Shepards for Sale with Megan Basham

Welcome to The Rap Report and the Interview With Megan Basham

Welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rapoport, the Executive Director of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a proud member.

Now, typically, we go into a lot of things on this podcast about providing biblical interpretations and applications. Well, we're going to talk politics. Yeah, we are. We are going to talk politics. We don't do that often here, but there are times when politics and religion merge.

And, well, maybe unfortunately, this is one of those times. I am blessed to have someone who I've been following on Twitter for some time, Megan Basham, who is from The Daily Wire. And so, Megan, welcome to The Rap Report.

Thanks for having me, Andrew. It's great to be here.

So, we're going to talk about your new book that is going to be coming out soon. And I've been excited when I first heard about it and was looking forward to it because it's a topic that I have been addressing for a very long time.

But for folks who are new to who you are and don't know anything about you, would you be able to introduce yourself? And I'd like you, if you could, to explain how you got converted to Christ.

Megan Basham’s Testimony and Conversion to Christ

Yeah, so I am Megan Basham. I'm a culture reporter with The Daily Wire. Prior to that, I worked for many years with World Magazine, which is a well-known evangelical news publication, and have also done a lot of freelance writing with outlets like National Review, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Telegraph, some other outlets.

And, you know, my testimony is a little bit bound up in my early college years. So, I was raised in a Christian home. So, you know, I have the story of so many prodigals that I don't totally know the moment of conversion for me, though I suspect I know it.

But God will probably have to tell me when I get to heaven that this was the moment you were sealed. Because I'm not totally sure, but, you know, so if you had asked me, like, when I was in high school, are you a Christian, I would have said yes.

But there was no fruit in my life, and I showed no real sustaining influence in spiritual things. And then when I got to college, that quickly manifested itself. So, I lived a very prodigal life. I think the colloquial term is party girl.

Just, you know, very worldly. I was taking, in addition to, you know, being a heavy drinker, using drugs, I was also doing feminist theory courses and kind of having my head turned by things like that.

And I was an English Lit major. And I had gotten myself into just such a miserable life pattern, I think you can call it. You know, at that point, I was dealing with DUIs and broken relationships with roommates, and I had moved back home.

I was still going to school, but I was back home and living at my parents' house. And I had a professor who he was, it was a survey course, but he was particularly known for being a Bible and literature professor.

And he took the view that, you know, the Bible is really more a piece of literature, not something that can be trusted. And you would call him maybe the original deconstructionist professor. So in this course, he assigned us to do an interesting paper.

And it was very uncharacteristic of me to actually read the source material. But in this case, providentially, I did. So he assigned us to read Sir Thomas Malory's Death of Arthur. And the framing of the assignment was that we were also to read the Vulgate cycle, also known as the quest of the Holy Grail.

And we were to read all of these lectures that hermits in the original Grail cycle give the profligate Lancelot. And we were to explain why Sir Thomas Malory's version was better, because he took all of these little bits of holy lecture out of his version.

And he made it a star-crossed romance. Well, in the original version, it's not a star-crossed romance. You see all of these hermits sort of confronting Lancelot about his lust and his base desires, and how he's just given himself over to sin.

And in the state that I was in in that moment, I'm reading these lectures, and I just saw myself in them. And it was just the strangest thing to read something from the 13th century and see these hermits describing my own sin and the state of my own soul.

And, you know, in very dramatic fashion, I got up and went to the bedroom, and I got down on my knees. And, you know, I had the knowledge being raised in a Christian home. And I just said, Lord, help.

I'm a mess. I don't even know if I belong to you. And so I just prayed, Lord, help. And I can't even remember what the specific prayer was beyond that. But I started going back to church after that. And I think that is the moment that I was saved, because that was when my life really began to change.

I met my husband at church. I continued going with consistency. My habits changed. My behavior changed. And also during that time, though, in trying to change my habits, I was still someone who was coming out of that lifestyle of partying and drug use.

And, you know, I was kind of hearing worldly Christian arguments. Well, you have trauma, and that's why you do the things you do. And you have to sort of reorient yourself psychologically from the damage you sustained and all of that sort of thing.

And I happened to, as I was limping along in those first few months, kind of still in my sin, someone gave me John MacArthur's The Vanishing Conscience. A pastor at the church I was attending gave me his book.

And that really was like a light switch for me. I would say, you know, if the quest of the Holy Grail was the salvation moment, John MacArthur's Vanishing Conscience was, you know, the first major sanctification moment.

Because I read that book, and I kind of joke in my book that it was a little like the old mad TV skit, which if you haven't seen it, a patient comes to a therapist. And the only thing he tells her to do for all of her compulsive behaviors is stop it.

And that is kind of what John MacArthur's book did for me. It was like, you know what? You don't need to know all the psychological reasons that you're sinning. Stop. Stop sinning. You can stop sinning.

And here's how you do this. And so anyway, that was really the beginning of my walking with the Lord on a consistent basis.

Yeah, there was, I forget who was, years ago did a scene on a television show where someone walks into a psychiatrist's office. And that's basically his thing. He's just telling this woman, just stop it.

I think it was Bob Newhart, right? It was a Bob Newhart skit. Yeah, he was my Bob Newhart.

Yeah. You know, I really don't understand, because my salvation testimony was so different. I had a friend of mine in college who just, because my salvation, I was, so I went from a, being someone who is Jewish, well, I'm still Jewish, but someone who believed Jesus Christ as Hitler's God.

And in three and a half hours of hearing the gospel and going through prophecy, I was converted. So I was like, I had a friend in college who was like, I so wish I was you, because you know exactly when you were saved.

You know the date, you know, it's clear. And it wasn't like I fought it. And I'm sitting there telling him like, I wish I was you. You grew up in a Christian home. And, you know, it was funny because the grass always looks greener.

And I always thought it'd be better because I had to live for two years in my parents' house as a secret Christian. Because as soon as the day they found out, they actually went casket shopping. And I was actually surprised they didn't bury, you know, bury an empty casket.

And they told me they were going to tell my siblings that I died. So it's like, to me, it was like, it's like a clear cut thing. You know, and so I've never, I've never understood that struggle. But so many people like, because most people are like, yeah, I just thought everyone got saved the same way I did.

Like, just bing, the light bulb went off.

I think it's kind of the beauty of the gospel though, right? As we all have, you know, some people have that Damascus moment. And some of us, you know, you go, I don't know, Lord, but regardless, I know you were so faithful to me that you held on to me anyway through all of those wandering years.

And so, you know, praise God brought me back.

Online Criticism, John MacArthur, and the Importance of Naming Names

Yeah.

And so, you know, I have discovered, I posted on X that I was going to be interviewing you. Of course, I had to give a dig to someone you follow on X is my friend Chris Honholz, because James White and I abused him, you know, relentlessly about his, the fact he doesn't watch Buddy the Elf.

And to, for the record, for my audience knows I don't, I'm pop culture illiterate pretty much. But I actually watched Buddy the Elf just because he didn't. But I discovered you have more haters than me.

I have a lot of haters.

Yeah. We had, I had, have not had the privilege of blocking so many people, even people that claim they know me personally. And I'm going, yeah, I'm looking at this and going, you don't, not sure that I know you.

Because of course they don't use real names, and they don't give enough details to prove it but, but a lot of people were criticizing for on two issues. One was that John MacArthur had the nerve to endorse your book, and everyone seems to hate John MacArthur these days because someone in his church counseled a couple who did abuse.

Yeah, and it's been interesting to watch and you know I won't digress into this too much but I have seen this sort of conflation of maybe people not being omniscient and therefore imperfectly handling allegations, assigning them in the same role as actual abusers.

And, yeah, that's an interesting little trick there to suggest. Okay, you know, maybe mistakes were made or maybe full information was not had. And on that basis, we're going to put that person in a basket with really egregious cases.

And I remember seeing someone likening John MacArthur to an actual abuser and I went, okay, that's an accuser right there. That is a really easy way to define accuser when you're not making any distinctions there.

Yeah, and that's what they're doing there. The irony of it is, as you mentioned, the timeline doesn't fit because what they, the whole issue is that their husband and wife abused the children. Later, years later, after the fact it was discovered that the husband was sexually abusing the children but both husband and wife admitted to abuse and problems in the marriage.

The problem was that the husband was repentant and the wife was not. And so the wife was, well, church discipline out of the church. And so they're holding it against John MacArthur who wasn't the one that was actually counseling.

He's just a big name. And so you get more money, you know, Julie Royce gets more money by going after John and yet no one wants to admit that she has admitted to being an abuser and a protector of abusers.

So it's like, oh, it only works one way. It's amazing.

Yeah, it's a very messy talk in part because I think, you know, we have to recognize that any church that's been in existence for any significant period of time is going to have to have dealt with this issue.

Because we live in a fallen world and because, you know, predators will often go to where they can get access to children, things like that. And so we have to separate people who are guilty of abuse from people who, you know, imperfectly handled it because maybe they didn't know everything at the time.

Or as you said, the timeline, you know, didn't match up to these allegations that were being made. If the allegations of child sexual abuse weren't being made at that time, then you can't fault someone for not acting on information that they didn't have.

So, yeah, and that's why it's always a very messy topic.

And you brought up an important point for people to realize and we teach this when we, in our ministry, we come in and teach about, you know, how to identify groomers. Because the reality is there is a reason that we have so much of this happen within the church.

And it's because churches are accepting of people and unfortunately somewhat gullible. And predators know that, so that's why they go there. Another thing that, man, this came up so often when I mentioned your name is that you're not a real journalist.

Which I just thought kind of funny because, you know, one woman was telling me she's a journalist. But she was making accusations about you and I kept saying, well, can you support your claim? And she's like, I don't need to.

Oh, really? You claim to be a journalist and yet the very first thing you'd learn in journalism would be, you know, kind of backing up and supporting your claims. And Megan does that and you're not. So, which one?

So, I gave her three points. I said, okay, what is a true journalist? Is it someone who has an education? They've gone to school for journalism. Second, is it someone who's, you know, works in the political establishment like, you know, in the Democrat Party and then goes to one of the major networks and then they become suddenly a journalist?

Going from, you know, political to suddenly just going on TV and now you're suddenly a journalist? Or is it someone that actually does journalism? I know you're going to be surprised, Megan, but she never answered that question.

She attacked my character instead.

Well, it's funny because, you know, by that standard and usually when people say that to me, what they mean is, well, she didn't get her undergrad degree in journalism. I did work on my college paper, though, I will say that.

So, I was actually doing journalism in college. But usually that's what they mean is, well, she did. And they're right. I got my degree in English Lit. But I think they might be surprised to know the vast number of people working in journalism who did not get their undergrad degree in that.

And in fact, there is a pretty strong school of thought that it's better to get your undergrad in something else, whether it be history or politics or English Lit or something else, that journalism is very much the type of job.

And in fact, it used to be a blue collar job that you learn by doing it and you can apply this other background knowledge to it. But I can tell you, Walter Cronkite did not have a degree in journalism.

So, I could give you a long list of people who don't. But, you know, I just kind of laugh that off because, you know, shortly after graduating, I quickly began writing for newspapers and all types of media outlets.

And I did a journalism fellowship with the Robert Novak Fellowship. So, you know, I've been working in journalism for going on 20 years. So, I don't know what to say about that other than, you know, you show me your clippings and I'll show you mine and let's compare.

It's kind of like a friend of mine who says, you know, when we get into studying theology, discussing theology, someone brings up early church fathers and he's always like, well, my early church father can beat up your early church father because they're just all over the map.

Right.

And so, you know, we want to talk about your book, okay, Shepherds for Sale. This is a, I'm going to say, a major problem within Christianity. My audience knows that I've been addressing this for decades now.

And I do need to say, for the record, I received a pre-release copy of the book. So, I do have a pre-release copy, but once it comes out, I will be buying my own copy so that I can take all of my highlighting and now put it in there.

So, because I just have the PDF.

Thank you.

But, well, I have to, for the record, I mean, look, my audience knows if you come in, I'm not, I don't give anyone a pass just because they're on my show. But I do, for my audience, have to say, I do have to state for this book, I have not gone through, there's like 50 pages of footnotes.

And folks who know me know that I do original research. So, I have not yet gotten to researching all 50 pages of footnotes. That will be forthcoming. But I have gone through the book and there's a lot there that I was familiar with.

So, a lot I wasn't surprised with.

Politics, the Gospel, and the State Reaching into Religion

Yeah.

And, you know, I think that, look, talking politics, which is, this is going to branch on politics. And I know that when we do this, there's some Christians that get upset. I have an article at strivingforeturning .org on political activism.

And there is one line that, man, every four years I put the article out and I get heat for, for one line. And it is that most Christians know the Republican Party message better than the gospel message.

And it must be true because it upsets people.

No, I think that's absolutely fair. Yeah.

Yeah. And the other camp is like, well, we should stay out of politics altogether. And when the reality is, is what we're going to talk about here is what your book is addressing is not so much the religion reaching into the state, but really state reaching into religion.

Right. And I mean, and I did get a lot of pushback of people going, well, did you trace the Christian Coalition and Ralph Reed's involvement with evangelical institutions? And no, for two reasons, because one, there is a whole cottage industry of books and personalities and articles that are dedicated to suggesting that we are at risk of engaging in a new era of Christian theocracy that will be led by Ralph Reed and people of his sort.

So that's one reason. It's been pretty well covered. And second, as I would say, that a lot of that coverage is extremely disingenuous. If you look at what the Christian Coalition is doing, you may agree or disagree about whether or not that's a good idea, but they're very transparent about it.

I mean, they kind of wear their political activism on their sleeve, whereas what I am covering coming from the left is very different. It is being done through subterfuge. It's being done quietly. And in fact, when you expose some of the associations, you will see quick denials and attempts to claim that it's not happening, even though the records clearly show that it is.

So that was really why I focused on that. And I do want to say that what this book covers, I did try to pick out the highlights because there is so much. You could not possibly cover all of it. So what I've done is give you representative examples, but they are far from exhaustive.

Well, yeah. And this is a thing. Let me go through just for folks who wet your appetite on why to get this book, Shepherds for Sale, when it comes out. And also just so you see what's being covered. I really think that the way you laid this out, I'm sure that this is purposeful and you could explain if so.

But it's kind of like a frog in the water analogy that many people know, right? You put a frog in hot water, it's going to jump out. You leave it in cold water and turn up the heat and it cooks itself.

The way you have laid out kind of goes from bad to worse or really somewhat plausible to outright sin being accepted. I mean, starting with climate change and climate change, a lot of Christians, there's Christians who say, hey, we should, of all people, we should be concerned about the climate.

It's in Genesis 1, 2. This is what God gave to people. So it sounds good. Moving from there, you go to illegal immigration, which, again, I've dealt with here saying I'm against the illegal part, but we as Christians should be reaching the immigrants that come in with the gospel.

So again, it sounds plausible. But then you get into the hijacking of the pro-life movement, which I think people were like, wait, what? Then we get into the Christian media, and then you turned up the heat in Chapter 5 is where it really gets into the really the worse, right?

We start talking about COVID, how the government was working with COVID into, you know, well, CRT that I hope we're going to talk about, the MeToo movement. And then you wrap it up with what is really where all this was heading is to no longer call sin sin, specifically LGBT movement.

And so as I looked at this, the whole book, I mean, first off, you name names, and I will admit some names I went, ouch, I mean, Douglas Moo, really? Like, I liked him. I like his commentary. But there were a bunch that I didn't, I totally expected.

You know, Tim Keller, I've been saying for years, people have been upset with me because he, I'm from in New Jersey. I know the church there. He has been teaching socialism for years and people get so upset.

You know, Andy Stanley, so many of these names we know, but there's a lot we don't. So first off, I know that a lot of people say we shouldn't name names. It's bad to name names. Just speak about it in generality.

Why is it important to name names?

Why Publicly Naming Names Matters in Church Discipline

And I don't know where they get that from a biblical point of view, as far as let's not name names. I would actually say it's pretty important to be specific about if these are public sins, and they're impacting the church, who is doing it and why.

And I don't think the model of Paul confronting Peter to his face over legalism that he was engaging in with the Judaizers is something, you know, that is the model that we have. And so if we see that, then that is what we also have to engage in, because I would say what we're seeing today is very similar.

All of it kind of falls under that umbrella of legalism, in which we're taking scripture and manipulating it and twisting it and adding our own man-made rules to suggest that, for example, since you brought up Douglas Moo and his son Jonathan and environmentalism, to suggest that being faithful to the gospel means signing on to advance climate change policies.

So at that point, I mean, that's really what we're dealing with, and we need to talk about how it's being done specifically. One, so that ideally it will be repented of and stopped. And two, so that other Christians are wary and on their guard when it's coming in.

And since you brought up, you know, I started with these issues that are debatable issues. And I very much did, and I tried to carefully say, let's take something like illegal immigration or let's take something like climate change and whether or not it is a systemic existential crisis caused by human activity.

Are those debatable issues on which we can all still be Christians and disagree? I would say, yes, they are. The problem was, if you're continuing with, say, climate change, is that something that is unequivocal.

We all agree that we have a mandate to be good stewards of creation. And so that became something named creation care. That's fine. We all agree with that. Then it was said, though, that creation care is synonymous with being a climate change activist.

So now you have specifically said that being a climate change activist is necessary in order to be faithful to the gospel. Well, now we have a big problem that needs to be addressed. And that is why I go, OK, it is not OK to say, let's just talk about this in generalities.

Because if you do that, it also sounds like maybe it's not really happening and maybe you're just making it up to score political points. Whereas if I show you, no, here's where it's happening and here's specifically what's said, then I think that's much more persuasive to people to go, OK, we have a problem here that the church needs to deal with.

Yeah, and it reminds me very much of, I don't know if you're familiar with Pastor Jim Osmond from Kootenai Community Church. He's got a book called God Doesn't Whisper dealing with the whole thing within Christianity of hearing from the voice of God.

And there's so many on the far extreme that he could use as examples. And instead, he chose to use conservative examples from people like Charles Stanley and people like that. And he did that specifically because people go, oh, yeah, that's just out there.

Right.

You use names that are within Christian, J .D. Greer, people within the SBC. All of a sudden, it's not something out there. It's something in my own circles. And I think that impacts people differently in how they look at it.

Right.

And that was kind of a parameter I set when I even started out on my research was that I'm not really going to bother with, say, Jim Wallace and sojourners. Except when Jim Wallace and sojourners came into these trusted, theologically conservative institutions and that maybe you didn't know they were back there in the background moving some levers.

So at that point, I did deal with them. But it wasn't like I was going to say, you know, hey, here's what Jesse Jackson's doing. Isn't that outrageous? OK, well, we all kind of knew where Jesse Jackson was coming from.

So I don't bother with people like that or Al Sharpton or those kinds of people. Jim Wallace again. So when I did that, I think that was to show that, yes, your institutions are being targeted by some secular left foundations, powerful billionaires, and that's all happening.

But also, I think it's a two pronged thing that while that's also happening, you also have people who you brought up, J .D. Greer, who are taking on the the cultural definition of things, taking on the cultural narrative of particular topics.

And for whatever reason, I'm not suggesting that they some are being paid, but they're not being paid. But I think there is maybe that cultural compromise, whether it's coming from fear of man or wanting to be thought well of in the world's eyes.

That's also a factor here. And so those were the kind of things that I wanted to tease out and go specifically what's happening on all of these fronts.

And just for people who may want to push back, let me just read what scripture actually another passage of scripture because you addressed a lot of pastors and sins. And First Timothy 5, 19 and 20 says this.

So first, we're going to see a protection for pastors and then instruction on what to do with pastors that sin. It says, do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses.

So that's the protection. But verse 20 says those who continue in sin rebuke in the presence of all so that the rest will also the rest also will be fearful of sinning. Now, the reality is that verse 20 rebuke there is an imperative.

That's a command. So if you have a pastor that is continuing to sin, we are commanded by God to rebuke them publicly. Why? So we want to smear their name? No, so that others will be fearful of continuing in the same behavior.

That's why you naming names and giving the examples is so important. And for any that want to criticize it, I think that first off, your issue is not with Megan. It's with the Bible because this is what God commands us to do.

So sorry, go bring it up with God.

And I wouldn't want to be you when you do that.

But let's let's dig into one that really one issue of the book that I resonated a lot with was the whole way that the government works with COVID. And whenever we talk about things with the government, I always I caveat that there are things that I know and things I cannot say.

So, you know, there is stuff that always comes up when people say, well, how do you know this is going on with the government? There's things where I just go, I know. Sorry. But the stuff with COVID, what I saw going on and stuff that you you document in your book, I was not surprised by at all.

Government, COVID, and the Evangelical Cover for Authoritarian Policies

Yeah, the fact that we see the government working with churches. Explain that to folks who may not, you know, they just think, oh, this is the churches were just shut down because, you know, government's trying to just help people stay alive and they have care for people.

And there wasn't collusion going on at all. No.

Well, I mean, look, if you go back and you sort of carefully read through the records of early 2020, it's very clear that it was a deliberate mapped out plan for how are we going to use a well-known evangelical figures and ministry leaders in order to get Christians who are in the pews every week to submit to these new what I would call authoritarian policies.

So what they did was bring in National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins, otherwise known as Anthony Fauci's boss, and they really used him as here is an evangelical leader that you can trust.

And one, there was this sort of dazzling of look at how high in the halls of power a man who's just like us is. And I think we were supposed to be sort of impressed by that. I mean, in fact, people likened him to Daniel in the court of Nebuchadnezzar, this faithful evangelical in the halls of power.

And so he was then platformed by everyone from Tim Keller to Ed Stetzer, Russell Moore, Christianity Today, N .T. Wright. I could go on and on in a really uncritical way. So it would be one thing if they were bringing him on to interview him and say, well, we want to ask you some questions, but kind of what you just did with me, hey, let me offer you some pushback.

What do you say about this? Even that minimal level of, hey, let me cross examine some of what you were saying, that did not happen. And then it was said, we need to listen to him because he is a Christian who is giving us the Christian position.

And so if you remember at that time, it was things like, love your neighbor, get the shot. So that to me was appalling because you went, this is an issue that should absolutely be a matter of personal conscience, whether I should take this new and experimental vaccine.

Now, you can make your argument saying, here's why I think it's prudent for you to do it. But where they went over the line was saying, you are not loving your neighbor if you don't agree to do it. Because look, I mean, let's talk about young women who were of childbearing age who might be trying to get pregnant at that time.

We had no idea what the long-term impact, and we still don't, what the long-term impact of those vaccinations could be on fertility. It was very reasonable for young women in that position to say, I'm going to hang back and wait because I'm trying to have children and I don't know that I want to do this right now.

And so instead they were subjected to this sort of spiritual gaslighting. And then there was the fact that Francis Collins himself, his full record as he was being sort of paraded around as the evangelical in leadership that you can trust, his record was not given in its full breadth.

And if you know it and you understand it, I think you would have great doubts about exactly where he stands. To give you an example, he strenuously argued for fetal tissue research. As the Trump administration was trying to shut those programs down, he was lobbying for it.

He was lobbying for access to fetal remains of aborted babies in order to continue experimentation on them. He was behind some of the such gruesome, they almost sound fictitious, research that was going on at the University of Pittsburgh.

The NIH was funding it under his watch where human ears, baby ears and scalps were being grafted onto rats and mice. So just really appalling stuff. And if I can continue just a minute so we understand who Francis Collins is.

Also under his watch, he was declaring himself a strong LGBTQ ally and launched departments within the NIH that included research onto quote unquote transgender youth. So that's their terminology. That's pretend, there are no transgender youth, but there are gender confused youth.

And so they were doing research into these kids and experimentation on these kids. And he was funding programs that included mastectomies on girls as young as 12, giving cross-sex hormones to children, tracking the gay sex.

And I hope now if you have children listening, you might take a break here, but tracking teenage boy, gay identifying teenage boys and their sexual behaviors without their parents' knowledge. So they were tracking how often they were having gay sex, were they having gay sex with adult men, all of this done without the parents' knowledge.

So in so many ways, we should really have questioned the Christian witness of Francis Collins in this role that he had in the halls of power. And instead, the rank and file Christians were told, no, you're the ones who are damaging our Christian witness if you do not immediately submit to what Francis Collins and other members of the government that he's speaking for are telling you to get in line with like closing down your churches.

And in some cases, wearing the cloth masks that we now know were useless or shutting down your businesses. Or I could go on and on. I mean, we all remember it.

Well, but it's interesting because from where we started, here we have things that Francis Collins, now that we're past this, we know they did know these things back then. They just covered it up. Now we see, oh yeah, they did know cloth masks don't work and all this stuff.

All this stuff they were pushing. We're talking with John MacArthur and they blame John for what he couldn't have known because he can't know the future. But we can blame these guys for knowing it and then covering it up.

And folks, I want you, I always want my audience to pick up on things people say that are very important for educational purposes. And if you heard what Megan said, I'm pointing this out because so many people are going to pass over it.