The Megyn Kelly Show - Fox Ratings Crater Post-Tucker, and Lia Thomas Slams Women, with Allie Beth Stuckey, Melissa Francis, and Tatiana Siegel | Ep. 538

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

Megyn Kelly is joined by Melissa Francis, former Fox News anchor, to talk about Fox News teaming up with the New York Times to try to take down Tucker Carlson, the truth about why Tucker was fired, reading between the lines in the media leaks, Fox News' plummeting ratings since Tucker is gone, the toxic media business, and more. Then Allie Beth Stuckey, host of BlazeTV's "Relatable," joins to discuss Lia Thomas slamming women as "transphobic" if they don't support trans athletes in women sports, Bud Light sales plummeting, Dylan Mulvaney's quest for fame, disturbing trans TikTok influencer calling for violence, the truth about the trans Montana lawmaker getting attention in the media, and more. Then Tatiana Siegel, executive editor at Variety, joins to discuss Don Lemon speaking out now after his firing and the revelations about his history of misogyny, NBCU CEO Jeff Shell's firing over sexual harassment in the workplace and an inappropriate relationship, and more.Stuckey: https://alliebethstuckey.comSiegel: https://variety.com/author/tatiana-siegel/ Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Thursday. Tucker Carlson returns in epic Tucker fashion, trolling Fox News last night with a video posted right at 8 p.m. during his old time slot and gaining millions and millions of views in a matter of hours. He blew doors on the numbers he would have gotten had he been on the Fox News channel. Meanwhile, his old network is shedding viewers by the second. We'll give you the numbers and they are stunning. It truly is one of those bud light, you know, Fox News saying, hold my beer. I mean,

they've pulled a Bud Light if you look at what's happening in the eight o'clock hour right now. The viewers are angry, as they should be. And as Fox continues to not just, you know, having fired Tucker, embarrass him, but absolutely ruin him. That's clearly their goal. They want to ruin the rest of his career. Why? What did he do? What was so horrible that you had to take a guy who loyally served you for all those years, including getting you through the post-Trump era at Fox and keeping you number one, that he now has to be destroyed because that's what they're absolutely doing. Trust me. This comes as the New York Times reports on a quote, startling, startling discovery that it says helped lead to the breakup between Tucker and Fox.

Now I'm going to get to my guest in one second, but I want to tell you something about this report the New York Times says it has obtained video. In video obtained by the Times, Mr. Carlson is shown off camera. First of all, what does that mean? What do you mean he's shown off camera? Either he's on camera and you can see him or he's off camera and he's not shown. Are you saying he can be heard off camera? I think what they mean is he is shown on camera, but not on air. I think what they mean is they have a tape of Tucker during a commercial break. And I believe this likely happened and was taped by someone at Fox who wanted to hurt Tucker. How else would Fox News have all the taped minutes of Tucker while on camera, but not on the air, unless they intentionally

taped him and then had somebody go back and pour over them for anything that might be damaging to Tucker. And this is the New York Times second of two big reveals. I'll get to the other one in a second. But this big reveal is he's shown off camera again, what discussing quote his post menopausal fans and whether they will approve of how he looks on the air in another video. So there's multiple. He is overheard describing a woman he finds, quote, yummy. This is it. This is the big bombshell, I guess they have on Tucker from clearly pouring through his outtakes during a commercial break while talking to his staff in an offhanded manner. Is that what happened? Who did that? Who called through all those moments? Irina, Irina Briganti, who loves to

destroy people when they leave Fox News. That's her job. That's what she gets paid to do. Right. So does the responsibility really stop with her? Who would sit there and call through hours of off air moments of an anchor trying to look for shit to use against them and then leak it to The New York Times? Listen again to the sentence in video obtained by the Times. How? How would they get this kind of video? It's not from

Abby Grossberg, the disgruntled producer. She's revealing her tapes. She wouldn't have to hide that she gave it to the Times. She's like, I've got tapes. Take a listen. Take a look. So where they get it? They don't say. Obtained by the times he has shown off camera discussing postmenopausal fans and a woman he describes as yummy. So you get it. He's a pervert. He doesn't like postmenopausal women, I guess. Is that really where we're going to go? He's wondering how they'll feel about how he looks. What does that tell us? He cares about how he looks. He cares about his older audience and he finds a certain woman yummy. Oh, he's a dirtbag. I get it. So he doesn't love his wife. That's the implication. That's what they do, trying to destroy. We have no idea in which

context this came up, whether it was said in jest, whether there was a lead into it, none. And we never will have because that's not how the game works. That's just the second piece of the New York Times article. Today, there's a first piece about the startling discovery made by Fox News on the eve of the Dominion trial. And as we discuss that, I'm going to bring in my friend and also former Fox News anchor, Melissa Francis. Melissa, great to have you here. I should tell the audience, you and I have been over this before on this very program, but you too got the ax from Fox News in the midst of anchoring well and performing your duties. And I can't remember whether it was on the segment or in the press, but you were in the midst of an arbitration with Fox News over equal pay when

they were supposed to produce a bunch of discovery on salaries to you. And that that day you suddenly were fired. You just like suddenly fired via your camera where a message popped up saying you've been canceled. So absolutely delightful behavior. Let's stick with Tucker here. The first headline in The New York Times piece is the startling discovery. Private messages sent by Mr. Carlson that had been redacted in legal filings in the Dominion case showed him making highly offensive and crude remarks that went beyond the inflammatory, often racist comments of his primetime show. This is the New York Times and anything disclosed in the lead up to the trial. Despite the fact that Fox's trial lawyers had these messages for months, they admit all this stuff was in the possession of the lawyers for months. The Fox board, okay, the board, and listen to this, Melissa, some senior executives

were now learning their details for the first time. Some. And the reason they have to use the word some is because the executives that needed to know the ones who are actually in power were told about these messages as soon as they were disclosed. Had known forever. Everybody knew. So this is how they can keep it truthful. They widened the circle, you see, and that is what caused the recoiling by some executives who are just now learning about it, not to mention the board, to find out, and we know this from the Wall Street Journal piece yesterday, what was in the messages? He allegedly referred to a senior executive there

by the C word as, as the C word, I'm going to just setting it up. This piece does not go on to say which executive he called that word, but I'm telling you right now, it was Irina Briganti. It was the head of the comms department at Fox News. But that's not good enough, you see, because Irina Briganti is loathed by pretty much everyone. And no one would feel a ton of sympathy in learning that, nor would they believe that Tucker was fired over using that word about her. So enter some very helpful lefties this morning, like Joe Scarborough, who falsely says, I got this from Bill Maher. It wasn't Irina. It was Suzanne Scott, the CEO of Fox News. Listen to what happened on Morning Joe today.

I saw a clip from this weekend, Bill Maher, this past week, and he actually was reading some of the text messages and he read the ones that came out where Tucker Carlson called the head of Fox News, a woman, the C word, which I noticed. I mean, it's just in the United States. You just don't say it. You just don't say it. He went on to say specifically, Suzanne Scott, Suzanne Scott, Suzanne Scott. It wasn't Suzanne Scott. And that would put it in a different category potentially. But it wasn't Suzanne Scott. And Bill Maher never said it was Suzanne Scott. So I don't know what he's referring to. It wasn't her. And it does have a distinction because in one situation you're talking about his boss and in one you are not.

You're talking about a woman who has terrorized many Fox News anchors from the dawn of time. I've told this story before on the air, but Mike Huckabee came over to me one day. He was running for president. And he was like, what's wrong with this woman, Irina Briganti? And I said, she screams at everybody, Mike. And he said, I'm literally running for president. She's screaming at me. That's who she is. You've been there. I've been there. But what do you make of the big startling discovery and the big scoop by the New York Times? First of all, I just want to say to make that connection, you were talking about the clip that they released. Obviously, that's a response to him getting more views last night. And they released a clip to the New York

Times trying to separate him from his fans. So he's calling his fans post-menopausal. They're looking at how many views he got last night versus how many views their eight o'clock time slot got. And their operation now is to try and separate his fan base from him, which I will say is what ultimately all of this is ultimately about. They want to damage him and ruin him so he can't go somewhere else. First of all, back to the article that you're talking about, the first drop, that it's because of this text, this text that came out and he called a senior woman a horrible word and a horrible name in these texts. Well, I would just say if they want us to believe that

they are firing people based on the Dominion discovery, then the whole building must be empty this morning because there were so many things in that discovery that deserved firing for if that's the road they're going to go down. It is laughable. And I would also say that when I worked at Fox News, there was a manager of mine who sent an email calling me a misogynistic, sexist name and talking about demeaning my behavior. He sent it around to all of the managers and accidentally included me. We've all done that, to be honest, when you're gossiping about someone and you add them to the two. So he did that. When I received that email, I went directly to Suzanne Scott's office because she also was copied on the email. And I said, what the fuck? Like, I mean, and she shrugged it off. And that man who sent that email

demeaning me in a sexist and misogynistic way still works there. In fact, he was the author of many of the things you read in the Dominion case. And I checked yesterday. He's still there. So this idea that something in a text would be so awful that they wouldn't, they're on the side of women. They don't want to subject Fox women to an environment where you have someone like Tucker saying those words. That is a bald-faced lie, and I can tell you for sure. I received the email myself about myself, and so did all the other managers. And that was something that was sent

company-wide to undermine me and undermine my position at the network and to call me things that you call women that you're trying to demean. It was in black and white. It was on their email. So they definitely do not care about anything they read in these texts or emails. That's just cover. It's not like you were trying to get this guy fired at the time. You were just like, this is bullshit. Reign him in. I don't want to deal with this nonsense. But the standard was never go have this person fired. You have that person fired. It's in Fox News. And those of us who have worked there tend to have thick skins. The what's happening here is they're pretending that they don't.

They're pretending that they're a bunch of eggshells like, oh, my God, Tucker, he used the C word about a senior executive. And if you can get the players at Morning Joe to amp it up even further and say it's actually the CEO, the only female CEO in the industry for a lot of years, even better, which is a lie and wrong. But there's a reason they got it wrong in a way that reflects poorly on Tucker. So they're not. These are not. No one's on their fainting couch over at Fox News and reading a single thing Tucker wrote in those texts. Absolutely correct. And also, I mean, I think what galls me when I read these articles, me personally, is that they want you to believe that Fox News is on the side of women.

And we know for sure, I know from my own personal experience, that's definitely not true. I mean, as I told you about the exact same situation where there was an email sent out about me and they did nothing and the person still works there. But then there's also, you know, the person that is still negotiating for them to this day, Diane Brandy, who told me women make less is just a fact. That's just the way the world works. That was another woman telling me that about pay at Fox News. At the time, she had two professional actresses out there playing her in motion pictures, trying to win awards in Bombshell and the Loudest Voice, playing her hurting women inside Fox News. She's a private person and she's a lawyer. So if those representations of her really hurting and damaging women were untrue, she certainly would have sued for defamation, but she didn't even lift a finger. So obviously she's admitting that she hurts women left and right, yet she's still there doing contracts. So for Fox to pretend like they give two shits about protecting women is just laughable.

This is a joke. This is an obvious attempt at taking him down. And the business about you have to read the report, you know, carefully to figure out. And then they go on to say that the redacted text messages, they were an important factor in his ultimate dismissal. Oh, OK. And that's the tell. Right. And then they say the redacted messages were a catalyst. Again, it's back to some senior executives

found out just on the eve of the Dominion trial. They knew at least as of August, 2022, that Tucker had used the C word in a reference to Sidney Powell because he was deposed all about it. It's in writing. We've seenosed all about it. It's in writing. We've seen the deposition transcript. It's been made public in the Dominion filings. It would have been before August of 2022 that they knew because Tucker would have had to search his correspondence, turn it over to the Fox lawyers. Then they turn it over to Dominion. Then it winds up in a Dominion brief. And then and then Tucker gets deposed about the word. So the deposition is the last thing in that chain. And that happened in August of 2022.

Now we're in April of 2023. And they want us to believe this is a shock that he would ever use that word. As far as I can tell, it was only about Sidney Powell that time and Irina, I believe, in this particular exchange. And it was not a shock to them that it had been bandied about. They would have seen it in the text messages long before the eve of the Dominion trial. This is a fig leaf. And what do you make of the video in a video obtained by the video obtained by the Times? And then in another video, he's shown off camera discussing these two things.

So I think that we all know I had a studio in my house during COVID. I know that's where Tucker has been working from as well. You know, I know from producers at the time, and I think it's normal practice, they're rolling on the whole entire thing. So even when you're in a commercial break, whatever you say, that's kept alongside. The fact that they would go back and comb through these things and look for something specific if this is where the video came from. And like you, from reading the context, that's what it feels like to me, that it was this comment that was made while his mic and camera was hot. We've certainly seen other people get embarrassed by hot mic in the past. The point is, why do they keep the video and go through it? And suddenly it surfaces now at the New York Times.

Megan, I think this is the really, really important point for people out there. And if you want to boil it down to one thing and understand, Fox and everybody else, they have the 100% right to decide who they want on their air and when. And they have the right to decide at any point in time that they don't want this person

representing them any longer. They do not have the right to systematically ruin and destroy people on the way out the door for the sole purpose so that you can't work again somewhere else, so that you can't go across the street and take your audience over to their competitor. This is a normal thing in our business. It's not just Fox. I mean, I watched this happen to you at NBC, and I know you can't talk about this,

but I watched it happen. They pull you off the air, and then they have all the microphones, because as the talent, you can't speak out at the time about anything related to your departure because you are risking breaching your contract and you are risking then that they won't have to pay you anything. And none of us can afford that. We can't afford to be fired without any severance and you're just out on your own, especially when they're going to do their damnedest to make sure you never work again.

So you're sitting there holding your tongue and they are in front of all the microphones just dumping whatever file they have on you, anything they can dig up, true or false. I mean, Irina Berganti practically has a byline in the Wall Street Journal. She's just pouring it in. She's sending stuff over to the New York Times. They're just going to fill the airwaves with anything they can say about you. NBC did the exact same thing to you, and you can't say anything. And by the time you settle with them, and by the time you get all of your legal things wrapped up, there's a sentence after your name that stuck with you for the rest of your life. That's why you departed from wherever. And it will say Tucker Carlson, who parted ways with Fox News because of sexist comments that were uncovered during the Dominion

case. And that's not why they fired him, but that's what they want. They want to get that in there and they want to separate him. This is their time to damage him, ruin him and separate him from his audience so that he can't work in the business again and he can't take them somewhere else. This is the thing we see each and every time. Watch it happen. The next time someone gets pulled off the air, they're quiet, they're trashed, their reputation is ruined, their career is ruined, and they have to sit silently because their former employer holds all the money and they're not independently wealthy to sit there and kiss off that money on the way out the door. Because the more you make, the more money you're talking about never getting. And you're looking down the barrel of potentially never working again. Right. So first of all, trigger. But yeah, right. Sorry. Your analysis just in general,

I would say is spot on. And the baiting of the talent into breaching, right? Like they take a talent like Tucker who hasn't breached. It's clear that they don't have cause to fire him or they would have. There's not even a report from the Fox side saying he breached his contract and he's getting fired and he's not getting paid. But they'd love for him to give them cause by speaking to the press, by doing something that would violate his contract so that they don't have to give him a dime. Now you're fired and you don't have any of the money and they can say whatever the hell they want about you. So if they can keep him shut up long enough, while they're the only ones who have the power to speak out via the journal, via the times, via whatever reporters they're talking

to, then that's great. They're winning the entire PR war. And by the time it's all said and done, and they sign a separation agreement, the damage is done. They don't care what happens at that point. And I will tell you this, when I left Fox news of my own volition, right? I, I, they wanted me to stay. I left kindly and with a handshake and a, and a thank you for the many years I'd had there. They tried very hard to get me to sign a nondisclosure. And I said, I'm not doing that. Why would I do, why would I do that? And they were very angry. And it is one of the reasons why things I think on their end soured toward me, because I was like, I'm not signing that. And that's the reason I'm able to tell stories like

the ones I'm telling right now, because I refused to sign one. And there's a whole other backstory, which I'll get to someday about that. But, you know, at NBC, I didn't have that kind of power in the moment. At Fox, I was at the end of a deal. I thought I had friends there who weren't going to stab me in the back just for not signing a nondisclosure and for making the choice to go to a job that would let me raise my family. Didn't quite work out that way. This is one of the reasons why it's so annoying to see it done over and over to good people like Tucker, who did nothing to Fox News other than make them number one. And now, Melissa, they're hemorrhaging, hemorrhaging viewers in the APM. I've never seen anything like this. The audience is furious. I'll give you the numbers.

Overall, Tuesday, last night, the overall number, meaning all the audience, they went down from seven to eight. That never happens. Jesse Waters had 1.8 million. Kilmeade pulled, it's not about Kilmeade, it's about the fact that Tucker's not there. Kilmeade pulled 1.7, so they went down. Tucker's previous Tuesday, 3.2 million. So they went from 3.2 million on a Tuesday to 1.7 million without Tucker and the key demo, which is the one, you know, they really pay attention to the previous Tuesday, Tucker got 481,000. They lost 340,000 in the key demo. CNN and MSNBC beat Fox's 8 p.m. hour in the demo. As Oliver Darcy pointed out last night on CNN, these are the worst ratings that the channel has had in that demo since pre-9-11, Melissa, since pre-9-11, 23 years ago.

No, that's amazing. And what they're going to try and do and the point that they would make is that, yes, that's just the immediate aftermath and we are going to build those people back. Who knows? But I was laughing when I read, I think it was in the Wall Street Journal in that article that clearly Irina Briganti basically wrote herself, that they said that after Bill O'Reilly and Megyn Kelly left, ratings were fine, that they didn't suffer at all. That's not true. I was there. No, it was the same thing where there was not quite as big of a dip, but there was a giant hole, they did manage to over time build it back. And, and Tucker was the only one who got it back to that level. And this is the thanks he gets, but you know, now they're acting like, oh, that was nothing. There was sort of, there was, there was no, no damage done. We were

fine. We stayed on. No, actually what they're really worried about is that exact damage. And that is the motivation. That is why they want to ruin Tucker. That is why they want to trash anyone who leaves. And that is why I believe they would leak that clip if it was them. And it sure feels like it was that clip about Tucker insulting his audience that right now it's operation separate Tucker from his audience. Don't let him take that audience to another platform to anywhere else. Mission number one, make sure you separate him from that audience because obviously they're gone from Fox for now. And the only way to get them back is get them away from Tucker and draw them back with

something else. That's what they're doing. Right. Because they're worried not only that Tucker will go independent and pull audience. I mean, if I were Tucker, I'd go independent. Maybe I'd release my show every night at 8 p.m. Maybe I'd maybe I'd do it live, you know, on Rumble or whatever at 8 p.m. every night. I think he he actually has a shot of beating the existing Fox News 8 p.m. slot. But what if he went to Newsmax? You know, I haven't really seriously talked about them because, let's face it, they don't have anywhere near the market powers Fox, and they're not even in as many homes. I think they're 20 million homes short of what Fox is even in.

But what if Tucker actually went to APM on Newsmax? Our friend Eric Bolling is there now, who we both love. But I'm just saying, what if he did move to eight and let's say Eric moved to nine? Just this past week during the 8 PM hour, Eric Bolling averaged 562,000 viewers. Last Tuesday, he averaged 122,000. So the Fox News audience is going click and moving over to Newsmax right now. Imagine if it were Tucker in that spot. Absolutely. I mean, obviously that's what they're worried about, but I think that the larger point and what I would say to Tucker is a conversation that you and I have had many times, which is that this is how our business works. This is always going to be probably how our business works. When you leave, they try to

destroy you. When you're riding high, they try to undermine you so they don't have to pay you as much. I mean, I think it's the reason I've started my own production company. I have a docuseries that I've already sold. Um, we are getting ready to put into production. You will be seeing it on, you know, one of the biggest streamers out there. You will be seeing, I'll just say, let me just show you, you will be seeing it everywhere. It is, I'm not saying this because Melissa is my friend. I have seen, I know what it's about. We're not at liberty to reveal. I've seen the sizzle. Everybody everywhere is going to be talking about it. Cut the clip. We'll play it again. Everybody everywhere. Sorry. Keep going. Yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. But, you know, I think what you and I

talked about when you left and then subsequently when I left is that I don't see our business changing. You know, I don't see it's this complete ruthlessness. I mean, it's what makes the show Succession so interesting. It's this complete ruthlessness that exists in especially our industry probably others i don't know i'm not sure if it's really this ugly um but there's so much at stake in in entertainment and they also have the luxury of there's so many people that want to fill our jobs you're never going to talk people out of wanting to be anchors you know it's there's no danger that people will stop volunteering for that job knowing that they're going to have their throat slit on the other side they don't care they want to be on television so i think you and i have talked about the fact that you can just never go to work for anyone

else again and i actually think that's what tucker is realizing and that's the way i interpreted what he said last night because you know you can love tucker you can hate tucker you can think whatever his motivation is but he thinks what he thinks and he says what he says and he won't be controlled. And I know, Megan, from having been- Hold that thought, because I want to get you to comment on this, but hold that thought

that you're thinking of right now. Let's show the audience a little bit of Tucker's video from last night, which by the way, as of 10 p.m. last night, total views were about 3.5 million. The post itself had been seen by more than 10 million users.

I saw a post this morning that said it's been seen by more than 26 million now views. So there's a lot of interest in Tucker. Here's a bit of what he said. The other thing you notice when you take a little time off is how unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are. The undeniably big topics, the ones that will define our future, get virtually no discussion at all. War, civil liberties, emerging science, demographic change, corporate power, natural resources. Debates like that are not permitted in American media. Both political parties and their donors have reached consensus on what benefits them,

and they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it. Suddenly, the United States looks very much like a one-party state. They're afraid. They've given up persuasion. They're resorting to force. But it won't work. When honest people say what's true calmly and without embarrassment, they become powerful. At the same time, the liars who've been trying to silence them shrink and they become weaker. Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren't many places left, but there are some. And that's enough. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope. So clever. Keep going. It is interesting

because I actually, I don't think it's about true and false. What I do think it's about is independent thinking that you're not going to be controlled. You're not going to say what you're told. You're not going to cheat off the notes of, you know, one side or the other before you go on as, as an early student of Megyn Kelly, what I found very compelling, watching you was always a little bit dangerous because you didn't know what you were going to get. You couldn't predict what you were going to say, what your analysis was going to be. It was always original. It was always creative. It was always something you hadn't heard or you hadn't thought about. With Tucker, it was always the same thing.

And why I was a fan of his long before he had his show. And even when I disagree with him, which is much of the time, you still, as an intellectual and as just a curious person, and as someone who cares, you respect someone who's really looking at the issues and thinking independently, who's willing to engage. That's what makes him interesting. That's what made both of you hits at night, in my humble opinion. It was dangerous. You didn't know what you were going to get, but that's what made you dangerous. And that's what made you a threat to the powers that be when they couldn't count on. And, you know, this is one of the themes that we're hearing a lot of in the aftermath of

Tucker's firing. And I don't know, you know, they're saying, oh, he couldn't be counted on to tow the party line in the next election. And, you know, there's there's this thing being handed down at Fox as to who you're supposed to support and Tucker won't get on board. I don't think it's necessarily that, but it's this idea that he won't ever be controlled and he won't tow the party line. And that's what makes him a compelling host. Even if you do not disagree with him. I mean, that's what people say to me when you're walking down the street or you talk to them, I don't always agree with him, but he's going to say something I haven't heard.

I mean, Greg Gutfeld is like that too. It's just, he's just not as scary to them, but it's the same kind of thing where you work hard in your craft to come up with some original take and some, or at least an original debate, like he said, you're not going to do the same old debate with the same old talking points

and the same old point of view. That's really boring and doesn't advance the conversation. That's the thing that people are saying to me all week and even before now saying I watch Tucker. They don't say I watch Fox News. They say I watch Tucker. And so this is the this is why Fox is having a massive branding problem right now. When I left, Trump had just won. They were walking into four years of ratings bonanzas, not just Fox, but even the losers over at CNN and MSNBC. So things did go well.

Same for O'Reilly. He got fired, I don't know, a year after, not even. I left. And then when it got exposed that he had paid all that money. So he left, yes, and the ratings went up, but it was right that he had paid all that money. So he left. Yes. And the ratings went up, but it was right in the middle of the Trump era. Yes, we're going into an election year, but it's it's not exactly the Trump era.

And Trump is a lot more controversial now. And Fox has clearly made a decision to move away from Trump. The Murdoch's have. So, you know, can they count on that for the ratings bonanza? We'll see. Right now, they've really angered their audience. And as I was saying earlier this week, they, they angered them without giving them any reason. They didn't give Tucker a reason. They didn't give the audience a reason. Even in the case of Bill O'Reilly, if you loved a Bill O'Reilly, you could say, I get it. You know, $69 million in sexual

harassment settlement. I mean, I can see how a company might say, Oh, okay. This, there's no reason. And he was number one. He was dominant. So the audience is left angry and shaking its head. And therefore we get the leaks. We get the leaks to the New York times. He was bad. He said things about executives, about women, about viewers use the word yummy in some weird context. Oh, what is he a pervert? What is it? Bit by bit, you're dying a death by a thousand cuts because, and you know this and I know this while it's happening to you, the conversation you and I are having right now doesn't ever happen for anyone. It doesn't, it didn't happen for you. It didn't happen for me. You get a few defenders in a few pockets, but for the most part,

people are afraid. They're afraid to have conversations like this because Fox is a behemoth. NBC is a behemoth. And they can find a way to hurt you just for commenting on it. You know, they really had a smoking gun and it was really like, here is what we got that was so horrible. We couldn't stand by him. Why wouldn't they just stand up and say it i mean why not why leak all this stuff trial balloon after trial balloon like what's the thing that will separate him from his audience if he really did something that was so own it why wouldn't you say or you know it was a business decision we decided it was more controversy than it was worth or you know he his sponsorships were gone on his show people didn't want to buy airtime on his show. I mean, I maintain that what they really care about is the stock price, because I think what the Murdochs would like to do is find a way to exit that investment and figure out

how to get their money out. That's incredibly hard to do because they would have to sell Fox to another entity. It's too toxic the way it is. Even without Tucker, it is very hard to say another company to say we're going to acquire Fox News Channel. That would be a giant controversy. So you can't do that. There's really no individual with deep enough pockets that they could come out and buy Fox outright and make it their own family business and their own family dynasty. It's not like buying a newspaper. It's a lot more expensive than that. They could roll it out as a public company and cash out of it. Okay. Maybe, but firing Tucker doesn't help that, you know, I mean that, that you saw their

stock price tank. So I think that's, I think those are some of the things that they're grappling with is sort of we're in this terrible position, like how do we get our money out? Or how do we is there a way to run it differently, where, you know, we could then in the future sell it to someone else? I mean, I think that's the conversation that's really going on. And as a business decision, they decided that Tucker at this point was more expensive than he was worth in terms of the cost of the sponsors, the cost of the brand, if you want to sell it down the road and you want to actualize your investment. Okay. Then say that. Yeah. So say it, say it, but that won't separate him from his audience. That's the problem.

But that allows him to take those millions of people with him across the street. And the reason the stock price went down is because the ratings plummeted and everyone knew they were going to on his departure. So how do you try and protect that fallout? How do you try and protect the loss of viewers? You trash Tucker on the way out the door, separate him from his fans, and then maybe you hold on to some of the value in Fox without him. I promise you that's what's going on. I would love to hear from Irina Briganti. She has an open invitation to appear on the show. Oh my God, that would be amazing. I would love that. I'll take a written statement. I'll take one of her classic written statements.

Wishing me well. I'll look forward to that. Diane Brandy, the same. She has denied these allegations, though. It's been widely reported that the channel paid you many, many millions to go away with your totally baseless claims. We'll continue to follow up, Melissa. It's great to see you. Thank you.

All right. And we're going to be right back with Ali Beth Stuckey. Cannot wait to talk to her about Leah Thomas and some of the other nonsense that we haven't yet gotten to this week. There are updates on Leah Thomas and Dylan Mulvaney that we have got to get to. The week has been full of media news and we haven't, but today we've got the time. Allie Beth Stuckey is host of Blaze TV's Relatable, which she absolutely is. And she joins me now. Allie Beth, great to see you. Thanks for having me, Megan. All right. I'm dying to talk to you about Leah Thomas, who not, it's not enough for Leah Thomas to win the medals that belong to biological women, actual women. Leah Thomas has now chosen to

lecture us on how annoying we feminists are, or just women are, for trying to shame Leah from enjoying Leah's medals. Listen to this. They're using the guise of feminism to sort of push transphobic beliefs. And I think a lot of people in that camp sort of carry an implicit bias against trans people, but don't want to, I guess, fully manifest or speak that out. And so they try to just play it off as this sort of half support. They think about how twisted feminism, quote unquote, feminism has become. Their arguments, you know, in order to exclude anybody in the trans category, you have to reduce women to reproductive capacity, which is, in my opinion, extremely anti-feminist. I don't want to put those women down either. And I know you don't want to either, because I see pain. I see pain and the pain is coming from

somewhere. It's not you though. It's the patriarchy. And how can we get people to see? It's amazing. It's our it's pain caused by patriarchy. The evil men, two of whom are sitting there on that set. Yes, yes. Oh, my goodness. There's so much in here. First, that they pretend like they don't know what a definition of a woman is. I actually think that host, if I read correctly, is actually also identifying as transgender. So is also, you know, he is female to male. I think so. I think that's what I read. He's passing. OK. Yes. And so we've got a lot we've got a lot of confusion going on here. But whatever you want to call it, this is kind of condescending language towards women who

very much understand the fight that we're in now Now, I don't necessarily identify as a feminist because there's a lot about feminist ideology that I just can't agree with. I obviously have different stance on abortion and things like that. However, I do understand what a woman is and the feminist that I see in this fight. I'm not talking about your like garden variety, mainstream feminists who just go along to get along and say a man can become a woman. But there are real feminists who I don't agree with on a lot of things, but who are absolutely in this fight, who have made their definition of a woman is. It's not reducing women to a reproductive capacity, which, by the way, would still be more of a substantive definition than saying that a woman is just growing out your hair and wearing a skirt, which is what they do. like you and I are just these dumb victims and that if we were finally liberated and finally enlightened and not so scared and oppressed by the patriarchy, then we would finally understand that this person, Leah Thomas, is a real woman and we would allow him into our locker rooms, into our bathrooms with glee. And obviously you and I take issue with that for a variety of reasons. You know, this word transphobic, I've been thinking about this word. I said online recently, go ahead and call me transphobic. I don't care. I don't care what you call me. I believe what I believe. Women are women and men are men and ne'er the twain shall meet. It doesn't work. You can't change your sex and gender is really

not a thing. Right. But so you can call me, but like the word transphobic suggests fear of trans people. Well, I'm not sure fear is exactly what it is, but anger, anger at the trans people who want to steal women's medals, who want to invade our our pools, our locker room, our bathrooms, our sororities, recognition that they're being grossly inappropriate. Yeah. What's the word? If you want to use phobic as a short form for, I don't want you in any of those places. Fine. Okay. Then transphobic what I don't care. Like the, the trans exclusionary radical feminist thing. I've got a bigger part with the issue with the radical feminist part of that than I do with the trans exclusionary. I do want to be trans exclusionary when it comes to my bathrooms and my locker rooms and my sports and all women's spaces that belong only to women and not to men, even if they're confused, even if they're well-meaning, even if they're sick, most of whom suffer from this autogynephilia thing, which is where they just get off dressing like, no, as Kelly J. Keene says, we don't have to be part of their fetish. We don't have to do it.

Yeah. Yes. We don't have to consent to that. You're absolutely right. And I agree with you about the whole accusation of transphobia. I think a lot of people, a lot of well-meaning people who are on our side of this issue, who see the difference between male and female and realize the importance of the distinctions between male and female when it comes to spaces, when it comes to competitions, when it comes to laws and rights, they waste time. I think if I'm to put it politely, they waste time defending themselves, defending their virtue, defending their compassion, defending their empathy and saying, no, I'm not transphobic, but, or I'm not a bigot, but, and look, I totally understand that inclination because you're not, you are a compassionate and loving person, but you're also a truthful person. And understand that you being in that truthful camp,

you saying anything along the lines of, look, a man can't become a woman, or at least maybe just saying that you don't believe a child should be put on puberty blockers, like the most innocuous and obvious and common sense stance ever, you're still going to be called a transphobe. You're still going to be called a bigot. It doesn't matter how much common sense stance ever, you're still gonna be called a transphobe. You're still gonna be called a bigot. It doesn't matter how much common sense you have. So I say, don't even waste your time. Say, no, no, no, I'm not a transphobe, but we don't have enough time for that.

Just state the truth clearly and know that they're gonna call you what they're gonna call you no matter what. It's true. This is why I distinguish Caitlyn Jenner from somebody like a Dylan Mulvaney. You know, Caitlyn is out there actively saying men should not be in women's sports. Trans women should not be in women's sports trying to push men into women's spaces. Now, I realize you could go down that line on bathrooms and maybe find some divergence there. Yeah. But a lot of these activists, like the ones we just watched, want to just hurl invective and name calling to people like you and me who see the obvious unfairness of what Leah Thomas did.

Yeah. And I can appreciate the people who identify as the opposite sex and that they still have some common sense about the need for sex separation in these different spaces and competitions. Of course, just according to my convictions and the battle that I think we're facing, I can't find it within myself to kind of say, okay, well, this man who wants to identify as a woman and wants everyone to affirm their identity as a woman and call a man she, her, that this person is acceptable and this person is not. It's not that I hate anyone, of course. It's that I just believe that it is impossible to actually transition. And because I believe that the truth is so important, I don't want to affirm the lie by equivocating on my language at all, which can be very difficult with someone that you like and that you admire and that you're friends with and even is your ally in a lot of ways.

But I just, if there's anything that I'm committed to, especially when it comes to gender, because I think there's so much writing on this, is that I refuse to lie, even if that hurts someone's feelings, even someone who is on my side in a lot of ways. I know, I've been wrestling with the same thing because it's hard. I I've never been somebody who would refuse to go along with the pronouns.

And I'm really, I'm Emma. I've had it. Like I'm done with the pronouns too. I agree with Kelly J. Keene that it's a gateway drug. Once you, once you say she,

how do you keep her out of women's sports? Right. Keep her out of the women's locker room. The, your whole, the basis of your whole argument is she is not a, she, she is a he, and that difference matters. You know, you saw the story. Um, was it you guys refresh my memory? Was it Wisconsin where the, um, the boy went into the girls locker room? The four girls were showering post swimming Wyoming. Thank you. Well, everything

happens in Wyoming. That's where the sorority thing was too with Kappa Kappa Gamma. Yeah. All right. She's wrong. I think it was a different state. I was going to say, what the hell is happening in Wyoming? Anyway, um, the four girls were showering post their swim, you know, class in their high school. They were freshmen and an 18 year old boy came in there, took off his clothes and showered with his penis hanging out. And this is it was another state W state. It was Wisconsin. And so he's showering totally exposed in front of these. He's an adult under the law. They're minors. They're 14 year olds and says to them, oh, by the way, I'm trans. Oh, yeah, sure. I feel a lot better. Welcome to the party. Yeah, it's like these men

who are suddenly they figured out after they have been convicted of, say, serial rape or even a murder of a woman, they're in prison. And all of a sudden they realize that it's really just because they've been suppressing their real identity as a woman for all these years and they get to transfer to women's prisons. And even if there is no physical abuse or harassment, even though very often in these cases there is, these women are still being re-traumatized. They're still being victimized. Their rights, their privacy, their dignity is being violated. That is certainly true, not just in prisons, but like you said, when it comes to locker rooms and when it comes to bathrooms. And all of a sudden, someone's stated identity, someone's feeling trumps the comfort and

the safety and the protection of girls, of minor girls. I mean, women who are in domestic abuse shelters and prisons are among the most vulnerable population out there. They don't have political power. They don't have anyone advocating for them. They certainly don't have any capital or money. And yet, because of an ideology and because of a delusion, they're being placed in these most vulnerable situations in which they become very often prey. And we're not supposed to say anything about it. Saying something about it is scandalous, is controversial. We're actually supposed to affirm that young boy's feelings who obviously is just fetishizing, you know, girls changing or attracted to the girls changing

in front of him. The same thing with Leah Thomas, by the way, we're all just supposed to celebrate. And we're supposed to ignore social media and what Leah Thomas has been liking on social media, what turns Leah Thomas on, which very clearly is what turns on a biological man dressing like a woman getting off on it. There are men who say that they're trans women who that's their whole thing. They get off on dressing like a woman. They take it to the point where they actually have their penis chopped off and create a vagina, fake vagina on themselves

so they can get off all the time. It's not all trans people, but there is a large selection of people who are like this. And why is it up to us to have to figure out who's that way and who actually has gender dysphoria from birth? You know, from like, that shouldn't be honest. All right, I got to go because I got to squeeze in a quick, quick break. More with Allie Beth on the opposite side of this break. Don't forget. Hey, go check out our YouTube channel before I go to this break. YouTube.com slash Megyn Kelly. We're on fire right now over YouTube and we're almost at a million viewers and subscribers and I would love, love, love to get there. So please help us out so we can continue bringing you the truth. Also on podcasts, go ahead and subscribe on Apple,

Spotify, Stitcher, Pandora, wherever you get your podcasts for free. So Allie Beth, the fallout for Bud Light continues in the wake of its disastrous attempted partnership with Dylan Mulvaney. The latest stats are that they are down now 17 percent in sales. Their sales fell 17 percent in the weekend at April 15th compared to the same week in 2022, 17. And they are down 21% in pours. The so-called beer board, which is a thing, actually tracks some 3,000 locations. And these locations tracked 6% less Bud Light being poured than rivals like Miller Lite and Coors. Well, you might think, oh, it's only 6%. No, because prior to this whole dust-up, Bud Light had been getting poured 15% more than its rival light beers.

So it fell 21%. It was down 21% in its pours. It's down 17% in just sales that, you know, like you're going to get a Bud Light in the supermarket. And the sales of rival beers, Coors Light and Miller Light, each grew nearly 18 percent compared to the same week a year earlier. This is post the leave of absence of Alicia Scheinerfeld, the VP of marketing who made this decision, and her boss was also placed on a leave of absence. Showing us what? Oh, man. You know, I would love to think that this is going to be a long-term consequence, that they're really going to reap the whirlwind here. And I'm glad to see. I do

think that the boycott is important. I think that it's made a good impact. I think that it's at least communicated some type of message to corporate America. Now, whether it is going to stick, I would say it's very skeptical. This leave of absence, as I've seen other people say, was probably just a shuffling around. She's either going to stay at Bud Light. She's going to go to another company. She's going to have equal impact and influence there. I mean, I think it's good that Bud Light responded in some way. They realized, OK, we kind of missed the mark. But ultimately, these companies, Bud Light, just like these other big

corporations, they care about their ESG score. They care about the score that is coming to them from the human rights campaign, which is a total gimmick, which basically says you have to reach all of these arbitrary standards that we call equality standards and we'll give you 100%. Bud Light really cares about that. That's why they pushed Pride. That's why they picked Dylan Mulvaney. And ultimately, what we're seeing is that a lot of these companies care more about that than their customers. It's not that they misread their base. It's not that they didn't know that they are the beer of frat parties in Georgia and Alabama. They knew that. This marketing person said, I know that. I don't like that. These companies don't like

when their buyers, when their market is made up of conservative Americans. It's not that they don't know that. It's that they don't like them. It's that they want to change their minds. And I guess they thought, I mean, this is the craziest part of all of it, that I guess they thought that choosing Dylan Mulvaney would either carve out a new part of the marketplace of progressive Gen Zers or that they would eventually change the minds of their conservative buyers. Obviously, it didn't work. So I have a positive reaction because of that. Ultimately, they're going to go back to it, though. Eventually, they're going to pick the next trans influencer to drink their beer. And I don't think

they'll ultimately have learned their lesson. I don't know. I think this one worked and I think it's going to stay low because they changed the perception of their brand. It's not cool to drink Bud Light. I wouldn't order a Bud Light at a Giants game. Most of the men I know would not order a Bud Light at a Giants game. And of the men I know would not order a Bud Light at a Giants game. And it's not because they hate trans people. It's because it's an F you to Bud Light and their belief that their audience is disgusting and deplorable and too fratty. And it's also the fact that they picked this particular trans person who I don't really

even know whether Dylan Mulvaney is genuinely a trans woman at all. I really have my doubts. I think this person is glomming on to the trans movement for attention, which I don't think is the case for Caitlyn Jenner. I think Bruce Jenner was genuinely gender dysphoric and transitioned to Caitlyn because it was something that Bruce had been separating or suffering from for years. That's not the case from what I can see with Dylan Mulvaney. My team went back and pulled some videos of Dylan trying desperately, Allie Beth, to get attention as a man. Okay. For years now, trying desperately to get attention as a man. I'm going to start in reverse order. Here's Dylan performing on stage five years ago. He got called up on stage. I don't

know what the performance was in look at this it's just video if you are listening to this you really must go check out the youtube dylan is wearing a tiny little like banana hammock situation is totally naked other than that has very blonde hair and is very much a man and parading his male body up there. You can see, I mean, now he's on a campaign to embrace the bulge. He's wearing those same bottoms, but a bikini top with fake boobs and saying we as women need to get comfortable with people like him wearing fake boobs and the bulge down below because that's normal. That's one. Then here's Dylan a few years ago announcing not that Dylan was a woman, but that Dylan was now non-binary. Watch this. I'm Dylan. Today is my birthday and I'm throwing a gender reveal party.

And no, I'm not pregnant. It's for myself. I'm non-binary. I'm dropping the he and my new pronouns are they, them, theirs. That lasted for about two minutes before Dylan said, oh, now I'm a she. By the way, credit to Ali London, who's a great follow on Twitter for all of this. Ali's been such a great activist on all of this and keeps us all informed on the craziness that's out there. And now Dylan is officially a she. And if you don't say she, you're a bigot. You're a transphobe. I mean, we've all seen the Price is Right video. Dylan was dying for attention. Dylan wanted us to pay attention to Dylan. And when Dylan now finally found she as Dylan's thing, Dylan's done nothing

but mock women, portray us in the most absurd caricatures. It is truly woman face. I wouldn't say that about every trans person, but what Dylan does is a mockery of us. Yeah. You know, going back to something you said earlier that there really is a dark underbelly to this. It's, and we're not talking about the men who maybe truly have suffered from gender dysphoria, which by the way, always starts in toddlerhood. There is a medical definition of gender dysphoria, but this contagion, this phenomenon of men, of grown men, not just identifying as and dressing as women, but really as young girls. It's very strange. You see a flamboyant gay man with a five o'clock shadow dressing up like sometimes like a prepubescent girl, like he has dressed up as

Eloise. So a six-year-old girl, sometimes he, so a six-year-old girl. Sometimes he looks like a 12-year-old girl. Sometimes he looks like a teenager with the big bows. Obviously, he thinks being a woman or being a girl, the 365 days of girlhood as a 26-year-old man means basically being a ditz, being a floosie, being dumb, wearing tight little shorts where he says he can show off his bulge. He has a very dark and perverse, I think, understanding of what it means to be a woman or a girl. My theory is that very dark forms of pornography are actually leading to this phenomenon in a lot of men. Yes, I do think it's attention seeking, but I do think there is a dark sexualization of women and femaleness and femininity that comes from this or rather the other way around, that this kind of been a flamboyant gay man, a very, very talented, by the way, Broadway singer, a very handsome man that all of a sudden he

has now decided that he's not just a woman, but a little girl. Look, there's something very, very disturbing about that. And what's more disturbing is that he is being platformed for it, that he's being celebrated for as a grown man identifying as sometimes a six year old girl. I mean, that is sick. That's that's really sick. Yeah. Let's not forget how Dylan launched Dylan's whole campaign as somebody of the opposite sex. Girlhood was actually on a discussion for Ulta Beauty, which is a huge cosmetics chain, talking with a guy who has a beard and a mustache, but is going as a woman with a long haired wig. I don't even know what's happening with that person about their girlhoods and periods. I mean, so that's how Dylan launched Dylan's campaign into our lane.

It's offensive and it is creepy. And that leads me to this threatening trans TikToker who we talked about just a bit last week. This person's name is Tara J. And this person decided it would be a great idea to threaten anybody who didn't let Tara Jay into a woman's room. Tara Jay is not only very clearly a man, but probably one of the least attractive trans people you've ever laid eyes on in your life. And Tara Jay is threatening to shoot you and me and anybody else who tries to say, Tara Jay, get the fuck out of our bathroom. Stay away from my daughter. You would say it nicer because you are a nicer person. Literally, I don't know that I would, Megan. I don't know when it comes to protecting your kids. If this man walked into the bathroom with my girls, I think I would say that, too. OK, I feel better. I feel OK. I feel

absolution there. So Tara Jay, as it turns out, because this is to the point that you were raising is totally doubling, doubling down on all of that. Do we have that? We have that here's Tara J because people were giving some pushback for you're really nasty and you're really threatening. And now here's Tara J saying, you don't like it too bad. I meant every word it's SOT 21. So this is going to be the only video that I'm going to make about this viral video. Number one, I was threatening people who were threatening me. Look at the date on that video. Number two, I am fully justifiable for doing so.

Number three, the call to arms, I firmly stand fucking by it. Okay, let me give you a little background on Tara Jay, who we're supposed to let into our bathrooms or we're going to get shot tara jay according to redux magazine was previously known as thomas j thomas j white appears to have begun transitioning in 2017 on one of his twitter accounts white white describes himself as a quote diaper trans mommy and as a quote trans fern dumb trans fern dumb i don't that's a new one for me white posts hardcore pornography on the account including photos of himself wearing diapers and children's clothes again repeatedly threatening violence not just in the original post, but in many posts against those uncomfortable with him using the women's restroom saying, I dare you to try to

stop me or anyone else. It will be the last mistake you ever make. One mistake is all it will take. So to your point, neither office is saying it's true of every single trans person, but there is a disturbing percentage of trans people like Tara Thomas J. Who want to take this to next, you'll look at me in my hardcore diaper pornography and let it into your bathroom or I'll shoot you. Like it really is a slippery slope. Yes, exactly. It's not a universal statement to say

that there is significant crossover here. It was actually Genevieve Glock, the person who started Redux, a feminist magazine who reports on a lot of this stuff, who opened my eyes to the connection between certain forms of dark pornography, which I obviously won't detail here, and this phenomenon of grown men like this becoming, quote unquote, women. And there's almost always an infantilization fetish that accompanies that. And yet you'll notice that the masculine aggression in its worst form doesn't go away. So this person simultaneously wants us to believe that he's a dainty, beautiful princess that should be able to share a bathroom with our toddler daughters and also is telling you that if you make him uncomfortable or say,

you know what, I think I'm going to protect my daughters from you, you diaper fetishist, that he is actually going to kill us, that he's actually going to attack us, that he's going to shoot us. So you see that they retain the most aggressive and base and toxic forms of masculinity. I say that as someone who thinks, you know, masculinity is beautiful and great while also trying to retain the sexual forms of being a woman, the access that comes with being a female. How do people not see that that combination is so dangerous for women and girls? It's wild. Oh, I love what you just said. That's brilliant. Yes. Yes. To everything you just said in the way you said it. So we have the gift of fear, as Gavin DeBecker wrote in his must-read book.

It's the sixth sense. It's the thing that makes you say, I'm not getting in the elevator with that guy. I don't have a good feeling. Or I'm walking out of this room because there's something about him. And that is a gift that we've gotten from God, from evolution, from life on this earth in unsafe spaces or spaces we thought were safe that turned out not to be. We come into the world with it to some extent, and then we develop it over a lifetime of high school experiences and college experiences and so on. And what people like Tara Jay are saying is, you will check it. You will get rid of it. No matter how much I threaten you, no matter what a freak I am, I'm sorry, but diaper porn is not coming into my daughter's bathroom.

You will check it or you're a transphobe who may be in danger, who I actually might shoot. And this kind of stuff is left up. It's all over Tara Jay's TikTok. Look at this montage that we have here. If I see a viable threat coming at me, where I deem it a viable threat against my body or my life, I am perfectly legal to take that threat out. Keep that in mind. And I don't care how big you are. The mistake you make is your last one. I've been a supporter of the Second Amendment my entire life. I know how to shoot. It wasn't a joke. I'm dead serious.

I will defend myself and I will defend my girlfriends. I'm standing up for those who can't stand up for themselves. I'm protecting those who are not strong enough to fight for themselves because i'm a big bitch and i am one bitch who does not fear jail prison or death i will martyr for my trans fam you try to stop me from going into a woman's bathroom you try and stop the wrong trans woman one mistake is all it'll take my god this is all over'll take. My God. This is all over TikTok. Not banned, by the way. Not banned.

If you want to say something about, you know, Taiwan, you want to say something about Hong Kong, you get banned. That, you can say all day long. Well, you know what? Maybe it's actually a good thing that it's not banned because I do want people to see that there is a very dark side of this, that these people exist and they're not all that rare. Again, I'm not speaking in universal terms by about everyone who identifies

as the opposite sex, but there is a very large contingent of this population that is very aggressive. I think very in the realist sense, and I don't mean this in like the left wing over you sense, but very misogynist, truly hates women, sees them as prey, sees them as a costume, sees them as a caricature and really wants to harm people. I mean, just like people in the social justice movement, I think, are looking for some kind of pseudo religion or mission or identity to latch on to something higher, something bigger. I think a lot of people in this ideology, too. The problem is, is that it's always accompanied by a lot of aggression and mental illness. Again, that's a very toxic combination. And what you talked about, about the gift of fear is so true. And think about, you know, you and I, we don't care about being called a transphobe. We'll

tell a man, get out of my bathroom. But think about the young girl, the teenager who is in school, who is being told by all of her friends, the worst thing you can be as a transphobe, the worst thing you can be as a bigot. She walks into the bathroom. She has a junior year boy who identifies as a girl walking into the bathroom. She has been told and conditioned, do not be scared. If you're scared, you're a bigot. Do not say anything. If you say anything, you're going to be excluded. You're going to be bullied. You're going to be ostracized. Any instinctive fear or concern that you have right now is actually a sign of your bigotry. How dangerous is that, that we are putting our girls in that situation, that we are attaching virtue to accepting men

in girls' bathrooms? I don't even want to see what it's going to look like when those chickens fully come home to roost. Oh my God. Neither do I. Neither do I. This is why we have no choice. I don't care who I offend. I know you don't either. It's time. I don't care. I don't care if you're not used to talking about this stuff, if you'd rather just not fight, if you'd rather just go along to get along. the time for that is past. It's beyond past. Stand up. Speak out. Go online. Find the groups. Make a donation. Start talking about the truth in your school, in your community. More people need to say it so other people feel empowered to say it and feel it and fight for it too. You know, otherwise it's lost before we even get started to people like this, like Tara Jay in his diaper who wants to shoot people. I mean, so, okay, that's where we are. This all leads me to what's happening in Montana. All right. There is

a trans lawmaker at the state level named Zoe Zephyr, and they are trying to make her into one of the new Tennessee three. All right. It's a similar kind of dust up, but it's a trans person. So Zoe Zephyr is a freshman lawmaker, age 34 in Montana, their 100th district, which is Missoula. It's one of the bluest districts in the state. And Zoe Zephyr is the first openly transgender person to be elected to the Montana state legislature. Zoe got up there and was very upset about this bill that passed the Senate last month, moved on to the house that seeks to ban the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery to treat minors, minors. Okay. This is again, this should be a non-issue. Like we are the only insane country who hasn't recognized this is totally inappropriate.

But we continue to do it. So Montanans are trying to say, no, not here. And Zoe's mad. Zoe wants minors to be able to have a sex change operation. The Montana governor is against Zoe's position and they're debating it in the, in the Montana state house. Zoe gets up there and says the following in support of Zoe's opposition to this ban on these cross-sex surgeries for minors. If you vote yes on this bill and yes on these amendments, I hope the next time there's an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands. The blood on your hands, right? This is what they do. You're going to die.

You're going to kill people. You will kill people. Your kid will commit suicide. It's a lie. And so they told her she couldn't talk, that she was out of line. And they wanted an apology because there are rules of protocol when it comes to debate of staying civil. And they felt that crossed the line. Zoe wouldn't apologize.

And then the speaker of the house refused to let Zoe speak on any bills, um, from that point forward. So Zoe then joins this rally outside the Capitol, about a hundred people. They came inside, uh, the, the, the house, right. They came inside the house body and the lawmakers accused Zoe of having signaled them to let loose inside of the house and, you know, make their upset known. And that was another clear violation of protocol. They packed into the gallery at the statehouse. They brought house proceedings to a halt. They chanted, let her speak. She did speak. She was rude, offensive

and uncivil and accused them of wanting to murder children because they won't allow them to have their penises chopped off or their breasts chopped off. That's what happened. Now she's trying to say she's some sort of a martyr. OK, yeah. Should we have the protest video? Let's take a look at it. That's Zoe there with a microphone. She's like one of the protesters. She's holding the mic up. She's all in. It's just like those Tennessee three. She doesn't realize she's a lawmaker.

You're not a protester, madam. Act like a grownup. Yeah. So she goes back onto the House floor and she did get the chance to speak again. Did she dial it back? Did she apologize for doing any of this? No. Here's what she said. I have had friends who have taken their lives because of these bills, including one family whose trans teenager attempted to take her life while watching a hearing on one of the anti-trans bills. So when I rose up and said, there is blood on your hands,

I was not being hyperbolic. And when the speaker asks me to apologize on behalf of Decorah, what he is really asking me to do is be silent when my community is facing bills that get us killed. He's asking me to be complicit in this legislature's eradication of our community. Now they have officially censored this person and she will she's not been kicked out of the state legislature, but she is officially no longer allowed to speak inside the House chamber and attend the House floor proceedings for the rest of

the 2023 session. She can still vote remotely. Here's the piece I'm getting to, Alibeth. They've taken a deep dive on her. Let me find out who it is. Claremont took a deep dive into Zoe Zephyr. And some of these same things that you and I are discussing have come up. Um, it appears Zoe, uh, okay. Did not Zoe did not exist until 2019. Zoe was Zachary

until 2019 when after several months of taking female hormones, Zoe declared that she's now zoe had surgical vaginoplasty in 2022 uh parents disowned zoe so obviously some difficulties in zoe's past when zoe decided to quote transition which by the way is an impossibility you cannot transition from one sex to another um and then okay is quote quoting from the piece disturbingly he is extremely interested in transhumanism, the melding of man and machine through technological enhancement of the human body. The subject of an abandoned master's thesis at the University of Montana.

Perhaps, the publication speculates, this explains his desire to modify his body. Goes on to say that Zoe is also a fan of manga and anime. Zoe has posted disturbing sexualized anime images on his Twitter. He shows all the classic signs of an autogynephilic person. Again, this is a man who is, they say, often spurred by pornography or fetish, who becomes sexually aroused by the idea of themselves as a woman. This person also has a partner. They're dating somebody named Anthony Aaron Reed.

I can't. And Aaron Reed, the partner of this Zoe, has a felony drug conviction according to claremont and other disturbing behavior this is our new hero this is the new person being lionized as a champion of trans rights this is what it's come to yeah you know oh my gosh so much of what you just said about this person's background is not surprising at all i I always get in trouble when I say this, but there is a distinct connection between certain forms of anime and the gender confusion that we see. That's not to say everyone who watches anime is in this camp. We saw with Mr. Beast Guy. Exactly. Exactly. Certain forms of anime, which actually are, they're centered on the sexualization of women made to look like young

girls, even sometimes babies. And so there does seem to be a distinct connection, whether it's autogynephilia, whether it is just an addiction to weird pornography, whether it is truly some kind of mental illness, probably a combination of all of these things. I mean, what this person said, what he said is actually untrue, that simply protecting children from chemical castration, protecting minors from double mastectomies, from puberty blockers,

from cross-sex hormones that will render them permanently sterile. And if you are a woman unable to breastfeed your child, should you change your mind? Should you want to have a child one day? This is not what is causing the suicide epidemic among people who identify as the opposite sex that percentage is already high because of what you said you can't change your sex and once people meet that wall

once you realize that your reality can't really fully be changed once you come to terms with all of the other mental health issues that they very often do, there is a sense of despair that a lot of these people feel. And that's not a good thing. Obviously, I think that's a tragedy. But for him to pin this on legislation, common sense legislation, that we should not even have, that children shouldn't be able to undergo chemical castration, it is the same kind of just manipulation and extortion that we see, as you mentioned, people saying, if you don't let Jack become Sally at eight years old, then he's going to commit suicide one day. You're going to kill people.

There's blood on your hands when you look down to pray. All of this ridiculous, melodramatic, poetic stuff. It's not even founded in reality. In fact, there is nothing that you could tell me that would persuade me that it is a moral position to try to change the gender of a person, especially a young person. And I will just ask as food for thought, what category of person wants a child to be trapped in perpetual adolescence? Because that's what puberty blocking does. It stops your body from going through puberty so that you look like

a child for longer. What kind of person would advocate for children to look like children for years into their adulthood? That's just something to consider. That's incredibly creepy. I mean, just so people know, this is the person who is trying to say that children in Montana should be able to have their penises chopped off, should be able to have their penises chopped off, should be able to have their breasts chopped off before they've ever gotten to use them, before they've ever understood the joy that can come from breastfeeding, things like that. This is the person, the person who's got the disturbing, sexualized anime all over the Twitter feed and this kind of a family history and was living as a man up until, what, age 30,

and then suddenly got his penis chopped off. And now we're supposed to let him lecture us like Leah on what feminism and human rights. No, sir. No, that's not happening. Get out of the legislature. I'm sad that they elected this person to begin with because this does not seem like a well human. And this person was a lecture us about kids who are going to kill themselves or die if we don't let them chop off body parts. What about that kid, Ali Beth? I know you saw this story in the Dutch study of trans children that was just revealed publicly this week. 18 year old who, as you point out, started puberty blockers, very young, allegedly gender dysphoric, was otherwise perfectly healthy, they said. And due to starting puberty blockers so young, didn't even develop enough penile tissue. This person wound up at age 18 or 18 with a child

size penis to create a vagina. And yet the doctors proceeded with the operation anyway. That's what the puberty blockers that this person wants available to young people do. So the kid doesn't have much of a penis at all. He's got a little boy penis and he's trying to make a vagina out of it. And some irresponsible surgeons over there decided to try. They decided to try to create one with part of

the patient's bowel. Major complications developed within 24 hours and the 18-year-old developed septic shock, multiple organ failure, and died. These are the stories Zoe will never tell you, Allie Beth. They will just call you a homophobe, a transphobe, that is, and move on. Yeah. And I mean, I've interviewed that someone who was trying to transition all of these detransitioners. I know that you've platformed their stories as well of their medical, physical complications when they try to detransition that they were not even informed about.

They were not even told the pain, the complications that could come from cutting your breasts off or trying to form some kind of fake penis or fake genitalia or the different psychological and physical issues that come from taking hormones that do not belong in your body biologically. And they've suffered from that. Many of them take their lives because of that, because they feel not even human, because their identity, their sense of belonging, their sense of self-understanding has been completely ripped from them by adults who knew better, but cared more either about protecting themselves from the activists on the left who are, yeah, they're kind of scary, or just lining

their pockets. Remember, the pharmaceutical companies are making a lot of money from these puberty blockers, which then creates lifelong patients in which these people, if they ever want to reproduce, have to then go back and depend on the medical system again to even be able to do that because nothing is natural in their lives. Everything is medical. So these young children that grow into adults are big moneymakers for the pharmaceutical companies, companies backed by the federal government, backed by these activists. And yeah, it's a giant. It's a giant that we are up against here.

Back by Joe Biden. Joe Biden is 100 percent on board with all of this. Please go to Affirmation Generation Movie.com. AffirmationGenerationMovie.com by Joey Bright. Joey was on the show along with a detransitioner and a therapist who's been dealing with this industry and their affirmation mandate. We interviewed them a couple Fridays ago. They were great. But the movie's great. Costs you $4. You go through Venmo.

Take the two minutes to enter your information. I did it too. Put my credit card info, got my four, paid my $4, spent the next two hours, just riveted. It stayed with me. It is well worth your time. It was done so wisely, smartly, and in a way that's extremely compelling. Allie Beth Stuckey, always a pleasure, my friend. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Megan. Up next, Don Lemon is speaking out. We'll show you what he's saying with a woman who broke that variety story about his past misogyny next. Now for another media shakeup, we got a couple to update you on. Don Lemon speaking out on his termination, and so is Al Sharpton,

very upset that Lemon is out this as you may have missed the fact that NBC universal chief executive, like the guy at the very, very top of the whole empire over there, uh, was just fired. His name is Jeff shell this past weekend after an investigation found this guy had an inappropriate workplace relationship. Nothing's happened to the woman accusing him of having an affair with her. Hmm. It's all very interesting. Joining us now to discuss it all, Tatiana Siegel. She's executive executive editor at Variety, and she has broken a ton of these big stories. She's an award winning journalist. I just went through the list, Tatiana. OK, formerly Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, Five Year Stint at Variety before you work there now. And you won all sorts of awards, including

Print Journalist of the Year in 2019 by the National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards and so on. So you're the real deal when it comes to reporting. You check your facts. And before we get to Jeff Schell, because most people don't even know who that is, but it's basically like the boss of the person running NBC News. Let's talk about Don Lamon, who you wrote the article in Variety that talked about the weirdness with Kira Phillips, the long history of alleged misogyny that he got very angry about, denied, threatened to sue over. Let me just ask you, first of all, have you been sued? Not yet. Okay. So amazing. Just a threat, but no actual lawsuit. Let's start there. I'll play what he said last night at the Time 100. But for people who aren't

familiar with your in-depth piece, what would you say was the biggest headline out of it? The biggest headline I would say is that his purported misogyny dates back really far, like the whole Kira Phillips incident happened in 2008, Soledad O'Brien 2008. There was, you know, nothing that's new here with the Nikki Haley comments. This had been going on and even more egregious, allegedly back in the day. The thing with Kira Phillips was very weird. He was reportedly jealous of her. They were co-anchors on a show and she got sent to Iraq, which was something he wanted. And then he started to act. I mean, truly, I've said it before, like a single white female,

you know, like a Glenn Close, like really started to do, according to your reporting, do bizarre things to her. Yeah, that's how my sources described it. Very kind of unnerving. And it unnerved many people in that very tight knit Atlanta crew that was working at the time together. They all shared like a news pod. So, uh, nothing went unnoticed and it was very unnerving for people. And it was through the point, according to your report, where he actually got a burner phone and started to send her threatening messages. I was just going through the piece again in preparation for this, but it was like, he said, you know, like now you've really done it. And she had to figure out who's sending me these weird messages from a burner phone.

This is bizarre. They did an investigation and you report that it, they found out it was Don Lemon that he was then fired. He was fired from that job. He was demoted after texting her. Now you've crossed the line and you're going to pay for it. They traced the text back to him from the burner phone. He was abruptly pulled from his co-anchor duties with Phillips moved to the weekends. It was demotion by any objective measure. Now he came out after this and said, it's all lies. The story is riddled with patently false anecdotes. No concrete evidence is entirely based on unsourced, unsubstantiated 15 year old anonymous gossip. It's amazing and disappointing that variety would be so reckless. CNN, we covered this at the time, said the variety story provides no actual proof. I love this because, I mean,

CNN is the one that would have the actual proof. Instead relies on anonymous sources and unsubstantiated claims from 10 to 15 years ago. CNN is unable to corroborate the alleged accounts as if it had no record of this. What you report would have been an HR investigation that led to a main anchor's demotion in light of his firing this week. Do you do you see that denial differently or what do you make of it? Well, I make that denial out to be exactly what I did three weeks ago, which was it was very Trumpian. And, you know, it's just all fake news. Everything here is fake. And I was like, well, it's an undeniable fact that Don was moved abruptly from weekdays to the weekend,

which by any objective measure is a demotion. So, you know you know like give me point by point what what you are disputing and it there was no point by point it was just it's all it's you know none of this says we can't we can't corroborate which is absurd to me you know right because human resources records uh maybe they're in a vault somewhere but you can find the key to that vault and dig them up. You can re-interview people. Yeah. They're kept for a reason. Well, that's exactly it. So that's what I was saying after the time, if, if, if this isn't, if you don't know whether it's true, you should have a working interest in finding out whether it's true because you've now partnered him with two other women who are complaining about him.

So call up Kira Phillips. Why don't you ask her? She's still in the news business. She's at ABC. Ask her if it's true. And why don't you say, do one better and say, you know what, Kira, if we made you sign an NDA, you're released from it. Tell the world about your experience with Don. We'd all like to know for the sake of Poppy Harlow and Caitlin Collins and every other woman at CNN. They didn't do that, but Don Lemon was gone. I don't know, within a month. Because once again, he had an on-air dust-up in which he diminished his female co-anchor and was very rude to Vivek Ramaswamy. So now he's out there.

He goes to the Time 100, which is this annual event in New York where, you know, we try to pretend that we're all important, and was asked, keep in mind, he's hired Alison Gallus, who was let go. I mean, technically resigned, but was forced out of CNN for having an affair with Jeff Zucker. She was a comms person. He's hired her to advise him on how to communicate around this whole thing. And here's where he landed. It's truly a surprise. What a surprise. Leaving CNN. I think that my statement speaks for itself yeah it was a surprise but

life goes on you know that's behind me and we'll see what happens in the future i'm gonna spend my summer on the beach and on the boat and with my family and just chill out and then i'll see what happens next life is short and you have to whatever life hands you you have to bob and weave and and and do it i'm a a survivor. I come from strong, sturdy stock in Louisiana. I live my life with no regrets. I'm a survivor. He went on to say, people love me. I'm a survivor. People love me. I'm the kind of person who lives with no regret. Okay. I mean, he's gotten like a little self-help there and he says onward. But the truth is, no one's going to hire Don Lemon. They're just like when you did your investigation, did you find Don has a lot of support behind the scenes in this industry?

Absolutely not. And although I do, I could see a scenario where he does resurface somewhere. And, you know, I wouldn't be totally surprised, but I think no one would ever pair him with a woman on air again. Uh, that has gone disastrously at least twice now. Um, back with the Kira Phillips that that was in 2008. That was the last time Don was on air with a woman until Poppy and Caitlin. I don't, I don't see it. I mean, how do you hire somebody who is a known misogynist? Like that's really what he was fired for. And unlike the Tucker situation, it's all on the air. The Kira Phillips thing wasn't on the air, but all the other stuff was on the air. You could see it.

He told the rape victim, she should have bitten the penis. He told us he cups, she had mommy brain because she couldn't remember her thoughts. He openly chastises co-anchors for, you know, interrupting him and tried to seize control of every broadcast, talking over them, so on. A lot of the Nikki Haley comments were so known that they were mentioned at the Oscars by the best actor, Kareem Jampier. The White House wouldn't give an interview to him. She didn't want to be interviewed by him because of all this. Like, all this stuff is known. You don't have to say this is CNN trying to destroy him. This is Don destroying himself. Yes. And by the way, that best actress Oscar winner, Michelle Yeoh, she recently said in an interview in Malaysia, she said, yeah, there's this person in the United States who

said when a woman's not in her prime anymore, like she couldn't even say Don Lemon because I don't even think she knew who Don Lemon was, which I think probably to him was like the ultimate insult. Like she was like, yeah, there's this person over there in the United States who said that, which cracked me up. People love me. I will say this. Al Sharpton is now suggesting, I guess, that it's racism, that the reason they let him go, his National Action Network, demanding an explanation. We are completely stunned at his termination. You are really you're the only ones throughout his career. That Soledad O'Brien suffered from there were two women in my story who were on the record who are black women who in Solededad's case, he allegedly said during a meeting with some 30

people that she wasn't really Black. And where's the outrage for that? That is outrageous. He wanted to bigfoot her on another project. So we're completely stunned at his termination, said Al Sharpton. Then the president and CEO of the National Urban League, Mark Morial, said in a joint statement issued with Sharpton, throughout his career, Don has been a superb journalist who was very open to the civil rights community on issues others wouldn't touch. Don's voice has been invaluable to the conversation of how we become a more just nation with the health of our democracy undergoing perhaps its greatest test. We cannot afford to silence his voice. Well, we did. We may not be able to afford it, but we apparently did it anyway over at CNN. They're going to have to come to terms with it. All right. Let's spend a minute on Jeff Schell. Jeff Schell had a lot of power. I mean, Jeff Schell was like the big, big boss after Steve

Burke got the boot over at NBC Universal. So a lot of people, I mean, this is kind of like what happened with Jeff Zucker, where he fished off the company peer. He was married like Zucker was, and he had an affair with an underling in this case, an on-air person who worked for CNBC. Yes. Yes. And the way I describe it to my kids is Jeff Schell is kind of like the Jack Donaghy of CNBC. I mean, I'm sorry, of NBC Universal for the 30 Rock fans out there. He's like the top dog over there. Right. So why isn't she like, why is she a victim in this as far? Like, I recognize she was in a less powerful position, but it sounds like they had like an 11 year affair.

So how is she claiming now that it was all sexual harassment? It's nine years. It actually was from 2011 until 2021. And I am not positive how, what the sort of contours of the relationship war. But I think that the argument would be that is any relationship with the CEO of a company that can determine your employability ever truly consensual. So I think that's but no one really knows exactly what she is beyond sexual harassment and sexual discrimination. So here's the problem for these guys. She brought this claim when they told her they weren't renewing her contract. She's out of Abu Dhabi.

And so they said, you know what? We're not interested in employing you anymore. So if you decide to do what Jeff Schell did and have an affair with somebody like that, and you can basically never fire them because they're probably always going to say, oh, we ended the affair and suddenly I was no longer interesting to him on the air or off. Like you put yourself in that position as a CEO. It's just stupid. It's just a stupid thing to do. And who knows whether it did play a role in their decision not to use her anymore. You and I don't know.

Right. Yeah. That's why you should never have an affair with an underling, because it can come back to haunt you in any, you know, potential litigation. And yeah, like there's, it's a problem. It's a problem. It was a problem at CNN with Alison Gollis and Jeff Zucker. It's a problem here. It's a problem anywhere it happens. Meanwhile, this guy, Jeff Schell, as I understand it, fired people like Ron Meyer for having

an affair with somebody outside the company. While he was having an affair with the CNBC anchor, by the way, what's her name? She's come out. She's outed herself. What's her name? Hadley Gamble. Hadley Gamble. So most of our viewers may not know her because she's CNBC and she's overseas.

So he's firing other executives for having affairs. And then he continues his own extramarital affair with an underling. It's the height of hypocrisy and not really didn't go unnoticed by anyone in the Hollywood community. It's just dumb. Like there's so many beautiful women out there. Pick somebody who doesn't work for you. It's so simple. A lot of women would be dazzled by somebody who had his post and his power and his money. You don't have to like there are plenty of attractive brunettes, which was apparently what he was looking for, who cannot be in a position to accuse you of harassing them just because you have a nine year affair. All right, Tatiana. So good to see you. Thank you for all the great reporting. Hope to see you again soon. Thanks for having me back, Megan. All the best. And that is Variety's cover story this week, the in-depth story about Jeff Schell. And there's a lesson in there for all you men. Understand, whatever, sometimes marriages aren't that happy, make bad decisions, but outside, outside. I mean, divorce also, possible

separation, but out, off, not off the company pier, just go to a different pier. There's plenty of piers out there who don't work for you. All right, listen, thank you for all joining us today and all week. And please go over to YouTube.com and subscribe and help us reach that million number mark. It's a big milestone. You get a big fun button from YouTube, which my kids would really like for me to have. It's really the only thing that's going to have any currency for them. They keep asking me. No, not yet. In any event, thank you for trusting us with your news. We appreciate it. We appreciate

what Chakra was saying as well. And we feel like we are one of those sources that will bring you truth and that is not controlled by either party. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.