The Megyn Kelly Show - Biden Says COVID is Over, and Martha's Migrants, with Victor Davis Hanson, and a Powerful Tribute to Blake Barklage | Ep. 393

Episode Date: September 19, 2022

Megyn Kelly is joined by Victor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow at The Hoover Institution, to discuss Biden's declaration that COVID is over, Biden stepping in it on Taiwan, new questions about his mental fitness, whether Biden will run again, the Martha's Vineyard migrant drama and the left's hypocrisy, the messaging battle between left and right, the true scope of the immigration crisis at the border, the Martha's Vineyard virtue signaling, the effects of the open border policies, and more. Then Megyn Kelly tells the tragic, powerful, and inspiring story of Blake Barklage's passing, the community that came together to celebrate his memory, the signs that Blake is still around, the patriotism and values Blake had, and her personal connection to his family.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: 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 and happy Monday. We have a packed show for you today, a great, great show, including a really personal and amazing, inspiring story that we've been working on for a long time that we're going to bring you in our second hour. But I want to begin with the news. The 50 migrants, 50. Okay, 50. We've had 2 million. We're on pace to hit 2 million trying to get into the country this year. 50 were sent to Martha's Vineyard and all hell broke loose. Governor Ron DeSantis was responsible for it.

He made sure that they had the bus rides and the ferry rides they needed to get to the vineyard. And the migrants have left the island. But the story's not going away. The incident has brought the entire immigration crisis in America into focus because it's very easy to be pro-immigration when you don't have to deal with any of the consequences of it, and quite something else when it's on your doorstep. So we'll get into all of that. But we've got to start with the big news overnight. Did you hear the pandemic is officially over? That's according to President Joe Biden,

and that's about as official a pronouncement as we're going to get. Yes, the president himself made that admission during a 60 Minutes interview that made quite a bit of news. We'll go through it with you. News the White House is now trying to clean up again this morning. He says one thing and then the White House team of advisers says something very different. So what's real? What's the what's the end result?

Joining us now to discuss all of it is one of our favorites, Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Victor, great to have you back. How are you? Thank you for having me, Megan. President Biden gives an interview with 60 to 60 Minutes last night. When we'll get to immigration in a second, he was not asked about the crisis at the southern border. It didn't come up. Didn't think that was important. But he did declare the pandemic is over, which was music to my ears because I've been listening to their denialism on this for quite some time. And finally, he said it. Here it is for those

who need to hear it as well. Satwan. Ms. President, first Detroit auto show in three years. Yeah. Is the pandemic over? The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID. We're still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over.

It's over. He said it. Now the White House aides are reportedly trying to push back. But this has all sorts of implications, Victor. And I, for one, am so glad that he was walked into it. Now the White House aides are reportedly trying to push back. But this has all sorts of implications, Victor. And I, for one, am so glad that he was walked into it by Scott Pelley, whether Scott Pelley expected that or not. Yeah, I am too. And this is an issue that's very dear to his base, as you know, Megan. His base, the swing suburban voter or the solidly left-wing voter is is dedicated to a perennial plague and a non-stop covert because they like the idea of government control they like the idea that

they are the model citizens and everybody else are renegades and don't follow the rules and joe biden did this remember when he was inaugurated he he bought into the idea that the trump vaccinations were going to be bulletproof we were it was all over he announced i think it was in january the last week in january he said that by july we would all have a normal july 4th and we don't you can't really predict this uh covet nobody knows we don't know anything about these new shots for these two new omicron variants it's pretty scary when they say the shot's going to have a double whammy it's going to be really two shots in one when a lot of people had reactions to the first two and the booster so

it's all up in the air but i don't know why he had to say that because his voter is the one that has been insisting that schools have to be locked down, that country has to be locked down because COVID is going to be with us forever. And for him to just reasonably dismiss it, I think his handlers are pretty upset about it. Okay. So, yeah, exactly. So now the White House is upset. Apparently the aides are upset about his admission on COVID because there are a lot of policies in place that depend on the pandemic not being over, right? This

student debt forgiveness, right? A renter is going to have to pay his rent. A student might have to pay his bills. So there's a whole series of obligations and contractual arrangements that were all suspended because of the supposed COVID-dubonic plague that was never going to leave. And we were in a state of crisis, which they like. And remember, Megan, it was everybody from Gavin Newsom that said during COVID, we have to have a new progressive capitalism. And Hillary said, we can't waste this crisis. We have to really go for single payer health care. So a lot of the left's strategic planning was based on using the COVID pandemic as a cover to really enlarge government and take away freedoms and turn them over to the select group of platonic guardians. And for him just to lightly say something like that, it's like, wow, we don't have an excuse anymore to coerce people to a particular way of thinking. Exactly. So it does have potential implications on this, quote, student debt forgiveness program, which was explicitly based, at least one of the main rationales was that we're in an emergency

because we're in a pandemic. So he's just declared that that's not true. And that's going up on legal challenge right now, not to mention some of these other policies. I mean, just in New York City, they just laid off 850 teachers because they wouldn't get the vaccine mandate because of the emergency. Yes. And remember Molly Ball in that time, February 2021 gushing essay about how they had changed the voting laws because of COVID and they used that basically.

And this is a person of the left wrote that Mark Zuckerberg had given $419 million and da da da da and the net result and she bragged that only 30% of people showed up on election day, the other 70% for the first time in history either voted mail in or early ballot, and that this as she gushed was a windfall for the left and so, or what are we going to do now when they when they continue this strategy for 2024 but even for the midterms are they going to say you know what we need more early voting we need more lax uh mail-in voting we need to have private uh mail drops we need to have more vote harvesting because of covid and now he says it doesn't really, it's over with. So maybe we could return back to the pre-2020 voting protocols in which, you know, about 70% showed up on election day. Under Joe Biden, election day has become, and under the COVID scare, it had become a construct. It didn't really mean anything anymore. That's right. And now- We really had a manifestation. Remember, Donald Trump's second debate, 60 million people had

already voted. He had a disastrous first debate, but the second debate was pretty good, but it was irrelevant the way that voting had progressed. Yeah, that's right. We're looking at this in Pennsylvania right now, where Fetterman refuses to have a debate. Maybe he'll have one, but he'll have it at the end of October. Meanwhile, voting will have been underway for almost a month by that point already. This is again, is in the state of Pennsylvania where they changed the rules on mail-in votes. So it's interesting to me because the White House, they're having to walk back what Biden said on Taiwan, because there again, for the second time, he said we would have boots on the ground in Taiwan if China invaded. And he's already done that. And the White House

has already come out and said, no, no, that's not official policy. Exact same thing happened on 16 Minutes last night with Taiwan. Then he says the thing about the pandemic being over. And today the White House is running around saying, well, that wasn't planned. That wasn't a planned remark. And I said to my team, Victor, this reminds me of the scene in Animal House, which anybody who's got good taste in movies has seen. And this particular moment with John Belushi. Remember this? Yeah, I do. Nothing is over until we decide it is.

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! Germans? Forget it. He's rolling. That's the White House staff today. Yeah, I mean, it was really funny because there was a reason that Barack Obama said, remember, don't underestimate Joe's ability to F things up. And because Obama had carefully cultivated this idea that as a staunch Christian, he did not believe in gay marriage. Remember that? He said

a marriage between a man and a woman, and he was going to use that all the way to his reelection campaign. And then Joe Biden went before a crowd and said, oh, yeah, gay marriage is fine. And he kind of burst this pseudo veneer of Obama's, and he got angry about it. And Biden did that all the time during the Obama administration. So he's reckless. And we had this thing called strategic ambiguity with Taiwan. We never really let the communists know what we would do. We may or may not have boots on the ground.

We may or may not have strategic nuclear responses, tactical. We didn't tell them what. And then Biden comes along and basically says that. The only thing that's in our interest, and maybe we'll excuse him, they are pretty convinced that he's non-complimenta. So when he says something like that, the Chinese are now huddling and saying, but unfortunately, we can't take him at his word because he doesn't know what he's saying. So maybe they're as confused as we want them to be. That's a good point. So I'll clarify. He didn't say boots on the ground. That

was my term. He said, the question was, well, we have it. Let's just play it soundbite two. But would U.S. forces defend the island? Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack. After our interview, a White House official told us U.S. policy has not changed. Officially, the U.S. will not say whether American forces would defend Taiwan, but the commander in chief had a view of his own. So unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir, U.S. forces, U.S. men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. Yes. So how do they get out of this by saying that policy hasn't changed, but the commander in chief is saying explicitly, yes, we will defend them if there is an attack. I mean,

he's the commander in chief. We can't declare war without Congress, but he can certainly send troops over there and get us involved in this conflict as the commander in chief. We can't declare war without Congress, but he can certainly send troops over there and get us involved in this conflict as the commander in chief. Yeah. But again, I think we have now had him as president for nearly two years and we've all been acculturated to what he says and it's gibberish. And so when people hear him, whether he weighs in on Ukraine or he weighs in on Ukraine or he weighs in on Afghanistan, or he weighs in that there's zero inflation, nobody believes him anymore. And that works to his advantage because otherwise we concentrate on his cognitive disabilities. But now we say, you know what, if he slurs a word or he does something, turns around

and shakes somebody's hand that doesn't exist, or he gets a little bit too close to somebody, that's Joe. We know what he does, and we don't pay any attention to it. And that's bad. He's our commander-in-chief. But abroad, people have the same reaction. And it's bad. I mean, we've got to remember that Mark Milley told us that because the President of the United States, in his professional medical opinion,

without a medical license, that if he determined that Donald Trump was erratic, then he was going to contact his Chinese counterpart to warn them. But Donald Trump compared to Joe Biden, I mean, it's not even close. So you wonder what the chairman of the Joint Chief is doing now. And you wonder what the military is doing doing because they've had this activist role where they've assumed rules that are not constitutional in the Joint Chiefs. And yet they're selective about how they do that and how they evaluate a problem with the president. Indeed. The question of Joe Biden's mental fitness was raised last night in the interview. And the president's answer, I thought, was somewhat revealing. Here it is, soundbite four.

Some people ask whether you are fit for the job. And when you hear that, I wonder what you think. Watch me. Honest to God, that's all I think. Watch me. If you think I don't have the energy level or the mental acuity, then, you know, that's one thing. That's another thing. You just watch and, you know, keep my schedule. Do what I'm doing.

How would you say your mental focus is? Oh, it's, I haven't, look, I have trouble even mentioning, even saying to myself, my own head, the number of years. I no more think of myself as being as old as I am than fly. I mean, it's just not, I haven't observed anything in terms of, there's not things I don't do now that I did before. Oh my God. What? I don't even know. I no more think of myself as being old as I am than fly.

My mental focus is focused. Just just watch me. What? Well, we are. Yeah, the Romans had a phrase, the thing speaks for itself. And that's what it does. I mean, he's trying to explain that he's cognitively sharp, and he can't explain why he's cognitively sharp. So we know that.

So we have watched him. He dared us to watch him. We've watched him. We know that he is not cognitively sharp. But in his defense, Megan, he was always erratic. And before he had this problem with age there's two things going on one is age but this myth of joe biden is this on top of things nice guy competent going all the way back to his plagiarism problems his lies about law school his really venomous attack on Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. All of these stories, you know, about put you in chains,

corn pop sagas, you ain't black. Barack Obama is the first clean, articulate African-American. He's got a bad history, even when he was not non-compliance. So it's very strange. We all have this image that sad Joe Biden is not Joe Biden from Scranton, the good, lovable guy that was going to unite us. But that was a complete myth that was fabricated. And he was always a hard, very, I think, very rude, tough, mean SOB. Well, that's the irony of Scott Pelley. He led him down a path of,

you know, Washington wasn't always like this. It used to be, you didn't, you know, you hate the message, not the man. I can't remember how Pelley put it. And Joe Biden's like, right, right, right. So he didn't ask him about the dark Brandon speech, you know, in front of the red lights and the towers. He didn't follow up by saying just a couple of weeks ago, you basically said half the country is awful, nor any of those comments that you make. Right. He let him he gave him a pass on the fact that President Unity has been disparaging literally half the country since he took the oath of office and before.

He has. And I think what Scott Pelley and the left really mean is that in the old days, when a John McCain ran and they said he couldn't remember how many houses he had, or he had an affair with this woman, or when Mitt Romney ran and they said he put a dog on the top of his car, or he's going to put you all in chains. That was a very accomplished group of professional African-Americans he was talking to in a very condescending fashion, or his wife was an equestrian, or he had an elevator.

They just did that, and the Republicans played by the Marcus of Queensbury rules. They said, you know what, we're never going to win like George H.W. Bush did in 1988 under Lee Atwater. We just don't do that anymore. No more Willie Horton, no more do that anymore no more willie horton no more boston harbor no more tank commercial we're going to play by the marcus of queens and they lost six out of the seven uh popular votes so now i think the republicans are starting to push back and all of a sudden this is not fair there used to be a good old time in politics when everybody was friendly no it was basically the left had a blank check and nobody replied. And Trump came along for good or evil.

He brought in a bare knuckles. We're going to reply tit for tat. And suddenly it was, wow, what happened to America? Well, what happened to America is somebody emulated the tactics that they had used. So interesting. And You're not wrong at all. I can't get off of Biden on 60 Minutes without talking about inflation. The downplaying of what the country's going through right now with their grocery bills through the roof, their gas bills are still high, maybe not as high at the pump as they were in June, but very high, not to mention what they're paying for electricity back at home. He gets asked about it by Scott Pelley and

basically pooh-poohs it. Here it is. As you know, last Tuesday, the annual inflation rate came in at 8.3 percent. The stock market nosedived. People are shocked by their grocery bills. What can you do better and faster? Well, first of all, let's put this in perspective. Inflation rate month to month was just an inch, hardly at all. You're not arguing that 8.3 is good news. No, I'm not saying it is good news, but it was 8.2 or 8.2 before. I mean, you're acting to make it sound like all of a sudden, my God, it went to 8.2 percent.

It's the highest inflation rate, Mr. President, in 40 years. I got that. But guess what we are? We're in a position where for the last several months it hasn't spiked. It is just barely. It's been basically even. Oh, basically even. Hurrah!

That's like you fall in a pit and you're 10 feet in a pit and you can't get out, but maybe the water's coming up and you float up two inches and you say, well, I'm not as bad as I was, you know, two inches below, but you're still in a pit and we have hyperinflation. What Pelley didn't say is that we've also had two quarters of negative growth. So we're in a recession. And now we're in a quandary because if we raise interest rates, which we have to do to stop this hyperinflation, which Biden discounts, then we're going to get a third quarter of negative growth. And if we don't raise interest rate, the inflation rate is going to go back up. And the only reason the inflation rate is it's hyperinflation. But the reason it hasn't even gotten higher is because we're in a recession. And people know that. And you can see it with the housing market, the days of houses on the market, you can see it, the unemployment rates starting to creep up, you can just feel it, that we're in a recession. And I think we're going to get three and four quarters of negative growth, and we're going to have stagflation. We haven't had that since Jimmy Carter. He did that.

He didn't have to do that. He printed all of this money, quantitative easing. We had a natural demand coming out of COVID. And rather than just let the economy deal with it naturally, he pumped it up with all these programs and we had these huge four trillion dollars and new money that was spread around and then he cut back energy which was still the life force of the economy and war no president in history has had fewer new federal leases for gas and oil than biden did so he deliberately got what he wanted, a restrictive carbon market. And that's what he did. And he got what he wanted. I don't know why he's surprised. It's a very strange

logic, Megan, that when you have this high inflation and you're not worried that it hasn't dipped down from a year ago, and then yet you just look at month to month and you say, well, it could be worse. I've never seen a president do that. You know, even Jerry Ford said whip inflation now and Jimmy Carter turned loose Paul Volcker to kill it. And he did, I mean, he killed the economy, but he killed inflation in the process. Yeah.

We went up to nine and 8% under you, under your leadership. Megan, don't you think there's something, though, about Biden, his demeanor, that when he says these things and Pelley asks these questions or anybody and they look at his face and he looks confused and he gets angry and he he's given the floor and he says these crazy things and there's never a counter because the people think well why why would I encounter that what would he say I would embarrass him he would look frustrated he'd get up get off the brass confusion so I'm just gonna let him go and that's what's really scary about this he can never answer a follow-up question and people don't pose it because they know that

they're afraid that if they do, he has no answer. He's going to get really flustered. So in a very strange way, his cognitive challenges have really worked to excuse his record. It's true. Even a follow-up question, I will say, you're not arguing that 8.3 is good news is kind of phrased in a gift. Like, I'm telling you, Mr. President, don't argue that. You know, it's he Scott Pelley could sense that he was out on a limb and, you know, kind of threw him an olive branch there. And Biden didn't understand and continued to defend his 8.2 or his 8.3. The final question I wanted to ask you about was, it was an interesting exchange on whether Biden's going to run again. And there was so

many qualifiers in here. There were so many. It finally occurred to me, the Democrats have gotten to him and he may know it's not possible for him. Here it is. Sir, are you committed to running again? Or are there certain conditions that have to be right? Here it is. And it's much too early to make that kind of decision. I'm a great respecter of fate. And so what I'm doing is I'm doing my job. I'm going to do that job. And within the time frame that makes sense after this next election cycle here, going into next year, make a judgment on what to do. You say that it's much too early to make that decision.

I take it the decision has not been made in your own head. Look, my intentions I said to begin with is that I would run again, but it's just an intention. But is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen. I don't know. He can't run again. He'll be lucky to finish the next two years. Everybody knows that knows that he's not going gavin newsom is already here in california it's basically announced he's going to run and there's and they know that the people that were in that primary megan in 2020 are not capable and that's how we got joe biden we're we you and i are critiquing joe biden but it's on the premise that compared to the other people that were in that field, whether it was Cory Booker

or Beto or Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, he was the best they had, the most presentable. But now they have a new group of younger people, I think, and he's not going to run. And he can't run if he wanted to. They're not going to let him. So I say they, because you saw what they did with Jim Clyburn and what they did with Biden. They just decided that he was going to be the nominee and he was going to be old Joe Biden from Scranton. And then all of a sudden, mysteriously, Warren dropped out and, you know, Bledjig dropped out and Bernie dropped out almost on cue and Biden was was anointed. Hmm. Even with his approval reading inching back up, it's nowhere near as low as it used to be. And now on his string of legislative victories, you know,

half of which may be struck down in court, but okay, his numbers are creeping back up. Yeah. But, you know, I went back and I think a lot of people have, if you go back to the two greatest setbacks of the Democrats in the House in the last you know quarter century it was bill clinton's 1994 wipeout by newton reach and the contract for america and then 2010 tea party rebuke of barack obama in both of those cases it was pretty clear that entire summer that they were going to really suffer but after labor day all of a sudden the media said we have new polls the red wave is disappearing there's going to there's a renaissance by uh obama's now more popular clinton's got his mojo back kind of like the aviator joe stories and that was not true and i think the same thing is true now that i mean we're going to have the cycle dramas megan we're going to have the return of january 6th that was exhausted now they got their second win we had the trump raid

that kind of fell out for a while then we had the phantom of the opera of speech with all those and then we and then we have now the january 6th so they're going to do anything other than talk about the issues but they know what's coming. And I don't think anybody that's listening should be fooled. They're going to really suffer a really big rebuke. And I think a lot of the polls, as we know from those two critical years in 94 and 2010, were off by about four or five points in every race. The Phantom of the Opera speech is an interesting way of referring to Dark Brandon.

That play, that show by Andrew Lloyd Webber is now closing after 30 plus years on Broadway. I didn't know that. It's an interesting parallel there, Victor. It is finally closing. The Phantom goes on no more.

It's going to be closed soon. If you haven't seen it and you want to get to New York, now's the time. And that may be the case for you and your relationship with President Biden, if you like him too. May not be here for that much longer. I don't mean alive. I mean president. All right. More with the brilliant Victor Davis Hanson as we pick up what happened in Martha's Vineyard and is still happening. An update on what they're doing right now after this very quick break. Victor, the immigration crisis has taken a turn I've never seen before in the years I've been covering this as our southern state governors fight back. Governor Abbott in Texas, Ducey in Arizona, and now DeSantis in Florida, taking migrants and busing them to sanctuary cities in blue states, like New York City, like now we see Martha's Vineyard, thanks to DeSantis, Washington, D.C., and so on. And Governor DeSantis just said those first two flights that he

sent to Martha's Vineyard were, quote, just the beginning. This is we get news that another six buses from Texas have just left to bring more of these migrants to New York City as the shelter system here reaches its tipping point. But the Martha's Vineyard reaction is what made all the news, right? Like this town, and I get it, it's a small town, they only had 50. 50. They reacted as though 50,000 had been sent to them declaring a, quote, humanitarian crisis on Martha's Vineyard because 50 people showed up. What do you make of it? Well, it was almost like a caricature. I mean, 50 people and they all virtue signaled, they all took pictures. They said they were all patting each other on the back and then they shipped them out. And then everybody went back and calculated how many empty bedrooms were

on these empty vacation rooms. They came up with like 100,000. How many people could possibly be there in the summer if they had no facility? There were 200,000 and they could have a million. I, you know, I'm at ground zero here in Central California, rural California. And right over there, Megan, there's two or three houses about a quarter mile away. And there's old farmhouses that somebody purchased.

And then they have sheds shops garages barns winnebago's that don't run trailers that don't run and there's 50 or 60 people in each one of these places so i can tell you that 50 people can live exempt from regulation at least in california not every blue city and they can, they're fine, I guess. And so this community that I live in has been inundated with people who came illegally across the border, nobody cared. And so, you know, it's, it's, it was a brilliant stroke, because on a lot of levels that Ron DeSantis is trying to show, I think, the Republican constituencies that he's Donald Trump's mega agenda. You can have the mega agenda, but you don't have the Twitter cul-de-sacs or the gratuitous

insults. And then people threw it back at him and said, yeah, but you won't, nobody can fight the left and gets up every morning thinking, I got to fight goes to bed every day say i didn't do enough but when he took on disney and people like that and then he does this they're starting that's what this is intended to show you that he's he's as fiery as trump but he's more focused and honed in on the message and the message is that we have a bi-coastal leak that's never subject to the consequences of their own ideology. Maybe it'll start a trend that maybe we can say you can't be on a private jet if you vote for the new Green Deal. Or we should say everybody should take a pledge not to live in a house with greater than 5,000 square feet so we don't use too many carbon fuels or, you know, we could, if you, if you are against charter schools and you're pro teachers union, then maybe you shouldn't put your kids in prep school, stuff like that.

And it could start a whole chain of events. I'm sure that people in Florida are thinking about what's next. And then, you know, another thing is that they're kind of emulating the left because the left has dominated the news cycle, as I said, with January 6th and the raid and the, and dominated the news cycle, as I said, with January 6th and the raid and the semi-fascist and the speech. And now all of a sudden we haven't heard that.

It's performance art on the part of the Republicans, but it's more effective because it's connected with a real issue, an open border, rather than just Donald Trump's supposed nulladrome. Some on the left and soft right have been pushing back against DeSantis' tactic saying, this is very wrong. You're using human beings to make a political point. I mean, I will say, I mean, there's been hysterical people. Some are referring to this as like the Holocaust. That was Ken Burns on MSNBC. I mean, OK, this is not like the Holocaust.

But the way I see this every day, because we cover the border a lot here, sometimes with you and you're living it. by coyotes or drug gangs or bad dealers who are endangering the lives of kids and women and innocent guys every day or trying to look after their families. This message of open borders is getting people killed. And so if 50 people need to get on a plane to Martha's Vineyard, which, by the way, the reporting is that it was consensual and it was voluntary and it was disclosed. There's some question about that, but that's what the majority of reporting is. In order to send a message to people that this isn't going to end well and that your policies in your sanctuary, sanctuary cities so-called are actually getting people killed. Then there's a very good argument that it's worth it. These 50 people are not going to get killed.

They're going to get well taken care of. I mean, if you say to people in my community that are here illegally and just cross the border, and I see them every day, a quarter mile from my home and in my home, I mean, people come by and knock on the door and they, you know, and I said to you, I can give you a ticket right now to go to a seaside resort called Martha's Vineyard. That's one of the wealthiest places in the United States. And it's got more, they would love to go compared to what they're living in now. And so that was one of the things that DeSantis deliberately did. It was very hard for them to make the argument that they're being exploited when they're being ushered into one of the most tony communities in the United States. The second thing he did, which was smart, was he didn't create these tactics. He just emulated what the federal government's been doing for a year and a

half. They have been busing and flying people in non-transparently, but unlike DeSantis, who did it during daytime, they do it at night. And in this area that I am in, they have flights that come in and then people. And who does it impact? When you talk to people, they say the following, Megan. They say, you know, we're really worried about our schools because we fought hard for advanced placement. And we can't have advanced placement because we don't have the resources if we have all these non-English speakers. And these are not white prep school parents. They're Mexican-American parents.

And this is one of the reasons they're going to vote against, a lot of them are going to vote against the democratic agenda. And they say things like, my mother is on dialysis. And all of a sudden there's people coming across the border and they swarm the health facilities. Or they'll say, you know what, these people are coming across the border and they're M13 or Norteños or Serenios gangs. And they go rough up my kid because he doesn't speak Spanish. They call him a gringo. And so there's all these other problems that the left doesn't care about. It's basically an elite problem that this, I don't want to use that word too often, but a bi-coastal left-wing elite, mostly white, that virtue singles and performance art, they're carrying

as a psychological mechanism, because I really want to be very careful, but I don't, I work with them at Stanford University. I don't think they feel comfortable with people who are poor or non-white, and they know that, and that's why they create this entire alternate universe of caring, and you could really see it. That was what was so interesting. You never really saw an example like Martha's Vineyard, where if you looked at their faces, they were shocked. Like, what are we going to do now? They knew they had the resources. They knew they had rooms. They knew they had empty hotels. They knew they had empty homes. You could have put them all in a beautiful tent city on the Obama's lawn. It's so huge.

Okay, we lost his mic. So we're going to try to fix it and break and we will be right back. We hope with more Victor Davis Hanson right after this quick break. But I will tell you, there's much, much more because I've got to play you the soundbite of what the woman, the coordinator the Martha's Vineyards residents who shoved these immigrants out of their town so fast, if you blinked, you would have missed their stint there, are now saying they're going to go visit them in their new location. Okay, sure you are. So we were talking about these coastal elites who are, they support these policies in theory, but not in practice when it comes to their neighborhoods. And just to set you up just a couple items on the news, El Paso, Texas right now, completely overwhelmed.

Thousands are already filling the local local shelters there, which are at capacity of illegal migrants. Children as young as two being forced to sleep on the street in El Paso because they do not have the facilities to house them. The Border Patrol in one week alone released 1,000 migrants onto the streets of El Paso. And now you've got Martha's Vineyard with 50, 50 migrants bused there reacting as follows. Here's Lisa Belcastro, the coordinator for Martha's Vineyard's homeless shelter, Harbor Homes. Watch. The difficult challenges are we have at some point in time, they have to move somewhere else. Right. We cannot we don't have the services to take care of 50 immigrants.

And we certainly don't have housing. We're in a housing crisis as we are on this island. And so we don't we can't house everyone here that lives here and works here. We don't have housing for 50 more people. And then just just to follow it up, Victor, Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington, D.C., the nerve of this woman. Listen to her soundbite. We're not a border town. We don't have an infrastructure to handle this this type of level of immigration to our city. But we don't have the ability. We're not Texas. Because Texas, you see, Texas is set up to handle 1000 migrants a day in El Paso, and kids drowning in the in the Rio Grande trying to get over. Sure, they're set up. It's so bad in Eagle Pass, Texas, they estimate they're recovering one dead migrant body a day,

as people try to get into the area or get there and can't survive. And so like this is absurd for these other towns, these sanctuary cities to say like, hey, we're not Texas. Yeah, I think the subtext is that these are a bunch of Mexican people and this is a Mexican person problem. And they live along the border. They're Mexican-Americans. So this is this is people coming in from the country they used to come in. So let them handle it. We're not going to handle it, even though the people in these communities had no vote or no say in who set border policies, which came from Washington. Nor do we, we don't discuss that the people in Martha's Vineyard, if you polled them, say,

I don't know, a month ago, they would be for open borders. That's why we have open borders. The left likes the idea for a variety of reasons. They feel that they're creating a constituency that will be dependent on the federal government for a generation, and that's in their interest. They feel they flip California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, maybe Arizona and Texas someday. So they see that as a electoral a electoral strategy. And they talked about it. And they've always talked about the new Democratic majority. And so they created this and they let it go on because they want it to go on. And what they're angry now is they've been exposed that they don't like these people. They don't want them near them. And she says,

we don't have the resources. You want to say, well, how did you have the resources to welcome in 200,000 wealthy visitors just a month ago? Who took care of them? Where did they stay? If you can't have 50 people. And when you have Michelle Obama and Barack Obama about every six weeks come out of their Calorama mansion or their new Hawaii mansion or their Martha's Vineyard mansion, and then basically indict America for being illiberal, you want to say to them, just give us one bedroom and one bath, or just give us one quarter of an acre on your lawn. And they won't do it. You could help. They can do it. Look what Poland's doing for the Ukrainian refugees, right?

Like people are opening up their spare bedrooms and letting them stay there. I have some American friends overseas who are opening up their homes to house these refugees. But these people who have a sanctuary city

who try to pride themselves and claim to be our moral betters by saying they would, that they're ready to take care of these people. When push came to shove, refused to do it, they shoved. They shoved them off to a military base on Cape Cod. They did. I did.

And everybody has to make it. This is the policy. Everybody has to make an adjustment. I walk every night on my little 42 acres. And every other night I see somebody from Oaxaca, Mexico, who does not speak English and wants to walk around, or he wants to take his 22 and shoot something. And I just say, you know what, go ahead, go ahead and do it. That's the new reality. Everybody, you're not going to go back now and say, get off my grass, that type of attitude, because you can't,

because there's 3 million people who've come across the border and you can see it everywhere in my community. You can see it all through rural California and all the rules of civil... And just to clarify, so it's 2 million encounters, but that does not include the so-called getaways. So it could be as many as 3 million who've come into this country over the past year or attempted to. And they don't care. They don't care about the people who suffer on the communities. They don't care about the immigrants. They don't care about the fentanyl that's going to kill 100,000 people a year. They don't care about the cynicism of the Mexican government that uses this as a safety valve and likes to cause problems to the United States. They don't care about what the Chinese are smiling with their drug conduits. They don't care about any of that. And they do care that they're seen as progressive and enlightened from a distance. But this is why they're so angry And then you say, well, Joe Biden's been busing and we got the idea from Joe Biden and we're doing it day. He did at night. And they say, well, we don't have a facility. Well, you did have those facilities for tourists and mansions when they were rich white people. Yeah, exactly. And so it doesn't they're squirming and squirming and squirming. Well, now now those same Martha's Vineyard residents are looking back at their 12 hours with these migrants as though they were the Polish taking in the Ukrainians.

They say this is the headline from CNN. They enriched us. Migrants 44 hour visit leaves indelible mark on Martha's Vineyard. Somebody's actually saying they enriched us in their day here. They have a piece, one piece of the article says, one asylum seeker in his early 20s ventured down the street to explore. He asked about the price of a hamburger at a fancy eatery. When told it was $26, he noted that was more than he earned in a month in Venezuela when he could find work. And you've got this nugget. One guy says the governor of Florida got it all wrong. He thought we wouldn't know what to do. And actually, people here really give a damn. They really care as they booted these people off to a military base, again, in under two days. One woman, Jackie Stalling, says she hopes to visit the migrants at the Cape Cod base, a temporary accommodation. She's going to visit. And that's going to make Jackie feel

better about her sanctuary city message while at the border, kids are women are being raped and kids are drowning in the Rio Grande every day. I just want to show this video. I think we have time. I'll describe it for the listening audience. Deeply disturbing. You can see a young boy. He looks to be about maybe 10 to 12. He's in the middle of the Rio Grande and he is going under. He's splashing violently. A passerby jumps in, has to swim over. And the guy narrating the video and the original, you can hear his concerns that he's going to die. He's going to die. He didn't die. He was rescued by this one person. But as I say, up to one person a day is dying in just one of these towns, Eagle Pass, Texas, not to mention

all the others who die in the back of trucks, who get raped and sold into sex trafficking. So why doesn't Jackie spend some time thinking about how to stop the lure to these people and taking these risks instead of talking about going to visit the people at the military base who she helped kick out? Well, it's a permeate. This idea is permeating. It's the same ideology why John Kerry flies around in this gas guzzling, carbon-polluting private jet to save us from fossil fuels. It's the same idea of these people that I have to work with at Stanford University. Those kids are in the most tony prep schools, which I have no

problem with, except they damn charter schools, they damn Catholic schools. They damn any public school that tries to reform. And they love teachers unions, but they never would put their children there. And we've created this entire, I know it's a trite term, ruling class, but they really do believe that because they were the winners in globalization, that they have skills or money or influence that allows them to pontificate without ever suffering any of these consequences, whether it's shutting down the fossil fuel industry, opening the border, hyping this inflation. They always are protected. And now that that veneer was torn off, Megan, that scab, and we looked at this wound, it's pretty ugly, these people. It really is. They don't care about anybody but their lifestyle. When that woman said we're not equipped, what she meant was we demand a particular type of lifestyle that we earned and nobody else has it.

And we're not going to give it up for anybody. And that's our birthright because we're superior to everybody. And that's where you really get into this. should apologize to Miss Jackie because I don't know whether she helped push the immigrants out. I just know that her town did. I've got to got to squeeze in a quick break, but I've got to play for you. Karine Jean-Pierre's reaction to all of this, Victor, because it may be her. It may be her lowest moment yet. And that's saying something. She went off notes. It didn't end well. More with Victor Davis Hanson. We'll be right back. So, Victor, on the subject of these kids and their families who try to make it across the border to get into the country right now, and we're expecting to set a record this year on the number who are crossing or attempted to cross. Fox News went down there and interviewed.

It was Griff Jenkins, my old pal Griff Jenkins from Fox, and interviewed one of these migrants and listened to the following very telling exchange. Oh, this is in D.C. actually. Okay, so this is somebody who had been bused to D.C. by one of the southern governors. Take a listen. Is the border closed? Do you believe that the border is closed or is it open? It's open, not closed. The border is open.

The border is open. Do you believe that all the migrants believe that the border is open? Yeah, everybody believes that the border is open. The border is open. Do you believe that all the migrants believe that the border is open? Yeah, everybody believes that the border is open. It's open because we enter. We come in free. No problem. But it's open for you to come illegally, right? Illegally, yes. Illegally. That's true. And you came illegally. Yeah, we came illegally, not legal. I mean, there it is, black and white. It begs the

question, when we see this every night that the border's open and we see the people entering illegally say, confirm the border's open, and then they say it's closed, like Kamala Harris or Secure, they're lying. And everybody knows they're lying, but we don't know what to do about it because they control the border. And so it's almost Orwellian, you know,'t know what to do about it because they control the border. And so it's almost Orwellian. You know, it's what you see, what you know, what people say is an alternate reality. It's so ironic because they kept saying that Donald Trump lived in an alternate reality. But this is just bizarre.

Well, I mean, it's crazy when you think about the fact that 60 Minutes did not bother to ask Joe Biden about this crisis. Like of all the things that made the list, this wasn't one of them. Thank goodness. Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about the crisis and asked whether the White House stands by its comments direct from Kamala Harris, direct from Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House spokesperson, that the border is, quote, secure, that it's secure. And truly, this may have been her lowest moment yet. She made the mistake of going off of those notes, which she so desperately needs. It didn't go well. Here it is. Does the White House stand by those comments that the border is secure? What we stand by is that we are doing everything that we can to make sure that we follow the process that's been put forth. That's why we have historic funding to do just that, to make sure that the folks that we encounter at the border be removed or expelled. These are the people in charge. There's no one left to root for.

No, I mean, what does she mean, the process? The process means that somebody legally comes across the border and they get across and then everybody knows you get across, so more come and more come. And she calls this a process and then she calls it secure then everybody knows you get across so more come and more come and she calls this a process and then she calls it secure and everybody knows she's lying or she's either lying or she's so incompetent that she doesn't even know what is going on but it doesn't really matter they're doing this and the quick the only thing that's mysterious megan is why are they doing this why are they doing this and uh i don't know the answer other than I feel that they want a constituency. They feel, and it'd be highly ironic that within a generation, these immigrants, if

they stay, may become a little bit more skeptical of the people who welcomed them in because of other issues that they're not compatible with. But nevertheless, in the short term, they're right. This is the constituency they want. And they feel that it will bring dividends in the near future for them. So they're willing. The border is not porous. It doesn't exist. They destroyed it.

They destroyed federal immigration law. And this really is going to be interesting because if the House Republicans take over and there's going to be a lot who are going to talk about impeachment, I'm not sure that's wise politically, but if they were to introduce articles of impeachment, it wouldn't be over a phone call to a foreign leader. It would be over the deliberate destruction of federal immigration law and the inability or unwillingness of the commander in chief to faithfully execute the laws as he swore. He wouldn't go anywhere in the Senate probably. But the point is, if there is such a thing as an

impeachable offense, this is it, to just deliberately destroy federal law the way that Biden has. The Democrats now are crying foul saying this is human trafficking. It's not even close. I'll just give you my legal opinion. Not even not even arguably human trafficking. Gavin Newsom, who's challenging Ron DeSantis to a debate, is also urging Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate DeSantis and other GOP governors who have been sending migrants in sanctuary cities for alleged kidnapping and civil rights violations. Meanwhile, everybody, we're told, who gets on these buses signs a consent form and is told where you're going. And to your point, who wouldn't want to go to this beautiful coastal beach town? But OK.

So Gavin Newsom looking for attention. And Eric Adams, again, sanctuary city in New York, his city mayor, says this is a humanitarian crisis now here. Right. So Martha's Vineyard had one with just 50 migrants. New York City says it's suffering a humanitarian crisis. Texas has shipped more than 7,700 illegal immigrants to Washington, D.C., and more than 2,000 to New York since April. So 2,000 plus in a city of 8.5 million. By the way, we have 20 million a day when people come in to do their jobs.

Can't handle this, according to Mayor Adams. And meantime, you compare that to what's happening in the Texas towns. Del Rio, Texas had almost 50,000, 49,500 migrant encounters in July alone. 50,000 in July alone. 50,000 in July alone. That is more than the population of the city itself, which is just over 34,000 people. Think about that.

Martha's Vineyard, humanitarian crisis with 50, they have 17,000 people there. And just one other stat for you. McAllen, Texas has a population of 142,000. They also took in more than the population of their entire city in migrants during the past year. So these sanctuary city mayors have a lot of nerve saying humanitarian crisis. And they know what it means. It means that you have people arrive in these communities along the border from the poorest regions in the world, Central America, Oaxaca, Mexico, and they come and they have no

English skills and they don't have a high school diploma. And they have many cases, they bring their families. And then immediately what happens? They have to go to school. So then the school districts have to provide non-English instruction. And then where are they going to live? They don't have any money to pay rent. And so you're going to have to find rental agreements for them. And then you've got problems of law enforcement. You've got problems of health. A lot of people come with a lot of health problems and the system is already dysfunctional for poor people anyway under Obamacare. And so these people in Martha Vineyard know exactly what they're talking about when they say, get them out of here because it's inconvenience for everybody. If we just had 200,000 people come legally and we vetted them, it would work, but not 3 million. And then think of the disparities.

We're telling people in the U.S. military and the federal workforce, if you don't get vaccinated, you're going to lose your job. And yet we're welcoming foreign nationals across the border without a vaccination test, a test for COVID or a vaccination. So actually, the citizen is of less importance to this government, this administration, than is a foreign national, because we don't apply the same rule. I just came in, you know, in June, and I saw a person that had lost his passport on the plane coming in from the Middle East, and they were not able to go in the United States. They had to go in a special one. What does that say, that a person who's not a citizen just walks across? And so they understand all too well all of the difficulties, economic, social, cultural, political, that happens when you swarm people without any audit

or any background checks. And that is why they don't want them in their communities, because they know too well what they're doing to other communities. And they don't mind because they don't like these border communities. They do not like red state America. They don't like the governors. They think it's kind of cute and neat that their open barter policies fall exclusively on these people. And I won't get into what they mean by these people, but I think we all know. And now there's a little tiny boomerang, just an iota, and they go hysterical. And I think it's going to continue. To your point earlier, if they're so upset about the busing of migrants or the plane fulls of migrants from Texas, from Arizona, potentially funded by Florida even now,

to these northern towns, why weren't they upset when Joe Biden was doing it? Why weren't they upset about the plane loads of people who were coming to Westchester County, New York, overnight that the New York Post got on camera? They couldn't have cared less when it was their leader doing it. But when the towns that actually have to deal with the crisis do it, it's the Holocaust.

Chris Hayes of MSNBC, deeply, deeply sick and dehumanizing to fling human beings somewhere vindictively. I mentioned to you, oh yeah, here's a CNN reporter, former CNN reporter, Jackie Schneckner, who tweets, the Nazis also had a relocation program, referring to DeSantis. And so they're really actually comparing this to Nazi-esque behavior. So your bottom line on whether this actually is working and whether it was a good move by DeSantis et al. Absolutely. It showed them up for what they really are. They're elitist and they have no

concern about anybody other than their selfish self. And they liked it. They thought it was cute. It wasn't that they were indifferent. They knew exactly what these communities were struggling, mostly Mexican-American people. They understood what they were undergoing. They thought it was cute. It wasn't that they were indifferent. They knew exactly what these communities were struggling, mostly Mexican-American people. They understood what they were undergoing. They thought it was kind of neat that they lived in red states and that their policies, not theirs, their policies of open borders and blue state open borders especially, fell on these people. And they loved the idea that Texas and Arizona and Florida were dealing with these problems. And then it came around to bite them and they went hysterical. And you can always tell that when they have the reducto ad hilarium argument. Every time the left is trapped and they have no means of escape, they always evoke Hitler,

Hitler, Hitler, Hitler. Ken Burns did it the other night with his Holocaust documentary. He did. Well, DeSantis, as I said, he says those two flights were, quote, just the beginning. So this is not over. I hope so. Not by a long shot. Victor, thank you so much.

Great to see you. Thank you for having me, Megan. We're going to be right back with a story we've been working on very hard. And I'm really, really looking forward to sharing with you. I knew a lot about Allison and Tom Barklage before I actually met them. They were the couple suffering through life's worst nightmare. Eight months earlier, their teenage son had died suddenly and mysteriously. At first, I was feeling a little nervous our mutual friends introduced us what would i say what if i misstepped and to be honest there was also this question looming

how will i handle being around people whose struggle is likely to remind me of my and most parents most terrible fear but what i soon noticed about about Allison and Tom and their daughter, Alexis, turned their story into a story for this show. Because what I felt around this family, what they exuded was not darkness. It was joy. It was love, friendship. They taught a masterclass at the beach this summer in how to grieve and how to live in the wake of a tragedy. A lesson I needed to share with you. One, two, three, LaSalle! Let's go! It was October 30th, 2021.

The LaSalle soccer team was on a roll. The all-boys Catholic high school had been dominating the playing fields outside Philadelphia all season. That was the day they clinched the league championship. No one was happier about the win than team manager Blake Barklage. As he headed to the postgame party, his mother Allison checked in. The usual back and forth between a mom and her teenage son. I had been texting him about when he was getting home or whatever. And I was like, I love you. Have fun. And that was the last text I sent him. I love you. Have fun. That text, those words would be the last Allison would say to Blake. She and her husband Tom were about to lose their only son.

Their daughter Alexis would have to turn 16 without her big brother, and Blake's friends and teammates Kyle and Hayden would never be the same. We all pretty much had perfect lives and anyone's normal standard. And then after that day, I don't know, it kind of, it was like, it was life changing. The day had been picture perfect, a winning game and the gathering of a brotherhood, young men all going through the rites of passage of a high school senior year. We won the Philadelphia Catholic League championship. And then we went to a team party at someone's house after we won. And did he seem fine?

Yeah, he seemed almost perfectly fine. What happened? Pretty much, we were only at the house for about, I would say, 15 minutes. We were all sitting around a table, and I just felt because we would always like joke around and like hit each other and things like that so like I thought he was just like hitting my shoulder just to like tell me to move out of my his seat or something or um so he like grabbed onto my shoulders a little bit and then like a second later I turn around like with a smile on my face like seeing what he was doing um and he just like collapsed onto the floor

and what happened next um for like i would say like a minute or two i was we were all kind of like freaking i'm not really sure really sure if it was just like he passed out or something. I understand some of the guys tried CPR on him. Yeah. Sean Martin? Yeah, Sean Martin. He was a goalkeeper on the team, and he was the lifeguard, so he tried giving him CPR. But he never came back?

No. Did you guys have any idea what it could be? I mean, at first, I thought he was eating. We stopped at Wawa after the game. And he was eating a hoagie. So at first I thought maybe he could have been choking. That was that was one possibility. And then the other was fainting. But then it was clear that after we could see what was happening to his body, that it was clear that it wasn't either of those two yeah uh i texted my mom and then my mom called um mrs barkridge and i was like is everything okay and i could just tell that it wasn't that's the last person he touched was kyle and he put his

hand on kyle's shoulder and then he went down so but just that drive to the party first in the hospital just like you got a thousand things going through your head we're driving and Allison's talking to one of the moms and then we get a call from the police like don't go to the party go to the hospital so we're just like wow so everything just starts going and we pull in the emergency room and we got put in a room and we're sitting there like and i just kept saying like this this isn't good this isn't good and then the uh the doctor came in tears just so they we've been trying for 42 minutes and just she she didn't make it so it's like like like a thousand things just first of all i go numb but then he's just like what what just happened like this is the nightmare lexi was at a halloween

party then got the message to come home. I remember I ran inside because I was like, what is going on? So I run through the garage door. I just get out of the car. I run in. I open the door and I'm like, where is he? Is he OK? Is he here?

And then my mom was like, no, he didn't make it. I just collapsed, fell to the floor, couldn't breathe. It was the worst feeling ever. Couldn't even like stand to like, literally stand. I couldn't even stand up. Like I was just sitting on the floor, like hyperventilating. Like it was, it was just unbelievable. How, how were your parents at that moment? My dad, um, you would stop crying for about like 30 seconds.

And then you would just think like, this is real. Like happened to us like and then it's just a repeat it was like a loop right again like it was just I remember looking at my parents and like thinking like they just lost their kid like this is unbelievable. It would take months before they understood what happened. I want to ask you about the cause, because you did ultimately get an actual diagnosis of what led to his death. So what was it? Lymphocytic myocarditis. What does that mean? An infection went to his heart. His pediatrician was wonderful, spoke to the medical examiner for hours on my behalf, and I spoke with him as well during the investigation and everything. Ultimately, I guess he had some sort of

infection. We'll never know. This is the part we'll never know. I don't know how long ago a virus would have been in a system to have, but he had no symptoms. He didn't have any allergy-like symptoms. He had no symptoms right before he passed. So we'll never know that piece. But he had fluid in his lungs, his heart was enlarged, and the ultimate cause of death on his death certificate was natural lymphocytic myocarditis. Of course, people will ask, was it related to COVID? Was it related to the vaccine which he had? Do we know the answer to that? No, unfortunately, we'll never know. I mean, he was vaccinated in that May, or end of April, second dose in May of 2021.

So he died in October of 2021. But he donated blood at LaSalle, just in a blood drive, the March of 2021. And he had the antibodies for COVID. So we never tested him for any COVID. Early on, we think he had the antibodies for COVID. So he had never, we never tested him for any COVID. Early on, we think he had it, but he didn't really have any strong symptoms in July of 2020. He had strep in August of 2020. And those were the last times he ever had any symptoms of being sick. So little over a full year of him passing away. And I think they say within five days, if it's something to

the vaccine, someone else had mentioned it could be up to 40, which we are certainly out of that window. But we'll just, we'll never know the cause of the infection that went to his heart. Impossible as it was to believe, an enlarged heart took down a kid already known for his big heartedness. Let's introduce Blake to the audience so they know a little bit about who he was and what he was like, because I've gotten to know him this past summer and I feel like I know him now. I feel like I met a new friend. And you spend enough time talking to you guys, talking to his friends, his sister, and you really have this person come alive for you. And I know that's important to you guys.

So tell us a little bit about him. He was so witty. His friends have lots of funny stories, you know, of him. And so I really wouldn't have thought of that initially, but I think he was funny. He was extraordinarily intelligent, kind. He was your typical son, your child, because he would love to challenge us. Like he always thought that he had the gift of gab that he could outsmart us out out with us and i would always try and get him follow some of the footsteps some of the things i did when i was growing up in terms of being a caddy i always wanted him to be a caddy at the local golf course and he loved it he embraced it like i did and he met some great people on the course and i received some great messages but he was just a a kid that i would love to sit on the couch and watch received some great messages, but he was just a kid that I would love to sit on the couch and watch a football game with and be like, okay. And I

remember a great story with him, which we were watching a Clemson, Georgia football game. And he goes, dad, whoever wins this game, that's going to be my number one choice to go to school. And I'm like, no, it's not. It's going to be based on a lot of other things. But it was just the conversations that we had. And that's something that's missed is just the time that we had with him was unbelievable. I would say he was like super caring, like in a way that you don't see in a lot of people. He was, I'd say, hardworking. Hilarious. Outgoing. Outgoing.

He's very smart. He's the smartest in the friend group. He was always there for me, and that's just the type of person Blake was. He was always just like the life of the party, always cracking jokes and making everybody laugh and smile. He was always so intentional with everything that he did and said and that he always made you feel cared for. I think also in addition to his wit that really, you know, was critical to me as his passion looking for service,

which really he developed entirely on his own in high school. Blake was a volunteer at Treest Hall. It's a home for men with intellectual disabilities. He sat a lot with this one gentleman who had Down syndrome. And we've started to volunteer there since. I love it. And the guys there missed him so much, talk about him. Even in death, he gave to others. Or they must not have seen the organ donor on his license, but we were about to walk out and I was like, wait, he's an organ donor. And they're like, oh my gosh. And so we got a call a couple of days later that somebody who knows somebody

who worked in a local hospital down in Philly, and they said a angel delivered life to a few kids down at a certain hospital. And they said, we can't know for sure, but we know it's Blake's. Do we know even the number of recipients? I think they said like 71 or 75 recipients. I mean, it's incredible. As touching as Blake's gifts were, I couldn't help but wonder if any of this would really ease the pain of a grieving parent. Can anything be of comfort after you lose a child?

How are you functioning? How are you like this? How can you functioning? How are you like this? How can you talk? How can you? I'm not good. It's still brutal. I mean, the pain, the pain is just like, we wake up every day.

It's just like, okay, here we go. Here it is again. And it's how you choose to handle it. And again, I'm emotional. I'm a very emotional guy, but I go through the day and it's some good days, some bad days, but it's just like, I know Blake is sitting there like that. Just keep moving forward.

You just don't have a choice. And we have this situation. We have, I mean, someone texted me recently, unfortunately, another, a girl, 20, I think she was 20, passed away of a sudden cardiac arrest in the area as well. July 9th. And her mother, when I was talking to her, the father actually spoke at the eulogy and he had said in there, you know, you could be bitter or better, you know. He was only 17 years old. It's hard to make sense of. As I've watched the Barkledge family this summer, all I could think is there's such goodness surrounding them at every turn. There's something about this family and there was something about Blake

that has brought out the very best in everyone around them. That's Blake's gift. That's their gift. You know, you hope it doesn't happen in the wake of a tragedy. You hope it doesn't take a tragedy to see that in your life. But you guys are part of that. And I just wonder if you could tell me what the LaSalle community has gone through in the days after you lost Blake and then the weeks and months to follow. They say it's a brotherhood at LaSalle. And that was after what we experienced. I definitely believe it. seeing like all the guys

come together to support us and even we had a game for Blake and like the amount of kids that came out was unbelievable you've earned yourself another day in by far the most difficult circumstances any of us could imagine everyone supports each other and just pushes you it's awesome always made me feel like one of the guys you know Everyone supports each other and just pushes you. It's awesome. Always made me feel like one of the guys, even though I was some little freshman. He was just a big, loving, friendly giant. He was always smiling. Even when he wasn't having his best day, he was there to make somebody else feel better. Blake had like a way of making literally anything we were doing fun. Blake's friends, they're a huge part of this story the way they've rallied to

openly talk about him to keep his memory alive to support you two and lexi has been inspirational i know they used to call uh you guys the group that hung out together the divine nine and tom saw you recently and said hey the great eight and what did you guys say it's it can't be it can't be that because you still got blake it asked me nine yeah it's always going to be the nine of us this picture was taken of the guys last october within a month eight of them would be pallbearers at Blake's funeral. They remain a constant presence in the Barkledge's lives. I kept spending time with them. Like, guys, this is where we need to lean on each other. Like, I need you as much as you need me because I want to hear about the stories. I want to hear about the funny stories. Maybe not in front of Allison, but you can tell me those stories. I

want to hear about Blake when I didn't see what he hit for me after what happened we're we're literally like family now yeah especially with alexis like she said to us early on that like she gained like eight new brothers like her birthday was a week after blake passed away so we all like came together really quick um just like try and make her birthday special for her but divine nine came the house, snuck into the house with presents. We got video of them walking up the stairs, tiptoeing up the stairs, banging on her door and then going in and she's like, and they all sang happy birthday to her.

Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Alexis. Happy birthday to you. Oh, thank you, guys. Just try it. Thank you. All right, come on, get closed on.

We're going to Wawa. Are we actually? Yes. How divine are they? Oh, they're divine. They're great. They're like the best guys. Like it's, I don't even know how to describe them because they're all so different, but they all like come together and they're, we each add like a little different sprinkle of personality to the group, which is funny at sometimes, which annoys me at sometimes like a little older brother would like they they actually are like my

older brothers now which is so crazy to me because they treat me like a little sister like they'll embarrass me in public like a older brother would they'll make sure i'm having no boy problems like they make sure of it every time i see them they're like no boys mistreating you right and i'm like oh my gosh no and they're like all right we just have to make sure like we have to ask even i remember one day putting up christ ornaments, the lights outside. Blake and I would always do that. I started putting the lights up, broke down in tears, walked away, couldn't do it. Next day, seven, eight of the boys are over at the house helping me put the lights on. They're such good kids. Good kids who will never forget a good friend.

Whenever we would see them, it would just like light up the whole hallway. You could always make sure they use ph supporting his friends to the highest standard. Especially in the beginning of this year, I set like a list of schools that I was going to apply to. And like almost every day he kept asking me, he was like, so did you put your stuff in for that school yet? Did you apply here? Did you apply there? Did you write this? So stuff like that where it's like, well, I was getting forgetful or I didn't really want to apply to that school, but I set it on my list. He just like kept motivating me

and kept pushing me to get it all done. He would love to debate on things on certain topics. And I loved that. I loved his passion for politics. He was an advocate for what he believed in, even with people he loved, right? So it's easy to challenge someone you dislike, whether it's a president or a corporate head or even a parent with whom you don't get along.

Maybe you feel more emboldened. But when you're at an institution like LaSalle, his high school, that you love and you really consider yourself part of a brotherhood within, it's harder. It's harder to raise your voice in challenging decisions. And he did. I know he sent an email to the administrators at the school challenging and asking serious questions about the

mask mandate. And I mean, this is a cause near and dear to my own heart. But what I love about the way Blake did it was it was done 100 percent out of love and respect. He really had questions about why they had promised the kids that if they got the vaccine, they could take off the masks. And then it was revoked. And he said, I received my Pfizer shots in May and was told I did not need to wear a mask because of my vaccination status. Fast forward till midsummer and the first rumors about vaccination status being non-important while considering masks were being spread.

Now those rumors are our harsh reality. The government, state and national has been mandating me to do certain actions for the past 18 months. And now I feel that my freedom to choose and autonomy is gone. Freedom without autonomy is imprisonment. Amazing. What did you make of that when you saw it? So we were blown away because we didn't know. Tom and Allison found out about the letter when the head of LaSalle read it at Blake's funeral.

It took me at least two months to read it. I couldn't get myself to read it, but it was just amazing how he respectfully challenged. And that's the key word that Brother James said, that he did in such a respectful way that we wanted to listen. We had to listen. So, yeah, I mean, you read further in the in the mail and he and he writes as follows. I love America. America is a shining beacon of freedom, liberty and justice across the globe. Freedom is probably my most important virtue in our society.

I also believe order in a society is needed. So I'm not against government in the slightest. I just have a problem that after all this time and multiple assurances that my personal freedoms would not be infringed, the government overreached. Blake got it. He loved his country. I mean, he loved everything about it. I mean, down at the shore house with the American flag always up there. It was just, you go into his room and that's what you can tell he was a true- A back-to-back World War champions. Yeah. Things like that was just unbelievable about him. And even the books that he read,

I mean, he read a lot of books about the American history and things like that. Blake's patriotism was well known to his friends who introduced our family to Tom and Allison. That reminds me, Tom, of this year, and I told the audience about this after we did it, but we've been having annually now a 4th of July celebration that's patriotic and celebrates our country and our values, at which we have taken to reading the Declaration of Independence. And we asked you if you would be one of the readers this year, just getting to know you. We didn't know you prior to this summer. And you said yes immediately. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute a new government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such forms as to them shall seem most likely to affect the safety and happiness. All of his friends show up wearing like basically head to toe American flags. And we talked about it afterward. We were telling me how much Blake loved America and how, you know, you see these signs. It's like, why did we ask you? We didn't really even know you that well. We just thought you'd be amazing.

And you were and you got up there and you felt a connection with him. And all of his friends came decked out into the American flag and they felt the connection. And then we felt it, too. Even though Blake's applications to college were withdrawn, an acceptance letter came from Clemson, his number one choice. One day I come home from work and I walk in, this is maybe a month after Blake passed, and I see a big package from Clemson. So I opened up this package and I opened up and the letter says, congratulations, Blake, you're in. Congratulations to class of 2026, whatever it may be. And you have an academic scholarship.

And I was like, again, what I do, I went to the couch and started bawling. And Allison was like, that's got to be a sign from Blake. That's got to be a sign. And I'm like, I don't know, but it still, it hurt. Signs, often in orange, Clemson's color, came to them time and time again. The LaSalle soccer team had already made orange wristbands to honor Blake and magnets with his initials.

There was the sunset Blake painted as a boy, which looks remarkably similar to the view from shore of a sailboat not far from where friends were scattering Blake's ashes. There was the family friend who felt drawn to the orange corner flag on a soccer field. She gets the flag and she realizes it's red. And she's like, oh, well, because the corner flags in soccer fields are red. She gets there and she's like, all right, well, Blake, I guess it wasn't a sign or whatever, the orange flag. And she glances down and out of the corner of her eye is an orange golf ball. There was the time Tom was in downtown Philly for a meeting.

We were just going through sales, whatever it may be, and we're talking about emptying your cup. And we talked about, write down what's on your mind right now. And again, I start writing about Blake and I get choked up. I leave. I walk out of the, I mean, 300 people in there. I walk out and my boss comes out and says, Tom, let's talk about it. Blake is still giving it even though he's not here. So we go walk back in the hotel and the door's locked. So I walk around the front of the hotel and I bump into a car and there's a BB magnet right on that car.

And I'm like, this is, and my boss is like, Tom, that's a sign. My manager's like, that's a sign from Blake that he is here. And then so happened that the manager of the hotel comes walking out and I'm like, what's the significance of the BB? Oh, my son goes to LaSalle.

And one of his great friends is Blake Barkley, who passed away. And she's like, and you are? And I said, I'm Blake's dad. And she almost fell down. She's like, I got chills. So that's where going through a rough moment was just like, OK. What kind of signs have you seen? Too many to count. A big one for me and tying it into LaSalle is like as a senior, we go on Kairos, which is like it's called like God's time. It's a three

day retreat that all the seniors go on for like all of us getting close as a class, but also getting close with God. And I was lucky enough to go a second time and lead a small group. And one of the things that we have to do is we have to give a talk. So my talk was based on God's friendship. So obviously I spoke a lot about Blake and I's friendship and how it now and how it's changed now and how it's developed. But a big thing for me was I was so nervous to get up there and basically prepared to cry in front of 50 kids in my grade.

And as soon as I got up there and said the first word, as I went throughout my entire speech, I kept having to look over to my left because the presence of Blake standing right next to me was so strong where I like had to keep looking over and be like are you like standing right next to me right now. Alexis sees signs too. A cardinal suddenly in her path for example which many believe represents a lost loved one but she wrestles with whether it means what she wants it to. Part of me doesn't want to believe in these signs. And it's just like the other part of me, like the part that I can't control,

like it's just like, I know these are signs. And you say, I don't want to believe in these signs. Why? What are you wrestling with? I just feel like if this hadn't happened and I saw a cardinal, like I feel like life would be the same. And while more private in her grief, she misses her brother constantly i love to

see the sunsets and whether that's just going on my back deck and seeing the sunset or um i do go to the gravesite that's a little more emotional for me if i'm feeling a little more down i'll go to the gravesite because that I feel the most connected there. But actually, that's not true. I actually feel the most I've every time that I'm home and it's a anniversary, I'll like sleep in his room or whatever. For Tom and Allison, option B, the book Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg wrote in the wake of losing her husband has been a comfort. It really helped a lot.

I mean, it talks a lot about loss and devastating loss and to just that you're not alone and different things she went through that we could certainly relate to. But there's the one part of it where she had her daughter was going to, I think, a father daughter dance and her friend was over and she was like, I want my husband here. And he was like, well, we don't have that as option, you know, that as an option. So we have to kick the shit out of option B. And that really resonated with me because we have Alexis who we love more than anything. I mean, and we're grateful for the 17 and a half years that we had with Blake, but Alexis is super, super amazing. And we can't get stuck. I mean, we can't, we have to get out of bed every morning. We have to, you know, we, and we

have so much joy with her still so much laughter. And we all three of us miss Blake terribly. But he's with us. And we need to continue on. by the way you talked about its role in your life at Blake's memorial service this summer at the shore and she's done exactly that this past weekend Cheryl Sandberg got remarried and managed to find love and I don't know if we can say her broken heart was healed but it's certainly soaring in its own new way. And I reached out to her and she sent a video message for the two of you, which there's a little bit of background noise because she's literally going to her wedding within 24 hours. But I have a message for you from Sheryl Sandberg. Hi, Alison and Tom. I am so inspired and saddened by your story. The loss of a child is a truly tragic thing, but you've worked so hard to keep this memory alive.

And I know that so many people will remember Link for the loving way that he was. I know you're inspiring so many people because when people face real loss, real grief, it is how we persevere through it that changes our lives and the lives around us. I hope you take care of yourselves. I hope you take care of each other. I hope you know that it does get better. It never goes away completely, but it does get better. And that makes memory live on, not just in your heart,

but in so many hearts. My thoughts are with you. My prayers for your resilience are with you. We never know how much strength we have until we face that situation that brings it out in us. And we all can see how much strength it is. That's great.

It's incredible. Thank you. It's like she knows you. Sheryl Sandberg advocated for more flexible and humane bereavement policies in corporate America. Tom has tried to do the same at his company, Johnson & Johnson. She changed the bereavement policy at Facebook. And that gave me the, with that and with Blake's story

about challenging, respectfully challenging, that was my second pain of purpose is really looking into the bereavement policy at J&J. Many companies were five days, five days. And I was talking to my boss.

Again, J&J was phenomenal. Tom, you take the time, but I'm like, but it's not about me. I have, I've got 18 years at J&J and they've been great with it. And my boss and they're all the way up on our side have been, you take the time, we'll work this out.

But I just remember what Blake did by respectfully challenging something that was out there. And I decided to write a few letters. And I wrote a few letters to everybody on the board at J&J saying, here's my story. Here's my story. And I said, I'm not fighting for Tom. I'm fighting for everybody else who may not have the management that I have that has helped Alice and I and Alexis through all this. So I wrote a few letters and I found out that they are looking into it, which is great.

With Blake never far from their hearts, the Barkledges now partner with Simon's Heart, a group that screens children for cardiac issues. A phenomenal organization. People ask all the time, like, if Blake had been to a screening, would he be here? I will never know that, but somebody else might be. LaSalle High School was among the first to do a screening. There was a wait list for the screening that evening,

and the last person to get in via the wait list, they found the condition in. So I don't know any particulars. The mother said that she felt like there was definitely divine intervention. Although my big brother isn't here with me doing what big brothers do, he is now my guardian angel. He's yours too, watching over all of us every day with every orange sunset and every orange rubber band worn on her wrist he's with us alice and tom and alexis will soon mark the first anniversary of

blake's death four seasons on earth without him and eight of the divine nine by Alexis's side. They took Alexis to Blake's senior prom. I obviously knew I wanted to like wear orange to the prom, which was like a big thing for me because it was just kind of like it felt right to just like wear orange dress to my first prom. Kyle and Hayden struck the same pose in this shot as they did the year before with Blake. And so we recreated that. And it's just like, it felt like the thing I was saying before, good and bad.

They walked with Alexis at graduation as she accepted Blake's diploma. Blake Barklage. What do you think the meaning of this is? What lessons has this taught you about why we're here? What your purpose is?

I mean, every time I'm hanging with my friends now, I always just take a second just to look around. Because I feel like when I used to hang out with them, with my friends, I wouldn't live in the moment moment I guess you could say and it'll go so fast and then it's over now like we're all leaving for college the hangouts before last few weeks like I just look around and just I can enjoy it so much more because you like you never know when you'll see your boys again with what happened. Anything can happen. So we just live life to what we can.

Clemson's manned down going into this freshman year. They lost a good one. They did. Thank you. Holy Mary, Mother ofalle. Pray for us. Emotional, right? I'm feeling it. I don't know if you're feeling it, but even if you don't know them, you have to feel for the Barclages and what they've been through. And like me, maybe feel so inspired by how they've handled this, by how they've handled this.

To steal another phrase from Sheryl Sandberg, they leaned in. They leaned on each other. His friends who were missing him leaned on the Barkledges too, and they've supported each other unlike anything I've ever seen this past year. It's an example. It's a blueprint for anyone dealing with tragedy. Don't retreat. Reach out. Be with others.

Keep your lost loved one's memory alive. My thanks to Tom and to Allison, to Lexi, to Kyle and Hayden for helping put together the piece and to Mary Murphy, one of my favorite producers who helped me put the whole thing together. I'm very grateful to everybody who worked on it. And don't forget, Simon's Heart advocates cardiac screenings in children at their annual physicals. And those really can detect a lot of problems that parents might not otherwise have thought of. It's worth considering, especially in this day and age when we're seeing such a spike in cardiac incidents. Thank you all for joining us today. If you have feedback on our piece or thoughts for the Barclages, you can email

me now, megan, M-E-G-Y-N, at megankelly.com. Thank you so much. And check out this piece on youtube.com where you'll see the pictures. All the best.