The Megyn Kelly Show - Erasing What Makes Women Women, and COVID Lockdown Protests, with Mary Katharine Ham, Bethany Mandel, Winston Sterzel, and Matthew Tye | Ep. 480

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

Megyn Kelly is joined by Mary Katharine Ham, host of "Getting Hammered," and Bethany Mandel, editor of "Heroes of Liberty," to talk about the recent developments in the San Diego YMCA trans locker room controversy, the transgender woman involved speaking out, the fight to protect our daughters, supporting trans rights at the expense of women's rights, the unique feminine experience being erased, a woman fired for liking "dangerous" tweets, a Fox contributor kicked out of a restaurant for his political conversation, the double standard on free speech in America, Burberry's new "gender neutral" campaign featuring double mastectomies, and more. Then YouTubers Winston Sterzel and Matthew Tye join to discuss the toll of China's Zero COVID lockdown policies, the rare protests late last year and China's response, American media not understanding the China reality, how China tries to control the message and silence criticism, the nationalist movement in China, how China became more authoritarian in recent years, their personal experiences living in China as foreigners, and more.Ham's podcast: https://nebulouspodcasts.com/shows/getting-hammeredMandel's book series: https://heroesofliberty.comSterzel and Tye's show: http://youtube.com/@thechinashow 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. Just had a very funny laugh with Abby, sorry. She's sitting here, we crack each other up some days. Later today, we're going to have a fascinating discussion on China from two Americans, well, two non-Chinese citizens who went over there and thought, hey, let's give this a try. It's beautiful.

It's amazing. Holy shit. And promptly got out of there and had a very eye-opening experience. And they're here to tell you all about it. But first, major follow-up to a story we brought you last week regarding the teenage girl who spoke out after she encountered a quote naked male in a local YMCA bathroom in Santee, California. Since then, there've been several updates in this story and it all culminated last night in a very heated local city council meeting. Excuse me. I better not be getting Doug's flu. Doug is battling the flu. No, I feel good. I'm good. And say a prayer for Doug, who is not doing so well. Joining me now to discuss all the latest, Mary Catherine Hamm, host of the Getting Hammered podcast, and Bethany

Mandel, editor of the children's book series, Heroes of Liberty, and contributing writer at Deseret News. Great to have you both. Welcome, ladies. Thank you so much. Glad to be here. Thank you. Yes. All right. So congrats, Bethany. I see you've got your little one. Is this your latest? Yeah. And Mary Catherine is showing me up by being kid-free and more newly postpartum. You know what? I'm just not as brave with my brain or my baby as Bethany is. So separate room for the baby so that the brain can do what it's supposed to do. Same, same. I hope, Bethany, you had the same reaction that I did to Meghan Markle being like,

and I did the Australian tour where everyone was applauding me and loving me while pregnant. I know, it was so hard. It was so hard walking around while working how how difficult for you to juggle guest dating literally all you have to do is just exist to gestate it's so true okay sorry i'm sure she had no help guys no staff i'm sure she had absolutely nobody taking care of her whatsoever and by the way no one was asking how she was either. No one. Let's talk about what's happening out in California, in SoCal. So we've had Carrie Prejean and Brett Mayer coming on. We've been talking about their efforts as these two sort of mom warriors

to fight back against the overreaches by the very activist trans community, right? Very activist and in sort of taking over women's spaces. And, um, these two, they don't care what they get called. They show up and they say, no hard pass. And they do get called a lot of names, but it's not about them. It's about this 17 year old girl who came out and, uh, her name is Rebecca Phillips. And she showed up at the Santee city council meeting to say, I'm 17 and I was at the Y and I saw a naked male. And I object. I object to having been put through that. I object to the thought of my five year old little sister potentially having to deal with that.

And I will say this. She didn't say she saw a naked penis. Sorry to drop the P word in the first three minutes of the show. But she said she saw a naked male just to take a walk down memories lane. Here's what she said in part. Rebecca Phillips, six. As I was showering after my workout, I saw a naked male in the women's locker room. I immediately went back into the shower, terrified and hid behind their flimsy excuse for a curtain until he was gone. So the Y has to allow people like a trans woman to use the women's bathroom because California state law says they must. That's a law out there. The Y wasn't particularly apologetic either.

Well, now the person who says that she is the trans woman that was seen by Rebecca has come forward. And I don't know whether that's true or not, but I know this person has a history at this Y of being a biological male, but going in and using the women's locker room and doing protests and having all sorts of commotion around the fact that this was this was this person's preference this person goes by kristin wood now uh kristin is 66 years old six years ago she was a man she was living as a biological man she wasn't transitioned so six years ago it was very clear this person would have had to use the male facility now k, Kristen Wood says she has transitioned. As recently as December 2021, she definitely had not had sex reassignment surgery on her penis.

All right. This is her, her penis. I mean, this is the bizarre world in which we're now living. But now she claims she has. Stay with me. And she's very, very angry at Rebecca Phillips. She came out and spoke in to a local publication saying the following. Here's a set for people. Entire families were coming up to get their picture taken and to introduce me to their children. It's important that they finally get to hear the truth and they finally get to put a face on this scary transgender woman who was misgendered. All right, so that's obviously a biological man. It wouldn't take much to figure that out, as Rebecca Phillips did. So here's the twist to the story. Kristen Wood is defending Kristen Wood's behavior by saying, I had sex reassignment

surgery and where would you have me go? I went to the women's room because I am a woman. It's separate and apart from California law. I am. And you're a bigot if you object. Well, it's not just Carrie Prejean and Rip Mayer who object. Uh, but there are two of the women who showed up at the meeting, uh, last night, I think it was city council meeting. That's where Rebecca first stood up to object. And here's, you know what? I should play this longer SOT bite from Kristen Wood before I let the ladies respond.

Here's a longer soundbite by Kristen in her defense. Okay, SOT one. On the morning of Thursday, December 12th, my aqua sister, Vicky, called to say, Chrissy, I'm so sorry about what happened last night in Santee. I replied, what happened? Her answer was, oh my God, you don't know, do you? Let me send you the Instagram video.

I watched it and I collapsed in tears. I'm here to spread the light of truth in the face of these inaccuracies. I'm a mom, a grandmom. Now please look at me. Listen to the sound of my voice. I am a threat to no one. In the year I've been a member of the Y, children have attended summer camp and have been with their parents and grandparents in the women's locker room with me. And there has never, ever been an incident, ever.

Not until one was manufactured using this forum to do so. I am fully transitioned, as can be confirmed, that my doctorate sharps, who is also my gynecologist. I am sorry that this forum was previously used to spread lies and a hateful political agenda. God bless you all for this opportunity. Kristen wants us to believe that Kristen needs a gynecologist. Even if you've had sex transition surgery, you don't have an actual vagina. Okay. You don't have a female reproductive system. You don't have anywhere near the actual worries of an actual woman when it comes to what goes on down South in Rio. That's the truth. All right. Looking at three moms here

who have had babies in the not too distant past. Um, my last one was nine years ago, but I just like, can we not pretend that a gynecologist is behaving toward Kristen the way a gynecologist actually must to maintain one's medical license? What they do is create a hole. That's what they do. They create a hole in what the area that used to have a penis and they want to declare that a vagina, which it isn't. I'm sorry. Okay. Sorry. That's me, but whatever. I'm leading. I'm going to give you the floor in one second. This is a long setup for the story. Carrie, Britt, others go to say, what the hell's happening here? And they don't accept Kristen's protestations that Kristen belongs in the female locker room.

I'll give you a sampling of what they said. Here's Keri Sattu. I'm identifying tonight as Kristi Lynn Wood, so I have three minutes. This is a war on women, children, and the truth, capital T. And the enemy is disguised in high heels, lipstick, and a shaved beard. Cultural appropriation is wrong, and gender appropriation is wrong.

And my job is to protect my children. And that's why I'm here. This is not about equality. This is about complete domination and superiority. We're not going to accept this. There is no such thing as a trans transitioning gender. That is a made up fantasy. It doesn't matter if you chop your penis off. It doesn't make you a woman. It doesn't make you a woman. It makes you unwell. We want, we are not going to bow down to your gender ideology cult. So here's what needs to happen tonight. You guys, while you still have your balls, do something about it. We need protection for the little Rebecca. Stop. I get more time. Your time is up. Stop.

Stop. The microphone is turned off. Nobody's hearing you. Oh, boy. And here's the last piece of it, which is Brit getting up. And by the way, these two have come on the show and they they according to what I don't know if we got this directly or if we heard them responding in written form, they were subjected to such harassment. They had to be escorted out by the sheriff's department because of the place was filled with trans activists who honestly, you should distinguish from trans people because the activists are just in a class,

a special class of angry. Um, not to be confused with the trans community writ large. Yeah, they told us that. Okay, here's Britt. This radical new reworked language to force everyone to play by the rules of an ideology that is based on feelings rather than biology and truth is unsustainable and it's dangerous. If everyone can be a woman, then no one is a woman.

I pulled up and the vice mayor spot was open. If I identify as vice mayor and maybe even get a tattoo that says vice mayor and hand out business cards as vice mayor, am I legally vice mayor and am I allowed now to the table? Can I yell discrimination if you don't play by my rules? The logical conclusion of policies that are catered to ideologies that are not based in any truth is utter and complete chaos. We are asking you to step in and to put forward an ordinance that will protect women and girls. Play the hero. We're at the tipping point in society. Okay, I'm done. And I would love to get your thoughts on all of this, ladies. Bethany, you were trying to jump in a second ago i'll start with you yeah so i i just have sort of a technical question so this person is

asserting that they have been fully transitioned medically if that's the case then how did a 17 year old girl recognize that this was a biological male i presume that she wasn't that close to this person's genitalia. So obviously it's obvious enough from afar, from across the room, that there's something there that shouldn't be there when you're a biological woman. So this sort of presumption that this is a full transition and this person has a gynecologist, I'm going to call BS on. I don't believe it's true. I know because we know from the earlier reports, because she's been causing trouble at this YMCA, she was not transitioned as of December 2021. So that's a year plus ago. Doesn't mean it couldn't have happened in the last year but it would have been awfully recent and by the way i don't know if it matters mk because this girl never claimed she saw

male genitalia she said i saw a naked male i think i would recognize that kristin wasn't was a male was a biological male if i saw krist behind as well. Yeah. Well, so your question earlier was, do we have to pretend about the gynecologist? And the answer is yes, we are. The demand is that we pretend. And the demand is that you do not object in any way, shape or form. And that is not something that is acceptable to me. This young woman is a minor who was in this setting, saw something that made her uncomfortable and made her wonder about the safety of this locker room. She is allowed to have those concerns. It is crazy town to tell her she's not allowed to. And the way this

is being covered is just insane. There's a headline, I believe it was Daily Beast that called it her gym freak out. A 17-year-old's gym freakout. It's like, well, maybe we should respect the fact that she's a little concerned about this and that 17-year-old girls maybe should be protected in some way and should listen to their guts on things like this. Another PBS headline out of San Diego, protests over use of Santee YMCA locker room by trans women, part of a troubling national trend. Is that the national trend where we care what our daughters are exposed to in locker rooms? Like I have three daughters. I would like them to be able to use their spidey sense to understand when

something might be making them uncomfortable and not be ashamed to say it. And what this is, is a national trend toward making them ashamed that they are uncomfortable and not be ashamed to say it. And what this is, is a national trend toward making them ashamed that they are uncomfortable and that is dangerous for them. That's exactly right. And she was called a bigot. We've seen it over and over again, where anybody who raises an objection to this is called a bigot. And the the insufferable piece of it, Bethany, is the people really calling women like Carrie and Britt and this young girl, Rebecca, and me and possibly you two as a result of this segment, bigots are biological men. So they could take a seat because I don't want to be lectured to by a biological man about how I need to be quiet about them entering my child's all female space, right? That's exactly my role

is to speak up for her. And in Rebecca's case, to try to find the voice to speak up for herself. Yeah. At our local community center where we do some classes, my seven year old son isn't allowed into the locker room anymore with me. And we have to go get changed in the family locker room because men aren't allowed. But at the same time, an adult male would be allowed into that locker room. But my seven-year-old male child wouldn't unless I start calling him, I don't know, whatever. I can't think of a female name. But if I start calling him a girl, then all of a sudden I can let him into that room. But sort of touching back on what Mary Catherine just said, what's really

troubling to me is the safety aspect and that we're teaching young girls to ignore that spider sense. And there's so much of the female experience that these trans men who claim to be women will never understand. But one of the most sort of traumatic moments in that transition when you go from a young girl to a woman is when you start fearing for your physical safety. And that's not an experience that they have ever had when it comes to sexuality. They've never had to sort of look behind them with their keys in their hand and the finger on the panic button on their key chain because they're scared of who's walking behind them. And while there is a fear of physical violence, the fear of sexual violence is something that is unique to the

female experience. And we are teaching young girls that they have to ignore the spider sense that has kept every woman safe since the beginning of time. We have that spider sense because men can be predators. And this idea that if a man calls himself a woman, then there's no way that he could ever be predatory is absolutely absurd because men will do literally anything to take advantage of a woman, to see a woman naked, except this one thing, they would never lie about their gender. That's something that's beyond the pale. They would, however, rape and kill a woman, but they would never lie about their gender. Right. This is such a good point. My God. And it's like you, we had Debra. So on here, um, just last week, she was responding to a viewer

who had called in concerned that her 23 year old is, is seeming to think she's the opposite gender. And, um, Debra. So is saying this story really disturbs her because, again, we don't know if the male genitalia was still intact or not. But she was saying transgender women, you know, biological men who want to live as women, they don't they don't run around with their penises out. They'd be horrified to walk around naked. They don't really love having the penis. They really want to lean into the female role. And so if you see that, it's actually a serious red flag. So again, we don't know what the truth is here. I have no idea.

But the point is, there is reason to be concerned. And even if it has happened in this particular case, it's a bigger issue because there will be men who take advantage of this law. And what we're doing is not allowing for that at all. Mary Catherine. Well, yeah. And the problem is, look, I am a person who wants to have like maximal freedom for as many people as possible. Right. And to to make sure that we can live together in harmony. Right. More libertarian leaning. However, like there has to be a compromised position here because a locker room is a special place. These all made all female spaces are important to women. And then you have the has happened. I believe there's a spa in LA where someone got in trouble over something like this, where a trans woman was in the hot tub, I believe, with young people. And this is something that can be obviously dangerous to young women and to minors in general. And we're just sort of not allowed to object to it or point it out. And that

is not a compromise position that protects my freedom or the freedom of my kids. Yeah, it's a question of what's what's takes precedence, the physical safety of young girls, and not just young girls, I'd like to be physically safe, too. Yes. But the physical safety or the emotional well-being of people who who call themselves transgender and i'm sorry i will take physical well-being over emotional satisfaction any day of the week and and we are all supposed to swallow our our physical needs to not see a penis not encounter a penis all of those that we're supposed to just ignore those feelings and that safety aspect, because people might have their feelings hurt. And I don't care.

Why, why is it making my blood boil that Kristen claims to have a gynecologist? I really like, it's making my blood boil and I it's, I'm having like a real reaction to it in a way I actually didn't expect. And I'm thinking it through live. And part of it is, I just actually went to the gynecologist. Actual women have to go to the gynecologist once a year. When you just delivered a baby, you spend your life in with your gynecologist, your OBGYN. And it's never particularly pleasant to go see the gynecologist. The exam doesn't feel particularly good. The pap smear is very uncomfortable. No one looks forward to that. We actually have things we

need to worry about like ovarian cancer or other kinds of cancers that you can get in the OBGYN field. You have to get a breast exam. You're constantly worrying whether they're going to find a lump and how that could go. There are things that are particular to that exam and that relationship that no fucking man is ever going to have. All right. So that guy doesn't have a gynecologist. That guy has a hole that a surgeon created at best. I'm sorry. It's infuriating to me because there are things that make women special and there are things that we've overcome and that we must overcome as women in order to thrive in this life, whether it's the threat of sexual violence or being attacked as we walk home from college bars to our dorms or the fears that you have when you go to the gynecologist or when you are pregnant with a baby. All those things, they're baked in.

And it's part of what makes women so incredible and strong. And you can't just become one and take all of our things because you did or did not have a surgery or you put on a dress. It doesn't work like that. My favorite thing is when people say we're pregnant, when men say it, we're pregnant. We're expecting a baby. We had a baby. No, no, no. There's no we involved here. The woman, the mother is the one that's throwing up for nine months. She's the one that is having heartburn, like come out of her nose. And then she gets to experience the joy of pushing a watermelon out of

something, the size of a lemon. It is awful. Very clear memories. It was too recent. Very clear. Maybe this month. Yeah. Mary Catherine, not Mary Catherine, Megan Kelly, you had a baby nine years ago, and yet it's still vivid. It never goes away. And this idea that men can do all of these things,

it makes me equally enraged when we talk about birthing persons. Because what it does is it breaks us down as women into vessels. That's the Handmaid's Tale stuff. When they take away everything that is unique and powerful for women, and my God, men, society would never have survived. Humanity would not exist if men had to be pregnant. They take all of that away from women. And then they try to take it on and say, you know, we are birthing persons, men can be pregnant too. No, no, no, no, no. That's a joy that is only for us. And it comes with bragging rights. Well, yeah, I'm at a point in my life where I'm keenly aware of all that's going on in those special ways. And I just delivered a baby three weeks ago. And it is really special. And I'm with you, Megan, that I don't want my stuff taken from me. And I believe that there are ways to appropriately and politely deal with all people without just sort of abrogating all of the language that we use to deal with this, because I think that is offensive. And there are, it is amazing to me

that so many feminists who will, they will stipulate that women are special in these ways, and they face special threats, and that they, that all these things are true, while also contending that we're not allowed to worry about this at all or the appropriation. Yes. The appropriation of the special things about us. We're not allowed to object to that. Those two things don't go together. We are special for these reasons. And you see it when you, you know, when you look at your husband too, it's like, we, I don't know, just like not to get too poetic about it, but it's like, you see that beautiful male bicep, you know, that great shoulder that the guy gets and that sort of

V's ideally shape from the torso down to the waist. And like those firm bottoms that we'll never have no matter how much time we spend. I'm just going to play this for my husband and tell him you were talking about him. I'm just saying their natural instinct to protect us, like their chivalry, their, the way they, you know, seeing a man show his tenderness toward a baby in a way that's different than the mom does. And you know how the mom tries to sort of make excuses for a little junior, but the dad tries to shore them up to get tougher. All those things are so beautiful and they're meaningful. They They're there because of thousands of years of evolution and the way we used to have to live and the way we do now. And they cannot be dismissed

as a nothing because you went to see a surgeon. It's, oh God. And to turn, yeah, go ahead. I mean, that's just something that I think that a lot of trans activists ignore, the biological evolutionary aspect of all of this. All of these things exist for evolutionary reasons. And these are the folks that have the thing on their front lawn in this house we believe in science, except for biology and evolution. Yeah, that's true. And to turn the page literally, this is continuing. Like, it's not just poorbecca who's being dismissed as a

bigot or not demanding carrie and brit this woman just got fired for liking a jk rowling tweet okay so she's her name is cara lynn she gave an interview to national review uh i think was it either a national review or daily mail yeah national review and she worked for a gaming interview to National Review, I think. Was it either National Review or Daily Mail? Yeah, National Review. And she worked for a gaming company, Limited Run Games, which you wouldn't think is like the most progressive far left woke company. I don't know. It's like, I would think they cater to young guys for the most part. But in any event, she was a community manager, which I think meant she did press for them for limited run games. She worked there for more than two years and she just got fired because she enjoyed Harry Potter and followed some politically disfavored accounts on Twitter.

Again, reading told National Review, when a friend of hers, an influencer for Twitch, another streaming platform, asked his followers for their thoughts on the new Harry Potter themed game, Hogwarts Legacy. She, Carolyn, made the mistake of responding, I'm personally looking forward to it. The more I see gameplay, the more excited I get. It's hitting all the marks I've been wanting for a Harry Potter game. Well, that's fireable. Obviously. So then this activist who goes by the name Purple Tinker on Twitter, according to the Washington Post, the person behind that name is Jessica Blank, who's actually a biological man going as a transgender woman. And the founder of BaraniCon, an annual convention for adult fans of My Little Pony. These are sick efforts.

No danger signs there, by the way. I have a friend who no red flag invention. And he called he like group texted all of us as soon as he walked in. He's like, holy shit, there's a My Little Pony convention here. It's all freakish men attending. They get off on it. They get off on little girls. Okay, pony dolls okay so this is jessica who's behind the attempt to take down carolyn and jessica decided to go look through carolyn's old tweets and found that she follows people like libs of tiktok in miles chong yeah same by the way and uh exposed that she at one point had tweeted out something to the effect of a seven year old tweet criticizing transgender inclusive bathroom legislation and called her a bigot. The company caved. She's fired because of this. And they're not even trying to pretend it was for any reason other than this campaign against her.

Did they put out a statement that was like, we respect other people's views. However, we just fired her for liking tweets because that usually comes right after the cancellation. Yes. Here's what they said. Here's my notes from what they said. I don't know if you can read this, but I wrote F you. My potty mouth. My mom told me to stop swearing so much so did deseret news bethany but i it's hard um sorry okay i know i do i know i need to do it but it's really hard it's hard it's so hard especially when you're from new york i i feel your pain right it's in our blood it's in our blood it's like in the bagels oh no i don't know what it is then um what's really crazy wait well let me read their statement they said limited run games respects all personal opinions yes you called it exactly mary catherine

yeah however we remain committed to supporting an inclusive culture upon investigating a situation an employee was terminated that's it it. Upon investigating a situation, an employee was terminated. Passive voice. Our goal as a company is to continue to foster a positive, wait for it, and safe environment for everyone. Go ahead. Because it is indeed dangerous when someone likes a tweet and they work at your office, probably remotely, by the way. It's super dangerous. Right. What were you gonna say, Bethany? So I just think it's really funny that they once again, have thrown a woman under the bus in order to cater to the feelings of a biological male. That's that's the theme for

all of these things. Women are thrown under the bus to cater to the feelings of biological. Right, right back to the original theme. And I guess this person, Jessica Blank, aka Purple Tinker, aka founder of BrawnyCon, an annual convention for adult fans of My Little Pony, has made the point that it's been a long time since they have held a My Little Pony convention or went to one, which I have news for you is really no defense, Jessica, to the fact that you founded and used to love that stuff as recently as I guess a few years ago. These companies need to stand up. Yes, they need to stand up. This cannot keep happening or it's the end of our society. Yeah, no, the, the, the words, your concerns are noted are a lost art. Like,

let's just enact that. Like you can, you can tell someone, I hear what you're saying. We will not be making this person pay consequences for disagreeing with you. Now the left will say, this isn't cancel culture. This is consequences culture consequences for liking tweets, for following people whom other people disagree with. I follow a lot of people that I disagree with and people might find objectionable and I am allowed to look at their thoughts. That is that is not a thing that is a fireable offense. It's me too. Me too. I follow Nicole Hannah Jones and she and I have had some dustups and so on that. I want to hear what she has to say.

I think she's interesting. I don't agree with her, but she's interesting. It's absurd to be doing this kind of thing, and it's branching out. Up next, I'm going to take a quick break, and we're going to talk about what's happening. It's John O'Caldwell at Fox News who just got thrown out of a restaurant for openly expressing his conservative views. This is a crazy story. That's next. Don't go away. This is crazy to me. Gianno Caldwell, who is he works for Fox News, as may know him, was down in North Miami. So it's Florida and And like, Florida,

that's supposed to be like where you can say things that you want to say, not get canceled. He went into the, is it paradise? It's spelled without the E at the end, I think.

Paradis? Paradis. Okay, maybe it's French. Books and bread. Paradis books and bread. They kicked him out of the restaurant. Okay. As he told the story to Fox and friends and daily wire reporting on it,

kicked him out of the restaurant, claiming the behavior and words of the group he was with. And I think of Caldwell as well, made the employees and other patrons in the space quote, very uncomfortable. Okay. Now for the, for the listening audience,

if it matters, Giano's black, but that would not save him with these woke warriors down at the, at this book and bread store. What, what, um, he told Fox and friends, the story saying one of the owners came over to their table as they were eating breakfast and told them she'd been listening to their conversation a creepy and that they were not welcome he uh asked if he had said something triggering to her to which she responded no but said their politics are not aligned and asked him to leave because she did not feel comfortable he was there with a few people this is a white woman he said um he said the group had discussed several topics, including Caldwell's time working at Fox News, his values, violent crime, and progressive district

attorneys. Keep in mind that Gianno's brother was shot and killed in Chicago last year. So he's got a lot of thoughts on these soft on crime DAs, and apparently he was discussing them. And this person comes over and tells him, get out. And she's not denying it. She responded on Instagram saying that she found him offensive. She said, I don't want to get to it. Once it was clear that they were finished with their meal, we told them that our views do not align and that the language they were using was unwelcome in our space. And she claims that they were talking about women in degrading ways, as well as using eugenic arguments around their thoughts on Roe versus Wade. You know what? It's none of her business what they were discussing. This is so crazy. Now, even speaking conservative thoughts in a restaurant or bookstore, unclear, can get you booted out of a public space.

What do you make of it? Well, just a review quickly of things that are dangerous. People having conversations, people who like tweets, a person in a locker room that you have concerns about. No chance that could be an issue. But the tweeting and the talking, issues yes good point it's going on a very slippery slope what's interesting is the feelings of one side have take precedence here so the feelings of this white woman those have more weight than that of a black man who has experienced the effects of violent crime. If we're going to talk about

eugenics and all of those things related to Roe versus Wade, I feel like a black man's opinion, when you look at the fact that I think it's 85 to 90 percent of black babies in New York City where he lives are aborted. I feel like that should carry some weight, but not really because he works for Fox News. Yeah, it's a good point. Why? Why isn't he entitled to talk about that? Why? And it's it's not it's like someone in our facility found your views offensive. She says our political views don't align. So get out. I mean, is this the future?

You know, there was a story like some bank was talking about. Don't come here if your values aren't aligned with our like, is this the future where we're just going to have two systems for everyone? Have two different restaurants, two different banks, two different real estate brokers like you, you know, for the left and the right, for the red and the blue. I'm I'm afraid it is. I hope it's not. I've written about this a lot of times. It is an unhealthy way of being in a society, even if you have the right to refuse service, which many people do. Right. But like the idea that you need to check your bagel places politics before you go in and grab a sandwich is not a healthy way to operate in society. And if you're the one who insists that your customers align with you on all politics, you are being a giant baby and intolerant. So what I want to know is filing these lawsuits over and over against the cake baker and this other woman whose cases that they have to provide service.

They have to. And they've been defending themselves, saying we don't know if it's compelled speech and they've been winning. But now you've got the left saying, I don't have to provide service to you, even though I'm a public business. I can make you get out. I was compelled to hear your speech. That's not real. Right, right. There could be a lawsuit brewing here, Bethany. I think it's worth a visit from lots of folks to sit there and talk about Roe versus Wade. What I want to know is, did he get a free mail out of this? She says that she waited until after his meal was over. Was that after he paid the check too? And then he was asked to leave. Cause if I can get a free meal in North Miami beach for just talking about how I don't think that black babies should be aborted on mass and that I think that that has sort of eugenics undertones, I am all in favor of getting a free meal while also talking about

my political beliefs in a way that makes someone feel uncomfortable bethany and i could get kicked out of so many restaurants by this standard just everywhere we go as long as we get kicked out after we eat before the check comes why at least the free bread. Why don't we just pool our funds and create right next to this store, Paradise Books and Bread, where you can say whatever the hell you want. We welcome lefties. We welcome righties.

We welcome the crazy libertarians. We have one as an owner, apparently. And see how we do next to old Paradise Book and bread. This cannot be our future. We have to shame these people and call them out of this bad behavior. I will say now, on Sunday, he went on Fox & Friends this weekend, the business was closed. And on Instagram, they posted that they were starting their winter break early instead of when it was supposed to start on january 29th they've now made their instagram account private so you can no longer see their posts um but the owners had apparently bragged before that in their facility you would see their enviable library of

politically charged books so you see political views are welcome, just so long as they don't promote Harry Potter or biological women and their spaces and so on. I mean, we could go on. And by the way, I could sit next to books that think different things than I think. It's like a superpower. But I could eat lunch next to people and books that profess things I don't agree with. You might be doing it right now. Look at both of you. I don't know that was back there. We snuck some books back there about end of discussion about how the left is shutting down speech available on Amazon. Mary Catherine Ham, Guy Benson, 2015 memory serves. That's correct. That's correct. I know I you got the horse not better i know i was

about to say i was like you have to rewrite that book you have to refresh it you and guy have to get in get in with all of the craziness you you were a little too soon on the jump you predicted how crazy things were going to get but then you missed all the best content you may have yeah but as we say for the book it's great for the the book, bad for America. Yes. Okay. Now, speaking of Guy Benson, he is one of our favorite people. You and I were both at his wedding. You were in his wedding, MK. He is a gay conservative.

I only mentioned his sexual identity because it's potentially relevant to my next point. People like Guy, people like Dave Rubin, they don't run around talking about who they like to have sex with, who they love, what their preferences are any more than you or I do. They don't. We bring it up because gay rights have been an issue over these many years. However, I don't think Guy Benson or Dave Rubin or any of these, I don't think they're going to be in favor of things like the latest Burberry ad. Burberry has now decided that they're going to do a new ad campaign. And it's not just showing a same sex couple kissing. It's showing, which I mean, I think we're kind of used to at this point. I don't know if they're trying to be provocative or something like that, but they're showing a woman, a biological woman who's had a double mastectomy. Yeah, here it is. This, this person on the left is a biological woman

who said a double mastectomy and is living as a man kissing another man. How is this selling Burberry? How is this? This is where I genuinely believe the lgbtqia whole thing has separated like this i don't see how this is healthy for society to see a woman who's cut her breasts off kissing another person in an ad to sell a weather company's gear like help me mk no i think luxury brands in particular as we we noticed with the last controversial one, which is escaping my mind because I had a baby too recently. Balenciaga? Yes, Balenciaga. They are just uniformly populated with people who believe one thing.

It is the farthest left thing one can believe on all of the issues, partly because if they liked any other tweets or listened to any of them or followed them, they'd get fired. Right. So you have, I think, this distortion of what might play with people. And I think there is an attempt to be provocative. I'm not that provoked because we see a lot of this content because the entire media is aligned with this point of view. But like, how are you selling the raincoats? Yeah. Where are the clothes in this Burberry ad? I don't, I find this upsetting because I don't want it marketed on a mass basis, uh, that little girls can just chop, chop off their breasts, go ahead and chop off your breasts. There's absolutely no downside. Have you ever known somebody who's had a double mastectomy? Um, it can be extremely painful and it can cause ongoing medical problems for a long, long time. Um like to just pop it up there like, hey, there's nothing wrong.

See those scars right there? Yeah, it's beautiful. Bring it. It's an it ain't but a thing. Just buy a Burberry raincoat to cover it up. Like, what are they trying to say, Bethany? Yeah, that's something that has always sort of bothered me about all this trans activism is the no consequences messaging behind all of it.

No consequences of hormones, no consequences of the physical maiming that takes place with all of these surgeries. And I find that as someone who is very nervous about how society is going when it comes to gender messaging, I mean, there's so many components of it, but the no consequences thing is something that really bothers me because we're telling young girls, and this is a social contagion really among young girls.

It's not really happening among men in nearly the same numbers that it's happening among young women. And we're lying to them about the physical consequences. They are terrifying. These young women are left usually infertile um they can't breastfeed they're making all of these life-altering physically altering decisions that are permanent with the belief that they are not permanent that they they everything can be reversed and you're, Megan, that they're showing these scars as something that's beautiful. When the reality is, I have a friend who just underwent a double

mastectomy because she tested positive for the breast cancer gene. And she just went in for her fourth surgery. And the most sort of troubling stories from people who have detransitioned are about the physical ramifications of everything that they had to undergo and before they've even tried to reverse it it's it's real physical maiming and it's at the hands of people who claim that they they at first and foremost do no harm yeah that's exactly right it's really disturbing to me. I'm interested in this story as well, because honestly, I feel like the people who sort of speak for the trans community and to a lesser extent, the Libs of TikTok account? They're celebrating the queer prom. I actually have no problem with that. Like if maybe if you're gay and you don't know who else is gay, you'd love the queer prom because it might help you. I don't know. But why do they have to sexualize it? Why do they have to treat young gay men and young lesbian women as though

they're sex fiends at all times? Like somehow it turns on at 14 for a young lesbian in a way it doesn't for a young straight girl. It's ridiculous. So here's from Libs of TikTok, what they're talking about when they're advertising this queer prom at SOT12. you're so great everyone's gonna get a crystal uh star-shaped pendant and a little charm in there a progress pride flag a planned parenthood bracelet amazing stuff from our friends at nami condoms lube dental latex dam. Thank you, Evolution Candy. Oh my gosh, Carter. Hi, I see you there. And cute little cards with information. All right.

This is Pennsylvania. Happened in October. Kids as young as 13. You tell me why they're offering dental dams and lube to 13-year-olds who there to, you know, maybe meet somebody or make a connection. Like I don't help. This is a hyper-sexualization of an entire generation. I mean, this is, this is everything that they want to do. It's not just about gay rights and, and all of these things and being free. It's also about sexualizing children. It's what it all comes down to. I, you know, it's so aggrav sexualizing children. It's what it all comes down to. I, you know, it's so aggravating. I'm okay. I always tell my kids what my mom told me.

No, if you're gay or lesbian, don't worry about it. Mommy loves you. But I, I don't, I wouldn't send them to a queer prom if they were going to be offering them dental dams at age 13. We had out couples at our regular prom. And is this a school sponsored event by the way that right that's what i saw yeah good question um i don't know i know that they there was a state senator who was a sponsor of it uh state senator steve santar siero um and they held it at the cosmic colors queer prom it was called at the i don don't know, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. In any event, I really think we need to get over this. Kids who are gay or lesbian, they don't need to see a drag queen.

They don't need to be offered condoms at age 13 or any or lube. This is insulting, right? There are a lot of Christian families that also have gays and lesbians who wouldn't support or premarital sex like that anyway, but can get behind gays and lesbians like the Pope just did. In any event, more for another day. There's so much. We have 25 other stories on this, sadly, that we could get to, but we have to move on. Bethany, Mary Catherine, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. Thanks. When we come back, China. Now we switch gears to focus on China. Major protests against China's zero COVID policies broke out late last year,

and they're still ongoing as Chinese health authorities have relented a bit on the zero COVID, but now claim that a staggering eight in 10 people have contracted COVID since they lifted those restrictions thanks to the protesters as of December, right? This is why they say it all happened just since then. Although no one outside of China can verify these numbers. Here to discuss it all are two new guests, Winston Sturzel and Matthew Tai. They both lived in China for a decade, and they're now popular YouTubers covering all things China. Winston, Matt, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. Yeah, great to have you. So this is an amazing story. So Winston, you were from South Africa.

Matt, you're American, right? Yeah, upstate New York. Yeah, like me. Where? Binghamton. Oh, yeah, right around the corner. So Syracuse and then Albany for me. Nice. So what, I mean, I don't understand because people from upstate New York, New York normally have sense and they appreciate the natural topography and the beautiful, you know, sort of outdoors. Well,

what would make you move to China and stay there? Honestly, it was, you know, it was a little bit bored coming out of college. I had just backpacked through Europe, seen the world, and I didn't want that adventure to stop. To make it quick, I was planning on doing maybe a year abroad, teach a little bit of English, maybe in Japan or Taiwan, someplace like that. I ended up getting a call from a job prospector in mainland China, sold all my stuff, and said, you know what, I'll give China a shot. Okay. Now, Winston, what are we looking at behind you? You guys are in front of a green screen and I'm seeing, it looks like people are like stomping on you on the sidewalk. What's happening? Oh yeah, sorry. We actually, before leaving China, I used to go out very often and just take footage of the street, really set up a tripod and stand there for about 10, 15 minutes at a time.

After leaving China, I actually got some of our contacts there to do the same thing. So every once in a while, go out and film and send us the footage. This is actually a government building in Beijing. And it's just a random clip from a couple of months ago, actually. The Chinese government's not super keen on that. Yeah. Ah, it looks so drab and depressing. I mean, can you just walk us through? I've never been to China.

What was it? Because, Winston, you had a similar story where you moved over there to take a teaching opportunity, as I understand, and decided you would stay. What was it about China that made you stay? Because I will be honest, most of the stories in America about China are not good. And you don't normally have somebody saying, here's the beautiful part, here's the stuff that I found alluring.

Well, I mean, it was very straightforward. When I went to China, I went on a business trip. I was 25 years old at the time. And I went on a three-day business trip to go and take a look at some factories and some products that my client was importing to South Africa for security camera technology that he was buying from there. And I ended up in Shenzhen, which I know a lot of people don't really know Shenzhen, but it's probably the most important city in China. It's the first city

to open up when it comes to trade and investment and that kind of thing back in 1979. And it was such a mind blowing experience to me, those three days, just vibrant. And the amount of people will blow your mind. It's just so many people, so many things happening at the same time. All night, you could go out and the lights are on and people are having street side barbecue. And it was just such an amazing vibe for a young man. And it really attracted me this whole, in Chinese, they say, which just means very sort of bustling and happening. So it was that that attracted me to China. So I went home and I sold everything. And I went back to China with this idea that I would find work and I'd be able to make a life

there because it looked like such an adventure. But when I got there, I figured out very quickly that China is a very difficult place to navigate. And I ended up actually losing all my money in it. I actually ended up homeless for a number of days in China for, well, it ended up being about three days until I found an agent that got me a teaching job. I slept on his couch and I used to teach kindergarten in the beginning. And I built myself up, got an apartment and basically went from there. And I ended up living for 14 years in China and doing some incredible adventures. Along with Matt here, we rode motorcycles throughout the whole of China. We made a couple of television documentaries. And what really blew me away was how different China was to my expectations when I first got there. Because as you say, Western media and American media and so on, you used to paint a very bleak picture of China at the time. But China was changing and China was changing rapidly. And I could see that there was a lot of good there and a lot of interesting things to share with the

world. And that's why I started my YouTube channel, which happens to be the first YouTube channel out of mainland China ever. But of course, as things progressed, things changed and China stopped being this country that was opening up and all this opportunity and really growing and started to revert and kind of go backwards and become more closed up and locked down and more hostile towards foreigners and so on. And so it reached a point where we had to leave. When did it change and why? Honestly, if I'm looking back at it, you could, you know, you have the boiled frog syndrome.

You don't really notice it because it's just gradually happening. But I really think there was a turning point for me in 2015 when we shot our first documentary, when we were riding motorcycles through these kind of places that nobody had seen before at least in the west through provinces like guizhou or yunnan these areas where we had previously been before with no problems all of a sudden problems started creeping up so we started seeing police minders following us around there were people literally like cops on the side of the road as we would ride by marking our location and radioing to the next police officer. We would go to an area where the police would tell all of the hotels that we are not allowed to even be there or stay there.

So we'd have to go to the next area. All of this started ramping up around 2015 and really came to a head, I think around 2017-ish, when we shot our second show. The SWAT team busted in on our hotel when we were filming. We were filming very innocuous things. We were filming camels and minority cultures and things that are very pro-China, to make China look good to the rest of the world, to show people things that we found beautiful about China. But still, the government was so paranoid, became so paranoid about anyone with a camera that wasn't Chinese or anyone that wasn't approved by the government to be filming or even traveling around China at all, you know, and putting it out there for the rest of the world to see. So I'd say 2015 to 2017 is where it got

really hot. Yeah. So that's what changed for you guys. But Winston, do you feel like China itself was changing or do you feel like China itself was changing or do you feel like you were just kind of unaware prior to that? Absolutely. China was changing. And we saw this happen. Definitely we can trace it back to when Xi Jinping took office and it was when he rose to power that he decided to change things. And he was sick and tired of the old, hide your strengths

and bide your time. This has always been what China's done in the past since Deng Xiaoping. And so Xi Jinping came along and he said, you know what? We're powerful enough now. China's powerful. We're not going to hide our strengths and bide our time anymore. It's our turn to be in the spotlight. We're going to be the center of the universe now. And so he started to really enact a lot of nationalist policies. And, you know, when I first got to China, you could still see the remnants of communism, as in all the banners, you know,

you'd see a lot of hammers and sickles, you'd see the one child policy propaganda all over the place on the buildings and, you know, Soviet style artwork. But throughout the years, that stuff started to be taken down. They paint over that stuff that you wouldn't see the hammers and sickles everywhere. You wouldn't see all that communist symbolism. But after Xi Jinping took power, he started to bring that back

and you'd see more and more of these banners, these propaganda banners, and all the hammers and sickles came back. And you could see it was really regressing. And we didn't just live in China. Both of us learned the language. I studied the language at Shenzhen University. We both married locals. So we both have Chinese wives. We both have children, half Chinese children. And we really invested a lot into the country.

And we really understand the country very well, having lived there and had businesses there and all the rest of it. And so we are very knowledgeable when it comes to China, and we could see it changing. And it wasn't like just us changing over time, maturing and getting older. It was really just a very sudden shift in the attitude that China had towards dealing with the rest of the world that drove us off in the end. Take us to sort of the day in, day out business of living in China. I'm wondering how communism manifested, other than we'll get to the crackdown on you two, but how did communism show up on a day-to-day basis there? Honestly, if you were to go to China back in 08 when I went there, and like I said,

maybe up to 2015, you wouldn't really see communism. In fact, like Winston said, it was being dismantled in a way, at least the symbology of it was being removed. It was almost exotic to see something like a hammer and sickle or a propaganda banner. Those things were coming down and it was being replaced with free market capitalism. And it was almost like it was government policy to make sure that people, you know, the things that they saw in the lives that they lived, the lives that they lived were conducive to China growing economically. So that meant more foreign investment, more welcoming for foreigners to come over there and start their businesses and things like this. So I would say

in that time period, you wouldn't really see communism outside of maybe thousands of kids gathering to do their salute to the flag raising and their morning exercise to the coordinated communist sounding songs and the Chinese flag going up with the national anthem. Those things were remnants of that. Pieces of the education system that were very heavy-handed with nationalism, things like that. Very, very clear that this was an authoritarian power. But the communist stuff, again, was being removed. So to see that come back was a huge shock for us because it wasn't just the banners. It wasn't just the huge Xi Jinping billboards waving at everybody in a really poor rural village. It wasn't just the symbology. It was also the state that was going from talking about why China should grow economically and maybe that's why we should be nice to other countries and cooperate to, no, we don't need

those countries anymore. We are better than the rest of the world. We don't need these aggressors. The rest of the world wants to see China fail and really turn inwards. And I think that state media narrative, China blocks most of the internet. China controls all, the state controls all the media going out to the people. So that can really flip a switch. And I saw that change. When Russia is no longer communist, but obviously has its roots there. And I've been over there a few times over the past few years in Moscow and St. Petersburg and elsewhere. You go over there, looks very much, feels very much in some ways like America. You go out to a restaurant, you go out having drinks with friends at night.

Now, in my case, I was followed around by government agents the whole time because I was there to meet with Putin. But I think the average American wouldn't necessarily have that experience with their bags being sifted through by, you know, his his people in any event. But it was absolutely lovely. It felt very European. Like if you were to go there, you wouldn't necessarily know you were in a country with those kinds of roots and that kind of history. Was China like that ever for you? Or is it more like curfew, bed, no drinking, no carousing? No, absolutely. Listen, if you go to any of the first tier cities or even second tier cities in China, so we're talking Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, any of these big

cities, you will think that you're just in a first world country. You've got your Starbucks there. You've got your McDonald's. You've got your very good infrastructure. You've got your subway systems. You've got very good roads. It looks fantastic, shiny buildings. And you do think that you're just in a normal first world country. You can walk around freely.

It's very safe. And you can go and do your banking or do whatever you want to do. It's when you leave the big cities that you really get to see what China is really like. And for instance, you just need to drive about an hour out of any of these cities and you will start to see a lot of poverty. You will start to see a lot of old style, worn out propaganda everywhere. You'll start to see the real China. And this whole idea of China being communist, it's a weird one because in China, they call it communism or socialism with Chinese characteristics, which just means that it can be whatever they want it to be.

And they change it all the time. If you work for a big government, if you work for the government, so if you're a policeman or you're working for any government office, you still get this whole remnants of communism stuff. They still give you a year's supply of rice and oil as your yearly end bonus and toilet paper. It's kind of this whole state providing thing, but that's about as far as it goes, really. There's not good social programs for the average person, for instance. So it's really communist in name only. You don't really get to see the so-called fruits of communism, so to speak. I always make a joke that America is more communist than China. If we're talking

about the roots of communism, socialism, America has much more social programs than China does. China is probably the least hospitable country in terms of social programs I've ever seen for calling for a country that calls itself socialist or communist. And we're getting more authoritarian by the day, as we discuss often on this show. All right. So you're over there. That's good. That's a good scene setter. So you're over there doing your YouTube show. You're out on your motorcycles. You marry Chinese women. Life sounds like it's pretty good. And then you mentioned, Matt, that you just started to see like people following you and like sort of a crackdown began, not being able to check into hotels that you would have expected there would have been no trouble checking into.

And I've read you. You've said before one of the things that was odd to you about it was you were pro China. You were not. I understand, you know, a discussion like this, the Chinese might not like. We'll see how the YouTube people respond. But you were saying positive things about China. So there must have been a period initially where you were like, what's the problem? Absolutely. I think there was a huge wake-up call. But I think what, Winston had a good point earlier. If you just go to China and you just walk around,

you might think that everything is normal. But when you understand the language and see how society is run, especially how the government intertwines with people's daily lives, then you start to understand how things work. And I think he realized, I think I realized over time is that that script of being an authoritarian country with full control over everything was always there. Nothing changed necessarily. There was On paper, it was always going to be an authoritarian country. But in that kind of golden period, as we call it, under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, those two leaders before Xi Jinping, we saw China be in a gray zone. It was a gray zone where, yes, those rules were on paper, but in reality, people could kind of do what they want as long as they were earning money, and they weren't really getting super involved or critical of the government.

So that kind of paper, that script was enacted, again, by the leadership under Xi Jinping, where now all of these kind of secret police and all these things that were on retainer or in the background could now be enacted. And it doesn't matter if you're a pro- pro China or not, because there's a disconnect there. Nobody in Beijing was sitting down looking at our material saying, wow, all of this is very pro China. This is great. What they're seeing is, well, the leadership told us that foreigners walking around with cameras and then posting to websites that we've blocked in China is probably a bad thing. So we should make sure that they're being monitored. And that gets out of hand. It's just like any authoritarian state. There's no real balance there.

It's either on or off. And they turned it on, and then all foreigners were bad with cameras at that point, unless they could be co-opted. It's crazy to think in a country with a billion people, they've got that close an eye on two guys like you, with all due respect, like this is the level of detail that they hone in on and pay attention to and punish if it's not going their way or if they have even a suspicion. So when you talk about like how it started to escalate, so you first, you have the people following you, you can't check into the hotels. And then I know there was,

you believe that there was, I've read you say that they wanted to destroy you psychologically, targeting you, targeting your wives, targeting family members. Walk us through some of that. Well, first of all, something that your audience needs to understand is that in China, every single foreigner is watched. All right. Even before any of this YouTube stuff, even before any of this, uh, when you rent an apartment, um, or move into a neighborhood, you must report to the local police station within 24 hours of actually coming into China. You're supposed to, but you know, you have to register. Even if you're staying in a hotel, usually the hotels actually do it for you. So when you sign in, they will send the paperwork off to the local police to say, yeah, they're

supposed to all your details, your passport and stuff. This foreigner is staying here. But when you move into an apartment, you must register with the local police so that they know where the foreigners are. Now you get assigned basically a minder who looks after all the foreigners in that particular area, maybe in that housing complex, maybe in that neighborhood. Like it's open. It's open that you have a minder.

Everybody knows it. Yeah. Yeah. You have to, you know, and I found this out right in the beginning because a plain clothes guy, I wasn't aware he just got to China and the rules are not very clear. And when I moved into my first apartment, uh, I got a knock on the door and, uh, the plain clothes police officer and a bunch of his support and it's all walked in and started taking photos of me and stuff. And I couldn't really understand what was going on. Um, but it turns out he was the local police

guy. It's very friendly and all that. It wasn't a terrible experience or anything, but it wakes you up. Okay. You're being watched. And later on when I went to go and renew it, because you're supposed to renew it whenever your visa changes or whatever. And I went into the local police station. And by that point I could read Chinese because I'd been studying Chinese. And they have what's called a temporary residence permit type thing that they keep in their system. And so they updated it and then they stamp it and you have to give them your passport photo and all that. And when I looked at it, I could see in the notes section, they had written down where I worked. They'd written down, oh, he can speak Chinese and he can do this and that. A bunch of my movements and stuff were written down in there.

So they'd been keeping an eye on me. So everybody is watched, but it's an interesting situation because depending on your nationality, you're either watched more or you're watched less. So for instance, because I'm South African, in China, they don't like Africans at all. They keep a very close eye on Africans. They put a priority on that. And because my passport is African, they would come and knock on my door in the middle of the night, sometimes at 11, 12 at night to just check on my paperwork whenever something was happening. Like for instance, just before the Beijing Olympics, they ramped up this whole thing to make sure that all the foreigners were in check. So they would come and quite often come and check up on me.

But my Australian friends or American friends, et cetera, wouldn't get the same sort of harassment because they were from first world countries. So, you know, it all depends on your nationality, how much you would be harassed, so to speak, by your minders. But it did then reach a point where we started to become too famous and people started to know us too well. And I would start to get visits from the police quite often. And things really, really degraded to a point where the nationalists turned on us. And that's when things were really, really went crazy. Well, what started happening, Matt? How did your life begin to change in ways that scared you?

Well, you got death threats. You had people posting the area that you live on, these nationalist forums. And if you were to complain to any of these forum owners or the government or the police, none of these posts would be removed. It was clear that a switch had been flipped. When what we saw happening was people would take our videos that would be very positive. Let's say, for example, I'm thinking of a video we made, we're walking around and talking about how China has cleaned up so much in the past few years,

like how clean the streets have become. And what happened was people uploaded that video, put it on the Chinese internet. So they stole it off YouTube, put it on the Chinese internet, and then put fake subtitles up for the people that didn't speak English. So what it would say is that, wow, look at how disgusting everything is. It's so gross around here. Look at how awful China looks. And then people, you know, it would rile up the nationalists. And this, we found out, was kind of by design.

It was almost like clockwork that this was happening. There was teams of people that were just kind of going after us. And we realized it was an official capacity, like I said before, when people like the SWAT team and detectives were showing up. Knowing your entire history throughout China, knowing all your details, your work contracts, your wife, where you shop, all this kind of stuff, you realize that you've been being tracked the entire time and they're trying to make you feel unwelcome for a very good reason. What happens when the SWAT team shows up? I mean, you say SWAT team, I think guns drawn.

Well, yeah, we got to point out that happened in Inner Mongolia, by the way. So the SWAT team, it's not like they turned up at our house. We were out filming the tribes in Inner Mongolia where they herd camels and things like that. Inner Mongolia is a province of China, by the way, so no one's confused. Yeah, so it's all the way up on the border of, like, near the border of Russia and all that up there. It's up there. So we're out there in the grasslands doing our thing in the middle of nowhere. And China has this thing where you can't stay in hotels in the rural parts of China if you're a foreigner.

They have designated hotels that are allowed to have foreigners stay in them. So, you know, it's kind of difficult to find a hotel in this particular rural area. There was only one hotel in one town that could have foreigners stay in it. It's kind of like North Korea. Yeah. So we head to that town and they had been tipped off that we'd be there by a nationalist. It's a bit of a long story, but a nationalist who was kind of out to get us.

And so we got raided in the middle of the night in Inner Mongolia, thousands, like thousands of kilometers away from where we live. And they brought in the PLA. They brought in the local Communist Party sort of head official. They brought in detectives, like you said, and they were discussing where our wives worked and all this kind of stuff when we were all the way up there in Inner Mongolia. It's pretty wild.

So what about your wives? Because it doesn't sound like they caught a break just because they were Chinese. No, that's the thing. The Chinese government has this mechanism that it uses. It uses family to intimidate people. So they know that if they bring your family into anything, it's like the mafia, right? They want to silence you. They want to affect you. They threaten your family. So this is a very well-known tactic. So they know that if they bring your wives into it

and they threaten the stability of your wife's livelihood or her life or whatever the case, her lifestyle, that it will intimidate people into silence, for instance. Yeah. Yeah. So there are things that were happening to them. Like my wife had quit her previous job, but she worked, I won't give the company details or anything, but she worked as a sales manager for a big electronics company.

And what was happening is there were people within the government and nationalists and things that were reporting to her boss, thinking she was still working there and sending official like looking government documents saying that she's a spy, saying that she's, you know, a traitor to the nation and all this kind of stuff. And this stuff was allowed to proliferate, even though it wasn't true. It was allowed to proliferate because it was a way to get to us to silence us. And we at some point we just said that's enough you know we had seen how sinister and evil the chinese government can actually be and that's honestly that's why the chinese government doesn't like us so much is because we live there we're not just guys that are you know reading the newspaper

saying wow china's you know become so evil because of the government we lived through it we see what they do the tactics have been employed on this so So we know how it works and probably what they're going to do going forward. And that's why we do what we do now. My goodness, you were a far cry from upstate New York in those moments. I can't imagine. Hello, Binghamton. Go ahead. Shout out to Binghamton. You know, my wife is a doctor and that is a government position in China, you know, because any kind of policeman doctor, it's all, you know, it's not like in the States where it's a high paying job. It's that you're a civil servant, basically.

So she is a doctor and they went after both my wife and his wife at the same time. And what happened here was this was a nationalist movement. So the ultra-nationalists of China, of which there are many, and the government relies on the nationalists, and they turn them on and off to boycott products or boycott a certain nation or whatever at any time, given time. They put together a 24-page document with screenshots of me and my wife and so on, and you and your wife online and uh you know sent them through to the public security Bureau sent them through to the medical board the the all the hospitals in in the city that I used to live in and all you know basically all the different levels

that they could uh calling my wife a traitor and saying that she sympathizes with foreign powers and that she same report yeah it was the same report, just differently worded with the pictures of us. And it actually resulted in my wife getting a disciplinary hearing. She had to get pulled in and they had to figure out what was going on. Of course, she'd been a doctor for many years and they knew that none of this was true because she knows all her higher ups and her bosses and so on. So it was taken care of. Luckily, it didn't result in her getting fired or any detention or anything, but that was their end goal, was to try and disrupt my life by going after my wife and going after your wife. And it's really cowardly and disgusting tactics, but that was really just part of it. I still

stayed in China after that. We still stayed in China after that. We still continued. And we were not very critical of China. That's the thing. The kind of things that we were homing in on and discussing were the social problems that affected not only us, but our Chinese families and the Chinese people around us. For instance, the horrendous kidnapping issue in China. You're going to have a child in China. You have to watch out. Kidnapping is huge. It's a big problem. But we talk about kidnapping and all of a sudden, we're enemies of the state. Why is it a big problem? Is it related to the one child policy? There's a huge industry. There's a lot of very, very sinister industries going on in China. I think a lot of people rely on China's public data for crime and safety when

that's absolute nonsense. They can put out whatever they want, just like their COVID numbers. It's all manufactured. So when you live in China, you start to see some of the ills. I don't want to shock your audience too much, but one of the first things I saw when I went to China was I was going down an escalator just to go shopping outside of a massive you know wealthy looking supermarket slash mall and i see a child alone maybe three years old um missing missing a limb and covered in severe acid burns and it was begging this child was begging with a with a bowl i couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl um just right there on the street. And people were walking by, the police were walking by, nothing was being done. And it was kind of like a light bulb went off in my head. I was like,

maybe the stuff I've been reading about China's crime and safety and this kind of stuff, the statistics are not correct. Maybe they're- Yes, this is supposed to be one great thing about China, that if you live there, you don't have to worry about crime because of all the things you're discussing. We've talked about this multiple times. You have to live in China to see how the crime works. It's I mean, my house is almost broken into, you know, successfully broken into multiple times.

There's one time my wife, there's a guy scaling the building trying to get into her window. She threw a flower pot at him to get him to fall down off the building. It's petty crime. Wait, why are kidnapping so bad is it because of the one child policy which was in place for so many years there's some of that you know as far as the kidnapping is concerned rural families who can't have children who want children um they pay for children so that they can have a a son to look after them and to take care of things and they pay a lot of money for that sort of thing. There's all the human trafficking when it comes to beggar gangs and the more sinister stuff too.

There's a lot of terrible things happening, but kidnapping is such a massive issue in China that it's never covered. But Chinese people know about it. They're so afraid to leave their child anywhere by themselves. It's a terrifying's a, it's, it's a terrifying, terrifying situation, but, you know, I actually stopped a child trafficking gang on the subway of Shenzhen. Well, sure. As you do. Yeah, no, seriously. And it really, really, it really annoyed me because I was taking the subway and I noticed begging is not allowed on the, on the Shenzhen Metro, which is the underground train system there.

But one day there was a woman there, came in with an overcoat, and then she took off her overcoat. She's wearing kind of shabby clothes, and she had a child strapped to her back. And she started begging, and people were giving her money. But I thought it was kind of weird because the child was about two years old and was very silent and not moving around, really. Looked drugged and groggy. So I kind of took some photos of her. And the next day I took the Metro again and there was a different woman, same MO, took off the overcoat, had raggedy clothes underneath and a child on her back. And I noticed it was the same child. So I took photos of her too. And then the third day, when a third woman came along and had the same

child on her back, I actually physically grabbed her and pulled her off of the train and called security. And so the security guards came down and the police came and I Bluetoothed all the photos to them. And then they actually took her away. Hopefully the child was taken care of properly. And then they actually put up banners in the metro stations to say, don't give money to people like this and put some of the pictures I'd taken. So it's the complacency of society that allows this kind of thing to happen as well, because you don't want to stand out in China. If you try to stand out and make a fuss, your life gets destroyed, basically. I cannot imagine walking past a three-year-old who's been burned and is missing a limb and just not doing anything about it. It's destroyed basically. I cannot imagine walking past a three-year-old who's been burned and is missing a limb and just not doing anything about it.

It's just, it's hard to understand how you get into that headspace. And it's also very scary to think when you were saying that they're following you, I was thinking in my own head, what would somebody who is following me see? Like the most boring life. She's gone to the school again. She's gone to the vet again. She's back at the vet, the school, the vet. It's not exciting, but it doesn't matter. That's the point you're making. The whole point is to make things up about you. So they're not actually out for an earnest search of who Winston and Matt are. They're out to ruin you and your wives. And it's really tough

to fight back when that's from a government. Let me pause it here and then we'll turn the page when we come back. There's so much more to go over. And Winston and Matt have a lot of thoughts on China in general and what it's doing with respect to the United States and the world that we need to keep our eye on. But we aren't. Some are. But for the most part, we're not. China's zero covid policies are in the news these days because of major protests breaking out in the country. These major protests led to the government changing its zero COVID policy, which was so restrictive.

And since they've lifted it now, Chinese health authorities suddenly willing to volunteer all sorts of information. And that information is that 80 percent of the country has contracted COVID since they lifted those restrictions to appease the citizenry just this past December. I'm sure every single case happened post that, although, of course, nobody outside of China can verify these numbers. So they're pretty good at misinformation, Winston and Matt. We have no idea what to believe when China releases any sort of facts and figures. What do you think about that issue in particular, zero COVID, what's happened there and this new attempt to spin? Honestly, I think a huge part of this was the protests that followed. But first of all, so your audience understands, when people talk about lockdowns in Australia or in America or in any of these other countries, it's not the same lockdowns that were happening in China.

In China, we were talking about lockdowns where people were getting welded into their houses. People were starving out because the government programs weren't giving them enough food. We were talking about lockdowns where people were separated from their families. I mean, they were taking kids from families and putting them into quarantine camps.

It was crazy. It was like something, you know, it was unprecedented. And so when we're talking about lockdowns, we're talking about people for years being locked into prison-like state. And it takes a mental toll on everyone, physical, mental, economic toll on everyone in the country. So when these protests, they were bound to happen, right? But even for us, it was quite a shock to see people taking to the streets to protest really anything.

Because in China, protesting is not allowed. It's not allowed to gather people together and stand up for any sort of issue unless it's government sponsored or you apply ahead of time and the issue has been agreed upon by the government. So for example, popular topics to protest about in the past were like anti-Japan protests. I was going to say America. Yeah. So going back to that, to see these people protest and go out there

and then to watch the protest morph into from, you know, stop these lockdowns into step down Xi Jinping, step down CCP. Let's like, you know, the government needs to step down. That was crazy.

It was mind blowing. We called it almost like a mini revolution or a Tiananmen Square 2.0 because we've never seen anything like that since 1989. But we did have a major issue with how this was kind of being spun. Although the protests led to the government having a knee-jerk reaction in lifting those COVID lockdowns and all these crazy archaic measures that they were taking, although that caused that to happen, it's not that the protesters won, because I think a lot of people stopped the

story after that. I think they said, wow, their demands were achieved. I guess the government buckled. What they don't realize is that after the fact, the police, the secret police, the government tracked every single person that was even near the protest. I mean, we're talking to people the other day that didn't even participate in the protest, but they were near them and they were visited by police. And the people that participated were disappeared. And we're talking about kids that were just holding up blank pieces of paper and the protests were taken away by secret police. So that's where the conversation stopped. And we were really disappointed to see that people didn't realize that the protests weren't necessarily successful.

China's still a very, very authoritarian, crazy, archaic system where they will go after anyone for standing up against the government. It's just this time they got away with it because they did it silently. Following up on what we discussed in the last segment about the crime and what's actually happening there and listening to you describe these government tactics of disappearing people and so on. I've got to ask you about this op-ed in the New York Times, which I'm sure you saw by Heather Kay talking about what a lovely experience it was raising her children. She's American in China. I work in the fashion industry, took my husband and me to Shanghai in 2006,

where we spent the next 16 years, started a family in China. Government co-parenting begins in the womb. They opted to send their twins, I think, to Chinese kindergarten. You know about that, Winston, lecturing us on everything in the Chinese kindergarten, including how many hours our daughters should sleep, what they should eat and their optimal weight. Most of us, Heather, can figure that out without the government, just FYI. People have been doing it since the beginning of time. She goes on to say, each morning, all the students performed calisthenics in straight rows and raised China's red flag while singing the national anthem. Now, I have to say, I would like to see some more civics here in America, and I would like to see the pledge and a little bit more push toward patriotism like we used to have. So there's a piece of me that felt a little envy when I read just that tiny piece of it. But then she goes on

to talk about how we sometimes felt as if our children were on loan to us for evenings and weekends to be delivered back to school each weekday. She loved how academically driven they were because they didn't want to disappoint their teachers. They would repeat Chinese propaganda concerning keeping up with their peers, despair, whatever. Then she goes on to say that the surveillance state results in its own kind of freedom with crime and personal safety concerns virtually eliminated. Our daughters were riding the subway unsupervised in a city of around 26 million people from the age of 11. I got to tell you guys, I'm so glad to hear you tell the truth because part of me was like, well, that'd be nice as a person who had kids in New York for nine years. You can't do that there.

But this what is this? Is this propaganda by this woman? There's a there's a couple of things. And I know you've got a lot to say on this. But the first thing that I want to address, strangely enough, is the idea of her children traveling by themselves on the subway. Well, because the children are not Chinese, the chances of them actually being targeted by crime are zero. Because in China, if you're caught messing around with foreigners, the penalties are so much higher. So your pickpockets, your general criminals, your kidnappers will not. First of all, you can't kidnap a foreign child. You will not be

able to sell them. You can't pretend that this is someone else's child if you're selling it to someone in the rural countryside. So a foreign child will be safe, 100%. And foreigners in general are very safe in china because you know they just aren't messed with because the repercussions are too high and the second thing i want to say is that this this woman went 2006 is when i went to china february of 2006 that's when i first arrived in china and i lived through the entire period all the way up to 2019 and i saw what she's saw in the beginning was a China that was changing for the positive. So she got a positive experience in the beginning. But not only

that, Shanghai is not China. All right. Shanghai is the most cosmopolitan, most foreign friendly city in China. So it's like going to New York or something like that. You know, you can't compare New York to rural Alabama or something like that. You just can't do it. Shanghai, we call it the Shanghai bubble. And that's where most foreigners end up because it's so much more like home. You know, you have certain, I mean, they got a Hooters there for crying out loud. Oh, wow. I shot a video there. Yeah, yeah. Shanghai is the most international cosmopolitan city of China. So to use that as an example is a very bad example. And when it comes to teaching children in kindergarten, because I actually did teach kindergarten children for about a year and a half right in the beginning.

Sure, they get to do the flag raising and the calisthenics and all that nonsense in the morning but they also get taught to hate japanese people for instance i remember four and five year old children being told by the teaching assistant never trust japanese people they're all liars and cheats and and uh you know that type of thing and i was thinking to myself why why do you have to teach young children to hate so much and they also keep getting taught that the outside world is out there to um take advantage of china and so and so forth. And you're just thinking it's unnecessary to teach so much hate to such young children. I was going through this op-ed a couple times. I would never go after someone for having an opinion and I'm never going to call someone's

experience a lie. But I can say that, again, it doesn't represent China as a whole. China is a massive country and Shanghai is very, very specific place. But all of these, you know, so-called advantages she's talking about, one of them really bothered me. And that was being, you know, walking out from that, walking away from the article thinking that now her kids are going to have a better experience having gone through all that because they might see the world from a different perspective. I like that. I like that idea. I think that's a great idea. But China, the Chinese education system teaches xenophobia. It teaches nationalism. It teaches very, very, not just, not patriotism, but blind patriotism in all the worst ways. I mean, they take students when they're seven, eight, nine years old to museums to go see mutilated bodies from the Japanese war experiments and the war

crimes that they did in China. All of these things are to brainwash children at a very young age to make them feel like they are separate from the rest of the world. And I think it's teaching the opposite of inclusivity. I think all of these things that Heather was talking about in the article about how there's more community aspects, there was more like camaraderie, there's more people coming together, I think is I had the exact opposite experience in China. I saw some of the worst bullying I've ever seen in my life in the Chinese education system. The kids treating each other very, very poorly. This sense of community, I think is fantasy. I think the Chinese public education system breeds contempt. It doesn't

breed any sort of individuality. It doesn't reward any sort of creativity. And I see the polar opposite in the American education system, which obviously a lot of people criticize. But I see such nice attributes coming out of my kids and such nice things being taught where people are equal, where everyone has the same opportunity and chance. It doesn't matter where you come from. It doesn't matter. Maybe you're an immigrant from another country. People cater to your needs. People want to learn more about you. It's such a better system and a more healthy system to raise your child in than compared to the Chinese system. So I found this article mostly fantasy. Don't forget about the competition that the education system breeds. You know, in China, especially the Gaokao, which is this entrance exam into universities,

the most important part of Chinese education. If you fail at that, or if you don't do well in that particular test, you will not go to a university or you will not go to a good university. It doesn't matter who you are. You see, it doesn't matter. Obviously, rich people, they pay their way through and so on. But like, supposedly, it doesn't matter who you are. Obviously, rich people, they pay their way through and so on, but supposedly, it doesn't matter who you are. The amount of pressure that's put on children in order to pass that, it actually does drive children to suicide. It's a very bad system, but what it does is it breeds this horrible sort of a situation where all the children are competing for these spots in the university. So they turn on each other and they overstudy and they overfocus on this stuff.

And it's very detrimental to the mental health of the children anyway. All right. Let me shift gears because we don't have a long time left. You guys got to come back because I want to hear all your thoughts on all the stuff China's doing to us. I want to hear about the land buys. I want to hear about what they're doing in the oceans. I know you guys are great on that.

The technological theft, the trademark theft. There's so much to go over, which we won't get to in our first time together. But talk to me about what's happened since you you peaced out of there.

You came back to America. First of all, I'm interested, Winston, in whether your wife does she have to go back to medical school here? Is she working? How does that work now? No, she's on a dependence visa, so she's not allowed to work. So she's a full-time housewife at the moment. So I assume, I mean, I'll just give you one example. I had a very contentious interview when we first launched this show with Mark Cuban, in which I tried to get him to say something mildly critical of China's human rights record in the way he's criticizing America through BLM and so on. And he wouldn't do it.

I mean, he tried so hard not to do it until I almost made him. And then weirdly, I know it only sounds paranoid, but weirdly, then my phone got completely bombed with all those like fake phone calls. I mean, for a month and a half, it just was nonstop just right after that interview. And then we put the super blocking technology on it and it's been okay. But am I crazy to think that the Chinese did something to me? Do you suffer consequences for your China critiques

to this day? Absolutely. I think that it's not good to inspire them. So, you know, there's not a whole lot to talk about. Yeah, for sure. But that being said, we did a major, you know, shift after we moved to America. And that's because we found like-minded individuals. It wasn't just us. Like, I don't want to make this about us. We talked about the SWAT team. We talked about getting harassed and followed around China. But again, by and large, if you're a foreigner that's not famous in China, you have a certain privilege over the average Chinese person. You get away

with a lot more. But that being said, when we moved to America, we met dissidents, Chinese dissidents from mainland China that we could converse to in Chinese and found out what they went through. It inspired us to start telling the truth about what we were holding back when we were in China, all the things that we were seeing under the surface, we could now talk about, and we could give a voice to the thousands and thousands of dissidents that we meet here in the US that can't speak up because either they have family back home or, you know, they'll be targeted more so than maybe, you know, a native English speaking voice out there. So it was almost like fuel to the fire. It was like, finally, we have met people that are ostracized, marginalized, and also harassed by this horrible

authoritarian government. And we wanted to speak up on their behalf, but not only for that reason, because we also saw that the Chinese government has been creeping into different political systems, or not just political systems, but in different Western countries in general and trying to exploit them. I have to say that what shocked me the most when I came to America is just how easily the Chinese government is able to take advantage of systems here. And they've crept into everything. And it's so easy to see how they mold and shape the diaspora here, the way they control people here in the States, the way that they control universities and opinions about China through things like the Confucius Institutes, for instance, and all these language and cultural programs and all these things they have with universities, for instance,

where they give money and so on. It's just crazy just how easily they've gotten in here and gotten their tentacles into every part of life in America. And really the biggest victims are the Chinese people that come here to America to use the freedom and the free education system and to learn new ideas, share new ideas, and then still get harassed by the tentacles of the Chinese government here on American soil. And that's what we can't handle. You're talking about the universities. I'm thinking about the Penn-Biden Center, which, you know,

Yu-Pen got all this money, once it affiliated with him, from the Chinese, 50 million bucks. It's not a coincidence. It's, you know, they try to buy influence and we ignore it at our peril to be continued. Let's do a part two guys. Thank you so much for being on. Thank you, Megan. And tomorrow folks, Michael Knowles and Mike Baker will be here. We'll see you then. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.