The Megyn Kelly Show - Truth About Alex Jones, Immigration Crisis, and COVID Fear, with Rep. Mayra Flores and Dr. Joseph Ladapo ｜ Ep. 369

00:00:00.420 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.940 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. We begin today with Alex Jones.

00:00:18.740 A jury in Texas has handed down a nearly $50 million judgment against him, $4.1 million in

00:00:25.240 compensatory damages, meaning what it would take to cover the plaintiff's actual damages in the form

00:00:30.160 of therapy bills and so on, and $45.2 million in punitive damages, the damages awarded to punish

00:00:37.040 a defendant and defer, deter future misconduct. The punitive damages award may be reduced as Texas

00:00:44.740 has a punitive damages cap of $750,000 per plaintiff. There are two plaintiffs in this case, so that would

00:00:51.180 be $1.5 million, though the plaintiff's attorney, Mark Bankston, has said he will challenge the

00:00:56.200 constitutionality of that damages cap if necessary here. A jury awarded the sums after sitting for

00:01:03.240 a trial that was all about damages. Alex Jones's liability to the plaintiffs was settled last year

00:01:09.060 after Jones so continuously refused to comply with discovery mandates, court orders, and basic rules

00:01:15.340 of litigation in the liability phase that this judge and two others, by the way, issued a default

00:01:21.400 judgment against him, finding Jones in contempt of court, stating that nothing had worked thus far to

00:01:28.860 force Alex Jones to comply with the court's many orders and concluding that he had forfeited his

00:01:33.480 right to a trial on liability. This particular case in Austin, Texas, where Jones's Infowars is based,

00:01:41.020 was filed by Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of six-year-old Jesse Lewis, who was

00:01:48.600 murdered in his first-grade classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary, along with 19 other first-graders and

00:01:55.320 six adults on December 14, 2012, 11 days before Christmas. I covered that mass shooting that day

00:02:04.980 while live on the air for Fox News Channel. I was then pregnant with my third child, Thatcher,

00:02:09.660 who would be born the following summer. I remember getting ready for the show as the news broke

00:02:15.540 and my executive producer, knowing I had a three-year-old and a one-year-old and was pregnant

00:02:21.020 with a third child, called me to prepare me for the job that was ahead. This is going to be a bad

00:02:27.100 one, darling, he said to me. We had covered many mass shootings before, though nothing, nothing would

00:02:33.260 prepare me for the horrors of Sandy Hook. I remember I called one of my closest friends, Janice Dean,

00:02:39.660 who would later become godmother to that as yet unborn son of mine. And we cried and we watched

00:02:46.480 the preliminary reports of the death toll rising. And I asked her, how am I going to do this, JD?

00:02:53.020 How can I go on the air and do this? And she assured me that we would get through it and that

00:02:57.960 I would, I would, I would keep it together because the audience needed me to. And that is what happened

00:03:05.100 as I sat on the air for hours that day, reporting the shocking, awful details as they came in.

00:03:12.260 Two months later, Neil Hesslin testified before Congress. And I was on the air that day, too. We

00:03:20.780 intended to take just some of his remarks. But as we watched Neil, our team realized there is only

00:03:26.860 one thing our audience needs to hear from us today, and that is the full testimony of this man,

00:03:34.720 a gun owner who had serious questions about how this evil shooter was allowed access to an AR-15.

00:03:43.540 Questions we're still asking in this society, not not necessarily about guns in general, but about how did

00:03:49.460 he get access to, to AR-15 and AR-15? How did the parent, how did the mother allow it?

00:03:56.660 Uh, Neil's testimony that day was passionate. It was honest. It was raw. And here's a bit of Neil

00:04:03.700 describing what he had learned about his son's Jesse's actions in class that day.

00:04:10.620 Dated by several of the surviving students that Jesse yelled, run, run now. His fatal shot was in his

00:04:18.020 forehead. Dick went in right at his hairline, exited directly behind that. Jesse looked at

00:04:27.760 coward Adam Lange in the eyes, saw his face, and he looked at the end of that barrel. Jesse didn't

00:04:34.080 run. Jesse didn't turn his back. That was the fatal shot that killed Jesse.

00:04:40.180 I later met Neil. I had him on the show. I got to know many of the Newtown or Sandy Hook families.

00:04:49.100 I always felt a connection to them because of my own experience covering them on the air that day

00:04:53.200 and the many follow-up interviews and pieces that we did on them and with them. I came to know Neil

00:04:58.900 Hesslin as a gentle, kind soul, a soft-spoken, thoughtful man who was never consumed with

00:05:06.180 bitterness, but instead wanted to do justice to his young son's memory and to honor Scarlett too

00:05:12.840 and her relationship with their son. It was that Neil and Scarlett who just won their case against

00:05:19.580 Alex Jones. The lawsuit they filed was for defamation because you see, Alex Jones had a very different

00:05:26.840 reaction to Sandy Hook than most of us. Instead of offering empathy for the families, he called them

00:05:33.160 liars, crisis actors, and accused them of being part of a government conspiracy. He said it over and

00:05:40.740 over and over again for years. And Alex Jones had a very big audience for those lies, some of whom

00:05:48.220 began harassing the grieving parents as the alleged perpetrators of a hoax. One woman was sentenced to

00:05:56.040 five months in prison for her death threats against another Newtown dad, Leonard Posner.

00:06:01.800 Leonard's son, Noah, who was the youngest of the Newtown victims, he had just turned six three weeks

00:06:06.540 earlier, had his jaw blown off by the Sandy Hook shooter. Leonard opted for an open casket so people

00:06:13.780 could see what was done to his baby. Alex Jones perpetuated the lie that Leonard was a crisis actor and it

00:06:20.820 faked the death of his son Noah Posner too is suing Alex Jones in a different court. The ongoing

00:06:29.020 harassment, death threats, accusations, and horrific lies about them and their dead children eventually led

00:06:35.740 several of the Newtown parents to file lawsuits against Alex Jones, claiming what we all, while we

00:06:42.720 all enjoy a First Amendment right to our, our beliefs, repeated lies impugning the character of another

00:06:48.860 have long been recognized as unprotected speech. That's why, by the way, Johnny Depp just won a

00:06:54.780 defamation claim against Amber Heard. She claimed she had a First Amendment right to say whatever she 0.99

00:06:59.760 wanted about Johnny Depp, a court and a jury in Virginia found otherwise. And the same lesson was

00:07:05.340 just provided to Alex Jones. Of the four cases filed against Jones, this one in particular held a personal

00:07:13.780 interest for me. Because it was connected to my own interview of Alex Jones, I sat down with him then

00:07:20.260 while at NBC News for a lengthy profile. You may remember there was considerable backlash to my doing

00:07:26.020 that interview at all. A small minority of the Newtown families objected to our, quote, platforming Alex

00:07:33.000 Jones, an objection shared by many, particularly on the left. Bill de Blasio attacked me. Brian Stelter

00:07:40.600 had the nerve to suggest that no one would ever appear on any show I would ever do again. And the

00:07:45.220 left-wing press was generally apoplectic about it. For the record, though NBC News would not let me

00:07:52.400 publicly defend myself at the time, the truth is that the vast majority of Newtown parents were either

00:07:57.900 openly in favor of that interview or had no objection to it, though you would never have known that from

00:08:03.240 the way the media covered it at the time. Very few of these so-called journalists attacking me for doing

00:08:09.240 this piece stopped to defend journalistic principles like, we don't only get to interview

00:08:14.680 the good guys. Diane Sawyer interviewed Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer. Mike Wallace sat down with

00:08:21.500 the Iranian Ayatollah and the head of the KKK while he was wearing a hood. People considered those huge

00:08:28.100 gets. Alex Jones has unquestionably said some outrageous and offensive things, but he has not killed

00:08:36.620 anyone. The controversy was based more on the fact that I was sitting down with Alex Jones as a former

00:08:44.920 Fox News anchor now at NBC, something many on both sides of the political aisle resented. After all,

00:08:52.140 several major publications from The New York Times to the BBC to HBO, Esquire and CNN had interviewed Alex

00:08:59.060 Jones before my sit down with him and after his claims about Sandy Hook. And there was zero objection.

00:09:06.620 About platforming. The amount of incoming we received for that interview was overwhelming. I'm not

00:09:13.920 going to lie. It was extremely stressful for me. I had I had people even on the right who I liked giving

00:09:19.120 me a very hard time for doing it. I was on the cover of the National Enquirer as the world's most hated

00:09:24.560 mom for doing that piece. A woman named Kristen Lemkow, a senior executive at J.P. Morgan, and it turns out

00:09:31.700 a far left progressive activist, pulled J.P. Morgan's ads from the show in advance, saying she was repulsed

00:09:37.940 by our decision to interview Jones. I'm repulsed by you, Miss Lemkow, and your moronic understanding of what 1.00

00:09:44.380 journalists do, along with your egregious misjudgment of what that interview would ultimately mean for Alex Jones

00:09:51.340 and the Newtown families. At no point did I ever consider not airing the interview, nor to its

00:09:58.380 credit did NBC News. When I traveled to Austin, Texas to interview Jones, it became very clear

00:10:03.600 that he had not backed away from his claims that this was all a hoax. He claimed that he had just

00:10:09.480 wanted to examine, quote, both sides. Both sides, he said. The belief that Sandy Hook happened and the

00:10:14.800 belief that it hadn't. But Sandy Hook did happen, and Jones's suggestion that there was any evidence

00:10:22.460 to the contrary was and remains a pernicious lie. You said the whole thing is a giant hoax. How do you

00:10:32.020 deal with a total hoax? It took me about a year with Sandy Hook to come to grips with the fact that

00:10:37.640 the whole thing was fake. I did deep research, and my gosh, it just pretty much didn't happen.

00:10:45.920 At that point, and I do think there's some cover-up and some manipulation, that is pretty much what I

00:10:50.680 believe. But then I was also going into Devil's Advocate, but then we know there's mass shootings

00:10:54.980 and these things happen. So again. You're trying to have it always, right? No, I'm not. If you wrongly

00:11:00.500 went out there and said it was a hoax, that's wrong. But what I already answered your question was

00:11:05.320 listeners and other people are covering this. I didn't create that story.

00:11:09.620 Alex, the parents, one after the other, devastated. The dead bodies that the coroner

00:11:18.920 autopsied. And they blocked all that, and they won't release any of it? That's unprecedented?

00:11:22.900 All of the parents decided to come out and lie about their dead children?

00:11:27.540 I didn't say that. What happened to the children?

00:11:29.480 I will sit there on the air and look at every position and play Devil's Advocate.

00:11:33.300 Was that Devil's Advocate? The whole thing is a giant hoax. The whole thing was fake.

00:11:41.820 Yes, because I remember in even that day, I'll go back from memory, then saying, but then some of

00:11:47.240 it looks like it's real. But then what do you do when they've got the kids going in circles in and

00:11:51.660 out of the building with their hands up? I've watched the footage and it looks like a drill.

00:11:55.040 When you say parents faked their children's death, people get very angry.

00:12:03.560 Yeah, well, let's, oh, I know, but they don't get angry about the half million dead Iraqis from

00:12:06.240 the sanctions, or they don't get angry about all the illegals pouring in.

00:12:09.260 No, no, it's not a dodge. The media never covers all the evil wars it's promoted, all the big things.

00:12:13.960 That doesn't excuse what you did and said about Newtown. You know it.

00:12:16.800 Here's the difference. Here's the difference. I looked at all the angles of Newtown.

00:12:24.980 Once I was back in New York, I knew we needed a response from the Newtown families. So I asked

00:12:30.640 Neil. Typically gracious, he agreed. And in a gripping exchange, he made clear what had happened

00:12:38.320 to his son that day. I lost my son. I buried my son. I held my son with a bullet hole through his

00:12:47.840 head. I dropped him off in 904. That's when we dropped him off at school with his book bag.

00:12:55.540 Hours later, I was picking him up in a body bag. Alex Jones and InfoVars responded to that interview.

00:13:08.320 By doubling down on their lies about the Sandy Hook parents, including Neil by name,

00:13:13.220 they claimed it was impossible for him to hold his dead son, Jesse, because the medical examiner

00:13:19.400 they claimed had not released the bodies or some other nonsense. All lies. An InfoVar employee,

00:13:25.860 Owen Schreier, admitted on the stand that he had failed to check any of these facts, though Alex

00:13:30.760 Jones claimed it was all fact checked, before saying these lies on the air. And those lies told

00:13:37.020 about Neil, after our interview, after Alex Jones listened to Neil talk about holding his dead son,

00:13:47.240 formed the basis for that lawsuit that just resulted in a $50 million judgment against Alex Jones

00:13:54.460 last week. Here is the New York Times daily podcast called The Daily this morning.

00:14:00.720 What was the specific claim of defamation against Jones from Jesse's parents?

00:14:08.360 First tonight, our report on the incendiary radio host, Alex Jones.

00:14:13.460 So years later, in 2017, Megyn Kelly was profiling Alex Jones on a show that she had on NBC.

00:14:22.760 For years, Jones has been spreading conspiracy theories, claiming, for instance, that elements

00:14:28.260 of the U.S. government allowed the 9-11 attacks to happen and that the horrific Sandy Hook massacre

00:14:34.620 was a hoax. And Neil appeared on the show to provide the family's viewpoint of the lies that

00:14:42.340 Jones had been spreading all of these years. I dropped him off in 904. That's when we dropped

00:14:47.580 him off at school with his book bag. He told Megyn Kelly about his last moments with Jesse.

00:14:56.000 Hours later, I was picking him up in a body bag. He had gone into the school in the wee hours of the

00:15:04.560 morning on the night of the shooting, and he held Jesse's body. I lost my son. I buried my son.

00:15:15.060 I held my son with a bullet hole through his head.

00:15:18.980 This was obviously a pretty sacred memory to Neil, and he shared it with Megyn Kelly on the show

00:15:25.600 that evening.

00:15:31.380 And how did a defamation suit come out of that? What did Jones say?

00:15:36.400 Alex Jones was unhappy with the way he was being portrayed in Megyn Kelly's broadcast that night.

00:15:43.760 And after the broadcast aired, one of his sidekicks, a guy named Owen Schroyer,

00:15:50.920 went on Infowars and said that Neil couldn't have held his son that night because according to

00:15:58.420 official reports, which of course conspiracy theorists had picked through and parsed and

00:16:03.720 cherry-picked, the families, quote-unquote, weren't allowed to see their children after their deaths.

00:16:10.340 Jones later picked up on Owen Schroyer's false claims and amplified them, and that was the

00:16:18.280 genesis of the defamation lawsuit that Neil and Jesse's mom, Scarlett, filed against Alex Jones.

00:16:27.060 On the stand at trial, Jones was caught in several other lies as well. For example,

00:16:34.840 he had earlier testified under oath that he had absolutely no texts on his phone about Sandy Hook.

00:16:42.960 Neil and Scarlett's lawyer, Mark Bankston, knew different, as we learned in this moment that

00:16:49.000 few lawyers will ever get in their entire career.

00:16:54.000 You were ordered to turn over any text messages with Gene Sandy Hook, right?

00:17:00.020 Yes.

00:17:00.700 And you didn't have any, right?

00:17:03.300 Not that we could find.

00:17:05.040 Did you know that 12 days ago, 12 days ago, your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital

00:17:12.980 copy of your entire cell phone with every text message you've sent for the past two years?

00:17:19.780 Mr. Jones, in discovery, you were asked, do you have Sandy Hook text messages on your phone?

00:17:26.220 And you said no.

00:17:27.380 Correct.

00:17:31.820 You said that under oath.

00:17:33.780 Yes, didn't you?

00:17:34.620 I was mistaken.

00:17:35.740 I was mistaken.

00:17:36.260 Jones skipped many days of the trial, perhaps to avoid hearing Neil and Scarlett testify about

00:17:45.000 the pain his comments had put them through, the renewed death threats, the danger, the

00:17:51.000 harassment, the renewed need for therapists' visits, and the post-traumatic stress rearing

00:17:57.860 its ugly head again.

00:17:59.940 Though it's clear that Alex Jones was at least watching the trial because he was commenting

00:18:04.800 on it on his show every day, and after watching Neil Heslin testify about what happened to

00:18:12.140 Jesse, this is what Alex Jones said on his program that very day.

00:18:18.540 He's a nice man, and he's not an act.

00:18:23.000 He is manipulated by some very bad people.

00:18:27.780 But I'll just say, because I've got to be honest, he's slow, okay?

00:18:30.760 And his ex-wife is not.

00:18:34.440 I don't think he's stupid.

00:18:35.980 I'm just saying he's, he's, I've got family members that are really smart in a lot of ways,

00:18:41.060 but they're just real kind of quiet and have this way about them, and they move at a different

00:18:47.240 pace.

00:18:47.620 Like, they're fast in some ways and slow in others, and he's, I mean, I think Heslin acts

00:18:54.920 like somebody on the spectrum.

00:18:57.400 Okay.

00:18:58.080 So he's on the spectrum.

00:18:59.180 Okay.

00:19:00.760 There's something wrong with this man.

00:19:05.400 There's something wrong with Alex Jones.

00:19:10.560 He went on to try to dismiss his many comments about Neil Scarlett and the Newtown family.

00:19:16.560 He says, just, well, you know, it's all unintentional.

00:19:18.400 It was unintentional.

00:19:19.680 Watch.

00:19:20.660 I never intentionally tried to hurt you.

00:19:23.180 I never even said your name until this case came to court.

00:19:27.080 Uh, I didn't even really know who you were until a couple of years ago when all this started

00:19:31.220 up.

00:19:32.480 The internet had a lot of questions.

00:19:34.140 I had questions.

00:19:34.940 And over that six, seven-year period before I got sued, or six-year period, it's clear.

00:19:41.080 You can see the whole progression of us, the few times we covered it, trying to actually

00:19:45.260 find out what happened.

00:19:46.060 One day, Scarlett took to the stand, and when it appeared that she had finished with her

00:19:55.020 testimony, they took a break.

00:19:56.980 Only then did Alex Jones show up in the courthouse.

00:20:00.740 This was an incredible moment because Scarlett was not done with her testimony.

00:20:07.100 And Scarlett and Neil and many of the Newtown families have long wanted the chance to address

00:20:14.040 Alex Jones right to his face.

00:20:16.980 Incredibly, Scarlett got that chance.

00:20:20.300 She was poised, and she was amazingly restrained.

00:20:23.860 Having a six-year-old son shot in the forehead in his first grade classroom is unbearable, unbearable.

00:20:37.220 You don't think you're going to survive.

00:20:38.700 But there are people that have.

00:20:46.240 And then to have someone on top of that perpetuate a lie, a lie, that it was a hoax, that it didn't

00:20:57.320 happen, that it was a false flag, that I'm an actress.

00:21:00.580 And you get on and you say, oh, sorry, but I know actresses when I see them. 1.00

00:21:06.480 Do you think I'm an actress?

00:21:08.700 No, I don't think you're not.

00:21:11.920 No, you can't talk right now.

00:21:13.340 Sorry, I did.

00:21:15.560 I asked him a question.

00:21:16.880 You get to testify right now.

00:21:19.240 You're under oath.

00:21:21.040 Nobody else in the room is.

00:21:24.640 Scarlett was later seen offering Alex Jones a bottle of water for the cough that he had.

00:21:33.620 Neil Heslin actually shook his hand.

00:21:35.460 What a man.

00:21:36.740 What a difference in character between these men.

00:21:42.180 Believe it or not, I was almost at this trial.

00:21:45.380 Neil and Scarlett's lawyer told me that they needed me to take the stand to get the NBC News

00:21:51.680 interview into evidence.

00:21:53.020 They wanted to play it for the jury.

00:21:55.900 I will tell you the truth.

00:21:57.920 I was not excited to do this and really wrestled with whether I could or should.

00:22:03.540 This whole story, every iteration of it, has been personally and professionally painful.

00:22:08.000 Did I really want to leave my family, travel to Austin, Texas, take part in this insane trial

00:22:13.820 with an out-of-control defendant, and subject myself to a hostile cross-examination, not

00:22:19.180 to mention relive a difficult time in my career and a chapter of dealing with Alex Jones that,

00:22:24.340 frankly, I would rather forget?

00:22:26.360 No.

00:22:26.660 The actual trial day that I was to be called, the day I was going to be called as a witness,

00:22:34.600 happened to be scheduled for the same day of Thatcher, that third child of mine, his

00:22:41.600 ninth birthday party.

00:22:43.200 Not his birthday, but his birthday party.

00:22:45.360 And for the first time in my 12 years of motherhood, that would mean I'd be missing one

00:22:50.060 of my children's birthdays, one of their birthday parties.

00:22:52.920 I had never done that, notwithstanding the fact that I've been a busy working mom.

00:22:56.980 I knew that it would likely stir up a shitstorm of negative news stories from the left and

00:23:01.500 would also not go over well with the right, some of which has come to really embrace Alex

00:23:06.680 Jones more recently.

00:23:07.960 Some think of him as a martyr for having been deplatformed, another event that happened

00:23:12.600 shortly after our interview.

00:23:15.580 But the bottom line was there was no world in which I was saying no to Neil and Scarlett.

00:23:20.820 But I'd be missing my son's birthday party.

00:23:24.000 They have missed every birthday of their sons for 10 years, thanks to this evil shooter who

00:23:29.320 murdered 20 first graders, including Jesse, in 2012.

00:23:32.780 I might get bad press.

00:23:35.080 How about reading over and over again online that you faked your sweetheart's life and death

00:23:39.900 and then having crazed lunatics threaten to kill you for it?

00:23:44.680 This whole thing is insanity.

00:23:46.780 These lies about Sandy Hook are insane.

00:23:49.400 And by the way, Alex Jones has been telling lies like this about 9-11, about Oklahoma City,

00:23:56.800 about so many things and innocent people we could spend all day talking about it.

00:24:03.340 I agreed to go.

00:24:06.180 I booked my flights.

00:24:07.720 So did my lawyer.

00:24:09.180 And then, miraculously, I didn't have to do it.

00:24:13.500 Mark Bankston told us that the InfoWars team had screwed up, and inadvertently, their testimony

00:24:22.320 had led to the entire NBC News tape being admitted into evidence.

00:24:27.220 I was not needed, and I was relieved.

00:24:29.940 I was happy for Neil and Scarlett.

00:24:33.580 And I was uncertain up to this very moment whether I should say anything at all publicly

00:24:38.520 about it.

00:24:40.500 There are some to this day who write to me asking me to apologize to Alex Jones for that

00:24:46.300 interview.

00:24:47.560 They think I sandbagged him because he released a partial tape of me pitching him the interview,

00:24:52.680 saying it would not be a hit piece.

00:24:54.820 Partial tape.

00:24:55.380 On the stand, too, he and his team claim, I somehow set him up, making him renew his Sandy

00:25:02.640 Hook claims that he really, really didn't want to do but for the big, bad, mean Megyn Kelly

00:25:09.260 making him.

00:25:11.240 The truth is, I told Alex Jones from the start that Sandy Hook would be part of this interview,

00:25:15.840 that we would go over the controversies, but that I wanted to cover more about him than

00:25:20.100 that.

00:25:20.380 And that's exactly what we did in the NBC News piece, which is one of the journalistic

00:25:25.300 endeavors of which I am most proud in my career.

00:25:30.460 No one made him spew these conspiracy theories but himself.

00:25:35.600 He jumped willingly and recklessly into those defamatory claims about the Newtown families,

00:25:42.820 which he now finally admits were false.

00:25:47.720 He admitted it under oath at this trial.

00:25:51.560 This judgment is morally correct and beyond past due.

00:25:59.220 Alex Jones, yes, in his own way, a talented, compelling, sometimes, sometimes, on other

00:26:06.800 issues, weirdly correct, entertaining force.

00:26:10.720 He is, in independent media, has hurt too many people too many times.

00:26:16.640 I am happy for Neal and Scarlett.

00:26:20.480 I am relieved the jury punished Alex Jones, and I hope anyone who sees this as a free speech

00:26:27.720 issue goes back to look at the law and the history of this case.

00:26:33.120 He is hurting people.

00:26:36.340 He is not actually sorry, though he claims to be now.

00:26:43.220 This is not about free speech.

00:26:45.200 It's about one man violating the law with impunity over and over and over again.

00:26:53.340 Hopefully, that ends now.

00:26:55.600 We'll be right back with a newly elected GOP congresswoman from Texas who is already making 1.00

00:27:04.080 waves as an alleged far-right Latina, according to the New York Times.

00:27:09.380 We'll see about that.

00:27:10.740 Stay tuned.

00:27:11.120 New York City and Washington, D.C., now experiencing a little taste of the border crisis as Texas

00:27:23.760 Governor Greg Abbott buses migrants north. 0.86

00:27:26.920 Oh, the mayors of these northern cities, they don't like it.

00:27:30.540 They are fine with an open border when it doesn't affect them.

00:27:34.480 Governor Abbott says he's doing this because the president refuses to acknowledge the crisis

00:27:38.340 created by his open border policies.

00:27:41.120 New York's mayor is calling the governor's actions horrific, saying some of the migrants 0.99

00:27:46.340 are being forced onto the buses even if they want to go somewhere else.

00:27:51.220 What is it, like, just a chauffeur service they get to just tell Governor Abbott's bus driver?

00:27:57.020 Well, you know, I've got relatives in Salt Lake.

00:27:58.820 What do you mean?

00:28:00.500 Joining me now, newly elected Texas Congresswoman Mayra Flores.

00:28:05.300 She's a Republican who was born in Mexico.

00:28:09.000 She's young, I think 36, Congresswoman Flores.

00:28:12.860 Do I have your age correct?

00:28:14.080 It's pretty amazing what you've done.

00:28:17.240 Thank you so much.

00:28:18.060 Thank you for having me.

00:28:19.080 And yes, I'm 36 years old.

00:28:21.280 My gosh, you're like a baby.

00:28:23.040 So I love it because notwithstanding your youth, you've created quite the firestorm in Washington

00:28:30.020 and with the media who are not happy about a young Mexican-born Latina woman winning as

00:28:39.440 a Republican.

00:28:40.300 You're the first, amazingly, you're the first to ever do it.

00:28:43.140 You certainly aren't going to be the last.

00:28:45.740 But what do you make of the reaction to you?

00:28:47.820 Honestly, it doesn't surprise me.

00:28:50.820 I saw it very early on.

00:28:53.200 But for me, it's really not about politics.

00:28:55.720 I was raised and I was born and raised in Burgos, Tamaulipas, Mexico, raised with strong

00:29:00.940 conservative values to always put God and family first.

00:29:04.980 And I'm just not willing to put my values aside for no political party.

00:29:10.120 And when I came here to the United States, I was raised with those same values.

00:29:13.440 It didn't change because I moved here to the United States.

00:29:16.460 Those values live in me.

00:29:18.040 They're within me.

00:29:19.440 And I'm proud of it.

00:29:20.740 And I want my children, our children, to grow with the same values.

00:29:24.280 And that's who we are here in South Texas.

00:29:26.240 I really don't know any different.

00:29:28.260 South Texas is very conservative.

00:29:29.980 We've always put God and family first.

00:29:32.580 We're all about hard work.

00:29:33.660 That is just who we are.

00:29:35.060 And that's why I felt very confident when I decided to run because I know my district.

00:29:39.040 I know my people better than anyone.

00:29:41.100 And I knew that if I focused on our values and the issues that really matter to the district,

00:29:46.460 that we would be successful.

00:29:48.520 Now, I want to get into more of your personal story and background in one second.

00:29:51.400 But let's just spend a moment on news of the day and how upset the D.C.

00:29:56.300 mayor, the New York mayor are that Governor Abbott is shipping migrants who have crossed

00:30:01.060 into the country illegally up to their towns.

00:30:03.640 You know, I grew up in New York state.

00:30:05.320 I lived down in the Washington, D.C.

00:30:07.100 area for a few years.

00:30:08.060 Because they don't normally have to deal with this in the way that Texans do, Arizonans

00:30:13.060 do, and so on.

00:30:14.240 So what do you make of their complaints that this is just this is inhumane and it's horrible?

00:30:19.300 Well, I thought they were supportive of immigrants.

00:30:21.620 I thought that they love immigrants, that they want immigrants here in the United States.

00:30:26.400 That's what they've been saying all this time.

00:30:29.000 And all of a sudden, they don't want them in New York.

00:30:32.040 They don't want them in their cities.

00:30:33.700 It just blows my mind because they were OK with what's happening here in South Texas,

00:30:39.980 because I call it a humanitarian crisis.

00:30:41.960 I really do.

00:30:43.520 It's the Biden administration's policies that encourage illegal immigration, knowing the

00:30:49.160 serious journey, dangerous journey that they will have to go through to come here to United

00:30:56.120 States.

00:30:56.820 They don't care about that.

00:30:58.660 And we do care.

00:30:59.840 We care about the immigrants.

00:31:01.040 We care about their safety.

00:31:02.020 We care about the American people.

00:31:03.880 That is why we advocate for legal immigration so the good people can come here to United

00:31:08.720 States where it's safer, where they don't have to go through such dangerous journey.

00:31:12.780 That's why I will always encourage people to do it the right way.

00:31:15.680 I do understand that the legal process needs to be improved.

00:31:19.120 But it doesn't surprise me, Megan.

00:31:21.700 It doesn't surprise me that they react this way because they have been treated me the same

00:31:27.900 way.

00:31:28.160 They claim that they work for immigrants.

00:31:30.040 And it doesn't matter to them that I came here legally.

00:31:33.500 They still treat me just the same.

00:31:35.840 So many of them have called me racist names, calling me misfrijoles, misenchiladas, tacos.

00:31:42.800 So many of them have told me to go back to Mexico.

00:31:46.300 Why?

00:31:46.860 Because they want us to come here to United States and obey them.

00:31:50.420 They don't want us to come here to United States and embrace our values, embrace who we

00:31:55.860 are.

00:31:56.740 So it really doesn't surprise me that they feel this way.

00:32:00.640 But they're a bunch of hypocrites.

00:32:02.540 And if they are for what's happening in South Texas, which we're not, then they should take

00:32:07.800 it.

00:32:08.400 Live with it.

00:32:08.960 Live with it.

00:32:09.520 Live with it.

00:32:09.980 And then you can have an opinion.

00:32:11.840 Once it's not somebody else's problem, their messaging has changed a lot.

00:32:16.980 And I say this as somebody, again, who lives in the general region of New York.

00:32:20.060 It's like, fine, we should have to deal with it.

00:32:22.160 From all my years on Fox News, we used to cover the actual problems caused by people

00:32:26.640 crossing into the country illegally to the border communities.

00:32:30.160 And most of the people on the left pay absolutely no attention to this.

00:32:33.200 And many haven't even heard one story about it.

00:32:36.180 So if they have to be forced to live it, to understand how dangerous it is and how problematic

00:32:40.140 it is, then I support Governor Abbott in this tactic.

00:32:43.540 Let's talk about the attacks on you.

00:32:45.100 They've been disgusting.

00:32:46.540 When you say those terms, you're not just making them up.

00:32:49.740 As I understand it, you are supposed to face Vincente Gonzalez in November, right, to hold

00:33:00.020 on to this seat that you won in a special election.

00:33:02.340 And this is a Democrat.

00:33:04.280 He's represented Texas 15, this district, since 2017.

00:33:09.920 There's been some redistricting, which we can talk about in a second.

00:33:12.100 But anyway, the point is, he's your opponent.

00:33:15.920 He's a Democrat.

00:33:16.560 And it turns out this political blogger who was paid to run ads for Gonzalez's campaign

00:33:23.980 launched a series of racist attacks against you, calling you, as you point out, Ms. Frijoles,

00:33:31.060 Ms. Enchiladas, and then questioned, he claims, that you worked in cotton fields with your Mexican

00:33:37.060 immigrant parents as a child, calling you a cotton-picking liar. 0.99

00:33:40.140 He, he basically has stood by this and said, it was political satire.

00:33:48.360 This is McHale, the guy who did it, not, not Gonzalez, and questioned, when did Frijoles

00:33:52.860 become the equivalent of the N-word?

00:33:54.640 I'm going to be merciless with her.

00:33:57.320 I'm a liberal Democrat.

00:33:58.480 It's a war against the Republican.

00:33:59.680 And I will continue to be merciless.

00:34:02.300 What do you make of it?

00:34:03.140 And he paid him to do those things.

00:34:07.500 And no apology.

00:34:09.700 No apology.

00:34:10.720 And those insults weren't just towards me.

00:34:13.420 They were towards an entire culture.

00:34:16.060 The insults towards also the sexual harassment that I've received wasn't just an attack against

00:34:24.800 me.

00:34:25.000 It was an attack against all women. 0.97

00:34:26.420 But I saw, I saw it very early on.

00:34:29.880 Vicente Gonzalez did state that he was more qualified because he was born in Texas and

00:34:35.160 I was born in Mexico.

00:34:36.720 And I never thought that a Democrat would say that.

00:34:40.240 But again, I knew exactly that this would be coming, but I just didn't, never thought

00:34:47.800 that it was going to be about my legal status.

00:34:50.360 I mean, they were doing an investigation on how I got here to the United States.

00:34:54.580 They were doing an investigation on my father, how he got here to the United States.

00:34:59.380 They don't care about all the millions of people that are coming in into the United States 0.67

00:35:03.920 illegally, but let's investigate Mayra Flores and how she got here and how her parents got 1.00

00:35:09.660 here.

00:35:09.980 I was blessed that I came here to the United States legally.

00:35:12.580 I was.

00:35:13.080 I was blessed that my father became an American citizen.

00:35:15.680 And I do understand that not so many other people have that same blessing.

00:35:19.620 And that's the reason why I am focused on improving the legal process.

00:35:23.920 So more little girls like Mayra, more, more children have the same experience like me.

00:35:29.300 I understand that.

00:35:30.460 I, I would say I'm blessed that I was able to come here legally.

00:35:34.640 And I want that for other children as well, for other people.

00:35:37.920 I don't want them to go through that dangerous journey.

00:35:40.480 Illegal immigration does fund criminal organizations.

00:35:43.300 I'm from Tamaulipas.

00:35:44.580 I, I know exactly what's happening here in the Southern borders and the criminal organizations 0.60

00:35:49.100 have taken over the border.

00:35:51.800 You cannot cross unless you pay them thousands and thousands of dollars. 1.00

00:35:55.460 Women are being abused.

00:35:56.960 Children are being abused.

00:35:58.760 We have a real problem here in the United States with child sex trafficking.

00:36:01.900 And if we want to put an end to that, we must secure our borders and focus on legal immigration. 0.97

00:36:07.880 Yeah.

00:36:08.260 Yeah.

00:36:08.560 Well, I mean, more and more of the Democrats are being forced to pay attention to this

00:36:12.080 because they see how important it is in the polls.

00:36:13.640 But I will say Gonzales said in a statement of the Washington Post, his team, quote,

00:36:17.380 advertises on many platforms and they have no control over the editorial content.

00:36:22.200 Quote, we do not pay for political attacks and we will not be advertising on this platform

00:36:26.780 again, adding that he condemned the offensive remarks on the platform, just as he condemned

00:36:32.420 Trump's racist rants about Mexico.

00:36:34.260 So, you know, the dodge, right?

00:36:36.300 Like the, the equivocation.

00:36:37.880 It's not all at all on clear to me that Gonzales disliked what McHale said about you, notwithstanding

00:36:47.520 what he's now saying.

00:36:49.220 But what's likely to happen?

00:36:51.000 Because my understanding is you and he are facing off, but redistricting gives him the

00:36:58.900 advantage now because they've basically redrawn the congressional lines in Texas in a way where

00:37:04.860 this district, which you won, will now be very favorable to the Democrat.

00:37:09.220 Hence, Politico is dubbing the race likely Democratic.

00:37:12.200 The Cook Political Report now has it as lean Democratic, again, because of redistricting.

00:37:16.360 So what do you do you think that's true?

00:37:18.320 Well, it got harder for Vicente when he initially decided to run for Texas District 34.

00:37:25.480 He thought he had it in the, in his pocket.

00:37:27.660 He never thought that we would win a special election and that he would have to run against

00:37:33.380 Congresswoman Mayra Flores.

00:37:35.220 I am the incumbent.

00:37:36.660 And Texas 34, no matter the lines, we are very conservative, conservative by nature.

00:37:42.560 That is just who we are.

00:37:43.820 It doesn't change that.

00:37:45.480 We did win Cameron County.

00:37:46.860 Cameron County is the biggest county with the biggest population in the special election for

00:37:51.660 the first time ever in history.

00:37:53.900 And look, if I was able to flip a district that had not been flipped for over 150 years,

00:37:58.780 I feel very confident in winning our re-election in November.

00:38:03.700 But because I don't take no one for granted, I really don't.

00:38:07.540 I'm working very hard every single day.

00:38:09.820 I put God first.

00:38:11.640 And of course, the amazing team that is behind me that I'm confident that it's going to get

00:38:16.680 me through and my amazing family as well.

00:38:19.020 And I just, I just know we, we have it, but I take nothing for granted.

00:38:23.500 You've done the impossible before.

00:38:25.260 Now, speaking of the attacks against you, the New York Times, I mentioned it in the intro,

00:38:30.160 they called you a far, far right Latina.

00:38:33.620 Okay.

00:38:33.880 Far right Latina. 1.00

00:38:35.140 You and two other Latina Republicans.

00:38:39.680 Far right.

00:38:40.540 Okay.

00:38:40.940 Why?

00:38:41.720 Okay.

00:38:42.140 Let's, we'll find out.

00:38:43.800 Um, and then CNN says, you may be Latina, but you're not the real deal. 0.99

00:38:48.880 You're not a real deal Latino. 1.00

00:38:50.820 And this is why they say that.

00:38:52.500 This is an op-ed by Paul Reyes on July 12th, which says, um, you hold conservative positions

00:38:59.300 on abortion, gun control, and immigration, but quote, that's just not where most Latinos

00:39:03.180 are these days.

00:39:03.960 The Pew Research Center reports 60% of Hispanic adults say abortion should be legal in all or

00:39:08.620 most cases.

00:39:09.160 The June Quinnipiac University survey found 58% of Hispanics want stricter gun control

00:39:15.200 laws.

00:39:16.040 Pew notes that an overwhelming majority of Latinos favor major fixes in the U.S. immigration

00:39:20.820 system.

00:39:21.900 So what do you say to Paul Reyes, who says you're not the real deal Latina, Latino, because 60%

00:39:28.980 of Hispanics feel differently than you do on those issues?

00:39:33.280 I strongly disagree.

00:39:35.020 I mean, I really don't care, to be honest with you, what these people think.

00:39:38.960 Because they know nothing about me.

00:39:40.400 They know nothing about our culture.

00:39:42.300 I mean, I was just, I was born in Mexico.

00:39:44.880 You know, I mean, what more Latina do you want?

00:39:47.580 Like, it's, it blows my mind.

00:39:49.480 Not real enough.

00:39:50.100 Born in Mexico.

00:39:51.200 I guess that's not real enough, right?

00:39:53.480 Um, but I know my people.

00:39:56.020 I know my district.

00:39:57.180 I mean, I worked as a respiratory care practitioner for seven years, worked with pediatric, worked

00:40:03.000 with the elderly community.

00:40:04.400 I have a strong bond and relationship with my district.

00:40:08.060 And we are pro-family, pro-life.

00:40:12.000 And it's all, I really don't, I go based on what I see every single day.

00:40:16.580 I don't go too much on what the polls say.

00:40:19.740 It has to match.

00:40:21.100 And it's just not what I see.

00:40:22.380 And I don't know, I'm just really confident in the people that I represent.

00:40:28.080 And I know that here in Texas 34, I don't know throughout the country, but I know here

00:40:32.840 in Texas 34, we put God first and family.

00:40:36.140 That is just who we are.

00:40:37.320 And the issues that matter to this district right now is the economy, border security,

00:40:41.460 and family values.

00:40:42.940 Those are the top issues, you know, that matter to my district.

00:40:46.080 And I'm going to focus on that.

00:40:48.000 I, all the other numbers I have no control of, but I do know my district.

00:40:52.820 And we know, we know the numbers are changing.

00:40:54.580 They're changing with Hispanics and voters and the way they see the Republican Party. 0.80

00:40:58.260 That's been reflected in election after election, starting with Joe Biden's win, where their

00:41:02.880 support was slipping away in a, in a, in a way that alarmed a lot of Democrats and continues

00:41:07.040 to.

00:41:08.040 Okay.

00:41:08.500 Let's talk for a minute about the far right claim.

00:41:10.700 Um, this is in part, I believe political because they would just be labeling any Republican

00:41:16.280 Latina far right.

00:41:17.240 It's just that you have to be dismissed in some way.

00:41:19.400 So, you know, make you less appealing to sort of center leftists who are eyeballing you.

00:41:23.900 Um, but there, I understand the, the one piece of it, which is you, you, I know you've talked

00:41:29.800 about this, but you have, um, cited or added hashtag Q and hashtag QAnon to social media posts

00:41:36.920 along with something was, that was new to me, WWG one WGA, which is shorthand for where

00:41:43.380 we go one, we go all a QAnon slogan.

00:41:46.820 So I've heard you say that you were on Fox news and you know, you didn't, you said you're

00:41:52.820 against Q and that it was just a hashtag and your, your post was actually against QAnon.

00:41:58.420 So can I ask you officially like, cause it doesn't look like it's against Q in fairness.

00:42:02.820 You have hashtag Q, hashtag QAnon, then you have hashtag MAGA, hashtag Donald Trump, hashtag

00:42:09.780 build the wall, hashtag we are the people.

00:42:11.540 So like, it's a bunch of positive things that you like and Q and QAnon is in there.

00:42:16.040 So was it really some, an attempt to condemn Q?

00:42:20.680 No, it was it.

00:42:22.460 To be honest with you, the hashtags are also for more audience, right?

00:42:26.920 To reach more people.

00:42:28.140 The post obviously is not in favor of none of that.

00:42:31.100 I've always said that I am against that and moving, you know, and focus on the issues

00:42:37.540 that matter to my district.

00:42:39.120 I've always said it over and over that I'm against all that.

00:42:42.100 No idea, to be honest with you, what goes and entails all that.

00:42:46.660 But a hashtag is just used to get more people to see your post, which was a positive post.

00:42:56.060 It was not, again, it's not for, for any of what you're, of what you're saying.

00:43:01.500 So I've never been in favor of it.

00:43:03.340 Don't care for it.

00:43:04.980 Don't care for the far left.

00:43:06.580 Just as much as I don't care about the far right.

00:43:09.260 It's just not who we are, to be honest with you.

00:43:11.820 You know, and I don't mean no disrupt, but that is just not who we are as a Hispanic community.

00:43:17.180 We're conservative.

00:43:19.040 We're a lot more moderate.

00:43:21.340 And I just so glad that I represent a district where we don't have neither or.

00:43:27.180 We don't have people in my, in Texas 34 that are far left.

00:43:30.700 We don't have people in my district that are far right.

00:43:33.400 That is just not who we are.

00:43:34.740 And I really think that as Americans, we are more in the middle.

00:43:39.240 It's just the media has been dividing us and telling us that we can have real conversations

00:43:44.980 when at the end of the day, we're all Americans.

00:43:47.500 It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican.

00:43:49.760 As a respiratory care practitioner, I cared for patients regardless of their political affiliation.

00:43:54.660 I didn't care, you know, what their political affiliation was.

00:43:57.640 I think it's anything with Q gets people.

00:43:59.840 I mean, the original Q is that Democrats are running a sex pedophile, a child pedophile ring

00:44:04.440 out of a, out of a, a pizza joint in Washington.

00:44:07.580 I mean, for the record, do you believe that?

00:44:10.860 No, absolutely not.

00:44:12.500 Most people haven't even heard of it, you know, I feel like.

00:44:14.560 No, I've never even heard of it, you know.

00:44:17.040 But what I did learn about all this is that I have to be careful, like what type of, you

00:44:23.080 know, hashtags we use, even though, yes, we want more people to see them.

00:44:27.480 You more than anyone.

00:44:28.660 You more than anyone.

00:44:29.960 Just ask any black conservative, right? 0.99

00:44:32.240 It's like any member of a minority group that winds up declaring themselves conservatives

00:44:36.460 or a Republican will be targeted in the most vicious, unsparing manner.

00:44:42.440 It's not right, but it's true.

00:44:45.840 So it's one of the things that makes you sympathetic to me.

00:44:48.800 You know, I can see they're going to put you under the microscope in a way that others won't

00:44:52.360 be put, but you do have to be careful, extra careful.

00:44:55.160 You have to be careful.

00:44:55.520 Absolutely.

00:44:56.640 It's a living, it's an experience.

00:44:58.860 And, you know, every day you learn and you become better and you become wiser.

00:45:03.320 And for sure, I'm a lot more careful moving forward in using those type of hashtags.

00:45:09.360 Now, let me ask you this, because we now we now have a situation, as I mentioned, where

00:45:14.520 Hispanics are drafting over to the Republican Party more and more and more. 0.99

00:45:19.560 And I think the Democrats, the more I listen to them, the more they keep trying to sort of

00:45:22.680 tell Hispanics that they, too, should be on board with the causes of Black Lives Matter

00:45:26.760 and identity and, you know, that they can sort of get ahead in the identity lane in a way

00:45:32.380 that the Democrats want to foster, that Republicans don't.

00:45:35.400 And more and more, I see Hispanics in the polls saying, we don't want that. 1.00

00:45:39.280 We we think about these things differently than you.

00:45:41.820 So why is that?

00:45:44.540 We believe all lives matter.

00:45:46.140 I honestly hate identity politics, but I do think that the Democrat Party has been taking

00:45:53.360 advantage of of us using identity politics.

00:45:57.420 And I believe that we're going to end identity politics by encouraging more Hispanics and, 0.99

00:46:03.000 you know, African-Americans to join the Republican Party and have equal, you know, have some balance

00:46:08.220 on both parties.

00:46:09.160 We need representation, equal representation on both parties, because even among us Hispanics,

00:46:14.680 we don't all think alike.

00:46:16.940 I mean, even those of us in the Republican Party, we we do not all think exactly the same.

00:46:22.220 We're going to have some differences as well.

00:46:24.180 And that's OK.

00:46:25.320 But I do think that the only way to end identity politics is by having equal representation on

00:46:32.000 both parties.

00:46:33.320 It's so nice to talk to you.

00:46:34.720 I cannot wait to see what happens in November.

00:46:36.680 I will say win or lose.

00:46:37.960 I hope you're not done.

00:46:39.440 I hope you stay in national politics.

00:46:41.460 I will never.

00:46:42.240 Yes, I will never be done.

00:46:43.800 I want the best for for my country.

00:46:47.560 I want the best for the Hispanic community.

00:46:50.020 And I will always be a voice for them no matter what.

00:46:53.140 Oh, rock on.

00:46:53.960 Great to have you.

00:46:54.680 Thank you so much.

00:46:55.420 Thank you so much.

00:46:56.360 God bless you.

00:46:57.200 Oh, you too.

00:46:57.720 Bye bye.

00:46:58.120 All right.

00:46:58.480 And we're going to be right back.

00:46:59.180 Speaking of of black conservatives who have gotten it unfairly, the Florida Surgeon General

00:47:04.460 who's been on this show once before.

00:47:06.360 In fact, I was here in the Sirius Studios last time we had him on.

00:47:08.880 And here I am again for the day as well.

00:47:11.520 It's like I only interview him while I'm here in the Sirius Studios.

00:47:14.360 And we shall do it again in one moment.

00:47:16.280 He's drawing the ire of the left again, including the media.

00:47:20.300 And we'll talk about why.

00:47:21.580 And remember, you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every

00:47:27.220 weekday at noon east, and the full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel,

00:47:32.600 youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly.

00:47:34.280 If you prefer an audio podcast, you can follow, download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher,

00:47:38.920 or wherever you get your podcasts for free.

00:47:41.360 And there you'll find our full archives with more than 365 shows.

00:47:48.960 Joining us now is Florida Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Lodipo.

00:47:54.640 He is the author of the new book out later this month called Transcend Fear, a blueprint

00:48:01.620 for mindful leadership in public health.

00:48:05.200 Yes, we need that.

00:48:07.140 Welcome back to the show, Dr. Lodipo.

00:48:09.220 Great to have you here.

00:48:10.640 Thanks so much, Megan.

00:48:11.860 We do.

00:48:12.480 Thank you for putting it down in paper, on paper and letting everybody read your thoughts

00:48:16.580 because you're one of the few people who actually showed some reserve, some sanity, some

00:48:21.700 considered judgment when everyone around you was panicking.

00:48:25.540 So we need somebody like you to stop and say, here's how I did that.

00:48:29.140 And here's what's in my background that led me to be kind of familiar with trauma and to

00:48:34.060 not completely freak out whenever it hits and so on and so forth.

00:48:36.960 So I thought it was very insightful and personal and needed.

00:48:41.140 Thank you for doing it.

00:48:42.980 Thanks, Megan.

00:48:44.100 And that was the point.

00:48:45.480 You nailed it.

00:48:46.740 All right.

00:48:47.200 So we'll get to the book in one sec, but let's just talk about a couple of news headlines

00:48:50.180 since you are a doctor and you know what you're talking about.

00:48:53.840 So right now, what's in the news scaring everybody is monkeypox.

00:48:58.160 And I have a confession to make to you.

00:48:59.780 I haven't been paying very close attention to monkeypox because I can feel the media trying

00:49:04.020 to make me panic about monkeypox, which makes me say, I refuse.

00:49:08.260 I refuse.

00:49:08.820 I will wait until there's need to panic.

00:49:11.140 But my governor, up until recently, I moved to Connecticut, but for most of my life, I lived

00:49:15.980 in New York, Kathy Hochul, who's just awful. 1.00

00:49:19.640 She's declared a state of emergency over monkeypox now.

00:49:24.300 Do you agree with that decision?

00:49:28.780 Well, I mean, I think in general, obviously, states of emergencies should be used when there

00:49:34.760 is an emergency.

00:49:35.880 And so in general, I mean, no, obviously, I don't know all of the factors that she was

00:49:47.060 considering in making that decision.

00:49:49.160 But, you know, I think we just it's this the pattern of reaching for the panic button when

00:49:59.300 we're faced with problems is, you know, that's just it's not it.

00:50:05.380 It leads to normalization of ways of sort of, you know, ways of running in a society, governing

00:50:15.360 a society that are harmful for individuals and for, you know, important things like individual

00:50:21.180 rights and liberty.

00:50:23.460 So in general, you know, emergencies really should be saved for that, in my in my opinion.

00:50:28.800 Yeah.

00:50:29.160 And in the opinion of your boss, because Governor DeSantis came out and said, I am so sick of

00:50:34.240 politicians and we saw this with COVID trying to sow fear in the population.

00:50:38.120 We're not doing fear, he said.

00:50:40.100 And he came out and said, criticized her move and said they're going to abuse these emergency

00:50:45.500 powers to restrict your freedom.

00:50:47.420 I guarantee you that's what will happen.

00:50:50.560 And, you know, we have seen that through COVID.

00:50:52.400 There's these governors get drunk on their own power and then decide they'd like to hold

00:50:55.720 these emergency powers over us forever.

00:50:57.760 It's sort of the old camel's nose under the tent.

00:50:59.980 You know, once the nose is under, the camel's coming.

00:51:02.040 So they say, oh, emergency power is for monkey pox.

00:51:05.440 And before we know it, schools are closed and our kids are doing at home learning for

00:51:09.700 a year.

00:51:10.260 You know, that's that's how it goes.

00:51:13.340 I wish I could laugh and say, oh, you know, it's really funny.

00:51:19.120 But you are exactly right.

00:51:21.080 You know, and and it's easier to, you know, to to kind of imagine it's absurd.

00:51:27.220 But look at all the absurd stuff we've seen, you know, over the last two years, firing

00:51:32.620 healthy nurses, you know, who've had COVID and, you know, trying to make like three year

00:51:38.580 olds who, you know, I mean, you're lucky if you get them in their clothes and out the 1.00

00:51:43.680 door in time for school and trying to make them like and keep and have them keep those

00:51:48.160 clothes on between the door and the car and try to make them put like, you know, silly,

00:51:53.620 stupid mask on their face. 0.51

00:51:55.660 And it just just there's it's there's been so much absurdity.

00:51:59.540 So it's no, I think it's a very realistic assessment.

00:52:05.500 On the subject of school insanity, we're seeing school districts like the Washington, D.C.

00:52:09.580 school district mandate the vaccines for 12 and up or they can't come back to school.

00:52:16.620 L.A. as well had that.

00:52:17.980 But they've put it on hold for now since they're missing some 10 to 20,000 students from their

00:52:23.820 roles who just bailed last year when they canceled school all the time.

00:52:27.540 And now they realize they're in the middle of a crisis that they created.

00:52:30.620 I've seen a school district in Louisiana make mandates on the vaccines.

00:52:34.660 And here's my question to you.

00:52:35.740 If you haven't gotten your kid the vaccine yet.

00:52:38.020 And you're being told he can't enroll this year unless he gets it.

00:52:44.480 Is there any point to that, given that they're now working on new vaccines to combat Omicron?

00:52:50.920 So it's an admission that the current vaccines are really not that effective against Omicron.

00:52:55.240 So why would I stick my kid with a vaccine that was for a version of this virus that is now a couple of versions old, only to be told probably in six months, I have to have him stuck again with the new one they're coming up with that actually addresses the current variant of this virus that we're dealing with?

00:53:14.860 But, you know, no, Megan, the whole thing's confused and, you know, fortunately in terms of the, you know, the new toddler, um, governor DeSantis likes to call them toddler vaccines.

00:53:29.020 And so I enjoy that he calls it that, um, in terms of those, I mean, fortunately parents are just, you know, they're just almost all saying, you know, thanks.

00:53:40.000 So I, it gives me some, um, some faith and, um, and some confidence that some sanity is being restored in terms of parents, like listening to their intuition, obviously the fact that very few of them under the five-year-old group have said, no, thanks.

00:54:00.860 While Dr. Falchi and, you know, Dr. Walensky and everyone else at the federal level is saying, you should, you have to do this.

00:54:08.560 You've got to do this.

00:54:09.620 It gives me some, um, more faith and parental intuition.

00:54:14.160 And I think, you know, I saw, I was pleased to see that LA backed down and I'm glad that, um, that, you know, some parents decided not to fold.

00:54:23.800 And I think that, I think it's going to be a tricky battle because the, the, the issue is beyond, you know, which variant is being targeted or whatever, you know, the bottom line is just before any other issues, right.

00:54:38.640 Before you ask about waning immunity, before you look at, well, you know, how safe are these in children, um, before any of those other questions, there's just, just that basic question of, you know, is this something that my kid is going to be better off receiving?

00:54:54.280 And the fact is, and it is a fact that a benefit in healthy children or children who've had COVID and therefore have immunity has like never been demonstrated.

00:55:08.880 So, you know, so in other words, why are we even talking about this?

00:55:13.280 Why is this even something that they're putting on the table?

00:55:15.700 Right.

00:55:16.580 Here's what, can I tell you, this is what they said in our school.

00:55:18.580 They said, and by the way, just got the stats, less than 3% of children under the age of five have been vaccinated.

00:55:24.660 So yes, 97% of parents nationwide have said, uh, no, thanks, but no thanks.

00:55:30.300 And only 31% of children between the ages of five and 11 have been vaccinated despite mandates and so on.

00:55:36.960 You know, the vast majority of parents there too have said, no, we're not doing that.

00:55:41.120 Um, but here's what they say in our school to mandate, cause we have a school that's mandated the vaccine for 16 and up.

00:55:47.760 And so far they haven't moved that down.

00:55:50.040 The reason they didn't go lower than 16 was because it was only the emergency use authorization, at least when we went into summer.

00:55:55.200 And I'm very much hoping they won't change that, even though now technically they've gotten beyond that and the approvals.

00:56:02.260 Anyway, their rationale is as follows.

00:56:04.840 When you, when you get COVID, if you've had the vaccine, you have a lower viral load in your nose.

00:56:14.760 Oh, thanks.

00:56:15.480 Okay.

00:56:15.980 That's what they say.

00:56:17.040 Is that true at all?

00:56:18.580 Um, I mean, my answer is that I haven't seen a study that shows that, but my other, like the more relevant question is like, this is ludicrous.

00:56:30.980 That's, that is the relevant response.

00:56:34.340 I, I mean, okay.

00:56:37.400 I, let's suppose that's true.

00:56:40.300 You know, like, you know, was that an end point in the trials?

00:56:45.440 No, I mean, that's doctors care about, and public health is about, you know, making, helping people be as healthy as possible when you, I mean, I don't know.

00:56:56.240 It's almost, I don't know whether to put people like that in a box and like just a lock up the, you know, lock it and then let them out in a couple of days and ask them again if they still want to do that.

00:57:06.520 It's crazy talk because they'll say, and this, by the way, this is an all boys school.

00:57:10.200 So they're dealing with the population, especially at those older ages, that actually does have to worry about myocarditis and, you know, a real risk from the vaccine that's been documented.

00:57:19.800 So you ask them on the other side, well, okay.

00:57:22.480 Okay.

00:57:22.920 Even if you do have an increased viral load, if you haven't gotten the vaccine in your nose, what does that do?

00:57:28.980 That, that potentially makes you more of a spreader.

00:57:32.300 But getting COVID is sort of a foregone conclusion at this point.

00:57:36.340 Just ask Joe Biden, just ask Anthony Fauci.

00:57:38.940 The question is, how can we save lives?

00:57:41.120 And this is not a group that's at risk of dying from COVID or even of getting really, really ill.

00:57:46.180 So then you say, what about myocarditis?

00:57:48.020 That is a risk for these kids.

00:57:50.080 Yes, you can get it if you get COVID, but you can also get it from the vaccine.

00:57:54.540 And the vaccine is not something you have to do.

00:57:56.600 The vaccine is not something that necessarily is just going to come your way from living your life like COVID is at this point.

00:58:03.340 They don't care.

00:58:04.760 They, they want everyone to be shot with that vaccine.

00:58:09.260 I don't know why I, they just, they ignore the myocarditis and they say, you can't say that you have like a history of blood clots in your family.

00:58:18.480 You could have any sort of problems in your family.

00:58:20.000 They don't count any of that.

00:58:20.940 The only thing they'll allow you to get out of it for is if you had a negative reaction to shot one.

00:58:25.880 You have to get one jab.

00:58:27.820 And only then if you have a doctor, a doctor they approve of, say little Johnny had, you know, whatever hives, only then can you get out of shot two.

00:58:36.900 And meanwhile, they're telling the doctors that, hey, we're going to scrutinize any, any vaccine exemption that you do.

00:58:44.000 No, it's, it's, it's ludicrous.

00:58:45.980 And I mean, I, I just, I know that it's, can be really difficult, less difficult now than it was in the middle of all the craziness that we all had to deal with.

00:58:56.400 But I just, I encourage people to, you know, to, to, to, to just not participate, to really do their very best not to participate.

00:59:05.960 You know, I mean, I know it's difficult, you know, in, in California, you know, some of my colleagues when they were faced with the vaccine mandate, you know, they bit the bullet and, and they, if they didn't believe in it, there weren't many.

00:59:21.380 And most of my colleagues did believe in it, but, you know, I had a few that, you know, one guy's not working there anymore.

00:59:28.520 Another guy was going to retire, but they, you know, they approved his religious exemption and, you know, my wife and I, you know, we were, we, you know, when we had to move to Florida,

00:59:39.000 if like the crazies had gotten their way and instituted vaccine mandates for flying, we'd have driven to Florida, you know?

00:59:46.680 Um, so I just, it's just, I know that I know, I know it's not easy and I know it's way beyond not easy, but, you know, it's only, it is, it is courage that changes the world.

01:00:00.160 And, um, and with every person that makes that step, it makes it a little bit easier for the next person and courage always rules the day.

01:00:09.920 That would definitely, I mean, if enough parents say, take a hike to the, um, administrators at any school, that policy is done.

01:00:19.520 Mm-hmm. Yes. Well, hopefully parents are starting to feel that more and more now that we see the vaccines are not what they were billed to be.

01:00:27.480 Um, one other thing on Florida, there's been quite a bit of news this weekend as the Florida Board of Medicine voted this past Friday to start the process of setting rules for treating transgender minors.

01:00:41.400 This is a debate that has come up state after state after state, you know, places like Florida, like Texas have said, we're going to close down these transgender quote care clinics.

01:00:54.020 They're nothing of the sort. We shouldn't be giving cross sex hormones and so on to young teens, or we should at least severely restrict it. 0.99

01:01:02.300 More and more red states are saying that. So now Florida is going to take a hard look at this issue. And where do you stand on it?

01:01:09.420 Yeah, I was, I, you know, I attended that board meeting, so I heard some of the discussion and I contributed a little bit to it.

01:01:16.740 You know, it's interesting, Megan, if we had had this conversation six months ago, I wouldn't have been able to say the things I would say now.

01:01:23.280 And, um, I wouldn't have known what to say. And, um, you know, what I've, what I've done is I reviewed every study, every published study that has been, um, cited by both proponents and opponents of, um, of these, you know, the hormonal treatments and the, the sex change and surgeries, you know,

01:01:49.780 the mastectomy is the, the, um, uh, and, you know, sex reassignment surgeries and, and I've honestly, like I, I had to, you know, I almost had to kind of wire my, my jaw shut shut.

01:02:02.780 It is, um, it truly Megan is appalling, um, how much, um, how far physicians in this area have gone, um, compared to how much we know, how certain we are about the evidence.

01:02:21.200 And, um, essentially, you know, the studies, these people, you know, the advocates like to say that the surgeries, you know, either reduce like improve mental health or, you know, you know, whatever, they have some benefits like these therapies.

01:02:38.740 And you look at these studies, Megan, and, um, not a single one is, is a, um, like a prospective study with good control groups.

01:02:50.660 There's not a single randomized clinical trial.

01:02:54.140 All of the evidence basically that they make their arguments on are, um, what we call observational studies.

01:03:01.520 And they are vulnerable to like profound confounding.

01:03:08.600 So essentially there is no high quality evidence that has shown a benefit.

01:03:17.760 And despite all of the procedures and all the hormones that have been administered, there's not a single high quality study that shows a benefit.

01:03:25.680 On the other side, there's tremendous risk with these, uh, therapies and, you know, why is there a risk?

01:03:37.220 The risk is pretty obvious.

01:03:38.600 I mean, with the hormone, hormone blockers, that's a, the pure, the pubertal period is, you know, that's an extremely, um, complex period where hormones are changing

01:03:53.260 and they are active in development, including brain development.

01:03:59.140 So, you know, we don't know what we're doing at all in terms of, you know, in terms of long-term effects or short-term effects of doing, of manipulating this, these, um, hormones that are critical to development during puberty.

01:04:17.240 That's astonishing.

01:04:19.240 And then, you know, obviously with the sex, um, sex reassignment surgeries, there are clear risks of sterility and infertility.

01:04:27.240 So when you look at the fact that the benefits haven't been proven and there's been opportunity, this could have been prospectively studied, you know, randomized clinical trials could have been done.

01:04:37.240 The benefits have not been shown.

01:04:39.240 I mean, they are absolutely not convincing anyone who says they are is, you know, is sort of on a crusade and the risks are just obvious.

01:04:49.240 These procedures and these therapies fall into a quadrant in medicine that we avoid a standard of care.

01:04:57.240 I mean, they, we clearly avoid this, you know, they just basically unproven benefit, high risk.

01:05:03.240 I mean, that's not how medical care works.

01:05:07.240 And then you add on top of that, you're doing this to kids, right?

01:05:10.240 That's the focus.

01:05:11.240 That's where we focused in Florida.

01:05:13.240 Like they can't provide consent.

01:05:15.240 You know, they can't provide, you know, the, you know, there, there, there's a technical term called assent in medical, but they, to think that there is informed that the individual has the capacity when they're a minor to make such a, you know, such a monumental

01:05:32.240 treatment decision, that's, that's just ridiculous.

01:05:36.240 Like, you know, so, you know, for multiple reasons, I mean, this, it falls outside the standard of care.

01:05:43.240 They're upset because people are noticing and they're asking questions and they don't have good answers.

01:05:49.240 And I hope, and I'm, I'm confident that the Florida Board of Medicine will rule in a way that is appropriate.

01:05:58.240 Good, good.

01:05:59.240 They would be one of the outliers, sadly.

01:06:01.240 It's just more and more protests happen when you cut off ubiquitous access to this kind of care.

01:06:08.240 And as you point out, when it's a minor, nine times out of 10, you have somebody else doing some agenda pushing on the person and their yes is not a legal yes.

01:06:16.240 They can't consent.

01:06:17.240 But we, we choose to ignore that.

01:06:19.240 I want to remind our audience, you were the associate professor of medicine at UCLA from 2016 to 2021 before being recruited by Governor DeSantis to go on over to Florida and be the surgeon general of Florida.

01:06:32.240 Prior to that, got your bachelor of arts in chemistry from Wake Forest University, then moved down to get your MD from Harvard Medical School, PhD in health policy from Harvard as well, all the fancy degrees.

01:06:45.240 It's very hard for them to dismiss you.

01:06:48.240 You did, you checked all the boxes they wanted you to check and then you started to sound like a conservative and now they hate you.

01:06:55.240 You know, they're funny, but they take that degree back if they could.

01:07:02.240 But yeah, no, I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's a lot of, a lot of, a lot of craziness out there, but we will, you know, that's, that's my favorite part of the job is, is, you know, being a voice of sanity, of sanity in a field of insanity.

01:07:17.240 Yes, well, and you found the right partner in Governor DeSantis.

01:07:20.240 So you write this book, Transcend Fear, a blueprint for mindful leadership and public health.

01:07:25.880 And I was surprised at your backstory and how forthcoming you were about it and how much time you spent on the abuse that you suffered.

01:07:36.480 And I think you must have felt this was very important to your personal story and sort of how you got to where you are.

01:07:43.660 You tell me why, why was that in there?

01:07:45.780 Or was it hard to reveal so much about your personal background?

01:07:50.900 Yeah, thanks for that question, Megan.

01:07:52.960 Well, I mean, I honestly, Megan, I love people and I really want everyone to, you know, have the best chance that they can to, you know, to, to live a life that they want to live and a life that, you know, that they find fulfilling.

01:08:07.760 And, you know, and, you know, and I, I can't, I can't be honest about me without sharing those things, because sort of me being here is not, is not an accident.

01:08:20.940 And ironically, you know, had, you know, had that, you know, the babysitter not abused me, not sexually abused me in the way that she did.

01:08:34.640 And I, you know, I wouldn't have developed the sort of the numbness that I carried around in my life and thought didn't think anything of it, because I thought that's how, you know, that it was normal.

01:08:47.340 And I wouldn't have, you know, I wouldn't have had such a sort of a volatile sort of crisis, kind of an emotional, physical, emotional, spiritual crisis, when I fell in love with my wife.

01:09:05.540 And had I not had all that, I would not have, you know, essentially been forced to, forced to, you know, face it and, and get help.

01:09:17.920 And my wife is the one who, she's guided me the whole way.

01:09:22.800 And, and how not all that happened, I would have been able to, you know, essentially to transcend my own fear, to, to shed the, the, the things that I was holding on to in my own life that were, that were preventing me from, you know, from being free of fear, being able to connect to other people,

01:09:45.160 being, being able to be authentic, to be who I, you know, to find who I am, and to be who I am, and to be, you know, the reflection of God that, that all of us are.

01:10:00.840 Though we all manage, you know, in this world to, you know, to collect all this stuff, that is this buffer between, between who we are, and, and how we end up, you know, showing up in the world.

01:10:15.160 So, you know, without those things, I wouldn't be where I am, I wouldn't be able to do the things that, that I've done.

01:10:22.960 I certainly wouldn't have been able to sort of withstand and sort of sail through the criticisms that, that I've received without like changing something about myself or whatever, or, you know, dealing with tremendous doubt, losing my way, losing my clarity.

01:10:39.280 So, you know, all of those things, you know, I fortunately got on a path, thanks to my wife that led me there.

01:10:48.520 And I think that's the most important thing is, is, you know, to share that with folks so that people who are also interested in getting free of their own fears.

01:11:00.680 And fear is the most central one of all the things that, that tend to, you know, confine us as humans.

01:11:06.860 Look, look what you did.

01:11:08.120 I mean, I, I listed some of your resume items.

01:11:10.580 It's like, talk about overcoming fear and trauma.

01:11:14.300 You've clearly done that.

01:11:15.500 I mean, you, you don't get those credentials without doing that, but you're open about the fact that you were wrestling and you were struggling.

01:11:21.980 And it wasn't like, oh, I'm perfect.

01:11:23.900 You know, I became an adult and I've got it all together.

01:11:26.060 Brianna, your wife, critical role.

01:11:28.480 And I love the part about how, when you fell in love, this actually happened for my husband and me in a way too, where we were dating long distance when we first got together.

01:11:38.100 And so you're kind of forced to fall in love with the person's mind or not at all, right?

01:11:43.420 It's not like a physical thing all the time.

01:11:45.760 And for you, in your case, that was actually very important.

01:11:50.960 Yeah.

01:11:51.520 Oh, that absolutely, absolutely, Megan.

01:11:53.820 Yeah.

01:11:54.640 Yeah.

01:11:55.460 When, when it just so happened to me.

01:11:57.460 And, you know, the thing about different types of traumatic experiences, as you know, is that they affect everyone differently, you know?

01:12:03.440 So you don't know how, how they'll affect anyone.

01:12:08.020 And for me, when, when that babysitter broke my boundaries, you know, it, it affected me in a way that not only sort of numbed me to, to just kind of emotions and experiences,

01:12:25.140 but it also, it also, it kind of introduced all the sexual trauma where I basically couldn't handle, and when I say handle, I mean, actually take in.

01:12:40.960 And so I couldn't handle the, you know, sort of the, the energy of, of anything sexual.

01:12:46.480 And I didn't know, right?

01:12:49.220 So, you know, how did that show up for me?

01:12:51.400 Well, I was in relationships.

01:12:53.480 I wasn't emotionally connected.

01:12:55.460 You know, I wasn't really sexually connected.

01:12:57.580 Even if I were sexually active, there wasn't any, there wasn't any, there was no, um, there was really no humanity in it, no me in it, because most of me was, um, all of me, in fact, was sort of shelled off.

01:13:12.800 So, you know, you fall in love and, um, and, and fortunately, and, and, you know, having the long distance relationship, having the phone conversations with my wife and falling in love unknowingly over the phone, um, move that out of, of the equation.

01:13:30.540 And so I, I couldn't introduce that whole, you know, screwed up part of myself into the relationship.

01:13:38.040 And, um, and, you know, that let her kind of come in through the back door of my heart. 0.99

01:13:44.020 That's amazing.

01:13:44.920 And when she got there, she saw how fucked up you were and she did not flee. 0.87

01:13:50.480 She didn't flee.

01:13:51.520 She, she stuck it out.

01:13:53.020 She said, I'm in long haul.

01:13:55.280 You had three kids together.

01:13:56.740 And ultimately she introduced you to somebody who would help you really get things under control and change your life.

01:14:05.700 Tell us who that was and sort of the new techniques that came into your life, um, as a result of, well, Christopher Marr and, and sort of what you learned at that point forward.

01:14:15.760 Yeah.

01:14:16.660 So, yeah, that's, that's exactly right.

01:14:19.080 Um, so, you know, so, so she had inflamed, unfortunately, oh man, my poor wife. 1.00

01:14:25.760 I mean, I, I feel terrible for her.

01:14:28.040 I could apologize from now until the day I leave is her.

01:14:30.940 But, you know, fortunately she knew that, you know, underneath all that, um, all that crap, there was a, you know, a really good man.

01:14:41.620 And, um, and so, you know, the, the, the, she finally, we tried lots of things and everything helped a little bit, but, you know, I was, I was really effed up.

01:14:54.200 Um, and finally she got me to Christopher Mir and Christopher is a, he's a Navy SEAL, he's an ex Navy SEAL and has had his own journey.

01:15:04.700 And, um, and basically out of this journey, he, um, he has developed, you know, uh, like a number of like techniques that he uses to help individuals get free of their, their traumas.

01:15:22.720 And it's the stuff that every single person on this earth accumulates as they, um, as they live on this earth.

01:15:30.080 And, um, you know, and it, it's a combination.

01:15:32.920 And I really don't understand it, but I'll share it.

01:15:35.600 I'm sharing, not as someone who understands it, but rather someone who went through it and, and, and emerged from it.

01:15:40.780 Um, as, as a combination of like, it's a lot of stuff that's based on like Chinese, um, medicine and Meridian theory and like Chi and the flow of Chi.

01:15:53.000 Um, and it involves like different techniques, like, um, one of them's this thing called mouching that, um, where basically, um, stress and trauma are released through the thighs.

01:16:08.500 And it's because I think it's because there's a Meridian that, um, it's like one of the more, one of the more, uh, um, sort of fuller Meridians or one of the more powerful ones in terms of its access to, you know,

01:16:22.780 like mind, body, spirit, emotions.

01:16:26.240 And, you know, that's one of the techniques he uses.

01:16:29.540 He uses another technique called body of light that, I mean, it's, it's, uh, it, it, as a, as someone who went to medical school, it's nothing that you read in books, but I can tell you that it works in terms of like releasing trauma.

01:16:44.360 And then he's developed a number of, um, of X there.

01:16:48.600 He, he, he, he calls them bestercises.

01:16:50.720 Um, but they're essentially like exercises, stretches that, um, that are, that help, um, um, process like the daily stress that we build up.

01:17:04.300 And, you know, I, I do those every day.

01:17:07.800 Um, and, um, and, you know, I'll tell you that it's the closest thing to a miracle that I've ever experienced.

01:17:17.780 I worked with him for five days and that's like sort of the standard thing that he does.

01:17:23.960 He's helped thousands of people actually.

01:17:26.760 And, um, you know, I, I, I was, I mean, I honestly, I was complaining before the, before we started it because my wife, you know, she came home one day and she was like, my poor wife.

01:17:39.280 I mean, I, I really, I honest to God, now that I look at myself and what I was doing and all part of my language about the shit that was coming out and I was just throwing it all on her, which is how many people live their lives.

01:17:49.280 Their shit comes up and they just like spew it out into the field.

01:17:52.940 And anyway, one day she came home and it was like October, 2019.

01:17:56.900 And she was like, honey, I think I found someone for you.

01:17:59.540 I think I found the right person for you.

01:18:01.180 You know, this guy, he, he helps people who've had traumas.

01:18:04.240 And I was like, I was like, all right, she don't mean the price.

01:18:08.040 And I was like, oh man.

01:18:09.500 And I looked for, I found, try to find every way to like, get out of it to, you know, and I talked to Christopher and I, before we met and I was, I was trying every single way of it.

01:18:22.340 But I will tell you after just the first day, um, cause I woke up and something had already changed.

01:18:27.880 That was very meaningful.

01:18:29.040 It was my ability to emotionally connect with other people.

01:18:31.420 And after the first day, like it was already worth it.

01:18:37.500 And I told him and he laughed about it when I came in for the second day, but I would tell you that like, I would give every penny, every penny with not a drop of hesitation to, in exchange for what I've gotten from working with him.

01:18:54.320 Wow.

01:18:54.960 All right.

01:18:55.500 Now I'm, I've got to know what you do with your thighs to make trauma easier to deal. 1.00

01:19:02.160 Wait, stand by though.

01:19:03.120 That's a great tease.

01:19:04.480 So let me pause you there.

01:19:06.100 I'll squeeze in a quick break and we'll come back, uh, with that, with that nugget.

01:19:09.740 Before we get onto COVID policy and how all these life lessons helped you there and the sort of the, your takeaways on it, what do I need to do to my thighs to be a better manager of my stress?

01:19:24.720 What's what happens there?

01:19:26.440 Well, I, you know, I will do the best I can considering I'm just, I'm a, I'm a beneficiary, but I'm not a practitioner.

01:19:34.180 But, um, you know, basically, um, my understanding is that, you know, again, one of the most powerful meridians, apparently it runs through your, you know, through your thighs and your legs.

01:19:46.980 And it, um, it has access, it's sort of like when this, this meridian has access to, um, aspects of your, of your, of your physical being, your mental being, your emotional being, your spiritual being more so than, um, any other meridian.

01:20:05.340 So, so I think Christopher often will work with people on this meridian early on in the work, just, I think, because the benefit is, is, um, is, is, is high for the input.

01:20:20.320 And so I'm, I, you lay down, I'm laying down on the ground.

01:20:24.460 So I'm, you know, I don't know, you know, I can't, I don't have eyes behind my head, but I'm, you lay down, he has you laying down on the ground.

01:20:30.460 And basically, I don't know exactly how he does it, but he, he basically, I think it translates into horse stomping.

01:20:38.520 And he kind of walks up and down your thighs, the back of your thighs and your, um, legs.

01:20:45.120 At least then that's what it feels like.

01:20:46.420 And he's up, you know, he's overused.

01:20:47.860 Wait, so he's on your hamstrings or he's on your quads?

01:20:52.340 Uh, oh, on the hamstrings.

01:20:53.660 So yeah, you're, so you're face down.

01:20:55.060 Okay.

01:20:55.480 Okay.

01:20:55.700 Got it.

01:20:57.680 Along.

01:20:58.280 And I mean, he's, he's very gifted.

01:21:00.340 So I'm, you know, he's, he's like, not like if I were doing it, I don't know that I would be able to help anyone at all.

01:21:05.320 Do not try this at home.

01:21:06.780 Yeah.

01:21:07.300 I have yet.

01:21:08.280 But, um, basically what the experience feels like is, um, I'll share, I'll share it all with you.

01:21:14.920 So he, so it, um, it feels like, like initially, you know, on a scale of one to 10, I mean, some places that I think he knows sort of exactly where to, to put pressure.

01:21:27.960 I mean, it feels like a, like a nine or a 10 out of 10.

01:21:32.120 In pain?

01:21:33.400 Yes.

01:21:34.100 Oh, okay.

01:21:34.640 And, um, I mean, it, it effing hurts and, um, eventually it'll, it'll come down a little bit, a little bit.

01:21:46.080 Um, and eventually it'll feel like, at least for me, it basically felt like a five or, you know, maybe even a four where it was like, it wasn't even hurting really, you know?

01:21:59.100 And, um, and, and this is a very good thing because it means that you're having more flow sort of more cheese flowing through that meridian.

01:22:08.880 And, um, and so there's, there's that.

01:22:11.880 Um, and so I'll share a little bit more, I don't write about this in the book, but I'll share a little bit more.

01:22:18.100 Um, so we did it and he does a number of different things, but that particular thing, we probably did two or three separate times and maybe the last time or the penultimate time we did it at the end of it, by this time, it felt pleasurable.

01:22:39.180 Like it, it, instead of pain, it felt good.

01:22:42.960 And, um, as crazy as it sounds, Megan, I actually felt like a tiger.

01:22:49.800 I, and I know it sounds nuts, but, um, I felt like an, like an animal, like I was connected with, uh, with an animal and, um, and Christopher, I told him, cause that's, that's what it felt like.

01:23:02.420 And, um, he, he shared with me that it was my spirit animal.

01:23:06.360 And, um, and, um, and one of the times when he finished it, when he finished doing it, I felt, um, I felt, uh, I felt frozen.

01:23:26.060 I felt incredibly cold just in my chest.

01:23:29.920 And, um, I, I was, I was shivering and Christopher laid me down, you know, and tell me to lay down on the couch.

01:23:38.460 He put some blankets over me.

01:23:40.240 And, and, and so I was shivering, I was freezing, um, this is a, you know, you know, we're indoors and freezing and, and shaking and shivering and just here from, you know, kind of just to my chest.

01:23:56.340 And Christopher explained to me that, um, that that was the, the fright from my experience when I was, uh, you know, when I was three or four years old, melting away.

01:24:09.000 And, um, and, you know, and I, and I laid on that couch and shiver for maybe, you know, 40 minutes or so, um, that I was like freezing and, and then it went away.

01:24:27.560 Um, so, you know, it's like, you know, like I said, there's, I never have had anything like it before, but be certain, but I know from my own experience that there is far more to our bodies and our beings, um, than, you know, than we, you know, sort of learn in medical school.

01:24:51.160 And what you learned at Harvard.

01:24:52.580 Wow.

01:24:53.440 So all of that in the rear view, how did it change you as a, as a man, as a doctor, as a public health official?

01:25:02.960 Yeah.

01:25:03.140 So Christopher, he, you kind of, he wrote a book about his own experiences, Christopher Mayer, and he calls it free for life.

01:25:09.180 And that's actually what his goal, that's like, that's what he's, um, that's what his, uh, purpose is when he works with people to help them get free for life.

01:25:19.500 And that was the result.

01:25:22.900 Um, does it mean that everything is perfect?

01:25:26.660 No, you know, it's, it's, it's not, it's not really so much, so much that, and I still work with stuff.

01:25:33.360 You know, there's different, not new things, right?

01:25:35.280 Not the same things I like to have challenges now that, um, that are different obviously than, than what I had, you know, before I worked with them, you know, but they're, you know, but it's, um, but they're also more evolved challenges and they're more honest challenges and they're less messy because there's less of my own past trauma in the room with me.

01:25:59.620 There's less, you know, caring that I'm carrying around.

01:26:03.020 There's less of my own, you know, honestly bullshit, right?

01:26:06.800 Like that's how most of, you know, many of us, like all of us really function, caring difference, different amounts of this in terms of like what we believe about ourselves and the world and like what we should, you know, what we're entitled to and, and how things should be and all that stuff.

01:26:23.060 So there's less of that stuff.

01:26:25.000 So, you know, so I still have challenges, but they're, they're nothing like the challenges I had before and, you know, and that's for, and for me and, you know, for almost, I think everyone who works with him, who wants to actually get better, it's, it's totally, it's free.

01:26:41.580 So, you know, so for me, like one of the things that, that was a constant part of my life was fear.

01:26:50.140 I was fearful of everything.

01:26:52.620 And, you know, you look at me on the outside, you wouldn't know, you know, but that's because I had really good self-control in terms of, you know, blocking.

01:27:03.280 And frankly, part of the way that happens is I had a lot of disconnection.

01:27:07.060 You know, I wasn't very well, I wasn't connected to my, you know, to my insides.

01:27:12.120 So it was easier to sort of block off, you know, whatever it was that, you know, keep it from showing externally, right?

01:27:19.840 Because I was less connected and, and, you know, the fear that I was just a constant permeating part of my life was gone.

01:27:34.120 A lot of other junk was gone too.

01:27:38.440 And, you know, it was, it was like just kind of having almost like a, like a clean plate or something.

01:27:45.420 Yeah, I feel like listening to you, this allowed you to start making decisions intellectually and not necessarily emotionally, you know, like driven by demons, by past trauma.

01:27:56.680 If, if any of that can get removed in any large portion, not entirely, of course, we are human.

01:28:02.020 It can, it can be freeing.

01:28:04.720 So I, the name of the book means more to me now, Transcend Fear, Transcend Fear.

01:28:11.120 By the way, I just, I do want people to know it's, it's not out yet.

01:28:14.040 It's available everywhere on August 23rd, but you can pre-order it right now on Amazon, which helps out the good doctor.

01:28:19.960 The pre-orders help it come out ideally at number one, which the New York Times will try to stop it from being.

01:28:25.580 But together we could help overcome that if we pre-order it in great enough numbers, transcend fear, transcend the New York Times blocking system on conservatives, and transcend all of that nonsense.

01:28:38.340 I love this.

01:28:39.280 I love that you've done this.

01:28:40.200 This is a gift to us all.

01:28:41.560 Thank you for telling your story.

01:28:44.000 Megan, let me just add something really briefly.

01:28:46.280 Is that okay?

01:28:46.560 Okay, I actually want to say that if anything, it's actually, it's, it lets me make decisions from who I am.

01:28:55.300 And that's everything, right?

01:28:56.800 So brain, heart, spirit.

01:28:59.380 And if anything, I actually use my other stuff more now than I use this.

01:29:07.220 I mean, this is wonderful and I use it.

01:29:09.600 But like the world happens, you know, the world heart happens here.

01:29:14.280 The world happens here in terms of, you know, heart and gut and all that.

01:29:18.080 So it's, it's access to all of that and more to make decisions.

01:29:23.560 So more emotion, but less, less damage, less negative, like influence, but still a lot of heart.

01:29:30.780 Lots of heart.

01:29:31.540 Cause that's where we are.

01:29:32.840 I mean, that's how babies come out.

01:29:34.180 That's who we are.

01:29:35.360 It's the other stuff we add on over the years.

01:29:37.540 Abby, get over here and walk on my hamstrings right now. 1.00

01:29:43.680 She's ready.

01:29:48.660 She's coming.

01:29:49.860 Doc, so much love.

01:29:50.920 Thank you so much.

01:29:51.840 And our love to your beautiful wife, Brianna, too.

01:29:54.240 Thanks, man.

01:29:54.940 Thanks so much.

01:29:55.500 Hope to talk again soon.

01:29:56.460 Don't forget, Transcend Fear.

01:29:58.440 Order it now on Amazon.

01:30:00.400 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

01:30:02.280 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:30:07.540 Thank you.

01:30:21.360 Okay.

01:30:21.720 Bye.

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01:30:24.760 Bye.

01:30:25.280 Bye.

01:30:26.120 Bye.

01:30:27.320 Bye.

01:30:28.420 Bye.

01:30:29.320 Bye.

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01:30:32.700 Bye.

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01:30:36.580 Bye.

The Megyn Kelly Show - August 08, 2022

Truth About Alex Jones, Immigration Crisis, and COVID Fear, with Rep. Mayra Flores and Dr. Joseph Ladapo ｜ Ep. 369

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