The Megyn Kelly Show - 20240520_cohen-admits-to-stealing-from-trump-and-protecting

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May 20, 2024 - The Megyn Kelly Show

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Political Smear Jobs 00:14:55
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	Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show.
	Live on SiriusXM channel 111 every weekday at New East.
	Kelly, welcome to the Megan Kelly Show.
	Coming to you live from SiriusXM HQ in New York City today.
	And that is because we have a big program for you.
	Including my first conversation ever with Riley Gaines.
	Can you believe she and I have never spoken?
	It's bizarre to me.
	Uh...
	Welcome to us.
	But she's got a new book coming out tomorrow, and she is coming on with her very first interview about it.
	That's an hour two.
	And we have breaking news happening just blocks away from where I am right now with Michael Cohen back on the stand and stumbling through cross-examination again.
	I'll tell you what's happening right now.
	What's happening right now is the mainstream media is waking up to some of the weaknesses that you all and I have been discussing for weeks on this case, and they're stunned, absolutely stunned, that Michael Cohen stole from the Trump organization with that 50 grand payment from Redfinch.
	Remember, we discussed this.
	We talked about it last week, how part of it was to create some group called Women for Cohen?
	It was anyway.
	They're just stunned that this guy would steal from Trump.
	Well, everybody who listens to this show knows that.
	We've been talking about it, but it was brought up by the defense today.
	So finally, the mainstream's paying attention.
	The judge this morning talking about whether this case, whether and when this case will wrap up, saying it's not going to be this week, as originally predicted.
	Closing arguments are actually going to happen sometime next week now.
	And so I don't know what that means for the defense's case.
	Originally, they said they might have one witness.
	There was speculation it could be this guy, Costello, who was very helpful to the defense.
	Could it be an expert witness?
	They had more arguments about that, about whether they should be allowed on the defense side to call Brad Smith.
	Remember him, the Federal Elections Commission guy who would put definitions to the terms of contributions, campaign contributions?
	That may happen.
	It could happen outside the presence of the jury or just in front of the jury.
	We'll find out.
	But we're going to kick off the day today with two names and faces you likely know well.
	United States senators here to talk about their new proposed legislation on IVF.
	You remember this became a big issue in Alabama after that Supreme Court ruling down there.
	And we've got the senator from Alabama, one of them, and a senator you know as Ted Cruz of Texas with us.
	He's a frequent guest on the show.
	He was with us in episode four.
	That's how much we like Ted Cruz.
	And Senator Katie Britt of Alabama is here too, making her first appearance.
	Senators, great to have you both.
	Megan, great to be here.
	Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you.
	Thank you so much.
	Appreciate you having us on.
	Welcome.
	All right, so we'll get to everything in Alabama because I'm very interested in this.
	And the audience knows that this is something near and dear to my own heart, given the way I had my three kids, too.
	But let's just start with the news of the day because you're both lawyers.
	And we've got Michael Cohen still on the stand.
	And the big news of the day, they're both listening audience, they're both shaking their heads and laughing.
	The big news of the day is they finally got to cross-examine him on whether he skimmed, there was a 50 grand payment that he wanted Trump to reimburse him for, Michael Cohen.
	And it went to this company called Redfinch, which Cohen paid to rig two polls in Trump's favor.
	I think when he was running against you, Senator Cruz.
	I remember.
	And some extra services in there were to create a hashtag women for Michael Cohen online social media.
	He couldn't get that going naturally.
	I know you're shocked.
	I think that would just be organic.
	Right?
	Really.
	So he told Trump that he paid them 50 grand and he wanted to be reimbursed for it.
	Well, it turns out Michael Cohen only paid them 20 grand.
	He paid them in a brown bag of cash and then he demanded Trump reimburse him for 50.
	So he stole $30,000 from President Trump, which is a felony in and of itself.
	And last week was whining about how he didn't get his full bonus that year.
	Okay.
	And this is very shocking to the media.
	I don't know why.
	But let's talk about the bigger issue today, which is the judge pretty much boot slapping them again on their attempt to get Brad Smith to testify.
	The defense wants the jury to hear from an official about campaign finance law and what it really is.
	And the judge is not allowing it, Senator.
	What do you make of it?
	Well, listen, with Michael Cohen admitting that he stole from Trump, I tweeted just a few minutes ago, they finally found a crime at the trial.
	Like there's something that actually is a crime.
	But, you know, look, that's the prosecution's star witness.
	This whole thing makes the bar scene at Star Wars look good.
	I mean, this is the biggest collection of grifters and people who are shakedown artists.
	And listen, it's designed to be a political circus.
	So it's driven by a rabid left-wing prosecutor who wants to make a name for himself, who wants to go after Trump because he hates his guts.
	It's in front of a left-wing partisan judge who is ruling against Trump every chance he gets.
	And it has a jury pool drawn from New York that is likely to be pretty hostile to Trump as well.
	And this is not about law.
	This is not about facts.
	This is about a political smear job to go after Trump.
	And in particular, the target is the voters.
	The reason Trump has been indicted four times is because Democrats are terrified the voters are going to vote for him in November.
	This is all about trying to interfere with that election.
	So do you think this guy, Brad Smith, should be allowed to get out there?
	I think he should get up there and say to the jury, because there's a window, because the judge said, maybe I'll let him testify on the definition of campaign finance or like what a campaign expense is.
	That could do it.
	Because if he gets up there and says what he said to us, what he said to National Review, what I think he said in a Wall Street Journal editorial, what he's going to say is a former FEC commissioner who was appointed under Bill Clinton is it's not what was in the defendant's head.
	His motivation is irrelevant to determining whether there was a campaign finance expense.
	All that matters is the nature of the payment.
	And if this is the kind of payment that could be made outside of the electoral context, then it doesn't fall within campaign finance law.
	And hush money payments have been made for a very, very long time.
	Wasn't Alexander Hamilton in trouble for making one of these?
	I mean, it may have cost him the presidency.
	So I don't know.
	What do you make of it, Senator Britt?
	I haven't heard you speak to this yet.
	You know, I think what we're seeing is just politics play out in front of us.
	And it's a sad day for democracy.
	It's a sad day for America to continue to see them attack a former president like this.
	And, you know, when you watch this, and to the point, no crime, you look at the judge who's clearly partisan.
	I mean, the things that Ted just spoke to, it makes, you know, if they could do this to a former president, they can do it to any one of us.
	And I think that they continue to do these things to keep him off of the campaign trail and to try to shift the narrative.
	But I believe that that will backfire on him because I think the American people have had enough.
	We are sick of two tiers of justice.
	We are sick of watching these things that we would may see in a banana republic play out in the United States of America.
	And I think that the voters are going to go to the ballot in November and they're going to speak very decisively to this very issue.
	Yeah, I think there's an outrage growing.
	I'll tell you this.
	Michael Cohen was just, they just finished the cross finally.
	After a few days, they ended their cross and redirect is beginning.
	He was a disaster.
	He was, I mean, it gets worse.
	Even Anderson Cooper admitted how bad it was.
	Because of the 14-year-old text, that whole thing.
	We talked about it last week, but if you didn't hear the program, it came out on Cross last Thursday, the last day they were in court, that Michael Cohen was getting harassed by a teenager, a 14-year-old.
	It was really bothering him.
	It really got under his skin.
	He went to Trump's bodyguard saying, how do I get in touch with the Secret Service?
	I want to crack.
	Like, no one cares about you.
	The Secret Service is not going to help you.
	And he claims that really what he called the bodyguard was for was to get Trump on the phone so he could tell him that he'd made the Stormy Daniel payment.
	And then it came out that moments before that, he was getting harassed.
	He was complaining and threatening the kid.
	And he was like, I'm going to call the Secret Service.
	And then he calls Keith Davidson or Keith, whatever his last Schiller, the bodyguard.
	So it was very clear he was calling him about his own little harassment problem and not Stormy.
	And that's what had answered.
	Yeah, every time he speaks, he discredits himself.
	Every time.
	I mean, it's remarkable.
	So you know, he learned a lot not to lie when he's lying.
	That's true.
	It's a simple rule.
	Yes.
	He just mentioned for the New York Times on the stand before they wrapped that he is considering a third book and standby, hold your hats, a run for Congress.
	No.
	Yeah, he wants to be with you guys because he has some of, quote, the best name recognition out there.
	He says his name recognition is affiliated with Trump because of the journey he's been on, but that it's not because of Trump.
	Not clear.
	Megan, he said these distinctions.
	Yes, this morning.
	I'm on the stand.
	All right, so I got to ask, where is Anthony Wiener's old district?
	Oh, crap, that's New York.
	There we go again.
	He might be a perfect congressman.
	I don't know who I feel sorry for the poor conversation.
	How about George Santos?
	He could run out of an island.
	You know, George Santos, that maybe they can run as a ticket.
	Can you, how high can you go in the U.S. government?
	I guess all the way to the president as a convicted felon.
	We had that discussion when Trump got indicted.
	Could do it.
	Certainly as a matter of law, yes.
	And he'd have to run as a Democrat.
	I don't think his affiliation with Trump is going to be helpful.
	So worse than that, I don't know if you know the story of Alce Hastings.
	What happened to him?
	Okay, so Alce Hastings was a federal judge who was indicted for taking bribes.
	And he was convicted of taking bribes.
	So he was impeached and removed from office as a federal judge.
	And he served jail time for taking bribes as a judge.
	That's right.
	And then he turned around and ran for Congress and got elected.
	He was a Democrat member of Congress after having taken bribes as a federal judge and been.
	He was in the South.
	I don't remember where.
	There was a similar thing happened with this mayor of Bridgeport we discussed.
	Like a lot of people get a lot of ex-cons in Congress.
	They put the count in Congress.
	You know, it means their parole officer only has to go one place.
	There you go.
	All right.
	So that leads me to the nonsense that happened on Friday in the House of Representatives.
	I wonder how you guys are looking at this nonsense.
	So it relates to an important issue.
	And I do want to talk to you about this important issue.
	And it's whether Merrick Garland should be held in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over the Joe Biden audio tapes in an interview that we've already gotten to see.
	Why can't we hear it?
	It was his interview with special counsel Hurr on his confidential and classified documents case, which her said, you know, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory can't sell it to a jury, but definitely a felon.
	And now we all want to see and hear the tapes.
	So Biden asserted executive privilege, and Merrick Garland is honoring that.
	And now Congress is looking into and approved, at least at the committee level, a contempt vote against him.
	But before we got to that correct result, all hell broke loose over there.
	Yep.
	And I'll just show the audience some of the nonsense that we all had to witness.
	We saw it, so you have to.
	We resume the Madcap comedy mystery series called Comer's High Crimes and Misadventures, an avowedly low-budget but multi-million dollar taxpayer-funded production, which most Americans assumed had ended two months ago.
	You mean like the January 6th committee?
	I'd like to know if any of the Democrats on this committee are employing Judge Murshan's daughter.
	Do you know what we're here for?
	You know we're here.
	I don't think you know what you're here for.
	Well, you the ones talking about this order, Mr. Chairman.
	That's beneath that.
	That is absolutely unacceptable.
	How dare you?
	Her words down.
	Oh, oh, girl, baby girl.
	Oh, really?
	Don't even play, baby girl.
	We are going to move.
	Why don't you debate me?
	Mr. Chairman.
	I wouldn't have to better understand your ruling if someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody's bleach-blind, bad-built, butch body that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?
	A what now?
	I should just try those words.
	No, please calm down.
	Don't tell me to calm down.
	Calm down.
	Because y'all talk calm down.
	Noise.
	And then you get out of control.
	Because if I chair, talk shit about her.
	Y'all don't have a chairman.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	So that was for the listening audience.
	MTG.
	She was the one saying, you mean like the January 6th committee?
	First it was with Jamie Raskin saying this is like Comer's high crimes and misdemeanors.
	Then in pipes MTG, and she mentions this woman, Jasmine Crockett, Democrat of Texas, I think, Southern Dallas, her eyelashes.
	Then Crockett comes out to say you're, you have a butch body to MTG, AOC pipes in, and finally we have Crockett dropping the S-word inside the halls of Congress saying y'all talk noise, and then you can't take it.
	When was the last time you had that happen over in the U.S. Senate?
	Aren't you glad you're not in the House like wow, I'm sorry that it's just a circus actually.
Senate Decorum and Respect 00:05:56
	My favorite though, is James Comer, midway through, leaning forward, going uh what now?
	What are you doing?
	Like it really.
	And I think you you probably saw John Fetterman tweeted that he had compared the house to the Jerry Springer show and he said I now need to apologize to Jerry Springer.
	Yeah, he ran an order court.
	So I will tell you one virtue of serving in the Senate that would not happen in the Senate, and and part of it is the median age is about 106.
	That helps.
	So like, if you ever want to feel young, come to the U.S. Senate.
	You will feel spry, like Katie and I. Our colleagues are reminiscing about Eisenhower.
	So so it really So no one's ever looked at you and said, baby girl, baby girl.
	They haven't gotten that yet.
	Haven't gotten that.
	Now, Schumer might.
	Chuck Schuler just might.
	Grassley.
	I mean, basically, you could be his great granddaughter.
	That's what someone was telling me.
	The median age in the Senate is like 67.
	I mean, seriously.
	Sorry, so it lends itself to a greater air of dignity on the plus side.
	And more sleeping in the job.
	Can I ask you?
	Yeah, I understand that.
	I'm getting there myself.
	Why is it like truly, why is Why does it look like that?
	Remember when we used to admire elected members of Congress and this would have been unthinkable?
	Yeah.
	Is this because of social media?
	What's happening?
	I do.
	I think there is an element of social media that drives these types of things.
	You know, people are rewarded for being social media stars versus statesmen or stateswomen in this case.
	And I think, you know, the country truly, I think, wants us to get back to a place where we can show people respect that we may not agree with.
	And so how we find that common ground, how we move it forward.
	I had a very different interaction with the Democrat the other day in a committee hearing for appropriations.
	Secretary of Commerce was there and we were talking about the ways that we, you know, work together.
	Interestingly, we were talking earlier, you know, on the places where we share a common goal with someone else, even if we have a different idea on a pathway to get there, I think we have an obligation as elected leaders to sit in a room and to try to figure out a path forward.
	Now, where we don't share a common goal, obviously that's where we diverge.
	But I really do think the American people want more of us getting back in a room, creating, having tough conversations, and actually creating solutions for the American people.
	And Megan, I am a big believer that you're never, that we need a lot of tough conversations in this country, but no tough conversation will ever be had and actually yield solutions if it's not honest.
	And we can't have honest conversations with people that we don't trust and respect.
	And so every interaction we have with our colleagues, whether it's the same side of the aisle or a different one, is an opportunity to earn that trust and respect.
	Don't you think it's easier in the Senate?
	I'm sorry.
	Yeah.
	Like, I can't, Jamie Raskin started it, not to sound like a third grader myself, but he opened that hearing with a ridiculous pronouncement on what it was.
	And MTG fought back by saying, oh, you mean like the January 6th hearing?
	And it went downhill from there.
	But like it was childish remark after childish remarks in her.
	Look, I mean, I think it is good advice for anyone to follow.
	Just don't be a jackass.
	Like treat people with civility and respect.
	And can I just say something?
	Man, I'll let you finish your point.
	I mean this in the nicest way.
	You can be.
	Like if you wanted to be, I know you personally.
	You're not above dropping a swear.
	I'm just saying like, you know, you can do salty.
	That's malarkey.
	But we don't see that when you're on the Senate floor.
	It's a different place.
	You should have a level of decorum and a level of respect for each other.
	And I will say, listen, I have a lot of friends who serve in the House.
	I don't know many of them that are actually really happy there.
	It has devolved into such nastiness that it appears to me they genuinely loathe each other and they walk down the hall and will like curse each other out.
	Like it's really ugly.
	And I'm glad to say the Senate is not like that.
	I mean, we've got stark disagreements, but some of it is the nature of the Senate.
	You serve six-year terms.
	There are only 100 of you.
	And it's very evenly divided, which means if you're slugging it out with someone today, you might need their vote tomorrow.
	And so there's a...
	But can I ask you a question about that?
	Because I came recently with my fam and you guys were not in sessions.
	Otherwise, I would have said hi.
	But we were told a story about Kirsten Cinema.
	This is before she left.
	And how the Dems, in the same way, the Dems will fight with the Republicans and it'll be knocked down.
	That's fine politically.
	But when one of their own.
	Right?
	When one of their own doesn't say the right stuff, it's especially vicious.
	And I heard she got it especially bad from her team.
	That doesn't surprise me.
	I don't know that independently.
	She was eating alone.
	They all eat alone.
	They eat together.
	In a lot of ways, the Senate is like a junior high.
	So it's mean girls.
	And all right, on the Republican side, we have lunch together every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in a little room.
	And there's all sorts of little politics of who you sit with and the cool kids, and you have the jocks and the nerds.
	And I mean, it's not even high school.
	I mean, it really is.
	That's fair.
	You know, there's an odd dynamic.
	No, we actually have quite a few jocks.
	Interestingly enough, there are probably, what, a dozen of our colleagues who played college basketball, football.
	I mean, we get, you know, Dave McCormick, who's running for Senate in Pennsylvania, I did a rally with him.
	And I mean, he was all state and football and wrestling and capt of the wrestling team at West Point.
	And so when I did the rally with him, I said, look, I was captain of the debate team, which means Dave is the kind of guy who would have stuffed me in the locker.
	And by the way, to be clear, Katie's husband, Wesley, who's a total stud, who played football at Alabama and then in the NFL, how long was he with the patients?
	He was here about four and a half years, a little bit over that.
Prosecuting Justice Alito 00:15:23
	And he's a giant of a man.
	Yeah, he's 6'8 ⁇ , 32.
	So he takes up most every doorframe.
	Wow.
	He played basketball with Cruz.
	So he played hoops with us.
	And okay, Wesley showed pity on us because if he really had moved his elbows with any force, we would all be hospitalized.
	Even the constitutional crisis is what you're telling me.
	Yeah, you know, it was he was very kind and kind of we would follow him and he just sort of sort of laugh and little man, like it was, it was fine, but we had fun.
	I love it.
	I love picture Chuck Schumer with his little burn book, you know, in the back, like, yeah, we'll get him, we'll get her.
	Like, speaking of mean girls.
	Now, that's believable.
	All right, so let's go back to that hearing because the underlying thing and the resolution by that, at least committee, to proceed on contempt hearings against Merrick Garland is important.
	It's amazing.
	I heard you on your podcast talking about this.
	I agree with you.
	It's amazing that they're trying to sell Biden's interview by a special counsel as protected by executive privilege.
	So explain why that's such BS, and then could you please tell us what can be done about it?
	So it is utterly ludicrous.
	And they're counting on the fact that people don't understand the legal terms for them not to realize what a frivolous claim it is.
	So executive privilege is actually something very important.
	It's a privilege that protects conversations that the president has with his senior advisors.
	And we want to protect executive privilege because we want a president to get good and candid advice.
	We don't want the National Security Advisor to be worried about, well, if I tell the president what I really think, I'm going to be hauled in front of Congress.
	I'm going to be hauled in front of a court and have to testify about what I told the president.
	We want unvarnished advice to the president.
	It's why we've had executive privilege going back to George Washington because it's critical to making the presidency work.
	Now, Democrats don't give a flip about executive privilege if it's the other team.
	So we've got right now, Peter Navarro is in prison because he claimed executive privilege and the Democrats subpoenaed him and he refused to testify about his confidential communications with Trump and he's in jail and Steve Bannon is getting ready to go to jail.
	So when there's real executive privilege and both of those claims were serious executive privilege claims, they didn't care at all and the Biden Department of Justice locked him up.
	In this instance, if Biden were talking with, say, Merrick Garland and telling him, here are the priorities for the Department of Justice, that would have a real claim of executive privilege.
	You could have an arguable claim.
	You're talking about how the administration is run.
	Biden was not talking to Robert Hurr with her as his subordinate.
	He was not instructing her, presumably, here's what I want you to do.
	Her was a special counsel appointed to investigate Joe Biden on whether he committed multiple felonies.
	And Joe Biden was in that conversation essentially as a criminal defendant, being interviewed by a prosecutor to determine whether or not to prosecute Joe Biden.
	And as you noted, Robert Hur concluded, yes, Biden committed multiple felonies.
	He did so repeatedly.
	He did so knowingly.
	He did so over an extended period of time.
	He did so brazenly.
	And mind you, the exact same felonies the Biden Department of Justice is prosecuting Donald Trump for.
	But the explanation the Biden DOJ gave is, well, we're not going to prosecute him because Joe Biden is not competent to stand trial.
	He's too old and senile.
	We could never convict him.
	That's an astonishing statement.
	But go back to executive privilege.
	There is no universe in which Biden was getting advice from Robert Hurr.
	Biden was instructing Robert Hurr.
	And so the claim is absurd on its face.
	It's a lie.
	If you made that argument in court, you could be sanctioned for making that argument in court.
	But Merrick Garland's perfectly happy to make it.
	I think he'll be held in contempt.
	And then you know what will happen once he's held in contempt?
	Nothing.
	Nothing.
	Yeah.
	He's not going to sit next to Navarro.
	Well, the reason is once Congress holds someone in contempt, DOJ has to prosecute them.
	So Eric Holder was held in contempt when Obama was president.
	That's right.
	But Eric Holder's DOJ refused to prosecute himself, and so he just stayed in contempt.
	Is there any way of getting the tapes, most importantly?
	I mean, can there be a legal challenge in a federal district court where we can say, all right, this is a BS claim and we want to hear those tapes?
	Frankly, the odds of that happening.
	Look, the House can litigate in federal district court and try to get them.
	The odds of their coming out before Election Day are pretty slim.
	The wheels of justice move slowly.
	Yeah, and also to, this is what you're seeing from the House.
	I mean, this is why there's that level of frustration on the Republican side in the House is because we continue to see this administration play politics at every turn.
	People who are supposed to be unbiased, people who are supposed to apply the law, aren't doing it.
	I mean, and we've seen this all the way back.
	Merrick Garland, speaking up a very different hearing with me and a Democrat, was Merrick Garland, you know, and kind of going back and forth with him about what he did to our Supreme Court justices when there was the picketing out in front of their homes trying before when the Leek Dobbs opinion had come out.
	The Marshals were clearly instructed, encouraged to not arrest individuals.
	He was saying, well, we can't prosecute people who weren't arrested.
	When we pulled up all of those slides, Megan, it showed that they had been actively deterred from doing that.
	We sent a letter to Merrick Garland along with Senators Cotton and Lee.
	We never got a response for over a year from him.
	So the complete and total disregard of the oversight action of the Senate by this administration is just unbelievable.
	So the frustration you're seeing on the House, the things that you're seeing bubble up, it's because this administration continues to play politics at every turn instead of what's doing right, what's right for the American people.
	Sincerely.
	I hope there's a way of getting those tapes, but you mentioned Merrick Garland in the Supreme Court.
	It's happening again.
	So you tell me, I mean, you're a constitutional expert, Senator Cruz, and had a very, very successful career as a lawyer before he became a senator.
	You tell me why they're now in 2024, what are we?
	May, almost June, bringing up the fact that right after Trump lost, Mrs. Alito, Samuel Alito's wife, a justice of the Supreme Court, flew an American flag upside down for a couple of days, is what we can tell.
	The New York Times runs this article trying to say she did this and she's some sort of an insurrectionist is the implication.
	And maybe he is too.
	And therefore, now you've got all these top Democrats, senators, their allies in the press, Lawrence Stribe saying that he should recuse himself.
	Now, if he had put up a Palestinian flag, they would say they're here.
	Right on, there you go.
	It's a patron.
	Riodon.
	You know, a Hamas or Hezbollah flag.
	That'd be great.
	We're going for it.
	That's what they've got to say.
	That he should pull himself from all the Trump cases, like the immunity decision and the J6 cases, which is another case that could gut that one federal case against him in Washington, D.C., Trump.
	He's not involved in the case, but he would benefit if the court goes for the J6 protesters.
	And that not only that, but Lawrence Stribe was saying he should be hauled in front of Congress, in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
	That's your committee.
	And made to answer why that flag was there.
	Meanwhile, he already gave an interview to Shannon Bream saying it was there because there were some rowdy neighbors who had lawn signs with expletives on them.
	They were very upset, I guess, that, I don't know, Biden won.
	No, they were Biden's supporters.
	I don't know why they had the nasty signs up, but they did.
	And she had a confrontation with them in which they called her the C word.
	And then for a couple of days, this is best the New York Times could find, she hung the flag upside down.
	And he's, I mean, for him to come out explicitly and to speak to it and say, my wife did it.
	It was, this is why she did it.
	And by the way, do we even know what the upside down flag always means?
	It means different things depending on when you buy it.
	It doesn't mean she doesn't, you know, Biden won.
	It was used for Vietnam.
	It was used for gun violence by some.
	Anyway, your thoughts on the whole thing.
	Well, I will say all of this noise is not organic.
	It's not occurring spontaneously.
	This is organized, and this is a deliberate effort from the left to try to undermine the Supreme Court.
	They look at the Supreme Court as the one institution of the federal government that they do not control, and they want to destroy the Supreme Court.
	We see this going back several years.
	We see an orchestrated effect.
	We saw Chuck Schumer go to the steps of the Supreme Court and threaten the justices by name, threaten Kavanaugh by name and saying you are going to unleash the whirlwind if you rule the way Chuck Schumer doesn't want you to rule.
	We've seen in recent months the incredible smear attack directed at Justice Thomas that is vicious.
	Justice Thomas, I think, is an American hero.
	He's an extraordinary justice.
	He's got a remarkable personal story.
	He's one of the greatest justices ever to serve on the court.
	The left loaths him and they have a special degree of hatred for him because he's a black man.
	They never heaped this vitriol on someone like Anton and Scalia because it was acceptable for a white guy to be a conservative, but they view Clarence Thomas as a traitor to his race and they're particularly vicious to him.
	They're now targeting Alito for the same reason.
	And look, this is in many ways the aftermath of something I've talked about a lot, which is I think Trump broke the Democrat Party.
	They hate Trump so much.
	They've convinced themselves he's Adolf Hitler.
	And so anything, anything, anything is justified to get Hitler, including destroying whatever norms we have.
	So indict the president one, two, three, four times.
	That's all fine.
	Ignore the rule of law.
	That's all fine.
	Demonize the Supreme Court.
	Tear down the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.
	Threaten the Supreme Court.
	Look, and actually what you just asked is very connected to what Katie said.
	Katie was talking about the protesters who night after night were screaming in front of the justices' houses, threatening their families.
	And by the way, it wasn't harmless.
	One lunatic from California flew all the way from California to Bethesda, Maryland with duct tape and knives and a gun to murder Justice Kavanaugh and his family.
	He was arrested just blocks away from the justice's home.
	It is a felony to protest in front of a judge's home.
	Merrick Garland and the Biden Justice Department refuses to prosecute it.
	And so the justices are subject to harassment.
	So Justice Alito tells us about his wife being harassed by vicious Democrat jerks.
	These are men.
	I'm sorry, any man who to a woman yells the C word at her.
	Yeah.
	Like, that's disgusting.
	That's reprehensible.
	I believe it was the same man who had a flag flying outside of his house saying F Trump.
	So this is a hard, angry partisan that is threatening Justice Alito's wife.
	Actually, she's no spring chicken.
	I mean, I remember her from the confirmation hearing.
	She's got to be in her 60s or early 70s.
	I would guess she's in her 70s.
	And she's being screamed and cursed at by this left-wing Democrat.
	I'm sorry, in what realm is that normal or acceptable?
	Look, if any of us encountered some left-winger, we wouldn't start screaming expletives at them.
	Even if we disagree with them, though.
	I'd like to see my spouse if somebody called me the C-word.
	You know, never mind me.
	Good for her for kind of handling it in the way she did.
	I tip of the hat to Justice Alito for not clocking the guy.
	It must have taken everything inside of him.
	And you see the pattern, though, from this Department of Justice under Merritt Garland, where they do not, they only protect the justices that when they feel like they're on their side or use that law forward.
	Because they're back now, Senator Britt.
	They're back at Alito's house.
	It's unbelievable.
	That is unbelievable.
	And by the way, that's orchestrated harassment.
	I'll tell you, at my house, for four months, every Saturday morning, I've had anti-Israel pro-Hamas protesters.
	They're there at 7 a.m. every Saturday.
	They come with cowbells and whistles and they're screaming and cursing.
	What?
	They wake my daughters up.
	You know both my girls well.
	They're now 13 and 16.
	It's terrifying their teenagers.
	They need to sleep.
	Teenage girls.
	And our neighbors are woken up.
	Our neighbors have young kids.
	One of our neighbors is a mom who has little kids.
	They were there till 11 p.m. on a Friday night.
	She went out and asked the police officers, can you do anything about these people screaming and keeping my kids up?
	And they actually yelled at her the same expletives they yelled at Justice Alito's wife.
	And my point about these people that are showing up every weekend at my house for four months, it's not spontaneous.
	It's paid for.
	It's a job.
	They clock in.
	I think they have a time card because they show up at 7 a.m. sharp and they leave at 8.
	I mean, it is a job.
	And I'm willing to bet it's paid for by the same people who are paying for the protests on campuses.
	It's paid for, I believe, by the George Soroses of the World, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Bill and Melinda Gates and the Pritzkers.
	All of those we know are among the people funding the groups that are paying for these anti-Israel protests.
	And this is a strategy of the left to harass people and threaten people.
	And you see them not do anything, Megan.
	I mean, you look at Title VI, and we know that this Department of Education, this Department of Justice, should be doing more to protect Jewish students on campus.
	They should be able to go to class.
	They should be able to go to the dining hall.
	They should be free of anti-Semitism and they're just not.
	And I said this the other day when I was going back and forth with the Secretary of Education.
	You know, when it comes to this discrimination based on race and, you know, just and really, you know, linking arms and not letting them into class, this wasn't okay in 19, the 1960s, and it's not okay now.
	And whiteness and trans rights are the only thing that guy cares about.
	And it is.
	He doesn't care about women.
	That's clear from these Title IX revisions.
	Clear.
	And he doesn't care about white people.
	He cares about certain protected groups, and that's it.
	But whites are protected too, not for the record.
	It's illegal to discriminate against white people on the basis of their skin.
	And they think Jews are white.
	They may or may not be, depending on the person.
	But this is like the calculation for these people.
	White, bad.
	Brown, protected.
	You know, vagina, you're out.
	You're out.
	Penis and a dress, you're in.
	Sorry.
	And we're seeing that honestly with everything.
	So you look at Title IX and you look at women's sports.
	Obviously, I have a daughter who plays volleyball, who plays basketball, who runs track.
	And I think about how hard she works.
	And, you know, I asked the other day, I mean, under these new rules, allowing a biological male to take a scholarship of a female.
	I mean, you look at even in this new proposed role, them saying that if your child tells them at school that they are transgender, that the teacher can, you know, is not obligated to tell the parent.
	Well, they tell me when they make a bad grade.
	They tell me if they got in a fight, you know, out on the, you know, out in the playground.
	So those types of things.
	But women too, when you look at the FDIC and what's happening with Marty Gruenberg, it's insane that a culture that is called misogynistic and toxic, that you have all of these Ds saying, no, he needs to stay.
	Let me tell you, if a woman says that she's not welcome to have a child and stay in the workforce or the way that they're talked to, the environment that they work in is despicable.
	I mean, the FDIC was created in order to create confidence in the banking system for Americans.
	Isn't that their way?
State of the Union Response 00:05:46
	Why is all this harassment going on from the top?
	And now there is a lot of boring.
	It's because it's ideology.
	So like you said, they only care about you if you have dark skin.
	Well, that's only if you're a leftist.
	Clarence Thomas is not black.
	I'm not Hispanic in their view.
	No.
	It doesn't matter.
	You have to obey what they say.
	And if you dare deviate, Dave Rubin is not gay.
	Peter Thiel's not gay.
	But like if you deviate.
	You and I are not women.
	In their book, you are literally not, they do not consider you women.
	Yeah.
	Unless you agree with Elizabeth Warren on anything, you are not, in fact, a woman in their world.
	She's not an Indian.
	It never stops.
	Stand by.
	We're going to take a quick break and we'll have more with Senators Britt and Cruz right after this.
	We'll get into their new bill on IVF.
	This is actually very interesting.
	I do have my suspicions.
	I'm not ready to say them yet, but I actually do.
	I have a woman in mind that I just think he's going to choose.
	And we'll see whether I'm right.
	I'll be honest with you.
	If he chooses somebody, if he picks a young woman and it's not mine, I'll tell you.
	And if it is mine, I've told my team.
	So they'll back me up on whether I have it right.
	But I don't want to get ahead of my skis.
	Okay, so that was yours truly back in January with my prediction of who Trump would pick as his running mate.
	I didn't say her name.
	As I said at the time, I didn't want to cause an S storm in her life because she wasn't getting mentioned a lot back then.
	But I just had a kind of feeling.
	She's from the South.
	She's a rising star within the Republican Party.
	She's a darling of many people who are powerful within the party and young enough that she doesn't have a huge legislative record that could be problematic for Trump.
	So I am going to tell you who that person is now because she's sitting on this set next to me and it was Senator Katie Britt.
	So would you like to make your announcement now?
	That's right.
	That's actually why we've come.
	Surprise.
	No, I appreciate you even thinking that I would be capable of something like that, truly.
	I mean, honestly, to be mentioned as someone who could lead potentially now or in the future is always really an honor and humbling.
	But as I have said, I've got my work cut out for me fighting in the U.S. Senate and fighting for the people of Alabama.
	We've done a lot of good things in the first 17 months, but I think there's a lot more work to do.
	And I stand alongside Ted here and figuring out how we can do everything possible, not only to make sure that President Trump takes back the White House, but we take back the Senate, which I think is critically important to us preserving the country and making sure that we can move some good things forward.
	All right.
	So in full disclosure, then I reversed my prediction at the State of the Union response.
	Fair enough.
	Which my audience knows I was not a big fan of.
	Now, can you just tell me, like, what happened there?
	Because just talking to you today, you know, you don't have that same affect.
	So was that nerves or walk us through what was going on?
	You know, it was a real honor to be able to speak on behalf of the party and to be able to speak to so many of the issues that we think are important and to really be able to talk about what Joe Biden isn't doing.
	You know, I think about what we're looking at right now and where we were before he got here and what he's done on the border, whether it's 94 executive orders in his first 100 days, whether it's him coming in and saying we're going to halt deportations, stop building the border wall, or even we're going to give amnesty to millions, which we know acts as a magnet.
	We see that hurting our communities, whether it's fentanyl overdoses or whether it is tragedy.
	I like to have that track now.
	I'm actually just watching you.
	It is kind of similar.
	Tragedy is like Lake Kinriy.
	You know, my daughter just called me right before I came in here.
	And I think you know this as a mother.
	And she said, Mom, I'm about to go to run.
	She's home.
	And to think about, you know, just the innocence of that young woman who went on a simple run that morning and come back.
	And listen, after you see Joe Biden literally yell for almost an hour and turn it into a political speech, what was supposed to be a dignified statesman speech of the State of the Union, it's just truly, Megan, it's infuriating.
	And so whether you're talking about that, whether you're talking about what we're doing just at home with prices going through the roof, you know, I mean, literally just went to the grocery store on Saturday and it's absolutely what I think it was.
	You were so affected by what I was doing.
	When you watch him yell for over an hour and also just, you know, take shots at Trump straight, take shots at things, just be dishonest.
	It's incredibly frustrating, but certainly was honored to do it.
	Well, wait, you didn't really answer.
	Was that the real you?
	I gave it all I've got.
	I mean, that is a really, a really high honor and felt very passionately about it.
	I gave my best.
	I understand on that evening.
	And I understand that.
	Would you just call me the next time you get asked?
	I can help you.
	Yeah.
	You know, you shouldn't have said yes to that.
	But go ahead.
	After she gave the response, which I thought she did a terrific job.
	And the media went nuts and savaged her.
	And at lunch the next day, I told you we're like a junior high.
	So we had lunch the next day.
	And I was pissed off.
	I'm like, they're coming after you.
	It is ugly.
	It is vicious.
	And just spur of the moment, I said, well, you know what?
	Come do my podcast tonight.
	Let's go talk about it.
	And so she came on the podcast.
	We did it as an audible.
	It was actually Monday.
	It was the Monday.
	So it had happened the week before.
	It was the next Monday.
	I said, come tonight.
	Let's do the podcast tonight.
	And so she did it.
	And it's actually very funny because CNN was pissed because she didn't go on CNN.
	And look, the joy of the podcast, we just set up the microphone and talked through it.
	And it was, I remember it was Monday because it was right after Saturday.
	And it was SNL.
	How cool is it that they get Scarlett Johansson to play you?
Protecting IVF in Alabama 00:09:09
	Like that?
	That's a big deal.
	It was.
	And she rocked.
	Look, a response to the State of the Union is kind of by its nature.
	It's a little bit artificial and stilted.
	And there have been lots of people who have had rough times, whether Bobby Jindahl or Marco Rubio.
	Sorry, I did some live-action comedy there.
	Megan, I do hope that people, though, honestly take time to get to know me.
	It was an interesting kind of sort of window into how quickly the media can jump on a narrative and then how they work to spread that.
	And so I think if anyone takes time to get to know Katie Britt and get to know the work that I've done, the relationships I've built with my colleagues, the issues I stand on, I am a passionate person and I'm unafraid to fight for the things that I care about.
	You're not a career politician, but I do want to get to your bill.
	So what does your bill do?
	So it is a very simple bill.
	It protects IVF.
	It prohibits any state from banning IVF.
	And the reason we did it, as you remember, the Alabama Supreme Court several months ago had a decision that was widely covered nationally as threatening IVF.
	What actually happened there was a couple who wanted to have kids and had embryos frozen in a clinic, that clinic was negligent in protecting them and someone ended up destroying the embryos against the couple's wishes.
	And so they brought a lawsuit because they were mad at the clinic for destroying their embryos.
	They didn't want them destroyed.
	And the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in favor of the couple.
	Well, immediately that was interpreted by a lot of people who frankly had political agendas, a lot of Democrats with an agenda, a lot of people in the media as saying these are crazy right-wing Republicans that are trying to get rid of IVF.
	Now, the Alabama legislature immediately stepped in and passed a law clarifying, no, IVF is perfectly legal in the state of Alabama.
	But that has not stopped Democrats across the country from wrongly claiming that there are Republicans who want to take away IVF.
	I still can't believe this beautiful girl is ours.
	Our little IVF miracle.
	Sorry, she's not yours anymore.
	What are you talking about?
	Who are you?
	I'm your Republican congressman.
	We made IVF illegal, and we're not letting you criminals raise her.
	You're dictating.
	She's our baby.
	I won the last election, so it's my decision.
	If you want a baby, you have to make one the old-fashioned way.
	And I'll be watching.
	So Katie and I teamed up to draft this bill.
	And it's a very simple bill that says if a state receives Medicaid funding, that they cannot bar IVF, that a state can and a local government can't, that it is a federal right, that you are entitled to have access to this technology and a state cannot bar it.
	And we drafted it because both of us strongly and unequivocally support IVF.
	I think IVF is a miracle.
	I mean, it has given 2% of all live births in America come from IVF.
	We've seen now over 8 million children born from IVF.
	And the beauty of being able to give parents the chance to have a child when they couldn't otherwise, to have a little girl, have a little boy, to raise with love.
	I think IVF is profoundly pro-family.
	And so we drafted this together to put into federal legislation a protection and a protection that is there.
	And importantly also, this gives an opportunity for Democrats to decide.
	It does.
	Where do they stand?
	That's right.
	Because what we're seeing is Democrats, look, part of the reasons Democrats are leaning in on this issue so aggressively is because their position on abortion is really extreme.
	Our colleagues in the Senate, the Democrats and the Senate, every single one of them without exception, supports unlimited abortion on demand literally up to the moment of birth in the 39th or 40th week partial birth abortion.
	Now, as you know, that is a radical and extreme position.
	Absolutely.
	9% of Americans nationally support that position.
	91% of Americans, the majority of people who consider themselves pro-choice, say, look, abortions in the 39th and 40th week, that is crazy.
	No, that's too much.
	Every single Senate Democrat has voted in favor of that position of striking down any limitation on abortion.
	So they don't want to talk about that.
	Does the bill pass, do you think?
	Because the Democrats should want this, but they're not going to want to give you the win.
	I hope we can build some bipartisan support.
	They should absolutely want this because this protects IVF.
	It protects people's opportunity to bring life into the world, to grow their families.
	And that's what we're all about.
	And that's what the Democrats say that they're for IVF.
	So I think they have an opportunity to show it and being part of this.
	On the merits, this should be 100 to nothing.
	Because every senator supports IVF, every Republican, every Democrat senator.
	We're going to try to pass it.
	The question, and we don't know yet, is what are the Democrats going to do?
	On the substance, they don't have any issue with it, but they might very cynically block it because they want an issue in November rather than actually pass the law.
	But, you know, Katie, I would love for you to tell the story of, so the reason we partnered on this, it's actually kind of a cool story inside the Senate.
	So at our Senate lunches, right after the Alabama Supreme Court decisions came out, Katie stood up at lunch and gave this impassioned speech telling what happened that day.
	Would you tell that story?
	So I happened to be, it was state work period, so I was home.
	So on that Wednesday when the ruling came down, I went to a soccer game.
	And, you know, soccer games last forever.
	And as I was there, it would be parent after parent, man after woman coming and saying, what's happening?
	What's going on?
	There was a lot of confusion swirling and a lot of uncertainty.
	The next day, I went to Birmingham and at a lunch, I had three women come up to me, two together, one different, with tears streaming down their face because they were in the middle of the IVF process.
	And that for them had been halted.
	And then, you know, went on to another soccer game that night and was inundated, didn't get to watch my son at all.
	And so I really, you could feel it.
	I got started getting calls from friends and who said, this is my journey.
	And this, or my sister is about to have implantation.
	And we've gone through all of these things.
	And, you know, that these people are holding on to the possibility of being able to be a part of the miracle of life.
	And it was clear that we needed to give absolute certainty to that.
	I was really grateful to President Trump for speaking so decisively on IVF.
	That was huge.
	And then the Alabama legislature for quickly acting.
	Like, and the Alabama legislature is the most conservative legislature in the nation.
	This is not.
	California.
	They quickly acted to make sure that they knew that we were going to protect women's rights, couples' rights to IVF.
	This is very smart.
	Not only does it, what you did in Alabama, restore people's rights when it comes to IVF, but you're sending a message to everybody that the caricature that's being painted of Republicans on this is just that.
	I got to go.
	I got 10 seconds left.
	Thank you.
	Thank you so much.
	Thanks for taking my hard time too.
	Thank you.
	But you know, I'm a big believer because of the January.
	Well done, Katie.
	Sayonara.
	All right, see you soon.
	So excited for this next segment.
	We have a first-time guest of the show, which I cannot believe, and one you surely know.
	It's Riley Gaines.
	Yay.
	She is a former collegiate swimmer at the very, very top of her game.
	She rose to fame after she, well, she placed fifth in the NCAA finals, and she tied with a man, Leah Thomas, who was posing as a woman and was allowed to compete with the women and entered her women's race, not to mention her women's locker room.
	And she and the other women were told to just deal with it or they'd be labeled as bigots.
	But Riley did not stay quiet.
	She left a career behind that she hadn't entirely planned for herself to fight for fairness in women's sports, even though she'd left them.
	She understood about the young women coming up behind her.
	She continues to lead the charge today and works to implement change across the country for your daughter and mine.
	Today, she's here to share her story in a new book that goes into her childhood, the unfair advantage transgender athletes have, and her advice for not just women and girls, but everyone.
	The book is called Swimming Against the Current, Fighting for Common Sense in a World That's Lost Its Mind.
	And it's out tomorrow.
	Okay, Riley Gaines swimming against the current.
	Please support her.
	This is her first interview on the book.
	I'm so happy to meet you.
	I feel like I know you.
	Of course, you have been at the forefront of this issue, a voice that I constantly look to.
	So I am a huge fan.
	Like I said, I can't believe we haven't done this sooner, but I'm thrilled to be in this chair next to you.
Trans Women in Sports 00:16:09
	Thank you.
	And, you know, your story helped activate me on all of this because while I was speaking out and I'd had a change of heart from where I used to be, it was when you got attacked in San Francisco that, I mean, for the first time in my life, I said, I might need a forum like a 501c3.
	I might like, I, because, you know, as a journalist, you're not used to being an activist.
	I don't really like that word, but I couldn't believe what they did to you as a woman who has standing to speak about this issue, as a woman who was directly affected by a man competing in her sport at the highest level.
	And they treated you like a villain.
	You were literally assaulted.
	How pivotal was that moment for you?
	Because I know you write it about it in the book.
	It was a huge defining moment for me.
	Up until that point, I kind of just figured I would speak to this issue, say my piece, speak about the unfairness of the competition, the locker room, the silencing that we face, but swiftly move on.
	This is not something that I ever wanted to do.
	I still don't necessarily want to be doing with my life.
	But when I was ambushed, I mean, I was being shoved, I was being pushed, I was punched in the face by these men wearing dresses, which fortunately for me, their punches really don't hurt that bad.
	They held me for ransom throughout the night.
	I mean, four hours held me for ransom, demanding that if I wanted to make it home to see my family safely again, I had to pay them money.
	You might be wondering, okay, well, where are the police?
	It's San Francisco.
	The police were being held for ransom with me.
	It was a wild experience.
	And it was in that moment I realized, oh my gosh, this is what we're up against.
	And let's be very clear.
	My message from the beginning has been that there are two sexes.
	You can't change your sex.
	And each sex is deserving of equal opportunity, privacy, and safety.
	Nothing controversial, nothing hateful.
	I mean, it's really the bare minimum what I'm advocating for.
	But for saying that, the amount of vitriol and violence that I was met with, that's when I was really reassured that what I was speaking to was in fact the right thing, the fair thing, just, moral, ethical thing.
	And it kind of San Francisco State University.
	We pulled the tape just to refresh the audience.
	It was, it was bad.
	Here's a little.
	The mob's chasing her.
	I'm coming.
	I'm good.
	I'm good.
	You fucking riot, bitch.
	Trans women, all women.
	Deal with this.
	Or women, trans women.
	Our women, trad women.
	More women.
	Trans women.
	Or women.
	Trans women.
	Or women.
	Trans women.
	Or women.
	Oh, my God.
	So that's only a snippet of what I endured for hours, hours.
	Hundreds of these protesters, again, so disorienting at that because they come in the room.
	That's after I had been escorted, kind of carried off out of the room after having already been ambushed.
	But they come in the room, they turn the lights off, rush to the front.
	The lights are flickering before they're indefinitely turned off.
	Again, men in dresses running at me, women with beards.
	I was so confused.
	Oh my God.
	Incredibly disorienting.
	And again, that's what I endured for hours.
	Some of the most heinous, profane things you could possibly imagine being said were said to me.
	They were yelling at the officers, calling the officers racist pigs for protecting a white girl like me for hours.
	That chant, trans women are women, is behind all of the problems we're seeing, that they believe that's true and we don't.
	We know it isn't.
	That's the whole premise of the entire gender ideology debate.
	So whether it's the sports side, whether it's what we see in corporate America, whether it's the medicalization side of things, that's the premise of the whole debate.
	And we spent so much of our time on this issue saying or hearing trans women are women.
	But it only seems like it goes one way, especially in sports and prisons and different places.
	We don't hear of women identifying as men infiltrating into men's spaces.
	No, this is only happening one way.
	I know you went, our audience may remember we covered the Kappa Kappa Gamma lawsuit.
	They claimed that this man, biological man, well, we know that he got into Kappa Kappa Gamma out in Wyoming and a bunch of the sorority sisters objected and they objected mostly to their own sorority allowing it.
	And now they filed a lawsuit against Kappa Kappa Gamma National saying you've changed the definition on us.
	You've done a bait and switch.
	You said we were only going to allow women and now you haven't.
	You've allowed a man.
	And you went to the arguments that that simple concept of what is a woman?
	Does it include more than women?
	Is now being argued in front of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
	That's one step down from the U.S. Supreme Court.
	And they were really wrestling with it.
	Well, we shouldn't be surprised considering when a sitting Supreme Court justice was asked this question, what is a woman by Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, she said, well, I can't answer that because I'm not a biologist.
	Well, guess what, Katanji Brown Jackson?
	I'm not a biologist.
	I guess thinking of an analogy here.
	I'm not a veterinarian either, but I know what a dog is.
	That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
	And it's no surprise that this is the same Supreme Court justice who recently said she felt like our First Amendment rights were hamstringing the government.
	Precisely, that's precisely what our First Amendment rights are supposed to do.
	But nonetheless, it was wild to sit in that court.
	They pulled a panel of judges, three judges.
	One was a Biden appointee.
	One was a Clinton appointee.
	One was an Obama appointee.
	That's a nightmare.
	It's like some sort of like joke, like you walk into a bar and this is your scenario.
	But that's what the girls drew.
	So we don't know the verdict yet, but I'm not overly hopeful just based on the panel of judges.
	But to sit there and listen to the Kappa attorney say that woman has multiple definitions.
	It's not a word with one singular definitions.
	It could mean anything.
	She was even then pushed back by the Biden appointee judge who said, okay, well, if you're sitting here telling us that woman can mean anything, does that include the definition of cisgender men, men who identify as men?
	Is that a reasonable definition for women?
	To which she responded back with, I don't have enough research right now to tell you if a male who identifies is a male, if that's a reasonable definition for the word woman.
	It's a promising thing that the judge pushed back a little.
	I mean, she's recognizing that there must be some limitations on how we define it, but I don't have high hopes.
	I mean, the 10th Circuit normally is not the most liberal court in the country, but I don't have high hopes.
	I do have high hopes for this Supreme Court.
	I realize the audience is thinking Gorsuch, Title VII, he said you have to be able to hire trans people.
	But that I do think is very different from this issue.
	It's just very different.
	I do not like the chances of the trans activists if cases like this go up to the high court.
	I agree.
	The Supreme Court hasn't heard a Title IX case yet.
	There's a couple, I think, that are on the docket that could hopefully get there.
	And I say hopefully, because I am in full agreeance with you.
	I think the Supreme Court would rule in our favor on this, that they would understand that sex-based categories and protections and rights are necessary when, again, opportunities are threatened, when privacy or safety are threatened.
	How do you think about that, Riley?
	So if the Supreme Court were so to rule, or if, you know, we just had complete sanity reign at the Olympic level, at the NCAA level.
	I know I've read the stories in the book about your dad, you don't look backward, you only look forward.
	But how do you think it would make you feel as somebody who actually came up in the time of madness, in the time where we were forcing young women to deal with this?
	Well, it's wild to me that so much of what we see now by the Biden administration, this new Title IX rewrite from the administration and the Department of Education, not to mention all of the other things, whether it's the sports issue or not, that they're doing under the guise of progress, right?
	Indicating we are moving in the positive forward direction.
	Let's be very clear.
	What we are seeing is not progress.
	This is regressive.
	It's taking us back in time, at least half a century.
	Title IX was implemented in 1972, so 52 years ago.
	That's what we're going back to by asking women to smile, to step aside, to allow these men onto our podiums, telling us that we're the problem if we don't want to or feel totally comfortable undressing next to a fully naked, fully intact man.
	That's not what progress is.
	That actually happened to you.
	That you were at the NCAA championships where Leah Thomas was present, who was 550-something as a man, but was coming in fifth in your race, quote, as a woman.
	You had to change in a locker room with him.
	That's right.
	Fully intact.
	There was no surgery.
	Fully intact.
	No, not at the time.
	I don't know now, but no, not at the time.
	And keep in mind, we knew going into this meet, this was in March of 2022.
	We found out a couple weeks before the meet, the NCAA, of course, they were pandering back and forth, sitting on the fence.
	Do we let him compete with women?
	Do we not?
	Ultimately, they decided like three weeks before they announced that his participation in the women's category was a non-negotiable.
	So we knew we would be competing against him.
	We did not know we would be changing in the locker room.
	There was no forewarning.
	There was no ways that we could have made other arrangements for ourselves.
	If this was something that we felt uncomfortable with, the first time that we became aware we would be undressing next to this six foot four, 22-year-old man, fully intact, fully exposing himself, was when we were inches away from said man, fully exposing himself.
	Oh my gosh.
	And I'll kind of set the scene because a swimming locker room, it's not a place of modesty.
	These suits that you put on, I mean, they're skin tight, they're paper thin.
	It takes about 15, 20 minutes your racing suit to really poke and prod yourself into these suits, 20 minutes of which you're fully exposed, very intimate.
	You have friends oftentimes like helping you get yourself into these suits.
	Then I think we can all agree, you know, a locker room is not a comfortable place, but growing up a swimmer, you almost become comfortable feeling vulnerable in that environment.
	But I want you to put yourself in our shoes or your daughter in our shoes.
	You have your back turned, again, putting on your suit.
	And all of a sudden, you hear a man's voice in that locker room.
	You turn around, you look up because he's so tall, and there's a six foot four man undressing, taking off his women's swimsuit and putting on his street clothes.
	Wow.
	It's feelings of, of course, it's awkward.
	It's embarrassing.
	It's uncomfortable.
	It was innate, inherent for every girl in that changing space to cover themselves, whether it was with their hand or their clothes or their towels and to get out as quickly as they could.
	But I think the best way to describe how we felt was, I mean, it was an utter violation.
	It felt like betrayal.
	And really, it was traumatic and not even just traumatic because of what we were forced to see or how we were forcibly exploited.
	It was traumatic for me to know just how easy it was for those people who created these policies, enforced these policies, to totally dismiss our rights to privacy without even a second thought, without even bare minimum forewarning us that this would be the arrangement.
	And when you think about the messaging before he got to you, he was swimming with the UPenn swimmers on their team.
	And those girls had quietly tried to raise objections because they'd been going through this all season and were told they needed therapy to work on their bigotry.
	They were told they were the problem.
	16 of the girls signed on to an email to University of Pennsylvania.
	Some of these girls, even victims, previous victims, survivors of sexual assault.
	I know of one girl who was raped in a bathroom setting prior to going to college.
	And so this was understandably a very triggering and traumatic experience for her.
	And so 16 signed on to the school, expressing their discomfort in the locker room, to which the school, I swear I have a screenshot of the email.
	The school responded back with, if you feel uncomfortable seeing male genitalia, here are some counseling resources that you should seek in an attempt to re-educate yourselves.
	They had to go to mandatory LGBTQ education meetings weekly to learn about how just by being cisgender, they were oppressing Leah Thomas.
	Their school even went as far as to tell these girls that if they did speak out and any harm whatsoever were to come towards Thomas's way, whether it was physical harm, mental harm, emotional harm, self-inflicted for that matter, they said, then understand you girls are solely responsible.
	And that would make you responsible for a potential death and that would make you a murderer.
	Oh my God.
	And you don't want to be a murderer, do you?
	No, so I suggest you be kind and I suggest you be inclusive.
	This is so stomach turning.
	Just to hear you describe it is deeply alarming because it's happening right now to much younger girls too.
	Not that it was easy at the college level, but you and I both know it's happening to 10 year olds, to 12 year olds who don't have any sort of maturity yet to deal with this kind of a thing.
	And not for nothing, but there is no question in my mind and in the minds of many experts on this issue that it's not normal in any way for an actual gender confused person, an actual trans person to show off his penis in a women's locker room.
	The people who make up the 2% of trans people who are legitimately gender confused and have been since birth and have lived their lives like that.
	They don't want you to see their penis.
	They're actually trying to hide that and to blend in with women.
	People who do what Leah Thomas did tend to be overwhelmingly autogonophiles who are aroused sexually by dressing as women and being around women while they're pretending to be women.
	And so the odds of this guy getting off on the fact that you were uncomfortable are extremely high.
	100%.
	And yeah, to your point, which I haven't really thought of it this way, but it's such a good point because someone who is gender dysphoric, they're so uncomfortable with their own body that they would never expose themselves out in the open in that way because they're dysphoric about that.
	That was not the case with Leah Thomas, which he's actually been on social media and liked posts and commented on posts and reposted things that say he is an AGP.
	Oh, they're very dark.
	Oh.
	I mean, they make it very clear.
	The Daily Wire did a whole expose on it.
	Pardon the pun.
	And it was deeply alarming.
	And we've invited Leah Thomas to come on the show and talk to us about it and deny it if he wants to.
	He hasn't taken us up on that.
	No.
	But what we're doing to our young girls, it's morally wrong.
	It's evil.
	There was just a story.
Testosterone and Third Categories 00:11:59
	I know you saw this out of West Virginia.
	That's so that court ruled against the young woman.
	That's a 13-year-old girl, I think, who was playing against a male.
	Hold on, let me get my notes.
	And this young boy said, I'm a girl and I've been a girl.
	I've been taking the hormones and all that.
	But this, the young actual girl said, okay, you may say you're a girl, but you keep threatening to do things to me with your penis in the most vile and offensive terms possible.
	And you keep winning races with faster times than most of the girls have and all of that.
	And the court in West Virginia sided with the trans student.
	It goes to show you no one is immune.
	And this is something I see across the board.
	I live in Tennessee, which is a very, right, for the most part, conservative state.
	We've got great leaders in our state who do wonderful things.
	But in talking with people, community members, parents, even kids in the state, they say, oh, well, that's not happening here.
	We're in Tennessee.
	That would be your first, that would be your first mistake because it certainly is.
	I think complacency is ultimately how we've got here because we said, oh, it won't affect me.
	This isn't happening to me.
	And then it does.
	But those West Virginia girls, that case is the girls who refused to do the shot put against this guy.
	It is.
	You were there for that too.
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	You're everywhere.
	I feel everywhere.
	Really, I couldn't be more proud of those five girls because look, these are five 13, 14 year old girls in middle school.
	They reached out to me a few weeks prior to ultimately conceding in the video that went totally viral.
	And they said, Riley, we're set to compete against a boy.
	He's also in middle school.
	He's 13 years old.
	He goes by the name of Becky Pepper Jackson or Becky Jackson Pepper, whatever his name is.
	And they said, but we don't want to compete against him.
	They said, Riley, it's not because we don't like him or that we're hateful towards him or people who act in the way he does.
	No, it's not that.
	But Riley, are we not worthy of being called champions?
	Why do we have to fight for second place?
	And my heart broke.
	Middle school age girls, how sad is it that they're left to contemplate if they're worthy enough to be called champions?
	But anyways, they decided on conceding.
	Five of those girls, they got up in the circle.
	They had their shot put.
	They loaded up as if they were going to throw and then they stepped out.
	Yeah.
	I could not be more inspired.
	I mean, I hate to even say that.
	I hate to say I'm inspired by girls not competing in sports because I know the benefits of playing sports.
	I break the morning stance for sure for something far larger than just winning that one meet or far larger than even themselves.
	The allegations against this man claiming he's female included that he, again, haven't received his response to this, assuming it's a denial, but alleging that he made multiple sexually explicit remarks to this one girl in particular, Adelia Cross, two to three times per week, was looking at her saying, suck my D.
	Same thing to her other teammates as well, saying, I'm going to do this with my D and to you here or there and elsewhere, that he would taunt her after beating her in competitions.
	You have more testosterone than I do, and I'm still beating you.
	And then he eventually took her spot away from her by her eighth grade season.
	Puberty appeared to be setting in, and he was suddenly taller than her and throwing 20 feet farther than she could.
	And the school did next to nothing.
	It looks like they worked to get the comments shut down, but he was never removed from the team.
	And these girls too were forced to change in a locker room with this intact young man.
	Now, the problem is the courts in that one case in West Virginia seem to say, well, it's somebody who tried to live as a girl for, you know, since age nine.
	And if they go on the puberty blockers and then cross-sex hormones, I mean, the court's basically saying they're kind of a woman, except for the penis.
	And so they have no advantage.
	Yeah, except for that thing.
	And so they have no advantage.
	And I was, I had a couple of left-wingers on my show recently who I like, but they were like, do you think Jazz Jennings should have to use the boys' room and play in the boys' sports?
	And I said, yes, I do.
	I'm 100% there.
	Yes.
	So what's your answer to the people who say, well, he started a puberty blocker, didn't have male puberty or Jazz Jennings had the operation.
	It's really kind of a girl now.
	Here's the thing.
	Every decision has consequences, first and foremost.
	Even a decision as simple as if I don't get out of bed in the morning, it has a consequence to it.
	And so look, I'm not here to police on what someone does.
	I think a child, anyone under the age of 18, chemically or surgically castrating themselves, I think that's criminal.
	But an adult, that's the beauty of America.
	You can do what you want as long as it's not costing my taxpayer dollars and it's safe for everyone else.
	Who cares?
	So I'm not here to police that, but that decision has consequences.
	So if you're a girl, let's say, who begins taking testosterone, no, I don't think it's fair for you to compete with the girls because that's cheating.
	That's called using performance enhancing drugs.
	What do we call Lance Armstrong?
	We called him a cheater.
	But that might be a decision that you have to make.
	That's a consequence of the decision.
	Okay, do you want to transition?
	Fine, but you might not be able to play your sport anymore.
	And so I hear all the time, okay, well, what about a third category?
	Honestly, I thought for a while, sure, let's just have a third category.
	But the more I think about it, if safety and fairness still matter, which to me, every person, whether trans identifying or not, I think every person is entitled and should strive for safety and fairness.
	If we create a third category, it's still very much going to be males competing against females.
	Therefore, safety and fairness.
	Wait, why do you think that?
	Because you think female people posing as males will go into that category and just get beaten by the guys who are.
	Yeah.
	I mean, the binary still exists.
	Even if you have this third category for non-binary or males identifying as women or females identifying as men who have begun taking testosterone, it's still going to be males versus females.
	I don't think we're going to have the females who posing as males compete in that, right?
	They haven't done a lot of the competition.
	They're not the problem.
	That's another thing my leftist friends were pushing me on.
	They're not leftists.
	They're center left, but they were left a little bit on a couple of things.
	And, you know, it's look, it's not, the problem is not with women who pose as men making their way into men's spaces, nor is there a danger posed by that, nor is there an unfairness issue posed by that.
	It's always the other way around.
	I don't know whether the third category could work.
	I just know it's not, it shouldn't be my daughter's problem until they figure it out.
	No, I don't care.
	It shouldn't be up to the women to create a solution.
	Explicits like, look, my daughter loves sports, but she also really likes to act in the school place.
	They happen at the same time.
	So she has to make a choice.
	She has to create a hierarchy of what is most important to her on her value list.
	Exactly.
	That's what these trans people are going to have to do.
	Exactly.
	Yeah, no doubt.
	And then let's say a third category.
	Okay, you have, do you then split it?
	Okay, males who identify as women, women who identify as men.
	Okay, then if fairness and safety still matter, do you split the men's division?
	Men who begin taking hormone blockers before puberty and men who take HRT after puberty.
	If you really want to be a bad person, there's one place that you go to abandon all identities.
	We don't look at religion.
	We don't look at race.
	We don't look at sexual orientation.
	And rightfully so, because those things don't matter.
	Look at the blowback against Caitlin Clark.
	I know.
	I know she's committed a sin just by being so popular within the WMBA.
	Well, now after the WMBA.
	Well, what do you think of the testosterone thing?
	Because in the book, you address what does it really mean when there's a biological male who's taking estrogen to lower his testosterone or puberty block, whatever.
	They're trying to lower their testosterone.
	And then there's still many athletic bodies that say that'll work.
	Yes.
	I think that's the most misogynistic thing, reducing women down to a testosterone threshold.
	Is that all we are?
	Is that what makes someone a woman?
	How much testosterone you have?
	What a silly standard.
	So by no means, and even if, even if a male could get to zero nanomoles per liter of testosterone, which is incredibly dangerous for a man to reach and achieve these levels that are being set by these governing bodies.
	But nonetheless, if a man could get to zero, there are still advantages that males possess that testosterone doesn't affect that women will never have.
	Like lung capacity, like your heart size, like your height, like your limb size.
	It even sounds silly, but in swimming, your throat size matters.
	This is a sport where you're grasping for air.
	Men on average have a 40% larger throat than women.
	Wow.
	That's a huge advantage.
	So these, I think the whole testosterone threshold, again, it's just incredibly misinformed as to what it is to be a woman.
	Yeah, it's silly.
	I remember we did a show on sexual health.
	We did an hour on men's and then we did an hour on women's.
	And I was asking the expert about women taking testosterone because a lot of the women I know, I do not take testosterone, but some of the women I know are taking it.
	It helps with libido and whatever.
	And she said, you can do it, but you certainly couldn't let your child get anywhere near it because those patches are like powerful and you wouldn't want a child coming near you.
	And I remember asking, well, what about your husband?
	And she was making the point that if you had any idea how much testosterone is raging through the average male body, your husband can rub the patch all over him and he's fine.
	He's breaming with it, the average man, not guys who have a problem, but breaming with testosterone.
	And we're just not.
	We're just not.
	And the refusal, because there's still many sports out there that don't require any lowering of testosterone by these men.
	Like soccer, which soccer.
	Yes, when talking about swimming, I often forget the safety aspect of things because swimming isn't a sport where you're colliding or running into one another or throwing something at one another.
	But in sports like soccer or softball or volleyball, again, where you're hitting a ball at each other or what have you, you do have to worry about safety.
	So could you imagine on a soccer field, a male running up with his forceful and powerful kick, 10 times, I imagine, the amount of power a woman can exert with her kick, kicking you in the shin.
	Or volleyball.
	We've seen several instances of this now.
	Yeah.
	What about Peyton McNabb in North Carolina?
	Yes, a high school senior who playing on a girl's team has a boy playing on the opposing team.
	The boy jumps up, spikes the ball, hits Peyton in the face.
	She's immediately knocked unconscious where she laid for minutes before finally coming back around.
	This was in September of 2022.
	Still to this day, I mean, almost two years later, a year and eight-ish months later, she's partially paralyzed on her right side.
	Her vision is impaired.
Building Mental Toughness 00:05:41
	She has to have special accommodations for testing at school because her memory is impaired.
	She can't retain information like she once could.
	And he's never apologized to her.
	Oh, no.
	He's actually done the exact opposite and has continued to mock her through social media, messaged her and said, oh my gosh, you know, you can't stop talking about me, can you?
	I'm living rent-free in your head.
	I mean, awful.
	But it goes to show the narcissism.
	Yes, my gosh, this is why we have to fight.
	This is why Riley is not in dental school right now, which was your plan.
	What were you going to do exactly?
	What was your basically root canals?
	Oh, gosh.
	I know.
	Well, you're kind of doing that in a different way, in a metaphorical way.
	Yeah.
	Getting to the root of the problem coming out of people's mouths.
	That's right.
	It's probably just as painful as one.
	You, you never.
	All right.
	I'm going to take a break, but I want to get into your backstory because I love some of the stories in your book about you and your dad and creating mental toughness.
	All of this is, these are the building blocks of the Riley Gaines we now know are all in there.
	And there's some good advice on how to toughen up your kid lest he or she wind up being forced into activism on an important story or cause.
	Her new book is called Swimming Against the Current.
	Quick Break, Back with Riley right after this.
	Go order it today, swimming against the current Riley Gaines.
	I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan Kelly Show on SiriusXM.
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	Here with me still, Riley Gaines, author of the brand new book, It's Out Tomorrow.
	Go get it now, Swimming Against the Current.
	And there's all sorts of amazing facts and stats and reality in this book about what's really happening with the gender cult.
	But it also has some fun stories about Riley and how she got here.
	And you're so young, a lot of people may not know any of this stuff.
	So tell us about mental toughness and how your dad made sure you had it.
	Well, I am so fortunate to have, I didn't realize this at the time, but of course, as you get older, I realize now how fortunate I am to have two amazing parents who love each other very much, who taught me how to be an independent thinker, how to call out an injustice when you see it.
	So I could not be more grateful for my parents, who were both high-level athletes.
	My mom, she was a Division I softball player.
	My dad, he's an SEC Hall of Famer football player, went on to play for the Eagles.
	It's been a good bit in the NFL.
	And so them having that background inclined was a big part in me playing sports, I guess I'll say.
	But when I was young, probably eight years old, my dad, he did some different business endeavors.
	And so I went with him on a business trip to Memphis, Tennessee.
	And I will never forget, we are at this hotel.
	I normally, of course, you know, never really traveled with just my dad.
	It was always all of us as a family, but it was a fun little bonding trip.
	So we're at this hotel and he says, Riley, come down to the lobby with me.
	And I'm like, okay, you know, what are we doing?
	He takes me to the pool at this hotel.
	It's outside.
	It's in the middle of December.
	And he's like, jump in.
	I'm like, dad, I'm not jumping in that pool.
	It's freezing.
	He pulled back the tarp.
	He said, no, you're going to jump in.
	This is your first lesson of mental toughness.
	You're going to jump in and you're not going to say you're cold.
	You're not going to shiver.
	And I'll tell you when you can get out.
	I'm like, dad, this is child abuse.
	You can't make me do that.
	I'm calling mom.
	But I listened to him.
	I jumped in, confused, you know, what is this for?
	Finally, after five minutes or so of treading in the water, he said, okay, you can come out.
	And then we go back to the room.
	I'm still shivering.
	I'm like, dad, what was that about?
	He said, that, like I said, you need to learn mental toughness because physical toughness, yeah, it's important, but mental toughness will take you further.
	There's no such thing as cold, Riley.
	He said, there's such a thing as an absence of heat, but there's no such thing as cold.
	It's a mental state.
	You think you're cold.
	He said, you're not really.
	And I will never forget that.
	It has stuck with me since.
	And every time when I was swimming or practicing and I began to, you know, your legs burn, you feel your body filling with lactic acid.
	You're tired.
	You're in pain.
	I thought to myself, pain isn't real.
	It's just a feeling that I'm having.
	It's fleeting.
	It's in the moment, but not real.
	So this is the difference between you and virtually everybody.
	I mean, I remember talking to some Navy SEALs about this and that's how they get through training.
	Like, I don't feel the pain.
	I don't feel the lactic acid.
	I tried that at my very next workout and it was not true.
	It's not true.
	We mere mortals do feel pain.
	But it's those lessons that I learned when I was young, my dad was right because they have transcended beyond athletics.
Swimmers, Coaches, and Pronouns 00:11:54
	I'm able to do what I do now with a smile on my face, with an incredibly light heart, not worrying, not caring, not feeling anxious or stressed about what we're up against because I know what I'm standing for is the right thing.
	This brings me to something I've always wanted to ask you.
	So my audience knows I used to be on the wrong side of this whole issue.
	You know, and I played clips of myself at NBC feeding into all of this.
	You know, I was still in the mindset of be compassionate.
	It's a very small group.
	They're very badly bullied and they're using the pronouns even when I launched this show.
	Not so much on the other side, but on the pronouns I was still using when I launched this show.
	And then I started, you know.
	I remember when you, like, it was a defining moment for me to watch you kind of go off on, it was, it was very powerful.
	It was very fiery, but I needed to see that.
	So I don't know if you know just how many people you've inspired and influenced since taking that stand.
	That was a big decision for me to turn on the pronouns.
	Naturally.
	And, you know, like you, there have been so many women who have inspired me.
	You're one of them.
	But Kelly J. Keene, Helen Joyce, Abigail Schreier's book, there's just been, you know, all these other great women who were to this party nice and early and have been waving the flag saying, hold on, hold on, hold on.
	J.K. Rowling, how brave she's been, all of it.
	But I always wanted to ask you about when you were swimming and Leah Thomas, you found out you're going to have to swim against him.
	So what, how did your mind work at the time to say, I'm going to do it?
	So we found out in about November of 2021.
	Actually, let me take you a little further back.
	So I finished my junior year at University of Kentucky, ultimately placing seventh in the country, which it wasn't a best time, but I was proud of this.
	You're top eight.
	You're an all-American.
	It's a pretty high honor, but I knew I was capable of more.
	So it was kind of right then and there that I placed seventh my junior year that I set a goal for my senior year to win a national title.
	And so I'm right on pace to achieve this goal.
	About midway through my senior season, I was ranked third in the nation in the 200 freestyle, trailing the girl in second, a girl I knew very well, by a few one hundredths of a second.
	But the swimmer who was leading the nation by body links, might I add, was a swimmer that none of us had ever heard of before.
	Not me, not my teammates, not my competitors, not my family, not my coaches, none of us.
	It was the first time we became aware of a swimmer named Leah Thomas.
	Lots of red flags at the time.
	Keep in mind, we hadn't seen a photo of this person or else things probably would have been a little more clear.
	But we really continued to stay in the dark until an article came out disclosing that Leah Thomas is actually Will Thomas and swam three years on the men's team at UPenn before deciding to switch to the women's team.
	Whereas you said ranked, I mean, was mediocre at best.
	He was a less than average male swimmer, still competing at the Division I level.
	So obviously he was a good swimmer.
	Yeah, but just not compared to the other men.
	But not when it came to national rankings or achievements.
	When I found out about this, naturally we were shocked.
	But really, when I think about how I felt, it was like this overwhelming sense of relief.
	Like, oh, that makes sense.
	Duh, it's a man.
	That's why he's beating everyone in the country by so much in multiple events.
	Duh.
	And I didn't think much about it because I thought surely, I mean, it didn't even cross my mind that the NCAA wouldn't see a problem with this.
	They won't let him compete with us at NCAA's, the pinnacle of our sport.
	They'll put a policy in place.
	I'm sure they already have one in place.
	This isn't really an issue.
	He's a man.
	So I was very relieved until I found out that the NCAA did not see it that way.
	They didn't see it the same way that me, again, my teammates, my coaches, anyone with any amount of brain activity saw this issue.
	They saw no problem with it.
	But even still, those three weeks, I mentioned how we found out about three weeks before that meet in March of 2022.
	Even after finding out leading up to that meet, I am almost ashamed to admit it, but I still felt this like sheer sense of curiosity, almost intriguement.
	You know, what is this going to look like?
	Is he as tall as Instagram pictures make him look?
	Is he going to sandbag it?
	Will he be in our locker room?
	I mean, there were so many questions that we didn't have answers to that there was a sense of intriguement.
	But I'm ashamed for feeling intrigued.
	I really am, because upon getting to that meet, seeing the tears that I saw from the girls who placed 9th and 17th and missed out on being named an All-American by one place, seeing the tears from the moms in the stands watching as their daughters are being obliterated in the sport that they once loved, feeling the extreme discomfort in the locker room, hearing the whispers, because that's what they were.
	They were whispers of anger and frustration from these girls who just like myself had worked our entire lives to get to this meet.
	I remember specifically actually when my feelings really shifted because this was like a week-long meet.
	You swim prelims in the morning, you have to qualify top 16, you come back that evening, you swim finals, and that's where you'll achieve your overall national ranking.
	And so that first day of competition, I'm watching prelims of the 500, which is the event that Thomas would that evening go on to win a national title in.
	And I'm watching prelims.
	There's about eight heats or so.
	My team was sat next to Virginia Tech.
	One of the swimmers from Virginia Tech, she swam in one of the earlier heats.
	She had just finished.
	She came back to the pool deck, stood by me.
	I knew her.
	I didn't know her that well.
	I really only knew her name and what event she swam.
	We're watching the final heat swim.
	This is the event where she knew she was right on the cusp of making top 16.
	The final heat concludes.
	Thomas is swimming.
	Thomas dominates.
	She looks up at the scoreboard and she realized she placed 17th.
	And I will never forget because she looked at me.
	Again, not even really knowing her.
	And she grabbed me, my hand, with tears running down her face.
	And she said, Riley, I just got beat by someone who didn't even have to try.
	I mean, I have chills telling it again.
	I have two.
	I have chills listening.
	And that's when those feelings shifted to utter heartbreak.
	And I realized the severity of what we were dealing with.
	This wasn't just a circus or a funny haha like SNL skit moment anymore.
	This was real life.
	And that's when, that's when I decided what cowards we have leading us.
	Our coaches, even coaches who I love and respect and who knew this was objectively wrong, but that it was very hard for you to say anything about it as the competitors.
	They knew what would happen to you.
	Of course.
	Yeah.
	But they were more worried about their own heights.
	Of course.
	And again, I understand because the risk and the threats, they're real.
	I'm not sitting here saying that it's easy.
	Well, actually, I am.
	It is easy to say that there are two sexes.
	That's not hard to say.
	But very few have said it, right?
	Alice Ganlin spoke out.
	You, Penn Swimmer, you spoke out, but almost no one else that I know of.
	No, there's been very, very few.
	People think it's either either, of course, they're terrified, they're scared, they believe it when their universities or administrators tell them they won't get a job or they won't get into grad school or they'll lose their friends, or people genuinely think it's not their problem.
	They think, oh, well, I'm done competing.
	It happened to me, but I'm moving on.
	It's on to the next thing.
	It won't happen again.
	Really?
	No, it's incredibly selfish.
	Yeah.
	And there's a story out of Oregon that's, I saw, I know you've seen it and I've tweeted about it, but this is kind of reminding me of this.
	It's a track star.
	There were the Oregon Track and Field State Championships for this past weekend, high school track.
	And a biological male, 10th grader at McDaniel High School, ran.
	He ran as a woman.
	This guy comes out and wins.
	He just won the 200 meter state championship.
	He was booed, thank God, when he crossed the finish line against the girls.
	He was booed when they announced the first place winner because these girls fully understand, understood what had just happened to them, similar to your 17th place friend.
	And this guy came out of nowhere too.
	He had a background in weight training, reports the Washington Times, but had not even competed in track and field before joining the girls team this season.
	And now he's a state champion, the fastest girl or woman in the state of Oregon, the whole state.
	And he's never ran before.
	It's the same story every single time.
	Mediocre men, less than mediocre men, become record smashers on the women's side.
	It's the same story every single time.
	Again, it breaks my heart.
	I think we should take a minute and recognize the real state champion, Aster Jones.
	Yeah.
	The girl who got second, but the rightful state champion.
	That's right.
	He also played second in the 400 meter behind a girl who is going on to be an SEC runner.
	So, I mean, these aren't scrubs.
	It's not like these girls are bad at running.
	No, these girls are incredible.
	And him being mediocre is still able to beat even the most, I mean, the fastest girls in the state.
	The mother of one of the female runners told The Publica, a publication, that the Oregon School Activities Association threatened to ban any students who complained about this male.
	She said, my daughter is in her senior year.
	She has to compete against this person who just won at state and took spots away from our girls, and he doesn't deserve it.
	He needs to be with the men.
	And you know, more and more what we're being told by some is the girls don't mind.
	They didn't say anything.
	Look at the U Penn swimmers.
	They didn't mind.
	It's just you bigots who complain.
	They're much more tolerant.
	And look at Megan Rapino.
	She says, it's fine.
	Like this isn't happening.
	They're not just entering to steal the medals.
	So take a seat.
	It's so silly when people say that because first of all, it's people who have never played sports in their entire lives who are saying that.
	And second of all, that could not be further from the truth.
	Again, 16 of those U Penn swimmers signed on to an email saying they weren't okay with this, but their voices aren't heard.
	They're stifled.
	Their speech is stifled.
	They're forced into submission through emotional blackmail and gaslighting, being told they literally have blood on their hands if they speak out, telling them that they will be murderers.
	That's why these girls are quiet.
	And the loss of everything they've trained their whole lives for, everything.
	Exactly.
	And the number of hours in the pool, I can only imagine.
	Oh, gosh.
	Yeah, it's, I mean, at the collegiate level, we practice six hours every single day with three of those hours being before 8 a.m.
	So you wake up, you go to the pool, you swim from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m.
	You go to class, you come back, you practice again from 1.30 to 4.30, ate your dinner, did your homework, ice your shoulder, went to bed, woke up, did it all again the next day.
	It's very easy for people on the outside to say you should stand up.
	I mean, that's why it's so hard for those girls.
	You know, you showed the shot putters.
	We talked about them in West Virginia, but it's really, ideally, this comes from the outside.
	It comes from women and men on the outside to stand up for these athletes who shouldn't be asked to sacrifice everything to stand up against the insanity.
	Riley, you're so brave.
Purpose Inspired Women 00:00:38
	I'm so happy you exist and that you've taken this on and that you're not in dental school and not doing endodontics or whatever.
	I'm thrilled.
	This was your calling and your purpose.
	And I can't wait to see what you do with all this talent and drive.
	Well, I'm inspired by women like you.
	So thank you.
	Again, this was long overdue, but I'm thrilled to be just next with you in this fight with you.
	And I imagine we'll see each other again soon.
	Right on.
	Buy the book, Swimming Against the Current out tomorrow.
	Back tomorrow with Bill Maher.
	Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.
	No BS, no agenda, and no

Chapters

00:00:03 Political Smear Jobs
00:14:59 Senate Decorum and Respect
00:20:55 Prosecuting Justice Alito
00:36:18 State of the Union Response
00:42:05 Protecting IVF in Alabama
00:51:15 Trans Women in Sports
01:07:24 Testosterone and Third Categories
01:19:24 Building Mental Toughness
01:25:05 Swimmers, Coaches, and Pronouns
01:36:59 Purpose Inspired Women