The Megyn Kelly Show - Free Speech Under Fire and Vaccine Mandates, with Michael Knowles and John Kass | Ep. 191

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by Michael Knowles, host of "The Michael Knowles Show" on The Daily Wire, and John Kass, columnist and co-host of "The Chicago Way" podcast, to talk about how free speech is under fire in 2021, the crackdown on parents speaking out at school board meetings, comparisons of Mao's China to America today, the extremism of the left, the coming push to vaccinate 5-to-11-year-old kids, Chicago's Mayor Lightfoot vs. first responders over vaccine mandates and more, the protection of the American ideals, rise in crime in Chicago, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Merrick Garland in the hot seat yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and his testimony was a scandalous outrage. That's where we're beginning this show. Michael Knowles will be here in one minute to react. Asked repeatedly about whether he will now withdraw his memo threatening to investigate and potentially prosecute parents whose behavior he does not like at school board meetings, Merrick Garland refused, saying threats of violence and violence are fair game for the DOJ. Wrong, sir. Wrong. Which we will get to in one minute. Remember the history here. The National

School Boards Association wrote a letter to the White House complaining about loud parents whom they suggested might be treated as criminals and domestic terrorists after many failed to comply with various protocols at school board meetings. Parents understandably upset about CRT lesson plans shaming children for their race, about radical trans ideology being shoved down the throats of children as young as single digits, mask mandates everywhere despite the CDC's own comprehensive study of 90,000 children showing they do nothing. Vaccine mandates for children, irrespective of medical risks. X-rated books in school libraries that literally celebrate child rape. And on and on it goes.

So, yes, parents are especially concerned right now. And to their credit, they're voicing it. Well, after that National School Boards Association letter, which we now know was coordinated in advance with a White House that is clearly cognizant of the political damage these clips of angry parents could do to the president and Democrats nationwide, the DOJ immediately set to work, affirmatively declaring without investigating that he would, quote, use the DOJ's authority and resources to discourage these threats, identify them and prosecute them when appropriate. In other words, he'll sick the FBI on you if you get out of line.

That was October 4th. Since then, outrage has spread across this country and across political lines. A recent poll showed only 19% of Americans support the FBI monitoring and investigating parents in this way. Some 57 NSBA, and the group was forced to apologize for its incendiary letter and withdraw it, leading to demands that Attorney General Garland, who again admitted that the DOJ's involvement was based on that NSBA letter, stand down. Yesterday, he refused. What does the National Security Division have to do with parents at school boards? This is not, again, about parents at school boards. It's about threats of violence.

Okay, let me turn to that because you've said that phrase repeatedly throughout the morning. Threats or violence and threats of violence. Violence and threats of violence. They said that they were facing violence and threats of violence. And when I saw in the news media reports, this memorandum is aimed at violence and threats of violence. I just asked. Violence and threats of violence. And when I saw in the news media reports, this memorandum is aimed at violence and threats. I just asked. Violence and threats of violence, violence and threats of violence. That's why he got involved. First of all, this is a misrepresentation of what the NSBA alleged in its letter. The NSBA cited 26 alleged problematic incidents that it said warranted

the DOJ's attention, the vast majority of which involved items like parents refusing to put masks on or cede their microphones when ordered to do so, not threats of violence, nor any incidents of actual violence, as Mr. Garland now falsely claims. The only real allegation of this kind had to do with what happened in Loudoun County, Virginia, when the cops decided to arrest Scott Smith, a man we now know was upset because his superintendent was there lying about there never having been a rape in a school bathroom when Mr. Smith's ninth grade daughter had just been raped a week or two earlier, a crime for which the defendant boy has now been convicted. Other than that, there was one incident of alleged threats in Worthington, New York, in which a letter sent to the board there said, quote,

we are coming after you and all the members of the board. You all should be tried for treason, end quote. This is not the stuff of federal law enforcement. For one thing, it's not illegal. For another, it is not within the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice. As Merrick Garland well knows, the DOJ cannot investigate or prosecute parents for alleged threats. Threats of violence, or as he claimed in his October 4th letter, quote, efforts to intimidate individuals based on their point of view, are free speech protected by the Constitution. Incitement is speech that law enforcement can potentially attack as unlawful, but the bar for that is extremely high. In America, you are allowed

to say things like, I could kill you, or you should be afraid, or we are coming after you. The law recognizes that in the vast majority of those cases, those are expressions of upset that are not legally actionable. In order to cross a legal line, the speech must, one, unambiguously, two, call for the use of force, three, that the speaker clearly intends, four, under circumstances in which the likelihood of violence is both real and imminent. Not even arguably the case here. and there's no allegation that any of these alleged threats were ever acted upon same goes for garland's other focus in his statement efforts to intimidate someone's point of view by the way that's what he's doing that's protected by the first amendment as well even if any of the examples at issue here rose to the

level of, quote, incitement, the DOJ would have no business inserting itself. None. The feds have no general police power that is left to the states and local authorities. Even an actual attack on a school board member or a parent at a meeting would be handled by the local cops, not the FBI. That is what happened in Loudoun County, though Scott Smith did nothing wrong. Former prosecutor Andy McCarthy recently had a column in National Review outlining all of this and pointing out that this is an incredibly politicized DOJ, just like the one under the Obama-Biden administration, which, as Andy notes, quote, made the process the penalty.

The investigation process, coupled with the threat of federal criminality, you're going to have the FBI in your business. That's the deterrent. How the case comes out is irrelevant. They did it with the IRS scandal, threatening conservative groups with the loss of their tax-exempt status with the threatened takeovers of police departments that ben a.g eric holder deemed problematic with the dear colleague letter they used to scare universities into eliminating due process for young men accused of sexual assault and on and on the end result is to silence and control those who could undermine this president's agenda. And that is why Merrick Garland is standing by his threats of investigation and prosecution. He doesn't want to punish lawbreakers. He and his pals at the White House want to stop the debate altogether.

Joining me now, Michael Knowles, the host of the Michael Knowles Show on The Daily Wire. And we are going to cover it all. Michael, thank you so much for being here. Great to be with you, Megan. Thanks for having me. It was incredibly outrageous and disingenuous of that AG yesterday to keep looking at those lawmakers and act like this is about the violence and threats of violence that these school board members are receiving. Totally untrue and unfounded. This is thuggish behavior. This is mob behavior. Merrick Garland is like a meek, mild-mannered, diminutive Al Capone in the way that he's speaking. One, there's the corruption. The corruption is that Merrick Garland's son-in-law runs a company that peddles critical race theory in school. So there's a huge conflict of interest here. Senator Cruz absolutely nailed Garland on this point. He said,

did you ask for an ethics opinion? You clearly have a conflict of interest. Garland refused to answer the question because he knows that Cruz had him dead to rights. But then even more thuggish, you have the only threat, the only real threat in this entire scenario is the threat coming from the DOJ. And the threat is if you speak out in any way, if you question the radical racial and sexual theories that are being peddled in these schools, we're going to come after you. Just as you said, Megan, the FBI is going to come knock on your door. The DOJ is going to call you a domestic terrorist. And so this is now beyond the scope of politics. It's actually the difference between political debate and what is sometimes called

the regime, the things that are off limits. Sure, we can debate raising taxes or lowering taxes, right? That's up for arms. But we are not permitted any longer to debate the radical racial and sexual theories in schools. And if you do, the DOJ is going to investigate you and possibly prosecute you. Yes, the White House has weaponized the DOJ against parents who have every right to speak out about what is being done to their children. It's outrageous. And let's just spend a minute on the conflict of interest that Merrick Garland has in this. So his son-in-law, the man married to Merrick Garland's daughter, has a company that pushes CRT in schools. Our research says his company made $27 million last

year doing exactly this, getting CRT programs shoved into these schools. That, folks, importantly, is very much part of what those parents are complaining about and are arguing about all those incendiary clips that Merrick Garland is so upset about. So it's very much an issue here. Ted Cruz, as you point out, goes after Merrick Garland, pushing him on. Did you run that by the ethics group within the DOJ? Did you have somebody advise you on this before you decided to start threatening those parents, speaking out about programs like your son's? Here's that exchange. Did you seek an ethics opinion? Judge, you know how to ask questions and answer them.

Did you seek an ethics opinion? You asked me whether I sought an ethics opinion about something that would have a predictable effect on something. This has no predictable effect in the way that you're talking about. So if critical race theory is taught in more schools, does your son-in-law make more money? This memo has nothing. If critical race theory is taught in more schools, does your son-in-law make more money, yes or no? This memorandum has nothing to do with critical race theory or any other kind of curriculum. Will you answer if answer if you saw it? I am answering the best I can. Yes or no. Did you seek an ethics opinion?

This memorandum has nothing. Did you seek an ethics opinion? He wouldn't. He wouldn't answer yes or no. This memorandum has nothing to do with that. We'll be the judge of that. We will be the judge. What's happened is you've threatened the parents who are objecting to the programs your son-in-law is making millions off of.

It absolutely does have to do with that. And let me just tell you, Michael, because I looked it up. I went and actually looked up the ethics requirements, and I didn't even look at the ones for a judge, which he is. So now he's AG. So we'll go with that. At the Department of Justice, every employee of the DOJ, including Merrick Garland, one, shall endeavor to avoid any actions or creating the appearance that they are violating the ethical standards set forth in this section. OK, you can't even have the appearance that you're violating one of the ethical standards here. And here is one of the many ethical standards that applies to him under misuse of official position. You may not use your public office for the gain of persons with which you are associated personally. So if there is even an appearance that that Merrick Garland letter threatening parents was potentially advantageous financially to his son, not only did he need an ethics opinion, he knew right off the bat he shouldn't do it. He had no business doing it. The fact that not more is being made out of this by the mainstream press is yet another disgrace. Well, after that exchange, I was tempted to call the DOJ myself to report a murder because I think Senator Cruz absolutely nailed him. And you can tell Merrick

Garland is a pretty clever politician because he won't answer the question. It's a very simple question. Senator Cruz was not asking him, is this an ethics violation? Do you think this rises to that? The question was simply, did you ask for an opinion or not? And Garland didn't do it. He certainly should have, but that's beside the point. He didn't do it and he doesn't want to give him the answer. As you point out quite aptly, Megan, this is not some small little company. It's not some mom and pop shop that the mom and pop CRT shop that is going into one or two schools. This is a company that's bringing in tens of millions of dollars. So this kind of national policy is going to have an effect on the company. But then the layers of deception go even

deeper because I don't know about you, Megan. I'm old enough to remember, oh, two months ago when the left in this country and the elected Democrat officials told us that critical race theory is not being taught in schools. Do you remember us that critical race theory is not being taught in schools. Do you remember that? Critical race theory is simply being taught in certain law schools. It has nothing to do with K through 12. You people are delusional. Now what we're being told is critical race theory absolutely is being taught in schools, and it's a very good thing. And actually the government should enforce it and stop people from questioning that being taught in schools. So it's a complete moving of the goalposts. I think that Republicans are right over and conservatives and even just ordinary moderate people are right over the target here.

They're sick of it. They don't like it. And the the left is getting desperate. The entire basis for Merrick Garland injecting himself into this situation has evaporated. The school boards group is falling apart day by day. More and more school boards across the country are withdrawing from this group for getting so overtly political. And you can see in that poll the reason why. 57% of Americans are against this. They don't want the DOJ or the FBI investigating parents who are upset for understandable reasons. And so the school board association letter has fallen apart. They've withdrawn it. They've apologized for it.

And yet that was the basis for Merrick Garland getting involved. There was no independent investigation. Yesterday, when questioned, Merrick Garland said, well, I was responding not just to the letter, but public reports of violence and threats of violence. Jim Jordan, um, Jim Jordan asked him about this last week. Let me see. I think we've got that soundbite. Listen, it's number three. First sentence. You said in recent months, there's been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, threats of violence. Yes. When did you first review the data showing this so-called disturbing uptick?

So I read the letter and we have been seeing over time. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn't ask you. So you read the letter. That's that's your source. Yeah. He said yes. And then his addendum was and the newspapers, the news. So when he says yesterday, oh, public report, also public reports of violence, he's talking about the damn news. So what news was that? Slate, Huffington Post, MSNBC? Because you would think that the National School Board Association would have the best evidence possible. And I already walked the audience through the fact that of the 20 plus examples in there, the vast majority were about people not wearing masks or seating their mics. There was one, one alleged incidence of violence. It involves Scott Smith. He got arrested because when a woman questioned whether

his daughter was in fact raped, he called her a bitch. And then the police put their hands on him in a scuffle between Smith and the police ensued. That's the only alleged violence. Merrick Garland is making this up. Of course. And by the way, if Scott Smith were brought to trial for this, if he were put in front of a jury and the jury were told what happened, what led up to that incident, not a jury in the land would convict him. Because the real story here, and it's another story that Merrick Garland doesn't want to talk about, and it's a story, coincidentally, that the Daily Wire happened to break because the mainstream media didn't want to investigate it, is that this girl was raped by a man who wears girls' clothing in the girls' bathroom. And the school covered it up,

and they covered it up because it raises questions about their radical transgender policy, questions that now parents, not just in Loudoun County, but around the country are asking. In the case of Scott Smith, he had this horrible personal experience with his own daughter. But parents around the country are absolutely right to question this. And what we are seeing play out in real time is a cover up. One new piece of information on that and two thoughts. They are now reporting, I think it was in the Washington Post, that this young rape victim was assaulted by a boy she knew and that she, according in the left wing press trying to diminish this claim of rape because two times irrelevant since she had met him voluntarily twice before and he was her boyfriend. That's it's not about whether this kid's transgender or not. It's about why did he put the skirt on? As far as it could be, because he didn't want anybody to bother him when he was going into the girls room for this interview.

I have no idea. But the point is not really so much about whether trans people are going into the bathroom or not. The point is that there had been a rape inside of the school bathroom two weeks earlier. And this superintendent stood up and told everyone not to worry about the transgender policy because these bathrooms are safe and they're not. A rape had just been committed by a guy wearing a skirt. I don't really give a damn what his motivation was. And he went on to rape again, according to the authorities. The refusal to acknowledge facts and to downplay the genuine concerns of parents in these circumstances, Michael, I think is what's driving things like the now dead heat between McAuliffe and Youngkin in Virginia. Yes. Well, I think that you've hit on it. This is the really

important part of the story, which is not whether the kid is transgender or whatever crazy gender he thinks that he is. It's about the schools protecting the transgender policy. So right now, the media are actually victim blaming because they're saying because this girl had had a relationship with this guy before and she explicitly said, I do not want to perform this particular act. I don't want to do this. And then he violently raped her. They're saying, oh, well, basically she was asking for it. But the schools here, regardless of the motivations for the incident or even the particulars of it, why do you think the schools covered it up? Obviously, they're covering it up because there's this controversial policy and the action has a certain association with that policy. And it might throw the gubernatorial race in Virginia. You're 100 percent right. That's the reason that they covered it up, because this policy was under debate and their sort of woke ideology didn't want them,

didn't allow them to offer any facts that might be used by the other side. That's how they see this. They're not thinking about the rights of children, young girls to be safe. And this guy was a predator because he went on to the very next school and did it again, according to the authorities there. And by the way, they didn't tell the new school that he had just been arrested for doing this to a girl in his previous school. So parents' rights are out the window as our children's rights. And by the way, now today, there's a report about a woman seeing a Homeland Security vehicle and officials out in front of her school. So Merrick Garland means what he says. The feds are not backing off. We're going to pick it up there and also get into the latest COVID madness. Now your kid is young as five um is said you know he can get a vaccination right but already we're seeing reports of schools mandating it what it's not it's still emergency

use and by the way even the officials behind the you know thumbs up on this thing are saying they don't agree with that. That's next. Joining me today, Michael Knowles, the host of the Michael Knowles Show on The Daily Wire, which I love. You're young. You're a whippersnapper. I think you're only 31 years old. Am I right? 31? A lady never tells, but yes, 31 years old. I was listening to you the other day and you were like, I was in middle school 19 years ago and they were already pushing all this crazy indoctrination identity politics. I was in high school 13 years ago. I was like, oh, my God.

But anyway, you were wise beyond your years. Went to Yale, did a bunch of stuff. Whenever I listen to you, I feel intellectually enriched, hence my fandom. So let's talk about how this is manifesting now still. So before you think this woman's nuts, she actually posted a picture to her social media on Twitter of a Homeland Security car stationed outside of her school. Fairfax, Virginia. Look, there it is. This is Fairfax, Virginia, the very jurisdiction we're talking about with Loudoun County Schools, if memory serves. I live down there. I'm pretty sure it's

the same county. She's a mother of six. Her name is Stacy Lanton. And she led the charge to remove sexually explicit books from the school libraries. And again, I just want the audience to know, we're not talking about like, I don't know, they had an interlude and she lost her virginity. And wow, it was amazing. That's fair game. I mean, by 2021 standards, that's everywhere. Nobody's really complaining about that. We played the soundbite. Like glorifying the rape of children, pedophilia, glorifying, talking about like man-boy rape,

like it's totally normal and something everybody does. It's dangerous stuff. Anyway, she led the charge to remove these books from their school libraries. And she says she's seen federal law enforcement flying helicopters and stationing cop cars outside of a school board meeting in Virginia meant to intimidate parents, she believes. That picture of a Homeland Security car stationed outside the school. She claims there was a heavy federal law enforcement presence just days after she and others protested outside the DOJ. She says she has received death threats in response to the protest. She's got threats against her children by name. I'm sure Merrick Garland is on it. I'm sure that's the kind of threat he's definitely going to look into, Michael. I would not necessarily

hold your breath for that. Frankly, with all of the political realignments now, I'm finding myself on the side of defund the police. If funding the police means that DHS is going to come kick in my door because I don't think we should have explicit pedophilic porn in the classroom, then I guess we ought to defund them. But the way we got here is, I think, because conservatives in this country fell for a trap. They fell for a trap in the 1960s and 70s, and it's really only grown since then, which is the ideology of openness in the classroom. We've been told that the most important thing students can learn is to be open-minded, so open-minded that their brains fall out. And so how dare you say we shouldn't have porn in the classroom? How dare you say that

we shouldn't have radical racial theories in the classroom? Students just need to be exposed to everything. But the fact is that's not true. That's never been true in any educational institution. Actually, the modern conservative movement began with a book by William F. Buckley Jr. making fun of this idea of academic freedom and openness. And so when you look at something like porn in the classroom, that does not help a kid's education. That actually harms a kid's education because it arouses all the lusts and the appetites and the base passions. And the whole point of liberal education is to tamp that down and become a free person. When you look at critical race theory, that doesn't help a kid's education. It hurts it. It undermines the basic ideas of our

government and our civics. In some cases, it undermines the idea that there's objective truth itself. So you got to get that out of there. And I think if we really want to fight back against this, we need to take a lesson from the left, okay? The left is really good at banning things. Right now, you can read porn in the classroom, but the only book you can't read in the classroom is the Bible. The Supreme Court told us that the most important book ever written is the one thing you can't teach kids in class. So I think what we need to do is go back in there and reimpose some standards. And this is what parents are doing all around the country. They're saying, hold on, you're telling me I'm going to send my kid to an institution

for eight hours a day for what, 12, 13 years, more than that now, because there's pre-K and then many more people are going to college. So you're telling me I got to send my kid to your institution for most of his life and I don't have any say in what he learns there, the way he's brought up spiritually, physically, intellectually, and all of the above. I don't think so. If parents don't have the right to educate their kids, then they don't have any parental rights at all. You've got, as we mentioned before the break, this very fight leading to a dead heat in the Virginia gubernatorial race, which is now being seen as potential bellwether on where our politics are as a nation. Biden won the state by 10 points. This should be an easy win for the Democrat McAuliffe, who's already been governor of Virginia. He's going to take over for governor, either blackface or KKK wearing hood guy, Ralph Northam. I mean, his biggest sin is what he wants to do babies once they've been born on the on the operating table. But that's who Ralph Northam is. So you think a state that would put him in office would easily put Terry McAuliffe back in office as the Dem. But it's now down to a

dead heat when he was leading by, I think, seven points about 10 days ago. And it's because of this issue, education. He's to see a Democrat having having to beg for votes on education, defend themselves on education. He's gotten Barack Obama down there, Joe Biden down there. I think Kamala Harris has been down there. He knows he's in trouble. He even danced on the stage, which is something he promised he would never do. He's so desperate as he to hold on to what was once a lead. And now the line that the Dems are using on him, Youngkin, who's a moderate Republican, you can't win as a far right guy and Republican these days, is as follows. This is soundbite number eight. Listen to how they're now trying to dismiss Glenn Youngkin.

Extremism can come in many forms, can come in the rage of a mob driven of assault, driven to assault the Capitol. It can come in a smile and a fleece vest. Either way, the big lie is still a big lie. So, yeah, extremism can come in a fleece vest with a smile. It can come in the form of, you know, somebody in his late 70s who doesn't seem to be paying attention or able to express his thoughts a lot, too. Joe Biden makes a good point here, actually, not about Glenn Youngkin. Glenn Youngkin is completely milquetoast. He's about as moderate as they get. So I and he's run an excellent

campaign and he obviously should be the next governor of Virginia. But but what the left often does is project. They accuse their opponents of things that are true of them. And nowhere is it clearer that extremism can come in a vest with a nice quiet voice than with Joe Biden. Joe Biden ran as the moderate candidate. He was a return to normalcy. And what are we getting from Joe Biden? We're getting a massive expansion of the government. We're getting radical gender and racial theories everywhere. We're getting the IRS looking into everyone's bank accounts if they've got more than 600 bucks in there. We're getting a push to get rid of the Hyde Amendment abortion on demand up until the moment of birth. This is by far we're getting a push to get rid of the Hyde Amendment abortion on demand up until

the moment of birth. This is by far we're getting, I mean, radical transgender theory from the State Department and everywhere else. This is the most radical administration we've ever seen in this country. And it's not because Joe Biden is a Bolshevik. It's because his party is is in that direction. And he is that merely the the moderate, modest facade that's covering up a really radical edifice. Same thing with Merrick Garland. Merrick Garland was supposed to be the moderate judicial. He was going to be the moderate attorney general. What is he is the most radical AG we've had since, oh, I don't know, the Obama administration. Yes. I don't think we have it. But Tom Cotton was going off about how I am so glad that you said, thank God you're not on the Supreme Court.

And as I saw this attorney general sitting there trying to do, oh, we do have it. Stand by. Listen, here's Tom Cotton. This testimony, your directive, your performance is shameful. That's not correct. Thank God you are not on the Supreme Court. You should resign in disgrace, judge. You should resign in disgrace. Listen, if that's his understanding of the law, that you can just willy nilly start going into school boards and monitoring parents and then sticking the FBI on them and and prosecuting them for threats or expressing opposition to a point of view. Bullshit. He should go. He should resign in disgrace. And we are lucky he's not on SCOTUS. Absolutely. You look at Merrick Garland and you look at Joe Biden,

and the scariest part of it is that they're not the radical leftists. They're the center. It just so happens that the center has moved radically to the left. And it's not just rock ribbed Republicans who are recognizing that now. It's a lot of ordinary people. And so what they're trying to do in this race in Virginia is turn Glenn Youngkin into an avatar for Donald Trump. Donald Trump, who you might recall, does not currently hold any office. Even MSNBC called them out for this the other day. They said, you've got to run on something other than the old bad orange man is really, really bad. And if you look on the issues, and that's what they're really doing in Virginia, the Democrats are underwater on every single issue. There was one issue that Joe Biden was holding on to, and that was COVID.

He was a little bit above water on COVID. That has collapsed as well. So they're completely bereft of ideas. They've got no accomplishments they can run on. And the best they can do is scaremonger about a nice guy wearing a fleece vest. So Trump is promising, threatening, suggesting he might go to Virginia. The vote is on Tuesday. And I saw so many Republicans, including MAGA loving Republicans say, no, no, no, no. For the very reason you just said, it sort of plays right into the hands of Terry

McAuliffe, who's been saying Youngkin is a Trump accolade, and he's not. However, nobody gets out the vote, well, on both sides, like Donald Trump. So your thoughts on whether he should go? I love Trump. I voted for him in 2016 and 2020. In 2020, despite him having made some decisions that I didn't agree with, I said that I would crawl over broken glass to vote for the guy. And I still support Donald Trump. However, there is a very important rule in politics. It's called the Buckley rule. The Buckley rule is that you support the most right, viable candidate. Glenn Youngkin is not a Trump Republican. I sort of wish he were more of a Trump Republican because I am much to the right of Glenn Youngkin. I'm more conservative than he is. But a Trump Republican because I am much to the right of Glenn Youngkin. I'm more conservative than he is. But a Trump-style Republican would not have a chance in this election in Virginia. A Trump-style

Republican would not have a chance in California. You sort of saw that happen during the recall race or the recall that didn't actually happen in California. And so it would seem to me much more prudent to focus on the schools, focus on the issues that are winning right now in Virginia. There will be plenty ofably, and national voters as well, because it Virginia is just one example. I mean, we could we could go through state by state and talk about the school board meetings and who's next to get cracked down upon. And in that vein, let's talk about Minnesota. All right. Minnesota. That's where Abby's from. Minnesota is not crazy left. It's a little left, but it's not crazy left. It's not it's not exactly like, you know, New York or Vermont.

So Minnesota's Minnesota school board now is ordering parents to announce their home addresses before they can speak at these public meetings. This while some of them are being threatened, here is a soundbite reflecting that demand. Watch. I want to remind everyone this is a business meeting of the school board. It is not a meeting that belongs to the public. Each speaker is asked to state his or her name and address for the record. Failure to do so will result in an individual not being allowed to speak. John, can you give us your name and address, please? My name is John Wicklin. I live in Mankato. Could I get your address, please, John?

I'd rather not since you guys have it already. If you give your address, you can't speak. And I get so much property damage and eggs and everything else from fun people and their friends. John, you need to give your address. I live on 5th Street. Excuse address. I live on 5th Street. Excuse me? I live on 5th Street. Call this number?

Ah! Oh my gosh! It's infuriating! I mean, oh, Jodi Sapp, the chairwoman of the Mankato School Board, that's her, basically harassing this poor dad. I mean, can you what number?

Screw her. I'm sorry, Michael. This is like it makes me so mad. Well, this is how they operate, though. They operate through intimidation, in this case, doxing someone. I suppose the purpose of asking for the address is to make sure that you're in the district. But there was no question that that was the case here. They did this a number of years ago in New York on the gun issue. One of the newspapers decided to publish the addresses of people who owned guns. What possibly could be the purpose of that? I can't even think of a reasonable answer other than to get people to go and harass them or to get law enforcement to go and harass these people or to show burglars exactly where they should go to go get the goods. And it's so ugly. We started out the show talking about how thuggish things have become. That's what this is. This is like a local little mob boss sitting there at the school board

meeting. And, you know, I'm sorry that that parent gave the, the address because I, I would have three words for that person. And that would be, those words would be very similar to let's go, Brandon. That's right. And we're both Catholics. So for us to go that way, you know, I'll not me, I got, I got a mouth like a sailor as my audience knows. Um, I found that truly outrageous. I'm in our audience would never do anything to that guy. Um, But some people might. And it's the same reason I will do Jodi the favor of not releasing her public address, because these issues are really charged. And it's one thing to make sure the parent lives

within the jurisdiction, right? Like has the right to be there protesting, same way as like, you need to need to be in the jurisdiction you're going to vote in. This is quite another, by the way, when the New York Times did that, or when they when they published the addresses of the names of the people owning guns, I remember lamenting. I was a crime victim at the time. I had a bad stalker. And I was mad because most you're not really allowed to have a gun in New York. You have to go through all these extra steps to prove that you're under threat of your celebrity. And I could have done that. I mean, I could have. But it was new and I didn't want.

And the point is, I was mad. I was basically identified to my stalker as not having a gun, you know, back then. I'll just leave it at that. So, yeah, the school board thing is infuriating and it's not getting any better. And it's amazing to me because the Democrats don't seem to be reading the polls well. Like once that the school board association took down that letter, they should have said, Oh,

thank God. This is our, this is our ability to get off the hook for a very stupid decision. They're doubling down. And not just on that, Michael, they're doubling down on COVID policy. Because not only did the news break yesterday that now the,

the, they're approving the vaccine for five to 11 year olds. But I mean, my phone lit up with friends in New York who had immediately gotten notifications from their schools. It's mandated. I mean, it's like it was like approved on an emergency basis two seconds ago. And now unless I stick it in my five year old's arm, we're out. That's where we're picking it up right after this quick break. Don't go away. And remember, folks, you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live

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Okay, so COVID. I want to get this right. An FDA panel of 17 people has unanimously advised the FDA to recommend that they authorize the Pfizer vaccine for 5 to 11-year-olds. So it hasn't officially been authorized even on an emergency use basis yet, but it's coming. It was a unanimous recommendation. So it's basically just It was a unanimous recommendation. So it's basically just as soon as they do it. And that's where my friends were picking up their schools in New York already sending out notices saying as soon as the FDA gives us a thumbs up, it's mandatory and you have no choice. And more and more we're seeing state after state,

they're eliminating medical and or religious exemptions. I mean, you can't raise a medical or religious exemption, you know, objection to sticking your five-year-old with this vaccine. So on this one, though, Michael, it's interesting to me because it's not just, you know, and I'm not anti-vax at all. I've gotten the vaccine. It's not just people like me who are questioning the mandates. It's even people who have been pushing mandates when it comes to adults. People

like Lena Nguyen on CNN, they use her all the time. She loves vaccines and she loves mandates. Not this one. Listen. I think it's way too early for us to be talking about mandates in this age group. So far, we have an important study, but the study by Pfizer is just over 2,000 kids. I think the right next step is to have the parents who really want to get their kids vaccinated to allow them to do that. Let's collect some more information. And then if we have more information, including about what it is that vaccines can replace, for example, can vaccines replace the need for masks in schools? Can vaccines help to prevent outbreaks and then stop the need for quarantining and having kids not be in school?

Then maybe then we can have a conversation about mandates, but we're a long way off from that. Oh, Lena, speak to the New York City schools. I mean, will they listen to her? They don't listen to any doctor they perceive as fair and balanced. Will they listen to her? They don't listen to, you know, any doctor they perceive as fair and balanced. Will they listen to her? When a former head of Planned Parenthood and CNN contributor is the voice of reason, you know that you are through the looking glass. And it's not just her. There is an epidemiologist at Yale, Harvey Reich, who's who's just come out and said that if he were forced to vaccinate his children, he would pull his children out of school. He would homeschool children. Why is that? You

mentioned those medical and religious exemptions, which are becoming harder and harder to get. Let's not forget, there are plenty of good reasons not to get the vaccine. I'm not telling people not to get the vaccine. Plenty of good reasons to get the vaccine, but there are plenty of good reasons to avoid it as well. We know that there are some risks. We know that women in particular died of blood clots, and that's why they paused the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. We know that there have been cases of myocarditis and pericarditis. There was a study out of UC Davis which suggested that some young men could actually face greater risk from the vaccine than from the virus itself. We know that there are risks of nerve damage. All of this has been acknowledged by the FDA and the CDC. We know

that there are moral objections. All of the vaccines were at least developed with, and in some cases also produced with, stem cells from aborted babies. They were tested on clones of stem cells. And that is problematic if you are a Catholic like you, or I am, or a Christian. They don't want stem cells involved in this process at all. Right. That's right. And so, you know, you've got plenty of reasons to object to this sort of thing, and the government will not permit that. You've got plenty of scientific, expert, genius, exalted scientific voices saying perhaps we should use some caution here, especially when you look at the infection fatality rate, especially for young people.

The infection fatality rate is basically zero. It is infinitesimally small for very young people, for older people, for people with comorbidities, then it might be higher. And it's a different calculation there. So the question that a lot of people have is, given the extraordinarily low risk of hospitalization or death from the virus in kids, is there any risk in taking the vaccine? And although this FDA panel voted unanimously to approve the vaccine for kids, one of the members of the panel came out when asked about the safety of it. And he said, the only way to know if it's safe is to test it on the kids. We have that. That's Dr. Eric Rubin of Harvard.

This is straight from the panel that's deciding whether this is safe for our kids. This is not some, you know, nobody. This guy's on the team that's deciding. And here's Dr. Eric Rubin of Harvard. We're never going to learn about how safe the vaccine is unless we start giving it. Yeah, that's just the way it goes. Great. Your kid first. Go for it, Dr. Rubin. Do it. I can't wait for your kids and the kids of all the people who are pro-vaccine mandates for children to go first.

And we will sit back and we will wait and we will see what happens. And if it turns out to be safe, then maybe we'll consider it. But my kid's not going first and I'm not responding to any mandates saying he must be. My question is, did these people run out of beagles? I remember just a couple of days ago, we heard about all these awful animal experiments from Dr. Fauci, but now we're told that we're going to experiment on kids. And it seems that frankly, in some quarters, especially on the left, there's a greater uproar about performing medical experiments on animals than there is on performing medical experiments on little kids who face a very, very low risk from the virus. And in the face of that, it's quite clear that Harvey

Risha's advice from Yale is pretty good advice, that you really shouldn't give into this sort of thing. This is not going to end. Already, you're seeing them move the goalposts on what fully vaccinated means. Already, they're moving the goalposts on exactly who needs to get the vaccine. This kind of thing is never going to end. And we are not a country, last I checked the constitution, that is run by the whims of the Dr. Fauci's of the world. We still have a say in our political order. We still have reason. We still have judgment. We should be able to exercise that and tell these people who are making the mandates to go pound sand. You know, our school, our private school in Connecticut, they brought in a Yale, I think he was epidemiologist specialist to talk to parents

to like calm concerns because they mandated the vaccine. You get it or you get expelled at our school as of age 16 or up because for that group, it's been, quote, permanently approved or so they believe. So they brought in this guy from Yale to talk to us about how safe it is, you know, how it's a good idea and so on. And then as you point out, you know, as it turns out, it's not entirely agreed upon by the experts at Yale. We have that soundbite of Dr. Harvey Rich, Rich, Rich, speaking to Mark Levin. He's also at Yale. And here's what he says. If the child has chronic conditions that make their risk appreciable, then there's a reason that they should be considered for vaccination. Other than that, if it were my child, I would homeschool them. Honestly, I would organize

with other parents to take them out of the school and create homeschooling environments. There's no choice. Your child's life is on the line. It's not a high risk. Vaccination is not a high risk that's going to kill every child by doing so. However, it's enough of a risk that on the average, the benefit is higher for homeschooling than it is for vaccination and being in school. And that's just the bottom line. So your message to parents as we close out the break. My message to parents is to listen to Harvey Risch, to listen to people like Glenn Youngkin,

to listen to all of the other to listen to people like Glenn Youngkin, to listen to all of the other parents who are focusing on education. That seems to be the through line in all of these issues, whether we're talking about COVID or CRT or gender theory or whatever. And it's because education represents the future of the country. That is why the left, that is why the people who are right now in power are so focused on taking more and more of it, getting your kids in these schools for longer and staying there longer and exerting more control over them while they're there and keeping parents further and further away from that process. This is a moment where I think there is a real critical mass to try to grab some of that power back on the crystal ball of our country, which is our nation's classrooms. This is an important moment. It's an inflection moment. Hold the line and don't give up. Hold the line. Michael Knowles,

what a pleasure. Great to see you again. Over in Chicago, it's the mayor versus the cops. John Cass, one of my favorite journalists there. He's amazing. He's back to break it down next. My next guest is a Chicago legend. John Cass worked as a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune for 38 years. He left a few months ago so he could write whatever the heck he wants to with no boss looking over his shoulder. And boy, does he. He's now posting his columns on his website, John Cass, K-A-S-S, news.com, johncastnews.com. Please, please support him. We need journalists like this. He recently called Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Chicago's little Napoleon in pants. So you can see why he doesn't want a boss. But he has been covering politics and lawlessness in Chicago, a city I also hold dear for a long time.

And he's fighting mad right now about the mayor pushing her vaccine mandate on first responders instead of being solely focused on the city's ever growing problem of crime. Welcome back, John. Great to see you. Hi, Megan. Thank you so much. So I want to get into all of that, but I just want to pick it up where I left off with Michael Knowles a minute ago. We were talking about Merrick Gar how as the DOJ continues to crack down, parents are scared. A lot of them, we highlight the ones who speak up, but a lot of them are scared and it's getting harder and harder for parents to find the temerity to do it. I mean, who wants to face a federal investigation? No one wants the FBI at their doorstep. And you write, this is how it begins in part. The lanky man in Norman Rockwell's painting, Freedom of Speech, was produced in 1943

and is part of the war effort. Some on the left will dismiss it as propaganda. Others might get that Norman Rockwell feeling, that craving for the glow of nostalgia that encourages people to crave for what they think were simpler times. But there wasn't anything simple about the time. The world were at war. The Rockwell painting was all America once, a man standing up. We allowed that once. We welcomed Americans speaking their minds, even protesting without dropping the federal hammer on them as if they were terrorists, without canceling them or harassing them at work or at home without killing their careers. And you went on to highlight a woman who I'll let you talk about. She is G. Van Fleet, I think is her name, out of Loudoun County, Virginia, which you've been watching from Chicago as well as we have from the Northeast. So what was important to you about her situation and the country's situation behind this column.

Liberty, freedom, the ability to advocate for your own children with government now occupied by the left reaching ever increasingly into our lives and into the lives of our children. And she showed great courage. She had lived through the cultural revolution of China. And I found her comments to be heroic and moving. And as you can see, I think the entire country has picked up on this feeling. Here is just a small sound by a Xi Van Fleet, Loudoun County parent, who had some thoughts on what we're seeing in our country having grown up in Mao's China. We were taught to denounce our heritage. The Red Guards destroy anything that is not communist, old statues, books, and anything else.

We are also encouraged to report on each other, just like the Student Equity Ambassador Program and the Bias Reporting System. This is indeed the American version of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The critical race theory has its roots in cultural Marxism. It should have no place in our school. Wow. How can you argue with that, Megan? It's a mom who lived through it.

And today, October 28th, back in 1940, it was the day of Ohi. No. When Greece and my father and others there said no to fascism and would not allow the italians to come in and as a result greece was destroyed but they delayed that war delayed the russian advance and i mean the german German advance into Russia by six or eight critical weeks. And I think we're at a point now where Americans have to understand, um, they have to ask themselves,

are we, are we not like the bears in the woods? I mean, if you get between a grizzly bear and her cubs, well, if you've seen the Revenant or any of those movies, you know what happens. And I think that the,

the people who've been pushing this, pushing the FBI, the pushing Merrick Garland to investigate parents as if they were domestic terrorists and then now saying, oh, we're sorry, we didn't mean to. It's too late for that. People have seen the other side of your face, just like a playing card, like a jack, and they've seen it and they don't like it.

And I don't like it. And I don't know what will happen on Tuesday or, you know, in the Virginia election or the rest of the political cycle. But I think that if parents care about their children, they won't care much about their politics. And like the bear, like the grizzly bear, they will defend their cubs. What I love about the piece is it captures even more than that because it's about freedom. Yes, what's happening to our children is deeply wrong and has activated parents who were never politically activated before. But as you point out, it's about it's also about cancel culture and harassing parents and ruining careers and

lives over speech we do not like or a thought we might not like or, you know, a movie that's shown in the college classroom to celebrate something like music that happens to have one offensive scene or what have you. We used to do all those things because we're free to do them. Then one would be free to express one's offense, but it wasn't the end of anyone. Or we used to have something called comedy. Remember where we could laugh? They've taken comedy away. They're taking David Chappelle and they're trying to break him. I mean,

what has happened to this country? And I think it takes people like you, like me, those of us who've been through cancel culture, like I was, which is why I left the Chicago Tribune. I didn't leave the Tribune as much as it left me. And I'm happy now where I am writing what I want. But I think not everyone has, you know, not everyone is Megyn Kelly or John Kess. And they need these examples of people standing up and saying, no, no, no, we're not going to take it. You write, we let that freedom wither from that Rockwell painting, 1943 Freedom of Speech. We let that freedom wither because so many are afraid to speak up. We let it shrink away with our exhausted shrugs.

But she, Van Fleet, did not seem tired. She did not shrug. She was direct, this mom who had seen it and lived it as a girl in communist China. She had something on her mind. She stood up like the man in the painting because she's an American with something to say. Oh, my audience, guys, can't you see why I love this man? Thank you. parent, you want them to love your kid, especially I see it now. We don't have kids in high school, but I talk to the parents who do. They're worried about juniors' college propositions. Exactly. They need the school to work with them.

Megan, they lord that unidentified, unexplained fear. They use it as leverage. Oh, really? You're going to open up your mouth, Megyn Kelly? Well, your child will need good grades to get to college. You know that it's there. I mean, I'm from Chicago, Megyn, where force and the Democratic Party has always been, you know, they've always been twins. One and the same. Yeah. It's a two by four across the back of the head when you're not looking to your business, to yourself, where you say, do I really, do I really want to subscribe to this publication when they, when it's so woke or do I really want to live here when they're harassing my kids? Right. Do, do I really want that? And I think

some people of course, with means have left for Florida, Tennessee, from New York and Chicago, but others don't. The average middle-class family doesn't have that kind of money. So what do they do? You put them in a corner, Megan. You put people in a corner and you take sharp sticks and you jab them. Well, some dogs will lie down and whimper, but some dogs won't. And I worry about the reaction to it because I think that this overreach by the left is irresponsible and is driving people to a bad place. And what we want is a country

where we can all speak, where David Chappelle can tell his jokes and I can write my column and you can do your show. And if you don't like it, okay, fine. Tell me why you don't like it. But you're going to shut me down. You're going to shut my kids down. You're going to make me give my children vaccines that are experimental. What are you, what is going on here? And I have to take it. I have to take it and pretend I like it. Shut up and take it.

It's not in our nature. It's not in our nature. You know, I mean, I just think at heart, we as Americans are used to that freedom. It's been baked into most of our ways of life. And that's why you see these angry parents at the school board meetings. And then you've got Barack Obama trying to save Terry McAuliffe's political fortunes going down there saying, we don't need these phony culture wars. We don't need phony culture wars. He's the one. What are you talking about, phony culture wars?

Phony culture wars? Hey, Barack, how did you buy that mansion in Kenwood? Did the bag man, Tony Rescoe, help? I mean, come on. Cut it out. I mean, I don't understand the, you know, we buy. These are politicians, and they create myths about themselves. And unfortunately, many in the media propagate the myth.

But Barack Obama is just a guy who's a phony from the beginning and I knew him back when he was a phony and when he became a god and stopped the seas from rising. Remember that nonsense? I've stopped the seas from, you know. I knew him when he was hanging out with Tony Resco, the convicted bag man. So I'm not enamored of him or his temple of love and fealty that we're building at taxpayer expense in Illinois. But I just want people to stop and think of that grizzly bear.

Think of that mother, that grizzly bear. You cross a grizzly bear. Think of that mother, that grizzly bear. You cross the grizzly bear's cubs, she's not going to stop. Reminds me. We go out to Montana on vacation and we were pulling out. We were actually there for the whole quarantine, so it was months. And we're leaving. And the whole time when we got to the spring, my kids were like, where are the bears?

Because there's grizzlies in two states, Alaska and Montana. And my kids were like, where are the bears? Because there's grizzlies in two states, Alaska and Montana. And the kids were like, where are the bears? Where are the bears? And we're finally pulling out of Montana to go to the airport. It's our last day. It's one of those 5 a.m. trips where it's still black outside. And sure enough, we look up on the mountainside and there are three baby grizzlies. We're like, oh, my God, there they are. Everyone was so excited're like oh my god there they are everyone's so excited it was

like there they are as we stop the van we're looking the windows come down we're like oh and then it doesn't like what the hell are we doing what are we you know and you can't see the mama which is a bad sign what if she can see you and finally we? And finally, we got back to our senses and said, let's get the hell out of here. This van is going to be no match for a mama grizzly that is separated from her cubs. I'm a fisherman. And before I got married, before Betty and I got married 36 years ago, we went on a fishing trip. I wanted to see if she could handle it. All right.

And so one day we didn't go get up, you know, at five o'clock in the morning, we were going to take it easy. And I'm sleeping late. I can smell coffee and all I hear saying out from the cabin door is, Oh, they're so cute. Oh gosh. And the hair rose on the back of my neck and I got, you know, I got up as best I could and took her to the other door because I was ready to run out the other door if the mother

came. Yeah. It's terrifying. It's fierce. But you know what? I think that this mother that you bring up, C. Van Fleet, the mother from Loudoun County, Virginia, where, you know, I know a lot of people from Loudoun County. So do you. These are mostly federal bureaucrats, senior bureaucrats, mostly, I'd say, liberal in nature or at least supportive of government. You know, government is the answer, people. Not all, but some. And you've got to wonder, if they're turning on the Democrats, then they have a problem. So we'll see next week. Well, and this is a soundbite.

I didn't tell my team was going to be calling for this. It's number six. But look at the anger as the Loudoun County parents there are going after that superintendent who lied to them about the risk of sexual assault in the school, in the bathrooms. The girl who was raped. Yeah, the girl was right. Understanding the description you just gave, which I completely agree with you. It leans left. The parents are not normally going to be. It's not is not MAGA country they wouldn't be out there you know screaming but look at the anger now amongst those parents watch you have failed our students two young ladies were scarred forever you are clearly aware of the sexual assault at stonebridge her life has forever been effective I have lost almost all confidence I've had in this system that I have championed for so long. I do not trust you to ensure the education or the safety of my daughter. You people are disgusting. Props to all the kids who called you out today. Every last one of you resign. Resign today. We will not sit down, shut up, or back off. Resign or be removed.

Shame on you. Just resign, just like your bestie, Beth Bartz. We love all. We have gay, black, white, Indian in our family, and we are all rooting together for Virginia to put children's safety first. Got a little chill there, John. That actually made me feel something. Yeah, it tells me something. There's certain flashpoints, and party doesn't mean anything,

and it's not about what tribe you're on. You're in the tribe of parents, okay? Parents don't like it. And actually, I hope there's something that comes out of this other than just, you know, sending Terry McAuliffe to the ninth circle of hell where he belongs after what he said about parents and schools. Right. No, I hope that they're, yeah, like don't get involved with, you know, we don't want to say what their children are like. I have no right. Those are my kids. Okay, bye. But what I hope happens is that people realize that the schools and the education system, and I'm a father of a teacher and the husband of a teacher, okay? I love teachers. My cousins are teachers, but the, the education crats who are, who are doing this, um, have lost their authority.

And the only way out for parents is real national school choice. And in my column, I'm going to begin, uh, advocating for that even stronger than I have before, because it has to, because something to save not only the Loudoun County, you know, it's one of the richest counties in the country, but also the poorest children in Chicago, in Cleveland, in DC, wherever. They need something else in education. And the people that have led us to this have no standing, as far as I'm concerned, anymore. The teachers, yes, but not the bureaucrats and that whole political structure. Yeah.

I'm done listening to them. The fact that that superintendent of that school in Virginia, in Fair fairfax county still has his job in loudon county sorry you lied how dare they not fire him how dare he even be allowed to resign he ought to be out on his ear yesterday how dare pundits join forces with uh that superintendent and condemn parents who are standing up for their children who had been raped. How dare you? But you know what? We just go along with the poster boy, the poster boy for alleged threats or violence on school campuses, thus warranting the DOJ's investigation. He's all they've got. There's one incidence of alleged violence, and it was with him, and he hurt no one. He was the one placed in cuffs by the cops because he got upset when that woman attacked his daughter's story. That's it. It was obviously a

pretext. They just want their nose in our business. He's been used and abused. The superintendent needs to go. And I'm starting to think Merrick Garland needs to go, too, Supreme Court justice. That's the Merrick Garland who's an apparatchik, who's going along when he knows better, when he knows better, to use and to pretend that I'm going to bring in the FBI and the Justice Department on parents, but really, it's not a threat. It's not a threat to free speech. How stupid do you think we are, sir? I mean, we're not chumbalones. This is, you know, in Chicago, people treat us like chumbalones, the politicians, but we're not. Explain that term. I read your column on that. Explain that term. Okay. Years ago in federal court, there was a cop, former cop who turned bad and became an enforcer for the mob, was being interviewed on the witness stand about what he said on tape, where the mob boss was

telling him, we're going to get cattle prods and we're going to take care of these witnesses with cattle prods, right? Right out of the movies. This is Chinatown in Chicago. So the cop kept nodding. His name was Anthony Passiafumi, but his police name was Tony Doyle. That's how they do it. That's how we roll here, right? He probably had like a bar of Irish spring under his arm when he took the oath but um but anyway so the the on the witness stand he was asked why did you agree to all this why did you

keep nodding your head to cattle prods and all this and he said because I didn't want to look like no chum balone you know idiot stupid and hence the the uh the term chum balone, you know, idiot, stupid. And hence the term chum balone became, I just loved it. I love it too. Because the politician, political class, whether Chicago or Washington, name it, they think we're chum balones and they treat us as such. And because of what you're bringing up and what I'm trying to do and what Steve Van Fleet has done and the other parents is to say, we're not jambalos. We're Americans. We're not going to take it anymore. And we believe in freedom, which leads me to the war between Mayor Lightfoot and the cops. That's where we're going to pick it up

right after this quick break. More with John Cass coming up. John, let's talk about your mayor in Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot. And this push now she like our mayor in New York is pushing the mandates on everyone, the teachers, the cops and so on. And the cops are pushing back. They have not yet all gotten the vaccine. They have not yet all reported their vaccine status as she's requiring. They say 71 percent have reported their vaccine status. Of those, 81 percent say they're vaccinated.

So you've got a lot of cops now who aren't saying and presumably aren't vaccinated. They say per Chicago FOP, more than 3,500 officers have so far declined to report their vaccination status. That's a lot of cops. So what's the plan? Well, the plan is I wish if I could have a magic wand, I'd expect that media in Chicago, which is now totally woke, would examine what's really going on. And they're not. Which is all this, the attack on cops, the demonization of police, that you will do what I say. you know, whether they're already vaccinated, whether they've already had COVID, you know, they went out and had to work for the past year with no protection. Just go out there, first responders, get COVID and struggle through. All that is a distraction from the real issue in Chicago, which is crime. Violent, violent crime.

And also the Democratic Party, Lori Lightfoot endorsed Kim Fox for re-election. One of these George Soros-backed prosecutors. I wrote about her when I worked at the paper and quoted, I wrote about her mentioning what other newspapers from the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, HuffPo, name it, had mentioned that she took money from George Soros, $2 million in campaign contributions. And I got, for my pains, I was defamed by the woke union at the Tribune and I left. So you're not seeing any more of that in Chicago questioning Kim Fox, Lori Lightfoot, their relationship, the permissiveness and the lawlessness. All of it is a piece. They're just ignoring it. So the people of Chicago are angry, Megan, and the cops are angry.

They've had enough. They were pushed around by Lori Lightfoot while she was giving benefits and money to the Chicago Teachers Union. The cops went to work, right? They had to put their hands on people with COVID, right? They had to wrestle on the street with them. They got COVID and got sick. The Teachers Union stayed at home while the kids stayed at home. Oh, just to interject, this reminds me of my very favorite video of the entire COVID shutdown, which was the Chicago teachers doing their dumbass interpretive dance, leaping through the air on camera.

Young, healthy teachers. This is why we can't go. We can't go back into the classroom because it's unsafe. And this is a celebration of our bodies that we'd like to keep safe. Totally able-bodied young people who refuse to teach the kids while the cops are out there dealing with the real criminals day by day. And now the cops are villainized. Sorry. It just brought back a memory that I kind of love. No, no, no. 35 years ago, 36 years ago, I fell in love with Betty Ann Castiglia, a beautiful Sicilian dancer. And she's still my wife today. And she hated, she hated, she's a dancer and choreographer, and she hated that.

You know, she was just sick of it. Wasn't it ridiculous? It was embarrassing. But so much of the woke nonsense is embarrassing. It is, you know, look, you can go, okay, in Chicago, you could, you could go to the, you could go to the store and get, you know, a half pound of American cheese. And these poor deli workers had to be there because they were essential workers, right? But the teachers weren't essential.

I guess they sat at home, you know, while the kids were falling behind in school. It's just the whole thing. So it's a capitulation. Public order has been broken by special interest politics, by people like Lori Lightfoot, who endorsed Kim Fox. I used to support Lori, and when she did that, we were done. And that's where we are now. So she needs to beat up on the cops, uh, to distract from the fact that carjackings are up like what? 500%. What is it? Homicide, 700 homicides shootings.

We're at 4,000 shootings. Kids are getting shot every day. Uh, but you know, let's, let's go wag our fingers at those coppers. Many of whom, cops and firefighters and paramedics have already had COVID. So they, I'm not a scientist, but I keep hearing if you had it, your immune system is, you know, it's better than if you got the vaccine, I guess. I don't know. It can be. No, I mean, we talked about a study in The Lancet showing that six months after your second Pfizer jab, you only have 47% protection against COVID.

And if you had a strong case of COVID, you know, four months ago, you're way more protected, according to that, than you'd be if you were in the status of somebody like me, six months post the second jab. So one of the problems that we have with Kim Fox, and it's under this mayor's watch, is she doesn't have much interest

in prosecuting crime whatsoever. This is the one who let Jussie Smollett go, though she was, ultimately the charges were brought by somebody else, and he's facing that now. But she, like, when I was reading your columns about what's gone on with her dropping charges after charges, she won't prosecute shoplifting cases.

She keeps dropping felony murder cases. And then you talked about there was a street, deadly street gang battle, five suspects, all of them on video. And what did she do? Drop it. Walk. Yeah. Mut mutual combatants. So I guess the theory of mutual combatants is if you're shooting each other, no blood of innocents, no foul or something.

But innocents get killed. There was a woman driving home from the White Sox game back when the White Sox were playing before they got run out of the playoffs. She was on the Dan Ryan Expressway driving to the suburbs. She got caught in the middle of gunfire. Two rival gangs. She's dead. No charges.

They had the shot spotter found the car. They thought they had the driver, but no, no charges, no charges, Kim Fox. And see, it comes to the point like what you mentioned on the permissiveness, like what you mentioned, Michigan Avenue, the crown jewel of shopping in Chicago. I can attest to that. Right? I mean, that's where you used to go. That's where I would be dragged to, to, you know, drop a few money that I didn't have for because she likes something, you know, they call it. Beautiful lace dresses from Burberry.

Yeah, all that. And now you can't go. I mean, you can, but the police have issued a warning to patrons. If you go on Michigan Avenue, just came out a week ago, if you go on Michigan Avenue, you could be robbed because the robberies are continuing. So, Kim Foxx does not want to prosecute shoplifters because in her mind, they're all Jean Valjean and they're just stealing a loaf of bread. I was going to say, what if like I shoplifted?

Do you think she'd come for me? Guess what? If you and I shoplifted, if we hit Burberry and shoplifted, I don't think we'd get away with it. Be a fun experiment. We'll have Abby videotape it under her trench coat, her Burberry trench. But it's not only the fact that they're not prosecuting those people, the perpetrators. It's that if you're down there, like if my wife was down there and there was a gang of shoplifters coming in, say she's at a boutique on Oak Street and a gang of shoplifters come in, grab and everything

and run out. I don't think that shoppers are willing to go back to a place like that. So it's like the poor shopkeeper loses money. They lose his business. The city loses business. But you know what they save? They save their cred, their progressive credit. How's George Soros sleeping at night? Does he have any concerns about crime, shoplifters, gangs? I think he's pretty good,

even though he's endangered an entire city and beyond. But it's not only Soros. And again, I tell you this as I wrote about it, and they came after me and tried to defame me, my own paper, my own colleagues, not management, but my colleagues. So I left. But it's not only in Chicago. It's in San Francisco. It's in Philadelphia. It's everywhere. Everywhere Soros has reached out and spent money to put in people in prosecutorial jobs who are not, I guess you wouldn't call them law and order types. No, the opposite. And you know what? I don't want to see people sent to prison who are innocent. I don't want to see somebody kept in jail for a nonviolent crime, but there comes a tipping point and the tipping point is

happening. It's happening. Like we talked about with on education, it's happening in urban, suburban, uh, America right now. And are you reading about it in the local newspapers? Well, here's what's here's what's crazy here in New York, we just were joined by a woman named Maude Marin, who's running for city council. And she's a lifelong Democrat. And she spoke up against some of this crazy CRT stuff and the racial indoctrination. Lifelong public defender. Okay, so she's the one who you get assigned to when you get arrested, perhaps wrongly, you're indigent, whatever, you just can't afford a lawyer. And the other public defenders came for her guns blazing after she wrote an op ed speaking out about about CRT and said she's a racist bigot for writing that she's a white woman. She lost her job as a public defender. So it's like, OK, so you can't arrest the criminals. And then when they do get arrested and they go through the system, now we're going to go down on public defenders

because anybody who hasn't said only woke things has got to go. And the public is the one that winds up paying. But it's not just the thought of you and me doing a fun, fake shoplifting experiment. You write about the case. I'm not going to fake it.

I'm going to do it for real. Yeah, why not? I mean, I like Burberry. Yeah, why not? I want to see Kim Fox arrest me. One time when I was very young and newly had money, I decided I needed an umbrella from Burberry. And I bought, I got it, it was one of the things,

I got it to the cash register and they told me how much it was and I was too embarrassed to take it back. You know, you ever been there and you're like, I'll just return it later, especially when you're young. Anyway, it was a $200 umbrella. I know Abby's shaking her head. I know. And I was like, how can you charge $200 for an umbrella? They were like, we will replace it in perpetuity. I'm like, what does that mean? So like, if I lose it, you'll just keep giving me new ones? Like, that's a real honor system there.

What if I just give one to, and they're like, no, no, no. If any of its parts break, we'll just keep, I'm like,

this is the biggest scam I have ever fallen for. But it's like Allen Edmonds shoes, but those are, those are a good deal. All right. So yes, I don't have Allen Edmonds. That's a man thing.

That's a man thing. I don't want to mansplain you. No, you got, I can't see to mansplain you. No. I can't see your legs. You got to be sitting with the knees apart. Sorry. No, I sit properly.

Can we talk about what Steve Krakauer, he's in my ear. What did you say? No, that's manspreading. Sorry. I confused. You can mansplain while you manspread. I shall do neither as a guest on Megyn Kelly. Let me tell you something because i do want to get back to chicago crime first but just as a footnote in new york city we're having the same problem between our mayor and our cops among others

first responders about 30 of them are not going to get the vaccine or so they say he's trying to make them or also otherwise they're going home without pay and um this is the latest the police commissioner was asked how the nypd would handle a potential drop in staffers if the vaccination numbers don't increase. 37 percent are still unvaccinated. And police commissioner, quote, would not say problem. They've done it in the past by ordering cops to work 12-hour shifts as opposed to their regular eight-hour tours. Sure, why don't we just dump more stress? Let's just dump more stress on the cops who have had a totally stress-free couple of years. I think that's a great advertisement for Marco Island, for Naples, for Tennessee, you know, for wherever, you know. And the same thing here in Chicago. People, I keep Chicago, people,

I keep saying people vote with their feet. They vote with their feet and you're going to see it. It's happening now. Look at Michigan Avenue. Look at the, uh, at the North in Chicago, the near North side, uh, was a high end, high end condos, you know million dollar condos people are dumping out of them where what area is that when you say near north side what do you mean i'm saying like uh river north you know like north michigan avenue where people you know there are a million dollar condos and the condo prices dropped because she allowed looting the second or was it the third time, Lori?

Third time, looting waves. People vote with their feet, Megan. They're not going to take it. They just don't want to deal with the hassle. I've got one of my favorite Italian restaurants is closing for lunch. The guy says it's just not worth opening at lunchtime. It's in the schools. It's in the schools. It's in the justice system, this crazy

intolerance ideology. It's obviously affecting police and so on. But now, can I ask you about this story that I saw online? One of my, this is a poet who follows me on Twitter and I follow him, and sometimes he sends me interesting stories and I was like, this is insane.

And it's the thing about the chicago docents um who are all basically being pushed out because they're white right that it was um i'm trying to remember which museum is it i'm trying to remember the art the art of chicago yeah one of the great museums of the world where Mrs. Potter Palmer went over to France and bought up all the impressionists, you know, and shouted that her husband could spin over a railroad car or something. Yeah, that art institute. So they're getting pushed out. Basically, it's a bunch of older women who have to go through a lot of training to become a docent because you need like a couple of years and tons of courses and it's an unpaid position. These are the people who take you around the museum and try to educate you on what's in there. It's great. But they're all being pushed out because they're white, literally just for the color of their skin yeah because they're too white

this is the left this is the democratic party this is what they're about so the people who are being pushed out do this voluntarily they love it and you want to do a stereotype okay i'll give you a stereotype middle-aged, maybe older woman, liberal, studied liberal arts in school, loves art, maybe a turtleneck with those wooden beads or whatever. I'm just throwing that out there. It's a good visual. I'm not Mr. Style. My wife, look at him, dressed like a college professor from 1940

so i'm not mr style but brought it home they loved they loved uh their work and anyone who's been lucky enough to you have one or you know the services or be near when uh docent is explaining one of the great paintings, like Greco's Assumption of the Virgin in the Art Institute, or something like that, Two Heads, Side of Beef, surrounded by side of beef by bacon, or I know bacon, right? Or whatever. But you can hear them talk and put the painting in context. It's wonderful.

It's not just a picture to look at. You know, they bring value to the experience. And they're tossed out because they're too white. It's pathetic. it's crazy they um they're the fired docents who had who had offered all this time and devotion to the museum for years were offered a two-year free pass to the museum as gratitude for their previous service literally fired because they were white they had tried to diversify the docent staff by incentivizing people of color to apply and get involved in the program it didn't go anywhere so now the answer is just to fire everybody, fire everyone.

And then I guess you can only get hired if you have the right melanin. And good luck. Why do you think they're going to do any better filling, you know, a hundred positions than they did just trying to fill a few? You know what? I'm done. I'd rather go to, I'd rather, you know, I love that the Art Institute is one of the great museums of the world. Yeah.

And I love the paintings there. I love the experience. I love the miniatures when you first walk in, the little miniatures. I love it all, you know, and the lions, everything. Their wokeness ruins the experience of the Art Institute. Wokeness ruins great newspapers, as you've seen. It ruins our cultural life. I don't have enough time to deal with their nonsense. And people just say, okay, fine.

Fine, I'm out of here. I'm gone. I hope they do. As you say, vote with their feet. And you can help support with your fingers. Journalists like John Cass, again, johncastnews.com. Please go there. Check out his columns.

You will not be sorry. Love talking to you, John. Please come back soon. I'll talk to you anytime because you know what, Megyn Kelly, you are not a chump alone. Okay. And I love to talk to you. Thank you. Thank you too. Coming up Halloween. So we get to have a special ghost show for you. This is gonna be fun. Maybe a little scary. Meantime, download the Megyn Kelly show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify, and Stitcher, youtube.com slash Megyn Kellylly to watch it see you tomorrow thanks for listening to the megan

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