The Megyn Kelly Show - Why America is Worth Celebrating, Woke Misery, and PTSD, with Noah Rothman, Jason Kander, and Caroline Messer

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

00:00:11.500 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.920 We are back after taking yesterday off to celebrate the 4th of July, and boy, did we ever.

00:00:22.640 I had seen somebody tweeting out about some California school board member,

00:00:27.280 like, there's nothing to celebrate, America sucks.

00:00:30.000 And I tweeted out last week, wait until she sees what we're doing.

00:00:33.760 We went a different way.

00:00:35.740 Completely disagree that there's nothing to celebrate.

00:00:38.420 This isn't about this holiday, gas prices, or inflation, or whether you support the current leader in the White House.

00:00:46.180 This is about whether you support and love and believe in America as an idea, as an institution, as an experiment.

00:00:54.560 And I absolutely still do, and I think most Americans still do.

00:00:58.280 You know, I come to New Jersey, the New Jersey Shore, for the summers, and it's an amazing thing to do.

00:01:05.320 Because the politics here are much more mixed than they are back at home, certainly when I lived in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

00:01:11.880 In fact, I tweeted out a photo of one of the store owners down here who had,

00:01:15.300 when I was on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I used to tweet out the photos from this bookstore where they had AOC as a superhero and Dr. Fauci as a superhero and Michelle Obama.

00:01:25.600 You certainly never see a Melania Trump there or any Republican female leader as a superhero.

00:01:30.900 Never mind, male leader.

00:01:32.540 But down here, there was a New Jersey storefront that had signs about how this administration is crushing small business owners.

00:01:40.220 They can't hire any staff.

00:01:41.620 And they had a picture of like a gas pump going into somebody's bottom.

00:01:48.080 Blaming the administration was funny.

00:01:49.760 And it's like, it's fun to be exposed to a different mix of politics.

00:01:54.160 You can't just subject yourself to far left or far right or your mind gets corrupted.

00:01:59.820 Anyway, we celebrated the fourth.

00:02:02.360 And we got into it.

00:02:05.040 We hired this group, which I highly recommend and love.

00:02:08.520 I paid full price that they're not paying me for this endorsement.

00:02:11.040 But they're the New York Bells and they're an acapella group.

00:02:16.100 I had them sing a couple of Christmases ago for a party that I had and brought them here to New Jersey to sing some patriotic songs from Yankee Doodle Dandy to the National Anthem.

00:02:27.580 Here's just a bit of how they sounded.

00:02:41.040 Oh, love it, right?

00:02:44.560 We all said the Pledge of Allegiance.

00:02:46.560 Everyone sang.

00:02:48.100 The Bells did their patriotic numbers.

00:02:50.760 And then as we did last year, it's a new tradition that we just started.

00:02:54.560 A lot of families do it.

00:02:56.340 We read the Declaration of Independence with our friends, with our friends and our neighbors down here who my husband's been coming down here since he was a little boy.

00:03:04.420 So we've known them forever.

00:03:05.540 And everyone pitched in.

00:03:07.520 I mean, honestly, everybody was like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:03:10.160 And only this year I had a little twist.

00:03:12.900 I decided we'd go we'd go authentic on the costumes and the wigs.

00:03:19.360 And a couple of people had specific roles.

00:03:23.200 You're like my little Thatcher.

00:03:24.340 He was Benjamin Franklin.

00:03:26.540 It was amazing.

00:03:28.220 And then our friends each read a portion of the Declaration.

00:03:31.820 I wrote like a little intro before we got to the Declaration.

00:03:34.800 And Thatcher, my eight year old, kind of tossed to the abridged reading.

00:03:39.180 I don't show his face.

00:03:41.120 So he's kind of blocked out there.

00:03:42.660 But you'll you'll hear him on his intro to the festivities.

00:03:46.700 Take a listen.

00:03:47.920 It took him 17 days.

00:03:49.740 And today, men and women from the colonies are here to present you in a bridge form.

00:03:55.160 The Declaration of Independence.

00:03:57.280 And then we were off to the races.

00:04:01.020 Here's just a sampling.

00:04:02.040 The last reader you will hear is my husband, Doug.

00:04:05.620 And we hold these truths to be self-evident.

00:04:09.480 It is their right.

00:04:10.680 It is their duty to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future

00:04:16.520 security.

00:04:18.840 Solemnly publish and declare that these colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent

00:04:25.920 states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political

00:04:31.680 connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved.

00:04:38.760 Well, such a stirring document.

00:04:41.660 It's such a good reminder of what we stand for, what what's important to us, why we began

00:04:48.000 this experiment all those years ago.

00:04:51.000 It was great to get all the friends together and everybody, you know, wore the costumes without

00:04:56.260 a complaint and the wigs and the whole thing.

00:04:58.440 And it was hot and it was amazing.

00:05:00.860 And yeah, my wig went big.

00:05:03.300 I mean, I went really big.

00:05:04.440 Go big or go home when you do these kinds of things.

00:05:06.720 Right.

00:05:08.620 And it just made me think about why I love this country.

00:05:12.340 I do believe it's still the land of opportunity.

00:05:14.620 I do still believe in the American dream.

00:05:16.500 Here's some pictures of my other my kids face is blurred.

00:05:19.420 My son was a red coat.

00:05:20.520 My oldest son was a red coat because we needed somebody to support the king.

00:05:22.900 Um, and I was thinking about, you know, my my papa who came over from Italy.

00:05:31.660 I was born in 1907.

00:05:33.540 They came in steerage.

00:05:34.580 They had absolutely no money.

00:05:36.620 And here I am, his granddaughter, you know, a national news anchor and obviously have been

00:05:43.880 very successful in a lot of ways in my life because of what?

00:05:47.140 Because of America, because this is a place where if you work hard and I didn't have any

00:05:52.180 particularly amazing education, with all due respect to Syracuse University and Albany

00:05:56.980 Law School, they were great.

00:05:58.340 They're fine.

00:05:59.500 But I mean, I didn't have connections.

00:06:01.820 I didn't go to Harvard.

00:06:02.640 I didn't have I wasn't in skull and bones at Yale.

00:06:05.540 I didn't have any of those elbow rubbing opportunities.

00:06:09.080 None.

00:06:10.140 But I worked hard.

00:06:11.440 And this is a country where you can still do that and get ahead.

00:06:14.880 And, you know, mine is a minuscule example of that.

00:06:18.900 You know, there were some writings you should read Barry Weiss's Common Sense.

00:06:22.260 This weekend, there was somebody who immigrated from North Korea, escaped from North Korea

00:06:29.420 to South Korea and was writing about how what an honor it was when she read the Constitution,

00:06:34.220 how excited she got reading the U.S.

00:06:36.020 Constitution and how when she became a U.S.

00:06:38.460 citizen, the first thing she did was go out for a steak because she remembered somebody

00:06:42.780 in North Korea who had been killed.

00:06:44.720 He'd been starving to death.

00:06:45.900 And he he killed and ate a cow, a part of a cow that belonged to the government over

00:06:51.900 there and get shot and killed for that.

00:06:54.360 So she had a steak the night she was sworn in as a U.S.

00:06:57.160 citizen.

00:06:57.740 I think about that.

00:06:58.860 Right.

00:06:59.120 Like that's still people are still coming to America from all over the globe.

00:07:02.420 They're not leaving.

00:07:03.840 Virtually nobody leaves America.

00:07:05.860 Right.

00:07:06.320 This is still the land of opportunity.

00:07:07.820 It's not perfect.

00:07:08.600 It's got a checkered past, but it's also got a glorious past and it's also got it's been

00:07:14.920 the center of some of the greatest invention, innovation, progress seen on Earth.

00:07:22.000 So it is an honor to be American and it's worth celebrating and stopping and getting together

00:07:27.500 with your friends and reading the declaration and reminding yourself what we're doing here

00:07:30.920 and why we were so honored, so privileged to be born in this still the greatest of countries

00:07:38.060 on this Earth.

00:07:39.660 Joining me now, somebody who stands up for America all the time and is not oblivious

00:07:44.540 to its warts, nor to its beauty.

00:07:48.080 And that's Noah Rothman, my friend.

00:07:49.800 He's the associate editor of Commentary, an online and monthly opinion magazine focused

00:07:54.280 on religion, politics and cultural issues.

00:07:56.380 And he's out today with an amazing new book.

00:08:02.360 Buy it for yourself.

00:08:03.500 Buy it for a gift.

00:08:05.180 Whoever reads it will thank you.

00:08:06.720 It's called The Rise of the New Puritans Fight Back Against Progressive's War on Fun.

00:08:18.320 Noah, such an honor to have you here.

00:08:20.560 It's a pleasure.

00:08:21.160 Thank you so much for having me and that generous introduction.

00:08:23.460 I really appreciate it.

00:08:24.740 Oh, my God.

00:08:25.300 Well, I read this book.

00:08:26.480 Noah asked me to read it in advance and I read it and I couldn't put it down.

00:08:29.300 I was laughing out loud.

00:08:30.820 I was reading long portions out loud to Doug.

00:08:33.200 He was coming over.

00:08:34.400 He'd come back into the room like, what?

00:08:36.160 No.

00:08:36.860 Yes.

00:08:37.380 Yes.

00:08:37.620 And I'd read him more and more and more.

00:08:39.760 And the thing I loved about it was it's a hardcore look at wokeism and it compares it

00:08:45.400 to the Puritans.

00:08:46.460 But it does it with humor.

00:08:48.640 It does it without depressing you.

00:08:51.580 It's got an optimistic message about how this fight ends because we've been through it before.

00:08:56.720 And there are historical examples so that we can know how it ends.

00:09:01.280 And it's it's unsparing of the left in their weird wokeism.

00:09:04.820 But it also is able to find humor in their absurdity.

00:09:09.720 And that's actually your gift as a commentator, too.

00:09:12.380 So let's start with it.

00:09:14.340 Let's start there before we get to we're going to get to news of the day and the darkness

00:09:18.720 that happened in Illinois and all that.

00:09:20.040 But I really do want to start with the book because it's it's special in its approach to

00:09:24.000 this issue.

00:09:24.380 There's been a lot of books on wokeism.

00:09:25.520 None like this.

00:09:26.500 So so let's just spend a second on the old Puritans before we get to the new Puritans,

00:09:31.400 because a lot of people don't really understand who they were.

00:09:34.280 Yeah.

00:09:34.520 So there.

00:09:35.720 And thank you again.

00:09:36.800 I have to really appreciate, you know, the time and energy you put into reading this book

00:09:41.760 and all the notes you gave me.

00:09:43.120 They were so special.

00:09:44.100 And I really sincerely appreciated it.

00:09:46.520 So, yeah, there are direct tethers between the progressivism that we see today and progressivism

00:09:54.440 as it evolved out of the ashes of the Puritan experiment.

00:09:57.220 We sort of forget that Puritanism was mainline Protestantism and what mainline Protestantism

00:10:03.120 became in America in the Victorian period in the in the 19th century dovetails with a

00:10:08.100 lot of what the Puritans believed and what they strove to achieve.

00:10:11.980 And they're very homogenized, very small, rather short lived experiment in the colonies.

00:10:18.380 The Puritans themselves would be probably shocked to see the extent to which they've

00:10:21.840 had such a long legacy, because many of the most prominent voices of that period lived to

00:10:27.160 see the demise of the Puritan experiment.

00:10:29.240 But this is a progressivism as it as it evolved in the 19th century was a meliorist philosophy

00:10:35.800 believed that the world can be made better, if not perfected through labor.

00:10:40.100 And you have an obligation, therefore, if that opportunity exists, you have an obligation,

00:10:43.840 a moral duty to to strive to improve your conditions and and seek the betterment of

00:10:49.220 man, mankind's condition.

00:10:50.740 Now, that also is accompanied by a profound misery, because you as a as a well-meaning,

00:10:59.780 well-thought, well-socialized and moral individual have a duty to dwell on the inequalities

00:11:07.640 that plague our existence, on the misery shared by perhaps few, maybe not even in your immediate

00:11:14.000 surroundings, but who who you know exist.

00:11:16.460 And therefore, you have to devote yourself to their cause.

00:11:19.300 This is a righteous moral outlook.

00:11:22.000 It also lends itself to making you crazy and making you miserable and making everybody

00:11:26.900 else around you miserable.

00:11:28.300 Indeed, that is mission and purpose.

00:11:30.160 It looks to us like fanaticism, but it is to them a demonstration of their seriousness

00:11:35.060 and an exercise of personal agency in ways that you otherwise don't have the opportunity

00:11:40.160 to do so.

00:11:40.760 And once you once you have that decoder ring, you see you see trends and signs of this across

00:11:46.400 the progressive spectrum, the extent to which that they impose political values and ideas

00:11:52.720 and great historic weight on things like burritos, things you wouldn't think I have have any real

00:11:58.940 political implications, but they're interrogated and tortured in ways that make them profoundly

00:12:03.980 significant.

00:12:04.660 And then everything becomes profoundly significant to a degree that doesn't make any sense and

00:12:10.140 also drives you completely insane.

00:12:11.760 So, yes, I did try to approach this this topic with a degree of of levity and, you know, irreverence

00:12:17.940 because there is no answer to the crushing weight of sanctimony that we are experiencing

00:12:22.380 now that involves more sanctimony.

00:12:25.220 Right.

00:12:25.900 Good point.

00:12:26.760 The mockery is the answer.

00:12:28.180 That's so concludes.

00:12:29.240 No, I will get to, you know, how how did that work last time around?

00:12:32.740 How did we get rid of the old Puritans?

00:12:34.920 You know, the whole Salem witch trials.

00:12:36.960 And that was a lesson learned, but we're sort of in our own modern day version of it right

00:12:41.400 now.

00:12:41.800 But you do make the point that that they they really want you to be miserable.

00:12:45.880 And you quote H.L.

00:12:46.900 Mencken famously defining Puritanism as, quote, the haunting fear that someone somewhere may

00:12:52.560 be happy.

00:12:53.320 And you go through the greatest thing about the book is that, you know, we've seen public

00:12:57.440 figures, of course, targeted for their non woke views or their non work woke statements.

00:13:01.740 But the the greatest genius of this book is the industries that you walk us through poetry,

00:13:09.000 food.

00:13:10.060 You mentioned a museum.

00:13:12.260 I mean, the most in not knitting, the most innocuous, seemingly benign industries that

00:13:19.980 have brought down their own from within just for not the joy of it, the misery of it.

00:13:26.920 They enjoy that.

00:13:28.000 And you there was a line about the Poetry Foundation where you write, you might not assume that you

00:13:31.720 that the rarefied ranks of professional poetry are also a hotbed of racial hatred, but that's

00:13:40.240 how they see poetry.

00:13:41.680 It's how they see food.

00:13:42.960 So which like when you look back at the examples you examined, which one stands out to you is

00:13:48.980 among the most absurd?

00:13:52.020 Oh, gosh, that's a really good question.

00:13:53.820 I mean, there's so many.

00:13:55.280 One of them that I think is very illustrative is just a real passing reference to a store,

00:14:04.060 an online clothing chain that had engaged in a terrible crime against people of Chinese descent

00:14:13.660 because they had a T-shirt that was supposed to be, you know, Chinese characters.

00:14:18.720 But in fact, it was Japanese characters.

00:14:21.520 Now, a charitable interpretation of this.

00:14:24.380 No, not charitable.

00:14:25.940 A reasonable interpretation of this is to chalk it up to a mistake because it's just there's

00:14:31.060 no other way you would do this but ignorance.

00:14:33.160 But at least one individual, and there are probably more that I didn't profile or that cut,

00:14:37.620 but one individual latched onto this as though a great historical crime had been committed,

00:14:41.760 that this was not just, not ignorance, this was an insult.

00:14:45.340 It was deliberate, direct, and had bearings, you know, had a philosophical foundation to

00:14:51.540 it that is immoral and deeply rooted.

00:14:55.920 That's just childish.

00:14:57.800 When you've been inadvertently offended, it's just juvenile to cling to that as though it was

00:15:04.020 a deliberate assault on your character and your motives and your beliefs.

00:15:08.700 But that's the sort of childish reaction that we see.

00:15:13.560 A lot of these industries I talk about where you see this kind of puritanical backlash,

00:15:18.400 this wokeism, a lot of it is the prosecution of professional jealousies under the guise of

00:15:24.520 this animating philosophy.

00:15:26.500 But the animating philosophy is very important and valuable to help you understand what we're

00:15:31.220 looking at.

00:15:31.880 And the July 4th stuff that you're talking about, you know, the sort of reaction to July

00:15:36.800 4th as though everything is so horrible, there's nothing worth celebrating.

00:15:39.800 We need to dwell on the horrors of this country, not celebrate it, as though we don't do that

00:15:44.240 364 days a year.

00:15:47.380 There is a puritanical backlash against holidays that reaches back to the 1600s, 1700s, not because

00:15:56.080 of the holidays themselves per se, but because of the immoral behaviors they encourage.

00:16:00.360 Christmas, for example, lewd, lascivious behavior, heavy eating, hard drinking, it's the sort

00:16:08.180 of stuff that puritans discouraged, not because the holiday was particularly offensive, but

00:16:12.780 how you behaved was something that we could not abide.

00:16:17.960 You'll see this now in particularly American holidays.

00:16:20.820 Americans' conception of Halloween and Thanksgiving are on the chopping block very frequently, but

00:16:24.980 we've seen this now in 4th of July, which didn't make it into the book, unfortunately.

00:16:28.460 But there's, you know, there's the city of Orlando put out this statement last week, the

00:16:35.120 quote, a lot of people probably don't want to celebrate our nation right now, and we can't

00:16:39.200 blame them.

00:16:39.920 When there's so much division, hate, and unrest, why on earth would you want to have a party

00:16:43.860 celebrating any of it?

00:16:45.760 They subsequently apologized for this, but it gives you an idea of how steeped they are

00:16:51.220 in this idea, this ritualistic idea about how everything needs to be tempered with some

00:16:59.600 sort of miserable moral, this plotting didactism.

00:17:05.080 And there's this one piece in Yahoo News that illustrates this, where it talks about people

00:17:09.060 who refuse to celebrate the 4th of July just because the news is so terrible, as though

00:17:12.920 you can't have the perspective to look past the news cycle.

00:17:15.600 But they tell you, you know, there's other ways you can get around this.

00:17:17.620 You don't have to just completely abstain from celebrating for July 4th.

00:17:20.900 You can go to your neighbor's house as long as you're prepared to spend your time lecturing

00:17:24.820 them about the horrors of our country and its hideous presence, or engaging in rituals like,

00:17:30.500 quote, donating or learning more about indigenous causes and, quote, naming the land on which you're

00:17:36.120 celebrating.

00:17:36.900 These sort of ritualistic behaviors lend a sort of gravity and agency to you that you otherwise

00:17:42.620 don't have, but it also marks you as a very unserious person insofar as you are unable to

00:17:49.520 compartmentalize any of this stuff.

00:17:51.680 You can't compartmentalize the historic failures of the American experiment and its profound

00:17:57.280 successes, its grand capacity to enable human flourishing.

00:18:02.320 And you can't compartmentalize the idea that you're celebrating while other people are not

00:18:07.840 happy or miserable or just deprived or engaged in it, you know, suffer from privation.

00:18:12.860 That's the sort of thing you should be ever presently aware of to a degree that it consumes

00:18:17.360 you.

00:18:17.960 And that's enough to drive you mad and drop out, frankly, or completely radicalized.

00:18:24.580 There's really one of two things that can happen to you if you succumb to this sort of

00:18:29.240 lifestyle choices that you become really depressed with the system that isn't responsive enough

00:18:34.420 to your urgent moral dilemma, or you reserve to your result to radicalize and attack the

00:18:39.400 foundations of these wholly immoral institutions.

00:18:41.760 That's dangerous.

00:18:42.780 It's threatening.

00:18:43.560 But I do see the only way out of that as living a joyful life, as dismissing and mocking the

00:18:50.640 people who are engaged in the self-destructive, psychologically self-destructive behavior toward

00:18:55.360 no other end than self-satisfaction.

00:18:57.660 Um, so that's what I hope to accomplish with this book.

00:19:01.000 The, um, in addition to that Orlando tweet, Orlando used to be a red city in a red state.

00:19:06.260 And then Barack Obama won in 2008 and the city went blue along, along with the nation at

00:19:11.860 that time.

00:19:12.540 And it's stayed Democrat ever since.

00:19:14.800 I think some people might be surprised that such a tweet would come out of Orlando, Florida,

00:19:18.320 but I mean, Florida is still considered a purple state, but it leans red.

00:19:22.600 So yeah, uh, Orlando apologized.

00:19:24.500 And then some leftists start saying, why are you apologizing?

00:19:26.920 You were right the first time, but that they weren't the only ones NPR, uh, and their,

00:19:31.980 their host, Steve inskeep at for 30 years has been reading the declaration of independence

00:19:37.700 on independence day for 30 years.

00:19:39.640 This year they decided they were going to examine what equity meant.

00:19:44.820 What did they mean by like, was, what was their equity?

00:19:47.720 Was it equitable?

00:19:48.460 My God, like for one, as you point out for one day, can we just celebrate the founders

00:19:54.080 and this great country that we're so lucky to be a part of?

00:19:56.920 No, no, we cannot.

00:19:58.380 We have to go back to where's the true equality, not just equality, but equity and forget the

00:20:03.800 founders.

00:20:04.160 They were all a bunch of white guys who, you know, had slaves.

00:20:07.280 It's like, even yesterday when I was, you know, putting together the abridged version

00:20:12.040 of the declaration, I'm thinking, you know, in another world, people would say, oh, you've

00:20:15.980 got to include something about the native Americans.

00:20:17.560 And you've got to include the fact that, you know, we had slavery and the fact that women

00:20:21.640 didn't have equal rights and couldn't even vote until the 1900s.

00:20:25.300 And so I'm like, I'm not doing any of that.

00:20:27.400 Not today.

00:20:28.560 Not today.

00:20:29.440 Today.

00:20:29.680 We're actually just going to celebrate Thomas Jefferson and little Ben Franklin played by

00:20:34.120 my son.

00:20:34.620 And we're going to talk about the British.

00:20:36.500 Like, that's what this day is about.

00:20:37.720 But people can't do it right.

00:20:38.860 They got NPR switching in Orlando, switching and, you know, the school board out in California

00:20:43.580 doesn't want us to talk.

00:20:44.900 The list goes on.

00:20:46.000 And there's an element of condescension to all of this.

00:20:50.220 You see that particularly in comedy.

00:20:52.360 Well, because we have to contextualize the Declaration of Independence for you as though

00:20:55.720 you're not familiar with the conditions in which it was conceived.

00:21:00.740 But they don't really trust you to have the right thoughts.

00:21:04.480 You have to be properly educated.

00:21:06.280 We see this most, I guess, illustratively in comedy.

00:21:10.740 Because in my section of the book on comedy, there's a part on a popular view that was put

00:21:20.120 into an essay form by this comedy critic named Seth Simons, who identifies the locus of the

00:21:27.660 alt-right in a form of stand-up that was popular in the early 2000s called cringe humor.

00:21:34.820 Now, if you were to give a clinical description of that kind of humor, it's very dark.

00:21:39.000 It finds, you know, humor value in crimes and racism and sexism and unspeakable misogyny,

00:21:45.340 all this stuff that you would otherwise say, you have to be a pretty bad person to tell

00:21:48.780 that joke, much less enjoy it.

00:21:50.180 But this is the essence of dark humor anywhere and everywhere.

00:21:52.840 The course of human history is to find levity in the darkest parts of the human experience

00:22:00.120 and laugh your way up the gallows steps.

00:22:02.720 So he identifies this in the alt-right in the early 2000s.

00:22:07.120 And that evolves subsequently into the riots at the Capitol building in January 6th.

00:22:11.400 This black swan event somehow materializes out of some phenomenon that is not only not new.

00:22:17.740 It's utterly unremarkable.

00:22:20.000 But he doesn't think that the stand-ups that are talking about these horrible conditions

00:22:24.920 are going to act out the antisocial behaviors.

00:22:27.380 They're lampooning on stage.

00:22:28.900 But you might.

00:22:29.640 They don't know about you.

00:22:32.140 And they're afraid of you.

00:22:33.580 And they think you have to be properly educated as a result, or maybe even constrained in your

00:22:37.880 capacity to act out these beliefs and these values.

00:22:41.540 So there is an element.

00:22:42.700 I think it's probably apparent throughout the book, but it's most apparent to me there that

00:22:47.860 these people perceive themselves to be just a little bit better, a little bit more noble,

00:22:52.260 certainly more capable of impulse control than you are.

00:22:56.640 And so, yeah, I think that probably plays a significant part in this conception of yourself

00:23:02.000 as more righteous than thou.

00:23:05.660 Oh, gosh, this played out.

00:23:07.140 I've got I have got to play this clip.

00:23:09.400 This was on social media over the weekend.

00:23:11.480 This happened in Oregon.

00:23:13.220 And honestly, it's kind of what you talk about in the book, how the woke were trying to outwoke

00:23:18.300 the other woke.

00:23:19.240 It happened on the street.

00:23:21.780 I don't know what happened that led to this moment.

00:23:24.700 I'm told by social media that the man was dressed, was driving aggressively and cut off

00:23:30.280 the woman who you're going to see in this clip.

00:23:32.200 And the woman we enter the dispute, thanks to somebody's iPhone camera, when the woman's

00:23:39.540 maintaining she was cut off and the man is maintaining that she said to him, the man is

00:23:45.020 a man of color.

00:23:45.660 I don't know his ethnic background, but he's saying you told you white lady told me to

00:23:52.260 go back to where I came from.

00:23:54.880 And she's kind of trying to deny she meant it the way he thinks.

00:23:59.340 And it can use what this to me is the woke trying to outwoke the woke.

00:24:02.580 The guy's like, I got a card to play.

00:24:04.700 She's like, I'm as woke as they come.

00:24:06.400 And I'm not abandoning once one inch of my wokeness.

00:24:09.660 But I've got to handle this because I don't want to be Oregon Karen.

00:24:12.040 So watch this.

00:24:14.640 She told me to go back to where I came from.

00:24:17.060 You're driving habit.

00:24:17.960 Do you see that?

00:24:18.420 Because we don't drive to Oregon.

00:24:21.260 We're fucking kind and we make space.

00:24:23.700 Okay.

00:24:24.040 And as someone who's from here as well, I'm so tired of people driving like you just did.

00:24:28.140 Admit you're fucking wrong and then it's not amazing.

00:24:30.800 Admit that you're driving like an asshole.

00:24:31.600 Admit you're white.

00:24:32.580 Admit you have a colonizer mindset.

00:24:34.260 It is not about race.

00:24:35.480 You're not taking out your pain and oppression on me right now.

00:24:39.260 If you want anything to change.

00:24:41.280 If you want, shut up.

00:24:42.460 It's not on me to change.

00:24:43.480 It's on you and your colonizer mindset.

00:24:46.400 So get the fuck out of my face now.

00:24:49.720 You white lady.

00:24:51.780 You white lady.

00:24:52.940 I'm as angry as you are.

00:24:54.580 Or I can get out of my face.

00:24:56.520 Because I'm done with this conversation.

00:24:59.660 Then you'd be walking away.

00:25:00.820 You fucking colonizer.

00:25:01.940 I know there's work to be done here.

00:25:03.700 You fucking, it's not on me.

00:25:04.580 It's on you and your people.

00:25:06.640 Everyone needs to hear how angry you are.

00:25:08.780 But it's not about this.

00:25:10.720 It's not about what just happened.

00:25:13.100 Get out of my face.

00:25:13.760 I'm trying to lay.

00:25:15.120 Why can't you just walk?

00:25:16.240 You're in my space.

00:25:18.020 You're in my space.

00:25:19.000 You got in my space.

00:25:19.900 Get out.

00:25:20.300 You're breathing my air.

00:25:21.680 You fucking colonizer.

00:25:24.620 Get out of my face.

00:25:26.520 And don't give me those white tears and a fake white deal.

00:25:29.340 And a fake condescending look.

00:25:30.860 Look, you don't know the pain of my people.

00:25:33.480 So get out.

00:25:35.700 Get out.

00:25:36.640 I'm going to stand here with you until you walk away.

00:25:39.180 Because what you did was wrong.

00:25:40.520 And then you made it about race.

00:25:42.580 It's amazing, Noah.

00:25:44.980 He's Native American.

00:25:46.940 He's like, it looks like maybe he cut her off.

00:25:49.820 And he's like, oh shit.

00:25:50.860 But I've got a card to play.

00:25:52.060 So back off.

00:25:53.100 And he read her exactly right.

00:25:55.100 He did have a card that would shut her up.

00:25:56.660 But she's like, no, no, no.

00:25:57.920 The video camera's rolling.

00:25:59.360 I'm woke too.

00:26:01.060 You are angry.

00:26:02.660 You have every right to your anger.

00:26:04.300 But it's really about something else.

00:26:05.800 It's definitely just for the record.

00:26:06.940 It's not about me.

00:26:08.880 I mean, that's kind of a terrifying situation.

00:26:11.140 And that, again, this is not an uncommon experience to have some sort of altercation with people on the road.

00:26:16.240 But now it's imbued with, again, this sort of significance because people are using this language that is popular in the academy that has the capacity to capture institutions.

00:26:27.320 They know it's powerful.

00:26:28.560 And they're using this language to seek personal advantage.

00:26:31.840 That's as human as it gets.

00:26:33.720 We've created this incentive structure to engage in this sort of behavior where nothing is mundane anymore.

00:26:40.220 Everything has this roots in America's original sin.

00:26:44.160 We literally, that traffic incident, you could trace that back to the Continental Congress and drafting of the Constitution.

00:26:51.660 All of these things have culminated in this experience right here on this roadway.

00:26:56.120 But that's madness.

00:26:59.240 But it provides him, it provided that gentleman with personal advantage in a way that anybody in the, you know, anybody who's a self-interested animal would not deny, would have to appeal to that tool, that weapon, because it is so effective.

00:27:14.760 And it's part of the reason why so many institutions have been captured by people who are manifestly unqualified to man them, to helm them.

00:27:23.180 Because the authority figures have lent so much gravity and weight to this set of linguistic signifiers, for lack of a better word, that opened doors for them and that shut down opposition to them.

00:27:38.820 They've created their own beds and they're now forced to lay in it.

00:27:42.940 And right now, as you said earlier, they're all sort of training fire on each other, in part because these are soft targets.

00:27:48.900 That makes you, that gives you the appearance of efficacy and doesn't do no good to go after a hard target that doesn't move for you.

00:27:56.020 And then you have to back off three days later and go find another target.

00:27:58.840 So right now, the people most likely to genuflect before this movement are its focus.

00:28:03.580 But there will be a day that comes when the Borg is successful.

00:28:07.600 They've fully assimilated their own side and they train their fire on harder targets.

00:28:11.900 Hopefully, we can interrupt this perverse cycle before that materializes.

00:28:19.720 But yeah, what a weird video.

00:28:22.000 You know what it reminded me of?

00:28:23.520 During mid-COVID, there was this one video that went viral where these two older white women wearing a mask, they get on an elevator and there's a black gentleman who's not wearing his mask on an elevator and they physically assault him.

00:28:35.020 Yes, they attack him physically and he defends himself.

00:28:39.960 He's like, what are you doing?

00:28:40.700 You know, just not, he doesn't hit back, but he's, you know, like trying to defend himself.

00:28:44.140 And then they start yelling Black Lives Matter at him.

00:28:47.560 Black Lives Matter, Black Lives, just as a mantra.

00:28:51.300 It's so bizarre.

00:28:52.760 Sure, that works.

00:28:53.800 I mean, that is a well-known exception to the need to wear masks and stay inside during a quarantine.

00:28:58.760 That was proven, of course, during the riots of 2020.

00:29:01.900 Exemption for battery laws, apparently.

00:29:04.100 You can get away with it as long as you have the right, you know, noble intentions.

00:29:08.620 That's what's so great about the book is that Noah, he spends a lot of time showing how the woke eat their own in all these industries.

00:29:13.960 Like all these restaurants that tweeted out, like, we stand with the Black people and their struggle.

00:29:20.280 And then they have a former employee who's like, F you and all of your appropriation.

00:29:26.480 And before you know it, the restaurant's closed.

00:29:28.120 You know, it's like you take that route at your own peril.

00:29:31.900 Absolutely.

00:29:32.640 That is that is when you you show your soft underbelly.

00:29:36.320 And anybody who wants to prosecute their professional jealousies knows how to use these weapons.

00:29:40.120 These words as a weapon can effectively oust you from your profession.

00:29:45.340 As long as your profession is beholden to these ideas, these nostrums, as so many increasingly are.

00:29:51.460 If you don't have an institution at your back that is willing to withstand that kind of fire and storm, you're in trouble.

00:29:57.340 It's like what we just saw at The Washington Post with Felicia Sonmez, you know, and her blowtorch on everybody.

00:30:02.420 And then the one other guy trying to defend himself by saying, I'm Hispanic and I'm gay.

00:30:06.200 And I was like, hey, you can't get me.

00:30:08.560 I'm here.

00:30:09.240 I'm home.

00:30:09.680 I'm home.

00:30:10.160 I'm home.

00:30:10.460 I'm on home base.

00:30:11.320 I'm safe.

00:30:12.900 So you do have to laugh.

00:30:14.540 And that's the core of Noah's book.

00:30:15.840 Keep laughing and don't engage and certainly don't bend the knee because that won't save you.

00:30:22.160 And so how does it end?

00:30:23.940 Like, how does it actually end?

00:30:25.700 He's looked at that, too.

00:30:26.880 And we'll pick it up there right after this quick break.

00:30:29.160 More with Noah Rothman.

00:30:35.820 My team just told me during the break that Dave Rubin, a friend of mine, he's in trouble right now on Twitter because he, quote,

00:30:44.740 dead named Elliot Page, who we used to know as Ellen Page, the actress.

00:30:50.620 And now she's become Elliot Page and had this surgery and all that.

00:30:56.300 And, you know, it's been in the papers.

00:30:57.920 And Jordan Peterson got booted off of Twitter for writing a tweet about, quote, Ellen Page.

00:31:03.420 And now Dave Rubin, who he's good friends with Jordan.

00:31:06.340 He went on tour with him a number of times and so on.

00:31:08.560 He he tweeted out, Rubin, the insanity continues at Twitter at Jordan Peterson.

00:31:14.740 has been suspended for this tweet about and then Rubin says about Ellen Page.

00:31:19.620 He just told me he will never delete the page or delete the tweet paging Elon Musk.

00:31:24.580 So now Dave Rubin is suspended from Twitter for simply using the name Ellen Page.

00:31:32.040 It's like as if any but like most people don't even know who Elliot Page is.

00:31:37.180 Dave Rubin's trying to tell you what this story is about.

00:31:39.540 Right.

00:31:39.760 Like most people know Ellen Page as a very famous actress who starred in Juno and other films.

00:31:43.900 It's really crossing over to the point of absolute absurdity.

00:31:47.640 Yeah, that's very strange because Ellen Page has a body of work that Elliot Page does not.

00:31:54.740 And if you're referring to that body of work when this individual was that individual, look,

00:31:59.000 I'm all in favor of not being rude, not being a jerk.

00:32:01.360 That's a deliberate exercise.

00:32:03.200 It takes actual energy to not be rude and offensive gratuitously for its own sake.

00:32:07.960 Nevertheless, that's not an effort to be rude or gratuitous.

00:32:12.720 That's just a statement of the historical record.

00:32:15.380 But the historical record is the problem here, right?

00:32:17.360 It's not Jordan Peterson.

00:32:18.340 It's not David Rubin.

00:32:19.440 It's the fact that we have a set of conditions that we don't actually like or appreciate.

00:32:23.120 There's one story in this in the book that this reminds me of.

00:32:25.660 It was a school in New York that was trying to get rid of all the new offensive language, including the words mom and dad.

00:32:32.200 Why is that offensive language, you might ask?

00:32:35.140 Well, at some point in the indefinite future, somebody who identified as mom or dad may no longer identify as mom or dad.

00:32:43.160 So it's best now to avoid offending them in the future.

00:32:47.160 If that's true, if this person exists, he or she is likely to be so obsessed with themselves, so narcissistic, so easily offended, that they are determined to be offended and will be offended by something, your efforts notwithstanding.

00:33:05.560 Your energies would be more productively dedicated to almost any other pursuit than trying not to offend this person who will be offended regardless of what you do.

00:33:13.560 And that lends you gravity, that lends you power, that sense of offense that you're taking lends you a sense of self-importance.

00:33:23.120 And now we have this incentive structure that forces you to take those ideas seriously.

00:33:28.960 Your identity confers to you a weight and gravity of your opinions that your experience otherwise does not.

00:33:35.920 We used to lend experience that kind of authority.

00:33:39.140 Now we lend it in gravity.

00:33:40.240 So why wouldn't people who have no authority otherwise, limited authority, limited agency, reach and stretch for this thing that with a turnkey gives you all this power, gives you all this authority and gravitas, and especially young children.

00:33:56.280 This is part of the reason why we're seeing the rise of LGBTQ identity among young people who have never taken a same-sex partner in their lives because it gives them an authority that is conferred to them by adults that they otherwise would have to labor for their entire lives to achieve.

00:34:12.640 We're setting these conditions, creating these incentives in ways that are not very healthy or productive.

00:34:19.780 Oh, you know, this reminds me, we talked about this when Ilya Shapiro was, you know, wrongly harassed at Yale, I'm sorry, Georgetown, and he wound up declining to take his still-offered position there because it was basically like misstep once and you're out.

00:34:36.380 But since you didn't work here when you sent your poorly worded tweet about the next Supreme Court justice pick, we'll let you take your job, all right?

00:34:44.920 So when they were having the meltdown on campus about Ilya's tweet, which he apologized for and took down and tried to explain immediately in a way that was very understandable, they were having their meltdown.

00:34:55.040 And somebody who was part of the, I think it was the Black Law Students Association on Georgetown, not only wanted a safe room to cry, wanted, quote, reparations in the form of food for classes they had missed due to their upset.

00:35:09.160 But this one woman was saying, and I want a reminder to everyone not to criticize any of us in the Black Law Student Association, because, you know, this is real pain and real trauma, and we have a history that means you can't criticize us for raising these objections, you know?

00:35:29.320 And there are people who will buy into that and will self-silence just so as not to be shamed, as opposed to saying, I'm sorry, but whatever happened before you got to this earth or I got to this earth is not on me.

00:35:42.960 I will not be silencing my viewpoints because of a history that happened here 200 years ago.

00:35:47.760 And even if you've had trauma in your own life, I will not be silencing my viewpoint because of that either, because we've all had it.

00:35:54.320 We've all had it for different reasons.

00:35:55.880 My viewpoint is what it is.

00:35:57.080 You can reject it, you can accept it, but you cannot silence me.

00:36:01.560 Yeah, there's no immunity from criticism.

00:36:03.620 And indeed, you're going to be cerebrally infirmed if you don't, if you can't accept and encounter criticism.

00:36:11.840 And this is, this is the essence of one of the reasons why I think conservatives have an easier time making intellectually credible arguments, particularly when it comes to law and politics.

00:36:22.820 As we saw in the Dobbs dissent, for example, which was a series of emotions that served in place of a rationale for the Supreme Court's dissenting against the Supreme Court's decision.

00:36:33.040 But conservatives encounter this more often, I think, than the left does.

00:36:37.940 And they have no recourse when they're criticized.

00:36:40.740 They can't simply say, well, you can't criticize me because I have a particular identity.

00:36:44.100 It's generally not something that conservatives believe.

00:36:46.520 And that allows them to sharpen their arguments.

00:36:48.480 You know, you encounter resistance and you have to, you know, convince otherwise skeptical audiences of the legitimacy of your views or position.

00:36:55.480 That's the opposite of what we're seeing demanded by these campus students.

00:37:00.580 I can't speak to the, like, the school had this idea around Shapiro's really inartfully worded tweet.

00:37:07.680 We should say that, you know, at the outset.

00:37:10.380 While I don't think his sentiment was supposed to be offensive, the tweet could be interpreted as being offensive.

00:37:16.200 So the school said, well, this could result in students not taking his classes and therefore being deprived of an educational experience.

00:37:25.300 So we have to consider that.

00:37:26.920 Now, the school backed off that rationale because they reinstated him and he subsequently resigned to his credit.

00:37:32.920 But if that's if that was the only rationale, then this and that's off the table now, then these students don't have a leg to stand on.

00:37:40.420 So what do they do?

00:37:41.080 They appeal to emotion, emotional blackmail, moral manipulation.

00:37:45.060 And it shouldn't work because these are a child's tools.

00:37:49.360 But we're giving them we're lending them such undue gravity that why wouldn't they appeal to them?

00:37:55.620 Yeah, I want to talk about Dobbs and some of the ongoing meltdown in response to it.

00:37:59.800 One second.

00:38:00.340 There's Samantha Bee's out with a lunatic statement and people do listen to her on the left.

00:38:04.700 But before I before I get that, I want to get to.

00:38:08.240 So how does it end?

00:38:09.340 What happened is, you know, the the original Puritans that ended Puritanism in its original form, not without some really dark chapters coming its way.

00:38:19.760 So where do you think we are in the new Puritan movement, which is how you refer to the wokesters and how does it end?

00:38:27.800 I'm of multiple minds on this one.

00:38:30.160 So I do see many parallels to the to the Puritan experience.

00:38:33.480 And you referenced the Salem witch trials.

00:38:35.300 They don't really make an appearance in my book until the very last chapter, because this was the final nail in the coffin of the Puritan movement, which had been in decline for quite a few months prior or years rather prior to that experience.

00:38:49.560 It was as one author, I quote, called the fever death throes of the Puritan experiment, which a series of contributing factors had led to this incohate moral panic.

00:39:01.240 But that was among the last straw in part because it was known rather early on at the time, but certainly immediately thereafter, that a great injustice had been done.

00:39:10.620 The use of the use of the use of spectral evidence to indict potential witches and individuals who were possessed by the devil.

00:39:19.280 No one believed that demonic possession was impossible.

00:39:23.240 Everyone believed in witches, including those who were prosecuted for this sort of thing at the time.

00:39:29.060 They did, however, know that when these individuals were killed, hung or pressed to death, some of them met their ends really nobly and and in good form.

00:39:40.620 And with Christian love for their persecutors.

00:39:43.180 And that really did turn the crowd.

00:39:44.840 It certainly turned Increase Mather, who subsequently abandoned his his belief in in in spectral evidence and took seriously the people who said they were being persecuted or giving confessions under duress.

00:39:58.300 And you do obviously you see examples of this all the time from in the modern puritanical puritanical movement that executes the modern day equivalent of witch hunts on a semi regular basis, which is angering a much larger host.

00:40:14.580 You know, I'm not talking about liberals.

00:40:16.520 I'm talking about Democrats, not even talking about all progressives.

00:40:19.040 There's a very small band of puritanically inclined progressive that punches way above their weight and you're most likely to encounter them when they've done something to a lot more people than them, that a lot more people are disinclined to like a much larger host is being aggravated by this thing.

00:40:35.000 And so if there's one example of how this ends, I I cite the the phrase banned in Boston to illustrate it.

00:40:43.740 So in late Victorian period, puritanism had evolved into something even more restrictive, more stuffy than what the real puritans genuinely believed.

00:40:54.480 Comstock laws, anti obscenity laws, the heart of mainline Protestantism in Boston went to war, created these moral institutions for policing lascivity or lasciviousness in literature and the Comstock laws around that developed.

00:41:09.940 And so they went to war with poems, they bottlerized plays, they banned books, songs weren't allowed to be played on the radio, and it was very successful well into the 19th or 20th century.

00:41:20.660 But a backlash began to develop.

00:41:22.640 And when that backlash developed, it found commercialism as the stake that drove the heart through the moral movement.

00:41:30.360 So initially, banned in Boston was, you know, a taboo, demonstrated that this was something simply too titillating for you to consume.

00:41:37.940 And eventually it became a powerful advertisement for that sort of thing.

00:41:41.420 Authors and publishers tried to have their books banned in Boston so that they could increase sales everywhere else.

00:41:47.160 Modern equivalent being banned on Facebook.

00:41:49.360 Because, and this is documented, that conservative authors in particular find that the very touchy censors at online institutions, major institutions in Silicon Valley, get very nervous about the prospect of a conservative author most of the time, particularly when they're tied to Donald Trump.

00:42:08.760 Ban the book, get the book banned, not on Amazon, not on Facebook, what have you.

00:42:12.580 And then commercial sales go through the roof for that book.

00:42:16.060 All of a sudden, it's got this powerful advertisement for it that no PR campaign would otherwise muster.

00:42:22.900 So I'm kind of hoping somebody tries to cancel my book.

00:42:26.600 Everybody, everybody wins in that situation.

00:42:29.720 Enemies, my enemies draw blood.

00:42:31.380 Fans of it get, you know, confirm the worst suspicions about their average.

00:42:34.420 I get money.

00:42:35.380 Like everybody's happy about this sort of thing.

00:42:37.020 We want people to buy it.

00:42:37.820 That real world experience.

00:42:38.680 Yeah, but we want somebody to ban it.

00:42:41.020 OK, I have just a short time left, but I got to get Sam B in here because she, among others, is upset with Alito and the Supreme Court.

00:42:48.660 And the solution proposed is classic.

00:42:52.660 Here she is.

00:42:55.160 I can't describe how painful it is to be here now in a place where the Supreme Court has the power to erase 50 years of constitutional law.

00:43:03.600 Make no mistake.

00:43:04.500 This is not where it ends.

00:43:05.660 Because conservatives will not rest until they have come for all of our rights.

00:43:09.300 And we have to raise hell in our cities, in Washington, in every restaurant Justice Alito eats at for the rest of his life.

00:43:16.980 Because if Republicans have made our lives hell, it's time to return the favor.

00:43:22.040 Great.

00:43:23.000 Harass the man when he's with his family in the restaurant.

00:43:26.380 That's going to change everything.

00:43:27.540 That's a great plan.

00:43:28.760 Very smart and definitely is very normal, norm, norm, norms from the people who love the norms.

00:43:35.600 I mean, not just morally bankrupt, but completely wrong.

00:43:39.800 This was not a constitutional right.

00:43:41.820 It's not.

00:43:42.180 There's no logic to it in the dissent demonstrating that it's a constitutional right.

00:43:46.640 The legal arguments and the moral arguments do need to be separated out because there is this burst of moral enthusiasm among Republicans to try to test the parameters of the new environments, which has cultural warring at its heart.

00:43:59.460 Cultural revanchism to a degree, I would say.

00:44:01.960 But the legal arguments are very different.

00:44:04.100 And they're very well supported, even by people who supported Roe as a policy matter, couldn't find a justification for it as a constitutional matter.

00:44:13.460 And what she's prescribing here is the road to irrelevance, because that's not how normal people behave.

00:44:21.240 Normal people do not consume politics for entertainment.

00:44:25.120 They are not obsessed with their political adversaries 24 hours a day.

00:44:28.900 They won't drop what they're doing to have a good thing, you know, to engage in protesting other people eating a meal.

00:44:36.120 That's radicalism.

00:44:37.480 And it's really off-putting radicalism.

00:44:39.500 It's the sort of thing that is that will result in you being stigmatized, sneered at and dismissed.

00:44:46.860 And good, more power to them if that's what they're going to try to do to themselves.

00:44:50.580 There's just going to be a lot of pain along the road to irrelevance.

00:44:54.380 There certainly is.

00:44:55.620 OK, so I'm I wanted to hold on a second.

00:44:59.240 I just want to get somebody send this to me.

00:45:01.240 Standby, because I want to read before I let you go, because we're short on time.

00:45:04.320 But I want to read it to the audience.

00:45:06.140 Here it is.

00:45:07.000 The blurb that I wrote for Noah's book, because I mean every word of it.

00:45:09.880 I'm going to leave you with this.

00:45:11.660 The best book I've read on the absurdity and futility of the woke movement.

00:45:15.340 Rothman brilliantly and methodically exposes the vapidity of these new Puritans with two nuts to be true examples of those they target from poets.

00:45:24.360 Uh, knitters and birdwatchers to chefs and home decorators.

00:45:29.480 No one is safe in these modern day witch trials until we realize the secret to dismantling them.

00:45:34.860 Mockery.

00:45:35.720 Absolutely brilliant.

00:45:36.780 Utterly engrossing.

00:45:38.080 You will laugh out loud and shout these stories from the rooftops.

00:45:41.060 As Rothman reminds us, that sanctimonious cults of misery have historically short shelf lives.

00:45:48.180 It is an optimistic read about the nonsense that we've been dealing with for far too long now.

00:45:55.800 Couldn't recommend it more.

00:45:57.400 Absolutely loved it.

00:45:58.340 Noah, good luck with it.

00:45:59.180 And please come back anytime.

00:46:00.620 Love, love the podcast over on commentary with my pals, uh, Podoras and Christine and Abe.

00:46:06.980 So recommend that too and all the best with it.

00:46:10.320 I can't thank you enough, Megan.

00:46:11.600 This has been wonderful.

00:46:12.620 I appreciate it.

00:46:13.240 To be, to be continued.

00:46:14.420 Don't forget the book is called the rise of the new Puritans.

00:46:17.060 And don't forget while I'm, while I'm reminding you of things that you might love, uh, you can find the Megan Kelly show live on Sirius XM triumph channel one 11 every weekday at noon East.

00:46:25.880 And the full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel.

00:46:29.040 If you want to see some of those pictures of my big 4th of July party and the big hair, go to youtube.com slash Megan Kelly.

00:46:35.900 If you prefer an audio podcast, you can follow and download the show on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts there, especially on Apple.

00:46:45.540 If you leave a review, I will read it.

00:46:47.940 I read them all.

00:46:48.840 I've read the most recent postings as well.

00:46:50.660 And I always appreciate hearing from you and there you can nose around through our more than 350 shows now getting up there.

00:46:57.740 That's good.

00:46:58.720 Coming up on our two year anniversary on the podcast.

00:47:05.180 Joining me now, former army captain, uh, and you may know him.

00:47:09.420 He kind of sort of ran for president.

00:47:11.740 Those are his words.

00:47:13.140 Jason Kander.

00:47:13.840 Jason is now the president of national expansion at veterans community project and the host of the very popular majority 54 podcast.

00:47:23.300 He has a new book out today called invisible storm, a soldier's memoir of politics and PTSD.

00:47:30.620 And he is here to discuss his journey navigating post-traumatic stress disorder.

00:47:35.960 Jason.

00:47:36.340 It's so nice to talk to you again.

00:47:38.980 Yeah.

00:47:39.280 Thanks for having me.

00:47:40.000 And I appreciate it.

00:47:40.880 It's good to talk to you again, too.

00:47:42.400 Been looking forward to this.

00:47:43.380 So I, I remember we, we talked when I was on NBC in 2018 and that was when I think everybody thought you were, you were running for mayor and, uh, your political career was doing great.

00:47:56.880 And I, it was, I knew you were a veteran that you had served in Afghanistan and all that.

00:48:01.040 We talked a bit about it.

00:48:02.500 Um, but what I, I didn't realize shortly thereafter is that you, instead of pursuing your political aspirations kind of dropped out and that you, we should have explored that.

00:48:13.360 PTSD a lot more because it was really, it was, you were racked with it and, and so much so that it would change the future course of what you would do.

00:48:24.260 And it would lead to this book, which people are describing as the book that any, anyone suffering from PTSD needs to read in the book that you needed to read when you were going through it as well.

00:48:34.960 So first, let me say, thank you.

00:48:36.500 Thank you for, for serving our country.

00:48:38.500 Thank you for being so honest about this.

00:48:40.940 Um, as somebody whose mom spent her life working at the Albany veterans hospital in mental health, she ran the behavioral health unit.

00:48:47.780 And I really appreciate your honesty on this because I know from her, just the stories that of the guys in particular who come in and this is like a tough breed of man, you know, who is not used to asking for help or admitting what they perceive as weakness.

00:49:01.480 So it takes a lot even to walk into the VA and do that.

00:49:04.860 Nevermind to write a whole book about it.

00:49:06.760 Okay. So let me just start with, cause it's so, to me, it's so sad and kind of sweet about how you've just been, you won't allow yourself your service.

00:49:15.960 You know, you won't allow yourself any discussion of trauma around your service because you didn't fire a weapon and you weren't in combat and it was only one tour.

00:49:25.460 And in your mind, that just doesn't count.

00:49:27.400 You're out, you're, you're out of the, we used to call it destitution derby on Fox news.

00:49:32.020 When the politicians at the DNC or the RNC would get up there and talk about their life history.

00:49:35.740 It was always so sad and all their obstacles.

00:49:37.480 You're out of the destitution derby in your own mind because you didn't see the kind of combat that Marcus Luttrell saw.

00:49:43.400 I mean, which is just such an unforgiving, unkind standard to yourself.

00:49:47.320 Take us back to when those thoughts first started to manifest post your service when you're back stateside.

00:49:55.280 Well, I actually, I actually, I feel like I've got to go back further than that because it's where I learned to think that way.

00:50:01.080 Right.

00:50:01.480 Um, so when you go into the, into the military, um, one of the very first things that you're taught, like when you're coming off the bus at basic is that what you're doing is no big deal.

00:50:13.080 Lots of people have done this.

00:50:14.500 Most of them have done it better than you and everybody has it tougher than you.

00:50:18.000 And the thing is, I'm saying that now and it kind of sounds as if I'm being critical of it, but I'm not because it's a super necessary form of brainwashing.

00:50:25.640 I mean, for me to go over to Afghanistan and to keep going into rooms as an intelligence officer where there was a reasonable chance that I could be kidnapped and killed.

00:50:34.900 And to do it over and over again, knowing that my life was in danger, I have to believe that this doesn't count as combat.

00:50:41.960 I have to believe that if it's not a scene out of Black Hawk Down, uh, that it's not combat.

00:50:46.360 And therefore I have no right to be bothered by it so that I can keep going in and getting the information that my country needs as an intelligence officer.

00:50:53.240 Uh, but then you come home and the problem is nobody really flips that switch off.

00:50:58.320 Right.

00:50:58.740 So nobody, nobody sits you down and says, actually, that was some crazy stuff.

00:51:03.100 Or like in my case, nobody sat me down and said, actually, after you left, we stopped doing it that way because other people, like it was too difficult for people or two of the guys that you served with, you know, they had the same problems in the years that followed that you had.

00:51:16.940 But none of you three talked to each other about it.

00:51:19.640 So, um, you know, that's really why I wrote the book.

00:51:23.580 But to your question of, you know, what was it I was thinking initially, well, I was thinking that I had it on really good authority that what I did was no big deal.

00:51:32.580 And so as a result, uh, when I was having night terrors, uh, when I was, you know, unable to sit in a restaurant with my back to the door, uh, feeling like I was in danger all the time, that sort of thing.

00:51:45.520 And I, I just kept telling myself, well, it can't be PTSD because I didn't earn PTSD because what I did was no big deal.

00:51:53.780 And what I found ever since making my announcement almost four years ago now, and now writing the book and doing these interviews and that kind of thing is that everybody feels that way coming out of the military.

00:52:04.460 Um, and, uh, and they, and that that's, that's why we win wars frequently, right?

00:52:10.000 Is because as one buddy of mine told me at one point, because somewhere there was a World War II vet sitting in a VFW hall explaining, yeah, I was first wave at D-Day, but I was in the back of the landing craft.

00:52:20.200 It's really no big deal.

00:52:21.940 Um, and so, uh, the thing about that is, is that I think that there's some element of that throughout our society, right?

00:52:27.680 Like there's a lot of trauma going on in the news.

00:52:30.200 There's everybody has trauma in their lives, but I, gosh,

00:52:34.340 if I had a dollar for every person who comes up to me and says, well, this is what I've been dealing with, but I wasn't in a war or anything.

00:52:40.240 And I'm always like, you know, that actually doesn't matter because your brain and my brain don't know what each other experienced.

00:52:45.460 And so the perspective is unhelpful in this case.

00:52:49.360 It's, but I, I mean, I mentioned sort of the, yes, the army mentality, but also the man mentality.

00:52:55.520 You know, I mean, I think we're still at a place in our society where there's a, there's in some corners, a stigma on men who admit mental health problems.

00:53:03.940 It's, it's total bullshit, but it, I think it's still lingers.

00:53:06.980 And you write in the book about how you were feeling embarrassed.

00:53:11.300 You were embarrassed.

00:53:13.320 Um, like when a voter would invite, invite you into their home, um, because you know, you were in politics for a while there that you mentally were getting tugged back to Afghanistan.

00:53:22.780 You didn't think you deserved it.

00:53:24.660 You, you write, I was ashamed of myself for all of this.

00:53:28.120 I knew how common these experiences were like the night terrors and so on that you were having among combat vets.

00:53:34.120 But I was to my thinking, absolutely not a combat vet.

00:53:39.040 Uh, you, you write a four month tour was not enough to mess with a person's brain.

00:53:43.000 I believed, especially now when that person had the advantages and support I did to me, nothing I experienced counted as trauma.

00:53:51.760 I'd never been in a firefight.

00:53:53.340 All I'd done was go to meetings and now it was frustrating and a little embarrassing that I was going through this.

00:53:59.240 That that's an obstacle in and of itself to get over just to ask for help.

00:54:03.500 And in your case, it would turn out things would have to get pretty bad, pretty low for you to see that obstacle as something you could get over.

00:54:13.260 Yeah.

00:54:13.880 Um, you know, trauma is, it's an injury and it's actually not that different from a physical injury.

00:54:18.100 You know, had I come home and just gone and gotten treatment for this injury, I think things would have gone a lot differently.

00:54:25.320 Right.

00:54:25.820 I mean, I would have, I would have gotten it treated.

00:54:27.840 I would have learned the things that I've learned now in therapy, the techniques I have to manage, uh, PTA.

00:54:35.740 I would have.

00:54:38.700 Great uncle referred to when I entered therapy as a master's degree in myself.

00:54:42.840 That's what I needed.

00:54:43.920 That's what therapy is.

00:54:45.020 But I didn't get that.

00:54:46.140 I waited 11 years.

00:54:47.220 I waited until everything had gotten so bad that I hadn't had a good night's sleep in almost 11 years.

00:54:52.100 I, I, you know, was genuinely of the belief that my family and I were in great danger all the time and would stock the house at night armed, uh, and, you know, eventually felt such shame and self-loathing that I ended up very depressed.

00:55:05.560 And if you haven't slept in 11 years and you get really depressed, you're going to get to where I got, which is, uh, I was thinking about ending my own life.

00:55:12.980 I was at that point had decided not to run for president and was running for mayor of my hometown, Kansas city.

00:55:18.180 And it was objectively the campaign going great.

00:55:20.900 Like we were going to win and probably buy a lot, but I, I was not in a good place.

00:55:26.840 And, and the reason I compare it to an injury is, you know, before I went into the army, I really severely injured my knee.

00:55:33.720 It was dumb.

00:55:34.580 I was playing pickup football with my buddies.

00:55:36.540 And, uh, and so I, you know, I tore my ACL and my meniscus and, and the army said it was right after nine 11.

00:55:42.980 And they said, well, if you want to come into the army, you, you got to get surgery and you got to go through physical therapy.

00:55:47.220 So I did that.

00:55:48.880 I compare what I did with my brain to, it's as if I went into the army without getting that surgery or that physical therapy and just said, well, I'll walk it off.

00:55:56.900 You know, time will fix it.

00:55:58.560 I probably, first of all, wouldn't have been able to hack what I needed to do in the army, but had I somehow been able to do it, I would have finished my time in the army.

00:56:05.340 With a right leg that was totally mangled.

00:56:08.340 Well, that's what I did to my brain.

00:56:10.100 I didn't go treat the injury.

00:56:12.060 And yeah, my trauma, um, was not as severe probably as, as a lot of other people.

00:56:17.200 Um, and I got really hung up on that and fixated on that instead of just treating it.

00:56:22.660 Uh, and so then that's what happened is I just allowed it to get so much worse.

00:56:27.280 Right.

00:56:27.780 You, you write about how you, cause just so our audience knows you first, you ran four and one, the Missouri state legislature position.

00:56:34.440 Then it was on to Missouri secretary of state as you're a lawyer, uh, as well.

00:56:38.880 And then, uh, there was a Senate run, which was very, very tight.

00:56:42.360 You wound up losing, but you were, you became super famous in the, in the course of that.

00:56:47.740 And that was the one where I remember first seeing you, where you, you assembled the gun blindfolded, um, for our audience members who may not know you right now by sight.

00:56:57.460 They may remember this ad, which is sort of what put you on the map nationally.

00:57:01.300 Um, here's soundbite seven.

00:57:02.960 I'm Jason Kander and Senator Blunt has been attacking me on guns.

00:57:09.140 Well, in the army, I learned how to use and respect my rifle in Afghanistan.

00:57:13.440 I'd volunteer to be an extra gun and a convoy of unarmored SUVs.

00:57:17.580 And in the state legislature, I supported second amendment rights.

00:57:21.000 I also believe in background checks so that terrorists can't get their hands on one of these.

00:57:25.500 I approve this message because I'd like to see Senator Blunt do this.

00:57:30.740 It's actually very cool.

00:57:33.140 It's a very cool ad.

00:57:34.740 So you went, you, you lost that race, but you became a national star.

00:57:37.700 And even Barack Obama sat you down and said, you have what I had, which is you're a natural

00:57:42.960 and it's sky's the limit.

00:57:45.140 You could run for president, which you seriously consider doing.

00:57:47.580 In the end, you said, maybe I'll just, I'll start off with mayor of my hometown, Kansas City, Missouri.

00:57:51.780 But you write in the book about this, um, every time someone introduced me at an event,

00:57:58.080 the lore of my wartime service got inflated a little more.

00:58:01.080 I would politely correct any overstatement as I began my speech.

00:58:04.260 Oh, it's nice of you to say highly decorated, but honestly, I was lightly decorated at best,

00:58:08.180 or I appreciate the kind words, but I do want to clarify that I served only one tour,

00:58:13.020 not multiple tours, like a lot of my friends.

00:58:14.800 On top of that, I had just become famous for an ad featuring my deft handling of a weapon

00:58:20.280 I'd never fired in combat.

00:58:23.180 All of this was grist from my own guilt mill.

00:58:26.600 I felt I was being given an honor I did not deserve.

00:58:29.200 And I worked even harder in the homestretch to dull the shame.

00:58:33.480 So people trying to be nice and say nice things about your service or compliment the ad

00:58:37.840 in a way were exacerbating what was already happening in your mind.

00:58:41.360 This tick, this like guilt tick of, I don't deserve any accolades.

00:58:45.880 I didn't do anything.

00:58:47.020 And I'm not in the field of guys who gets to have this injury.

00:58:52.560 Right.

00:58:53.320 No, that's exactly what I thought.

00:58:54.600 I, my view was I, it can't be PTSD because I didn't earn PTSD.

00:58:59.140 You know, like I had very close friends, including some who had gone to the VA and gotten treated

00:59:04.620 for PTSD.

00:59:05.280 So like to your earlier question about, you know, this feeling of like masculinity, I think that

00:59:10.380 is an issue for a lot of people.

00:59:11.620 For me, it wasn't.

00:59:12.680 For me, I had a couple of people in my life who had been treated for PTSD and I saw them

00:59:18.120 as, you know, plenty masculine.

00:59:20.760 So it wasn't, that, that was not a stumbling block for me.

00:59:23.540 Well, I think it is for other people.

00:59:24.680 It was more that I felt like, you know, here I have like this friend who, you know, he saw

00:59:29.720 people die right in front of him.

00:59:31.200 And to me, that's PTSD.

00:59:33.120 But then he would say to me, Hey man, like, cause you know, my job was to go over there,

00:59:37.380 go into these meetings with people who might want to kill me.

00:59:40.140 And then, you know, know where all the exits are, know how many bad guys potentially between

00:59:44.480 me and my vehicle, all that stuff.

00:59:45.860 But I never had to fire my weapon.

00:59:47.380 And, and so like that friend, for instance, would say to me, like, Hey man, I don't know

00:59:51.020 if I could have done the job that you did.

00:59:52.780 And I always would say to myself, he's being kind, right?

00:59:56.120 Like he knows that I have some of these struggles and he's just being generous.

00:59:59.800 And it wasn't until I was actually sitting down with a clinical social worker at the

01:00:03.940 VA who interestingly had read my first book in which I had, uh, in one chapter of it,

01:00:09.760 you know, explained how, yeah, I've had a few issues, but it's not PTSD.

01:00:13.860 And here's why.

01:00:14.800 And she was like, did you maybe write an entire book to convince yourself that you didn't have

01:00:19.800 PTSD?

01:00:20.280 And I was like, well, I think maybe.

01:00:22.560 And then she walked me through.

01:00:24.180 She said, well, okay, let me get this straight.

01:00:25.780 She said, uh, you were in the most dangerous place on the planet.

01:00:28.720 Your job was to go out and be very vulnerable for hours at a time.

01:00:32.700 Just you and a translator.

01:00:33.740 Nobody knew where you were.

01:00:34.900 So nobody was coming to save you if things went wrong.

01:00:37.000 And you were meeting with people where you couldn't know whether or not they were like

01:00:40.300 there to kill you or there to give you information.

01:00:42.280 And they were much more heavily armed and you were outnumbered.

01:00:46.900 And she goes, yeah, that's trauma.

01:00:49.320 And it's, you're a combat veteran.

01:00:50.980 She's like, it just may not have looked like what you saw in the movies basically.

01:00:54.800 But you know, that's what that is.

01:00:56.280 And when she said it all back to me, I realized, yeah, if I had sat down and somebody had described

01:01:02.380 their service to me that way, I'd have been like, oh yeah, this person is a combat veteran

01:01:06.240 and I bet they have some trauma, you know, but it had to be explained to me that way.

01:01:12.260 So what I didn't realize was that shortly after I, I think it was shortly after I interviewed

01:01:18.640 you on NBC about your political career, your rising prospects and so on, you, a famous national

01:01:24.460 figure, certainly in Democrat politics, actually walked into a VA with like the cap down, hoping

01:01:31.520 not to be recognized, but you were and said, I need, I need help.

01:01:37.200 And I'm actually really, really low and would wind up shortly thereafter.

01:01:41.080 I mean, maybe that it was that day they put you on suicide watch.

01:01:45.180 Yeah.

01:01:45.820 It's actually a funny story, which is a funny thing to say about a book about PTSD.

01:01:49.880 Um, but the thing is, is that, uh, I recognize that, uh, a lot of people are like I was, which

01:01:55.880 is that if you might have trauma or you're close to somebody with trauma, or you just

01:01:59.180 want to understand this better, um, or maybe you just are interested in what it's like to

01:02:04.580 run for president, uh, essentially while you have an untreated undiagnosed psychological

01:02:09.700 disorder to get people to actually do that.

01:02:12.120 Uh, the book also has to be kind of funny.

01:02:14.020 And so, um, you know, it opens with this, with this story, which is that, um, you know,

01:02:19.460 it's kind of humiliating to notice that everybody is kind of doing double takes when you're in

01:02:23.880 the psych ward and they're recognizing you.

01:02:25.900 Uh, and then I I'm on suicide watch.

01:02:29.000 They take away all my belongings and, you know, I'm sitting there in these like scrubs

01:02:33.240 pajamas they've given me that are four sizes too big.

01:02:35.480 And I'm kind of hugging my knees in this room with a stainless steel toilet and a nurse

01:02:38.960 watching, uh, you know, she's like, she'll turn around when I have to pee.

01:02:42.740 But, um, and then this psych resident comes in who I could tell right away had no idea

01:02:47.960 who I was.

01:02:48.560 And it was a huge relief.

01:02:50.080 And we talked for about 30 minutes and I tell him stuff that, uh, I had not told anybody

01:02:54.180 other than my wife, but my night terrors and my, you know, feeling like I was in danger

01:02:58.240 all the time and, uh, you know, suicidal ideation and everything.

01:03:02.980 And, uh, and then after a while he asked, he's like, do you have a, like a really particularly

01:03:07.260 stressful job or something?

01:03:09.300 And so I start to explain that I'm in politics and he's like, well, what does that mean?

01:03:13.720 And I say, well, you know, I was going to run for president, but then I decided to

01:03:17.360 run for mayor instead, uh, but I'm going to call that off tomorrow so I can get help here

01:03:21.100 at the VA.

01:03:21.940 And he goes, I'm sorry, president of what?

01:03:25.500 And, and I said, well, of, of the United States.

01:03:29.740 And, uh, and he goes, well, who told you you could run for president?

01:03:34.220 And at this point I've gone from like, you know, mortified that people are recognizing

01:03:38.860 me to just completely irritated that this guy doesn't believe me.

01:03:41.460 And, uh, and I'm like, I don't know what to tell you, man.

01:03:44.920 Yeah.

01:03:45.440 That's what he thought.

01:03:46.240 And I didn't realize that at the time.

01:03:47.800 So I'm like, I don't know what to tell you, man.

01:03:49.060 I, I, I sat with just me and Barack Obama in his office for about an hour and a half.

01:03:53.600 He seemed to think it was a pretty good idea.

01:03:55.700 And, uh, and then he thinks about that for a second and he says, how often would you say

01:04:00.180 you hear voices?

01:04:02.740 So.

01:04:03.760 Count backward from a hundred by seven.

01:04:06.060 Right.

01:04:06.400 Exactly.

01:04:07.100 Um, which, yeah.

01:04:08.080 And, and so, um, that, that's, that was sort of the beginning of my experience at the VA.

01:04:14.420 But the thing is, I wanted to go to the VA because I wanted to sit across from somebody

01:04:19.380 who had heard people like me talk plenty and there was never anything like, you know,

01:04:25.120 you were saying, was it your mom?

01:04:26.920 I think you said.

01:04:27.560 My mom.

01:04:27.840 Yeah.

01:04:27.960 Who, who worked in, uh, at the VA in behavioral health.

01:04:31.980 Right.

01:04:32.580 Yep.

01:04:33.600 Um, yeah.

01:04:34.200 So somebody like your mom, uh, never the, the people who came in and sat with her, they

01:04:41.360 grew, they had a great comfort in the fact that whatever it is she did there, that there's

01:04:45.740 nothing they ever said or did where she was like, I've never seen that before.

01:04:49.660 You know, I've never heard that before.

01:04:51.940 And that's very comforting.

01:04:53.280 Um, and so to go to the VA where I knew that I was going to get somebody who knew exactly

01:04:58.560 what I was dealing with and, and knew how to help me lead myself through it.

01:05:02.700 Um, that was the right choice for me.

01:05:05.600 Isn't it strange that there's not an established protocol for helping veterans coming home from

01:05:12.100 combat with re-entry in this way?

01:05:15.180 You know, that I know in the book, even your wife was saying there's no training for the

01:05:19.540 wife either.

01:05:19.960 Like how to deal with the stress of your husband could be getting killed any day now.

01:05:24.160 Like the, the, the military is not very supportive of our men and women when it comes to mental

01:05:29.760 health.

01:05:30.160 I mean, frankly, physical health either.

01:05:32.120 We've had so many nightmare stories about the VA, the, the, the people who work in those

01:05:35.320 hospitals care, but the administrations time after time have proven they really don't

01:05:39.840 prioritize this.

01:05:42.040 Yeah.

01:05:42.060 I think there's a couple of, yeah, there's a couple of problems that we run into, right?

01:05:45.320 I mean, the first is what we talked about earlier, which is the military's job is to

01:05:49.100 prepare you to fight.

01:05:49.920 Right.

01:05:50.940 And, you know, I had a conversation not too long ago with my therapist actually during

01:05:54.840 the Afghanistan withdrawal where I was really involved in the evacuation efforts and I was

01:05:59.120 trying to sort through, um, you know, what my feelings were about this and how to like,

01:06:04.760 you know, at night when I was on Afghanistan time, be able to operate in a way where I was

01:06:08.780 effective, but then during the day, be able to be present with my family.

01:06:11.620 And the point he was making was, look, the emotions that you use during the day, just like

01:06:17.420 the emotions that you use when you're here in America, they, they don't work when you're

01:06:21.700 trying to do these evacuation efforts the same way they weren't helpful to you when you were

01:06:25.520 deployed.

01:06:26.220 Right.

01:06:26.680 And, and so it's, it's a difficult thing.

01:06:28.940 I'm not trying to, when I'm completely off the hook, but it's a difficult thing for the

01:06:31.800 military to completely train you and prepare you to be able to take a life if necessary,

01:06:37.980 to be able to do this very difficult job that can sometimes be very frightening.

01:06:41.180 So where I fault the military is in the exit process is in not having an established system

01:06:47.360 or a better one.

01:06:48.360 And I know they're working on it, but to flip that switch off, but there are other things

01:06:51.760 that can be done better.

01:06:52.960 When you go from one duty station to another in the military, there's usually a readiness

01:06:57.580 sergeant who, no matter what your rank is, who, uh, their job is to make sure that you

01:07:02.440 get to where you're going and that you're received.

01:07:04.440 It's a warm handoff, right?

01:07:05.740 So like, if you transfer from like Fort Polk to Fort Leonard, Fort Leonardwood, there's

01:07:10.820 a guy at Fort Leonardwood or a gal whose job it is to call the guy or gal at Fort Polk

01:07:15.260 and say, yeah, we got him.

01:07:16.360 Uh, we got her and they're set.

01:07:18.180 We got them into their new, their new duty station.

01:07:20.280 But when you get out of the military, there's no warm handoff between, you know, your last

01:07:25.580 duty station and the VA where you're going to live.

01:07:28.480 And that, that to me is a simple thing that we could fix is just have that warm handoff because

01:07:33.600 most veterans don't, and I was in this category, we don't see ourselves as veterans for like

01:07:38.800 a decade.

01:07:39.580 Like, you know, my book is titled, you know, Invisible Storm, a soldier's memoir of politics

01:07:44.320 and PTSD.

01:07:45.200 That's still how I see myself.

01:07:47.000 And you're still going to see yourself that way for a long time.

01:07:49.720 So the idea of internalizing, well, I'm a veteran now, I'm going to go access veterans

01:07:54.080 care.

01:07:55.480 It's not going to come that quickly or that easily, um, but you're still a soldier.

01:07:59.720 So if someone tells you, Hey, when you're done, this is where you go and you report

01:08:02.840 it in here, you'll do it.

01:08:04.120 And I think that would be a much more effective system.

01:08:07.440 Um, let me pivot now because speaking of trauma, uh, and certainly, you know, a different

01:08:13.300 kind of combat in the news today, and we haven't talked about it yet on today's show is this

01:08:18.080 shooting that happened over July 4th yesterday in Highland park, Illinois.

01:08:23.540 It's a very sort of Tony suburb of Chicago, very wealthy, very, very low crime rate.

01:08:30.000 And one of the people who was at the parade that was attacked said something to the effect

01:08:34.880 of this, this doesn't happen here, but the truth is it happens everywhere.

01:08:39.700 The person was realizing there's no place you can go to feel truly safe from one of these

01:08:44.460 mad men shooters, mass shooters.

01:08:47.400 Six people on the latest count, um, have been killed.

01:08:50.360 24 others wounded.

01:08:52.140 Several witnesses said they heard 20, 30 shots.

01:08:55.140 They have apprehended the shooter and there's precious little detail out there right now

01:08:59.240 about him and his background over the next day or so.

01:09:02.040 We're going to learn more about his postings online, his mental health issues, his too easy

01:09:07.720 access to guns.

01:09:08.600 I mean, you know, you, you know, the profile right already without us even knowing much,

01:09:12.580 it's going to pan out.

01:09:14.700 And I just wonder, you know, as a politician, as a combat vet, as a, you know, somebody who knows

01:09:20.860 about trauma, how are we supposed to be handling this news?

01:09:25.440 How are we supposed to be handling this as Americans?

01:09:28.320 You know, yesterday when it happened, I was throwing a big 4th of July party.

01:09:33.200 And just for that moment, I said, I can't take in any information about this there.

01:09:38.360 I am not a good enough compartmentalizer that if I sit down and I read about the victims of this,

01:09:44.860 I'll be able to go out there and host this party.

01:09:47.560 I've got to table this for right now, but nobody in Illinois who was at that parade is

01:09:52.820 able to table anything.

01:09:54.360 And it's just every week, you know, there's another story like this.

01:10:01.120 Yeah.

01:10:02.180 I think, first of all, I think that that's okay.

01:10:04.420 I kind of did the same thing yesterday, right?

01:10:06.200 I mean, I was with family.

01:10:07.400 We had a family wedding on Saturday and then on Sunday.

01:10:11.660 And then yesterday, you know, I was aware of it, but I chose not to dig into it.

01:10:15.660 Um, and I, and I, it's understandable.

01:10:18.240 I think that's okay.

01:10:19.400 Um, in the short term, the problem we have as a country to your question is we are avoiding

01:10:24.820 it as a country.

01:10:25.860 We, we are, we are doing what I learned in therapy.

01:10:29.360 I had been doing for a long time, right?

01:10:31.080 Like I kept running for the next office.

01:10:34.040 I kept doing the next thing.

01:10:35.740 I stayed busy as much as I could.

01:10:37.780 I did everything I could not to be alone with my thoughts because they were unpleasant.

01:10:41.780 I don't have that problem now because I've been through therapy and I'm enjoying, you

01:10:46.560 know, my life, but I had to go straight at it.

01:10:49.800 I had to, I couldn't outrun the trauma.

01:10:52.620 I had to turn toward it and confront it.

01:10:54.940 And as a country, um, and look, it's hard for me not to make this part of the gun conversation.

01:11:01.840 Um, I know that some good things have been done recently.

01:11:04.780 Uh, you know, there was good federal legislation passed that doesn't go far enough, but it does

01:11:08.440 at least address things like mental health and some things related to guns.

01:11:12.140 But I, you know, there's a lot of different ways that people, for instance, on my side

01:11:17.220 of the aisle, explain the unwillingness of folks on the, on the right to, uh, not all

01:11:23.640 folks, but some on the right to, uh, look at this as an issue about guns.

01:11:28.040 And oftentimes it is ascribed to, and sometimes it's, I've described it this way to it being

01:11:33.160 about, you know, firearm manufacturers wanting to sell guns and about, you know, this culture

01:11:39.160 that, you know, elevates guns above lives and all that.

01:11:42.000 And look, I've been guilty of that at times.

01:11:43.820 And then there's some elements of truth to all that.

01:11:46.180 But I think what is much deeper is if it hasn't confronted us like any other crisis in America,

01:11:53.800 if it hasn't directly confronted us and it's deeply unpleasant, well, there's a certain

01:11:58.360 degree of natural avoidance that we as a culture want to do.

01:12:02.500 And, and that can lead to inaction.

01:12:05.860 That's what happened to me with my own mental health is I didn't want to deal with it.

01:12:10.560 And so I didn't take action.

01:12:13.080 Um, um, but ultimately at the end of the day, I hope we're getting to a point where people

01:12:18.000 see that the kind of weapons, uh, and I don't have any idea what was involved here.

01:12:22.180 It doesn't, you know, each case can be both something.

01:12:26.560 Yeah.

01:12:27.360 You see the basic same thing in almost all of them.

01:12:31.000 Yeah.

01:12:31.660 And like, and I get, I get tired of the fact that every single one of these becomes immediately.

01:12:37.240 Um, and I don't, I don't have a problem with them being politicized because at this point,

01:12:40.840 like it's happening so often, like let's have the political debate, but I do have a problem

01:12:44.880 with like everybody on both sides wants to figure out immediately, like, well, are there

01:12:48.960 pictures of this person being at the other side's events or at our sides?

01:12:52.560 Like, it doesn't matter, man.

01:12:54.040 Like, like who cares?

01:12:55.680 Like, it's a problem.

01:12:56.600 And I bet there were Republicans and Democrats there who got hurt or got killed.

01:13:01.600 Like, so when we're doing that, we are avoiding talking about the fact that for instance, you

01:13:08.120 know, like the weapon that I carried, which I know people will say, well, an AR-15 is not

01:13:12.560 the same weapon you carry.

01:13:13.320 Look, the reason I was able to do that commercial where I blindfolded, put together an AR-15, uh,

01:13:18.040 is because it's feels and looks and carries and does everything the same as an M-16 or

01:13:22.280 an M-4.

01:13:22.800 It's just got a little toggle on the side that switches away and fires.

01:13:25.960 Everything else is exactly the same.

01:13:27.600 So basically the weapon I carried being just like really easy to go get and we shouldn't

01:13:32.020 even think twice about it.

01:13:33.000 Like, I think that's avoidance as a country.

01:13:35.360 That's us not wanting to deal with this.

01:13:36.780 To me, I, I have avoidance of it because even if you banned all the AR-15s and my audience

01:13:42.680 has heard me say, I'm not like a big gun person.

01:13:45.620 I'm, you know, I'm, I'm a lawyer, so I want proof.

01:13:47.960 Show me what's going to work and I'll support it.

01:13:49.780 I'm much more worried about my children's safety than I am about anything else.

01:13:54.060 Um, but I, I, I avoid it because I know that so many of these mass shootings are just

01:14:01.120 you, they just use semi-automatic handguns.

01:14:03.400 And it's like, even if we get rid of every AR-15, you know, we're a gun culture, we're

01:14:08.860 a gun country.

01:14:09.660 We got, you know, hundreds of millions of guns over three more guns than we have people.

01:14:14.900 And we're, and most of them are semi-automatic, you know, one, one pull of the trigger, one

01:14:19.020 bullet, and you can unleash mass carnage.

01:14:21.980 And we, we can make ourselves feel better if we say, okay, we're going to get rid of AR-15

01:14:25.540 and maybe school shootings, they're going to find another way.

01:14:28.400 And we're never getting rid of all the semi-automatic guns in this country.

01:14:31.480 Never.

01:14:32.340 So it's like.

01:14:33.760 Ah, so now, so what, what, okay, mental health.

01:14:37.540 All right, I'm on board.

01:14:38.500 Let's talk about it.

01:14:39.280 Let's, let's have tons of programs, screeners, you know, forget red flag laws for guns, just

01:14:46.200 red flag laws for humans.

01:14:48.080 You know, we're like, these kids are getting into the system and they're getting identified

01:14:50.660 and they're getting, you know, treated somehow.

01:14:53.180 But I don't really believe we're going to do that either.

01:14:55.980 I don't believe that system would be very effective.

01:14:57.680 I don't know that people on social media will start reporting people who are, you know, it's

01:15:00.720 just that.

01:15:01.720 And so that does lead to avoidance.

01:15:03.600 Like, let's just talk about something else because I could go bang my head against that

01:15:07.500 wall for the next half hour too.

01:15:09.600 Yeah.

01:15:09.680 It's overwhelming.

01:15:10.420 Right.

01:15:10.700 And, and we can have like, for me, like I made the, the reference to AR-15s just because

01:15:16.300 I sort of tracked it to my own experience, but, you know, we, we couldn't even get, you

01:15:22.840 know, legislation in a bipartisan fashion that I guarantee you the majority of Republican

01:15:27.640 senators actually, you know, if you put them to a lie detector test, things make sense, you

01:15:32.420 know, stuff that makes it where background checks, you know, would apply to all the loopholes

01:15:36.940 as well.

01:15:37.480 And it's stuff that the vast majority of Americans, the vast majority of people listening

01:15:41.260 to this basic stuff that we all agree on.

01:15:43.960 But what happens is, is that as we avoid the larger conversation and we get overwhelmed

01:15:49.140 by it, we, we do this American tendency that we have now where we, well, there's only two

01:15:54.320 sides.

01:15:54.680 I've got to pick one.

01:15:55.340 Right.

01:15:55.560 And it's like, well, I'm either pro gun or I'm not.

01:15:58.420 And then that becomes a problem because then the, there are people like on my side of the aisle

01:16:03.260 who, you know, they will get to a point where they're like, there should be no guns.

01:16:07.040 And is your point is, is a good one, which is we're not going to get there.

01:16:10.320 So like, how about we have a realistic conversation about what we could do to limit these?

01:16:14.680 Because like you, I care about my kids more than anything else.

01:16:17.840 And, you know, if, if something is going to be just like a tiny bit effective, like to

01:16:23.320 me, that's pretty worth it.

01:16:24.320 And, um, but we don't, we don't ever get to have that conversation because everything

01:16:28.680 happens in extremes.

01:16:29.660 Yeah, that's a good point about, you know, some people I follow on Twitter, I, I, you

01:16:34.420 know, lean right.

01:16:35.420 And I have a lot of people follow me who lean right.

01:16:37.060 And I follow a lot of people who lean right, though.

01:16:38.800 I also follow a lot of lefties.

01:16:41.320 Um, and I saw so many tweets about the bipartisan gun bill, you know, like, oh, so-called Republicans.

01:16:46.560 And I was like, what's in there?

01:16:47.720 That's so awful.

01:16:48.440 I, you know, people are mad.

01:16:50.420 I looked at them like, you know, this is like common sense stuff.

01:16:53.020 I don't know that it's going to actually prevent that many, but it might.

01:16:57.160 There are a couple of things in here that actually might, and, and you're probably right, right?

01:17:01.680 Like they're worried about getting attacked by right-wing commentators or I don't know,

01:17:07.080 the NRA is not as powerful as it used to be, but it happens on both sides where like, whatever

01:17:11.260 your private feelings are, you don't want to say it publicly because you don't want to

01:17:14.000 get hit.

01:17:14.460 You don't want your donations to go down.

01:17:16.560 It's like yet another reason why you need to stop listening to those people and why you

01:17:20.700 did the right, right thing, Jason, by, I think for now, at least leaving politics and

01:17:24.800 doing something that's actually going to help people, real people.

01:17:28.360 And then maybe, maybe one day in the future, if you decide to actually throw that hat back

01:17:33.020 in the ring, you are my kind of Democrat.

01:17:36.540 You are the kind of Democrat who makes me say, yes, I, I, there's a future for our country.

01:17:41.980 There's, there are reasonable people on both sides who we want in the public square.

01:17:46.840 And I thank you.

01:17:48.580 I thank you for being that voice and for this book.

01:17:50.700 And again, for your service.

01:17:53.360 Well, thank you, Megan.

01:17:54.220 I, I really appreciate it.

01:17:55.320 I'm going to squeeze one last plug in for it.

01:17:57.140 Uh, it's invisible storm, a soldier's memoir of politics and PTSD.

01:18:00.340 People can go to invisible storm book.com or wherever you get your books, but all of my

01:18:04.720 proceeds go to the place where I work now, which is veterans community project.

01:18:08.360 Uh, and basically all of my royalties go to fighting veteran suicide and veteran homelessness.

01:18:13.940 Wow.

01:18:14.600 You're amazing.

01:18:15.780 All thanks.

01:18:16.660 I appreciate you so much.

01:18:18.000 All right.

01:18:19.260 And now coming up next, something exciting.

01:18:21.260 All right.

01:18:21.780 Now I'm bringing on my own doctor.

01:18:24.260 Her name is Caroline Messer, but she's here for a very interesting reason.

01:18:29.000 Are you struggling with weight loss?

01:18:32.420 Wait until you hear.

01:18:33.560 She's an endocrinologist.

01:18:34.880 The solutions that are out there.

01:18:37.500 Okay.

01:18:37.760 That's next.

01:18:41.800 Our next guest is somebody I know very well.

01:18:45.020 Her name is Dr. Caroline Messer, and she's a star endocrinologist based in New York City.

01:18:51.000 She's here today to share the secrets of her new weight loss center.

01:18:54.260 Well, W E L L by Messer.

01:18:57.260 That includes evidence-based medicine, specifically or specially trained experts like psychologists

01:19:03.460 and dietitians, and it will offer a more holistic approach to weight loss.

01:19:09.260 Dr. Messer.

01:19:10.020 So good to have you.

01:19:10.780 How are you?

01:19:11.280 Hi.

01:19:11.940 Thank you so much for having me.

01:19:13.260 The pleasure's all mine.

01:19:14.600 All right.

01:19:14.760 So before we get to the weight loss center, I want to tell people, just let's spend a

01:19:17.800 minute on how you became my doctor and the miraculous transition you've affected in my

01:19:23.580 own life.

01:19:24.440 So when I turned 50, my doctor said, you got to go get a bone scan to see if you're, you

01:19:29.980 got old lady bones.

01:19:31.280 This is the way I phrased it, not him.

01:19:33.220 So I did.

01:19:34.000 I got the bone scan.

01:19:34.740 It turned out my bones were a lot older than I thought they'd be.

01:19:38.660 And I was already having some osteoporosis.

01:19:42.780 So he's like, you got to go see Caroline Messer.

01:19:45.140 She's the best in the city.

01:19:46.440 She's got all sorts of great credentials.

01:19:48.060 I'm like, okay, I'll do it.

01:19:49.620 So I go to you and I'll never forget one of the first things you said to me.

01:19:52.680 You said, I love endocrinology.

01:19:54.720 Do you remember why you explained that?

01:19:56.960 Everything's fixable.

01:19:58.460 Everything's fixable.

01:20:00.260 It's not like some of these other medical professions where it's like bad news and it's

01:20:04.240 going to stay bad and we can maybe make it slightly less bad, but it's still going to

01:20:07.380 be bad.

01:20:07.900 It's like, I can fix it.

01:20:09.560 And she put me on a medication.

01:20:11.740 I had to take a shot, like a physical shot that she would give me or a nurse would give

01:20:16.140 me once a month for 12 months.

01:20:18.760 And it's basically a cure, a cure for my old lady bones.

01:20:22.860 I have my young bones back after 12 months of doing this.

01:20:26.260 And her staff worked with me to get it covered by insurance, which was a true blessing.

01:20:29.580 And I understand it's a big headache for people who don't have insurance.

01:20:32.500 Um, but anyway, this is how we came to know each other.

01:20:35.820 And it turns out the brilliant Dr. Messer is putting her good services to use in another

01:20:41.120 realm, which affects way more people than old lady bones do.

01:20:44.800 Um, and that is weight, weight management, weight loss, because obesity in this country

01:20:50.420 is out of control.

01:20:52.640 And Dr. Messer, you're one of your core positions is it actually may not be your fault.

01:20:57.680 Like we all beat ourselves up, like just eat less.

01:21:00.160 But it's, it's actually way more complex than that.

01:21:03.480 Right.

01:21:04.380 So I always say of all of the endocrine issues I treat, this is probably the most complicated,

01:21:08.760 um, because there are so many different facets of our lives that contribute to difficulty

01:21:13.440 losing weight.

01:21:14.120 You know, there's the psychological aspect, there's our ability or our time to exercise.

01:21:18.420 There's also the metabolic, the hormonal aspect.

01:21:21.820 And so recently we realized that a lot of our patients actually have resistance to a gut

01:21:27.080 hormone.

01:21:27.780 Um, I don't want to get too deep into it, but there's a gut hormone called GLT one or a whole

01:21:32.320 class of hormones called the incretins.

01:21:33.980 And we found that particular patients, a lot of patients with prediabetes are actually resistant

01:21:39.040 to those hormones.

01:21:39.720 And those hormones are what are allow you to effectively lose weight.

01:21:42.540 So we're taking advantage of that.

01:21:44.460 Um, with a new class of medications, we're really helping patients lose significant weight.

01:21:48.040 So how do you find out if you have one of those hormones or if you have resistance to

01:21:52.900 this hormone?

01:21:53.400 So if you have resistance, it's not like you can go to a commercial lab and measure it.

01:21:58.060 I would say that you have to rule out every other hormonal issue.

01:22:01.540 You have to make sure it's not thyroid polycystic ovary syndrome, that it's not insulin resistance.

01:22:05.820 Um, and then by default, if you're doing everything right in terms of diet and exercise, um, and

01:22:11.660 particularly if you also have some insulin resistance, you're likely to have incretin resistance.

01:22:15.940 Hmm.

01:22:16.380 Okay.

01:22:17.240 So you may be somebody who struggles with weight, not because you just won't stop yourself

01:22:22.060 from eating, but because there's something going on inside of you that's driving you

01:22:25.600 to the refrigerator more or helping you process food in a way that's not quite as great as

01:22:30.340 your skinny neighbor.

01:22:32.080 And so what about that?

01:22:32.900 Because I think a lot of us look at our skinny neighbor and we just think, well, F her, first

01:22:37.200 of all.

01:22:37.960 And then, and then we think there's something wrong with us that we can't be the skinny neighbor.

01:22:42.560 And then we solve that by eating brownies.

01:22:45.080 Right.

01:22:45.200 So there's so much in what you just said, um, but we definitely think that certain patients

01:22:49.520 have a set point for like the amount of fat that their body is going to have.

01:22:53.340 We call it adipose tissue.

01:22:54.320 And then it's probably somewhat determined by these hormones.

01:22:57.540 And so it's really true that for certain patients, they have a very hard time reaching a weight

01:23:02.700 that's below their set point because every time they lose some weight, their body slows

01:23:06.580 down the metabolism, changes their hormones that the weight comes right back on.

01:23:09.960 I know this must resonate with a lot of the viewers.

01:23:12.020 The beautiful thing about the hormone that we give patients is it allows the body to really

01:23:16.880 naturally, I would say, change that set point.

01:23:20.000 And there are very few other ways to do it other than surgically.

01:23:22.620 And so this has been such a game changer for me as an endocrinologist, being able to give

01:23:26.720 patients this benefit.

01:23:28.460 And it's not only the weight loss.

01:23:29.920 I mean, I'm, you know, trained in internal medicine.

01:23:33.040 I'm all about primary care, preventative care.

01:23:35.940 In studies, patients who are sicker, who have cardiovascular disease, who have diabetes,

01:23:40.520 there's a decreased risk of stroke, heart attack and death.

01:23:43.120 So there's a lot that we're doing beyond just helping patients, you know, reach their target

01:23:47.320 weight.

01:23:48.780 So when you say you're giving patients a hormone that would sort of write this balance,

01:23:52.800 what is the hormone?

01:23:53.900 Is it a medication?

01:23:55.580 So it's an injectable, for the most part, it's injectable medication.

01:23:58.720 There's now a once a week version.

01:24:00.280 Um, and it tells the body not only that you're not hungry, but that you're full, believe it

01:24:05.900 or not, those are controlled by different parts of your brain, different nuclei and what

01:24:09.460 we call the hypothalamus.

01:24:10.640 So you feel this wonderful feeling of satiety and you're also not as hungry.

01:24:15.100 And then as you're eating, it slows down the passage of food through the gut.

01:24:18.760 And so then you have this fullness actually in your, in your gut.

01:24:22.980 Um, that's a bit of an oversimplification.

01:24:24.920 There are other, um, benefits to this medication, but in short, you're a lot less hungry.

01:24:29.840 And patients are losing up to 15% of their body weight.

01:24:33.520 In, in how long?

01:24:37.060 I would say definitely by six months.

01:24:39.700 Um, you know, some of the studies are testing it over a year or even longer.

01:24:43.420 Um, but it's sustained weight loss.

01:24:45.000 That's the other key.

01:24:46.180 Um, as long as you're taking the medication, you will eventually plateau.

01:24:48.800 It's not like you continue to lose weight forever, but you'll be able to lose, you know,

01:24:52.660 it depends on the study.

01:24:53.840 15% sometimes more of your, of your body weight.

01:24:57.200 Um, so it's a once a week injectable and is it one brand or are there multiple brands?

01:25:03.340 And so there are multiple brands right now.

01:25:05.380 The big ones on the market are we go be, which is hope I'm allowed to say brand names.

01:25:09.560 That's made by Novo and also Saxenda, which is made by Novo Nordisk.

01:25:13.440 Um, but there are others.

01:25:14.220 There are lots of GLP ones on the market.

01:25:16.340 Those happen to be the ones that have been improved for weight loss.

01:25:18.600 So how long can somebody stay on such a thing?

01:25:23.320 Indefinitely.

01:25:24.320 Um, I certainly have patients who say, listen, let me try, let me get down to my ideal body

01:25:28.740 weight.

01:25:29.060 And then I'll use a combination of cognitive, cognitive behavioral therapy and working out

01:25:34.440 with my trainer and speaking to my dietician to keep the weight off.

01:25:37.340 And certainly that works sometimes.

01:25:39.180 And sometimes it doesn't.

01:25:40.280 So we can always put our patients back on the medication.

01:25:42.920 We can always use other medications to help maintain the weight loss.

01:25:46.060 Um, you know, we have a whole host of medications that we've used for years.

01:25:49.720 Um, but a lot of patients just say, listen, this is working.

01:25:53.260 The long-term data shows that it's safe.

01:25:55.820 And so I'm just going to continue on this as a maintenance medication.

01:25:59.440 Also, you know, it helps a lot of patients get off their other medications, right?

01:26:02.300 You can, you can decrease your blood pressure medications, your cholesterol medications,

01:26:06.280 like everything improves, of course.

01:26:08.840 Nobody talks about this though.

01:26:10.140 Nobody talks like you go to your annual, you know, physician's visit and they just say like,

01:26:14.000 lose five pounds.

01:26:14.680 They don't say here's a medication that can help you.

01:26:17.260 I mean, like, this is, I feel like this is groundbreaking.

01:26:19.500 This is all a new strain of help available to people.

01:26:25.240 You're a hundred percent right.

01:26:26.540 And actually studies have corroborated what you just said.

01:26:29.540 And I think there are a lot of reasons for it.

01:26:31.100 I think doctors are a little bit nervous, um, to, to talk about weight too much.

01:26:36.180 Like they're worried they'll get negative reviews.

01:26:38.440 Um, maybe they're not comfortable with a medication, but also treating weight is not always

01:26:42.180 reimbursable by insurance.

01:26:43.280 Like if that's your primary code that you're billing for, you might not get reimbursed for

01:26:47.020 the visit.

01:26:47.380 And so all these factors sort of conspire to have weight not addressed.

01:26:52.180 In fact, you know, we know that like less than 50% of patients with obesity are actually

01:26:56.300 have like a care plan put into place by their doctors.

01:26:58.900 My God, that's so crazy.

01:27:00.180 Given the number of health issues that obesity causes, it's crazy.

01:27:04.280 Now we, I mentioned insurance when it came to my, my medicine for my bones and we did

01:27:10.460 work with your office a lot to make sure it was covered.

01:27:12.900 It was kind of a hassle.

01:27:14.120 Um, not because of you, just because you know, the way pharma works and, um, what about

01:27:18.780 this?

01:27:19.160 Would this be covered by insurance?

01:27:21.260 Like a weight, a weight loss drug?

01:27:22.600 They typically wouldn't be.

01:27:23.780 So a lot of plans do cover it.

01:27:26.540 There are some plans where, you know, it's a plan benefit where they call it an exclusion.

01:27:31.340 Um, and there's usually some fine print saying that your plan doesn't cover weight loss medications

01:27:35.380 and you do have to qualify.

01:27:36.960 So you have to, your body mass index is like a weight to height ratio and you have to have

01:27:41.900 a certain body mass index for the insurance to cover it.

01:27:44.640 Um, if you have other medical issues, they'll cover it at a lower body mass index, but right.

01:27:49.380 It's not covered for everyone.

01:27:50.440 We have workarounds, of course.

01:27:51.940 Um, we have to, because there's so much demand for it, you know, using sometimes compounded

01:27:56.880 pharmacies, sometimes using Canadian pharmacies to try to make it affordable for everyone.

01:28:01.400 Um, but yes, in for many patients, we can either get the daily injections or the weekly

01:28:07.400 injections covered by their insurance.

01:28:08.960 That is amazing.

01:28:10.760 Total potential game changer.

01:28:12.540 So the, the clinic, the new clinic.

01:28:15.600 Well, I like that.

01:28:16.520 Well by Messer, um, does what?

01:28:18.680 Cause it sounds like it's, it's yes, this line of injectables is potentially available.

01:28:22.280 That's one of the tools in your arsenal, but it's not the only tool.

01:28:25.520 So how is this different from what's out there right now?

01:28:28.380 Right.

01:28:28.660 So this clinic really evolved out of many years of feeling a little bit frustrated, um, because

01:28:35.980 you know, I have a small office, I work here and can prescribe these medications, but I

01:28:40.880 didn't have all the other team members that I needed to have the proper approach to weight

01:28:44.820 loss.

01:28:45.100 Because I began by saying it is complicated, right?

01:28:48.200 It's not just your hormones are off.

01:28:50.860 It's not just, you know, menopause or incretin resistance.

01:28:54.180 It's so much more than that.

01:28:55.880 And I really felt we needed a team approach to weight loss.

01:28:59.100 And so I had a lot of people I would refer patients to.

01:29:02.600 I would refer to a psychologist, psychiatrist, um, a dietician, but a lot of times the patients

01:29:08.380 wouldn't end up going.

01:29:09.740 Um, or if they did go, I didn't always have the ability to, um, work with those practitioners.

01:29:15.040 You know, it was hard to, um, schedule phone calls where we were all working together.

01:29:18.960 And so I decided I need a place that patients can go to where everything is in one place

01:29:24.820 and we're having team meetings and we're discussing the patient and making sure we're optimizing

01:29:28.320 care and the patient, um, doesn't need to coordinate, you know, five different appointments,

01:29:33.920 everything's in the same place.

01:29:34.980 And so that's, that was really the impetus for Well by Messer.

01:29:38.380 Think of it like a team of people dedicated to your wellness, your weight loss, your maintaining

01:29:45.260 a healthy eating plan.

01:29:46.240 Like it's, I mean, that is something that's so far only been available to like Angelina

01:29:51.140 Jolie, you know, that type of person.

01:29:53.860 So what about that?

01:29:55.000 Right.

01:29:55.140 I'm sure if you want, if you have dough and you can pay out of pocket, this is easy for

01:29:58.620 you, but what if you don't have dough and you want to take advantage of this kind of

01:30:02.660 service?

01:30:03.520 Right.

01:30:03.960 I mean, I tried to make it somewhat affordable and it's obviously rents are high in the city.

01:30:08.600 So, um, there's that, but it's, it's certainly not, you know, exorbitant and it's reimbursable

01:30:16.160 by insurance.

01:30:16.680 So we have a biller who will submit on your behalf so that that's huge reimbursed.

01:30:21.160 That's huge because so many practices in the city are now all cash and not just in the

01:30:24.900 city and more and more, uh, American cities.

01:30:27.220 Now you can't get into a great doctor or somebody who wants to look after you unless you pay only

01:30:31.880 cash.

01:30:32.520 It's crazy.

01:30:33.520 So, um, that's good.

01:30:35.040 So you, so a lot of these services would be potentially covered by insurance.

01:30:39.400 And, you know, the doctors I hired, I think are spectacular.

01:30:43.000 So they're not just going to say, okay, one size fits all.

01:30:46.500 Like, um, I hired a woman named Dr. Barry Weinstein, one of my close friends from training,

01:30:50.640 who's a board certified endocrinologist, anything that comes in the door, she can treat.

01:30:55.460 So you're coming in with diabetes or thyroid or thyroid cancer or osteoporosis, everything

01:30:59.520 will be treated in a very evidence-based fashion.

01:31:02.320 Um, and she will figure out the best way to treat the weight at the same time.

01:31:06.000 So it's like real medicine, you know, nothing predatory about it, just true wellness, like

01:31:12.180 in the truest sense of the word.

01:31:13.720 Yes.

01:31:14.180 Not, you know, like you really are going to practice preventative care and get you healthier.

01:31:19.280 That's the thing.

01:31:19.960 This isn't like some quack service online.

01:31:22.080 It's like, take a supplement, lose 10 pounds by the end of the month.

01:31:25.660 Well, now what about people who are not in the New York region?

01:31:28.180 Is there any way they can take advantage of this?

01:31:30.960 So, yes.

01:31:32.260 So we'll be getting, um, the ability to do telemedicine in other states, which are applying

01:31:36.920 for telemedicine licenses, but it's actually, thank you for setting me up.

01:31:40.600 The plan is to expand this.

01:31:42.260 So, um, you know, in the coming months, years to open up other centers, um, around the country.

01:31:49.780 It's a brilliant idea.

01:31:51.160 I mean, I'm amazed that not more people have done it because it's like, I don't want to

01:31:56.080 say it's the cure for obesity, but like, if you're, you know, you're kind of dancing around

01:31:59.640 it and there's a massive problem.

01:32:01.620 I, the latest stats, my team pulled, let's say you probably have them, but it says 36.5%

01:32:06.520 of adults are obese in the United States.

01:32:09.240 Another, on top of that, another 32.5% of American adults are overweight.

01:32:13.840 I mean, you can see it right now.

01:32:15.920 And now children too, 17% of American children, two to 19 are obese.

01:32:21.140 That's almost, that's 12.7 million American kids.

01:32:25.980 I assume kids can't go on these meds.

01:32:27.560 They're like, what are, what about kids?

01:32:30.000 It can.

01:32:30.640 So assuming they meet criteria.

01:32:32.360 So there's some, some of these medications, the daily injections have been FDA approved for

01:32:36.380 children.

01:32:36.860 Um, and I have, I start seeing patients at 14 in situations where I feel like the weight

01:32:42.240 is presenting real risks to patients' lives and health.

01:32:46.680 I have started these medications on, you know, teenagers.

01:32:50.860 Wow.

01:32:51.620 I mean, let's think about it, right?

01:32:52.880 It's like, because even on a teenager, obesity can cause health problems.

01:32:57.000 I mean, you can run down the list.

01:32:58.040 So it's at no age.

01:32:59.340 And I know there's like a big push for body positivity.

01:33:02.300 And it's like, it's trying to feel good about being overweight is one thing.

01:33:06.820 Pretending that it's actually physically healthy is something else.

01:33:09.880 Um, and so Dr.

01:33:11.820 Messer will give it to you straight.

01:33:12.800 I'm so happy to talk to you.

01:33:14.480 Can I just ask you rounding back for people out there who are stuck on the old lady bones

01:33:17.860 part of our conversation?

01:33:19.020 What should they do?

01:33:20.000 Like if they're, if they're worried that they might have this problem, which is curable,

01:33:23.920 what should they do?

01:33:25.480 So obviously start by having a bone density.

01:33:28.140 Um, I typically recommend it as soon as you go through, you know, you're entering perimenopause.

01:33:32.440 So not even menopause, as soon as your periods start getting a little further apart or even

01:33:36.740 closer together, you know, signs that you're perimenopausal, you should go get your first

01:33:40.260 bone density.

01:33:41.360 Um, and then if it shows even osteopenia, you can consider, which is the precursor to osteoporosis,

01:33:46.560 you can consider seeing an endocrinologist, but definitely if, if the summary says that

01:33:50.620 there's osteoporosis, you do need an endocrinologist.

01:33:52.880 Not everybody needs to increase their bone density, but at a very, at the minimum, we need

01:33:58.460 to prevent further bone loss.

01:34:00.020 Yeah.

01:34:00.740 And, and who knew like something like this is actually reversible.

01:34:03.820 So now I'm basically 16, um, and thanks to Dr. Messer, we'll stay, I'll stay 16 from

01:34:09.940 now on.

01:34:10.860 Such a pleasure.

01:34:12.060 Thank you for my own wellness and good luck with it.

01:34:14.800 Well, by message.

01:34:16.060 So glad you're doing it.

01:34:16.880 Thank you for having me.

01:34:18.680 Later this week, we're going to have Greg Lukianoff from fire.

01:34:22.220 He's coming back with us on how he's expanding his mission for the good of America.

01:34:25.740 And then we're going to be interviewing Sammy the bull, the guy who brought down John Gotti,

01:34:31.180 a long story history there, uh, which we'll get into.

01:34:35.160 And I think you'll find him fascinating.

01:34:38.260 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show.

01:34:40.520 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

01:34:43.000 Thank you.

The Megyn Kelly Show - July 05, 2022

Why America is Worth Celebrating, Woke Misery, and PTSD, with Noah Rothman, Jason Kander, and Caroline Messer ｜ Ep. 350

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