were going out when we, they were supposed to be having lockdowns.

00:05:54.840 They weren't wearing masks except when the cameras were on.

00:05:57.840 I mean, they have been doing this the entire time.

00:06:00.140 So it's not like they just started and trying to use the excuse, oh, we're vaccinated now.

00:06:04.680 No, you, you've been doing this the whole time.

00:06:06.420 You've been, you've been shirking the rules and, and putting them on other people while

00:06:10.600 you exempt yourself.

00:06:11.520 And it's been happening all the whole time.

00:06:13.180 And you made the point about kids.

00:06:14.740 And I've talked about that at length.

00:06:16.500 It makes no sense that we would do this to our children at all.

00:06:21.140 Like, like you talk about adults and people who are more at risk.

00:06:24.860 Like we can, we can talk about the risk and talk about whether it's beneficial for them,

00:06:28.800 but we, we have the science on children and we know that COVID is not a risk for children

00:06:34.700 and they're not at risk to get it, uh, and not have, uh, uh, a severe symptoms, not, not

00:06:40.640 at risk to spread it.

00:06:41.540 Like, and so why are we doing this to our children?

00:06:44.800 And what was it?

00:06:46.040 New York that passed the, passed the law that said that, um, or, or passed the mandate that

00:06:50.900 said that the children above the age of two have to be masked.

00:06:55.380 Like what you have a three-year-old, like in, in a daycare that's being masked.

00:06:59.600 It's unbelievable.

00:07:00.560 Like why, what, what is the purpose of this?

00:07:03.100 And I haven't wrapped my head around it.

00:07:04.640 I can't understand the motivation other than Megan.

00:07:07.460 I children are easier to control.

00:07:10.020 You know what I mean?

00:07:10.480 So it seems like these people are on a power trip and adults are harder to control, but

00:07:17.340 children, you, you can, you can exert your will over them.

00:07:20.500 And that's the only thing I can figure.

00:07:22.160 Do you hate children?

00:07:23.340 Do you have children?

00:07:24.100 You do hate children?

00:07:25.120 Like why pass these policies that are uniformly harmful to kids?

00:07:29.160 It's like, to your point, yes, you can potentially get COVID from a child.

00:07:33.560 You have to try pretty hard.

00:07:35.260 What all the studies have shown is that they're very inefficient vectors of the disease.

00:07:39.220 That's why you have CDC studies that study the 90,000 kids in Georgia and find masks really

00:07:44.700 made absolutely no difference.

00:07:46.080 Kids, unless they're right on top of you, the odds of you getting COVID from a child

00:07:50.420 are very, very low.

00:07:52.760 And yet we treat them like they're, they're dragons whose breath, every molecule of it

00:07:58.980 is infected with the fire of COVID.

00:08:00.980 And that's why we're shoving masks on these babies. 1.00

00:08:03.780 There was a video, the United side tweeted it out on Friday, I think, of this little boy

00:08:07.720 who was between two and three crying.

00:08:10.700 We have it queued up crying as the teacher over and over in daycare refuses to let the

00:08:16.840 kid keep it off of his face.

00:08:18.020 Watch this.

00:08:20.000 Put your mask on.

00:08:24.120 You gotta wear it on.

00:08:25.800 No, you gotta keep it on.

00:08:30.520 Put your mask on.

00:08:33.680 There you go.

00:08:34.280 Keep it right here.

00:08:35.740 Yay, Mason.

00:08:37.300 Yay.

00:08:39.180 You feel it, Mason.

00:08:40.400 It's mine.

00:08:42.080 Look, you're gonna keep it right here.

00:08:43.960 Look, I'm gonna move him up.

00:08:46.720 I'm gonna move.

00:08:52.360 It's peekable.

00:08:53.600 I see you.

00:08:54.660 Keep your mask on.

00:08:56.640 Put your mask back on.

00:08:58.440 Oh, good boy.

00:09:00.740 What are you looking at?

00:09:02.280 Keep it on your face.

00:09:04.640 You gotta keep it on your face.

00:09:06.680 So they go outside.

00:09:07.860 Oh, God.

00:09:08.880 It's stomach turning.

00:09:12.580 Mason is in the right.

00:09:14.740 And that teacher, though she's trying to comport with policy, is abusing him. 0.93

00:09:20.640 You can see permanent damage being caused to that child.

00:09:23.760 Absolutely.

00:09:24.380 It's traumatizing for the kid.

00:09:26.780 It's absolutely child abuse.

00:09:29.260 It's hard to watch.

00:09:30.620 It's very, very difficult to watch.

00:09:32.720 Listen, Megan.

00:09:34.900 Fear is a powerful motivator.

00:09:38.420 And it makes people do just insane, ridiculous things.

00:09:41.920 It makes people lose their capacity for rational thought.

00:09:44.940 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.

00:09:57.340 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.

00:10:08.000 And otherwise rational people making completely irrational decisions to control other people and to control children and to exert this insane power dynamic.

00:10:22.220 And like we said, it's child abuse.

00:10:24.520 I mean, the things like the things that have been happening from like shutting down schools, making kids wear masks.

00:10:30.020 And now like there's even the Pfizer is trying to approve their vaccine for kids from five to 11.

00:10:39.520 So they're trying to push all of this stuff on kids.

00:10:43.040 And it's all based.

00:10:44.280 It's not based on science.

00:10:45.380 It's not based on science.

00:10:46.600 It's based on this sort of religious right kind of thing.

00:10:51.340 It's it's all based on fear.

00:10:53.500 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.

00:11:01.700 Like, look what is doing to that kid.

00:11:03.340 There was another story about a woman got kicked off an airline.

00:11:06.960 I think she's from from Oklahoma.

00:11:08.660 It was United Airlines.

00:11:09.860 I think she had a two year old who was asthmatic and the flight attendant would not let him pull down his mask.

00:11:17.520 And they ended up kicking kicking them off the flight.

00:11:20.080 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?

00:11:28.360 And that's really the question people need to ask themselves, because it's not it's not a left to right issue.

00:11:33.440 It's not a partisan thing.

00:11:34.700 It's a human nature thing.

00:11:36.860 And we need to we need to get a handle on it before it gets really, really out of control.

00:11:41.560 Are we getting to a breaking point because you've got, I guess, Vogue, you know, Anna Wintour runs Vogue.

00:11:49.400 And she's the one who does the Met Gala.

00:11:50.820 And they followed AOC behind the scenes as she was getting ready in her stupid tax the rich dress. 1.00

00:11:56.480 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. 1.00

00:12:01.840 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. 1.00

00:12:09.440 And everybody's kids has to be masked because it's the right thing to do.

00:12:13.080 You know, do your part.

00:12:14.340 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. 0.96

00:12:22.760 OK, when they see that, when they see people like the San Francisco mayor, London Breed.

00:12:28.320 Did you see?

00:12:29.380 Yeah.

00:12:29.780 Did you see that video and the dancing in the nightclub?

00:12:34.480 I had a great time.

00:12:35.480 No, I'm not going to pull my mask up.

00:12:37.720 I'm not going to sip and put my mask on.

00:12:39.600 I think.

00:12:39.940 Do we have that soundbite?

00:12:40.720 Let's watch this.

00:12:41.540 The San Francisco mayor during a mask mandate that applies while you're inside.

00:12:44.980 I had a good time at the Black Cat.

00:12:47.400 And I think it's sad that this is even a story.

00:12:51.040 You know, I was there.

00:12:52.520 I was eating and I was drinking and I was sitting with my friends and everyone who came in there was vaccinated.

00:12:59.140 So the fact that we have turned this into a story about being maskless.

00:13:03.300 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.

00:13:11.120 While I'm eating and I'm drinking, I'm going to keep my mask off.

00:13:14.340 Can I just tell you?

00:13:15.520 So, like, of course, you and I agree with her.

00:13:17.540 That's exactly right.

00:13:18.340 I don't want to have the mask on at all.

00:13:20.040 Never mind.

00:13:20.400 Put it up in between bites.

00:13:21.360 It's ridiculous.

00:13:22.360 But I just had to do that on my on my flight down to Houston for a convention with Dan Crenshaw.

00:13:27.800 I had to do it.

00:13:28.400 I had to put it up and look at her.

00:13:30.100 Here's her pictures of her in the nightclub. 0.90

00:13:32.140 She she's dancing. 0.93

00:13:33.440 She's not eating.

00:13:34.480 She's not drinking.

00:13:35.060 She's dancing.

00:13:35.500 She's on the dance floor having a good time without her mask while she forces all her constituents to keep their masks on. 1.00

00:13:41.420 They're not allowed into the black cat and to take their mask off.

00:13:44.420 Only she can do it because the rules don't apply. 0.89

00:13:47.660 Look at this to our elite leaders.

00:13:49.800 And she's totally unapologetic about it.

00:13:53.200 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.

00:14:01.920 And now it's spotty.

00:14:03.600 Dude, people should be angry.

00:14:05.640 People should be absolutely livid.

00:14:07.680 But again, this isn't new.

00:14:10.240 They've been doing it the whole time.

00:14:12.620 Yeah, the Gavin Newsom has been doing it.

00:14:15.640 Bowser in D.C.

00:14:17.200 She was she's been doing it all over the place. 1.00

00:14:20.860 Lightfoot in Chicago.

00:14:21.900 She did the same thing.

00:14:23.640 And like you said, every time they always have excuses.

00:14:26.860 Oh, well, you know, I was drinking or I was eating.

00:14:31.320 I would.

00:14:31.860 This doesn't apply to me.

00:14:33.020 Whereas if it were us, if it were me or you, then the hammer would come down on us.

00:14:38.420 Oh, you want to you want to kill grandma.

00:14:40.020 You want you want to kill the kids.

00:14:41.660 Oh, no, you're you're a horrible person.

00:14:43.980 And so the double standards.

00:14:46.000 Now, you ask if I thought it was there was at a that whether we're at a breaking point.

00:14:49.560 Yeah.

00:14:50.040 And I would hope so.

00:14:54.300 I would hope so.

00:14:56.040 And not that I want to see things collapse, but more and more people are starting to speak

00:15:00.640 out and more and more people are starting to push back against this stuff.

00:15:03.700 And I work in health care and there's been a bunch of nurses in my area who have been

00:15:09.840 protesting the vax mandates and and everything that's been going on.

00:15:14.380 And so we're seeing more and more that more and more of that happen.

00:15:18.220 So it's not that I want to see it collapse.

00:15:20.060 I just want to see people wake up.

00:15:21.540 I don't want to see people recognize that we're being manipulated.

00:15:25.120 And, you know, and Jesse Kelly always says the people who are telling you to be afraid

00:15:28.640 of coronavirus are not afraid of coronavirus.

00:15:31.540 You know, so we should follow their example.

00:15:33.940 She can go she can go out and have fun.

00:15:35.900 She can go out and celebrate.

00:15:37.560 Obama can have his parties and do whatever he wants to do.

00:15:40.740 They can have the Met Gala and the Emmy Awards and do whatever.

00:15:43.300 So let's go do that, too.

00:15:45.020 Let's take the mask off the kids and, you know, let's let's just make our own personal

00:15:49.700 decisions about what's best for ourselves.

00:15:52.020 And then let's move on.

00:15:53.800 And OK, but let me ask you as a practical matter, as a practical matter, how does that

00:15:57.120 work?

00:15:57.360 Because I'm with you 100 percent.

00:15:59.020 I'm with you.

00:15:59.460 And yet I want my children to continue going to school.

00:16:02.260 And if I send them without a mask, they're going to get bounced right out.

00:16:05.280 And I want to go into the various restaurants.

00:16:07.820 And I'm not allowed unless I show in New York a vaccine card and have a mask on.

00:16:13.940 You know, I I don't really want to be the person in the YouTube video who, you know,

00:16:19.580 gets punched or gets in a fight because I refuse to comply.

00:16:23.420 I don't really want to have a fight at all.

00:16:25.540 But I don't like I like the idea of civil disobedience.

00:16:29.080 And yet, realistically, am I going to do that with my kids in school or, you know, not buy

00:16:33.460 my groceries to do it?

00:16:35.080 I don't think so.

00:16:37.240 Yeah, it's a tough call.

00:16:38.460 It is because people are losing their jobs and things like that.

00:16:41.360 So there's there's a real risk.

00:16:43.420 There's there's real sacrifice associated with it.

00:16:46.020 And anytime you have authoritarianism, anytime you're dealing with tyranny, it's going to

00:16:50.260 be like that.

00:16:51.960 So, again, it's a personal decision that needs to be made, you know, what you're willing to

00:16:58.240 tolerate and what you're not willing to tolerate.

00:17:00.140 Like, like I said, there's a lot of nurses that are that are protesting the vax mandate

00:17:05.760 and they're facing they're facing termination.

00:17:08.920 They're facing being fired from their jobs.

00:17:10.940 And let me ask you something.

00:17:12.060 Let me ask you something.

00:17:12.740 This is one area in which status as, you know, a disenfranchised group, a minority group

00:17:19.680 does nothing for you.

00:17:20.680 Right.

00:17:21.100 Because we used to we heard first about how it was very important to get everybody

00:17:25.280 vaccinated.

00:17:25.740 Then you had a lot of objections in particular from the black community.

00:17:28.200 And there was no special dispensation.

00:17:30.820 And now we have a situation in New York where there's all these videos coming out of a white 0.98

00:17:34.520 hostess or a white waiter kicking out black patrons of these restaurants and get out, get 1.00

00:17:41.140 out.

00:17:41.360 You don't have a vaccination card.

00:17:43.100 And suddenly this whole like, oh, you know, we've got to understand there's been a history

00:17:48.000 in the black community of distrust of vaccines and so on.

00:17:50.400 No, it's the white workers saying, get out to the black people.

00:17:55.340 And I haven't heard boo from these groups who have been talking about, you know, systemic

00:18:00.360 racism and so on.

00:18:01.640 I mean, it seems like covid Trump's identity.

00:18:04.960 Absolutely.

00:18:05.940 Ibram Kendi has been very quiet lately about this.

00:18:08.400 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.

00:18:20.440 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.

00:18:28.900 So you're shutting them out of society now saying they can't go to restaurants or bars

00:18:32.460 or, you know, whatever.

00:18:33.560 And so according to Ibram Kendi, that should be considered a racist system.

00:18:37.860 But no, they're very, very quiet.

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.

00:18:50.140 It's they don't believe anything that they say.

00:18:52.720 They just know what they can use in the moment to manipulate other people.

00:18:58.360 So if today control is about control, control.

00:19:01.760 Right.

00:19:01.960 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. 0.92

00:19:11.040 And then so whatever I believe yesterday or said, I believe yesterday, all of that's out

00:19:15.000 the window.

00:19:15.500 None of that matters.

00:19:16.220 It's only what I can use today right now in the moment to manipulate you and and like

00:19:20.620 you said, control and exert power over you.

00:19:23.280 And you see that with everything.

00:19:24.640 You see that with race, the critical race theory.

00:19:27.140 You see it with gender.

00:19:28.740 You see it with you see with the covid stuff.

00:19:32.100 You think I mean, think about it.

00:19:34.160 How many times have we heard that health care is a right and we need universal health care

00:19:40.260 for everybody?

00:19:41.160 And now all of a sudden it's OK to kind of push out this idea that maybe we should deny

00:19:46.040 health care to unvaccinated people.

00:19:47.660 It's like, well, how can you hold both ideas at once?

00:19:53.840 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

00:20:06.540 if you support it.

00:20:07.280 We support this guy.

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.

00:20:20.640 That's it.

00:20:21.320 I guarantee you're going to find that guy speeding way above the speed limit, eating food

00:20:25.200 that's terrible for him, having a cocktail, you know, or maybe four or five.

00:20:29.860 Who knows?

00:20:30.200 I don't know who this guy is, but I'm just saying all of should all of that count.

00:20:33.380 Is this guy perfectly fit?

00:20:34.460 Is he at all obese?

00:20:36.180 Because that counts against him, too.

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

00:20:44.820 guy have some superhuman powers against heart disease, against speeding deaths?

00:20:50.440 It's just if we want to start doing this to each other, it's not going to end well.

00:20:54.840 No, it's not.

00:20:55.640 And that goes down a very, very dark road.

00:20:58.320 And, you know, one of the things they'll say is, well, obesity isn't contagious.

00:21:01.900 Well, so what?

00:21:03.100 So what heart disease kills six hundred fifty thousand people every year?

00:21:06.400 So if you if it's truly about saving lives, then, hey, let's mandate exercise.

00:21:11.740 Let's mandate healthy diets.

00:21:13.620 Let's get rid of McDonald's.

00:21:15.240 You know, if we want to do this, then then let's do it.

00:21:18.020 I'm going to find you.

00:21:18.960 And speeding hurts people.

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

00:21:23.600 myself.

00:21:24.060 Odds are.

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

00:21:46.600 conclusions, they don't end well.

00:21:48.800 This doesn't end well.

00:21:49.860 We don't judge people for their individual medical decisions, their individual liberty.

00:21:55.160 And I know that we mandate vaccines.

00:21:57.220 I'm well aware.

00:21:57.980 I've gotten my kids all the vaccines.

00:21:59.340 But this one's new.

00:22:00.800 This one's new.

00:22:02.500 And there's just no way around it.

00:22:04.520 Yeah, there's no way around it.

00:22:05.560 All right.

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.

00:22:09.380 There's so much to go over.

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

00:22:23.900 out on.

00:22:24.580 Stay with us.

00:22:26.060 Your business doesn't move in a straight line.

00:22:28.740 Make sure your team is taken care of through every twist and turn with Canada Life savings,

00:22:34.120 retirement, and benefits plans.

00:22:35.960 Whether you want to grow your team, support your employees at every stage, or build a

00:22:40.200 workplace people want to be a part of, Canada Life has flexible plans for companies of all

00:22:45.380 sizes.

00:22:46.180 So it's easy to find a solution that works for you.

00:22:48.800 Visit CanadaLife.com slash employee benefits to learn more.

00:22:53.260 Canada Life, insurance, investments, advice.

00:23:01.840 Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show, everyone.

00:23:03.940 Today, I'm joined by Leonidas Johnson.

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

00:23:53.960 immediately for half of those.

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 0.61

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 1.00

00:24:30.640 back to Mexico. But the overwhelming majority of these folks and others who come into the country 1.00

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 0.95

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 0.54

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 0.99

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 0.99

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 Your business doesn't move in a straight line. Make sure your team is taken care of through every

00:39:06.180 twist and turn with Canada Life savings, retirement and benefits plans. Whether you want to grow your

00:39:11.840 team, support your employees at every stage or build a workplace people want to be a part of,

00:39:16.780 Canada Life has flexible plans for companies of all sizes. So it's easy to find a solution that

00:39:22.620 works for you. Visit CanadaLife.com slash employee benefits to learn more. Canada Life, insurance,

00:39:29.960 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 1.00

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 0.87

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 0.91

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, 1.00

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

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00:49:18.820 solution that works for you. Visit CanadaLife.com slash employee benefits to learn more. Canada Life

00:49:25.520 insurance, investments, advice.

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 1.00

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 0.99

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, 1.00

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***? 0.97

00:51:13.500 They wanted them to drink the Kool-Aid. Let's just shower people with events. In 14 months,

00:51:18.500 we experienced $2 billion worth of growth.

00:51:21.820 They're using cheap language of feminism. We were empowered, and then the husband was 1.00

00:51:26.040 supposed to take over. What inspired the empowerment of women for you? 1.00

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?

00:52:38.260 Absolutely.

00:52:39.340 And how much did you invest initially?

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? 1.00

00:53:00.860 You know, I think the problem here was that they targeted women who were stay-at-home moms, 0.87

00:53:07.020 who maybe already felt a lack of community. And these leggings came with what they called a 1.00

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 1.00

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? 0.93

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 1.00

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 0.74

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. 0.83

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.

01:04:15.120 Did your husband like this idea or no?

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 1.00

01:06:26.620 socially and emotionally with other people. This is why women are very good at the get out the vote 0.99

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 1.00

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 1.00

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 0.56

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.

01:08:00.240 833-446-3496. Your business doesn't move in a straight line. Make sure your team is taken care

01:08:09.140 of through every twist and turn with Canada Life savings, retirement, and benefits plans. Whether

01:08:14.620 you want to grow your team, support your employees at every stage, or build a workplace people want to

01:08:19.860 be a part of, Canada Life has flexible plans for companies of all sizes, so it's easy to find a

01:08:25.700 solution that works for you. Visit canadalife.com slash employee benefits to learn more. Canada Life,

01:08:32.780 insurance, investments, advice.

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. 1.00

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 1.00

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 1.00

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 1.00

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 0.89

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. 0.75

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.

01:15:34.800 What do you, what do you make of that?

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 0.98

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, 1.00

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 1.00

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, 0.99

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 0.75

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 0.56

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. 0.96

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 1.00

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. 1.00

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, 1.00

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, 0.98

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.

01:27:43.760 Thank you so much, Megan.

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

01:27:59.400 and our crazy mask policies.

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

01:28:32.940 your calls right now.

01:28:34.100 Your business doesn't move in a straight line. Make sure your team is taken care of through every

01:28:39.500 twist and turn with Canada Life savings, retirement and benefits plans. Whether you want to grow your

01:28:45.180 team, support your employees at every stage or build a workplace people want to be a part of,

01:28:50.580 Canada Life has flexible plans for companies of all sizes. So it's easy to find a solution that works

01:28:56.320 for you. Visit canadalife.com slash employee benefits to learn more. Canada Life, insurance,

01:29:03.300 investments, advice.

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,

01:29:29.580 what's on your mind?

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 0.95

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.

01:37:25.080 Thank you.

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