From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Naomi Wolf: "The President's Speech Is A Declaration Of War Against The American People As Free People"

Episode Date: September 11, 2021

This week, Sean & Rachel invite New York Times best-selling author, scholar, and feminist leader Naomi Wolf to their kitchen table. Naomi discusses how she had previously been celebrated & praised for her views, but issues of freedom centralizing around the pandemic have led some to be more openly critical. Follow Rachel on Twitter: @RCamposDuffy Follow Sean on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My parents have had a lot of time on their hands lately. At first, it was nice. Hey mom, can you drive me to soccer practice? Sure can. We're having slow cooked ribs for dinner. It was awesome. And then it became a lot. Some friends are coming over to watch a movie.

Ooh, what are we watching? I'll make some popcorn. Thanks to Voila, they can order all our fresh favorites from Sobeys, Farm Boy, and Longos online, which is super reliable. And now my parents are reliable. A little too reliable. Voila, your groceries delivered just like that. Hey, everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I am your host, Sean Duffy, along with my co-host,

not just for the podcast, but also in life, Rachel Campos Duffy. Hello, everyone. Thank you, Sean. We're back with more conversations from our kitchen table. And today we have another special guest, somebody I've been dying to speak to since I spoke to her last when I was hosting Primetime a few months ago. Well, she's a New York Times bestselling author. She's a scholar. She's a feminist leader. She's someone I learned about when I was in college in the 90s. Please welcome Naomi Wolf. Naomi, thank you for joining us at the kitchen table. I'm so happy to be with you. Thank you for inviting me. So you're such an interesting figure, I just think, in the country

right now. And you've also kind of become polarized, which I find very interesting that you're being polarized in the circles that you're being polarized, because those are circles where I think you're very celebrated for so long. So before we get started, why don't you, if you don't mind, just tell our listeners a little bit about your background and then why these issues of freedom, especially around the pandemic, are so important to you, but really important to the future of this country. Sure. I think what you mean by my background is that I come from a long line of liberal, I would be joking, but not joking to say members of the cultural elite. You know, God bless them. They worked hard to get there.

But, you know, my dad was a card carrying communist in, you know, at a time when a lot of intellectual Jewish immigrants were communists because Stalin hadn't happened yet, and he believed in, you know, equality, and it seemed like a solution to a lot of problems. My, you know, my mom and dad were kind of part of the bohemian movement in San Francisco, you know, long line, and I'm proud of them, of liberal progressive activists and, you know, people who care about culture. And my friends, you know, my life, you know, I married the op-ed editor of the New York Times, or he became that after we married, and a White House speechwriter for the Clinton administration. I advised the Clinton reelection campaign in 96. I was an advisor to Vice President Gore in 2000 in his presidential run.

You know, I've written for every major news outlet, which kind of by definition now are mostly on the left. And, you know, I'm a lifelong Democrat. And there's a lot in that tradition that is really admirable. We used to stand for freedom of speech. We used to stand for my body, my choice. We used to stand for inclusiveness and opportunity and social justice. I mean, you guys did too in different ways. And that's what made America so great at its best. And I guess since the pandemic, I guess kind of the story I'm forced to tell, even though it's super excruciatingly painful, I don't want to minimize how painful this is,

is that for 12 years, I've been watching tyranny, right? That's been part of my job. I wrote a book in 2008, during the Bush era called The End of America, about how democracy could die in America. And I kept up that critique in administration after administration, you know, the left and the right, because we have to be vigilant against tyranny and both sides sometimes take swipes against our freedoms and our constitution. Tell me what you were seeing 12 years ago. What were you starting to see that I think many of us are only seeing or some people are only seeing now? You saw this in the George Bush era, right? And I saw it way later than you. So what did you see in the early 2000s that said, oh, we're in danger of freedom, democracy could be in trouble?

Well, first, let me say thank you so much for being willing to ask that question, because we're in such a crisis right now. It's such an emergency that people of every background need to look at themselves and their own party as well as at the other side and be willing to face, you know, the tyrannical gestures that both sides engage in. And this is like historically constant, right? You have left-wing fascism in China. You have right-wing fascism in, you know, under Mussolini and Hitler. And it's just like the temptation to crush democracy is part of human nature dealing with power. So what I saw in 2008 was that, you know, there were 10 steps to fascism. I wrote in

a famous, you know, what became a widely circulated essay in the spine of my book, and Bush Jr. was doing all of them. I mean, it seems like child's play now in retrospect, but it definitely ramped up a structure for tyranny and Obama built on it, you know, and each, each, I mean, to his credit, even though I really objected to Trump in so many ways, he kind of, in retrospect, didn't build up a tyrannical superstructure in certain ways. But leaving that aside, you know. So what did you see under Bush? So yeah, thank you. So Bush, you know, he opened Guantanamo, a place outside the rule of law where torture took place. And I was one of the few reporters to get to Guantanamo and report on it was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. He oversaw a crackdown against protesters he targeted,

or singled out individuals like that band of, it was a woman-led, like, country-western band, you know, and criticized them. The Dixie Chicks. Dixie Chicks, thank you. Yes, senior moment on my part. Yeah, no, no, no. And, you know, that's nothing compared to, you know, Jen Psaki singling out the dirty dozen, you know, private individuals, Americans, who just expressing their First Amendment protected opinions, but it definitely was a scary, you know, forerunner. He justified torture, you know, he ramped up surveillance. And there are all of it. And finally, you know, there was he used the threat of terrorism, which is a real thing, to strip people of their rights. He

held people without charge of trial, you know, under the National Defense Authorization Act later. And he, you know, under his watch, the Justice Department kind of framed people in a not great way, you know, and kind of lured people into saying they would blow something up and they were like kind of pathetic homeless people with drug problems. These are all not things that we do in a free society with the rule of law. So, yeah. Neil, as I listen to you take these things off, I find myself thinking, huh, I agreed with those things when George Bush did them. We probably disagree on that point. But I find myself thinking back to go, well, I could say in the Bush era that there's a greater good.

He's protecting us from these rogue Islamic you know, Islamic radical extremists. And therefore, I can justify massaging or cashing in my, you know, my rights or my freedom or my principles upon which the country was founded. Just like today, someone who are pushing the vaccine mandates and requirements are saying, but there is a greater good. Greater good. Safety, safety. Right. And so I'm happy that you brought that up because I think everybody, and this is your point, everybody on the left and right has to examine how we hold. I mean, the closest thing to our heart should not be our party affiliation or that party ideology. It should be these basic concepts of what makes a government of free people function, which is no matter who is an affront to those principles, every man and woman has to push back on that affront.

Absolutely. every man and woman has to push back on um that affront absolutely and again i'm so glad to hear you both taking these you know big picture perspectives because of course i mean the way that conservatives uh rallied and even some people in the center like alan dershowitz you know rallied to support um sending people to a gulag you know, without charge of trial, innocent and guilty, no way to know, right? Because they were not being given trials, you know, contrary to our system. That was really, you know, I saw the right and people in the center cheering that on because they were the bad guys, right? And this was for the greater good, as you so rightly point out. But if you look at history, things get really scary. And I've been trying to warn

about that for 12 years, because every single time there's been a stripping away of liberties, it has been in the name of the greater good, right? In 1933, it was my people, you know, it was Jewish people who were identified as the ones who stabbed Germany in the back, the threat to national purity, the threat to public health, even, you know, the threat to the moral fiber, you know, and so it was for the greater good to isolate and single out those people. And genocide and tyranny has been, you know, set up over and over with scare tactics and the rationale being it's for your own good. I mean, this is what we do in China. You know, it's literally it's for the greater good to suppress.

And China has become so important because I believe that there's a lot of people who are leading our country, leading our corporations, you know, the elites of the elites in our nation who actually look to China and they don't see what you and I see, Naomi, they actually see, wow, that's an incredibly great model. Like, this is awesome. Let me just backtrack just a little bit. I want to understand, I want to get to the, I want to get to the vaccine mandates. I do. But before I do, I just want to understand, Naomi, what's it been like to be you over the last year, pushing back against so much of this tyranny during the pandemic? So, you know, very painful, as I mentioned, personally, very painful, but that's kind of not important at a time like this. You know, I did have a really wonderful,

privileged life as a respected, celebrated commentator on the left, you know, regularly published in left-leaning news outlets, highly respected, as you mentioned. And, you know, I enjoyed that. I had a vibrant, you know, social life in among, you know, the kind of elites of Washington and New York. And, you know, it was super fun. However, I love my country. And there are times when you just can't, you know, have the calculation of I'm going to lose everything except my life. You know, I'm going to lose my friends. I'm going to lose some members of my family. I'm going to lose certainly my career. I mean, you know, for those who don't know my journey, since I began warning people that the Biden administration for whom I voted was rushing to use the pandemic as justification for absolute flat-out tyranny, which, again,

is nothing I haven't done for the last 12 years. I've been 1,000% consistent, but for some reason, you know, now, but, you know, that's a capital crime on the left. Since I began to consistently, which is my job as a reporter, issue this morning. I was deplatformed from my 146,000 followers on Twitter. YouTube deplatformed me from my 336,000 video views. They backtracked after the Epoch Times kind of supported me. I've lost investors in my business. I've lost friends won't talk to me. I get scolded regularly by former friends and colleagues.

You know, people won't see me. It's pretty depressing. And, you know, people won't publish me, right? The same news outlets that clamored for me to comment, you know, just won't publish me or even let me set the record straight when there is a massive kind of reputational attack against me as Twitter engaged in. But it doesn't matter. Like, it's painful and lonely, but it doesn't matter because I read history. And at times like this, you know, we're in 1932. And if the people with cultural capital had stood up and been a little bit brave in 1932, there wouldn't have been 1933. You know, like now is the time to put, you know, country and the Bill of Rights ahead of like, who cares that I, you know, lost all those things, it doesn't matter if I can be a little bit of a part of saving this country's basic liberties. And I have, you know, I feel blessed that I have

been effective, because I've also started something, you know, I started something called Daily Clout, and that we launched a Five Freedoms campaign, and that's transpartisan, we launched a five freedoms campaign and that's transpartisan, uh, to pass laws state by state to, um, ban vaccine passports and mandates, open schools, um, defend property rights, uh, you know, no emergency law. And I've been liaising with state legislators across the country and we, and we hired a lawyer to draft bills to this, you know, to pass, to protect our rights. And we've been really effective in, you really effective in state after state after state. Like us and other people fighting this fight are the reason we're not yet like Australia or New Zealand or Britain, where people literally are imprisoned by the government.

So I do feel it's painful personally, but it's a time to just say goodbye to what made our lives comfortable and stand up for the truth and stand up for our country. This is why I like you. I mean, seriously, I started to tear up a little bit in the beginning there. I mean, you're right. America's at stake. Go ahead, Sean. I think it's interesting, Naomi, because as human beings, we don't like to be ostracized or smeared or blackballed or lose our friends. Our status.

And I think when we look back, as I was going through school, I would think, when you look at the early 1930s, we think, how could that ever happen? this transition to take place that created world war and so much death and exclusion and camps for certain races. And now we see when it starts to happen today, it's interesting that you say, oh, well, good people when put under pressure actually become silent. They think they're strong until it's them who is being ostracized, them who is the one who is being excluded from Twitter or Facebook or not invited to the party or could lose their job, which is why I think it is so important because I do think people get strength from seeing other people be strong. That's true. Expressing the truth and successfully doing it, all of a sudden they might find their own voice.

But would you walk through for us, Naomi, kind of what you see at this moment in time? We just heard the president speak recently about vaccine mandates. Employers with 100 employees or more requiring vaccines and or weekly testing. Where are we at? What does this mean? What is the risk of where we're at today for our freedom? Yeah, it's so serious. I can't overstate how serious it is. And it's a day that I've been, you know, warning people about and trying to work to prevent for 12 years. And it's here. And the first thing to do is face it. The president's speech is more than a rollout of a public health policy. It really is a declaration of war against the American people as a free people. And that's not an overstatement. your employees to be injected with, you know, even if it was safe, right? It's your body, right? But this is a, you know, an experimental treatment that that was rushed into FDA approval. And many doctors who are very courageous are standing up and saying, you know, buy an FDA that's held

captive by the interest that it's supposed to regulate. And it's, you know, it's being imposed on people with other medical problems. It's being imposed on pregnant women. It's being imposed on people who- Already had COVID. Already had COVID, you know, but even like even getting into the weeds of should, is it safe?

Is it not safe? Is it good for you? Is it not good for you? You know, does it work? Like we're seeing reports out of Israel that effectiveness is down to 39%. So, you know, does it even work? Right. But all of that aside that, you know, that's now China, right? China says your uterus belongs to the state. Your body belongs to the state. You know, you can have one child. You can have, you know, we will force abortions on you.

I did an interview with Reggie Littlejohn, you know, what happens to women in China is exactly this kind of, you know, intrusive, coercive management of the body, bodily autonomy by the state against your will. And, you know, I am very, but even beyond that, I am so terrified, And, you know, I am very, but even beyond that, I am so terrified, truly to my core, by the president's speech. Because, again, I read history and his tone was the tone not of an American president, but a dictator. And he made threats. He basically said to the governors who are standing in his way, and from my point of view, you know, holding out against flat out tyranny. He said, like, we'll deal with you. We'll take care of you.

I don't remember his exact wordings, but it's kind of a wording of a mafioso and not of a president. And he said, really scary. And forgive me for going on a bit, but I really want people to understand what the speech represents. It's a dark, dark benchmark in American history, this speech. He basically set the stage for taking your children away if you're not vaccinated. And people really need to understand that. Explain what phrase did he say that, what is it in the speech precisely that you think sets the stage for that? Sure.

So this has been drummed up a lot. Sure. So this has been drummed up a lot. And if you look at other populations that have been broken by coercive restrictions like Native American tribes, right, in the 19th century, taking the children away or threatening to take your children away is the thing that that subjugates population, of course. And, you know, even in Israel, people were being told that they couldn't make decisions about their children's well-being if their vaccine passes were not green, right? And in Israel now, they're on to third booster just to keep their vaccine passes going, which I predicted six months ago, one of the reasons I was deplatformed, probably. So it's the ultimate threat, right? So when he was saying people who are around your children need to be vaccinated, people who are not

vaccinated shouldn't be around children. A, it's not scientific because even the manufacturers do not claim that vaccination affects transmission. It affects symptoms. So it really doesn't affect me if you're vaccinated or not vaccinated. And children are very, very safe, thank God, from COVID. But it's setting the stage. And I think there's been one case of a woman- In Chicago, right? A couple weeks ago. Yep. And it was like a divorce situation. And the judge said, the child can't be with you because you're not vaccinated. And it was going to have to go to the father. Yes, you're right.

Exactly. So again, I worked in those rooms where those speeches were written. Speeches are not written carelessly. A lot of people vet them in the White House. And a lot of people signed off on that wording. It's not really very practical wording because only a few actual teachers of children are being affected by his most recent rollout. I think it's Head Start got included, swept up in the dragnet. But it's effective. A lot of White House speech writing involves foreshadowing or trial balloons. And so it's a way to get the idea out there that

people who are not vaccinated should not be around children. And that's setting the stage for an executive order or, you know, a court case in which the argument is going to be made by the government that people who are unvaccinated are a danger to children and children should be taken away from them. that you're exaggerating, that this is hyperbolic. But so many of the things that you said, you know, eight months ago that everyone says were hyperbolic have already come to pass. It's just a really odd, crazy time that we're living in. Now you've set up in your, through your organization, as you said, you're trying to work through legislation, local governments, you know, there are things people can do that way. But I think the most important thing is just getting everyone on board that this is un-American.

I'm not sure everybody sees that. No. Well, you guys are an important part of getting the word out. I want to talk about that, but I want to make one more note, please, about the President's speech and why it's a turning point. You know, the last chapter of The End of America talks about martial law. And when there's martial law and suspension of the rule of law, it's over, right? It's no longer democracy. And that's where we're at right now. I've gone from state to state, and the state house is closed in Maine. It's closed in New Hampshire. It's closed in Oregon. The state houses are closed. New York is operating under emergency law. There's emergency law in 47 states, right? We've been fighting and fighting to roll that back, but it just gets extended and extended here in New York where I'm sitting. You know, we're not under a democracy. We're under emergency law.

You know, Governor Cuomo left. We have a new governor. She's dictating with emergency law. And this was all justified by the pandemic, right? So the reason I raise this is that we're already at a very fragile state in terms of our democracy. And this is the last nails in the coffin unless we all resist peacefully, because the president said, I will mobilize the Defense Department. I will mobilize the Department of Defense. I'm going to send military units to help, you know, enforce or support this vaccination mandate.

I don't remember his exact wording, but several times he mentioned the Department of Defense. So a little historical refresher. Our founders, you know, in their wisdom, gave the militia to be subject to the people of a state through the state's governor. And it's been illegal in the past to deploy U.S. military on U.S. soil, right? Our military, and I'm, you know, the wife of a veteran, you know, God bless those brave men and women. They are supposed to be deployed overseas or, you know, against our enemies, not against the people of the United States. And once you get

the commander in chief to deploy the US military or to mobilize the Department of Defense, whatever that means, against the American people, you no longer have a democracy, you have a banana republic, and you're really making war against the citizens of the United States. Wow. We'll have more of this conversation after this. My parents have had a lot of time on their hands lately. At first, it was nice. Hey, mom, can you drive me to soccer practice? Sure can. We're having slow cooked ribs for dinner. It was awesome. And then it became a lot. Some friends are coming over to watch a movie. Oh, what are we watching? I'll make some popcorn. Thanks to Voila, they can order all our fresh favorites from Sobeys, Farm Boy, and Longos online, which is super reliable.

And now my parents are reliable. A little too reliable. Voila, your groceries delivered just like that. So, Naomi, as you look at the president's speech, you've been predicting a lot of this. You've been one who has been speaking out and doing this work across the states, which is so important. Thank you. But if you have advice to average Americans who listen to this podcast, they go, what can I do? I'm not an Amy Wolf.

I'm not. I don't have your platform. I don't have your intelligence and your education. But what does the average man and woman do if they want to fight back, push back? Should we all just be involved in civil disobedience? What do we do? Yeah. Well, first, I'd like the first thing to do truly, and I'll say this gently, is to reject that frame around the question of I'm not, I don't have a big platform, I don't have your education or whatever.

leadership qualities. And our first revolution was fought by absolutely ordinary men and women, quote unquote, ordinary, who were farmers and artisans and, you know, homemakers and who just didn't consent to tyranny. And every successful revolution isn't won by, you know, particular that person with that second graduate degree, every successful revolution is won by men and women in the street simply saying no to tyranny. Daily Clout was founded because it is my experience that people are plenty smart enough and powerful enough and brave enough to run this revolution. We're set up, Daily Clout know, the reason we've been successful isn't me. It's all the hundreds and thousands of people who have gone ahead and sent those draft bills to their governors who have learned how to write that letter from other ordinary, quote, unquote, ordinary men and women, how to lobby, how to make phone calls, how to, you know, report

what's going on in their community, how to show up. Like there's a big rally walkout week is next week, 9th to the, I'm sorry, 13th to the 18th. Children's Health Defense and other groups are leading it where you don't consent to have your child masked and coercively treated in school. But there are walkouts happening across the country spontaneously that quote-unquote ordinary people are leading. Truckers are saying no. Pilots are saying no. I just interviewed a nurse. You know, nurses are walking off the job. So that's number one, to bring business as usual

to a halt. And I do highly recommend that people, you know, join us on Daily Cloud and start, you know, passing those bills in their own states to support governors and standing up to this horrible federal overreach. But the power of saying, no, I'm not going to comply is incredible. And there are also other people, I'll direct you to the ACRU, Lori Roman's organization, and the NCLA, a lawyer named Janine Yunus, they're fighting the former, they're fighting to represent military and veterans against coercive mandates. And the NCLA is fighting to protect workers against coercive mandates. So you can help in various ways. But honestly, it's civil disobedience. It's not going, it's simply saying no. And if you get in saying no in massive numbers and

getting together with your neighbors as publicly as possible to say no as visibly as possible, if necessary to be willing to get arrested, it's scary, but we're at that point. And to make sure it's peaceful because I'm speaking to conservatives, the risk of something being not peaceful, you know, they want that, right? They want it. Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you. You know, one of the, you talk about like if everybody just stood up, you know, they couldn't do this to us. One of the groups that has been most disappointing to me, because I know a lot of doctors, and very early on, a lot of them were coming to me sort of privately and saying, this is really weird. I've, I've never had a prescription challenged before, you know, but I've never had a pharmacist call me. I'm a heart surgeon and I'm prescribing, you know,

I've never had this happen. And, but so few of them stood up and stood against their, you know, hospitals. They were so afraid of getting their licenses. They were just reputational damage. And I just felt like, you know, there are two, you know, the military and doctors are sort of like these people that we all agree are great, you know. And had more doctors stood up, I think early on, we might not have been here. I know that they made an example of a few of the few that did stand up early on, but that was so disappointing to me. So I wanted you to comment on that and also on

masks. How important was the use of masks in sort of making, or do you think it was a tool in sort of conditioning us to accepting more and more of our freedoms being taken away? Yeah. Well, first of all, you're right about the doctors, sadly. And a doctor just leaked to me yesterday, one reason, people's licenses are being revoked, or people are being threatened with being de-licensed not just for you know prescribing ivermectin or you know in other warning people about the dangers of vaccines but this warning is actually about um warning people against being guilty of quote-unquote misinformation and misinformation is this loose term that's being bandied about it's the justification i. I got kicked off of Twitter, even though I got kicked off of Twitter for reporting on Ralph Baric's CV, which showed NIH gain-of-function funding of millions of dollars, which has now been confirmed by the interest rate. I guess you're right.

Yeah, you turned out to be right. But having said that, doctors are really scared. And examples are being made of them, but they should have been braver. And in Canada, there are partly because it was more overt in Canada, but very brave doctors like Dr. Patrick Phillips. And I've been interviewing certain very courageous doctors here, like Dr. Peter McCullough. He's on Fox a lot. Dr. Harvey Risch of Yale, Howard Tenenbaum. I had him on last night. Fantastic, right? Wonderful.

But these people are getting, you know, sidelined, fired. Fortunately, some of them have tenure. You notice a lot of the ones who do speak up are tenured, but everything is being done to doctors to punish them for just treating their patients. You know, that said, this is not a new tactic. I just ordered a book to reread called The Nazi Doctors. And as I mentioned earlier, the National Socialists did mobilize physicians to be their front, their advance guard for identifying certain people as life unworthy of life. So I'm disappointed, but I also know that in the academy, in the, you know, medical profession,

it's a highly regimented, centralized profession. And one licensing board can, you know, end someone's career forever and make it impossible for them to feed their kids. So that's why effective civil disobedience really has to be very strategic and people have to be talking to each other and connecting outside of their own professions because it takes, for instance, a protest in a hospital by patients and family members and support staff and investors, right, and just advocates to disrupt things enough to strengthen the hand of people inside the system like doctors. And we saw that this was effective with groups like ACT UP, the AIDS crisis, where there were insiders working within with the American government agencies, and there were outsiders raising hell in the streets. And that pincher movement is very important to stop tyranny from unfolding or to get things done effectively at a time like this.

effectively at a time like this. So Naomi, when I look at the spectrum of where people fall on this issue of vaccines and the freedom conversation that we're having, I think probably more conservatives are pushing back on the administration than liberals, but there's liberals and conservatives who are all about the health and safety of America and these mandates are great, you know, protect my health. You come into contact with a lot of liberals. My sister is a traditional liberal. She lives in Southern California and I love her to death. She's an amazing woman. But she's also, she's very health conscious, eats organic. And she's like, I'm not putting that in my body. And again, a very traditional Democrat, liberal, Southern California. Voting for Bernie Sanders. Yeah.

She's all of a sudden saying, this is not the party and the values that I supported. And so my question for you is, are you hearing of more liberals, the traditional liberal, the traditional old school Democrats that maybe as loudly as you are, but are coming to you privately saying, Naomi, I agree with you 100%. Can you give me hope that it's not just this conversation, but there is a movement within Democrats and traditional liberals that are saying this is insane. And we may not be with you online or in voice, but keep up the fight. Is there more of us that are concerned about this infringement upon freedom or are we the minority?

And I guess I'm hoping that there's a lot of people that come to go, keep it on, girl. This is awesome. Yeah. You know, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. It's a handful. You know, I'm almost crying as I'm answering this. I'm so disappointed in my own community.

It's, yes, some people come to me confidentially and a handful of people might speak up online, you know, when I do have a platform. But the people who, you know, the ACLU, my beloved ACLU, they're supporting vaccine mandates. You know, where are the feminists? Where are the pro-choice feminists who for decades were saying, you know, a woman's medical choices are between herself and her doctor. You know, these are private decisions. Your body belongs to you. Where are they? It's the same discussion. It's the same violation of rights.

Where are the, you know, as you mentioned, organic people, where are the people who shop at Whole Foods? Why are they speaking up and saying, you know, they'll pay $12 for kale and they'll put something. My side got truly traumatized by the, you know, what they would see as the insurrection, what other people on your side of the aisle call January 6th, right? They witnessed an absolutely terrifying invasion of our nation's capital. And what they heard from the conservative media, even if it wasn't that representative, was that you guys did not take that seriously. I'm just being really honest, because we're at such a crisis point, we have to have these honest conversations. And so the left wing media, unfortunately, exploited that and has positioned anyone who voted for Trump or who might vote against the Biden administration or might, you know, challenge Dr. Fauci as an ignorant terrorist, an insurrectionist, a racist, violent, dangerous people, gun happy, you know, want to, you know, put women back in the cave and strip them of all their rights and reproductive choice. Really scary, right?

Existentially, they're scared of you. And I happen to be privileged to know people and love people from all backgrounds. And I know that that is not a thousand, that's not that representative of conservatives at all. But you guys, sorry, your leaders did not condemn that behavior loudly enough. And so that has created a vacuum in which people are so scared of that happening again, that they will tolerate any abuse and excess by the Biden administration. And honestly, now that's coupled with fear of the Biden administration, because, you know, my people turn out to be pretty wimpy. And they are falling into line because they don't want their careers to be sidelined. There's millions of dollars going also

to buy them, right? The last stimulus bill had a billion dollars for vaccine confidence that's flowing to community organizations on the left, it's flowing to commentators on the left to influencers on the left. So I'm embarrassed and sad to say a lot of people on the left. It's flowing to commentators on the left, to influencers on the left. So I'm embarrassed and sad to say a lot of people on the left who should be speaking out against this have been bought and others are just scared. Naomi, the only thing that I think with your, I mean, we can agree or disagree on January 6th. We should have another podcast on January 6th. I know. January 6th is an interesting topic. But I saw this stuff happening before January 6th. I saw last summer, not this summer, but the summer before of 2020, I saw a local doctor.

Sean, I lived in a little tiny town in a small town in Wisconsin. tiny town in a small town in wisconsin and there was a a rally or a a gathering of people who were saying we don't want you know these mass mandates and a doctor a local respected doctor went in he he went to the back of the of the rally he he was open air he didn't have a mask and some took a picture of him and you know basically tried to destroy his career and and and and he didn't speak there and he didn't speak he just was there and they tried to destroy his career they smeared feces a liberal he's all over his his door terrified his family threatened his career um i have i know so many people last summer, long before January 6th, were seeing this tyranny. Now, it could be that January 6th was used to further things or whatever, but this was happening. Is January 6th this moment where it's either,

This was happening. Is January 6th this moment where it's either, you know, I'm with the insurrectionists. I'm with the insurrectionists of January 6th. I'm with Joe Biden. I'm in the Joe Biden camp because I'm not an insurrectionist. So I've got to go along with all the policies that are coming up for the administration. Is that what the left is thinking? Kind of. I'm sorry, but kind of.

Yeah. It doesn't even make sense on a timeline. Do liberals that you talk to, Naomi, do they are they starting to turn a little bit, at least now on Fauci, who, you know, you've been I mean, it was obvious to get an answer to. I mean, Fauci was practically a saintly figure. You couldn't say anything against him. And I mean, I just think he's been utterly exposed. I mean, the fact that he was involved in gain of function, that he tried to throw everyone off the scent of it, of the whole hand lab and the fact that it was a lab leak, all of this that he did, and he's now been exposed. Are you seeing any cracks, at least in that on the left?

Wow. God, it's so heartbreaking for me to hear your questions because I literally have this conversation with my husband every morning, like, honey, tell me that it's getting better. Tell me that we're, you know, that there's some progress. I mean, the same kind of clutching at straws. And I'm with you, you know, you are my brothers and sisters, those of us who are clutching at straws at this moment. All right, Dr. Fauci. So the trouble is, guys, that we're a nation now that's getting two very distinct information streams. So I actually read the New York Times and watch Fox News. And I used to think Fox News was like Satan's mouthpiece, right? That's how you guys are represented or your current team is represented to us. I'm not kidding. he was represented to us. I'm not kidding. And I talked to Steve Bannon. My mother tells me that all the time.

Sean's mom is a big Democrat. Bernie Sanders supporter. She tells me the same thing. Yeah. But Steve Bannon, I thought, was evil incarnate. And he's a lovely person to talk to. And I talk to him as much as I can on the air. So I-

You do his War Room podcast quite a war room podcast. Yeah, I do. You and Steve Bannon, who would have thought that? So, but, but what I'm saying is then I go to visit my mom and she's watching MSNBC and CNN and, and literally it's two different worlds. Right. And so I I'm embarrassed to say that about the pandemic and Dr. Fauci, you know, Fox and Bannon and Senator Rand Paul, probably you guys are doing really good reporting, but it's completely whitewashed by CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, right? And same thing with vaccines. So I said to my mom, God bless her, you know, about a relative who wouldn't see me indoors and wouldn't see me outside. And I said, don't they know that vaccines don't affect transmission? And she said, well, honey, in their belief matrix, they can't get any closer to you. And so that's what's been created is a belief matrix, right? In which facts don't matter. And so, you know, what I'm seeing is this very dangerous situation,

which is why truly people getting together and talking directly, like we are not just virtually, but also physically so important. I'm seeing this creation of two different realities in which you and I both know that Dr. Fauci has been confirmed by The Intercept after Naomi and Brian first reported it back in June. And Natalie Winters, I want to shout out to her as well, great reporter, to have funded gain-of-function research and to have lied to Congress. It's not ambiguous, flat out. No. who have lied to Congress. It's not ambiguous, flat out. And my husband, a PI and a wonderful researcher found this morning that the people The Intercept interviewed to backpedal who said, well, it's not really the same strain. They were also involved in the gain of function research. So it's a highly corrupt situation in which he's clearly guilty of a criminal offense. I mean, he hasn't been tried and charged yet, but that brings with it a five-year penalty, you know, like it's a serious

criminal offense to lie to Congress. So my mom doesn't know that, right? No one watching MSNBC knows that. The way it's reported, they don't even look at the documents, right? On the left and in the center, ABC, even Yahoo News, you know, but certainly The Washington Post, The New York Times, they report it as a spat between Senator Paul and Dr. Fauci. They don't look at the primary source documents. Did he or did he not fund gain of function research? They won't look. And so what I'm sharing is it's very depressing. Loved ones, family members, educated people on the left, they're in the same matrix. They won't look. So many people have said to me, don't send me that peer-reviewed published research.

Don't tell me about the person who helped invent mRNA vaccines who's saying, you know, be careful. This, you know, hasn't been tested for pregnant women. saying, you know, be careful. This, you know, hasn't been tested for pregnant women. Like they don't, they can't, they've created almost a cult mentality where it would be so destabilizing to them to find out that the great doctor actually funded this and could be responsible for, you know, the death of millions of people. So Naomi, what you brought up something important is that there's two different information flows. There's an information matrix.

And I would think in this pandemic, if you're someone who's like, I want to do good, I would want to make sure I'm getting out as much information as possible. What has been studied? What is a theory? What are some concepts we have? And we debate it. And we could all share in the same information, and we might draw in a free society different conclusions from the information that's being put out. But you'd be sharing the same information, but that we're in a space where, again, Fox might have one perspective, but MSNBC and CNN have a completely different perspective. Is this intentional?

different perspective. Is this intentional? Is this on purpose that we're massaging the information? We're not allowing the debate. We're censoring it. Is there a part of the divergence of the information flow that allows for the separation of society and the acceptables and the unacceptables in society. Right. Wow. I love the questions you guys are asking. They're the right questions to get to the heart of what's happening. I mean, we haven't really talked about China, right? And we haven't talked about big tech, but I think you're right. I wouldn't say it's 50 50 because i'm embarrassed to say that conservatives right now are the ones who are willing to look critically at facts the way that we were trained in middle school to do you know critical thinking and research and and the left right now is in a, you know, this bubble of trauma and cultish thinking with also a kind of gleeful jumping on judgment, which has become intoxicating to them. And we haven't gone into that, but it's not it's not equal. Right. It's not two people just being fed two streams of disinformation.

being fed two streams of disinformation. There's a cult on the left. Having said that, China is absolutely influencing, you know, it's bought up a bunch of our media properties, and it's bought up, you know, various leaders and various influencers and universities. And this has been, you know, well documented by China watchers, but it is in China, you know, people I know who are thoughtful in the intelligence community, think that we're under attack, you know, and I think there's truth to that. I think that China has exploited, or caused or inadvertently caused and then exploited the pandemic to, and, you know, people in the State Department were testifying to members of Congress about it's a bioweapon, right? And there's, you know, Chinese military at Wuhan, of course, it's a bioweapon. Obviously, it's a bioweapon,

it's dual purpose, right? So, if we're under attack, then everything makes sense, right? Schools are degraded. You can't go to church. You know, you're injected with something that might not be good for you. You're lied to so that you can't tell what's really going on. You're kept from the polls. You're, you know, people are turned against people. Left and right are divided.

You know, our history is erased, like all of that makes sense. And look, China is up 36% in profits between 20 and 21. And we're a limping shadow of our former selves. And even this mandate, I mean, thoughtful people I know think, I will just say, I think the Biden administration is being, you know, improperly owned or influenced by China. And in that case, even such a draconian set of mandates, and like thoughtful people have to look at hypotheticals, right? And explore them. And this is a serious hypothetical, right? This is a national security question. And so if you think, well, that is that possible? What's the evidence for that? Then even a mandate like this makes sense because you're going to get the military quitting in

droves, or you're going to get the military not quitting and possibly being weakened, right? Or having pericarditis or myocarditis or other issues. You're going to get people leaving the federal government in droves, taking all of that knowledge, right? All of that experience because they don't want a mandated vaccine. You're going to have teachers leaving in droves as they are. I mean, a nurse I interviewed said, we're going to have an emergency health crisis, not because of COVID, but because so many nurses don't want to be physically vaccinated.

Yeah. I know a lot of nurses like that. Yeah. And I know a lot of military, by the way, who say I'm not going to reenlist. Or I know a young man who wanted to go into the Navy SEALs who says I'm rethinking this, you know, A, because of what happened in Afghanistan, and B, because of this mandate.

We'll be right back with much more after this. Bet more activated. The Scorebet app here with trusted stats and real-time sports news. Yeah, hey, who should I take in the Boston game? Well, statistically speaking. Nah, no more statistically speaking. I want hot takes. I want knee-jerk reactions.

That's not really what I do. Is that because you don't have any knees? The Scorebet. Trusted sports content. Seamless sports betting. betting download today 19 plus ontario only if you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you please go to connexontario.ca um last question for you Naomi you talk about the 10 steps of tyranny where are we on the 10 steps how far along are we is it too late for us to come back? Well, we're past the 10th

step, I'm afraid. We're under emergency law. And our president just declared that he's putting the military in the streets. So that's step 10. Is it too late? It's too late for us to pretend we're still in a democracy. But, you know, even very suppressed people, and my favorite example is Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, you know, they were under the thumb of the Soviet Union, and they rose up in something called the singing revolution, and just poured into the streets, you know, brought traffic to a standstill, brought business as usual to a standstill and did it peacefully. They sang, right? And they were able to, you know, defy and roll back one of the great powers on earth. So it's never too late in the sense that we can have a republic, but it's going to be a fight. It is going to be a fight.

And I think it's really important, Naomi, that we not lose hope, that we not get depressed. I mean, I think anyone listening to our podcast today, it's sad. I mean, it's really depressing. And one of the things that I've been trying to do, and this probably comes from my conservative background, is I'm trying to be a happy warrior through this. I do think you are a happy warrior through this. I think one of the reasons you're a happy warrior is that you're happy in your personal life. I feel the same way in my personal life. And I think it's important for us to not lose hope, to enjoy the things that we have in our lives, our family, our husbands, our wives, the loves of our lives as we fight this, because if not, it can feel so overwhelming. Yeah, I do agree with you.

Yeah, no, I'm very blessed and lucky to have a wonderful husband and beautiful children and stepchildren who, you know, yeah, he cheers me on every day. And I'm also blessed because he's a former special operator, you know, military intelligence. So I do feel safe, but also he thinks strategically, right? So, you know, when I say I'm exhausted, I can't do this anymore. He says, this is what war feels like. We're in the middle of a war and you don't win it in one battle. It can take months. It can take years. And that's oddly reassuring. There's one last thing I want to mention. I just love, wait a minute, just stop for a second. Cause that is, that is so profound. Cause I sometimes feel like that too. And I'm not even nearly under the attack that you

are this morning. She was like, I'm exhausted. I can't move forward. I said, I, I feel like, wow, you know what? That's right. It is, it is a war. It's not, it's not one battle. It's every day. It's, um, and, and, but, but, but, but love and life does replenish us. Um, there's definitely that. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I was really but, but love and life does replenish us. Um, there's definitely that. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I was really, I was really impressed by this. Um, you know, this advice that your husband was giving you and that, that encouragement, because for someone like you who's in this battle, um, who I think I really believe Naomi, that you're, you're a really critical part of your future.

I really do believe that. I'm just, I am inspired by your courage. I really am. Thank you. It's, I mean, the trouble is reading history, you know that now you just have to be a little brave. And if you're not a little brave now, things get really terrifying and you have to be much more brave.

So I'm not that brave. That's why I'm trying to be brave now, things get really terrifying and you have to be much more brave. So I'm not that brave. That's why I'm trying to be brave now. But I was just going to add one more thing that I just felt like it's important to say these days. I have a spiritual life. And what I mean by that is every day that is combat and misery and ostracism, I know that someday I'm going to have to meet my maker and, you know, like I'll be asked what I do in the war. And I do think that we're in a time, you know, a great activist, you know, said we're not just fighting quoted, I guess, the New Testament. We're not just fighting, you know, earthly powers. We're fighting like spiritual principalities and

powers of darkness. And I think that's really happening. That's really true. So the more of us who name our enemy and come together and love each other and choose to live in the light and defend freedom and our bodies that God made, you know, for our children's sake, I have to believe that we can turn the tide. Naomi, can I just make one point to you? And I think to our listeners as well, because you and I could sit over a cup of coffee and we could argue and fight over, I think, a ton of things and we would disagree on them, but we could never do that unless we have freedom. And I think what has to happen now, and this has

been, I think the great lesson of Naomi Wolf is to say, you know what, I'm going to step outside of, you know, my, you know, my group, and I'm going to reach out to those in the other group who share this, this, this, this, this primary idea of freedom. And we can't argue about all the things that we want to argue about and disagree on and debate unless we have the freedom to talk and have that conversation and have that vote. And I think what you've done is tell liberals and conservatives,

we are brothers and sisters in this experiment of democracy that's founded in freedom. And if you give up the freedom, you can't have all the debates. So join your brothers and sisters in the cause, and you might have a hundred things you disagree on, but you agree on this one primary thing that gives you the ability to have all the other conversations. And that's why I think what you've done is said, let's unite, let's hold hands and join in this common cause that has made this country so great and so vibrant. And it's going to be men and women of all aspects and political views that

come together for freedom. And you have been, I think- An example of it. views that come together for freedom. And you have been, I think, an example, a leader in this space that I think has shown others. I don't have to fight people that I disagree with, maybe on abortion, because we can't have that debate unless we can actually have the freedom to have the conversation. And that's the lesson I've learned from you. I'll find freedom lovers, no matter where they are. I'm going to learn from Naomi Wolf. I'll find them wherever and I'll find I'll find freedom lovers no matter where they are. I'm going to learn from Naomi Wolf. I'll find them wherever and I'll fight with them to preserve what's been so great about this country. And so thank you for being that that leader in that example, I think, for conservatives and liberals.

Thank you. Well, that's really beautifully put. And I appreciate you guys, too, for for talking to me. So, yes, it's definitely time to to join together so we can continue to have debate and choice and liberty in the future. Thank you, Naomi. You're amazing. Thank you for joining us, Naomi, at our kitchen table. And I hope one day we can actually sit around a kitchen table. Oh, I'd love that. I'd love that. Let's stay in touch. Okay, take care. Wow. I've really enjoyed that conversation. If you enjoyed that conversation, definitely let us know. Subscribe, rate, review this podcast at foxnewspodcast.com

or wherever you download podcasts. We hope to see you around the kitchen table next week. Bye-bye. The Fox News Rundown. A contrast of perspectives you won't hear anywhere else. Your daily dose of news twice a day. Featuring insight from top newsmakers, reporters, and Fox News contributors. Listen and subscribe now by going to foxnewspodcast.com.