← The Megyn Kelly Show
The Megyn Kelly Show
Mysterious "Drones" Spread, Media Malpractice, and How Medical Journals Became Captured, with Hugh Hewitt and Dr. Aseem Malhotra | Ep. 964
Megyn Kelly is joined by Hugh Hewitt, host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show," to discuss the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) or “drones” now spotted in Maryland and NYC and not just New Jersey, what they could actually be or what harm they could pose, the alarming lack of information from the federal government or the military, the "journalists" at ProPublica trying to smear Pete Hegseth over whether he was accepted to West Point, their ridiculous false attacks exposed, the way fellow journalists jump in to defend each other rather than focus on the truth, CNN’s viral report by Clarissa Ward from the Syria prison, if the new terror group in charge had staged the encounter and was using the network to spread propaganda, the need for journalistic skepticism, and more. Then Dr. Aseem Malhotra, creator of the "First Do No Pharm" documentary, joins to discuss the link between statins, cholesterol, and heart disease, the under-publicized issue of insulin resistance and what causes it, what d...
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- [00:00]
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Megyn Kelly
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 and Happy Friday. With just over five weeks to go before President elect Donald Trump is sworn in, the media is working through their five stages of grief. There's anger from Don Lemon, denial from media stationed outside of Mar a Lago about the fact that they're no longer relevant, and some bargaining and acceptance from the owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos. We'll get to some of that in a minute, but we're going to kick it off with some breaking news on these drones with the question mark that we reported on yesterday in depth. If you missed that report, it's on our YouTube channel now. Joining me now, longtime radio host Hugh Hewitt, host of the Hugh Hewitt show Friend and one of our must listen to commentators in America. His show is going to be moving to afternoon drive time on the east coast in January. Hugh, great to see you. Are you ready to challenge yourself and dive deeper into the ideas that shape America? Prager U is a conservative nonprofit that promotes American values through educational videos that reach millions of young people every single day. PragerU's five minute videos, they deliver the best ideas from the best presenters in five focused minutes. Five minute video hosts include Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin, Vivek Ramaswamy, VDH and more. Right now, Prageru is offering you a chance to expand your knowledge on a range of topics through their exclusive 5 minute video challenges. Learn everything you ever wanted to know about poly economics, the Constitution, American wars and the Founding Fathers. When you sign up for a Prager U challenge, which is 100% free, you receive a different top rated 5 minute video every day. You will receive a special edition ebook for each challenge exclusively from Prager U. Join the millions of others who are already benefiting from these powerful bite sized lessons. Go to prageru.com challenges and sign up for free today.
- [02:37]
Hugh Hewitt
Thank you Megan and thanks for plugging the move today. Afternoon, I tell people morning drive radio, like, got to use dog years. I've done it for eight years. That's like 56 years. I love the afternoons. I cannot wait to live in the afternoon.
- [02:52]
Megyn Kelly
Afternoon, I highly recommend. I don't know if I recommend being in New Jersey between dusk and 11pm and by the way, now it's not just New Jersey. Reports today that these things we'll call them drones because that we don't know, but for lack of a better word, have now been seen in New York and over LaGuardia or near LaGuardia and down in Maryland. Listen to this from the Governor of Maryland, who just dropped this tweet, Governor Larry Hogan. Last night, beginning around 9:45pm I personally, personally witnessed and videoed what appeared to be dozens of large drones in the sky above my residence In Davidsonville, Maryland, 25 miles from our nation's capital. I observed the activity for approximately 45 minutes. Like many who have observed these drones, I do not know if this increasing activity over our skies is a threat to public safety or national security. But the public's growing increasingly concerned and frustrated with a complete lack of transparency and the dismissive attitude of the Feds. The government has the ability to track these from their point of origin, but has mounted a negligent response. People are rightfully clamoring for answers, but aren't getting any. We are being told that neither the White House, the military, the FBI, or Homeland Security have any idea what they are, where they're coming from, or who has launched or is controlling them, and that they pose no threat. That response is entirely unacceptable. I joined with a growing bipartisan chorus of leaders demanding that the feds immediately take this, address this issue. The American people deserve answers and action now. This is crazy. We were told yesterday, yesterday by John Kirby at the White House, nothing to see here. We can't even confirm that there really have been drones. And this is leading now to senior government officials to step out and say, sorry, sir, we are seeing them.
- [04:38]
Hugh Hewitt
This morning, I had Cheyenne Sankar on the program. He is the Chief Technology officer for the Pan for Palantir, and he's being tipped for the Deputy Secretary of Defense under Pete Hex. He's Mr. Artificial Intelligence. And I said what? I just happened to say, what do you think of these drones? And Cheyenne said, they're terrifying. And I thought to myself, holy smoke, this guy is one of the smartest tech people in the country. And he says it's terrifying. And he explained, we don't have control of the domain and if you don't have control of the domain, you have essentially ceded your national security and your personal security to whoever's in your space. And we have seen drones used rather effectively by the idf, by Ukraine, by Russia, not so effectively by Iran. But people have got to wonder what in the world is going on here? It can't be hobbyists, right? Can we eliminate hobbyists? There are too many of them and it's too elegant a configuration. I don't believe in space aliens. I do believe in adversaries who exploit what Sancar called the orcs, the seams between our various agencies like DHS and the Pentagon. And they have to get much more serious and in a hurry. Megan?
- [05:59]
Megyn Kelly
Yes. I don't get this. There's nothing to see their response by the Feds. It makes me think it is the Feds. But if it is the Feds, why wouldn't they pause now that it's become such a controversy? They're still doing it. So I don't know what's going on. But it's very strange how certain the Feds seem to be saying they are, that it's nothing, whereas honesty sounds more like what Larry Hogan said. You know what these New Jersey lawmakers are saying, like, we don't know what this is and we need to know. Here's the headline from NBC yesterday. Now key House and Senate lawmakers are demanding that top federal law enforcement officials immediately brief them on these mysterious drone sightings. And here is Kirby, right at the White House yesterday. He said that Homeland Security, the FBI, and state and local law enforcement have not been able to corroborate any of the reported visual sightings of the drones. He said upon reviewing images of the sightings, law enforcement officials have concluded, quote, these are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully and said there have been no confirmed drone sightings in restricted airspace. White House National Security Council telling NBC News, we have no evidence at this time that these reported sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus. But now you've got New Jersey Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim, New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand sending a letter to the Homeland Security secretary who's also a Democrat, as you know, and the FBI director and the FAA head all saying to all these guys, we demand a briefing. And some say we could get it as late as or as early as this afternoon. Hugh, this is bizarre. I don't remember seeing anything like this.
- [07:54]
Hugh Hewitt
No, we have Area 51 to do our experimental stuff. We don't do it in New Jersey. That's not. I don't think it's our team. We don't do it. But I will say, why would anyone at the White House expect us to believe them when they told us for two years that President Biden was spry and doing jumping jacks and backflips in the Oval Office with cringing Pierre made. Why would we believe anything they say? I don't. And therefore, when the Intel Committee gets a briefing and Tom Cotton comes out, or Mike Walts comes out of the House and the Senate and talks with and says X, Y and Z, I'll believe them. And I believe Team Trump when they get there. I'm not believing these dudes.
- [08:36]
Megyn Kelly
Same. I feel exactly the same. And on this one, we actually do need, we need some answers. I mean, I don't know what it's. What it is. There's. Here is what I hope it isn't watching. It's a massive spaceship for the listening audience from Independence Day.
- [09:02]
Hugh Hewitt
It's a big spaceship too.
- [09:07]
Megyn Kelly
That'S. We're rooting against that. I think, I think that's worse than Iran or the Russians. Am I wrong?
- [09:14]
Hugh Hewitt
Or China, remember Independence Day? They were everywhere at once. So that. But again, they picked New Jersey. So this doesn't make any sense to me. Unless they're just.
- [09:25]
Megyn Kelly
No, I don't get it. Let's just spend one second speculating on what it could be, Hugh. Because when I first heard about it, I thought, okay, it's probably like some smart MIT college guys who are super effective with drone technology and are having some fun. Maybe they're from New Jersey. And so they targeted New Jersey just to see what might happen. But this has been going on since November 18th, right? So we're like going on a month now, and it's spreading. And even though the Feds are saying to all of us, nothing's there, there's nothing confirmed. I mean, I know some of the people in New Jersey who say they've seen them. One of a friend sent me a video who I've known for two decades of what she and her husband saw not long ago. But anyway, like, the Feds would know. The Feds would have investigated this no matter what they're telling us. So why would they be lying to us? What, what could the explanation be that caused the government to lie?
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Hugh Hewitt
The easiest explanation is it's the Chicoms. They let the balloon float across the country, which I believe was the third or the fourth balloon, but the first one that the Public saw and this administration does not want to have a confrontation with China as it goes out the door. The only people that I think have the technology capability to do this are the ChiComs. Unless it's the MIT kids. The MIT kids used to blow up the 50 yard line between Harvard and Yale games. They would do funny things like that. So they have lots of tricks. But MIT is nowhere near New Jersey. I don't think it's the Rutgers people, much as we all love Rutgers. They're in the Big Ten. I don't think the Rutgers people. So I immediately think Chinese Communist Party.
- [11:06]
Megyn Kelly
Could be Princeton people. That's in New Jersey.
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Hugh Hewitt
No, they don't really actually do science in Princeton. They do eating qualities, I guess.
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Megyn Kelly
Wait, wasn't Einstein there? He was there. I think that's a good theory. We're going to find out. I don't think this mystery will remain a mystery. And I don't think John Kirby is going to get away for another day or two of saying don't believe your lion eyes. There were no drones. That's a bunch of bs.
- [11:34]
Hugh Hewitt
Yeah. And they're going to be airplane pilots, they're going to be fighter pilots. They're going to be people who know which they speak. Could go up there and observe now and the media is paying attention. Once the media begins to pay attention, answers begin to manifest themselves. Same thing happened with the balloon. If people remember the balloon sequence, there's no balloon. It can't hurt us. It doesn't belong to the chicoms. We'll shoot it down later. Now we can't find it. A series of denials that has to do with the inability of the administration to protect the country. Same sequence underway.
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Megyn Kelly
Okay, so speaking of Don't Believe youe Lion Eyes, Pete Hexeth did get into West Point. That's the lead of our next story. And this is relevant even though he went to Princeton. Speaking of Princeton, he did get into West Point and decided in the end, after touring both and considering what his life would look like, to go to Princeton. But ProPublica, this far left group, activist group that's tried to take down Justice Alito, Justice Thomas with smears, is now trying to take down Pete Hegseth by getting ready to report that he was lying, that he did not get into West Point. So they called West Point to say, did Pete Hegseth get into West Point? And West Point allegedly told them not once but twice, no, he didn't get in here. He didn't apply here. We have no record of Pete Hegseth ever applying to West Point. So then they go to Pete Hegseth's lawyer, Tim Par, and they say we're going to print that he lied. You have one hour to respond, which is ridiculous as this as if this is like national security and they had to rush to print with it. Hugh right. They had 60 minutes and he had to get back to baloney. So instead what happened was Pete Heth went on Twitter on X and posted his acceptance letter. He didn't deal with ProPublica. He dealt with us and said take a look at this, here's my acceptance letter from west point. And now ProPublica is trying to defend itself by saying, hello, this is how journalism works. When you posted that, we stood down from the story. So calm down Pete Hegseth. And to this series of events you say what?
- [13:59]
Hugh Hewitt
I say no one I wish I had a recording of the editorial meeting when they decided to do the story because they're stupid. If you get into Princeton, you will have certainly gotten into West Point, especially if you're a fit young man like Pete Exit. So it's presumably true. But you know what else corroborates that is that after you've done with Princeton he goes into the military and goes into combat and is deployed three times, twice to a combat area. So there's no reason to doubt that he was interested in the military and there's no reason to doubt that he was qualified to get into West Point. So what kind of editorial predicate did they have other than he's the most wounded nominee, let's try and bring him down. He's the weakest member of the herd right now. He's no longer they've made him stronger. World left wing hit group the best thing to come out of this actually two part one the mask is off Republica they they've done some good work in the past that I've actually used on my show, usually having to do with international stories, but they've done horrible stuff in the last six months on the Supreme Court. And then no sooner do they catch flack that Josh Gerstein over at Politico, another lefty comes to their aid. So they're circling the wagons around an exposed left wing hit mob and I I just love that it's happening. The comment I posted on X had 300,000 views. People are getting to know ProPublica out of this and I think it may have secured Pete Hex that confirmation. Although on yesterday's program you're talking to Josh Holmes and the and the Gang from Ruthless, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from Ruthless. They were not, they were not certain about Pete getting through because hearings are hearings. And I remember the Clarence Thomas hearings, the Brent Kavanaugh hearings. They come up with anyone, people we haven't heard of yet, right? Just random XYZ people. And you're not going to have the chance to do what you did with your colleague from the Daily Mail or your sit down with Pete Heth. It's going to happen in 72 hours. And you just got to go in Ali north style. I don't think he wear the uniform anymore. I don't think he's in the reserves. But he's just got to go in and hammer every allegation.
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Megyn Kelly
Right. Be merciless on it. And then let's see those Republicans look at Trump and all of his supporters and say, we reject him, that we're going to stop him based on whatever comes out at that hearing. I mean, we'll see whether it's new evidence when they actually produce somebody on the record to accuse Pete of the things that have been alleged only anonymously thus far. I look forward to seeing some former Fox News News employee get up there and say, oh, he was drunk. Okay, sure. You know what? I'll testify at the hearings. I spent 10 years working with Pete. He was never drunk. And I saw him in the prime time, when you would be. Anyway, so that's Pete. I will say I think their hesitancy is based on Joni Ernst, because I think we all think we're going to lose Murkowski, Collins, and maybe McConnell. Maybe not. I don't know. Maybe. But he doesn't like Trump at all and vice versa. So she's the one. And I know she's saying things that are closer to a maybe, but you know as well as I do, Stu. Why do I keep calling you Stu? Hugh is a very talented lawyer now who, who went to Harvard and University of Michigan at law school and worked in the Reagan administration. She's being careful with her words. She says, while I support Pete through this process, what I, what I think he deserves is a hearing that is, that's just a buying time phrase. That's not a promise of support. Now, I, what I am hearing, Hugh, is that she doesn't like him.
- [17:46]
Hugh Hewitt
Well, I, you know, you're never in the room. I actually don't think we're going to lose Senator Collins. I think Senator Collins is very serious on defense. The chairwoman of incoming Appropriations. I think if he tells her, I will pay attention. To your line items, and we will fully fund it. Not necessarily lose Murkowski either. They need those Air Force bases up there. They just moved a bunch of C130 up to Alaska. I don't know about Leader McConnell. I doubt that, too, because again, DoD so big, if you shoot to kill the Sec Dep, you better win. And everyone's got a lot to lose. And by the way, you don't know who's coming after that. And so Pete is well known, and I find it interesting that both you and another former Fox colleague, Geraldo Rivera, who have no obligation to come to the defense of Pete Hex, have both stepped up to do so. That's very revealing. I don't know Pete except by interviews like this, and I've read his books and I've talked to him a few times in the hallway or on a set, but I don't know him. You and Haraldo know him. You have no obligation to defend him. You both defended him. That tells me a lot.
- [18:53]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, I mean, I said to the audience, don't marry Pete, but I would take him as my SEC depth. So it's basically my words. I have a question for you.
- [19:06]
Hugh Hewitt
I think spouses know each other pretty well, but other than spouses, people who work in a network and who do shows together know each other very well. You know, whether you're on time, whether you're late, whether you dress well, whether you don't dress well. You know everything about boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, children.
- [19:28]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
It's.
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Hugh Hewitt
You just spend a lot of time with your colleagues. Which is why when you and Geraldo say, major, Pete is great, I listen.
- [19:37]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. I mean, I spent a lot of time with Pete Hegseth, and all I ever saw was a professional, smart, earnest, great guy who cared deeply about the military. It's all he wanted to talk about, ever. I mean, even when you're making casual conversation. That's what he wanted to talk about, the military and what he could do to address their concerns and how their needs weren't being met, truly, even in casual conversation. And I've said this to my audience before. We did have conversations many times at Fox News about whose drinking was getting out of control or who was potentially taking drugs. And some we knew were. And those people were definitely on the radar. We all knew he was never one of the names. Pete was on the radar for loving the military and veterans and, yes, for being a little Randy, I guess we can say when it came to the women, whatever, that's between him and his wife, Tom Chatting.
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Hugh Hewitt
Did you use the word Tom?
- [20:31]
Megyn Kelly
Rich Lowry. Isn't he cute?
- [20:33]
Hugh Hewitt
Yeah, somebody is. Tom Catting. I like that. Let me ask you about the one, the people who could really rat out Pete. Makeup artist. I don't know how Fox does it. That pbs when I did, they loved him.
- [20:47]
Megyn Kelly
My former makeup artist at Fox who, who was there all the time, has been texting me about him non stop, like she's in his camp. She knows you're exactly right. They know where all the bodies are.
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Hugh Hewitt
Buried and their opinions count a lot. They know people.
- [21:04]
Megyn Kelly
And one posted on Instagram in support of him as well. So I mean, he's good there. I wanted to pick up on what you said about the political reporter Josh Gerstein. So he gives you a hard time. You responded to the ProPublica attempted attack on Pete by saying this story is and remains that a bureaucrat at West Point misled you and you did not print that. That's not journalism. Then Politico inserts itself into your spat with ProPublica. Josh Gerstein, the reporter, saying, hugh, are you really saying we should do a story every time what a government spokesperson tells us turns out not to be right? I mean, it would take up perhaps half of my time. And then you responded, but do you want to walk us through why a response to that? They're saying, look, they checked it out. It didn't check out. They moved on.
- [21:53]
Hugh Hewitt
Josh's argument is a straw man and it stands out. In a city full of battalions of straw men, Josh's argument stands out as a straw man because it is not responsive to. Number one, why did they begin the inquiry when he was a Princeton guy and he did go in the military? Number two, why didn't they tell us that West Point had misled them, which is itself rather significant since he's going to be the Secretary of Defense. And if the answer is because they have bad bookkeeping, then you just put it in. It's a one paragraph thing. We got a tip. Or we were concerned that he didn't get into West Point. We investigated. It turns out that West Point was wrong. So we ought to now worry about West Point record keeping. Tom Cotton has sent a letter over to West Point. He wants answers. My guess is it's innocent error by an incompetent bureaucrat. But unless until we know that it's a story, what we know is that ProPublica did not do it. Now, part two. Josh Gerstein, how is he connected to ProPublica? Josh Gerstein broke the Dobbs League, remember? And he's been a critic of Thomas and Alito and their ethics the whole time. So he and ProPublica are washing each other's hands. They share a point of view about the court. So they're circling the wagons. Left wing journals. Are circling the wagon around. Left wing journals. And he got hammered in the comments because everyone said, yeah, that's actually not journalism. You should say that you were misled by West Point and that that was unfortunate and that you were hot washing the story. And that's what I hate, that when you have an hour to respond, that's hot washing the story and good files.
- [23:36]
Megyn Kelly
You don't do that. You don't do that where you only have an hour to respond unless there's a reason for it. We have got to get this story. It's breaking, it's big and national security, whatever. There are reasons why you might have to, if it came to you late, you didn't have time to go to the source, whatever. But this is not one of them. Some evergreen piece on whether Pete did or did not get into West Point. They were just trying to sandbag the guy. You know, one of the possibilities, and you mentioned it on why they wouldn't even do just a one paragraph or on it is somebody at West Point was the initial source. Somebody. I mean, you think of West Point as being, you know, pro, they're military, whatever. That doesn't mean they're pro Pete or pro Trump. And if somebody at West Point, you know, if the call was incoming to ProPublica and you know, in an attempted smear that they were about to print and didn't because Pete had the records that West Point claimed it didn't have, that'd be a reason why you wouldn't say it.
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Hugh Hewitt
You know, it's interesting, I hadn't considered that their tip had come from within the academy. As you, as you probably know, the academy is under an intense amount of focus for having become woke and not one of them, but all three of them are under an intense amount of focus about what are you teaching our future warriors? Are they doing more social justice warrioring than they are actually lethality warriors? And I have no opinion on that because I'm a civilian, but I know we should look into it. And the people who are veterans in the Congress, Cotton, Dan Sullivan, Michael Waltz, they are drilled down on this and they're not going to let it go. The best result for west point is that ProPublica called us up. They called the file clerk, the file clerk got it wrong. She looked or he looked in the wrong place. And we came up with the right answer and we immediately called them back. That's the only best case scenario for West Point if they initiated the story. If someone decided, you know, I don't like Pete Heg said, and I'm going to, I'm going to blow the whistle on a claim that I heard him make once on West Point because I don't see it in my data file. That's a bigger story. Either way, ProPublica did not do its readers justice. And Josh Gerstein and the gang that are defending them are just tipping their hands at the fact that they're activists, they're actually journalists, but they're advocate journalists, activist journalists. And that's what I am, but I'm transparent about it.
- [25:55]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, right. Exactly right. All right, so now there are, we took covered activists journalists, but we did not yet cover the sad, sad journalists down near, but not in Mar a Lago. There's a piece today, yesterday in New York magazine, the headline is the press is down and shut out in Palm Beach. Steve Chung is not sympathetic. Steve Chung, of course, Trump's long term spokesperson who's now his director of comms incoming at the White House. Okay, so they start by saying the quoting, good morning from West Palm Beach. I'm your transition pooler today. This is the New York Times is Michael Scherer who wrote this on December 9th to a group of fellow reporters who have teamed up to take turns covering the post election news out of Mar a Lago. But he doesn't have much to report. The reason is he writes, I've reached out to the transition about today's schedule and have not heard back. Scheer was part of an unofficial press pool set up by the White House Correspondents association to cover, you know, Trump's team down there. But the press is being kept at a safe distance. They point out this is very unlike 2016, when Trump let the press stand at the base of Trump Tower and interview all these candidates who are coming in to kiss the ring on their way in and way out. But this time, no, he's not really interested in it. And Steve Chung has said, hey, I didn't authorize your weird little transition coverage. You didn't ask us. We would have worked with you. You didn't. So pound sand. But they lament in this piece, the incoming press secretary, Caroline Levitt and Steve Chung sometimes don't get back to the shutout frustrated reporters at all. Hugh. And they go on to say that These folks, okay, notwithstanding the fact that they don't know what's happening, they're not sure what's going on with the White House press room seating chart, and they can't get straight answers on whether they're going to be where they want to be and were that they are, quote, soldiering on and that they're doing this notwithstanding the fact that hotel rooms on the island of Palm beach are hard to come by and they are expensive. So most journalists are exiled about a half an hour's drive in West.
- [28:15]
Hugh Hewitt
When is a reporter ever paid for their hotel room? When has that ever paid for their hotel room? So the idea.
- [28:22]
Megyn Kelly
But Hugh, the horror. West Palm. No.
- [28:25]
Hugh Hewitt
Yeah. I can't be sympathetic because the president elect has talked to Time magazine, to NBC, and to Jim Cramer at the stock exchange. All three of those were fairly in depth. The Kristen Welker was 30 minutes. I make my arrangements to talk to the president through Margo and his personal staff. And they are very professional. The Chung organization is very professional. But they are not giving away the candy the way that they did for eight years ago, because eight years ago they came in thinking that they were going to get a fair deal. And it turns out they don't get a fair deal from these people. So why bother? Why be nice to them at all? I like Michael Scheer, by the way. Comes on my show. I think he's a fine reporter, but no one is owed anything by the president elect. And Megan, if they gave a lot of interviews, do you think they would start getting the one president at a time blow back, which they're waiting to unleash on him?
- [29:21]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, Right. So here's the end of the piece. It's my favorite part. Not only have they been banished to West. Oh, God, it's like being bumped from the double wide to the single in the trailers. They say. With the West Palm Hilton now officially sold out, some reporters have been forced to retreat to the Courtyard by Marriott out by the airport. Hugh Hewitt, the humiliation of these poor reporters.
- [29:53]
Hugh Hewitt
I actually prefer Courtyard by Marriott because they don't give you espresso machines. They give you the old fashioned Mr. Coffee so that in the morning you don't have to make the espresso machine work. I just gotta say, for anyone who's ever gone to a convention, you're lucky if you're within 15 miles of the convention center. I mean, you just gotta travel, travel, travel. So that is a silly story. And I'm your reporters.
- [30:19]
Megyn Kelly
You're the lowest of the low. And that's how you're supposed to live. And it's one of the very healthy ways we make you generally hate authority. It's just in this country, you're supposed to hate authority whether they're red or blue. And you people don't.
- [30:33]
Hugh Hewitt
Don't you think it's interesting, by the way, the pro football did not report that West Point misled them. Would you report someone misled you from the government? I would. That would be a big story.
- [30:44]
Megyn Kelly
I would call back. I would call back and I would say, now I've seen a record proving that you misled me. So what is your explanation for misleading me? And I'd love. I'd love to hear what they say. And depending on what they said, I'd go from there. But I would definitely be very interested in the fact that I had been misled by West Point, which absolutely knows whether Pete Hex applied and not only applied, but got in. You're going to tell me their record keeping is that bad? Pete's what, 44? He was in college 25 years ago. I'm trying to do the math there. It's not that long. And West Point of office, pretty meticulous records.
- [31:23]
Hugh Hewitt
That's your boss. If you're going to West Point, your boss is the Secretary of Defense. You would at least use extreme care before responding. And in fact, you might want to call the transition team to inform them that you've had an inquiry about the nominee to run the Department of Defense. How would you. True. How would you advise us to respond? That's what professional would be. But someone tried to do a head job on people.
- [31:49]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. Well, here's like, I wonder, because the other piece of it is when it comes to West Point, there could be national security implications. I would imagine the records there, they. They would keep them better than your average university would. Because who's trying to get in and why? Whose kid is trying to get in and why? I would imagine those records are considered rather important by like the Pentagon. And so I do wonder whether they are as capable of hapless error. Probably they are probably as a Princeton or where I went, Syracuse, but maybe not. Anyway, maybe somebody will get to the bottom of it. Okay. While we're on the subject of journalism, something interesting happened over at CNN and it's turned into a controversy and I'd love to get your thoughts on it. Clarissa Ward is considered a star reporter over at cnn. She's been there many years. She was at Fox for a short time and she is doing reporting on Syria and What's happened in the wake of Bashar Al Assad being chased out of the country to Russia and this new Islamist group taking over the kinder, gentler Al Qaeda. And she was patrolling through the streets as in her reportorial role, and says that she came upon a Bashar al Assad prison facility with one of these new, you know, quote unquote reformed Al Qaeda types with her and that they went into this prison cell and there's a prisoner who is being held by Bashar Al Assad. And here's my interview with him. We got him out, we gave him some water and he had a bite of food and we stuck a mic in his face. And this is extraordinary. And now in the wake of this interview, which got all sorts of plaudits all over the Internet, oh, my God, she's amazing what she did. Blah, blah, blah. Now some people are raising questions about whether she was misled. I think that's the most charitable thing I've seen on there. Some have suggested she. She may have been part of the misleading. I doubt that, but I don't know. I don't know what's happening here. And I'm not even sure there is a story. But I'm going to bring it to you because it's. It's getting some steam. Mediaite, I'll show you. The Mediaite was one of the places that did a rather lengthy piece. They. They watch our business and reporters and raise questions about reports like this. There's a guy named Charlie Nash who raised some questions about the piece, and I'm going to show it to you. And then there's a filmmaker named Hassan Akad who has been detained twice in Syria and he has got some doubts about this video. All right, let me show you the first clip. This is part one. When they find this guy under a blanket, it's high drama. You can see Clarissa is a little dramatic herself and I will say seems to insert herself into the story. Watch this. It's one of many secret prisons across the city. I can't tell though. It might just be a blanket, but it's the only cell that's locked. The guard makes us turn the camera off while he shoots the lock off the cell door. We go in to get a closer look. It's still not clear if there is something under the blanket. Oh, it moved. Is there someone there? I thought I saw it move. Is someone there.
- [35:21]
Hugh Hewitt
Or is it just blank?
- [35:23]
Megyn Kelly
I don't know. Hello? Okay, let me just. I just. He tells the fighter he's from the city of Humps and has been in the cell for three months. Okay, you're okay.
- [35:52]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
You're okay.
- [35:52]
Megyn Kelly
You're okay. You're okay. Clutches my arm tightly with both hands. Anyone have any water? Okay, so here's what people are pointing out. He's pretty clean for a guy who is. Who's been in a prison cell for how many months? Three or three plus three months. Three months without food or water for four days. What we see on that video is no waste at all in the prison cell. And no.
- [36:36]
Hugh Hewitt
No bucket. No facilities, no bucket.
- [36:40]
Megyn Kelly
Right. And we see a man who's still under the blanket even though he's just heard somebody shot. Shoot off the alleged lock on his cell. Still under there. Okay. Maybe he's hiding. We see Clarissa Ward, who speaks, according to her Arabic, only speaking in English in Syria. Okay. Don't know why that happened. And this guy, Hasan Akad, says the following. I was detained twice in Syria. I think this is staged. CNN should investigate. Happy to be proven wrong. Individuals are never locked in communal cells. Cells look too clean. No discarded clothes, bags of bread, bottles of water, other blankets. And he has too much energy for someone who had no water for five days. This is what the cells in Syrian prisons typically look like. Hugh, we pulled this from one that was farther north. I mean, you can barely see the ground. There's so much debris and trash. I don't know. But here's what I believe. I doubt Clarissa Ward, who's a respected reporter, would stage this whole thing, but I do think there's a possibility she and the other media celebrating this moment are not being skeptical enough about it being staged for her.
- [37:57]
Hugh Hewitt
Yeah. Do you remember the fellow from Hamas who ended up being a star in video after video where they staged the death of young people? And he became kind of an Internet sensation because he was really good at pretending to be a victim again and again and again. And it's turned out to be a tried and true tactic of the Islamist resistance wherever it pops up to stage, manage victimization videos. I don't know if this is true. I don't know, Clarissa. I doubt any reporter would set this up because the danger of your career, it would be an existential destruction of your career if you stage that. Are you insufficiently suspicious of it against the backdrop of what you've seen in other Syrian prisons? Perhaps? Because if I were to CNN editor, I might have raised these questions interspersed with the actual reporting. Don't you think that would have been safer to raise doubts about the possibility you'd Been punked because reporters are punked all the time. In talk radio, we have a six second delay because people call up all the time and punk us. And then you dump them when they go off in their own little. They want to. Howard Stern's people used to do this to every other radio show in the house.
- [39:16]
Megyn Kelly
Yes, Baba Bowie. Yeah.
- [39:18]
Hugh Hewitt
And so you always had a delay because people are in the business of punking people. And I just think they've got to be very careful when they corroborate everything.
- [39:30]
Megyn Kelly
Here's the second clip where they're now outside of the prison and she's interviewing him, which, you know, I. I can. Like, some people are like, I don't get it. Why. Why aren't you getting him to a hospital? Why? Like we're. But journalists are often heartless like that. That's. She's not alone in that approach. Most of us would, you know, we want the story. And then he can go to prison here or to the hospital. Here it is. After three months in a windowless cell, he can find. Look how clean he is. The light says, oh, God, there is life. The fighter hands him something to eat. Barely lift it to his mouth. His body can't handle it. Okay, you're okay. His captors fled during the fall of Damascus. She's holding him, rubbing his back. No food or water. That was at least four days ago. The rebel tells him there's no more army, no more prisons, no more checkpoints. Are you serious? He says Syria is free. He tells him, enough. It's the first time he has heard those words. As a paramedic arrives, the shock sets in. Jake, I have to say, I have been doing this job for nearly 20 years now, and that really was one of the most extraordinary moments that I have ever witnessed. And folks pointing out online how clean the man looks. The jacket, the pants, the fingernails, like it's just. And does he have the right energy level for somebody who hasn't had food or water in almost five days? I don't know, but I think that there should be an investigation by CNA just to make sure they have not been used by an organization trying to look like heroes, notwithstanding their own controversial behaviors.
- [41:34]
Hugh Hewitt
It's either a great scoop or a great dupe. It's one or the other. She either gets a Pulitzer for being on the ground and being willing to go in a risky place, or there's going to be a Hall of Shame trophy here because it'll be a great dupe. What I am most suspicious of, three months in An Assad prison, you would expect manifestations of cruelty, not merely being hungry and thirsty. Five days without water is pretty bad. You could probably barely move. I did note there was a story the other day that an 11 year old girl survived three days at sea between she was journeying from Sierra Leone to Italy and her boat capsized off of Tunisia before the First Italian and 44 people died and she lived. So miracles happen. She had hypothermia when she came out of the water, but you can tell when people have been under stress. I don't see. Did you see any wounds, any scratches?
- [42:34]
Megyn Kelly
No.
- [42:34]
Hugh Hewitt
Any bleeding?
- [42:36]
Megyn Kelly
No. And there's one other weird thing. Potentially it depends on your opinion where. In her exchange with Jake Tapper, who was asking her about this, she offers one additional detail. Take a listen to Sat 8. We don't know where Adul Khurban is now. He got into that ambulance. We offered to give him our phones to call his family, but as you can see, in that moment he was in a state of profound shock. He wasn't able to collect himself to the point where he was able to get in touch with his family.
- [43:12]
Hugh Hewitt
Possible.
- [43:14]
Megyn Kelly
Possible. You wouldn't want to call your family first thing out of captivity after three, four months and you, you're so shocked, you can't make. Okay, it's possible, right? But these, all these are just like, that's what led to the Mediaite piece.
- [43:28]
Hugh Hewitt
And in her favor. Who stands to benefit from this? Because I really don't think Clarissa Ward would stage it. So who stands to benefit from staging it? The guy who worked for Hamas was trying to generate international pressure against Israel. Well, who are they trying to generate international pressure against? Assad's gone, so who wins?
- [43:49]
Megyn Kelly
But it works for them to look like they are the kinder, gentler that they. Oh my God. Bashar Al Assad is even worse than you knew. This poor man, he's been under there and we're talking about it, that it went everywhere. It went everywhere. So much coverage about how you know, what an evil man this Bashar Al Assad is and how the new captors, well, not captors, but the new.
- [44:15]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Team.
- [44:15]
Hugh Hewitt
Jelani comes in and gives water and cell phones to prisoners. Okay, that's a potential motive.
- [44:22]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, you'd have to kick those tires as a journalist. You know, again, being used, that's the biggest thing you have to worry about in this kind of situation is being used being turned into journalistic propaganda. And perhaps Clarissa Ward saw that coming from a mile away and made sure that that Wasn't happening. But I would like to hear more. I don't. I'm not sure right now based on what I've seen. Okay. The controversy over the CEO murder the United CEO Brian Thompson continues with people. Sorry, Brian Thompson. Where people are continuing to try to justify this. We have been meaning to get to some of these stories, but we didn't quite get there. AOC weighs in. She does the. This is not to justify violence, but bit. But bit. Here's what she said. I think that this collective American experience.
- [45:16]
Hugh Hewitt
Which is so twisted to have in.
- [45:20]
Megyn Kelly
The wealthiest nation in the world, all of that pain that people have experienced is being concentrated on this event.
- [45:28]
Hugh Hewitt
And it's really important that we take a step back. This is not to comment and this is not to say that an act of violence is justified.
- [45:40]
Megyn Kelly
But I think for anyone who is.
- [45:42]
Hugh Hewitt
Confused or shocked or appalled, they need.
- [45:45]
Megyn Kelly
To understand that people interpret and feel.
- [45:50]
Hugh Hewitt
And experience denied claims as an act.
- [45:55]
Megyn Kelly
Of violence against them. Oh, my God, Hugh.
- [46:00]
Hugh Hewitt
There's no evidence of a denied claim. Correct. It's just the craziest thing in the world. There is no evidence of anything except a screenshot of a back X ray. My own theory is a psychotic break and a schizophrenic acting out of anger against anyone who randomly he picked out of a phone book. And I do believe his shouting at the police indicated some kind of psychoses. But Elizabeth Warren and aoc, repulsive and disqualifying. They have no facts upon which to base their speculation. Even if their speculation had a denied claim on the part of the killer. That's not justification. All they do is license additional political violence. I had Steve Scalise on my radio show yesterday, and I asked the Majority leader, In June of 2017, a man tried to kill you. He didn't like Republicans. And Scalise teed off on this because he cannot believe people stand with anyone using violence in any situation and trying to make an excuse on the basis of mythology. There are no facts and evidence that had anything to do with UnitedHealthcare or a denied claim. Nothing. Zero.
- [47:13]
Megyn Kelly
And moreover, in the guy's alleged manifesto, he says, oh, there are probably people better qualified than I am to explain exactly what they're doing that's so bad. Like, he doesn't sound like somebody who had lived this firsthand and had a personal gripe. Not that that would justify any of this, but to your point, we don't know what this is about. And what the evidence seems to be suggesting is you had a once perfectly normal young Adult, one minute. And within the past three to six months, a switch flipped, which is totally consistent with some sort of psychotic break, whether induced by a schizophrenic problem or by, you know, drugs that he was taking, we don't know. But show me the evidence. And by the way, even if it is a claims issue, too soon, too soon to engage with this guy's gripes and ideas.
- [48:04]
Hugh Hewitt
Yeah. And how many claims did he have given? And Brian Thompson has two sons who are without a father. And there is an incredible lack of empathy on the part of AOC's Ms. Empathy. And Elizabeth Warren, I have a question for you, Megan. What are the manifesto rules? That when the Unabomber manifesto was released, it was a big controversy. The manifesto of the Nashville Killer, the trans activist, was never released. It had to be leaked. I'm not sure where this guy's manifesto came from or why we know parts of it, but I haven't seen the whole thing. What are the manifesto rules? Do we. Do we always release them or sometimes release them?
- [48:40]
Megyn Kelly
Well, let's look at what happened with the manifesto with the trans killer in. Is it Virginia? We're trying to think of the city. Yeah. Where they kept it from us. Yeah, yeah, There we go. Nashville. Thank you. Where they tried to keep it from us. And it had to be leaked. I mean, part of it has been leaked online. I don't know if we've seen the whole thing, but it's like, of course, there are different rules depending on the person's, you know, status. And the, the, the Kimmel having his producers lusty texts after this guy with him reading those on the air, it's just the latest scourge on ABC News. And how can they share a calling card with this guy? It's just absolutely vile. Hugh, that's the state of our media today. I'm thrilled that you'll be coming on in the afternoon now to talk about it more. And I love the show and listening to your opinion. Thanks for being here.
- [49:31]
Hugh Hewitt
Thank you, Megan. Thanks for having me. Continued success, success of the Meg Kelly Show.
- [49:35]
Megyn Kelly
Thank you so much, my friend. I want to tell you, while we have just one minute, that we are going to be dropping a special episode. I think it comes out tomorrow morning. And we're going to be talking about, like, some special fun Christmas things and Christmas gifts, and I think you guys are going to really enjoy that. Enjoy that. So look for that in your feeds. And in the meantime, if you want to email me about your best Christmas gift, what you're recommending for your fellow listeners and viewers or what you received over the course of your lifetime that you love the most. It's MeganEganKelly.com the Megan Kelly show is supported by Grand Canyon University. Founded in 1949, GCU is a private Christian university that's dedicated to delivering an affordable and transformative higher education. Their vibrant campus is located in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona and according to Niche.com ranked a top 25 best campus in the USA. As of June 2023, GCU offers 330 academic programs with over 270 of them online, allowing you the freedom to earn your degree on your time from wherever you are at gcu. Your degree, whether it's a bachelor's, master's, or doctorate, integrates the free market system and a welcoming Christian worldview. Learn more about GCU's programs, competitive tuition rates, and scholarship offers from your university counselor. They're part of the supportive graduation team that takes a personalized approach to helping you achieve your academic goals, walking alongside you every step of the way. Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. Private Christian affordable. For more info or to enroll, visit gcu.
- [51:18]
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- [51:51]
Megyn Kelly
So joining me now is a prominent and outspoken cardiologist and creator of the documentary First do no Pharm, Dr. Asim Malhotra. Dr. Malhotra's documentary sheds light on the pervasive influence of big Pharma on health care, the truth about cholesterol and statins, and much, much more. Dr. Asim, welcome to the show.
- [52:17]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Hi Megan, lovely to be here.
- [52:20]
Megyn Kelly
I thought the documentary was fascinating and disturbing. I remember. And I think this is one of the things, you guys, that led you to make this documentary. A few years ago, the line on statins had become the question in today's day, and age is not so much why are you on a statin, but why aren't you on a statin? That they were being recommended for perfectly healthy people over age 50 who might get heart disease or clogged arteries at some point as almost like a preventative measure. And while the whole film is definitely not just about statins. That's where it starts and it's very interesting. So let me kick it off by playing this sound bite of a guy who was your patient, right, Tony Royal, who did take a statin. He was in a position of having had a heart attack, so his case was more severe. But the question of why not take one was experienced by him. The answer, I should say firsthand, here's.
- [53:26]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Tony Sat 30, massive aches in my legs. I had no energy, no libido. I just lost the will to live almost. I felt dreadful. And it was that point where I started to question what was going on. Either I was very sick with some other illness or my heart was going downhill again. Or it could be possibly the medication I've been put on. One of the medications that Tony was on that he believed caused him quite significant side effects such as muscle fatigue, erectile dysfunction, brain fog, really limited his quality of life for many, many months, was a statin drug.
- [54:03]
Megyn Kelly
So, doctor, let's start there with statins and this problem overall.
- [54:09]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Yeah, Megan, so really interesting you've started with that because, you know, my journey as a practicing cardiologist, as a qualified doctor for well over 20 years, actually started towards the end of sort of 2009, 2010, when I really started to investigate why heart disease hadn't really come down in the way it was predicted to come down. You know, by the end of the 20th century, it was predicted that heart disease would essentially be eradicated because of statins that come on the scene. And a lot of what happened around changes in guidelines on diet was based upon this, what we now know is a very flawed hypothesis about lowering cholesterol. So that's where I began my journey because I was seeing my patients come in, you know, more stress on the system in the National Health Service, more people on many, you know, suffering from chronic disease, but patients also reporting a lot of side effects from statins, which where there was a discrepancy between what I was observing in terms of the frequency of these side effects and diagnosing it and what was in the published literature. So when I went on that journey, Megan, basically I, you know, came to the conclusion that the, you know, this fear around cholesterol is grossly exaggerated to the extent where I one could argue, and there's published evidence for this, that high cholesterol, so called ldl, bad cholesterol, isn't really a significant risk factor for heart disease. But of course, that's where statins came in because the thinking was, if we lower LDL cholesterol, so called bad cholesterol, with these statin drugs which are by the way prescribed, estimated to be prescribed, Megan, to 1 billion people globally, certainly at least 200 million, and we think at least 30 million Americans are taking statins. You know, it doesn't really have that much of an effect. So when I stop, when you start looking at the actual data on statins, and there's a huge caveat here, by the way, because almost all of the data on statins comes from industry sponsored drug trials that have never really been independently evaluated. And that's something, of course, that comes out in the film where myself and John Abramson from Harvard trying to get access to the raw data so it gets investigated is even if you look at that data from the drug companies and break it down, the actual benefit of a statin for an individual over a five year period, but low risk of heart disease or certainly if someone who hasn't had a heart attack is about 1%, 1 in 100 chance of it preventing a non fatal heart attack, a non disability stroke without prolonging one's life. Now, Tony's case is really interesting and he was quite unusual patient because as you already alluded to, you know, he was somebody that had a heart attack. He was a Virgin Atlantic airline pilot. He was fit and active. He was following the dietary guidelines, low fat guidelines, thought he's doing everything, you know, healthy in a healthy way. And his early 50s, basically suffered a heart attack, couldn't fly anymore, went back to his previous job, which was a maths and physics teacher. So he's very good with numbers. And then he started to get debilitating side effects. You know, about a year after, you know, taking all these medications he's prescribed, well, he suddenly felt unwell anyway, initially started looking at the drugs and the details and the benefits, et cetera, thought there were side effects from the drugs, stopped his statin, felt a lot better and at the same time changed his lifestyle. And you know, Tony now is in a situation this is quite unusual for a heart patient who's had a heart stent and a heart attack. He's now training for World Ironman, you know, and he's 60 plus now and he's off all his pills, Megan. So I'm not saying this is for everybody, but it's a great example of what can be achieved in healthcare if we actually give patients the right information, if we empower them on the benefits and harms of drugs in a way that is not through coercion. Not through manipulation of drug industry who are there. So basically, you know, make money. And, and the reality is this, most people in the world, Megan, taking statins and again are going to get no benefit whatsoever and they don't even know it.
- [57:55]
Megyn Kelly
If high cholesterol, high LDLs, doesn't cause a heart attack, and you potentially can see that number rise without freaking out, then what does cause a heart attack?
- [58:08]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Yeah, great question. Before I answer that specifically, I said something interesting that I found myself a number of international scientists in 2016 and BMJ, we actually looked at whether LDL cholesterol had a risk for heart disease in over 60s, partly because the original studies where cholesterol was, you know, exposed as a potential risk factor or as a major risk factor of heart disease. What wasn't publicized, Megan, in those original studies from Framingham, Massachusetts, that started in 1948 and went on for decades, is that once people hit 50, as their cholesterol dropped, their death rates increased. And we thought, why? What this is a bit unusual. Why is no one really talking about this? So we went back and looked at up to date data and what we found one was there was no association with LDL cholesterol and heart disease in over 60s. But the most interesting finding was the higher one's LDL in older population, the lower the risk of death statistically. Right. So the question is, how is that possible? Well, one of the things that's been forgotten because of all this focus on heart disease and this broad hypothesis is that cholesterol has a really important role in the immune system. Older people are more vulnerable, dying from infections. And there's also an association. I'll stress that we don't know if it's causal, but there is an association with low cholesterol and cancer, which again is likely to the immune system. So that just just to muddy the waters a bit further, that just lowering cholesterol for the sake of it may actually be harmful. It's not that it has no detrimental effect. Now what is the risk factor, major risk factor of heart disease? It's a process in the body called insulin resistance. So it's essentially over time your body becoming resistant to the hormone insulin. And that is driven essentially by food. You know, diets that are high in starch and sugar, ultra processed foods, being sedentary, and also to some degree chronic stress. And insulin itself, when it's, you know, raised chronically for a long period of time, or if you're eating a lot of, you know, junk food, it directly is toxic to the inner Lining of the, of the heart artery. So that's how it causes heart disease. And that's accepted in the literature. Why is it not well known or publicized? Because not never been really an effective drug to tackle insulin resistance. So it has then been proven in a trials to prevent heart attacks. And of course, you know, there is no market for a healthy lifestyle really for just eating real food, you know, not being Richard. Absolutely. So that's really the missing link. And when I institute this plan with my patients, Megan, you know, the lifestyle plan based upon the best evidence. And I, I don't say don't to my patients, don't take statins. I say listen, this is the absolute benefit, you know, without talking about harms. I mean harms come in as well in terms of quality of life, limiting side effects in particular like muscle fatigue, like what Tony Roll experienced. Most patients when given that 1% figure, Megan, don't want to take the pill. And I actually write my letter back to their general practitioner and say, listen, the patient has decided they don't want to take the statin. I've given them the information and their decision should be supported in keeping with the principles of ethical evidence based medical practice. So actually what the statin issue highlights is that if we were practicing true ethical evidence based medicine in healthcare, Megan, we'd sort out the health crisis very, very quickly.
- [61:18]
Megyn Kelly
How would you see? So I think the way a lot of people see heart disease is you go to your cardiologist and maybe they give you an echocardiogram stress test combo where they can see your heart and how it handles stress and they'll see whether you have a thickening of the walls of your arteries. That's the gold standard test, I think, other than getting that, I guess, calcium score read with injectable dye, which is more invasive. So if you see fatty build up on the walls of your arteries, then you have a mystery to solve. Right. And today I think the doctor would say if you had it, don't eat so much red meat. Don't eat fried food, exercise more. Right. What would you say if you saw that?
- [62:03]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Yeah. So on the red meat issue, first of all, just for full disclosure here, Megan, in 2013 I caused global controversy when I wrote in the BMJ, but formerly the British Medical Journal, the saturated fat does not cause heart disease. And that's, and that's the evidence for that is now pretty much conclusive. So that means that eating foods like red meat does not contribute to heart disease at all. In fact, I tell my patients I'M not worried about how much red meat you consume, as long as you're following the principles of what I call a low refined, carbohydrate Mediterranean diet. So that is definitely not something that I recommend patients to not do. Right. Eating red meat is not an issue when it comes to heart disease. And, you know, even on the issues of, say, colon cancer, the evidence is only really there for processed meat, not really for red meat, for real food. And the dietary guidelines, unfortunately, in the US and in the UK have really put at the base to tell people to eat, you know, six to 11 servings, I think, in the U.S. guidelines of starchy foods, which is the complete opposite of the foods that you want to. Oh, it is absolutely insane because these are the foods that are going to drive all these conditions. It's not just about heart disease. High blood pressure, which is the single biggest risk factor for death globally is type 2 diabetes. They all contribute to. Also, you know, it's not about longevity, it's about quality of life as well. If you've got type 2 diabetes, your massively increased risk of depression, chronic pain, for example, and then, of course, then you've got the pills to take, which aren't that effective, by the way, that give you side effects. So a whole management really of people's health in health care is upside down. What I do tell patients to do, though, is to adhere to a healthy lifestyle. I use calcium scores sometimes in patients because they're a very good way. It's an imaging for people that don't this. It's a form of imaging which looks at coronary calcium, nothing to a diet, which is a marker of inflammation and buildup of plaque, or fatty deposits, if you like, within the arteries. And it correlates also, it gives a very accurate representation, Megan, of your risk of a heart attack or stroke in the next decade. But what's interesting is, and certainly with my patients and what the literature tells us, if you look at it properly, is that this is potentially reversible. And of course, in the film first, you know, Pharm, you know, without giving too much away, you know, we end up going to India to meet a cardiologist who for well over 20 years and has published on this, has been actually reversing the blockages within the arteries, which most doctors, and I can tell you almost every cardiologist, will not even think it's possible. So he's done that through a combination of lifestyle. But the most important factor from his research that actually caused the reduction in the blockages, which I think is fascinating is actually through meditation. And this can be explained. And this is really interesting. So chronic stress is established as a risk factor for heart disease, the same as being a smoker or having high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes. Okay. But most of us are not really dealing with it properly. And the process involved is that if you look from an evolutionary perspective, you know, acute stress obviously can be life saving. But from evolutionary perspective, if we were in the jungle and we're running away from a tiger, for example, when you're under a state of acute stress, the body releases clotting factors and inflammatory factors. So that if we were attacked by that tiger, we are not going to bleed to death or it's going to reduce our risk of bleeding to death, let's put it that way. Now, this is chronically going on in the body at a low grade when people are stressed, you know, chronically stressed. And that's how it damages the hearteries. And heart disease itself, again, for many years was thought to be a fixed issue. You develop a blockage and it like a clogged pipe, it gradually gets worse over time, and at some point you're going to have a heart attack. But this is not true. We know now that it's a dynamic process, so it can be reversed. Megan and I think that's really one of the most interesting, fascinating aspects of the new paradigm in actually reversing, not just preventing people having heart attacks, but actually reversing the blockages. And that's where we need to do more research and invest more of our resources.
- [66:05]
Megyn Kelly
I want to get to the causes of why we've been so misled, for sure. That's basically what first do. No Farm is about. And it's shocking. RFK is in there. Our audience will recognize a lot of the faces. Callie Means is in there. Dr. J. Bhattacharya is in there. Great, great film. In fact, before we go any further, how can they see it? Because it was sent to me as a screener. But how can our audience see it?
- [66:25]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Yeah, so it's on a website. The website's no farm film dot com. So that's no. N film dot com. So they can download it for about $10. I mean, it was independently funded, very low budget, you know, and.
- [66:39]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, okay, good. So let's, let's remember that just to see it. But before we get to that, you mentioned in passing, just their Mediterranean diet. What else? You added a couple of phrases on there. Can you talk about E?
- [66:51]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Yeah, so. So, so the. I think the. If we Understand heart disease to be a chronic inflammatory process which is exacerbated by insulin resistance. Then the solution to prevention and managing heart disease is to deal with the chronic inflammation and the insulin resistance. So there are certain components of the Mediterranean diet that have been shown in studies. You know, there's not a lot of, unfortunately, nutrition science is, is, it's quite flawed. But, you know, the studies have shown that they are, there are certain components of their Mediterranean diet. They're anti inflammatory. So these anti inflammatory components come from extra virgin olive oil, oily fish, nuts and seeds, whole fruit and vegetables. So as long as the base of the diet is really composed of those foods and you eliminate the sugars and too much of the refined carbs, that means not too much bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, for example, then you are basically following the best possible diet when it comes to heart disease.
- [67:52]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, So I call it a low carb.
- [67:55]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
A low carb Mediterranean diet is the way to describe it.
- [67:58]
Megyn Kelly
One question I have for you is, let's say I have listeners out there and viewers who are, you know, 60 years old and they're like, I'm constantly inflamed. I've lived 60 years of inflamed. You know, I've, I've eaten all the processed foods. But I'm inspired now. I'm going to start tomorrow with a Mediterranean diet that's low carb. Can they undo 60 years of damage or is it like kind of a fait accompli at this point? I think a lot of people are like, forget it, I'm screwed.
- [68:28]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
No, Megan, actually, that's a great part of the. There's a lot of hope here. You know, there's evidence that, good evidence that shows, and I've seen this with my patients, that you can actually start to reverse the risk factors for heart disease and many other. Insulin resistance, by the way, isn't just about heart disease, Megan. It's probably after smoking, the most important risk for cancer as well, and certainly linked to Alzheimer's, as, you know, as a prominent risk factor. So if you sort the insulin resistance out, you're probably going to solve a lot of the chronic disease problems in the whole of America. And this is the good news. Within three weeks, just 21 days, 28 days, you can actually start to reverse those risk factors. I've had patients sent their type 2 diabetes that they've had for 15 years into remission just by cutting out the carbs.
- [69:13]
Megyn Kelly
Wow. And is your body then at zero, or are you closer to death than somebody who's been Living well for their 60 years.
- [69:24]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Listen, it takes more to reverse disease than it does to prevent it. So it depends from patient to patient. But unless you try it, you won't see. But there'll definitely be an improvement. Now, to what degree, we don't know until you try doing this. But certainly with my patients, I say, listen, do this for three to six weeks. Certainly, I think the maximum improvement you will see in terms of blood markers, you know, linked to high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes, for example, will happen, you know, about three months. But it can, it can go on for longer than that. I think what's really interesting is that.
- [69:57]
Megyn Kelly
You like that you recommend.
- [69:59]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Well, I've actually written three books myself, and the first book I wrote has a lot of recipes and it's called the PIOP Diet P I O Double PI, which is based upon the original village, which was behind the Mediterranean diet. But my more recent book, which probably is more up to date and more concise and relevant to our conversation today, is called A Statin Free Life. And in that book there are recipes and a diet plan and everything else, and it explains the whole cholesterol issue and heart disease reversal as well.
- [70:27]
Megyn Kelly
That's great. Just to give people a place to get started as we go into the holidays. That's a good place to kick it off. All right, so let's talk about causation, because when you first came out, you mentioned you caused quite a stir, but the industry wanted to cancel you at almost every turn. And you published a paper in the bmi, what was it called? The bmj.
- [70:51]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Bmj, Yep.
- [70:53]
Megyn Kelly
And they tried to get your paper pulled. Your film has an interview with a woman who was running it at the time, who didn't know whether she was on your side or not, who was open minded to pulling it if you had misstated facts and misled people. And she's pretty forthright about how once they wanted to see data and so on, but they ended up not pulling it and saying to the people who are criticizing you, why don't you write a rebuttal if you feel differently? And they didn't really want to do that. So this all kind of gets to. There's an absence of honest data from the people who are telling us things like statins are perfectly safe with a very, very good side effect profile. It's not just the statin drug makers. It's drug makers, for the most part, who just. They hide information, even from the people who are charged with reviewing their drugs and telling the rest of us whether their drugs are safe.
- [71:53]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Yeah, absolutely, Megan. So, you know, medical knowledge is under commercial control, but most doctors don't know that. And just to give you how bad the situation is, 20 to 50% of all health care activity in the United States and you spend almost more than $4 trillion in health. Health care actually brings no benefit to the patient, is wasteful or harmful. And the reason for this is that most doctors and policymakers are unaware of the poor quality research that drives overuse in terms of overmedicated people, underuse of simple, safer lifestyle options, avoidable adverse events, waste, and missed opportunities to give the right patient the right treatment at the right time. So that's really the major issue here. And the way to overcome this or to solve this problem is to make sure that drug trials are independently evaluated or take things further. I mean, if you look at the history of the drug industry over the last few decades, most drugs they produce are copies of old ones. They take an old generic drug, they change the molecules here and there, they patent it, make lots of money, which is of course a huge waste. The American taxpayer, American public, are paying lots of money for something that could be a lot cheaper with an older generic drug. And then of course there's the harm issue, because what they do is the results of their trials that they design, they control, they analyze, they publish in medical journals, who by the way, take a lot of money from industry as well, which comes out in the film, will grossly exaggerate the safety and benefits of those drugs. So no informed consent is truly happening. And of course, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out if a doctor is making clinical decisions on corrupted and biased information. Megan at best it's going to lead to suboptimal outcomes for patients, and at worst it's going to do harm. You know, and even pre pandemic, the third most common cause of death. And this is still, when I, when I talk about this at lectures, people gasp, even doctors. The third most common cause of death globally after heart disease and cancer is prescribed medications according to one, you know, analysis. So it's really a massive problem. It's a major public health issue. And what the main focus, and of course, you know, part of this MAHA movement and what Robert Kennedy Jr. And likes of Jay Bhattachary and Marty Makari want to do is one of the most important things is to get the American population, you know, reducing the medications they're taking and then trying to, you know, empower them and create environments so they can flourish from A from a.
- [74:15]
Megyn Kelly
Health perspective through lifestyle there they like anybody who's associated with medicine, never forget the magazine world, they're on a different page, wants you to lose weight. Any real doctor is against obesity, which is probably the number one or a huge risk factor for so many diseases, including diabetes, which just doesn't lead anyplace good. And what they have said on this show and elsewhere is eat better, move more, right? Like that's really what we're looking to do and throw out that food pyramid and stop, you know, eating six to ten grains a day and so on. What we've done over in America and now increasingly in other parts of the world is take Ozempic. And I get the pushback to Ozempic as that's not the answer, you know, eat better and exercise more. But this film, like some other pieces and books and films, has suggested it's worse than that. Like Ozempic actually is in the category of violating the do no harm rule. Like it actually may be more dangerous than it is beneficial. And I want to ask you about that because the whole thing is reducing inflammation and this drug helps one eat less and therefore potentially reduce inflammation. It was recently cited in a medical article saying it may reduce your risk for Alzheimer's because of its reduction in risk for inflammation for the people who take it.
- [75:45]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
What I would say first and foremost is that when it comes to medical journal articles, you know, remember there's industry sponsored trials. So if it comes from the drug industry, just don't believe any of it. And that is, in my view, that's a view of Catherine DeAngelis, one of the earliest editors of Armor with Ozempic. One of the issues with Ozempic is it basically stops you. It controls, you know, it reduces appetite massively. But the issue with Ozempic, which is of great concern, is that, you know, when you lose weight, you want to lose body fat, you don't lose muscle and, you know, you basically end up losing 50% muscle, 50% body fat. There are all these other side effects that again are underreported in the trials that we're now seeing in the real world, including, you know, stomach paralysis, nausea, vomiting. I think it probably has a role, Megan, in a very, very small minority of people who have tried everything and are morbidly obese and are really struggling. But I think 99% of people who are taking Ozempic shouldn't be on it. I think it's going to do more harm than good. I think it has to be through a lifestyle change.
- [76:43]
Megyn Kelly
Here's Dr. Robert Lustig in the piece talking about how it works. SA 35.
- [76:50]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Yes, there is a 16% weight loss. What is that weight? Turns out it's equal amounts of fat and muscle. Losing as much muscle as fat is not a good thing. These two drugs, semaglutide and also the third one, tirzepatide, lead to nausea, vomiting, pancreatitis. And now there's a warning label on Ozempic for gastroparesis, which means stomach not moving, stomach paralyzed, stomach turns to stone. And guess what? It lasts way beyond the discontinuation of the drug. In fact, that's why the drugs work is because you can't eat, because it delays gastric emptying, it delays your stomach from being able to move the food along. You think that's a great way to lose weight. In fact, if you can't eat, that's starvation. Well, the fat in the muscle shows, that's how it works.
- [77:56]
Megyn Kelly
Stomach to stone. I have not heard about that side effect from these drugs. What's that?
- [78:03]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Well, it's just basically this means that the stomach stops working. The peristalsis usually what, you know, passes food through our body basically just becomes, you know, just stops essentially and then probably hardens up. Yeah.
- [78:18]
Megyn Kelly
Why aren't people driving dead? I mean that, that seems like it would kill you.
- [78:22]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think. Well most people get admitted to the hospital and probably get put in drips and everything else and you know, they wait till things start to improve. So you know, it won't, it won't necessarily kill you but it's not, it's not very good, it's not ideal, it's not pleasant.
- [78:35]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. Okay, so back to the problem of the non disclosure of information and of big pharma controlling the messaging around their drugs. I did not realize that sort of the birth of these so called scientific magazines involved big pharma and that was kind of all part of the plan. The way I understand it from do no Farm, your film is of all people. Ghislaine Maxwell's father was in on the ground floor of forging this unholy alliance. And we have a little clip from the movie do no Farm about this. I'd love to watch it then have you explain what happened here. Sat 31 profitable commercial model underpinning the.
- [79:20]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Modern medical publishing industry was established by the controversial British business titan Robert Maxwell. Maxwell recognized and exploited the appeal of scientific notoriety amongst researchers and scientists to win their approval for hundreds of new journal titles and their participation as unpaid Peer reviewers with research content willingly provided by drug companies.
- [79:45]
Megyn Kelly
The Maxwell model married a free of.
- [79:48]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Charge content and peer review process with a lucrative subscription model to generate unheard of profit margins for a publishing business. Maxwell sold his empire for more than half a billion dollars in 1991.
- [80:02]
Megyn Kelly
But his fingerprints remain on one of.
- [80:05]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
The world's most profitable publishing opportunities.
- [80:10]
Megyn Kelly
The father of Jeffrey Epstein's longtime partner, Ghislaine Maxwell. It says the headline of the article underlying the quote was the man who bought and sold science. Go ahead.
- [80:20]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Yeah, it's extraordinary, I think, what this highlights again, Megan, and when we had a screening in London, the Alessa Square od, and there were a lot of doctors that came and they were absolutely shocked with what they heard because Fiona Godley, the edit form editor, the BMJ has been a giant medical publishing. She basically says, you know, that medical journals are essentially businesses now. As a doctor that, you know, has been conventionally trained. You know, we were taught that if it's published in the medical journal the Lancet or, you know, Jamaican Journal of Medicine. Megan that it was like gospel truth, gospel scientific truth. And nothing could be further from the truth, partly because there's a lack of acknowledgment and realization that one medicine isn't an exact science and it's an applied science, which means it's constantly evolving, but it also means it can be manipulated. And the other side of it is, of course, the medical journals. And again, most doctors don't know this, are reliant on funding from big Pharma and often can get millions of dollars for publishing one article on a particular drug. And the way that works is the drug companies will do a drug trial, publish it in a medical journal, and then it's not just about advertising. They pay the medical journal for reprints of the article that then gets used as marketing material where they can take it to doctors or give it to them at conferences. And one of the most, I think, horrific examples of how this happens or how this works in terms of that whole system was what happened with Vioxx. You know, John Abramson talks about this in the film From Harvard and he this was a blockbuster drug in the late 90s that was initially marketed under being better than ibuprofen as an anti inflammatory drug because it gave less stomach side effects. The drug company was Merck. The original trials were published in New Journal Medicine and ultimately it was found that Merck had withheld data showing even from the beginning that it increased the risk of cardiovascular events, heart attack, stroke, death by at least two to fourfold, and ultimately probably killed at least 60,000Americans. Merck refined almost a billion dollars in 2011. But when John Abramson was involved in the litigation process, what he found was that not only did Merck obviously know about this through internal emails, the chief scientist basically saying, it's unfortunate that these cardiovascular effects are there, but the drug will do well and we will do well. But when the FDA wrote to Merck to say, and they realized there was a problem, these heart attacks, for example, and said, you need to put a black box warning on the packaging of Vioxx, what did Merck do? They doubled down on their marketing and they gave. They gave. You know, they pay the new jail of New England medicine, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars more to get more of those reprints so they could market it to doctors. It's just absolutely shocking now.
- [83:12]
Megyn Kelly
Horrifying.
- [83:13]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
What's the diagnosis here, though? You see, I'm a root cause analysis person. I don't want to say this to be inflammatory, Megan. It's actually accurate. You know, in the book the Corporation and the documentary from well over 20 years ago, there's a new one called the New Corporation made by law professor Joel Bacan, the preeminent expert in forensic psychology behind psychopathy, Robert Hare, actually diagnosed diagnoses the corporation as an entity, not individuals, but the entity, the corporation as being psychopathic in its pursuit for profit, so callous, unconcerned for the safety of others, incapacity to experience guilt repeatedly and conning others for profit. And that hasn't changed, and that hasn't been challenged or rebutted. So this is the big problem we have, is that we've created we almost as a society in a way. We've allowed the creation of these big corporations to almost through legal means, be psychopathic in the way they make money and the rest of society suffers. So until we sort that out, at the root, this problem is only going to continue. And what they also do in the way that they exist.
- [84:13]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, I was going to say, we know that big pharma has infiltrated organizations like the fda, which has a revolving door to big Pharma. And therefore, the people who approve the drugs that we take and we give our children and get from our doctors are not. They're compromised. They're trying to please the pfizers of the world. And the. I'm trying to think of the company that produced OxyContin with the Sackler family.
- [84:40]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
I was forgetting Purdue Pharma. Purdue Pharma, Yeah.
- [84:43]
Megyn Kelly
Purdue Pharma. Thank you. They're trying to please Purdue Pharma because that's how they get paid when they leave government service. But this is something in addition, it's also these, you know, respected medical journals that are the ones that put out. I mean, I've received articles like that from my own doctor when I say, hey, what about this? Hey, is this something I should worry about? And he'll send me an article from one of these places. And you're giving us a whole new way of looking at these with a big asterisk on these articles. You do feature, As I mentioned, RFKJ in the film. Again, it's at no farm, spelled P-H-A-R-M film.com nofarmfilm.com where he is talking. I believe this is when he was running for president as opposed to now tapped for HHS secretary, on what he thinks should happen to these medical journals. Here it is. 32.
- [85:36]
Hugh Hewitt
They are presenting themselves to medical professionals as a, as an arbiter of truth and as a neutral referee and a reliable referee of the truth. And those medical. And they know that those medical professionals are relying on journal articles to treat patients and that if they tell a lie, if they're committing fraud, that they can injure and kill people. So, you know, I believe they can be prosecuted, and not only can they be prosecuted for those injuries, but they can be prosecuted on the racketeering statutes or promoting fraud. So I will. I'm going to do that as soon as I get in there.
- [86:20]
Megyn Kelly
Just as a process question here, Doc. I think one of the reasons I'm excited about RFKJ possibly coming in as our HHS chief is I think he's all over these issues. I think he's been living a life as a litigator in this sphere where he's been onto a lot of this stuff long before the rest of the medical and even legal community. Do you think I'm right?
- [86:48]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Yeah, 100%, Megan. I mean, I've known Robert Kennedy Jr. For a few years. You know, we've spoken at events together. We've spoken a lot with each other. I'm very, very impressed with him in terms of his deep knowledge of the issues, his integrity, his ability to communicate. He is very unique and he is absolutely the right person, in my view, to be leading HHS to sort these problems out.
- [87:13]
Megyn Kelly
So what should somebody trust if they're going to Google a drug that their doctor has recommended to them? I mean, can we trust the NIH website? Because you get a lot of papers over there. But, you know, Jay Bhattacharya is not running NIH yet. Like what I know Dr. Google is very dangerous. You know, just typing in, gee, what is this? What can they trust?
- [87:37]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Yes, it's a really good question, Megan. Hard one to answer. That's why we need to transform the system. But I think at least what they should do is keep an open mind. And I think what's been really powerful in the last few years has been the growth of the alternative media so we can have these conversations. People are realizing that there's a discrepancy between, you know, what they're being told, like safe and effective. You know, on the COVID vaccines, for example, cnn, the BBC, Marty Macary said, you know, publicly that one of the biggest purveyors of misinformation during the pandemic was the US government. But really they, in my view, they are just puppets of these big corporations. So I think people just have to just think outside of the box a little bit, look at alternative media, make up their own mind. But ideally in the long term, Megan, we need to restore trust in these institutions because society can't function cohesively unless you have a strong government that's ethical and medical institutions are ethical. And you know, there will be a little bit of disruption going on before we get to that stage. But, you know, we're in this mess with healthcare because we've allowed these corporate psychopathic entities to have so much power that they become tyrannical and, you know, and that level of tyranny is so strong. Is that the way they exert their powers? Even, you know, people like RFK Jr. Or myself or others who have been speaking out, you know, they will dedicate resources and even use the media to smear us because that's how they, you know, keep their, keep spreading their misinformation to people. So it's going to take time. I mean, one of the, I tell you, just, you know, if there's one website people could go to, which is an independently, you know, an independent of commercial influence website done by very rigorous scientists who want to, you know, people to be fully informed about drugs. It's called the nnt.com so the NNC. Yes, numbers needed to treat nnt.com and actually there's a really good website and a lot of their whatever's published on the website actually is published in one of the American family physician journals. And what they do is they break down the data, for example, statins. They will say, if you've had a heart attack, your benefits, say 1 in 40 over 5 years and preventing another heart attack, etc. And they give a traffic light system about whether overall the drug is beneficial or overall the drug is harmful. It talks about things like hearts stents, which again, are massively overused in the United States and other parts of the world. That's what I trained in doing. So that's quite a useful resource for people for sure, they're not sure about the drug they're taking and it goes through many, many medications as well. And looking at all the evidence combined.
- [90:11]
Megyn Kelly
We'Ve got the one and we've got no Farm film. Com. We're not done discussing what's in this gem, which you really should watch, but we're going to take a quick break and more with Dr. Asim right after this. Did you know that American homeowners nationwide have over $32 trillion in equity and cyber criminals are targeting it. They're not dumb. With a growing scam the FBI calls house stealing. Your house alarm, your doorbell camera, your deadbolt. It won't work. None of that will work against these thieves because they're not after your stuff. They're after your equity. And if your title is not being monitored, scammers can transfer the title of your home into their name, then take out loans against it or even sell it behind your back. The best way to protect your equity is with triple lock protection from Home Title Lock. Home title lock triple lock protection is 247 monitoring and God forbid if the worst happens, restoration services at no out of pocket cost to you. When was the last time you checked on your title? Likely never. And that's exactly what scammers are counting on. Make sure you're not already a victim. You can get a free title history report and a 30 day free trial of triple lock protection today by going to hometitlelock.com and using promo code Megan or click on the link in the description. That's hometitlelock.com promo code Megan hometitlelock.com Gifting.
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- [93:06]
Megyn Kelly
I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM. 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, Glenn 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 Sirius XM 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.
- [93:51]
Hugh Hewitt
Go to SiriusXM.com MKShow to subscribe and.
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Dr. Asim Malhotra
Get three months free. That's SiriusXM.com MKShow and get three months free.
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Megyn Kelly
Offer details apply so can we talk about the COVID vaccine? Because I know that you believe your father may have died prematurely as a result of one of the boosters. You've been very outspoken about the vaccines. I know you got blowback when you suggested that these vaccines by Pfizer Moderna were a likely contributory factor in all unexpected cardiac arrests, heart attacks, strokes, cardiac arrhythmias and heart failure since 2021, which a lot of us believe. But every time we try to say there's a lot of seems to be a lot of increase in cardiac deaths, we're told we're idiots and that it's just all the same numbers. And it definitely had absolutely nothing to do with the vax.
- [94:51]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Yeah, Megan, so I've thought about this in a lot of depth, depth because you know, I'm somebody that's been a very outspoken advocate of evidence based medicine. You know, I've published extensively, I've worked in advisory government roles over the years and everything I usually, you know, advocate for comes through medical journal articles that I've published that have been peer reviewed. Usually nothing to do with the drug industry in terms of those, those articles, they're usually analysis, independent analyses and just to give people, you know, people can get confused here. But essentially when you look at the evidence right now in terms of the COVID vaccine, I'm specifically, I, you know, emphasize and look to MRNA vaccines. So Pfizer Moderna people know that the serious harm is there. The question is how frequent is it? And the data comes from randomized control trial reanalysis of Pfizer Moderna trials, pharmacovigilance data that what people are reporting on the yellow card system, autopsy data. We know now certainly more than 70% of people that died within a couple of weeks of having the vaccine, almost certainly caused by the vaccine that's been proven. You've got observational data and of course my own clinical experience. So the serious adverse event rate on the best evidence we have, and this has not been rebutted, to be honest, in any, you know, serious platform. Megan, comes from reanalysis of Pfizer Moderna's trials, independent scientists. Joseph Freeman, who's a lead scientist who works very closely with Jay Bhattacharya, by the way, you've got Peter Doshi, associate editor of the bmj. And what they found was that the serious adverse event rate was at least one in 800 at two months. And that means disability, life changing rate, hospitalization. And from the original trials that got approved around the world, Megan, you're more likely to suffer serious harm from the vaccine than you were to be hospitalized with COVID which suggests from the beginning it was going to do more harm than good. But actually where we are now, and this is, I think the UK government's probably the only government in the world that's published this, been transparent in publishing this information. And I think they're publishing it, although it's not been well publicized. But I'm going to publicize it for you now because there are a lot of good scientists and good people out there whose conscience would not be clear unless they got that information out in some way, shape or form. If you're in the highest risk group in 2024 of COVID which is basically people over 90, Megan, you have to vaccinate 7,000 people over 90 to prevent one of them being hospitalized with severe Covid versus a serious adverse event rate harm rate of at least one in 100, because it's only at two months that they found that figure. And we know that there are long term effects. So that suggests that right now it's at least eight times more harmful to have the COVID vaccine in the highest risk group than to have benefit. I mean, this is absolutely extraordinary. So the question is, why is that not getting fully acknowledged? I honestly genuinely believe most people are well intentioned. Of course, we've talked about all these commercial determinants of health that have been going for a long time that captured institutions. But the main barrier to the truth, Megan, and I see very, a lot of very bright scientists out there, people who have a track record of doing things for the genuine good, who are completely have a blind spot on this issue. It's psychological. And the two psychological barriers I've written about are ones of fear and willful blindness. So fear essentially, which happened, you know, from the early on in the pandemic, we had this exaggerated risk of COVID but also there's probably fear of maybe stepping outside the echo chamber that they're in as well. Fear inhibits your ability to engage in critical thinking. But I think the more important psychological barrier that a lot of people can relate to is something called willful blindness. And that's when human beings, and we can do, we're all vulnerable to this all the time in some ways, right? It's when human beings turn a blind eye to the truth in order to feel safe, avoid conflict, reduce anxiety, or to protect prestige and fragile egos. Now, in personal lives, this can happen, for example, when a spouse turns a blind eye to the affair of their partner. But institutional examples of willful blindness, historically, Megan, that you will know about are situations like, for example, Hollywood and Harvey Weinstein or the Catholic Church in child molestation. These are examples of institutional willful blindness. I think we're seeing exactly the same thing here because it's faced between the choice of accepting an uncomfortable truth. Most people will choose to bury their heads in the sand. But the reality is we have to face it head on because it's not going away and it's not that everyone's been vaccinated now and it's done. Unfortunately, there is good evidence emerging suggesting that, and I've seen this as well, it can certainly accelerate heart disease which means many people who had the vaccine even two or three years ago are suddenly going to prematurely have heart attacks or sudden cardiac death. And we're still seeing that. We've got one of the world's top oncologists in this area, who's also been involved in vaccine development, called Professor Angus Daglish in London. And we've got Robert Clancy, one of the world's eminent immunologists, 83 years old, now Emirates professor of Immunology, top immunologist of Australia. Used to work, by the way, many with, with Anthony Fauci. They're both massively concerned with this Covid MRNA vaccine, increasing cancer through several mechanisms of immunosuppression. So it's unfortunately not something that's going away.
- [100:09]
Megyn Kelly
We're up against a time constraint here. But that does lead me to ask, is there anything those of us who have been vaccinated by the Pfizer or Moderna thing can do?
- [100:20]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
Listen, I'm in the same boat again. I've had two doses. I've had some issues as well. The first and foremost, the best thing people could do hearing this is absolutely optimize their metabolic health. So really optimize your lifestyle as much as you can, because this is a chronic inflammatory problem with the vaccine. And if you can, you can probably mitigate it to a large degree through that process. And really, everything you can do to make sure your immune system is enhanced, whether that's taking high doses of vitamin C, you know, concentrating on your stress levels, eating real food, all these things are really important. But again, we need an acknowledgement by the establishment. And to be honest, I'm hopeful, Megan, because I think the new administration that comes in are going to want to tackle this head on. So we're not that far off that.
- [101:04]
Megyn Kelly
Okay. All right. Well, I mean, yeah, millions, millions of us are in it together. Good to know. Again, do no farm film.com nofarmfilm.com Very interesting stuff. Dr. Asim, I understand. I have it on good authority that you are under serious consideration to also join the Trump administration in some important role. And I'm rooting for you. I hope it happens. Please come back if and when that happens. Would you?
- [101:33]
Dr. Asim Malhotra
I'd be delighted, Megan. Hopefully next time actually in studio as well, so I can actually meet you properly.
- [101:38]
Megyn Kelly
That would be delightful. Thank you to all. To you for all of your good work. Really appreciate it. Wow. And thanks to all of you for joining us today. We're back tomorrow with a bonus episode on the Bombshell News about the Duke lacrosse case and favorite Christmas movies. There's a combo for you. See you then. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No bs, no agenda, and no fear.
- [102:09]
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