The Megyn Kelly Show - Adam Carolla on Cancel Culture, The Trump Era Media and Blackface | Ep. 5

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

Megyn Kelly is joined by podcast host, comedian and actor Adam Carolla to discuss cancel culture, his movie "No Safe Spaces," the shift on campus, the media in the Trump Era, blackface, his friendship with Jimmy Kimmel, his prediction for 2020 and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everybody, it's me, Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Adam Carolla has one of the most popular podcasts in the country, and he apologizes for nothing. He doesn't believe in it. And he doesn't believe in bowing to the mob. He believes in saying what he actually feels, which is one of the reasons why I admire him. He also has friendships across the aisle. He's still great friends with Jimmy Kimmel, with whom he hosted The Man Show, though their politics could not be farther apart, and may serve as an example to the rest of us in how we can get along with folks even when we don't see eye to eye on the tough stuff. So do you have bad credit? So many people do. I used to have hideous credit. There's no shame to

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will put you in control of your finances, not the banks, and it will put you in a better position to save money. You can enroll in minutes. See how many plus points Scoremaster can add to your credit score. Visit Scoremaster.com slash MK. Again, it's Scoremaster.com slash MK. Adam Carolla, thank you so much for being here. It's my pleasure, Megan. So I knew I liked you because I saw you on O'Reilly for years and you were always so funny and raw. But the moment we really fell in love, whether you knew it or not, was during No Safe Spaces, which my friend Mark Joseph produced and made with you guys, you and Dennis Prager, among others. And it was the thing that most profoundly affected me over the past two years that I've had off. I sat in the movie theater. I could not move, especially when you started to talk about what happened to Evergreen College with Brett Weinstein,

which I'll get to in a second. But can you just tell me why did you say yes to that, to having him follow you around all these college campuses and cover these controversies? Well, thanks for watching the movie, and I'm glad it had an effect on you. I, you know, I don't chart my projects or career out as painstakingly as some people might might think I do. I simply it's like people say, why did you do Dancing with the Stars? And I said, because they asked. That's why Dancing with the Stars. I never thought about it. I just did it. I love Dennis Prager. I wasn't that familiar with the team at the time. I now love Mark Joseph and many other people that were involved with the project. But to me, somebody said, do you want to do a project with Dennis Prager?

And I love spending time with Dennis Prager so much that just the notion of hanging around in the dressing room or the makeup room or sort of backstage, as it were, and just chewing the fat with Dennis Prager sounded so enticing to me that I just immediately said yes. Yeah, he was also fearless in the movie. But so the movie is about, you know, how we shouldn't have these safe spaces, but more and more we're seeing them and how damaging they are. But the scene that I said, like, really brought it home was when you guys you covered what went on at at Evergreen College out in the Pacific Northwest. What's the specific city? Evergreen, there's a whole bunch of little colleges. So anyway, for me, I'll circle back. I grew up in North Hollywood. I was kind of a standout football player in high school, but not that good. But I did get recruited to play at Willamette and Lewis and Clark and all these weird little schools that were up in the Oregon and Washington area. So I think

Evergreen is just one of those small colleges that's nestled in that area. But it's ironic because it's so bucolic, it's so peaceful. And it's the last place you'd ever think anything like this would ever happen. So at the college, they had had sort of a voluntary sick out for years amongst the students of color, black students, students of color to sort of show the classmates this is what life would be like without us. And it was a voluntary thing and they had done it for years. And then the day came when they said, how about if this year the white people did not come? And Brett Weinstein, a liberal college there, a liberal professor there who supported most of these progressive causes said, you know, it's a little different when you have one race telling the other race not to come. And that may cause some discomfort with people. All hell broke loose. And why don't you tell us what happened to Brett?

Well, Brett sort of said, you guys can do whatever you want, but I'm going to be showing up to work on Monday. And he showed up and he just began teaching his class. I think, I don't want to even say naively, I don't think any of us would have had much, many thoughts about it, especially a few years ago. He's going to show up, he's going to teach, but it started to realize there was like an angry mob forming outside of his classroom. And then at some point, he was told he had to basically leave for his own safety. And the most rep, you know, I think a lot of people take away a lot of different things from that moment. And maybe some of the things you take away are different than some of the things I take away. You know, it wasn't the mob. It wasn't the angry students. It wasn't the 19-year-olds who are out

of control that really scared me. It was the faculty and the dean and the security that just stood back and said, we don't want to agitate these people, so you're on your own. Meaning that to me is the scary part about where we're heading as a society. If you sort of look at Evergreen as a microcosm of what's going on in Portland or what's going on in many part, many cities in our country. It's not really the angry 19 year olds who are out there pulling people out of cars or hurting people or looting or breaking glass. That's a constant. That's always been with us and probably always will be with us. What happened to the authority? What happened to the mayors? What happened to the police? What's going on? So they all just stepped back and they just basically told the professor,

Brett Weinstein, you're on your own. I'm now taking my marching orders from the mob. So basically, the folks that the lunatics had taken over the asylum, the real person in my mind is who's responsible and who almost had blood on his hands was the faculty and the administration of evergreen college who just stood back and let this whole thing happen and it's just a microcosm of what we're seeing at so many universities across the country i i can't really think of any off the top of my head where the faculty chooses to stand behind a professor who's gotten in trouble for some nothing, some nothingness. I mean, the controversy is invented out of whole cloth in most of these instances. But here, let me tell you the moment for me. And for me, it was a life-changing moment where there was a young black girl who was one of Brett's students and she wanted to speak to him about what he wrote in his letter and why. That's it.

She just wanted to understand why he did it, which seems like a good thing. Whether you want to protest him or not, you should know what you're dealing with. And she was shouted down by the mob as though she were in a KKK hat. And the next day she was forced, forced to read what was essentially an apology for trying to speak to him. And we have a clip of Brett Weinstein talking about that moment. Here it is. The next day, the protesters made a point of bringing her to a rally that they had organized on campus and having her read a statement that they had prepared publicly. And it's heart-wrenching for me. She read the statement and she butchered it. Reading out loud maybe in front of a group was not in her skill set. Based on false, racially charged allegations.

They effectively humiliated her in order to demonstrate that they had recaptured her in some way. Whereas the college administration specified... Sorry. There are a lot of moments that are particularly telling from the protest, but I must say that is among the most chilling to me. Because, Adam, if you don't go along with the mob, the mob will come for you. Well, you're right, Megan. You were right to kind of tune into that little flashpoint there, because that is the scariest, least American part of this whole moment we're living in.

And I have, it's not that, you know, Drew Brees says, I respect Black Lives Matter, but I stand for the flag. It's the part where he has to apologize. The part, and to me, anybody listening who remembers the Twilight Zone, I always say you're going to get wished into the cornfield. So they had that great episode with that little kid, and he had that power, and he could just wish you into the cornfield if you crossed him. And all the adults would gather around him after he wished someone into the cornfield and go, it's a real good thing you did, Billy. It's a real good thing.

You're a good boy. And it's like, yes, or you'll be wished into the cornfield. All these corporations apologizing. That poor, scared student having to stand up there and be humiliated that way, or she was going to get wished into the cornfield. Athletes, politicians, everyone has to apologize or they're going to get wished into the cornfield. And that's a scary, that is a very scary point. But it's not even just to apologize. It's that you now, you must join. You must be an enthusiastic participant. You know, people have started getting in trouble for not tweeting out Black Lives Matter. Some of these controversies we've seen where somebody winds up so-called canceled is because they chose to just not say anything. And then the mob turns on them.

Why haven't you tweeted it out? It's like, what business of yours is that? And to me, a different movie reference, it's like Mommy Dearest, where the mother, Joan Crawford, has gotten rid of yet another man in her life, father figure to the young daughter who she's abusing, according to the daughter. And the daughter says in one scene, if she doesn't like you, she can make you disappear. And it's like, that's what everybody's worried about because they haven't made anyone disappear. But the mob has, you know, it's got a few notches on its belt in terms of taking people's careers, publicly humiliating them. And even it's gone so far now as to get college

admissions for young teens who have screwed up, pulled. So their career, their future academic career, at least, is done at age 17 or 18. Yeah, you're so right, getting back to the way these things are handled. And we could, this stuff could be sort of nipped in the bud. If, you know, those students started surrounding Brett Weinstein's classroom, if the powers that be, if the adults, and I'm holding my fingers in air quotes, if the adults on that campus had done their job and said to those kids, hey, enough is enough. You're out of here. I'm calling the cops. He's a professor. You can't threaten him. These things could be quelled. The USC professor who is doing some, I don't know, he was a language linguistics guy. He was saying something that sort of sounded like the N word, but it was in Vietnamese or something. Right, he was speaking a foreign language. was offended. And the answer to that should have been, sorry, you were offended. This is a different

language. There are many words in many languages, and some of them are going to sound similar to some of our words. And some of them are going to sound similar to some words you disagree with. Anyway, next, moving on. Instead, they're saying to a guy like, I'm going to suspend you for two weeks. And you're like, for what? And all you're doing, all these idiots. And again, I don't blame the students. Everyone is dumb at 19. They have bad parents. Fine.

So be it. The administration and the faculty. The administration and the faculty need to start telling the 19-year-olds, hey, get over it. Thicken up your skin. It's a coincidence. Moving on. Stop get over it. Thicken up your skin. It's a coincidence. Moving on. Stop looking for it. If you find actual cases of racism, then come to me. When you manufacture them,

don't come into my office because I'm not going to do anything. It's a bunch of 19 year olds going into the dean's office going for our demands and the dean going, okay, let me carry out those demands. Yeah. The deans are in the fetal position, just begging not to get flogged. Right, because he was one of those 19 year olds 35 years ago, and this is the direction he took. But I worry because I used to have debates on the Kelly file where somebody would talk about what's happening on a college campus and how weak the students were. I mean, I remember there was a story out of Columbia Law School, and it was after the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, over the Michael Brown case, which, of course, we now know was based on a lie of hands up, don't shoot. But the students at the law school wanted to have their midterm exams off or their final exams off.

They didn't want to take them because the argument was they could not function in the face of a perceived injustice. Law students. I'm like, do they have any idea what lawyers do? They're not going to be very good lawyers if that's the case. But the school, they cater to them. And I remember thinking the kids who aren't having that done for them, who are like just going to have to take the exams, they're going to crush these other kids. When they meet in the world, the ones who have been through adversity, have built up some resilience, are going to crush the safe spaces kids. But it seems to me like the safe spaces kids are winning. Like what's going to happen instead is the people who don't get offended at every turn

and just know how to function, even if they if their feelings get hurt, are going to be shamed into submission, into joining the woke crowd because corporate America now seems on board. Well, you know, sadly, corporate America will go any way the wind is blowing. They have no personality. They're a path of least resistance. They're care about money and they attempt to fool society. So at some point, I'll give you an example, corporate America. At some point, they started figuring out that we were becoming feelings based. And so when I grew up, when you were younger, you would watch, you'd see a car commercial or truck commercial, and the commercial would advertise how much torque and horsepower, gas mileage, bumper to bumper, 100,000 mile warranty, galvanized steel, durability. This truck is tough. You know what I mean?

Now you see a Subaru commercial. Subarus are made with love. You'd see a Subaru commercial, Subarus are made with love. You see a Subaru, you folks, watch your next Subaru commercial. See if they even discuss price, mileage, torque, horsepower, safety. It's just a family. They have their puppies in the back. They're going down the open highway. They're exploring life.

There's a guy strumming a guitar in the background. They're going down the open highway. They're exploring life. There's a guy strumming a guitar in the background. But here's my example. Subaru is a giant Japanese multinational company, and Subaru makes Subaru Foresters and Outbacks and station wagons with love, but they also make attack helicopters for the Japanese army. So do they make those with love? Are they a love-based company? Or are they just spoon-feeding this to a bunch of dumb Americans who've gotten really soft?

So if you want to know where we're at, see what Madison Avenue is putting out. And look at the commercials from the 60s and the 70s and the 80s. Look at the commercials now. All good vibes. It's just all about what a good-hearted company. And it really doesn't matter. It could be McDonald's or it could be Subaru.

It's just all good vibes. I remember I know a big fundraiser here in New York for the Democrats. And this person was telling me that they had interviewed all of the top candidates running before the party settled on Joe Biden. And he had one discussion with Cory Booker when he said, you know, what's your approach going to be? Like, what are you going to argue? And Booker said, you know, it's just, it's all about the love, man. It's like, it's about the love. And this fundraiser was like, no, no, it isn't at all. You've got to get out there and fight. What are you saying? You're not running to be the nation's therapist. You've got to take on Donald Trump. And that's part of what's appealing about Trump

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was thinking about it out loud, which is the woke scolds scare everybody. They really do scare people. And there has been enough examples, as you mentioned, of people sort of being removed from their livelihood. So people are duly scared of them, but they don't have as much power as people think, and in some cases, no power. And they certainly couldn't do anything if everyone just started speaking their mind Monday morning at 9 a.m. They couldn't de-platform enough people. They couldn't remove enough people from their livelihood. So Scientology. Now, we all look at Scientology now and we think, oh, God, what a joke, or they're on the run, or, you know, there's all this stuff. The cat's out of bag with Scientology. When I started my radio career in the mid to late nineties, I made some jokes about Scientology. I called it a cult, blah, blah, blah. Scientology sent a long letter basically explaining what I had to do to apologize to them. They even gave me a script to read on the air.

And then we had a decision to make. Do we apologize to Scientology or do we say something about Scientology sending me this prepared statement? Everybody who I knew, I was living in Hollywood at the time, the Hollywood Celebrity Center for Scientology was literally down the street from where I lived. And everyone said, don't cross Scientology. That will destroy your life. They will ruin your life. And I thought, really? And everyone, everyone I spoke to said, Scientology will ruin your life. Yeah. Just literally just apologize to them and get on with your life. And I thought about it and I went, yeah, but they're such idiots. And I thought, screw it. And I went on the air that night and I took their script and I started making fun of it. And I said, they sent me a script and they expected me to read

it, but they can screw themselves. I'm not going to do it. And blah, blah, blah. And then for the next week, I worried because everyone said, these guys are going to camp outside your house. They're going to go through your garbage can and nothing happened. And, but that's the way 25 years ago, people were scared to death of Scientology, but here's what happened. Leah Remini and Adam Carolla and whomever, everyone just sort of came out. And when we all came out and I wasn't in Scientology, but what I'm saying is everyone just stood their ground, didn't apologize and, and,

and basically stuck by their guns. And it turned out Scientology had no power. They couldn't do anything. And, and it's the same with the woke skulls. They had no power. They can't do anything. Stop apologizing. Just stand up, stay your ground, and they'll go away. Just like whatever happened to Scientology will happen to this movement if people just stand up. Well, maybe, right? It depends on how it's coming at you. Because if it's your employer saying it's your job, or you get out there and apologize, or you're fired.

You know, most people don't have the economic independence. And even those who have economic independence, who don't want to lose their jobs, will make a different choice. It's going to take more. It's going to take a societal recoiling from what they're doing. I'm with you. I'm saying here's what we can't do if, in fact, we do it one at a time. So if the German soldier is holding the machine gun and we're all on the other side of the yard and we charge that guy one person at a time, then we'll all be picked off. If we all go simultaneously, we'll get to the guy and take his gun away. Few people are going to drop on the way. What I'm saying is, is everyone needs to just stand up simultaneously and say enough is enough. You do it one at a time. Everyone just gets picked off. Like, you know, they've got skeletons in their closets. They've got mistakes that they've made or that are coming their way and for which they're going to need forgiveness because they're human.

And to sit in judgment, even Barack Obama has criticized it with their little thumbs on their phones, thinking that's activism. They're in for a rude awakening. And none of those people, none of those people will wind up having a successful corporate career. You just you have to have thicker skin and be a more principled person than that. All right. I got to ask you a question now, because I didn't know I knew a lot about you, but I didn't know that you were you were like the Karnak of political commentary, because I read in preparing for this that in 2008, you predicted Donald Trump was going to be president. 2008, you predicted he was going to be president. And it wasn't a joke. You were serious. So I have to ask you, what's your what's your prediction this time around? Is he going to remain president? Yeah, I called in 2008. I said he was going to be president in 2016, which is a little more accurate than just president in general. So I don't know. I'll call that dumb luck. Here's what I think, and you're uniquely qualified to ruminate on this.

So I'm definitely interested in what your thoughts are. We learned in the last election that celebrity and celebrity endorsements really didn't help or hold any power, right? Like, we always were kind of, again, in a way, it's kind of like Scientology. It's kind of like the woke skull. Like we always just thought, well, once you get Beyonce on your side and Oprah, then you're going to win, you know, George Clooney, you're going to win, right? Like maybe when half the country finds out Robert De Niro's for something, they're against it now, right? So my take on the last election was a kind of a referendum on celebrity. This election, we're going to find out if an endorsement essentially from CNN and MSNBC and the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, we're going to find out if that moves the needle. I mean, obviously, it has more effect than a celebrity endorsement. But what I'm starting to feel, and again, I'm interested in your take on this, is they are starting to lose

some of their power. And we'll find out if essentially being, if, you know, 18 or 19 out of the 20 major news outlets being all in for Biden is going to be enough to win it for Biden. Now, obviously, 20 years ago, you would have won in a landslide if that's how it worked. But now people are getting their information from different places. They have less and less faith in the CNNs of the world. And maybe, and I'll tell you, if Trump wins this election, it is the worst.

It's a referendum on CNN more than it is on on Biden. Yeah, well, I have a couple of thoughts on that. I think, first of all, the reason that celebrities influence over the electorate has gone so far down is because they've shown their cards. They they've shown that cards. They've shown that they can't stand half of the country. They think, as Hillary said, they're deplorable. And it just their contempt is oozing out of them. And so I think middle America, having watched enough television and seen enough movies and watched enough interviews, has given them a collective middle finger. You know, like we don't need you, Ben Affleck,

who won't even act in a movie with somebody who self-identifies as a Republican. Right. Like we don't have to watch your stupid movie. And we couldn't care less if you come out and endorse the Democrat, because we're not surprised and we don't really care what you think. You don't understand us. I used to say, though, the last thing I'm like, if the Democrats learn nothing, they should learn to never put Lena Dunham at a campaign event again, ever. She was so alienating and polarizing last time. And who in their right minds thinks that Lena Dunham is going to help generate votes either within the democratic party or outside i listen i live in this town and this town is so insular and and isolated that like lena dunham would do her hbo show girls

and it probably got three or four hundred thousand views every every sunday And my friend works on Tim Allen's show, Last Man Standing. He's a showrunner and they get 8 million people and all this town every week. And all this town would do is talk about Lena Dunham's show. They think this town is the entire nation. And that's why they're always confused. They're like, I don't know one person who would vote for Trump. And I don't know one person who drives a pickup truck or owns a gun. Like what? Can I tell you, I saw, to your point, I saw Barbara Streisand at an event not long after Trump won. And she was very kind, very gracious. But she pulled me aside to talk politics for a minute. And you know, she's a committed progressive. And she wanted me to help her understand how Trump won.

And her biggest question to me was she was baffled by the coal miners voting for Trump. She's like the coal miners. How did the coal miners vote for Trump? I'm like, you've got to be kidding me, right? Like Hillary Clinton expressly said she wanted to kill coal. Like, who would you vote for if you were a coal miner? But that's how out of touch she was on that issue. And I think a lot of the people on the coast and we see it, you know, I don't spend a lot of time with celebrities, but I see it at the Emmys and the Oscars and, you know, all the

lecturing they do. And it's the same people who were supporting Harvey Weinstein, who was sexually assaulting half of Hollywood. So they've lost their credibility. And the same thing has happened to the media. Because, you know, when I was on Fox, which obviously leans right and is sort of I think it's they see themselves as the antidote to the left wing bias that we see in all the other media. I think the audience is aware of that. But I used to watch a lot of CNN when I was getting ready for the Kelly file. I'd watch CNN because they used to report the news straight down the middle. So I thought, all right, it's boring, but at least I'm getting facts. And I can't I can't watch CNN now at all. It's it's total

propaganda for the left. And it is it should be called TDS, right? Trump derangement syndrome network. And forget MSNBC. But I will say at least they're they're a little bit more honest about their agenda. CNN still trying to pan itself off as like an open minded independent down the middle news network. And it's too late. They've been exposed via virtue signaling, the refusal to acknowledge there are many reporting mistakes. People know. And now even media is completely tribal, which is why I hope and believe that, you know, sort of stepping out of the traditional media is the future. And you made me think of a thought that I had recently, which is, I think we're almost there. What I'm saying is, I've always had this feeling that people who watch Fox know they're watching Fox. And people who watch CNN think they're watching the news. And that's the disconnect. So when you talk to people that watch CNN, they go, here's what's happening.

You know, Trump has interfered with the Russians and colluded with the agents, whatever. And then you go, watch Tucker Carlson. He'll go, what? That's Fox. Of course, they're in the agents, whatever. And then you go, watch Tucker Carlson. He'll go, what? That's Fox. Of course, they're in the bag for Trump. But it's like, yeah, you don't know that's what's going on on CNN. So a lot of it is literally just because it's in every airport. You know, it's just up on the monitor behind the bar at the airport. It's force fed to you.

And you know what they would say? It's force fed to you. So, but we're slowly just getting to that point where people are realizing that CNN really isn't the news. And my question is, have we, has a large enough group of American voters realized that they're not watching the news yet when they're watching CNN? And that's what we're going to find out in this upcoming election. Well, and all of this is what leads to the secret Trump voter, right? The shy Trump voter, because all of the mainstream respectable outlets are telling you you're a bad person if you vote for him. And in fact, if you say it in polite circles, you're going to be called a racist. I mean, that's what people say explicitly. Anyone who supports Trump is a racist. Notwithstanding if, let's say, you know, abortion is your main issue and you have a deep seated religious belief that abortion is murder and you could never vote for a president who is going to do anything other

than try to crack down on abortion. So how does that make you a racist? Right. That isn't thought through. It's just the the labeling to try to demonize and truly try to silence. And maybe they have silenced them when the pollsters call. But the big question in this election is how many of those shy and silent Trump voters will actually go into those polling booths and surprise people again. Can you imagine? I always just think of everything as sort of from the, I look at everything sort of through the lens of somebody who comments on things and tries to put together sort of thoughtful opposition to things or notions that maybe people hadn't thought of before. And I look at everything through that lens. Like my job is to speak about things and make people go like, oh, that's funny. Or I never thought of it that way. Like sort of the

woke scolds is to Scientology kind of things. Like I'm trying to connect things. Calling everyone you disagree with racist is the most intellectual, lazy, how lazy intellectually are you? If you go, Hey, disagree with me? Racist. Like what, what business are you in? And, you know, my favorite story, Dave Rubin, a guy you know and I know and I enjoy on many different levels, he always said something I repeat over and over again because I've always thought of it, which is he just said when he worked at Young Turks before he sort of got turned around, he thought, how could it be that everyone who disagrees with us is a racist? How could that mathematically be possible? Everyone who disagrees with us is a racist? It's the laziest endeavor intellectually ever. Well, it's self-defeating because it's self-defeating because the overuse of the word has completely diluted it and changed its effect. It used to be if you leveled that charge at someone, it was serious and it was devastating. And now I went to a dinner last summer with a group of very well-known Republicans who had served in office at high levels.

I was on the Jersey Shore, so there's still Republicans there. I wasn't in the Hamptons. And somebody asked the question, like, go around the table, who here has been called a racist? And virtually every hand went up. And it's not because everyone sitting there was a racist. It's because everyone sitting there was a racist. And virtually every hand went up. And it's not because everyone sitting there was a racist. It's because everyone sitting there was a Republican. They're used to having charges like that leveled against them because it has for so many years been such an effective silencer, but not not anymore. It's so ubiquitous. It's lost some of

its power. Have you ever had to hire somebody? It isn't easy. You don't want to make the wrong choice. You don't want to spend hours and hours searching through resumes. And a lot of times you just don't have confidence that you have the ability to sort of recognize who's really good and who's not as you look at that stack of paper that gets submitted to you. Well, enter ZipRecruiter. All right. This is the

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ZipRecruiter makes hiring efficient, effective. It's got features like screening questions to filter candidates. Like I would ask, are you expecting somebody to hold your hand? Do you expect five compliments before I have to criticize something you've done? Because I don't want to work with a bunch of snowflakes. Okay. But back to you and your ZipRecruiter experience. And basically they'll give you like an all-in-one dashboard where you can review and rate your candidates. They're so effective, ZipRecruiter is, that four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And right now, to try ZipRecruiter for free,

all of our listeners can go to ziprecruiter.com slash MK. Again, that's ziprecruiter.com slash MK, ziprecruiter.com slash MK. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. And now for a new feature on The Megyn Kelly Show, we're calling it Devil May Care All Stars. Devil May Care is the name of my production company, and it's an attitude, basically. The full saying is the devil may care, but I do not.

And honestly, to survive in today's day and age, you have to have that attitude or you will be scolded at every turn of your life. Whatever you're doing, it's wrong. Everything you're thinking and doing is wrong. Just know that. OK, even if you're woke, there's no amount of wokeness that's okay for the woke. You got to get even woker. But people are starting to push back against this nonsense so that we can live our lives and be a little bit more generous with one another. And just to stand up to the constant scolding and guilting. And there are others like us out there with that devil may care attitude.

And we are choosing to highlight them here in this segment. All right. Today, we're going to talk about Professor Mark Crispin Miller. He's at NYU. Yes, I said NYU, that that liberal bastion. And he is teaching a class there called Mass Persuasion and Propaganda. I would love to see the syllabus for that class. Anyway, one student went on a tweet rant aimed at this guy. She was telling on him, he's her professor, for having the temerity to suggest that the science on masks is not 100% definitive. And he made some other coronavirus

points of view, but she's focused on the masks. Now, of course, our officials have also done a reversal on masks. As you know, we've gotten conflicting information from the CDC. But nonetheless, the student is outraged and she claims to have forwarded the emails to the NYU bias hotline. Why the bias hotline? Who the hell knows? But whatever you do, you're racist and you're a bigot and you're transphobe and you're a xenophobe. And, you know, somehow the coronavirus mask thing also makes you awful. So what did the professor do? Did he did he bend the knee and apologize for being a hideous person? No. This is from his blog, his blog post on the issue.

Quoting now, my department chair just called to ask if that is true. It is, as I readily told him, and to let me know that NYU's COVID response team, or whatever it's called, will shortly be emailing all my students to reaffirm the policy, which I told them explicitly I don't advise them to ignore. I do believe they should be thinking for themselves and studying the evidence for any claim or mandate instead of merely bowing to authority. That's my intellectual and civic obligation as a teacher, whatever NYU's official policy or New York State's. It's one thing to expect the students to obey their institution's rules, but quite another thing to urge them not to think about it. Oh, you go, professor. You go. I admire his ability to stay steely spined. And we'll update you when we know how it turns out. Jimmy Kimmel. He got dragged through the mud for wearing blackface in a couple of skits while you

guys did The Man Show. And, you know, as somebody who was accused of racism for just trying to have a discussion about blackface, I did wonder for a while why no one seemed to care that so many celebrities had actually worn it. But I didn't really wonder because I knew they were perceived as Democrats or liberals. So they got a pass for, for actually wearing it. And when that whole controversy hit with him, I know you defended him. What did you, what did you think of it? You know, for me, I, I kind of approach life as a, as a former carpenter builder. I just sort of work big to small. And first things first, I'm not interested in good parents, good citizens, taxpayers,

whether it's you or Jimmy Kimmel. You guys are the least of my problems. As long as there's murders and arsonists and deadbeat dads, I have no problem with good citizens and good people, whatever their politics are. So just in general, I'm not interested in disciplining taxpayers, citizens, good dads, good moms, good neighbors. I have no interest in that. But my feeling is always clarity. My feeling, when you were talking about going trick-or-treating at Halloween, I dressed up as Mr. T when I was 19. I went trick-or-treating as Mr. T. I put on blackface. I actually remember. And another thing, too, is I don't call it blackface.

I was impersonating Mr. T. Blackface is its own, you know, vaudevillian show that was there to denigrate black people. I was there to praise Mr. T. It had nothing to do. See, I think that the next evolution of this stuff is even stop breaking it down into color. I was a huge fan of Mr. T when I was 19. So I want is Mr. T. I shaved my head. I grew out my beard. I colored myself. I didn't use, I didn't have enough money for literally like black makeup. I, I charred something like, like a paper towel roll or something. I just kind of rubbed soot on myself and I did, I got the chains. I did everything I could do to look and sound like Mr. T for that Halloween. Uh, that was not me in a minstrel show. That was me doing Mr. T. When I worked with Jimmy on the man show, he was doing Carl Malone, NBA great Carl Malone.

He loved Carl Malone. We did a funny bit where he played Carl Malone. Chris Rock, Jimmy Fallon did Chris Rock. Jimmy Fallon wasn't doing a generic black person. Well, and Chris Rock came out this week or last week and said, intent does matter. He said, Jimmy Fallon is a great guy and intent does matter, which is the discussion I was trying to raise too. And I think to say that somebody's mindset in doing something other people consider insensitive is irrelevant, is just stupid. That's just stupid. We do need to know what's in somebody's heart, because people will misstep and predicting in 2020, what's going to offend somebody isn't all that easy, especially if you're going to look

back. I mean, it's even worse for people who did what we now see as racially insensitive things or gender insensitive things 20 years ago. This is why, this is why just as an aside, I never understood why they had to take away the Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Award. You know, she did the Little House on the Prairie series because she was insensitive. The writings are insensitive to Native Americans. Well, she lived in the late 1800s. I mean, do you find me somebody back then who was being sensitive to Native Americans? We evolve. We learn. We decide whether the new standards are, they make sense or they don't. Well, okay.

A bunch of stuff. First things first. Nobody is really offended. Nobody's really offended. Nobody cares. I don't think anybody really cares about Jimmy Fallon impersonating his friend Chris Rock from 20 years ago. Do you? Nobody cares. Nobody.

Really nobody. They really don't. Now, they would love to wag their finger at everybody. They would love to tsk everyone and look down their nose at everyone and then do the schadenfreude thing where they go, ooh, guess who's in trouble now, but they don't care. Nobody thinks it's racist. And this part of what's in your heart, the fact that we're ignoring it, that is insane because it's going right back to the USC professor who was speaking a different language. And that guy says, I was speaking a different language. Sorry if it sounded like the N word. And the administration goes, we don't care what you were thinking.'s here's

what it sounded like you're going to be put on administration administrative leave like what what kind of way to run a society is that we don't care so if my wife is taking my car out to get it detailed for my birthday and gets into an accident versus my son going out joyriding in it on a Saturday night and getting into an accident. I'm supposed to have the same reaction just because the same car is dented in the same way. That's insane. The listening to you talk reminds me of I did. I did used to listen, believe it or not, to Loveline here and there with you and Dr. Drew. And I do wonder now looking back, how did you get selected to be the expert on sex, love, relationships? Was there was there an investigation of your background and your qualifications for that? No, it was a simpler time. My qualifications were I have a high school degree and 1.7 GPA. And then I worked on construction sites my entire adult life. And at a certain point, I made it into the radio station.

And Dr. Drew just took a shining to me. Dr. Drew just thought, this guy is so funny. And I really didn't know him very well. I did a small character on the morning show. Dr. Drew just fell in love with this character. And Dr. Drew just thought, this is a guy I want to work with. So he basically got me on a love line from nowhere. I was a poor guy from the San Fernando Valley. I drove a truck and I worked on construction sites. But I think that's what

gives you your PhD in life. It's one thing not to go to college, but look at these colleges now. Even now, my oldest child is 11, and in fifth grade, I'm already worried about where we're going to send him. I don't want him indoctrinated into far left thinking. We're not far left people. We're not far right people either. I want them to keep their politics to themselves and to teach him studies, actual subjects, science, real science, not something that goes with, well, I think I'm a flower, so I'm a flower or I'm an octopus, so I'm an octopus. So I think more and more people are going to choose alternate avenues of educating themselves versus these colleges. I do want, yeah, go ahead.

I just want to add for people who are kind of thinking about it, there is a bigger picture, which is, you know, you want your kid educated and, you know, everyone always talks about, you know, the environment, the social environment, the, you know, education, so on and so forth. There's a really big part of being a kid, which is you want your kid to be happy. You really do. And we got rid of that. That's no longer real. AOC is telling you you're not going to see your 23rd birthday and Lena Dunham is explaining that all all people who look like you do is oppress and rape indigenous people it's kind of hard to

enjoy your childhood so just from that perspective alone why not enjoy your childhood and the when you get indoctrinated like like I saw tape of like, I don't know, I saw news footage of like the women's march from two years ago. And I saw these like seven-year-old girls like screaming F Trump as loud as they could. And I thought to myself, those girls that are screaming F Trump as loud as they can also simultaneously believe in Santa Claus. And I thought, what a bizarre world. Like you go home and you think about Santa Claus and then you go out and you hold up a sign and you start screaming and wailing into a camera lens. And I thought, these are some of the most miserable people I've ever

seen in my life. And why wouldn't they be miserable? They think the world's going to end. They think they're responsible for all evils in the world. And they think we live in a society that's culturally and socially racist and has systemic racism and hatred toward women and gays and blacks. Of course, I'd be miserable too if I bought into all that stuff. Yeah. We've tried to not talk politics with our kids at all. And if I were ever to go to a march, which I have not in my in my past 25 years, I would never bring my child. I want my children to figure out their own politics over time once they're old enough to understand the issues. And I certainly don't want to gin up anger or activate them when they're little, when they're little.

I mean, we we have recently changed schools and and we loved our old school. Don't get me wrong. But more and more, they started to get activist. And our then six year old, our first year first grader was made to write a letter to the Cleveland Indians objecting to the use of Chief Wahoo on any of their merchandise. And all I could think was, who gave you permission to activate my child? He lives in New York City. He's got to deal with buses and subways and traffic and homeless people. And it's a challenge being an urban kid. And who gave you the permission to give him one more thing to get upset about? I just, I don't think it's appropriate at that age.

And I certainly wouldn't be bringing my kids to protests. I know people do it for me. I don't think they're ready for it. So one other question about the man show, because I do have to ask you whether any regrets on that since Jimmy's taken a beating for some of these segments with the women and the boobs jumping up and down on the trampolines. And I have to tell you upfront, as somebody who is all for female empowerment, I understand it. It's comedy. It was a different time. I think it's very hard to go back now and judge it according to these politically correct woke standards. But how do you see it? Well, no, I don't have regrets because as a comedian, you really just can't have that

gear. You say what you think is funny when you think it's funny, and then you move on to the next thing you think is funny. Also, if you're a decent human being who has never hurt anybody as I have or haven't, then no, I don't spend that much time trying to parse out words I said 20 years ago. But people need to understand, and I don't think enough people do, which is I think a lot of people have an idea of what the man show was. And the idea of what the man show was, is me and Jimmy sit there and swill beer and watch girls jumping on trampolines and make crass remarks. If that was the format, it would have never worked. What worked about the man show is it was really a comedy sketch show that had this theme of the man show but the bits were interesting comedy bits and Jimmy and I always understood and everyone understood that we would always end up being the losers sort of like Hill. We kind of based a lot of it on Benny Hill. Benny

Hill never got the girl. Benny Hill never slayed the bully. Benny Hill was always Charlie trying to kick the football and getting it pulled out at the end. And Jimmy and I knew that if we challenged a couple of the juggies to a basketball game and we won, we knew it wouldn't be funny. We knew that we always had to be the loser in the butt of the joke in the comedy, that if we won, it wasn't a comedy. So people think it's like all about us just sitting there and the girls adoring us. We never got the girl. We were always the butt of the joke. That's why the show was funny. People don't realize. They think it's just a format. It was about the humor. Even now, I love the Comedy Cellar here in New York. And you go there and when you see a comedian

who's trying to censor himself so that he can stay within the right rails on politically correct subjects, it's painful. It used to be you could make inappropriate jokes and people understood that they were jokes. And if you don't want to hear them, you shouldn't hang out at the comedy clubs. You should go someplace else. Go to the library. Sit by yourself with the newly cleansed books that have been approved by some unknown woke god who's now censoring publications. No little house on the prairie. Well, certainly no awards from anybody who's connected to Laura Ingalls Wilder. So I wondered about that. I know that you and Jimmy are friends. I think, A, I like it because you're clearly on the right or someplace center right or right. And he's obviously on the left. I do wonder whether how does it work? Because I think he takes more he takes more shit

for the man show than you do, I think, because he wound up on the left and he says mean things about Republicans. He says stuff like you, all the talk show hosts are liberal because it requires a level of intelligence. And then everybody on the right is like, screw you. You signed up for these people. And these are the people who are trying to shame us. And look at all the stuff you did, but you haven't turned into a scold, so you don't get it. Well, there's two things. A, no one cares about me. B, I just don't apologize to anybody. I just tell everyone to f- themselves.

I don't care. Well, I have a 14-year-old daughter. I've raised my voice to her in the past. Sometimes some words slipped out in the heat of battle. And then I apologized to her the following day. So I'm not above apologizing to anybody. But I don't apologize to the mob. And I don't apologize for work that I've done.

And I'm not in charge of your feelings. So you're in charge of your feelings. I can't fix your feelings. And by the way, you don't want me to apologize because your feelings are hurt or because you're offended. You want me to apologize because you want power over me. You want someone to bend the knee. Yes. You have no interest in my apology other than to bend my knee to you because you have a narcissistic disorder. And I'm not interested in being involved in this weird little play where I'm cast in the role of the male who has to apologize to you because you're casting some sort of diorama

of a narcissistic disorder. Go talk to a therapist. Right. So what I have to ask you before I let you go, what your thoughts are on podcasting. You have become one of, if not the most powerful podcaster, certainly doing political commentary after Joe Rogan. He's number one. But you're hugely successful. The number of downloads you guys get is staggering. So now I'm just a neophyte here in this business. So what's your advice for me? Well, you're off to a great start with guests like me, Megan. You know, I don't, I think, I think this is the place you go to really explore ideas. And you've done enough TV and I've done enough TV to know that you're kind of on the clock. You know, I've done enough terrestrial radio where everything gets broken down and it's literally on the clock, you know? And I think this is the place you go to really explore ideas,

not unlike what we've just have done for the last hour. And I think it's good if you are thoughtful like you are and you, and you really want the freedom to explore ideas. I think you cannot think to yourself, what does the audience want to hear? You have to think to yourself, what am I interested in? And then how do I make that interested to my audience or a growing audience that maybe hasn't heard these ideas. So it's super organic. It's, it's, I wish I, you know, I feel, I feel like a personal trainer and a nutritionist just going diet and exercise and you going, yeah, but I'm looking for a kick. I'm looking for, I want a tip and I'm going diet and exercise. Like there really isn't anything to it.

You're good. You have a voice, you have thoughts, and then it just becomes about consistency. All right, well then I am gonna have to ask you, if it's all about what I really wanna know, given your background, I'm asking you one more question. Given your time on Loveline, Dr. Drew, your expertise you developed on the

air there. Say you've been married for, you know, I don't know, how many years have I been married now? 12 years. And you want to surprise your husband with something spicy. But you know, you don't want to get too far out there. You're not looking to make any headlines if somebody were to see through your windows, but you want to spice it up a little. What should I do? Wow. Old school love line question. Well, you know what? I, I always kind of feel like, you know, your husband's proclivities, like, you know what that guy likes, you know, like maybe he loves watching ESPN so you let him keep the TV on this round you know maybe you know he loves barbecue yeah let's keep that out of the bedroom I'm trying to think my feeling is is I think a lot of couples think I'm going to do this for him.

Like I'm going to buy a negligee for him. But like if the guy doesn't really like lingerie, as it turns out he likes ESPN and barbecued baby back pork ribs, then give him that. I say figure out what he wants if you're looking to spice it up on your 13th anniversary and just make it all about him. I'll let you know how it goes. Please, send me pictures. Great to have you, Adam.

Thanks. I appreciate it. Thanks, Megan. All the best. Our thanks to Adam Carolla for being with us and our thanks to you for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. We would love it if you would subscribe to the show. Just go on over, download it, subscribe to it, and give it a five-star rating if you feel so inclined. We'd love to hear from you in a review as well. Later this week, we're going to have the one and only Candace Owens. That's going to be interesting. The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care Media Production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.