The Megyn Kelly Show - Inspirational Interviews From 2022, Featuring Tim Scott, Dakota Meyer, Rob O'Neill, and More | Ep. 460

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

In today's year-end episode, we look back at some of the most inspirational and wholesome interviews from The Megyn Kelly Show in 2022. Highlights includes Senator Tim Scott, heroes Dakota Meyer and Rob O'Neill, Father Mike Schmitz, author Arthur Brooks, Dr. Carol Swain, and the brilliant Spencer Klavan.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. I hope you and your family had a very, very Merry Christmas. Today, we are bringing you a look at some of the conversations that we've had this year that have left you and me and many others, I hope, inspired, right? Need a little inspo going into the new year. It was hard to narrow it down to just six interviews, but today you have a range of discussions featuring politicians, veterans, authors, even a priest. We begin the show with my conversation with Senator Tim Scott. This is a great one. From episode 370, we discussed Tim's mom and grandfather and a conversation he had with Donald Trump about race that showed a very different side of the former president. Let's talk first about your mom and the special surprise you and Donald Trump arranged for her. Well, Megan, I was talking to the president one day and he said, anything I can ever do, you know, President Trump. President Trump's always saying, you know, whatever in the world

you ever want, please give me a call. I'll be happy to help. And I know he means well, but I don't always ask for anything. Usually I don't. And this time I decided to say, you know what, President, I want my mother to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Air Force One would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I said that I never followed up on it. It's probably more than a year later. I can't remember exactly how long it was. I get a call. President Trump is inviting my mom on Air Force One. And I will tell you what, I have the pictures to prove it. That was one amazing experience. Thank you. A thrilling experience. My mother was so ecstatic about the experience. And President Trump's pulling his chair out for her. And once again, there are no cameras except for the ones taking

the pictures. There's no TV show to watch. This was literally a private exchange with the president of the United States on Air Force One with someone who's been demonized from the day before he took the office, the day before he took the oath. There were already headlines about impeaching President Trump, and yet we don't see the humanity of the individual. And I have been critical of the president when necessary. And so I'm not coming with a lady justice blinders on my eyes. I actually see just fine. And the truth is that I am thankful to live in a country where there is a blindfold on justice. I just want us not to peek around the blindfold when it comes to people we don't like or experiences we don't understand.

In the book, you write about how not only did he give her and insist that she sit in his seat on Air Force One, which he was reluctant to do, but he made her, but he sat with her for the whole flight. I mean, that's really the thing that got me and chatted her up. You said they were laughing so hard. It was hilarious to look back and peek in on. A lot of people in his position, even before he was president, even when he was just a big celebrity, would have said, oh, nice to meet you, glad handing and then moved on and wouldn't want to spend an entire air flight, you know, talking to a stranger who's in her 70s that I mean, that's just the reality. But he did. He's in his 70s, too. You know, he did and really seemed to want her to have a great time. I mean,

I do think that speaks well of him. You acknowledge the abrasive language. We all know President Trump is not perfect. Yes. But to those who think the man's not even human, he's just this monster who's looking who's like drunk on power, wanting to hurt people. It isn't true. There's another side to him. He's human just like the rest of us. Totally agree. And the fact of the matter is when you think about his response in almost every situation where he and I disagreed, he gave me deference. He gave me enough margin to make my case. And he didn't agree with me all the time, frankly. But he always said, is there an alternative? He gave me the pivot, the opportunity to pivot. And that's such an important quality in the leader of the free world to say to someone that he doesn't have to. I hear you. I see you. Now show me a better way for the nation, not for those who supported me. Because as we talk about opportunities zones in a few minutes, the one thing you'll hear is that the voters that he was helping, the constituents that he helped in that decision were the ones that he offended. So he wasn't looking for a way to get them back on the team. That may never happen, but he literally went out of his way to hear the

painful story and the provocative history of race in this country. And at the same time, respond by saying, let's do something that brings opportunities into the most fragile economic communities in this nation. It was a stunning experience. It's a great story because you write in the book about how you were not happy with the president's comments, you know, in total in after Charlottesville. And he had said, you know, the good people on both sides. And he had said that he condemned the white supremacists. But a lot of people, especially people in communities of color, were like too close, didn't like it, offended. The messaging should have been really clear and they didn't think it was.

So you made a comment about that publicly and he called you up and said, let's have a meeting. And you write in the book about how you're like, oh, boy, you know, I feel how I feel, but I know what it's like. What's going to come my way. I'm in his crosshairs now and he doesn't really lose fights. And so this could be highly unpleasant. So you go, you sit down in the Oval Office with him and something remarkable happened.

For 20 minutes, what did he do? Listen, literally listened. I was stunned. I was looking forward to the lecture and hopefully only a 40% drop in my approval ratings at home. But that's not what happened. He actually did what people say he never does. And frankly, I've seen him do it almost every time I've been with him. He actually, Megan, he listened. And he didn't just listen waiting for his turn to talk. He listened to the pain and the misery and the misdeeds that came his way,

President Trump was silent. And when we finished, he did not embrace necessarily my entire view of race or equality, but he didn't reject it either. He simply said, help me help those I've offended. Now- That's amazing. For the president of the United States who catches more Hades than the law allows to say and said, let me tell you what we're going to do. Instead of doing that, he simply said, show me the way. And I offered him something that he understood, which was let's create by redeveloping poor communities. And he said, I'm a developer. I understand incentives. from the private sector invested into the poorest communities across America that led to the lowest

level of poverty ever recorded in America and only a 4% gentrification rate in those communities. It's a stunning success story that he gets so little credit for, especially when it comes to the important topic of race and fairness in America. Well, he and you, because you've been trying to sell that for a long, long time. And you had no takers in the in the Oval Office prior to President Trump. So it was sort of it was sort of divine right order. Right. Because it's like you point out his suddenly without even realizing it, you were talking his language development. This is his business. Yes. Right. So he was like, yes, I get it. Let's do tax incentives for these big corporations to want to build in these opportunity zones, which tend to be largely minority, these inner city pockets that have dealt with more blight

than they have opportunity. And that's what happened. He made it happen. It was stunning. And frankly, when I think about even in my little state of South Carolina, the greatest state in all of the nation, the one thing I can tell you without any question is you go to a rural part of South Carolina called Hampton County. They haven't seen 100 jobs created probably in the last five years because of Opportunity Zones. There's this new thing called an Agricultural Tech Center being developed in rural South Carolina. $300 million investment, 1,500 new jobs, permanent jobs, plus construction jobs, all because President Trump and I got together in the Oval Office after an obstacle, and we turned that obstacle into opportunities. And that's why I'm so, so convinced that America's

greatest days are ahead of her. When two people who disagree on something can do it without being disagreeable, we can see the most remarkable things happen in the greatest country on earth. And when you read America, a redemption story, you'll hear more of those stories where the success of this nation came right after a failure, where the obstacles that we have all had to endure as a country presented the best opportunities.

And the pain of our past has become the promise of our amazing future. I think it's so insightful because I do think that, you know, to see them go after Trump again, it's like he's already had to deal with the ruination attempted of his first term. You know, with the Russia gate, which did not hold up, put it mildly. Zero. Right. Two impeachments, the criminal prosecutions, the going after his family, his close advisors. You know, half of his administration has now been publicly embarrassed by Merrick Garland's DOJ and cuffs and, you know, prosecuting people for contempt of Congress when they never did that under Democratic organizations or representation. In any event, I think people have had it like this is a bridge too far what

they're doing to him. He he he's rough around the edges. I have all people know that. And you can do the mean tweets and all that. But there's a bigger story about President Trump. And it's exactly that Opportunity Zone story. It's what he did, what he made up for in sort of finesse, I guess, for lack of a better word, what he lacked in finesse, he made up for in policy that actually changed lives. I could tell you the same story about women, you know, in the Anti-Sex Trafficking Act, which they could not get through with any other president. But then Donald J. Trump, despite his some of his language about women and some of the accusations that have been made against him,

he's the one who got it through. Right. So it's like these Democrats have been told a story that is agenda driven by the MSNBCs of the world. And the consequences of that are in the news every day. This is just the latest example. Well, Megan, you said it right. And one of the most important things that you've said is how exhausted Americans are with all the division, with all the sniping back and forth. It's one thing to target someone, but to target them for every single day of their administration and every single day after they've left, it's exhausting to watch. Whether you're Republican or Democrat, whether you are conservative or progressive, the one thing we should all want is a consistent standard of

justice applied to all Americans. And the one thing that we're seeing today is the contrast between justice for those we like and justice for those we don't like. And frankly, we know that if there are two standards, there's only injustice. There is no justice. And one of the things I struggle with through the book was the injustices that I felt that I was a victim of. And my grandfather walking to me one day and said, you're never a victim. You may have been victimized in your life, but you have to choose today. Are you a victim or are you going to be victorious? There's only one road ahead.

If you're going to be a victim, you will always be a victim. And if you're going to be victorious, you will have to overcome the challenges that present themselves in your face. And I'm thinking to myself, my grandfather born in 1921 in Sally, South Carolina, in the deep South, stepping off of a sidewalk if a white person was coming. This is the guy that's telling me not to be bitter and to never be a victim. The man that was forced to stop his education in the third grade who never learned to read is telling me, don't let what people call you decide what you answer to. This is a man whose wisdom was beyond my years and his years combined, but it was a man who had so much faith

in America that somehow, some way, his children and his grandchildren would experience a very different America. And I am so thankful that I am. I'm experiencing, in many ways, the best of what America is. And as you look at my grandfather, you look at my mother, you just know that the scars that they bear, I am now able to use that scar tissue to make it easier for the next generation. It shouldn't be about those of us in elected office. It shouldn't be about a swamp in Washington. It shouldn't be about the capitals in the nations, the capitals around the country. It should be about the people. The people are our greatest blessing, not those who are in government. The whole book has the same tone in that you could easily look back at your grandfather's life, your dad's experience, your mom's experience, and say, this is a racist country and there is no redemption. And instead, you see it very differently. You see it as, yes, there's racism.

There always has been, but we are making steady progress. We appeal to our better angels. We've been going in the direction of the angels steadily for the past hundred years plus. And my grandfather's story and my family's story is evidence of that. One of the stories that stood out to me is, you point out that the guy who held your Senate seat for I don't know how many years, a couple of generations ago.

Yes. Cottonhead. Yes. Can you tell us? Make that point. Because I was like, my God, I believe is what we called him, had my seat, gosh, two generations ago. And he was an avowed racist who literally was undeniably wanting blacks out of the country and certainly out of any leadership positions. And one of the stories I tell there is that I now have that man's seat because it was never his seat. Like, it's not my seat. The seat always belongs to the American people or in South Carolina to the Gamecock fans and I guess the Tiger fans as well. But the truth is that in America, political seats continues to evolve because the nation and the voters continue to evolve. And one of the things I write about, Megan, is the fact that you think about 2010 in this country, the Tea Party movement,

and I get into a very crowded race with the son of Strom Thurmond in Charleston, South Carolina, where the Civil War started. And I end up winning a very competitive race against his son in a runoff because the evolution of the Southern heart had come to the point where the vast majority of voters were willing to judge me on the content of my character and not the color of my skin, even though I was running against one of the greatest namesakes in South Carolina history, a Thurman. So if that doesn't speak to the progress that this nation is making, I don't know what does. The fact that we've had an African-American president, we've had an African-American vice president, we've had an African-American head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we have an African-American who's the head of all the military today, we have had an African-American running American Express. Supreme Court justices. Supreme Court justices. I mean, when you take a look at the progress made and you don't look at both sides of the ledger, how do you come to the conclusion that America is a racist country? We may struggle with the issue of race, but the truth is that I said it and Kamala Harris has said it, Joe Biden has said it as well, that America is not a racist country. Now, here's what I'm going to challenge all leaders to do. Let's act like it. Let's not sell to people this division that is easy to conquer so that you win an elected office. If you have to win through anger and win through division, you might win, but the country loses. And ultimately, if the country loses, the world loses. I'm not willing to let America think that we're divided when we are the greatest

force on earth for good. Nothing close, no second place. We are the city on the hill. We are the beacon in the midst of the storm. I get a chill. I love this. Wait, I want to tell one story before I squeeze in a quick break. Yes, ma'am. Can you, like, just speaking of the progress that we've made as a country and also the lack of bitterness, the story of your grandfather who couldn't read, you point out in the book, he was born in 1920, 1920, 1921. Yes, ma'am. And two years earlier than that, a black man had been had been beaten to death for not stepping off the sidewalk as a group of white men came by. So that's the time your grandfather was born into in South Carolina. And then you take us forward to 2008 and a man named Barack Obama, who happened

to be black, was running for president. And your grandfather, who still couldn't read, went to vote. Can you tell us that story? Yeah. I still get a little emotional about it, to be honest with you. I was just thinking about this last night. So my grandfather, 2008, he's, you know, can't believe the progress that's been made in America. You got to think about it. He's 86, 87 years old, and I'm taking him to vote. And for the first time, there's a choice in the ballot where there's an African-American person running for president. And my grandfather cannot believe it. And so we walk into the polling place and the lady at the counter, knowing that I'm a Republican, seeing my grandfather looks like me a little bit, and is not going to be voting for a Republican. So she thinks, even though he did vote for me, thank God for that part. But so we're going into the voting booth, much to her chagrin. And literally she's trying to tell my grandfather, we can get someone to assist you and not this Republican. And with great respect, he's like, read the hand, read the hand. And so we go in there and I tell my grandfather, I said, granddaddy, look at that name.

And he has a photographic memory. I said, look at the name, that's Barack Obama. I want you to memorize that so that when you see it on TV, you will know the name you voted for. I didn't know who was gonna win at that point in time. And so I pushed a button to light up his name. And I said, granddaddy, I need you to hit that green button. The green button, of course, is vote.

And he hit that button. And we walked back to the car. And the first time I saw my grandfather cry was April 29th, 2001, when his wife of 56 years passed away. The second time I saw my grandfather shed tears was that night after voting for Barack Obama. And if you ever wonder how blessed we are to live in this amazing nation and how much progress we've made in this nation, think about a man named Artis Ware and how far we've come. Wow. Senator Tim Scott, you're amazing. Coming up, a memorable moment from my conversation with two inspirational military veterans whose story you are likely to know very well. Former Navy SEAL Rob O'Neill and former Marine Dakota Meyer have each been on the show separately, but in episode 270,

they joined the Megyn Kelly show together. The discussion we had that day was at times emotional, at times hilarious, but the discussion on teamwork and how to handle fear off. Dakota, you, I can't skip past my, my cheerleader story without talking about your cheerleader story. And it's not what the audience is thinking. It's not like the young, hot Dakota Meyer and the cheerleaders. It's a lesson about learning to trust and how important it is and staying humble, which you, I understand were taught firsthand while in high school. Absolutely. I was a football player, unlike Rob. I wasn't getting beat up, unlike Rob. I got to bring up old stuff.

But yeah, I was your typical, I ran track, played football, played some basketball. And that was kind of, that's what I did. And so there was these, uh, you know, they're like sisters, uh, these girls and, uh, Mary McKenzie and, um, they were cheerleaders. And so, you know, I was always have, we read that, you know, brother, sister kind of, uh, like lingo, your conversation, whatever you want to call it, picking on each other. And I was like, you guys are cheerleaders. Like that's not even a real sport. And, uh, so then they're, you know, they're like, well, well, you should come with us. And I was like, I'll come, I'll come one day. Yeah. I'll come to your cheerleading gymnastics or whatever it was. And so we went over and it was a, I guess it was like a travel team or,

or whatever. And so got over there and I did their, their gymnastics. And we did, you know, where you do back tucks and things, back handsprings and whatever. And, um, afterwards they were going to do like some stunt stuff. Well, they had this great idea that, uh, in a basket toss, you know, the back is, is like really the person that, you know, catches the head of, of the person that you're tossing. Uh, they're the person that, you know, is throwing, throwing, uh, you get, you get probably the most leverage on throwing. So I, um, we had this girl, her name was Keisha.

She was tiny. And so like, come over here and do this basket toss. And I'm not going to lie. Like, uh, hanging out with a bunch of girls was not so bad. Um, and went over there and threw up, you know, got, got under it. And I was like, I'm going to show, I got to show off. There's all these girls watching. So I threw Keisha and the ceiling in this place was not, was not the highest. And, uh, I'll never forget, like Keisha went up in the basketball. So she had to lay flat so that

she didn't slam into the ceiling and came back down and I caught her and, you know, and there was just, it was really humbling for me to, you know, see just what it took to be a cheerleader. And so obviously I had to join, uh, you know, I was forced to join. It wasn't that I liked it or anything. Um, but just like being, you know, understanding and just seeing like, you know, just the athleticism that it took for those girls to do that and to be part of it was something that, yeah, I got taught and to be humble about it. Um, I got taught real early.

And to trust the people that they're going to catch you. You know what I mean? That's like the military summed up in a line or two, right? Like you got to, nothing's going to happen unless you trust each other to have each other's back. You get thrown up in the air or you go out first on the mission. It doesn't happen unless you've got this brotherhood or sisterhood. Yeah. And it's the same thing in life, right? You know, everything I've done, whether it's played football, whether it's work on a farm, um, whether it's, uh, be a firefighter, whether it's be a cheerleader, whatever it is, you know, uh, everything's been a team sport for me in life's a team sport. The, the need to maintain calm in stressful situations, whether it's being tossed up with the ceiling coming towards your

face like Keisha did, but not panic has been a central theme, really, I mean, of both of your stories, really. I mean, in extreme circumstances, the ability not to panic cannot be overstated, but not everyone has it. And it's one of the things they try to train you when you're getting ready for these missions. And I know, Rob, you've talked about how fear, like when people say, like, how do you not get afraid? And you're like, I don't know. Don't ask me. I'm afraid every time. But there's a line between fear and panic. Not everyone can find it. Talk about it and how you mastered it. That's a tough one to teach. It needs to be learned through observation. And I remember even the first time I went to war, I was assuming the worst.

Suicide bombers everywhere, gunfights everywhere. And as I'm creeping around, wasting energy, trying to hide behind everything, every step I take, I look at my boss, and he just looked really cool. He was calm. And I just remember thinking, I want to be like that. I want to be cool like that. What I've learned is calm can be contagious. No one can tell what you're feeling inside. But if you portray calm, everyone around you will be calm. And that'll happen. But fear is fine. Fear makes you think more clearly. Fear is when you're watching a movie and you can hear everything in your house. That's fear working for you. But it's when you start to freak out that it's dangerous. Like panic is very, very contagious.

The proof is recent. I will prove that panic is contagious. It's called, I call it the great toilet paper debacle of 2020. The reason that happened, as far as I know, and as far as most people should know, using toilet paper is not a survival necessity. It's just nice to have, you can get on with it without toilet paper. But someone freaked out at a store and bought all the toilet paper. And some asshole watched him do that. And he sprinted to the next store and he bought it all. And some other asshole watched him do it. And then everyone started doing it, bam, we're out of toilet paper because one person panics, we all start to panic. And that's how it is. I mean, you can see it. It's actually fun. I get to go in airports all the time. I flew in here where I am today. I'm

flying out tonight. I get to see people in airports and people are generally nervous in airports. That's why there is no such thing as drinking alcohol too early as a problem in the airport. But watch people as somebody moves anywhere. As soon as they announce, hey, we'll be boarding this flight in 15 minutes, look around and watch people as one. It's like watching a herd of cattle. They start to move their heads. They start to stand up.

And God forbid someone from zone five tries to board with zone one. That's when the fight breaks out. And it's that thing where everybody panics. But we talked earlier about muscle memory. Once we get on the plane, muscle memory, how you should be, you know, do everything like you do anything. I guarantee you the guy talking really, really loud on his phone in first class about how important he is and his business trip. He doesn't know where his life vest is. He doesn't

know how to open an emergency exit because he's too good for that, but he certainly could be the first one on the plane. And then, you know, once I always said kind of, I don't want to be in a bad one, but like a semi crash, I want to see how people respond on a plane as you need to get out. Who's grabbing their iPads? I heard about the flight that went down in the Hudson when Sully Sullenberger, he said he was the last one in the plane. They're in the Hudson, which I'm assuming has got to be not normal. He said he was walking through the plane. Some dude came out of the bathroom in nothing but his boxer shorts. He went in there, got his boxers, and Sully said, what are you doing? And he said, well, we're going to swim, aren't we?

Huh? What? What? Yeah. So that's panic, and panic can overtake you. But if you're good enough, if you've done, like Dakota said, if you've done everything in your life to get to that point, and muscle memory needs to take over,

hopefully you shot the free throws like you should have. Hopefully you did everything every single time and you're good at it or you're great at it. And I mean, it's January, the Hudson, I'm not jumping in there in my box. You know,

I'm, I have a mild fear. I mean, Rob, Rob's been kicked off playing. Oh, I want to, I want to know more.

Did that make news? Should I know about this? Okay. But you're in no position to, you are in no, no position to cast stones, Dakota, you little Medal of Honor winner. No, you have not. Because I teased earlier that one thing that happened at your Medal of Honor ceremony Obama, the whole bit, very moving. And at Fox News, we take the whole ceremony, put it on, wonderful stuff. Dakota wasn't necessarily all there at that appearance. Apparently, speaking of drinking booze in the airport, it can happen before a Medal of Honor ceremony too. Yeah. I mean, what do you expect when you invite 200 and some Marines to the White House? We were founded in a bar, just so you know. We got there and they were serving drinks.

Everybody wants to have a drink with you. You got to have a drink with me. We were drinking and drinking. I'll never you know everybody went in to sit down they they actually ran um the white house ran out of beer uh they ran out of beer at the ceremony and they had to find a way to get more in which it's not just going down to the 7-eleven on the corner that was very risky by you speaking of your big risks i mean can you imagine if you would like thrown up in the middle of the medal of honor ceremony would have been awful no right you know sometimes i don't really think about those things uh you know i uh but i'll never forget i didn't realize how so everybody wanted to sit down i didn't realize how drunk i was until you know me the president and uh you know michelle we walked in after everybody was in there together

and i'll remember walking in and i'm like i am wasted and so i'm standing up on stage and there's this moment you know because like the whole back of the room is lined with cameras and i promised there was nobody who uh didn't want to be there more than me. And so I'm standing up there, you know, my family, they're all fighting already, or some of them. And so I'm standing up there on stage. And you know, I'm at position of attention. I hadn't been in a uniform in two years, you know, and I'm up there and I'm standing position of attention. I know how Marines are like, if you do one thing wrong, you know, they're going to crucify you and you've just, you know, ruined the legacy of the United States Marine Corps. Right. And so I'm standing up there

and I'm sweating so bad because these lights from the cameras and I go and I'm so drunk that I have to go up and I'm just, I'm like, and it's, you don't ever touch your face and I can't do it. So I've got to wipe the sweat off. And I thought that I was crying. And all these cameras start going off like everywhere. And I'm like, yeah, I was just wiping my head off, guys. It's all good. Yeah, not it. Not it. I'm just drunk. Well, the other thing is, with respect, you're a little heavier in that particular shot in that video than you are now. And certainly then when you were fighting and you write about that too, in that video than you are now. And certainly then when you were fighting and you write about that too in the book

and about your friend who gave it to you straight. Like everyone needs this friend. I usually think it was just a woman thing, you know, because we need the friend who will be like, your ass does look fat in those jeans. You should not be wearing those. And you have your ass looks fat in those jeans friend. I did.

His name is, his name's Tim Kennedy. I don't know if you ever heard of him. Yes. Yes, of course. Yeah. We had him on. Yeah. Just, just an incredible guy. He's no, he's a no bullshit kind of guy. Um, and I moved to Austin and I was going through, I was going through my divorce, which was just, you know, by far, I would rather go through you know five afghanistan's than a divorce and um and and you know i i remember coming into the gym we were working out on it myself him and another guy we're working out just on it and it's kind of on it was kind of like my the gym was my kind of my like my my grounding piece to get me through this right working out and working and working with Tim and Shane, uh, and Juan. And

they, they, they, it was my getting me through this, right. Like they were literally, um, the people, you know, when you talk about contagious, right. Like they were the people around me that were holding the line. And I'll never forget. I came in one day and I was just, you know, probably looking for some, maybe a little empathy. Uh, and I came in and I was like, man, um, I said something about like, I'm fat. Yeah. I said, about like i'm fat yeah i said i think i'm fat and uh and tim kind of like or i'm weak or something i can't remember what the exact line was but tim looked at me and he goes hey hey check it out um people look up to you as as a warrior and uh you need to look like one you understand and I'll never forget I'm already down because my whole life

is shattering around me and that was Tim's way of empathy but you know you have to surround yourself with people who tell you what you need to hear not what you want to hear that's Richard um you know it's such a so many times we surround ourselves in and I see this a lot we surround ourselves with people who make us feel good you know and that's the same thing that i was doing when i got out of the marine corps was i was i was surrounding myself with people that made me feel good and i was eating things that made me feel good and that's why i looked um like this fat piece of trash i think i think dakota learned a lesson I learned from my grandma.

She said there's a big difference between a surprise party and an intervention. I needed an intervention. And my life didn't really get back on track. It didn't really start going forward until I started surrounding myself with people who would hold me accountable. Coming up, the host of the mega hit podcast, The Bible in a Year, joins me for a frank and fascinating conversation. In episode 399, as part of our two-year anniversary week, we had on Father Mike Schmitz. I was so excited to get him. He's a tough guest to get. He's busy with the Lord and other people. But we got him. He joined the show. And still to this day,

I'm getting stopped by people on the street to talk about this. We talked about the raunchiness of the Bible and how we can all navigate a cultural landscape that seems so divided these days. I love crime podcasts. I'm, you know, one of those women who I'm into crime and I love Dateline. And I can have Dateline on playing when my children walk in the room. But Father Mike and Bible in a Year, we're on Sodom and Gomorrah. I'm like, when the kids walk in the the kids there's some r-rated chapters in there did you i don't know if someone asked me about this last week they said when did you start putting

in like the uh like disclaimers at the beginning that by the way if there's children present you because we had so many people writing writing to us saying okay we were listening as a family in the car and you started talking about, and I was like, oh shoot. So the Bible is not for kids. A lot of incest. Yeah. And you're like, oh gosh. So that's, and that's the thing that takes so many people by surprise is, because think about even the story of Noah. And I mean, that's, that's in virtually every children's, you know, picture Bible, every children's whatever, like, oh yeah, Noah and the ark and the flood and the, and the, and the rainbow. Okay. And the flood right in

there, like where everyone died. Yeah. That's part of the story. And it's one of those where I think sometimes as adults were like, I remember hearing these stories as a kid where I just kind of passed by as opposed to, wow, I really have to engage with the Bible's not a Hallmark. I always say like, it's not the Hallmark channel. It is right. No, it's not. It's HBO, especially the old Testament. The old Testament was like, okay, buckle in, get ready. Yeah. And I think it treats us like people who actually live in the world, which is one of the things that I found has been that when people, so I got a letter from this man, maybe two months into when the podcast first aired. And he had said that he was a committed atheist and that he had raised his children as committed atheists and that he read the Bible a couple of times.

But he said he started listening to the podcast and he said, I don't know what it was. Maybe it's the explanations. Maybe it's the context that you're offering. But he said, I know I come to believe like I've come to, I can actually profess faith in this God and in Jesus. And I was like, this is incredible. But one, I think part of that is, I think part of that is the Bible's written with the real world in mind, but oftentimes we

approach it as if the Bible is like a magical book or as if the Bible, again, is a children's book and doesn't actually have anything to say to my brokenness or my broken family or, or the fact that, okay, I thought I was called at one point, like, you know, to be belong to God, to be great. But then I've got all these wounds. I've got all this failure, this string of failure in my history. And you realize when you read the Bible, oh, that's, that's what all our history is. All of our history is this promise, but then the string of failures, but in the middle of it is a God who doesn't take back his promise. And I think that when people begin to approach that and realize,

internalize it, then it's like, wait, this is actually about me. This isn't a foreign book entirely, at least not the way I thought it would be. No, you always end feeling a little bit more hopeful, a little bit better about yourself, about your time here. That's one of the things I love about it is you learn a little bit and just always feel a little better. I wouldn't say it's exactly the same as when you walk out of mass on Sunday, but it's in that same general field. And we need a little hope in today's day and age, given the news cycle and especially as Catholics. I want to ask you about what we've seen since I guess we went back and looked. It wasn't just since the Dobbs decision was released that overturned Roe versus Wade. It's actually been since the release of the draft

of the Doves opinion, which happened on May 2nd, about a month plus before the actual decision was released. Since then, there have been criminal attacks on 63 pro-life organizations in 26 states and the District of Columbia, including on June 7th, when arsonists firebombed and vandalized Compass Care Pregnancy Services medical office in Buffalo. Also, more than 30 Catholic churches attacked since the Dobbs leak. This is so crazy. And in 17 of those, they made clear it was about abortion. What have you made of this?

And sadly, the media has ignored it for the most part. Right. I, that's the part, that's the part that is, is shocking to me. That's the, is if I, if I step back, I get it. And in the sense that if, if you feel under attack, then you want to lash out. So, so that part of it is, um, again, obviously not condoning and not even saying like, this makes sense, but I can understand how someone, if they're in a place where, wait a second,

I've had this, what I consider to be a right to have an abortion. And now it's being taken away, a right's being taken away from me. I get the idea that you'd want to lash out. At the same time, I don't get the, I don't get the reality that you've, this might be for many people. The first time they've heard of that is when you just mentioned it. And that part of it makes no sense to me because here is clearly something that's clearly illegal. That's clearly violent.

That, that is what's going on in our world and in our country and our culture, that that should be something that I would say is newsworthy and noteworthy. And to not report on that is a, I think is, is it there being dereliction of duty is, is I think what, what that would be ultimately. You know, when I say I understand it, I want to clarify, I don't know if you've seen like the Louis CK has this bit about, about abortion and he, he kind of goes this line where he says, you know, either I'll say it in my paraphrase, uh, either, either it's no, it's just like going to the bathroom or it's a baby. Like easy. It's one of those two. It's either just, no, it's a procedure, like going to the bed, no, no more morally significant than going to the bathroom or it's

a baby. So he says those people who are outside of an abortion clinic who are praying or who are, you know, holding signs. Now, of course, I think virtually every Christian, I know if you're a Catholic Christian disavows those people who would resort to violence. That's absolutely. But, but those people are praying outside abortion clinics would say like, you know, I don't want this to happen. Why? Because I believe it's a baby. He has this bit about, you know, people are so like, why, why are they so intent out there? Why are they so, so passionate about out there? He says, because they believe that it's a baby and you would expect them to be a little passionate and not just kind of like, you know, whatever, whatever, do what you

want. And I think there's something about that. I can understand on the other side, if someone were to say, I believe that I have this right. And I believe this right is being stripped from me. So I'm going to react now, of course, does it make sense? I mean, I don't want to be circular. I just, I don't, it's because I think that there's something, there's something about seeking to understand when you, when we see this, what I don't, it's because I think there's something, there's something about seeking to understand when you, when we see this, I don't want to say crazy behavior. When you see this behavior, that is, I would say is clearly wrong. You'd say, but these are real people who are doing this behavior.

So that means I could do this. If like the circumstances were right. And I was convinced of something that I know that whatever I've seen anyone do, that would be wrong, would be evil. I have the same kind of heart and I'm not maybe inclined toward that kind of thing, but I always have to step back and say, okay, what would the circumstances be that would lead me to do something like this? And unless, unless I really investigate myself, I will never be able to talk with someone who would think that this would be the right thing to do. That's the thing about you.

You're the least judgy priest I've ever heard. I mean, I thought that judgment came with becoming a Catholic priest, that that's part of like the deal. And you are the least judgy priest. You have, you know, your moral principles and you'll espouse sort of what you think those principles are as taught by the Bible, as handed down by God. But you are always looking for a way to be gracious to people, even in this circumstance we're talking about right now. I mean, what's so crazy to me about the bombing of the pro-life clinics is, again, to say what you said, it's not that I understand the desire to go assassinate Sam Alito. It's not like I support it, but at least logically, I see the line. Okay. Like he's the guy who was, it was Kavanaugh, but Kavanaugh was

part of the majority. But like a pro-life clinic, they're probably not in favor of Roe versus Wade, but they're actually just helping pregnant women who have chosen to have their babies. So what is even controversial about them? You know, like who, what kind of sick twisted person? It's not just a one-off, as I say, it's, you know, 63 of these places got attacked in the past couple of months. Who, like, it makes no sense. Right. Yeah, exactly. Because I, and I think that you can look at this and say the, what has been the, I want to say demonization, cause that's very dramatic at the same time. It might be the only appropriate word when it comes to people who are, so I would, I consider myself pro-life shock.

And I would say that, that what that means is of course, I I'm pro the life of the baby. I'm also pro the life of the mother. I'm also pro like post-birth help and assistance of whatever we can do as a church and we can do as Christians to help people who are helpless. I mean, if you read the Bible, once again, it's who do you take care of? Okay. The poor, the widows, orphans. Why?

Because they need the help. And that's one of the things that is so important for us. It's like, why do we help? Because someone needs it. And that's why I love the definition of mercy being mercy is the love that we need the most and we deserve the least. And that's just, that's for everybody. It's like, you don't qualify for my love. You just need it. To have that experience is just the worst because here you are going in like, okay, I'm approaching the throne of mercy, right? I'm approaching the seat of mercy. I'm approaching

this God who I've been told, and I do believe that he loves me and he loves me in my brokenness. A hundred percent. Absolutely. But then to have that heartbreak, I really do mean it like this. I did cry. Yeah. I can't, I can't imagine. I can't imagine how hard it would be, um, for anybody. Um, but to be able to say, okay, here I am. And cause, because I imagine Megan, that there's an element to, of just, I feel rejected. Um, and even the fact that you are still saying, no, but I'm still raising my kids Catholic. I'm still going to mass. I'm still, you know, striving. I'm still doing my best. That's incredible. And I would say that that is, that is a sign of what we would call like lively faith. That's a sign of a faith that's alive.

Is that, okay, because I had this bad experience and because, okay, I was told some things that I really am wrestling with right now, but'm still coming back i cannot commend you enough because that is that's remarkable i can't imagine going through the heartbreak and then still saying well here we are on sunday you know um but i imagine it yeah i can't imagine how much it must appear to broken your heart um the other option essentially would be maybe you mentioned this would be to apply for a declaration of nullity for that first marriage. I have looked into that. It is the most intrusive document. I don't know if you've looked at these things, but it's like, how many times did you do it? It was so much information. I'm like, oh my God, I'm not giving all this information to a total stranger. Yeah. And that makes sense too, because on the flip side, while it is very, every person who participates in it has to go through like a really big kind of examination of

what was our married life like in that first marriage? I've spoken with a lot of couples who have, you know, individuals who have gone through the process and said, that was more healing than I thought it would be. Because that's part of what the annulment process is meant to be. It's meant to say, okay, let me go back in as painful as it could be. Let me go back there and let's walk through this story again. Can I just get a Jesuit to absolve me? They're the easygoing priests. Because then ultimately the story would be this. The story is, the Lord, here's what I would say. And this is not to, here's what I know about you, Megan. I know. I know that God loves you very much.

I know that. I know that he's given you the gift of faith. And I know you have a story. We all have stories. That's the thing. We all have a history, but here's what I know. The God is a part of that story and your story isn't over yet. There is this obstacle, but you have an incredible marriage now and you credible kids. And that is real. And that's part of the story. That's again, it's not like saying it's not part of the story. It's a hundred percent part of the story. And the invitation is not again, to have a marriage where your brother and sister, I think that part of that story would be able to

say, okay, can I, can I apply for this declaration of nullity? Can I address this issue of this wound? I'm going to imagine that the divorce was a wounding thing too. I can imagine having so much hope in that first marriage when it starts out and then having so much heartbreak when it ended. But I do believe this. I do believe that the God who has loved you still loves you. And the one who you have faith in right now, I don't think this is the end of your story. I think this would be a really good next step. At the same time, I know that that's not, it's not quick. It's not easy, but here's where I don't jump. We know that there are objective things for all of us that like, okay, this is a no, you have to

always not do this. Here's a yes. You have to always do this. And we fail at that, but I can never jump and say, well, Jack, you did X, therefore you're going to hell because I don't know the story. I only know the surface of the story. And I hardly even know that. I know some details you just shared with me. So I know there's some, okay, objectively, here's what, here's where we're at right now. But also that's one of the reasons why Jesus makes it very, very clear. He says, do not judge lest you be judged. You cannot condemn lest you be condemned. Because you never, we never know someone's full story. And I would say that, again, going back to this place, and I really mean this, Megan,

your story isn't over. And I believe that God wants to continue blessing you and your family. And I think maybe one of those ways he can continue blessing you and your family is that next step of the declaration of nullity. And again, I don't mean to be intrusive right now. I'm so sorry that I'm like, I feel like I'm preaching, but I just, you brought it up. So there. I feel like he blessed me today with this interview

and just getting to meet you and hear your thoughts and your explanations. And Abby, get those forms and you start filling them out. You know what happened in the first marriage. When we come back, part of my conversation with the brilliant, like he actually might be the most brilliant person walking amongst us on earth right now, Spencer Clavin. We always love having Andrew Clavin on the show. He's brilliant.

But in episode 382, his son, Spencer Clavin, made his first appearance. I am his fan. I listen to his podcast, Heretics. I read whatever he writes. And so I've been looking forward to meeting him. He is so smart and thoughtful. I mean, this is what you get when you have Andrew Clavin producing children. You get Spencer Clavin, totally predictable in his brilliance and his approach to the world.

Smart, thoughtful. And our conversation on being a man and a woman in 2022 was absolutely fascinating, along with balancing work and life. I think you're going to enjoy this. Let's talk about women in 2022. And I know you and your dad have both said what I believe too, which is like, well, we've gotten to this weird place, this dangerous place where we demonize homemakers, where they're, you know, maybe a little less so now. The right is starting to push back on that or has been for some time. But still, I mean, in Democratic circles, a lot of them that I know, women who stay at home feel embarrassed about it. It's ridiculous.

I remember being at a I've told a story before, but I was at my daughter's school. We were having a mom's meeting and it was an all girl school. And one of the moms was saying that whenever she leaves the house, she's a stay at home mom. She says to her daughter, Mommy's going to a meeting. I have a meeting. And she wants the daughter to think that because she thinks it makes her sound more important. And I was like, what are you doing that for? Like, who cares? You tell her like mom's a stay at home mom because I love you and I want to be there for you. And it doesn't mean if you're a working mom like I am doesn't that you don't love your kid, but there's absolutely no reason to make excuses for your choice. And by the way, even if you don't have a kid, even if you decide to be an Upper East Side stay at home housewife, good on you. If that's what you want, go for it, sister. Do it and do it without embarrassment. Like be a great wife. Lean into your friendships. What a lovely way to go through your existence if that's if that works for you. But you have to do it unapologetically. Now we're at this place where every girl school and I have a I have two boys and a girl. My daughter's 11. Every single girl school. And we've you know, we've only done girl schools during her 11 years. It's like STEM, STEM, you will be a scientist. With no pausing, no thought for like, what if she winds up really loving literature? Like, is that too girly? Is that too female for you? So she's got like hardcore science being shoved down her throat on the one hand, which I don't know that she's going to want at all. And then on the other hand, you've got every other input she gets, which is pretty much the opposite of STEM. It's the

Lizzo's. It's the Kim Kardashian's. It's the Meghan Markle's. And the message is basically narcissism. Yes. Well, it's both of those things are things you would say to women if you hated them. I mean, that is really the point of that comedy a lot of feminism, basically since the feminine mystique. This is Betty Friedan's kind of inaugural text of second wave feminism. We were talking about Gloria Steinem earlier, these new left folks who come along and look with eyes of disgust upon homemakers in the suburbs. And, you know, they're drawing upon a lot of discontents that were certainly there. I think everybody was feeling a certain spiritual malaise at that point in time. But the caricature of womanhood that you get when you go back to that to to that book, you know, you find her saying things like it's really it's like being in a concentration camp.

Seriously, I mean, I'm not making this up. This is like, you know, it's the comfortable concentration camp where you lose your identity and your soul. And you see this now when you get articles in the New York Times, right, about if you calculated the amount of money that you would have to pay a homemaker for her labor, you would pay her a billion dollars or whatever number they've come up with. But of course, it's preposterous precisely because the work of a homemaker exists outside of dollars and cents. That's the whole point. It's inestimable. A billion dollars would be an insult to a mother that stays home to raise her child because she gets paid back in love. And this is something that you again, I come back to this thing about caricaturing the great works, telling people not to read the great works by just

pretending that they are something entirely other than they are. They depend upon you're never having actually cracked the books that would tell you otherwise. So you go all the way back to, you know, Proverbs 31, right? And people go out and they say, I want a Proverbs 31 wife. And this is the description of a good woman who can find. And when people say that, you sometimes think they mean like, oh, I want a nice little angel in the house. But it's like you go back to the Proverbs 31 woman. She has strong forearms because she's constantly like needing her own bread. She goes out early in the morning and she buys a field.

I mean, she's this woman that The children rise up and call her blessed. And this has been, you know, the feminist line on homemaking has been that it's devalued, that it's, you know, that it's infantilizing, that it turns women into these sort of meaningless appendages in society. But of course, they are society. Women homemakers are society. And more and more girls, women that I talk to will tell me like, you know, I hate the girl boss life. I hate this thing. I hate being on a treadmill. You know, I have to like, you know, go out and work for some drudge boss when I could be home making banana bread for my children, you know, and these sorts of things. Again, nobody ever said or needs to say that women should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen all the time.

You just have to acknowledge that this this is a different kind of person than a man with 50 percent of the world to make with a real role that is distinct from the man's world. And this is, you know, if you if you listen to the way feminists talk about womanhood as weak, as ignorant, as infantilized, then it's absolutely no surprise that the skyrocketing gender dysphoria which we're coming up against in this gruesome, disgusting attempt to mutilate children is almost all among teenage girls who are going through puberty and coming

into womanhood and have no positive model for it. It's something, again, that the right could be much better about, you know, loving homemakers. They are really the center of the world. And I think we're starting to get better about this, which is overdue. I think about, you know, when I grew up back in the dark ages of the 1970s and, you know, women weren't as present in the workforce. They were more present at home. And they were being told back then, you have to do it all like you do it all simultaneously. You can. Good luck. I mean, that was the worst era, I think, for mothers, because there was pressure to work full time

and be full time moms. And this is before society was set up for that, where they even had, you know, support systems in place for moms who needed child care and so on and so forth, putting aside whether that's the right choice. But I will say, what do we have in terms of images? Well, we had models on the cover of Glamour and Vogue and 17. Yes, they were too skinny. Like that was about as much of damage as they were doing to the young girls. Like you have to be skinny to be attractive. OK, that's America. OK, now it's like you have got to be a disgusting, classless whore. That's really that's the future for you. You've got to I mean, forgive me. I hate to pick on Kim Kardashian because she actually seems like a nice gal. But I'm saying like break the Internet with her enormous bottom and her breasts exposed.

And we're supposed to celebrate her and Kanye talking about how they do it all night long. And then the Super Bowl where I've seen Shakira's vag and J-Lo's. Why did I need to? I was trying to show my six-year-old the Super Bowl and football. Nobody's vagina. Like, what the hell? And it doesn't make me a prude to object to that. Right. I don't need to see any pubic hair at the Super Bowl.

And then you've got right now, Meghan Markle. We talked about her yesterday and I mentioned her. We mentioned her earlier. She's got this podcast, $25 million she got paid from Spotify to do this podcast. And so her second part, first podcast was Serena Williams, where Meghan talked about what a victim she's been her whole life. She's a princess, but she's a victim. Second episode is with Mariah Carey. And Mariah Carey actually in a great moment, Spencer, kind of turned the tables on Meghan and called her a diva, which she is. And let me bring it to you what happened. But I just feel like this is all hashtag part of the problem. Meghan Markle, hashtag part of the problem. Here's soundbite one in which Mariah turns the table.

And I think that's really important for people to remember that there might be this persona. And yes, the diva thing we can play into. I mean, it's not something that I connect to. But for you, it's been a huge part of your... You give us diva moments sometimes, Megan. What kind of diva moments do I give you? Don't act like you. It's also the visual. It's the visual. A lot of it's the visual. See, that's the thing. I associate it differently.

Well, I know, but let's pretend that you weren't so beautiful and didn't have the whole thing and didn't often have gorgeous ensembles. You wouldn't maybe get as much divas i i don't care i'm like when i can i'm gonna give you diva okay that was during the exchange because megan's whole thing in this podcast to make it about herself um and then she she comes back in her own closing remarks on her own podcast mega markel having mused about the diva assertion and says the following. It was all going swimmingly. I mean, really well. Until that moment happened, which I don't know about you, but it stopped me in my tracks. When she called me a diva.

You couldn't see me, obviously, but I started to sweat a little bit. I started squirming little bit. I started squirming in my chair and this quiet revolt, like, wait, what? No, what? How could you? That's not true. That's not, why would you say that? My mind genuinely was just spinning with what nonsense she must've read or clicked on to make her say that. I just kept thinking in that moment, was my girl crush coming to a quick demise? Does she actually not see me? So she must have felt my nervous laughter.

And you all would have heard it too. And she jumped right in to make sure I was crystal clear. When she said diva, she was talking about the way that I dress, the posture of the clothing, the quote unquote fabulousness as she sees it. Oh, my God, Spencer. I'm gagging on the narcissism. Yesterday, she compared herself to Nelson Mandela. And now today we have to deal with this. She can't understand why anybody would think she's a diva.

I mean, let me count the ways as you know, during the Queen's Jubilee, she's making sure to put the window down so everyone can get her photograph, right? As she's always got to be wearing Princess Diana's jewelry, as she's got to have just the right angle and photographer and she'll only deal with this certain stenographer press guy, Scobie, whatever his name is. She won't do she sues every magazine or writes something negative about her. She pulls the meanest comment about herself, tries to blow it up into what a victim she's been because she's only used to the good things being said about her. I mean, the fact that she didn't want to live

in the royal cottage in the Frogmore, it wasn't good enough for her. They had to redo it on the taxpayer dime. She didn't pay. All of it. I could keep going. And now to be like, oh, the indignation. You talked to me. I could keep going. And now to be like, oh, the indignation.

Thank God it was just about my appearance. Yeah, thank God that I understand. Look at me. This is the act of a person who would sit in Windsor Castle with Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth, a woman who once broke bread with Winston Churchill and complain about her mental health. I mean, it's like, it's, it's not a day spa. It's one of the most ancient monarchies in Europe. Like it's, I mean, look, you know, I will say this when, uh, John Adams, when, when Abigail Adams died and, uh, John Adams was left, uh, survived her. And when people would compliment him on the success of his son, John Quincy, he reportedly had something that he would always say in response. He would say, oh, your son is so great. You must be so proud. And he would say, my son had a mother. And when I first read that, I actually teared up a little bit. I mean, we've talked

on this show about my dad and the close relationship that I have with him. And, you know, I like to joke, but it's not really a joke. Like, my mom is the best Claven. She's like Claven deluxe. And she's the only one of us who never does any media. So you all just have to take my word for it. But I, you know, when I hear people talking about womanhood in these ways or offering these, you know, role models to young girls telling them they have to be like Meghan Markle or like Lizzo, you know, I always think, you know, I too had a mother and that it incenses me on those terms, you know, just to, you know, my mom stayed home with us. She had a thriving

career on either side of that. She was a successful writer before we were born. She continued to write a little bit, but basically stayed home. And then when we were grown, she took up her career. And you talked very eloquently about the kind of you can have it all mentality, this narrative that you can do it all at once. And I've seen that too, I think. I think there's still a little bit of it going around. But the irony is, of course, that if you'll just let go of these confected narratives, these absolutely artificial narratives that were not designed by people who have your best interests at heart, that were not cooked up so that you could thrive and flourish,

but so that somebody else could make money off of you, could just let go of that. You actually can have an entire rich, full life as a woman who raises children and has a career. That's a very real thing. It's just not in any way, it doesn't look anything like this confection that they're serving you. And that's why it gets me, is to think about my own mother, whom I do rise up and call blessed as, as in, as in Proverbs, you know, and, and to kind of, uh, I, again, I feel sorrowful for, for the girls who are being offered this just really, uh, unhelpful image. No, I think, I think back to myself when I was deciding whether to stay at Fox or leave. And it's funny because some people online back to myself when I was deciding whether to stay at Fox or leave. And it's funny because some people online seem to believe that I was fired from Fox.

To the contrary, I was offered a mega deal by Fox. I was going to say Fox should be so lucky. Go on. And and I decided to reject it because I was miserable. Not putting aside the toxic lifestyle that comes with being in the prime time of cable news, which I think is readily apparent to most people. I was not seeing my children. I wasn't raising my own children. And they were still very young. I hadn't missed it all. They were seven, five and three. So I could still be very present for most of their childhood. And that's why I went to NBC because they offered me a show at nine in the morning where I thought, OK, I'll be able to be at home for the rest of the day. And that is the one upside of that position that I took.

But I will tell you, two very powerful women whose names you would know, who I talked to and who were friends of mine and fans of mine urged me not to go, urged me not to go. And it didn't have to do with politics. It had to do with leaving what they perceived as a very powerful post for one that was less powerful, which was clear, even though it would allow me to raise my kids. That was not. And they had made different choices and they are both moms. And I couldn't I couldn't explain to them, you know, it's like, if you don't understand why this is a priority for me and I, and I, it's, it's fine if it's not for you, you know, I mean, there, there are plenty of kids who are raised by working moms who turn out great, but I knew in my family, I needed more. I needed to be with them. So now I

found a way to do it all right now. I actually am doing it all because I get to work from home. It's in the middle of the day when they're at school. And now what I get Spencer is tons of people saying like, when are you going to get back on TV? When are you going to get back on TV? And I tell him the truth, which is I have no desire to do that. I love my life right now. And it's not like I didn't get here without some bumps and bruises. But, you know, if you know what to prioritize, what's important to you, you just keep trying and trying and trying again until, you know, for you, you nail it. For me right now, I'm nailing it.

And it's in large part because I see my children. Well, that reminds me in a weird sort of way, it reminds me of this amazing moment in an essay by Wendell Berry, who's not really a man of the right at all. He's more of an environmentalist, essayist who kind of wrote about his life on a farm and so on and so forth. But one of his essays, he recounts telling his, I think it was his grad school professor, somebody, some mentor in New York, you know, the big city, he's starting to make it as a writer. And he comes to this guy and he says, I think I need to go back to

Kentucky. I guess it was, you know, and I feel a call to the land. I feel a call to some more authentic engagement. And he recounts that it's as if he's speaking Swahili to this guy, because this is a person that can't imagine that any writer would ever want to be anywhere but New York, right? How could you possibly, what's, what's, you know, reality is there for you to invest yourself in. And of course, this was the making of him. You know, this was Wendell Berry's whole career was then to go back and his engagement with the earth and with farming, that was everything he would write about. But we do have, I think, largely among the laptop class, this vision of life that is purely commercial and incredibly provincial, highly urbane, right? Just you live in the cities, you maximize your career ambitions, and everything else is just weakness or failure or inadequacy. And that story you tell, right, is anything but any of those things, right? Obviously,

this is a journey for you toward fullness and self-actualization. And that, you know, the family would be central to that, I think is like very foreign to a lot of our elite classes. And it's almost like people were sort of advising me, you'll be weaker, right? You're weakening yourself. When exactly the opposite was true. I was at my lowest. I was empty. I couldn't have cared less that I had a powerful post and a bunch of dough. It's not like NBC didn't pay me well, but I'm just saying that wasn't my driving motivation at all. I was empty and not like that was a great experience at my next organization. But now, now being with them, raising my own children, having all this great time with them, not to mention my husband, I'm full again. I'm great. I'm not going to make

a stupid mistake with this full tank of gas and going back into that mess. Right. People like, do it. We're talking about cable. Come back to i'm like sister i'm good coming up an incredible story of perseverance from the one and only she's a badass dr carol swain i love dr carol swain don't you love her she's just giving it to the university system she doesn't fit into their demanded boxes right they want her to be a certain way because she's this inspiring woman of color. But she is the way she is. She doesn't care who she offends. She feels the way she feels and she's done her homework. Anyway, I love her. It's episode 281. And we talk about her troubled upbringing, how young people can get ahead in life and her battles at Princeton. So, Carol, you decided to get your GED. You did that. And then, as I understand it, you had an encounter with a medical doctor who paid you a compliment and you started to think about what your future might look like differently. Yes. It was after one of my suicide gestures, this doctor, he spoke to me and then he spoke to my husband at the time. And after that conversation, he just told me, you know, that I was intelligent. I was attractive. I could do more with my life.

And I had forgotten that I was intelligent because even during those years when we were missing lots of school, my older sister and I could miss, you know, a week of school, two weeks of school and still go in and make an A or a B. And I guess that's a credit to my mother because I know that my mother could have gone to college under a different set of circumstances. She had polio and that was a factor in her dropping out of school. She couldn't climb the steps of the high school. And so he reminded me, you know, that there was a time when I was smart. And also the high school class that I would have graduated with, people were graduating that, you know, in my mind, I knew

these people and I knew that they were not as smart as I was. And I learned about the high school equivalency test at a time when I was too young to take it because in the state of Virginia, you had to be 20 to take it. And I wasn't 20 when I learned about it, but I did take the test. And I was told that I had one of the highest scores they had seen, except in math. I barely passed math. I scored in the 34th percentile. And I think that 32 was the failing percentile. And that had a I totally left school. And I remember that the last report card that I received in school was all Fs. And that was because there was so much turmoil. At that time, I was living with my sister in Roanoke that there was no way to focus a study.

It was all about survival. Yeah, I can understand that just from the stories that you've been telling about that time. So you wind up taking the GED, you score well. And then I love the story of you went first to community college. And I heard you, I think it was on James Dobson's podcast talking about how you were the one. This is the one thing I tell people, I think it was on James Dobson's podcast talking about how you were the one. This is the one thing I tell people, Carol, when they say like, how should I get ahead? Or what should I do to, you know, if I want your job, what should I do? And I always say, say yes to everything, especially when you're young, like be the one volunteer to work overnight, work on

Christmas, work on the weekends, be the one who says yes to empty the garbages. If that's it, if that's what they want you to do, be above nothing. And you know what? I'm still that person. I'm still the one who's like, I'll do it. I'll do it all. I can do it. I can turn things around. And it's amazing because not everybody's that way. So if you can just make yourself that way or commit to being a hard worker, success will follow. And that was so evident in your community college experience. Tell us what you did while you were there. You know, sometimes I don't tell this part of the story because I don't believe I don't think people will believe it. But I was a work study student working 10 hours a week in the community college library. Often the regular employees would call out. And so there'd be a crisis about who's going to work the evenings.

And I would always volunteer to work the evenings. And so the library director created a full-time job nights and weekends. They hired me for that. And I had a position where when I decided to get a four-year degree, I could go to school full-time during the day, work nights and weekends, bring my children to work when I needed to, and set them at a table. You know, I didn't know God at the time, but he certainly set up the perfect job situation for me. For five years, I worked for the state of Virginia, you know, getting paid what was the salary at that time. And I was going to school and because people didn't use the library nights and weekends, I studied and I graduated magna cum laude from Ronald college.

Wow. And prior to that, I skipped over, I feel like these are God's messengers, but I skipped over the orderly who did that. He or she put a book on your bed. Can you just cover that? Because I feel like that's one of the messengers. Two different stories. When I was working in a nursing home, an African orderly from Sierra Leone told me that he went to college with a lot of people who were not as smart as I was. I ought to go to college. And so that's how he

planted the seed that led me to check into the community college and start my college education. So the medical doctor and the African orderly had words that changed my life. Now, the story about the hospital experience, that was during the time when I had, I would say, Paul on the road to Damascus trip experience. I was in the hospital for a medical reason. I was taking medications and some people would say that it was a medication. But my life played in front of me and I thought I was dying. And and I was you know, I was just totally, I would say, messed up and lost. I didn't actually actually know that, but I know that my life played in front of me. It was as if there was a narrator showing me different points in my life, asking me to choose. And I knew about, you know,

I knew about Jesus. I knew about Christianity, but I believed in reincarnation at the time. After I tell this story, any credibility I have left in the world is gone. But anyway, I'm excited. I believed in reincarnation because I couldn't explain my life. How is it that of the 12, I was the one that got out? It didn't make any sense to me. My life was always better than their lives. I was buying a new house when I was 17. And it just, and that happened because I happened to be listening to the radio.

They were advertising FHA 235 homes. All you needed was $300 down. And so I watched a brick house being built from the ground up, you know, that I lived in. And so to my family, you know, my experience was so, it was just, it was just so different. And, but I had, and I had a lot of guilt about that. It didn't make sense, you know, why my life was so much better than everyone else's. But in that hospital, I chose Christ, even though I didn't know, you'll not be born again, that I had reached the top of this karmic circle. And that was why I wasn't going to be born again. As a Christian now, I know that it means that you had this one life. You got to get it right, this one life. There was a Black Pentecostal chaplain at the Princeton Hospital. That is not a community where you should get a Black Pentecostal chaplain.

You know, maybe you get Lutheran, you get Catholic, Episcopalian, you don't get Black Pentecostal, but there was one there. And my father had been a Pentecostal. I had not been any of that stuff. And he talked with me and there was a cleaning lady who threw a book about Jesus into the hospital bed and said, this is all you need. And, and those people arranged for me to get baptized. I got baptized in a cold metal tub in a inner city hospital, inner city church in Trenton, but I didn't understand really what I was doing. And I came out of that experience going to church for about three months, but leaving it behind and blending new age and Eastern religions, because I never felt like the Christian religion had answers. It didn't have any power. And so for a while I had the Swain religion, which was a blend of a whole lot of stuff.

And it took me probably another two and a half to three years to really understand the Christian gospel, what it meant to follow Jesus Christ. And when I made that decision, I got rebaptized. So that is part of that part of my story. How I got from the community college to the four-year college, four-year college, I hadn't planned to get a bachelor's degree. I applied for jobs in business, had chosen business because I had been told that art was not practical and I wanted to be practical. And when I applied for jobs in the business realm, I was told I needed a bachelor's degree. I went through the college catalog. I looked for the field that had the least amount of math. It was criminal justice. And that interested me and political science. I was interested in it because it was about power relationships.

And it was not that I wanted it. I wanted to study people who had power. And I was happy to go to a predominantly white school because I've been black all of my life. I've been around black people. I wanted to know how the rest of the world thought and felt. Well, none of that is in any way credibility threatening. I think to the contrary. But when you look back and you sort of see these little messengers coming, whether it's the African orderly or the doctor or the woman who put the book on the bed, it does seem to me like God was knocking and eventually you open the door. And I know that you found that spiritually enriching and it changed your life and it changed the way you enjoy life.

But I also couldn't help but wonder if you think it was the beginning of troubles for you in the academic setting, because it's not a particularly spiritual realm. And I'm not so sure they were, based on what I've heard you talk to a lot of folks, that they were totally in favor of this new version of you. I can tell you that the Princeton years were hard, but not because I was a Christian or anything like that. I was struggling with all the trauma, I guess, from my childhood. And I started getting attacked by other Blacks early on. I mean, part of it had to do with the fact that they had Black political scientists, Black organizations.

I was the student. I was the Black person that didn't join the Black Student Union when I was getting my four-year degree because I was too busy. I was trying to distinguish myself. I mean, I had a plan that I was going to graduate with honors and I had children. And so I was too busy. I was trying to distinguish myself. I mean, I had a plan that I was going to graduate with honors and I had children. And so I was focused. And so, and in the graduate school, I just was not involved in the black stuff. When I became a political scientist, I did not grow through the ranks of black political scientists. All of a sudden they

discovered that there was this black woman at Princeton that was getting all this attention. And, you know, my first book, it won national prizes and all this stuff. There was a lot of jealousy and I was attacked and I was told that I was a conservative. And back was told that, you know, that I had sold out black people and that if they, they could be at Princeton too, but they weren't willing to sell out their race. And, and I just didn't know. And I would look at my, my resume, I would look at my CV and, and I would just wonder, you know, like, how did this happen? Because everything they were saying and their worldview was so different from my worldview, but Princeton years, they were a struggle. And I started the spiritual journey right after I got

tenure. And it was almost like when I was on that quest for tenure, I had told them when I was hired that I was going to do it in three years and seven years normally. And the person who chaired my search committee, he was John DiIulio, you know, who President Bush appointed to be the head of the first faith-based initiative. And now he's a professor at Penn, as far as I know. He had gotten tenure in one year and he came from a working class background. Father was a cop, Italian.

And so he, you know, didn't really fit either. And so I thought if John could do it in one year, I certainly can do it in three years. And so when I was hired, I told them I was going to do that. And people said, oh yeah, fine. And I actually went up early and got early tenure and that created problems. And it created problems because I had outside offers and I played hardball. I was asked, you know, what would I do if they told me to wait a year? And I said, I'll take one of my offers. And my chairman at the time asked me, well, if you take one of your offers, can we ever get you back?

And I said, no, I spend the rest of my life proving what a mistake Princeton made. And so they gave me tenure, but those were the circumstances. And so then after I got tenure, and I think a lot of it had to do with, I just wanted to prove that someone from my background, you know, could go to Princeton and they could get tenure and they could get it early. the depression came back, you know, and then that really accelerated the spiritual journey that culminated, you know, with the conversion experience towards the end of my career. When you're chasing ghosts and you think if you can catch the ghost, it's going to make you feel happy. It's the thing you need to feel fulfilled. And then you catch the ghost and it does what a ghost will do, which is goes right through you and out the other way in a

totally unfulfilling way. And then you're left to say, now what? That didn't work at all right now. That's right. Now opportunity, I guess, to find out what's really bothering me. You perfectly captured it. It was chasing the ghost. And I won the highest prize a political scientist can win, won three national prizes, earning more money than I ever imagined in my life. And I was miserable. It was terrible. I was so unfulfilled. And I never thought of suicide again, even though some people thought I might. But no, I was never attempted to do the suicide gestures again, but I was terribly, terribly unfulfilled. But life would have so much more

in store for Carol Swain. We close out the show with an inspirational best-selling author. We'll be right back. In episode 263, bestselling author, Arthur Brooks, joined the show for a deep discussion on happiness, how to make the most of each day, and the value of conversation. I really enjoyed the one we had. There's a reason people become workaholics. And it's I think it's related to what you write in the book is called the strivers curse and the chasing of these false idols. Also a story from, you know, the beginning of time that we continue to not learn the lesson on. But people start out in earnest, you know, the land of the free, the American dream. We can do

anything. We can build a career. We can be successful. We can spike the ball in the end zone. We can have that moment if we just work a little harder, get a little bit more success, and then we'll have that moment. I don't know what the moment looks like. Different for every person, but, you know, maybe it's actually spiking the ball as Tom Brady. Maybe it's Paul Newman with another Oscar, you know, back in his day. You tell me, how do people get lured in to this driver's curse? Yeah, your brain wants you to think that this is the case. Here's the key point. This took me years to figure out, lots.

I mean, I suffered through a doctoral dissertation on this stuff, Megan. Mother nature doesn't care if you're happy. Mother nature just wants you to pass on your genes. That's basically, our job is to actually be happy. I mean, this is the thing. It's, it's quite interesting. You know, people will say, how can you be religious? If people have these terrible, evil, natural tendencies, I think that's why I'm religious. That's why I'm a Catholic is because I want to be in charge. And I actually

think that, you know, nature might push me in one direction, but God wants me to have free will and do something else. Okay. Now maybe people who are listening to us aren't religious. It doesn't think that nature might push me in one direction, but God wants me to have free will and do something else. Okay. Now maybe people who are listening to us aren't religious. It doesn't matter. We're talking about your free will to be the master of your life is what it comes down to. Your brain says, you know how you're going to get satisfaction? It's like a trick. I'm going to make you run on the treadmill and run on the treadmill. And I'm going to tell you year after year after year that sooner or later, you're going to get there. Now you're looking down at the, at the, at the, the, the band that's turning under your feet. You're like, I don't think so. I kind of,

but you know, my brain is telling me I'm actually going to get there. So run, run, run, run, run. That's an unexamined life. Here's the key. We actually have to be in charge and say, yeah, I realize that I keep having these tendencies. I have these, you know, the great medieval philosophers would say there's four idols in life. They look kind of God-like because they have this, they're so attractive, right? They are money, power, pleasure, and fame. And fame doesn't necessarily mean you want to be famous. It means prestige. It means the admiration of other people, which we all want to be admired by other people. And those things, those lures will make you run and run and run. And they promise satisfaction, but they're liars.

And sooner or later, the sooner we figure that out by actually saying, no, I refuse. Look, money's great, but only if it's an instrument to something more important, to serve other people, to support your family, to support the relationships and the love in your life, only then can it be a conduit to your satisfaction. If it's the object of your satisfaction or your power or your pleasure or the admiration of other people, you will be frustrated because you will never get there. And most people wind up running on that treadmill and never quite figuring it out and wondering why they didn't get the satisfaction that they were seeking. How did that happen? I want to get to the others as well, but let's stay on money for a minute. How do we get to the place? Because, you know, I'm thinking about advertisements when you watch television.

They don't usually show rich people on yachts. They usually show families snuggling into the couch together. So I don't think this is a situation like the magazines and the girls getting anorexia back in the 80s and the 90s or Instagram and, you know, manipulating you in a negative way today. I feel like the media actually knows to prize relationships and the hearth and coziness and so on, not not news media, but you know what I'm saying? So we must be doing it. We in the school system, in the home, we must be sending our children in America, because not every country is like this. The message that money is something to idolize. Yeah, for sure. I mean, as part of our culture, it's it's very easy for that to happen.

And the big the biggest problem is that we have less and less of a culture that that creates the good values. I mean, some people I mean, they'll say the problem is capitalism. The problem is the free enterprise system. Well, capitalism is an accelerant for materialism because it's so good at creating material prosperity to be sure, but it's not capitalism's fault. I mean, it's not, it's not your car's fault that you drove drunk. I mean, that the problem is that you did the wrong thing. And when we have the love in our lives, when we form the families, when we have a right relationship with our spiritual lives, when we have real friends, not just deal friends, then we're going to have the basis on which we can layer on an economic system. When we can go

out to work, when we can search for our daily bread, but it won't occupy us as the be all and end all, then our brains can't lie to us quite so much by saying there's an emptiness in me. How am I going to fill it? Oh, I don't know. I'll make some more money. I know I'll try to get more internet followers, more followers on Twitter. Then I'll finally feel good. That's run, run, run, run, run and never get there. So it's interesting. I've talked before about the would be Hollywood stars who moved to Hollywood in hopes of becoming famous, rich, famous, glamorous, thinking this will solve. I mean, a lot of the folks who choose that as their profession have an emptiness inside and they're seeking to fill it. And they think that those things will fill it. You know, that if you have

the life of a Tom Cruise, everything will be great. And this is why we see so much unhappiness from this crowd because it doesn't fill it. They learn the hard way. It fills nothing. It's something to do. It doesn't fill't fill the voids who make up that make up who you are. But you're saying you're absolutely right. But it's not just the Hollywood folks. It's it's it can be all of us. It can be the tech giant. It can be the news anchor. It can be the truck driver pursuing these false idols, what could be more money or the next promotion, or just a little bit more work to make you feel a little bit better, a little bit harder working than the next guy. I don't know if you'd say it's pointless, but it certainly doesn't lead to happiness. You're absolutely right. And furthermore, it actually leads to unhappiness because you're distracting yourself from the things that matter. So here's the right way to think about it. Your brain wants you to chase four things. I talked about it before. And what you need to do is for your heart and your mind to reorient you to four

different things. So, and these are the habits of people who are really, really happy. These are the things that are completely in our control. So the four idols are, as I mentioned before, money, power, pleasure, and honor or fame or prestige. Okay. Now those things are not bad, but they're really destructive when they are the end, when they are the intrinsic thing that we're seeking as opposed to being instrumental. So money can help you support your family. Power is something that you can use for great good. If you're a virtuous person, pleasure leavensasure leavens heavy days for sure. And it can be part of, it's an element of satisfaction. And fame, the admiration of other people. I mean,

look how you're using the fact that you're admired and you have a lot of prestige. You're using it to lift people up, Megan. That's really meritorious. But if the fame per se becomes the goal, then it becomes a huge problem. You will be miserable. This is what we need to do. And this is the best thing about being human. You don't have to just live in your lizard brain. You don't have to live according to your impulses and your desires and your attachments. You don't have to, like my dog Chucho, he just lives according to what's next, right? But I can do better than that. I can say, aha, money, power, pleasure, honor. Those things are manipulating me. Here are the big four. Here are the things that all happy people have in abundance and balance.

They have faith and family and friendship and work in which they feel like they're earning their success and they're serving other people. Now, faith, by that, I don't mean my faith. I recommend it. But the truth is anything that gets you out of the rhythm of focusing exclusively on yourself, my money, my job, my possession, my car, it's so boring. You've got to get the big view on things, the big wisdom on things. When you're really interested in the bigger picture, as the Dalai Lama says, remember, joy comes when you remember that you're a one in seven billion, is what he says. It's not that you're insignificant. It's just that your part is something much bigger than yourself, which is interesting. Family life, friendship, work that serves other people, faith, family, friends, and work. That's your good four. Every time you feel tempted, actually reorient yourself in this direction and you will find your happiness rising remarkably. You want people to be conscious about how they approach all of this.

You should sit down and say, all right, how am I going to spend my week? And how did I spend today? Did I make time for my kids? Did I make time for my friends? And you can't necessarily do it every day. I understand that's how things go. But too many days will go by and too many weeks will go by and then months and years of you not nurturing those things, which hurts those people and yourself without that conscious commitment to doing so. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, the, the, the unexamined life as, as Socrates says, is not worth living. And I don't know if it's not worth living, but I do know that the unexamined life is only through sheer luck going to lead you to happiness. You know, the truth is we all can, I'm not going to say everybody can be perfectly happy, but we all can be a lot happier by doing the work. And doing the work means thinking about your habits. That's the number one thing. Habits are way more important than goals. People are always like, I got to have good goals. I got to have a bucket list. Wrong. You need good habits every single day. And that means doing an inventory at the end of your day.

Exactly. This is what I do every night. And I say, did I serve my faith? You know, did I say my prayers? Did I do the things that I need to do to cultivate my spiritual life? Did I spend time thinking about and serving my family, my family life? You know, and not just my immediate family, my adult children and my wife. And I do that for sure.

But did I do enough of that? Did I actually serve my family in the right way? Third is like, am I cultivating my friendships? Like, I mean, it's like we all have really busy lives. It's very easy, especially for people in their 50s, to have all deal friends, no real friends. The real friends take time. They actually take work. It's the reason you can't have more than five to seven really close friends because it's just too time consuming. But you got to have some and more than just your spouse. It's very important. And you got to cultivate those friendships. And finally, you say, did my work truly serve other people? Do I believe that

I lifted people up with my work? Now, people? Do I believe that I lifted people up with my work? Now, sometimes it's easy. I mean, people are writing to you all day long for sure saying, Megan, I loved your show. You really helped me. I see life in a new way. Other people might be very indirect. Let's say you're a bank deregulator or something like that. But you can, with a little bit of serious thought, think about how you can serve other people. Do your inventory about your faith, family, friends, and work at the end of the day and watch your satisfaction start to grow.

I'm just thinking, you know, when I was doing the Kelly file, there were definitely a lot of people who love the show and would send me notes like that. But I didn't feel that sense of meaning. I felt like I was in the outrage stoking business. And the setup of those shows, which is really only 38 minutes of content an hour because of the ads doesn't allow

time for meaningful conversations. You know, you got to get up and down on a segment quickly and it's rare that you actually get true meaning out of it. It can happen, but it's the exception, not the rule was one of my great frustrations. You know, I, I knew I could be doing more and more that would make me happy and that would make my audience happier. And that's one of my great frustrations. You know, I knew I could be doing more and more that would make me happy. And that would make my audience happier. And that's one of the great meanings, purposes I found in the job that I'm doing now, right? Like, you know, real conversations like this. How would you and I have had this conversation in three minutes? It would have been empty and have no calories. And we both would have walked away a bit wanting as would the audience have.

I think that's right. And this is one of the great things that, you know, that we've been able to achieve in the technological era of the podcast, for example. So long form conversations are something that everybody just assumed nobody had the attention span for, you know, that we're all like goldfish at this point, you know, after three seconds, we're all, you know, on to the next thing. But it's actually not true. Podcasts are unbelievably popular precisely because they're long form conversations that go into depth. You know, you and I are not talking about this like a PhD dissertation. I mean, we're not talking about, you know, the really scientific brain science stuff that I discussed with my class or in my

research. We're talking about why it matters and how people can use it in their lives. And that, that takes some time, just like anything else. You know, people, you can't have a three second relationship with somebody. You need the time to develop the relationship. And, you know, this is a perfect example of how fulfilling it is to, to go deep. Like my wife always says, you know, we've moved around, we moved 19 times in the last 30 years, because I'm not in the witness protection program, by the way. So, and, and, and when we move into a place, the way that we actually become comfortable quickly is by pretending we've lived there 10 years. So the second week we're there, we'll invite somebody to our house for dinner. And then we have a real conversation and my wife calls it go deep or go home. Right. I mean, we're not going to talk about trivialities and dumb stuff. It's like, I'm going to ask you about, you know, how you worship and your relationship

with your children and whether you had a, you grew up in a place that you liked and why, and we're going to learn about each other. I love that. Yes. I'll, I accept. I'll be there. Doug and I will come. Boston's not that far away. You've got to be someplace in Massachusetts. Not that far away. You're welcome in Needham, Massachusetts, in my happy home. Thank you so much for joining me today. In a few days, we're going to bring you our best of 2022 show, High Bar. Stay tuned for that, and I'll talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.