The Megyn Kelly Show - CNN Refuses to Fire Don Lemon, Biden’s Message to Putin, How the Media Got "Cozy" With Power, with Glenn Beck and Steve Krakauer | Ep. 497

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

Megyn Kelly is joined by Glenn Beck, host of The Glenn Beck Program on BlazeTV, to discuss CNN refusing to fire Don Lemon after his misogynistic comments, the network’s plan to have Lemon undergo ��formal training’, Megyn’s advice to Lemon’s boss, President Biden’s new message to Putin, Donald Trump’s upcoming trip to the train derailment scene in East Palestine, Ohio, and more. Plus, Steve Krakauer, executive producer of The Megyn Kelly Show, joins to discuss his new book - “Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People.” They discuss Steve’s reporting on how New York Times staffers turned ‘bloodthirsty’ against each other, the defamation lawsuit against Fox News, the racist media attacks against GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley, and more. Glenn Beck: https://www.glennbeck.comSteve Krakauer’s book “Uncovered”:http://readuncovered.com/ 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. We have a jam-packed show for you today, including Donald Trump's surprising response this morning to Nikki Haley's mental competency challenge. And I have a little advice too for CNN ahead of sending Don Lemon in for formal training on how not to be a misogynist. Literally that's happening. Joining me now, Glenn Beck.

He's the host of the Glenn Beck. That's so crazy. That's so crazy. Don Lemon, just fire the guy. For the love of Pete, fire the guy. Honestly, grow a pair. Be honest about this. You know, here's what I love about it, Glenn. They had pictures in the New York Post of Don Lemon in Miami and South Beach frolicking in the ocean over the weekend. And the Daily Mail was writing about and the New York Post, too, about how he he just looked totally relaxed and happy. And I was like, that is the face of a black gay male who is uncancellable at CNN. Glenn Beck, you would not be looking that way if you said anything

close to as misogynistic as what he said. But he's protective of either one of us. When we were at Fox, if we would have said, well, let's be honest, Hillary's pastor prime. Do you think the world wouldn't have caved in on top of us? Right. No, it's it's different. And that's the third thing. Black, gay, liberal man who gets the protections that the rest of America doesn't get. So that's why he looks relaxed. It's why he will not be fired. And it's why he's been out over his skis when it comes to women and other issues for a long, long time. It's why he got away with helping Jussie Smollett when he was facing criminal charges like he gets away with stuff. You would never get away with Glenn Beck. No. And I and I shouldn't get away with it.

None of us should get away with it. This is why I think the left is easy to beat if you just call them on it. If you don't flinch and you call them on it because they they don't they cannot back anything up. They are weak. They haven't been pushed so they can refine their argument. Even it just goes into or you're a fascist. That's that's why. That's why. They have never been pushed. Anyone who is a conservative has been pushed up against the wall over and over and over again. You have to check yourself. You have to see, am I those things? Is this right? Why do I believe those things? They don't have to. No, they don't. And now like the farce of CNN, I'm pulling up my tweets,

sending him for reeducation camp, which is so absurd. Like that's going to work. I mean, I guess we just have to pretend that he's going to learn how not to be a sexist at this camp. I don't know what the camp looks like. Did they put Chris Cuomo through the camp? Did they put Jeff Zucker through the camp? Because their camp sucks. They need to revise their camp. They need less horseback riding, more time with actual women who are strong and know how to stand up for themselves. Here's my suggestion. I've got my own plan for Don Lemon. Okay.

Day one. This is my tweet. Day one of Don Lemon's formal training on how not to be a misogynist. Let's help. We got you, Don. Number one, women are's formal training on how not to be a misogynist. Let's help. We got you, Don. Number one, women are not damaged goods when they hit 40. That that could take a whole day, Glenn. I don't know. That could take a while for them to let that sink in. Number two, number two, rape victims don't need your lecture on how to respond to their rape.

That was his infamous comment to a Bill Cosby rape victim telling her how she could have gotten out of it in his in his view. Number three, women forgetting a fact do not have mommy brain. They're human. Tell it to as he cop who he offended by accusing her of mommy brain when she forgot her train of thought for screaming at your female co-anchor because she interrupted you to the point where she runs away is considered rude and unprofessional. Number five. Sure, we can start there. Number five. Postponing an ad break to mansplain to said co-anchor in front of the audience

how to properly conduct an interview is an act of, and this is a technical term, douchebaggery. Number six. I'm almost done. Defending sexism with some of my best friends are women. It would not excuse racism. Some of my best friends are black and it does not excuse sexism. Number seven, I am going to continue to be me, which is what he told the CNN newsroom when he was forced to call in and apologize on Friday, is not an acceptable plan when me is a guy who clearly loathes women. No, me needs to change.

Me needs to go away and come back in a different form. And last but not least, number eight, when under fire for misogyny, try to at least look and act sorry. Perhaps the orchestrated frolicking in the ocean pick with the shirt off could be postponed into the controversy is a little bit more in the rear view. There you go, Glenn Beck, free of charge. There's my own reeducation camp. Thank you. Thank you very much.

I appreciate that. Is it crazy that for the last few weeks we have been talking about Don Lemon? We have been talking about Don Lemon. We have been talking about balloons, the possibility that those balloons may have been piloted by small little aliens who buy their balloons at Hobby Lobby. I mean, I can't believe the nonsense that is being jammed in front of the American people every single day. And like, it's like, are we going to war? Cause it kind of sounds like it. So that's, I've been listening to your show too. And it's like, it took Joe Biden going over to

Ukraine to snap a lot of people out of like, wait, what's he doing there? Why are we, we're, we're going next level. We're doing another half a billion dollars as the American public support for this war and for our involvement in it is falling precipitously, according to that latest poll. I mean, first of all, you should be in Ohio, not Kiev. Second of all, you should be worried about our Social Security and our pension funds, not the Ukrainian pension funds. We're literally paying their pensions now. You pointed this out yesterday on your show. He kind of slipped that in there.

We're going to pay for their pensions, but apparently not ours. Yeah. And then on top of it, yesterday the press was saying it is so brave of him. So brave of him. No president has ever spoken on site of someone else's war. Yeah, maybe because it's starting to appear that it's not someone else's war. It's kind of like becoming our war. I mean, well, the other thing is, Glenn, you and I know we both know he called the Russians first and said, I'm going to be there.

And according to his White House team, it was for deconfliction purposes. is, Glenn, you and I know, we both know, he called the Russians first and said, I'm going to be there. And according to his White House team, it was for de-confliction purposes. De-confliction, that's what they said. In other words, don't shoot me while I'm in Ukraine. So could you just spare me on how brave, it's like, there was never any chance of President Biden getting bombed by the Russians while he was in Ukraine. It was the safest place on earth, most likely. And I love the fact that CNN reported as part of that bravery. I have I've been here for two weeks and I haven't heard the air raid siren go off until President Biden landed. Well, I mean, a couple of things. That's probably good advice. President Biden's coming. You might want to hide.

But the other is who did that? That't the russians putting the air raid siren those were the ukrainians there weren't any bombs there weren't any planes russia wasn't threatening so it was the ukrainians going hey we should hunker down here comes the president that that's not a sign of bravery not a sign we had already pre-gamed it to make sure that he wasn't in any danger, as we should. But then don't try to turn around and tell us how, oh, he was so brave. It's amazing how well he handled. Even the Russian journalists are out there saying that's now is a fake news air siren.

And you know what, Glenn? I think they were right. I think the Russian journalists got this one more right than the Americans did. I, I, I, I. did you see the Putin speech today? Yeah. Putin, you did not. Yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah, I did. So he he ripped up the treaty, our start treaty. So there's no nuclear treaty for the first time in decades. That's good. He then went on and said how we are trying to overthrow Russia, that we started this and they've tried to do everything peaceful, but because they want to overthrow us, we can't stop fighting. He won't take nukes off the table. I don't think there is a chance. He

may use tactical nukes, but I think that would be a huge mistake. But I think he's going to do what he said he did. If we are indeed engaging in a war, he'll attack our infrastructure. Ones and zeros, he said, is how World War Three will be fought. And we're not ready to fight that way. But he is very, very serious. And if you look at the way the Western press talked about him, they talk about Biden being so stately and so brave. And Putin is completely unhinged. He's I don't think he's unhinged. He's evil. He's a bad guy. He's a ruthless, bloodthirsty killer. But he's not unhinged. And Biden, however,

is kind of unhinged. The stuff we're doing and the stuff we're talking about has never worked. We are at our lowest level of clout because of him. And we are we're doing things that, quite honestly, I don't think makes any sense whatsoever, unless you're trying to, A, start a war or B, completely dismantle the United States of America. The just to follow up and add some meat on those bones. It was an Associated Press poll. 48 percent of American adults are in favor of providing weapons to Ukraine, which is down from 60% in May. And we are only going in one direction, as you've been pointing out. Yes, we said no for now to F-16 fighter jets, but we did the tanks. We're doing billions of dollars. We send the president over there. Things are only escalating.

We're demanding complete victory. Only our version of victory will be accepted. So the American support is going down, and our president's behavior and his support is going up. I don't understand it. Can you imagine? We all knew that Russia was involved in Vietnam. We knew the Chinese and everybody, all the communists were involved in Vietnam. We knew that Russia was involved in Vietnam. We knew the Chinese and everybody, all the communists were involved in Vietnam. We knew that. But Brezhnev never went to Vietnam and stood among

them and said to the very end, if they would have done that, I think America would have fought that war differently because Russia was our sworn enemy at the time. We have Russia's sworn enemy right now. And our guy is going over to their battlefield and saying, we're with you to the end. And the end means regime change. Why would Russians think anything other than it's our war? Yeah, that's right. We've had mission creep here in the United States. It didn't start off with a total and utter defeat of Russia and regime change. That was a Biden insertion in this whole

process. And now it's gotten to the point where I saw your tweet the other day, you know, call your senator, call your congressman, tell him they're not sending your child to go fight this war. I feel 100 percent the same. My children are going to go fight this war. When did I agree? When did my congressman vote in favor of this war? Because that's where we're inching. You know, we're not even discussing it anymore.

You remember the days when Congress actually did its job and debated. We're not even having a debate on it. It's just happening. And and, you know. I have to tell you, and this may be something that you don't want to talk about or you disagree with me on. I don't know the answer to this, but I am very concerned about the Nord Stream pipeline. Oh, yeah. None of that Cy Hirsch reporting was absolutely stunning. Right. And nobody seems interested in that. And if that is true, if it's true, I'm not saying it is, but someone should look into it. I know senators that cannot get a secure briefing on any of that. That should tell you something. So if we blew that up, that is an act of war. Now, Russia just said that they are preparing to call the United Nations Security Council on that subject. There are only five countries that

could even possibly do it. There's really only one that doesn't have to answer to anybody else and has reason to do it. And that's us. That's an act of war. And if Russia would declare war on us for international terrorism, I got news for you. I would much rather grab a bunch of citizens, surround the White House and say, the president and anyone else involved in this needs to face justice, not mob justice, but they need to face justice. And I do that much faster than go fight a war that we weren't talking about. We would have never approved blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline. If these people did that, I hate to say it, but it's true.

They're traitors. They're traitors to the United States of America. We would never have approved that. And if they went around Congress on approval, what do you do, Megan? You've got to know it. And if it's true, you have to deal with it, because if they'll do that, the people really have lost all control of their nation. Yeah, no, I mean, that really is starting a war without the blessing of the American people, never mind just a Biden operation. I mean, nobody yet in Congress, nobody would have been involved other than according to that Seymour Hearst article, like the darkest forces who would be given the ability to deny it under oath, given the agency they used. Let me just read this, Glenn. White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrian Watson described the Hearst report as, quote, complete fiction. A CIA intelligence, CIA agency spokesperson

echoed the White House denial, calling the report completely and utterly false. And this is supposed to be enough for us to say, oh, well, it's not true. This is not true, Glenn. So move on. I know when you have multiple senators and and Mike Lee has talked to me about this a lot. And Mike is, you know, Mike, he's very reasoned. He's not flying off the handle. He doesn't you know, when he says, gosh, he apologizes for it. And Mike has called me several times and said this on the air as well. Glenn, the fact that I cannot rule this out is enough for me to be very concerned about it. He said when he first started talking about it, he said, I just don't believe we did that. He said, but we have to check it out. He's been trying to get a classified security briefing on this subject, he and others in the Senate and the

House cannot get one. That's not supposed to happen. I mean, going to the CIA and demanding it, like how can they be rejected? Exactly, exactly. And that's what he's saying. How what is happening? Why is no one care about this why i can't get a briefing i can't get the national security to to come in and give a senator

who has oversight a briefing on this operation why and just to update the audience glenn so so this is most people probably saw this last week but but Seymour Hersh released this report saying long term investigative journalist right on some things, not always saying that we blew up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. We did it. The United States, not Russia, as was initially claimed by our government. And we had threatened to do it. Joe Biden's on camera threatening to do it prior to it being done. And ever since then, we've just said it wasn't us, it wasn't us. And you were pointing out on your show recently, why isn't Germany objecting more loudly, right? Like, if it were the Russians, wouldn't we be hearing more from Germany, which was so dependent on Nord Stream, like about the fact that it was blown up or like the fact that they're not saying much suggests maybe they know it was us and they understood why we did it. So let's let's go through the countries that have the capability

of doing something like that. It's extraordinarily technical. It would be I mean, it's just only five countries could do it. China, maybe, but they don't have any reason to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline. Russia, why would they do it? Maybe to make us look guilty. Then why didn't they make that case immediately? Then you have France. France can do it. France doesn't do stuff like that. Why would France do it?

And imagine the turn on the on by the French people and the Germans and everybody else. Then you have England. England could do it, but not without our permission. So we would have to know if England did it. The only one with the motive and the motivation and the expertise to do it and the arrogance to think they could pull it off is us. They're also we're the only ones that would keep everybody in line. Germany, shut up. Everybody sit down. Shut up. This, I mean, just through reason, and usually the easiest answer is the right answer, this needs to be investigated. And the American people have to demand an answer because we cannot let them be this far out of control. To zoom out without diminishing that possibility or report at all, but to zoom out, it's not going very well right now over in Ukraine. And you have to be very

skeptical of the news reports, which have come out over and over telling us that they're winning, that Ukraine's going to win. You know, you have to work for it. This is kind of like a COVID situation in some ways where you have to work very hard to know what's real, because the press is rooting for this complete victory. They would love to see regime change in Russia. I always laugh. You know, they think that like Jed Bartlett's going to take over as the new president of Russia. Right. Vladimir Putin is deposed. OK. And so the guy if they depose him, the guys most likely to take over are the ones saying to him, why are you backing off of Ukraine going in with everything you got?

Oh, yeah. I don't know who we think these mystical figures are. But my point is, it isn't going well. It was going better in the fall. It's going poorly now for Ukraine against Russia. And Ukraine could very well lose this war still. One hundred percent could lose this war and in the not too distant future, despite all of our support. And so why wouldn't we be in there now trying, would have been better in the fall when you're in a better position, to force a negotiated settlement? We're not going to get everything we want. No one ever does. And even when one does, you know, I know you're a historian, even when you get everything you want and you go back and you humiliate somebody like Germany, there can be long lasting effects of something like that that are not good for the for the for us, for the global stability situation.

I just it seems like so we have only one goal right now and it's not a realistic one. Yes. And that leads me to something. And I know I think you have to break. So if you want to break and then can we come back and pick it up right there? Look at you. This is what's so nice about interviewing another host. Yeah. I will take it. Thank you. He's going to do the traffic flow, which I really appreciate. He stays with us after this quick break. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. When you are at your best, you can do great things, but sometimes life gets you bogged down and you may feel overwhelmed or like you're not showing up the way that you want to, or you're just not feeling yourself.

Working with a therapist can help. It can help you get closer to the best or even just a better version of you. You don't have to be the absolute best. You can just be better. Think about that. If you're thinking of giving therapy a try, BetterHelp is a great option. I love my therapist. I've been with him for years. God bless that man. BetterHelp is convenient. It's flexible, affordable, and it's entirely online. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. And if you choose

the wrong person or just not good chemistry with the first person, you can switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. If you want to live a more empowered life, therapy can get you there. Visit betterhelp.com slash Megan today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash M-E-G-Y-N. So, Glenn, I'm going to pick up this discussion, but just to let you know, and to let the audience know, President Biden is speaking right now over in Poland. And he just finished, actually, a minute ago. We've got a little bit about that and two soundbites in particular that play into the discussion you and I are having just perfectly.

One, he's focused on Russia and its energy. Right. Back to the subject of who messed with Nord Stream, who cares about Russians, Russia's energy income, who told us Russia would be totally devastated by the sanctions that we in Europe imposed. But Russia hasn't been. Here's just a little bit of Biden on Russia and energy. He thought he could weaponize energy to crack the resolve, Europe's resolve. Instead, we're working together to end Europe's dependence on Russian fossil fuels. How exactly? Who weaponized energy? I mean, I think we were the ones that weaponized energy first. And how did we, how exactly are we working to end Europe's dependence on Russia?

We know some of the ways, you and I questioning here, do we know all of the ways and what investigation will there be? Turning the page from that, though, he goes on, this is the soundbite the White House is going to want out there, talking about, talking tough, talking tough about autocrats. Here it is. Autocrats only understand one word. No, no, no. No, you will not take my country. No, you will not take my freedom. No, you will not take my future. And I'll repeat tonight what I said last year in the same place. A dictator, better not rebuilding an empire, will never be able to ease the people's love of liberty.

Brutality will never grind down the will of the free. And Ukraine, Ukraine will never be a victory for russia never oh boy where do you even begin on that um that is going to be the new slogan of my uh program though i think i'm going to say that it's top of every hour beginning of every program uh autocrats only know one word no no you will not take my freedom no you will not uh take my country uh what was the third one all of those i kept thinking well that's you that's you you're you're taking away our rights with covid you told us what we could do what we couldn't do you are you are dismantling our country you're dismantling our freedom you are dismantling our country. You're dismantling our freedom. You're dismantling our energy.

And who gave you permission to do all of this? No, no, Mr. President. But may I give you a may I give you two scenarios? Because people think that we are people who are the war hawks think that we are fighting World War Two. And I don't think so. But let me give you the scenario for World War Two. World War Two, you had two main players. You had Hitler and Hitler was going to march into Poland. And while he said for a year, I have no designs on Poland at all. This is from my my history library and vault. This is a I'm showing on camera a a

book. This is a top secret book to the Russian commanders. I'm sorry to the Nazi commanders. It has all the maps of Poland, where the troops will be stationed, where the tanks need to go. This is their entire battle plan. This was printed a year before they entered into the battle in Poland. So you had a psychopath liar on one hand. Then on the other hand, you don't want to have Neville Chamberlain. Neville Chamberlain is the guy who went over and met with Hitler and said, oh, no, he promised peace in our time. Well, no, we didn't get it. This is this I'm holding now is an original letter from Neville Chamberlain to the Hitler youth. He goes over and he meets the Hitler youth and he says, I've met with your wonderful Fuhrer. He's fantastic. And you are the future of Germany. So World War II, people that just wanted peace so badly they'd overlook anything

and a psychopath. OK, people think that he's a psychopath and he'll use Ukraine to pummel the West? Maybe, maybe not. But we don't have a Churchill that is terrifying to a Hitler who will actually stand up to him. We have paper tigers all over. Now, instead of World War Two, let's look at World War One. World War One, most people don't know the political elite in the Fabian Socialist Society. They are they're very much the progressives of today and the New World Order utopians. It was George Bernard Shaw, the political elite. It was Orwell. And they looked at Europe and said, we have to reset Europe.

We can take out where, you know, we're scientific, we're modern minded. Now we got to get rid of some of these old empires. And so they were looking for some reason to go to war. And when they had the excuse, they were all in. And they were excited about it because they thought they could reset everything and right all of the wrongs, and it would be super and it would be a quick war. Well, as we know, millions died. It was a horrendous, horrible war. And in the end, our Fabian socialist, our progressive President Wilson saw this as the opportunity to go to a league of nations, to have a group of nations that would all be working together on all subjects. OK, what happened? That president was the one that went over and helped negotiate the peace. And he punished the Germans, punitive punishments that were beyond

anything of reason. Even at some point i think it was the french that said we gotta we gotta stop um and that because of that which is exactly what zelensky said yesterday not only do we will we not accept complete capitulation and a complete return. But we also will punitively go after Russia. They have to pay for all of it. That's exactly the setup for World War Two from World War One. I think we are headed into a situation not like World War II, but more like one. We're on the wrong side. And the Germans aren't the good side, you know. But in this case, the Russians aren't the good side. But we have ulterior motives that nobody's really talking about. Well, and in the meantime, China and Russia get closer. China now reportedly threatening to offer lethal assistance to Russia

in this battle they haven't yet done. And we are act with China of trying to seem tough, has completely fallen apart. The update in the balloon story, Glenn, we saw that there was definitely the one balloon that was China's. They came across the continental United States. Sure. All of the United States and Alaska made it right. We did nothing. Then we shot down a bunch of like God knows what. I don't know what they were. And neither did the Biden administration. And Blinken canceled our meeting after the big with the Chinese, his meeting after the first big balloon. And now he's just had it. They had the meeting. We made him wait a whole 10 days, Glenn.

So there, take that. Ha ha. Man. Mess with America. Yeah. State Department spokesperson says Blinken, here it is, quote, directly spoke to the unacceptable violation of U.S. sovereignty and international law and said incidents like this, quote, must never occur again. Oh. sovereignty and international law and said incidents like this, quote, must never occur

again. Oh, you never again. You naughty little Chinese. Never. Right. Right. So we're going to send you a sternly worded letter like Buttigieg did to that train company. I'll tell you that right now. That's right. So that's our that's how we're handling the Chinese. Meanwhile, the latest reports are these could have been cheap amateur radio balloons. We have no idea. We've been using four hundred thousand dollar missiles to blast out children's art projects from the sound of it. Twelve twelve dollar balloons. Twelve dollar balloons. That's us. That's us. I feel good. So now we're finally focused on the children's air projects and we're focused on talking to China. And we got Joe Biden over there in Ukraine

saying never, nothing, nothing, no, not an inch. If it gets us into World War III. And we have totally ignored, as you've been pointing out a couple of times, what's happening now in East Palestine, Ohio. I mean, totally ignored. The reports are all over the place, but the White House apparently turned down their FEMA request, implying that disaster relief wasn't it wasn't the disaster wasn't big enough first. At the same time, they said it was too big. New York Post had a good piece on this the other day. You need more than what FEMA can provide. Then after Biden told Ohio Governor Mike DeWine that the feds would give whatever they need. They reversed it again, the White House suggesting

no, actually, no, it's not a job for us. And no one's got Pete Buttigieg says he'll go in the that the feds would give whatever they need. They reversed it again, the White House suggesting, no, actually, no, it's not a job for us. And no one's gone. Pete Buttigieg says he'll go when the time is right, Glenn. He will go when the time is right. Why don't you go right now and take a shower using the well water of an East Palestine resident? Do it now. Drink out of their faucets on camera. He says, oh, people only go when they want to do a photo or when they're actually needed. What's actually needed is for you to go there and do that stuff. Go there and do that stuff right now. Do what you're asking these people to do and prove to us that you believe it's safe. Joe Biden, Ukraine fine. East Palestine, you can pound sand, not go into there. You know, it's so amazing. You know, when George Bush put on the fire helmet after 9-11, some people criticized him. Oh, it's a photo opportunity. He's flying over the hurricane damage.

They did this with Obama, too. Oh, it's just a photo op. Yeah, it's a photo op. And sometimes that can cause more problems having somebody there. But Pete Buttigieg is not going to. I mean, what does he have? Does anybody have like one Secret Service guy? He can go there and not cause a big problem. And it's not a photo op in the traditional sense. It's a very important photo op to put your money where your mouth is, or your life in your lungs, where your mouth is and show up be there for several days breathe the air drink the water that's a photo op and that's a good photo op not a political photo op you're getting off the plane yeah you're getting off the plane and having a meeting east palestine ohio february 3rd

train derailed by norfolk suffolk um derailed and they had a controlled explosion of some of the very toxic chemicals on board. I think it was like something like dozens and dozens of train cards that were involved in it, over 60. So they blew up a few of them that had toxic chemicals. And now the Fed's messaging has been everything safe. It's good. Dead fish, like hundreds of dead fish, people reporting dead animals who are just going out to like, you know, use the lawn as their, you know, toilet, dying the family dogs, people like coughing and having difficulty breathing. And yet the messaging from the feds has been, you're fine. And, you know, Christina Pasha, the press secretary for Ron DeSantis, had a great tweet earlier, Glenn, saying the media and these officials, they hate you because literally The New York Times has a headline saying gas stoves are bad for you and could cause childhood asthma. And mocking some of the concerns being raised out of East Palestine is like insane conspiracy

theories. It's like, no, this is one we actually do need to look into. Anyone with two eyes can see there are real dangers to these residents. So, but Megan, can we just stop there for just a second? How many conspiracy theories have to be proven true before people are just saying you have absolutely no credibility? Media, no credibility. Washington, no credibility.

I mean, this is such a dangerous thing to have a complete collapse of trust. But when they say something, you know, the CDC comes out with a recommendation. And, you know, because some new Ebola viruses, unless we see it, we're not going to believe it. And we're not going to listen to what they say we have to do because they have no credibility. And it's in that on almost every front because they've just so destroyed their credibility and they won't they won't go and put their money where their mouth is. That's why Pete Buttigieg, it's not a photo opportunity for politics. It's a photo opportunity to restore trust. Yeah. If you trust it. Yes. If you trust it, spend a few days. They're going to have to

spend their life there. Spend a few days there in town. You know what else? Take your new twins. Take your two twins. Bring your babies and stay for a month. You do it. If it's so safe, let's see you do it. Bring your partner. Okay. I, if I were a mother there, I would be just as outraged as these mothers. And I know you reported on this, that instead of helping them, what's happening, we're sending in these companies that are getting these people to sign waivers before they can get help in testing the air and testing the, these people have no idea what they're signing. They just want to get the air tested and the, and the ground tested so that their,

their pets don't die. Their kids don't die. They don't die. And instead these sneaky lawyers slip in some sort of a waiver and relief release for these folks before they can get the testing. So can I go over that? Because we were the, I had a resident on the show

who just happened to say last week that we had to sign a waiver. And I said, what are you talking about? Sign a waiver. And she sent us the photo you're showing now of this waiver that basically indemnifies everybody. If you're a corporation governing anybody, you're indemnified. OK, it releases your rights. It releases your rights to sue them. Correct. So and that's just we'd like to test the air. We'd like to test the water. But you have to sign this first.

And 350 people signed it, thought it was outrageous. J.D. Vance then picks it up the next day and he gets the train company to say, oh, yeah, that's that was a mistake. Mistake. Well, really, it was a mistake. They said that they had just cut and paste. And if I give them way too much benefit of the doubt, you can say, all right, maybe that's something they hand out for all train accidents, and it was just there, and it shouldn't have been passed out there. But I'm giving them way too much credit. Let's just accept that. They are trying to make good for it now, I think, because they were exposed. And they came out and said, we are not holding anyone, any of the recipients that signed this.

It's null and void. We have them on record saying it. They're putting a new one out. They got the signatures. That was absurd. That would never have been upheld in a court of law. It was a disgusting, skeptical play to begin with. I'm glad that they've now been shamed out of doing this to anybody else. But I don't I don't think it's a court in the land that would have upheld those releases against these poor people. But but the fact is, nobody's on the ground running herd for these guys. Like the citizens of East Palestine have been hung out to dry, Glenn, as FEMA is like, well,

and we got the EPA there. We don't have the transportation secretary secretary there. Like who's who's in charge of protecting well first of all dewine dewine's in charge and the state should have just taken control he should not have waited 17 days you go in your people need help you think do you think ron de santis i don't understand why governors don't just see what's working and copy it you know just copy it. You know, just copy it. Would Ron DeSantis have sat around with his hands in his pockets for 17 days? No, he would have rolled up his sleeves. He would have been there and he would have solved the problem without the federal government. So and by the way, on the subject of FEMA, DeWine has to ask for FEMA to show up. And apparently he didn thing was a was a crock as well. So you not only have all of these government agencies in bed with the train, by the way, one of the companies that has a tremendous ESG score is this particular train company, which happens to be owned by, yeah, it happens to be owned by

BlackRock and all of the big ESG people. So it's in bed with the government through these hedge funds. And I think it's, is it H-Tech? It's the government's chosen air and soil and water monitoring group. We tried to go get, because I said I'd pay for it. I'll pay for air and water for this woman we had on the air. She's like, I just need to know if it's safe. I said I'd pay for it. We couldn't find a group that would go in against the government's group from the EPA. Couldn't find them. And if you could find them, there's still about $20,000 per piece of property. What's going on?

This is scary. And we had another train derail in Michigan. People are asking questions about all this. Where's all this infrastructure shoring up that we were supposed to have paid for? Thank you. What else is going to happen? You know, this didn't have to happen. And it's obviously going to cost Norfolk Southern unbelievable amounts of money. But the cleanup is really important. And you take one look at those waters and the film inside of them, not to mention the

dead fish. And you know, this is not something you would want near your home. You would certainly not want your pets, your children, or anybody you love anywhere near it. This is a tragedy that we're going to have to get our arms around because, I mean, God only knows how far-reaching the implications are. Glenn Beck, it's always a pleasure, my friend. I feel like we come off on good ground. Thank you. God bless you.

I'll never miss the Glenn Beck show. He's amazing, and he's my neighbor here on Sirius XM. So if you don't hear it via podcast, listen to him live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111. Up next, a never before heard story about just how distraught New York Times reporters and staffers were about Tom Cotton's 2020 op ed during the George Floyd protests. There were crying struggle sessions and backstabbing like you would not believe. Guess who my next guest is? It's my executive producer, Steve Krakauer. Technically, he's got the week off. He's promoting a new book that he's just written about the disgusting media. And we're his first stop on the media tour. So it's going to be fun. We're going to get into

behind the scenes stories about the show, about the media, about all of it. Don't miss that. Joining me now, Steve Krakauer. He skipped work today, but for a very good reason. He's our executive producer and he is also a media critic and he is now sharing his extensive knowledge with you in his brand new book called Uncovered. It's got a nice, like, I like that. I like the cover of it. It looks good.

I'm just kind of taking it in right now for the first time, Steve. It's called Uncovered, How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People. Steve Krakauer, welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Thanks so much, Megyn. It's great to be here. I've enjoyed the whole beginning of the show and now I get to come on. This is great. How do you feel the team is doing without you? Well, I think overall, very good. Very good.

I'm enjoying it. I'm not on comms here, so it's a totally different experience to enjoy the show just as a fan. Yeah, when you're on comms, you can hear all the behind the scenes. Oh, shit. Oh, no. That's the chaos behind the presentation. I'm sure there was some, which Steve is normally at the helm of. So it's great to have you. And I love, love, love this book. I blurbed it. I believed in it. I saw an early copy of it. And I've always loved you as a media critic. It's one of the things that made me reach out to you when we were getting ready to launch the show. And the job was never offered to anybody other than you. You were the person I wanted. You're the person I got for a good reason, because you've always been very sensible when it comes to covering the news. You had you did a stint at CNN. You did a stint at The Blaze. You've you've been somebody who's seen how

the media has worked from the inside, from the underbelly for many, many years. And your conclusion is you love it, but it's disgusting. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. No. And I think actually you and I share a lot. I think we agree on most things. We disagree on some, but I think with the media in particular, especially over the last few years, I would say, you know, 2016, 2017, but you and I started talking about it 2018, 2019, 2020, as we were talking about launching the show, I think we really see it the same. And that is that I think in a perfect world, there would be strong institutional press and there will also be great independent upstarts. But right now, as we've seen in poll after poll, including last week with Gallup, it's at all time lows in terms of trust in the media by the general public and with good reason. I mean, the media really has not earned the trust of the public and continues to do so to this day. I thought on one hand,

oh, maybe Trump's out of office, things start to go in a better direction. It's actually, I think, gotten worse in some significant ways since 2021. And you and I on the outside, in independent press, are really, I think, carving a new lane. And that's part of the reason why the media is losing so much trust is because they have these additional outlets now to find real coverage and to not be treated the way that they are by the corporate press today. Yes. Well, the Trump hangover remains, even though Trump himself is no longer in office. But then came COVID, which I think did, if not, you know, at least as much, if not more, to destroy the relationship of trust between the media and the general public. And we know it was dishonest as opposed to

just sincerely misguided coverage because they never went back and corrected any of their mistakes on COVID. They're still telling us that we should wear masks. Exactly. I think I talk about COVID a lot in Uncovered. And part of the reason is, as you say, in the early days of the pandemic, March, April, May 2020, I get it. It was a totally new thing. People are going to be scared. They're not going to know how to cover this. They're going to rely on certain sources. I talked to Josh Rogin about the way science writers were corrupted. And then the press just trusted the science writers. They must know what they're talking about. No, they're corrupted too.

So I get it maybe early on. But then, as you mentioned, a total lack of introspection, no accountability, going back, correcting the record. And in fact, as you say, 2023, we're still getting stories that are completely, the term that the media loves to use, misinformation related to COVID. And this is not something that I write a lot in the book about stories that are kind of funny and a little bit fun, but this is really serious. And the media had a real responsibility here. You would think that they would drop some of the bad habits they

have when it comes to COVID, but instead, all of those habits were there and gotten worse, as you mentioned, a hangover from the Trump era. And it's really damaging. I mean, I think that really harmed people to this day who now think something about COVID that is not true. You have, there's a great soundbite of your interview because you taped your interviews with these anchors and people. You only took on the record interviews, which is great. It's one of your complaints valid about a lot of the media coverage because that's how they get away with it. A lot of these smear jobs are just absolutely insane where they just get all these unnamed sources to just go on the record and say whatever thing bad they want about Trump, about whomever. So you get Josh Rogin. He reports for The

Washington Post. He's such an honest broker and he's been leading the way on the COVID reporting from the start. Honest reporting, not afraid to cover anything. And it's great because he works for The Washington Post. So that interview is on tape. And I thought it was actually really interesting because he talks about how we're going to play a bit. He was censored even as a Washington Post reporter. And what he realized through the experience was that people are dumb. They're just they're kind of it's not necessarily this mass conspiracy. You also argue this in your book, Uncovered. But people are dumb. The people in charge of the levers of access to their print pages or to their networks don't tend to be very smart, like Josh Rogin is.

Here's a listen to Sod 18. The reason that the media got this so wrong is complicated, but it involves two sort of, again, institutional biases. One was amongst the science writers. You know, when the pandemic hits, of course, you know, we rely amongst the science writers. And when the pandemic hits, of course, we rely on the science writers. There's a whole field of journalism dedicated to science writing. They must know the most about it. This is their moment to shine. It's the once in a lifetime pandemic. And these are the people that are smartest on this issue. And what a lot of people

in political journalism and national security journalism didn't realize was that, oh, the science writers were totally, totally misled by their main sources, who are the leaders of these scientific institutions like the NIH and NIAID and all of USAID and all these institutions that, you know, if you're covering them as an independent journalist that you're supposed to be overseeing, in a sense, you're supposed to be looking at with a skeptical eye, but these science writers were all captured because these were their best sources. And in the world of science writing, that's actually fairly common.

Of course, it's common in the world of national security writing and political writing too, but for some reason, a lot of people thought all these science writers were above all that. Turns out they're not. Yeah. Yeah.

And as you mentioned, Josh talking about the censorship that he saw, he reveals for the first time in my book, we had him on when he wrote his book about China and the influence that it had on so many different areas of our country and the world. And in particular, he spent a lot of time on COVID. An excerpt from that was published in Politico, and it was censored by Facebook. I mean, it was essentially taken down, and he would email Facebook, hey, what's going on? This is a legitimate story. And then they'd put it back up, and then they'd take it down, and they'd put it back up. And he realized in that interaction that I am a respectable journalist. I have access to the people who run Facebook. I can ask them, why is my thing getting taken down? And it can get put back up, even if it has to take a few times. What about the average American who doesn't have that sort of access? What about the average American who's maybe saying similar things to what I'm writing, but getting censored or getting completely kicked off a platform and having no recourse for it?

And as you mentioned, yes, the people in charge, they're not journalists, and they're not even particularly good at their job of censoring. And these are the people that are in charge and have real power these days in these social media platforms, Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere to shape the narrative. And that's exactly what they did with COVID. Yes, exactly. And we experienced some of this ourselves when we had on RFK Jr., Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And we had one goal because he'd been deplatformed by virtually all the social media companies. He couldn't get an interview on virtually any platform. He lamented on our show how he couldn't get on Joe Rogan and Joe Rogan's put on people like Dr. Malone. But RFK Jr. was, he said, a bridge too far. And we had to game plan this out for quite a bit to make sure like

our one goal was to get him on the air and to not have him be deplatformed anywhere. And we did it. Right. It was something that we talked so much about was, A, doing the interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which I think is point number one. But also, how does this live? And we are, just like Josh Rogin, lucky, I guess, to have access to people at YouTube, great people at YouTube who help us navigate these waters that don't really necessarily make a lot of sense. But at the same time, we're not going to sacrifice the editorial in order to have something live on YouTube. But if there are ways of going about it so that more audience can find it, then that's how we want to

do it. That's how we want to make sure that we can find as much audience as possible. So it's a couple of steps, right? The idea of even having someone like RFK on to talk freely. I mean, we had him on for four hours. It was a two-part interview. I believe it was our only two-part interview that we've ever published. And it was so important because we should be a platform for anyone, for any sort of conversations. Now, it shouldn't be unchecked. I think that's a big difference between us and some of the other bigger podcast platforms that do have on people like an RFK. It just is sort of out there freely. It gets censored maybe, and the audience is the worst for it. But by putting it out there, by fact checking when appropriate, by letting him say his views, but also showing other views, the audience is really served. And it's really rare in today's media to go that in depth, to have someone like him on. You know why? Well, first of all, it's ideological for many. But second of all, it required a shit ton of work. And journalists tend to be lazy. Not all, but many, most, I would even say, are lazy.

That RFK interview took all of us forever. Debbie Murphy, Canadian Debbie, worked so hard on all those fact checks, calling all these doctors, calling everybody. We're not doctors. I'm a lawyer, but I'm not an environmental lawyer. How are we going to fact check RFK, who knows so much? And a lot of the viewers would listen to the fact checks, and they said, you know, he disagreed with all your fact checks. And that's great. That's totally fine by me. They're in no way are we like, you must believe

us. We just want the audience to know here's a counterpoint to that. You know, you guys are smart enough to make up your own minds. Exactly. And he would counter that. Look, he shared it as a positive experience for him as well. And that means a lot, too. You know, if he shared it and he hated it, but we felt confident in it, that'd be fine also. But the fact is he's someone who's open-minded, wants a free flowing exchange of ideas. And you're right. So much of the media is, there's real laziness there, like any occupation. If you had a plumber, you'd have some plumbers who are really good at their job.

Maybe they'd get good Yelp reviews. You'd have some plumbers who are bad at their job, some that are kind of lazy, they'd get bad Yelp reviews, and we could kind of weed out who the best ones are. In journalism, it doesn't work like that at all. In fact, it's almost the opposite. A lot of times, the laziest and most incompetent journalists are the ones that get rewarded the most. And that's really unfortunate. We already talked about Don Lemon. I don't know if we have more to say about Don Lemon. I know you gave him a lot of homework, so I'm not sure he's going to be very busy at his retreat. I'm sure he's off in his little recovery camp doing his homework right now.

Well, let's put a pin in him for one second because two things. The RFK Jr. episodes that we're referring to are episodes 282 and 283. He came back on, but those ones that we were talking about, number 282 and 283, well worth your time if you've ever taken a long drive or what have you. You'll learn a lot and you'll love the guy. My God, what a classy, lovely man. Definitely. Okay, but secondly, so COVID, Trump, certain things that drive the media crazy that you're not allowed to touch. You cannot have a heterodox view on COVID, Otherwise, you're a misinformation purveyor. And of course, these third rail issues are in that category too, like Black Lives Matter,

like George Floyd and the protests that happened. And this leads me to some great, interesting, exclusive reporting you have in Uncovered, the book, about the meltdown, the absolute... We knew that there was a meltdown at the New York Times when they published that Tom Cotton, Senator Tom Cotton op-ed on using the National Guard to control the national protests that were going on, that were getting people killed, largely in black and brown communities. That's what he wanted. But there was a meltdown within the New York Times newsroom. You've gotten some new details that show us just how next level it was. Yeah, this was really an incredible story. And I think, as you mentioned, everyone is on the record in this interview, is in the book. Sean McCreesh, who was a New York Times opinion

staffer, now works at New York Magazine, was very candid about what happened internally at the New York Times. This is in chapter 10 of the book. And yes, we saw this sort of play out publicly, in fact, on Twitter. It was a bunch of New York Times staffers said, publishing this op-ed by Tom Cotton puts the lives of black New York Times staffers in danger, which really was sort of a way of putting a real pressure campaign on their own bosses to take some real action here. And action they got. But this was playing out internally as well. And Sean describes these internal,

first of all, the Slack channels were on fire. Of course, everyone was just at each other. This was playing out on these Zoom meetings. This was in the height of the pandemic, June of 2020. Everyone's at home, got a lot of time on their hands, a lot of time spending on Twitter and just getting all riled up. Staffers crying on these meetings, saying that their friends won't talk to them. This is what Sean told me about what happened. And then we saw the fallout. And this was really, I think, why I spend so much time on this story in the book is it's a really pivotal moment, I think, in the media for a couple of reasons. First of all, the fact that lower level staffers at the New York Times could do this campaign publicly

and force out the head of the opinion section, James Bennett, and cause other changes. In fact, one of the changes I write about is that it used to be called op-eds. Now it's called guest essays. This was directly as a fallout of this, right? We need to have more distance between these people who we allow in our pages. So the fact that the kids run the newsroom these days, that's really telling, even at the New York Times. But also, we're talking about a column, pretty benign column by a senator, a guy, by the way, Tom Cotton, who this is his third New York Times op-ed. He had already written two op-eds. This was just his third one, but apparently the most controversial. The fact that that puts lives in danger, and not just activists saying that, but journalists saying that, that shows us exactly where we are in the media.

That is a real low moment for the press and something that I think has real ramifications for the future. We talked about this last week when the show was in Vegas. I had a speech that I was giving out there, so we moved the show out there for a couple of days. It is a good sign that The New York Times didn't go the same route on this trans pushback because they offered, you know, I would say it's like almost fair coverage. It was certainly not anti giving kids hormones and anti doing surgeries on young kids like you'd hear on this program or on some of the more right wing programs. But it was kind of exploring some of the downsides of that in recent months. And the meltdown from the far left activist crowd and the trans representatives who honestly,

as you heard me say many times, have the worst representatives was epic. But the time stood its ground this time. It is really notable also. Yeah, I agree. I mean, they did some reporting. That's basically what they time. It is really notable also. Yeah, I agree. I mean, they did some reporting. That's basically what they did. They weren't drawing conclusions. They did a little bit of reporting on this issue.

They've certainly done reporting on the other side of the issue where this is a great thing. So yes, and they stood their ground. I think that does show that the pendulum is shifting in the other direction. As bad as the press has been in the past, and I've obviously written a lot in the book about it, I end with, I think, some optimism and some potential solutions. And I do think the fact that the New York Times stood its ground and actually sort of castigated its own staff for saying, you're not allowed to sign this letter. This is activism that you're doing. That's a total polar opposite change from the way that they acted during 2020 and the Tom Cotton op-ed. Now, it is a slightly different issue. So perhaps that weighed into this a little bit. I think that if you look at polling,

the Times is much more on the side of the public here than, and I would say the Democratic Party than the average Democratic voter than maybe during some of the racial coverage. But I do think it's encouraging. And I hope that is a sign of things to come. Because again, this is not asking that much. It's just saying, stand by your own fair reporting, just some reporting, and don't give in to these loudest activists on Twitter. I mean, it's fascinating to think about a news organization getting credit for pushing back on its journalists becoming open activists. That used to be the standard. You used to not be able to do that at all. And that leads me to CNN and Jeff Zucker's destruction of it. I mean, he destroyed that organization. And I have nothing against Jeff Zucker personally, honestly,

like I have no personal beef with this guy, but I watched what he did from the outside. He took a once great news organization or at least good and completely ruined it because he had a personal beef with Trump because he wanted to see Trump brought down. And he turned he turned somebody like an Anderson Cooper or a Wolf Blitzer, completely previously anodyne news anchors into activists that people started to loathe. Who could loathe Wolf Blitzer? Well, if you listen to him night after night, he could bore you to tears, but he couldn't drive you to have actual tears

because of his outrageous opinions. But he got there, not to mention Lemon and Cuomo and Brianna Keillor and half the other daytime crew that's now been demoted. I know. But Don Lemon would be in that category, I would say, with Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer of as late as maybe early 2016 was a pretty normal news anchor.

I mean, he had some sort of flourishes to himself, I think, but at least he was generally kind of curious. He was generally sort of not I wouldn't I don't know if I'd say introspective, but he at least kind of didn't take himself too seriously. That completely shifted during the Trump era and was encouraged to shift during the Trump era because of Jeff Zucker's direction. Now, I worked at CNN. I worked at CNN with Jeff Zucker very closely. I write about it in Chapter 6 of Uncovered. I think that there was this idea that Jeff had that I sort of disagreed with, but that there was one big story. And in 2013, when I worked there, that big story might've been the Boston bombing. And we spent a lot of time covering that. It just put all of our resources towards that. That's the only thing we're covering today. I mean, not the only, but that's basically how we thought about it. And then there would be stories

like the poop cruise or maybe the missing plane that maybe people attacked a little bit more, but we're going to put all of our resources to it. We only need one story. People only kind of tune in and out. We need to put everything behind it. And during those things, there is some journalistic credibility to it. And then Trump ran for office. And in the primary, the one big story was this phenomenon. He got attacked from the other side for showing the empty podium, for airing Trump rallies without any interruption and not doing it for any other candidate. And by the way, before you go on, why did he do that?

Why did CNN do that? Money. I mean, it's ratings. Totally. Right. It was good for business. And Jeff Zucker was at Trump's wedding in 2005. And he was a very, I mean, you could thank Donald Trump for Jeff Zucker's rise at NBC.

In fact, that's been written. I write about it in the book that Jeff and Trump were so connected because of Celebrity Apprentice. And it was this huge hit for Jeff Zucker when he was at NBC. So there's a personal connection there in addition to the business side of it. And then he becomes the nominee and things start to shift. And then he wins, shocking everyone. I mean, even when he was the nominee, I think there was a sense of, well, he's definitely going to lose to Hillary. Everyone in the newsroom thought that. And then he shocks the entire newsroom and wins.

And then it's war. And Trump's welcomed that war. I mean, the enemy of the people and fake news. And he made CNN this punching bag. And CNN was happy to oblige. And this is really where I think things went off the rails. Because I think that there were some people at CNN who believed they were in this existential fight for democracy and that this was this giant moment. And some people probably didn't believe that. They thought, okay, this is good for

business. But the people that believe that, instead of what they decided to do, okay, we're in this existential fight. So we need to sort of drop our principles and standards or lower them because this is too big. We have to just go and attack Trump because the stakes are too large. When I would say, if you really believe that, I don't think that we were certainly in an existential crisis, but if you really believe that that was the threat, then that's when you double down on your standards. That's when you say, we're going to even hold ourselves to even higher standards because the audience, if we want to make sure the audience understands this threat, we need to make sure they trust us. So they went the opposite direction. It was a complete failure. And now the new administration over at CNN is

trying to dig themselves out of this giant hole that they found themselves in. Yeah, you're exactly right. I'll give you one example. Back during the Obamacare years, Barack Obama, if you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. I was on the air every day during that whole thing, and we knew it wasn't true. And never once did I call it a lie. I bent over backwards to not attribute motive to his misstatements until it came out that he knew it was untrue and he was saying it and he intentionally misled. That came out as a news report years after Obamacare had been passed. And then I started calling it a lie. But that's what it took to use the L word, right back where contrast that with what CNN did to Trump. You undermine it. You don't need to say he's a sexist pig. He's a racist jerk. He's a liar. Whoever you're

talking about could be Trump, could be Obama, could be anybody. You just need to give them the facts to let them decide. It has the total opposite effect. You're totally right. By you covering it, Obamacare, that way, it gives more credibility and more trust in the public, especially, I would say, independents and maybe people on the left who are watching Fox News, and there are a lot of them at the time, that gives them more credibility. For CNN, if they, again, really believe that this is what Donald Trump is, that he's this liar, that he's this racist, then show me. Don't tell me. And if you did, I think they actually might have had more of an effect. And again, this is not just CNN. This was happening everywhere.

The Washington Post, I mean, just as soon as they put democracy dies in darkness on the front of the cover, it was over for them. I mean, it was just a total failure. And this happened across the spectrum with the press. And it had the opposite effect of what they were intending. And they never learned their lesson. And they still don't learn their lesson. I mean, obviously, Trump's running again. We'll see how that pans out. But they have learned seemingly very, very little from the mistakes that they made and the credibility that they lost over these last five to seven years. In the news today is something about this guy, Wajahat Ali, who's a commentator on MSNBC. And you were the person who first called attention to his segment on CNN with Don Lemon, that's now, and Rick Wilson, yeah, of the Lincoln Project, sneering at Trump voters.

And I'll tell you, you know, but I'll tell the audience what Wajahat Ali is saying today about Nikki Haley in a second, but he's up to his old tricks, suffice it to say. So he went on CNN with Don Lemon and this clip, perhaps more than any other that you watched and you tweeted out totally viral, encapsulates the failure of CNN, the destruction of CNN, the self-destruction of CNN that caused so many people such just disgust as they watched it. Hold on a second. Do we have it? What soundbite isite is it all right here it is sat for here it is donald trump couldn't find ukraine on a map if you had the letter u and a picture of an actual physical crane next to it he knows that this is you know an administration defined by ignorance of the world and so that's partly him playing to their base and playing to their

audience uh you know the the credulous boomeromer Rube demo that backs Donald Trump um that wants to think that that that Donald Trump's a smart one in there oh y'all y'all elitist or them you will you will lead us with your geography and your maps and your spelling even though my math and you're reading yeah you're reading you know your geography knowing other countries sipping your latte all those lines on the map only they may lead us know where ukraine is oh my god he's there's all such jerks don lemon's crying he's laughing so hard it was an amazing clip i i was reliving it. So that was a 1050 at night on a Saturday night during the impeachment hearings that were going on. Don't ask me why I was watching CNN. I was going to say that. You were literally the only person. That's why you found it.

I know. I was watching it and I was shocked by it. And at the time, I remember saying, someone else is going to cover this. I'm just going to just move on. And then the next night, 24 hours later, nothing had happened. And it was sticking with me. I mean, I could not get it out of my head because it wasn't an attack on Donald Trump. It was an attack on half the country. And it was so gross, not just the laughing and the accents. And it just, it bothered me so much. So I put it out. By the next morning, Donald Trump had shared it himself and it just it bothered me so much. So I put it out by the next morning. Donald Trump had shared it himself and it just it just went completely viral. And obviously he almost did win. And it's just it encapsulates the week after Don Lemon comes out and says women are past their prime when they're maybe four, like maybe 40, definitely 20s and 30s, you're prime. Maybe you could reach 40 and still be prime, but definitely not after. And Chris Licht, who's

now the new president of CNN, this is according to the reports it. I got this from Mediaite. It says, at a town hall meeting, Licht reportedly said that if saying stupid things becomes a trend for Lemon, then there will be recourse. And I tweeted out, if, if, has, I realize he only took over about a year ago, but there's a history here. Hello. Hello, McFly. Yeah. Don Lemon has, I'm always reminded of this amazing profile of Don Lemon. You've got to go back and see it. It's in GQ. I think it's 2015, 2016, right before Trump. And it starts with this amazing anecdote where he's having lunch with the reporter and for dessert, he says, I'll have some sorbet. And the reporter says, oh, you mean like sorbet? And he goes, no, no, it's called sorbet. And then he calls the waiter over. It's called sorbet, right? And he's like, sir, it's sorbet.

And he's like, oh, well, you learned something new. It's like, look, and that's the nice Don Lemon. That's when he was curious and sort of fun. No, he spent years saying stupid things and more importantly, offensive things, I think, to so many people, including, I would imagine, CNN viewers, that it is amazing. Although he has been, of course, relegated to The Morning Show at this point. In theory, I guess he's back tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. It does not seem like, he seems like the old regime more than perhaps anyone right now

who's left at CNN. And I can't imagine- Do you think he's going to survive this. I would be surprised if there's a long term plan where Don Lemon is the star of the morning show for CNN or the star of any element of CNN. I it just he seems so representative of what they're trying to get out of now. And I don't have reporting on this, but it certainly feels like Don is... What would be the purpose of it? The ratings are horrible for The Morning Show. He's only making news in the most negative ways possible. He's bringing down two, I would say, pretty good journalists in Caitlin Collins and Poppy Harlow. Mileage may vary on that. But what is the point of it? I can't

imagine it's a long term fit. I I've been critical of some of how like Poppy and Caitlin have handled this, but I like them and I do think they have potential and I think they're solid in terms of their their earnest. And I think given the chance, they will develop into strong morning host or at least anchors. However, here's how I see this latest decision by Chris Licht. Here's a question I have for him. Do women matter? Do we matter? Because it shouldn't have to be that you were raped by a man or 21 women come forward alleging that they'd been sexually harassed by a man or they'd been inappropriately touched by a man for their offense to matter. Because we have seen person after person get fired because they caused offense, mere offense when it comes to race, when it comes to sexual orientation, when it comes to gender identity.

Do women's offense, does women's offense matter? Does it matter? Because this guy managed to piss off half the country and it's not left or right. It's male or female. And by the way, a lot of the men are with us. You don't have to be a Me Too supporter to be irritated and offended by what Don Lemon said. This one's not breaking down along partisan lines. You know, you've got Janice Dean with a great op-ed online. You've got Maureen Callahan. She's always great. You've got Anna Quinlan, the famed author, and she's a lefty, out there tweeting about what a moron he is. You've got the White House, Karine Jean-Pierre, taking a shot at him. This is not a left and right. This is about decency. Do women matter? Does our offense matter to CNN or does

someone have to grab a boob for us to count Chris Licht? That's my question to you because Don Lemon's reeducation camp is a farce. It's a lie and we know it. We know it. No one's fooled by your stupid fig leaf, Mr. Licht. So do something real. Proof to us that you actually see this guy's got a repeated problem with women. He's a sexist. How are you going to let him cover Nikki Haley? How is he going to cover anybody? How's he going to cover Kamala Harris? He doesn't respect women. He doesn't respect the two women he sits at the anchor desk with. And for them to continue tolerating him makes them part of the problem. There's the rant of the day.

There you go, Steve. Cut that clip. Let's get that out. But you see my point? Like, I'm just sick of it. Like, why? Why does somebody have to, like, stick his hand down my shirt in order for my offense to matter as a woman? Why?

Right. I think Don, on some level, thought he was criticizing Nikki Haley, criticizing a Republican. And so that's all that he was really thinking through it. And maybe in the old era, that might have been a way of going about it. I mean, certainly, I'm sure he said very offensive things about Trump in the context of race or other aspects of it. I don't think it really registered to him exactly what he was doing. And then when it was made clear to him, even in a very casual way with Poppy Harlow, he still didn't get it. He doubled down in the most embarrassing way possible. And seems to since then, I guess he's given some sort of apology on the you know, on Twitter a little bit and on the morning meeting. Nothing really has happened. I mean, he's had a few days off so far.

I went to Miami and frolicked in the ocean. Yeah, I it does. It does not feel sustainable, I will say. And I'll be very curious to see he in theory is back on the air tomorrow morning. It's going to be super awkward. We did, by the way, call CNN and asked about whether there's been any history of problems with Don Lemon and women at CNN, and they ignored us. They blew us off. Okay, fine.

You don't want to hand out people's personnel files. I get it. You're not going to be able to avoid it forever. If he's got some history, we're going to find out about it, and then you're going to look stupid. Then you're going to look really bad. And by the way, Chris Licht, I know you're new. You should look into it right now before you give him another pass. Why don't you satisfy yourself that there isn't

a history about which you must be aware as the head of this newsroom that you owe to his female colleagues and the other women at CNN and in the audience for that member, for that matter. I just the whole thing is outrageous to me. He called and he didn't apologize. He tweeted out it was an inartful comment and irrelevant comment. He did not apologize until he reportedly was made to call into the CNN newsroom. And his apology went over like a lead balloon, according to The New York Post, which then he comes out and says, well, but I got to be me. I'm still going to be me. Well, you sucks. What is irrelevant? You need work. Irrelevant. It's relevant to a lot of people, actually. Not irrelevant. I don't think you used the right word there.

No. Once again. But the Google told him it was the right word, Steve. Embarrassing. Okay. So moving on from Don Lemon. I'm dying to talk to you about what's happening at Fox with this Dominion lawsuit. Yeah.

And also Project Veritas. James O'Keefe booted out of Project Veritas. Honestly, it's like it's like the Megyn Kelly show without Megyn Kelly. How is that? That's no longer a thing. Shutting down. So we'll pause right there. You guys, the book is called Uncovered.

Support Steve, support his honest look at this disgusting industry and his solutions for it called Uncovered by Steve Krakauer. He stays with us on the opposite side of this break. Don't go away. So, Steve, I got so excited about the Don Lemon thing, I forgot to play the Wajahat Ali soundbite ripping once again on this time a woman, this time, yes, a Republican, of course, just like your last clip, and this time calling Nikki Haley a white supremacist. OK, here he was on MSNBC last night. She's the alpha Karen with brown skin. And for white supremacists and racists, she's the perfect Manchurian candidate.

And her father came here because he was a professor. He taught at a historically black college in South Carolina. That's how she became the proud American that she is. And yet what does she do? Like all these model minorities, which by the way, is the strategy of white supremacy to use Asians in particular as a cudgel against black folks. Instead of pulling us up from the bootstraps and pulling others from the bootstrap, we're taught to take your boot and put it on the neck of poor browns, immigrants, refugees, and black folks. She uses her brown skin as a weapon against poor black folks and poor brown folks.

And she uses her brown skin to launder white supremacist talking points. And the reason why I feel sad, because no matter what she does, Mehdi, it'll never be enough. They'll never love her. Oh my God. It's been a while since we've heard something that racist,

even out of Wajahat Ali's mouth. Right. We get sexist from Don Lemon. We get racist from Wajahat Ali. And then we get Mehdi Hassan, who as someone who has a book out around now, I keep an eye out at what other people have books out soon. Mehdi Hassan, who's sitting there nodding the entire time and has his own, it was his show on MSNBC, has his own, let's just say, history of making comments about Republicans in very derogatory ways. And I believe later in that clip also had his own thoughts on Nikki Haley to slam her in seemingly racial ways. He has a book out next week called Win Every Argument, The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking. And I wonder if Mehdi Hassan and his audience think that this is winning an argument. This is losing an argument.

This is so embarrassing. It's so harmful, not just for, you know, Vicky Haley fans. No one's being persuaded in this way. But even for people in the center and center left that watch this and are just disgusted by it, people that are not in New York and DC newsrooms in the rest of the country, no matter what political persuasion they are, are grossed out by this. This is why I disagree with the end chapter of the book that media can be saved by some, well, you have sort of a four point plan, but I don't, I just feel like once you show

them, you know, this guy, Wajahat Ali, the earlier comments in CNN, we played these on MSN, that you hate them. They're not coming back to you. There's no recovering from that. No, not with Wajahat Ali as a pundit, for sure. And not with the other people that I think have just been, their credibility has just been so destroyed during the Trump era and the post-Trump era. That said, I think that the public is generally a forgiving public. And I do wonder if there was, happened to be some introspection, I think it's going to need help from other people. I mentioned things like ombudsmen, ombuds people who could be within news organizations and call out this crap at an MSNBC, an MSNBC employee in theory. I mean, okay, this is a little pie in the sky, I understand. But

at CNN, could they get someone internal there whose job it is, is to be the public editor, to call out what they see on the air at their own channel and to at least raise questions and ask questions about it? I think that that could do a world of difference, but certainly not with that pundit. It could help. I don't know. I don't think it could solve, but it could help. Just because we teased it at the top of the show,

and I said that Trump has now responded to Nikki Haley. He says it's a good idea. He likes the mental competency test. He says we should do a physical one too. I have to say good for him because he's kind of like, she's talking about Biden. He's like, fine by me. I have to say good for him because he's kind of like, she's talking about Biden. He's like, fine by me. I'll take it and pass it. The next big thing that's going to heat up is the GOP race. And I think that the first debate, I guess, is already going to be scheduled

sometime in July or so. I'm very curious to see who comes in. But right now it's Trump and Nikki Haley. We're sort of in the early days. I'd love to see it comes in. But right now, it's Trump and Nikki Haley. We're sort of in the early days. I'd love to see it get a little bit more interesting. So rude to John Bolton, Steve. Oh, that's right. That's right. John Bolton.

Nasty. Nasty man. It was across the pond. All right. Let's move on to Fox News in the news this week and the absolute meltdown on the left about this lawsuit filed against Fox by Dominion. It's a defamation lawsuit based on Fox's coverage during the post-election period where lunatic Sidney Powell, who once was a respected appellate lawyer, said she was going to release the Kraken

and that she had proved Dominion voting machines were changing votes from Biden, from Trump to Biden, and that she was going to be able to prove this. And she got a fair amount of airtime on Fox, Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro in particular, but I think at least one or two appearances on Hannity as well. And the media, it was very interesting to me because I will tell you as a defamation case, even lawyers who I respect are saying it's a good one because they think that Dominion can prove actual malice because they've got Fox hosts, Tucker, Sean, Fox executives, Suzanne Scott and others talking about how this is a lunatic claim. How Sidney Powell is crazy and that this sounds absolutely nuts, bonkers what she's saying. But then they've got people like Maria platforming her, Sidney Powell, and allowing her to say the things. So they think this is going

to prove actual malice that Fox had knowledge it was untrue and allowed it to be said on their air anyway. I've got my doubts as a lawyer, I have to say. I don't think Tucker saying she's a lunatic and he did not platform her, he called her out, is imputed knowledge to Maria Bartiromo. I mean, people have different views and different standards. You know, does it look good for Fox? No, it doesn't look good for Fox. And that's sort of where you come in because you're somebody who observes the media. I will say this one other point though, Steve, they're all over Fox being worried about the bottom line. We're losing viewers. You know, the audience already mad at us for the early Arizona call. Well, let's go back to the question I asked you about why Jeff Zucker used to run video of Trump's empty lectern. As if Fox

is the only one who cares about maintaining an audience. For sure, that was a goal. That's reflected in these texts. But to pretend that they're the only one is a farce. What do you make of it? And I'd be very curious to see if there's a settlement at some point as well. I would have loved to see some of the texts from Maria Bartiromo, from Lou Dobbs, from Jeanine Pirro, because they get referenced from the on-air perspective so much, and we don't see their texts. And I think that's sort of telling also, potentially. They're not the ones who are in there doing it. At the same time, Canadian Debbie told me I found a 400-page filing. I believe it was the original filing.

And like 200 pages of it are Lou Dobbs' tweets and Facebook posts and Instagram posts. I mean, he is the star of their lawsuit. And he's also the only one who's no longer at Fox. Who inspired the day that Dominion filed this lawsuit. Right. And so he was the star on one hand, but is not the star of these new text messages, the juicy filings that we're seeing here. And so I think that it is a good peel back the curtain moment here. And I do think that in a lot of ways, for me, it shows Fox worried.

And you could say whether they're worried to the detriment of their viewers or they're worried to, you know, I guess in a positive way of not wanting to offend their viewers who are being spun this story by Donald Trump and are believing it. I mean, I and they're not necessarily buying into it. And there might be some sort of bias of omission by not saying on the air, we're not feeling that this is right. But I think that one of the things that it reminds me of is what happened in our show when this was going on. And we talked about getting Sidney Powell on.

We wanted to have her on. I don't think it's platforming to put Sidney Powell on for a tough interview. She would have had her hands full. Yeah. And that's the point. And that's also why she didn't come on. I think that that was a very telling moment. She also notably would not go on Tucker Carlson's show when he talked about that.

She would never come on our show. That was a real eye opener for us. But we weren't going to automatically go one side or the other on what she was saying. We're going to dig into it like you do and like you have our producers do on all of these points here. We had Dinesh D'Souza on. That was another element of this. I think it's important to have these conversations, but to do so in the most transparent way possible. And I think the text messages maybe give a window into a non-transparency, but I do think the idea of, you know, talking to Sidney Powell to, at least in the early days, you know, the very, very early days, to hearing it out

and then dismissing it if it's complete, you know, BS. Well, and also like your personal opinion about a news story doesn't necessarily belong in the news story. Right now, you know, if you have Tucker saying this is absolute madness, this is a lie and it's bullshit. And then putting her on and being like, tell me more, tell me more without any skeptical questions. That's not good. That didn't happen. He didn't do that. Now, they do say that Hannity platformed her and and they conveniently do not offer the full interview. They just pull excerpts. I'd like to go back and I haven't done this yet. And look at the full interview. Did he push back? Did he ask for more proof?

And to be fair to Dominion, just asking for more proof isn't enough either. I mean, there should be a grilling of somebody making claims like that. Yeah, I think in the Fox filing, they do note some of the, you know, caveats that Sean and others who had her on the air gave. I'd be very curious to go back and watch those. It was in real intricate detail as well. But it also, you know, Megan reminded me of something, you know, there was, it's something that really, I think, distinguishes you and the show in a lot of ways from so much out there. We had an interview that you mentioned in the podcast exclusive episode we did last year that never ran. An interview we've recorded a whole hour and never ran. And there was a reason for that. And it's something I think about all

the time. And it was that this guest, when the interview was over, wanted a certain part taken out. And this guest didn't want this taken out because they misspoke or they didn't phrase things the right way. This guest wanted something taken out that was their true opinion. And then on second thought, they decided, I don't really want my true opinion out there. That's something that I'm not sure I want that in the public. And so ultimately we didn't run that. But that happens a lot. And it also, this person is someone who portrays this person's self as someone who is on the field, is out there in the public, willing to say anything. And then when shit hits the fan, I guess in this person's mind, they buckle. And the entire conversation that we've had today is something that you and I would have if you and I were just sitting here talking off air. And with every story, you are putting your true opinion out there and the facts and leading it where it goes. And that is just so rare. I know our audience is great and they do know that and they appreciate it,

but even the people that portray themselves as real truth tellers, a lot of times that's bullshit and here it's not. And I think it really is such a service for the audience that they're getting the truth when you come here. Well, thank you for saying that. It's liberating to be on the other side of all that nonsense. Some people wondered whether it was a politician and we were running cover for it. No, it wasn't a politician. It was a pundit. And it was a pundit who spent the better part of the hour telling us how fearless they were and how they would just say anything because they stood by their beliefs except for this one thing. And then we said to this person, we're not going to pull it. So if you don't want the interview to air, we'll do that courtesy. But we're not pulling that and then letting you mislead our audience. And they said, OK, then pull it.

That's how fearless this person was. Maybe eventually we'll tell you who it was. Depends. Before I go quickly, Project Veritas without James O'Keefe, he got pushed out by the board allegedly because he didn't treat some employees very nicely. Steve, I don't know. There's no, to me, there's no Project Veritas without James O'Keefe. I think his audience will follow him wherever he goes. It's about him. It's not about that brand name. Totally. He's a young guy. He's been doing it for decades at Project Veritas. I think James O'Keefe is more the brand than Project Veritas. And I'd be very curious to know what he does next. Yeah. Yeah. He's going to land on his feet. Okay. Don't forget the book is called Uncovered. You will not be sorry. Support Steve, please enjoy it. How the media got cozy with power of in its principles and lost the people.

We won't see Steve tomorrow because he's still on his media tour, but we'll see all of you tomorrow and Steve, good luck on it. We'll see you next week. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.