On today s episode of The Megyn Kelly Show, host Meghan talks about the Department of Homeland Security s new disinformation board, which critics have compared to George Orwell s Ministry of Truth in 1984. She's joined by investigative reporter Sheryl Atkinson, host of Full Measure on Sinclair Television's Full Measure, to talk all about it.
00:05:59.300I really don't want her censoring me because she doesn't seem to have two nickels to rub together in between her ears from the look of it.
00:06:06.920I don't think she should be in charge of what I say on the Internet.
00:06:09.840But I'm thinking, Megan, that one of the other big takeaways from this, naming her, naming this agency or whatever it's going to be.
00:06:18.800It's proof, in my view, what we already knew was that Twitter was acting in that capacity as our other big tech outlets.
00:06:27.040If Twitter were still acting in that capacity, I don't think we would have seen this rushed, hurried announcement of something no one's had a chance to look at or really consider.
00:06:35.180But this is the backup plan with the notion that Twitter is now not going to be able to act is one of the biggest censors and information shapers that we've had since 2016.
00:06:45.560The timing is very coincidental, isn't it?
00:06:48.940I mean, no sooner does Elon announce he's got a deal than suddenly we get this announcement.
00:06:55.220And in the midst of Elon's attempt to buy it, we had Barack Obama last week trying to lecture us all on how disinformation is such a huge problem.
00:07:03.880Purveyor of lie of the year, mind you.
00:07:05.460Not just little lie, not just occasional lie.
00:07:08.720You've got to tell a big whopper in order to get that designation.
00:07:12.020That's the man now who is spending his post-presidency lecturing us about disinformation.
00:07:16.440And then the other shoe drops with this announcement post Elon's official announcement on Monday.
00:07:22.240Is it worth backing up just a little bit because I dissected this for one of my books?
00:07:27.340The beginning of the notion that someone needed to step in and curate our information is not that old.
00:07:33.140In 2015, there was little to no talk about such things.
00:07:36.580And in September of 2016 is when this idea was first introduced on the national stage in its current form with fake news in its modern form used by a nonprofit called First Draft, who I learned was actually funded by Alphabet.
00:07:52.340The parent company of Google started up at the beginning of the election cycle, generating and creating the notion of fake news.
00:07:58.640And then within a couple of weeks, then President Obama gave a speech at Carnegie Mellon that said, for the first time I heard anybody say something like this, that somebody needed to step in and start curating our information in this wild, wild west media environment.
00:08:14.900And I remember at the time, Megan, going, what?
00:08:19.940And slowly, well, actually rather rapidly, but slowly over time, it's all almost as if we've come to accept that instead of we're arguing the terms, instead of arguing that that is even done at all.
00:08:32.420The third parties influenced by government and corporations are determining what we can see and hear and think.
00:08:37.240This is why it's such good news that Elon Musk will be in charge of at least one of these major social media companies.
00:08:45.140At least there's going to be one where there appears to be somebody who's on the side of free speech running it.
00:08:52.720And prior to this week, we didn't have that.
00:08:56.720And I was wondering if you had any recent experiences, because I sure do, with social media.
00:09:02.740Have they shaped or censored or banned some of the stuff that you've been reporting on and doing interviews about?
00:09:10.700Well, we had to be very careful with our we interviewed RFK Jr. a couple of weeks ago, and we knew very well he's been stricken from the Internet.
00:09:19.060I mean, he's been banned from Twitter and Instagram, Facebook, YouTube.
00:09:26.560So our goal was to get him on the air in a way that could live.
00:09:30.440Right. We didn't. It was pointless for us to do an interview with him that would then just get banned.
00:09:35.120You know what I mean? Like that's pointless.
00:09:37.080So we understood we had to be careful with it and we had to sort of cross certain T's.
00:09:41.580But man, it's like it would have been nice to just have a conversation with him without having to worry about the censors.
00:09:48.180You know, I mean, we are kind of getting a little, I don't know, un-American.
00:09:52.120It's starting to feel a little un-American.
00:09:53.360Well, this is the goal. And I've talked about this before.
00:09:57.440The ideal for the propagandists and the censors is we just start censoring ourselves so they don't really even have to step in.
00:10:05.360And I can't tell you how many journalists and news organizations, executives have told me over the past couple of years,
00:10:11.240they don't publish what they want to publish, even though they believe it's true or a valid viewpoint or a valid scientific study because they are self-censoring in order to survive on what they see as these powerful platforms that are crucial to them being a thing.
00:10:27.140They're afraid that if they cross a certain line and get canceled, as one of them told me, what sort of pyrrhic victory is it to be able to report the truth, but then to be canceled entirely?
00:10:39.240So here all of us are trying to dance around the truth or certain viewpoints or scientific studies in order to please the censors who are improperly censoring to begin with.
00:10:50.120And that's a really dangerous place I think we find ourselves in.
00:10:53.580Hmm. My team has reminded me RFK Jr. is on Twitter. It's the one platform he's been allowed to remain on.
00:11:00.260You know, one of the things that we did to sort of keep the interview up was to put a bunch of links to the CDC, the WHO, all that, you know, at the end of our interview on YouTube.
00:11:12.920Honestly, Cheryl, I don't care. It's like that doesn't bother me.
00:11:16.040A lot of our audience is like, oh, what's that doing there?
00:11:19.440You know, those organizations have lied to us from the beginning. Agreed. I know that.
00:11:22.940But to me, it seems like a small price to pay to get your interview posted and and to have it remain up on YouTube.
00:11:30.960I don't own YouTube. I don't have a right to be on YouTube.
00:11:34.200YouTube has every right to shut me down and say, I don't want you on here.
00:11:37.140It's not pleasant. I don't want it. I would consider it viewpoint discrimination.
00:11:40.320But they have every right to do that. So if they're basically going to say you can put on this guy we think is part of the disinformation dozen and it's it saves my interview to throw a couple links at the end.
00:11:53.380Or, you know, sometimes they throw up the little for information on covid.
00:11:57.120You know, you see that underneath the video. Go to whatever.
00:12:03.200That's different to me than what you're talking about, though, where you actually don't ask the tough questions or you steer clear of the third rail subjects because you're afraid for good reason that they're going to shut you down.
00:12:15.000Well, I agree. But think about it. You and I both know and I do the same thing when we're posting CDC information, we are posting disinformation in some cases that we know is not true or has proven to be inaccurate or is put out by people who have been sorely misleading, if not entirely wrong.
00:12:32.240And I've done some expos. I don't know if you interview Congressman Massey when he caught CDC and top executives and scientists who he recorded on the phone, admitting that they were putting out false information about covid vaccine being effective in people that had already had covid.
00:12:48.640And they admitted this to him and then continued on. So you can only say this is an intentional intent to mislead.
00:12:54.520Went on to put out in public the same disinformation over and over again after they acknowledged it was untrue.
00:12:59.980And yet here we are then having to post links to these sources that we know are disproven for more disinformation, protect our ability to say things that we believe are true.
00:13:09.880Right. So we're trying to correct the disinformation, but we have to make sure we we include a link to the disinformation organization in order to get our correction of the disinformation aired.
00:13:20.800It's true. It's sad. Now, what about that, Cheryl?
00:13:24.220Because that's one of the things with the stats coming out this week saying over 50 percent of the population has had covid and over 75 percent of children have had covid.
00:13:37.700They did testing, I guess, through like Quest Labs, that kind of thing.
00:13:41.500Like they were looking at people's blood like you weren't going in necessarily to have your blood tested for covid.
00:13:46.340But they were making sure like what percentage of those get in the country who gave their blood for whatever reason have it.
00:13:54.260Anyway, the point is, most kids have had it and a majority of adults have had it.
00:13:59.060And I heard on The New York Times podcast The Daily this week, they're like, but that's not it doesn't mean we have herd immunity or we're never getting herd immunity because different variants, yada, yada.
00:14:08.680But I do wonder, what do we think is the next move from these same officials who have been pushing the vaccines on us, despite the fact that they knew in particular and people who already had covid?
00:14:21.400This was not necessary. What's their next move now?
00:14:24.640You know, now that covid is waning, do they do they double down?
00:14:28.900Do they keep firing people? Do they keep kicking kids out of school who don't get it?
00:14:33.280The L.A., you know, public school system.
00:14:35.580Do they say you can't come back next year with it?
00:14:37.480Like, I really wonder whether politically they're going to have the backing to do that and whether the news media is still willing to go along with it.
00:14:50.400I kind of separated into two because I don't know and can't even understand how some places with now quite a bit of data and evidence in showing that schools that shut down fared no better and perhaps fared worse than schools that never did.
00:15:04.480I reported on places that never shut down, period, after the initial spring of 2020.
00:15:13.840And had no big issues, in fact, had fewer than those who stayed shut down and pushed vaccines and masking and so on.
00:15:20.880So with all the evidence, it's hard to understand on what basis people are still doing that.
00:15:24.840But separately, I think the vaccine track goes to where their internal documents in the past have always shown they want to go, which is a perpetual system of boosters and annual shots and perhaps mixing it with the annual flu shot so that this is something that generates billions and billions of dollars over the long term.
00:15:44.160But it takes constant convincing and propaganda in some cases, if you will, to try to convince people they need something that is questionable.
00:15:52.460And let me go back to flu shot, because most people don't know this.
00:15:56.140And I didn't before I covered all these stories.
00:15:57.840I thought, you know, I'm fully vaccinated. My kids fully vaccinated.
00:16:00.540I didn't know any of this stuff till I started digging in.
00:16:03.340But it turns out flu shots, as I learned 15 years ago, are ineffective in the elderly and potentially harmful.
00:16:10.640And the government knew that from multiple studies, but didn't believe the science, their own science, and set out to do a definitive study that adjusted for all these confounding factors at the end of which they thought it would show flu shots prevent deaths in elderly.
00:16:24.820Instead, there was an inverse relationship.
00:16:27.780Deaths were higher since many millions more elderly were getting flu shots.
00:16:31.740And the government scientists who did the study wanted to come out and talk about it.
00:17:03.180And at the time, there have been stories about old people standing in line and fainting, you know, trying to get their flu shots and getting sick.
00:17:09.920And this official said to me, we can't take flu shots away from old people now.
00:17:14.900We've spent so much time and money and years telling them they need them.
00:17:18.580They'll be suspicious if we tell them they don't need them now.
00:17:21.080So what we need to do instead is start vaccinating children with flu shots who don't really need the flu shots because they're not hurt by flu typically, but they carry it to the elderly.
00:17:30.860And then he said, Megan, the hard part is going to be convincing parents to get a shot to their children that their children don't need.
00:17:38.160Lo and behold, within the next year, it became a suggested and then, you know, more than suggested vaccine for the childhood vaccine schedule on the basis of what I've told you.
00:17:47.920But instead, they told the public, your kid needs this shot.
00:18:04.820And that if they get flu, they should be taking the Tamiflu right away because flu really can kill children in a way.
00:18:12.080Like he worries more about that than he worries about COVID.
00:18:14.580Right. This is actually the first I'm hearing that that that may be part of a propaganda war.
00:18:22.080Well, and I can send you the studies later.
00:18:24.060There's not even a question about the effectiveness in the elderly.
00:18:27.260And then what I told you was told to me behind the scenes then came and came to pass.
00:18:31.940But I think that, you know, it's the moneymaker for them.
00:18:35.020And I'm not saying that's the only motivation, although that's the fiduciary duty that vaccine companies do for their shareholders.
00:18:40.380They have to make money and do what's best for the money interests.
00:18:43.500But the moneymaker for them, as they've acknowledged in internal documents in the past, is if they can get a recommended shot that's on the flu schedule or on the vaccine schedule for children or, for heaven's sake, on the annual schedule, that is just money they calculate out into the future so far that that's just the gold standard for them.
00:19:06.060Well, you know, what's frustrating to me is you've got Rochelle Walensky still in charge at the CDC.
00:19:12.400And she was asked about, OK, what about this study?
00:19:16.640Right. The CDC is the one who reported this information that 75 percent of children and teens have been infected, at least as of February of this year.
00:19:23.900The numbers are probably up now, right, since February.
00:19:27.140More than half of the U.S. population has antibodies for COVID as of the end of February.
00:19:33.100And the question was, so, you know, should people feel good, like that they're protected to some extent against future illness?
00:19:41.820Those people who have had it, we don't know whether that protection has waned.
00:19:46.180We don't know as much about that level of protection as we do about the protection we get from both vaccines and boosters, adding that the agency still encourages those with detectable antibodies from prior infection to get vaccinated.
00:19:59.620So it's like we do know that the vaccines wane quickly that we know from the vaccine companies and the studies that have been done.
00:20:07.840It wanes quickly. That's why they keep having to recommend all these boosters to us.
00:20:11.800That's why Anthony Foucher has been shot four times in the arm, that is.
00:20:15.540And and so for her to then say, oh, well, we don't know how long natural immunity lasts.
00:20:20.940It's like, number one, that's because you refuse to study it.
00:20:25.300You refuse. Only the Israelis have studied it.
00:20:28.380Other countries have studied it, but not us.
00:20:30.460We've been woefully deficient when it comes to actually looking into these things that might be counter to the narrative or the decision they've made to just take one track, which is push vaccines.
00:20:41.460So that's number one. But number two, if you don't know, how do you know that it doesn't last longer?
00:20:46.520I mean, I know very well you can get covid if you've already had covid and you get get covid if you've already been vaccinated.
00:20:51.620But if she doesn't know, how can she just continue resorting to get the vaccine, which we know wanes?
00:20:59.280Well, more information from her that's proving not to be true.
00:21:02.300That's completely inaccurate if she said that, because there is more data on natural immunity by definition than there is on vaccine immunity, because the vaccines came out far later.
00:21:13.080There is longer data going out to study the people who first had covid and are still immune than there is for data who on people who had vaccines a year later plus and may or may not be immune.
00:21:25.340So what you said is true. The vaccine immunity we know wears off quickly, thus the boosters.
00:21:30.760And that was always expected on the front end, by the way, which I reported back in spring of 2020, based on experts who helped develop the vaccines, the RNA vaccines.
00:21:38.920That's what they do. They wear off fast. They don't work particularly well.
00:21:42.300That's why we've never had a successful RNA vaccine before.
00:21:45.940But then the notion that natural immunity, which is well established, is some kind of wild card.
00:21:50.640I've gathered on my website, Sherlockson.com, if you go under health, I believe I have a whole link to dozens and dozens and dozens of peer reviewed published studies that establish longstanding natural immunity that goes far past vaccine immunity.
00:22:06.080There may be a study or two that is inconclusive or shows something slightly different.
00:22:11.900But the vast bulk of the studies done by a variety of experts around the world say the same thing.
00:22:17.560This is not in dispute. So to hear if the head of CDC is still saying that, either she's misinformed or continuing to intentionally give out bad information.
00:22:27.460So she's she's like an automaton. I mean, she just can't stop herself. Vaccines, vaccines, vaccines.
00:22:33.780She and Fauci are just one trick ponies now. It's like, I don't need to listen to them ever again.
00:22:38.220I know what they're going to tell me. Get boosted, get. Well, screw you.
00:22:41.480I got boosted and then I got covid refund refund.
00:22:44.560You know, I'm just like and I'm everyone's had that experience at this point.
00:22:48.000So here's my question to you. Where are we now as.
00:22:51.480Because, you know, at the height of the Delta breakout and then Omicron was not that severe, but it was everywhere.
00:23:00.480They were really pushing the mandates, the vaccine mandates, people getting fired.
00:23:05.280You know, the very nurses that we call heroes are getting fired, even though they had covid for saying, I don't want the vaccine.
00:23:10.600They never pulled them. The vaccine mandates, as far as I know, they haven't gone away.
00:23:16.660But the only ones that went away were the ones struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court is unconstitutional.
00:23:23.240But we still see some vaccine injuries.
00:23:26.240We've had people on our show discussing some pretty severe injuries they've gotten from the vaccines verified by the CDC.
00:23:33.640It's not made up. It's not psychological.
00:23:37.220And so I wonder, because I know you've done a fair amount of reporting on vaccine injuries and like the VAERS system and all that.
00:23:43.060Where do things stand with that? And are people able in any way, any meaningful way now to to report any vaccine injuries?
00:23:52.560Well, people should know that you can do it.
00:23:56.260Your doctor may not do it, particularly if they're supposed to.
00:23:59.260They're required to by law to report an adverse event after vaccination.
00:24:03.640It's not up to them to determine whether the vaccine caused it or not.
00:24:07.520This surveillance system is to pick up is supposed to pick up all potential adverse events so that something that was previously unrecognized might be recognized.
00:24:15.800So it defeats the purpose to have a doctor say on the front end that wasn't caused by vaccine.
00:24:21.420I'm not going to report it. But too often that happens.
00:24:24.720Nurses have been fired from their jobs for reporting these events that they see in emergency rooms that they could or could not be related, but that are required to be reported.
00:24:34.460And I interviewed one of them on one of my podcasts.
00:24:36.700So there are a lot that are slipping past that are not being captured.
00:24:41.540So you can report them yourselves and you should just so that this is something that can be lifted into the system, even if it's not being officially done.
00:24:49.800Your health professional can do it. You can do it.
00:24:51.740It's not that hard. You go to VAERS.gov and fill out a report, fill out the information you know.
00:24:58.300If you don't know the lot number and the details, you don't have to fill that part out.
00:25:01.440Just to clarify that. So it's not that hard because somebody was recently saying it's very hard to post on there.
00:25:07.520Is that just a friend? But but is it not that hard?
00:25:11.340Let me go back and think of, you know, before I knew how to do it, it probably was more confusing to me than it is now, obviously.
00:25:18.440But I think if you go to VAERS, VAERS.gov or VAERS.org, you will find report an adverse event.
00:25:25.360And if you click on that, there's a computerized way and it may be confusing because they ask for stuff you may not know, like the lot number, but you can leave it blank.
00:25:34.460So maybe to me, that's the most confusing thing if they're asking for details you don't have.
00:25:38.920But fill out what you have, at least put that information out there.
00:25:42.580And other, you know, the government doesn't go through that.
00:25:45.320They go through, in my views, some of them for the purpose of trying to pretend those aren't related.
00:25:50.140But there are good people that have access to that database and journalists and some good FDA scientists, for example, that look at that with in mind trying to identify previously unidentified adverse events.
00:27:01.920Let me on the subject of our government and untrustworthiness talk about what's happening at the southern border for a second, because I know you covered this and we've been wanting to get on the air.
00:27:13.540In this past week, Texas National Guard member Bishop Evans, a 22 year old specialist, was killed trying to save migrants crossing the Rio Grande.
00:27:23.220And it's got a very strong current and at risk to himself.
00:27:26.420He jumped in to try to save them and was killed himself.
00:27:50.120And there are really good reasons for having a tough border, including the safety of those who need to protect it and those who want to cross it.
00:27:58.220And this is a case that helps prove it.
00:28:08.840Does the White House feel at all responsible?
00:28:10.660And what more can you offer to people who, you know, are on the border, in border communities, who are experiencing loss and trials like this?
00:28:20.800Well, of course, we are mourning the loss of his life.
00:28:24.600And we are grateful for the work of every National Guardsman.
00:28:27.840I would note that the National Guard worked for the states.
00:28:30.920And so he is an employee of the Texas National Guard.
00:28:34.420And his efforts and his operation were directed by there, not by the federal government in this effort, in this apparatus.
00:28:42.360We've long stated that our immigration system is broken.
00:28:45.420There needs to be more done to invest in smarter security, to have a more effective asylum processing system.
00:28:50.840And we would welcome any efforts for any elected officials to work with us on that.
00:29:06.900I thought that was a strange answer that seemed to imply, well, that operation wasn't our thing.
00:29:12.100But of course, it was their thing because it was done solely because the federal government isn't following the law and doing what it's supposed to do and protecting our national borders.
00:29:21.380And this is a little bit like the disinformation or the Ministry of Information that we're now starting up.
00:29:27.480It makes no sense if you're looking at even are there well-meaning people that simply think this is the best policy?
00:29:34.840They certainly know the numbers of people that have come through who are, as Donald Trump accurately said, whether people like it or not, thousands upon thousands of convicted rapists, killers, sexual assaulters, all kinds of criminals.
00:29:48.580That stuff is tracked with specificity to the extent that it's known when these people come across.
00:29:56.900Secondly, as you said, we are basically exploiting the poor people who come here that are not drug traffickers and bad people by letting them think they can come in.
00:30:06.260They're putting their lives at risk, paying a ton of money.
00:30:09.040And we're making the drug cartels richer beyond their wildest dreams by making sure that money goes into the pocket because these cartels charge every person that comes across the border a fee, thousands upon thousands of dollars.
00:30:21.820And in the end, we're finishing the end of the trafficking operation for them, the cartels, for free by transporting the illegal border crosses to their final destination at no charge to the cartels or to them, but to U.S. taxpayers.
00:30:38.600On the subject of who's coming across the border, there was news this morning and there was a there was a feisty exchange on Capitol Hill about it.
00:30:49.200We're going to play it after I squeeze in a quick break and we'll come right back to Cheryl Ackeson, the one and only Cheryl Ackeson.
00:30:56.780And she's amazing. She's fearless. She's intrepid. And there's a reason that she's done so well on her own since leaving CBS.
00:31:03.660Now she's with Sinclair, but she's created her own lane and the people are flocking to her for very good reason.
00:31:15.500So, Cheryl, there was news this week that among the record numbers of people who are now trying to cross the southern border, some with success, some not so much.
00:31:25.100We have caught at least 42 people encountered is the word they're using, 42 people encountered who were on the terrorist, the terror no fly list, OK, for being suspected terrorists.
00:31:40.580So Jim Jordan had Secretary Mayorkas of DHS in front of him yesterday on Capitol Hill and tried to find out what happened to those 42 people.
00:31:49.540Were they released into the country? Were they sent back home? Were they turned back on the spot?
00:31:54.680Not what happened to them. You would think that the head of the Department of Homeland Security.
00:32:00.880This is the reason this group was born. Right. This is after 9-11. That's when we created this.
00:32:06.360Would have an answer to what happened to those people on the no fly list and that every Democrat and Republican on that committee would have an interest in hearing Mayorkas answer fully to that question.
00:32:18.220But you would be wrong. But you would be wrong. Here's what happened.
00:32:20.94042 illegal immigrants were encountered at our border on the terrorist and no fly list.