The Megyn Kelly Show - March 21, 2025


Trump Dismantles Ed Dept, RFK Goes After Food Chemicals, American Released： AM Update 3⧸21


Episode Stats

Length

17 minutes

Words per Minute

152.51755

Word Count

2,708

Sentence Count

198

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary

Trump announces an executive order aimed at shutting down the Department of Education. A Georgetown researcher on a student visa arrested by Homeland Security. An American citizen held captive by the Taliban released what the Taliban was offered in return. All that and more coming up in a moment on your AM Update.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Good morning, everyone. I'm Megan Kelly. It's March 21st, 2025, and this is your AM Update.
00:00:09.620 I will sign an executive order to begin eliminating the Federal Department of Education
00:00:15.380 once and for all. President Trump announcing an executive order aimed at shuttering the
00:00:20.740 Department of Education. Any new chemical that they want to add to our food is generally
00:00:26.980 recognized as safe and gets no review. RFKJ announcing a sweeping review of industry food
00:00:33.740 standards aimed at ridding the food supply of potentially harmful ingredients. A Georgetown
00:00:39.360 researcher on a student visa arrested by Homeland Security, the reporting largely sympathetic to
00:00:45.280 the student, glossing over a key detail about his personal life. An American citizen held captive by
00:00:51.760 the Taliban released what the Taliban was offered in return. All that and more coming up in just a
00:00:58.180 moment on your AM Update. The IRS is the largest collection agency in the world, and with April
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00:01:59.340 is just around the corner. Act now before the IRS acts first. On Thursday afternoon, President Trump
00:02:08.840 announcing the beginning of the end for the Department of Education. Today, we take a very
00:02:14.280 historic action that was 45 years in the making. In a few moments, I will sign an executive order to
00:02:21.480 begin eliminating the Federal Department of Education once and for all. My administration
00:02:27.960 will take all lawful steps to shut down the department. We're going to shut it down and shut
00:02:33.680 it down as quickly as possible. It's doing us no good. Completely abolishing the Department of Ed
00:02:38.760 will require an act of Congress, not likely to happen under the current slim Republican majorities.
00:02:44.200 The order will instead, quote, begin to eliminate the department. Last week, Education Secretary Linda
00:02:49.780 McMahon announcing a reduction in workforce amounting to half of the department's employees. Prior to the
00:02:56.280 new order, the DOE was responsible for developing federal education guidelines and initiatives like
00:03:02.000 Common Core, enforcing civil rights compliance in schools and administering federal student aid.
00:03:08.700 Press Secretary Caroline Levitt describing to reporters Thursday morning what tasks will remain
00:03:13.940 under the department. Pell grants and student loans will still be run out of the department in
00:03:19.520 Washington, D.C., but the great responsibility of educating our nation's students will return to
00:03:24.500 the states. The Department of Education plays a critical role in enforcing civil rights laws that
00:03:29.580 prohibit discrimination. Who's going to do that now? Any critical functions of the department such as
00:03:35.500 that will remain. But again, we're greatly reducing the scale and the size of this department.
00:03:40.700 President Trump saying Pell grants, a common form of undergraduate aid and Title I funding allocated
00:03:46.760 toward children with disabilities, will be preserved in full and eventually handed over to other
00:03:52.520 agencies. The details of how exactly the Trump administration plans to hand education back to
00:03:57.500 the states remain unclear. Randy Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers and critic of
00:04:04.380 the move, outlining her fears to left-wing journalist Molly Jong-Fast.
00:04:09.160 They're saying, oh, don't worry, let's block grant it. So we'll give it to a state education department.
00:04:16.000 So and then let the state education department decide what to do. So we know, for example, what Texas would do.
00:04:21.860 Right. They'll use it for vouchers. Math and reading scores for 13-year-olds have fallen to the lowest
00:04:27.700 level in decades. Six in 10 fourth graders are not proficient in math and standardized test scores
00:04:35.020 have shown little to no improvement. In fact, per pupil spending has risen by more than 245 percent
00:04:42.580 since the 1970s, with test scores rising less than 2 percent. Critics say federal involvement in
00:04:49.060 education caused less competition, innovation, and now students will have more choice and taxpayers
00:04:55.300 will have more of their own money. A Georgetown University researcher on a student visa detained
00:05:04.540 by Homeland Security, part of a broader crackdown by the Trump administration on foreign students
00:05:09.600 supporting causes deemed counter to U.S. foreign policy. Badr Khan Suri, an Indian national,
00:05:16.580 arrested outside of his home in Arlington, Virginia, on Monday night. Assistant Secretary of Homeland
00:05:21.700 Security Tricia McLaughlin posting on X, Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University,
00:05:27.900 actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting anti-Semitism on social media. The statement also
00:05:34.220 claiming Mr. Suri has close ties to a senior advisor to Hamas, rendering him deportable under
00:05:40.400 the Immigration and Nationality Act. His lawyer has since filed a lawsuit demanding his immediate
00:05:45.380 release. Media reporting surrounding the case largely sympathetic to Mr. Suri. Politico, the headline,
00:05:51.780 Trump is seeking to deport another academic who is legally in the country, lawyer says. The AP,
00:05:57.220 Georgetown scholar, detained over American wife's Palestinian ties, lawyer says. MSNBC,
00:06:04.540 Trump administration seeks to deport Georgetown University student with no apparent criminal record.
00:06:10.660 Well, it's not quite that simple. In the petition for release obtained by Politico,
00:06:16.520 Mr. Suri's lawyer arguing that his client is being punished because his wife, a U.S. citizen,
00:06:21.240 is Palestinian. Is that it? His lawyer, Hassan Ahmed, also claiming the government suspects Mr. Suri
00:06:28.420 and his wife oppose U.S. foreign policy toward Israel. Again, is it quite that simple?
00:06:34.860 Badr Khan Suri is married to Mafizi Salah, also a Georgetown University student. A February investigation
00:06:42.320 from National Review identifying her as the daughter of Ahmed Youssef, a former advisor for Hamas,
00:06:49.940 a terrorist organization. National Review reporting Ms. Salah, quote, has been open about her own role
00:06:56.640 with the Hamas government. She served with the Hamas government's committee to break the siege in
00:07:01.740 Gaza, which happened to be chaired by her father. Ms. Salah's father is co-author of a book titled
00:07:08.280 The End of the Jewish State, Just a Matter of Time. A review of her own social media reveals the
00:07:13.820 glorification of Hamas and the atrocities they committed on October 7th. Just days after the
00:07:19.660 terror attack resulting in the slaughter of 1,200 Israelis and the kidnapping of approximately
00:07:24.880 250 people, including Americans, Ms. Salah posted on Facebook an image of a Palestinian hang glider,
00:07:32.860 a reference to the vehicles used to infiltrate Israel, with the caption,
00:07:36.440 We shall prevail. In a July post on Instagram, Ms. Salah writing in Arabic,
00:07:41.520 America is the plague. Do you believe these press reports?
00:07:45.420 Scholar detained over American wife's Palestinian ties. It's a little more complicated than that,
00:07:52.260 AP. Another Instagram post showing images of Israeli hostages in Gaza saying their smiles and
00:07:59.180 healthy appearance indicated how nicely they were treated. I'm sure it was a real joy. Many freed
00:08:05.820 hostages have spoken out about their treatment after they were returned back safely to Israel.
00:08:10.900 There were lots of moments when they tortured us, when they moved us one of the times and they put
00:08:17.000 black material on our eyes that we won't be able to see anything. And I had to find out where to put my
00:08:22.500 next step while holding the wall. And I thought and I thought that I'm going to fall and I thought that
00:08:28.440 they're going to kill me.
00:08:29.420 Then we started the phase of almost two months of extreme starvation and I couldn't walk for more than a month.
00:08:38.700 It's unclear how exactly or when the daughter of a Hamas advisor was able to obtain U.S. citizenship.
00:08:45.660 The State Department has yet to publicly identify specific actions taken by Mr. Suri to spread
00:08:50.680 Hamas propaganda. A Georgetown University spokesperson saying, quote, we are not aware of him engaging in
00:08:55.980 any illegal activity and we have not received a reason for his detention. Mr. Suri is currently
00:09:01.240 held in a Texas detention center. His deportation proceedings set for May.
00:09:08.700 Secretary of Health and Human Services RFKJ announcing a complete review of GRASS or
00:09:15.680 generally recognized as safe standards in the food industry. Mr. Kennedy describing on Fox News
00:09:22.520 the evolution of GRASS standards since their inception in the 1950s.
00:09:26.600 When FDA was created to regulate food, there were foods that were generally recognized as safe,
00:09:33.900 G-R-A-S, generally recognized as safe, like flour, like dairy, like eggs. And they didn't want to make
00:09:40.980 companies test those products, so they created that designation. That designation was expanded.
00:09:47.520 An industry began taking advantage of it so that any new chemical that they want to add to our food
00:09:56.420 is generally recognized as safe and gets no review. That's why we have 10,000 ingredients in our food
00:10:04.000 in this country. In Europe, they only have 400. Food companies are not, in fact, required to submit
00:10:09.380 a GRASS notice to the FDA when introducing a new chemical. That reporting? Entirely voluntary.
00:10:15.760 A 2022 analysis by consumer watchdog group The Environmental Working Group finding since 2000,
00:10:22.800 food and chemical companies have petitioned the FDA just 10 times to approve a new substance.
00:10:28.380 In that same time period, the EWA says more than 98 percent of the at least 766 new food chemicals
00:10:38.320 were not approved by the FDA at all. CBS News reporting there are at least 950 substances in
00:10:46.740 our food that are not permitted in Europe. Chemicals linked to health concerns show up in
00:10:51.260 hundreds of products that line the shelves of American supermarkets. President Trump's nominee to
00:10:56.900 head the FDA, Dr. Marty McCary of Johns Hopkins, at his confirmation hearing connecting the dots
00:11:02.320 between childhood illness and chemicals in the food industry. Half of our nation's children are sick,
00:11:09.060 and nobody has really been doing anything meaningful on this front. Food has a big part of it. When we eat
00:11:15.780 foods with a lot of molecules that do not appear in nature, these are chemicals. These are chemicals
00:11:22.180 that the industry insists are safe, a subset of which are concerning. There's a body of research
00:11:28.160 now that suggests concern with some of these ingredients. RFKJ's sweeping review of grass standards
00:11:34.520 comes just two weeks after a closed-door meeting with the heads of major food companies. Secretary
00:11:39.940 Kennedy made clear artificial food dyes must be phased out by the end of his term. Industry leaders
00:11:46.020 were urged to take proactive steps to reformulate their products before any regulatory action. Those
00:11:53.080 leaders reportedly resistant to the move. A memo from the Consumer Brands Association warning a ban on
00:11:59.240 food dyes threatens the industry's reliance on cheap, vibrant dyes to maintain product appeal and
00:12:06.300 affordability. Many of these same companies already sell similar products in European markets,
00:12:11.800 which have far more restrictions, with reformulated recipes to meet safety standards.
00:12:18.700 Coming up, an American citizen held captive by the Taliban released what the Taliban was offered
00:12:24.180 in return, and the long-awaited release of the JFK files. What new info was contained in those thousands
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00:13:47.280 An American citizen declared by the State Department as wrongfully detained by the Taliban, returning back
00:13:53.820 to the United States after more than two years in custody. George Glesman, an airline mechanic from
00:13:59.820 Atlanta, Georgia, captured by the Taliban's intelligence service in December 2022. The Foley
00:14:06.440 Foundation, an advocacy organization for Americans detained overseas, says Mr. Glesman, 66 years old,
00:14:13.160 was traveling in Afghanistan as a tourist. The Taliban held Mr. Glesman without any charges. Under President
00:14:19.340 Biden, the Taliban offered the release of Mr. Glesman and another American, but only in exchange
00:14:24.740 for three Taliban members in American custody, including an al-Qaeda aide held in Guantanamo Bay.
00:14:31.640 The Wall Street Journal reporting the Taliban now agreeing to release Mr. Glesman in exchange for
00:14:36.480 improved relations with Washington. The Taliban has no diplomatic relations with the U.S., nor is it
00:14:42.880 recognized as the official government of Afghanistan. Mr. Glesman's release was brokered by the Qatari
00:14:48.740 government. The talks took place between U.S. Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs, Adam Bowler,
00:14:54.760 and Taliban officials in Kabul. The New York Times reporting the meeting between American and Taliban
00:14:59.700 officials was the first known in-person contact of any significance between the two governments since
00:15:05.560 President Trump's return to office. The Trump administration fulfilling a long-awaited campaign
00:15:11.640 promise, the release of the JFK files. People have been waiting for decades for this. I don't believe
00:15:18.720 we're going to redact anything. It's going to be very interesting. Approximately 80,000 pages. So
00:15:23.820 it's a lot of stuff. On Tuesday, the documents, totaling about 60,000, released to the public.
00:15:30.460 A newly unredacted memo from a special assistant, Arthur Schlesinger, to President JFK, criticizing the
00:15:37.360 CIA for overusing the State Department to cover for its agents in other countries. Mr. Schlesinger,
00:15:44.140 informing President Kennedy, the number of undercover CIA agents, quote, outnumbers regular State
00:15:50.580 Department personnel in some countries. Another unredacted document from 1964, revealing the CIA
00:15:57.260 did not have any direct agents operating in Cuba, despite Cold War tensions. This revelation,
00:16:04.300 particularly significant in the context of the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961,
00:16:10.880 a disastrous attempt to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Spotty intelligence, a key factor
00:16:17.620 identified in the failure of that invasion attempt, the fiasco deeply damaging President
00:16:22.900 Kennedy's trust in the CIA. The New York Times reporting in 1966, a frustrated President Kennedy
00:16:29.320 telling an aide in the aftermath of the debacle, quote, I want to splinter the CIA into a thousand
00:16:35.500 pieces and scatter it to the winds. Despite the new documents providing a clearer look at tensions
00:16:41.560 between President Kennedy and the CIA, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and others
00:16:47.740 agreeing with the conclusion brought to us by The Washington Post, quote, so far nothing upends the
00:16:53.580 notion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman. And that'll do it for your AM update. I'm Megan
00:17:00.800 Kelly. Join me back here for The Megan Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 at noon east,
00:17:06.440 on youtube.com slash megankelly, and on all podcast platforms.
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