The Megyn Kelly Show - Legacy Media Constraints, and COVID Gaslighting Continues, with Bari Weiss, Nellie Bowles, and David Zweig | Ep. 621

Episode Date: September 6, 2023

It's "Free Press" day on The Megyn Kelly Show. Megyn Kelly is joined by Bari Weiss, founder and CEO of The Free Press, to talk about legacy publications and how they're failing, the way The Free Press is home to open debate and conversation, whether the sexual revolution was good for women or not, a viral video from a young woman talking about conservative commentators' recent comments about family values and single women, The Free Press highlighting a whistleblower at a gender clinic in St. Louis (and having it confirmed by the New York Times), and more. Then David Zweig, journalist for The Free Press and the Silent Lunch Substack, joins to discuss Anthony Fauci still misleading Americans about COVID masks, mask mandates coming back around the country, if the CDC is “gaslighting” us about COVID, Biden back to masking again, the politicization of COVID policy, his interview with a former state department official who reveals a "cover up" on COVID origins, whether the government is hiding information about COVID origins, why the media is ignoring this story, the truth about the new COVID "surge," and more. Then Nellie Bowles, reporter at The Free Press, joins to discuss the boundaries within legacy media, her experience at the New York Times, stories about being targeted for associating with Bari and having curiosity about stories that were not allowed to be covered, the media and left celebrating the transgender man who joined Kappa Kappa Gamma at the University of Wyoming, the media ignoring the discomfort of the sorority sisters and the allegations of inappropriate conduct, and more.Find out more: https://www.thefp.com/ 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. It is a week of firsts here on the MK Show. First week in our new studio. First time having an on-set guest today. How about that? And we're having a free press day. The free press, as you may know, is an online news magazine launched by journalist Barry Weiss after she left the New York Times in a blaze of glory, submitting and posting a scathing resignation letter for all the world to see. You may remember she was one of our first interviews on the show after she did that. It was one of my favorite episodes. It was just very unchained talking about what it had been like at the New York Times, where she entered in good faith, earnestly, only to find that having that approach to the news was not acceptable at the Times, as all of our listeners know. You can find her journalistic outfit, The Free Press, at the

fp.com. And there you can read their free articles or become a subscriber for all of their content. One of their recent major stories involved a woman blowing the whistle on appalling care, in quotation marks, at a major transgender clinic in Missouri. The New York Times later investigated the reporting done by the Free Press and ended up confirming the horrifying details. But that was not their mission. At first, they wanted to cast doubt on it. People like Chris Hayes of MSNBC cast doubt on it only to find out all the Free Press and Barry were right all along. But later in the show, we're going to have David Zweig. You know, David, he was one of the few writing for places like New York Magazine during the pandemic, pushing back in that publication and others against the mask and the mandate madness.

He's going to be here. And then the back half of the show, Barry's wife, Nellie Bowles, she will join me. She never goes on camera. I don't even know what Nellie looks like. I just know she's married to Barry. So we're going to get to meet Nellie and find out how she had a similar journey to Barry at The Times. The Times is creating more conservatives than Hillsdale these days. But for now, we welcome Barry back to the show. Barry, how are you doing?

Megan, it's really, really great to be here. I don't even know if they're minting conservatives. I think they're just ejecting normal liberals, but I'll let Kelly speak for her experience. That's right. No, I know you're not actually conservatives, but you're not the liberals you were when you entered the Times, or at least you've been disabused of your belief in those kinds of liberals and what they stood for? I think we basically realized that in order to do the kind of journalism that drove us to places like The Times or for me, The Wall Street Journal or for Nellie, The San Francisco Chronicle, before that, we had to leave the legacy institutions because even though they have

the prestige, even though they have the distribution, they don't actually live up to the values that they claim to. And so we needed to leave in order to do the job that we came to do. And that's exactly what we're doing at the Free Press. I mean, it's the aptly named. Can I just ask you, how are you? You're the busiest person in media. You've got 10,000 projects. You started a university. You started a media outlet. You're the busiest person in media. You've got 10,000 projects. You started a university.

You started a media outlet. You got married. You had a baby. I know you did the Twitter files with Elon Musk. You were like one of the, if not the first you and Matt Taibbi journalists called to go investigate like the list. I don't, how are you? You're so sweet. I'm, I'm amazing. I mean, when I think back to what has changed in my life over the past two years, I do get a little bit of whiplash. We moved from New York to LA. We bought our first house. We got married. We had a child. We became first-time entrepreneurs. I mean, as you know, Megan, I am not a business person. I didn't know what ROI was. I didn't know what EBITDA was. And now here I am running a company

with 20 people and growing and offices as of a few weeks ago in LA and New York. So it's been just an absolutely wild ride. I wouldn't change it for the world, but having a kid and growing a business in the same year, maybe don't do those two things at the same time if you want to maintain some semblance of healthy sleep patterns. But I'm super excited and we're putting on our first live debate next week here in LA, which I'm also incredibly excited about and hope it's going to be the first of many. I'm interested in this debate. If that were here in New York, I would have been there. I apologize. I can't fly out to L.A. for this because I actually would really have liked to enjoy this. So who's debating and

get to what what is the heart of this? Because I love this whole idea of the debate series. We do a debate series on the show where we have both sides, strong representatives, you know, from on the gun debate. We did Palestine and Israel. We've done a bunch of them. So I completely support the concept. It seems like you've gotten some spicy women who are ready to go at it on this issue. I loved your Israeli-Palestinian. I think you had Alan Dershowitz and Shadi Hamid for that. It was so, so good. Yeah. I mean, what we've found is that, you know, despite what a lot of the legacy publications would have you believe, which is, you know, don't treat readers or listeners like adults, give them a kind of. Premasticated mush that confirms their biases, biases. Actually, it turns out that huge numbers of people crave open, honest, sober, provocative debates. And when I look at the kind of episodes

that have done the best on my podcast, honestly, often they're debates, including most recently about Ozempic, which I thought was a really provocative one. So what could be more provocative in our view than debating the legacy of the sexual revolution? Something that growing up, I believed was an unadulterated good, allowed women to become not second class citizens to men in a revolutionary tiny pill, allowed women for the first time in history to have autonomy and control over their bodies. And when to have children, did it make you a slut or a wench or whatever the smear would be to have sex before marriage. Holy shit.

It changed the world. And yet, what are the unintended consequences of all of these freedoms? We see that people are having less sex. They're not getting married and therefore they're unhappier and they're lonelier. You know, what of hookup culture? What has happened to men as a result of feminism and the sexual revolution? I think that this is an extremely juicy debate. And we put together an amazing group of women.

All, by the way, happen to be young mothers on stage. On one side, we have the great and powerful Sarah Hader, who's incredible. Look her up if people don't know her. Her podcast is A Special Place in Hell. She's paired up with the inimitable Grimes, which I think is going to be an incredibly interesting pairing. And they're arguing that the sexual revolution has not failed. On the other side of the debate, arguing that the sexual revolution has failed, we have Louise Perry. Megan, if your listeners don't know her, I think that they will be

extremely interested in what she has to say. She's out of the UK. Yeah, you've had her on. She's flying in from the UK. Her book is called The Case Against the Sexual Revolution. And she is joined with certainly not a conservative, Anna Katchian, one of the hosts of the podcast Red Scare. Yeah, we've had her on too, Red Scare. She's amazing. She's amazing. And the opener is, and this is the real wild card, Tim Dillon, one of my favorite comedians. And I love him too. So it's going to be a really, really great night. The theater is about to sell out. It's 1600 seats and it's the first live debate we're ever doing.

So I'm nervous, excited, really hope people will join. It's September 13th, 7 p.m. Downtown Los Angeles. You can get tickets at VFP.com forward slash debates. And my plug is now over. It's a good plug, though, because, I mean, there's a lot of juiciness in there. And the phrase you said that I know is true from just reading the news that stuck out to me is people are not having sex. Right. Why are the young people not having any sex they're not having sex they're not driving

i mean we watched i don't know if you saw there's this new really funny jennifer lawrence comedy no hard feelings have you seen it yet okay well there's how have you seen it how are you taking in any entertainment i don't know because i i don't think it's you gotta unwind anyway we had family in town we were like oh this looks appealing to everyone and there's it's it's actually kind of a throwback movie it's it's really it's just very fun and and raucous but there's this scene where jennifer lawrence who's like 32 or 33 in the movie and the whole conceit is that she's being paid by the parents of a dorky snowflaked helicoptered kid in order to take him out of his shell, maybe have sex with him. And it's like this classic rom-com scene in which they're at a house party. And you imagine

that behind every single bedroom door upstairs, there's going to be kids hooking up. And instead, she opens every door and it's just kids on their phones or kids on VR headsets or kids, you know, looking at a TikTok video together, sort of hunched over the screen. And it's just very emblematic of the current moment, right? The internet's changed everything. The internet is revolutionary in ways beyond our imagining. And it's definitely changing the expectations that teenagers and men and women have about sex and what it looks like, what other people's bodies

should look like, and also whether or not you need to have it in the first place when you can just go and look at Pornhub. So this is like one of the many topics that we think are just really relevant to everyone's lives, men, women, gay, straight, et cetera. So really excited to hash it out on stage as the moderator of this conversation. It's such a difference from, you know, you're younger than I am. But when both of us grew up, when you actually had to court someone a little bit, you had to actually work on building a relationship if you wanted to have sex with them. Now you just swipe and Tinder and next thing you know, somebody shows up at your door. We've heard some horror stories just among our adult friends about young, you know, their kids who are in their young 20s. You can be extorted. Like, you don't know who's coming to

your door. Like, you're just going to have random sex with a random stranger you found on Tinder, and you have no idea whether this person, like, has an idea about your family financial situation, what she's going to allege after she leaves. It is a fraught way of having action. I mean, just put down the phone, call somebody up on the rotary dial, ask them to a movie, whisper some sweet nothings. You know, that's the old school way worked, Barry. It worked.

It worked. It worked. I mean, I have to say there's some amazing couples I know that have met on the apps. And, you know, technology has allowed you to connect with people in all over the world who you might not otherwise know. But yeah, I mean, it's definitely a brave new world. One of the things I've debated sort of bringing back at the free press is the question of or one thing I think could be really fun is like a classified section. There are people that have written in saying, you know, I'm single. Do you know any like-minded people? And I'm realizing

that- I feel like pina coladas getting caught in the rain. Exactly. That's right. I like that idea. That would probably drive your readership way, way up. I mean, not that it needs it. It's already high. I don't know. I feel like it's such a mixed message. All these young girls today are getting such mixed messages, whether it comes to, you know, their sexual freedom, their gender. Right. What's what does it mean to be pro woman in today's day and age? Is it okay to advocate for women's spaces? And then there's lane three, which I've been thinking about lately. I didn't actually plan on discussing this with you, but since we're on the topic,

it's sort of the Matt Walsh messaging that was all over Twitter this past weekend, or X as it's now called. And Matt Walsh sort of took on this young woman who was online. She said, there are these videos all over. She was on TikTok and he reposted on Twitter with a commentary. And she was like, I'm 28. You know what my life looks like?

Because I don't have a husband and children. I got to sleep until 1030 after going to the Beyonce concert last night. I didn't rise from my bed until 1015. Every time I thought I should probably get up and do something. I thought, why? Nobody's making me. I'm not missing out on anything i went to beyonce last night and i didn't get home until 1am and i danced and drank my little heart out and i didn't pay a babysitter to watch my kids as i did that and i woke up a tad hungover this morning which is probably why

i was in bed for so long and i was just scrolling on my phone and i saw a picture of shakshuka and i thought you know what sounds really good maybe i'm gonna learn how to make sh Shakshuka and I thought, you know, it sounds really good. Maybe I'm going to learn how to make Shakshuka today because I have no plans and I don't have kids and I don't have a husband and I don't have errands to run. I can go to the grocery store and learn how to make Shakshuka. She's going to learn how to make some dish and dish with poached eggs and tomato sauce and I will make it for you next time you're in L.A. Okay. It's done. So he I saw it. I was like, she sounds kind of obnoxious, but OK, fine. She looks she's loving her life. Who cares? He sort of saw something else, which is she doesn't realize how vapid and empty her life is, like that this is no answer to, hey, why aren't you married yet? Hey, where's your family?

Like he I forgive me for trying to paraphrase Matt without having his commentary right in front of me, but he took issue with it as like the glorification of a lonely lifestyle that he doesn't agree with. You know, he doesn't, he wants marriage. He wants families. He wants, he, I think he would like that woman to see the way he and his wife live and be willing to celebrate it. And she certainly didn't sound like she wanted to. Now, to me, both of these people make me a little uncomfortable, right? Like the one woman seemed a little in your face, you people who've chosen to get married and have kids. F off. I'm here with my post- hangover and it's glorious. And he's the same, frankly, you know, like, you know what it's like when you're a young woman and you're 28, I've been there and you're not married. Everybody's asking you why you're not married. So it's like, she's trying to say like, I'm good. Exactly. Like I honestly saw that as just kind of online bullying of a kind. Like, I, you know, there was no sense of empathy in what and maybe maybe there were tweets that I missed, but I sort of glanced at Right. I mean, I'm divorced. I know what it is to be single and be on your own and looking for a family, which thank God I found and I'm so grateful that I have.

But the idea of looking at a 28-year-old woman who's talking about going to Beyonce, which I do wish I got a chance to go to Beyonce or Taylor Swift this summer, did not, that the answer to that is to dunk on her and say, you're glorifying being single. No, maybe what she's doing is telling herself and doing it in public as a way to sort of de-stigmatize the feelings of being alone that it's okay. And I can look out for myself and I can find meaning and happiness in a life without the things that ostensibly she, like most people, would want, which is love and happiness and the meaning that comes from a family life. And so I just don't think that if you genuinely believe in so-called family values, that the way to advance those is dunking on people who haven't yet found it. So, you know, that's just not I'm not I'm not down with that sort of messaging.

I don't it don't resonate with it. And certainly Matt Walsh believes in his family values. I'm not sure that he believes in and marriage. I doubt that he believes in the kind of marriage that I'm a part of. And I believe that I and my family are, you know, just as just as valid as any other. So I was struck. I watched what's his documentary called? What is a woman? And I was really impressed. There was a lot that I liked in it. And then I came to the last scene, which just made me utterly cringe in which he walks into this softly lit kitchen and says essentially to his wife, and you'll correct me, like, I need like, not make me a sandwich, but like, or no, the wife's hands him a jar of pickles or something. And it's like, I need help. Just this, like, I don't know. I, for me, you lost me in that moment personally. And then, and then he says to her after asking all the experts, what is a woman? And no one can tell him he asked her and she says an adult human female and you know, done. It's

like a simple thing. So I got the message. I know what you're saying. I have I really like Matt Wall. She's been on the show. He's he's provocative. He's interesting. He's got this, you know, I don't know, you could say dated view of the family structure of women in general. I loved what is a woman. I think it was such a force for good. But I do like he and it's not just Matt, who I love and I'd have on, but like it's not just him. There's like a block growing within the right that the new messaging seems to be to like women who are like you, like me, like who have chosen to work. That somehow this is an abandonment of our responsibilities that like we're missing our true calling, even though you're a mother and I'm a mother too. And we are doing it all, but not perfectly. Neither are the stay at home moms. And I feel like women have actually kind of gotten to the place where we're not judging

each other as much for this anymore. Like we're realizing that stay at home moms are rocking it and they've made great choices for them. And so have the working moms. And that was like this group of men, mostly on the right, I have to say, who more and more are like sending out these kind of nasty messages about how somehow there's been some dereliction of duty by those of us who have chosen to have professions in addition to families. Yeah, I mean, I think there's always been sort of a retrograde element on the political right, and we shouldn't be surprised that it's still there. But if we want to sort of put it in cultural context right now, I think one of the things

that's happening is that as the sort of illiberal left or the woke left has gotten especially sort of disconnected from reality, it has given a sort of opening to the right and toward the cultural right to say, look how crazy they are. The only solution is to sort of wind back the clock to the 1950s. Look how crazy they are. If you want to get back to normalcy, we need to simply go back to the moment sort of like pre-feminism, pre-women's equality. And I just don't believe that, period. Right, right. And you're right, it's reactionary in response to the left trying to demonize the stay-at-home moms.

And it's under, you know, and like. Exactly. We're in the middle saying you don't have to choose. You don't have to demonize anybody. Both of those choices are totally cool and valid. And the answer to like what the left is doing to the stay at home moms is not to do that same thing to the working moms. Exactly. Exactly. And also to the women who aren't moms at all, like the women who have chosen not to get married and have kids or the women who would like to get

married and have kids but haven't yet found the person. This is actually what Matt tweeted on the gal. He tweeted her life doesn't revolve around her family and kids. So instead it revolves around TV shows and pop stars. Worst of all, she's too stupid to realize how depressing this is. And then she got on there. A lot of people said he was bullying her. And he said, the woman that I quote bullied posts constantly to tick talk about how she's 29 and single living an easy life because she doesn't have kids. She wants people to notice these facts about her, which is why she announces them to the world daily. So I noticed, and I gave my take. That's how the internet works. She's not a victim. Calm down, everyone.

So I have to say, I agree with that second tweet. You put it out there. If you don't want anybody to comment on your lifestyle, don't put it out there. But you know what? I have to say, I this, I really try and abide by the rule and everyone really at the free press does as well, which is act online the way you would act to someone's face. And there's too many people with huge, enormous platforms and followings online capable of sicking their followers on, I don't know the woman's name who posted the video. And there's just sort of like a lack of responsibility I see among a lot of people

that sort of have no hesitation about saying to someone, you're dumb. And I say to myself every single time before I tweet, would I say this to the person's face? And if the only people I say that about generally are Karine Jean-Pierre. And well, I could think of a couple, but I would say that to her 100 percent. You're too dumb for your job. I'm sorry. I have to be honest with you. Get out. So, OK, but it's a good rule of thumb.

It's a good rule of thumb. Yeah, just only because, listen, none of us are immune to it. The Twitter and all of these platforms just create this incredible mob mentality in every single one of us. No one is immune to it. And I think that in general, just trying to stick by that principle leads to classier outcomes. Classy. That's true. Tough to find classy on Twitter, on X. That's not what it's known for. But that is part of what I like about Twitter at X. I got to get used to that, is you know you're going there for nastiness. That's part of it. It's clear. You know, you're going to go, you're going to get upset, and you're going to get off. Instagram is the sneaky son of a B because like you go over to Instagram, you're like, I feel good. I'm going to, this is the nice one. And then when you log off of that, you feel like crap. You're like all my lifestyle choices suck. Everyone is doing it

better than I am. I don't know why I feel so blue after getting off of the happy site. Oh, interesting. No, for me, Instagram is my safe space. I get targeted ads for like cookware and moomoos. And then I go on Twitter and all it is is Cheech and Chong marijuana edibles. And frankly, a lot of anti-Semites in my mentions. And I'm like- And naked girls now. Have you seen naked girls in your feed? Like in your comments? Like what? Yeah, but I wondered if that was the algorithm. Are you getting that too getting what i said i wondered if the naked girls were just being targeted to me but apparently not

so no they've not figured out that you're a lesbian they do it to the straight gals too i'm like why are there so many naked girls who want really want me to call them it's a no twitter is i mean all of these like it's a mess and the people a mess. I mean, all of these, like it's a mess. And the people that actually have the wherewithal and the discipline, unlike me, to log off entirely are going to be massively more productive than I am. So kudos to all of the people I saw that are taking, you know, August off or whatever. I think it's amazing. Yeah, it's true. All right. Now, one of the great things about the free press is, as we discussed off the top, you can cover stories that will not be covered in the mainstream that would never be delved into at places like The Times on a regular basis. the medicalization of children who say they have some gender confusion, they've gotten a lot of blowback. If they come anywhere near to a fair story, GLAAD, which ran out of things to do once

gays and lesbians got the right to same-sex marriage and kind of achieved equality, has turned itself entirely to this trans organization that now harasses people like the Times if they write such an article and so on, and now probably people like you too. So you guys took a deep dive on Jamie Reed, who blew the whistle, as I said in the intro on this clinic that was providing this so-called care. It's anything of the kind, but that anything but that at this clinic and immediately the reaction by many on the left, including, as I pointed out, Chris Hayes of MSNBC was, I don't think so. I doubt it. So can you set it up for us? What happened with Jamie Reed, the pushback and where it landed? So six months ago, for those who haven't read the story, we published this really explosive whistleblowing account from the woman that we've been mentioning

in this conversation. Her name is Jamie Reed. Jamie Reed is not someone that has a political axe to grind. She identifies as queer. Her partner is actually a trans man. Politically, she says she's to the left of Bernie Sanders, and she has dedicated her life to working for vulnerable populations. That is why she took a job at the Pediatric Gender Clinic at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. But she says in the four years that she spent there, what she saw in her words was morally and medically appalling. She says she saw teenagers, vulnerable teenagers with multiple mental health problems rushed into life altering treatments, including possible sterilization that they as teenagers teenagers in her view,

couldn't possibly consent to. She wrote in the piece predicting exactly what the reaction would be. She said this, I am speaking out, I am doing so knowing how toxic the public conversation around this highly contentious issue is and the ways that my testimony, she says, might be misused. But I'm doing so knowing that I'm putting myself at serious personal and professional risk. But she said she was doing so because her reputation and her personal comfort were less important than the lives of these vulnerable patients. She knew she would be demonized, and that's exactly what happened. She was demonized.

She was disavowed. We were accused of journalistic malpractice for publishing the piece. The day after the piece published, I've never seen such a story would inspire journalists just peak their curiosity to say, wow, what is this woman talking about? She's not a political conservative. She's not a right winger. She obviously is not transphobic. She is with a person who is transgender. Maybe we should look into that. But instead, largely what you saw was reactions like those from Chris Hayes, people saying there's something fishy about this story, accusing us of not having the full picture and demonizing Jamie Reed. It's cut to two weeks ago, and the New York Times publishes a story in the words of the New York Post vindicating ours, largely substantiating Jamie Reed's claims, talking about how the clinic was overwhelmed and how people were

sort of being rushed into treatment that they didn't fully understand. Teenagers with, again, complex mental health issues. And obviously, Megan, as you know, when you break a story and other publications follow it, as happens a lot of the time with the free press, it's very professionally gratifying. But the reason that this story was especially important and gratifying for us to have substantiated was because it's exactly the kind of story that we exist to pursue. It's exactly the kind of morally naughty story in which journalists avoid pursuing it because they know they will be punished or smeared for doing so. That is why the free press exists. And it exists to sort of ask the questions that a lot of people are asking themselves quietly. Questions like, how did this become the medical consensus? Can teenagers really consent to life-altering medical decisions? We don't allow teenagers to do all kinds of things, and yet we're allowing them to do this. Why and how? And just covering those topics,

not in a histrionic way, but in a sober, fair-minded, honest, frank way that treats readers like adults, that is what we're trying to do. And that is what we're so incredibly proud to have done in this particular situation. Well, this is one of the reasons why the free press is so important, because I think, and I know it's not homogenous, but I think there are a lot of liberals who read it and who are your fan and who, you know, maybe they're not, you know, openly anti woke because their social circles won't allow that. But they're sympathetic toward what you write about and the causes that you that you write about and like an article like this. And so they have an outlet where they see smart people who share their politics saying the things. That's better for someone like that than hearing it from the Daily Wire, right? Love the Daily Wire. Amazing. But they're not going to go there. So they love

you. They respect you. They followed you at the Times. And they hear you in your news outlet, your new news outlet, writing about these things, talking about it gives them permission. It's OK. They're not alone. Right. Right. And I think what we're trying to do is very old school. You know, it's very basic. It's just good, honest journalism. Right. It should pique our curiosity that suddenly in certain states in this country that happen to be on the coasts and not often in other states, there's enormous numbers of young teenage girls who are identifying as transgender. That is a medical mystery, one that should provoke and make curious and make journalists whose job is to pursue their curiosity interested in. And yet there are entire areas of American political and cultural life that have simply become off limits. You're simply not allowed to pursue stories in those areas. And I think that

most people, just most Americans, the majority of Americans, the politically homeless, we talk about them as the coalition of the same, people who don't identify on the hard left or the hard right, people who simply want accurate information about institutions and which ones they should trust and not, about schools and which ones are trying to indoctrinate their kids and which ones aren't, about cities and which ones are safe and which ones aren't. Basic information that people need in order to make decisions about their lives. Turns out there's a huge number of people that still hunger for that, who don't simply want ideological news, who want accurate, fair, sober news and great storytelling. And that is what we're trying to do with the free press. We're for anybody who seeks that, regardless of how you voted for, regardless of how you used to affiliate. And frankly, for people who look at those boxes and just say, I don't fit into either of those anymore. That's me. And I think that that's a lot of our readers. This is how Barry and I think that that's a lot of our readers.

This is how Barry and I first became friends, because even though we've talked about this, but maybe she's a four on the political scale and I'm a six. There's room in there. There's plenty of room for people to get along and talk about ideas and disagreements too, but so much common ground. And yet we have a press that doesn't cater to that at all. That doesn't even acknowledge that, that as she points out, doesn't want the debate. You, I'm sure you saw the Philip bump, uh, interview with my friend at the seller. Yeah, it was amazing. Totally non-curious. I didn't hear it. Fingers in the ears. No, it isn't happening. It isn't happening. That's why they leave the lane so wide open for people like you and yours truly. Barry Weiss, so good to see you. Hang in there, lady. Wonderful to be on, Megan, as a pleasure as always.

She's got so much going on. Send a prayer Barry's way. She's a busy, busy person in a great way. And thank God for us. She is coming up another free press contributor who you know well, if you've been listening to this program and that's David Zweig, one of the bravest men in New York. He's here on our new set. Our first on set guest, Doug Brunt is in the house too. He's, he's been our mixologist today. Cause I felt like we needed to have a cocktail given the fact that we're having our first on set guest that's next. Don't go away. On set for the first time is our first on set guest, David Zweig. He's a contributor to the free press and has written for many, many magazines. And what is the break was one of the bravest voices we had during the COVID pandemic, pushing back against mask mandates and other mandates. And we've now stolen a page out of the Doug Brunt

dedicated podcast book by having a signature cocktail on the set. Doug Brunt has actually made these cocktails for us. It's a little early in the day for cocktails, David, but we have to do it because it's celebratory. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. How's it going? It's going great. Oh, it's so fun to have you here. I'm thrilled to be here at the inauguration. Thank you very much. Yeah. And this is what my husband does on his book podcast where he interviews authors is he makes a bunch of booze and they drink it.

So cheers. Cheers. Yeah. Yay. To the studio. See if I'm still sitting at the end of this fall over. That's excellent. That's powerful.

That's a real martini. Gin. It's for real. With the twist. I have to say the twist is nice. It's nice. Are you a martini drinker? On occasion.

Yeah. Do you go for the vodka or like the real martini is gin? Gin, yeah. And that's why you have to have the twist and not an olive. It's a little more civilized. Don't you think?

Yes. Yeah, okay. All right, let's get down to Fauci. Okay. Let's get down to facts and Fauci. Unbelievable appearance with Michael Smirconish, who's also a SiriusXM host, this weekend at his CNN job.

He hosts a weekend show on CNN. And got out there, and Smirconish, it was a thing of beauty, I'm sure you loved it too, raised the Bret Stephens piece, he writes for the New York Times, a conservative who writes for the New York Times, about masks and how they don't work

and citing like a definitive study, like it's one of those massive mega studies, going after Fauci on the subject. And Fauci, I think on his heels, he tried to sort of, well, we'll play it for the audience. Here it is. Okay.

Brett Stevens in the Times talked about Cochran. Put that on the screen. The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illness, including COVID-19, was published last month. Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist who is the lead author, were unambiguous. There is just no evidence that they, masks, make any difference, he told the journalist Mayan Damasi. Full stop. But wait, hold on. What about the N95 masks as opposed to the lower quality surgical or cloth masks? Makes no difference. None of it, he said. Well, what about the studies that initially persuaded

policymakers to impose mask mandates? They were convinced by non-randomized studies, flawed observational studies. How do we get beyond that finding of that particular review? Yeah, but there are other studies, Michael, that show at an individual level for individual. When you're talking about the effect on the epidemic or the pandemic as a whole,

the data are less strong. There you go. You see that that's the qualifier. And the guy who did that was the Cochran lead author. His name is Tom Jefferson responded to Fauci in an interview with journalist Marianne DeMasi, who's posted on Substack saying,, so Fauci's saying masks work for individuals, but not at the population level? That doesn't make sense. He said there are other studies. What studies, says this guy Jefferson. He doesn't name them. So, you know, conveniently,

we cannot go and try to interpret them. But he explains, this guy Jefferson, that the entire point of the Cochrane review was to systemically sift through all available randomized data on physical interventions like masks and determine whether they were useful or were not. And the masks were not. There was no evidence, he said, that masks reduced transmission. This is he continues to try to obfuscate even when he's caught dead to rights.

I mean, I think most, or at least a lot of humans tend to be defensive if they said one thing and then they're caught in that thing being wrong, particularly for something as contentious of an issue as masks. I forget, it's a couple of years ago at this point, but I wrote a large piece for New York Magazine and then another one for The Atlantic that were, I think, some of the first really major pieces in sort of mainstream publications that really looked at the evidence. What are we doing here? That's how we first fell in love with you here at The Megyn Kelly Show. Right. So, you know, my focus to a large extent has been on kids and schools. And I was saying, what are we doing? You know, what is the evidence for this? And you looked at what the CDC was showing. It was a study of

two hairdressers and all this random stuff. It was just a bunch of junk. And it was a really bizarre moment for me, particularly in a study that the CDC had published about these schools in Arizona. It was a lie. And then you came on and talked about this and how Rochelle Walensky kept repeating the lie of the conclusion. Sorry, finish your point. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And it was, they knew that the information was incorrect because I had gotten the actual data from the state of Arizona and from the counties.

So this was official data that I got. It wasn't my version of it or my interpretation. And I emailed with the editors at the Journal of the CDC and the studied authors. I said, hey, the statistics you have in your paper differ from the statistics that the state is giving me. How can this be? They're the official numbers. And they wrote back and said there are no errors. Right. We've been misrepresented. So this is all very relevant because we're still angry about it. One, but two, it's ramping back up. They're doing it again. And the audience is probably seeing this more and more. Many people think it's intentional because we're going into an

election year soon and they need it and they need it to prop up Biden, who's considered too old by at least 72 percent of the American population, including two thirds of Democrats. Right. So we're starting to pay more attention just today or yesterday. It was a school in Montgomery County, Maryland, brought back the mask mandate. We saw Lionsgate, the big movie studio with mask mandates. And bit by bit, it's creep. It's creep. So whether they work is going to become very relevant again, and you still have him lying. Well, that's why it's so important, I think, for journalists to not only act as an amplifier for what public officials or experts tell them, but to actually look at

the underlying evidence. And that's sort of what I've been trying to do from day one. We were told certain things. I'm like, okay, they said this, but I always have a healthy skepticism. Well, let me see what's the underlying support for what these people are telling me. And the more I kept digging, there didn't seem to be a really good foundation in a lot of instances. And, you know, with community masking, that certainly is one of the cases we don't need. Is there a situation that David, where like, for you, you see the mask come off? Because I think we go into this with Anthony Fauci, many of us thinking, okay, who's that little guy? Okay. All right. They're putting him in charge. He seems to know a lot about disease and viruses like okay we'll listen and then just the more things that he said that didn't make sense

the more your spidey senses are up like you have to mask outside you can't be at the beach what why wait why are we listening to these people and i so i just wonder for you as a journalist because you're not some epidemiologist it's not any easier for you to figure out the data behind these assertions than it is for anybody. It just takes time and many phone calls to honest people who will steer you. Like, was there a moment where you realized these guys are misleading us? Like they are not to be trusted. It was, it was definitely sort of this, this cascade of moments. And like I said, referring before when I was emailing with the, I was convinced, you know, once I, I remember emailing back and forth with my editor at the Atlantic. I'm like, well, obviously once I email with, once I, you know, send the editors at the

journal from the CDC, I got them, you know, like I was convinced. And I was astonished when I got the reply that there were no errors in the study. This word gets overused a lot, but there was a degree of gaslighting. It was unreal. That was probably, for me, that was my moment where something within me... I felt just a sense of betrayal, actually. Most people, I think, have a healthy skepticism of big business, of the government in general, of all these large institutions of society. But somehow that skepticism seemed to vanish for a lot of people, and particularly, I think, for a lot of journalists when it came to the pandemic and when it came to what public

health officials or experts were telling them. And one of the things that's interesting, because you were talking about Fauci with masks, is he's one person. And someone who is a lab scientist, they have no expertise in understanding the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions. But yet you have certain people, an emergency room physician or these other people who were constantly in the media who had no particular expertise in any of these matters at all. Yet they were, you know, speaking about them on a regular basis.

So we have to be careful about who we call, quote, an expert. Now, anyone should, of course, be allowed to speak about any topic. But again, I get back to this point. Show me the evidence. Don't so what happened time and again was you had people just saying things without actually showing support. And as we all know, in the beginning of the pandemic, we were initially told, don't bother with masks.

And then there was a span of a few weeks from the last time Fauci had said that publicly to when the advice did 180 and changed completely. There was no change in evidence between those two times. There was no randomized control trial that came out. Nothing changed. The only thing that changed was they said that, oh, we see that people who aren't symptomatic are spreading more, and we can get into that if we want to, but that's a separate issue from whether or not wearing a cut up t-shirt on your face is actually an effective means of, you know, transmission control. So. By the way, when we get into it, the headline will be people who are not symptomatic have very little chance of spreading COVID, uh, which was not what we were told. So,

and thanks to David Weiss, we know this. Wait a minute. I wanted to get to something more about Fauci because this was all over. I'm trying to find the soundbite of Fauci reversing himself. This was all over Twitter this past weekend where he said the one thing. And then if you look back, hold on, if you look back at his earlier statements, it was about how he claimed he did not push for shutdowns. That's his new line, that he did not push for shutdowns. It wasn't Anthony Fauci. But we have the receipts. Do we have a soundbite, guys? First of all, I didn't recommend locking anything down. And the record will show, Neil, that we didn't recommend shutting everything down. I recommended to the president that we shut the country down. And that was a very difficult decision because I knew it would

have serious economic consequences, which it did. That's amazing. So one of the things that bothers me so much is this notion that we didn't force anyone to do anything. And, you know, the CDC doesn't make laws. The CDC makes recommendations. And this happened with one of the things that I'd written about was with vaccines. And remarkably, I interviewed one of the people on the CDC's advisory committee. And one of their large discussions was on whether they should use the word should or may for children getting the booster. And they settled on the word should. And I asked her, you know, well, how did you come to this conclusion?

I didn't, you didn't, there wasn't any evidence presented. What, what? And she said, well, we were afraid that people, it was too confusing just to say, just to say may do this. But we found that people were confused. So we just wanted to make it shoulds.

And I said, but when you use that language, that then gets interpreted by many people who are in charge of schools and other places as an invitation to require it. Words matter. So when you have someone like Fauci or other people saying, I never shut down a school. Yes, Anthony Fauci did not go up with a padlock on the doors of a school. But when he gives his advice, when the CDC gives their advice and their guidance, those words then get interpreted by others.

I mean, to me, it's really a distinction without a difference. It's dishonest. We know that because we lived it. We lived it. I mean, our schools mandated the vaccine. The kids were being kicked out because they didn't get the vaccine.

The only reason my kids didn't get kicked out is because they weren't yet 16. But I mean, every week we got the really looking forward to getting Yates's vaccination card, getting your these vaccination update. Well, you're a long time waiting. It's not coming. And I think God, I didn't I didn't stick them with that vaccine. I'm sorry I did it to myself. I've said this before, but I regret getting the vaccine, even though I'm a 52-year-old woman, because I don't think I needed it. I think I would have been fine. I'd got COVID many times,

and it was well past when the vaccine was doing what it was supposed to be doing. And then for the first time, I tested positive for an autoimmune issue at my annual physical. And I went to the best rheumatologist in New York and I asked her, do you think this could have to do with the fact that I got the damn booster

and then got COVID within three weeks? And she said, yes, yes. I wasn't the only one she'd seen that with. I mean, vaccines are like any other medication that they have benefits and they have drawbacks. And this is sort of the theme of our conversation, I feel like, is whether it's on masks, on vaccines, on a whole variety of issues, the CDC and other public health authorities, for some reason that I'm still trying to figure out,

refuse to give an honest and sort of broad picture of things. Typically, when you go to the doctor, if you're going to have a procedure done or you're going to get a medication, they will say to you, look, this is, or at least a good doctor will, they'll say, this is the benefit I think you'll get, but these are some of the side effects you may have. The CDC repeatedly and consistently downplayed the issue of myocarditis, particularly in young males. The issue of masks was repeatedly downplayed. We were gaslit where they said, there's no downside. So all these things that you can say that the vaccine is beneficial for some people, and we really strongly recommend it, but we're not certain that this is on a net net cost benefit that it makes sense for everyone.

That would have been honest. And I think that would have caused a lot less of the sort of adversarial environment that we were in. Once people are told that they must do something, people can sniff it out when, well, but I'm seeing, I know my friend, they just got the vaccine and something strange happened to them or whatever. So one of the things that I try to always focus on is this idea of being honest and how honesty, it ultimately, I think, will have less of this sort of contentious atmosphere. But they seemed afraid to say that anything might be wrong. Will set us free.

All right. More with the Free Press and with Dave right after this. Don't go away. And we're back now with journalist David Zweig, who's with me from, well, among other publications, the Free Press. What's the name of the sub stack so people can support you? Silentlunch.net. Why Silent Lunch?

Silent Lunch is what they forced kids to do during the pandemic. There were a number of schools around the country that prohibited speaking in a- Ours included. What I believe- Our New York City schools. Yes. A very foolish and ill-conceived attempt to mitigate transmission. So little kids around the country were barred from speaking the silent lunch. That's so great. Thank you for paying homage

to that horrible moment. Keeping it alive because it resonated with me. It's again, yet another unreal sort of moment of just utter craziness on so many levels. And they were behind plexiglass. So they couldn't speak to the person like you and I are right now. Oh, I mean. Behind plexiglass and you can't speak. They used to try to sneak it by leaning back and talking to the person behind them and they would get in trouble. This is at our insane New York City schools. That's right. And I'm sure I've told you the story, but then at my daughter's school in New York, then they go outside for recess where they all had to be masked outside. And the girls came up with, they decided because there was no like arts and crafts or theater or anything,

everything was shut down, but the essentials, um, they started to rehearse the show Hamilton. One of the girls in their school had seen it and loved it. And she knew the songs and was teaching the other girls Hamilton, which you'd think at any normal school, they'd be like, that's great. No, the music teacher of all people was out there running around saying, whisper, you have to whisper the lyrics. And this was outdoors? Outside. I mean, it's just, it's insane.

I wrote about a school in a private school in Ithaca, New York, that as of last spring, still required a silent lunch, indoor masking and outdoor masking. Oh my God. Was it like K through 12 school? It was a Montessori school. I think it was K through eight. Yeah.

It's, it's just, it was remarkable. But it's coming back to like some colleges now. It's coming back to the white house. I was going to play this before, but here's Corrine Jean-Pierre talking about Joe Biden because the first lady has COVID. I mean, okay. So do a lot of people. It's like a cold now, but in any event here, she is reassuring us that the president will be wearing a mask inside. President Biden tested negative last night for COVID-19 and tested negative again today. He's not experiencing any symptoms as far as the steps he is taking, since the president was with the

first lady yesterday, he will be masking while indoors and around people in alignment with CDC guidance. And as has been the practice in the past, the president will remove his mask when sufficiently distanced from others indoors and while outside as well. Oh, my Lord. Do you feel better? There's a great clip. Anthony LaMesa had tweeted this sort of montage of images of Biden where he was wearing the mask and took it off. And then he was giving like a medal of honor to someone. Yesterday, he was in the Medal of Honor ceremony, which he walked out of prematurely because he got confused and he did not have the mask on. Yeah. I mean, it's obviously... I think one of the things is the conversation to some extent has been hijacked about the evidence

of whether masks work or don't work. But the bigger issue is, even if they do work, let's just grant that for a moment and say a mask mandate is effective, but to what end? And that's the bigger issue. Even if we want to say

that they're very effective, you know, we could all wear a helmet when we walk around on the streets and when you drive a car, but we choose not to because that's being in a society. We weigh different things. The speed limit on the highway, we could make it 35 miles per hour, but we don't because we are willing as a society to accept a certain amount of people are going to die or be injured because people want to get somewhere faster. We accept that. And similarly, the idea that we are supposed to try to constantly mitigate the spread of

a highly contagious respiratory virus and that that's worth it for kids and everyone else to have to wear a mask doesn't make sense because that's not even in line with how we function as a society in a whole other range of areas. So I think that's one of the things that when people are listening to public health officials and others making these recommendations, we're losing sight of the bigger issue of even if this does work, do we want to do it at all? And to what end? No, we don't.

It should be voluntary. That's the thing. And like you're right to Fauci's. Oh, you know, we don't. The CDC doesn't mandate anything. As soon as the CDC recommended something, it became mandated in schools across the country. So it's he's not kidding anybody with that. At a minimum, it should be optional for the hysterics. They can wear it. And for the normal people who accept there's a certain amount of risk in life, we don't have to and and we don't have to make our kids do it. We don't have to raise them like that. Now, meanwhile, I want to get to, you had an extraordinary interview with David Asher. Everybody knows about the lab leak versus natural origin theory. I think most people listening to this show believe it was a lab leak that caused the COVID virus. We were funding gain of function research at the Wuhan lab. We were lied to about it repeatedly by Anthony Fauci. We know it's true. Even the CDC has now had to admit, the NIH has had to admit it was true. And you had this great interview with, he's from the state, ex-state department official, as I recall, who was in charge of the COVID origins investigation, but he's no longer with the State Department. And man,

is he speaking freely. So what did he say? Right. So I was able to interview David Asher. He led the U.S. State Department's investigation into COVID origins. And he said on the record to me, which I wrote about in my piece on my sub stack, he said, this is a massive coverup. I mean, what's amazing to me is that like, this happens to me over and over and I'm always wrong, but I go to bed at night, I'm laying in bed talking to my wife and I say, everything's going to change when this comes out. Because I'm like, this is so huge. This is crazy. You know, when I wrote a piece about the hospitalization numbers are inflated by 40 to 50% in children. Oh, once this happens, everything's going to change.

I keep having these moments. The lead investigator for the State Department said there is an enormous amount of information that is both classified and unclassified that the government is not releasing. This is a massive cover-up. How this is not, you know, on the front page of everything, it just blows my mind. It's good for me, I guess, as a journalist, because I have this lane that I can stay in. People are going to go to my, you know, newsletter to see this. Silent lunch. Silentlunch.net. But it's not good for society. And that is quite a remarkable statement. And when you look at the evidence,

which I talked about with him, I mean, there's just that, by the way, there was a law that was passed. Biden signed it where they had to release all of the information related to the Wuhan lab. This was, I don't recall the precise wording, but this was required. So the fact that this there was a report put out by the DNI, that's the director of national intelligence. It was like five pages of actual content. Astonishing. This was supposed to be a comprehensive report.

And again, this by the lights of many people was in breach of the law. Why aren't there constant articles about this? Wait a minute. The law that was signed by the president says you have to release everything. Five pages. That's everything we've got. How is this not like a massive story? This piece of it, I don't fully get. I get why these insane leftists want the masks and want to reject any reporting that they don't work. Same on the vaccines. I don't get why they don't want to figure out once and for all definitively what caused COVID. That caused the death of their loved ones, of teachers, of students, of parents that made them not be there when their parents died in

the nursing home. Why do some of these people have no interest? I get why Anthony Fauci doesn't want it. He appears to have dirty hands. He helped cause it. That's what the evidence seems to be driving us toward. I get why even at the government level, they may not want it. China, we're too in bed with them. We don't want to upset the apple cart, the relationship. I don't get why normal liberals don't want to know exactly how it was caused. Do you understand? I think there's two things at play. So you're absolutely right regarding the government. There's so much money that's sloshed around. It wasn't just from NIH. It was from USAID as well. Many, many millions of dollars went toward this type of research, but it got funneled through different universities and then funnels down

through the NGOs. So it wasn't just like a check was written, but there's a long trail. So there's a reason why so many people, and as you said, the sort of geopolitical fallout from if it actually was from China and if we were involved. But I think there's two things for as far as like regular people or regular sort of professional class elites or liberals. I think a lot of them do want to know. It just doesn't get covered by MSNBC or whatever. And I also think the other ones who don't want to know, it's because this has been coded as right-wing from day one. When you had a lead reporter at the New York Times who had tweeted and then deleted something about, you know, this is racist. Right. The lab leak theory.

Right. And so I think once something gets branded in a specific way as right-wing, it's very, you know, it's really, it just calcifies for people in the public conversation and in this political dynamic. And I think it's very hard for people both publicly, but perhaps even for themselves to allow themselves to feel like maybe they're on the other team, you know, because that's how something gets branded. And that happened with me over and over again during the pandemic, particularly early on. I would talk with top infectious disease specialists, top immunologists, epidemiologists, and every conversation began with, I didn't vote for Trump, but, and that's

how they had to sort of like establish that like, wait a minute, don't worry, I'm not on the wrong team, but this is a bunch of bullshit, you know, and whatever we were going to talk about. The fact that every conversation had to start off with this preamble by someone who's, you know, at an elite university, at a top flight hospital, that they felt that they had to do that, that's to me indicative of the larger problem. So I think a lot of it is just how things get coded in our public conversation. And once they're associated with the wrong team, it just doesn't matter. It's impenetrable to evidence or logic. Another layer of that is their deification of Fauci. I mean, they fell in love. He became a political lightning rod. They dug in as opposed to saying, I'm open-minded that

maybe he's misleading. And what exactly did he fund and not fund? And what role did he have in telling us all via that one origins paper? That is definitely not a lab leak. Was he involved? Cause that's been, you know, I think debunked is the correct word. They they've dug in. Fauci is a saint. Fauci has been unfairly attacked. Fauci is our superhero. And so they're not willing to hear any news that would belie that that belief. You covered this. We covered this, too. It's to me, I've said this to the audience. It's wonderful to me that the Republicans have control of the House. Divided government is a good thing. And thank God that they did, because otherwise we wouldn't have half of the documents we Divided government is a good thing. And thank God that they did because otherwise we

wouldn't have half of the documents we have on Hunter Biden. We wouldn't have any of those documents and we wouldn't have the documents that we got on COVID origins on Fauci and how that paper came about in, was it March of 2020? It was March or was it April 2020? April. Yeah. I think it was. April 2020. I always grew up with it. It was nature or science. Same, right? It's like, it's basically the same thing. Coke or Pepsi. Okay, exactly. So one of the big medical journals. And it was all Fauci's favorite virologists, some 11, 12 of them, who had gotten on a phone call and started out by saying,

we think this is a lab leak. This looks very much like a lab leak. And then within 48 hours, reversed themselves on it. You've done reporting on this too. And when you saw that trove of documents that came out of the House Republican Committee on the pandemic, they got the actual documents showing the back and forth between Francis Collins and Fauci and all these virologists and the manipulations and the amount of coordination, I should say, what was your reaction? It was a pretty remarkable amount of material where we were looking at emails as well as Slack messages between the different virologists and others. And the one thing that stuck out to me, and again, same theme about honesty, when Anthony Fauci first spoke about this paper at a White House press briefing, he just mentioned it as if it was,

you know, these people, I don't know them. I'll see if I can, you know, get it for you later, these virologists. He never mentioned, oh, I was on the phone with them. I was thanked in an email privately from them for helping out, you know, for offering assistance or guidance with the paper. That doesn't mean that he manipulated what happened. I don't know. We're not privy to that. But what we do know is he certainly was involved on some level. And I think just from an optics standpoint, to pretend that this was just some objective scientific endeavor that he had absolutely no investment in or involvement in would seem to be quite misleading in my view. And the underlying papers that we got reveal that, I mean, we knew

to some extent, and now we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they all believed it was lab leak, that they had serious questions about the theory of natural origin. Their expertise was telling them in the first look at this virus, this thing definitely looks man-made. It's all reflected in their emails and their correspondence with one another. And then within 48 hours, after talking to Fauci and Collins, they did a 180. And we know Fauci and Collins were concerned about China, about the relationship with China, about science and all the coordination we do with them. They didn't want anything that would turn the public on China. Robert Gary was one of those scientists who was involved in the whole thing. He actually, to his credit, to his credit, came on our show and answered tough questions. We pulled up just a bit of it.

Here's what happened. Why, why did you originally think that it was likely from a lab? Because we've seen in your correspondence with Fauci and Collins that you initially took a look at this along with other virologists and experts and said things like, I can't think of a plausible natural scenario. That was February 2nd, 2020, where you get a bat virus or one very similar to it, where you insert exactly these amino acids and nucleotides that all have to be added and so on. And then you said, I just can't figure out how this gets accomplished in nature. Then you spoke to Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins. And then within days, you completely reversed yourself and did a 180 and said it can't possibly be lab leak.

It is nature. Yeah. So let me correct that a little bit. I mean, that was one email. Wasn't it just days? Wasn't it just two days later that you reversed yourself and said, actually, no, okay, I forget what I said about it coming from a lab. I now say it's natural. It wasn't really a reversal.

Well, what happened in those 48 hours? What changed? What did you see? Well, I looked at the genomes of the viruses more closely. It's one thing if you can say, Megan, let me show you what I saw that proved to me. It came, we found the pangolin. You know, that's why.

I'd say, gotcha. I get it. But there's nothing that proved this thing came came, we found the pangolin. You know, that's why I'd say, gotcha. I get it. But there's nothing that proved this thing came from natural, from nature in those 48 hours. Nothing. So that was fun. That went over well. I mean, look, scientists are allowed to change their mind as they review the data. I've interviewed a lot of scientists in this space, and there was no difference in the evidence that would warrant not just a little bit of a change, but we're talking about a 180-degree switch. Some switched to, I think it was definitely a lab leak, to two days later, it's racist to say it's a lab leak.

Right. And it went, I think the language initially in the paper was something like, it's unlikely, and then it was changed to implausible or something like that. So, and typically when I read a lot of scientific papers, they're generally fairly understated in their claims, you know, and this was somewhat unusual in its aggressiveness in how strongly they asserted their conclusions. And by the way, this wasn't really a study. This was just a, I forget the classification in the journal, but it's like a commentary. This was not like a proper study anyway, but that's how it's often referred to. So people are allowed to change their minds.

And I just put, I think if any regular person simply reads and looks at the evidence themselves, they can draw their own conclusions about what they think happened or didn't happen. But there's certainly, there's no ambiguity. There was a lot of ambivalence from these people amongst themselves privately. That's a kind term. Ambivalence is putting it kindly. And then the public pronouncement about it was made with such certainty. And again, it's just like with masks, it's just like with vaccines. The degree of certainty within which public health professionals continue to make pronouncements really is not in line with what science is about. It should be much more understated. There should be all sorts of hedges in there. And for whatever combination of reasons on this stuff has become

so politicized, I think that they feel the need toward either a noble lie or toward this kind of like turning the dials up where there can't be any room. But of course the problem is ironically, it ends up just making things worse. So here we go again. It does feel like we're headed down a familiar path. I showed you the, uh, the president screen Jean-Pierre, he's going to mask inside. Okay. Uh, yesterday, whoopie Goldberg was not on the view as they came back to air after the holiday because she has COVID. So she's got a quarantine at home. I mean, it's just absurd. COVID is now a cold. I realized for some people it's potentially dangerous. I'm not going to dispute that, but they're still treating it like it's this lethal pathogen that we all are going to die from if we get near somebody.

And the number of news articles now that are talking about the surge, the surge, the surge, you've taken a look at the big surge. What did you find? Yeah. Again, language matters. Over and over again, media outlets have called this a surge. I think the New York Times referred to it as a wave. So lots of good oceanic metaphors. This is the difference between absolute and relative, right? So if you have two of something and it goes up to four. Oh my God, there was a hundred percent increase. Okay. It went from two to four. And this is, if you actually look at, at the graphs of the hospitalizations, it's, we are in essentially the lowest point ever tied with two or three other times in the last three years of actual hospitalizations for this, which is wonderful. This is something that should be celebrated. But look, the nature

of news is what's sensational, what's going to scare people. And that's not confined to the inquirer or something on the newsstand. This is how the major media operates. So using terms like the surge, and it's not just the media, it's also a lot of public health professionals. And I went after one of them in my sub stack who had talked about this. But the idea that a large increase of a very tiny number, that means something and that matters. Context matters. So it's just one of the things that bothers me when this type of language is used purposefully

to scare people and perhaps purposefully to justify certain policies. And I see you raising your eyebrows. So, you know, it's an election year we're going into. They don't want mailing bad ballots to go away. That was absolutely helpful to Joe Biden for many reasons, even the above board reasons, never mind the suspicions about what may have happened below board. And they think it ramps up their base. May also help somebody like Governor DeSantis, not for nothing. But most of us don't want it. I mean, I think people who are still part of, as Barry said, sort of the same coalition are going to rebel if anybody tries lockdowns, school closures, vaccine or mask mandates again? Well, there were a couple of universities that did put in place mask mandates.

And as you mentioned, Lionsgate. So I suspect there are always going to be these pockets in our society, perhaps for quite a long time, maybe in perpetuity, that are going to be susceptible to kind of doing these types of actions. Hopefully, it's not going to be a broad-based thing. But again, it's a dirty to be a broad-based thing. But again, it's a dirty thing for people to do your own research. You're like a moron and a bad person.

And look, and I get it. People have jobs. They don't have time to do their own. That's why I'm here. That's right. And other people, I'm the crazy person who actually then starts reading the studies or is looking at the charts from the CDC.

You must be a rip-roaring fun time at dinner. Your wife is like, for the love of God, stop talking about that. My daughter, her eyes could not roll back any further the next time I, each time I talk about absolute versus relative difference in the number of cases. But people need to actually look at the evidence, not what people, not the words that they're being told. Just take five minutes and look at the actual numbers. Or don't and just go to silentlunch.net. Right. Or you could go there. Exactly. So that's

one of the things, and it's both a blessing and a curse, but that's my own sort of thing that I see this and I just feel compelled. I have to look it up and say, well, wait a minute. Is this really a surge? What does that mean? And you had this physician at, you know, in Ursa, California, San Francisco, who has a very large following, guy named Bob Wachter, who had said,

the reason that there's more COVID prevalence is because people, quote, let their guard down. Oh my God. And it was just, there's no evidence for that claim. What's I mean, schools have been running at capacity for, you know, a year or longer. Businesses are open. People are Taylor Swift's, you know, tour has been sold. People are living normally. There is no evidence behind this claim. This is someone with hundreds of thousands of followers who's on the media constantly giving, you know, espousing his views on what people

should and shouldn't do. And he's saying, and the problem with this is, is that it makes us seem like we have more agency than we really do. And I'm not a religious person, but I understand why I think a lot of religious people during the pandemic made out quite well in a lot of regards, not all of them. And some people, I'm not saying an old person shouldn't have been vaccinated because there's a certain amount of like, of acknowledging there's a limit to what we can control. And there's a hubris, I think in a lot of public health people

to think that we have more agency, that we have more control than we actually do. And when you have that degree of hubris, it causes all these sort of this cascade of second order effects. And you need to think through, if we're going to implement this thing, what are the dominoes that are going to fall on the other side after we put this in place?

You need a certain amount of humility. And I think a lot of that was lost. And that's what worries me. You see why we love David Zweig. You're welcome back anytime. Thank you so much for all you do. Thanks for having me, Megan. Treasure. What a treasure. Okay, up next, another free press contributor,

somebody I've never spoken to before. She's head of strategy. She also happens to be Barry Weiss's wife. Nellie Bowles joins us for the first time. We'll talk about her exit Khaleesi-like from the New York Times as well. Some of that funky new music. We got updated our music. I'm just now hearing some of the tracks. Yeah. Yeah. It does remind me of Pornhub. No, I'm just, I've never been on Pornhub. What is it? What did the fifth column guys say I'm getting? My own OnlyFans? OnlyFans. It's a little OnlyFans-y. Poor Nellie Bowles.

She didn't realize you're going to have to be dealing with this. She was a longtime reporter at legacy media outlets like the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle. She has seen it all, including today. She's seen quite a lot. She does not do many interviews, but we are honored to have her here today. Nellie, so nice to meet you. It's such a pleasure to be here. And I don't do many interviews. And I see on your desk that you guys were having some cocktails earlier. This is the problem. You know, it's no accident. Abby took it away. She took away my cocktail before I'd finished.

What happened, Abigail? Is that a hint? OK, I get it. She's like, we're making porn references. It's over. All right. So you're back in the same spot that Barry was. She's like, we're making porn references. It's over. All right, so you're back in the same spot that Barry was. I guess you're coming to us from the same studio. So this is one of the benefits of your working slash personal relationship. You guys, you're running a business, you're running a family, you got a new baby, and you seem just as busy as she is. I don't know how you two are. Do you have like a staff that looks like Downton Abbey? You must. No, we're just exhausted. I need some of that.

One of your ads was for a lightning ointment of some sort, which I definitely need for some dark spots. I'm going to send some to you. We've got a baby. This is Bear's sort of backyard studio, converted garage. And the podcast is recorded out of here. It's a mess.

And we're having a blast, to be honest. It's a lot of work, but it's going well. And there's been a lot of interest in what we're doing. And it's been heartening, honestly. Well, I was talking to David about this, about how he's loving, I think it was during a break. I'm trying to remember whether it was on air or I think it was off, but he was just saying how much he's loving being independent and how, you know, he used to see that in his circles, there was a cachet in like saying, oh, I had a piece in the times this weekend. And now he just couldn't care less.

He loves being on his own and being able to write the truth. Again, support him at silent lunch.net, but that's you and Barry have had very similar experiences. So let's just go back before you left the times. Like, let's just go back. Cause it seemed to me, I characterized you earlier. You characterize yourself. I described you as a liberal, like Barry, a pretty liberal going into the New York times, probably dream job until it wasn't. So what happened? It was the only dream job I could ever have imagined. I mean, growing up, getting on the front page of the Times was literally my singular aspiration. I used to look up the names of the

reporters and look and see how they'd gotten there, read their whole career trajectory. And honestly, for a few years at the Times, I had an amazing time. And I had a lot of great editors who were wonderful. Basically, what happened with me was not quite as dramatic as what happened with Bear. It was that as 2020 came and as the sort of boundaries for what was allowed to be reported on got tighter and tighter, I started to feel very constricted in where my curiosity could lead. And I started as a business reporter. I was kind of a free-ranging features reporter. And I couldn't cover a lot of the most interesting stuff. Editors were kind of making that very difficult. And my colleagues were making that very difficult when I tried to cover things such as like, you know, the most interesting stuff that was going on that year, like Chaz, Chop, whatever you want to call it in Seattle, where a group of Antifa activists took over the gay neighborhood of Seattle and took credit in

Economist Zone. I like gayborhood. Is that a new term? I like gayborhood. That works. Only for internal gay use. I got it. I found basically I wasn't allowed to write about a lot of things I was really curious about writing about. And so that was happening. Then when I was with Bear, obviously I started getting kind of treated like a not cool kid in high school or something, which was hard because I was always cool in high school. And then Bear started the Substack. We started it on a flight. She had been kind of, she had quit. She was wandering around the house, not sure what to do. And I opened up this thing, Substack, and I was like, you got to just start writing here. And then she started having a lot of fun on it. And it was a hit and it was growing and it was making more money than she had made at the times, then twice as much money she was made at the times. And it was like, there was a lot of interest, there was traffic. And honestly,

like part of me quit the times because I was frustrated with what was going on. But I had a really good experience there in a lot of ways. I loved my bosses and stuff. But part of me quit because there was a lot more fun in the new world. Like you said, what David was saying, the new world is really exciting and positive. And it felt fun and it felt like happy and exuberant. And I was so thrilled to be part of that. And so I quit and I joined. And trying to explain to my parents why I was quitting

the New York Times to join barryweiss.substack.com was a little bit crazy, but they came around. And then, yeah, now we've kind of made it into a little media company. Yeah. And growing by the day. So it wasn't all, you know, a bale of roses, unfortunately, because I know you had said early on, it was 2021. It was shortly after you left that some of the colleagues at The Times decided might be a fun thing to leak negative stories about you, that they were taking aim at you. Now, was that because of ideology, because they saw you covering stories like Chaz that they didn't want you covering? Or was that because the link to Barry, who they already saw as controversial?

It was a mix. But basically, as soon as you cross whatever the sort of red line that that this world has put up as soon as you are are exposed to anything even slightly ideologically off kilter or just not exactly in line with whatever the line of the day is um you become a real target and and so i mean i'm not going to say i'm some great victim in this. But yeah, it was nasty and bullying. Well, can you expand on that though? What do you mean? What was your alleged sin and how did you feel the blowback? The alleged sin was curiosity about the wrong things. So I wanted to cover the financial ramifications of some of the protests in a town called Kenosha.

Yeah, I remember this reporting. Yeah, where like the minority owned businesses of the poor neighborhood had been completely burned and destroyed and they were all underinsured and they were kind of begging for attention and begging for people to care about what was going on. Of course, the wealthier area of town had boarded up their windows and had proper insurance and were totally fine. Anyway, so I pitched this story and wanted to go because as a business supporter, that seemed really reasonable. And basically, the story was held until after the election it was just i realized that politics were coming into my work in a way that felt really uncomfortable and that felt um inappropriate and weird and not just not right and then honestly but also the interpersonal stuff is just as much an issue as the actual work stuff right like you don't want to work somewhere where people are mean to you. So their actual opinions of you changed to where they were

treating you differently? Yeah. People would call me a fascist on Twitter or like. Colleagues? Again, of course. But you know this stuff, you know this is what happens this is what i have only ever worked with the most delightful supportive people i don't know what you are talking about i mean yeah people were bad i uh i remember this one editor there was just sort of a drumbeat that like that, like I was going to be smeared in some way. And I got a note about how I had a white gaze from an editor that that my whiteness was imbuing my work and all this stuff. And I just had this feeling of like, oh, God. And then the Donald McNeil stuff happened. I don't know if you remember that, that when that amazing science reporter was smeared for having years ago on a trip with kids, repeat the N word to back to some kids after they asked him about the use of the N word. And he asked them for the context of it,

whatever. It was like an insane moment. It was just that he uttered it. He uttered it. It wasn't even like he was using it. He was repeating a story in which it was used. Exactly. And he'd been punished for doing so. And that was probably the right thing and all that. But this was dredged back up then in that moment and used to kind of drum beat him out of the Times and to smear him as a racist and as someone who had used the N-word as though he'd like yelled it at someone. And I just was watching that and watching this career Times reporter be smeared in that way, in a way that is so humiliating and so, I mean, humiliating in like a broad way for his life, like his kids, like it's like, it's embarrassing. And I was like, I don't want to hang out and wait around until some folks figure out how to do that to me. Like, I better go out with my head up at least. Anyways, you don't need to hear about me complaining about old colleagues years ago. Well, I do think it's interesting.

You know, we had Sage Steele on the show last week, and we talked about what ESPN did to her for coloring outside the lines. And in her case, all she was saying was how she felt about. Biracial. These are her feelings about herself. Not okay. And she questioned the vaccine mandates also not okay. You're here telling your story. I've had Laura Logan on the program talking about how they came for her when she was at CBS years ago, because she did some reporting on Benghazi. They didn't like, it's just, you know, it's a pattern. It's a disgusting, toxic, awful industry. And maybe the necessity is the mother of all invention, not just the bias, but the toxicity of that lane. And this is the absurd rules of it force people who are not insane to create something else, to go someplace else where they can do great journalism and also be

happy people. Yeah. At this point, I'm grateful for it. I mean, I, yeah. Bear's dad always says we should pay these folks in Brooklyn to keep tweeting mean stuff about us at this point, because the, the insanity of that movement has become the bedrock of all this new world and has allowed for a flourishing of like all the best interesting reporters are leaving and are starting their own things and are now available to join us. And so I'm grateful for how nuts it's gotten. And honestly, if the Times started being a little less crazy or got a little towards the center, that would be a huge threat to our business. So we're, we're really, I have nothing to worry about. Yeah. Good. I'm helping organize those glad protesters outside the times building myself. Yeah. We've talked about it with Barry. GLAAD is protesting the Times because they did some reporting. They protested Barry. I mean, do you think like, you know, Barry is an openly out lesbian in a gay marriage? No, she gets protested by GLAAD because she's done fair reporting on the trans issue. It's like, I don't even know what GLAAD is anymore, but they've lost the mission. It's been mission creep to a bad place.

And speaking of creep, go ahead. Not you. I was going to ask a different thing. No, no, no. I probably am. But that GLAAD situation so encapsulates the issue with sort of the gay activism of the moment. It's like there are so many real anti-gay things to fight. Like there's, you look at Iran, you look at even what's happening in Italy and, and yet our American organizations are focused on organizing around like two mildly dissident times reporters. It's just, it's bizarre. It's really bizarre and sad. It is. So now we've got two cues for this story, bizarre and creep. I take you to the University of Wyoming and the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma, which we've been covering this case, the sorority sisters who complained about a man posing as a woman coming into their sorority. Artemis Langford is the name that he

goes by now. It's a long story, Nellie. I don't use the pronouns of choice any longer. I did a whole post on it, but, um, he Artemis was a man. I mean, like two seconds ago, uh, I'll give the audience a flavor for what Artemis looked like during the midst of the pandemic. Wasn't flirting as far as we know, with transitioning at all. Was appearing on campus as a man. Here he was. Communicating with friends, putting that social network that you have from in-person to an online format would be extraordinarily beneficial. And I wish that I had developed that better,

but living in a new environment, uh, it was really difficult. Well, that is one of the newest members of Kappa Kappa Gamma at the university of Wyoming, because he then declared that he was a woman and went into the sorority house under pressure from the national chapter. They admitted him, um, by a vote that was secret in which the girls were not allowed to see who was voting, but they were told, unless you have a reason other than him being biologically male, you may not vote against him. Uh, so he gets in and then the sisters, many of them complained about inappropriate conduct while in the sorority house. Frankly, not, it's not even relevant to me. Like, I mean, it's disgusting what they alleged he did, but it's not even relevant to me. Men don't belong in women's spaces and sororities

by definition are one of them. The sorority was on his side. Um, the sisters sued because they thought the definition of female, they required a female membership in the charter should control and they lost. And now the guy who was alleged to have been getting off while watching the girls do their yoga, change into their nighttime clothing, kept asking them about their breasts and their vaginas. Cause you know, that's normal girl talk. Nelly, how's your vagina? How's it? Hey, welcome to the girl talk. Nelly, how's your vagina? How's it? Hey, welcome to the Megan Kelly show. How's your vag doing? That doesn't happen. Not a thing. Okay. So, all right, so I'm setting it up. She's laughing.

I think in conversations, it is important to remember that there's a real person here and this person is often suffering and it is you know there's a i feel really sorry for this person right at the same time i was i was i could have gotten behind that before we got to the you know touching himself and erection under the pillow while he's watching the girls in the sorority that i my empathy is only with the girls in the sorority. My empathy is only with the girls. It really is. I get it. I mean, at this point, though, the American left is really out of step with basically broader liberalism. The American left stance is that anyone can declare themselves any gender they want and ought to have access to any space they want, a women's prison, a sorority, sports teams, obviously, anything. That's really out of step with, again, broader

liberalism, with what's happening in Europe, where you see a real walking back of that. And the British Labour Party just actually put out maybe a week or two ago, a couple weeks ago, a statement saying self ID, this idea that you can just announce that you're a certain gender, and that then you have access to the spaces. It's not what we support anymore. And in fact, women's only spaces make sense and are really important. And we stand by that. And so I don't know if I found myself agreeing with the British Labor Party and feeling like my politics align pretty well with that. Then I know I'm not too right wing on an issue. Yeah, I the American left on this is is in a bizarre tangle and I cannot

figure out why. Yeah. And the story. Now that he's won his lawsuit, sorry, the sisters have lost their lawsuit against Kappa Kappa Gamma. He's out there claiming that he was the victim here. And the press is going along. NBC in which this anchor, who I've literally never heard of before, gives not even a word to the discomfort of the women who were in the sorority house allegedly being stared at and so on. But even if even if he didn't do that, they shouldn't have to share their sorority house with a man. But listen to how the press addresses this story that I just outlined for you. Artemis Legford, the very brave woman at the center of it all, is joining me now. It's got to be hard, Artemis, to start off your junior year.

You know, you should be thinking about what classes you're taking, which friends you're going to be hanging with. Instead, you're thinking about this lawsuit. Do you have support from other women in the House? It takes a very brave and unique person to do this, to be a first in a situation like this. And then to continue on. What makes you want to stay with everything that you've been through? I'm certainly not the first trans person to ever be attacked by elements in the media to be used. And unfortunately, I don't think I'll be the last, but I want people to know that it's never okay

for that kind of scrutiny on a person just because of their identity, just because I'm trans. It's okay to be exactly who you are. The scrutiny is not because Artemis is who he is. It's because he joined a woman's only group. Sure response is to call him a very brave woman. There's not even a trans on it. He's a woman now. Okay. He takes a brave and unique person to be first, not a nod to the discomfort of the women. And you've got to give her a cherry on top of it for it's got to be hard. It was hard. And if you

had done your homework about this case, you would know that that was part of the problem. Unknown anchor who I've never seen before. Your thoughts on it? Odd that this movement that was all about believe women is now so skeptical of women saying they're uncomfortable with something. It seems really odd to me. And, and that the empathy is like we talked about at the start, that the empathy is only with this individual and not at all with any of the other people who are being impacted by having a biological male in a women's house. I, again, I don't understand why the American left has taken this stance and has become so obsessed with this hard line. It seems irrational.

But this is definitely the hill they want to die on. All right, wait, I only have a couple of minutes left and I wanted to get this in because you're a California. You've been doing some reporting on Gavin Newsom. Somebody just asked him if the debate is still on between Newsom and DeSantis, which Hannity was going to host. And he said, we'll see. Do we think, cause there's a lot of people, even on the left who think the plan is for Biden to accept the nomination, to go through the, you know, the initial sort of election seasons and then pass the baton to someone like a Gavin Newsom. Do we think that's the plan and that

Gavin Newsom could be a viable candidate on the national stage? I couldn't be viable. viable god I don't I don't know I mean he's fun to watch I I sort of like his scandals as a writer his um Kimberly Guilfoyle I like the even his COVID scandal was kind of fun you know he he went to the French lockdown when I was missing, it was just like insane. Do I think he could be a viable candidate? Potentially in that, like, I think it's very reasonable to think that Biden do that and it's Newsom versus Trump. Then you've got Kimberly Guilfoyle, who used to be married to the Democratic candidate and is engaged to the son of the Republican candidate. And that would be the most fascinating viewpoint into the two men. She's got to come on. She's got to tell us everything. She knows everything from start to finish. Nellie Bowles. What a pleasure. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me on. It was, it was really fun. Oh, for me too. All right. And you can find her work every Friday at the fp.com and find all of the free presses. Great work by becoming a subscriber. I want to thank everybody for joining me here today. That was fun having a drink on the set. That's, you know, like I say, my husband's, that's his jam. And by the way, I should mention that Doug Brunt is going to be on

the show soon. I'll have more on that later. And in the meantime, tomorrow, Rick Grenell is back. Is the GOP primary over? We'll ask him. See you then. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.