Ask Dr. Drew - Allie Beth Stuckey: ‘Toxic Empathy’ Killed Laken Riley & Is Used To Bully Good People Into Supporting Harmful Progressive Ideas w/ Rep. Morgan Griffith – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 427

Episode Date: November 24, 2024

Laken Riley’s killer was convicted of murder, but he never should have been there in the first place. If Jose Ibarra had been prevented from entering the USA illegally in 2022, Laken would still be alive today. So why does this keep happening? The empathy of good people is being manipulated by activists and extremists who yell words like “tolerance” or “justice” to bully others into compliance. Allie Beth Stuckey calls it “Toxic Empathy” and says it’s why so many progressive ideas, like unrestricted immigration or gender surgeries on children, continue to be defended by well-meaning people even as the negative effects dominate headlines. Allie Beth Stuckey hosts the “Relatable” podcast and is the author of multiple New York Times bestselling books including “You’re Not Enough (And That’s Okay)” and “Toxic Empathy” available at https://amzn.to/4eECNg3. Stuckey has interviewed figures such as President Donald Trump, Governor Ron DeSantis, and Dr. John MacArthur. Find more at https://alliebethstuckey.com and follow her at https://x.com/conservmillen Rep. Morgan Griffith represents Virginia’s Ninth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and serves on its Health and Energy Subcommittees. He also sits on the Committee on House Administration. Previously, he was the Virginia House Majority Leader, the first Republican to hold the role. He holds degrees from Emory & Henry College, and Washington and Lee University School of Law. Follow him at https://x.com/RepMGriffith 「 SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS 」 Find out more about the brands that make this show possible and get special discounts on Dr. Drew's favorite products at https://drdrew.com/sponsors  • CAPSADYN - Get pain relief with the power of capsaicin from chili peppers – without the burning! Capsadyn's proprietary formulation for joint & muscle pain contains no NSAIDs, opioids, anesthetics, or steroids. Try it for 15% off at https://drdrew.com/capsadyn • FATTY15 – The future of essential fatty acids is here! Strengthen your cells against age-related breakdown with Fatty15. Get 15% off a 90-day Starter Kit Subscription at https://drdrew.com/fatty15 • CHECK GENETICS - Your DNA is the key to discovering the RIGHT medication for you. Escape the big pharma cycle and understand your genetic medication blueprint with pharmacogenetic testing. Save $200 with code DRDREW at https://drdrew.com/check • PALEOVALLEY - "Paleovalley has a wide variety of extraordinary products that are both healthful and delicious,” says Dr. Drew. "I am a huge fan of this brand and know you'll love it too!” Get 15% off your first order at https://drdrew.com/paleovalley • THE WELLNESS COMPANY - Counteract harmful spike proteins with TWC's Signature Series Spike Support Formula containing nattokinase and selenium. Learn more about TWC's supplements at https://twc.health/drew 「 MEDICAL NOTE 」 Portions of this program may examine countervailing views on important medical issues. Always consult your physician before making any decisions about your health. 「 ABOUT THE SHOW 」 Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Kaleb Nation (https://kalebnation.com) and Susan Pinsky (https://twitter.com/firstladyoflove). This show is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

great guest for you today uh the second half of the show we are going to have representative morgan griffith he is united states congress from virginia he shares amongst other things the house energy and commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations and the hearings uh that jay badachari has been uh referencing or referenced on this very show, the HHS, the findings of some of the transgressions of the excesses of the COVID response and the COVID pandemic. So we'll get into that. First though, we have Allie Beth Stuckey. Her book is Toxic Empathy. This should be fantastic conversation. Her previous book was You're Not Enough. No, yes, You're Not Enough. Oh, there's Toxic Empathy, how progressives exploit Christian compassion.

The previous one, you're not enough and that's okay, I think is what it was called. We'll get into that. And Carolla and I have been talking about the misappropriation of empathy and the self-esteem movement and the deleterious effects of that. We'll get into it all right after this.

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As I said, in about 45 minutes, we'll have Representative Morgan Griffith in here. You do not want to miss that. You can follow him, morgangriffith.house.gov. But first,

we're going to talk to Allie Beth Stuckey. Her new book, Toxic Empathy, is on the New York Times bestseller list. Toxic Empathy is a great topic for me.

You can follow Allie at Conserve Millen, I think conservative millennial, Conserve M-I-L-L-E-N. Allie Beth Stuckey, Allie is spelled A-L-L-I-E, Stuckey, S-T-U-C-K-E-Y, AllieBethStuckey.com. Her podcast is called Relatable. You can get it at all the usual places. And she's Allie Beth Stuckey on YouTube. Again, that's S-T-U-C-K-E-Y. Allie, welcome to the program and congratulations on New York Times Best Seller. Well done. Well, thank you so much.

Thanks. It's an honor to be here. So, I almost don't know where to start with this conversation. I guess I would say I've talked about it on this show before, that this, I'm a good person, I'm nice, and I do what's right has become so misappropriated, it's actually become disgusting. And I became acutely aware of it when I was up at sort of ground zero of this nonsense in Victoria, British Columbia, where they are actually very nice. But if you scratch under the surface, there's a, what's the word I'm looking for? A seething rage, a seething rage right under the surface. So a lot of this misuse of empathy is actually a defense, a cover from actually being kind of a shitty person. Oh yeah. I think that's a really good way to frame it. I've often said that

socialism is someone's way to try to be a good person without ever having to get off the couch because you're kind of just outsourcing your compassion to the state. And so you can just point to something that you have not done in order to show your virtue. And empathy is kind of similar in that it doesn't require any action. It doesn't require any sacrifice. All you have to do is say, I'm empathetic. And people conclude that you're therefore a good person. But you haven't actually had to do anything for someone to prove your virtue or to prove your selflessness. So in that way, it is kind of a virtue signal, but it's more than that. Because if that's all it was, then okay, that's not a good trend. It's superficial. Maybe it's more than that. Because if that's all it was, then okay, that's not a good

trend. It's superficial. Maybe it's stopping people from actually getting up and sacrificing something for someone else. But I actually think that it's harmful because as you said, it gives people cover not to just not be a great person, but to actually be a bad person and to justify supporting harmful policies. And we go through some specific instances of that in my book. Each chapter is dedicated to an issue or a policy that I actually think is pushed forward by what I call toxic empathy, but is actually very harmful, not only to the people that it's purporting to help, but the people on the other side of the moral equation.

Let's sort of deconstruct what we mean by toxic empathy because real empathy, true empathy, has at its core a deep understanding of what the other person experienced, what they need, what their motivational states are. But there's, for me, there's sort of two things at the core here that make this so toxic. One is a seeming complete lack of understanding about, it's essentially human motivation and what people need and what makes them ascend to a greater good. And that's when people are their best and feel their best.

And if you're really empathic to somebody, it's the equivalent of letting the drug addicts die on the streets here in Los Angeles. That is not empathy. That is disgusting. And empathy is hard. It's like, no man, come with me. Let's do this.

Let's do the work together, whatever it means. Fighting against the disease, fighting against the defensiveness. But this sort of toxic empathy lacks an understanding of human need and human motivation. Is that about right? Yes. Well, before I try to parse out the difference between empathy and toxic empathy, I also like to talk about the difference between empathy and love or empathy and compassion or even empathy and sympathy. So if not to get into the weeds of the etymology of the word empathy, but sympathy, you can feel for someone, but empathy actually

means to be in someone's feelings. So to feel how someone feels, which I actually think and argue in my book, as you just said, that can be very powerful to mourn with someone who is mourning, to rejoice with someone who is rejoicing, to say to someone, maybe I haven't been there, but I'm going to put myself in your shoes to try to see what you see. I actually tell a pretty lighthearted story at the beginning of this book. I'm a mom of three. And one day I was traveling by myself and I saw this mom struggling to get her luggage and her stroller and her toddler all to her seat. And I could see that she was on the brink of tears. And so because I'm a

mom that has been there, I have been in her shoes. I have struggled in that way. I not only noticed her, but I knew exactly what she needed because I had been in that situation and I knew what I needed. And so I was able to very easily help her and to alleviate a burden because I had felt how she felt that propelled me to really love and serve her in a way that I would want to be loved and served. And so empathy can motivate us to doing something that is actually good. But I do argue that empathy in itself is not necessarily good. Empathy in itself is neither good nor bad. Empathy in itself is just neutral. Because if I feel how someone feels, say a man who identifies as the opposite sex, I can say, wow, it would be really hard to think that you're stuck in the wrong to where I am obscuring reality, the reality of male and female, if it is going to the point where I am affirming a policy that violates the rights of women to

private and protected spaces, then my empathy has become toxic. Then it has motivated me to do something that I believe is actually harmful to that person because I'm affirming a lie and lying is not the same thing as love, but also it is propelling me to affirm a policy that is harmful to the people on the other side of the moral equation. And that of course is the girls and the women who are then forced to share these private intimate spaces with men. In a weird way, I guess the empathy becomes adulterated by ideology. And then the empathy is used sort of as a cudgel. I was thinking about this today when I was thinking about it, which is, you know, I'm a good person. I would never say anything that would harm a transgender individual. So I'm going to keep my mouth shut because I would never be somebody

that would hurt somebody else. And then in the name of, as I keep my mouth shut, those with an ideological bone to pick and with the cudgel of toxic empathy will go to really crazy places and they don't care where they go. They don't seem to have any limits of where they go. What is that, do you think? That's no longer about protecting transgender. That's doing something else. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I like what you said, that ideology kind of adulterates empathy, but I argue that empathy has to be in submission to truth. I'm a Christian, and so I believe that absolute truth, moral truth is found in scripture, but it also has to be in submission to observable reality, biological truth, factual truth. For example, if my child

comes to me and she tells me, mom, there's a monster in the corner of my room. I could empathetically say, wow, that must be really scary, but it would not be loving for me to affirm her fear to say, yeah, you're right. That probably is a monster. Go back to bed. The loving thing to do is to go into her room, to turn on the light and say, baby, that's just a pile of clothes. That's not a monster. But today when it is unpopular to turn the lights on and to tell someone that the thing that they fear or the thing that they've constructed in their mind, the narrative that they are following isn't real, it's just the proverbial pile of clothes. When it's more popular and it's considered more loving and more righteous and more empathetic

to tell someone, yeah, you should be really scared of that monster or the delusion that you believe is absolutely true, people are really disincentivized to tell the truth because you get punished for it. You get blowback for it. You and I are used to getting criticism. Most people aren't. So when you can just say, well, I'm just being empathetic by affirming something that you don't know is true, for example, that a man can become a woman, well, most people are going to fall in line. But I also see how seductive it is to go, I would never, if that's what they say they need, that I'm an empathic person, I'm going to protect them. I won't say anything. Oh yeah, Ali is phobic and she is interested in harming these people. That's that move of making you a harmful person rather than a person with a different opinion. Again, that's toxic.

Yeah, and gosh, that goes so deep into the differences of worldviews because there are different definitions of even harm. Like whenever I'm talking to a progressive or when I'm reading something from someone on the other side of the aisle, I really have to take the time to ask about every word, but what do they mean by X? So what is meant by harm? What they typically mean is that I am hurting this person's feelings. And this kind of goes in line with their ideology,

which of course they believe that who we really are is what we feel on the inside. And that physical reality is kind of arbitrary. It's in submission to how we feel. That's how they land at the conclusion that someone's true identity and true self is not what they are on the outside, but how they feel on the inside. And of course, I don't believe that. I think science, biology, observable reality tells us a lot about what is really true and who we are. So when I say harm, that gender ideology harms someone, I'm not just talking about hurt feelings. I'm talking about the mutilation of someone's bodies. I'm talking about the harm that comes, I think, not just individually, but societally when you say that two plus two equals five. And of course, all the implications that this has for confused young people and on their

ability to function sexually and all the stuff that we know about puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and all of that. So we have two different definitions of harm. Theirs, I think, is superficial and it comes to feelings. Mine, really, I would say is about the whole person. And I am willing to risk hurting someone's feelings if it stops them from going down a path that is truly harmful. Well, speaking of harm, protecting feelings from challenge is how you harm people. The most significant advance in psychiatry is exposure therapy.

Now we live in a time when the vast majority of psychiatric symptoms are treated with exposure to those symptoms to learn to regulate them. And so by keeping people away from their feelings, you are literally making them ill. So I see this and I'm going to stand back and tell you, I have a sort of a medical frame on this. I don't disagree with anything you've said, but my frame is you are talking about patients who come to doctors to receive lifelong therapeutics with potentially dangerous medication

and in very invasive surgical procedures that are also quite dangerous and potentially harmful. You just mentioned a couple of the harms that people get into. That's the superficial harms. I worry about the liver failure and the hepatomas and really the serious things that happen. And so for me, it is incumbent upon doctors not to be affected by ideology and to just rely on the scientific process that helps them select the right patient for the right treatment. And in most countries, that's the way they do it. I have many transgender friend patients, and the ones that do the best

were actually carefully assessed by first a doctor and then a psychiatrist, and then told that you're going to need these dangerous medications that I will manage and carefully administer possibly the rest of your life. And when it's done that way, it works very well. It's really good. But when it's everybody gets the same treatment

as aggressive they want because of what they're feeling inside, boy, does that have the potential to harm people. And then they suppress the evidence that would help us assess whether we have harmed anybody with this because knowing that it harmed people would make them feel bad

so you know harm literally has taken a backseat to feelings now so reality is a backseat to feelings harming patients has a backseat to feelings it's interesting to me that um you know i know caitlin jenner very well i know nikki norton well, and both the two of them are very opposed to surgery for children in particular. They're very circumspect about the condition that they have. And both of them have told me things like, you know, essentially think of my condition as like my handedness. It's just I have left hand or right hand. This is just a feature of who I am. I'm not going to get into anything else. And I'm certainly not going to champion an ideology based on this thing that I have suffered from. And now I'm satisfactorily managed.

But it really, there's going to be a lot of harm done. Because listen, doctors, if they're not selecting the right thing for the right patient, they harm people. And it's it's something i'm very concerned about the other topic i wanted to go ahead and maybe you'll go ahead and speak to this go ahead yeah i just wanted to also point out that it not only harms the very people that i call them empathy mongers say that they're trying to help but it also when we're talking about the gender issue and in in the book, I talk about abortion, I talk about gender, I actually talk about sexuality, justice versus social justice and illegal immigration. So this is just one of the topics that I get into.

But one of the features of toxic empathy is that it blinds you to or purposely ignores the people on the other side of the moral equation. And so they will force you to only look at the person that they hoist up as a victim. But gender ideology doesn't just harm those people. It harms the people on the other side. So it harms the young girl, Peyton McNabb. I had her on my show, who is the young 17-year-old volleyball player who played a volleyball match against a boy who identified as the opposite sex and he spiked the ball into her face. She is still dealing with paralysis from that and she had a brain bleed and she will deal with some effect of that injury for the rest of

her life. And so these women who are not only losing scholarships, but in many cases being violated, being assaulted, being actually physically harmed because we have accepted this self-identification model for your sex and for the spaces that you enter, they are victims in this. And that's what toxic empathy does. It makes you think that, say, abortion is only about what the woman wants. Gender is only about what the person who is confused about their gender wants. Immigration is only about the person for us to think harder about that, to think about the people that are affected on both sides of the issue and to submit ourselves to truth, factual truth. And of course, I believe as a Christian, biblical truth. Do you have a specific sort of prescription for getting the scales back?

Is it just the reissuance of the golden rule that we seem to have left behind somewhere? So I start each chapter actually telling a story, a heart-rending story from the left-wing perspective, because I want people to understand what toxic empathy looks like. So in the immigration chapter, I actually tell a story of Maribel Diaz, this woman who fled violence in Mexico. She came here with her family. She was deported under Donald Trump. The story was originally told by USA Today.

And by the end of it, just like in each chapter, I actually want the reader to say, maybe I do agree with progressives on this because, gosh, this has me in my feels. I feel so much empathy for this person that I cannot see the other side of this issue. But then what I do is I tell an equally heart-rending story from the other side. So in the same chapter, I tell in great detail the story of Kate Steinle, who at 32 years old was shot in the back by an illegal alien in San Francisco. Her last words were, help me, daddy, as she breathed her last breath. This person had been deported several times and had committed violent crimes, but San Francisco's sanctuary city policies shielded him. And that was a preventable crime and yet she died. And so I do the same thing in

every chapter because I want people to understand that, yeah, you're only hearing this heartrending story from the progressive perspective about this one person, but let me shift your focus to the person on the other side of this. But at the end of the day, I don't just want to have competing anecdotes because there are people on every side of every issue that are affected and have really important stories. But at the end of the day, the question is, what is true? What is true in principle when it comes to immigration? The truth is, is that countries should be sovereign. We should have a right to our borders. We should have a right to protect our citizens. We should, in principle, put our citizens first. But also when you look at the statistics of the crimes committed,

unfortunately, by illegal immigrants, and we realize that every single one of those crimes is preventable, that also gives us a perspective of what is really going on versus what the media is telling us. And so what I prescribe, especially for the Christians, but again, this could apply to anyone, is a truth in love approach. It's not cruelty. It's not callousness. It's not being mean or be offensive for the sake of being mean or offensive at all. It's actually believe in gentleness, but I do believe in being unwavering in the truth. And I do believe that telling the truth, especially about these big issues that have such great consequences for people, especially young people, when it comes to things like gender is actually the most loving approach. truth and love i think is much more effective in changing people for the better than this toxic empathy yeah i mean i i think you

must be aware that the truth has been under assault for quite some time now uh part of the post-structuralist frame is that there is no such thing as truth. Therefore, everything is subjective and political. And it has adulterated everything. This is a disgusting philosophy. It's fascinating to me. I heard a French philosopher speaking about this. And she said, what is this American preoccupation

with these worthless philosophers from 75 years ago that we disposed of 55 years ago. It's like, why are you preoccupied with these essentially mind games that they invented to sort of screw with the whole functioning of philosophy? So truth, I agree, is something that has meaning, has, I would say, virtue. And is it not the time to reestablish virtue ethics?

Yeah, you know, I think so. And some people think that we can somehow separate what we believe about God or what we believe religiously from public life and our conversations about law and politics. But the fact of the matter is, is that every single law, every policy that we advocate for goes back to a worldview, a definition of morality, a belief in some kind of moral authority who gets to say what's good and what's bad. And I think that we are so scared of offending. We are so scared of coming off as unempathetic that we are unwilling to say, no, this is the definition of what is good. This is the definition of what is bad.

And of course, in a pluralistic society, we're going to have disagreements and we're going to have debates and discussions surrounding those things. But we at least have to acknowledge that there is a truth, that there is a reality. There, you know, C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, when he is trying to confront this myth of moral relativism, he points out two important things. One is an analogy. If I'm drawing a picture of New York City, it's going to, first of all, it's going to be really bad because I'm not an artist. Versus an artist who drew a picture of New York City, someone would be able to tell you that this is closer to the real New York. My rendering of New York is not just as accurate as someone else's rendering of New York. Someone who has seen New York can tell you, this is what Times Square looks like, this drawing,

and this drawing is further away. And morality is the same way. There may be some debate when it comes to the depictions of New York that are actually closer to what it actually looks like. But there is no debate that that really exists and that some renderings are closer than others. And the second thing that he points out that has been so helpful for me is that no one is a moral relativist when it comes to themselves. You might say, oh, you know, every culture has a different set of rules that's just as good as another. But if someone steals from you or if someone assaults you, all of a sudden, a person becomes a moral absolutist. No one who has been assaulted themselves, been violated,

been stolen from says, well, that person probably believed that was fine and it's okay. No, you're looking for vengeance. You're looking for justice. You're looking for some kind of recompense because they have violated you. So really at the end of the day, we all need to acknowledge that moral objectivity exists and we at the very least have to strive together to get as close to that as possible. Are you familiar with the trolley experiment? Yes, I am. Yeah. And I just think we need to challenge people with it on a regular basis, those sorts of conundrums, and challenge them to address why they feel the way they do, and how their moral sensibilities work. Because people have just abandoned it completely, it seems like to me.

In the name of, hey man, it's whatever you're into, who am I to say? And again, that's back to a kind of a toxic empathy. The other thing is, your other book, do you address self-esteem? Is that a lot of what's going on there in that book? Yes. My other book, You're Not Enough and That's Okay, and both of these titles, I haven't meant for them to be jarring, honestly, but I write to a mostly female audience and I guess they have been for some people, but I'm glad for that because I think it's caught the attention of the people that I'm trying to talk to.

And basically what I argue is that this industry of self-love is very contradictory. And while these people are simultaneously telling you that you are perfect and enough the way you are, they are also trying to sell you their latest program that's going to make you even more perfect and more enough. And it starts with this lie that women in particular have this inner goddess and she was perfect basically when we were born. But as soon as we entered earth side, it was marred and it was suppressed by the patriarchy or by capitalism or by your toxic mom or by all of these unrealistic expectations and unfair standards and society and boyfriends and all of this different stuff. And so it's really a form of trendy narcissism. It encourages women to find and release that inner goddess through a journey of self-love and self-fulfillment.

And once you really put yourself first and you throw off anyone and anything that gets in your way, then you will finally and fully be happy. But most of the people propagating this message are not happy. Most of them do not have whole and healthy relationships. Most of them are also looking for their next fix. So either you really are enough and sufficient completely by yourself, or you need their books and your programs, but it can't be both. And basically my premise is that the self can't be the problem and the solution. If inside yourself, you are finding all of these issues, all these things that you lack, peace, satisfaction, you're not going to find the solution to those things in the same way that you find your problems. satisfaction, you're not going to find the solution to those things in

the same way that you find your problems. And again, this is a Christian book, and I believe that the only place that we can find our fulfillment and find our purpose and find who we really are is in the God who made us. Just like the maker of anything is the only person that can tell you how it's made, why it's made, and what it's used for, I believe that people are the same way. And it's when we get outside of ourselves, stop over-focusing on ourselves constantly, that we can find true satisfaction. Allie Stuckey, the book, the podcast is relatable.

The book is Toxic Empathy. We're going to take a little break, and then we'll come back and finish the conversation. And then we'll, after a few more minutes, have Representative Morgan Griffith come in to talk to us about the HHS findings

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Like the chocolate, the vanilla, and the unflavored, it is just delicious. It is low-calorie, made from bones, not hides. It's a source of collagen protein. And as I said, low in calories. Susan and I use it both for a midday boost, for a guilt-free treat. It helps manage the appetite. It's very satisfying. Sweetened with monk fruit.

Scooping some into your coffee, milk, smoothie. A great way not to overeat and get that protein source. If you have recipe ideas for the new salted caramel, I want you to share them. Go to doctoru.com slash contact and select Paleo Valley Ideas from the dropdown menu. Stock up now for the holidays at doctoru.com slash paleovalley for 15% off your first order, And let me reintroduce our guest, Allie Beth Stuckey. The podcast is Relatable.

Yeah, Susan said, what about the emergency kit? I want to show you something. That's her book, Toxic Empathy. But I got to show you this. That's her book, Toxic Empathy. But I got to show you this. I was kind of excited about it. This is the new, they call it the field emergency kit from TWC. This is, yeah, I know. You wish you had that at Special Forces.

This is serious business. This is serious business. This is when you really need it. I think Emily Marsh needs one of those. If a fire or a bomb, whatever, this thing will survive all that. This is amazing. I don't know that factually, but it feels like it would. What's inside?

Everything. It's including EpiPen, everything. All the really emergency stuff we recommend. It's all the things together in one big set. It's pretty much everything we provide all in one place. You can get the list out if you want. Or open it. We're in the middle of a conversation.

I want to get Allie Beth Stuckey back in here. So- I'm dying to know. AllieBethStuckey.com, S-U-C-K-E-Y. On X, it's Conserve Millen. It is Allie Beth Stuckey on YouTube. So before the break, we were talking about toxic empathy, obviously.

And one of the things that we had promoted was talking a little bit about how the empathy that you point out so vividly in one of your case studies for the immigrant does not take into account the effect on people that become perhaps victims or affected. And Lincoln Riley's killer, convicted. He was in the U.S. illegally.

And yet here's a young woman who's dead. And there's only empathy for him. How does that work? Or is just what comes with the territory? You have to break a few eggs in order to make an omelet. Is that what we're supposed to believe here? Or can we stand back and go, hang on, there's realities to the human condition. There is such thing as truth.

There are things we must do to maintain a country. There are ways to maintain safety and well-being. And there's a rational approach to a border that things that call countries must maintain. And that's that. Yeah, you're absolutely right absolutely right now i think a lot of people that actually are okay with illegal immigration because they think maybe it helps the progressive side of things they'll be able to grant mass amnesty one day and they'll be able to vote democrat and secure democrat dynasty forever and ever i don't think it would even shake out that way when you look at the exit polling and the demographics from the last election. But regardless, I think that they probably are thinking what you just said, you got to break a few eggs to make an omelet. And if someone like Lakin-Riley has to sacrifice

her life for us to basically reformulate the power structure in the United States and change the demographics to secure progressive power, then that's what we are going to have to do. And so I'm not sure that they would actively and overtly show empathy for her killer, but we certainly see a lot of ignoring from the progressive side of this. I mean, obviously, when we saw George Floyd die, or when we even saw the person Jacob Blake be shot in the back by a police officer, it's not like Democrats don't know what's going on in the news. I mean, there were black squares posted, there were all kinds of memorials and public displays. There were corporations who were starting these resolutions to change the country

for the better, but I'm not seeing that kind of honor and that kind of outrage for Lake and Riley, at least not from the mainstream. However, I do think this story is showing people, more people than usual, the dangers of letting people in unmitigated and unvetted, and that it's really not fair. It's not that every illegal alien is going to commit a violent crime or an additional crime, but it's that every crime that is committed by an illegal immigrant is preventable. We already have citizens that commit crimes. There is no reason to add to those crimes by people who shouldn't be here in the first place. And I lived in Athens, Georgia, where Lakin was murdered. I have family there. I know that community very well. In Athens-Clarke County, where she was murdered,

it is very progressive. And yet they ousted handily the DA that originally charged Ibarra and did not pursue the death penalty because she has been so soft on crime and soft on things like illegal immigration that she lost her election even in a progressive county. So I know that's just one example, but I do think people are waking up to this. And I think the national election proves that as well. I also think it is so dishonest when people go, we're a country built on immigrants. Yes, my grandparents are immigrants. Susan's family has immigrants.

Of course, immigration. And by the way, my family was fleeing the whole of Delmore and had to work hard to find their way into this country and to have sponsorship and to prove how they were going to make a living. And they found a place for themselves here. That is not what we are talking about. Oh my God, it's so interesting. I was just thinking about Dr. Fauci's words about the Great Barrington Declaration. They just want to let it rip. Well, this is let it rip border management.

This is let it rip immigration, which is not what any country should do. That's not how countries are maintained. But anyway, I want to get off that a little bit. And I want to talk about the psychology of some of this stuff a little bit, which is that you base a lot of your principles in a particular theological frame.

And one of the things about theological frames, particularly Western theology, it seems to me, I could be wrong, but I'm humbly, sort of my sense of it, is that thousands of years of Western culture has carefully warned humans about envy. They have carefully supported the ascension to the truth and the good and the hard work associated with that and reminded us always that we're flawed and we're sinners and we are at our core not so great. Talk to me about that. Yes, that is true. And

we do believe in original sin that we are fallen creatures. The Bible teaches that we have inherited the sin of Adam. And that's why Jesus is so great. He's presented as the second Adam, because through Adam, we got sin, we got death, we got brokenness, what we call in the Christian world, fallenness, man fell, and we've been suffering all of the repercussions of that since then. But through Jesus, the second Adam, we get redemption and we get forgiveness and we get sacrifice from sin. So really the whole gospel is the idea that we are not enough. I know that we're talking about toxic empathy, but my second book is that we're actually not good enough. We're not enough on our own. We're not enough for our own salvation. You talked about reaching a higher truth. Of course, we believe that and we believe

that that truth is in Jesus Christ himself. But I mean, speaking of Jesus, when we're talking about toxic empathy, some people believe that, well, actually it's Jesus who taught that empathy is the most important value, but that's not really true. He said that the greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbor. And if we love God, he says you will keep his commandments. And so actually the love that we are called to as Christians is inextricably intertwined with the truth. Actually, 1 Corinthians 13, 6 says that love never rejoices in wrongdoing. It never rejoices in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. And so, I mean, you're right about the theology that is really opposed to a lot of

the postmodern, morally relativistic, what I call the God of self meology that we are seeing today that i think gets us both the toxic culture of self-love and the toxic empathy that we're talking about low self-esteem is an asset it causes you to always question yourself to blame to take responsibility for things to not feel you're better than anybody else if high self-esteem is as you said at its core a-ology and a narcissistic impulse. Allie, I appreciate you being here. Let's throw the book up one more time, Toxic Empathy. It looks like a lot of fun.

The book and the pod, I guess, relatable anywhere. You listen to your pods. Is that true? Yes. Anywhere you watch or listen. Thank you. And then the X is conserve Melanne. Right. Conserve Melanne. Yes. Thank you. And then the X is conserve Milan. Right.

Conserve Milan. Yes. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you very much. You got it. We're going to switch gears and talk to Representative Morgan Griffith. Let me give you his particular use. He's the Virginia 9th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

He chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Oversight Investigations, serves on its Health and Energy Subcommittees. He also sits on the Committee on House Administration. Previously, he was the Virginia House Majority Leader, the first Republican to hold that role. Holds degrees from Emory and Henry College and Washington and Lee University School of Law. You can follow him on X at Rep. M. Griffith. That's R-E-P-M Griffith, G-R-I-F-F-I-T-H. Mr. Griffith, thank you for being here. Great to be with you.

There's a lot to talk about. We've been talking about immigration and the excesses, and Caleb has been throwing up some of your X posts about the Venezuelan gangs and the insanity of all this. But before we go into that, I wonder if you could give me a little primer on the HHS document about the excesses of the COVID response and what you learned, what your overview was, and if you wouldn't mind, why it isn't being screamed from every hilltop, the press, why aren't they interested in this very important document?

Look, this was a document put together by the Energy and Commerce Committee. Our oversight staff worked on it. We had lots of hearings. We did lots of work on this. And the bottom line is somebody out there, and I'm glad you're doing it, should be talking about this because what it shows is, particularly at CDC, Center for Disease Control, that they disregarded real science and they made

claims out there to the American people during that COVID period where they had school lockdowns and masks and six feet apart, etc. And then they pushed kids to get vaccines with science that was going in the other direction. They certainly left the impression and sometimes said that if you got the vaccine, you wouldn't have a transmission issue. You could go around people, you wouldn't transmit. Even though there was no evidence to support that, they would claim that they built on studies that showed that people who worked with people with COVID and had had the vaccine didn't get it. But in most of these types of viruses, and I'm the lawyer, you're the doctor, so you know better than I do. But you can still transmit. And what we now know is that you could still transmit the disease even after you got vaccinated.

But they were out convincing people that you couldn't do that and that you needed to get vaccinated so that you wouldn't transmit it, including young people. When we knew from around the world that young people were not likely to get the disease. And if they did get the disease, it was, I saw one part of the study said 99.99% non-fatal unless you had some other comorbidity or some health problem to begin with. And yet we were making all of our kids get these vaccines down to five years of age and so forth. And they were shaming us, spending $900 million plus of taxpayer dollars to tell people, you need to get out of here, you need to do this, you need to get the vaccine, because then you can go around your friends, you can go back to school, you can party, you don't need to wear your masks and all of this. And it was never based on science.

And these were the people that kept fussing at conservatives, saying, you got to follow the science, you got to follow the science. Well, they were just making it up as they went, and it was really unsettling. And, of course, we also did a lot of work before they set up a special committee. We did a lot of work on the COVID origins, and that was another situation where they, you know,

didn't tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and tried to blame it on, you know, an animal escape and particularly EcoHealth Alliance was just outrageous and that company has since been debarred from doing NIH studies. But NIH didn't do a good job of monitoring what their agents were doing or who they were subcontracting with and whether or not they were getting the data they were paying American taxpayer dollars to get. So what do we do with this? No, I do too. And you uncovered, I mean, you formalized findings that any of us paying attention who were clinicians knew you would find. It just is the truth. It just happens to be a matter of fact. And guys like Scott Atlas, who was in the room with the bureaucrats and was told to stand aside because the data he had begged no

issue. And guys like Jay Bhattacharya, who decorated hopefully the head of the NIH sometime soon, a decorated professional was subjected to a devastating takedown to quote Francis Collins. And we have Francis Collins now on the record saying, well, we were just focused on one thing, which is the opposite of medicine. Medicine is risk reward for every decision you make. Do no harm. Public health ran amok. It was disgusting.

And so my question is, given that you have formalized the findings, what do we do with it? How do we make sure this doesn't happen again? Well, I think we have to learn some lessons there. One of those is that we need to probably reform things going on at NIH. It's a great organization. It does a lot of great research, but particularly at NIAID, we saw that in depositions with Dr. Fauci and testimony that he gave, he indicated, actually, I'm going to read it if you don't mind. I asked him about Wuhan. What can you tell us about that? What did you know about Wuhan Institute of Virology? And he said, I can tell you that my knowledge of Wuhan, the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And he said, I can tell you that my knowledge of Wuhan,

the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Wuhan University was so vague that I don't believe at the time that even though there was an email from Greg that said that there are these things we're doing, I didn't make that connection. So I didn't even know there was a Wuhan Institute of Virology. And I called it Wuhan University. He may have said Wuhan Institute of Virology, and I called it Wuhan University. He may have said Wuhan Institute of Virology during the call, but I believe that just goes to show how little I knew about what was going on in Wuhan. This is the head of NIAID, our National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who gave the money to do the research with EcoHealth Alliance, who then gave us a subcontract to Wuhan Institute of Virology, and our head guy doesn't even know what the institution is.

And that tells me we need more people watching. And when I say more people, I don't mean that we need to be hiring necessarily more people, but maybe we need to break up NIAID into two or three parts, and we need to do some reforms at NIH to make sure if we're spending taxpayer dollars on it, you know whether or not something's going on. And in this case, as you know, they recommended and they gave humanized mice to the Chinese. So, and Fauci would later say in one of our depositions that, well, we didn't pay for anything related to gain of function or what we would call gain of function, where it's dangerous pathogen, but maybe the Chinese were doing something with it.

And that's a paraphrasing, but he said that. Yeah. And that's what I have always believed is that we gave them all the tools to go and start playing around with things. And I believe it was a lab leak. I believe they inadvertently let this stuff get out. And that's why so many of the doctors there died. And the animal theory might have made sense in early 2020. But by late 2020, there was no indication that you would see normally in an animal transmission. There was no evidence of animal transmission, but they still insist. This very day, they insisted, well, maybe something happened.

It wasn't us, and there really wasn't likely to be a lab leak. Even Fauci still maintains that based on the genetics, it didn't really look like a lab leak. But he doesn't know what was happening in a level two lab. And as you know, it should have been level three, higher level of security. And they were doing all this in level two. And he wasn't paying attention to what was going on with the grantee or the sub-grantee, but he was the head of the agency. What's the point in having the head of an agency who's been there for 30 some years

if you're not got an expert who's paying attention to everything that's happening in his department, maybe not day-to-day, but certainly over a course of years, he ought to have known what the Wu Han Institute of Virology was before a deadly virus breaks out. You certainly should be at least vaguely aware of what we're handing to an enemy, it seems to me, humbly. And as you mentioned, you're not a doctor, I'm not a lawyer, but you're a lawyer. And so I'm wondering if this doesn't reach a level of gross negligence that suggests a legal liability to it. I'm not sure that I would make that statement just because I haven't studied gross negligence recently enough.

I've been in Congress too long. But I would submit to you that I do believe that EcoHealth Alliance was grossly negligent. They were late in turning in their reports to the NIH. They did not get the information that they paid for with our taxpayer dollars from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and they weren't paying close attention to what they were doing. And in fairness, it should have been, in my opinion, it should have been in a level three lab and somebody, whether it was the government or EcoHealth Alliance, one of those organizations should have insisted that they upgrade when you're dealing with a virus that

is a respiratory virus and has, if anything happens, has a high likelihood of causing significant amount of disease, if not death, should have been in the level three lab instead of level two. So I would say- Of course, of course. I would say roughly that yes, I would think that at least eco-health was grossly negligent and perhaps NIH was too. And I just want to frame it, if you don't mind. I was watching the Martha Stewart Netflix documentary yesterday, and she was put in prison for saying, I don't remember. I don't remember.

Nobody was hurt. Nothing happened. She sold a stock. She went to prison. I don't remember. Excuse me, but I think we have something a little more serious going on here. It's so gross when you put it in that frame. It's just like, you've got to be kidding me. Yeah. And we actually have, again, this is my opinion, but I had witnesses under oath that I was examining.

And we had a whistleblower who gave us information from EcoHealth Alliance. Now, remember, they were almost two years late in turning their report in that was due in September of 2019. And a whistleblower sent us a report, the first draft that was done in spring of 2020, where they said the low rate of seropositivity observed in the study indicates that bat coronavirus spillover is a rare event. Now, they do go on to say, but because the virus has high diversity and recombination rate rate exposure may lead to disease emergence in human population. They changed their report later, and the one they finally submitted said,

our preliminary analysis suggests that if similar seroprevalence occurs in human populations across the region. BAT, SARS, R-CoV, hosts, and habits. There may be as many as the low hundreds of thousands to over a million people infected each year in South China and Southeast Asia. It goes from rare event to hundreds of thousands. And when I cross-examined Dashak, who was the head and CEO of EcoHealth Alliance, I had him first in transcript in late last year. He said his report was substantially similar. There were no major changes, and I'm paraphrasing, but that's pretty close to accurate, from the report that he originally would have submitted if he had submitted it on time, but he had some kind of a technical glitch, to the one he ultimately submitted in August of 2021, they were substantially the same.

And when I confronted him with rare event to as many as a million, he tried to argue, in essence, they were a substantial, well, that's substantially the same. I don't know about you. But to me, rare event to nearly a million people, that's not substantially the same. That's a huge difference. And it looks like they were trying to cover up the fact that they made a mistake and they didn't realize that they were dealing with a dangerous pathogen, although they should have. I mean, again, I'm not a doctor, but most of my doctor friends tell me, if you're dealing with something that can cause a respiratory disease, you're dealing with fire, you're playing with fire, and it should have been in a level three lab. And none of these

people were paying attention to that. And it was a disregard for human life. And when you add that with, if it meets the legal standard of gross negligence, you do have liability then. Yeah. Look, if I was running a hospital ward or something or running a program where something about my supervision

rose to a level of absolute, I mean, way outside of the standard of care, was negligent. Yeah, there's liabilities. I want to share with that always, always, always. So again, I hope you'll, as this evolves, you'll keep us posted and let us continue to push out the information or help you if there's any way we can. Is there any way, anything you'd like, we've got a lot of people on X listening today. Is there anything you want people to know about this report or that you'd like them to do in response to it? Well, you know, it never hurts to, and hopefully we'll have some reform at CDC too, because they really, as far as dealing with the public, they had a number of missteps during COVID. Everything from the initial testing to, you know, picking six feet out of nowhere to mandating masks to closing schools, all of which were detrimental to our family.

Mandating vaccines. Mandating vaccines. Yeah. Telling people that it would stop the transmission. Indicating that you want to make sure your six-year-old doesn't get the disease. I mean, it was just, they were wrong on lots of stuff. Look, Redfield has been actively following on his sword.

He's been doing a good job on talking about where he went wrong and correcting course. Yeah, well, but even after him, they doubled down and went further. Yes, they did. Yes, they did. And they weren't basing it on science.

They were basing it on what I think they thought. I don't know whether they were driving the administration or the administration was driving them,

but it was not based on science. It was based on some kind of gut feeling. And of course, the report makes the allegation that part of the

school closings was because they were back channeling Walensky, who was the head after Redfield. Walensky was back channeling with the American Federation of Teachers head and that the American Federation of Teachers was maybe directing medical policy in this country as opposed to our actual medical experts.

And that's not appropriate. And so just have folks write their congressmen, write their senators and say, we got to have reform. We need reform at CDC. We need reform at NIH, at NIAID. And we can get into FDA later, but FDA at least did a little bit better than these other agencies. A little bit. We've been following that. We've been on their tail a bit, too. So, I want to talk about the border a little bit, too, before I let you go. But before we switch topics, did you figure out why the military took over and the national security took over so much of the decision-making from the original infectious disease pandemic preparedness plan?

I don't know the answer to that. I wish I did. And obviously, the problem is the very people who were claiming that we're supposed to follow the science then chose not to follow science and made a lot of decisions based on criteria that are hard for me to understand. And so we've got to make sure that, you know, I understand when you have an emergency situation, sometimes you have to do things quickly, but it just kept dragging on and on and on with decisions that clearly were in violation of good medical and good scientific standards. I mean, even FDA talked about we don't have any evidence of transmission being affected. But CDC started implying that it did.

I mean, you know, it was crazy. It was nutty. Yeah, crazy. Yeah, it was nutty. Yeah, crazy. Well what the potential of this thing was, or they learned somewhere, some intelligence told them that this thing could be far more awful than they imagined, even given what we knew

about the age specificity and the risk. So that's the only thing that would make sense to me. But everything else is egregious. Everything else is truly negligence and incompetence. But okay, so who am I to say? Let's talk about the border,

speaking of negligence and incompetence. You've been concerned about, or at least putting up ex-posts about the Venezuelan gangs and the effects on safety of the American people. And God knows there are layers and layers and layers to these excesses. I was talking to Ali in the previous interview

about how disingenuine and sort of disgusting it is to go, but we're a country of immigrants. Yes, of course. Of course we want immigration. We don't want a just let it rip border. We want to have a rational, we want to have a country. To have a country,

you must have a border and an immigration policy. And lots of immigrants, absolutely. But where are you with that whole mess? Well, I mean, the border wall that President Trump was building in his first term was working. Is it going to solve every problem? Of course not. But you have to build the wall. You have to be aggressive. You have to push back. You have to say to folks, if you're not here legally, you got to go back to where your original country was. You've got to do all those things. And if we can get control of the southern border, and again,

I'm not saying we get to 100%, but we can certainly get to a whole lot better than what we're doing right now. And when you get there, then we can take a look at, I have voted in the past, didn't pass, but I voted for some immigration reform to make it easier for those people who want to come here legally, to come here legally. Those people who want to come and work and go home to their own country, work on an agricultural endeavor, or work for a carnival company for a few months each year and then go home to their home country. Oh, that's great. And I'm for people from all over the world being able to come as long as they come understanding that they need to be sharing in the American dream. They need to understand the American dream. They need to come here not

just for handouts, but for the opportunities to be a part of this great country. And I'm all for immigration. And I think we could let more legal people in. But right now, all these illegal people have butted in line. We've got to get that problem straightened out. And then we can go back and take a look at how we make it easier for people who want to share the American dream to come here and share the American dream and become a part of our great country.

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. And it's the way we've always done it. It's the way, I don't know. We have decided that, you know, it's like the famous words about markets. This time it will be different. Like now we understand how humans work. Now we understand what the right thing to do is.

And those are the scariest words of humans. It is not to step on Reagan's those are the scariest words of humans. Not to step on Reagan's, I'm from the federal government, I'm here to help you being the scariest words. For me these days, the scariest words are, now we've figured it out.

Now we know what's right, good for humans. Finally. Finally we've figured it out. Yeah, a little common sense goes a long way and unfortunately, at least for the last four years,

we haven't had that regarding the border. And you just have to, I mean, I've been shaking my head for four years. Not only did they not progress with building the wall and doing the things that were working and making things a little bit better on the border when they took over, but they stopped everything. So that on one of my border trips, I actually saw a gate that was in the wall with the engine sitting there that it was never installed because it was not ready on January 20th when President Biden took office and he said, stop. So the American people paid for everything that was there. They paid for the engine. The engine was sitting there.

And the gate, when they signed the executive order, the gate was open. So then we had to have two border patrol agents at that gate all the time to make sure people weren't sneaking through that particular gate. And it was there to help the con farmers. I mean, yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it's just— Good times. Yeah. So what are you looking forward to going forward? What's on your radar? Well, as you might be able to tell, I really do think we need some significant reforms at all the agencies, FDA, NIH, all of our health agencies, all of our food safety agencies, our medicine needs to be safer. And I've got some

ideas there that will hopefully get fleshed out in the next term. But we need to do that. I'm really looking forward to that. I'm not on the right committees to push forward border changes, but I'll be voting for it and looking forward to working on that as well. We will have to have one of the things that we've got to do before the end of the year is some disaster relief. It costs money. We're going to try to do the best we can, but the states that got hit by Helene are just devastated and we're going to have to help them out a little bit. And finally, in terms of actuating those changes to the health agencies, are're going to have to help them out a little bit. And finally, in terms of actuating those changes to the health agencies,

are you going to help us get RFK Jr. in a position of authority there so we can start to dismantle the corruption? I think he's going to be a great disruptor. It doesn't mean I'm going to agree with everything he wants to do. Can you help us get him in there? Oh, well, I'm not in the Senate,

but I'm fully supportive because I think we need people thinking differently at the top of these health agencies because what we've had for the last 30, 40 years has been status quo and they haven't looked at new technologies the way they ought to. They haven't looked at new ideas

and they're locked in. I mean, one of mine, if you have time, one of my concerns is both on medicine and on food. They want to have people who have all kinds of expertise to go in and do the inspections. And that's great once you've identified a problem. But in almost all the places where we've had problems, there's been water standing in the facility. You don't need somebody who's got an advanced degree to go, you got stagnant water on the floor in your facility. You might not be able to be making baby formula. You maybe ought not be doing beef. This is USDA in that case. You might not be doing sliced turkey in a facility that's got water that's standing around. You're just asking for trouble. Same thing with the New England Compounding

Company. So let's get some, instead of hiring, I mean, we want to have some people out there, but I actually proposed on foreign inspections, I proposed this to some of the folks who came in to testify. Why not have a traveling program where somebody that's just graduated from college goes and spends two years, and I understand they're not going to be able to test whether our medicines are being made safely in India and China, but give them a two-year program where you pay them a small amount of money and they get to travel to India or China or some other part of the world. And their job is to go and see if they're burning records in a barrel out back, that happened, whether there's water

standing around, whether there's feces all over the walls of the bathrooms in the facility making medicines that you and I are ingesting. And you know what? Doesn't cost you so much money if you do it that way. And then if you see something where there's a problem, then you can send in your top gun experts with all the credentials to do an analysis of whether or not they're making the medicine right. But step one, see if the place is clean. That would be a big improvement. Oh, Congressman Griffith, you're so picky and so extreme in your opinions. How dare you? Again, return of common sense. For years, I was saying I wanted to form the common sense party, but I think common sense has reemerged.

Well, listen, we appreciate you sharing your thoughts here with you. We are grateful for the work you have done with the HHS committees, and I hope you'll come back and keep us posted and let us help you deliver the messages wherever they need to be delivered and help you out in any other way we can. Thank you. And I'd love to come back anytime. You got it.

I'm Sam Morgan Griffith. Thank you so much for joining us. You can follow him, Rep. M. Griffith. And for us coming up tomorrow, Susan, you have your show at three o'clock. Very special, super special guest coming in. We can't tell you because of the psychic. Colby Rebel will be here.

She's my psychic medium du jour. And we're going to be live at three o'clock. Susan's very particular about not exposing the possibility of doubt. So she hasn't let the psychic. The guest is a little skeptical. Right. So if I said i said oh we announced it the day before and then she will be like well they could have googled that right exactly all right claire craig coming in uh tomorrow after she is in the uk and jessica rose i think is in

israel or something so we're going to do our show at noon tomorrow it's a very it's a one two powerful punch there's a lot going on andrew Gruhl is coming back with Wilkinson. We have Justine Bateman coming on December 10th. That'll be a lot of fun. Gosh, I'm going to get the list here because I think, Caleb, I saw a few other people that really, Jeff Dye coming in, Matthias Desmond, Aaron Cariotti together

will be a very powerful show. Oh, I produced that one. Yeah, Alison Morrow. So we got a lot of stuff coming up. Keep an eye out. I wanted to say that as much, we love everybody over on Rubble today. Thank you for all your comments.

We love you guys. We love everybody over on YouTube. Thank you for watching. And we have, X is like, for some reason, off the hook in numbers, but we had a couple of your Mom's House fans, Andrew, and we have a couple other your mom's house fans, Andrew,

and a couple other people, but somebody named Liz said, she said, oh my God, this is live? She goes, I only listen to the podcast. So we have a new podcast person who's now watching live, Dog Mom. Okay, nice. 23.

Thank you for watching, Liz. And yeah, we're just, we're really doing some numbers here and i think that your guests are probably really happy to have a good long format well and to have an outlet and they and that you guys are so attentive this is a we are so appreciative of this audience you're you're you're attentive you're motivated you're watching you're thinking uh and by the way to that end if you have other guests you'd like us to interview go to dr.com slash contact is that right contact

us okay you want to support the show you don't have to send us money just head on over to dr.com slash sponsors uh start shopping for the holidays you know great sponsors you know we're very lucky that way too we're really happy and by the way, we formed our sponsorship with you all in mind. Like this kind of stuff, the wellness company, it's about getting- Open it up. All right, I'll open it up.

Now we have a little time here. You broke my mojo here. The Carmel Paleo Valley Bone Broth is amazing too. It's good for the holidays. I don't know if you can see it. Oh, wow. Wow. This is, yeah, this is mupiricin.

This is a topic antibiotic. This is an EpiPen. It just fell out of here. Odansetron, albuterol. This is everything you could want. So is that like a combination of all the kits in one? And essentially the emergency stuff. And a manual how to use it and telehealth support.

So it's just tremendous. I was watching. So excited about this stuff. We were watching Gutfeld last night. It's empowering the patients. You guys get the goods and get to take care of your health care the way you know how to. Yeah, we were watching Gutfeld last night. They were talking about going to the ER.

Oh, yeah. You're at the urgent care and it's only for UTIs and whatever. Well, they end up sending you to the ER. You don't need to go. If you have the medication on hand and you get a UTI, you don't have to go to the urgent care. And then, you know. There's a better way to do healthcare. I've spent my career protecting the patient physician.

Clearly, that's a lost cause. We got to go right to the patients and give them the power. You deserve the power. You deserve control. But don't, you know But don't be heedless. You want to use our telehealth and use our manuals and things. We work on that very carefully,

but we do trust you to deliver healthcare in a systematic way, properly informed. You should be. You should have access. You should have access. Can you give certificates at the wellness companies so you can set up your family member for Christmas? Why don't you send them a little suggestion? That's a a great idea i don't think they have things like that and go hey i'm gonna send them an email right now yeah so like you know start stocking up on

talking stuffers with all of our people should have um gift certificates you know i just i've lived with you for 35 years, and I have always had antibiotics at my beck and call, and it's always been great. But when I hear somebody has to go to an urgent care for a UTI, I'm like, why? Don't you have a doctor? Okay.

I just sent it a thing for gift certificates. Let's see if they can get that up and going. We can always get those UTIs. It's an interesting idea. It's an interesting idea. And of course, there's the One Health thing at TWC. If you're a regular customer over there, you can save a lot of money by signing up for One Health.

They've got a lot of interesting services as part of that organization. And they're going to expand that. All right. So, Manana, Dr. I actually just searched for it. They do have Wellness Company gift cards. I couldn't find it on the main page,

but if you just Google the Wellness Company gift cards, it pops right up. Well, make sure you go to drdrew.com slash TWC first and then find the gift cards. So they know that I'm selling up here. I do this because I love them so much and I think it's a great gift. I completely agree. Look, does Paleo Valley have a gift certificate thing? much and I think it's a great gift. I completely agree.

Does Paleo Valley have a gift certificate thing? You and I talked about that. Oh yeah, they do. We're going to be giving Paleo Valley some of our gifts. Alright, so in any event, we're enthusiastic about the people that support us. Sorry for all our friends who are going to end up with our sponsored gifts because we love it so much.

We are enthusiastic about you all. We'll continue to offer the best we can through the holidays and then we'll launch into the new year. And until tomorrow at noon, we'll be talking to Claire Craig and Jessica Rose. Should be a very interesting conversation.

Then Susan is at three o'clock Pacific time. We'll see you there. We'll be talking to dead people. See you then. Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Caleb Nation and Susan Pinsky. As a reminder, the discussions here are not a substitute for medical care, diagnosis, or treatment. This show is intended for educational and informational purposes only. I am a licensed physician, but I am not a replacement for your personal doctor, and I am not practicing medicine here.

Always remember that our understanding of medicine and science is constantly evolving. Though my opinion is based on the information that is available to me today, some of the contents of this show could be outdated in the future. Be sure to check with trusted resources in case any of the information has been updated since this was published. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, don't call me, call 911 911 if you're feeling hopeless or suicidal call the national suicide prevention lifeline at 800-273-8255 you can find more of my recommended organizations and helpful resources at drdrew.com help