The Megyn Kelly Show - Rebellion Against Wokeism, the Loss of Patriotism, and the Vaccine Push with Peter Boghossian, Janice Dean, and Adam Carolla | Ep. 158

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by philosopher, author, and former Portland State University professor, Peter Boghossian, to talk about why he resigned over wokeism, rampant illiberalism on campus, how he found happiness in rebellion, and more. Janice Dean and Adam Carolla also join Megyn to discuss their personal thoughts on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the fallout from Cuomo’s resignation, the California recall, Fauci’s most honest statement to date, Madonna’s appearance at the VMA’s, and more.Catch Adam's on tour now "Adam Carolla is Unprepared"  live shows in September and October in Chicago, San Diego, St Louis and Las Vegas.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: Twitter: 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. So excited to be back with you on this Monday. There's so much to go over. Today we are tackling one of the most asked questions I receive from listeners and fans, which is how to fight back against woke leftists in education. If you have a kid going off to college, you are a kid in college. I just spent the weekend with a bunch of them. You know exactly what the problem is, or if you pay any attention in the news at all. And my guest today is a professor who has been in the midst of it for a long time. He's been teaching for over 25 years. Taking on the regressive left is not new to him. He's been doing it in Portland, by the way, Portland, Oregon,

and trying to teach his students to stand up against it as well. He's fighting against indoctrination. How do you like that for a change? But last week, Peter Boghossian, a professor at Portland State University, quit. And boy, does he have some stories to tell about why and how he got to the point where he didn't think he could go on another day at that university. Good for him. But it also leaves our students out there right now with professors like Jen M. Jackson of Syracuse University, my own university. That's where I went. Jen tweeted, September 11th was nothing more than, end quote, attack on the systems many white Americans fight to protect. Over at Princeton, meantime, several of the school's own alumni and current professors are outraged today after learning that an orientation video for new students, it's like, welcome to Princeton. So happy you made it in one of the best universities in the world. No, no, that's not what it says at all. It encourages the students to tear down

this university. The very school the students fought so hard to attend, probably gave up all of their fun in high school to attend and describes free speech as a privilege and not a right and encourages students to exercise that privilege so long as they do it to advance social justice causes. This is America's universities right now. It's upsetting. I think it's disgusting. And a lot of people are asking as they get ready to fork over $100,000 a year to send their kids to these schools. And by the way, even if you don't have a kid, it's your problem because these kids graduate from these schools and then take over cultural institutions in America.

Is there any stopping this madness? Well, Peter Boghossian joins me now. Peter, so, so good to talk to you. Thank you so much for being here today. Thanks, Megan. It's great to be here. Well, congratulations on your decision. I know it couldn't have been easy.

It took a lot of courage. It happened on September 8th. How are you feeling about it now on September 13th? Phenomenal. I have the very unusual problem. I've never had it before. I wake up in the middle of my sleep from pure happiness. At least you think it's happiness.

Probably going to take you a while to recognize it again. It's just, I feel free. I've never felt this free in a long time. So it feels wonderful. The future is of course uncertain, but the decision, it was the right thing to do. And staying there was just compromising my integrity. I couldn't teach students in the way I wanted. I was constantly being investigated and more investigations on more investigations. I just couldn't, I couldn't take it anymore. There was a breaking point, but it feels great. I'm so happy for you. Honestly, I realize these things can be traumatic. It's sort of like a divorce from a bad marriage. It's traumatic to get out, but then being out is a very,

very good thing and far better for your mental health and well-being than being in the midst of this terrible, abusive relationship, which I didn't realize that. And I've been watching you these past few years. You've been amazing. And I'm thinking to myself, this guy, he doesn't. And I know that you're not some conservative. You're a Democrat. You're a liberal. A liberal, yeah.

Yeah, but you push back against a lot of this orthodoxy. And I'm thinking, how's he doing that at Portland State in one of the most liberal pockets of America? And so I wasn't totally surprised to see it caught up with you, but I was stunned to read about the abuse they put you through. So let's just start a little bit earlier than your resignation letter to get our audience up to speed. How many years were you a professor at Portland State? Oh, I think my official position was 2010 when it started, but I had been teaching there before that. So basically, I think I had 2010. And where'd you grow up? Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, right outside of Boston. Okay. So it's not a mystery to you that Portland State is a pretty far left place.

No, it wasn't a mystery to me at all. And it wasn't even the leftism that bothered me. It was just the monoculture that they created and the calling out of voices, alternative voices, people's voice, the whole German first they came for. First they came for the conservatives and they came for the moderates and they came for the liberals and then they came for me. And I think the important thing to remember in these conversations is what they view the institution as. So, for example, the president of Portland State University, Stephen Percy, issued a statement and he said, racial justice is our highest priority. Really? Yeah. I think it's worth everybody's time to just think about that for a moment and let that percolate. Racial justice is the university's highest priority. That means that if something else comes along, so there's a hierarchy, right?

So some other value comes along, like free speech, freedom of expression, open inquiry. Racial justice will always trump that. That's an astonishing statement. And I think we need to have that conversation, not even a debate, just the conversation. Should racial justice be the highest priority at a public institution? I think that's a reasonable question for taxpayers to ask. So it's a state school, hence Portland State. Okay, so it is. Correct. Correct. So just as an aside, so this past weekend, I was in Houston, Texas, at the Crenshaw Youth Summit. So Dan Crenshaw puts on this event for thousands of young people coming up the ranks and figuring out who they are in this world. And most of them are conservative

and figuring out how they can be conservative college students and young people. It was fascinating. It was great. And I really enjoyed the whole thing. But one of the things Dan and I talked about on stage was how people who are what I will say is our side, your side, my side. I'm not a liberal, but I'm not a conservative either. I'm just I'm not woke is process. That's one of the things that's binding us together. You know, you and Dan Crenshaw, who is a conservative, probably don't see eye to eye on a lot of things. But I think you're 100 percent aligned. And I'm certainly there with you on the need to preserve processes that thus far have helped defined America as a free state of liberty, right? And that's what I see in, for example, your resignation letter. And let me just quote from it. You talk about how you noticed signs

of illiberalism on campus quite early. Students refusing to engage with different points of view. Questions from faculty at diversity trainings that challenged the approved narratives were instantly dismissed. Those who asked for evidence to justify new institutional policies were accused of, quote, microaggressions. And professors were

accused of bigotry for assigning canonical texts written by philosophers who happen to have been European and male. Ninety five percent of those right there are about the process starting to erode. No questions can be asked. No pushback is allowed. No requests for data or evidence will be tolerated. Right. And I think the thing to know is that that's by design. And the idea is from Aubrey Lord, the master's tools cannot disable the mat to disassemble the master's house. So the master's house is patriarchy, misogyny, privilege, oppression. And the goal is to not let those processes be allowed to systematically discredit them because you can't disable the patriarchy and systemic oppression by the very tools that got you there.

And the tools, reason, epistemic adequacy, which basically means knowing what we're talking about, evidence, all of the due process, all of the tools that we use to build a society that you and I think are wonderful and the freest society the world has ever seen, they want to prevent people from using those tools. And that's not a small thing because they're teaching people that they're teaching students that. Yeah. We saw this over the Black Lives Matter protests after George Floyd, where these sweeping statements would be made about how every black man can't leave their house in America without getting shot every day, which isn't true by the police. And when you would confront these these advocates with facts about police shootings and actually how they've gone down and the number in last year, I think was 12 of unarmed black men who were killed by police out of 10 million, 11 million encounters with police and arrests. They you would get scolded as having said something bigoted.

And you're like facts. You mean facts are bigoted? And the answer is yes. That's what they say. Yeah. So let's talk about that for a second. So my own, when I wrote How to Have Impossible Conversations, so the literature is very clear about this. When you quote unquote confront someone with facts or evidence, it elicits what's called the backfire effect. And that is that people hunker down in their beliefs and become more confident in them. So what I like to do instead is I like to ask people a question. And the litmus test question that I have is, in 2019, because that's the latest data point that I had, but I think there's something more recent than that, how many unarmed black men were killed by police?

Now, when you ask someone that, it's kind of a scale for wokeness. I asked one of my neighbors in Portland and she told me 22,500. In a year? That's what she said. Yeah. 22,500. I've also asked other people that have said seven, 8,000, 9,000. So the problem is that people are coming into the, they're formulating their beliefs, not only not on the basis of evidence, but just wildly untethered to reality. And that skews the by the police every year. That's just an astonishing way to think about the world. It's under two dozen. I mean, this past year, the year before, under two dozen. You see different numbers based on how many they include, but the Washington Post has been keeping a running tally. It could be 12, could be 18 or 19 but in no event over the past couple years has it been over uh 20 and it's and you do see stats like oh um more more than die in car accidents again car accidents that's thousands and thousands of people die black

men die in black people anyway so we're seeing it not just at the university we're seeing it across the board where facts are considered bigoted just for being facts that counter contradict the narrative. Right. Can we linger on that for a second, please? So the reason that facts doesn't do so these young people in general are being taught that their lived experience is more important than the facts. So if there's a conflict between there, and that's the word that's used from the literature, lived experience, lived experience must always trump facts. And if you bring up the facts, then you're being hurtful to them. It's an issue.

It's called safetyism. It's an issue of their safety. I know this. We talked about this when Piers Morgan had his argument on the set on Good Morning Britain, where he was saying Meghan Markle's claiming that her son's not getting a royal title because of the color of his skin. And the response and Piers was saying, that's not true. This has been in the cards. Whatever's going to happen to the little baby Archie was going to happen long before he was even born. And the weather guy who was out there giving

peers a hard time said, but that's her lived experience. Exactly. Who cares? I don't care for lived experiences. She's the actual queen of England. She isn't. Right. But that's what happens when you start privileging, when you tell everybody, oh, your lived experience is more important. That's your reality. In philosophy, you call it a subjective turn. It's the turn towards subjectivity. It's making everybody's lived experience trump anything in reality. The problem is that we have to live together as a society, right? So you can't have someone walking around thinking, well, you can, and we do to a certain extent, thinking that they're a queen of England, that they're entitled to something.

But we've taught a whole generation of people this, and now we're reaping the consequences. So those ideas, we know where they come from. It's not a mystery. They come from the university system. Now, what about the students? Did the student body change over those 10 years in any way? Dramatically. Yeah, the student body changed dramatically. And I think it could be that it could be kind of self-selection. In other words,

people will self-select to certain universities if they think that they have the ideologies that are there. Portland State University keeps pushing this diversity, equity, and inclusion, which by the way, those terms don't mean what people think that they mean, but the student body over time became more intolerant. I don't know. So Portland state can't take, can't take all of the blame for that because they've come up in a K through 12 institution. We should probably talk about this where the, even if you had a wand and you could get, you wave it and you get rid of all wokeism from K through 12 systems. The problem is that you can't just go in there and nobody can just start teaching. You need a teaching certificate and all of those teacher ed programs, they're all predicated on this book, Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which is you teach to liberate

or to not to educate, not to, in fact, he calls it a banking factory, not to put things in, but to, you know, in modern terms, level privilege. So just as there's a lot I'm packing in here, but it's important. So just as communists tried to level the economic playing field, the woke try to level the privilege playing field, the privilege hierarchy. So all of K-12 education is rooted in these notions. So even if you had a wand that got rid of all wokeism from schools, it would be repopulated with people who went through these teaching programs, and then they'd be re-indoctrinated. So when they get to Portland State, they've already been sufficiently indoctrinated. I see it here with my kids, everything constantly, equity, equity. In every one of their classes, they're learning about

Malcolm X or what have you, or very specific types of quote unquote black liberation. And so we have a problem that's a deep rot in our educational institutions. And it's not just the university system. It's, as you know, with Paul Rossi and many others, it's the K through 12 system. against this and things didn't end well at the school, but they're going to end well for Paul. Okay. So you say in your letter and your resignation letter, I never once believed the purpose of instruction was to lead my students to a particular conclusion. Rather, I sought to create the conditions for rigorous thought to help them, I love this, gain the tools to hunt and furrow for their own conclusions. Freaking love. Then you write, but brick by brick, the university has made this kind of intellectual exploration impossible. It has transformed a bastion of free inquiry into a social justice factory whose only inputs were race, gender, and victimhood, and whose only

outputs were grievance and division. And my note in the margin, Peter, is these people are mentally ill. That's not well thinking. Right. I do think it's a kind of mental illness, but it's not merely a mental illness. So there's just so much in this conversation that we need to talk about. So a lot of this is that these are very well-intentioned and very well-meaning people. And they get together in groups. And because they're smart, they're better at rationalizing or they're better at coming to conclusions which are not true. And so part of the thing that we see in these social justice factories is they look at the purpose of the education is it's like

an indoctrination mill students need to adopt certain conclusions and if they don't adopt certain conclusions after it's like a catechism right or or kind of a kind of marxist ideological training it's not that they weren't given the information but it's that they're bad people so you have to agree with us you have to agree with us. You have to agree with the principles of social justice or else there's some kind of a moral problem. And one of the consequences of that is if you keep taking away voices that challenge that orthodoxy, people become – basically they become fanatics. They become completely positive in the things. But that's the other thing that I was thinking about recently. It's so interesting to me. I was doing chin-ups just yesterday and I ran into a professor at Portland State University. It was a very heated conversation. Somebody actually came in and asked, is everything okay over here? Oh, wow. here. But within that conversation, I think part of it is that we've managed to create people,

we've managed to make genuine disagreements into moral monsters. Somebody holds us, they're just a Nazi. They're a horrible person. We should inflict violence on them. And it's just so tragic. We've lost something so fundamental, the ability to talk to each other, the ability to communicate across divides, telling people it's okay. You don't have to share every view in common. It's okay. If, if you have a disagreement, you can still be friends. In fact, it's probably good for you to have disagreements. That's it. It's something wonderful that we, I don't want to say we've lost, but certainly are losing. Douglas Murray talks about this, about how he told me

when it came on, he used to go out and about to be debating on stage and he'd look forward to it. He knew it was going to be a wonderful, he'd know it would be a wonderful exchange. You know, the intellectual firepower going on back and forth, learning, debating, defending your position. I know you love the Socratic method. So do I as a graduate of law school that use that. And now it's to disagree or challenge this orthodoxy is offensive. It makes you a bad person. The other person needs a trigger warning for you to even say feel unsafe.

Right. I honestly like I mean, look, I'm not a college professor, but I couldn't care less that they feel unsafe? in Manhattan gave the law students a pass on their exams because they didn't think that they could function in the face of a perceived injustice. I'm like, do they have any idea what actual lawyers do? They should have been kicked out of school immediately. Never mind given a pass on the exams. All right. Let me stand you by right here. I got to squeeze in a break. But we're going to talk to Peter about what the students have told him personally about being afraid to speak up. And he's also got a message for Rachel Maddow. That ought to be interesting.

And then later, Adam Carolla and Janice Dean are here. And a reminder to everybody, we're going to make this show available as a podcast later in the day in case you want to listen back on any and all podcasting platforms. And we also have a video version now at youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly if you want to actually see it. We'll be right back. Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show, everyone. Back with me now, Peter Boghossian, a Portland University professor who resigned because he says his university has become a social justice factory and he is not alone. One of the things I read in your letter, Peter, was that the faculty in the administration, you say, they have abdicated the university's truth-seeking mission and instead

they drive intolerance of divergent beliefs and opinions. This has created a culture of offense where students are now afraid to speak openly and honestly. And I did. I wonder to myself, so there are still some there who want to do that. They're a combination of being held hostage to the most intolerant of voices and true believers. I mean, you have people in the administration of my colleagues, like the person I ran into when I was doing chin-ups yesterday, they truly believe this. They are all in. And so you wouldn't need to hear the other side. In fact, you shouldn't need to hear the other side. It's a kind of catechism, right? Where there are correct answers to moral questions. They know the answers to moral questions.

And if somebody disagrees that they're a bad person, it's really not that complicated. Ultimately, they look at the university system, not to find truth or as a truth seeking enterprise, but to liberate from oppression, to teach people about injustices, grievances, racism, patriarchy, et cetera. And when you start thinking like that, you understand the mindset. It's key, Megan, to really think, okay, what is their actual belief and why do they believe it? And then they teach it. And then those kids get out four or five years later after having been indoctrinated and they go into the workforce and they take this nonsense with them. Is there any counterculture developing, you know, like in the, in the sixties and the seventies colleges were, were big on the

counterculture where the more the narrative is thrust on you, the more they wanted to say, F the man and find a different way. Is that, is that happening at all? I think there are new, well, I know there are new institutions that are being built, but I don't think that there are any, there are movements. And I think you and I are in certain spaces in which people are speaking honestly and openly and they're forthright in their speech. But I don't think that there are any actual counterculture movements. I think that takes a little time.

This was like a blitzkrieg without a war. It just came upon us. And so due to the rapidity that it took over our institutions, it's going to take some time to develop a meaningful resistance. Well, and that's why we'll see somebody like you. You published your resignation letter with Barry Weiss at her substack. You're here. Fox News will cover this story, but MSNBC will not. And you sent out an interesting tweet about that, speaking of your message for Rachel Maddow. What? Right. Well, one of the reasons that I'm on, for example, I went on Tucker, what have you, to be very candid is because they called and invited me. And so I said, sure, I'm happy to go have a conversation with you, even though we have some pretty significant ideas. But just by the way, that's one of the reasons that we need discourse, because I do think that my ideas are better. And I'm more than happy to talk to people

who are across the divide. And if I'm wrong, I'll change my mind. But that's why we need discourse. That's why we need to talk to each other. And so the resignation letter was picked up all across the world, German papers, translations. Of course, Fox went crazy over it, but no one on the left, no left of center media, nobody, no Rachel Maddow, no CNN, no MSNBC, no none of it. And so then I put out a tweet, I'd really like to have a conversation with you about our universities. I'd really like to have a conversation with you. I put out Oregon, the Oregonian. Finally, the Oregonian put something out about it.

But there is. So here's the problem. Part of the problem is that if we just criticize one thing, everyone will say, well, you don't criticize the other thing. Why isn't that the problem? Well, okay. Well, maybe could it be that there's just more of a problem on one side with one particular thing? That doesn't mean that the right doesn't, of course the right has everybody, every ideology has its problems, but it tells me that the media ecosystem on the left is, is also like the universities. It's experiencing the

kind of sickness. They don't want to entertain views that go against the narrative. They don't want to talk about the illiberalism and the censoriousness that's happening in academia because they view themselves as part of that movement. So it tells me that there's a problem when I'm more than happy to have, and not even a debate, just a problem when I'm more than happy to have, and not even a debate, just a conversation. I'm more than happy to have a conversation with Rachel Maddow about what's going on in our universities, but they don't want to cover it. They're Oregonian.

They don't want to have that conversation. Why is that? She doesn't want to hear it because they're not willing to stand up for process. And process makes it sound too small. Process is important. Process means do process. Process means free speech and the ability to engage in the Sure, we're we love free speech. Free speech is really important. We're in favor of it. However, what we're talking about is free speech that's that's that advances social justice. I think do we have that sound

bite? Let's let's listen. Hold on. But when I speak about the privileges that we have, I am particularly intent on one of those privileges. This is the privilege, especially for those of us who have the benefits of tenure to exercise free speech. But I don't mean free speech in the masculinised bravado sense that it seems to have been stapled with in the minds of colleagues with whom I've had disagreements over the years. I envision a free speech in an intellectual discourse that is flexed to one specific aim, and that aim is the promotion of social justice and an anti-racist social justice at that.

And in order for that work to be realized richly and capaciously, it behooves all of us who are on the faculty to think about ways in which we can provide effective mentoring to our students, not with a view to habituating them into a practice of assimilation or indoctrinating them in the belief that somehow this is the best damn place of all, but in order to provide them with the tools by which they can tear down this place and make it a better one. Tear down, tear it down. This is classics professor Danelle Padilla Peralta, who really gives it to us straight. And can I just say, just the way he speaks and the way a lot of these university professors who consider themselves

woke speak, it's so alienating, right? It's like they use 25,000 words to say two things. And they, you know, all of the terminology that they throw in there, this useless word salad to try to make their ideas sound better than they are. But you heard it right there, free speech, as long as it's in advance of his ideas. That's it. Correct. It's like Tyron Lannister said, anything before the butt doesn't matter. And I think that the key thing to think about that, my own view is that he should be thanked for his honesty, because very rarely are academics so honest about what they actually want. They're very good at obfuscating. They're very good at kind of sidestepping the issue.

But it's nice to hear someone say, we should tear this place down. Okay, well, it's good. Now there's a person with whom you can have a conversation with him, right? Good luck getting your next paycheck after they do. Because remember, the main thinking there is that the and what they've done to my friend joshua katz is absolutely horrific they've put him what happened insane ideal well you should have him on to speak with that but you know the the it's the same thing every time megan here's here's the trajectory of this somebody questions the orthodoxy then they start accusing

them of creepy sexual stuff. They can't get them on the creepy sexual stuff or someone on the sexual stuff. Then they start investigating them for other things and more investigations and the threat of investigations. And I was just, I just recently had another investigation right before I quit. I was under investigation, trying to throw me out in disgrace, but it's never that they randomly do this to somebody. It's always you speak out against the orthodoxy. We come after you. The threat of investigation, the theft of your time, going through your personal life, going through finding students that you've had years ago, bringing them in for interrogation. I mean, it's an intense thing. The whole system is really set

up. This is happening to Amy Chua and her husband at Yale Law School right now. Correct. Right? And they're not even, same as you, they're not conservatives. They're just, I wouldn't describe them as woke. They've pushed back a little on some of this, but they're beloved by the students and loath know Amy, but my, um, I'm, I'm sorry that's happening to her. And I hate to say this, but this is just the beginning of your investigatory hell. Oh gosh. So can you, cause I didn't, I didn't know they'd been doing that to you. I mean, I, I assume that you had been getting pushback because this is a whole other story and it's awesome, but you, um, and Jamessey and helen pluckrose had done this amazing experiment in putting out papers um that were basically fake the grievance studies papers where

you put out papers with um they were about things like quote dogs engage in rape culture and the penis as a social construct and you got them published by all these magazines that are so woke they didn didn't realize it was a hoax. It was a joke that they weren't supported. One of them was written by an algorithm and that got published. So your point was just that it woke enough and any publication will take it. But was that the beginning of your status at Portland State as a pariah once it was outed that you'd been behind that? No, this predated that. The beginning was simply asking sincere questions. What is the evidence that trigger warnings, safe spaces, and microaggressions are legitimate or good educational practices? How do they help students? Basically, where's the evidence for this? The thing that I've been trained to do in philosophy and through the Socratic method is just

basically to ask questions. And one thing ideologues don't like, well, they don't like humor. So it's two things, but they don't like questions. They don't like difficult questions when you ask them to justify the policies that now govern the institutions. I mean, that's when it started. That's when the pariah status started, But it wasn't until I started publishing fake papers, bogus, completely morally horrific papers about mind comp, translating mind comp, or leashing men like we leash dogs, or forcing white men to sit on the floor and change as a form of experiential reparations. It's not in terms of when that happened, then the cat was completely

out of the bag. And then my life, then they really came after me. I just want people to, we got to do a whole other episode on this, Peter, please promise we can do that because just going back and reading like the conceptual penis as a social construct. So this is published in Cogent Social Sciences. You got this published. The penis should not be seen or should be seen not as an anatomical organ, but as a social construct isomorphic to performative toxic masculinity. Oh, my God, you got it exactly right. All the unnecessary words and the sort of multi-syllabic words to try to make it sound smarter. We argue that the conceptual penis is better understood not as an anatomical organ, but as a gender performative, highly fluid social construct. Well done. I got it. I got what you did there. Highly fluid.

Okay. And then I got to read this. The conceptual penis is, quote, exclusionary to disenfranchised communities based upon gender or reproductive identity. It is an enduring source of abuse for women and other gender marginalized groups and individuals. It is the universal performative source of rape and is the conceptual driver behind much of climate change. It's amazing. Thank you. The paper should really be read in full. It's very funny. I thank you. I'm glad you also find it funny. So funny. But the people at Portland State felt differently. And next thing you know, you're getting investigated by I guess it was under Title IX and they didn't even tell you what you were being investigated for, give you the chance to defend yourself?

Right. So the timeline goes like this. So we realized that there was a problem in these bodies of literature, and Alan Sokol in the late 90s published a gibberish. He was a physicist and mathematician at NYU, New York University. He published a gibberish paper basically lampooning postmodernism, but it had all the right buzzwords. So we published this paper, The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct. The paper received a lot of criticism. And I think a lot of that criticism was justified. This paper doesn't prove what you think it proves. In order for it to prove what you think

it proves, you have to do X, Y, and Z. You have to publish more papers and better journals, etc. So I thought, okay, this is great. They've given us a roadmap. Let's do it. Challenge accepted. 100%. And if I'm wrong, so this is the basis. This is one of the things that I think differentiates ideologues from non-ideologues is changing your mind, saying, Hey, and doing it publicly and say, listen, you know, I made a mistake. I thought this, that's the kind of humility that we need to cultivate as a virtue in our institutions. So I, I, so we did that. We, we published,

or we wrote 20 papers, Helen Pluck, Rose Jamesons, and myself, we wrote 20 papers. We got seven of them accepted until we got busted by the wall street journal. And there were some doozies in there. And then the moment that happened, well, when I published the conceptual penis, then the swastikas and the feces and all that stuff started happening. And then the lack of collegiality is the least of it, the spitting, et cetera, et cetera. But when we did the Sokol, it became called Sokol Square, that's when something hit the fan. That's when the real problems started happening. So when you took it next level, so did your detractors on campus, including your

own colleagues. Right. Because part of it, most of my own colleagues, most of my colleagues, part of the idea was that this wasn't just something that was happening to me. This was something that I was fighting back. Give a punch and take a punch. And reason is worth standing up for. And these bodies of scholarship, they're leading us astray, our public policies. And we have to fight back against this. There's just simply no other option. I mean, it sounds like hyperbole, but it's not. The America that you think you know is gone. Already, there's a crisis of confidence, a legitimacy crisis in our institutions. People don't trust their institutions anymore. Well, there's a reason they don't trust their institutions is because those institutions are not worthy of trust. Right. That's exactly right. So, you know, somebody tells you that there's a Title IX investigation against you. You know what it's really about. And this speaks to another problem that we've been having on campuses, which is a lack of due process in particular for men accused of anything under Title IX.

And what I gleaned from your letter is all you find out through the grapevine is some student says, oh, they were asking me if it's true he beats his wife and family. I mean, that's correct. No, more than one. Yeah. So you don't have there's no due process. So you don't have access to the accusations. You have to infer them from what the the chief diversity officer asks you. And when I was walking up on campus, people telling us I was mortified by it, particularly given that my daughter's adopted from China. And these are just horrific allegations

that they became rumor after a while. Absolutely libelous. I mean, they're lucky that you didn't sue them. And the investigation did not sustain any of that. We should we should make clear that that's the case. But you tell me because it seems like even though they couldn't prove any of that. We should make clear that that's the case. But you tell me, because it seems like even though they couldn't prove any of these bogus charges, they still said, well, he should be counseled. And by the way, don't ever talk about your view of minority groups again. Yeah, protected classes. You should never be speaking about protected classes. Meanwhile, you're like, what was my original sin that led to my discussion of protected classes being a thing? You don't get to know, but they think they've done a good job of silencing you on any sort of minority group. Well, that was the weird thing. And I requested a

meeting subsequent to the conclusions that the investigator found. I mean, the whole thing was sort of absurd. It would be, I'm trying to laugh. I can laugh about it now, but I wasn't laughing then, I can assure you. Of course. Why is it that I can't render my opinion or talk about protected classes, but the whole university is present? Everybody's constantly talking about systemic racism. What is it about my opinion? I read a statement, a multi-page statement, but there was something so grotesque about it. It's something so grotesque about it, you know, not having, it's something so slimy about it. But again, it's, it's the, even the threat of investigation. And I think this is important to know keeps people in line.

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's amazing that feces on your office door, people spitting on you on campus, all of the verbal harassment, the swastika, that that didn't do it. And so they truly tried to shut you up. They tried to close your mouth on any issues that were important to them. And you finally reached your breaking point. All right, stand by. We're going to squeeze in another break. And when we get back, we're going to talk about what's next for Peter.

And then later, Adam Carolla and Janice Dean will both be here. There's a clip of Adam taking on Governor Newsom that you have got to hear. Don't go away. Welcome back, everyone, to The Megyn Kelly Show. Here with me now, Peter Boghossian, a Portland State University professor who just resigned because he says all the students are being taught is victimhood. Can I just round back with you on the students, Peter? Are they like, would they come to you and say, I want to say something else. I have questions about this, but I'm afraid. I mean, how did you come to understand there were people who weren't buying all this woke

indoctrination? I think people are genuinely confused, but there's a culture of fear. So few people are afraid to say anything conversation. I just honestly want to talk about these issues and I feel I can't voice my opinion. I did something called a reverse Q&A at Portland State where I listened to people's experiences of social justice and anybody could speak. And it's quite telling. Before we went to break though, if I may pick up on something you said, I did have a breaking point. I did have a singular moment when someone said something to me, I was like, well, I

simply cannot work here anymore. And that was when I tried to arrange a meeting with the president of the university, Stephen Percy, for five minutes and he wouldn't speak with me. His office kept saying, he's just too busy. He's too busy. Oh, come on. For five minutes, the guy's too busy. Okay. You've been there for 10 years. Yeah. It was ridiculous. He obviously just didn't want to talk to me. So that's the other thing. It's a type of dishonesty to say, no, I don't want to talk to you. Don't lie to people. Just don't be a sneak. Just be honest. Yeah. So I finally managed to get a

meeting with one of the deans. And I said, you know, the foundation for individual rights and education has labeled Portland State University, one of the top 10 worst colleges for free speech in the United States. And he turned to me with total sincerity. I wish you could bleep out his pronoun. Could you, cause I didn't want, I don't want people to know who total sincerity. I wish you could bleep out his pronoun. Could you? Because I don't want people to know who it was. So if you could bleep out the he part. Well, we're live on the radio, so it's going to be out there.

But I will. Okay, well. In today's day and age, one never knows. He, she, they. Yeah, I'm trying not to dox anybody. I don't want people to gang up on anybody. And I don't want to contribute to that culture. But anyway, so this individual, I suppose it's too see right now turned to me with total sincerity and said,

it's a good thing to be on those lists. Oh, come on. So it just hit me like a ton of bricks. You actually want to create this environment. You want to create the environment that puts you on a list of places opposed to freedom of speech. And how can I maintain my integrity and be part of that institution? I can't do it. And that was the moment. Yes. Well, that was, I mean, your resignation letter really struck me. I tweeted this out because I read the whole thing as soon as you sent it. And this is how you ended it. It has become clear to me that this institution is no place for people who intend to think freely and explore ideas.

Keep in mind, this is Megyn Kelly saying this piece. This is a university. It's a university. Back to you. For 10 years, I have taught my students the importance of living by your principles. One of mine is to defend our system of liberal education from those who seek to destroy it. Who would I be if I didn't? And that's why you felt you had no choice but to leave. I have to ask you because having been through something like this, I mean, because having been through something like this,

I mean, I have been through something like this. In fact, when I was reading about your professors turning on you and pulling out the microphone when you had people like Christina Hoff Summers and Brett Weinstein and his wife, Heather, come speak, trying to silence your guests and silence discussion and basically make a pariah out of you, I thought, my God, this is like being a former Fox News anchor at NBC News. But anyway, I understand as you write me in the letter, it did take a human toll. You say, I wish I could say it didn't, be the tough guy, kissing the muscles, I'm good. But this does take a human toll on you. It does, but I want to make crystal clear to you that I am not a victim here. I knew I didn't understand exactly what I was getting into, but I made the decision to fight back. I could have easily kept my mouth shut and things would do it all over again. Maybe I, I, I would I, I would do it all over again to, to, to be sure. But I'm not a victim here. And I think that there's something important about standing up and speaking out.

And when you hear an injustice, you, you know, don't remain silent about it. Speak up, be bold, be forthright in your speech. And if, if you're not, then what, what's this whole thing about? Why, what are you doing? What kind of relationships do you want to have? I couldn't agree more. That's, it's like somebody was asking me recently, how do you handle the criticism that you receive online and elsewhere? And my response was the goal is not for it not to bother you. The goal is to get to the place where you do it anyway. Right? Correct. have your colleagues treat you like that. But the goal can't be universal love. Otherwise, you'd be taking very different positions if you have any ethics at all, right? You have to follow your ethical code. You have to take the positions that you believe in and let the dust settle,

right? Wherever it may. And I feel like all of that led you to the place you are right now. Right. And so I want to comment on the hate you get. So I love your Twitter feed. Follow you on Twitter. Thanks for wishing me happy feed. Follow you on Twitter. Thank you. Thanks for wishing me happy birthday. That's really nice. I'm a big fan of yours. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

And I look at the criticism. Sometimes I marvel at it. And I think it's two things that are going on. I think it's tall poppy syndrome from the Australians. You know, like when somebody achieves something, everybody just wants to cut them down. But I think this is really important because it ties the conversation back into the university system again. So one of the things that we see happening is that when people are under accomplished, they can't take responsibility for that. And yeah, there are

systems that have screwed people over. There's just no question about it. But when people think that they should rise to some kind of social, I don't know, privilege or more money or what have you status in society, when that doesn't happen, it's very easy to blame the system, right? And so when they see someone like you as success, instead of saying, wow, this person worked really hard. And that's the other thing. I think often people don't understand what it takes to be successful. Like the crazy amount of hours you've put in, the crazy amount of work you've put in,

but it's very easy to rip people down. It's very easy to blame the system. It's very easy to do all of these things as opposed to taking accountability. Now, that doesn't mean we shouldn't fix the system to give everyone a public education of the first rate, et cetera. Of course, we need to do these things. But we also need to be mindful of our own efforts in making a contribution to things. And it's very easy to sit and tweet about what a horrible person is, as opposed to actually doing some work, right? As opposed to actually- And trying to make yourself a tall poppy. You're a tall poppy too. Correct. So last question, I have a minute left. What's next for you? Because I really hope it involves jumping into this space, right? Brett's done so well after being booted out of Evergreen. You were born to be in the podcasting or digital space. And so I've started a National Progress Alliance, and it's nationalprogressalliance.org.

And we're pushing back on this ideology. We have a team that we've put together. And we're really going to fight back against illiberalism and censoriousness and make a meaningful contribution to what's going on. So that's my next thing. That's what I'm diving into right now. Let us know how we can help. Tall poppy, Peter Boghossian. What a pleasure.

Thank you so much, Megan. Wow. What are your thoughts after hearing from Peter? Feel encouraged? A little scared? Call me at 833-44-MEGYN. That's 833-446-3496. Love to hear from you. Welcome back, everyone, to The Megyn Kelly Show. Joining me now, Adam Carolla, host of The Adam Carolla Show, and my pal Janice Dean, who is the Fox News senior meteorologist and also the woman I call Bully Slayer. Bye, Governor Cuomo. Bye. Sorry. Not sorry. Okay. So, so fun to have you both here. This is going to be a good time. Let me start with this since we are just coming off of the 9-11 20-year anniversary. It's hard to believe and website. I'm sorry to even mention them, but they're not the only place we've heard this kind of reaction. They're upset with Disney, saying Disney committed the sin after 9-11 of selling patriotism to children with the following ad, which had a bunch of celebrities

talking about how they felt proud when they saw the flag. Listen to the ad. The flag means everything to me. It means life. It means freedom. It also means unity. And it means love.

You see American flags everywhere and it just it reminds you. But it also makes you really proud. I spent my whole life pledging allegiance. And I don't think I can ever look at a flag the same way. The flag stands for us as a group of people being united and being with each other in a time of need. I saw a fire truck pass by the other day and it had an American flag on it and it was blowing in the wind. It was so amazing. Everyone just started clapping and cheering and it was really special. I had to drive cross country. We saw the flags, saw the proud to be American flashing signs on the highway, all the flags, you know, you ride down the street and it makes you feel connected,

like we're in this together. And the reaction from Jezebel is that these clips eerily mirror a nation drunk on jingoism and going off. And we're going to go on with other examples of people who are upset about any expression of patriotism or loving the flag. We'll do ladies first, J.D. Well, my husband is a 9-11 survivor. And if you're watching this on video, I've got his helmet. He worked for 4035 that day right across from Lincoln Center. They lost all of the men that were on duty that day. My husband actually had the day off. He went to go get his driver's license. So his driver's license says September 11th, 2001. He got back to his apartment, which was right across the street from his firehouse and saw the first plane hitting the North Tower and ran across the street, got in his gear,

put his helmet on and got a ride with a Red Cross truck. And as he went down there, he got out. And as he was walking down towards the buildings to try to help others, it fell. And he was down there for both towers. They both fell. And he spent days and weeks trying to find the remains of his brothers that died that day. So, you know, I'm a proud wife of an FDNY and we took our children on the 20th anniversary to 4035 to listen to the stories that were told that day and to see my husband each time the bell rang four times in front of his firehouse to salute all of those that were lost that day. So that's what I have to say. And that's what we should be thinking about, those who we lost and the way the nation

rallied to fight back, the way we came together in unity for a brief moment and remember what it meant to be an American. And instead, Adam, of doing that, we're hearing things like this from the Huffington Post, which is upset about the 9-11 museum, saying it promotes an excessive sense of patriotism and nationalism, saying it makes only cursory mention of 9-11's complicated legacy and things like the wars, the U.S. as a surveillance state, and not more. They're upset not more is said at the 9-11 Museum about Islamophobia and racism. Well, you know, I didn't have any direct connection to 9-11 like Janice did, of course. But it seems to me as I just sort of stand back and look at what's going on, it is a general attack against America and sort of what America used to be. And I'm not talking about 9-11. I'm talking about HuffPo and all these other websites. You know, if you did it from a sort of macro to a micro example, it would be as if I said, I love my wife. My wife is fantastic. Of course, I want a great marriage, but there's all these things she's done wrong in the past,

and I have to bring it up every 10 seconds. And then I would stop and go, but of course, she's a wonderful woman. And of course, I want our family to be the strongest it can be. But here's a bunch of other crap she did in the past that was wrong. And of course, I want our family to be the strongest it can be. But here's a bunch of other crap she did in the past that was wrong. And here's what she continues to do. And at a certain point, you'd have to say to yourself, well, wait a minute, do you really love your wife? I mean, do you really want what's best for your family? And I'd go, of course, I love my wife. Of course, I want what's best for my family. Everyone wants what's best for their family. It's just, here's a bunch of other stuff she did from the past. And a theme starts to

emerge. Like they are, they're constantly saying, you know, this is a great country. I love my country. And then here's a bunch of crap. And the flag just represents the country. So look, the flag represents every country. Every country has their own flag and you wave that flag. That suggests you're proud of this country. Why do they get so upset every time someone waves a flag? Where's that coming from? If in fact, they do love this country as they claim to do. Oh, yeah. Now it's considered racist. Now you're considered absolutely a Republican if you display an American flag and possibly also you might be racist to display an American flag. J.D., there was a story out of Washington State High School out there,

East Lake High School, where the kids on Friday, the day before the 20 year mark, wanted to wear red, white and blue in honor of the fallen and to honor our country and the flag. And it got canceled because some unknown, unnamed staffer said people are going to find this offensive and racist if the kids wear red, white and blue to school. And the school caved and said, oh, never mind. You're right. I don't even know what to say to that. I'm so grateful that both of my kids' schools had a whole lesson about 9-11. And they were taught about what happened on that day. And both of them came home and told us what they learned. And I was just so proud that those schools did that.

And when we took Matthew and Theodore down to my husband's firehouse, you know, my husband told them the story of what happened to him that day, something that he doesn't do very often, as you know. He never talks about it. He's a very quiet man, a very private person. But it's very important for him to tell our children what happened. We can't erase the history. It's 20 years.

And last week for Fox and Friends, I went out to different memorials all week, you know, and talked to people who were part of the memorial or, you know, talked to firefighters who had been down to ground zero that day. And it was very difficult for them to come and talk about that history. But they said it was important because we can't forget about it. I love that your school taught your boys about it. We pulled our kids, as you know, from their old, crazy, woke schools. And our oldest, Yates, was saying that they were talking about, I had mentioned Todd Beamer, and I'll just never forget his story from Flight 93 and the guys who

were aboard and gals and the flight attendant, all of whom worked together to help prevent that plane from going into the US Capitol. And they saved who knows how many lives. And his face lit up and he said, I know about him. I know about him. Let's roll. And I was so thankful that the school was teaching lessons like that, you know, to reminding the kids about the American patriots who helped, they were the first soldiers in the war. But it doesn't go that way everywhere, Adam, and including at my old university, Syracuse University, that's where I went. My dad had been a professor there in the education department when I was a little girl. And then I went there for college and majored in poli sci.

And this professor there, it's so infuriating to me. Jen M. Jackson decides to tweet out again on 910, the same day that the little kids weren't allowed to wear red, white and blue in Washington. Calling 9-11 a strike. It was a strike against heteropatriarchal capitalistic systems. Okay. A series of tweets one day before the 20-year mark on which 2,977 Americans were murdered. Quote, we have to be more honest about what 9-11 was and what it wasn't. It was an attack on the hetero patriarchal capitalistic systems that America relies upon to wrangle other countries into passivity. It was an attack on the systems

many white Americans fight to protect. Matt Taibbi, formerly on the Rolling Stone, and now he's got a great sub stack going, tweeted out, of course, because if Osama bin Laden was about anything, it was striking down heteropatriarchy. But the insanity, the insanity and the disrespect to try to make 9-11 about the white race. Well, I mean, obviously, those folks convert everything into racism. They essentially have goggles they put on that are essentially everything viewed through those goggles is racism. So COVID ends up taking a turn for the racist climate change, turn for the racist education. Everything they see is racism. And it's not that they're finding it in certain places, it's that they literally just put on their virtual reality goggles and all they see is racism. So it doesn't really matter where they turn or what they see, it gets converted to racism. And I don't understand,

A, why they don't have more self-awareness about this, just to literally call everything racism. It's embarrassing to me. They should be humiliated that they're adults, and especially in a position of being professors and being in the college system, or politicians, the fact that they speak to young people and they control a lot of the thoughts and minds and hearts of young people. And also, how could we possibly ever function as a country if every single subject that came up took a racist turn to it? And they're always talking about uniting this country. Why are the people who are always talking about uniting the country, how come they never shut up about racism? How come they find it

under every rock and at every turn? It's literally impossible to unite and constantly bloviate about racism. It's so infuriating when you think about all the people who died on 9-11, all the people who died thereafter in the wars. And JD, as you know, the firefighters who contracted cancer after working at Ground Zero. I know it's a's just like, stop it. Just stop making everything about people's gender and people's skin color. But speaking of your point, Adam, on how everything gets turned into like a racism thing, the most amazing clip ever of you taking on Gavin Newsom on your show. This is 2013, I think, where he was trying. Well, I think it actually explains itself. You tweeted it out, but he was trying to espouse the plight of black and Latinos within either the city of San Francisco or the state at that point. When it comes to financial difficulties, I'm trying to set it up without giving the whole thing away. And you decided to push him on it listen half of african americans in the state of california roughly half latino families have no access to a checking account or an atm things we take for granted they don't have a check what's wrong with them and what but what well because they don't they don't have the resources to sock those things away why do we have

a lot of different reasons but but roughly half those families don't whether they are armenians have them but where they end up is in check cashing places. But I want to know why those two groups don't have that. It just happens to be that. Do Asians have this problem? I mean, a lot of communities have. A lot of whites have these problems. Oh, no, that's not just black and Hispanic.

No, but I'm giving you... But why did you bring up black and Hispanic? Because the magnitude is ominous. But why so many of them? It just happens to be the magnitude... Is that the way God planned it? Not at all. What of them? It just happens to be the magnitude. Is that the way God planned it? Not at all.

What about Asians? They were put in internment camps. Yeah, we, in fact, did all initiate that at San Francisco. The Chinese Exclusion Act came out of progress in San Francisco. Are they the Czech camp? A lot of Asians certainly do. Also, why don't you conclude them? Because the only reason why is the magnitude of the problem.

There's so many more. The magnitude and percentage terms. But there's no way to figure out how that happened. We could talk about it. You know what I'm dealing with? I don't want to have a sociological debate. Sure, why would you? No, here's why.

Why would you want to do that? Because the person from the Times wouldn't write good things about you if you did that. No, no, that's not the case because I want to deal with reality. You don't want to get into that. No, no. You want to deal with reality. I want to deal with the reality of people that are struggling. People are suffering.

I want to deal with the problems in a pragmatic way. Why are they struggling and suffering? I don't want an idea. We can hold hands and surmise about all these underlying reasons. I don't want to do that. I want to know why they're struggling. Why are they struggling? A lot of folks are struggling because they can't find jobs.

Why blacks and Hispanics? Because they're working. Why blacks and Hispanics? Across the board. Why? Okay, so everybody is. Everybody struggles. So Asians are suffering

just as much as Blacks. The face of welfare is not an African American family. It's Asian, Jewish, it's all of them. Caucasian? Okay, so we're all struggling. A lot of folks are struggling. That's amazing. Right. Yes.

That was so well done. My favorite part is we can hold hands. I don't want to do that. I just want to know why. It was like a dog with a bone. It was brilliant. And so your takeaway from that clip and that exchange that you had, Adam, was what? Well, he came in and he just thought he was going to get the usual friendly softball treatment he gets everywhere when he does an interview. And then he does this thing where he panders. So he spits something out and I wasn't planning on attacking him or sparring with him. You know, I do a show, all guests are welcome. We'll have a congenial

discussion. It wasn't a setup in any way, shape, or form. He then, in the middle of an interview, just brought up that half of Black and Hispanics who live in California don't have access to checking accounts, which is a lie. By the way, don't have access? Maybe choose not to get checking accounts, but not don't have access to checking accounts. But either way, it's a gross lie that he said half don't have access. That's insane. You know, California is probably half Hispanic. You think half of the people who live in California, half that group doesn't have access to a checking account. You couldn't function. But either way, he said it. I knew it was a lie. So I wanted to drill down on it with him. And he thought he was just going to

toss it out there. I was going to nod my head because I had white guilt and we're going to get on to the next subject. But I pressed him. And when I pressed him, he obviously, as you heard, could not summon an answer. I just said, why? I wasn't interested in what was going on. I was interested in how do we remedy this? He, of course, had no rebuttals or answers as to how we could remedy this. It was amazing. I just kept asking, why, why, why?

And he couldn't answer it. And now we're on the eve, JD, of his recall possibility. The election is tomorrow in California to see whether he'll be recalled. If he does get recalled, Larry Elder is the overwhelming favorite. And Larry was in the news a couple of days ago. He came on my program last Tuesday. And later that day, somebody tried to egg him. It was a white woman wearing a gorilla mask who tried to egg Larry. And as it turns out, that's not the only abuse he suffered. Earlier in the day, a member of his staff was shot with a BB gun. Somebody else was harassed and threatened. And what's crazy to me as a lawyer, and i'll tell you they're not investigating that egging thing as a as a hate crime of any sort because they said

they're not sure of the motivation i'm like the woman was wearing a gorilla mask we're not sure whether she had any racism going on there i larry to his credit as usual was a class act and said i'm not going to say it was about racism look there she is hitting the guy who confronted her this woman is still at large and this is the state of our American media because it was not a front page story everywhere. Well, I think if he was a Democrat, that would be on every single newspaper on the front page, including The New York Times. I think even Larry said that if if he was a Democrat, people in Bangladesh would know about that story. But because he's the Republican, no one knows except here on your program when you're bringing it up. It's quite, I mean, hypocritical doesn't begin to describe what happened on that day. And I'm just glad, you know, Adam, I wish every American could hear that clip of you and Newsom going at it so that they could really get the flavor of this guy in a suit

with his hair. That's about all he has to offer. That's right. That's right. He would never debate Larry Elder because look what happened when Adam had a shot at him. Totally fair shot. Asking the tough questions like why, why, why? He couldn't even answer that. He needs to have that. He needs to have that answer, you know, memorized because that's the's been obviously very pivotal in this cultural shift we've had against rapists like Harvey Weinstein. Right. Who were sort of allowed to get away with it for a very long time. And she is alleging that Gavin Newsom's wife basically tried on behalf of Harvey Weinstein's lawyer to buy her off. Here's Rose McGowan with Larry Elder yesterday. So when I finally got on the phone with Jennifer Siebel Newsom for what I assumed was about movie projects, imagine my surprise when she says, what can Boy Schiller do to make you happy? And I again, I had no idea who that was. So I just said nothing and hung up on her.

That was my last contact with her. This is while Rose was trying to get The New York Times to report on the Harvey Weinstein as a rapist story. And you tell me, I'll ask you this, Janice, whether you think this is going to get any sort of coverage in the mainstream media that's done its level best to absolutely kill Larry? Of course not. Of course, it's not going to get any leverage whatsoever. And, you know, the Democrats are supposed to be the ones that are so pro me, too. But, you know, just within the last couple of weeks here in New York, we've realized that some of these groups like Time's Up are completely bogus. They're just there to help their own. Right. And if it happens to be someone who is a Republican, then, yes, they're all in. But if it's someone who happens to be a Democrat or someone that runs Hollywood like Harvey Weinstein and their skin in the game, well, they're going to be very quiet and probably,

you know, go even further than that and try to, you know, disgrace the people who are trying to rise above it. Even if you are a Democrat woman complaining, you won't be listened to by a group by Times Let Up if who you're alleging hurt you is a more important Democrat to them. That's what we saw with Cuomo. That's what we saw with Biden. What am I saying with Biden and Tara Reid? And we could go on. All right, listen, stand by, because up next, we're going to talk about Dr. Fauci, who might have given his most honest answer yet in an interview when it comes to why those who have had COVID allegedly need to be vaccinated. We're going to play you the tape. And we would love to hear from you. Did you observe a patriotic moment on 9-11

that you want to tell us about? Call me at 833-44-MEGYN. That's 833-446-3496. Taking your calls in a minute. Welcome back to The Megyn Kelly Show. In about 10, 15 minutes, we're going to be taking your calls at 833-44-MEGYN. That's 833-446-3496. Would love to get your thoughts on this next segment. Joining me now again are Adam Carolla and Janice Dean. Now, before we get to Dr. Fauci in an unbelievable soundbite, unbelievable, I got to ask you, J.D., because since you slayed the governor of New York, who is no longer in office, Governor Cuomo, his replacement, Kathy Hochul, has taken over. We were told she's a moderate Democrat. And I, I don't think you think she's doing the greatest job based on your Twitter feed. So what what's going on with

her? I'm a little disappointed. Now, it's only been three weeks, right? And I feel like I have to give her a little bit more runway here. But from the last few weeks that she has been in power, she has an impressive Twitter feed. You know, she's at every fair in New York State. And we had, of course, the remnants of Ida last week. And we had a ton of flooding here, you know, catastrophic flooding in the New York area. So she was doing, you know, a lot of outdoor press conferences and events about how they're going to change that and a lot of talk about climate change. But the fact that, you know, Governor Cuomo, after Sandy never put a shovel in the

ground to actually help after, you know, help the infrastructure after that destructive storm, you know, that, of course, was never brought up. You know, I'm disappointed. And the first thing that she should have done as governor, which I believe would have been, you know, really important, was to meet with families whose loved ones died in nursing homes. Over 15,000 elderly died in New York nursing homes. Governor Cuomo had a mandate for 46 days to put COVID positive patients into nursing homes. My husband lost both of his parents in separate elder care facilities. And it would have been, you know, wonderful if she had met with some of us just to say, you know what, we're going on with the investigation, we're going to make sure we're transparent with the numbers, unlike the guy

before me. But she has yet to do that. She needs to fire Howard Zucker, the health commissioner, he was, you know, the also the architect and the author of that March 25th order to put infected patients into nursing homes. And then the fact that the governor covered up the numbers for months, at least by 50 percent for his five point one million dollar book. So, you know, I'm I don't see anything from this governor that's leading me down the road to think that she's any different from the guy before her. Yeah. Like we like we used to say in another context, welcome to the old, welcome to the new boss. Same as the old boss. Same as the old boss. Exactly. All right, Adam. So we got to talk about Dr. Fauci. Cause I mean, he,

he said the thing you're not supposed to say all along. So many people have been asking, especially in the wake of Biden's, you know, a hundred million vaccine mandate. What about people with natural immunity? What the hell was the point? If there's any silver lining to getting COVID, it's that you have natural immunity. And now that's being not recognized by the government saying you still have to get the vaccine. And if you don't, you get fired. So you get COVID, you don't get the vaccine, and then you get fired thanks to Biden's OSHA order. Well, Fauci was asked about this. What about the people with natural immunity on CNN this weekend?

Listen to what he said. And just real quickly, there was a study that came out of Israel about natural immunity. And basically, the headline was that natural immunity provides a lot of protection, even better than the vaccines alone. What are people to make of that? So as we talk about vaccine mandates, I get calls all the time. People say, I've already had COVID. I'm protected. And now the study says maybe even more protected than the vaccine alone. Should they also get the vaccine? How do you make the case to them? You know, that's a really good point, Sanjay. I don't have a really firm answer for you on that.

He doesn't have a firm answer. He doesn't know. Adam, he doesn't know why we are insisting that that people who have had COVID get vaccinated. He goes on to say, like, you know, we don't know how long it lasts. We don't know how long the vaccination immunity from the shot lasts either. Well, first off, it's a weird time that we're living in where somebody in the press actually does their job and asks a coherent question. It took, you know, 18 months for somebody in the press to ask a question. Now, the problem is, is Rand Paul's been asking questions for a long time, except for they go, oh, well, he's just being combative because he's a Trumpian or something. And so we can ignore his questions because his questions aren't valid because he's being combative. But when you go over to our friends at CNN, they don't ask questions. Well, finally,

they ask the question. Now, I like to play a little game called stupid or liar. Is Fauci saying, well, we don't really know about natural immunity. Really? You haven't considered this. This isn't something that came up. It should have come up day one. You guys should have reams of information. This, well, by the way, it's always a lie when they go, well, yeah, but we have to sit back and take a look at the data.

The data's in. It's much more effective than the vaccine. You, Fauci, of all people, should have known this before anybody else in America knew it. And you're doing this. Hey, not a bad idea. We should look into this. We'll wait for some of the data to come in. He's either stupid, in which case he needs to be

removed from his job, or he's lying. I'm assuming he's lying. He did the same thing about Black Lives Matter marches and demonstrations. Remember a year and some months ago when he was asked, well, can't go to a church, can't go to a stadium, can't go to a concert. But what about Black Lives Matter rallies? What about these? Is that okay? Well, yeah, I don't know. I don't have an opinion. So you have a very strong opinion about people going to the ballpark to watch a game or kids playing basketball at the park, but you have no thoughts about other gatherings and rallies of that nature. Obviously, he's lying at this point. They want you to take the vaccine. And by the way, I'm not against the vaccine. But when it comes to Fauci, we want the data, we want the truth, and then we'll make our decisions. They're doing the

same thing they did with AIDS all those years ago when they said it's an equal opportunity killer, heterosexual couple, gay couple, it's an equal opportunity killer. They know the data. They know they're lying. They're doing it because they look at themselves as the parents. They look at us as the children and they want us to eat our vegetables. So they're going to tell us about the boogeyman. That's the way they do it. Third hand smoke is a killer. 50,000 Americans die of secondhand cigarette smoke every year. They know they're lying, but they believe that the good is we want everyone to not smoke and to put a condom on and to get the vaccine. So we need to lie in order to move a noble agenda. Yep. Yeah, that's the same thing he did at the beginning of the pandemic when he says, when he was saying you don't need to wear a mask, masks don't do anything. And then he later admitted that he in his head, he was lying because he didn't want to see a run on N95 or surgical masks,

which were in short supply at the time. So he's already proven that if he thinks it's a noble lie, he'll tell it. And by the way, the other way you can tell he's lying is the, oh, that's a very good question. He's stalling, right? He's stalling. And you raise a great point. He 100% knows the answer, that there is no good reason. There's no good reason. And it's one thing when people were just pressuring folks who were unvaccinated but had COVID. There's another when you're now saying by power of the federal government, your ass is fired. You're fired. I'm going to make sure you're fired unless you get this vaccine, which you may not need at all. And therefore, I will end it on this legal point and this piece of our discussion. If you are a person who has had COVID, who wants to object to Biden's sweeping announcement, his executive order. Make them fire you. Make them fire. Don't

quit. Don't hold on to your rights. If you quit, you're probably giving up your right to sue. But if they fire you, you have a legal leg to stand on. So fight, fight, because this is baloney. They don't know what they're doing. All right, let me shift gears and talk about, did you guys watch the VMAs last night at all? I confess I did not watch. I didn't, but I saw the coverage today. I know, Adam, you always talk about this on your show, that when they do this stuff out in Hollywood, where you are, are Holly weird. But I have to tell you, JD, I got to talk to you about Madonna's ass. Okay.

I, that, there is 100% that that is fake. There is absolutely no way that's her real bottom. And I got to tell you, I know that the right thing to say is like, you go girl, 63. And that's what 63 looks like. And you're still holding it together. That's not how I feel. I feel like woman, cover up. It's too much. Like she doesn't have to age gracefully. She doesn't have to go out there looking like, you know, driving Miss Daisy. But could she just show a little a little bit more dignity for a 63 year old woman? You can still be sexy without being vulgar. And I just think her old brand was vulgarity and it worked, but it's working less

for me as she gets into her mid 60s and is officially a member of AARP. I have not seen her ass. I missed that photo. What? You've got to Google it right now. Is it like a Kardashian now? Yes. It's huge. It's perfectly round. It's hard. You can almost see the implant. Adam, am I wrong? I'm sure you've looked at the ass picture. Well, now, as much as I love asses, you have to understand that yesterday was the opening season of the NFL, which is the greatest day of the year for me. And all I did was watch NFL highlights, and I missed the highlight of Madonna's ass.

Where are your priorities? Unfortunately, I'll have to take a deep dive into her ass after we wrap this up. You know what? I don't need you to. I don't need you to. In like five minutes, I'm taking audience calls. For those of you who saw Madonna's ass last night, and anybody who watched the program

could not have missed it, please call me at 833-44-MEGYN, 833-446-3496. You tell me, 446-3496, whether that ass is real. It was not real. My position is not real, and I did not need to see it. And by the way, Megan Fox was 100% naked, which I also frankly didn't want to see. She's beautiful, but it's like it's too much. It's gone too far. Oh, man.

Right? You'll see the highlights later. Let's talk about Monica Lewinsky while we're talking about inappropriate behavior. The press on Monica Lewinsky has done a full 180 and they're now she's getting the Ryan Murphy treatment out of Hollywood. He's the guy who did the people versus O.J. Simpson, which was amazing, that series. And then he did another one. And now he's taking on the Monica Lewinsky thing with Bill Clinton through the eyes of the women. And so we're going to see Linda Tripp and Monica and I guess Janet Reno. I don't know who else is going to be involved. But you tell me whether because, you know, Monica Lewinsky, basically, you listen to her today, J.D., and it's all about, you know, she was sort of the first Me Too victim.

And the press killed her. Fox News killed her. Drudge killed her. And I got to be honest, that's about all I've heard Monica Lewinsky talk about for the past 20 plus years. I think that's she sort of stuck in that place. I don't know whether this is a good thing for her or not. But what do you make of the way that story is being covered in the wake of the covered now in the wake of Me Too? Have you seen the first episode of of impeachment? No. So I did watch it. I mean, listen, I remember when that was all happening. I mean, the drudge report obviously was was where you got the information with the scandal. Listen, it may drudge. It did. And going through that, you know, during that time,

we were all transfixed on this story about an intern and the most powerful leader in the free world, Bill Clinton. And I recently watched an interview that she did as a young woman still in her mid 20s. And she, you know, was so well spoken for that, you know, time of her life. I remember being in my mid 20s. I didn't know what was going on, you know, to be in that kind of position of being an intern at the white house. That's quite incredible. He's a predator there. There's no question. Uh, and there were many women besides Monica Lewinsky. So I have a soft spot for her and I only wish her the best because she was put in this situation, which was quite impossible. And she, you know, said that she was in love with him. Well, you know, being that impressionable woman in the

White House with this powerful man, you know, it's hard not to be affected by that. And so I watched the first episode. And all I got from that was, he is disgusting. And the fact that I saw him at ground zero with Obama and President Biden, he's still getting a pass today. And he is the original predator and the most powerful predator that we've really ever had in this country. Now, you give yourself too hard a time

when you talk about the 25-year-old you, because you and I both know you were out there. Was that before or after you were a dog catcher? The bylaw and prison officer? Yeah. Giving out tickets. It's a very fun history. Go back and listen to my very first long-form interview with J.D.

It was amazing. Adam, what do you make of it? Monica Lewinsky through the new the post Me Too lens? Well, I mean, obviously, it's always tough, because Clinton is such an icon of the Democratic Party. And yet, you know, what he did, arguably is 1000 times worse than Cuomo. Yeah, I mean, if you really just break down the actions, you know, it's important that we sort of separate the Al Frankens from the Harvey Weinsteins or even the Clintons from the Cuomos or Bill Cosby from the Cuomos. You know, the big problem with the Time's Up and the Me Too movement is to take everyone and throw them in the same hamper. You know, we'll put them all in the same together. I don't care

if you're Al Franken and you're playing a joke on a USO tour, or you're Bill Clinton who did what Bill Clinton did. You're all in the same hamper. This is part of the problem with the zero tolerance committee. There's no proportionality. Zero tolerance for everything. So if you comment on a woman's appearance or you pat her on the behind, you're in the same boat that Clinton was and what he did in the Oval Office. It's a big mistake. You could never prosecute a case this way. This isn't the way our system is set up. So, you know, fundamentally, he has a problem because there are plenty of guys and there are plenty of historically, plenty of cases where older guys like younger women, I think we can all sign off on that premise and where guys in power abuse their power.

But here he is the president of the United States and he couldn't keep it under control for a very short period of time. You know, he literally couldn't, you know, it'd be like saying, you know, are you an alcoholic? Well, I like to drink. Yeah, but are you an alcoholic? Well, having a few beers when you're watching football doesn't make you an alcoholic. But if you have to fly a commercial jet airliner and you drink that day, then you are an alcoholic. And what we were saying to him is you got to fly for the next four years or eight years. Can you stay off the stuff while you're in this incredibly important position? And the answer was no. So by definition, he has an addiction. Well, and it's like, because we're not just talking about Monica Lewinsky, when we talk

about Bill Clinton as the original me too, or I mean, sadly, not the original, you could go way back. There's a lot of them. But, you know, there's Juanita Broderick, there's Kathleen Willey, you could go down the list, JD, because, you know, Paula Jones, allegations of rape, sexual assault and so on. I mean, very severe and criminal that and he paid a lot of women off to make them go away with the help of his wife, Hillary Clinton, and a whole band of brothers. I mean, the truth is, George Stephanopoulos was one of them. Then George Stephanopoulos is hosting morning TV right now, despite the fact that he put together the Clinton war room that was dedicated to tearing down every single one of those women. And I really wonder whether these Me Too advocates are one day going to turn to George Stephanopoulos and say, where's your apology? Where's your accountability? Right? It's not just about him, but he's who's completely escaped the the questioning that came in the wake of that movement but i do want to ask you janice because you know i say i i don't know that this is a great thing for monica lewinsky that all these

years after it's still what she focuses on when she pops up she talks about bullying in the context of what happened to her can i jump in yeah yeah You know, the whole Me Too thing, and you talk about Stephanopoulos and Clinton and Hillary Clinton and all their discussions about everyone, every woman needs to be believed and marching with Time's Up and Me Too and all that. It's no different than the Larry Elder case where the woman dons the gorilla mask and throws the egg at the black man, who, by the way, will be the first black governor of California in over 150 years. Do you guys not like racism? Because that's all you talk about. And are you for women and women's rights and believing all women? Because it seems like that's all you talk about, except for when it happens to your own,

and then you zip it. Or in the case of Larry Elder, when it happens to a Republican, in which case you zip it. So CNN, are you against racism? Are you for women's rights? And the fact that you have to weigh it out and figure out whose side of the aisle each case is on before you weigh in suggests to me you don't really care. 100% right. I mean, Janice, we've seen this so many times. I've told the story before, but even when Trump and I got into our weird thing, I asked him that tough question about women, and he started calling me a bimbo and retweeting all these crazy attacks on me that were based on gender. And National Organization of Women, Bob Kiss. They said, not that I needed their help, but I'm just saying they, why? Because I was a Fox news anchor, right? These,

the situational ethics of those who have a partisan agenda. And again, Monica Lewinsky, she was too low on the totem pole. She was a Democrat working in a Democrat white house, but she was accusing their main man, King Bill. And therefore she had to be ruined. Well, you know, I hope that this, whatever they call it, a docudrama, I hope that it reaches a new generation of people who don't maybe know the story. And again, to see Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton just walking around and going down to ground zero and still being hailed as, you know, one of the greatest leaders of our time, when he has got so much baggage behind him. And then we haven't

even talked about the Epstein stuff. I mean, you know, it just drives me crazy that we're still talking about this and he really hasn't suffered any repercussions at all. Yeah. And meanwhile, her name became a verb and she's still talking about it because it's still a verb. And that's what people still think when it comes to Monica Lewinsky. So we'll see. The Ryan Murphy treatment is usually a fascinating treatment and a usually pretty fair one. So we'll find out in this case. You guys, so wonderful talking to you. Thank you so much for being here, Adam and JD. So nice to see you. All right. What did you folks think about Madonna's, it says entrance. I mean, it's really more like the exit when she turned around, she walked out.

And do you feel differently today about Monica Lewinsky than you did back during the scandal? Call me 833-44-MEGYN, 833-446-3496. We're taking calls right now. Welcome back to the Megyn Kelly show. Our phone lines are open. Call 833-44-MEGYN. That's 833-446-3496. I can see the board lighting up. We're going to take our first caller. I got to talk to Ed in Ohio who wants to talk about Madonna. Me too.

Ed, your thoughts? Hi, Megyn. I didn't see the VMA Awards, but I'm looking at her pictures. She looks like she has soccer balls implanted in her butt. And it just looks so fake. And then you see the front of her. There's not one wrinkle on her face. She's had a boob job.

I mean, this is a really a completely like plastic woman. I don't see anything real on her at all. I, you know, it's the thing. It's like, I'm fine. Whatever work you want to have done, you go, girl. It's fine by me. But like, people are talking about the butt like it's some sort of modern miracle. And it's really just a miracle of modern medicine. that's part of her trademark, but this is clearly not something that's natural. And it's just really, it's sort of like when people get their lips overblown, that's kind of what this looks like. And like the amount of nudity, honestly, like I feel like I'm turning into Tipper Gore,

but like it was just a lot. It's like leave a little to the imagination between Megan Fox and then, I don't know, it was just like, certainly not something I would watch with my children or really by myself at all. No. And there's something to be said about growing old with a little dignity. And I know Madonna's really never had any dignity. I've never thought she had a very good voice, but she was incredible as far as self-promotion. And that took her a long way. And I just, I still don't think she can sing, but, you know, she's still out there self-promoting. But she's 63. Right. She's a great entertainer, but it's just, it's starting to feel uncomfortable. And I realize

it sounds ageist, but I mean, what, when does it start? At 83? Is it like, is it, I just, I'm not sure. I just know I'm starting to feel a little weird when I see it. I watch this with my grandchildren. So yeah, and I don't even have any grandkids and I feel I feel uncomfortable. All right. I want to get a couple of other calls in. Jim, let's go to you in Pennsylvania. Caller number two. What do you want to talk about today? Yeah, Ms. Kelly, I'm just talking about your racism segment.

And for a long time, I believe that these Democrats see racism everywhere. Some people say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And I think racism is in the eye of the beholder. I think they're more racist than what they see. That's the thing is it's like if you choose to make that the prism through which you view all of life, it's like the hammer that sees only nails, you know, and the surgeon who only wants to cut like you can find that there was a that movie boomerang back in like the 90s. Eddie Murphy was in it. And they had a character in there who is like that. And he was looking at like the pool table, you know, billiards. And he's like, see,

like the green table, it's the earth. And like the goal is like they hit the black ball and the white balls, the ultimate one that stays on the table. It's like, yeah, it's it's definitely possible if that's what you're looking for, that you're going to find it. All right, let's get down to Chris in Florida, who's got a thought on Dr. Fauci. Hey, Chris. Hey, Megan, good to talk to you. Great to see you back on the air somewhere. And I think, you know, back on the, you know, the box there, the four by three. Well, I guess nobody has a four by three box. But you get what I'm saying. We'll be very soon.

OK, so, you know, on the Southie thing, I mean, how much do you put up with, you know, moving the goalposts? And this was done from the beginning, from two weeks to start to spread. And remember when they said if everybody on Earth wore a mask for 14 days, that was another thing, that this thing would just disappear. So it's constantly been moving the goalposts the whole way here. And, you know, they're losing people like Bill Maher and stuff. So how far do they let it go? Isn't, you know, don't they see what they're doing? Yeah, I think they do.

And I think this was an extraordinary admission by Fauci in the wake of the president's order. And I do think people have had about enough of this. We'll see. Thank you for calling you guys. And thanks for everybody who joined us today. And for those of you who listened, don't forget to tune in tomorrow

where we've got Brett Weinstein and Heather Haig's wife. They're here to talk about the challenges of modern life. Don't miss it.