The Megyn Kelly Show - VP Harris' Relief ＂Equity,＂ and NFL's Concussion Issue, with Rich Lowry, Chris Nowinski, and Chloe Valdary ｜ Ep. 403

00:00:00.580 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.700 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. I hope you all had a great weekend.

00:00:16.480 I had so much fun. Yesterday I did something that I rarely do, and that is I went to an NFL football game along with my family.

00:00:24.840 And it was super fun. We went to see a New York Giants game. They were playing the Bears. Go Blue! We won. New York Giants won.

00:00:32.100 That was my dad's team, so it's my team too. And it was really thrilling. It was like, I have to tell you, it was like, you're out there.

00:00:40.500 You're with regular folks who are just tailgating and enjoying themselves, and it doesn't take a red carpet.

00:00:46.360 It doesn't take fancy martinis. It doesn't take a bunch of celebrities.

00:00:50.000 I'm thinking about some of these events I went to in New York, like the Met Gala, or let's say, I don't know, the Vanity Fair party out by the Oscars in Hollywood.

00:00:59.760 Screw that. Any day of the week, I would take the tailgating at the Giants game, one of those delicious beers.

00:01:07.400 My husband chose the kind. A burger. It was overcooked, but somehow it tastes delish.

00:01:13.320 And time with the family and friends. You know, it was just super fun.

00:01:16.560 And the fact that the Giants won made it even better. Sorry, Bears fans.

00:01:20.020 But the game actually wound up making headlines, not just for that reason, but also because two quarterbacks for the Giants were injured.

00:01:28.040 One with a possible concussion. Now, you know, we covered this on Friday.

00:01:31.680 What happened to Tua? And now we're seeing this past weekend an overcorrection the other way, which is good.

00:01:38.860 Taking care of all these players who were injured as possibly concussed during the Sunday games yesterday.

00:01:45.120 And what a swing. And I have to tell you, I'm very glad that they've had the swing because I was there with my kids.

00:01:49.740 My seventh grader is now playing tackle football as part of his seventh grade sort of mandatory sports introduction.

00:01:55.520 And I'm fine with that. But I don't want him, the little boys on his team or any of their parents to have to worry that this is a sport in which they don't give a damn whether you get a concussion.

00:02:08.040 They're going to send you back out there and brain injuries be damned. They want to make a dime off of you. 1.00

00:02:13.180 Right. So that's what we were looking at last week. Has the NFL shifted?

00:02:17.020 We're going to get into all of this in just a bit as we're joined by one of the world's foremost experts on traumatic brain injuries.

00:02:23.840 OK, first, though, there's a lot to get to politically today, including President Biden praising a hero in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian,

00:02:32.040 a Coast Guard worker who did some incredible stuff, we'll tell you what, who is about to be fired thanks to President Biden's vaccine policy.

00:02:41.180 Can you believe? We'll tell you the story. Also, we're learning that Anthony Fauci's agency.

00:02:46.720 Some believe has officially just granted a new round of taxpayer money to EcoHealth Alliance.

00:02:52.060 That's the group run by Peter Daszak. That's the guy who was one of the first scientists to push officials to reject the lab leak theory.

00:02:59.340 That's the guy who was doing gain of function research in the lab in Wuhan, China.

00:03:03.520 That guy, Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance, who just got another six hundred grand from Anthony Fauci,

00:03:09.160 which many people believe is how we got into this mess to begin with.

00:03:13.280 How is he getting more of our money? There's been no accountability whatsoever.

00:03:16.820 We had learned a couple of weeks ago that he was considering doing it.

00:03:19.940 Now we know he did it. Fauci doesn't give a fig.

00:03:24.200 He's got his middle finger up to everyone.

00:03:27.000 He will continue funding Peter Daszak, EcoHealth Alliance and this type of dangerous research until the American populace tells him no,

00:03:36.760 which amazingly we're not doing, at least not loudly enough.

00:03:41.120 So we're going to get into all of this. I'm very fired up about that story, as you can tell.

00:03:43.960 Joining me now to discuss it all is Rich Lowry, editor in chief of National Review,

00:03:49.020 the great National Review.

00:03:54.360 Rich, great to have you. How are you?

00:03:56.260 Hey, thanks so much for having me. I've never been to the Met Gala, but I have been to a Giants game.

00:04:01.440 It's so fun. I rarely go to that kind of thing, like NFL.

00:04:05.220 It's not my thing. I'm not a sports person.

00:04:06.840 I'll keep doing it. It was so fun, just outdoors.

00:04:10.840 It was going to rain, but the rain kind of held off.

00:04:13.220 And it was just like it was church-like.

00:04:15.320 Again, it was kind of church-like, like a concert where, you know, we stood together, we sat together, we cheered together.

00:04:20.580 We didn't really boo.

00:04:21.960 We booed a couple of bad calls, but not the other players.

00:04:24.020 And, you know, you saw people who are obviously wealthy, right, in like the fancy boxes.

00:04:30.560 You saw people who clearly didn't have a ton of dough, who carpooled there and, you know, were there together and like, whatever.

00:04:37.600 It didn't matter. It was all about sports.

00:04:39.580 Yeah. My only problem with NFL games in person is you really feel all the TV timeouts, which you don't, you know, when you're watching at home on TV, well, you wander out to the bathroom and wander out to get another beer.

00:04:51.680 But in the stadium, you're just sitting there with nothing happening.

00:04:54.960 And also, you were, you know, good, good, still warm weather this past weekend.

00:05:00.300 But I was at an event last week with Governor Scott Walker, who has a PhD in attending Green Bay Packers games.

00:05:06.380 And he says there, when it gets cold, you got to bring a piece of cardboard to put beneath your feet so you're not actually on the concrete because all the cold comes up.

00:05:16.200 You bring your own seat liner and you bring electric heaters in your pockets.

00:05:20.000 Then you're all set and you look incredibly rugged on TV.

00:05:23.420 But it's really because you're not an amateur and you're a pro and you know what you're doing.

00:05:27.160 Well, I mean, frankly, any parent who sits on the soccer sidelines all fall long probably has those same.

00:05:32.580 I'm thinking about getting one of those little tents.

00:05:34.400 You know, you can get like an individual tent and you can sit in it.

00:05:37.700 They probably wouldn't allow that at MetLife Stadium where we went to the Giants game.

00:05:40.920 They will allow it on my daughter's soccer sidelines. 0.96

00:05:43.820 Yeah.

00:05:44.260 So anyway, it was super fun.

00:05:45.460 And I have to say, I know you've got kids too, but this whole NFL thing is really disturbing.

00:05:49.880 You know, what happened to Tua last week.

00:05:51.660 And apparently they got rid of that neurological consultant.

00:05:55.000 That guy's lost his job.

00:05:56.200 But like too little too late.

00:05:59.160 Already you've got a deep scare through a lot of the parent community about what is football?

00:06:03.700 Is it about just getting the W and putting points on the board?

00:06:07.880 Or do we factor in the health and well-being of the players from age seven to, you know, 37?

00:06:14.280 Yeah.

00:06:14.620 I mean, they just have to.

00:06:15.880 I'm not an expert on the protocol, but I think it needs to be totally taken out of the team's hands.

00:06:19.600 And you just have to have a third party doctor charged with having the truly the interest of the player at heart, no matter what the score is, no matter how desperate you are to get your star quarterback back in the game and go on his or her judgment.

00:06:33.640 And also, I think this is why a lot of parents, lacrosse is a good option.

00:06:38.280 You know, it's it's not there's not the constant head collisions and lacrosse rough.

00:06:43.980 It has as much action, especially in the Northeast.

00:06:47.120 But I think it's spread, you know, spread around the rest of the country as well as a potential alternative to football.

00:06:52.440 But there's no total alternative football.

00:06:56.040 It's the the dominant sport in our national life, you know, and parts of the South.

00:07:01.880 It's a religion on Friday nights.

00:07:04.300 It's just the most entertaining game.

00:07:07.420 I'm a big baseball guy, but I admit it.

00:07:09.240 You know, college football in the NFL, you just can't beat it.

00:07:12.040 It's why, you know, the 50 top rated programs at the end of any year, they're all, you know, 48 of them are football games.

00:07:18.600 So it's a big part of our national life.

00:07:20.560 This is something we should get right just for the welfare of the players.

00:07:23.940 And as you say, for the peace of mind of parents.

00:07:26.140 You're right.

00:07:26.520 It's such a fun game to watch.

00:07:28.400 And, you know, for most of us, it has history in our families as well.

00:07:31.980 You know, every Thanksgiving, it's on all fall.

00:07:34.240 It's on.

00:07:34.960 And, you know, you get the memories of your parents rooting for this team.

00:07:37.620 And, you know, that's what lures you in.

00:07:39.840 Doug and I are in a very we're in like a cage match on this because I'm from a Giants family and he's from a Philadelphia Eagles family.

00:07:47.520 And the ne'er the twain shall meet Rich.

00:07:49.460 I mean, it's like we're it is an all out battle now.

00:07:52.940 In fact, for Yates's birthday, my our son just turned 13.

00:07:55.760 I got this enormous balloon display and it was a field goal of the New York Giants.

00:08:00.980 My dog came downstairs.

00:08:02.200 He was like, what is that?

00:08:04.440 You're so right.

00:08:05.320 These these memories just get caught up with your family's life.

00:08:08.400 I remember I grew up in Washington, D.C. and everyone in D.C. was obsessed with the Redskins.

00:08:12.340 I decided not to be a Redskins fan.

00:08:14.660 But still, on Thanksgiving Day, you'd wheel out the TV.

00:08:18.360 That's how old I am, you know, at dinner and you'd watch the Cowboys versus the Redskins.

00:08:23.320 And it was just I remember there was one epic game where the Redskins were way ahead.

00:08:28.420 And Roger Staubach, the great legendary Cowboys quarterback, for some reason, wasn't playing that game or got knocked out.

00:08:34.680 And then there's no name Cowboys quarterback brings them all the way back and wins the game, crushing and ruining the holiday of all the D.C.

00:08:43.540 metropolitan area.

00:08:45.600 I remember when I was a kid watching Joe Montana of the 49ers just because, A, I thought he was kind of dreamy.

00:08:53.180 And, B, he was incredible to watch, even for a girl on the single digits or close to, you know, you get these legendary figures who really draw you in, sometimes irrespective of what teams they're on.

00:09:05.760 And that was another thing that Kurt Warner, I talked about him on Friday because I interviewed him about CTE.

00:09:09.440 But he had another incredible story where kind of like Tom Brady, he was like the backup nobody, nobody wanted Kurt Warner.

00:09:17.780 And then the, you know, Division One or whatever, the lead quarterback got hurt and he got put in.

00:09:23.040 Everybody's like, oh, no, they think it was was it the Rams that he started with?

00:09:26.900 Because it was my first husband who loved him.

00:09:28.140 He loved the Rams.

00:09:29.080 Anyway, they're like, oh, no.

00:09:30.980 And he completely turned it around.

00:09:33.300 There's a feature film.

00:09:34.620 Yeah, he was like a checkout clerk or something, right?

00:09:37.180 And then, you know, very, very soon after is an NFL star.

00:09:41.680 I almost watched this this movie on a plane this weekend, but didn't didn't play.

00:09:46.360 Well, I have to watch it because I like the guy.

00:09:48.540 As memory serves, I think he married his wife.

00:09:52.480 They adopted a child with special needs.

00:09:54.900 He was he worked in the grocery store.

00:09:56.540 It was just like an all-American guy who just believed in hard work and loving his family and God.

00:10:01.160 And great things happened for him.

00:10:02.340 And this result for the for the Rams later.

00:10:05.180 Anyway, we'll get to more about football in a minute.

00:10:07.180 I'm now on to darker subjects.

00:10:10.680 Hurricane Ian came through absolutely devastating.

00:10:13.080 Heard you guys talk about it on the editors with Charlie, who thankfully wasn't there.

00:10:17.440 But, you know, there are friends on the Gulf Coast of Florida just really dealing with absolute devastation.

00:10:21.980 Fort Myers in the area.

00:10:22.960 And Joe Biden, as presidents will often do, made some phone calls to some of the standouts in the rescue effort.

00:10:30.060 And that included a military hero, a Coast Guard diver to say congratulations for a job well done.

00:10:37.500 And, you know, we appreciate you.

00:10:39.420 And Joe Biden actually mentioned this publicly.

00:10:42.840 All right.

00:10:43.080 On camera, he was out there praising Zach Lash.

00:10:46.300 Here's a bit of the president and soundbite one.

00:10:49.640 I also spoke to aviation survival second class technician, second class Zach Lash, who described how difficult the decision is for people to leave everything and come to safety.

00:11:01.940 I told him how proud of him I was and thanked him for all the work he and his coasties are doing to save lives.

00:11:08.620 Yeah.

00:11:09.940 First of all, something's going on with Biden's speech.

00:11:12.560 Like he's more slurry and mumbly.

00:11:15.820 Right.

00:11:16.120 It's like getting worse.

00:11:17.140 Don't you recognize it?

00:11:18.180 Yeah.

00:11:18.460 I mean, that was difficult to understand at the beginning.

00:11:21.000 Yeah.

00:11:21.340 All right.

00:11:21.680 So another day.

00:11:23.640 Secondly, so this guy, I believe it's pronounced Lash because that's how Dana Lash spells her name and you pronounce it Lash.

00:11:30.620 This guy saved a disabled woman and her husband from a bedroom during in their home that they'd been trapped in.

00:11:36.760 He had to kick in a wall to get to them.

00:11:38.680 He strapped the woman and her wheelchair to his body and hoisted her to a waiting helicopter. 0.54

00:11:46.700 This is like the stuff movies are made of.

00:11:48.740 He saved the lives of several pets in the area as well.

00:11:51.580 Then Breitbart News caught up with him.

00:11:54.720 It was not on camera.

00:11:56.100 So this is a print interview.

00:11:57.080 And he told them he is due to be kicked out of the Coast Guard in the next 30 to 60 days due to Biden's vaccine mandate that affects all members of the U.S.

00:12:09.140 Armed Forces.

00:12:10.460 He tried to get a religious exemption.

00:12:12.540 It was denied.

00:12:13.420 They asked him why you didn't bring that up in your phone call with President Biden, which would have been quite a moment.

00:12:19.080 He said he didn't think it was appropriate to bring it up to him.

00:12:22.440 But he said.

00:12:23.240 The kind of guy he is.

00:12:23.860 He just speaks to the kind of guy he is.

00:12:25.740 Exactly.

00:12:26.240 And he said it just sucks that he thanked me, yet the vaccine mandate is what's kicking me out.

00:12:31.540 I just love my job and I'm really good at it. 0.97

00:12:33.780 It sucks.

00:12:34.360 I feel like this is the job I was born to do. 0.93

00:12:36.380 And then he says, if I had asked any of the people I saved yesterday, if they wanted to come with me, even though I'm unvaccinated, every single one of them would have said yes.

00:12:47.300 Oh, yeah.

00:12:49.580 So this is a policy that never made any sense.

00:12:53.120 You know, I thought the vaccines are a great blessing.

00:12:55.360 People should should have gotten vaccinated.

00:12:57.720 But the idea that underline these mandates that unvaccinated people were a threat to vaccinated people made zero sense, zero sense ever.

00:13:08.620 Right.

00:13:08.800 I mean, to the extent unvaccinated or threat to anyone is to themselves. 0.95

00:13:12.580 Right.

00:13:12.940 But this is a, you know, a hale and hearty guy who's lifting people on his back out of harm's way.

00:13:19.480 So obviously he's not at major risk of covid and he's made this decision and we should respect it.

00:13:25.960 And also, even if there was a justification seemingly at the beginning of the pandemic, the pandemic's over.

00:13:32.620 Right.

00:13:32.900 I mean, Biden himself.

00:13:33.820 Right.

00:13:34.260 So how possibly can you justify kicking a guy out like this?

00:13:38.200 And I have a buddy, old Marine Corps officer who's just texting me like an hour ago before before he came on here.

00:13:46.320 Same thing.

00:13:47.000 Like he has all these friends who are still getting kicked out totally arbitrarily from the Marines, you know.

00:13:52.520 And why?

00:13:53.460 And just this is this isn't the biggest and most important example.

00:13:57.420 But I'm a big Yankee fan.

00:13:58.980 I watch nearly every game.

00:14:00.180 And in the broadcast booth, they have Michael K is a play by play guy, another color guy.

00:14:04.800 And then Paul O'Neill, Yankee great, does color, who can't come into the studio, who can't come into Yankee Stadium because he's unvaccinated.

00:14:12.420 So I have this side shot of him at home in Ohio or whoever he is.

00:14:15.920 It makes zero sense.

00:14:17.560 And again, maybe, you know, in the initial blush of, you know, all the unknowns we had at the beginning of the pandemic, maybe you can justify doing this.

00:14:26.020 I don't think it made sense then.

00:14:27.460 It certainly doesn't make sense now.

00:14:30.480 And it's just lunacy.

00:14:31.820 That's, you know, like a runaway train that no one can stop.

00:14:35.900 And it's one thing when it's I don't know, like our school, our school still has a vaccine mandate when the kids turn 16.

00:14:42.420 I'm very much hoping they'll see the light before my son does.

00:14:46.020 But but all these other parents have to deal with that this this year, the ones who are a couple of years older than we are.

00:14:52.060 And it's wrong.

00:14:52.940 But that's one thing is another to be dealing with the U.S. military, where this year alone, the army didn't make its recruiting goals.

00:15:01.800 They fell about 15000 soldiers short.

00:15:04.520 That's 25 percent.

00:15:06.200 Yeah, 25 percent.

00:15:06.900 And the only the other branches only made their goals because they basically did some funny business with the math.

00:15:14.200 Don't totally understand how it how it works, but they have a pool of delayed entry applicants.

00:15:20.820 And the other branches just had to dig deep into those pools, which puts them behind now for the next year's recruiting.

00:15:29.920 But they're playing funny business with the numbers.

00:15:32.560 That's basically why they made their numbers.

00:15:34.580 So we're falling at record lows between the woke military and the vaccine mandate and the four branches of the military while Vladimir Putin's threatening nuclear war.

00:15:42.740 OK, because it's something that, as you point out, may never have made sense, but really makes no sense now where it doesn't prevent transmission.

00:15:52.280 And these are the youngest, most able bodied Americans we have.

00:15:55.880 They're at almost no risk from covid.

00:15:58.540 Right. Yeah. What what athlete, again, going back to sports, what athlete have we heard that got covid that was ever in any trouble whatsoever?

00:16:06.880 None. None. Because it's you're going to be in trouble.

00:16:10.920 Maybe there's a freak thing. But otherwise, if you have some serious underlying health condition or you're quite elderly.

00:16:16.700 So, again, this this is science, you know, these are facts and the people who pride themselves supposedly being just driven by science and wholly devoted to it can't or won't absorb this.

00:16:29.540 You know, I'm no fan of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

00:16:31.260 But last year, one reason she got suspended permanently from Twitter is he said she said vaccinated people were getting the virus, which was a fact. 1.00

00:16:40.000 Right. It was clear almost from the beginning. Initially, there's a little over optimism about, OK, the vaccine is going to protect anyone from getting it.

00:16:46.600 But then, you know, the Omicron wave comes and everyone who's vaccinated gets it.

00:16:50.180 And she can't say that again by the arbiters who who pride themselves on on being fact based.

00:16:57.360 But they're just certain truths they they refuse to acknowledge because it doesn't line up to what their preferences or ideology.

00:17:05.160 And can I tell you something? I talked to a rumors, a rheumatologist about this.

00:17:08.200 It matters that these vaccines don't prevent covid because that means you could get a vaccine and very shortly thereafter you could get covid.

00:17:18.340 OK, and that double hit to your immune system that close in time actually can and is causing potential autoimmune problems.

00:17:28.080 And I heard that directly from one of the top rheumatologists in New York City.

00:17:31.780 So the fact that they don't prevent you from getting it does.

00:17:35.280 I mean, it's like so if you get the vaccine, unless you're going to go in lockdown, you are at risk for this double dose of covid.

00:17:40.740 It's basically getting covid down twice, sort of in a very short amount of time.

00:17:45.920 So no wonder these top athletes and our Navy SEALs and guys like, you know, Lash don't want to do this.

00:17:52.460 He's busy saving actual lives and having to strap women with their wheelchairs to him. 1.00

00:17:56.800 Can't afford to be compromised in that way.

00:18:00.140 Yeah. So, again, based on the initial information we had, I was still happy to let people be unvaccinated and have no mandate because I just think our society should have the widest possible latitude for people to make their own individual choices.

00:18:13.400 And we should accommodate eccentrics on such questions.

00:18:17.180 You know, I thought it made sense to get vaccinated.

00:18:19.260 I got vaccinated, boosted and got the virus.

00:18:21.440 So I got the triple dose, I guess.

00:18:23.540 But some people disagreed.

00:18:24.920 And why would you want to crush them or chase them out of their livelihood?

00:18:30.340 And especially especially now.

00:18:33.240 And circling back to the military recruitment thing, this is a serious issue that has really important repercussions for the health and defense of our society.

00:18:43.680 You know, I think if you once you subtract all the people who are disqualified for various reasons from the military, either they physically they can't do it or they they don't have the educational credentials or they smoke pot or they have tattoos.

00:18:57.480 It's only about a quarter of the population that you're talking about.

00:19:01.160 And then you have a tight labor market and then you have a military that's very unattractive.

00:19:05.600 You know, they're cracking down on people on the vaccines.

00:19:08.420 They have all this woke stuff.

00:19:10.620 And on top of that, you have patriotism kind of at a low ebb or at least our elite institutions constantly pushing back against it.

00:19:17.780 And then you get maybe if this keeps going, you know, the meltdown or degrading of an all military, all voluntary military, which has been a pillar of our self-defense for, you know, 40 or 50 years now.

00:19:30.220 That's a huge deal.

00:19:32.680 It's depressing.

00:19:34.320 Well, that was not the only depressing news coming out of the hurricane in response. 0.96

00:19:38.880 The fact that this guy is going to get fired and we have to continue to follow this to find out whether they actually have the balls to do that.

00:19:44.360 I mean, really, I feel like if we had an honest press score, they'd be asking Biden this question every day.

00:19:48.400 Are you firing him?

00:19:49.460 Are you firing him?

00:19:50.500 Is he going?

00:19:51.380 You feel like we're better off if we get rid of this American hero?

00:19:54.600 OK, why?

00:19:55.100 When is it happening?

00:19:55.700 Let's let's let's use him as the window for this policy as we continue to follow Zach Lash and his his experience.

00:20:03.620 But the other depressing thing that happened was Kamala Harris was interviewed by that well-renowned journalist, Priyanka Chopra.

00:20:12.300 Honestly, I can't tell you one thing that Priyanka Chopra has done.

00:20:15.600 I don't even know if she's an actress or a chef.

00:20:17.620 I'm not sure.

00:20:18.600 I think she's married to a Jonas brother.

00:20:21.360 She interviews Vice President Harris at the Democratic National Committee's Women's Leadership Forum.

00:20:28.880 OK, at which they discuss climate change again, because Priyanka Chopra, I guess that's our issue.

00:20:37.680 And Vice President Harris in the wake of, you know, or I don't know, the death toll in Florida last I looked was 81, but they expected it to climb higher.

00:20:45.920 In the wake of that, she wants to talk about climate change.

00:20:49.480 And Harris had had a reassurance for the people of Florida and nationwide, I guess.

00:20:55.380 And here's how that went.

00:20:56.680 Listen, top four.

00:20:57.560 We are all thinking about the families in Florida, in Puerto Rico, with Fiona, and what we need to do to help them in terms of an immediate response and aid.

00:21:10.040 It is our lowest income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making.

00:21:25.000 And so we have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity, understanding that we we fight for equality, but we also need to fight for equity, understanding not everyone starts out at the same place.

00:21:38.020 And if we want people, and if we want people to be in an equal place, sometimes we have to take into account those disparities.

00:21:43.020 It's about giving resources based on equity, equity is how she suggests we're going to be dictating where the hurricane funds for Ian and Fiona should go.

00:21:55.320 This resulted in the FEMA director, Rich, having to come out and say, that's not true.

00:22:03.360 We're not doing that.

00:22:04.660 We are supporting all communities in need.

00:22:06.540 Yeah, we're still a race neutral disaster aid agency.

00:22:10.020 It's unbelievable.

00:22:11.700 First of all, exhibit A, why she's very unlikely ever to be president of the United States, unless for some reason Biden can't finish out his term and she takes over.

00:22:19.900 This is disaster relief.

00:22:22.460 It's a no brainer.

00:22:23.700 All you say is this administration is totally committed to this.

00:22:28.700 We are we don't care.

00:22:30.240 It's a Republican governor in Florida who's criticized this administration.

00:22:32.920 That doesn't matter to us.

00:22:34.560 And we're going and helping every single person we can possibly reach.

00:22:38.320 And our prayers are with everyone in Florida.

00:22:40.760 We're going to stay on this for as long as it takes to rebuild every single house.

00:22:45.720 You know, it's not it's not hard, but she couldn't do it.

00:22:48.720 And she couldn't do it because this kind of Oberlin ask woke ideology has seeped in everywhere, including the highest levels of government with the second ranking executive elected executive officer of the government.

00:23:02.780 And thinking it's appropriate to say that you're going to use disaster relief to write alleged historic inequities.

00:23:11.340 And one of the more astonishing things about this, she got applause at the end of this answer.

00:23:16.200 It wasn't like everyone at that DNC event.

00:23:17.920 Oh, shouldn't have said that.

00:23:20.740 Like, oh, yeah, of course.

00:23:22.000 This is wonderful.

00:23:22.980 And this is just an ideology that is eats people's brains and it has ripped through every elite institution.

00:23:32.200 It's ripping through the Democratic Party as we speak.

00:23:34.700 And this is a prime example.

00:23:36.880 Can you imagine someone hurting right now on the Gulf Coast of Florida trying to fill out the already cumbersome red tape to get the disaster relief and being asked, are you white?

00:23:47.760 You're white. 0.95

00:23:48.560 Forget about it. 0.99

00:23:49.540 You can go to the back of the line.

00:23:50.460 Yeah, it's profoundly un-American. 0.65

00:23:54.060 And, you know, Florida officials were pushing back on it as well just to make sure, no, it's available to everyone and providing the numbers, the phone numbers to call.

00:24:05.160 But again, this this is who she is.

00:24:06.880 This is what she believes.

00:24:08.740 And it's it's really abysmal and appalling.

00:24:14.280 There was some buzz on Twitter about the looting in Florida, because unfortunately, whenever you have a natural disaster, you have bad people who try to take advantage of those who are hurting, try to go into their house, try to go into stores that have been flooded and steal things.

00:24:30.560 And there were some pictures on Twitter of signs down in Florida, like you watch it like with a gun or I can't remember how clever they were, but they were good.

00:24:39.340 They were sort of issue.

00:24:41.160 Yeah, you loot. 0.99

00:24:41.980 I shoot. 0.85

00:24:42.300 OK, so now that's racist, OK, because it was said back in the racist past by somebody who had a connection to Bull Connor.

00:24:50.880 And so you can't even threaten somebody who's looking to steal from you after your home has been ravaged by a hurricane or your business and they want to steal. 0.64

00:24:58.380 And if you say I'll shoot you, if you try to break in here, you're racist because it has some connection.

00:25:03.400 So this is what's going on now, because Ron DeSantis warned against looters. 0.95

00:25:07.340 Here's what he said.

00:25:08.380 It's soundbite, too.

00:25:09.260 So the other thing that we're concerned about, particularly in those areas that were really hard hit, is, you know, we want to make sure we're maintaining law and order.

00:25:18.600 Don't even think about looting.

00:25:20.660 Don't even think about taking advantage of people in the state of Florida.

00:25:24.920 You never know what may be lurking behind somebody's home.

00:25:27.960 And I would not want to chance that if I were you, given that we're a Second Amendment state.

00:25:32.080 Joy Reid, never missing an opportunity to racialize everything, points out that segregationist Miami Sheriff Walter E.

00:25:41.800 Headley, 1967, said when the looting starts, the shooting starts.

00:25:46.380 She tweets, didn't take DeSantis long to return to form.

00:25:50.660 And then she linked to a 2020 NPR article, the history behind when the looting starts, the shooting starts.

00:25:55.420 So you can't threaten lawbreakers.

00:25:58.740 By the way, you're if they come on your property and start looting you, who wouldn't pull out their gun to try to defend? 0.80

00:26:04.860 Doesn't mean you actually have to shoot them.

00:26:06.700 But you are in danger if you decide to do this in Florida.

00:26:09.740 And he's pointing it out.

00:26:10.900 And that means he's a bigot.

00:26:13.080 What do you what do you think?

00:26:13.900 Yeah, look, it's people protecting their property and racist, you know, said this 50 years ago with racial intent.

00:26:22.840 But there's none on the part of Ron DeSantis or I believe the vast majority of people who have those signs out.

00:26:28.300 They just don't want anyone to come and take their stuff.

00:26:32.140 And the critics of this, do they really believe that every criminal is is African-American and every potential looter or someone who might be tempted to take something is African-American?

00:26:40.640 That's not true. You know, they're they're white people who steal stuff as well. 0.96

00:26:47.060 And this is just part of the culture of Florida. 0.98

00:26:50.080 I was talking to a friend.

00:26:52.040 Remember the horrible case, the guy, he killed the girlfriend when they're out in a national park somewhere.

00:26:58.000 And then he came back in Florida and he disappeared.

00:27:01.060 And my friend was talking to Gabby Petito.

00:27:03.220 Yeah. Why did he went to like a national wildlife preserve in Florida?

00:27:07.980 And as could be predicted, died and got eaten by a bunch of stuff.

00:27:12.880 Right. I think they had to rely on dental remains to to discover who who he was.

00:27:17.760 My friend was talking to someone. Why don't these people, you know, why don't they just hang out in some neighborhood or something?

00:27:22.620 You know, and as Stance says, you know, go in someone's backyard.

00:27:25.380 It's because someone might shoot you.

00:27:27.320 Someone might shoot you because people have guns and they defend their property as is their right.

00:27:32.380 So you you you go to the wildlife preserve never to be heard heard from again.

00:27:36.660 So you see that sign. Don't loot.

00:27:39.820 No one's going to get shot. Nothing's got stolen and everyone should be happy.

00:27:43.760 Now, this is a pattern as the Republicans regain their spines.

00:27:49.020 And remember that crime is a good issue for them leading up to these midterms.

00:27:54.240 Right. They they took the bait on Trump, Trump.

00:27:57.300 Oh, that's shiny. Let's talk about Trump.

00:27:59.460 And their numbers started falling in these polls before the midterms.

00:28:03.320 And then they remembered the economy and inflation and crime.

00:28:08.220 And now their numbers are getting tighter.

00:28:11.140 And of course, consistent with our theme that we've just been discussing for the past 20 minutes,

00:28:15.860 the Democrats are playing the race card, saying attacks on Democrats as soft on crime are racist.

00:28:25.060 Rich has been writing about it.

00:28:26.200 We're going to talk about it. I'll squeeze in a two minute break and then we'll pick it up right there.

00:28:30.080 More with Rich Lowry. Just two minutes away.

00:28:38.500 Race is an issue now in apparently not just in this Wisconsin race,

00:28:43.140 but also in several other races where Republicans are raising crime stats as an electoral issue.

00:28:50.620 But let's talk about it through the lens of what's happening in Wisconsin.

00:28:53.880 I know you've written on it and it's very telling.

00:28:56.280 So there's a 35 year old African-American lieutenant governor in Wisconsin, Mandela Barnes,

00:29:00.620 who's challenging Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent for that Senate seat.

00:29:05.360 And Ron Johnson has been on unsteady ground in the polls, but now he's looking better and better.

00:29:11.120 And this this is potentially one of the reasons he's reminding people of crime and the fact that his opponent has been arguably soft on crime.

00:29:19.980 I mean, he's pushing very controversial policies like defund the police and cash bail.

00:29:25.060 So that's fair game. That's fair game. Those are definitely issues.

00:29:29.300 And Mandela Barnes and his surrogates, i.e. the Washington Post,

00:29:33.320 are are calling Ron Johnson and the GOP that's running these ads racist.

00:29:39.440 Now, here's just a couple of things that they are calling him, Rich, that they're calling Mandela Barnes in the GOP ads.

00:29:46.480 They call Mandela Barnes dangerous, a dangerous Democrat because of these policies.

00:29:51.600 They say he wanted to defund the police and they show his name, Mandela Barnes, in graffiti.

00:29:59.320 By the way, the Washington Post quoted a guy who worked for Obama saying that's Willie Horton 2.0.

00:30:06.980 They're attempting to ghettoize. They're trying to ghettoize him by doing that in graffiti.

00:30:13.140 And they also show Mandela Barnes, again, this is the GOP with the squad.

00:30:19.060 And the critics are mad because all members of the squad are a minority.

00:30:24.440 Here's just an example of the ads that have come under fire.

00:30:27.440 What kind of Democrat is Mandela Barnes? He's a defund the police Democrat.

00:30:32.640 The minute you talk about reducing a police department's budget, then it's like all hell's racist.

00:30:38.920 Without reallocating funds, you're reducing a police department's budget.

00:30:44.540 He's talking about defunding the police.

00:30:47.160 Now, murder is up in Milwaukee 40 percent, the fourth highest increase in the country.

00:30:52.460 Mandela Barnes, a dangerous Democrat.

00:30:54.740 N.R.S.C. is responsible for the content of this advertising.

00:30:59.380 So what do you make of that?

00:31:01.580 Well, first of all, that's a standard attack ad, right?

00:31:03.980 I mean, that voiceover woman, I think she does have every attack ad that's voiced by a woman. 1.00

00:31:09.260 It's her, right?

00:31:10.440 She has a great threatening voice. 0.81

00:31:11.900 But there's nothing out of bounds about an ad like that.

00:31:15.820 Again, it's standard.

00:31:18.040 And he's a winsome guy.

00:31:21.500 A 35-year-old charismatic Democrat swept to victory in the primary.

00:31:25.420 But he is a would-be member of the squad.

00:31:28.600 He went and had an event with Ilhan Omar and tweeted how wonderful she is and how she's fighting for justice in just the right way.

00:31:36.100 That's fair game, right?

00:31:37.900 I mean, he's associating himself with the very most far left element of the party.

00:31:43.420 And it's not Ron Johnson's or the N.R.S.C.'s fault that all members of the squad are non-white, right? 0.97

00:31:50.500 Maybe the squad should recruit some more white members and make it more diverse.

00:31:54.660 And we can remove this issue from the pushback on crime.

00:31:59.120 And then he has advocated for defunding the police, not the way they did in Minneapolis, which is flat out abolishing it, but doing it the way it's been done around the country, which is you cut police budgets and you allocate it to something else that you say is going to diminish crime.

00:32:15.240 It's been a disaster around the country, totally fair game.

00:32:17.900 And ending cash bail, when he was in the state legislature, he advanced a bill to eliminate it in Wisconsin, and his campaign said that he favored eliminating it nationally.

00:32:29.480 We're very familiar with this in New York City and New York State.

00:32:33.500 Ending cash bail has been an utter debacle.

00:32:36.220 It makes it almost impossible for the police to do their job.

00:32:39.320 They arrest people.

00:32:40.100 They're right on the street almost immediately and in some cases have committed heinous crimes.

00:32:45.880 And that's what he favors.

00:32:46.800 So that's not a legitimate issue. 0.99

00:32:48.580 We're just saying we can't talk about front, which would be an idiotic policy. 0.98

00:32:53.920 And they just don't like it because it's working. 0.95

00:32:56.380 And Ron Johnson, someone was saying to me the other day, I haven't checked this out myself, but he's basically never led in any public poll ever, despite winning twice.

00:33:05.540 So to have him up five points or four points, as he is in a couple of polls now, for another candidate, that's like being up 20.

00:33:12.280 So it shows people care about this issue.

00:33:15.100 They should care about this issue.

00:33:16.800 They consider it legit.

00:33:18.460 And the best thing would have been for Barnes never to have had these positions.

00:33:22.540 But instead, he's he is on the defense.

00:33:25.380 Well, it's there.

00:33:26.140 It's a game, right?

00:33:27.100 Because they're pretending that Barnes is, I guess, the only politician who's taken these positions and been hit by Republicans on them.

00:33:34.720 There are plenty of white Democrats who are getting hit with the same type of messaging.

00:33:40.260 John Fetterman, a big white guy, a big shaved head, tattooed white guy in Pennsylvania is getting hit by basically the same ad.

00:33:50.480 It uses the same language, a Democrat, a dangerous Democrat or a dangerously liberal on crime.

00:33:57.120 And Fetterman also has supported the same kind of policies Barnes has.

00:34:01.860 So you're right.

00:34:02.500 If there's some racial element or racial disparity, Fetterman would just get a pass because he's white.

00:34:07.420 So it's OK for him to be soft on crime and it would only be directed at Barnes.

00:34:10.600 It's not.

00:34:11.600 And this has been a attack Republicans have used around the country since Joe Biden.

00:34:18.360 The effective.

00:34:19.720 They've used it on Joe Biden, who last time I checked remains white, not lucid, but white, whiter than I am and getting whiter by the day.

00:34:29.960 It's just getting leached out.

00:34:31.740 I mean, he's making you just might disappear eventually.

00:34:34.060 You might not become translucent.

00:34:38.160 That's what Doug says I am.

00:34:39.740 Doug's like, my God, you're so pasty.

00:34:42.120 Your skin is like translucent.

00:34:43.960 What do you mean?

00:34:44.660 That's me with self-tanner.

00:34:45.800 That's I feel totally bronzed.

00:34:48.360 OK, let's shift gears to Stacey Abrams, because what's happening with that story is just it's kind of delicious.

00:34:54.800 I'm not going to lie.

00:34:55.940 People forget that election denialism, which Rich is against and I am against, did not begin with Donald Trump.

00:35:01.400 You can make a very strong argument that the first person to really bring it into vogue was Stacey Abrams in Georgia.

00:35:08.100 And we all know that she has refused to accept the results of that election ever since she lost the gubernatorial race down there. 0.83

00:35:14.900 But man, not if you ask her, here's a butted soundbite of her on The View about 10 days, two weeks ago on what she now claims butted to what she actually said in the past.

00:35:30.240 I have never denied that I lost.

00:35:33.720 I don't live in the governor's mansion.

00:35:34.920 I would have noticed.

00:35:35.880 I do have one very affirmative statement to make.

00:35:39.940 We won.

00:35:40.700 So in response to what I believe was a stolen election, I'm not saying they stole it from me.

00:35:46.960 They stole it from the voters of Georgia.

00:35:49.520 Is he the legitimate governor-elect of Georgia?

00:35:52.720 He is the person who won an adequate number of votes.

00:35:55.940 You're not using the word legitimate.

00:35:57.640 Is he the legitimate governor-elect of Georgia?

00:35:59.740 He is the legal governor of Georgia.

00:36:01.960 And will I say that this election was not tainted, was not a disinvestment and a disenfranchisement of thousands of voters?

00:36:09.140 I will not say that.

00:36:10.240 I mean, the best in that montage, Rich, is her, this month, well, September, I have never denied that I lost.

00:36:18.840 I've never denied that I lost, butted to, I have one affirmative statement to make.

00:36:22.580 We won.

00:36:23.460 We won.

00:36:25.020 Absolutely.

00:36:25.460 She's going to suffer the most humiliating defeat, I think, of anyone on Election Day, unless there's some miracle down there for her. 0.93

00:36:35.760 Because, one, she had to back off this stuff, which she obviously, as those clips demonstrate, she said she denied that she lost.

00:36:42.200 Every Democrat in the country, by the way, backed her up on that and felt they had to say the same thing.

00:36:47.980 And she backed off a couple weeks ago on The View, because I think the juxtaposition of Democrats rightly criticizing Trump for his denialism, the same time she's being an election denier, just didn't work.

00:36:59.040 And now she's gotten slammed in this federal court ruling.

00:37:03.600 An Obama judge, there are three or four big aspects of the Georgia election system from 2018 that were issued in this case that Abrams has talked about extensively.

00:37:14.420 She wrote about them in her book.

00:37:16.400 And part of the reason that she said the election was stolen, and the judge looked at it and was like,

00:37:20.940 there's, you've not given me one person who didn't vote, was prevented from voting from any of these things.

00:37:29.700 Not one, and they're all entirely reasonable, just to focus on one really quick.

00:37:34.720 So, some people would, they apply for an absentee ballot, and then they get worried.

00:37:40.160 You know what, I might not be able to send this back in time.

00:37:42.160 I might not get the actual ballot in time.

00:37:44.540 I'm going to vote in person.

00:37:45.980 So, this creates an issue for a poll worker, right?

00:37:48.480 Wait a minute, you request an absentee ballot.

00:37:50.340 Now you want to vote in person.

00:37:52.060 Are you voting twice?

00:37:52.980 Can you prove, you know, where's the ballot?

00:37:54.680 So, there's just kind of legitimate confusion about this.

00:37:58.280 And it's not voter suppression.

00:37:59.860 It's not the poll workers want to keep these people from voting.

00:38:02.160 They're just puzzled, and you need to do the right things to cancel your absentee ballot.

00:38:07.060 Her group presented seven voters who said they were disenfranchised by poor training around this issue.

00:38:13.540 Six of them voted.

00:38:14.780 And there was one poor lady who didn't vote. 1.00

00:38:16.880 She lived in the senior care facility.

00:38:18.560 And for whatever reason, the facility gave her a 15-minute window to vote.

00:38:23.280 She shows up at the polling place.

00:38:24.720 The person at the desk says, you know what, you've got to talk to this manager over here to straighten this out.

00:38:30.120 He's on the phone.

00:38:31.680 Maybe she was too modest or abashed or shy or the guy was too busy.

00:38:35.500 For whatever reason, she didn't talk to him by the time he was off the phone, and she felt she had to get back on the bus and go back to her facility.

00:38:40.700 As the judge points out, you know, that's just something that happens in life.

00:38:43.880 That's a circumstance, and that's not Jim Crow.

00:38:46.940 Anyway, so a 288-page ruling utterly obliterates all this stuff that was spouted by her, accepted by every Democrat in the country, and also accepted and broadcast by almost every media outlet.

00:39:01.100 I mean, all these glossy magazines.

00:39:02.560 She's going to save our democracy based on these lies she propagated that did not hold up in court. 1.00

00:39:08.600 It does obliterate her, and again, this is an Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge, Steve Jones, who just absolutely levels every argument she brought. 0.96

00:39:18.780 A quote from the opinion.

00:39:20.020 He writes,

00:39:23.040 The burden on voters is relatively low in Georgia, said that Stacey Abrams' group had not provided direct evidence of a voter who was unable to vote, experienced longer wait times, was confused about voter registration status by being in this exact match status or experienced heightened scrutiny at the polls due to it.

00:39:39.520 Because they were saying that the fact that you had to show an exact match between your voter registration and your ID was this huge impediment, especially to black and brown voters.

00:39:46.740 And the judge said, Absolutely not. You have not proved that at all. And not only that, but if you look at the sort of numbers for African-American voting in Georgia, they've only gone up.

00:39:58.460 They've gone up, up, up, up, up, up from 18 to 20 by huge, huge numbers.

00:40:03.140 So, so much for her claim that black and brown people are totally disenfranchised. 0.98

00:40:07.660 On that exact match. So, you know, there might be a mistake. You leave out an initial that's on your driver's license or whatever, so your registration doesn't match.

00:40:16.740 And you're thrown into this, this status, this intermediate status that she's made a big deal of.

00:40:22.100 She's made it sound like, you know, 60,000 people are put there. They couldn't vote. They were overwhelmingly non-white. 0.98

00:40:28.380 But what she never mentioned and was just shocking to me, media reports would never get to, you're still a registered voter in that status and you can vote.

00:40:35.400 You just have to show your ID and there's a few more requirements doing an absentee ballot.

00:40:40.120 So the whole thing was obviously absurd, but no one bothered to do their homework on this and just took her word for it.

00:40:47.160 Shame on them. And, and great for this federal, federal judge speaking the truth.

00:40:52.760 Yeah. They, they did not subject Trump to that same treatment. They did not take Trump's word for it.

00:40:58.820 They did parse through. And that's, I mean, the absurdity, right? Because it's like, she set the standard.

00:41:03.380 I'm not excusing Trump's denialism, but I'm just saying the media has had two very different standards.

00:41:08.260 Most of them on the left when it comes to these two examples. All right, let's talk about Fauci.

00:41:13.480 Two things on him. Number one, Fauci's rich. Fauci's got a lot of dough. It's come out now.

00:41:21.160 Thanks to, forgive me, Adam, because he's been on the show. And Dresky, I think it is.

00:41:25.880 This is the guy who he said Forbes canceled him after he reported for Forbes for eight years.

00:41:30.860 But once he started to touch the Fauci financing, that was too much for them.

00:41:33.660 And they let him go, which they denied. But in any event, he's found out that the Fauci household net net worth has, it exceeds 10.4 million.

00:41:43.600 And that during the pandemic, he made a ton of dough, including a million dollar prize for, quote,

00:41:52.100 speaking truth to power from the Dan David Foundation in Israel.

00:41:56.620 Then this group, OpenTheBooks.com, received Fauci's 2021 fiscal year financial disclosures from the National Institute of Health and found that now his net worth exceeds 12.6 million,

00:42:09.200 which is up 5 million from 2009 through 2021.

00:42:14.440 Salary increases, cash awards, royalties, and so on going down the list.

00:42:19.340 So he and his wife have a lot of dough, Rich, and it's somewhat disconcerting that he's the highest paid federal bureaucrat now and where all the money has come from.

00:42:28.880 His investment accounts, his patent research and all that.

00:42:32.160 Yes, some of it is investment.

00:42:34.100 And this is just a marvelous time, this period for the stock market, for anyone who is in it seriously and investing somewhat competently.

00:42:41.560 That's not going to be the case in coming years.

00:42:43.940 But the thing that really stopped me and I kind of wonder about, so you're a federal employee, like in a really sensitive position, and a nonprofit can just give you a million dollars?

00:42:54.080 Really?

00:42:55.100 I mean, assume there are rules around it, and I guess he abided by them.

00:42:59.040 But that was really shocking to me.

00:43:01.840 And, you know, he's been in this job forever.

00:43:03.640 He makes more than the president of the United States.

00:43:05.840 He's going to get a sweet retirement package.

00:43:07.600 His wife also works at the NIAD, I believe, with a comfy salary as well.

00:43:16.300 So anyone who's worried about Anthony Fauci, you don't have to be.

00:43:21.520 No, he's good.

00:43:22.360 He's doing just fine.

00:43:24.260 For speaking truth to power.

00:43:26.180 Okay.

00:43:27.340 Speaking of Anthony Fauci and who he's speaking to, Peter Daszak is still on the list.

00:43:31.640 EcoHealth Alliance.

00:43:33.000 This is the group.

00:43:34.140 When we say that Fauci's group funded gain and function research, we're talking about EcoHealth Alliance.

00:43:39.560 This is the group that did it with the Wuhan lab through Peter Daszak, who runs it.

00:43:43.520 And absurdly, he then got on the WHO commission investigating how COVID began.

00:43:47.740 And even 60 Minutes called BS on that saying it's totally inappropriate.

00:43:50.980 What was he doing on there?

00:43:51.940 But now we find out, even after all that has been publicized, it's out there.

00:43:57.800 Fauci gave EcoHealth another $600,000 plus to do what?

00:44:03.840 Exactly this same thing.

00:44:06.000 A multi-year study identifying multiple viruses and hosts relating to infections from bats in this very same region in southern China.

00:44:17.640 Ultimately, it's a $3.3 million study, which EcoHealth will get if it continues this work for the next few years.

00:44:24.040 How does this happen?

00:44:25.040 This is our money.

00:44:26.520 Bat discovery research in Southeast Asia.

00:44:29.540 High risk.

00:44:30.960 Yes.

00:44:31.260 First of all, I mean, what Daszak did, it's a little bit like what a villain in a superhero movie would do.

00:44:37.660 You see him on stage at some global forum and everyone's at his feet and thinks he's a wonderful authority when he really has this deep, dark secret that he's hiding from everyone.

00:44:48.460 And I mean, you cover this up.

00:44:50.520 And look, maybe it wasn't a lab leak.

00:44:52.120 I don't think we'll ever know.

00:44:54.320 But you should wonder.

00:44:55.420 And as someone at UnHerd was writing about this, how imagine there was some nuclear researcher who was involved in a terrible accident that killed millions of people and then tried to cover it up.

00:45:08.800 Would we just like funnel money back to that researcher without getting to the ground truth of what happened with the initial grant and how he reacted when it became controversial?

00:45:18.240 So Republicans are definitely going to take the House. 0.89

00:45:20.900 And there are a number of things that should be really at the top of the list to investigate and to the extent possible to get to the bottom of it.

00:45:28.240 And this and what these research dollars go to and what should be the protocols going forward, all of that has to be a top priority.

00:45:37.520 This has to stop.

00:45:38.500 This can be stopped, this EcoHealth Alliance grant.

00:45:41.460 And this apparently only one year of it has been approved thus far, but he's going to get the other funds unless we go, you know, we freak out on them.

00:45:51.440 The press has to, the American public has to, this guy, Peter Daszak, shouldn't get one more dollar of your money or mine, not one more.

00:45:57.700 Not least of which because he's obfuscated from the start, Rich.

00:46:01.360 He's been like the chief obfuscator.

00:46:03.580 Yeah, even if everything that happened in the lab was fine, it had nothing to do with the virus, the fact that he tried to cover it up and distorted the scientific community and process to do that and play the press for fools, that alone should be disqualified.

00:46:17.160 And the fact that Fauci continues to fund him, despite all that, tells you everything you need to know about Fauci and his role in it, too.

00:46:26.480 They're partners in this effort.

00:46:28.260 And I think we will, we will finally get something.

00:46:30.680 We'll get something that proves it came from the lab and that these guys were funding even more probably than we know.

00:46:36.440 Rich, what a pleasure.

00:46:37.340 Thank you, sir.

00:46:38.360 Megan, take care. 0.53

00:46:39.180 Have a great week.

00:46:40.180 All right, you too.

00:46:40.600 In just a short time, we're going to discuss in depth the NFL's concussion issue with an expert who played college football and actually is at the very heart of this whole thing within the NFL and trying to revise protocols for concussed players.

00:46:54.360 He's got fascinating things to say.

00:46:55.800 You're going to love this segment.

00:46:56.980 Don't forget, folks, you can find The Megan Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east and the full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel, which is YouTube dot com slash Megan Kelly.

00:47:09.100 If you prefer an audio podcast, follow and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, wherever you get your podcast for free.

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00:47:17.780 We get tons of downloads from the archives.

00:47:20.020 Some of you guys just like to peruse and find the one that most speaks to you, which we appreciate.

00:47:24.900 And by the way, we started launching a Friday email from me.

00:47:28.940 We call it the American News Minute.

00:47:30.520 If you want that, I think you'll find it highly amusing.

00:47:32.940 And there's a personal message in it this week.

00:47:34.960 You can subscribe at Megan Kelly dot com.

00:47:39.100 We're turning our attention now to the serious issue of concussions in sport and the awful injury we saw last week with the Miami Dolphins quarterback to a tongue of Ioloa tongue of Ioloa been working on it.

00:47:53.800 I hope that's it.

00:47:54.760 Joining me now is one of the leading concussion experts in America.

00:47:57.900 Chris Nowinski.

00:47:58.740 Chris is a former Harvard football player as well as a WWE athlete.

00:48:02.920 And now he's the CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation.

00:48:07.240 Chris, welcome.

00:48:07.680 Thanks, Megan.

00:48:09.660 Thanks for being here.

00:48:10.500 All right.

00:48:10.720 So what if any role do you have with respect to the NFL, the players and advising them on concussions?

00:48:17.620 I'm an advisor to the NFL Players Association on this issue.

00:48:21.640 OK, so you've been steeped in this for how long?

00:48:25.120 Since 2009, when I convinced the NFL Players Association to get their own experts because they were being lied to about concussions.

00:48:31.320 So, yeah, I go back to 2007 on this issue, probably.

00:48:36.420 So you played yourself at Harvard?

00:48:39.120 Yes.

00:48:39.980 OK, so and what position?

00:48:42.060 Defensive tackle.

00:48:43.200 Second team all Ivy.

00:48:44.880 Nice.

00:48:45.420 Nice.

00:48:45.980 And I assume you love the game.

00:48:47.440 Yeah, I did.

00:48:50.300 I did.

00:48:50.700 I did love the game.

00:48:51.960 You know, a little torn these days.

00:48:53.680 But, yeah, I had a great time playing and I walked away.

00:48:55.720 I thought I was healthy.

00:48:57.320 Mm hmm.

00:48:57.660 And then do you fear that you suffer from CTE?

00:49:01.140 Because as we talked about on Friday, I did a long show on this on NBC.

00:49:04.520 You you don't know until after you've passed.

00:49:07.440 They have to dissect a human brain to know whether it's affected by CTE for sure.

00:49:13.220 Yeah.

00:49:13.440 So I'll give you two data points on my concern.

00:49:15.880 You know, it goes up as we go longer.

00:49:18.260 I used to be a guinea pig for our studies.

00:49:20.620 And so I jumped into a bunch of scans, you know, back, you know, 10, 15 years ago.

00:49:25.620 And at the time, everyone said your scans look pretty normal.

00:49:29.520 But now that we're learning so much with our research team at Boston University's CT

00:49:34.020 Center, we've learned that some things on an MRI that we used to think were nothing are

00:49:39.160 actually signs of CTE.

00:49:41.200 And so I have some old MRIs that I don't like to go back and look at because while they're

00:49:45.620 not definitive, they certainly have some things that could suggest CTE.

00:49:49.900 And on top of that, I got to deal with the fact that one of my college roommates and

00:49:54.600 teammates at Harvard went on to play in the NFL, he passed away in December and we're

00:49:59.300 studying his brain now and he'll give a good window into what the rest of us might be going

00:50:03.860 through.

00:50:04.340 Oh, my goodness.

00:50:05.640 And he had a horrible spiral that we associate with CTE.

00:50:09.540 For the listeners at home, what is CTE?

00:50:13.400 CTE is chronic traumatic encephalopathy or what you used to call punch drunk, the idea that

00:50:19.000 your brain can slowly fall apart from too many hits to the head.

00:50:22.840 So what we're finding is that it's absolutely caused by repetitive hard hits to the head

00:50:27.820 and you get tiny lesions around blood vessels, usually at the depths of the sulcus, right

00:50:33.680 about here in your dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and also in parts of your brainstem.

00:50:38.460 From these hard hits, we don't exactly know why some hits cause it, some hits don't, but

00:50:43.540 once it starts, it keeps spreading through the rest of your life and into new areas of the

00:50:50.300 brain and so symptoms evolve over time.

00:50:52.900 So you walk, when you get it, you think you're fine.

00:50:55.160 And then 10 years later, 20 years later, you could start having symptoms that progressively

00:50:59.100 get worse and will end up with dementia.

00:51:02.360 The biggest problems are cognition, sleep, emotion, disinhibition, behavior changes, personality

00:51:09.440 changes.

00:51:10.140 I mean, it's really something what this does to people.

00:51:12.080 Brett Favre on that show I mentioned told me he was 48, I think at the time, that he

00:51:18.260 was already struggling to find words.

00:51:20.500 Even in the interview, he was having the, you know, can't find my keys and yet I'm holding

00:51:26.120 them.

00:51:26.940 A lot of people have had that.

00:51:28.100 Even younger people sometimes have that.

00:51:29.940 But 48 would be a little young to have repetitive problems of that nature.

00:51:34.740 You see that more in like a 70 something person, less than a person in his late 40s.

00:51:39.500 And he told me he believes he had thousands of concussions.

00:51:43.440 Once they redefined concussion for him, he, he thought it would have to be a major event

00:51:47.520 like we saw with two of the other night, as opposed to what he later was told getting

00:51:51.960 his quote bell rung.

00:51:53.340 And he said, you know, if it's like, you know, so you hear bells ringing or so you see the

00:51:57.160 stars.

00:51:57.660 He's like, I've had thousands of those.

00:51:59.980 Yeah.

00:52:00.440 Yeah.

00:52:00.800 No, I mean, it's interesting.

00:52:01.920 So I went back to school at 30 to get a PhD in behavioral neuroscience.

00:52:05.380 And I was one of those people, one of those people who thought, oh, you know, everyone

00:52:08.680 forgets their keys once in a while.

00:52:10.280 You actually, what I learned is that, you know, your memory changing severely, like

00:52:14.480 doesn't happen normally.

00:52:15.740 It has to be caused by something.

00:52:17.380 It's really not normally part of aging.

00:52:19.460 If you start to have changes, it's because you could have Alzheimer's disease or vascular

00:52:23.320 dementia, the beginnings of these things.

00:52:25.680 So when, you know, when NFL players are forgetting things in their 40s or I am, it's not normal.

00:52:31.560 And it was probably caused by something in a lot.

00:52:34.000 I mean, Brett Favre was known for being the Ironman, the toughest guy who played

00:52:38.600 every game through all sorts of injuries.

00:52:41.000 I mean, I think the odds that he doesn't have it are infinitesimally small.

00:52:45.040 I mean, it's just, we've now studied the brains of nearly 400 NFL players.

00:52:49.820 You know, we published it, the 110 of the first 111 had it.

00:52:53.760 And we're not finding a ton of negatives in that group of people.

00:52:58.160 You know, 20 years of football is probably too much to play to expect to avoid developing

00:53:03.040 this disease.

00:53:03.760 And we have to be frank about this.

00:53:06.200 It's so alarming.

00:53:07.740 And it's, you know, we started the show by talking about how I went to a Giants game

00:53:10.400 yesterday and how euphoric it was, not just because they won, but it's just such a classic

00:53:15.440 American experience.

00:53:16.340 And it's, I mean, most of us have grown up loving it, watching it.

00:53:20.080 We associate it with good memories.

00:53:21.160 And yet there is a very dark side, you know, where we are mistreating these players.

00:53:27.960 And I realize they're there willingly.

00:53:29.380 No one's making them play.

00:53:30.600 But there's a deal.

00:53:32.860 I think there's a deal in place where the officials, the coaches, these independent

00:53:38.180 neurology experts are supposed to be looking out for players who we know have been raised

00:53:44.120 to play hurt, to be tough, to say, put me back in coach.

00:53:49.180 Like we know that's the dynamic.

00:53:50.860 That's why we have these fail safes.

00:53:52.320 And they're not working.

00:53:54.060 Yeah, you're exactly right.

00:53:55.860 You know, it's a little bit of a deal with the devil.

00:53:58.060 You know, the show has to go on.

00:54:00.360 And what happened with Tua was such a disaster because it was just so obvious that he had

00:54:04.620 a concussion.

00:54:05.120 And the idea that nobody stepped in, the medical people who just made a terrible misdiagnosis,

00:54:11.400 but then the coaches and the ownership and nobody stepped in to protect him.

00:54:15.040 You know, that was just really shocking to see.

00:54:17.520 And even the NFL, you know, the whole reason I tweeted and predicted that Tua was, you know,

00:54:22.300 going to have a second concussion that could end his career was because the NFL was promoting,

00:54:26.460 you know, the big Thursday night matchup, Tua versus Joe.

00:54:29.160 What I thought would be happening in the background was the NFL, their chief medical officer calling

00:54:33.440 down the Dolphins going, you can't call what you saw not a concussion.

00:54:37.820 That's insane in 2022.

00:54:39.960 But they got bought into the circus, too.

00:54:42.000 They wanted viewers on the game.

00:54:43.400 And it's come back to bite them because I think everyone now realizes the veil's a bit

00:54:48.300 lifted.

00:54:49.300 That the NFL, you know, these policies aren't in place necessarily to protect the players.

00:54:53.680 The policies aren't in place to protect the reputation of the NFL with the idea that,

00:54:58.260 well, we put them through a protocol.

00:54:59.780 You know, the protocol is going to be wrong X percentage of the time.

00:55:02.580 If this was about the players, you know, players would never be returning once they've been

00:55:07.340 removed because you're only removed because you're showing signs of a concussion.

00:55:11.240 So, you know, we just have to be honest about this because they also set the example for kids.

00:55:16.560 So now we've gotten a place where we're just going to pretend you didn't have the concussion

00:55:19.940 because if they had said he had the concussion, he clearly would have been out.

00:55:23.500 And so now they've defaulted to let's just pretend it was a back injury or an ankle injury.

00:55:28.260 And for the viewers who haven't seen it yet, because, you know, I explained I'm not really

00:55:31.320 a sports person, but when it crosses over into the news lane, I pay attention.

00:55:35.300 And what happened with Tua, Miami Dolphins quarterback, been there for three years.

00:55:39.680 He's a star, was last Sunday, a week ago from yesterday.

00:55:43.640 He had an injury in a game in which he was knocked down and he clearly stumbles.

00:55:48.900 We're going to play it.

00:55:49.980 But you can see it seemed clear to even, you know, my layperson eyes.

00:55:53.600 The guy had a concussion.

00:55:54.720 Virtually everybody was saying that, including most notably Chris and a tweet we'll get to

00:55:58.460 in one second.

00:55:59.020 All right.

00:55:59.280 Hold on a second.

00:55:59.820 Here's the video of that.

00:56:01.820 No, let's just show the first injury alone.

00:56:09.060 He's getting hit right now for the listening audience.

00:56:11.680 Ooh, slams his head.

00:56:13.640 Eight, gain of eight and two.

00:56:16.560 Oh, he's woozy.

00:56:17.340 Stumble, shakes his head.

00:56:18.840 Tries to run.

00:56:20.440 Goes down.

00:56:21.660 Crumbles.

00:56:22.640 Gets back up.

00:56:25.080 Messing with his helmet.

00:56:26.700 All right.

00:56:26.960 So what did you see, Chris, in that?

00:56:29.060 What did you, what did you glean from that?

00:56:31.120 Yeah, I saw five distinct signs of concussion.

00:56:34.140 Grabbing his helmet, taking two bad steps when he stood up.

00:56:37.160 The classic shake off the cobwebs, which anyone who's been around sports knows you have a concussion

00:56:42.100 100% of the time.

00:56:43.940 And then the falling and having to be held up by his teammates.

00:56:46.420 Like, there was no doubt anywhere.

00:56:48.920 And no one should have been surprised if Tua said, well, my back hurt and that's why I fell.

00:56:53.360 Athletes, A, will sometimes purposefully lie and distract the doctors because they will 0.93

00:56:57.580 think they're supposed to rush back out there and put themselves at risk, which they're not.

00:57:01.900 But number two, they also, it's like asking a drunk driver if they're good to drive.

00:57:06.280 You're not a good judge of your own brain impairment when you've had a brain injury.

00:57:11.080 And so the fact that they floated an alternative story, not the only time the NFL has done that.

00:57:16.100 They did that a couple years ago with Patrick Mahomes when he fell, you know, fell down walking

00:57:19.880 off the field and they tried to make up some sort of bizarre nerve neck injury that luckily

00:57:24.860 we shot down in the press because I was worried they're going to try to put him back in.

00:57:28.260 It's, but it's a classic thing.

00:57:29.860 Hmm, my God, that is just so scary.

00:57:33.340 So you tweeted out before Thursday night's game, because many people were like, there's

00:57:37.600 no way Tua is going to play in Thursday night's game after that, after what was clearly a concussion.

00:57:41.180 And by the way, just for the record, if you do, if that was a concussion on last Sunday,

00:57:45.080 how long should he have been kept, in your view, kept out for?

00:57:49.540 So the NFL sort of created a guideline that you have to be out a minimum of six days.

00:57:53.820 So the idea is that, you know, partly, you know, some doctors would say you should be

00:57:58.180 out at least a month because, you know, you can use research brain scans to say your brain's

00:58:02.280 not normal for a month, but the clinical judgment and sort of what everyone's agreed on is that

00:58:06.980 a minimum of six days, but part of that's driven by the fact that most games are played

00:58:11.040 seven days apart.

00:58:11.920 So he should never play in a Thursday game, but there he could play in a Sunday.

00:58:15.940 And, and I guess I should ask you as well, why is it that the second concussion is so scary,

00:58:21.140 right?

00:58:21.460 Like concussions bad, but second concussion close to first concussion is in a league of its own.

00:58:27.220 Correct.

00:58:28.720 So there's two things happening with concussions.

00:58:31.240 One is the microscopic brain damage that we're only beginning to realize and we sort of forgot

00:58:35.800 about.

00:58:36.300 And so those sort of add up linear, but what can make things exponentially worse is there's

00:58:42.720 also chemical and metabolic changes.

00:58:45.460 Basically you get this massive ionic flux and think, you know, your, your neurons are acting

00:58:50.080 abnormally and it takes your brain, you know, really at least a week or two or three to sort

00:58:54.900 of write the ship on those neurons and they're damaged.

00:58:58.280 And so if you have the second crazy neurometabolic cascade of concussion before the first one's

00:59:03.660 resolved, think of it as taking cells that were on their way to recovery and just wiping

00:59:07.940 them out.

00:59:08.740 Hmm.

00:59:09.180 So they put to a back in for the second half in that game, eight days ago, they just far

00:59:15.580 from taking him out for six days.

00:59:16.900 He went right back in and finished the second half.

00:59:19.180 And then there was speculation about whether he would play on Thursday night.

00:59:22.140 And before Thursday night's game, Chris tweeted out, if two, it takes the field tonight, it's

00:59:28.260 a massive step backward for concussion care in the NFL.

00:59:31.380 If he has a second concussion that destroys his season or career, everyone involved will

00:59:36.580 be sued and should lose their jobs.

00:59:38.460 Coaches included.

00:59:39.380 We all saw it.

00:59:40.740 Even they must know this isn't right.

00:59:43.880 And as of last look, which was yesterday, that tweet had close to 200,000 likes had been

00:59:48.740 retweeted 55,000 times and so on.

00:59:51.520 And then after he got injured on Thursday night, you tweeted, this is a disaster.

00:59:56.500 Pray for Tua, fire the medical staffs and coaches.

00:59:59.460 I predicted this and I hate that I am right and went on.

01:00:03.700 So let's go to Thursday.

01:00:05.260 They put him back in.

01:00:07.140 And I don't I mean, like, I know you were sort of touching on this earlier, but does one

01:00:12.080 concussion make it more likely that you will be injured?

01:00:16.040 Like you were saying you speculated they'd be putting back in just because ratings and

01:00:19.420 Tua and the rivalry.

01:00:21.260 But like, was he at greater risk to get injured a second time?

01:00:25.940 Yeah, absolutely.

01:00:26.720 And we haven't had time to get into this in other interviews.

01:00:28.940 So I appreciate you giving the time.

01:00:30.660 What no one's talked about is the fact that Tua may not have been in the situation to

01:00:34.600 get his head slammed off the turf if he was thinking more clearly or moving faster.

01:00:39.860 Because, you know, I have watched that second hit a bunch of times.

01:00:42.880 You know, we're talking about a big old lineman who chased him down.

01:00:46.660 And I feel like I remember that in most cases, Tua saw that coming and he runs right around

01:00:51.560 the guy because he's a way better athlete.

01:00:53.460 But the fact that this guy was able to catch him and then throw him off the ground so hard

01:00:57.260 it might have been because he just had a concussion and he wasn't as as as couldn't move as quickly

01:01:03.840 and think as quickly as he would have a week before.

01:01:06.080 You may not you may not be as sharp mentally and as a result, physically as you normally

01:01:11.340 would be, because it was weird.

01:01:12.980 Like, I swear you, you knew it was like you knew that tweet is just prescient.

01:01:17.480 And it was like, how did he know?

01:01:19.100 And now you're explaining.

01:01:19.880 There are a couple of reasons because you understand the NFL and what motivates them

01:01:23.700 and what motivates a player and the risks of being concussed in the first place.

01:01:27.740 Well, I mean, you know, I like to think if people are saying I'm Nostradamus, but if

01:01:32.840 you look at the statistics, like basically every quarterback has a one in 10 or one in

01:01:37.080 20 chance every week of having a concussion.

01:01:39.260 So they're already rolling the dice there.

01:01:41.580 And I think basically the NFL said, well, look, there's a 90 percent chance he won't get

01:01:45.700 another concussion and we'll get away with this.

01:01:48.040 And unfortunately, the less likely outcome happened.

01:01:51.480 And why that matters is that that outcome really and truly can be life changing.

01:01:56.860 You can die from second impact syndrome when you have that second hit before your brain's

01:02:01.100 recovered.

01:02:01.940 You can develop permanent concussion symptoms, which I did from a concussion in 2003.

01:02:06.920 I've never been the same, but I'll tell you what, I did not want to have a 15 year headache.

01:02:11.780 And that can really mess with your head.

01:02:14.400 And then there's just the idea that he could just be a worse player afterward because he has

01:02:18.360 so much brain damage.

01:02:20.420 We're paying quarterbacks $50 million a year now.

01:02:22.720 So the amount of money that he could be out if his if his play is impaired going forward

01:02:28.300 is sort of amazing to think about.

01:02:31.080 Yeah.

01:02:31.260 You'd think that they would care if not about him, then about that, save their investment

01:02:35.040 by not letting him his head get dinged up again.

01:02:37.620 Well, they're not paying him that much yet.

01:02:39.120 And that might have something to do with it.

01:02:40.840 Oh, God.

01:02:42.220 So let's get to Thursday night.

01:02:43.940 He goes back out there and this is the one that's so disturbing.

01:02:46.640 They're awful. 0.96

01:02:47.160 They're both awful.

01:02:47.740 But you can see with your own eyes that his hands do something normal hands cannot do without

01:02:53.880 some override by some deep recess in your brain.

01:02:57.540 No one's hands can do this without an override.

01:03:00.660 And so he gets hit.

01:03:01.580 We'll play it.

01:03:02.400 And his hands go into some weird like convulsion or like weird double jointed sort of frozen

01:03:09.400 motion in front of his helmet.

01:03:11.940 He's sort of looking at them in a very eerie frame.

01:03:14.980 We'll show it.

01:03:15.340 His ability to make adjustments at halftime.

01:03:20.300 To a rolling left.

01:03:22.640 With the grain and down he goes.

01:03:24.900 That slung down in his own 48-yard line.

01:03:29.320 Josh Tukul.

01:03:31.000 And, uh-oh.

01:03:33.460 The hands.

01:03:35.480 Well, we saw last week and he went down.

01:03:38.100 He got up.

01:03:39.020 It was wobbly.

01:03:39.920 The training staff comes out.

01:03:45.480 And, of course, the last thing the Dolphins wanted to see.

01:03:47.700 I mean, last week it looked for all the world.

01:03:50.220 Everybody thought head injury, concussion, passed the protocol, came back second half, led him

01:03:55.320 to a victory.

01:03:56.500 And Al Tupo slams him to the ground.

01:04:00.100 I mean, it's.

01:04:01.060 There's a replay.

01:04:01.540 The thing about the back, the ankle, but he gets thrown to the ground.

01:04:04.860 Slammed down.

01:04:05.300 Again, wrenching that back, which was the issue last week.

01:04:08.280 Yep.

01:04:08.960 So they work on him a step away.

01:04:11.060 You can hear Al Michaels repeating the backstory, which is what we were all told.

01:04:15.440 But his hands almost remind me, and this is with respect to those who suffer from these

01:04:19.200 diseases, but someone who has like a neuromuscular disease or a cerebral challenge, where sometimes

01:04:28.520 their hands are contorted in a way that doesn't look perfectly natural, that's what his hands

01:04:33.520 look like.

01:04:33.960 It's obviously driven by the brain.

01:04:36.600 Right.

01:04:36.840 He suffered what's called decorticate posture.

01:04:39.060 So it's different than the fencing posture because he wasn't, his arm wasn't straight

01:04:42.380 out.

01:04:42.700 It was more the idea that they were convulsed like this.

01:04:45.640 And it's been interesting talking to scientists this week about it because what they reminded

01:04:49.640 me is this is most often seen in strokes, right?

01:04:52.620 Like when you brain gets damaged from a lack of blood, you'll find somebody often has their

01:04:57.400 arms stuck like this.

01:04:58.860 So he basically had a temporary, you know, his cortex basically went offline and he had damage

01:05:04.220 to his midbrain at that point.

01:05:06.040 And so you just saw this sort of primitive response to brain injury.

01:05:09.360 So you mentioned that the NFL, the coaches, there was this independent, quote, independent

01:05:15.440 neurological consultant who cleared him, said, OK, back and ankle, you're cleared to

01:05:19.820 play.

01:05:20.540 The word independent suggests to me this is somebody who's supposed to be making calls

01:05:24.200 just based on medicine.

01:05:25.560 That person's been fired now.

01:05:28.020 It sounds like the right decision.

01:05:29.360 But how does the independent guy make a decision like this?

01:05:32.340 And why do you say the NFL and the coach in particular are not off the hook?

01:05:36.120 Well, it's sort of interesting to see the order of information being leaked out because

01:05:40.720 the NFLPA sort of worked aggressively on this and they whatever their investigation said,

01:05:46.300 they said, this is not the right person to be covering our athletes.

01:05:49.280 But we shouldn't let the unaffiliated neurological consultant become the scapegoat because actually

01:05:54.560 they don't make the final call.

01:05:56.400 They advise on the call.

01:05:57.880 And in theory, 100 percent of the time, both doctors should agree.

01:06:00.960 But we don't actually know what call that person made.

01:06:03.240 But by the letter of the rule, it's the team physician's choice.

01:06:07.360 And so we haven't yet heard from the team physician on this.

01:06:10.540 It's much harder to fire them because then the Dolphins would be admitting they did something

01:06:14.360 wrong.

01:06:14.940 So I don't expect that to happen because you'd expect way too many lawsuits and reputational

01:06:18.840 damage and all those things.

01:06:19.900 So we're going to pretend like, you know, they're they're off the hook.

01:06:24.380 Regarding the coaches and the owners, you know, the other message we're trying to get

01:06:27.960 out there is that, look, doctors will make mistakes.

01:06:30.920 It's inevitable.

01:06:32.500 And you as a coach, as a football guy, you saw two as hit.

01:06:36.560 You know better.

01:06:37.480 You know what you know.

01:06:38.500 You know the truth.

01:06:39.620 The players have been honest during their careers like, yeah, I got dinged, but I lied

01:06:43.020 about it.

01:06:44.040 A coach should have been able to recognize by themselves that was a concussion.

01:06:47.200 And even if Dr.

01:06:47.900 You have to say he's fine.

01:06:48.700 No, he's not.

01:06:49.700 I'm counting on two to take us to the Super Bowl.

01:06:51.740 We're three and oh, not risk him in week four.

01:06:53.900 So the idea that they both put him back into the game and then let him play on Thursday

01:06:58.740 shows me that the coaching staff does not understand this issue.

01:07:03.760 Well, I don't.

01:07:04.340 I mean, it's hard to say a question of caring because you'd think they'd want to win and

01:07:08.380 they don't want to risk their star player, but they clearly don't get it.

01:07:13.000 And that's an air of training.

01:07:14.960 And then the owners, you know, I don't put anything past the owners these days.

01:07:18.240 We've been fighting them for 15 years.

01:07:19.840 So I don't know if they just saw two as replaceable or whatever.

01:07:23.580 But they could have stopped it, too.

01:07:25.180 I mean, they're the ones paying them.

01:07:26.740 They're the ones drafted.

01:07:27.680 They're the ones who are counting on them.

01:07:29.220 So, you know, even if someone makes a mistake, we all have a role to protect athletes from

01:07:35.260 themselves and from traumatic brain injury.

01:07:37.240 We need to start remembering that.

01:07:38.500 That's the thing.

01:07:39.080 Like they all defer to the medical expert and unaffiliated, not independent, unaffiliated.

01:07:43.300 But that would suggest he's going to make the right call.

01:07:45.480 I defer to him.

01:07:46.060 I don't have a medical degree.

01:07:47.480 This is a reminder.

01:07:49.180 Everyone's got it.

01:07:49.820 And you say they should be able to overrule the unaffiliated guy if it's on the side 0.99

01:07:54.560 of player safety, that they should be able to do that.

01:07:57.740 By the way, this is just breaking.

01:07:59.240 Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel announced that Tua Tango Viola will be out this week

01:08:05.120 against the New York Jets.

01:08:06.760 He is still in concussion protocol.

01:08:08.880 I mean, hello.

01:08:09.720 You're laughing, right?

01:08:10.720 It's a joke.

01:08:11.340 What a shocking announcement.

01:08:13.640 I mean, I have to say he should be out the rest of the season.

01:08:15.720 Because I can't remember the last NFL player who had three diagnosed concussions in one

01:08:20.060 season.

01:08:20.740 But the reality is that's the thing that, you know, if two isn't going to end your career,

01:08:23.900 three in three months, very well could.

01:08:27.020 And so he should be like, he has the opportunity to blame the Dolphins for messing up his hair

01:08:31.660 and sitting out so he can get that $50 million a year contract and have a nice long life.

01:08:36.680 But they're going to pressure him when he feels pressured to get his 24 to go back.

01:08:40.000 And if the Dolphins never admit that first concussion was a concussion, well, then suddenly

01:08:44.000 we're only doing, we're talking about two concussions a year, which happens very frequently.

01:08:47.760 So that deciding whether or not retrospective that was a concussion and them admitting it

01:08:51.940 is really key to doing the right thing here.

01:08:55.960 I brought my three kids to the game yesterday.

01:08:59.720 My oldest, my 13-year-old has just started to play tackle football at school.

01:09:03.980 He's never played it before.

01:09:04.860 They had to pick between three sports and he did flag football, you know, where you

01:09:10.720 don't know he gets tackled.

01:09:12.440 So he's like, okay, I'll try this.

01:09:13.940 And we've been worried, you know, we've been worried.

01:09:16.620 We want him to learn how to be tough.

01:09:18.200 Want him to love football because he loved flag.

01:09:21.040 This, I think I speak for a lot of parents when I say this scares me.

01:09:24.840 It scares me.

01:09:25.900 Should it?

01:09:28.120 Absolutely.

01:09:28.780 If you don't have a healthy fear when your child's getting hit in the head 500 times this

01:09:32.260 fall, you know, we're not paying attention, right?

01:09:34.520 So we just launched a campaign in September called Stop Hitting Kids in the Head.

01:09:37.900 We said, forget it.

01:09:39.400 We shouldn't be exposing children to all of these concussions and repetitive head impacts

01:09:43.640 and CTE at least till they're 14.

01:09:45.860 And so we encouraged parents, no heading in soccer, no tackling in football, rugby, all

01:09:50.520 these other sports, no checking in hockey, which is sort of already in place.

01:09:54.380 Thank goodness.

01:09:55.440 But, you know, if you think, I mean, think about it this way.

01:09:58.440 With all the King's horses and all the King's men, 30 medical professionals, the Dolphins

01:10:01.980 game, they messed up his care and put his life at risk.

01:10:05.820 Your child is not going to have 30 medical professionals looking out for them, and they're

01:10:10.280 not going to be old enough to recognize their own concussion and self-diagnose.

01:10:13.960 So it is very risky to be hitting kids in the head that frequently in a sport like football

01:10:18.820 where we aren't going to be able to manage their concussions right every time.

01:10:22.320 And those concussions, even if they were managed right, can lead to long-term changes to who

01:10:28.040 they are.

01:10:28.460 My days are full of taking care of ex-athletes.

01:10:32.360 I literally, right before this, was coordinating a psychiatrist and a counselor for somebody

01:10:36.860 in crisis.

01:10:39.020 You know, so yeah, we need to be concerned.

01:10:41.160 I'm not saying you're making the wrong decision as a parent, but we need to pay far more attention.

01:10:45.700 No, and I want to do that.

01:10:48.300 I want to know more.

01:10:49.140 It's sort of like you sign up blindly, you know, it's not like I wasn't aware of CTE,

01:10:53.040 but you think it's kids, seventh grade, you know, what could go wrong?

01:10:56.880 Things can go wrong.

01:10:57.740 Can you give me the website again?

01:10:59.940 You can go to concussionfoundation.org to learn more about this.

01:11:03.060 Here's a test for your kid's program.

01:11:05.120 Ask the coaches if you can invite me to come speak to the coach and the team about concussions

01:11:08.880 and CTE.

01:11:09.920 Most programs do not want me in there because they don't want their players knowing the truth.

01:11:13.760 And if they say no, I would pull your kid out in a heartbeat.

01:11:17.240 Oh, wow.

01:11:17.640 Oh, and well, they don't want them to be scared, but it's like, well, they if they know the

01:11:23.260 risk and they assume it, that's one thing.

01:11:24.820 But not knowing the risk at all and just playing blindly is another.

01:11:28.660 Listen, I appreciate the great work you're doing, Chris.

01:11:30.720 And it's not just football, as you point out, you know, soccer and other sports, baseball.

01:11:34.360 I talked to a guy who got it from all the hits in the baseball helmet.

01:11:38.740 We've got to pay attention.

01:11:39.860 All the best to you.

01:11:41.180 Thanks, Megan.

01:11:41.600 We are very excited to welcome back someone who is fighting the DEI agenda in a provocative

01:11:51.060 way.

01:11:52.460 She's got a different kind of program that is changing lives with an uplifting message

01:11:56.320 about diversity and what that means.

01:11:59.160 I first spoke with Chloe Valdary about two years ago.

01:12:01.900 Since then, she has worked with and spoken to many of our favorite people, including Jordan

01:12:06.060 Peterson, about the ways the woke left is fostering animosity and resentment among Americans.

01:12:12.260 She's also concerned about what we're doing to our men, an ongoing theme that we've discussed

01:12:16.320 in this program as well.

01:12:17.680 Chloe Valdary is the founder of the Theory of Enchantment.

01:12:21.400 I love that.

01:12:22.140 I even love the way it sounds.

01:12:23.520 The way it makes you feel is how the actual course makes you feel.

01:12:26.960 She's also host of The Heart Speaks.

01:12:30.280 Chloe, welcome back.

01:12:31.020 Hi, Megan.

01:12:31.920 Good to be back.

01:12:33.320 Great to have you.

01:12:34.140 So the Theory of Enchantment is like it's caught on like wildfire since I last had you

01:12:38.840 on.

01:12:39.140 You've been all over the place at different universities.

01:12:42.320 This is inspiring to me because for people who don't know about it, the Theory of Enchantment

01:12:46.600 does discuss America's past when it comes to racism.

01:12:50.420 It discusses diversity, but not in a way that divides us and blames and is awful about human

01:12:56.840 nature.

01:12:57.300 It's something that's more uplifting.

01:12:58.940 It uses pop culture.

01:13:00.320 It speaks to young people in a way that's meant to bring us together.

01:13:03.920 Yeah, that's absolutely the case.

01:13:05.340 I mean, I really created the Theory of Enchantment to try to teach people how to love fundamentally.

01:13:11.100 And I think that if you're talking about how to overcome our impulse as human beings to

01:13:16.220 be prejudiced towards each other, to discriminate against each other, you have to include the

01:13:20.860 question or the really the challenge of learning how to love.

01:13:24.260 And so Theory of Enchantment is really rooted in a principle and in a practice that has that

01:13:30.620 fundamental aim, teaching people how to love.

01:13:32.720 And you can only learn how to love others if you learn first how to love yourself.

01:13:38.060 To me, it's basically the opposite of the Ibram X.

01:13:40.480 Kendi.

01:13:40.660 The only answer to past discrimination is more discrimination against just different groups

01:13:45.780 in modern day America.

01:13:47.260 Is that fair?

01:13:48.420 Yeah, I would say that's fair.

01:13:51.260 I will say that in the past, I've had a more reactionary response to Ibram Kendi.

01:13:56.040 And the Theory of Enchantment has helped me to, while having certain critiques of his whole

01:14:01.980 ethos and his approach, more focus on this idea of integration within my own self and helping

01:14:08.800 other people integrate.

01:14:09.860 And what that means is really realizing how we project our own insecurities onto others.

01:14:16.300 And a way to reverse that is to get in right relationship with ourselves, get in right relationship

01:14:20.620 with our full complexity, with our own diversity.

01:14:22.860 We say at Theory of Enchantment that there's so much diversity within a single human being,

01:14:27.420 let alone an entire group of people.

01:14:29.500 So if we can learn how to do that and get in right relationship with ourselves, we'll be

01:14:33.320 less likely to see diversity as a threat and more likely to see diversity as a source of wonder

01:14:39.060 because we will have seen diversity within ourselves as a source of wonder first.

01:14:44.280 And so we'll be able to see that in the other, in that same lens or through that same viewpoint.

01:14:49.760 I like that.

01:14:51.500 I wonder, like when you heard in the first block, we had Rich Lowry of National Review

01:14:55.820 on and we were talking about Kamala Harris, reassuring, I guess, I'm not sure what her goal

01:15:01.460 was in speaking to some DNC women, that hurricane relief funds were going to go to historically 0.95

01:15:07.220 disadvantaged neighborhoods first and to the point where the head of FEMA had to come out

01:15:12.420 and say, that's not true.

01:15:13.940 That's not true.

01:15:14.740 They go to the areas that are hardest hit, period, without thinking about equity, which

01:15:19.800 is how she put it.

01:15:20.520 We're going to be focused on equity issues.

01:15:23.320 Why, in your view, is she doing that? 0.86

01:15:27.100 Well, I don't know specifically why Ms. Harris might be doing that. 1.00

01:15:31.140 I think that there's, in general, this sort of cultural impulse, like you mentioned, Ibram

01:15:37.180 Kendi's whole fighting against discrimination with more discrimination.

01:15:40.600 There is a cultural impulse and a human impulse to respond to past wrongs committed in a way

01:15:48.320 that might actually manifest in more wrongs being committed.

01:15:51.600 Unfortunately, that's a part of human nature.

01:15:54.040 And I should also say that there's probably some type of compassion that's likely influencing

01:16:00.660 Ms. Harris, albeit probably being manifested in a wrong way. 1.00

01:16:06.020 So I can't speak to her motivations.

01:16:07.520 I don't know her personally.

01:16:09.300 But I do hope that we can, as a country, do the very difficult work of making real our

01:16:16.680 sort of national ethos, which is out of many one, right?

01:16:20.560 E pluribus unum.

01:16:21.580 And again, that requires a great deal of integration.

01:16:25.240 And obviously, that word has a lot of cultural cachet, given our nation's history.

01:16:29.320 But it's not just integration on a societal level.

01:16:32.520 It's integration on a psychological level.

01:16:35.560 And again, that goes back to understanding how we project things that we might not like

01:16:39.760 about ourselves, right?

01:16:41.020 Those insecurities, those things that we might not be willing to take responsibility for within

01:16:45.200 ourselves onto other people.

01:16:47.280 Because how that manifests, and this is certainly probably present, perhaps, in Ms. Harris's

01:16:52.400 comments, how that manifests when we fail to do that is what we end up doing is we end

01:16:57.020 up seeing the world in black and white.

01:16:58.620 We end up seeing the world as if, we'll say, like, all these people over here who look like 1.00

01:17:04.400 me or who hold my political viewpoint or who fall into this category are good.

01:17:09.520 And all the people over there who don't fall into this category are bad.

01:17:13.360 So we split the world in black and white in that way.

01:17:15.700 And we think that by categorizing, this will help us make sense of our world and help us

01:17:20.980 sort of make meaning.

01:17:22.180 And I think we really have to overcome that rather segregationist paradigm within ourselves

01:17:29.220 interpersonally and how we relate to others.

01:17:31.300 And that will be able to scale up on a societal level.

01:17:35.720 I mean, as you know, I would say the woke left, I mean, I don't think it's, I don't think

01:17:41.500 it's Republicans.

01:17:43.040 They're going in a different way, though Republicans are becoming more tribal for all sorts of

01:17:47.060 reasons.

01:17:47.320 But the woke left doesn't see the world at all through that lens.

01:17:50.820 And I'll give you an anecdotal thing.

01:17:52.960 I'd love to get your reaction.

01:17:54.080 I think people who are, you know, more my, my age, my generation, Gen X grew up at a different

01:18:01.480 time when, wow, you know, black and white, we were all together everywhere.

01:18:05.720 I don't, it's like we were at a time we were much more about MLK.

01:18:08.560 We weren't focused on color as much.

01:18:10.160 And it was like, whatever, you know, we got issues.

01:18:13.340 They're, they're not steeped in the Jim Crow past for our generation.

01:18:16.620 It's not that it was totally irrelevant or didn't affect anybody.

01:18:19.240 I just think I grew up in the generation that was much more following MLK.

01:18:22.260 And I was at this football game at the Giants yesterday, and I saw, I mean, a couple of

01:18:27.180 instances, but the one that I loved was there was this white, heavyset guy.

01:18:33.440 He looked like maybe 45 to me, decked out in Giants gear, had this stubble on his chin,

01:18:41.320 you know, clearly hadn't seen a razor in a couple of days, had the big beer.

01:18:44.500 He's walking with a black guy of equal size, also decked out in the Giants gear.

01:18:50.900 And they had some hearty laugh over something.

01:18:53.820 And the guy, the white guy puts his hand up like the way guys do, where they like, I don't

01:18:59.060 know, you know how guys like greet each other with like the hand clasp up high.

01:19:02.680 And he's like, I've missed you, man.

01:19:05.240 I've missed you.

01:19:06.420 And the black gentleman was like, I've missed you too.

01:19:09.000 And they, they kind of did like a man hug.

01:19:11.280 They kept drinking their beer.

01:19:12.640 It was just a sweet moment.

01:19:13.760 Okay.

01:19:13.980 Clearly race had no role in this relationship.

01:19:17.440 Then I hear stories from my friends who are at Dalton in the city where they've been hyper

01:19:21.660 focused on race with the young kids, K through 12, the most progressive place you can go in

01:19:26.280 terms of educating your kid.

01:19:28.020 And, and literally this parent told me that we're now at a point after all this DEI education

01:19:33.000 where the black students are sitting with the black students, the Asian students are sitting

01:19:36.640 with the Asians, the whites are with the whites, the Latinas and Latinos are with that. 0.98

01:19:41.240 Like, I'm like, what's happening?

01:19:44.180 This is the young people are choosing to sort of join these affinity groups that cross over

01:19:50.540 into their real lives.

01:19:52.100 Whereas like the older people who didn't have any of this nonsense are doing life the way 1.00

01:19:56.100 it should be.

01:19:58.120 Well, it's interesting though, because in the scenario that you described seeing, there

01:20:02.000 was a transcendent ethos, right?

01:20:03.980 There was a transcendent function actually.

01:20:05.740 Uh, in the example of two men attending a football game, right?

01:20:12.160 The Giants, they bring people together.

01:20:14.260 Yeah.

01:20:14.420 So what, so essentially what you need is that transcendent function, uh, to actually bring

01:20:21.120 people together that can make them feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves.

01:20:26.460 And however, they may identify themselves.

01:20:29.040 And that might be racial, that might be class, et cetera, but you need that sort of third function

01:20:34.440 to bring people together in a larger circle.

01:20:38.700 And it sounds like that that transcendent function is not present at Dalton, or at least in the

01:20:44.780 way Dalton has, um, you know, unleashed its DEI program.

01:20:49.720 Hmm.

01:20:50.540 That's a good point.

01:20:51.440 I mean, I hate to say it in this way, but I, I have wondered with Vladimir Putin threatening

01:20:57.800 to drop a nuke on us, like something we need to pay, pay some attention to.

01:21:03.340 Yeah.

01:21:04.100 Like, could this, because I think there's a reason Gen X doesn't focus on this stuff.

01:21:08.120 Like we grew up with a cold war and then we had nine 11 and we have had these other sort 0.72

01:21:13.640 of threats that have united us more as a country.

01:21:15.920 And I mean, it's not like I'm rooting for nuclear war, but I do think if we had something

01:21:20.760 massive that we really had to focus on together as a country in unity, it would help, it would

01:21:25.320 help push some of these obsessive divisions to the side.

01:21:29.140 We'd have that ethos you're talking about.

01:21:31.460 Yeah.

01:21:31.640 This is a central puzzle that I think about all the time.

01:21:34.760 It's like, can we as human beings come together without having a threat and certainly without

01:21:40.640 having an existential threat as intense as nuclear war?

01:21:45.240 This is something that not only I hope for, but I'd like to think I'm working towards

01:21:50.780 in theory of enchantment, because again, the entire ethos of the United States is e pluribus

01:21:57.280 unum out of many one.

01:21:58.760 And it's actually incredibly difficult to achieve that kind of an ethos or to embody that kind

01:22:04.340 of an ethos.

01:22:05.080 Just being human makes it very difficult to do that.

01:22:07.980 Our default is to go into that practice that I described earlier of splitting, of seeing the

01:22:14.940 world in black and white, of seeing these people on this side of the aisle as sort of my team

01:22:19.660 and that the other people as sort of against me.

01:22:22.580 So the question for me is like, how can we hack human nature to bring us to a better transcendent

01:22:30.040 function without needing to rely on a threat, without needing to rely on an external other?

01:22:37.660 And I think my hypothesis is that the only way to do it, or perhaps one of the only ways

01:22:43.420 to do it, is to constantly see the other as yourself, right?

01:22:47.680 To constantly see what the other is exhibiting as a quality that is present within you.

01:22:53.000 I mean, this was actually crucial to the success of the civil rights movement.

01:22:56.440 One of the reasons why people in the civil rights movement refuse to hate people who are

01:23:01.660 being racist towards them is because they realize that they too were capable of being

01:23:06.320 hateful, racist, prejudiced, et cetera, and they didn't want to descend to that level.

01:23:11.920 James Baldwin wrote about this in several essays.

01:23:13.900 And so my big challenge for humanity, if I might be so bold, specifically in the American

01:23:20.260 context is, can we rise to the occasion and start to see the other as reflections of ourselves?

01:23:25.360 Because I think if we can, we'll be less reactionary and polarized and get to the space

01:23:30.760 of relationship, which is fundamentally about how do you actually relate to your fellow neighbor

01:23:36.780 as opposed to reacting and defining your identity as being counter to another person, depending

01:23:43.280 upon the tribe that they live in.

01:23:46.760 Mm-hmm.

01:23:47.540 All right.

01:23:48.140 You had an interesting post about a movie that I have not yet seen that I wanted to ask you

01:23:51.940 about.

01:23:52.900 It's called The Woman King, which is like, okay, that's interesting because, you know, king,

01:23:57.040 not queen.

01:23:57.780 What's that about?

01:23:58.920 It's in theaters now.

01:24:00.060 It follows the story of an all-female military unit. 0.95

01:24:03.520 So, so far, you're like, okay, that sounds cool.

01:24:05.000 What did they do?

01:24:06.240 Stars Viola Davis.

01:24:08.340 This is where it starts to go south.

01:24:10.760 The all-female military unit guarded the West African kingdom of Dahomey from the 17th 0.80

01:24:17.180 to the 19th centuries and is apparently, I mean, according to its critics anyway, they

01:24:23.800 say this is a movie about an African tribe famous for selling slaves to Europeans that was

01:24:28.640 made into a female empowerment story by two white women writers.

01:24:32.660 Okay.

01:24:32.820 That's from Twitter, Equality Ed, who doesn't like it and wants it to be boycotted.

01:24:37.620 It was, it's done by somebody, Dana Stevens and Maria Bello, both white women.

01:24:41.900 So it, to me, I kind of laughed out loud when I heard that description.

01:24:45.360 Again, I haven't seen it, but it would be very much like Hollywood to say, so they were

01:24:50.620 selling Africans into slavery, but look how fierce they were.

01:24:54.160 They were amazing, like girl boss, hashtag, let's celebrate these two women at the top 0.98

01:24:58.380 and like forget that what they were doing wasn't so great.

01:25:02.240 Are we glorifying it?

01:25:03.120 Are we going to be accused of glorifying it?

01:25:04.740 But I really have no idea whether that's really what the story does.

01:25:07.460 I know you've been interested in this movie and this controversy.

01:25:10.980 Oh, we actually have a, we have a clip from the trailer.

01:25:12.940 I'll play it and then I'll get you to comment.

01:25:14.140 Here's a clip from The Woman King.

01:25:16.320 You are called to join the king's guard.

01:25:23.160 No kingdom in all of Africa shares this privilege.

01:25:28.360 Train hard, fight harder.

01:25:32.280 We fear no one.

01:25:35.660 And we fear no pain.

01:25:40.040 I offer you a choice. 0.81

01:25:42.280 Fight or we die.

01:25:49.800 All right, your thoughts on it, Chloe, because this is stirring up a bunch of controversy now on all sides.

01:25:55.120 Yes, it is.

01:25:55.620 I actually saw this movie last night, so I'm happy that we get to talk about it.

01:25:59.340 I think that some of the conservative takes are actually a bit unfair.

01:26:02.860 The film does delve into the fact that the Dahomey tribe was involved in the slave trade.

01:26:10.880 And so it's not whitewashing in that sense.

01:26:14.280 It also is a film that is about a single year in the Dahomey tribe's existence.

01:26:21.060 It's not about the entire history of the Dahomey tribe.

01:26:23.600 And I think it's a bit ironic that in the same way, I would say many conservatives rightfully complain about the reduction of American history and the sort of portrayal of American history as nothing but something involved in the slave trade.

01:26:41.740 Sort of like, you know.

01:26:42.880 It's a worse chapter.

01:26:43.380 Right. I think it's ironic that the group of people who would complain about that would then reduce the Dahomey tribe and the history of this kingdom to nothing but a kingdom that was involved in the slave trade.

01:26:55.680 So there's a bit of irony going on there.

01:26:57.560 I think, obviously, this film takes poetic license in terms of portraying a particular tribe of female warriors, you know, challenging their king on this issue.

01:27:12.240 But there is some history.

01:27:13.760 I was reading about this a few hours ago.

01:27:16.500 There is some history that suggests that there was internal dispute over the slave trade, at least closer to the end.

01:27:24.000 And also, it isn't difficult to imagine that within a kingdom, there would be some internal conversations about it, considering that many of the women who made up that tribe were themselves captives, formerly slaves themselves.

01:27:37.680 And also, the film portrays other African tribes being very explicitly into the slave trade.

01:27:45.100 So I don't think it whitewashes it.

01:27:46.620 I think it's a pretty nuanced portrayal.

01:27:49.780 And I, again, going back to the whole capacity of human beings to be reactionary, I would challenge some of my brothers and sisters in conservative circles to not be reactionary.

01:28:02.860 First of all, make sure you go watch the film before commenting on it.

01:28:06.680 But is it conservatives, or is it some of the progressive crowd saying, because looking at some of the tweets, they don't sound conservative.

01:28:11.720 They're saying, time to boycott it.

01:28:13.600 It's about this, you know, tribe that traded slaves into the transatlantic. 0.87

01:28:18.080 Like, this may be the most offensive film to black Americans in 40 to 50 years, like stuff.

01:28:23.200 I don't know.

01:28:23.740 I'm not sure if it's conservatives who are just trying to, like, drag liberals, you know, for like, hey, if this were a movie about Thomas Jefferson, that even just mentioned the fact that he had a slave, you'd be freaking out that he had slaves.

01:28:38.380 Right.

01:28:38.620 Like, this one's all about, like, celebrating people who helped sell people into slavery.

01:28:43.440 Again, I don't actually think that's what the film does.

01:28:47.420 I will say to your point that it is both conservatives and progressives.

01:28:51.460 I think they're reacting to each other.

01:28:52.940 I think you have, like, certain progressives who are being like, oh, what an amazing, you know, liberating film about black women fighting the white man.

01:29:03.320 And it's, my read of the movie was that, like, it's actually not, it's far more nuanced than that.

01:29:09.740 And then you have conservatives being like, at least in my Twitter feed, this is a whitewashing of history.

01:29:16.220 And that's not my read either.

01:29:18.140 So I think both of these factions are kind of caught up in this reactionary loop.

01:29:24.800 And both are giving unfair takes, basically.

01:29:27.860 It's like, in a way, it sort of pits one woke group against another.

01:29:32.720 It's like, do we hail the feminist heroes?

01:29:35.380 But wait, what are they doing?

01:29:36.760 Wait, wait, wait.

01:29:37.340 What's the backstory?

01:29:38.680 Those situations are always very interesting to me because you wonder, what's the hierarchy, right?

01:29:43.400 If that's how you view the world, what's the hierarchy and where do you fall within it?

01:29:48.080 Let me shift gears to Jordan Peterson, who I know, I think you either went on his show or he came on your show.

01:29:54.280 You definitely have interviewed with him.

01:29:56.160 Yes, I was on his show.

01:29:57.140 OK, and we talked about this on Friday because speaking of Hollywood and female made movies, Olivia Wilde made this movie and she claims that she based the bad guy in the movie on Jordan Peterson. 0.97

01:30:08.980 And because he's beloved by all these disaffected white guys that she says are incels who believe women should be sex objects and only sex objects to them.

01:30:18.480 This is not at all a representative of what Jordan Peterson actually means in life. 0.98

01:30:22.800 But this is her take.

01:30:23.980 And Jordan went on Piers Morgan's show and actually shed tears over it.

01:30:27.060 She, you know, he he was definitely emotional about it.

01:30:30.820 I thought she was out of line and I really think we need to be more empathetic to our men.

01:30:35.100 You can we can push for female empowerment and full equal rights and all those things where, you know, we've traditionally had struggles getting ahead.

01:30:41.900 Like, great, STEM, good, let's make it more available to girls without forcing all girls into STEM. 0.99

01:30:47.620 Some of them don't want it, you know, things like that.

01:30:50.720 Anyway, I took issue with her. 0.98

01:30:52.160 But this is an ongoing issue because now I guess some liberals are making fun of Jordan Peterson for crying.

01:30:58.740 They hate him that much.

01:31:00.040 And what was your takeaway?

01:31:02.020 Because I know you've had conflicting feelings on him.

01:31:04.900 Yeah, I will just say from from the outset that I, you know, I love Jordan Peterson's work.

01:31:10.460 I'm a fan of his.

01:31:11.960 I'm a fan of his family.

01:31:13.020 I do have some critiques of some of his more recent takes that he has, you know, tweeted out and opined upon on the on the interwebs.

01:31:22.140 But I am a general fan of his work.

01:31:24.860 His book, Maps of Meaning, was really moving and impactful in my own personal life.

01:31:30.000 I do think it's I haven't seen this particular film.

01:31:34.820 Let me just say that.

01:31:35.620 But I do think it's sort of ironic that we are in some ways trying to promote a much more positive form of masculinity, a much more mature form of masculinity.

01:31:50.780 And I actually think a lot of Jordan Peterson's work has been in service of that.

01:31:55.700 But at the same time, we make fun of someone like Jordan Peterson when he cries, when he shows emotion.

01:32:02.920 So it's unclear to me what precisely are the signals we're trying to send here is emotional expression good or is it bad?

01:32:12.980 I mean, I am tempted and I will I will say it here.

01:32:15.480 There's there's a sort of I am the thing that falls into my head right now is the sort of moniker from Ben Shapiro.

01:32:24.100 Facts don't care about your feelings. Right.

01:32:26.840 And I think that you could say a whole bunch of you could you could glean a bunch of implications from that statement.

01:32:33.800 And it's like we're seeing that sort of moniker be reflected by some of Jordan Peterson's critics who are saying don't cry.

01:32:43.320 Don't express yourself. You're weak for expressing yourself or expressing your feelings.

01:32:47.820 I think, first of all, there's an there's an ironic through line here, perhaps.

01:32:51.420 Yeah, I just think that we have to really ask ourselves, what is it that we stand for and what is it that we're trying to promote when it comes to healthy masculinity?

01:33:01.360 And it's also the case that if we want to portray certainly, you know, on film and in art, if we want to portray nuanced characters and this is the human condition, this is the human experience.

01:33:13.840 Human beings are not caricatures. Right. Then we have to get away, I believe, from portraying people or villains or characters on film in this very stock caricatured way, this sort of stereotype way, this sort of black and white way.

01:33:31.080 All these people over here are good. All these people over here are bad. Right.

01:33:33.580 It's the same tribal mentality that you see playing out in these films. And again, I haven't seen this film in particular.

01:33:38.620 I would like to see the film. But any film director, any artist of all people should know this as like a basic rule of art to not traffic in caricature and to not traffic in stereotype.

01:33:52.160 Because that is not art. It's stereotype. Art is meant to, I think, speak to the sacredness of the complexity of the human condition and make us uncomfortable by getting us to wrestle with that.

01:34:05.300 And so this entire commentary on Jordan Peterson crying, unfortunately, does not do a great job in promoting those values.

01:34:12.640 It's been a fascinating, like, back and forth to watch it play out because it's like, I mean, I guess you can say I don't like Jordan Peterson, but of course, to like go right to the attacking him for crying thing, like they attacked Kyle Rittenhouse for crying on the stand and just say it's fake and you you're so evil.

01:34:29.280 Those can't possibly be real. It's like, well, wait a minute.

01:34:32.560 But, you know, you the left is the ones who have been lecturing us on sort of our more sensitive men and they they applaud that in virtually any circumstance, unless it's a conservative, you know, and or you get the white woman tears.

01:34:43.220 It's like, OK, all right. Which is it? Everybody's full of hypocrisy, Chloe, except for you.

01:34:48.820 If you want to know more about the theory of enchantment, what's the website where they can go? 0.92

01:34:54.040 Theoryofenchantment.com. Simple enough.

01:34:56.080 So easy. So easy. I love this because if you really do care about what's happening in the United States and all these discussions we're having,

01:35:02.560 on race and diversity and equity and all that stuff, Chloe is a bright light in all of this and has a very clear take.

01:35:08.320 One of that is uplifting that any school could get behind.

01:35:11.640 And I've recommended it to a lot of people. So, Chloe, thanks for coming back on.

01:35:15.000 Great to see you. Great to see you, too.

01:35:17.440 Tomorrow, we got my old pal Dave Rubin back on and then Adam Carolla and Mark Garagos will be on together.

01:35:23.660 That's some great star power. They host the Reasonable Doubt podcast.

01:35:27.080 Among other things, we're going to talk about the demise of Trevor Noah as the host of that Comedy Central show.

01:35:32.560 Nobody's been watching. Download the show in the meantime and we'll see you tomorrow.

01:35:37.560 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - October 03, 2022

VP Harris' Relief ＂Equity,＂ and NFL's Concussion Issue, with Rich Lowry, Chris Nowinski, and Chloe Valdary ｜ Ep. 403

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