Producers' Pick | Kathie Lee Gifford responds to Kelly Ripa/Regis Philbin drama

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You're with Brian Kilmeade. Who was the way? Who was this light that dawned in the darkness? His name was Jesus. Yeshua, the long awaited Messiah.

And from the people he encountered to the miracles he performed, Jesus forever transformed and redeemed the very world he came to die for. All right, and that's Kathie Lee Gifford doing the voiceover for what is a book. It's also, it's The Way is the name of the book. But it's also the God of the Way, which is also a movie.

Well, yeah, you got him switched up, but that's typical of you this, this late into your day. The movie was called The Way. Oh, you know what? Oh, yeah, the movie. Is it really?

Yeah, and the book is called The God of the Way. But it doesn't matter. You're so adorable. But you know what I'm talking about.

Yes, I do. Right. It's pro God. You're not coming out agnostic. No, you're not going to come out agnostic.

I don't, you may come out sick of me. That's, that's not unusual. It hit The New York Times list and it's our first week now and now it's available on DVD. Is that correct? The film's available on DVD. Can you download it from YouTube or something, too? Not yet.

No, no, it'll be streaming pretty soon. Okay. It was a Fathom film. You just got back from Israel. Just got back. How'd it go? It was a difficult trip this time.

I hadn't been back in three and a half years because of COVID and I had some, some physical issues I didn't have when I was younger, you know, and then we do really, really strenuous hikes and we go to places that you're, you know, your average tourist who goes to Israel, you know, to get their picture taken with the camel on the Mount of Olives, you know, that's their trip to Israel. I'm not putting it down, but that's not the way we go. We go and it's, it's all day long, all day, like six in the morning to six o'clock. Are you seeing new stuff or the same stuff? Yeah, no, new stuff all the time. New stuff. It's really exciting.

We go to this, you know, we, I take people that have never been there before, so you got to cover some of those things as well. But you'd find it fascinating because we study not just what the Bible says, because the Bible basically is a, for me, it's like a pen and ink painting. But when we, when we go and we studied rabbinically, it's like getting all the cutlets, like giving it to Picasso to put in all the color because you get geopolitical and cultural relativity, which just makes it all come alive. You're a historian. I love to study history. I missed my high school graduation because I was at the first Jerusalem conference on biblical prophecy in 1971.

Wow, I've never heard of that recently. Even then, a Bible nerd. But I, I had a big struggle with the Bible that I studied because I didn't believe a lot of it.

And it turns out I was right. They were bad translations. The Bible was written, is one book. It shouldn't have ever been divided down the middle into the Old Testament and the New Testament. And the New Testament starts after Jesus is born.

Well, right. It starts with the book of Matthew, which is, you know, Matthew was a tax collector and he was one of Jesus's disciples, one of the first original 12. Yeah, there's the last book of the Bible, the Old Testament, I mean, is Malachi. There were 400 years of Jewish history between Malachi and Matthew that for some reason it was divided down the middle, that the Jews were the Old Testament, you know, the law, the law. And the New Testament was Jesus and mercy and grace. Well, it's all one story of justice and mercy and grace, all of it. And all it's done is like so much in our life today and in our world. You guys talk about it every day. It divides us. And it was never meant to be a divisive thing.

It's a Jewish story. And that comes as a big surprise to an awful lot of people. So how long did it take before people, the apostles or others, started writing things down?

Oh, immediately. A lot of them were not even learned people, though. They weren't Pharisees and Sadducees.

They'd never been. But the oral tradition in the Jews has been heralded by everybody since that's the way. Heralded by accurate, you mean?

Yes, yes. Heralded by people that are scholars who don't particularly believe in the truth of it. I mean, just their genealogies were just unbelievable. Did you ever see the Book of Eli with Denzel Washington?

Was it good? Yeah, but it's about that. They don't need a physical book in front of them.

They have it here. They have it here in their head and they had it in their heart. The Essenes, the Dead Sea Scrolls, it was all, they knew it all. They had it memorized.

Right. The Dead Sea Scrolls, where do they fit in? They fit in because, and they just found some new ones. In the timeline. Well, the Dead Sea Scrolls came from the Essenes and right there in Qumran is a place very close to the Dead Sea, right on the Dead Sea. The Essenes had been, well, I don't know how much you want to talk about this stuff. Do you mean Essenes in Syria?

No. The Essenes were students of the Bible. They were zealots for the word of God. That's why they cared so much that every single letter in the Hebrew had to be written down perfectly. They could have spent an entire day on one part of the papyrus and they make one mistake at the end of the day because they're tired. Boom. Throw it out.

It's got to be perfect. And the only thing that, the reason why I study the way I do is because the Old Testament, you have to read it and understand it in the Hebrew, the original Greek Hebrew language. And you have to, the same with the New Testament with the Greek. Now is that Aramaic?

No, that's separate. But in Jesus' day they did speak Greek and Aramaic and Hebrew in his day. Because I know Mel Gibson said that when he wanted to do Passion of the Christ, he said, I wanted to go back and I wanted the original Aramaic. Imagine being an actor having to learn a new language and have it translated.

Some of the things Jesus said on the cross were actually Aramaic. Yeah. Okay. So that's what he's probably... Do you think that, does that strike you as accurate, Mel Gibson's portrayal? You know what, I know Mel...

I know it's been a while. I know Mel and I was actually, I had, he asked me to host two showings of the Passion of the Christ at my house in Connecticut before it came out. He was concerned about the way the Jewish community in New York, you know, the intelligentsia, the New York intelligentsia and media people were going to deal with the fact that there's been such enmity between Jews and Christians for centuries and centuries and centuries. Going back to what I talked about with tearing it down from, you know, one's for you guys, the Old Testament and the other's for us. No, that's just could not be more wrong. That's the biggest misconception in my mind after studying.

And again, I'm no biblical scholar, but I study with the world's greatest. You just have a passion for it. I have a passion for it and I put my life's work towards it now, you know, making sure that what I say is accurate.

And so I don't just assume that it is, I make sure. Yeah, you get the most out of every day and certainly you were talking about you had a chance to look at your trophy cases right before and you noticed some of the pictures that you had, how much you've experienced in your life. Yes, yes. So as you, and knowing that so much still lies ahead, you're still driven, right?

Oh my gosh, yes. But now I get to do what I, people say to me all the time, how could you have given up your dream job when you left Regis once? Then you left your dream job when you were working with Hoda. And I said, you're just assuming it's my dream job.

Right. You know, my dream job when I was growing up, I wanted to be in that Funicello. I wanted to be Hayley Mills. I wanted to be in Barbara Streisand. I wanted to be in the music industry and an actress and write stories. So now finally I have my dream job.

Right. I was, played the clarinet up until seventh and eighth grade. I wanted to be in the music business. You wanted to be Benny Goodman? I was asked to stop.

It's terrible. I was asked not to sing. And I've had 16 albums and made a living as a singer for 40. Who asked you not to sing? My sister's voice teacher, Selma Gottlieb. Certain things you never forget.

Right. She was a lovely lady, but my sister who was a natural singer, great, just a beautiful coloratura soprano. And I wasn't, as you could tell, an alto. So I went to her teacher and sang a few scales and sang a song or something. And she looked at me very, very politely and put her hand on my hand and she said, Cathy, stick to harmony, honey. Wow. And she did me a great favor because I got angry.

Right. And then I said, I'm going to prove to her I can sing. Which is a great quality, which you kept your whole life. Well, yeah. My sister lost her colon.

The great singer lost her colon from stress in the same industry that fed my fantasies. So I was, that's interesting. So I remember I was coming out of college.

I wanted to do sports. And someone said, send your tape to this guy. So I sent my tape to this guy. I didn't get back to him. So I called him up. I got him on the phone. He goes, I remember your tape. It's really not very good.

He goes, if you really love sports, try coaching. Think about that. That was nice. That was encouraging.

And did it do the same thing for you? Oh yeah. I was like, but I'll never forget it.

I go, that's the most interesting thing. He's like, basically you're terrible. So thanks you very much for the inspiration. No, you were just what they call green in our business. Thank you for spinning it positively. But you had the passion. I thought so.

That's just it. What do you love doing? My daddy used to say to me, honey, find something you love to do and then figure out a way to get paid for it. And you've always reminded me of Regis because he did that too. He was told he had nothing going for him. He started out, you know, and he worked in the radio station, I think, at Notre Dame. And he wanted to be one of those guys that was in the arena, you know.

And he just got put down every time he turned around. But what he had was something nobody else had, the ability to be Regis. Right. Be yourself. Be yourself. Yeah.

God did not make a mistake with us, no matter what some people think. So I think I told you this. My first, from my college radio station, I interviewed Regis. And it was still, it wasn't a national show yet. Oh, excuse me, it was just about to become a national show. It was the morning show. And I interviewed him.

He just greeted everybody as they left. And then he sat on the couch with me, with my microphone, and he said, you know, my goal for the whole time was to get this network show. I had to get this network show. But he goes, but this is what I really enjoy. I realize this is the type of show I want to do.

And things will take care of themselves. And obviously he ends up with this syndicated show. Well, that's when I joined him. Right. Well, we've been together in the local show for three years before we did the syndicated.

We were called the morning show in New York. Exactly. So there's a story out now, I guess Kelly Ripa's leaving.

Yeah. She's moving on. And she addressed, I think today, well the New York Post picked it up today, about a relationship with Regis, who passed away at the age of 88, spending 10 years, ABC's live together.

I didn't know it was 10 years, but she replaced you when you walked away. She said the pair was plagued by persistent rumors that they secretly loathe one another. And in 2017, Philbin claimed he'd never been asked back on the program, hadn't spoken to Ripa since the exit. She did not, Ripa did not dispute Philbin's claim at the time, something she now regrets.

In an interview with Andy Cohen, he said Ripa alleged that she has been targeted and unfairly maligned due to her silence on that issue. What is, do you know the reality there? Yes, but you're not going to get me to talk about it.

No? You know why? Because I loved Regis with all my heart. And he was one of the greatest friends I've ever had in my life. We became even greater friends when I left the show. I was with him for 15 years. And then he died 20 years later.

So 35 years, he was one of my dearest friends. And I just feel very badly, the only thing I'll say is that I feel very badly for Joy and her daughters. How are they doing? Well, this has just come out. So I don't know how, I'll call Joy. I just found out about it too.

I heard about it last week and I was hoping it was one of those things that wasn't true. Yeah. I know you have no problem answering, you're not going to answer some, I'm not going to put you in or explain it. No, because I don't want to get involved in something that'll just be, you know, ugly.

The world makes things ugly. I'll just talk about the man that I knew was one of the greatest guys I've ever known. Right. And I adored him. And that's all I'll say. She said, I guess she wrote, she said she wrote in the book, she wrote, I wish I had set the record straight at the time. I really trusted the people around me as a woman who are often, we are often told to take the high road. And that is woman speak.

And that is woman speak to shut the blank up. So. No, the high road is the high road.

That's what I'm doing right now. Taking the high road. It's a real thing. But I guess she is actually stepping aside, right? I didn't, I don't know. You know, I never watched the show once after I left it. And you never went back on it? And I never watched the Today show since I left it. I never filled in or anything? I didn't fill in for Kelly. No, I went back, I think, two or three times. But it was only to promote something. I don't live in the past. I really believe people who live in the past are doomed to die there. Right. You know, honestly, I'm a right now kind of girl.

And what are we having for lunch? Nobody knows more about TV than you. And think about how things have changed. When there was a late night show, the rivalry with Letterman and the rivalry with Leno, it made a movie. They did movies about it. Best-selling book on it. Fascinating to watch the ratings.

Nobody cares now. I mean, Greg Gutfeld's got the highest ratings over the Tonight Show and Colbert Report. That would be impossible. I was thinking about that yesterday because I've known Greg forever. I go way, way, way back with him. And I absolutely adore the guy, you know, but would I have thought one day he's going to have, he had that late show, the Red Eye thing. Yeah. But but but it was very, very, very different.

And he's always had the talent. He just didn't think about the landscape. The fact that the Tonight Show because it stopped being funny. Just like Saturday Night Live stopped being funny. It's became just a political. You know, I don't I get enough politics watching the news.

I don't know. It made me laugh. I love to laugh. I, James Corden is the closest. I do like James Corden. I've never met him, but I DVR.

So I'll watch in the morning to see if there's anything I could use on a show like this. And he's the only one worth taping. You know, he's an entertainer. The man, did you ever see him on Broadway? No, just he won a Tony Award on Broadway.

He's brilliant. He's an entertainer. I'm an entertainer.

Regis was an entertainer. That's why I never said I was a journalist. I back then I had too much respect for for real journalism. You know, there are very few in the world today that that I mean, I get a lot of opinions, but I don't know that I'm getting the facts. Journalism is this is not what it used to be. And that doesn't mean there aren't great people still in it. There are. Right.

But you've got to you've got to really search. Right. And hopefully you land in the right place. Well, I'm talking to you, Cookie.

Thank Cookie is my nickname. So that's so unusual. So listen, we come back with a few minutes with Kathy Lee is kind enough to come in the radio. This is mandatory. Now, any time you come in, you have to do the radio. You always get me in trouble. That's true.

But you didn't get in trouble this time back in a moment. Educating, entertaining, enlightening. You're with Brian Kilmeade from the Fox News podcast network. I'm Janice Dean, Fox News senior meteorologist. Be sure to subscribe to the Janice Dean podcast at Fox News podcast dot com or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And don't forget to spread the sunshine. He's so busy. He'll make your head spin.

It's Brian Kilmeade. This issue around the gender binary has has has taken up way too much space in the public conversation. I think that people are weary of it. I think that people having to put the she's in the this and that and the pronouns on there. All of that stuff starts to send a signal, I think, to working class voters that these people are not concerned about the things that affect me every day. They're not concerned about inflation, not concerned about which is not to say you can't care about everybody, but there's something that's out of balance. And so I think that when we start sending the cultural signal that we're more concerned about the pronoun you put on your Zoom call, then we are concerned about the fact that you don't have a house or a job. I think the party's off track. And that is Van Jones, obviously, key aid to President Obama.

Nobody thinks that he's a right wing zealot, but he's saying what many logic people are saying, like Bill Maher, who will vote for any Democrat, Kathie Lee Gifford. And that is, what are you talking about? Second graders should not be told you can pick your gender. You should not be learning about sexual relations these times.

You can't be talking about binary, non-binary and all these things that are going on. People don't even know where this came from when 60 percent of the country was paycheck to paycheck. Well, we've lost perspective completely on what is important to people. And I don't care if you're a Republican or anything. People care about their children and they care about what their children are learning and they care about feeding them nutritious food and they care about being able to get to a job they're grateful to have and they can't even afford to get to the job because of the price of gas. And I think you're just foolish on either side of the aisle for thinking that something that polls all the way down at the bottom is the least interesting or the least important to people.

Concentrate. If you want to get people's vote, concentrate on those top three and give them real solutions to them. Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat on either side, that would be the smart thing to do. Right, if you actually try to solve people's problems. We used to debate different ways to solve problems. Now we can't identify the problem.

No, because you've already been labeled a racist or a bigot or something before you even begin to discuss. Kathie Lee, thanks so much. It was fun. Sorry. I'm in trouble again. Love you.