Establishment Meltdown Over RFK, New Lisa Cook Questions, and Being a "Lion" Instead of a "Scavenger," with Ben Shapiro

Summary

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The Megyn Kelly Show – September 2, 2025

Episode Theme: Establishment Meltdown Over RFK, New Lisa Cook Questions, and “Being a Lion Instead of a Scavenger”
Guest: Ben Shapiro (Daily Wire co-founder, author of "Lions and Scavengers: The True History of America")

Overview

In this dynamic episode, Megyn Kelly sits down in person with Ben Shapiro for a wide-ranging discussion on political establishment reactions to RFK Jr., escalating scandals at the Federal Reserve involving Lisa Cook, the “lion versus scavenger” metaphor for American civic life, foreign policy realignments, cultural grievances, COVID-era trust collapses, the media, and coming showdowns in American politics. Drawing on Shapiro’s new book, “Lions and Scavengers”, the show explores who builds and who tears down, the perils of DEI in high office, and why propaganda and institutional decline have left Americans so distrustful.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Lisa Cook Scandal and DEI Failures

• Purported Mortgage & Academic Fraud
  • Lisa Cook, a Fed overseer, is embroiled in controversy amid accusations of mortgage fraud involving properties in Michigan, Atlanta, and Cambridge, MA. She allegedly claimed multiple “primary residences” at once, something she is not denying (06:59).
  • Megyn: “She DEI'd her way up to this seat. You can't just DEI your way into these powerful positions and then when you're caught, try to fall back on your non-existent qualifications.” (05:53)
• Media Double Standards
  • Mainstream outlets (CNN, NPR, The Daily) universally praise Cook as highly qualified, in contrast to their attacks on Trump for alleged real estate fraud (09:14).
  • Ben Shapiro: “It's amazing when the shoe is on the other foot, they use precisely the same defenses without any understanding of what it is they’re saying.” (08:03)
• Academic Merit Concerns
  • Cook’s tenure at Michigan State was reportedly denied by her department and pushed through by the dean (10:37).
  • Her most touted research (on “lynchings and patents”) was debunked: She misused patent application data, inflating claims of discrimination (13:13).
• DEI and Racial Narratives
  • Both hosts note the pattern: media and leftist figures elevate underqualified candidates for identity reasons, then cry racism when those individuals are questioned or criticized (13:49).
  • Ben: “You can name half a dozen Black economists who actually are really well-qualified…All those guys, very qualified, but given short shrift by the same exact people who will talk about the majestic qualifications of Lisa Cook.” (13:50)

2. Woke Orthodoxy and Cancel Culture

• Canceling Critics of BLM
  • Lisa Cook led calls to oust an academic who merely criticized “defund the police”, demonstrating woke intolerance in the academy (17:24).
  • Megyn: “She demanded his head. She, along with these other so-called commentators…were all calling for this guy to be fired.”
• Woke as Social Insurance
  • Those who play identity politics are protected until their actions become indefensible, yet even then, they often fail upwards (17:05).
  • Ben: “Now she’ll get a nice book deal out of this. She will get tenure at some other university… And she'll have a perennial slot next to Eli Hoenig, talking about what a wonderful…legal professional he is.” (17:05)

3. Foreign Policy and Global Alliances

• Realignment Concerns
  • Media overreacts to India’s Modi and Russia’s Putin appearing chummy, despite a longstanding friendly relationship (22:16).
  • Ben: “The actual geopolitical change is Modi and Xi [China]. …The idea was to box China in. If you slap India with a tariff…you could be making moves that push India in the direction of a realignment.” (24:50)
• Energy and Trade
  • The hosts dissect US-India trade stakes, Russia’s oil exports, and why realignments in Asia could shift the world order (27:11).

4. Lion vs. Scavenger: America’s Mindset Crisis

• Book’s Core Metaphor
  • Shapiro’s "Lion" is a builder; the "Scavenger" tears down, claiming victimhood while benefitting from the systems they despise (28:38).
  • Ben: “Some part of us wants to build, some part wants to destroy…Scavengers say it’s always the system’s fault. Lions don’t sit around saying, ‘this is so unfair.’” (29:05)
  • Scavengers come in three stripes: Barbarians (anti-civilization), Looters (anti-free market), and Lechers (anti-family/church), yet bizarrely unite politically (30:30).
  • Example: “Queers for Palestine”—identity-driven coalitions that paradoxically support each other, even when their interests directly conflict (31:49).

5. Cultural & Media Absurdities

• Greta Thunberg and Propaganda Heroes
  • Greta becomes the poster child of global “omnicause” scavenger mentality: from climate to Gaza activism, always against the West (36:58).
  • Ben: “She is a perfect embodiment of the omnicause…what she actually is in favor of is like all the things…She went from climate change seamlessly over to Gaza because—it’s all the same thing, which is: I just hate the civilization.” (38:07)
• PR-Schizophrenia Around Israel
  • Coldplay’s Chris Martin equivocates over a fan’s Israeli citizenship; the hosts dissect the new reluctance of Western elites to even acknowledge Israel positively (40:34).
  • Megyn: “Why wouldn’t you just say nothing? Or, ‘I’m sorry for all your country’s been going through’?”
  • Shapiro: “The fact that he felt the necessity to apologize for the presence of Israelis at his concert says something really disturbing.” (43:31)

6. Public Trust Collapse: COVID, CDC, and the Rise of Skepticism

• Institutional Betrayal
  • The CDC, FBI, and broader public health authorities have forfeited credibility, paving the way for “conspiracy thinking” (54:27), with both Megyn and Ben noting the need for trustworthy institutions—but also real accountability.
  • Megyn: “We need a CDC…a public health org that could just give us a straight scoop. Ideally, it would be one that’s non-politicized.” (55:52)
• RFK Jr. Appointment and Establishment Panic
  • RFK Jr.'s reforms in CDC have provoked resignations; Ben and Megyn both denounce the officers leaving as symbols of failed “expert” class arrogance (65:22).
  • Ben: “They’re doing the game they did with Trump: he'd say, ‘this institution sucks!’ and they’d say, ‘he’s destroying the credibility of the institution.’ No—he’s the coroner.” (66:45)
• Conspiracy Theories, Real and Imagined
  • Healthy skepticism vs paranoia: The line between justified distrust (e.g., lab-leak theory vindication) and unmoored “everything’s rigged” conspiratorial thinking (59:38).
  • Ben: “Conspiracy theories are bad, but that doesn’t mean conspiracies don’t exist. The difference…is evidence.” (57:39)

7. Media’s Evolution & the Podcasting Age

• Transparency Over “Objectivity”
  • Both hosts defend their explicit commentary as more honest than legacy media’s pretense of “objectivity” (86:23).
  • Ben: “I've been an advocate…that ‘objective journalism’ is a lie.” (87:21)
• Podcasters vs. Corporate Media
  • The rise of podcasts is derided by NYT as destabilizing, but Kelly contends it’s better to have an anarchic, plural media than a single voice or oligarchy (88:10).
• Best Practices for Truthseekers
  • Rely on several trusted individuals, not networks; cultivate discernment on the reliability of sources (76:07).
  • Megyn: “It's not just because I'm in this lane, but you have to find the person—or handful of people—you trust. That's it.” (76:43)
  • Ben: “Try to find three or four shows that you think are trustworthy…where they intersect is fact, everything else is opinion.” (77:32)

8. Coming Political Battles: 2028 and Beyond

• Democratic Primary Scenarios
  • Maryland Governor Wes Moore as a rising Democratic star, despite “stolen valor” controversy (falsely claiming a Bronze Star), and public relations missteps like vacationing on Clooney’s yacht while rejecting federal help with crime in Baltimore (93:54).
  • Ben: “His enemies constantly be-clown themselves. It's just a field of rakes and they're constantly jumping on them…If he came out in favor of abolishing cancer tomorrow, they would come out in favor of stage four.” (91:02)
• Executive Orders & The Filibuster
  • Shapiro proposes enshrining the filibuster via constitutional amendment to prevent partisan nuking.
• Long-Game Tactics
  • Discussion of how the deep structural reforms (staff reductions, agency eliminations) have more sticking power than executive orders (98:37).
  • Speculation about whether any Democrats can be considered “lions”; Rahm Emanuel named as a possible exception, but the field is grim (100:54).

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Notable Quotes by Timestamp

| Time | Speaker | Quote | |---------|-----------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 06:43 | Megyn Kelly | “It's just like, honestly…there have been a lot of black women who have ascended to these positions on very thin credentials. And then some sort of scandal takes them down and the left freaks out...” | | 08:03 | Ben Shapiro | “It's amazing when the shoe is on the other foot, they use precisely the same defenses without any understanding of what it is they're saying.” | | 13:49 | Megyn/Ben | “It is, of course, racist. By the way, you can name half a dozen black economists…all those guys, very qualified, but given short shrift by the same exact people who will talk about the majestic qualifications of Lisa Cook.” | | 24:50 | Ben Shapiro | “The actual geopolitical change is Modi and Xi. It's not, it's not Modi and Putin…if you slap India with a tariff…you could theoretically be making moves that push India in the direction of a realignment.” | | 29:05 | Ben Shapiro | “Some part of us wants to build, some part wants to destroy…Scavengers say it’s always the system’s fault. Lions don’t sit around saying, ‘this is so unfair.’” | | 38:07 | Ben Shapiro | “She is a perfect embodiment of the omnicause…what she actually is in favor of is like all the things…She went from climate change seamlessly over to Gaza because—it’s all the same thing, which is: I just hate the civilization.” | | 43:31 | Ben Shapiro | "The fact that he felt the necessity to apologize for the presence of Israelis at his concert says something really disturbing." | | 54:27 | Ben Shapiro | “The institutions that were set up by the founders are quite good. And many of the institutions that we need in our lives…are really, really, really important. And when you start tearing away at the institutions...you can overlearn the lesson.”| | 57:39 | Ben Shapiro | “Conspiracy theories are bad, but that does not mean conspiracies do not exist. The difference…is evidence.” | | 66:45 | Ben Shapiro | “They're doing the game they did with Trump: he'd say, ‘this institution sucks!’ and they’d say, ‘he’s destroying the credibility of the institution.’ No—he’s the coroner.” | | 76:43 | Megyn Kelly | “You have to find the person—or handful of people—you trust. That's it. Like, don't trust a big platform. I wouldn't anymore. I wouldn't at all.” | | 87:21 | Ben Shapiro | “I've been an advocate…that ‘objective journalism’ is a lie.” | | 91:02 | Ben Shapiro | “His enemies constantly beclown themselves…it’s just a field of rakes and they're constantly jumping on them. No matter what [Trump] does, they have to declare themselves in opposition.” | | 98:37 | Ben Shapiro | “…What he's doing with statistics, staffing may be long term, more important. Like the reductions…eliminating departments...it takes a while to rebuild that.” |

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [06:00-17:24] — Lisa Cook scandal, DEI in government, media double standards
• [17:24-21:10] — Woke orthodoxy, cancel culture in academia and mainstream media
• [22:16-27:34] — Foreign policy: India, Russia, tariffs, US geopolitics
• [28:17-38:07] — “Lions vs. Scavengers,” BLM, Greta Thunberg, generational cultural pettiness
• [40:34-50:35] — Israel, Gaza, Coldplay, PR “wars,” how the West loses the propaganda contest
• [54:27-65:22] — Public trust breakdown, COVID, CDC, the rise of skepticism and conspiracies
• [65:22-77:32] — Expertise, epistemology, conspiracy vs. evidence, separating facts from narratives
• [86:23-88:30] — Podcasting vs. legacy media: honesty, transparency, bias, future of news
• [88:30-98:48] — 2028 politics: Wes Moore, Democratic field, executive orders, the filibuster
• [100:03-102:11] — Crime, Biden years, defining “lions” among Democrats, nostalgia for 80s/90s America

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Tone & Final Thoughts

This episode combines Megyn Kelly’s blunt, sometimes acerbic commentary with Ben Shapiro’s analytical, rapid-fire intelligence and biting wit. The dialogue is candid, openly skeptical of establishment media, and rooted in a conviction that America faces a crisis of both confidence and competence—one that can only be met by “lions,” not “scavengers.” Throughout, the conversational style is quick, energetic, sometimes sardonic, but always focused on underlying philosophical and moral debates about who builds, who tears down, and whether America’s core values can survive another decade of establishment failures and woke overreach.

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Recommended for:

• Listeners seeking sharp, critical perspectives on current events, culture, and U.S. institutions
• Those interested in the intersection of politics, academia, and media trust
• Fans of lively, unscripted debate featuring major conservative thought leaders

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Note:
All ad reads, show opens/closes, and lengthy sponsor messages have been omitted for clarity and relevance.

Transcript

[Megyn Kelly]

The essential carrot puree made with organic carrots, bit of green apple and a touch of ginger. Served still slightly warm and fed mostly to 7 month old Harper and her 3 year old Doodle named Arthur, who helped clean up any remainder. The essential first bite made possible by Vitamix only. The essential. 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. Hope you had a great Labor Day weekend. I don't know, it's like bittersweet. Summer's over. Had such a nice summer this year. But also, I don't know about you, I'm actually, I was looking forward to going back to school with the kids so that I could see them again. My kids just scattered everywhere the whole summer long. I was like, where? Where'd they go? Now I think I'm gonna see more of them in the fall than I did this summer. It's a blessing for them to have such fun. And you know, look, even though September is the time when all the trees start to die and we're headed toward winter, it's always felt like a time of renewal, hasn't it? Because it's like the new school year. Sometimes when you start a new job, it tends to happen, I think for a lot of people in the fall, it's all possibilities. I'm already in my fall clothing. So we're off to the races. We're steps away from pumpkin spice lattes. Life is good, not for Lisa Cook, but for us. She's the Federal Reserve overseer whose scandal is only growing. Lisa, you're going to have to give it up, girl. You're gonna have to give it up because you appear to have been caught multiple times on the alleged mortgage fraud. And she's not even denying it. She's really just kind of having her surrogates play the race card. I think she's going and I think Trump is within inches of taking over basically effective control of the Fed. But it's really, I mean, yes, it is about that, but for me it's about her. You can't just DEI your way into these powerful positions and then when you're caught, try to fall back in your qualifications with are non existent. We're going to get into that today. So more on her because there's more problems around here, including we're learning there are big questions about how she got tenure at Michigan State University. Shocked. Shocked. Plus, the left is freaking out over Trump and RFKJ's reforms at the CDC, they really are actually playing the science and expert cards on us. But science, but experts, they don't understand the right half of the country at all. And Maryland's governor is having a great time while people in Baltimore are getting shot while he's over at, at George Clooney's place in Italy having a grand old time. Remember when like Ted Cruz wasn't allowed to go out of the country for 24 hours when there was a weather crisis down in Texas? But Wes Moore, I mean, people can literally be dying in his state and he can be on Clooney's yacht and he's not gonna get the leftist treatment of what a bad person he is. Here now to react for the full show. So excited. We've never done this before. I've never done in person. Either me on his show or him on my show is Ben Shapiro. He's the co founder of the Daily Wire, host of the Ben Shapiro show, and author of the new book Lions and Scavengers the True History of America, which is out today. Get your copy now. We gotta make sure he winds up number one. He will, but we have to make sure of it on the New York Times bestseller list because they don't let people like Ben Shapiro wind up number one on the bestseller list unless we make them recognize reality. Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, Boston, believes that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. GCU believes in equal opportunity and that the American dream starts with purpose. By honoring your career calling, you can impact your family, friends and your community. Change the world for good by putting others before yourself. Whether your pursuit involves a bachelor's, master's or doctoral degree, GCU's online, on campus and hybrid learning environments are designed to help you achieve your unique academic, personal and professional goals. With over 340 academic programs as of September 2024, GCU meets you where you are and provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams. The pursuit to serve others is yours. Let it flourish. Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. Private christian affordable visit gcu.edu good to see you.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, thanks for having me. It's really sweet of you.

[Megyn Kelly]

I don't think we've been together like this, like on the air for a show since my Fox days.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes, right, right. It's been a long. We've seen each other like not on the air. Yeah, on the air. It's been a long time. Yeah, yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

I know. It's great to see you in person.

[Ben Shapiro]

You do?

[Megyn Kelly]

You have a good Labor Day weekend?

[Ben Shapiro]

I did. It was really, really nice. I was with the kids and that's. That's what it's about. And now they're going back and doing all of their schooling, which means I do their homework. And do you know teachers? No.

[Megyn Kelly]

They probably have Ben Shapiro big brains. So they don't need you to do their homework?

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, I mean, I will say they get spicy on their social studies questions.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh, that.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

So your kids are little though, right? What are the ages?

[Ben Shapiro]

11, 9, 5, 2.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. So you're still at the age where it is sort of more of a blessing when they go back to school.

[Ben Shapiro]

I like it a little bit.

[Megyn Kelly]

They're so young.

[Ben Shapiro]

You break in the middle of the day. Yeah, exactly.

[Megyn Kelly]

Mine are more like. Mine are 15, 14, and 12 now. They're so fun and, like, I miss them so much. They're just. Their lives are so complete with friends that I'm like, remember mom, mom loves you.

[Ben Shapiro]

I will say, this is. This is a fun summer. We took them like all over the place. We took them to, like, Italy and Greece and then we were in Montana and so that was awesome. And they loved the travel and we did a lot of history lessons. When we were in Sicily, I was showing my 11 and 9 year old Patton, like the George C. Scott movie. And we were doing World War II history. And they're very into it. Yep. That's how it goes in the Shapiro.

[Megyn Kelly]

I'm listening to Dateline with my children. So we went a different way. This is not good.

[Ben Shapiro]

This says something about both of us.

[Megyn Kelly]

I think this could wind up. My daughter's like, mom, you listen to a lot of bad stories about crime. I'm like, honey, I swear, this is a genre. Like, this is a thing. It's not just my obsession.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, you got to do what you're good at. You got to go with the thing. Dance with the girl that brought you.

[Megyn Kelly]

Maybe they're going to be, you know, law enforcement when they grow up. You never know. They could be in training, prosecutor, some other kind of thing. When we were waiting for the show to get started, I was telling you about my favorite story right now is Lisa Cook. I'm very into this woman because it's very clear to me, she DEI'd her way up to this seat.

[Ben Shapiro]

How dare you?

[Megyn Kelly]

How dare you?

[Ben Shapiro]

That's terrible.

[Megyn Kelly]

And. And now she's been caught. It's just like, honestly there, I'm just gonna say it there have been a lot of black women who have ascended to these positions on very thin credentials. And then some sort of scandal takes them down and the left freaks out about the fact that you're going after a black woman. You know, it's like, from prosecutors, whatever, whether it's Kim Fox or Fanny Willis, like Marilyn Mosby. Marilyn Mosby. Thank you. Like, who get bounced out for whatever reason, but then you're not allowed to attack them because they're black women. But it's like, well, you elevated them for that reason.

[Ben Shapiro]

And we kind of were forced to hear presidential election. That was this.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yes, right.

[Ben Shapiro]

Was where Joe Biden was like, I'm picking a black woman. And like, but you should really pick, like, a qualified person. And then she ends up as the nominee. And they're like, but you can't attack her saying she's a black woman. So. Well, when you said it, it was a good thing.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right.

[Ben Shapiro]

When we say it's, it's somehow like a bad thing. Like, it's the same thing that we're.

[Megyn Kelly]

Saying right now, at least, like, pick somebody who's got credentials that are pretty much unassailable. Right. If you're just going to bypass all the normal protocols and elevate them. So it turns out not only does this woman has she allegedly committed at least three alleged instances of mortgage fraud with respect to a property in Michigan, a property in Atlanta, and now there's a third property where she allegedly misstated the purpose of her home. And this one was in, oh, gosh, I'm trying to remember. It's the third location. My team will get it to me. And in all three instances, she has stated the wrong purpose for the home. Two of them, she claimed, were her primary residences at the same time, which is not possible. And it wasn't possible in her case. And she's not even denying it. Cambridge, Massachusetts, was the third one she's not even denying event she hasn't, like, everyone's coming out saying she. She has the presumption of innocence. Well, she's not saying she's innocent. Not once. As she said, I didn't commit this mortgage fraud. At most her lawyers have said, well, one was a mistake.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, my favorite is, well, she hasn't hurt anybody because she's paying back the mortgages, which is, of course, exactly what one Donald J. Trump said in his New York fraud trial when they claimed that he was defrauding, remember, all of his lenders by. By making claims about the value of his various real estate properties, and they Said he's overclaiming. He said, well, I mean they can sue me, like if I'm not paying it back, then they can sue me. Like, no, you'll have a $500 million judgment against you, sir.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right.

[Ben Shapiro]

And so it's amazing when the shoe is on the other foot, they use precisely the same defenses without any understanding of what it is that they're saying.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right. With or without a victim, they were going to go after Donald Trump because justice.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right.

[Megyn Kelly]

You know, but with her it's, you know what we, no one's been hurt. We don't know if she even did it, even though she's not even denying it. And black woman. Black woman. So now it comes out that this totally qualified woman, I'll just give you an example of that because Ellie Hoenig, who's the CNN legal analyst, he was even out there over the weekend saying she's kind of in some deep, you know what. And for him to say it, you know, shows you they've got her. But listen to how he describes in sort of the throwaway, how qualified this woman is. I mean, and I heard this over on npr, I heard this on the Daily. They really talk about this woman like she's, you know, minor keys.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

So here we go.

[Ben Shapiro]

Watch. Ellie, there's some suspicious activity here that's really problematic by Lisa Cook. The claim that this might be clerical error or just a mistake. That's not going to fly. Because Lisa Cook is one of the most established, accomplished financial and economic experts in this country. I think the allegations on their face could be enough for a judge to say, look, I'm going to defer to the president on cause.

[Megyn Kelly]

Is she one of the most accomplished, respected econ experts in the nation?

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean I'd never heard of her. Had you heard of her?

[Megyn Kelly]

Literally nobody has ever heard of her other than Chris Ruffo, who unlike the two of us is always paying attention to these details.

[Ben Shapiro]

And he was, you don't wanna get on Chris's radar.

[Megyn Kelly]

He's a bad enough if he went to look at my academic papers, he would find they are almost non existent. But Lisa Cook came under the Chris Ruffo magnifying glass as well as that of his one time research partner, Chris Brunette, who's an independent journalist. And they both of these guys were the ones to who exposed Claudine Gay's plagiarism at Harvard. And this guy works for the American Conservative, he's written for the Daily Caller and he obtained her tenure packet, her 85 page tenure packet. Via FOIA. It's heavily redacted, he writes, but here are the big takeaways. She was at Michigan State in the econ department. And he concludes, although everything's blacked out, you can see these black, black outlines.

[Ben Shapiro]

Secret.

[Megyn Kelly]

That it was clear from his review that they did not want to give her tenure. That they likely voted. The. The econ department likely voted against giving her tenure, but appeared to have been overruled by the dean. There's a column titled recommended by department chair slash school director in blackout. The dean's column is not in blackout. You see the dean check to recommend her, but there's this. You can almost read between the lines. This was long blackout. Nor was this long blackout. Lisa Cook is a valued colleague. Whenever we fill a junior position, we hope that the individual will succeed and be promoted to associate professor with tenure. We do everything that we can to help out along the way. Blackout, blackout, blackout, blackout. It's very clear she didn't get it. Yeah, and then the dean elevated her. And when she was applying for tenure, she relied on, among other things, Ben, her. Her paper, which was also mentioned when she came under fire from Trump last week because of the alleged mortgage fraud. Okay, so here she was applying for tenure in a section called Commentary on accomplishment. She devoted 15 paragraph to her research on lynchings and patents and only one paragraph to how she's served the economics profession. Okay, all right. But she's written a lot, like every one obsessed with dei, about how terrible America was and the Jim Crow south, and lynchings in America should probably make our inflation decisions. She totally should. It's obvious.

[Ben Shapiro]

Why not?

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, and she knows a lot about mortgages.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, clearly. Clearly an expert.

[Megyn Kelly]

So. So in this so 15 paragraphs on her research on lynchings and patents, only one on her economic service. And apparently Rufo writes, I was making fun of this paper because it was like the premise was that lynchings of black people led to fewer patents held by black people. I was like, well, I mean, frankly, I get it, right? That's math. But it appears to have gone beyond that and crossed over into black people are depressed when they live in the Jim Crow south and therefore they're not even trying for patents. But I learned from Chris Ruffo that even that was totally debunked after she wrote it because she relied on patents, patent applications in the year 1900, concluding that the number plummeted because of lynchings and discriminations. Discrimination will mean time. Other researchers soon discovered the reason for the Southern sudden drop in 1900 was that one of the databases Cook relied on stopped collecting data that year. The true number of Black patents, one subsequent study found, might be as much as 70 times greater than Lisa Cook's figure, Effectively debunking the, the study's premise. What, so even her greatest accomplishment fell apart after the fact?

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, sounds like, I mean, I, I heard Eli Hoenig. I mean, he said that she's amazing, he said. So I, I, I will take him for, I mean, he's on cnn. There you go. I mean, I think we're done here.

[Megyn Kelly]

Can we talk about why he did that?

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, I think we all know why he did that, right?

[Megyn Kelly]

It's so frustrating.

[Ben Shapiro]

It's obligatory. You must read the words. You must read the words before you. I mean, Manchurian Candidate kind of stuff. Raven Shaw is the kindest, gentlest, most wonderful human being I've ever known.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's racist.

[Ben Shapiro]

It is, of course, racist. By the way, you can name half a dozen black economists who happen to be on the conservative side of the aisle who actually are really well qualified about this.

[Megyn Kelly]

Glenn Lowry.

[Ben Shapiro]

Glenn Lowry. Thomas Sowell, Roland Fryer. I mean, you can keep going with.

[Megyn Kelly]

All of this where they're busy trying to, you know, kick out of Harvard.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, exactly. And all those guys, very qualified, but given short shrift by the same exact people who will talk about the majestic qualifications of Lisa Cook. Of course, does not seem to be a great check.

[Megyn Kelly]

If you just wanted some random black woman who actually had written a bunch of scholarly articles who's actually really smart, you could, you could go with Carol Wayne. Yes, she's not an economist, but she's way more qualified to be on the Fed than this person, from the sound of it. And then here's another. Her tenure packet lists her writings that I just talked about on the lynchings as a peer reviewed paper. And this guy who I mentioned, brunette, the co author to Rufo on the Claudine Gay stuff, he himself wrote an article for City Journal about this in 2022, pointing out she billed herself as a macroeconomist, but she'd never published a peer review macroeconomics article, ever. Not only that, but she misrepresented her publication history in her cv, claiming she had published an article in the journal American Economic Review. In truth, he writes the article was published in American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, a less prestigious non peer reviewed magazine. So she lied. I mean, it's not exactly Elizabeth Warren, but.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right.

[Megyn Kelly]

She lied in an academic setting to get ahead to say that this paper had been peer reviewed and it was in the more prestigious senior partner to this less prestigious, shitty, you know, junior partner.

[Ben Shapiro]

And this sort of stuff matters, obviously, because when you're talking about the Trump administration, the constant attempt by the media is anytime there's something like this, it must be they're out to get Lisa Cook because it's a perversion of the Federal Reserve because the President has been so critical of Jay Powell over, over at the Fed. Or if it's about John Bolton, it must be. It can't be. There's actually a there, there. It must be that he hates John Bolton and that's why he's going after John Bolton. And nobody just takes a breath for like five seconds and they, hey, why don't we let this play for 3, 4 days and find out what the actual allegations are? Because as you're pointing out, the allegations are pretty bad. And it turns out this person probably shouldn't have been in that position in the first place. But the media, it's. It's Lucy with the football. Every single time they think they've got this guy in authority, some authoritarian trap, then it gets pulled away and turns out actually there's kind of a legitimate basis for the thing that he's doing here.

[Megyn Kelly]

Exactly right. So what I see here is a pattern of somebody who is. Appears to me dishonest. She's. She lied, according to this, about her peer review. Her paper fell apart. It wasn't academically sound. It's really the only thing she has. She was denied tenure, we think based on this reporting, she only got elevated to a tenure position thanks to the Dean. I'm gonna guess Ben Shapiro would not have been given the same.

[Ben Shapiro]

I have doubts.

[Megyn Kelly]

Help up right as she got. And then you have everybody running around saying how incredibly accomplished she is and how incredibly.

[Ben Shapiro]

It's great for her. I mean, now when she goes. Think about her income trajectory now, pay off all those primary mortgages, it'll be amazing.

[Megyn Kelly]

She's already making money off of multiple properties because they're actually rental properties.

[Ben Shapiro]

Exactly.

[Megyn Kelly]

Not a primary residence, not a secondary residence.

[Ben Shapiro]

She'll be a resistance hero. Right? And now she'll get a nice book deal out of this. She will get tenure at some other university on the basis of all of this. And she'll have a perennial slot, you know, next to Eli Honig, talking about what a wonderful, I guess, legal professional he is. And they can, they can have a mutual admiration society.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, what you see in her history, which is like the other strain. So you've got these questionable academic achievements and then on the other side, right next to them, which really are blaring, are all of her Woke commentary. Like all of it. It's everywhere. And just today on the Hills Rising, Robbie SOV Suave. Yeah, so I'm sorry, I always screw that up. Because of spelling. He went into a big thing about what she was saying during the COVID pandemic and George Floyd of Palooza. And she was everywhere. She was everywhere talking about Wokeism and Black Lives Matter and defunding the police. And apparently she was involved in the effort to oust Harold Uhlig, then editor of the Journal of Political Economy. He says for crimes against wokeness. What did Uhlig do in the summer of 2020? Quoting from Robby here, Uhlig wrote a few tweets in which he politely but firmly criticized the Black Lives Matter movement for the defund the police push. Among him, his most provocative sentence. This guy Uhlig was George Floyd and his family really didn't deserve to be taken advantage of by flat earthers and creationists. So what did Lisa Cook do? She demanded his head. She, along with these other so called conservatives or commentators like Janny Ellen was one of them. Paul Krugman was one of them. They were all calling for this guy to be fired. And he was. He actually did get the boot. Cancel culture came for him. It was successful, although temporarily. He was placed on leave pending an investigation, eventually reinstated after cooler. Her heads prevailed. But this woman was thrilled to see somebody canceled, losing their profession for one ambiguous sentence that she found offensive. But she can lie. I mean, she can lie to get hired, potentially possibly to get tenure. She can lie to get her job at the Federal Reserve because there's real questions about whether she disclosed any of this mortgage shenanigans stuff. We don't know whether she lied or just didn't disclose. There's no way she disclosed. She would have already told us that. And now she wants to run around claiming black woman, Black woman. Trump bad, Trump bad. And yet in her history, who does she want to cut a break for? Right. I just feel like I'm looking forward to her going down.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes. Well, I mean, member of protecting class gets hit by rules that she was trying to apply to others is definitely delicious. Yeah, that's one of the things I think we've all been enjoying about the Trump era thus far is just watching the rules be equally applied to the people who are only applying them for themselves over the course of 20 years. Yeah, I mean, a lot of. A lot of these folks.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. Like, I don't have anything against John Bolton himself, but, like, if he actually did disclose confidential and for classified information to the point where it was brought to our attention from some overseas CIA source, that would raise a red flag on anyone.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes. I mean, clearly. And he will go to jail if that is. If that is what he did. And, you know, again, on the CNN.

[Megyn Kelly]

Front, I just want to go back to the Ellie Hoenig over the top praise. We see this all the time. We see this on that Abby Phillips panel virtually every night. I am sick and tired. It makes me very uncomfortable of people being like. When the subject of, let's say a black woman like Abby Phillip comes up. I love Abby. I mean, she's extremely talented. She's incredibly talented. She's one of my favorite people. I consider her a friend. She's a friend. We had dinner together. I grow so uncomfortable when people do this. It's so clear what they're doing. Like, who else do you. I don't run around being like, I call Ben Shapiro, like, when the Israel folks got mad at me because I had, like, MTG on. I don't run around like, I'm friends with Ben Shapiro. Ben Shapiro is a good, close, personal friend of mine. We are. But I don't. Like, I'm so uncomfortable. Stop fucking doing that.

[Ben Shapiro]

It's definitely. It's a weird tick. It's a weird tick and it's kind of a revealing tick when, when people do that. But I think you have to say the words. If you don't say the words, then you're not allowed to say the bad things about Lisa Cook unless you also say the. The very nice things about. About Lisa.

[Megyn Kelly]

She could just be a moron.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes, that. How. Again, how dare you? Back to the beginning. No, no, she's brilliant. Michigan State University. The Harvard of Michigan. That's not University of Michigan, is it? The Harvard of. Not University of Michigan schools.

[Megyn Kelly]

I say Syracuse is the Harvard of upstate New York. At least central New York, arguably. All right, well, that's Lisa Cook. I think her goose is cooked and she won't be around much longer. Let's spend a minute on foreign policy because the. There's. There's video out now from this big moon meeting of Putin and Modi and G. Yeah, yeah. Xi. And on Morning Joe, they were very, very upset because Putin and Modi of India were shown very chummy together and kind of holding hands. And of course, they're not supposed to be doing that because we're trying to punish India for. With secondary Sanctions because Putin is continuing the war in Ukraine and doesn't seem like he's that fazed by it. They're still very chummy. Here is what Morning Joe had to say about it in Sat zero. You literally had Putin and Modi holding hands yesterday.

[Ben Shapiro]

Clearly this meeting a shot at President Trump's. The image of Vladimir Putin holding hands with the leader of India, Narendra Modi. It was a sign that Putin is getting away with it, that three years into this war, he is now claiming this was the West's fault. And he has an audience of prominent world leaders who agree with him.

[Megyn Kelly]

50% tariffs from the United States placed on India, in some ways driving Modi to that photo op where he's holding hands with Putin and that incredible, extraordinary.

[Ben Shapiro]

Show of support for Vladimir Putin.

[Megyn Kelly]

Okay, so this jumped out at me, Ben, because I was actually in the middle of those two men In July of 2017, Putin and Modi, and I got ripped for wearing like a sort of a dress to the thing instead of a suit. But I was literally told it was a state dinner to dress for a state dinner, which I did. In any event, I thought the dress was nice, but I was there. Here, look at this is the video of it. Here's Putin and Modi and we are in St. Petersburg together, meeting at the castle where Putin and I were together. And we thank you. We had sort of a state dinner thereafter. Right after this, the three of us sat down at a table that was like barely enough to hold three teacups and had tea together, the three of us. And they are and were and have been extremely chummy for many, many, many years. So that's what jumped out of me. Like, they've always been like this. They actually do have a lot of strategic alignment. And I don't know how, like, I don't think even Trump thought that he was going to end the relationship between the men. Well, they're focusing on the secondary sanctions.

[Ben Shapiro]

They're also, they're also aiming at the wrong thing there. The actual geopolitical change is Modi and Xi. It's not, it's not Modi and Putin, as you say, Modi around for a long time. Yes. I mean, also, India during the entirety of the Cold War was not aligned, but actually aligned pretty closely with the Soviet Union. And it took until the mid-2000s for the United States to start really warming up the relationship with India to the point where they're now considered a military strategic partner as part of the so called quad. That'd be like the United States, Japan, Australia, and India. And the idea there, and this is under Trump 1, was to create essentially a ring of fire around China, because if you look at the map, obviously the Indo Pacific is dominated by China, but not if you have India in kind of one corner and then Australia down in the south and Japan up, kind of ringing them. And so the idea was that we were going to sort of box China in. So I'm more concerned about India realigning vis a vis China because they have a bad relationship historically.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right.

[Ben Shapiro]

They've almost gone to war several times. Him being aligned with Putin is, is nothing new. I mean, he's getting enormous amounts of oil from. From Vladimir Putin. Something like 47% of all Russian oil exports go to the Chinese and 38% go to the Indians. And that means that since 2022, the Indians have probably saved something like $17 billion on their oil costs because the amount of oil that they've been taking in from, from the Russians. And so the idea that, you know, the Indians were going to turn away from Russia full scale because of the, because of the sanctions, I'm not sure if that's what Trump was going for. I think that that was not going to happen. But I'm not going to, you know, say that the realignment here is not a problem. I do think it is a problem. This particular event was. It was Turkey, Iran, North Korea, I believe was there. It was China. It was, it was India and it was Russia and that sort of anti American coalition that territorially now stretches all the way from China all the way in the east to theoretically Turkey in the west. That, that is a very large land bridge. I mean, that is a serious geopolitical issue. And so now I think that, again, the idea that we are going to break the relationship between Russia and India is foolish. And you're right. Modi and Putin have been friendly for a very long time. I will say that I think the tariff war does have some unforeseen consequences. And I think one of those consequences is that instead of boxing China in with all these other countries, if you slap Japan with a tariff and you slap India with a tariff, you slap South Korea with a tariff, and then you slap China with a lower tariff than India, then you could theoretically be making moves that push India in the direction of a realignment. And that has some significant impact. I mean, monetarily it does. You've seen that the dollar has been dropping as the global reserve currency. The gold spot price of gold today is like the highest. It's Been ever. And so, you know, there is downstream effect of some of these, some of these decisions being made.

[Megyn Kelly]

Do you think it's all about the tariffs?

[Ben Shapiro]

I don't think it's all about the tariffs. I do think it is largely about the tariffs. I think that we've offered a lot of carrots and not a lot of sticks and not enough carrots to places like India. The truth is that the trade relationship that we have with India is not wildly important to the United States. They represent, I think, our 10th largest trading partner. They do have access to some rare earth minerals. And I think one of the goals theoretically should have been to, if we were going to do cheap goods at all from other parts of the world, to realign that from China to India and make more of an ally of India, specifically because they're geopolitically between Pakistan here and China here. And so what you want to do is make, by the way, we hold more military exercises with India than we.

[Megyn Kelly]

Do with NATO, I was going to say. And they're not, you know, creating mass amounts of ships to potentially take us down.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right.

[Megyn Kelly]

We're a lot friendlier with.

[Ben Shapiro]

But if you start to see them, like, actually realign with China, if you start to see them move into the Chinese camp, then that really does upend the geopolitical order. And so, again, I'm not a Peter Navarro guy, and I think that Peter Navarro's trade policy, if you do the opposite of that, typically you're going to do well.

[Megyn Kelly]

So when you look at Putin, you look at Modi, you look at Xi. Are they all lions?

[Ben Shapiro]

I. I think that the idea of the lion in the book is. Is somebody who.

[Megyn Kelly]

Lions and scavengers in.

[Ben Shapiro]

Lions and scavengers is. Is somebody who is trying to build as opposed to tear down. So I would say no, I think that all three of those people. Well, two of those three, I think, are attempting to tear down. I'm not sure about Modi. I think Modi may be more in the lion category. And I think him sort of forging a middle path and trying to move as an independent in the world, which has been traditional Indian policy. You could see him as a line more than a scavenger. I think Xi is definitely a scavenger. Communism is a scavenger philosophy. And I think Putin is a scavenger, too. I think that the Putin is essentially attempting to savage various countries and institutions.

[Megyn Kelly]

What is he building?

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, nothing. I mean, it's a gas station with nuclear weapons.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's right.

[Ben Shapiro]

And. And so yeah, I've never seen Vladimir Putin. I think very early in his career there was the possibility he could be. If you remember back to 99, 2000, when he first took over, he lowered the tax rates like 12%. People thought he was going to realign with the West. It didn't work out that way. Obviously. Lisa Cook, definitely a scavenger.

[Megyn Kelly]

Totally. She defines scavenger.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes, yes. Somebody who has nothing but complaints about the United States, lives high on the hog because of the systems that she criticizes, and then has the temerity to suggest that she is a victim while prospering. It's just pure hard to come with a better example of a scavenger than Lisa Cook.

[Megyn Kelly]

The way, I mean, that's obviously the title of the book, but you kind of break down, what does it mean to be a lion? What does it mean to be a scavenger? And you don't do it in purely right versus left.

[Ben Shapiro]

No, I don't think it's a right versus left thing.

[Megyn Kelly]

No.

[Ben Shapiro]

I even think it's a personal thing. Meaning? I think that if you take it to the personal level, there's a part of all of us that wants to build, and there's a part of all of us that wants to destroy. And the easiest thing in the world when we face a problem is to say that it's somebody else's fault, that it's a system's fault and we should tear down the system. Sometimes it is the system's fault, but you actually have to have evidence of that. And then there's the part of us that wants to build. You get to wake up every morning and decide whether you want to build or whether you want to destroy. And civilizationally, do we want to build or do we want to destroy things? And again, I'm not talking here about unjust systems where you can show the evidence for why it's unjust and whom it's victimizing. I'm talking about, you know, the Zoran momdonification of America. The sort of idea that America is a. Is a victimizing oppressor party and all the institutions need to be laid low so that Zoram Hamzani and his friends can feel better about themselves, even though they, again, are the greatest beneficiaries of American freedom and prosperity in the history of all of humanity. And so what you've seen, I think, over the course of the last couple of decades, is the rise of what I call the scavengers. This coalition of people who essentially have three categories of scavengers that are barbarians. They're looters and they're lechers. Barbarians are people who believe that we have made their civilization poorer. It largely comes from outside the United States. I think there's a big gathering of them in Detroit. Scavengers who basically say that America is an awful place, an exploitative place, an oppressive place that has made the rest of the world poorer and terrible.

[Megyn Kelly]

And.

[Ben Shapiro]

And then they import that into our borders. And then there are looters, people who believe that free markets, private property, equal application of the law, these are actually biased. And what we need is a system that benefits people, quote, unquote, like me. So Marxism, definitely positive.

[Megyn Kelly]

Like the Democratic Socialists of America.

[Ben Shapiro]

Exactly. And then you have lecturers, people who believe that family and church are a threat to them because their own identity is wrapped up in behavior that family and church pose a threat to. And so family and church need to be wiped away. And the reason I say they're a coalition is because you see them acting coalitionally. It's very weird. Like, they should be mutually exclusive. Barbarians and lechers in particular. It's very weird to watch Queers for Palestine. Yeah. Sort of like the apex example of this. You know, people who would be thrown off of buildings in Gaza who are out there standing for Gaza. And you're like, why? Because the answer is they just don't like the civilization as a whole. It's not that they. That they want to live in Gaza. It's that they believe the civilization that is responsible for the terrible situation in Gaza and is also responsible for the terrible situation I find myself in personally, because I'm not accepted at my local family dinner. Those are the same civilization. They need to be torn down. So we're all going to march together en masse.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right.

[Ben Shapiro]

And you see, I think Mom, Donnie's like, a perfect example of this, since we're in New York anyway. I mean, that's this. He is like, a perfect example of this. You look at his coalition and it's like, radical Islamists and radical transgender advocates.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yes.

[Ben Shapiro]

And abortionists and communists. Like, what do all these people have in common? And the answer is they hate all of the good things. That's. That's the thing that they have in common. They want to tear down all of these good things.

[Megyn Kelly]

It makes perfect sense, actually. And to me, one of the pieces that resonated with me was you wrote something in the effect of, you don't. You don't have to have, like, a conscious philosophy with which you're going through life. In order to be a lion, like, you can just be a person, let's say a strong person with moral convictions, a person of faith, a person who knows how they're raising their children. And there was one piece in there that really resonated where you were saying the difference between a lion and a scavenger, among others, is a lion would never sit around saying, this is so unfair.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right?

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh, you know, poor me. The whole attitude is just very unlionesque. And you either teach that to your children or you don't. You may have a philosophy, you know, around it. It may be on the board as one of your family values, or it may just be something that a parent says to a kid which is like, no, stop doing that. We don't do that in this family. That's not a healthy, positive way of thinking.

[Ben Shapiro]

And if you don't pass it down to your kids, your kids end up.

[Megyn Kelly]

Becoming scavengers because the society is just fucking filled with them and they're trying to convert your child into a scavenger at every turn, K through 12 and beyond, 100%.

[Ben Shapiro]

And also I think there's, there's a natural thing that lions do that has made us very vulnerable. And I speak here just, you know, for, for people who believe that duty is the way that you do life, that you get up in the morning, you figure, what's your duty? And you do those things. But one of the things that, that Western civilization does differently than a lot of other civilizations is that we're a guilt based culture as opposed to a shame based culture. So we are, we're a culture where we actually value the feeling of internal guilt. It shows that you're a good person, right? That you, you recognize your own mistakes, you try to correct those mistakes. Shame based cultures don't worry about what you're feeling internally with regard to guilt. They are interested in avoiding shame. And so what that means is they want to shame you. And so th. This imbalance between kind of guilt cultures and shame cultures explains why the whole cancel culture thing went out of control. Because there were a bunch of people who would traditionally be considered lions who are like somebody who called them out for a sin. They'd say, oh, you know what, that's true. You know, I have sinned. I could have done better. And then people would stomp on their neck and be like, wait, that's not what's supposed to happen.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right, right.

[Ben Shapiro]

When I express guilt, I'm supposed to like, get forgiveness. At the other end of that religious concept of Repentance is I acknowledge sin. In return, I am restored. Right? That's the basic idea. And we have an entire side of the culture that says if you acknowledge sin, you have been shamed. And being shamed is shameful. Right. You are lesser now because. Because you acknowledged your own guilt. And so people do this and they don't understand. If you pass on to your kids a sense of guilt without a sense of pride in your civilization and in your duty and in the important things to do, what you end up with is a bunch of kids who are ashamed of who they are. And they end up trying to dissociate from their own civilization. And they only feel good when they're doing that. And this is why you see so many of sort of the scavengers not appearing in the poorest areas of America. A lot of those people are lions. What you end up seeing is them appearing on very rich college campuses, having parents who are earning in six figures because they're saying, I don't want to be like my, my shame ridden parents. These, these. These terrible people who, who have made the world an exploited place. I'm. I'm different. I'm not like them. And so you see them marching in the streets, you know, hundreds of thousands strong in some places in solidarity with destroying a civilization they've benefited from. And again, I keep going back to Mamdani, but he's like a perfect example. No one has grown up richer and more privileged in America than Zoram Dani. And he's walking around trying to rip down everything that makes success possible.

[Megyn Kelly]

And also, like so many of these scavengers, he's accomplished nothing.

[Ben Shapiro]

Nothing.

[Megyn Kelly]

He has absolutely nothing on his resume to point to. Lisa Cook is way more qualified to be mayor of New York than he is.

[Ben Shapiro]

She wrote a paper one time.

[Megyn Kelly]

She did. Exactly. She did get that tenure. No matter how she got it, she did get it. It's more than we can say for him. The person I keep thinking of when you're talking about this because she's on list of things to ask you about today, because I just find her amusing, is Greta Turnberg. So she's. She embodies this character squad, the. Exactly. Totally. And also little Lord Fauntleroy, both kind.

[Ben Shapiro]

Of all he man haircut now.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yes, it's very odd. I don't know. I mean, like it. I'm sorry, but if you're Greta Turnberg, your goal when you wake up in the morning should not be to say, I want to. How can I make myself look Less attractive. It should not. You're good. You can, you can stay. You're at the point where you can say hold. I hold. I don't need anything additional. I don't need the haircut with the bangs up here and the curl down. She's back.

[Ben Shapiro]

David Burge, Iowa hockey had a great line. He said she's now surpassed the what's Gary Coleman record for playing a 10 year old, the longest.

[Megyn Kelly]

For playing a 10 year old, the longest. Totally. Yes. Because, well, she not only is scavenger esque and the book again is called Lions and Scavengers by Ben Shapiro, it's out now. Get it? It's a great social, cultural, moral commentary and where we are as a world, not to mention a country. But she's not only a scavenger, she represents something else, which is how scavengers elevate other scavengers. How they see it in like a certain individual and they, they genuinely admire it. You know, it's not fake their admiration for somebody like that. She's taught in schools. I mean, every single school we've been at, we've been at four of them because we were at the two in New York before we fled and now do out here she gets mentioned as like someone for these kids to look up to. So she's gone from do we have the thought of making predictions about, you know, world calamity that did not come true to now making all sorts of pronouncements on Israel because sure, why not?

[Ben Shapiro]

Why not? Attracts geopolitical expert.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yes, here she is, just as a flavor for those who have forgotten. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. Yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecosystems are collapsing.

[Ben Shapiro]

We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.

[Megyn Kelly]

How dare you. Why is it so important to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius? Because even at 1 degree, people are dying from climate change. Because United Science calls for to avoid destabilizing the climate so that we have the best possible chance to avoid setting off irreversible chain reactions. Every fraction of a degree matches. I feel like we're doing okay. Yes, just for the first time, one of the Arctic ice shelves grew this past summer. Like, I feel pretty good about where we are. I think that's why she got off the climate change.

[Ben Shapiro]

I had a rule and the rule was until she was 18, I couldn't make fun of her right because we have this stupid game that we play in the media where if somebody trots out like a child actor, which she is, I mean, she actually is like a child actor. And then you're not allowed to criticize because they're not of majority. Well, she's like 35 years old now, right? So we can, we can make fun of her as much as we could possibly want, but she is a perfect embodiment of what people have called the omnicause. Right. What she actually is in favor of is like all the things, right? She went from climate change seamlessly over to Gaza because it's all the same thing, which is I just hate the civilization, I hate capitalism. I mean, when she was talking about climate change, about climate change, she openly said she wanted to destroy capitalism. Capitalism was responsible for climate change. It was responsible for all the evils on planet Earth. And now she's transferred that right on over to Israel versus Hamas seamlessly. And it's all the same people saying all the same things. They just change the banner out every so often, really. It's why you see what's happening on campus. And it's the same, exact same people. They just switched out the BLM for the Gaza. They just went right from one to the other. And then whatever the next cause will be, probably immigration, that, that'll be the next banner. Because they can just move seamlessly from cause to cause. The only thing the causes have in common is the system sucks. I want to tear down the system. And again, this girl has had the most privileged life. I mean, she didn't go to school from the time she was like 12, 13 years old. She was jet setting around the. Well, sailing around the world to the great plaudits of the rest of planet Earth. And now I guess she's getting attention for getting on a boat and trying to float her way to Gaza and then being turned away after taking a few pictures with Hamas members.

[Megyn Kelly]

And the Israelis gave her a bunch of sandwiches and drinks. It was the night she was happy.

[Ben Shapiro]

Funny, you saw, you saw pictures of her. She's actually smiling as she receives the food.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, like they, they're like, you can't come in, but here's a lovely meal for you on your way out.

[Ben Shapiro]

Take care, enjoy.

[Megyn Kelly]

And of course, she's still with the. I'm a victim.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, the oppressive Israelis, they definitely, it was, it was basically like an airline genocide because they put her in the back row next to the bathrooms on all. Which I have done. Which is, which is brutal.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, she's not Wrong about Israel becoming more and more controversial. And that is why Chris Martin did what he did at the Coldplay concert the other night, which I just thought was shameful. I really. I can't believe it's at this point now where you get an Israeli on the stage and you have to, like, you're jarred. You can clearly see. I'm going to play the clip. You can see he's like, jarred. When he says, where are you from? She says, israel. As if she said, you know, I don't know. Hell, like, yeah, North Korea. Yeah. Something like where you were like, holy, what have you been through? What's going on? I'll play the clip and we'll talk about it. Here it is. Where did you come from today? From Israel.

[Ben Shapiro]

Okay, well, well, okay, well, listen. Wow.

[Megyn Kelly]

Wow. He says, I'm very grateful that you're here as humans, and I am treating you as equal humans on Earth, regardless.

[Ben Shapiro]

Of where you come from or don't come. Good for you, dude.

[Megyn Kelly]

So sweet.

[Ben Shapiro]

Thank you for being loving, kind. And although it's controversial, maybe I also.

[Megyn Kelly]

Want to welcome people in the audience from Palestine because we, God, I believe that we're all equal human, and I want to treat you as equal humans on Earth.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, don't do any favors. I know, like, first of all, you're Coldplay. You suck. Second of all, and apparently all he does is just go around ruining random people's lives. That's just all that happens. Beware, if you go to a Coldplay concert, you get what's coming to you. But, yeah, I mean, the entire premise, which is like, look at me, I'm bestowing humanity on you because you come from a country that's in the middle of a war after the worst assault on Jews since World War II, you know, and now I'm also going to name check, you know, people who are on the other side of that. Would he do this in literally any other circumstance?

[Megyn Kelly]

No.

[Ben Shapiro]

Like, if it were Russians. They're Russians and they said, I'm from Russia. What do you say? Well, you know, I just have to name, throw it out there. You're human and so are people from. I'm just going to name check Ukraine. I can't imagine. Yeah, just. I can't imagine him doing something like that.

[Megyn Kelly]

Why wouldn't you just say nothing? Or, I'm sorry for all your country's been going through.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right.

[Megyn Kelly]

Or.

[Ben Shapiro]

Or like, I'm so glad you came.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, that's it.

[Ben Shapiro]

Just take a second. You have to do anything. You have to do anything.

[Megyn Kelly]

But I mean, an Israeli citizen, like, this isn't the idf, right? Like, this is some like, heavyset woman who showed up at his concert, right. Who's clearly, you know, not one of the chief fighters. And he can't. He's got to take a political. Like, why can't. With her you just say, you know what? There's. It's unambiguous, obviously, the war has gone on for two years and it's getting more controversial, as we've discussed. But, but that's not to say that Israel, it was anything other than wrongly attacked on 10, 7 and an absolutely brutal terrorist attack from which the country is still very much suffering. I mean, like, the bodies haven't even been in the ground for two years. Like maybe a word about the hostages, Israeli hostages who are still suffering, who are starving to death too.

[Ben Shapiro]

I always find it interesting at these sort of musical events. I mean, you remember this thing was launched on the basis of a gigantic attack at a music event as the Nova Music Festival, where some 300 people were slaughtered for going to essentially a rave on a Friday night in the desert. And at all these music festivals, they're out there, like, chanting in favor of essentially a group that bans all music festivals in the Gaza Strip. Not a lot of music festivals starring Coldplay in the Gaza Strip. But again, he didn't have to go there. I mean, wherever you are on these issues, and obviously my perspective is extremely clear on this, you just don't have to do it. The fact that he felt the necessity to sort of apologize for the presence of Israelis at his concert says something really disturbing. Yeah, because you don't have to do that. You don't have to. And I understand that there are people there who immediately start booing any mention of Israel. He could just go right over the top of that.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yep.

[Ben Shapiro]

He doesn't need to.

[Megyn Kelly]

And I think if it were me, it caught by surprise by like somebody who's in the middle of a war, his. Whose countries. I would. I think I would have said something like, I hope your family's okay. Yeah, exactly.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, and by the way, he would have said the same thing if it was somebody from Gaza. Yeah, right. You could have done that.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right, right. Treat you like a human.

[Ben Shapiro]

He would certainly not say that. If those have been two people from Gaza. He would not have said, I'm choosing to treat you as a human. As a human. I just want to say welcome to the people from Israel here. Also. No way in hell. Which shows you exactly where he stands.

[Megyn Kelly]

And here's the thing, Ben. Even though, like, even Trump is saying now like, they're Israel's losing the PR war. Okay. And I've been saying that, and I think that's true. I don't think they should, but I think they are.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, it is true.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah.

[Ben Shapiro]

And also, like, wars go on a long time and they're ugly.

[Megyn Kelly]

And Hamas is great at propaganda.

[Ben Shapiro]

Hamas is great at propaganda. And also I've yet to see a long standing war in which one side is Western and the other side is terrorist and you don't end up, quote, unquote, losing the PR war if it goes on a long time.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, this is where I was going to go with it, because who does Chris Martin think he, his values, like his core values that actually he lives by align better with. Right. I mean, if you actually press this guy, he would of course say Israel every day of the week. But so many people, when they comment on this, when they embrace Hamas or, you know, they won't usually say Hamas, they'll say the Palestinians.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right.

[Megyn Kelly]

When pressed, like, what is it about them, you know, that really resonates with you really can't say anything. It's just about how bad Israel is.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right. It'll always be their victims. Right? Victims, victims.

[Megyn Kelly]

They're oppressed.

[Ben Shapiro]

And the thing was about the victims and oppression narrative that, that was basically thoroughly debunked by October 8th. Meaning on October 7th, there was a gigantic attack that was launched on Israel in 2005. Israel abandoned the Gaza Strip. They were not in control of the Gaza Strip. It's the reason October 7th happened. If they'd had any sort of security oversight in the Gaza Strip, it never would have happened in, in the first place. And on October 7th, there was a gigantic attack. And, and then the, the idea was that somehow the attack was Israel's fault, despite having abandoned the Strip in 2005. And so it's like it's a no win situation.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. The blockade, it was.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's always occupied.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right? It's occupied. It's the blockade. But as everyone recognizes who's watched this conflict for any period of time, if the Palestinians in Gaza had put down the guns and put down the cement mixers for building the gigantic terror tunnel larger than the London subway. And if they had said, we wish to economically develop, nobody would have been happier about that than the Israelis. And I know everyone on both sides of the Israeli political divide, the left and the right over there, and there's virtually no one there who would not have been very Much in favor of an economically well developed neighbor to its immediate southwest that was not at war with it. That would be a much nicer thing because again, Israel has to draft all of its 18 year olds into an army where they're having their limbs blown off. I mean, nobody in Israel is like clamoring for more war. And this lie that that's what this is all about. I think that goes to a broader perception of the west, that the west is a warmongering place, that the all problems that happen all over the world are the West's fault. Everybody is doing blowback to the West. Nobody ever has any individual agency anywhere else on earth. Anything bad that happens anywhere on earth is the result of American foreign policy or Israeli foreign policy or European foreign policy. Well, what if it turns out that the world is a complex place and there are a lot of people out there who have their own ideas of what they would like in life and geopolitically and those ideas don't match what the west wants, that people actually have agency.

[Megyn Kelly]

When you say, you know, people should just take like maybe take a minute and actually take a look over there, I think you're being too hard. Even Ibram X Candy, didn't he go.

[Ben Shapiro]

For, was it ta Nehisi Coates.

[Megyn Kelly]

Sorry, I left wing black scholars, and I use that term scholars very liberally. 10, 10 days. I think he said 10 whole days, Ben.

[Ben Shapiro]

10 whole days.

[Megyn Kelly]

He knows.

[Ben Shapiro]

And his narrative, and he's a perfect example, his narrative lines up with the idea that there are brown people in the Middle east and white people in the Middle east and the brown people in the Middle east are the Palestinians and the white people are the Jews. And therefore it's just like. And he says this in his book Black Americans and White Americans. And so because he believes that black Americans are oppressed in the United States by a white supremacist structure, he then takes that exact same logic and he tries to apply that wrong, faulty, false and an ugly logic to the Middle east, despite the fact that, by the way, half of Israelis are brown.

[Megyn Kelly]

Okay, let me ask you this, you know, in a couple of minutes, how is it going to wrap up? Because I will say, you know, my, my, a good friend of mine, it might have been Alan Dershowitz, I was in the middle of several text exchanges, said something like, I want to come on and we'll debate Israel. And I was like, there's nothing to debate. This happened with me in a couple of years. There's nothing to debate. I'm on Israel's. Side. I don't, I'm not. You're looking for the wrong target. But I do, I do think they need to wrap it up because of Israel. I just, you know, you can see what's happening.

[Ben Shapiro]

I would, I think everyone in Israel wants them to wrap it up.

[Megyn Kelly]

So what's the solution? Because they don't have their hostages back.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right? So this is always been, what if.

[Megyn Kelly]

They don't get them back?

[Ben Shapiro]

So this has always been the serious problem with how Israel has approached the war. From October 8th, and I've said this before, many, many times, Israel elevated as co equal goals getting the hostage back and winning the war. And those cannot be co equal goals. They can't. And because the minute that you get down to the end of the war and now you have to pick one of those getting the hostages back or quote, unquote, winning the war, then you're in a conundrum. And that's kind of where Israel is right now. Now I think that Netanyahu is doing the right thing by saying they all come out right. We're not going to do this. This sort of Zeno's paradox with hostages where I get 10 and then 5 and then 2 and then 1. And Hamas obviously doesn't want to give all the hostages up because they're afraid that the minute they do, Israel goes in and finishes the job and Hamas is basically defenestrated and that's the end of it. So that's, that's the impasse that they're at right now. I think the, the way that the war probably ends is that Israel goes into Gaza City, Israel sets up humanitarian enclaves. They've already talked about this in Rafah and several on the coast in Gaza, where humanitarian aid is available plentifully. Right now the, the Gaza Humanitarian foundation is shipping in something on the order of 4400 calories per day per person into the Gaza Strip. No war in history has seen the amount of aid go from one side to the opposing sides of civilians. In the history of all modern warfare, the way that Israel has been shipping in aid over the course of the last six months or so into the, into the Gaza Strip. And so those areas, I believe the plan is to make those areas essentially terror free. The security will be provided by the Israelis, and I think they're hoping for a coalition of Arab countries as well. And listen, I think the United States should be involved in the most minimal possible way, like really minimal. I don't want American boots on the ground ever, ever, ever. Ever. I don't think the United States should have boots on the ground in that place. It's a very, very bad place. I think the idea that President Trump has put forward, which is essentially Israel should make the ground safe over there and then economic building can happen. Let the free market Trump, Trump Gaza. Lagosa like it's a better plan than whatever the hell they've been doing in the Gaza Strip for the last 80 years, which, which has been a hellhole for a very long time. Alternatively, by the way, on social media, either a hellhole or a Paradise prior to October 7, depending on which account you're looking at. But that seems to be the most likely scenario is full scale military crackdown in the areas that are not humanitarian enclaves, a declaration of the end of the war by the Israelis, and then the announcement that they are now in counterinsurgency operations in all the areas that are not the humanitarian enclaves. That seems to be the direction that things are moving pretty quickly.

[Megyn Kelly]

Let's hope they move quickly.

[Ben Shapiro]

I think they will.

[Megyn Kelly]

Stand by. Ben stays with us. The Books Lions and Scavengers Football season is back. On Prize Picks we make decisions every day. But on Prize Picks being right when you make a decision can get you paid cash. So kick off the season right by getting 50 bucks instantly in lineups when you play your first $5. With millions of users and billions of dollars awarded in winnings, Prize Picks is the place to put your takes to the test. Just pick two or more players across any sport, pick more or less on their projections and if you are right, you could win big. Prizepix is available in 40 plus states including California, Texas, Florida and Georgia. Prize Picks does not play around when it comes to your money. All transactions on the app are fast, safe and secure. Download the prizepix app today, use code Megan and get 50 bucks instantly in lineups. When you play those 5 bucks, that's code Megan on prize picks to get 50 instantly in lineups when you play $5. Win or lose, you're gonna get 50 bucks in lineups just for playing. Guaranteed Prize picks. It's good to be right. Must be present in certain states. Visit prizepix.com for restrictions and details. We're back. Welcome back to the Megyn Kelly Show. Back with me here, my friend Ben Shapiro. He's the author of the new book Lions and the True Story of America and Her Critics. It's out today. Go get it now. All sorts of good stuff in here. Lots of wisdom for you, your kids and just a philosophy and like, how to be in your life? How do you accept daily troubles? How do you accept what the hand life has dealt you? How do you accept messages that are all around you about the news or our country and so on? What made you write it?

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, I mean, I think that the genesis of this book was different than some of my others. So usually I sit down and I sort of plan out what I want the book to be and then I read and I research and then it comes out. This one was written originally almost as a diary. I was writing it contemporaneously over the course of the last couple of years. And so there's a lot of first person. I never use first person in my writing ever. I hate using the word I on my show or in my. Or in my books. It appears a fair bit in this one because there's a lot of travel involved over the course of the last couple of years. The book opens in London because this is where it first forcibly struck me what was going on. So I went to London. This is November of 2023. I was supposed to debate over at Oxford and Cambridge over what was going on in the Gaza Strip. And there had been a gigantic, like 300,000 person march with the entire scavenger panoply. And my security said, like, you're not allowed to stay in London. If you stay in London, it's actually unsafe. You have to stay like an hour outside of London, closer, closer to Oxford. And then when we actually went to Oxford, there's significant security threat. Like my security was quite concerned about it. I mean, I have 24, 7 security, so I'm pretty used to that sort of stuff. But it was kind of a real thing. And so I sat down, I started writing like, this is one of the.

[Megyn Kelly]

Most historic stairs right now that I have my entire staff at gunpoint.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, exactly. And I started thinking like, this is one of the great historic places of Western civilization. The University of Oxford. You're going back a thousand years to its establishment. And just a few blocks down you can find the place where Richard the Lionheart was crowned. You can find all these places and the people who are marching through these places are people who hate all of this, who hate every single bit of this. And so I started writing it because of that. It was kind of out of a confusion and anger and true kind of interior turmoil about what have we done to our own civilization, that this sort of thing seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Because I think we all grew up in a time and I Grew up in the 90s where this really was the exception. Everyone sort of accepted right and left and America is a pretty damned amazing place. And now it seems as though there is a bit of a horseshoe theory thing going on here where huge swaths of the left and small parts of the right may be growing, think America is not all that great, or Western civilization is the great center in the history of the world. And, you know, where is that coming from? And so over the course of the last couple of years, I sort of wrote it.

[Megyn Kelly]

One, one area from which it's coming. And I understand the theory of the book and really enjoyed it. Lions and Scavengers Everyone by Ben Shapiro. But one one area it's coming from is just right now great distrust of government. Right. Of our own government too. And like to me, part of it is very understandable and justifiable only because our government is so effed up they're not to be trusted. Like, we saw that over the past five years in such Technicolor that. That's why I think you have people on the right sharing in this too.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, I agree with a lot of that, actually. I think that on the left is endemic to the ideology on the right. I do think it's an outgrowth of events and lack of. Lack of trust. I do think that it's easy for conservatives and people on the right to throw the baby out with the bath water because I've spent my entire life being skeptical of. Of government. For the most part, I'm a conservative. I want the government to be small enough to be drowned in the bathtub. As Grover Norquist once memorably, you know, like, that's. That, that's fine. I think that. I think it's. I think the government is. Is quite awful in most ways. With that said, the institutions that were set up by the founders are quite good. And many of the institutions that we need in our lives, family and church, are really, really, really important. And when you start tearing away at the. At the institutions or when the idea is that the institutions have been so thoroughly destroyed from the inside by the left that you have to tear them down. I think there are cases where that's true, but I think you can overlearn the lesson. I think you can go from the CDC really screwed it up in 2020 to never trust any science random guy on the street giving you advice.

[Megyn Kelly]

And we still do need. Like I was thinking about with the CDC controversy, I have no tears to shed for these losers who are leaving. Neither do I But we need a cdc. Like there needs to be some public health organization that keeps an eye on growing bugs and whatever in the world. And ideally it would be one that's non politicized that could just give us a straight scoop on here's what we know, here's we don't know. We're not going to overreact. We're going to be. I think we have that team in place right now. I love Dr. J. Bhattacharya, thrilled about him. Martin Koldorff would be amazing. Who? Martin McCarry is great, but Marty McCarry is awesome. I like RFKJ, but my point is simply under him, he's controversial, but under him there's a wonderful team. Vinay Prasad over it.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes.

[Megyn Kelly]

With, with Marty Makary. So I like those guys and I feel the same about the FBI. Like if the FBI would just do like crime fighting and actually like I'm fine with them keeping an eye on the all the domestic terrorists who want to like blow us up from, you know, radical Islam, Islamic countries. I'm not, I don't have a problem with that. It's when they started to really like turn political and turn like us into political enemies.

[Ben Shapiro]

I totally agree.

[Megyn Kelly]

So it's like, I agree those institutions can stay that, but down to the studs and then rebate, rebuild.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, so I totally agree with this. And I think that was one of the purposes of the Trump revolution. I mean, the idea of the Trump election was put people who had been victimized by these specific agencies in charge of the agency and let them go to town, let them purge and let them go through and try to make these institutions more honest, by the way, including places like the State Department where Secretary Rubio has been going through with a hatchet. Like all of that I think is really, really good. But I think that the gap emerges for me from the CIA has done some pretty terrible things over the course of the last five years or so in terms of going after political enemies. For example, with regard to Russiagate, there's a leap from there to the CIA killed JFK or the CIA was always a nefarious actor in the world and anything that it did from 1950 or.

[Megyn Kelly]

That it's been responsible for everything, right?

[Ben Shapiro]

Oh, right. Secretly, it's behind the scenes manipulating. Here's my thing, evidence. Right. So I can evidentiarily show you how the CDC screwed things up in 2020. And you can too, right? It's like available for everyone to see lived it. Exactly. You can see how The FBI screwed things up with Russiagate because we all saw it happen, and all the evidence is basically available. I make the case in the book that conspiracy theories are bad, but that doesn't mean conspiracies don't exist. They do. The difference between a conspiracy theory and a conspiracy is that a conspiracy has evidence to it and a conspiracy theory does not. And there is something that Carl Popper, the philosopher, talked about as sort of the great conspiracy theory of life, which is this idea that everything in my life that's going wrong is the result of a shadowy cadre of people I can't quite identify, but maybe I can, but I can't quite identify, or behind the scenes, who are manipulating things. And that's beyond it being wrong. It's really enervating, like, truly enervating. Any population that believes that there's a shadowy conspiracy that they can't identify or fight in any material way who's wrecking their lives, what you're really saying to people is, you cannot succeed. There is no way for you to succeed. It's basically back to a pagan world before God, where the gods are up there fighting.

[Megyn Kelly]

Let's do a real life example of it.

[Ben Shapiro]

Sure.

[Megyn Kelly]

You look at Covid, that's obviously the most recent where we. We know, and we knew at the time, some of us who were paying attention knew that this thing came from a lab, that it did not come from some random pangolin. It became clear, I should say not everybody knew right from the get go, but it seemed really super clear. And then the reason that conspiracy theory in quotes was borne out as an actual conspiracy that was being perpetrated against us, I think, was in large part, the Republicans won the House. The Republicans started using subpoenas. The Republicans got documents from Fauci and Collins on all these others showing the top virologists were all saying, this looks like it is man made. This does not look like anything that could grow in nature. You saw the men in power saying off. Do not say that publicly. Everyone needs to get in line. It would be very damaging to our relationship with China and health to say something like that. And literally overnight, those same virologists came out and said, from a pangolin, it's nature.

[Ben Shapiro]

Some dude at a bat.

[Megyn Kelly]

Definitely not lab made. I mean, so that it's very rare when your conspiracy theory is actually proven with evidence, like with papers that you could submit in a court of law to win the case before a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. In. In nine times out of ten, the conspiracy theories never get that? So that's where some people get stuck in that. And some people are like adjacent and they're like, I'm still waiting for my proof. I'm waiting, I'm waiting.

[Ben Shapiro]

I agree with this. And I do think you do have to do a sort of Bayesian analysis, meaning, like, look at the plausibility of the conspiracy theory and the number of people that are required to carry it out. And usually the grandest conspiracy theories require an extraordinary level of competence, coordination, and number of people involved. So to take the example of the, the idiotic theory that the moon landing was faked and the number of people who would have to be involved in the faking of the moon landing and be great at their jobs. Right. Not, not just like good at their jobs, incredible at their jobs, because they'd have to fake it and then they'd have to maintain that silence and that secrecy for six decades plus. And they would have to get everybody around them to also maintain that silence and secrecy in order to come up with this.

[Megyn Kelly]

Isn't it also true like, that there's like an alien being held captive someplace in Nevada?

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, look at, look at the government. You know, usually a conspiracy theory is an actual conspiracy. Conspiracy in the government typically is some power hungry schmuck who's telling his immediate subordinates to do a thing. And usually the circle of Trust is like 15, 20 people. Like if you, if you look at like the Mueller report or you're looking at what James Comey was doing, that wasn't involving 2,000 agents, that was involving a fairly small team inside the FBI. And it was really bad and really ugly. But it was like, like that one was plausible, especially because all of the outside indicators matched up with extremely plausible activity that a person was doing. And then over time it was revealed that that was true. When you see these sort of kind of grand overarching conspiracy theories where everything is the result, every single thing is, is a grand unifying field theory of why your life isn't the way you want it to be.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah.

[Ben Shapiro]

It doesn't make your life better. Does it make your life better or does it make you smarter?

[Megyn Kelly]

Like, what is my test? If you believe in all of them, it's you.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes.

[Megyn Kelly]

You know, I mean, truly, I know people like this who like, used to be, have, have a stronger foothold in reality, but just to become untethered. I think Covid had a major effect on a lot of people like that who are like borderline conspiratorial, but then went full well it's almost like they've had a break and they've. Nothing is as it seems anymore. They see conspiracies everywhere. They believe nothing that's being told to them, especially if it involves any facet of the government. And I really think a good test for anybody to ask themselves is do I believe in all of them? Are there some where I'm like that I don't buy. Because if you believe in all of them, we're dealing with a you problem.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, I think that's right. I think also that when you're analyzing information, obviously the source of the information matters. This is obviously true that no one in the world is perfectly objective about anything. Maybe math is objective, not very many other things are. And when, when you are hearing people who are espousing conspiracy theories, they are always taking somebody's expertise word for it, somebody's word for it, right? This idea like I never listen to anyone, right. I'm a pure skeptic. You're really not though, because in the end you're believing a theory. That theory is based on somebody else's opinion. And so that means that you're having to take somebody's view for granted. So you have to try to establish, I mean, this is just how we go through life. You try to establish the credibility of the people that you're talking to based on prior track record.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's hard though. It is hard because if you realize over the past five years alone, you realize that the people who are given to you as the so called experts are freak, they're liars. They're like, that's what I started the show by saying, right? Like, you know, 51 intelligence officials believe that the 100 Biden laptop is Russian disinformation. Now we never believe that one, but you can see how well meaning people in America believed it.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, and I think one of the things you said was right, you said, you said, I mean, and the opposite of it also, you said if you believe all the theories, it's you. And if you believe none of the theories, I think that it's also you. Yeah, because I think that, you know, when you're looking at conspiracy theories, at least at the very outset, you have to judge the plausibility and then you follow the evidence where it leads. But I think this is the difference also between what, what I've called on the show just asking questions and actually just like asking questions. If you're just asking questions, typically you're not looking for an answer. If your question is not seeking an answer. And if no answer given to your question can satisfy you, you're not asking questions, you're positing.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, and also I think if you, if you genuinely, if you genuinely don't have an agenda and you're in the business of just asking questions, then you'll ask those questions of people who say the opposite thing too. Right.

[Ben Shapiro]

Like, exactly.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's my own approach. I try to get both sides on, you know, so that the audience can make up their own minds. They're big boys and girls, they don't need me to pronounce, this is what's real. Sometimes I will. But I think I like to be open minded. Unless something's just totally fucking lunatic, you know, and it's like, forget it. I'm not going to put you on because I don't want to intentionally confuse anybody, but it's very hard. And that's one of the things that's bothering me about the CDC meltdown. Because, so rfkj, I mean, what appears to have happened is RFKJ had in the head of the cdc, Lisa Monarz and Susan, sorry, Susan Monterez, her last name confuses me too. And wanted her to do a couple things around vaccines and wanted to change some things around vaccines and she disagreed with him. And then from what I read in the papers, she ran to secretary to Senator Cassidy, Senator Cassidy and tattled on him and was like, he's doing crazy things. We need more oversight. And then they got mad because she wasn't going to do what he wanted her to do. And she ran and tattled on him to Senator Cassidy who's annoying and thinks he's the HHS secretary. He annoys me greatly. And then she got fired. So fine. I'm fine with her being fired. Like, you're not the boss. No one elected you or nominated and confirmed you as HS HHS secretary. You're lucky you have the job you do have. Anyway, she got fired and then wouldn't leave. And now we have four or five top CDC officials being like, me too. I quit too. I'm not working for this lunatic.

[Ben Shapiro]

Including some of the greatest people.

[Megyn Kelly]

Okay, so this is so the couple things. There's the just ask him very sexy bdsm, very gay, over the top, pregnant people person.

[Ben Shapiro]

Mpox dude.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, mpox dude. Okay, I have zero use for somebody lecturing me on, as you would say, the science TM who's using the term pregnant people and pronouns and saying, I can't stand the rice in their erasure of the trans Community. Okay, stop. So that's. Here he is. This is the most tame. If you go on X and search this guy, Daskalakis or whatever his last name is, you will find genuinely near X rated photos of this person who never should have been in a position of public authority, certainly not public health. Oh, here we go. Here are some of them. Does that look like somebody from whom you want your public health advice? It does not.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, it looks like Mpoke patient zero.

[Megyn Kelly]

Honestly, like, none of that looks sanitary. Okay, so that's one thing. So he still wants to advise us on what vaccines we should be taking. Okay, so that's one piece of it. Whatever. To somebody like that. But the nerve of these people to now be like, the distrust in public health that RFKJ is creating and the team around him. I've never seen someone so immune to the science and real facts. It really makes me want to figuratively, not actually strangle somebody.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes, well, I mean, you've got to.

[Megyn Kelly]

Be kidding us, Ben.

[Ben Shapiro]

They're doing the game that they did with Trump when he first came on the scene, where Trump would say, this institution sucks. This is all terrible. I'd say he's destroying the credibility of the institution. Well, what I always said about President Trump is the left accused him of being the killer and actually he was the coroner. He would stumble on a body, be like, that's a dead body. And they'd be like, because you killed it. No, no, no. It was dead before I got here. I mean, the reason that RFK Jr. Is the HHS secretary is the same reason that Cash Patel is the head of the FBI.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's very funny you should say this because I always said about Trump and the media and certain other organizations, too, he was the Kavorkian to their suicide. Right. Like, he's there. I'll give you the machine.

[Ben Shapiro]

That's fair.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's up to you what you want to do with it.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, exactly. And I think that. And when it comes to rfk, the reason he ended up as HHS secretary is specifically because of this. It's because of the radical distrust of the public health authorities. And one of the ways that you can tell they did this whole New York Times op ed, it was like nine former CDC heads writing an op ed about how terrible rfkg.

[Megyn Kelly]

I know, I know.

[Ben Shapiro]

And some of the things that they're pointing out are, frankly, things where I actually kind of disagree with RFK Jr. I don't agree with everything RFK Jr is doing. What I've said before is that, you know, RFK Jr. I like him. I feel like he needs to take the Spinal Tap 11 down to, like, a Spinal Tap 7. Like, everything is always all the way to the top. But. But, you know, like, you know, when it comes to completely defunding, for example, all MRNA vaccine research, I think that the vaccine. Obviously not. I think it was clearly oversold. Right. We were lied to about the. The vaccine's ability to stop transmissibility of the virus. That obviously was. Was untrue. And that was like an overt lie that was told by members of government. And his risks were undersold, particularly for young people, for. For older people. The Steel man case for the vaccine is that if you're over 65 and obese, that it lowered your death rate. Yeah, okay, fine. Fair enough. The. The killing of, like, all MRNA vaccine research because you don't like the COVID vaccine, that might be overkill, and that might be a problem. But one of the things they did, and this just demonstrates how incompetent they are, let's say that you were going to advise them on pr. What you would do is you'd say pick the single most obvious topic where he is in violation of sort of the typical understanding of science. RFK Jr. Right. Like, find the thing where he sinned the worst and then focus on that instead. What that op ed. Does it list, like, 10 things? And the last thing that list is, and he backed a terrible health bill that cuts Medicaid services and could deprive people of the lies. And it's like, okay, so now you're just doing politics, and now just doing politics. And then they bring out the AMA and say, well, the AMA has worked.

[Megyn Kelly]

We don't trust them at all.

[Ben Shapiro]

I literally did a story on my show last week about how the top. The guy who runs the MA, Bobby McOma, he literally did a. A Zoom call with Dr. Ethan Haim, the guy from. From Texas Children's Hospital, who's talking about transing the kids, in which he made all sorts of insane claims about why it was necessary to trans the kids and how 50% of transgender people were going to kill themselves if they didn't have their body parts chopped off. And. And that guy is going to critique RFK Jr. I'm sorry.

[Megyn Kelly]

And the American association of Pediatrics, whatever it is. Yeah, they're just as bad.

[Ben Shapiro]

Or the APA. They're dying to trans our kids 100%. And so you guys emptied out science of its content, and then you ran around wearing its face like a hannibal Lecter mask. And then. And then we're supposed to believe you. Like, that's not good enough. What you should do, again, you want to reestablish trust in science. What you should do is basically what we would call peer review. Right. You should say, here's the thing he's doing. Here's the analysis of the data, and here is why it's wrong. Because that leaves commentators like you and me in the position of having to now analyze the data that you're presenting, as opposed to you as a human.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yep.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right. But. But when you go out there and you say it's all about the pregnant people in my BDSM gear and I feel disrespected. He. Him. Her. Yeah. Then like, I'm sorry. Yeah, not interested anymore.

[Megyn Kelly]

And it's amazing. Just like the over reliance on experts, like they actually want us to be like 20 former CDC direct. We don't care. No one cares. You don't care. The CDC has humiliated itself. It has lost the trust of at least half of the country. We no longer like the moment Rochelle Walensky came out crying during the COVID pandemic. We actually cut it. For those of you who had the lovely benefit of forgetting, here she was crying. She was upset that some people might. Might not get vaccinated and might go outside. Here she is.

[Ben Shapiro]

When I first started at CDC about.

[Megyn Kelly]

Two months ago, I made a promise to you. I would tell you the truth even if it was not the news we wanted to hear. Now is one of those times when.

[Ben Shapiro]

I have to share the truth and.

[Megyn Kelly]

I have to hope and trust you will listen. I'm going to pause here. I'm going to lose the script, and.

[Ben Shapiro]

I'm going to reflect on the recurring.

[Megyn Kelly]

Feeling I have of impending view. We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope. But right now, I'm scared.

[Ben Shapiro]

Doom.

[Megyn Kelly]

Who gives a shit what Rochelle Walensky thinks about what's happening at cdc?

[Ben Shapiro]

It's ridiculous. And when they started with the whole you must vaxxer kids stuff in the vibe again, against all available data, one of the things we knew, like from the very beginning is that the virus was not hitting kids the same way that it was hitting old men, for example. And when they were like, you must vax your kids, like, you've got to be kidding me. And so again, that's how you end up with. With RFK Jr.

[Megyn Kelly]

There's been no accounting for it.

[Ben Shapiro]

No, no.

[Megyn Kelly]

No admissions, no legal liability for the drug manufacturers, no terminations for the people who made up the, quote, science and shoved it down our throats, in the throats of our children, endangered our children.

[Ben Shapiro]

Like an apology? How about like, okay, so for me, when I tried to go along with the data during the early pandemic, and what that meant was I was always against max mask mandates and vax mandates, where my company sued the federal government to try and stop the vax mandates. But, but I also said at the beginning when they were, when they were arguing and the Trump administration and Pfizer were arguing that it was going to stop transmission, that you should get the vax right. That if you, that I said this in, I believe, January of 2021, I believe, and this is before Trump left office. And then the data came out, the transmission was not being cut off by any of this, and that it was actually, the vaccine was actually not nearly as effective as people thought. And I apologized. I said on my show, I got it wrong. I followed the data. The data that they presented was not true. And so, you know, I got it wrong. I'm sorry. Like, why is it that the same people who presented that data to me aren't out there apologizing? They should be apologizing, right? Why was it that Pfizer, they literally said in a, in a conference like, a year later, we never even bothered to do research on the transmissibility post vaccination. But they, you remember, they retailed this idea that you got it to stop your mother from getting it right, which is the reason I got it. My parents were 65 at the time, and we were basically in California with them in kind of our own little bubble.

[Megyn Kelly]

Initially, if that were true, then you, you would want to get vaccinated if you're going to spend time with your elder.

[Ben Shapiro]

And then it was like, okay, if I, if I'd have the info that we have now, in retrospect, no. Why, why would I have. That would been silly. And when it came to my kids, I certainly didn't get my kids vaccinated, no matter how much pressure they're putting on, because the data just wasn't there. But, like, why is it that. That none of the public officials are willing to follow their own data, right? Why won't they just say the thing that's true? Because the overselling is the problem. If they just came out and they said, listen, the vaccine didn't say it didn't do what we originally said it was going to do, right? We were wrong or we fibbed or whatever, it is. And now here's what we know, right? What we know is kids don't need it, young people don't need it. It may do, you know, it may have cardiac problems that, that are cardiomyopathy and all the rest of this. That, that, that it's a problem, but it's good for like if you're 65 and fat.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, right. Then we'll be like, oh, now they want to be like, well, we disclosed that there was a risk of myocarditis at the time. It was in the most minuscule, low publicized, like minor press release you've ever seen. It was a cya. The problem was much more pernicious behind the scenes. Vinay Prasad again, who's working with McCary over at FDA, was one of the only ones out there saying, this is bullshit, this is a real problem. Like this is actually potentially life changing or ending for teenagers. And this is insane that we're not telling people this. There's been no accountability for that. And for me, this is one of the reasons why, you know, we're sort of laying into people who see conspiracies everywhere, but they, they didn't get the vaccine. Like people who are hardcore, like, I don't trust my government and I don't trust this. I remember some of them like texted me, or not texted me, posted online after I said, I got the vaccine, something like, we'll miss you when you're gone. And I was like, oh, wow, that's harsh. But you know, I wound up getting an autoimmune issue from that thing. And I, I wish I had listened to them. You know, sometimes when you're too trusting. And I was very trusting of these. I just, I was like, well, the.

[Ben Shapiro]

Doctors, you're not right?

[Megyn Kelly]

And of my doctor, my doctor who I do love, but he loved the vaccine.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, well, I mean, but I think, I think this is also the danger on all sides of trying to analyze information. We can say, well, yeah, they didn't get the vaccine. And that's true. And they got that one. Right. But also, does that mean that you're gonna listen to them when it comes to, you know, a broken leg? Like, you do have to sort of analyze each one of these issues independently. That's what makes it so hard. It's a very hard informational environment. I think part of what our entire society is struggling with is how do you analyze this fire hose of information that's coming from all available sources, including.

[Megyn Kelly]

AI, which, which may actually be trying to actively mislead you.

[Ben Shapiro]

All right, exactly. And, and how do you then deal with that? And I think that honestly, in some cases, you're just gonna get it wrong. Like, there's, there's no. Nobody has a perfect record, I think is the best thing. And when, and if we, if we all recognize we don't have perfect records, then we can say, okay, well, you know, here's what I got wrong. Here's why I got it wrong. And I, hopefully I won't get it wrong in the future. But one of the things that tends to happen on social media and also in the commentariat is you get one thing right that was very heterodox and 99 things wrong. But we pay attention to the one thing that you got right and that, that happens on all sides. And it's. And, you know, again, consider the source of, of your, of your information doesn't mean that it's always going to be the same source. Right. Nobody is gospel. Right. But it's. I'm not going to pretend like it's not hard. Of course it's hard.

[Megyn Kelly]

I know. Gosh, it's harder than it should be. Most people don't. They don't have the time. Right. They don't. People ask me this all the time, given the business I'm in. And I'm sure you get just like, how, how am I supposed to, like, know what's real? And I always say the same, which is like, it's not just because I'm in this lane, but you have to find the person or the handful of people you trust. That's it. Like, don't trust a big platform. I wouldn't anymore. I wouldn't at all. I would never just say I trust CNN for the news or Fox News either. But I do have certain individuals, you're among them, who I trust not to actively mislead me and whose brain, I've come to say that's reliable. You know, like that.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

That brain analyzes information much in the same way I want to analyze in the way my own aspires to. And so you get that. That's, that's sort of how I curate my own newsfeed, which I would say right or wrong on everything. Like, I think we have a high grade on our overall accuracy.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, I think that's right, and I think that wasn't. In life, we're all having to use heuristic shortcuts. We're all looking for the shortcut. When it comes to, you know, any problem that you have in your life, you're not the person who's like, going to town on engineering to fix your engine, unless you're actually a person who works on engines for a living. You're gonna find somebody who, you know, who knows how to do that better than you. And we're constantly doing that throughout our lives. Some people are better at analyzing information, but what I always say is, you should listen to more than my show. Right? Try to find like three or four shows that you think are trustworthy and analyze information in a responsible way. And then where they intersect is the fact and everything else is the opinion.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, exactly, right. It's funny cause I just said to my husband Doug, just speaking of, like, what can we actually do? What are our actual abilities and knowing what they really are and where they're limited. Our kids are getting that age where here and there they're winning some sports trophies and stuff like that. And I said, you know, maybe we should get like a little. A little trophy case and someplace to put them. Because right now we just kind of put them in a chest. Nobody ever sees them again. And Doug actually said he would build one, which still has me laughing. Ben. And I said, okay, well, that'll be ready just in time for our. Our little boys to win the men's senior tournament down at the club. We do need to know where our limitations are. And yeah, call in not their experts, but people we believe have expertise also.

[Ben Shapiro]

A great way to tell who's telling lies to you and who is not is telling them what. What if. Does that person also say what they don't know?

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah.

[Ben Shapiro]

What are the limitations of your knowledge? Like how far. How far are you willing to go? And that's why you know the people. It actually is sort of a brain thing with human beings that we tend to listen to very authoritative language. The more strongly someone speaks, the more we believe them. But the problem with that is that actually the people you probably ought to believe are the people who are not speaking necessarily.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, I mean, I hate to go back to this, but was there. There aren't in history much many greater, many easier for me to say speakers than Adolf Hitler. He was amazing.

[Ben Shapiro]

Certainty in language is. Is an easy shortcut to authenticity and a belief that you know what you're talking about.

[Megyn Kelly]

His style so strong, right?

[Ben Shapiro]

Exactly. The feeling of authority that comes along with using very charged language, particularly in politics. I mean, again, there are lots of studies on this, and they all demonstrate the same thing. The stronger the language you use, the more trust you get from the audience. But the reality Is that that actually may be sometimes the worst way to analyze information. Particularly when you're talking about, for example, the science where every single study has some element at the very end of every study. It's a bunch of limitations explaining what exactly the data is doing, what the data is not actually doing.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yep. And honestly on, you know, this so called revered science, you know, you wait two weeks, you'll get a different answer. I was like, the stupidest stuff too. I recently, what was last? Six months or so. One of my doctors, my lady doctor said, oh, do you take a multivitamin? I'm like, no, I don't. She's like, oh, you know, they're great for you. You should consider one. Okay. So I bought one for me, I bought one for Doug. Then I just saw a study. Multivitamins. If you take one every day, you're more likely to die early. I'm like, this can't be real. So I googled it and it was like, oh, they saw at least one thing that said that was actually real. Like, give me back your multivitamin document. It's so annoying. You can't get real information when it comes to health these days because it changes underneath your feet like quicksand. In any event, I think that this woman at the CDC will go, rfkg, will get his way. And then when it comes to MRNA vaccines and the research, I'm actually okay with it, what he's doing, because I think the public sector can handle all of this. We don't, we don't need our private sector. Yeah, yeah, sorry, the private sector. We don't need our government doing this stuff.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, I think there's a case for that across research lines.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, we need, we need money and we need it for a lot of things. And this doesn't have to be on the list. But I am like, when it comes to mRNA, like my doctor again, he's. He loved the COVID vaccine, but he was saying someday that MRNA technology might have a vaccine against pancreatic cancer. I mean, thinking of that or like if they told me there was an MRNA vaccine against all forms of dementia. Right. Can you imagine? I don't even know if that's possible. I'm just saying, like, it depends. I can't say. I can't rule out all vaccines.

[Ben Shapiro]

Cutting out research is definitely a dicey proposition. But yes. I mean, I think a lot lot can be done in the private sector.

[Megyn Kelly]

A lot, A lot more than has been.

[Ben Shapiro]

I'll tell you what you can do. You can't you can't say innovate in the private sector, but cost control the drugs on the other end. Yeah, that you can't do. And that, that I think is a bit of a problem.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, that's fair. All right, stand by. More with Ben Shapiro right after this quick break that cookie calling your name. At 3pm the midnight fridge raids the extra slice of pizza you swore you would not eat. If you feel like your cravings control you, it's not just willpower. It could be your gut crying for help. That's why I want to tell you about Just Thrive Probiotic and their digestive bitters. See, modern diets often lack essential bitters compounds that manage Appetite hormones like GLP1, the same hormone in those expensive weight management shots. Just Thrive's Digestive Bitters give you the power of 12 clinically proven herbs that help your body break down food efficiency efficiently while supporting GLP1 production naturally controlled cravings, less bloat, steady energy and comfortable digestion. Try Just Thrive Digestive Bitters and Just Thrive probiotic [e-mail] and use code Megan for 20% off your first order. 20% off your first order. Just thrive health.com code Megan. Your body will thank you when you are buried in credit card and loan debt. It's human nature to put it off and say I'm going to deal with that later. If that is you, here's something you need to know. Done With Debt Discovered a little known strategy that works in your favor to dramatically reduce or even erase your debt altogether? They can aggressively engage everyone you owe money to in September and here's why. They know which lenders and credit card companies are doing year end accounting and which need to cut deals. They even know which ones have year end audits and need to get your debt off of their books. So consider getting started with Done With Debt now in September. Done With Debt accomplishes this without bankruptcy or new loans. In fact, most clients end up with more money in their pocket the first month. Get started now while you still have time. Go to donewithdebt.com speak with one of their specialists for free. Visit donewithdebt.com donewithdebt.com Megan Kelly 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 you can catch the Megyn Kelly show on Triumph, a SiriusXM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably Love great people like Dr. Laura. I'm Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey, and yours truly, Megyn Kelly. You can stream the Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the SiriusXM app. It has ad free music coverage of every major sport, comedy talk, podcast, and more. Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free.

[Ben Shapiro]

Go to SiriusXM.com MKShow to subscribe and get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com MKShow and get three months free. Offer details apply.

[Megyn Kelly]

Welcome back to the Megyn Kelly Show. Ben Shapiro is with me today. He's author of the new book Lions and Scavengers. And among the many things that Ben has done is testify before Congress about this advertising group that was trying to explain, exclude right wingers. And at that appearance, you mixed it up with somebody who I think it's fair to say none of us likes. Eric Swalwell. And here is this moment. We shall live not in infamy, but with respect and admiration. Stop. 32.

[Ben Shapiro]

You did say, I think homosexual activity is a sin. Yes. I'm a religious Jew.

[Megyn Kelly]

That's true.

[Ben Shapiro]

There's a genetic component. You found me out. Orientation. But the view of all religious people I know has always been that sexual behavior is something that is up to you. And you said, I may have a desire to sleep with many women, but I do not. I agree with me. Yes, that's true. Congratulations on your. Yeah, I'm sure it's very hard to restrain yourself. You know how hard I had to restrain myself? Not from making a Fang Fang reference. Right there.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yes.

[Ben Shapiro]

I was like. I was holding myself back. I was like, don't do it.

[Megyn Kelly]

Bye, girl.

[Ben Shapiro]

Don't do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

Did you have that in your back pocket? I agree with me.

[Ben Shapiro]

No, that one was for the moment, actually.

[Megyn Kelly]

That was well done.

[Ben Shapiro]

What are you doing? You're reading a quote of me. What do you think I'm gonna say? Come on.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right. He didn't know you. You know what I mean? He actually had to scare you off of your prior position because it was too controversial.

[Ben Shapiro]

Oh, no.

[Megyn Kelly]

For you to say publicly. Which is how he heard it in the first place.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right, Exactly. Exactly. No, I'm terrified of you reading back a quote of me saying a thing that I said.

[Megyn Kelly]

Right. Are you aware of what I do for a living?

[Ben Shapiro]

Exactly.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah.

[Ben Shapiro]

Also, that quote doesn't make, like the top thousand things that I've said that are. That are controversial. My goodness.

[Megyn Kelly]

You know, I have noticed something interesting in my own life since I've gotten more into this line of work, you know, podcasting, as opposed to, like journalism on Fox News or NBC for that matter. I don't worry about that anymore. But, like, I used to worry that somebody might tape me and then all of my opinions would be out there. And as a journalist, you're not supposed to share that. And it would somehow feel like dishonest because, like, I tried to report the news in a fair way without saying my real opinions. And then if you heard the way I talked off camera like a normal person, you'd realize I had a lot of them. And I was just trying not to blow that by, you know, you're not supposed to as a journalist now. It's so freeing. It's like, oh, yeah, there's nothing somebody could tape of me that the audience wouldn't be like, yeah, that sounds exactly like her.

[Ben Shapiro]

Exactly, exactly. I remember I had this kind of tete a tete with Sam Donaldson back in the days, like 12, 2012, I was at the RNC and Sam Donaldson had moved over from being, you know, reporter on abc, yelling at Ronald Reagan to being a guy who did commentary. And so I remember going up to him like, so you held all the same beliefs when you were a reporter that you do as a commentator. Do you think that impacted your work in any way? And, and he said, what are you trying to say? You're trying to say you're better than me? I was like, well, I mean, kind of. I mean, like, I'm, I'm totally honest about where I'm coming from. And, and so if you detect bias, that's because my bias is, is quite obvious. I'm not trying to, to hide it from you in some sort of radical way. And so I do think, you know, again, I've been an advocate for a very long time of this idea that objective journalism is, is a lie, is true like it is. It's just a lie. There's no such thing. It's going to get shaded one way or the other. Some people, people do a better job of getting it out of their work, for sure. But you're right. I mean, nothing you say, you know, privately, if we got hot mic'd here, nothing would change what we're saying on the air. Nothing.

[Megyn Kelly]

Whereas at Fox, people would've been like, oh, whoa, she's got all these different opinions about these different things that she reports on and doesn't show her cards, which is fine. That is the way we Used to do it. But I agree with you. And it's one of the reasons why I'm not worried about what some people worry about it, which is like mainstream news is collapsing. You know, when I gave my interview to the New York Times, they were very, very worried about these like, errant, weird podcasters who are gonna drive the national conversation now because there's no standards, there's no belts and suspenders, there's no guardrails, I guess, and therefore we're gonna be living in just a non stop disinformation, misinformation age. And I get it, because there are guardrails in the existing corporate media. But they're the wrong guardrails. So I feel like taking those away and letting it become the wild Western, which it is. And then maybe there'll be excesses, maybe we'll implode and then rebuild, I don't know. But whatever it is, I'm in favor of it.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, I totally agree with that. I think there was a monopoly or an oligopoly, and then the oligopoly dissolved. And now what you've got is kind of anarchic. But, you know, better than the anarchy that eventually consolidates, I hope into something that's a more varied but trustworthy informational environment than one guy telling you what you ought to think. And you don't have any alternative because there's like three channels on your tv.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah. And you. And you must think it's it. All right, let's talk about politics for a bit. Wes Moore is interesting to me. I mean, he's, he's definitely on the short list for Democratic contender in 2028. He's the governor of Maryland. He's obviously a Democrat. He's a military vet, he's a black guy, He's a good looking guy. And he's starting to get out there a little bit more on the TV circuit, which tells me something. Even though he's officially said he's not.

[Ben Shapiro]

Into it, but he's into it.

[Megyn Kelly]

He's into it.

[Ben Shapiro]

He's.

[Megyn Kelly]

So he's now making news the way everybody wants to make news these days, from Brandon Johnson of Chicago to Pritzker, the governor out in Illinois, which is to make themselves an adversary of Trump, Gavin Newsom and so on. And so he's basically saying, I don't want your help. I know Baltimore's got, I think, the fifth highest murder rate in the country. I don't want your help. Don't send any troops here. But as he's like saying, that and people are getting shot and killed in his city. He's on George Clooney's yacht over on Lake Como, Italy, which, I'm sorry, I'm sure it's very nice to get the George Clooney invite. Apparently, he wasn't there. Clooney. So it's just they had the mansion and the yacht to themselves.

[Ben Shapiro]

That's even better. But think, of course, for us, the resources of George Clooney without having to deal with George Clooney is better for us.

[Megyn Kelly]

I think probably somebody like Wes Moore would like to spend time with him, but that's a nightmare. I mean, that actually could come back to haunt him as he, as he potentially runs. But like your state was hurting your city, that you were fighting with Trump, as you were rejecting troops that would keep them safe, you paraded off on Clooney's yacht.

[Ben Shapiro]

First of all, this is like the dumbest fight in the world. The Democrats are picking here on crime. It's really, really, really stupid. Because again, it's not as though Trump can indefinitely legally leave gigantic numbers of federal troops, like policing, pickpocketing in Baltimore. He can't actually do that. A judge will strike it down and he will have to stop doing that. That he's been using sort of the bootstrap of immigration enforcement in order to get federal troops into places like LA or in Chicago. And there's kind of an expiration date on that sort of thing. If Democrats were smart, they'd basically just wait him out. They would say, okay, you know, we don't, we don't like what he's doing. But, you know, if it lowers the crime rate, we're open to anything. Right? Anything would be good. And then just this is the wrong issue for them. It's the wrong issue. And the fact that they all seem to consolidate around this issue demonstrates President Trump has an enormous number of gifts. This is, I think his greatest gift is that his enemies constantly be clown themselves. It's just a field of rakes and they're constantly jumping on them. And no matter what he does, they have to declare themselves in opposition. If he came out in favor of abolishing cancer tomorrow, they would come out in favor of stage four.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, it's kind of what they did with the little boy at the State of the union.

[Ben Shapiro]

100%, yeah, we're against him. Or come on, Garcia. Or like any other thing. Or, or men and women's sports, like, they can't help themselves. They have to pick the 20% side of every 80, 20 issue, so long as he picks the 80% side of that issue. And so I think Westmore is formidable, actually in a Democratic primary. South Carolina, it's still unclear what the first Democratic primary is going to be. Right. Because remember that Biden rigged the calendar to avoid Iowa, New Hampshire. So that's like a big internal DNC fight right now. If it ends up being South Carolina again, Westmore is the odds on favorite because 58% of the Democratic electorate in a primary, in a presidential year is black. And so he's going to hope that they vote as a block and that will stop. Like an AOC candidacy or a super white person, Gavin Newsom candidacy.

[Megyn Kelly]

Super white.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, he's the whitest person who's ever whited.

[Megyn Kelly]

Not white supremacist, but super white.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes. He's, he's like unbelievably white. Like if, like, like blends into the, into just the paint white.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, have we seen him dance? Because that will be the true test.

[Ben Shapiro]

Oh, man. I feel like he and Justin Trudeau are kind of like two halves of the same hole.

[Megyn Kelly]

No, I, I think that's an insult to Gavin Newsom. I will defend the American in that equation there. I mean, there's no one more stomach turning as a possible, like, life partner than Justin Trudeau to me.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, I don't know. Have you seen Gavin Newsom's history? It's not like a great history.

[Megyn Kelly]

Like, if you said, who are you going to wind up with, like one of the Tate brothers or Trudeau?

[Ben Shapiro]

Wow. Brutal.

[Megyn Kelly]

I know. I just, I find Justin Trudeau makes my skin crawl in his, like, if effete, effeminate, mealy mouth, zero back bone.

[Ben Shapiro]

His father, Fidel Castro would be so ashamed of him.

[Megyn Kelly]

He's so soft. He's soft in every way. Yeah, right.

[Ben Shapiro]

But yeah, Gavin Newsom, he's got some problems in the primaries. I don't think the Gavin Newsom has the kind of juice that Gavin Newsom seems to think he does. Westmore has Clooney support and he'll be able to raise a lot of money once more. The fact that he is a black man is going to help him a lot in the Democratic primaries because again, you do have that effect in the Democratic primaries right now.

[Megyn Kelly]

Now.

[Ben Shapiro]

And he is not quite as openly psychotic as some of the far leftists in his party. So.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah, he does have another problem, though. There is a stolen valor issue.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah. But he, he actually served in the military, so the Stone valor is about him. What he said, he, he.

[Megyn Kelly]

That he'd been awarded the bronze hat that he'd been awarded the Bronze Star when he had not.

[Ben Shapiro]

And then later he got it correct.

[Megyn Kelly]

So that's got it in 2024. Clearly somebody was like, oh, he'd stole valor, so let's give it to him so he can say he got it.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

Now his story is my commanding officer told me that he was going to submit me for it. And so I thought it was okay to fill out this application saying that I got it. But he was introduced just like Tim Waltz by many, many news anchors over the years saying he got it when he did not have it. He was asked about it actually by Will Kane on Fox and also by Martha Raditz on ABC. Here's Martha Sot 15 you claiming you.

[Ben Shapiro]

Had a Bronze Star in 2006 when you were applying for a job.

[Megyn Kelly]

Why did you do that?

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, I think it's. I'm deeply proud of my service to this country.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh boy.

[Ben Shapiro]

And I know my soldiers that I.

[Megyn Kelly]

Serve with are deeply proud and, and.

[Ben Shapiro]

The veteran community is as well.

[Megyn Kelly]

When your commanding officers and your superior officers tell you, listen, we put you in and we've gone through everything. So as you're going through your application, include it.

[Ben Shapiro]

I, I included it and I didn't think about it. They entered juice juke when I full.

[Megyn Kelly]

Saying you had earned a bronze star medal.

[Ben Shapiro]

That's 2008, 2010. You were on the Colbert show when he said you had a bronze star.

[Megyn Kelly]

You did not correct him. You had to know you did not have one then. Well, it was. I did not go back and you.

[Ben Shapiro]

Know, go back and tell the Pentagon, hey, I was told to put this on my application and didn't. And honestly at that point, I'm not.

[Megyn Kelly]

Talking about the Pentagon Pentagon, I'm talking about you knew in those interviews you.

[Ben Shapiro]

Did not have one.

[Megyn Kelly]

No, because even, even at the time of those interviews, it wasn't something that I even thought about when I came home.

[Ben Shapiro]

It wasn't something I even thought about. By the way, full points to her doing a journalism.

[Megyn Kelly]

I would say that but she's clearly trying to get it out of the way before he.

[Ben Shapiro]

Actually that's true. But, but you know, credit where credit is due. She's asking.

[Megyn Kelly]

Those are good questions and good follow ups. I don't believe one word of what he just said. No, you know, whether you've received the Bronze star or not, I haven't.

[Ben Shapiro]

So I mean, yeah, I would assume, I would assume I haven't. You would know this.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's a Big deal. I think when you get it.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes.

[Megyn Kelly]

And the actual medal is a thing that they give you. Listen, he didn't have it. If it's him, he knew it.

[Ben Shapiro]

If it's him versus jd, JD will hammer him over the head with it.

[Megyn Kelly]

I look forward to that.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes.

[Megyn Kelly]

I'm sick of these Democrats with their stolen valor and like it truly is deeply immoral to say that you have the bronze Star when you don't. He wasn't confused. He didn't think he had it when he didn't have it.

[Ben Shapiro]

I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to go back and find some of his commanding officers to retell the story though, Right? Like sign a letter saying I applied for. I mean the question whether it will.

[Megyn Kelly]

Play, where is it? Why. Why did you think they just forgot to mail it?

[Ben Shapiro]

I'm just, I'm just saying, like as a political candidate, how many points of damage is that worth now? I mean, here's the reality. A lot. I mean, maybe it.

[Megyn Kelly]

I think it changed Tim Waltz's trajectory with the electorate when all the stolen valor stuff came out about him.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean, I think Tim Walls is like weird.

[Megyn Kelly]

I agree. He's. And his transing of the children he wants to be. He's. He's worse than Pritzkers.

[Ben Shapiro]

I mean the strange clapping and hopping around and the fact that.

[Megyn Kelly]

Come on down.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, exactly. That. That he looks. Look like one of the things that was like an inflatable outside of used.

[Megyn Kelly]

Car lot as, you know, like normal Americans, you know, Democrats too, they care about the military and they care about stolen valor. I don't think this is going to make or break him, but I do think it's going to hurt.

[Ben Shapiro]

I think that's probably true. I think it's probably true. But again, I think that when we get to 2028, the biggest thing is going to be the economy. If the economy is good in 2028, then JDC shoe and basically if he's the nominee and if the economy is bad, then things get real dicey real fast. And I'm old enough to remember when Republicans thought we would never lose an election again after two. And then by 2006, Democrats were running the Congress and by 2008 Barack Obama was president. And I'm also old enough to remember when Democrats thought they would never lose another election after 2012. And then lo and behold, four years later, Donald Trump was President of the United States. So things shift real fast in this country.

[Megyn Kelly]

Well, that's why the executive orders are not ideal.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes, yes.

[Megyn Kelly]

I mean, but he can't do anything more. I mean, he can't get. It's almost. Now, I used to watch you need 60 votes. You need 60 votes in the Senate. 51 is irrelevant. 53 is irrelevant.

[Ben Shapiro]

So I made a proposal, actually. My friend Jeremy Boring originally aired this, and I think it's a smart idea. He suggested that Senate Majority Leader Thune should go to the Democrats and say, listen, we need a constitutional amendment today to enshrine the filibuster in the Constitution, and you have 12 months. And if in 12 months, this is not enshrined in the Constitution, we're nuking it, because that puts a time limit on it. And you don't want to. And you don't. And you don't want to wait for Democrats to be the first to activate the full filibuster nuke option. Just get rid of the filibuster next time they're in power.

[Megyn Kelly]

So we don't need.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right, exactly. So either it's good for the goose and good for the gander, or it shouldn't be good for. For either. I think it's a pretty good idea.

[Megyn Kelly]

I like that a lot right now. Like, nothing can get done.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes.

[Megyn Kelly]

But I'm thankful for nothing getting done when it's the other side that's in power.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right, exactly.

[Megyn Kelly]

So I don't know. The whole thing's been frustrated, frustrating, because I love the Trump executive orders. I can't think of one I didn't really love. Love. I'm sure there is one because there's been so many, but I know they're all going away. You know, it's like, yeah, Christmas every day, but then, you know, something comes up and it blows up your entire Christmas. All the presents are gone. Someone took them. You know, it's like that scene in Mommy Dearest where she then makes little Christina give all the presents back.

[Ben Shapiro]

Every election cycle, it's it. We're gonna do this, like, hundreds of executive orders to rebut the original executive orders. Yeah, it definitely is a problem. That's why I think what he's doing with statistics, staffing may be long term, more important.

[Megyn Kelly]

Like the reductions.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah. The staff reductions, Eliminating apartments, if you can get away with it.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yep.

[Ben Shapiro]

All that sort of stuff. It takes a while to rebuild that. So I think going through with the chainsaw that we mentioned before is definitely a good thing.

[Megyn Kelly]

I do think some of the things he's done on, like the executive order on Boys and Girls Sports, that's going to stick. Yeah. Because it has Such majority support. Who wants to be the president that.

[Ben Shapiro]

Switches that around immigration, by the way? Yeah, I don't think Democrats are going to reopen that one.

[Megyn Kelly]

I had Ron Emanuel on the show. I said, what would you change about Trump's border policies? He said, nothing.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yep. That's smart.

[Megyn Kelly]

Nothing.

[Ben Shapiro]

That's smart.

[Megyn Kelly]

It's unlike the deportation policies, but the border. Nothing.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, I mean, if Democrats are smart, that's what they will do. They will pocket the fact that Trump basically won the issue for them and then move on with it with their lives. It's sort of like how everyone thought that Roe vs. Wade, when it was overturned, it was going to be like the only thing that mattered in American politics. And then it turns out that within two years, everybody's of kind of was, was moving on.

[Megyn Kelly]

And while it was still a hot issue, it was helping the Democrats. They're like, actually, Exactly. Is this so bad? And abortions went up, which is not so great.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, but, but on immigration, if, if the Republicans solved it, Democrats don't have to talk about it anymore. So that's actually quite nice for them.

[Megyn Kelly]

What about crime? Because that's crime, both on a national level and that committed by Biden administration officials will be one of the big, big storylines, I think, for the next two years.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, that giant. I still think the worst scandal of our lifetime. You know, there are many in the last five years. I still think the worst scandal of our life. We didn't have a president for full on two years and we were being lied to about it every single day.

[Megyn Kelly]

That is Trump's joke about the picture he's going to put up of Biden in his new, like, presidential hall of fame. He says he's going to put a picture up of the auto pen. Told the Daily Caller that. So good.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, it's the fact that we didn't have a president for a solid two years. Like, anybody who is even remotely attached to that administration has to be nuked out of the process. No, I mean, that gets rid of like, like Pete Buttigieg, that, that unbelievable, great Secretary of Transportation.

[Megyn Kelly]

Oh, my Lord.

[Ben Shapiro]

So. So he grew a beard. So that's, that's, yeah, very. And so that's exciting. But yeah, I mean, anybody who's attached.

[Megyn Kelly]

Scavenger.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes. Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

The book is called Lions and Scavengers by Ben Shapiro. Yeah. Total scavenger.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah. That dude has spent an awful lot of time talking about how much America sucks after being made Secretary of Transportation based on not being able to fill potholes in South Bend.

[Megyn Kelly]

I was just thinking, are there any Democrats we would call alliance?

[Ben Shapiro]

Rahm Emanuel in his new iteration? Yeah, I think you can make that case. There's. There's some of the. There. There are a few kind of like abundance based Democrats who are sort of interesting. Seth Moulton from Massachusetts, kind of interesting guy. I'm against him, so. Okay, explain.

[Megyn Kelly]

Because he said he was like, oh, I don't. It doesn't make sense to have the boys.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

And then of course, as soon as he got his hand slapped, he was like, nevermind.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Megyn Kelly]

I'm not transient.

[Ben Shapiro]

The fact that he dipped it, you know, again, partial credit. He dipped his toe into a water that Democrats. Democrats won't. I wish you'd go all the way.

[Megyn Kelly]

I'm a meaner. Greater than you are.

[Ben Shapiro]

Exactly, exactly. Harsh standards here. Yeah, it's. It's hard to identify. The Democratic Party has moved so far to the left that it's very difficult to identify a non grievance based Democrat at this point.

[Megyn Kelly]

I know it's not the way it was when we grew up. We used to have normies on both sides.

[Ben Shapiro]

I can make a solid case. The 1990s might have been the best time in American history. Seriously.

[Megyn Kelly]

Like, yeah, I certainly bet in the 70s, but I'll take the 80s. I have to say, the hair was great. The style, the fashion was very hot. The music. Come on, there's no better music than 1980s. The 80s channel. It's awesome.

[Ben Shapiro]

There is a theory that whatever. Whatever was the decade where you were like 13.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yeah.

[Ben Shapiro]

Is what you think is the best.

[Megyn Kelly]

Yes. And that's why I'm right.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, exactly.

[Megyn Kelly]

All right, don't forget, the book is called Lions and Scavengers by Ben Shapiro. Go get it right now. Great to see my friend.

[Ben Shapiro]

Thanks.

[Megyn Kelly]

Okay. All right, we'll see you guys tomorrow. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No bs, no agenda and no fear.