Trump Sends National Guard to Portland, and Unhinged Leftist Reaction, with Michael Shellenberger and Leland Vittert | Ep. 1159

16:55Leland Vittert:I mean, what's behind it all is the radical left that controls the Democratic Party in the on the West Coast, California, Washington, Oregon. I thought we had seen some reforms in the right way in California, of all places. You saw we saw voters, you know, recriminalized fentanyl drug dealing last year. the governor has undermined that legislation. Oregon is just, you know, large, like the big, the chaos is really from these open air drug scenes, the what they call, they miscall the homeless crisis. The ICE agents, I guess that gets back to this question of what is the Trump administration doing?

17:31Leland Vittert:Does it really think it's just going to be able to self get all these people to sort of self deport with this show of force? Or do they really think they're going to get, you know, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people with these ICE raids? I don't, I guess I don't understand what the Trump administration is thinking beyond the performative value of these.

17:51Michael Shellenberger:Because if they really wanted these illegals out, they would implement E-Verify and we would get millions of them out like that overnight. But they won't do it because the Republican Party is.

18:02Leland Vittert:The president doesn't want to do it, right?

18:03Michael Shellenberger:Yeah, because the Republican Party is still half run by the Chamber of Commerce Republicans who hire all these illegals on their businesses and their farms and what have you. And they really don't want to see Trump do that. That's the only reason that makes sense for why he wouldn't do it. But this he likes because it's muscular and it makes him look tough. And it, you know, people would like to see this happen. I mean, I think people on the right are thrilled to see this happen. People on the left act like it's, you know, absolutely horrific what we're doing. And we're back in the middle of Nuremberg trials or we need them for these people.

18:37Michael Shellenberger:Where where should they look for the illegals? Well, you could make a good case that they should start in Iowa. where I guess they did, and they came upon quite the illegal immigrant. Michael, you probably saw this, but the superintendent of Des Moines, Iowa Public Schools, the largest school district in the state, Dr. Ian Andre Roberts, it turns out, is not only an illegal, but he was declared a fugitive with a deportation order in May of 2024 under Joe Biden. And still he was in this post as of July 1st, 2023, when ICE agents caught up with him in Iowa. Once they found him in his car, they ID'd themselves as immigration agents.

19:34Michael Shellenberger:He sped away. He abandoned the car. This is superintendent of schools in Des Moines. He was found in a brushy area 200 yards away with the help of an Iowa State police canine. Agents found a loaded gun, a fixed blade hunting knife and three thousand dollars cash in his vehicle. The guy has been here illegally for a long, long time. They've told they were told that he has a weapons arrest on his record back in 2020. The disposition of that charge currently unclear, however. He was making almost$300 ,000 a year as the superintendent,$270 ,000 per year, plus a tax-sheltered annuity of 14 % of that annual salary and$600 a month for a car allowance and other reimbursements.

20:22Michael Shellenberger:This is insane. They actually did run a background check on this guy from some private firm, and I guess it came up without showing any of this, which is also disconcerting. So it's amazing to me how widespread the presence of these people who are here illegally is.

20:41Leland Vittert:I love that story. There's so much going on in it, particularly at a time when, as you know, the test scores on reading and math have just gone into the toilet, with the exception of places like Mississippi, which got back to actually teaching what's called phonics or the direct sounding out of syllables, which is actually what writing is supposed to be. The progressive states, the progressives have put in place, really anti-learning agenda, also trying to say that the students should be leading their own education, a lack of discipline in the classroom. I mean, we don't know the specifics of that case.

21:17Leland Vittert:It'd be very interesting to look at it. But I just thought, you know, the first thing you look at is it just reminds you of the stuff that Tom Wolfe was writing about in the late 60s around sort of the Black Panthers and how the kind of white liberals and white progressives just got kind of sucked into this because of their white guilt into basically giving power to people that were thugs and criminals and actually murdered people. I mean, this was very well understood in the late 60s and 70s, you know, including with the Weathermen. I mean, the Weathermen, you know, they killed security guards, they killed police officers, they were dealing cocaine, you know, like, but it was the photo that went out of like all those, you know, nice white lady, you know, school board members that had just empowered, Of course, I'm sure this guy that comes in and tells a big story about race and about that's what they said.

22:05Leland Vittert:They wanted him to be focused on equity. And he just you know, and so it's just the you know, it's the it's just the old story. It's just, you know, the you know, the left is trapped with this white guilt, which imagines that they are somehow responsible for things that they are. They were unrelated to the sins of great grandparents of other people. I mean, it's not even my great grandparents. Right. It's like you're sort of somebody else's did some sin. I mean, it's such a racist discourse and mentality. It's always still shocking to me to see how powerful it is. And then to see it penetrate places like Des Moines, Iowa.

22:41Leland Vittert:Des Moines! I mean, you were saying wokeism is completely dead. I was going to pick a fight with you on it a little bit. I mean, I think that I was just with a bunch of very progressive people for just a few days. and they had regressed, if I'm being honest, from where they were in December of last year. December of last year, they were like, okay, we need to read the Wall Street Journal and look at Fox News because of this tremendous, you know, slap in the face of reality that was the November elections and the re-election of Trump. And they're like, well, maybe we, you know, and the whole, when the media, you know, went 180 on Biden, now they're just, they're all back to just Trump as a fascist and we're the good ones.

23:20Leland Vittert:And so I'm not so sure that, I think that the other thing I was gonna say about -

23:25Michael Shellenberger:Is that wokeism or is that just denialism? Like the race obsession, some leftists are always gonna have it. The trans obsession, same, but I just feel like they are so disempowered in 2025 versus where they were in 2021.

23:41Leland Vittert:No, no doubt about it. I mean, no doubt about it. So yeah, it's sort of both things are true, right? I mean, we're wokeism is definitely on the decline and it's still it's all they have, Megan. It's like it's like that. That's like what else do they have? I mean, the trans one in particular, I mean, it's nationwide. It's, you know, only 30 percent at this point or 29 percent, according to New York Times, support the awful trans medical atrocities. And only 21 percent support the sports. And those numbers are going to go down. I think we all do. The race one has persisted, you know, and it's and you see it in the Des Moines school board.

24:18Leland Vittert:I hope it's a wake up call, but it's just I think the dynamic we could talk for hours about what is the left and where is the left going and what does it need to do? I mean, my my view when I saw those troops in Portland and I think he's going to do it with Memphis, another city. And he's starting in Chicago. Yeah. You know, I just think the president needs to deliver. He needs to deliver for people in really concrete ways. It's not just show business. It's like he needs to move legislation through Congress. They need to ban the trans-medical atrocity. You've been so amazing on this issue for much longer than I have.

24:58Leland Vittert:That needs to be banned. There's legislation ready to go in Congress. We need mental illness legislation. We need crime to deal with this. Just think of the guy that killed that Ukrainian woman in North Carolina. That's all you need to think about. I mean, that Charlotte killing is the picture of the problem. It's an extreme manifestation of it, but it's massively untreated mental illness. We're in the midst of a massive psychiatric disorder. We have a kind of our civilization is creating psychiatric disorders from gender identity dysphoria to sort of, you know, to the kind of the psychopathologies that lead you to want to kill your political opponents.

25:35Leland Vittert:making 34 % of college students now say it's okay to use violence to stop a campus speaker. That's pathological. It was up from less than 20 % in 2020. That's pathological. That's like an emergency. That's like a civilizational emergency. I'd love to see the president and the White House and the administration rise to the occasion with legislation that I think, I mean, if you're thinking about it in a political way, make the Democrats be against that legislation. That's the whole advantage of it. People might go, oh, I don't know if it can pass. Okay, if the Democrats kill legislation to deal with mental illness crime, you know, I mean, if they need some more help on migration, they can go get that.

26:15Leland Vittert:Put forward this positive agenda because we're not, I just don't think people buy that those ICE raids are sending some military out to kind of protect the ICE. I don't think Americans think that's a solution. I don't think they're going to think it's going to deliver for them. And it isn't going to deliver. It's not actually addressing the underlying problem.

26:32Michael Shellenberger:Well, what's your thought about that? What's your thought about the underlying problem? Because when I look at the rash of, you know, shootings that we've had, and there's a different motivation behind each one, there's no question that there's an increasing trend that trans or trans-identified people are committing mass shootings or, you know, motivated at least in part by that. The assassination of Charlie Kirk appears to be the entire motivation. Um, I just, I'm not sure what led to that number of young people on college campuses, 34 % thinking that it's okay. It might be okay to use violence to stop somebody from coming on campus.

27:07Michael Shellenberger:Like if you ask a different person, you'll get a different answer. Alex Berenson will tell you pot has got a lot to do with it. Like today's pot is seriously deeply dangerous and it's being abused. Um, the trans thing is obviously, um, uh, an ongoing theme. We've seen in place after place. Some people now focusing in on video games and platforms like discord in the wake of the news that Charlie's assassin was obsessed with that. And, uh, so was, I think the guy who committed the Ascension murders in Minneapolis of the children in the school church. So, I mean, I don't, to me, I felt like the murder of Brian Thompson, the United healthcare CEO by Luigi Mangione was a before and after a moment like that when people didn't condemn it, when it was openly celebrated in the street, when people immediately wanted to have a conversation about, well, insurance companies are bad.

27:59Michael Shellenberger:At least that was the first moment I realized we had we were very different than we had been 15 years earlier.

28:07Leland Vittert:I mean, the response to Charlie Kirk's assassination, it shouldn't we shouldn't forget about it. And in fact, we should think about it more, you know, because it wasn't just the blue haired, you know, left wing radicals in Boulder and Berkeley. you know, it was in Brooklyn, it was, you know, ordinary normie Democrats and liberals who were celebrating the murder of somebody who said things that hurt their feelings. I think you were saying, you know, what is that? I mean, we have a system that's creating psychiatric disorders. I mean, what is that system? I mean, obviously, social media is playing a role.

28:44Leland Vittert:Tyler Robinson, the the main suspect, almost certain shooter of Charlie Kirk. I mean, he appears to have fallen down a kind of rabbit hole of very weird forms of porn, probably social media, just a lot of sexual confusion. I just think in another environment, he would have been just a totally normal straight guy, but he wasn't in a normal environment. Escaping, fleeing a religion, not having a moral spiritual system to anchor to. It's a crisis. I mean, when you kind of go, the desire to murder somebody who you disagree with, the fantasy of wanting to murder somebody you disagree with, it's disproportionately on the left.

29:32Leland Vittert:We saw that a huge percentage of people that describe themselves as very liberal and liberal. The 34 % of college students overwhelmingly very far left. Certainly, there's certain cases, obviously, where there's right wingers that have similar fantasies. But obviously, this is disproportionately, I think we did it, we calculated it as like five to one time, five to one larger among left that wants to see violence against their political opponents. Megan, it comes right out of what everybody's been talking about, which is that, you know, facts don't care about your feelings. It's all this idea that your feelings are so important that if somebody's feelings are hurt, because they've heard some discordant information because they have the discomfort of cognitive dissonance and hearing a different point of view, that that means that that person should, they shouldn't have to hear it.

30:18Leland Vittert:That person should be censored or they should be killed or assaulted. I mean, that's essentially the logic that is, we have to deprogram. Like we need a positive, this is why I keep coming back to the president because I think the opportunity here, and maybe he can't do it, you know, maybe it's just going to take somebody else, but the opportunity here is to address the public and go, we are producing psychopathologies and we need to deprogram people from these really bad, crazy ideas, including that all white people are responsible for all of the problems in the black community, including the idea that you can change your gender or sex.

30:56Leland Vittert:These things are just not possible. You know, that, you know, that you can keep a country by just opening your borders. I mean, people, people have to be reminded of what civilization requires and what it requires to protect vulnerable people, the people that progressives say they care the most about. We need that. And I think that it needs to come in the form of a positive, concrete vision that delivers for people. So that's why I keep coming to this really needs to come from the White House. Right now, they're just like, oh, well, now we'll have a fight with the Democrats about the shutdown.

31:26Leland Vittert:Oh, now we'll have a fight with the Democrats by sending ICE and military there. It's not good enough. I think that they need to find another gear because the country desperately needs that.

31:36Michael Shellenberger:I mean, Trump has definitely been messaging on these issues. He just does it in his own particular blunt way. He's not doing it in a way that's designed to reach out to anybody. And I don't blame him. I've got to be honest, I don't think they're reach out to a bull. I just don't. I just feel like, you know, Spencer Cox, the governor of Utah, just went on 60 Minutes last night. They took a deep dive into him because the left is loving him right now because when he held that presser, when they announced that Tyler Robinson had been arrested. He mentioned violence against those two lawmakers in Minnesota.

32:12Michael Shellenberger:He mentioned what happened to Josh Shapiro's house as though it's like the equivalent. You know, he did the both sides thing. And so now the left is loving Spencer Cox. And I'm sorry, those are just misrepresentations. Like the guy who attacked Paul Pelosi was not right wing. He was left wing. The guy who attacked the Minnesota lawmakers said he was dispatched by Tim Walls, which, of course, isn't true. But he's just a lunatic. But if he was motivated by anybody, he says he was motivated by a leftist governor in Tim Walls. These were not right wing incidents of right wing violence, even though the targets were left wingers.

32:48Michael Shellenberger:It's just that there's no point if you just want to say left wingers have been attacked. Yes, that's true. But those were not instances of right wing violence. They just weren't. So he's looking to have one of those kumbaya moments. And Trump is more like the fist, you know, just like punching things and fighting, which is way more in line with where I am right now. Anyway, I just I don't know. I don't know, Michael, if we can reach out to the people, if we can bargain with these people, if we can talk somebody out of wanting to kill us. And that's what's so infuriating as we watch the left wing totally try to deny the motives in these cases, whether, you know, they want to deny that the black man who seemed like a total nutcase and had schizophrenia and killed Irina in North Carolina said the thing about I just got that white girl.

33:36Michael Shellenberger:We all know he was a nut. We get it. But he did say those words, you know. So where do you get that from? Why do you think that would be a bonus? and ignore Charlie's assassin's motives too. Yeah.

33:46Leland Vittert:I just think there's two separate things. I mean, one is that you've got a radicalized left and it's very problematic. You know, when they engage in violence and they're plotting conspiracies and bombings and attacking ICE agents, that stuff should be disrupted and fought. Antifa, it's an ideology. It makes as much sense to say we're going to go after anti-fascist ideology as we're going to go after right-wing populism. But wait, now how can you say that?

34:11Michael Shellenberger:because we see them parading through Portland. They have the signs. They have the outfits. They seem very real.

34:18Leland Vittert:But they don't have a bank account. They don't have a nonprofit organization. Well, neither did ISIS, but they existed. Yeah. But then the point would be that you should crack down on illegal criminal activity, which would be, you know, but I just think that the, but like you have to kind of go, Megan, I think you just have to kind of go, what are we doing here? Like, are we trying to, We should definitely be trying to de-radicalize. We should definitely, you know, re-humanize, you know, people who had been dehumanized and called fascists and Nazis. That's serious work that needs to be done. They won't do it.

34:52Michael Shellenberger:Did you see Gavin Newsom this weekend tweeted out about Stephen Miller, President Trump's top aide? Stephen Miller is a fascist in all caps. Like, they are not willing to change the way they debate. And therefore, they must be defeated, not bargained with.

35:09Leland Vittert:Well, and I think how would you defeat them then? I mean, I think that you want to defeat them with the swing vote. In other words, you've got right and left are just in their positions. The president needs to deliver for the people that won the election for him, which were those swing voters. They want to they are worried about crime. They are worried about people get, you know, being killed on the mass transit like we saw in North Carolina. You know, they are worried about the chaos and the and the just the massive open air drug dealing and whatnot. I mean, even in those cities, 75 percent of San Franciscans support arresting people smoking fentanyl and mandating rehab.

35:45Leland Vittert:President needs to deliver in a concrete, affirmative way. I'm not suggesting that this is about making nicey nice with the radicalized. No, I know. I'm suggesting the president needs to put forward an affirmative legislative agenda in Congress, as presidents do to address these real problems in our country, which I would define as a mental illness crisis, which is behind, yeah, the guy that attacked Paul Pelosi, the guy that killed the Ukrainian refugee on the train. That's a particular thing. It requires making it easier to impose guardianship and rehab and care. Yes. Jail or prison on people.

36:25Leland Vittert:And then there's there's something else which is i think i'm more it's almost a like i mean i don't know the president can do it so i'm not even saying like i think he can but i just think you know what i mean somebody to kind of go and give us the i have a dream speech for what a positive vision of america is and and how we can be great you know the whole slogan is make america great again and you're sort of like okay well what is that exactly like is it what are you what is that other than just sending some police temporarily into cities you know picking these fights i don't think we can get I'll answer the question.

36:56Leland Vittert:We're stuck in the show business part of the.

36:58Michael Shellenberger:I don't think we can get there without 60 votes in the Senate. I really do. I think if I if you gave me the magic wand and said, you know, what would you do as you you're just asking? I think J.D. Vance should be the next president of the United States after Trump finishes off the second term. J.D. is a very effective spokesperson for all the principles that you just espoused in a way. Trump doesn't even try to be. You know, Trump is funny. Trump is entertaining. Trump is a great marketer and messenger just in his quick, you know, language where he boils down an issue to five words that even a fifth grader, a third grader can understand.

37:33Michael Shellenberger:Very effective. Very, very. But J.D. can go really in depth on these issues and really give voice to all the things that you and I just discussed. And if you gave him a six, if you gave him a House majority and a 60 vote Senate majority, then he would get legislation passed. But right now you can't pass anything. You cannot pass anything without 60 votes in the Senate. We don't have it.

37:56Leland Vittert:Make the Democrats vote no on it. Introduce it now. Make the Democrats say no about it. It's I think the voters aren't going to be like, oh, I don't want you. I don't want to vote for Republicans because they lost a vote in the Senate on something I support. They would say I would want to you'd want to keep voting for the party that is going to deliver the thing that everybody knows we need to do on I mean I mean it's not even at this point on the left I don't know what you're saying because let me just say this issue we did make them vote we made them vote on keeping

38:25Michael Shellenberger:boys out of girls sports John Thune did force a vote on that in the Senate floor and it got voted down we couldn't get we got a vote to have a vote in any event we didn't have the support because we didn't have enough Democrats to actually hold the real vote you need 60 to get cloture on any issue and we didn't have it is that really going to make the difference next time around I think the value of doing that is the same value as having them jeer DJ Daniel at the State of the Union address is the same thing as having them applaud flag burning, right? It's these little things that just show it's the same thing in watching them cheer Charlie's assassination.

38:59Michael Shellenberger:Bit by bit, they alienate themselves from the normie part of their base, such that it increases our electoral chances next time around. And then we really can have a legislation. But right now, we can't with less than 60 votes in the Senate.

39:13Leland Vittert:I mean, look, if you have, say, three bills, you know, something that bans the transmedical atrocity, something that addresses the long, outstanding issue of mental illness and crime, and something that really addresses the pocketbook issues for Americans, bringing down the cost of housing, you know, things that are just normie things that people wanted. That's what they voted for when they wanted change. Yeah, they wanted an end to the chaos. They wanted some pocketbook issues. Put three bills up like that. I just think I think actually it is different. I think voters, you know, the reason you get a no vote from your opponents on popular legislation is so that you can beat them with it over their heads during your entire campaign season.

39:57Leland Vittert:So you have three popular pieces of legislation that address these frankly overdue crisis issues. I mean, we got to get kids into trades. They got to build nuclear plants. Like there's things that we need to be building. We haven't repatriated drones and microchips and pharmaceutical manufacturing. I say that still hasn't happened. We need the president to put forward a positive agenda. If Democrats vote against it, then use that in 2026, use that in 2028. But I think this thing of just, you know, there's a moment here where I think the people that, I think we're seeing it among young men. The people that voted for Trump are kind of like, what what what are you delivering for us exactly other than a lot of show i feel like the economy

40:39Michael Shellenberger:is doing well we had three percent growth you know he is adding jobs he is deporting illegals though not in the numbers we would like i i mean the tariffs actually are turning out much better than predicted he is delivering things it's just that's got to trickle down into housing prices that's going to require some cooperation with the fed with which he's had very little he's now trying to batter the fed by ousting lisa cook that's good he's fighting it's just we've got these obstinate Democrats that are not totally out of power. And until they are, any Republicans legislative agenda is going to be somewhat stymied.

41:11Michael Shellenberger:All right, let's keep going because there's a couple of things I want to ask you about, including Comey. And then I saw you going off on the possibility of universal ID, which was rather scary. And I didn't think was an American issue, but I think your point is not yet, but it's about to be. So table that because I first want to hear your thoughts on Comey, as we've seen more meltdowns about this over the week. Again, more predictions. I mean, the greatest thing is the predictions that there's going to be turnaround when they get into office. Listen to Eric Swalwell on CNN today. This ridiculous person on the Democrat side.

41:48Michael Shellenberger:It's not 17.

41:49Megyn Kelly:You say last week that your committee, Judiciary, has the power to step in and kind of stop some of this. But how, Congressman, especially being in the minority?

42:00Leland Vittert:well first we're making it clear that we're going into the majority a year from now we have every intention to do that and so we will bring oversight accountability we will subpoena the department of justice but also private actors who have done these drug deals with the administration college campuses entertainment companies law firms and so accountability is coming and so one, it's all coming out. Two, I hope that deters people from doing more of these deals, these one-offs with the president.

42:33Michael Shellenberger:So he suggests in this interview that he, once he's returned to power, Democrats once returned to power are going to go after private citizens who enabled Donald Trump. And he lists their college campuses. I mean, So Trump threatens a college campus to not being so anti-Semitic. And they say, OK, we'll try. And he considers that a cave for which he's now going to prosecute them or law firms that went after Trump. And Trump says, I don't want to do business with you if you hire the lawyers who went after me. And the law firms say, we understand that. Rather than lose all of our federal business, we're not going to actually hire that lawyer.

43:11Michael Shellenberger:And what Eric Swalwell is now going to criminally pursue the law firm. It's an empty threat. But the whole thing's based off of the Jim Comey indictment where he's trying, as are other Democrats, to sound tough, like you just wait. We're going to do it to your people, which, of course, misses chapter one of this book.

43:32Leland Vittert:Yeah, I mean, I saw the Times had some I think it was like that subhead or something like, you know, experts worried this, you know, that Trump's revenge seeking could set off like an abuse of the DOJ. And I was just like, you know, the New York Times at that point, it's like I would say it's like Pravda, but that's already being too nice. The Times is like part of the deception operation that began in 2015 and 2016 when and this gets the Comey thing, which is really begins with the decision to not prosecute Hillary's emails. I mean, the FBI found at least 30 instances. I mean, it was probably much more than that of just the improper handling of classified information.

44:17Leland Vittert:You know, did they, you know, raid her home and go through her dresser drawers like they did with Melania Trump and President Trump in Mar-a-Lago with a phony, you know, records, you know, supposedly seeking the records? You look at this case, I mean, the Russiagate, the Russia collusion hoax begins out of the Hillary Clinton, the decision by Comey to bury and dismiss the Hillary Clinton email scandal, which I frankly didn't. I mean, Megan, I admit, I'm like I have a beginner's mind because these are areas I had not covered. And then the more I looked at it and I read the Strzok book and kind of get into it.

44:56Leland Vittert:It really starts with them needing to tarnish Trump in a way to kind of get past this completely corrupt dismissal and this complete corruption of national security, which was just a gigantic influence peddling operation with the Clinton Foundation, not dissimilar to the Hunter Biden laptop influence peddling situation. They go into the Russia collusion hoax. And by them, I mean, Comey and Brennan and the whole squad of deep state political activists. So that's, I thought, was interesting. Catherine Herridge put on X that she thinks that the indictment is just a kind of a holding pattern, just a strategy to kind of hold the door open.

45:33Leland Vittert:We're going to go and put a bigger case in front of you. I don't know if it's going to work. You know, like I'm not going to try to make any predictions legally. I think it's probably very difficult. But I do think that the most important thing, I think, as usual, is that the country deal with the fact of this abuse of power by our intelligence agencies and the fact that, you know, the media isn't really what we thought it was like the New York Times and it's covered the New York Times. When I went, you go back and read that Comey story from 2017 that is at the heart of his alleged obstruction of justice, or I think that's what the charge is, and of perjury, it really was the New York Times participating with Comey to spread misinformation about both the Hillary Clinton email scandal and about what was going on with the Russia collusion hoax.

46:21Michael Shellenberger:Mm-hmm. I agree with the critics of the indictment that the indictment as written is not going to hold up in terms of a constitutional muster because it does not give the defendant adequate notice of what he's being charged with. Like they, they actually do need to allege what the lies are. This was just a placeholder to get on, on the record, but I think the statute of limitations expires tomorrow. So there could be an amended, uh, indictment by then, but I just, I, they are in danger of having this dismissed just on the four corners of the indictment because there's an obligation under the Constitution to provide the defendant with notice of what he's being charged with.

47:02Michael Shellenberger:I'm not sure this does that because we've all been having to speculate who he lied about, which leak, to whom, by whom, who did he authorize to leak, about what. Those are very basics that need to be in there. Hopefully this temporary or acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia will do better, second bite at the apple. Okay, can you tell me what's happening on universal ID that has caught your attention. And then there was a comment I think you made about real ID, which we've already been subjected to in Connecticut and in New York, which is also disturbing. So what's happening with universal ID that caught your attention?

47:40Leland Vittert:Yeah, I mean, look, first, I had another thing where I'm sort of embarrassed that I hadn't really reported on this before, because, you know, you sort of see it, and you realize how dangerous it is just intuitively, the idea that the government is going to monitor your social media and potentially your bank accounts, your vaccine records. And then, you know, so I started poking around because in the UK, the prime minister announced you'd have to have a digital ID to work in the UK. Announced that on Friday. Then yesterday, the Swiss people voted 50.6 % for, okay, a move towards digital IDs, right?

48:18Leland Vittert:It's like there's still a couple of steps happily before we get to this totalitarian dungeon. But the most incredible thing was I just discovered these videos of Larry Ellison, apparently not having his PR handlers, you know, work with him, saying explicitly that, you know, when a creative, he was describing this as the positive, we're going to be constantly watching and reporting on what people are doing. And therefore people will be on their best behavior. People should be on their best behavior. It was shocking. And it was in a conversation with Tony Blair.

48:49Michael Shellenberger:No, thank you.

48:51Leland Vittert:It was very creepy. I mean, I was also shocked. I mean, like I just posted that. I just put up a little video that I had found just like with very limited amount of journalism and research into this. The New Statesman had done an amazing investigative thing about how much money Larry Ellison had given over 100 million pounds to Tony Blair's Institute, the former prime minister, to lobby for the digital IDs. I just put up this little video and it was like huge amount of I mean people went absolutely crazy I think it has like more

49:19Michael Shellenberger:we have it we have the soundbite that you posted it's from September 2024 here's Larry Ellison who is he just bought CBS he may buy CNN he may be one of the owners of TikTok is is one of the

49:32Leland Vittert:owners of the new TikTok here he is at 31 your body cams will be transmitting that the police will be on their best behavior because we record we're constantly recording watching and recording

49:45Michael Shellenberger:everything that's going on citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on go ahead michael

49:57Leland Vittert:i mean uh yeah like i that should just send chills up your spine i i don't know how else to describe that. I mean, you know, I've tried to kind of, you know, make try to make the best case for what's going on. You know, people will say to me, hey, it's you know, we're not there yet. We can still stop it. That's I agree with that. So we don't we're not in the totalitarian dungeon yet. But it's clear that this is where they're headed, Megan. I mean, this is what they want. And we do not happening simultaneously.

50:26Michael Shellenberger:Wish to live in a surveillance state. The answer to that is no. And it's got to be something that we fight against. Thank you for calling attention to it. I had not seen that either. And he is about to own a huge chunk of our media and social media. He already does. Thank you, my friend. Great to see you.

50:43Leland Vittert:Good to see you, Megan.

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52:54Megyn Kelly:New CBS Wednesday at 8, 7 central and streaming on Paramount+.

53:02Michael Shellenberger:We absolutely have to keep talking. It's more important now than ever. To cower, to hide, to go silent is not the answer. And all I can tell you is there is no fucking way I am canceling one stop on this tour. Not one stop. I'm going. I'm going to stand on these stages and I'm going to say all the things that we say all the time on this show. We're going to make it safe for me. We're going to make it safe for my team and my guests and you. We're going coast to coast and do something really important, which is say what's true and what's real to honor him. I really now more than ever would love to see you all face to face.

53:44Michael Shellenberger:God, I would love to see you face to face. I need to see you face to face. I am doing this tour and I would love for you to join me. MeganKelley.com for the tickets.

53:59Michael Shellenberger:My next guest may be a familiar face to many of you. For years, Leland Vittert was a fearless correspondent and anchor at Fox News. Now he hosts his own primetime show on News Nation called On Balance. But he's on today because he's also the author of a brand new memoir about growing up with autism, a disclosure he only made publicly recently. The book is called Born Lucky, A Dedicated Father, A Grateful Son, and My Journey with Autism. Leland, so great to have you. Thank you so much for being here.

54:34Megyn Kelly:Reunited once again, Megan. It's good to be back with you.

54:37Michael Shellenberger:I remember when you first joined Fox and you were in Jerusalem and you were a war correspondent, like under the worst of circumstances, you were totally unflappable, which is not easy to do. And you write the story in this memoir about how that it was like your dream job to work as a national correspondent for a national news company. And Fox News is like, we do want to hire you. You've got three weeks. Would you be interested in Jerusalem? You're like, sure. But you later We found out it's because nobody else wanted it. Right.

55:13Megyn Kelly:Yeah, that was the time that Obama had declared peace in the Middle East, and Hillary was going to negotiate a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians. Obama had given a speech in Cairo. And then the Arab Spring kicked off, and you and I were together on the air when Hosni Mubarak resigned, and I was in Tahrir Square. I think in Born Lucky, there's obviously most of it's about my childhood and my relationship with my dad and how he dealt with my diagnosis. and then adapting me for the world. But one of my favorite stories in the book that's come up a couple of times, Megan, is when you and I were on air during a Gaza-Israel war and there were rockets flying both ways over my head.

55:52Megyn Kelly:We were probably on air for 30, 40 minutes together as this battle went on. And I had my helmet clipped right here on my flak jacket. And in the middle of all the rockets, you said, Leland, your mother has just called and asked that you put your helmet on. I checked with my mom. She says she didn't call. I'm just saying.

56:13Michael Shellenberger:Well, I think I was standing up for what she wanted.

56:16Megyn Kelly:You were channeling my mother.

56:18Michael Shellenberger:It wasn't just that. So then you finally come back stateside. Next thing I know, you're in Baltimore for the Freddie Gray riots, which were just as bad as what we saw in Jerusalem and in the Middle East. So you were like getting thrown. You must have thought Fox News wanted to do you in with all the assignments they gave to you.

56:39Megyn Kelly:Yeah, well, I write in Born Lucky about my experience thinking about joining the CIA, and they had offered me a job to be a case officer there. And I turned it down because I didn't want my parents to worry because of how close of a relationship we have. So instead, I decided to go to the Middle East for Fox News. And what was funny is that, you know, at the CIA, you would get two years of training before you went out. Whereas with Fox, it was a phone call, hey, head into Egypt in the middle of the revolution. Here's about 30 grand in cash and a sat phone. Good luck.

57:13Michael Shellenberger:Yeah. You might get, hey, your hair looks nice when you do it like that. That would be more along the lines of the training Fox could give you before you went to the Middle East. But you did it, and you did it so well. You really were unflappable. You were one of the few who really stood out to me as just completely composed under very pressure-filled situations. So it's very interesting to me to read about your backstory. Now, first of all, Born Lucky is actually, that works perfectly because that actually was your nickname growing up.

57:42Megyn Kelly:Right. I grew up introducing myself to everyone as Lucky Vittert because when I was born, I should have been born dead. And you're a mother, Megan, and I know how much, you know, your relationship with your kids means. I've heard you talk about it. It's so special. And for my mother in 1982, she had a decision to make. Does she get a cesarean section because the doctor said he had a bad feeling or have a natural birth? And she said, I am going to have a cesarean section because if I don't trust my doctor, I should not not take his advice. I should just get a new doctor. So as I'm being born, the doctor screams out, this is the luckiest baby we've ever seen.

58:22Megyn Kelly:Oh, my God, what a lucky baby. So my mom's in the delivery room. My dad's there. They have that blue curtain where there's a for the operation. and my mom's hand just like grabs my dad's like this, like a vice. And my dad sort of looks over to the doc. He's like, doc, everything okay? And in Born Lucky, you see this moment in the emergency room where they pull me out and the nurse then goes, this is the luckiest baby ever because the umbilical cord was tied twice in a knot and then around my neck. So had I been born naturally, I would have been dead. And the doctor the next day came up to the room to check on me and they have that little whiteboard outside a room that says, Carol Vittert, my mom, Leland Vittert, the kid, last time I pooped, and he crossed out Leland and said, call him Lucky.

59:08Michael Shellenberger:Oh, my gosh. That is such a story. Okay, so thank God, by the way. And your dad, yeah, I can see him being pretty alarmed. What do you mean? Could you go on? Could you fill in those details a bit, Doc? So you go on to have a rough childhood, and you didn't speak for the first three years. at all. So finally, you said born in 1982, so now you're around 1985, and your parents take you in to the speech therapist and all that. And it turns out you can speak, you just are choosing not to speak. And then eventually, they decide to have you tested. And can you speak to that sort of delta that you write about between various skill sets where they try to figure out whether you're on the autism spectrum?

59:51Megyn Kelly:So this is the moment in Born Lucky where my parents are told you need to have your son evaluated, right? Which is the worst thing any parent can hear. So they take me to a medical testing building. It's, you know, stale coffee, old magazines, whatever. They send me off for a couple of hours. And this woman who's the psychologist comes back and says, look, there's a lot of things going on here. He obviously has behavioral issues and can't in any way relate to anyone his own age and has sensory issues, all sort of what we now would know to be classic signs of autism. How old are you here? I'm five and would react really aggressively if in any way touched and didn't understand any kind of social or emotional interaction with kids.

1:00:38Megyn Kelly:But what you're talking about is they, in this testing process, they gave me an IQ test and they figure out on one half of the IQ scale, I'm a genius. On the other half, I am mentally retarded to use the parlance of the day. So a spread of 20 points between the two scores is a learning disability. I had a 70 point spread, right? So yeah. And the woman said, this is the biggest spread we've ever seen. And it's very difficult to know what's going on inside his mind, meaning my mind. So in that moment in Born Lucky, my dad goes, all right, what can we do? And the woman says, not much. And then he goes, is there anything we can do?

1:01:19Megyn Kelly:And she says, generally not. So I wrote Born Lucky because I wanted to give parents, every parent of every kid who's struggling, not just with autism, the hope that my parents didn't have, that they can make an enormous difference and really bring out so much more in their child than what the experts say is possible.

1:01:41Michael Shellenberger:your dad just refused to give up on you like he started putting you through through drills and and sort of exercises that he knew would serve you well long term without any special training

1:01:53Megyn Kelly:on his part just instinct exactly and this story is about my dad it's really a love letter to him but he realized that the world wouldn't adapt to me and he made no bones about the fact that the The way I saw emotion and the way I interacted socially was not going to be accepted by the world. And if I wanted to have a fulfilling life and a chance at a loving relationship with a woman, which I now do, and I have a fabulous wife, if I wanted to have a career and be able to count people like you, Megan, as friends, I was going to have to learn how to adapt. So that was this mission of his, and it was everything from 200 pushups five days a week, starting when I was five, to try and allow me to have self-esteem about something I had accomplished because I wasn't going to accomplish anything in school and I wasn't good in athletics, all the way to taking me out to lunch.

1:02:42Megyn Kelly:And like, I would have loved nothing more because I was into the news and politics and everything else to go to lunch with someone like you. And you and my dad would be talking and you'd be talking about your kids. And I'd pipe in with questions about how do you book guests and who writes your scripts and how do you come up with what you're going to say and on and on and on. And in that moment, my dad would tap his watch. And I write in Born Lucky about why it's so important that he tapped his watch without saying, hey, Lucky, be quiet, as most parents would. But tapping his watch was a silent way to communicate to me, hey, stop talking.

1:03:12Megyn Kelly:And number two, bookmark that. Because after we got done with lunch, we'd post game. And he'd be like, okay, so when Megan was talking about her husband's new book, why did you think it was important to ask about her show? And I said, well, I don't know, Dad. I was interested in it. Right. But what do you think Megan was interested in at that point? It was this very, very granular, minute-by-minute, sort of, for lack of a better term, reprogramming of my brain.

1:03:40Michael Shellenberger:Yes, he knew that you had the intellectual aptitude to learn how to behave properly and taught you exactly how to do it, which is pretty extraordinary. What skills were you slower in then? Was it like the social skills? Was it more of like an Asperger's thing, Leland? where Asperger's kids struggle socially but may have very high IQs.

1:04:05Megyn Kelly:Yeah, it's interesting because once I was diagnosed, my parents said, we're going to tell no one. My dad didn't want me defined by a diagnosis. He said, if you get special accommodations, if you get extra time, you're not going to operate in the real world. So I don't know how to describe it sort of in a medical term, but in today's world, I mean, you would have said that I had no friends in fifth grade. My dad came to the PE time at school to figure out that they'd put me with the girls because I was bullied and pushed around so badly with the boys. So imagine what that does to a father. um in seventh grade i had been pulled out of that school in fifth grade in seventh grade the principal called my parents in sat them down two weeks into school and said look we all here at school everybody at this school thinks lucky's very weird arrow one through my parents heart and then the principal who's supposed to protect me followed up with and frankly i think he's pretty weird too so at that point my parents realized that everything that was going to happen to me was, in the view of the school, my fault.

1:05:14Michael Shellenberger:And what'd they do?

1:05:16Megyn Kelly:Look, my dad became my best and only friend. And I write in Born Lucky how my dad, at about when I was six years old, had decided he was going to quit his job because he said, I realized that you needed me. And I was the only person who could be there for you because no one else would be. And so he became my only friend at the time, now my best friend. And he figured out these ways to try and get me to find the ability to accomplish things that were outside of school, outside of having friends, outside of sports. So that was pushups. It was allowing me to learn how to fly. It was taking me out with friends so I could have some kind of social interaction, but it was also being home for me every day.

1:06:03Megyn Kelly:So in eighth grade, an art teacher decided I wasn't going to be Picasso, I guess. And, you know, there's paintings all over the walls and everything. And he was upset with me one day and he said, you know, Vittert, if my dog was as ugly as you, I'd shave its ass and make it walk backwards. So I see your face kind of reacting to that. And I walked home as I did every day, 420 in the afternoon, my dad was there. And so much of Born Lucky of this story is just showing up, is just being a parent. I know you've talked about it on air, how important it is to you to be there at every moment for your kids, because that was what's so important with dad and I.

1:06:42Megyn Kelly:And he'd spend three or four hours putting me back together. I would take out my frustrations and my isolation and my anger at how I was being treated on him. And I didn't know this, Megan, until we wrote Born Lucky is that almost every night, not every night, but after he would leave my room, he would walk downstairs. So it's now 10 or 11 at night. I was going to sleep. And my mom was probably already asleep or back in her bedroom. And he would sit in the living room in the dark and cry. And he felt like he was alone too. And that's the message of the book, right? That parents who are going through this aren't alone.

1:07:19Michael Shellenberger:I can't help but think of your last stint at Fox because, you know, you were reporting, it was J6. It was like, it was tough, tough news, especially for Republicans. And the reports were that Lachlan Murdoch didn't like your tone, the way you were handling it, kind of turned on you a bit. And next thing you know, you're, you're out. And I wonder if he knew Leland, like, I wonder if he knew maybe Leland still has like a piece of him that doesn't get the tone perfect, you know, exactly right. But you have to judge this guy overall, overall, unlike his approach to the news and whether he's trustworthy and an honest reporter.

1:08:02Michael Shellenberger:I mean, it all landed great for you. I love News Nation, love News Nation. But do you feel like those, you know, that your past ever comes back to haunt you on the air?

1:08:13Megyn Kelly:I don't know if my past ever comes back to haunt me. You know, we now know it wasn't that Lachlan Murdoch sort of didn't understand when I questioned Aaron Perini, who was Trump's spokesperson during one of the Stop the Steal rallies I was anchoring on a weekend. And I was the only Fox anchor to aggressively question Trump's claims that he won the election. And that minute, Lachlan wrote an email to the Fox executives and said, Leland's done, right? So it was a little bit like private school. I was kind of invited not to return to Fox. My dad always taught me you can control two things, which is your work ethic and your character.

1:08:52Megyn Kelly:And that to me was just about doing the right thing, right? That I was a journalist and I aggressively questioned Democrats in the same way. And I did Republicans too. It's why I love News Nation because I get to go do that. I don't have any ill will towards Fox. I'm grateful for the opportunities they gave me. It's a business. They get to make that decision, which they did, and that's fine.

1:09:22Michael Shellenberger:Good for you. You handle it very, very high class, very classy way. Good for you. So you did wind up going to college. You wound up finding a beautiful woman. You develop a family. you know, you have a family. So what happened with your wife? Was the autism still affecting the way you interacted with the world? Yeah, it's a great question.

1:09:45Megyn Kelly:Yeah. I don't know any other way, right? People have asked me that all the time. Like, you know, do you think that the way you are, that you have some superpower? I don't know. I'm just me. And certainly I've tried to adapt. But I think what you may be getting at is it's still a daily, sometimes hourly struggle, right? It's a fight that my dad gave me the tools and said, look, you have to be so disciplined in your mind to even today, I have to realize my instincts may be wrong. And I'll give your viewers and listeners something that wasn't in the book because it happened after we wrote it. But one of the classic characteristics of autism is that you become hyper task focused, like one task you just cannot be brought out of the focus and I was just recently around with my father-in-law we played a round of golf I was late I needed to get my travel bag packed I'm trying to pack the travel bag and this guy who we play golf with comes over to me to talk to me and he's standing up there you know out in the parking lot of the golf club and I'm down packing my travel bag and he keeps trying to talk to me and I'm so focused on packing the bag I couldn't help myself but keep doing it.

1:10:52Megyn Kelly:And he kept trying to talk to me. And I was so ever blessed rude to this guy. I cannot tell you. And at the end of it, he just walked away. He gave up understandably because I was being so rude. And I thought to myself afterwards, just mortified that it's like after 40 years of this, after working every day at it, sometimes you can't help yourself. But I sent him a long text. I found his phone number and said, I'm so sorry that I was so rude to you. This is just really terrible and awful behavior. I just can't tell you how much I apologize. What I didn't say was, oh, by the way, it's because I have autism.

1:11:29Megyn Kelly:And that's because that dad never let me use it as an excuse. You didn't tell anybody. You didn't talk about it. He didn't tell me for a long time because he didn't want me to use it as an excuse. The standard was the standard. And that was how he decided I would get through the world is because if I was given the ability to define myself by the diagnosis, that then I would.

1:11:51Michael Shellenberger:It would be a crutch. My God, that's so profound. This is totally giving me Shelby Eli Steele vibes, where Shelby Steele, of course, is an amazing black scholar, and Eli was born and was deaf. And this is, you know, at a time where we weren't nearly as forgiving of these so-called disabilities as we are now. and he just refused to let Eli rely on sign language. And Shelby didn't want to know sign language. He wanted Eli to read lips. That was the only way he was going to get ahead in a hearing person's world. And they talked very openly about this, again, on one of my earliest episodes before we had audio and before we had visual in that first year that the show was on.

1:12:35Michael Shellenberger:It was a really sweet story about a dad who he had to go a tough love route. he knew it was going to be very hard on Eli and it's exhausting on Eli, but Eli is very grateful that his dad made him do it because it did give him this skillset to function in a so-called normal world that he otherwise wouldn't have had. But I mean, I, now I've known you for 15 years. And did you join Fox around 2010? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Did not know any of this. I mean, so like, I think your dad did you such an enormous service and I know you feel the same. It's a beautiful love story of between father and son. I love that you shared it.

1:13:09Michael Shellenberger:So now you've got, did it affect you with the wife and the ladies and that when you started dating or no, you were just.

1:13:15Megyn Kelly:Yeah, no, I think it's a very fair question. And in the book, I, there's a little bit of my dating life in there. Certainly my wife, Rachel has an EQ that's that about that of the temperature of the son, which probably makes it so that she's willing to put up with me. So that part really helps. The most wonderful woman. Look, I mean, were there things and ways that I acted when I was younger in dating that I'm not proud of? Absolutely. Can I blame autism for that? No, because that's not how I think. And I think you said something really interesting about sort of, a normal world or a hearing person's world, that's just the world we live in.

1:13:59Megyn Kelly:And there's the debate in the deaf community about cochlear implants, about the ones that allow people to hear that are deaf. And there's this movement in that of like, well, we're not going to do that because that's adapting and I'm deaf and that's just who I am. In the same way of like in the autism community now, there's a certain community that says, you know, autism is awesome. That's your superpower. The world should just understand that about you. Well, okay. I should be able to run a marathon in three hours, but I can't. It's just not the reality of the world. And I think that was what my dad understood.

1:14:34Megyn Kelly:And the story of Born Lucky is adapting me to the world. And I'm still not fully adapted, right? I just told you that story. None of us is. Yeah. Well, you better than most for sure. and it's just trying to help parents understand that their kids can be so much more if they push them and the experts keep telling you not to do it.

1:14:56Michael Shellenberger:We saw this just last week when RFK Jr. made his announcement about Tylenol in pregnant women as a potential cause of autism and then to be honest President Trump was the one who came out was much more explicit about it. RFKJ kind of try to be more nuanced. And Trump was like, don't take it. Stay away if you're pregnant. And there was a fair amount of that from some in the autism community saying like, there's nothing wrong with autism. Why are we so focused on identifying it, preventing it and curing it? It's not something that needs to be cured. It's like, OK, I mean, it's not a few parents would wish autism on their child.

1:15:35Megyn Kelly:Who would? Who would? I've asked that question so many times. I've said, look, I grew up with autism. It was hell. Was it as profound as it is for some children? No. Was it probably worse than it was for others? Yes. But you'll read Born Lucky and you'll see what I went through growing up. If my wife was pregnant right now, we just got married three months ago, and you gave me a box to check, would this new child, would my child have autism or not. A thousand times out of a thousand, you check no. That to me is just bonkers.

1:16:09Michael Shellenberger:Mm-hmm. Let me pick it up with you where I left it off with Michael Schallenberger as a newsman. We were talking about what do we do now? What do we do with all these mass shootings, political assassinations, being cheered, Luigi Mangione, Charlie, and on? I'm much more in a place, the kids would call it based, you know, where I just want to defeat the other side right now. I'm so angry and I'm angry at the left for not acknowledging what's really, what motivated this and that they cheered Charlie's murder. And now they won't say what the shooter was motivated by. It's just a mystery. We'll never know.

1:16:43Michael Shellenberger:It's like what he literally wrote out in the bullying casings. It's just, this stuff is driving me crazy, but I'm, I am more interested even in my rageful state in what got us here and how do we get out of it? Like, is it just total destruction? Is it mutually assured destruction? Do we have to have multiple political assassinations? You know, something like that where we realize, holy, what are we doing? I don't know the answer right now. What are your thoughts?

1:17:11Megyn Kelly:you're you're smarter and you've been doing this a lot longer than i have megan i certainly don't have um the answers the one thing i think that it comes back to though is that you've rightly pointed out a problem that we have which is this anger on the left and words that are being used by the leaders of the democratic party that clearly inspire some real very very messed up individuals to commit violence. And the links to that are very obvious to any fair-minded person. I think the first answer, which is no different than what my dad did dealing with me when I was younger, is honestly can identify and speak about the problem.

1:17:53Megyn Kelly:Now, my dad didn't speak to anyone else about the fact that I had autism, but the idea that we can't honestly discuss that there is a problem with violence from the left right now is kind of wacky and very telling. I think it says that there's a lot more interest in hating Trump than there is in solving any problem that exists. And we saw this even with the RFK Jr. press conference you're talking about, right? There was much more interest in debating the recommended dose of acetaminophen for pregnant women, then there was an acknowledging that finally now we're going to talk about the scientific question of our time, which is why has there been an explosion in autism cases?

1:18:39Megyn Kelly:This is not hard. Is Trump and RFK the perfect messenger? No. But you know how many press conferences Joe Biden had on autism? Zero.

1:18:46Michael Shellenberger:Zero.

1:18:47Megyn Kelly:Zero. You go from one in a thousand cases when I diagnosed, one in 31 now, three times higher for boys, double that for poor and minority communities. and the scientific establishment is like, we don't know why this is happening, but you know, here you go. Everybody's special. Like this should be a scientific question. Finally, now it is without any sacred cows, which I think is a really important thing.

1:19:09Michael Shellenberger:And to your point about the people who just rather hate Trump than, you know, possibly be open to the idea that maybe we found something and could prevent something as troubling as autism. The women all over X, the pregnant women, intentionally taking Tylenol just as a middle finger to Trump right after they'd been told that there are serious studies. Dr. Marta McCary of the FDA, who is a legit guy, Johns Hopkins physician for many years, said, I think the number was there. There have been 40 studies, 13 of which suggested not linked, 27 of which suggested there is a link and said those 13 are not good studies.

1:19:52Michael Shellenberger:He was not impressed with the methodology. So he said the overwhelming weight is behind the conclusion that there is a link and there's something troubling between pregnant women taking Tylenol and their kids winding up with autism. And in the face of all that, my team put together a montage for people who haven't seen it. It's disturbing. It's SOT52.

1:20:11Leland Vittert:About to take Tylenol for my headache while pregnant because I don't take my medical advice from a man who doesn't have a degree in science, healthcare, or medicine, and who had a parasitic brain infection and was addicted to heroin for 14 years.

1:20:28Megyn Kelly:Yeah, I'll trust my doctors who have their degree.

1:20:32Michael Shellenberger:28 weeks pregnant. You know what I'm going to take?

1:20:36Leland Vittert:Some metaminal, the Cetaminophen. It's going to work like a charm, and my baby won't have autism.

1:20:52Michael Shellenberger:That is so sick, Leland.

1:20:55Megyn Kelly:Yeah, and by the way, the last woman in that segment was a doctor doing that. And this is, so it is breathtaking, right? And I think I should preface this by saying I don't have a medical degree and I am not a scientist as we watch these really disturbing videos. And I have the chemistry grades to prove it. So fine. But as you pointed out, the science is not settled here. There is a lot of disagreement. And whether or not you should take Tylenol, as every doctor I've talked to, when you're pregnant, is really nuanced. The information is really nuanced. Now, that nuance was lost in Trump's press conference, but fine.

1:21:32Megyn Kelly:But doing this, of taking Tylenol to just prove that you don't believe Donald Trump, your mother, what would lead a mother, even if there's a 0.0001 % chance of hurting your baby? now to do something that is completely gratuitous and doesn't help you at all, right, just to get TikTok clicks. That, I'm not a parent, but it is beyond me.

1:21:55Michael Shellenberger:No, that's mental illness. That's, I mean, that is so sick. And by the way, you know, that woman's so worried about the fact that RFKJ isn't a doctor, right? Okay, neither was Javier Becerra. He was a lawyer who preceded RFKJ in the role. That was Joe Biden's guy at HHS. Is that, I mean, did she take his advice? because like if we're waiting for chief doctor to be running HHS, we're going to be waiting a long time. I mean, they usually have doctors running like NIH, FDA, which we do have now. And by the way, those doctors are very open-minded on everything that RFKJ said. It's like why to know that it's potentially harmful and do it anyway is that doesn't bode well for those babies.

1:22:34Michael Shellenberger:It doesn't like long-term. I've got real concerns about those mothers and those babies. I want to cover something else that I saw when the when the Comey indictment dropped on Friday. This like I was search surfing on cable news to see what what was going on. And I happened to stumble upon you. And there was a very funny moment between you and your guest. It was Representative Steve Cohen. And here's what went down. Sat 53.

1:23:03Megyn Kelly:Letitia James said on camera, I am running to get Donald Trump. And she did. And Democrats were just fine with that. Rule of law, rule of law. Donald Trump ran on, I am going to get my political enemies and do on to them what they have done to me, which is he doing right now. And you didn't mind it when Letitia James did it. You're just justifying it. But when Donald Trump does it, it's terrible. So what's the difference? Well, the difference is because he campaigned on putting prices on grocery stores down the first day, getting control of inflation. Grocery prices are still high as they can be.

1:23:35Megyn Kelly:He's taking health care. Oh, come on, Congressman. Come on.

1:23:39Michael Shellenberger:So good. So good. You laughed in his face. He's a Democrat from Tennessee. Why'd you laugh?

1:23:45Megyn Kelly:Honestly, I didn't know what else to do. You ask a very kind of reasonable question and you go about the indictment of James Comey and lawfare and the best you have is grocery prices. At that point, hopefully when he got off TV and I say this, would say this whether it was a Democrat or Republican, hopefully he went to his staff and said, I need to be better prepared for my interviews, right? I need better talking points. Because this was the most obvious question in the world. Second of all, Megan, I really hope sometimes you have better things to do on Friday night at 9 p.m. But thank you for watching.

1:24:17Megyn Kelly:I love it. It makes me very proud. And my mother would be so proud that you watch me sometime. But I think that actually was the whole point. And I'm not an opinion guy. I don't do that. I'm a news guy. But my job is to ask hard questions to both sides. And I think what that sort of proves is, is that we're at the point where lawfare is the rule of law in America. And people can agree or disagree whether that's a good thing. I think anybody would sort of say that's probably a bad thing. But that's just the world we're in. And Republicans will do on to Democrats what has been done on to them. And it's hard to argue that that's not fair.

1:24:59Michael Shellenberger:It's so great that you called him out on it, because those of us who would ask those tough, fair questions don't usually get access to Democrat lawmakers like that. And you did and you took it. And he was so flat footed in the response that even you sweet down the middle, Leland, burst out laughing in his face. And I really enjoyed it, Leland. You still got it. And by the way, you are fair. You are a straight news journalist. But I didn't know until I got my hands on Born Lucky that you founded your high school Republican club.

1:25:31Megyn Kelly:Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was out of necessity, right? The way I sort of survived high school was by out of necessity. So I didn't have any friends in high school and it was having a very difficult time. But the high school I went to was very big on what college you went into. And I certainly wasn't going to get in based on my grades. But they said you need to have some kind of club on your transcript or resume or whatever it is to get into college. I had no clubs. I had no interest in being a member of a club and no club had an interest in having me. So I looked through the student parent handbook.

1:26:01Megyn Kelly:It's true. Really true. But I looked through the student parent handbook. I sort of always read the rules because oftentimes you can have the rules work for you. And in there was a rule you could start your own club. and I realized the only club that wasn't at this school was the Young Republicans Club. The school I went to was doing diversity walks long before it was cool, right? Like in the 90s. So, or oppression walks or whatever they're called. So anyway, I decided to start the Young Republicans Club. So I found a faculty sponsor, which you had to get, which I said to the faculty sponsor, we're not doing anything.

1:26:35Megyn Kelly:I just need to be a member of a club. I got three buddies. I got them around. I said, all right, guys, you're going to elect me president of the Young Republicans Club. And then school had an all-school assembly every morning where you made an announcement. So I got up and I said, the first meeting of the Young Republicans Club will be tomorrow morning. And in Born Lucky, I take you through people booing in the crowd and on and on and on. Fine. I don't know whether they were booing me or the Young Republicans Club. But I said, tomorrow meeting at 8 o 'clock, the bell rings at 8.15, donuts will be served.

1:27:06Megyn Kelly:So I went to Krispy Kreme. I got, I think, 12 dozen donuts. So do the math, 144 donuts, maybe more. Maybe there were like 300 donuts, 600 kids in the school. And the rule was you had to take attendance at the first meeting of the club. So I put out a sign-up sheet, and if you wanted a donut, you had to sign up. And I was president of the largest club on campus. It's brilliant.

1:27:32Michael Shellenberger:That was your genius IQ working in your favor. It's so smart. Well, sometimes you have to, right? Yes. High school kids will show up for free food. And if it's Krispy Kreme donuts, so much the better.

1:27:45Megyn Kelly:It worked. And I think that part of Born Lucky is sort of the fight against the establishment and sort of the fight to survive. And I think there's a lot of kids out there who feel like they're fighting for survival, which, again, and going to therapy on national television. I never went to therapy, right? That was part of my dad's thing. You don't go to therapy. You don't You don't sit there and cry about yourself, on and on. Don't feel sorry for yourself, ever. And he wouldn't let me feel sorry for myself when I left Fox and almost died of COVID. But going to therapy on national television, as wonderful and loving and compassionate as you are, is not the funnest thing in the world.

1:28:21Megyn Kelly:And to talk about your darkest moments in life. But if it can help people, right? If it can tell kids right now who are struggling, you're not alone. And if it can tell every parent whose kid is struggling, look, you can make a real difference. You can do for your child what Lucky's dad did for him, not turn him into a TV anchor, but let him know how loved they are and how much that love means and how much that dedication means. And you can push them to be more than what they are. Wow.

1:28:53Michael Shellenberger:So, Leland, is your dad still with us?

1:28:58Megyn Kelly:He is. He is with us. And it's interesting, Megan. Like so many heroes, he refuses to be labeled that way. He hates it. He really had a hard time writing the book with me, so I would interview him to get all these stories out. And the only way I could get him to actually open up and tell me everything and not sort of argue about each story being in the book, I said, look, I'm going to write this thing. And I'm going to give it to you. And if you don't want me to publish it and turn it in because I had a book contract, I won't. I did not have a plan if he said no. But I gave it to him. And he was going, I just don't know if I want to put all this out there and everything about you.

1:29:37Megyn Kelly:And I said, look, Dad. I said, if when I was five, somebody in that medical waiting room where they said, there's nothing you can do and you said anything. And the woman said, generally not, the psychologist. If instead that woman had handed you this book, what would that have meant? if somebody had handed you Born Lucky, and he said, I would have read it every week for 10 years. So now he's biased, right? It is our story. But I think that sort of explains why I'm willing to do this and why he was willing to talk about it.

1:30:16Michael Shellenberger:See, this is the difference between your dad and my mom. Because when I wrote my memoir, my mom was like, I don't think we spend enough time on me. I feel like I only got one little chapter. her and I'm a bigger star than that, she felt.

1:30:31Megyn Kelly:Well, you bring up actually this excellent point, which is my mother, who absolutely adores you and loves watching you. She sounds so smart. I love her too. She's great. And she was thinking, she actually emailed me after you told me to put my helmet on during that Gaza-Israel war and said, thank God Megan told you to do that. But she doesn't get nearly enough credit. And it's a story about my dad and I, and I think that it's a unique relationship. But as my dad wrote in the afterword of the book, she not only had to keep me together, but him together. I mean, she is such a hero in this moment and in this time.

1:31:07Megyn Kelly:And it actually made me think, Megan, about you when you were talking about why you didn't go out on the road more and how you were so careful about how much time you devote to your career. And congrats on five years that you were saying, like, it's so important that I show up for my kids. And that's what the priority is. And I just love that. Big time.

1:31:25Michael Shellenberger:No, I have realized like, there are people in this industry who are extremely well-connected, well-traveled, you know, have unfettered access to positions of power. I'm not one of them because I haven't cultivated that, you know? And I don't know, I guess maybe it's part of being a mom. Maybe it's just part of being a really active parent, you know, it can be mom or dad, but, and some people have older kids. So that's, that's easier for them. But like my kids are still pretty young, 12, 14 and 16 now. And when I look back at the past, at least eight years, you know, I've been very, very present for it.

1:32:02Michael Shellenberger:And they will have a memory when they grow up of me having been too present, if anything. And I love that, that that's what I've spent my free time doing. That's why there are very few shots of me on this red carpet and that red carpet, or I'm not flying all over the world without them because I really do want to be there for it. I'm loving it. It's fun. And they do need me, you know, in the same way you may or may not have known how much you needed your parents when you were dealing with this when you were young. Oh, I did. I knew. What a difference they were making. Yeah. But a lot of kids don't even realize it.

1:32:34Michael Shellenberger:You know, it's just sort of mom and dad are there. It's like, I know they need me, whether they're conscious of it or not. And I can feel when they need me and I can feel when my just having been there like in the car to pick them up after a rough school day made a difference. You know, so it's, that's how I spend my spare time and I, I love it. Yeah.

1:32:53Megyn Kelly:It makes an enormous difference. And I don't think enough parents get that message right about what an enormous difference it makes just that. And I say that about my dad being there every day when I came home from school, um, to put me back together. Um, and in born lucky, there's, there's these moments of, of how my dad put me back together. Um, and I got to meet him. I got to meet him and,

1:33:16Michael Shellenberger:and your mom one of these days. Um, well, such a pleasure catching up Leland, lots of love and luck. The book is born lucky. It's out tomorrow. Let's go make Leland shoot to the top of the times bestseller list. Get it right now. Born lucky. Wow. What a beautiful story. Thanks for being on. Thanks, Megan. Wow. We'll come right back. If you have ever Googled yourself, you know how many results contain your personal information, stuff you did not know or want out there. It's not by chance. Your information is available. Your name, your address, your phone number, your financial info, income, legal and health history.

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1:37:21Michael Shellenberger:We absolutely have to keep talking. It's more important now than ever.

1:37:26Megyn Kelly:This fall, Megyn Kelly is taking her show live to cities nationwide.

1:37:30Michael Shellenberger:To go silent is not the answer. I'm going. I'm going to stand on these stages, and I'm going to say all the things that we say all the time on this show. We're going to make it safe for me. We're going to make it safe for my team and my guests and you and do something really important, which is say what's true and what's real. And I would love for you to join me. MeganKelley.com for the tickets. You can stream The Megan Kelly Show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the SiriusXM app. It has ad-free music coverage of every major sport, comedy talk, podcast, and more.

1:38:06Michael Shellenberger:Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free.

1:38:08Leland Vittert:Go to SiriusXM.com slash MKShow to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com slash MKShow and get three months free. Offer details apply.

1:38:24Michael Shellenberger:So five years ago yesterday, we launched the Megyn Kelly Show. out of my children's playroom on the Upper West Side. We pulled a little bit from that first episode, and here's how things sounded. I need to create a show that I control in which my only fealty will be to the audience and to the truth. So that's why I'm here. You know, I'm sick and tired of the news today, and I hope to be a place that you can come for information that you trust, right? That you know I'm not in the bag for either side or for anybody and a place in which opinions, even heterodox opinions, can be expressed freely. And we can debate ideas, any ideas, right?

1:39:14Michael Shellenberger:And that you guys are sophisticated enough and smart enough to handle it. Yeah, that's still how I feel. And you are smart enough and sophisticated enough to handle it because we've talked about everything. There is not a third rail we haven't touched on this show in those five years. And I feel definitely that I've grown personally and professionally from it. And I hope you have too. I hear that. I hear from a ton of people. And like the number one comment I'll get is you make me feel less crazy in a crazy world. Like you help me understand that I'm not the nutcase. Like when we just talk about like our opinions and oh my God, wait a minute, I'm not the only one who's feeling this way.

1:39:54Michael Shellenberger:And I love that the show has served that purpose for people. And here's to another five and five beyond that. And beyond that, don't retire. Don't retire. When I look around at the people, older people who are thriving, that's what I see. They didn't retire. They kept working, kept their minds active.

1:40:13Michael Shellenberger:Can I tell you, I'm just going to tell you a story because we've been talking for two hours now about what the solution is on what's happening in our society. And I don't have the answer. I'm not going to sum this up with like, and here's the secret answer I've been holding back. But I'll just tell you a story and hopefully this person won't mind it. I went to a birthday party on Friday night for one of my best friends. I love her so much. And she's got a very eclectic, wide group of friends, but it was an intimate dinner party. And among the guests there was the actress Marlo Thomas, who had been married to Phil Donahue for 50 years.

1:40:50Michael Shellenberger:Such a dear man. He came on my NBC show. She came too. They were so in love. And when I first, I had met her before, but I never spent an evening socially with her. And when I first met her that night, I thought, oh boy, because I know our politics are different. I thought, I hope this doesn't turn into like, you know, how can you like Trump? And you know how it can go. I totally underestimated her. None of that came up. We didn't do politics at all that night. I think it was a diverse group in terms of our leanings. It didn't come up at all. Instead, we sat around a dinner table and we all talked about what was important to us, how we'd built our businesses, how we'd built our families, how we kept our kids close to us and made sure they didn't drift too far away or lose touch with what matters.

1:41:40Michael Shellenberger:And she had, she's 87 now, the most valuable stories and life lessons for us. First of all, she gave us hope for what life could be like at 87. I mean, she is totally physically together. There was no cane. There was no, you know, nothing scary about the way she walked. She was strong and in command going from A to B. Like you would never have thought that she was in her late eighties. And secondly, her mind was firing on all cylinders. Her memory for detail, 80 plus years ago, right there and no rambling, forgive me. But you know, sometimes when you're very elderly, not to say she's very elderly, but when you are, you can ramble, not even a hint of it knew exactly how much to give on a story, where to end it, how to, how to deliver it.

1:42:29Michael Shellenberger:You know, it was just, she was an inspiration from like that standpoint, but her stories were so inspirational. And she talked a lot about her dad, Danny Thomas, who, you know, was a big, big star and what it was like to grow up his daughter, um, in Beverly Hills and the life that she had in their close, close relationship they had and the story of how he started St. Jude, which, you know, you now you see Marlowe pushing for all the time. And just when you have a longer time, I'm going to tell you a story if I get her permission to share it directly with all the details that she shared. But my point is simply don't give up on your fellow Americans just because they don't share your politics and don't make politics the price you have to pay for engaging with them.

1:43:14Michael Shellenberger:You know, I've said it many times before, but it was just another example of it. You don't have to talk about politics with everybody. You can have delightful, enriching, meaningful friendships, or in this case, just evenings with people who are diametrically opposed to you when it comes to your politics without even getting into that stuff. And I'm so, so glad that that's how my evening went with her. I would love for more evenings to go like this between all of us so we can see each other's humanity and not make everything about Trump or our fights or the darkest news of the day. And especially with somebody like that, who's been around the block and has some wisdom to dispense.

1:43:55Michael Shellenberger:Like what a gift for me as somebody who's obviously considerably younger than she is to be able to receive all that wisdom, which I never would have had access to had I made her politics the issue. You know, so those of us on our side of the aisle need to remember not to do that too. Like to stay open-minded to the humanity and the wisdom and the loving lessons that our elders have to give us, irrespective of who they voted for. And also, I think especially on the Republican side, to remember not walking in with a chip on our shoulder, right? Because I think what a lot of us are used to being the ones getting attacked and being misrepresented and being loathed.

1:44:34Michael Shellenberger:And that doesn't mean that they're all like that. Some are like that. And when they show you their colors, that's fine. Okay, you can cut them out. But many aren't like that. Many are totally delightful and don't care. You know, they don't like the way you vote either, but won't make that the stakes if you don't. And maybe we can start learning from those people and start loving those people a bit. Maybe that's just like the glimmer of hope. Anyway, that's the one I have to offer. That actually wasn't what I plan on doing these last seven minutes on, but I'm glad we did. So anyway, huge thumbs up for Marlo Thomas, who is still very much missing her dear Phil Donahue, one of the greatest.

1:45:15Michael Shellenberger:I mean, truly, there was no one better at it. Oprah tried to pretend that she was, but no one held a candle to Phil Donahue in the way he would disarm his guests, gently make fun of them, get their guards down, make fun of himself, get the audience fired up only to pull it back in when he realized it was getting to an uncomfortable point. The love you always felt from him, the mockery he did of himself always to put everybody else at ease, one of a kind. Anyway, we'll end it there. Thank you all for joining me today. Tomorrow, Stu Bergier is here. We'll see you then. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.

1:45:52Michael Shellenberger:No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

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