First, when youre so fly from the front. Thats what we say in the south. Have a seat. Big show for you today. Very controversial one, not foreign territory for the tamron hall show. There is a church its called the Westboro Baptist church come in from his church. They have protests outside of funerals for american heroes who fought for this country and lost their lives, they even threatened the protest outside of a child funeral all because they are against homosexuality, they are against other religions, they are a hate group. One of the women there was a part of this church, in fact her father led the church, she broke free. Her name is megan phelpsroper. She has written a book about it, she is going to join us. How she took out the hate and replaced it with love. It is a powerful story and shes going to share with us. And, how many student loan stories have we heard . Oh, my god. A million student loan stories. We have a guest coming up, he was living in his parents basement and decided to run for office. He won from his parents baseme basement, josh is new yorks youngest elected official. He ran his campaign in High School Come hes going to join us about some of the things he wants to see changed in this country. I wrote him a card and say you might be our future young man. Joining the conversation from cyber hall. Loren russell from northfield california. And manny dupree from milwaukee, wisconsin. Wis end. We do the cyber hall so that you can want from your home so sign up, join us from the coziness of your home. It looks like shes in the kitchen. What are you cooking . You can join us from your home and watch the show. Earlier this week we talked to former nfl star, mike koss in. He here with his wife jenna kramer and they talked about the relationship survive inc. Multiple incidences of infidelity. Mike said he had a edition. It got us talking and we noticed the story about bad boy behavior. There is a port that says women, im looking at you, women love bad boys. That we turn to men, i dont know about this they say psychopathic traits. Guys who are confident, smooth talking, and know what they want and how to get it. Anybody have a bad boy fetish i guess . You do . Okay. Let me walk over. So you have a bad boy, whats your name . They are very charismatic. You get sucked into it. My worst story is somebody i dated used my checkbook to get somebody elses number on my checkbook. Tamron did you dump him on the spot . I called the girl. He said it wasnt him and im like oh, really. So i said you know soand . Yes. I busted him that i took the phone and pulled it out o out oe wallach because it was back then. Then it but the phone on the wall and said. Tamron you have repeatedly dated bad boys . Not repeatedly. They find me. Tamron were going to unpack all of this. Anybody else with the bad boy fetish . Yes . Who else . Everybodys hand is going up. Anybody like a good guy . What is your name . To mira. You like bad boys . I liked by the boys. I learned my lesson. It was the excitement, not knowing what was going to happen, the thrill that got me. Tamron you are with him . Yes. Tamron so she is a lover of bad boys, and you are a question mark a good guy. Tamron thats what im talking about. Here to explain this attraction that some women have to bad boys is dr. Michael bruschi. Thank you for joining us. First of all, how do you define a bad boy . A bad boy is someone who lacks empathy and they are just out for winning. They are all about one goal, and that is to come if it is in a relationship they have that goal and its about achieving that goal and it could be winning your love, tamron why are women attracted to bad boys . Full disclosure, ive been attracted to a few in my past. Well, they have so much confidence. Theres no guilt, there is no shame. Tamron that draws us in . Basking in that you kind of have that connection and that person who seems flawless is, likes you. That gives you a very wild this perfect person who exudes all of this confidence and has these great qualities. Tamron we know this can go bonnie and clyde, we can name the list of when it goes bad when women fall in love with bad guys but i dont know, what are the real dangers here . They could drop you on a dime. Once they win you over they are on to their next move. Tamron a good guy can do that. A good guy could do that but when a bad guy does it its a harder fall. Tamron are you a bad guy michael . Now. Tamron soto how do some men escape it and other men fall into it . Because you are a good guy you said ask your wife your wife. There is a genetic predisposition where you dont have that empathy come you dont have that within you. You dont have that sense of guilt. There is not nuanced emotions, it is very primitive. Tamron can you sure a bad guy, our friend overhears found a good guy, she was going to choke him with the phone cord. Can you rehabilitate a bad guy . Not a real bad guy not a truly bad guy. They are not going to be going to therapy because they dont have the emotional anxiety that pushes someone in to get help. They are fine with it. That they dont have any self reflection. Tamron so the guy with Mike Thompson come hes going to reap had come hes being very open about it. If a guy is making steps to do better, to get help come hes redeemable . He sees there is a problem and if he is in there for real reasons and not just for sure and theres no ulterior motive out said that is correct. Tamron thank you michael so much for joining us. Another story we are talking about, digital tracking tools. A lot of people, parents, using the digital trackers to monitor their childs every mo move. That is my son six months birthday im not tracking him yet but i will be. These apps share our exact location i use one with my mom to know where she has all the time. She doesnt know that but shes learning it now. But some parents are tracking college age kids. Not sixyearolds, not 15yearolds, but 20yearolds. Do you think thats a good idea . Not a good idea . She says sometimes. One parent is in our studio lisa fishman shes joining us from the studio in cyber hall thank you for joining us. You have two daughters in college and you track them. How old are they in college . My oldest is 22 and my youngest is 18. Tamron and you track them both . I do. Tamron a wide . For safety reasons. I completely trust him 100 but god forbid something happened to them, they went home with someone drunk or they were in an uber and something happened i would at least know where they are. I dont do it on a regular basis but every so often if i know they are going out i will just make sure they got home safely. Just as a safety precaution. Tamron do you tell them when you are tracking them . They know i track them and they are okay with that. I think it makes them feel a little bit safer knowing that god forbid something did happen to them i could hopefully find them. Tamron you do turn it off, lets say one of your 22yearold shes got a date and shes going out and maybe she wants to come home at 2 00 a. M. , im not saying you should but are you watching at 2 00 a. M. . Im not watching her but if shes going to stay the night thats fine i just want to know at some point she is getting home or that she is safe. Tamron i think its a great idea. At first i was skeptical because i would not want to be tracked at 22 but now that i am a mom i know i am going to want to track my son wherever he goes for the rest of his life. Let me bring in your daughter lexi. Lexi is standing by. Shes here, you are at school your campus it looks like a door behind you. I see the bunkbeds. Lexi how do you feel about him on tracking you . In high school and i thought it was a little bit weird just because i was in the same house as her and she was tracking me but i think in college its definitely good because its a scary place and we are going out and doing things and its nice to know that my mom can know where i am. I dont think shes on the app all the time, i hope she is not. [laughter] tamron have you ever gone somewhere where you looked at the app and thought al oh, man,. You have to get a better poker face lexi. Where did you go and why didnt you tell mom . She could see where i was but i dont think shes on the app that much to be honest. Tamron is there a point where you ask her can you turn it off or are you cool with this for graduation . Im okay with it. My mom knows i am doing the right thing probably. Its just good to have. You never know when you need it. Its good to have someone always looking out for you. Tamron i love it. Thank you so much and lexi good luck in school. I hope you get the top bunk and at the bottom in that dorm room. Anybody else in here tracking their college age kids . You are . Dont be ashamed. Now everybody is confessing. What is your name . My name is stephanie butler. Tamron how old is your child . Shes 21. Shes currently at the university eval of right now. Tamron lets see what he is doing. Hes hopefully doing rotc or being at school hes a really good kid but i dont have to see where are you. Tamron this tells you that he is within 1. 1mile of campus. Hes on campus. Tamron you track them 24 7 . No. I dont track him as much but i dont have to ask the question of where are you. I think he to that. Tamron like a true proud mama. Youre going to track them through th the whole four years question work ive tracked him all of his life why should i stop now . Tamron i love it. My editor in chief of life where. Com, im on the side of the parents. I came out not sure because as i said i was a 21yearold i dont know if i want to my mom to know everywhere but times are different now. We live with the generation of kids that have grown up with tracking, theyve grown up digitally. We are constantly in communication and contact with them. The only thing she said, where are you, thats happening through testing and we all do that. I definitely do that with my family and my kids but they havent texted back we are like thats it, they are dead. Thats how the system goes. Parents now expect that they can track people and they will use things. The iphone has find my everything. He used to be find my phone now it is find my everything. I could look at my home phone and see were all of my family members are. I could see my wife and she can see me. Parents do this for the reasons they said, they want to know when they arrive. You can say tell me when they have left this place, tell me when they arrive here. This is a sense of comfort. Tamron heres what i like about it. We havent seen him but his mother knows where he is, the 22yearold in alabama can you cut lexi who was 20 years old, they are cool with it. Its easy to post this is a generational parent concern but it shows from their children, lexi feels safe with her mom knowing where she has except for that fun time. Not all kids are cool with it. There is life 360 which is a popular parental tracking app that teens literally hate. They had it so much that theres a take down videos that shows four simple steps to fool your parents into thinking they know where you are in the app because they literally hate the app. The problem is that its great when i hear that parents have started the conversations with kids early about this because they are getting the digital technology, the phones the tablets at a very young age so the conversation about where and when to use it, how we are going to interact upfront starting early, it is a negotiation. It is not a role. It gets bad if you just say dont do this. Tamron i like that its a negotiation not a role. My knees i pay her phone bill i know where she is. She thought shed skirted me and the boy was emailing her to my email by mistake. Bottom line it was a rookie mistake and i busted her. I was like okay rookie try again. There are ways for them to beat the system. It is better to talk with your teenager or your kid upfront. I tell people create a contract. A contract that you will both sign about digital use in the phone so that where and when youre going to use it, how long, and also the contract is broken they will lose privileges. Obviously this works better in the 816 ages but want to get past that hopefully youve gotten to a place where they understand that you are going to be tracking them on occasion for their own safety and a lot of these kids honestly do want to be able to reach out to the parents when they can in these apps like life 360 has car crash detection so it could reach out tamron life 360 thats one to look at. Yes and theres a whole nother level another level. Tamron we are going to have you back on for the whole list. 2019 come this is a parenting conversation we are having today. Thanks lynn i appreciate it. Up next megan phelpsroper broke free from her parents and the Westboro Baptist church. This church as infamous as a report i actually covered one of their protests outside of a church in chicago the support of gay marriage. They are notorious, they are hostile, they are full of hate. So how did she escape the hate she was raised to believe in . Shes going to be here to talk about it next. [applause] tamron the infamous Westboro Baptist church is known as an americas most notorious hate groups. Known for organizing more than 50,000 demonstrations across the country to protest u. S. Military, funerals, homosexuality and a nation of other religion. In her book, unfollow a memoir of loving and leaving the Westboro Baptist church, megan phelpsroper tells the story of leaving her family and childhood belief to find a new meaning of love and peace. Please welcome megan phelpsroper. [applause] i was thinking about you when we first learned we were booking you i remember being your reporter in chicago and covering your familys church outside of a church that had come up in support of samesex marriage. Id never seen such hateful signs and rhetoric it reminded me of what it was a kid seeing the lynching to pictures of africanamericans in the south. Just the things that children were curing. There were one of kids. Yes. When i was five years old my family started protesting gaze at a local park but almost immediately it grew from there. We started protesting anybody who came out in support of any samesex relationship. People who sit and think against our message we believed that it was the word of god, the unquestionable infallible word of god and it was our duty to be out there preaching these things. I was taught that this is what it meant to love our neighbor my family was quong bible verses in support of all of this from the bible we would men rise these verses. Tamron there you are in a picture of. The sign says thank god for katrina. Referring to hurricane katrina. The mass loss of life and the destruction of that storm. Your church linked to homosexuality. Yes. My family sees, they believe in predestination. My family would quote the passage that says forgot i set before you this day of blessing and a curse. A blessing if you obey me and a curse if you want. My family took that to mean that anything bad that happened in the world was a direct result of the hand of god. We had a duty to celebrate it because everything god does is by definition good and righteous. Tamron in your book you say they threw eggs and beer and plague plastic bottles filled with the year and as they sped off. Drivers would sometimes abandon their vehicles to come after us on foot. I would scuttle behind mom. The police rarely seemed to help. My parents kept me safe but they were the one putting me in harms way. They really believed, they would never have done that if they didnt believe if it was optional. They never believed it was a choice they had believed it because this is what god required of them. Tamron what was your home life. Im looking at these pictures and if you showed these without the background they would assume this is just an average family. In a lot of ways we were in average family. Im 1 of 11 children so thats tamron wordy fall in line . On the third. We read the bible every single day. We talked about westboroughs understanding of the bible in light of current event but we also played video games and read books andatch movies together and family movie night. We took beach vacations togeth together. Tamron your grandfather started the church and your father turned it into this national conversation. My grandfather started it and it was my mothers side. She became the de facto spokesperson and she did that job for a long time and as her eldest daughter i spent a lot of time working with her on the logistics of the operation. Any time it was time to go and protest somewhere i would help make sure, organize a basically. Tamron that is so interesting i dont want to call it the mastermind of it but in many ways your mother use it orchestrated it but when you saw the news and ive covered it, it was always pastor phelps. The male face of this. It was a Group Operation for sure. My mom was a logistical powerhouse and i helped her with that. But my grandfather it was his idea to protest soldiers funerals. Tamron how did they come up with that . I have to tell you, one of the things that was so difficult to watch, our soldiers coming home having tried to protect this country and to see your family and this church hide behind religion to protest people who had nothing to do with samesex, how did they make the connection . That a passage, i was 19 when we started protesting soldiers funerals. I had grown up in this culture that celebrated death and tragedy. Any time a celebrity died, anybody who had done anything in support of samesex marriage or gay rights or anything, they were a target and we would say this is a judgment of god, this person is dead because god struck them down. When the soldiers funeral protest started that was a new thing and i asked my mother i need to understand why we are doing this. Tamron there was something in you at least in your adolescence that you started to grow up being like i need to question this . I was always asking question. I was not an incurious person it was just that i as ceed the answers that were given to me. Tamron you are fed a steady diet of them. To speak as long as there was something in the bible that would explain and justify. It would be enough for me. Tamron one did it not become a light enough for you . When i got on twitter in 2009. We started targeting these different groups. Tamron you would just look to troll . Just trying to be provocative for the sake of provocation, that is trolling. We never saw ourselves as trolls. Yes we were trying to get attention, it was always to convey the message that we believed that we had to be out there preaching. We thought the only hope of the world, we literally had a sign that says the world is doomed. We thought everybody outside of the church, they had the wrong idea about everything. We need its going to correct them. Again, we sought us a definition of loving our neighbor. We we warning people who were on a path that was going to take them to hell. This message that we, my grandfather would say its people on this earth need this message more than they need air to breathe, food to eat, or water to drink. Thats how the essential they saw that message. Tamron now in 2009 you get on social media and the message isnt a question. What is the turning point . I started talking to people they are in over the course of time two things happened, first people were digging nuances of the ideology and they were able to find internal inconsistencies. Tamron such as . The very first one came from David Attenborough who rented blog. I targeted him for being part of the Jewish Community and he pointed out to this one picket sign that we had, why do you have a sign calling for the Death Penalty for . You find that punishment and little vic is 20. That punishment is good enough for god its good enough for us. He said yes but didnt use this site let he is without sin cast the first stone. We had a response to that always in the response was we are not casting stones, we are standing on a public sidewalk preaching words. He pointed out the obvious hindsight inconsistency, yes but you are advocating that the government cast sounds and that what that passage is about. It was very destabilizing because that was the first time that i was able to see that we could be wrong about something. I went as i always did whenever there was a question i didnt have the right answers for i went to my mother and a couple of the other people in the church and i started to broach this question and almost immediately was shut down. Like no, this is a litmus test to show that they have read printed. They have the institute the Death Penalty. Tamron im going to get to deposit they there and we are going to talk more with megan as she started to challenge the church elders, her own family about what they were preaching. The hate speech in the hay that was coming from them. She is now challenging but what was the familys response . We will have more with megan after the break. [applause]