The Megyn Kelly Show - Sean Parnell on Fighting For America, Running For Political Office, and How Military Combat Changes You | Ep. 138

Episode Date: August 2, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by Sean Parnell, military veteran, best-selling author and U.S. Senate candidate, to talk about PTSD and how military combat changes you, what drove him to join the military after 9/11, COVID masks and vaccines, the decline of the media and media bias, the Trump political package, the dirty business of running for political office, the need to fight for America, his U.S. senate prospects, the search for real leadership, true diversity and unity, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today we have a treat for you, Sean Parnell. This guy's a rising star. He's from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And he tried to run for a House seat not long ago, but he lost in a very narrow result to a more moderate Democrat. He's a Republican in his district. But man, it was tight. And Trump sort of picked him and said, you're the guy. And he almost got it over the finish line. And now he's running for U.S. Senate.

You know, Pat Toomey is going to vacate this Republican seat and Sean Parnell wants to fill it. And there's a real shot this guy has given his military service, his love of America, just his general reason. You're going to love the guy when you listen to him. And Pennsylvanians, I think, respond to reason. I know a lot of them. I'm married to one of them. And I don't think that they necessarily, you know, they voted for Trump first time around, not second time around. They may not love all of that sort of rhetorical flair, but I think they love the country and they like sensible people. And that's what Sean is. He went into the U.S. military after 9-11. It was he went to Iraq in 2006 and then wound up in Afghanistan where he led the legendary outlaw

platoon. And that was the name of his book as well that made it to the New York Times bestseller list week after week after week. It's a firsthand account of what it's like, what it was like to fight over there with a band of brothers that wound up taking out, I think it was over 350 insurgents who were trying to kill Americans there. Massive, massive casualties and fights that he details in great color. And I think you'll understand when you get to know Sean, why his bravery stood out, why he received two bronze stars, one for valor and the purple heart while over there. He suffered a traumatic brain injury as well, and has been pretty open about what it's like for combat veterans who return to the United

States, something we're going to get into. So we're going to kick it off with a little COVID discussion. Delta, dun, dun, dun. I almost can't joke about it because it's the reaction to this thing. Again, just to kick it off, over 80% of those who have died from COVID are over the age of 65. Over 90% of those over 65 in America have received at least one jab. 80% have received two jabs, vaccined. The most vulnerable population has been vaccinated. And yet still, we react to a new variant and rising cases, rising cases, as though it's the same as rising deaths, which is not what we're seeing. Now, we're going to get into all of it when Sean joins us in one minute. Sean, how are you?

Hey, Megan. How's it going? I'm doing good. It's great to see you. I never see you with the tats on the arm showing. You look just like a soldier right now. Not so much like a senator, but I like the idea of the soldier senator. Yeah, sometimes I'll show up to picnics and people will be like,

did this guy escape from the Pittsburgh penitentiary or is he the Senate candidate from Pennsylvania? So I don't I don't hold. It's amazing because I used to look at Mitt Romney. My feelings about Mitt have changed over the years. I still think he's a decent man. I just think he's a he's kind of a weak, a weak politician. And that's that's me being kind of generous right now because I've seen what he's done over the past few years with Trump. It was just anyway. But I used to think he was straight out of central casting for politician, right, for presidential candidate.

And I do think we what we need really is more people who look like you. We need tough guys who have been in real battles, who understand what it means to fight in that position. Because what we've seen is if you're too milquetoasty, if you're too willing to roll over, principals go out the window, right? Nothing gets done except what the media wants done because they've got the loudest microphone. No, that's exactly right. And Megan, we see this reflected in polling data as well. The number one quality that Republicans and probably 50% of independents want in a candidate is their ability to fight and never back down for what they believe in and who they represent.

And isn't that the job, right? If you're running for the House of Representatives, the job is to fight for the people that you represent. You're running for the United States Senate is to represent the interests of Pennsylvania and Washington. It's about putting, you know, others, the needs of others before yourself. And it really seems like those in Washington have it reversed, as evidenced by the permanent pandemic and lockdowns and all these school closures. People are talking about that again and masking our children. None of this serves the people of this country well. And, you know, I I'm not a career guy. I appreciate you saying, you know, more politicians should should be sort of in my entire career. You know, I plan on going there for maybe one or two terms tops and then coming back to Western Pennsylvania, uh, buying a farm and then probably never talking to anybody again. I love the top job. See, that's the thing about Trump. And I do want to talk to you about him. I've said this before, and it's not my line. I can't remember who said it originally, but it was a really good point. Trump showed the Republican Party how to fight. Absolutely right.

That may have been his greatest gift and his longest lasting legacy because I, like you, had a lot of problems with Trump's behavior and some of the things he said when he was first running, when we first got a look at him on the national political stage, we'd all seen him over the years, but he would say outrageous things and he would do outrageous things. And I think a lot of us were like, holy good Lord, what is this? What is it? It looks different and it sounds different. And I'm not excusing those things now. Um, but I think now having been exposed to him for all these years, what you see is my own belief. That's the package that that particular fighter, the guy who was going to just change the way

things were done, had to come in. He just didn't care. He just didn't care if the media liked him, if the Democrats liked him or if he cared, it just didn't stop him from fighting. So I feel like, OK, great. Now there's a model for how to say like, I don't, you know, write what you want. I'm going to fight. And maybe we can fill it next time with somebody who doesn't necessarily do the tweets and the other stuff. massive cultural shift when Trump jumped into all of this back in 2016, right? And I had always sort of been involved after I came back from Afghanistan, was wounded, medically retired, but still, it was very important for me to continue serving my community. So I volunteered

on political campaigns. I mean, I helped local, state, and federal candidates knock doors, get signatures, and was the chairman of Governor Corbett's Veterans Coalition. He was our Pennsylvania governor back in 2014. And I campaigned with Marco Rubio in 2016. You know, back then, I thought, you know, hey, this is a young conservative. This is the next generation of this movement, and I want to be on the front end of it. And you talked about Mitt Romney earlier on about what we've come to expect in a political candidate, right? Like the guy from central casting, this is what they're supposed to look like. Well, President Trump didn't look like that. And so I was slow to the uptake in terms of recognizing what he truly represented. And that was like, you know, a kind

of, he was kind of like a massive, like middle finger to both parties for real. And that's what I loved about him the most, you know, Republicans in Washington, Democrats in Washington at different times. And sometimes perhaps at the same time, really didn't like them. And I never met someone in my life who has the ability to resist group think like President Trump. I'm sorry. I mean, that's a gift. That's a gift to be able to say, look, I don't care what the Republicans say, the Democrats say, this is what I believe. I don't care what the media writes. This is what I believe is right. This is what I was elected to do. And I'm going to do it. And look, you know, people, a lot of people, they don't like President Trump's comportment. And I certainly

understand that. But I'm not electing, I didn't elect or vote for President Trump twice to date my daughter. Right, to host your dinner party. Yeah, I elected President Trump to be able to walk into the room with President Xi of China, the leader of the communist regime of China, who puts people in concentration camps. I want Trump to be able to walk into that room, sit down across the table and be tough with that guy, you know, because the costs are the costs in terms of human suffering in China. You need somebody tough. Right, Megan. And so President Trump represented that. Even look at the media. Right. It's like so he came after me for for a long time, which was unpleasant. I don't want to I wouldn't want to go through it again. But in retrospect, you know, it's fine. I have a good perspective on it. But I in a way, it was a harbinger of things to come and not in a bad way. Right. Like he

he would come after a woman at Fox News. He'd come after a person at CNN anywhere because he wasn't beholden to the media. And that was really important. He exposed them and their bias in a way we had not seen before. And it's playing out day to day. I'm so angry as I look at the news today, Sean. The COVID spinning, like the knee-jerk instinct for mandates and lockdowns and masking and deference to our big brother rulers supported by a media that just wants to lick boots as long as it's to the

Democratic Party needed to be exposed, needed to be. It has been. But it's not solved. Right. When you look at the headlines today about Delta and the return of the mask mandates for all schools, CDC recommending every single school child nationwide have a mandatory mask on. Thank God for people down in Florida like DeSantis and Abbott in Texas who are passing laws or executive orders saying you can't do that. You cannot mandate that. But other states like mine, they're all going to go that way. I just think who's fighting for them? Who in the blue states, who in states like Pennsylvania, which is purple, is fighting for them? Yeah, it's a good question. Me? The answer to that is I'm fighting against that now. I mean, and I think it's important to discuss this with context, because this once in

100 year pandemic has had a lot of different phases. The science has been complicated. You know, early on when when this thing came from Wuhan, I mean, I saw it coming back in December of 2019. And I said, boy, we better brace for this. And I actually called for a ban on travel from China before Senator Cotton and President Trump did, because I knew that this COVID or this virus or this unknown virus was going to be here. And it was going to affect us in a big, major way. And early on, when we didn't know a whole lot about what this virus was, I thought it was pragmatic. I liked the idea of 15 days to slow the spread, to flatten the curve, to make sure our healthcare system isn't overwhelmed and figure out who this virus

affects and who we need to protect. But the thing with a pandemic response strategy, Megan, is that as a pandemic goes on, you learn more about the virus, its threat, its effect upon the people. And as the pandemic evolves, so too must your strategy. And what I feel like our strategy hasn't evolved at all. In fact, we're right back at square one, where, where the strategy seems confounding in many ways. Okay, let's lock down our schools, let's mask up our kids, like, it makes no sense. It seems like they're going against the science, which is ironic because the left, hey, trust the science, trust the science. Republicans are unscientific. It seems to be going against the science. And I'll tell you, my heart aches for these little kids. I've got three little kids, 12, 10, and 8.

And they don't remember, especially my 8-year-old, almost doesn't remember what life was like before this pandemic, before he had to wear a mask to school, right? Which means that, I was looking at a picture of my daughter the other day, her when she was five with her arm around her little friend. And I'm thinking, that's a joy that a lot of children that were born in the middle of this pandemic will never enjoy unless we radically shift policies and say, no, okay, we did our job. We locked down. We defeated this virus. We have therapeutics that are effective. We know who it affects.

We have free vaccines that are effective. You're not going to lock down our children anymore. Our children have a right to breathe the free air. Our children have a right to enjoy and love their friends and enjoy school. And one of the things that combat taught me, Megan, is that tomorrow isn't given to you. We don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. So every day that you wake up and you draw breath, you have to be thankful for the life that you have and you're given in the greatest country on the face of the earth. And what are we saying? Like these, these government bureaucrats, these unelected bureaucrats

are telling us that we have to lock down our life maybe for another, another year. Yeah. And who are they to require a cloth go over my kids' faces? I have exactly the same age kids as you do, 8, 10, and my son will be 12 in September. And I am sick of seeing them put those things over their faces and go to school all day as they sweat and they work and they try to eat and they try to talk. And teachers who are over the top about if it slides down a little, get it over your nose, get it over your nose, instilling fear in these kids. Carol Markowitz of the New York Post, she's been doing great work in New York City, has a great piece out today. I recommend it to everybody. The headline is

masking kids and closing schools is irrational, unscientific child abuse. And Sean, she talks about a study just out of the UK. It was released last week. She said it proved once again what we've known for more than a year. Kids transmit the coronavirus at a much lower rate than do adults. The epidemiologist who led the study found that children, quote, are not taking the virus home and then transmitting it to the community. These kids have very little capacity to infect household members. And she talks about how kids who went to school last year in GOP areas, kids who went to private schools, right GOP areas, kids who went to private schools, right, that were open, unlike the public's, did not spread the virus. We have data

we can look at to see whether schools and unmasking children leads to massive outbreak. It doesn't. Look, this this is a this is a major pillar of my campaign as well as school choice. You know, in Pennsylvania, this is really important, Megan, because, you know, when we locked down the first time and schools closed, suddenly kids lost everything. If you were a junior or a senior during this pandemic, my God, my heart just aches for you. You lost your extracurriculars, you lost your friends. You lost sports. I mean mean it's just a prom exactly um and in pennsylvania it you know kids this and this is an issue that spanned across you know socioeconomic strata and politics right you had kids public schools closed in the inner cities kids not be able to go to

school and those kids a lot in many cases cases, relied on at least two meals a day at public schools. They locked down. They had nothing. But even rural kids in Pennsylvania, because broadband is such an issue here, when kids in rural communities lock down, they couldn't go to virtual school. I was meeting with people up in the northeast of Pennsylvania whose kids had to climb to the top of a silo in their barn in the hopes that they could get on Wi-Fi at the Starbucks in town. Those children were left behind. They lost everything. And we shouldn't allow that to happen anymore.

These unelected bureaucrats that are accountable to nobody. You know, Fauci, you know, look, look, I'm not a Fauci fan, but it's not even about him. I didn't elect him. He doesn't get to make choices for me. And look at the shift in our thinking, right? Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, just yesterday puts out, the CDC has the power to extend the eviction moratorium. Wait a second. Since when does the CDC have any power over private property in the United States of America? How has the paradigm shifted that much in the last year? People, wake up.

These many authoritarians in our government are not going to let up until you demand your freedom back. And by the way, to the liberals who are no doubt the radicals who no doubt listen to this podcast. Of course, we should take the pandemic seriously. Of course, it's real. Of course, people get sick. But like that does not mean that we should not live our lives. We should live our lives. We've made it is made choices based in freedom. And now the CDC is saying, well, we don't like them. You've got 57 percent of Americans who have at least one shot of the vaccine, at least one shot, which isn't as effective as two, but it's better than nothing. And it's better

than most countries. The deaths, even from Delta, remain very low everywhere. The deaths do. So we're talking about increase in infections, but it's it's among the unvaccinated. The people going to the hospitals are not the vaccinated people. So these are people who have made a choice not to get vaccinated and now they will live or not with that choice. That's the way life works. That's the reason I don't get get drunk and get behind the wheel is because I value my life and I take precautions to protect my own and others. Not everybody makes the same choices and there's nothing I can do about that. But what's happening now is the unvaccinated are treated like the unwashed, the scourge of America. And I hope they get vaccinated. I want them to

get vaccinated. Part of me is pissed off. My kids are going to have to wear masks because they didn't get vaccinated. But I don't really blame them. I blame the politicians who are punishing that choice that they're making that endangers themselves by using my kids, right? Like my kids aren't at risk. My kids aren't spreading it. My kids shouldn't have to pay the price of the unvaccinated. They should have to pay the price. And they are. But we're somehow we're blaming. Everybody's got to pitch in to help the people who have decided not to do this. Well, you know, look, the position on vaccines in this country should be real simple. If I'm pro vaccine, I'm anti mandate, right? If you want the vaccine, consult your doctor, if you consider yourself high risk, uh, or you want to get it, get it. If you don't, don't. And I, I, the whole philosophy behind a vaccine mandate about the government,

being able to tell you what you must put into your body is something that scares the living hell out of me. And so I think what you're talking about, and the reason why people are hesitant to get the vaccine, do you remember what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were saying during the during the 2020 election that I'm not going to take Trump's vaccine, because I don't trust it. That's how it was phrased on the campaign trail. Right. And so you've seen the CDC. And so I think the right and Trump supporters have seen the FBI or some of these other alphabet letter agencies outright mislead the American public year after year for the last almost

four and a half years now. There's been an erosion of trust in our institutions because our public officials have not been honest with the people that they serve. And a perfect example of this is the election, right? And I'm not talking about cracking voting machines from Mars. I'm talking about unilateral changes to election law that were imposed on people 60 days before an election that half the Republicans and the people weren't ready for this stuff. And they use COVID as a mechanism to change election law in a way that they knew would be helpful to their own party. Right. And so people, people see that and the media makes the mistake

and nothing makes me more angry than the media saying, well, Trump is pushing the big lie, which is the buzzwords that the media uses are just insane and wholly irresponsible. It's just Trump is pushing the big lie, and therefore the people believe something. No, the people see they see with their own eyes, they live the experience themselves. They can think critically. And they just say to themselves, well, hey, maybe, maybe we should just have a conversation about how to make our elections better every cycle. But instead, one side seems to be so intent on shutting down the conversation. And as you talked about the media being exposed, oh my gosh, Megan, I've never seen bias like this in my life. And it needs to stop because the

people in this country are suffering. Up next, the Democrats and their media allies continue, continue to compare January 6th to 9-11, in which 3,000 Americans died. Okay, they continue to do it. What does he think as somebody who actually went over and fought for the country as a result of that attack? What does he think about that comparison? That's next. I said this after January 6th. There was misinformation. People got sucked down disinformation rabbit holes and showed up there in that Capitol rioting that day. I think because they had in part because they lost trust in the media. They didn't know where to turn for their information.

They went to bad sources and they really believed this thing was going to get overturned or, you know, that Mike Pence had the power. And Trump fed that. There's no question. But he's not entirely to blame. It was it was these people disaffected from media who went to the wrong places and wound up on Capitol Hill. But now that same media, rather than doing introspection, comes out and they're saying things, Sean, like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. January 6th that day, it was an insurrection, which it wasn't. It was a riot and it was worse than nine 11, worse than nine 11. They continue to say that. And I came out and said, they're insane. They're overplaying this.

And of course I got attacked for saying that, but that you tell me as a guy who joined, who joined the military and fought for our country because of nine 11, because you saw it on TV that day. You tell me whether you can compare what happened on January 6th. No, you can't. Megan, you can't. And you're right. January 6th was bad, but it was not an insurrection. I've seen insurrections in Afghanistan. January 6th was not one. And that's not to say you excuse the violence, but at least have the moral courage to condemn the violence that happened in 2020 for nine straight months leading up to the election, right? People lost everything. They had their small businesses burned, riots in the cities, people died, billions of dollars in damage. There was a riot outside the White House. They almost burned down

St. John's Church, for goodness sake. They had a guillotine outside the White House. Secret service agents were injured in defending the White House while President Trump was president. People were assaulted. A United States senator was assaulted leaving the Republican National Convention on the streets of Washington, D.C. You know, it's I think you're right about the media. So I talked about the big lie. And then that's another thing, the insurrection. It's just it wasn't an insurrection. Was it violence is is wrong when it's what when it happens on either side of the aisle. Right. Yeah. But that's the difference, right? Cause these cops testified at the hearing had disturbing testimonials about what happened to them that day stabbed. Well, one guy had a heart attack and it was, it would definitely tug at your heartstrings. No question. Anybody with a heart would have been moved by what they

said happened. But the problem is there's, there's no empathy by these same senators who are, and lawmakers, you know, who are working up tears at the hearing for the 2000 cops who were stabbed and pepper sprayed and beaten during the BLM riots that we saw over the past nine months. There's no empathy for them. So I was feeling their tears. Listen, Megan, that those cops, there has been a war on cops in this country for like the last 18 months. And it was made possible by this radical left defund the police nonsense. members of Congress who, who don't recognize their rhetoric caused this assault on our police. You know, you had presidential tanners, Kamala Harris, bailing out rioters who burned down buildings for, for, I mean, it's just like, so yeah, she sought funds to do that was doing that. Yeah. And so the people look, so January 6 was unacceptable, right? But like, look at what happened to an entire group of people, 50% of the country for years now, right? They were called deplorables, misogynists, racists. They were marginalized by the media, attacked by them

almost every single day. They were locked down, I would argue, unconstitutionally for months on end, had their small businesses closed. Their churches. Their churches closed. And all the while, the radical left rampaged across this country and were encouraged by elected leaders and bailed out by elected leaders. Then an election doesn't go their way. Right. And so people go to the courts, the courts completely throw their hands up and say, no, we don't want anything to do with this. And I think there's, you know, hey, look, I mean, I think the Supreme Court said, look, we lack the mechanisms to fix this, preferring instead that any electoral changes happen in a legislature. I get that. But to the people, they were just, their concerns were dismissed. And then they found themselves in the steps of the Capitol on January 6th, having gone through all of that. So what happened was

unacceptable. But in order to prevent it from happening in the future, you have to understand why it happened in the first place. And we need to be able to have these conversations, Megan. I guarantee you, you and I are going to get attacked. There's going to be headlines about me after this podcast. Parnell's dismissing what happened on January 6th. No, I'm not. It's unacceptable. But what we need to do is have a conversation about how we got so divided in the first place. And if we can't have a conversation, we continue to let the media and the radical left shut down our ability to have honest conversations and discourse about the most important things

in our country, we're just going to get further divided. That's right. And what you find, I think, I mean, you probably found this as a politician. I certainly have as a media person that that as much as you may get attacked by the left wing press, your core base will support you. They'll be there even more. You know, I mean, I've been I've had so many negative headlines about me over the past month. Our numbers are bigger and stronger than ever. They're growing by exponential rates right now. And that's not why I say what I say. I just say what I actually feel. And then people make a thing out of it. But it doesn't wind up hurting you because there are more people who

understand you're a truth teller than who just want to twist what you said and bash you for it. So I did want to make one of the point on today's news, though, on the defund the police points you were making. AOC, today it comes out in the New York Post, or maybe it was yesterday, she's spent thousands of dollars on security from a Blackwater contractor from January through June 2021. Her campaign paid over almost $5,000 for their other clients to this firm,

Tullis Worldwide Protection, include the Saudi royal family. So this woman is out there staunchly supporting defund the police. And then she spent apparently over twenty eight thousand locally at a New York private security company, Cori Bush. She's a member of the, quote, squad. Same between April and June. She spent seventy thousand dollars on security while pushing to defund the police. Tell it to the women in the inner city whose cops you took away. Exactly, Megan. I mean, they this this.

Oh, my God. You perfectly painted the picture of of what's wrong with our elites in this country. Right. And why a part of my goal is not to go down there for a career. I, you know, and, and you understand now, of course, why Trump called it the swamp, right. Uh, these people want to, to take away your ability to defend yourself and your family. Right. And that's just true. You know, Joe Biden talks about this almost, you know, every day, you know, since he's been in the White House while simultaneously defunding the police.

Like none of this makes any sense. I mean, it just sounds like one of the worst ideas ever. And if you would have told me four years ago, as somebody who had no plans to run for political office at all, that defund the police would even be a thing, I'd be, I'd laugh and I'd laugh in your face. You know, it's just things have become so absurd in this country. And that's why when we've been all over the state, we've only been in a race for about two months now, Megan, but I think there is a, an unbelievable craving in this country, uh, for more leaders and fewer politicians and leaders that are willing to stand up on the parapet and, and tell the

truth and be unafraid. And, and that's what, that's what I hope to be. You know, I'm, I'm. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about leadership and your time in the military, because I do think it's fascinating. And as an example to all of us. So you just I mentioned it in passing, but you decided I know you described in your book, you were kind of listless, like you were you were not really sure what you were going to do with your life, maybe education. Thank God you didn't go there. No, my dad was an educator. I'm just saying the way we are now with these unions, but anyway, okay. So maybe an educator, um, and then nine 11 happens and you were 20 when nine 11 happened. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I was, yeah, I was 40 now. I just turned 40. So I'm not the greatest at math, but yeah, I was about 20 years old. I was a sophomore. I was a sophomore trying to figure out how I was going to student teach second grade. And so what, so explain to me how that works. I was 30 and not, not even considering the military. I'm, I'm too chicken.

I really, I've just, that's why I admire the men and women in the military so much. I'm just, I'm too afraid. And so I like my own cowardice. It's, it makes me ashamed because I do think it takes just a certain level of guts to go out there and defend the country and pick up a rifle and be ready to use it to defend our principles. You know, I have a big mouth, but it's not the same as going out there with a gun. So you did it. So how did that happen?

Because you didn't come from a long line of military people. So were you scared at all? Yeah, I was. And anyone that's going into combat that tells you otherwise is not telling you the truth. That's what I felt the most after 9-11, Megan, was fear. But it didn't matter. I watched people die on national television, falling from flaming towers in New York City and thought, how can I sit here and do nothing? You know, you've got ordinary Americans that are dying on national television and our first responders and people with no training

whatsoever running into flames. How can I sit here and do nothing when all of this is happening? And ordinary Americans are giving everything for people that they didn't know. And so I got in the fight, joined the infantry, went to airborne school, went to ranger school. And, um, you know, a couple of years after September 11th, I found myself on the battlefields of Afghanistan, um, at the height of the hunt for Bin Laden on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan with a mission of just find them. And, you know, I was a young second lieutenant, you know, freshly graduated from college, second lieutenant in charge of 40 men in the infantry. And what was remarkable about this experience, it was a formative leadership experience in my life. But what was remarkable

about it was that a lot of these kids that I was supposed to be in charge of their job before carrying a machine gun in the mountains of Afghanistan was high school shortstop. And I learned a lot about the human condition in Afghanistan, but I learned a lot about also what it means to be an American. And Megan, look, I consider myself

blessed beyond measure to have led the most diverse infantry platoon that you could ever imagine. I mean, black next to white, Christians next to athe led, you know, the most diverse infantry platoon that you could ever imagine. I mean, I mean, black next to white, Christians next to atheists, young next to old, rich, rich next to poor, Democrats next to Republicans, all in the same foxhole. And, you know, what I learned is that when Americans are united in purpose, we can accomplish anything and and i saw it on the battlefield every single day one triumph of the human spirit after the next nobody gave a damn about what color your skin was or what your politics were um or how much money you made or what god you worship we just

cared about each other uh and we cared about the mission and we cared about this country and that that that right there you know because my platoon was so diverse, I just remember thinking as I was writing Outlaw Platoon, I'm like, my God, my platoon is a microcosm of what makes this country so exceptional. And when you hear people talk about diversity,

diversity, I mean, that word is a lot. It's a buzzword in today's culture, but they always stop short of the next most important step. It's not just about diversity. Of course, diversity makes us great, but it's the unity beyond all of that that makes our country truly exceptional. So it's not just diversity for diversity's sake. It's the fact that we were united in spite of all of that. And that has sort of become the core of everything that I've done after the military was just trying to bring people together.

Leadership is about bringing people together and not dwelling on differences. And I try to take that message everywhere I go on the campaign trail, because this country desperately needs to bridge a lot of divides right now. So well, I mean, that that's one of the sad things about how identity politics and people like Ibram X. Kendi's writings are making their way into our military as doctrine, you know, that that this is actually being taught and recommended and prioritized, whereas I mean, you tell me, but it seems like at least for the past 40 years, the military has been the one place where all that stuff gets checked as soon as you get to bootcamp and realize this is a band of brothers and you're going to go

through hell together. Oh, it's absolutely true. And in fact, I remember he talked about, reminded me of something, one of my squad leaders saying to me, you know, Hey sir, like we need to come up with a name for ourselves because once that first bullet cracks by your head, the individual in this platoon doesn't matter anymore. Um, it's all about the team. We shoot, move, communicate together as a team. And we're only as fast as our slowest member. And that conversation is what created our collective identity as the Outlaw Platoon, which is the title of my book. But when we had that collective identity, you know, and that banner under which we united, I mean, it was a pretty amazing thing. And, um, you're absolutely right.

You do set that stuff aside because you know, you realize real quickly when one of your own gets shot or wounded in combat, you, the, Hey, that we really all bleed red. And that's all that really matters at the end of the day. And, um, you know, Megan, we can't let forces in this country continue to drive wedges between us as a people we just can't and i learned a lot about i learned all of that in in the united states military i'm gonna talk about it a lot on the trail but i was 24 years old in heavy combat for 485 days 16 months 85 of my platoon was wounded, some twice. I was wounded as well. I fractured my skull, got blown up by a rocket-propelled grenade, which is probably why I'm running for political office in the first place. I don't know. But it was a formative leadership

experience in my life, and I draw upon it often. You talk in your book about, I'm looking for the actual moment, but where everybody was sent home. You got an R&R after months and months of fighting and some guys had actually made it back stateside. Can you just tell us what happened? Because I couldn't believe this. Megan, oh my gosh, this was the greatest leadership challenge of my life. Not fighting against the enemy for 16 months, but it was just... So we were set to be in Afghanistan for a year. And this was in 2006, right? So the eyes of our nation were wholeheartedly fixated on the Iraq war and the surge and

weapons of mass destruction. I'm sure you remember all of that. So most people didn't even realize a war was going on in Afghanistan. Most people thought it was just simply a stability and support operation. Yeah. And so we were supposed to be there for a year. When we got there, we realized that Afghanistan was completely out of control. I mean, we're talking, you had Al Qaeda, the Qani Network, Hekmatyar, the Taliban, we were fighting against all of these warring factions sort of just thrown right in the middle of it. It was just absolute hell. And we're supposed to be there for a year, right? And so three days before you're supposed to go home, you know, and all that, wow, like the last week we were supposed to be there, we were sending guys home in phases. And so most of, I was the last guy on my base with

my platoon sergeant, really. Like it was just me. Everyone else was in various stages of deployment. But about two weeks before we were supposed to go home, there was this, we built the very first combat outpost in Afghanistan. It was a place called Combat Outpost Marga. And we got attacked by 300 enemy troops, 250 from Pakistan and another 50 from northwest Afghanistan moving towards us in like a giant pincer movement with us right in the middle and with a half constructed base all around us, I had 24 troops on the ground and we caught them coming in. We just got lucky. We saw them and we stacked up all of this air power and we just killed every last one of them. But when we did what's called a, an SSE like a sensitive site exploitation,

in other words, after the attack, we went and looked at the battlefield to do a survey just to get a sense of who we were fighting. And we found on these guys, Pakistani military frontier corps ID cards, right? And we passed that stuff up the chain of command. We don't know what happened after that. But two weeks later, we were extended. And in other words, like my men had already made it home. And this is so psychologically devastating, because you make it home, you there's a point at which you turn in your body armor, you turn in your bullets, you say to yourself, Oh, my God, I get to see my wife again, I get to see my kids again. I get to hug my family. I get to go on vacation or go to see my kids play soccer. And then you get home and then all of a sudden the military tells you, nope, sorry, you're going back. And we actually had MPs go to people's doors,

take them from their homes, escort them to the airstrip and fly them back to Afghanistan. I never left. I was just there on the battlefield with all my men sort of sort of trickling back in and my gosh, for another four months. But but our orders didn't say that our order said four months or until mission complete. So everybody on the battlefield was like, Oh my god, we're never going home. And you you, you made a point in your book, you wrote that you questioned whether your human side, once you started using your gun and killing bad guys over in Afghanistan, you questioned whether your human side could coexist with your combat leader side. And I imagine it's not that easy, like flipping a light switch to take off your gear, go home

to your wife, see your kids, try to be a civilian going through the drive-thru at McDonald's and then right back again, right back again. Yeah. Well, combat changes you. Um, it changes you, you know, and I remember just from my first day, um, you know, watching little kids get hurt, you know, and it's military trained you to go over there and, and get after the enemy and stuff. But what really crushes the soul is watching these little kids that are trapped in the middle. One of the things that blew me away about Afghanistan was that you go there and those little ones have nothing. And they wear burlap sacks. They've got no shoes.

Yet they run around outside these little walled compounds called kalats, which is pure joy on their face, playing soccer with a deflated soccer ball. And I just thought to myself, my God, kids in Afghanistan are no different than kids in America. These kids have nothing. But yet these little ones are caught in the middle of all of this. And I remember watching a little girl lose her life on my first day in combat. And I just thought like, oh my God, like I just felt the former, like my former self just totally melting away, thinking like, like, how do you experience moments like that and endure? Up next, we're going to get into quitting and why we're lionizing it as a society.

And what does Sean Parnell think about that? And also about the Simone Biles story, which, you know, we talked about last week. It's going on fire on YouTube, by the way, you can go check it out. We're posting clips on YouTube now, youtube.com forward slash Megan Kelly, if you want to see it or clips from today's interview. But before we get to that, we want to bring you a feature we have here on the MK show called Sound Up, where we bring you some audio that we feel you need to hear. And today we're bringing back our old friend, CDC director Rochelle Walensky. Remember her who talked about how scared she was as she cried about the impending doom she was so terrified of?

That impending doom, of course, never happened unless you go to Rochelle's mind in which she would tell you that it's happening right now. Again, rise in cases does not mean rise in deaths. And what we're also seeing is rise in vaccinations in the cities that are most affected by the Delta variant. But some don't want to follow the path of freedom. They want to take the thumb of big government and tell everyone how to behave. Well, she and her CDC colleagues changed their mask guidelines, as you know, now for vaccinated people vaccinated again late last week. Got your vaccine so you don't have to wear your mask anymore. Sucker. Here's how she attempted to explain this massive reversal on Wednesday during a CNN interview. Listen. So exactly what problem does the Delta variant create

that masks for vaccinated people solves? Good morning, John. Thanks for having me back. So this is, we have new data here. We have always seen, first of all, I want to reemphasize our vaccines are working just as we thought they would with the Delta variant to prevent severe hospitalization and death. We should be getting vaccinated to prevent severe

disease in ourselves and to protect ourselves from the Delta variant and from getting severe COVID. Here's the new science that we saw just in the last several days. With prior variants, when people had these rare breakthrough infections, we didn't see the capacity of them to spread the virus to others. But with the Delta variant, we now see in our outbreak investigations that have been occurring over the last couple of weeks, in those outbreak investigations, we have been seeing that if you happen to have one of those breakthrough infections, that you can actually now pass it to somebody else. We thought that was really important for people to know and understand, because when people are out there vaccinated, thinking that even if they get mild illness,

they can't give it to someone else. If they're then going to a loved one who's immunocompromised, who isn't yet vaccinated or couldn't yet be vaccinated, we wanted them to take the protection to protect others. Okay. Protect others. Then the, then the updated guidance should be people who have had the vaccine can spread this particular variant more readily than we knew. So you should know that if you're going to be around someone who's an immunocompromised. Yes. Give us the information. It appears that Delta remains in your nose more than the previous variants, thus making you more contagious if you get it. Even if you've been vaccinated, you're still have next to no risk of being hospitalized or dying from it if you've

been vaccine vaccinated, but you have a greater chance of spreading it versus the earlier variants. Tell us that. Great. We'd love to hear that. You don't then have to try to mandate masks in virtually all of the country. If you look at the cities where they're recommending mask mandates return, it's two thirds of the country. homes with our children privately, we who are vaccinated like Doug and myself should consider wearing masks because we're with children who have not been vaccinated, even though children have almost no risk from COVID. They have a greater chance of dying from the flu. I don't wear a mask in my home when I have the flu and I have children who don't have it. Do you? Does anyone? Right. They have a greater chance of dying from pneumonia. They have a greater chance of dying in a car accident. They have a greater chance of dying from from suicide. I mean, there are all sorts of things we can go down the list that they are more at risk to than covid deaths. and this is exactly what we were told. Don't forget that by the same people that we wouldn't have to worry about this, that if you got the vaccine,

you would never have to wear the masks again. You wouldn't have to worry about protecting others and that this is all about protecting yourself. And now that we have a fair amount of people who won't get the vaccines, oh, we're told that we have to wear the mask for them. Why? They won't get the vaccines for me.

Why should I wear the mask for them? And by the way, the people They won't get the vaccines for me. Why should I wear the mask for them? And by the way, the people who won't get the vaccines couldn't give two figs whether I wear a mask at all. They're not trying to control other people's behavior. Only Rochelle is and some of her allies, right? Like Mayor Bowser of Washington, D.C., who implements a mask mandate and then goes to a wedding that she performs without a mask. Rules for thee, but not for me. So it's infuriating, right? What about freedom? What about letting people make their own choices and live or die with the consequences of those choices and keep your hands off of my child's face? Parents should be allowed to decide what goes on their children's face, not these school districts who are terrified of contradicting Rochelle. Because while it must be nice to live in Florida or Texas where you have a reasonable governor who will let you make your

own choices, where I am living in New York, temporarily in New Jersey and moving to Connecticut, there isn't a single governor who will listen to reason. All the kids are going to have to be masked. And I guarantee you it's going to be for much of the year because it's not going to get any better here in the United States and certainly in the Northeast when we get to winter. So these kids are going to have to wear a mask on their face and they're going to say it's until they get vaccinated, which they're also trying to mandate. But mark my words, as soon as they get vaccinated, we're going to be back to, oh, they have to be masked as well. And they're already saying it. You don't even have to mandate. But mark my words, as soon as they get vaccinated, we're going to be back to, oh, they have to be masked as well. And they're already saying it. They don't even have to wait. They're already saying that some 12 year olds have been vaccinated. They're going to have to

be masked and they go back to school, too. So it's insanity. It's insanity. And that's when you listen to Rochelle in any of her public statements, you can hear this woman isn't hysteric. She has no business running our public policy, nor does Fauci. At least when Trump was in office, there was somebody there, a bulwark to slow it down. Now you got Biden and Harris who are, they're double masking even when we were with the earlier variants. Right. So there's no winning against this. When, when will this end? Right. How much longer are we going to be led by these untrustworthy supposed health experts? And that is an addition of what we call sound up. We don't really solve the problems,

but we highlight them for you. Uh, and you can go ahead and sound off in the comments. If you, if you would like, uh, go to the Apple comments, we'd love to get your comments. Cause I read them all. Yes, I do read every single one. And they also help us with the Apple algorithm, though I don't know how. So anyway, let us know what you think about Rochelle, the mask guidance, and in particular,

what's going to happen in schools with our kids. Now back to Sean after this. It's too gruesome to even get into here. I read it and i cried and i thought i'm not even going to go there but you are very open about the torture that the taliban oh my god young boys young as young as six i'm just just the most horrific things you can possibly imagine and i think to myself how are we now trusting that group to not kill all the people who helped us in

Afghanistan, all the all the fighters, you know, who helped us and who had the same mission we did, which is to get rid of them. We're already seeing now on the Afghanistan withdrawal, Taliban fighters, the headline was on CNN, execute 22 Afghan commandos as they try to surrender. That's a war crime. These guys said they had surrendered. And there's a piece of news like that almost every day now because we've yanked the troops per Biden's order. Yeah. Yeah. There's no question about it. Anyone that worked with Americans in Afghanistan is now a target. You know, those who trusted a promise that your little girls can emerge from the house and go to school and learn to read and get educated and boys

and adults who work on our bases to help us fight for their freedom. There's no question that they're targets. The terrible position that some of our strategic level leaders must be in, commanding generals, I don't envy them, Megan, because, you know, we've been there for 20 years now, you know, I'm 40. So you do the math, like the own, we've been at war half of my adult life in Afghanistan. And, um, so yes, we have an obligation to the Afghan people. And I just think the question that leaders have to ask themselves is when is that obligation fulfilled, right? Because we also, leaders in this country, and sometimes we forget about this, but we also have an obligation to that young man or woman in Pennsylvania who raises

their right hand to volunteer to serve a country and then go to Afghanistan and might give their life there. And the mission, when we send our young men and women in this country to combat, to war, the mission better be crystal clear with a crystal clear end state. And I'm tired of politicians in this country sending our men and women over to wars that just maybe the mission's not clear, the end state's not clear. And we've been there for 20 years. So it's about balancing the promises that we made the Afghan people and whether or not that obligation was fulfilled and our obligations to these young, America's young sons and daughters, who I would argue are

our most precious natural resource. These are kids that love this country. And because they love this country, they want to serve it. And by God, if we're sending them over to fight and die for this country, it better be for a reason that's worthwhile with a clear cut end state. So I would say we're at the point of time in Afghanistan where we should be drawing down and looking for an exit strategy. But the way that it's been done does not strike me as strategic at all. One example is there should have been a plan in place for what the hell we do with all the interpreters over there who fought for us every single day. Well, aren't we, we are bringing them over, aren't we? I mean, we're bringing a lot of them over.

I saw a headline saying hundreds had been brought to the United States. Yeah. We're bringing them over. We're trying to, but it seems like we're playing catch up. Yeah. I know we just have so many places in the world where we leave troops. You know, we have troops in South Korea. Like why can't we have some troops there just to maintain some of the game gains? I feel like don't men and women in the military know that's part of it. They may not be active forever more, but I don't know. I read these headlines and I think, Oh my God, it must be, it must be hard for somebody like you who was over there fighting. I don't know, not to maintain peace in Afghanistan, but to route the Taliban and to route Al Qaeda and to keep that country from becoming a petri dish for terrorists, you know, to stop them from having a safe haven from which they would conduct,

plan and conduct attacks on the United States or export terror around the world. You know, in a perfect world, you know, you would have a few infantry battalions, ranger battalions, SEAL teams, and Delta teams that would just do what we call kinetic attacks, right? Like find where these high value targets are, target them, kill them, but keep the enemy guessing, right? So that they don't ever have that base to establish. And you're killing the worst of the worst. You're killing their leadership. I think that's where we need to be in Afghanistan. And I'll tell you, this isn't just a pipe dream. When I was in Afghanistan, we did far more with far less.

And I would argue that the mission in Afghanistan was close to one in 2007. And then in 2007, 2008, we radically shifted our policy in Afghanistan from counterterror, in other words, going after the enemy, killing the enemy, and through that, securing the people. We shifted from that strategy, from that counter-terror strategy to counter-insurgency, and we lost the initiative. And so it is, I say all that to say it is possible to do that in Afghanistan. We did it with less. We had one brigade combat team in all of regional command east, which was the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And we beat the enemy down every single day. And through that, like the Afghan to authorize without any Republican support.

Through reconciliation. Yeah, exactly. On various Democratic wish list items. So, I mean, we did it and we did it on the lean over there. I have a question for you though, on the soldier who comes home. Um, because I heard you on talking about PTSD. I think it was a piece you wrote in a Federalist or an interview you gave with them. Um, no, you wrote it, you wrote it in April of 2019. And you said, my combat service was difficult and challenging, but I'm here to tell you that I was not broken or damaged by that experience.

We need to correct the common view that military service is psychologically devastating. So can you expand on that? Because I know you suffered a traumatic brain injury, and I know you better than I know about some of these guys who come back who really are incredibly damaged psychologically in addition to physically. They tend to fight back. I mean, these guys just never admit, they just say they don't admit weakness if they perceive it as a weakness, but expand on that for me. Yeah. Can I, I'll do it with a story if you don't mind. Yeah. Um, please. When I came home, I went to the welcome home ceremony and again, 16 months of heavy combat changes you. It just changes you to the core of who you are. I remember standing at court drum in this welcome home ceremony, and you have like red, white, and blue everywhere. You have the Army band playing the Army song, and you have everybody member in the crowd has this unbelievable amount of energy

and excitement to see their loved ones that they hadn't seen in a year. So you can imagine that if you're tuned into this sort of thing, the weird energy that's in that room. And I remember one of my soldiers saying to me just before we were dismissed, like, hey, sir, how can we ever tell,

how can I ever tell my family about what we went through over there? And I didn't have an answer for him. And then our formation was dismissed and it was happy tears all around. And I got to see my family again, but I felt like there was a barrier between my family and I, like, like they didn't even know who I was anymore. And then I went home, uh, back to Pittsburgh here. And the first thing I did was like, pull out my like little flip phone and text my buddies. I'm like, Hey, I'm home. Let's go get, let's go get some beers. And, and no joke. I get, I go, they, they text me their address and I'm thinking, Oh my God, this is the same damn address they've lived in for like 10 years. And then I walked into the,

they're this like rundown apartment that they're all living in. And then like, they're all sitting in the same spots on the couch, drinking the same beer, talking about the same girl problems with Simpsons posters on the wall and family guide magnets on the fridge. And I'm thinking like, oh my God, nothing has changed here at home, but I am a fundamentally different person in every way. And we went out to this bar called Casey's in the South side of Pittsburgh. And I started trying to tell them some of the stories about what happened to the kids in Afghanistan. And within five minutes, I found myself drinking at the table alone. And I get it. Like, look, this isn't a pity party. Like, those stories are intense, right? But in that moment, I said to myself, you know what, these civilians, and I know that every veteran has had a moment like this, and it doesn't matter what war they served in.

You say, these civilians, they'll never get it. And then you just shut down, and you lock the war away inside yourself because you say, these civilians just will never understand, Megan. And then one day I realized that storytelling was powerful. Like, like me writing out while platoon, if you think about this, me writing that book helped me in so many ways. Um, and basically taking the war out of myself, putting it on the page so that when people read that book, they're helping me carry that burden. They're learning about our experience. Right. And, and so, and I started asking myself very deep and just fundamental questions about why veterans lock away that pain because it never fails.

Before I ran for political office, go do speaking engagements or advocate for veterans, you always hear from someone in the crowd and say, you know what? My grandfather was a World War II veteran. And my God, we never even knew that he served until after he passed away and we found a dusty box of medals in the garage. Or my father was a Vietnam vet. He never talked about the war. So why do veterans do that? Why do veterans lock away that pain? They lock away that pain because you raise your right hand and you take an oath to protect and defend this country and the people that you love and you care about. And when you realize that the very story of your war hurts the people that you took an oath to

protect, we lock it away. And you never talk about it because that's what we do. We protect people. We're protectors. And that needs to change. That whole concept needs to change because the bridge or the gap between people who enjoy freedom on a day-to-day basis and people who protect it is very wide. And so there's ways in which when our men and women come home, you feel like you're in exile in your own country. And so I tell you that story because that's where I don't like the idea of post-traumatic stress disorder. At its core, post-traumatic stress is a human reaction to horrific events in your life, whether it was sexual trauma, a car accident, or combat trauma. At its core, it's an anxiety disorder.

And to say that you're disordered for having a human, a normal human response to something horrific is wrong. And so, I mean, my God, you need to be worried about the guy in combat who doesn't get affected by losing his friends. That's the guy that you got to worry about. So it's not a disorder. I wasn't broken by this. But you're talking, you're humanizing these guys in the military who go through, they go through more trauma than the average person ever will in their life. And they find a way to deal with it. And I think, you know, we right now as a country need a little bit more of that example and a little bit more of those lessons and a little bit more guys willing to talk about how they did it. Right. I mean, we've been talking about this in the context of not Simone Biles exactly, because, you know we've been talking about this in the context of not Simone Biles exactly, because, you know, I was talking about her last week saying I support her. She's been through a lot. But I think it's strange how we're celebrating the quitting itself. That's that for me is a bridge too far. We can have empathy for her and say it's a sad day in an amazing

athlete's career. But instead, the media wants to celebrate the actual quitting. And I just think what you need is to look at more guys like you, guys like Marcus Luttrell, who just quitting is not in your DNA. It's just no matter how hard the hardship, you don't quit. Megan, you can't. It was never our men and I like I'm not like the toughest guy in the world. Right. Like I don't come from a long line of military generals. I'm a city boy.

So I was wounded in Afghanistan. My men were wounded in Afghanistan. And we endured not because we were tough. I mean, don't get me wrong. There were plenty of men in my platoon that were like hardcore meat eaters, way tougher than me, but, but we adored and I think did extraordinary things because we didn't want to let each other down. So we were, were we going through hell? Absolutely. Like I had a, I had a guy from Haiti is St. Jean is his last name. And he got shot in the head. The bullet, I watched it happen.

The bullet hit his helmet, hit his skull, penetrated the skin, but the helmet slowed the round down enough where it circumvented the side of his skull and went out the back. Okay. Two days after that happened, he was back on patrol manning a machine gun. Oh, wow. This guy came to this country, wasn't even a citizen, loved America, defended it because he believed it was exceptional. And when I asked him, I said, hey, St. Gene, I said, man, like, dude, you just got shot in the head.

Like, you don't have to go on this patrol. You could like sleep it off or something, man. He goes, no, sir. He said, I'm not going to let my brothers down. Well, that's like you. You're too humble to say it, but I know from having read up on you that you too had a serious injury that you continued not to treat

and not to get fully diagnosed because you were afraid they would send you home. It's like back to the cowardly me who wouldn't even sign up for the war. I would have been like, I'm afraid they're going to keep me. How soon can I get the MRI that's going to say I'm out of here? It's just a different mentality. I just love those guys. You know, and I still do this day. They're like my brothers, you know,

in many ways, like I'm the oldest of four children. So and I love my brothers and my sister, but like, I could tell you, I was so close with my troops that I could tell you who someone was as they were walking away in the middle of the night, just by the way that they walk. So you just, you experience hell with these guys and, and you don't want to abandon them. You don't want to leave them to go through that hell by themselves. know it's you know it's that it's that line um from band of brothers and if you've ever like we stand alone together that's that's just what it is and and really you know that like that whole concept of never and simone biles yeah she went through a lot and i i don't begrudge her that pain. And I'm sure the trauma is real. But for me, you just

don't quit on your team. You can't. And I'm not going to quit on this country. And politics is a dirty business. Honestly, if you've seen that movie Mean Girls, I've got a daughter. So we watched it once and I'm like what the hell is this and I'm like this is exactly like running for political office the dynamic is the same it's like junior high stupid like the stuff that the media

seizes on and the stuff that these people talk about this is so ridiculous but who cares about that, this is so ridiculous. But who cares about that? This country is so worth it. This country is worth it. The people of this country are worth it. And by God, we it's not a foregone conclusion to me that they're going to inherit a nation that is as rich with opportunity as you and I have known. And that troubles me deeply. And so we have to fight for it, right? We have to do everything we can to bring people together in this country. I heard you talking with my pals over on Ruthless not long ago and saying how important it is to you.

They're great. I love that podcast about how important it is to you to instill that in your kids that that freedom is something for which we must fight. And, you know, it's a good reminder for me, Sean, because I was like, whatever your background is, is probably what you highlight for your kids, you know, and that message is really important to me, but it's not something I instill every day. And it was a good reminder if freedom is something for which we must fight. And I think the kids today, they don't get that, that they're not even, there is no nine 11 right now. All there is, is this crazy boat crisis and COVID masking. And I don't think they would even understand what that fight looks like. Yes, yes. And I, you know, I admired Ronald Reagan when I was a young infantry lieutenant. And I remember his quote about freedom's ever more than one generation away from extinction. And I never really, you know, it was just words back then. But as you get older, and you have

kids, and you look towards where this country is going and the fact that your children might be in that country someday, you say, wait a second, I have to stand up and I have to fight for this country and the future of this country. Not for me, not really necessarily even for my generation, but for them. And, and really what it's about is that I, for me, for me, I was lucky enough to make it home, you know, from, from combat and, and my platoon, like outlaw platoon is just one really long deployment. Well, my platoon went back and back. We've lost more members of my platoon to suicide than we did during two tours of combat. I mean, a very heavy burden was being

carried by a very small percentage of people in this country, but I was blessed enough to make it home. And every day that I wake up and I draw breath, if I'm, you ever see that the end of Saving Private Ryan, where Tom Hanks looks at Matt Damon and says, earn this. That's what he means, you know, as he's passing away from this earth, earn it. Every day you wake up, every day you draw breath, live a life worthy of the sacrifice of those who never made it home. And trying to teach my children that there are people in this country right now out there risking their lives for our freedom. And that is, we have to, we have to fight for freedom every day for them. They're fighting over there. We have to fight for it here. And, you know, there's, we just have to

fight for it, Megan. We have to, we have to make sure that our children inherit a country that, that is vibrant and free and rich with opportunity. And, and it can be, it can be, it doesn't, it doesn't have to be picking up a rifle. I mean, I was, I'm thinking about that little kid, his video went viral. He was in the state of Florida. So he's, he's better off than a lot of our kids are, but he was trying to get them to drop the man, the mask mandate, um, like two weeks before the end of school. And he got out there and he talked about why I didn't like it and why I thought his teacher was, you know, she's didn't wear hers often. And why did he, and you know, he's a little fighter. Like they, they actually can find a way to stand up for these ideals and push back against people

who would silence them or don't share these ideals in their own way. I love that. I saw that. And I'm like, that is just exactly what this country needs. You know, people who are unafraid to stand up. And, and, you know, so much, so much of our culture is like, oh, like, if you're running for political office, like, there's no such thing as bad media. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. First of all, yes, there is. I mean, a lot of people like just get on the media as much as you can, as much as you can. But and then you've got social media. And so I think there's this like sense in modern day politics that you can do it all on the media and on social media.

But the reality is, is that for me, like I like to go into town squares and stand up on a soapbox and make my case directly to the people, you know, and I want my kids. And that's not unlike what that little kid did talking about the school and the mask and stuff like I want my kids to see that I want my kids to see that it's okay that in America, you can stand up on a street corner in front of a crowd of people and make your case to the people on what you believe is best for the country, right? You don't necessarily need the media and social media to do that. Now, does it help?

Of course it does. But there is a way in which it's important for our children to see that. That's sort of why campaigns are brutal. Politics is brutal. But I like the idea that my kids get to be exposed to that because they see very clearly, like, hey, my dad's in the fight. This country has to be fought for. And I want them to grow up with that.

I'm starting to feel better about myself, Sean. Suddenly, I'm feeling like, OK, I don't fight with a rifle, but I fight with a rhetorical flair, which could matter. It's not the same as military service, but I'm starting to feel better. No, listen, you said this. You said this a couple couple times in the interviews. I was too afraid. There are more ways to serve this country than putting on a pair of boots and grabbing a rifle.

The fight for freedom takes many forms. My God, when soldiers are in combat, that soldiers are, you know, that's the last 10 yards of failed foreign policy, right? So the hope is we never get there. And with people like you out there using your platform to talk about these issues, I mean, the hope is like, we don't have to get there, right? If you're using your voice. Nor would me with a gun in combat be doing any good for the United States.

Like, oh, my God, what have we done? We're back with the end of our show in less than one minute. Last piece of this before I let you go. How's it looking? So you lost your first race and it was very tight. Yeah. And to the Democrat. Right. And this is race and it was very tight. Um, and to the Democrat, right? And this is, this is a house race. Okay. He's been, he's been pretending to be a Republican his whole career, but yes, he's, he's a Democrat. He's a good guess. Sorry. Thank you for that clarification.

Sometimes in Pennsylvania, it can be confusing. Um, and now you're, you're going to run, you're running for Senate for, for us Senate again. And so how do you like your chances this time? Oh gosh, I love it. So like, so, so that race for Congress in 2020, do you know how he even got in this? Like I running for political office was never part of my life. It was, didn't Trump announce it before? So he came to this, he came to give a speech at the Marcella Shale Coalition

and I wasn't even there. I never met him, never talked to him. I was down in South Carolina giving away a service dog to a veteran. And I'm like on the stage talking and my phone is like blown up and ringing off the hook. And I look at it, I got 56 missed calls, like texts from reporters or political consultants.

And I'm from this Italian family in Western Pennsylvania. And like, my mom is calling me over and over and over again. I'm like, oh, crap, something's wrong. My mom isn't calling me unless something's wrong. And I sneak off the stage and I pick up the phone and I said, Mom, what's going on? She just starts like yelling at me. She goes, Sean, are you running for Congress? And I said, Ma, no, I am not running for Congress. And then she just pauses. And she goes, well, President Trump says you're running for Congress. And I said, what?

Like, what? And she sends me this video. And it's like Trump going off script like Sean Parnell, brilliant military man. He's got everything. I'm like, what the hell is going on right now? And so I turned my life upside down. No political experience whatsoever. And we got in the race in PA-17, which is one of the biggest swing districts in the country. If you look at the Cook Political

Report, it says it's an R plus two. But if you look at turnout demographics in 2020, it's a D plus six. And so in and around the city of Pittsburgh, right? So Republicans don't exactly fare well in and around the city of cities, period, right? Yeah. But even with all the big tech censorship, and even with Nancy Pelosi spending millions of dollars against me, and I did it almost all myself raised all my own money, and we broke all sorts of records doing it. But even with the deck stacked against us in a district that many considered to be gerrymandered to protect Conor Lamb, I mean, they drew his own hometown in the district for goodness sake. We still almost beat that guy.

We still almost beat him in a D plus six as a Republican. And so Pennsylvania is not a D plus six. And if you look at all the chaos that was woven into our system here in pennsylvania in our elections in 2020 two republicans still won statewide congressional republicans if you pull all their votes they amassed over 85 000 more votes than congressional democrats there is a path and that was in 2020, right? In 2021, we elect our judges here in Pennsylvania, but it's an odd election year. There were two ballot questions on our ballot this year that pertain to Governor Wolf, who's a Democrat here in Pennsylvania and it's unilateral authority to declare emergencies. We won those ballot questions by 139,000 votes. And so this state going into 2022, with how radical the Democrat Party has become,

oh my gosh, I love our chances. And we're going to win. We're going to win the primary, and we're going to win the general. And I just feel it, Megan. And people are realizing that I think our country's on the brink, that we stand on a very thin line between hope and darkness, and we better elect leaders and not politicians. And I just, I really like where we are. I really like where we are. Your opponent is raising against you prior comments you made that were critical of President Trump. And I have to say, whatever your beefs are, policy, that is such nonsense, isn't it? Like, you tell me, I think I feel uncomfortable when I watch JD Vance go out there and say, Please forgive me for my my negative

comments about President Trump. What is he doing? I love and I love JD Vance. But I'm just saying, why would you apologize? So most people's feelings on Trump have been evolving. You know, like he came on with a rather large splash, was unlike anything we'd ever seen. And then people got to know him and see what he did. I don't. Do you feel the need to to be defensive about the. Oh, no, no, no, no. In fact, I've had consultants are like, well, what? You know, not consultants that I'm working with, but but people, oh, you should have deleted those tweets. Oh, hell no. I stand by everything that I say. And the reality is, is, is I said

earlier, I didn't recognize what Trump really represented. And this was everything that I talked about with President Trump back then was in a primary before he was even president. And I don't think he'd care. I mean, you tell me, but he has enough actual enemies in today's day and age who who never got him. Why would he be picking enemies among people like you who had early doubts about him? Yeah, listen to this. So if you ever questioned like the media's narratives, right, which i know you have but i'm certainly many of your listeners do as well but like in 2020 their main attack on me was oh parnell's a trump boot licker like he's a trump guy he's just a little trump and then six months later i'm gonna run

like literally six months later in the state of pennsylvania for united states senate and now the media is like oh sean's never trump because they think it's going to hurt me in a primary. I'm like, this is so stupid. Like, this is so dumb. And yeah, like citing tweets that I made, because I was with Marco in a primary. But if you look, you can go Google the article right now. There's a funny story about this. I campaigned with Marco in South Carolina. If you remember back then, Marco needed to win South Carolina. And he had thousands of people on the ground. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is so cool to see a presidential campaign in full force. I mean, knock thousands of doors. It was just amazing. And we thought that he was going to win, but he didn't. He didn't win. He came in second. And I'm like, okay, what is going on? What's going

on in this country right now? There's something that the polls or the pundits are not picking up about President Trump. President Trump won. And I actually came back to Pennsylvania, drove from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and then up through the T. And I wrote an article in The Hill and said Pennsylvania is in play and Trump's going to win it. And everyone criticized me. Oh, you're crazy. There's no way. And I was right. Trump won it in 2016. And so I just think it's like Kellyanne Conway said terrible things about Trump. And so did Roger Stone, right? Roger Stone, the Trump's diehards love. It's just absurd. But you're right. That's that's a media concoction and a political concoction by somebody who's looking to beat you. We will continue watching it and rooting on your

message because we love our military, love our veterans, and you represent the best of the best. Hey, thank you very, very much for saying that. And thank you for having me. It's a blessing to even have the opportunity to serve this great country again. The pleasure is all mine. And let me tell you, my husband's from Philadelphia and one of the suburbs around there. So I have actual family who may be voters. So, you know, you may be speaking to them right now and they get a whole new look at Sean Parnell. That's cool. That's cool. Vote for me. Vote for me, everybody. Could have just turned it around right here, Sean. All the best. We'll continue watching.

Thanks for your time. Yes, thanks. Thank you. Don't miss the show tomorrow. Go ahead and subscribe right now so you don't, because we're going to have Dr. Martin Kulldorff. He's a professor of medicine at Harvard. He was one of the great Barrington docs who pushed for, he pushed back against lockdowns. And he was on the panel advising the CDC on vaccines

until they kicked him off in April because he wrote an op-ed in The Hill saying, I'm not sure you did the right thing with the J&J slowdown. Six cases totally undermine confidence in the vaccine. I wonder how that's going to work out. Right now, they're just like Trump publicans won't get vaccinated. Nobody will take responsibility for anything they've done to cause doubt in these vaccines. He's coming back to react to what we're seeing right now with the covid madness. And my pal Janice Dean is back, too. She's continuing to fight against Governor Cuomo and has got the latest on what's happening with that. Plus, we had the most

bizarre but somehow satisfying Twitter fight against this guy, Matthew Dowd. He was the ABC political analyst for 20 years, I want to say, chief political analyst, I think, at ABC for 20 years. He recently left. I'm not exactly sure the circumstances. And this guy is a Twitter troll. It's such an insight into who is controlling our media, right? He was a high up post at ABC. Well, this is what he does. He attacks people like Mary Catherine Hamm, Republican, right after her husband died. And she was a new widow pregnant with her second baby.

He thought that it might be fun to attack her, saying she leads a sad life. Oh, sweet. What a classy guy. He attacked Meghan McCain while she was on her maternity leave a couple days into it. Great time to go after a woman sitting at home. Then he attacked Janice Dean repeatedly for going after Governor Cuomo, saying, why don't you come after the governor of Texas now that the rates are rising in Texas? Janice Dean's made clear all along she's upset because both of her in-laws, the parents of her firefighter hero husband who fought bravely on 9-11, were killed by COVID in New York City, New York State nursing homes. That's why she's taking on Governor Cuomo. It has nothing to do with Texas Matthew Dowd. This isn't about him. She's not coming on to talk about Matthew Dowd,

but we're going to get into it because he's a troll. He's disgusting. We were all talking about it on Twitter last night. Now he's blocked me. He's blocked her. He's blocked MK Ham. He's blocked Meghan McCain. This is what cowards do, right? They take shots. Then they block you because they don't want you to see what they're saying about you. And they don't, they just like to punch and run away. Well, there'll be some accountability for that when she comes on and some for Governor Cuomo. And we'll have the latest on what one of the Governor Cuomo accusers is now saying about Chris Cuomo. Don't miss that. See you next time. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.

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