The Megyn Kelly Show - The Year of the Parent: A 2021 Megyn Kelly Show Retrospective | Ep. 231

Episode Date: December 29, 2021

In this special edition of The Megyn Kelly Show, we look back at how 2021 was truly "The Year of the Parent." Featured interviews include: Steven Crowder, Dr. Drew and his daughter Paulina Pinsky, Asra Nomani, Maud Maron, Scott Galloway, and Andrew Gutmann.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. We have a great show for you today. Looking back at 2021 and what we're calling the year of the parent. Parents became political, social, and cultural forces in 2021, and fighting back on behalf of our children became an imperative for many of us. From COVID to CRT to the dangerous effects of tech, we are using this show to look back at some of the highlights of 2021. Interviews with parents on all sorts of relevant topics. First up, we have our friend Dr. Drew Pinsky, who joined us not long ago with his daughter Paulina to talk about what it was like

for her to have Dr. Drew as a dad, social media and society and much, much more. All right. So I have to tell you that this book makes me feel better about life because if Dr. Drew can raise somebody who's as open and honest about their struggles as you, I feel like I can totally fuck up my kids and they're going to wind up just fine. I think that's just, you can live by that phrase generally. Generally that is true. I would say the 10 years of therapy helped. Oh, how dare you? Well, so I love this. Okay. So first of all, you were born a triplet and let me just kick it off there because triplets are still rare. Uh, even with IVF, they're still rare. And how did, how do you think that affected your life?

I have theories about this, um, as the youngest and at the top of the stack nearest my mother's ribs, I feel like, uh, it must have been traumatic for me to have my two womb mates exit the womb before me. So my first interaction with the world was my brother's leaving me. That is my theory. It's true. Gosh, I never really considered that. But you must have shared everything. I must tell you, I'm going to interrupt you, Megan, that there was literally 55 seconds between those guys being out and you. Yeah, I always imagine it's like pulling noodles, except it was pulling babies. Yeah, ew, right? That's a lot.

Really, the true trauma was your mother's. And so I'm sure she's addressed that since. Absolutely. Every Christmas, she would say, this wouldn't have happened if I didn't love. You be grateful for Christmas because I'm the one that brought Christmas. Well, and to be fair, we were faced with reduction. Our obstetrician sat down and said, hey, don't have triplets. Don't do it.

He goes, here's the data. The marriages don't survive. The mental health of the kids suffer. Don't do it. He goes, here's the data. The marriages don't survive. The mental health of the kids suffer. Don't do this. Have twins. And I'll send you out to UCLA and we'll reduce down to two. Oh, my gosh. That was a heavy, heavy, heavy thing we sat with for a couple of days and then just went,

we can't do that. Forget it. Right. Right. It's like, so we have to end the pregnancy with one baby or end our marriage, right? Like, what kind of a weird choice is that? That's so false. It's not true. I mean, maybe it makes it tougher, but it's not true. Well, statistically, statistically it was, you know, it was, it was actually,

he just handed me the papers and I said, okay, I'll look at them. And, and statistically at time it wasn't. And I literally felt like a poker player who just took all the chips and go, it doesn't, I'm going all in. We're just going all in that. That's it. And it turned out to be a good bet for us. Oh my God. I mean, I had, we did IVF and thank, thank God I was able to use all of our embryos, but that is a tough choice for any parent to have to make. Okay. So let me talk to you about growing up Pinsky because your dad, in addition to being a triple, which poses its own, you know, interesting challenges being a triple, but you've got a famous dad and you, you talk in the book which poses its own you know interesting challenges being a triple but you've got a famous dad and you you talk in the book about you know sort of growing older and realizing that you have

a famous dad and then he's getting more famous and he's getting busier and you are pretty honest about forgive me dr drew sort of an absentee dad situation and how that was not that was not easy for you it so it back to the title of the book, it doesn't have to be awkward. Is it awkward to write about that and talk about that with him sitting right there and sort of say, yeah, I needed you and you weren't there. Yeah, I, um, well, I've been working on a memoir for the past five years. So writing about my life is, you know, routine for me at this point. And ultimately, because we have open discourse, I've been very vocal about the fact that his workaholism did impact all three of our childhoods. We were, you know,

obviously provided with privileges that are, you know, incomparable for a lot of people in this country. And for that, I'm grateful. But ultimately, you know, there was sort of this opening ma hole, in which, you know, dad wasn't there there he did show up for ice skating competitions he did show up for football games you know he was there for the big events but the day-to-day was a little bit more mom's uh domain that's the word i'm looking for did you know that well i i was aware that i was a workaholic when she's talking really about when they were younger before i started doing media when i i would get up at five in the morning and I would struggle to get home by 10 at night.

And that was, you know, I had midnight or midnight. Yeah, well, later it was midnight. But it was, I had multiple careers going simultaneously. I had intensive care practice at a hospital. I had an inpatient medical practice, an outpatient medical practice. I was running medical services in a psychiatric hospital. I was running their addiction services. It was super, super, super crazy for many years.

And that's the part where I feel bad that I might have been able to balance things out a little bit better. But that's something I have to bear. Back to the radical honesty, do you think it had anything to do with the fact that you had triplets at home? That is hard. And I mean, I joke, I used to be married to a doctor before there was doug there was dan he was a doctor my first husband and one of his doctor friends and you know it's tough to be a doctor but one of his doctor friends was saying when he leaves his house in the morning and uh sort of hits the security code leaving the kids all the many kids he had inside he used to say

ah time to go to that spa called work. I didn't feel that way so much as I was in a panic. I had a depressionary dad that sort of traumatized me around finances. And I lived in a panic for many years that I wasn't going to be able to support this family. All of a sudden, like I said, all the chips were in. We were this family of five all of a sudden. We went from this young, cool couple. We were on our own. All of a sudden, family of five. I just put the pedal to the metal. And I kind of knew there could be consequence. It wasn't I was without awareness that my absence could have an issue. So I did the best I could. I just did the best I could. I can't repair it.

How do you think it affected you, Paulina? One therapist would say, no, I'm just kidding. No, I think for me, I think it played out in my romantic life. I think for a long time, I was just a radical honesty. Let's go. I would, you know, pine over people who were emotionally unavailable, ultimately, because I wasn't used to having a parent who is there to meet my emotional needs every single day what age were you when that stopped you think um because some i'm asking only because to some extent most adolescents do that kind of stuff you know but did it go well into adulthood i would say like 26 27 around the time that i sort of and he's doing what every daughter of an unavailable dad does.

Thank God I wasn't abandoning. I didn't leave because that would have been the preoccupation. Which is what? Put more meat on those bones, Drew. She's doing what every daughter of an... Which is, there are various ways of sort of talking about this and thinking about it, but there are things called, some people call love maps. They're things that we're fitted with and our family of origin and create

those romantic fittedness. And if they were insufficient, the drive to fit that becomes even more powerful. And, um, you know, therapy's the way out of that. So I'm grateful that you did that work too.

Well, in fact, by the way, I am, there's nothing, you know, I, I know I'm not a perfect parent.

When, when, and when Paulina first told me she was in therapy, I was like, oh my God, I'm so, that's so great. And you're, and you're participating. You can't imagine how many people there are in this country that do go into mental health services, but don't participate. You have to, you have to, you have to be in the, in the experience in order to get something

out of it. And I was just so grateful. I thought you were going to say, I was like, oh, thank God you're going into therapy where they'll definitely blame it all on your mother. There was that. That did happen. It did happen. But it was more that I was just, rather than feeling guilty and sad, I was grateful that,

oh my gosh, she's grabbing onto this good. I know I'm not perfect. Totally. I love therapy. I've been in therapy for years and I recommend it if you're at all interested. It's just, it's sort of a gift you give to yourself. But it is one of those things you only get out of it what you put into it. So if you're going to hold back and you're not really going to put cards on the table, you're not going to get much out of it. And you definitely put cards on the table

in the book, in your writings prior to the book. I've been, I've read a lot of them. And one of them is, can we talk about virginity? Because I'm like, this girl, she's fearless. So you talk about, you knew it was coming at some point. Obviously, you're going to lose your virginity. And you have, your dad is Dr. Drew. Awkward, awkward. It doesn't have to be awkward.

But tell us what your mom said to you that stayed in your head from eight years. I have an eight-year-old. From eight years forward. We were driving to ice skating practice to Burbank, California. We were on the 134 freeway. And my mom looks at me and said, when you lose your virginity, your father's going to broadcast it on the radio. And-

We should have somebody consulting me about that. Well, I understand the impetus behind that right she was trying to communicate to me that because I was a girl there was different pressures on me I would be a topic of discussion if I messed up I would be ridiculed and you know I kind of experienced that I mean to a certain degree when I first started writing about my bulimia you know the reason it went national is because New York post pulled out the hook of it and was like, Dr. Drew's daughter has an eating disorder. And in that moment it was, you know, almost worse than my virginity being broadcasted on the radio. It was like, yeah, it was kind of the same phenomena, but a deeper secret. Um, but ultimately one is like,

everybody eventually loses their virginity and one is like shame shame in some corners still unfortunately yeah absolutely and you know i think because i have proximity to my father's platform it's been very important to me to speak honestly and authentically about these experiences because i can't be the only one you know dealing with purity culture or dealing with uh eating disorder slash body image issues and so it's's been sort of foundational in my writing practice to practice radical honesty and really be transparent about, you know, what I've been through and what it means to be in proximity. And I was just, I was smiling to myself, Megan, because I'm, and I've gotten used to it.

I just sort of tighten my gluteal muscles and prepare for whatever punch comes my way. Yes. But you have a more authentic relationship. Oh, absolutely. It's been great. And listen, this is forging those adult connections, right? And again, that's what our book ended up being about. It's not about all this stuff so much, although this does get in the book. That will be in the memoir. Yeah. That's more the memoir, it's not about all this stuff so much, although this does get in the book. That will be in the memoir. Yeah, that's more than memoir. This is, it's more about, it was written, this book was written for sort of, well, we say 14 to 20 year olds.

14 to 20, yeah. And helping them navigate relationships. I want to go back to the story, Paulina, of you as a competitive ice skater. That was a big, big piece of your life for many, many years. And not surprisingly, it, it, I don't know if we can say led to, but involved what ultimately became an eating disorder for you. Very open about that. What would you say caused? I would say that is, it is in the fabric of the ice skating culture. I would say, you know, your friends are your competitors and your competitors are your friends. And, you know, I was actually speaking to a childhood friend of mine last night, who's actually in one of my writing workshops. And we were talking about

how dieting was a means of bonding with your friends and how you would dole out secrets with each other. I think ice skating, honestly, is on the track of needing sort of an exposure like gymnastics. I'm sort of waiting for that moment to happen because I think that it's a really toxic culture. But ultimately, you know, it really fed my performance spirit. And that's really where I learned how to be a performer. But ultimately, you know, I couldn't talk about it for years and I couldn't write about it. And it was a very incredibly painful, complicated relationship, ultimately because ice skating was the foundation of my identity for 13 years. And some of those relationships are very powerful and important.

The coaches. Oh, yeah. I mean, my coach, Erica Shore and Barbara Suss uh, you know, they are mothers to me and, you know, they fundamentally helped me move through my childhood, my adolescence in a way that, you know, really fostered my spirit. Um, and then, you know, there were the coaches who were like, you know, you gain weight here and, you know, you got to lose weight and all that stuff. But why couldn't you talk about it? Was it the, was it the, the culture of ice skating? Like it's shameful to talk about it or because you didn't want to let it was it the was it the the culture of ice skating like it's shameful to talk about it or because you didn't want to let it go you know if you talk

about it it's the first step toward letting it go yeah i mean i think that weight loss and thinness is sort of the subliminal uh messaging of the entire culture well i mean you're trying to get off the ground with you know incredible things that yeah you're hurtling yourself off the air uh on a toe pick yeah and then landing on a toe and then landing on a razor it's like insane it's such an insane thing yeah you shouldn't be doing that anyway no big deal um yeah i mean i just have memories of mothers being like how much do you weigh my daughter weighs this you know like there's very much a uh toxic specifically you know i tanya is my favorite ice skating movie because alice jannie alice and jannie excuse me is the quintessential

ice skating mother you know just like the kind of shrew like woman with a parrot on her arm you know like yes that is that is the you know when i would walk into the ice rink there would be a pack of mothers smoking cigarettes and you know they would stop whispering when i would walk up and i'd be like are you talking about me and these are grown adults um and i was you know 14 um and so this is why i'm waiting for ice skating to have its day in the sun um ultimately because i think you could write a book about that that's really interesting you should you should write an expose you should go yeah contact other ice skaters and get them to talk to you i'd read that i'd put you back on okay fantastic yeah i um i tried to write a piece about it last spring and nowhere would pick it up ultimately because i

think there's an investment in keeping ice skating sort of this pristine princess-like sport well what's interesting to me is the mom thing. That's an interesting observation because what I saw, it was a way for moms that were immigrant or lower middle class to try to propel their daughters into a different strata. Yeah, absolutely. And they would not let go. They were just wild about it. Yeah, I mean, one of my dear friends, Ryan Nogosu, who landed the triple axel at the Olympics, we were in the same preschool together.

And there's video footage of us at the Esmeralda dance recital. And, you know, I'm like twirling around, flirting with the camera and Mariah's, you know, doing beautiful tendus. And so to me, there was always like a very clear distinction of like who was going to make it. And for whatever reason, I was like,

Mariah's going to the Olympics and I'm going to college. Like that is our trajectory. But going to college for ice skating, ice skating is good too, right? I mean, is there, is there an ice skating at college? I don't know. Is that one of those? There is, it's a club sport. And originally I, you know, when I was 14, I was like, I'm going to go to Columbia and be on the ice skating team. And then I kind of gave up on the Columbia gym, went to Barnardard didn't realize that it was part of columbia and then i joined the rugby team so okay that's hilarious wow yeah who probably very few people have that exact line so can you talk about this okay your your mom was

she was not sort of the working class mom looking to sort of make it for the family through you. You guys had already made it. And there was some conflict there. Like you write about how when you told your mom that you'd been forcing yourself to throw up. And one time it was eight times a day when you had stayed home on spring break. Her response was, we're going to get your teeth checked. And I wondered, man, you are so honest. It's very brave of you to talk about this, given that your dad's famous and famous for

mental health talk and so on. So what of your relationship with your mom and how that played into the eating disorder? My mom and I were both invested in ice skating. It was the foundation of our relationship. She would drive me to every ice rink in Southern California, which is the largest network of ice rinks in the country. Five o'clock in the morning. Five o'clock in the morning.

I have memories of being nine and her waking me up at 4 a.m. and just dutifully combing my hair and manifesting early signs of OCD that would eventually manifest as an eating disorder. But I would make her do my bun eight times and I would just scream at her. And, you know, that was early anxiety playing out, but it was kind of this routine that we were in. Right. And the singular goal being we got to get her on the ice. We got to get her to perform. And for a long time, it really was, you know, as a triplet, I needed my thing, right? My brother Douglas was playing piano. My brother Jordan was good at math and I was the ice skater.

And so what became a hobby or an activity was swiftly an identity. And, you know, I write about my relationship with my mother, which is, you know, leaps and bounds, more communicative and stronger because I have written about it. And ultimately, I think it's a privilege that my parents allow me to write about it and don't disown me. And, you know, I think also what was unusual about my situation is I was sent to a childhood nutritionist from ages 12 to 18. And I think that was really where the nexus of the eating disorder culminated, this culminated, um, ultimately because I was getting waved every, I weighed every week. Um, I was being told what I

can and cannot eat. And ultimately I, you know, I have a lot of resentment for that nutritionist because there was never a moment in which she questioned, uh, my motivation or checked in with me or anything. Um, ultimately she was invested in a paycheck, which is a symptom of diet culture. So ultimately, I had my go around with diet culture in a very extreme way. And figure skating was the motivation behind that. Yeah, exaggerated at least. So how did you get out of it? Because it's so hard to break an eating disorder. I, my freshman year of college started watching other people eat. And I realized that other people were able to feed themselves based on instinct rather than controlling portions or obsessively weighing themselves

or whatever it was. And so it was because I was taken out of my childhood context that I was able to see that I was the unusual one. And as you cited earlier, it was my freshman spring break. I went home and the emotional reality of being home and trying to differentiate myself as a New Yorker and being in Pasadena and kind of forced back into the space in which I felt like I was a different person. Ultimately, I purged eight times in one day. And that was when I was like, oh, something is wrong here. And so I went to my school's mental health services. They gave me a list of referrals. And thankfully, I was paired with an amazing therapist who

incorporated feminism into my care. And ultimately, I feel really lucky because a lot of the ways we teach, not teach, treat eating disorders is by, you know, sending them to a clinic and sort of focusing on gaining weight and focusing on meal control. And I had none of that. It was more like, how do you feel? How do you remain neutral? How do you, how do you feed yourself based on instinct? And for a long time, that meant eating spicy, spicy tofu pad Thai every single day. But then, you know, that didn't feel good anymore. Right. And it was because I had spent so many years abstaining and restricting that I kind of went overboard. And then once I started really feeling better about myself and more attuned to myself, I was able to learn how to feed myself based on instinct. Coming up,

two guests from a show we did in October called Moms Fight Back. You know where this is going. Stay tuned. Shortly after the insane letter from the National School Boards Association to the Biden administration, equating parents speaking out at school board meetings to domestic terrorists, we brought on two moms who both identify as current or former Democrats, but circumstances have changed. And Maude Marin and Natalia Marakver's stories reminded us of the power all parents have when they fight back on CRT-inspired teaching in schools, on COVID, and more. Just for those who may not be as up to speed on it as you are, can you explain how Merrick Garland and the DOJ and the FBI got to the point of seriously now taking a look at cracking down on parents like you, me, and our other guests today as potential domestic terrorists. Right. It sounds crazy because it is crazy, right? It's a really, the language is over the top and the language comes from a letter written by the National School Board Association, an organization I had never heard of despite being elected to the school

board where I live in New York City and Manhattan and having served on that board for four years. The National School Board Association wrote this letter to President Biden, but I guess it wound up on Merrick Garland's desk, saying that they were documenting what they saw as criminal activity of parents at school board meetings. And they explicitly asked that the federal government intervene by looking at parents as domestic terrorists, their language, not mine. And they explicitly asked the FBI to use, among other things, the Patriot Act to deal with what they saw as the problem of parents at school boards. And what they're upset about is is alleged a disturbing spike in alleged harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against

board members. But no evidence of that has been provided. And so we went back and we actually pulled the letter. We looked at the 26 individual examples of people allegedly harassing, intimidating or somehow criminally threatening school board members. And the evidence that they provide, Maude, shows nothing of the kind. There's maybe one or two where you're like, oh, that was bad behavior. But for the most part, I read these examples. I'm like, I'm very proud of these parents. I'm inspired by these parents who went out to their school boards and stood up to them. Okay. Yes. Some obscenities were yelled. That's not illegal. They were carrying, let them breathe signs at certain, a small disruptive group forced their way inside of the district office. They were politely asked to leave, refused. Oh, the horror. One school board may now limit public input after some meetings got, quote, disorderly. And one man was cited as having the nerve to ask if all the board members had their high school diplomas.

Okay, I'm waiting to feel the outrage. I'm waiting for it to kick in. Here's another one. Grand Ledge School Board goes into recess due to public disruption board meeting had to go into recess twice once because someone went over their three minute time limit

this is their evidence to get the DOJ involved a second time was after public comment when two board members were speaking to one another and the audience kept interrupting so annoying one time another place they had to kick out a resident were speaking to one another and the audience kept interrupting. So annoying. One time, another place they had to kick out a resident who refused to wear a mask. The horror. They started

comparing the mask mandate to Nazis. Oh, sure. That's cause for the FBI to now get involved. That's sort of loose talk. I mean, you hear that everywhere. It goes on and on. I'm, I can't believe that the DOJ took a look at this and said, we're in. Right. Look, and just to make clear, Megan, like there are, there are behaviors that are inappropriate that people shouldn't do. Inappropriate is not even a bar or the threshold for state law enforcement to get involved, right? We could all agree that we want people to be respectful or not. Like sometimes protest isn't always respectful, but you can- Weren't we just told that during the George

Floyd protests? Well, yes. Well, yes, there's that. But what I wanted to say is, if even if any of the behavior alleged was criminal, we have laws, we have law enforcement, we have state courts that are responsible for and do a very good job of enforcing the laws. I've worked in state court as a public defender, representing people accused of crimes for years. So the looping in the federal government is really peculiar because it's not how it works. If someone in New York State disorderly conduct is a violation, it's not a crime. You can go to jail for up to 15 days for disorderly conduct. In other states, it actually is a misdemeanor. But regardless, if someone behaved in a disorderly way such that you thought you should call the cops, call the cops and they can come and make the determination as to whether or not they should

make an arrest. That's not what's happening at our school boards overwhelmingly throughout our country. And if it does happen, call the police. Looping in the federal government is about something else. It's about silencing parents. And it's really, really troubling. There's a reason there's that expression. Well, I'm not going to make a

federal case out of it because that's an elevation. That's an elevation. And normally the DOJ would absolutely laugh at this kind of a thing. And the fact that they're taking it on makes me wonder how it was orchestrated in the first place. Did the DOJ request a letter like this, right? Were they just the innocent recipients or did they orchestrate the Biden administration, the whole thing? I was struck by the fact that it took two business days for the highest law enforcement person in our country, Merrick Garland, to respond to the National School Board Association as if he was just sitting around waiting for incoming from the NSBA. I mean, that's a really fast turnaround. So I'm, you know, I'm suspicious about it. I don't, you know, I don't have any evidence that that the DOJ was it was anticipating it or was involved in it. But look, we know that in May, when the CDC told us we could take our masks off, Randy Weingarten, who's, you know,

the head of the teachers union didn't much like that. And then that advice got peddled back. So we know that our government officials can be influenced by, by pressure from groups that want them to say different things than they're saying. Meanwhile, you and I both know as attorneys, it's not unlawful to even say mildly threatening things. I mean, in order to get to the only kind of speech that really is unlawful, and we went through this with the second Trump impeachment incitement, I-N-C-I-T-E meant, is it has to be immediate. It has to be obvious that it's about to cause immediate harm to somebody. You can't you cannot prosecute somebody, which is what they're asking for.

And the DOJ is threatening here for saying, I'll get you if you if you keep that mask mandate in place or I'm this is bullshit. And I know where you live, even if they pass something that's, you know, whatever, controversial, that that's not unlawful. And I understand it could make some people feel uncomfortable. But this is no there's the DOJ has no jurisdiction here. 100%. And I'll tell you, I was at a rally yesterday in New York City, they're trying to get rid of the gifted and talented program, or Bill de Blasio has announced that we getting rid of the gifted and talented program in New York City, and a lot of parents are unhappy about it. And we were on the steps of the Tweed talented program in New York City, and a lot of parents are unhappy about it. And we were on the steps of the Tweed Courthouse, which is where the Department of Education

is located in New York City, protesting, yelling, holding up signs, making a case, arguing the facts about why we should have more gifted and talented programs and not be eliminating them. That's part of being a good parent. It's part of being a good advocate. It's part of, you know, it's a basic American right to get out there and yell and protest and make demands on your public officials. And honestly, with all but a couple of exceptions, that's all that's alleged in this document. It's not in no way is it the stuff we saw the media defending during George Floyd destruction of property and burning buildings and even shootings.

It's like, no, I won't put my mask on. OK, the the contrast is very illustrative. Right. We saw the the local law enforcement choose to not even prosecute looting and, you know, clear illegality in our streets last summer. And now we have the federal government coming in because parents are pissed off about what's happening in their schools and talking about it at school board meetings. The contrast is pretty overwhelming. The other thing is in this letter complaining to the DOJ, which the DOJ now accepts, they claim on the subject of critical race theory, disingenuously, quote, this propaganda being pushed by parents who

need Merrick Garland to police their speech, this propaganda continues despite the fact that critical race theory is not taught in public schools and remains a complex law school and graduate school subject well beyond the scope of a K through 12 class. This is so infuriating. I feel like guys like Chris Ruffo came up with a term, critical race theory. I mean, it had existed, but they sort of co-opted it to just be the bucket into which all of the crazy race peddling that's going on in our schools would get thrown because there's not a good short form way of referring to it or there wasn't before that. Right. So it doesn't necessarily have to be the capital C, capital R, capital T race theory taught in law schools in order for it to be the problematic racist messaging that we parents are complaining about. This is such a dodge, right? It's like, this is such a dishonest way to raise the argument. They know very well what they're teaching in K through 12.

And it's all race. Race is the prism through which virtually everything gets taught now. Well, the people who know what's being taught in school are the parents. We've had it in our homes through Zoom, and we see it in what our kids are reading, and we see what's going on. You know, look, critical race theory is a theory. It's not math, right? And it's a theory that says you look at our society, at our institutions, at our laws, through the lens of race. There's nothing wrong with that. It's a legitimate analysis that you can come up with. But what happens is that everybody who is a proponent of this theory winds up coming up with the conclusion that America is irredeemably racist.

I look at some of the same facts they look up and come up with a different conclusion. Having that conversation about whether or not we teach those conclusions to our kids, it's a legitimate conversation. And somewhat incredibly, Megan, I think, and this is why you see with this response to the Merrick Garland letter, is the fact that parents on the right and the left, Democrats and Republicans, parents all over are in agreement that they should be able to go to their school board and talk about these

issues. People who agree and disagree with me have been showing up at school boards to talk about these issues. People who agree and disagree with me have been showing up at school boards to talk about these issues. So wherever you, you know, you may be a proponent of CRT, but you should still be able to come to a school board and talk about it as should the people who, you know, I would be inclined to agree with who think that it's deeply problematic and should not be in our schools. I feel like I want to say to these folks, okay, I don't know what you're calling it, but why was the diversity group at my old school demanding mandated reading for faculty that said in every classroom where white children learn, there is a future killer cop. I don't give a damn what you call that. I don't know. You don't have to put it under critical. Stop teaching that. Stop saying that. Stop filling the heads of the teachers who have access to my

children with that racist nonsense. So they can pick whatever label they want. What they want to do instead is say that nothing controversial is being taught and that anybody who wants to go protest at their school board meeting otherwise is a criminal, is a terrorist. We watched a woman on this program last week, I think it was, or when Carol Margo was on, railing in Virginia about, I mean, it was truly disgusting stuff about pedophilia in a school book in the library. And yeah, and it was very graphic. This is not like, oh, my Virgin ears. I mean, it's deeply disturbing stuff celebrating child abuse, I mean, child sexual rape. And it was very graphic. This is not like, oh, my virgin ears. I mean, it's deeply disturbing stuff celebrating child abuse and child sexual rape. And she got up there. She was mad. The mom was mad. And she had every right to be. approach because she was mad. She was yelling. She wouldn't stop when they tried to cut her mic. And that's by design. They want people like her to be quiet.

Right. I mean, I think that's what's happening is that we see an impulse to silence parents, right? And the letter is very effective in that way. If someone who had wanted to go to their school board and speak up says, wait a second, they're calling parents domestic terrorists. There are plenty of parents who are going to think twice before they sign up to go and speak up says, wait a second, they're calling parents domestic terrorists. There are plenty of parents who are going to think twice before they sign up to go and speak. And that's a deep problem. It's the chilling of speech. And we are Americans who have a first amendment that we value or many of us value. I used to think most of us or all of us value, but there's been a strange, um, a strange question mark put on our first Amendment values by some folks who are prioritizing

their sort of love of some of these theories over the free speech rights of people who disagree with them. Right. Let's just spend a minute on the scared parents, because I think a lot of folks outside of these very blue cities might be like, what do you mean? Why are you afraid? This is nonsense. You got to go in and fight against that stuff. It's racist. You know, if it were racist against black people, you'd have no problem going in there and fighting it. And just racist against white people, just equally bad, go in there and fight. But the truth is, it's really scary because especially in the blue cities, you're talking about, I don't, I don't want to lose my job. If I, if I'm on the nightly news in a clip saying, quote, the wrong thing, I don't want my spouse to lose their job. I don't want my kid to have it held against him or her. It's, it's complicated. And I feel like they're, they know it. That's why they're doing this. I know something about losing a job because you said words that weren't approved, um, by, by ideologues, right? Um, I had that

happen to me and, um, and it came out of literally my advocacy on a school board. I ran for my school board. Um, I got elected. I wound up running for the president of the school board. And I became the president of my school board. And some people liked what I have to say and some people didn't. That's to be expected. That's normal. But the people who didn't like what I had to say, didn't agree with me, really waged a campaign against me. And that wound up also going to my workplace where the where the people in my workplace put out public letters and got the, you know, my bosses basically, to sign on to these public letters saying that because of what I believed, and because of what I wrote, and because I'm white, I couldn't do my job. I know you're in this group. You're in another group with a pal of mine who I absolutely love who's fighting for sanity, too. How like what's the plan?

Right. Like I'm out here talking about it. Parents are showing up at the school board meetings. Now they're being threatened with being treated as domestic terrorists. So what are the plans being kicked around? I think this is really a good time. I think that there is a groundswell at this point where parents really are starting to question what the mitigations that have been implemented, and especially schools are, and what is absolutely essential because now it's become a long haul and they're seeing kids who really are suffering and there's no end in sight. So we have realized as a group of parents across the country that our biggest disability has been that we're fragmented. We don't have a union. where we can go and really just connect and try to implement best practices for kids that really don't vary from California to New York. Kids are kids. They need to be able to breathe. They need

to be able to move. They need to be able to be largely unrestricted and feel like school is a place they want to go to rather than a place where they're confined in. So we've started, you know, just talking. We talk with parents in California, in Oregon, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, you know, all over the country, and really try to implement an awareness campaign. Obviously, we don't have the power to unmask our children. And that's so frustrating to so many of us. But we can challenge adults to mask like children. And I think that that's harder than most adults imagine. These children have to put on those masks, often at 730, eight o'clock in the morning, many of them in New York City, especially they don't get breaks. It's explicitly written into

the DOE guidelines, no mask breaks, don't take it off outside, no recess, no, no gym break. So you're, you know, kicking a ball around sweating in a mask, suffocating, but nobody can really see that. And nobody cares. I mean, that's an incredible message to send to our kids, too. But we're trying to raise awareness that this is how kids actually mask. And we're going to have a mask like a kid day, which is going to challenge politicians. communicating with the masses unmasked, because she obviously knows how much easier it is to communicate and establish connections unmasked. I'd like to see her mask. I'd like to see reporters mask. I'd like to see people who are just walking around on the street mask like kids. So 8 a.m. to 3 o'clock in the afternoon, a 20-minute break for lunch, but a mask the rest of the day. And by the way, you can't just access water anytime you want to just because your mouth is dry.

For instance, in New York City, in some schools, I know that kids are forced to leave the classroom, stand three feet apart at designated times just to get a sip of water. That's what masking like a kid means. And I don't think any adult is experiencing that and that kind of loss of agency. It's a great point. My eight-year-old just told me yesterday that if he wants to get a drink of water at school, they make him, you can pull down the mask to take the sip. And then before you've even swallowed, you have to have the mask back over your nose. They're putting into these kids, they're treating these kids like they're like they've got some hideous communicable disease that any breath caught out into the open could be lethal for one of their. It's not true. And I

resent them scaring my eight year old when my husband and I have done such a good job of not doing that. Right. Like it's like we're fighting against the schools on this, not with them. Coming up, my friend Stephen Crowder joined us to talk about all sorts of topics. He's hilarious and brilliant. But what did he have to say about parenting? That's next. And remember, you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east and the full video show and clips by subscribing to our youtube channel youtube.com slash megan kelly would love as a christmas gift uh if you subscribe to our youtube channel and to our podcast feed that both of those things really help the show out uh so i would be

grateful if you would do it and i think you would enjoy it sometimes it's nice for example to have an audio podcast subscribe download on apple spotora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts for free. And there you will find our full archives with more than 220 shows. Here's a different take on parenting. Steven Crowder was recovering from a major health problem when his life changed in a different way. He became a parent for the first time to twins. Here's his hilarious and personal take on that. You know what it is?

I think for me, my little girl, I connect with her more just because the boy wants his mom and he doesn't really react to me. Whereas with her, I can do a bunch of voices and I do impressions. Like I sang 99 bottles of beer on the wall and I actually got all the way down with a different impression for every single bottle. Wow. And she loves it. So I can calm her down and kind of interact with her whereas he wants his mom at this point. So I think for men, when you interact is when you connect with them. For me, right away with the birth was, and again, kind of with my temperament was, oh, my gosh, this is real. I got to do this.

I got to do this. I got to make sure this. I got to take care of them this way. And yeah, there was love, but it was a really overwhelming sense of responsibility. And keep in mind, they were born a little early. And I just remember thinking, how could anyone have children like have babies like this and and and still be pro-abortion i do remember thinking that like how could because they were born you know as twins premature i'm going this would be legal it would have been legal just

today in virginia uh to do that and it really that to me uh was a i've always been pro-life but there was this visceral reaction where seeing them and seeing that they're a living thing and especially with twins because you can see the personality differences right away you know what i mean it's not just a fetus uh it's not well even earlier i mean of course as you know early on in the pregnancy that you know that whole heartbeat thing is like you see and hear the heartbeat of this little tiny shape and it's like you can debate whether abortion policy is good bad legal not legal to And it's like, you can debate whether abortion policy is good, bad, legal, not legal to the cows come home, but you can't tell me that that's not

a life. I mean, that is, that's science. That is science. Yeah, no, it could not be sustained outside the mother's womb at that point. But is that the relevant question? There's no, you see that heartbeat, whatever your position was before, it's got to give you some pause, like, wow. and to be clear it was very special with my kids but i'm kind of a because of what i do and running a business and you know having a target on my back with youtube the truth is i don't really have the luxury in my life to sit very often and and enjoy um the present moment or feel pity for myself so i kind of like okay i'm the moment i was out of the icu kind of like okay boom done go okay boom go that's what i have to do uh and especially in a landscape that's

constantly changing right now with social media with the way media is with the bad faith actors who they are but um it was obviously very very special to me to to first they brought up my son first because they can only have one person you have to be the same with the covid thing so it kind of had to do one at a time and also one thing is i i still can't really hold both of them at the same time because of what's going on with the bars and the rib cage but um it was uh yeah it is one i i don't i still i never really liked kids that much i still don't love other people's kids but everyone says my kids are cuter but the difference is i'm right.

And you know what I have to say? They really do get better and better. It's like, I feel like in some ways I'm more like a man when it comes to children. Like most of my women friends are like, oh, when they were toddlers, I'm like, oh my God, thank God that period's over. My kids now are 12, 10 and eight. And it's so awesome. And it's been awesome for a good like four years, like eight, six and four was also awesome also awesome i just think people i don't know whether you're having any of these feelings or not but if you're not if you're not feeling like yes nailed it this is amazing just know it

actually gets so good when they become more like little people and they can talk and you can see their brains working and they're funny and they fire up things in you and you can relive fun things like your favorite movie. It's just like the next phase of parenting, people need to be told just in case they're not absolutely loving the babyhood phase. You know, I appreciate that. It gets so good. Because a lot of people just go like, oh, it only gets harder. I'm like, I don't really know if that's the case because right now, every two hours, we're trying to make sure that they don't die. That's literally, they lay there and I go, please don't die.

How do I make you not die? That's about it. And if people want to know too, it sort of occurred to me, what we think is cute about babies or young children is really just, it's the kind of behavior where if an adult behaved the exact same way, you would think they're an idiot but to kids we think it's cute like with a baby the other day she was she just started uh she started like finding her hand you know she couldn't and then she kind of finally like look she's finding her hand if your cousin if your friend Bob was like finding his hand you'd lock him away so that's

just that's what we think is cute about them but I will tell you there's nothing cuter there is nothing cuter than we have a big, big dog, Joe Lewis. He's a dog of Argentina, 110 pounds. And we figured he was going to be really good with the kids. And of course, to people out there, you should never leave any dog alone with children, particularly big dogs, no matter how good they are. But there's something so cute about bridled control a dog that is a protective dog a dog that is a powerful dog moving gently up to interact with the kids and kiss them and understanding the difference between the little ones so uh joe lewis has just been great with them he's been

perfect and that's been really cool for us to see the interaction they cry a little bit he runs up he checks on them waits in front of the nursery we go go in, he's like, okay, I've done my job. So, you know, there's a lot of love in the house. That's something a lot of people skip over. Joe Lewis is, he's sort of another version of Steven Crowder. Like this big, tough guy who takes on all these massive battles and challenges and doesn't back down. But like there's a softer, more protective, sweet, kind, loving side. I've seen it in you repeatedly. Stephen Crowder is brilliant. Trust me, if his political leanings were left wing, he would be hosting one of those late night shows right now. He's kind of like a Greg Gutfeld in that way. But he's killing it on YouTube. So he doesn't

need them in on his own platform. I have to say, it does change, right? Motherhood, parenthood. For me now, my kids are 8, 10, and 12. And I have to say, I feel like I'm peaking. I'm peaking in terms of my parenthood experience. My kids are delightful right now. They haven't yet hit the annoying teenage years. So they're awesome.

They're super fun to spend time with. And they're out of the toddler years, which were not my faves. Like Abby is much more of a caretaker than I am. But so she enjoys those years a lot. And I'm like, if we could rush ahead to four when you're a little bit more less dependent. So I'm loving it because I've got my babe, my little guy eight, that's still little. He wants me to lie with him every night, right? Moms, don't you love that? We do our little book that we're reading. And my older two are like real people now. You can talk to them about anything. And they learn from me and I learn from them, right?

Like I've learned a lot from all three of my kids. But as they get older and wiser, then they have institutional knowledge of you. Then they can give you a hard time. Then they can give you, you know, life advice. Anyway, right now, it's never been any better. And of course, because I'm Irish and I'm Catholic, that just makes me worry about when it's going to fall apart. Instead of enjoying the moment, it's when's it falling apart? It must be soon. Teenagers, they're coming for me. But no, for the moment, it's delightful. And I hope it's delightful for you too. And if it's not, just remember, right around the corner, goodness could be coming your way.

More coming up on parenting in the age of TikTok and Instagram on mama bears who may have flipped Virginia Red and much more. We heard from all sorts of parents this year on our show, and you can go back and find all the shows in our archives on YouTube or Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, the SiriusXM app. We're everywhere. One of the first interviews we did after we joined SiriusXM was with Scott Galloway, a fascinating author, professor, and podcast host with a focus on tech. He's also a parent, and we talked about how he grew up and the alarming rate at which boys are ceding ground in the world of education to girls. But we also talked about what it's like to parent kids in the age of social media. It's a hugely important topic, right? And all you're ever told is like, no, don't get my phone. But like, is that realistic? What about if your kid's the only one in the school, right, in the class who doesn't have a phone?

I mean, that's a tough situation, to be honest. And we talked about it and we talked about it honestly. How do you deal with it in your household? As Galloway says, it's something every parent is struggling with. And here's part of my interview with Scott. You have more, I don't know, is it fair to say working class roots? I've heard you describe your background in different ways. Yeah. Raised by a single immigrant mother who lived and died a secretary and was really, Megan, transformed by kind of big government, the generosity of California taxpayers and the Regents of the University of California, went to UCLA and Berkeley for undergrad and grad for a total of tuition of $7,000 in the 80s. And even more importantly, back then the acceptance rate

at UCLA was 70%. I had to apply twice to get in and now the acceptance rate is 12%. So things have changed a lot. Well, and it was at a point where young men were still going to college. I mean, I know this is one of the things you've been pointing out, but where are all the young men going to college now? They're going another way or I don't know what they're doing, but they're not going to college in anywhere near the same numbers as they used to. It's a really interesting issue. I'm sure you saw the Wall Street Journal article, but it's now 60-40 women to men in college, which sounds bad, but it's even worse when you consider that if your son shows up to

college, there's 50% more women there. And seven in 10 high school valedictorians are girls. Some of this is good. Some of this is catching up. Some of this is just warranted reward for young women and girls who are overachieving academically. But also, it signals, I think, something very dangerous. And that is men are not attaching to school. They're not attaching to work. They're more likely to be unemployed, more likely to have opioid addiction. And also, this is a strange stat. In 2008, 8% of men under the age of 30 had reported never having had sex. And while people hear the term and their brain fires a bunch of different ways, just assume it's a key component of establishing a relationship.

That number as of last year is 28%. And the reason why that number is so scary is if men aren't attaching to work, they're not attaching or young men attaching to work, school or a job, they're very dangerous. Our most unstable societies have what is too many of the most dangerous person in the world. And that's a young, broken, alone male. So when we hear that men continue to not pursue college, we really do need to look at it. We're producing too many of this cohort. Do you think it has to do with politics at all, with how, in particular, the white male has been so demonized and they know what's going to happen on college campuses? They're at the lowest on the totem pole in terms of economic or socio, I should say, status. And I don't know, I'm just talking to my friends who are very worried about their son, who's a conservative. He's a senior in

high school, but he's been really attacked and demonized by the faculty at his school. And they're thinking it's only going to get worse when he goes to college next year. I think they'll still send him. But I wonder how much of that plays into their unwillingness to put themselves through those four years? I don't think it's discouraging them from going. I think other reasons discourage them from going, but I wouldn't be surprised if it lends to more of them or disproportionate amount of them to drop out. I do think there's an unhealthy gestalt in universities right now where just informally we say at freshman orientation, okay, oppressors over here and oppressed over here. And we start from an unhealthy place of identity politics.

And universities have become especially rough and tumble places around this where people's comments are taken out of context, they've made a caricature of it, and then they're shamed. And I would argue, Megan, that it's actually their fellow students who are less forgiving than faculty. And I've seen it happen, play out in class where someone makes one false move. And universities are generally the most progressive places in the world. I think we've become really, made a ton of progress being more accepting of people who don't look like us. Where we have failed is we have become increasingly intolerant of people who don't think like us. 2 we have failed is we have become increasingly intolerant of people who don't think like us. 2% of the faculty at Harvard identifies as conservative.

And universities are supposed to be a place where we debate and have provocation and welcome the dissenter's voice. And around politics, we just don't tolerate it anymore. So I wonder if a lot of young men show up and immediately say, all right, my freshman orientation kind of told me I was an oppressor. Maybe this isn't the place for me. So I do think there's something there. I don't think it's discouraging them from going to college or enrolling them. I think it might be just encouraging them to drop out. I know you've written a book on happiness, just a short form form it's called um the algebra of happiness notes on the pursuit of success love and meaning and i do wonder you know because i feel like you've written so much on big tech and it's so ubiquitous in our lives and these companies that have all

these tentacles and they're manipulating us in ways we don't even fully understand but we can feel it whether whether we know it's as a result of all the hours we spent on Facebook or not. Just how big a role those big tech companies are playing in unhappiness, whether it's of young men or in particular of young women. We'll get to a story that just came out today from Facebook. How meaningful do you think their role has been? I don't even think it's meaningful. I think it's profound. My colleague at NYU, Jonathan Haidt, wrote this fantastic book called The Coddling of the American Mind. And we have an epidemic or an emerging epidemic in teen depression. And he identified two sources of that or two drivers. The first is our fault as parents, Megan. I know you're a parent as well. has led to this sort of this approach where we use so many sanitary wipes on our children's lives that they don't develop their own immunities. And we developed this princess and the pea generation where they show up to college and get their heart broken or get their first C and literally freak out.

The second thing, though, is that social media has been proven, and even Facebook knew this and decided to hide it, to result in greater levels of depression. That levels of depression in young men and especially young women are correlated with social media use and specifically around Instagram. And it used to be when you and I didn't get invited to a party in high school, it was bad and that happens to everybody. But now you see it play out in real time on your phone. And it's especially damaging to girls and young women because men or boys bully physically and verbally. Women or young girls bully relationally. And we've put these nuclear weapons in their hands. And we keep waiting for the better angels of these companies

to show up, and it just doesn't happen. How could they? I want to get to the Facebook news in one second because it confirms everything that you've been saying. And we know. But how could they, you know, because, for example, my friend John Stossel, who I love, he's a libertarian, you know, he would be if he were here, he'd be saying, they're very successful companies. There's a reason they became so successful. The American people voted, you know, with their dollars and with their eyeballs and with their time. And, you know, therefore, it's clearly what people want. And it's not a place for government to step in and protect people from themselves. So what could they be doing differently that would protect our kids more, but

not totally abandon American capitalism in the way it works? Well, I'd be in favor of age gating. I remember when my son posted a video of his handstand on YouTube, and he got a like, and then all he could think about was checking back on YouTube. And then someone made sort of a snarky comment and it really upset him. And I wonder if 12-year-olds should even be on YouTube. I think there's a capitalist argument to be made that if we, in fact, broke these companies up and had more options than one social media network or one search engine, that it might result in emerging players that say there are advertisers and parents who would rather have a video search engine that doesn't radicalize young men. There are, I think we need a photo sharing app that advertises it will not allow people under

the age of 16 and it will not allow bullying or it'll come up with some sort of affirmation that doesn't make people feel worse. So I think competition is an answer here. I think regulation is an answer. And if your show, Megan, could be reverse engineered to girls cutting themselves, I don't think this show would survive because I think there are other podcasts and other media personalities that advertisers would rally behind. Unfortunately, in this environment with social media and search, there are no options. So they don't have any real incentive to be good citizens and attract dollars. So I think the answer is a capitalist argument that your friend was making. And that is we need more competition because there's a lot of advertisers that aren't down with what's going on. And a lot of parents, what choice do you have? I don't want my son on YouTube, but where do they go? So I think the capitalist argument is to break them

up and competition would solve a lot of this, But I do think we need regulation and educating. app, Insta, affects its millions of young users. About 22 million teens log on to Instagram in the US every day. Five million teens log on to Facebook. And they say that they've been doing a study internally, they're researchers, and they found Instagram is harmful for a sizable percentage of these teens, especially the girls. 32% of teen girls said when they feel bad about their bodies, Instagram brought them there. Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves. They make body images worse for one in three teen girls. That's their own conclusion. Make

body images worse for one in three. And that they're actually blaming the teens recognize it's to blame for the increase in anxiety, depression among teens reporting suicidal thoughts. 13% of British teens said, and 6% of American users said, the desire to kill themselves was rooted to Instagram. I mean, it's bad. Yeah, it's just frightening. And if you talk to, I'm involved in this wonderful nonprofit called Jed, which is committed to teen mental health. And a lot of times, unfortunately, your kid is suffering alone. You don't know they're suffering and they're they're ashamed and they go into the room and on their phone and they end up making one false move or for whatever reason they feel bad about themselves or the mob seizes on

them and it ends up in a level of you know emotional anxiety in a time when kids are facing increased anxiety from a variety of different factors. What's most disturbing here is that Facebook knew about this. Facebook's innovation is how to overrun government to ignore these concerns. Rather than saying, how do we address this? What changes can we make? What incentives could we put in place to really try and counteract some of these negative externalities? The majority of their

efforts are around not making Instagram a healthier thing. There's some very good things about Instagram. It's about delay and obfuscation. And so just as the cigarette companies were lobbying companies sitting on top of a consumer products company, Facebook has really become an organization of delay and obfuscation and government overrun such that they can ignore these types of issues. And this just takes it to a new level. I mean, it's one thing, like I said, you have kids, I have kids. You have your world of work.

You have your world of friends. You have your world of fun. When something comes off the tracks of one of your kids, the entire universe distills down to that kid. And the thought that this one company doesn't have this sort of empathy or concern for our children, it's just continued evidence that this company is bad for the Commonwealth and is kind of part of what I would call the head of the class of a menace economy that is arbitraging depression, circumventing minimum wage laws. It's just more than anything, Megan, it's just really disappointing.

Head of a class of a menace economy. Yes. I'm dealing with this right now to some extent because we have three kids, as you point out, and my mom, boy, girl, boy, almost 12, 10, and 8. And my almost 12-year-old turns 12 in about two weeks. And years ago, when he started pressuring me for a phone, right, because all these kids have phones, when can I have a phone? My husband and I were like, oh, when you're 12, when you're 12. And then we learned more, we listened more. And we were like, there's no way he's getting a phone when he turns 12. He's not getting it. Maybe a flip phone for emergencies where he can just dial us. That's it. And now, you know, kids remember. And he's like, guess what I want for my 12th birthday. And I had

to say, you're not getting one. And he said, what do all my friends have? They all have iPhones. Can I please have an iPhone? And I'm like, you can't have it. I don't know what to tell you, honey, but dad and I have done more research and you're not getting it. He's disappointed. But what do you think?

As a dad of two kids who's been watching this industry very closely, do we get our kids' phones? Do we let them have social media? Because of course course their reaction is every single one of our my friends has both it's a really tough call and the people who take a purist argument and say no screens until they're 16 and no iphone that means they don't have kids because what you recognize is i mean it sounds terrible but at some point you want time for your own screen time. And then also, it's balancing the very real negative impacts of kids on their phones and specifically the

social media platforms and for some of the problems we referenced before. It's balancing that versus them being ostracized because there are some positive things. My sons play video games and they do a lot of their socialization that way. When we were remote this summer and they couldn't be with their friends, one way they caught up with their friends was on video games. And I think actually some of that's healthy. And I would argue that video games and there's research to show this aren't as damaging on the psyche or psychological wellbeing of kids. We're struggling with this as well. What we're trying to do is we demand their passwords and we demand to see their activity. So we're never surprised about stuff. And we try to give them some license, even when

stuff's a little bit off color, if you will. And we're also just putting a certain time limit on it. And we take their phones from them. We give them their phones for, I think it's one hour at night during the weekdays and two hours in the mornings on weekends. And then we take them back. But if you're looking for someone who's figured it out, you'll hear the, you know, the arguments at our house that just prove we have not figured this out. I think every parent is struggling with this. Well, I mean, I should say he has an iPad, but that's only, he can only use that when we're there and he does games occasionally and he had to use it for remote schooling. But we, social media is what we're trying to avoid.

And YouTube rabbit holes. Right. I mean, we've done enough research on what that does and to young girls to what that does and pulling you into just dark places that we if I'm there, that's one thing. It's quite another to have it in your pocket all day long when you're that young. And to your point earlier, the Snapchat that that that's the thing that shows you where all your friends are, Snapchat. So you can see where all your friends are. And like you just said, now you can see, oh, where's Jane? Oh, where's Donna? Oh, where's Mary? Oh, they're all right here together and no one's responding to my calls or my texts. And I've been ignored. I've been excluded. It hurts. Yeah. And the question is, I don't know if the answer is

to keep him off it. I think some of it does fall to us to teach them good values. We gave our son a phone at about 13, and we've demanded that he's kind and that he not take bait when people slight him. And we review his social, but we do give him his phone and just the utility of it. I mean, if you want your kid to have any freedom, and I was always worried that we were not letting our kid out of the house enough. You know, I used to leave at the age of seven or eight, and my mom would say, be home by 10, and that was about it. Same.

And now, you know, kids like, you know, we practically have them in armored cars, it feels like. So I think giving them their phone so they can walk, we call it the Avenue down by Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach. I think that's liberating and it's good for them to have independence. It's good for them to walk home in the dark every once in a while and get a little bit scared and walk by the house with the strange mean dog. I think some of that is actually good for the kids, but we're absolutely struggling with the notion around when and how. And I do think parents and schools have a role here. We're in a lovely school in Florida, and they basically say, you're not allowed to bring your devices, and you can get in trouble for them.

And they've said also, your activity on social, and I don't know if this will stand up in court, and I'm sure it'll be challenged. Your activity on social, if you bully another kid or do something, then we can take punitive action against you in the school. I think everyone's trying to figure this out. This is a tough one, but what we have to realize is that the company's not going to figure it out. They're going to continue to manufacture this stuff. That's the thing. They're not an ally. Wouldn't it be nice if you knew that Mark Zuckerberg was in some way your ally in this battle and trying to protect young kids from the damaging effects of it, the addiction that comes from looking at your phone 45,000 times to see if you have a like and so on. It's hard enough for an adult to resist

it, nevermind a kid. And he's not your ally. I mean, that's really sort of the bottom line. The social media companies are on the other side of this. Yeah, there are some companies. There's a great company called Roblox that was hugely successful. Multi-billion dollar market capitalization. And they do have a lot of content moderators. It's a game platform for children. About half of kids under the age of 16 have been on Roblox.

And they are taking this issue very seriously. I do think, I think TikTok, I don't know if you spend much time on TikTok, Megan. It seems to me that's a little less toxic or they're trying to- But isn't that just China gathering my child's data? Could be. Could be. I personally don't see evidence of that so far, but I think that's always a risk. You have to assume any Chinese company that the data there is probably subject to inspection by Chinese authorities. So I don't want to pretend that's not a real issue. What I would say though, is that when I'm on TikTok, it does feel more optimistic. It does feel a little less... You go on Facebook and you go on Twitter and it feels like the algorithms are just constantly saying fight, fight, fight.

But isn't Kara, Kara's always saying that her kids are like, Twitter's for old people, mom. Like Twitter's not really the popular venue for the youngins. But Facebook is obviously huge and Insta's enormous and not harmless. I mean, I think people see the pretty pictures and it's like, oh, yeah, influencers. And it's like, no. And for every one influencer who will post something without a filter to show her actual rear end or face, there's just millions of opposite doing, you know, doing the opposite. Right. So you get a young girl's heads. And even with a parent counterprogramming, which I'm sure you try and I try, it's hard. Coming up, my conversation with a mama bear who may have personally helped turn Virginia red and give Glenn Youngkin a surprising victory

over Terry McAuliffe. In early November, Republicans across the country saw victories in elections big and small. But all eyes were on Virginia, and Glenn Youngkin's win over Terry McAuliffe shocked many. What helped push Youngkin across the finish line? One person who was personally involved was Azra Nomani, a Muslim immigrant, single mom, and former progressive who became a self-described mama bear fighting back against what she described as anti-American propaganda in the schools. Can I tell you one of my closest, dearest friends who would describe herself the same way voted yesterday, this is in New York, across the board Republican. And it was a moment for her. I think she felt a little teary about it.

She felt emotional. It wasn't because she's gone you know hardcore pro second amendment right it was because she's a mama bear like your shirt says she's a mama bear like you this isn't a republican dem issue yeah it's such a tragedy that the dems right now cannot see the humanity of their base because they're so caught up in the politics of Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and AOC. They're just chasing the extreme and they've left them behind, the centrists like myself. Like you said, I only moved to Virginia in December 2008. I remember it precisely, Megan, because I was living in D.C. and I needed to find a new place. Well, the election had just happened of 2008 and I grew up in West Virginia. So I grew up, you know, really feeling pride in our state of West Virginia being on the correct

side of history on the issue of civil rights, slavery, this big issue of slavery. Well, it was only when the state voted for Barack Obama that I said, oh, it's ready for a Muslim immigrant progressive feminist like me. I raised my son here. And then all of a sudden, in June 2020, the principal at my son's high school told me that I and the other Asian, mostly Asian, mostly immigrant parents had to check our privileges. And on it goes. You're the perfect person to talk to about this lie. We keep hearing over and over from the mainstream media, from the Democrats, all over cable news last night, that CRT is a unicorn. This is not something being taught in K through 12 schools. They say it like it is a factual assertion.

They are correcting this nonsense record that conservative crazies, white supremacists keep pushing. I mean, your take on it, because I will tell you, I just said earlier in the show, I don't care what you call. I don't care if they're not teaching the actual legal doctrine that you learn in law. That's not what parents are saying. You're teaching racial division. CRT is a catch-all phrase for parents who don't know quite how to categorize the insanity you're delving out. Yeah. My colleague, the president of Parents Defending

Education, you've spoken with her. She said, I don't care if you call it magical unicorn theory, right? We are just opposed to it because it's bad news. Like behind me, Megan, is all of the books on Islamism that we would talk about for years, the extremism within my faith of Islam and how we had to challenge it. Well, now I have here critical race theory and all of the extremism of wokeism. And it is very much real and happening in the state of Virginia. First of all, you know, just to start off with your audience, you know, critical race theory says that we have to look at all issues through the lens of race. It's just very simple premise. So that was a fundamental problem on this issue of my son's school because they wanted to have racial demographics at the

school matching the racial demographics of the county. 20% Asian, 70% Asian in my son's school. So right away, they changed admissions. So it's getting in the weeds a little bit here, but I just want to let people know how it is that they started messing with schools through the lens of race. And then one example I have here that I wrote about in National Review, I think you talked about it a bit, is this class called How to Be an Anti-Racist Educator. And I didn't get this into the National Review piece, but the premise of this class that's taught at Marshall High School right now to educators there in Virginia is yeah in Virginia just right down the road from me here is that they have to discuss

in lesson number six exploring and understanding white men so this is again looking at people and society through the lens of race and they use this this book, Courageous Conversations. And Courageous Conversations is the bad ideas of this man named Glenn Singleton. That's who they brought to my school in New York. That's one of the schools we left. Yeah, so he, you know, because you know how in Islamism, we had to study where did extremism come from?

And then we learned it's the Muslim Brotherhood, right? It's this guy named Haradawi. Who are the vessels of these bad ideas? And it's this guy, Glenn Singleton. And that's what they are now teaching these courses in here. And they're going to include in the next coming weeks here in Virginia, right down the road from me, the privilege walk, right? You know, all of these anecdotes, Megan, that down the road from me, the privilege walk, right? You know,

all of these anecdotes, Megan, that have just, you know, seeped into our school systems. And it's always bad ideas from really like, you know, not very sophisticated intellectuals who are just now making millions of dollars. And, you know And over here, I have the receipts, the contracts from a neighboring county, Talbot County next door in DC. It's money, it's bad ideas, and it's ultimately trickling down into our schools. And that's what we know.

We see it every day as parents. We hear about it and we're not stupid. We get it. And just like you guys just talked about, we are not going to let anyone get in between ourselves and our cubs. review which was wonderful and i i recommend it to everybody virginia parents have had enough of woke lies at their schools this is a couple days ago before the election woke lies we heard so many more of them um but last night when crt is not being taught it's not being taught it's not being taught okay well one of the examples you gave was of that that um anti-racist educator you just talked about and who the encouragement that people listen to bettina love and promote bettina love we've seen this all over virginia we've seen it actually coast to coast bettina love is a problem this is a woman who says whites need therapy to overcome their racism ignorance and history of harm in the school setting who doesn't believe that children

can learn well from teachers of the same race who says public schools do not see blacks as human and they're guilty of the systemic anti-blackness and media pundits will not acknowledge that stuff is trickling down to our children is at their own peril. You tell me it's at their own peril. was a consultant to the Terry McAuliffe campaign. And I signed up for the newsletters. And every day I'd get another missive from James Carville or whoever else they brought in. And you know, Megan, that James Carville called out the wokeism earlier this year in the country and said that it was going to cost the Dems. But his voice is not prevailing. And in fact, all of this character assassination last night of the voters

of Glenn Youngkin reveal that they are only going to continue to try to smear us. I know Wajahat Ali very well. He is part of the Muslim network in the United States that has now embedded itself in the Democratic Party. And, you know, he was just a kid who would write to me from time to time and say, Oh, can you help me place an op ed in the Daily Beast? Well, now, he has a coveted role as a contributing columnist to the New York Times. And he bounds off about all of this absurdity. But Megan, this is really important. And it's like only with you that I can really connect the dots. In the state of Virginia, the Muslim individuals who have been part of this network of political Islam, that's called Islamism, they live right here. They're right down the road from me off of Route

7. They have contributed mightily to the Democratic Party. They had as a favor then the Virginia Education Secretary installed during the Northam administration. He became the vehicle through which Ralph Northam saved face from his whole blackface debacle. He was the one who launched this whole war against merit at my son's school. He put in all of these ridiculous ideas about critical race theory and equity. Hala Ayala, the lieutenant governor nominee, she's part of that whole network. They want to keep that unholy alliance alive between the Islamists represented through people like Ilhan Omar and the Democratic Party. And this is a rejection of that alliance. And the Dems are just going to continue to lose if they keep thinking that that

is America, because it's not. It's regressive ideas that are actually very illiberal and racist. And as you know, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been making the same connections and saying exactly what you're saying. And it's bold of you. I know you get blowback for that, but it's bold and it's true. It's factual. Can I show you, this is for our listening audience at home. This is a cartoon that embodies the way the press is reacting to the Virginia victory of Youngkin last night. It was retweeted by among others, Nicole Hannah Jones. And what it shows is Glenn Youngkin in his little fleece sweater vest kicking a young black girl. And she's falling and her books are going everywhere. And it says the campaign's final stretch. And in her, I can't see it from here,

but the names on the book, what are the words on the books, guys? It says something like history or racism. It's like her trying to educate kids on history, and he's kicking her and making her fall. And that's how they sum up what your movement is about, what parents defending education, what all these parents who took to the polls last night to try to say, don't divide our kids based on race. Do teach history, but don't teach one's an oppressor and one's an oppressed just based on melanin. That's how they describe the movement. Yeah. You know, I have this signs here because I wanted to just illustrate. I've got a sign that says grannies for Glenn, Democrats for Glenn, sportsmen for Youngkin, parents for Youngkin, because I stood there in the ballroom, about thousand people

packed shoulder to shoulder. And I'll tell you, there was me. I voted for Glenn Youngkin. I'm a Muslim immigrant feminist, and I am a mother of color. And I am what they are now claiming white supremacy looks like. Beside me was this amazing mom, Subarna Dutta, who came here from India, and she had just dollars in her pocket. And Megan, she was never involved in politics, but the school board, the 12 Democratic school board members in Fairfax County just ignored her and Yu Yan, this mom from China, and Hemang, another dad from India. They just ignored us all these months, just like you just said. You know, they treated us a lot like we were invisible.

They would mute us. And we got to have the last word, as you put it, last night. And Subarna was dancing, Megan. She felt like she had defended the American dream, that she had come sacrificing so much to experience. Azra, I can relate to this. I've never been a political activist.

I've never been an ideological person. As a journalist, I've always kept my cards close to the vest. This is a different thing. This is about the future of our country, about loving America and teaching a future generation that it's okay to love America and it's a good thing. And it's about shaming, see the message being sent back to these politicians that parents do get a say, that the parents are the ones in charge. Stay with us. One more parent to get to an emotional and important discussion with a New York City dad who I will never forget. Up next is a dad who joined us in an episode from May before we started on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111. Andrew Gutman was not looking to become a household name, but he did because he decided to write an open letter about why he was pulling his daughter out of her New York City private school, Brearley.

Been there. And prior to interviewing Andrew, we had interviewed Paul Rossi, the guy at another New York City school who was a teacher, bravely speaking out there. Remember, he taped the head of school because he had a feeling it was going to go south. And then they started to tell different stories about Paul. Both of these guys told similar stories to the ones that I myself have experienced, which is schools that had been reasonable in teaching accurate history before turning into far left social justice machines that try to shame the white students and try to diminish the black students as incapable, and to the consternation of parents and, as it turns out, some faculty. New York went 86% for Joe Biden. Manhattan did. It is a very, very leftist place. Until now, that didn't manifest in too offensive a way in the school system. This past year, two years, things have changed. And as we now know, it wasn't just in New York City, though that place is a canary in the coal mine. And what happens there tends to spread across the country. And I believe that's happening too when it comes to crazy radical trans ideology, being taught at schools, CRT, inappropriate sexual content, and more.

Andrew Gutman saw it, and he came on to explain to me why it was so important to him to take a stand. Let me answer this because I mean, I think certainly this is where it really is right now, but it's where a lot of these schools that across the country are right now. This was a response posted to your letter by somebody named Claire Potten at seminar.org. And she said, let me just quote in part, claims that children are being harmed by critical race theory are a thin cover for returning to a world where white people don't have to feel bad about racism. She says, the tribalism and division that the Brearley dad,

you claim a critical race theory is causing already exists. As does the harm Paul Rossi fears it is causing prestigious private schools offer real opportunities to black students, but it can come at a very, very high emotional and intellectual cost to them and their parents. And basically what she's saying is, and this is the end quote, um,

that white people, including you and Paul, make it all about themselves. That is what white people often do. But in this case, it also shows that these men also understand what's at stake in anti-racism work, their own power and the position of their white children as uniquely authoritative and special in a multiracial society. Your thoughts on that? Okay, sure.

You can, you know, what do you want? So what do you, okay, I would ask this person and ask the school something. Okay, what do you want? What do you want to do? Okay, you want me to admit I'm because I'm white, I'm guilty, right? I mean, my family, you know, a lot of them perished in the Holocaust, we weren't, you know, we didn't have slaves. We weren't in this country. We weren't in this, you know, a lot in the Jim Crow era. I mean, all right, what so so what do you want to do

you want us all white people to admit? What? Where does that get you? You know, at the end of the day, this is this is, you know, the Marxist argument for equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity, which, you know, will destroy, you know, will destroy us, I think. But, you know, you want to you're trying to teach a kindergarten kid that they should feel guilty for the color of the skin. And this stuff is in kindergarten. Right. I mean, I heard I heard of. Oh, I know. A mom told me, you know, they saw my daughter's kindergarten. They had to do a project. They all given a silhouette of their head, you know, like head, draw whatever you want, draw, you know, however you look, draw your freckles, draw your hair, whatever you want to draw. Well, this, this exercise, apparently in kindergarten this year, uh, they were only given skin color crayons and it was, we don't care about

anything. The only thing that we want you to focus on is getting your skin tone, right? So this is kindergarten. This is kindergarten. I'd be like, I don't need a crayon, just leave the paper as pasty as it came. I'm just going to do an outline of a face, just as pasty as you think, even pastier. We have to fight. We're not saying there's no racism. We're not saying we shouldn't teach the stains in our history. We have terrible stains in American history of slavery and Jim Crow, what we did to Native Americans. No question, right? I maintain, I wrote in this follow-up,

which again, hasn't been published. I think we're the least racist country. I think we're the most diverse country in the world. I think we're the least racist. We're the only country or one of the very, very few that has even attempted to address these issues. What other country has even attempted? What other country is diverse like we are? Are there issues? Of course, are there other racist cops out there?

Of course there are. But what benefit is there of telling a kindergarten kid to feel guilty for his or her color of her skin? Where does that go? What does that do for you? That's my response. They're incapable of paying for the sins of those of somebody else's fathers. I want to I want to read this piece just a bit. Forgive me a lot of reading today, but there's been some great stuff I've I've been reading lately. This is from Ross Kaminsky at the American Spectator. And his piece is called the cancer of critical race theory. And he says this he says he does say that he thinks America is awakening to quote the cancer that is critical race theory. And he says, it should infuriate you that schools across the nation, keep that in mind. Our audience knows it's not just really these sort of Tony New York schools.

It's public schools across the nation, places like Iowa. It should infuriate you that schools across the nation are telling some kids that other kids are evil or that they themselves are evil for things over which they have and never had and never will have control, such as the melanin content of one's skin or the particular shape of one's eyes. And for the distinctly un-American practice of teaching that free speech, critical thinking, and questioning authority are simply indications of one's own irredeemable privilege. And he ends by saying, the problem is that even this initial national awakening is very, very late. We are in the midst of a stage four societal cancer. Critical race theory has metastasized from Harvard outward through other universities and from there into

almost every other internal organ of our nation, from businesses to governments to schools to everywhere you look. So that brings me to the question that you mentioned when we started. What's next? What do we do? You did the parents at Brearley and everyone else a favor by not, not, not staying quiet about it by, by going public. So what, what is next in fighting the stage four societal cancer? Well, let me say first, I, I a hundred percent agree with what you just read. This is, this is terrifying. What is happening? I've had a lot of people reach out to me that grew up in, uh know soviet union or communist eastern europe that has saying but you know we we left there to come to america we seen this movie being played before

this is terrifying what's going on and we never thought this could happen here and and it is and it's not just critical race theory in schools it's it's beyond schools it's the cancel culture it's the whole you know woke religion uh it is incredibly scary i think if we don't fix it we go down a very very dark and scary path i mean you know we end the enlightenment i think the country cracks up eventually i don't know when um what do we do you know i'm trying to i'm trying to figure out look i i've been i promised a lot of people who reach out to me i would continue to speak out on this because I believe in it, and I will. I'm going to join FA don't solve, in my view, we do not solve the school issue until we solve the cancel culture issue. Too many parents are too fearful to speak up.

And you mentioned, you know, Coca-Cola may be reversing themselves a little bit on this after, you know, the Georgia and baseball all-star game incident. Such cowardice generally in the corporate boardrooms, in these school boardrooms and administrations, but just such cowardice in these corporate boardrooms to cower to the woke Twitter mob here. That has to stop. We need some courageous CEOs and business leaders to say, look, we recognize that our employees are going to have some different opinions on things. Some of them might be controversial. We acknowledge that some of those opinions in the day and age

we live in are going to wind up on Twitter and social media, and we will not terminate them for their views. We will not penalize them for their views because they're preventing parents. I've heard this so many times in the last few weeks in these hundreds of emails. They are preventing parents from speaking out on behalf of their children and on behalf of their children's education. So that has to stop. I think we have to solve the cancel culture issue. This is a huge issue. This is not just schools. This is not just critical race theory. This is this anti- know, anti-intellectual illiberalism, Marxism. We're going down that path in so many different scary ways.

I don't have the solutions, all of them. I don't know most of them. But we need to talk about this. You know, again, I said this earlier, you know, democracy. We we've been led to believe in the media lately that, you know, what is democracy? Democracy is all about how many people vote, right? And that's why there's such issues over who can vote and voting, you know, registration and restrictions and stuff like that. That's not what democracy is. That's not what democracy works if people vote. I think it's two things. And I wrote this in the letter. You have to have wise and virtuous leaders. And I think of both political parties, we have very few wise and virtuous leaders. And I wrote that in political parties, we have very few wise and virtuous leaders. And

I wrote that in the context of really being the training ground for these leaders. If they don't learn the education, they're not going to be that. And that's scary. And the other thing, you know, for democracy to work, you have to be willing to have discussions of these issues. Again, race, COVID, guns, immigration, you know, all these issues, climate change, that we're not allowed to discuss. You have to be able to discuss them. So somehow, media polarization is a lot of this, which I don't know how to solve. But if you're not willing to discuss these important issues, democracy doesn't work. And I'm really scared. I mean, I'm hopeful that we have, you know, made a little dent. I don't think the dam is broken here on

critical race theory, but I think we're starting finally to get people to speak up. And I'm hopeful we make a dent there and this movement continues. But these are bigger issues that we are completely forgetting, losing, destroying, you know, toppling statues of the foundations and principles of this country. And again, that's not to say there aren't stains on this. You know, Thomas Jefferson's controversial, and he should be, and he should be taught it that way. But that doesn't mean you ignore the Declaration of Independence. That is the founding principle of this country. And we should strive to meet it. And maybe we've failed in a lot of ways in our history, but to not teach it and to

lose those founding principles. Sorry, I'm preaching here, but to lose those founding principles, that's what's happening. And that's really, really scary, the path we're headed down, I think. It certainly is. I agree. Mitch McConnell, he was out there just saying, and it was great. I was happy to see him object to the 1619 Project, which has been totally discredited, being taught in schools. Now, Nicole Hannah-Jones has been given a journalism professorship at UNC. which a bunch of scholars, black and white, have demanded be pulled back, be revoked, because the 1619 project is so non-factual. It is so counterfactual. And she's totally gotten away with it. Now, instead of having the prize taken away, they're elevating her to a journalism professor

at UNC. Anyway, McConnell came out and said, voters didn't ask for this. There is no mandate survive teaching our children to hate our own country and to hate its history, right? No other country in the world does that. And that is what we are doing. We will simply not survive as a country. I don't know what happens. We break up, civil war, you know, I don't know, right? I don't think anyone could predict that. But I'm unfortunately confident in saying if we teach our children to hate our own country and its history, we will not survive. Or this way of life, you know, the foundation of freedom and liberty and prosperity and equal opportunity, not equal outcome, equal opportunity, which has been the beacon for the

rest of the world for 250 years, right? And yes, we haven't always lived up to it, but we have been the beacon of these principles for 250 years. If we teach our children to hate our own country and hate its history, we won't survive. And our way of life will not survive. And that's terrifying to me. I do want to say to people, go to fairforall.org, fairforall.org. And you will see a lot of faces there that you know and love like barry weiss like glenn lowry like coleman hughes um like eli steel john mcwarder who's coming on the show this week and so on uh daryl davis all there together me i'm there trying to fight back against this and try to make it easier for you to connect with other parents in your schools or businesses or elsewhere who are silently objecting, but don't know how to come,

come out with it publicly, you know, for fear of being canceled or punished. So that is one of our core missions. Go just check it out. I'm not, I don't make any money off of this. This is not a money-making organization. We're just trying to, it's a, it's a group of people trying to, you know, fight for reason and, and wellness in the country. So I, I've become a, you know, a preacher for them.

I want to proselytize about them and we're just getting our act together too, or it's going to grow and it's going to get better organized and all that, but it's a place to start. And I think you'd be amazing. We need just, we need millions more just like you. So I, yeah.

So the founder of my I've met a bunch of times now online and in person. And we're talking about how I can get involved because I absolutely want to get involved. Well, as you heard in our show with Azra Nomani in 2021, quote, the parents are the ones in charge. And that should just be the beginning. Listen, I was recently speaking to a group to the Federalist Society at Yale Law School, and they're just as concerned as we are. They're concerned about their own education and their own future. These are young people. So it's not just parents. Kids who have been through these systems are now coming out, understanding people are trying to brainwash them and their thinking. And my message to them is the same as it's been to you

and continues to be. Fight. Fight. This is the time to stand up and fight. You could sit quietly and let it pass you by and you'll lose. And so will we all. And when we've lost, we'll look around and figure out how it happened. Do you want to be one of the ones who can raise your hand and say, I tried to stand up for what is right? Or do you want to be one who says, no one ever called me a name, and I remained silent the entire time, and now I must remain silent forevermore. Now's the time. I joke with them, what are you going to do? You're going to keep silent now? You're going to keep silent to get your first job? You're going to keep silent through that? And then 60 years,

when you're dying in your bed, you can fall off the side saying, I had conservative viewpoints. I was against CRT. Speak out now. It's not too late. This fight is on and we need everyone in it that we can get. So honored to have spent this past year with you guys, to have been trusted by you to deliver the news. We'll be back with new shows on Monday. Have a great new year and we'll talk to you in 2022. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.