The Megyn Kelly Show - Zuby on COVID Doom Addiction, the Harms of Closing Schools, and How to Fight Back | Ep. 233

Episode Date: January 4, 2022

Megyn Kelly is joined by Zuby, author, rapper, and host of "Real Talk with Zuby," to talk about the harms for kids of closing schools again over COVID, doom addiction, vaccine mandates, politicians drunk on power in 2022, trans athletes and the cultural push away from reality, the virtue of courage vs. embracing fear as a virtue, COVID exhaustion, how to fight back, the media obsession with January 6 as the anniversary approaches, tech censorship and the principle of free speech, a connection to the latest Denver mass shooter, the latest college campus craziness at Arizona State University, the new "brainwashing" on college campuses, Patton Oswalt apologizing for his Dave Chappelle friendship 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. We have a lot to talk about today. There's the massive number of schools being moved to virtual learning despite all we now know from nearly two years of this pandemic about how safe schools are for children and how damaging it is to them not to be in them. There are new pushes for vaccine mandates, too. Oh, my God. It's stupid, right? It's just so stupid. How many times are you going to go through this? You know, the push for vaccine mandates should be easing up right now. You get the vaccine, you can still get COVID, especially with Omicron. What are we doing? And there's a whole mix of cultural stories to get to as well. I'm excited for today's guest.

We have author, host and rapper Zuby. His life story is fascinating. He has developed an enormous, enormous following. He initially made waves on Twitter back in 2019 when he broke the UK women's deadlift record. That's right, the women's deadlift record. There's a story behind that, and we'll get to that as well as all the news. Zuby, thank you so much for being here. Hey, Megan. Good to see you. It's great to have you. All right. So let's start with the COVID madness because now we're seeing, I mean, there was a great piece, I have to say, in the New York Times today by David Leonhard, who was on the show not long ago talking about the serious cost to children in not having school because of the pandemic and these ongoing delays and remote learning, which we know doesn't work.

And we just keep doing it. We just keep doing it. It's happening all over the country right now, from Newark to Philly, parts of New York, and so on. And some of these parents are saying, should be longer. Should be longer. My child shouldn't have to be there. There are risks. And those are the ones who are bringing everyone else down. Your thoughts on it? Yeah, I think it's crazy. And I've thought it was crazy from the very beginning of this. One of the things that we found out very early on during the pandemic situation, and this is a huge blessing, this is a massive silver lining. And that is that this particular virus is very, very, very mild for children. That's not the case with all viruses. That's not the case with all diseases,

but with COVID-19 in particular, kids breeze through this very easily. I'm not actually aware of a single healthy child anywhere in the world who has died over the past two years of this particular disease. That's not to say it doesn't exist, but it is certainly extraordinarily rare. Hospitalizations are rare. Any type of severe sickness, so on, et cetera, in that age demographic is extremely rare. So all of these measures that have been applied to children for this duration of the past two years have been absolutely crazy. They've been so detrimental to young people and to kids. The amount of harm that's come to them from this all socially, in terms of their development, in terms of their health, their mental wellbeing, their ability to socialize and even learn how to speak,

all of that stuff has been massively negatively impacted. So the fact that two years down the line, people are still proceeding with this insanity is mind blowing. It's mind blowing to me. There's absolutely no reasonable justification for it. I think as a society and any healthy human society, it should not be expected that children are the ones making huge sacrifices to make adults feel safe or comfortable. And I'm specifically using the word feel because this is really about feeling. It's not about any type of reality. So I thought

it was crazy from the beginning. And I think it's even more crazy that anyone in any place is still proceeding with that. My kids are going to school and we're supposed to feel grateful that the school is open. Well, I don't. I don't feel great. No school is supposed to be open. That's the default. Maskless faces are the default. That's what's normal. I don't feel like I need to begin every email to the school when I ask, why do we still have these plexiglass barriers up? Why are they still masked 24-7? Why are they getting yelled at and threatened with detention if the mask goes down below their nose when we all know the masks are theater, especially for kids in school? No, not thank you so much. That's your job. Nobody thanks me for sitting behind the microphone every day. That's my job. I get paid to do this. It's part of the contract. Right. So it's like and yet you have teachers like the ones in Chicago. Once again, the teachers in Chicago. I'm sorry, but the absolute worst. That union is the worst threatening to walk out on Wednesday because they don't want to work in person. This is the same group, Zuby. You remember they didn't want to work during the pandemic last year either. And to prove their point, they did the interpretive dance where they leapt across the streets of Chicago

to show us how these young, able-bodied women were incapable of standing in front of a classroom and teaching. They're at it again. Yeah, it's insane. It's insane. And I think that when something goes on for a very long time, I mean, human beings are, for better or for worse, people adapt to things very quickly. And the process is called hedonic adaptation. And what is brand new and is a big change to people, after a matter of weeks, let alone months, people set into that as their

normal, as their default. So I think that now there are millions of people who are still stuck in this mindset that nothing is allowed until some authority or official says that it's allowed. People are out there thinking that masks are the norm or lockdowns are the norm or children not being in school is somehow the norm or the default position. But as we know in our entire lives, in fact, all throughout history, this is not the norm. This is not how anybody was living prior to the year 2020. And now by any measure, we are very much at the tail end of this situation. The virus is not going to go away. It's something that is going to be endemic, just like the cold, just like the flu. It's not going to be eliminated completely. And children

have already sacrificed. Everybody has sacrificed, but children in particular who should not have had to sacrifice to begin with. I don't know. I don't know. It blows my mind. I get annoyed when it's stuff particularly to do with children because it's very easy to see just how detrimental this all has been to them. And Lord knows how it's going to affect them years or even decades down the line. But it's very, very clear that there is no upside to doing this. And it's all downside. And this is downside on top of downside. And the definition of insanity is doing something over and over and over again and expecting a different result or a different outcome. And I think that the adults and these teachers and these unions who are pushing for all of this, I've seen in other places where they're forcing children to eat outside in the cold while all the staff are eating inside, all of that stuff. I mean, if I were a parent, these are not people I'd feel comfortable with leaving my kids with for multiple hours a day. I think it's an absolute disgrace.

Right. Now you've got this group, National Educators United, online saying recklessly opening school buildings right now instead of working to reduce community transmission is once again needlessly putting millions of lives at risk. National hashtag two weeks pause now to protect our community. Are you kidding me? Never heard that before. Are you kidding me? Right? Two weeks to slow the spread. They're really going to rely on that. Why are these people such cowards?

The teachers I know are amazing. They're strong. They're leaders. They don't complain. I mean, the teachers at our school, I know them. They're happy to be there. They're delighted to be teaching the children. They don't complain i mean the teachers are school i know them they're they're happy to be there they're delighted to be teaching the children they don't complain about this bullshit who are these people who run these groups who are two weeks to slow the spread who do they think

they're kidding at this point i don't know the exact answer to that question but i think that this is something that has happened over the process of decades i think over the course of decades, particularly in Western societies. And I think as societies become prosperous and even decadent and very comfortable, people become weaker. People become physically weaker, spiritually weaker, mentally, physically, spiritually, and all these different aspects. And I think that this has really brought to light just how deep some of that is. I mean, prior to any viral pandemic situation, we were already talking about things like trigger warnings and safe spaces and everything being hate speech and people needing to be protected from ideas and this and that microaggressions. And so to me, this is really a sort of logical conclusion

where you've already got people who are in this state of weakness and safetyism and fear and paranoia and hysteria, all of which is very overblown. And then a new threat is introduced, and this is where things end up. And I think that whilst it's important to look after ourselves and each other and to take reasonable precautions when necessary, life is full of risk. It's full of threats. That's always been the case. We take calculated risks every single day. But I think that one of the best things you can do as an individual and as a society is to make individuals stronger. You want people to be strong. If you have children, you want your children to be strong because you're not going to be able to bulldoze every obstacle or challenge out of their way throughout their entire life. And this seems to have been lost in Western society. And it seems to be that instead of trying to make people stronger and more resilient, we've just been trying to nerf the world, remove absolutely everything that could be a threat, a risk, anything that could offend anybody or potentially cause. And so I think we're really just seeing the culmination of decades upon decades of that mentality. And it leads to the situation that we're talking about here. That's so true. I hadn't really thought of it like that. I've

seen the push for safe spaces and I'm sick of it. It's like, you can't, I like that, nerf the world. You can't do that. You're going to run into mean people, even if you manage to get everyone in the United States to be nice to you, which isn't going to happen. You're going to go out into the real world and other people are going to be there. And you're right. It's kind of the same when it comes to COVID, where we are catering to the least strong denominator, to the weakest, most frightened denominator. And to me, it makes me angry because what's happened is you've got parents sitting at home who are terrified for no good reason. You've got people who are Lysol-ing their lawns. I mean, it's crazy. And with the rest of us who are saying, just stop it. Like, that's not necessary. Let's get back.

And maintaining a sense of normalcy with our kids and with ourselves. Then we send our kids to these schools and out into the world. And they're told by parents who are hearing from those other, or by educators who are hearing from those other parents, get your mask up. You know, like the kids are receiving fear from the administrators and so on, who have to be on the receiving end of those other parents, right? So it's like, one thing feeds the other. And unfortunately, we all get sucked down by these terrified, non science based people who for reason, have chosen to live their lives in this cowering position. Well, I think there's been a lot of inversions that are taking place in society and culture. And one of those is that things which are not good traits, things which are negative traits or even vices are being promoted as virtues or positives, right? So courage is a virtue, but we're living in an age where

cowardice has become a virtue. In fact, if you want to show how good a person you are, you aren't just scared, but you act and pretend to be even more afraid than you truly are, right? We're having this weird situation where if you are just living your life normally, or you are trying to live your life normally, or advocate for liberty, freedom, personal choice, all of that stuff, you're somehow the bad guy. Whereas if you are the person who is showing just how terrified you are and how committed you are to the cause of being scared and paranoid, then people are now feeling that that makes them a better person, that that makes them holier than thou. And that's a complete inversion. There's no virtue in being or acting absolutely

terrified of everything, being afraid to go outside, being afraid to see human faces, being afraid to mingle, being afraid to teach or to go to school, any of that, those things are not virtues. And I believe that in any previous era, that would be greatly frowned upon, if not ridiculed. But somehow this has been inverted and people think that they are better because they are acting more scared than each other. And it's very strange. This has been going on the whole time. And look, I can, I can understand the, when the, when the threat

was brand new, going back almost two years ago, then I can understand people wanting to take precaution or people having, you know, different worries and concerns about that. But at this point in time, whatever country you're in, whatever city you're in, this, this thing is, it's largely over. I don't want to say it's totally over because I, from what I know, the virus itself is, like I said, is going to be endemic. It's not, it's not going to disappear. But people, there, there are people who just don't want to give this up for various reasons. And I think there's a lot of perverse incentives out there, both financially, socially even, and certainly in terms of the people making the decisions. I mean, these politicians in the West have never had this

kind of power before where they've essentially become these little mini dictators who tell you whether you can go outside or what you have to do, how many people you can have in your household, if you're even able to go to work or to go to school, all of that. And some people are corrupted by power. And once they have that power, they don't want to let go of it. And then you've got people who... Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. I was going to say, it reminds me a little bit of, to me, some of these politicians, these governors who are drunk on their own power, they seem like post-9-11 Giuliani wannabes. So remember how we all felt about Mayor Giuliani right after 9-11. Forget what you think of him now.

I realize he's done a lot that has changed public perception of him in some camps. But after 9-11, we all loved Mayor Giuliani. We called him America's mayor. And that's why people thought he could very well be the next president. And he handled 9-11 brilliantly. He was steady in the storm. He was a great leader. And he had said about the way he performed later when asked about how he maintained his calm. He'd always been taught that the more out of control things get around you, the more important it is to be in control, the calmer you must get. And that doesn't always work, but it worked beautifully that day.

And I think that these governors saw a man who was steady in the storm, who knew what to do and the accolades he got. And sort of that image is in their own heads. Like, I will be the steady in the storm leader. I will be the one who understands i'm the anti-trump you know i'm gonna this is how it was about a year ago right i'm gonna say all the stuff that trump doesn't say i'm gonna take the opposite positions of the ones that he takes and now even though we now have vaccines and we now have therapeutics and we now have the latest variant that is very mild for the vast vast majority of of people. It is a cold, people.

It is. It's equivalent to a cold. They won't adjust. And it's important to say that that is a good thing, right? One of the most mind-blowing things throughout this has been the fact that there are millions of people who are addicted to the doom and the gloom and the despair. If you give them any type of positive news or anything that could potentially allay their fears or get them to calm down, they actually get angry. There are people who literally want a situation to be worse than it is, which is psychotic to me. I mean, this is great news. It's good news that you're having fewer people. Sure, more people might be getting sick, but you're having fewer people getting news that you're having fewer people. Sure, more people might be getting sick,

but you're having fewer people getting hospitalized. You're having fewer people dying. The situation now is infinitely better to how it was a year ago, let alone a year and a half ago. But to some people, it doesn't seem like they're happy about that. They somehow want this to keep going on for eternity. And for anyone who is in that mindset, I want to know what is their exit strategy. I don't think they have an exit strategy. I think it's like, they want to do this forever. Yeah. You cannot hide from an airborne coronavirus forever. It would be like trying to live your entire life without ever catching a cold or a flu. It's not going to happen. You can take your best precautions against it, and there are various options for that. And then you just have to get on with life. There are other risks and diseases out there. And there are certainly other things to do. And there's going to be more variants. Yeah, exactly. And there are more important things in life than this one particular virus. And people need to remember that. And people need to reorient themselves and get back to living their lives. It's one thing if people like you, like me, who are saying,

we've got to live our lives. We've got to go about our business, notwithstanding COVID. It's one thing if we were saying, and the 85-year-olds need to do the same. They need to get out there. They need to go to the football games. They need to forget the vax. We're not saying that. People who talk like you do, like I do, are saying we get that there's populations who need to be protected. And all of society shut down for months to protect those people. We did. But now we're two years into this thing and we've developed therapeutics and vaccines and so on and testing, though it's sparse. need to get on with our lives. And we need to stop pretending like people who are under the age of 30 face any real risk from this virus because they don't unless they have an identified comorbidity. They don't. They're safer even unvaccinated than somebody like I, who am 51, am with the double vaccine and the booster. OK, that's the truth. But it's maddening trying to convince people

in the states where I spend my time, New York, Connecticut, to see the truth. It's like, walk me through it. Does DeSantis have like magical children who are able to resist the vaccine in those schools the way New York can't? Or what about the kids in London, right? Are you British, aren't you?

Yeah, you're British. You were raised in Saudi Arabia. Okay, so what about the kids in London? Are they magical children? How are the magical children of London able to not wear masks and not have huge transmission rates in the London schools? Those are not big properties. They're on top of each other, same way the New York City kids are. But they're leading very different lives.

Yeah, I mean, the whole thing got politicized very early. I mean, when I was in the USA, I went to 10 different states over the summer and the autumn period. And the variation between places like Texas, Tennessee, and Florida versus places like California, Hawaii, New York, and Maryland was absolutely mind-blowing. It was two completely different realities. And this is several months ago. And it's all political. Honestly, at this stage, it's political, it's social, it's gone. This has nothing to do with science anymore, unless you're talking about political science

and psychology. It's got nothing to do with that. I would argue it hasn't for a very long time. You can look country to country, city to city, state to state, and you can see the results. We're not speaking theoretically. Even within the USA, you can look at half the country and see what's going on. You can look at the other half of the country, see what's going on. You can look at numbers. You can see what's happening on the ground. And it makes it blindingly obvious that all of these ridiculous mandates and restrictions and this and that, not only are they ineffective, whatever they'd be, they would have been interrupting. They would have been on fire for the past more than one year. And that is not happening. And instead of people seeing that and going, oh, okay, maybe we can relax a little, they're taking that as some kind of cue that they need to double down even harder. And I think that's purely political.

You've got weird indoctrination happening in places. There was an article about the Rose Parade. Okay, there's a New Year's Rose Parade. It happened this past weekend. And it's basically, you know, there's a Rose Bowl football game between this year. It was the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Utah Utes. And they were going to have a parade after the fact. And I guess they did.

But they made a couple of modifications, Zuby. Number one, the Kaiser Permanente float, you know, they have the floats in the parade. They decided not to be associated with being out like near a crowd. And then the AIDS Healthcare Foundation received some criticism in connection with its float, as it featured a robot nurse with a gigantic needle, ready to administer vaccines. Their aim was to encourage equity and global vaccination. And I have to tell you, this reminded me of I have seen the picture. I'm not going to share the picture because my friend sent it while at her child's school play. But in New York City, my friend went to the child's school play and what they were treated to was all these little kids on stage with big fake needles and big fake signs supporting the Pfizer and

Moderna vaccines. And then this little like shame tent for the unvaccinated, like mean signs about the, I swear to God, these are single digit kids. These are, you know, elementary school kids. It's indoctrination, right? From the Rose Bowl floats. What do we have? My producer's telling me. All right from the Rose Bowl floats what do we have my producer's telling me yeah we got a clip okay let's watch

okay Rose Parade floats slip important messages amongst the flowers and the seeds and the AIDS healthcare foundations float is using this futuristic landscape to encourage equity and global vaccination and treatments for COVID-19 the robot nurse ready to administer vaccines to encourage equity in global vaccination and treatments for COVID-19.

The robot nurse ready to administer vaccines, and she gets her orange color from dehydrated carrots and orange lentils. And her work isn't needed for the people participating in the parade today or attending the parade in the grandstands. Everyone here has to show proof of vaccination. And it's also the winner of the Queen Award for the most outstanding presentation of roses. Wow.

Every year they come with a different theme, something really relevant, really, really important. So we very much appreciate the You think so? really, really important. So we very much appreciate the. You think so? Really, really important. And for the people listening who can't see it, it's an absurd float with this.

It looks like a red robot who's she's holding the needle. It's going up and down, up and we've lost our bloody minds. Yeah, I'm not I'm not going to say we, I'm going to say they, because I'm not involved in this. And have no wish to be. If I ever went to my kids' play and I saw one of my children standing up there with a fake vaccine needle touting, like praising Moderna and Pfizer and shaming people who don't want to get the vaccine, I think I would storm the stage. I would literally storm the stage. I'm already thinking about storming some of my kids' sport events where they're being forced again to wear masks during the playing of sports. There's going to be some

storming. I think I'm ready to storm, Zuby. Yeah, do it, Megan. Do it. You got my full support on that. Look, it's completely crazy. I mean, one thing I'm always sensitive to and something I notice is when people start behaving or doing things that are totally unprecedented, right? Now, what's completely unprecedented here is this response and their reaction. That's what is brand new. I mean, our entire lives and well before them, there have been viruses, there have been coronaviruses, there have been diseases, there have been vaccines, there have been masks, there have been all of these things have always existed. But this whole culture and pseudo religion and cults that has been created in some places, especially when I'm seeing what's

going on in some parts of blue state America around all of this is completely unprecedented. The behavior is very strange. It's extraordinarily cultish. It is cultish. It's very weird. And like I said, all of these things have previously existed and we just dealt with them and things were normal. There was no bullying or shaming or coercing or massive virtue signaling around any of this stuff. People just lived their lives and we got on with things. Sometimes we get sick. Sometimes we need to take some time off. Sometimes someone gets a disease. This happens, that happens. And none of that is new. But what is totally new is just, like I said, just the paranoia and the hysteria behavior around whether it's the masks or it's the vaccines or whatever, it's just, it's just weird to me. That's, that's, what's very weird to me. It's just like, look, like people do their thing, do, do what you need to do to make yourself,

uh, be or feel or feel safe, right? People should have access to whatever they need in terms of, in terms of medicines, in terms of PPE, whatever it is. But that's not what should be running a society. Yeah, you don't get to mandate that I do it too. That's fine. You do you. But you're right about the cultishness. I mean, I've done a lot, a lot of stories on cults over the past five years. And the lionization of one man, Fauci, very culty. The ostracization of nonbelievers, you know, the people who aren't, you're out of their little club. Not that we want to be in it, but I'm just saying you're otherized, not just if you're

anti-vax, but even if you're just anti-vax mandate, that otherizes you. You're someone to be feared you've seen they changed the definition right yes that you're now an anti-vaxxer if you're just opposed to the mandate yep yeah so now the majority of the world now fits into that category right i saw i did see that and i was like this is outrageous so i i got i got the double vax i got the booster unlike nicole Wallace, I don't feel the need to run to the television camera and say, I've got the three. I'm a Fauci groupie and I've got all the three shots.

I haven't seen your selfies, Megan. You need to post your selfies up. Never, never. I didn't. I wouldn't. I don't agree with it. So it's like, okay, fine. You do your thing.

Take care of yourself as you see fit. But you don't have to otherize people who make different choices than you and you don't know what their private reasons are you don't know you know i had on the gal from espn who um got pressured she wound up allison williams who got pressured she had to leave because she wouldn't get the mandatory vaccine i have her on i'm asking like well so why why was it important to you not to get it she's i'm trying to have a baby i'm like this is fucking none of my business this is none of my why am hearing this? Why am I even asking this? Right. But like, we've been put in this position. Yeah. And again, that's, that's unprecedented, isn't it? Like, since when do we ask that

information of other people? I mean, it's, it's rude to even ask somebody how much money they earn, but somehow it's okay. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But somehow it's okay to ask them all of these questions. It needs to be unnormalized, right? This have all sorts of reasons why they do or they don't do something. But really, it's not, you know, unless you're somebody's doctor or, you know, confidant or something, it's really not anybody's business. It reminds me of a friend I used to have just post law school, a woman, and I was like mid 20s and maybe it was a little later. I don't know. We were like late 20s. Anyway, she used to get annoyed because that's about the age when people start looking at you like other people's moms and saying like, oh, you're not married? Why aren't you married?

Where's your partner? And she had a great response to them after a while, which was they'd say, you know, why aren't you married? Why aren't you with somebody? And she'd say, because there's something wrong with me. I loved it. And I do think if somebody asks you like, oh, why wouldn't you get the vaccine? You should come up with something like, oh, you know, it conflicts with my chlamydia medication or like something just outrageous. So it's going to embarrass them. Yeah. It's the way forward. Honestly, it's the way forward. I've been so ready. I mean, I've been living as normally as possible

throughout this whole thing, but it's exhausting. And I do think we are reaching a point of exhaustion globally with this particular issue. I think that the juice that they're trying to squeeze out of it is running out. And again, this is a good thing, right? This is good. Let's just go back to... It's funny because I feel like in 2019, people thought that the world was crazy in 2019 and people were talking about clown world and the world going mad and everything being crazy. But I think that people would quite happily return to the times of people eating Tide Pods and licking ice cream and putting it back in the freezer and whatever else nonsense was going on in 2019. All right. And speaking of 2019, this is when Zuby, I think, became a star. This is when

you took off as an international personality. And we'll talk to him about how that happened in just a moment. Also, we'll get to the anniversary of January 6th and the media's obsession. Obsession. I mean, it's very clear the Democrats are really looking forward to an opportunity to talk about that for weeks instead of COVID and all the other stuff, the economy that's happening. And then we'll get to the transgender swimmer breaking records at UPenn. Zuby dipped a toe into this controversy back in the day, again, back in 2019. So what does he make of it? A lot to go over. Don't go away. Zuby, have you heard that song? Zuby, Zuby, Zoo. I have.

I think I came on stage to it once, in fact. So I loved that show, Mad Men. That was Don Draper's second wife, Megan. And it's one of those earworms that stays in your head. And as soon as I heard you were coming out, I'm like, I need that. I need that. It's got to be your theme song. Although I realize you have your own great music. You don't need Don Draper's wife. Okay. So let's talk about you and how we all got to know you because I first came to know you on Twitter. And I was like, this guy makes so much sense. I just want to follow

him because it's wonderful when you find common sense people and people like you who can sort of separate the wheat from the chaff and like get right to the heart of an issue. And I've noticed it on COVID. I've noticed it on race. I've noticed it on the trans issues. So you're not afraid to go to the place that hurts, which I can relate to and I like. And one of the things you first did that with was the infiltration of trans women into biological women's sports and what an unfair advantage that can create for the trans woman and how no one for too long was really calling it out. Now we've gotten to this place where if you do call it out, you have to be terrified, for example, in the case of the Swimmers, the women, that they might not get a job. These women, they don't want Leah Thomas, who was a man up until two years ago, and swimming as a man, swimming on their team,

because the best they can get is second place, and they know it's unfair. And if you look at Leah Thomas, Leah Thomas looks like a man. She has long hair, but she has the body of a man, because she was living as a man for the first 20 plus years of her life. She only transitioned and she only did one year of testosterone therapy and she didn't lose all of her physical advantages. Okay. So you take us back to February of 19 and you are making music and also doing social commentary. And what was it about the deadlifting, the women's deadlifting record that attracted you? We have a clip, but I want you to set up like what got you to this place? Well, I'd been following this issue for several years. I think it kind of came onto my radar

in a fairly strong way, maybe around 2014 or 2015. And it was something I'd kept an eye on. At this time, I generally keep my views on thoughts on socio-political and cultural issues to myself. As a musician, I was kind of in that position that I think a lot of people are in that, oh, I don't really want to rock the boat or wade in on certain things. But then due to a whole host of factors and around 2018, I just started publicly voicing and sharing some of my thoughts and ideas more, which a lot of people latched onto. And then the day I posted that video, I'd actually seen multiple stories coming out of the USA about this exact thing happening. I'd seen stories about biological males competing in women's athletics and I think wrestling as well

and absolutely dominating. And I'm really good at deadlifting. And out of curiosity, I just Google searched the British women's deadlift record to see what it was in my weight class. And I believe it was around 210 kilograms. My personal best was actually 275. Which is like 500 plus pounds. Yeah. So I was like, oh, wow. Okay. I can beat that by over a hundred pounds. And I just had that video on my phone already from one of my training sessions. Some people think it's from an actual competition. It's just from one of my training sessions. So I just posted it up with the caption saying something along the lines of, I keep hearing about how biological men have no strength advantage over women in 2019. So watch me destroy the British women's deadlift record without

trying. P.S. I identified as a woman whilst lifting the weight. Don't be a bigot. So I just posted that up. I had about 18,000 followers at the time. I didn't expect anything crazy out of it. And the next thing I knew, this video went bananas. By the time I woke up the following morning, it had over half a million views. It had hit a million views the following day, and it just kept going and going, getting retweeted and going viral all around the world. And then the media started catching on to it, allowed to talk about staring you in the face, it's cathartic. It makes people feel like, yes, I'm not an insane lunatic. People are gaslighting me. This is unfair. Here's a bit of the totally viral Zuby video. Okay, and so for our listening audience,

you see lots and lots of weights. What I understand was 525 pounds. And they're on a barbell, and Zuby bends over and lifts it, and then drops it, and crushed the women's world record as a lot of men who are good dead weight lifters could do. Right. Have you thought about going for gold and crossing over because you could do it? Yeah.

I mean, look, maybe to end this complete stupidity, what needs to happen is all the top male athletes in the world should just transition next year and completely demolish all of women's sports and take all of their records. And maybe that's what is going to be needed for people to actually take their heads out of the ground and go, okay, maybe this is a bad idea. You're exactly right. Thank you for saying that because my husband's a big tennis fan. He wrote a whole book about tennis. And he's been saying, as soon as you get like a biological male who now identifies as female and is a trans woman

who decides to play in actual women's tennis, right? And gets to the US Open and crushes Serena Williams or Naomi Osaka, this will change. Because they can't. Serena Williams cannot come close to beating the best men's tennis player in the world or even the top 100. Didn't she lose to the 230th ranked male player? I don't remember the number, but he was way the hell down the list. She can't beat him. And she is at least one of the top three, you know, American tennis players or tennis, not just American female tennis players in the world. So, OK, let's put our money where our

mouth is. If we really want equality in the sports, let's just not make the UPenn swimmers suck it up. Let's let's put it in in every sport, this dynamic dynamic even the ones where women are going to lose huge money huge endorsements right like let's see how the woke crowd likes that especially when you have women of color who have overcome a lot in their lives you know like not totally gender gender equality not totally race equality and a lot of the upbringings that people have gone through that they overcome all those obstacles they get to something like like the US Open, to Wimbledon, to the Australian Open, or whatever. And they lose because some guy was playing as a man two years ago

and suddenly identified as a woman. Let's see what they have to say then. Yeah. And man, there's so much stupidity going on with this whole thing. Firstly, it blows my mind that we're actually talking about this and that this is a genuine debate that exists. But one of the most obvious things to the uninitiated is, why is this only happening in one direction? Why is it that male athletes have no concerns about female athletes transitioning to men and taking their records and beating them?

If there were really no advantage, why is it only in one way? Why is this only impacting women's sports? Just that simple thing blows the entire notion out the window. You don't even need to get into the biological reality. Just that simple heuristic shows how silly it all is. And everyone knows it's silly. I don't actually believe that there's anybody. I genuinely do not believe that there's anybody who truly believes this stuff. I think everybody is pretending. Even the people advocating for it, I think they're pretending. They all know that there's a biological difference. In fact, what they are doing would not even make sense if there were no biological differences between men and women. The whole thing would not make sense.

We had a couple of experts on this. We had the girls in Connecticut, the runners, high school girls who were doing really well and then started getting crushed because similar situation to what we're seeing at UPenn. Boys who had been running as boys who had been middling at best crossed over into the female track world and started crushing these girls. And they included girls of color. My point is simply girls who the left would normally be embracing as like, look at her.

She's getting it done. You know, notwithstanding our terrible society, she overcame all the obstacles. But everything gets trumped by trans. I mean, honestly, like in the hierarchy of like, you know, things the woke loves or wants to victimize trans is number one right like so that's why dave chappelle even though he's a black man i mean he's got like that's one strike against him because he's a man but anyway he that's why he gets completely killed right because he took aim at the trans community and that's why we can have you know young black girls like the one

i interviewed or whatever in Connecticut or elsewhere take it on the chin after working their whole lives for a goal if they lose to somebody who happens to be trans because we're just not allowed to talk about fairness. Yeah. By the way, those girls should not compete. Any woman who is planning to compete and there's a biological male standing at the start line or in the ring next to her or whatever, they should all refuse to compete. All those swimmers, they should refuse to compete. People on this person's team, people competing against them, they should all just stand together and say, no, we're not doing this. We're not competing against male athletes. Simple. They need to stand together.

This is the problem. When something is wrong, when you see something that is clearly, obviously wrong, you need to say something. You need to do something. You can't just keep going with the flow and thinking that magically and miraculously things are going to change. No, they're not going to change. These people need to stand together. And I'm not even just saying in this case, this is actually a pretty easy one because you're talking about a team sport. So if you've got multiple competitors there and you don't need to be the one isolated person who stands up, you don't need to be the one male that sticks out and gets hammered. You can all just stand together and say, you know what? No, we're not doing this. Then what are they going to do? They're going to call everybody transphobic. They're going to call everybody names. It's like, who cares? I think all these women and girls, whoever it is, they need to stand together and stop allowing men to just smash through all their records and destroy them in swimming and athletics and all these other sports. This is silly. I can't believe it's gone on for several years and people need to stop being cowards about it and just stand up and put an end to it as far as I'm concerned.

Good point. I know trans men who, you know, they transition from biological women and they don't turn into men. They don't look anything like someone like you, you know what I mean? Who has natural body mass and has natural, you get hair and you get a little bulkier and your voice goes down and your face looks different for sure but like you do not wind up looking like Tom Brady you know you just don't and you will never pose a threat in the athletic field uh to a man in the way that a biological man would to a biological female after he transitions to female all right Zuby's staying with us we have so much more to go over um he's got some great stories and We have so much more to go over.

He's got some great stories and some crazy stuff has happened to him over the past couple of years, which we'll get into. And remember, you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. If you haven't checked out Triumph Channel, it's fun. You should check. It's my favorite channel on Sirius, even before I got on it, I swear. So you'll love it. And you can also check out the full video show and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel.

That's youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. It's on fire right now. My goodness, my team pointed out to me that our opening monologue yesterday has gone, it's not Zuby viral, but it's viral. And it's all about 400,000. Now that's a lot for us in a day. We only have, I don't know, 250,000 subscribers, 50 to 60,000. You could help us get up to 300,000 if you would be so kind. We're still building. We just launched it. Anyway, check it out because it's all about COVID and the realization by people like Nicole Wallace that there's no outrunning it. We're just going to have to live with it. And by the way, you can also check it out on podcasts. That's how we got started.

That's how we made our name. Audio podcast at Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts for free. If you go to Apple and leave a comment, I will read it. I've read them all. And while you're there, you can see our full archives, more than 230 shows. Don't miss that. It's time for another edition of You Can't Say That, or Think That,

or Do That. Oh, wait, this is America. Today, we're actually going around the world to Australia, where the language policing has reached new heights. This is not about the insane COVID lockdown restrictions there. No, today we're talking about sharks. You see, sharks have feelings too, I think. Who knows? But what we do know is they have been, quote, unfairly demonized. Yes, there is a national shark attack database in Australia called the Australian Shark Attack File that is now being renamed the Shark Incident Database.

So the word attack is removed. In fact, the word attack is gone from the site entirely and replaced with more precise terms like bites, interactions and negative encounters. Did you have a negative encounter with a shark? Perhaps that shark looked at you in a way that felt inappropriate. Yes, yes, shark attacks are rare. You are more likely to be struck by lightning or killed while driving than to be bitten by a shark. So the stigma of a shark attack is unnecessarily harmful to the reputation of these kind fish. They're misunderstood, you see. One shark exhibit manager in Australia said movies have led to a harmful portrayal of sharks. These poor creatures aren't trying to attack you. They just don't know better, say their advocates. This is a real quote. Sharks don't have hands.

They have teeth. And in order for them to feel around their environment, they use their mouth. And unfortunately, that can have bad consequences on people. But it's quite rare. Yes, it can. Very bad consequences. Plus, she said, they can't see very well. They have a disability, you see. They can't see very well, have a disability you see they can't see very well you shark hater so just hold your hatred so the next time you go to the beach and joke about a shark attack you better think twice because at least down under in australia you can't say that so tell it to peter benchley and the maker of jaws by. By the way, I do. Peter Benchley actually wound up saying he felt bad that his book and the movie Jaws that was based on his book unfairly demonized shark sharks because they don't generally want to eat us. would be comfortable calling it a negative encounter. Shark attack gets it done, and grown-up people can understand that not all sharks mean to eat us.

We'll be right back with Zuby right after this quick break. So, Zuby, let's talk for a minute about January 6th. It's in two days, and to me, it's so obvious the media loves to talk about this. The Democrats love to talk about this. I mean, I think most Americans understand this was a very unfortunate day and episode in our history that we don't really want to keep reliving over and over. The people who were on Capitol Hill that day are being held responsible. They're being prosecuted. And we've most on Capitol Hill that day are being held responsible. They're being prosecuted. And we've most of us have kind of moved on. Right. Trump's no longer

in office. If he runs again, we'll deal with that at the voter box, whether you're pro or anti. But like the obsession and the media's they love it. They're there. It's like when we have a puppy, we have two dogs. One is two and a half and we have a puppy. And when we let the dogs out in the lawn, I mean, the dog, the puppy, he runs to the dirtiest corner of the lawn and he just rolls around in the dirt and the leaves and whatever the hell else is in there. And he loves it. He enjoys it. You can see it's like, oh God, strut. Anyway, that's the media in January 6th. They enjoy it, right? Why do they enjoy it so much? Well, what's that phrase? If it bleeds, it leads, right? The power and the control and the money that comes from keeping people in a permanent fear loop or a permanent negativity loop of fear, anger, outrage, all of these things, you know, due to the nature of the human condition,

which is very sensitive, perhaps more sensitive to negativity than to positivity, these things make money. They garner attention, they get people paying attention, and they also make it easier to push an agenda or to control people. You keep people fighting, you keep people divided, you keep people distracted by various types of nonsense. You refuse to move on on certain things whilst you move on very quickly on other things, which are actually far more important and far more catastrophic and deadly even in some circumstances. And that's just the way the game is played. I think that it's the way the incentives are laid out. And I don't think it's something that's totally new, but I

think it's something that has really become more exaggerated, especially over the past decade in particular. To me, it's so hypocritical because you see CNN and these other channels completely lionizing the members of the Capitol Hill police who got hurt that day. And they couldn't care less about law enforcement. They said nothing as law enforcement was attacked, hurt, and in some instances killed during the BLM riots of the preceding summer. They didn't care at all. They're just lionizing these guys because they think it makes Trump and in particular his supporters, not all Republicans, but they've expanded it to anybody who's on the right, look bad. You know, they think it's a chance to make them look bad. And it was not a good day for Trump or his supporters. And I don't, maybe not for Republicans either. I don't know. But to me, it's just so hypocritical. And the

way they talk about it, there's a woman over on CNN, Juliette Kayyem, right? CNN, she's on. And she was interviewed recently about January 6th. And I would say the way she talks about it embodies the way most of the left thinks about it. Here's that moment. Watch this. As we gear up for one six anniversary coverage, we're posting my take then. Many criticize this for calling Trump the leader of a terror movement who uses violence or threat as an extension of politics. After a year, I think I was too kind. So if you think you were too kind to call him a extremist leader then, what would you call him now? Well, he continues to be the leader of an organization that uses violence or the threat of violence to disrupt democratic processes.

That is terrorism. And I think, you know, we tend to focus on different pieces of the post January 6th world. So we have the election systems and the states and the fights over states and voting rights. We then have the investigation, the January 6th, and then all the cases that are going on against people who were in the Capitol. But I think we sometimes forget that what sort of connects everything is violence. That's what connects everything. He's the leader of a terrorist group. And then you've got the New York Times weighing in saying with a headline that reads this January 1, every day is January 6th now, every day. Talking about how Republicans are working to change laws to advance the goals of the January 6th

rioters. Hundreds of bills have been proposed and nearly three dozen laws have been passed that empower state legislatures to sabotage their own elections and overturn the will of the voters and go on and on from there so every day is january 6th trump is the leader of a terrorist cult and this is why he must be stopped in january 6th hearings and investigation must go on in perpetuity until somebody zuby somebody other than the actual rioters i guess is held to account yeah i can speak very much as an as an outsider on this one. I'm a non-American. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I am someone who loves the USA. But one thing with the

USA is that everything is so hyperbolic and partisan and exaggerated and it gets exhausting. It gets so much. I mean, it's great that people become passionate about things, but when it's always this us versus them and left versus right and red versus blue and this and that, it becomes, I don't know, it's very, very exhausting, especially considering that most people are not sort of firmly in any one of these camps. The notion that there's only two political views or parties in a country of over 330 million people is mind-blowing to me to begin with. lots of American followers and friends and supporters. I don't know. I just wish that there could be less of this dishonest, super ultra-partisan hackery. I don't think it's good for the nation. I don't think it's good for individuals, and I don't think it's good for the collective society either, always putting people at each other's throats, whether it's along political lines or racial lines or this lines or that lines. I think it's something that has always existed to some degree, for sure.

But it really seems like it's been amping up over the last few years. And I think that if it goes unchecked, then it's going to result in more disruption and more polarization and ultimately in more violence. You can separate, segregate, divorce, or you can physically fight. Those are the only three ways to solve any type of conflict. And when number one is getting shut down and people are not allowed to speak or fearful to speak, or people are being deplatformed or censored or ridiculed or this or that for their very basic and moderate ideas, then that's a problem. And then unless you want to have a full-on secession and split into multiple countries, then you certainly want to avoid two. And so number one needs to always be held open because otherwise that's when you end up with violence. That's when you end up with these protests turning into riots, which are then turning into people getting murdered and people getting hurt and people fighting in the streets and this and that. And then when you have dishonest people in the media who are just throwing more fuel on that fire, I think it's deeply irresponsible.

And I think that it's important for all Americans, whether people are in the media or in politics or outside of it, to just do their best to bring the temperature down a little bit. I feel like the temperature is really, really heating up. And some people would like to try to blame this on one individual or one politician or anything like that. But I think it's actually a sort of collective responsibility and duty for that to happen. But I think that it needs to start at an individual level. And I don't know. That's one of the things I look at in the States. And here, I'm in the UK right now. And in the UK, of course, there are certain issues with politics and with the media and so on. But it's not as hyper-polarized and hyper-partisan. I think that's something that's relatively unique to the USA in a way. somebody from the Washington Post, somebody from ABC, I could go on, referred to this as worse than 9-11, January 6th as worse than 9-11, when 3,000 Americans were slaughtered before our very eyes, including children. How dare they? How dare they? And I don't care how many times they try to shame me. Now they say I downplay it. No, I'm not downplaying it. You're overplaying it. It was bad. It was embarrassing. It was a disgrace.

It wasn't anything close to 9-11 and shame on anyone who makes that comparison. But secondly, I would say not only is it bad for the country, it's bad for Democrats. I don't think the Democrats want to continue talking about Donald Trump. I think the media does. I think Democratic leaders want to talk about him because he's become their boogeyman. But I think most Democrats would like to move on. They would like to find their next round leader. I think they've realized it's unlikely to be Biden or Harris or Pete Buttigieg at least next time around. And they're worried about what's going to happen at the top in 2024, as they should be. And this constant, like, we got to go back to Trump is just a card. America,

other than his core supporters, is ready to move on to the next topic, right? The next topic of conversation. So I think they do this at their own peril. I don't think even the Democrats are in the mood for months and months more of Donald Trump, MAGA, and January 6th recriminations. But we'll see, because I think the ship has sailed and they're going to pay a price for this come come november let me ask you about tech censorship which you mentioned that's been in the news very much this week um we had a couple of issues uh marjorie taylor green now permanently banned from twitter i guess she also said that she was banned from facebook but facebook says that's not true um she's a she's a congresswoman and she her her official congress person's account is still

open but her personal account uh permanently closed on twitter they say for misinformation she questioned the the safety of the vaccines and said that they've killed a lot of people something to that effect um so she's gone permanently so is trump permanently from twitter and then you have um dr malone who went on with Joe Rogan. And that episode, and he's the guy who helped invent the mRNA vaccine technology. He gave an interview to Brett Weinstein, and Brett Weinstein had troubles with this too. I had Brett Weinstein on the show on summer really debriefed him about it. We went over, you know, the claims made and so on. Was not deplatformed. And the episode stands if you want to go listen to it. But I'm concerned that the Joe Rogan episode was pulled by YouTube. It's still on Spotify where Rogan's show now lives. But more and more, big tech has said there are certain things you may not say. You may not question vaccines. You certainly may not, you know, as the inventor of the mRNA vaccine, get out there and, you know, cast doubt on the power and the motives of big tech.

And I've said from the beginning, Zuby, I think some of this, as you just alluded to, was baked into the minds of the people storming on January 6th. Some of this distrust, like every time we censor somebody, even if they say stupid shit, you know, like it leads to a distrust in sort of the previously accepted mainstream avenues of information. And so it's only a downward spiral. basic principles such as liberty, freedom, treating people equally, human rights, dignity, so on and so forth. And people also need to remember that, yes, of course, a private company, an actual private company, I mean, whether these are truly private companies at this stage is certainly debatable. We understand that they have a right to have terms and conditions and to have policies and things like that. However, in the spirit of liberty and freedom and just overall human decency, you need to

allow people to talk and to converse and to debate. When you are censoring and banning and deplatforming someone who has a patent for nine mRNA vaccine-related patents, someone who was instrumental dating back to the 80s and even creating these vaccines that people are now worshiping. And that's someone who you are trying to censor for speaking openly about it. That's a huge problem. He's not the only doctor that has been silenced on this issue, let alone the only individual, but, you know, these organizations and people who make these decisions also need to understand, you know, every, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. And when they do this, they are completely destroying trust in their own institutions. One thing about the truth

is that the truth is not afraid of confrontation. It's not afraid of debate. It's not afraid of questions and challenge. And if you want to talk about science, there's nothing more important in science than being able to ask questions, being able to challenge things. If someone is telling me that they are an expert on any given subject and they become indignant when I ask them a question or try to stop me from asking a question or to, for making a remark or just having a conversation and debate about it, then you entirely lose trust in that individual. And you also lose trust in the expertise as well. And I really think they're overplaying their hand with all of this. And I think it creates a huge opening for potential competitors, which is not necessarily a bad thing. being able to support people's right to speak, whether you agree or you disagree or you have questions. Look, none of us have the absolute truth on any given subject, but if we all want

to become wiser and smarter and more knowledgeable and more empathetic, then we do that by conversing with each other. If you want to understand somebody else's perspective or somebody else's concerns, or you really want to know what's going on, then you need to be able to talk to people. You need to be able to listen to people. And, um, you know, I think the reason why someone like Joe Rogan's show is doing multiples of what any buddy in the mainstream media is doing is simply because he, he understands this and he's open to being honest and asking hard questions and really going in depth on all of these various issues. And people should not be afraid of conversation itself.

Like I said, if we're not able to have these conversations and we're not able to speak honestly, then ultimately it is going to end up in various forms of physical violence or separation. And I don't think that's what most people want. I think most people are able to get on with each other in day-to-day life. We do it in all these cities and states and countries every single day, and people are not out there constantly fighting in the streets. So as I said before, I think that temperature in general just needs to come down. People need to return to their senses, and we need to be able to be open and honest and have conversations and have back on one of these main lines we've been fed, whether it's about the origins of the COVID virus or something about the vaccines, man, that's one thing you cannot touch. You say something negative about the vaccines, they will ban you. And it's insane

because people know Spotify is not banning Joe Rogan. So they know there's a way of getting the information. So that's just going to drive them to Spotify. It's not going to make them not get the info, right? And so what does YouTube think it's accomplishing? I mean, even when we talk about COVID on this show, like yesterday's show, they always slap a warning on it on YouTube, like for COVID information, go to this spot. Okay. That's fine. I it's YouTube site. They can do that. That actually doesn't bother me. I guarantee you. Absolutely. Nobody clips, clicks on that. Absolutely not. I guarantee you not a single person clicks on it. But if it makes YouTube feel better, fine, it's their platform. However, that's as far as it should go.

Even if they wanted to do a link to, hey, here's somebody on the left who's got a different point of view, I'd be fine with that too. But to remove it altogether as though these words cannot be spoken. And I would even go so far as to say, yes, I see this situations where they should do that. I was totally in favor of removing the ISIS videos on how to make a homemade bomb. What is the purpose of leaving that on there? What's the positive to society and leaving that there? But you can't say the same about a discussion with Dr. Malone. Come on. And yet they grow and they grow. And every time a conservative tries to start a new platform, it seems weak and meandering and not all that hopeful. Even the one that Joe Rogan's promoting, Gutter, by Jason Miller, former Trump associate. Getter, not gutter, getter. Getter, yeah. Look, I'd love to see it grow and become strong. But right now, it's like Joe Rogan's got 8 million followers.

Well, that's not real. They actually count Joe Rogan's Twitter followers, which that's not – getter is not as big as Twitter, not anywhere close. And you saw what they did to Parler, which is now a shadow of its former self and so on. Yeah, absolutely. I really think that they're shooting themselves in the foot. I think, look, in the grand scheme of things, we also need to remember how new this all is. When we're talking about social media and we're talking about all the... We're less than two decades into all of this. So I think that there are a lot of growing pains. There are a lot of

teething problems. There are a lot of things that are still to be worked out. We haven't had these technologies for centuries. And so sure, some things are going to be mistakes. Some things are going to be intentional and malicious. Some things are going to be purely political and politically motivated. But I do remain optimistic in the long term. I think that if you run a company and you continue to make poor decisions or you even de-platform all of the interesting people on your platform, it doesn't matter whether you're the size of YouTube or Facebook or Twitter, eventually you're going to have a competitor that is going to come through and rise up. Every time you do this, you're creating an opening for more and more competitors. So while there's going to be a lot of turmoil and problems in the short term, I do believe that in

the long term, things are going to work themselves out. You're having more and more decentralized technologies coming up and you're getting more and more platforms that are coming. Now, Sure. They might be in the early stage, but I remember when Twitter and Facebook and all these other platforms were very much in their early stage. And I don't maintain, I don't hold the position that any of these big tech companies is untouchable. There are some people who seem to believe that, that there's no way that Facebook could be toppled or there's no way that Google or Twitter or even Amazon could be toppled. They can all be toppled. If they make bad decision after bad decision after bad decision, then there are going to be entrepreneurs who come up with new ideas and technologies that do the job better and serve the people better. It might take a while.

Don't forget MySpace was the big first social media giant. I remember Rupert Murdoch bought that just as I started at Fox News. And it was like, oh, wow, that's an exciting investment. Wrong, wrong. Of course, Facebook took off and that was the end of that. I remember when I had 30,000 followers on MySpace. And I remember when MySpace lost its gusto and I lost access to that. Well, at least you didn't have hundreds of millions of dollars invested like Rupert,

although Rupert, he's doing fine. He can take the hit. Okay, weird turn, but let me just ask you quickly, because speaking of not being deep platform, but getting blowback. So I I don't I don't say the names of shooters on my show. I haven't in over a decade. These mass shooters because they often want infamy and I declined to help. So I'll just start with that. in Denver on December 27th. The gunman killed five people, wounded several others, including a police officer in a shooting spree and included a car chase and gunfights with law enforcement and so on. And the man who was killed was 47 years old. And what's crazy is this guy was on your podcast. So and I understand people are giving you weird blowback, like, why did you whatever that? That's just nonsense, right? You didn't know there was going to be a mass shooter when you interviewed him. He had a series of books out that you thought was interesting and wanted to talk to him about. I get it.

But were you shocked when you heard, because it turns out not only did he kill five people, but two of the people he shot, according to what I read, he named in his book series as then, you know, sort of fictional characters who would be shot. And then he did, in fact, kill them. It's such a crazy story. And I just wonder how it affected you personally when you learned that news that this guy went on and did this. This is still very new news. Yeah. In terms of the news itself, it affected me in the same way any other horrible tragedy or incident

that I'm not connected to would. Human beings losing innocent lives violently for no reason, not like there really can be a reason per se. It's always sad. It's always harrowing. I put out just one statement about this because of course, when you've got people who view you as a political opponent or ideological opponent or whatever, they're going to use whatever stick that they can find to attempt to hit you with it. So I just put out one single statement about that. But honestly, I have no connection to it. Anyone who was trying to implicate me in this somehow or say that, oh, you know this. I mean, you must have interviewed hundreds of thousands of people throughout your career. I've definitely, I've interviewed killers for sure. Yeah, exactly. So, so the notion that, you know, you have anything to do with their past or future actions

years down the line is totally ridiculous and disingenuous. So I put out a statement just to say that as well as just to give condolences to, you know, people who were directly affected by it. For me, that's it. I don't really have anything else to have anything more to say on that. It's a sad story. It's tragic. Can I ask you, when you spoke with this guy, did you get a sense? Because I've looked back, the killers I've interviewed are people, for the most part, some exceptions, who were out there

denying that they killed their wives before we actually knew that, yes, they did. So they're coming on doing a media tour like, no, I didn't do it. And you're always like, right. So when you interviewed this guy, which is an author with some provocative writings, that's it. So now when you look back and I think you did the right thing, you pulled the YouTube interview version, though, I think there's an audio that still exists. But when you look back now, do you see like there were signs or there were red flags or, you know, I always look back at my interviews and say like, yes, I can see that's where he was lying or that kind of thing. Honestly, no. Honestly, no. You know, people like to try to retroactively fit these things based on the knowledge that they now have several years later. But honestly, no. I mean, in the world of writing and art and music and everything like that,

and just life in general, sure, some people are a little bit eccentric or have strange stories or whatever it is. But the notion that, oh, this is something that was an obvious red flag or something like that, honestly, no. I've actually kept up the audio version of the interview for posterity. I didn't want to have it on YouTube, number one, because I didn't want to profit from it in any way. But also for anyone who was potentially affected by it in some way, I just kind of felt like it's not proper to have the video out there on the world's second biggest search engine. But yeah, no, I don't really have much more to say beyond what I put out in that single statement. Well, it's lunacy for anybody to be – you shouldn't be associated with this person in any way other than you once interviewed him. And for anybody to be saying you shouldn't have because he wrote violent books, well, that's nonsense. There are a lot of violent books out there, tons of violent books in which the authors don't go on to create mass carnage. It's just an awful situation. And I'm sorry you got swept up in any way.

I just think your name was even mentioned. I did think it was worth asking you because I just think it's so eerie when you find out after the fact that somebody you've been talking to had a secret side or was holding up a veil. Because clearly this guy was disturbed, I'm sure, for a long time. And yeah, condolences to those who were killed and those who are grieving those murdered by this guy. There's so much to go over with Zuby, including what I want to look. He's been very outspoken on race and he pushes back on all this crazy. that stuff. Well, there's insanity happening at Arizona State. These two girls who got these two white men kicked out of their multicultural center because they were white men who had something supportive of police and anti-Joe Biden on them now claim they have been victimized by the university. We're going to play the latest soundbite and get Zuby's reaction. So Zuby, Arizona State University.

It was in the news a couple of months ago because I guess they built a multicultural center. And two white guys went there and started studying. And this upset two women of color who got up in their grill telling them to leave. And one of them had a I didn't vote for Joe Biden T-shirt on. One of them had a sticker on his laptop that said something like police matter. And they were drinking a Chick-fil-A cup. So Chick-fil-A has gone multiple different ways on these woke issues, so I don't know what that's supposed to mean.

Here's a clip of the original incident for which the two young women we now know have been disciplined and they are mad as they were in this original video. Watch. You have a bad... You're offensive. Police lives matter? We're just trying to do school what you guys have the same thing with the other

but this is our space we've got a police lives matter sticker and we're getting kicked out can't do school you just said we have to leave no No, I said... You're making the space uncomfortable. You said we have to be uncomfortable. But you're white. Do you understand what a multicultural space means? It means you're not being centered. White's not a culture? No.

No, it's not a culture. White is not a culture. Say it again to the camera. You think whiteness is a culture? This is insane. So anyways, this is the violence that ASU does. And this is the type of people that they protect. OK, this white man thinks he can take up our space.

And this is why we need a multicultural space, because they think they can get away with this shit. OK, meanwhile, just for the record, those two guys are just sitting there. They were just sitting there studying. They weren't running around trying to, you know, engage in dialogue about police or anything else. They had their stickers and so on. So the university launches an investigation because in the multicultural center, you are actually not allowed to kick out the white people. And you're not allowed to treat others this way on campus property, harassing them. And they found these two gals guilty of misbehavior um and uh they i guess

their their actual crime was you know quote crime was interfering with university's activities uh after they harassed these two white students that's what the university found and the two gals uh who are one's an undergraduate mastani khi, and one's a graduate student, Sara Tekola, are most unhappy. Zuby, here they are. Dear white people, aka ASU, you openly discriminated against us on November 16th when you handed down your decision from your racially biased investigation. We are being persecuted for defending our multicultural center from racism and sexism. You gave us two punishments. The first one was a warning and the second one was to write a three-page paper on how next time when we talk with white people about race and society, we will be civil.

This video is in fulfillment of our educational intervention. We're going to give ASU an educational intervention on why telling students of color at ASU to be more civil in the face of white supremacy and neo-Nazism on this campus is actually violent. Violence. So that now these kids are white supremacists and neo-Nazis. And these girls were just standing up to the modern day Hitler and our victims for being called to account for that harassment. Your thoughts? Yeah, the bar is low now. Man, I actually have a lot of thoughts on this. My first thought, and this may be slightly unorthodox, my first immediate thought is that we live in an age now that everyone has a video camera in their pockets and the ability to post things on social media and all of this where this story, which is really something that as far as I'm concerned, shouldn't

go outside the university itself. And I'm somehow here sitting in England. I watched it when it came out and millions of people all around the world saw it and whatever. And firstly, I feel a weird way about that because I think that so many things get blown up and individuals get highlighted. You can take all four people who are involved in this incident, the two men and the two young women. And we live in this weird time where people can be completely destroyed over that. And I think that everybody involved, again, needs to be a little more cautious with this, right? I mean, it seems like they were trying their best to get these two men in trouble and it ended up backfiring on them. But first thing I want to say, nobody should have their life destroyed over this stupid incident. My next point is that this is the monster that has been created by the activism that is pushed in some of

these schools and universities. If you listen to the way these girls are speaking and you listen to the language, it's extraordinarily unnatural. This is activist language. Nobody talks like that normally. You can tell that they are activists. Who are not being centered. centering, white supremacy, BIPOC people, all of these phrases, this is activist terminology. So the universities should not be shocked when these things happen, when they are the ones who are indoctrinating people into this line of thinking. I mean, I don't even know what a multicultural center in a university is. When I was at university, we did not have multicultural centers. Every part of the campus, every part of the city was multicultural. Anyone is allowed in any place, and that, their ethnicity, or whatever, nothing good comes of it. Even if people think that they're doing it for a good reason or an activist reason or equity or whatever nonsense they've been brainwashed into believing,

it's not positive. Once you are purely seeing people's skin color and you're judging people and having prejudices and treating them differently based on that, you're back to a funny little thing, which is called racism. And the way to defeat racism isn't to be racist in the other direction. It's to simply not behave in this way and just treat people decently and treat people as human beings. So I hope that the four people involved in this thing, honestly, I'd love it if they could just sit down and just have a conversation like normal human

beings and understand each other's perspectives and agree to disagree and who knows, maybe even end up becoming friends. That's really how these things should go. But I don't want to see anyone's life get ruined over this whole incident. I think it's actually an important teaching point, a teaching moment where you can just sit everybody down and see, look, this is the monster that we have created. This is what's going on. This little incident here is a microcosm of what's going on in wider society and what can we do to stop this from happening? Because again, this is a relatively new phenomenon. Well, it'd be nice.

It'd be nice if Arizona State took this as a reasonable chance to stop its woke-ification and say, this is not the way forward. And if you give one inch, you've given already the entire, forget mile, the entire game is gone. Because once you open the door to sort of this nonsense and entertaining this, like words are violence and, you know, the white person can't be in the multicultural center with the thing that supports cops. Once you start even engaging in that, you've lost, you know, you've lost. And there's no better example of any of that than

what happened to Brett Weinstein, speaking of him at Evergreen College. And go back and look at those tapes of the students inside the head of school's office screaming at the guy. He wanted to go to the bathroom. They had to ask for permission. It was just the most awful example of where this goes once you open the door to this kind of ridiculous messaging. I said to these students at Stanford, I was out there talking to them not long ago, last year or the year before, words are not violence. They're not. And these are Stanford graduate students

who looked at me, Zuby, and said, yes, they are. Like, you're going to have to grow up. Sorry, but you're just going to have to grow up. It's brainwashing, Megan. It's brainwashing. And it's recent. I graduated university in 2007 and none of this was going on at that time. This

is something that has really, really started hitting hard in the past seven to eight years. It's really exploded. All of these concepts, all of this language, literally the way they are speaking, the phraseology and terms that they are using are new. These are things that have been programmed into people. These are ideas that have been programmed, again, often by universities, if not by schools prior to that. And this is a perfect manifestation of where it leads. Now, if anyone ever has a question around one of these situations, there's a simple exercise I like to do, which is simply to... And people like doing this in

different directions, but yeah, just imagine it swapped around the other way. Imagine you swapped the aggressors and the people defending themselves in this situation. You would see just how nasty the rhetoric is and who the aggressor is. And it would just be plainer for people to see what the problem is here. And I don't think that American society wants to go back to the way things were in reverse things 100 years and go back to how things were in 1922. So in 2022, let's not be playing these stupid games again. The best way to win is to simply not play. Arizona State University is a state university. It's a public university. And it is unlawful to have a center that excludes one race. You cannot have that. That is not okay. So whether whiteness is a culture or not, I have no idea. I don't waste, we talked about that earlier.

And I mentioned Dave Chappelle. There was news about Dave Chappelle. I'd love to ask you about this. This is insane to me. So Patton Oswalt is a comedian who is also an actor and he's kind of an activist, too. He's a left wing activist. And he's been, I guess, friends with Dave Chappelle for a very long time. I didn't know any of this, but he was with Dave Chappelle and he posted a picture of the two of them on Twitter and Instagram from New Year's Eve and celebrated his friendship with Dave Chappelle, one of the most successful people in the world, right? And most beloved, not in all circles, I understand because of his trans comments, pet and oswald does this and um he has now got his tail between his legs apologizing deeply i guess sincerely for having the nerve to post a picture of himself with his friend of some 34 years i think that's what he said. 30 plus years.

He's embarrassed that he did it. And let me give you just a couple of phrases from his long now apology. Okay, so first he posts, they both had finished comedy sets in Seattle and Chappelle invited him over to do a set at Chappelle's place. He said, great.

He says, I ended the year with a real friend and a deep laugh. Can't ask for much more. Very nice. And then came the backlash, right, against him for daring to do that. Just to post a nice picture of him with Dave Chappelle. 34 years we've been friends, by the way. He does agree. Then he says he's done lots of things.

He's refocused refined ideas a lot. But we also disagree 100% about transgender rights and representation. I support trans people rights, anyone's rights to live safely in the world as their fullest selves. For all these things he's helped me evolve on, I'll always disagree with where he stands now on transgender issues. But I also don't believe a seeker like him has done evolving learning. So basically, Dave Chappelle is a moron who just needs to evolve to Patton Oswalt's position on trans people, you know, in order for him to be a fully formed human, I guess.

He goes on to say, I've also been carrying a lot of guilt about friends I've cut off, some of who had views with which I couldn't agree. And he said, sometimes I wonder, did my cutting them off make them dig their heels in deeper, fuel their ignorance with a nitro boost of resentment and spite? You see, if you lose access to Patton Oswalt, Zuby, you become an even bigger moron. You become even dumber because you no longer have access to his enlightened ideas. He goes on. I'm an LGBTQ ally. I am a loyal friend. Au contraire. Then he says there's friction in those traits that I need to reconcile myself and not let feel that not let it cause feelings of betrayal in anyone else. And I am sorry, truly sorry, wrapping up here, that I did not consider the hurt this would cause or the depth of that hurt. What do you make of it? What a performance. Amazing. Brilliant. Bravo. Look, I don't like to talk about individuals, let alone individuals I do not personally know, but this is super lame. It's ultra lame. It's cowardly. And I have no respect for it. That's really what I can say. And it's also doing his supposed friend of 34 years dirty as well because he's essentially framing, by trying to frame himself as this virtuous enlightened person, he's essentially

also throwing Chappelle under the bus as not being up to his level and essentially being a bad guy, even though you're claiming to be friends. So I think it's dirty. I think it's dishonest. I think it's weak. I think it's cowardly. I think it's just lame. It's super lame. It's where we are now, though, isn't it? Where it's not enough. You can't, you used to be able to say, oh, we have disagreements, you know, like whatever, Dems, Republicans, even on social issues. We have a different way of looking at the world. It hasn't always been this vicious, but we have had meaningful debates on things like affirmative action, right? Like that's just take one. That's a racial issue that you could have really strong feelings on. And you could have used that 10, 15 years ago to say,

you're a racist if you're not in support of it. That's not really where we went. Yes, sometimes, but not like today. And so now it's not enough. Like you can't just say, I don't agree with Dave on everything i i wouldn't even feel the need to say that just hey here's me and my butt having a great time but it's not even enough for him to say we disagree on some things but this is my pal of 34 years a lot of respect for his success and what he's done no yeah you have to acknowledge he's bad the depth of the hurt you even acknowledging him as a human, as a friend, has caused many, many people and deeply apologize. Right.

This is it's not just about Patton. It's this is the playbook. We've seen it at so many Hollywood celebrities and beyond sports figures, team owners, corporate executives. It's pathetic to me. It's pathetic that so many people feel the need to do this. Yes, it's absolutely pathetic. It's absolutely pathetic. And it's a big part of the problem. As I always come back to the point of cowardice, cowardice is the problem. People not standing up

for themselves, people not standing up for their truth, people not standing up for their employees, people not standing up for their friends, people being unwilling to draw a line, everyone always trying to appease the most offended person out there. And it's just lame. And it also doesn't work. It's also a really bad strategy because these people are like piranhas. When they see a little bit of blood in the water, then they're going to go even harder. If you genuinely hurt somebody and you feel bad about it, the normal thing and the right thing and the moral thing to do is to apologize to that individual. If you haven't done anything wrong or even if you had these public groveling apologies with these huge long diatribes, it's all performative. It's all performative. And it's just ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And I can't respect any celebrity who does this. I can't respect any individual who does this.

It's been going on for years. And it's just lame. Honestly, it's lame. And every time it happens, it emboldens the mob to go after more and more people. That's right. It appeases no one. And in this situation, it was a personal betrayal of, of a friend, which is, which makes it extra wrong. Zuby, such a pleasure. Thank you so much for being here. How can people get your music? Sure thing. So my latest album, Word of Zuby, is out right now on all digital platforms. You can get that on iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify, or wherever else you get your music from. Just search my name, Zuby, Z-U-B-Y. You can also get the album, if you want a physical copy, I've got the vinyl coming out later this year. That's available at teamzuby.com. And you can find me on all social media at Zuby Music. Z-U-B-Y Music. I heard that last year was the first time in years vinyl has outsold CDs. So we're going back.

I like that. Let's hope we go back in some other ways, too, to like the days when we used to like each other and see each other with grace and maybe not rose-colored glasses, but at least kind, kind, forgiving, graceful glasses. Zuby, all the best. Thank you, Megan. Don't forget to tune in tomorrow. We've got Senator Rand Paul and Josh Rogan back to talk COVID.

Don't miss it. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.