The Megyn Kelly Show - John Stossel on Big Tech Censorship, COVID Fear, and Capitalism | Ep. 79

Episode Date: March 22, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by John Stossel, host of Stossel TV, to talk about Big Tech censorship, COVID fear and hypocrisy, teachers and unions, young people in 2021, white privilege and capitalism, the media business, therapy, friends and marriage, having interests outside of politics, what dinner with Stossel is like and "The Stossel," and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today, Stossel. John Stossel, a good friend, a great reporter, and the man with one of the most famous mustaches in all of the world. I mean, it's got to be at least top three. I mean, just off the top of my head, I'm thinking Tom Selleck, Geraldo, I guess, but then he shaved it. So his has been on again, off again. I'm not sure. But anyway, you're going to love him. He's going to educate you. And he's coming up right after this. It's great to talk to you. How are you?

I'm good. I'm finally out of COVID land, vaccinated and went to Florida a couple days ago. And it's a whole different world. People don't wear masks all the time, certainly not outdoors. And it's so freeing. It's wonderful when you go to a state like that. A group of friends and I were texting and we're all over the country and we were talking about the schools. And one woman just got her middle schooler back into New York City school for the first time in person in a year. And the big new turn is he gets to go one day a week for four hours, right? Because she's in New York City. Her friend down in Florida was saying, my kid's been going full time since August. We don't believe in COVID down here.

And the incidence is not different. It's not like the crazy northerners have the solution. I mean, I'm in Cape Cod, near where your sister-in-law is, and we take walks in the woods. And every once in a while, we'll see someone wearing a mask in the woods. And she'll see us coming and she'll run in the other direction as if we somehow could give her COVID at a distance. Reminds you of your days at ABC when you came out as a libertarian. Yeah, as usual, I'm in the minority. I wondered how you felt about it because you are very much the libertarian, do not like government interference in our lives, but you're also 73 years old. You

had lung cancer at one point and you're high risk. So I thought there was a chance you were mildly pro-government restrictions on our liberties as we've seen them. But if I had to put money on it, I would have said anti-lockdown. Well, yes and no. Certainly a pandemic is a time when government ought to have the right to tell people, don't spread it. And at the beginning, when we didn't know much and the rates were shooting up and there was a risk of hospitals being overwhelmed, then some parts of the lockdown, I think, and I think most libertarians would say, all right, that's a role for government. But then it became fairly irrational. When did you start feeling that? I feel like, for me, it wasn't that long into it. I understood March, and I understood the

beginning of April. Soon thereafter, it just started to feel like, wait a minute, we're ruining people's lives. We're devastating the entire economy over a virus that, as the weeks went by, seemed to be playing out to be, yes, dangerous to certainly some population, but not as deadly as they first feared. True. Though 500,000 deaths is a lot, and about, I think, five times the flu, and more than five times the flu. So this was a real one. And because my wife, who you know, is so ridiculously scared of everything, spending time with her, it was contagious. She started getting me scared. I started being nervous to be around people. What a liberation to be here in Florida. It's changed my whole attitude. Is she there with you? Is she feeling that too? No, she would never travel. She's hiding in New York City. And I she's told me I have to quarantine for 10 days before she will spend time with me when I return. Well, it is true that she's not alone. I mean, Ellen is a

very rational, extremely brilliant woman and super fun, too. But it is true that especially here in New York, I think there's a high population of people who are really scared. And I, and it's in part because of the messaging, right? And we were the epicenter at first. It's really exploded here before anywhere else, but it really is attitudinal. And, and I agree with you. I was saying earlier, I went down to Georgia for my nephew's wedding and, you know, I was saying to Doug, Oh my God, this is a super spreader event. We were inside, there were a. There were 100 people or so. Nobody had a mask on. We didn't socially distance.

And no one cared. And guess what? No one got it because we followed up. It's part of this whole social media divide in the country. And it makes me think of you and your experiences. You were complaining about people being vicious on social media. And I rolled my eyes and said, well, you don't have to read it and ignore it. And then I read some of your social media.

And my God, there's a pack of people who just hate you for irrational reasons. Wait, what? In Cape Cod, where I am, that's the place where Trump got the least votes. The same is true of New York City. Everybody reads the same stuff and they acquire real hatred of what they perceive to be on the right, even when it isn't. And then it starts to affect their opinions about safety and wearing masks. And the algorithm keeps feeding you more of what you already believe. And we are dividing into two warring camps. Yeah, I see it all the time. Like I go out and I do a little guest appearance at this class in Stanford every year because I like the teacher who the professor who leads the class. And Stanford is not exactly my demo, I'd say for my fans.

No college university would be a college or university. But do you sort of see that looks on the kids faces when I first show up like, oh, God, by the end, we're we're thick as thieves, you know, because when people are sort of forced to see your humanity and see you without this weird veneer that the media puts on you, you know, you have a very different impression. And I don't know, I think probably the media down in Florida is different, too. Probably there are a lot more Fox watchers down in Florida than there are MSNBC watchers. So all the you know, it's, you know, the old garbage in garbage out, right? It's like you're taking in nothing other than you're all going to die. Like that guy, Donald McNeil, who got pushed out of the New York Times recently for saying the N word in quoting

somebody else who said the N word. He I know they all love Donald McNeil. He was their COVID reporter, but the guy was in hysteric. Everything he wrote was like a five alarm fire. No one cared about that at the times, of course. But I can see how if you read Donald McNeil every day, because I listened to him on the daily podcast, I was like, oh my God, how long do we have? And it's not going to end well unless people start seeking out the other side. And I imagine there'll be new social media that appear and they'll say, we give you all sides instead of just giving you

more of what you believe. But I look at my feed and it's all libertarianism or volleyball or mixed martial arts. We're just getting more of what we're interested in. Yes, true. So now what about the vaccine? Does that make Alan feel better? Like when when fully vaccinated, you say you are. I assume she is, too. Yes, we are both.

We've got our second vaccines. It makes her feel a little better. But now she reads in The New York Times about, well, there's this new strain. We don't know that the new strain is going to be resistant to the vaccine. And some people will just find things to worry about. I figure I'm 73. Something's going to get me pretty soon. I want to live the life I have. The video we released is Mike Rowe talking about there's danger everywhere. It ought to be safety third instead of safety first, because the stuff of life is taking some risks. Right. We had him on the show and it was a great point. He was talking about how

we all, we have a different risk tolerance as human beings, but he was saying most of us figure it out. Most of us don't need government to hold our hands through every step of our days, which is why he said you can cross the street even when it says don't walk. If you can see that no cars are coming in either direction, as long as you're an adult, not if you're like you're four. And we've sort of forgotten that, you know, it's like until they say COVID is completely eliminated. Everyone's been perfectly vaccinated. We have 100 percent herd immunity. They're not going to go outside. But what's scary to me, even as I have a strong libertarian streak in me, I will say, is this talk of making the vaccine mandatory and possibly making it mandatory for kids and you can't get on an airplane maybe if you haven't had it.

I mean, I just, I don't think people are ready for that. I realize we've submitted to government control in a way we never have before, but I just don't think people are ready for this thing to be a mandatory part of our lives. I agree. And I don't think that'll happen. I don't know. You don't think even under a Joe Biden administration, they're not going to make it mandatory? I think there would be so much resistance and they don't really need to, to have the vaccine be effective. And they'll get, what, 90% of the people? They don't need 100%. But they're already talking about how some of these school teachers are saying they're not going to come back into the classroom until not just all the teachers, most of whom are in their 30s. I mean, the average age for a teacher is young, 30s or 40s. Not just the teachers are

all vaccinated, but all the students are vaccinated. I mean, it's absurd. Yes, but is it the teachers? It's really the leaders of the activist groups, the unions, where there are unions, the PTAs even, when they get entrenched in certain areas. They like getting paid for not working. And once you start looking for perfect safety, it's hard to stop. Coming up next, we're going to talk to Stasel about teachers and unions. He's been a longtime antagonizer of the unions. You'll find out why they protested him outside of ABC News one time in his direct challenge to them. And what he thinks about what they're doing now.

That's coming up in one minute, but first this. You have long been a critic of the unions. They protested you one time outside of ABC, didn't they? Did they show up to protest you? I did a piece called Stupid in America when I was at 2020. And those were the days when, thanks to stupid government rules, you only had about three channels. So I would get massive audiences.

And that show, I was worried it wouldn't rate well and it would be my last special because it wasn't very visually exciting. It was just kids in classrooms. It was about school choice, introducing the concept, why not attach the money to the kid? And New York at the time was spending more than $20,000 per student and saying, we don't have enough money. That's why we're struggling. But that's $400,000 a classroom. You could hire four great teachers for that. And they were still failing. So I did the show. Surprisingly, it rated very well. And the teachers union then staged a protest outside 2020's offices, screaming, teach, John, teach. You don't know what it's like, how difficult it is to teach. So I surprised them by coming out of the building and saying, okay, show me, I'll teach.

Did you? And they, no, they backed down. They had 94 meetings about it. And they, they're just bureaucrats. Somebody was like, what that, wait, we're going to put him in front of our kids. Wait, no. What if he says something he believes? Exactly.

But you found a way in, you know, I know, I didn't know that you had this Exactly. videos and your news reporting. And it's always very well done. It doesn't take up much of your time, but it gives you a very nice summation of various issues of the day. But Stossel TV, who's that for? I mean, not Stossel TV, the nonprofit for the teachers. Are the teachers who would click on that the ones we need to be reaching? Talk to me about that nonprofit. I started it years ago because teachers would say, oh, I wish I had videotaped that. I'd like to show it to my kids. Or I did videpe it, and it sparked classroom discussion about these issues. I started the nonprofit that offered them free to teachers. We have about a couple million kids who watch the stuff in class every year now because about 100,000 teachers use this. The answer to your question, unfortunately, is no, we're not reaching the right people. It's, again, the people who get it want to watch this stuff. Other people don't. Sadly, I think teachers as a lot are pretty liberal. Their school districts tend to

mean more liberal. They're all getting more activist. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is still sort of a large contingent of reasonable, more fair and balanced teachers out there who don't like the hard left turn the schools have taken. What do you think? Teachers go to education schools to get their unneeded mandatory degrees, and they're not the highest level students going in. Your SAT scores are lower than average, and they get brainwashed not the highest level students going in. Your SAT scores are lower than average and they get brainwashed in the education schools. And yes, you're absolutely right. So you've been doing this docile TV and just for the audience that doesn't know you, you know, I mean, I watched you on 2020 and we're friends. And of course I knew Fox. I love your

brand of reporting because yes, it is libertarianarian for sure in its messaging, and it's very skeptical of government and pro-capitalist. But you have a very nice manner and very simple way of communicating, which I think is why you became such a star. We put together just a small little clip of various segments that you've done lately. Take a listen. This environmental catastrophe bearing down on us. I keep hearing that we're killing the earth. How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood.

But wait, I've been a consumer reporter for years. I've covered so many scares. Plague, famine, and perpetual war will kill us. We're gonna run out of oil. Nuclear power will give us cancer. Killer bees swarm ever closer. Bird flu. Flesh-eating bacteria.

The list of terrible things that we're going to get us is long. And yet we're living longer than ever. And the poor get poorer. Rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The poor get poorer? People keep talking about the evil of income inequality. This is the living room in a 16 million dollar penthouse apartment. It's true that some rich people have gotten absurdly rich.

But the other claim that they got rich while the poor people got poorer is just a myth. Today's continuing anti-racism protests include the claim that fossil fuel use is racist because climate change will hurt minorities most. Climate crisis is a racist crisis. Therefore, The fossil fuel industry will have to pay. But I wonder, have these people ever asked themselves? Can you turn your lights on in the morning?

Love it. That last point's so good because it speaks to the hypocrisy, right? It's like these guys, whatever, Jane Fonda, how many times did you have to take an airplane cross country so she could be seen at a protest and get arrested on camera so she could look like some sort of a climate martyr. And ask someone with a little bragging about their electric car, you know, how did that electricity get made? They don't know. But yes, I'm doing that instead of Fox Business, where we met. And it's because my son, who was young and understanding the new internet, said, Dad, only old people watch Fox.

And you want to reach younger people whose brains are still open. You don't need a network anymore with Facebook and YouTube and Twitter and Instagram. You can just reach people. And because my attention span is only five minutes to learn these things, I thought, all right, I'll do five-minute videos. And so we are. And is he producing them? Is Max producing those for you?

No. He has his own life. He's a poet elsewhere. But I have five people. And once we're in a little office in New York, now we're remote. And we get about 2.3 million views per video and it keeps growing. People donate money to support me. And that really is amazing.

Yeah. So how, that was going to say, how, how can you make money off of that? Cause YouTube ads don't pay very well. No, they don't. They, they do. If I were like a 18 year old-old girl talking about cosmetics, for politics, they don't on the screen. It's like, listen to me, we're going in the wrong direction. And I do think if this past year has been anything, it's been anti-libertarian, right? It's been big government seizing control of our lives and all of us submitting. I mean, I do worry that now that we've sort of allowed the government to do this to us,. And that generally is what's happened.

And fortunately, the animal spirits of our economy has grown along with it. So government hasn't totally tied up in knots and crushed us. But no country has gotten rid of government regulations once they had them. The Trump administration, he appointed some good people who stopped the growth for a while. I would argue that's why we had the record low unemployment for much of his term before COVID. But that's not natural. You look at Germany and Japan, how they boomed after World War II. Why? Because we bombed the smithereens out of them and they had to start over. All their old

trade guilds were gone and they started from scratch and that allowed them to prosper. But it's not natural. Natural is for people to say there ought to be a law. I want government to protect me. Just another rule. And so much of what government does is trying to fix the problems caused by those previous rules. And now it's not just them thinking they can seize control of our lives. You know, the masks and the mask is driving me nuts. Are you are you loving not having the mask on all the time down in Florida? Oh, yes. the masks and the mask is driving me nuts. Are you, are you loving not having the mask on all the time down in Florida? Oh yes. I just hated the mask. Also I talked to, to a guy who said, what's a better way to culture new kinds of the virus or new mutations

than breathing in and out for an hour into a mask. It's a Petri dish. It's a good point. And no, it's so annoying. And it's like, I was at a restaurant. Where was it? It was, I guess it was. You were at a restaurant? No, no. I was taking an airplane. I flew across country to do Bill Maher. This is what it was. And on the airplane, like in California, by the way, they make you put your mask on in between bites. They want you to put your mask on. You put your fork down for one second. Somebody's like, oh, your mask. You're like, well, I'm just like chewing. Can I? I'm just going right back in there. And, you know, they said the science said that touching your mask over and over is not exactly sanitary either. So they don't I just when they've gotten to the point where they're like, put your mask on in between sips of your water.

We've gone too far. I agree. And I hope you found it worth doing Bill Maher for that, because I've never liked this show. But I love your the segment where you talked about the schools. My kids' former school, it's even crazier. They're having endless crazy demands. I talked to one girl who says, and she's 13, after all this attention to diversity, do the races mix?

No. The white girls sit with the white girls. Black girls wear black scrunchies and sit with each other. The Asian girls actually wear yellow scrunchies and sit together. Stop it. No. Seriously? I asked later,

were you kidding me? She said, no, dead serious. Unbelievable. This is Dalton? Yeah. Well, Dalton's gone, I mean, off the deep end. That's the one that's getting press here in New York. I mean, I came out about our schools, not to bash them because I actually have a lot of love for those schools, but because I have a real problem with what they're doing. And I didn't want to leave the other parents with whom I had been talking and who I knew shared my concerns in the dust as I moved on. They still don't feel like they could speak out. And I had liberated my children from the schools and thought, I'm going to go, I'm going to help them out. I'm going to say what they're, what they would like to say, but are too afraid, you know, because everybody's worried about junior getting into the right college. Um, so I was out and free to say it and I did. And I think we're now having a really good conversation about it. But Dalton,

when I read that, that, that they were making kids reenact allegedly racist cop shootings, that race has infected every class and every program. You're doing math, you have to talk about race. You're doing English, you have to talk about race. Everything is seen through the prism of race. How on earth could that not be divisive? Exactly. And how did this become such a big thing at the time where after all these years, racism has to be less of a problem than it ever was? I saw you doing, was it Larry Elder? You did an interview with him and you were saying, but it must be a major problem because people are in the streets protesting and people are mobilizing, you know, and they're saying this is a racist country. And he had a good response to

you, which was basically they're being misled. These are young people who are being misled about the state of things. And smart young people. I'm upset and I hate to admit it publicly, but I will, that my brilliant daughter, who you would think would be wise and tough, she's a medical of social pressure ish but there's a lot of social pressure pressure on on young people to go along with this nonsense i don't know if you've gone into this um what's it called i i only listen to it on youtube what do they call it's like house party steve cracker what's the thing called that everybody's on clubhouse that's what it is that's how irrelevant that's how that's how out of it we are john but i've i have been invited to join the things I said on one podcast. I haven't been invited. I'm sad. Now I've gotten a couple of invitations. I don't want to. I don't understand why you would put yourself in these rooms with these young social justice activists who just want to beat up on you. I heard Brett Weinstein. He's such a reasonable, rational guy. He's an academic. He just wants to work ideas through. And he was like, I'm an evolutionary biologist. They were like, you mean a eugenicist, which by the way, in case you don't know what that is, it's somebody

who wants to improve the races with quote breeding. It's basically Hitler. And he's like, no, not a eugenicist. And they wouldn't let I mean, the first thing they said to him when he got in there was like, do you admit you're a white supremacist and a transphobe? Or will you affirm that you're an anti-racist? They wouldn't let him say two things before he answered that. I'm like, why is he doing this? He could just sit in his living room with those self-flagellation beads and get this over with much faster. I would want to do it too. And I find it hard to believe that they have these rooms and they invite in someone like him and don't let him speak. I guess if they don't, I wouldn't want to do it. But my hope is always that with reason, we can make people see the light. You're wrong. John McWhorter, professor at Columbia, brilliant man. And he does the Glenn show, the Glenn Lowry show

with Glenn Lowry on YouTube. And he's a little bit more to the left. Glenn's a little bit more to the right, but they're brilliant. And they talk about race in very frank terms. And he says, you can't deal with these people.

These are not reasonable, rational souls who wish to engage in good faith discussion. And he basically says we're going to have to forge on without them because they're not honest brokers. And they don't really want to hear what you have to say. They just want you on the knee saying you're sorry. They feel comfortable calling a black person a racist or an Uncle Tom, I suppose. Yeah, that's very disappointing. I hope he's wrong. People aren't endlessly stupid, are they?

If you go in there, I want to hear it. I would like to hear what happens to you. No offense. I hope you have a positive experience. But I was listening to it because I heard it on YouTube. Somebody taped it, but on YouTube. And I was like, why do people enjoy this? I don't like I would certainly like to speak to people who want to behave in good faith. But I don't need it. If I just want to feel bad about myself, to your point earlier, I'll go to the comments on Twitter. I don't need to have it happen live. I enjoy it because the person who comes at me so sure that I'm an evil, rich white guy, because I think the invisible hand should govern what wages are rather than government, that I have this fantasy that just by saying, well, gee, if it's too low, why do you only want to raise it to $15 an hour? Why are you so cheap? Why not $100 an hour? I have this belief that at some point the light bulb will go on and they will start to see that interfering with the invisible hand causes other problems. And maybe I'm wrong. I hope not.

They look at somebody like you, who is unabashedly capitalist, by the way, so am I. And they say, that's your white privilege, buddy. You don't understand how this system, this system, this capitalist system, and they're pro-Marxist, works against people of color, right? It's rigged in a way that we can't get ahead. And you, Stossel, you're somebody who's benefited from it, and it worked out just fine for you. So you're like, yeah, don't touch it. See how well it works out in the end? I agree. There is white privilege. And we have the advantage of having had a culture that supported white people more than black people for many years. And I believe in affirmative action and I've practiced it all my life, but I think it's

my moral duty to do it in a personal way. And I've sponsored kids to escape the government schools, paid for minority kids to go to Catholic schools where they get a better education, and mentored a kid a year for the last 25 years. I think we have a moral duty to do our part to help people who don't have the same advantages white people have. But this current message is crazy. And when government tries to do it, it makes things worse. So what about that, though? Because we heard in the clip you talking about or taking on the issue of, you know, income inequality and like the system, this capitalist system, it just makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. And now the rich are circling the wagons to try to defend the system just when they would say people of color who are disproportionately, they would say, affected by the system are trying to rise up to upend it. Well, I disagree. I think the rich are

not defending the system. The rich are saying the rich don't think. They just want to make money, most of them, and they haven't really thought about the principles that help them make money. A lot of them, like Jeff Bezos, sadly, are saying, yeah, Amazon is going to pay $15 an hour if you just force everyone to pay $15 an hour. And they're better able to automate, and that'll crush their competitors. But what they should be saying is, yes, we got absurdly rich. And when people are free and there's growth, some of us are going to get ridiculously rich. But two points. It's a lie what Bernie says about the poor getting poor. You can look at the

government statistics. As the rich got richer, the poor got richer too. Not as much, but the poor are doing better. And if the rich go up a tenfold and a poor person goes up onefold, isn't that better than the poor person staying poor? And it's that greed, that mechanism that makes people innovate and made Jeff Bezos come up with Amazon, who makes all our lives better by lowering inflation, lowering the cost of products, delivering them during COVID right to our doorstep. Facebook, which makes my life better because I can find friends and arrange my beach volleyball games and connect to people in a thousand ways. So what if he's absurdly rich, but not hurting me, it's helping me. I want to bring you a feature we have here on The

Megyn Kelly Show called From the Archives. This is where we direct your ears to a past episode from The Megyn Kelly Show library that you might want to listen to or just might find amusing in this little feature. This one is from December of last year, 2020, and episode 43 with Jerry Springer. Yup. Did you hear this one?

There was an incredible, beautiful, inspirational story he told about coming to America and the Statue of Liberty. Listen. In 1949, when I was five, my parents bought five tickets on the Queen Mary and came over to America because they had lived through two world wars now and they thought Europe would never be safe. And so they were lucky enough to get a visa to come to America, which was difficult at the time, too. We romanticize it. But the truth is, America had pretty restrictive immigration policies back then in terms of, you know, whether it was Jews or from certain countries, etc. There was a real isolationist feeling.

It was difficult for immigrants, certainly during the war, and even afterwards for some time. But anyway, my parents got... And we lived the American dream. In other words, going by the Statue of Liberty. I often tell the story of we were on the Queen Mary, which is the one memory I have because, you know, for a little boy to be on the Queen Mary, which at the time was, I think, the largest ship in the world, or at least the

second largest ship in the world. And, you know, it was like, oh my God, it was a city. And it was a five-day journey from England to New York Harbor. You go by the Statue of Liberty. And my parents woke me up because they wanted Evelyn and me to go out on deck and see the passing of this, you know, as we sailed by the Statue of Liberty. And all I remember, this was January 24th, 1949. All I remember basically was that it was freezing cold. And there were 2,000 people packed together all watching the statue. And what I remember being scared is that nobody talked.

There was absolute silence. And it scared me. As a little kid, I didn't know what this was. All these people standing on a boat, in a ship, on freezing weather, staring at something, and they were silent. In later years, my mom told me about that journey and she said, I had asked her, what are we looking at? You know, what does that statue mean? And she said in the German she spoke at the time, Ein Tag alles, one day it'll mean everything.

One day, everything. Love that. A good message to keep in mind about America and freedom. Back to our interview next. You know, now, though, the focus is on any inequality of outcome as somehow an indictment of the system itself. It does make me uncomfortable. It's true. But the solutions are totalitarianism, dictatorship. I saw a piece you did with, I think it was Carol Roth. And you were saying in your piece that, look, people point to these Scandinavian countries as they have more of a equality in income and less of a disparate lifestyle. Okay, so does Afghanistan.

So it's like it doesn't always work out when you try to control the numbers in favor of everyone will now have a great living wage. Two points. Scandinavia is not socialist like people say it is. They did try it about 40, 50 years ago, and people were leaving. All the productive companies were leaving. Taxes were high. Growth stopped. They had gone from being the fifth richest country in the world and fall into the 20th. And they gave up on those socialist ideas. They still have a big welfare state and lots of egalitarianism. But what innovation has come out of Scandinavia? Compare that to Silicon Valley. I don't think it's an accident that Facebook and Google and Amazon, they all came out of the Seattle and Silicon Valley, the two metropolitan areas farthest from Washington, D.C. They didn't have lobbyists.

They just created stuff. And that benefits everybody. Now they crack down on them. Now they're just sucking up to politicians and spending more on lobbyists and Washington fixers than other companies. Well, what about the argument that, you know, Amazon has gotten too big and Facebook has gotten too big? We're seeing an antitrust case by, I think, 49 out of the 50 state AGs against Facebook saying that right now. And, you know, Amazon, yes, it helped our lives, but some would argue it ruined all the mom and pop shops. You know what? Walk around New York City. It's not exactly urban blight, but the mom and pop shops are far fewer than they used to be even 10 or 15 years ago. It's true because people liked buying things at Walmart. The consumer made a

choice and the mom and pops that offers real friendly service or specialty goods are still prospering. New businesses are being started. Is Amazon too big? Is Facebook? Is Google? They once said that about A&P, the supermarket, and they were forbidden to run advertising that offered lower prices because they were hurting the mom and pops. These new growing companies have always been resisted. I was once told MySpace was a monopoly. It's gone and replaced by Facebook. If they are too big, who's going to break them up? Politicians. How well is that going to work out? Already where the politicians are saying, nice little company you got there. It'd be a shame if something would happen to it. You better contribute to my

campaign. That's not going to end well. Well, what about the fact that these Silicon Valley companies like Facebook, Twitter, and so on, have gotten so large that they now can control all of our communication, virtually all of our communication. I know you've been the victim of some of their censorship, they've become a Facebook is now our mommy. It's our mommy is going to tell us what we can and cannot say as if it's some sort of a fact, God. And it's very hard to get those rulings reversed. And it's it's there's almost there's no sort of avenue of appeal. There's not even a really a meaningful competitor that you can go to for a better avenue.

I agree. And that is very upsetting to me. Is that beeping noise in my room or your room? That's you. Tell them you can't talk. You're in the middle of a podcast. Pick it up. Pick it up. Let's hear it. I don't know what that is. It's not my phone. It isn't? Anyway, no, I don't know where that was coming from. It's probably Mark Zuckerberg. There you go. Well, Zuckerberg is being an evil mommy. And you're right. And it's very upsetting. I'll give my one example that I did this piece with a very responsible environmentalist who pointed out that the California wildfires were not caused

by climate change. Climate change may have had a little effect, but most of it was caused because the politicians didn't clear the underbrush. We have to protect every tree. And that caused these fires to be bigger than ever. It's not disputable, really. It's kind of true. But the main guy interviewed, Michael Schellenberger, also had written a book called Apocalypse Never that was critical of some of the more apocalyptic theories of the global warming crowd. And Facebook appoints this group, Climate Facts or something, to be their police because the government's coming after them for all the nonsense that's on Facebook. So we want responsible scientists to police us. And they pick these activists and they labeled my story as, we're not going to show this to many people because this doesn't tell the whole story.

Some of these facts are disputable. First of all, in a five-minute video, how often do you tell the whole story? Never. But they single this out. So I'm basically blocked from Facebook. So I'm curious, who are these scientists making the decision? We call them up. We ask to interview them.

They agree to my surprise and delight. That's unbelievable. And during the interview, they admit, yeah, they haven't even watched my piece. The people who censored it. And they, right. And then they watched it and they say, oh, no, nothing wrong with your piece. I guess you showed both sides. And I think, good, they're going to lift this restriction now. But no, after they've been embarrassed, the head of their group said, well, there were still things that you omitted in this argument where we said climate change is not the biggest problem facing the world. And so they still won't unblock it. And there's nothing I can do about it. And it makes me furious.

But look, Zuckerberg created this company. What right do I have to say he must carry my videos? I can go to Parler or other places. Well, you used to. It's just sad because then you're talking to the converted. Right. The thing, too, about cracking down on you is think about the number of videos that Fox News uploads to Facebook on a day-to-day basis. Reports put together by Trace Gallagher or whomever.

They're using a straight news reporter. Do you think Mark Zuckerberg or whatever group he's outsourcing his, quote, fact-checking to would agree with the Fox News reporting on some of the stories we've been seeing over the past couple of years. Russia gate, Trump in the election, all of it. I wonder whether they're censoring the Fox News videos the way they're coming after new media. So if you're not part of these organizations, you know, like a CNN, CNN is promoted on their homepage is like a trustworthy source. When you're rather on your own, like you're John Stossel, you're, you're unprotected. And you think Fox stuff is not being censored? I would be surprised. But you're right. I haven't, you'd think we'd have heard about it if it were. I wonder because Fox News videos, like what I learned from my time at Fox is that the Fox fans are the most active on Facebook

versus anybody else. They're more active on Facebook than anybody else. The Fox fans love Fox, or at least they used to. I don't know about now. And they would be very much engaged. So I do think Facebook would be a little bit more reticent to start interfering with the Fox News videos than anyone else's. Now, that doesn't mean conservative media outside of Fox gets such a

pass. You know, I virtually every conservative person I know who's got a podcast or YouTube talks about having been censored or, you know, caught up in some sort of weird challenge that didn't bear out. We just saw it happen to Stephen Crowder recently. We had Tim Poulin who was talking about it happening to him. I don't know. I do think it's a problem because it's gotten to the point now where they control virtually all of this environment. There really aren't, right now, meaningful alternatives. And so it does result in real censorship of ideas, which is dangerous. I totally agree. I just don't know that breaking them up is the answer. But they do own not just Facebook, but Instagram.

YouTube is other people, is Google, and Twitter is another company. But they all got together to stop the Hunter Biden stuff before the election. That's creepy and wrong. I just don't know what we can do about it. But the other problem, here's just one other thought. Why does it happen? My feeling is because if you're a libertarian, you're a conservative, you want to go experience life, you go build things, you go mind your own business. If you want to sit in a windowless room and critique other people's work, or if you want to write for a living, you tend to lean left. And those are the people who sign up to be the censors at Twitter and Facebook and Google. And they gradually try to suffocate ideas they

don't like. What a miserable job. Can you imagine signing up for that as your life? And it is a miserable job. They've written about how people burn out. Because there's a lot of genuine ugliness that deserves to be taken off. There is child molestation. There are snuff films that YouTube tries to keep off. There are ISIS videos and how to make a bomb. I mean, yes, there are definitely things that need to come down. And if you're watching that stuff all day, that has to do bad things to your brain. Well, and that's how you get to the point where when somebody calls to say, do you admit it's fair?

And they say, yeah, actually, I do see it's fair. And then somebody slaps their wrist and they're so quick to say, OK, never mind. I'll just I'll take it. Well, I take it back. Everything's unfair. That doesn't agree with my worldview. That's that's sort of where we are. So let's talk about it in the larger scape of media, because you really are you know, you're a golden journalist for 30 years at ABC and had an amazing career there, were co-host of 2020, which was their flagship show in the prime time with Barbara Walters, and doing this kind of stuff for a long time. You always had a skepticism about government in your reporting, and you were that consumer guy who was like, no, that's bullshit too. So what, how do you see the media landscapes

changes from the time you were at that anchor desk to right now, where it seems to me, it's incredibly hard to find objective reporting. Virtually everybody is opinion, either openly or disguising it as quote, objective journalism. And it's, you have to work so hard to get truth, to get facts. I think we had to work hard to get facts then. It was less overtly leftist, but it all leaned left. And I was one of them. I came out of Princeton being taught that there are problems and government can fix them. And I believed, and I won 19 Emmys as a consumer reporter bashing capitalism and felt very self-righteous calling for government to create departments of consumer affairs, which they did, and got to stop these cheaters. And it took me

many years of watching those rules fail. One example is we take a TV into a bunch of repair shops or a car, have it repaired with just a loose part. And most would say, oh, just a loose part, no charge. A couple would say, oh, I have to keep it over the weekend. You come back, they charge you hundreds of dollars. I would then return and say, would you ever cheat people like this? Oh, no, never. Oh, yeah? Watch this. And I had the hidden camera footage. And it was great dramatic television. And the politicians would call up and say, that was great. We're going to pass a law to address this. And young John Stossel was excited. Oh, these politicians are paying attention to me

and passing laws. And I loved it for years, but then I would do the story again and get the same result. Most people are honest. Invisible Hand guides that because they want repeat business and a few cheat. So then what was the Department of Consumer Affairs doing? We went there and they had a dreary office with people filling out forms. They were requiring licenses for car repair shops or TV repair shops. And people like that. We license dogs. We license drivers. We think it makes us safer.

But what it really means is that you just have to fill out some forms. If you're an immigrant who doesn't speak English, maybe you go underground, risk your business being taken by the police. Everybody has to pay more money. And it doesn't prove that you're honest, that you take a test to show you know something. It just slows things down. And I saw this happen again and again. I started reading more. I didn't like the conservative press because they seemed to want to go to war with every country.

And they wanted to police my bedroom and tell me who I can have sex with or what recreational drugs I could put in my body. And I didn't like that. And I discovered Reason Magazine. I became a libertarian. And suddenly, my friends in the media didn't like me as much anymore. And it was, what's wrong with Stossel? And I stopped winning Emmy Awards, haven't won one since. Once I started criticizing government, it was like I was a conservative.

What, you're against gun regulation? I said, well, not at first, but once I researched it, I showed in most of the country you can carry a gun around and there's not more crime there. And the bad guys are less likely to come into your house if you think you have a gun. And there are two sides to this story. And Peter Jennings, the late Peter Jennings, when he saw me in the hall at that point, would suddenly turn the other way. I was a pariah. Really? Then Fox came and CNN and suddenly people who wanted serious news didn't want to watch 2020 as much anymore. And so things split into opinionated camps. And what puzzled me is that even at Fox, I don't know if this was true for you, people didn't really want to fight and the audience doesn't like it. Like I would go on Hannity or O'Reilly and argue for legal drugs, and they would yell at me,

and I would do my best to defend my belief that once you're an adult, you ought to be free to poison yourself if you wish. And like prohibition, the drug law causes more problems than the drugs. But after doing it once, they didn't want to fight. They wanted people coming on the shows who would agree with them. In my videos, I always try to go to the other side and get their argument. And I don't do cheap shots. We give them their best point, though I cut them down, put out the blather.

And I always did that in my consumer reporting. I would go to the business and I would say, why are you a cheater? Here's the video proof. And they would, they would argue, you'd get two sides. But you don't see much of that anymore. I would say my own experience at Fox was on O'Reilly. He did like to fight. I mean, I fought with him more than I agreed with him. And we had great battles over the law, which is one of the reasons I reasons I became well known, you know, because of the appearances I used to do on his show, which started off at one a week and then went to twice a week.

And nine times out of 10, you know, we were disagreeing because Bill acted like a lawyer and wasn't and was really just more of a populist, which doesn't work when it comes to the law, right? Like the law is the law. You don't just get to rule the way that would be popular. And that worked. But I think you're right. Generally, Fox, like most cable properties, are about reinforcing people's existing worldviews. And it's not educational. It's really not. It may give you sort of armor or ammunition, I guess, to use against the other side if you're going to have an argument at

Thanksgiving. But the best arguers know the other side's case forward and backward. So that's why it's like, yeah, I agree with you. It's so much better. That's one of the things I like about your reporting is, and as you say, you take the other side's best point. It's not some straw man. It's not some weakling making an easy argument to dismiss. You've got to really wrestle with it. And if you have the better argument, you can wrestle with it. You can actually persuade people. But yeah, we're much more in our rabbit holes now, not really interested in getting out. They used to have point-counterpoint debates. It is difficult on cable because they degenerate into screaming matches. I have the advantage in that I edit.

And if the teacher's union guy wants to go on forever about how unions are always great, I can just let him do it, knowing I can cut out most of it later and you don't get the screaming. But live, you can't do that. You, by the way, I never knew this just in preparing for this interview because I was going back through some of your old greatest hits. I did not know, maybe you told me and I forgot, but I did not know

about the WWE guy who assaulted you on camera. Well, it speaks well for you that you don't pay attention to that garbage. But yes, sadly, maybe my most viewed YouTube video is me being beaten up. I was doing a 2020 video. I was a high school wrestler. I was always annoyed that pro wrestling was fake and that they pretend that it wasn't and that some kids thought it was real and so we searched for a long time until we could find one of their performers who was willing to

talk about it and we did that and to set up again getting both sides we went to the wwe and said you have a spokesperson who wants to argue with me when I say this is fake? And Vince McMahon brought out this guy, David Schultz, 6'8", 280 pounds. I think he was high on speed. His tag team partner later told me he did that to get psyched for his performances. And he said, you think this is fake? Well, you think this is fake? Whack!

Hit me in the side of the head with an open hand, which can burst your eardrums. Didn't burst mine. And then I stupidly got up and he knocked me down again. So then I just crawled off. It was a brutal assault. I was like, how badly could he have hurt? Like, who would hurt the news anchor from ABC coming over, you know, on camera? But it was bad. He really, he did hurt you. And you wound up suing him. And you won. There was a settlement that was pretty decent. And then I read that you regretted doing that. Is it just your libertarian, you know, you probably don't like lawsuits, but like when you get hurt by somebody,

they're not always a bad idea. I don't regret doing it. I think they should be taught they can't go having reporters beaten up. And the wrestler claimed that Vince McMahon had told him to do it. I don't know if that's true, but I thought they should be discouraged from beating people up. I gave the money to charity.

The odd part where maybe it's been spun that I regret it is an odd thing happened. It's part of a lawsuit they send you to their doctor, some guy at Columbia University who, without examining me, said, I think this is a gerosomatic illness. Oh, I'm sorry. My symptom was ear pain. When there was loud noises, like my young daughter crying, it really hurt. And it made it difficult for me. I said, this is a gerosomatic illness. What's that? Well, you're holding onto your pain. Well, what does it mean to you? You're a lawyer. You're holding onto your pain because you're involved in a lawsuit. Oh, wow. First of all, I did not do personal injury. That was definitely not my beat. But second of all, oh, that's so offensive, right? Like spoken like somebody who doesn't know you at all, by the way. But he was right. It's amazing. Because I was angry and I'm fighting

this lawsuit and I'm feeling this pain. And finally it's all settled. It goes away. And the pain gradually also went away. Now, is that just coincidence or time? Maybe. But watching the personal injury business, I do believe there are all kinds of people with back pain and neck spasms who have gerosomatic illnesses. The pain stays because they're involved in this horrible fight. So it's not that you, I misunderstood that you were, it was like faking it. It's not faking it. It's still there, but you're making it still be there. Like the actual physical pain is still there, but it's more psychosomatic. In other words, like you've convinced yourself it's there because it kind of needs to be there for you to win this case. Something like that. I don't presume to understand it. But yes, I wasn't faking it. I had the pain. Unlike the wrestlers. Right.

Though a lot of them hurt themselves. Their performance is dangerous work. At the time, they were hiding razor blades in their mouths

so they could cut themselves on the forehead usually because the head bleeds easily and then it would drip down their face and they would look scary and bloody this i did not know so you think you don't need

to know abc getting beat getting beaten up getting protested by the teachers co-anchoring with barbara and then elizabeth vargas later and you know at the at the height of your career, and I have an interesting question, I think, for you, just because I just just knowing you, were you happy? Was that was that a happy time for you? No, because nobody liked my libertarian stuff. I was an outcast. But I mean, are you like, you just lean toward not, not pessimistic, but you're not somebody who's skipping into the room laughing with a big smile. So what would you say was your happiest time in life so far? Watching my children prosper, meeting, falling in love with my wife, playing beach volleyball. I'm certainly not work. I'm a stutterer. I went in the television. I would go on TV scared until I mastered my speech every day. But you're right. Do you ever still stutter? You're picking out all my fault, my worst fault.

I know you. You assume the risk by coming on with somebody who actually knows you pretty well, I think, but loves you. I mean, it's it's I love what I what I see. And I love Ellen like you do, too. I think you guys, one thing that's interesting about the two of you is you seem very different. You know, yes, she's more liberal and you're a libertarian. She's I think she's a forgive me, but she's an intellectual. I mean, she's just so freaking smart. You're smart too, but you're more man of the people smart, I think. And she's more like kind of on you about your behavior and you don't really seem to give a shit what anybody thinks. These are just my armchair observations of the two of you. But I think sort of your mutual sense of humor and spark,

like intellectual spark, that's my opinion, makes it work. Do you think I have it right? Yes, Dr. Kelly. Very astute analysis there. The politics doesn't make it easy, but we have other things that keep us going. And I should point out that while I'm in Florida, she's not. But that's just for 10 days. But this isn't turning into a like a Woody Mia thing where you're going to have separate apartments

across the park, is it? I hope not. Good. Well, I'm going to go see her now that I know she's alone. Not that I ever minded seeing you. Ellen is the reason I wound up hooking up with my therapist. I actually, I don't know if I've told this story,

but Doug and I were over at your apartment and it was right after Yardley was born, our second child. And I was having these nonstop thoughts of death, my own. I was like, for the first time I was walking around the New York City streets thinking that scaffolding is going to fall on my head and I'm going to die. Or somebody's air conditioning unit is going to fall out of the window and I'm going to go, I'm going to get hit by a bus and I won't be paying attention. And that's- You told me you were afraid of the B elevator at Fox. Well, that thing was unreliable. Even Abby shaking her head. That was not a safe box to get into.

So she said, and she's a brilliant psychiatrist, said, you should consider seeing somebody. And I was like, you know what? Maybe you're right. Cause I don't really want to walk around like this. Hook me up with my therapist who is totally brilliant and has been such an important part of my life, especially all the shit that's gone down since then in the 11 years thereafter. And it is great to arm yourself with some psychological tools. You know, it's like bad stuff happens to you. And I don't think some people get lucky enough to come into the world with just a natural ability to deal with it. But if you're not one of those people, I have found it very helpful to have somebody just to arm me with some tools when certain old habits creep up, you know, like obsessive thinking over things that are not good for you. Anyway, so it's kind of thanks to you and Ellen that my life was much better over the past 10 years than it otherwise would have been.

Well, I'm so glad it is. And I'm glad you reveal it on your podcast because talk therapy does help people. Well, and you've done your own sort of approach to this as well. You have another layer, which is your men's group, right? Can you tell us what that is about? Yeah, I did a 2020 story where it was at the time where Peter Jennings was doing stories about how women get screwed in divorces because the men steal the money, as we sometimes do. Men are often better with the financial tricks.

But then he said, but after the divorce, the people who do better are the women. The men more often get depressed, get fat, kill themselves. Why this is? Because the women have, on average, six friends with whom they share intimate stuff with. And the men, on average, has one. And it's usually the ex-wife. It sank in that my male friendships were sports. They were very shallow. We didn't talk about personal feelings. And I had a friend who's a therapist. We started a men's group and meeting once a week to talk about personal stuff. And I never want to go, but I'm always glad when I do. And it makes me connect more than I would otherwise. Why do you never want to go?

I don't have anything to say. What am I going to talk about? I'm not that social. I'm perfectly happy to sit in the corner and read a book. I can relate to that. Doug and I are both sort of homebodies and are perfectly happy to sit by ourselves. But I can relate to that. Doug and I are both sort of homebodies and are perfectly happy to sit by ourselves. But I can relate. And once you get yourself up and get yourself out for the right people, it does pay off. And I you know, I'll cut this part if you don't want to tell this story.

But can I at least ask you if you on this on this subject want to tell the story about your run in with Jane Pauly? Oh, God, I forgot about that whole thing. I remember it well. As I recall, it wasn't a run-in with Pauley. It was with her husband, Gary Trudeau, who I sat next to at some lunch. And I happen to always read the comics when I'm sitting in the corner alone reading, what includes the comic. And really admired Doonesbury, though I didn't agree with his politics.

We had a nice time, and I sent him an email inviting him to dinner at our house along with Hugh and Doug. And as I recall, he sent an email to Jane saying, I may have been too friendly with this guy that he thinks he can invite us to dinner. And by mistake, sent it to me. And I replied saying, well, look, these people are coming. You're still welcome. And he said, no, nevermind.

So is that how you would have told the story? You would have done a better job. No, that's what I remember. I may have been too friendly with him. But the viewers should know that Jane Pauley, and she's come out with this, she's got some issues. I don't know if she's agoraphobic, but she's very socially reclusive. And so it wasn't, it wasn't like he hated you. He had recognized that they're not particularly social and he'd been too social in a way where you extended this invitation that now put him in an

awkward position. And then it got 10 times more awkward and he realized he sent it to you. No, got to be careful with emails. Now. Got to be careful with emails. Now you got to be careful with Zoom. Oh, my God. Tell it to Jeffrey Toobin. Right.

Honestly, I'm still not over it. And he's still not back on CNN, right? Do you think he's ever going to come back? No. I think you can come back from a lot. I don't think you can come back from that. I'm sorry, still not. I'm still not over it. And to me, it speaks to just such a difference. I realize 99% of men would not do this. It's not necessarily male female thing. But there is not a woman on earth who would have done that. There's not a woman on earth

who would have taken the risk that he took. And the explanation makes my point. His point was, I thought I had muted it. He didn't even think he had disconnected. He knew he was still a live wire and he still did what he did. Well, men and women are different. So I think men are more eager to masturbate and would be more likely to do this but like while you're still connected to not just to your work colleagues but like a bunch of randos who were on the zoom call to to help assist the election night coverage that they were planning like talk about reckless totally and who not why would that get you off at the time? But look, there's something wrong. We men are weird. This we know are weird in different ways. Well, that's true, too. I mean, I think you're right, though, on the subject of women and their

friends, because I just look around and like my women friends prioritize getting together. I'm, as I said, a little bit more like you. You know, I'm a little, I don't know, socially reticent. And but my women friends are all very good about being like, we're going out to dinner. Let's go like another dinner. And then another group is like, and now we are going out to dinner. And I've learned that saying yes leads to good things. Saying no doesn't.

Saying no leads to more of the same. And saying yes, taking risks, almost every single time you wind up being glad you did it. I agree. I feel the same way. And I rarely want to go. And the other difference is when you go there, the women will say, how is your mom? Or how is this person in your family who was sick? And the guys will say, what's up? How about the Mets?

It's a different nature of a conversation. I have a new men's group now and we do it by Zoom because of COVID and people are around the country. And they constantly want to talk about politics or sports. And I keep having to say, no, the purpose of this group is to keep it personal. Say you want to talk about how you feel about the politics or the sports, fine, but don't tell me, let's not speculate on the electoral college. Who cares? Oh, I like that. So you have to talk about your marriage or your kids or yourself or your health or your insecurities, what have you. Yes.

See, this is one of the reasons I like YPO, right? We talked about this once before. Yes, exactly. Doug used to be in that. And it stands for Young Presidents Organization. Doug was in it when he was running his company. And it's like a support group for young CEOs who are trying to figure out how to run their businesses. And they have this thing called Forum where you meet with like four or five men. for young CEOs who are trying to figure out how to run their businesses. But they,

and they have this thing called forum where you meet with like four or five men and it could be women, but it tends to be mostly men. And they talk about, yes, their businesses, but each, each forum,

at least in Doug's, they'd go around the table. And the one guy who was quote on that week would do it like a presentation of something that was going on. And it could be, he'd show, you know, his balance sheet and have it blown up and everybody would comment on how he's doing or what he can do to fix these problems. Really smart minds. But it could be like, I remember one guy, um, did a whole presentation on his marriage and like the problems they were having, the risks he was taking, like all that stuff. And they helped him. I'm like, this is amazing, especially for men who are told in this forum, you must do this. You're on and you must discuss the biggest problem you're facing right now.

It's good. I'm surprised forum hasn't spread further. Well, I think it's in the nature of what we're talking about, right? Which is like a lot of men won't even consider this unless they have to. So you join Young Presidents Organization, you think you're going to get business assistance from other CEOs. That sounds like a smart CEO thing to do. And then suddenly they're like, what's going on with your marriage? Who was that woman I saw you with? And you're like, whoa. But then, you know, you grow to trust these guys, they take trips together. And before you know it, you're talking like the women do. And it's wonderful. It's wonderful. And I think I was introduced to it. I was making a paid speak somewhere. And I was in the gym and there were some other guys. And they were talking about

personal stuff. And I asked them about about it and they were all forum members and it had lifted their lives. Now, I will say, however, that if Stossel invites you over and you have a meaningful conversation started by Ellen, in which he will offer meaningful thoughts as well, as you heard, don't stay too long. And by that, I mean like past 10. Would you care to tell the audience what you do when you are ready for the evening to be over and you have perfectly nice guests sitting at your dining room table? I don't understand what's wrong with this and why you introduced this as this warning. But yes, I do get restless. I get butt rot, as Fred put it. And I say, look, you want to keep talking here?

Great. I'm going to bed. And I do. It's the hard rap. He will get up and just leave. What does Ellen think of this? Mixed. She doesn't like it, but she'd rather have me gone than have me looking tired and miserable. I guess it depends on the quality of the guests, too. But I resent this on her behalf, because Doug has his own version of this. I think he becomes the you that she's trying to avoid. When we are out to dinner or at an event where he doesn't like the other people, I'm dead. I am dead because Doug has no ability to hide his feelings, none. And so he will just completely shut down. He will stop talking. Sometimes he will just turn his chair. He's not trying to be rude. He just understands he shouldn't say anything because it's going to betray his true feelings about these people. And I always joke. I think he's the perfect amount of aloof. I think that's kind of what's hot about him. You know, like you

never know that 13 years of marriage, I'm still guessing. But I say to people who I know are sometimes wondering whether Doug likes them or not. If you're wondering, it's good. It's a plus. Not to worry. Because if he didn't like you, you'd know. The hard rap is probably better. You're a hypocrite because you said you don't like it. And yet, wouldn't you rather have him leave than insult the fence by just turning his chair?

And you once told me that you liked it. And you even said the guests were calling it a stossel time now or something. I like what you do. No, I like what you do because I would like to do it. I feel envious. I don't have the balls to do it. I just, I couldn't do it. I have, I would love to say to somebody, get out. It's over. I enjoyed you for those three hours, but it's done. I can do it better. Like, I will tell you this. I've taken this from you, like a little bit of the radical honesty of like, no.

Sometimes people will say, oh, you know, we're going to have this great thing. We're going to get together and we're going to do like a, you know, whiskey tasting or whatever. And I'll say, oh, I would totally do it, but I don't want to. That is a stossel child that sort of came from you. Um, so I don't mind your approach. I just, I'm envious cause I don't have the guts to pull it off myself. I love that. I usually say I would love to, but I'd rather stick needles in my eye. Yeah. Did it take years of practice?

Were you always this way? I used to just suffer until I thought, what? Why suffer? This is supposed to be pleasurable. I'm not enjoying it. And my sleepiness is not making the party better. And I'm in my own house. I would love to be horizontally bed.

You have to suffer because politeness. That's why the rest of us do it. Well, I'm 73 years old now. I have 100 months left to live, odds are. And carpe diem. I don't want to suffer through those months. Just for the record, you were doing this 10 years ago, so I don't think it's about your 100 months.

It's how you're built. It was 200 months. Well, Stossel, it's over between us. Thank you for coming on. Get out. Okay. Good to talk to you. Bye.

Don't forget to tune in for our next episode because we're going to be joined by Thomas Chatterton Williams. Now, tell me who else in America has a bio like this. He's a columnist for Harper's Magazine. He's a contributing writer for New York Times Magazine. And he's a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Those are two, I would say, significantly left-leaning media organizations. And then AEI, which is where Mark Thiessen is, right? This is definitely a conservative think tank. But that's what's great about Thomas Chatterton Williams is he's not a hard partisan.

He's a thinker. That's what he is. He's a cultural critic and he's a big thinker. And he had a big fight with Kirsten Powers, which is just one of the many reasons why I love him. And you will, too. Next time. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures. you