The Megyn Kelly Show - COVID Hysteria Aimed at Kids, New Proposed Gun Laws, and Cuomo Latest, with Janice Dean, Bethany Mandel, and John Lott Jr. | Ep. 220

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by Janice Dean, Fox News meteorologist, Bethany Mandel, editor at Ricochet and board member of the new book series "Heroes of Liberty," and John Lott Jr., President of the Crime Prevention Research Center, to talk about Chris Cuomo's latest alleged comments about Dean, his exit from CNN, new gun laws being proposed after the Oxford school shooting, the one-sided media coverage of guns, the anti-science and heartbreaking COVID rules aimed at kids, the new book series pushing back against the woke drift in schools, and more.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 three great guests for you today. In just a bit, I'm going to be joined by Bethany Mandel. She is an editor at Ricochet, a mom of five, and a favorite of mine at calling out COVID BS and hypocrisy. I'm also going to be joined just a bit by gun rights advocate John Lott Jr. about self-defense, concealed carry, and gun storage laws, as well as California Governor Gavin Newsom's just-announced plan to restrict guns. We're seeing more and more of this in the week of that school shooting in Michigan. But will more gun laws solve any of our problems? But first, my old pal J.D., Janice Dean, is here. Over the weekend, reports emerged that newly fired CNN anchor Chris Cuomo didn't just go after the women who had been accusing his brother, Andrew Cuomo, of sexually harassment. He was none too happy with Janice Dean, who was very vocal

about Andrew Cuomo's failings when it came to elderly people in the nursing homes of New York State, like her two in-laws. And while I call her, you know, Janice Dean, the weather machine, or Janice Newman, weather woman, he apparently calls her that Fox weather bitch. Such a charmer, JD. He's such a charmer. But I mean, like I saw over the weekend, I'm not I'm not surprised, but it is the continuation of a pattern of just bullying, narcissism and honestly, like attacks on women at every turn. Mm hmm. Should I get business cards made? The weather bitch? Oh, let's get t shirts. Weather bitch. I'm gonna get a t shirt that reads I'm with weather bitch. I'm not surprised you and I have had discussions about this for the last almost two

years, right? At the very beginning, when I started to speak up about Sean's parents and how they died tragically in nursing homes and how we found out that there were over 9000 infected patients put into those nursing homes by the governor, Andrew Cuomo, and then how he covered up the numbers at least by 50 percent to sell his five point two2 million book, I got an email from someone that knows the family very well that said, you need to watch your back. And they were being very honest about that, that these are vindictive people. If anyone dares to go against them, they're going to do whatever they can to silence them. So I wasn't surprised. And over the last year and a half, this isn't the first time that they've tried to demean me or my family. They, Rich as a Party, which is Cuomo's main henchman that is still acting as his publicist, he went after my sister-in-law Donna on Twitter and told her to get a life, get a life after she was trying to find answers as to why her parents died. They also called us to death cult because we wanted to find out why the governor and his

administration were treating seniors so badly by essentially, you know, putting COVID and like wildfire through, through dry brush. That's what the governor actually said, putting infected patients in a nursing homes was going to spread like wildfire. He said that before he did it. So it doesn't surprise me that we're starting to find out they were actively trying to smear me like they were trying to do with the sexual harassment victims. Well, that's all we know right now is what Chris Cuomo said. We haven't found out what Andrew Cuomo said. I'm sure it made Chris's comments look completely G-rated. But I want to talk to you because you and I haven't yet had the chance to talk about Chris Cuomo. I mean, you've been coming on the show since its launch. so many 15,000 other seniors in New York state, his stupid book tour, using state employees to write the book and so on. And then it emerged, it evolved to where Cuomo got fired. Andrew Cuomo got fired. And now we see the brother fired. And the whole story really has come full circle for

you. But I was at an event last week, JD, and I was giving a speech or talking to some people and they asked me about this. And I, you know, like, why did was giving a speech or talking to some people and they asked me about this. And I, you know, like, why did he deserve to get fired? Your thoughts? And I was like, a hundred percent, he deserved to get fired. And the reason is, and I want to get your reaction. It's not, it's not good what he did, you know, violating the ethics of journalism by helping his brother using his post to help a sitting politician who happened to be his brother. But it's about so much more than that. To me, it's about the repeated, consistent breaking of trust with his audience. And why did he do it over and over, the repeated breaking of trust? He did it because

of his narcissism, because of his sense of entitlement. I was just thinking about it going back. Let's go back to, because you and I have talked about all this. Let's go back to when the COVID story broke. Okay, let's just start there because we could go back further. And the testing, something you raised questions about at the time and thereafter. To me, that's exhibit A in the story of Chris Cuomo's narcissism in the course of this pandemic. So what happened with the testing? He got VIP COVID tests before nursing homes could ever get them. So in the early stages of the pandemic, when the tests were, you know, no one could get them, including nursing homes, they could not test incoming patients to see if

they had COVID. They were prohibited to do that. So but in the meantime, we learned that Chris Cuomo and others, friends and family, were getting VIP COVID tests. And what had to happen was the testing had to go to their homes. So the state resources, the the, you know, the people from the hospital or the state troopers would go out to the Hamptons to do the test on Chris Cuomo. And then they would have to drive upstate a couple of hours to get that test done. So they were already abusing these tests for friends and family when it could have been used elsewhere to actually save lives of people like my in-laws. So that's the beginning of how we're seeing that state resources were abused. And by the way, that's against the law.

Not only Chris Cuomo, but Chris Cuomo's sister and Chris Cuomo's brother-in-law, who was Kenneth Cole, you know, the designer of the shoes, Kenneth Cole. So he was also getting these VIP COVID tests and state judges here in New York state, which by the way, I filed a complaint against. That's like giving a gift to somebody, a state judge, and that's also against the law. She's not supposed to be abusing her power to get these perks like a VIP COVID test that essentially no one else could get. Yep. Right. So but he and by the way, he's our age. You, Chris Cuomo and I are all the same age. We're all 51. And he had no business getting those tests. He didn't need a test more than

the senior citizens who were dying and really needed to know whether they had it in those nursing homes. But he was more important. And that's the theme you see with this guy at every turn, right? He gets diagnosed with COVID ultimately while he's covering this story. He walks out and about in the Hamptons outside, right? And this is before, listen, I will say right now, my God, we know a lot more about the disease and it doesn't transmit effectively outside. I don't know of any cases that have been identified as having occurred outside. But at the beginning of the pandemic, we did not know that. And Chris Cuomo thought even though he'd been diagnosed with COVID, it'd be just fine for him to walk around the Hamptons, even though no one was doing that at that point.

People were still very terrified of the virus. Why? Why was he OK? Because he was more important. And we wouldn't have even known it if it hadn't been that guy who wanted to speak into the post, right? Who's like, he, I told him he should be quarantining and he yelled at me. Yeah, yeah. And he lied to his viewers as well, right? Every night he was pretending to do his show live from his basement. Meanwhile, he's out doing whatever he

wants and he gets caught and he and he threatens the guy on the bike. I think Tucker Carlson had him on a show. And this guy is a Democrat. He admitted that. He was like, but I'm seeing Chris Cuomo, the hypocrite who's supposed to be inside quarantining because he apparently has COVID. Yep. Which he probably found out from one of Andrew's tests that should have gone to an elderly person. So then after that, we see the fake emergence from the basement tape. I mean, the most absurd CNN segment ever. And that's saying a lot. He literally fakes his emergence from the basement is the very first time. It's a lie. He's lying to his audience. It's a massive break of trust. It's CNN's fault. One hundred percent, just as much as it is Chris Cuomo's. That is not just a Chris Cuomo problem. Another break of the trust.

And then he, let's not forget the, I'm not exactly sure where this went in the sequence, but remember the infamous Fredo tape where some guy in a bar called him Fredo. Now, you know as well as I do, when you're in the public eye, sometimes people call you nasty names. It's happened to me.

It happened to you. Just by Chris Cuomo. Right. Right. In the middle of the segment. And Chris Cuomo went off on the guy. Do we have the soundbite? I think we've got it.

Yeah. Listen, remember this. I thought I thought I thought that's where I was. Bunk ass bitches from the right. Call me Fredo. My name is Chris Cuomo. I'm an anchor on CNN. You're much greater.

It's from the godfather. He was our weak brother. And they use it as an Italian aspersion. Any of you Italian? It's a fucking insult to your people. It's an insult to your fucking people. It's like the N word for us. Is that a cool fucking thing? You're a much more reasonable guy in person than you seem to be on television. Yeah, but if you want to play, then to play then we'll fucking play you got something you want to say about what i do on television and say it but i'm gonna call me hey man hey listen what what are your problems yeah you're gonna have a big fucking problem what's the problem it's a little different on tv don't fucking insult me like that i didn't insult you oh look i'm such a tough guy fucking fuck you know what? I am Italian, Chris Cuomo. Di Meo off the boat from Italy on my mother's side. And you are Fredo. But what does that show to me? Because I look at that

GD and I think, contrast that, Mr. Tough Guy with his steroid infused, that's my guess. I don't know if he's on steroids, but it certainly appears that way, workout videos. And contrast that with what happened to Tucker. Tucker gets approached in a fishing store by some guys with his family, minding his own business. And what does he do? He tries to deescalate the situation. He tries to politely move on. He doesn't let it turn into some viral moment. It did only because it's Tucker. But the contrast between the two men is pretty stark. Right. And that's why I believe that there are probably not one, but several texts

with maybe more choice words than just the B word, uh, the B weather girl. Um, he, these guys have abused the Cuomo name since the very beginning. Right. And, and they've never really had to do anything, but get away with stuff. And I didn't know Mario Cuomo, obviously. And I wasn't in New York when he was governor. But from people I've talked to, they say he was a kind man. He was kind to people. travesty that these men, uh, use their name for power and, and, and just disgraced their father's name and bring back the Tappan Zee bridge because they have just, just, you know, disgrace that name so much, uh, that it's, it's really hard to even see, you know, the sign when

you're crossing over the bridge. It's so true. Why should all the families like yours who lost loved ones thanks to Andrew Cuomo's order or women who have been harassed by Andrew or Chris, I could go on, have to drive over that bridge and be reminded of it because Andrew needed to rename the Tappan Zee Bridge, which we've all had forever here in New York, the Mario Cuomo Bridge. My GPS lady is so confused. I go by it every day. I'm halfway there. She's like, coming up the Tappan Zee Bridge. Then you go like another 50 yards. She's like the Mario Cuomo Bridge. Even my kids are like, no. It's just it's it's really

it's it's too bad. And I feel really bad for the families. I've never brought up Andrew Cuomo's daughters or his mom or any of, when I was ready to give up the fight, I literally was writing my last op-ed thinking, these guys, my voice is never going to be heard loud enough, right? He's got an Emmy. He's got his book deal. He's on every single late night show on the CNN program, the pandemic politician, perhaps a president one day. If you had told me that both brothers would be out of work this time last year, I would have said you were completely insane. Right, exactly. But it didn't quite quite work out the way they had planned. And that's you mentioned rich as a party, that guy who's still Andrew Cuomo's spokesperson. He's the one. So the New York post has this article saying, um, Chris Cuomo schemed quoting now from the report schemed to discredit Fox news, meteorologist, Janice Dean, allegedly allegedly calling her that Fox weather bitch and texts after she criticized his brother,

Andrew, he texted with Andrew's staff. Oh, remember how we were told he only did that with respect to the women who came forward against him and accused him of sexual harassment? Oh, also this woman too. He texted with Andrew's staff, how to defend his brother and discredit Janice Dean saying, and this is again, the post is quoting a source who saw the communications, any help painting her as a far right crazy. And then Rich as a party says to the post, I have no knowledge of this ever happening. And you must ask, why then did the AG not put anything about it in her report or ask any of the relevant people about it? Rich as a party, JD has no memory of anybody conspiring against

you, even though his own comment on you was on the record attributed to him. And I quote, last I checked, she's not a credible source on anything except maybe the weather. So his word is worth zero. But how about Chris Cuomo trying to paint you as, quote, a far right crazy? I'm not surprised. And not just Chris Cuomo, by the way. The blue checks and reporters. I've had many reporters want to do this story. And when they do, instead of the main focus being a meteorologist who had a terrible atrocity happen within her family, two family members close to her dying in New York nursing homes, and her trying to find answers and accountability. It's always, oh, but she works at Fox News.

So she must have voted for Trump. So let's go dive into her Twitter feed and all the articles that she's ever written to try to, you know, discredit her because she's probably a right wing loony. It's not just Chris Cuomo. That's the go to. And that's what's really sad. I think to myself, Megan, what if I worked at another channel? What if I worked over at CNN and we found out that Tucker Carlson was trying to do oppo research on me and trying to find out who I voted for or if there was any, you know, problems with maybe the husband's record with the FDNY. You know, I believe that they did do a deep dive. And how unfortunate that not only the family that's trying to smear my name, but actual

reporters that want to try to do a story, a New York story of trying to do something good to find out answers for family members and over 15,000 that died. You know, it would be quite a different story, I think, if I worked at another network. Yep. All you have to dangle is Fox News, right wing. And I mean, honestly, it's got all the stuff in it, right? You're crazy because you're they're wondering if you're a Republican because you're at Fox and you're a woman and you're a bitch, crazy bitch, far right Republican. OK, so that's Chris Cuomo, such a classy guy, his way of attacking you for. Wait, what were you mad about again? Oh, wait, you're dead in-laws. Sean's parents dead. And Sean, who's a hero, 9-11 firefighter who's never spoken out. The man only

wants privacy, dignity. He's the kindest, honestly, most elevated person. He just doesn't get sucked into these things. You're your own kind of fighter. But how dare they? How dare they? You're speaking out for your husband at the loss of your son's grandparents, both of them in a month's time. And their response, this is who the Cuomos are, is to look at you and say, bitch, far right wing crazy. Let's discredit her. I mean, it's time. And their response, this is who the Cuomo's are, is to look at you and say, bitch, far right wing crazy. Let's discredit her. I mean, it's disgusting. So but to me, it's a pattern. You see how Andrew Cuomo treated the women on his staff. Chris Cuomo, we had Shelley Ross on the show. And I know you saw her her piece in The New York Times. And I know you listen to that show. Janice was texting me during it. Shelley Ross was one of the many women who Chris Cuomo diminished. He doesn't even deny it,

but it was part of a pattern. It's not any one act. It's a pattern of him being narcissistic, misogynistic, and believing he can get away with anyone because he's a Cuomo. Here's a bit of what Shelley told me when she came on the show. At this moment, here's this guy who's, you know, an anchor, a talent at the, at the network. You're in a very well-respected position there. You've been there almost 20 years. And what goes through your head as this guy has the nerve It was belittling. It was clearly a power trip to make me feel, you know, you're no longer my boss. I do that when I was his boss. Maybe he thought I would fire him or something. But it was meant to diminish. Chris Cuomo is over six feet tall.

I'm 5'2". I'm under 100 pounds. And it was it was overpowering. And I certainly didn't like it. She wasn't alone. You had what his executive producer on Cuomo primetime was reportedly pushed out. She had to resign because she couldn't deal with his bullying. She went over to the digital property. There was a woman who came forward when he was, you know, on ice during his alleged suspension. We haven't heard anything about that report. I don't want to give it credence because we haven't. But CNN says it's why they wound up finally pulling the trigger. There's you. It's just because I'll tell you, one of the things that's

on my mind is i've heard of more than one person say they feel bad for chris cuomo he lost his cnn show he he lost his serious xm show he lost his book deal and i've heard some people say like he was just trying to protect his brother it's about so much more that he a he was wrong to handle that situation the way he did he did do oppo research on the women who accused his brother and then lied about it. He did use his journalistic resources against the women and then lied about it. But even if you table that, we've had a year, two years plus of Chris Cuomo bit by bit putting himself above his audience, above trust, and at every turn decides to side against women who are in a vulnerable position. I listened to that interview and I said to you afterwards, what kind of man just goes up to a

woman and grabs her behind at a party? You have to think to yourself, that's a guy that's gotten away with that before, with that kind of behavior. Can you imagine Doug or Sean actually going up and doing that to someone? That's the difference between Chris Cuomo, who has gotten away with this kind of behavior for a very long time. And you know, shame on Jeff Zucker too. Like, exactly. Something has happened between those two. I feel like, listen, I don't know if this is true or not. But I think about those VIP COVID tests. Who did Chris Cuomo give VIP COVID tests over at CNN? That's a possibility, right?

I mean, why did Jeff Zucker just know all of this information and still stick by him? And then all of a sudden, one fell swoop, he's gone. You know what, I if Chris Cuomo had a conscience, he should have removed himself off the air at the very beginning. And you know, even after the the Cuomo brothers comedy hour, I would actually even say I would forgive that. But afterwards, realizing that his brother was in trouble saying, you know what, I'm going to take remove myself from the situation. And if he knew he was going to help his brother out, why didn't he just remove himself from CNN? I would have given him props. I would have given him props and said, he took himself out so he

could help his brother. And that's good. He took himself off the air so he wouldn't be lying to the people he works with and his viewers. And instead, he did the Cuomo Brothers show and then had the nerve to lie about that, too, saying that, well, it was all in good fun and he didn't it wasn't a dereliction of duty because there was no scandal at that time, which is which is false. He was on the air with him March, April, May or was April, May, June. And the nursing home scandal broke in May. It was the order had been given earlier. There was there was reporting on it. He just chose to ignore it. Well, if it wasn't for the Cuomo brothers comedy hour, I wouldn't have gotten upset, you know, and I probably wouldn't have gone on television.

So I'm grateful for their hypocrisy and narcissistic clown behavior and CNN for letting them get away with it, because I saw them with that big cotton swab when nursing homes couldn't get them joking around. Who's their mother's favorite son? Who has the greatest meatballs? The love gov, the love gov. And I thought to myself, oh my gosh, if I don't go out and say something, who's going to? They're going to get away with this and shame on Jeff Zucker for allowing them to do that. Yeah. CNN allowed it. Same as everybody else though, Megan, right? Because I tweeted that night, like what kind of behavior is this? And then Anna Navarro was like, Oh, it's two brothers with levity. We all need a little levity. I mean, while body bags are being piled up outside of nursing homes these guys are joking around and all the celebrities and everyone gave them a pass because it's two brothers and they love each other we need a laugh it's just it's so gross right no is cnn allowed that interview to go forward understanding that they had had a policy against it in place for many many years

which was a good policy don't let him interview brother. It's going to make us all look bad. So they allowed it to happen. They allowed him to not challenge the brother on anything, but just to lionize him. They allowed Chris Cuomo to do his fake emergence from the basement when they knew it wasn't true to let him lie to his audience. And there's no question that they knew he was coordinating with the governor's staff because it was in the New York Times. New York Times did a big write up about the two of them during the Cuomo brothers show, which the left loved and explicitly said he was talking to the governor's aides, that he dealt with the governor's aides and helped his brother out. Jeff Zucker didn't read that article at the time. So I don't buy for one second that he was

shocked by what Chris Cuomo did. That's for Cuomo and Zucker to work out in the context of this battle. My only point is that he didn't deserve that post. He had sacrificed trust. He was all about himself. So they can argue about whether he gets his final payout or not. I have no dog in that hunt. But this guy was allowed for far too long to be on the air misrepresenting to his audience. And I will say, J.D., there's a poll out today, Economist YouGov poll. Two-thirds of Americans agree with his firing. Two-thirds of Americans, 65% say they agree. Only 12% said, I don't think it was the right move.

The rest are unsure. Even among people for whom CNN is their primary news source, 49% of people agree with the firing. Just 23% disagree, 27% unsure. CNN as their primary news source. Forty nine percent of people agree with the firing. Just twenty three percent disagree. Twenty seven percent unsure. And the vast, vast majority said they would have made the same decision to let him go. So once again, you have the last laugh. Wait, before you go, I do have to ask you, because there's awful, awful weather news

today and over the weekend. I've been following your reporting on it. Can you put into perspective what happened this past week in Kentucky and Tennessee in these states where now the death toll is over, they believe, 80 people? It's something that happens. There are two seasons when it comes to severe weather. There's the springtime outbreaks that can happen. It really has to do with the fact that you've got leftover air masses, a cold air mass from winter and then turning into the springtime. And then there's a secondary season, the fall into the winter. And we've had abnormally warm temperatures across the East Coast. So the similar setup was there. And these tornadoes struck populated neighborhoods and they were at night, which is when you don't want tornadoes to strike. Unfortunately, these types of situations happen. And I know that there's been a lot of reportinges for the past couple of years. We are down from what we

typically see over the last couple of years in terms of tornado reports. And December tornadoes do happen around the Mid-South. Kentucky, the last time they had a severe weather outbreak this bad was actually, I believe, in the month of December. So they do happen. But the loss of life is tragic. And it hit areas that were working, you know, the Amazon factory, the candle factory, because it's Christmas time. So people were in their place of business and these tornadoes struck

and maybe people didn't have enough time. There was warnings. National Weather Service does a great job. But unfortunately, Megan, it's not like a hurricane where you have several days of lead up time. There was warnings. National Weather Service does a great job. But unfortunately, Megan, it's not like a hurricane where you have several days of lead up time. You don't have a lot of lead up time with these tornadoes. We did have a bullseye of where we thought the severe weather was going to happen. But, you know, unfortunately, we can't pinpoint the exact areas. And December tornadoes, unfortunately, do happen. These will be historic because of the

loss of life and the fact that this one tornado lasted over 200 miles. It's tragic. It's awful. I will say this when weather disasters strike, any disaster, is you see the best in humanity. Neighbors will help neighbors, strangers coming across the state line to bring water, food, blankets. And that's what we're seeing right now. We're actually seeing the best of America when a tragedy strikes and people need help. Look for the helpers. J.D., so good to catch up. Love you.

Miss you. I love you, too. Merry Christmas, my friend. You, too. A lot more to talk about later. Coming up, John Lott Jr., gun rights advocate. As more and more officials take a look at the school shooting we saw in Michigan and some of these other gun cases as a reason to tighten the gun laws in America. Don't go away. joining us now is president and founder of the crime prevention research center john lott jr

john's here to discuss the renewed calls for gun storage laws in the wake of the oxford school shooting the latest in the kim potter case and the defensive uh gun uses that the media won't tell you about john good to see you again. How you doing? Great to talk to you. Thanks for having me on. You know, I was thinking about you the other night because I went out to dinner with some of my very close friends in New York, and these are all Manhattan liberals. And we were talking about the Oxford shooting, you know, this kid in Michigan, this 15 year old who brought a gun to school, and there had definitely been warning signs that were

missed or ignored. And now his parents have been charged with involuntary manslaughter and he's facing four murder counts and others. The school's already been sued for 100 million and on it goes. And one of the things that people are saying in the wake of that is we need a gun storage mandate, a law in Michigan where there wasn't one and that might have stopped this tragedy from happening and I'll tell you look unlike you I'm not an expert when it comes to gun laws or even guns I understand both sides I'm the mother of three kids I'm much more worried about their safety you know than I am about anything else and every time one of these comes up I say to myself let's put it all on the table let's great

let's do look at all of it show me the reform that would have prevented this shooting and i will go march in the streets for it i don't care who gets mad at me nra i don't care but to be honest i haven't yet seen the one you know i just the ones that get proposed in the wake of these shootings just seem like comfort measures that wouldn't have prevented this shooting. And that's kind of what I'm seeing with Oxford. But when I read your piece posted, where was it? It was on Real Clear Politics, why gun storage laws would do more harm than good. I was like, oh, my gosh, it's got all the answers in it. And I wanted my New York liberal friends to hear your answers. So I'm going to forward this segment

to them. But let's start there. The gun storage laws in Michigan and elsewhere. Why aren't those the answer to teenagers taking guns and shooting up people? Right. Well, I hope they're listening. But what I can say is I think you're exactly right about the reaction after these just in general. I mean, the normal law that keeps on getting pushed after mass public shootings is background checks on the private transfers of guns. And usually the point I raised there is, would it have mattered in the last case? Is there one mass public shooting this century that would have been stopped if such a law had been in effect and been perfectly enforced? And the answer is no. But yet it's usually the first law that people keep on raising that we need to

have to stop these attacks. And in this case, look, it's not even clear whether the gun was locked or not in the family's home. The parents claim that it was. I guess we'll find out later whether or not that was the case or not. But what we need to talk about a little bit are the costs and benefits of these types of laws that can be there. You know, in Michigan, they average about less than two accidental gun deaths for kids under 18 in any given year over the last 20 years in the state. The main purpose of gun lock laws is accidental deaths, as you are implying, referring to your kids. You know, nationwide for children under 10, there's 35 accidental gun deaths. The vast majority of those, about two-thirds of those, actually involve adults in their mid to

late 20s who are firing the guns, who have criminal records usually and are either drug addicts or alcoholics. And gun locks aren't going to stop those types of attacks when in many cases it's illegal for people to be owning these guns and it's not going to stop an adult in any case. But the issue that you have is that they're trade-offs to the extent it may reduce these accidental gun deaths. You also have to take into account that people are going to find it more difficult to have access to guns to be able to go and protect themselves and their families. When you see these types of laws get passed, what you see is an increased breaking into people's homes when they're there. you see an increase in successful crimes. Gun locks make

it more difficult for people to go and protect themselves and their families. And, you know, we've had four since 2000. We've had four mass public shootings involving schools, involving juveniles. We've had a couple others, the Parkland and Sandy Hook, involving people who were over 18, 19 in one case and 21 in the other case. You know, so, you know, my goal is to try to look at on net what saves lives. And while I understand the desire for many of these types of laws, I worry that they're actually going to increase the number of deaths. What about the other argument I hear is the mass carnage that can be inflicted so quickly with a gun. You know, that's reason enough to crack down on firearms.

And, you know, certainly you mentioned anything like an AR-15 and that's the argument you'll get. What's the response to that? Well, surely guns make it easier to kill people and it makes it easier to go and kill people quickly. You know, with the guns also make it easier for people to protect themselves and prevent bad things from happening. So people focus on the AR-15 that you mentioned. I think there's a lot of misnomers about what it is exactly. And surely things like entertainment television creates a lot of that misimpression. Over last year, if you look at ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, their police shows, about 80% of the time that criminals were using guns, they're depicted as using machine guns, often being referred to as AR-15s in many segments. But you're talking about, in actuality, a semi-automatic rifle that fires the

same bullets with the same rapidity doing the same damage as any semi-automatic hunting rifle. Now, if you want to go and ban all semi-automatic guns, I mean, just so people know, semi-automatic gun is one pull the trigger, one bullet comes out, it reloads itself, one pull the trigger, one bullet comes out, and so on. It's not a machine gun where if you hold your finger down, bullets will continue to come out as long as you have your finger depressed on it. The thing is, though, civilians benefit from having semi-automatic guns for self-defense. I mean, the alternative is a manually loaded gun, where you have to physically put another bullet in the chamber yourself after you fire. And, you know, if you're facing multiple attackers, or if you fire and you miss,

or if you fire and wound somebody, you may not have the luxury of time to go and manually reload your gun at that point. And so, you know, you have to go and take into account, you know, how often people use guns defensively at the same time there. And unfortunately, a lot of the discussion there doesn't weigh both the costs and benefits of these things. Well, and one of the things I was saying to my friends is, even if you somehow got a Congress and a president who wanted to ban any semi-automatic weapon, right, a handgun, AR-15s, all of them, right, that's what they wanted to do which is not which is not

what we've done before um you couldn't there you tell me john what the numbers are but the last time i looked at it it was like they were over there were more guns in america than there are people it was like 330 million and i don't know how many of those are semi-automatic but there are hundreds of millions like there's just not there's no way of getting rid of semi-automatic weapons in America. It's just not going to happen. I mean, it's just a guess how many guns people have in the United States. It depends upon what rate you assume guns depreciate. And there's issues about surveys and whether people honestly say whether they own guns in the home.

But you're exactly right. We probably have hundreds of they own guns in the home. But you're exactly right. We probably have hundreds of millions of guns that are there. And the vast majority of guns owned in the United States are semi-automatic guns. There are reasons why people have semi-automatic guns for self-defense. And there's a reason why hunters have semi-automatic guns. So, you know, you're right. At least it would be logically consistent if we would talk about banning all semi-automatic guns rather than just picking certain guns based on how they look. I mean, they often use the term military style. The key word there is style. Some people like to have guns that look like military guns, but they're not guns. You know, they refer to them as weapons of war and stuff. But these aren't

the types of guns that are used by militaries around the world. They use... No, this is, John, to me, this is the same thing as we did at the airports after 9-11. You know, we're still taking off our shoes. Why? Not because there's been bombs in the shoe. It's because in since that one guy, it's because we want to make ourselves feel like we're doing something on a track on a track after a tragedy that is unspeakable. And you can ban AR-15s.

It's not going to it's not going to change anything. It's not going to change anything. I mean, I really do think, OK, maybe if you banned all semi-automatic guns in America, maybe, but that's not possible. It's not going to happen. And by the way, you know, that's what they have in England, right? In Europe, you can't have a gun, even if you're a cop. In London, those bobbies walking around, they're not armed. So they stab each other. And even here in America, we just saw some guy mow down a bunch of grandmothers and children with a truck. That's not to say guns can't kill people quickly, but there are many ways for a deranged murderer to take out victims.

And yeah, go ahead. No, I mean, I agree with you. Look, gun bans have been tried in parts of the United States. Chicago and Washington, D.C. tried to ban all handguns. It's been tried in many different countries. If you look at any place that's tried to ban all guns or all handguns, every single time, murder rates have gone up. You'd think out of randomness, once or twice, murder rates would go down or at least stay the same. You know, if you think nations that have tried it, like Jamaica or Ireland or the UK.

Only the law-abiding citizens turn in their guns. The criminals keep theirs and use them for ill. Hold on. We're going to come right back with John Lott. More I want to discuss with him. We're going to squeeze in a quick break. Don't forget, folks, you can watch The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east.

They can listen to it live. And you can watch the full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. If you prefer an audio podcast that you can listen to whenever you want, subscribe and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts for free. And there you find all of our archives, something like 220 shows now. Check it out. So, John, especially with the crime rates going up as they have been a 30% increase in homicide rates in our top 12 cities, our largest 12 cities in America year over year. People are thinking about how to protect themselves. And many people have had to use a gun in the past year or two to prevent crime.

I think it's fascinating that you say in the same way the media takes one bad cop killing of an unarmed black man, you know, and we do see this. And they put it, this is my editorializing, and they put it on loop to try to make us believe that, you know, this is a problem that happens every day in America. And it's not, you know, out of 10 million arrests, you've got between 13 and 18 men who are unarmed and shot by police and unarmed is questionable in these cases. But that's it. You know, let's say, let's call it 15 out of 10 million arrests. But the media leads people to believe it's much more. And you make the point that the same is true when it comes to bad use, for lack of a better term, of guns by criminals versus good use of a gun by people who

are saving innocent others. Can you speak to that? Sure. You know, what makes something newsworthy doesn't always reflect reality. So earlier this year, through January through August, I looked at the top five largest newspapers in the United States for news coverage. They had between them about 2,600 and some news stories about gun crimes. By contrast, between the five of them, New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, they had a total of 10 defensive gun use stories. And many of those were very unusual cases where something went wrong with the defensive gun use. Overall, for the first nine months of the year, we found about a thousand news stories across the country about defensive gun uses. But one thing that was interesting is

that most of those involved cases where the attacker was killed in the defensive gun use. Close behind that, with over 40%, were cases where the attacker was wounded. And only 4% of those involved cases where wounding or brandishings occurred with the gun. And the thing is, those are the exact opposite proportions from what we believe how people use guns defensively. It looks like about 95 percent of the time that people use guns defensively, they simply brandish it. Woundings are less than one percent. But times where attackers are killed are about one eighth the rate of woundings. Those numbers we know pretty much for sure.

And, you know, but I understand why the media covers that to some extent. If you have, you're an editor of a news bureau and you have two stories. In one case, there's a dead body on the ground. In another case, let's say a woman's brandished a gun. It would be an attacker's runaway. No shots are fired, nobody hurt. You're not even sure what crime would have been committed. I think any of us as news editors would pick the first story as being more newsworthy than the second. But as far as policy is concerned, we care about both of those cases, or at least we should. And they just don't get, one quick thing

on the police things. We've actually gone through and looked at police shootings. When a white officer shoots a black suspect, news reports will almost always mention the race of both the officer and the suspect. When a black officer shoots a black suspect, the race of both the officer and the suspect. When a black officer shoots a black suspect, the race of only the suspect will be mentioned in the news stories. When a black officer shoots a white suspect, the race of neither will be mentioned in the news stories. Wow. I'm not surprised. Meantime, 92% of violent crime has nothing to do with guns. It's not a panacea, even if we could get out every gun out of the country. As Gavin Newsom would like to do, he's now saying he's going to follow the Texas abortion law and do the same with guns. based where you basically outlaw it despite the constitutional right and then create sort of a private right of enforcement. And it might be a way to end around the Constitution. Do you think that will help California with its skyrocketing homicide and crime rates?

Look, I mean, I think there's an easy reason to explain why crime's gone up over the last year and a half or so. And that is, we've had police officers being ordered to stand down, police budgets being cut. We've had large numbers of inmates in places like Los Angeles. It's something like two-thirds of the inmates have been released from jails in the county there. Across the country, you have many places where over half of the inmates have been released from jails and prisons. And you have prosecutors in many urban areas from Los Angeles to Philadelphia to Boston and Chicago, which are refusing to prosecute even violent criminals. I mean, you just had a case a few weeks ago in Chicago where you had two drug gangs fighting against each other in broad daylight. It was caught on

high definition video. Police were there as witnesses. One person was killed. Several people were seriously wounded. And yet the initial statements from the district attorney was, this was mutually agreed to combat. And so that they weren't going to prosecute anybody involved. Later on, they said they just to prosecute anybody involved. Later on, they said they just didn't have sufficient evidence. So even though the cops were there. So you've got you've got two thirds of the prisoners being let out in certain places. You've got soft on defendant crime laws that don't they don't like bail anymore. So instead, you just get to, you know, go roam the community free card. And then they want to take away your guns if you want to defend yourself.

You can see why people are getting a little concerned. John, such a pleasure. Thank you for the for the facts and the data. We appreciate it. Joining me next is Bethany Mandel. She's an editor at Ricochet. She's one of my favorite advocates for kids on Twitter. And she's got the latest on the COVID madness.

Don't miss Bethany. Very excited to chat with my next guest. I've never met her real time until today. She's a mom of five who homeschools her children and somehow finds time to school the left on Twitter, too. How is that even possible? Bethany Mandel has become a powerful voice for children's rights in the wake of COVID. She's also editor at Ricochet, a contributing writer at, I never know how to say it, Desiree News? Desiree? Desiree, I think. Thank you, Bethany. Desiree. And also she has a new project involving a book, which we'll get to. Bethany, so fun to talk to you live. You too. And we have met in person like a bazillion T years ago. I was just joking with your producer before we came on. And I joked before I went on air with you in person when

you were hosting Fox that I was drunk and your producers came in and they were like, I'm sorry, ma'am. Was that a joke? Because we cannot have you on air if you're actually drunk. And I was like, no, no, just I'm just kidding. Just kidding. You've got to be kidding me. And they like sort of pow out before they came back. We're like, OK, we will let you on air if you swear. How many years ago is this? Six years ago. Oh, man. All right. Well, other than that, I've never met you before. And I'm excited for this talk because I'm a huge fan of yours. I fell in love with you really on Twitter where everybody, you know, you battle anybody and everybody.

But you were one of the ones early on to say, like, love grandma, but lockdowns, this is insane. And it was before it was like, okay, for a large segment of the population to say that, you know, now that's more than half the country saying that. But back then you were kind of alone. And so it was a risk. And you were 100% right. So in the news today, we've got stories. This made the viral rounds the other day of kids at Capitol

Hill Elementary School in Portland, Oregon, sitting on buckets to socially distance from their classmates outside in 40 degree weather. That's also happening in New York City. It's not just Portland. And it's cold in New York City. It's not just Portland and it's cold in New York. All of this is madness there. As far as I understand, there are either no or almost no documented case of people getting covid outside. And yet still we punish the little ones, Bethany. Yeah, yeah, it's really infuriating. So I wrote a column about this today for Deseret News. I didn't even wait for my editor to say that he wanted it. I just sent him the column. And I was like, I'm really angry. And usually that's when I write good stuff. So here's a column for you if you care to put it

on your website. So it's right now on Deseret News.com. But I mean, I'm basically talking about this. And I the sort of I think the turning point and the final screw in the coffin of Terry McAuliffe's campaign in Virginia was when he had Randy Weingarten on and he, it was like his sort of final push. And by having her on, he said, you know, this is the status quo as far, as far as he's concerned for Virginia schools. And she was the reason why kids in Virginia didn't go back to school, why things still feel like a prison. I honestly think that it's probably better in some prisons than it is in public schools around the country. And now Jen Psaki is out

there saying, you know, it's not really so bad. And my three-year-old does it. My three-year-old eats outside. So, I mean, what's the big deal? And like, if that's going to be the Biden campaign, the Biden campaign's message in several years and going into the midterms, they're going to get absolutely buried because this is absolute insanity to see people on one weekend, shoulder to shoulder at concerts, at Broadway shows, at restaurants doing normal things. We can do normal things as adults. But then on Monday, kids are in school wearing masks, silent lunch, facing a wall, sitting on the floor, social distancing at lunch as as if they were the most at risk instead of the least at risk. Yeah, exactly. Even unvaccinated, they are the most at risk instead of the least at risk.

Yeah, exactly. Even unvaccinated, they are the least at risk. And by the way, so Jen Psaki's focus group of one is is infuriating. I don't I with all due respect, I don't really give a damn that her kids has no problem with it. Her job is literally to listen to the millions of Americans with different feedback and come up with policy. Her boss's job, that makes sense. I don't want to hear one more word about her kid and how delightful it is for them to be in a mask. I mean, tell it to, this reminds me, this is full screen too for my staff. Tell it to this kid who's hearing impaired. A mom tweeted this out. My hearing impaired son drew this picture in October. He wears one hearing aid and you can imagine the challenges he has faced. We went back to school in August 2020.

Her little kid cannot understand what anyone is saying because their mouths are covered. There was a lawsuit. There was a lawsuit, Bethany, by parents with kids who have disabilities against DeSantis in Florida saying his law that he signed saying, I'm not going to mandate masks and I'm not going to allow anyone to mandate masks, is what he said. You know, parents can make up their own mind, but I'm against mask mandates in this state. They said it's not fair to the kids with disabilities. They won't be able to go to school. They're immunocompromised. They can't, they have to be assured that everybody there is going to wear a mask. What about this kid? What about his disability?

What about the fact that he can no longer understand anyone? This sweet little boy who can't complain about anything. Finally, his mother has got to say, please help him. Yeah, I'm not sure why we think that COVID is the first and only virus that has ever existed in humanity. I have a friend who has a severely immunocompromised, very delicate, medically fragile child. And during flu season every year, she pulled both of her kids out because she knew that if her kids got the flu, it would be a death sentence for her child. And so she pulled him out. I don't understand why it's any different and why we have to reorder

all of society around a few really tragic cases, but the reordering society also comes with a cost. And that's something that no one feels comfortable talking about. We sort of, we talk about masking toddlers and masking five-year-olds and high schoolers and whatever, and we act as though it's a zero cost intervention, but we're seeing those costs. We're seeing those costs in the Surgeon General's report, a 53-page sort of emergency statement from the Surgeon General saying there's a youth mental health crisis going on and rates of depression and anxiety are skyrocketing. The number of teenage girls who are attempting suicide has literally doubled. This is an absolute crisis and it has a lot of components, but masks are part of it. Quarantines are part of it. And just also the

unpredictability of life for these kids. I shared last night on Twitter, I was talking to my eight year old and, and she said, I don't, I don't remember life before the masks. Like I have vague memories. My six year old doesn't really remember it. And my four year old and my two year old have absolutely no memories of life before masks and life before COVID. And I'm, as a parent, I'm sick of saying we can't do X, Y, Z because of COVID. And I mean, I'm not locked down. We were living our lives every day for the last year and a half, but we can't get on. And this was another Deseret News column. We can't get on a plane because my two-year-old can't wear a mask for six hours through the airport and down to Florida or California or whatever. So should we drive?

Is that the answer? We'll just be driving to Florida? They're saying more and more parents are doing that. It's like, okay, well, that's great for you. But if you've got five kids driving to Florida, it really isn't all that much of a joy. It's not that easy. And by the way, with gas prices, what they are, it's extra difficult right now. And statistically, it's more dangerous.

Yeah, absolutely right. And more dangerous than COVID for children. Yeah, absolutely right. And more dangerous than COVID for children, too, by the way, putting them in the car, driving them down to Florida. That makes no sense whatsoever. A friend of mine, a woman who I follow on Twitter, who I love, and she had sent me this a while ago. I couldn't get it out of my head. I'm going to put this up. It's it's full screen number one of it's a kid drawing a kid drawing another kid and she said this is my this is a drawing one of my little boy's classmates did of him and it shows her son in a mask this kid has never seen her son's face this child drew a portrait of their new friend with the mask they they don't

know what his smile looks like. It's heartbreaking. It actually does make me upset. It's deeply wrong and immoral. And I have to tell you, Bethany, I'm a little tired of people. I love Rand Paul, but I'm tired of people being like, resist. It's like, don't you understand? They have to go to school. I appreciate moms who homeschool. For me, I can. I have a job. I need to do that. And also, I want stability. I just pulled them from the New York City schools because of the crazy CRT stuff. Now I'm going to pull them again.

They need stability. I just want reason. I don't want to have to pull them. I want reason to be restored. Yep. And that's the thing that gets me to people. Last night, one of my favorite people on this issue, Rory Cooper, he's a he's a parent of three kids out of Fairfax. And he posted a video of a concert wall to wall, no masks, no distancing people shoulder to shoulder, literally, probably 1000s of people. And he said, my 11 year old has to eat lunch, my vaccinated 11 year old has to eat lunch silently. My nine-year-old has been going to school in a mask this whole time. And my six-year-old has never experienced

a normal school setting. And it's infuriating. And the people that were responding to him were like, fight, Rory, fight. And I was like, what would you like him to do? I texted him. I was like, Rory, why don't you fight? Why didn't you think about that? We are powerless as parents. And it's a really enraging feeling and really heartbreaking feeling knowing that my children's childhood is know, kink at school that we can fight that we can show up at the school board meeting. We can yell at people and we can we can we can argue about the covid mask policies and the mandatory vaccines and all that. But the truth is with that stuff, our kid will not be allowed to show up and go to class unless we comply. You know, there's a woman at our school who who was her her son was 16 he'd been at the school since pre-k and he had until november 1st to get his vaccine or get kicked out they didn't care that he'd been there

since he was a babe get him the vaccine or he's out if i try to send my kids or any of us who are at these mask mandatory schools without their masks they wouldn't make it past the foyer yeah and and and to what end? And this is something that I think a lot of people without children don't understand. For a lot of people, it probably feels like the pandemic is over. But for those of us with kids, even kids, I mean, I homeschool. Even for my homeschool kids, it's heartbreaking and infuriating because it's not just schools that are affected. It's the planes that I talked about, but it's also, there was a heartbreaking tweet from a parent in Chicago. His three-year-old special needs kid was kicked out of a science museum over the weekend in Chicago because they couldn't comply with the

mask mandate. So it's literally everywhere that we might've wanted to send our kids. And all of those places that survived, by the way, the pandemic, one of our favorite places, like one of those, you know, like the jimbery places, that was like a really just bedrock of normalcy for my kids, they went out of business because not enough people were going and so they went out of business. And so we're sort of watching every aspect of our kids lives sort of disappear. And as parents, we sort of have to decide what our line is. And so over the spring and fall, we had kids in a local soccer league here in like outside of DC and they required the four-year-olds to wear masks outside. And we said, no, that is our, that is our line in the sand. We will not mask our children outside. And then they made it, you know, masks optional. And so we allowed our

kids, but then the whole season, especially for my oldest, all of her friends were asking her, where's your mask? Where's your mask? And my eight year old was like, I don't have a mask. I'm not sure what it's normal not to have a mask. That's normal. What we want to do is is what's normal and expected and has been accepted by society since the dawn of time. What they want is not two weeks to stop the spread. They want more lies to keep these masks on us forever. And to all the people out there who say, well, the difference between these people at the sports arenas and the concerts and, you know, at anything run by any Democratic governor who don't have their face masks on while they keep

our kids with the face mask on is vaccines. The adults have the vaccines. That's not true either. In our schools, in LA, in all these schools that are requiring vaccines as mandates, those are already the most uptight schools when it comes to COVID, mostly based on politics. And they are not, they're specifically saying the masks will stay on. The CDC said that as its recommendation, the masks stay on your kid kid even after he's vaccinated. So screw you because he's not going to die of covid. The odds are overwhelmingly against a child getting covid and then dying from it. If your child has comorbidities, he may be in a different situation. You already know that. So he's not he's not a great risk of hospitalization, hospitalization or death. He's already going to catch covid even if he's vaccinated.

The odds are right. Look at what's happened with Delta Delta and now Omicron or whatever, however you pronounce it. So so what is it preventing? What is it? It's just and it's not a get out of mask free card. So screw you. I'm not doing it.

If those if those are the stakes for which we're playing and we don't know the long term effects of the vaccine, where is my incentive? Yeah. And what sort of makes me really reticent, and I say this as someone who has written pro vaccine pieces for literally every single major newspaper in the country over the course of my entire writing career. The difference is when the FDA panel met and discussed boosters for healthy adults, they voted against it. And you know what the CDC did? They did it anyway. And they didn't meet to talk about boosters for 16 and 17 year olds. They just did it because they knew that the panel was going to say no because of the risk of myocarditis. And the risk of myocarditis, the FDA never took seriously. I was just sort of going to the way back machine into June when all of the data started rolling in, like there's actually like seems to be a heart risk that's associated, especially with the second dose. And they waited

weeks to meet. And then they finally had a date on Juneteenth. And then the federal government very last minute made Juneteenth a federal holiday. And so what did they do? They were like, okay, for this holiday that literally was just put on the calendar yesterday, we're going to have to move this meeting. This is not a meeting about like, oh, let's set a schedule and digital. This is a literal life or death meeting about heart defects and heart sort of events that are happening in teenage children, teenage boys mostly. Where is your urgency? And so for me as a parent, my trust is gone. And when I saw how big the sort of size of the study was to see if there were any adverse effects, the study size

was not big enough to ever record anything. And so for me as a parent, I'm like, why would I give this vaccine to my children who are not at risk? And as a homeschool parent, I have absolutely no reason to do so. And giving them the lower dose, right? Like giving my 12-year-old who weighs less than my 10-year-old, okay? He's a boy. She's already hit puberty. He hasn't yet. That happens. So he weighs less than my 10-year-old daughter.

Why do I have to give him the 30 milligram dose because he's 12 and she can get the 10 milligram and it's fine? What sense does that make? Why isn't it up to me? Forgive me. This is what fucking pisses me off. This is a decision for me, Doug, and our doctor. And everyone else can piss right the hell off.

Because who's going to tell me I've got to stick the vial in my 12-year-old and get him a certain MG that is not appropriate for his weight class, right? In any other society, we'd be looking at that like they do in Europe. But you have bureaucrats saying, I will tell you what goes in your son's arm or you can get out. And you know what? Maybe we will get to the point where we say, good, bye. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. And sort of my frustration with schools in general, it extends to the private schools. They think that they have a say in our parenting decisions. And we're seeing that with any number of things, the sort of sex education conversations that

they're having, the CRT conversations that they're having, they think it's up to them to do everything. And it's not, it's our place as a parent to make these medical decisions. And it's also our place as parents to sort of set for our kids, like, this is what we believe as a family about any number of sort of social issues that are outside of the purview of the schools. This is none of your business. Teach them math, teach them writing. And by the way, maybe if you focused on that, the test results would be a little bit better. Just saying. That's right. Who the hell told you you could talk to my kid about kink? Screw you. I don't want you to stay in your lane. But you raised a good point a minute ago.

And I really I'm hanging my hat on this. You know, David Leonhard of the New York Times was on last week and he's definitely more left-leaning than I am and I think than you are. But I said, you know, what's it going to take for your people to listen to reason, your leftist people? And he said, elections. He said said if there's one thing that will change the tide, because it hasn't been even Bethany, you mentioned the Surgeon General's report, who would think that they would be at the top of the list of these so-called woke leftists. Like that should make them see reason and change policy. It doesn't. COVID fear rates above everything. It trumps everything. But if they lose power, it's a different story, right? So I think if they get punished in 2022, I mean, that's when we have, that's the eye on the prize, right? November 22.

Yeah. I mean, I never knew the name of my local county council members before, and now I am the biggest thorn in their sides. I will knock on doors until my knuckles bleed to get every single local official out of power where I live, because they have made life really, really unpleasant. It's like, it's the way I think a lot of people felt when Trump was elected. You know, the diehard never Trumpers thought he was just an emergency. He himself was an emergency. And somebody I used to work with said that he thought his wife was being radicalized by Trump, like against him. You know, she was never super political, but he radicalized her. And a friend of mine who is definitely an established left person, when they put Steve Bannon on the National Security Council, she literally called both senators every day, every day to say Steve Bannon needs to come off the National Security Council.

And eventually he did. He was an advisory, whatever. I think that's starting to happen to parents across the political aisle, left and right, who have seen enough is enough. It might not fight for myself. I might not be a squeaky wheel when it's me. But this is severely damaging. And by the way, what was the problem in 2019, according to that Surgeon General?

Isolation, causing anxiety and depression with kids. And now what do we do in the pandemic? Created further isolation. The iPhones, you know what the iPhone did in creating disease in our children when it comes to anxiety and depression and loneliness and isolation, the pandemic restrictions only exacerbated, right? It's like they took that disease and it multiplied tenfold. And we're still looking around saying, get your child vaccinated. That's the solution to everything. Yeah. Remember at the pediatrician when they used to ask you how much

screen time your kids got? I haven't gotten that question in two years. Good point. That's exactly right. And now more and more are going remotely again and these teachers in michigan who are like we need friday's off for our mental health get to work too yep in new york doing it here too there there's in in dc and they're saying you know we're so burned out i live in montgomery county maryland they're saying we're so burned out student behavior is so bad that we're we're just going to have to take a couple days off do you not see the link between instability and ripping school away from kids

with absolutely no notice and their behavior? Your actions have directly contributed to the problem that you're now facing. And this is sort of a generational societal problem. Instead of addressing problems head on, they've decided to cop out and to say, we quit or we'd like less time in the classrooms or we want to keep the masks on because I feel like they like the masks on kids because it makes them more

subdued because they can't express their emotions as much. And so it's sort of like puts them into their shell a little bit. But the masks are also dehumanizing to children. And when you dehumanize kids and you make them feel like they're animals in a cage and don't let them talk and don't let them drink water during class, this is the result. When you treat children like animals, they will act like animals. Oh, my God. I mean, like, I don't let my kids have that mask on for one second longer than they have. If they forget about it, they have it on the car. I'm like, get it off your face. Get it off. It's not normal. Do not get used to it. And by the way, there was just a study out. This is in North Dakota that took a look at two different school districts to see whether the masks were making a difference.

And what they found at best at best for the mask mandate mandate advocates was there was no difference. That's the best case scenario. But really, if you look at it, there's a slightly they did slightly better at preventing covid in the school that did not have the masks. And that was what the CDC's own study in Georgia said when it looked at ninety thousand students. And then they promptly ignored it. And, you know, people don't listen. They don't the leftists don't watch Fox News and the mainstream or, you know, right-wing media outside of Fox and the mainstream won't report on things like that. You know, just a little bit here, a little bit there. They're starting to, Bethany. I'm sensing some sort of end of patience with some, right?

On the center left. But I feel like at this rate, it's going to take years before they see each other's faces at school yep yep and at that rate i mean i i think that we're going to see the ramifications societally forever we're going to see increases in crime uh increases in dropouts mental mental health i mean we're already seeing that with the surgeon general the the just monetary costs of this are going to be significant uh i i don't see how a lot of kids come

out of this pandemic without serious sort of mental illness and problems, honestly. That's right. And then what we're told, though, and I saw this in your piece, they're resilient. Children are resilient with this fake Stepford-y smile that you want to smack. It's like that doesn't mean you can just pile onto them ad nauseum in trying to ramp up your vaccination rates that in a situation that where children's participation is not required, it's not required. And other countries have confirmed that we're the only ones who are the lunatics. We in Australia have been the COVID lunatics. This is not a race we want to win.

All right, stand by because there's much more to go over with Bethany Mandel. We're going to have more on COVID. And she's got a new children's book out, which I think you're going to like. She's working to counter the woke drift in schools, right? It's not going to be all let's celebrate Ruth Bader Ginsburg anymore. And she's fine like RBG. I mean, I did. God rest her soul. Not necessarily her judicial philosophy, but her as a woman. Now, what about if your child read a book about Amy Coney Barrett? How about that? So, Bethany, how do you do it? How do you raise five children and homeschool them and still work, still work outside the home, right? Write columns and so on and write a book and on it goes. How?

Yeah. Yeah. So I don't sleep is really just the answer. A lot of people, you know, they give like answers like, oh, I'm really good at time management. Like, sure, that's part of it. But I also just don't sleep. I'll sleep when I'm dead. Have you always been a bad sleeper or is it that it's not that you're a bad sleeper? It's just you only have three hours. Oh, it's not that bad. I would love to sleep. If someone would allow me, I would be a great sleeper. But every other year, I have another baby in my bed or in my belly or something. I mean, basically, I just don't sleep. How old are they now? My short answer.

Eight, six, four, two, and zero. And while we were on commercial break, my husband ran up the mean basically i just don't sleep how many how old are they my short answer uh eight six four two and zero and while we were on commercial break my husband ran up the stairs to get the baby to bring him to the basement so oh my my friend just had her fifth child and she's in new york city and she's so funny she she says mk what kind of a person has five children she says about herself she's like we're crossing over into weird now. Do you ever have people look at you with that stunned like, five? Yeah, no, people, I've noticed people's eyes starting to count now once we hit five. And my favorite moment, and I'm happy to send you one, by the way, on our Hanukkah card,

the text box ran out of room, and it didn't give me a warning. And so on 180 cards, I had to like handwrite and, and the baby's name, because I don't say my kid's name in public. So I had to handwrite his name on the bottom. Like that's pretty classic. Yeah. So you, you like yours truly do not show pictures of your kids online. And, but you've gone one step further. I've noticed you, you give them pseudonyms. And one of them is Altima. There's a lot of stories about Altima, which I love the story behind why you

chose that because somebody's like you named your kid Altima. Can you tell us how that one child got that one name? So he it really fits his personality, I have to say. So he is four years old. And four years ago, I had like a number of false labor scares. And so my midwife told me like, I cannot have you come back to the hospital unless you're actually in labor. So wait until your water breaks. And so I was asleep and my water broke and we got in the car and we were driving to the hospital about 45 minutes away. And he only had about 20 minutes left in him before he was like, I'm done. I'm out. I don't care where you are. I don't care what you're doing. And so he was born in my husband's Nissan Altima with like 200,000 miles or something on it. And he pulled over into a gravel parking

lot of an auto body shop off the highway in New Jersey. And that's where he was born covered in gravel. And that's like who he is to this day. I'm like, oh yeah, that's, that's the one that was born on the side of the highway. That is amazing. So how do you make it work? Homeschooling for all five different ages? Are you in a network with other homeschooling parents? Yeah. So my older, um, my oldest two are officially homeschooling. And then my other two younger ones, my, my four and two year old are in like an in-home preschool for a couple of days a week. Uh, and that's when we bang out a lot of school. And a lot of our, a lot of our, our homeschooling is just reading out loud and reading to them. And

so it's not like a big heavy lift. We were done with school today in two hours. And then this is how I'm spending my afternoon with my children hiding in my basement. Well, this is not in any way to compare you to the Duggar family, but I did go out there and do an interview with the Duggars and they're like 19 children. And what I noticed when I was there was the older ones really take care of the younger ones like when you're when you have a lot of children you really have no choice but to make the older ones help you out and I thought it was such a not the Duggar family but that dynamic is healthy right like I wish I could get my older kids to take on more of the family burden and help out like with

my little guy or even just I've got to do a better job of getting them to help around the kitchen around like picking up after themselves. And I feel like you probably have that down. No, not at all. You should see my house. There was a profile of me in Deseret News and the reporter who's a friend of mine now mentions like six times how messy my house is. It's like, oh, I can I can't fit my water bottle on her coffee table. I'm like, yeah, well, that is my life. That is really messy. This is a very tight frame. Okay. I love the bookshelves. This part of my house is okay.

This is the part that's presentable. Yes, the only part. Okay, but we won't wander. The other thing I did not know about your family background, your family of origin. And whenever I hear that somebody lost both of their parents at a young age, as you did, I wonder like, if they're doing well, if they're thriving in the world as you are, how they did that. Right. Because it's so important to have parents who are involved, who are loving at least one. And you, I didn't,

so your mom died when you were in high school and your dad, not that long after. Yep. Two and a half years after, maybe three years after. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of it was because of sort of how my mom raised me and my mom raised me to not dwell and not get bogged down in it because we knew that my mom was not going to survive high school for me. And so she sort of gave me a lot of like life skills. Like she had me paying the bills when I was in high school and middle school. She had me doing a lot of stuff so that when I eventually was on my own and we knew it was going to be way too early, I was able to sort of live life in that way.

And so it was a lot of like my mom's sort of coping mechanisms was like to not dwell, to not sort of submerge myself and to not define myself by victimhood and to just sort of plow on and to fake it until you make it. There's something to be said for like, I'm really, really fricking miserable, but I am just going to get out of bed and I'm going to get dressed and I'm going to do these things. And I'm going to find one thing to look forward to. And eventually sort of faking it until you make it. You don't have to fake it anymore. You're just making it. That's so true. So the reason you were on your own after she died is your dad was not in your life. He wasn't in the picture. Yeah. Yeah. I had a very fractured relationship with my dad, so I didn't see him from when I was seven to 17 or 18. And he died when I was 19 and

he committed suicide. So that was like a whole other sort of, you know, when, when someone makes that choice to do that there, there's like a whole other set of baggage that you have to sort of deal with. And so I was, I was basically on my own. No brothers or sisters, just you? No, which is why I have five kids. Yeah, of course, that's absolutely linked. And so were you really on your own when your mom passed? Like it was just you trying to figure out life as a what, 16 year old? Yeah, I mean, I had one really amazing cousin who let me sleep in her like loft in her one bedroom, like, sort of on gold street in lower Manhattan. Like she let me sleep in her loft and she brought me to target and bought me stuff for college. Like she really

stepped in without resources of her own because she knew that, um, no one else was going to do it. And so she did it. Uh, and my mom's ex-husband was sort of another person that was there for me in really critical moments. And, um, so they, they like really pitched in and I could not have survived my childhood without the two of them. But yeah, I mean, in a lot of ways, I was on my own, but I can't sort of ignore the fact that they stepped in and they weren't the obvious choices. Like I still had grandparents when my mother died and they didn't step up. I had my mom's sister actually stole most of my inheritance. And like, that was unfortunate. Well, this is, you know, one of the things I like about you on Twitter is you're and in your columns, too, is you really aren't pro victimhood. You know how the whole society is pro victimhood

now. You recognize when somebody's been hurt. You're not one of these people who's like, get over it. No rape. No, you're fine. You're not that person at all, but you're not leaning into victimhood. And now hearing your backstory, it's even more impressive because you could absolutely be that person. How, how is what's happening in our society? How does it make you react having, you know, been through all you just discussed? Yeah. I mean, I think it's really important to me as a parent. I'm so grateful that my children will never, God willing, have any of the experiences that I had. I sort of look at my kids at like eight and six. I'm like, oh, my life was very different when I was your age. But I don't resent them for it. And I don't sort of throw it in their faces like, well, you know, when I was your age, I was walking uphill both ways. Like, that's not, I don't think that's healthy either. But I really want to sort of give them coping mechanisms without sort of the anvil that was hanging over my head, because I do want them to be able to cope. I do want them to have coping mechanisms. And a lot of that we get through literature and through books, because I'm very grateful they don't have the real world experiences of hardship. Now you, I know that you're Jewish, you write about it online, but your dad was the one who

was Jewish and your mom was Catholic. And so he didn't really, he wasn't around that often. So how did that happen? How did you connect with the faith? So it was kind of weird. So my mom, I was like a very rebellious child. And so my mom brought me to Catholic church and I was like, this doesn't feel right. This is weird. And also, like I was like a very rebellious child. And so my mom brought me to Catholic church and I was like, this doesn't feel right. This is weird. And also, like I was told that Jesus was the son of God. And I had accidentally walked in on my parents, one of my parents, my father with his girlfriend and sort of, I don't think God did that. That was, that was my seven-year-old take. I was like, that is disgusting. And that is not holy. So I don't think that's what happened. And so my mom was sort of explaining to me Judaism. And they're like,

well, they don't believe in Jesus. I'm like, well, that's good. Because I thought that thing that happened was gross. So that no Jesus thing is a plus in my column. That's what got you? What? That's what got you? That's so funny. No. So no, it's ridiculous. It gets even more ridiculous. And then my mom was like, they're people of the book. And I was like, well, I love books. Books are like my favorite thing to do. And she said, oh, and your favorite soup that I make matzo ball soup. That's also Jewish. And I was like, done, sold. No fornication. No, there's matzo ball soup. And there's tons of books. That's like my dream religion. That's what I am. And so stubborn person that I am. I was like, I am Jewish for now and forevermore. Oh,. He probably was raised more traditionally and was like, is this what

is within all this? You've misunderstood the whole thing. Your husband. Yeah. No, I mean, he understood what he was getting into. He was like, this is this is a whole ball of weird. But Seth is weird, too. There's a reason why. So he is what his grandmother used to say. What's his actual title at the Washington Examiner? Executive, what's his title? Executive Editor of the Magazine. Okay, okay, great. So he's sort of immersed in more conservative media. And how's that going?

Like with the two of you, I mean, you're living in an area of the country that's pretty blue. Have you struggled to connect with, you know, people in your neighborhood and your town and so on? So yes and no. so i have a really wonderful pocket of in-person friends um there was uh you know multi-page multi-week long thread about me on a local mommy board that i'm still getting google alerts about no i i so i stopped

reading it for my own mental health i was like i don't i don't need to know but a friend that read it was like yeah they're talking about how your kids are brats and about how your kid Ultima pooped in the community pool two years ago. I'm like, okay, I feel like we don't have to talk about that on a community. Two-year-olds poop in the pool. I'm sorry. So, I mean, there's definitely, there's definitely some people in the neighborhood that are not fans, but I, you know, that's one of the nice things about covid i don't have to deal with you because you're locked in your house terrified yeah i don't i'm wondering because i do see you get a lot of blowback online and i do think very strongly opinionated women always do i mean i'll say that on the left or the right there's something

about you're supposed to be shyer about it you're supposed to be a little more sorry that you've got these strong opinions you know what i mean um and they tell janice to just read the weather oh my god can you believe that story did you see i don't know so angry chris cuomo fucking weather bitch or no i had the fucking sorry weather bitch that weather bitch oh my god that's like people are like oh i've been hearing a little bit in my corners. I feel sorry for the guy. He lost everything. I'm like, no, no, no.

You have to follow. It's not just because he helped his brother. That's what you will hear. I love Tucker. But that's what you hear on Tucker. That's not it. But Tucker will also tell you about all the bad stuff he did. It's been years of accumulation of distrust and bad behavior and narcissism.

And that's why only 15% of the country thinks he shouldn't have gotten fired. He had no base. There was no one rooting for him to stay. I mean, why do you think that was? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's infuriating to me that Andrew Cuomo lost his job because of the groping instead of the killing elderly. And it's infuriating to me that Chris Cuomo lost his job over this when there was any number of things that he could have been fired for breaking quarantine and wandering around the Hamptons or, you know, having his brother on in the first place, which was highly unprofessional. There were so many other reasons why the Cuomo brothers should have lost their jobs. And it's frustrating that this is what they lost them over. I do think, though, with the loss of all three properties, right, the CNN show, unclear what happened here at Sirius XM. He's

trying to spin it certainly as a decision to step down but i mean listen no one here has said anything to me i'm not giving inside information i just feel like that's suspicious you don't you don't get fired from one job and then just quit the other i mean the other job would probably become more important to you than ever in that moment and then and then the book deal gets taken away. But I wonder there might've been some sexual stuff going on too that we don't really know about. I'm not sure we'll ever hear the full story, but I think that they just realized

that he was becoming too much of a liability. Well, that's the thing. It's like there was the Shelley Ross incident happened years ago while he was at ABC, but she came public with it now. There was the executive producer at CNN who left his show because she said he was a bully and she got farmed off to the digital property um and then there was this other woman

who came forward we don't know anything about that in the meantime he's back there doing oppo research on his brother's accusers and calling janice dean a weather bitch asking how he can discredit her because she's upset at her dead in-laws i mean that's who he is that's who chris cuomo is what did you make of um the other big media, that's who he is. That's who Chris Cuomo is. What did you make of the other big media news over the weekend, which is Fox News' Chris Wallace stepping down from his post on Fox News Sunday

and going to CNN Digital, not even like the main CNN, but CNN Digital for a five-day-a-week show? I don't understand. I don't understand. I like Chris Wallace a lot. I'm not really sure what's going on there because it from the outside it doesn't make much sense but who knows who knows what's going on in other people's homes and other people's lives and i don't know yeah i know i think that um wallace was disliked and remains disliked by most of the Fox News base after his performance in the last presidential election. And I've spent a lot of time with Chris Wallace. I know him pretty well. But I think he lost the Fox News base in a particular way, right? know, the direction that Fox is going to.

You know, they've sort of embraced some of their right wing leanings and they're not as ideologically balanced as they were. But I mean, they're still the only thing on television, basically, that's in anything to the right of, you know, everything else out there. Right. It's like you got Newsmax, which doesn't really put a bunch of points on the board, though. I like them. And then you've got Fox. So I just think he probably didn't feel like he was at home anymore. And he didn't have the support of the audience. And so you can sort of see where that's going to go. Not to mention he's 76 years old.

It's like at that point. But God love him for taking on a five-day-a-week job at 76. Yeah, no, I mean. 74, sorry. We'll see how it goes, yeah. I think it'll go fine because I think the CNN audience will like him a lot better than the fox news audience did um i think they're sort of he showed his partisan stripes and he was right he was on he was on the wrong team he was not on the team that that loves him and the cnners i think will feel differently though i don't know

maybe he'll wind up with a digital producer from Chris Cuomo that wound up not working out. Bethany, such a pleasure to talk to you. Good luck with... Oh, wait a minute. Shit, I forgot. Sorry. Forgive me. The books. I didn't forget. I did forget and I need to talk about the books. So I love this idea because Amy Coney Barrett, I think is amazing and would be celebrated by most of the left if they just didn't, if she didn't have the stance on abortion she has. So what's it called and what are you doing? So it's called Heroes of Liberty and you can get our books at heroesofliberty.com. And we created a promo code for your viewers. So it's Megan is the promo code. So you can get 5% off, but it's, we're a literary startup and we're producing a book series

about great people who embody life values that we want our kids to sort of carry with them through their childhoods and into their adulthoods. Liberty, freedom, family, standing on your own. Kids follow these amazing people, Amy Coney Barrett, Thomas Sowell, and Ronald Reagan, from childhood through adulthood, and they're learning from example. And so, you know, instead of sort of teaching our children about victimhood, for example, as we were talking about, we were teaching them about sort of standing on your own. And Thomas Sowell was a

great example of that. That's one of my favorite books. And, you know, it's not preachy, it's not political. It's just telling great stories with really incredible and engaging art. And so we're sort of teaching about the importance of family, Amy Coney Barrett, that's like sort of the theme of that book. And resilience and standing on your own is the theme of the Thomas Sowell book. And Ronald Reagan, I mean, he was just like the of the Thomas Sowell book. And Ronald Reagan, I mean, he was just like the kindest, most wonderful president. And we want our kids to sort of have a familiarity with all of these sort of people that were so instrumental in our country's history. So folks can get the books at heroesofliberty.com and read them with their kids at night.

Heroesofliberty.com. and what was the second part? Megan, Megan. And so they can read them with their kids at night and whatever whatever is going on in their kids school, they can sort of push back a little bit at home and teach their kids sort of the right way that we want our kids to be because we can't count on the schools to do it. What's the age target range for these books? So it's between ages six to 12. The illustrations are really, really captivating. So they really kind of hook the younger kids in. And the prose is also like really challenging and really wonderful. It's sort of one of those like throwback books that you sort of remember from your childhood that were really sort of, I think about sort of the Chronicles of Narnia, like the really

intricate prose that's really challenging, that really tells you a story. That's really what we're shooting to do. And we hope to eventually become like a more wholesome and moderate scholastic because they've gone just completely off the cliff ideologically. I love this. I love this. It's hard to find those books.

I mean, I always post pictures from my local bookstore on the Upper West Side. And it's of course, it's like all RBC, AOC, Fauci, Michelle Obama. I mean, you in no world would there ever be a Thomas Sowell ever. Yeah, exactly. Wonderful to have this as an option. Yeah, yeah. So here's the liberty.com and people can use the promo code Megan for 5% off. I'm doing that today. Abby, will you get me all three of them? It's just the three so far. Yeah, so far. And we're going to we're planning on producing one a month into the new year. And so we're going to have John Wayne, Mark Twain, Mark Churchill, one I'm editing right now. Churchill is another one, Douglas MacArthur. And so sort of all of these people that our kids desperately need to know about. And, you know,

speaking of resilience, my God, like Winston Churchill, you really can't get a better sort of role model for your kid. And I would love my kids to walk around saying, you know, my hero is Thomas Sowell or Winston Churchill. It doesn't get much better than that. And of course, the left is to be like, of course, you ignored his history of colonialism, and they're all racist and so on. And it's like, okay, no one, not even your heroes were perfect. Go take a look at the FBI report about Dr. Martin Luther King and what his own Pulitzer Prize winning biographer unearthed when he was studying Dr. King and his history with women and alleged sexual assault.

It's not to say that, you know, we dismiss all flaws, but our heroes are heroes for a reason. They did extraordinary things in extraordinary times. And that's why people continue to love MLK and continue to love Winston Churchill. Bethany, thank you so much. I'm buying them right now. Thank you. Thank you. And you guys should do the same. Tomorrow, our friend Charles C.W. Cook will be here. Excited to talk to him as always. In the meantime, download the show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify, and Stitcher. If you leave a review at Apple, I will read it. I read them all.

Also at youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. You can check out the visual aspect of the show. Thanks for listening and we'll talk tomorrow. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.