The Megyn Kelly Show - What Will Smith's Slap Says About America, and Dangerous Speech Censorship, with Richard Dreyfuss

00:00:00.400 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:12.140 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Our guest today is an American icon, actor Richard Dreyfuss.

00:00:19.880 He rose to fame during the 1970s, starring in some of the greatest films ever, including Jaws, The Goodbye Girl, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I could go on.

00:00:32.960 He actually won an acting Oscar for The Goodbye Girl, then the youngest person ever to win it at a mere baby 30 years old.

00:00:42.040 His film career is lengthy and impressive, but as he's going to share with us in a minute, there's so much more to him.

00:00:47.720 And it was not easy to be someone not of the far left in Hollywood.

00:00:53.500 Since the 2000s, he has turned to his passion for civics education and founded the Dreyfuss Civics Initiative in 2006, aimed at bringing civics into public education.

00:01:05.320 He's concerned about the loss of patriotism in this country, the loss of understanding of why America is special, how we got to be so,

00:01:15.160 and the erosion of that belief, and maybe, as a result, its truth, decade after decade, as passing generations continue to think the worst about this great country of ours.

00:01:27.320 He's spoken critically about the media and its impact on public opinion, and today he is passionate about, among other things, Facebook,

00:01:35.000 and the power of its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and what he's doing in this Ukraine-Russia mess.

00:01:41.280 Richard, so great to talk to you again. How are you?

00:01:43.220 I am. I was 29.

00:01:46.800 29, when you won for Goodbye Girl. One of my very favorite films of all time. I've made my kids watch it. They love it, too.

00:01:53.760 We're introducing a whole new generation to your many, many talents.

00:01:57.760 But I'm with you on the Facebook concern, so we'll start there on the newsier stuff.

00:02:02.720 Facebook, for those who do not know, has changed its, quote, hate speech policy in the wake of this war in Ukraine.

00:02:12.160 And among the other things that they're doing, his platforms, Meta's platforms, are now going to allow Facebook and Insta users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers, not civilians.

00:02:25.860 But if you want to post death to Russian invaders, that's fine now. Didn't used to be.

00:02:31.540 You can't say kill all Russian civilians. But depending on what Mark Zuckerberg feels, you can call for violence against certain Russians now, as long as you don't divulge a certain location or the specific method by which.

00:02:48.260 I mean, this is like Big Brother crazy stuff where he's going to be controlling every other sentence uttered on his platform. Richard, what do you make of it?

00:02:57.700 I think it's despicable.

00:03:00.320 And I think it's breaking the most fundamental part of the First Amendment.

00:03:09.180 And I think that we fattened us up so that we can be cut up into thin strips and put on the stupid grill.

00:03:22.420 And the real problem is that he's not calling for this, he says, as a geopolitical fight.

00:03:38.180 He's saying that he has freedom of speech.

00:03:43.780 And as an owner of the First Amendment, he tells you what's fair and balanced.

00:03:56.120 Calling for the incitement to violence and the reform of the is OK to let's assassinate Vladimir Putin is not what was meant and is not meant today.

00:04:17.240 This is, of course, the continuation of his behavior when it comes to censorship.

00:04:21.920 He'll allow that, but he won't allow posts he deems to be covid misinformation, even if they later turn out to be perfectly correct.

00:04:33.280 Of course, it was big tech that was behind the story in the news this week, which is the censorship of the New York Post reporting on Hunter Biden, which now as of today and as of earlier this week or last week, the New York Times and the New York or the Washington Post just yesterday have had to admit was accurate reporting.

00:04:51.200 Right. They censored it with the help of big tech.

00:04:53.420 So this is an ongoing pattern where these overlords decide what's OK for us to hear and what's not OK for us to hear.

00:05:02.180 And if these were small little platforms that we could ignore, that would be one thing.

00:05:06.660 But they're not.

00:05:09.560 No, there is complete apparently a lack of trust in the brains of our young people.

00:05:19.420 We think that they will be putty in the hands of a an influencer or a social network owner.

00:05:33.520 And this happens and has been happening since social media has been our constant companion for many years.

00:05:44.640 And we may not be able to affect what the leaders of the of the Russians do on the ground in the pay of a foreign government.

00:06:00.120 But we have our own rules and they are the most important rules we have.

00:06:06.320 We have ethics and values expressed not on a list at the end of the Constitution, but right smack dab in the middle of the Constitution are the things that they say are irrefutable and basic.

00:06:30.900 So what do you think they should do?

00:06:32.960 Because, you know, if you and I know you're a free speech supporter, First Amendment supporter, where do you think he should be drawing the line, if anywhere?

00:06:43.460 Right. Like there are certain categories over here that we don't recognize is constitutionally protected.

00:06:48.740 Very limited, very limited, very limited, very limited, very tiny category.

00:06:53.240 But what do you think he should be doing in with with respect to Russia and beyond?

00:06:58.960 No, not what we should he should be doing.

00:07:01.680 It's what we should be doing.

00:07:04.700 Direct television took Russian television off American television.

00:07:11.740 And not only was that wrong, but that ended up being about 15 channels and all on cable.

00:07:24.980 And we don't we have rules and and they can come on cable television without any look around.

00:07:39.460 And when that happened here, I went through the roof.

00:07:46.220 So I've discovered that now there really is a way to beat what we call freedom of speech.

00:07:56.900 We don't get it.

00:07:58.800 Yeah. Well, we just we just pulled the plug now because to your point earlier, there's a belief we can't handle it.

00:08:05.380 We can't handle our tea. Right. That somehow we're not going to be able to understand propaganda.

00:08:10.940 The problem is you have to trust.

00:08:15.260 The system you have to trust, not that you can be.

00:08:20.880 Ultimately, a.

00:08:22.400 Two or three people, one of whom works on the street, this is work here for us.

00:08:34.060 Work here for us means only one version gets in and there's no such thing as one version of history.

00:08:42.720 I was sitting in a in a in Austria.

00:08:48.480 At a table filled with journalists and we were talking about history and I said that there's not it's not valid to just give one version.

00:09:01.560 And the journalist sitting there said, that's not so.

00:09:03.740 Well, I'm a journalist.

00:09:05.760 My friends are journalists and we deal in the truth.

00:09:08.860 And I said, excuse me, you do no such thing.

00:09:14.040 That was true.

00:09:15.620 There would only be one person sitting at this table.

00:09:18.800 And the fact is, history is is different opinions about what happened in the past.

00:09:27.420 And that difference of opinion makes all the difference.

00:09:34.200 And people have to learn to hear them both.

00:09:38.340 It's been kind of scary to see how verboten certain viewpoints are being treated, even domestically.

00:09:45.840 As, for example, people who are questioning the narrative that this is, you know, this is that the Ukraine has done absolutely nothing wrong and that the United States has a moral obligation to get more involved and to take the lead in protecting Ukraine.

00:10:04.700 Now, I understand most people feel that way.

00:10:07.060 But for those who don't feel that way, why can't they express their position like that?

00:10:12.240 That's what concerns me.

00:10:13.280 This is America.

00:10:14.060 We used to march to protect the rights of skinheads and white supremacists to spew their hatred because we believed in the principle of the free expression of opinion, not because we supported their opinion, because we support the freedom to express one's opinion, even if it's incredibly controversial.

00:10:34.120 We've all been trained now to use certain words and to not use certain other words.

00:10:39.540 And you've just gotten the point across.

00:10:44.140 But let's just say it.

00:10:46.380 We control our television.

00:10:49.520 And we've told our enemy, our supposed enemy, that they don't have any outlet, legitimate outlet, to give their opinion.

00:11:04.980 And this means we're either fighting nothing, fighting the air, or we're afraid of what would happen if we saw Americans listening to Russians way up there who have authority hearing the Russian version of this.

00:11:29.100 And if you're afraid of what would happen if we saw Americans listening to Russians, or if you're afraid you'll come out badly, you probably will.

00:11:38.740 And both sides in a war, in a hostile conflict, make mistakes or do something that you don't approve of.

00:11:48.300 Okay, what else you got?

00:11:52.880 And how dumb do you want those who will inherit our system, which, by the way, is now the most revolutionary, the most that they've ever heard that should make them sign up for dance class.

00:12:13.160 But they don't.

00:12:14.760 They don't sign up for intellectual curiosity, which is really the goal of American public schools.

00:12:23.720 Which should be the goal of American public schools.

00:12:26.780 I know you've been railing on this for a long time, saying it isn't.

00:12:30.480 It isn't.

00:12:31.160 And I've told many stories, Richard, about my own children who are now in second, fifth, and sixth grade being taught when we were in our New York City private schools the opposite of critical thinking.

00:12:44.780 If they asked questions challenging narratives, you know, be it George Floyd or trans ideology teachings and so on, anything that's a third rail, you know, that's under the category of woke identity politics.

00:12:59.760 If they just asked questions, pushing back on the narrative, they were told in my daughter's case in one example by the teacher, I'm uncomfortable with this conversation and I'm shutting it down right now.

00:13:12.660 Instead of encouraging critical thinking, which I know you believe because I've read your stuff, is one of the main things, that's like one of the main jobs these K-12 educators should be doing.

00:13:24.260 Instead of encouraging it, they're shutting it down.

00:13:26.800 You just must think as the teachers do, period.

00:13:29.760 If you want America to continue to exist, to continue to exist as the country that has a specific meaning, which it's had now for 200 years, if you want to kill it, do what they're doing now.

00:13:51.900 But if you want that excellence, then you have to test them and they're always working at the boundaries, at the, what is it called?

00:14:08.180 You got to work so that they understand this moment where you and I are talking about it and every other moment.

00:14:21.980 I could tell you, I could tell you, my mother-in-law lives with us and she is from Russia.

00:14:33.080 She was a judge in Russia.

00:14:35.100 She speaks no English and she's nervous.

00:14:42.180 And one afternoon when I, we were all huddled over the TV watching the Russian ambassador discussing why they were expanding their conscription day.

00:14:59.200 It was because a lot of Russian, a lot of Ukrainian young men were jumping over the border because they didn't want to have anything to do with this war.

00:15:16.460 And so the president was forced to hire mercenaries.

00:15:21.500 And as he was being interviewed, he was wearing mercenary outfits.

00:15:27.700 And he, he said to me, he said to the audience or excuse me, my mother-in-law said to me, do you know what those shirts say?

00:15:39.060 And I said, no, of course not.

00:15:42.160 I don't read Cyrillic.

00:15:45.000 And she said, they're saying first the Jews and then the Russians.

00:15:53.340 And I said, is that right?

00:16:00.140 And she said, no, of course not.

00:16:03.260 And we watched her say it.

00:16:06.660 They didn't talk about it, but the background of that conversation was them talking about all the Jews they were going to kill first and then the Russians.

00:16:16.960 Three weeks later, those same clips were on CBS, ABC and NBC.

00:16:23.460 And those clips had the same shirts.

00:16:30.320 You know, it was a copy of the of the Russian wardrobe.

00:16:37.100 Except that no one translated it.

00:16:40.520 And so people all over the country did not have a chance unless they were born there to say.

00:16:46.800 Us too are saying first the Jews and then the Russians.

00:16:54.860 People think that history is only as far back as yesterday.

00:16:59.480 And that's too bad because the Hungarians in 1956, when they were rising at our enthusiastic hope that they could continue the bad treatment of Russia.

00:17:22.780 And the Hungarians were told by the voice of America to drop their chains and fight the oppressors.

00:17:30.780 And then someone whispered in Eisenhower's ear and he said, I'm sorry, I said something stupid.

00:17:40.840 I take it back because we, the Americans, can't supply an American army in Eastern Europe.

00:17:49.320 We can't do it.

00:17:51.320 We can't do it.

00:17:52.580 That was 1956.

00:17:55.080 He did do it.

00:17:56.580 He did say that he was going to do it.

00:17:59.460 But that's why there was no food, food.

00:18:03.340 I mean, the feet on the ground.

00:18:05.220 There were no American soldiers helping the Hungarians.

00:18:13.020 And when the Russians came back, they came back in tanks, killing all of the grandmothers in the town squares.

00:18:23.600 And a friend of mine, a filmmaker, made a movie called Blood in the Water, which if you saw it, would freak you out.

00:18:35.220 And he was not, he had decided not to sell it in America.

00:18:43.400 Just to make sure I understand the story about your mother-in-law, she's saying that the Ukrainians,

00:18:48.140 the Ukrainian men who were facing down the Russians on the Ukraine border were the ones with the shirts that read first the Jews, then the Russians.

00:18:57.820 Yeah, it was, it was the Russian, it was the Ukrainian mercenaries that were saying it.

00:19:06.460 Okay, I got it.

00:19:07.360 Right.

00:19:07.840 And it speaks to the overall.

00:19:10.620 Soldiers in the regular draft draft because they, they left.

00:19:20.100 They'd, they'd, they'd said, bye-bye.

00:19:23.320 Yeah.

00:19:24.060 Oh, yeah.

00:19:24.380 Well, there were a lot of Ukrainians who left initially, which is why Zelensky had to, had to issue an edict saying no men of fighting age can, can leave anymore.

00:19:32.880 And, and now they're, you know, they are fighting and there are a lot of Ukrainians.

00:19:36.420 They're fighting mightily on behalf of their country, which has been invaded.

00:19:40.080 And that's all true too.

00:19:41.240 But that doesn't mean that every Ukrainian faction is something to celebrate or that there isn't a long, long history between these two countries.

00:19:49.420 I don't think it's correct for you, for anyone to say, and that's all true.

00:19:55.580 Because you can't take for granted anything that is being said now on television by the news people.

00:20:04.040 That's true.

00:20:04.860 Since we get the BBC, we saw a journalist who has her own show on the BBC, eating crow.

00:20:16.040 She gave a usual anti-Russian speech.

00:20:20.940 And then she said, oops.

00:20:24.240 And then described what was really going on.

00:20:28.440 And she said, it's horrible.

00:20:33.860 And it's the same as the lies that were being told in other areas.

00:20:40.860 So this woman, a journalist of apparently great reputation in that area, was restating that all of what she had said two days before and reflective of what the pictures and images were saying were not true.

00:21:07.160 And I'm sorry, I have a right to be confused.

00:21:14.280 And I don't ever want the source of the material to be so emphatically denied.

00:21:27.420 Yeah, I understand that, especially in this day and age when we don't trust the people who control the information platforms.

00:21:36.240 I think a lot of people are feeling it.

00:21:38.040 And it's not just big tech.

00:21:39.700 It's domestic media as well, treating us all as infants as though it's not up to us to determine the difference between fact and propaganda.

00:21:49.000 And we've seen it on so many subjects now, it's genuinely led to a loss of faith in these platforms and these media purveyors.

00:21:57.820 All right, stand by because we do have to pay a bill, squeeze in a break, and we will have much, much more with legendary actor Richard Dreyfuss right after this.

00:22:06.320 Thank you.

00:22:36.320 So what are you, and how did that go over?

00:22:40.300 I'm an American citizen.

00:22:42.620 That's who I am.

00:22:44.280 And what I mean, since I apparently have to explain that, is that Americans have been known for 300 years as the people who have the right to speak their mind and say what they really feel.

00:23:03.800 And so I had that opportunity because I was at the Iowa caucuses, because I was curious, and I actually got a lot of feedback or payback by people saying, what is he doing at the Iowa caucuses?

00:23:28.220 Well.

00:23:29.340 The Republican Iowa caucuses.

00:23:30.880 Yes, and I'm sorry if that wasn't articulate.

00:23:35.800 But to be queried or to be grilled by your own side about something so basic, it was foolish.

00:23:51.560 And thankfully, my son, my youngest son, Harry, took it upon himself to tell the world, and he thought it was foolish.

00:24:03.520 I didn't know about that until it was foolish.

00:24:07.080 But journalists have ceased allowing their own political opinions to be reflected in any way.

00:24:17.680 And need I say that the best history teachers I had in grammar school were the teachers that would not let them even know of an oncoming disagreement.

00:24:38.680 And it was it was it was a hell of a thing and quite wrong.

00:24:48.640 And so, yeah, so you got all this pushback, you're saying, I mean, journalists, they are offering their opinions way too much.

00:25:01.880 And it's so obvious where everyone stands, and it's fine, just as long as you're a lefty.

00:25:07.000 If you're a liberal, you can you can put your thumb on that scale just as much as your heart desires.

00:25:12.440 If you're not, if even if you're a centrist now, it's somehow you're you're out of the club.

00:25:18.140 Do you did you I mean, do you think that Hollywood is intolerant of people who are not established liberals?

00:25:29.300 I think America is intolerant of anything that is at the moment, not kosher.

00:25:40.380 What do you mean?

00:25:41.220 And I mean, what what the subject is, is irrelevant, because there are as many thick headed conservatives as there are thick headed liberals.

00:25:56.860 And you can't and shouldn't do anything that shuts down the notion of debate.

00:26:06.660 Of opposing views that's in the Constitution, and it's built us into the greatest destination for the poor and the and the untaught that has ever existed on the planet Earth.

00:26:24.340 The the matter has reached crisis status.

00:26:26.900 I had pulled just a couple of stats before the interview that we've talked about on the show before.

00:26:30.760 Um, yeah, you may have heard about this, but when it comes to the looking it up, hold on.

00:26:38.380 Oh, yeah.

00:26:38.720 How do people feel about speaking their mind on college campuses?

00:26:44.760 Uh, let's see.

00:26:47.580 Overwhelmingly, people do not feel comfortable expressing their opinions.

00:26:52.920 More than 80% of students report censoring their own viewpoints.

00:26:57.300 More than 80% do not feel free to say how they really feel.

00:27:02.380 Among the general populace, it's a little lower, but not by much.

00:27:06.180 It's in the high 60 percentages of people who don't feel comfortable expressing how they actually feel about various issues.

00:27:14.520 And 23% on college campuses feel that it's acceptable for people to use violence to stop certain speech.

00:27:21.580 Uh, 66% of students report some level of acceptance for speaker shout downs, stopping someone else from expressing their opinion at all.

00:27:32.580 Uh, to me, this is disgusting.

00:27:36.520 They've, they've missed the point and made me think of something I'd, I'd heard you say something of to the point of we're now something like four generations in of not teaching civics to students and not teaching them what the constitution stands for, what America stands for, what's exceptional about this country.

00:27:53.960 And the, this is the result you get, you get 66% of students who think it's fine to shout downs people so that we cannot hear their points of view.

00:28:02.960 If you really went back and actually looked at what was approved, uh, uh, social, uh, rules and regs, you would be amazed at what was not allowed.

00:28:22.420 So, and that was more important than anything.

00:28:27.440 And that meant the monarch or leader of a nation had an opinion and everyone underneath him reflected that opinion regardless until it got to the common people, which is what we are.

00:28:46.680 And they are completely and utterly under the thumb and they're not allowed to learn how to speak any way, but the way they are taught at birth.

00:29:05.180 That's the goal.

00:29:06.940 And so if a young farmer said that he wanted to learn how to talk, how to speak, or learn how to express his thoughts, he would be punished.

00:29:21.560 And that punishment would start with, uh, his hands in stocks and it would end with his head being chopped off.

00:29:32.160 Really.

00:29:33.320 And that's what the world was like.

00:29:35.660 And what we stood for, for the first time, was that some nation actually stood up for the right of the most common of us and said,

00:29:49.880 we will teach you to read, we will teach you to write, we will teach you to discuss this subject for as long as you want.

00:29:59.660 And you can use these talents to rise from the station you were born into and go as far as your talents would allow.

00:30:11.860 So.

00:30:15.220 Understand that what we were must have been compared to an opium dream.

00:30:21.080 But that's what we offered.

00:30:25.020 And that's no longer the way it's taught.

00:30:28.140 The kids today are being taught to hate their country.

00:30:31.000 Um, and it's, it's working.

00:30:33.220 Let me, let me, um,

00:30:35.140 let me comment on that because there are people who teach in university.

00:30:41.180 Who are, uh, ungenerous and ungrateful enough to, uh, appear to teach hating your country.

00:30:54.900 Um, we have ideals.

00:30:57.420 We have ideas and we tell our youngest of the children glory tales.

00:31:03.400 That's what I call them.

00:31:04.800 And there are pictures of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison who are trying to learn that the worst stories they hear are probably wrong.

00:31:21.760 Um, that's what we used to do.

00:31:26.660 Um, and what we now do is make it illegal to have their point of view, our enemy, um, speak, uh, I have to take that back.

00:31:47.120 They, we are taught that they have no right to speak their mind on our television, on our information agency.

00:31:59.640 Russian television has been thrown off American television.

00:32:04.920 And I mean, the social cultural channels that have been the symphony orchestras and the great old movies, they're gone.

00:32:13.480 And no one is allowed to speak about it.

00:32:20.300 We have to stop that.

00:32:23.160 That's what we used to make fun of when the Russians did it in the fifties.

00:32:28.340 Right.

00:32:29.680 Right.

00:32:30.020 Yeah.

00:32:31.180 Well, I mean, but it's not just that it's an absence of teaching basic civics.

00:32:35.660 I mean, this is what you've been fighting for many years.

00:32:37.640 You look at the stats now in terms of, you know, what people know, do they, do they understand about the constitution?

00:32:45.020 Um, only 28.4% of college graduates, college graduates correctly identify the father of the constitution as James Madison.

00:32:53.980 Uh, 59% of college students believe it's Thomas Jefferson, who of course wrote the declaration of independence, which is not the same thing as the constitution.

00:33:02.080 Um, when asked about, and six months before the declaration was written, Tom Payne wrote common sense.

00:33:11.720 And in common sense, he very clearly and, and, and carefully described why the British could not allow the same thing and that they were caught by the, uh, the events of history as they happen.

00:33:34.380 Um, and when you realize that, that it was so, uh, uh, uh, hidden and so much, uh, a danger that they made sure that they had prohibited the opposing views never to be discussed.

00:34:02.620 Um, and it's, uh, as close to science fiction as it possibly can be.

00:34:12.420 Well, um, on that subject, uh, almost half of all college students surveyed believe that hate speech, quote, hate speech is not protected by the constitution, which is just so dumb.

00:34:26.980 I'm sorry, but that's just dumb.

00:34:28.740 The constitution is not there to protect speech that we all like and love.

00:34:32.380 And it's about rainbows and unicorns.

00:34:34.500 It's there to protect speech.

00:34:37.100 We can't stand and have a natural inclination to shut down.

00:34:42.200 You can say you don't want to hear it, but you can't say the constitution doesn't protect it.

00:34:46.280 And yet 44% of those surveyed, this is a 2017 Brookings survey and college student students say they believe the constitution does not allow hate speech.

00:34:59.480 It doesn't protect it.

00:35:00.820 I mean, that's, that's alarmist.

00:35:02.820 Another remarkable, uh, legal case in the colonies was the case of an editor who was arrested for just doing that.

00:35:12.440 And it was the case of Peter Zenger in the early part of the 18th century.

00:35:19.020 And he was arrested for doing his job.

00:35:22.920 And it was something that bound us together for the first time.

00:35:30.620 Normally Massachusetts would have nothing to do with Florida, but Peter Zenger was on trial.

00:35:38.000 And we discovered that we had a boundary.

00:35:43.140 We had a line that we should never have crossed.

00:35:47.260 And we did, we did.

00:35:51.760 So it's been with us forever.

00:35:56.220 This pull, this tug of war.

00:35:58.720 I only have one issue in my entire political life.

00:36:03.180 And that is, we're either going to, uh, respect the constitution as central and the political parties as peripheral, or we're going to turn it around and make the political parties central, more important than the constitution, which is of the moment.

00:36:26.200 And that's not only a terrible decision, it weakens us beyond belief.

00:36:34.820 We have no ability to train armies.

00:36:39.400 We have no ability to be trusted enough by our young people to respond to the events of our day in any way.

00:36:53.220 The, the, the, um, the army now invites the people, the young people to join a volunteer army because they promised to teach the kids how to read.

00:37:14.640 How to read, which is something that should be guaranteed and taken care of before they get out of grammar school.

00:37:24.760 And that presents an enormous problem.

00:37:31.880 I had, uh, my first, um, uh, conference on civics, uh, many, many years ago.

00:37:40.860 And one of the attendees was the admiral who ran the San Diego, um, naval station, the largest American naval station in the world.

00:37:50.680 And I said to him, admiral, do you have, do you have a need for anything that you don't have?

00:38:01.380 And he said, yes, I do.

00:38:04.240 I need people who know how to read an order and execute it.

00:38:11.380 And then he interrupted himself and said, no, wait, I don't have the people who can write it.

00:38:24.020 Hmm.

00:38:24.740 And then the two FBI agents, the ones who run the FBI, when the political, uh, heads are being chosen, those are for, for looks, let's put it.

00:38:43.280 Mm-hmm.

00:38:43.620 But I asked them the same question.

00:38:48.060 Do you have any need for something that you don't got?

00:38:52.960 And they had just finished telling us all that they had a need because they didn't have the, they had all the facts and they had all the covert information.

00:39:10.980 But they did not have anyone who was bright enough to explore what the data that they had meant.

00:39:22.220 And I said, why don't you go to our enemies, our, our neutral allies and get them from there?

00:39:35.740 And I knew that, uh, you can't really recruit from a foreign university.

00:39:45.900 So I said, why don't you go to your boss, the American Congress, and demand a greater rigor in the teaching of American public school education?

00:39:57.220 And he said, uh, no, we wouldn't do that.

00:40:01.060 That would be inappropriate.

00:40:03.620 Hmm.

00:40:04.140 When he said that, I stopped and I thought for a while, what would be inappropriate about going to American schools?

00:40:13.520 And then I said, excuse me, I want to bring up this point again.

00:40:18.200 And everyone sitting around me said, Richard, you've done it.

00:40:21.200 Richard, don't.

00:40:21.900 It's, it's, it's impolite.

00:40:23.940 And I said an expletive and, and underlined it by saying, this is the, this is the safety of my country.

00:40:34.240 And so I said to the gentleman, um, everybody knows that you are the guys that run the FBI when the political walk-ins are being chosen by the Congress.

00:40:49.700 Why can't you go in executive privilege to only those members of the Congress who have rights to hear and express this concern to them

00:41:03.340 and get this exemption from silliness and allow, allow that demand for greater rigor in teaching hit American history.

00:41:19.940 Allow you to speak your mind.

00:41:21.300 And they said it would not be appropriate.

00:41:25.020 And therefore nothing changed.

00:41:27.940 I wrote to the lady who was running that organization and those meetings.

00:41:33.380 And I said, you've probably thought for yourself by now that we are being perhaps lied to.

00:41:43.100 And I don't disagree with the need to lie.

00:41:46.020 If it accomplishes something, we are talking about the national security of our country.

00:41:53.540 But you don't, you know, that you're not without, uh, leadership.

00:42:01.660 You know, there are elements in the government that are higher than you.

00:42:07.040 Why don't you go to those people and demand that they do it right and speak to them?

00:42:18.840 And again, they said, no, this was not appropriate.

00:42:26.060 Well, I mean, that's the problem with what's happening in our schools is.

00:42:30.120 But there's one thing that's, there's one thing you've got to hear it.

00:42:33.780 And that is, this is either a well thought out strategy, or they really don't know who's above them.

00:42:46.020 Um, and that scares the living hell out of me.

00:42:51.260 What do you mean?

00:42:51.660 Why can't it be?

00:42:52.780 They just don't think it's their lane to go to Congress and say, improve the school so we get better recruits who are smarter and can, you know, execute better on the orders they're given.

00:43:01.280 If they think that that's, that's the lane of politicians, that's the lane of the voters, but it's not the lane of the intelligence community.

00:43:06.780 Uh, if it isn't, then let's lock it up and put it in the closet and come back a hundred years later, because that's foolish.

00:43:17.780 That's what the intelligence agencies are meant to do.

00:43:21.800 That's simply, if anyone tried to say that to me in a, from a position of power, I would laugh in their face.

00:43:33.680 This is the national security of our country.

00:43:37.360 There's got to be people who know what's going on.

00:43:42.120 Um, and if they gave me an answer, like you just did, I'm sorry, get out of my education system.

00:43:52.220 Yeah.

00:43:53.000 Well, you know, the problems are so widespread at this point.

00:43:55.980 We got folks focusing on renaming schools because they're named after Thomas Jefferson, instead of worrying about the fact that they've got a less than 30% reading rate within their high school.

00:44:07.680 Um, I mean, what's happening in cities like Baltimore, like Chicago, I could go on in large part due to teachers unions, but they're not the only problem.

00:44:15.160 Uh, the problem is just so deep and this is why there's a growing rise in support for charter schools and more school choice.

00:44:24.800 And, you know, I greatly hope that in 25 years, we'll be looking at a much different education system than we're looking at now.

00:44:31.440 Uh, listen, let me pause it for one minute because, uh, we got to squeeze in a commercial break and then we'll come back with more.

00:44:37.700 You know, Richard Dreyfuss, he played Mr. Holland in Mr. Holland's opus where he went on a tear about our American school system.

00:44:44.300 Now you can see why he took the role, right?

00:44:46.740 Uh, and remember folks, before we come back, you can find the Megan Kelly show live on Sirius XM triumph channel one 11 every weekday at noon East.

00:44:54.440 And the full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel.

00:44:58.980 That's youtube.com slash Megan Kelly.

00:45:01.780 Check it out now and it would love it if you would go and subscribe, comment on any video.

00:45:05.760 I do meander over there and have, and get the chance to listen to what a lot of you guys are saying.

00:45:10.700 And I really appreciate the feedback.

00:45:12.380 Richard, we played, uh, over the break, the, just a little bit of the moment that you won the Academy Award for the goodbye girl, 29 years old.

00:45:27.880 I'm going to play it again just because I want to see it.

00:45:29.700 It's a nice moment.

00:45:30.720 You were up against some stiff competition, some of the best of the best.

00:45:34.080 And here it is.

00:45:35.360 And the winner is a new heavyweight champ, Richard Dreifel.

00:45:41.920 Thank you.

00:46:12.580 You were so cute.

00:46:14.420 You were so adorable.

00:46:16.360 You were excited.

00:46:18.080 And I made thousands of dollars because I, I bet that I would win and no one else believed me.

00:46:24.420 I love that.

00:46:25.300 You knew you were going to win how you were up against Richard Burton.

00:46:28.280 I mean, I didn't realize you were up against John Travolta for Saturday Night Fever.

00:46:31.100 That was tough.

00:46:32.060 Woody Allen.

00:46:32.900 How'd you know you're going to win?

00:46:33.960 Because I'd sussed it out because I'm, I, I, at that time, I knew everything there was to know, uh, about everything in the Academy.

00:46:44.480 I mean, no one was going to give best actor to Marcello Mastroianni and, uh, Richard Burton had peaked the year before.

00:46:55.480 He, he, he could have been nominated and won for anything and he didn't.

00:47:04.080 And so it kind of peaked and John Travolta was even newer than I was.

00:47:11.640 And, um, who else?

00:47:16.960 Woody Allen.

00:47:17.860 Woody Allen.

00:47:18.920 Well, Woody Allen won that year.

00:47:21.500 Best, uh, actress, best screenplay, best film, uh, best writing, best directing.

00:47:30.340 They were not going to give Annie Hall.

00:47:33.480 Right.

00:47:34.200 It was the greatest, it is right now, the greatest romantic comedy ever made since World War II.

00:47:43.640 So you knew that left, that left one man, little, little Richard Dreyfuss.

00:47:48.980 There was some years before where I bet against myself and won a fortune.

00:47:53.460 And the following year, I bet major money by one asking one question.

00:48:00.940 Quick, who won last year's best actor award?

00:48:06.160 Last year's?

00:48:06.820 Yeah.

00:48:07.980 Yeah.

00:48:08.640 And the answer was me.

00:48:10.800 Oh, I see.

00:48:12.300 I see.

00:48:13.560 And no one got it.

00:48:15.480 Which will tell you exactly where the Academy Award is in the minds of America.

00:48:23.440 Everyone loves the winner and everyone forgets very quickly.

00:48:29.440 Yeah.

00:48:29.940 Maybe not so much this year because there was a controversy surrounding the winner, as you

00:48:36.860 by no doubt have heard by now.

00:48:40.040 Will Smith, prior to winning, attacked Chris Rock on the stage for making a joke about his

00:48:45.840 wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, slapped him with an open hand, shocked pretty much the world.

00:48:51.720 And now the Academy's deciding what to do to him, what kind of discipline they should

00:48:56.720 do to Will Smith and so on.

00:48:57.960 So what was, as somebody who has been in the position of attending the Academy Awards, winning

00:49:03.620 an Academy Award for Best Actor, what did you make of Will Smith's behavior the other

00:49:09.460 night?

00:49:10.160 It's not his behavior.

00:49:11.680 It's our behavior that has led me to a very specific and difficult decision, which is to write

00:49:22.300 this book.

00:49:23.140 That would no more have been allowed to happen than to show up naked on the same show.

00:49:35.860 Well, the Academy Awards are a reflection of some of our best and all of our worst instincts.

00:49:45.700 And we trample on that.

00:49:49.300 We have a certain sense of society and its behavior.

00:50:05.600 And we have respect for not only the society we are members of, but we don't give in to

00:50:17.400 the least sensible behavior.

00:50:20.700 And Will Smith would no more have approved of his own behavior had this been 10 years earlier

00:50:31.560 than he would have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge.

00:50:35.040 But there is no boundaries anymore because no one is teaching them to us.

00:50:42.560 No one.

00:50:43.780 No one is teaching the Bill of Rights.

00:50:49.400 And that ultimately is the society's picture of proper behavior.

00:50:58.360 And no one is teaching that, and no one is calling for it.

00:51:05.620 And that is the worst decision that a society can come to.

00:51:13.400 This is not just Will Smith, and it's not just the Academy Awards.

00:51:19.180 It's who we are and how did we get to this clownish place?

00:51:27.220 Can I remind you that the 2016 and the 2020 debates for the presidency of the United States

00:51:39.680 contained every rotten, stupid thing, and no one called it out.

00:51:49.860 That was as, let's say, as illustrative if you were trying to get on the Ed Sullivan show with vaudeville.

00:52:04.680 The only thing they lacked were red noses and big floppy shoes.

00:52:12.100 And that was not mentioned by any of the journalists involved, and no one spoke up for the inappropriateness of that behavior

00:52:26.840 when it was as inappropriate as hell.

00:52:33.260 And you can't do it.

00:52:36.700 And if you do it, that's the country you live in.

00:52:43.660 That's fascinating.

00:52:44.920 I mean, listen, I actually sat on the stage with Donald Trump when he made a reference to his unit.

00:52:51.460 He was making a reference to the size of his manhood and comparing it to the other debate candidates.

00:52:56.700 And I remember being stunned, sitting next to Chris Wallace and Brett Baer, thinking,

00:53:01.200 oh, my God, he's actually making a penis joke.

00:53:04.580 I'm not exactly sure what to do.

00:53:06.700 Right.

00:53:06.880 Like we're in uncharted territory here.

00:53:08.960 And in the end, it's really up to my view in the moment was that this is up to the voters to decide whether this is OK and net net,

00:53:17.700 whether he's the guy they want, warts and all.

00:53:20.420 And they they decided he was.

00:53:23.020 I don't know if I think that's the same, though, as what happened with Will Smith,

00:53:27.200 because I think as a journalist doing a presidential debate, these guys are running for George Washington's job,

00:53:32.760 and it's not your job to protect society from them.

00:53:35.560 And it's up to society to accept or reject.

00:53:39.180 I think in the case of the Academy Awards, you know, that they they're running a show that used to be,

00:53:47.480 you know, we had some problems here and there, but it used to be back in the day,

00:53:50.540 the picture of elegance, glitz, glamour, excitement, a chance to celebrate these stars who we used to hold in high regard.

00:53:58.580 And that moment spoke to a greater erosion in that entire system that is reflected now in the ratings.

00:54:07.300 What do you make of it?

00:54:08.500 We live now in a spiral of decay that is as clear to see as.

00:54:19.060 As any bad crime, we have been losing the one guaranteed audience.

00:54:32.820 Everyone loves the Academy Awards.

00:54:34.820 Everyone loves movies.

00:54:36.000 And yet each year the audience is less and less and less.

00:54:41.040 And there's a reason.

00:54:43.240 And that reason is that we've thrown out anything having to do with film, which we can run and be proud of, but we're not.

00:54:58.340 People name documentaries that are never seeable and people talk about movies as if it is their job to correct the social gaffes of men versus women

00:55:24.920 and white men, white people turning against black people, that that's their first job, not their second or third.

00:55:36.880 There's no excuse for the political correctness that has overwhelmed our culture.

00:55:46.640 And you have to have the right to, through your art, to have this given some serious thought.

00:56:03.360 Yeah.

00:56:04.020 People are voting with their pocketbooks.

00:56:06.000 They're not going.

00:56:06.720 They're not watching the films anymore.

00:56:08.200 They're bored.

00:56:08.760 They don't want to be lectured to.

00:56:10.000 They're watching them on clicks.

00:56:12.780 They're watching them on TV, on stream.

00:56:15.500 They're watching them.

00:56:17.720 And there's a journalistic lie that goes on every week.

00:56:22.740 Every newspaper in the country says that such and such a film is the most popular film of the year.

00:56:31.860 Why?

00:56:33.240 They count only the price of admission.

00:56:37.680 When my mother saw The Wizard of Oz, she paid a quarter.

00:56:42.960 When I see Wizard of Oz, it cost me $16.

00:56:49.260 You break it down.

00:56:51.420 You figure that and assign a logical reason for that.

00:56:59.980 There's only one reason for that.

00:57:02.080 They're not accounting for inflation.

00:57:04.480 And nobody asks.

00:57:08.940 If you included how many clicks, how many times it was shown on television, you'd get something closer to a real answer.

00:57:22.440 But no one is allowed to make that.

00:57:24.620 Well, back to the Will Smith situation, what do you think should happen to him?

00:57:33.540 What should be done to him?

00:57:35.920 The Academy may take away his award.

00:57:37.780 Well, why are you asking?

00:57:44.700 You're asking that question because we're so far away from knowing that answer.

00:57:53.440 And you can't insist that artists adhere to your beliefs at the moment.

00:58:09.420 And it's just not right.

00:58:13.200 So what I would do is leave it alone now.

00:58:16.380 It's been done.

00:58:17.440 America has made fun of Will Smith, and that's enough for now.

00:58:23.880 But let's talk about it and maybe get something going in the fact that actors are now being called upon to be preachers and sermonizers.

00:58:38.600 You're an influencer.

00:58:40.020 You are the person that tells the world what is important.

00:58:48.640 The first name for people like you was Flapdoodles.

00:58:54.320 And they were the ones that made an independent decision to open the flaps of the eyes and ears of the people who were running the world, which were, they looked like elephants.

00:59:13.380 And it was in Daniel Defoe's Gulliver's Travels.

00:59:18.360 Oh, boy.

00:59:18.940 And that's who you are.

00:59:22.340 And why did not some journalists, for their own selfish reasons and for their own sense of drama, stand up and say, excuse me, this is not what I signed on for.

00:59:38.140 I signed on to host the Academy Awards.

00:59:42.360 I have my own opinions, and I know one thing, and that is that Edward R. Murrow would never put up with this, even for an instant.

00:59:56.040 But wait a minute.

00:59:56.800 How is this on a journalist?

00:59:58.340 Why didn't one of the actors stand up at the Academy Awards and say, what the hell just happened here?

01:00:05.000 No, it's not for the actors.

01:00:08.100 The actors are actually as much part of the audience or the unruly society as anybody.

01:00:19.240 But who's running it?

01:00:21.360 Who's running this thing?

01:00:22.820 ABC.

01:00:23.500 Yeah, it's the mouse.

01:00:25.000 And ABC had to fire the League of Women Voters who were responsible people.

01:00:30.420 They had to fire them to get control.

01:00:33.480 And that is not right.

01:00:36.100 Well, what do you make of the fact that ABC, I mean, Disney right now, right now, is in the middle of yet another scandal because they've been caught on tape.

01:00:45.500 Their president was caught on tape and leaked tape yesterday saying that they want to commit to making at least 50% of their leads, quote, queer, queer leads.

01:00:56.960 Now, within the Disney family, this is, that they want that represented more and more in the children's films where they're trying to push an agenda on America's kids.

01:01:06.520 This is the same organization that did not did not stand up at the Academy Awards in response to what we saw.

01:01:13.580 I mean, do you think they're hypocrites?

01:01:16.020 And what do you make of their social agenda they're pushing right now?

01:01:18.780 They do, they are hypocrites, and I don't approve of their having a social agenda.

01:01:27.240 I asked the head of Disney why he was betraying Walt, who taught me how to love my country every week on the show when he was alive.

01:01:40.900 And he did, in fact, teach that.

01:01:44.580 That's why I did a show paid for by the Walt Disney Company called Funny You Don't Look 200.

01:01:52.660 And it was funny.

01:01:55.480 And it used their characters that were animated and John Gielgud and Randy Newman and a whole bunch of others.

01:02:04.860 It was to celebrate the Constitution's bicentennial.

01:02:08.080 Yes.

01:02:09.180 Yes.

01:02:09.660 And it's not up to the actors.

01:02:13.660 It's up to the journalists to be journalists.

01:02:17.780 You are the only ones who have the right to represent us.

01:02:25.480 You are the only ones that can do that.

01:02:28.580 And instead of that, you ask them fatuous questions.

01:02:34.840 You're the questions that are asked are answered fatuously.

01:02:42.920 But why didn't someone say this is for the presidency of the United States?

01:02:48.740 And I can't sit here anymore and trample on my responsibility as a journalist.

01:02:56.580 You're back on the presidential debate.

01:02:58.740 Well, I would put it to you, as you probably remember, some of us were not afraid of asking the tough questions of Donald Trump and certainly would have been glad to do it to Hillary Clinton had it been placed in front of her as well.

01:03:10.900 And did bring up not just policy positions, but character issues.

01:03:16.960 But there's only so much of that.

01:03:19.080 You know, you can do that and you can, you know, make your point, but you're not there to be the kindergarten teacher.

01:03:24.800 Once, once and walked off and you would have made history.

01:03:30.200 You would have been admired by your own children.

01:03:33.480 OK.

01:03:35.460 Challenge.

01:03:37.540 Challenge.

01:03:38.760 Listen, you're talking to the wrong person about this particular subject because there's a history there.

01:03:43.720 And I've got a lot of thoughts on it, but it's fine.

01:03:45.820 I don't want to make it about me.

01:03:46.580 Remember, speak as a journalist, just a journalist, not just Megyn Kelly.

01:03:52.960 Richard, do you not remember me calling out Donald Trump and his behavior and his comments about women and so on?

01:03:58.240 And I did that very publicly.

01:03:59.440 And he came after me for nine months and that was fine.

01:04:01.740 I continue to do my job.

01:04:02.940 But you can't beat a dead horse.

01:04:04.660 You know, you can't show up at every debate thereafter and continue to say, what about this?

01:04:08.780 It's like the American populace got to know who he was.

01:04:12.280 They didn't like that particular aspect of Trump.

01:04:14.480 A lot of them, some of them did.

01:04:16.040 But overall, they decided he was a better option than the other ones out there because they wanted to bust up the system.

01:04:20.560 They wanted somebody who didn't follow norms.

01:04:22.520 They wanted somebody who would say these crazy things and do these crazy things.

01:04:26.280 You are one of the more famous journalists in America because you stood against Trump.

01:04:33.240 But Trump did not cause the decay we're living in.

01:04:38.300 I agree.

01:04:38.800 He's the consequence of that problem.

01:04:42.940 He's the result of that.

01:04:45.060 And if anyone had said that, if anyone had said, this is not about Trump, this is about our kids and about our grandkids, you would have been sainted.

01:05:02.140 Okay, we're going to have to agree to disagree on that one.

01:05:09.180 Listen, there's so much more that I want to go over with you, including I have been told, I don't know whether it's true, that you like to play a trivia game when it comes to Jaws.

01:05:17.000 So let's just say it's on.

01:05:18.700 The torso has been severed in mid-thorax.

01:05:24.660 There are no major organs remaining.

01:05:26.160 May I have a glass of water, please?

01:05:27.640 Right arm has been severed above the elbow with massive tissue loss in the upper musculature.

01:05:35.620 Thank you very much.

01:05:39.560 Partially denuded bone remaining.

01:05:41.600 This was a no-boat accident.

01:05:42.820 Did you notify the Coast Guard about this?

01:05:44.140 The enormous amount of tissue loss prevents any detailed analysis.

01:05:47.940 However, the attacking squalus must be considerably larger than any normal squalus found in these waters.

01:05:54.120 Didn't you get on a boat and check out these waters?

01:05:56.340 No.

01:05:57.120 Well, this is not a boat accident.

01:05:59.520 It wasn't any propeller.

01:06:01.480 It wasn't any coral reef.

01:06:03.340 And it wasn't Jack the Ripper.

01:06:07.260 It was a shark.

01:06:10.440 Oh, so classic.

01:06:12.120 Classic, classic, classic.

01:06:13.160 Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show.

01:06:14.960 Richard Dreyfuss is our guest today.

01:06:17.680 And by the way, you're up after Richard, so call me now.

01:06:20.200 Get on the line at 833-44-MEGYN with thoughts on the show or Richard's best movies.

01:06:26.540 Okay, so Richard, that moment is truly iconic.

01:06:29.220 I know that word gets overused, but it is.

01:06:30.860 Everybody has seen that scene.

01:06:32.860 You played it so perfectly.

01:06:34.580 Matt Hooper comes on in Jaws and completely steals every scene, including the ones involving the shark.

01:06:41.860 You, I read that, you know, earlier you had played one of your first movies was in a small part, a decent part, in American Graffiti.

01:06:50.860 And you had said, I didn't understand what was so magical about the movie.

01:06:53.940 I was the only member of the cast who didn't know we were shooting a classic.

01:06:56.600 Then on Jaws, I read that you said, I didn't think it would be a hit.

01:07:01.460 I said, everyone thought that they had struck gold.

01:07:04.160 And I said, what are you talking about?

01:07:05.400 It's just a little movie.

01:07:06.820 And I laughed, thinking, these are inauspicious comments for amazing, amazing results.

01:07:13.840 So why did you not know that this was going to be movie magic?

01:07:18.160 Let me first say this.

01:07:22.180 The reason I asked to be on your show is because I think of you as different and better than the long list of American journalists who have let us down.

01:07:40.520 You didn't.

01:07:41.220 And I really want the people to hear that from me, that Megyn Kelly really did not let America down.

01:07:53.560 And it's important for you to know that that's why I'm here.

01:07:57.920 We are people who work and without thinking about it, we construct every day the invisible culture that we live in and the quality of your energy

01:08:20.580 and the quality of your courage when you interviewed Putin was a remarkable lesson to everyone and certainly to me.

01:08:33.780 And I have just finished a book.

01:08:36.940 It's taken me six years to write and four years spent at Oxford.

01:08:43.400 And I came back and said to myself, I am going to introduce this on any show that Megyn Kelly is on.

01:08:56.940 I didn't know where you would be.

01:08:59.020 I didn't know what you were up to.

01:09:01.740 But you showed the courage and class of your best.

01:09:10.220 So that's why I'm here.

01:09:13.400 And you can ask me, you can ask me whatever you want.

01:09:20.560 And I don't like to talk about my acting career anymore because I'm lucky enough to have found another passion and that's saving my country.

01:09:34.900 And I don't put those two things together.

01:09:40.600 So since Rupert Murdoch was silly enough not to hire me as a half hour show after you, then I'm saying it to you and I'm saying it to you from my heart.

01:09:58.300 And I do know that I could have done this on any show, but I didn't.

01:10:05.620 And I didn't because you deserve it.

01:10:11.260 And I want to encourage you to keep it up.

01:10:15.200 Oh, thank you so much.

01:10:17.440 I'm you're I'm a little I'm humbled and I feel slightly embarrassed, but I'm really honored to hear that because I'm such a big fan of yours.

01:10:26.680 You brought me so much joy over the years.

01:10:29.360 We had our one interview with your son on the Kelly file before I left Fox News.

01:10:33.900 And it was thrilling for me that you would take that risk and express your opinions, you know, in that kind of a forum, which can be dicey and it can be controversial.

01:10:44.420 And when you reached out to us on this show saying you'd like to come on, I was like, didn't hesitate for two seconds.

01:10:50.220 I would talk to you any day about anything because you're fascinating and you've always been a straight shooter.

01:10:55.640 Really, I've I've known it politically.

01:10:57.140 You've always been a straight shooter and that's separate and apart from your enormous talent.

01:11:01.120 So and I appreciate your commitment to civics, too.

01:11:04.080 I share in it.

01:11:05.040 I've been looking for a way of bringing it back myself.

01:11:07.860 I've had a couple of organizations come and sort of propose stuff to me.

01:11:11.220 Haven't found the right vehicle.

01:11:12.520 But anyway, thank you.

01:11:14.280 Thank you for the for the comments.

01:11:16.080 All right.

01:11:16.360 So if I.

01:11:17.460 Yeah, go ahead.

01:11:19.360 Whenever I'm in Los Angeles, if I can, I stop at the Museum of Radio and TV and I.

01:11:27.140 dial John Stewart on Crossfire, because on that show, John Stewart eviscerated the premise

01:11:36.460 of the show, Tucker Carlson and the other guy.

01:11:40.640 And.

01:11:41.680 It was something it was a sight to behold.

01:11:46.760 And I'm I cannot commend any other incident like that, except for you.

01:11:54.900 I watch you and I watch you engage with with your bosses.

01:12:04.220 And I can't tell you how refreshing it is that you're still there.

01:12:11.560 Well, thank you.

01:12:12.660 Holding on by a thin read, but I'm I'm there.

01:12:16.700 Listen, I will say this.

01:12:17.840 I want you to be I want you to read my book.

01:12:22.320 And I think that and if you like it and I don't think there's an if involved, this book

01:12:28.800 is called One Thought Scares Me.

01:12:31.320 And it's about the fact that we like the stupid jerks that we have become.

01:12:39.800 We destroyed our our our audience.

01:12:45.360 We have we're not anchored to anything.

01:12:49.400 We are not anchored to anything except greed and money.

01:12:55.600 And and that's something that if you believe in a in a in a God who is mortally involved in

01:13:10.560 our morality.

01:13:11.900 A lot of people who are being admired now should look over their shoulder.

01:13:19.860 Because they're being.

01:13:22.920 Pursued.

01:13:24.540 And they're not being pursued by good people.

01:13:27.500 Well, let me tell the audience.

01:13:28.300 So it's the the title is One Thought Scares Me.

01:13:30.900 We teach our kids what we wish them to know.

01:13:33.120 We don't teach them what we don't wish them to know.

01:13:36.560 And that that actually makes sense to me, having spoken with you for this, you know,

01:13:41.300 better part of an hour and a half, because we're afraid, right?

01:13:44.700 We're afraid of exposing them to ideas.

01:13:48.380 And that's exactly the wrong instinct.

01:13:51.620 You know, they can be exposed to ideas.

01:13:53.200 And the way of combating bad ideas is with good ones.

01:13:56.420 And that we used to understand that inherently we don't anymore.

01:14:00.160 I'll just say one word on Tucker.

01:14:02.260 Let me say one word on Jon Stewart and Tucker, because I've seen that exchange a million times.

01:14:05.600 And I know Tucker very well.

01:14:07.020 I believe that I'm not a Jon Stewart fan because it's a long story, but I'm not.

01:14:11.980 But I believe that was a that was a good moment because that show should have been destroyed

01:14:17.360 because it was dumb.

01:14:18.320 And I think Tucker would say that.

01:14:19.900 And I think Tucker needed to be sort of that version of him destroyed and reinvented,

01:14:25.360 because I do believe he's become one of the most important voices in America now.

01:14:29.060 And I applaud that.

01:14:30.920 I applaud that.

01:14:31.740 I think he's a heterodox thinker.

01:14:33.180 He challenges conventional thinking.

01:14:34.660 You may love him.

01:14:35.220 You may hate him.

01:14:36.180 But to your point, I'm glad he's out there.

01:14:38.120 I'm glad he doesn't say what everybody else says.

01:14:40.280 And I'm glad he has the fortitude to do it and that Lachlan Murdoch allows it.

01:14:43.980 And I'm glad Rachel Maddow is there, too.

01:14:46.180 She's not my cup of tea, but I wouldn't want to see her censored or pulled down.

01:14:49.900 You know, that's kind of what you and I are talking about right now.

01:14:52.300 Let me offer what I offer in the book.

01:14:54.620 Yeah.

01:14:54.840 If those shows merely changed one word and did not say that they were news channels, but that they were opinion channels, I would have no argument.

01:15:08.740 I hear that.

01:15:09.560 But they insist that they're news channels.

01:15:14.620 And that they're not.

01:15:16.360 And whether you're what they are, are affirmed channels.

01:15:24.300 They affirm the thoughts you already have.

01:15:28.080 They don't inform.

01:15:29.360 They don't expand upon the knowledge.

01:15:33.160 They don't do anything that should be part of what a news person or a teacher or a parent does.

01:15:43.140 But they don't.

01:15:45.740 And that's the thing to remember, that you used to have, when I say you, American journalists, used to have a lot more territory.

01:16:01.340 And you don't anymore.

01:16:03.800 I agree with that.

01:16:04.680 And I said that at the press club, and I said that they were all corrupt.

01:16:09.580 And Tim Russert, may you rest in peace, Tim Russert's hand shot into the air, and he said, Richard, why am I a villain?

01:16:22.600 And I said, Tim, you're a villain because you no longer do what you used to do, which is ask the impolite question for the fourth time.

01:16:37.660 And that is your job, to be rude for us.

01:16:43.680 That's so true.

01:16:45.340 Richard, my gosh, that is such a good encapsulation of the awkward responsibility a journalist has.

01:16:52.260 It's not about building a relationship with that person.

01:16:55.740 It's about your relationship with your audience and the truth.

01:17:00.720 I haven't heard a better synopsis of it than what you just gave.

01:17:04.140 Well done.

01:17:05.640 Okay, enough about me and my profession.

01:17:07.380 Let's talk about you in these last few minutes and yours, because you've got to give this to me, because you said you would.

01:17:12.580 I need it.

01:17:13.780 Jaws, let's talk about it.

01:17:15.700 Is it true you like to play this little trivia game about, like, you know, you pay me $10 if I stump you, and I pay you $10 if you stump me, or if I can't stump you?

01:17:26.520 Yeah, kind of.

01:17:27.900 Okay, I got one for you.

01:17:29.220 I got one.

01:17:30.020 I think it's a medium difficulty.

01:17:32.620 Okay, I wrote it down, so I didn't forget it.

01:17:34.160 What was the song that the youngest Brody son, little Sean, was singing on the beach when the older son, Michael, was in the bay with the shark, and Chief Brody had to run over, and he was sitting there, he was humming a little song.

01:17:49.860 I will even hum it for you if you would like to, if you need that reminder.

01:17:55.560 Yeah, you'll take it.

01:17:58.000 Okay, it went, I'll just hum you the tune, so if I sing the words, you'll know.

01:18:02.400 Mm-hmm.

01:18:03.320 Wait.

01:18:04.860 Mm-hmm.

01:18:06.220 Mm-hmm.

01:18:07.200 Mm-hmm.

01:18:08.480 Mm-hmm.

01:18:09.180 Mm-hmm.

01:18:09.800 Mm-hmm.

01:18:10.180 Mm-hmm.

01:18:10.520 Mm-hmm.

01:18:10.860 Mm-hmm.

01:18:11.480 Mm-hmm.

01:18:11.980 Mm-hmm.

01:18:12.000 Mm-hmm.

01:18:12.020 Mm-hmm.

01:18:12.060 Mm-hmm.

01:18:12.540 Okay, okay.

01:18:14.000 I don't remember the lyrics, but he was singing a children's song about, here he come, the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man.

01:18:24.200 That's it.

01:18:24.940 That's it, exactly.

01:18:26.420 I'm not sure.

01:18:26.940 I think that was a draw.

01:18:28.900 The only person I lost to, the only one, were a pair of nine-year-old twins who had already seen the film,

01:18:41.280 and they asked me some question I didn't know, and I got up and I paid them.

01:18:47.580 The whole audience went crazy because they didn't think I was going to do that, but that was it.

01:18:53.740 And I've made a lot of money winning the other question.

01:19:01.360 I'll bet.

01:19:01.820 Wait, no, I heard, is this true, I heard that you've made more money, though, in your career on this one little sliver of American graffiti that George Lucas gave you and all the actors in the movie.

01:19:15.980 I guess he divvied up his shares of the movie, and you got a tiny portion because he had a tiny role, but that you've made just a ton of money off of that versus a lot of other stuff you've done.

01:19:26.760 So, yes, first of all, I bet, and I bet that one.

01:19:37.540 And I bet against myself that I would not be nominated for another The Apprenticeship of Diddy Kravitz.

01:19:47.100 And then I bet the next year that I would, I won $100 for each time I said, ask, tell me who won last year for Best Act.

01:20:04.060 That was your best trick.

01:20:05.700 Yeah.

01:20:06.740 Well, that's amazing.

01:20:07.920 I love that story about George Lucas and how incredibly successful that movie was.

01:20:12.760 George did not have to do that, George.

01:20:14.900 That was his own personal generosity.

01:20:19.320 It was before the film came out and before the reviews came out.

01:20:26.780 And it might have been considered, oh, just something he cheaply threw away because he knew that he was going to become a multi-zillionaire from that film.

01:20:39.480 But it wasn't that.

01:20:42.280 It was that he said, I like and appreciate your work.

01:20:47.940 In Star Wars, he made multi-millionaires out of the lead four actors.

01:20:55.240 That's great.

01:20:56.740 Love to hear those stories of generous Hollywood directors or producers.

01:21:02.180 It helps rebuild your faith in humanity.

01:21:04.340 Then, okay, can I just add, let me ask my dumb question because I have to fangirl for one second.

01:21:11.860 What's your favorite scene in Jaws and why is it the scene where you talk about Mary Ellen Moffat?

01:21:16.840 It is that scene.

01:21:18.400 I knew it.

01:21:19.420 Mine too.

01:21:20.060 It's amazing.

01:21:20.560 It couldn't be any other scene because all the other scenes were us staring at a cardboard or paper mache fake animal and us going, ooh, look how big he is.

01:21:38.600 And I said, and it was heard on every radio mic on Martha's Vineyard, the shark is not working.

01:21:48.800 The shark is not working.

01:21:53.040 And then one day you heard this, the shark is working.

01:21:57.580 The shark is working.

01:22:00.180 The ship is sinking.

01:22:02.960 The ship is sinking.

01:22:04.780 And I was on that ship.

01:22:07.140 And it was sinking.

01:22:09.500 And yippee.

01:22:13.200 It worked.

01:22:14.400 Either way, sinking not, it worked.

01:22:16.920 Now, did the movie have in any way the same effect on you that it had on so many of us in that we didn't want to get in the ocean again?

01:22:24.060 Well, Steven Spielberg may deny it now, but I and Steven, then and for a long time after, would not walk into the water from the beach.

01:22:38.620 Would not do it ever.

01:22:40.620 Would not do it ever.

01:22:44.620 And it's 50 years later.

01:22:47.960 And I still wouldn't do it.

01:22:50.620 Well, in your defense, you went through a lot.

01:22:53.580 I mean, you lost Quint.

01:22:54.760 There was a lot to justify that basic.

01:22:57.360 Oh, I was just terrified of sharks.

01:22:59.200 That was it.

01:22:59.900 Yeah.

01:23:00.520 And I would go scuba diving.

01:23:03.160 That I do, because you can see.

01:23:05.640 And I did.

01:23:06.560 But I would not walk in and just not know what was underneath.

01:23:13.940 And I could be freaking out.

01:23:18.720 As a matter of fact, the actor who doubled for me in Australia, who played me in the cage, had lied about his talents.

01:23:34.140 And he had never worked with sharks.

01:23:36.860 He had said that he had.

01:23:38.160 So that when he got into the cage, and within seconds, a real great white appeared in the murk.

01:23:47.620 Oh, boy.

01:23:49.220 He had a nervous breakdown.

01:23:51.300 Of course he did.

01:23:53.340 Of course he did.

01:23:54.480 Which I have been told, he's still suffering from.

01:24:00.200 Same.

01:24:00.900 All of us who saw the movie.

01:24:02.320 In fact, my kids, I won't let them watch it yet.

01:24:05.320 And we love watching movies with our kids.

01:24:08.540 But I want them to love the ocean and fall in love with it fully before they see that.

01:24:13.220 But I wonder, because they're like, Mom, it's PG.

01:24:15.540 I can't believe Jaws had a PG rating.

01:24:17.560 I don't think it would get a PG rating today.

01:24:19.300 What do you think?

01:24:20.020 Well, I'll tell you something.

01:24:22.180 No parent would, on her own, allow her kid to see that film if he was 12 years old or younger.

01:24:32.360 Right.

01:24:32.920 And that's where mine are.

01:24:34.020 It was a social issue.

01:24:35.320 Absolute.

01:24:36.900 Now they let their kids see it if they're four.

01:24:41.160 Mm-mm.

01:24:41.900 And that is also part of the spiral of decay that we have been living through since 1972.

01:24:53.820 Mm-hmm.

01:24:54.720 Our politics are not the only thing.

01:24:57.500 It is also our, we've lost, we've blown up the realistic responsibilities of parenting.

01:25:10.300 And these negative influences that get in front of them.

01:25:14.560 And yeah, you see the results.

01:25:16.600 Now, listen, that's another reason I admire you is because you have done so many movies

01:25:20.500 that are uplifting or have a bigger message.

01:25:23.240 And one of them, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, led to yet another Academy Award nomination

01:25:29.200 for you for Best Actor.

01:25:30.280 And that was Mr. Holland's Opus, which if folks have not seen, they really should see.

01:25:35.000 It's uplifting.

01:25:35.640 It's heartwarming.

01:25:36.240 It's got a good message.

01:25:37.600 I'll give people just, here's a little flavor of Richard as Mr. Holland giving the school

01:25:44.100 board a hard time for being such losers and ruining their curriculum.

01:25:49.040 It will sound and look very much to you the way the real Richard Dreyfuss is looking at

01:25:54.280 America's education system today.

01:25:56.200 Watch.

01:25:56.460 No, no, do not misunderstand me.

01:26:01.200 I am not talking about my job.

01:26:03.440 I am talking about the education that students once got at Kennedy High versus the education

01:26:08.680 that you people are willing to give these kids today.

01:26:11.440 We have been going over and over this, Mr. Holland.

01:26:14.800 We've done all we can.

01:26:16.560 Then do it again.

01:26:18.440 That's what I used to tell you when you were my student, Michael, and it served you pretty

01:26:21.500 well then.

01:26:22.060 Well, that was a different time, Mr. Holland.

01:26:23.760 I don't think the time was that different.

01:26:25.040 I think that more was expected of us.

01:26:27.460 Fifteen seconds.

01:26:28.260 The difference is how little you people care and how lazy you become.

01:26:32.060 I resent your tone, Mr. Holland, and I don't think you have any real appreciation for our

01:26:36.940 financial problems.

01:26:37.800 Oh, come on, Michael.

01:26:39.940 You know, the big problem here is that you people are willing to create a generation of

01:26:44.340 children who will not have the ability to think or create or listen.

01:26:48.580 Mr. Holland.

01:26:49.200 Mr. Holland, as I've said, we've done the best that we can.

01:26:53.220 Your best is not good enough.

01:26:55.040 Oh, we need you out there right now.

01:26:58.320 And I guess you are saying that to America's school boards today.

01:27:02.480 That must have been an easy part to accept.

01:27:05.140 I've spoken to 200,000 people personally.

01:27:10.600 Teachers, parents, school board members, politicians.

01:27:14.760 200,000, I spoke, I said, I would not speak in front of the Boy Scouts.

01:27:22.200 I would speak in front of the Girl Scouts.

01:27:25.480 Okay?

01:27:26.420 The Girl Scouts invited me to speak the next day.

01:27:30.780 And I would say, ever, there is not, well, I'll put it this way.

01:27:42.220 200,000 people personally, when I said, are you in favor of reviving civics in grammar schools?

01:27:51.680 Yes, was the answer from 200,000 people.

01:27:56.560 I went to Washington.

01:27:59.120 Not one organization, politician, publication, or anyone in any way agreed to endorse.

01:28:12.520 Including the Huffington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

01:28:18.840 The Wall Street Journal said, they have a hidden agenda.

01:28:26.240 That's why I don't like it.

01:28:27.800 And I said, who's they?

01:28:30.400 They said, you know.

01:28:32.060 I said, no, I don't.

01:28:33.500 Who's they?

01:28:34.660 You know.

01:28:35.500 I said, I don't know.

01:28:37.080 I'm not lying.

01:28:38.520 Who's they?

01:28:40.680 And they would not respond to that question.

01:28:46.060 And personally, I think, that they don't know.

01:28:51.920 And they use they to make sure we don't think of ourselves as the sovereign power we are.

01:29:04.160 We are the sovereign power in this country.

01:29:09.480 And we don't.

01:29:11.980 We're not taught how to be.

01:29:14.120 We're not encouraged to know how to be the sovereign power.

01:29:21.040 Yeah.

01:29:21.520 And all of us together, you're a journalist.

01:29:25.520 You're a mom.

01:29:27.100 You might be a teacher.

01:29:28.640 You might be a volunteer.

01:29:30.880 You work with people who are politicians.

01:29:34.720 And this is the worst generation ever.

01:29:45.180 Someone made you, made the generation drink the Kool-Aid.

01:29:53.200 And you dropped stunned into bad citizenship.

01:29:58.720 If you, in any way, bought into an American politician's riff on, we can't afford it.

01:30:10.600 You've been suckered by the best.

01:30:16.200 And if you're in favor of charter schools, remember, charter schools have, is, is an attempt to turn public education into a profit resource.

01:30:29.760 And they lie.

01:30:31.920 And they are a stand-in for the word segregation.

01:30:38.000 All right.

01:30:39.780 A lot to unpack there.

01:30:40.840 But they'll have to save it for another day because we're at the end of the show.

01:30:44.960 But listen, provocative, interesting, fascinating.

01:30:48.540 Richard, I greatly appreciate you coming on.

01:30:51.120 I want to tell the audience because we're already lighting up on social media.

01:30:53.760 They want to know if the book is out.

01:30:55.340 It's not yet out.

01:30:56.940 When is it coming out quickly?

01:30:59.120 Soon.

01:31:00.100 Okay.

01:31:00.600 All right.

01:31:00.840 Soon.

01:31:01.420 And again, one thought scares me.

01:31:03.900 One thought scares me.

01:31:05.980 It's been an absolute pleasure.

01:31:07.360 I hope we get to speak again.

01:31:09.780 Thank you for inviting me.

01:31:11.740 All the best.

01:31:12.780 I want to tell you that tomorrow we're going to be joined by comedian Kyle Dunnigan.

01:31:17.460 He does an amazing Joe Biden impression.

01:31:19.900 In the meantime, download the show and subscribe at YouTube if you would.

01:31:23.820 Would love to see you tomorrow.

01:31:26.940 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.

01:31:29.160 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:31:37.360 Bye.

01:31:38.300 Bye.

01:31:39.140 Bye.

01:31:39.520 Bye.

01:31:39.840 Bye.

01:31:40.660 Bye.

01:31:40.900 Bye.

01:31:41.460 Bye.

01:31:41.600 Bye.

01:31:41.860 Bye.

01:31:43.780 Bye.

01:31:44.240 Bye.

01:31:44.600 Bye.

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01:32:05.120 Bye.

The Megyn Kelly Show - March 31, 2022

What Will Smith's Slap Says About America, and Dangerous Speech Censorship, with Richard Dreyfuss ｜ Ep. 290

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