The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Dr. Phil On Problems With The Border, Blaming The Administration, Addressing America’s Issues + More

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

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Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. own? I planted the flag. This is mine. I own this. It's surprisingly easy. 55 gallons of water,

500 pounds of concrete. Or maybe not. No country willingly gives up their territory. Oh my God. What is that? Bullets. Listen to Escape from Zaka Stan. That's Escape from Z-A-Q-A-S-T-A-N on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. As a kid, I really do remember having these dreams and visions, but you just don't know what is going to come for you. Alicia shares her wisdom on growth, gratitude, and the power of love. I forgive myself. It's okay. Have grace with yourself. You're trying your best, and you're going to figure out the rhythm of this thing.

Alicia Keys, like you've never heard her before. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, I'm Madison Packer, a pro hockey veteran going on my 10th season in New York.

And I'm Anya Packer, a former pro hockey player and now a full Madison Packers stan. Anya and I met through hockey, and now we're married and moms to two awesome toddlers, ages two and four. And we're excited about our new podcast, Moms Who Puck, which talks about everything from pro hockey to professional women's athletes to raising children and all the messiness in between. So listen to Moms Who Puck on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. This is Courtney Thorne-Smith, Laura Layton, and Daphne Zuniga.

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The breakfast club morning. is dj envy jess hilarious charlamagne the guy we are the breakfast club we got a special guest in the building the legend dr phil welcome good morning how is everybody how you feeling less black and highly favorite how are you i'm doing good uh you got a new book out we've got issues how you can stand strong for america's soul insanity i was i think i was watching the watching fox news one night and Good. You got a new book out, We've Got Issues, How You Can Stand Strong for America's Soul Insanity. I think I was watching Fox News one night, and I saw you go down to the border. I did. I went down to the border.

That's a really unusual situation down there. I've heard so much about it, but I want to go see it for myself. And it's not what you think when you go down there. You know, first off, they tell everybody that there's this big tension between Texas and the national folks. That's not true at all. I mean, they're having lunch together. They're working together. And their number one priority is keeping everybody safe coming across. That river is deep, and the current is really strong. And they're worried to death people are going to drown, and some do out there.

So these are, you know, they're just like, they're just people with a job. You know, they're just down there trying to do their job. So what's the biggest issue, you think? Like, what's the problem with the actual border? I think the biggest problem is we don't know who's coming in. Gotcha. And I got to be real clear. I am very pro-immigration. We need people in America. First, this country wouldn't exist without immigrants. And we need immigrants. Our birth

rate right now is 1.6. We need 2.1 just to sustain our current infrastructure we need people in america um or we can't pay for everything that we need that for jobs and and creativity and just the numbers to support the system we need immigrants but we do need to know who's coming in because I think in just the last month they picked up 17 that are currently on the terrorist watch list. Yikes. And they're not – these are not all Mexican citizens that are coming. They're coming in from Syria, Libya, China. How are they winding up at the southern border? And even all of those aren't bad.

Between 2010 and 2020, they had maybe a couple of hundred or several hundred Chinese come across the border in that time, 1,100, 1,200. In the first 11 months of 2023, it was 33,000. Why? You really wonder why and are these people trying to escape the chinese government and all the problems they have being under a communist regime um or are they chinese operatives that are trying to get into this country uh to create problems I think it's some of both. But how are they getting out of China? You just don't wake up in China and say, you know, think I'll take a flyer, think I'll

take a trip, and leave like you do in America. That's not how it works in China. It's a big deal to get out of China. And if you've got family there, you've got a real problem if you just up and leave. So big questions about people coming across the border, who they are and who they aren't. And the border guards down there aren't trying to close the border. They're trying to control the border. And that was a big revelation to me.

Now, I've seen you, when you were down the border, you were saying that, you know, their fear was that there were a lot of drug smugglers coming in and there was a lot of sex trafficking and sex workers coming in. And that was one of the biggest fears. I'm often, I'm seldom without words. And I asked Brandon Judd, who's the head of the union nationally for the border guards. He was a former border guard. He's now head of the union.

I asked him straight up, these children that are coming in, they have addresses written on their arms, phone numbers written on their arms. And I say, so we're contacting those people, right, and saying, the child's coming in with this number. Do you know this child? Yes, we do. Are you prepared to take this child? Yes, we are. I said, what are we doing to check these people out? He said, is it possible that we are using our resources and tax dollars to traffic young children into prostitution, the sex trade, selling these children, or putting them into sweat shops or whatever?

And he said, oh, it's not possible. We are. Wow. We are. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know there's a camera right here over my shoulder, right? You're telling me we're spending United States citizens' tax dollars to traffic young children into known sex trade or sweatshops. He said, absolutely. I said, why are you not talking about this?

Why are people not talking about this? Why are people not talking about this? And he said, because people aren't asking me these direct questions like you're asking. And I'm grateful for it. Is that legal? What is that legal to be able to do that? No, of course not.

Uh, but they're saying we, we're overwhelmed down here we we're we're sending them on and i i said this is outrageous that take the money out of it that we're funding it just the fact that we're trafficking these young children um and it doesn't make a difference to me whether they're mexican origin syrian whatever they're showing up unaccompanied and we're trafficking them on that's that's heartbreaking to me absolutely that that that we're doing that and well that's why i ask is it is it legal because shouldn't charges be brought up on those people who are at the border

who are allowing those children to get put into sex trafficking? Yeah, you'd think so. Yeah. And he said a lot of these children are getting recycled. You'll see children come through, and they'll be with a group to make it look like a family. And we'll see that same child cycle back through here a couple of weeks later. It's the same kid. What a different family.

They get through, and then they send them back around and put them with another group, and they come back, two or three children, come back again. Well, let me ask you, of course, from your show for years, you've been fixing people's relationships, fixing people's lives. What makes you want to fix America? Well, you know, that's a great question. All of our – I spent 21 years at CBS doing the show, and what made up the composition of the show is what we would get most of the time.

Now, sometimes we do news stories or whatever, but most of the time, probably 85%, 90% of the time, would be based on the letters we would get, emails, that we would get from people writing in. And that determined the content of the show. I didn't want to guess at what people wanted to hear. We looked at what our mail made up, and so we'd choose what was the most common sort of thing we were getting asked. And that's changed across time. Think about this. I'm a little older than you guys. But when I started Dr. Phil in 2002,

the first text message had never been sent. Wow. Think about how much has changed. The first text had never been been sent. Wow. Think about how much has changed. The first text had never been. People weren't doing emails. And then about 08, 09, it was like big C-130s flew over the country and dropped smartphones on everybody. And that changed the world forevermore. And it was the biggest change in our lives since the Industrial Revolution took place way before our generations.

But the Industrial Revolution changed everything, right? Until that time, we were an agricultural world. Ninety-five percent of the people worked on farms. With the Industrial Revolution, that started changing. Pretty soon it got down to 25%. Now it's 1% are agriculture. Everybody else is mechanized, working in tech and all that sort of stuff. That changed the world. I think smartphones and technology is the biggest change since the Industrial Revolution.

And, White, think about it. You're walking around with an iPad or a phone in your hand that has more computing power than we had when we put the man on the moon. In your hand. I mean, think about that. The memory, the speed, the computing power, the number of operations you can do per second. You think it's been for better or worse? I think it's better.

I mean, but the unintended consequences of it, at that same time, just think about it. Everybody was going through life this way, you know, head up, looking around. In 08 or 09, all of a sudden, everybody's head went down looking at the screen. Walk around now. Look out on

the streets of New York. Everybody's head's like this. You know how many times people check their phones every day? Too much. 352 times a day on average. That includes old people, not just kids. On average, 352 times a day. average. That includes old people, not just kids. On average, 352 times a day.

Now, you figure you sleep eight hours, so that's 16. During 16 hours, they check their phone 352 times during those waking hours. And at the same time that those cell phones came out,

we saw the biggest spikes in depression, anxiety, and loneliness with young people since records started getting kept. That's right. And why? and started watching people live their lives. And they started comparing their life to the life they were watching being lived on that phone. And the problem was the life they were watching was a fiction. Yeah, they spent so much time watching everybody's highlight reel and comparing their real life to a highlight reel. And that highlight reel is fake most of the time. I've had these influencers on the show, and they say, I post this reel up, and I'm putting

on these great clothes and all that, and say, so excited going to the NBA All-Star Game tonight, got seats on the floor, and all this stuff. He says, as soon as that video's over, I carefully take those clothes off because they have to go back. I don't own them. I have to return them. I couldn't afford to buy those clothes. And then I put my sweats on and put my happy ass on the couch. I don't have tickets to the NBA All-Star Game.

I'm just doing that to get followers. They're just like everybody else. But all these other people are watching this and saying, God, what a loser am I? I'm not going to any game. I don't have clothes like that. And so by comparison, their self-esteem and their self-worth goes down. And they say it's terrible. I think smartphones have ruined the sanity of America.

And I don't think that, I think in the long run, we're going to realize it wasn't what we thought – it wasn't as good as we thought it was. Yeah, I think the downsides are huge. And I don't even think it's the phones. It's social media more so than anything. Yeah, it's definitely social media. People don't know. But to answer your question, why am I focused on America? That's right. the questions started changing.

The questions started changing. People started saying, you know, my kids, when I turned 16, when I was 355 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes old, I was standing at the DMV to get my driver's license, right? I wanted that license because it's freedom, right? You can get out and go. And my first car, my older sister gave me, it was a Saratoga. It was a Plymouth or Chrysler Saratoga. I forget what it was.

It would only go, she gave it to me because it would only go 38 miles an hour. At 39, it started shaking so bad because the front end was gone, but I was so glad to get it because it was freedom, right? They don't even get their driver's license when they turn 16 anymore. No, they don't. They don't care. Yeah. They date later. They start having sex later.

They engage with the world later. They start having sex later. They engage with the world later. On average, they have less than one good friend because they live for followers and clicks and all that. So they're not developing emotionally, and they're depressed, anxious, and lonely. So the downside is really bad. So the questions started changing. I had to start dealing with cyberbullying, cyberpredators, pretending to be a 14-year-old guy getting a 14-year-old girl to come out her bedroom window and meet them at midnight, and they got there, and there was a 45-year-old pedophile that abducted them and took off. All of these questions started changing, And they've continued to change now where kids are concerned about, parents are concerned,

you know, what are their kids getting exposed to at school? Are they getting groomed on the internet? You know, they think they're back there playing a video game. They don't realize those video games are internet capable. And so they're in chat rooms while they're playing a video game they don't realize those video games are internet capable and so they're in chat rooms while they're playing the game um you know things like that and then we've all of these issues that are now pounding on families because i think i think families in america are under attack and i think the family unit is the backbone of America. And if that's under attack, then America gets weakened. And somebody's got to stand up and call this stuff out.

And those are the questions I'm getting. And I didn't want to write another book. You know, you've written books and a lot of work. Yeah, I've got another one coming out soon. Yeah. And how much work is it? This one took me five, six years. Yeah, that's what I mean. And that's time away from family. You've got to go get a room by yourself. You've got to sit down, write this stuff out.

This is the longest book I've written. It's 100,000 words. And you probably write 300,000 or 400,000 to get those 100,000. It is a lot of work, a lot of solitude, but I felt like I had to write this book. Somebody's got to call this stuff out. Yeah, in the book you say in too many instances we've gotten rid of the most important American trait, self-determination, and replaced it with victimization. We've gotten rid of conversation and replaced it with cancellation.

Elaborate more on that. Well, this cancel culture should be a counsel culture. If you catch somebody with the wrong words in their mouth, if you catch somebody that has run afoul of some rule or some guideline or something, this cancel culture is on them like a pack of dogs. And you find some tweet or some post that somebody did years ago, and maybe they're up for a job now, a promotion now, or they're in entertainment.

They're going to host something or get a big part in a movie or whatever. But it's not just entertainment people. It's everybody. HR departments go back and find something and drag it up now into the future. When you're 15, 16, 17 years old, your brain isn't through growing. You do stupid stuff. You say stupid things. You get drunk.

I think we should have breathalyzers on social media where you blow.08. You can't type. And cancel culture seizes on that and jumps on that kind of stuff. And I think that's terrible. It reminds me of George Orwell's 1984 where they had language police and newspeak, and you could only use these words. And I've done shows on words we can't use anymore. And you see these colleges and universities that, like, some of these schools now don't have admissions office to the school because that suggests somebody's going to be rejected.

So they now have Office of Enrollment Management. You think it's too soft now? I do. And I think when those kids get out of college and get out into the dog-eat-dog world, they're going to chew them up and spit them out. But they're not going to go out into the world. They're going to stay in their house and be on AI and be in the metaverse. Yeah, that's probably right.

They're going to create their own world. But do you think even with parenting now, it's too soft, right? We come from an era where it's, I know people say, you know, if something happens, your pops or your mom encourage you to get back up there and go the next day. Well, now it's like it's more victimization. Yeah, and we have these concierge parents. They fill out the kid's application for school. If he or she has a conflict with a professor, the parent shows

up and does the argument for the child. That's not how it works. You know, the employer's not going to think your kid is precious. They're not going to think they're the most precious little thing in the world. They're going to fire their dead ass, get somebody in there to do the job. And we're not preparing the kid for the next level of life, and we've got to do that. We are getting – it is too soft. The reason I do agree that parents should be showing up to talk to these adults sometimes

because to the point you're making in this book, man, there's a lot of unstable people out here. There's a lot of unstable adults. And sometimes when I'm hearing my daughter who's 15 talk to some of these teachers just the way she's describing about describing them i'm like something's not right so i think i need to go talk to this parent and i mean talk to this teacher and i've seen it firsthand looking in these eyes like yeah something's not right there yeah you're right we've got some people that are way out of bounds and parents need to step in but they don't need to smooth out every bump in the child's life some kids i think all kids need to fall and scrape their knee all kids need to fall and scrape their knee. All kids need to resolve some issues. You know, a kid that's been bullied a little bit,

a kid that's experienced some failure, a kid that's been through some tough issues is going to be better equipped for life than a kid that's never been allowed to experience any of that, a kid that's been success-only journey throughout their life. You know, during the pandemic, these parents that went around wiping everything down with these sanitary wipes and stuff,

their kids, when they got back out in the world, had terrible colds and flu because their immune system got weakened because mom was going around wiping everything down so much that their immune system didn't have to work. And so they were more vulnerable when they got back out there. It's the same way with life. Have you guys ever looked into these trigger warnings?

Which ones? Any trigger warning. Yeah. Like the majority of colleges use trigger warnings. I looked at one the other day. They had a trigger warning for Romeo and Juliet. Yeah. It said, alert, suicidality.

Well, spoiler alert. Yeah. Come on. I wonder if people would even come to that conclusion about that movie if you didn't tell them beforehand. Yeah. You know what I mean? You probably just watch the movie and get something totally different from it. But I think that they're telling people what to feel.

Or they're protecting their own ass. Well, here's the thing. All these trigger warnings, they talk about, you know, this might have some violence in it. This might have something about rape in it. This might have something about rape in it. This might have something about sex or drugs. Sex, drugs, drug addicts, addiction, or whatever. The truth is there's been a, there is a big body of research about this that says trigger warnings do not work. In fact, trigger warnings create the anxiety that they're trying to keep you away from.

Just seeing the trigger warning creates the anxiety. Not only do they not work, they're a negative. And the fact is there's evidence and what we call evidence-based treatments that say that's not how you handle that. If somebody is sensitized to that sort of thing, what you do, there are treatments for that. There's evidence-based therapies such as systematic desensitization, immersion therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, where you teach someone to learn to cope with it. You don't put them in another room so they can avoid it, because when they get out in life, they're not going to be able to avoid it.

So you teach them coping skills. So when it pops up, they know how to handle that. So there's a huge body of literature out there that says trigger warnings don't work. Those colleges. Hey, guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast Post Run High is all about. It's a chance

to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real inspiring stories from the people, you know, follow and admire join me every week for post run high. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to post run high on the I heart radio app Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Is your country falling apart? Feeling tired?

Depressed? A little bit revolutionary? Consider this. Start your own country. I planted the flag. I just kind of looked out of like, this is mine. I own this. It's surprisingly easy.

There are 55 gallons of water for 500 pounds of concrete. Everybody's doing it. I am King Ernest Emmanuel. I am the Queen of Laudonia. I'm Jackson I, King of Capraburg. I am the Supreme Leader of the Grand Republic of Mentonia. Be part of a great colonial tradition. Why can't I trade my own country?

My forefathers did that themselves. What could go wrong? No country willingly gives up their territory. I was making a rocket with a black powder, you know, with explosive warhead. Oh my God. What is that? Bullets. Bullets.

We need help! We need help! We still have the off-road portion to go. Listen to Escape from Zakistan. And we're losing daylight fast. That's Escape from Z-A-Q-istan on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. As a kid, I really do remember having these dreams and visions, but you just don't know what is going to come for you. Alicia Keys opens up about conquering doubt, learning to trust herself, and leaning into her dreams. I think a lot of times we are built to doubt the possibilities for ourselves.

For self-preservation and protection, it was literally that step by step. And so I discovered that that is how we get where we're going. This increment of small, determined moments. Alicia shares her wisdom on growth, gratitude, and the power of love. I forgive myself. It's okay.

Like grace. Have grace with yourself. You're trying your best and you're going to figure out the rhythm of this thing. Alicia Keys, like you've never heard her before. Listen to On Purpose

with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled

with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999,

a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez.

Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami.

Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Piece, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have the same access to that literature that I do, which means they know they don't work just like I know they don't work, but yet they continue to use them. Why? They're virtue signaling.

That's right. They're just trying to show, hey, we're super sensitive over here, so come give us your money. And I think they know they're doing the kid wrong. They know they know they're doing the student wrong. They do it anyway. I want to go back to the border, right, because you called out the vice president, Kamala Harris, and the Biden border crisis and you called it the humanitarian crisis, unlike anything we've ever seen before. Is it fair to blame Justice Administration for what's going on in the world? No, and I didn't call them out.

I said the current administration is doing it. This started under the previous administration. It started jumping up. Nobody's handled this. The Republicans haven't handled it. The Democrats haven't handled it. The Democrats haven't handled it. It's gotten worse now because there was an order in place to hold in Mexico. They took that down, and so they don't stop them in Mexico now.

So that caused an influx. But this has never been a healthy situation. And I'll tell you why. For years, if you – let's say you want to do it right. So you process in, you ask for the proper – you go through the proper channels, and so you're going to get a court date. The average is at least seven years. If you truly are concerned for your family's safety and well-being, who's going to wait

seven years? You say, I'm at risk here, and so I need help. I need to get out of this. I'm in danger. I need to come here for help. So great. Here's your court date. Check back with us in seven years.

If they're truly in a dangerous situation, chances are pretty good they'll be dead in seven years. But if they're truly in a dangerous situation, chances are pretty good they'll be dead in seven years. You can't give people a seven-year date and expect them to just say, okay, well, we'll go back and get shot at or starved or go through all of the dangers that we're going through. What do you expect people to do? If I was in another country and I truly felt like they were going to come around with jack boots and kick my door in and kill my children or me or put us all in jail or whatever, you bet my eyes would be in that river. If that's what it took, I'm going to protect my family, wouldn't you?

Absolutely. You do whatever you have to do. We can't create a system. Self-reliance. Exactly. You can't create a system that's broken and then criticize people for doing what they have to do to save themselves. Now, a lot of people aren't really in that situation. They just say they are.

But how do you sort that out? Well, the first thing you do is we don't need 86,000 new IRS agents. How about 86,000 new people in the border system where we can process people and get them in here right? A, we need them. And B, they want to come here. Let's meet people where they are. Let's accommodate their needs. Let's get them here.

But, you know, that's also the other issue, right? A lot of people in this country feel like they're accommodating the needs of the migrants more so than accommodating the needs of the everyday American. They're looking at these migrants and they feel like they're getting basic necessities like shelter, you know, like food. And they're starving in the cities that they're in. That's the other issue that's popping up now. And that's true in some situations. I mean, they are, it is a crisis. So they're saying, your situation, you found a way to get from day to day to day.

These people are showing up and they're standing in the rain. That's a humanitarian crisis. So we're reacting to that. But so is poverty in America. Of course it is. So is homelessness in America. Of course it is. And two wrongs don't make a right.

You can't leave these people standing in the rain. You've been ignoring these people all this time. Those two wrongs don't make a right. Yeah, America does not do a good job at solving problems at all. I put forth in the book ten principles for a healthy society, and one of them is stop trying to win arguments and focus on solving problems. That's right. And there's a huge difference between winning an argument and actually solving a problem.

If you're going to solve a problem, and you can tell when you're talking to somebody whether they're trying to win an argument or they're actually trying to come up with an action-oriented solution to change a situation. If it's the latter, they'll sit down and say, okay, first, let's see what we agree on.

I know we have differences, but let's see what we agree on i know we have differences but let's see what we agree on now how can i help you get what you need how can you help me get what i think is important and let's come up with some action steps to change this versus yelling at each other or being a right fighter. If you put a gun to their head and said, all right, you need to come up with an action plan in five hours or we're going to pull the trigger, I guarantee you things would get done. We just can't do that. But the problem is we got people in charge of solving problems that don't really want to solve them because their job depends on having that problem.

They need that problem to justify their existence. They need that problem to maintain this huge bureaucracy, to maintain this big budget, this big agency. They need that problem to exist. I think we've got people in charge of solving problems that are not problem solvers. Who do you think would be the best person to solve the problem at the border, Trump or Biden? I don't think either one of them have made any traction on it. I think you need to get somebody down there. I think if the government would step back and let somebody go down there that had a budget and was accountable for it, you could work this out.

You could work this out. It's, you know, the government gets involved, and that's why they pay $345 for a $10 hammer. If you've got somebody involved that's accountable to the bottom line, they would figure this out. You would vet these people, get them in here, and put them to work. We need the people. We need the workers. We need the workers. This is such a difficult situation, but is also a solution to an important problem.

We need these migrants in America. We need them. A lot of people will say, why do you think people say that the migrants are taking some jobs at the low, low end of the employment continuum, but I think that is much less of a problem than people really think it is. And a lot of these migrants coming in are a lot more educated than people think they are. I mean, they're coming in with – a lot of them are coming in with bachelor's degrees. A lot of them are coming in with skill sets in carpentry, plumbing, electrical that really have something to contribute. And we've got a supply chain that's paralyzed.

You've got problems getting capacitors. You've got all kinds of things that have slowed down commerce that so many migrants could help. Why do people act like what's happening currently in America is normal? Like, why are we acting like all of this stuff is normal, especially in politics? Like, you've got a guy who's got 91 criminal charges, four indictments, two impeachments, you know, led an attempted coup in this country. Why are we acting like this is just business as usual?

I think part of it is I've got a study that I talk about in a book that goes back to 1950 and compares it to now. The percentage of people that are afraid to express their opinion has tripled in the last 75 years. People are afraid to speak up. That's your principle number six, right? Yeah. Do not stay silent just so others can remain comfortable. Yeah, because now people say, if I say something, it's going to piss somebody off, and they're going to come after me. I'm better off just keeping my mouth shut and my head down.

I'm not going to say anything. I'm not going to say anything. Now, I don't talk politics for a different reason. I don't know enough about it to talk about it. I don't think a lot of people that talk about it know enough about it to talk about it. I'm just willing to admit it. But you've got common sense, though. You know right from wrong.

I do. Yeah. We may not know policies and legislations and all that, but we can look with our eyeballs and see when something isn't right. Yeah, that's what I said when Hamas attacked Israel. I don't know geopolitics. don't know uh all of that and i don't know the several thousand year history of that part of the world but i know when a an infant is murdered in their crib that's wrong i don't yeah I don't need to be a politician to know that's wrong.

And when I was listening to all that and I was going to speak on it, I talked to the Israeli consulate and said, I am going to speak on this because I think it's terrible. I was hearing things on college campuses that were so close to what the Hitler youth rallies were saying that I thought I'd never hear that in my lifetime. But I said, I got to see this with my own eyes. I can't go just on hearsay. And so the IDF, the Israeli cons, and the Israeli Defense Force came to my house under guard with classified footage and showed me what had gone on in that invasion with footage that's still not been released. And I knew then that what I was hearing was true and accurate.

But then you got Gaza, where it's 30,000 dead in Gaza. They say mostly those people are women and children. So it's just like, it's the same. No, it's not the same. You don't think it's the same? Hell no, it's not the same. Someone that is killed in an act of war, dropping a bomb and there's collateral damage, is not the same as invaders coming in and attacking noncombatants and killing children in their beds. There's no moral equivalent to that. But you don't think that we should at least try to protect the innocent?

Absolutely we should. But you can't invade and then go back and hide in a school and say, okay, here I am, so you can't attack me now because I'm hiding in a school. No, you can't hide in a school and be safe. And if you did, first off, that's a war crime to do that, and you can't do that. Is it terrible that all of these people are being killed, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip? That's horrible. And I think every effort needs to be made to minimize that, to hold that down. And anything that can be done to make surgical assaults and get into those tunnels

and do everything you can to not harm civilians, certainly children or whatever, you should be held to the highest possible standard in that regard. Because if we saw that in America, if somebody went to a school, a mass shooter, and the people showed up at the school and they said, hey, we've got to blow up the whole school in order to get the mass shooter, we would not go for that, Dr. Phil. Of course not. Of course not.

That would be horrible and unacceptable. You can't do that. But you can't let these people come and do what they did and then run back and hide among innocent people. And everybody says, well, we need a ceasefire. We had a ceasefire on October 6 says, we need a ceasefire. We had a ceasefire on October 6th. We had a ceasefire. Then on October 7th, they did this.

So what are you supposed to do? You have to try to root these people out. And there's not an easy way to do that. And I hope and pray the Palestinians will run Hamas out of there and get them out. Because I don't think it's about Palestine. I think it's about Iran, but I'm not a politician, and I certainly don't understand the geopolitical forces that are there. And what bothers me as much as anything is that we've got American students that are cheering on these murderers.

I mean, instantly, I saw a sign, you know, gays for Palestine. Gays would get killed in Palestine. Walk that into the Gaza Strip and see how far you get. I mean, are they not teaching them critical thinking? No, that goes back to what we were talking about with social media. I truly feel like a lot of folks go on social media and they go on there to see how they should feel about something. Like how you can sit here and say, I don't know about this issue, or I can say, I don't know about the issue. They won't do that. They'll go on social media

and see what the mass majority of people on social media are thinking about something and they start parroting those talking points. And that's not just with that situation. That's just with a lot of situations. Well, I'll tell you this. I saw a stat the other day that, and I probably shouldn't go into much detail on it because I don't have the resource at the front of my brain, but a scary number i mean i'm talking way over 50 percent of young people get a hundred percent of their news from tiktok jesus christ that's horrible a hundred percent of their

news not like they get some and they don't they don't verify it. 100% of their news from TikTok. And I put a clip up of my trip to the border, just a small clip. It was maybe 20 seconds, 30 seconds. I posted it up on Facebook and Instagram. And it was a part of me talking to him about trafficking these children. And maybe 15, 18 seconds. And it was up about 15 minutes and going viral super fast. I mean, like tens of thousands of views in a matter of just a few minutes. It was just going just straight vertical.

And then, bang, it just stopped. I mean, it didn't, like, slow down or, like, people lost interest in it. It stopped. And it got shut down. Wow. The algorithm, they just shut it down, and you couldn't see it. That happens to a lot of our content, too. Especially anytime you're talking politics or anything like that.

YouTube has been suppressing us for some years now. It was shut down on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook. How do you feel about that? I feel like what you said in Chapter 7, we're doing our enemy's work for them because you're stifling freedom of speech and you're not letting people see the truth for themselves. And you're just letting them run with this false information that may be out there on social media about a lot of these uh these things that we're talking about that's see here's the thing we're guaranteed free speech under the first amendment

but what it says is the government will pass no law okay and and the government hasn't we're doing this to each other yeah we're muzzling each other what the hell is up with that that's right we're muzzling each other that's what's so disturbing to me and you said you you asked the question that um i should have been asking a long time ago so i'll probably steal that and take credit when you're not around. Why are we acting like this is normal? We have this going on. They're shutting down y'all's content. They're shutting down my content.

And they shut it down because it was border and children and people were getting upset about it. Oh, no, we can't have this. We can't have this. We can't have this. And this wasn't me out there spewing hate or something. And it was really interesting. What feeds the algorithm sometimes and gets it on the attention of the people that go, nope, is 15% of the comments that we went, our cyber security people went in and looked at this. I can show it to you. 15% of the comments were from a Chinese website that's locked.

You can't get into it, but it's from a Chinese website that was posting this stuff up, probably saying this is horrible, it should be taken down, horrible, taken down, horrible, taken down. But you can't get in. Hey, it's in Chinese, and my Chinese is a little rusty. But you can pull up the site, but you can't get on it. It's locked. And 15% of the comments on that video were from one Chinese website. We've done that before.

We've looked at, like, you know, you'll see these attacks that'll happen sometime, you know, and people will be saying certain things. You'll be like, well, where's this narrative coming from? And so we've done, like, digital forensics, and it's been the same thing, like a bunch of bots from India. Yeah. digital forensics, and it's been the same thing, like a bunch of bots from India. Yeah, and people think that when we talk about bots that, you know, you got somebody in their grandmother's basement, and they've got like 10 phony accounts or something.

These bot farms are in the millions. That's right. It's a campaign. People go hire people to do campaigns. Yeah, and it's in the millions. That's right. It's a campaign. People go hire people to do campaigns. Yeah, and it's in the millions. And they change. And some of these bots, these phony accounts, are like 10 or 12 years old, and they have followers,

and they follow each other. It's all intertwined. So I'm going to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but this is totally verifiable. They'll just change the content that they're putting out. It can be about the economy, and then it can be about hate speech. They just change what they talk about, but they're in the millions. And if you say something that's controversial and they put a bot farm after you, then all of a sudden it seems like the entire world hates this woman.

And if you parse out all of the bots, and then those bots start driving opinion, and then real people start commenting, saying they jump on the bandwagon, it's insane. And that's a bad consequence of technology. And it's not even just social media, too. It's the news networks, right? Because Fox News, like, say if I'm having a conversation and I'm

critical of Donald Trump and I'm saying he's a threat to democracy, but I'm also saying, hey, Joe Biden is an uninspiring candidate, right? Fox News will is an uninspiring candidate, right? Fox News will take the uninspiring candidate clip, amplify that all on their platform all day long. And then the people on the left, instead of focusing on what I said about Trump and him being a threat to democracy, they'll focus on the clip that Fox News pushed out there. So I'm like, who are y'all working for?

Fox News knows how to push their narrative. I feel like CNN and MSNBC don't really know how to push theirs. And the reason is they don't know how to identify an enemy and target that and go at it in a targeted fashion. And that's the thing. If you're going to do this effectively, you've got to get an identified enemy, an identified enemy to rally around, rally the troops around that enemy, that comment, and it's the cause celebre. And that's what makes a campaign to shut somebody down or get people to really get up in arms. You've got to identify an enemy, identify the cause, and then set forth an agenda. And that's what mainstream America doesn't

do very well. And the left does it, but they do it to their own. The right stays focused on the left and taking them out. The left end up taking out each other. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. We're doing it to ourselves. Oh my God, man. We've got issues. The new book is out right now. you can stand strong for america's soul insanity dr phil we appreciate

you for joining us thank you so much you don't come up here enough dr because i wanted to talk to you about uh why do you feel the medical industry is pushing transgender ideology on children but i guess maybe you'll save that for another time we'll we'll do it another time because i do want to talk about thank you guys for having me come up more often man all right i will love you guys yes sir it's dr phil it's the breakfast club good morning wake that ass up in the morning the breakfast club hey guys i'm kate max you might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into

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