The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Host "Humiliated" After Settlement, and Trump's Victory Ending the Cancel Era, with Adam Carolla and Justine Bateman | Ep. 968
Wed, 18 Dec 2024
Megyn Kelly is joined by Adam Carolla, host of "The Adam Carolla Show" podcast, to discuss George Stephanopoulos reportedly "defiant" and "humiliated" over his network paying millions to settle the Trump lawsuit, how ABC News blew up their reputation over the years due to their Trump and COVID coverage, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s recent appearance in the Broadway show“& Juliet,” how Broadway has gone “over the top” with woke and pro-trans content, the truth about violent Venezuelan gangs in Colorado, the latest updates on the mysterious East Coast drones, one mayor saying law enforcement drones may be searching for missing radioactive material, the difference Biden and Trump’s comments on the drones, and more. Then filmmaker and author Justine Bateman joins to discuss Trump’s massive victory and how it signals the end of the cancel era, why the mob momentum has now been stopped, the way MeToo and other causes give people an outlet to feel a part of something meaningful, the disturbing polls showing young people approve of Luigi Mangione’s murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO and what it says about society, the negative impact of internet culture, how pop culture has evolved to reward bad behavior, the meltdowns by leftists on social media after Trump’s victory, her hilarious critiques and director's notes, the blowback she’s received in Hollywood throughout her career, the need for parody and satire, and more. Carolla- https://adamcarolla.com/Bateman- https://credo23.com/Tax Network USA: https://TNUSA.com/MEGYNFirecracker Farm: Get yours today at https://Firecracker.Farm/Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow
Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. We are one week out from Christmas. Just a warning to those who haven't done their shopping. One week to T-minus seven and T-minus six till Christmas Eve, for those of you who like to wait until the last minute.
Okay, the media story everyone is talking about has continued to evolve with reports now that George Stephanopoulos over at ABC News is defiant and humiliated after ABC agreed to pay Trump $15 million to settle his defamation lawsuit against the network over their star host's false and misleading segment with Representative Nancy Mace. You know, I went back to look at the so-called apology.
That's how we referred to it the other day. I think that was erroneous. It wasn't really an apology. It was we regret the statements. George Stephanopoulos regrets the statements. Well, that's not exactly an apology, is it? He was forced to say that by his network, and now he's reportedly humiliated, as I say.
Plus, there's new reporting from The New York Times that sheds light on President Biden's, quote, weary goodbye and the full extent of his infirmity, which continues to reveal itself day by day. And would you believe the team surrounding him is still alive? trying to claim that behind the scenes, he's amazing. He's like that Olympic break dancer behind the scenes. What was her name?
She stole the whole show, the terrible one, but she was fit and able to move, unlike our current president. And then we've got an update on those drones. They're slipping the truth inside of their lives now. What was it? Rego, Rego, Rego. Uh, ray gun, ray gun. Okay. It sounds like a toy that we're going to get our kids for Christmas.
Anyway, joining me now to discuss all of this and more Adam Carolla, host of the Adam Carolla show. Are you overwhelmed with back taxes or unfiled returns? Well, get ready because since COVID relief ended, the IRS hired 20,000 new enforcement agents proposing millions of pay up notices for 2025. Oh, joy. If you're worried about IRS collection tactics, you don't have to face them alone. So
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Empower yourself with Tax Network USA's support and take charge of your financial future. Visit tnusa.com slash Megan today. Adam, welcome back. Great to see you.
Always great to be on the show.
Okay, so I guess let's start with Stephanopoulos, who is humiliated and very angry, according to the reports, that this has happened to him. The New York Times goes inside the suit and talks about how executives had expected or had anticipated that there would be a blowback to settling this.
But they're in full revolt over there at ABC News, where they feel that the reputation has been unnecessarily sullied, that they didn't feel they should have settled with President Trump. And yet The Times pointing out that Disney had many reasons. Number one, there was a judge, Judge
Al Tanaga, chief judge in the Southern District of Florida, who had denied Disney's motion to dismiss with some very strong language saying a reasonable jury could interpret Stephanopoulos' statements as defamatory and then added in italics, Stephanopoulos stated 10 times that a jury or juries had found plaintiff liable for rape, which was obviously not true.
And then they pointed out something we speculated about the other day, which was she had also rejected request to delay the case. And Disney was told to turn over all remaining documents related to the case. Trump's lawyer told us they'd only given like one document.
And so they had to produce not only all the emails with Stephanopoulos on them among his producers and so on, but he was going to have to sit for a deposition, which we knew. They were also worried that this could set an industry standard. In other words, this could go all the way up to the U.S.
Supreme Court and New York Times versus Sullivan, which sets a very, very, very high bar for problematic speech, for finding speech problematic, could potentially be overturned. Anyway, what do you make of George Stephanopoulos' indignity at what has happened to him, Adam?
Well, OK, they worry about their reputation. So ABC's news division is worried about their reputation if they offer an apology. They blew up their own reputation over the last five years systematically, first with Russian collusion and three or four years of lying or at least being wrong about that. And then that dovetailed right into covid.
So the two biggest stories of basically the last eight or nine years, they screwed up 10 ways to Sunday. So I would tend not to listen to ABC News, not because the dwarf news anchor offered an apology, but more that they lied about all the big stories, anything to do with Trump and anything to do with COVID. I mean, let's look at it this way.
The two biggest stories of the last decade have been Trump and COVID and COVID and Trump. They got every single story wrong and or lied about every single story. So I will not be listening to ABC News, not because they're cowards and not standing up to this lawsuit, just because they're wildly inaccurate and probably beyond inaccurate, they're liars.
They say in the New York Post, in an exclusive, George is defiant. One source tells, well, what does that mean? Defiant in what way? Like you had to issue the words of regret. Your company had to pay 15 million. You're no longer in first place. I believe it's related to that debacle of a debate.
There's been a revulsion after, you know, that night there was one and now there's been a mass exodus in their audience. And they want us to see what he's defiant. How? I mean, the latest news was he deactivated his X account. It doesn't really doesn't sound defiant, Adam. It sounds like a coward.
This is their hijacking of the language. Remember, Kamala Harris wanted to end fracking and then she wanted to continue fracking and she wanted to end the border wall. Then she wanted to continue the border wall. But she was still staying true to her values. Okay, that means nothing.
And every time there's a school shooting, somebody gets up to the podium and gets behind the microphone, a police chief or the mayor of the city and says, this is unacceptable. OK, it's unacceptable, but it just happened and it'll happen again. So there's this weird language thing where they try to make themselves into some sort of patriot heroes, except for they do nothing.
And it's it's really a thing that was born on the left. And I never really got it. Yeah, defiant while you put your tail between your legs and offer an apology and keep hammering checks you get from ABC. All right, well, that's defiant. Then so be it. But defiant is quitting your job and hanging your own shingle somewhere else.
That's exactly right. The defiant is I'm out of here. I refuse to participate in your conciliatory statement. I did nothing wrong and I'm not going to let my gazillion dollar paycheck force me into bending the knee here because I'm going to die on principle. No, that's defiant. This is not defiant.
Deleting your ex account because you you're tired of the abuse you're getting from people who know you lied that he was not found liable by a jury for rape. Why is it so hard for him just to admit that?
Well, I mean, these guys hate Trump, obviously, and they cannot. be neutral about things. You know, I was thinking about the other day. I mean, I was kind of talking about it on my podcast, which is every umpire and every baseball game has feelings about the two teams that are on the field. They just do.
I mean, there has to be a thousand guys umpiring Yankees games who grew up Yankees fans or Red Sox fans, and now they're behind... the plate at Fenway. It just has to be, but they have to put all that aside and call balls and strikes. And the news used to do that and they don't do it anymore.
And it's now become apparent to those of us who are in the stands watching the game, what is happening because they're so blatant. about it. It's obvious where he stands.
It's obviously when you see the A and B interviews between the ones that give Kamala Harris and the ones that give Trump or JD Vance or whomever, it's so abundantly evident now that I no longer really listen to them because I don't think they're calling balls and strikes. I don't fault these people for having a preference. You're a human being. You're gonna want either Trump or Harris.
That's a fact. But then you have to do your job and call balls and strikes, and they don't do it anymore, and they can't.
All right, I got a story for you. Speaking of the Supreme Court, as I mentioned, there was some fear that if this went up to the Supreme Court, we might have enough justices to overturn New York Times v. Sullivan, which, for the record, I do not want. It sets a nice high bar that makes it very, very hard to sue
for defamation if you're a public figure and even as a public figure, I'm fine with that because I'm also a member of the media and I'm an American first. And in America, what distinguishes us from virtually all of the other first world countries, nevermind third, is you can say what you want here. With very, very few limits, you can say what you want.
It takes a lot to get a judge issuing an opinion like this against you and having to pay $15 million. It takes 10 times of saying a jury found him civilly liable for rape when we put the screen up on the verdict form up on the screen the other day. Very clearly, it says, is he guilty? Did he commit rape on the civil? And it says no, no. Well, did he commit sexual assault? Yes. You can't.
As a news anchor, language matters, especially around legal stuff like that. He's had it 10 times. That's why the judge is so mad at him. Anyway, speaking of the Supreme Court, I've got a story for you, okay? A year or so ago, we're always railing on Broadway here. I'm sure you do the same because if you go to Broadway. It used to be a really fun experience.
You say you take your kids, you see a musical, you know, like Old Man River. You have a good time. Now you go and it's a woke explosion. Doug and I went to see Macbeth with Daniel. What's his name? That James Bond guy, Craig. And it was supposed to be 1400 Scotland. It was a majority minority cast. Okay, I don't think so, but okay. One of the lead players was in a wheelchair, which, okay.
The king's son was played by a woman who had a blue mohawk. They had gotten rid of all costumes. I guess there's like a budget problem. So the lead character, I think it was the guy in the wheelchair, had a Mickey Mouse shirt on, which is like, I'm having difficulty suspending my disbelief here, people. Okay, so that's one. But then my daughter, then 12, went with some friends to a different play.
And this play, trust me, I'll round it back to the Supreme Court in a second. This play is showing now and it's called I, Juliet. And it was supposed to be this reimagining of if Juliet had lived. And Juliet. And if Juliet had lived, like what would her life have been? Like girl power. I thought, oh, that's fun. And here's just a clip of me reacting after my daughter got back.
This is last February in show in episode 715. Watch this. This was so in your face. I mean, for the listening audience, it shows two guys kissing on stage. Obviously, one of them is this guy who goes by he, she, and they, all of them, Adam, all of them.
It's just so happy that now we're celebrating queer love, which is not at all what I thought something based on Shakespeare and about Juliet's next chapter was going to be. How about the non-disclosure of any of this in the write-up about the show. Don't we parents get a right to make a call? You could be sending a much younger child than 12 there.
My kid and I have talked about these issues many times, but many haven't. This could be their first exposure to it. It's not up to Broadway to do that. Okay, so that was the two of us talking about how that play is covered with a bunch of trans people doing kissing and whatever.
Well, not everyone has a problem with Ann Juliet because would you look at who guest starred in it on Broadway within the past week? SOT 18 for the listening audience. It is Justice Katonji Brown Jackson.
Female empowerment. Sick. I like it too. I think what I like about it is that I am having a very strongly negative reaction to it. Like I hate it. Which makes me think it must be brilliant. Got this feeling in my body. Can't stop the feeling. Got this feeling in my body. I can't stop the feeling. I did it. I made it to Broadway.
Thoughts on that, Adam?
Well, my thoughts are... I have a multitude of thoughts, Megan. I love that. One is the left is able and feels fine wearing their politics and their culture sort of on their sleeve, you know? Like... If there was a right wing justice doing some old play that Charlton Heston, you know, that was gun centric and male centric, you know, they would get slammed. They wouldn't do it.
They would say, I don't like the optics of it. You're like, I'm on the Supreme Court, I'm conservative, and you want me to do a play with an all-white male cast about early settlers and how guns settled the West? They would just go, I'm going to get slammed. I don't like the optics of it. I'm not going to do it. People on the left... do not care. I mean, it's like, you know, I live in LA.
I would see a thousand Biden bumper stickers, a thousand Harris bumper stickers, a thousand Hillary bumper stickers, and no Trump bumper stickers, even though there's this significant amount of people voted for Trump. So it's kind of interesting that they don't have a mirror and sort of look at themselves and go, yes, I'm progressive.
And yes, I will vote progressive on all these cases, even if it makes me look like an idiot. But I don't like the optics of it. Circling back to Stephanopoulos, like I should at least look like an umpire. Stephanopoulos' job is to look like an umpire. Her job is to look like an umpire.
And when you go out and do these kinds of large public displays, then we're going to know your politics and you're not going to look like an umpire anymore. Number one. Number two, I think Broadway is really the epicenter, the nougat inside the candy bar of the progressive movement. You say college campuses and college faculty, Hollywood, things like that.
But Broadway is probably the purest, uncut, unstepped on progressivism on the planet, right?
Well, yeah. I mean, I used to love it. When I grew up going to Broadway when I was younger, it wasn't like this. And I know it's woke and I know it's always been very gay. That's just different. That's different. There's a reason more and more groups are going LGB.
LGB and breaking up with the T because they see the T as a group that wants to perform conversion therapy on young gay boys to say, you're not actually gay. You're actually a girl, a straight girl. And so like, it's very dicey now for them to be embracing the T so heartily. In fact, we went to a play not long ago and one of the actors in the play noticed that
me sitting there and I had done a post on my Instagram celebrating the show. And one of the actors responded saying, Oh, it was great to see you there. You know, you should have come backstage and say, have said hello. And then these trans people get on there. Like we will cancel you. You, you like her. You said something night. Like they're so over the top now.
And even if you try to go there and say, all right, I'm going to ignore these far left extremists who are trying to trans little boys, they make it impossible. They're everywhere. Every other role is a trans role now, far more representative than it is in society.
And to the point where it's like fine for a Supreme Court justice, they've hijacked girl empowerment plays to make them about boy empowerment, which is what a trans, quote, woman is. And she's fine. This is the same person who couldn't tell us what a woman is, Adam.
Well, I mean, she's not a bright woman. I think she's probably there mostly due to affirmative action. Sotomayor's there mostly because of affirmative action, and she's a dope, too. And then there's Kamala Harris. So that entire affirmative action, DEI hire thing has completely, utterly backfired because they're not electing and or hiring women. people that are up to the job.
And I include her in that group. Like I said, Sotomayor is a full-blown idiot. I mean, she's an idiot. I mean, it's insane that she's on the Supreme Court. Remember when the whole COVID thing came down and they were talking about mandatory vaccinations and she's like, there's 10 million kids on ventilators right now. She said, don't. And Kamala Harris is a dope too.
And maybe they should learn their lesson with their DEI affirmative action appointments. Get qualified people and then do it.
And Sonia Sotomayor was the one who, two weeks ago, when that case about whether these states are allowed to ban puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for kids went up, she was like, oh, come on, there are side effects from an aspirin, too. There are risks. As if taking an aspirin is the same as puberty blockers into cross-sex hormones for a 10- to 12-year-old.
Well, the fact that she would consider letting those words pass her lips means she's a dope. Smart people would never say that out loud. Smart people think, oh, what if I and then they go, oh, no, I'm not going to say that. I'll sound like a dope. So she is a dope, which is crazy. But it's hurting the movement is what I'm saying.
Well, and there are certain narratives that are not to be allowed or ever deemed acceptable. And the thought that we are transing children who are actually fine in their... sexed body, but just going through some sort of unrelated trauma, you know, whether they've been sexually abused or they've had a divorce in the family or they've been bullied, you're not allowed to go there.
They consider that conversion therapy of a trans kid. So, you know, there are like these narratives that you're not allowed. And one of the narratives that's prohibited outside of the trans lane is that we have a Venezuelan gang migrant crime problem in Aurora, Colorado, right?
I, this was up, this came up a lot during the campaign and, uh, back and forth and back and forth between the left and the right on whether there really are gangs of Venezuelan illegals in Aurora, Colorado, taking over apartment complexes. You remember it led, uh, excuse me, to this notable exchange between Martha Raddatz and JD Vance when he went on her show and she was like, it's fine.
And he was like, hello, listen.
So do you support Donald Trump making those claims that the Republican mayor says were grossly exaggerated?
President Trump was actually in Aurora, Colorado, talking to people on the ground. And what we're hearing, of course, Martha, is that people are terrified by what has happened with some of these Venezuelan gangs.
Senator Vance, I'm gonna stop you because I know exactly what happened. I'm gonna stop you. The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes and the mayor said our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns. A handful of problems.
Only, Martha, do you hear yourself? Only a handful of apartment complexes in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs. And Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris's open border. Americans are so fed up with what's going on and they have every right to be. And I
I really find this exchange, Martha, sort of interesting because you seem to be more focused with nitpicking everything that Donald Trump has said, rather than acknowledging that apartment complexes in the United States of America are being taken over by violent gangs.
Okay, let's just end that with they did not invade or take over the city, as Donald Trump said. I want to move on to- Just a few apartment complexes, no big deal. A few apartment complexes that the mayor did not seem was invading the entire city.
She lives in a multimillion dollar estate, which we put on the screen before. Just a quick follow up. Okay, so here was Trump on NBC last week. Okay, we're still at it. The mainstream media trying to say these are lies.
Did you see Martha calling balls and strikes out there?
Yeah.
Because I didn't. That didn't seem like an umpire to me. That seemed like a fan who got behind the plate. Yes.
That's right. Go ahead. And so here, so Trump just last week goes on Kristen Welker's Meet the Press and listen, what happened.
You've talked about prioritizing people who have criminal histories. Correct. But is it your plan to deport everyone who is here illegally over the next four years?
Well, I think you have to do it. And it's a very tough thing to do.
You're saying, yes, you're going to focus on the people with criminal histories, but everyone who's here illegally has to go. I'm saying this.
We have to get the criminals out of our country. And you see what they've done in Colorado and other places. They're taking over, literally taking over apartment complexes and doing it with impunity. They don't care. They couldn't. They just are. They're in the real estate.
The local police say that is not the case in Colorado. It's totally the case.
Okay. We knew he was telling the truth. We knew J.D. Vance was telling the truth. And guess what? Guess what just happened? 14 detained in armed Aurora, Colorado home invasion are likely illegal Venezuelan gang members, according to local police. I mean, days after that exchange with NBC where she knew it's not like, oh, well, it happened after. No, it's been happening.
The mainstream media will not admit it, Adam.
Yeah, well, was she calling balls and strikes? I mean, these weren't MSNBC pundits or CNN. This is ABC. This is why we cannot turn to ABC for information. You just saw three, starting with Stephanopoulos, of their leading news journalists, anchors.
Welker's NBC.
Oh, I'm sorry. NBC. But mainstream... But two of the main three. Broadcasts. Yes. Okay. So we no longer have to turn there for news. Maybe news about an earthquake in Nicaragua, but certainly nothing to do with Trump. Okay. So that's established. They did that to themselves. I don't know why... They fell on their own sword that way, but they destroyed their own brand. And it's sad.
And they keep looking around going, you know, Trump says fake news. Why don't people listen to us? People don't listen to you because you've been wrong and lying about everything for a decade. And we're done. We hit a saturation point. All right. As far as. This stuff goes. Whatever it is, it all turns out to be true. You know, Hunter Biden's laptop or ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine.
Where did COVID come from? Did it come from a lab or did it come from a wet market? Well, la-di-da, guess what? Came from a lab. You know, do masks work? herd immunity, whatever, vaccination efficacy, it all, every single story ends up going the way that the conspiracy theorists or Trump or J.D. Vance or whomever spoke about, you spoke about, I spoke about, it all ends up going that way.
So surprise, surprise, this'll be one more log on the fire of stuff we talked about that was poo-pooed and brushed off as hysteria to try to win election, number one. Number two, I love when they make this argument where they go, and J.D.
Vance made it as well, I've made it many times, where they go, yes, the young female jogger was killed by the illegal gangbanger who should have been deported, but they commit crime at a much lesser rate than the average, all right, But tell that to the parents of the chick who was jogging. Like, a lesser rate. It should be zero, idiots. The person shouldn't be in the goddamn country.
The person who was jogging should still be alive. There should be zero Venezuelan gangbangers in Aurora, Colorado. It's not a big problem. Yeah, it should be zero, idiots.
Yeah, this is the exchange I had with Bill Maher when I went on his show, too. He was like, oh, like Americans don't commit crime. I'm like, we have to take them. We can't kick the Americans out. We can put them in jail. We can't kick them out. Why are we having to deal with the Venezuelan illegals committing these kinds of crimes? And listen to the one that I just gave you the headline of.
This is at... A group of apartments, again, where we were told by the mainstream media they had not taken over. And here's the story. They kidnapped two victims, a male and a female, and assaulted them. Thirteen to fifteen gang members, mostly male, some females, entered an apartment where two people were inside.
They took the migrant victims to another apartment at the same location where the victims were threatened and bound. Pistol whipped, beaten and stabbed. Even the local police chief saying, yeah, sounds like torture to me. And then they described this as follows. The Aurora police chief, Todd Chamberlain, on Tuesday described a bit of the crimes. Top five.
of victims. It was a male and a female. They were accosted by approximately 13 to 15 armed individuals. Again, they were pistol whipped. They were beat. They were mistreated. One of the male was actually stabbed. He had a stab wound. So does that fall in the category of torture for me? Yeah, it does. And I can guarantee you, I will give you my expertise and my knowledge of what I believe.
This is without question a gang incident. There are Venza Wellens involved. So again, there is a high assumption that they may be affiliated or affiliated with the TDA gang. Again, we have a gang problem in Aurora, without question. We have 25-some gangs like every major city does. We have a number of gang members. And it's not just up in that area. It's not just in that complex.
It's throughout the entire city of Aurora.
I'm just like, do you think Martha Raddatz or Kristen Welker will be playing this story and that soundbite? It's just people are being I don't know. Are they being misled? I think Democrats are being misled. I think they believe these sources still and they still are scratching their heads like I don't get it. Morning Joe told me that she was going to win. And also Joe Biden was fine.
Yeah, the Kristen Welker clip that's fun to go back in the Wayback Machine and look at is when Trump was debating Biden and he brought up Russia, Russia, Russia. And he was saying that his son took money from Ukraine and that heated exchange where Biden was saying, me, you took money from Ukraine, your son, I never did anything. We have 51 intelligence experts.
Kristen Welker's trying to moderate and she keeps yelling, can we get back to race? Can we get back to the subject of race? It's the funniest thing ever. It's like a perfect time capsule. Like these guys are arguing about the biggest story of the year.
And she's like, what about race, sir? Let's talk about what happened to race. Can we get back to arguing about race? Could you two old white guys get back to arguing about race, please?
It's so funny to hear her yelling about race and the background. It's perfect.
Another person obsessed with race is this representative, Jasmine Crockett, who is constantly, constantly playing the race card, accusing everybody of racism on Capitol Hill. Here she is talking about what the gang problem is to her. Take a listen.
He said that we've got these cities and these towns that are being overrun by gangs and the crime is out of control. I absolutely agree with that. And guess what? It's the MAGA gang. It is the white supremacists that have decided to descend upon places such as Springfield, Ohio. The problems are him and his minions. The problems aren't the people that have come to make our economy stronger.
I agree. that there are problems in our communities, but usually it's some white supremacists on the other side.
She's from Texas. Texas getting bluer and bluer. But that's their representative out there spewing that nonsense in response to Trump's original claim back at the debate.
Well, there's something that's very dangerous, which is they ran on race. So the Democrats are all you know, they race hustle and they run on race. Right. So what they do is they lay something down. They go, well, this country was founded by racists and it's it's embedded in our DNA and blah, blah, blah. And Biden.
who didn't turn out to be a moderate at all, he turned out to be another race hustler, started immediately with the white supremacy as the biggest problem this country faces, and he got Ray from the FBI and Garland from the DOJ, and he got everybody coached up on working the white supremacy as a big problem angle. which is fine.
They're just hustling and lying and agitating black people and people of color and white people and everybody in the nation as well, which is, it should be a dereliction of duty, but fine. They're bad people with no moral compass. But the real problem is, is Once you make the proclamation that white supremacy is the biggest problem this country faces, then you better go find some white supremacy.
And that's what happened with January 6th. That's what happened with all these FBI raids on, you know, somebody was protesting an abortion clinic 30 feet away with his son. They had to create numbers and statistics to back up their false assertions about white supremacy.
And that's when it gets dangerous because that's when citizens start getting locked up so that they can have a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I mean, wow. Speaking of the Duke lacrosse case, right? Right. That's right on point with what just happened this week with Crystal Mangum finally admitting she made the whole thing up. I mean, like I don't know. Do you think they were having a debate about this on the editors this week, uh, the national review podcast, which I love.
And they were asking, do you think the Duke lacrosse case would have unfolded the same way today as it did back in 2006? Would we be more circumspect about this woman's allegations in 2024, almost 25 America or Or would the media have run with it tenfold and even more egregiously than it did?
I think you and I and folks like us would have been considerate about it and give it some thought. But I don't think the ladies from The View have moved a millimeter since Kyle Rittenhouse or Jussie Smollett or Whatever they got wrong, they get something wrong every single week. I don't think they would have moved.
I don't think the aforementioned anchors we just saw from the two networks would have backed off this thing. I don't think the Al Sharptons or even the Obamas or the Michelle Obamas or the Oprahs or the Hollywood types, the race hustlers out there, I don't think any of them would have acted any differently. You know, they don't learn lessons.
That's part of why the reason they make the same mistakes over and over again is because they never learn from their last mistake. They sailed right through COVID. They sailed right through COVID, never tapped the brakes, never looked around, never thought, hmm, What did I get wrong? What can I take ownership? What do I owe someone an apology for? None of them have a rearview mirror.
They sailed through four years of being wrong about COVID and never even looked back.
The ladies of The View are among those who are just baffled at the right-wing backlash to Caitlin Clark coming out and saying, when nominated or honored as Time Magazine's Athlete of the Year, I do want to acknowledge my white privilege. and point out that what would really be nice is for the black women on whose backs this league was built to be spotlighted and elevated.
They don't get why, especially post the Trump election, many of us saw that as an absurd statement for her to be asserting her white privilege as opposed to her athletic accomplishment. and getting this honor. They don't get it, Adam. They're not going to get it, no matter how many times Trump or a Trump accolade wins an election, national or state, et cetera.
Yeah. Well, I got news for the ladies. Caitlyn Clark is a great athlete, but the greatest female athlete, and I'm including Serena and Venus and all the great ones, the greatest female athlete of all time is Caitlyn Jenner. So sorry, ladies. Dude is the greatest female athlete of all time, ladies. Sorry. I don't want to ruin your week.
He can crush all of us. Oh, can I tell you something? Speaking of he, I like Caitlin, actually. And I mean him. No disrespect by using he. He knows why I do it. But there was just an unbelievable ruling out of your state. You won't be surprised to learn it's so annoying. There was a judge out there. Okay, hold on. A judge in California said, I got to back up just to explain what happened.
A man who had never said he was secretly a woman. He was feeling like a woman inside until he was convicted and sent to prison for a long, long time. Then suddenly he decides when he hears that they've changed the rules in California, such that men who say they're female can go into women's prisons. I'm trans. I'm trans. Well, he gets transferred to a woman's prison. And guess what he does?
He raped somebody. He allegedly rapes a female prisoner. And now he's in the middle of a trial for that crime. He is in the middle of being tried for that crime. Well, guess what? Here's what happened. Um, This is according to the Women's Liberation Front, which is attending the trial and documenting what's happening.
The California DA for this area, Eric Dutemple, gets into court and argues this man raped this female prisoner. It's deeply wrong, blah, blah, blah. And the prisoner objects, saying he needs to refer to me as a she and her. The male prisoner who committed the rape, I'm she, her. the judge pauses the proceedings to take it under consideration. Well, guess what?
Yesterday, the judge made a final decision or maybe yesterday, the day before yesterday, And the decision is that the prosecutor must refer to the defendant, male rapist, as a she-her during the trial, which we believe is a first for a criminal case. This is unbelievable. The prosecutor has to stand up in front of the jury. This is him. This is our woman. This is she-her.
The prosecutor has to say she raped the female inmate. What in the actual F, Adam?
You know, it's an interesting ploy and it happens. It's happened a few times and it's actually kind of effective because there was a trial or a crime out here in Los Angeles. And you probably remember it. That's probably about five years ago.
ago now where a young, I don't know, eight or nine year old girl went to a bathroom at a Denny's and then a male went in and raped, sexually assaulted the kid and then decided to become a he, she, her, you know, was talking to his dad over a prison phone, laughing, saying he's gaming the system, so on and so forth. That was a few years ago. But when I was reading the article
And the news story about it in the Los Angeles times, because the Los Angeles times is stupid and woke and has to go with the pronouns and everything. So the story and the pronouns were like, they, okay. So you're, imagine you're reading a story.
The story is an eight-year-old girl goes into a bathroom at a restaurant and a 25-year-old male goes into the bathroom and rapes the eight-year-old in the bathroom. That's the story. But when you're reading the article, it says a minor went to the bathroom, then they went into the bathroom after her, and then she, they, pulled out her penis, and then she raped, she and they raped.
And after reading it for five minutes, you just go, I don't even know what's going on. Leave me alone. I'm moving on. I can't figure this out. They went in? No, he. No, no, she. Wait a minute. She raped they? Was it a gang rape? No, it was she. She raped the other girl? It's like, perfect. It's perfect. The jury just goes, I... I give up. I don't know what this is anymore. And it works.
Look at this picture of this man.
This man, this picture of this man insisting and succeeding in being called she, her in court was taken, what is it, March? April? This was last April. This is not like 10 years ago before the transition. This is a man working the system, and those idiots in California are allowing it. They couldn't give two shits about it. about the female prisoners in California. They don't care.
It's absolutely outrageous. And by the way, that judge's order should be appealed. It's unconstitutional. You cannot force speech like this. You cannot force this compromise of the victim's rights by confusing the jury in this way. I don't think this is going to be they should appeal it. This should not be allowed. OK, a couple of things I want to get to. Have you been following the drones?
I have my eye in the sky, but I do not claim to have any special information on the drones.
Well, everybody in the Northeast is talking about it because everyone's seeing them. They're everywhere. And first we were told we weren't. And then we were told, oh, it's nothing. And then we were told, oh, it's just the same amount of drones that are always out there. Like you're just, you're inventing it in your head. You've heard the story and now you're seeing what's not there.
Totally untrue. That's just not true. Then yesterday, finally, the Pentagon and others came out and said, oh, it's like a collection. It's like hobbyists, commercial fixed wing aircraft and also law enforcement. A lot of law enforcement, like they just drop it in there. Like we're, yeah, we know that that's what it appears to be. It's, it could be federal law enforcement. It could be CIA.
It could be FBI. It could be Pentagon. That's all law enforcement. And now the speculation is, of course, what are they doing up there? What law enforcement, what are law enforcement drones looking for? And here is New Jersey mayor of Bellevue, Michael Melhan with some new information. It's hot 12th.
We also know that we have drones that are flying in a grid-like pattern. In my opinion, they're looking for something. What might they be looking for? Well, potentially, we're aware of a threat that came in through Port Newark. Maybe that's radioactive material. There was and there is an alert that's out right now that radioactive material in New Jersey has gone missing on December 2nd.
It was a shipment. It arrived at its destination. The container was damaged and was empty. So potentially, we're looking for that.
Wait, stop right there, Mayor, because that's very important information. And that came from a credible source.
That came from the U.S. government.
And so it's missing?
Missing. And they think it's in New Jersey or it could be anywhere? It was lost in New Jersey in transit. And again, this is just an example of what I think that we're sniffing for. Okay.
Like, we've lost radioactive... This is like a scene out of Back to the Future, Adam. Like, remember Doc stole a whole thing of plutonium to make the DeLorean run? Where's our radioactive material? And is that what the drones are looking for? We don't know, but this is why people are freaked out.
No.
Okay, so that's a problem. Everybody I've spoke to, I go, what do you think? And what if Biden came out and gave a presser on the drones? Would you believe any of it? Or anyone from the FBI or anyone from the CIA, or like I said, Mayorkas or Homeland Security, whatever. And they all go, no, I wouldn't believe anything they said. Why should we? And it's like, well, that's kind of a weird...
You know, I mean, that's that's a weird position to be in in the United States of America. I've been here for a while. I remember a day when if the president came out, made a comment or statement about it or the director of Homeland Security or FBI or DOJ or whomever, CIA, I would tend to believe that. I no longer believe anything they say.
I wouldn't believe anything Biden says or that comes out of the Biden administration. I don't think he gets enough credit for being a liar.
Yeah, enough credit. Yeah. Let me show you back to back Biden on the drones on Tuesday and Trump on the drones on Monday. Watch this.
All those drones over New Jersey.
What's behind all of this?
The government knows what is happening. Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it's a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went. And for some reason, they don't want to comment. And I think they'd be better off saying what it is our military knows and our president knows. And for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense.
I can't imagine it's the enemy because it was the enemy that blasted out. Even if they were late, they'd blast it. Something strange is going on. For some reason, they don't want to tell the people. And they should, because the people are really, I mean, they happen to be over Bedminster. They're very close to Bedminster. I think maybe I won't spend the weekend in Bedminster.
I've decided to cancel my trip.
Such a difference. For those who couldn't hear Biden, what he said was nothing nefarious, apparently, but they're checking it all out. There's a lot of drones authorized up there. I think one started and they all got everybody's want to get in the deal. And then there was Trump. They know. And they should just tell people.
Remember 10 minutes ago when everyone was explaining to us the adults are back in charge and now we have integrity and transparency. We're going to have full transparency. How insane is the last four years been in terms of the adults and transparency? I mean, he just, if I said to Joe Biden, how do you like your eggs? And he said, sunny side up, I'd just yell liar.
I don't think he knows. That's the question. I don't think he knows either. At this point, runny, I don't know, like very soft boiled. I mentioned at the time of the show, there's a New York Times article called A Weary Biden Heads for the Exit. They talk about how he's falling asleep. At his international events, he went to some museum. They had to bring the exhibits out to him.
As he walked away from one event, everybody there cowered in fear that he was going to tumble over. And they say it's hard to imagine that he seriously thought he could do the world's most stressful job for another four years. A lie the New York Times was peddling just months ago, Adam. But now it's really hard to imagine how he thought he could do it.
Yeah, well, the New York Times not calling balls and strikes, so we don't have to listen to them either. But yeah, I just don't feel like Biden, it's funny because we're focusing on Biden being sort of out of it, deteriorating mentally, just like they wanted us to focus on Hunter Biden. Like this guy had a substance abuse problem. This guy beat his problem, but he had demons. It's like, no, no.
He was a grifter and a thief. And Biden is corrupt and a thief. Yeah, he also has dementia. And yeah, his son also loved crack. But first and foremost, they were thieves and grifters who were trading on the Biden name and enriching themselves. So don't lose focus of that.
This shall be the legacy. Adam Carolla, always great to see you. Thank you so much for being here.
Always great to see you, Megan.
All right. Up next, we stay out on the left coast with Justine Bateman. Don't go away. Looking for the perfect gift or maybe just a treat for yourself or something that people are not expecting, like a hostess gift or something, you know, for your spouse that they would never predict. Think about this. Firecracker Farm hot salt. That's fun. Who's expecting that? But everybody would love it.
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Justine joined me way back in 2021 in episode 81, which you should definitely go back and check out. We were just babies back then on this show, and she's been crushing it on social media since then, especially as of late, saying how many of us feel
after the seismic 2024 election, but in her case, it's especially brave because she is a Hollywood person, and you know how it is to be honest about politics out there. She's also been sounding the alarm about the dangers of AI, which we discussed yesterday with guest Tristan Harris. You should go back and listen to that if you haven't heard a very scary story about something called character AI.
Justine, welcome back to the show. Hi, good to see you again. Oh, great to see you too. So we'll get to the AI stuff. This is really, really interesting, but how do you feel now? Here we are one month and a couple of weeks post the November 5th seismic change in America. And I don't know, I mean, you, I know you don't say who you vote for, but how are you feeling about the future?
Um, I, I think this is great. It was, um, long overdue. Um, uh, Yeah, just that mob mentality momentum that's necessary to maintain an atmosphere where your job can be destroyed, your social standing can be destroyed, your children's lives at their school can be destroyed. That momentum ended with the...
like the very large national poll of what people want, which is our national presidential election, kind of set the stage for that being over. And that's the kind of momentum you need for things like the, if people remember the McCarthy trials, the HUAC trials, the blacklisting, in the 50s, the witch burning of the 1600s, even things like tulip mania, also the 1600s.
If you don't have that momentum, you can't, you don't have the structure you need to ruin people's lives. So that's over.
How did we get sucked into it so fully?
I think it started with the me too movement. Um, and I didn't essay on this on my sub stack where me too, I think if you're somebody who's prone to feel left out, this is the worst era for you to be in because you know, if you're left out in, in prior eras, You would know if you were left out in your small group, your town, maybe your work environment, your school.
But now it's like, you know, if you're left out of the entire world because what you posted on social media didn't get any likes or you're not part of the hashtag. And so you can look on, see the trending topics and you can see that you are not part of it.
And I think that was true for a lot of women when they saw the Me Too hashtag trending and all these women in the very unfortunate and not enviable situation of having been victims of criminal sexual assault. but it was a big topic. And I think a lot of women felt left out. And then they started kind of lowering the bar to what qualifies for that.
And it became sort of the me, me, me, me, me too movement. And also we started glorifying, there was a lot of attention on people who have PTSD or maybe from having been a victim of sexual assault or other reasons. And there was focus on that too. And so people want to be part of that as well.
They wanted to, you know, they kind of scrambled within themselves to see like, well, can't I qualify somehow? Don't I have some sort of trauma somehow? And then they started wearing it on their, like almost on a Girl Scout stash, you know, little badges. And you could see it on their profiles. I'm a this, I'm a that. You know, and they started sort of highlighting all the ways that they were
They could qualify for invisible disabilities or me, me, me, me too. And then it became a sacred cow. I think it's that Megan, like as soon as something becomes a sacred cow, you're screwed. You know, and then it became like, oh, you can't touch that. You can't touch anything to do with sexual assault. You can't touch anything to do with you can't question anybody. You can't look at the animals.
I saw a video of somebody putting a Great Dane. on an airplane. That's their emotional support dog. Yes, it's so ridiculous. And people are afraid to push back because it was so easy on social media. There was that momentum, right? It was so easy on social media to destroy your career, get you fired. And for anyone who says that's not true, you're either kidding yourself or you're
You're just kidding yourself. It's childish to say that that wasn't true. I know people for whom that's true. So it absolutely happened.
Let me ask you this, because I look back at the beginning of the Me Too movement, and in the beginning, I think there were some noble... moments. You know, I am thrilled that Harvey Weinstein's no longer in power, but Les Moonves is no longer in power. You know, some real villains, at least with respect to the way they treated women went down. And I loved that.
I think that's worth celebrating because we had been living in an era in which they had total control and women really did kind of have to go along to get along or just leave the industry, you know? Yeah. And then I really think like the pivotal moment was Kavanaugh, where they tried to Kavanaugh, you know, it's a verb now to be Kavanaughed, right?
Where like, he's an alleged gang rapist and he's been on the federal bench for all these years. We never knew. And you know, who's pushing those claims? Oh, it's Michael Avenatti who would wind up in prison himself, right? For defrauding his own clients and being a professional liar and thief. So, So that was pivotal. But you're right, because there was a jump the shark movement.
And I remember being on the set at NBC where I talked to a lot of these women. And there was one young woman who sat there and her complaint was that her boss was complimenting how nice she looked in her dress. And I remember saying to her, come on. Like what? And she was very defensive of how, no, like it's inappropriate.
I, I just don't know how, like in the same way, like black lives matter, you know? Yes. Are there some incidents where we have some bad cops who do some very bad things? Of course. So then this momentum starts, but we just overcorrect everything to the point of completely bastardizing the movements.
And there's a large segment of the population that when the movement breaks, it reaches the point of absurdity because it's been so exploited. They cannot get off the train. They just, they cannot admit that something that once may have had a noble goal or, you
Admirable is no longer characterized with valor of any kind, is no longer about standing up for anybody who's downtrodden, but really more about being a bully and being a movement that gets used for someone's ulterior motives.
Yeah, but for those people who were taking advantage of it, that was always true. So imagine, where were those people before they decided they were going to join these hashtags, even though they didn't qualify? What was going on in their lives? What kind of people were they? And I would hazard a guess that they were lost. They didn't know what they were going to do with their lives.
They felt like they were of no consequence. They felt like they were not important. They felt like nobody was going to listen to them about anything. And maybe they were people who had not looked within themselves at their own basket of skills and talents that I believe every single person is born with, and they haven't bothered to develop any of those. So...
you take these people and this attention that they got through lowering the bar to qualify for these hashtags, um, they were able to use it almost like a drug. So now you have a bunch of addicts, if you will, and their drug has been removed from them. So they are flailing there. And now you see them grabbing onto things like, um, yeah, let's go after all these other CEOs. And I'm like, okay.
Yes.
Talk about absurd. Like it's becoming even more absurd because just like a junkie, you take away their drug or an alcoholic or an anorexic or a compulsive overeater, like you name it, a workaholic, a sexaholic, anything. You take the drug away from them before they've hit bottom. And there's going to be you're going to have something that's beyond a panic attack.
And that's what a lot of people are experiencing now, because what it means is they will have to go back, pick up where they left off before they hitch their wagon to these hashtags. They're going to have to go back there. I think it's a great opportunity for them. They're going to have to go back to that point where they left off and start developing their own basket of skills and talents.
And I think if they do that and put in that work, they will see that they do have value. They do have, they do have a skillset that is a value in society. So I'm excited for them, but it's, it's, It's going to be uncomfortable for them right now.
It's going to take a while. That is such an interesting and apt point. I hadn't even considered that this weird cult status of this accused shooter, Luigi Mangione, who very much appears to have killed Brian Thompson, a UnitedHealthcare CEO, and is accused of such, that it's related to this cult. Well, the reaction, right? Yeah, they're looking for a new cause.
Let me just give you another number and then I'll give it back to you. We talked yesterday about a poll that showed 40, 41 percent of 18 to 29 year olds, 41 percent approve abortion. of what Luigi did, allegedly, this murder, approve. Only 40% of that cohort says they disapprove. So basically tied.
But the fact that it's tied on approve, disapprove, this murder of just his only sin was being the CEO of UnitedHealthcare is astonishing. And then here's more. This is Poll Tracker pointing out today, favorability of Luigi by age 18 to 29, favorable opinion of him. 39% of that cohort has a favorable opinion. 30% unfavorable. 30 to 44-year-olds, unfavorable, 29, favorable, 28.
So it's basically tied. for 30 to 44-year-olds, whether they approve of this guy. And then as you get older, it goes down. Unfavorable within the 45 to 64, us Gen Xers, 49% unfavorable. Favorable 14, 65 and up. Unfavorable 63, favorable 5. But unbelievable, Justine.
Well, I think you're seeing a lot of cognitive dissonance with... With him and also this teenage girl who did this shooting recently, I forget, in Wisconsin. Is that right? Yeah. And so cognitive dissonance is interesting. It's, you know, where you can't hold two ideas, two different ideas in your head at the same time.
So people are going, oh, well, somebody murdered somebody and oh, he's well off. Oh, and he's educated. And there's nothing in his social media that seems to indicate that he's insane or holds ideas that are in opposition of their positions. And do you see like he doesn't fit into the category that they expect? Or that anybody really expects. Who expects that?
And this school shooter, aren't we used to the school shooters being, I don't know, radicalized young men? Or maybe I'm speaking that incorrectly. I mean, isn't that usually that? No, no, it's 19 to 26-year-old men. But now you have a young woman, teenager, who's railing against misogyny. You see, so these two kill, it's an interesting timing for them. They're both murderers. That's it.
A murderer. They're both murderers. Neither one of them doing it out of self-defense. So in society, as far as I'm concerned, that is abhorrent and not to be, it's unacceptable in our society. You can't have a society, a cohesive society, if that kind of thing is acceptable, obviously.
But I think, yeah, what I said, I think there's a lot of cognitive dissonance for many, many people that these two killers are the types of people that they are.
Mm-hmm. I definitely think it relates to like, we're kind of talking about the rise of wokeism too, the explosion of wokeism. And I think they're directly related to the loss of a national identity, a patriotic thread that binds us together. You know, when we grew up, that was instilled in the classroom. You'd stand up every morning and say the pledge.
You know, I mean, we used to sing my country tis of thee in my class in the mornings. It was, and that's gone. And so is religion in the public square. which was absolutely one of the things that we saw the country founded on. And it's been erased and erased and erased and replaced with active school shooter drills. And there's a, there's a search for meaning here.
Yeah, and be interesting to see where that started. I really liked doing the Pledge of Allegiance when I was a kid. I'm sorry to hear that that's, I know that's not been a part of the regular school mornings for a while now, and that's too bad. I'm not opposed to religion not being in schools, or you said, you didn't say schools, you said the town square. It's the public square. You know-
It's interesting, spirituality, the decline, you know, when you look, there's a chart, right? The decline is really sharp, the fall off. I don't know when the sort of steep descent begins, but maybe, Megan, it has to do with the kind of flattening of culture that the internet, you know, public-facing internet introduced. And look, there's a lot of great things about the internet.
And one of the consequences though was a flattening of culture, a flattening of time too. Like imagine some interview that I did in 1987 You could find in a magazine, a 1987 issue of a magazine, and it's in context. You see other people that were, you know, popular enough at the time to be interviewed. You see ads from that time, news that was happening at that time, whatever.
But now you see an interview of me from 1987 online. There's no context. It's as if I said it yesterday or, you know, oftentimes these interviews and articles don't have any dates on them at all. So there's that aspect of it as far as news, as far as what is happening. And then you also have just this almost a monoculture of,
of everybody knowing what everybody's doing all at once, you no longer had these pockets sort of, not an incubator, but an area in which, and a time and a space where something could develop and then emerge. You remember when we were kids, something, If you were living in L.A., there would be like some fashion like bell bottoms or something like this.
And then you go visit your cousins in Wisconsin or Utah or something. And and they're like, what are you wearing? And then three or four years later, that would be a trend there. So all of that went away with the Internet because everything's so immediate. So.
And also doing, I think, also raunchier. Like, you know, it used to be the kids were stealing the Playboys out of their dad's, you know, trunk at the foot of the bed. And now it's like graphic triple X porn available, you know, at the click of a button on the devices. And it's ubiquitous. I mean, I just had a guy on the show last week who I love named Dr. Leonard Sachs. He's a parenting expert.
He's MD, PhD, went to MIT. only takes into account longitudinal focus group studies in giving his feedback. So he's not like a feelings type guy. He looks at actual data and studies of large cohorts of children to figure out what's what. And he was saying parents need to remain the primary influence in their children's life in 2024 America through age 18, 18. I said, what are you talking about?
In the 70s, we had no parents. There were no parents anywhere. And we turned out fine. You could argue we turned out better than the current generations are looking to turn out based on some of the things you discussed. And he said it was different then because the culture would step in to fill some of the void.
And the culture was family ties, shows with a message, shows with two parents, shows like Little House on the Prairie, shows like the Waltons. Music had a more positive message back then. You didn't turn it on and hear, as he always points out, the wet-ass P-word song. It was just very different.
Okay. Yeah, I didn't mean to cut you off. I just mean that song is like absolutely bizarre to me.
Yeah, it's disgusting. But I mean, you lived it. You were and remain. This is why how we all came to know and love you, a cultural icon, because of you. You were part of that messaging. And somehow we lost it. I do think the Internet was a big part in destroying it.
Well, yeah, part of it. But think of it. I think of it this way. You had, when you were interacting with your peers before the internet, you had real world consequences. You found out that behaving in a particular way got you uninvited to the next party. You were shunned in certain, and then, but there's opportunity to like earn your way back into a group or something, right?
I mean, it was sort of, it was more tribal like that, right? But then when the internet was introduced, social media, you could actually get attention, which is not the same thing as approval. You could get attention online for behavior and also couple that with, and this preceded the internet and social media by a bit, reality shows. Yeah.
So I always think back to the first reality show that I recall, which was Real World on MTV. And there was a guy on there named Puck. And Puck was... Puck misbehaved. I mean, as you can... That's his name. So... I remember. There's a Shakespearean play with Puck in it. Yeah. Yeah. Is it a little... What is it? Midsummer Night's Dream? What is it? Midsummer Night's Dream. Yeah.
A Little Mischief Maker. So he was a real pain in the ass. And... And then but the people were so enthralled with the idea that somebody was behaving like that and and nothing was really happening to him. And so that became a trend in social and on reality shows. You know, the worst behavior got rewarded with attention and money and whatever else. So I think people saw these two things.
And then that sort of tribal consequence of being a poor addition to a party or something was diluted. I think that has something to do with it.
I'm thinking about Omarosa right now on The Apprentice.
Yeah, that was another one.
Just like Puck, she kept getting brought back for the MVP edition and then, you know, the all-star edition because, and I'm one of the people who loved to watch her bad behavior on that show. It was highly entertaining, but I maybe...
it has a different effect on a strong personality watching it for mild entertainment in the same way the Real Housewives does versus someone who's impressionable and looking to make a name for themselves or doesn't have that strong sort of sense of self, the strong id, and is looking to fill it up with something, that void.
Yeah. I mean, when you're younger, you look around, you're like, you're new to society, especially as a little kid, right? What do people value? There's a sociologist named Rene Girard who has this theory called mimetic desire. His theory is that nobody wants anything when they're born except the core need and desire to survive.
When they look around and they see what other people are desiring who have been here longer, and then they just sort of mimic their desire. They go, oh, everybody wants that car. Okay, then I want to want it too, you know, because how else are you going to... You look around at the society that exists to see how you can...
to see what's valued in order to not only fit in, but to, to be a value in that society as well. And that is, and then that does come back to somebody's sense of surviving. Right. So it's a shame little kids, then they look at, they look at, they looked at that, um, uh, reality, that poor reality show behavior. They look at how people behave online. They look at, um,
I mean, even Trump's behavior, you know, he looked at it objectively in 2016, changed the way he was criticizing people, you know, that I was not in favor of, frankly, but that changed political behavior. Do you notice? After that, it not only changed political behavior, I mean, how many people, how many politicians had online accounts at that point?
Had Twitter accounts, you know, when it was Twitter or Facebook accounts or anything. And after that, and not only did it change political behavior, but it... The 24-hour news cycle, always needing a talking head, all the podcasts that need guests, all of this, needing people to be online. There's an endless amount of air that needs to be filled with people's presence.
And then the bad behavior being kind of awarded. I think it has attracted a certain type of politician now. Remember when we first saw C-SPAN in the... early 80s or whatever it was. And we look at this and go, you know, the first time we saw like what, you know, on TV, like what was going on in the House or the Senate. And we just went, oh, my God, it's so boring. Like, how do they stay awake?
These people are so dull. What they have to do all day is so dull. And that's not the case anymore. And I think it's attracted people. I think we should bring back the boring politicians like who just they're doing their job. You know? It's too late for that. I know. But it's this type that wants to be on camera all the time, you know? And it's on both sides of the whatever aisle.
I mean, the AOC... I call AOC a...
congressional Kardashian. That's what she seems like to me. She just wants to get famous and build her socials while she's in there. And then I guess parlay that into some sort of whatever pot. I don't know what her long-term plan is. I don't really care. Um, but I do think I thought about Trump a lot. He spent his life in the, in the public eye. He definitely attention is his oxygen. Um,
But the thing about Trump that's been interesting is, yes, he was more crude. One of the reasons why he got such a negative reaction when he first burst out of the political scene in 15, 16 was, yes, he was saying things that the Republican Party considered anathema. You know, I mean, tariffs, that wasn't their thing, not being, you know, provably pro-life things. That was a problem for them.
There are a lot of others more isolationist than the Republican Party, which was much more neoconny for many, many years. But really what was driving Republicans and Americans nuts about Trump in the beginning, many of them was he was crude. To your point, he did not sound like like Ronald Reagan, you know, the great orator, the great communicator when he was on camera.
There are lots of reports of how Reagan spoke off camera that are pretty controversial. But on camera, on the national stage, Trump sounded very crude many times. And so it was jarring. But then he helped expose some of these other politicians and what they've been doing behind the scenes. Right. That is awful.
You know, you think about just look at Joe Biden, how he's misused the Justice Department against his political opponent. I mean, he's also crude on camera, too, but not not this particular way. So my point is simply Trump was just the first one to sort of wear it on his sleeve, but behind the scenes behaved pretty well.
Whereas so many of these other politicians knew exactly how to play it in front of the camera, but behind the scenes were complete and total douchebags.
Yeah, could be. Um, I think though there, you know, as far as like people, um, people ascribing to poor behavior, generally speaking, and I don't mean this to be about politics. I was just saying like that introduced back then a whole type of political behavior on social media.
There's interesting, just like reality shows and visible likes and retweets and follower numbers affected the general public. But I think there's a swing away from that now, like a big swing away from that. Not only does it become, it's not shocking anymore. It's people become weary of it. You know, it becomes tiresome. It becomes repetitive, you know, sort of bad behavior.
And I think people are really wanting now something real and genuine. and loving frankly and not in a in a patronizing way just like in a real way because we're all like at our core as humans we we we hunger for that which makes me feel like you know we might see a turn to more spirituality now and it doesn't have to be I don't think, I know it doesn't have to be within a religion at all.
Religion can be a framework for somebody's journey to having a relationship with God and whatever you want to, whatever name you want to give my, he doesn't give a shit, you know? Right. But so long as it's, you know, so long as what you're imagining is someone who knows everything about you,
cares about every scintilla of you, will give you, never leave your side, will give you wisdom at all times, and is going to have you make, is gonna guide you to go in particular directions that might be very uncomfortable, but you will see that it is all to have you become more and more and more and more yourself.
That's the goal, to have this relationship with God and become, and I'm not talking about religion. If anyone has a bad view of that, who rubs them the wrong way, that word, redefine it for yourself. Or use some other word. Call him Bob. I mean, he just doesn't care. Yeah.
But I think because listen, when you've got something like bringing it all the way around, when you've got something like AI, generative AI, that is so good at imitating, I'll tell you the reason it's so good at imitating what we see in our lives is because it's taken everything we've done in our lives up to now and
Put it in a blender and then you put in a prompt and you have this Frankenstein spoonful and it spits it out to you. How could it do that? It's not pulling it out of the air. It's pulling all the films that have ever been done, all the series that have ever been done, all the talk shows that have ever been done, the books that have ever been written, and all of this. It's wholesale theft, 100%.
But you've got these different applications that reproduce And we look at it and we think it's real. Or we look at these, you know, the way the media treated the whole COVID thing, the fear mongering, which I think was unforgivable, unforgivable. Same. And they'll do it again. It'll be done again. It'll be that kind of fear-mongering will happen again because it's happened repeatedly in history.
Anyway, you've got all these things that are... We used to be able to just rely on what our eyes saw. We used to be able to rely on... Well, or we assumed we could rely on what the media was telling us. It seemed more even-keeled, right? We're just getting the... Or the FBI. Right? But if you don't have those things, and I don't know that they'll return or...
our ability to depend on these things as being real. I don't know that that will return. So that being true then, what are you going to rely on to guide you? Are you going to look around at other people? Are you going to look around at what's trending on social media and go, well, that must be the direction? Are you going to go by a video that you see? Well, I don't know.
That could be generative AI. Maybe that's not real. Are you going to go by what the media says? Well, I don't know. What's their agenda? If you, you've got to get some kind of foundation spiritually, however, you're going to pull that together. Again, I'm not talking about religion. I'm just saying it's available and it will give you a sense of, it will give you a true North.
That's what I'm saying. It'll give you a sense of direction that is not dependent at all on all those other elements I just said, because you cannot trust them. And I just encourage people to develop their own discernment, which is inherent, right? Your own discernment and your own instincts. And this is not a right or left. I mean, honestly, I think I'm not into politics at all.
I'm into people divesting themselves of their fears, most of them irrational in my experience, so that they can truly become themselves completely. And if you couple that with a relationship, a spiritual relationship, you're going to be so much happier. You're going to have focus in your life. And you're going to be able to discern whether or not something is bullshit.
And everybody needs that now. Going forward, you're going to have more.
Well, a hefty dose of humility is definitely in order for most people. And believing in a higher power is a good reminder of the need to stay humble and how we are. We are humble human beings. We don't have all the answers. That doesn't mean Bob doesn't. All right, stand by. More with Justine right after this.
We're going to ask her about those viral videos she did critiquing some of the meltdowns after Trump won. Have you seen any of these? Because they're very clever. Stand by. I'm Megyn Kelly, host of The Megyn Kelly Show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal, and cultural figures today.
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Let's just spend a minute on your critiques of these videos because it was such a clever way, I thought, to handle the insanity that broke out when Trump won. You approached it very forensically as a filmmaker and just kind of had some issues with the direction and the editorial choices by some of these people having the meltdowns.
head let's watch our kids need to hear you discussing trans and queer topics you will be hearing about trans athletes and you need to set the record straight on the percentage of trans people in the united states and the percentage of competitive trans athletes it's super important to stick with the facts let's stop the witch hunt on trans people
So for the listening audience, that woman literally has like a center part and a long head of hair on one side and a shaved head on the other side. Go ahead, Justine, your thoughts on her approach to her messaging.
Oh, that one. Oh, geez, I'd have to bring up my critique to really do it justice. But I think in that critique, I went into... Gosh, if somebody could bring it up, that'd be... I've got it. I have it here. Okay, then you read it. You read it. This piece introduces... Many questions. You should pull up one of the ones that that where they were crying and like having a like a fucking fit anyway.
But yes, go ahead. Read, read the saved head.
You're right, this piece introduces many questions. As part of the I'm shaving my head because I don't like the election outcome movement, this character has gone only halfway, yet no reason is given. The viewer is left wondering, is this a new movement? Does this represent those who are ambivalent about the election outcome?
Or is the hairstyle of those who sympathize with both sides or someone who changed their mind midway? The setting is refreshingly not in a car, and yet we wonder why or what is beyond the fence. There's a fence behind her. What is it blocking? Is it blocking an illegally narrow walkway between two houses, something else?
The bright open space above the actress's head also causes the audience to wonder, is this an escape hatch for the main character, for us? The camera is appropriately elevated, but it's unnecessarily unsteady. Tripods can be delivered to you the next day through Amazon. The editing is unfortunate because this is a short piece. All the dialogue can be captured at once.
Another take should have been done. Fiend, end meaning. That is...
This is brilliant. So well done. What gave you the idea? Well, the ones that were right after the election were absolutely... I mean, the level of emotion that was released, it was... My first thought when I looked at them was, man, we've had this crying genre in... you know, kind of online post for like six years. And as a filmmaker, I always wonder, were you crying really hard?
I mean, something was really upsetting to you and not just about the election, but I mean, this is happening prior. You were crying really hard about something that truly upset you. And then the thought entered your head that, oh, I've got to find my phone. Where's my phone? I've got to record this. And then you held the phone. I put my tears on camera. I've got to record myself crying.
And then you recorded yourself. Maybe you did a couple of takes. And then you watched it back. And then you edited it. And then you decided that it should be distributed internationally and you posted it online. Or were you wondering what to post next on your social media account? Should it be an unboxing video? Should it be a visit to your doctor's office?
You know, what are you going to do to keep the audience there? And you go, I know I'll do a crying video. And you post it and you set your... your phone up or your camera and then made yourself cry. It had to have gone one way or the other. And then I thought, my second thought was, my God, we are so many years into this creator economy and still the quality looks this shitty.
How is that possible? It's never been easier. That's why I mentioned that, you know, you could... The creator economy has made so... Has created an entire cottage industry on equipment. Lighting, tripod stands. I mean, everything. Yeah. You don't have to live like this, Susan. There's no excuse. Whatever her name was. So then I thought, well, I'll just...
Tell them, you know, I'll just do a serious film review of these items that have been distributed internationally. Here they are.
I like the ones where you call people out for not producing real tears. It's like as an actual actress, come on. You know, like you're kind of boning it in.
Some. Yeah, some of it is forced. Some of it's forced and maybe it's the second or third take. And then, you know, the director of this piece should be aware if they're tiring, emotionally tiring the actress with too many takes. And but it's better to read them. Actually, if people go to my sub stack.
which is justinbateman substack.com um there's an index there of i've done all over a hundred of them um so they can go down you go all the way down to the bottom even and see the first ones there was one with a woman who was standing next to this man very close
as if her one arm is behind him and she's looking at him as he's talking and she's nodding her head to camera and then she's looking back and nodding. And it really looked like she's a ventriloquist and this is her dummy, the guy standing next to her. So there's a whole piece on that. Anyway, it's, yeah, it's satire. Absolutely. It's a great way to comment on
Because a lot of times they're saying stuff that's really heinous.
But what's so clever about it is, I mean, that's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to laugh at fools who behave so foolishly and they're meant to anger you. They're meaning to upset you, to motivate you to cry. And it's the appropriate response to look at a lunatic like that and just laugh like, okay, good luck in your influencer career. I've got doubts about how far it's going. Yeah.
did you get any blowback on that? Like, are you, I know you're, you know, you're towing the line politically and you're not a political person, which I believe, but do you get blowback just, you know, just by saying, by not saying you're for Kamala, you can get blowback in Hollywood.
I don't remember a time in my career where, where there was an absence of criticism of me, um, So, or if anybody, I mean, I'm not, there's nothing unique about me in that sense. I go into detail in my book, Fame, right? We talked about that years ago. You just didn't hear it as often when, because of the effort it took to write a letter to somebody, you know, back before the internet.
So I've always been, there's always been somebody at least one person. And I say that sarcastically, like more than one person who's got a problem with me is something about my presence pushes their buttons or they don't like that. I haven't done anything to my face or they, you know, I mean, so I don't, it, it doesn't, it doesn't any quote blowback I would be getting from anything I'm saying now.
is in the same bin. In other words, it's no different now than it's ever been. So I don't care. And all I'm saying now is I'm glad that that mob mentality momentum is over because the last eight years and most acutely last four years were fucking unbearable. Unbearable. I never want to go through anything like that again in my life. I truly don't.
It was the most un-American situation I've ever been in. And I'm 58, I think. I'm 58, you know?
Yeah, totally agree.
To say that people can't say, can't ask questions, can't say what they think, can't ask that there be some research on this or that. It was absolutely awful. And I, it was just like revenge of the home monitors.
It was the, it was the fucking Debbie Downers, the party poopers, the, you know, and one of the things, you know, the, the, the social media video critiques that I'm doing, uh, you know, I mean, I'm not doing that many anymore because you don't have as many, you know, people getting all crazy about it. Um, But I will do it for subscribers for Christmas presents.
If they want a Christmas present for someone, they can send me their mom's or their sister's or whatever. I mean, it's a good Christmas present, right? And I'll do a critique for them. That's amazing. But there's something about satire, Megan, that's... That was one of the, comedy and satire was one of the first things to take a dive that they squashed.
Because when you think about it, if you have satire and comedy in a society, you have balance. Because it serves, it's like an insect in an area in nature that keeps certain things at bay. And you eliminate that insect and you'll find, oh, here comes some vine that starts choking the trees. Oh, that was the main food source for that insect that you just got rid of.
So satire and comedy are like that. They hem in and there's other things, too, of course. But those are two elements that will hem in a society and keep a balance. And you see, that was one of those were two of the first things that they got out in order to make this the this squashing down this hall monitor bullshit. Purification of comedy.
Yeah. I mean, it really is puritanical and, um, I do agree. I think it's over one final thing I'll say we have to wrap, but, um, You have done a very good job of keeping politics out of your family. Your brother's very famous too, Jason Bateman. By the way, I saw Carry On this past weekend. It was excellent. Very good film. He plays a villain. It's number one on Netflix right now.
But your closing message to people who have not been as successful as you guys about just not making your love relationships about politics and or cultural bullshit.
Well, I think if you're making your relationships with your loved ones and your friends about politics, you're really making it about you, period. You're wanting them to focus on you. You're wanting them, I call it intimacy through injury. If you have a fight with this person, they're going to be thinking about you. They're going to want to call you and fix it or whatever.
Because you're too afraid to just have a regular relationship with them where they maybe they don't value you think they don't value you that much. So I think it's so it's not about the people that are doing that. It's not about politics. I think it's about they're trying to exact emotional terrorism and control on their friends and family. And it's just trying to manipulate the relationship.
And that's it.
Very insightful.
Gosh, you're so right. It's not even on the list of things. How someone votes is not even on the list of things that I would and would not, you know, want to be around someone because of.
I know, exactly. Too often it's done, I think, to people, at least on my side of the aisle and not by people on my side of the aisle, but they can be guilty of it as well. Justine, it's such a pleasure to talk to you again. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you. Thank you.
All right. And find out more about her film festival, which is free from AI at credo23, C-R-E-D-O 23.com. Tomorrow, VDH. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.