The Dr. Phil Interview - Part One | Verdict Ep. 179

It's a special live audience Verdict Podcast from Deer Valley where we're going to talk about family and we have a very special guest. It's Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz. Senator, nice to be with you as always. We're here in Deer Valley with the most fun part of this is with a live studio audience that's with us here as we are in a retreat with some of those brilliant people in the country and something else that's really fun is our guests that we have with us. Go ahead and I'll let you do the intro on that one. Well, we are incredibly proud to welcome to Verdict a guest and a friend and someone who's a household name, someone who has been in the living rooms of America for three decades now. We're proud to welcome Dr. Phil McGraw. Dr. Phil, Dr. Phil, as you guys know, has had for 21 years an incredible TV show. For 10 years in a row, he's been the number one rated daytime host in America and he's speaking every day to people across this country. Before he was on TV, he's a psychologist who had a business helping win lawsuits and he would conduct mock trials and analyze the arguments that worked and the arguments that didn't work and he was actually the inspiration for the TV show Bull that was based on him helping figure out how to win big cases and he ended up, one of his clients was another household name, Oprah Winfrey. Not a bad client. Who hired him because she had a huge case and she was so impressed by what he did that he began to be a regular on her show and then he spun off to his own show and as I said, for a decade, he's been the number one rated host, daytime host in the country, been nominated for 31 Emmys, he's got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, he's written nine books, all nine of which have been New York Times number one bestsellers. He is a voice that a lot of people listen to and I'm incredibly grateful that he's joined us tonight. Phil, welcome. Well, thank you for having me. You know, one of the questions I get asked the most is what's the to be a number one in that kind of genre and the answer is very simple. Oprah retired. That's what it was. It was number two forever and then she retired. That's the secret. Nothing to it other than that. Easy. Yeah, get the leader to quit. I just wondered if you got bored being one at everything all the time. Like, what do you do next, right? Well, what I do next is probably the most exciting thing I've ever done because I'm getting ready to do something now and I think back to when we launched Dr. Phil and I was really, really excited to do that. I'm very proud of everything that we've done over these last 21 seasons and I think back to when I was looking at some clips just the other day of that very first show and strangely enough, I look pretty much the same. I've been bald since I was 12, so all you got to do is just keep the same tie, put a little color in your hair and you look the same. But I remember the first interview I had when we were putting together a sales tape for that show, Roger King, who was aptly named because he was the king of syndication and the first time I was in front of a camera to talk about that show, he said, what's this going to be about? Tell people what it's going to be about. And I said, we're going to talk about things that matter to people who care. And that's a simple statement, but if you unpack it for a little bit, it says a lot. You're going to talk about things that matter to the people that care about those things. And across 21 years, those things that matter have really changed because when I started Dr. Phil in the beginning, the first text message had never been sent. There were no smartphones, which meant there was no cyber bullying. There were no predators online because there was no online. So as the world changed, then I had to change with it because we let the viewers determine what we do. So what sort of things 20 years ago were people worried and concerned about? What were they afraid of and what are they worried and concerned about now? Well, there are some commonalities still because people were really looking for common sense, really data-based, empirical information they could use every day in their lives to improve their marriage, their family, their parenting, just their quality of life. And I've always said, I know a lot of 75-cent words, I just try not to use them. I try to explain things in common sense, usable terms, and I try to put verbs in my sentences so people say, okay, if I do this, then I'll get that. If I do this, I'll get that. And when you choose the behavior, you choose the consequences. It's just that simple. That's the way it's supposed to be. And those things people are still interested in. But, you know, Senator, I've heard a shift in people's concerns of late that have really impacted me because I've started to hear, in addition to those things, other questions. People saying, we have a, you talked about the fact that I worked with juries a lot, and I did, and I always looked at a jury and said, there are at least 13 personalities in that 12-person jury box. You've got 12 individuals, and then you've got a collective personality over there as well. And the same thing is true in our communities. We heard our very gracious host to this dinner tonight talk about things in Illinois. There's a collective personality in those communities in Illinois. It's very different than the collective personalities in certain other communities. And people are writing in saying, I've always been concerned about my kids at school. Are they learning? Are they getting along? Are they being accepted? Are they being bullied? And now they're saying, I'm concerned about what they're being talked to about, what they're being taught. And I look at some of these things that are coming up. I look at what's being taught in the universities right now. And I'll get into more detail about that. But I'm hearing people ask questions about social issues. We've got social media platforms where kids can order drugs, have them delivered to their house like Postmates or something. And 100% of those pills are counterfeit, and 40% of them have lethal, fatal doses of fentanyl laced within them. And it seems like nobody's doing anything to curb that at these media platform companies. And very concerned about this. When you bring that up, do you get pushback from those companies when you say, hey, what are you guys doing? Do you worry about that they're not either listening or they're complicit in it? I get doubletalk. I get pushback in terms of doubletalk. Well, we have this policy about this. We have this policy about that. And look, there's two sides to every coin. There are challenges to that. There are difficulties because they'll delete an account and it pops back up in another name the next day. And then there are challenges. But more can be done. More needs to be done. And I am concerned. The reason that I am changing what I'm doing. And look, I've had 21 years. I've had the longest running show in the history of the Paramount Studios. And they've been there for over 100 years. Had the longest running show in the history of the lot. And I've been in partnership with CBS and they've been wonderful partners. And Paramount has been great. We talk a lot on this podcast about how the corporate media right now is broken, that they're not reporting news, that they are propagandists and they are advocating a point of view. There's a lot you said there that I want us to get into. But one of the things that stood out to me is you're talking about kids and the pressures on our kids. Ben has young children. I've got two teenage daughters. You have young grandchildren. And I got to say from the perspective of parents and grandparents, the pressures that are on our kids right now are qualitatively different from what we experience. And 24-7, they can't get away from the bat. I mean, they're just assaulted online with social media. They're confronted with themes and messaging and influence that is deliberately poisoning them. And how do you... What about that worries you and what should parents be doing about that? Well, a lot about it worries me because it's not just that there's competing information out there. Our children today, and if I sound like a conspiracy nut, let me tell you I'm not a You said I've written nine books. That's true. And after I wrote the last one, I told Robin, I'm not writing a 10th one until I write an autobiography and I'll be so old that I won't know what it says. One of the things I talk about is the fact that our children aren't just being exposed, they're being targeted. And when I say targeted, I wrote a book in I think 2004 called Family First. And at that time, I said, the family in America is under attack. The families in America are under attack. The family unit, the family values, everything that families stand for in America are under attack. This was 20 years ago. Let me tell you, it is so much worse now than it was then. And when I say they're under attack, one of the ways is what's happening on the internet, what's happening on these social media platforms. People don't understand algorithms, including me, but I got myself in touch with experts that do understand this. And good example of what I'm talking about, research was done where they put together some accounts, put a girl's name on it, 14 years old, just her name, 14 years old, opened this account. And within a matter of a few hours, she started getting targeted with toxic information. By that, I mean information that led her to eating disorder sites, suicidality sites, different kinds of things that were really unhealthy. They said, whoa, that's really shocking. And so they said, well, let's push this a little further. They opened another account with a name and just added a few words that said weight loss. The amount of toxic feed that went to her, content that went to her went up multiplicatively within the first few hours. The algorithm picked up those words and what they do is they feed you what you will click on. So it was like, hey, 10 times more toxic information. They're being targeted with what they will click on full well-knowing that it creates anxiety, depression, loneliness, confusion, self-hatred. And if you want to create chaos in a society, where do you start? You attack the children. If you get them to hate themselves, be questioned who they are, what they are, what's that going to do to the next generation and the next generation. And right now we have the highest levels of anxiety, depression, loneliness among our young people than since we started keeping records. How much does that do to the breakdown of the family? You look at, I was talking to a teacher the other day that said they had their parent-teacher conference. Not a single father for the third year in a row showed up in the public school to meet the parent-teacher night. Not a single dad. And they said the problem is now you have so many fathers that abandon being a father and the government's become the father. The bills are being paid by the government. The mom is there and saying, I'm doing the best I can. But then the family, as you mentioned, are attacked. But these kids are growing up without two parent households. How damaging is that to society today? Well, I believe it's very damaging to society. And, you know, call me old-fashioned, but I believe the role of man in the family is to be a teacher, a leader, a protector. There are these roles that the man in the family is to fulfill. And if that's not being done, that needs to change. And where does it start? You clean your own house first. And, you know, we talked about the fact that there's an absence of role models. And in the absence of those role models, I tell people all the time, you're not, in the best of circumstances, you are not going to be the only voice in your child's ear. You better make damn sure you're the best voice in your child's ear. The best voice. The one that comes from love and care and concern and frequency, repetition, and know who they're talking to. Know who they're listening to. Know who, people ask me all the time, how much confidentiality do I owe my child on the internet? Zero. It's your job to know who your child is talking to on the internet. It's your job to know who's talking to your child on the internet. That's your job. They're minors. They can't see around corners. Their brains won't be finished growing until they're 25, 26, 30 years old. And the last part that grows is the neocortex, and that's where they get foresight, the ability to predict the consequences of their actions. It's your job to see around the corners. For what it's worth, there are a lot of members of Congress that still haven't grown that. We could name a few, but if you want an argument from me, you're going to need to change the subject. So what truth can't we talk about right now on the existing avenues of communication? What is the truth that we're not allowed to get into? Well, you pick it. Whether you're talking about science, history, biology, you pick it. What's happening right now, in my opinion, is the narrative in America is being hijacked. And it's being hijacked by the fringe. It's not like the left versus the right. It's the fringe. And I call it the tyranny of the fringe, because what's happening is you have these entities, these factions in the fringe that are using emotional extortion. And if they have a self-referential agenda, whether it's about the meritocracy in America, whether it's about toxic masculinity, whether it's about transgenderism, whether it's about our history in America with regard to slavery or whatever you choose, there are these factions that are taking extreme positions. And if you don't fall in line, then that's where cancel culture comes in, and you get attacked, and you get attacked on the internet to the point that they'll contact your job, they'll contact your church, they'll contact your friends. And there's something that I know a lot of people listening read in 1984, which, by the way, was written in 1948 by Orwell. How prophetic was he in writing this? And he talked about how people would be unpersoned. We call it cancel culture, but they call it in-person, where they would just delete that person. They would just take away everything from them. And that's what happens in cancel culture. You take away people's livelihood. You take away their support system. You take away their friends. And I'm not saying there aren't people in this society that have done terrible and egregious things that don't deserve to play in the game. But there are also a lot of people that get swept up into not buying into the rhetoric. And if you don't, then this, what I believe to be a tiny percent of fringe tyrants that attack and single those people out, cut them out of the herd, single them out, and try to unperson them, just eliminate them. We don't need a cancel culture. We need a council culture. What happened if somebody says something they shouldn't say, use a word they shouldn't say? I did a couple of shows last season called You Can't Say That. I got 57 feet laser screen, seven and a half feet high, and filled them with words you can't use. That you could have used 20 years ago, probably. Yeah. And that's something referred to as presentism, where you take the mores and folkways of today and apply them to the mores and folkways of 100 years ago. And hold them to a standard. And what it's like is, say there's a speed limit in a neighborhood that's 20. And you drive through there at 20 day after day after day. Then they come in and decide, well, we're going to make it 10. And so they come and give you a ticket for 10 over. And you say, well, wait a minute. It was 20 when I did 20. You say, well, yeah, I know, but we changed it to 10. You should have foreseen that it was going to be 10 and driven 10, so we're giving you a ticket. That's what's happening to a lot of people today, that 100 years ago, 200 years ago, they behaved in a way that was acceptable then, but it isn't now. And so they're judged by the standards of today for what was acceptable then. Well, and that leads, of course, to people trying to cancel our founding fathers, trying to pull George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln off of buildings and statues and trying to conclude that everyone who founded America fails by modern sensibilities. And I got to say one of the things that I really respect is I think you have shown a lot of courage on your show, having people who dare challenge some of these shibboleths, who dare challenge the extreme transgender ideology. You've had guests who make radical arguments like women actually exist, which from the dawn of human time didn't used to be a radical argument until about 12 minutes ago. It's interesting that the biggest criticism I've got that I have received is giving multiple sides of an argument an opportunity to have an intelligent conversation. And what I've had from certain sides is they say, listen, thank you for having me on. You really do your homework and you treated me with dignity and respect and we had an intelligent conversation. I just don't understand why you let those people come here and talk. And I said, well, I'm sorry, but they're going to have an opportunity to say what they have to say. When you talked before about meritocracy, I know you care a lot about that. What are your thoughts on meritocracy? Well, I believe that this is a great country. Amen. I'm very clear about that. I love this country. I love America. I stand up for the national anthem. I put my hand over my heart for the flag. I really do. I think this is a great country. Is it perfect? Of course, it's not perfect. But I love this country enough to be able to acknowledge its flaws and fallacies and not be defensive about it. Is it perfect? No. Does everybody start in the same place in this country? No, they don't. And should we do everything we can to give those that are less advantaged than others a better running start? Absolutely, we should. But I have these people talking about they want a quality of outcome. They don't even want a quality of opportunity. They want a quality of outcome. That doesn't work for me. I think this is a country that you work hard and you create your own experience. You create opportunities. And I think right now we're courting a victim mentality in this country. And I see it all the way to the college level. You see professors now that are teaching men, young men that are coming to college, that being ambitious, having entrepreneurial ideas, setting goals, getting out there and doing the things that give you an opportunity to get ahead and provide for your family, that that's all gauche. That's not what you should be doing. That you should be trying to bring everybody along. It seems awfully hypocritical to me that you're charging ridiculous fees for these elite universities to get the edge. And then you get in there and they say, oh no, you don't need an edge because everyone needs to come out the same. Which is it? Everybody give Dr. Phil a big round of applause for joining us. Thank you for being on with us on Verdict. Congrats on the new network. And for all you guys watching, don't forget hit that subscribe button, the auto download button, the follow button. Make sure that you get our podcast wherever you can. Dr. Phil's as well. You can put it in the search engine there in the podcast. You can listen to his show, this show as well. We'll see you back here in a couple of days.