#129 Megyn Kelly - The End of Mainstream Media

Megyn Kelly is an American journalist, television personality, and host of "The Megyn Kelly Show." Prior to her television career, Kelly practiced law, graduating from Albany Law School and working at renowned law firm Jones Day before transitioning to journalism. She is best known for her work as a television news anchor. Kelly gained critical acclaim as a Fox News Channel anchor, where she hosted "The Kelly File" and earned a reputation for her sharp interviewing skills and unique style. In 2017, she left Fox News to join NBC News, where she hosted "Megyn Kelly Today." Her career has been marked by high-profile interviews and coverage of major news events. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://meetfabric.com/shawn https://betterhelp.com/shawn https://drinkhoist.com - USE CODE "SHAWN" https://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/the-old-man https://ShawnLikesGold.com | 855-936-GOLD #goldcopartner Megyn Kelly Links: IG - https://www.instagram.com/megynkelly x - https://x.com/megynkelly FB - https://www.facebook.com/MegynKelly TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@megynkellyshow YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/MegynKelly Podcast - https://www.megynkelly.com/listen Website - https://www.megynkelly.com Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPact.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Mr. President? My company tore me of the explosion on our rig.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 0:38Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 0:46Speaker 03

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stall, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 0:50Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 0:53Speaker 03

  I'm not the first then.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 1:05Shawn Ryan?

  Megyn Kelly, welcome to the show.

• 1:08Speaker 05

  Shannon, so good to see you again.

• 1:10Shawn Ryan?

  It's good to see you too. I just want to say, this is so surreal to me to be interviewing you. I mean, throughout my entire career, we watched The Kelly File on deployments and to keep up with what's happening in the rest of the world. So, just to be sitting here is, it's very surreal, and I'm thankful for the opportunity, so thank you.

• 1:35Speaker 05

  Thank you for telling me that. I'm so excited to be here. I only knew a bit about you before you came on my show, and I said this after you left publicly, and not in a creepy way, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. Like, that whole interview was so profound and really just affected me in ways that I'm not usually affected when I sit down with somebody. So, it was a no-brainer when you asked me to come here. I'm looking forward to a long friendship, I hope.

• 2:04Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, that means a lot. Thank you so much. And, yeah, it was a... I loved that interview. So, I just listened to it again today. But, so, thank you for that opportunity as well.

• 2:17Speaker 05

  Thank you. Although I've decided I gotta step up my studio now that I'm here and here... My god, I've been phoning it in. It's unbelievable in here.

• 2:25Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you. There's a lot of artifacts. It's turning into a museum. I gave you some of them.

• 2:31Speaker 05

  I gotta start putting more pressure on my guests to give me things, important things. The best thing I've ever gotten from a guest is a signed basketball, signed by, remember when Dennis Rodman went over to, he's the Henry Kissinger of our time, to try to find peace with Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un? Well, it's signed by two out of the three. I got Trump and Dennis Rodman on there with all three of their faces on the basketball.

• 3:00Shawn Ryan?

  That's cool. That's gotta be a one-of-a-kind thing.

• 3:02Speaker 05

  Might be the most valuable thing I own.

• 3:04Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, right on. Well, let me, I like to kick it off with an introduction. Not that you need one, but here we go.

• 3:13Shawn Ryan?

  Megyn Kelly, you were a journalist at Fox News for 13 years and moderated six presidential debates, including the first Republican primary debate in 2015. You hosted America's Newsroom, America Live, and The Kelly File. You are the founder of Devil May Care Media and host of The Megyn Kelly Show, one of the top podcasts in the world. Your 2016 memoir, Settle for More, debuted at number one on the New York Times Bestseller List. You have an impressive and varied list of notable interviews, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister, I'm gonna butcher that, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former

• 3:54Shawn Ryan?

  President Donald Trump, then-Senator Barack Obama, President Joe Biden, Senator Mitt Romney, Michael Phelps, and the list goes on. You've won awards such as Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People, Vanity Fair's New Establishment List, and Hollywood Reporter's Woman in Entertainment Power 100. In 2016, you became the second news anchor in history to be featured on the cover of Vanity Fair. You're a mother of three, a wife, and a devout Catholic, and one of my favorite things about you is you do not waver in your values or beliefs, and that's hard to come by these days.

• 4:37Speaker 05

  Oh, well, thank you for that. I can tell my assistant has been here.

• 4:42Shawn Ryan?

  But um.

• 4:43Speaker 05

  How old am I?

• 4:44Shawn Ryan?

  But uh, so I just watched this movie this morning for the first time, Bombshell.

• 4:50Speaker 05

  Oh wow, you watched Bombshell?

• 4:51Shawn Ryan?

  I watched the whole thing this morning and uh, wow, I'd always heard about what went on over there, but to see it uh, in that format,

• 5:08Shawn Ryan?

  that's what you did is just so commendable and um, I can't wait to dive into that, but uh.

• 5:14Speaker 05

  I have a lot of thoughts.

• 5:16Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, to me, you are a beacon of light in a lost world for women, especially in this upcoming generation. I mean, they're just facing so much and and there aren't too many positive role models in the world left, I don't think, and uh, you're a great one, so.

• 5:37Speaker 05

  No, thank you. I'm, you know, I definitely have a strong ethical compass.

• 5:44Speaker 05

  But I'm, I am open-minded to being persuaded I'm wrong, you know? I always say it's delightful to find out you're wrong because tomorrow you'll be less wrong than you were yesterday. But, you know, certain core things that you grow up with, from the church, from your parents, from your Girl Scout troop, though not today, but back when I grew up. You know, they, they do communicate certain core values to you that ideally, you hold on to throughout your life and and while like different interests may come and go, different judgments may come and go, the core set of values tends to stay the same. That's at least been my experience, though I have to admit, devout Catholic may be too strong because I think my priest would be sitting at home like, really? I mean,

• 6:31Speaker 05

  we missed a few appearances at Sunday Mass over the past year, but not too many.

• 6:36Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I would love to dive into your faith journey and how that's all going, maybe towards the end of the interview as well.

• 6:43Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 6:43Shawn Ryan?

  But um, I would love to do a life story on you, starting at the beginning, and uh, and going through your come up and to being a.

• 6:55Shawn Ryan?

  Mega news anchor and how you got to where you are today. And then maybe some current events at the end. But I have a subscription platform. It's on Patreon and there are top supporters that have been here since the beginning. And so one thing that I do is I give them the opportunity to ask each guest a question. And it was overwhelmingly questions about you standing up for women. And so I wanted to, so I kind of combined all those questions.

• 7:33Shawn Ryan?

  And I just wanted to ask you, especially being a father of an eight-month-old daughter, what is the best piece of advice for young women dedicated to rising to the top in today's generation?

• 7:50Speaker 05

  Don't think of yourself as a woman. Just think of yourself as a worker and do it, a lot of it, all the time without complaint. You know, that you're not above anything. I almost called my book Out hustled as opposed to settle for more because I really think that's the word that explains my success. There's nothing particularly special about me. I'm not particularly brilliant or particularly talented in one way or another. I've just worked really hard, studied hard. And when I landed in this field, worked really hard to develop the skills that it would take to do well here. And anyone, anyone can do that. It does require some, each field requires some natural aptitude.

• 8:32Speaker 05

  You know, I don't think this work ethic onstage in the ballet would have produced the same rewards for me. But once you narrow it down to, I think I have the natural talents that could make me succeed in this business, it's all about hard work. And so my advice to young women is the same as it is to young men. Get in there, do every job, even the ones that aren't yours, even the grimy ones that make you feel less than. Don't leave before your boss. Come in on the weekends, volunteer too. Take every assignment, even if you think it's beneath you, with a thank you. When you get positive or negative feedback, say thank you. When somebody gives you any sort of critique,

• 9:16Speaker 05

  Explore it. Why? What did I do? How could I do better? If somebody edits your writing, ask them to have the marked up brief. Let me see it. Well, how did I go wrong? How could I do better? All of it is a learning opportunity. So I think all of that's important to becoming, you know, a valued employee or a star or whatever in your particular industry. But I will also say, whatever's thrown at you, by your boss, by your colleagues, by your spouse, by your friend, by your office mate, the response is, "Thank you. Thank you. Great."

• 9:49Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, that's a great piece of advice. Thank you.

• 9:52Speaker 05

  Even if it's shitty. Because now you've got this to deal with. You're figuring out, this is how I deal with a crappy person, an unethical person. This is a lesson to me in how I misjudge somebody as good who turns out to be not so good. Where did I go wrong? All of it is opportunity, if only you will take an ever so brief time. You don't have to spend days and years to reflect on it.

• 10:17Shawn Ryan?

  Have you always lived by that philosophy? Or is that learned?

• 10:22Speaker 05

  I would say I put that to more use once I hit the professional field as a young lawyer. And then certainly when my first marriage was collapsing, that was a great opportunity to really pause, you know, and figure some things out about myself. And thankfully, that happened in my young 30s. So that set me up for a nice, long run, you know, since then.

• 10:44Shawn Ryan?

  Good. I have, I also have a, this is a personal question. And, you know, ever since I started doing this and I kind of talked about why I started doing it on, when you interviewed me. But ever since I got into uncovering corruption or the truth space or whatever you want to call it, it's, uh, it's almost like a beacon went out for, for all the weirdos to try to get on my podcast. And, uh, it gets, it gets really hard to determine who is completely full of shit

• 11:27Shawn Ryan?

  and who is, who's actually not manipulating facts to...

• 11:36Shawn Ryan?

  Make it sound like truth?

• 11:37Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 11:38Shawn Ryan?

  It's tricky.

• 11:39Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:39Shawn Ryan?

  I think it's tricky. Do you find it tricky?

• 11:42Speaker 05

  Um, yes or no? I mean, I have a whole team of producers who I really trust. Some of them have been with me for more than a dozen years and gotten me through Fox and NBC and now this show. So I have complete trust in them.

• 11:56Shawn Ryan?

  Uh-huh.

• 11:56Speaker 05

  So they, you know, I have-

• 11:58Shawn Ryan?

  They sift through it all.

• 11:59Speaker 05

  I have more than my own radar to figure out who's telling the truth. But I still make mistakes because I think like you, notwithstanding my cynical newswoman background, and you've got to be somewhat cynical, given your background too, I still trust people. I still kind of love people. My instinct is still to believe as opposed to doubt.

• 12:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:24Speaker 05

  Unless you're a politician, in which case it's the opposite. I believe almost nothing.

• 12:30Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:30Speaker 05

  But you know, when I was at NBC, I had that couple come on my show. I don't know if you remember this story, but they, the woman ran out of gas and a homeless guy gave her his last $20. She filled up her gas tank and it was just such a nice gift by the homeless guy. Anyway, turn to this whole thing. She and her husband wound up starting a GoFundMe for this guy. All these people donated. It was a feel-good story. Whole thing wound up being a fraud. They were all in on it. Before we knew that, I had the husband and wife on my show because they were under some scrutiny for maybe stealing some of the GoFundMe. I gave them way too much benefit of the doubt. They were total fraudsters. It was so bad. But you know, I wouldn't take it back if I could because I like that part of me.

• 13:14Speaker 05

  I don't want to lose that part of me.

• 13:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I get, I just, um, you know, some of the stuff I worry about is, is

• 13:26Shawn Ryan?

  things like the COVID vaccine.

• 13:29Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 13:29Shawn Ryan?

  Or I don't ever want to affect somebody's decision-making process of bullshit that was put out on my show. And I just-

• 13:43Shawn Ryan?

  I feel a huge responsibility to that. And so, so I was just curious how you sift through it.

• 13:50Speaker 05

  I mean, that stuff was very tricky.

• 13:53Speaker 05

  The COVID stuff was very tricky. We were turned on by so many authorities that we were supposed to trust.

• 13:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:00Speaker 05

  It's almost like too big to get your arms around what happened there. And I actually think it's one of the reasons why people can't go back there. If you do stories on COVID, they don't get numbers. And it's not because, in particular, the right half of the country doesn't have very strong feelings about it. It's just, pardon the term, triggering.

• 14:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:18Speaker 05

  It's triggering, you know? It's like people are pissed. Nothing changed. We screwed over our kids and ourselves. A lot of us took the vaccine and feel unhealthier as a result of it. People are worried about their children if they gave it to them. So it's one of those avoidance things now. But yeah, I did not get all of COVID right. I think I did OK. I give myself a B+ on my understanding of what was going on there. But it's very hard when you have so many previously trusted entities lying to you.

• 14:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. Even, I mean, I'm not, I wasn't for it, but I brought, I brought somebody on and I felt like they were, I felt like the facts, they were, they were against it too. And I felt like the facts that they were pulling, were painting it. They were pulling all these facts from all these other things and trying to create a narrative out of it. And I never aired it.

• 15:15Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 15:16Shawn Ryan?

  Because I didn't, I didn't, if I don't believe them, then I won't air it.

• 15:19Speaker 05

  Smart.

• 15:20Shawn Ryan?

  So.

• 15:21Speaker 05

  It's, it's very hard to know. And then, I mean, I'll, I'll take you back to the COVID period where Alex Berensen wasn't allowed anywhere. You know, he's, he was a COVID vaccine doubter early on. Former New York Times reporter, then he turned an author. And. He was saying some interesting things. I mean, I had interviewed him on Fox. And he seemed like a very credible, serious journalist to me. He never struck me as a crackpot. You know, there are some people out there that you just know. So I said, well, let's put him on. I'd like to find out why he's so scary to everyone. And, you know, Alex Berenson turned out to be right about not everything, but a lot.

• 16:03Speaker 05

  And I thought our duty in putting him on was just to research everything he was gonna say and find out what the other side was saying so I could tweak him. You know, so that people could make up their own minds. But somebody like that, I didn't think it was right not to platform that guy at all. Right? Like, it's a serious person. He's not a nutcase. He's not out there to hurt a bunch of people. But there are some people who are more in the category of what you're saying. And for me, I just try to stay away from them and let the team do the vetting.

• 16:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. I should give more team members.

• 16:37Speaker 05

  Yes, you need the team.

• 16:39Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, but we'll get there. But, um, so I wanna, I wanna start at the very beginning.

• 16:47Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 16:48Shawn Ryan?

  Where did you grow up?

• 16:50Speaker 05

  I was born in Illinois. My dad was getting his PhD at the University of Illinois. And then before I turned one, we moved to Syracuse, New York. And that's where I spent pretty much the first 10 years of my life, where my dad taught at Syracuse University. And then we moved to Albany. So I basically just moved from one tundra to another, immersed in four feet of snow every winter, freezing our asses off, but loving it. You know, totally gray, totally freezing. Summers were almost nonexistent, maybe a month. And then every other month was snowy with sledding. But I thought it was heavenly.

• 17:29Shawn Ryan?

  And you have how many sisters?

• 17:32Speaker 05

  I had one sister who's, uh, she was six and a half, almost seven years older than I am. And then my brother's five and a half years older.

• 17:39Shawn Ryan?

  Okay. So you're the youngest?

• 17:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:42Shawn Ryan?

  Of three.

• 17:44Speaker 05

  I'm the ba-- I was the only one they really wanted, Sean. My brother and sister were accidents. They got-- my mom had them when she was like 23 and 24. I was the only planned child, which is-- which means. Only coveted child.

• 17:57Shawn Ryan?

  There you go. There you go. What kind of stuff were you into as a kid? What did you like doing?

• 18:04Speaker 05

  You know, it's funny, because I look back now, because, you know, now my husband and I are living such different lives than the ones we grew up with. My kids have a great existence. And we have some money, so they get to do some fun vacations and they get to go to this camp. Although it's not an expensive camp, but you know, they're learning how to sail. I never did anything like that. So when I was growing up, I literally went through the sprinkler in my mom's backyard in the summer. Or the highlight was, we'd go to my nana and pop-up's boatyard on the Hudson. I was swimming in the Hudson River in the 1970s when GE was doing all of its toxic dumps. I could have been at NASA.

• 18:45Speaker 05

  If only I had not taken in that amount of toxicity. Anyway, but it was great. It was heavenly, because we'd sit out there. I was joking the other day with my husband, I'm like, you know, I was thinking back. One of my favorite activities was to make mud pies, you know, just mud pies when it rained. And then I said, my second thought was, we were poor. How was that my favorite activity? But it was. You know, we'd sneak out. My grandparents had a stand where they would sell burgers to the fishermen. And I could get a cheeseburger whenever I wanted. And then at night, when nobody was there, you know, none of the customers. My brother and my sister and I would have our friends over and we'd play waitress, where we'd get the little order pads.

• 19:30Speaker 05

  We'd make ice cream sundaes for each other. We'd have Elvis Presley movies on, or the Brady Bunch, you know, classic 70s TV. And I don't know if it gets any happier than that. You don't need to sail. You don't need to tennis. You don't need a yacht club. You don't need any of that crap. You can do it with mud pies, a little Elvis, and a great cheeseburger. I've never lost sight of that. I feel like all of that was an important ingredient to becoming a good journalist, frankly.

• 19:59Shawn Ryan?

  Were you, were you close with your siblings?

• 20:03Speaker 05

  Yes, um, my, there was enough of an age difference that when we were little, I wasn't that close to my brother. My sister took care of me, you know, she was seven years older, so she was always a caretaker. And good to me, she was very funny, and my mom is very funny. All the women in my family have a very strong sense of humor. And my brother just sort of, I think I was in, he, I was annoying to him. He was annoyed by me because I was always in his stuff. I was messing with his gerbils when he didn't want me to. I picked up one and its tail fell off. I was like, oh shit. Buried in the garbage.

• 20:39Speaker 05

  But then when we got older, as soon as I was like 16, my brother and I got closer. And my sister and I were always close. And now my brother and I are really close.

• 20:49Shawn Ryan?

  What did your mother do?

• 20:51Speaker 05

  My mom is a nurse, and so she spent her whole life nursing at ultimately the Albany Veterans Hospital.

• 20:57Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, good.

• 20:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:59Shawn Ryan?

  And you lost your father at age 15, correct?

• 21:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:04Shawn Ryan?

  Of a heart attack?

• 21:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:06Shawn Ryan?

  How did you get through that?

• 21:10Speaker 05

  I mean, the short answer is my mom. My mom is, she's really strong. And always was. And that sense of humor was very important. You know, she was able to crack jokes almost the night of, not quite, but almost. And kind of taught us how to keep laughing, even through the dark times.

• 21:35Speaker 05

  I don't, I, it was an odd time of life for me because my dad died December 15th, 1985. I was a sophomore in high school. It was sudden, it was right before Christmas, and it couldn't have been a more explosive event on our family. But at the same time, I was popular that year. I hadn't always been. I was very badly bullied earlier. But that year, I was popular. And I had lost some weight. I was starting to look better. My acne was clearing up. I was getting invited to these cool parties with, you know, good-looking boys who started to ask me out. And so for a 15-year-old girl, all of those things are

• 22:20Speaker 05

  great things. And so I remember that year as just feeling such an odd mix of intense sadness and depression, and yet happiness and hopefulness about my life and like how it could be. And escapism, you know, and not in terms of drugs or alcohol, but just like, you know, going to the prom with the junior, right? Like, that's cool. Like shopping for a dress. Back in those days, we didn't have cell phones, like just waiting for him to call. And then he did call. I remember those moments almost as acutely as I remember the sadness around my dad's death. I think just given the value system of a 15-year-old girl.

• 23:03Shawn Ryan?

  Where it happened suddenly?

• 23:06Speaker 05

  So he was only 45. And my mom was 44. And he really hadn't had any health problems. He wasn't an exerciser, you know. 1985, a lot of people weren't. He had a relatively stressful job. He was a professor, first at Syracuse and then at SUNY Albany. And, but he loved his job. He wasn't heavy, but he did smoke. And he drank, not to excess, but he smoked. And about a week or 10 days before he died, he thought he was having some heart trouble. And he went to the ER and they told him it was heartburn. So he came back relieved.

• 23:48Speaker 05

  Other than that, there had not been any sort of warning. And the night he died, it was a Sunday night. My sister was home from college, because it was close to Christmas. My brother was still at his college, which was not too far from where we lived. And said, "Good night," went upstairs. And I just remember my sister waking me up shortly after midnight, saying, "Wake up, daddy had a heart attack."

• 24:18Speaker 05

  And it's just, it's like an otherworldly, it's an out of body experience. You know?

• 24:24Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 24:27Shawn Ryan?

  That's sad. You had just mentioned that you were bullied as a little girl. Why were you bullied?

• 24:36Speaker 05

  Why?

• 24:37Shawn Ryan?

  Why?

• 24:37Speaker 05

  That's an interesting question. Um, I think, I think it's because I had a fairly big, not huge, a fairly big personality. So I attracted attention, which is somewhat dangerous when you're young.

• 24:56Speaker 05

  Kind of always, it could be potentially dangerous, but you know, when you're young, most kids just want to fly under the radar, have friends. I wasn't trying to get attention, I just had a large personality.

• 25:12Speaker 05

  I, I've always laughed that I consider myself, now I'm fairly attractive, though it's going downhill as I get older. It's fine. Uh, um, but I have, I have an unattractive girl's personality because that's who I really am. That's how I grew up. I was never good looking. I wasn't a cute child. I wasn't a particularly good looking tween. It wasn't until I got, you know, later in high school that I was like, I need to work on this. I can, I can do better. Got to lose some weight. I got to get to a dermatologist. I had a big space between my two front teeth. I'm like, I gotta get that fixed. I gotta put some sun in, in this hair. And I started teaching aerobics. My brother said, I, just casually one time, he said, "The girls with the best bodies all do aerobics." I was like, "That's what I'll do."

• 25:58Speaker 05

  So, anyway, I do think it was just, if you have a big personality, you're potentially a target as a kid.

• 26:04Shawn Ryan?

  How did you, I mean, how would they bully you?

• 26:09Speaker 05

  Well, I had some bullying when I was in 4th grade that was unpleasant before I left Syracuse. But that's, it was sort of more normal bullying. But it was bad, like I was at a girl's birthday party and they all started flicking me. All of them. I was like, kids can be so mean. And I remember calling my dad and he came to get me early. And when we walked inside, um, I remember he looked at my mom and my mom looked at him like, "How is she?" kind of thing. And my dad went, gave her the thumbs down. But that's not, I mean, I remember it. Here I am, all these years later, but it was the 7th grade where things got bad. And really, if you could have seen me in 7th grade, Sean, honestly, like,

• 26:54Speaker 05

  I, I don't, I can't believe those girls picked on me. You know, I had enough problems. Why would they have picked on that version of me? But they did. And I've never named the ringleader, but she knows who she is. And, um, she just turned every person in the school against me. She decided I was out, I was otherized. And I went from having lots of friends to having no friends for almost a year. And 7th grade is a tough year. You know, that's 12. You're very fragile, you know, you're, you don't really have all the skills you need to deal with that kind of a thing.

• 27:38Speaker 05

  And on top of that, it was at an era, at a time when, you know, talking to my parents about it was unthinkable. You know, we weren't talking about bullying or like going to guidance counselors about, it just wasn't a thing yet. So I was ashamed about it. And so I didn't want anyone to know in my home. And so it was just, it was like a year of torture in a way. It was like an extended torture.

• 28:10Shawn Ryan?

  What ended it?

• 28:12Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 28:13Shawn Ryan?

  They just gave up?

• 28:15Speaker 05

  She just decided one day I was acceptable again.

• 28:19Shawn Ryan?

  What, so I mean, there's a lot of kids that go through this today, especially with the cyber bullying and I mean, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a big problem that a lot of kids are dealing with. And so I'm curious if you have any advice for kids that are being bullied? What could you have done back then to end it or?

• 28:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, if I could talk to the 12-year-old version of me, I 100% would say tell your parents. You know, they can help you. And it doesn't have to be, you can establish some parameters like you have to agree not to call the girl's parents, you know, something like that. But your parents can help. And I, as a parent, would absolutely intervene if this were happening to my child in whatever way I could. Because while I do think you can learn a lot from some bullying, like some short stints of bullying, I think it actually creates a more empathetic person, right? You're less likely to bully, I think, if it, you know, happens like that. But if it goes on and on and on, it can cause real damage. I, I still think it affects my relationships.

• 29:28Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 29:28Speaker 05

  My friendships, yeah.

• 29:30Shawn Ryan?

  How so?

• 29:32Speaker 05

  I'm not good at pursuing friendship.

• 29:36Speaker 05

  Like, once I have a friend, I'm a good friend, but it, the, all the friends I have pursued me.

• 29:43Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 29:44Speaker 05

  I just, like, I'm very wary of, like, rejection and getting, I don't know, hurt, getting, yeah, getting hurt.

• 29:55Shawn Ryan?

  I wanted to ask too, I wanted, I didn't want to skip over the bullying when you brought that up, but I also wanted to ask about advice for people that have lost a parent as a child. And what advice would you have for that? Because there are, there are a lot of kids that lose parents and, and me coming from a military background, there's, I know a lot of Gold Star kids. And so every time I get the opportunity to, to talk to somebody like you that has been through it, I, I just, I have to ask.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Mr. President? My company for me of the explosion on our rig.

• 31:03Speaker 00

  On October 2nd.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 31:09Speaker 00

  Tom Cruise is.

• 31:11Speaker 02

  Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 31:17Speaker 03

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You start, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 31:21Speaker 00

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  I'm not the first then.

• 31:25Speaker 00

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a middle without parent.

• 31:30Speaker 05

  Well, I think number one, lean into faith, even if you're not faithful. That's a good time to start. Just go and sit there. I used to be so comforted just by sitting in the church. One of my frustrations when my dad died was I couldn't drive. I was only 15. I'd just turned 15 a month earlier, so I really wasn't even close to driving. And so I'd ride my bike to the church, and I'd sit there. But I couldn't get to the cemetery because it was too far away. And I really wanted to sit by the cemetery, very badly. It's just, you know, you knew physically that's where he was. So I think young children need that time to say goodbye. It's not a one- or two-day process at a wake and a funeral.

• 32:15Speaker 05

  You know, there will be time of needing to sit with God or by oneself, maybe in a place like a church with the candles in the windows, where you just feel it's bigger than you. Or by the gravesite. And I think as a parent, I might ask, like, is that something you want to do? Because I wouldn't have suggested that to my mom. She could have driven me, but there was no way I would have asked that because she was grieving, and I wouldn't have wanted to upset her. But she would have done it. And I think that maybe a parent could go to the kid and say, "Do you want that? I can drop you off. I can pick you up. I don't have to be standing there for it." I guess I also want to say, this is sort of part two.

• 32:58Speaker 05

  This sounds weird, but there is a silver lining to it. You know, like, because I know my friend just lost his wife and he has two young boys. She just died suddenly last September. And he was like, can you tell me what to say to them? Like, can you tell me anything to make me feel better about what just happened to them? And this is in that category. The biggest gift to come out of losing my dad was the fact that you understand mortality in your limited time here like no other. You can't understand it the way someone who's lost a parent

• 33:42Speaker 05

  or a loved one at an early age understands it without going through that. And so, again, if you spend the time reflecting on what it means, what the pain signifies to you, then you can arrive at the obvious conclusion, which is you must make decisions in your life like it's an emergency. You know, like, it's the old no tomorrow is promised, but you just know it on a gut level. So you can't waste time. You can't waste time in a relationship that is unhappy, in a job that is unhappy, in a you that is unhappy. You must take active steps, always, always,

• 34:25Speaker 05

  to improve your situation. And the longer you sit around and think, "Well, I'll meet the right person and I'll be happier," or "My boss will finally recognize what a star I am and give me that great role or raise I want," and it doesn't happen, the more you get to the point where you realize, "Oh, and I have to be the one to change it. No one's coming to save me. It's just the MK Show." You know, "I've got, I have to make the changes. I have to do it. Succeed or fail, it's right now." So I wound up a happier person, I think, at 53 than I probably otherwise would have been.

• 35:10Speaker 05

  I think I probably would have been much more complacent about my happiness if I hadn't had that loss. And that's one gift my dad was able to give me.

• 35:21Shawn Ryan?

  I think that's some of the best advice I've ever heard in this room when it comes to that. And, uh, thank you. We've had a lot of discussions about loss and that was, that was top notch. I'm curious, you had mentioned leaning into your faith.

• 35:41Shawn Ryan?

  Did you ever, do you feel like your father's ever visited you since he's passed?

• 35:46Speaker 05

  Many times, many times.

• 35:49Shawn Ryan?

  Any specific example that sticks out?

• 35:52Speaker 05

  I mean, certainly right after he was gone, we had a lot of signs from him, right after we lost him. I mean, they were really kind of stunning. But for me, probably the biggest was when my dad was little, when I was little, my dad used to take us camping and we'd go to this place on Lake Ontario and we'd rent these cabins, you know, low rent, but so fun.

• 36:13Speaker 05

  I used to call the lawn chair for sleeping overnight inside the house. My brother and sister were like, she's an idiot. Great, we've got the bed. And my dad used to play his guitar for us around the campfire all the time when we were camping there. So there are certain songs that he used to sing to us that are, you know, I will always associate with him and those memories. Mostly by John Denver, Neil Diamond, you know, that era. And one time, I was living in Chicago, I was a young lawyer. It was, I wasn't that young, it was like 30.

• 36:53Speaker 05

  I was learning how to play guitar. Not well, but I was learning. And I had a book of, you know, sheet music. And I was really missing my dad. You know, at 30, I'd lost him for 15 years, but of course, you think about him and some days you just really wish you had your dad there and you could ask him for advice. And, um...

• 37:16Speaker 05

  I was just feeling blue and I turned the page in this guitar book. And there was this song that he used to sing to us all the time. And I don't actually know the name of it, but it goes, "It takes a worried, worried man to sing a worried song. Oh, it takes a worried, worried man to sing a worried song." And it goes from there. And I was like, oh, my God. And I could play it. I had learned enough chords that I could play it. And I strummed that guitar and I sang the song to myself. And I cried and I, I knew he was there. I knew he brought me that moment. You know, I don't purport to know how it works,

• 38:01Speaker 05

  but I know what happened that day.

• 38:05Shawn Ryan?

  I love hearing that. Um, can I share something with you?

• 38:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:10Shawn Ryan?

  I just had, uh, something happen to me a couple of weeks ago. I guess about a month ago now, but, um, I had, uh, it's Gabe again and, uh, who, who we had discussed, you know,

• 38:24Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 38:24Shawn Ryan?

  on your, when you interviewed me, but so I, I'm gonna try to get through this quick, but, um, I went to Vienna and I interviewed this, uh, gentleman, Ahmad Masood, who's the leader of the Afghan Resistance. And, um, he, uh, told me a bunch of stuff on the interview that, I get paranoid when I start doing these type of interviews uncovering corruption and, and, and, um, do you get paranoid about that at all?

• 38:57Speaker 05

  No, but I'm not dealing with that kind of stuff. I mean, you're in the thick of it.

• 39:02Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, so anyways, there's, I mean, there's, I worry about our own government. I worried, I mean, he, he is the third person I've interviewed that said, "We're bringing, giving $87 million a week to the Taliban." And, um, and, and so we, we, we started a whole movement here. And, um, once the word kind of got out, all of my former colleagues are all texting me, "Do you have protection? Do you, do you have security?" And so then I started getting really paranoid because these are the guys that I used to work with at CIA and

• 39:41Speaker 05

  They would know.

• 39:42Shawn Ryan?

  special ops and, yeah. And so I got home and I got home,

• 39:49Shawn Ryan?

  came into work on June 28th and when you walk in the front door down there, there's a big hockey jersey, a Panthers wounded warrior hockey jersey. And so when Gabe died, Gabe died of a heroin overdose. And he had started this, he kept telling me he was junked out a lot. And he was telling me that he wanted to start this wounded warriors hockey team. And he was gonna walk into the Panther stadium and find who he needed to talk to. And I was like, yeah, right, Gabe, whatever. Okay. I hope you do. Well, he did it. And

• 40:35Shawn Ryan?

  when they went to tell him that they were gonna fund his team, that's when they found him in his apartment. So fast forward, I had mentioned that Gabe's a protector and I was really paranoid about this interview. And I was a little concerned for my team. And it was kind of sinking in what we had just done. I come into the studio here for the first time since we got back. And that jersey was on the ground. And that jersey, I mean, it probably weighs 35 pounds. It's a huge frame. It's a framed, full-size hockey jersey. And it was just weird because I've been here for three years now.

• 41:19Shawn Ryan?

  And that frame has been there for three years. No crack in the frame. Glass is fine. No scuffs on it. Everybody in the office was in Vienna with me. So it couldn't have been any of them

• 41:35Shawn Ryan?

  other than my assistant, who I asked, and she didn't do it. And so anyways, the day goes by and it's just in my head. I'm like, why did that fall? Like, what is Gabe trying to tell me? Are you warning me about something? And so I stayed here late that night. Everybody was out of here. Everybody was out of both buildings that are here. And it was just me in the parking lot at the end of the day. And I'm pacing around, kind of having a conversation with Gabe in my head. Just, what are you trying to tell me here? And

• 42:15Shawn Ryan?

  I couldn't figure it out. And I went home and I told my wife Katie about it. So this is the weirdest thing. Gabe's jersey fell off the wall. It's been there for three years. And she's like, the Florida Panthers wounded Warrior hockey team jersey? And I said, yeah, that's the one. And she goes, Sean,

• 42:37Shawn Ryan?

  the Panthers just won the Stanley Cup.

• 42:40Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 42:41Shawn Ryan?

  And I was like, holy shit. And I was like, today's June 28th. That's the anniversary of Operation Red Wings. Those rounds that I just showed you up there. I found it on June 28th. And to me, I totally broke down. And a happy breakdown, but it was, I could hear his voice up there going, I'm not trying to warn you about anything, Sean.

• 43:09Speaker 05

  I'm trying to celebrate.

• 43:10Shawn Ryan?

  The fucking Panthers just won the Stanley Cup. And, but to me, I mean,

• 43:17Shawn Ryan?

  I wanted to tell that to you after our discussion about faith and, that kind of stuff that we had on your show. But to me, that's like proof. That's, it's too many coincidences in one incident to be anything else. And, and people are always searching for, you know, is there disconsciousness continue? Is there life after death? And to me, you know, it's, it's, it's like a

• 43:46Shawn Ryan?

  a supercharge in your faith to know he's got me.

• 43:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:52Shawn Ryan?

  Somebody's.

• 43:53Speaker 05

  I, I feel like there's no avoiding it. There's just no avoiding it. It's just too present, these reminders. If you just pay a modicum of attention, you'll see it. I, I don't know how one couldn't see it. You know, there's only so many things you can write off as, oh, that's a coincidence. Oh, that means nothing. I've, in my life, I just had way too many for me to ever be convinced it's not him. It's not an otherworldly force trying to communicate something to me. And I also think it's just so, there's so much hubris behind the notion that, boy, you're up. It's over. It's done.

• 44:33Speaker 05

  How do you know? We don't, we're so fragile and we know almost nothing. I love these big swinging, right, guys who are like, and gals like, no, it's just a no. Okay. I mean, who the hell knows? We need to be humble enough to know that. I'll tell you something, another good one, not in my case, but my dear friends Allison and Tom Barklidge lost their boy Blake at age 17. I did a story on it in October of 21. He died suddenly of myocarditis. And they don't know if it, I know people are gonna say it was a vac, they don't know. He had been vaccinated, but he definitely had myocarditis.

• 45:16Speaker 05

  And two greater people you'd never meet. Well, one of the things that they told me was Blake really wanted to go to Clemson. And the dad said, I don't know, Blake, you know, I'm not sure. Cause he's like, I'm gonna get into Clemson and I'm gonna get a scholarship from Clemson so we can afford it. And Tom was like, if you get a scholarship, you can go. After Blake died, they called all the colleges to which Blake had applied and said, you know, he died, don't, don't give him a spot, like, give it to some kid who's applying. But something happened at Clemson and Tom came home one day and there was the big envelope.

• 45:55Speaker 05

  And it said, not only has he admitted, well, here's a scholarship for him. So.

• 46:05Speaker 05

  Tom and Allison is just, you know, completely blown away by it. And when we aired this piece of the story, somebody from Clemson was watching. So this guy at Clemson, high up in the administration, contacted Tom. And they started talking, they became friends. Tom invited him to this memorial golf tournament he has in Blake's honor every year. Blake loved golf. And I went this year. I don't golf, but I went for them. And I met this guy from Clemson. And that day, the guy had been on the golf course. And he gets to one of the holes. And he, he said, he or the person with him, I can't remember. But one of them said, Blake, give us some help. You know, it hasn't been a great day.

• 46:49Speaker 05

  We, we need something. And this guy, who's not a very good golfer, hit the only hole in one of his life. And it happened to be on the hole where if you manage to hit a hole in one, which nobody does, you get a BMW.

• 47:08Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 47:09Speaker 05

  So the epilogue to the story is at Blake's memorial, Tom Barkley stands up there and he says, he tells the story and everybody's like, this is unbelievable. And Tom says, and I just want you to know that the one thing I always knew about Blake was that he really wanted me to have a BMW. Tom said to the guy.

• 47:28Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 47:29Speaker 05

  Anyway, the guy got to keep his BMW. But it's such a great, I just don't believe for a second that none of those things are connected.

• 47:40Shawn Ryan?

  It's just like, every time I hear this stuff, it's like a restoration of faith. And, and, you know, because I don't know about you, but mine, it goes up and down. You know, and, and it seems like as long as you are open and paying attention, you know, and not too wrapped up in your own bullshit, all the signs, they seem to be there. At least, at least for me, they just keep coming and coming and coming. And, and you know, another thing is,

• 48:14Shawn Ryan?

  That was another, that was a low point. Like, the last one that I just told you about was a low point for me and, and uh, maybe not a low point, but a lull and like, I just wasn't really into the faith stuff. I was starting to doubt again. We had had a, we'd had a study at my house and somebody, we were talking about life after death and somebody had said, "Yeah, well, you know, it's probably like before you were born." And I thought about that and then that started creeping back in my head about, "Well shit, what if the lights just go out and that's it?" And then that happened.

• 48:48Speaker 05

  But that's somewhat comforting to me. Like, I think about when you're, when you have your babies. I just think you can tell your babies are still closer to the other side. There's something just truly magical about them. There's like a knowing, there's a, there's a beauty, there's a specialness. It's not just because they're babies. I just think that you can tell they were, they're closer to the other side still. So I, that statement doesn't imply that that's a bad place to be, you know, prior to you being born. It's just not a conscious knowledge of every day-to-day activity here.

• 49:23Shawn Ryan?

  That's a good point.

• 49:24Speaker 05

  I'm okay with that.

• 49:25Shawn Ryan?

  That's a good point. Well, moving on, when did uh, becoming an attorney sound appealing to you?

• 49:37Speaker 05

  Very quickly. You know, I, like, suddenly is what I mean. I wasn't planning on being an attorney. I went to Syracuse thinking I would be a journalist because I had taken a high school aptitude test that said I should be, that I should be a journalist. And my guidance counselor wrote me a recommendation, my only recommendation for college. It was so pathetic. And he wrote, "She says she wants to be a political journalist," which I actually didn't even remember. And then he actually wrote in the thing, "Meg's very strong in English and social studies. Math and science aren't her thing." Who writes that in a college recommendation?

• 50:20Speaker 05

  It was the 80s. It was a different time. So I went to Syracuse thinking I would be a journalist, though I didn't get into Newhouse, which is the very strong journalism school. But I got into the political science school. And before I knew it, I started thinking about political science and government, and maybe there would be a role for me. And I said, "Well, I think I'd really, I'd like to be a DA." And somebody said, "Well, then you gotta go to law school." I'm like, "Oh, I guess I'm gonna have to start focusing on my grades then." And I did. I focused on my grades. I kept a good GPA. And I wound up going to Albany Law School, which is my hometown. And I had a great education there. I loved Albany Law School a lot.

• 51:06Speaker 05

  And then, you know, one thing led to another. I never did prosecute cases, though.

• 51:10Shawn Ryan?

  So you wanted to be a journalist before an attorney?

• 51:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:13Shawn Ryan?

  And then wound up being a journalist?

• 51:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:15Shawn Ryan?

  What was the draw to journalism?

• 51:18Speaker 05

  It was exciting. I always liked breaking news. You know? Like, I see it in my kids here and there. Like, when Trump got shot. I was sitting in my living room, and my little Thatcher, who was 10, said, "Trump got shot." I'm like, "What?" I thought he was messing with me. And he goes, "He got shot in the ear, but he's OK." "What?" And of course, I get, I run over to my phone. And sure enough, he was exactly right. And then I see him updating the whole family on the family text change. "Trump was shot today, took a bullet in the ear, appears to be OK." And I was like, anyway, I think some kids just have an affinity for being the one to break the news. And I had it.

• 52:04Speaker 05

  And I did a little, like, a two-day internship with the Albany Times Union when I was a sophomore in high school. And I loved that. I loved being on the phone, next to the reporter who was on the phone, calling his sources and getting the story. Then I watched All the President's Men, which is full of inspo. And that's kind of how that ball got rolling. And then I got sidetracked with the law thing. I mean, I never thought that I could go to law school and be a lawyer. I just wasn't thinking about myself in those terms. I, like Megyn Kelly Esquire, sounded so important. And I just had never even considered a life that looked like that.

• 52:49Speaker 05

  You know, I just thought I'd be more of a grizzled shoe leather reporter on the beat, in the field, breaking news. And then I just became quite dazzled by the notion of being a respectable attorney who people would have to take seriously because I had Esquire after my name. This is what I was thinking back then. Before I knew it, I had done it.

• 53:17Shawn Ryan?

  So were you outgoing before? Were you outgoing before you got into that?

• 53:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was outgoing, sure.

• 53:23Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 53:24Speaker 05

  I wouldn't consider myself an extrovert, but I'm outgoing. You know, I'm not one of those people who gets totally energized by being in front of a big crowd. Like Rush Limbaugh, I saw him many times. I was kind of friends with him. And you'd put him in front of a crowd and, man, he would come alive. You know, the chest would puff out and the voice would start to boom and the pupils would dazzle. It was just, you could see it. I'm not like that. I can do it, but I don't have the, that's, I think, what a true natural extrovert is. But outgoing, yes, I'm an easy conversationalist and happy to interact with others.

• 54:08Shawn Ryan?

  So you became, so did you, you never did become a DA?

• 54:12Speaker 05

  Never became a DA. Basically racked up $100,000 worth of debt and realized I was gonna have, I'm gonna make 30 grand a year with 100,000. I would have been below the federal poverty level. And I was like, I've had 25 years of being poor. I don't wish to be poor any longer. I would like to make some money. And the thought of making money was so delightful. I can't tell you, it's like, I remember the prospect of earning like a real paycheck because I was gonna either make 30 grand a year going with the, I wanted to work in the Manhattan DA's office. And you had to live in the borough in which you prosecuted. So 30 grand a year in Manhattan.

• 54:49Speaker 05

  Or I was getting job offers and interest from firms that were offering me $85,000 a year to start as like a young whippersnapper. And I did the math, you know, doing what my rent would be and what the cable would be. And then I remember seeing I was gonna have like $1,900 left over a month. And I was like, oh, my God. I've got to do, I would have $900 a month to spend or save or whatever. It seemed like the greatest fortune. And I realize that still is a fortune for a lot of people. But I remember the feeling of when it was a fortune for me. And I happily shed the dreams of being a DA

• 55:34Speaker 05

  and went to big law.

• 55:36Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. When did you get into journalism then?

• 55:42Speaker 05

  So I practiced law for about a decade.

• 55:44Shawn Ryan?

  A decade?

• 55:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 55:46Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 55:47Speaker 05

  Just over nine years.

• 55:48Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 55:49Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I started, I graduated law school when I was 25 and I left the law when I was 34. So nine and change.

• 56:01Shawn Ryan?

  Did you excel as an attorney?

• 56:03Speaker 05

  I think so, yeah. I was at one of the best law firms in the world. And Jones Day. And they, I was on the partnership track. They were telling me I was gonna make a partner if I stayed one more year. I tried tons of cases with these great partners there and was arguing in front of federal appellate courts across the country, which is, you know, that's a level below the Supreme Court. I was taking depositions all the time. I was arguing, I was on my feet, making arguments and motion practice and doing mini trials and TROs. And I loved it for a long time. But the problem with my out hustled is you can burn out if you don't put some self nurturing in there.

• 56:48Speaker 05

  And the law, they say, is a jealous mistress. And my mistress was very demanding. You know, she did not want me to be with anybody but her. And I just had so many vacations where I had to work the entire time. Never took a weekend, never. I miss funerals, I miss weddings.

• 57:10Speaker 05

  I don't regret it because in the same way I don't regret the hours I put in, especially early on in my career as a journalist, it all got me to where I am. You know, the people who didn't do as well as I did in the law or in journalism didn't put in that time, for the most part. Maybe some didn't, I just don't know about them. But the people I looked around, they weren't willing to make those kinds of sacrifices. I think soldiers could probably understand this, right? It's like, some will go the extra mile every time, no matter what, and probably some won't. Not everyone's gonna be a Navy SEAL. So, I burnt out, and there was an aha moment when I was considering about whether I was

• 57:54Speaker 05

  gonna take this partnership because they don't give them out to everybody, and if I took it, it would be at the expense of somebody else. And I already knew I was feeling unhappy, looked around, everybody there was an older guy with like, an ex-wife or two, and several kids in private school, and they were handcuffed to the place. And I just thought, I can do something else with my life. I can do something that I find exciting. You know, the line I wrote in my journal was, "I am more interesting than this, I am more interested than this." And I resolved to change my life.

• 58:38Shawn Ryan?

  Where, I mean, how old are you at this point?

• 58:43Speaker 05

  I was 32 when I had that aha moment.

• 58:47Shawn Ryan?

  So you're ready to totally reinvent yourself at 32?

• 58:50Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 58:51Shawn Ryan?

  Was there any fear?

• 58:52Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPact.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 59:22Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig. On October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is.

• 59:33Speaker 02

  Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us out. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 59:39Speaker 03

  What would happen if I stopped doing it? You starve, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 59:43Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 59:46Speaker 03

  I'm not the first then.

• 59:48Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 59:53Speaker 05

  Hmm, there was a little fear of not getting the partnership. I just kind of thought, wouldn't it be better to stay and get the partnership than run around the world saying, "I made partner at Jones Day," which is not easy. And in the end, I just thought it was going to be an unfair thing to do to my colleagues, you know, sort of taking it at the expense of somebody else and my firm, which I loved. And I, you know, I still have close relationships with some of the people there. I just thought, what kind of a way is that to leave? You know, you take the feather just so you can put it in your cap and then you ride off into the sunset and screw them over? So, yeah, that was the only scary piece, not to get like that brass ring that I've been working so hard. Because when you're in, I know to the outside world, they're like, "Who gives a shit?

• 1:00:37Speaker 05

  We don't care whether you were a partner or not." But when you're working for it, it seems like everything. So anyway, but then there was the big question of what to do. Now what?

• 1:00:46Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, you didn't even know what you were gonna do?

• 1:00:48Speaker 05

  No, no. I was like, "Well, I used to be a telemarketer. I can go back to that." Um, I don't know. I really didn't know what to do. But, once again, the guitar and the music spoke to me. I was living in Chicago and I was taking a guitar class. And it just so happened that a gal in my class was a journalist. She was a producer for the NBC O and L out in Chicago. And I only knew that because the space shuttle Columbia blew up and she missed guitar. Like, we never talked about our jobs. I said, "But where were you?" She said, "I'm a journalist." And I said, "Oh, you know what?"

• 1:01:34Speaker 05

  Can I buy you a cup of coffee? And she said, that sounds like someone who's interested in a career change. And I said, maybe. So we went out, we started talking about it. The more I talked about it, the more, she gave me hope. And I'm like, I felt old then, like I'm 32, kind of long in the tooth. And this is kind of old to start a new career, especially one on camera, you know? She was like, you're all wrong. You're wrong, wrong, wrong. You can totally start and I will help you. Which is so amazing, this Meredith is her name, like for her to help me. A woman helping another woman break into news, like bending over backwards to make it happen.

• 1:02:18Speaker 05

  Like, that doesn't happen a lot, Sean.

• 1:02:20Shawn Ryan?

  I can imagine.

• 1:02:21Speaker 05

  So she helped me. She helped me get, it's called a resume tape. And before I knew it, I was cold calling news directors and I had a job.

• 1:02:28Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, do you keep in touch with her?

• 1:02:31Speaker 05

  She contacted me after I wrote my book and I wrote all about her. And we had a great come to Jesus moment. And by the way, something else happened because my book, I wrote about the one girl who befriended me during my seventh grade bully year, Heather Shepherd. God bless her. And she and I reconnected after my book and we still text.

• 1:02:53Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, that's cool. That's very cool. Wow, so, so where did you wind up?

• 1:02:59Speaker 05

  Well, so I convinced this guy named Bill Lord, who's the news director in Washington, DC at the ABC affiliate, to put me on the air one day a week on tape while I was still working at Jones Day. And I said, I basically, once he agreed to take the meeting, which was really the, like, that's the big thing, like, just get a yes to the meeting. I knew I could talk my way into the job. I was like, if I suck, you don't have to air it. I'm gonna work for you for free. My law job's paying my bills. Like, let me work for you for free. I can do a lot of stuff for you legally. This is before the day of the big legal analyst everywhere. We weren't really doing that back then. But I was like, I can cover the Supreme Court. You know, I can, I've had arguments all over federal courts of appeals.

• 1:03:44Speaker 05

  I know a lot of legal stuff and how to find cases and interesting stories. So just let me shoot a story, put it on tape, and if you don't like it, you don't have to air it. And they had a sister cable station that was local and not as prestigious as the ABC affiliate. I'm like, or you could just air it on News Channel 8, with all due respect to News Channel 8. So he said yes. And so he gave me one day a week. He did pay me like a couple hundred dollars for the one day. And I loved it.

• 1:04:17Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:04:18Speaker 05

  Loved it. It was truly one of those shoot it in my veins. It was so great.

• 1:04:26Shawn Ryan?

  What was it? What was it?

• 1:04:27Speaker 05

  Everything.

• 1:04:28Shawn Ryan?

  All of it?

• 1:04:29Speaker 05

  It was exciting. It was exactly the thing that I kind of felt back in sophomore year of high school. You know, it was like chasing a story and calling sources and figuring out what's true. And then crafting a beautiful script where you can edit it and make the words just the way you want them, which I always enjoyed as a lawyer too, you know? We always used to say, if I had a longer time, I would have written a shorter brief. And in journalism, you have to write the shortest of briefs. You've got, you know, two minutes at most on the evening news to deliver your story and your script that you work on all day. Tighter, tighter, tighter, get a better sound bite, even better than that, upgrade, get a better video element, be a better sound. How are we going to open it? How do we ease them in? What's the moment where we emotionally connect with the audience? What did you make them feel?

• 1:05:14Speaker 05

  Was it balanced? Did you offer the rest of the story? Are you biased? Are you taking them too much this way? You know? I loved all of that.

• 1:05:21Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:05:22Speaker 05

  And then like, it was all was so exciting and you're like, okay, I'm going to go on camera and I'm going to do this. And then instead of being like, I nailed it. You're like, huh. I'm so much worse than I thought I was. You know, like, I thought I was going to be so much better than this. You just, it's not something you can be great at until you've done it a lot. So in the beginning, you just have to hold on to the promise of it being great in the final product and be humble as you row.

• 1:05:59Shawn Ryan?

  Do you remember what your first brief was?

• 1:06:02Speaker 05

  First brief as a lawyer or first story as a reporter? The very first story I had was, I was supposed to work on a Friday. That was my one day and hurricane, um, uh, what was her name? Irene, I think it was. I can't remember. Irene was a bad one. It was another one. Anyway, it was a hurricane that was coming through Virginia.

• 1:06:22Speaker 05

  And I called Bill Lord and I said, "Well, you don't, you don't need me, right? Because I do like legal stuff and my first day and this is like a hurricane." And he said, "If you don't already have rain pants, rain boots, a rain slicker and a rain hat, you better get them and I'll see you tonight at 5." I was like, "Oh, my God." So I went and it was crazy. It was like a scene out of Broadcast News. I went into the control room and I, I already have a potty mouth. I just got, I got it, honestly. My nana swore like a sailor and all the lawyers I'd worked with swore like sailors. So I'm sitting in the newsroom, control room, and it's breaking news. So they've got reporters everywhere covering the damage of the hurricane and the blowing winds, blah, blah, blah.

• 1:07:07Speaker 05

  There's this guy named Eric Hong, who was freelancing. And they were like, "Get to Eric, get to Eric." And they'd say like, "Eric, we're coming to you." And you could see him getting ready, you know, he's getting ready. And somebody else made a different decision, like, "No, not Eric. Move on, whatever." And they're like, "No, back to Eric. Eric, we're coming, we're coming." And you'd get ready, you'd get ready. "No, forget it." And then the one guy goes, the executive producer I later found out goes, "Eric, you're dead. WJLA fucked you."

• 1:07:35Speaker 05

  It's like, "What's, what's happening?"

• 1:07:39Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:07:39Speaker 05

  But I loved it. It was so fun. It was dynamic and kind of sexy and exciting, fast-paced, no holds barred, no... You know how like when you have to criticize somebody today, the corporate managers will tell you, you have to say like, "You're dressing particularly well. You have a perfect record of attendance. Everyone loves what a positive attitude you have. Your briefs suck. We really enjoy the way you clean up the coffee room after you leave, right? You have to like fold it in there?

• 1:08:10Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:08:11Speaker 05

  News is the opposite of that, right? They fucked you. They move on. Like, that's how it still is.

• 1:08:18Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding.

• 1:08:19Speaker 05

  No, we, my team and I joke all the time that there's no time for flowery, fluffy stuff. It's like... We finish a show and if we didn't do a good job, I will say to the team, "That show sucked. That we didn't have the facts, we didn't have the soundbite, we embarrassed ourselves, that was not up to par, it's not what the audience expects." And they're like, "Yeah." And then we do better the next day. And then I'll say that that one was perfection. Like, nobody cares. They're not, nobody's like, "She's abusive." They're like, "God, she's right. We're gonna be better tomorrow." But I love that piece of news. I couldn't do it any other way.

• 1:08:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. What, uh, so, I mean, your career, it sounds like it took off very rapidly. And so, how long did you spend at the local station?

• 1:09:09Speaker 05

  Part-time for a year. Nine months.

• 1:09:12Shawn Ryan?

  When did they start paying you, finally?

• 1:09:14Speaker 05

  Well, I was getting my 200 bucks a day for that, those Fridays I was doing. And then he offered me a second day, which would mean I had to go part-time at Jones Day. No, he offered me a second day, and then he offered me a third day, which would mean I'd have to go part-time. So that was a big moment, because I was like, really taking a step away from my law job. And, um, I wanted to do it. And I seriously considered, like, whether this is the place for me, like, if I'm good enough to do this. Anyway, long story short, I went part-time with them, and then they offered me a full-time job. And that meant leaving the law altogether.

• 1:09:54Shawn Ryan?

  How did that feel?

• 1:09:56Speaker 05

  Great. I was fine. I, Jones Day was so good to me. This guy, Tim Cullen, who ran the general litigation group, which I was in. When I first went part-time, he said, "I'm scared, because this feels like a trial separation, and those usually lead to divorce." And so, when I left, he said, "I knew it." And, uh, but they said, "Go with God. We love you." They said, "If you ever want to come back, come back." You know, I still have lots of friends there who are far-lefties. Jones Day is actually pretty fair and balanced on its politics, but my one favorite partner there, one of them, um, he's a far-lefty and he's constantly harassing me on Twitter in like, a funny way. But I love that. I love that I have that history with these guys.

• 1:10:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:40Speaker 05

  You know, we were in the trenches together. My trenches, not the real ones, like you've been in. And the war, like, lawyers tell war stories so great. Like, those are, I look back on those days fondly now that they're in the past.

• 1:10:52Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. When did you? How did Fox come about?

• 1:10:58Speaker 05

  Well, so when WJLA offered me a full-time position, I thought, well, you know, if I'm good enough to be full-time here, maybe I'm good enough to be full-time someplace better than here. Because while I'm very green as a reporter, I have 10 years of legal experience under my belt, and that counts for something. It's not totally irrelevant. And so, I had met this guy, Bill Salmon, who was a Fox News contributor at the radio and television correspondence dinner, the one that they show on Broadcast News, you know, where they go. And William Hurt's character says, "It's incredible who's here." And she says, "Who?" And he says, "Me! That was me when I went." Like, "Oh." And I met this guy, and he said, "Have you considered getting your tape to Fox?"

• 1:11:41Speaker 05

  And I said to him at the time, "I'm too green for Fox. I'm not ready." And he said, "Not necessarily." And he said, "If you're too green, Kim Hume, who runs the DC Bureau, will tell you you're too green. But you have a shot." So I sent them, I sent him my resume tape from my nine months at the ABC affiliate, and he agreed to put it on Kim's desk. Like, he guaranteed he would get her eyeballs on it. And she later had me in. I met with her. Britt Hume came by, her husband, who was the, I can't remember his title, but he was kind of, he was managing editor, and she was DC Bureau chief. And they held their cards so close to the vest on the interview of three hours. He did not let on at all how this was going.

• 1:12:25Speaker 05

  And I later found out that when I left, they high-fived each other.

• 1:12:30Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding?

• 1:12:31Speaker 05

  Yeah. And they got me right up to see Roger Ailes, and he hired me.

• 1:12:36Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. But you applied, did you apply to several places? It sounds like CNN regretted.

• 1:12:41Speaker 05

  No, I was willing to. I mean, I wasn't in any way thinking Fox is right-wing, and it really wasn't known that much that way back then. This is 2004. Fox is known as more to the right, but like, MSNBC hadn't lost its mind. This is back in the days when it was still kind of normal. So I was totally open to working there or CNN, but I only had the one connection, which was Bill Salmon, who was a contributor at Fox. So that's where I sent my tape. And I was sitting in the interview up in Ailes's office, actually with his number two, and the guy was like, "Everyone wants to work here now that we're number one." And I remember being like, "Holy shit, they're number one?"

• 1:13:20Speaker 05

  I'm never gonna get this job. But I did. Then he was off to the races.

• 1:13:27Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. I mean, that had to be. That had to be very surreal for you to be at the number one news station at the time.

• 1:13:37Speaker 05

  I loved everything about it. I loved seeing Bill O'Reilly walk through the halls like this, you know, amazing, huge cable news host, number one in all of cable news. Cocky, but like in a cool way. I just had stars in my eyes for him. Britt Hume, who was serious. And, you know, he took me under his wing and taught me how to be a serious reporter. And he used to say to me, you know what I like about you? You're not a silly girl. There's a lot of silly girls running around Fox News. You're not one of them.

• 1:14:15Speaker 05

  And it's just, it was so fun. It was so, these characters were just so colorful. You know, it's like, how is this happening?

• 1:14:24Speaker 05

  I'll tell you a story that I've never told publicly, and I can't name the names. But I was at one big event. And let's just say the person next to me on the set. I'll say this, the person's no longer there.

• 1:14:38Speaker 05

  Had like porn up on the, on the laptop. Was like talking about it. It was, I do not think this was harassment. I'm not saying it was funny. I was like, this is an unbelievable place to work. Since nobody did this at the law job.

• 1:14:52Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, sounds like the SEAL teams.

• 1:14:57Shawn Ryan?

  So what was Bill O'Reilly like?

• 1:14:59Speaker 05

  But without the muscle.

• 1:15:02Speaker 05

  Bill O'Reilly was great. I loved Bill for every year I worked there, except for the last one. He took such good care of me, like he was so good to me. He gave me the most amazing opportunities. You know, he, he had to take a hit for me one day when I was at the Supreme Court covering the Anna Nicole Smith case that went there. Do you remember that?

• 1:15:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I do.

• 1:15:24Speaker 05

  She showed up herself and she'd lost all this weight. She looked even more stunning than normal. And everybody was like.

• 1:15:34Speaker 05

  Well, I had never been so popular because that was my story that day. I must have done a hundred hits from the steps of the Supreme Court. Tokyo, everybody wanted me. And O'Reilly took me. And I found out after that hit, he was like, we need her. You know, she's going to be a star, he said, something like that. So he offered me to come back because we sparred that night, even though I was green. He was saying, she doesn't deserve any money. She's a gold digger. And I said, she is a gold digger, but he was happy to have the gold dug. He was totally on board with this gig and his estate should have to pay. They had a deal.

• 1:16:16Speaker 05

  And we had an argument about how much money it takes to be Anna Nicole Smith. Explain me to him. And it was funny. So it was a great hit, you know, because we were laughing and it was substantive, but we were also fighting and there was a good chemistry. And then he kept having me on and on and on. And then he started building legal segments around me and then I would go on twice a week, blah, blah, blah. And then I think he probably helped pave my way into the prime time. You know, it was Roger's decision, but seeing me on the prime time and, you know, they check the numbers so they can see that you're going up with the audience. Convinced Roger it was a good move. And then things changed and it was just so disappointing. You know, once I, once he saw me as more as competition.

• 1:16:58Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 1:16:59Speaker 05

  He kind of became a douchebag and it went downhill from there. So I kind of separate my experience out from like all those great years and then that last shitty year thereafter.

• 1:17:10Shawn Ryan?

  How does the, I mean, what is the competitiveness? Is it all about numbers?

• 1:17:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, but it shouldn't have been. He should have just been taking credit for me. He should have been like, you're welcome, Kelly. You know, I didn't understand why he couldn't just be proud of me. You know, he helped me when I was totally unknown. He helped me build a name and a reputation. He gave me credibility by putting me on his show, treating me like an authority, arguing with me, showing the audience he liked me. And I was very grateful to him for that and made that very clear behind the scenes and publicly. But once my show started to surpass his, never in the overall, he always beat me in the overall, like the older viewers, but in the key demo of 25 to 54 year olds, which is what they base them advertising money on.

• 1:18:00Speaker 05

  He got very competitive, you know. Everyone in cable is competitive, but like, he just couldn't

• 1:18:08Speaker 05

  square it.

• 1:18:09Shawn Ryan?

  What does that mean, competitive? Is that?

• 1:18:12Speaker 05

  He started doing like, subterfuge around my show.

• 1:18:16Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 1:18:16Speaker 05

  To block my guests and kind of interfere with our editorial and we'd shared an agent and there'd some nasty things happen there. It was just, I was so disappointed because I really felt like I was losing a mentor and a friend. And we always, you know, part of it was probably born of the fact that we had no competition on MSNBC or CNN. We just crushed them in every way. This is Fox News's heyday. You know, this was the heyday, for sure, by any measure of Fox. No one was even close to us. We were having 10 times the ratings of our competitors. So internally, we would look at each other's numbers. Right? Because that's what's interesting. Anyway, look, then things got weird after the whole Roger Ailes falling and the sexual

• 1:19:01Speaker 05

  harassment things between me and Bill. But it's a weird thing. Like, I see him on TV, he goes on News Nation sometimes. And he's just so talented, still. He looks older, his voice is a little bit more frail. But he's so talented. He's very smart. He's an amazing communicator. And I just, I still feel sad to this day that, you know, things ended the way they did.

• 1:19:27Shawn Ryan?

  No contact, huh?

• 1:19:28Speaker 05

  No, no, no. We're not friends.

• 1:19:30Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, what can, what is the, I mean, what was the,

• 1:19:37Shawn Ryan?

  what would you say the culture was like there at the beginning during the heyday?

• 1:19:44Speaker 05

  Uh, I mean, probably pretty harassy.

• 1:19:46Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:19:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, for sure. That's, that's got to be part of the memory. But I just, I mean, professionally, what I remember is excitement, drive, scrappiness. You know, it was like, we'd go to cover a story. I went to cover the Virginia Tech shooting, you know?

• 1:20:02Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:02Speaker 05

  Still the worst on-campus shooting that we've seen. And, um, CNN, they, they had four bookers or producers for every one that we had. They were crushing the field with staff and we had almost nothing, but we were killing them in the ratings and it was to drive them nuts. And I remember talking to Geraldo on a grassy knoll as we were sitting there in between hits and I'm like, my God, we're getting our asses kicked in the bookings. They were getting the biggest bookings, the best guests and we weren't. And Geraldo goes, "People don't watch because of the guests.

• 1:20:45Speaker 05

  They watch because of the hosts." And I was like, "That's kind of funny coming from Geraldo. Of course he thinks that, right?" But he wasn't wrong. Like on Fox, I think they watch because it's Fox and they know what they're going to get. Mm-hmm. But they also develop a real relationship with the talent. And even in my current lane and yours too, your audience develops a relationship with you. And if you're going to bring somebody on, they're kind of trusting you to have a kind of taste that resonates with them. So he wasn't all wrong. Anyway, I remember just scrappiness and shoestring budgets, even though we were rich, we didn't

• 1:21:28Speaker 05

  act like we were, you know, Roger and Rupert had tons of money. And I remember saying to Kim Hume, "I, I found some of the story writing and production frustrating because I was coming off of my time at Jones Day where, you know, somebody once explained to me, Kelly," my old boss said, "you know, we're American Airlines first class. You know, we give the real silverware with the cloth napkin and the warmed up nuts. Like that's the kind of service that we're providing here." And I said, "It's just frustrating to want that level of product, of production and not be able to give it because time is crunched and we don't have the resources." And she said, "We're Southwest Airlines."

• 1:22:13Speaker 05

  So that, but it was, it was a good thing. It kept us, it kept us a little chip on the shoulder, edgy, scrappy. Like, let's fight, let's go. You know, bunker mentality. We were always under attack, but it brought us closer together. You know, we were a team, we were a part of the same fraternity.

• 1:22:33Shawn Ryan?

  Good camaraderie?

• 1:22:36Speaker 05

  Mostly.

• 1:22:37Shawn Ryan?

  Mostly?

• 1:22:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, there were a couple who were, you know.

• 1:22:39Shawn Ryan?

  But very competitive?

• 1:22:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, but mostly very, very good camaraderie.

• 1:22:43Shawn Ryan?

  So are all journalists competitive with each other? Or, or was it just Bill?

• 1:22:51Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, I, I faced some more of that when I hit the primetime, for sure, from the other primetime hosts. But never before that. Before that, I only had really one person who shall remain nameless, who felt very threatened by me and behaved badly. But, uh, for the most part, people were really cool.

• 1:23:08Shawn Ryan?

  Do you get competitive?

• 1:23:09Speaker 05

  Not like that. I'm a weird person where, like, some people think that I'm gonna play, like, gin rummy with them and I'm gonna be like, I crushed you! You know, like Monica from Cheers or Friends. I'm not like that. I, I'm not competitive, like, I have to be number one in the podcast space. I'm more like, the show needs to be better. You know, like, we have to do a better job. This wasn't our best work product. Like, I'm frustrated. You didn't cut that soundbite right. I said I wanted it like this, but you did this instead. And then it didn't flow in the argument I was making. And then when I went to call for the follow-up soundbite, it made no sense.

• 1:23:49Speaker 05

  You know, like, like, that's, I guess I'm closer to like a perfectionist than I am competitive. But in my business, that breeds success.

• 1:23:57Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh, uh huh. So, you actually have control of how they cut your segments and all of that stuff?

• 1:24:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:06Shawn Ryan?

  Over there?

• 1:24:07Speaker 05

  Well, I did it at Fox to some extent. I had almost none at NBC, and now I have entire control on my show.

• 1:24:13Shawn Ryan?

  Is it still like that?

• 1:24:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, yes. I mean, on NBC, you are just a presenter. You're a newsreader. You, you don't do it. The producers do everything, which is one of the reasons why it didn't work out for me. Uh, one of the many. On Fox, you do most of it yourself. They don't have the staff. They're like, you know. The reporters write the scripts. The producers do packets for their anchors. And then the anchors have to read the packets, know the news, and ask the questions themselves. On NBC, they give you the questions. The producers write the questions, and then you're supposed to just read them like an actress.

• 1:24:53Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:24:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:54Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:24:55Speaker 05

  Like, that's literally my job. Why would I read your questions?

• 1:24:58Shawn Ryan?

  Is that most news stations?

• 1:25:00Speaker 05

  Broadcast. Yeah.

• 1:25:03Shawn Ryan?

  Pretty much all of them?

• 1:25:04Speaker 05

  I think so, yeah. I mean, when I went over to The View as a guest, and I went there a few times, not only were the producers writing the questions for the hosts, like, those women just sit there with their cards and they read the questions off of their cards. They give you the questions as the guest in advance, so you know everything is coming your way. I'm like, okay, they're still purporting to be a journalistic operation.

• 1:25:25Shawn Ryan?

  So there's... Are you serious?

• 1:25:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:25:29Shawn Ryan?

  So there's nothing that's off the cuff, real?

• 1:25:31Speaker 05

  No. No.

• 1:25:33Shawn Ryan?

  Actual opinions? They're just...

• 1:25:35Speaker 05

  I mean...

• 1:25:36Shawn Ryan?

  They're just told?

• 1:25:36Speaker 05

  I'm sure there are moments of spontaneity, but everything is very carefully choreographed. It's all written down on their little blue cards.

• 1:25:44Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. I mean, I don't even know why I'm acting surprised, because it does seem like that.

• 1:25:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:25:50Shawn Ryan?

  But, um... So were you... Did you lean conservative before Fox?

• 1:25:56Speaker 05

  Not really. I was... You know, I voted, I think, in, um... Was it eight presidential elections? And I voted for four Democrats and four Republicans. I'm pretty down the middle. Now I'm more conservative, because the whole world has shifted.

• 1:26:11Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:26:12Speaker 05

  You know, my normie views are apparently now far right. Like, men can't become women. Like, we should have a border. You know? Little things like that. But I never considered myself, and I still don't, ideological. You know, I'm... I have my ethical compass. I know what's right and wrong. And, um, I don't like Team Jerseys. I've been a registered independent for almost 20 years now. I've been a registered Republican and a registered Dem. I don't want to share a jersey with any of those guys.

• 1:26:44Shawn Ryan?

  I don't blame you.

• 1:26:45Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:26:45Shawn Ryan?

  I don't blame you at all.

• 1:26:48Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the HouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company tore me of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:27:21Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:27:27Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:27:34Speaker 03

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stall, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 1:27:38Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:27:41Speaker 03

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:27:43Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a middle without parent.

• 1:27:50Shawn Ryan?

  So, at Fox, I mean, your career, it sounds like it just went almost straight up. Who would you say some of your biggest competitors would have been?

• 1:28:05Speaker 05

  I never saw any competition on CNN or MSNBC. The bosses over there continued to try to hire me and lure me away every contract renewal because, you know, they weren't getting anywhere. And our ratings were always huge, huge, mine and Fox's. And at Fox, I just didn't look around at my colleagues like that. You know, I never considered it a zero-sum game. Roger told me early on, "Other people will try to imitate you, or try to get your look, or get your delivery, or whatever, and you never have to worry about that. There's only one you. You just worry about being you, and things will work out." And that was really good advice. I didn't look around at the other players on the field and worry about any of them.

• 1:28:48Speaker 05

  I just thought, if I can do the best job I'm capable of... I'll get to where I want to go. And those were always baby steps. Like, when I was a reporter, I thought, well, it'd be great to get bigger assignments. And then when I got bigger assignments, it's like, well, I'd love a chance at anchoring. And then it's like, what if I could be a full-time anchor? And then it's like, what if I could have my own show? And then it's, well, what if I could have, instead of co-anchor a show, my own show, just me? And then it was like, well, what if I could move up to primetime? And all those things happened. And then I kind of got to the place where I was like, it all happened. And the paycheck's bigger than it's ever been. And I'm enjoying it less than ever.

• 1:29:30Speaker 05

  Things have changed so dramatically in year 13 versus year 1 that now I'm, I guess I'm rich, okay? I've come to learn a lot of secrets of this place that I never wanted to know. I'm having way too much exposure to the executive suite. People who used to be rooting for me now find me threatening. You know, just that's what comes with money and power. And this isn't as great as I thought it was gonna be. And then, you know, most of the guys around me were like, what are you talking about? It's like, you're powerful and you've got this dough. Like, it's meaningless to me. I don't care.

• 1:30:10Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:30:10Speaker 05

  I just don't care. I, tomorrow, could basically go back to mud pies in the backyard if I had to. That's just who I am. That's why I was saying earlier, that was an important way to grow up. I think if you need the trappings of big money in journalism, you become a shitty journalist, Don Lemon. You, you take yourself too seriously. You need access to these elite circles. You want to see yourself at dinner tables with stars. You want to go to the fancy award shows. And I dipped a toe into that world, just to see what it was like when I got these invitations. And it was horrible.

• 1:30:45Shawn Ryan?

  Why?

• 1:30:46Speaker 05

  Because it's insufferable to be around those people and to have to make conversation with them. I can't talk to those people. I don't, I don't know how to live in that world. I feel the way probably most of your audience feels like they would feel. Where you're like, I've got nothing to say to this bride. I don't even know how to talk to, insert name of A-list celebrity. Unless they want to talk about the stuff that I like. Like, politics and the world and real people.

• 1:31:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:15Speaker 05

  What are we? I don't even know how to respond. Like, I... Doug and I would always find the accountant who helped organize the event and wind up talking to him. You know? Like, the geeky lawyer who got invited just as a favor. That's where we'd go.

• 1:31:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I can relate to that.

• 1:31:33Speaker 05

  Right?

• 1:31:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yep. Wow, that's interesting. You know, when you were talking... Just a second ago, you were talking about how Roger told you people are gonna try to copy what you're doing, to steal your style.

• 1:31:48Shawn Ryan?

  I struggle with that now. I see it starting to happen. And, um...

• 1:31:55Shawn Ryan?

  When is the first time you noticed somebody

• 1:31:59Shawn Ryan?

  trying to imitate what you were doing?

• 1:32:02Speaker 05

  Um, I don't know. I guess I've seen it here and there, but I don't really pay attention to it.

• 1:32:08Shawn Ryan?

  That didn't bother you?

• 1:32:09Speaker 05

  No, no. I believed what he said, and I knew what he said was true when he said it. That's true. Only one person has my combination of attributes, good, bad, or ugly, they're mine. You can't imitate them. It's, you know, look at Josh Shapiro, this governor of Pennsylvania. Have you ever heard him talk?

• 1:32:31Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 1:32:31Speaker 05

  He is a wannabe Obama. He tries to talk just like Obama. Tomorrow.

• 1:32:40Speaker 05

  It's so obvious. I'm embarrassed for him. I have second-hand embarrassment. There's only one Barack Obama, and it ain't you, Josh Shapiro. Find your own style. So, no, I never felt like, oh, she's coming for me. You know, I just kind of felt like...

• 1:32:58Shawn Ryan?

  How would they try to imitate you?

• 1:33:00Speaker 05

  I mean, a lot of people would get exactly the same haircut I had or start wearing exactly the same clothes I had, move over to the same agents I had, start getting, you know, whatever, go to all the same people I went to for, like, clothes and just sort of surround themselves.

• 1:33:19Shawn Ryan?

  Legitimately trying to be you.

• 1:33:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's just like...

• 1:33:22Shawn Ryan?

  Same network?

• 1:33:22Speaker 05

  How'd that work out?

• 1:33:23Shawn Ryan?

  Other networks?

• 1:33:24Speaker 05

  Uh, both.

• 1:33:25Shawn Ryan?

  Both?

• 1:33:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:33:28Speaker 05

  Liz, when I was in college, I dated this guy who was a great guy. And he was the captain of the lacrosse team that won three national championships at Syracuse. And he, you know, was a Division One NCAA champion. And he used to say, "Meg, you go to these lacrosse games, you can always tell which team is going to win." Because one team is practicing their drills and throwing the balls around, and the other team's looking at that team.

• 1:33:53Speaker 05

  You know, it's just a good reminder, don't be that second team.

• 1:33:58Speaker 05

  And I don't even think it's a good competitive practice, like, "You're keeping an eye on your competition." No, that's not the key to winning. The key to winning is to keep an eye on your shit. And just keep tweaking it, keep making it better, keep raising the bar for excellence. There's always room for improvement. We never achieve perfection, but it's fun to try.

• 1:34:20Shawn Ryan?

  I'm going to take that advice personally.

• 1:34:23Speaker 05

  You should.

• 1:34:23Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 1:34:24Speaker 05

  And plus, like, who would have the connection that you have with your audience, Sean? It's like, they fall in love with you because of you. You know, one of these imitators might get an invitation onto the Megyn Kelly Show one day, and I'll have a very nice interview, and they'll be very nice, and I'll say, "That worked, goodbye." And they'll be utterly forgettable.

• 1:34:43Speaker 05

  Only you have this... There's something special about you. And I mean that to you in particular, like, there's something special about you. Very few people have a, like, this combination of soulfulness, and smarts, and depth, and humor, and introspection, but ability to have conversations about light things and real things. It's just, it works, and you don't need to worry about that other team.

• 1:35:10Shawn Ryan?

  Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. That means a lot.

• 1:35:15Shawn Ryan?

  How did you meet your husband?

• 1:35:18Speaker 05

  We were set up.

• 1:35:19Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:35:20Speaker 05

  So I was a young cub reporter at Fox, and he was running his own business. He had started a company from New York, but it was based in Florida. And we were set up on what was a blind date for me, not so much for him. That's kind of a great story because this woman who did PR work for his firm sent me an email saying, Meghan, I have no idea what your situation is, but I know this great guy.

• 1:35:49Speaker 05

  She gave me his resume, you know, like he went to Duke, he went to Georgetown for his MBA. He sounded smart, he's great looking, and we all love this guy, super nice guy. And I had just gotten out of my first marriage, and I almost deleted the email. I literally had the finger on the delete button. And at the last second, I, something made me hit save instead.

• 1:36:15Shawn Ryan?

  Wait a minute. So a random publicist just, what, saw you on the air?

• 1:36:21Speaker 05

  I guess she got my email. I think she'd done some work for Fox.

• 1:36:24Shawn Ryan?

  And was like, oh, this woman would be perfect for my boss?

• 1:36:27Speaker 05

  She was traveling with him on an airplane, and they saw me pop up doing a report on Duke Lacrosse and that fake rape case. And they got to talking about that story because Doug went to Duke and me. And she, you know, I guess he must have said some favorable things. And so she shot me an email, like, you know, he expressed interest, I guess. And it was, it's just so crazy because if you, like Doug came into my life when he was 34 years old. He did have that nice resume. He was running a company. He came from a very nice Philadelphia family, not snooty, just like, I mean, a nice, nice family.

• 1:37:06Speaker 05

  And he'd never been married. It was just, he's very good looking. I think I can, the audience will Google Doug Brunt. You will see, I'm not just being a proud wife. He's really a great looking guy. And I was like, he's gay, he's a serial killer. He has a secret wife, that's obvious. Every lady knows that doesn't just come to you after your divorce when you're 34 or 35 years old. It doesn't happen. So I was like, I guess I can give it a try until I find the bodies buried in the basement. But it'll, you know, we'll have a good run till then. And so we went on our first date. I brought a friend who hid in the bar, like she was down at the end of the bar, making sure he wasn't a freak stalker.

• 1:37:52Speaker 05

  And he wasn't a freak stalker. He's kind of nerdy, actually, in a really sweet way. And we hit it off instantly.

• 1:38:01Shawn Ryan?

  How long did it take for you guys to get engaged?

• 1:38:05Speaker 05

  He moved fast. We started dating in July of '06, is that right? Yes, and he proposed to me in September of '07.

• 1:38:14Shawn Ryan?

  How'd he propose?

• 1:38:16Speaker 05

  He took me to the end of the dock in the Jersey town where he grew up going in the summers. And he took off his sunglasses, we were sitting on a bench, he got down on one knee and proposed with a big fake, like, dime store, you know, 25 cent ring.

• 1:38:33Shawn Ryan?

  Beautiful.

• 1:38:34Speaker 05

  It was scary, that moment was scary, Sean, because I was not thinking about getting remarried. I'd just gotten a divorce.

• 1:38:40Shawn Ryan?

  Total surprise.

• 1:38:41Speaker 05

  Total surprise. He ran it by my mom, and my mom was like, "Have you run this by Megan?" Because I'm not sure. And he was like, "Whoa, what do you mean?" But, you know, it was one of those things, like, I'm learning how to play mahjong. Do you ever play mahjong? It's like it's becoming a thing.

• 1:38:59Shawn Ryan?

  Man, back in like Windows 95 era.

• 1:39:02Speaker 05

  It's becoming a thing in both of my communities, where I go in the summers and where I am in home in Connecticut. And, you know, when you get the little card, you have to say whether you want it, or the tile, or not. You got it, like, there's no do-overs. If the tile's there, you gotta click on it, or you never get it again. So it might have been a little early for me, the proposal, but in retrospect, I thank God I said yes, because I don't know if we would have had Thatcher, you know, like my third kid. I had him when I was 42. That's already kind of old. What if I had waited? Maybe there wouldn't be a Thatcher. You know, so Doug's instincts were dead on.

• 1:39:44Shawn Ryan?

  So you guys have been married for 16 years? Congratulations.

• 1:39:49Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:39:49Shawn Ryan?

  What do you think the key to a successful marriage is?

• 1:39:53Speaker 05

  I definitely think it's using your most generous lens on your partner. Trying to interpret all behaviors through the lens of "he loves me, and I love him."

• 1:40:04Speaker 05

  That helps with so many things. And I also think it's important to say the thing that you don't want to say. Not to be intentionally hurtful, but we don't really have a lot of conflict now, but when I was on Fox in the prime time, and Doug was doing more than his fair share of everything going on with the young kids. He was never like a stay-at-home dad, he always had stuff going on, but he just, he had a job that allowed him to be at home more, and so he necessarily was doing more.

• 1:40:32Speaker 05

  He never got resentful really of me, actually. He was always very supportive. He's just a cool guy. But I got resentful of him.

• 1:40:38Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:40:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was like, I don't like that the kids go to your side of the bed in the middle of the night.

• 1:40:45Speaker 05

  I don't like that you've shown them all these movies that, you know, I'm not around to see. And you have your own little language with them about the fun things you've done. You know, I, I don't like when I'm having a one-on-one conversation with them and you come in and join. I may, I need my own one-on-one time with them. Get out, you know? And I didn't really want to say those, all those things make me feel, even to this moment, like a very petty person, you know? Like, here's this guy, he's doing all this great stuff. Most women would kill to have a more active partner. I had a different kind of problem. And I didn't really give a shit if it made me feel small. I needed to say it. We had to clear the air. And Doug always made me feel better about those things, always, you know?

• 1:41:27Speaker 05

  And then when I finally righted my life and got more balance into where I could be a more active mother, I realized it's not so thrilling to have them come over in the middle of the night and wake you up. It was, I didn't know how good I had it. Go bother your father.

• 1:41:46Shawn Ryan?

  How long did it take you to find that balance? Did you find it at Fox or was it, was it after your, your, what would I call it, mainstream?

• 1:41:54Speaker 05

  I mean, I left Fox for a bunch of reasons, but the number one reason was I needed to raise my own children. They were seven, five, and three when I left, and I hadn't missed it. You know, I'd missed a lot.

• 1:42:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:06Speaker 05

  But I hadn't missed it. And, um, you know, I don't, it's just, if people don't understand that, it's like I can't explain it to them. Like, there's only one time.

• 1:42:20Speaker 05

  That you can raise them, that's it.

• 1:42:22Shawn Ryan?

  I feel it.

• 1:42:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:42:23Shawn Ryan?

  I feel it all the time.

• 1:42:24Speaker 05

  Once you've missed it.

• 1:42:27Speaker 05

  You've missed it.

• 1:42:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I am realizing how fast it actually does go.

• 1:42:33Speaker 05

  You have to prioritize it. Yeah, you, you have to, like, and I remember when I was thinking about leaving Fox, I sat next to some gazillionaire at some event. We were both like doing a speech someplace or something and he, he was talking about how he spent all of his kids' 18 years of formation on the road and earning the money and they have a private jet and all this stuff. And he was like, I screwed up. It wasn't worth it. I wish so much I had done it differently. And I was like, this is an angel sent to me at this moment in time when I can make a different choice.

• 1:43:08Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:43:09Speaker 05

  I had the NBC offer to go do something that, as we now know, was a very poor fit, but in my mind was just an off-ramp. You know, it was like, I can get out of the toxic world of politics, which, you know, if you know anything about 2016 and my life, was extremely toxic for me that year. I can be with these beautiful people who need me. You know, I can talk about stories that are uplifting. I thought it'd be more like an Oprah-type show where we, you know, talked about changing people's lives and I took it. You know, I was scared to take that leap, but I knew changing my hours and my schedule and my, like, overall setup had to be done.

• 1:43:50Shawn Ryan?

  How does your, if you don't mind me asking, how does your husband

• 1:43:56Shawn Ryan?

  deal with the fame and notoriety that you have?

• 1:44:02Speaker 05

  He's very good about it. I mean, he, he said once something like, you know, every few months, Meg will say something that upends our life and then we have to deal with that. But for the most part, it has more positives than negatives. You know, people are so nice. Look, I have like just a small level of fame, if that's the word we want to use. It's like, people recognize me, but they're very respectful.

• 1:44:32Speaker 05

  No one's ever nasty. I mean, they used to be more when I was on Fox. But the percentage of nastiness is like, less than one. The percentage of kindness is all 99. And the percentage of intrusions into my personal time that are unwanted is almost none. Like, people are pretty good about reading whether you are approachable in that moment or not. Like, if I'm with my kids, they leave me alone. I've noticed if I'm with Doug, they usually leave me alone, too. If I'm on my own, they feel more comfortable coming over. But some of that's nice. It's like a little ego boost. They come over, they say all lovely things. Then they say, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." I said, "What are you apologizing for?" Said all these beautiful things to me, right? Made me feel good.

• 1:45:16Speaker 05

  But I can go places. I don't have to worry, you know? It's just, I feel like I'm right at a good level where I can pay my bills and I can sort of have a microphone and people want to listen to it, but people are so respectful and it's not, I can't imagine how like, truly, you know, well-known people live.

• 1:45:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. Back to Fox. You get your first,

• 1:45:44Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know, I'm sorry, I don't know what to call it, main show? Primetime show?

• 1:45:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I had a show in the morning and then the afternoon and then the primetime, yeah.

• 1:45:52Shawn Ryan?

  How was that?

• 1:45:53Speaker 05

  The primetime?

• 1:45:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:54Speaker 05

  It was great. It was exciting.

• 1:45:59Speaker 05

  The night before, we went on the air, live. We played "Don't Change a Thing" by Inexcess. We all danced. And then we went out there and did it, and it was great. It was so fun. It was just such a big moment for us all.

• 1:46:13Shawn Ryan?

  Does your team follow you everywhere you go?

• 1:46:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:46:15Shawn Ryan?

  That's amazing.

• 1:46:16Speaker 05

  Same executive producer and core producers, and I love my old EP. I love my current EP, too. But this guy, Tom Lowell, was just like, we were in it together from 2007 to when I left in 17. I mean, just 10 years of insane events. And he was like a blood brother to me, so I love that guy and always will. And primetime was exciting. It was just definitely a different level of attention and importance and high-wire act. You know, you sit down on the set and you feel yourself, you know?

• 1:46:55Shawn Ryan?

  Do you get an adrenaline dump?

• 1:46:56Speaker 05

  Definitely.

• 1:46:57Shawn Ryan?

  Every time?

• 1:46:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:46:59Shawn Ryan?

  That's amazing.

• 1:47:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:47:02Speaker 05

  But you know, I was torn during those years too, because we launched The Kelly File two months after Thatcher, my youngest, was born. And he was so little, and I would bring him in. It was a new schedule, you know, where I worked basically 3 to 11 p.m. You can't just go in at 8 if you're doing the 9 p.m. news. You know, you have to prepare.

• 1:47:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:47:24Speaker 05

  A lot, especially if you're me. And first I thought, this would be so great, because my kids are little, they're not yet in school. I can be with them. It's not really how it works. Before you know it, they are in school during those hours, and you leave just as they get home. But my babe was not in school. He was an infant, and I'd bring him into Fox. He'd be with me, I'd be distracted. He'd fall asleep. I'd put him on the little sofa right across from me, and he'd sleep in his little, you know. And I just felt so bad about it. It just felt like the wrong thing to be doing. It was the first time my professional goals

• 1:48:08Speaker 05

  really clashed with my personal goals. Because doing the earlier shows, like in the afternoon, when my first two were little, I was balancing it much better. I was gone like in the middle of the day. I was with them for most of the morning, and I was with them for all of the evening. I put them to bed every night. I was a very present mother. And then with Thatcher, for that beginning first year of The Kelly File, it's just, he was with me a lot at Fox, but it wasn't quality time. It's the first time my heart really started to like cry, you know.

• 1:48:40Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 1:48:41Speaker 05

  This isn't good enough. And I was 13 to 14, 14 to 15, 15 to 16. Yes, I was, you know, going on four years. And I was like, Thatcher was three when I left Fox, so. I just got to the point where I was like, I can't do this anymore. I can't do this one more bit, one more minute. Well, not one more minute. I, I loved my audience. I loved my show and I loved my job, most of it. But I love them so much more. There's not even any contest.

• 1:49:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:12Speaker 05

  And it wasn't like I had to give up journalism. You know, I could still do something in the field going over to NBC. It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it was something. So it seemed like a good compromise.

• 1:49:27Shawn Ryan?

  Can we talk about 2016?

• 1:49:29Speaker 05

  Yeah. We can talk about all of it.

• 1:49:31Shawn Ryan?

  With you and Trump?

• 1:49:32Speaker 05

  Yeah. Good times.

• 1:49:35Shawn Ryan?

  It doesn't sound like it.

• 1:49:38Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I remember when that happened and how do you? I mean, how do you deal with that?

• 1:49:49Speaker 05

  Uh, you know, I see it so differently now. I see it as one of my thank you moments, for sure. You know, I, I am a lot stronger and tougher than I used to be in a good way. Not like bad tough. Um, and I have a very good perspective on what happened there and my role in it. And why Trump was doing that. But when I was going through it, I lacked that perspective. And so it was more traumatic. You know, like anything, especially a crisis you go through, the wisdom only comes later.

• 1:50:24Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:50:25Speaker 05

  You know, when you're in the midst of it, you're just dealing with the fire hose of shit. So it was highly unpleasant. Uh, and the biggest challenge for me was trying to report on him without being a rabid opposition force. You know, I refused to let his negative comments about me ongoing turn me into the very thing he was saying I was. Unfair, I can't be fair to Trump. You know, I'm all the other words, whatever. I just. I was determined to go out there and be fair to him at night,

• 1:51:08Speaker 05

  notwithstanding what he was doing to me in my personal life. And I think I did a decent job of it. You know, it wasn't perfect, but I think I did a decent job of it.

• 1:51:18Shawn Ryan?

  What? I know what it was, but I just want to ask you, what was the question that you asked that triggered that response?

• 1:51:27Speaker 05

  Well, it was something like, "You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, disgusting animals. Your Twitter account is littered with negative comments about women."

• 1:51:43Speaker 05

  And it began with, "One of the things people love about you is you don't use a politician's filter, but that's not without its downsides, especially when it comes to women." And I went over the things he said about women. And then I said, "There was once a celebrity apprentice contestant who you said you'd like to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president? And how will you answer the charge coming from Democrats that you are part of the war on women?"

• 1:52:13Speaker 05

  I love my question. I know people disagree, and that's fine. They're entitled to their opinions, too. But I loved it. I thought it was perfect.

• 1:52:24Speaker 05

  And I worked on it tirelessly. And people think that Rupert Murdoch blessed it, allowed it, greenlit it. Absolutely not. I'd love for the people who are mad at me over that question to blame it on somebody else, but no. All the blame goes on me. And that's fine. I, as I say, I stand behind the question 100%, 100%.

• 1:52:47Speaker 05

  We're not supposed to be chumming with these guys. It's supposed to be adversarial. It's a presidential debate. Let's go. Let's get it on.

• 1:52:53Shawn Ryan?

  That's what I thought.

• 1:52:54Speaker 05

  And it made electric television. It was spectacular to watch. The highest rated debate in US history.

• 1:53:01Shawn Ryan?

  Is it really?

• 1:53:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:53:03Shawn Ryan?

  Congratulations.

• 1:53:04Speaker 05

  Well, I don't know if the record still stands because Trump went on to be, but nothing came close prior to that.

• 1:53:10Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we don't have very many presidential debates anymore, so...

• 1:53:13Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:53:14Shawn Ryan?

  I'm sure it's so.

• 1:53:15Speaker 05

  I think we're gonna get some still.

• 1:53:19Shawn Ryan?

  When he had implied blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever, I mean, that was pretty much what kicked the whole thing off, correct?

• 1:53:31Speaker 05

  That, he'd been tweeting that I was a bimbo, and he'd been tweeting out pictures I did for GQ magazine. You know, that kind of thing.

• 1:53:38Shawn Ryan?

  How did that? I mean, what did that? What aspect of your life do you think that affected the most?

• 1:53:46Speaker 05

  Probably the most was internal at Fox. It created just such a shitstorm internal at Fox because Roger was very worried he was going to lose the core base of his audience that had fallen in love with Trump, but he was still trying to hold on to the establishment wing of the Republican Party. And we were getting so much hate mail. You know, I was getting so much hate mail. I, you know, it seemed like overnight I went from someone the audience liked to someone they loathed. But the ratings didn't suffer, which was interesting. My ratings never went down. They only went up.

• 1:54:20Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:54:21Speaker 05

  I know, so it's odd. But people were very angry with me over that question. They really thought I tried to kneecap Trump. And I understand why they thought that. I just don't see it that way at all. Like, if you, if you would ever go back and look at that whole debate, if you look at that first opening round of questions, we were so mean to all of them. All of them. I basically told Ben Carson he seemed like an idiot and listed all the ways in which I, he had evidenced that and made him explain why it wasn't true. I mean, mean questions, but mean in like a good way. Journalists should not be cozy with presidential candidates. They should be tough on them. These should be the toughest A-plus level questions you can craft. That's what I think a presidential debate should be.

• 1:55:06Speaker 05

  Then let them fight. And we did our job. We did our job that night. And Trump answered that question beautifully. He really did. He was humorous. He was, he was like a bull, you know, like only Rosie O'Donnell, which made everybody laugh. And then he said the classic Trump line of what I say is what I say, right? That's Trump to this day. So it was an opportunity really for him, and he nailed it. And if he hadn't decided to make a thing out of that question, the world would have just moved on. But he did, and I think he did it for a variety of reasons. And then just like the stress in my life internally.

• 1:55:50Speaker 05

  And because there are many people who are mad at me over the question too, like diehard loyalists to Trump inside the building. And outside, because the security situation in our lives went nuts. It was very weird how like the threat level started to go up. And like you always get death threats sadly as a public figure, but these were scary and they were specific. And we kept having to call in security teams and we had to investigate this person and that person, the other person. And did we get a restraining order or whatever? And then strange, odd men showing up to my home in the middle of the night. Really? And yelling at me in front of my children. And it was just like, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is like, this is next level.

• 1:56:34Speaker 05

  Off of the one question, you know? And Trump had so many bigger problems in the news. I was the least of his problems, you know? He had people who hated him and were openly espousing it every day. I'm like, why me? And I think there are all sorts of answers to that. But I was, I was unhappy. I was, as you know, from the discussion we've had, I was going into that year kind of unhappy. About how things had changed at Fox and my kids and all that. And then I was just getting more unhappy. So it was just, you know, there's a scene, you mentioned that you watched the movie Bombshell. You said that to me before we started.

• 1:57:15Speaker 05

  And there is one scene in that movie where Charlize Theron, playing me, is in like an edit bay. And she's having a conversation with my fake husband Doug. And while that scene never happened in my life, the sentiment she expressed 100% did. Where she said something like, "I'm allowed to want this to be over."

• 1:57:43Speaker 05

  That was it, exactly. I'm allowed to want this to be over. And I did end it. I managed to end it on a good note with Trump. The media turned on me 180, of course, because they wanted me to be his antagonist. They wanted him to say more things about me because they would make a story out of it every time he did. And they saw it as a surrender by me to him.

• 1:58:09Shawn Ryan?

  When you say that you think he did it for a variety of reasons, what are the reasons?

• 1:58:14Speaker 05

  I think the first night, he was genuinely mad at me.

• 1:58:18Speaker 05

  And I now know from everyone, I mean, from reporting around Trump, all these in-depth pieces from people close to Trump, not just his detractors, I mean, you know, that, and even deposition testimony that was given in some of the lawsuits against him and the legal cases from him and others, they knew that the women thing was going to be a problem for Trump, long before America knew it, long before I knew it. I found that issue only because I asked my research assistants to get me, you know, information on everybody. And they came in with, this is this guy's weakness, this is this gal's weakness, this is... So I was ready to punch them all where it hurt. And Trump's was like this, and it was all about women.

• 1:59:02Speaker 05

  Now we're more used to some of this stuff, but back in 2015, that debate was August 2015, to have a presidential candidate having said that stuff about women and done some of those things with women was like, what? We had had Bill Clinton. Don't, I haven't forgotten that, but I'm just saying, this was not the norm. So I was like, this is gonna be a good one, right, to ask him about this stuff. It wasn't an attempt to take him out, it was like, let's go, right? Like, let's go. I'm gonna bring my A-game, you bring yours, it's on. I'm doing your favorite thing, good TV. Let's do that thing together.

• 1:59:42Speaker 05

  And I think it touched a nerve because it was a soft spot for him. He knew he was exposed. So initially, he was mad. Why did he keep it going for nine months? I think he enjoyed it. And he knew it was a good storyline for him. And he was right.

• 2:00:01Speaker 05

  I'm not beholden to Fox. I will take on Fox News. I will take on the female anchor. I won't be controlled by anyone. I won't bow to any of the right's sacred cows. I'm for you, not for the elites, the establishment, the so-called bosses of the Republican Party. F them all. You and I are together. That's what Trump was saying to his fans. And it was brilliant. I was just part of it. You know, he was making me part of that messaging, long past the point at which I wanted anything to do with that. You know, I just kind of wanted to do my journalism. And I punched him some nights from the anchor desk and other nights I defended him. In fact, I didn't really hit Trump much at all.

• 2:00:45Speaker 05

  The one thing I remember going after him on was when he criticized the Gold Star family. I didn't like that. But other than that, honestly, I was defending Trump most of the nights. So.

• 2:00:56Shawn Ryan?

  So you didn't get vindictive? You didn't?

• 2:00:58Speaker 05

  No.

• 2:00:59Shawn Ryan?

  At all?

• 2:01:00Speaker 05

  No. No, even though, as he continued doing this, my feelings on him personally definitely soured.

• 2:01:08Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, I could imagine. How did your family take it?

• 2:01:12Speaker 05

  Doug's feelings soured more. He was very frustrated. He really wanted it to stop. He wanted to defend me, but he couldn't. You know, I knew that would be inappropriate. It wouldn't help and it would undermine me. You know, I didn't need to run to my husband to make it stop. I needed to go to the gorilla himself, as I call Trump. He's always the 800-pound gorilla. So it was very, it was very hard. I mean.

• 2:01:42Shawn Ryan?

  Were your kids old enough to understand what was going on?

• 2:01:45Speaker 05

  No, no. And nor did I want them to. Nor did I want to poison them on Trump. You know, I didn't want to poison them on anybody politically. I wanted, back then, I was really just thinking, I want them to figure out eventually where they stand on politics and politicians. And Trump could be president. I certainly don't want them loathing the president. So I didn't tell my kids a lot. You know, they'd see some of the security issues. You know, we went to Disneyland with an armed guard. Disney World. That was weird. He was like following us around on all the rides. So it was strange. Things like that they'd notice, but no. So anyway, I finally, I had tried to get Trump to stop through Hannity, who did, he was very gracious and tried to help me out.

• 2:02:30Speaker 05

  They're friends. Roger tried time and time again. No. Had other people go to back door. No. And then Brian Kilmeade actually offered to send Trump an email for me because he knew I wanted a meeting. And Trump said yes. So I went there. I didn't tell Roger. And I settled it with Trump, one to one. And he never bothered me again. And Roger was incensed. He was so angry that I went there and didn't tell him. And I think it's because he wanted the credit for putting it to bed.

• 2:03:15Speaker 05

  What he said to me was, you don't go to him. He should have come to you or you made it a neutral spot. You gave up all your power. And I was like, Roger, I am a reporter. He is a presidential candidate. He does have the power. The nature of this relationship is I pursue him. I need access to him. He doesn't need me. It's appropriate, in the context of this relationship, for me as the reporter to say, may I have time with you? I will come to you and I would like to bring you this objection I have and ask you to stop this behavior. I didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

• 2:03:59Speaker 05

  And I think he was actually just mad because he wanted credit internally for having organized it all himself. You know, the come to Jesus and the reconciliation and the new page. But he was so pissed off. That's another thing that the movie Bombshell gets wrong. They show Roger really happy about that question, like, good job. No. He was very angry about that question. And I think we would find out, you know, soon thereafter, why Roger was so very paranoid about that particular subject.

• 2:04:30Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm. What was the conversation like with Trump when you went there?

• 2:04:38Speaker 05

  Classic Trump.

• 2:04:41Speaker 05

  Funny. He hugged me. He'd been telling people to boycott the show for months. He said he watched it every night.

• 2:04:53Speaker 05

  He was so magnanimous, warm. It was like none of it ever happened.

• 2:05:01Shawn Ryan?

  Did it totally disarm you?

• 2:05:04Speaker 05

  Ah, not totally. I was like, what the fuck is going on here? But I was relieved that he was so nice. You know, I didn't know what to expect. And he'd just been so... I don't know, just so rough. So I just wasn't sure what I was getting myself into there. But he could not have been nicer. He's like, Melania loves your show. Get her in here, Melania. Eric Trump came in. It was like, I can't believe this is happening.

• 2:05:40Speaker 05

  And then he asked for my phone number. And I was like, oh, God. Remember, he had just done the thing in that primary with Lindsey Graham, where he posted Lindsey Graham's phone number publicly?

• 2:05:51Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.

• 2:05:53Speaker 05

  And I was like, you're not gonna Lindsey Graham me here, are you? And he's like, no, no, I promised to keep it to myself. And it was really crazy, so crazy, Sean. I walked out. We agreed, like, we're good.

• 2:06:08Speaker 05

  And the last thing he said to me before I walked out of Trump Tower was, you know, Meghan, it's not such a good thing if they're not talking about us.

• 2:06:19Speaker 05

  And I was like, oh, my God. Was this whole thing for show?

• 2:06:28Speaker 05

  Like, was he acting the whole time?

• 2:06:32Speaker 05

  To generate buzz?

• 2:06:35Speaker 05

  And I really don't know the answer to that, other than what I told you, my suppositions about his feelings the night of, and then the motivations thereafter.

• 2:06:44Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. There was a scene in the movie where I believe it was your husband seemed disappointed. Maybe like you were, you were not being true to yourself.

• 2:07:00Speaker 05

  Too solicitous of him.

• 2:07:02Shawn Ryan?

  Is that?

• 2:07:03Speaker 05

  That's a made up scene. That never happened. Doug always had my back and was on my side. But I think they used Doug sort of as a stand in for many, millions of people who were angry I made up with Trump and angry that I then did a relatively friendly interview with him.

• 2:07:21Speaker 05

  Turning the page.

• 2:07:23Speaker 05

  Which is true. I mean, I did do that. I did have a goal in that interview. Certainly wasn't to stir things back up. People were right about that. But it was really just to see if Trump was an empathetic person. If you go back and look at that interview, you see almost every single question is toward that end. Asked him about his brother, who had alcoholism. Asked him about his dad. Asked him about people who he's attacked on the internet. Asked him a little bit about me. But people, what the left, you know what they, they wanted me to go in there and be like, "You called me a bimbo! How dare you!" That's not me. I was enjoying not being his target. And I certainly didn't want to spend more time miring and how I was your target for all this time.

• 2:08:06Speaker 05

  So yeah, people were very angry. And I think that's really when I lost a lot of the media as like, they just turned on me and never came back over, which is fine. Their love was artificial when it was given and was unimportant to me then, and it remains unimportant to me. But I did think it was a very telling dynamic how as soon as I no longer was Trump's foil, they were like...

• 2:08:31Shawn Ryan?

  Join me and my special guest for the next behind the scenes experience exclusively available on Vigilance Elite Patreon. The behind the scenes footage is raw and uncut. This is as close to the set as you can possibly get. You can expect anything from off-topic conversations, studio tours, the final moments before the interview starts, and everything in between. The behind the scenes content is constantly evolving and will continue to bring you more as we grow. You can gain access for just $15 a month exclusively at Vigilance Elite Patreon.

• 2:09:11Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes, and leave the Sean Ryan Show a review. We read every review that comes through, and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show.

• 2:09:32Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. Wow. So, it sounds like in Look Like from the film, and the reports, and while it was happening, that sexual harassment was just running rampant throughout the entire Fox News organization. Is that an accurate assumption?

• 2:09:53Speaker 05

  I think it was pretty common, yeah. Yeah, it was pretty frequent. I mean, you know, this is back before Fox News was patient zero in the Me Too movement. We were a year before Weinstein, so it wasn't really a thing for people to come forward, for women to come forward like that. So, yeah, it was prevalent. I would come to find out it was prevalent at NBC, and then, as the world would later find out, it was prevalent at CBS, and it was existent at ABC, and CNN, and MSNBC. So, we were not special at Fox News. We were just first.

• 2:10:32Shawn Ryan?

  How did it start with you?

• 2:10:35Speaker 05

  I was very young. I was, at the very beginning of my career there, still a reporter in DC, working for Brit Hume and Kim Hume, and very green, but loving my time. And Roger took an interest in me early on. You know, I think, in fairness to myself, it wasn't all because he wanted to sleep with me. I think he understood. He had somebody who was a lawyer, who, you know, had potential in this business that was unique, and that he really wanted to develop it, because, above all, he was a capitalist. He wanted to make money. So he started to mentor me in a great way. He gave me so much good advice, advice

• 2:11:15Speaker 05

  I still rely on and miss to this day. And we kind of became friends. He would have me to his house with his wife and with Doug for dinner, and we went many times, and I got to know him. And then, he would make body comments to me, a lot, which didn't faze me. You know, I had come off 10 years of practicing law. Like I said, we were pretty raunchy in the law. Not quite this raunchy, but, you know, salty language. And I'm almost impossible to offend. I'm really hard to offend. I'm freaking Irish. We don't offend easy. So I don't know, I just kind of, I wasn't too fazed by the inappropriate comments

• 2:11:57Speaker 05

  about women's looks, or this one's left her way to the top, this, that kind of thing. I remember getting worried when he said, I'll spare this news anchor the identification, but he said, this anchor, who I admired at another network, was smart. She slept with her boss, and that gave her every opportunity she ever wanted. That's how she got to the top. And I remember being like, now that's different from just body.

• 2:12:28Speaker 05

  You know, that sounds like an invitation.

• 2:12:30Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 2:12:31Speaker 05

  And then there'd be more inappropriate comments about me. You know, the initial comments were just about in general, like sexual. It's almost like how a groomer, you know, frankly, operates. Then he gets specific about me. And he said something about how good he thought I would look in my bra and panties. I was like, all right, now we're really over on thin ice. In no world is this okay talk between a boss, the most powerful man in news, and a first year reporter. You know, I knew, I remember thinking, this is so ballsy because he knows I'm a lawyer. He knows I just came off of 10 years of practicing law, including employment law. Like, this is definitely not kosher.

• 2:13:12Speaker 05

  But my feeling was, he just wanted to have an affair with me. You know, I thought the guy was randy, you know? I wasn't thinking he's this massive sexual harasser. It just wasn't even, that's not at all how I experienced it. I'm like, he wants to go to bed with me. And not to sound, you know, self congratulatory, but he wasn't the first man to behave like this around me. It wasn't like this is the first time a man's ever come on to me and wanted to have sex with me. So I was like, oh, this is tricky because he's my boss. I've got to get out of this. I'm definitely not going to have sex with him or an affair. This is very tricky. But my only goal was get out of it without hurting him. Because I want a career.

• 2:13:57Speaker 05

  You know, my career, which I'm loving, is on the line here. If I upset him or play this wrong, he's going to feel rejected, which is the worst way you can make a man feel. And if that man's your boss, your career's out the window. Especially when you were me with no connections, no history, no resume, no body of work, nothing. So it was just like dancing on the head of a pin to try to just get out of bounds whenever he said something like that. Out of bounds, out of bounds, out of bounds. And for most of this time, I was divorcing Dan and not yet with Doug. So I couldn't be like, oh, you know, Doug?

• 2:14:41Speaker 05

  Which is a very effective way of telegraphing to a man. No. But I didn't have that and I didn't have a ton of experience in like just navigating this particular thing, so. It was bad, but I did know that if he was going to fire me, I needed a record because I would have sued him. And so I started keeping a diary every night whenever I had an interaction with him, very detailed. I told my office mate, Major Garrett, who's the White House reporter for CBS News now, and he would later back me up when this investigation came down. We used to sit in my office, we shared an office together, and the phone would light up and I'm a first year, and I would say, Roger Ailes. He'd be like, he never got a call from Roger in his career there.

• 2:15:25Speaker 05

  Called me all the time. I'm like, oh my god. He kept calling me up to New York, which was also unusual, I would later find out. You know, these long face-to-face meetings were unusual. And I called my lawyer, I called Jones Day. And they opened up a case file and created a conflict, just in case, like, he ever called them, so he couldn't hire them, so they could represent me if I needed it. And then I told my supervisor, who I have chosen not to name in the DC Bureau, but I went to this person and I told them what was happening. And I didn't want this person, just to be clear, to run to Human Resources.

• 2:16:10Speaker 05

  I wasn't like, let's make a record, this is inappropriate. I was like, please help me. You know, I wanted to end and I don't want to get fired and I don't know what to do. And this person told me, he's just an unhappily married man, and he's a good man. And if you just stay down here in DC and ignore him, it'll stop. And that's exactly what happened. And I chalked it up to exactly what I was told. He's a good man, but an unhappily married man, and he was looking to have an affair, and it wasn't going to be with me.

• 2:16:44Speaker 05

  And I kind of skipped the, you know, crescendo of it all, but it came to a peak in his office one day when he grabbed me and tried to kiss me. And I pushed him off of me. It wasn't like violent, you know, it wasn't like, I'll have you. And I was like, no, it was just like, he tried to go for it. And I pushed him back. And I could smell alcohol on his breath. And he came at me again. He clearly didn't get the message. Like, most men, after one shove off, would know. It's a no. He came at me again. And the same thing, I pushed him away and I went over by the door to get out.

• 2:17:25Speaker 05

  He used to lock the door when, not just me, but women were in there. And he looked at me and said, uh, when is your contract up? And it was soon. And I remember telling him whenever it was up. And then he came for me a third time.

• 2:17:43Shawn Ryan?

  A third time?

• 2:17:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I like pretended to stumble off of my high heel, like I, you know, to get away from him, and I ran out the door. And I called my Jones Day lawyer in tears. Like, I'm definitely getting fired. This is gonna be a disaster. And that's when he opened up the case file and did all that stuff. But ultimately, I did what, you know, my, my friend and supervisor told me to do. And he did, he didn't pursue it, and he did not exact any sort of retribution on me. He got past it, he ignored me, you know, I was a peon. And I just nose to the grindstone for the next couple of years down there.

• 2:18:28Speaker 05

  A couple of years went by and he promoted me to anchor. You know, the long meeting stopped. And I got the anchor job. I mean, I was earning my bones that time. I was doing really solid reporting on big, big cases. So it wasn't like, oh gee, nothing happened and then he gave me, you know, I worked and I was getting well-known and people, there was buzz, you know, I was coming up.

• 2:18:53Speaker 05

  And then he made me an anchor and he never bothered me again, never. He was always the perfect gentleman with me after that. He had gotten the message. He still was body here and there, but never like about me. He clearly. And then I was with Doug and he was always respectful of that.

• 2:19:10Shawn Ryan?

  When did you, when did you become aware of all the other women?

• 2:19:17Speaker 05

  So I found out that my friend, my closest friend there, Janice Dean, she's the meteorologist, also had an experience with him. And we kind of laughed, you know, we weren't thinking he was this massive harasser. We were like, oh, men, you know? And it was right at the same time mine happened. So I filed that under, took a shot with her too. Didn't work out with me, took a shot with her, didn't work out with her. Her story always, you know, made me laugh because he took her out for like a job interview at a hotel and, uh, not the, not a hotel room, but like in a restaurant. And they had a glass of wine and before she knew it, he was like reaching out to like

• 2:20:00Speaker 05

  hold her hands across the table, which is a weird move on a job interview. And he said to her, "I need to know how you see me." And Janice was just the best, was like, like a teacher? You know, like, like a mentor? Anyway, we used to laugh about that story, you know, it was like, oh, these pervy old men. That was the file it was in.

• 2:20:30Shawn Ryan?

  So this is like similar to getting heckled at the nursing home?

• 2:20:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's like harmless. Well, once I got past my thing, which was definitely not harmless, it had the potential to do a lot of harm. It was like, all right, it's done. I managed it. I don't want to make a federal case out of it, at all. And neither did she. She wanted her job. He offered her a job. She rejected him, same, she had the same experience. She rejected him and he hired her anyway and then left her alone. So we both had it in the file of he took a shot, it didn't work out. That happens. It's not supposed to happen in the work exactly with a boss, but it does happen.

• 2:21:09Speaker 05

  And then Gretchen Carlson filed her lawsuit.

• 2:21:16Speaker 05

  And we were like, holy shit. I mean, that truly was a bombshell.

• 2:21:24Speaker 05

  And all hell broke loose. I mean, just that lawsuit was a before and after moment. All hell broke loose.

• 2:21:35Shawn Ryan?

  How long was the lawsuit going on before you made your decision?

• 2:21:41Speaker 05

  I don't remember. I don't remember the time span. I mean, the whole thing seemed to be maybe six weeks. But I can't, it don't hold me to that.

• 2:21:51Shawn Ryan?

  Were you close with Gretchen Carlson?

• 2:21:54Speaker 05

  Not at all.

• 2:21:56Speaker 05

  I didn't really like her.

• 2:21:58Shawn Ryan?

  OK.

• 2:21:58Speaker 05

  A few of us did. And in a war between Gretchen and Roger, we were all Team Roger.

• 2:22:07Speaker 05

  That's just the truth. She didn't really like me either.

• 2:22:11Speaker 05

  So the instinct was not in any way to help her.

• 2:22:16Speaker 05

  But

• 2:22:19Speaker 05

  truth is truth.

• 2:22:22Speaker 05

  Reality is reality. And while I offer no opinion on her situation and what did or did not happen between Gretchen and Roger, I knew from the second that thing was filed that if I got called in by any investigative body, he was fucked.

• 2:22:44Speaker 05

  Because by this point, I had risen to the top of Fox News. I had credibility.

• 2:22:51Speaker 05

  I had no axe to grind. She had just been fired.

• 2:22:56Speaker 05

  And I knew that they would believe me.

• 2:23:00Speaker 05

  And I deserved to be believed. I just saw that this thing had set wheels in motion that were ultimately going to end in calamity.

• 2:23:11Speaker 05

  And

• 2:23:14Speaker 05

  God, it was terrible. It was just terrible because I didn't want to hurt him and I didn't want to help her. And I didn't want to upend my career and I didn't want to be known as the face of some sexual harassment movement or lawsuit or to have the fact that I'd been harassed broadcast to anybody. You know, I was humiliated about it. You know, I it's just it wasn't something that was seen the way it is now. You know, it was usually they'd say you brought it on yourself.

• 2:23:45Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 2:23:46Speaker 05

  You know, back then, only now are we starting to understand, actually, this is really kind of common and it doesn't mean you were asking for it. Trust me, I was not asking for it. I just didn't want anything to do with it. It was like cesspool of toxicity over there. My life's going pretty well over here. I don't want to go in your pool. But one thing after another started happening. And what happened was I found out that they were going to limit the investigation to only staff that worked for Gretchen.

• 2:24:25Speaker 05

  And I found that out after other women had spoken to either me or Janice. So like, once the lawsuit was filed, women started talking. Me too, me too, me too. And so Janice and I started to hear this was widespread. This was not just the two of us. And heard it had happened to like some young women and it was, these were deeply concerning things and we were like, oh my God. And then other women, non-Fox women, came out and spoke, I think, to Gabe Sherman in a piece that was explosive about terrible allegations they were making about him before Fox News. So we were all like, oh my God. And now I'm reevaluating everything that happened to me and Janice reevaluating everything that happened to her.

• 2:25:09Speaker 05

  And then we found out that Roger had managed to limit the investigation to just Gretchen's staff. And that was the real moment of reconciliation for me because I knew that would end it. That would have ended it and he would have been fine.

• 2:25:33Speaker 05

  They would not have talked to Janice. They would not have talked to me. They would not have talked to the other women we now knew about.

• 2:25:40Speaker 05

  And I knew women not only at Fox, but at CNN, like elsewhere, who had worked for him.

• 2:25:47Speaker 05

  At this point, and

• 2:25:50Speaker 05

  it's just

• 2:25:56Speaker 05

  I betrayed him.

• 2:25:58Speaker 05

  And that's how I see it.

• 2:26:00Shawn Ryan?

  You still feel like that?

• 2:26:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:26:09Speaker 05

  I mean, I know I had good reasons, and it's not like I would have done it differently. But I still

• 2:26:16Speaker 05

  I have really complicated feelings because I betrayed him. And now I also feel like I let down the women who came after me. You know, came, who were harassed after I was. Even though I don't blame the women who were harassed by him before me. You know, that's, I don't, it's just my own thinking, you know, like if I had done more in that first year as a reporter, if I had blown up my career and just said, "Fuck it, I'll go back to practicing law." I know women, I know actual women who it wouldn't have happened to. But at the same time, I didn't want to hurt him. He'd been so good to me. We'd become friends. He'd really helped me and my family. He'd always been good to me.

• 2:27:01Speaker 05

  But it was like,

• 2:27:04Speaker 05

  what if he's still doing it?

• 2:27:07Speaker 05

  Am I just gonna like cash my check? And go out there like with swagger on the air? Like, "I'm fine. I'm good." It was just an impossible situation. It was so hard. And I wrote about this in my book, and it's a true story.

• 2:27:27Speaker 05

  The deciding moment was my daughter was little. She was like four or five, four. And she had fallen off the jungle gym. A week earlier, I'd been on the road and cut the back of her head significantly and needed a bunch of stitches. And a week later, she went back at the top of that jungle gym in her dress. She had this white dress with red polka dots and sneakers. And I have a picture of her with this huge smile at the top of the same jungle gym. And I'm scrolling through my pictures one day and there's that picture. And I'm like, look at her. It's so brave, right? Like, she fell far and really hurt herself. And she's right back up there.

• 2:28:12Speaker 05

  It's like an extraordinary act of courage for a little girl. And she has this like zigzag scar in the back of her head, like a Shazam kind of thing. And I call it her superhero scar, you know? And I remember thinking like, this can't happen to her, to another young woman. Again, not here, not frightened by him, not if my saying something can stop it. So I called Lachlan Murdoch and I said, you better get your lawyer on the phone

• 2:28:54Speaker 05

  because I have something to tell you. And then I told them the story of what had happened to me all those years earlier. And then they hired a real law firm to do a real investigation. And dozens of women came in, including ones to that day.

• 2:29:17Shawn Ryan?

  That day.

• 2:29:18Speaker 05

  That were going through it.

• 2:29:20Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:29:24Shawn Ryan?

  It's, uh...

• 2:29:29Shawn Ryan?

  I wasn't expecting that reaction.

• 2:29:32Speaker 05

  It's complicated.

• 2:29:35Speaker 05

  People are complicated. That's what my therapist always says. People are complicated.

• 2:29:40Speaker 05

  And then, you know,

• 2:29:43Speaker 05

  internally at Fox, it was terrible. Which is another, like,

• 2:29:49Speaker 05

  heavy layer of it.

• 2:29:52Speaker 05

  Because

• 2:29:54Speaker 05

  everyone was very angry with me.

• 2:29:58Speaker 05

  Some had already been angry because of the Trump stuff. And then it was just such a betrayal that they thought I had committed, and they didn't know. People softened after they found out what really was the truth about him. But in the beginning, they just thought I sided with Gretchen. And like, had some nothing with him that I then complained about, to try to hurt him. So they were very angry. They thought I stuck a knife in daddy, you know, for no reason. And he really was kind of like daddy. He was like a, almost like a cult leader there. So that just, I mean, going to work in those days was... It was crazy. I just felt so heavy.

• 2:30:38Speaker 05

  And, um,

• 2:30:40Speaker 05

  it was the Republican National Convention in 2016, where I had all these security guards because of the death threats and Trump, and it was, you know, it'd gone up.

• 2:30:51Speaker 05

  And I was getting ready to go on the set for primetime coverage with all my colleagues, and I saw on the TV screen a report by Howie Kurtz, the media guy, about me. It had leaked that I was cooperating with the investigators. And the whole report was about how I was a liar. They had pulled every nice thing I had ever said about Ailes in the press over the previous 10 years. And were saying, you know, basically, she's got to be lying because look how she actually feels about Roger. And just painted me as this awful, disgusting turncoat.

• 2:31:39Speaker 05

  They never called me for comment on the report. Tried to find out whether it was true. Meanwhile, the Murdochs knew it was true. The Murdochs were talking to me. This is their network.

• 2:31:52Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:31:53Speaker 05

  But Roger was calling the shots. And so Roger told Howie Kurtz to do that, and he did it. And I'm in the hotel room, looking at this television, like, is this happening? And I, speaking of the angels who come to get us, got a text or a call right after this happened from my priest, who happened to be at the RNC and saw the report and said, "Do you need me?" And I said, "Yes." And he came over. I've never done this before in my life. I'm not one of those people who, like, has a priest who I call and then we pray together. But my priest came over and we prayed together.

• 2:32:37Speaker 05

  And I went out in the air that night, and it was like, I mean, it was just stone cold. It was rough.

• 2:32:45Speaker 05

  And then he was fired the next day.

• 2:32:48Shawn Ryan?

  You do see all the good that came from that, correct?

• 2:32:54Speaker 05

  Yes. I mean, to be honest, I have mixed feelings about it because I know that many women were saved from active harassment or, you know, harassment as a result of that whole thing.

• 2:33:14Speaker 05

  I played a part in it, but, I mean, truly, the women who did it were the younger women who it was happening to then, who had everything to lose. They didn't have money in the bank like I did. They didn't have a relationship with him. They couldn't just leave and go get another job at another network. They owed him everything. And they fucking did it. They went into that lawyer room and they told the stories, not knowing that he would be fired, 100% believing that they would be fired.

• 2:33:47Speaker 05

  I mean, that's guts.

• 2:33:51Speaker 05

  When I think about the Me Too movement, those are the women, I picture their faces. Those are the women who did it. Like, that was the goodness of the Me Too movement. But the movement was so disgusting by its end. So corrupted and unjust and devoid of due process and such a witch hunt that I don't like being associated with it. I don't, I certainly don't want to be the face of it. I'm not proud of the movement. It was politicized and bastardized and used to take down political figures and others with whom some women just had political or business beefs.

• 2:34:24Speaker 05

  But then I, you know, my therapist always says cognitive behavioral therapy, you have to make a list on the other side. And the list on the other side is,

• 2:34:33Speaker 05

  you know, Les Moonves got thrown out of CVS. CBS, that was a good one to go. Harvey Weinstein got thrown out of Hollywood. That was a great one. You know, Matt Lauer lost a job. That needed to happen. So there are all sorts of examples I could look at that were not politicized that I know a lot about, especially the ones in the news industry, more than what came out publicly. And I know that those were good.

• 2:35:04Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, you know, I think

• 2:35:09Shawn Ryan?

  you just never know how big the impact that you make is. And it just goes so far beyond that. And I don't, I mean, do you think that's still going on at Fox today?

• 2:35:22Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 2:35:25Speaker 05

  I mean, there's a, there's a real dynamic that men and women are attracted to each other and often find a spouse or a future spouse at the workplace.

• 2:35:34Speaker 05

  And it's always been. So, you know, you can't scare humans out of behaving humanly. You know, like, that's normal for them to be attracted to each other and they spend a lot of hours at the office. And sometimes those office romances bloom into beautiful things. Where there's a power imbalance, it's very tough and risky. And I think at least, at least now, people are more aware of that. And maybe more bosses are aware that.

• 2:36:05Speaker 05

  She might be telegraphing to you that she's okay with this, but she might just be scared. You know, gotta tread so lightly there. I think there has been greater awareness been brought to the question. And look, I definitely am stopped by a lot of women who say, "Thank you." You know, who sort of saw a model for how to get through this kind of thing and then followed it.

• 2:36:31Speaker 05

  And whenever they say that, I do think of these young women who I know who went in there because they're still nameless as they wish to be. And I see them thriving now at Fox. And I root them on and I'm thrilled that their careers are going so well. But I know who they are. Like, in my mind, those are like the true heroines because they were so powerless. But they told their stories and they survived. You know, they still have their career there. I do think in many ways, it was the end of my career at Fox. You know, there was really no stain.

• 2:37:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:04Speaker 05

  After that.

• 2:37:05Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:08Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I'm proud of you.

• 2:37:12Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 2:37:13Shawn Ryan?

  And, I mean, I don't think you'll ever know the amount of women that didn't have to go through that because it seemed to me like you were the tipping point.

• 2:37:27Shawn Ryan?

  And I'll bet that saved a lot of trauma, not just at Fox, but everywhere.

• 2:37:35Shawn Ryan?

  You know, so.

• 2:37:36Speaker 05

  I hope so.

• 2:37:40Speaker 05

  I don't know. It's like, I'm not sure how to file it away. If I don't file it under the Me Too movement, I'd do better with it. You know, like, we had our own thing. And then the Harvey Weinstein thing kicked off this other thing. But I certainly don't want to be associated with anything that, you know, what they did to Brett Kavanaugh, like, all these, any political figure now gets accused, like, that's all just such BS.

• 2:38:05Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:06Speaker 05

  And I have two sons and I have a husband. And I hate that now it's like, all you need is an accusation. I think we've righted that ship a bit. You know, we've restored some balance, but not totally. I want nothing to do with women who want that and who do that and make a Sunday morning regret into a Me Too harassment case that ruins a young man's life. I completely disassociate myself with that and I've had a long career of reporting on those women and exposing them. Long career. I was one of the only ones who knew that that Duke rape accuser was a liar. You know, I still get thanked by guys who knew those three guys and by those three guys themselves, for that matter. So I'm not on board with any of that.

• 2:38:50Speaker 05

  I'm all about due process. So I guess in that way, I'm sort of a chameleon.

• 2:38:58Shawn Ryan?

  Did you and Gretchen never develop any type of a friendship or discuss what had happened?

• 2:39:06Speaker 05

  No, I've never spoken to her.

• 2:39:08Shawn Ryan?

  Still to this day?

• 2:39:10Speaker 05

  She never said anything to me. She certainly didn't say thank you, which is fine. I did not do anything to help her. And for a long time, she didn't thank the women who came forward. She made every interview about herself, as she does to this day. That's all I'm going to say.

• 2:39:27Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:39:31Shawn Ryan?

  So moving on from Fox.

• 2:39:35Shawn Ryan?

  NBC.

• 2:39:38Speaker 05

  That was another lovely experience. This is like destitution derby, all the terrible things that have happened to MK. But no, thank you. Back to my motto.

• 2:39:52Speaker 05

  You know, that was a bizarre year and a half.

• 2:39:58Speaker 05

  And a terrible fit. The one good thing that came out of that is I did interview Putin, which you mentioned at the top, and I loved that. That was really cool.

• 2:40:10Speaker 05

  I was not well received by the audience, the executives, or the talent.

• 2:40:17Speaker 05

  I just kind of went out of the frying pan and into the fire. You know, I thought it was gonna be a better situation than Fox. It was worse in every way.

• 2:40:27Speaker 05

  And I knew it was gonna be bad. Then like the night before I went there,

• 2:40:32Speaker 05

  I think it was the night before I started there. I had this like foreboding feeling come over me. And I was, I remember saying something like,

• 2:40:43Speaker 05

  "I think my career has already been ruined. I just have yet to have the wave wash over me. I think whatever has been done to me in terms of my ability to be in this business has been done already.

• 2:41:00Speaker 05

  And I'm just gonna, the consequences are about to come."

• 2:41:05Speaker 05

  It was a very scary feeling. And I went out there and from day one, you can almost see that uncertainty on me and almost trepidation when you watch the early shows that I did there and my initial appearances there. I changed my wardrobe because I thought I needed to be more daytime-y. My look was different. My hair and makeup team changed. My makeup guy, he was great, but it was a different look.

• 2:41:28Speaker 05

  It just didn't work on any level. And in some ways, I was trying to change myself. I was trying to turn the page, you know? Get a new chapter going, like, come on.

• 2:41:40Shawn Ryan?

  Reinvent.

• 2:41:40Speaker 05

  It's been a rough fucking couple of years. Come on. Gonna see my kids. Gonna do more uplifting stories. Gonna take a step away from politics for a while. This is gonna be good for me. You know, this is gonna be good for me. And I'll tell you, the one other thing that came out of that year that was really good. I did have a lot of amazing guests on that show who I loved and who were sort of amazing and inspirational. And the audience, the in-studio audience, I loved. They were so fun. I made actual friendships in that group. The regulars who would come, which is, we'd talk about our problems every day before and after the show. And I hated that I never got to say goodbye to them. You know, when they kick you out of TV, they kick you hard

• 2:42:25Speaker 05

  and you just go running. But that ended because it needed to end.

• 2:42:32Speaker 05

  You know, at the time, it ended traumatically and in ruination. However, I've since become a big fan of cancel culture. It separates you from a place you didn't belong. A place with different values than your own. You know, so I got, technically, I wasn't fired. I just lost my show. But that happened because I made a comment about Halloween costumes and the way it used to be, saying, when did it change? And how is it racist? And you're just not allowed to have that conversation at NBC.

• 2:43:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:06Speaker 05

  You can't do what we do in this lane. And let's just say there were some other things going on there behind the scenes. But really, the big picture is it happened because it needed to happen. NBC wasn't wrong. It was not a good fit. I knew it, too. It's just, what do you do? Do you give up in the middle of a contract? Do you, where do you go? What do you do? Like, a lot of bad will had already been ginned up about me with some in the populace. You know, some diehard Trump fans who are still angry, some on the left who are pissed. I made up with Trump. It's just, you know, a lot of different weird constituencies. I kind of got canceled by the right and then later by the left.

• 2:43:47Shawn Ryan?

  Man. What did it feel like for you to sit down in front of Putin?

• 2:43:53Speaker 05

  Great. I enjoyed that thoroughly.

• 2:43:55Shawn Ryan?

  Did you?

• 2:43:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:43:57Shawn Ryan?

  Were you fearful at all?

• 2:43:59Speaker 05

  Only in one moment. He's definitely had journalists killed. It's a problem. And we actually had a plane on standby because we were worried that something could happen. Like, we talked about having a plane on standby. I can't actually remember whether we did it. But we were worried about him. And we sat together, I've interviewed him now five times? I mean, a few, few times. Went, I went, I did a couple of things, a couple of days together, and then I went back and we did more a year later. And it was when I was moderating his economic conference with Prime Minister Modi of India that I got in his face about the chemical weapons in Syria and how Russia had helped fund Assad.

• 2:44:43Speaker 05

  And he got really pissed.

• 2:44:47Speaker 05

  He definitely, that was the one thing I asked him. And of all the things that he was genuinely angry about, and you could almost see the switch flip in his head, where he went to genuine anger. And I remember being like, whoa, I gotta pull back. Like, I've crossed some imaginary line I didn't know was there, a tripwire. And I did pull back. And enough that he continued to grant me more interviews and so on. But what a dynamic, fascinating, terrible man.

• 2:45:15Shawn Ryan?

  Man, that's, um, to go over there and put yourself in that situation is, that takes a lot of courage.

• 2:45:26Speaker 05

  It was crazy. I, Russia was so different. It was so beautiful. And the people were so, so nice. And love America. The people there love Americans. Love. It's not the way it is at the leadership level.

• 2:45:43Speaker 05

  But you know, the women over there, they love a strong man. I mean, American women kind of love a strong man, at least conservatives. I don't know about the liberals.

• 2:45:50Shawn Ryan?

  They used to.

• 2:45:51Speaker 05

  They like the soy boys. But that's one of the reasons why he's so popular. And, uh, you know, just the dynamic of the guy was fascinating. You know, it's like, he knew how to manipulate me, or at least I could see when he was trying. He knew how to be angry when the situation called for anger, to be charming when the situation called for charm. And I have to say, he was very generous with me in terms of the time and no restrictions. He brought me into this weird sort of state dinner between he and Modi, where suddenly I was like, the third party between these two giants? Like, oh my, what's going on? What am I doing here?

• 2:46:31Speaker 05

  So anyway, I enjoyed it. I got everything I needed from it. And I actually think, it's not out of the question, I'd go back and interview him again.

• 2:46:40Shawn Ryan?

  Would you really?

• 2:46:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:46:43Speaker 05

  He liked the tough questions. Other than that one thing, he liked the tough questions.

• 2:46:49Shawn Ryan?

  Who were some of the other interviews that you just really enjoyed or got something out of or are proud of?

• 2:46:58Speaker 05

  I mean, I really loved Judge Judy. I do. She's full of so much wisdom. I always loved talking to her whenever she came on my show. There was nothing, though, nothing like the Wounded Warrior interviews that I did at Fox in particular. And now on my show, we do a deep dive every Memorial Day with like a storied vet. And they're just the best. I mean, they're just crushers, you know, from Rob O'Neill to Dakota Meyer to Jason Redmond to Marcus Luttrell. Like, these are giants, you know? And they, their stories are just incredible. You?

• 2:47:41Speaker 05

  They stay with me. Like, there's just a special thing about military guys, the ones who've been hurt and the ones who haven't. They've all had trauma. If they've served, they've had trauma. And there's a wisdom that comes with it. There's, there's like a depth that comes after something like that that just takes you guys to this other plane. And I don't even know if you know you're there, but you're all operating on this other plane that's just higher. It's not, you don't have problems, you don't have real life, you know, foibles and things you change, but there's a level of advice, perspective,

• 2:48:26Speaker 05

  thought about our world, about our lives here, that you can't get anywhere else. I've yet to get it from anybody else. And the same was true at Fox. We used to do a show every year to help Tunnel to Towers, you know, which helps severely wounded vets coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. And will also help fallen police officers, firemen and their family. But these are guys who have generally lost three, maybe four limbs. And they need houses built for them. And Tunnel to Towers does it, and Gary Sinise and his foundation too. And I would get Like nervous before those shows. Because they're hard. Like it's sad. You don't want to ask the wrong thing.

• 2:49:10Speaker 05

  You know, it's like the last thing you want to do is add to their upset. Say something stupid that's going to trigger these poor guys who have been through enough. It's just like, you're like, oh, it's hard. But I would do it. And every time they were so good to me, they would make it so easy. I mean, they would never be offended by something. You know, that was all in my head. And then you'd leave having raised all this money for these guys. And they were so grateful. All they want is to like walk across the floor. All that stuff would put such perspective in my life. It was like, what are my stupid problems? You know, even now, like, look at all the stuff I've been whining about. Like, what are you saying? You're so weak. You know, these other guys, they have actual problems.

• 2:49:55Speaker 05

  You know, they have life altering injuries that they wake up thinking about and have to deal with all day, every day. And they have kids and they have bills to pay. So like for me, they were important too, because you, you know how they say like touch grass? That's touching grass. You know, that's. Get over yourself, you know?

• 2:50:22Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I don't think that about you. I mean, it's all perspective.

• 2:50:32Speaker 05

  You got to stay in touch with that. Like I, the reason we do the thing on Memorial Day every year is because I think we're getting away from that as a society. And we don't just do it on Memorial Day. I'm just saying that's like a big one that we'll do. We're kind of like, as we've turned against our military leaders, I feel like we're forgetting about our military men and women. Like when I was on Fox, we used to highlight military members all the time. Granted, we had two wars going on, so it was a little different posture. But those guys are still around, as you well know, many suffering, still need our help, kind of like.

• 2:51:08Speaker 05

  The forever wars are over, so we're good.

• 2:51:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, the media doesn't do a very good job of bringing it up anymore. You know, so thank you for doing what you're doing.

• 2:51:19Speaker 05

  Oh, I mean, I'll give a shout out to one of my competitors, and that's Jake Tapper. He does a very good job of remembering our service members. And he has a charity that raises money for them every year. I always try to participate in it. But it takes a lot of work and effort, and he does it religiously. He's very good to the troops. And I know people don't like him because he hates Trump, but I like him, and I really appreciate what he does.

• 2:51:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I had the pleasure of meeting him once. He seemed like a really nice guy.

• 2:51:50Speaker 05

  Did he?

• 2:51:51Shawn Ryan?

  He did.

• 2:51:51Speaker 05

  Good.

• 2:51:52Shawn Ryan?

  We spoke together at the National Press Club for the 13 families, you know, the Gold Star families from Abigade.

• 2:52:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:52:07Shawn Ryan?

  And...

• 2:52:08Speaker 05

  The ones that President Biden forgot to acknowledge, forgot exist.

• 2:52:11Shawn Ryan?

  The same ones. And, man, yeah, yeah.

• 2:52:19Speaker 05

  That was dark.

• 2:52:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yes, it was. Still is.

• 2:52:24Speaker 05

  There was, um... There was one interview that I remember as well, like, there's so many over the years. But this news reporter was killed on the air by a stalker. Like, she was attacked at her newsroom, I think it was. And she was killed by the stalker, a very young girl, young woman. And her dad came on my show that night to talk about it. And the one thing he didn't want was, he didn't want to see the setup package, you know, telling the audience what happened.

• 2:53:08Speaker 05

  And of course, we had done 15 different things to make sure that he did not see the setup package. But something happened, and he got it fed to his ear.

• 2:53:19Speaker 05

  And when he started the interview, he was upset. He was angry, rightfully so. And I, I just remember that feeling of like, oh my God. Like, we let this poor man down on the one thing he needed. I felt so bad. But he managed to get through it and I managed to sort of get him able to talk. And, um, like, those are the things you remember. The ones that affected you emotionally, I guess that's the sort of the theme of my answers. Like a Judge Judy who makes me laugh, makes me so happy. The military guys who make you feel grounded and give you perspective.

• 2:54:00Speaker 05

  And then something like that where you had a massive failure and you upset somebody you did not want to upset. You know?

• 2:54:10Speaker 05

  It's not easy. This job's not easy.

• 2:54:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, is there, I mean,

• 2:54:18Shawn Ryan?

  do you often regret asking the wrong question, maybe? Or, or, or do you?

• 2:54:24Speaker 05

  No.

• 2:54:26Shawn Ryan?

  No?

• 2:54:26Speaker 05

  Pretty much never, no. I mean, it's, I think the audience is so forgiving. They know you're only human and you're gonna say dumb things. And I think it's like you get judged on the body of work. You know, I think, you know, I've been in the business for a long time now. So people know generally who I am and what I stand for. And if I have a bad day or a bad show, or if I say the wrong thing, I deliver the news in a way that wasn't true, which I will always go correct. They know that. They know I'm not a dishonest broker. I'm not there for clicks. I'm not even there for love. I'm there for respect and in service. You know, that's what I'm there for.

• 2:55:07Speaker 05

  So I know I'm pretty forgiving if I, when I say something dumb or that I don't feel. That's my bigger sin, that like, I say something like, yeah. And then you're like, nah, I don't really feel like that.

• 2:55:23Speaker 05

  You know?

• 2:55:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:24Speaker 05

  Did I really mean yeah? I don't know if I did.

• 2:55:30Shawn Ryan?

  Well, after you, how long was it after you left NBC that you started your show?

• 2:55:35Speaker 05

  So I left NBC in October of 18 and we launched the show September of 20. About, about two years. Is that right? Yeah, two years. I wasn't sure I was gonna go back into the business at all. Now you can hear in the story, just the arc of, you know, how it went from so amazing to not so great. I was like, I don't have to do this. Maybe I'll hang out my shingle again. You know, I could do some sort of law, helping people. Or something else. I could reinvent myself another time.

• 2:56:07Speaker 05

  And you know what did it? What got me off my couch? It was the post-George Floyd behavior.

• 2:56:16Shawn Ryan?

  That's what did it?

• 2:56:17Speaker 05

  The country losing its mind. I was like, these are lies. These are all lies. About the police, about us. And they're lies that are tearing at the very fabric of America. And I need to say all the things that need to be said to correct them. My brother is a cop. And a great cop. Now he's retired, but he was lieutenant in Albany. And this guy was such an honorable cop the entire time he was in service. He was beaten to within an inch of his life by a gang. They broke his neck. He was in the hospital for a long time.

• 2:56:58Speaker 05

  Never came out bitter, never complaints. He was so upstanding. And to hear these people smear cops writ large as just all racist, you know, or all bastards, as they were saying at the time. I was like, it's on. Bullshit. Bullshit. I couldn't believe.

• 2:57:26Speaker 05

  Those protests where they were making people say Black Lives Matter. This is America. We don't make people say anything. That's not us. And at the same time, we're in the COVID lockdowns, which I wasn't that excited about. I was pissed off about them and I was more like, I don't know what to believe. I'm kind of irritated. And then we got to the mandatory masking and I was like, all right, it's on. You know, I don't like being told by anybody that I have to do this or you have to do that. I have a fairly strong libertarian streak in me. So I was like, I've got to get off the couch. I must get off the couch. And so we launched the show with me sitting in my kid's playroom with just a little desk and a microphone and three people. We actually took a picture of the screen grab.

• 2:58:09Speaker 05

  It was just a couple of us like, well, here goes nothing. And I said to my therapist again, I was like, what if nobody listens? And he said, he's from South Africa. And he goes, well, I'll listen and Doug will listen. So you'll have two.

• 2:58:26Speaker 05

  And that's, you know, now here we are. We're four years later.

• 2:58:30Shawn Ryan?

  So you felt a sense of service?

• 2:58:32Speaker 05

  Yes, yes. I, I was awash in actual facts that summer about the cops, shooting deaths, race relations in America. Then the COVID stuff came on and all of it. I just became a student of, I mean, I was reading nothing but Shelby Steele and Glenn Lowry and listening to all sorts of podcasts from people who were, you know, fair and balanced. Thomas Sowell, not his podcast, but his books. I was listening to Heather McDonald. I was going to leftist sources to hear what, what are your accusations? Like, what are you saying?

• 2:59:17Speaker 05

  I was reading their data to see if they had a point. I was reading Roland Frye at Harvard and the studies that he was putting out. I was trying to really educate myself on what's real. What's real? And once you do that, it's just so clear. My god, the cops, they make 10 million arrests a year. They have 30 million pullovers or interactions. They make 10 million arrests a year. And in, you know, that year that we were looking at, 2018, there were a dozen shootings of unarmed black men. And unarmed included people who had a glove box with guns, who were trying to run down the cop.

• 2:59:59Speaker 05

  That's in the tw- that, we were being lied to on a massive gaslighting scale. And nobody was talking about the truth. They were too afraid. So that's how the podcast was born. And where we got our, you know, tagline, no BS, no agenda, no fear. And the rest is history.

• 3:00:22Shawn Ryan?

  I always wondered that. And, you know, because even during the interview, it sounded like, I mean, now you have all the time you want with your kids.

• 3:00:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:00:34Shawn Ryan?

  I don't, I mean, it's not great to make assumptions, but I'm assuming you didn't need to go back to work after that.

• 3:00:42Speaker 05

  Well, I would have had to change some things in my lifestyle, but yes, I would have been just fine.

• 3:00:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. And, and so there it is. Felt a sense of service.

• 3:00:52Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. And, look, it was, it took me a while to really hit my stride. Like, I knew I was going to report facts about these tough issues, and I did. But I wasn't sharing really my opinions as much as I do now. And I had on Mark Cuban very early on. We sparred about his big commitment to DEI and Black Lives Matter, but was just fine taking all the money from China, who are genociding the Uighurs. But human rights matter.

• 3:01:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:20Speaker 05

  Okay. So we had a feisty exchange on that. But Mark Cuban said something that was very right to me. And I didn't realize it at the time. He was pressing me on my opinion. And I was like, I don't have to give my opinion. You know, I ask the questions, I don't answer them. And he was like, oh, no, not on this, not on a podcast, not in this forum. You're going to have to give your opinion. I remember being like, hm, what does he know? He knew a lot. He was right and I was wrong. And now, look at me now. Now you can't shut me up. I kind of owe him an apology over that.

• 3:01:52Shawn Ryan?

  Where do you think? When did the media turn to all the lies? When did that happen?

• 3:01:59Speaker 05

  2015.

• 3:02:00Shawn Ryan?

  2015? How does, I mean, how does it? What happened?

• 3:02:06Speaker 05

  Trump. There is such a thing as Trump Derangement Syndrome. He really just... He literally drove them crazy. He drove them crazy. Continues to drive them crazy. And they're just so agenda-driven, you know? You know, I said I'm not ideological. More journalists should be able to say that. It's not great to be an ideological journalist. It's really not. You're much better off if you really don't like either side and you're not in love with one or the other. All these people when Joe Biden was stepping down, "I love him, I love the man." Well, you shouldn't. Get out of the news business. Stop that.

• 3:02:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:02:49Speaker 05

  You know? We shouldn't love our politicians. We should be kicking the tires on our politicians. You know? All of them. Trump too. Like, eh, if you're a fan at home, you're a voter, that's one thing. If you're a member of the media, that's not your job. You're not a cheerleader. You're not there to help him. So, I had a real problem with the fact that they all sacrificed their objectivity to get him. You know, to bring him down. And despite their personal beliefs, like, could never check it. It's fine to actually privately root for somebody and want this candidate to win, or that's human. But to show it, to openly try to make it happen every night on the air is something very different. And they started doing it in 15. They declared openly that they would now no longer be objective,

• 3:03:34Speaker 05

  that they would say, "Trump is a racist. Trump is a sexist. Trump's an Islamophobe." That's opinion. That's your opinion. You're saying he's a racist because you're also saying that he said there are fine people on both sides at the Charlottesville rally, which is a lie. So your first fact is based on a second, underlying faulty fact, which makes you wrong. So you're much better off, if you're going to offer an opinion, saying it's an opinion. "In my opinion, he's a racist. He's a sexist. He's a whatever." That's not what they were doing. They were reporting night after night that he was these terrible things, that he had said these terrible things. And they continue to do it. What's happening right now with J.D. Vance is a good example of it.

• 3:04:18Speaker 05

  Of course he had to be crucified because he has too good a story with the working class. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin are too important not to hurt him. Trump has to be kid gloved for a little while because he just got his head almost blown off. It would look bad, but here's this nice, fresh meat who happened to say some things that were provocative on cable news about women. Get him. Because we need women, we're Democrats. That's how we get elected. So unleash the hounds. He said this stuff. What did he say? I went back, we did a deep dive. You know what was happening when JD was saying that shit? It was, there was a rising conversation on the internet and elsewhere around Mother's Day by these leftists that we don't need children.

• 3:05:01Speaker 05

  More and more women are choosing not to have them, more and more women who have them regret it. Deep thought pieces from mothers on how they regret having their children and how you really might want to rethink your decision to have them at all if you're somebody who hasn't. And you had AOC coming out there and saying it might be environmentally unsound and irresponsible. One-third of women polled said they felt the same, according to Pew Research. Is that real? Yes, a rising tide of children are bad. They're irresponsible and they ruin your life around Mother's Day. So JD Vance goes out there and says defensively, "These people are nuts. They sound like sociopaths.

• 3:05:46Speaker 05

  We should not be ruled by childless cat ladies who don't think children are worthwhile." And when pressed about, like, he was making a point about they want 16-year-olds to vote. And he said, "If we're going to give 16-year-olds the right to vote, then we should give their parents a heavier weight to their vote and the single people will have less of a weight." He said it was a thought experiment, wasn't like, "I have a policy proposal, single people without children shouldn't have their vote counted as much as the married people." That's what happened with JD Vance. He was, and he said, "I understand people who want kids and can't have them, that's tragic and my heart goes out to them and, you know, a lot of people just can't do it, IVF, whatever, which I believe in, but I do think net-net it's better to have kids

• 3:06:30Speaker 05

  because I think it helps ground you and it gives you better perspective on life and your problems and especially if you're going to run for office, you know, it gives you something real that you can think about and you have real skin in the game in the future." None of that is controversial. But you didn't get any of that context, the lead up, how, what he was responding to, or his fuller explanations about what happened. You just got, "He hates people who don't have kids."

• 3:06:54Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 3:06:55Speaker 05

  "He wants to make women have children." That was an actual headline, that he wants to make them have. So the media lies, and in particular, they lie about Republicans, and certainly anyone who's a MAGA Republican.

• 3:07:12Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh. I mean, would, is this the end of mainstream media? Are we seeing its demise right now?

• 3:07:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, yes, yes. We're living in the end times for corporate media, I guess we call it. I don't, they're not mainstream. Is it mainstream to go out there every day and say that guys should be allowed to punch women in the face at the Olympics and pretend they're women? That's not mainstream. Seventy percent, more really, but seventy percent of the Americans polled say they don't want it. They don't want men in women's sports or boys and girls sports. That's not mainstream. You and I are the mainstream. They're not. Main, is it mainstream to say, "Open the borders" and give amnesty to them all? Like, they're, I hate that term because it's just, it's a misnomer. But yes, we're living through their, the end times for them, which is a glorious thing. We should be celebrating that.

• 3:08:03Speaker 05

  That's one of the few great things we have to think about right now in public life. That and the Supreme Court are the two things I wrap myself in like a blanket when I go to bed at night.

• 3:08:15Shawn Ryan?

  What do you think the final nail in the coffin will be?

• 3:08:19Speaker 05

  If Trump wins again.

• 3:08:21Shawn Ryan?

  That'll be the end.

• 3:08:23Speaker 05

  Yes, because they'll do the same thing they did the first time. Everything will be negative. He will be the devil incarnate. They will find their oppositional, you know, media roots again, which they totally forgot during the Biden years. Hello, we have a whole White House press corps that didn't figure out he was being visited regularly by a Parkinson's doctor. Do you think they'd miss that with Trump? Well, in fairness to them, Trump didn't put out his logs, but my point is they had no interest in finding out anything bad about Joe Biden. So I do think they'll just drive more people away, but they're already dying. Like, you saw what happened with CNN tried to launch its digital property. It closed within a month.

• 3:09:07Speaker 05

  Hundreds of millions of dollars, closed within a month. Their ratings right now in primetime, they're pulling in half a million. I mean, I know you dwarf that in your numbers, and I certainly do as well. When I was in primetime at Fox, I was getting like four million a night and like a million in the demo. Sometimes well over that. Yeah, like CNN's never seen a million in the demo unless like it's the Trump assassination or some massive, massive breaking news. CBS just fired, they're saying she quit, but she obviously didn't, its main evening news anchor, Nora O'Donnell, and they're replacing it now with like a cast, trying to look more like local news. They've been in third place forever, they're never getting out of it. The Today Show has, their ratings are in the basement. They're pulling no numbers whatsoever.

• 3:09:52Speaker 05

  They used to be a behemoth. That was where everyone wanted to work. It was like hashtag goals. Now they get maybe one-fourth of what they used to get. They make no news, they're totally irrelevant. What was the last news Savannah Guthrie made?

• 3:10:07Shawn Ryan?

  I have no idea.

• 3:10:08Speaker 05

  Of course you don't. What, you know, what was the last news big interview Robin Roberts had? Who knows?

• 3:10:14Shawn Ryan?

  I don't ever watch it.

• 3:10:16Speaker 05

  Who has more influence, Wolf Blitzer or Ben Shapiro?

• 3:10:19Shawn Ryan?

  Ben Shapiro.

• 3:10:20Speaker 05

  It's just a new world. So they're well on their way to the end of their Kevorkian experience. Trump was the doctor, but they're the ones who hooked themselves up to the machine and they're almost gone.

• 3:10:37Shawn Ryan?

  What do you think happens? I mean, does it just dissolve into nothing? TV's just done?

• 3:10:43Speaker 05

  I don't know the answer to that. I know the almighty dollar rules, so if they're, when they stop making money off of these people, they will shrink as they have been, mass layoffs already. And eventually they'll have to find either a new model or close. I would love to see it turn into a resurrection of local news, which is important. You know, reporting is important. We need journalists, honest journalists. Sometimes they do amazing things. You know, look at the whole Boston Catholic Church scandal. That was amazing journalism and we know about that story because of those reporters. So I don't want to see it go away altogether and I do think it'll reinvent.

• 3:11:27Speaker 05

  As, you know, to steal a line from Jurassic Park, "Life finds a way."

• 3:11:34Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think it will be reinvented from companies like CNN, MSNBC, Fox, or do you think it'll be, do you think it'll be some of these newer?

• 3:11:45Speaker 05

  I think Fox is gonna go away because at some point Rupert's gonna pass. He's an old man. And I have my doubts about whether Lachlan really wants to run a news channel. You know, I think he really wanted to run the movie company, which then was sold to ABC. And I think he was probably disappointed about that. I don't think he ever thought he would be sitting at 1211 Sixth Avenue in Roger's old crappy office doing news. And indeed, he's chosen not to do that. So I don't know. I'm not sure about what Fox will do once the succession kicks in. It's not gonna happen imminently, but I think eventually it goes away. CNN, they've gotta be the closest to death because they have no numbers, none.

• 3:12:30Speaker 05

  Doesn't matter who you put in there, doesn't matter whether they try to do fair and balanced now or not, no one's watching. Jeff Zucker killed CNN and it has not been able to resurrect. MSNBC, I think they'll probably hang on longer because there isn't really a strong left-wing eco-center outside of cable. You know, shows like mine, like they were born because conservatives and just right-leaning independents, fair-minded independents needed alternatives. Like they couldn't get facts anymore on ABC, on NBC, on CBS, on CNN, on MSNBC. And even Fox has its own agenda, as people have now seen.

• 3:13:16Speaker 05

  So like, we had to rise up, you know? It's Darwinism. The left has its choices, you know? You could go hardcore left, MS, or...

• 3:13:28Speaker 05

  Soft porn over at CNN.

• 3:13:34Speaker 05

  So they don't have as much of a, as robust a presence in our lane. So I guess that would suggest they'd hold on a little bit longer, but not CNN because it has no numbers. It's not a business.

• 3:13:45Shawn Ryan?

  What do you, what do you think is going on in the world?

• 3:13:51Shawn Ryan?

  Everything, I mean, you've been in news for a long time. You have a, a great pulse on everything that's happening.

• 3:14:02Shawn Ryan?

  And I don't think we've ever seen anything like this, ever.

• 3:14:08Speaker 05

  Well, in our lifetime.

• 3:14:11Speaker 05

  I don't know. I, I'll tell you this about me. I don't really, I'm not in any way, I don't have a conspiratorial gene at all. And I am fairly optimistic in my worldview. So I may surprise you, but I think old patterns just repeat themselves and we usually wind up okay. I think it has been worse than it is now. We've had two world wars and somehow we found our way back to stasis.

• 3:14:40Speaker 05

  And, you know, right now we're not, we don't have thousands of troops over in Iraq. They're getting bombed all the time, losing limbs. We don't have anybody in Afghanistan. Those are good things. We're not living in a world where we're worried about Bin Laden bombing us every time we see the evening news. You know, in many ways, things have gotten better than they were 20 years ago. We're divided as a country for sure. We had a civil war once. We were pretty divided back then. The media sucks. The media used to be 100% partisan. You, you couldn't pick up a paper and ask for just objective truth. You only read what you wanted to read that would reinforce your worldview and then the

• 3:15:25Speaker 05

  other side did the same. That's how it used to be in America. It's okay. If you read that knowing what it is, you can figure out what's what. Our founding fathers did, and so did a whole bunch of generations that came after them. The, you know, Europe, it moves to the right, and then it moves to the left, and then it moves to the right, then it moves to the left. Net, it's a leftist kind of place. America's not. We're still more of a center-right country. We just have a bunch of lunatics running right now that have captured the left. But they're starting to get the cobwebs out of their eyes, the normies on the left, the center-left. You know, you listen to James Carville. We can work with him.

• 3:16:10Speaker 05

  He's not a nut. He's gonna vote Democrat. He's got the same principles that he used to have, and the left used to have. I just think they've gone so far, there's no answer but to see things settle down in a more normal place. America is normal. We're not crazy lunatics. Look at the Midwest. Go visit the Midwest. My two best friends live there. I see them all the time. They're normal. One's very liberal. She's not woke. She doesn't believe in any of this crap. She can't believe what's happening in the news when I tell her. Too much proximity to the news can actually drive you a little batty, and you can think these problems are bigger and more widespread than they are. So, that may sound Pollyanna-ish, but I would bet on us.

• 3:16:54Speaker 05

  And I think we're actually living in a relative time of stability.

• 3:17:05Speaker 05

  This is mind-blowing, right?

• 3:17:06Shawn Ryan?

  It is. I mean, I see the stuff going on, and it just, man, it really bothers me. I don't know. I feel like I'm center of the road, but lean conservative. But, you know, the last couple of years...

• 3:17:30Shawn Ryan?

  I just, I don't, if you have, if you love kids, if you, I, I, I just don't know how you can go that way.

• 3:17:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:17:40Shawn Ryan?

  At all. It's, it's...

• 3:17:45Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, how much of that

• 3:17:48Shawn Ryan?

  population, how much of that left demographic is, is for this shit?

• 3:17:55Speaker 05

  I, I think it's a far fewer number than they would admit. I think most of them are afraid.

• 3:17:59Shawn Ryan?

  How can, how can they vote? How can they vote that way?

• 3:18:03Speaker 05

  I mean, most leftists vote for abortion. They're obsessed with abortion on the left. Man, that's a big issue for them. They love abortion.

• 3:18:13Speaker 05

  So that's their top priority and they're voting based on that?

• 3:18:16Shawn Ryan?

  Man, like, what's happening to these kids?

• 3:18:18Speaker 05

  I know.

• 3:18:19Shawn Ryan?

  And, and love bombing them into, into the LGBTQ, LGBTQ, LMNOP, whatever they're calling it today, I...

• 3:18:32Shawn Ryan?

  It's, it's, it's like a, it's like a, it's like there's a recruitment going on.

• 3:18:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:18:37Shawn Ryan?

  In school.

• 3:18:37Speaker 05

  It's grooming. It's dark.

• 3:18:40Shawn Ryan?

  How can they, like, how can you be for that shit? How can you be for MAPS?

• 3:18:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, right.

• 3:18:46Shawn Ryan?

  Minor-attracted persons. How can you, how can you be for that? Do they, are they uninformed? Do they not know this is happening?

• 3:18:54Speaker 05

  I think most don't know about MAPS, that's for sure.

• 3:18:56Shawn Ryan?

  How can they walk around in their cities and see what they've turned into? Well, they don't, they aren't. They all come here, to Tennessee.

• 3:19:03Speaker 05

  Everybody.

• 3:19:04Shawn Ryan?

  Every state I go to, every state we go to.

• 3:19:07Speaker 05

  But you see Gavin Newsom cleaned up the homeless encampments like that?

• 3:19:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:19:12Speaker 05

  You know?

• 3:19:12Shawn Ryan?

  Xi Jinping must be coming to town.

• 3:19:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. But even, you know, Oregon now is rethinking its open-air drug markets. It's like, they go so far left, they eventually are forced to correct. I'm very worried about the same things you're worried about. I'm definitely worried about the 10 million-plus illegals who are running around and we don't know where they're from and we're never gonna get them out of here. Especially if Trump loses.

• 3:19:34Speaker 05

  But I'm deeply worried about the children and the trans thing. We are, we're, this is like the time when we used to lobotomize people who were a little slow. Like, we were lobotomizing people who were just a little slow. What a stain on our record as Americans and on the medical community. And we're kind of doing that right now. It's the same thing to children. We're not lobotomizing them, but we're sterilizing them. We're chopping off their body parts. We're ending their sex life, any chance at a normal sex life. Most people don't realize, if you go from puberty blockers to cross-sex hormones directly, you're probably going to be sterile and you'll never achieve orgasm. What in the actual... And they want to tell us that's informed consent that a 12-year-old can give. It's barbaric.

• 3:20:18Speaker 05

  It's evil. So I too am very concerned about these issues. It's just that if I zoom out, I see positive trend lines in most of these things. I like the fact that immigration is coming up as number one on the leftist's list of concerns now. Not leftist, but liberals. I like the fact that we're polling at over 70% on whether boys should play in girls' sports. I think things like what happened at the Olympics will help, because that's an international event that everybody watches.

• 3:20:54Shawn Ryan?

  Which thing? The Last Supper or a man beating the shit out of a woman?

• 3:20:58Speaker 05

  Christians will always be the group it's okay to bash at every international event, but that's because we don't run around murdering people when you make fun of Jesus. No, what happened with the trans boxer? Intersex, whatever, it's a man. You have XY chromosomes, welcome to manhood. Then they've done deep studies on people with the XY who say they're intersex and they have all the testosterone advantages that an actual man with a penis and no female genitalia, which is a weird problem to have, and I have all sympathy to this person, but too bad. You can't box with the women. Sorry, you have a testosterone advantage. That's why you got kicked out of the world championships last year. And so did the other guy. It's just outrageous.

• 3:21:39Speaker 05

  And I do think that being such a public and watched event will help. You know, we still have people like Megan Rapinoe out there saying, "It's not happening." They're not taking medals. They're not endangering girls. They're just not informed and they just revert to their woke, proper speak. "We're not allowed to say anything bad about the trans people." She's so worried about protecting the fake girls, she's forgotten about the real ones. So, I mean, the biggest thing right now for people like you and me, I think, is to just remind people that you, it's okay to speak up and you must. It's okay not to use their forced language on pronouns and you must, or you are part of the problem. And once you stand up, once you ask the question at your school board meeting, or of your potential new school principal, or at your office,

• 3:22:24Speaker 05

  or wherever you're able to do it, so many other people will feel empowered to do the same. They'll feel emboldened that they're not alone. And you'll get tons of, "Me too. Thank you for asking that." "I loved your question." And then you find out, "Oh my God, it's okay to have this opinion." Right now, you're just told you're not, it's not okay to have that opinion. So, that's starting. You can talk about this issue so much more freely than you could three years ago, thanks largely to Elon Musk. God bless him. And his ownership of X, I realize so far it hasn't been a great financial deal for him, but he, he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for what he's done. Um, so I see shoots of grass, Sean, you know? It's like, I don't,

• 3:23:09Speaker 05

  I don't see us as at peak in the problem. I see us as like past peak and now on our way to solving it.

• 3:23:15Shawn Ryan?

  Man, I hope you're right. I'm a pessimist, so. So, I just, it just bothers. I think about it all the time. Especially, especially the MAPS, the pedo stuff that they're trying to normalize. And the, and the, just the kids, man. Like, everybody says this, you know, but I don't, I don't, I don't fucking care what you do as an adult. If you wanna do that surgery, then go ahead. I could care, two shits, don't care. But, an eight-year-old? An eight-year-old.

• 3:23:53Speaker 05

  Well, and on top of that, like, you can do what you want as an adult to your body. Stay out of my locker room.

• 3:23:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:24:00Speaker 05

  Stay out of my bathroom.

• 3:24:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, okay, I'm not cool with it.

• 3:24:04Speaker 05

  It's like, you wanna do your thing in your house? All right. Kim Kardashian put a bunch of fat in her ass. It looks huge. Who am I to judge? People seem to like it.

• 3:24:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:24:15Speaker 05

  There are people down in Texas, in Texas, getting all their genitals removed and their belly buttons. Just like a cyborg. I don't know.

• 3:24:23Shawn Ryan?

  Why, what?

• 3:24:24Speaker 05

  They leave like one area for you to do your business. No genitals. Great.

• 3:24:30Shawn Ryan?

  What?

• 3:24:30Speaker 05

  Good luck.

• 3:24:31Shawn Ryan?

  When did this start happening?

• 3:24:32Speaker 05

  As Joe Biden says, is the one saying of his I like. Good luck in your senior year.

• 3:24:39Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 3:24:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, so, okay, but I'm sorry if you're a man, you're not coming into my private space, period.

• 3:24:49Shawn Ryan?

  How do these conversations even? I can't even believe we're having. Every time I have this conversation, I can't believe I'm having the fucking conversation.

• 3:24:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:24:56Shawn Ryan?

  Where does this shit stem from?

• 3:24:59Speaker 05

  I mean, that one is, it stems from sick men who, like, decided to go into these spaces, decided that they would exploit our empathy for a very small section of the community, which legitimately is confused on gender. These people, it's a teeny tiny amount, they've been around forever. The vast majority of them never bothered anybody. You know, like, I actually, I see Caitlyn Jenner in this category, who says they always had this thing, you know, they made the choice to live life as a man, and then kind of came to grips with this gender identity crisis. But Caitlyn Jenner's not trying to sneak into little girls' spaces. Now, Caitlyn will admit that he used female bathrooms,

• 3:25:42Speaker 05

  and I think he still uses female bathrooms, and I think he'd be perfectly happy to sit here and listen to why I object to that. He's just so reasonable, I think, in the way he talks about this issue. And I'm not trying to be disrespectful by calling Caitlyn "he", but I really think it's critical. It's not just a preference, it's critical that we do it. Calling anybody "she" when it's a "he" makes you actually part of the problem. Pronouns are a hypnotol, they dull your sentences to the problem. You cannot win an argument saying "he", saying "she" needs to stay out of the women's locker room.

• 3:26:22Speaker 05

  So, I don't know, it's that, it is almost, I've become almost a single-issue voter on the trans thing now. I just don't know. You just saw Jennifer Aniston tweeted out about J.D. Vance's Child is Cat lady comments. I don't know if you saw that. She came out and said, "Oh, how could you? Hope your daughter never needs IVF, which you oppose." Lie, he doesn't oppose IVF. He signed on to the Ted Cruz, Katie Britt bill, protecting it in all 50 states.

• 3:26:51Speaker 05

  So she wanted to stand up for childless cat ladies because she's one of them.

• 3:26:56Speaker 05

  What has she said about the women? What'd she say about the girl who got her face punched out by the man in the boxing ring? Zero. What has she said about Peyton McNabb, who's suffering permanent nerve damage and brain damage from getting hit so hard in the face and the head by a volleyball player in North Carolina? Nothing. What'd she say about that girl who got all of her teeth knocked out in a field hockey game by a boy pretending to be a girl on her team? Zero. So I don't give a shit what she thinks about J.D. Vance and childless cat ladies. She masquerades as some protector of women. She's quite the contrary. She's never stood up on any of these issues. This is the one she comes out on? You don't want childless cat ladies to be offended? That's where you're gonna plant your flag?

• 3:27:41Speaker 05

  I have no tolerance for it. Hollywood is awful. I can barely watch their products anymore because they have... It's not even no morality. They've really crossed over to evil in a lot of their beliefs.

• 3:27:56Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I think they're on their way out too. It seems like...

• 3:28:00Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 3:28:01Shawn Ryan?

  Man, my kids are gonna... I don't even know what the hell they're gonna watch or do at this point, but...

• 3:28:06Speaker 05

  The Darwinism thing will save it.

• 3:28:09Shawn Ryan?

  Do you feel like any of this is biblical at all?

• 3:28:17Speaker 05

  I'm not there yet.

• 3:28:18Shawn Ryan?

  No?

• 3:28:19Speaker 05

  I don't know. I don't... I just don't think about the world in those terms.

• 3:28:24Speaker 05

  I don't think so. I just think we've been through worse. We've done worse to each other, even than this.

• 3:28:33Shawn Ryan?

  How is your faith journey going?

• 3:28:37Speaker 05

  It's doing OK. I put the annulment papers to the side for now.

• 3:28:42Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 3:28:42Speaker 05

  I'm gonna pick them back up.

• 3:28:45Speaker 05

  But it was bothering me so much, I just decided to table it.

• 3:28:49Shawn Ryan?

  I watched a clip of you, and I think he was a bishop, asking about the middleman and the...

• 3:28:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:28:59Shawn Ryan?

  The answer seemed to be, "Trust the process."

• 3:29:03Speaker 05

  Well, all my Catholic viewers say the same, right? And then people who are not Catholic are like, "You don't need the middleman."

• 3:29:11Speaker 05

  I did have somebody make a good point to me about, in favor of the middleman, that I'm stewing on, which was...

• 3:29:20Speaker 05

  There was a priest who said to a friend of mine, "People complain, 'Why do I have to deal with the middleman? I want to get an annulment, or I just want my divorce to be recognized by God. I don't want to have to do anything, actually, after I've done the legal thing." And he said, "But those same people, if a family member is dying, I'm their first call to get in there and give last rites." And that's true. You know, my sister died two years ago. And when that priest came in there to give her the last rites, it was an important moment.

• 3:30:02Speaker 05

  I was relieved he was there. And I've never said so many Hail Marys, you know, right in a row. It was, it was intense. So maybe it's just the way I've been raised, you know, my Catholic background. He's not wrong. The middleman was important to me in that moment, and I believed. So that kind of opened the door back up to me, just seeing it through. You know, I don't, nothing harmful, I think, will come from seeing it through. Something could potentially harmful happen if I don't see it through and I'm wrong, that I'm already absolved, right? Like, what if I'm not absolved and I actually do need, I don't know.

• 3:30:45Speaker 05

  These are the thoughts you go through, because you got these crazy messages being handed to you by religious figures.

• 3:30:51Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 3:30:52Speaker 05

  But I, that sounds crazy, right? That I would need a man to tell me I'm good with God after having a divorce that was totally legal and finding a new man who I love and making three beautiful children and living in love and harmony with all of us. It sounds crazy that I would need anybody to pass any judgment on that. But you know, we're all raised with these beliefs. It's, it's a form of indoctrination, right? You go every Sunday and you hear the same messaging and you go to Sunday School and then you go to, you know, confirmation and CCD, all the stuff. And it's very hard to just say, "Well, that no longer works for me, so I reject it." It's baked in there.

• 3:31:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I get it. Have you read the whole Bible?

• 3:31:36Speaker 05

  No.

• 3:31:38Shawn Ryan?

  Me neither.

• 3:31:39Speaker 05

  I've listened to Bible in a year a couple of times. I don't think that counts.

• 3:31:44Shawn Ryan?

  Father Mike.

• 3:31:45Speaker 05

  Schmitz.

• 3:31:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah, I've listened to it. I don't think it says anything in there about a middleman, ever.

• 3:31:54Speaker 05

  I think you're right. I think that's, that's a man-made creation. I hope my priest doesn't watch this. What if he watches it, then he says, "Reject it when I submit the papers." Oh crap. I don't know. It's like, back to our earlier discussion. I have every belief in God and in a higher power and in something more for us on the other side and on the last side, you know, before we got here, as I said. I just haven't figured out how I interact with it, what's really required of me.

• 3:32:32Shawn Ryan?

  Have you ever heard of John Burke?

• 3:32:35Speaker 05

  No.

• 3:32:36Shawn Ryan?

  He wrote, uh, he wrote, great, now I'm gonna have a brain fart. He wrote a book about NDEs.

• 3:32:48Speaker 05

  About what?

• 3:32:48Shawn Ryan?

  NDEs, near-death experiences.

• 3:32:50Speaker 05

  Love those books.

• 3:32:53Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. He wrote a book called Imagine Heaven and I, and I cannot remember the, the, the big one that he wrote, but it's all about NDEs and he went all around the world and he interviewed over 1,500 people from, from different countries, different religions, all about their near-death experiences. And puts together all the commonalities. It is, I interviewed him because I'm, I'm digging. I wanna know.

• 3:33:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:33:26Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, you know, the one common thing that happens to all of them is they get the opportunity to accept Christ, even if they don't believe. And, um, and, uh, I guess the only reason I'm even bringing this up is that it may be something you wanna look into. Because, um, he just has a...

• 3:33:57Shawn Ryan?

  An amazing way of describing all these experiences, putting the commonalities in right in front of you. And he even talks about people that have hellish, he calls them hellish, near-death experiences where they actually go to hell. And everybody gets the opportunity

• 3:34:17Shawn Ryan?

  to

• 3:34:19Shawn Ryan?

  accept Christ.

• 3:34:21Speaker 05

  Wow. I will read that. I love those stories. I did a lot of those stories when I was at NBC and they were always stunning. You would just not be able to move afterward. And it's always somebody who didn't believe, you know, before. A scientist, a doctor. It's amazing to listen to those stories. I guess like when I'm listening to you, and Father Mike is Catholic, you know, he, he definitely urged me to get the annulment.

• 3:34:53Speaker 05

  I'm a rule follower in general, like I, I don't like people telling me what to do, but once there's a rule, I generally follow it. You know? And so I wrestle with that. It's like, this is the rule. If you, I like it to be clean. It'll be all clean. If I get an annulment, it will be clean. And I can make sure every, all the boxes are checked, that I need checked, that these authority figures have told me must be checked. And I realized this is not exactly free thinking. But back to the earlier point, there's a reason for that. There, you know, belief in many ways is not free thinking, you know, you,

• 3:35:36Speaker 05

  we, just the acceptance of God could be mocked as it is by people like Bill Maher and others is like crazy talk. So if you start to go down that lane, you know, what else gets thrown out the window? What else is silly that you believe? Like I just, I'm really kind of stuck. So I've decided to hold, like I said. And not right now, I just kind of see it as like the one way has no disadvantages. And the other way might unless I read your book and it tells me I get a second chance to clean it up at the end.

• 3:36:11Shawn Ryan?

  It's already been, it's already cleansed.

• 3:36:16Shawn Ryan?

  That's the whole thing about Jesus.

• 3:36:20Shawn Ryan?

  He's cleansed us all already. He knows we're all shitheads. And he's already forgiven us. All you have to do is accept him. That's it. That's all you gotta do.

• 3:36:33Speaker 05

  But then, and stop going to Catholic mass.

• 3:36:37Shawn Ryan?

  No, no, I'm not trying to get you to stop going to Catholic.

• 3:36:39Speaker 05

  Well, but I mean, that's what would continue happening and I would feel, you know, you're not supposed to take communion, you're not allowed to give confession. There are all sorts of rules that you're supposed to comply with over there or just be a sinner.

• 3:36:55Shawn Ryan?

  Wait, over where? In the Catholic church?

• 3:36:57Speaker 05

  In the Catholic church.

• 3:36:58Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah, there are a lot of rules.

• 3:37:01Speaker 05

  It's not a religion for wusses.

• 3:37:03Shawn Ryan?

  I was there.

• 3:37:04Speaker 05

  You were?

• 3:37:04Shawn Ryan?

  I wussed out.

• 3:37:06Speaker 05

  Were you given a try?

• 3:37:07Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, no, I was raised Catholic.

• 3:37:09Speaker 05

  Oh, oh.

• 3:37:10Shawn Ryan?

  I was raised Catholic. And, uh, and then, and then I lost it. But, uh, I didn't lose, I just lost faith, you know, after...

• 3:37:23Shawn Ryan?

  I just wasn't a great person.

• 3:37:26Shawn Ryan?

  The SEAL teams will do that to you. But, um, but I found it and, you know, I found it again and then, man, I just love, I just love exploring it without the rules. Because it just, man, it just opens you up to so much more and, uh, I don't know, I just want that for you.

• 3:37:47Speaker 05

  Yes, it sounds amazing. You know, you probably gleaned from the way I talk about like my approach to my business and my life,

• 3:38:01Speaker 05

  it's definitely more me to say, "These are the five things that need to get done and I will get them done. I'll get them done better than anybody will get them done. I will out hustle everybody else's annulment." Right, stupid. It's just my general default makeup, right? Like...

• 3:38:20Speaker 05

  Going, like, taking it easy on myself and letting myself kind of off the hook doesn't sound like me.

• 3:38:29Shawn Ryan?

  How would you be letting yourself off the hook?

• 3:38:32Speaker 05

  Like, I don't have to go through the shame and the hassle and the difficulty of getting the annulment.

• 3:38:38Shawn Ryan?

  What does that entail?

• 3:38:40Speaker 05

  You have to confess, like, very intimate secrets of your life and your marriage, your first marriage, to a stranger. I mean, and you have to write tons of stuff and you have to get witnesses to write in about your marriage. You have to dredge up all this stuff. My poor ex-husband had to be brought into it, too. He was fine. He was cool with it. He was, you know, on board, but I just feel like, wow, they really make you work for it, and then you may or may not get it.

• 3:39:07Shawn Ryan?

  What if you don't get it? What happens?

• 3:39:09Speaker 05

  Then I'm definitely going the other route. I'm going full bore. I'm gonna get Father Mike on, and we're having it out.

• 3:39:21Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know. I just, uh... I just can't trust religion. I can't trust it.

• 3:39:28Speaker 05

  I have to say, it's like,

• 3:39:31Speaker 05

  I think the relationship is between me and God, me and Christ, and all these other places, whether it's the Episcopal Church, or the Catholic Church, or the Evangelical Church, are just vehicles to help me express and be in the relationship. It's just like the scaffolding. So I I don't, I guess I just don't ask questions like that. I never have, up until I bumped into the feelings I was having when I had to comply with some of the more, I think, ridiculous rules. You know, as I said, I'm not devout, so I don't comply with a lot of the other rules. I do eat meat on Fridays during Lent. I just don't think I'm gonna get punished for that, right? Like, things like that.

• 3:40:16Speaker 05

  I'm not that observant. I go to mass. I believe. I'm raising my children Catholic. But... The scaffolding has been non objectionable to me for most of my life. It's only now that it's becoming objectionable. And so that's leading me to figure some things out, right? Like I told you, I tried some different scaffolding over at the Episcopal Church and that didn't go well.

• 3:40:41Speaker 05

  We went to a Methodist church in Manhattan. It was like a variety show. That didn't, that was a no. Might have just been the place we went because the pastor had blue hair and mohawk. I was like, what's happening?

• 3:40:53Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 3:40:57Shawn Ryan?

  Have you, I mean, have you noticed this wave of Christianity just moving across the globe here? Have you seen, did you see the party, the, the party at, what was it? I think it was Georgia State.

• 3:41:12Shawn Ryan?

  It looked like a, it was all these kids tailgating at a football game. And I mean, it looked wild. It looked wild. They did a big story on it.

• 3:41:25Speaker 05

  But wait, were they?

• 3:41:26Shawn Ryan?

  They were getting baptized in the back of trucks, like hundreds, maybe thousands of kids.

• 3:41:31Speaker 05

  What? No, I have not seen this.

• 3:41:33Shawn Ryan?

  You haven't seen that?

• 3:41:34Speaker 05

  No.

• 3:41:35Shawn Ryan?

  It's, it looks, it's just awes- it's cool to see.

• 3:41:39Speaker 05

  Wow. Thank God. Praise God.

• 3:41:43Shawn Ryan?

  But.

• 3:41:43Speaker 05

  That's the solution.

• 3:41:45Shawn Ryan?

  You've got that, you've got all these people coming out all of a sudden, getting baptized with, with, with, with massive audiences. I mean, it's, I see it all the time. And I don't know, that's, I'm kind of, I guess I'm kind of going back to, sometimes I just think some of the things that we're seeing is it's biblical.

• 3:42:07Speaker 05

  In what way?

• 3:42:08Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean, I think it's, I think it's interesting that the letterhead on the, the, the Biden's letter to Trans Visibility Day on Easter. You know, that was what, that was implemented, what, nine years ago or something? And it just fell on Easter, but they still put the Easter eggs and the Easter bunny in the letterhead. The mocking of the Last Supper that we just saw at the Olympics. The wave of Christianity like I'm talking about, the, the.

• 3:42:42Shawn Ryan?

  Dismembering kids, the confusion of genders, all these. I just look at all these things and I don't remember. It's like I was saying earlier, we just have never seen anything like this. And it makes me wonder what we're actually up against.

• 3:42:58Speaker 05

  But what's the end conclusion of that?

• 3:43:00Shawn Ryan?

  What's the end conclusion?

• 3:43:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, like, so.

• 3:43:04Shawn Ryan?

  Well.

• 3:43:04Speaker 05

  The end times are here?

• 3:43:06Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, I don't know. Maybe.

• 3:43:10Speaker 05

  Like, where does that assumption that this is biblical take you?

• 3:43:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, it takes me there. It takes me to this is good versus evil.

• 3:43:21Speaker 05

  I'm using that word more than I ever have in my life.

• 3:43:25Shawn Ryan?

  It takes me to good versus evil. I don't know if it's end times. I mean, I do know that people have thought that, you know, throughout history, that it's end times and it hasn't been, but there sure seems to be a lot of signals happening.

• 3:43:41Speaker 05

  I think we need to make the studio brighter. You come, it's beautiful, but you're in the dark room too much.

• 3:43:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you might be right. Put some windows on.

• 3:43:53Speaker 05

  It's good, the children are good. That's a plus. The grass is good. I sound like J D. Your wife is good. Like, when you start to feel like that, I think it's, that's not healthy thinking. Like, that's a dark place to be. And it's just too overwhelming. You can't do anything if it's biblical. What can you do? Somebody else is totally in charge and it's not going to end well. Or it will if you're a believer. But anyway. My son Thatcher was asking me the other day, he goes, when Jesus comes back, does that mean we all die? Those of us who are alive and here, we die? So we shouldn't be rooting for him to come back soon, right? It's a good question. It's kind of complicated.

• 3:44:37Speaker 05

  But I think let's, let's fight the fights we can fight. Let's manage these things one thing at a time. Let's not take on biblical. It's too big and daunting. We can speak out about the trans insanity. We can encourage people to find faith and to do the baptisms in the back of the truck or wherever is necessary. We can speak up against the things that we know are wrong, like bringing all these illegals over who are going to hurt Americans and take lives. And then let other people see that it's okay to talk about these things in, yeah, harsh terms, to make their point, elect the right people. We can even take electoral losses like we potentially could suffer this year. God forbid. I mean, God forbid I had to say it, but. And, and find some good in it.

• 3:45:22Speaker 05

  Remember that the country was never so woke as when Trump was in office. It gets more woke when they have him, him as an adversary. I'm not rooting for this. I'm just saying there will be a, a silver lining that we can focus on and exploit if things go that way.

• 3:45:39Speaker 05

  There are things that you can do, and I think that's the key to staying

• 3:45:44Speaker 05

  okay and like, well.

• 3:45:49Speaker 05

  Otherwise, it's just too, too overwhelming.

• 3:45:51Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I'll take that advice. I'll lighten it up in here a little bit. But, um, well, Meghan, we're wrapping up the interview and, um, I think it's good to leave it on a positive note. So, and I, like I said, I'm a pessimist, so I can go down the negative road. But, uh, one last question.

• 3:46:09Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 3:46:10Shawn Ryan?

  If you had three guests to recommend for my show, who would they be?

• 3:46:15Speaker 05

  Three guests? Well, you've probably done all my favorite military guys. I'm gonna.

• 3:46:20Shawn Ryan?

  It's likely.

• 3:46:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and guess that. Um, hmm.

• 3:46:30Speaker 05

  Kelly J. Keen.

• 3:46:33Speaker 05

  She's a Brit. She's a warrior on the trans stuff. She's been everywhere. She has these rallies, they throw tomato juice all over her. They attack her. She's been punched in the face by all these trans insanity people. And she just keeps going. She's totally opened my eyes on it. And so she's lived an interesting life and she's right in the heart of battle. And will really open your eyes on a lot of the stuff. Like she's been studying a lot longer than we have. So I'd vote for her.

• 3:47:09Speaker 05

  You already did Tucker. He's a great interview, as you know. Fascinating.

• 3:47:16Speaker 05

  Have you done Trump?

• 3:47:17Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 3:47:18Speaker 05

  Would you want to do Trump?

• 3:47:20Shawn Ryan?

  I've been trying to get Trump.

• 3:47:23Speaker 05

  That would be a great one for you.

• 3:47:27Speaker 05

  Trying to think of like which guests align with your mission.

• 3:47:37Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 3:47:40Speaker 05

  Now I'm realizing how many shallow people I know.

• 3:47:46Shawn Ryan?

  Positive note.

• 3:47:49Speaker 05

  I think.

• 3:47:53Speaker 05

  What about Father Mike Schmitz, now that we're talking about it?

• 3:47:55Shawn Ryan?

  I would definitely interview him.

• 3:47:57Speaker 05

  He'll do it.

• 3:47:59Speaker 05

  He's cool. He's so relatable and he's got real life experience.

• 3:48:06Speaker 05

  We call him Father What a Waste because he's a very good looking guy. I know that's not important to you, but you know, wouldn't be bad to sit across from him for a few hours. He's thoughtful and reflective and you could have this conversation with somebody who actually knows what they're talking about. See if you might... Maybe that's the reason we're together. Maybe you need to have that conversation with him. Not to bring you back into the Catholic fold, but just to offer, you know, some insights.

• 3:48:30Shawn Ryan?

  I would love to do that.

• 3:48:32Speaker 05

  This may be a little out there, but have you ever talked to Charlie Kirk?

• 3:48:37Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 3:48:38Speaker 05

  All right, let me tell you why I like Charlie. He's a whippersnapper. He's like in his young 30s.

• 3:48:47Speaker 05

  He is loathed by most establishment Republicans. I know, because they're a lot of all my friends. And every time he comes on, they're like, "Ew, we hate him." I love him. He's really loathed by the left. Didn't go to college. Was Don Jr.'s bagman, like assistant, in 2016.

• 3:49:06Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding.

• 3:49:07Speaker 05

  Started Turning Point USA. And now he's a juggernaut. He is hosting conference after conference to generate enthusiasm amongst young people for conservative values. And letting them know they're not alone. He knows Trump like a Trump whisperer. He can explain all things Trump to you. He's got a great sense of humor and an encyclopedic memory. And he's in the lion's den all the time. Like, fighting these wars and not giving two Fs, what people say about him. And he's on to the next big thing. He's tireless. He never takes a vacation. He never, never gives up. If he's dealt a blow, it doesn't seem to land in his mind.

• 3:49:52Speaker 05

  And he's damn entertaining. Like, the way he talks about the news. He makes me laugh. He makes me think. He says exactly the thing I wanted to say, but I didn't know I want to say it until he had said it. And I love talking to him. So, there you go.

• 3:50:06Shawn Ryan?

  Well, thank you.

• 3:50:06Speaker 05

  It's a variety. Sorry that took so much thinking. I was really just trying to curate my list for people you would actually enjoy.

• 3:50:12Shawn Ryan?

  I appreciate that. Well, Meghan, um, thank you for coming down and sharing your story and, um, I'm just so happy that we connected. And, and once again, um, I just want to say thank you for being a beacon of light for young women today.

• 3:50:30Speaker 05

  Oh, thank you, Sean.

• 3:50:32Shawn Ryan?

  Extremely important and, uh, very noble.

• 3:50:35Speaker 05

  Thanks for having me. It's been a true pleasure.

• 3:50:37Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you. Best of love.

• 3:50:39Speaker 05

  I appreciate it.