The Megyn Kelly Show - Eric Bolling on Rush Limbaugh's Legacy, The Lincoln Project's Demise and his Crusade to Honor His Son | Ep. 66

Episode Date: February 19, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by Eric Bolling, host of "Bolling with Favre," to talk about Rush Limbaugh's legacy, the demise of The Lincoln Project, Bolling's crusade to honor his son who died of an accidental opioid overdose, Cancel Culture, Gov. Cuomo's disaster in New York, the value of Bitcoin, the personal side of Donald Trump, what's next for his career and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today on the program, we've got Eric Bolling, a great friend, a great guy, and somebody who's been through a ton personally, professionally, and has a lot of insight to share, including on Bitcoin and whether it's too late to buy. Well, I wasn't expecting our discussion to go there, but actually he had a lot of helpful thoughts on it. This is the first time I've ever talked about Bitcoin, really with anybody. So you'll learn about it with me. But Eric is somebody who has been very successful in his life. He came from nothing. I

mean, he had no advantages starting out other than a loving family, which is big, but no financial advantages and is self-made entirely. Kicked ass on Wall Street, got a job at CNBC, then came over to Fox and then suffered a terrible, terrible personal tragedy The very day he left Fox News when his 19 year old son died of an accidental overdose. And we'll get into the reporting on it, what actually happened, and how Eric and his beautiful wife, Adrian, have tried to move on thereafter. But he's, he just doesn't give up. He's still going. He's out there right now hosting a new podcast called Bowling with Favre. It's Brett Favre. His last name is very difficult to pronounce or it's not.

But like, it looks weird. It's F-A-V-R-E. Why is it Favre? Why is the F where it is? Anyway, we're going to talk to him in one second. And I think you're really going to you're going to love the discussion. We'll talk about Rush Limbaugh and that hideous things that people are saying about El Rushbo and the golden microphone, the implosion of the Lincoln Project and much,

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from spying on you over Wi-Fi, that's creepy, or from stealing your identity. No one can prevent every cyber crime or identity theft or all transactions, you know, monitor them all. But don't let cybercriminals make tax season extra taxing on you. Save 25% or more of your first year of Norton 360 with LifeLock at Norton.com slash MK. You can go there right now to save 25% off at Norton.com slash MK. Eric Bolling, how are you? Megan, I'm doing well. How are you? It's just great to be back in your podcast. Congratulations. Doing terrific. Thank you very much. And I want to get to what's happening with your podcast, too, with Brett Favre. Favre.

I know. It's so good. Is it French? I mean, is that a French last name? Yeah, it is. Okay. It is. His mother and father have both French origins, but I call him Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre. Right. That'll do it. That'll work too. Now, speaking of Hall of Famers, Rush Limbaugh died this week and he, you know, it wasn't unexpected. He was 70 and he had lung cancer and he had been pretty open about how things had been going. And, you know, lung cancer

is just not a good diagnosis. But I wanted to get your take on it because I knew him personally. I was at his wedding to Catherine, Doug and I were. And I know what people think of Rush who are not on the right, right? People who are on the left can't stand the guy. know what people think of Rush who are not on the right, right? People who are on the left can't stand the guy. But what I knew of Rush Limbaugh was incredibly magnanimous, kind, larger than life, caring, lovely friend. And I'm feeling so sad this week that he's gone, that we've lost him as a man, that we've lost him as a broadcaster. And I'm also kind of pissed off about the messaging that so-called straight bios in papers like the New York Times are putting out there about him. They can't even keep it straight in writing up the man's death. They have to go after him. So let's just start with your

impressions of Rush and your thoughts on his impact on media. We've come to a point in America where our media is so bifurcated. It's literally trench warfare. Every topic is a war. Is a mask good? Is it bad? You're evil if you say it's one way or the other, all the way down to someone who is really beloved on one side, he passes and immediately, I mean, it wasn't even within minutes where there were headlines calling him a racist, a misogynist, a homophobic from comments he made in the past. I mean, cancel culture. When at it, they couldn't cancel him in his life.

They're trying to cancel him in his death. That is not to say I defend some of the things he said. I don't, I don't think any one of us do, but we will at least acknowledge that he was a pioneer. He was a larger than life personality. And those two things alone, um, should at least be acknowledged. It would like him, hate him. He's, he was a massive, massive voice, literally a voice in conservative media. I met Rush many, many times when I was at Fox News. And honestly, one of the things I didn't like that was going on,

there was some great tributes on Fox News. The other channels just ran a banner along the bottom, didn't really talk about it. If they did, they talk about it, talked about it briefly. But my problem with Fox is that Rush was a big part of Fox. Rush was, Rush was very close to Roger Ailes. Now I didn't see one picture during hours of, of coverage on Fox news. I didn't see one of those pictures. I saw pictures with Rush and Sean Hannity, who's my dear friend.

I saw pictures with Rush and LeVant. I saw pictures with Rush and just about everyone you can think of as conservative on the right, but never once with Roger Ailes. And they were best friends. They would bounce stuff off each other. I would say Rush was instrumental in creating Fox News through Roger Ailes.

Roger was the creator with Rupert, but Rush had a massive influence on Roger. And it was just sad not to see Roger immediately. By the way, I know there are issues with Roger. I just think we have to acknowledge, report the news, report what it really was. And Rush was a big voice in conservative radio. He influenced Sean Hannity and Mark Levin. They credit their careers to their relationship and they're following the path that Rush kind of blazed that trail through some treacherous media. Well, look, I mean, the Roger Ailes thing, you know, obviously I've got some feelings on that,

but the fact that the man had a serious character defect, I guess would be the kindest way of summing it up, doesn't mean we erase his whole legacy. His pictures can no longer be shown. His place in American society must be ignored, you know, blacklisted. That's just silly. And his relationship with Rush was really close. That's how I got to know Rush the Roger. But I was just thinking, like, as they went to all the nasty places, in any other circumstance, you'd be talking about how this is the guy who created

talk radio. Like, you wouldn't even know who Sean Hannity is if it hadn't been for Rush Limbaugh. He created a lane that didn't exist. You know, he started off. He was from he was from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, born in 1951, just for people who don't know anything about him. He started off as like, you know, a little sort of gopher helper in some local radio station, and then found his way out of there to report something he called barn news at another small station. He found a way to make that fun, and then wound up getting a syndicated show, 56 radio stations at first, and it grew to be the most successful, most listened to radio show in the world. 600 plus stations, 27 million people tuned in to hear what Rush Limbaugh had to say on a

weekly basis. 27 million. Tucker, our friend, he's pulling in on a good night for, on a great night, six or seven million people a night. 27 million people. I mean, it's just huge, his influence. Radio Hall of Fame, National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame, number one New York Times bestseller, 10 most fascinating with Barbara Walters, all this stuff, tons of charitable work, raised over $50 million for leukemia and lymphoma research. I could go on. Tons of military support, by the way. And I get he said controversial things. He's in the business of talk radio. Go find me somebody who's in the business of talk radio who hasn't said controversial things.

Rush was a controversial figure, but I don't think he deserved the headlines I'm reading today. Like, I'll give you a couple. New York Magazine, Rush Limbaugh taught Republicans to love an angry, racist bully. Okay, because of course, Republicans have to get swept up in it too. New Republic, Rush Limbaugh made America worse. The racist, sexist radio host played a pivotal role in injecting cruelty and conspiracy into conservative mass media. Rolling Stone, Rush Limbaugh did his best to ruin America. New York Times, Rush Limbaugh's legacy of venom, weaponizing conspiracy theories and

bigotry long before Trump's ascent. The radio giant helped usher in the political style that came to dominate the Republican Party again. This is how they see not just Rush Limbaugh, Eric, but Republicans. And there's no accident they tried to tie him and his worst moments to an entire half of the country. I think we're bound by the words we speak, Megan. You and I have been on various forms of media for many, many years, decades, and we're held to some of the things, all the things, I guess we've said, unless there's some sort of change that we decide to make or want to make, have remorse. My issue is Rush. Rush was that. He was a provocateur. He was paid very

well, by the way, to be that, to be the provocateur. He never claimed to be a journalist. He always said he was in the infotainment business, so a little bit of information and a lot of entertainment. I think that's what he was. But the, the, the left is trying to paint him as some sort of, that's all people on the right are like Rush. If you, if you accept Rush as a, as an entity, you automatically, you believe everything he says and you, you, you agree with everything he says and you're in that same world. I don't believe in that. I think there are a lot of people who I like who I don't agree with, but I like to listen to. Guess what? I listen to CNN all day long.

And then I turn on MSNBC during primetime. I don't listen to Fox anymore for obvious reasons. I just don't like them anymore. But it doesn't mean I agree with them. I'm entertained by them. I listen to what they have to say. Let me give you another example. Okay. Let's take Bill Maher, who I like and on whose show I'm going soon. And I've been on it before. I have mixed feelings about him, right? Because sometimes he says things that drive me insane, but sometimes he says things that I love, but overall I find him entertaining. And he, Bill Maher has referred

to women by the C word publicly, like well-known women as a C word. Now you could put that in his, in his obit. You could call him a misogynist, whatever you, however you want to do it. If you really wanted to go after him, I don't think that's okay. I don't think that's going to be the guy's legacy. And I don't think that's Rush's legacy either. And I do think professional talkers, professional opinion makers like those two guys who are successful are never going to stay between the rails at all time. And I bet you dollars to donuts when they write up, may it be many, many years from now, the obit for somebody like Bill Maher, who's more of the left, they're going to be

a lot more generous than they were to Rush. So years ago at Fox, and again, I was a provocateur at Fox. I'll be honest with you. I would drop lines that I knew were going to get attention. And one time I dropped a line about Bill Maher. He had sent something misogynistic. And there was this whole right versus left. And he's perceived as left. And we were on the right or I was on the right. And I called him something. I said, Oh, he's such a pig for saying that. Right. It got written up. It went everywhere. This is 10 years ago, maybe 12 years ago, Megan,

it was on the five. And recently we reached out to Bill Mark. You know, I was being booked on all these different shows and my people reached out to Bill Maher you know I was being booked on all these different shows and my people reached out to Bill Maher like yeah he wants to have you on but the booker wouldn't even put it through because she remembered from 12 years ago I said he was a pig for saying I it may have been what you just said calling women a c-word um and it, and I just thought like, wow, is there no way to, I don't know, get to, do we, are we going to be held by every single comment we've ever made for the rest of our lives?

Even if now 10, 12 years later, I can, I could sit across the table with, with you, Megan, or with Bill or, or whomever and have it, have a respectful conversation about what's going on in the world of politics or what is Joe Biden doing that Trump didn't do or Trump doing now or what's his next step. But I'm still not going to get booked on Bill Maher over a comment from 12 years ago that, frankly, you know what? I've been called a thousand times worse than that and I'd still have a conversation with someone. That cannot be him. You can't be in our business and hold grudges. There's too many people taking shots at you on too frequent a basis to hold grudges.

You'd never be able to move forward and have any relationships whatsoever. So, all right, I'm going to mention it. When I go out there, I'm going to say you got to have Eric Bolling on because some booker's mad at him on your behalf. Thank you. I hope so. All right. Now, speaking of unforgiving people, can we talk about the Lincoln Project and their total implosion? Now, probably most people listening to this show know what this group of basically political operatives, never Trumpers, who got together and using the name of our 16th president, wrapping themselves in sort of this this cloak of indignant behavior in response to everything Trump did and said. Started casting aspersions on him and all of his followers. Well, now it turns out not only have they been linked to one of their founders, John Weaver, who is alleged to have sexually harassed over a dozen young men, including two

now minors who have come forward with allegations against him. So not only does it come out that they allegedly knew about this long before they admitted they did. In fact, the reports put it back in March, whereas they said it was just last month, January. But it comes out that they've raised some 90 million bucks from people who wanted to see mean ads about Trump, which, by the way, the analysis showed did nothing. They didn't even run them in swing states. It was basically just feel good porn for people who hated Trump. So they raised 90 million bucks. But most of it, according to reports, went into the pockets of firms controlled by the Lincoln Project founders, who basically got rich off of people's hatred for Trump. While Eric, while they were out there preaching louder than anyone about how

horrible Trump supporters are, how they needed to be humiliated. They should never be forgiven. And on and on it went. So what's your take? So here is my, and I watched this and they were so venomous and they were just mean and they were just, they would go after sometimes even bridging, you know, crossing the line into family members. And it was, it got scary. And the real

kind of quirky part of it is George Conway, which is Kellyanne Conway's husband, was one of the founding members of the Lincoln Project. Also, Steve Schmidt, who used to work for the McCains and some other Republicans. By the way, Meghan McCain on Steve Schmidt, who was one of the founders of Lincoln Project, said none of the McCains would spit on Steve Schmidt if he were on fire. So they didn't have a lot of love going around on the right. Meanwhile, they all come from sort of this right place. So I don't begrudge anyone for being provocative and trying to do things. And they're very successful with what they did in a very short period of time, they raised a lot of money.

$90 million is a lot of money. My problem is now that they know, now that we know that they understood that this Weaver guy had had all the sexual harassment issues, they knew about it almost a year ago, yet continued to proceed and raise money from donors. And they didn't oust him. They kept him on board.

They didn't out him, number one, and oust him. So they were afraid of being canceled. They were trying to cancel the president and anyone close to the president. I remember at one point they said, if you work for the president, you shouldn't be hired either. So they were almost a mouthpiece for the cancel culture movement, yet they were sanctimoniously quiet about what was going on within their own ranks so they wouldn't get canceled themselves. The hypocrisy is stunning. It may not get any bigger than that. Now, let's be fair for a second, Megan. Do not forgive Weaver. What he did is disgusting and

needs to go to jail for what he did, if it's true, if the allegations are true. The rest of them, I think they can make amends and we should forgive them on the right as long as they return the money that they were given because they were given money likely under false pretenses. We can't do anything about the Trump presidency that's done in the books, but they should return the money. They should give them the money back to the donors. And you know what? Try again, guys. I mean, look, does it sound like me? I think we need to be more forgiving as a society and as media, but I don't want to see Steve Schmidt or George Conway or Rick Wilson. Those are the founders. I really don't want to see Steve Schmidt or George Conway or Rick Wilson, those are the founders. I really don't

want to see them telling me what's right or what's wrong anymore. Well, that's what's crazy about it, right? So if the reports are true, we've had a report from the Associated Press and from some other publications detailing some of these allegations, then it was brought to their attention almost a year ago that they had a sexual predator, an alleged sexual predator working for them. And John Weaver is not denying this. John Weaver's only statement thus far has been an apology for the pain he's wrought. I don't know about specific allegation to allegation, but he's owned up to sexually harassing young men. And we'll see what happens with the two minors. But anyway,

the point is, if they knew a year ago that they had a sexual predator in their midst and didn't do anything about it, and then to spend the entire fall with their moral righteousness. I mean, and I just pulled up a couple of them because it's really over the top what they were saying about, of course, it's all Trump supporters, right? It's not just Trump. It's all supporters. They're the ones who were, and I quote, building a database of Trump officials and staff saying, quote, they will be held accountable and not allowed to pretend they were not involved. Here's my old pal, Tom Nichols. This guy threatened me because I said the media should take a hard look at what it did to create the distrust in the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6th. That it really needed to do some self-reflection on how those people didn't trust them and were getting their information from unreliable sources, right?

That's all I said. And he threatened me, saying he's going to hold this and use it against me. This guy, he's part of the Lincoln Project. Oh, Tom. Oh, Tom. All right. So this guy tweets out or it was an article, I think, on January 21st saying to hell with moral charlatanism by the Trump supporters. This is a time for moral clarity. Hey, Tom, take a look at your own organization. Then he goes on to say Trump supporters need to come to terms with what they've done and

with what they've allowed to happen. Oh, Tom, you might want to check your own internal problems and come to terms with what you've allowed to happen. That guy, Rick Wilson, bless your hearts, GOP. You're not getting out of this with the old run for the tall grass strategy. In the time before social media, you might have slunk into some dark corner for a year or so, but we live in a world where the internet is forever. Yes, it is, Rick. It absolutely is. I'm sure you're learning that firsthand now. Then he goes on to say, this is after Trump's defeat. It's not enough merely to

enjoy their agony and humiliation. It's not enough to hope enjoy their agony and humiliation. It's not enough to hope they'll be shamed and correct their behavior. Have you not met these people? That's the same guy who called Trump's audience credulous boom rubes in that infuriating segment with Don Lemon, where they were all laughing at Trump supporters like a bunch of hicks. I'm sorry. I'll give you one more. Steve Schmidt, he was the head of the whole thing, and he was forced to resign this past Friday.

This is a quote from him. All of Trump supporters, quote, are complicit. None of them should ever be forgiven, and all of them should pay a brutal price. This is the danger of being such a moral preener, such a universal judger of everyone, when of course you have deep sins in your own closet you're trying to hide. Steve Schmidt, I mean, he was also allegedly accused of somehow hacking into a female's DM direct messaging on whatever venue they were using and leaking that publishing it, making her look really bad. And I mean, there,

there are a lot of violations of people's privacy of, of people's, um, donations. Even they, if, if we hold them to the standard that they want to hold Trump, people who work for Trump and Trump supporters, even down to Trump supporters, you're, you're, you're equally as bad in their eyes as, as, as, as the man himself, if you just support him. And, and I have some issues with that too, with Don Lemon, in fact, calling everyone a racist, if he voted for Trump, having nothing to do with, you know, wanting to be like me, looking for a smaller government, looking for a conservative Supreme court, trying to get out of, trying to get out of foreign wars.

I'm somehow racist because I don't like foreign wars. Now I would vote for the guy for that reason. So they kind of paint everyone with the same, and they want to, I guess, penalize and punish everyone equally on the right. Well, now it's time. Now it's time for them to – I'm I'm, I'm in favor of them just saying, I'm sorry, we were wrong. We screwed up. We made mistakes. And guess what? Hold me accountable. I'll stay off media for a while, but move on down the road. Hopefully they become

better people. Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson became so venomous. It's almost everything out of his mouth was just hate. It was just hate. There was nothing positive. It was condescending. It was laughing at the other side like some moral high ground he was sitting on, some perch down looking over all his little people. Well, just have a little humility.

Apologize. Realize that you screwed up. There are a lot of people who got hurt, especially the people who were harassed by one of their co-founders, and then come back and guess what? I think the right would be a lot more forgiving maybe than the left has been. I mean, that's a crazy, think about that. Steve Schmidt, who is allegedly protecting a sexual predator, he denies it, but this is what the reports are suggesting by his own co-founder. It's not just like the press that's randomly saying this. He's the one who says about the Trump supporters, none of them should ever be forgiven. All should pay a brutal price. It doesn't feel good when

you've committed a sin and someone's looking at you that unforgivingly. Does it, Steve? That's why most of us, I would say most Christians and others, but I certainly in my own Catholic faith, and I know you're Catholic too, forgiveness as such an important right, as such an important piece of humanity. And when someone is sorry and someone does make a mistake,

and I don't know what the full story is, maybe it was brought to them and it didn't look serious enough and they now deeply regret not looking it over. I think the American public would listen to that. But it's this this whole business of take the New York Times when it fired Don McNeil for, you know, repeating the N word in just a story. It wasn't his word and saying intent doesn't matter. All that matters is impact. Right. And now him saying it just no forgiveness ever just because you supported Trump.

These guys invariably find themselves on the other side one day. And it does take those sort of Catholic roots in me to try to muster up forgiveness for them, even in those circumstances. And remember to be better than that, to be better than the unforgiving scold who just wants to rub their noses in it. We need to be better, and we are, and we have been. I think just think about some of the things, you know, the governor of Virginia, some of the things that we found on the left people have done, but the politicians or people who are running for office or people in media on the right do, and all of a sudden they're done. They're finished.

They're canceled. They're out. They're canceled. You know, the left is doing something very interesting. They're canceling people that they don't agree with. The people who are doing things that a lot of times they deserve it, but sometimes there are things that happened 10, 15 years ago, and they've changed their lives, and they're different people now, but they're still getting canceled. But they are ignoring it when it happens to people on the left. So they're administering the cancel unequivocally.

There's no equilibrium there. And it really lends itself to being just a political hack movement. Are we going to look back in history, look back at this time going, this is really a lot like McCarthyism. Like when, when those people said that over there, they were communists and they were going to go to jail and they were getting fired and they were going to be ousted from their communities because they said things that don't agree with what we feel. Therefore it's them. But then when things were happening on their own side in a similar fashion. They ignored it. Well, McCarthyism may be a bent of rage. It feels like that's what we have right now.

The left's form of McCarthyism being cancel culture. If you've ever said anything that's perceived as remotely racist or a pronoun, using it in the wrong way. Megan, you and I are not racist. We're not homophobic. We're not xenophobic. We're not racist. We're not homophobic. We're not xenophobic. We're not anything. We have no isms or is sticks to the back of our names or we shouldn't. But we've both been tagged with them. And it's just it's well, you know what? It's because people like you and I are at the pointy end of the spear, right? Like we we converse for a living. We talk about tough issues for a living, which is also why it's so insane to try to drop labels on us. Like this is literally what we get paid to do is take the most difficult issues and talk about them. And if you can't do it, then you should be doing a

different business. Right. But it's it's crossed over to civilians. That's what's so crazy about cancel culture. Right. The civilians are getting it now, which is extra effed up because they're they're the voters. They're the ones who really matter, who get to have the final say. And they're not allowed to discuss anything. You know that they're afraid they're under their breath at the dinner table like East Germany. And it's it's wrong. More with Eric in just one second. But first, if you have not yet tried Super Beats heart chews, you are missing out because they're delicious, they're a tasty treat,

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Do what I did. Support your heart health with delicious Super Beats Chews today. Get your Super Beats Chews right now at GetSuperBeats.com. And when you buy two bags, they will throw in the third for free. That's GetSuperBeats.com. It's Andrew Cuomo. I saw your tweet about this the other day, and I totally agreed with you. We're talking about, you know, if they're going to they have to apply political pressure across political lines that they want to be taken seriously.

Otherwise, it's just a partisan political movement. This cancel culture group. And they give this guy, this guy who's now reportedly being investigated by the FBI for his misleading the feds on the number of people he killed. I mean, seriously, the number of people his order directly led to the death of in New York state nursing homes. He lied. He's been outed. He's threatening Democratic lawmakers who are now telling the truth about his cover up. And the left has said, boo. They had to be dragged to the story, kicking and screaming by Janice Dean, who finally got some support from inside Democrats who came clean about his lies.

First of all, it's great work by Janice. And I know she's been on the show with you outing a lot of this. And finally, there's a federal investigation that's been opened up. I'm not sure. It's so weird. So you see it. You see a headline like Cuomo knew about. He changed the numbers or told people to be quiet about, I don't know, allegedly about 6,000 or 9,000 people who died.

And you look at it like, OK, apply that to a Republican Trump or not Trump, but even in Europe. And you go, oh, my God, this guy's done. Right. Imagine if it were DeSantis in Florida. You'd see the headline and you'd have a visceral reaction like DeSantis is done or Ted Cruz is done or whomever is done. But on the right, you're like, okay, well, let's see what happens. They're winning that. They're winning that war. I do a lot of thinking on this. For some reason, this cancel culture thing is just always present in my mind. Because I have to figure out where I'm going from here.

What am I going to say? How am I going to say this? I don't like to walk on eggshells about what I say because I know in my heart I don't have any of these bad things that people like to tag us with. But I don't want to also get canceled. And here's where it comes down to. Where the rubber meets the road. And I hate cliches, but where the rubber meets the road is when the corporate boardroom caves to the pressure of the cancel call to the tweet. When the corporate boardroom talks about a tweet and says, we have to let him or her go because we don't like the blowback. That's how they win when, and there

will be a day, Megan, I'm not sure when it,'s going to be the first Pepsi co-GM who is going to step up and say, no, we're not. Then cancel culture can't live. It can be a fun thing on the internet, which it was. That's where it started. It started blowing people up on internet. But then it became a real thing when people started losing their jobs, their careers, their families, their social status in their neighborhoods. That's when corporate boardrooms backed the insanity of the mob. That's when it all held. And we're in the midst of all hell breaking loose when corporate boardrooms back off and say, all right, we're back to business. We're going to do business. We're just going to do business. You have your fun blowing people up on social media. Then we'll be in a better place. That's why the law is the answer because what they're doing is illegal.

And in a lot of these situations is canceling people because they won't go along with the new racist messaging being shoved down their throats. And the law will protect you. And once we make that clear in the courts, corporate America will bow immediately because they're spineless. They don't their heart isn't in this cancel culture nonsense. They're just bowing. They're afraid they're paying the ransom. So the stakes have to be upped on the side. And that's, that's underway. But let me just, I just want to tell the audience, just one of the things about Cuomo and Janice is coming back on soon because she's got a new book out. And she's, I hope, hoping going to run for governor in New York state. It would be so amazing if she did it. But there's a democratic New Yorkork legislature legislator it's a this is a state

state rep um his name is ron kim he's a democrat okay he's a he's a democrat assemblyman here in new york and he came out and is publicly on television and otherwise detailing alleged threats from governor cuomo okay i'm actually reading media right now which wrote it up kim claims cuomo threatened him in an effort to get him to participate in a cover up of COVID caused nursing home deaths. The assemblyman has been a vocal critic of Cuomo's on this issue. Kim says the governor tried to intimidate him into changing his position. Quote, when we get closer to the truth behind the growing nursing home scandal in New York, Governor Cuomo tries to implicate you in the cover up or threatens your livelihood if you don't lie for him. And that's what happened to me in the last week.

He says he was one of six lawmakers in a private virtual meeting with top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa. She's the one who outed Cuomo as as as trying to hide the numbers because they didn't want the feds to investigate them. And he says DeRosa admitted to a cover up in that meeting. And then Kim felt he had to go public. Cuomo phoned him the next evening while he was bathing his kids. Quote, for 10 minutes, he berated me. He yelled at me. He told me my career would be over. He's been biting his tongue for months against me. And he says, and I had tonight to issue a new statement. I had tonight, he says, to issue a new statement and essentially asking me to lie, he says. He goes, this is a Democrat in New York. I heard and saw a crime the other day, and he's asking me to say that I didn't. This guy needs to be bounced out of office. It's not a cancel culture thing. This is a, you have a corrupt, lying, cheating criminal at the top of the New York state government. And it is beyond time for the press to stop looking the other way. Yeah, there was a, and people may not remember this, but this again, with, you know, you

have a Democrat governor in a very Democratic state, voters are Democrat, you know, all up and down the lines are Democrats. It was probably 10 years ago or so, maybe less where Andrew Cuomo declared their, and it was probably less, it was 70 years ago where he declared he wanted to investigate corruption within the state. And this is a true story as they're investigating.

It got closer and closer and closer to the governor's office. He shut the investigation down. He shut it down before he was implicated in these corrupt scandals. Okay, fast forward to now where what happens is these people, these politicians, think they're all almighty. They have all the power in the world. It's going to come down to Letitia James. She's the attorney general, a Democrat, if she's got the guts to go after a very powerful governor, a guy who probably the left thinks could be a president, a presidential

candidate one day. That's not happening. Not anymore. I think that ship has sailed too. But look, I think they should go after him because people died. You're not talking a few, we're talking thousands of people died. He allegedly told people not to report true numbers of nursing home deaths. Find out that story and then go reopen the investigations into the corrupt dealings of the state of New York from about seven or eight years ago and find out what that investigation was going to find as well. Honestly, Eric, I am, believe me, 100% in favor of the New York Attorney General's work on the Harvey Weinstein case. Go and investigate Harvey Weinstein. Get to the bottom of what he did. That was important work. So is this. Thousands of people are dead, and there appears to be a massive cover up afoot. I mean, let's just look at the relative stakes here. We're talking about massive loss of life of our most vulnerable beloved ones.

And this governor who nobody will hold to account other than my friend, the meteorologist. Without Janice Dean, this guy would have gotten away with all of this. I swear I believe that. Anyway, so we'll see. Tish James has been, she's been brave so far in preparing the report, but I don't think she's going to go after it. She's going to leave it at that. She needs to. We need to continue to press to find out what happened.

Do you remember when, and I believe this was political, when it was very early stages of the COVID pandemic, when Trump sent the hospital ship to New York and they docked it and Cuomo said, no, we don't need it. Do you remember this? We don't need it. It was literally left empty, sent back on its way. And now we find out that a lot of people were sent back into nursing homes that were sick, that may have been, if they had been left out of these nursing homes, they may not have spread as rapidly as it did. They may have utilized it. Did Cuomo send that ship away? I just love to see some of these emails. Did Cuomo send that ship away because Trump sent the ship at the expense of the lives of people in the nursing homes? I mean, there's a lot of layers in this onion that they can pull back. Yeah. Or did he do it because the state was going to make more if they went

to the hospitals? I mean, well, well, Janice has been raising these questions. We'll get into it more, but I, I mean, we're watching this because this is such an egregious dereliction. Listen, I want to back up to something else you were saying about corporate America. Now you, people may not know this about you, but you started in corporate America. You got your start in television because you were a commodities trader on wall street. And all I know is a mutual friend of ours was telling me, she's like, Oh, Eric, he was like a God on wall street. She's like, he, this is Melissa Francis, who I know, you know, she's like, everybody just did what Eric did when he, when he made a move, the rest of us made a move. The mob followed because

he always seemed to have his finger on the pulse. I've never really talked to you about this. How many years did you do that? Did you make a gazillion dollars doing that? It was a lucrative portion of your career. It was very lucrative, I guess my adult life as a professional baseball player. I was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates. And in my first season, I blew my rotator cuff and I literally went from, okay, now what? I just happened to love, love economics money. We were dead poor broke in inner city Chicago family. No money, just never, you know, mom worked two jobs that the whole, the whole stereotypical lower middle-class to maybe upper lower-class family. Um, I always wanted to get out of that. And so wall street was, was fascinating to me, made my way to wall street at some point and spent 15 years, uh, as, as, uh, as an oil and gas trader on Wall Street. Towards the end of that, I had done very, very well. Someone had said something that, Melissa may have been at CNBC at the time. I think she was. And it may have been her who talked to some of the people at CNBC and said,

would you, Bowling, would you be interested in coming and talking about a TV show? And I said, what are you thinking? And they said, well well we want to take a couple of various people from various worlds on wall street and have them come in again cnbc was was a business of finance network is a business and finance network um you know we would take you we'll take someone from say a merrill lynch and we'll take a guy in. And we had, they had a girl who was a hedge fund manager and we'll put you on the desk and just talk about the trading day at the end of the day. And I said, that sounds great. Well, it was, they played around with it for maybe a couple of months as a once a week segment. And it grew in popularity. It ended up becoming fast money.

And Melissa Francis named that show where they were searching for a show. Make a long story short. I was one of four guys, all four guys on the desk. They went through five or 600 people applying or trying to become one of those first original cast members. I was one of the first cast members. And so I had a Wall Street background, but then I got into TV that way. And he just loved the TV aspect of it. And about a year or so into that is when Roger and Bill shine and, um, Suzanne Scott called me in and at Fox and said, Hey, why don't you do that over here? Bring your, bring your content over to Fox. And that's how I made the move from NBC, CNBC and NBC over to Fox. But yeah, so the first thing I did when I came over to Fox, and this is by 15 years

ago, I said, don't ever sell your Apple and don't ever sell your gold. And gold was about, I think gold was $500 an ounce and Apple was about $70 a share before it split like gazillions of times. So they all, I think hopefully they all still own their gold and their apples. $70 a share before it split like gazillions of times. Wow. They all, I think, hopefully they all still own their gold in their house. And I bet someplace we can find you saying, buy Bitcoin. Oh, you want to know something? That's my new, that's my thing. I'm into the Bitcoin stuff, boy.

Oh, man. I feel like I'm late to the party. I'm always late to these parties. You're not late to the party. Everyone, I do this. i do this little experiment i go i'll go to a restaurant with adrian my wife or or a bar we'll have a cocktail we'll talk to people of every age i can have every age now bitcoin's become so mainstream in the news that they all know about it everyone knows what i hear bitcoin bitcoin's this alternative currency. Well, I don't really understand. How much do you have?

And it's almost 95, I'd say more than nine out of 10 people that you'll talk to will be, I don't have any. I want in, but they'll say the same thing you said. It jumped and it's up to 50, 51, 52. I'm late to the party. Bitcoin, there are only 21 million Bitcoins that will ever be produced in the world. There are about 17 million already. Now, it'll slow down. It will probably hit 21 million in maybe 20 or 30 years. But when you do, there'll be no more Bitcoins. It's not like gold

where you can continue to find gold and mine gold and it'll still come up. They'll be the top. Then the price of Bitcoin will just go up. You'll just be able to buy smaller and mine gold and still come up. They'll be the top. Then the price of Bitcoin will just go up. You'll just be able to buy smaller and smaller pieces of Bitcoin, which will have more and more value. Look, it's 50. I started buying Bitcoin when it was 6,000. I watched it go to 20, back to 3,000. It's at 52 now.

I think Bitcoin's, I think it's north of a half a million, maybe a million dollar Bitcoin at some point. Oh, it's exciting to get a tip. Okay. I like that. I like knowing that there's still opportunity there. I was at a restaurant with Adrian last night and a guy comes up and he's like, hey, and literally some neighbor who I've never met before in my life. He's like, hey, you know, I hear you talking about Bitcoin or I follow you on Twitter and you're talking about Bitcoin a lot. He goes, it's too late, Right. I go, no, it's not too late.

It's not too late. And, you know, I said, I don't know what your, what your savings are like. He's like, I have a furniture business. I do quite well. I said, how many kids you got? And he said, two. I said, well, don't put your life savings into Bitcoin. I said, but you got two kids.

Buy them each a Bitcoin. It's not something that you're going to, you know, you're, you're going to need to, to, to live on because you're a wealthy guy. You have a family with his wife and two little kids. Buy each one of those kids a Bitcoin and forget about it. And then come talk to me in about five years. And guess what? You'll be buying me dinner in this restaurant when I see you again the next time. So wait a minute. Let me ask my dumb question. When you say it's at $50,000, are you telling me it costs $50,000 to get one Bitcoin?

Yeah, but you don't have to. You can, yes, one Bitcoin value. Oh my God, that's a lot of money. So you don't have to buy. If you have a Bitcoin wallet, you can buy $100 worth of Bitcoin or $300 worth of Bitcoin. You can buy whatever amount you want. You don't have to buy a full Bitcoin. You can buy a piece of a Bitcoin and you get worth of Bitcoin. You can buy whatever amount you want. You don't have to buy a full Bitcoin. You can buy a piece of a Bitcoin and you get a digital wallet, which means...

Here's my theory. I hate cash now. I don't even want to touch money anymore. I don't want to go in my pocket. I don't even want to use a credit card because I have to touch a credit card and type in a yes or a with my finger i believe that everything will be transacted via our phones you know we'll just swipe but when bitcoin becomes a a transactionable currency the way uh you know mastercard or visa well when bitcoin becomes mastercard visa an alternative or you can just swipe your phone and take a little piece of your Bitcoin wallet out to pay for your Starbucks or your movie theater tickets, whatever it is, that's when Bitcoin really becomes massive.

The reason why Bitcoin will replace, I believe, will replace dollar-denominated currencies is because when we print money the way we print money in America and around the world, really, everyone's printing money, we devalue the currency. So a dollar continues to get devalued. Like it or not, you go three, four, five trillion more into debt each year. It's because we're printing more money. That means our dollars, which are backed by the US government, become less and less valuable. It's just pure supply and demand. Bitcoin doesn't have that. There's no more printing of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin will fit 21 million at a point, and that's it. There's no government that's going to come in and say, we're going to add more Bitcoin, or we're going to tax you on your Bitcoin. That's just not where it is. But I don't really understand it. Is it like two guys who said, let's create an alternate form of currency and just see if we'll get people to bite and we're going to call it Bitcoin? We're going to try to get people to buy this stuff, even though right now it's nothing? This is a very good question because no one knows who invented Bitcoin. There's a theory that is South Korean Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin.

I think that's the name. Something like that. But no one really knows. And we don't know how much he or she has for themselves. So if there's 21 million Bitcoin, the theory is they kept 2 million Bitcoin for themselves. We don't know that. So we don't know exactly. But it will top out.

We know where it is and when it's going to top out. It's not to guys. It was created as a way to trade value. And what happened was, and the reason why I believe in Bitcoin now is because it was originally used by really dark web people like drug dealers and human traffickers and things like that. And they were just trading value back and forth with this currency that couldn't be, it wasn't, wasn't being tracked by any government. Well, that's the way it was. And that's really why I didn't jump into it in 2009 when it started, because I was like, I don't want to get involved in the seedy underworld. And I'm not sure where my money's going to go. And like all of a sudden it jumped into mainstream at one point. I can't remember what it was around 2015 or so. I didn't jump in then, but once it started to pick up steam and I'll, I'll never forget. I was sitting in a, in a restaurant in Miami and the bartender came over and he showed me his Bitcoin wall. I'm like, wow, it's really, it's starting to move. He's like, yeah, everyone's doing it. Everyone's

talking about it. I can, I can, you know, go to this other, my other friend over here and buy a dinner with my Bitcoin and trade in my Bitcoin. i i realized it was making the jump to mainstream and it was getting out of the dark corners behind the alley into into mainstream and and what happened was this is why i like it government didn't see it coming and it popped it popped into the into into the into the real world now you have elon musk saying he'll take take bitcoin for teslas you have Elon Musk saying he'll take Bitcoin for Teslas. We have PayPal saying they'll take it. MasterCard is looking into taking it. It happened so fast that the government couldn't get their greedy little stinky, grimy hands on it yet. And now it's out there and they can't take it away. The big risk was the government was going to take it

away. Here's another dumb question. The thing that Elon Musk is pushing, is that dog coin? What is that? What is that other thing? Dogecoin. What is that? It's Dogecoin. It started as a joke because all these cryptocurrencies were starting up and no one really, there's a bunch of little Litecoin and Ethereum. There's literally hundreds of them. And most of them were just started with the same type of algorithm, same type of technical creation, origin. And someone said, oh, let's call it a Dogecoin. And they put a picture of a Shiba Inu on it on a coin.

And it was literally a joke. Yeah, no, no, it was a joke startup. And the guy who invented it said he can't believe it. He put it up there as a joke. And now it's several billion dollars of valuation. Oh, my God. Why don't we just do that? Why don't we just create our own coin?

That sounds like a great idea. Or we could just buy some Bitcoin and watch this thing go to the moon. Well, here's the truth. This is back to where we started. Eric doesn't actually need any of this money. And I'll tell the audience one of the funniest moments. I love this, where it was back, it was during the Obama administration, and we were doing like the

sequester, and they had shut down the White House tours. And so the little kids who were scheduled to go to the White House, they scheduled six weeks in advance were basically told you can pound sand, the Obama administration not gonna let you see the White House. And you were like, this is BS. They shouldn't be taking out their their inability to budget on school kids. And you said, I will personally pay for a week of the White House tours. And it was seventy four thousand bucks. You were going to you said, I'll pay for it out of my own pocket.

And I remember watching the five. And Greg Gutfeld said, I think we just realized that this show is not your primary source of income. He said, is this show your hobby? Is this just like something to do? That was a fun show. But that was it. And isn't that sad that they played politics with the kids? It's like play politics with the grownups.

Take shots at your fellow Republicans and Democrats left and right. By the way, they're equally as gross in that respect. But it was when the kids, when they could, kids, and I remember, just remember in eighth grade, the eighth grade trip to D.C. to go see the White House and those little tours. Why would you shut the tours down? There's so many things you could do.

Did you do that? Did you go from Chicago to D.C. in eighth grade to see the White House? I have to be honest with you. Um, can I be really honest with you? Yeah. I didn't go. So we had an eighth grade tour plan for Chicago. Um, I told you I was poor in Chicago, right? I was poor, but I lived in a very wealthy neighborhood. My, my, my mother's father was a builder. And before he went bankrupt, he had two houses.

One he gave to my family. And we were very, very poor in a rich neighborhood. And those kids, they treated me. I was the outcast. I was the poor kid. And I literally didn't go because I didn't have anyone I could go with. So I didn't go anyone I could go with. So I didn't go. But everyone else did.

And by the way, that's why I didn't want to be poor anymore. Well, you never know how those experiences are going to form you, right? How they're going to – you don't know at the time when you just feel bad, like you don't have the right sneakers and you don't have a parent who can take two days off to go to D.C. with you. How that might long-term wind up being not, not such a bad thing. I can't believe you just said that because, um, I wrote it in the, I wrote a book, I wrote in the book about, about this. And, um, I'll never forget. I was probably around seven years old and we were in, my mom and I were, we, she took me shopping for sneakers and we

were in a place called valueville and it was this little thing in chicago like a kmart like just like a kmart but a bunch of stuff and she said go pick out some sneakers and i literally went and picked out pro kids and i love them they're cool i brought them back and and she said and i'll never forget her face it was just her face just dropped and she said we and I'll never forget her face. It was just her face just dropped. And she said, we can't afford those. It was my first understanding of afford something. What do you mean? At class, I had no idea up until that moment that some people could afford stuff and other people couldn't afford things. It was crushing to me. And it was crushing to see my mom's face when she had to break the news to me. And I don't know, Megan, I think, yes, I've been very fortunate. I've been blessed. But I've spent a lot of years taking a lot of risk and made a lot of money, probably because it was just so difficult of a childhood living in that situation. But yeah, sneaker story, true story.

I understand that. It's the shame that can come to a child from not being able to do the bare minimum that the other students are doing runs deep. And I was never poor. I mean, I was poor individually when I was trying to put myself through law school. I mean, my I was never poor. I mean, I was poor individually when I was trying to put myself through law school, but I just, I mean, like my family was never poor. We were middle class, although later in life, my mom said we had graduated to upper middle class. So I'm like, that sounds better. You know, I'll go with that. But, but we were also never at a place where,

you know, I could have what I wanted when I want, like we always had to budget and we had to be careful. And I heard no a lot when it came to money. And that was a motivator for me too. I will say like, I, I always just, I always just wanted to be able to buy the things I wanted. And I, I never had extravagant taste, you know, like I remember when I was young and I was starting out and I was a lawyer and I said, my dream is to be able to go into pottery barn and buy the furniture I want and pottery barn. Like that's, and that, and when I got to that point as a lawyer, I truly was like, I have arrived and truly I, I haven't needed more than that. You know, I gave, I had an interview with Charlie Rose. He interviewed me one time

and he said something like, oh, you know, that you're reportedly getting offered all these millions by Fox or whatever it was. So, you know, why do you need X million? And I said, I don't, I don't need any million. I don't, I've lived very poorly and I've lived with lots of money and I don't need any of that money, but you also have to know what you're worth, right? So it's like, why would you take 20%, you know, less than your worth or 50% less than your worth? So you, you know, you have to be a smart business person and bargain for the best deal, but that's not to be confused with being money obsessed or thinking you have to have it to live well, because having done both, I can say my level of happiness, having to stay the same. The only thing money has done for me is remove the

sick feeling you get in your stomach when the bills come. Yes. A hundred percent%. I agree with you 100%. That's why athletes don't need $26 million, because it makes them feel like they're the most important athlete on the field. I think most of what has motivated me for my whole life has been just the thought, and I can still see them laughing at me and those young kids. It was brutal. I don't wish that on anyone. More with Eric in just one second. But first, let's talk about Jan Marini Skin Care Research. This product line is delightful. It's beautiful. It's elegant.

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And if I'd break out, she'd be like, oh, it's your adult acne. And she had it too. So we would lament our adult acne. That was before I knew about Jan Marini. Now I know. I love it. And I wouldn't have to worry about that anymore. And neither will you if you get it. You can see the before and after images. Don't take my word for it. Not of me, but of random others, by going to jamarini.com and you can take their online consultation to find the best solutions for your skin. The products are hydrating, they're calming, they have numerous clinical studies conducted by leading dermatologists and you can get them anywhere. Go to leading spas, med spas, aesthetic physicians offices,

or just go to jamarini.com and you can buy them there or you can find the locations to buy them in person. Check out great holiday offerings available and always with two-day shipping and transform your skin with Jan Marini. Plus, by the way, they're featuring a special offer right now. If you order from JanMarini.com and use code Megan, you're going to get a free cosmetic bag with your order. That's JanMarini.com, code M-E-G-Y-N. Check it out. All right, before we get back to Eric, I want to bring you another edition of a feature we call You Can't Say That or Think That or Do That. Oh, wait, this is America. There's a funny thing about cancel culture. If you talk about cancel culture, you may get canceled. You may get canceled yourself just for talking about cancel culture. We've jumped the shark in the movement now, people.

That's essentially what happened to the Bachelor host, Chris Harrison. Who the hell gets offended by Chris Harrison? You get offended by Chris Harrison, you are looking for people to be offended by. Last week it was Dolly Parton. Now it's this guy. Please, we've run out of people to target. He's the host of the ABC dating show, right? The reality show. And apparently he's gone woke while he was forced to or he's pretending to. You see, photos of a current cast member were uncovered and they showed her recently at a, quote, antebellum plantation themed frat party when she was in college. Dumb move, sister.

Dumb move, sister. Dumb move. Harrison was asked about this and he urged, quote, a little grace, a little understanding, a little compassion, noting this. This is quoting now judge jury executioner thing where people are just tearing this girl's life apart. It's unbelievably alarming. Now, two things can be true. That could have been a stupid ass move by the young woman. And Chris Harrison could be right that there's no reason to tear her life apart over it. Right. Like people do dumb ass things when they're in college and beyond, for that matter. And as long as they come to see the light and understand it and, you know, apologize, whatever, however you want to handle it or not. If she doesn't feel she says it, look, it was it wasn't meant to cause harm. And I don't know what it's up to her, but it's really not his problem to solve. So he was making a condemnation of our knee-jerk cancellation, right, of everybody, pretty reasonable, but no, it was totally unacceptable. Harrison then had the guns turned on him and he immediately apologized for, quote, causing harm by wrongly speaking in a manner that perpetuates racism.

But that was most certainly not enough. You see, Harrison announced he's stepping aside from the Bachelor franchise, effective immediately and will instead be spending his time, and this is an actual quote, getting educated on a more profound and productive level than ever before. This is the only time I've agreed with Don Lemon in my life. Don Lemon was on CNN saying, I don't know if it's sincere. It's not, Don. It's not. Don, the arbiter of all things moral. Don, who was alleged to shoved his hands down his own pants, fondled his own genitalia,

and then rubbed his hands all over some random stranger in a bar. That Don Lemon, he denies it. But there was a witness. Um, that one says he's not sure the apology was sincere, but I had to say, I'm not sure either because everyone gets forced into this crouching position saying, please don't ruin my career. Um, well, anyway, good, good luck on your reeducation, Chris. Um, I'm, I'm, do we all feel better now? Because if you say we should have some grace and compassion like he did, well, you can't say that. Oh, wait, this is America. And now back to Eric Bowling. As we talk about our childhoods and, you know, now our adult situations, I'm thinking about Eric Chase. And I'm wondering, before we get to everything that happened, can you talk about like raising

a child as a rich man and how, you know, you and Adrian tried to not spoil him too much and not, you know, because no matter what's your financial situation, you always want to teach your child the value of a dollar, the value of hard work, not to grow up to be, you know, some douchebag rich person who, you know, thinks they're entitled to everything. And you have to actively work on that or you're going to wind up with somebody who does think that way. Yeah. So Eric Chase, if your audience doesn't know, he was my 19-year-old son. He passed from an opioid overdose in college. And I never spoiled him.

I mean, I wanted to give him more than I had, obviously. And I did. He had his own car when he turned 16. And he had his own room. And it was nice. But it wasn't extravagance. But I always, always, um, pushed education. I just wanted him to learn.

I just wanted him to be good in school. Like whatever, you know, whatever he was doing, it was always on. I would study with him. We did, we did the, the, the, the square tables, one square, two square, three square. And he would, he could get up to like 25 square to 30 squared, just rattle them up. And so we spent a lot of time on numbers and math and reading and education. It was always a huge, huge focus. And, and I kind of looked the other way on a lot of things that, that he was doing as long as the grades were good and they were always good. He was always an A or B student. He did fantastic. When he said he wanted to go to University of Colorado, I paused because, you know, I'm a libertarian and I believe in, I don't believe anyone should

go to jail. I don't think anyone should be, go to jail for, for using drugs. It just, I'm, I'm, I don't care who you sleep with or where, what you smoke and just, that's my world. And then it kind of hit me with my son. Like he wants to go to a place where, you know, we know it's, it's marijuana is prevalent. It's, it's a very, uh, it's a, it's, it's a lifestyle and it concerned me. And I, and I knew he was smoking weed and, um, I knew he was, but his grades were good. His grades were good. And then we got that faithful call one night and, uh, can and just walk you through that a little just so we can understand it? I think about this, of course, Eric, as you know, as a mother myself.

Where do you draw the line? How much of a leash do you give them when it comes to drugs and alcohol? Thankfully, mine are little right now, but you know, it's coming. And, and I know great parents who have very different ways of approaching this. You know, some are like, you know, just wait until college. And some are like, never. And some are like, I trust you to do the right thing starting right now. And, and so like where, so you were okay with pot when he was, I guess in high school, but like, how did you telegraph what was your messaging around drugs and alcohol to him i think it was always um

and again i may have been erroneous but i i never saw anything other than than weed and i knew he kids in in the neighborhood they smoked pot and they drank. I knew that. I just knew that. And I never really punished him for any of that stuff. And again, Megan, he had a lot of friends. They seemed to be really nice kids. And his grades are good. And I look back and I'm like, did I ignore any signs? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

But my messaging was stay out of trouble. Stay out of trouble with the law. Don't do things that's going to get you in trouble, but keep your studies up. And I felt if he was able to keep his studies up, he was going to be not venturing into things that were going to hurt him. And he, from everything I've heard you and others say, was a happy kid. Like this wasn't some depressed, you know, down, dour. Like he was a happy, very social, loving kid.

One of the difficult things was talking to his friends and someone that said, Derek, I miss your happy dances. Because he used to have these happy dances. He does, you know, I see him on TV, you know, people dancing funny with the pop in the, in the, and I, and I just think back and yeah, it's hard. Yeah. So September 8th, 2017, you and Adrian, this is your only child, Eric Chase, you and Adrian are driving in the car and what happened? We got the call. We got the... The proverbial call that parents don't want.

We got it. That no parent wants to ever receive. We're coming home from uh come home from a restaurant i'm sorry love i can feel it that's right uh so we get the call uh that he had he had taken what he felt was a Xanax that he bought on campus. And it was laced with fentanyl that he didn't know. He passed.

I remember this so well. And it was such a shock. And the thing I remember most about it, Eric, was one thing everyone knew about you was how close you were with him, how much you loved him. You were one of those dads who constantly talked about your child in a great way, like just a big smile on your face whenever you tell a story about him or just so generous in your view of him and wanting others to understand how great he was. And not that that should make it somehow impossible, right?

Not that that would ever make one family immune, but it just seemed impossible. It seemed impossible for someone that much of a light with that much love in his life to go so young in such a senseless way, such a damn fucking senseless way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was a shock. There was another young man, 19 years old also, that went to a school about 20 miles miles away from eric was at colorado boulder uh this other

young man went to a university of denver about 20 miles away who died the same night from the same thing a fentanyl uh laced xanax that apparently there was a batch it's called a hot batch that was in the in the in the colorado area and uh killed both of our sons this was a this was a a navy officer's son it's just it's and so you know i set up the eric chase foundation and and i've spent the last three years just trying to create awareness about the dangers of of this of this, of opioids generally, but specifically fentanyl. I mean, it's a, it's a drug that, that is just absolutely deadly. A couple of grains of fentanyl can kill a 200 pound person. Uh, we don't need it. There's no reason to have it in society. It should be, it should be just banned completely across the board. So anyway,

it's 50 times stronger than heroin. It's up to 100 times stronger than morphine. It's the drug that killed Prince, the artist Prince. It's it's incredibly powerful. And they were handing it out like candy in way too many hospitals and doctor's offices for a while. But so can I just ask you, so like, how does fentanyl get laced into a Xanax? Do police or others believe that was an intentional act by a drug dealer? How does that happen? So most of the fentanyl is produced in some 85% or 90% of the fentanyl is produced in China. And there's these Chinese labs that are doing lookalike drugs and they're using fentanyl to strengthen the potency of various types of other drugs

like Xanax. And the scary thing is, Megan, what I found is that the drug dealers who've dealt a drug that's killed someone because it's laced with fentanyl end up being the most popular drug dealers around because they have the strongest stuff. It's just, you know, we've been caught up in the last year on COVID deaths, but wait till you see once the dust settles, wait till you see how many opioid deaths that we're going to be dealing with again, because they're happening.

They're just not newsworthy right now, because everyone's counting how many people are dying from COVID. The problem is a lot of what's happening is all these, these are young people. These are primarily young people under the age of 35. A lot of them are under the age of 25 who are dying of these overdoses. Opioids are killing a lot of people. It was a huge story two, three years ago. It's kind of overshadowed right now by COVID, but it's an epidemic. It's a pandemic, really. I pulled just a couple of numbers. The CDC says the rate of overdose deaths is accelerating during this pandemic, that it rose almost 40% from June of 19 to June of 20.

More than 750,000 have died since 1999 from drug overdoses. In 2019 alone, more than 70,000 people died from drug overdoses, 48,000 from opioids. A stunning way to think about this is overdoses. Yes, most of them are, not all, but most of them are opioid overdoses, but it's literally a full 737 airplane packed with people every single day, plowing into the side of a mountain, killing everyone. That's how many people are dying from overdoses every day in America. And we'd be talking about it if we're an airplane crashing every day, but we're not talking about it. That's right. We will. We will. What happened? Did you ever find out who sold him the drug?

And was there accountability for that person? I couldn't. I mean, I left it with the Boulder police. It was just devastating. It was just absolutely devastating. I mean, I see movies of parents just going after it. I just, I didn't of parents just going after it. It just took everything out of me.

That wasn't where you wanted to direct your energy. No. I know you've told a story. I read you did a piece in USA Today, and I've heard you talk about it many times. But Adrienne, your wife, I think about her. She was driving. You pulled over. You got the news. She tried to throw herself out of the car.

She did. She did. She threw herself out of the car on a busy roadway in Long Beach Island, New Jersey. And we sat on the curb. I picked her up and sat on the curb. And we cried. I understand. I pulled her, picked her up and sat on the curb. And, you know, we cried. I understand. I mean, I understand. I think every parent out there can understand that. And like, yet I look at you guys now and you seem good. Like you seem pretty good. So can you describe that process of pulling yourselves, both of you, out of the depths of that despair? Oh, you're never out. It's every day. It's like you wake up and go, how are you going to get through today?

So you don't get out, but you live. You have to. If you don't live, you don't. I mean, obviously, it's hard, they're obviously, you know, it's hard every day is, is every day. There's something on TV. There's a reminder. There's, there's reminders ever. There's triggers everywhere. You just have to, uh, have to, have to figure out a way to pick yourself up and make it through a day, make it through a day. That's what it is. You know, this is a little controversial but uh this was literally a a weekend it was labor day um and it was a friday night labor day weekend and uh there was a storm coming up from like like a hurricane was on its way and

they were starting to shut down the airports and and I, when we got the news, I'm like, we have to get to Colorado. And you know, a lot of people don't like me because of my friendship with Donald Trump. Trump called me and said, airports are shut down. You can have my plane if you need it to get to go to Colorado. Wow. Wow. airports are shut down you can have my plane if you need it to get to go to colorado wow wow i you know that gives me pause too i have said before that he does not really have the empathy gene you know like it's not really in him but maybe that's not true or at least maybe it overlooks that he has a caretaker gene you know like he'll step in when his friends need him.

Because I've heard stories like that of him caretaking before. Anyway, so I have a reason to be friendly with the guy besides, you know, his politics, which, uh, you know, it's, it's been, that part's been, that part's been rough, but anyway, so yeah, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's, you, you get up and, and, and I, I try and create awareness for the opioid mess that we have going on. You've been doing amazing on that. I mean, all the town halls, but let me just ask you before we move on from it, because I know there were reports and I just want to make sure the audience is clear that Eric Chase died. I think it was the same night that were allegations against you. You denied, you've defended yourself vigorously and all of that. And someday the audience will hear the full story on this. And I look forward to that day on your behalf. And there were some who quickly, I mean,

O'Reilly was one of them, suggested that Eric Chase died because of those allegations made against you. I do want to say he apologized and you accepted. I mean, you live what you said earlier. You are a forgiver. You forgave him. But that's not true. Just for the record, it isn't true. It wasn't an intentional overdose. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

And thank you for pointing all that out. So it was the same day. It was a couple hours after Fox and I separated. And by the way, it was amicable. Um, and as the media likes to do, when I separated from Fox, I'm immediately, you know, stories start circulating. I'm there. I couldn't that night my son passes. I couldn't defend myself. I literally had to cocoon for a year to survive.

Cold Adrian, just cocoon for a year just to survive. He didn't die. He didn't commit suicide. And I was just aghast when O'Reilly said that. I had filled in for Bill 250 times. I've known Bill a long time. Never even asked me, never even said, how you doing? He just went ahead and made a media moment out of it

by saying that Eric died because, for whatever reason. I think he said because the left-wing media beat me up so badly about separating from Fox. He probably didn't even know he said he died because of the allegations made against him he said and he said it and i know this to be true and to me i'll tell you eric my my impression was this guy is talking about himself and the pain he has suffered from allegations that have been made against him and the pain his family clearly has suffered. It doesn't mean they're not true in Bill's case, but I'm sure they've brought a lot of pain and he's brought a lot of pain as anybody has who's transgressed or made

mistakes to their family. Anyway, I thought my impression was he's trying to work out something. He's so angry about how the press just throws, you know, they, they, and allegations made, they hurl it around. They don't fact check. You're, you're tarred with it. They don't look into the background of any of the accusers, none of it. And I, and I think he was feeling indignant in his own situation and sort of try to, um, not what's not project.

It's like they transfer it onto you, which was totally out of line. I was, I was, I was totally out of line. It was nonsense. I was aghast. And I literally picked up the phone and called Emily Steele at the New York Times and said, I don't know where he is because I was in Connecticut hiding, just trying to survive. But I have a statement that says Bill O'Reilly is completely wrong on this. And that's nonsense. And my son died of an accident in Willow Perdue.

Call the Boulder police if you want to, but knock yourself out. And so, yeah, look, he did apologize. I just don't know what he was up to with that. Maybe it was just, I have no idea. I'm not even going to speculate on why he did that. It's certainly not true. And no one's ever suggested, and just for the record,

just in case people want more proof of this, Eric Chase's girlfriend, Kayla, openly told the police that Eric Chase, she knew about the Fox situation, he knew about the fact, he didn't seem overly upset about it at all, that he was always very happy, very positive individual,

never ever talked to her about being down or expressing any desire to hurt himself it's just it isn't true and people need to know that and they also need to know it eric because it almost lets you off the hook as a parent if you think that's that's what happened as opposed to the reality which is no no not you no, not you, not you, not you. I mean, like me, it lets one off the hook as a parent. Cause you're like, Oh, that special circumstances. And this is one of the points you've been very laudably trying to make for the last three and a half years, which is you got to get out of the, not my kid mentality. You and Adrian never saw it coming. I know I got that from you.

And like, can you just speak to that? Cause I think most parents and people listening to this right now are thinking, well, it wouldn't happen. My kid, I would know.

Yeah. So I, I developed two lines on this, on these tours of, of, of the country, talking to parents, talking to kids.

And it's, um, before I do that, I just can gonna just tell you it was i want to just address something it was the same day that fox and i separated and yes i did get bludgeoned by the media but i had no fight because my son had just died so i couldn't explain in fact i probably didn't i probably never explained the whole story i would love to do it with you on your show at some point when I'm allowed to do it with regards to legally with Fox. Cause there's, there's, I was, I believe there'll be a lot more

to the story and a lot more understanding and maybe a lot more compassion for what happened in to me and my wife on that day and leading up to that day. Well, you know you have an invitation. A lot of explanation. I definitely would want to do it with you, Megan. You've been just amazing and just a great person. So I'm doing these tours. And I came up with two lines into kids. I looked right into their eyes and I said, guys, one pill can kill. One pill can kill. And the reason why that is, is that it was a, it was a one, it was a fentanyl. It was a Xanax laced with fentanyl that, that had too much fentanyl and it killed my son. It killed another young man, 23 miles away

from, from Eric Chase the same Friday night. People need to know, kids need to know if you put something, if someone says, take this, you're at a party, take this, understand that that could be the last thing you do in your life. And it's kind of moments where kids look up and I've had moms call me and say, I had that conversation with my daughter and only because I heard you say it and it was enlightening and she had no idea. And this is in the, so these are, these are good things. These are nice, good things that have happened, but parents that you pointed out, not my kid syndrome is deadly, is deadly. My, not my, my kid is too smart, too pretty,

the captain of the baseball team, too white, too black, too gay, too straight, too whatever, to ever do something like that, you're wrong. These kids are being thrown opioids in middle school, even younger than middle school. They're having conversations about it. Stuff is passing across at get togethers. Understand your kid is not too young to have this conversation and is not too cool, too smart or too athletic to have that conversation too about the dangers of this stuff. Is there anything else that like, I already am talking to my kids about it, you know, and you have to distinguish because for too long in this country, we demonized like street drugs that you get from some like heroin dealer in the back alley.

And then after the whole opioid crisis unfolding in the 1990s, we started to realize, oh, we're going to have to warn about prescription medications, too. We're gonna have to warn about medications that come in a bottle from a doctor or look like they did, you know, like as you say, one pill, one Xanax, which, you know, you watch one episode of The Real Housewives and you see them talking about that drug like it's like it's a nothing, you know, like it's a Tylenol that has a feel good component. So they're, they're being misled and it's up to us to redirect. But like, one of the things that really bothers me about your situation is he was happy. He was a, he was a happy kid. And, and I say, again, I think you want to believe like, well, unless my kids started to show

signs of depression, I wouldn't have to worry about this. It's not true. So like as a parent, do you just keep having the conversation? I mean, is that the only way forward? Just keep talking about it. That's it. Unfortunately, that's it because it's beyond, cops can't find enough of it. They can't bust enough people. The so-called war on drugs has obviously failed and that's not where it's going to come from. It's got to be dialogue. You just have to create an open dialogue with your kids because they'll be able to hide it. If you're pretending it's not happening, they're going to hide it and you won't know what's happening and if it's happening. And I'm not trying to create a situation where you're rummaging through their drawers because I don't think that's healthy either. I honestly think if you're capable, and as a parent, I wish I'd done more of it. I just have the conversation. Keep talking. Keep talking. Get them to talk. Find out ways to get them to talk, just talk. That's the best.

Fortunately, that's the best weapon we have as a parent is to have open lines of communications with our kids. And it's unfortunately one of the hardest things. And it's one of the things we generally don't do as adults, at least in this country. I mean, stories like yours serve as a springboard for that kind of discussion. And I know you know that what you've been through, Eric Chase losing his life,

has saved lives, untold numbers of lives. I'm sure that doesn't make it any easier, but it is 100% true. Yeah. Well, hopefully we save a few more, Megan. I mean, the more, the more we talk about it, the more lives that are saved. Again, I'll tell you, the phone calls from parents saying, thank you for sharing your story because I had the conversation. And in fact, there was a situation that I'm going to have to talk about and work out. Those are life-saving stories. Those matter. That's why you put yourself through it.

That's why it's not easy, as the listeners know, having listened to this conversation. Not easy for you. But you're doing it for us. It's a completely selfless act. And to honor him. So it's a noble act, too. It's one of the many reasons I just deeply admire you. And Adrienne too. Just always thinking about her.

Thank you. Let me ask you this. Like, you were off the news when this happened, which actually was a blessing. And then you got back into the news. You started doing your job again and you were with Sinclair. What was that like? Because I'll tell you

I didn't suffer a tragedy at all, but just being off the news for a couple of years, it was kind of delightful in a lot of ways, just the break from it. Because it can seem, when something big has happened in your life, it can seem pointless. It can seem like not the right way to be spending your days. And for me, it took like these insane culture wars to get me off the couch and sort of make me say, oh, no, no, no. I feel like my country needs me right now. As I said at the beginning, people like us get paid to talk about the difficult issues, the ones that not everybody feels comfortable talking about. So I'm going to go do that. But how did it feel for you getting back out there, getting back on the horse?

I had to. It was, like I said, the perfect storm of bad stuff happening to me happened in a day. And I'll never forget, right afterwards, so I'm separated from Fox and Eric passes, I come home and there are probably five or six reporters, Daily Mail, TMZ, local news, like on my street. I'm trying to figure out what's going on there. I get to my, I was living in a townhouse with Adrian. I get to the townhouse and they're waiting for me there. I was like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? This is a photo opportunity for you? And I go inside and we're sitting in the apartment in the townhouse and they're in my first floor townhouse and they're in my backyard taking pictures into my kitchen and living room.

I was just like, this just got awful. This is awful. So I packed up Adrian and we went to, we rented a place in Connecticut and we just, we literally stayed, try to stay under the radar in Connecticut. But that, that is, is depressing too. It's like you're, you're out of your element, you're out of your family, you're out of your social environment. And so I just really needed to, to get back on here and just do something. And Sinclair was good enough to, uh, well, I did, I did know six months worth of town halls i did something like i don't know 15 or 17 town halls around the country which is getting up on a stage we taped

them we put them up on sinclair air which is kind of jumping a little bit back into it and then at that point then then they decided they wanted when we had plans to do a a tv show which was going to be a five-day week show it ended up. It ended up being a once-a-week show. So I needed to get back on. And Melania Trump came to two of those with you. And in any other world, she would have been celebrated for that, but because Trump, orange man, bad, nothing, nothing, right? Same as those. She never grazed a magazine cover, which is just insane. She's incredibly gorgeous. She's literally a supermodel. Anyway, you know about the double standard. So, all right. So now you've decided to leave Sinclair.

And now here we are to you and Brett. I love this idea because it's you. You don't have to worry about being canceled anymore. You know, like that's one of the things I love about podcasting. We can say what we want. We can say whatever the hell we want. And if people don't's one of the things I love about podcasting. We can say what we want. We can say whatever the hell we want. And if people don't like it,

they don't have to tune in. If they do, they can. But you get to your point, to the point where you basically are uncancellable and there's a real freedom in that. Are you enjoying it so far? And are you feeling that? We've done four episodes,

three weeks, four episodes. We go once a week. I love it because sports is a passion. We talk about culture. We talk about Bitcoin. We talk about what's the latest Kanye, Kimye thing. We talk about anything. We have a lot of fun.

It's a respite. Purposefully don't talk any politics, which is refreshing. I think there's another TV show probably in the works, maybe in the works on this cell phone right here right now, which will be political. But right now it's so, so nice to take a breather from the toxic environment that politics is and has become right now i want to get back into it i love it it's it's like i said i'm a provocateur i get it and i want to get back to that but right now it's just it's almost like a vacation wait are you breaking are you breaking news about a tv show or let me just clear that up are you trying to telegraph you're going back to fox news it definitely won't be fox ain't gonna be fox? No, it won't be Fox. It definitely won't be Fox. It ain't going to be Fox,

but it's going to be, yeah. Yes. So yes and no. Yes to the TV show, no to Fox, but right now I'm having a ball with Brett. Brett's hilarious, by the way. How's he doing?

He came on my NBC show and he talked about his CTE. Can I invite you on? I want to invite you on. It's called Bow with farve yeah yeah we have some fun he's doing great he's he's uh he's just able to weigh in on everything in a way you just have to laugh it's just he's a couple of guys shooting the shit in a locker room setting feeling well when when you last left me when you were last on this podcast just doing political political commentary, you were saying, I want to do something like I want to be able to go talk about like Armie Hammer. We were talking about his weird cannibalism thing. You were about

to go do that, which, by the way, is freaking bizarre. The more we learn, the more I'm like, I don't even look at Armie Hammer baking soda the same way anymore because that's his family. That's why I like why anything in the refrigerator that says Arm & Hammer brings back is weird. I don't know. I put together the rundown because Brett literally just shows up to the microphone five minutes before and just reacts. And it's just funny. You have to laugh. And the first 20, 30 minutes of the show is is sports related like we talked

about jose canseco getting knocked out in 12 seconds and dave portnoy from barstow sports who sponsored the whole thing wants to sue jose and we have fun with that kind of stuff or the or the the crazy lady yelling lebron james from the sideline the courtside karen i think they call her but that's the first half of the show. And the second half is literally pulled from the headlines of Daily Mail, New York Post, and other tabloids. And it's kind of fun. It's kind of fun to hear Brett and Bowling weigh in on wacky stuff. Absolutely. And what's wrong with that, right? What's wrong with having a little fun's one of the things I love about this medium is you really can take an emotional journey. You know, you can laugh, you can cry, you can get real, you can get deep into the news, you can not touch the news, you can talk about issues. It's like whatever you want, it's there for the taking. i just feel like the constant vitriol talking heads that we see you know blonde fox and a lot of the prime time it's old it's like it's tired for me it's

just tired we can we can get back to that as in another another time i after you signed your deal just having some what's not signed that's not signed. That's the whole point. It's sitting here. Okay. Yes, I got it. You know this drill, right? Well, look, I'd be excited to see you in any forum, but I think what you're doing is great. And I love that you and Adrian have tried to turn something so tough into something that will help the world, that will be a force for good for all of us. And you know what? You sitting out there having fun with is, is a great way. Bowling with fire.

I know what it is. I'm just joking. It's a great way to move forward, right? Well, thank you for having me, Megan. And I apologize for getting emotional in the middle part of this, but it's still, it's still raw. Three years feels like, you know, every day, but it's still raw. Three years feels like every day, but I appreciate the ability to talk to you about it

on your show. My pleasure. Lots of love, my friend. You too, Megan. Today's episode is brought to you in part by Norton 360 with LifeLock. Protect your online identity this tax season. Do it.

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