New Details About Hayden Panettiere's Final Hours, and Jon Ossoff's Disgusting Attack, with Rob Finnerty | Ep. 1381

29:17I also started to feel safe, loved, and cherished. It was like Brian and I were two best friends living together under one roof. This is so, you know, didn't we just talk about this with Maureen on Thursday? We just talked about Shanann Watts, the widow of, sorry, the decedent, the victim of Chris Watts and how how she had just gotten out of a bad relationship when she met Chris and was like, he's great. This is a much better choice. This is going to be life-changing so much so that she married him. And here's Hayden Penetier, not out of a bad relationship though. I mean, they didn't get, she didn't stay together with the Ukrainian boxer who was the father of her child.

30:08So I'm going to guess it wasn't, you know, all rainbows and unicorns because they got engaged and then it fell apart, but I'm not impugning him. I'm just saying she had just gotten out of a relationship, but more importantly to me, she had just gotten out of rehab. So this is a woman unsteady who's made some very poor choices. It's not great to lose your daughter thanks to your alcoholism and your substance abuse. And now your engagement to the daughter's father has fallen apart. And then you go to a gay bar, which is not a great place to meet your future husband either. and here is Brian Hickerson, an aspiring actor, a great, and real estate agent.

30:51So it's not going well. And then it sounds like he love-bombed her. And again, a terrible decision. She moved in with him. She moved in with him, she writes in the memoir, within weeks at her home. He moved in with her. He appears to have been the freeloader. That's how it looks to me. And you don't have somebody move in with you within weeks. Don't live with somebody before marriage. I've done it. I speak from experience here. I lived with my first husband before we got married. I did not live with Doug before we got married. And I have to say, it does change things. It's not the only thing that changed things, obviously, but it does change things.

31:29The marriage is elevated in its feeling of specialness, its feeling of uniqueness, of importance. When you haven't been practicing, faking it for months and months and months playing husband and wife when you're not and you certainly don't move in with somebody after a few weeks when you're just out of rehab you're struggling with your alcoholism your drug addiction the trauma of losing your child you know to his to to the daughter's father you participated in this whole thing it's not that she died it's that she willingly let the father have custody given her own issues this is no time Ladies, we call these things home to us.

32:13We call these bad experiences or bad actors home to us. And the answer in every case is to examine ourselves. We can cast the blame on these bad actors all we want, and there's no question they deserve plenty of it. But why are we bringing these patterns to ourselves? Only you can answer that. And honestly, it requires work. You need to find, I know there's like big pushback on therapy in today's day and age. I don't agree with it. I, if you find yourself the right therapist, they can be game changer. I have therapists who I had since Yardley was born. Yardley's 15 now. And he's more like a life coach than anything else.

32:53I adore, I live for this guy. He's wonderful. He's so wonderful. I would never tell somebody that they shouldn't get their own version of this person in their life. I just think if you find the right therapist, God, it can be life changing for you. And anybody who's got a pattern of bad relationship calls or self-care decisions, etc., absolutely has to do something game changing to stop old bad patterns. And I wish Hayden Penetier had done that before she decided to date Brian Hickerson and let him be the one to make her feel beautiful again. Because truly, that too has got to come from you. Whether you feel beautiful or you don't has got to come from you.

33:45And if you are relying on a third person to make you feel beautiful again, that's a sign. That's a gift, actually. It's just a tap on the shoulder that you've got work to do. You, something about you is causing you to feel some sort of self-loathing. So work on it. Maybe you need to get more interesting, join a book club. Maybe you need to fill your life with more new and challenging things. Take a music lesson, go back to school, go to community college, go online. um you know go do something online at liberty university or something like there's so many potential options where you can learn and stimulate your brain and make yourself a more compelling person um guys take an etiquette lesson it actually will make you more attractive you know learn how to take care of a woman shepherd her you know on with your hand on her back when you're crossing the traffic.

34:50You be the one on the side where the cars are coming from. Stand up when a woman enters the room. You put your best foot forward. Start to feel better about yourself because no woman is going to make you feel that way and no man is going to make you feel that way. You have to do it for yourself with your own good choices, good behaviors, and deposits into your own psyche and well-being and wellness and physicality. You know, if you don't feel like you look good, you generally will not think you're beautiful. And that's very solvable for, you know, modern medicine for among other things can help people who thought they could never lose a few pounds, et cetera.

35:28All this business of I started to feel safe, loved, and cherished. That's our mother's fault. That's our parents' fault. If your child gets to the age of majority and doesn't feel safe, loved, and cherished, you blew it. You failed at your job as a mother or father. You did. You failed. That's the ultimate F. You got an F as a parent. You made a bunch of money off of your daughter. You probably have a super nice car and a big house. You failed. You've raised someone to the age of majority who doesn't feel safe, loved, or cherished. You're a loser. Both parents here. I don't give him a pass just because he was a fireman.

36:07What do you do to protect your child? Why? Why? By the time she reached adulthood and by the way, both children wound up hooked on some sort of substances. Did she not feel loved or cherished by anybody? What the hell? Can you imagine moms and dads out there right now? If your child said that publicly, how disgusted you would be with yourself? Where were you? What were you doing? Did you feel cool at your job? JLo as your child was turning trans? It's like you have, you don't have to bring children into this world. You really don't. Don't do it if you don't. Like, I'm actually not that judgmental of these liberals who are like, I just want to be on my own and go to Europe.

36:52Great. If that's how you are, do that. It's much better than having children just because you think it's expected of you. But if and when you bring them into the world, you must raise them and you must raise them well and lovingly. You must. It's part of the societal cultural contract, not to mention a religious one. It's required of you. As a Christian, you must. They must honor and respect you and you must take care of them with a loving, firm hand. Anyway, it's just, it's infuriating to think that she spent her last 24 hours with him. They split. The Daily Mail goes on. Well, first day after the I felt beautiful again and so on.

37:36He was arrested and charged with domestic violence in 2019. So it didn't even take him a year. And 2020, the final incident saw him sentenced to 45 days in California. The troubles did not end there. In May 2022, the pair had a wild fight inside the bar of the Sunset Marquee Hotel in L.A. and Hickerson was photographed being restrained by a bystander seemingly missing a shoe. It's a real stand-up guy. Panettiere was reportedly overheard yelling, Brian, jail, a reminder that he was still on probation and also, from what I read, still under a restraining order that had been issued in 21. They split seemingly for good in July 2022.

38:17She recalled in excruciating detail the beatings in her memoir and he on publication owned his past behavior, calling the book an essential read. Then they appeared to reconcile. On Saturday, Panettiere and Hickerson flew from LA to South Carolina. On Sunday, she was found dead. 24 hours. Again, we don't know what role, if any, he had in supplying her the drugs or watching her do the drugs, possibly encouraging the drugs. But I'll ask you this. Do you think she felt good being back with him? Do you think it was, you know, something that made her feel good about herself or her career prospects to be back with this man who had serially abused her, who she knew was a loser?

39:10She knew it. Do you think it's an accident then when that when with him, she resumed her substance abuse and OD'd? You know, do you think if she had gone to anyone in her life, anyone who had loved her objectively, she might have avoided that fate. Can we roll that soundbite from yesterday, Deb, of Brian Hickerson? This is, we played it yesterday, but I just want you to hear it again because you can hear in his final answer that even he knows her life will be better if she just gets away from him. And yet his selfishness couldn't be tamped down. It would rule the day because when she came back to him, he took her obviously with open arms.

40:04Do we have it, Deb? All right, we're going to get it. I know, I know. We'll bring it over. It's in yesterday's rundown. That's how our soundbites work. It takes a second to move them. But in the meantime, there's a little of him talking about, you know, his allegedly reformed self. And this is from May when he sat down with TMZ. Oh, we have it. Okay. So first, first, this one, I think it's all from the same interview, if I'm not mistaken, but listen to him acknowledge that he knows she'll be better off without him. You ever think about one day marrying her? Yeah, of course. Is it something that you think could still happen?

40:47I hope so. I'm sorry. She probably don't think the same way, but, um, you know, it's, uh, you know. Do you think it's better for her to not be with you? I think that Hayden is one of the most talented people I've ever met in my life, And I would be an idiot not to walk away from her and let her flourish in her career. So we probably wouldn't be good together. Well, you are an idiot. You're an idiot. It's obvious what adult you are. But he knew. So here he is talking about that 2020 incident that I just read the excerpt of from her memoir, Sot2. So one of the things she talked about, she did an interview with Us Magazine talking about the 2020 incident that happened between you two.

41:48And she said, what happened in Wyoming helped push me in the right direction. But it still took me a long time and I still struggled to fully put a kibosh to it for a while. She seems to be talking about the incident that happened with you guys in 2020 on Valentine's Day, where you were arrested for domestic abuse for allegedly punching her. What happened? What happened that night, Brian? I had a lot to drink and I got physical with her and I got arrested, spent night in jail. And, you know, that's just what happens when you lay hands on women. I mean, could he sound any dumber? Good gracious.

42:36He sounds like an absolute fool. I mean, honestly, I know we're not supposed to use this word, but he sounds retarded. It's egregious how dumb this man sounds that she was spending any portion of her life with him because she was, she was smart. You could tell she may have, may not have accomplished that much in the way of a university degrees, but who cares about that? When you could hear her, when she spoke about herself, her life, et cetera, this girl was bright, very bright.

43:10There's a little bit more from this interview, which I want to play you with Brian Hickerson. and here he goes on to talk about how he's been working on himself, SOT3. So, you know, Hayden did say that you are abusive, but you have been working on yourself. Do you mind sharing what you've been doing lately? Yes, I have been working on myself.

43:37Shilabov leads our AA group, the Isolators. The man saved my life. He introduced me to my sponsor, JJ, and we have a very good grade. Good Lord. I don't think it's working out so well, Brian. Pretty sure that when you go through the program, they don't encourage you to, at a minimum, let someone you purport to love OD in front of you. kind of think it's a fail for you in addition to the parents and the agents and whomever else was surrounding Hayden Penetier charged with her care charged with looking out for her I realized she was a grown adult she was 36 years old she wasn't 16 like she was when she started in this business that they're about but she still had people around her who were supposed to be looking out for her.

44:41We're supposed to care about her. I do at 55. Don't you? We all do. We have certain people in our lives whom we care about and who are supposed to care about us and to whom our welfare actually is very top of the list. Where was hers? Where were her people? It was supposed to be this loser. My God, what a terrible fucking choice. it's just such a waste and by the way you know she was failed at every turn Hollywood you know the sexual abuse that she allegedly suffered the compromised positions she was placed in by another woman who she did the courtesy of not outing there's a lot of speculation online if you want to go google it on who it was that person has denied it she's not a household name, but she's some D-list loser.

45:34But that too never should have been allowed in this industry that she signed up for. She was supposed to be acting. That's it. Just like news. You do the news. You shouldn't have to be sexually harassed in order to have a job doing the news. In Hollywood, you shouldn't have to sleep with somebody, get in bed with somebody naked who you don't want to sleep with because you want a job. And someone was recirculating this clip of Charlize Theron. This is from 2019 on the Howard Stern show describing her experience when she was 18 and new to Hollywood. Watch. It was my first audition ever. Oh, my God.

46:16I had never I was I had just turned 19. I might have still been 18. I had never been on out for an audition. I asked this modeling agent if she heard of anything like I was going to give this acting thing a try she said yep go to this guy's house it's on Saturday at 9 all of your auditions are done at the house my house on Saturday at 9 in the morning when you're a little foggy your guard is down it was 9pm there should be a law against that but you would think your agent or somebody I didn't have an agent but you think somebody would have thought I don't think she had a clue either. She was just like, I guess this is what they do.

46:56And the guy's a big deal and he's famous. He was a very big deal and is still a big deal. So on a Saturday night at nine o 'clock, you go over to audition for a film. Yeah. And how does that play out? What happens? I knocked on the door and he opened up the door and he was in his pajamas. And then we sat down and we started talking. He sat very close to me. That was strange. The drinking bothered me. I was like, this is doesn't feel right. I kept kind of saying as he was asking me questions about me, I said, I've never done this. So just tell me, like, I have these pages. Do you want me to read these pages?

47:32And he was like, no, no, no, no, no. This is I'm just going to we're just going to talk. And then at one point he put his hand on my knee. And that's when I just went, ooh. And it's crazy. And girls talk about this where you just go blank, like you don't know what to do. But I left. Good for you, but you should tell us who that man is. Because I guarantee you there are 16, 17, 18-year-old girls right now who are getting the same treatment who might not get up and walk out because they're too scared or intimidated. And you have lots of power in Hollywood and could easily name this person. Could easily name this person.

48:11Why wouldn't you name this person now that you're an A-list Charlize Theron actress? I don't get it. you know it's and by the way you know she played me in a movie and she when she did a press tour for the movie actually had the nerve to say that when it came to telling the story of roger ailes i was quote late to the party absolutely she was late to the party she said and i remember laughing saying bitch you were never at the fucking party you're in hollywood you've never told a single story about what allegedly happened to you and it's obvious that you have well so she finally tells one. And in telling it, she doesn't name names.

48:47So she allows the guy to stay out there even now that she's got all this power and, you know, like lambs to the slaughter. Let him go in there. I don't care. So much for your judgments on other people. I think they will get to the bottom of what killed Hayden Penetier. I think that toxicology report will tell us everything we need to know. And I actually think there could be arrests made because she's so high profile, because the guy with her is, in my opinion, such a villain. And there's another shoe to drop here because this has been going on for a long time. You know, I will say the one wrinkle in it is she apparently had a very bad back injury not too long ago and had pinched nerves in her back after being thrown from a zebra while on set on some movie.

49:42And that had caused major back problems, which would justify a pain prescription, pain pill prescription. But whatever happened inside that house was not justified. And I want to know exactly the condition that he was into. Why was there a report that two ambulances were needed? Okay. All of this, we deserve to know. So in our next hour, we're going to move on to other news, including the despicable attack that John Ossoff just launched. Forget against President Trump. That's bad enough. But against a young female cancer survivor working for the president, whom he was so determined to smear, the president, that he didn't give two shits about labeling this staff her in a way that will affect her for the rest of her life.

50:35That's next. In the U.S., a break-in happens every 26 seconds. Most systems only alert you after an intruder is already inside your home. By then, the damage is done. But then there's SimpliSafe. With their new Outdoor Camera Series 2 and Advanced AI, SimpliSafe does not just watch as somebody tries to get into your home. It acts. If a threat is detected, US-based live agents can intervene to deter intruders before they cross the threshold. I just love this so much. Going on vacation, you can check your feed and know that professionals are monitoring your home. Plus, the setup is a breeze. Get your system running in under 30 minutes.

51:16No long-term contracts. SimpliSafe earns your business every day rather than trying to lock you into a trap. It's elite protection that fits your life, not the other way around. SimpliSafe has an exclusive discount for you, too. Right now, get 50 % off your new system by visiting SimpliSafe.com slash Megan. That's half off at S-I-M-P-L-I safe dot com slash Megan. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Hey, I've got the campaign brief ready, built from last quarter's data and the competitive landscape. Approved. Oh, agents, where would we be without you? Somewhere with a lot more tabs open. Create your first Monday agent in minutes at monday.com.

52:04I want to tell you that every evening here on the Megyn Kelly Show feed, we are airing crime specials just for the summer. And we are calling it MK Confidential. This week, we are featuring the case of the Beltway Snipers, a deep dive on the sniper duo who terrorized the East Coast back in 2002 and actually the entire country. This is one year after 9-11 and the anthrax attacks. And if you did not live through it, and if you did as well, you're going to want to hear this series. It's just stunning when you go back through what actually happened. It's god awful. Here's a clip from episode one. And for a major American city, the seat of the federal government, this changes how that city does life day to day.

52:55Gas stations hang tarps and bedsheets between the gas pumps and the road so a driver can fill the tank behind a curtain. People pump gas crouched down, ducking below the roofline of their cars. Schools pull the shades and cancel recess. The high school football games and the track meets are called off, and the local soccer league cancels its practices. Shoppers cross the lot to their cars at a fast, weaving walk because someone has decided that a zigzagging target is harder to hit, and no one can prove them wrong. Children are walked from the school bus to the door in clusters while the teachers surround them and scan the tree lines.

53:36ministers rewrite their Sunday sermons the malls empty out and along the roads where people were shot the shops watch their customers disappear you gotta tune in to episode two tonight it airs at nine and then of course is available thereafter and new episodes all week on the megan kelly youtube channel and podcast feeds joining me now picking up where we left off last hour is rob Finnerty. He is the host of Finnerty, which airs at 8 p.m. Eastern on Newsmax. Rob, welcome back. Your thoughts on the death of Hayden Panettiere and this loser boyfriend having been there when she died? Yeah, Megan, it's great to be back.

54:18Thank you for having me. You called him a dole, and I think you're absolutely right. What a complete loser. Why would anybody be with somebody like that? But tragically, there are so many women who are in relationships with people just like this, guys that go to gay bars to try to pick up women. I didn't know a lot about Hayden Penetier before this happened a day ago. I did not know Nashville or Heroes. When I heard that she was in Remember the Titans, that's where I was like, okay, I remember who this is. But in her book, when she wrote Safe, Loved, and Cherished, this all goes back to parents.

54:59I have little children and that is your entire job. The second you decide to have children, that is your job to make them feel loved and cherished, but most importantly, probably safe. And you think about Hayden Penetier, who was she with? Who does she have her 11 year old daughter with? The world heavyweight champion boxer, Vladimir Klitschko. The guy literally is one of the, he was like the Mike Tyson of the early and mid two thousands. He and his brother, They're both Ukrainians, so they spend a lot of time in Ukraine now. But talk about wanting to feel safe. And then you think about, I think about Lindsay Lohan.

55:35Of course, she's still with us, and I'm glad she is, but she dates older men or has dated older men. Think about Marilyn Monroe, Norma Jean. All she ever wanted was somebody to take care of, to feel safe. That's why she dated John F. Kennedy and RFK and Joe DiMaggio, like the most famous baseball player of his time, and Arthur Miller, the most famous playwright of his time. All these women want. He was such a prick to her. A complete prick. Same age, by the way. I think they were both 36 years old when they passed. Marilyn Monroe and Hayden Penetier, I think. Yeah, yeah, no, they were. Yeah, all they want to do is find somebody that can fill the void that their parents should have been filling their entire lives.

56:16And this girl, Hayden Penetier, she was in a commercial. She started her career at 11 months old, which is a mistake, by the way. If you're like a stage mom, stop doing this to your children. Stop. And you can look. There is a line, Megan. There is a line. You think about the Brat Pack and a lot of those actors. Sure, they got into drugs, but many of them went on to have amazing careers. Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon. But these McCarthy. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Maybe not Molly Ringwald as much now that I think about it. I don't know what happened to her. She's annoying. Yes. Yes. She's out there lecturing us on on woke films and bashing John Hughes, who made her a household name for being too bro-tastic.

56:59Yeah, she's I would agree. She's utterly useless at this point. But they started more in their their teenage years. But this is just it's a sad story. And I think, like you said, there is a lot more to come once we start getting the autopsy results and we learn about more about about Brian Hickerson. Why would you what's wrong with this guy? By the way, that 10 step program or 12 step program that you're in with Shia LaBeouf, it doesn't appear to me like it's working. Just my opinion, but it doesn't seem like it's been very effective. Yes. Yeah, agreed. I know. And, you know, it's like I saw some commentary online earlier today saying, look, I think Justine Bateman, who I really like, was one of the people who said this.

57:42Hollywood is a place like any other place. It's got good actors. It's got bad actors. but you are still you like she was I may be bastardizing it so I don't want to base it on Justine but there was a fair amount of commentary that basically said if you raise a solid child with a strong id and send them to Hollywood they'll be able to handle it it's not it's it's really you can't just blame Hollywood in other words for Hayden Penitra's downfall or any other actress's downfall like blame her parents okay so yes the parents for sure we are blaming them but that doesn't absolve Hollywood because we're talking about child actors.

58:19And she was very young when she first started acting. I mean, she was, yes, in 50 commercials before age five was, we played a soundbite of her yesterday on the Rosie O'Donnell show. She couldn't have been more than nine years old. We can, we can air it again or we can, let's run the B-roll so people can see it, but nine or 10 at the most, I would think. Remember the Titans when she was young, exactly as you point out. She did voiceovers in A Bug's Life, which is very, she was very young. So she, like, those rules don't apply when we're talking about child actors and actresses. All of that stuff is still forming inside of them.

58:58They know they don't have some solid base of character and values and perspective and wisdom when they're seven, you know, like, it's going to come, but stop it. We're talking about why it's not a good idea to send a child to this industry and how those who do are really subjecting them to the very high likelihood of a lifetime full of pain. There are many success stories. Think about Macaulay Culkin. I mean, you know, every Christmas we watch Macaulay Culkin again in Home Alone 1 and 2, but I don't know what he's doing now. A lot of these people that are successful child actors, that's their peak when they're 10, 11 years old.

59:39That's got to be really challenging. You think about, I think this comes down to the parents, but you're right. We cannot absolve Hollywood and Hollywood's role. I think Hollywood needs to look at this. Maybe if a child actor does a movie like A Home Alone, there is no sequel with that same actor. Think about the family vacation, right? Maybe you have to wait Like five years, because it's all about money, which is so sad. It's all about money and profit. But maybe there needs to be something like that where, hey, you can be a smashing success in a movie or something like that, but then you can't do another movie for three years or five years, especially if you're under 10 years old.

1:00:14Because these children grow up and they are a complete disaster and they are looking to fill the void that mom and dad, this gaping chasm. And it gets filled with people like Brian Hickerson, who I don't know, he's doing that kind of Matthew McConaughey thing with his like backwards hat. And it's like, imagine if your daughter brought that guy home, give me a break. Yeah, no, it would be a nightmare. I mean, I think I might actually close the door on him even without knowing what he was going to turn into. Well, further updates on that story when we get him. All right. Speaking of young women being attacked.

1:00:51Natalie Harp works for President Trump as a personal assistant, and she assists with his, you know, she's reportedly the one who actually types out the tweets and the true socials and so on. And what do they call her? The human computer, I think it is. But in any event, the human printer, they call her because of how quickly she'll get his remarks out to the world. and she's, I think, 35, 35 years old. So she's relatively young. She is a cancer survivor. And I'm going to get into why we're talking about Natalie Harp in a second. The newsflash, if you haven't heard it, Senator John Ossoff of Georgia, a Democrat who's on the shortlist for possible Democratic candidate for president, though he denies he's going to do it, but he's totally going to do it, has decided to attack her, basically suggests she's a slut, a cheating slut.

1:01:44Um, get to that in a second, but first let's talk about who Natalie Harp is. She, um, was featured during, uh, art of the surge. And there's a scene with Trump and Natalie where she's typing the tweets on fire during Harris's democratic national committee speech. Watch. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh my God. Is she crazy? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so very much. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Too many. Thank you. There must be 35.

1:02:30These prosecutions were all started by her and Biden against their political opponents. Get that out right away. She paid and raised bail. She paid bail to get the violent writers in Minnesota out of jail. So there she is. That's Natalie doing her thing. Super fast typist, obviously there. And then she spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention and gave a bit of her personal backstory, which was relevant to why she felt President Trump should be reelected. Because I wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for you. About five years ago, I was the victim of a notoriously deadly medical error.

1:03:15I survived, but only to be diagnosed with a rare and terminal bone cancer. And when I failed the chemotherapies that were on the market, no one wanted me in their clinical trials. I'd make them look bad. They didn't give me the right to try experimental treatments, Mr. President. You did. And without you, I'd have died waiting for them to be approved. Okay, so God bless her. She's apparently in remission and doing well and remains a loyal staffer to President Trump. Well, enter John Ossoff, who 100 % is thinking he's going to be on the shortlist for the Democrat nomination. Things are already getting underway.

1:03:57They get underway in earnest after the midterms, but hell, we're almost done with August. We're practically there. So I think that's what this is about. He wanted to generate some buzz as a tough guy. I remember how Tim Walz got the vice presidential nomination for with Kamala Harris by saying weird over and over about J.D. Vance. I think this is Ossoff being like, I'm a fighter. I can fight Trump. I fight below the belt just like he does or his team of, you know, merry misogynists. That's how he sees it. So he goes on. He goes to a rally on Sunday in Georgia and says the following. It's not 10.

1:04:30And while the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn't want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.

1:05:03Well. OK, so now just the latest chapter in it, he goes on with Jen Psaki last night on MS Now. and she asks him about the comments and here's what he said. You caused quite a stir this weekend, I will say. So I just want to start by asking you about Donald Trump's comments in a moment, of course, but obviously that speech you gave over the weekend, lots of people have questions about it. Why did you decide to invoke Natalie Harp specifically in that speech? Here's the point. We're in wartime. The commander in chief has mired us in this geopolitical disaster. People have lost their lives. Our naval logistics are frayed.

1:05:56The global energy system is in crisis. And he retreats into this bubble of West Wing aides who are his security blanket to make him feel good about himself. He is surrounded by sycophants. No question. I just talked about that. But you specifically mentioned her. And I just wonder why. Well, I've heard this particular aide referred to as his security blanket. And I think we could say that about any number of the senior aides in the White House. OK, so you tell me, Rob, because that appears to be just a dodge and a lie. It was about Natalie. There's a reason he mentioned her. she was on the beverage cart with Trump that was used to exit him off of Air Force One when he did his escape when Air Force One was in Turkey and we allegedly got a threat that his life was in danger.

1:06:52Then it came out that it was the Israelis who were saying that and our intelligence services were saying, actually, you're fine. You can stay there. Don't worry. But he listened to the Israelis. He got off the plane. He went on to a different plane and he left Marco Rubio and all the press and many members of his staff back on Air Force One. Some of the press were pissed because they felt like they were sitting ducks. They weren't aware that they were being used as decoys. And then it became sort of a running joke. Like, who did he take off the plane with him? Because those are the only people Trump cares about, right?

1:07:23If he actually thought he might get blown up on Air Force One, doesn't care about Rubio, doesn't care about the press, does care about Natalie. but and this guy decides to go with it obviously the intimation he doesn't say it explicitly is clearly that they're having an affair that's just very clearly the intimation right and um now he won't own it now he just says oh no they're all his security blanket you know i just i like he could have mentioned anybody yes and i think rob this is despicable because he's why would you attack a 35 year old cancer survivor as a possible affair partner to the president of the united States when you have absolutely nothing to back that up.

1:08:04Retreats into a bubble. That's what he told Jen Psaki. Megan retreats into a bubble. Joe Biden. Hello. Retreats into a bubble. And he's saying that about Donald Trump. It's like the entire Democrat Party wants to pretend that the four years of Joe Biden didn't exist. The other point is John Ossoff, people like Abdul Al-Sayed and I think Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania. Have you noticed they sound just like Barack Obama? They sound just like Barack Obama when they respond to questions and when they make speeches. It's like the same Barack Obama. Get your own persona. Yeah, be your own.

1:08:46And if you're going to make that accusation like, ooh, John Ossoff is a big fighter, isn't he? He's going to be our Democrat tough guy in 2028. OK, Jonathan, well, if you are going to be a Democrat tough guy, then you need to go all the way with your accusation. You can't just mention Natalie Harp's name in a speech over the weekend and leave it there. You have to say the implication, all right, I think the implication to your point is that she is apparently having an affair with Donald Trump. Also, to your point, there's no proof of that. There's no evidence of that. There's really nothing to suggest that other than the fact that she is an aide to the president, has been with him for several years out of the White House and now inside the White House.

1:09:25And she is deadly loyal to him because she credits him with saving her life. He passed the Right to Try Act in 2018. That gave her access to immunotherapies that were at that time experimental. Just like COVID, by the way, Ivermectin was, you were pulled off Facebook if you talked about Ivermectin in 2021. Now it's what you get if you are elderly and you have a serious case of COVID. But that's why she's still alive. That's why she's deadly loyal to the president. But if John Ossoff was really such a a tough guy. He's such a fighter. Why not just come out and say that with Jen Psaki? Be like, I've heard stand by the president is having an affair with Natalie Harp, but he didn't do that, which makes him even more of a coward in a weakling.

1:10:07Yes, I totally agree. Like, whatever, double down. If you're going to be this tough guy in the mold of Trump, this fighter, why don't you just own what you said, sir? Go ahead. Lean in. Let me hear you be the fighter. No, he just decided to sling mud against the president and Natalie, not to mention this is hurtful to Melania potentially, and then try to wipe his hands of it and pretend he didn't do it. We all know he did it. I actually think this is this is not a good mark for him. And I think it could come back to haunt him when he declares for president, as I think he will. Mark Halpern's been mentioning mentioning him more and more.

1:10:45So I think there's a decent chance he'll do it. Now, I have a curveball for you, though, because not only does he at times sound just like Barack Obama, here he is, and I'm going to play it, and then I'm going to tell you who I think he sounds like. Okay? Watch SOT 14.

1:11:06Hello, Atlanta!

1:11:10He's this person. Watch. He's SOT 15. Unite for America!

1:11:21please welcome kamala oprah is a strong black woman barack is a strong black man although his mother is white and he he that's exactly who he sounds like it's a combination of barack and oprah and these people are so weak and so insecure and just so unsure of themselves that they can't just be themselves. Like John Osloff, just he's Obama. Yes. Obama. You got an iPad. You get an iPad. I hadn't thought about that, but that's exactly what he sounds like is Oprah. Was that the same speech? These people come up with their own sticks. It's like, be like, be you, whatever you is. But OK, well, he's going to have to do that if he decides to run for president.

1:12:04Eventually, you kind of got to show the people who you are. Megan, I grew up in Massachusetts and I sorry, I grew up in Massachusetts and all these these politicians in Massachusetts still to this day. JFK died, what, 60 years ago. And they all want to be like, you know, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die. And they grow the hair out and they're like Jackie and Bobby and Teddy. And it's like, I'm sorry, there was only one and he's been dead for 65 years. OK, get your own act. Yes. Yes. Honestly, I couldn't agree with you more. So the other big story in the news that we've been following that's dominating the news last night and today, especially in the UK, is the fallout after Jason Arday's death by suicide.

1:12:46He was this professor at Cambridge, youngest black professor ever at Cambridge, who it turns out his entire life story was a lie, as he told it to us, at least. And he plagiarized too many times to count, hundreds and hundreds of times. After his death, the New York Times published a piece they'd clearly been working on for a while showing. they found kids who had grown up with him who said the core origin story was also a lie he was not mute until age 12 he was talking just fine long before any of that he was a normal kid cracking jokes and sounding like just you were like you or i would or at least our uk versions so now instead of accepting that they were fooled that cambridge was fooled or just it was willfully blind that's really the better way of phrasing what Cambridge did, to this guy's ruse and saying, I'm sad that he was so distraught by it that he killed himself.

1:13:38This same group that propped him up is now turning against the media, saying it's the media's fault that he died. It's the fault of the people who sniffed, you know, smelled a rat or at least published the accounts of those who smelled rats and checked it out and found out he was lying. That's who's to blame. So last night, they went so far as to hold a big rally in London with thousands of people there. And they were making some of these same allegations in the most egregious terms. Here is Lord Simon Woolley at the event SOT24. This is tough for me, as it's tough for all of you and the hundreds and thousands of people in the UK and around the world who are appalled by the public assassination of Jason Arden.

1:14:41The lynching. Yes! The lynching. Yes! Well, lynching one more, then I'll give it to you. Here's UK politician, Diane Abbott in SOT25. I want in particular to talk about the role that I believe the vicious media campaign drove him to his death. He was first appointed as a professor in Cambridge three years ago. And for those three years, he has had a vicious campaign, a bitter campaign by anonymous people, by other professors who just didn't believe that a black man should be a Cambridge professor. this was a vicious campaign but it wasn't just a campaign against the professor it was a campaign against all of us

1:15:56okay rob your take it was a campaign against all of us uh this had nothing to do with racism and And I think it's worth pointing out that, look, there are members of parliament there that want to have a public inquiry. That's what they call it there. I don't know what that's going to accomplish. But this professor, this Professor Arday, has been fabricating everything. The majority of what's on his resume is a fabrication or just a complete lie. And the problem here, I don't know what's happening in the United Kingdom, by the way. I don't know who would attend a vigil like this. Is it very sad and tragic that this is that he apparently took his own life?

1:16:35Yes, that's certainly. But this habit that we have of propping up people that shouldn't be propped up and turning these people into heroes who really have no right to be turned into a hero. This guy, it seems like, is just a liar, a liar that was exposed. And the other part of this is by, and there were thousands of people at that rally that they had to honor his memory. They are intimidating the media, and the message is clear. Don't do it again. If you find this sort of thing again, whether it's a black professor or a minority professor, do not do it again. We will come after you. So now they are trying to, they're chastising the media into silence.

1:17:18And I hope it doesn't work there. I can tell you it would not work here if they did the same thing. Him committing suicide and what he apparently was lying about are two separate issues. And the media did what was right in exposing this man who was a total fraud. No, you're absolutely right. In fact, it's been kind of shocking to see the the the people going after the press so explicitly like, my God, how are you explicitly blaming the press like this? There was a post on X. It was by, let's see, this group that exposes threats to academic freedom in UK universities. And they also push these institutions to engage in more free speech.

1:18:04And this is what they posted. I want to make sure. It's the Committee for Academic Freedom. They issued a statement saying, look, we were troubled to see academics smeared from the stage at last night's vigil for Jason Arday in Trafalgar Square. Diane Abbott, that woman we just played, claimed that other professors had waged a three-year vicious campaign against Arday because they, quote, just didn't believe that a black man should be a Cambridge professor. That's a serious categorical imputation of racist motive. And those familiar with the controversy could reasonably have understood Abbott's remarks as referring to a small, identifiable group of academics known to have raised concerns about this guy's work.

1:18:44Then they go through and say one of them is David Harris. He's a professor emeritus at Plymouth Marjohn University, first raised concerns about Arday's doctoral thesis and subsequent peer-reviewed publications in May of 2023. They read that Harris previously, that he raised those concerns privately, privately with Arday about what he called puzzling similarities in reported data, repeated passages, and possible failures of attribution. In other words, plagiarism. His covering email concluded simply, I would welcome any response. That was not, in other words, a vicious campaign, but an emeritus professor engaging closely with another scholar's published work, identifying apparent problems and asking that they be examined.

1:19:25When it emerged last month that Arday had reported Harris to the police for harassment, this group warned of the chilling effect invoking law enforcement would have against the scholarly criticism. And they point out that within the academic field, they write the scholarly community has traditionally governed its own standards and policed its own. Like normally plagiarism and sowing does get called out by a fellow academic who wants to make sure the system stays as pure as possible. And so this guy Harris wasn't doing anything wrong. This is how they police a fraud within their ranks. But Arday got a police investigation going against him, and they did it because he was a black professor at Cambridge playing the race card.

1:20:13And they go on to say that this same chilling effect arises when Harris's scholarly scrutiny is now retrospectively recast by a senior parliamentarian as racial animus before a large public gathering and then amplified. And by the way, there is this petition online over there in the UK in particular. It doesn't get into American journalists, but it gets into UK saying, if anyone has information on these people, personal or professional, let me know. Just doing some journalism. These are a few of the journalists that have contributed to the insanely revolting and unnecessary scrutiny of Dr. Jason Arde.

1:20:55From overt racism to expansions on a topic not relevant to public interest, you are all responsible for collectively making that man feel like there is no place for him on Earth. And this poster goes through and names at least two dozen journalists by name and publication who allegedly contributed. And by the way, multiple of the journalists are the Guardian, the Atlantic, because people are still claiming that this is a right wing thing, Rob, that somehow the Guardian and the Atlantic are now right right wing publication. So what do you make of all this campaign against the people who called him out for the lying?

1:21:34The Guardian's so right wing, by the way. I think the Guardian, I think, like, you know, it's like it's to the right of, you know, Newsmax or the New York Post or whatever. No, it was Rush Limbaugh's paper of choice. It was, of course. Of course. It's isn't it interesting that this is this is what if it's about race. Remember the questions by Claudine Gay's thesis? And she was at Harvard. And the questions about remember the questions about Jill Biden's thesis. She got an Ed.D. from the University of Delaware online in 2006 and made everybody call her doctor. It just so happened that her husband was running for president during a pandemic.

1:22:07So it was very confusing because people thought, oh, well, she's a she must be a medical doctor. No, she's not a medical doctor. She didn't correct the record. Abdul Al-Sayed does not have a medical license, never did a residency. But people still refer to him as doctor because he went to med school. There's a big difference between seeing patients and going to med school. Joe Biden in 1988 ran for president. Coincidentally, he plagiarized off a British member of parliament. I think his name was Neil Kinnick. That's right. In a speech, he had to drop out of the race. He dropped out of the race within a month because the speech that Joe Biden delivered was almost word for word a speech that this MP from London had delivered.

1:22:45And he took the whole thing and changed words to swap out what made sense there and what made sense here in the United States. Was it racism when the media pointed that out in 1988? was it racism when the media started asking questions about jill biden's thesis or claudian gay's thesis look you're right it it we did rely upon academia to do this to be the check and balance um but when you start looking into a black professor at one of the most elite universities on the planet cambridge uh then all of a sudden it's all about race and i remember when this story first started becoming a story about maybe a month ago it was one or two items um last week it was I mean, everything in this guy's record was a fabrication, but you weren't really allowed to talk about it.

1:23:29Again, we're talking about a country that is now arresting people for Facebook posts. Megan, thousands of people annually get arrested for things they say on social media. They've got severe problems. And whenever you see something like this, let it be a warning, a warning, because that is a coming attraction to a theater near you here in the U.S. And I'll tell you what the end result will likely be. you're just going to make these universities less likely to want to hire the next black applicant because now they're being told any testing of that person's resume that winds up not panning out is somehow racist harassment that could drive the person to suicide right like this is called the course of business for universities cambridge failed in not subjecting our day to this test when it first hired him, when concerns were raised over and over.

1:24:22And ultimately in standing by him at the end, when it was very clear, there was nothing left that they could defend. Yes. Cambridge standing by him. Why stand by him? Yeah. Why stand by this guy toward the end? Why not have an inquiry into his record? And when they have this big public outpouring in London, Megan, is this, is this because he committed suicide or whatever they call it now? Some other term. Totally. I don't think they'd be there if he hadn't. Or was this an attack on the media? Is this, we're going to show up to because the media - No, no, no. They're using the suicide. They're using the suicide as a way of flipping the whole narrative.

1:24:57Like, aha, we're not the villains. We weren't duped. The ones we said were evil really are evil. And now it's not, you're all racist because you pointed out flaws in his resume or errors or lies. Now you're racist because you drove a man to death with no acknowledgement at all, that he was a habitual liar, that this guy was beyond a liar. He was a fraudster. The guy committed massive fraud on Cambridge and his other universities and everyone because he told these lies over and over in public, including in a memoir that he's got out on the shelves right now. So I have no tolerance for this nonsense.

1:25:33All right, stand by. I'm going to take a quick break. Then we're going to come back and we're going to talk about an update in a story we've been on here on the MK Show involving Miss Universe. Stand by. Everybody's talking about weight loss injections because the results can be so dramatic. They work by lowering blood sugar and reducing appetite. But what if you're looking to lose weight but are not interested in painful weekly injections, especially when you hear about some of those intense side effects? That's why doctors created a weight loss supplement called Lean, and the results could be remarkable.

1:26:05Lean Lean says the studied ingredients in their product have been shown to lower your blood sugar, burn fat by converting it into energy, and curb your appetite and cravings so you are not as hungry. But listen, Lean is not for the casual dieter with only a few pounds to lose. The doctors at Brickhouse Nutrition created Lean for frustrated dieters with 10 or more pounds to lose. You could get started with 20 % off and free rush shipping, adding Lean to your healthy diet and exercise plan. Visit take lean.com and enter MK for your discount. That's promo code MK at take lean.com.

1:26:44Patrick did it. Patrick's the one who did it. Not Lindsay. Patrick did it because, Because, you know, I also heard that women typically don't strangle. So awful to even say. But that isn't what a woman would do. They don't strangle. I was actually in therapy today, and my therapist and I were talking about it. I said, well, what do they do? She said, well, they poison. or I said, or drown them. Like we literally had that conversation today.

1:27:28And she looks at me and she goes, he did it. I was like, wow, yeah. And now, yeah, yeah. That was a moron known as Lisa Renna, who stars in The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, who has now appointed herself murder expert. Or maybe it's her therapist who's the murder expert on why Lindsay Clancy is definitely not guilty of killing her three children because women don't strangle. The therapist said it, Rob Finnerty. He's back with me. He's the host of Finnerty on Newsmax. The therapist told her that women do not strangle. And the therapist said Patrick did it. Okay, so this nitwick gets on social media and just tells us all this is the way it is.

1:28:20In this case against Lindsay Clancy, a woman accused of killing her three children, she says to postpartum psychosis. The prosecution is arguing there was no psychosis. You were depressed and you did something absolutely despicable and you should be held to account within the eyes of the criminal law and not go to a mental facility, but to a jail. and there is a collection of people online thinking that the husband did it. But what you need to know is that not even Lindsay Clancy's defense is arguing that they do not dispute that she did it. The whole contest in court is over what her mental state was.

1:29:01But Lisa Renna has it figured out, Rob Finnerty. Yes. The real housewives of what? Where was she the housewife of? New Jersey? She's a Beverly Hills girl. Beverly Hills. Okay. I used to like the Real Housewives. Now there are, it's like the Real Housewives of like Arkansas. Now there's the Real Housewives of like Western Massachusetts. They're everywhere. They're like everywhere. Why can't women strangle, by the way? Why can't anyone who supports this woman's innocence? I don't understand that. It's not like these children were grown. These were small babies. These were small children. Why couldn't a woman strangle?

1:29:34I do not understand that. And I don't understand why these people fawn all over really bad people online. Have you noticed this? This is what now happens. There are Facebook groups, support groups where they have chats set up, where they all can commiserate and talk about how this woman's getting a terrible shake from the criminal justice system. I don't understand it. I don't understand why we've gotten to this point in society, just like with Jason our day, the professor, why are people out there? Why would you take time out of your day to go out and support somebody like this? I do not understand it.

1:30:13Yeah, no, I mean, either. Other than we've just gotten so conspiratorial in the past couple of years since covid, it's just out of control. And now even when you have a defense whose defense is not he did it. It's she did it, but she did it because of mental defect, because of postpartum psychosis. They're they're the really smart ones are going to dig in and say, oh, no, no, no. We know it was Patrick. It was him. It's just the defense lawyers in on it or the defense lawyers too dumb to know whatever. I mean, I really don't have time for conspiracy theories. I never engage in them really one way or the other debunking, not debunking.

1:30:46I don't. But I did think it was interesting that a real housewife of Beverly Hills thought we'd be interested in her opinion. we are only to mock you not to actually consider it substantively we've already spent too much time and she knows her stuff she's a lawyer she's a lawyer like you megan right she's an attorney and she's yeah right she's married to harry hamlin which is the same as sleeping in a holiday and last night yes uh there's a big controversy in our evil top hat up north canada where at the miss universe pageant rob you may or may not be aware i'm sure you stay up late at night watching foreign beauty contexts.

1:31:21And, and, um, although our gay friend Dan does it and he is amazing. He really does. He can, he can handicap these beauty pageants the way like a sports book, he can handicap a horse race. Like he will go through the list, like Miss Venezuela this year, she's fat for real. Not going to happen. He'll go down the list of each of the gals. I haven't been able to ask him his opinion of what happened at the Miss Universe Canada pageant, but I will. So there's a gal by the last name of Calling Bull, and she was very, very pissed off. She's a former Miss Universe Canada herself. To see two gals who were engaged in this year's competition do the costume contest, they initiated a costume contest as part of the competition.

1:32:03Not like evening gown, not bathing suit. Wear a costume and do something that reflects some Canadian throwback tradition or our heritage. So two of these girls made the mistake of looking a little indigenous. They looked a little indigenous. One had a headdress and one had, you know, like Indian feathers, whatever. And old calling bull who herself is an indigenous Canadian went ballistic on their asses. And they've been in the fetal position ever since apologizing. These two girls apologized. One of them apologized to her. Both had apologized to the indigenous peoples. The pageant apologized. The host of the pageant apologized.

1:32:42They are all bent over, whacking their own backsides in an apologetic state. And now Miss Universe Canada, the old girl calling bill bull has come out to let us know she is the real victim here. she did step in saying I could be a cultural liaison for indigenous First Nations Cree people, but I can't speak for all people. I can't speak for all cultures. There need to be multiple people, especially if you're doing a costume competition. So we have to have every possible identity represented. So no one steps on another rake. And then she wants us to know she's received intense backlash for her boldness.

1:33:26She writes or says, I think this is why we need to speak up. After I spoke up, I experienced so much racism and hate. I've actually received death threats, she says, people telling her to kill herself and others calling her slurs specific to the indigenous community. She also says that it has been exhausting doing the work of educating in the wake of the incident and goes from there. So you tell me whether it is wrong to subject Ashley or what's her first name? Calling Bull. I don't know her first name to a little blowback, not death threats. That's not nice. But I think this woman, yeah, Ashley kind of asked to receive some negative comments on the internet by injecting herself.

1:34:12And by the way, here's just a little, a little flavor. Cause I bet you haven't seen it of her stopping the pageant after the controversy erupted, they had her come on, stand next to the actual host. And she stopped the pageant without permission to talk about this shit. Stop 28. I have the envelope and we're going to call our top 20. Before we do that, Sunny, I wanted to acknowledge something. If we can turn the music down just a little bit. So with Miss Universe Canada, me being the first indigenous First Nations Miss Universe Canada, that was such a huge honor. I wanted to acknowledge this during the national competition, the costume competition, there was cultural appropriation that was done towards indigenous peoples.

1:34:55And with Sonny, he took action by listening to me. I feel that it's my responsibility to also give you an opportunity to say something to the indigenous community, because yes, there was a statement, but, and I'm sorry, it goes so far. Yes. On behalf of all, whatever. Then she makes him apologize. Then he gives her the mic back and she's not done flagellating him. This is so out of control, Rob, your thoughts, Megan, you host a show. Do not, don't you dare do that to me if I'm hosting a show and somebody that she put that guy on blast. He's like, uh, right. Um, we look, we're very sorry to all the indigenous peoples and their peoples and other peoples.

1:35:34Um, is her name, what'd you say her name was sitting bull calling bull, calling bull, Ashley calling. Okay. I don't, by the way, you talk about the WNBA that I never thought I would spend so much time talking about the WNBA, Dejanay Carrington. Okay. The woman who like tried to end Sophie Cunningham's career. Is she a natural blonde or is that cultural appropriation? Are we allowed to mention that by the way? I don't think so. I'm thinking that's from a bottle. Okay. This whole thing with the indigenous, the indigenous peoples in the Indian peoples and whatever all of this crap is and these land acknowledgements.

1:36:07And I'm part of the Ojibwe in the Adam way. And everyone's sitting there. It's like, what better way to make people feel bad about themselves than start an event, a wedding, a political event by letting everybody know that they're now sitting on stolen land or that they're holding said event on stolen land. Look, the white man, the evil white man, I don't know if your team can put that bikini shot back up of this Miss Universe, right? We're not far away from Thanksgiving. I don't remember reading about the pilgrims having the first Thanksgiving with a woman like that. OK, I think the first Thanksgiving would have looked a lot different, by the way, if that's what the the native peoples looked like in the 1620s.

1:36:45But look, men, mankind, womankind, humankind conquering other peoples, OK, is not unique to the evil white man. This did not start when we landed in the new world, Megan, the new world. It didn't start with us. People have been conquering people as long as there have been people, which means we can stop doing land acknowledgements. mm-hmm and do you think that uh cultural appropriation like this is inappropriate like it was wrong of the two girls to wear the headdress and the feathers no did you one woman was dressed as an owl all right are we going to contact the owl community in in the great white north and see if they're offended that that one of the girls was seriously dressed like an owl she came out she had the feathers and it looked like an owl to me um the girl on the left that's a maple leaf hello toronto maple leafs all right great hockey team i like what she's doing there the girl on the right she's got the headdress and she you know what they look great the girl on the right should win yeah honestly i i feel like is it cultural appropriation or is it culturally honoring somebody's backstory somebody's culture some something other than your own i just feel like just stop i i mean this they're trying to make this into blackface and it's not and even blackface wasn't blackface before the left made it black unless you're justin trudeau right take that.

1:38:02Yeah, exactly. The true like minstrel show back blackface was always bad. But I mean, this is of course, I've talked about this 10 ,000 times. But in any event, I'm sick of people being shamed for their fucking costumes. It's a celebratory cost. It's a costume, right? It's meant to be pretend. No, they're not trying to be actual native people. When you don a costume, the whole idea is to do something other than what you actually are. These people I have no humor calling bull. And think about Halloweens. How many Halloweens do you see cowboys and Indians? I don't think they call them cowboy and native peoples now on Halloween, but it's just, it's so stupid and it's gotten so out of hand.

1:38:37And I don't even think if I was, if I was in the stands when that woman was like, and Thomas, would you like to acknowledge how terrible you are now that you, that woman, I wouldn't, I don't even think I would notice if they came on stage, I wouldn't be like, oh wow, look at them. They're dressed as, as native Americans, but they're native Canadians, I suppose. Do we call them native Canadians? I don't know what we call them. What do you think you would have done? What would you have done, Rob Finnerty, if that woman had hijacked this pageant you were hosting to give you the chance to apologize for that?

1:39:03No, I would not have done it. Megan, I would not have done it. And you know, we've all been there where someone's like, they put you in the spot and you're like, oh, don't even, don't pull that crap with me, young lady. Okay, we're going to continue on with the, I'm going to continue reading this teleprompter and I'm not going to acknowledge anybody. But if you, look, if I see St. Patrick's Day, people are dressed as leprechauns. They're all over they're all over the place i'm not like how dare ye how dare ye do that notre dame how dare ye rudy rudiger ye right yes same because we irish have never been offended by anything in our loving lives it just you get you the offense gene goes away when you're irish i don't know it's like the the drinking gene is there.

1:39:46The fighting gene is there. Check. The clever wit is often there, but the offense gene is not there. No, because, Megan, our people were doomed by a potato in the 1840s. OK, so we we can't be easily offended when you're doomed by a spud.

1:40:05We're still recovering from that. Rob Pinnerty, thank you. Great to see you again. Great to see you. Thanks, Megan. Okay. Coming up, a new book on an important topic about technology and our kids. So we're going to keep the show rolling and we're going to bring on this guy who's actually very interesting named Jared Cooney Horvath. And he is going to tell us why our kids aren't learning anything and how we can turn that around. But before we go to break, I do want to remind you, tune in tonight to MK Confidential. If you haven't yet gotten in on the DC Snipers story, it's only half an hour. Our first episode aired last night.

1:40:46You can still do it. And then you can watch tonight or listen with us. Doug and I are listening to it right along with you. And we'll go through it this week. And we may try to do like a book club thing at the end of this week or early next week on it. So check it out. We'll be right back. When it comes to supplements, there are two things that matter, that it works and that you can trust it. Rather than just tell you about Relief Factor, we often bring you what their real customers have to say. One real customer, Jim, said he ran out of Relief Factor twice and both times his aches, stiffness, and pain came right back.

1:41:20Once he restarted it, he says he felt better again. As Jim puts it, quote, you know something's working when you run out of it. They make it easy to find out if you will be the next person telling Relief Factor about how much it helps you tackle your daily aches and pain. Think about this. Three weeks, three weeks for just$17.76. So easy and honestly, relatively inexpensive for relief from chronic pain. Just go to relieffactor.com or call 1-800-4-RELIEF. You will connect with their friendly local team and they will do everything they can to help you. And maybe you will be sharing your Relief Factor story with them soon too.

1:42:00You know that feeling. Too many updates, too many meetings, too many things falling through the cracks. Monday.com was built for that gap. The AI work platform designed from the ground up for people and agents to work side by side and deliver more together. Drafting the brief, flagging risks, running a competitive scan, your agent can do it all. And the best part, anyone can build one. Even you. Try it. Create your first Monday agent today at monday.com.

1:42:52Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more. It's bold, no BS news only on the Megyn Kelly channel, Sirius XM 111, and on the Sirius XM app.

1:43:06If your child's school handed them a laptop and called it progress, my next guest has some data that says otherwise. His name is Jared Cooney Horvath. He holds a master's from Harvard and a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from the University of Melbourne. And he's out today with a new book. It's called The Digital Delusion, How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids' Learning and How to Help Them Thrive Again. In it, he argues that Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to score lower on basic cognitive measures than the generation before it. And it is the fault of tech. Jared joins me now.

1:43:45Jared, hi. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me on. Oh, it's great to have you. All right. So this is really scary. So what do you mean that their cognitive abilities are lower than the generations that preceded them? Yeah. Since the late 1800s, we've been measuring people on different cognitive abilities, say literacy, numeracy, the big ones, but as low as memory function, attention function, executive functioning. And every generation throughout history has outperformed their parents. And the reason for this has largely been school, right? Kids spend more time in school than their parents on average.

1:44:19And school is where we kind of cut these cognitive teeth, ergo more school, better cognition. Until today, it looks like Gen Z is the first generation since we've been doing this to drop on basically every measure we have from those higher things like literacy and numeracy all the way to just basic memory functioning. Now, why, I guess, is the fun question. It can't really be school. Everyone loves to say that school looks exactly the same today as it did 20 years ago, so it can't be that. It can't really be evolutionary biology. It appears to be the tool we've introduced within school to drive learning.

1:44:51In any country we look at, as soon as technology enters the learning equation en masse, learning goes down, development goes down, and we don't see anything kind of taking its place, unfortunately. What specifically are the tools that you're referring to? So these would be, when we talk about educational technology, it's any student-facing internet connected device. So by all means, if you're a teacher running tech that no kid touches, go to town. If you're using a haptic simulator to practice surgery as a surgeon, do your thing. But as soon as screens with internet connections face the kids, that's when all learning is going to start to go haywire.

1:45:28So it's not the whiteboard that you're objecting to. It's laptops. No. So yeah, when we talk about tech, a lot of people say a pencil is tech. It's this digital technology stuff, when we look at scores around the world, and so it's not just the U.S., a lot of people think I'm just talking here. In any country, when tech goes from peripheral to central within the classroom, that's when you'll see scores on basically every measure start to drop significantly to the point where now in the U.S., we're just talking about reading. Because I know you write in the book about how it's not a good way to learn to just hear something and then type it down in your laptop.

1:46:04No one's remembering anything. Well, you got to think what is learning, if not transformation of knowledge of information within your head. So if you're taking notes, say on a keyboard, all you're doing is hearing a word, writing a word, hearing a word, writing a word. Think about like a courtroom stenographer. In that instance, the only thing of importance is the sound and the order of the words. The meaning is irrelevant. So that's why if you ever see a kid, like I'm a teacher, typing up copious amounts of notes, I'll flat out ask him, hey, what did we learn today? They'll say, I don't know.

1:46:35I have to go read my notes. Meanwhile, anyone taking a note with a pen and paper, because you can't write near as fast as I can speak, by definition, you're already parsing meaning. You have to make sense of what's important, what's not. And that's why handwritten notes are so gross, right? You have lines and arrows and crosses. That's a sign you're processing deeper meaning. Learning will get deeper just by the tool you're using. So this is funny because I remember back when I was in middle school or somewhere around there, eighth or ninth grade. And my best friend and I used to sit and study for tests together.

1:47:09And the stuff that we were getting wrong, we had a practice of shouting it at each other. Like, it was a way of remembering. I will live, you know, for the rest of my life, remembering the moment when she yelled, who pays the dowry? And I yelled back, the bride's parents. Like to this day, I remember that vividly among all the other stuff that I crammed into my brain through, you know, K through 12 and then college and law school, because we learned it in a way that was very memorable. But the typing of information down on your laptop as somebody says it to you is, I think, literally the opposite of that.

1:47:47Yeah. And you did a great that's a great thing is all memory is going to be what we call constructive, which basically means when it comes to making deep memories, the more you recall it, the more you access a memory, the deeper it becomes. So when you do something fun like you just did, where you scream it out with your friend, that's a story you're going to recall. You're going to the next day laugh about it. You're going to tell your parents what you just did. And every time that memory is getting deeper. But when you type some words using the exact same keyboard in the exact same screen, the exact same folders, when nothing really changes, all of these kind of cues just start to disappear and recall basically goes away to the point where when it comes to tech most of us never recall anything on tech like my favorite example i always say what was your best friend's phone number growing up 740-7857 haven't dialed that thing in 40 years there it is what's your best friend's phone number today i know where it is but i've never had to i don't even know my kids numbers that is how and this is what tech does one of the ways it works is by offloading your memory so you stop remembering things.

1:48:51But if you don't remember things, best of luck being creative or critical think errors or anything with that information. Yeah. So why did we agree to this? How did this happen to us? By the way, if you're just tuning in, we're talking to Jared Cooney Horvath about his book, The Digital Delusion, out today. So how did this happen to us? I don't know that anyone writ large agreed with this. So now here's where you get to say, how cynical do we want to get? I think it's always more fun to be cynical. I think from like the teacher's perspective, we were sold a bill of goods. We were told largely from TED Talk stages that this was going to change education and kids are going to be creative.

1:49:34It's going to blow everything up. And so we kind of bought into it. We now have the data 15 years later to say, no, it's doing the complete opposite. But I think from our point of view, I don't really blame students or teachers or parents. If we want to assign any weird blame, it's got to just go to tech developers. Because think about the very first computer ever given to students was like the first Chromebook from Microsoft. And that was never built for students. It was a very small laptop built for business people because they assumed anyone who travels would like a small laptop. Turns out it didn't sell at all.

1:50:06No one bought it. So in order to recoup costs, they said, let's repackage it and just sell it to schools for kids. At no point was learning actually part of it. At no point was cognitive development a part of it. It was just there to make money. And so I think if you want to get cynical, you can say this has been pushed by tech developers as a way to get more customers make more money. But there's no evidence or data that it was ever there for learning purposes. And that's where we got to start pushing back now. Well, to me, it's interesting because the message has gotten out a lot about, you know, you shouldn't have your kid doing a ton of screen time for gaming or TV or YouTube.

1:50:41you know, watching the iPad all day long. We know that's bad for kids, but this is something else. This is happening in school with teachers where they have to pay attention and they have to do it. So you're talking about pushing your child's educators to stop doing what exactly? What's the ask? The ask is pull tech way back when it comes to learning because digital technology, if we ever get to, so the data is one thing, plenty of data showing that it doesn't work. I think the more interesting story is why. Once we understand how biological learning works, what are the principles here? You start to see that this tool simply doesn't align with human learning.

1:51:18It cuts against the grain. So anytime we bring this tool out in a classroom, almost invariably, learning will go down. So the call is really to start to pull it back. If you're going to use tech in schools, you better have a big intention for it. Like there better be a clear reason why you're using it. And the easiest way to do that is basically to return to what we were doing, say, in the late 90s or early nots, reinstitute the computer lab or the computer cart. Right now, 88 % of public school districts in the U.S. give kids a laptop. So that means a laptop is the default. Time to take notes, take out your laptop.

1:51:52Time to read a passage, get your laptop. If we take that option away and we say, okay, you want to use the laptop, it's there. It's just on the other side of school. Now teachers have to be very deliberate. Is it worth standing my kids up, walking them across school, sitting them down, logging them in? That's like 10 minutes of class time. Is it worth that to use the tool? If so, there it is. But nine times out of 10, you'll see, no, it's not worth it. We were just using it because it was there. It was easy. Add more friction to the tech. Make sure kids don't have free access to it. Now teachers will be more reasonable, meaningful with it.

1:52:24Learning should start to go back up again. the um scandinavian model is something you point out in your book the digital delusion as something we might consider following what they do uh this same thing as a lot of states are now starting to do thank goodness is when it came to the youngest kids scrap all screens there's no argument to be made that a young kid needs a screen for learning especially because you got to remember digital tools by and large they're production tools they're built for experts to make their jobs easier. But the tools we use as experts to make our lives easier are never the tool a novice should use to learn how to become an expert.

1:53:02When they use the tool, they basically just, it becomes dependence. They offload everything, they outsource, they don't really learn anything in the process. So tech should come in once you have the skill. You know how to do math, here's a calculator. You already know how to structure an essay, here's a word processor. So they were really tight on just saying, young kids don't need it. Around middle and high school, that's when we're going to bring it in. We're going to have hard limits, say maybe 60 to 90 minutes a day max you can use, and it's going to be locked down. No kid is going to be given a laptop.

1:53:31It's just going to be controlled. And in so doing, what you're going to see is in these Scandinavian countries, well-being measures will start to go back up. Emotional measures will start to go back up, and learning, thank goodness, will start to go back up too. I know one of the things you think parents should do, and we've done this a bit, and I know some other parents who are religious about it, is assuming you're not going to challenge your school or your school doesn't listen to you. Yeah. Print everything out. Print it all out. All the stuff that they're having your kid do online so your child can study from an actual nine and a half by 11 sheet of paper and read a piece of paper and mark up a piece of paper.

1:54:08Isn't that interesting? Just if you do the exact same thing on paper versus a screen, learning will go up. Comprehension goes up. Learning becomes deeper. So you're absolutely right. When students or parents ask me, what's the number one thing I can do? When it comes to learning in your home, now, by all means, when it comes to entertainment, video gaming, every family gets to make their own decisions there. But when it comes to learning, my kid's got homework, my kid's got to read a passage, do a worksheet, print it out. Go plant a tree and print everything out. Because if you did nothing different with your life but that, your learning will go up.

1:54:42And I think that's another fun mechanism to kind of explore, right? Think about reading. A huge aspect of human memory is space, spatial location. Where in space do things occur? That becomes a big part of our memory, determines how we can access those memories later. Books, just by how they're created, have clear, unchanging three-dimensional locations. Till this book burns into dust, the word health will be 20 % of the way through, left page, top left-hand side, it ain't going nowhere. that becomes part of what you learn and determines how you can access it later. So that's why if you're an avid book reader, you know, you won't be able to verbatim say everything you've read, but you will know in the book where everything occurred.

1:55:23Like if there's a passage you're looking for, you can almost flip right to it. But if you read that same thing on a screen, now the word health starts on the bottom, goes through the middle, passes out the top. There is no spatial location. So an entire aspect of human memory just gets dumped. So this is why when we start reading from a screen, at about the four or five minute mark, your brain will send you a signal saying, I'm not getting this. I don't know where any of this is supposed to go. And so we just start skimming. We go from reading to just looking for keywords and we don't really learn much of anything.

1:55:50So that's just a perfect example of the medium. If you did nothing different with your life, the medium itself will change how you learn how you think. Learn more about all of this in the digital delusion out today. What about handwritten notes? Yeah, that is exactly going back handwritten notes on one hand forces you to focus on meaning. So we've got a lot of research that says if you just take notes with a pen and paper, you will learn more comprehend better than if you type those notes. But another reason for that is a lot of people mistake humans as being brains inside of bodies. Like we are just gray matter hitching a ride in this kind of meat machine.

1:56:32You are not living in your body. you are your body. You are as much your heart as your lungs and your spleen as you are your brain. You are all of this, which means how we work all of this will change our cognition, will change how we think. Now, when we are typing, that is the most mechanical, steady process in the world. Nothing ever here will change. It doesn't matter how hard or soft you hit the letter L, the output is exactly the same. So this means when we type, most people basically just focus on output. I had of thought, I got it out. But when we write by hand, the speed by which we have to write, the shape of our body, the fact that every letter comes out slightly differently, that if I'm using a pen versus a pencil, paper versus cardboard, everything is so different that it forces your cognition into different realms to the point where you start to think better while handwriting.

1:57:24You start to understand deeper while handwriting because the whole system is now engaged with that process. So in a very real sense, we tend to say typing is transcription of thought. Writing, handwriting is thinking. It's not just organizing thought. It's actually generating different kinds of thoughts, which in turn will lead to deeper learning. So I always say, another easy thing, print it out, use a pen and paper, everything's going to start to go up. It's another thing that we've abandoned. You know, those kids, you look at any college seminar now, Every single kid there has got their laptop out.

1:57:57They're typing down everything the professor says. And I guess they think they're going to like read it later as opposed to just listening, letting it come in through the ears and the eyes and taking down a note that will trigger the memory that you're creating. That is it. You've got to think about this stuff. And that's the one thing we're eliminating from classrooms. So if you take a class with me at university, so I still teach at unis all the time. there is no note taking in my room. You're not allowed a pen. You're not allowed paper. You're not allowed a notebook, a laptop. Certainly not.

1:58:30Everything's basically in the hall. And the kids are all freaked out. And I always say, look, when was the last time you had to take notes when watching a movie? No one's sitting there going, Iron Man? Okay. Was that that character? No, you're engaging with the movie and you remember a ton from the movie because you allowed yourself to simply be there. That's what learning is as well. If you just hang out with me for an hour. Watch how much more you get and understand than if you worry about how you're going to learn this later through some PDF or printout. Be with me. You will learn. So good.

1:59:02But that I agree with that fully, but it depends on the teacher and the storyteller, right? Like the movies are stories that are told generally very well by famous directors and producers and so on. But, you know, for example, it's always such an offense if I think if our kids don't enjoy their history classes. Because what is history other than just a collection of stories? And they can be really great. And the reason you're being taught this particular story on any given day is because a collective group of people thought it was actually a really, really compelling story, something important for you to know.

1:59:36So if you're not interested in history class, it's your teacher. I really feel like they're not teaching history through stories, which is the easiest subject on earth to teach through stories. But most of subjects could be taught through stories. And yet so few teachers do it, which I think is why the students often surrender to the monotony of the exchange that's about to happen. You don't actually care whether I memorize it or get it on a cellular level. You just want me to regurgitate what you're spewing so that I can get a good grade on your test and you can tell everybody you're an amazing teacher.

2:00:15Now, bring in digital tech into that. the only time that what's less narrative driven than tech. So tech, basically, all it's going to do is just ask you questions, pound you with dates, and you got to memorize it. At least with humans, you're right. Some of us are better than others at telling stories. But this is where deep pedagogy really starts to come in, where we can recognize, look, I'm not a storyteller, but I do know there are certain patterns of human learning that will work for everyone, that if we follow that learning pattern, even without narrative, without story, I can make sure you're getting this deeper better than simply by looking at it or accessing it on a screen.

2:00:50So you're right. By all means, some teachers are going to be better than others at the narrative portion. And that's always going to be a big boon to learning. But other teachers who aren't that style, we can at least use human pedagogies. And I think one of the biggest things to remember is we have evolved for 150 ,000 years biological mechanisms to learn from other human beings. That's basically our superpower. No animal learns through observation and mimicry anywhere near the same way we do. Now, that happens through what we call biological synchrony. So in a very real sense, if you're learning with another human being, what's going to start to happen is your biologies are going to sync up.

2:01:27Your hearts are going to start to beat simultaneously. You're going to start to breathe at the same pace. If I could image your brains, your brains start to look almost identical. In that moment, you are no longer learning from a teacher. You are thinking like the teacher. You're making the same cognitive moves they are, ergo learning understanding get much deeper. But this is where even the exact same pedagogy, if you have a boring teacher versus a boring screen, because the screen doesn't allow any biological resonance, learning will go down on the screen compared to the person. So even the worst teacher, because they are biological and biology is a part of the learning process, they should be able to see deeper, better results than a non-biological entity teaching, using the same basic pedagogies.

2:02:12So if you're giving a speech, you never use visual aids? I will. I'm very keen on using one image at a time PowerPoints. So I have PowerPoints, but there's never any words on there. So everyone's like, oh, can I have a copy of your slides? Okay, if you want to see a picture of a cat, go for it. But I kind of think of it like a movie is we can listen to somebody speak. So here's an interesting aside. This is something most people don't know. We cannot read while listening to somebody speak at the same time. It doesn't work. So that is so true. Isn't that – and now go to any lecture at a university.

2:02:47What are you going to see? Someone talking with a slide with a thousand words behind them. Basically now kids have to choose. Am I going to read or am I going to listen? Because we literally cannot do both. So when I'm teaching, there'll be no words. But one thing we can do is listen to somebody speak while looking at images. This is why films work so well. So in a half hour talk, I might have 500 slides, but each slide is just one image. And I'm using it kind of like a movie just to highlight what I happen to be talking about right now. Now, this picture is going to highlight what I'm talking about now.

2:03:17At no point is it going to kill your attention. Is it going to shift or cause you to multitask? It just deepens what I'm saying. but by all means if the powerpoints break or the technology goes down i'm fine i'll still we'll do just fine just talking Okay, and last but not least, to no one's surprise, you are not in favor of the cell phones in the class or in the school or even during the recess or the hall passings. Like you are a proponent of no cell phone in the school. You turn it in in the morning, you pick it up at the end of the day if it must be there at all, but there should be absolutely no reliance on it.

2:03:56Why? Very rarely do I use the B word, bam. Although, to be fair, school is one giant ban. We ban what you can wear, what you can say. We're banning all the time. But the only two academic times I'll use it are smartphones and AI. Smartphones, the data is very clear. If you have a soft policy where kids can't use the phone during class, but they can use it between classes or at recess or lunch, you see no benefits to well-being, to learning, to anything. It's only when you do a hard bell-to-bell ban. Now, the reason for it is, and I won't go too deeply into the mechanisms here, but a lot of our learning happens when we stop paying attention.

2:04:36Our biology needs time to itself in order to consolidate our memories, connect it with other memories, deepen our learning. Now, historically, that time has come between classes. Between classes, we go out, we kick a ball with our friends, we talk, push each other into the lockers. all of that is downtime where your brain can focus on what you just learned and actually make that learning start to stick. But anytime you engage with a deep cognitive activity, your brain doesn't have time to enter into learning mode. It's basically going to just start bleeding things together. So this is why if you leave class and you immediately pick up a phone, there's nothing more cognitive than the blast of a phone.

2:05:13You've never given your brain a chance to actually consolidate, learn that material. So believe it or not, the benefits we want from smartphone bans isn't just in class. We have mechanisms that say it has to be gone between classes. It has to be gone during lunch and recess if you want some of these social aspects to come off. At no point does the phone sound good. Let me ask you a related question. So people who are listening to us right now who are like, okay, I'm going to buy the digital delusion and I'm going to become a smarter person. But I learned a lot in that 20-minute interview. And now I'm going to go for a walk.

2:05:45should they not now unplug. Now don't continue listening to a podcast or a book or like now do 20 minutes, just you and nature to let it all sink in. It sounds crazy, but absolutely. It's funny. You can see this with what we call higher order thinking skills. So these are things like creativity and critical thinking. The vast majority of those skills occur when you stop paying attention. This is why you rarely solve a problem while you're trying to solve it. But if you leave a problem, you'll come back with a solution. You go to bed with a problem, you'll wake up with an answer. You come up with your best ideas in the shower.

2:06:23The ability to step away isn't cute. It's not a luxury. It is as much a part of the thinking and learning process as anything else. And we got to re-embed that time back into school as well. That makes so much sense. This is such a good idea. Thank you so much for looking so into this and giving us the benefit of your expertise. Jared Cooney Horvath. Again, the book is The Digital Delusion. It is available today. Do yourself and your kids a favor and give it a look. Thank you, Jared. See you soon. All the best with the book. And we are back tomorrow with our friends from Real Clear Politics. Today's election day in at least three states.

2:06:58And we'll have an update on that, among other news. Tomorrow with the guys from RCP. And then for our SiriusXM listeners, we have Doug Brunt swinging by. and we are going to discuss what's the website if they want to submit a message. It's

2:07:18SiriusXM.com slash message Megan. And there you can submit an audio message or if you are so bold, a video one. We may play it on the air and we're going to take callers live in our second hour as well. This is a special thing we do just for our SiriusXM audience. We do it in the month of August And this is our next up with Mr. Doug Broth. That'll be fun. See you guys then. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.