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Dec. 27, 2021 - The Megyn Kelly Show
01:44:39
20211227_2021-year-in-review-the-best-of-the-megyn-kelly-sh
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Investigating The Lab Theory 00:14:28
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Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
Hey everyone, I'm Megan Kelly.
Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show.
Today, Is our year in review show where we look back at 2021 and some of the biggest stories in the news through some of my favorite episodes of The Megyn Kelly Show.
And what's fun is this will be our all new show for our Sirius XM listening audience.
Today, we are pulling from our archives on the podcast from shows between January and September before we launched on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111.
I want to start with the biggest story in the world for a second year in a row, and we hope the final year.
In a row, COVID.
As recently as earlier this year, you could not put out a social media post or a YouTube video claiming COVID originated in a Wuhan lab.
You couldn't even question whether it did.
Not, never mind, claim that it did.
But slowly that started to change.
And in no small part, thanks to Josh Rogan of the Washington Post.
Mainstream media is not all bad.
They've got some great players here and there, like Josh.
Josh joined me in April in what became a viral interview because he spoke clearly and honestly about the origins of COVID.
I mean, he was truly one of the first.
To actually say this stuff out loud.
But also, as he says, how the story got all screwed up.
Knowing how it started is important.
And I think there are still, there's sort of three categories of people.
One that believes it came from an animal, a wet market over in China where they serve, you can walk through and see live animals people like to eat.
Number two is from a lab in Wuhan, China, where people were creating intentionally some sort of virus, the coronavirus, COVID 19, to hurt people.
Potentially as a military weapon.
And number three, it was in a Wuhan lab being studied and accidentally got released, right?
Do I basically have the three possible sources outlined?
And your belief after all you're reporting is what?
So basically, what I lay out in the book is that there's plenty of evidence to support the still unproven theory that COVID 19 originated from an accidental leak.
One of the labs in Wuhan that was doing what we call gain of function research.
That's where they collect all the bat coronaviruses they could find, take them a thousand miles from where the bats live to Wuhan, which is a thousand miles away from the bats, by the way, and then they experiment on them to make them more virulent, make them more dangerous.
Why did they do that?
Well, they're trying to predict the next pandemic, right?
And this is a program supported by $200 million of US taxpayer funded research, okay?
And what it was was hundreds of scientists, American scientists, and Chinese scientists.
Going around, scooping up all the most dangerous viruses that you could find and bringing them to this very lab that happened to be 10 miles from where the outbreak broke out.
And playing around with them in ways that we understand are risky and dangerous and have very little to no oversight.
And if you came to this story, if you were an alien, you dropped down on Earth, not knowing how this issue of the origin had become hyper politicized for a couple of important reasons I'm about to get to.
And you just looked at that set of facts.
You've got bats 1,000 miles away, you've got the number one bat coronavirus research lab, which was doing research on how to make these viruses more infectious on humans.
And that's where the outbreak broke out.
Well, Occam's razor would tell you that we should probably check out that lab, okay?
And that's not to say so obvious, it seems like that, like oh my god, wait a minute, this is the number one lab in the world researching bat coronaviruses and how to and that's where the outbreak was.
And it gets worse because two years before the outbreak, a U.S. diplomats traveled to that very lab and and took a look at three trips and said they were they didn't have enough safety procedures, they didn't have enough staff, and they warned about the very studies that they were doing because they're publishing some but not all of their studies about making these.
Viruses more susceptible to infect humans in a very specific way.
That is, an S protein with an ACE2 inceptor.
What they would do is they would take these mice and they'd give them like human like lungs, and then they'd run the virus through them a few hundred times and see what happens.
Okay.
Now, the virus that is killed, that is caused the pandemic, infects the ACE2 inceptor with the S protein.
It's the exact same thing that the diplomats warned about in these cables that I wrote.
But okay, so now I'm going to tell you how the story got all screwed up.
Okay.
And this is also in the book.
Basically, what happened is that when the virus broke out, it became a battle in the media between, on the one hand, Trump and Pompeo, who, as you know, most of the media didn't like and wanted to discredit, or there were some reasons that they had lost credibility, to be honest.
And then you had these scientists.
And these scientists were the friends of the Wuhan lab, and they were led by this guy named Peter Dazic, who works at the EcoHealth Alliance.
But basically, there's a whole group of them whose life work was invested in this.
This is what they had spent their last 20 years doing.
They had raised $200 million doing it.
If the lab were found to be guilty, their careers and legacies would be ruined forever.
And they know this.
So they immediately tell everybody there's no way it could be from them.
And we know this because we know everything that happened in the lab, which, by the way, is not true.
And we talked to the lab people, our best friend, the Batwoman, Dr. Shirjong Li, and she said we didn't do it.
Case closed.
It must be the market.
Okay.
And because of the, if you just remember, we were all going through this crazy time in April, May 2020, where it was very disruptive and very dystopian.
I remember it.
And it was hard to know.
Really, what was going on?
And there was a campaign going on.
People were getting sick.
Everyone said, don't worry about the origins.
By the way, the reason we need to know about the origins is not because we're trying to blame China, because you can blame them for a number of things.
Either way, that's what people don't get.
It's like there's plenty of blame on China without the origin thing even being involved.
We need to know because we need to know how to prevent the next pandemic.
Because if we don't know how it started, then we can't prevent the next one, which is pretty important.
So listen to this.
So these scientists, again, Peter Dazic, Eco Health Alliance, they go everywhere 60 minutes, you name it.
There's no way the lab could be involved.
Okay.
And then Trump and Pompeo were like, well, we're pretty sure it was the lab, which may have been going beyond the evidence, but that's kind of their style, right?
So the media, most of us, most of the media was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to believe the scientists over Trump and Pompeo.
And they wrote that way and they called Tom Cotton a conspiracy theorist.
And then that was it.
And now we're here a year later and there's a ton more information and there's a ton more we know about it.
And there's a lot more evidence now pointing to the lab.
I'm not saying we know the lab did it.
We don't know.
I'm just saying we should investigate it.
And all of a sudden, these journalists can't think again.
They can't resist the idea that they might have been wrong a year ago.
You know, which I say if I'm wrong, and then tell me I'm wrong, and I'll change my mind.
If I get new information, I think new things.
That's just how I think the honest journalism should work.
But for a lot of people, it's just like, no, Pompeo is not credible.
The scientists said this.
And then we get to the WHO report, which I know you want to talk about, but I'll just, I'll intro it here by saying this the guy that the WHO gets to do the investigation is Peter Dazic, who has a clear conflict of interest as I've ever seen in my entire life.
They rejected the people that the U.S. government wanted them to put on the, then they.
Had an investigation that was determined, the scope was determined by the Chinese government.
The investigation was overseen by the Chinese government.
Tony Blinken said the report was written by the Chinese government.
And then you have the same scientists who've been denying this the whole time, who have the clear conflict of interest, say, Oh, no, it couldn't have been the lab.
We don't need to investigate the lab.
Forget about the lab.
We went to the lab for three hours.
This is ridiculous.
This is this guy, Peter Dazic.
We have the soundbite.
We'll play it.
This is just from March 28th.
So it's very recent.
It really is crazy.
It's like, so the Chinese got to pick.
Who was going to write the report?
Who was going to come over?
They chaperoned their chosen investigators the entire time they were there, never let them alone.
It wasn't an independent thing.
And not surprisingly, okay, yeah, then maybe they didn't even know they wrote it.
Maybe they, yeah.
And then not surprisingly, the lab theory was dismissed.
And in a report that's 123 pages, they spent two lines saying, oh, it wasn't a lab.
Like they didn't know they were going to do it.
It was a total whitewash and a service to CCP propaganda, unlike I've ever seen it.
China Communist Party.
Okay, so here's that guy you've been referring to, Peter Dazak, who was one of the quote, investigators that's supposed to get to the bottom of all this for all of us 2.7 million people dead.
He's over there trying to figure out how it got started on our behalf and the world's behalf.
And here he is talking to Leslie Stahl on 60.
Something like 75% of emerging diseases come from animals into people.
We've seen it before.
We've seen it in China with SARS.
Is the lab leak theory any more or less speculative than your pathway?
For an accidental leak, That then led to COVID to happen.
The virus that causes COVID would need to be in the lab.
They never had any evidence of a virus like COVID in the lab.
They never had the COVID 19 virus in the lab.
Not prior to the outbreak, no.
Absolutely.
No evidence of that.
Were there Chinese government minders in the room every time you were asking questions?
There were Ministry of Foreign Affairs staff in the room throughout our stay, absolutely.
They were there to make sure everything went smoothly from the China side.
Or to make sure they weren't telling you the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
You sit in a room with people who are scientists and you know what a scientific statement is and you know what a political statement is.
We had no problem distinguishing between the two.
Oh my God.
Okay, so there's a lot of things to unpack there.
Let me just go through the top ones.
Okay.
So, and you didn't even play the part where she asked him, to her credit, don't you have a clear conflict of interest?
And his answer was something like, Well, don't you want the people who know the lab best to investigate the lab?
Which is like absurd when you think about it.
It's like having Robert Kardashian investigate OJ.
It's like, I know OJ, I'll do the investigation.
You know what I mean?
It's crazy.
But anyway, the other things that he said that were wrong is like, they didn't have it in the lab.
They didn't have it in the lab.
Well, they wouldn't be able to admit it or they would get killed, right?
This is the thing about the Chinese system that people need to understand those scientists may be very nice people.
They may be trying to solve the pandemic.
They may be mortified that they might have.
Actually, they sparked the pandemic while trying to solve the pandemic, but they don't get to make these decisions.
They've got a general sitting up behind their shoulder who's got a party guy sitting behind his shoulder, who's got Xi Jinping sitting behind his shoulder.
Okay.
And if they had a smoking gun, they would destroy it and bury it, and we would never find it, which is a A separate problem.
And the whole idea that we shouldn't investigate the lab, by the way, was refuted during that exact day by Peter Dazic's boss, Dr. Tedros, the head of the WHO, who I don't think anyone would call like an anti China, pro Trump conspiracy theorist.
Quite the contrary, right?
This is the head of the WHO who said, you know what?
They didn't really investigate the lab.
We're going to have to investigate the lab.
And you have to think to yourself, why would Dr. Tedros say that?
Why would he take a big crap on his own report?
As they're releasing the report, it's unprecedented.
And the only reason that makes sense is because he's trying to salvage the credibility of this organization that Peter Dazic is trampling on.
Okay.
And he knows that the United States is about to release this statement saying this is not going to be all the investigation.
We don't think it was a real investigation, which is exactly what Blinken, to his credit, said.
He said, well, because if you think about it, the Biden administration, they're not, they weren't there, right?
They're not married to this one theory or another theory.
They don't care which way it turns out.
They're not like, you know, unlike a lot of the, The like 60 minutes, they don't, they don't, they didn't get it wrong the first time, right?
And you know, the media is now trying to like tiptoe into this idea of, oh, well, maybe it could be the, oh, no, again, oh, how dare you say it?
Oh, that's racist.
And then here comes Robert Redfield, right?
Who's the head of the CDC at the time of the outbreak.
Now, not a perfect person, not, didn't go through the pandemic making zero mistakes.
And I hear you say he's a saint, but he's a virologist.
He's seen the intelligence and he says on CNN, he says, yeah, I'm pretty sure it was the lab, it was this gain of function research.
He's saying that.
Based on how the virus acted.
That's evidence.
He's saying that I saw how the virus acted.
I saw the intelligence.
By the way, the intelligence is also evidence.
The Trump administration put out a lot of facts about secret work at the lab.
In other words, the Trump administration, confirmed by the Biden administration, called Peter Dazic a liar.
Okay.
They can't both be telling the truth.
Now, Peter Dazic is calling the Biden administration a liar.
They're all liars, according to Peter.
Peter's like, everybody's a liar except for me.
Oh, and by the way, the Chinese people who are my chaperones, they were just there to make things go smoothly, go smoothly.
And we all know what that means, come out the way we want it to.
Right.
So that's why, you know, it's actually in a way good that you weren't following this at the time because you had an open mind when this all happened a month ago.
And common sense and Aqua's Razor point you towards, oh, we should probably take a look at the lab.
And again, I create a fourth category of people.
These are people who just want to figure it out.
You don't believe that any, that's me.
Okay.
I'm that category.
Billion Dollar Pandemic Debate 00:02:48
I don't care how it started, but I do care that we figure it out because you know what the plan is to respond to this virus?
This is going to blow your mind.
The plan is to take that research, that Peter Dazic research, and spend $1.2 billion expanding it sixfold.
Okay.
What?
The Global Virome Project, that is the response.
That is the plan response.
$200 million, which failed to under the PREDICT program, it's called PREDICT, which failed to predict, much less preempt the pandemic.
They're now going to times it by six and throw $1.2 billion into it.
And I swear to God, dig up 500,000 new viruses that are transmissible to humans in the wild and take them to labs and play around with them.
That's the plan.
No.
That is the plan.
Whose plan?
The world's plan.
Global Virome Project is an international project heavily supported by.
Guess you guess it, Peter Dazic and Anthony Fauci, and all the rest of them, all the people who have made their careers in virology based on this idea that the best way to stop pandemics is to dig up a bunch of viruses in the wild.
But you know what?
Maybe that's not the best way.
Maybe we should spend that money on monitoring and surveillance so that when outbreaks happen, we can squash them easily and on placing medical resources and things in the places where the bats are rather than dragging the viruses to a lab and then there's an outbreak next to the lab and everyone's like, oh, I must have been the market or something like that.
By the way, that's what's so, so wait, I want to, there's a lot to unpack and what you just said too.
So by the way, so, so you said earlier that we put American money into this lab in China from which we believe.
All right.
So that, so how much American money is going into this fake solution, which is actually.
Probably another cause of yet another pandemic to come.
Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to expand the program.
That again, we don't know, but may have caused the current pandemic as opposed to where you could spend that money.
And just to back up, so let's just back up and make it super simple for people to understand.
Crazy, right?
What we're being told by people like Dazic, the World Health Organization, is now that after all the study and thought and investigation, quote unquote, in China, we think the virus came from bats in a cave, was a thousand miles from the lab.
Is that what you said?
That's right.
Okay.
Researchers, you know, that yes, they were in Wuhan researching bat coronaviruses.
They were doing that.
But a thousand miles away, what we had was bats in a cave.
And we think maybe the bats somehow infected it's called a pangolin.
It looks like a ferret, right?
Or a rabbit that wound up in a Wuhan wet market.
Right.
Just like for those of us who don't totally understand, what exactly is a wet market?
My understanding is there's live animals that people want to eat, but do they eat them?
Like, how do I don't get it?
You know, I again, I think this is like a trope because, you know, I've been to China, I've been to a lot of these Southeast Asian countries.
They're markets.
They got all, you know, you go to the market, you can buy anything you want.
You can buy some fish, you can buy some meat.
Some of the animals are alive when they're in the market, they're not alive when they sell them to you.
These are how markets work.
Left Overcorrection On Racism 00:14:07
Okay.
And so this whole, and again, if you think about it, it's kind of crazy because people are like, oh, well, unfortunately, people have associated this lab accident theory with like a rise in Asian American hate.
But if you think about it, isn't it more racist to say that, like, oh, Chinese people eat weird stuff and that caused the virus, especially if it's not true.
When we come back, one of my favorite guests ever.
I was so looking forward to this interview.
He didn't disappoint even a little.
If you're not already madly in love with the intellect and musings of Douglas Murray, you're about to be.
We'll be right back.
Early in the new year, last January, Douglas Murray came on our show for a two plus hour conversation.
I loved it.
Loved it.
I've listened to this on my free time just for kicks more than once.
It was a conversation that wound up becoming the blueprint for so much that would happen in 2021, frankly.
Murray's book, The Madness of Crowds, which you have to read, tells the story about gender, race, and identity.
And in this part of our conversation, Murray says the line I have repeated so many times on this show in response to people's questions about how you deal with being shamed for not being the right member of the right identity group with the right past that you can claim you've been victimized by.
The famous Douglas Murray line We can all do that.
Listen to how it unfolded.
In pushing us to be, quote, anti racist, of course, the language is incredibly racist.
The positions, being taken are incredibly racist.
And in an attempt by some of the wokesters to fight for what they would say is equality of women, they need to denigrate men and they need to elevate women.
It's not, as you've pointed out repeatedly, this movement isn't about equality for various groups that have been targeted historically.
It's about better than.
It's about elevating them above.
And people can feel it.
And if you're in one of the targeted groups, maybe you like it.
If you're a wokester, But I think most people understand this isn't about equality.
It's about subjugation of a new and different group.
And it feels unfair.
It feels wrong.
That's right.
Yes.
I mean, to sort of steel man what's been happening, I think it's just worth saying at the outset, you know, the whole ideology of wokery, I mean, starts.
From a reasonable place.
And I always think it's worth crediting when an opponent or somebody you think has come to reprehensible conclusions nevertheless has started with a serious question.
There has been in our societies historically racism.
There has been in every society.
But American society has had a particular issue with racism in the past.
And so there is a legitimate argument that some of that may be lingering still in the present day.
That's the thing to contend with.
It's true.
That women have been prejudiced against in career options, among other things, in not that far off memory.
You know, it's not ancient history.
It's true that gay people, LGBT people, to use a term I don't like, have been prejudiced against until, again, not that far ago.
I mean, we're only talking about the 60s and 70s, legalization occurs in countries like ours.
These are serious things to contend with, and an element of the left says, Look, just because you've got full equal legal rights does not necessarily mean that the whole thing's been sorted out.
Sure, you know, people are equal under the law, but there are still these inequalities and inequities that will be existing.
That's a serious point, and it's worth considering.
The problem is that two things happen.
Firstly, people on the political right, broadly speaking, Don't like to concede points the political left are onto and have thought about a lot in case the political left then uses it to push through their own agenda.
It's the same with people on the political left with the political right.
People on the political left don't like to concede that there are problems around, for instance, immigration because they fear that the political right has been thinking about this.
And when the political left concedes that it's an issue, it's not just open borders and, you know, kumbaya, once it concedes that it's an issue, then the political right will be playing some nasty game and will smuggle in.
Bad stuff.
So everyone's got this fear and it paralyzes real discussion.
But so, as I say, let's concede the political left is on to something with this whole issue to do with historic injustice that may have still been percolating down into the present day.
The problem is the political left has been answering this on its own, unaided, I think, by any serious contestation by the political right, and has been making assertions that by this stage, as I identify in the madness of crowds, by this stage, Are really at a stage of overcorrection.
Whereas I say, it's not enough to say women are the equal of men, they've got to be better for a bit.
We see this in the endlessly, weirdly, in the political realm with that, you know, that one that comes up occasionally why female leaders have done better in the era of COVID, for instance.
This is a constant one.
Because the Prime Minister of New Zealand is a woman.
And New Zealand's done rather well in the COVID era.
That's because New Zealand's led by a woman.
This sort of thing.
And of course, lots of people just don't notice it.
I think a lot of people notice it and just let it go by.
But the implication of it is that there's something better about women.
That if we just had more women in charge, there'd be a lot of things that were better dealt with, better handled.
I think that people don't particularly like that kind of chat.
You're either equal as men and women.
Or you're not.
It's possible as well, which is what I submit, that there might be different competencies around the edges, different tendencies, different Directions people go in depending on their gametes and chromosomes.
It seems to be the case.
But if you just assert that one sex is just better than the other, as well as being equal, the position I say equal and better, then people again notice there seems to be an unfairness.
You can play this in each of the identity groupings.
I mean, the only one I have a social crampon on is the gay one.
Not that it's ever done me any good.
But it's only caused me pain.
But I mean, you know, I don't like it when I see some gay people and be talking about themselves and being talked about by others as if they're magically better than the straights.
It's not as common as the men and women one because it's much more of a minority issue.
We're not talking about a 50 50 thing here, we're talking about a 3% of the population issue.
But I don't like it when I hear, you know, gay people being talked about as if it's just.
So much more fabulous and better than the boring straights.
There was a magazine in America the other day that ran a piece about the problems we all know about heterosexual partnerships.
If you keep talking like that, it sounds like you want to do away with heterosexual partnerships.
And if you do away with heterosexual partnerships, you'll do away with the human species quite fast.
So I wouldn't go down that route.
But I don't like that talk.
I don't think anyone does.
I think they notice there's an unfairness.
It was unfair when people talked about the gays as being less than the straights, and it's unfair if you talk about the straights being less than the gays.
And then you get to the worst one, which of course I jumped straight into in the Mans of Crowds, which is what you do on the race one with this.
It is so despicable, and I think we recognize, everyone in public life recognizes, it would be so despicable to talk about anyone who was black, whether they were a public figure or a private figure, and just talk about them with contempt.
Because of this, what is it, happenstance of birth?
Some people are black, some people are white.
The idea that you would talk about someone in a derogatory manner simply because they were black is so morally reprehensible that the people who do it, and there are some, are just pushed to the farthest margins of public life and we don't want to be around them.
So, how did we get to this position and why should we tolerate it?
That there are very, very prominent figures who seem Eager not just to demean white people because of the color of their skin, but to actually cause them hurt, to deliberately provoke them, to say, We're actually not going to listen to your concerns.
And by the way, this isn't a fringe thing anymore.
That's why I write about it.
That's why I'm interested in it.
If it was just a few tenured academics at a few low grade American universities whose students, unfortunately for the students, have to listen to their professors trotting out a load of divisive stuff like this, well, that would be bad.
But it's not the position we're in.
We're in the position where the now president of the United States, who has talked so importantly about trying to unify the country, a week before his inauguration, releases a video saying, We are going to focus on those small business owners who suffered this year because of the virus and the shutdown.
We're going to focus on small business owners and we're going to have a special focus and prioritize black owned businesses, Latino owned businesses, women owned businesses, Native American owned businesses.
And you look at this and you think, Why can't you say we will, as a government of all of the people in the United States?
Prioritize anyone whose business has suffered.
We will be looking after you all.
We'll be looking out for you all.
Why do this game of leaving out one group of people, white men?
Why do it?
Why say your concerns are secondary?
And that's what I say.
We're in this strange period because I think that the thing I diagnose is that we have been, that some people.
Primarily on the left, have been going for an overcorrection on each of these issues.
And the problem with going for an overcorrection is you don't know when you've overcorrected too far.
You don't know when you've done it for long enough.
Who would you follow to tell you you've got to go back to equal?
I think that they won't.
I think the overcorrection will cause a swing the other way.
Because what man wants to be denigrated just because he's a man and be ignored?
When people say, look at male suicide rates and prominent.
Female voices and others say, haha, why are you talking about male suicide rates, you loser?
Why would you just put up with that endlessly?
Why would you put up endlessly, whatever your skin color, with being denigrated because of your skin color?
Why would anyone put up with, if they're heterosexual, being talked about as if they're some kind of second class citizen?
So this just has to stop.
We have to find a way to get back to equal, but I think it's going to require people.
Of all sides to work really hard on this and to try to resist very deep instincts that we all hold.
Well, I think you're right because I've said in the context of the Me Too movement, and I think it applies to the Black Lives Matter thing, all of these identity politics issues.
If you really want advancement for a group that's been historically unequal in some cases, you're going to have to have buy in from the group that's in power.
The women who want to find themselves in more corporate board suites.
aren't going to get there by just summarily ruining the career of men for one stupid comment in an elevator.
That's just going to make the men afraid of us.
And when you, it's fine.
I can say that as a woman.
If I say that about black people need white people's buy-in in order to, you know, achieve true equality, it sounds racist.
But I believe it's true there too.
I think the answer to remedying whatever disparities that are actually there because of systemic bias.
What have you, not this widespread everything's biased and everything's systemically racist, but whatever.
If we want to take a hard, honest look at what systems could be improved or where is bias still lingering in a way that's problematic, then you need buy in from both sides, right?
From the people in power and the people who aren't, instead of what we're getting, as you point out in your book, the pushing of classes at like the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
You point out there's a course on the problem of whiteness.
And this group effort to demonize one group, I guess, in an attempt to elevate the other.
Empire And Systemic Bias 00:10:55
But all that does is demoralize and probably anger people who are now being judged thanks to their own immutable characteristics.
And it's utterly unhelpful.
And yet it's growing.
It's growing.
It's such a strange late empire thing to be doing.
That's one of the things I can't get out of my mind in all of this, it feels so late empire.
To be doing things that are so self destructive and divisive at a time when we're in real trouble economically.
We're in real trouble financially.
You know, I mean, it's no longer some kind of weird sci fi fear that China will overtake America as a global power in our lifetimes, certainly in the lifetimes of your children.
That's not some nightmarish dystopian thing anymore.
And the country that is vying with America for global dominance. Is one which currently has a million people in concentration camps because of their religion and ethnicity.
It's one where Western companies outsource labor that is slave labor, where prisoners, unpaid, who've done nothing wrong, work for free at all hours for companies that are subcontracted to major American companies where all of the money and profits go to a few people at the top.
Is this an acceptable moral situation?
Is it something we want to encourage?
Having seen what's happened in Hong Kong in the last year, I mean, for the last many years, ever since the handover, but in the last year in particular, after seeing how the Chinese Communist Party cracks down on the people of Hong Kong, is anyone happy about the idea of China overtaking America as a global power?
Does anybody think that China will be prevented from doing that?
If America just completely nixes the whiteness studies courses at certain low grade or top grade universities, does anyone think that the advance of the Chinese economy and of their ability to snuff out human rights around the world using a checkbook is going to be lessened if there are more performative feminist dance studies courses at Berkeley?
You know, what exactly do people think the end goal of all this is going to be?
That's why I say it feels so late empire.
It feels like a totally unwinnable and dangerous and unhelpful, nasty retributive cycle that an empire gets stuck in just before it becomes irrelevant.
When I listen to these protesters and what's happened on the college campuses in particular, I'm mystified because they don't seem to see that bigger picture.
This is America.
We're part of a global economy.
There are real problems happening around the globe that we can and should be focused on.
Perhaps our generation could help fix them.
They seem to really think they're in a revolution right now to upend the patriarchy and fight for racial equality once and for all.
Social justice is what it's all about.
And the anger, the anger from folks who have grown up at The best possible time in American history to have been a woman, to have been a person of color, like the best.
And yet, we've got a couple of examples of this since I knew you were coming on and we're going to talk about the madness of crowds.
And I know you've written about this and I've talked about it on the show, but what happened to Brett Weinstein at Evergreen College up in Washington State, where all, just for background for people who aren't familiar, all Brett did was to students of color who had been doing sort of a voluntary sick out once a year to make a point about what life would be like without people of color on college campuses and their value and their.
Contributions.
One year they came and said, Now we want it to be reversed.
Now we want the white people to not show up.
And Brett Weinstein, a professor there, a very liberal guy, said, That's different.
And I think I'm going to object because I think one race telling another not to show up is problematic.
Well, you would have thought the guy showed up in a KKK hat.
You know, wearing blackface underneath it.
And, you know, it was insane the reaction to him.
And what I want you to listen to for the audience in this soundbite is the anger over that.
All right, so listen.
Hey, hey, ho ho!
These racist teachers have got to go!
Fuck you and fuck the police!
That's how whiteness works!
Whiteness is the most violent fucking system to ever breathe!
Somebody's talking, you are not listening!
In your head, if you're thinking everyone's fine!
Why are you talking?
That is not listening!
It's not an accident that all of our administration is what?
The thing is that my ancestors were slaves and your ancestors were not.
Your ancestors came here of free choice and decided to bring along my people, not of their own free will, to work and build this country.
Okay?
And so I'm just letting you know that slavery still has repercussions in society today.
And that is what we're here about.
Those repercussions, it doesn't go away.
It's not over.
Yeah.
I mean, right?
How do you argue against that?
I think, I mean, what we saw at Evergreen, I've got to know Brett and his wife, Heather, in recent years.
They've become good friends.
I really admire them both.
They're just really extraordinary and kind and good human beings, as well as being extraordinarily clever.
I thought that what happened at Evergreen was a sort of prelude to the main event of what has happened subsequently in America because it showed what happens when a mob crowd becomes hysterical.
We've known that the title of The Madness of Crowds comes from the subtitle of a book from the 1850s called Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by a Scottish journalist.
Who described this sort of thing?
That's why I use the title.
Crowd madnesses.
What happens when people get whipped up into believing that what they see is just impossible to cope with, impossible to tolerate, and then they go off?
That was what happened at Evergreen.
And what also happened was basically the disappearance of the adults from the room.
You know, there's an important point to make here about the nature of.
Political disagreement, which is that historically, certainly for the last few hundred years, the left advances a set of claims, propositions, and more, and conservatives temper them.
That's one analysis of the way in which, to use an old fashioned term, the political dialectic works.
That the conservatives say, hang on a minute, because You've got to be careful when you stampede.
You've got to slow it down at the very least.
Now, of course, saying slow it down, whoa, is a less sexy and appealing thing, particularly for young people.
Because as we all know, when you're young, it is a wonderful thing to also feel that you are in a moment of great change.
Everybody wants to be in a moment of great change.
When they're young, in particular, to be in what is it that Wordsworth said, bliss it was in that dawn to be alive.
About the beginnings of the revolution on the continent.
That's what it feels like when you're young, when you haven't seen the revolution, when you haven't seen the blood on the streets, when you haven't seen what happens afterwards.
Desire to turn over the whole damn thing is an instinct of the young.
To say things are so totally intolerable on my liberal arts college in Oregon that I'm going to pull the whole damn thing down, I'm going to burn down the whole building.
That's what happens when you're young and you've never seen the results.
And unfortunately, it happens again and again throughout history.
We both know this.
We can think of examples in our own lives and careers, and there are many cases.
From the past, you know, and there were serious cases where this same truth held.
The French kings were pretty incompetent, but once the post revolutionary famines occurred, the French peoples learned that there were new levels of incompetence that they had never dreamt of.
You know, the Shah of Iran had quite a lot of people in prison who were political opponents, some thousands of people were in prison who were political opponents of his.
And many people thought it just couldn't be worse until they met the Ayatollah in person.
And they realized that a few thousand people being in a prison system was nothing compared to a system which decided to just shoot people on sight and hang them arbitrarily in the street for reported offenses against the new regime.
I mean, these may sound like extreme examples, but they're not.
They are on a continuum.
When you say this thing is intolerable and the whole damn thing has to be pulled down, You are inviting people to join you in relearning a lesson that people in history have had to learn again and again.
And I simply suggest, as a small c conservative, that people are better at understanding the risks of very, very violent and sudden change.
That they step back from that impulse, that they weigh up the pros and cons of this, that they don't say, I mean, also, by the way, When you say, What should one say to a person who says these things?
Comedy Meets Political Truth 00:08:16
I think this is what the adults say.
We can all do that.
We can all do that.
You know, I mean, I'm not denying for a moment that the history of American slavery was bad.
But who exactly was the past rosy for?
Back in a minute, we're going to lighten things up with Tim Dillon.
He is wonderful, totally hilarious, incredibly smart.
You are not going to want to miss this.
Love, Tim.
Tim Dillon came on in February and had me and my team laughing for hours.
My husband loved this interview.
Tim goes up in this higher register when he does this one voice, and you're going to die laughing.
He also, however, it wasn't all jokes because he spoke some real truth about the way comedians, particularly the sort of establishment approved comedians on late night TV these days, have become heralded as these brave truth tellers.
Now they're Teachers, says Dylan.
And he hilariously explained why that is such a mistake.
I've always been interested in where this started.
And I think that it might have started with when Tina Fey did that really brilliant and funny impression of Sarah Palin on SNL.
And it may have also started with Jon Stewart, an equally brilliant guy who did a very funny show called The Daily Show.
But what started to happen eventually was that people started to believe that their job was to be a teacher.
Was to be somebody who.
Would affect culture with political humor and that it would not be for the sake of being funny.
I mean, there's been political humor forever.
And I'm sure some of it was written with the intent that it would affect people.
But there became this idea and it became rather explicit that the job of a comedian was to move the needle in a meaningful way.
In the political world.
And I don't know where that happened, but those are two good examples of where it may have began, where it was Sarah Palin, because that nailed Sarah Palin.
That impression was viral and people talked about it.
And people were saying that, you know, I don't know if she could recover from that.
It was so good and it was kind of right on.
And then, of course, Jon Stewart did kind of a great job at being this political comedian that did provide real information.
But what has happened, like everything else, Is that it has grown into a cottage industry of people who are putting their opinion in front of their comedy.
And this is a big problem because it's not always funny.
And in fact, it rarely is funny.
And that's why you just use the word dark, which is a great word for it, because when you're putting your opinion out first and you're not worrying about the content, the humor, you're not recognizing the humanity of your opponents, you're not seeing the other side, which is what.
Comics should always do.
It's how you can really be funny, especially about meaningful topics, is looking at someone else's.
I mean, there's not a great lawyer out there who can't argue the other side of their case.
I mean, it's essential, right?
It's the whole point of a great attorney, a great litigator, is that they know what the other side's going to do and they understand the strengths of the other side.
And I think he's a great comedian whose job is to make large numbers of strangers laugh.
You have to kind of have some baseline respect.
For them as human beings.
And when we turn everything into this endless, you know, festival of politics and politicized identities, we forget that the people that disagree with us are human beings and that those people, you know, are not enemies.
They're people that, for whatever reason, have a different experience than you.
So when I watch those late night hosts, I go, The best way to say it is, they're not really doing their job.
And they've carved out this group of people that want to hear them say things they agree with, similar to somebody on maybe Fox or MSNBC.
And to me, it's not interesting.
And it does get dark and it gets said because they don't want to do it.
When you look at Jimmy Kimmel, he doesn't really want to do it.
You're just making so much money and you become a cog in this Hollywood machine and you're getting $20 million.
30 million dollars, you're expected to do it, but they don't want to do it.
You could see it in their faces that nobody got into comedy to lecture people about who to vote for.
Nobody.
I'm surprised to see that these guys being treated as these sage advisors in the serious suit.
I mean, to me, it's just antithetical to what a comedian generally looks like and projects like and wants to be perceived as.
Yeah.
Well, what it is is also, you know, People have Google.
People can remember that Chelsea Handler made a living doing race material.
And now Chelsea Handler does documentaries about white privilege.
Jimmy Kimmel had a show called The Man Show where they, like, you know, did wet t shirt contests and now he's talking about health insurance.
Stephen Colbert did a show where.
He was a very funny, you know, kind of guy that was impersonating Bill O'Reilly.
And then now everything, you know, and he got away with a lot of saying a lot of crazy things because it was satire and it was very funny.
And now a lot of these same people exist.
They act like satire doesn't exist.
And if you say something, you're dead serious about it.
And if you make a racial joke, you're a racist.
Or if it's a homophobic joke, you're a homophobe.
Or if you make a joke about trans people, you're diminishing your trans identity.
And all of these people are very Google-able.
They've all had long careers.
None of them felt this way years ago.
And I mean, I don't mean you don't have to go back 10 years.
You can go back.
Right before Trump got into the primaries.
Like, this is a new, relatively new phenomenon in mass where all of these people are every day tweeting.
I mean, I have comedian friends of mine that are tweeting about trade agreements all day.
And it's like, what are you doing?
They're tweeting at Mayor Garcetti.
They're like, you better, these people have roommates.
They're on drugs.
It's like, and they're going, what's the budget of LA?
The cops better be not getting more than this percentage of the budget.
I'm like, the budget?
You can't afford a car.
So it's, it's, It's a mind virus.
Truly, it's a mind virus.
And people like me have been, I think, pretty well received, kind of pointing it out because a lot of people are going, like, oh, yeah, man, that's kind of the way I feel.
Like they grew up watching these comics.
These guys were very funny Colbert, Kimmel.
These guys were really, really funny people.
But now I think they feel that for whatever reason, that that isn't their job.
They have to do what they're doing.
And I read something.
It was you, it was a bit you were doing about him saying something like, Comedians are the ones who get on stage and basically say, We're fucked up, we're fat, we can't stop doing horrible things.
And like only a psychopath would look at us and say, Yes, show me the way.
I mean, it's crazy.
I mean, could you imagine going out to a nightclub and then asking the guy on stage for tax advice?
We've lost our minds here.
I mean, this is completely insane.
I don't go to my dentist laying the chair and go, Let's be funny now.
You know, people got to specialize in things.
You can't be everything.
And this flies in the face of a lot of the ethos of young people today who want to be everything.
You know, they're like, I want to be a YouTuber and a rapper and a stock mogul.
And I want to start an app and I want to be a venture capitalist.
And I want to be an artist and write three books.
And I want to be a chef and have a line of, I mean, it's like, guys, we need to get good at a thing here.
And then we need to start there and then maybe move on.
But like this idea that you would ever look at the comedian, hopefully we say things that are smart.
Hopefully we say things that are funny.
Fighting Bad Curricula Laws 00:15:38
Hopefully we make you think.
I didn't tell anyone to vote.
I mean, this was, I got flack for this.
People like, people go like this.
To get a voting plan.
Comedians were going on Twitter going, get a vote, get a voting plan.
What are we doing?
What is a voting plan?
Get to the poll and vote.
I mean, you all got a Popeye's chicken sandwich.
You can vote.
Like this idea that no one knows how to vote, we got to come up with a plan.
We got to, this, and the idea that I, who put on wigs and say crazy things and I'm funny in a goofball and admit all these embarrassing things about my life, I'm going to tell you who to vote for.
It's just not my job.
It's not my job.
If you want me to do that, then go somewhere else.
Go find another person who's going to tell you to vote.
And then it's so important to vote.
It's just to me, it's patronizing.
I'm not patronizing you.
If you're going to vote, you're going to vote.
If you're not going to vote, you're not going to vote.
It's absolutely none of my business.
You know, it's going to be insane.
It'll be like me being on stage and like, you know, looking at my audience and pointing out a guy in the audience and going, hey, why don't you call your brother?
Have you spoken to your brother recently?
Why don't you call him?
What about your wife?
Have you gone?
Have you taken her out?
It's like, dude.
What am I a life coach?
I'm trying to be goofy.
When we come back, we're going to take a look at one of the Megyn Kelly Show debates.
This one was on a term you likely had not heard a year ago, but has now become a household name.
Critical race theory.
That's next.
Since the launch of the podcast, that was September of 2020.
Then we launched with Sirius in September of 2021.
But since the launch of the podcast, we have embraced being a platform for respectful debate.
Love that.
Love that people will trust us with that.
And we've done a good job of it.
We've had both sides of the Israel Gaza debate on, we've had both sides of the transgender athlete debate.
And over the summer, with critical race theory on the tips of everyone's tongues, suddenly, we had two guests on who had vastly different opinions on how best to productively fight back against the racial drift in schools.
They both wanted to fight back, but had very different views on how it was best done.
Camille Foster and Rich Lowry have been on before multiple times.
And truthfully, they probably agree on a variety of topics, probably more than they disagree on.
But when it comes to CRT, what it is, What states are doing about it and how to counter it, they had vastly different opinions.
Let me kick it to you, Rich, on the concept of this way to fight back, right?
As opposed to, because what David French has said and what your op ed in the New York Times said, Camille, was a meaningful way of getting back at this is by filing lawsuits.
And I'm all for that, by the way.
I've been saying this is part of the solution for sure.
It's currently not lawful to discriminate on the basis of race.
And so if you're dragged into some training session as a teacher and told that you're less than because you're white, your school's violating the law.
So I'm all for the lawsuits.
But what the conservative movement and the non-woke people have said is it's not good enough.
We need these laws because we need immediacy.
It's not a free speech issue at all.
This is about the citizenry telling the government what it can teach their kids and that this is a useful tool in the arsenal that should be unleashed ASAP for the well-being of our children.
Let's start with that, Rich, on whether you agree that this is a, this is, without putting aside the wording of the laws, whether this is a good way of fighting back.
You know, first of all, I appreciate the conversation.
And Camille, congratulations on the op ed.
There are not many op eds that people are discussing two or three weeks later, whatever it is.
All the columnists are very jealous.
So, congratulations on that.
I think this is a worthy effort.
On the lawsuits, it just puts incredible pressure on individual teachers or parents to undertake.
What could be a years long effort to try to push back against this stuff through the courts.
And if we're admitting that actually that is in play, as the authors of this op ed do, we're admitting that this is poisonous and toxic.
And why should we tolerate that in our public schools?
And public schools are public institutions, teachers are state actors, they're teaching state curricula in state owned.
Buildings that parents, if they aren't pursuing some other alternative, have to send their kids to.
So they are profoundly small d democratic institutions, and forbidding these poisonous concepts from being foisted on children is an appropriate small d democratic action.
So I don't see, in theory, any problem with this at all.
In fact, I welcome it.
Again, Megan, as you've stipulated, the wording in some of these.
Cases is problematic and could have been crisper and more clear.
But I just reject the idea that it is out there that this is going to stop the teaching of slavery or civil rights.
If you look at Tennessee, which the authors of the op ed spend some time on.
That statute, what they forbid is the promoting of the concept that individuals should feel ashamed or discomfort because of their race.
So that's different than saying, oh, here's the Atlantic passage, which was this horrifying, nauseating human rights abuse, and you might feel uncomfortable learning about it because it's a terrible topic.
That's not it.
It's a teacher going out of his or her way to say, you should feel guilty because.
You are white or you're black or whatever it is.
That is forbidden.
And it just seems to me with public schools, which we don't need adventurous instruction in public schools.
That's something for colleges and universities when you're dealing with adults, when you have instructors who are engaging in academic research, where academic freedom is a core value.
This is different.
This is supposed to be between the 40 yard lines.
This is kind of consensus values and instructions.
In our society.
So these efforts strike me as worthwhile.
I wonder about the way that you just characterized that, though, Rich, because especially when you say, you know, this shouldn't be taught in schools.
Well, what is this?
I mean, we are talking about a sprawling catalog of practices and issues that people have serious concerns about.
And when we talk about K 12 education, we're talking about children as young as four and five and children as old as 17 and 18.
And in a high school class, there are certain things that young people ought to be exposed to.
It seems the way that this is talked about, even what you just said there about the Tennessee law, if your interpretation of this is correct, it might be the case that kids in a civics class couldn't watch a presidential debate because someone in one of those debates might talk about, say, white privilege, white supremacy, structural racism, or some of these other concepts, and might make an assertion to the fact, to the possibility that, or might make an assertion along the lines of, White people have unique, particular privilege.
It is a reality that people are talking about this now, that many Americans feel a particular way about these issues now.
And finding constructive ways for students to be able to engage with these questions and issues in a classroom setting with one another, it seems to me that it's urgently important that our institutions are kind of up to that task.
And one of the things that I want to highlight here is that the Editorial doesn't only suggest that we can go pursue lawsuits.
It also says explicitly that a better approach to trying to ban things, this kind of negative approach to curriculum, you can't do this, you can't do that, is to build better curriculum that is more thoughtful and is more constructive and affirmatively gives us a sense for how to navigate these complex issues together and not imagine ourselves as just kind of pushing approved knowledge into young brains.
But equipping young people with the talent and the skills necessary to grapple with hard issues.
Let me ask you.
So that sounds nice, but what we're up against is a teachers union.
I mean, both of the largest teachers unions in the country are determined to teach this, despite their gaslighting of us now, right?
Saying, no, we're not.
I mean, they lifted the dress up this month.
We're in the National Education Association.
That's the largest teachers union.
They had an annual conference this month.
This is a great story.
And they, because the official word sort of out of the left, right?
The media, the pundits, Democratic.
Lawmakers have been, we're not teaching CRT in K 12.
That's not happening.
And then the National Education Association at their annual conference is like, we have a six figure campaign we're unleashing to fund a team of staffers.
for members who want to learn more and fight back against those who are fighting our CRT rhetoric, right?
Basically saying it's very reasonable.
They said it's reasonable to teach critical race theory and we're going to fight back against those who are pushing against us.
They forgot.
They forgot about the official talking point.
And then the Heritage Foundation reported on it and they promptly, the NEA removed all the items on their website that mentioned CRT, like, whoops, we didn't say that.
You didn't see that.
But it was too late.
And the second largest teachers union, American Federation of Teachers, that's Weingarten's Union.
They've said too, they're investing, I think it's $5 million into future legal fees to defend teachers who insist on teaching CRT, even though Weingarten is also insisting that CRT is not being taught.
Okay, it's being taught.
And even the polling, NBC had a report on this recently, was over 50% of teachers either want to teach it or admit privately that they are teaching it.
So it's, I would love to just build better curricula, but we're up against a group of people who really wants to shove this down our kids' throats.
Yeah.
And I think you raised an important point.
As I mentioned earlier, it would be wrong not to acknowledge, one, that there have already been activist excesses in various schools across the country.
It is hard to quantify this problem.
I can't say how many schools this is happening in or where the worst things are happening.
And I think that's really important that nobody can really quantify this just yet.
So it's important to kind of keep our concern constrained in that way, but at least to be aware of this reality.
And you're right to point out what the teachers' unions have done.
Was speaking at one of these events and they pledged to buy copies of his books stamped and to pollute schools with it all over the country.
That bothers me.
I have serious problems with that.
At the same time, one wonders about the appropriate approach to this.
And one has to also wonder about the degree to which the way that concern has been generated about these issues and the way that it's being focused at the moment, if that isn't contributing to just kind of a spreading of a brush fire as opposed to really constructive approaches to trying to address this problem.
I think what's not talked about often enough is the practical limitations of a strategy of trying to pass statewide bans on various things.
Like, how many states can we actually get these things passed in?
What percentage of states won't have this protection at all?
I imagine if you don't have a red legislature and a red governor's office, that's not happening.
And it's also the case that the most awful excesses seem to be concentrated in particular places.
Like, I've seen a lot of stories out of New York, I've seen a lot of stories out of California, I haven't seen quite so many out of Of Tennessee.
In fact, what I've seen out of Tennessee recently is a teacher who got fired who seemed to be kind of hankering for the opportunity to get fired over these things.
And it turns into a national news story.
And it seems to me that that isn't necessarily what we want.
I'm thinking, I think a lot about the missed opportunity here.
I imagine these angry parents going to these meetings, these school board meetings, and demanding something better, like, I don't know, school choice, for example.
Like, it is not as though the statewide ban.
Initiative, this haphazard project isn't one that will cost a tremendous amount of resources and energy.
And it's not as though there aren't meaningful risks associated with it.
And it's not as though it's guaranteed to work.
If these bans are sufficiently narrow so that they don't run afoul of the Constitution and so that they don't run afoul of making it difficult to teach complicated materials, they're probably not going to be able to stop most of the things that people are concerned about.
The reality is that this is a cultural issue.
That there is a broad societal issue here, and we have to be meaningfully engaged in our local school boards, going to meetings, meeting with teachers.
There are no shortcuts here, and anyone who is telling you what there are is wrong.
I've been working with a bunch of groups on this.
FAIR is one of them, and also Parents Defending Education, which is a nonpartisan group just trying to represent parents who are struggling with all this.
And I know that one of the things that Parents Defending Education really wants is for concerned parents to run for school boards.
Yep.
You got to get on school boards.
You can't just sit at home and lament.
You got to get in the positions of power.
So, Rich, why isn't that the answer?
Like grassroots efforts, taking advantage of this enormous energy we've seen among parents who are outraged about this.
To get them on school boards and change the curriculum that way as opposed to at the state level?
Oh, it has to be a huge part of the solution.
So I disagree with Camille about these laws, most of them.
I think they're legitimate concerns about some of the wording.
But let's say we, and I take his point this is only happening in red states with red legislatures and Republican governors.
Let's say we do this in 15 states.
That one, that leaves a huge part of the country, right?
35 states where you haven't done it.
Two, if all we do, even if we pass these kind of laws in 50 states, just keeping teachers from making kids feel guilty over their race, that's not a huge victory, right?
That's a really minor and defensive victory when you think about it.
So, absolutely, these school board fights are essential and developing curricula or that.
Teaches truthful versions of American history or protecting curricula that already do that is absolutely the ultimate name of the game.
And the beauty of our system and having a highly localized system of education is you can be a parent in a small town somewhere or a suburban county, and you can go get 200 signatures on your petition to get on the ballot or whatever it takes, and then you win 800 votes in a school board race, and you are hugely influential.
And how the education of your children and your neighbor's children is going to be carried out.
Parents Fix School Board Issues 00:07:59
That's a beautiful thing.
And parents who are concerned about this should absolutely take advantage of that.
And that's something that can happen not just in red states, it can happen in states all around the country.
Because you look at a county by county political map, and there's swaths that the country, if you break it down that way, is mostly red because there are so many red localities.
And so that should be the name of the game.
Than these state laws.
I defend these state laws.
I think what they're trying to do is righteous.
But again, it's really kind of a defensive and prophylactic action compared to taking over these school boards and preventing the education blob from imposing this stuff on our schools.
And I also take Camille's point that mostly, you know, you look at where this is happening, it's happening a lot of places, but, you know, it's Cupertino, it's Portland, as you point out, it's a lot of New York, but it's coming everywhere.
Unless you stop it.
And this is the history of these sort of things.
Not that we want to get into trans, but, you know, we would have, a lot of us would have said, oh, look, 10 years ago, Berkeley says biological males should be able to go into female bathrooms.
Isn't that insane?
You know, that would never happen here, but it's spread everywhere.
So I think while this debate can be won and before it's too late, it's important to undertake these state measures and the places where you can pass them and fight school board race by school board race all around the country.
Because if you get control of school boards, you can, you can.
Go as broad as you want.
I mean, one of the things about these laws is they don't stop the indoctrination on trans issues.
You know, all this stuff about.
Letting your kid leave in the middle of the day to go get cross gender hormones without telling the parents and not looping the parents in.
If your kid decides one day to go from being a girl to being a boy, they don't tell the parents.
Like it's crazy how at our school, our all boys school that we left, they were literally asking the boys every week whether they still felt like boys.
That is what my son and his friends told me.
It was insane.
Like gender is just something that's completely fluid.
It could change day to day.
And just checking back in at an all boys school with these boys. to see whether that changed for them.
Like, could you just stop it?
Stop it.
If my kid's got an issue, I want her to be supported.
You don't need to keep suggesting it, right?
It's like, is anyone feeling suicidal?
Anyone today?
Anyone feeling it a little?
Like some of these things are suggestible.
We've seen evidence on that with the trans craze through Abigail Schreier and Lisa Lippman who did the study and so on, especially with respect to girls.
Anyway, my point is none of these laws address any of that, but you get control of the school boards and you can.
You can.
So that I think we all agree that that would be a nice.
Way of fighting back, getting more local control.
Moms for Liberty down in Florida, this group I spoke to, they're all about that, and that's awesome.
But like it or not, for good or for worse, there is a push with the states more and more to do this.
I should point out states on the other side have done it too.
Several states have mandated the inclusion of this CRT education into their education systems, like California, but several others as well, all blue states.
And now red states are doing it the other way.
And I do think it's worth noting they have.
Discretion.
The states do have discretion to set the curriculum in their schools.
They can banish texts.
They can restrict teachers' speech.
It's different from colleges.
You know, the K 12 kids are a captive audience.
There's a great piece on National Review Rich by Stanley Kurtz saying there's a good reason that we can do more to silence or control K 12 teachers than we can college professors.
They're a captive audience.
They're minors.
They're vulnerable to the authority of these teachers.
They're held in much Higher esteem than college professors are.
And Stanley said, This is abuse, what's happening to them.
I've said that too.
I do think this is child abuse.
So, to you, Camille, what of the argument that this is an emergency?
Like, we wouldn't let schools all over the country say the KKK wasn't all wrong.
They had a lot of good points.
Hiller, he made some good points.
Like, we would never allow that.
And I think people view this kind of messaging, you know, I mean, there's just one, this is actually out of Oklahoma.
Red State teacher told the students to be white is to be racist, period.
You know, that we covered the public schools in Buffalo, teaching five year olds about racist police, making them watch videos of dead children allegedly sort of coming back from the grave to talk about racist cops and so on.
So you can see that the feeling by folks who oppose this, that this is an equal emergency to stop.
Well, again, my perspective on this emergency, however, is does a sledgehammer actually fix those problems?
And it seems to me that it does not, in fact, fix those problems, that it is.
Almost certainly the case that, in this with this local system that we have, a solution that does make a lot of sense is for parents to get involved in a circumstance like that, to go to their school board, to make the issue known to local officials, and to create a bit of a scandal at that institution and achieve the change that they want.
That's what makes sense here.
A statewide ban, again, it seems to me, is going to cause no shortage of problems.
And while I know Rich has some disagreement about this, The reality is that the way many of these pieces of legislation are written today, they're going to have a number of far reaching consequences that can't really be anticipated and could further politicize issues.
I have good reason to believe that the degree to which Folks are actually kind of overreaching here and creating a bit of a panic is probably inspiring more controversy and will inspire more concern and will make the states that are more interested in these policies perhaps even go a bit further in kind of cementing their perspective here.
And to the extent folks who are interested in bans go too far in their attempts to try and restrain some of these things, it is entirely possible that they could turn public opinion against them very quickly and sort of cement some of these things in the institutions.
And create a great deal of sympathy for someone.
The last thing that you want, if you're someone who's concerned about creeping racial essentialism in public schools, is kind of a sympathetic victim who is fired for something that seems rather frivolous to people looking at it from the outside, that makes people very suspicious about these restrictions.
And I don't want to create the perception of Ibram Kendi's book being secret knowledge.
If 16 year olds have access to this book, what if they bring them from home?
Are you going to?
Take those things away from them?
Are they forbidden in the library?
I mean, I think it's really important to just bear in mind the kind of limitations of what these schools can actually do.
It's not the worst thing in the universe if there is something in the library, say, at the school that is perhaps somewhat questionable from all of our shared perspective, but that a kid might have access to.
Like, there are going to be questions.
These conversations are going to happen.
It is impossible.
It is impossible that students won't have conversations about Black Lives Matter.
In their college, you know, government and politics, in their high school government and politics courses.
I mean, my wife in her second year in high school participated in a debate club and debated affirmative action back and forth.
These things will happen.
And I don't think it is an even realistic possibility that we can put the genie back in the bottle and sort of put a shield around ourselves and not have these conversations.
The question becomes how to do these kinds of things productively, not to try to ban them out of existence.
Afghan Army Stranded Lie 00:14:44
Next up is one of my favorite and most moving interviews we have done on this show with two inspirational heroes, true heroes.
People overuse that term.
These guys are true heroes who happen to be identical twins, the Luttrells.
Stay with us.
Marcus and Morgan Luttrell are identical twin brothers, Texans, Navy SEALs, and wise and unfiltered men who have been through some truly horrific experiences.
When they came on to talk with us in August, it was one of the most powerful interviews I have done since launching the Megyn Kelly Show, since before that.
I mean, in my career.
You can find the full interview in our archives.
It's episode 149.
And man, is that worth your time.
But we kicked off the show with the Afghanistan debacle, which was happening as the interview was taking place.
And that story, the botched withdrawal by the Biden administration, became a major topic in 2021.
We spoke with Robert O'Neill, the man who killed bin Laden, about it.
And he was amazing.
My gosh, that interview that was from Memorial Day.
Please go back and listen to that because it's freaking amazing to hear him tell the story of how he shot bin Laden.
But the Luttrells had quite a deep and impressive take on it.
God, listen to these guys.
It's tough to watch.
Obviously, we have a connection there.
The scenario that's unfolding right now with Americans still there waiting, feeling that lost feeling, that sense of hope, not hopelessness, I wouldn't think, because we're still here.
I've had that.
I mean, literally over there by myself, not knowing what to do, and y'all came and got me.
I never forgot that.
I spend the rest of my life trying to make my soul bleed showing.
Each American, how precious that is to me.
And when you get, when something like this happens to you, you have a taste for what America truly is.
I mean, I wanted to hug the first person I saw and to, it ought to let you know how wonderful this place is.
And America, it is a place, but moreover, it's the people.
And there are people literally holding on to the outside of our aircrafts trying to get here and falling from the sky just to meet y'all, just to hang out here.
Because all they have access to so far is just the people in the military.
And we're kind of regimental, the true spice of this.
Of America's people back home, and people are flooding to get here.
We not only have Americans over there that we have to get back, just bottom line, you got to get them back.
Now, cost alone, send in expendables or send in just the rest of the military and put us in there.
We'll go do it.
Y'all have truly never seen the full weight of what we're capable of because you just never had to implement that.
But it's, I think the emotion that I'm feeling more over than anything else, and most of the veterans are is man, there's still people back there, we don't leave anybody behind.
I never had PTSD, but I start to get it thinking that there's some of our countrymen stranded somewhere and they need our help.
And I know that firsthand experience because y'all came and got me.
So I know it's possible.
Y'all sent the entire military in to get me, and I was in hell.
They're on the border of it.
So it kind of resonates real close to home here.
Yeah, I would say you've got a deep appreciation of what it means to be stranded out in the middle of a country waiting for somebody to come get you.
Trying to kill you, people trying to kill you.
Yep.
Right.
Can't even imagine what it's like when you set foot back here.
It looks different, feels different.
I mean, we're going through some stuff here in America.
We're a family.
Families do that.
And we'll get through this.
And as I've been, we've gone through it.
The way I always look at it is man, nothing will ever change how much I love everybody here for coming to get me and what I try to do to show that.
Biden's now saying that we'll go back, we'll get the military guys and we'll get the Americans.
The promises are less explicit on getting those who helped us the translators and sort of the Afghan people who were in support roles to our men and women in uniform over there.
I wonder what you think about that, Morgan.
Let me ask you that one because we heard from a lot of military guys who are upset about that and knew how much we relied on those helpers when we were over there.
You couldn't tell the difference between ourselves and our translators or our support.
Rounds come down, rage, they did not discriminate.
And those that were tasked to us fought just as hard as we did.
And we've always said and always wanted them to have the opportunity to come over and be here because they defended our country just like it was their own.
So it's very disheartening to see or hear, excuse me, that that's a possibility that won't happen.
And I'm maybe calling me an eternal optimist that there's enough people surrounding the administration that says, no, they're, they're, they need the opportunity and they must have the opportunity to come.
We need to rescue them just like we need to rescue all the Americans that are, that are waiting on us.
Period.
Let me, let me tell you something.
Not only do they serve us over and help us overseas, they were in the front.
There, we watched those, those terms and, um, Especially the ones that are signed to us, thousands of missions.
We pinned a couple of those guys with SEAL tridents.
They were such great operators.
I mean, they gave it everything they had.
Those are the ones you definitely want to bring back.
Otherwise, why else would anybody help you?
And if they're willing to help you in the worst situation ever, they'll obviously help us over here when things are good too and when things are bad.
I was actually listening to the New York Times podcast, The Daily, today, and they were talking about this soldier who had served in Afghanistan.
He was talking about the relationship.
That you develop with the translator.
Here he is.
His name was Colin Daniels, he served in the army for six years, 28 years old.
Here's just a little bit of that guy.
Listen.
We would tell the Afghans whether they were interpreters.
Or civilian or Afghan army, that they could trust us as Americans.
You know, I joined the military because I like truly believed that America was the.
I believed in America.
And they did too.
And like we told them on an individual level, Trust us.
Trust us on this patrol.
Trust us on this KLE.
Trust us on all this.
We have your back.
Because they just were aspiring to be free.
What's more American than that?
And, you know, when push comes to shove, like I don't disagree with having to leave Afghanistan.
Like we can't do it forever.
But when push comes to shove, these people that.
Soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines told, Hey man, you can trust me.
It's a lie now, you know?
Excuse me.
You can hear that guy's pain.
You can hear it.
There is.
Because the relationships, they're most certainly carved out in pain and misery and most certainly blood.
So the fact that you look, and it's just as important looking left and right and seeing who's standing there with you.
They're there.
So I can empathize with him knowing that we did.
We did.
That was always conversations that you had with those individuals that supported us.
Some of them wanted to come black.
Yes, I mean, because that's how it was always articulated to us.
You'll have that opportunity.
I would say the vast majority of Americans still believe that.
And I won't maybe preface this with saying I don't think it was an intentional lie.
To the individuals that supported us over there from Afghanistan, the locals that supported us and the army and the interpreters.
I don't think we intentionally lied to them.
I think, once again, if you look at the administration, they weren't prepared.
And I think their decision making was not orchestrated properly.
And then it just came completely off the rails.
What do you make of that?
Because Biden's out there today saying that it could not have been done better.
He says he does not think it could have been handled in any better way.
Do you agree with that?
No, no, no, not at all.
I most certainly think they absolutely got everything backwards.
I think we should have remained in place and started evacuating civilian population.
Those are the ones that can defend themselves properly.
Then you come into the interpreters, then you, and then the army, and then whomever else.
We're the ones you leave behind.
It's systematic.
We can handle ourselves.
We're designed for that part.
You get everybody else, and then we go.
I don't know if he's, if he was, I saw the ABC interview, and I don't know why he won't, you know, this is something Trump would have done.
He's like, I would, because he's like, He would never answer, Hey, August 31st is at the deadline.
Will you, will troops remain in place?
And he kept dancing around it.
Trump would have been like, We'll stay there until the day I die, until every American's out of there and every support staff's out of there.
I don't understand why that's a problem.
Yeah, we're going to stay.
If we got to go back, you know, we did this wrong.
We messed up.
We effed up.
But I'm going to course correct this.
And I'm sending in the Marines and the airborne.
And we're staying.
And we're staying until the last person's out.
And then we'll put a date.
I don't know why that's so hard.
We heard a very different message from President Biden.
Let me just give the audience a sample of what he said to George Stephanopoulos so they know what we're talking about.
But It was very deflecting.
It was not a message of I'm taking responsibility.
It was basically reminding me of Kevin Bacon in Animal House.
All is fine.
All is calm.
Remain calm.
All is fine.
All is well.
No, no, I got one better than that, Megan.
They had one of the spokesmen out, and there was a Jim Carrey movie where.
He works for a global company like Fleming with Dick and Jane.
He's on there trying to tell you what a great company it is.
And then they have the other, the real live stream going and it's all falling apart.
And they're doing their level best.
I heard him say, We have, we got communications with the Taliban and we let guys coming in and out of the airport.
That's probably a gate guard outside the airport saying, Yeah, come on, bring him up in here.
We don't negotiate with the Taliban.
They don't negotiate with us.
That's the whole point.
That's why we can just go in there and get our Americans out.
We don't have to ask for permission.
There's no stable government, and the president bailed, right?
And he grabbed a bunch of coin and hauled a button.
America is a lot of things.
Do we have our bad part?
Yeah, we do.
But the only time you have to stand up and be recognized as an American to understand his values is when we say the pledge.
And that because if you are stranded somewhere, just one of us, if one of our people is stranded somewhere and needs help, we will send the entire country to come get you.
That's the blessing to be an American.
And the trust level goes, they sleep in the camps with us, those Turks and everything, they have a position of watch.
I mean, if they can't trust us, if we go over there and we go on the missions and it's like a half trust with them, well, man, that doesn't make you feel too safe.
Yep.
Let me stand by because I want to get the audience up to speed on Biden.
Let's just listen to a sampling of what he said on ABC.
When you look at what's happened over the last week, was it a failure of intelligence, planning, execution, or judgment?
Look, I don't think it was a failure.
Look, there was a simple choice, George.
When the Taliban, let me back it up and put it another way.
When you had.
The government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government getting in a plane and taking off and going to another country.
When you saw the significant collapse of the Afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off.
That was, you know, I'm not, that's what happened.
That's simply what happened.
But we've all seen the pictures.
We've seen those hundreds of people packed into a C-17.
Afghans fall away?
That was four days ago, five days ago.
What did you think when you first saw those pictures?
What I thought was we have to gain control of this.
We have to move this more quickly.
We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport.
And we did.
So, do you not think this could have been handled?
This actually could have been handled better in any way?
No mistakes?
No, I don't think it could have been handled in a way that we're going to go back in hindsight and look, but the idea that somehow There's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing.
I don't know how that happens.
I don't know how that happened.
So, for you, that was always priced into the decision?
Yes.
What do you make of that, Marcus?
I think it's been a few days now.
So, my hindsight is we see what happens.
I don't have to say anything, I don't have to suggest something.
I don't have to belittle anybody.
I don't talk smack about anybody.
I don't do that anyways.
It's right there in front of your face.
You can literally turn on television and watch it.
You don't have to have somebody tell us.
It's there, right?
I mean, I think you most certainly, I think every one of his answers was taking a political stance instead of the stance of the commander in chief.
And a commander in chief would not shift and point, shift blame and point fingers.
A commander in chief would stand up and say, Mistakes were made.
We own it.
And this is what we're doing to course correct it.
I will say that the only way, the reason you know that that's happened is when someone tries to explain it.
And any situation that you get into, when the outcome presents itself, there's no explanation, and that's the way it was supposed to go.
And even when it snowballs, the contingencies people can pick that up, you can see it.
If you're constantly having to defend and try to explain, not defend it, just try to explain it, then that's how you know.
Yeah, something's gone wrong.
Can I offer something from my level?
When I say my level, my rank, when I was in the military and we were serving over there, and that was at an operator's level on the ground.
The day one, week one, when I first stepped foot in Afghanistan in the early 2000s, talking with the villagers, talking with the army, what you're seeing as far as the Taliban coming in and how they've taken back the country, in my opinion, that was always inevitable.
It was going to happen.
It's happened over millennia.
Alexander the Great got stopped there from throughout Russia.
Everybody stops right there.
What was not inevitable was how it happened now.
We could have done it differently where we wouldn't be in the position of American lives are in jeopardy.
That most certainly would have changed, in my opinion, in Morgan's opinion.
Rob Neill And The Wait 00:03:24
Yeah.
But the fact that we fought in that war and the Taliban has come back, they just waited us out like they did everyone else.
That was going to happen.
And I think you've heard a lot of leadership say that.
Well, the amazing thing is when you see something spread that fast, it means people are allowing it to take that because Afghanistan is a little bit smaller than Texas and to consume it like that would have meant there were little to no resistance.
And when you watch TV and you see all of them, the Taliban on the road with those with our weaponry, the way they're they're moving and walking, way they're carrying themselves, just the way they they carry themselves.
You know, we train them, that's the Afghan army.
So they were already that was that whole thing was going on underneath uh the watch, it spread like a wildfire.
I mean, coming from the north down to the south, it could go.
Districts ahead.
Hey, the Taliban's moving in.
Americans aren't here anymore.
I don't have any backside support.
I'm Taliban now.
That's right.
Well, a lot of people, they do it to self preserve, right?
They do it to save their own lives, to see the lives of their families.
They always said that.
It's like, what are we supposed to do when you leave?
They're doing it.
And we weren't there to stay.
That's not, I mean, we didn't go into Occupy.
That's the only way you could truly change it is to get the people to take control, or we have to stay.
And then you just build a society there.
And you said it best, Megan.
It's self preservation.
If I have to survive and the Taliban is coming through, I need to conform.
And so, is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Or is it just a thing?
Surely just a thing.
I'm curious how you guys, because you sound different about it when I talk to Rob O'Neill, for example, you know, the CEO who killed bin Laden, one of the guys who went in on that mission, the guy who fired the shot.
And he's pissed off.
And he said, you know, what did our guys die for?
What was I there for?
You know, he's like, I don't, like the whole country's now back in the hands of the guys we were sent over there to fight.
You know, Al Qaeda is going to get another stronghold there, another foothold there, and launch more terror attacks on us.
So, what did our guys die for?
He said, I'm angry.
I'm pissed.
Do you have you talked to anybody like that?
Like, what do you think?
What do you make of that perspective?
Dr. Robbie.
I've been filled in phone calls since this kicked off.
And I think I might have a little different response than most people.
And I don't mean to anger anybody, but I tried to level the situation saying, we lost our brothers and sisters over there.
We went over there and we fought for 20 years, and now it is all for nothing.
I always said, I've been saying since all this happened, is like, I am proud to have gone over there and served.
And I tell everybody, hold your head high because you did exactly what you were supposed to do that your country asked you to do.
And is it tragic that we've lost?
Are the loved ones that lost someone hurting and dying?
Yes, they are, but they're loved ones.
And this may not be the case, but I try to tell myself this every day.
They died doing what they loved doing.
Because they lost their lives, others lived.
And then I tell all the individuals that served with me, is like, hey, look, you know what?
We did exactly what we were tasked to do.
Is it over?
Did we lose or did we time out?
Because inevitably, if you don't have anybody to surrender to you, There's really no end of the quarter.
Yeah, there was never going to be a spike the ball in the end zone moment in Afghanistan.
There was.
It was.
Yeah.
When that dude came down to get some milk and cookies and found Rob O'Neill in his kitchen blasting him right in the face, that's got to end it.
Love Lilotrell brothers.
Cuomo Abuse Of Power 00:12:16
Okay, last one.
We're bringing you my buddy Janice Dean.
JD is up next in an emotional, triumphant moment.
Stay with us.
Janice Dean is not just a frequent guest on the show, she is one of my closest friends.
In fact, I was listening to one of the podcasts from the guys at Ruthless, and they thought she should have been Times Person of the Year.
I love that.
They are such good judges.
Wish they'd been in charge.
JD bravely fought on behalf of her in laws, who tragically lost their lives in New York State nursing homes in the midst of the pandemic.
Thanks in part to that order signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo sending COVID positive patients back into nursing homes, 15,000 seniors would later die.
And she went from meteorologist at Fox News to a leader of the group speaking out against Andrew Cuomo.
As Letitia James' attorney general report was released in August, what ended up becoming the beginning of the end for Cuomo, Janice came on and took a much deserved victory lap.
I don't know about you, but I'm reeling.
I'm kind of reeling in my seat about what we just heard the specifics of what these women alleged and what he and his office. Allegedly did in response.
I don't even know how to put this into words.
You know, I always assumed that the sexual harassment charges would be the thing that might get him for many reasons.
And I am so proud of those brave women today.
You know, those young women who really risked their careers and their livelihoods and their reputation to go against.
This powerful monster.
And to see our Attorney General, Letitia James, who's a Democrat, go up there and just line by line, you know, deliver the information, the disgusting behavior.
It's all about power.
And, you know, it doesn't matter if we're talking about the nursing homes or we're talking about him giving out friends and family COVID tests.
It's all about abuse of power with this guy.
And I think today is the first day that we're going to hopefully see some accountability.
It's already starting to happen.
The New York State Senate Majority Leader, a Democrat, has already said he can no longer serve.
He himself said, This tweet is making the rounds May 17, 2013, quote, there should be a zero tolerance policy when it comes to sexual harassment.
And we must send a clear message.
That this behavior is not tolerated.
There's no room for any of this in any workplace, and certainly not in the state house of the great state of New York.
I want to go through with you some of the specific allegations because we learned a lot, a lot from Tish James, that presser, and the document, the executive summary, and so on that they put out, which is over 160 pages long.
Just so people don't have to take your word for it or my word for it, let's see exactly what the women.
Went in and told Letitia James, and by the way, her independent investigators, a lot of these they take pains in the report to point out are corroborated by independent texts, friends who came forward, aides who admitted they saw it, state troopers who witnessed some of the behaviors.
It's not to say Andrew Cuomo doesn't deny it, but just know this isn't just, I mean, with all due respect to Christine Blasey Ford, it isn't just somebody coming forward after 30 years and saying, this is what I remember without any corroboration.
This is painstaking.
Executive assistant number one had close, this is her allegation according to the executive summary, had close and intimate hugs with him, kisses on the cheeks, forehead, at least one kiss on the lips, touching and grabbing of her butt during hugs, and on one occasion while taking selfies with him, comments about her personal life relationships.
Calling her and another girl mingle mamas, inquiring multiple times about whether she had cheated or would cheat on her husband, asking for her help finding him a girlfriend.
And then there was this at the executive mansion, November 2020, when the governor, during another close hug with this young executive assistant, quote, reached under her blouse and grabbed her breast.
That's sexual assault.
It doesn't even have to be that egregious, an unwanted physical touch is a sexual assault under the law.
That is clear.
If in fact that happened, and it's pretty detailed, under the blouse, grabbing a young woman's breast who is a lowly executive assistant for you.
There's a reason that's number one in the complaint against this guy.
You know, it's hard for me to listen to because I had that happen as well in an office in New York with the superior.
He did the same thing to me, grabbed my breast from behind.
So I feel for these women.
I really do.
It is kind of triggering.
It is kind of, I hate that word, but goddammit, it is.
You say that, and it brings me right back to that office.
And I know it's not about me, it's about these strong women, but you have to understand that this kind of behavior, we can't put up with this or tolerate it anymore.
These brave women.
I remember what I was wearing that day when my boss did that.
So to hear that and to be in an office with an attorney and to, you know, They're strangers, right?
And you're telling them your deepest, darkest secrets that you don't even tell your boyfriend or your husband.
Oh my gosh.
I mean, I just, having gone through this, you've gone through this, you just want him to go away in shame.
He allegedly did this to this woman.
And the complaint says for over three months, this executive assistant kept this groping incident to herself and, quote, planned to take it to the grave.
Been there, right?
Been there.
But she found herself becoming emotional.
While watching the governor state at a press conference on March 3rd, 2021, the following.
Listen to the comment that brought this woman forward.
I want New Yorkers to hear from me directly on this.
I fully support a woman's right to come forward.
I now understand that I acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable.
But this is what I want you to know.
I never touched anyone inappropriately.
I never touched anyone inappropriately.
She wasn't going to tell.
Even though other women had come forward already, the dam had already broken.
This young woman wasn't going to tell because you know very well, as along with me, that women are terrified of getting this label slapped around them, that they're a complainer, that they're going to be a me-tour.
They don't want to get hired.
They're afraid that they won't get hired.
And that was the thing that did it.
And she went to the investigators.
She actually confided to colleagues.
Who reported her allegations to senior staff in the executive chamber?
Who, honestly, JD, the stories about the senior staff are almost as concerning.
The web of aides who couldn't have cared less about the 11 women, staffers and outside the department as well, who came forward.
I don't know what to say.
It's, they all need to go.
They all need to resign in shame.
And the fact that these people, his administration, continued to try to smear these women.
You know, up until a couple of weeks ago, when Rich has a party, his top aide was saying, I don't know if we can trust, you know, what's going on in the AG department.
I don't know if we could trust these women and what they're saying.
And, you know, the governor, too, I remember a couple of weeks ago saying, You will be shocked when you find out, you know, what happened to me.
You know, like, yeah.
Like, yeah.
He's the, you know, it goes back to don't be mean to me.
You know, he's the victim.
Give me a huge, Effing break.
You think back in your past year, you know, when you first sort of took up this mantle as an activist when it comes to him and this issue.
How do you think you've changed?
I can't give up.
I mean, there have been so many times where even Sean, my husband, has said to me, How long are you going to keep doing this for?
And I won't give up.
I won't give up.
I can't.
I've gone this far, right?
I mean, this is.
Over a year in, and the dam is breaking.
You know, like what if I hadn't gone on Tucker Carlson's show in May and said, This is what I think is going on.
You know, I've become friends with these women who have come forward.
You know, we have become friends, and I messaged several of them today and told them I am standing in solidarity with them.
And we've got this.
I feel, you know, people think I'm political.
This has nothing to do with politics.
I don't care who they voted for.
I'm so proud of these young women.
Megan, I'm so proud of those young women.
So proud of Janice for all she did fighting so publicly this year.
Honestly, you guys, I mean, it took a toll.
You know, she's an emotional gal, but she's strong.
She's stronger than she looks, that's for sure.
And, you know, here we are now.
What a difference a year makes with Andrew Cuomo pushed out of office, Chris Cuomo fired, Chris Cuomo's book deal, radio deal done.
Andrew Cuomo having to give back his $5.1 million of his book.
I mean, it's like, oh my gosh, that weather bitch knows what she's doing.
Remember, that's what Cuomo turned out to be calling her.
Chris Cuomo is calling her the weather bitch.
We've decided to own it.
I'm going to get a t shirt.
I'm going to get one for her that says the weather bitch, and I'm going to get one for me that says, I'm with the weather bitch.
You know, it's like owning your term of disparagement.
In any event, she's amazing, and I love her, and I hope you do too.
And I'm very grateful to all of you for spending the time with JD, with me, with all of you.
All of us this year, my team and I think about you guys every day.
What do you want to hear about?
What would interest you?
What's interesting in terms of the news diet?
It can't be all hard news.
It can't be all soft news.
Get some features in there.
We need stuff for our souls, right?
We think about those balances we strike on a daily, weekly, monthly, and now yearly basis.
And we love to do it.
Love to do it for you.
And thank you for allowing it.
2021 has come to a close, but we're coming back January 3rd.
In the meantime, please, if you would be so kind, give me the Christmas or New Year's present of downloading The Megyn Kelly Show.
Do it now, would you?
It would really help me.
On Apple, Pandora, Spotify, or Stitcher.
It's free, and if you hit that little download button, It helps and it also lets you write me a comment, which I read all of them at the Apple site.
So if you do it on Apple, I will read your comment, I promise, and some of which I respond to on the air.
Also, go to youtube.comslash Megan Kelly.
You can subscribe there too if you'd like to see the show.
Got some exciting things planned for you there in the new year.
Thank you for listening and Happy New Year.
Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.
No BS, no agenda, and no fear.
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