The Megyn Kelly Show - Tim Kennedy on the Taliban Terror Threat, Personal Responsibility, and the Importance of Losing | Ep. 190

Episode Date: October 27, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by Tim Kennedy, decorated military veteran and MMA athlete, to talk about the Taliban terror threat, America's Afghanistan withdrawal, the importance of taking personal responsibility, the dangers of social media, how 9/11 changed the course of his life, China's military might, the importance of losing, similarities between military service and MMA, the supply chain crisis, the state of the American military today, leadership life lessons, and more.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. Joining me today, a true badass, Tim Kennedy. Or as he describes himself, someone who is unapologetically American. Same. He's a decorated war hero, serving in Afghanistan and Iraq with the special forces units as a sniper, as a Green Beret, and as an Army Ranger. All while he was moonlighting as a top-ranked UFC fighter. Then he left the world of MMA in 2017, re-enlisting in the military. And this past summer, going back to Afghanistan, this time as a volunteer working

to rescue civilians that helped us in the war effort. Tim, as those of you watching on YouTube will see, is currently in his car and there is a reason for that. He was just, as of moments ago, reactivated to military service and is currently somewhere near the training ground he will be deployed at for the next several months. You can't get too far into the details of that. But Tim joins me now. Tim, thank you so much for being here. My pleasure.

Thanks for having me. So you just got the news that you were being redeployed? I mean, I've been back to work for a couple of days and they call it voluntold where you're volunteering, but you're being told to volunteer. And that's, that, that was the situation where it's like, Hey, you're going to go to work and you're going to be really excited to do it. I was like, yes. So here we are. So I don't sound great either. Well, thankfully that doesn't translate over the camp.

So you know what you're doing? Like, do you know what, I know you're not allowed to tell us, but do you know what the mission is? Right now it's, um, it's just to train, you know, like, um, special forces train all the time year round. And, um, and then you have to do some, some specific training for specific missions. And that's what we're doing. We're trying to, you know, create a baseline, uh, get, we say, get green on everything where, you know, like you're across the board trained in all the fundamentals, and then you're able to do more advanced stuff to prepare for a specific mission. But you have to be good, you have to be a master of the basics, and you can never spend too much time doing that. But most of the places that we do that training, there's not great cell service, so you'll have to forgive my parking lot call. No worries. It's kind of exciting. So it doesn't necessarily mean you're going anywhere or have a specific mission. It's basically, you got to keep the muscles in shape if, and when for, for, if, and when they need you in the theater. Yeah. Um, the muscles of the mind to, you know, like tactics are a perishable skill,

shooting navigation. These are all perishable skills that you have to, that you have to do frequently. And then when you know, you're going to go do something very specific, you have to go do that specific thing to that modality to get good at it again. It must be hard to hold down another job. Like, I mean, if you, if you were actually still doing the, the fighting like UFC, I can't make tonight's match. I I'm, I'm out of town. Yeah.

I mean, so I'm, you know, I, I'm an entrepreneur. I own seven companies and I have 20 partners and, uh, I don't have the ability to, um, thank God I was fighting while I was in special forces because that conditions how to do time management and how to like task organized. So while I was fighting for world titles, I was still a Green Beret. And I would still have to do everything my team asked of me, my boss asked of me, as I still do now. So when my boss says I have to go to work, I have to go to work. I still have business partners and CEOs and directors that as soon as we get off this call, I'll have to get on the phone with while I have connectivity to do a quick little sync. I wonder if it's hard. I would think that if you're in the position of, you know, being able to give orders to some, I realize you receive orders too,

but give orders to some, then when you transfer into your civilian role as a CEO and you're dealing with others, is it hard to turn off that button and be more, you know, collegial and taking input and it's not so much do it because I just told you to do it. If I ever have to tell somebody in the military to do something because I told them to do it, one, I'm the worst leader ever. And two, I'm never going to expect to get a good product out of that. Leadership on the civilian side is the same leadership on the civilian side. General Mattis, who I think is a great leader. He could go into any executive level position with the largest Fortune 500 companies, and he would be a fantastic CEO because he's a good leader. And those skills translate. So I mean, in 17 years in special

forces, the number of times I've had to tell an American soldier, you have to do this because I'm telling you is zero. That that's, that's the makeup of a bad leader. So let's talk about the earlier version of Tim, because you were not always this way. And I love your backstory. I mean, it's, I don't know if you would, if you would call yourself a hot mess prior to 911. But didn't sound all that flattering your description of yourself and where you were prior to the attacks on our country on that fateful day, which changed America and changed you. But before we get to the change moment, tell us about yourself prior to 9-11-2001. Oh, man. Do we have to talk about this?

Just give me a couple of bottom lines so people understand your journey. Yeah. Hilariously, we're in the middle of writing a book right now. And that chapter is called The Fall. And whether it's the fall from grace or the fall from reality, you know, at a specific point in my life, there were a few girls that were pregnant with what are now my children. I thought I had HIV. I was a professional fighter, ranked top 10 in the world. I was in grad school. This is all pre 9-11. I had every opportunity to be successful. I had an

amazing home with amazing parents that gave me every single advantage to be able to succeed. But I wasted every single one of their sacrifices and their generosity for my own selfish purposes. So here I was as a young 20-something-year-old in grad school as I was taking all of my clothes off to walk into Morrow Bay, California, on the north side of the rock and swim due west into the fog. When it was aware that I was going to have children that were a few months or a few weeks apart and that I might be dying of AIDS. And that was not the low. It actually got lower. And just talk about complete wasted potential.

I'm summarizing to a very low moment but uh it was it was a litany of bad decisions that i think everybody faces as one of the companies i own is apogee and we shape and mentor young men and i was just telling them yesterday like you're gonna have every opportunity to make a bad decision and every one of those bad decisions cumulatively collectively will add up to determine the trajectory of your life um and you, thank God they're saving graces and saving moments and redemptions and opportunities in this country that we live in that you can save even from bad decisions, you know, but there's some places in the world, you make one bad decision and you're ruined for forever. And I was making bad decision after bad decision after bad decision. And then I watched

Americans look out of a look out of a building and decide if they're going to burn alive or jump to their death. And that realization of how pathetic of a human I was, was evident and clear in that moment. Wow. Wow. In a way, that moment kind of saved you. It kind of saved you. It made you into the man started the beginnings of the man we see today. Yeah, but how pathetic is that that it took 3000 American lives for me to not be a piece of shit? You know what, though? There are a lot of people who are pieces of shit who weren't moved by it.

I mean, there was some there's obviously goodness in you baked in by your parents. As you reference, you got on a bad path. You were behaving badly. It happens to a lot of people, whether it's drugs, crime, women, what have you, who never managed to snap out of it. I think you like to believe as a parent, I know you are one, obviously you pointed that out now, you like to believe that if you sort of put those building blocks in your child, even if he or she falters, they'll find their way back to goodness.

Yeah. So we hope, you know, the prodigal son returns. And there's nothing like grace and there's nothing like redemption. And I thank God that it exists. And I, and I also am so blessed that I have people in my life that have had that grace with me, um, you know, to include my, you know, the military, I, I, that trajectory was an imperfect one. It was not straight. I made plenty of mistakes in the military. And I have had bosses and commanders that gave me grace and were able to help shape and improve. I'm by no means perfect now, but in comparison to what I was 15 years ago, 17 years ago, when I came into special forces, the semblance is so dissimilar.

So is it true that it was on 9-11-2001 that you enlisted? That's when I walked to the recruiter's office. And then on 9-12, I went to the Marines. I went to the Navy. I went to the Army. I went to the Coast Guard trying to find, you know, but at, again, nothing special about me. There were thousands of other people that were in line ahead of me. And all of them, their names were on lists. And they were thousands of people ahead of me in the back. So I was backlogged by thousands of names. So it ended up taking 18 months from 9-11 for me to finally get a contract and figure out what I was going to be doing and where I was going to be going. Okay, so who got you? and what was your first assignment? So the army, um, I wanted to go to special operations. I knew that. So it was going to either be Navy SEALs or Marine recon. And, um, the army at the time had a special program called the 18 x-ray program and this program, and, uh, they still hold it have it today if you know if you're a good person uh so you have a clean criminal record you can pass a drug test you

can pass a pt test so they really um market towards college athletes so if you know you're a collegiate athlete that's really the the pool that they're looking at and if they built this this program around um you, you normally you have to be in the army for six years to be able to go to special forces selection. Selection is this, this in the, in the Navy SEALs, it's buds, it's hell week. Um, for us, it's three weeks of hell where they, they pick, they hand choose who they want to send a training for the year and a half in the Q course. And, um, instead of being in the army for six years to get that experience and then go to selection, this gives you an opportunity as,

you know, a college graduate and a, and an athlete to go directly to selection. And that's the, that's what I got. And was it, was it as challenging fulfilling, as life-changing as you expected it to be? It was absolutely life-changing. I would be dead in prison or from some STD somewhere, had grace and the military not helped me grow up as a human and as a man. So absolutely life-changing. Fulfilling is a weird thing because the pain and this job is not a job that gives you fulfillment. It's a job that you go and do. And if you do it right, no one ever knows about it. And, um, and that's a weird thing to, you know, the motto is the quiet professionals, uh, as, as I'm doing a call with you right now, it's kind of ironic, but, um, we never want people to know what we're doing. Um, and if,

if you do know, that means we either did it wrong or we failed in how we were supposed to do it. And the things that we see, whether it's counter-human trafficking or counter-poaching or counter-cartel or counter-terrorism, and sometimes terrorism has all of those things in it. Those are the things of nightmares. trafficking, maybe you have saved a few girls, but you know that there's tens of thousands that you failed to save. And so there's nothing fulfilling about that. If you've ever worked in drug addiction, you might've saved some people, but then you see how many people you failed to save. And so fulfilling is a hard word to say this. It's the best job in the world. And I love it. I would never do anything else. But it definitely leaves some voids in your in your soul. It's why a lot of people get out of those kinds of lines of work, because they feel like it's

teaspoons in the ocean. And you're you devote your life to it. And while you've helped this person or that person, you don't feel like the overall problem will ever get solved. I mean, I've heard this from some teachers who go into underserved neighborhoods, try to make a difference, you know, in this kid's life or that kid's life, but just realize that the overall system is going to ruin your hard work. And of course, if everybody wound up saying, well, then never mind, it would only get worse. That's why we need guys like you to say, I'm going to keep rowing, which you've done. So now what I read is that you had, and you've mentioned it here, initially you had a couple of stumbles when it came to leadership. And it wasn't like you joined the military. We talked to Jocko Willink, and it was like that guy was born to be a Navy SEAL, to be an officer, to be a commander, a leader. And you, when you got there, maybe it's because

you were still close to a rough time in your life.. It had a couple stumbles from what I read. Like, it wasn't like, yes, you are the leader we need. It took a while to get to that. Yeah. When I think back to what some of the decisions that I made and some of the things that I said and things I did, it's humiliating. And especially because it's my peers. You know, I did them. I did that with other Green Ber. And especially because it's my peers, you know, I did them, I did that with other green berets with other guys on my special forces ODA. And, um, you know, they, they understand the time and the place and the context and that, you know,

I was, I was a child. I had been in the army a year and four months. The first time that I went to combat, um, I literally like went to infantry school to, or to basic training, infantry school, airborne school selection, the Q course, and then to a specialty school, to an ODA, to Iraq. Like that was boom right there. There's 17 months. And it was so painful. Now it is so painful to like, think back to, um, you um you know i threw a hissy fit a hissy fit to my boss john um there was a night that we were going to go out on an operation on a on a half a helicopter

assault force to do a direct action hit against a bomb maker that was part of the zarkawi network and um you know like dream mission you know like these are the things that movies are made out of. And we lose one of our helicopters and we had to change and adjust the load plan. So I being the least experienced, the least senior person, I was the person that was removed from the manifest. And I was furious. I'm like, I'm the fastest. I'm the strongest. You know, like I'm the best shot. Why am I not on here? He's like, Tim tim what you should be doing is you should be preparing the truck you should be making sure that the radios have all the fills that the gun has the right headspace and timing but there's plenty of ammo there's speed balls like all the things that you should be doing um instead you're sitting here like petulant child complaining that you're on this assault force like even more legitimizing you know his wisdom

and not putting me on that helicopter. And, um, but you know, it still hurts the ego. And then he been realizing that he was right. Um, then I had to double down and be even more of a petulant child and just like sit there, like my arms crossed. Uh, and thinking back to that is like, Oh my man, like, can, can I just not go back in time and redo that? The moment that he says, Hey, we lost a helicopter. We're changing the manifest. You're going to be on the quick response force. I'm like, Roger Sergeant, I'm going to go get this truck ready. I'm going to make sure we have plenty of bags, plenty of medical stuff, plenty of ammo resupplies. The guns are going to be good. The Mark 19 is going to be good.

The 50 Cal is going to be good. All the radio is going to be set. That's what you should have done. Like that's what a good person does. But instead, I was still just a selfish prick. And that happened over and over and over again. And I'm sure it still happens. But trying to do better. I don't know. Because the whole part of the point in setting up the prick period is to get to the next period, which looks pretty damn good. And it's a story of redemption, I think, not just as a leader, as a man, as an American. And really, you've devoted your life to service. I mean, from that point forward. And we're going to pick it up there

when we pick back up with Tim Kennedy after this quick break. Stand by. Now that we've gone through the travails of of the past i just want to start with this uh your uniform has five rows of medals on it and awards including the bronze star medal for valor under fire army achievement medal the national defense service medal the global war on terrorism expeditionary medal the arms army service ribbon nato medal um and on it goes so how how did that happen, right? You were U.S. Army Special Forces. You come back. You weren't exactly the strongest link, according to

you. And then you decide that you're going to go back and what? You know, how did you, you went to ranger school? How did you become an army ranger from becoming uh from being special forces man the so in special operations just like i'm doing right now you just never stop training um if you ever set down the sword um it's it gets really hard to pick it back up uh you know when the the spartans knew it best of all once you lay down the shield you can't pick it back up because your body and your mind aren't forged and conditioned in the way to be useful to, to your team. Um, so I actually never set the sword down. Um, even when I was fighting full time, I was within a special operations still as a contractor and, um, in the Texas national guard with a 19th special forces group. And, um, and I just kept, I just kept going. So

I never actually was never, I went to ranger school and this is a very subtle distinction that is significant within special operations, but nobody else cares, but I'll explain it to you because it matters. Um, ranger regiment, which is what I consider in special operations can consider the army rangers. Um, and army army Rangers are part of 75th Ranger regimen. And then if you're not in Ranger regiments, even if you went to Ranger school, so I have a Ranger tab, but I was never in Ranger regiments.

I wouldn't call myself a Ranger. I would call myself a green beret. Um, that went to Ranger school. Ranger school is a great leadership school that everybody should go to. Um, regardless if you're, if you're a cook, you should go to Ranger school cause you'll be a better leader.

If you are a green beret, you should go to Ranger school because it will make you a better leader. So whatever your job is, go to Ranger school. It's the best school for leadership. Um, and then I came back to special forces and stayed a green beret and I've, I've never had a break of service. Um, but the amount of time that I spent in uniform had fluctuated. So when I was fighting full time, when I was fighting for world titles,

I was definitely focused on being a world champion. And then when ISIS started gaining their power, I cared about beating them. So how is it that you go from doing all this stuff, Green Beret, Ranger, Special Forces, so on, deployed to Iraq, deployed to Afghanistan, and maintain a career as an MMA fighter? How is that even possible? And why was it necessary for you psychologically? I think they're very complementary to each other. I think a good soldier is a good fighter, and a good fighter could make a good soldier. And that's what I really tried to translate from one to the other is make sure that I could, my time fighting made me a better

soldier. And my time as a soldier made me a better fighter. If you go to most special operations, they train in combatives or hand to hand often. And there's a lot of really, really good fighters within special operations. There wasn't enough time to be honest, Megan. I fought for the world title twice, which I realized is extraordinary and it's extraordinarily rare to ever even have fought for a world title um and i fought for it twice but i also lost twice so even though i fought and i do think that i was a better fighter and a better athlete um there wasn't enough time for me to really be good enough to do both um and uh you, being ranked in the top 10 in the world for 10 years and fighting for world titles is, is definitely incredible, but it still doesn't, you know, my title doesn't

say world champion. You know, it's like, as you read it, it was a former UFC fighter or MMA fighter. Um, it definitely would have had a ring to it. It had, you said, you know, world champion. So, you know, but, but that's, that's, there wasn't enough time. And no matter how hard I tried there, I can't bend time to, to add enough time in a day. Well, let me ask you somebody who knows absolutely nothing about fighting. I mean, I don't really understand the difference between MMA and UFC. I've got to be honest. Maybe you can tell me. I can't land. we see this video as you're talking about, of you, you know, in the fights. And I

just can't imagine, I realized that picking up a rifle and going into the theater of war is in its, a league of its own, but I can't imagine standing across from somebody in a ring and having to punch my face and punch my body and stand there and punch him back. Like I, I would love to know what that feels like and why one would keep doing it over and over. Uh, I like to fight. Um, has, have you always been that way? Like, were you the kid having fights in the schoolyard? Yeah. Um, Laura LeCarrie, God bless her. I was, um, I was four or five years old. I had a little crush on Laura as I was going to North County Christian School in Atascadero, California. And she got a little bull haircut, like the bangs and it went around. Been there, Laura.

Yeah, poor Laura. But the back was short. And one of the other boys on the playground pointed out that it looked like a boy's haircut and that Laura looked like a boy. So I did what any, any man would do, which is follow him to the top of the play gym, crack him in the mouth and push him off of course. And you know, like chivalry is not dead even in, even in 2021. But yeah, I've just always had that. And, uh, and it has served me well sometimes. and it has been to a detriment other times. I like to tussle. What is the difference between MMA and UFC? Apologies to those for whom this is second nature. That's a great question. It's funny. A lot of people say they train UFC. Let's just say football is a sport and under football, you know,

you have lots of different leagues. You have, um, arena football and you have different teams within football. So MMA is the sport. And then under MMA, you have multiple leagues and multiple styles of fight. Um, and that's, there's ebb and flow where sometimes there's two dozen different organizations and sometimes there's just four or five. Right now, there's fewer than there's ever been. You have a few in Japan, you have a few in South America, and then you have the two big ones in the United States, which are the UFC and Bellator. And those are like the two big organizations and both of the fighters under both of those organizations compete in the sport of MMA. But one fights for Bellator and the other one fights for the UFC.

And what kind of fighting is it? So mixed martial arts, it takes all styles of martial arts. And you go into a ring or a cage and you're just trying to determine who is the best fighter of any style or any art. So whether you do jujitsu or you wrestle or you kickbox or you box or you judo, if you do taekwondo, if you do karate, if you train all of them, that point of mixed martial arts is to determine who is the best fighter regardless of art in the video we see you've got you've got something on your hands i don't know if i would describe it as you know it's certainly not boxing gloves but it's some sort of smaller glove so you is there some protection for the hand and

the knuckle now and the face that is on the receiving end of that um definitely not for the face uh the the point of those gloves and their five ounce MMA gloves is to, um, reduce the number of times that we break our hands and lacerations. So we want the fight to go longer, uh, and to be more exciting. And those, those gloves enable that. So I can still grab and pick somebody up and slam them. I can choke them. I can arm bar them, um, or I can punch them, you know, like, but really now the mixed martial artists, the MMA fighter, he really has to be a master of kind of all different martial arts for him to be at, at a high level. He has to be able to grapple and wrestle. He has to be able to kick box and box.

He has to be able to, you know, do Judica and be able to throw. Um, he has to be able to do all of those things to, to, to be able to survive at a high level. Do you wind up in the hospital after every one of these matches? I only went in, in 17 years as a pro fighter. Um, I think I only went to the hospital twice.

Yeah. That's amazing. How about the other guy uh you know it definitely pays to win i just can't imagine like i did have a couple of small small fights as a child um i had i had some bad people my i did some girl fights yeah um i've talked about them on the podcast once before um there was one with a girl who her name was connie and we wound up rolling around i mean literally at like something out of a john hughes film in my cheerleading outfit and and our our gym teacher miss smith had to break it up she kept growling at me tim um anyway so it's a long story but i i you know this is about as close as i've come uh as i've come to actually throwing a punch and so i just cannot imagine getting into a ring and having somebody try to beat the living daylights out of me and thinking it's fun and doing it over and over. But I haven't had your training.

And when I see that you are you're a third degree black belt in Brazilian jujitsu, black belt in jujitsu, I think back again to Jocko. This is no accident a lot of you guys who are who are seals who are rangers who are green berets and for that matter who are at an mma are into all sorts of deep martial arts and i i wonder if like when you walk around as a man forget being your military role you're just like bring it somebody messaged you at the 7-eleven and you're like this is this is gonna be fun. Well, it definitely gives you humility. The thing that I think, you know, Jocko, myself, the things that we, that we learned the most is losing. When you're in a wrestling room, when you're in a, in a high level jujitsu room, you lose often. And it's something that shapes a soul and it shapes a leader and it shapes a man's mind

because there's only one person to blame for the performance there. I can't look at my teammate and be like, ah, you gave me a bad pass or where was the assist? You know, you can't look at the rep and be like, hey, where was the call? Where's the foul, bro? There's one person that is 100% to blame for your success or your failure. And that's you. Um, and that's a really powerful learning tool that, that most of my colleagues share. And like all of my associates have the same forged mind because we lose and we fail all the time.

And there's one person that's to blame for that. And that's, that's ourselves. Uh, Jocko and I share that same, um, you know, same love of jujitsu and same love for grappling in the same way that we, that we love the selfless leader. And you know, he, he's so wise in the way that he puts that ownership, that onus on the individual, you know, in, um, extreme ownership. That's it. Um, and there's no, there's no other way to describe it except to be on that wrestling mat. And to have to stand up and watch the guy next to you have his hand raised. And there's no one to blame. There's no one else on the mat. There's you and him. And, and he was

better than you and you lost and you have you were to blame for that. So good. I mean, it's I you're talking me into it. It's Can you imagine if I decided to do one of these, but it's it's a life lesson. And it must be driving you nuts, right? When you look around today's modern world, certainly modern America, at everyone trying to shirk responsibility, whatever happens to them, it's somebody else's fault. It's the system. It's America. It's, you know, somebody said something that was triggering. It's like, nothing's your fault. You have some sort of, I don't know, we had a great comedian, Ryan Long, do this whole skit on about this, this therapist who basically was like, this is a comedy skit, but the therapist

is mockingly telling the, the patient how like literally nothing is her fault. Everything is the fault of this patriarchal society and so on. Must drive you nuts. It does drive me nuts, but I operate in a world where I don't see a lot of that. And I think all of those things that we see are magnified by the echo chamber that is social media

and the censorship that happens within it where they're intentionally promoting those examples to get people like me, I should get mad, I should be mad. Like I should be a rate. I should be furious that like this entitled person thinks there's a reason that they want me to see that because they want me to get mad,

but I'm too busy working. I'm too busy trying to find my own inadequacies, my own failures as a leader to try and be a better version of myself to waste my time focusing on the negativity that could exist in there. You know, and we talk about millennials and the Gen Z's and all, and all the the negativity that could exist in there. You know, and we talk about millennials and the Gen Z's and all, and all the inherent problems that go with that generation. And I haven't experienced that.

I have plenty of young soldiers and young green berets that are extraordinary. They're brilliant. They are different. They think different. They need different motivations. They need different purposes. They need different ways to be communicated with, but they're remarkable. And I'm excited for the future. And I know that we are at a turning point. It can go one way or another. But I have confidence in the ability and I have hope in this next generation. Okay. Well, let me ruin that hope because there's a dispatch from my world of media. This is just a random headline today that I saw online. Smith College, you know, it's one of the most that, quote, those with uteruses, end quote, can access the products they need. This is an opinion piece for their newspaper on campus, writing that Smith is, quote, sending

a message to menstruating students about the lack of care for their well-being by not having pads and tampons in the men's rooms. Accuses Smith of, quote, catering to cisgender men, men who are men and don't want a tampon. And on it goes, I'm thinking that this is insensitive. That's my world. Okay, Tim. So not all of us are surrounded by green berets all day. Yeah, it's a tragic world. You know, but I, it's again, this fortunate blessed position that I'm in where I could read that headline and I could spend time thinking about that. Um, but as you know, as I'm sitting in this car, uh, an hour away from here and that's

how long it's going to take me to drive in this training area. Again, there are dozens of amazing selfless self-sacrificing men that are away from their families that are doing everything that they need to be able to preserve and protect human life. And when I was in Afghanistan, I saw the most selfless, remarkable, extraordinary feats of human existence happen. And that was two months ago. So, um, you know, I, I, I almost pity people that are going to be looking for a trash can in a men's bathroom when there's so much opportunity to, to, to make good and to make a difference in this world. And there are legitimately starving people and people without fresh water. And there are people that are being sold into, into slavery, into, into human trafficking. Um, so yeah, I, I, I can't waste time on that because there are so much more important things to do. It's so good. Can I tell

you just, cause I know we mentioned Jocko a few times, he basically said the same thing and he was like, you can't worry about those people, you know, sorry, you got to go on even worrying about them is sort of the low road, you know, to sort of pay attention to them. And you got to sort of play your own game and put all your energy into doing good things. at Smith College, you know, perpetuating truth and keeping the high road as the road of choice, there's value in that. So never to get discouraged about what you do and the impact that you make. Thank you. Thank you for that. I mean, when you were saying that, you know, what you were about to go to an hour away and the guys who you're surrounded by, I was thinking of the woke-ification of the military that seems to be coming for you, right? From on high, not from the guys. But, you know, all the stuff we've seen with General Milley and recommending Kendi be read and some of the recruiting videos where people are talking about their intersectionality and how their moms are lesbians and i was like wait what so i wonder whether you've seen any of that trickle down to you know the real guys and gals in service yet man i i so wish i could take this phone with me and take it with me um do it so So America could see the men and women that are doing this job.

And while you might be reading headlines, again, those exist in a vacuum, right? That's an echo chamber where it's perpetuating and it gains power because there's no competing thought. There's no competing ideas, whether it's Twitter or Parler or Facebook or Instagram or YouTube. They're curating and they're editorializing what people are reading, what people are seeing, and they want people to see that. What they don't want to see is that mom that's away from her kids for months and months and months on end. There's an amazing photo of this young, beautiful, she's stunning,

beautiful Marine in Afghanistan. She's holding an Afghan child. And she was one of the, one of the Marines that died in the bombing at H Kaya in Kabul, Afghanistan. And, um, I wish we could go back and look at this last six months of her life and seeing all the places that she'd been to and all the sacrifices that she'd made and all the courses and online classes that she had to take. And, um, you know, and in her defense, probably even some instances of sexual harassment and some, some instances of, of sexism within the, in a very male driven military and ways that we can improve. And, and so I, at no point, whether it's critical race theory or some woke ism thing that I'm supposed to And, and so I, at no point, whether it's critical race theory or some woke

ism thing that I'm supposed to be reading within the military, I know what's right. And I know what's wrong. And like, I've read Mein Kampf and I've, I've read writings of Mao and I've read every single competing thought and idea. Uh, and I want to understand why they were written and the time, the context of why they were written, but have faith and know that our soldiers are smart enough to know what's right and wrong. And to be able to discern in the context of the purpose of why they're reading this thing and still be able to make the right decision. And I still think that we're trending positive. You know, like I still believe that we're the best fighting force on the planet. We're the most lethal group of men and women on the planet. Like, don't fuck with us.

You know, like you, the Taliban knew it. They're like, do what we're going to do. We're not going to do anything while these people are leaving Afghanistan. Because if we poke the bear too much, that bear has a bite that we can't handle. Yep. Yep. Well, I mean, I know that, and our should know that you you did go back to Afghanistan. You went back and actually engaged in a rescue mission to try to get as many people over 8000 people out, interpreters and others who had helped us where our government had fallen down on the job.

And I wonder, you know, when you were watching that whole thing unfold prior to deciding you were going to go over and do something about it. I mean, that's what a leader does, right? Doesn't just sit back and say, Oh, wow, this is a tragedy. What were you thinking, right? After having served there and watching the interpreters be left behind and watching those guys holding onto the airplane as we took off? What were you thinking? I was thinking, how do I find the phone numbers for my former interpreters to get ahold of them? What were my pulling out old? We have these little green army journals and in them, we write all of our notes. I was going back into my locker and pulling out because I have them dated. So I was going back to 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, you know, the times I was in Afghanistan

to be able to pull back content contacts and be able to figure out what rat lines and smuggling routes I was going to be using, um, figuring out what TTPs, like what, what tactical training points we're going to be implementing, um, getting my sat phone up with minutes, getting my night vision batteries changed, you know, figuring out what is my routes into Afghanistan, what countries can I fly into? So this is back to, could I spend time looking at the failures of others or should I be spending my time recognizing the failures and learning from them, but more importantly, figuring out what I'm going to be doing to make a positive difference. That's what I was doing with my time. And in that moment, was it tearing my heart out watching what was happening?

Absolutely But that didn't deter the focus For what I should have been doing at that time Which was preparing for what I knew was going to be a lot of work Well how do you even begin that? I mean it's like you don't have your own plane Right? You're not

You're not able to command A bunch of Green Berets to go with you and go on a rescue mission. You know, our government was in charge of that. Our State Department was slow rolling the, you know, extraction of a lot of these interpreters, you know, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for questionable reasons. So how do you even go about I get the night vision goggle stuff, but like, how did you go about planning all the logistics around that rescue? This is what we do. One, the word I can't. I don't own an aircraft.

That doesn't mean I can't get one. I may not be in charge of the immigration process, but I can probably figure out a way to circumvent it. Um, you know, like, uh, every, every, every problem has a solution and that solution really just comes down to the ingenuity and, um, sacrifice that somebody is going to be able to make, to make, to, to find that solution. And the people that I was working for really had everything to lose and would sacrifice everything. And thankfully, right? No, every problem's got a solution and I can find it and I can solve it. And here are my goggles and I'm going. The guy we talked about at the top of this interview wasn't really that guy. So what happened to you? um, I lost a lot. I failed a lot. And, um, in, uh, by 2008, I stopped going to funerals at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Cause in 2008, I sat down on, on Memorial day and I was trying to write down the names of my friends that had died in the war thus far. And I couldn't do it.

Um, there were names. I was like, Oh man, who was that two years ago? Who was that in 2006? You know, who was that 18 Bravo cadre that then went back to the team that was one of my instructors and then died his next deployment. What was his name? And it tore my heart out to be able to not remember all of their names. And now 20 years removed from that, there's no possible way I could remember all their names. But it's a different kind of loss. And we're talking about the wrestling room and grappling and how that forges you because you learn

how to place all responsibility and blame on yourself. Well, this is magnified to a magnitude of tenfold. We're talking about human life. In Afghanistan, while we're sitting there, one of my friends, my colleagues that I was working for, Kevin, he lost almost 40 pounds in 10 days. And he was instrumental. He was crucial in saving over 10,000 lives by himself. He was one of the very few people by himself. He was so instrumental and crucial that 10,000 people probably would have died had he not been there.

And he would have, just to dumb it down, a decision. Should I sit down and eat this MRE? Or should I go do a reconnaissance of another potential rat line to smuggle some more people past the Taliban tonight? Black and white. I can do one or the other. One of them has a huge gain, net gain. And another one maybe gives me a momentary bit of satisfaction, but could have eternal consequences in the lives of countless. And time and time again, he just chose to do this self-sacrificing thing and continue to work. Wow. Let's pause there, squeeze in a quick commercial break and come back with more with the incredible Tim Kennedy. Wow. I want to remind our audience that you can find this show, you're listening to it now,

on SiriusXM Triumph channel, if you're listening live. Channel 111, every weekday, noon east. But you can also watch the full show and clips when you subscribe to my YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. Or you can listen to it as an audio podcast. So if you miss it or you want to go back and share it with somebody, just go ahead and subscribe and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And there, by the way, you'll find our full archives

with more than 190 shows, including Jocko Willink, which was a great one. Love interviewing these military guys. So many lessons for all of us. Isn't Tim incredible? And my favorite I've done since we launched the show is Rob O'Neill on Memorial Day. That was just incredible. Incredible. I just saw him in the airport. It was great. You know, we saw each other just over the top of the mask because, you know, of course, we're all masked in the airport now. And what a nice moment. He was there with his wife. We all had a big hug. I hadn't seen him in person since I'd done the interview or even when doing the interview. It's all via Zoom. Anyway, stick with us. Much more with Tim in one second.

More with Tim Kennedy in just one second. But first, we want to bring you a feature here on the Megyn Kelly show that we actually haven't done since starting on Sirius XM last month. And it is called Sound Up. It's where we highlight some sound or now with YouTube, some video that we feel you need to hear or see. We have talked a lot recently about the parents who were targeted by the National School Boards Association as potential domestic terrorists that needed to be tracked using the Patriot Act. We also know this letter was coordinated beforehand with the Biden White House. And ultimately, the DOJ and the FBI said, Yeah, we're on board. Let's get the parents. And they have not yet stood down. So that remains active. And that's actually the most problematic part.

Thankfully, the letter itself, however, was retracted after a lot of blowback. And the school boards association has been embarrassed. But if you watch the media recently, you'd find a lot of support for that domestic terrorist designation for which the school board is now so sorry. Grabian, which does great work, put together a supercut. Watch and listen. Violent looking, angry, spewing parents outside of these schools. These actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism. This becomes a security crisis in a sense for the nation.

It is dangerous to our children when the parents themselves are the school bullies. I think one of the worst things is the actions at the board meetings, you know, the calling of names, you know, tyrant, Marxist, communist. We've never seen anything like we're seeing at these school boards now. What on earth has happened in this country? There's always the possibility that people will face criminal prosecution for this kind of conduct. What does it mean that something that is generally boring and neutral, like a school board meeting, has become a locus for violence? You look at the rage, the anger, you think, what is this doing to the children in those homes and

their mental health? Oh, my God. You look at. What you look at the rage and the anger. Yeah. You mean from parents like Scott Smith, whose daughter was raped? Yeah, he was rageful. He was a lot more controlled than I would have been. I can guarantee you that. And 99% of parents, the guy who showed up at that Loudoun County school board meeting and was mocked roundly by journalists like that for for getting upset when somebody called his rape victim daughter a bitch, or actually she questioned the story and he called her a bitch. And that's how he wound up ultimately in handcuffs. Now we know that guy was a grieving dad worried about his daughter. And by the way, just this week, a judge found the 14 year old who committed that sexual assault

guilty before he was passed on to another school where he where he then allegedly raped another girl. Yeah. So parents are angry. It doesn't make them terrorists. And I'm really glad that that letter has been withdrawn, but it hasn't been withdrawn by the FBI or the DOJ. They stand by their threat that any parents committing, quote, violence are going to get it. Well, guess what? Not a single incident of violence was outlined in the letter that got them involved in the first place. So what are they talking about? And how do they even have jurisdiction? We're going to get into all of this tomorrow when our guest Michael Knowles, who's amazing. If you listen to him at The Daily Wire, you love him as much as I do, will be here. And that is the latest edition of Sound Up.

We'll be right back with Tim Kennedy on what's happening in Afghanistan and statements by General Milley today about China. So, Tim, how many people were you able to help get out of Afghanistan? And a thousand. Wow. Wow. And to those at home worried about where they vetted, do we need to worry about those folks, you know, not all being the good guys, uh, you know, we hope they are. What say you? Yeah. Um, yeah. So the, our vetting process was, I mean, the complexity of it was almost as complex as a cipher. So not only did you have to have all levels of Department of State approval through the different visa processes, they had SIV processes,

green cards, dual citizenships, every way that you could possibly go through. But additionally, we also had this internal vetting process. I'm not going to get into the trade craft of it, but you specifically had to have somebody vouch for you and have supporting documents that would then collaborate that. And then there was about this three or four step process to be able to ensure that the person that we finally met up with to bring them on base, to bring, put them on an airplane and then fly them to a place. And that place that we flew them to is a holding pattern that we still have control, uh, of them while they're there and we continue to vet them. Um, so yeah, these are extraordinary people that

sacrificed more than you can possibly. They walked to the airport and fought like layer after layer, checkpoint after checkpoint. And the Taliban with nothing but a single bag, usually of a little bit of money and a little bit of food and water. They left everything behind. The news today, which really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, given the admissions by people like General Milley and our Secretary of Defense, Austin, is from the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. And this assessment is as follows, quote, quote, the current intelligence assessment is that ISIS-K could develop the capacity to plan and carry out global attacks from Afghanistan within six to six to twelve months six to twelve that's as that's the lowest i've seen it uh millie said 12 to 18 i think uh they say they it goes on the al-qaeda branch there uh could have the same capability within one to two years u.s forces need to build out more capability so we're not just relying on facilities we have in the Arabian Gulf.

Call says the closest major U.S. facilities in Qatar and Bahrain are more than 1,500 flight miles away. And we have not secured firm basing agreements with any of Afghanistan's direct neighbors. So we're out. We got out precipitously. We don't have the capability to access as quickly or as well as we'd like. And ISIS-K within six months now could be planning and carrying out attacks on the homeland, which was kind of one of the main reasons to be fighting in Afghanistan

the past 20 years to begin with. Your thoughts on that warning? First is a vernacular clarification. The ISIS-K is, was, are the Taliban. They want to differentiate between the two. The Taliban wants everyone to recognize ISIS-K as a separate organization so that they can have the convenience of playing the blame game where it's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, that wasn't us. We didn't blow up the Abbey gate. That was ISIS-K. When you look at the founding members and the current members of ISIS-K and you're like, wait a second, I know those faces.

Those are all Taliban guys. So it's one of the same, you know, it's a, it walks like a duck. It talks like a duck. It's, it's a freaking duck. And terrorist organizations, whether it be the Taliban, Al Qaeda, or ISIS-K, they're, they're still the exact same people with the same motivations, um, and the same goals, which is the fall of the United States and its allies. Um, so we can say ISIS-K, Taliban, and Al Qaeda, um, cause they're, they all have the same goal and the same purpose. Um, not surprising. And, uh, and I think that estimate is, is very generous in, um, so we know that they have the intent. They've had the intent always nothing's ever changed. And one of the great things about the war on terror and about us being in Afghanistan is we kept them at bay.

We kept them on their heels fighting us in Afghanistan. Well, well um and for 20 years they unsuccessfully ever were able to lob an attack against us uh well now we have to make sure that that remains the same uh and how we're going to do it while we're not in afghanistan that's yet to be determined but we cannot give them the opportunity to to aid and assist terrorist elements and groups that want to see our destruction. It's happening. The same organization we were told, you know, we were supposed to be trusting their word and we're going to deal with them diplomatically. The news broke this week that they had reportedly beheaded a young girl on the volleyball team over there and that they posted the pictures online. This is not an organization with which we can deal diplomatically or in whose word we can trust, or really that we should be. I just like all the

messaging about them got changed as if they were some sort of, you know, international diplomat that we could do business with at an arm's length basis. And every day you get another horrific report out of Afghanistan about what they're doing. Yeah, thousands. You said a girl was beheaded. It's thousands, thousands of girls have been beheaded by the Taliban since the fall of Afghanistan.

And honestly, beheading would be the best thing that could happen to these dissidents as they would be called by the Taliban. The Taliban, the thugs, the murderers. You're saying since we pulled out, thousands of girls have been beheaded by the Taliban? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. What? What do you mean? I mean, honestly, I'm just genuinely curious where you're getting that information, because I realize not everything makes the newspaper, but I haven't seen that. Yeah. So what we have, so I'm on the board of Save Our Allies, which is the organization that I worked for

as a volunteer during the Afghan evacuation. And we, you know, we have a few goals. One is to make sure the people that we brought out of Afghanistan are settled humanely in an indignified way, their new permanent home. But we still have ongoing operations throughout the region trying to help American citizens and people that have the appropriate government clearance to be extracted out of Afghanistan. And so what we have is daily situational reports, sit reps on what is happening there. And, and I mean, low number. You're acting surprised. We're talking dozens a day. They're going door to door trying to find information about people that worked for the American government. And if they find them, or if you find that you have, we want printed copies of the SIV process that you're going through. We want physical proof of what you did for the American government for us to be able to get you out. Well, guess what? So is the Taliban. They're

looking for that exact same stuff. We're trying to find it so we can vet it and we can bring you out and find you a dignified home and get you out safely and save you from the Taliban because you did such great service for our country. The Taliban wants it so they can have an excuse to stone you to death or burn you alive or to rape you in front of your family and then kill your family. We're talking about the Taliban here. I 100% agree with you. I don't know how the language about who and what they are changed overnight. They have not changed. They are still the same brutal thugs that they have always been and always will be. So we can't call them anything else but what they are, which is terrorists. Are you limited now? I'm curious on what you can say since you're going to be, you know, since you're called back up and you're now going on this new training, like, are you in the same position that, you know, like Lieutenant Colonel Scheller's in, where you're not allowed to be too critical of the higher ups? There's a code of conduct within the military that I'm a hundred percent going

to abide by. And I don't even see, um, you know, for, for Schiller is, is what he said from the position that he, he was in powerful and compelling. Absolutely. Um, could he potentially done more good and to have he stayed in the position and tried to make differences within the rules that exist within military code of conduct. Yeah, I mean, we like I don't have the Constitution, which I so wholeheartedly believe in, I fight for and I believe for every single one of our beautiful amendments. Soldiers aren't afforded the same freedom, especially around the First Amendment. So we have to be very deliberate and careful in what we say. I know it's upsetting because, well, I mean, everybody has a role to play. But I would say that listening to him call out the military brass on how poorly the whole thing was handled was cathartic. I mean, it was sort of cathartic for I'm sure a lot of guys in service and those of us not just to hear somebody who actually has to, you know, who's responsible for helping these folks who's actually been in the theater say, this is so effed up. Like, I, I don't, I know he's, he's gone down now and he's facing six, six counts. I think their

misdemeanor counts and is going to be court-martialed, but man, um, let's hope that there are a lot of other quiet, uh, Lieutenant Colonel Scheller's inside trying to make differences. And maybe he just had a role to play. He had to be the one. Let me ask you about China, because General Milley, who we've talked about a couple times today, made some news today on China. And I this is something I've been talking about in this show. They they've been busy. China's been really busy. And today the news came out that they carried out their first successful test of an underwater explosive that could destroy U.S. ports after launching a satellite crushing weapon. And then the news of the hypersonic missile that they tested, I think, a week or 10 days ago, just to get the listeners up to speed in case you weren't when it came out that they had tested this hypersonic missile, which is not a good thing. This could lead to the deaths of millions of Americans if we ever get into a real conflict with China. We do not want our adversaries having this weapon. And according to the reports, our intel officials were surprised they do. This is what the White House said. This is what Jen Psaki said, as though it's like a game of, you know, dodgeball. And like the more people in the arena, the better. It's gonna be fun to have new competitors. Listen to Jen Psaki.

And then can you comment on reports that China tested a nuclear capable hypersonic missile over the summer to the surprise of US officials? And we have been consistent in our approach with China. We welcome stiff competition, but do we not?

We don't. Do not want that competition to veer into conflict. Welcome stiff competition. I'm sorry, Tim. Sometimes it's too stupid not to replay over. No, no, we do not, Jen. No.

Yeah, go ahead. No, I don't want competition. I never want to be in a fair gunfight. I never want to be in a fair war. You know, my ideal taking down of a terrorist is there's 25 of us sneaking into his home while he is asleep in his bed. I like those odds. Those are odds of me winning. I know that sounds brutal, but that's the fight I want to be in is a fight I know I can win. And we have been at war with China for a

while. There's lots of different ways to wage war in the military. We use dime, D-I-M-E, diplomatic information, military and economic. And while we have not been overtly militarily in conflict with China, we absolutely diplomatic information and economically have been at war with them. And they have probably been getting the better of us in some of those regards. Well, this is what General Milley comes out today and actually speaks some sense. He sort of lifted up the dress, forgive me, and said as follows. Listen. What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system. And it is very concerning.

I think I saw in some of the newspapers they used the term Sputnik moment. I don't know if it's quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it's very close to that. So it's a very significant technological event that occurred or test that occurred by the Chinese. And it has all of our attention. Yeah, that's, we're getting closer now. Very concerning. Somebody made a phone call, I guess. Yeah. You know, through this process, specifically around Afghanistan, the Department of Defense, specifically the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to include General Milley, they have been very helpful in helping us, should it fall on the hands of nonprofits and non-governmental

organizations to do the extraction of people out of Afghanistan. That's not for me to say, but we have been doing it. And there's no way that we could do it without the aid and the assist of the Department of State or the Department of Defense. So General Milley specifically has been very helpful to us at Save Our Allies. When it comes to China, he has been in this for a long time. You're not the joint chief of staff without having tenure and experience underneath your belt. And if you look at my pitiful awards that I have received compared to his and what he has done, where he's been, he's also an understated man. So when he says, yes,

we've taken notice, you can magnify that like a whole bunch of times. And that means that, uh, um, I don't even want to even have conjecture about what it means, but, uh, like, I don't want to be on the receiving end of him taking notice of something negatively on that plan. But in terms we can all understand, Well, he should call his friend, his Chinese counterpart and say, hey, remember the last conversation we had? I got to pick that up and find out whether now you are getting ready to attack us with your hypersonic weapon. Yeah, I don't know. I don't like it either. But it's it's at least truthful now. Now we're getting to dealing with the actual threat.

So let me ask you about this. You mentioned it before. You've got a school now, and it's in Texas, I understand. Yes, ma'am. Okay, because I know that you mentor young people, but this has turned into an actual school where I heard you describe it as you teach math and reading and sort of the three R's, but you also teach character, and you give people a chance to run around and like kids to be kids. Tell me about it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I don't think it's a secret if you have picked up a paper or watched your program or any other programs that, that schools have been struggling. I think they've been failing our, this next generation and, um, in, in the curriculum and, uh, the way that they communicate

and the way that they try to educate. And so seeing that I knew I had to find a solution. Um, I, I believe that this next generation, that they are brilliant and they're capable of, of overcoming all of the adversity that's, that's on the horizon. And we have a lot. So what should you do as a problem solver and as an entrepreneur and somebody that's successful in the realms that I'm successful? It's like, I'm going to start my own school. One, I'm not going to send my own children to a school that I cannot have an effect on the curriculum. And it's so asinine listening to these school boards and these principals saying parents don't have a say. The parents are the only ones that have a say. The parents are the ones that are paying the bill

for the children to go to school. That's called taxes. And the parents living in those districts are the ones whose children are going to said schools. So the parents are the only ones that the educators should be listening to because they're the only voices that matter. The only more important voice

is the voice of the child itself. So our school, Apogee, I have an online program for young men called Apogee Strong. And I have an in-person school for everyone, for young women and for young men. And it's called Apogee Cedar Park. And Apogee Cedar Park, it takes the agenda out of education that should never have been there in the first place. And you learn the basic principles of all things that a young mind needs to know to be able to be successful. And then the element that has been omitted of leadership on the shoulders, the capable shoulders of these young heroes in our studios. And it's all student driven. So the students have a guide. The students we call heroes. And we don't have teachers.

We have guides. and responsibility to be able to have the individual responsibility to do their work and to know what they need to be doing next for preparing for the next test or the next grade. The guide is there to provide that information, whether it's verb conjugation, if they're in Spanish immersion, or giving them the new formula in geometry or algebra or calculus, providing them with the tools to be able to be successful. But ultimately, it's on the heroes to ensure success. Back to the wrestling room. It's on you.

It's on you to be able to figure out how to succeed. And that's what we're doing at Apogee. How do you... I love it. I love all of it. How do you expect to deal with... How are those kids going to deal with the kids who are going to schools like the ones I pulled my children from that were teaching that everything through an identity politics lens? You know, that it's all your whole life.

It's predetermined based on whether you're a man, whether you're a woman, whether you're black, white, Asian, whatever, you know, all that. Because I've protected my own kids by moving them to a sane school, at least when it comes to this stuff. Um, but I do worry that they're going to go out into that world and they're going to be dealing with a lot of kids, millions of them who were subjected for many, many years to very different messaging. Yeah. But I mean, your, your, your children know this, right? Like they know what's happening to the, to those, to those poor children. And more importantly, they have grace.

They have wisdom. And wisdom, having knowledge is important, but having wisdom is priceless. Being able to learn, to be able to know something is different than to learn something, to be able to do something. And we learn to be, and we learn to do. And I care less about learning to know. I want somebody to be able to do something. And I want to be able to have somebody that wants to be, and we learn to do, and I care less about learning to know. I want somebody to be able to

do something. And I want to be able to, to have somebody that wants to be something. And that's, that's what Apogee is learn to be and, and, and really learn to be able to do. And, and anyone from Apogee is going to be able to, to deal or work with, to be able to collaborate with. Like, that's one of the greatest things about putting the ownership back on the individual hero is because they have to problem solve, right? So if we introduce, and they're going to be new students because the list is seemingly endless of people trying to transfer their heroes,

their children to our school. And we're welcoming everybody. Like you come and we want you to see, I mean, it's almost my job to discourage you to come here because like we just want the perfect fit. But if we take any one of these families and we bring one of those heroes into that studio, everyone else in that studio still has to work with this new person. And it's not that they're a problem, but they still have to find the solution to be able to be successful and be able to be proficient and efficient. And, uh, and so I welcome all

different viewpoints. I welcome all different challenges and we welcome. And, uh, and so I welcome all different viewpoints. I welcome all different challenges and we welcome every single, uh, idea. We we're facing this unprecedented time where these ideas exist in a vacuum, you know, where, where, where Instagram or Twitter or YouTube, you can, you can like words that we can't even say on here, because if we say them, they'll be censored. And this, you know, this podcast or this article or this, um, this streaming would be removed, um, or it'd be very difficult to find. And we're aware of that. So what happens is it creates a vacuum and in this editorialized in this curated thing, only ideas that are approved can exist. Well, no good idea could exist in a vacuum like that because the moment a good idea faces one of these protected ideas, that protected idea seems idiotic.

And that's what we want. We want to bring every different conflicting idea, conflated idea, protected idea, ideas that have only existed in vacuums. Just like the scientific method, we want every single challenge to be presented against our argument. This is my thesis. You bring me every single way that you think you can prove this thesis wrong, because that just more solidifies the argument that I have that this is the best solution. Bring it all. And that's what happens with great ideas.

And censorship will only last so long. And we see this time and time again in history where you can editorialize, you can curate, and you can censor. But eventually good ideas and truth will win out. And so at Apogee, bring them. I will welcome every single person, whether it's critical race theory, whether it's like gender politics, identity politics. I don't care. Bring it because rational, logical thought always wins. You should have your students do a sabbatical.

You want your sabbatical in the New York City private schools. You think you've done combat. We'll talk after. All right, we stand by Tim because there's much more to go over. So Tim, you mentioned a few times you got six or seven businesses. You're a CEO multiple times over. And I saw you tweeting about suffering firsthand some of these supply chain issues. How is that affecting you? Oh my gosh. So I mean, I have probably four or five products that we're bringing to market or had brought to market. And these were resupplies of those products that, you know, soft goods, textiles, and factories being closed down by COVID or in delivery, they're stuck on a boat or even paper processes where we're just trying to get approval from a port to be able

to drop them off. And now we're in the end of October and I'm looking at Christmas being like, is this stuff going to get here? So I mean, I have low confidence that the inventories that we were counting on being able to sell over Christmas, we're even going to have in stock. I saw some expert on I think it was a it was either CBS or ABC News report saying if it's not off the ship by mid September, it's not going to be in the stores by December by Christmas. And so there's no way of knowing what goods you're waiting for and whether they're off the ship. But I mean, we've been hearing it left and right from from a lot of business owners and others saying you know a inflation is hurting me and b i can't get the goods i need because

they're stuck on these ships and supply chain and the truckers and so on and more and more we're hearing messaging in places like the washington post and and really frankly predominantly from the left of suck it up don't be be a whiner. Um, you know, we live too high anyway. So like lower your standards of living and just deal. I'm like, well, I don't think it's all billionaires who are waiting for the goods on the ships. No. Um, like when you say I'm a small business owner, uh, I'm talking like really, really small, but America is made up of small business owners. The American idea is aligned with entrepreneurship.

At our school, at Apogee, it is very entrepreneurial focused because the success of an entrepreneur is really exclusively on the entrepreneur's shoulders. But one of the biggest battles that they have to fight is government regulation, taxes, inflation. I have to plan in my expense report for a given product, like how much do I have to pay the government for my port docking fee? How much do I have to pay for the tax and transportation in the gas tax in the movement of it, which the vendor is going to pass on to me in the inflation specifically of the goods, all of like price for gas has gone up every single day for the past month and a half or something the same. And, uh, and that then goes on to the business owner. And then I have to pass that cost onto the customer. And so ultimately

the price of all goods, if they haven't been raised yet, they're going to be raised. And that's inflation. Like the dollar is losing value while the expense and cost of things are increasing. And I don't know why this is not what everyone is talking about, because when you're sitting there, like having seen bread lines that go for miles, you don't want that. This is the last thing that you want. And we want entrepreneurs and we want businesses to be successful because that creates a consistent market. The consistent market, especially as we're moving into the holiday seasons, is so direly needed. No, it's crazy.

So there's too much money pumping in the system right now. So the prices of things are going up because the supply is not there. And what's the solution? They're going to pump a bunch more money into the system. They've got the one point,

whatever trillion dollar infrastructure plan. And now they've lowered the other social spending plan down to about two trillion. But either way, you're talking over three trillion more dollars

that they're going to pump into the system, depending on what Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema do. I heard an interesting discussion the other day about whether the latter gets scrapped if Terry McAuliffe loses his Virginia gubernatorial bid, whether there'll be a lesson to these Democrats about overreach and kicking parents out of the school board meetings and, you know, crazy COVID mandates and whether they just better slow their role. Otherwise, more Democrats who are really well positioned, like Terry McAuliffe was, he was winning this race by something like seven points not too long ago, and now is within one point, according to the average of polls, whether they'll

take that as a message that they maybe they shouldn't be pumping three plus trillion dollars more into the economy and should get a tiny bit more moderate in their policymaking. Yeah, I mean, obviously, as this is not from an objective perspective, I have a interest in the environment for a business to be more conducive to success. But the overreach, I've never experienced anything like this on the business side. It is so untenable to fight the regulation and the taxes and the inflation. It makes it so difficult for me being able to provide services, me being able to provide products. How difficult it is right now to be able to give or sell something to Americans. This is so frightening.

And by the way, as they get ready to, you know, pass these plans, they say it's free, it's free. Don't worry. Of course, I do worry that it's not free. My kids are going to wind up paying for it. And so are yours. But that's a lie. It's not free. It's not paid for. There's no fun. And there's not enough billionaires in the world to cover all of these these wish lists that the Biden administration is pushing. So that's a lie. And that's that takes me to my next topic, which is the big lie that you have been investigating. Because in addition to all these other fun things that you've been doing and challenging things you've been doing, you hosted a TV show that looked into what you believe is the lie about how Adolf Hitler may not have killed himself in that bunker. So what was the show and why do you believe he did not kill himself in a bunker and may have gone down to South America? Yeah. So the show was called

Hunting Hitler on the History Channel. And the show was investigating. We knew for a fact that the Nazis had set up rat lines to be able to smuggle high ranking Nazi officials out of Germany had the Third Reich not been successful. And what we didn't know was if or to what level these rat lines were used. They smuggled people in the Middle East. They smuggled people into North Africa. They smuggled people into Northern Europe. They smuggled people into South America. The second largest concentration of Nazis outside of Germany in 1944 was in Argentina. And we know for a fact countless Germans

escaped Nuremberg and went to Germany. I found evidence of some of them. Doctor of Death I mean, this guy. Wait, and went where? And went to Argentina? Yeah. Mengele.

He was the one that was injecting blue ink into eyes of, of Jewish kids to see if he could turn their eyes blue, doing experiments on twins to see if one twin would like this, the stuff that all horror movies are made of were, were made after Joseph Mengele. Well, Mengele was an advisor to the president of Argentina.

And then he went on to start a family in Uruguay. He died of old age in Brazil. He had a place in Chile. He was the medical consultant to a place called Villa Bavaria in southern Chile. And he was just one of many, many, many, many Nazis that escaped. Wait, can I just ask you, and I paused you there, let me pause you and ask you, why Argentina? Was there already a big German population prior to that being chosen as a as a location for ex-nazis yeah so in the 1800s there was a huge german and italian immigration into germany or from germany into argentina and then you know as somebody that travels a lot when somebody is away from home like if you're a German and you are now living in Argentina, this is your second generation Argentinian, but you're still German in ethnicity. You still speak German at home. You still go to a German school. You're maybe even arguably more German than your

German counterparts in Germany. And so by the time we get to the 1930s and the late 1930s, post-World War I, when you see Hitler on the rise and you see fascism really take hold internationally, you have this huge population of Germans in Argentina that they too are swept away with the emotional significance of the times and the events post-World War I. And like all things, you have to put things in the context of history. And you look at what was happening historically in the 1920s and 1930s in and around Germany, you can almost sympathize with needing something more and needing something significant. And then this very charismatic leader, who then we find out to be an absolute psychopathic, murdering, genocidal demon, that is Adolf Hitler and fascism in general. But the Argentinians, the largest card-carrying Nazi party outside of Germany was in Buenos Aires, Argentina. And the largest rally ever outside of Berlin was in Buenos Aires, Argentina. And the largest rally ever outside of Berlin was in Buenos Aires, Argentina. So huge German and Nazi heritage in Argentina.

And one of the many reasons why it was so sought after and such a successful rat line for Nazis out of Germany into Argentina was because there were so many- Are you saying route line successful rat line for nazis out of germany into argentina are you saying there were so many route route line or rat line because either one might be appropriate rats yeah both of them apply okay okay rat line is all right so now we've established argentina as a possible um outpost for people fleeing for nazis fleeing uh the allied forces when the war was ending coming to an end so So why? I mean, what? Like everybody, every man I know is fascinated by World War Two, fascinated women,

too. But I really think it's one of those things. It's like, I think my husband's one of them. So why? Why do you believe? Because I feel like if Hitler really didn't kill himself in that bunker and wound up in Argentina, we'd know that, right? Like, why? Why do you think you've stumbled upon that information? Like, what is it that convinced you? I mean, how do we know that? Everybody's investigated it. Yeah. And we were we were taking Nazis and putting them into our space program. We had Martin Borman and Joseph Mengele and Adolf Eichmann, number two, three, four, that escaped out of Germany successfully and escaped the Nuremberg trials and died of old age in South America.

So if, I mean, just think about this for a second. If our leader currently, and the fall of the United States is happening and the vice president and the joint chiefs of staff and Jen, I don't even know how her last name is. Saki? Yeah. If all of them are able to successfully

be extracted out of Germany and then make it through a rat line to a foreign country, why wouldn't the president? Hmm. That's what we know happened. Were there sightings of Hitler? What's your evidence that they got him out of there? those smuggling lines for the highest ranking Nazis, no doubt. What I was looking for was a smoking gun. I was looking for the body. Yes, we had eyewitness accounts of Adolf Hitler.

And we found German U-boats off the coast of Argentina. We found German U-boats off the coast of Norway that had been smuggling people out of Europe. So no doubt, thousands of Nazis escaped from the war and died of old age in South America, North Africa, and North Europe, Northern Europe. The question of, did Adolf Hitler, it was very difficult to prove that the portions of the body that was recovered out of the bunker in Berlin

was in fact Adolf Hitler. And genetic testing that had been done has been completely inconclusive. So what we wanted was we wanted to be able to prove for sure, is this body or the remnants of this body that was burnt, that was said to us to be Adolf Hitler, but nobody ever saw him die or saw the dead body of Adolf Hitler. Is that him? Or is this body of this person that we found in South America, is this Adolf Hitler? And those were the only two ways that I could, I think, conclusively say

what happened. And without that smoking gun, I'm not going to say one way or another. What I can say is they absolutely had planned on getting Adolf Hitler out and the methods that they planned, they proved to be successful. And they did it with very, very high ranking Nazis all towards the end of the war. Those sneaky little fascists. Is it true that nobody actually was an eyewitness identifier of Adolf Hitler's body. I mean, how did we know that it was Hitler in the first instance? Wasn't there? I I've never actually looked that closely into it. I just assumed that there were some GIs there who were like, holy shit, it's Hitler. No. So what, what we had was a burn pit and in that burn pit was a body and that body was said

to be Hitler. And there were a few people that were in the bunker that said that Hitler had gone into his room and had committed suicide. We couldn't corroborate that testimony with anyone else. Like as like, if you were an investigator and this was going to be presented in trial at no point, would you be like, Oh yeah, this makes sense. A jury of the peers would be like, there's not a single person. A jury of the peers would be like, there's not a single person in this room that agrees what happened. And what we have is a burnt skull from 1945 that we're saying is Adolf Hitler. I mean, that's the extent of the evidence that we have, which the Russians took and took with them back to Russia. So we haven't been able to prove that. That's crazy. Again, there's your thumbs down. Yet another verdict on the spin we've been getting.

Well, it's fascinating. So is the series over? Did it end with like a, we think that we've been lied to? And by the way, will there be a part two on Jeffrey Epstein? It seems like we have a reoccurring Jeffrey Epstein all the time. Man, how effectively people are suicided. So we did a few seasons of Hunting Hitler. And we had another season that was investigated and researched.

And the findings were so alarming that History Channel ultimately was like, we can't go forward with this. What? What were the findings? Yeah. I mean, it had implications to current terrorist organizations being funded and protected by Nazis post-World War II. Like the Mujahideen. If you look at the Mujahideen and their founding, what we know to be ISIS and Al Qaeda and Taliban. Um, when you look at their founding members, you're like, man, that's a lot of brown guys from the middle East. And who are those random tall white guys with blonde hair and blue eyes in 1946? Um, and like you question, well, what did the Mahideen and nazis have in common ah the death

of the jews curious the only thing that they have in common and like really the cornerstone to why they're on doing what they do and believe what they believe um so of course if i were the mujahideen i would go and try and find nazis to help me kill more jews well, I will, I'll give you this. If you're a Nazi who escapes Germany around the World War II ending, you're probably not done killing. I mean, I just don't think that's, you know, that's not, it's in your nature to remain evil. I know a lot of people went along, and there's all sorts of reasons why, you know, they say sort of the followers who are actual German citizens who maybe didn't understand the full extent, but the people at the top were truly evil and probably didn't check their evilness upon moving outside of Germany. It's fascinating.

Listen, Tim, I'm so happy to get to meet you and get to know you. And I really hope whatever you're doing now and whatever follows keeps you relatively safe. I don't think you want to be perfectly safe based on your life choices. But I, for one, am very glad you're out there doing what you're doing and imparting those lessons to a whole new generation of kids. I really appreciate your time. Keep doing what you're doing. Thank you. All the best. Wow. So would love for you to join us tomorrow, by the way, because we're going to have Michael Knowles back. Do you know him? He's amazing. He's so brilliant. He's a whippersnapper from the Daily Wire. Well worth your time. And John Cass is back with us, too.

We're talking Chicago, what's happening there with the mayor versus the police. Go to YouTube, youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. Subscribe to the show and then download as a podcast label later on Apple, Pandora, etc. See that. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.