Rolling Stone's Tatiana Siegel and The New York Times' Maggie Haberman join host Megyn Kelly to discuss the new details surrounding Jeff Zucker and Alison Gollast's affair, and why it was so hard for her to get a promotion.
00:00:17.900In just a minute, the Olympics are underway in China and NBC is struggling to balance covering the humanitarian atrocities with ice skating results.
00:00:26.360We'll get to that later with two great guests.
00:00:28.380But first, new bombshells continuing to be uncovered into the real reason CNN's president, Jeff Zucker, resigned from CNN before he could be fired.
00:00:38.540We knew that it couldn't just be about the affair he was having with a subordinate that pretty much everyone in media knew about for years.
00:00:44.900And now some more color to the real reasons is coming out.
00:00:49.260Remember Andrew Cuomo's infamous interviews on CNN with his brother at the height of the pandemic?
00:00:53.700Well, it turns out Zucker and his girlfriend, Alison Gollast, an executive vice president of CNN, were not only personally booking Andrew Cuomo's appearances,
00:01:03.360they were coaching the governor on his messaging as well.
00:01:07.720And as for those claims that the relationship between the two of them only began during covid, well, my next guest has a new report out now saying that is in the words of her sources.
00:01:21.780Joining me now, the reporter who has uncovered these new details, Tatiana Siegel, editor at large at The Ankler and senior writer at Rolling Stone.
00:01:30.880Tatiana, thanks so much for being here.
00:01:37.040The piece opens up with the the claim by both Jeff Zucker and Alison Gollast that the relationship only developed during covid, quote, recently.
00:01:47.500Or Jeff Zucker said it, quote, evolved in recent years.
00:01:52.120And your sources are telling you what?
00:01:57.720So, yeah, I think that was met with a, at least according to my sources, with a resounding like, who are they kidding?
00:02:11.500And and you are reporting that the relationship actually began in 1996.
00:02:16.360Yes, back at she was a trainee in the communications pool at NBC, and he was the executive producer of the Today Show back in the Matt Lauer era.
00:02:34.040And she leapfrogged very quickly within a year to the top PR position at on that show.
00:02:43.320So within one year, she went from trainee to senior publicist for the Today Show.
00:03:04.300OK, so how is your sourcing not asking you to reveal your sources, but how is your sourcing on this notion that they began an affair back then?
00:03:11.820Um, without being too revealing, um, it was something it wasn't just like an open secret.
00:03:21.280It was known by people because they interacted with them socially.
00:03:27.080Um, and it was, you know, like, obviously, there's there's been some criticism like, well, how does anyone really know?
00:03:35.600And yes, there is no sex tape that has emerged, um, that I know of, but, um, yeah, there, there, you know, it was known.
00:03:47.920So, I mean, that would obviously put the lie to this claim that it just just happened.
00:03:51.400And, of course, she moved into his building on Fifth Avenue where her apartment, according to listings I saw, she bought it for over six million dollars.
00:04:01.200Pretty, pretty hefty apartment for somebody who's working in PR.
00:04:04.380I don't know what her family situation was, but she moved literally right above him.
00:04:08.440And there she lived with her family for years, right above Jeff Zucker.
00:04:12.880So then she goes after he leaves the Today Show.
00:04:16.440Actually, before we leave NBC, how many times do you know was she promoted under Zucker?
00:04:21.720Because he had moved up the ranks at NBC while she was there.
00:04:24.160For nearly a decade, they worked together there.
00:04:26.220So how many times did she move up, move up the ladder?
00:05:24.700I mean, if you're paying her raises that she doesn't necessarily deserve because you're sleeping with her, it's basically asking the company to fund your affair, to keep it, to keep your affair going, keep your affair partner happy.
00:05:35.520And we've seen executives get in trouble for that in, in other circumstances.
00:05:40.740And I should mention they deny this, right?
00:05:42.220They, they, they didn't respond to your reporting specifically, but of course they are saying it was just a COVID born romance.
00:05:48.420Everything was, all ethical lapses are apparently excusable during COVID, uh, Tatiana, just in case you didn't know, um, didn't get the memo.
00:05:57.360Um, she didn't, but, uh, he responded with, um, you know, something that actually did not deny the timeline that I presented and, um, I can read you his exact, um, uh, let me find it.
00:06:31.860And, um, so we have all we have of them and their version of their romance is the timeline that they created when they gave their two statements in the memo he gave on Wednesday.
00:06:46.380So, so why do you believe they were so, cause then she went, he left, he got sort of pushed out of NBC and he wound up working for Katie Couric for a while on her daytime talk show and then ultimately landed at CNN.
00:06:58.680And she, during that period for some portion of work for Andrew Cuomo as his, yeah, about six months.
00:07:10.300Uh, one of the first hires he makes when he goes over there and there they've been for another decade.
00:07:15.540So why do you think before we move on, they chose to say this began only during COVID?
00:07:22.120Honestly, it is the biggest head scratcher of all.
00:07:26.260They could have established no timeline and, you know, just said, we have been engaged in a consensual affair and didn't report it.
00:07:35.760But the establishing of the timeline to me is, you know, inexplicable.
00:07:41.900I think there are clues in your reporting, uh, which I've been thinking about because you're, you're reporting is a bombshell and it's got more details.
00:07:48.300And I, I've seen any place else because you report in there that the company, at least at some point came to them and asked them previous to the Chris Cuomo allegations and dust up.
00:08:07.160And I can tell you personally, as a reporter who has worked on this story, that I began my journey, uh, following their affair back in 2020, long before Chris Cuomo ever, um, you know, had, was fired and had his issues.
00:08:25.500So I was looking into it at the time of, uh, there was a corporate restructuring at WarnerMedia.
00:08:32.620And at the time there was a new CEO, Jason Kalar, and he, uh, moved Alison out from under Jeff, um, in the corporate, uh, in the reporting structure.
00:08:45.680And I knew I, I immediately called, uh, because I was, my sourcing had said that, you know, it, it was possibly to do with the fact that everyone knew they were in a relationship.
00:09:01.420So I asked and I was referred to Alison herself.
00:09:05.640So, which I thought was a very, um, you know, awkward, um, and also Jeff was in charge of human resources.
00:09:14.580So, you know, like it just was a completely dysfunctional and awkward type of situation to, okay, let me go ask the, the two people who are involved in this.
00:09:46.860No one who was harassed by Roger was going to report him to HR, which he controlled, right?
00:09:53.960And so it's not that anybody's alleging he was harassing Alison Gullist, but if you worked with Alison Gullist and you knew these two were rumored to be having an affair and you wanted to go say to the HR, hey, I kind of feel like I've been passed over, even though I'm the worthy candidate.
00:10:08.820You wouldn't do it because he was effectively overseeing and running HR.
00:10:15.100And that was part of the restructuring is that he wouldn't be part of the, he wouldn't be overseeing HR.
00:10:21.720And at the time he was only given 24 hours notice and he was livid, according to multiple sources at the time.
00:10:31.820So at the same time, there was also a number of high profile CEOs in America who, or, you know, in the corporate world who are going down for the exact same type of thing, a consensual affair with an underling.
00:10:45.820So I, you know, that's like people will say consensual, consensual, but it's still something that at the time was leading to people being immediately dismissed.
00:10:56.680I think in the case of McDonald's, you know, no severance.
00:11:01.180So I, I had no issue whatsoever with pursuing this story.
00:11:06.540And by the way, at the time you were doing that on CNN's website, as of 2019, there was a posting that read in part,
00:11:14.660um, in today's corporate world, especially in the wake of me too, boards are on high alert for anything that poses a reputational or financial risk to the company.
00:11:22.540Being in a relationship with the boss will make others at the company suspect that favoritism is at play and that will undercut the employee's professional accomplishments and reputation.
00:11:51.700This is a long time prior and they denied it, which is yet another reason why they would have a motivation to lie about when this affair began.
00:12:00.860Because it's one thing to look at your employer, say, and say, all right, I'm having a consensual affair with another with a staffer.
00:12:07.520It's another to say, I lied to you, possibly repeatedly about it when you ask, because that would be immediate grounds for termination.
00:13:23.520So now we get to Chris Cuomo and Chris Cuomo buddies up with his brother.
00:13:29.780He starts he violates the CNN policy with Jeff Zucker's blessing and puts his brother Andrew on the air when Andrew's becoming a star doing his daily press conferences during COVID.
00:13:41.080And this piece of your reporting is probably the most important piece.
00:13:48.520But this really cuts to what's going on here.
00:13:50.880Um, what you've shown is that you're reporting that Jeff Zucker and Allison Gullis were far more involved in booking Andrew Cuomo, massaging Andrew Cuomo and helping Andrew Cuomo than people knew.
00:14:06.560And and so if you have a problem internally with what Chris Cuomo did, you're going to have to also have a problem with what Jeff and Allison did, because it's essentially the same.
00:14:18.680You are, as a so-called impartial news network, doing something to, you know, benefit, help a politician, which is, you know, not kosher.
00:14:45.660So they were what specifically were they doing, according to your sources?
00:14:50.500Creating talking points for Governor Cuomo as he sparred daily with President Trump over covid messaging.
00:14:59.220At the time, it was like that back and forth of Trump was saying whatever he was saying that New York was doing wrong.
00:15:06.180And Cuomo was like, no, we're doing everything great.
00:15:09.480And also at the time, it was all exclusive on CNN.
00:15:13.560You were not you were not seeing Andrew Cuomo appear on MSNBC or Fox News or anything else.
00:15:21.480Right. Well, that's that's important because I can add to this today because I've been on the phone all morning trying to shore up a couple of things.
00:15:27.680And what I'm told is that the reason Andrew Cuomo was having the pressers at eleven thirty in the morning is because that was best for CNN schedule.
00:15:36.800And they Jeff Zucker and Allison Gallist had helped had coordinated with him to arrange it to had coached him on what to say, had given him one liners and had actually made very clear to him if he went on another show or another network, that was going to be very bad for him.
00:15:52.560It was going to be very bad for CNN was going to be bad for Chris Cuomo.
00:15:56.760And to me, as a lawyer, that raises potential anti-competitive concerns that might become relevant in a merger, Tatiana, that might if that were to be released and unearthed, it wouldn't look particularly good in the context of a merger in which CNN is trying to become even bigger and even more powerful.
00:16:15.680Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, these are the kinds of things that right before a merger, the companies have to look very deeply into what, you know, conflicts of interest, any of these type of things.
00:16:33.840So, yeah, I see it as like it's a Pandora's box that has been opened.
00:16:39.160Right. And it's one thing to have Chris Cuomo embarrassed as having helped his brother and his talk to his brother's staff.
00:16:45.860But it's quite another when you're Jeff Zucker and Allison Gallist.
00:16:48.760If that net's about to capture you and reveal all the all the help you gave to Governor Cuomo, all the interactions you had with his staff over and over and over,
00:16:59.440the very thing you fired this guy for and acted in like you were indignant about you yourself were doing for months.
00:17:08.960And why in the name of ratings, in the name of making Andrew Cuomo a star, they were talking about replacing Joe Biden on the presidential ticket with this guy for a while.
00:17:21.540Absolutely. Yes. And, you know, lots of talk about Andrew Cuomo's political future, sort of like being teased during a CNN broadcast like, well, this, you know, people are really would love to see him be president of the United States.
00:17:37.280Mm hmm. So so the whole thing looks orchestrated.
00:17:40.840These two are behind the scenes trying to secure his bookings, trying to make sure he goes no place else, telling him when to hold a presser, how to hold the presser, how to respond to Trump.
00:17:48.720Here's some good one liners for you that'll make you look good.
00:17:52.420Oh, and then we're going to break company policy to put you on CNN, sit you with your brother, who we all know will not ask you any tough questions.
00:18:00.160And indeed, he did not ask any and make you a star.
00:18:06.200So that's it. The whole thing is a creation.
00:18:09.560You know, Jeff Zucker helped create Trump with The Apprentice, and then he did it again with Andrew Cuomo and apparently just didn't want to be exposed.
00:18:33.200Yes. And Jeff knew what would possibly come out of any really close look at Chris's situation.
00:18:40.320And once you have an investigation looking into Chris's situation, you know, hold your breath, Jeff and Allison, because what will emerge is not going to be that dissimilar to what what you what has been accused of with Chris.
00:18:56.160Right. Right. The The New York Post, I have to say that the editorial board, I think it was yesterday, had a piece that kind of nailed it.
00:19:03.620And they were talking. Obviously, they don't like the Cuomo's and they don't really love CNN.
00:19:07.680It's a Rupert Murdoch owned publication. But they did have an interesting angle into the story.
00:19:13.500And this is what they wrote. Jeff Zucker's out at CNN for failing to disclose a consensual relationship with a subordinate, which means his crimes against journalism and the network's viewers will get swept under the rug.
00:19:25.200Above all, his equally consensual but far less professional relations with now disgraced but then Governor Andrew Cuomo, a seething nest of conflicts of interest.
00:19:35.300They go on to describe it, talking about how that crime, quote unquote crime, rehabilitated a politician who had signed the order putting, for example, COVID positive patients into nursing homes.
00:19:48.340The thing Janice Dean's been railing about that they gave him the veneer of not just credibility, but of they deified him at a time when a fair reporter would have been asking serious and skeptical questions about the policies he was enacting and why so many
00:20:05.280New Yorkers were dying, especially elderly, vulnerable New Yorkers. And so when when that circle closes around Zucker and Gallist, they look a little less sweet, innocent, you know, like a like a less innocent, loving pair than they do a scheming, conniving, politically driven pair that's lying about their affair and about how far into Governor Andrew Cuomo's antics they really were.
00:20:33.840Yeah. Yeah. And don't forget, she worked for him for six months. And so, you know, there there should have been some sort of, you know, healthy distance between any coverage that CNN was doing with Andrew Cuomo.
00:20:50.540And there wasn't. And it wasn't just Chris Cuomo to blame.
00:20:54.720Chris Cuomo is reportedly threatening to sue. Some reports say that there is a lawsuit. There isn't one yet. But the threatening if he doesn't get his 18 million dollars that is owed to him under his deal, if he were fired without cause, they claim he was fired with cause.
00:21:08.680And this is one of his arguments. What's cause? I embarrassed the company. How about all these other people embarrass the company? They're getting their money. They were still employed when he's making the argument. There's a report today in the Daily Mail saying he has settled for nine million.
00:21:19.340And I'm told that's not true. He hasn't yet settled. And this could get even uglier because there are people who are close to Andrew Cuomo, who are close to Chris Cuomo, who will know exactly what Jeff and Allison did, who I think the longer he twists on the vine are going to get closer and closer to coming out to the microphones.
00:21:39.660What do you think? Yeah. And what do they have to lose? I mean, they're they should come forward and people should talk and be open because sunshine is the best disinfectant. And this is a news organization that is has a global brand and footprint. And, you know, it needs to be clear what happened here to the.
00:22:02.220You heard about the staff meeting at CNN yesterday. They had a lot of talent standing up and saying, this is so wrong. You know, you're letting the bad guy, meaning Chris Cuomo, win.
00:22:11.700You know, he threatened to burn the place down on his way out. Now he's doing it. You had Allison Camerata on the air saying, this feels so unfair. It's two adults, two executives in a consensual relationship. The punishment doesn't fit the crime.
00:22:25.360What do you feel like? That was shocking. It was shocking to me, too. Shocking, shocking that somebody would say that on the air.
00:22:32.920I mean, I I don't know how anyone can look at this and have a, you know, that sort of reaction.
00:22:42.840But, you know, that I have talked to a lot of people within CNN who do not have that reaction.
00:22:50.200I think that they're sort of the loudest people, the a small group, maybe a dozen people who are really, you know, this is a tragedy.
00:23:00.660This is, you know, just so unfair to Jeff and Allison to consult consenting adults.
00:23:07.800But most people are absolutely on board with what has happened, which is like, no, he could not continue to.
00:23:19.240Jeff Zucker could not continue to work here having done this.
00:23:23.560That's right. If he was coordinating with the Cuomo team to this extent, and she was, too, my reporting is that she was on the phone with his staff every day during the pandemic about Cuomo, about getting him back on CNN, about what he should say, about how things should be handled, going above and beyond the staff, screaming matches with them because she wanted access to Andrew Cuomo directly for whom she used to work and with whom she was said to still be close.
00:23:47.600That is well beyond the behavior that is OK for an executive of the company.
00:23:54.220And they know that. And if if on top of all of this, these two are sleeping together, lying to corporate about it, to warn her about it, and he's promoting her up the line and has all along, there is no way she should keep her job, Tatiana.
00:24:11.380That has been sort of the biggest question mark is why she is still there.
00:24:19.060But, you know, I guess there there still is the dynamic that she is an underling to him.
00:24:27.760So technically, she can be seen as sort of a at least in terms of their sexual relationship, you know, a victim here.
00:24:37.380I don't think anyone sees her as a victim. No, but the law under the law, it's not sexual harassment.
00:24:42.740If you want it, that's just the truth. It's not sexual harassment if you want it.
00:24:46.660And she's not alleging that she didn't want it. They've been together for 25 years. Good God.
00:24:50.500You could have had a child and send him to college and have him off in the workforce by the time during the course of that alleged relationship.
00:24:56.980So, yeah. But no, she's an executive of the company with her own obligations.
00:25:00.940And like they said on the CNN website, you're not allowed to do this. And if she was promoted, she was promoted.
00:25:06.360It's even at CNN under him. And she took that promotion without disclosing it. That's a problem.
00:25:12.320And all of these separate and apart from her affair, these these behaviors toward the Cuomo camp, which are going to come out in more detail,
00:25:20.480could cause major problems for CNN, for Warner, for the merger.
00:25:25.040She's she's gone. Mark my words. That's my prediction. She's gone. I'll give you the last word.
00:25:29.340Yeah, I mean, I plan to pursue very aggressively exactly what you're talking about.
00:25:36.220What was what was the nature of any help they were giving to Andrew Cuomo?
00:25:42.340Because just as a journalistic, you know, a fan of journalism and impartial journalism, that cannot be acceptable.
00:25:52.780Yeah, we need to know more. What was the relationship between those two and Andrew?
00:25:56.100How close was it? How intimate was it? What exactly did each one of them do?
00:26:00.640When did they do it? Who can testify to it? That's the next step of this just disturbing story.
00:26:07.620Tatiana, great reporting. It's been interesting. Very few people have picked up on it.
00:26:11.400They're not retweeting it the way they did when something bad happened to Bill O'Reilly, to Roger Ailes, to Charlie Rose.
00:26:17.920Sean Hannity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And actually, I will say that one thing that I have noticed is my story has really been embraced by people on the far left and the far right and sort of in between.
00:26:34.340I think it's like a very narrow mainstream sensibility that might not be completely willing to retweet it or, you know, go crazy with it.
00:26:46.940You know, MSNBC didn't cover his resignation at all the night after it was announced.
00:26:50.680I mean, like they didn't touch it. That's crazy. It's just leftist politics will be advanced or we will not do the story.
00:26:57.740And, you know, of course, I lived the Roger Ailes fall firsthand. It was everywhere.
00:27:04.220I grant you this is not that size, but it's a big, big story. And to ignore it entirely speaks to your own bias.
00:27:12.020I applaud you and Rolling Stone for your reporting and more to come. Look forward to following up.
00:27:17.840Thank you so much, Megan. Yeah, you bet. Tatiana Siegel.
00:27:21.540One of the last few honest journalists out there, folks.
00:27:23.860Up next, we're going to turn to the world of sports, something we rarely do here on the program.
00:27:28.760This is my Achilles heel. But there's a lot of really interesting sports stories going on right now.
00:27:32.820An update on Leah Thomas, that UPenn swimmer, as the swim team is divided openly, writing competing letters.
00:27:39.580And there's a real question about whether Leah should be allowed to compete at the NCAA event next month.
00:27:45.640We got the Olympics started in China. What has happened so far?
00:27:49.260How is NBC handling that awkwardness and this massive NFL lawsuit alleging racism?
00:27:54.980Alison Williams will be here and Ethan Strauss is back as well to talk about all of it.
00:28:06.680The Winter Olympics are officially underway in Beijing, but COVID and China's human rights abuses are largely overshadowing the game so far.
00:28:14.880Joining me now to discuss that and many other sports headlines in the news today, two great sports journalists, Alison Williams, happy to say, is a Daily Wire contributor and former ESPN reporter.
00:28:26.260You remember Alison. She left the company over its vaccine mandate.
00:28:30.240She's a young woman. She's thinking about children.
00:28:32.580She didn't want to do it and they were going to make her.
00:28:56.920Like I watched it and I was like, is this in China at first when I saw, you know, like the opening Mike Tirico?
00:29:03.420I'm like, where is he? He's in this little wooden cabin.
00:29:07.120I don't. Are we in Beijing? I don't know.
00:29:09.540So it opened up and I guess Savannah Guthrie had a comment at the top that has some tongues wagging today as just one step too close to Chinese propaganda.
00:29:22.760Like this moment is quite provocative.
00:29:26.240It's a statement from the Chinese president Xi Jinping to choose an athlete from the Uyghur minority.
00:29:31.960It is an in-your-face response to those Western nations, including the U.S., who have called this Chinese treatment of that group genocide and diplomatically boycotted these games.
00:29:43.060There will be much discussion about this.
00:29:45.220And in-your-face response, she says, to the world that's criticized China for what some have called genocide.
00:30:16.540It's called The Red Carpet, about how this all happened.
00:30:19.600I think the saddest aspect of it all is, if you look back to the 1990s, our big corporations gave away their independence and their sovereignty of spirit, I would say, without even firing a shot.
00:30:32.440They were so excited about this market and willing to do anything.
00:30:36.340And since China is top-down and they can exert that pressure, they have that leverage, you see something as obsequious and pathetic as that commentary.
00:30:46.900I know it's easy to make China the bad guy.
00:30:51.780But we can't lose sight of how we have failed as a country, that we really went fully into this without any kind of worry, while assuming that the First Amendment is the only thing that protects free speech.
00:31:04.520We're in a situation where our major corporations are reflecting Chinese propaganda back at us, and there's nothing so much that we're doing about it.
00:31:13.540So as much as it's easy to indict China, I think that a situation like this should cause us to have a hard look at ourselves.
00:31:21.100You know, Allison, I have to say, I would have said this is how we need to change this script.
00:31:26.420They've chosen a member of the Uyghurs, the Muslim minority in China.
00:31:31.480I mean, what a choice, given that it's widely reported and known that they are torturing over a million Uyghurs right now in another part of China with forced sterilization, forced labor camps.
00:31:45.580Let me show you the satellite tape of them binding them and taking them away on buses.
00:31:51.040And let me air a quick clip of one of the Uyghurs who's gotten out talking about what happened.
00:31:57.260Yes, it's awkward to do over the opening ceremony.
00:31:59.220Ceremony. Too bad you have an American audience watching this and you don't gloss over it with what some call a genocide.
00:32:07.580And wow, that's an in your face to have a Uyghur.
00:32:12.540Peng Shui is out there as the carrier, the tennis player who they basically disappeared.
00:32:18.160Oh, it's so nice to see her. Some said she had a rough time by the Chinese government.
00:32:22.300Like you're supposed to be a news organization. You're supposed to give it to us straight. Go ahead.
00:32:26.020Yeah, I think that's where the disappointment lies is like journalists have lost all kind of credibility at this point.
00:32:33.360They have time and time again shown that they are being controlled by the interests that employ them and the corporate ties that bind them.
00:32:41.800And in this case, it's China. And it's difficult to watch on such a large scale.
00:32:46.280And you have the juxtaposition of the celebratory time, this years of work, of accomplishment for these athletes.
00:32:52.840And you want to celebrate them. I think that's like in our human nature to find the joy and the happiness and the celebration.
00:32:59.080But you're juxtaposing it with genocide. And it's not what some people call genocide.
00:33:04.100It is genocide. And it's happening. And it's real. And to act like it's anything other than that is is a crime against what's happening.
00:33:13.160I understand there's a difficult balance for people covering these Olympics to watch because, again, of the ties that bind the corporations that employ them and the job they want to do to celebrate these Olympics.
00:33:25.280But they have to be be honest with themselves and with the reality of what's going on in this country at this time and the human rights violations.
00:33:33.160I think Mike Tirico did a much better job of addressing what's going on in China and the way this Olympics feels different.
00:33:40.400And it's going to be different in every capacity. Like you said, Megan, I mean, their announcers aren't there.
00:33:45.840They're in the NBC offices in Connecticut. So everything feels different.
00:33:50.220The tension is real. The tension between the U.S. and China is real. And it's it's palpable when you watch it.
00:33:57.240So to act like it's anything but that, I think, is very disingenuous on the part of Savannah Guthrie and anyone else that tries to gloss over what's happening.
00:34:04.960It's happening. It's real. Let's document it and be honest in our coverage.
00:34:08.320So here's how they did address it. We all mentioned Mike Tirico now. Here he is in his little cabin talking about the genocide. Listen.
00:34:15.360The nation where COVID began has treated the pandemic differently from the rest of the world.
00:34:21.600It's zero tolerance. COVID policy has made getting here and putting on the games incredibly challenging for everyone involved.
00:34:28.660Everything and everyone attached to these games is facing questions.
00:34:32.300The hosts, the guests, the IOC, the sponsors, media and athletes.
00:34:37.520The United States government is not here. A diplomatic boycott announced this fall, joined by Canada, Great Britain and Australia, citing China's human rights record and the U.S.
00:34:47.040government's declaration that the Chinese Communist Party is guilty of committing genocide on the weaker Muslim population in western Xinjiang region.
00:34:57.600So the U.S. government isn't here, but Team USA is with American athletes among those competing in the middle of all this debate and controversy.
00:35:04.440I'm sorry, Ethan, but no, not good enough.
00:35:08.900Air a report. It's not a he said, she said. It's not.
00:35:13.420This is us kowtowing to the Chinese. We're afraid, right?
00:35:16.500They've warned everybody. Don't say anything about us or you might get yanked from being able to coverage to cover to cover the games.
00:35:24.300NBC is aware of that. The athletes are certainly they've been warned to within an inch of their lives that they can't say anything.
00:35:29.740Just shut up and play sports. Nancy Pelosi doubled down on that just today.
00:36:31.400I mean, it's so bizarre to see that warning.
00:36:35.660You wonder what the idea behind it is.
00:36:37.660And sometimes I do think as a country we can be addicted a little bit to high mindedness and exporting our values.
00:36:43.640And I don't think that we have the moral authority to do that.
00:36:46.760I don't think we have the national health to do that.
00:36:48.940Like maybe we could do that in the 1990s.
00:36:51.240So maybe we should look at a situation like this and condemn, obviously, what China is doing vis-a-vis the Uyghurs and human rights, but also say if you're warning American athletes in that manner, they just shouldn't be there for their own safety.
00:37:07.500Just because of us, our own selfish concerns for our own citizens.
00:38:00.140I don't like seeing it from our, for lack of a better term, elites.
00:38:04.400And increasingly, I think it is the issue that you see the biggest chasm between elite opinion and the public opinion in the United States.
01:04:10.120But the special is called Bring Back Apu.
01:04:12.760And there is a through line kind of centered around the idea that got Apu taken off the air.
01:04:19.180And Apu, to me, wasn't an offensive character on a TV show.
01:04:24.680Sure, it was a white guy doing the accent.
01:04:26.480But I also understood in the context of the 80s, there probably weren't a bunch of Indian voiceover actors.
01:04:31.220And then Hank Azaria made this character really three dimensional and nuanced and one of the few one of the most involved people in his town.
01:04:38.620And I think the larger issue I had with it is this kind of like currency in victimhood that we have that we've adopted.
01:04:47.180I think a lot of people are hopping on to a well-meaning thing, which is I understand black Americans have been systemically oppressed, you know, since they got here.
01:04:56.100But I think a lot of other cultures are trying to get the same currency and making victimhood out of stuff that's not really victimhood.
01:05:02.420And so I think we just need to step back and take a second and say, you know what, we live in America, which is, you know, definitely one of the greatest countries in the world, if not the greatest.
01:05:11.460We all have access to clean water, indoor plumbing, all these things that our parents didn't have if you're Indian.
01:05:16.420And I just think we need to sit back and not try to hop onto the victimhood thing.
01:05:21.840We're lucky to be here. We're privileged to be here.
01:05:23.920Well, what do you make of of the the people who are of Indian descent?
01:05:29.280Did they like where do you think they fall on the oppression scale that the leftists have created for us?
01:05:33.980Right. Because like we you're brown, you have brown skin.
01:05:37.220And yet I don't feel like they're really talking about you when they talk about systemic oppression against black and brown.
01:05:42.820Frankly, they shouldn't. Frankly, my wife is sick.
01:05:45.960She's Sikh. And she has kind of opened my eyes to that sick men who wear turbans get they deal with racism.
01:05:51.980It's probably pretty rough. And Muslim women who wear hijabs.
01:05:55.400Everybody else. If you're Indian, you're probably doing great.
01:05:58.280You deal with some hurt feelings for sure. People hurt my feelings in school.
01:06:01.900But if you expect to live a life without hurt feelings, you're not going to live a life.
01:06:05.780Indians, I think, make twice the median income as the average American.
01:06:09.160I think it's one hundred twenty four thousand per household.
01:06:10.840The rest of America is making like sixty three.
01:06:13.840They're thirty percent of the Fortune 500 CEOs.
01:06:16.360I just don't understand how we've decided we're victims.
01:06:18.740And it's kind of gross to me and disingenuous to create entire narratives based around us being victims in this country.
01:06:25.520Mm hmm. And do you think like I mean, when do you think there's a contingent within the Indian community that wants to glom on with that?
01:06:32.340Because to me, like all the Indian friends that I have are incredibly hardworking.
01:06:36.740They don't think of themselves as victims and they don't want to be slowed down with any of that nonsense.
01:06:39.740It's all about academic rigor for their kids and professional rigor for themselves.
01:06:45.820Yes. Be a doctor. That's all. The only thing that disappoints my parents about me is I'm not a doctor.
01:06:50.620But other than that, it's it's and that's what I liked about the culture we passed down for Indian Americans here.
01:06:57.620Our parents just taught us to work hard, keep your head down and go be great.
01:07:02.380And don't worry about the obstacles because they went through much bigger obstacles back home in India to end here.
01:07:08.080We're we're looking at us like we're the richest kids I've ever seen in their lives.
01:07:11.200So I do think most Indians feel that way. And that's why I wanted to put this out, because I don't think that was getting represented within mainstream.
01:07:18.460I don't want to say mainstream media, but yeah, mainstream media wasn't really representing what I thought most Indians actually felt, which is, come on, we're let's just work hard and go be doctors.
01:07:27.320And then marry women and make our kids doctors.
01:07:30.700Do you feel that it's different as a Mexican-American? Because I understand you were you were misidentified as a Mexican-American for much of your youth growing up in Dallas, Texas.
01:07:38.140You did your research, Megan. Good for you.
01:07:41.720I thought it was funny. Like, oh, my gosh, you've been many minorities. Have you been attacked more as a Mexican or as an Indian?
01:07:47.720How did that go? Mexican in Texas was fine.
01:07:50.100The only thing that was just like slightly annoying is every time my principal in middle school saw me, he used to say hola, amigo.
01:07:55.580And I always it took me a while to realize he did it every time he saw me today.
01:07:59.820And I was like, oh, yeah, no, no, he got in no trouble.
01:08:03.540I was just like, this is weird. And then I realized what happened.
01:08:06.960And after 9-11, it was kind of, you know, you're in Texas.
01:08:09.760They didn't know any nuance about things.
01:08:12.360So I was in high school and I definitely dealt with some bullying and some issues.
01:08:15.240But again, I don't look at that as victimhood.
01:08:17.740I look at that as, you know, rough times.
01:08:26.240And help me understand how whenever there is a terrorist attack or something like that, you know, it's just you get more looks and you get more sort of the side glance and people seeming more afraid.
01:08:35.740And this is a beautiful, amazing woman who's a mom of four kids.
01:08:39.640It's not like she she anybody would reasonably perceive this woman is potentially a threat in any way, except maybe in a yoga studio.
01:08:45.400But, yeah, I can understand if even she's feeling it.
01:08:48.460And certainly a man who looks as she does would would feel the same.
01:08:52.540Yeah. And then also with Muslims, a lot of times the names kind of give away.
01:08:56.120You know, I have a friend named Osama and that's rough.