Speaker 1: This is Wins and Losses with Clay Travis. Clay talks
Speaker 1: with the most entertaining people in sports, entertainment and business.
Speaker 1: Now here's Clay Travis. Welcome and appreciate all of you
Speaker 1: listening to us the Wins and Losses Podcast. I am
Speaker 1: Clay Travis, and we are about to be joined by
Speaker 1: Megan Kelly, who has had a really impressive media career.
Speaker 1: She also fled the law as as quickly, probably as
Speaker 1: she could. I'm actually curious. I read quite a bit
Speaker 1: about her practice of law and her most recent book.
Speaker 1: But we're going to run through a bunch of different stories,
Speaker 1: but beginning right off the top here. Megan, thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us, and was leaving the practice of law the
Speaker 1: best decision you ever made in your career? It was
Speaker 1: definitely one of them. Um. Yeah, it wasn't that easy
Speaker 1: at the time, but yes, in retrospect for sure. By
Speaker 1: the way, thank you for having me. Um. So you
Speaker 1: know how it is when you become a lawyer or
Speaker 1: anything that requires a bunch of schooling, right, So it's
Speaker 1: a lot of money and a lot of time. Your
Speaker 1: ego gets attached to it. And I had worked my
Speaker 1: tail off. I was at a big, well respected firm,
Speaker 1: Jones Day, which I loved, and I was about to
Speaker 1: make partner. I was there nine years, I practiced law
Speaker 1: nine years and was about to make partner. And that
Speaker 1: was a feather that I wanted in my cap. You know,
Speaker 1: I felt that I had earned it, and I don't
Speaker 1: remember my twenties because I was at the office of
Speaker 1: the entire time, and I really felt like I should
Speaker 1: stay long enough to get that feather. But then I
Speaker 1: just got honest with myself and realized I was miserable. Miserable.
Speaker 1: You know. It's they say the law is a jealous mistress,
Speaker 1: and you know, my mistress is so needy. She was
Speaker 1: calling constantly. She never gave me a weekend off, and
Speaker 1: I wanted my mistress to go away. So finally I
Speaker 1: did find, you know, the resolve to get out, and
Speaker 1: I never looked back. You know. It's just the parts
Speaker 1: of the practice of I do miss, but the overall
Speaker 1: lifestyle I don't miss one bit. So I want to
Speaker 1: kind of dive into that because we have a lot
Speaker 1: of lawyers who listened to this show, and you hit
Speaker 1: on several different interesting angles there that that I find
Speaker 1: to be fascinating. And I want to start with the
Speaker 1: first one. One of the pratfalls I would say of
Speaker 1: having success is people look at you like you're crazy
Speaker 1: when you decide to do something else. And I people
Speaker 1: who kind of know my story and are listening. I
Speaker 1: practiced law for a couple of years, and I remember
Speaker 1: I started at twenty five. I had what I call
Speaker 1: a quarter life crisis, and I was looking around the
Speaker 1: office and I was like, oh my god, this could
Speaker 1: be the next fifty years of my life being a litigator.
Speaker 1: And I was like, this is not what I love.
Speaker 1: It's slow moving. I don't like the procedural aspects of
Speaker 1: the law. I don't really enjoy writing over the same issues,
Speaker 1: arguing about things that I don't really care about, frankly,
Speaker 1: and so I ended up like writing was my escape,
Speaker 1: writing about sports, which led into radio, which led into TV.
Speaker 1: For you, was there or a moment in your career
Speaker 1: where you had sort of an epiphany and you thought
Speaker 1: this is not for me, even though, like you said,
Speaker 1: you're about to be partner. You're being very successful, You're
Speaker 1: making a lot of money. What I called the golden
Speaker 1: handcuffs very often of being a lawyer, where you can't
Speaker 1: quite find the will to escape. What was it for
Speaker 1: you that was that final impetus or epiphany or was
Speaker 1: there one or was it a gradual process? Well, there
Speaker 1: was there was a moment, an aha moment. But you know,
Speaker 1: like you, I know, you had a middle class background,
Speaker 1: and so did I and so and I put myself
Speaker 1: through law school, so I had a bunch of debt
Speaker 1: and I had never seen or even dreamed of money
Speaker 1: like they were paying me. You know it was it
Speaker 1: felt like a fortune and one that I could never
Speaker 1: rebuild if I left the firm. I mean, just I
Speaker 1: was so proud of myself, you know, for making good
Speaker 1: and earning real money on my own, paying back my
Speaker 1: law school debt, and I just thought, who am I
Speaker 1: If I'm not Megan Kelly Esquire. Yes, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: who I am or whether I could ever achieve this
Speaker 1: level of success. And of course the firm pulled me
Speaker 1: aside and kind of telegraphed, You'll never achieve this level
Speaker 1: of success if you leave. You know, you're a great
Speaker 1: guy who I love. A Jones pulled me aside. He
Speaker 1: was in the issues and Appeals department, which is very
Speaker 1: are you day, and he said MKA. He said, no
Speaker 1: matter how good you are at whatever else you intend
Speaker 1: to do, you will never be as good at that
Speaker 1: as you are at the practice of law. You don't leave.
Speaker 1: And you know you've got really smart people saying things
Speaker 1: like that to you. You think I shouldn't go like I.
Speaker 1: But with all that in mind, there was one night
Speaker 1: I was in Chicago and I was driving home in
Speaker 1: the Kennedy one night at two am, yet again, and
Speaker 1: just tears were streaming down my face because I was exhausted.
Speaker 1: As you know, the practice of law is incredibly acrimonious.
Speaker 1: I was a litigator, so you know, constant fighting, and
Speaker 1: it's really it's just snake pit fighting. Um. I was
Speaker 1: just stressed out and I hadn't seen I'd missed funerals,
Speaker 1: I'd missed weddings, and I thought maybe I could just
Speaker 1: go off the road and break a femur. Like if
Speaker 1: I broke a femur, then I'd have to be in
Speaker 1: the hospital for a while. It can't just be like
Speaker 1: a rib because I'll have to go back. It's wild
Speaker 1: that lawyers think like that, but you sometimes do start
Speaker 1: to think, Man, if I just had an illness that
Speaker 1: I know, I could get over but you know, like
Speaker 1: it wasn't that bad, but I couldn't work for a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. Like, but when you start thinking if
Speaker 1: I could break a leg, I could have a little
Speaker 1: bit more time to myself, it's kind of a sign
Speaker 1: that maybe you don't have the perfect work life balance
Speaker 1: right right right, And it's like you finally get to
Speaker 1: the point where you're like, I don't care anymore. I
Speaker 1: went to visit my friend who worked in Boston as
Speaker 1: a nurse at her around that time, and she had
Speaker 1: no money, and we've got to high school together, we
Speaker 1: were always close friends. And she was so happy. She
Speaker 1: was living a crappy one bedroom walk up and we
Speaker 1: went to the corner bar. We had a couple of
Speaker 1: beers for like a buck each, you know, contrasted to
Speaker 1: my life in Chicago with the big, fancy martiniz and
Speaker 1: the steak dinners and the nice purse, you know, and
Speaker 1: she was so happy, and I was so happy with her.
Speaker 1: It was just a reminder that I really didn't need
Speaker 1: all those trappings at all. You know, they were just
Speaker 1: window dressing around a life that I wasn't enjoying. And
Speaker 1: so those two things kind of got me to the
Speaker 1: point where I was like, all right, I gotta get out,
Speaker 1: and now the big question is what the hell else
Speaker 1: can I do? Yeah, so you mentioned the way that
Speaker 1: you approached the law if you come from a middle
Speaker 1: class background. I remember, as a second year summer associate,
Speaker 1: I was working in downtown Nashville, where I grew up.
Speaker 1: My dad was in another building. He was a lifelong
Speaker 1: state employee, and I was making more money as a
Speaker 1: summer associate at twenty three years old or whatever the
Speaker 1: heck I was than he was at you know, sixty
Speaker 1: three or four years old, approaching retirement age. And remember
Speaker 1: him coming into that building and seeing the office and
Speaker 1: everything else. And there are those trappings of success, right,
Speaker 1: if you never have experienced them before, it can feel
Speaker 1: a little bit constraining to even think, oh, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: leave and try something else. But yet almost every lawyer
Speaker 1: you talked to has a parachute plan, right. They have
Speaker 1: something they would do if they weren't practicing law, and
Speaker 1: so many of them get wrapped up. So you make
Speaker 1: the decision to try something else, and you eventually are
Speaker 1: going to get into working in journalism and doing reporting
Speaker 1: and being on television what made you think that you
Speaker 1: would be good at that? And did you have any
Speaker 1: other things or aspirations that you also considered exploring when
Speaker 1: you decided to leave. So I confess I had nothing
Speaker 1: other than journalism that I thought about. I had in
Speaker 1: high school. I had thought, perhaps I want to be
Speaker 1: a journalist. I took one of those APT two tests.
Speaker 1: You're one of those tests that says this is what
Speaker 1: you should be, and it's that journalist, and I thought, okay,
Speaker 1: well that's interesting. I like to write, I like to read. Um,
Speaker 1: I like to tell stories. But I kind of I
Speaker 1: did like a couple of day internship with the All
Speaker 1: of any Times Union, my local paper I'm from Albany,
Speaker 1: New York, and a couple of other small things. And
Speaker 1: then I went to Syracuse, so not to the journalism school.
Speaker 1: I couldn't get in there. Um. I went for policy
Speaker 1: and I took a bunch of classes at Newhouse and
Speaker 1: I liked it. But then I just got sidetracked with
Speaker 1: the whole law thing. And so when I decided to
Speaker 1: leave the law, it was a natural next step to consider.
Speaker 1: And what I realized was and I'm sure you and
Speaker 1: a lot of your listeners who are lawyers understand this.
Speaker 1: I hadn't exactly been preparing for journalism, but I had,
Speaker 1: in the way you see in the Karate kid with
Speaker 1: the wax on and wax off, been learning skills that
Speaker 1: would make me very good at the next profession if
Speaker 1: as so long as I chose wisely. You know, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of skills you learn in law school
Speaker 1: and in the practice of law that are very transferable, uh,
Speaker 1: in helpful ways to other jobs. And one of the
Speaker 1: things I loved through law school and as as a
Speaker 1: litigator was getting up on my feet and making an argument.
Speaker 1: I loved that. I loved being on and having the
Speaker 1: pressure of real people looking at me and in the
Speaker 1: case of a judge testing me, uh, and the case
Speaker 1: of a jury needing to be persuaded in easy to
Speaker 1: understand terms and to see if I could do it,
Speaker 1: you know. And in the law, you really do have
Speaker 1: to have a foothold, at least in the facts. Unlike
Speaker 1: journalism today, UM, you kind of have to stick with
Speaker 1: the record. And that's the challenge, right. You might have
Speaker 1: bad facts and you've got to find a way through them.
Speaker 1: I loved all that. I hated interrogatory. I hated the acrimony.
Speaker 1: I wasn't too keen on like the really nasty depositions.
Speaker 1: But I loved arguing in front of courts of appeal.
Speaker 1: I loved all the trials I did. It was like
Speaker 1: that stuff, And so I just thought, all those skills
Speaker 1: are going to translate for me in journal So when
Speaker 1: I first started, I stunk, but I knew eventually I
Speaker 1: could be good if I just kept practicing. When you
Speaker 1: say you stunk, what does that mean? You know, for
Speaker 1: people out there who haven't ever thought about the discipline
Speaker 1: of being an on air reporter, did you go back
Speaker 1: and watch yourself? What were you doing poorly? And how
Speaker 1: did you get the opportunity to even find out that
Speaker 1: you stunk? What did you have to do? And how
Speaker 1: much I'm always fascinated by this. How much of a
Speaker 1: pay cut? I know this is in your book, but
Speaker 1: how much of a pay cut did you have to
Speaker 1: take to move from nearly being a partner at one
Speaker 1: of the elite law firms in the country to basically
Speaker 1: starting all over again as a journalist. I mean it
Speaker 1: was huge. I was approaching a seven figure deal um
Speaker 1: and I took a job at Page seventeen thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a year when I when I left, so it was
Speaker 1: I mean, I wasn't making seven figures, so it would
Speaker 1: have been a partner. But um, but there's a big
Speaker 1: drop from several hundred thousand dollars a year your ish
Speaker 1: to sev dollars a year that most people frankly wouldn't
Speaker 1: take no matter what. That's right, and you really do
Speaker 1: have to slam face first into the wall of unhappiness.
Speaker 1: I think to make that leap. At least that's what
Speaker 1: it took for me, you know, you know, thinking about
Speaker 1: harming yourself, like that's that's more than a red flag,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a five alarm fire kind of flag. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know what happened with my evolution in terms
Speaker 1: of like growing and getting my feet you know? Under
Speaker 1: me was I had a buddy who, um, she was
Speaker 1: in my guitar class, and she offered to help me
Speaker 1: make a resume tape, which I had never even heard of.
Speaker 1: I didn't understand. I was like, don't I have just
Speaker 1: have to tell him that I'm about to make partner
Speaker 1: at a big law firm. She's like, no one's going
Speaker 1: to give a damn about that. She was right, don't
Speaker 1: even wanted to see a paper resume. They just wanted
Speaker 1: to see a tape of you on camera delivering it
Speaker 1: can be fake news, but just they just want to
Speaker 1: see how you penetrate the lens. So she helped me
Speaker 1: make it, and and the guy who shot the tape
Speaker 1: for me agreed to hook me up with his professor
Speaker 1: at this local college in Chicago, and that professor let
Speaker 1: me audits his journalism class. So I went there every
Speaker 1: Wednesday night after I left Jones Day, and I was
Speaker 1: like the old lady at that point, I was like
Speaker 1: one with all these you know, twenty nineteen year old
Speaker 1: I was like, isn't learning fun? Kids? You know? And
Speaker 1: and I was loving it. I'm learning all about this
Speaker 1: new profession that I'm considering. And we'd have to go
Speaker 1: down on the streets of Chicago. So there I'd be
Speaker 1: on South Michigan Avenue in the blustery cold weather at
Speaker 1: eight pm doing fake news reporting into this professor's sort
Speaker 1: of real looking TV camera, and you couldn't stop. You
Speaker 1: had to do a minute long report. You had to
Speaker 1: nail it, you know, you couldn't have to. You have
Speaker 1: to treat it like it was a live shot and
Speaker 1: it was thrilling, and all I could think was this
Speaker 1: is what I want to do, and please God, don't
Speaker 1: let anyone from Jones Day by right now. So when
Speaker 1: do you when do you actually confess to the partners
Speaker 1: and the people that you worked for and with at
Speaker 1: Jones Day that you were exploring in a serious way journalism,
Speaker 1: Like how far into the process did you get before
Speaker 1: you were like, Hey, this is you know, not guitar
Speaker 1: lessons that I'm just doing on the side. This is
Speaker 1: something that that maybe I have an interest in. So
Speaker 1: I kind of got discouraged. There. I was with my
Speaker 1: resume tape, thinking okay, great, but I don't have a
Speaker 1: single connection, you know, in news. I don't have anything
Speaker 1: on my resume to suggest I could do news. You know.
Speaker 1: I just had that feeling that I'm sure a lot
Speaker 1: of people get, which is just apathy and self doubt
Speaker 1: and you know, the desire to stay in my couch.
Speaker 1: And by the way, my therapist always says, the desire
Speaker 1: to stay on one's couch couch should always be fought
Speaker 1: like that retreat is that it's almost always at And
Speaker 1: one day I was watching Lifetime television, Lifetime television play
Speaker 1: and they ran this movie, this you know, lifetime movie
Speaker 1: called the Jessica Savage Story. And she was this amazing
Speaker 1: journalist back in the late seventies eighties who was making
Speaker 1: it in the man's industry, one of the only women.
Speaker 1: She was like Jessica and Connie Chung and a young
Speaker 1: Barbara Walters. And that was it, and it was a
Speaker 1: great story. It ended in ruination, sadly, but as most
Speaker 1: lifetime stories do, at least you didn't get murdered by
Speaker 1: her husband, right. But I was inspired to try, so
Speaker 1: I started cold calling news directors and every single one
Speaker 1: was like, by you know, no one wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to me. They didn't they didn't want to help me.
Speaker 1: Theyn't want to give me a chance. And uh, Finally
Speaker 1: I got smart and I decided to walk my tape
Speaker 1: into the news station in dc um W j l
Speaker 1: A and they had a cable channel that was like
Speaker 1: their sister, and I thought, maybe they'll pop me on
Speaker 1: that cable channel that like, not a lot of people
Speaker 1: are watching. I got a shot there and I went in.
Speaker 1: I met this guy, Bill Lord, who was the news
Speaker 1: director for both and God bless that guy. He put
Speaker 1: me on the air. So he started just just one
Speaker 1: day a week, one day a week. And at that
Speaker 1: point I had to disclose to Jones Day that I
Speaker 1: was doing this because hey, they might see me and
Speaker 1: be he could create an ethical conflict depending on what
Speaker 1: I was reporting on UM. So he, you know, I
Speaker 1: sort of said, it's just gonna be fun. I just
Speaker 1: want to try it out. And they were a little leary,
Speaker 1: but said okay, do it. And then I was doing
Speaker 1: pretty well and the Lord said, well, how about you
Speaker 1: do two days a week? So I did Saturdays and
Speaker 1: Sundays and I did the law job the other days.
Speaker 1: And then they came to me and said, how about
Speaker 1: you do another day of a week. And that would
Speaker 1: have required me to go part time at Jones Day,
Speaker 1: and so I went. I spoke with a head of
Speaker 1: general Litigation, a guy named Tim Cullen, who was so great,
Speaker 1: and he said, Okay, I'm sad because this feels like
Speaker 1: a trial separation and those usually lead to divorce. And
Speaker 1: I said, Tim, you know it very well might, but
Speaker 1: I gotta try. So he he let me stay at
Speaker 1: Jones Day, you know, part time. UM. And then eventually
Speaker 1: I decided it was time to make a full time leap.
Speaker 1: All right, so your how old? The first time you
Speaker 1: go on air with I think it was w j
Speaker 1: l A. You said, so that would have been two
Speaker 1: thousand three, so I was thirty two. Okay, so you've
Speaker 1: never really done television before you're thirty two years old.
Speaker 1: You get to go on this, uh, this relatively small
Speaker 1: station in Washington, d C. What did you do the
Speaker 1: first time that you were on television? The very first
Speaker 1: time I ever saw myself on television, it was taped,
Speaker 1: so I was clear like it was a taped piece.
Speaker 1: But what would you remember the time? Do you remember
Speaker 1: the topic of the tape piece? Do you remember what
Speaker 1: you reported? It was the very first thing I ever
Speaker 1: did was on a hurricane, and it was Hurricane Isabelle
Speaker 1: that had gone through Virginia, and I thought for sure,
Speaker 1: I thought I was gonna be doing doing mostly legal stuff.
Speaker 1: Is that that had been my pitch? And I remember
Speaker 1: calling Bill Lord. My first day was a Friday, and
Speaker 1: I was like, probably don't need me, right because the
Speaker 1: storms come in and you know you're not gonna need
Speaker 1: a lawyer, legal expert type, And he goes, if you
Speaker 1: don't already have rain boots and rain pants and rains
Speaker 1: like that, you better go get up and get in here,
Speaker 1: like oh no, And so it was a crazy night.
Speaker 1: I did a report on not that night, but the
Speaker 1: next day on the hurricane, and it was fine. But
Speaker 1: the first time I had to do a live shot
Speaker 1: where it's like go, you know, like I'd practiced on
Speaker 1: the streets of Chicago, was at the d. It was
Speaker 1: the dullest airport and there was something going on with
Speaker 1: the airport and security and they had a scare. You know.
Speaker 1: It's just back when we were still pretty close to
Speaker 1: nine eleven and there was a scare every other day, um,
Speaker 1: and and it was here in the headlights, you know,
Speaker 1: and they're like you can hear the anchor toss to you.
Speaker 1: And really, I'm like, I don't know who the hell
Speaker 1: I am? Who the hell am? I just say your name,
Speaker 1: say something, say something resembling anything. And I got through it,
Speaker 1: and I thought I had been totally incomprehensible. When I
Speaker 1: looked back at leader, it was okay. It wasn't hideous,
Speaker 1: but it was terrifying. Be sure to catch live editions
Speaker 1: about kicked the coverage with Clay Travis week days at
Speaker 1: six am Eastern three am Pacific. I'm Clay Travis is
Speaker 1: Wins and Losses. We're talking with Megan Kelly. So do
Speaker 1: you go back, like an athlete and study your early
Speaker 1: tapes in television to figure out what you're doing well?
Speaker 1: Or did you find that you kind of got a
Speaker 1: sense for how you were doing. What about the discipline
Speaker 1: of television came to you and how did you get better?
Speaker 1: I definitely went back and looked at the tapes, and
Speaker 1: I think that's a must do, you know, because it
Speaker 1: is a visual medium and you have to see or
Speaker 1: whatever the mechanism is, listened to yourself and see what
Speaker 1: works and what doesn't work. You know, you may think
Speaker 1: you sound fine, when you go back and you watch yourself,
Speaker 1: you see a totally different product. So I did that
Speaker 1: for years when I first started, you know, at w
Speaker 1: j l A, and then and then at Fox News.
Speaker 1: But the truth is that is a skill you only
Speaker 1: develop by doing it over and over and over. You know,
Speaker 1: It's like typing, and you you cannot type seventy words
Speaker 1: a minute before you've done and so on. So I
Speaker 1: would just say yes to everything, which I think every
Speaker 1: young person in a job should do. I mean, I
Speaker 1: I always tell the young people who are asking me
Speaker 1: for advice, you know, if they want you to empty
Speaker 1: the trash, empty the trash, like say yes to every
Speaker 1: weekend ship to working on Christmas. You know, have some gumption,
Speaker 1: go after it, you know, don't don't be ah, I'm
Speaker 1: above this kind of person. And that leads to opportunity,
Speaker 1: you know, because the sad truth is it will set
Speaker 1: you apart from of your competition, um so and and
Speaker 1: and it just happened to be and in my profession,
Speaker 1: as it is in most that that makes you better.
Speaker 1: You know, you get your ten thou hours in and
Speaker 1: before you know it, you're doing it almost effortlessly. What
Speaker 1: I have found is, and this is probably a legal
Speaker 1: background as well, what I get to do now is
Speaker 1: make argue months. But instead of having to take as
Speaker 1: you said earlier, sometimes you're on the wrong side of
Speaker 1: an argument. You're like, boy, I'd rather have the facts
Speaker 1: of that other side now, you know, with the position
Speaker 1: that I'm in, And I think you get to do
Speaker 1: this now as well. You get to look at all
Speaker 1: the facts, array them as you see fit, and then
Speaker 1: make your case. And as you were talking about your
Speaker 1: legal career, it struck me watch having watched your television show. Basically,
Speaker 1: what you're doing is arguing in front of a jury
Speaker 1: every single night about cases and stories that matter the
Speaker 1: most to you in a compelling fashion. Right, It's basically
Speaker 1: like an oral argument that you get to make every
Speaker 1: single night when you're doing a live television show. Absolutely
Speaker 1: and one of the biggest challenges but also rewards if
Speaker 1: you do it right. Of of doing that show in
Speaker 1: that way was taking really condensed, really difficult subjects and
Speaker 1: condensing them in a way that my imaginary viewer that
Speaker 1: the one I picture in my head, Yes, she's working.
Speaker 1: Who do you picture? By the way, who do you picture?
Speaker 1: Because I I do that for my radio show, my
Speaker 1: television show to an average person who's watching, Who in
Speaker 1: your mind is an average Megan Kelly viewer. I have
Speaker 1: a woman in my head named Madge who lives in Iowa.
Speaker 1: She works all day, She's got a couple of kids,
Speaker 1: and she and her husband come home from work and
Speaker 1: at night and they turn on the TV. Maybe they
Speaker 1: have a glass of wine and they want to consume
Speaker 1: their news in a way that is easy to understand,
Speaker 1: somewhat entertaining, trustworthy, and that they don't have to work
Speaker 1: too hard to get. So it's my job to take
Speaker 1: something hugely complex, like a Supreme Court ruling on redistricting,
Speaker 1: and try to make Madge not have to work for
Speaker 1: it at all. If Madge has to hit the rewind
Speaker 1: button on the remote control, I have failed. It should
Speaker 1: it's I used to call it. It's like cool water
Speaker 1: going over a hot brain. That's how I want my
Speaker 1: news delivery to feel to the consumer. And and if
Speaker 1: you have to try too hard on the air, you
Speaker 1: haven't tried hard enough prior to getting to air. But
Speaker 1: I will say, Clay, one of the things I like
Speaker 1: about you and and one of the things I think
Speaker 1: maybe the solution to our entirely disgustingly broken media is
Speaker 1: more lawyers delivering the news in whatever way works for them.
Speaker 1: Because lawyers, I think, in their soul they're programmed to
Speaker 1: understand at least both sides and to try in some
Speaker 1: way to recognize the other argument. I do. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's just that we're soul as hacks
Speaker 1: or you know, these trained elite arguers. The latter sounds better,
Speaker 1: but whatever it is, most lawyers I know, Dan Abrams
Speaker 1: is another they they're really good at being fair. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's any doubt at all. I mean, what
Speaker 1: I always say on my show is I care about
Speaker 1: three things. The facts, the facts, the facts. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that troubles me the most about our
Speaker 1: country today is you can disagree with my opinions or
Speaker 1: your opinions or anybody's opinion out there in the world
Speaker 1: of media, or your friends and family posting on social
Speaker 1: media all day, but if you start with incorrect facts,
Speaker 1: then you get to a place with an incorrect opinion.
Speaker 1: And so uh, there's a lot of people who don't
Speaker 1: care about the factual basis whether you're a Democrat, Republican, independent,
Speaker 1: and it seems like we have lost that, particularly in
Speaker 1: a social media age. And I do think lawyers are
Speaker 1: better attuned to being able to consider both sides of
Speaker 1: an issue and at least understand the importance of facts,
Speaker 1: because what you're talking about is basically the skills of
Speaker 1: a great trial lawyer. And a great trial lawyer can
Speaker 1: take facts which are honest and accurate and put the
Speaker 1: best spin possible on them to advocate for the cause
Speaker 1: they believe in. But they know that the facts have
Speaker 1: to be right, or the jury is not going to
Speaker 1: trust them right face to face. It seems to me
Speaker 1: we've lost the ability to recognize the foundational basis of fact.
Speaker 1: It's one of the things that is most disturbing me
Speaker 1: and most inspiring me to get back out there, because
Speaker 1: both sides do it right. You know, President Trump, I
Speaker 1: always say he doesn't. He doesn't have an adult relationship
Speaker 1: with the truth. You know. I think all of his
Speaker 1: years in real estate, UM sort of led him to
Speaker 1: tolerate a certain level of you know, puffery. We would
Speaker 1: have called it in the law UM. And so he is,
Speaker 1: I think, by nature and optimists who tries to oversell
Speaker 1: positive outcomes. But he also if he gets himself in trouble,
Speaker 1: he's not just gonna level with you about what he
Speaker 1: did and why it wasn't a big deal. He's going
Speaker 1: to try to tell you the facts are other than
Speaker 1: what they are. That's a character trait that he has,
Speaker 1: for better or for worse. But on the left, you
Speaker 1: see like a post factual world when it comes to
Speaker 1: discussions on tough subjects, you know, like the transgender issue
Speaker 1: and the gender issue in general. You know that there's
Speaker 1: there's no more biological sex and that you know, having
Speaker 1: having certain genitalia is totally irrelevant to whether you're a
Speaker 1: woman or a man. I don't believe that's true. Scientifically,
Speaker 1: we can talk about what your life is like and
Speaker 1: how you want to be accepted, and I'm totally pro
Speaker 1: all of that, but there is a basis in science,
Speaker 1: and I don't like the silencing of the scientific community
Speaker 1: or even in the you know, all the Black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter protests that we saw this summer. You know, you
Speaker 1: can want to be an advocate against racism without making
Speaker 1: up lies about the police. Uh. And I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about George Floyd, but I'm talking about the lives that
Speaker 1: were put out there about the number of cases of
Speaker 1: police brutality, but police killings of black men, there are
Speaker 1: real data on that, and they've been they've been either
Speaker 1: suppressed their silenced. In fact, I've represented, I've got it
Speaker 1: right here. I mean that that I keep because it's
Speaker 1: been such a big topic in the world of sports. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, a police officer is seventeen times seventeen and
Speaker 1: a half time as likely to be killed by a
Speaker 1: black potential suspect as a police officer is to kill
Speaker 1: an unarmed black man in this country. Right, that's a fact.
Speaker 1: I'm reading directly from the Wall Street Journal. The data
Speaker 1: is clear and transparent and straightforward. That is factual basis.
Speaker 1: Now we can talk once we have those facts in
Speaker 1: place about ways to make the country better based on
Speaker 1: our relationship between police and those that they consider suspects
Speaker 1: of crimes, whatever race. They might be right to try
Speaker 1: to dial down the tension, but it's as if that
Speaker 1: fact makes people uncomfortable, and so you can't even have
Speaker 1: an honest conversation about how to fix things if you
Speaker 1: can't begin with a common basis effect. That's right, because
Speaker 1: they'll call you a racist, and no one wants to
Speaker 1: be called a racist. And and it's it's sad because book,
Speaker 1: I'm sort of a free agent now, right, so it's
Speaker 1: like I don't really care what they call me, and
Speaker 1: they've already called me all the me memes that I'm
Speaker 1: doing just fine. But I do worry about civilians, right,
Speaker 1: for lack of a better term, because they don't want
Speaker 1: to put themselves out there. I've got good friends who
Speaker 1: are you know, they're successful doctors and lawyers, and they
Speaker 1: can't even like a tweet without having to worry about.
Speaker 1: And that's not okay. You know that the data on
Speaker 1: police shootings or killings of black suspects are knowable. They
Speaker 1: are knowable. It's not a perfect science, but they have
Speaker 1: been reported for years. The Washington Post has been keeping
Speaker 1: running tally of it all. And for some reason, and
Speaker 1: you know, people can draw their own conclusions, these activists
Speaker 1: want us only to look at the percentage of black
Speaker 1: people in the population, which tends to be around and
Speaker 1: then look at the number of black people who are
Speaker 1: killed by police in a year, and that's just not
Speaker 1: the relevant data. They don't want you to factor in
Speaker 1: at all the level of black criminality, and that The
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal has been doing a great job and
Speaker 1: reporting the savas on this, but over the violent crimes
Speaker 1: in the major cities of this country are committed by
Speaker 1: black men. Now, the cops are not they're they're not
Speaker 1: arresting women if that doesn't make them sexist against men.
Speaker 1: They're going after the people who are committing the crime,
Speaker 1: and so necessarily the interactions between those guys and polices
Speaker 1: they're going to go up. And they're fraught because if
Speaker 1: you resist arrest, and the data show that that's what's
Speaker 1: happened in virtually all these cases where a death results,
Speaker 1: your odds of getting injured or killed by the police
Speaker 1: officers go up exponentially. That's an argument that is all
Speaker 1: factual based, Right. I think it's an important one that
Speaker 1: needs to be discussed in the country. You couldn't say
Speaker 1: that on CNN today. You couldn't say that today on MSNBC. Right,
Speaker 1: I really don't think you could. Why do you think
Speaker 1: and you worked and had your own show, and you
Speaker 1: did had a tremendous success at Fox News. Why do
Speaker 1: you think our society, media culture has created this world
Speaker 1: where there are facts that aren't allowed to be spoken
Speaker 1: on television on certain networks, and by the way, you
Speaker 1: can make it across the board, right there facts probably
Speaker 1: that make Fox News viewers uncomfortable that don't get shared
Speaker 1: very often. We don't have a Walter Cronkite of the
Speaker 1: world who's sitting down and kind of the arbiter that
Speaker 1: everybody trust to be a great official, so to speak,
Speaker 1: of the world at large. How do we put the
Speaker 1: genie back in the bottle? Can we are things going
Speaker 1: to even get worse from here? Boy? I mean, I
Speaker 1: think with what's happening with this sort of woke culture. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the social justice warriors. It's going to be
Speaker 1: tough there. There that's a small group of Americans. They
Speaker 1: do not represent the majority in trying to cancel everybody
Speaker 1: and shut everybody up. But they're really loud, and the
Speaker 1: media is they're in complete fealty to that small group. Um.
Speaker 1: And so it's dangerous. And I'll tell you most they're are.
Speaker 1: There are so many intellectuals black end white, but a
Speaker 1: lot of black intellectuals who are sort of pushing a
Speaker 1: more heterodox view, you know, from Glenn Lowry to Coleman
Speaker 1: Hughes obviously, um, Shelby Steele, Thomas Soul. But so you
Speaker 1: can read black intellectuals who have done all the research
Speaker 1: on this um and see what their worldview is. It
Speaker 1: would it would back up everything I just said. Right,
Speaker 1: go look at read Jason Riley in the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal if you want to know the facts. Um. But
Speaker 1: if a white person says it, they're going to call
Speaker 1: you a racist. So you just you know, to really
Speaker 1: know what's going on, you have to actually be prepared
Speaker 1: to take some you know, some some punches in their face.
Speaker 1: But I think what's happened with the media is they're
Speaker 1: left They're not just liberal, they're leftist, and they love
Speaker 1: to virtue signal. You know, early on in my career,
Speaker 1: I got sent down to cover the Duke what we
Speaker 1: now know is the fake rape case with a cross case. Yes,
Speaker 1: and uh, I went out. When I first heard about
Speaker 1: that case, I was new to Fox. It was like
Speaker 1: two thousand five, and I at the time, it's thirty four,
Speaker 1: so I was whatever, not that far out of college.
Speaker 1: And I was like, these guys they probably did it,
Speaker 1: you know, like action the cross players, and you know,
Speaker 1: you had you had preconceived stereotypes as a you know,
Speaker 1: girl who had gone to Syracuse. You're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: can see these stupid lacrosse guys doing something like this,
Speaker 1: by the way, everybody does. And then one of the
Speaker 1: great things about being a lawyer is you end up
Speaker 1: representing people that you're like, man, this guy seems like
Speaker 1: a total jerk, and then you start to look at
Speaker 1: the facts and you're like, man, maybe this is not
Speaker 1: very similar at all to what was initially reported. So
Speaker 1: that's fast. So you go down to Duke, and when
Speaker 1: do you start to have doubts about that case as
Speaker 1: a lawyer, and you start to look at it because
Speaker 1: you're in a unique position there. Well, i'll tell you
Speaker 1: the first thing I happened before I left for North
Speaker 1: Carolina was britt Hume, my boss and the DC Bureau said, um,
Speaker 1: keep an open mind. And it was just the small
Speaker 1: piece of advice, but it was the best advice, right
Speaker 1: because it just a good reminder that it really isn't
Speaker 1: about what I think, It's about where the facts lead.
Speaker 1: And I'm going down there in a fact finding mission.
Speaker 1: So that's what I did. And I went down and
Speaker 1: Fox gave me the you know, latitude to develop sources.
Speaker 1: Normally they just have each other to a camera. We
Speaker 1: have to do live shot every half hour on a
Speaker 1: big story like that. But they sent a different report
Speaker 1: to to do that so I could actually develop sax.
Speaker 1: And it was very clear if you just had an
Speaker 1: open mind, the facts did not support this woman delegations.
Speaker 1: Her story started to fall apart very early, and I
Speaker 1: reported those inconsistencies in her story and so on, and
Speaker 1: at the time, this is very early in my career,
Speaker 1: people were suggesting it was racist of me and each
Speaker 1: sexist of me to be quote siding with these three
Speaker 1: white privileged guys instead of this uh, single mother, black
Speaker 1: um person who lived on sort of the Durham side
Speaker 1: as opposed to the Duke's side. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: that there's two areas of Durham one's one's less affluent
Speaker 1: than the other. And uh, I just had to forge
Speaker 1: through that. You just had to say, Okay, they're gonna
Speaker 1: call me names, but I have to report the news.
Speaker 1: That's what I made me paid to do. And you
Speaker 1: know who the other person was who was getting the
Speaker 1: facts right, who was on cable news at that time,
Speaker 1: Dan Abrams, who I mentioned earlier, a lawyer who came
Speaker 1: to MSNBC at the time from Court TV. And his
Speaker 1: dad is Floyd Abrams, the famed First Amendment attorney who
Speaker 1: argued New York Times to be solid it. So I
Speaker 1: just think, you know, being open minds of the facts
Speaker 1: helped me land in the right place and on these
Speaker 1: cop shootings. Um that you just have to be open minded.
Speaker 1: You have to be open minded and go where the
Speaker 1: evidence goes. You know, the Michael Brown case in Ferguson,
Speaker 1: you know people should go that. Kamala Harris and others
Speaker 1: are still referring to Michael Brown as a victim, that
Speaker 1: she's murdered, that he was murdered. He was not murdered.
Speaker 1: And there were at least five black eyewitnesses who said
Speaker 1: they saw him turn and run after the officer when
Speaker 1: the officer, you know, was already had already been attacked,
Speaker 1: hands up, don't shoot. A proven law. Yet it contends
Speaker 1: to be continues to be propagated well, And that's so
Speaker 1: that's what we have to be aware of now that
Speaker 1: the media is in full virtue signaling mode, because what
Speaker 1: I've noticed with with these cases is the media, which
Speaker 1: again is leftist, it's not just liberal, it's leftist. They
Speaker 1: will take these incendiary cases, these videos of of a
Speaker 1: white police officer, or even if of a black police officer,
Speaker 1: and they'll say that's racist too, if it's if it's
Speaker 1: a black defendant, and they'll say they'll play it over
Speaker 1: and over, over and over and over to tell you
Speaker 1: that all police are brutal, and all police are racist,
Speaker 1: and it's systemically racist, and it's so misrepresentative because you
Speaker 1: could do the same with a white police officer. They're
Speaker 1: doing this to a white defendant, and that that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that all police need to be stopped because they
Speaker 1: must be brutal against everybody either. Because if you look
Speaker 1: at the numbers of police killings of defendants here in
Speaker 1: New York City, they in the seventies, they were in
Speaker 1: the four hundreds a year. Now they're down to thirty
Speaker 1: plus in a year. The police are going in the
Speaker 1: right direction on this stuff. They're aware that they've had problems.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to race, it's the media that
Speaker 1: drives the narrative that it's a black white thing, and
Speaker 1: they do that for reasons of their own, especially in
Speaker 1: an election year you mentioned earlier. So you're covering Duke
Speaker 1: Lacrosse in two thousand five, that is before there is
Speaker 1: actually a social media universe really, I mean Facebook is
Speaker 1: just getting started, then Twitter doesn't exist. That has put,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of jet fuel or added steroids to
Speaker 1: what was already a trend line moving in that direction
Speaker 1: of everybody being able to find their own worldview by
Speaker 1: turning on their television or just picking up their phone. Uh,
Speaker 1: what was it like for you? I'm curious as you
Speaker 1: move up in the world to go from Megan Kelly,
Speaker 1: who's a reporter, right, like you're not necessarily giving your
Speaker 1: own opinions to making that transition to an opinionist, and
Speaker 1: how did you do it? Well? I mean, I think
Speaker 1: I'm sort of a hybrid. You know. I'm still a
Speaker 1: journalist and that's why I was out there angering presidential
Speaker 1: debates for Fox. UM. But I've I've offered opinion in
Speaker 1: the fields that I think I have some expertise in,
Speaker 1: and that's tended to be legal stuff, you know. And
Speaker 1: I think this whole Black Lives Matter thing started based
Speaker 1: on a legal case, and I know how to look
Speaker 1: at a legal case, and I've never gotten one wrong.
Speaker 1: I've never looked at one of these situations and said
Speaker 1: this is how it's going to come out and been
Speaker 1: proven wrong on it. And there's a reason for that,
Speaker 1: you know. I'm I'm an objective juror on this stuff.
Speaker 1: I will go where the evidence takes me. Um. So
Speaker 1: that's sort of what I've tried to do. I've tried
Speaker 1: to sort of hold on to my journalistic integrity. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not somebody who would go out there. I watched
Speaker 1: somebody like Nicole Wallace on the MSNBC. I don't know
Speaker 1: what she is. She used to work, She's a work
Speaker 1: in Republican circle. She's as far from Republican as you
Speaker 1: can get now, and she's openly saying she's hosting a
Speaker 1: daytime quote news show on MSNBC, but she openly says
Speaker 1: she's going to vote for Joe Biden. So back in
Speaker 1: my day, you weren't supposed to do that as a journalist.
Speaker 1: You we didn't announce who you're going to vote for.
Speaker 1: You didn't announce whether your pro choice or pro life.
Speaker 1: And I wouldn't touch those rails either. But I do
Speaker 1: feel very comfortable correcting the record, even on dicey issues.
Speaker 1: What you mentioned the Donald Trump, the debate that you did,
Speaker 1: which I thought was fantastic and so well managed, but
Speaker 1: it obviously turned your life upside down. What is your
Speaker 1: relationship like now, if at all, with President Trump? Have
Speaker 1: you had any interaction with the White House since? And
Speaker 1: how did you find him both as a private in
Speaker 1: a public figure. How much overlap was there in the
Speaker 1: way he would behave privately versus the way he behaved publicly.
Speaker 1: So privately, I before the debate and even ultimately after
Speaker 1: the debate have found him utterly charming. You know, you
Speaker 1: might be surprised utterly charming generous, self deprecating, effusive, and kind, complementary. Um,
Speaker 1: I had nothing but kind feelings toward him, and and
Speaker 1: I still have kind feelings toward him. I don't like
Speaker 1: what he did towards me for those nine months, and
Speaker 1: I don't love the way he talks about you know,
Speaker 1: some of my fellow citizens these days. You know, he's
Speaker 1: not careful with his language and it can be problematic. UM.
Speaker 1: And I see the flaws that people accuse him off.
Speaker 1: There's no question he can be thin skinned and so on.
Speaker 1: We all have our problems and his are magnified because
Speaker 1: he's the president. But professionally, we went through a very
Speaker 1: tough period together for those nine months. Wasn't tough for him,
Speaker 1: It was tough for me, and I hated it it was.
Speaker 1: It was really just one of the most challenging things
Speaker 1: I've been through professionally, and it was one of those
Speaker 1: things that sort of there's probably a lesson in it,
Speaker 1: because you know, I asked tough questions of all the
Speaker 1: guys that night. The only difference was Trump wouldn't let
Speaker 1: it go. You know, he made a thing out of
Speaker 1: it and wouldn't let it go. And ultimately I couldn't
Speaker 1: get him off my back. You know, Roger L's tried
Speaker 1: and Sean Hannity tried for me, and he was tight
Speaker 1: with Trump. He just he just wouldn't he wouldn't back off.
Speaker 1: He was I think he was enjoying the storyline. And
Speaker 1: so finally the lesson is it only stopped when I
Speaker 1: took it in hand myself and I contacted him through
Speaker 1: a friend. It was actually Brian kilmead Um who got
Speaker 1: a message to him that I wanted to meet with him.
Speaker 1: And you know, Roger Leader said, you should have met
Speaker 1: on neutral ground, you should have gone a Trump tower.
Speaker 1: I was like, Roger, I don't care. I don't care
Speaker 1: if it looks like I'm pursuing him or I'm an
Speaker 1: aspect dary Well I am. I'm a journalist. The nature
Speaker 1: of our relationship is, you know, pursuer and pursued. And
Speaker 1: so we met and I basically, I mean the conversation
Speaker 1: was off the record, but the bottom line is I said,
Speaker 1: please knock it off. You know you've done You've done
Speaker 1: this long enough. You made your point. Um, I want
Speaker 1: you to put me back on the sidelines where I belong,
Speaker 1: you belong in the playing field. And I belong on
Speaker 1: the sidelines. Put me back there. No harm done and
Speaker 1: he was totally gracious about it, and we've never had
Speaker 1: a problem since. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports
Speaker 1: talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows
Speaker 1: at Fox sports Radio dot com and within the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app search f s R to listen live.
Speaker 1: You said earlier in our conversation, I'm Clay Travis. This
Speaker 1: is wins and losses. We're talking with Meg and Kelly.
Speaker 1: Retreat is almost always bad. You left Fox for NBC.
Speaker 1: Obviously that didn't work out. Maybe it did because maybe
Speaker 1: you're happy where you are now. If you were going back,
Speaker 1: would you say, hey, I should have stated Fox, I
Speaker 1: could have kept doing that show. Or was leaving Fox
Speaker 1: like leaving the practice of law for you? You You felt
Speaker 1: like you had done everything you could there and you
Speaker 1: were ready for another new challenge. And how would you
Speaker 1: say to people out there who were, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to weigh decisions that they make in their own career,
Speaker 1: how did you make that choice? And looking back on it,
Speaker 1: would you change anything? It's so smart, Clay, this is
Speaker 1: this is why you're doing so well. Um. That's a
Speaker 1: great question, and it the answer is it was the latter. Um,
Speaker 1: it was. You know, I don't regret leaving Fox at all.
Speaker 1: I kind of missed my old show because I think
Speaker 1: it was a service. I think it was an honest
Speaker 1: show that you could trust. And if The Kelly File
Speaker 1: we're still on now, I would watch it, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's one of the reasons why I'm I'm launching
Speaker 1: this podcast, you know, because I do want to get
Speaker 1: back to doing the news in a way that I
Speaker 1: think is fair and illuminating and hopefully yeerless. Um. But
Speaker 1: I don't regret the decision to leave, because it was
Speaker 1: just a combination of things. It had been a rough
Speaker 1: time with Trump, yes, but that was in the past.
Speaker 1: But you know, the Roger Ail thing changed my life
Speaker 1: a lot at Fox. And even when it came out that,
Speaker 1: you know, he really did have this side of him
Speaker 1: that was really problematic. Um, people found it tough to forgive,
Speaker 1: you know, not everybody, but you know, I have dear,
Speaker 1: dear friends there. Some of my best friends are there.
Speaker 1: But some people who I really loved and admired just
Speaker 1: never got over it. You know that I they thought
Speaker 1: I had turned on him because I didn't support him.
Speaker 1: And you know you I couldn't explain it any better
Speaker 1: than you know I had publicly. You know, it's I
Speaker 1: too felt loyal to Roger and grateful to him for
Speaker 1: what he'd done for me over the course of my career.
Speaker 1: But when faced with the direct question about whether he
Speaker 1: was capable of doing this two women or not, there
Speaker 1: was no way I was gonna lie. There's just there's
Speaker 1: just no way I was going to do it. So
Speaker 1: my life changed a lot there. The dynamic changed. And
Speaker 1: while it was changing, um, my life was explosive. It
Speaker 1: was you talked about acrimony. You know, I left a
Speaker 1: lot because it was too many hours and it was
Speaker 1: too acrimonious. Put that on steroids for my time in
Speaker 1: cable news prime time. Um, you know O'Reilly told me
Speaker 1: before I joined the prime time lineup that he said
Speaker 1: it's a snake pit, and it got it. I've never
Speaker 1: been told something more true. And so every time somebody
Speaker 1: would come after me, there was somebody in the press
Speaker 1: or another journalist or Trump or whoever, it would lead
Speaker 1: to another crisis meeting. You know, the Trump thing had
Speaker 1: led to armed guards in my life, people showing up
Speaker 1: at my apartment. It was dangerous and we lived like
Speaker 1: that for nine months. So I was weary, you know.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, I had three young kids
Speaker 1: at the time, they were seven, five, and three, and
Speaker 1: I missed them. I missed mothering. And I remember talking
Speaker 1: my therapist about at the time and he said, you know,
Speaker 1: he said, look at Chelsea Clinton. She had two parents
Speaker 1: who were incredibly busy, you know, they weren't there with
Speaker 1: her every day. She turned out just fine. And I said,
Speaker 1: I'm not worried about my kids turning out fine. I'm
Speaker 1: worried about missing it. I'm missing the whole thing. I
Speaker 1: don't see them anymore. I don't see them Monday through
Speaker 1: Friday because of these hours. You know, I go to
Speaker 1: work before they get home from school now, and what
Speaker 1: I'm doing isn't good enough. So I just there were
Speaker 1: a lot of tears that year. There was so much stress,
Speaker 1: and my life was was totally joyless. And I thought,
Speaker 1: once again, despite the fact that I was making a
Speaker 1: lot of money and offered a lot of money to
Speaker 1: stay and had a position of influence, it was irrelevant
Speaker 1: to me. I was running and it wasn't running to NBC,
Speaker 1: but I was just running to a different lifestyle and
Speaker 1: the reason I went to NBC over anybody else, So
Speaker 1: simply I thought I could do this morning show that
Speaker 1: would let me then get home to my kids. I
Speaker 1: could still do the news and get home to my kids.
Speaker 1: And you know, that obviously did not work out, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't well thought out on my part either, But
Speaker 1: it was a good move to get out and I
Speaker 1: did exercise some new muscles there and I got to
Speaker 1: interview Vladimir Putin, which is cool. Um, So it wasn't
Speaker 1: all bad. And and the bottom line is now in
Speaker 1: I am totally engaged with my kids, with my husband,
Speaker 1: with my personal life, tight friendships now with my friends
Speaker 1: that had gone unnurtured. I feel well, I feel healthy,
Speaker 1: I feel happy, you know, as happy as an Irish
Speaker 1: Catholic living in New York and b And there's a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of things going against me, um um.
Speaker 1: And I don't regret it from it. I don't regret
Speaker 1: for one minute. One of the things that I think
Speaker 1: is fascinating about becoming a public figure, and obviously you
Speaker 1: did that leaving the law, which is a serious job
Speaker 1: and it's filled with acrimony, but most of the time
Speaker 1: you're not gonna wake up in the morning and people
Speaker 1: aren't going to be mentioning your name or having a
Speaker 1: strong opinion about you. Is lots of people that you
Speaker 1: don't know at all and you'll never be able to
Speaker 1: interact with suddenly have such strong opinions about you. And
Speaker 1: I find that transition to be utterly fascinating. I've certainly
Speaker 1: seen it in my life. And I was talking with
Speaker 1: my wife the other day and she was like, what
Speaker 1: percentage of the American public do you think has a
Speaker 1: positive view of you? And I was like thirty and
Speaker 1: she was like really, And I was like, well, I
Speaker 1: mean the media. I'm in the media. I'm in the
Speaker 1: opinion business. I was like, a lot of people like me,
Speaker 1: but a probably more people dislike me because they have
Speaker 1: kind of a you know, caricatured version of me because
Speaker 1: they've heard opinion they don't like and they think about that.
Speaker 1: And I said, but the really, the truth is, and
Speaker 1: I'm brought to this because of what you just mentioned,
Speaker 1: your three young kids. I've got a twelve year old,
Speaker 1: a ten year old, and a six year old. And
Speaker 1: I said, really, the only thing I care is what
Speaker 1: people in my house think about me, because they know me,
Speaker 1: and then secondarily people that are close to me and
Speaker 1: my family, and then people that I work with on
Speaker 1: a daily basis. I really don't care outside of that,
Speaker 1: but I'm curious for you and I and my wife
Speaker 1: says like that's my superpower. I just genuinely don't care
Speaker 1: what people I don't know think about me. But I
Speaker 1: wonder if that's true for you and what it was
Speaker 1: like to suddenly go from I would say you got
Speaker 1: generally favorable pressed with the Kelly File too suddenly, and
Speaker 1: you may disagree with that, but it seemed generally favorable.
Speaker 1: It's at least as favorable as somebody who's working at
Speaker 1: Fox News can get to. Suddenly you are just getting
Speaker 1: attacked on all angles by everyone, and it's like that
Speaker 1: had to be wild. What does that experience like to
Speaker 1: be in the center of the storm like you were
Speaker 1: and still are to a certain extent, but certainly then
Speaker 1: you really were well. I mean, that was very stressful,
Speaker 1: like being misread, resented day after day. It felt like
Speaker 1: every word I said turned into a ridiculous controversy not
Speaker 1: supported by the facts, and you know, there's only so
Speaker 1: much you can do about that. I've I've always sort
Speaker 1: of been of the belief that you just have to
Speaker 1: let that go because you can't control what the media
Speaker 1: is going to do and say about you or what
Speaker 1: people think of you. Um. But when it comes in
Speaker 1: every other day over the course of you know, more
Speaker 1: than a year, it's it's hard. I'm not gonna lie,
Speaker 1: it was. It was tough on me emotionally. Um. I
Speaker 1: think in general, in general, I'm of the belief that
Speaker 1: you know, life in the public square, if you're doing
Speaker 1: it right, means loved hate, It never ignored, you know,
Speaker 1: like you just have to resign to that that you'll
Speaker 1: all have people, you know, scoff at me as I
Speaker 1: walk down the street and I but I'll have far
Speaker 1: more people come over and want to hug me and
Speaker 1: coll me. They love me, and my kids see both sides,
Speaker 1: you know. They they're Even my little guy, who's now seven,
Speaker 1: he gets it. You know, he'll see something a picture
Speaker 1: of me on the tabloid or whatever, and I'll say, oh, honey,
Speaker 1: you know, there's lots of lies about mommy out there,
Speaker 1: and he'll say, well, why don't why don't you correct them?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, because there's no need the people who
Speaker 1: believe that stuff want to believe it, and the people
Speaker 1: who don't believe it don't need to be persuaded. You know,
Speaker 1: my fans know who I am and they don't believe
Speaker 1: the nonsense. And the other people, in my experience have
Speaker 1: been very agenda driven. They're they're in a different kind
Speaker 1: of bubble. There's really no point um in fighting those fights,
Speaker 1: so you kind of have to surrender to it if
Speaker 1: you're gonna put yourself out there is a public figure.
Speaker 1: Why the podcast? You are starting a new podcast? We
Speaker 1: have a lot of people that you're working with who
Speaker 1: I know are super smart on the business side, and
Speaker 1: I think you've chosen well there. But why this particular
Speaker 1: way to reach your audience. Well, I really wanted to
Speaker 1: be independent, meaning not have a corporate sponsor above me
Speaker 1: controlling everything. I didn't set you know, but old media,
Speaker 1: if you will, because there are pressures. There are pressures
Speaker 1: to cover the news in a certain way, to not
Speaker 1: say certain things, um, and I just don't want to
Speaker 1: live like that anymore. I'm at a point in my
Speaker 1: life where I don't want to do that, and I
Speaker 1: think we're at a point in our country where we
Speaker 1: need more free agents who are just ready to say
Speaker 1: what's true, no matter what slings and arrows right, no
Speaker 1: matter what slings and arrows come. And I'm in a
Speaker 1: position to do it now. You know, It's like I've
Speaker 1: been at ABC, I've been at NBC, I've been at Fox. UM,
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of things, and I'm ready to
Speaker 1: just be in control of my own little empire. And
Speaker 1: and honestly, if we start with ten listeners, great, maybe
Speaker 1: the next week we'll have twelve, and over time I
Speaker 1: will build up my relationship again with my audience, who
Speaker 1: I do believe is there. I know how they feel.
Speaker 1: I know there are strong people out there who don't
Speaker 1: believe in these nonsense safe spaces, who really want to
Speaker 1: have challenging conversations, who are way tougher than you know,
Speaker 1: these media people give them credit for. You know, those
Speaker 1: are the people I'm going after and there it's great
Speaker 1: because they have more and more options in podcasting. I
Speaker 1: think my voice will be additive to the ones that
Speaker 1: are already out there, and hopefully people remember that I
Speaker 1: do the news. I bring the news in a way
Speaker 1: that's user friendly. UM. But for me, it just made
Speaker 1: perfect sense because I wouldn't have a corporate master. Um,
Speaker 1: I could. I could do things the way I wanted to.
Speaker 1: And I genuinely believe that this is the future, and
Speaker 1: that you know, television news is dying, it's yesterday. Digital
Speaker 1: as the future, and so this is where should place
Speaker 1: your bet. I've got two quick questions for you, because
Speaker 1: I know you're busy, um, and then I've got a
Speaker 1: broad question for you at the end, if we can
Speaker 1: run through really quick because I jotted down, Um, in general,
Speaker 1: did you watch Bombshell? And if so, what's it like
Speaker 1: to have someone as talented as Charlie's her own playing you?
Speaker 1: Like most people you know jokingly kind of say, I
Speaker 1: think Wolf Blitzer. Somebody was like, hey, if somebody played
Speaker 1: you in a movie, who would owe is der Fauci.
Speaker 1: He was like, who would you want? And he was
Speaker 1: like Brad Pitt and everybody kind of laughs. Charlie Starone
Speaker 1: played you. And if you were like a normal you know,
Speaker 1: woman sitting out there, and You're like, any woman can
Speaker 1: play you in a movie. A lot of women, especially
Speaker 1: around your your age, my wife's age, you'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I would love to have Charlie's throne. So did you
Speaker 1: watch it, and what is it like to have somebody
Speaker 1: that accomplished inhabiting you in some way. I did watch it.
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure if I was going to watch it
Speaker 1: because I had nothing to do with it, and I
Speaker 1: was concerned that it was going to be a hit
Speaker 1: piece either. I don't know either about me or my
Speaker 1: friends at Fox. You know, I still love Fox. I
Speaker 1: still have a lot of good memories there, and I
Speaker 1: just I just knew they'd probably turn it into a
Speaker 1: parody of people who I really care about. Um And
Speaker 1: to some extent they did, and I really hated what
Speaker 1: they did to Brian kill me in that movie, just
Speaker 1: as one example. UM. But I did ultimately watch it,
Speaker 1: and I up actually doing a piece with some of
Speaker 1: the women who were portrayed in there, whose stories were portrayed,
Speaker 1: and I posted it on on my YouTube channel. If
Speaker 1: you want to go look it up. It's actually really good.
Speaker 1: I think the women were very open about their experience
Speaker 1: at Falks. But look, it was surreal and it was
Speaker 1: incredibly emotional. I didn't expect it to be quite that emotional,
Speaker 1: you know that I'd have tears running down my face
Speaker 1: in certain certain scenes, you know, whenever they showed my
Speaker 1: kids on the screen. Even now, even telling you about it,
Speaker 1: it chokes me up. I get that thing in my throat,
Speaker 1: you know, because it was tough for them too, like
Speaker 1: the whole couple of years, Trump and nails and all that.
Speaker 1: Um it just brought back a lot of painful memories.
Speaker 1: And of course I'm thinking to myself, there's a reason
Speaker 1: I repressed all of this. Imagine taking one of the
Speaker 1: most difficult years or two of your life and been
Speaker 1: seeing it on the big screen. You know, Red Back
Speaker 1: performed back for you. Um So it was traumatic in
Speaker 1: some ways, but overall I felt, you know, the movie
Speaker 1: was a force for good. Is it did help hina
Speaker 1: light on sexual harassment and how how it usually goes
Speaker 1: down and how tricky it is to navigate. Um So
Speaker 1: I'm in favor of that. And you know, I thought
Speaker 1: Jay Roach, the guy who directed it made it happen,
Speaker 1: was a terrific guy. So as a part of that,
Speaker 1: the Me too movement sexual harassment, I think, and this
Speaker 1: kind of ties in with the Duke Lacrosse in many ways.
Speaker 1: The Brett Kavanaugh hearing, and I don't know that I've
Speaker 1: heard you talk a ton about this, but it fired
Speaker 1: me up in a really big way as a lawyer,
Speaker 1: because it was to me, it was like Duke Lacrosse,
Speaker 1: except in the Senate Judiciary Committee. I don't know what
Speaker 1: you think about Brett Kavanaugh. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: ever met him before, but when you looked at all
Speaker 1: the evidence there, it to me was so transparent that
Speaker 1: that was a attempt to get him without the goods,
Speaker 1: so to speak. If you're a lawyer, you look at
Speaker 1: all the facts and everything else. And what started as
Speaker 1: something that I think is very reasonable, me too, moved
Speaker 1: to believe all women, which is fundamentally anti everything lawyers
Speaker 1: are taught. Right if we went to law school and
Speaker 1: they said, oh, you have to believe the white person,
Speaker 1: well that's everything that was wrong with the Jim Crow
Speaker 1: South and everything before then. And the same thing, to
Speaker 1: me is true of believe all women, or believe all
Speaker 1: Hispanics are all agents, or the only thing that matters
Speaker 1: is the facts. Where you is troubled by the evolution
Speaker 1: and how quickly it moved from what may well have
Speaker 1: been occurring at Fox News with Roger Ailes and many
Speaker 1: other people in media having to deal with sexual harassment
Speaker 1: to something with Brett Kavanaugh, which is fundamentally not that.
Speaker 1: It seemed to me it was an awkward high school
Speaker 1: encounter even if it ever occurred that I think almost
Speaker 1: everyone who's ever been sixteen or seventeen has experienced, and
Speaker 1: I don't even believe it happened. But even if you
Speaker 1: accept the allegation on its face, as lawyers often do
Speaker 1: or judges do, there was no basis to it. So
Speaker 1: I too felt deeply affect did by what happened in
Speaker 1: that case, and was disgusted by the allegations that were
Speaker 1: thrown at Brett Kavanaugh with zero, zero, credible supporting evidence.
Speaker 1: In the case of especially these later ones who came forward, Um,
Speaker 1: we can talk about Blasi for because I put her
Speaker 1: in a different category. But yes, you go back and
Speaker 1: take a look at some of my coverage on NBC.
Speaker 1: There were articles written up about it because let's just say,
Speaker 1: I was the lone voice defending Brett Cavanaugh and just
Speaker 1: holding people to account it. There was a guy named
Speaker 1: Jacob Jacob sober Off who came on my show and
Speaker 1: said he's now been subjected to five allegations of sexual assaults.
Speaker 1: I said, hold on, that's not true, and we went
Speaker 1: through and of course I had it at the ready
Speaker 1: because as all lawyers do about exactly what had been alleged.
Speaker 1: And you know, creepy poorn lawyer, as Tucker would say,
Speaker 1: Michael Avanadi's client, who was the worst of all of them? Um,
Speaker 1: and then and then there was the one that he
Speaker 1: was counting in there, which was the mother of some
Speaker 1: woman who may have been Brett Cavanaugh's girlfriend at some point, remember,
Speaker 1: is her daughter saying he drew her against the wall.
Speaker 1: And the NBC published that account. Oh my god. And
Speaker 1: by the way, the the actual daughter, the actual girlfriend
Speaker 1: later came out and said, that's that didn't happen. So
Speaker 1: if somebody had bothered to check with me, you might
Speaker 1: not have gone out on that limb. But this is
Speaker 1: this is how the news works. So you've got this guy,
Speaker 1: Jacob Soberrock out there saying five allegations of credible assault.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? So? Yeah, Even while I was
Speaker 1: NBC on NBC, I was, I was outraged about what
Speaker 1: was being done to him. I think the blade before
Speaker 1: thing is it's not egregious for the media to report
Speaker 1: on that, and the facts on that deserve to be heard.
Speaker 1: Her testimonial. I was fine with her offering that testimonial.
Speaker 1: My own, you know, personal take as a lawyer on
Speaker 1: what probably happened there was you know, the concept in
Speaker 1: the law of the eggshell plaintiffs. Yes, and it's basically,
Speaker 1: you know, some people are I don't want to say
Speaker 1: that the weaker is not the word I'm looking for,
Speaker 1: but no, that the people are out there who are
Speaker 1: not aware of it, like the thin skull. Like if
Speaker 1: you accidentally hit somebody who has a thin skull, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a concept and a plaintiff law, you're responsible
Speaker 1: for what happens to them, but they can be impacted
Speaker 1: in a way that would not happen to the average person.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense like for people I'm trying to say,
Speaker 1: until way for people to understand it, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: So you know, you sort of you don't know who
Speaker 1: you're gonna hit, who you're dealing negligently hit the softball.
Speaker 1: You don't know how tough their skull is going to be.
Speaker 1: And my impression of her was she was a very
Speaker 1: fragile person who seemed very very nervous, very um maybe
Speaker 1: slightly not all together and U and so My impression was,
Speaker 1: this is a girl who may have had some sort
Speaker 1: of an interaction with the young Brett Havanaugh, and in
Speaker 1: her world it was something significant. In his world it
Speaker 1: was enoughing, and in the average woman's world it was
Speaker 1: it might have been nothing. And because I just I
Speaker 1: have a hard time believing she just totally made it
Speaker 1: up for political purposes to to kill the guy. Though
Speaker 1: I've seen that happen, I have definitely I don't rule
Speaker 1: that out, um, but I think to come with it
Speaker 1: thirty years later and expect this guy who's had a
Speaker 1: stellar record on the bench, not a whiff of problematic
Speaker 1: reports while he's been on the federal bench. In fact,
Speaker 1: to the contrary, so many female character witnesses, young girls,
Speaker 1: old women, talking about would an advocate he's been so nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing credible at all. Um. Is was really unfair because
Speaker 1: the guy there was no way he could defend himself.
Speaker 1: How do you I mean he tried, he had the
Speaker 1: journals and all that, and nobody remembered her story, including
Speaker 1: her own friend. UM. Anyway, so that's that's blasi forward.
Speaker 1: I didn't object to a media vetting of the claim
Speaker 1: she brought forward. Everyone else I feel very differently about.
Speaker 1: It was a huge smear job. It changed the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court nomination process forever. What the Democrats were doing to
Speaker 1: Brett Kavanaugh was disgusting and unforgivable. It was unforgivable the
Speaker 1: fact that they accused him of gang rape from this
Speaker 1: Julie Sweat Knicks allegations, which were completely and obviously focused
Speaker 1: from day one, day one. It was disgusting. And the
Speaker 1: fact that they would run with an allegation like that
Speaker 1: at places like NBC, but wouldn't run the Harvey Weinstein
Speaker 1: rape stories that Rose mcgallen was on the record with
Speaker 1: and other women were on the record with with NBC.
Speaker 1: That's just one of the media that dropped the ball
Speaker 1: on It is egregious, right. It just tells you everything
Speaker 1: you need to know about bias. They protect the guy,
Speaker 1: the rich guy. He's donated to all the Democrats and
Speaker 1: you know, he makes legal threats, so okay, peace out.
Speaker 1: By the way, they have their own, you know, predator
Speaker 1: inside the halls of NBC. As it turned out, um
Speaker 1: which recording to Roning was exactly why they didn't want
Speaker 1: to tell the story of Harvey Weinsteins. But as long
Speaker 1: as it's a Republican nominated of the Supreme Court. Have
Speaker 1: Adam go for it? Julie Sweat, Nick Michael Abanadi? How
Speaker 1: many times can we put you on television? Um? Anyway,
Speaker 1: to me, it was a travesty and we're gearing up
Speaker 1: for another one. That's what I was gonna say. We're
Speaker 1: talking before this. This is not going to go up
Speaker 1: till next week. But how much of a mess do
Speaker 1: you think this next day? And I guess what I
Speaker 1: should say because you got me fired up too. These
Speaker 1: are theoretically some of the brightest legal minds in politics
Speaker 1: that are on the Senate Judiciary Committee, sitting as Democrats, right,
Speaker 1: And I watched those hearings and I just thought to myself,
Speaker 1: how in the world could you ever think this makes
Speaker 1: sense as an objective lawyer? Right? The way that so
Speaker 1: many of those Democrats behaved, And I would like to
Speaker 1: think that Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee wouldn't behave
Speaker 1: the same way. We may have to wait a few
Speaker 1: years to find out, but to me, the precedent that
Speaker 1: the Kavanaugh here hearing set is effectively no one is
Speaker 1: eligible to be a Supreme Court justice because everybody's got
Speaker 1: something that somebody negative can say about them, even if
Speaker 1: it doesn't rise to the level of being criminal. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the thing is like people are taking a hard
Speaker 1: look at Coney Barrett saying, oh, they're going to come
Speaker 1: after her for her faith or you know, for this
Speaker 1: ruling or for that ruling. They're going to come after anyone.
Speaker 1: If I were Trump, I would pick who I genuinely want,
Speaker 1: you know, I would want to pick the one who
Speaker 1: would give me the best legacy on the bench with
Speaker 1: the rulings I hope for right that who's going to
Speaker 1: be institutionalist and originalists and represent, you know, my world
Speaker 1: view when it comes to law the best possible, because
Speaker 1: whoever it is is going to get killed unfairly by
Speaker 1: the press and by the Democrats. And I think you're
Speaker 1: doing more generous than I am. I don't look at
Speaker 1: those Democrat lawyers and think these are some of the
Speaker 1: best legal minds in the country. I really know very
Speaker 1: few people who have. I said, for Paul, for politicians,
Speaker 1: they're some of the best legal minds, right, I mean
Speaker 1: that that's the best of the elected officials unfortunately, that
Speaker 1: have a law degrees that we could rely on. And
Speaker 1: I just sat there discussed it. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Um And by
Speaker 1: the way, years why the Lindsay Graham moment was so huge.
Speaker 1: We all watched and I covered at length while the
Speaker 1: wall gavel, the gavel the Supreme Court confirmation hearing is
Speaker 1: in recent history of John Roberts, of Samuel Alito, of
Speaker 1: Lana Kagan, if Sonia Soto mayor, none of this happened.
Speaker 1: There was like a little Aldo who got a little
Speaker 1: bit unfairly beat up and his wife shed a tear. Right.
Speaker 1: It's like a sad moment in the in the process,
Speaker 1: that's it, And that was already more vicious than it
Speaker 1: used to be, other than bourk And to see them
Speaker 1: try to destroy this man, destroy him without any concern
Speaker 1: for the truth, for what, what would be admissible in
Speaker 1: a court of law, what's appropriate to report to an
Speaker 1: audience of millions, was infuriating. And so I think we're
Speaker 1: going to see it again. I think I don't know
Speaker 1: how to solve it. I think it's like a nuclear
Speaker 1: arms race now where no one's gonna step down. Each
Speaker 1: side just keeps raising the anti Although all I can
Speaker 1: hope is that because I think Trump's going to fill
Speaker 1: the seat, and I think he's going to get his vote,
Speaker 1: and I think he's going to install the next justice
Speaker 1: on the Supreme Court. Um. And I don't think the Democrats.
Speaker 1: I I don't believe they're going to pull the trigger
Speaker 1: on unpastacking the court. Yeah. Yeah, I just I can't
Speaker 1: believe they do that. It's that is killing the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court is done. If they do that, it's over.
Speaker 1: I just by the way I go that far. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine. I was just gonna say, if you
Speaker 1: want to read about that, there's a fantastic book by
Speaker 1: Molly Hemingway h called Justice on Trial, the Kavanaugh Confirmation
Speaker 1: and the Future of the Supreme Court. It goes all
Speaker 1: the way through. Uh, it's an incredible book. Molly Hemmingway.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure I get it right. And
Speaker 1: Carrie Severino did a phenomenal job on that. All right,
Speaker 1: I've kept you for a long time. Final question here
Speaker 1: because I'm always kind of curious. This is the Wins
Speaker 1: and Losses Podcast. I'm Clay Travis. We've been talking with
Speaker 1: Megan Kelly and by the way, this is fantas like
Speaker 1: I want to bring you on to talk when this
Speaker 1: when this process actually starts playing out on the Supreme Court, like,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's gonna be I feel like it's
Speaker 1: gonna be covered so poorly that I'm already fired up
Speaker 1: about just wanting to have a panel of smart lawyers
Speaker 1: who aren't trying to come at this from a like
Speaker 1: I'm not telling you who I think should be on
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, Right, I'm not the president. I probably
Speaker 1: would disagree with many of the rulings that Brett Kavanaugh
Speaker 1: would make, or Sonya Sada mayor for that purpose, whoever
Speaker 1: you want to point to, Right, But Brett Kavanaugh was
Speaker 1: imminently qualified and probably as good of a choice as
Speaker 1: Donald Trump could make. Right, Like regard if you're acknowledging
Speaker 1: that the Republican is going to make the choice, I
Speaker 1: think Amy Coney Barrett, based on everything that I know
Speaker 1: about her, and if research, is an eminently reasonable choice.
Speaker 1: This isn't George Bush trying to put Harriet Myers on
Speaker 1: the Court because he's good friends with her. You know,
Speaker 1: this is an eminently reasonable choice. And I just feel
Speaker 1: like the media by and large is going to do
Speaker 1: such an awful and crappy job of covering this that
Speaker 1: I feel like there has to be an outlet that
Speaker 1: can do a good job of it. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: you'll do a good job on your podcast, but I
Speaker 1: feel like that's being lost now. I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1: And it did occur to me, you know, for the
Speaker 1: purposes of my launching this podcast. It was good timing,
Speaker 1: you know, to have this battle. I do respect the
Speaker 1: work of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. For the record, I do
Speaker 1: think she was a liberal icon. She was She was
Speaker 1: a fighter for women. I refer not to what she
Speaker 1: did on the bench, but what she did as an
Speaker 1: advocate prior to that and at Harvard coming up in
Speaker 1: a man's world. So I mean respect, respect, And I
Speaker 1: loved her friendship with Scalia and they were an example
Speaker 1: and bipartisanship. Um. But this battle is going to require objective,
Speaker 1: fair voices out there where people know they can turn
Speaker 1: for the truth, the truth, and I know you're one
Speaker 1: of them, and I will be too. As soon as
Speaker 1: I get this thing launched the week of the twenty eight,
Speaker 1: we will be listening, all right. Final question, what do
Speaker 1: you wish you could go back and tell yourself when
Speaker 1: you walked out of the law firm and into your
Speaker 1: media career. That would have helped you the most to
Speaker 1: be prepared for what was to come. Mm hmm, wow.
Speaker 1: I might have said, you just turned back in there, girl, don't.
Speaker 1: You'll be a partner. You can become really successful there
Speaker 1: and you know, at some point you can ride off
Speaker 1: into the sunset. I mean, I got a lot of
Speaker 1: friends who who have stayed in the partner life and uh,
Speaker 1: and they're doing well. And the positive with that is
Speaker 1: you grind and it's a tough, tough job, but by
Speaker 1: and large, you don't have to worry about waking up
Speaker 1: and pulling out your phone and somebody is you know,
Speaker 1: somebody has come after you and you're trending, you know
Speaker 1: on on Twitter. You know. Okay on that front. The
Speaker 1: difference between your adversary coming after you in the practice
Speaker 1: of law in my experience, and those who come after you,
Speaker 1: as you know, in this profession and media is the
Speaker 1: lawyers still have honor. They do, not all of them,
Speaker 1: but for the most part, lawyers still have honor in
Speaker 1: my experience, and they they won't try to hurt you
Speaker 1: unfair early. Um. That's not the case in media. Their
Speaker 1: their business is to be unfair and unfactual in today's
Speaker 1: day and age, and so as frustrating as that can be,
Speaker 1: it is it is like that's our reality, and one
Speaker 1: just now has to learn how to navigate around it,
Speaker 1: and then, unfortunately help people who aren't in the media
Speaker 1: learned to navigate around it because they also live in
Speaker 1: a world of Facebook and Twitter where things they're just
Speaker 1: said about them that aren't true, and now they have
Speaker 1: to pussy foot around every issue when they're at their
Speaker 1: jobs lest they lose them, you know. And so I
Speaker 1: don't know. I just think the call is greater than
Speaker 1: ever to do what we're doing. But sure, I think
Speaker 1: in some ways my life would have been easier had
Speaker 1: I just taken that partnership and tried a bunch of
Speaker 1: cases and retired with you know, I guess in fifteen
Speaker 1: more years with it, with a fat pension of some sort. Um. Listen,
Speaker 1: I'll leave you with this because I've mentioned my therapist
Speaker 1: several times. He's amazing. Um. After one one of the
Speaker 1: many blow ups in my life or we were talking
Speaker 1: and uh, he said, you know, Megan, you don't always
Speaker 1: have to take the path of most resistance. And I thought,
Speaker 1: you know. If you know me at all, you know
Speaker 1: that I do. Some of us are just pugilistic by nature,
Speaker 1: and for whatever reason, the flame finds us. And I
Speaker 1: think that's brought great, great gifts into my life and
Speaker 1: some downsides as well, but I'm balanced. I wouldn't train
Speaker 1: any of it. This has been phenomenal. This has been fantastic.
Speaker 1: I would encourage all of you to go make sure
Speaker 1: that you subscribe to Megan Kelly's new podcast. Go follow
Speaker 1: her on Twitter at Megan Kelly. I'll tweet out the link.
Speaker 1: If you haven't followed her already, you can make sure
Speaker 1: you do it just in time for the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: confirmation battle that appears it's going to be eminent on
Speaker 1: the next few days. Megan, thank you so much. I
Speaker 1: know how busy you are. This was phenomenal. Look forward
Speaker 1: to being able to talk some time again down the line.
Speaker 1: Thanks Clay, I appreciate it. That is Megan Kelly. I'm
Speaker 1: Clay Travis. This has been wins and losses. Be sure
Speaker 1: to catch live editions about Kick the Coverage with Clay
Speaker 1: Travis weekday. He's at six am Eastern three am Pacific,