The U.S. Women's National Team is eliminated from the World Cup after failing to score a penalty kick in the round of 16 against Sweden. Megan Rapinoe's celebration after missing the penalty kick was immediately met with boos and jeers from the home crowd. Megynkelleknecht and co-host of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, Clay Travis, and author of the new book, American Playbook, explores what went wrong for the team.
00:01:07.400Joining me right now to discuss that more, Clay Travis, co-host of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show and author of the new book, American Playbook.
00:01:15.460American Playbook. Get it? Playbook. He's all about sports, but he also loves America and writes all about it.
00:01:21.020A guide to winning back the country from the Democrats, which is out tomorrow.
00:01:26.620Clay, great to have you here, especially on a day like this.
00:01:29.680I couldn't care less about the loss. Couldn't care less.
00:01:33.280I hope that they took a lesson from losing that we all want our kids to learn when things go down, which is be introspective, figure out how it happened.
00:01:42.700And in this case, they didn't have their eye on the ball.
00:01:45.120They had their eye on their woke activism, which has been this way for a while.
00:01:50.060But Megan Rapinoe and her imprint on the team has now really made its mark.
00:01:54.560And I'm thrilled she's gone. I feel like this is there's a future now for this team, potentially without this woman at the helm.
00:02:00.980But how do you see it as a guy who is immersed in sports for a living?
00:04:04.460And what it ultimately came to represent is this team performed woefully and they performed like a group of individuals.
00:04:13.700And unfortunately, I think that's what the culture was that was created in the space between 2015 when they won that first World Cup, 2019 when they repeated.
00:04:24.280And then this, again, they scored one goal, Megan, in the final three games that they played in the World Cup.
00:05:39.480You know how many young girls would give anything to represent the United States of America on the world stage in this fashion and would be thrilled to say that they're American and they're representing our values?
00:05:51.660Screw these girls for not even phoning it in.
00:05:54.800Though even the ones who are like kind of trying are embarrassed.
00:05:57.600Yeah, look, and I think tying this in with the book, Megan, this is what Democrat politics leads to.
00:06:07.740I really do believe this because this is a belief.
00:06:12.400Why are the U.S. women behaving in this way?
00:06:15.200Because they don't believe in American exceptionalism because they aren't proud of the country they live in because they are buying into this left wing ideal, which has taken root in the Democrat Party and I think has led us to a really awful place where there is a legitimate argument.
00:06:31.340And it's not a coincidence, especially with younger people in this country.
00:06:34.960They aren't proud of America, and that's because they're being taught that America's history is one of of tragedy and not triumph of of exploitation and not of what I believe.
00:06:47.300And I think what most of your listeners will believe of the story of the greatest country that's ever been founded in the history of the world.
00:06:53.380If you are embarrassed by some of your country's history, which is what a lot of these kids are being taught, then you aren't that excited to represent the United States.
00:35:06.520You sit around and you're like, oh, I know a lot of tall women.
00:35:08.360Men have on average 57 percent more grip strength, 65 percent more leg strength, 90 percent more
00:35:17.340total upper body strength and 162 percent more punching power.
00:35:23.820Like this doesn't stun anybody who actually has been involved in athletics.
00:35:27.380But those numbers are staggering because, again, men are only seven percent taller on average than women.
00:35:35.840This is the amount of bigger, stronger, faster that men bring to bear is is something that I think a lot of people just really don't contemplate.
00:35:47.320Do you remember when John McEnroe, there was a huge controversy because he said Serena Williams was the best women's tennis player of all time?
00:35:53.240And his CNN interviewer said, why wouldn't you say she's the best tennis player of all time?
00:35:57.460And he was like, well, because she'd be like the 700th best men's player.
00:36:11.940It's there's something in particular about sports that requires physicality that makes this important in news anchoring, in acting, in science, math.
00:36:30.400Given those natural physical disadvantages that women have, it's not we have some advantages.
00:36:35.000We have some very special things about us, which men are also trying to co-opt these trans men or fake, fake women, actual men like breastfeeding and giving birth to babies.
00:36:43.800And they're now talking about womb transplants.
00:37:37.540That New York Times poll showed him tied with Biden, which one would think would default to the Republicans when the actual voting happens, since Republicans tend to under poll a bit.
00:37:45.960However, by the time we actually get to the voting in November of 2024, Trump's going to have probably four indictments around him in the news every day will be things like Jan 6th, which independents do not want to hear about, do not support, cannot forgive.
00:38:00.080You know, so. The four more years of Joe Biden in this White House, Clay, I, I, I, I'm not going to say the country can't survive it because that's what lefties talk like, you know, I mean, I honestly, but like I deeply worry for the country.
00:38:13.880I deeply worry what we're going to do if we have four more years of that man in the White House and his policies.
00:38:17.900I deeply worry that he wouldn't survive and Kamala Harris would end up president and she would be the most unqualified, just frankly, disaster of a president we've ever seen.
00:38:31.500And my. She would be the Harriet Meyers of presidents.
00:38:34.960Remember how Bush tried to nominate Harriet Meyers for the Supreme Court and she was so unqualified he had to withdraw it.
00:38:41.680My concern is what happens if China invades Taiwan and you have President Kamala Harris trying to decide how to deal with that kind of geopolitical struggle?
00:38:54.580I just I just I feel like Kamala Harris represents and there's a huge part of the book where I discuss this, the failure of diversity in general.
00:39:03.280Diversity, in my opinion, is not a strength.
00:39:05.320Now, diversity of thought is a strength because it strengthens your ability to actually reach the right decision.
00:39:14.860The luxury that I feel like I have and I bet you feel like you have is sometimes you had a client and you're like, man, this is a really big, bad side of the case to have.
00:39:23.040Right. If you're a lawyer, you'll look at it.
00:39:25.620I'd a lot rather argue the other side than this one.
00:39:28.300But you're an advocate. You have to advocate for what you are being paid to advocate for.
00:39:33.020So I feel like so much of what we do is we look at all the facts out there and we just say, OK, I'm going to pick the side of which that I'm going to advocate for and apply my legal training as a result to make a strong argument for why my side is the right one.
00:39:47.940And I feel like Kamala Harris represents this this cosmetic diversity idea that everything needs to be perfectly representative of the the United States.
00:40:00.460In fact, there's an excerpt up on today on Fox News dot com making this argument.
00:40:06.320You know, Megan, the men's basketball teams, 12 black guys, that's not remotely diverse relative to the United States population.
00:40:14.980Right. The only six percent or so of the United States population is black men.
00:40:19.420But those 12 black guys happen to be the best 12 players in all of America.
00:40:24.360Right. If we said they need to perfectly represent America and we wanted them all to be men, we'd have to fire like 10 black guys.
00:40:32.500We'd have to put white guys, Hispanic guys and Asian guys on the U.S. men's basketball team.
00:40:38.160And we'd be a lot worse. But it would be perfectly representative of the nation's racial diversity.
00:40:44.720I don't want that. I want the meritocracy. Right.
00:40:47.120Right. Kamala Harris is, to me, a perfect approximation of cosmetic diversity.
00:40:53.080She's gotten where she is, not because of her talent, but because of her race and her gender.
00:40:58.880And she's being exposed because she's been promoted above her talent level, frankly, and her ability to do the job.
00:41:06.340Roger Ailes used to call it failing upward. That's what she's doing.
00:41:09.280She's failing upward. She's not qualified for these jobs, and she certainly isn't qualified to be president of the United States.
00:41:14.240But the guy who's in there isn't all that that qualified to be president of the United States.
00:41:18.220And have you seen now like they've they've embraced Bidenomics, Bidenomics.
00:41:22.580And the New York Times podcast, The Daily, had this celebratory discussion of Bidenomics today,
00:41:29.740talking about how inflation is going down and how Biden's really owning it now.
00:41:36.060It's as his economy. And he's really trying to change the narrative on this before November 2024,
00:41:41.260because it's it's the thing around his neck. Right. It's the albatross.
00:41:45.120Even the New York Times poll last week showed I think it was 20 percent of the country feels somewhat good about the about the economy.
00:41:53.240It's it's the vast, vast majority, some 70 percent say the economy is a nightmare.
00:41:57.240And, you know, we think it's poor. We think it's going terribly.
00:42:00.440And almost I think it's 65 percent don't believe in the direction of the country right now.
00:42:04.280So he's trying to change it. And one of the ways in which he's trying to change the narrative is totally political.
00:42:09.020Clay is he's now posting this infrastructure project is thanks to President Biden in places like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
00:42:17.300It's going to be all swing states. Mark my word. They're not going to do that in California, New York.
00:42:20.780It's going to be all swing states. And you and I are paying for this shit.
00:42:23.480Why am I paying for the Joe Biden celebratory sign for what for an infrastructure plan that helped drive up the inflation that I'm now supposed to be giving him credit for helping drive back down a little?
00:42:34.980Like, how do we get to the inflation to begin with, President Biden?
00:42:38.240Why do I have to pay for your damn sign when I can't pay for my milk?
00:42:41.000That's what most Americans are asking.
00:42:43.260Yeah. And you asked, you know, I'm incredibly concerned about what's going to happen in 24.
00:42:48.680And Megan, I think it's your audience that's going to end up deciding this election, because when I go out with my wife and her friends, there are a lot of people, women in particular, suburban women, moms.
00:43:01.700They just don't like Trump personally. And what I would say is you have to give up on personal.
00:43:08.760Right. You have to give up on the personal and just look at the policy, because Biden's policies are disastrous for your kids and for your for your community and for your economy.
00:43:21.060And and I also think a part of this and Trump may be able to address this better than a lot of Republicans can.
00:43:26.520Megan, I've heard you talk about this. I think Republicans have to talk about abortion.
00:43:30.200And I think they have to talk about abortion in a way directly to address the suburban moms.
00:43:36.540My my theory and look, I understand people have very serious opinions on this.
00:43:41.840But when I look at the data, there are about 10 percent of the population that says there should be no abortions for rape, incest, life of the mother, that stuff like that's about 10 percent of population.
00:43:52.840Overwhelmingly, that's Republican. There's about 10 percent of the population that says you should basically be able to have an abortion up to the ninth month.
00:44:00.980And that is overwhelmingly Democrat. The rest of us and I'm in this camp are somewhere in the 80 percent.
00:44:06.780We're somewhere in the middle. And I've been almost everybody listening to us is somewhere in that 80 percent.
00:44:12.420Republicans need to be able to address this issue, because I think the overturning of Roe v.
00:44:17.320Wade has created a huge opportunity that Democrats exploited in 2022 that Republicans haven't addressed.
00:44:26.160And the idea is that they are selling and it's effective.
00:44:29.400Hey, if you're 14 or 15 year old daughter gets pregnant, Republicans are going to make her have to have that baby.
00:44:36.880And that is, I think, for a lot of moms out there and dads, but particularly for moms,
00:44:42.160that is a very resonant fear that Democrats are exploiting.
00:44:47.360And frankly, I think Republicans are doing a really bad job of addressing it.
00:44:52.240And I think it may. They're afraid to talk about it.
00:44:54.920Yeah, they're afraid to talk about it. I think you have to address it.
00:44:56.960I think you have to address it. I think you have to take that on.
00:44:59.360I think that you had there's a piece in the book.
00:45:02.460It was a chapter three that you said something that really caught my attention.
00:45:05.740I was like, I want to I want to talk about this because there's so much pessimism in the news and there's and there's, you know, Republicans who are very angry, for example, about what's happening to Trump, but really just what's happening to the country.
00:45:16.760You know, forget Trump for a minute. It's it's wrong what's happening to him, but it's really wrong what's happening to the rest of us.
00:45:21.680And you write as follows. And I you got to explain this because you were writing about how you used to be a Democrat.
00:45:26.900But the craziness that some of which we've been discussing pushed you more to the right.
00:45:32.580I can relate to that. I mean, it's been a long time since I was a registered Democrat.
00:45:36.640I've been a registered independent for some 20 years, but I've also been pushed to the right by the ground shifting beneath me.
00:45:42.120I didn't move. The ground moved. But you say as follows.
00:45:45.860I believe America is poised to reject the left wing woke overreach of our modern era, just like happened in the 1960s.
00:45:52.800I believe we are set to rebound with an America is awesome era beginning with the 2024 election.
00:45:59.160I believe that era will extend all the way into the 2050s and may well extend through the rest of my own lifetime.
00:46:06.020Sing it, Clay Travis. Why? Tell us why.
00:46:09.200I'm an optimist and I'm a history nerd.
00:46:12.180My wife likes to make fun of me because I went to Civil War history sleepaway camp when I was in high school.
00:46:17.540I can't believe that I married somebody who went to Civil War history sleepaway camp.
00:46:42.460And I believe that there is a huge segment of Americans that grew up in the 80s, that grew up in the 90s, that grew up in the early 2000s, and they want that America back.
00:46:54.440And I feel fortunate that I grew up in that era because what did you tend to do?
00:47:33.440I really think that Joe Biden is Jimmy Carter.
00:47:36.120And instead of Watergate, COVID was the reason that Joe Biden got elected, because Democrats managed to terrify enough people out there that their kids were going to die, that there was going to be some massive, significant impact.
00:49:31.720So we last week we we did a story on Oakland, California and that the the rising in crime out there, just a rash of crimes from carjackings to I mean, you name it.
00:49:43.820And they're dealing with it right now to the point where the NAACP, they came on the show to speak out saying defund the police was a mistake.
00:49:52.040Soft on crime prosecutors are a mistake.
00:49:54.400Black and brown people are getting killed and hurt at exponential rates.
00:49:57.740Something must be done and calling everybody in the community to speak out about all of this.
00:50:02.460Well, about 72 miles east northeast of Oakland, California, where this is happening, is Stockton, California.
00:50:09.600And Stockton, California, has the distinguished honor of being one of the top 10 crime ridden cities in America.
00:50:16.940And that's a I mean, that's a distinguished list right now, Dana, because there's a lot of competition for it, as you know, Stockton, California is not doing that well.
00:52:04.940And now, as if on cue, the Stockton cops are investigating, yes, the robbery suspect for robbing, but also the assault, quoting here, of the robbery suspect by the two workers.
00:52:17.920They actually might put those two workers in jail.
00:53:07.300But honestly, like some of us who grew up like in southern Missouri, we got like whoopings that were worse than that from our grandmas if we messed up.
00:53:14.040So, I mean, I feel to see where the problem is here.
00:53:50.580So the 7-Eleven worker the day before reported this suspect going behind the counter and threatening to shoot the clerk if he intervened in his robbery attempt.
00:54:01.300The suspect then took several packs of cigarettes and a large garbage bag before fleeing.
00:54:05.720Then the next day at 12.27 a.m., a 7-Eleven worker, same place, reported the suspect demanding money at the store while suggesting that he had a handgun.
00:54:18.600When the worker didn't comply, the suspect grabbed the items, put in a garbage bag before leaving.
00:54:23.340At some point later in the morning, the man's believed to have returned to the store, and that's when the beating captured in the viral video took place.
00:54:31.260So this is and they described his his medical injuries as a result of the beatdown, his pain in his leg and shoulder, pain in his leg and shoulder.
00:54:57.060They should have been super interested the first time the guys came in there and were robbing the place or the second time the guys came in there or the third time the guys came in there.
00:55:04.680And maybe the store owners could have been concerned the first time because, you know, they review the CCTV footage.
00:55:09.580I'm not I'm not an attorney, but I just feel like, Megan, there's maybe grounds for a countersuit for these staff members, because clearly they're working in a very unsafe and hostile environment.
00:55:21.220And there's no protection afforded to them by the owners of this convenience store.
00:55:25.520So, you know, their their safety and security is just supposed to be at the discretion of, you know, maybe if police decide to show up and enforce the law or if the store owner decide to allow them the means of self-defense.
00:55:38.220I mean, I feel bad for these people because, I mean, they're business owners to a lot of these a lot of these entities, you know, they're franchisees.
00:55:44.720And I feel bad for a lot of these these these staffers.
00:55:49.240That doesn't mean that they should be any less protected.
00:55:51.280But I just got to go back for a minute because, I mean, that was pretty that was a pretty stellar beatdown.
00:55:56.120And I like to see criminals get theirs because when you when you stick it to a criminal, when you stick it to a bully, they kind of stop bullying.
00:56:03.280They kind of, you know, maybe learn their lesson.
00:56:04.960Maybe this place will get robbed less if they think that there's going to be pushback.
00:56:09.080I mean, the brains and act going there and the guy was making a mess, just like shoving this stuff from the shelves into this bucket.
00:56:16.180And he didn't even care what he was getting.
00:56:35.140So these two now, having confronted him, really have to worry.
00:56:39.160Look, I have absolutely no problem with what they did.
00:56:42.460Most Americans have absolutely no problem with what they did.
00:56:44.500But this reminds me of the Daniel Penny situation, you know, in New York with the subway rider who, you know, he was the guy was down there threatening everybody.
00:56:57.340But that that good Samaritan is now facing criminal charges as well.
00:57:01.920Which is also a crazy story because that I mean, that individual, the whole thing that came out about Reddit having a threat on this guy was true.
00:57:09.980I mean, apparently for years, people were aware of that Michael Jackson impersonator in city.
00:57:20.860And they were other Redditors were warning each other about, you know, this guy could pop off on this platform.
00:57:25.840So just kind of be aware of your surroundings.
00:57:27.740But Megan, you bring up something interesting here because it's really about the idea of self-defense being considered bad now.
00:57:35.900It's apparently virtuous to make yourself more acceptable to victims or more or more acceptable to attackers.
00:57:42.980It's apparently more virtuous to be a victim than it is to defend yourself because apparently you may hurt the victim's feelings or they may have pains in their legs if you kick them back or something to that effect.
00:57:54.640But this is this they're trying to I feel like this restorative justice movement has been trying to mainstream this concept for some time.
00:58:02.420And that's a very dangerous thing when you cause people who have this in their gut feeling that their safety and security is under threat and maybe they should do something or maybe, you know, when you cause people to second guess what they're seeing and what they're feeling and make themselves more vulnerable to attack.
00:58:19.660That's a really dangerous thing, especially when you're not providing greater security or protection by way of enforcement because restorative justice also, I mean, really goes after an attacks enforcement of existing law.
00:58:31.920So it's self-defense that's under attack here and it's trying to shame people out of defending themselves.
00:58:36.340This goes back to the McClefskys in St. Louis who had, I mean, granted horrible trigger discipline and one of them didn't even have an off firearm, but, you know, they were on their private property.
00:58:45.940I used to live blocks away from that exact neighborhood.
00:58:55.120They literally have to pour the concrete for their own sidewalk.
00:58:57.260It's a weird area, but that's all their land.
00:58:59.200And so when you have people who are like busting down your property or the fence, getting on your property, trespassing, yelling threats, et cetera, I mean, yeah, you have every right to, you know, to fear for your life, especially seeing the rights that took place days earlier.
00:59:11.720But the point is that they were shamed and attacked for merely defending themselves on their own property, the way that Daniel Penny was attacked for defending himself and other passengers.
00:59:22.020Nobody took into account, Megan, the passengers who came forward and said, yeah, we were terrified.
00:59:25.660This guy said he was going to kill us.
00:59:26.900And now we have this situation with these convenience store workers.
00:59:29.960This is a trend in America, this restorative justice that's trying to mainstream this denial of self-defense.
00:59:37.920And this has got to stop because it creates more victims and it powers it powers the criminals and the criminals keep getting out.
00:59:45.560So this the subways, by the way, have not gotten any better.
00:59:48.460This went viral over the weekend where there was an Asian family on the New York City subway.
00:59:53.100I think it was two adults and two kids sitting there and these and I should point out for the listening audience in that 7-Eleven video, the robber was black and the two guys who took him down were Sikh.
01:00:03.540And so, I mean, it's just a matter of time before Black Lives Matter gets involved and says this is like a potential George Floyd situation.
01:00:12.360So so what happened on the New York City subway, which I mean, I want you to look at this video.
01:00:17.600You tell me what would have happened if the if the ones who are bullying and threatening were white and the ones being targeted were black.
01:00:25.300What actually happened was the ones being targeted were Asian and the ones bullying them and harassing them were three young black girls.
01:00:34.160And then another person on the subway took the video and post it and it was reposted by an Asian woman who's running for Congress as a Republican in New York.
01:00:43.800But the subways have gotten no better. And this is what you're subjected to if you go down there and no one cares.
01:00:49.580The media has zero interest in this. It went viral on Twitter from conservatives, but the media has no interest in this.
01:00:55.920Notwithstanding its minorities being bullied, I believe, because of the race of the people bullying them and threatening to assault them and harass them.
01:01:04.160OK, now you have to watch the longer video because the longer video, those three girls notice that there's a woman down the train who's videotaping them and they come over and appear to beat the hell out of her.
01:01:33.520The woman with the woman with the video camera. They don't want. Oh, you don't you don't want your crime documented.
01:01:38.100Try not committing one. And now the police, thankfully, are they have an APB out for these girls who are harassing this family with a young kid.
01:01:47.240You could see what looked like a daughter, just young, screaming at them, threatening them and then allegedly assaulting the person taking the videotape.
01:01:55.260But this is life in America. It will get no, no time at all on CNN or MSNBC.
01:02:02.160You know, I believe for the reasons I stated.
01:02:04.940Yeah. And I think also, too, Megan, there's this people like to be Internet famous for fights.
01:02:09.840I mean, they they like to be Internet famous for acting like hard asses, especially youth in America, which is sad.
01:02:15.120But the sad sadder thing is, is that sometime maybe one day they step up to somebody who's like Daniel Penny.
01:02:20.280See, that's the thing. When people push back, when they've messed with the wrong person, when they when they scare the wrong passengers and people actually push back,
01:02:28.600then suddenly the antagonists turn into the victims. And then you get all the you know, you get all of these activists involved.
01:02:35.500And you have PR companies that get involved, like in the situation of the penny case.
01:02:39.700But that's again, that's a consequence of pulling stuff like this in public places and threatening people.
01:02:45.820And the sad thing is, you know, I mean, there's all of these like what is it that I think it was maybe the New Jersey was at the New Jersey mayor.
01:02:52.020There was a mayor, I think it's on the East Coast that got upset.
01:02:54.340No, Chicago's Chicago's new mayor, Megan, who got upset last weekend because after a mob of and they were young adults, they weren't all teenagers.
01:03:01.980I mean, when you're 20, 22 years old, you're an adult, you're not a teenager anymore.
01:03:06.080And they were busting into stores and having riots and all this other stuff.
01:03:10.700And someone asked this this mayor a question and phrased it as, oh, well, this was a mob.
01:03:16.680And the mayor took offense at the word mob that was used, even though it was stand by, stand by.
01:03:21.140Well, we have that. Let's play it. And then you take it back.
01:03:23.380I know you're not aware of some of these large gatherings.
01:04:30.580It was a bunch of people, whether they got together and then committed crimes as, you know, a huge group of people or whether it was organized.
01:04:37.900And they decided to come together as a huge group of people to commit crimes.
01:04:49.360To sit here and say, well, you know, you're talking about baby Al Capone.
01:04:52.960A 20-year-old is not a baby Al Capone.
01:04:54.800A 20-year-old is a grown-ass individual who also can stand for the consequences of their criminal behavior.
01:04:59.920And that's what these individuals chose.
01:05:01.800And for this mayor to get up there, what he should have said, Megan, is that, you know what, look, if you're 20 years old and you're out doing this stuff, you need a job.
01:05:45.340This is this is the far left guy who replaced Lori Lightfoot.
01:05:49.020When these crazy people in Chicago had the chance to get a more moderate person in there, not somebody in the far left, they went further to the left.
01:05:58.860You have mob violence and the new mayor wants to argue over the language used to describe it as opposed to what actually happened on the subject of the media blacking out the things they don't like.
01:06:13.040Whether it's, you know, black on Asian crime in the subway or the word mob, I guess that's something we need to worry about.
01:06:19.940Memphis, this you and I've talked how many times over the past 15 years about school shootings and other mass shootings.
01:06:28.420There's no bigger expert on guns in America than you.
01:06:31.520And now if you would be hard pressed to find the story of the Memphis school and what what didn't happen the other day because it doesn't work with the media's narrative.
01:06:43.440In fact, they don't think that fortification of schools to protect children is a good idea at all.
01:06:49.420They get upset when you talk about fortifying the schools.
01:06:52.840They think you're off point and that that's sort of ignoring the actual problem, notwithstanding the fact that we have 400 million guns in America.
01:06:59.560They somehow think we're going to get rid of them all.
01:07:01.420So why don't you tell us what happened in Memphis, because I know you've been covering it.
01:07:05.580Oh, yeah, Megan, this story is a story of a school that turned itself into a hardened entity, which is, you know, you were talking about how there's a lot of criticism from the left about this because they say, well, you're turning the facility into a prison.
01:07:20.260But when you go to a concert or you go to a ballgame, I mean, it doesn't feel like you're in a prison and they have great security.
01:07:26.100I mean, they have multi layers of security and that's what this school, this Jewish school in Memphis had, Megan.
01:07:31.300They had multiple layers of security, including, you know, the locked door system where you could go into one set of doors, but you're sort of locked in this vestibule area unless someone buzzes you in through a second set of doors.
01:07:44.980And so what ended up happening and there's a lot more to this story that the media immediately ran away from is this this individual at the 33 year old individual showed up at the school, had a handgun, had it out, pulled up in a red pickup truck, showed up at the school, entered into that vestibule area and then couldn't get into the rest of that couldn't get into the school because they had the door locking system.
01:08:08.760So thick glass, etc. So as far as he could get was in this this this foyer, this entrance area when he realized he couldn't get in any further, he decided to leave.
01:08:18.680He fled. He got back into his pickup truck.
01:08:20.780But at this time, school officials were watching through their CCTV.
01:08:24.260They were watching. They got the image of the guy's truck.
01:08:29.620They immediately contacted police who I think no fewer than three miles away from the school.
01:08:34.680Police engaged this individual and he immediately got out of his pickup truck, brandishing his handgun and cops shot shot him and he was in critical condition in an area hospital.
01:08:44.000So this is where, Megan, the story gets even weirder, because thankfully this school was locked down.
01:08:49.360They were aware. Also, thankfully, it was it was summer.
01:09:06.540And also 20 years ago, he had previously seen his father be his father was killed by Memphis police because his mother had called 9-1-1 20 years ago.
01:09:16.480The dad, who also had mental illness issues, had a had a gun, was brandishing it, putting it to his head.
01:09:34.640But at the same time, it kind of speaks to maybe whether there were whether or not there was a motive or what else was at play with this.
01:09:40.980But there's always a bigger issue that the media immediately wants to discount.
01:09:44.420The moment that there is something that invalidates the narrative, whether it's the race or the ethnicity or the beliefs or the political affiliation of the suspect involved, the media runs the other way.
01:09:54.840In this case, a couple of different instances.
01:09:56.620I mean, you had clearly what looks like it could be a very well-defined motive, but also additionally, you have this hardened school.
01:10:03.640This is what we've been talking about with schools for the past decade.
01:10:06.920Make sure that you at least have a locking door.
01:10:12.000And, Megan, at that school, this was even after a retired Secret Service agent went in because they had a child at that school.
01:10:18.360They walked through the school, Megan, with a stack of post-it notes in an experiment to show the staff and the administrators at the school how dangerous it was that their school wasn't secure.
01:10:28.300And they walked through the hallway for a good couple of minutes and they put post-it notes on the back of every student they could touch.
01:10:33.920And then they went into the administrator's office and said, that's how many kids that could have been killed in a shooting because your school's not locked down.
01:10:39.560This happened months before the massacre at Parkland actually took place.
01:10:43.900Media never wanted to talk about that.
01:10:45.760The Stoneman Douglas, the parental and the Security Council that came together in the wake of that tragedy, they discussed it.
01:10:51.440Media wouldn't have anything to do with it.
01:10:52.940They kept with the narrative, Megan, that it was turning schools into prisons.
01:10:56.420Sometimes all it takes is a locked door or an aware staff member who's like, why is someone who is not a member of the school coming in with a giant duffel bag?
01:11:04.380Why is someone in the parking lot surveying the school?
01:11:06.840And then an immediate reach out and touch someone, let them know that you're watching them and you're not afraid to go up and engage.
01:11:12.720And with this individual, he met that locked door and he fled because it seems like he realized that that school was on to him and that he, you know, he was immediately thwarted.
01:11:26.940Those are things media never wants to find out.
01:11:28.840But thankfully, this was an instance of cops reacting really fast, school officials being aware and a tragedy that didn't happen.
01:11:36.840Wow. I did not know that story about the ex-Secret Service guy or gal going through Dome and Douglas High School before the shooting and doing that.
01:11:48.160It is a good reminder, though, for parents.
01:11:50.880Just ask, ask your kids school, ask the administrators what fortification they have.
01:11:57.500What are the security measures to stop a lunatic from getting in?
01:11:59.980Because we cannot get rid of even if we could get rid of all the guns, we cannot get rid of all the crazy people.
01:12:04.420And so like there has to be a way of keeping them out.
01:12:08.240When we went and we when we moved to Texas and my kids were homeschooled and we transitioned them to a Christian school and I was interviewing, I was taught I was interviewing the school.
01:12:20.280And one of the first questions I asked after their curriculum was, what are your what security measures do you have in place?
01:12:25.520I see your double locking door, but I want to know what else.
01:12:27.460And the principal looked at me and he goes, well, I built my own AR-15 and it was apparently in a locked thing in his desk and he had special allowance to be able to carry.
01:12:34.960And he does all this training and everything.
01:12:36.320And I thought, OK, can I come to this school, too?
01:12:58.020Let's go to the White House, where apparently there is a killer dog protecting Joe Biden and it continues biting.
01:13:04.600Speaking of Secret Service, Secret Service personnel.
01:13:07.960Joe Biden just sounds like a douchebag here.
01:13:10.220I'm sorry, but this sounds like a really shitty thing to do to the guys and women who are paid to protect you, which is to leave them constantly exposed to a German shepherd who's a biter.
01:13:21.880And it's not like getting bitten by, you know, a little chihuahua, which also is unpleasant.
01:13:27.260A German shepherd could really hurt you.
01:13:29.360So this is Commander, the Biden family German shepherd.
01:13:33.180And finally, Politico did a good article on it, I have to say.
01:13:36.420And their headline was, don't blame the dog.
01:13:40.020So good for Politico for covering this because not a lot of people have.
01:13:42.940They write about how the dog has bitten, what is it, seven people trying to get my number here, saying that there was one agent who for 10 seconds was attacked by the dog.
01:13:54.260He was left bruised and bleeding, but not in need of further medical attention.
01:13:58.580That agent was actually lucky because there is a 196 page trove of internal communications that they obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
01:14:08.100Judicial Watch got them, revealing a slew of incidents where members of the agency assigned to take a bullet for the president wind up taking a German shepherd's teeth instead.
01:14:17.400In November, a uniformed division officer was transported to the hospital after Commander Unleashed bounded down a flight of stairs and charged.
01:14:25.440One of the White House ushers warned the officer not to back, not to get back up too late.
01:14:56.220What's remarkable about the incidents of the dog at the White House is how the same set of facts with a different political figure might have led to an entirely different sort of coverage and perhaps to a story that didn't just pop up and then disappear during a summer news cycle.
01:15:10.180Consider the most powerful family in the country appeared to sit by as their dog repeatedly menaced scores of anonymous people who work for them.
01:15:18.020The dog lives in the executive mansion with the custodial staff who come with it.
01:15:21.700He has access to all sorts of training regiments and presumably to doors with pet proof latches.
01:15:27.060And yet a frightened Secret Service agent had to wield a chair like a lion tamer to protect against another bite.
01:15:33.740And then Politico says, can you imagine if this dog had belonged to, say, Nancy Reagan?
01:15:39.140The Marie Antoinette narrative would have written itself.
01:17:23.440I mean, that's like the same vibe here.
01:17:25.800I just think it's the white trash family that's in the White House.
01:17:28.920And they got their dogs that they cannot keep trained, that they that doesn't listen to commands, that goes off and just rains hell all over the White House premises.
01:17:37.860I mean, it's just more unnecessary chaos from this family.
01:17:40.980Why do they have to keep having chaos for this for no reason at all?
01:17:49.360I really feel like that dog would just do a lot better with a different owner.
01:17:52.900Of course, because obviously the dog is aggressive and probably shouldn't be placed around a family in which you're going to see a lot of armed personnel coming in and out.
01:18:08.680But you you raise an interesting point.
01:18:10.700I mean, it is remember when Mitt Romney ran for president, it was a national news story that he put his dog in a crate on the top of his car, which was effed up.
01:18:29.480But like here, the question is, do you care about Secret Service?
01:18:32.720Do you care that there's an animal involved who's actually hurting Secret Service people who are just doing their jobs, putting their lives on the line?
01:18:40.200But this is not one of the accepted risks to be bitten by the president's dog.
01:18:55.840I love the dog, but the dog's got to go.
01:18:58.160And he would recognize, too, Megan, that clearly his dog is stressed out because it's not normal behavior to be that aggressive towards absolutely everyone and everything.
01:19:07.880He's he's not trained for the environment.
01:19:09.640He's not trained to deal with that many different people.
01:19:12.440So, I mean, clearly he's not paying attention to the signals that his dog's sending.
01:19:28.980You know, you don't take a horse out, you know, on public streets and out in crowds until horses have gone through a lot of training to deal with that because they can be easily startled.
01:19:36.440You know, with dogs like German Shepherds, very active, very hyper alert, hyper aware dogs for situations like this.
01:19:58.940Well, you know, that that was a fascinating parallel you drew between because, you know, Joe Biden, of course, has been running on Uncle Joe and what a family man he is and how family is so important.
01:20:09.740And look, it's not to say that if you have somebody who's addicted to drugs in your family, you're necessarily a bad parent.
01:20:14.400A lot of people have dealt with this who are loving, kind parents.
01:20:42.880It's a douchebag move to let your killer dog continue biting the men who are charged and women with laying down their lives for you to protect you against actual backup bad guys.
01:22:26.720And the day before he was supposed to go to one of these interclubs, there was an incident at our club, a smaller club, where he got hit by his boat, got hit by a bigger boat.
01:22:38.400Older kids who are not where they were supposed to be and inadvertently rammed into his boat.
01:22:43.280He was hit in the head with their boom and ejected into the water.
01:23:43.220The team was counting on him showing up to represent.
01:23:46.020And he had been given the chance to bow out and he passed on it.
01:23:49.620So now I'm in a situation where he's begging me not to make him go, but I really want him to understand that doing what you said you are going to do is important in life.
01:25:19.060And truly, it was just one of those moments where you're like, it could have gone either way in the moment.
01:25:23.760I didn't know if we were handling it right as parents.
01:25:25.900But now with retrospect, it feels like it, you know, it landed where it should.
01:25:28.700But you do you have those moments where like it's not existential, but you realize there's more riding on it than a stupid game or sporting event or what have you.
01:25:38.780Right. Like the stakes go up for you as a parent and your kid as a developing adult.
01:25:43.860Yeah, it's a it's a character building exercise because it might seem inconsequential at the time, but it actually goes into making the fiber of the future man.
01:25:53.780And I mean, we don't have I mean, in Texas, you know, we're here in Dallas, so we don't really have any sailing.
01:25:58.340We have we have late grapevine, but I think there's Gators maybe in it.
01:26:35.120And when boys, you know, go through growth spurt, it's awkward because especially if they're tall and they're lanky and they're trying to, you know, motor funk, motor skills, they're trying to control their arms and legs.
01:26:43.060And so he was having a little bit of a tough time and he did not want to do it.
01:26:47.200He did not want to show up for football.
01:26:48.280And they, you know, they, they're, they're, they take very, you know, great care with how they play in school, football and school in Texas.
01:26:55.840And he didn't want to do it, but he had promised, he told the team and we told him, you know, if you commit to this, you're going to show up for every practice in the morning because they practice morning and afternoon.
01:27:06.220You're going to show up for every practice in the afternoon.
01:27:29.760If this is what you want to do, you can go in front of your whole team and your coaches and you can tell them why you're going to be the one kid that lets everybody down because that's what it is in truth.
01:27:38.960So you can go in front of all of them and you can tell all of them yourself because mom and dad are doing it for you.
01:27:44.200You can tell them why you're going to let them down and, and why you're going to, why you're not going to uphold your end of the, of the bargain.
01:27:49.800And he thought about it and he stayed with it and he wasn't, you know, he's not a great football player.
01:27:54.440We had no, we were operating under no illusion that he was going to be some great football player, but it was about more than just being a good athlete.
01:28:01.980It was, and that's, and that's one of the things that I hope people realize about sports and, you know, things that you're talking about that you're doing is because this is, it's about more than just the, the athletic skill or the prowess or the brawn or the stature.
01:28:18.220And even if it's uncomfortable, even if you don't want to do it, even if it's hard, even if it seems like everything is against you, you made a commitment and you're going to see it through.
01:28:27.220And that is one of the characteristics of a great adult.
01:28:30.280And so kids having gone through that, I think they have their metal tested and they come out stronger on the other end.
01:28:36.100And it is so hard to watch as parents.
01:28:39.340It is so terrible second guess yourself because you know, you, it doesn't help when you got grandmas in your ear going, well, it might seem a little harsh.
01:28:51.700They got to see it through and they come out all the better for it.
01:28:54.320And then when they tackle like serious, seriously big things in their lives, they, they can rely on that past experience to guide them through the next challenge.
01:29:04.160And that's what they have to fall back on.
01:29:05.980And so I, I, I've been, I've been in that same position and it's hard to watch, but thankfully they make the right ones.
01:29:12.820It's so, it's like such an interesting challenge parenting, isn't it?
01:29:16.340It's like you have all these opportunities to just around the edges, change things for them and maybe weigh in on their future.
01:29:23.180You know, like these are character defining moments.
01:29:25.920You can't change their natural temperament, I think, but you can certainly give character building lessons and it requires some thought, some, some reflection.
01:29:35.480You can't phone it in and it does require you to be there.
01:29:38.240You know, Doug and I were talking about this the other day that there was this one kid who was behaving very badly on the tennis court and just being a bad sport.
01:29:45.460And the parents were nowhere to be found.
01:29:48.300And I said to Doug, cause he loves tennis.
01:29:50.620So that's how he likes the fact that all of our kids are into tennis and it's fun to watch for me.
01:29:55.020And I said, what would you have done if that had been Yates, who's our eldest and he's big time into tennis?
01:30:00.720And he said, I just would have said Yates and he would have looked at me and it would have been a look.
01:30:07.580I wouldn't have embarrassed him on the court, just would have been a word, you know, his name and a look and he would have understood.
01:30:14.020But that to me spoke to like the importance of being there.
01:30:19.680You know, you cannot outsource everything to a nanny or, you know, a camp or a coach or whatever.
01:30:25.240Like the actual presence of the actual parent as often as possible matters, you know, because we noticed that we had a nanny when they were little.
01:30:53.240He goes, there's no threat of spankings or anything that got me as much as like your dad looking at me and going, I'm really disappointed in you.
01:31:01.120He was like, that just makes me stop in my tracks.
01:31:04.220And that is a power that only parents have because of that presence.
01:31:08.280And, you know, that you have that presence in your life.
01:31:10.220And I love the look, just saying the name and a look, because there's just this unspoken thing between parent and child and all the parent has to do.
01:31:17.600My mom looks like when she would get mad, I was trying to think of the name of that.
01:31:22.920OK, so she when she gets mad, she looks like an eagle.
01:31:26.680She looks like the meanest woman on God's green earth.
01:31:29.940And if I just acted up or did something that was inappropriate or untoward, all she would do is say my name real love, Dana, and then just give me a look.
01:31:38.660And then I swear her nose turned into a beak and her eyes narrowed and talons came up and it was just like terrifying.