Rachel Campos-Duffy Goes One on One With Outkick

Fox & Friends Weekend host Rachel Campos-Duffy is one of the most honest people you'll meet on television. She's not a self-serving journalist, but a mother of nine who happens to talk about political and social issues for a career.

I spoke to Rachel about self-censorship, transgenderism, sexual indoctrination of children, the Florida bill, Lia Thomas and Americans who are afraid to speak up.

We also chatted about her co-hosts, Will Cain and Pete Hegseth.

Enjoy:

Burack: What is the biggest story in the country right now?

Rachel Campos-Duffy: Oh, Bobby. There is so much going on. But the answer is censorship because we can't even talk about the problem. People feel they have to censor themselves because if they don't, they are afraid of losing their job or somehow getting called a racist. Or labeled homophobic or transphobic or xenophobic.

And what ends up happening is we stop debating. Very young people are now self-censoring. What has happened is that they have stopped thinking for themselves. Self-censoring is starting at a very young age, maybe to get the right grade or in order to sit in high school and college. That's scary.

We saw this in the Soviet Union. People who came out of the Soviet gulags would say that the danger was not what you couldn't say, but that you had to stop thinking for yourself. That's worse.

Burack: That is such a good point. I wrote a column last week that argues that to participate in the conversation, you have to allow the people above you to control what you think. And if you step out of line, they will silence you immediately.

Rachel Campos-Duffy: Yes, absolutely. That's true.

On the Left, people wonder why people like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are so popular. Well, it's because they say what they think, and there's a lot of people that want other people to say what they're thinking because they're afraid to say it themselves. So when Trump and DeSantis speak up, it makes these people feel like they are not crazy, that someone else does, in fact, agree.

Look at DeSantis. He took a stance that I would guess 70 to 80% of Americans agree on, which is that men should not be able to compete against women. Lia Thomas standing up on that stage next to a girl was such a visible example of this. He looked like a giant. He was ginormous. He's, like, a foot taller than these women. It was so obvious that even the best girl could never beat this guy.

By the way, Lia wasn't very competitive against men himself. He was mediocre. Now he's dominant against women. That's why DeSantis said, after Lia won, that the real winner was the second-place swimmer, a biological woman. This went viral and most people agreed, but were afraid to say it.

Most of America, I'd say 80%, think that this is unfair, that it hurts girls. That includes Democratic women, Bobby. But because there's so much sensitivity about how it hurts transgenders, people won't take a public stance and say this. They are self-censoring instead. So they look for someone like DeSantis, who's not afraid, to speak out for them.

Burack: If someone went into a coma five years ago and woke up some time in the past two years, they wouldn't believe any of this is real.

Men are now competing against women. There's confusion about what is a woman. We had cloths over our faces for much of the past two years. And Americans are now afraid to give their honest opinion.

How did this happen?

Rachel Campos-Duffy: You're so right. As you say, it has been this slow boil process. You brought up the masks. We were told just two weeks to slow the curve. That turned into two years. We now just sort of accept this stuff when it comes from corporations and pressure groups. If we disagreed during the pandemic, they made us feel like we were killing people -- that's how they kept us muzzled.

I think you're totally right. And one of the things that I've been doing over the last two years is going and speaking at universities. Here's the thing, Bobby. You and I, no matter the political persuasion, know what normal is. But young kids, they don't know what normal looks like. They think this insanity is normal.

For example, I have a child who entered kindergarten when masks were introduced. She didn't go to preschool, she was home with me. So her first experience in school was with masks. I keep going around to universities, to students, to my own kids, and even their friends to tell them this is not normal.

I fear we are normalizing this level of government intrusion of unconstitutional rules and regulations over our life, movements and speech. None of this existed or definitely wasn't at this level just a few years ago.

For young people, it's normal to shut down a church. When I was growing up, that never happened. Never, ever in the history of America did you tell businesses they had to shut down. Sadly, I think we are normalizing this type of control, and young people think that's okay.

NASHVILLE, TN - DECEMBER 31: (L-R) Will Cain, Rachel Campos-Duffy and Pete Hegseth attend FOX News All American New Year at Wildhorse Saloon on December 31, 2021 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images).

Burack: Late last year, Dr. Robert Malone mentioned the term mass formation psychosis to Joe Rogan. Malone then explained the phenomenon:

“When you have a society that has become decoupled from each other and has free-floating anxiety in a sense that things don’t make sense, we can’t understand it, and then their attention gets focused by a leader or series of events on one small point, just like hypnosis, they literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere.”

He's right. We can be led anywhere, including out of reality. Some examples include the belief men can have babies, that men can turn into a woman tomorrow, and that police are the enemy.

However, the Left told us to ignore mass formation psychosis, that it's a myth. But it's not a myth. It's real.

Campos-Duffy: Oh absolutely. I love that you brought up that conversation because they were angry that this conversation about mass formation psychosis was being had. I love that you brought it up. It was like we weren't even allowed to have the conversation. This moment was really dangerous for the people trying to tell us what to do.

There are snippets from the Left, these sort of radical, oligarchy-type people where the masks slipped off, they said out loud what they weren't supposed to say. I remember a moment when Justin Trudeau said, "This is the great reset." He said this is an opportunity for us to reimagine economic systems, reimagine what law enforcement looks like, reimagine whatever. Whenever you hear the word "reimagine," your flag should go up. And you should be wary.

The pandemic was harvested by some, I think, really bad forces in order to lead us in those directions that you're talking about, and to normalize this level of control.

I remember years ago, Bobby, doing a speech about the kind of censorship and government control they have in Cuba. My audience was amazed when I told them that if you live in Cuba that you couldn't get the internet. Or if you did, they'd censor it. That Cuba bans certain books because they don't want people to have access to certain ideas. My audience was amazed, they couldn't believe it.

Now, just think about that. That's happening right here now, the tracking of our movement, censorship of our thoughts, censorship of what's on the internet. The censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story literally changed an election. It might have even changed the world, depending on how the war in Ukraine turns out with Russia having nuclear weapons and a senile president of the United States who keeps escalating things with his gaffes.

This is now the America we live in. It's so crazy. This is the stuff of China. This is the stuff of Cuba, and it's happening here. And every day, we're looking more and more like China.

Burack: The Parental Rights in Education bill in Florida, inaccurately dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill, prohibits teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity with children in third grade and younger.

What's up with these creeps at Disney and ESPN protesting this?

Campos-Duffy: Oh, it's so incredible. There are so many facets to the story. First of all, my only objection to the bill is I don't think it goes far enough. Third grade, okay, great. Let's go higher.

Look, I have teenagers, so I have to talk to them about sex. I don't enjoy it at all. Anyone who wants to talk about sex with kindergarteners or first graders or third graders is a pervert. A pervert. They want to have conversations with children about masturbation.

These kids, I have nine of them, are not interested in these conversations at that age. They're just not ready for it. They're not curious about it. There's no need to disrupt their innocence and their childhood by having these conversations.

There's also no need to confuse them with lies. Biology says if you are a girl or a boy, you can't just change your gender in that way. And that doesn't mean we can't have compassion for people who are suffering from this affliction and body dysmorphia or whatever they're having. But to try and indoctrinate kids in a lie, to have conversations about sex and gender with children who aren't even yours, does make you a pervert. We ought to say that loud and clear.

For Disney, it's really odd. Disney gave into the pressure, probably from their employees, to go up against Governor DeSantis and try and get him to back down somehow on his position about not teaching children under the age of third grade about sex and gender in public schools. That's crazy. And I used to love Disney, my kids love Disney.

This is a war on children's innocence. Adults with political agendas are forcing these conversations on confused children.

Burack: That is so well said, but let's change gears.

On Fox & Friends, you guys often have these athletic competitions. Will Cain is supposed to be the athletic one. He worked at ESPN. How do you and Pete Hegseth keep beating him?

Campos-Duffy: I must tell you, Bobby, those two are so competitive. They didn't know I had this secret gift. When I was growing up, my mom worked at the bowling alley on an Air Force base. So I learned how to bowl when I went with my mom. By the way, I'm not athletic. I don't do well when I'm in a competition. And Will and Pete kind of know that. But we had a bowling contest, and they had no idea that it was sort of my secret power. I surprised them. But it's so fun to see those boys compete.

Burack: Where can the OutKick readers find you?

Campos-Duffy: I have a podcast with my husband, Sean, called From the Kitchen Table. We are really proud of that. And, of course, Fox & Friends every weekend.

We are looking forward to getting back to the fun stuff like the barbecuing and activities. And we loved having you on the show, Bobby. That was great. Let's have you on again soon.