The Megyn Kelly Show - 9/11 20 Years Later and Biden's Vaccine Mandate, with Rep. Dan Crenshaw, Debra Burlingame, Frank Siller, and Shannen Coffin | Ep. 157

Episode Date: September 10, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by Rep. Dan Crenshaw, former NAVY Seal, Debra Burlingame, lawyer and sister of the American Airlines Flight 77 pilot, Frank Siller, CEO of Tunnel to Towers Foundation, Shannen Coffin, former counsel to VP Dick Cheney, and Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, to talk about the legality of Biden's new workplace vaccine mandate, 9/11 20 years later, the Taliban and Afghanistan today, honoring those we lost on September 11, and more. Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest and provocative conversations. Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Just a few short months after saying he did not think the COVID vaccine should be mandatory, President Biden is now forcing mass vaccinations for millions of Americans in order just to keep their jobs and including strict new measures on private businesses. Here is the president yesterday announcing his sweeping action. This is not about freedom or personal choice. It's about protecting yourself and those around you. I'm announcing that the Department of Labor is developing an emergency rule to require all employers with 100 or more employees that together employ over 80 million workers to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated or show a negative test at least once a week. We'll be requiring vaccinations at all nursing home workers. Tonight, I'm using that same authority to expand that to cover those who work in hospitals,

home health care facilities, or other medical facilities. A total of 17 million health care workers. I've signed another executive order that will require federal contractors to do the same. The vaccine requirements in my plan will affect about 100 million Americans, two-thirds of all workers. That will require all of nearly 300,000 educators in the federal headEPP program, Head Start program, must be vaccinated as well. I'm calling on all governors to require vaccination for all teachers and staff. These governors won't help us beat the pandemic. I'll use my power as president to get them out of the way. We've been patient, but our patience is wearing thin, and the refusal has cost all of us.

Okay, daddy. I mean, that's really how he sounds, right? Remember those days? My patience is wearing thin. Your behavior is costing everyone in this family, except he's not our daddy. And there are limits to what a president can do. He's not a king. The constitution was designed to make sure he would not be. He's threatening the governors. He's going to use his power as president to get them out of the way. What is what does that mean? Sorry to break it to you, King Joe, but you don't have the power to get governors out of the way. And so there's already a battle unfolding like that between DeSantis down in Florida and between President Biden. And he is trying to get Governor DeSantis out of the way because he's trying to allow vaccine mandates at the school district level that DeSantis is trying to stop. DeSantis said, I'm going to defund the school board members who, you know, issue vaccine mandates that I've said are unlawful. And Biden's saying, well, I'm going to refund. I'm going to give that money back to those school boards. Whose money is that? How's he going to do that? None of that is clear. Here's the sad truth. There is precedence for allowing vaccine

mandates. And unfortunately, there's precedent for federal and state laws to allow private businesses to require vaccines. Vaccine mandates today are imposed by states, and the courts so far have found that they're OK. That's that's how it's gone so far. Now, that doesn't mean that every single vaccine mandate is going to be OK. Typically, they get upheld because states have the ability to regulate the health and safety of their citizens. That's why the state can issue mandates, though typically not the feds. They don't have police power over us. And there have been cases in the past. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, that's in the middle of the country. They recently found that there is no fundamental right to refuse a vaccine.

How about that? There's no fundamental right to refuse a vaccine. How about that? There's no fundamental right to refuse a vaccine. That's kind of scary. So what, we're at a point where the government can hold you down and stick the needle in your arm because you don't have a right to say no? All right, joining me now is Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School. Alan, can you hear me? I can hear you fine. Thank you for having me on. All right. Thank you for being here. So is this lawful? Is this constitutional? There are three independent issues. One, is this something the federal government can mandate as distinguishing the state?

Is there a federal police power that overcomes the state police power? That's number one. Number two, if the federal government can do it, can they issue such a broad mandate? Can they make people take a vaccine as a condition to working? And third, if the federal government can do it, and this is the most important one, is it in the hands of the president, the executive branch, as distinguished from the legislative branch? In my new book, The Case for Vaccine Mandates, I argue, yes, the federal government can do it because it crosses state borders. But no, probably the president cannot do it except in the event of a dire emergency. Now,

this is a problem that's lasted for a long time. There's a 75 day window of opportunity. So it's going to be hard to justify it as an emergency. This should have been left to the legislature. Congress should pass this mandate, not the president. But the president has been expanding powers. President Trump did it. President Obama did it. President Biden has done it. It's not what the Constitution intended. They intended laws to be patience is wearing thin and your refusal has cost us. These governors won't help. I should get vaccinated unless they have medical conditions. But you can't get rid of the governor. This thing is going to be litigated up because you are ready. There are lawsuits that are being filed. And I don't think anybody knows how the Supreme Court is going to resolve any of those three issues, state versus federal. Does the federal government have the power to do it? And if so, does the president, does the signature in the legislature have the power to do it? I suspect that this court's going to say that not the president,

but the legislature, and that they can't sustain the constitutionality of 100 million people being mandated to be vaccinated without legislative authority. That's my opinion. If it's lawful for the president to do this, we've got to be asking ourselves why, you know, back to the we didn't want a king. We fought a whole war so that we wouldn't have one. How could it be with a stroke of his pen? He changes life for 100 million people without it being approved, especially when Alan in December in December, he said he wouldn't support mandatory vaccines. Walensky, chief of the CDC, she said on July 30th, there will be no federal mandate. Jen Psaki ended July. Our role is not to place blame and so on. So

all along, they've been saying this is not the way we're going. Well, and and vice president said, if you know, if Congress makes me do it, I'll do it. But if President Trump says I'm going to do it, I'm not going to do it. You can't have rules that say it's good for one president, not for another. Look, there's been an expansion of federal power from the New Deal on. President Roosevelt locked up 100,000 American citizens without congressional, explicit congressional authorization. We're still in a state of emergency for the Korean War. There's too much executive power. It's a republic if we can keep it, said Benjamin Franklin. And that means legislative authority. So what I would hope would be done now is let Biden go to Congress.

Let's ask the House to pass something like this. Let's have hearings. Let's have medical experts. Let's have legislation. President can then sign the legislation. Then he would have much, much, much clearer authority to do what he's done. It's a good thing to be vaccinated, but not in violation of the Constitution. Yeah, I like vaccines. I'm not against vaccine. I got vaccinated, but I get uncomfortable with Joe Biden telling everyone in America that they have to see it the way he does or be fired. I mean, that's what's crazy

is that these people are going to lose their jobs potentially if they don't get the vaccine. I guess the weekly testing, could that save it? Because he says they must be vaccinated. He's basically directing the employers, not the individual, saying the employers have to make sure everyone's vaccinated or offer weekly testing, make sure that they have weekly testing. Could that save it? That could save it on the second issue, and that is, does the federal government have the power to do this? And the courts have already said in the Indiana case, as long as there are some exceptions and as long as it's not an absolute categorical mandate. But it's still the question is still raised whether it's not an absolute categorical mandate, but it's still, the question is still

raised whether it's the president. You know, president shouldn't be making exceptions and having rubrics in the rules. That's what legislation does. Legislation says you have to have tests or else maybe testing or, you know, 75 days. That's lawmaking. That's not administering the laws. That's making the laws. And that's a problem. And I suspect here I'm predicting what the courts will do as an expert, not as somebody

who has strong personal views in favor of vaccination. I think the courts will be suspicious of presidential actions in the name of an emergency for an enduring problem that has existed since the first day of the Biden presidency and probably will exist in the last day, whether it's a four year or eight year term. So this is not a classic emergency where something has to be done quickly without legislative action. And an emergency during which he already said he's not going to mandate vaccines and that they wouldn't be doing that. So they said that as recently as July, Delta was here, but Delta was here during July. It's not like, oh, well, the next variant, you know, unleashed hell on America and therefore none of his earlier promises stand. He recognized in the middle of. You're right. There's no real new science on this. But the best science now is that COVID will endure for us as an

epidemic, not as a pandemic, much like flu. And so the idea of giving the president emergency authority to do something to 100 million Americans, I mean, a very large part of the workforce in America without legislative authority raises questions of democratic accountability. So what would you do, Alan, if you got a call from the governor of Montana and the governor of Montana has a law making it illegal for private employers to require the vaccine as a condition of employment? And so he's already come out and said that the president's order is unlawful in Montana. It goes directly against state law. How does that play out? The supremacy clause of the Constitution obviously makes federal law superior to state law when the federal government has the authority to do it. And the question is, not only does the federal government have the right to preempt state law here, which I think it probably does, but does the president, as distinguished from the

legislature, have that authority? And that's a much, much more difficult question, particularly for this Supreme Court. That is much shakier ground for this president to be to be on. So how do you see this getting resolved? Individual employers, individual citizens will file lawsuits against. Oh, yeah. Against the individual citizens. We'll see employers. We'll see states and probably expedited appeal to the United States Supreme Court. I suspect we'll be getting some decisions within the next month. How does this court sitting now like overreaches on executive authority? They don't. And I think that we have a very divided court and we don't know how the chief justice will would rule on a case like this. So it's up in the air. Look, I think what Biden has done,

he did this with the housing rental moratorium and he's done it here. What he's saying, and I think he's being advised by some people, look, do it. And if it's unconstitutional, the courts will strike it down. But at least in the meantime, we've gotten the results we wanted. I think that's what he's doing. And the Constitution, the president takes an oath to support it. Legislatures do. Members of the executive do. You can't just willy-nilly violate the Constitution and then say, we'll just leave it to the courts. Every single

actor in government has to comply with their constitutional obligations. And I'm sure he's gotten good advice from Merrick Garland, from the Justice Department, but I suspect the courts are not going to answer those three questions all yes, yes, yes. I think maybe two will say yes, maybe the third, it'll be sent back. But it's going to be a picnic for lawyers. I can tell you a lot of lawyers are going to be very busy on this because it raises very considerable constitutional issues. Oliver Wendell Holmes said it a long time ago, hard cases make bad law. And this is a hard case. And thus far, it's made some bad law. You made a great point about how he has an independent obligation pursuant to his oath

to uphold the Constitution. It's not all about, ah, screw the law. You know, the courts will figure this out later. He has an independent obligation as our president, as a man who took that oath on the Bible and so on. And you're right, twice now, at least, he's flouted it. Alan, great to talk to you. Thank you. Likewise. Thank you. My next guest is my pal from the Cali File days. His name is Shannon Coffin, and he served in senior legal positions in the Department of Justice. He was also general counsel to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

And he's been a trusted legal advisor on everything complex to me for many, many years. Shannon, thanks for being here. And sorry for the technical difficulties. So what do you make of it? Do you think this is lawful? There's a lot to unpack there, as Professor Dershowitz suggested. I think that there are serious questions that are ultimately going to have to be worked out by the Supreme Court, and how they come down, you know, is really anyone's guess right now. But you start with a couple propositions. States could do this, at least under existing law. Since 1905, you know, states and localities

have had the power to require vaccination. It came up in the smallpox context 100 years ago. So the question is, can the federal government do it? And that's a much different question because states have a general police power. The federal government does not have a general police power. So it has to be under one of the enumerated powers of the Constitution. Now, wait, wait, let me pause you there and just ask a quick question. The fact that states can do it, is that why my schools every year have been able to require me to provide proof of the MMR vaccine in my kids? That's absolutely right. That's where that's coming from, that the states have the power

to protect the general health. Now, does the federal government have that power? No, it has to have some tie to interstate commerce or some other relationship to federal powers. Does the president alone have that power? Absolutely not. So he can't, he couldn't have, and it would have raised a huge constitutional problem if he just said everyone has to get vaccinated. So he didn't do that. He's saying I'm going to do this 80 million people at a time. So what he what he's doing is let's go through the workplace. The the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is a Department of Labor organization, a Department of Labor agency, and it has power to make workplace safety and health rules. Yeah, they're the ones who come through if your machinery is falling apart and might fall on the employees. They cite the business and they pay a fine or they get in trouble. So he's using OSHA somehow to make this happen. How's he doing that? Well, first of all, the biggest point in that this isn't a workplace problem.

I mean, you're not hearing COVID is a significant workplace problem. COVID is a significant societal problem. So the president's trying to solve a general societal problem with a law that deals with the workplace. Now, OSHA has the power to make standards for the workplace to make the workplace safer and more healthy. And this is where, Megan, this is where you learn that the federal government has massive powers. And the powers under the statutory powers of OSHA are just anything it thinks reasonable or appropriate for workplace safety. Well, that could capture this. But good God, this is unlike anything it's ever done before.

Now, the other thing they want to do is cram it down immediately, forego any public comment and just get this effective right away. Well, Congress has said to OSHA, you can only do that when there is a grave danger. And a grave danger is really quite a stretch here. What the president is saying is I got to protect unvaccinated people. I got to protect vaccinated people from unvaccinated people. But in the same breath, he said only one in 160,000 vaccinated people have ended up in the hospital. How's that grave danger, especially in the workplace? So Professor Dershowitz has talked about this in constitutional

terms. The first question is, can Congress give this massive power to OSHA to make whatever rules it wants, right, with very little standards? I got to tell you, under existing law, there's every suggestion that it can, because there's such a wide open deferential standard about what Congress can delegate to a federal agency. But some of the conservatives on the Supreme Court have gotten doubtful about this whole doctrine, which is called the non-delegation doctrine, and are starting to raise questions about it. Will they raise questions about OSHA's general power here? Quite possibly. But even if you look at, even if you set that aside and look at the statute and what Congress has said the agency can do, is this really reasonably necessary to a safe workplace?

Well, this is, again, this is a societal problem. We're not having outbreaks in workplaces as far as, as far as the evidence shows. Well, can I ask you about that? So I raised this when I was when I was talking at the top of the hour without you guys. What about natural immunity? I all those people who have had covid who have natural immunity. And by some studies, the latest one, I think, showed it's greater than in at least one study, a legitimate study. They showed it's greater than you at least one study, a legitimate study, they showed it's greater than

you'd get with the vaccine. But the administration continues to ignore that fact. They don't want to talk about it. The CDC doesn't want to talk about it. Can't those people file a lawsuit, as we saw one college professor just do against his university is trying to make him get a vaccine, even though he's had COVID and say, you can, there is no emergency when it comes to me. I don't need the vaccine. You can't make me get a medication I don't need. Megan, you never left Jones Day. That's, I mean, that's exactly what this lawsuit would look like. The individual who has natural immunity would say, you know, there's no emergency as to me, and you shouldn't have crammed this down. This is the very sort of factor you should have considered in public notice

and public comment. You should give the public an opportunity to vet these issues and respond to them. But you're just cramming this down under an emergency rule when there is no grave danger. I think that's where the real vulnerability of this whole thing is, is this emergency cram down nature of this. Okay. And so just to round up and make it clear. So when you're dealing with an administrative agency like OSHA, we saw this even with the Department of Education when they tried to change the rules for trying sexual harassment cases and assault cases. When you're dealing with an administrative agency, you need to allow public comment on rule changes. The public gets to weigh in and potentially stop it. And they didn't do that. Only in sweeping emergency cases can the chief

executive, the president say, no, no, no, we're not doing any of that. I've got these superpowers when it comes to national emergencies, you know, massive dangers that I can skip that. And you're saying it doesn't look like he does in this circumstance. And it and they may get challenged on on skipping the rule and the comment and all that stuff, too. That's right. But skipping the rule in the comment is a way to shut down the whole thing, because a court would come in and say, you didn't do it right. You don't have the power to do this in an emergency rule. Start over. And so so the rule could be enjoined. The 80 million person workplace rule could be enjoined on that basis alone. Well, and that may very well happen because, you know, Alan's right about one thing. The lawyers are sharpening their pencils right now. Our pal Jeremy Boring, who runs The Daily Wire with Ben Shapiro, already tweeted out, we have well over 100 employees and there's no way we're complying with this unconstitutional order. And so one by one, the lawsuits will pop up, the lower courts will rule. And I think it's guaranteed that the Supreme Court's going to

get asked to decide this and soon because you're talking about jabs in people's arms and medication and public health. Shannon, such a pleasure. Thank you, sir. See you, Megan. So up next, we're going to talk about 9-11, the 20 year anniversary tomorrow. And some teachers are being told not to teach students about American exceptionalism as we approach the 9-11 moment, the 20 year moment. Do not call the hijackers terrorists, they've told these teachers. Don't even have students condemn the attacks. Deborah Burlingame, I respect her so much.

She lost her brother when his plane, he was the captain, hit the Pentagon. She's here to respond. And later, I want to hear from you on Biden's decision. Are you a private business owner or a worker affected by this decision? What do you plan to do about it? What do you think of it? Call me at 833-44-MEGYN. That's 833-446-3496. We're going to be taking calls in about an hour. Just want to let you know that's when we're going to be taking them, but I would love for you to line up and call us and we'll chat next hour. Welcome back everyone to the Megyn Kelly show. Joining me now is Deborah Burlingame, one of the activists who's dedicated the last 20 years to keeping the memories of those

lost on 9-11 alive. Her brother, Captain Charles Burlingame, Chick, as he was known, was pilot of Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon building. As we approach the 20th anniversary of the deadly attacks tomorrow, we are faced with new dangers now from Afghanistan after the country fell to the Taliban and we walked away. This is the Department of Homeland Security has issued a nationwide heightened threat environment for the coming days. Deborah has a lot to say about the recent events unfolding in the Middle East and what could potentially, what it all could mean for our country. And she joins me now. Deb, thank you so

much for being with us on this of all days. I've been thinking about you nonstop in the past few weeks. I've been thinking about our men and women in uniform, and I've been thinking about you, people who lost folks on 9-11 for whom the events in Afghanistan had to be particularly painful. How are you feeling today, one day before the actual 20-year mark? You know, I've been very busy since Afghanistan blew up. And I haven't had time to really think about tomorrow. I usually do that in the drive down. Bob and I take the five hours to drive down from New York. But I have to tell you, I'm dreading it. I'm absolutely dreading it.

Because first of all, the DOD has closed that observance to only family members. They have cut out all of members of the military that usually go. And I contested that. I sent letters to explain why that is a bad idea and didn't win that one. So I usually like to stand with those guys. I usually don't stand up front where all the families are. I like to stand with all the guys and gals in uniform with their combat patches and they won't be there. So it kind of amplifies the anguish I felt over what's going on in Afghanistan. It's like a way of making you feel even more alone on one of the most painful days of your life.

Yeah. And they used COVID as an excuse. I'm not even buying that at all. But it is what it is. We'll be there. And I understand that President Biden is going to be making an appearance at all three sites in Shanksville, Pentagon, and New York. I'm not sure if he's going to speak. I have a feeling he won't because that he might get heckled. And I think that would be, you know, I'm not a fan of President Biden. I think he's been derelict of duty. I really think it's shameful what he's done, but he's still the president, and I wouldn't want to see him heckled in front of all the world by families. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it, but it's not a good look for our country. So I'm not sure what's going to happen tomorrow.

There's a wish that President Obama might come to New York. Do you think, Deb, that there would have been any risk of heckling and so on prior to Afghanistan, or is this just about the intense anger the families are feeling about how that was handled? Oh, definitely the intense anger about how that was handled. 9-11 families very early on. There was a bomb that happened very quickly with the U.S. military. I mean, I actually began a letter writing campaign, just me. Whenever there was a casualty, I would look the person up, I would find out about their life, and I would write to their family, a personal letter. And the ones that really got to me were the ones who enlisted because of 9-11. I can think of two, a young man named Diego Rancon.

He was only 14 on 9-11. His brother came home and found him in front of the TV. His fists balled up and said he wanted to serve his country. And when he turned 18, he did, and he died in Iraq. Another one was Colin Wolfe. I discovered him on the fifth anniversary. There was a grave in Arlington. We always go over to Section 60 in Arlington to pay respects to the war on terror.

That's who died there. That's where they're buried. There was a fresh grave there. I've never seen a funeral happen. All the flowers, fresh flowers were still piled on the grave. They just buried him on 9-11. So I looked him up and I couldn't find out anything about him because he had only been killed two weeks earlier. On the way home, the next day, there was a whole page about him. He was 14 on 9-11. He said, I'm going to be a Marine. He did. He died two weeks on his first appointment,

hit by an IED. I mean, these brave hearts, these are the people I think about. And of course, I've met a lot of the wounded warriors and done events with them. And they've really struggled. They've really, really had a rough time, not only losing parts of their bodies and traumatic brain injury, but the PTSD. Those are the ones I immediately thought of when I saw these people clinging to the airplanes and the people left behind because I knew that the suicide lines were going to be hotlines were going to be rigging off the hook. And I'm sure that this is harder on them than anybody, these vets, these combat vets. You've been such an outspoken advocate in the war on terror for measures to keep us safe, for people to be honest about who attacked us and why, and not try to sugarcoat anything, not try to demonize whole swaths of people, but to be honest about what we

were up against that day and thereafter. And I wonder if you think now in the wake of this past month, what happened in Afghanistan, we're less safe. I mean, how what is how safe are we today on this 20 year mark versus on September 10th, 2001? We're in much graver danger, Megan. Much more danger now because we now have the Taliban. Remember, the Taliban is a terrorist organization. The Taliban sheltered al-Qaeda. They protected Osama bin Laden. They provided a training camp for all of the 19 hijackers

who attacked the cockpits that day. They were all trained in Al-Faruq. That was in Afghanistan. They were taught to kill the pilots. They used short knives and they practiced on sheep and camel. And that was all provided to them and made safe for them by the Taliban. I actually, you know, when the whole issue of this war paradigm versus legal paradigm is being argued, and I was arguing for the war paradigm for prosecuting these people in war crimes, not in federal courts like bank robbers. I wanted to

know who these people are because what they call themselves the Gitmo Bar, the pro bono lawyers from some of the biggest white shoe firms in all of America, were defending them and saying, well, these are just goat herders and innocent people who got caught up in the fog of war. No, I read their combat status reviews. I read a lot of them. These are committed jihadists. They came from all over the Arab world, all over the Muslim world,

because to die in defense of the fifth pillar of Islam, which is the defense of religion, spreading the Ummah, is to die as a shaheed, a holy warrior, it is the highest thing you can can happen to you you can do in life and so yes some of them came from kuwait from saudi arabia uh from um in little countries i've never heard of and and some of them were educated um uh but they they they they were they were in Kosovo.

Some of them are veterans of Kosovo. Um, so, uh, this isn't like they have a grievance and they're there to, you know, settle this grievance and then go home. This is endless. This is endless war for them. And so, you know, in 2012, Obama stood in front of us at the Pentagon on the anniversary, and he did a brag that Osama bin Laden will never hurt us again because he thought about it had happened the year before. And then he said, and he said, Al Qaeda is on the run. And then he said, and this is very important to hear today, this is 2012.

In 2014, the war will be over. Well, the enemy gets a say in that. And wars aren't over when they're declared over. There's either a defeat, an uncontroversial, undeniable defeat, or there's a surrender. That's it. And we weren't going to have that. So, and it's important to note that five hours or five and a half hours after he said those words at the Pentagon, our embassy in Cairo was attacked. The American flag was taken down from this giant embassy. The black flag of ISIS was hoisted up. It stayed there for three days because Morsi, the president of Egypt, had been installed in the Arab Spring, a Muslim Brotherhood figure, a member. And that night, Benghazi. We lost Chris, the ambassador. Chris Stevens. Yes. And three Americans. That's their answer to these declarations by American presidents who don't know who these people really are.

They think it's not just a fight over territory. It's a fight over for them, for their divinely inspired mission. Well, that's, I mean, to me, it's crazy when you listen to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs say, yeah, we're likely to see attacks on America between 12 and 13 months from now launched from Al Qqaeda uh in afghanistan uh okay we fought a whole war to try to stop that from happening again our secretary of defense saying the same thing and saying oh don't don't worry because we're going to keep eyes on them from other countries in the region you, we're going to be able to sort of keep eyes on them. Really? How is that going to be? Megan, I'd like him to enumerate which other countries in

the region he's talking about. Because Pakistan has always been a double dealer. That's where bin Laden was all those years. And they were protecting him. They're a nuclear power, okay? And I don't think we're going to have a base set up side by side with our Taliban neighbors. That's what the leader of the Taliban was all these years, a newly installed leader, when he was brought back with celebration. So where else are we going to go? They already have outreach, the Taliban, to China and Russia,

you know, opening the bidding for resources in Afghanistan. They're going to get a lot of money. And you have this administration now talking, already talking. I'm telling you, it's really hard to take it all in. They're talking about all the humanitarian aid they plan to give the new emirate of Afghanistan, Islamic Afghanistan, to help the poor people who are being brutalized and starved by this new government that we helped install our former enemies. I say our current enemies, we're now going to go

and mitigate the crap they do to these poor Afghan people by sending them aid, which will never, of course, get to them. And it will be millions, if not billions of dollars. I just think this is crazy town. And yes, we're more in danger because we don't have the territory. We don't have the eyes from the sky because they say over the horizon. Well, somebody, one of these security experts who does the geospatial stuff said, no, it's really more as good as us having boots on the ground there and actual intel on the ground is, of course, a fallacy. The other thing I wanted to ask you about is this, you know, I see it all the time. I'm sure you see it more than I do, that people are losing sight of what happened to us that day, how severe it was and who did it. And as I saw that story I mentioned in the intro about the Virginia

Department of Education releasing some two-hour video telling students we will not be getting into American exceptionalism as we approach this 9-11 moment. I don't want to call it an anniversary. It seems like celebratory in some weird way. But as we approach the 20-year mark, there will not be discussion here of American exceptionalism, that our teachers need to be culturally responsive and inclusive in discussing 9-11, teach students about it in a way that does not cause harm. And they mean toward anybody of the Muslim faith and that that basically it would be highly inappropriate to talk about extremists being behind the 9-11 attack, that you should not have to identify them as Muslim extremists or call them out as terrorists at all. So this video, they put it out, it's now been taken down, but the woman behind it, Amara DeCure, is one of the featured speakers and stands by this position that we shouldn't be talking about

Muslim extremism on 9-11 and certainly not american exceptionalism well i my response to that is you know a simple one you must not really care too much about muslims themselves because they are the number one target of um this i wouldn't call it muslim extremism. I would call it Islamic extremism. You know, they are. They are beaten, killed, raped, kidnapped, beheaded. This is all done in the name of their harsh form of Islam. And they come to this country to escape that. Imagine being a Muslim mother who has left an area of the world

where this takes place, this kind of extremely brutal Sharia, and you think you've made it to, you know, the promised land of America and freedom, and now you've got a teacher preaching this kind of thing in the classroom. Imagine how that would mess with your child's head. I mean, I think these people really don't care about Muslims at all. What they are talking about is a political cause and some kind of hatred of America or American, I don't know. They all have their different reasons, but I think it's cruel to Muslims. And I think this form of Sharia is just, it crushes the human spirit. And I don't think- There's a way of talking about who attacked us on 9-11 without condemning all Muslims,

right? Islamic extremists absolutely did. I recognize that the vast majority of Muslims do not identify with the people who do these attacks, much less 9-11. And I can't tell you how many Muslims I've talked to who engage me. I'll be in the back of a cab talking in my cell phone. And the cab driver will turn around and say, you know, I'm from Egypt. I've been here 25 years. I agree with everything you're saying. There's, you know, all the mosques in Queens have these radicals in there. I tell my kids to go in, pray, and get out.

I don't think they know their audience, quite frankly. And I don't think they're speaking to Muslims like this. Let me ask you this. We've got just a short time. And I've been dying to ask you about your your piece in The Wall Street Journal on people who keep comparing 9-11 to January 6th, who actually say January 6th was worse than 9-11. We've played the soundbite before. They I mean, Matthew Dowd, Georgeorge will i could go on on those who have made this

i think disgusting comparison your response to them deb it's almost hard to it's flabbergasting to me um they i think they're they're they but they hang it on their hook is that um january 6 was it was a threat to democracy well that, that's, I think, intellectually kind of shifty and thin, because you could, I think you could argue that virtually everything Congress is doing right now is a threat to democracy when they're trying to, you know, basically create one party rule in, you know, in perpetuity. But that doesn't bother them. But let's be fair here. Even Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, testified in an oversight committee, judiciary committee, on March 2nd, he knew that early that none of the people who were inside the building were armed.

None, not one of them. Most of the charges, I've looked at them, I've read some of the charge sheets, they're for very low level felonies. And what they're trying to do is leverage these people to plead out. Because honest to God, Megan, if they had lawyers, and they took these to court, and it would be a big burden on the courts because i there's i think 50 people or more who've been charged um i think they'd all get acquitted because there's no intent in any of these things i mean there's no intent you have to it's a you know it's part of almost every felony you have to be you have to intend to do it and in too many of these um but to compare it they were invited in and and there's video of them standing there with security guards

um telling their people okay no don't touch anything don't hurt any of these guys i'm talking some of the defendants okay um and uh so i think i think christopher ray that got this they created this thing, shock and awe, where they went out and arrested people in mass in real scary ways. I mean, I saw one arrest, you know, well, no, he clearly, they clearly, you know, swept up as many people as possible, but I, I literally only have 30 seconds. I just wanted to give you the chance to like your message for those who continue to try to bring up nine 11 as comparable to anything.

You're making a fool of yourself. The place has been capital bombed. People shot inside the building. There's a whole history of many, many worse actual attacks that weren't a threat to democracy. They were crimes. These people did low-level crimes. And it's really an insult to the whole country

of what we went through on 9-11 to make that kind of comparison. It's an insult to what went to war because of that day. I'll be saying a prayer for you and for your brother and your whole family tomorrow. Thank you so much, Deb. Thank you. Coming up, the CEO of the incredible Tunnel to Towers Foundation, Frank Siller, and the story of what his brother did on 9-11. That will touch your heart. Don't go away. Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show, everyone. We are sharing some stories of 9-11 today with the 20th year mark tomorrow. And we want to hear from you, too.

What do you remember about that day? What do you think we've learned as a country since that day? Let me know. Call it 833-44-MEGYN. That's 833-446-3496. I want to bring in, as we wait to talk to you guys, the story. I want to bring in Frank Siller and the story of his brother. Frank and I have known each other for a long time now. He runs an amazing, amazing organization called Tunnel to Towers. And there's a very good reason that they called it that in honor of his brother, firefighter Stephen Siller.

For those of you who are too young, because there really are people like that, you know, it's hard to believe, to remember this fateful day. You know that it remains the deadliest terrorist act in world history, the attack on our country on 9-11. Nineteen militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked four airplanes. Two of them were flown into the Twin Towers. The third plane hit the Pentagon. That's the one that Deb Berlingame's brother was flying, where he was killed and the terrorists took over. The fourth plane crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after it had been taken over by the passengers who refused to let the terrorists crash it, as we believe, into the U.S. Capitol. We believe that they saved countless lives by doing that. 2,977 people were killed,

2,977, more than 6,000 were injured. New York City lost 441 first responders. An estimated 200 people jumped or fell off of the Twin Towers as they faced the horrific choice of either being burned alive or jumping to their death. In the weeks after, Ground Zero was a disaster area, and firefighters and other first responders continued to dig through the remains, trying to find any survivors initially, and then just the remains of loved ones for those waiting for some sort of a word and some sort of a piece of their loved ones. More than 2,700 people have died from cancer after having sifted through that rubble. Many other illnesses caused as well by the exposure to what remained of the Twin Towers there. Cancers have been reported nearly 13,000 of those who helped. Nearly 80,000 responders have enrolled in the health program that came out of that effort. Think of that, just the massive amount of damage done.

We're not even talking about the loss of life in Afghanistan and then Iraq and so on. It just unleashed such hell on our nation, and it should never be compared to anything because it's singular in its horror. The people who make us think about 9-11 and feel something other than horror, make us feel proud, make us feel grateful to be Americans are people like Steven Siller. His brother Frank's with me now. Frank, thank you so much for being here. We've talked a lot of times as we approach 9-11 or on the actual day. Can we just start with, can you tell us a little bit about Steven? And by the way, we'll get to why you're in your car because it's actually a great story, but just tell us a little

bit about Steven. Well, first of all, thank you, Megan, and thank you for all the years that you've allowed me to tell my brother's story. It has meant the world to me. My brother was a New York City firefighter who on September 11th, 2001, he just finished his night tour in Squad One in Brooklyn. As a matter of fact, I was just there a few less than an hour ago. And he was on his way home to play golf with myself, my brother George, my brother Russ, and he heard on his radio scanner that the towers were hit. So he turned his truck around, called his wife up, Sally,

and said, hey, tell my brothers I'll try to catch up with them later. Went to his firehouse, got his gear, and drove to the mouth of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Now, for those who might not know, that tunnel connects Brooklyn with downtown Manhattan. It's nearly two miles long. It was closed for security reasons because cars were abandoned and they didn't want anyone coming into New York other than first responders, but they couldn't get the trucks, fire trucks through anymore because everything was abandoned. So he strapped 60 pounds of gear on his back and ran through that tunnel, came out the other side. And, you know, I was just listening to your previous segment and your introduction here when you were

saying that people were faced with a horrific decision. So my brother came out of that tunnel and he saw two buildings, the Twin Towers inflamed, and people that were faced with a decision to jump or burn, the people above the fire line. And that's what has to be told, that story. But my brother ran into what we believe is the South Tower. He was never recovered, but his other squad one buddies all died in the South Tower. So that's where we believe he was. You would want to fight this fire with your people you train with every single day. And he gave up his life and he so inspired his older siblings. And Stephen was the youngest of seven that we started a foundation called the Tunnel to Towers

Foundation in his honor and the honor of all those who perished that day, but most certainly our first responders. It's so moving to think about this 34-year-old guy, father of five kids. How many kids did he have, Frank? Five kids. Five kids. Could try to get back to the site of danger. His shift was over. I mean, honestly, there are some people in the world who would have said, my shift is over.

And when faced with not being able to get through the tunnel, strapping the 60 pounds of gear on his back and running for it, running for it, saying, no, no, I will be the one who gets there. I will be the one who runs into the burning building. And the stories are that the firefighters, the first responders, a lot of them hugged one another before they went to those buildings. And they knew very well that they could be climbing those stairs to their death. But they did it by the hundreds, Frank, by the hundreds to try to save others. Well, it's very emotional even just hearing you say that because we filmed about 75 different stories this year, Megan, of the stories of the 9-11. And to almost every one of them, these firefighters did hug each other and said, hey, bro, I don't know if I'm going to see you after today. So they knew the possibility that they weren't coming out was very high.

And yet they still went in there. I mean, if that's not a hero, we don't have any in this world. And thank God we do have them here in America. And we better always take care of these heroes when they do things like this. So my brother, Steven, I couldn't be more proud of him and what he did. And that's why our foundation, it's a very simple mission. We want to first make sure we never forget. Then we want to honor the sacrifice. And then we honor the sacrifice by doing good. And Megan, we're doing good for these great American families that pay the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, whether they serve for our country or for our community. And they leave young families behind. And you've been a part of it for associated with you guys. It must be said, police too on that day ran into the buildings. And that's one of the hard thing about seeing them demonized as a group. It's like the cops I remember are the ones who ran into those burning buildings alongside Stephen. They're not

all good, but they're not all bad either. It's one of the terrible things that's happened in our current society is there's these swaths of people demonized as awful when it's not true. But can you tell me, because if you do the Tunnel to Towers run, because they do it every year, Frank's organization, you can go and you can actually do the run that Stephen Siller did. You see Iraq and Afghanistan vets, guys who have no legs doing this run. And I'm telling you, you want to feel something about your country. You want to feel proud of your countrymen. You go there and you see these guys. It takes everything they've got inside of them. They're sweating. They're gritting it out.

They don't complain. Everyone stands. When those guys cross the finish line, the cheers are deafening. Everyone is just roaring for them. I don't know. It's like it makes you feel something. It makes you remember why you love this country, why you love our military. It's yet another reason to do it. But what we're really there for is to support severely injured veterans and other people in law enforcement who have lost their primary wage in the line of service and so on. Frank, we're there to try to help guys get home so they can live something close to a normal life. Correct. You've done the run. You've seen it, these great heroes that gave their bodies for our country. Megan, we have hundreds and hundreds of Gold Star families

that come out and run the race in honor of their loved one that gave their life. We have a, you know, we lost 13 service members recently in Iraq, 13 that we shouldn't have lost by any means. I talked to Gold social members after that. And no, they're distraught. They're distraught. But here's the one thing.

The Tunnel to Towers Foundation, we know that the widow of United States Marine Corps, Lance Corporal Riley McCollum, his wife, Jenna, is going to be giving birth in a couple of days. And you know what? I'm going to talk to her tomorrow on 9-11. And I'm going to tell her, and she knows already, but I'm going to speak to her that we're going to deliver her a mortgage-free home. And I don't know if she has a home yet.

If she doesn't, we're going to build one. She's only 20 years old. So I doubt she has a home. So we're going to build her a mortgage-free home. And that's what the Tunnel to Towers Foundation does. We want to be there for these great families that die, for you and I. And you talk about police officers. Let me tell you something. I've been around police officers all my life, but most certainly the last 20 years. Yeah, there are very few, very few ones that are not good,

but 99.9% are beautiful and they're willing to die for us every single day. And many times they do. And you know why? Instead of spitting on the ground, some Americans do when they see them, they should kiss the ground that go on because without them, we have no society. And so we take care of those, the families that are left behind, the first responders also that die for us and pay off their mortgages as well. So we're very proud of the work we're doing. Whenever I see a firefighter or a cop or a man or woman in uniform, I say the same thing. Thank you for your service.

Thank you for your service. It's very dangerous what these guys do. And, you know, obviously we saw it on 9-11 and in some of the incidents I mentioned thereafter, you know, those guys who work tirelessly at Ground Zero. My close friend, Janice Dean, her husband was one of them. He's, thank God, okay right now. But they have to live with the fear that, you know, anytime he gets a cough, it's related to what happened at Ground Zero. And families like yours are still dealing with the fallout from the loss. Frank, I saw a story this week about the New York City Medical Examiner's Office still, after all this time,

sifting through the remains to try to find any way to ID some of those remains to the names, some 1,100 names that have still not, there's been no actual proof of death. I mean, we know they died in 9-11. And they find they fight they find tiny bone fragments and they are able to test them against dna provided by the families and they they are still maybe one a year now uh able to say okay we we found the remains of your loved one i wanted to ask you about it forgive me i know it's a sensitive subject but having not found any remains of Stephen, is that something you would want? Would that just open old wounds? No, I don't.

It wouldn't. If I found it, it'd be great. I mean, don't get me wrong, but I don't need that to move on and be happy in life. Be quite frank with you. His burial ground is at ground zero. That's where it would have been for me, no matter what. That's where Stephen's soul is.

And his spirit is with many people, certainly with this family. But that's where Stephen's burial ground is. So I don't need that. If other families do, I don't, you know, I understand. I don't ever speak for anybody else. But I certainly don't need that. But look, we're blessed as a family that we took on. Right after Stephen died, we made a conscious decision that all we wanted to do was take that evil and to make some good

out of it. And that's what we do at the Tunnel to the Hellish Foundation. And I've been on a journey this last six weeks, to be quite frank with you, I started walking on August 1st from the Pentagon. I've walked to Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And tomorrow morning, I'll be walking, retracing my brother's final heroic footsteps when he ran through that tunnel. I'll be doing it when the sun is coming up tomorrow morning. And I couldn't be more proud of what my brother did 20 years ago. And I just wanted to do something to honor him. And it'll be five.

It's 537 miles. That's why I'm sitting in my car right now, because I was walking just before this interview. I was just at squad one. I have this shirt on. I just had a late brunch with them, with some guys that work with my brother other new guys that you know they're in the firehouse because he was pretty close to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and I was just eating with them and we're laughing

and I'll be honest with you I was crying too because I was by his locker and I was with my son and to be with the people that knew him and I loved him means all the world to me. So you never get over something like this, Megan. You never get over something like this,

but you learn to live with it. But they don't want us to be sad. They want us to be happy and live a full life. And that's the best way you can honor anybody is by doing good and live a full life. That's right. So you tell me, because I was reading in my, my team prepares, you know, research packets for me, some data about your, the reception you've been getting in Pennsylvania and elsewhere along this, this route you're traveling. Can you talk about that? Oh, no, it's been, it's been, I, I, I, I was so looking forward to doing it, but, and I expected a lot out of it. But I've gotten so much more than I could ever expect. It's so emotional, so uplifting. Americans shouting, never forget from their cause. I can't

tell you how many people knew I was doing this. I was shocked, to be quite frank with you, how many people cared. And that gives me great hope for America. This walk for me personally has given me unbelievable hope for America. You know, the big mouths that complain about it, they speak over the people who love America. And there's more people out there that love America. We're not perfect. We're never going to be perfect. But let me tell you something. We're the greatest country that ever existed.

And we better remember our history because we don't want to not another 9-11. That is for sure. But I got to tell you one quick story. Yeah, I was at Shanksville and I've had firefighters travel with me almost the whole time. And four of them been cooking for me, different guys in and out. That's another story. But this is the answer, guys. Truth. Every day, brunch and dinner. different guys in and out, but that's another story. It's another day. But this is the honest to God's truth.

Every day, brunch and dinner, and I'm going to tell you, the only guy that's going to walk 537 miles and put weight on. So that's because of the way these guys have been cooking for me. They've been taking care of me. But they wanted to honor and do something also because they lost so many great friends that day. But anyway, I was at Shanksville Fire Department on August 21st, and all my buddies, about 70, 75 firefighters, New York City firefighters, cooked breakfast for them. And then we all walked up, hundreds and hundreds of us walked up to the site of Flight

93 that came down in the fields of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And I had the privilege to go right to the impact zone, right? Where flight 93 came down. And you just hit it nail on the head earlier when you said, these are the 40 Americans that won the first battle in war against terrorism. When they took that plane back and they saved American lives on the ground and they brought it down. And I was at that impact zone and I was with these New York city firefighters. And I knelt down right at the boulder and I put my hand on the boulder and I said to them, anybody want to join me in a prayer?

They all came, they knelt down, we put our hands on the boulder and I started to say the Lord's prayer. And the emotions were gushing out of us like I can't even explain to you because I know they're thinking of their firefighter brothers that they lost that day. I know they're thinking of all those who perished. I'm thinking of my brother, of course, and I'm thinking of these 40 great heroes. I'm thinking of what happened to Pentagon. And it all just came out of us in that moment. And it's a moment I'll never forget the rest of my life. And I know that will be a moment that I will have tomorrow morning when I walk up to Ground Zero, when I go to 10 house, a firehouse where my brother actually worked a part of his career for the FDNY. And his name is on that wall there with 343 other firefighters. And I say my prayer there with my family, with my kids, with my grandkids, with my brothers, with my sisters and others, nephews and nieces. And, um, and you know what?

I just pray America never forgets what happened 40 years ago, 20 years ago. That's right. And, and also Frank remembers the courage, remembers the courage that happened on that day, not just the cowardice of the terrorists and, and the awful behavior, but the courage of guys like Todd Beamer and the others on board that flight, let's roll, right? They knew it was going to happen, but they fought. They fought going down. Guys like your brother, Stephen, who understood very well the risks and were hugging their friends goodbye, knowing that they had a wife, knowing that they had kids, but understanding it was their duty and they had pledged to do it and they did it despite the grave danger. They're an inspiration to me and so are you. Love Tunnel to Towers. Good luck tomorrow. Please kiss all those guys for me and gals and give them all big hugs. I'll kiss the gals, not the guys. I'll hug the guys. But listen, Megan, I got to say once again to everybody that you personally have helped build many of the first specially adapted smart homes that we built for our country's

most catastrophically injured service members. You were responsible for that. You brought to light the Tunnel to Towers Foundation and the work that we're doing. And I am forever indebted to you for that. And it's just to know that part of our success

is because of you. Of course, we continue doing that work and who we're helping is why we are successful. But thank you. God bless you. And most certainly uh god bless america amen you guys got check it out tunnel to towers wait before i let you go what's i should know this by heart already the tunnel to towers website i'm gonna make it easy i'm gonna make it easy for everybody do it t2t.org that's t2t.org it stands for tunnel to Yeah. Because my brother ran through the tunnel to the towers.

T, the number two, T.org. And we ask everybody to do as little as $11 a month. $11 a month. You know, we're delivering 200 mortgage-free homes this year alone, Megan. 200 this year. But we need to do that every single year. And we need Americans to chip in and to help these great families that paid the ultimate sacrifice. God bless you, Frank.

God bless you too, Megan. Wow. Coming up next, military veteran and U.S. Congressman Dan Crenshaw will be here with his thoughts on where we are now, 20 years later. And after Dan, we're going to be taking your calls. Let us know what you think about Afghanistan, about the COVID orders that we got from King Joe at the top of the hour we talked about, or about what you're thinking about this 20 years after 9-11. 833-44-MEGYN. That's 833-446-3496. Welcome back, everyone, to The Megyn Kelly Show. We're taking your calls now at 833-44-MEGYN. That's 833-446-3496 if you have thoughts on Biden's COVID announcements or on 9-11 and whether we are safer now than we were on September 10th, 2001. Joining me now with his thoughts this morning is Congressman Dan Crenshaw. Congressman, thank you so much for being here.

And on this day of all days, I have to thank you for your service as we kick it off. Before we get to Afghanistan and 9-11, can we talk about last night? Because it was an extraordinary moment to listen to the President of the United States issue edicts as though he were king about 80 million Americans having to get a needle in the arm or be fired. So says he. Your thoughts? Well, it's illegal. I mean, I'm not a lawyer. I don't think I need to be to know that you can't create that kind of edict from the executive level. Frankly, I'm not even sure Congress could pass a law to that extent and it still be constitutional, but it certainly can't happen from the executive level. It's such a massive overreach. And I also think it just

flies in the face of common sense. If you're, you know, let's assume that it was perfectly legal and we had a king that could do such a thing. But then the question would be whether it's even good policy. Is this the right way to deal with a pandemic and to institute this public health measures? And I would say no. I mean, whether we like it or not, we do live in a free country. I like that. Some people apparently don't. And you have to build trust with people. If you want them to do something, there's a variety of public policy measures that you can take to get them to do something. Usually you incentivize it. You might punish a behavior, especially a violent behavior, or you can do the most extreme version, which is mandates. And we very rarely do that. And to do that for a pandemic like this one,

is it bad? Yes. Is it unprecedented? Not quite. We've learned to live with it to an extraordinary degree. Everybody who wants to get vaccinated can. If you do get vaccinated, it's a very high likelihood you will not be hospitalized and that you'll be fine. And personal choice and personal responsibility play a large part in that. And what I think Biden is doing too, this is the other bad part about this, is he's causing more distrust in the vaccine. The vaccine's already been politicized, right? The left all bad mouthed the vaccine when Trump was touting Operation Warp Speed, and now it's flipped. In any case, if you want to build trust in it, you need to be honest with

people, be honest about the pros and cons, the risks and the benefits, and don't make it seem like you're forcing people to do it. That just causes more distrust. I mean, what you resist persists. And it's a terrible leadership move. It's not practical. And it flies in the face of who we are as Americans, I think. Have to ask a cynical question, but to what extent do you think this is the result of his falling polls? And he gave a little present to more left-leaning voters who love vaccine mandates, and he doesn't really care about pissing off Republicans or people who lean right. And here you go. It may be unconstitutional,

but they're going to love it. They're going to eat it up. And so let's get those poll numbers back up to where they were before. That's possible. I would have, if I was in his inner circle in the White House, I would have advised against that because I really don't see how this could possibly be more popular. You're correct. It's very popular, again, for primary voter, Democrat primary voters. They want to see these kind of mandates. I mean, it's what they vote for. They want to see tax increases. At least they say they do. I'm not sure how they feel when they actually get that tax bill, but you know, so that's true. But you know, with independence, this is still not going to be popular. And I think he got some bad advice if it was political advice,

because they probably said something along the lines of, look, Americans don't think that you take action. Right. But we saw what happened in Afghanistan. We sort of just let that fall apart. Americans don't think you take action. So here's an opportunity for you to really take action. And this is a very leftist way of thinking. Right. They believe there's some sort of moral good and action. Doesn't matter what the action is. It's just it's action. Government is what we do together and we all have to do it. Like they believe there's some moral good in that where on the right, we believe more in individual freedoms and personal responsibility and decentralized command. They don't. And so they actually think this is a good thing. So there's, I think there's a lot

of psychology playing into this, perhaps some politics, but I, again, I don't. And so they actually think this is a good thing. So there's I think there's a lot of psychology playing into this, perhaps some politics. But again, I don't see how this makes him more popular. I think that's why you had agreement from between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, you know, who Trump was more of a populist, but he had run on getting pulling, putting an end to the endless war. It's not how all Republicans feel, but it's how he felt in sort of a base of his faction or a faction of his base. So you had an interesting response to that, the so-called endless war crowd that I thought was really powerful. And I'll just read how you put it and let you take it from there. You say the advocates of this position, they have a blind spot. They are unable to distinguish between wasteful nation building and a small residual force that conducts occasional counter terror operations. That's it, right? Isn't that, that's the whole

thing boiled down into one sentence. Yeah. And I would say there's that is right. And there's there's more to it than even that. They also have a blind spot in the sense that they have an inability to, I think, assess reality, the reality that's given to us. They seem to believe that we can have it both ways, prevent 9-11s, prevent terrorist safe havens, and keep all of our troops just safe at home and bases here in the United States. And for some reason, that makes them feel good. They don't quite understand that the purpose of national defense or that in implementing national defense, you do need to be forward deployed. So there's a lack of understanding from this crowd. No, because they're looking at things like the bin Laden strike and Soleimani and saying, let's just do that. We'll just keep our troops at home and do that.

That's a great point to bring up. And they do say that all the time, right? They're like, we like that kind of stuff. Like, it's cool. It makes us feel good. We're in and out. And what I tell them is, you like that? That's great.

Guess what? You can't do that if you're not forward deployed. Soleimani, we had guys on the ground. Baghdadi, we had people forward deployed. Soleimani, we had guys on the ground. Baghdadi, we had people forward deployed. We had intel assets constantly working for years, networking to figure out where these people are. Same with Osama bin Laden. That took years of intel gathering and networking and planning. And of course, we launched that mission from Afghanistan. So there's just, the no more, the worst crowd is, look, I mean, I don't speak very kindly about them.

It's based in complete ignorance about how national security works and what it takes to do counterterrorism operations. So that's that's first and foremost. They also live in a dream world where you can have it both ways. And, you know, what I ask them is, do you at least acknowledge that there's a difficult decision to make on day two of the Afghanistan war? Because on day one, everybody agreed. On day one, everybody said, let's go. Okay, we had almost 3,000 people die that day. So we're going to war for this. Everybody agreed. Now, day two is always going to be a difficult decision. And the decision is always this. Do we just pull out and leave and allow the exact same conditions to materialize that led to September 11th, and they will materialize when we leave, or do we stay and continue to fight that battle there so that it isn't fought here? And history is on my side on

this. Look, in 1993, we had the World Trade Center bombings. 1998, we had the embassy bombings. 2000, we had the USS Cole bombing. They got bolder with every attack. And then they finally got the most bold with 9-11. We haven't seen attacks like that for 20 years. And so the No More Unless Wars crowd also makes the argument that we got nothing for these last 20 years. It was just all a big waste, right? And it's a very emotional argument that they make. But we also got no more 9-11s. We got no attacks on the homeland. And that's not nothing. That's pretty meaningful. And they just ignore that reality. I, as someone who is relatively young still, that's how I feel too. I feel like you guys were over there fighting.

You kept me safe. You kept my family safe. You, we didn't get nothing out of it. It ended poorly because we gave up. We gave, I don't even know if you can say we lost. We gave up. But we didn't have another 9-11 attack. And we were terrified of that, in particular during the first 10 years. But even thereafter, look what, you know, when ISIS reared its ugly head and we

had to fight that. Those guys were over there, all of you over there fighting on our behalf. But you touch on the terrorism risk now and how high it is. And I've been stunned at how cavalier our leaders sound about, A, acknowledging, sure, it's big. The risk has it is. And I'm I've been stunned at how cavalier our leaders sound about acknowledging. Sure, it's big. The risk has gone up and and be talking about how it could happen within a year. You know that you got Milley saying, yeah, within 12 months we could be hit at home. The defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, said Thursday Al Qaeda may attempt to regenerate following an American withdrawal and said, but the U.S. is prepared to prevent an Al Qaeda comeback in Afghanistan. We put the

Taliban on notice that we expect them not to allow that to happen, an al-Qaeda comeback. Oh, otherwise we're putting it in their permanent file. I mean, what is he saying? What are we going to do? We're going to write a really strongly worded letter from the international community, and it's going to make the Taliban feel really icky inside, and then they're going to do whatever we want, right? No one likes you. Yeah, it's really upset with you. No, it's ridiculous.

And to Milley's credit, I'm not sure what Defense Secretary Austin's advice was, but for the most part, the military is always advised. You need to keep your presence there. You need to keep your presence there or these things will happen.

And what Democrats have said, what Joe Biden has said, and what our own No More Endless Wars crowd on our side has said, yeah, but we should obviously keep an eye on counterterrorism, but we have to pull the troops out. It's just a given to them that you just have to pull the troops out. And I always ask why. Why exactly is that a given? Given the cost of doing so. And they're like, well, when would you pull them out, Dan? Well, when the cost benefit makes sense, when the benefits of pulling them out are higher

than the benefits of saying that's when. And that certainly didn't happen now because I don't think anybody can argue that the current outcome that we've seen was somehow a superior outcome to what we had six months ago. This gets to how you initially asked this question with quoting me, was people can't tell the difference between nation building and a residual counterterrorism force. Now, the nation building argument is more complex than I think people give it credit, right? It's not necessarily about building a democracy. Condoleezza Rice was just on Ben Shapiro's podcast, a really good

explanation of this. And she says, look, again, you either let the conditions materialize that cause 9-11, or you try to build up a government to some extent that you can partner with and that they can eventually take over. And that takes a lot more time than Americans are willing to give it. Unfortunately, people forget South Korea didn't have Democrat elections until the 80s. So we were there 30 years as an occupational force stopping war there. By the way, the war never ended. It's an armistice. And we still have almost 30,000 troops there. And they didn't even have a democracy until the 80s. So these things take time. But was it worth it? Was it worth our presence? I mean, in hindsight, it seems very clear that our presence in South Korea was worth it. And but but we have a high amount of political impatience and a complete inability to see that this wasn't really an endless war.

We had security forces there. Very few troops, no deaths in 18 months. That's that's that's a sustainable operation. And now if it was to ask you something, Let me ask you something on the other side. Let me ask you something other... Because when they say no deaths in 18 months, we had struck a deal with the Taliban. So isn't that why we didn't have any casualties? Because we had declared that we were surrendering,

I mean, that we were leaving. So they were smart. They kept their powder dry saying, be quiet, they surrendered, they're leaving. It's possible. I think we all kind of decided to not do very much fighting and sort of allow for the stalemate to materialize, which is sustainable. But isn't the relevant time frame? Like how many guys were we losing prior to Trump's deal with the Taliban? Also very few. Since 2014, I mean, an average

of six a year. So you're losing a lot more military guys to motorcycle accidents and things like that. Okay. So how do you, as a guy who's, you know, sacrificed your own blood and treasure fighting for our country over there, how do you, how do you explain to the people who say that's six too many per year? You know, how do you want to be the one, this is sort of what Joe Biden's saying. Do you want to be the one that calls up those six gold star families and says, what was I? You know, why do we have them there? Because I've heard you talk about that. People talk about the military these days, Dan, like they're, you know, very fragile and they don't understand that risk and death is part of the job.

That's not to say we want to see it, but I'd love to get your thoughts. Yeah, I mean, what I tell people is, again, especially the no more endless wars crowd that moralizes over me, calls me a neocon because I have sensible opinions about foreign policy. I say, look, I don't need your pity. I don't need your protection. You have guys like me in this society because we're willing to go over and we understand the dangers abroad, even if you don't. We understand that those people are our enemies, whether we believe they're our enemies or whether we believe we're at war with them or not. You don't want to see that reality? Fine. There are plenty of people who do see that reality and are willing to risk their lives to do it. So stay out

of our way. We are not victims. Veterans are not victims. Active duty military are not victims. We willingly sign up for this and we understand what we're getting into. Again, even if the no more endless wars crowd doesn't, even if their naivete so profound that they cannot see it, that see the reasoning that we're there, we'll still do it. And, you know, the other thing they like to say, and I see this from our young populists on the right, they like to say, well, I mean, we just go over there and cause these wars. That's why they hate us. That's why they keep attacking us. There's so much ignorance associated with that opinion. It's really hard to fathom. And it's just not true. They've hated us because for a long time, because we're Western

civilization, because we're Christian, because we represent something that goes completely against their version of civilization and reality. We helped Osama bin Laden fight the Soviets. We helped Osama bin Laden defend. We defended Saudi Arabia, his homeland, from Saddam Hussein. What is it we did to this person that caused him to build up al-Qaeda and commit 9-11? Nothing. They hate us because they hate us. And they're at war with us, whether we're at war with them or not. We weren't at war on September 10th, 2001,

but they were at war with us. And again, that naivete has gotten us into so much trouble. It caused the last month of mayhem and destruction and death that we've seen that was purely based out of this sense of false compassion that the No More Endless Wars crowd has and the naivete that they engage in. I was reading a story, you know, we had Deborah Burlingame on earlier this show, whose brother Charles was the pilot of Flight 77 that was flown into the Pentagon by the terrorists. And Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial, they're in pre-trial motions right now on that, finally, after 20 years, it's coming up, supposed to take place. The actual trials will start, I think, in November.

Sadly, she had another brother who was supposed to be a witness in the trial and he died. It's been so long. He died. And anyway, so he's going to go on trial. And I read a story about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. You could pick so many if you want to talk about what a bad guy he is and what how awful al-qaeda is who will who will be rebuilding in afghanistan this is a small one but it just to me i don't know sticking in my craw he was apparently at a pre-trial motion because you know we put our bad guys on trial and and give them due process it's not perfect but we give it to him he he

wrote down the numbers of the four flights the two planes that went into the twin towers the plane that went into the pentagon and the one that was brought down in shanksville and he flew the paper airplane with those four flight numbers over by the family members who were sitting in the courtroom wow this is what we're dealing with. Yeah, it's pure evil. These aren't people who come to the conclusion later on in life that they may have made a mistake. Right. These aren't people begging for parole. No, look, really, I've learned.

They're not those people. They never have been. That radicalism started a long time ago before America had anything to do with it. And we could go into a long history of Sunni Wahhabism and all that, but it's, it is, I don't know where this sort of self-loathing came from in the United States. It started on liberal college campuses and it infiltrated the rights in our little populist movements. And it's based in ignorance and naivete. And it needs to stop.

We need to stand up for ourselves and our values. I mean, you know, this is this is something Trump got right about just America first. And, you know, what does that mean? In many senses, there's policy associated with that with that phrase. But I think it also means just standing up for ourselves as a good moral nation. We're not always at fault here. Because the left likes to say that, whether it's immigration, whether it's terrorism. No, the only reason people are immigrating here in droves is because we cause climate change. And so they have to. You'll hear things like that. Or because of the

bandana republics that we set up decades ago. And so that's what's happening now. It's all our fault. And this is very self-destructive reasoning. conversation Biden does from Afghanistan for good reasons. I mean, his poll numbers are through the floor for a reason. I just feel like there's this growing sense of malaise in the country, you know, between the never ending COVID crisis, the increasing big thumb of government cracking down on how we must live. And, you know, we have to put the masks over our faces. Now we have to get the mandatory vaccine, whether we want it or not, even if we've already had COVID, which is absurd. And you can't object. There aren't exceptions for things like that. There's no reasonable person to whom one can appeal, right? I had Rand Paul on yesterday. He was like, fight, resist. Well, how? How? My kid's got to go to school. I got to go in the grocery store. I'd love to be one of those people who winds up on a videotape in Walmart, but the

truth is it's not going to make that much of a difference. It hasn't thus far. Do you see all that stuff? You see what happened in Afghanistan, the loss of the 13 Marines, the increase of terror again, the 9-11 mark 20 years later, and we're still in danger. I don't know. Feel a sense of malaise and concern that we're not about to make a massive course correction. Yeah. I wasn't around in the Jimmy Carter era, but a lot of people draw an analogy to that. And it seems accurate. There does seem to be this malaise, this sense that we're just going in the wrong direction. And what's very frustrating about it is in order to reverse that direction, Biden has to just stop doing things, just stop taking actions. Go back to the basement. You love it there. Yeah, you liked it. You can go back to

Delaware. Go ahead and reverse all of the nonsense that's been done over the last seven months, please. Bring us back to the status quo because we were doing fine. America was coming back on track. I mean, I think what you will about Donald Trump, the policies do work. And these policies are just very generic Republican establishment policies. That's right. Ignore the tweets and look at the policy and see how it works. These things work. All right. It doesn't create the utopia that the left desires. And see, this is where you get into trouble. Well, the left gets into trouble because they're utopianists fundamentally. And they believe that it's always more action that is needed. And we will make people be who we think they should be.

Whether it's people who take vaccines or whether it's people who pay more in taxes or do more things, whatever it is, they want you to be something. They want to mold you. And they're willing to exert government control to enforce something. They want to mold you and they're willing to, they're willing to exert government control to enforce that. And it always backfires because they always ignore the second, third order consequences of all of these actions. Again, whatever these actions are, whether it's in foreign policy or economics or public health, they ignore these second, third order consequences. This is why liberalism is a disaster of a governing philosophy. Not because there isn't some, and look, there's some things we should listen to liberals on. They have an extra sense

of compassion, right? They think people should have healthcare and access to it. I like that as well, but I have a different way of doing it that is more sustainable and takes into account second, third order consequences, takes into account the limiting principles of governing in a way that liberals just never will. So I don't mean to wane philosophical too much on this subject, but- Well, I like ending on a sort of note of unity. Sort of, but we'll take what we can get. Listen, I'm thinking about you and everyone who served on behalf of the country. Thank you for your service and I'll see you very soon. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Thanks, Megan. All the best, Dan. We'd love to know what you think on Congressman Crenshaw's remarks on where we are now 20 years later. Are we safer? Are we less safe as a result of the Afghanistan withdrawal right now than we

were on September 10th, 2001? Give us a call. 833. We're taking your calls right after this break. So call right now. 833-44-MEGYN. 833-446-3496. Welcome back, everyone, to the Megyn Kelly Show. Here's what I'd love to know. If you are unvaccinated, are you going to do it now that Biden's going to make your boss make you get it? Right. Is that convincing you? I mean, you don't want to lose your job. So what are you going to do? Call me 833-44-MEGYN. That's 833-446-3496. 833-446-3496. By the way, you can also submit questions at any time via email at questions at devilmaycaremedia.com. And that's where we get our first question from.

We're going to get to the callers in one second. Steve Krakauer is our executive producer and is bringing us one of our email questions just to kick things off. Hey, Steve. Hey, Megan. Yes, this one comes to us from JC, and she sent us this email before Biden's speech yesterday. So we'll see if that changes the equation. But she is a part-time college student. She's also an office manager in an office that, just based on how she described it, probably has less than 100 employees. So maybe she's not under the new mandate.

She has a boss who's telling her that she has to get vaccinated. The only exceptions are for religious or medical. She does not want to do that. And she wants to know any advice. She said, should I cave for doing this job that I love or should I hold true to my principles? JC, I feel you. I wish I had a clear answer. I don't. I've been asking my same guests, my guests these past few days, that same question. I feel it too. I don't know what my school is saying. We've got to vaccinate our child who turns 12 in September or else. And if he's 16 and they only put the mark at 16 because that's where they've given the permanent approval for Pfizer and we don't do it, he's expelled. Well, I don't want to. I got the vaccine. I don't know about my son. He's too young. It's too untested. So I understand

exactly how you're feeling. I think it is a little different with grownups because they've done more testing on the adult vaccine, and I have fewer concerns about its safety. So look, I know that some people sort of stir the pot. I mean, frankly, there are shit stirrers who really stir the pot a lot and get you really worried about the vaccines. And I think if you go too far down those internet rabbit holes, I do think you can get misled. So be careful about, I don't know if I'd give up my job over this, you know, as an adult. I just don't, I don't think I'd do it, but I can't tell you what to do because I know not everybody feels the way I do about the vaccines. I think if I were in your position, I'd get it, but I respect your struggle, you know, because I'm feeling similar to you when

it comes to the vaccines. Let's get to our callers who are waiting so patiently. Let's go to Vicki. I'm figured out how to do it myself. You guys don't have to ask my team. Vicki, North Carolina. How you doing? And what's your question? I'm doing good. And I hope you are, too. I do have the question that I was going to ask you. Let me preface it by saying I am not vaccinated and I don't intend to be vaccinated. And I hope that every, I just would hope that every single person in this country who does not want to be vaccinated will stand up and say, no, take my job. Go ahead. Because you won't find the millions who don't do it. You won't find anyone for their job. What are they going to do?

Find everybody, put them all in jail. At some point, Americans need to stand up and say, no, you know what? I've had enough. I've had it. Let me ask you a follow up question. Does it I listen to him yesterday. I felt angry, angry that he thought he had the power to everybody. Furious, furious that he thought he had the power to do this to everybody. Furious.

Furious that, you know what? Why does he want unvaccinated people to be hated? Why is he fomenting this division and this hatred? It's pure hatred and anger. I swear to God, I'm scared now ever for anyone to know that I'm unvaccinated because the violence and the hatred that come out and he foments it. I don't understand why. Why would he do that? He better watch it because it's not going to end well.

He's got to tone down the rhetoric. How much time do we have left? I'm going to make sure. 30 seconds. All right, listen. We're going to get more calls in tomorrow. I can see the board lighting up. I'm going to kick Steve out of this segment so I can get to more listener calls.

We had to yell at him a little bit. It wasn't his fault. I don't know whose fault it was. We'll figure it out. What? There were no problems. Listen, thanks for joining us today in our first week on SiriusXM. Hope you stay tuned.

You can listen to the show later via podcast. You can watch us on YouTube if you so desire and, um, hope you'll continue to tuning up us into us, even though we're having some, some very small technical difficulties. So have a great weekend.