TruthArchive.ai - Tweets Saved By @megynkelly
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Time's Absurd "Person of the Year," Newsom's Inauthenticity, and America's Font Changes, with @TomBevanRCP, @CarlCannon, @abwalworth, and @DougBrunt WATCH: https://t.co/4uy8mBxBLc
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Hollywood Secrets, GOP Push to Get Crockett to Run, and Keys to Longevity, with @andrewklavan and @thegarybrecka WATCH: https://t.co/5UJhzYSSiq
Video Transcript AI Summary
Megan Kelly opens with topics including Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett’s potential Senate bid and an alleged Republican push to recruit her, plus a clarification about Golden Globes “snub” coverage. She previews longevity expert Gary Breka as a second-hour guest and briefly plugs Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show, inviting listeners to subscribe and highlighting Peak wellness products and a Sun Goddess Matcha offer.
Andrew Klavan joins Megan to discuss Hollywood’s value system and the Golden Globes’ new category for best audible podcast. Megan explains that some voters must be courted by Golden Globes organizers to qualify for nomination and recalls that her team withdrew their name to avoid the dog-and-pony show. She notes she never sought the award and that, despite top podcast rankings, they refused nomination. Klavan agrees, adding that he never expected nomination and recounts his experience after writing Empire of Lies, describing a moment in which he realized he would likely not win further awards. He describes his own left-leaning critics and reviews and discusses the broader challenge conservatives face in achieving recognition within the arts.
Klavan reflects on the broader impact of awards and the arts, comparing the entertainment world to sex in terms of long-term spiritual influence. He argues that the right has not built the same cultural infrastructure to celebrate and study the arts as the left dominates it, citing examples of left-leaning award outcomes and left-wing content that receives recognition. He contends that Hollywood’s “fake god” status and the way awards are used can influence careers, and he contrasts this with conservatives’ willingness to engage with the system. He recounts his own Hollywood career decline due to political positions and stresses the importance of integrity and fearlessness in speaking one’s mind, even at personal cost. Megan agrees, noting her stance of not seeking acceptance from Hollywood and the corrosive nature of blurring lines between journalists and entertainment elites.
The discussion turns to contemporary industry examples, including Met Gala chair selections and celebrity appearances, with Megan criticizing the relevance of chair choices and highlighting celebrities’ perceived decline in cultural prominence. Klavan remarks on Sidney Sweeney’s recent messaging shifts, the pressures from agents and industry gatekeepers, and the broader risk for young conservatives in Hollywood. They discuss actors who have faced career consequences for their beliefs, referencing Zachary Levi’s claims of being gray-listed and the broader risk to conservative artists in the industry. The conversation touches on high-profile figures like Tom Stoppard and Cormac McCarthy as examples of conservatives in the arts, and they reflect on whether the industry’s power and influence are being wielded to push a left-leaning agenda.
Megan shifts to a segment about Jasmine Crockett’s Senate bid, noting NOTUS’s report alleging an astroturf recruitment process by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to push Crockett into the race, and that Crockett’s announcement caused Colin Allred to drop out. They discuss Beto O’Rourke and Joaquin Castro vs. Crockett, and the idea that Republicans might have orchestrated Crockett’s bid to defeat a stronger Democrat opponent. They consider the potential consequences and the political dynamics in Texas, with the panelists acknowledging strategic risk but generally viewing the tactic as a savvy play.
They critique media and political dynamics, including public reactions to Crockett’s campaign launch, the use of a rapper at her rally, and various congressional personalities described as “crazy women” by some. They debate the complexity of party strategies and how media coverage shapes voter perception, with the conversation highlighting perceived inconsistencies in how media treats different political actors.
As the program moves into a commercial break, Megan announces a segment by Gary Breka, a longevity expert and founder of The Ultimate Human, who has worked with Dana White, whom Breka credits with significant health transformation after a personal blood test projected a longer lifespan. The program teases the guest appearance and announces Breka’s discussion topics.
The interview with Gary Breka begins, with Megan asking for a synthesis of Breka’s eight tips and the special elements that helped Dana White move from a CPAP-dependent, drug-reliant regimen to feeling like he’s in his twenties. Breka explains the core principles: sleep mastery, a whole foods diet, and non-negotiable mobility, arguing these three are foundational and that no other strategies matter if these aren’t in place. He emphasizes that long-lived populations (Blue Zone studies) achieve health through no processed foods and consistent physical activity, not adherence to any single diet.
Breka argues that supplements are appropriate when used to address specific deficiencies uncovered by testing rather than as universal cures. He underscores the importance of nutrient refinement over generic supplementation and explains that genetic methylation testing can identify which nutrients the body can convert into usable forms, guiding targeted supplementation. He uses Dana White as a case study to illustrate how specific gene mutations (including MTHFR) can affect nutrient metabolism and disease risk, such as hypertension linked to homocysteine elevation when conversion of folic acid is impaired.
The discussion covers vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) as a crucial nutrient, noting widespread clinical deficiency and recommending 5,000 IUs daily, paired with vitamin K2 to aid calcium deposition in bones rather than arteries. Breka explains how vitamin D3 interacts with immune function and cites COVID data linking deficiency to morbidity. He advocates for outdoor sunlight exposure while acknowledging practical considerations in colder climates, recommending supplementation when sun exposure is limited.
Breka also addresses gut health, tryptophan-to-serotonin conversion, and the interplay between gut function and anxiety, explaining how methylfolate deficiency can manifest as gut motility problems and mood disorders. He discourages relying on broad online supplement searches, urging consultation with a physician or trusted sources, and points listeners to his website, theultimatehuman.com, for more resources and a VIP group offering private Q&A and even an AI assistant for dietary and supplement planning.
Megan and Andrew discuss sleep timing, vitamin D3 dosing, and the challenges of obtaining sunlight in northern climates, with Breka advising a combination of sun exposure and supplementation. They touch on circulation and the role of vasomotor activity in overall health, and emphasize the importance of minerals and trace elements for bone health, arguing that calcium alone is insufficient and that regular loading and mineral intake are necessary for bone strength.
The program closes with Breka summarizing the three core priorities (whole foods, sleep mastery, mobility), the value of genetic methylation testing, and resources available at TheUltimateHuman.com. Megan thanks Breka and teases returning guests and future topics. She hints at further exploration of health fundamentals, reflecting on the day’s discussions about aging, nutrition, and elite performance. She invites listeners to visit the website and teases the next show with Real Clear Politics and a special appearance by Doug Brunt.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly show. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett's decision to run for senate may have been an elaborate plan hatched by Republicans to lure her into the race. We'll explain. Based on some unbelievable new reporting.
And some legacy media outlets are reporting that this show was snubbed by the Golden Globes. There was no snubbing. Well, was a snubbing, but it may have gone the other way. We will set the record straight today. And then later in our second hour, longevity expert Gary Breka is here by popular demand.
Everybody wanted him. We've got him today. He's a fascinating man. All I can say is you're welcome in advance. You're really going to enjoy him.
And we start with another super enjoyable friend of ours, Andrew Klavan. He's host of The Andrew Klavan Show on The Daily Wire and author of the new novel After That, The Dark. Don't miss a moment. Subscribe to this show on YouTube and follow me on Insta, Facebook, and X. This holiday, while others chase the rush, find your calm with Peak, a luxury wellness brand powered by rare plants and cutting edge ingredients offering a remedy for the season's hustle.
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That's piquelife.com/megan. Andrew, welcome back.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Megan. It's good to see you.
Speaker 0: You as well. Okay. So I want to talk about Hollywood for a minute and their weird bizarre system of values or lack thereof. And I'm going to kick it off why not on this Golden Globes thing. Because what happened with the Golden Globes was they added a category for best audible podcast, you know, basically best podcast.
And they automatically put in the contention for the award the top 25 podcasts. And we were one of them. Ben Shapiro was one of them. Joe Rogan was one of them. Tucker Carlson was one of them.
Candice was one of them. And then it was brought to my attention by someone connected with this whole system that if you want to actually be considered, you have to go talk to the Golden Globes people. Like some voters out there who will determine whether you actually get the nomination and then of course whether you win. So like you'd have to go out there and do a little dog and pony show like choose me, choose me, I want world peace and I look great in an evening gown kind of thing. And of course the whole thing was so bizarre because number one I had zero interest in their stupid awards.
I was I've made the point repeatedly on this show that I came up under the Roger Ailes era where we at Fox were not even allowed to submit for any kind of an award. And I'm talking about it like a respected award, like a Pulitzer. Forget Golden Globe. And, he just didn't believe in the system because he knew it was run by leftists and that it was for leftists and that it would be leftists making the decisions. And either they would ignore you and not give it to you, or worse yet they would actually give it to you, which would mean you're making inroads with the left, which is bad.
Which is a bad sign. You're probably I feel like Marjorie Taylor Greene is going through that right now. Her newfound acceptance on the left is not really a great thing. Her It's career on the right seems to have ended. So anyway, we've never submitted I've literally never submitted for an award in any context and have no desire to get one.
So there was obviously zero chance I was going to be doing the Dog and Pony show or doing anything to to get this Golden Globe. And instead what we had our producers do was withdraw our name from consideration. So we, in order to like stay one of the ones who was considered, you had to just fill out like your name and your show your show name and I don't know, one other very basic identifying piece of information, and we refused. So it was no mystery to us that we would be not actually nominated because we told them thanks but no thanks. Now all the headlines because they hate conservative media is snubbed.
Snubbed. No. No. We're literally one of the top podcasts in the country, but we're not interested in awards. Now others on the list did it differently.
Our mutual friend Ben was very open about the fact that he campaigned for it. He wanted it. He took out a billboard in Times Square. He did the dog and pony show. He wanted the Golden Globe.
He didn't get nominated. He didn't even get the nomination. Instead they nominated and by the way, Joe Rogan, who blows all of us out of the water when it comes to ratings, did not get the nomination. Like it's ridiculous that you would do this award and include Mel Robbins who spends her day spewing a bunch of bullshit you'd read in your fortune cookie and not Joe Rogan who is the undisputed king of this medium. On the first year you're offering the Golden Globe for it.
So to me all of this just speaks to the overall false god that Hollywood is for some people, provides for some people, and how the whole thing is rigged. It's not an honest system. When you see somebody win an award at the Golden Globes now, this isn't just the best actor or the best picture. This is someone who's prostrated themselves in front of these Hollywood weirdos whose opinion I guess means something to someone, but not anyone I know. And they try to parlay that into you believing this is quality.
And it explains some of the disconnect between what we see as movies and books and other things that we like, and what the left, which controls those industries, the arts, tells us is good and valid and worth having as a part of your your media diet. Now you're, you are as immersed in all of these worlds as anybody I know. You've literally written some of the screenplays for the biggest movies we've had in America. You're a very successful prolific author, so you write books. You're also in the podcasting world.
And you there's probably other accomplishments beyond that, Andrew, so you're the perfect person to ask about all of this. Your thoughts?
Speaker 1: Well, I totally agree with you in terms of values, but not necessarily in terms of effect. When you say you weren't snubbed, you only had to, leave your name in the running, and you would have been snubbed. Certainly, there was no way that you were ever going to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award or any other award that I can think of offhand. When back in the February, wrote a book called Empire of Lies, which took a very honest look at the clash between, Islam and the West. And when I put the last period on the manuscript, I I walked this is absolutely true.
I walked into the bathroom, I looked in the mirror, and I said, you live with the fact that you're never going to win another award? Because I'm the recipient of multiple literary awards, the highest awards in my particular field. I've won the mystery writers of America award twice. I've been nominated five times, think, maybe six. And I knew when I wrote this book that I was never ever going to win an award again.
And I also knew, that my reviews would turn. I I was a recipient of glowing reviews in hundreds of venues. And after Empire of Lies came out, I got one review in a major venue, and it called me a right wing lunatic. I can't remember the exact words, but it was something like a right wing lunatic. So you're absolutely right.
Anybody who's looking at these things and thinking that they're fair or that they're going to maybe come around and like us, you know, I I don't know what Ben was thinking. Maybe he just wanted the publicity of going after it. But but,
Speaker 2: you know, this is this
Speaker 1: is a a problem on the right is that we talk about The New York Times and how dishonest it is, but the New York Times comes along and offers to do an article about us and tell instead of telling it to pound sand, we agree to it, and then we get, you know, absolutely ripped to pieces by their, passive aggressive hostility towards Although
Speaker 0: I didn't interview with the New York Times, and I did not get ripped to pieces, and it was very fruitful. You know, she and I had some very challenging back and forths that I think exposed the times. Yeah. Not me, but the times.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you're lucky if they quote you, and that does happen too. I I agree with you. However, the thing about awards and the thing about the arts in general and entertainment in general is it's kinda like sex. You know, you experience sex in the moment as fun, but over the long term, it's a very deep spiritual experience that's gonna have an effect on your life in a very rich and multiple ways according to how you do it.
So if you treat sex lightly your whole life, you're gonna end up in a bad place, whereas if you treat it as part of commitment and love, you're gonna end up in a much better place. And the same thing is true with the arts. We experience the arts as fun, entertainment, but the way the the arts affect us over time, is going to have an effect on our society as a whole and on some people's, especially young people's, souls, you know, as a whole. And I think the problem with the right is we just haven't paid enough attention to this. But we have no awards that we run until Trump took over the Kennedy Center and started to give Kennedy Center awards from the right.
We have we have none. An author starting out is never, going if he's a conservative, is never going to get the kind of recognition that a left wing artist is going to get. Artists like Tom Stoppard, one of the greatest writers of my lifetime, just maybe the greatest writer of my lifetime, was virtually canceled because of his nonattacks on Margaret Thatcher and ultimately gave an interview saying that, he was kind of a socialist really, which I don't believe at all. I think he was a Tory to the day he died. And, I think the same thing is true of Cormac McCarthy, who I know was a conservative but never said so because he was a guy who could easily have won a Nobel Prize for literature, but never would have had he come out.
We have not built the parallel infrastructure to celebrate, appreciate, and study the arts that the left now dominate almost completely. And and the result in the immediate, sense is not that big. It's just like the, the effect of a one night stand might not be that big, in your life. It's the long term effect of having this incredibly powerful spiritual instrument, which is entertainment and the arts, washing over us with left wing garbage day after day after day. The Golden Globe Award, nominated that Leonardo DiCaprio movie, which basically, what was it called?
One thing after another, one battle after another, which is basically a celebration and romanticization of left wing violence. True left wing, murderous violence, and, that got, multiple awards. We had nothing to compare or compete with that. And the billionaires among us, are not that many, but there are some, you know, don't do anything to to fix that, and it needs to be fixed. It's I understand and admire you, Megan, for blowing awards off and saying these awards are worthless because they are worthless, but they they wouldn't be worthless if they actually judge people on their quality.
I mean, you do one of the best podcast out there as you know, I'm not flattering you, you know, I think this and yet, you will never win an award and and that's wrong and it ultimately takes from you something that is is of value, which is the prestige of your peers and your colleagues. And you you are a tough person, so you understand that just like I'm a tough person and I understood it when I gave it up. But I realized that I was giving up something of value, and I think that knowing that I will never win those prizes, that it's very difficult even for me to get on the lists that the New York Times sends around for its bestseller list because that's a very rigged bestseller list. It's very hard for me to get on those. You know, those are things that do affect your career and do affect your prestige and do affect your pleasure at at what you do and affect the audiences.
Because I'm I'm somebody I I'm I am a very good novelist, and and my novels are very much appreciated by the people who read them. But breaking out of that, right wing audience to spread spread these novels, which I think would be appreciated by a lot of people of good values, is very difficult. It's very difficult to do. So I've been really fortunate, you know, I'm I'm one of these guys who has has had this wonderful career, in spite of my having a big mouth and saying what I have to say. But it shouldn't be this way.
That's what I guess that's what it comes down to. It should be better than this. And it would be better if we would participate more and fight back more.
Speaker 0: Like all I could think when they were talking about, you know, how I needed to go out there and sit with these people and try to razzle dowse was with I would rather blow my brains out. Don't have that in me. I literally don't have that in me. Nor do I have it in me to sit at one of their little tables around their movie stars on the big night and act like I care. Like I wish for their good approval.
Yeah. I don't. It's too important to me to excoriate and mock them endlessly and ruthlessly which they give me fodder to do every day. I, once you start getting sucked in by these losers, you lose your own ability to stay empowered and and speak honestly about what they do. Right?
Like I cannot be, I can't be corrupted by them. I won't be corrupted by them. No two pieces of silver in the form of a golden globe is going to do it. Make me compromise my ideals. And you see this all the time.
See, I don't mean to pick on Jake Tapper, but like that picture of him at one of those Hollywood lunches it was Jennifer Aniston and Jimmy Kimmel and I think, what's his name, Bateman was there, Justin Bateman. It's just like, it's not a great idea. It's really not. We're supposed to keep an arm's length from them, from politicians. I mean think about like you know, Trump.
Yes, I endorse Trump. And I so I've seen Trump at a couple of events and we're always very friendly. But he is also at arm's length. I don't go hang out with Trump. I am not going to the White House and we're not chums.
And he knows that too. Like there's a little friction between us as it should be. You know, like it's fine to do like the occasional party, this, that, the I'm not saying that there's anything inappropriate with that. We do that no matter what president is in office. But like making a politician or making Hollywood or people who are that out of touch your BFFs as a journalist is corrupting.
It is corrosive. And it really is undermining to the very job that you mean to do. On the same front, it was just announced today that I guess Lauren Sanchez has bought the Met Gala. More accurately, Lauren Sanchez Bezos has bought the Met
Speaker 1: And I was gonna do that. I'm sorry, she got there before me.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's amazing what you do when you marry one of the richest men in the world. And it was just announced today that Beyonce, Nicole Kidman, and I think Venus Williams are going to be the three co chairs of the Met Gala this year, because they're all super relevant in our culture. They're all super high fashion?
No. None of those things. Beyonce's pastor prime. Nicole Kimmins, she's a great actress, but what's she doing there? She's not known for her style?
She's like known for her acting and her weird marriage to Tom Cruise. She just got into divorce from the second husband after him. And Venus Williams, like okay, she was a great tennis player back in the day, but like Coco Goff would be a lot more relevant today, or Sabalenka, or somebody who's like been playing over the past ten years in a more I realize that Venus and Serena tried to do a doubles thing, but I'm just saying this is not the height of cultural relevance anymore. And what are they chairing? They're chairing an event at which all those people who will be sitting in those Golden Globe chairs will parade themselves in $100,000 gowns to a dinner where the, you know, the plebs have to pay $40 a table to show up.
Or maybe it's $40 a seat. It might be a ticket, more than that for a full table. Just so that they can rub elbows with this so called elite. I'm going some place with it, somewhere with this. This so called elite.
And who are the elite? Like, as I say, people who are largely irrelevant or past their prime who are hosting it, and also on the guest list now. It used to be different ten years ago. But also I'm just going to give you an example of what that town looks like one day in the news. Alright?
Take a look at Ariana Grande right now. Of the music industry and now also an actress starring in Wicked. Let's check-in on how Ariana, who was raised on television on Nickelodeon, then parlay that into singing, now is a Hollywood actress, is doing. She is very clearly anorexic. If she's ninety pounds, it's a lot.
She looks like you could snap her in two with your fingers. And she's having some sort of weird, I don't know what it is, sexual, I don't know, relationship with a theythem, her co star Cynthia Erivo, who also looks dangerously thin. Then we take a walk down the street and there's Andy Dick, comedian, actor. This is sad, but it's in the news today. Literally on the street reportedly having OD'd.
Like this is him, just this week in the news, I think it was yesterday, spotted after having overdosed like a homeless person on the streets. Take a look at Kelly Osborne, also reality TV star, daughter of Ozzy and Sharon. I love Sharon. But she is, to say waif thin, would be to grossly understate the matter. She is unrecognizable.
Obviously she's on the shot or something, but you can't even recognize that it is Kelly Osborne. My whole point in saying all this Andrew is this industry is not to be admired. It's certainly not to be emulated. You shouldn't be spending your money to get a table with these people. You should not aspire to have a child go into this industry.
And you should never feel bad that this industry doesn't recognize you for your life accomplishments? And I say that to you as Andrew Klavan and to the audience writ large.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you know, of course this is true. This is this has to do with a mistake about the arts that came about during the romantic era. I mean, it was quite a long time ago where the arts went from being a piece of work that was either good or bad on its own, to being the production of this artist, you know. I I I don't look at myself as the creator of things, I look at myself as a guy who receives receives information and puts it out on the page. I think most really good artists think of themselves as a conduit to their art, not as the creator of their art.
But at some point, we began to think that the artist himself was important and that and that he was the guy to be elevated. I mean, I think all the time about people like Whitney Houston, one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen with one of the most incredible voices I've ever heard, dead in a bathtub after being abused by her partner, and then, you know, on drugs and all this. Philip Seymour Hoffman, probably the best actor of his generation, dying after injecting heroin You to know? So these are these are obviously broken people who have been given a great gift, and that gift is that something comes through them that we all, benefit from and admire. And yet when you put that on them and you admire them, you're just making a fundamental category error.
You're just basically saying, you're looking at the wrong thing. You're admiring the wrong thing. And and I I never asked anybody to to admire me. I mean, that would be that would be a a big mistake. But I but yeah.
You know, I think that the work I do is good, you know. It's it's really good, and I think that sometimes it would be nice to to have the recognition that I think all artists want at at some level. You know, we I always I always used to explain to conservatives, artists really don't work for money, they work for love. And if they, don't get that love, they basically just walk away a lot of times. And that is a problem we have with conservatives and traditionalist artists.
So look, you're a 100% right. There's an old George Cohen musical called I'd Rather Be Right Than Be President. And I too, like you, would rather say what I have to say and speak the words I I I would say what I have to say if I sold one book, you know. I mean, I would not I would never ever change the things that I wanna put down on paper, and you can talk to the people who work with me. I I hope I'm a a pleasant enough person in in general life, but when you try to make me say something that I don't agree with, I become incredibly prickly and unmovable.
And I, you know, I've gone through multiple editors and agents just making sure that I got to have the career that I wanted to have. But again, I've been incredibly fortunate and and durable. And I just think about a lot of people, a lot of actors who have all the talent in the world or writers who have all the talent in the world, singers who have who have no chance because they they support Trump or because they believe in the constitution or do they believe that, you know, being white isn't a crime or whatever it is we're not supposed to believe in these days. I was watching Sydney Sweeney, who had made the beautiful, move of basically, showing herself to be at least her family to be Republican and refusing to turn away from a jeans ad that she did, which was absurdly attacked as white supremacists. That was nonsense.
It was g it was blue jeans supremacists. And and recently she sort of backtracked. Well, why did that happen? Because I know. Because her movies are being
Speaker 0: We just had a debate on the show privately about whether that was her backtracking or bending the knee, which I maintained it was. And my executive producer didn't feel as harshly about it. But I was like, no, this is what she's changed the messaging. They got to her. Hollywood, her agents, her PR people, the casting directors, the money men, you know like producers who actually could like control her presence in a film.
They got to her because her messaging sounds very different from I think when I have something to say about that people will hear. Now I'll just play it Andrew and But I'll let you take she sounds different and do we have it you guys or is it just on it's written? Oh crap, it's going take me a while to find. My team will send it to me, because it is I agree with you, it's alarmingly close to a genuflection to the left.
Speaker 2: Keep going. Look, she just was
Speaker 1: in two movies that tanked enormously, and they got terrible reviews. One of them, she played a sort of overweight boxer, and I thought, look, nobody's going to the movies to see Sidney Sweeney be overweight. We're going to see her be beautiful. And, you know, that's just one of those things that actors have to live with. You know, their body is their instrument.
Unlike unlike a writer who can write about anything he wants, you know, the the an actor has to be who he or she is, and she's a beautiful woman, and we wanna see her be beautiful. She's also an enormously talented actress. She's a really talented actress. And so her movies bomb and now she hasn't got the power that she had before. She's not riding on top of the world as she was before.
And yes, you're absolute I'm sure you're absolutely right. She's got managers and agents and friends and family and, you know, colleagues saying, you know, just you don't have to say anything you don't wanna say, but just go out and say you're against hate. And, you know, what a stupid thing, you know, who's who's in favor of hate?
Speaker 2: Here it is.
Speaker 0: Okay. But Here it is. Said this is to People Magazine, which by the way, don't know if people know this, but People Magazine is woke and fucking annoying. Do not deal with
Speaker 1: People Magazine. I would say that's right.
Speaker 0: Do not buy People Magazine. Truly, they hate conservatives. And I know people who are over there. They hate conservatives. Okay.
She says this to People magazine. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm always trying to bring people together. I'm against hate and divisiveness. In the past, my stance has been to never respond to negative or positive press. But recently, I have come to realize that my silence regarding this issue has only widened the divide, not closed it.
So I hope this new year brings more focus on what connects us instead of what divides us. It's that part of, but recently I have come to realize that my silence regarding this issue has only widened the divide, not closed it. So to be clear, I'm against hate and divisiveness. And I really think that's what she that's as close as she will get, I guess, to telegraphing, I don't agree with the Republican crazies who backed me, and I'm not a white supremacist, and I don't like the people taking my jeans ad as a comment on g e n e s any more so than I explicitly wanted them to in that ad. She was better off with the first answer.
Speaker 1: Yep. But you know, think about this, Megan. I just I just wanna put it in human perspective. I mean, think about Chick fil A who came out against gay marriage, and and not in a vicious way, not I hate gay people, but I think marriage is between a man and a woman. And stood and held to their guns and became, because of that, one of the biggest franchise fast food franchise in the country, much bigger than they were before despite the consistent attacks of the left.
But every time they went to open a restaurant, no matter where it was, when they went to open a branch of their franchise, no matter where it was, the left showed up and frequently caused enough trouble to have the municipality refuse them the space that they needed to open a restaurant. And ultimately, they started to change their mind. Ultimately, Sydney Sweeney lives off the love of the of the people. The people learn about her movies through the reviews and through word-of-mouth. The left has incredible energy and incredible dedication to making sure that word-of-mouth does not spread in her favor.
And she cracked, you know, let let's guess. So I'm guessing she cracked and She cracked.
Speaker 0: But, you know Totally.
Speaker 1: But look, I I mean, I'm sorry. Part of what she does depends on people wanting to see her in pretty dresses, wanting to see her show up. I mean, last time I talked to you, she had just shown up in a a vaporous dress that you could see right through. I mean, that's
Speaker 0: And you hated it.
Speaker 1: I did. But that's I like ladies. I I prefer ladies who are genteel, but like but still, you know, the the thing is the thing is this is part of the profession that she's in, just like part of my profession is signing books or going out and chatting with people about my books. You know, these these are parts of the things that you do and the left is dedicating to destroying you. I I have a friend, wonderful guy.
If you haven't had him on the show, you had you should. Cyrus Nawasa, who is a rebel director who who made a film called the road to nine eleven that has never been released on DVD despite the fact it was one of the most popular, TV movies ever put out. But it's never been released because it showed that Bill Clinton was partly responsible for not killing Osama bin Laden and therefore opened the path to nine eleven. And he didn't do it because he didn't have any political capital, because he'd been banging it Controversial. So so because it was put out by Disney, by ABC, they basically banned it.
They've taken it off the air. Recently, Cyrus, made a hit movie called Sarah's Oil. It's a lovely little film. And the New York Times attacked it because it's about a little girl who inherits a little black girl who inherits some land on which there's oil, and her struggles to get the oil is based on a true story.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1: So and it's a lovely film. And the New York Times attacked it because it glamorized fossil fuels and because the little girl had a white friend who was protecting her. And that was their attack on it. So in other words, the New York
Speaker 0: Oh, they can't stand the white savior. The white savior is a trope that must be avoided at all times.
Speaker 1: Think of the small soul, small minded approach that says no work of art can have ideas in it that offend me. That's essentially what they're saying. I watch works of art that I think are quite good, that actually have a left wing point of view. Even though I disagree with their point of view, I admire the artistry that's involved. Sometimes I'll you know, Sean Penn, a great actor.
I've never stopped saying what a great actor he is. He's a lunatic. He's a left wing lunatic. But they're not gonna do that. We we're gonna do that, but they're not gonna do it.
And all I'm saying to you is that, of course, you're right. You're right morally. Your values are right. You have proven yourself willing to stand up to them. I feel I have proven myself look, my my Hollywood career vanished because of my opinions, and it was it was a 7 figure career some years, and it just disappeared.
I thought my electricity had gone off. My phone stopped ringing so fast. So so I have proved myself willing to stand up to them. I'm just saying it should not be this way, and it is this way because the right doesn't respond to their intensity because they understand the long term deep importance of the spiritual business of the arts and entertainment, and we don't. We think it's just a criff you know, just a little thing that comes and goes, bagatelle that comes and goes, and we don't really put the money, the effort, or the intensity into it that they do.
And because of that, there are a lot of right wing artists who never make it because they never get a chance.
Speaker 0: Am I wrong? But I I think that Zachary Levi is in Sara Zola.
Speaker 1: And he's great in it. It's the best performance he's ever given. He's terrific. Yep.
Speaker 0: He's amazing. But he was on the show just yesterday, literally twenty four hours ago, saying he does feel that he has been, quote, gray
Speaker 1: listed. I'm sure he has.
Speaker 0: He didn't say full blacklisted, but gray listed in Hollywood. I mean the guy was shazam. That's like a huge, huge role. My kids are like, You had Zach Levi? They're so excited about this.
But he's also a very serious dramatic actor. And he's such a nice guy, too. He's such a sweetheart. And he hasn't even he's not even a conservative answer. Like, he probably have a lot of disagreements with you and me on
Speaker 1: the
Speaker 0: issues that we talk about. He's genuinely a libertarian on politics and government role, and he's left and right on various issues, depends on the issue that you run by him. He's Christian. He is maha, which by the way is in some ways more controversial than maha. Right?
Like if you talk about vaccines with that certain group of the left, you will be excommunicated. Which is also ironic, because Hollywood is land of the granola crunchy weirdos, who should be, at least some portion of which should be in Hollywood just by default, just by the sheer numbers game, and they should be open minded to this, but they're not. So he's But to your point, he didn't come out, if you will, as any of those things until after Shazam and he was famous. So it can still be done to him, and is being done to him.
Speaker 1: But
Speaker 0: to your point, like a young person who's got their Christianity, their conservatism, their MAHA affiliation on their sleeve early on, forget it. It's not going to happen. You say you like RFK Jr. And what he's doing with vaccines right, you're done. Not only will there not be any awards, there will be no roles unless you get cast in something being produced by the Daily Wire, like, literally.
Speaker 1: Yep. And the whole the whole system in in LA I know people who have said to famous producer, you know, I wanna pitch you an idea, and the producer has said, well, I'm driving over to the Hillary Clinton fundraiser. Why don't you come with me and you can pitch the idea? You know, that I'm never gonna get that offer. That is never gonna happen to me.
No one's ever gonna say that to me.
Speaker 0: That that could be so fun
Speaker 1: for Exactly. And and I think the thing is, you know, people don't understand. You know know, Ted Cruz once asked me, what's something you know that nobody else knows? And I said, what I know is they don't care about money. And and this is the thing.
Everybody's always saying Hollywood is all about money. They do not care about money. They care about prestige. They care about awards. They care about getting the girl.
They care about all the things that artists go into their profession for. And the studios care about money and they'll but they'll always find the money. They'll always find ways to make money. So, you know, you go into a meeting in Hollywood and the first ten minutes are very likely to be, you know, isn't Trump an idiot? Isn't Trump a bad guy?
I hate this Trump. And and you are sitting there trying to get a job or trying to sell a piece of material, and you have a choice whether you're gonna say, I well, yeah, or nod, or go blank eyed, or whatever you wanna do, or whether you're gonna say, you know, actually, I'm on the other side, which is always what I said, which explains to you where my Hollywood career went. And and and yet, you know, to me to me, look, my whole business is words. If my words don't mean exactly what I want them to mean, I'm nothing. You know, that's that's the way I look at it.
I understand.
Speaker 0: I agree with you. I I totally agree with this, Andrew. It's like, it's one thing I've changed my position on many issues but over I've never been insincere about how I feel. Right? I've never said I feel one way when I secretly feel the other, Ever.
I really don't think I'm capable of it. And I do feel like when you do that, that's selling your soul to the devil. That's the type of shit that's with you on the deathbed if you do it. Oh. You really have to stay away
Speaker 2: from it.
Speaker 1: Listen. I know a lot of guys who did this, and, you know, my wife wishes and my beloved wife wishes I would learn to keep my opinions to myself, but I never have. But I know a lot of guys
Speaker 0: Doesn't sound like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I know a lot of guys in Hollywood who made the opposite decision and you only had to look in in their eyes. Never mind their deathbed. You only have to look in their eyes to know that you never wanted to be that guy. You never wanted to live that way because the hollowness and the fear and the sense of lost identity are as visible as as anything, as visible as the computer in front of me, you know, like the the thing is that that is your soul, you know, and that is your soul.
And again, with your soul, lot of times things that seem meaningless in the moment like a lie, pile up and ultimately rob you of who you are. And so
Speaker 0: It's a lack of courage. It's like the the lie it's it's not great to lie, but everybody does it. The lie is told because of your cowardly.
Speaker 1: God,
Speaker 0: that has to be the Like a white lie is something we call because you're doing it to spare somebody's feelings. You you don't feel the need to hurt them unnecessarily by being totally honest about how you feel about whether their butt looks big or they look good in that dress that they already have on and don't have the ability to change. A cowardly lie, I mean that really is something that will haunt you. It reminds me of the movie Defending Your Life, right? Where Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep wind up in purgatory what determines whether you move on or not is how many days of cowardice you had.
That's what they're looking back at. Not really even being a bad person, but cowardice. And he's got tons, and she has none. She's literally rescuing people out of burning buildings as they look back at her days, so she's clearly going move on. And Albert Brooks in typical fashion has, you know, 12, I think, and it doesn't go well.
It's such a funny, clever movie. But yeah, that would be the worst. But wait, I do want to say something positive. We saw another clip this week, and listen, he's established and maybe not seeking a bunch of these big movie roles anymore, but Kelsey Grammer has gotten I think bolder with his politics as he's gotten older, and so has Mel Gibson, but Mel Gibson's been canceled and has the freedom that comes from being canceled. Know, I mean it's great to see him ripping all of his thoughts politically, but he had something traumatic happen to him.
He was very, very canceled. Kelsey never was, and he's just sort of grown into it I think with age. He was caught on camera was it this is credit to Nick Balasci, and here's the exchange watch here at SoT twenty.
Speaker 4: Hey, Kelsey. Can you tell us what you think about Trump's job performance so far in his first term?
Speaker 5: I think
Speaker 4: he's good. Or second term? I think he's great. What issues are you most concerned about that he's doing well on? I think so.
Well, I think the economy is actually going really well.
Speaker 5: I think so too.
Speaker 4: And we'll see what happens in the next year or so. I mean, what I always love is when the Democrats start talking about affordability, you always know they're gonna charge you twice as much. And spend three times as much.
Speaker 0: By the way, his first answer was I think he's kicking ass. The reporter stepped on him a bit, that's what he That's courageous answer.
Speaker 1: Yeah. John Voigt too. I mean, you know, you can't stop these guys. But but again
Speaker 0: Sly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And and the thing is, you know, these guys are older and and I'm not I'm not knocking their courage. I'm, you know, they've they've been pretty open about who they are for a long time. But it's the young guys I I worry about because I've seen I've seen some of some of the actors we're talking about right now. I've seen them take young actors aside and say, keep it down if you wanna keep your careers.
They know that when you're young and you don't
Speaker 0: Well, let me ask you a quick question about that. Forgive the interruption. Why can't Schwarzenegger is obviously also a Republican. He's not a Trumpublican, but he's a Republican. Why can't Sly Stallone and Schwarzenegger and Mel Gibson and some of these other guys get together and form their own production company.
Like I know the Daily Wire makes some films that are more conservative, but I'm talking about like mega Hollywood connection who have the juice, the connections, and the dough to fund films. They don't even have to be conservative films. They just have to cast they have to uncancel the canceled conservative actors. Just let them act in anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's it's tough because a lot of artists are not businessmen. I mean, I'm not a businessman, you know. I mean, I'm I do a thing. I'm a guy I'm a guy who does a thing and I do it, you know, I dedicated my life to it.
I gave everything to it, but I'm not somebody who could who could build a business. I'm not somebody who could put that together and maybe that's true of some of these guys too. You know? And Sylvester Stallone is a really interesting example because he won a Kennedy award, and some people were making fun of him because he was in a lot of, you know, Rambo eight and, you know, Rocky 12 and all that stuff, which which I heard him along the way. I heard him on TV kinda complaining about that because the funny thing about Sylvester Stallone, he has that voice like he's a paluca, you know.
He sounds like he's he's not that bright, but he's in fact a very very talented man and he, you know, he made one of the classic American movies. There's not that many people who can say that. Rocky is a classic American movie and some of the other films that he's been in have been quite good and some of his performances have been excellent. He deserved that that award. You know, he deserved it's funny.
He deserved that award, but he's not somebody who's popular with the elites. You know? And I and I think all of these guys understand that that that's the case. And, you know, who knows? I mean, maybe they're artists, and artists are not always the best businessmen.
Most of us have agents, most of us have publishers, most of that
Speaker 0: Well that's actually one of the challenges to news people getting into the podcast lane because most of us never had run a business. We were just quote talent. I always laugh if that's the word that the talent used to describe itself. We call ourselves the talent. But they're used to just being talent, and they don't know how to run a business, so it's an obstacle.
Now I do think all of this is relevant to what we should be rooting for on this purchase war for Warner Bros. Warner Bros, one of the original and big five Hollywood movie studios, like still cranking out films that we see in the theater, not direct to streaming, not direct to the little box in your living room, but like the theater experience. And it makes me think of like Tom Cruise when Maverick came out, and he was like, I make movies for the big screen. That's what I do. I make big movies for the big theater.
That's my craft. And I get it. Like there's almost like a not in a negative way, but like a snobbishness toward like going direct to streaming, for these big Hollywood stars who are used to audiences having the experience that you have in theater with the surround sound and the huge screen and your fellow Americans around you, you know, some talking too loud, some laughing with you, some crying with you, in any event. So now we have a deal between Netflix and Warner Bros. Netflix has got more money than God, and they're acquiring Warner Bros.
For 82 and a half billion dollars. Warner Bros. Agreed to sell to Netflix. Netflix is terrible. It's not to say I don't like some of its movies, and I do watch Netflix, but their ownership is disgusting.
They're far left, and they're destroying America. I I mean, just to take a quick walk down that lane, they're in the news today for some movie called Queen of Coal, and I do mean queen. Here's the sound bite from the trailer that we caught. Watch.
Speaker 6: If you say you're a woman now, then you'll have to do women's work. And you know this company assigns different jobs to it.
Speaker 0: It's not there what they're doing to
Speaker 3: you. No
Speaker 2: one can take away what you've earned, Kylie. You earned it. It's yours.
Speaker 7: I'm a minor, Violet. I'm minor.
Speaker 0: Miss Carbone, inspired by the true story of Carlita and Rodriguez, I think it's said. Okay. So here's the story. It's based on a true story of a trans woman, meaning a fake meaning a fake woman, who dreams of working the coal mines. But in a town steeped in superstition and patriarchy, Carlita, as the the real name is Carlos, must fight to earn her place underground.
And it stars Lux Pascal, a trans identifying man, which again means a man who's pretending to be a woman, who's the brother of an existing Hollywood star Pedro Pascal. And this is what they want to show us how coal miners are a bunch of scumbags who didn't immediately accept a man pretending to be a woman underground in the coal mines. That's what Netflix is devoting its time, money, and attention to. Concerned Women for America, per the Daily Wire, just released a report on Monday finding 41% of children's content on Netflix contains LGBTQ themes. Yeah.
41. Nearly half. Okay, so that's and this is not a children's film, I'm just talking about the children's films. Almost half of them have LGBTQ oh, so that's Netflix. So I'm not rooting for Netflix to amass more studios, more control over filmmaking or artistry whatsoever.
And on the other side you have Paramount Skydance, which is trying to get Warner Bros. With a hostile takeover with a much better bid that far exceeds $100,000,000,000 The shareholders will make more money. It could close in less time. It's more likely to get approval from the government because the Netflix deal would require the number one streamer Netflix combining with HBO Max, which is the number three streamer, I guess I'm told, which could not that could wind up in an antitrust problem that would lead to the disapproval of the merger, but Paramount Skydance has no such issues. But what I'm being told by the left wing media is we're supposed to hate Paramount Skydance in its bid, Andrew, because Jared Kushner is putting money into that deal, Qatar is putting money into that deal, I think either Saudi Arabia or The UAE, one of those, is putting some money into that deal, and so because we've all been critical of some of those Middle Eastern countries over the years, and because Kushner, of course everyone has to hate him, even though he just reached peace in The Middle East for us, we're supposed to object to that one because we don't want Qatar controlling CNN, which would be acquired as a Warner Brothers property, as part of the Paramount Skydance acquisition.
This is how fucked up our media is.
Speaker 1: If Qatar ran CNN it would be a more honest situation than it is now. So so I'm not worried about that at all. And, yeah, Paramount's run by friends of Trump and people who are Trump sympathetic, and that's why the left doesn't want him to do it. And you're absolutely right.
Speaker 0: But but I should say all those Arab countries and Kushner have all said they would have no governance role whatsoever in the
Speaker 2: in the new era.
Speaker 1: Of course not. Not with Trump. Mean Just wanna make money. And and Warner Brothers, look, is a very very powerful acquisition because it is it has one of the greatest libraries. I mean, maybe second only to Disney, you know, going back to Casablanca, as well as the Batman franchise and the Harry Potter franchise.
It has everything. So, you know, Netflix would be already an enormous streaming powerhouse, would would become the one thing that it is not now, which is also have a studio from which you can make big time, big screen pictures. So it would be an enormous leap in power for Netflix. And, again, all I can say about this, I mean, is and and you're really right about Netflix, by the way. They're incredibly woke, you know, management.
They they had a a Black Lives Matter during the George Floyd hoax. They had a Black Lives Matter section that I boycotted because I never wanted to press a button. Ridiculous. Yeah. I never wanted to press a button the same black, you know, Black Lives Matter and supporting that organization.
And as a result, was missing some of my favorite actors who happened to be black and were on that thing. I just wasn't gonna press something that said I supported Black Lives Matter because I knew they were communist organizations. So so you're right. This is a tremendous leap of power for a tremendously woke company, and they could have gone with Paramount, but they were friends. You know, there are friendships and and relationships involved between the Warners and and Netflix.
But, again, all I can say to this is where are we? You know? I mean, why is it why is it that we have to fight to take over things that have been built? I mean, most of these most of these companies, not Netflix, but most of the old companies, were built by fairly conservative people. They were built by businessmen who wanted to make money, and to make money, they wanted to please the audience.
I mean, the the Jews who built, you know, Hollywood were happy to make a film in which Bing Crosby played a priest because they knew there were Catholics out there who would pay money to go see the movie.
Speaker 0: Great film. My That's a
Speaker 1: great film.
Speaker 2: One of my faves.
Speaker 1: The other one is the what's what's the one before that? Bells of Saint Mary is the sequel. Going My Way. Going My Way is is
Speaker 0: Oh, oh, Going
Speaker 1: My even even a greater film. So they're both great, though.
Speaker 0: My favorite Christmas in Connecticut 1947.
Speaker 1: Also great. That. So
Speaker 0: Bing was not You
Speaker 1: know, that was that was a business because they were businessmen, they wanted to please the public. But in the same way that we put the artists before the art, in the same way we admire the artists who don't deserve our admiration and ignore the art, which sometimes does, in the same way the, Hollywood now wants to instruct us as opposed to entertaining us, and there's gonna be a lot more of that coming out of, out of Netflix. And if they have that much power, the power of owning Warner Brothers, they're just not gonna care whether conservatives like them or not because they will find some way to make money. They'll have so much power. The only way to beat these guys is to compete with them.
You're right the Daily Wire is trying, but it is really hard. It is really hard to do, and I think it needs it needs a bunch of people doing it. You can't bring out an occasional conservative movie because it's your odds of having a good movie are small. You gotta do 50 movies to get one that's even decent. And that's the thing that so far, you know, none of us has the power to do, but we should be working toward it.
And maybe Paramount will do it. Maybe Paramount is better off not getting tangled up in Netflix. Maybe Netflix would swallow it. Maybe this is actually a win for us. It's very possible.
Speaker 0: I know. I mean I'm definitely rooting for the Paramount side to win. I don't want Netflix getting more powerful, and I think Netflix, if they could get back to doing normal films and normal shows, great, but they've proven who they are politically and otherwise, and even behind the scenes. Like their founder, he's a terrible man. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: kick break. They're doing some good work.
Speaker 0: I will. Standby. Coming right back. More with Andrew Klavan after this. I have a serious question for you.
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There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Andrew, Jasmine Crockett has announced that she's running for U. S. Senate. She wants the seat currently held by Republican John Cornyn, who is running again, but is vulnerable, and she wants to win the Democratic primary.
And today there's an extraordinary report out from NOTUS and N O T U S that has the following headline: An Astroturf Recruitment Process. National Republicans propped up Jasmine Crockett to push her into a Senate run. This is the backstory behind how they got her to believe she could win. And when she announced she was running, Colin Allred, the other, like, contender in the Dem primary, immediately dropped out and said it was because she entered the race. And Beto O'Rourke is out, and it's basically hers for the taking.
There's one other guy she's running against, but he doesn't have the kind of name recognition she has. This is on the Dem side. She's going to get crushed in the general, which is why the Republicans did this, and now are bragging about it. Here's the report. Republicans' Senate campaign arm has actively worked behind the scenes to encourage Crockett to jump in, believing that she will be the easiest opponent to beat.
Just a month ago, there was grave concern among Republicans about the Senate race where incumbent John Cornyn's running for reelection, Democrats were running two formidable candidates, and Cornyn was caught in the middle of a bruising three way primary. The National Republican Senatorial Committee put out a poll in July with Crockett's name included because she had not been included in any of the previous polling. That poll showed her as the leading dem in a hypothetical matchup. It was exclusively leaked to the daily caller at the time, showing her with 35%, Colin Allred at 20, Beto O'Rourke and Joaquin Castro at just 13. The fact that she was included in that poll was no accident.
Those Republicans made sure she was. Then they started circulating it and making sure that her name got into other surveys, and she was she looked like she was, quote, surging in the primary. The Republican Senatorial Committee then worked to amplify those polls and is taking credit for helping, quote, orchestrate the pile on of those polling numbers to really drive the news cycle and the narrative that Crockett was surging in Texas. And then sure enough, Jasmine Crockett responded by not to this article, but to her polls by saying, the more I saw the poll results, I could not ignore the trends that were clear. And now they say they are guilty, happily, of what they call an astroturf recruitment process, because they wanted the other more threatening Democrat candidates to drop out, which they now have, and they have their very favorite opponent, Jasmine Crockett, to stare down whoever winds up with a Republican nomination.
This is exactly what the Dems did to the Republicans in the primary process for the presidential race and other races that were happening, like Senate races, even in the midterms before that. So turnabout is fair play.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. It's perfectly good political practice. Politics isn't beanbag. You know, it's the it's it's a tough game, and people people play it tough. And as you say, the Democrats funded every chucklehead Republican they could find to to throw them up there.
Yes. The only problem with it is it can backfire. I don't think it is in this case. I don't think she has a chance in Texas, but but still, it can backfire on you when you think somebody is so radical. You you remember, I'm sure, all those lefties when Trump came down the escalator and announced that he was running, just saying go ahead and run.
We want you to run. Oh my gosh. How wonderful. It's gonna be so much fun to watch you get destroyed. You know, who's crying now?
And I think that that is a problem with this strategy. But frankly, I'm glad the Republicans are savvy and smart. They're usually such buffoons when it comes to dealing with the political landscape, and this is this actually gives me a little bit of hope that they know what they're doing. I think this in this case, they did the right thing. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Right? So she first had her her weird little campaign announcement yesterday with just her sort of staring into the distance and Trump insulting her. I mean, guess it does get attention, so on that front it's a win. But he was just saying what a low IQ individual she was, which is really probably not great, something you don't want to reinforce. Now she's out today with a rapper who appeared at a rally she was at, trying to rap about how great she is, and she just sits there trying to look cool.
I don't know, do we have that, Steve? Yes, we do. Standby. Here it is.
Speaker 2: Keep feeding kids. They protect the ones touching them. Trump invaded his own country with a army. What a joke. We remember Pearl Harbor by illegally bombing boats.
What y'all thought we wasn't gonna do nothing but he think again. They only
Speaker 0: She's sitting there trying to, like, feel like badass, and they're just, like, doing
Speaker 1: her nails. If I knew you were gonna play that stuff, I wouldn't have come, Megan. I'm sorry.
Speaker 0: I know. I'm sorry. You'd have done nothing
Speaker 5: to disturb
Speaker 1: this I I just wanna say. Yeah. But I you know, she Congress to me has become this weird collection of crazy women. I mean, is that just me? I I don't wanna I don't wanna be
Speaker 2: two seconds, but
Speaker 1: it just seems like every crazy woman in politics is in con is in the House of Representatives at this point.
Speaker 0: There's a lot of crazy in
Speaker 1: I feel I feel for Mike Johnson. Think he's like the poor guy. He's saying. He's doing such a great job and he's organizing, you know, he's wrangling these cats, and I just see these women go off in these weird weird ways. Jasmine Crockett, I mean, you're you're right.
Trump Trump should be a little bit more polite, I think, his dealings. It always blows back on him. Know, people love the fact that he's so frank and he comes up. Whenever he starts insulting people, it always blows back on him. It's really a mistake.
But he's right. I mean, there's no question that he's right. The woman is if if she's a fake, you know, she puts on different accents for different people. She's, and and she's just a dimwit, you know, she's just a dimwit. And I did like her crying, sentimentally because she loves Texas so much, when she announced her, her candidacy.
It also was one of the saddest little gatherings of people, meant to sort of, you know, be enthusiastic and encouraging. So I I think the Republicans have guessed right on this one that she was the one to back. Mhmm. And, I I think it's gonna be a disaster for them. But, I you know, again, this is one of those techniques that you always admire it when it works, but it can can go bad on you.
Speaker 0: Yes. I I agree with you. I don't think there's a lot of danger of that in Texas. But to your point about the Loons, especially the female Loons in Congress, there's a representative, Haley Stevens, she's from Michigan's 11th District, and she just tweeted out, is today the tenth? Today.
She tweeted out, Today, I formally introduced articles of impeachment against Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has turned his back on science and the safety of the American people. Michiganders cannot take another day of this chaos. And here is Hailey Stevens during COVID, just in case you're wondering who the hell this woman is. Watch this.
Speaker 1: I yield the gentlelady thirty additional seconds.
Speaker 8: The gentlewoman is recognized for additional thirty seconds.
Speaker 7: Because of their servitude, in the profession with those who have not come before you, similar times of trying medical need, wars
Speaker 0: including You
Speaker 7: will see darkness. Latest. You will be pushed, and our society needs you to stand together at this time. Our country loves you. To our doctors and our nurses, I wear these laces.
Speaker 8: Ladies' time has expired. The gentleman from Maryland is wrecked. His reserves.
Speaker 0: She's having herself a normal one.
Speaker 1: It's like, who are these people? And how did they get elected? You know, I remember Rush Limbaugh when saying that he didn't he didn't wasn't afraid for America because Barack Obama was reelected. He was afraid for America because people would reelect him.
Speaker 2: He was afraid of the
Speaker 1: fact that the people would would fall for that. And, you know, I I feel this way about these who votes for them? Who votes for them? I I see all this all this stuff online. Michiganders.
Michiganders. Michiganders.
Speaker 0: They're the same people who voted for for Alyssa Slatkin. You've you've let us all down. Just want you to know that. No. Not done.
Alright. Let's check-in on Ilan Omar. Uh-huh. Trump had a rally yesterday in Pennsylvania, and I'm just gonna set it up. Here's here's what Trump had to say about Ilan Omar yesterday at 17.
Speaker 3: I love this Ilan Omar, whatever the hell her name is, with the little shoe, with the little turban. I love her. She comes in, does nothing but bitch. She comes from a country where I mean, it's considered about the worst country in the world. They police themselves.
They kill each other all the time. I love her. She comes to our country, and she's always complaining about the constitution allows me to do this. The concept we ought to get her the hell out. She married her brother in order to get in.
Right? She married her brother. Can you imagine if Donald Trump married his sister? Beautiful. She's a beautiful person.
She should get the hell out. Throw the hell out. She she does nothing but complain.
Speaker 1: Guy is the funniest he was the funniest president since Lincoln. He may be funnier than Lincoln. He is a really funny president.
Speaker 0: He was kicking off his affordability tour, trying to message to people and get them more enthusiastic about what he's done so far. But this is so funny, Andrew. And, like, no quarter for Ilan Omar, who is one of his chief antagonists. And what a lucky break that's been for Trump. Now let's check-in on Ilan Omar and see what she's in the news for.
Well, it happens to be comments she made just last year, 2024, where she was in a rant to her fellow Somalis. Ambassador Rhoda J. Elmi, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Somaliland, a region along the Gulf Of Aden that broke away from Somalia in 1991, shared a clip of comments Omar made in Minneapolis over this weekend in 2024 with a translation that Omar has since disputed. But according to this Elmi, whose translation is consistent with quotations in, a resolution that's now taking aim at Ilhan Omar, Omar said The US Government, quote, will only do what Somalians in The US tell them to do. We have now put an English voiceover on the sound bite.
Right? Do we have that, Deb? And, this is we're following the translation from this deputy minister of foreign affairs for Somaliland, ambassador Rhoda Elmi. Take a listen. A listen.
Speaker 9: My answer to Somalians was that the US government will only do what Somalians in The US tell them to do. They will do what we want and nothing else. They must follow our orders and that is how we will safeguard the interests of Somalia. We Somalians must have that confidence in ourselves that we call for the shots in The US. We live in The US, pay taxes in The US, and have a real voice.
US is a country where one of your daughters is in congress to represent your interest. As long as I am in the US congress, Somalia will never be in danger. Its waters will not be stolen by Ethiopia or others. The US would not dare to support anyone against Somalia to steal our land or oceans. Sleep in comfort, knowing I am here to protect the interests of Somalia from inside The US system.
Speaker 0: Elon Musk is calling this treason. It's pretty on the nose. I mean, we're having a robust debate in this country these days about whether it's acceptable to have loyalty to another country before The United States as an American citizen. We don't do it in the context of Somalia that much, but I think someone needs to check-in on Ilan Omar and her loyalties.
Speaker 1: I yeah. Well, definitely. I I can just see the American troops being dispatched to Ethiopia, the border of Ethiopia to protect the water rights of Somalia. I just don't think that's gonna happen on
Speaker 3: my end.
Speaker 0: She tells them what
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah. That's right. She's in charge. You know, Trump Trump is absolutely right about her.
I'm I believe I can't prove it, but I believe she came into the country illegally by and and committed a crime in marrying her brother. I I think she is as disloyal a person and as ungrateful a person as I have ever seen. You know, I all of these guys strike me as incredibly ungrateful. This country gives people everything. It gives you everything you need to succeed.
It gives you, you know, all kinds of gifts that we shower on people that are taking the the money, the tax you know, tax money comes from other people who worked to earn it that is now being taken away from them and given to you and all and he's right. Trump is right about this. He's a 100% right. All they do is bitch and moan. All they do is complain.
And, I mean, I and I feel this way, you know, I I I will say it. I feel this way about the American blacks who think that they should be given some kind of, you know, repayment for slavery, a state that they were never ever in, and a state that no one ever
Speaker 0: Or Jasmine Crockett thinks that they should
Speaker 1: get not pay taxes. Taxes. They should not pay taxes because they were not because they were held slaves, but because someone with their same skin color was held slaves. And I I mean, I just think like
Speaker 0: With whom they have probably zero genetic link or descendancy at at all.
Speaker 1: And I and I just think, know, god, you know, gratitude is good for you. It's like never mind never mind the country which has earned their gratitude, but it's good for you. You know, when you wake up in the morning and you're thankful that you're here and you're thankful that you know, there are a lot of places you could be born like Somalia where you wouldn't have anything like the chances that you have here. The life here is good. The chances here are good.
Just a little bit of gratitude would make their lives better. It would make Minnesota better. I mean, Trump is absolutely right about this. And when Trump attacked them and he said, some of these people are garbage, they were saying, well, this white supremacist look. There's no white supremacy in America.
You know? Take a hike. Take a hike. This is the least bigoted country, you know, I have ever been in. And I lived overseas for seven years.
I spent most of the nineties overseas. This is the least bigoted country on the planet. And the complaining and the victimizing that, you know, this oh, what a victim you are. It's just it's not it's not good for you. It's not good for your people, whoever you see your people to be.
It's not good for the country. And it know, if it weren't for the fact that our media is so bloody corrupt, you know, nobody nobody would take it seriously. I mean, everybody wants to be a victim. People get online to be a victim in this country, the one country where you're probably not a victim, where you're just blessed. If you are here, you won the lottery.
You won the lottery of life, and you should be thankful every day and work hard to improve your life and the country around you. Trump is a 100% right on this. And, yeah, he says it in the roughest possible terms, and he's hilarious, but it's just all true. Everything he says about this is true. If all you do is bitch and move and complain, get out.
There's a plane leaving every hour.
Speaker 0: I love it. I I mean, a note a note to Ilan Omar and all the other Somalis here in America. You know where they love Somalians? Yeah. Yeah.
In Somalia. Off you go. You got to have no problem with bigotry, racism, this alleged racism that is us. They love Somalians over there. You're going be surrounded by them.
I think you're going to be very happy. Take care, and Godspeed. Andrew Klavan, a pleasure, my I love talking to you. Alright. To be continued.
Up next, Gary Breca is here to tell you how you can live to 120. If you are into the health and wellness space online, a name that's been hard to miss is Gary Breka. He's a human biologist and founder of The Ultimate Human, which describes itself as a movement designed to help you feel better, look better, and live longer naturally. He has millions of followers on social media and a hit podcast. And UFC CEO Dana White credits Breca for transforming his life after a blood test estimated Dana White only had ten years to live.
You can see on the screen the changes in his physique. Look at that. That, White posted on Instagram, and here he is on Breca's podcast. Watch.
Speaker 10: My life is exactly the same now as it was, you know, a year and a half ago before I met you except for the fact that I feel incredible every day. I'm I'm way more productive. You know, when when you said give me ten weeks, by the time I was in ten, eleven, twelve weeks, whatever it was, I started to feel like I was in my thirties again. And and no bullshit, I feel like I'm in my twenties now. I swear to God, I do.
Speaker 5: Say that.
Speaker 10: You know, I quit drinking in January. So now I don't drink. I'm doing the superhuman protocol. I'm I'm I'm I'm on the the whole program that you have me on, and I tell everybody. I I I try to tell as many people as possible how incredible this is and and that, you know, everything can be turned around.
You just need, guidance and and and you need to know how to do it. Yeah. And you're the guy.
Speaker 0: Great. Let's do this thing. Gary Breka is my guest now. Tell me everything, Gary.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Tell me everything. Yeah. What a great journey I had with Dana White, man. He's been an incredible part of my my journey.
That was going over two years ago, and he hasn't gone back. He's still off all of his pharmaceuticals, off all his cardiovascular medication, off his medication for tinnitus.
Speaker 0: Wow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's still back on a sleep PAP machine. He was on a CPAP machine at night, so he is drug and free of all of those devices.
Speaker 0: So where do you begin? Because I read your eight tips, like the general we can go through them, but they make a lot of sense. The sleep, make sure it's regular, make sure it's regimented, lower the temperature to 68 degrees, I got that. That's a good one. Walk, eat whole foods, only stuff your great grandmother would eat, love all that.
But is there something special in the formula that takes you from on the CPAP machine and all these drugs to Dana White, I feel like I'm in my twenties?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll tell you exactly what's on that. We need to start with the basics, and we know this from Blue Zone studies, we know this from the big data, that if you don't master your sleep, if you don't eat a whole food diet, which is a diet absent of processed food, and if you don't make exercise non negotiable, basically nothing else matters. We can't really sleep our way around a poor diet, and we can't exercise our way around not sleeping. Again, we know this from big data, from Blue Zone studies. There's no continuity between diets, meaning if you look at the areas of the world where people are living the longest, healthiest, happiest lives, it's not because of the carnivore diet, or the keto diet, or paleo, or pescatarian, or vegan, or vegetarian.
It's because they are eating no processed food, and all of us can do that. All of us can switch to a whole food diet. The other non negotiable is bringing your attention to your sleep. A few years ago I actually decided that I would schedule all of my meetings and travel around sleep and exercise, and I can't tell you what a demonstrative change in my life that that made. That's one of the things that I incorporate into clients of mine, into their schedule.
I really try to fix their sleep. Then finally, making mobility non negotiable. We know that sitting is the new smoking. Sedentary lifestyle is the leading cause of all cause mortality, and this is entirely fixable. If you were to draw your attention to three things, I would say whole food diet, master your sleep, and make mobility non negotiable.
A lot of people don't focus on those three things, and then they want the magic pill. Is it NAD IVs? Is it nicotinamide riboside? Is it ashwagandha, St. John's or CoQ10?
Is it any of these magic supplements? It's not. It's those three basics. Then after that, I truly believe that if you really want to embark on a sincere health journey, you need to supplement for deficiency, not the sake of supplementing. The worst thing you can do is get on Google and start Googling around about what is a good supplement, and this is where most people get lost, because you can make an argument for just about anything.
The question is, what does your body need? We believe this in plant physiology. If you were to take a leaf, let's say, that was rotting in a palm tree, and you called a true arborist, like a true botanist out to look at that leaf, they wouldn't even touch the leaf. They would court test the soil, and they would say, You know what, Megan? There's no nitrogen in this soil, and they would add nitrogen to the soil, and the leaf would heal.
Human beings are no different. When you deprive the human body of certain raw materials, and by raw materials I'm talking about vitamins, minerals, amino acids, basic nutrients, you get the expression of disease. There's so many of your listeners right now that go to bed tired, but as their environment quiets, their mind wakes up, and they start to ruminate. So they lay there in bed, they're mind awake, but their body tired, and they ruminate on things for minutes or hours, and it robs them of deep sleep. This is very easy to fix.
The same thing with nagging issues like attention deficit disorders, which is not really an attention deficit at all, it's an attention overload disorder. It's too many windows opening in our mind at the same time. Most of us think that we need to fix this by adding amphetamines to our system to race the central nervous system to match the pace of the mind, things like Vyvanse, Ritalin, Adderall, but the truth is we can supplement to quiet the mind. There are gut issues. The vast majority of my clients would have gut issues, diarrhea, constipation, irritability, cramping, bloating, and they couldn't relate it to what they had last eaten, because they overlooked the pace of the gut.
They look at food allergies and food sensitivities, but they don't know that certain nutrient deficiencies, so for example, a deficiency in something called methyl folate, which is very easy to get over the counter, it's a really inexpensive supplement, can fix gut motility issues, and they can restore the pace of their gut to normal. Now they don't eat the same thing on Monday, they're fine, and they eat the exact same thing on Wednesday, and then end up blowing up like a tick. Very often what happens in the human body is we deprive it of certain raw materials. Vitamin D three is probably the most clinically deficient nutrient in the vast majority of human beings. If you look at what happens when you just deprive the body of vitamin D3, cholecalciferol, the only vitamin, by the way, that human beings can make on our own, you don't need to eat, you don't need to supplement, You don't need to drink.
All you need to do is expose your skin to sunlight, and your body will make it with the cholesterol in your bloodstream. This nutrient is so important for human function that when it's deficient, we get the expression of disease. If you look at the data on COVID, for example, the second leading cause of morbidity in COVID was a clinical deficiency in vitamin D3. Not immunosuppressants, not obesity, not type two diabetes. It was a clinical deficiency in vitamin D3.
Very often what I'll do is I'll have clients of mine, once in their lifetime, do a test called a genetic methylation test. What this test does, it's a cheek swab. You swab your cheek, send it into a lab, and what this test will tell you is what nutrients, what raw material can your body convert into the usable form, and what can it not, and you supplement for that deficiency. If you want to see magic really happen in human beings, you give their body the raw material it needs to do its job. That's the simple truth.
Speaker 0: Now where can you get one of these tests? Only from Gary Breca,
Speaker 5: or No. Do you get it lots of places that do who
Speaker 0: will analyze it for you?
Speaker 5: Yeah. There are lots of places that do genetic methylation tests. I have a genetic methylation test, but I'm not here to sell my tests. You want to get a genetic methylation test. The reason why I say methylation is because if you get a full genome sequence, you're going to get paralysis of analysis.
You're going see that you have olive skin and green eyes and detached ear lobes, and you can see the distance your index fingers. None of that matters, not in terms of what you supplement with, but genes of methylation are genes that take raw materials and convert them into the usable form. For example, we pull crude oil out of the ground, but you can't put crude oil into your gas tank. The reason why you can't is because the car doesn't understand that fuel source. If you take crude oil and you refine it into gasoline, now the car can run.
Human beings are no different. We take vitamins, minerals, amino acids, proteins, carbohydrates, nutrients of all kind, we put them into the body, and then the body converts these into the form it can use. If you can't make this conversion, you have a deficiency, and it is this deficiency that leads to the expression of these diseases. You know, the human genome is specifically designed to not pass on disease. But if you went to your doctor and you had high blood pressure, and they did all kinds of cardiac exams, they did an EKG, and an EEG, and a dye contrast study, and a cardiac catheterization, and heart sounds, and lung sounds, and they couldn't find anything wrong with your heart, the next thing they'll do is they'll look at your family history, and they'll say, Oh my gosh, Megan, your mom's brother and your dad's brother both had high blood pressure.
You have familial hypertension, or genetically inherited hypertension, and you go, Ugh, I guess I just lost the genetic lottery, so now I need medication for the rest of my life. That's patently false. There aren't genes for a lot of these conditions, so they're not passed on the genome. They run-in families, but they are not genetic. What we pass from generation to generation very often is not disease.
We pass the inability for the body to refine a raw material, which causes a deficiency, which leads Very to that specifically in Dana White's case, he had an impaired ability at a gene mutation called MTHFR. I won't tell you what the nickname is for that gene.
Speaker 0: I don't know
Speaker 5: if it's right.
Speaker 0: Got it.
Speaker 5: It stands for methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase, just so you know. Not what it looks like. But this gene mutation, forty six percent of the population has so forty six percent of your listeners have it right now. What this gene mutation does is it impairs the ability for the body, or blocks the ability for the body to convert folic acid into the form the body can use, called folinic acid or methylfolate. That doesn't sound like a big deal until you realize that folic acid is the most prevalent nutrient in the human diet.
We spray it on all of our grains, potatoes, or sorry, grains, pasta, flour, rice, cereals are all sprayed with this chemical called folic acid. I say chemical because we make it in a laboratory. Most people think that folic acid occurs naturally in nature. It doesn't. You can't find folic acid anywhere on the surface of the earth.
We make it in a laboratory. Folate occurs naturally in nature, but we fortify or enrich foods. If you see a label on a food package that says fortified or enriched, that means it's been sprayed with the chemical folic acid. Well, forty six percent of the population can't break this compound down, and if you can't break this compound down, it rises, and if you can't convert it into the usable form, methylfolate, you have a deficiency. What are the consequences of that deficiency?
Well, first consequence is impaired gut motility. You get gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, irritability, cramping, and you start down the road of food allergy testing, food sensitivity testing, gut microbiome testing, and nothing works, because you haven't addressed the pace of the gut. It also impairs the ability for us to take an amino acid called tryptophan and convert it into the neurotransmitter serotonin. Again, this might not sound like a big deal, but serotonin is the main driver of mood, the main driver of behavior. This is why I've never once in my entire lifetime met a sufferer of anxiety that did not also have gut issues.
The two go hand in hand. Wow. You don't have anxiety and have good gut motility. You don't have anxiety and not suffer from irritable gut issues. Full stop.
And any of your listeners that have anxiety will also go, wow, that's actually true. So why do these two connected? Because they're connected to the same nutrient deficiency. So when you put this raw material back in the human body, you reduce or eliminate the expression of disease. In fact, if you're suffering from anxiety right now, just ask yourself these three questions.
Number one, have you had it on and off throughout your entire lifetime? The vast majority of people will say yes. The reason why they say yes is because it's related to this gene mutation. Can you point to the specific trigger that causes it? The vast majority of people will say, No.
I don't need to walk to the edge of a 30th Floor balcony and be afraid of heights to feel anxiety. I don't need to be claustrophobic and step on a crowded elevator to feel anxiety. I can be sitting at dinner with my family on an otherwise innocuous night, and I can just all of a sudden just be kind of overwhelmed with anxiety. My heart can start racing. I can start feeling the presence of a fear, even though there's no presence of a fear.
The last question is, if you've tried anti anxiety medications, did they work? And they'll say, no. They made me feel like a zombie. So I had two choices, feel anxiety or feel like a zombie. This is your indication that this is a nutrient deficiency.
And this genetic methylation test will spot the gene that's responsible, and you can supplement for its deficiency. In Dana's case, he had an impaired ability to break down an amino acid called homocysteine. When you have high blood pressure and they find nothing wrong with your heart, very often it is this amino acid called homocysteine. When it rises in the bloodstream, and it's sort of cruising by the inside lining of your arteries, it will irritate your artery. If you irritate an artery, it will clamp down.
And if you make the pipes smaller in a fixed system, the pressure goes up. So if I wanted to drive your blood pressure up right now, Megan, I would just put compression gear on your legs. If I put compression compression stocking on both of your legs, your blood pressure would skyrocket. Nothing wrong with your heart. We have 60
Speaker 0: They put those on me after I gave birth to my children.
Speaker 5: Exactly. Not to raise your blood pressure, but to help you In get
Speaker 0: the hospital, they make you wear those things.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and your blood pressure went up. And if they had taken your blood pressure before and after, they'd Oh my gosh, you have hypertension. But you don't. You just have vascular compression. Right?
I mean, we have 63,000 miles of blood vessel in our body. It does not take much arterial narrowing to drive pressure up. The other fascinating fact about our circulation is that only 30% of our circulation is done by our heart. Most people think our heart circulates all the blood in our body. It doesn't.
It circulates 30% of the blood in your body. The question is, how does the other 70% circulate? It's venules and capillaries, and it's circulated by an activity called vasomotor. Think of a snake swallowing a mouse. We don't put a garden hose in the snake's mouth and push the mouse along.
We actually have a muscular transaction. It's a muscular contraction that pushes the mouse along. This is similar to how 70% of our circulation works, and if you impair that circulation, your pressure rises, and that runs in families, not a gene for hypertension. And we could go on and on, we could talk about thyroid, type two diabetes, drug and alcohol addiction, all kinds of
Speaker 0: things. But it all starts with that test, will show you where you're deficient in terms of your genes, and some of these genetic deficiencies can be made up with just like over the counter supplements?
Speaker 5: Over the counter supplements. Simple supplementation that your body's deficient in. Back to the plant example, if you didn't find the nitrogen missing in the soil, nothing else would have mattered. People try to supplement around this deficiency. They go, Well, my aunt takes NAD, which is great, and so is ashwagandha, and so is St.
John's wort, and so is CoQ10, and so is Resveratrol, and so are all of these supplements. Each of them has a role. The question is, what does your body need? If you don't have data, you're just guessing. This is why some people find a magic bullet with a certain supplement, and some people have no effect at all.
You know-
Speaker 0: Oh my goodness, that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Once you know what to supplement with, I'm telling you magic happens in human beings. The vast majority of people
Speaker 0: Does does it matter? It does matter, right, where you get the supplements from, because I mean, can go on Amazon and order this stuff from anywhere. You don't know who's
Speaker 5: making it. Yeah. This is true. Know, sadly, the supplement industry is kind of like the wild wild west. If you go to my website, theultimatehuman.com, I'll tell you a lot of the supplements that I endorse.
I'm not here to sell my supplements.
Speaker 0: That's good.
Speaker 5: Most of them are I not even think
Speaker 0: that's helpful.
Speaker 5: But I like to direct people to places where they can trust supplement labels and supplement manufacturers.
Speaker 1: Can
Speaker 2: also I want get them jump
Speaker 0: back to something you said earlier, because this is important, and I don't have you forever. I wish I did. Yeah. D3. I know one of your recommendations is get out there first thing in the morning and walk for thirty minutes.
In response to which I thought, he does not live where I live. You've got to be a Californian, right? Or you're Arizona or South Texas.
Speaker 5: I'm Miami. Must be.
Speaker 0: Yeah, okay. Because nobody in the Northeast or the Midwest talks like this. We all know that's an impossibility. Only the insane people are doing that. It's dangerous, it's dark, it's highly unpleasant, and there really is no sign of the Anyway, yeah, it's like there's nothing good about it.
So for those of us who are in the 4 Seasons areas of the country, how do we get our vitamin D? It's not going happen at six in the morning where there is no sun and it's like five degrees out, but I accept that it's important. And so A, can you get it done in thirty minutes in a cold weather environment? Considering that you had to wear like a lot of clothes to be out there. And B, does it matter what time of day you do it?
Speaker 5: So I would be supplementing in one of those colder climates with five thousand IUs of vitamin D3. It's called cholecalciferol, vitamin D3, and make sure that it contains something called K2. Because vitamin D3 is such a magic nutrient in the human body. It acts like a hormone sometimes. It acts like a vitamin sometimes.
It's a calcium transport molecule, and if you want the calcium to deposit into the bone and not into the arterial wall, you add vitamin K2. Most good manufacturers, you can tell a really good vitamin D3 by the fact that it is compounded with something called K2. That is a really good manufacturer. You want to take five thousand IUs of vitamin D3 daily, very safe, to raise your vitamin D3 level. There is correlated risks, even causal risks, between low vitamin D3 and increased incidence of breast cancer in women.
There are plenty of clinical trials on this. It's one of the easiest things to supplement with, and it's one of the most game changing nutrients you can put in the human body. I got asked on a podcast the other day, What is the single most important nutrient in the human body? It's really hard to pinpoint one, but if you think about the fact that vitamin D3 is the only nutrient that human beings make on our own. It's the only vitamin we make on our own.
If I was to test your blood right now, or the blood of any of your listeners, there'd be hundreds of vitamins in their bloodstream. You're only capable of making one, so when God made us, he made us with the ability to make a single vitamin. How important do you think that is to human function? So we make it from sunlight and cholesterol. You don't need to eat, you don't need to drink, you don't need to supplement.
If you expose your skin to sunlight and have cholesterol in your bloodstream, your body will make vitamin D3. What's really fascinating about it is about eighty five percent of the world is clinically deficient in vitamin D three, and it's very easy to supplement with.
Speaker 0: Wow. I'm thinking about my friends in Scandinavia who right this time of year have like three hours of sunlight and are desperately in need of this. And I think if memory serves, they told me when I was over there, the government will provide that vitamin for you free of charge. An indication
Speaker 5: of how important it is, right? Because they know that's gonna keep people out of the healthcare system. We developed all kinds of fallacies around this. Have you ever heard of going out and catching a cold in the winter? Okay.
Well, that's a complete fallacy. My mom used to say it to me all the time, Don't go outside without a jacket. You'll catch a cold. There's no such thing as catching a cold. The reason why people get sick more often in cold is because when it's cold, we layer up, and when we layer up, we get less sun.
When we get less sun, our vitamin D3 drops, and when our vitamin D3 drops, our immune system is compromised. Our immune system is compromised by the cold weather. It is actually less risky to go outside during cold weather than it is to go outside in Miami, because there's a lot more pathogens at 85 degrees than there are at 15 degrees. There's not a lot of bacteria lying around on your frozen car window, but there's a lot of bacteria lying on handrail.
Speaker 0: Can you do it like if you live in a cold environment, like let's say you go skiing, these days you're covered head to toe while you ski, there's not a single inch of skin that shows. But then let's say you sit outside for lunch because it's warm enough that you can do that. Can you sit there in the sun for half an hour with just your face showing and get the vitamin D you need?
Speaker 5: Yeah, your face and your hands, sometimes your arms. Some of these ski resorts, if there's not a lot of wind blowing and you're at high altitude, the UV index is high, you can actually just take your jacket off and expose your arms and your skin to sunlight for a few minutes, maybe fifteen, eighteen minutes. That's enough to start generating some vitamin D3. But in those cases, just supplement with vitamin D3. Supplement with cholecalciferol.
Speaker 0: Okay, there's no downside. Yeah, there's no downside.
Speaker 5: All right,
Speaker 0: let's talk about exercise, because that, you know, tougher for some than for others. What's the core? What's the basis What we need of to do?
Speaker 5: I think that the most overlooked exercise in all of humanity is walking. Walking is specifically designed to move our lymphatic system. The reason why exercise is so tied to a reduction in all cause mortality is that it's not just about mobility, it's about detoxification. So we have a lymphatic system in our body. You know, our lymph nodes that swell when we get a sore throat?
Well, are all throughout our body, and it's the waste elimination side of our system. And there's no pressure in this system. The heart is not pumping lymphatic fluid. What circulates lymphatic fluid is muscular contraction. And walking is specifically designed to move lymphatic fluid.
So if you looked at Blue Zone, for example, why were the two non negotiables, sense of community and purpose and mobility into later in life? Because those people were regularly detoxifying themselves. I say walking is good. Walking outside is better. Walking outside with a weighted vest is best.
If you only have twenty minutes or thirty minutes in the morning and you can walk on a treadmill, that's great. If you can actually get outside, that's even better. And if you can get outside and zip on a weighted vest, I use one called an ION vest, and you can zip on a weighted vest, you will compress the amount of time and you'll get more for less. So these weighted
Speaker 0: What does the weighted vest do?
Speaker 5: So the weighted vest adds weight to the body and it usually distributes it the same way that you would gain weight. But what it does is it puts more strain on your muscles, it increases your heart rate, it improves your metabolism. The compression helps with your circulation. So in that same twenty or thirty minute period, you're getting about 40 to 50% more out of that same effort than you would if you weren't walking without weight. When you tell the body that you're gaining weight, it elevates your metabolism to peel that weight off.
So people that are concerned about weight loss, if you start exercising with a weighted vest, you'll get a whole lot more out of that timeframe of exercise than if you did it non weighted.
Speaker 0: It's probably good for your old lady bones too. Oh, Oh, it's it's great for your osteoporosis.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Can we talk about osteoporosis for a minute? Because so many people think that osteoporosis is related to a deficiency in calcium, and that's just not true. You know, most people think that our bones are calcium. That's also not true.
Our bones are calcium combined with something called phosphorus. These two form something called hydroxyapatite. So our bones are hydroxyapatite. In order for calcium and phosphorus to bind and form hydroxyapatite, you need 12 If you're missing any one of these twelve minuteerals, your bones don't harden. This is why if you go to assisted care living facilities all over the world, you'll find elderly men and women that have osteopenia or osteoporosis, and they've been on calcium supplements for twenty years.
Calcium is not the answer. Minerals are the answer. Every morning that I wake up, I take a mineral salt. It's a cheap mineral salt. You can use any mineral salt you want.
I use one called Baja Gold, and I add this mineral salt to my drinking water because it has all 91 trace minerals. In the morning, if you hydrate, you add a mineral salt.
Speaker 0: You put like a teaspoon in there?
Speaker 5: I put about a half a teaspoon of this Baja Gold mineral salt, and what'll happen is that only 75% of that crystal is sodium. The rest of it is all minerals like molybdenum, manganese, boron, zinc, copper, iodine. All of these minerals that come from should come from our soil, but unfortunately our soil is depleted. So you add a mineral salt to your drinking water. I also add a hydrogen tablet and an amino acid.
And then you just whack that back, so you hydrate and mineralize first thing in the morning. And then if you apply a load, your bones will strengthen. Calcium and phosphorus will form hydroxyapatite, and you'll strengthen your bones. If you just take calcium supplements, very likely that calcium will end up in the arterial wall, not in your bones. Then if you exercise and add a load, this is what calls the bone to want to harden, to ossify.
Weighted exercise is one of the best things that you can do to extend your health span and extend your lifespan.
Speaker 0: It makes sense too because if you think about these blue zone communities like in Japan, they're not going on the stairmaster or They're the walking.
Speaker 5: They're not counting calories. They don't know what a macro is. They're not weighing their food. They're not worrying about whether they're carnivore or paleo or vegan or vegetarian or pescatarian.
Speaker 0: Same thing in Italy. There are no gyms in Italy. Good luck finding a gym. They don't exist. That's not how they live.
Speaker 5: In fact, in Sardinia, where they had hyper centenarianism, the life expectancy was directly related to the grade of the slope they walked up. You've got elderly men and women walking up 20 degree slopes, 10 blocks to go to church, four blocks over to the market, and six blocks back home on the regular. There aren't elevators. By the way, there aren't assisted care living facilities in these zones. Assisted care living is mom and dad move back in with the kids until the day that they die.
Why is that so important? Because community, connection, and sense of purpose truly feed our cellular biology. We are one of the most disconnected societies in modern history. We think that connection comes through social media or our digital media, and it doesn't. Connection comes from true connection with other human beings.
In fact, there's something called broken heart syndrome. We've all experienced this in our families, either a relative or grandparent that's been married forty, fifty years, maybe sixty years. When one spouse passes, how quickly does the other spouse go? Nothing's happened to them, but this is the first time that they've been put in isolation. We knew in the mortality space that if you wanted to cut a human being's life expectancy in half, and I mean in half, at any age, you put them in isolation.
And so when you've been married for thirty or forty or fifty years and a spouse passes away, it's the immediate isolation that causes the detrimental effect. And we are as a society becoming increasingly more isolated because connection doesn't come through social media, it doesn't come through digital devices. It comes from real community and connection with other human beings. This is why I preach about faith being medicine. Community is medicine.
Connection is medicine. So prayer actually has a medicinal benefit. So does community, family, connection. And as we get more disconnected, our cellular biology bathes in a toxic soup of inflammation. And so you know by getting back to the basics, this is where we really can extend life.
Speaker 0: I love all of this. I have to ask you a quick question. We only have two minutes left.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 0: Can we eat bread or can't we?
Speaker 5: I prefer sourdough bread. Here's the thing about bread, so really quick. Yes. Most bread
Speaker 0: is four Can I have a like a slice of sourdough bread Yes?
Speaker 5: Oh, sourdough all you want. With all the butter you want, Oh, by the I want.
Speaker 1: We need
Speaker 5: to stop blaming the butter for what the bread did. The fortified No. Or enriched Sourdough, absolutely yes.
Speaker 0: That's great.
Speaker 5: That was probably worth the whole show right
Speaker 0: there. Can we just not end this but call it TB continued? Because there's so much more. You're such a wealth of information. This is why everybody loves you.
This is why everybody said, when is Gary coming on?
Speaker 5: Thank you. I'd love to be back on. I'd to cover any of these topics.
Speaker 0: Awesome. This is so helpful. And is there a book? Do you have a book? Is this written down?
Or we just go to your website, The Ultimate Human?
Speaker 5: Did write a book year on genetic methylation, by the way. You can go to theultimatehuman.com. I have a VIP group there where I do private Q and As. You can ask me anything. I have a Gary AI that you can download.
You can feed it labs. You can feed it genetic testing. You can ask it questions about supplements. You can ask it questions about diet, it'll write a diet plan So for you if you lots of resources there.
Speaker 0: We are all doing all of that. We're about to crash your website, and please put us on
Speaker 2: your book tour when that book comes
Speaker 0: out next year. We'd love to host you. But let's not wait that long. Gary Breca, thank you. Thank you so much for all your expertise.
Speaker 5: You're welcome, Megan. Can't wait to be back on.
Speaker 0: Likewise. Wow, that was so interesting. There was so much good news in there, you guys. Like high blood pressure, how many people are dealing with that? And the thing about the calcium?
I'm taking calcium. I didn't know that. I definitely don't want it going to my arteries. But all of us have more traditional doctors, right? So nobody thinks about this kind of thing.
I'm ready to reevaluate everything. I'll see you over on theultimatehuman.com. Thank you guys for tuning in today. Tomorrow, we've got our friends from real real clear politics and special appearance by Doug Brunt. We'll see you then.
reSee.it AI Summary
I listened to the press conference and felt an emptiness. The motive was clear, and now Erika knows why her husband, Charlie, was taken from her and their children. The shooter, influenced by a toxic ideology, believed Charlie was "too hateful." The media perpetuates these lies, ignoring the consequences. It's crucial for us to raise our kids with strong morals and to challenge the leftist narratives in schools. We must fight for truth, engage with our children, and spread Charlie’s message of faith, freedom, and family more effectively.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
I listened to the presser and feel empty inside. The motive was as suspected, so now what? Now Erika knows exactly why they stole her husband, her kids’ father. Why Charlie will never get to walk their daughter down the aisle, never have a catch with his son. The shooter will likely die by firing squad one day and should. It won’t bring Charlie back. We lost one of our best bc some gamer left-wing trans/furry-loving loser decided Charlie was “too hateful.” The L told him it was so, and he believed it. Or maybe he just listened to CK videos on trans issues and decided for himself, based on his own Left-wing ideology, reinforced by woke liars all over the news, that it was hateful to say this is a sickness … that you can’t change genders … that it’s evil to cut off healthy body parts of children and to sterilize minors. Either way, the media won’t stop. They’re complicit in the lies that rotted this shooter’s brain. And the six trans mass shooters before this. But they’ll never acknowledge it. It’s too important to them to virtue signal and be on the side of the allegedly powerless oppressed. Murders of children, of Charlie, be damned. The side of sanity has no choice but to forge on without these lunatics. Grow our ranks. Donate to TPUSA. Get more children educated with truth and common sense and biological reality. Parents need to get their children off the damn laptop/internet for hours on end and actively intervene when obsessive gaming/reddit surfing becomes a problem. This shooter’s parents may have turned in their son but they sure did know right away that their kid was the culprit. They took one look at those photos and knew. What had already happened to him that made their minds go there? What signs were ignored or overlooked? Maybe we can get the next set of parents to do better. Be more engaged. To protect us all. Realistically, it’s up to us to raise our kids well and that means with a strong moral core, a strong connection to us and a strong connection to their faith. Then we must multiply our ranks by making K-12 and colleges our NUMBER ONE PRIORITY for de-programming sick and pernicious leftist ideology. What makes parents stay silent in the face of insane woke abusive schools? Junior needs to get into Harvard? Don’t piss off the administrators whose recommendation you need? They’ll make him into a full communist. And maybe a killer. FIGHT. Fight the lies that are being told. Fight for a return to wellness practices - off the constant gaming/discord and onto a field, e.g. Do NOT remain silent when they actively try to infect your child with the woke mind virus that could cost your child or someone else’s their life one day. Above all we must continue to spread Charlie’s message of faith, freedom, family and patriotism. We must become even more effective at it and more ubiquitous in our reach. We must say it, say it all, and say it again. And we must do it from fortified spaces so we can live.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
.@RepMTG on Secrets of DC, the Israel Lobby, Jasmine Crockett, and the Future of MAGA WATCH: https://t.co/kwWMjf5bGp
Video Transcript AI Summary
MTG describes her rise from Georgia construction business owner to congresswoman, a Trump loyalist who has fought on Fauci, trans issues, and Epstein files, and faced media attacks after entering Congress in 2020. She argues “the American people are very much against foreign wars, funding foreign wars, sending American troops into foreign countries to protect their borders, their interests, their people.” She Opposes a potential Article Five security guarantee for Ukraine and questions NATO membership for Ukraine, asking “why does Ukraine deserve it” and “we don't have time to fund what you're doing. No. We don't.” On spending, she cites “We're $37,000,000,000,000 in debt” and outlines gridlock: “September 30, government funding deadline” and “fifteen days... to pass 10 more appropriation bills.” She critiques lobbying groups, especially APAC: “APAC takes freshmen... to Israel” and “APAC ... not registered under FARA.” She notes “Israel receives 3.8 billion dollars in funding” and envisions MAGA future after Trump, saying “No one will fill Trump's shoes.”
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly show. Today on the program, congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. This is the first time we have ever met.
Since coming onto the national scene in 2019, she has been a lightning rod for the Republican Party and a loyalist to president Donald Trump. However, she's making headlines now over cracks in her support for some of his current stances. Ukraine, Israel, the Epstein files, just to name a few. Congresswoman Green has been involved in some epic fights on Capitol Hill, but whether you like her or not, she does not back down on Fauci, the villain, the trans issue, and so much more. This is gonna be a wide ranging discussion on the current state and future of the MAGA movement and more.
Joining me now, congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Don't miss a moment. Subscribe to this show on YouTube and follow me on Insta, Facebook, and X. So what do we think the effect of the sparring between president Donald Trump and the Fed is going to be? Can the Fed take the right action at the right time?
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Speaker 1: Thank you, Megan. I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Thanks for thanks for coming all this way. Let's just start with news of the day because we're taping this on Monday. This is gonna air on Tuesday. And in the Oval Office, president Trump, who's meeting with Zelensky, was just asked about what kind of commitments are we ready to make with respect to our troops in keeping any possible peace in Ukraine because his emissary Steve Witkoff, his envoy had said, we that the security deals are basically being negotiated, which sounds like us.
And here's what he said. Your team has talked about security guarantees. Could that involve US troops? Would you rule that out in the future? We'll let you know that maybe later today.
We're meeting with seven great leaders of great countries also, and we'll be talking about that. They'll all be involved. Okay. Your thoughts on what if any presence we should be having over in Ukraine?
Speaker 1: Right now taping on Monday, so we're just taking what the president just, spoke of in the Oval Office. I think he's talking about potential Article five security
Speaker 0: That's what Wittkopf mentioned.
Speaker 1: Agreements.
Speaker 0: The NATO agreement, which they're not a party of NATO.
Speaker 1: Right. Which I'm against. Look, I campaigned all over the country for president Trump, not just in 2024, but literally for years. And, I can tell you right now, the American people are very much against foreign wars, funding foreign wars, sending American troops into foreign countries to protect their borders, their interests, their people. They are appalled that we've spent $200,000,000,000 or more in Ukraine thus far since 2022, and I don't think the American people will be happy about sending American troops with an Article five security agreement and promise to Ukraine.
I don't think that's what the American people want. I think they want completely out of it because most Americans are looking at their daily lives. They're looking at their bills, their rent payments. Young people today can't buy a house. They're looking at health insurance, which is a complete scam and a rip off.
And they're going, okay, how much more is this going to cost me? So that's my first reaction.
Speaker 0: Let's talk about what a guarantee would look like. I mean, if we're guaranteeing, what, the security of Ukraine? Mhmm. So that if there's another Putin invasion down the line, we're required to fight it like it's our war?
Speaker 1: Yes. Essentially. So Article five, with NATO means that any, NATO country that is attacked, that means the other countries are are bound in that agreement to respond with defense. And I think it can vary depending on what how the country reacts and and what the defense, aid they give to these other countries. But it's it seems it it doesn't make sense to say Ukraine can never join NATO, but yet here we are, The United States, most powerful country in the world.
We are going to give you Article five, a guarantee security agreement.
Speaker 0: Like a side deal.
Speaker 1: And why do they deserve it is my question.
Speaker 0: Why does Ukraine Whether they do or they don't, I
Speaker 1: don't wanna give it. Exactly.
Speaker 0: You know, that's my position. I don't don't It's my child.
Speaker 1: No. I Megan, I fully agree with you, and I think most Americans agree with you. I was one of the only members of Congress that voted no from the beginning to fund the Ukraine war, and I took a very strong position. And and literally, was on my own out of, you know
Speaker 0: How'd you see that?
Speaker 1: I I just saw it from so my dad was a, combat war veteran in Vietnam. And just growing up with a father that had been drafted and parents that had lived through the Vietnam War, you know, that whole generation, which we love them so much. And knowing so many, you know, of family members and friends that served in, everything from Desert Storm to Iraq and and Afghanistan and all these Middle Eastern wars. And as a member of congress, constantly hearing from veterans that have so many broken issues, whether it's physical or mental with PTSD, and and can't get their needs met at the VA, and then knowing that their suicide numbers are still twenty two a day, I mean, it's just common sense. It's like, we can't do this anymore, and we're broke.
America's broke. We're $37,000,000,000,000 in debt, and at some point, we have to start saying no to the rest of the world and and just completely say, no. We're we can't. We we've gotta focus here, or or we're going to implode one day.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. It's I mean, the Republican Party has turned on that war and supporting it, but they weren't against it in the beginning. Mhmm. You know, the numbers have fallen. So it's to your credit that you saw that trouble coming right from the get go.
And it's not that, like I have sympathy, of course, for the Ukrainian people. I mean, what's happened is terrible. They've had terrible leaders, and Vladimir Putin is not a good man. That's I mean, nobody's gonna dispute that. But not everything can be our problem, And the problem is we had Democrats who were messing with Ukraine and kinda trying to make it our problem for a number of years, which I think led us to feeling some obligation understandably.
But at this point, I mean, like you've got these two two stubborn leaders. I don't know what's gonna happen today. I don't I don't have high hopes that Trump's gonna get something done today. Yeah. It's gonna have to stop at some point, because both sides are losing, you know, how many thousands by the week.
So I don't how do you see this ending?
Speaker 1: I I'm not sure. I I do wanna say I I put a lot of faith and hope in the president because we all win if he's successful in ending it. However, what does America have to continue to commit to these countries in order to end their wars that we had nothing to do with? Even the Ukraine Russia war really started in 2014 under Barack Obama.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. It
Speaker 1: it everybody thinks it started in 2022. It didn't. It started way back then. And then we can look at the war with Israel and Gaza or Israel and Iran or or whoever in the Middle East. You know, we we are we haven't started those wars either.
And then we can say, well, what wars do we pick to get involved in? What about the ones in Africa where Christians are slaughtered all the time? It's just it's like you said, at what at what point do do we say, guys, enough?
Speaker 0: Not our problem. Mhmm. I mean, it's like 09:11. Yeah. That was our problem.
Speaker 1: 1000%.
Speaker 0: That was easy to see. But all of sudden, like, we could we could be extended all over the world at any given time with millions of American troops if we really wanted to be. Yep. So we have to make serious decisions. And we'll we'll round back to Israel, but let me just get to know you first and have you on so did you grow up in Georgia?
Yes.
Speaker 1: And raised.
Speaker 0: Yes. And what what was your family like?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Very very down home. My mom's side of family have a very big family. My dad's side of family is not as big. I have one brother.
Speaker 0: Older or younger?
Speaker 1: Younger. Two years younger.
Speaker 0: You were the oldest.
Speaker 1: Yes. I'm the oldest. My family, we had no money in the beginning because my dad was truck and truck and ladder construction guy trying to grow the family business from there. So we moved around a good bit. I went to a lot of different public schools growing up in Georgia.
Finished up and went to UGA. I was the first person in my family to graduate from college with a business degree, which was, you know, pretty big deal in my family as my parents weren't able to finish college. But yeah, just very normal childhood.
Speaker 0: When you graduated, did you have any hopes of becoming a politician?
Speaker 1: No, never. Oh my goodness. I'd never wanted to have anything to do with politics. Never even thought of it.
Speaker 0: Were you back then, like describe the 20 year old you. Were you feisty? Were you still like a stand up kind of person?
Speaker 1: Or No.
Speaker 0: What were you like?
Speaker 1: No, not at all. I I don't even remember arguing with a waiter in a restaurant.
Speaker 0: Really?
Speaker 1: Yes. Just very southern. We grow up mild mannered, polite.
Speaker 0: Bless your heart is the meanest thing you say.
Speaker 1: Well, it has two meanings. There's a sincere bless your heart, and then there's a mean bless your heart.
Speaker 0: Oh, I only knew the
Speaker 1: second okay. Yeah, no, just and I worked in my family construction business when I was a teenager and then graduated from college and didn't even think of applying for a job anywhere. Went straight back to our family construction business.
Speaker 0: Political family? Like, was it a lot of Republican talk or not
Speaker 1: Not really. I mean, of course, my parents talked about everything at the kitchen table, which honestly I think helped me so much. They discussed everything at the kitchen table, especially about our business. Whatever the problems were at the time, how much jobs cost, bidding jobs.
Speaker 0: And it was a construction business?
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah. Okay. Selling jobs. I mean, really the the structure of running a business, the structure of running a household, you know, household bills.
My parents just but they didn't argue. It was not arguing. It was just discussing, which I always I think I learned and benefited from that. And I think all children benefit from that when they hear their parents. But after college, I I I bought my family's construction business.
Took me some years to buy them out and help them into retirement, and then away we went, for over two decades. That's that's what I did.
Speaker 0: Because I read that you you I don't know if it was you never voted in an election until Trump or you just hadn't voted recently prior to Trump.
Speaker 1: The only election I didn't vote in was in 2012. I just couldn't vote for Mitt Romney.
Speaker 0: Okay. Why? Interesting. Because back then, Mitt Romney I mean, at least I had a very different image of Mitt Romney in 2012 than I do now.
Speaker 1: Mitt Romney, for me, so I'm one of those voters where I have gotta feel inspired to want to vote for someone. You've gotta give me a reason to wanna vote for them. Otherwise, I'm like back then, I would have been like, why am I taking time out of my day? It is is really honestly was my mindset.
Speaker 0: Was He did not inspire you.
Speaker 1: Very nonpolitical. He did not inspire me. I voted in the first election against Obama. It's not that I like John McCain, but it was against Barack Obama. The next time, was like, well, Barack Obama's gonna win.
I definitely don't wanna vote for Mitt Romney. So I was like, why would I bother?
Speaker 0: You banged capital dog on the roof? What was it?
Speaker 1: I think he just was the wing of the Republican Party I could not stand. And that, for me, was a major turnoff.
Speaker 0: You're already in that place in 2012.
Speaker 1: Very much so.
Speaker 0: So when Trump comes on the scene three years later, were you like, wow.
Speaker 1: Yes. I went, this is the first I called him a politician, but he was a candidate. I was like, this is the first politician that makes sense to me because he talked the way my father and my uncles and many men in my life, especially in the construction world, talked. He talked normal. And he talked about, you know, issues that we cared about, like ending foreign wars, putting America first.
And he talked about so many of the things that none of the politicians would ever dare talk about because that might not be the right way to talk. Yep. So he was very appealing.
Speaker 0: Was it love at first sight? Absolutely. For a politician?
Speaker 1: Yes. Love at first sight.
Speaker 0: So you didn't you weren't buying into any of the controversies that the media was kicking around back then. You were an early supporter.
Speaker 1: I never bought into any of the garbage.
Speaker 0: Well, would be important for your future political life, to not buy into garbage being printed by the media.
Speaker 1: We didn't buy into it. I didn't buy into it, and a lot of people I knew didn't buy into it.
Speaker 0: But you were not yet a politician, we should point out. So this were still running a construction company, you were a business owner and businesswoman? Raising three children. Okay, so how old were your kids at this point?
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, so now they are 22, 25, and 27. So
Speaker 0: So they're adolescent?
Speaker 1: Back in 2016. 16. Yeah. High school and middle school.
Speaker 0: Alright. Yes. And, so now at some point, you you decide to throw your hat in the ring and actually run for congress, which is a huge decision.
Speaker 1: Yes. So how do you
Speaker 0: go from not being really that political Mhmm. To actually running for office?
Speaker 1: I know. It sounds crazy. So 2016, I really started paying attention because of Donald Trump. And that led, and it was also the whole world of social media opening up. There was so more so much more information that was outside of mainstream news that was on social media that I found very interesting, and many people did.
And, so I I really started paying attention. And it was watching the Republicans in 2017 fail on multiple fronts. Number one, they didn't fight against the Russia hoax. And it was so clear and obvious to me that it was a complete lie, and Republicans basically stood down and allowed Donald Trump just to be pummeled. And it was disgusting to me.
I was like, how are they doing this? It just was so repulsive. And then, it was in 2018, they passed the largest budget. I think at that time, it was $1,300,000,000,000. It was a just just bloated budget.
They even funded Planned Parenthood. They did all these things that they had said they weren't going to do, and then they flat out did them. And then they did not repeal, the Affordable Care Act.
Speaker 0: Right.
Speaker 1: And our family, that hurt us in particular because we bought our own health insurance. We weren't it wasn't given to us at some job. And when the Affordable Care Act passed, our family's health insurance went from around $800 a month to over $2,400 a month. It killed us. That was more than our mortgage payment.
Speaker 0: Because if you had more than a certain number of employees, you really took it. I remember my brother, who's also a business owner in Georgia, was trying to keep the employees under that number. I can't remember if it was under 50 or under 100, but he was trying not to hire even one more person so he could avoid the exorbitant increases that were coming from Obamacare.
Speaker 1: Exactly. It was terrible.
Speaker 0: Right. So you're not so what's that doing to the economy?
Speaker 1: Killing us. It was killing us. And so all of those problems were were supposed to be the problems that Republicans were supposed to fix. And at the same time, they weren't defending and protecting the president that we had elected and truly believed in his message. And, I'll never forget, it was in, January 2019 watching Nancy Pelosi take the gavel and become Speaker of the House again.
Trigger. Yeah. And I was like I mean, I wanna say the f word,
Speaker 0: but You can on this podcast.
Speaker 1: I did. Was like, fuck it. I'm running for Congress. Wow. Because I felt like they don't have regular people in there that understand.
It's like who is in congress that gets it? And so I was so naive though, Megan. I was so naive. I just thought that you could just run for Congress and ask for everybody's vote, and go up there and fix problems. Oh boy, it's been quite a ride since.
Speaker 0: Yeah, you've learned a lot. So you were elected in what year did you come into the Congress?
Speaker 1: 2020.
Speaker 0: Right in 2021, the height of the craziness. Insane. The year America lost its mind. Yes. Now, what I remember back then was you got in trouble for tweets about Sandy Hook or Parkland, like
Speaker 1: No, accused that. They laid that on me. But I had always been very vocal against how horrific school shootings are. They're they're horrific.
Speaker 0: They're gonna take anything. When you're a young Republican woman, which you're not allowed to be, that's not okay, they're going to throw everything at you. And if they can paint you to be a nutcase, so much the better. They always say nuts are sluts. That's what they do, especially conservative women.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. And they I think they could tell I meant what I was saying. So You're threatening.
Speaker 0: You're a good communicator.
Speaker 1: So they created this whole new character of me that didn't exist, and I was not prepared for it. I had no media training. I had no nothing.
Speaker 0: You hadn't even had a lifetime as an as an argurer.
Speaker 1: No. Oh, no. No. No. Never.
My first GOP meeting was when I walked into one and said, I'm Marjorie Taylor Greene and I'm running for Congress. It was my first GOP meeting. I had no idea what I was getting into.
Speaker 0: Well, I mean that's what we want, right? The whole idea of the founders was like the citizen politician who would come and serve for a limited time and not get bought and paid for and need the job or padding their stock account, Nancy, with access to insider information, she denies it. So that must have been very eye opening for you to start realizing how things work, and you have to do certain things not the way you want, but the way leadership wants. I mean, tell me, what were the eye opening
Speaker 1: Oh no, for me, I came in with my hair on fire. I was I was mad at everybody. Everybody.
Speaker 0: Because you like you people suck. 100%. Okay.
Speaker 1: I was like, this whole city sucks. Like, it's it's destroying us. It's killing us. And and that's but you know what? I still feel that way.
Yeah. I literally still feel that way. I wasn't ready for the media blitz. I wasn't ready for what they were gonna do to me. So I so let me tell you, I learned all the hard lessons, and now I'm I'm fine.
Speaker 0: Like what?
Speaker 1: Just just how they will lie in. So I've learned that when I'm at the Capitol, my staff will will record the entire, whatever questioning there is, whatever interviews I get.
Speaker 0: Very smart.
Speaker 1: They record them all and we put the whole thing out on social media. So they can't cut up my words. At least I have a way of fighting back. So I learned little tricks like that.
Speaker 0: How about intra party?
Speaker 1: Okay. Intra party is the most interesting thing. I did I I'm not a leadership person. I don't they can't buy my vote. They can't talk me into it.
I'm I'm ease I'm so independent, and it's the best place to be. I went in believing I had to join the Freedom Caucus because I thought, okay, these are where the good guys are, like minded people. Actually, I I I'm not in the Freedom Caucus anymore because oftentimes they end up making a deal or selling out, and I don't think it serves the best interest. Mhmm. However, there are other things that I will I mean, I'll vote for because, like, for example, appropriations.
My district needs road project help. They need water help. They need help with police and fire request. So and I think that's what our tax dollars should go towards. And I won't vote for a foreign war.
I'm not voting for your foreign aid garbage. I'm not gonna vote for whatever stupid, special interest thing that you're gonna ask me to vote for. But I want our appropriation bills, and I want the money to come back to my district.
Speaker 0: Presumably what your constituents want from you.
Speaker 1: That's what they want. I think that's what we're supposed to do. But I'm not going to like, I'm mad every single day that we don't have a balanced budget. Like, as a business owner, it makes no sense.
Speaker 0: I know. You could never run a business like this.
Speaker 1: Oh, no. We'd be homeless people.
Speaker 0: Yes. So what happens? Like, was it Kevin McCarthy in 2020? I'm trying to remember who was
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy was, he was our minority leader. Nancy Pelosi was speaker in 2021 and 2022. So you gotta remember, third day on my job was January 6. That was the third day there. I couldn't even find the bathroom.
Then, then we had Nancy Pelosi did the second impeachment of president Trump on January 11. That was the same day that my father was having brain surgery to have tumors removed because he had cancer.
Speaker 0: And
Speaker 1: then it was terrible. So I we were not even in session, we had to fly back to vote on that impeachment vote. So I had to leave my mother's side, and she was beside herself because she wasn't allowed in the hospital because COVID. Mhmm. And, so anyways, I had to fly to Washington and vote no on impeachment on that was, like, the second week.
Third week there, I got kicked off of all committees.
Speaker 0: What'd you do?
Speaker 1: They said they just didn't like my remarks, didn't like things I had said on social media. So Nancy
Speaker 0: Was it j six related?
Speaker 1: Actually, think it was because I had entered no. Yeah. I think it's because I introduced articles of impeachment on Joe Biden on his first day in office.
Speaker 0: Oh, okay.
Speaker 1: And they got mad.
Speaker 0: The other side would never do that.
Speaker 1: Oh, no. Yeah. Exactly. Right. So it was just it's full on political warfare, but it doesn't serve the American people.
Speaker 0: So how do you because I do wonder how they come to you to try to get you to like sacrifice your beliefs and your personal commitments of how you're gonna be and what you're gonna prioritize. Do they tell you they're not gonna fundraise for you? How do they try to make you go along?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay, so each member of congress is different. Thankfully, over 95% of my campaign money that I raise is small dollar donations under $30. We're talking about grandma giving me $20, which is the nicest campaign donation I can ever receive.
Speaker 0: Yeah. That a lot. It means more than the $2,000
Speaker 1: text message. Oh my gosh, that comes with a handwritten note and a prayer, and you're like, I feel guilty to even take it. It's like such a nice thing. But those are my donors, and they're just sincere Americans, and they're the greatest. So you can't here's how it works.
Most so most members of Congress don't have that. They have to raise the the max donations that come from the big dollar donors. And so those are gonna be the very rich party people in their district, but they'll also be, max dollar donors from around the country. Well, in Washington DC, you've got the entire lobbying world, and they work for all the industries that come to Washington needing anything and everything.
Speaker 0: What are the most lucrative ones? Like if you wanted to do it a different way, and you just wanted to get donations, like I'm gonna line my pockets so I have an easy reelection, who would you say yes to?
Speaker 1: You would say yes to the military industrial base, and you would say yes to Big Pharma. And you would say yes to, Big Farm. You would say yes to to agriculture, you would say yes to the major food industries.
Speaker 0: Some of this is explaining why HEGSATH and RFKJ had such a difficult time getting confirmed.
Speaker 1: Yes. Because they aren't bought in by those people. Yeah. Those are threatening. Let's say that I'm one of those members and and say that the that's where I'm I'm gonna get my fundraising from.
It works out really simple. The lobbyists come, and and they say, hey. Why don't we have a a little cocktail gathering for you off, you know, off the hill because you can't do any fundraising on the hill. Off the hill, we'll bring some people together. You know, we're gonna need your support on the NDAA this year.
We're also gonna need you on that farm bill. We're gonna be doing some work, you know, helping out with major grants and studies, for the pharmaceutical companies. And then let's say that somebody like me is like, oh, yeah. That sounds great. Well, they can throw together an hour and a half little cocktail party with with some nice little drinks and some, you know, little cocktail sausages on a stick and a few other things.
And then the lobbyists can come in, and then you bring in all the executives and high level people from all those different companies that say the lobbyist represents. They all come in and write max donor checks, which it depends on what they can write for. You can write for a primary, you can write for the general, and you can write for a runoff. And so I think that's a $3,800 max contribution per person for each race in one cycle.
Speaker 0: And So you mean I could do, like, 38, 38, and 38?
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 0: Oh, I see.
Speaker 1: So And
Speaker 0: then look get high.
Speaker 1: Oh, gosh. Imagine what that turns into and you multiply that by 20 people or 40 people in one room. Yep. Well, they're getting their campaign pockets loaded. Do that a couple times throughout a campaign cycle, and that gives that politician how that need that gives them enough money to get reelected again, and they never had to go home and take a $20 check or even a $5 wadded up, handed in your hand and your hand These
Speaker 0: people own you.
Speaker 1: They own them. 1000%. And then what is what happens? That translates to, well, we're coming up on appropriations right now. Okay.
Megan, I'm I'm gonna make this real simple because this is a process that's really hard to understand. I had to learn it too. September 30, every single year is our government funding deadline, and congress is constitutionally required to fund the government. That's what we're supposed to do. It's our job.
So that makes sense. Well, there's 12 separate appropriation bills, and that funds like every different department and section of the government ranging from the Department of Defense to the Department of Agriculture to t s TSA, Border Patrol, ICE, all of this. Really important stuff. Okay. We in the house have only passed two of our 12 appropriation bills.
Only two of them. Took us seven months to pass two. We've been out on recess for five it'll be five weeks by the time we go back on September 2. Okay. Get ready for this.
Going back in September, we're only going to be in session for fifteen days. Fifteen work days.
Speaker 0: Why?
Speaker 1: I I I can't even tell you. It makes no logical sense to me. To me, that's a calendar set up for failure. So that means the house has 10 has sorry. Fifteen days to pass 10 more appropriation bills in order to fund the government.
And the senate has only passed three out of their 12 appropriation bills, and they have roughly the same amount of time.
Speaker 0: Why can't we pass any of these bills?
Speaker 1: Here's why. Well, number one, I don't know why. They don't have them finished. And I I don't know I can't comprehend why they don't have them finished, but you have the the pulling and tugging
Speaker 0: Behind the scenes
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 0: Of those lobbyists saying, make sure this gets covered.
Speaker 1: Yes. And so they're packing in all the appropriation bills with all the crap. Yep. And then they have members like me that are saying, I will never vote for that.
Speaker 0: Right.
Speaker 1: And so that means that if you're leadership, you likely don't have the votes to pass these appropriation bills because the appropriation bills are so disgusting.
Speaker 0: Well, like what we saw with the big beautiful bill, and we got a closer look at how that process played out, but on a smaller scale.
Speaker 1: Yes. Okay. Yes. No. And then it's government funding.
So what the Nightmare. What all your poor viewers are probably gonna have to watch during September is we won't get appropriations done. Oh, we're gonna have to pass the CR.
Speaker 0: Yep. Another I never follow those battles. I I have made it a point in my twenty plus year career as a journalist to not pay any attention to that.
Speaker 1: Good for you.
Speaker 0: Because eventually it gets the CR gets passed, eventually some agreement is reached, and I spared no agita during the process. I was like I have no tolerance. I like a Congress, I just I feel like we have to move on without them. You know, like Absolutely. They're no good to us anymore.
Speaker 1: But it's also the reason why we're $37,000,000,000,000 in debt. Mhmm. It's it's a broken system. It's just a broken system.
Speaker 0: So one you didn't mention, but I think is also in there is APAC.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 0: We should talk about that because that's it's the Israeli, you know, pro Israeli American group. Yes. And they are also very good about recruiting politicians early on in their careers, and they, like those other groups you mentioned, are deep pocketed and would love to buy your vote. And now they're becoming more controversial because people like you are sort of saying, you don't own me. And there are a lot of politicians to my left and my right, and literally to your left and right because the Democrats and Republicans who have been purchased, who now may not have the freedom to speak as openly about their thoughts on this.
And I think this audience knows, and I know where you stand too on Israel and all that, but I've been very pro Israel, and I've been very defensive of their right to defend themselves in this nightmare. Sure. Course. And I've been very defensive of American Jews on campuses who are just being harassed, it's ridiculous. Of course.
But I have absolutely no skin whatsoever in defending any lobbyist group, including AIPAC. Right. So I would love to know what they do to get the loyalty of politicians, because I will say I have had multiple, multiple reach outs to me, both from friends and from connected people in D. C, begging me to go to Israel with them. And I have said no every time.
Usually, I'm just too busy. Have three kids, I have a full time job. Sure. I'm not doing it. But lately, it seems like it's coming to be even more because I feel like there's there's a contingent of people who are worried that they're losing me.
Speaker 1: Uh-huh.
Speaker 0: And I've said that you're not losing I'm I'm not on
Speaker 1: Hamas' side. No. God, no. Nobody's on Hamas' side.
Speaker 0: But I it's been a while now that this has been going on. Right. And we're getting more involved with the Iranian bombing and so on.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 0: And my own feelings are just, you know, I'm just I'm looking at Israel in a different way right now than I was on 10/08, that's for sure, of '23.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 0: And I can feel the pressure being slightly ratcheted up, like you're not allowed to. You're not allowed to.
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: And I can see people like you, like Tucker, who I know. I know Tucker. I've known him for years, and I've seen you in in your early career. I know you have nothing against Israel.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh. No.
Speaker 0: Never mind Jews. That's all a lie. But Right. And I see the beatdowns coming. Like, you're not allowed.
Like, you're you have to stay right on this lily pad. Yes. And you cannot jump to another neighboring lily pad because it could take you all the way down the river away. So I'm I'm very interested in this dynamic.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I find it fascinating that you're getting asked more and more and more. I've been asked more and more and more, Well, you're a person of very big influence. You've got a big voice. You've got a large audience.
They also take a lot of influencers. They invite tons of influencers.
Speaker 0: Many of whom have invited me. Like, we're all going together, and will you come? Like, they seem to be coming at me from a number of ways, which only really kind of raises my hackles, like, I'm not going. I'm going to stay right here. I can cover this conflict from here, and I don't wish to be wooed by any side.
I actually don't wish to be
Speaker 1: Well, do are you persuaded. Have you been invited by any other foreign country? No. No. Okay.
That's that's the part. Right? So we have tons of lobbyists and the foreign countries lobbyists that come to, Washington DC. Pretty much every country has some sort of representative. They have an ambassador they send to Washington.
It's naturally in their interest. We can understand that. They also are required to register under FARA. It's a law. They have to register as a foreign agent, a foreign lobbyist.
That is required. It's extremely important. Here's the here's the difference with APEC. APAC is not registered under FARA, under this law that requires anyone coming to lobby a member of congress or a senator or department of the government and the federal government on behalf of another country. So APAC argues, oh, but we're Americans.
Yes. They are Americans, but they are coming to congress and to the federal government asking on behalf of the country of Israel. And I fully agree with you, Megan. We are not against Israel. We are all for their right to defend themselves just as we are for any Jewish person on campus, just as I think in it, like, gosh, we could talk about, young white males in high school that are constantly getting beat up.
Yeah. Guess what? They should have a right to defend themselves too, and people should stand up for them as well. We think anybody that is a victim should should be able to defend themselves. However, Israel is the only country I know of that has some sort of incredible influence and control over nearly every single one of my colleagues.
And it is it is I I don't know how to explain it.
Speaker 0: I I mean, I believe it just given the amount of reach out I've had in this position. And I don't vote on anything. Know? Yeah. And if I had taken money, I could see them really thinking that they had a right to control my speech, or you know my positions, which is why I never have, of course.
I mean, what context would I? I don't take advertising from random people. Like I always say, I have Jennie Sell, whose cosmetics are really nice.
Speaker 1: We love good cosmetics. Like it can't be
Speaker 0: bought by a special interest group, but I can see it because look, no one wants to feel like their position has been bought and paid for, but these politicians, it's they have. And so I can see why APAC would get mad if these politicians then turned on them and didn't support. You know, it's like, what what did my 3,800 times three get me if you're not gonna vote for my issues?
Speaker 1: Exactly. Because APAC are Americans, therefore, they can legally donate to members of Congress and senators. So let's talk about how that works. APAC takes every single that they can, Freshman, member of congress, or first year in congress, they take them on a very special trip to Israel in August. That's our August is our recess.
It's our it's our, month long district work period.
Speaker 0: Dems and Republicans or just Republicans?
Speaker 1: They take both of them. Yep. Yes. And they they invite pretty much everyone to my knowledge. So they take them on this trip to Israel.
They they I I guess they go on tours all around. I didn't go. So I I don't know what they do there. But they take them on tours. You like the pictures we've seen recently of the speaker and and, other members of congress at the Wailing Wall.
Speaker 0: They've all gone.
Speaker 1: They've all gone.
Speaker 0: I've seen them all.
Speaker 1: And they and they wear the kippah. They and even though they're Christians, they're they're not Jewish, but yet they're adorning, Jewish attire, and they're at these Jewish, religious sites.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Then they also meet with different members of the Israeli government. Now we gotta recognize the Israeli government is secular. This is not the biblical Israel. It is the secular government of Israel. And so they meet with their members of of, you know, all throughout their government and the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, meets with them.
And so they've done that trip already this month. The the new freshmen and members of our leadership all went, and they they did that trip. Here's what else they do. APAC takes influencers. They take really big people like you.
They want you to come over there. They they want to pull you in because they want to pull you on their their side. And and why is that? Okay. For members of congress, every single year annually, Israel receives, and we have to vote on it.
It's a yes or no vote, 3.8, billion dollars in funding for Israel. Now, what what does that money mean? Well, they'll say, oh, well, this is for Israel. It's it's it's them to be able to defend themselves. They're the only democracy in The Middle East.
Yep. They're constantly under attack. They're surrounded by their enemies who wants to annihilate
Speaker 0: That's all true.
Speaker 1: Sure. We're not arguing those points. However, let's flip over and look at well, okay. Well, what does this mean? Number one, Israel is doing so well with their economy, and I'm excited for them.
This is a big deal. I wish we were doing this good. We're $37,000,000,000,000 in debt. Israel is less than 400,000,000,000 in debt. Less than.
If you're an if you're an Israeli citizen, you have government funded health care, and you have government funded college. So why is America having to give Israel $3,800,000,000? If they're doing so great and they're funding health care and college and their government is is their economy is doing so well and their tax revenue is so good that they're less than $400,000,000,000 in debt. Why is dead broke America
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Having to send $3,800,000,000? Well, then they argue back and they go, oh, but this helps America's economy. Well, how how is that? Tell me how it helps. Okay.
Well, because we buy money from your defense contractors. Although, guess what? This is really interesting. We give a ton of money to all these foreign countries. And and and if if it's military aid, they're required to buy purchase weapons from our defense contractors.
Except Israel is the only one with an exception. They don't have to buy from our American defense contractors. They can use that money to buy from Israeli defense contractors.
Speaker 0: Oh,
Speaker 1: wow. So there's a funny little a little exception. Just like the same exception that Israel has that this just came from judge McFadden, he just had a ruling that you can burn any flag in The United States Of America and including our own American flag, except you can't burn the Israeli flag in Who said that? Judge McFadden. In
Speaker 0: what context?
Speaker 1: In his court. It just happened.
Speaker 0: Well, that's not gonna be upheld.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't be.
Speaker 0: That's a violation of the First Amendment, blatant, and it will be struck down as soon as it goes up on appeal. What a ridiculous notion.
Speaker 1: Should be. He said in what he wrote is that the Israeli flag, it's an identity erase, and it would be a hell
Speaker 0: Yeah. Of a
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 0: Wrong. That's getting struck down. But I see why you're raising it, because I'm picturing look, I have a lot of very close friends who are Jewish, who are very big supporters of Israel, and some faction of them will say like, well, why would you platform an MTG? She's definitely gone anti Israel. And I don't care whether you're anti Israel or not.
Any anti Israel people are welcome here. I I Of course. You're allowed to have that view. It's a country that's involved in a war, and it's you don't have to be pro any country in order to come here. But I know you're not.
Speaker 1: I'm not anti.
Speaker 0: I know you're not. Yeah. But I am also sensing, I discussed this with Charlie Kirk recently, how we're just getting to a place now, the more you tell me I can't talk to somebody or some about something, the more I'm guaranteed going to do it. No one owns me, and I will talk about it, and I will hear you out, and I wanna hear why you're having this kind of experience times 10,000. You know, like my little lily pad, and you're way down there and there.
I can see you getting rained down on. And I don't like it, Marjorie. I have to tell you, I don't like it because this is America, you're allowed to have your view. Israel's not America. They're a friend to America, but they're not America.
We do have areas in which we have divergent interests, and it is our obligation, and yours especially as a representative, say when you see a divergence you cannot reconcile Right. Where you gotta choose one. Yes. Right? Like, that's what I see happening to you.
So what happened? Did you well, like, how did you find yourself in this place? Because you stopped voting for funding for the Israel war?
Speaker 1: Yeah. It was easy for me. I'm a business owner. So right now, I feel like I'm I'm part of a board of 435 members, 435 members of congress where we should act like an executive board of a company. And I feel like our company, the United States of America's federal government, is a company that is has sirens blaring, and we are on the verge of literally imploding and going out of business.
Speaker 0: Bankruptcy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Massively. I also pay a lot of attention to our economy. Being a business owner in the construction industry, my success of my business, for as long as I've run it rises and fall falls with the economy. And I'm very concerned.
The cost of doing business is extremely high. The cost of living is extremely high. Insurance is completely out of control. Car, health, life insurance, business insurance, you name it.
Speaker 0: Forget homeowners insurance. That's almost impossible to even find as an offering anywhere.
Speaker 1: And if you're 40, forget being able to buy a home.
Speaker 0: Right.
Speaker 1: They don't even have the hope
Speaker 0: of job. I heard you and Tucker talking about how he was saying some 14 friends of his daughter, they all graduated, three out of 14 had jobs. I can see this in my our kids are a little younger than college age now, but our friends, some of them got started earlier, and a lot of their kids are now graduating from college. Great colleges. Smart kids cannot find jobs.
Speaker 1: This is so heartbreaking. So for me, I'm not anti Israel. I'm not anti any country. I've turned radically and unapologetically for America, just flat out for America. I'm like, I'm sorry.
We don't have time to fund what you're doing. No. We don't.
Speaker 0: You guys are great. We have the extra. Totally. Yeah. But we don't.
Speaker 1: We don't have the money. We don't have the money, and not only do we not have the money, the middle class is turning into the working poor. If you're if you're Yes. If you're a married young married couple today, and you make together over $100,000, you are dead ass broke. You are barely making it month to month.
Speaker 0: You retweeted this on Sunday. It's a woman, who's out there on on Twitter complaining about what her life is like given the financial situation she's in. Here it is, top 55. Hey, TikTok. I'm just on here wondering if anybody's feeling the same way.
I'm feeling I'm from Illinois, and I feel like the gas prices and the electric bills and the prices of food is just so overwhelming anymore. Like, I'm wondering if anybody else is feeling like they're drowning, and they can't get out. I work overtime, and I cannot get above water. I mean, I literally have no gas for next week. It was either that or get a few groceries to get by.
I hit my local food pantries. I'm just wondering if anybody else feels like they're drowning. But, anyway, I hope everybody has a great day. Oh, this poor woman. You can see it.
You can see her trying to just keep it together.
Speaker 1: Yeah. This but that woman isn't she didn't just lose her job. She's not she's not like she she's not somebody that refuses to work and has Oh, has a job. Working overtime. Yep.
She's going to the food pantry, and she's sitting in her car so overwhelmed by the the cost of living and the ability the fact that she can't ever get ahead, she can't even keep up. And she's sitting in her car alone crying, pleading, trying to find some connection with somebody on social media. Megan, those videos are, oh my gosh, a dime a dozen. They're all over social media.
Speaker 0: What's the cause of it? I look at that, my first instinct is you should get out of Illinois, and a blue run state, and probably a blue run city. But I don't know that that's the magical elixir.
Speaker 1: I can't I mean, and then how hard is that for her?
Speaker 0: No, know. But what causes it? I lived in Illinois for five years, and it's like California is completely captured by the left. There are some Republican voters, but they're not represented at all, thanks to gerrymandering. Yep.
But that's I'm not sure what they're doing with their money. They collect it in large measure from their taxpayers, and then, like, the teachers union may get it. I don't see it trickling down to children or the working class or the poor. It's not a bunch of social safety net programs that are helping people like that get better.
Speaker 1: Mm-mm.
Speaker 0: And so I've I've been wrestling with with this for the past the past few years as inflation has gone up and people are really suffering. Okay. We can get rid of president Biden who spends like a drunken sailor and doesn't care.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: K. We did that. It can't be fixed overnight. No. President Trump is also a spender.
Yes. Is that the solution, or is it local governance? Like, if you had your magic wand, where would you even begin to help
Speaker 1: somebody I with think it's unfortunately, we've we've gotten so far now, we're in the all of the above. So here here's our reality. And this really I mean, we were headed this way even in the Trump under the Trump administration. Like I said, Republicans were big spenders. President Trump spent a lot of money.
That CARES Act was 5.2 or 5,700,000,000,000.0, the one that was passed at the very beginning of COVID. That started. But then what the Biden administration did is they spent an insane amount of money.
Speaker 0: And they knew they knew we couldn't afford it. Like, it had been too much already. Yeah. They were told, we don't have that 2,700,000,000,000.0 or whatever that one was at the beginning of, well, in early twenty twenty, and he did it anyway.
Speaker 1: Right. That was like we had a wildfire going
Speaker 0: Late twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Late yeah. We had wildfire going, and then it was like the Biden administration came and just poured gasoline all over it. And then it now it's become a forest fire that's completely out of control. And it's like, where do you start putting it out? Like I said, con so rescissions.
We're doing rescissions. That's where we cut u USAID, NPR, CBP. That came from my work on I I chair the DOGE subcommittee on oversight. Yep. That came from our hearings and that work, and we put them into rescission cuts.
But, Megan, you wouldn't believe it. We had four Republicans that voted against it. Didn't even wanna cut NPR.
Speaker 0: Probably what? Yeah. That's crazy. It's insane. I mean, I love it, I love Doge, but it's teaspoons in the ocean.
Right? It's entitlements. If we're gonna do government spending, there's that's the only place to really make up money.
Speaker 1: Yep. But then we have like Americans are taxed to death. You you pay a tag tax, you pay a gas tax, you pay, you know, you're taxed on your your sales tax, your property tax.
Speaker 0: You there's a death tax.
Speaker 1: Death tax. Yes.
Speaker 0: You think taxing when you die. Yes. On money you already paid taxes on.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So there's I mean, there's taxes on everything, but then what has happened with this insane spending and the national debt? So we not only do we have $37,000,000,000,000 in debt, we pay $1,000,000,000,000 a year in interest on our $37,000,000,000,000 in debt. Here's here's what I'm saying is it is it's out of control. It's like so out of control, but yet Washington is totally tone deaf to this poor woman and and the millions and millions of Americans that are just like her that that are crying in their cars.
They're making these videos. God knows if they're crying on social media in their cars, I don't know what they're doing, how they look and feel and emotionally and physically how they're doing in their in their free time. But this is how it's totally failing America. And your kids are not even out of the house yet. My kids are are trying to get started in their twenties, and it's this whole young generations of Americans.
And, Megan, here's here's what I think it's gonna produce. If Republicans aren't solving the problem, mainstream Democrats didn't solve the problem, they created the problem, then many of these young people that are voters and should be really starting to engage into the political process and and voting for, our country leaders to fix their problems, they're only gonna turn to radicals. Because it's like
Speaker 0: We're seeing it.
Speaker 1: They're gonna be like, screw the Republicans, screw the Democrats. They're gonna turn to radicals that are gonna make, like, Mamdani. He he's he's pushing for full blown socialism, if not communism.
Speaker 0: Yeah. That was terrifying. And he has huge support among young people.
Speaker 1: And he can't pay for all that stuff he's promised.
Speaker 0: No. Oh, hell no.
Speaker 1: It's all a lie. It's it's like sounds great, and he's putting it to the system, and he's like, I care about you. But it's all it's all a lie. Like, can't deliver it.
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Visit now, and be prepared to defend. I don't even know what to recommend to the young people. I mean, they should vote Republican over Democrat, but I don't know that Republicans are their solution either. You know, I for a long time now, I've been feeling like the only answer is outside of government. You know, the future has to be outside of government, has to be with people like Elon or David Sacks or some big brain person who's doing something other than legislating, but the problem is the government continues to bankrupt us.
So no matter how well those other guys do or other solutions they come up with, we're still stuck with all this spending, and it is our money. Yes. Well, so but this is all we won't solve it here, sadly, but this is all sort of background to why you do not wanna give Israel or any other country Right. Because you're saying, like, APEC should register under FARA. I I assume you would say so should CARE, the Council on American Islamic Relations.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Anybody, anyone. I don't care who you are. If you are coming and talking to members of Congress, anybody in the government on behalf of another country, even let's go let's talk about, what's that other one? Christians United for Israel.
Like, they'll they'll send a, you know, a pastor from my district into my office. Well, they're from my district. They should register
Speaker 0: under our So you're saying you don't you shouldn't have to just be foreigners. If your primary purpose is to advance the interests of a foreign government Yes. Or a foreign country, then you should have to register. Absolutely. Would that change their ability to raise money?
What would it what would it do to APAC if if that were to happen?
Speaker 1: Well, I think that holds holds them accountable under the law. Why do they get a pass? Why does APAC get to take members of Congress, social media influencers, people like you with giant shows, Newsmax, they took Newsmax, they take Fox News people, they take all these people, they take them on the Turning Point USA influencers. They take them to Israel, all expenses paid.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. I would never accept that. Never.
Speaker 1: Right. Exactly. So why do they get to do that? Why did why does I don't
Speaker 0: even go to Mar A Lago. Like, don't president Trump tried to get me to go to Mar A Lago back in 2015. I was like, hell no. I can't. I can't.
I I mean, like, I'm in a different business. And Yeah. The politicians, frankly, should see themselves in a different business.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 0: They have different people to whom they answer. You know, I I answer to my audience, they have to be able to trust that I'm not bought and paid for by anyone.
Speaker 1: I so respect that.
Speaker 0: And politicians should be in the same business I'm in in a different way.
Speaker 1: Yes. I completely agree.
Speaker 0: It's very disheartening. I like, I have nothing against APAC. I don't actually fully understand what they do. I do have something against care. But I agree that like Thank Alyssa.
All biases should be out and accounted for Yes. And obvious to anyone who's being offered anything by these groups or asked to attend anything by them or in any way going into business with them. Yep. That just makes perfect sense to me.
Speaker 1: It makes perfect sense to pretty much everybody outside of this weird bubble of Washington DC.
Speaker 0: So I don't get it then, but like why why are you ostracized? People are saying she's she's not gonna win her next race, you know, like Trump's turned on her, they say.
Speaker 1: No, he isn't.
Speaker 0: Okay. So what's that about? Like, is that so that's not real? Or No. Is is the GOP turning on you because of this, or is it just loud people who, you know, whose interests are more closely aligned with Israel?
Speaker 1: Well, number one, president so Donald Trump is the most attacked, I'd say, human being ever by the establishment media. I would say I'm the most attacked member of Congress ever by the establishment media. I have supported him unapologetically. They would love to be able to say, know, TGN and Trump have split. And they're trying to say that, yet I talk to the president routinely.
I text with him. He and I have a great relationship.
Speaker 0: You would know if things were not good. Yes. I can speak to that.
Speaker 1: Yes. Now here's the other side of it. I, I got elected on my own. I didn't get elected with a Trump endorsement. I beat eight men in a primary who I respected every single one of them.
I thought, wow, these guys are great. How am I going to win? But but somehow, I beat the heck out of all of them. So I also have the, I would say, luxury of being very in a very independent member of Congress, and I can disagree with the president. I can.
And I have. I already have on multiple fronts. The Genius Act that just recently passed that set up, the whole system for stablecoin. And, I I didn't vote for that bill because, it has a backdoor for a central bank digital currency, which I am largely against. And speaker Johnson didn't allow us to do amendments on that bill to amend that part of the bill, so I said, I'm a no vote.
That was president
Speaker 0: Trump's You were against the bombing of Iran? You said so?
Speaker 1: Yep. I was against bombing, bombing Iran. I'm against paying for Israel to continue to keep bombing Gaza. I think it's a humanitarian crisis. I've called it a genocide, and children are starving to death.
I've talked to Christian pastors there that have told me that Christians have been killed and and children are being starving against. I'm a Christian myself. I'm against children
Speaker 0: Let's talk about that one. Starving. There there's daylight between us because I I believe that children are starving and hurting in Gaza, no question. But I blame Hamas. I do see what's happening with the Israeli aid and the food trucks, and they get co opted by Hamas, by certain Palestinians, and that's suffering children they can get on a camera over there, the better in their minds.
These are not honest brokers. They steal from their own people. They're happy to watch their children starve to death as long as they can put the emaciated baby on camera. It's disgusting. They don't have the same value toward human life that we do, and yes, that Israel has.
I'm not saying Israel's perfect. They haven't executed this whole whole thing perfectly, not by a long shot, but when I see what's happening with the starving children, I blame Hamas. Started Well, they
Speaker 1: started it. So October 7 was unbelievably horrific. It's unspeakable what Hamas did. I totally blame Hamas. The war wouldn't even be happening if Hamas hasn't done all the things that they've done.
Right? Firing rockets into Israel, kidnapping and murdering all these people, suicide bombers over the years. Absolutely. They started this, and it's horrible. I think it's Israel's they they can pinpoint areas, but they're just mass bombing everywhere, and the videos coming out of there are terrible.
I'll also say this, Megan. That conflict has been going on way I'm 51 years old. It's been going on way beyond before I was born or any of us were born. I can't even tell you I qualify to solve it. I think God is the only person that
Speaker 0: You don't think Maragaza is the solution?
Speaker 1: No. No, not at all.
Speaker 0: My problem is, when you use the word genocide, like, I don't believe that, but I I also don't have any meaningful video or picture source that I trust.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think I think it's fair to say that no one does. Right? Although I haven't seen the number of, dead children, injured children, starving children coming out of the Ukraine Russian conflict like we've seen come out of the Israel Gaza.
Speaker 0: That because of the Palestinians and their amazing propaganda abilities? Like, I think that's the reason. Because the Palestinians put all this on camera and release it. That they're and they make sure that we see this, which is another reason to be suspicious of it. You know, I I don't know what I'm being fed or for what purpose.
Yeah. The Ukrainians aren't doing that, and the Russians aren't doing that.
Speaker 1: But why not though? Why isn't
Speaker 0: Ukraine They're not they're not good at propaganda.
Speaker 1: Doing that to each other. See, this is I don't know. Think Zelensky's pretty good at propaganda.
Speaker 0: Maybe, but I guess he doesn't have like the the lifelong commitment to it that the Palestinian mean, since I've been in news, the Palestinians have been doing this. Yeah. And they're very good manipulators of media, of cameras.
Speaker 1: You've been in the news business much longer than me.
Speaker 0: I've I've been burned enough times by them, like I've gone with their numbers over the years, enough times I've been like, oh my god, this is another fucking lie, all they do is make up lies and numbers, and you run with it, and you know, if you're smart, you pay attention, you get burned, then you realize, oh I do not trust the Hamas Ministry of Health. So that's kind of how I've come to it. But I also feel like it's also undeniable that at this point Israel has lost, or most charitably, is losing the propaganda war. And I know why. They're not fighting it as well as Hamas, they never have.
And I think people gave them a huge benefit of the doubt in the beginning of this war. It was like, we were still getting bombarded by images and false facts by the Palestinians, it was like, you know what? You can't we're impenetrably on Israel's side. We saw what you did on 10/07. But it's been two years now.
Yeah. And I know Israel says, well, we still have 20 hostages left or whatever the
Speaker 1: exact 50, numbers but I think they say they think 20 or so. That are alive?
Speaker 0: Yeah. But my question is how long with all due respect to the hostages, how long can we justify nonstop war based on the hostages? And it's not that I have no empathy for the hostages, it's just at some point, war must stop, or at least we have to stop funding it at some point.
Speaker 1: See, that's where I'm at. We don't need to fund it. That's where I'm at. I can't fix it. I can't even step in there and come up with a solution to repair it.
You wanna know why? I can't even relate to it. I I don't live there. I don't live on either side. I certainly do not support Hamas ever, never could, couldn't even defend them in any position.
However, I do know all the videos and pictures I've seen of these children. I I do know that, but I can also say Americans don't want to fund this anymore. We just don't. And I also can say Israel and and even Lindsey Graham said it recently. He said, if Israel wanted to commit genocide, they could.
And you wanna know what that is? That's an admission by Lindsey Graham saying that Israel is completely competent. Therefore, why are we funding it?
Speaker 0: Can I ask you that? Because my understanding is the reason, you know, generally that we fund Israel so much more than a lot of other countries is where we started. You know, that they really are the only democracy in The Middle East. There's only one Jewish state, there's some 30 Muslim nations, but only one Jewish state, so they need to exist. They have no place else to go.
It's not an area of the world that's very hospitable to Jewish people. And they are allied with The United States, they seem to share a lot of our values. So like, you watch I mean, is a weird way of looking at it, but I look at what's happening in Dearborn, Michigan, with like the call to prayer five times a day on the streets of an American city, and Muslim immigrants coming over here and having seven children each family. And look at the birth rates in in Europe right now, which are largely nonexistent for white native Europeans, but sky high for Islamic immigrants, many of whom are Islamists. And I think this is like an existential situation here.
Is it so bad to have this one country in the middle of of of the Middle East, which is a very rough neighborhood, you know, Syria, Lebanon, that likes us, that will help us, that would, if we ever had a conflict there, help with our military staging that has amazing intelligence that it shares with us, that has amazing abilities to affect, you know, terrorist takedown plans, which is also helpful. So, like, these strategic reasons make sense to me too for our understanding we don't have endless funds to spend some there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's been the thinking, and that's what Americans have largely believed, and that's how the US government has largely functioned for as long as I can remember. Although if you if you look at Israel, it's you have to recognize in the context of these conversations, not only are they such a strong economic country, not only have they proven that their military can almost they're annihilating their enemy, almost they're going to finish the job, and they're saying they're gonna finish the job. It they also have nuclear weapons. This is a nuclear armed nation.
Speaker 0: So you're saying you agree with all that, but we we they got it.
Speaker 1: I'm saying America is a sinking ship. We're sinking so badly. Our children have no hope of ever buying a home in the future. We we we pass a budget that is overblown and ridiculous every single year, and we're dragging we're gonna be 40 we're 37 now. It'll be 40,000,000,000,000 in a matter of, who knows, months or year.
Speaker 0: With respect to Israel and like the the sense it makes to this alliance, you're you're what I hear you saying is, fine, but they've got it. They're actually not facing an existential threat right now. They've devastated all their immediate enemies all around Israel. So Look at the action. If this were a situation where Israel actually were on the verge of not existing
Speaker 1: I think we'd have a different conversation.
Speaker 0: Okay. I
Speaker 1: get it. Look at the well, we I just go by I'm a I'm a action versus words person. So for me, I'm like, wow. The twelve day war with Iran, which I was totally like, we shouldn't be doing this. Israel's a nuclear armed nation.
Look at the outcome there. They did nothing to Israel. They did they did shoot missiles in there, but they did they really do anything to Israel? No. And could they have?
No. Israel's a nuclear armed nation. Mhmm. They're surround okay. They're surrounded by their enemies per se, and that's constantly said over and over again, But Israel is a nuclear armed nation.
They can nuke these people off the planet if they want to. And they they have proven with their actions what they will do to their enemies to the point of of, like I said, they're starving children starving children in Gaza. There are innocent Christians have been killed. Christian churches have been bombed. They are proving that these 50 hostages that are left and they're demanding back, they are proving that they will turn the entire Gaza Strip to rubble to get their 50 people back.
I think that's a country that America can say, they got it.
Speaker 0: You got this.
Speaker 1: But we're not doing the same thing for our people. That's
Speaker 0: Right. Kind of losing our shining city on the hill feel as you look back at our friend from Illinois driving her car, and there are millions more just like her.
Speaker 1: Tons of them. They're filled in my district.
Speaker 0: If you told me tomorrow that we're pulling all the aid from Israel, I would say, oh good God, who's going to decide where it goes? You know, that's one of my other concerns here.
Speaker 1: Like write a check to Americans.
Speaker 0: Well, yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, that poor woman in her car, you know, or it's like Trump
Speaker 0: Trump actually made some noise about giving a rebate to people from the tariff income.
Speaker 1: And everybody was like, thank God.
Speaker 0: Real people were like that. Yes. But you know, sort of talking heads who work for like Muckety Muck magazines all of a sudden tsk tsk, use it to pay down the debt, which is another thing.
Speaker 1: But Right.
Speaker 0: They didn't want that woman in the car getting it directly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No. It's no. The the sad reality is is that so here's what I keep telling everybody in Washington. I'm like, oh, you think we're gonna win the midterms by spending all this stupid money again, not solving everybody's problems?
Really, everybody's gonna run out and vote for Republicans again? It's not gonna happen. Mhmm. Think people
Speaker 0: Especially when Trump is gone.
Speaker 1: He's not on the ballot. That's right.
Speaker 0: What happens then? What happens to MAGA in the next presidential election?
Speaker 1: I think it's I think we're gonna see all kinds of stuff happen. There's all kinds of levels of MAGA. Right? There's your hardcore based believers, then there's newer adopters that maybe they came on in the last administration later, or maybe they came on this time, like, they're more maha or independents that were like, we're done with the Democrats, that we've gotta find a new way. I I'm gonna tell you, I think those new ones or or a lot of them are gonna fall off.
I don't think I don't think they're turning yeah. Without him. And I don't think they're necessarily turning back to Democrats. I think they're just falling off going, who?
Speaker 0: Do you think there's anyone in the movement that they could get behind after Trump?
Speaker 1: Right now, I think J. D. Vance has got the large lead. That's what the polling shows. But will he come out unscathed over these next
Speaker 0: No. No one does. No no vice president will.
Speaker 1: But And a lot of people are mad. They want accountability. I want accountability. I'm still pissed off that schools were shut down, that what what they did during COVID
Speaker 0: Remember all that? Oh, yeah. What about You're on the right side of all that. All these people
Speaker 1: that died from taking a vaccine.
Speaker 0: You wouldn't call Doctor. Fauci doctor, which I have to say hats off to you.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 0: He would he did not behave like a medical professional. He was actually involved, we believe, in causing the pandemic. Yeah. He never took responsibility for it. We believe lied under oath.
He did lie under Why should he get the honorific?
Speaker 1: He is the man is walking around with a government taxpayer funded pension today, and he got a pardon from a brain dead president.
Speaker 0: And tried to ruin the careers of good doctors who were speaking up, like Doctor. Jay Bhattacharya.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. He was what, censored or he lost his social media.
Speaker 0: Yeah, and they tried to dismiss him as fringe and tamp down his conspiracy theory of let's focus protection, meaning protect the elderly and not the young people.
Speaker 1: Right. So today, like when I'm watching the news, yeah, twenty seventeen talking points on the Russia hoax and all the bad guys, Comey, Brennan, and Clapper, and Hillary Clinton, and Obama, and all these people that's being talked about. Here's the reality. None of those people actually physically hurt me. And and for most Americans, especially younger Americans that are like, what happened?
Speaker 0: Because True.
Speaker 1: If you're 30 years old, that was like, what, almost ten years ago?
Speaker 0: Right. Right. You were you were basically still in puberty.
Speaker 1: You're going out having a good time enjoying your young adult life, and you were clueless about that stuff. You're like, wait, why do I have to
Speaker 0: hate these people? How is this gonna help me?
Speaker 1: How did that make my rent cost so much? So but yet what they do know
Speaker 0: There's is some things the older people need, Marjorie. Some of us need to see an indictment of someone like a Brennan
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 0: Or a Tish James. Not everything is for the young people.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 0: But I see I take your point.
Speaker 1: I I I agree with you. I want accountability for all of that, but I want account accountability more for the people that really hurt American lives. There's this political warfare, and it's happening in the upper elites Yeah. But yet there's nobody fighting it for the regular people. So, I mean,
Speaker 0: do you think a J. D. Vance could could unite MAGA with the less MAGA friendly Republican base, you know, like the old Republican base? Mhmm. That's not really the base anymore.
Speaker 1: Here's how I see it. So we have the baby boomer generation, which is my parents. I don't know. Is that your parents too?
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. So they're primarily Fox News watchers. Right? They have it on all day long under television.
Speaker 0: Yes. Totally.
Speaker 1: So that's that's the Republican older voting class. And then I'm I'm Gen X. I'm 51 years old. And so you are too. Okay.
So we
Speaker 0: I'm 54.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So we we like barely survived growing up. Right?
Speaker 0: We had no parents.
Speaker 1: We had no parents. We were outside until the lights came on. And then we'd drink out of the water hose.
Speaker 0: The parents had to be reminded that we existed at ten p. M. Service announcements on the TV.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh,
Speaker 0: do you remember that? Yes, yes.
Speaker 1: It's ten p. M. Do you know where your children are?
Speaker 0: Hello, What? How sick is that? That's what we grew up in. No car seats, no seat belts, no baby seats, none of that. Nothing.
Love this. No restraint of any kind.
Speaker 1: I could go for days on this. Okay. So that's our generation. And so we're at this strange middle point where some of us are still in the establishment Republican mindset, but then there's a lot of us that are really independent and we're like going, hold on now. Like, we're really kind of fault tracking and falling off.
And then anybody 40, holy shit. Where are they at?
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They're like
Speaker 0: I don't know which way is up.
Speaker 1: They're like yeah. They're lost. They're they're it's an all it's a major dynamic of everything there. And so what I see the future for for the Republican voter, well, no one's gonna going to fill Trump's shoes. He's a billionaire.
He is a celebrity. He owns beautiful resorts and hotels and golf courses all over the world. He has a I mean, the connections this man had before he even ran with every celebrity and sports icons.
Speaker 0: Nobody will ever equal him on the give a shit meter. No. He doesn't give a shit. Right. You'll never find somebody who is as carefree as he is when it's like saying what they really think.
Speaker 1: Well, even if we did, it'll never carry that weight because of who Donald Trump is.
Speaker 0: And he he was a lifetime Democrat. Yeah. Who then became a Republican because he had to be one or the other to win the presidency. But he's not really a partisan guy No. Which I think people have found very, very appealing.
Yes. He knew how to speak to the right. I mean, truly, to get elected as president as a republican, you need to say you're gonna lower people's taxes
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: That you're going to be pro life Mhmm. And you're gonna protect guns. Right. If you do those three things, even if you are secretly a democrat, you could get elected president as a republican.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably a true statement.
Speaker 0: So I didn't I think most people on the right did not give two shits whether he really meant it, so long as he actually governed according to it, which he has. But I think in his heart, he's really just not a partisan person, which is part of his appeal. Absolutely. But everybody coming up behind him is.
Speaker 1: Oh, very much. And it gave him credibility. Right? Like, oh, I'm I was a Democrat. I was friends with all these people.
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 1: And now I'm burning down their system, and I'm and I'm also he came in at the same time burning down the Republican neo political establishment. Right? He came in America first, make America great again. So he has no one can fill
Speaker 0: Like, his what do you mean? What what happened to free trade? That was a Republican pillar. He was like, no. China.
Remember, like, raise number one? That's all he said. China.
Speaker 1: I know. Yeah. Like, there's so many things you that we love about Donald Trump, but no one will fill his shoes. So what happens to MAGA there? Well, here's something really interesting.
The MAGA economy. I love to talk about this. So I came up as a as a Trump rally person. Before I ran, I was like, I'd go to Trump rallies. I love them.
These are great. So there's a whole MAGA economy there. There's people that ran food trucks and sold hot dogs, t shirts, Trump hats, any kind of Trump memorabilia you could think of. They they they there's this whole entire economy, whether it it happens at Trump rallies, happens online, happens in local races. You can see them along the, you know, street corners at gas stations.
Somebody sets up a tent, and they're selling Trump gear and MAGA hats and all this stuff. It's a it's a Trump economy. Well, guess what? That that is not going to exist under whoever this next Yeah. You know, banner bearer is that cannot fill these shoes.
So that's an entire thing that I don't I don't know what happens to it. It's going to fall apart in some way because once it ends, it will fade off. Right?
Speaker 0: Well, who is Comey going to do shell art in tribute to on the beach after Forty Seven's no longer with us? Exactly. It's really gonna be tough.
Speaker 1: Well, real question is will he be in prison, but
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He's yet to remain.
Speaker 0: Well, maybe his good friend Taylor Swift will help him navigate that. He he seems very inspired by her. Can I ask you about some other things in the news around Yep? I'm dying to ask you about Jasmine Crockett.
Speaker 1: Oh, boy.
Speaker 0: She seems like a nightmare.
Speaker 1: She's she's she's delightful.
Speaker 0: What's that like to work against her?
Speaker 1: So she serves on Oversight Committee with me, and she's on my DOGE Subcommittee. Great. Yeah. I'll tell you one of the funny things was we we were having a committee hearing on oversight, and it was really late at night. And I was really irritated because I'm always like, why can't we work normal work hours like regular people eight to five?
I I don't know what's wrong with congress that we're always doing crazy things at nine, ten, eleven, 2AM under Nancy Pelosi. So we're on the oversight committee, and she is running off her mouth, and I shot at her about her massively huge fake eyelashes.
Speaker 0: Yeah. This made news.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I was like, well, you know, I said something along the lines of like, well, you can't read it because of your fake eyelashes. Because she had all the information in front of her, she was like, we don't even know what's going on and da da da da. And, oh my gosh, total explosion. But she She insulted you too.
Speaker 0: She said something about a butch body. Yeah. She's nasty too.
Speaker 1: Nasty. Which I thought was absolutely hilarious. I mean, I'm I'm you know, I'm like over 50. I work out. I'm like I
Speaker 0: thought it was below the belt. I think you could say eyelashes, and you're still it's a personal comment, but it's not as low as what she said. Right. She loves to go low.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and somehow Democrats, you know, they're supposed to love all women and and Right. Never body shame and stuff.
Speaker 0: How do you even like there's no reaching across the aisle to that.
Speaker 1: No. Not at all. Well, she's not a real person. So some interesting things that I've always observed about her is how she treats her staff. She treats her staff like they are just beneath her.
Speaker 0: I've read that in the New York Post. Can you confirm?
Speaker 1: Yes. Wow. So she always has one of her young male staffers, has to carry her big heavy handbag for her. She just hands it off. It's like, who does that?
Speaker 0: Right. What are you who are you? Beyonce?
Speaker 1: Right. And then I remember one time on oversight, she called one of her staff over and she whispered something in their ear, and they ran off. And then they came back with this big white fluffy pillow that they put behind her back. And I'm going
Speaker 0: And some bonbons? Yeah. Like, what is this? As they fed her grapes and fanned her?
Speaker 1: Yeah. So she claims to be, you know, from her people. She she puts on this image that she understands
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The black American struggle. But let's face it, the girl went to private school. She went on to, you know, I don't know what college and law school. She went to it's like, you she's a complete fake.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: She's as fake as her eyelashes. She's as fake as her hair. She's as fake as her fingernails, and she is such a massive fraud.
Speaker 0: Dare I ask about Laura Loomer? Sure. You and she don't seem to get along at all.
Speaker 1: No. We don't get along.
Speaker 0: So she's I don't know Laura Loomer at all, but I see she's very aligned with she's pro Israel
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: And she's pro Trump
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: And she's very effective at digging and finding dirt on people, especially those who cross Trump. So I'm sure he likes her, you know, for among other reasons, that reason. How did you and she get sideways? Was it the Israel thing?
Speaker 1: No. No. I've actually known Laura for years. We actually used to be friends. Back in, like, 2017 and 2018.
We were friends, not close friends, but we knew each other. When she ran for Congress the first time, I endorsed her, donated to her, supported her. When she ran the second time, she decided to run she jumped a district, wanted to run against Daniel Webster, who's actually a conservative Republican. And I said, hey, Laura, I don't think you should run against Daniel Webster. I don't think you can beat him.
Why don't you jump to another district where there's an open seat, and you'll have a much better shot? Well, she refused. She said no. She would not listen to anybody and ran there, and I was like
Speaker 0: What state is this? Florida. Florida.
Speaker 1: Okay. So I said, you know, I can't get involved. I'm I'm not going to endorse against against him. I'm I'm gonna stay out. Well, she was furious at me, and then everything kinda plummeted from there.
So it actually started back then. But she's not only does she attack me all the time, she attacked Matt Gaetz all the time, she attacked, Brian Jack who used to work for President Trump. She attacks some of the most loyal people to the president, people that are unapologetically America first. Fight those of us that fight the hardest, for some reason, she attacks us the most.
Speaker 0: Who's the best ally to you in the GOP?
Speaker 1: That's tough. It depends on the issue. So a lot of
Speaker 0: concerns Is there another one that comes to mind is not bought and paid for or like not?
Speaker 1: Depends on the issue. I would say the president's really mad at Thomas Massey right now, but Thomas Massey is not bought and paid, you know, bought and paid for. And a lot of our voting records are very similar. Mhmm. So I can
Speaker 0: A lot of people tell me that they love him.
Speaker 1: Thomas Massey's great. And I'll I'll say this. I love president Trump, and I support him, and and I'll fight for him. But at the same time, I absolutely love Thomas Massey.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I President Trump is not a Massey fan anymore.
Speaker 1: No. He can't stand him.
Speaker 0: Behind the big beautiful bill.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But think about this. Do you want a United States Congress without Thomas Massey? Everyone needs to think about that. Number one, he was the only member of Congress that voted against the CARES Act, which was the COVID the fifteen days when fifteen days to slow the spread started, which I was overwhelmingly against.
I wanted the country to stay open. Thomas Massey was the only one that voted no on that bill and called for a recorded vote and made everybody come in and vote and go on record for him. He did that, and then there's many other things that he's vote against. So in America, do we really want a United States House of Representatives without Thomas Massie? Mhmm.
I don't.
Speaker 0: We might get one. Right? Because Trump is pushing a primary challenge to him now.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah. And it's his consultants that are dumping millions of dollars on Thomas Massie. But guess what? There's been nobody come out to say they'll actually run against him from his district. And it's not working.
Speaker 0: Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: And the same consultants and donors that are trying to totally murder Thomas Massey are the same consultants and donors that are propping up and trying to get Lindsey Graham reelected, and nobody understands that at all. Lindsey Graham is probably one of
Speaker 0: Loomer the most are united on Lindsey Graham. That's another area in which you guys could settle the dispute.
Speaker 1: What I'm more concerned about, Meg, is that I'm concerned about the future for our children. And that's that's my main message is whether you like me or hate me, agree with me or disagree with me, what no matter what Apex says about me, no matter what Mark Levin says about me, no matter what somebody on MSNBC or now MS Now
Speaker 0: Oh, god.
Speaker 1: Says about me, and no matter what some lunatic like Laura Loomer says about me, I'm serving in congress with a singular focus, and that is the future of our kids' generations. Because right now, I don't see a future.
Speaker 0: I appreciate what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 0: I I do. Honestly, I you're always welcome here. I I like to have people with whom I have disagreements or who I don't know. Yeah. I just think it's crazy to make mistakes, especially within the Republican Party, uniformity on every issue.
And Israel's a very dicey issue. I mean, it's been two years of war with a lot of controversial things that have happened, even if you give Israel the benefit of the doubt on most of it. So there's I mean, like, they and their supporters need to understand they're going to take criticisms, and there are going to be people who who see what they're doing as wrong. Mhmm. And until they get better propaganda artists working for them because honestly, as I say, even I look at this and I'm like, what what picture should I believe?
What video should I believe? What believe I cannot trust anything coming out of Hamas, but where's the Israel side where they're showing me everything that really is happening? That I don't Anyway, I appreciate what you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you, Megan.
Speaker 0: Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 0: Thanks to all of you for joining us today. We're back tomorrow. See you then.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Inside Story of Bondi's Epstein Files Fail, and the Secret to Solving Cancer, with @Liz_Wheeler and @DrPatSoonShiong WATCH: https://t.co/ezrIheXLWA
Video Transcript AI Summary
Megan Kelly interviews Liz Wheeler about a White House influencer event where attendees received binders of Epstein files. Wheeler clarifies they were invited to meet with Vice President Vance, not specifically for the files. Attorney General Pam Bondi presented the binders but said they contained nothing new, claiming the SDNY was hiding more documents. Wheeler says Bondi bragged about creating the binder's cover sheet. Wheeler expresses frustration that the White House placed an embargo on the story, leading to misinterpretations.
Kelly then interviews Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong about cancer and COVID treatments. Soon-Shiong discusses ANKTIVA, a drug that activates natural killer cells and T-cells, already approved for bladder cancer. He advocates for T-cell vaccines against COVID, expressing concern about the spike protein's persistence and potential for autoimmune issues and "turbo cancers." He claims the FDA is slow to understand the science. He says he developed a T-cell vaccine but the FDA put it on hold. He also says that the spike protein, whether from the virus or the vaccine, is the fundamental issue.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly show. Coming up, the billionaire cancer specialist, owner of the Los Los Angeles Times, doctor Patrick Soon Sheng, will join me for the first time. It's this guy's fascinating.
Has he discovered the cure for cancer and and also for COVID damage or COVID vaccine damage? We're gonna get into it. But we start today with someone who's never been on the program before, Liz Wheeler. She's a conservative host who was at that White House influencer event back in February. She was one of the folks handed the Epstein files binder by attorney general Pam Bondi at the White House, and we, of course, now know the binder contained nothing new.
But they and we were promised more was coming until on Sunday, the DOJ announced there was no Epstein client list. No one else would be charged, and that there would be no more disclosures from investigation. And as it turns out, the administration seems kind of annoyed that people want more answers. Joining me now to explain exactly what happened that day, what was promised, and what she thinks in the wake of this bombshell announcement by the DOJ and the FBI on Sunday night to Axios. Liz Wheeler, she's host of BlazeTV's The Liz Wheeler Show.
Don't miss a moment. Subscribe to this show on YouTube and follow me on Insta, Facebook, and X. Since president Trump was sworn in, his administration has made enormous progress at a breakneck pace. But don't forget, while they're moving mountains for the good of the nation, you've got your own personal savings to worry about. And one of the best ways to look after your savings is through diversification, particularly with gold, like from Birch Gold Group.
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Speaker 1: Hi, Megan. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. Okay. So this
Speaker 0: is crazy. This whole thing is so crazy. And I know you've you've been following our coverage a bit and say we have it almost right, but not totally right on what happened that day when you and Jack Bosobiak and Libs of TikTok's Chaya Reichick, a bunch of well known right leaning influencers were invited to the White House. So tell us how that went down.
Speaker 1: That's right. And I appreciate your curiosity and your coverage of this. I think most of president Trump's base doesn't consider this to be a closed case. Most of us have outstanding questions, and we should have outstanding questions. But if you go back to that day in February, one of the misunderstandings, I think, is we weren't invited to the White House to receive the Epstein binders, those infernal white binders.
We weren't invited for that purpose. We weren't even invited to meet specifically with attorney general Pam Bondi. We were invited to meet with vice president J. D. Vance.
In fact, a a couple weeks prior to that meeting, I had received a text message inviting me to come to the White House to meet with the vice president, and no reason was given for the visit. And I remember turning to my husband at the time and being like, oh, I bet they're calling me to the White House to scold me because I had just been on Glenn Beck's radio program a day I think the day before criticizing president Trump's executive order on in vitro and suggesting that there might be a better way to help heal the chronic infertility crisis in our country. And I said, oh, I bet I bet they they want to have some words with me about that. And I kinda laughed about it, but you get invited to the White House. You go.
It's an opportunity of a lifetime. It's so cool.
Speaker 0: It's
Speaker 1: so incredible there. I asked them. I was like, oh, yeah. What's this in reference to? And they had mentioned like, oh, it's a it's a group meeting with the with the vice president.
I was like, sure. I'll be there. Of course. So I go that day to the White House, and I didn't know who else was invited. I I actually didn't know the names of any of the people that were also going to be in that room with us until we were standing in the security line in secret service together outside the White House.
And I see these various, you know, prominent conservatives, especially on x. You can call them influencers. You can call them independent journalists, but pretty pretty prominent conservative voices, independent journalists. So we go into the White House, and we are taken into I was actually a couple minutes late because my flight was delayed that morning. I had flown in at the crack of dawn.
And we're in the Cabinet Room, which is right across the hall from the Oval Office, and there's nameplates at each chair. You know, we're all expected. This is not just a tour of the White House. This is where our meeting is. And the meeting's being chaired by the press secretary, Caroline Leavitt, who explains to us the purpose of the visit.
The purpose of the visit, she said, was because the mainstream media, the corporate media, is no longer going to be rewarded by the Trump administration for their lying and their smears or propagandizing on behalf of the other side. Instead, the White House is going to a sense in a sense, coordinate a new media. You are going to get access, she told us, to high ranking decision makers and cabinet secretaries at the White House, because the mainstream media shouldn't be given that kind of access when they have just lied and smeared and cheated president Trump. And so the schedule for the day, we're told, is we are going to have meetings with a lot of these different cabinet secretaries and decision makers, and we're gonna have a forum to ask them questions, to network with them, to get to know them, just to integrate our media efforts into the White House. And so that's what happened.
It was actually a very it's a very cool initiative from the White House. It was an interesting experience. We met with secretary of state Marco Rubio and HH secretary RFK. That was an interesting discussion. We met with vice president Vance, of course.
We met with Caroline Levitt. And then we meet with attorney general Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel. And I have to say that was the shortest meeting of all because during our meeting with the vice president, we had an unexpected guest come into the room from across the hall. The president himself, Donald Trump, knocked on the door, stuck his head in, and said, hey. I heard there were famous people in here.
And then he, he looked at us all and he goes,
Speaker 0: which one of you is the most famous? Always the
Speaker 1: stand up comedian. Very entertaining. Very entertaining. We, of course, are cracking up and
Speaker 0: I hope everybody said it's me. Someone else. It's me. I hope everyone
Speaker 1: said was it. Like it was like everyone was pointing to someone else because no one everyone wanted to be a little bit humble. It was fun. It was it was funny. But when we're sitting down with attorney general Pam Bondi, she's telling us a little bit about some of the initiatives that they're doing at the Department of Justice.
Good stuff that they're doing. And then she brings out these banker boxes full of the white binders, and she lifts one of these white binders out of the box. And, of course, we're sitting at the same table with her. We see on the front of the binders that cover sheet that reads the most transparent administration in history, the Epstein files phase one. And we all take a collective gasp like, oh my goodness.
What is in these files? Are we really getting this? And to her credit, attorney general Bondi very quickly clarified, no. No. This is not the dirt.
This is not the juicy stuff. This is what I was given. She said when I got to office, I immediately requested the Epstein files be brought to me. She's like, and this is all I was given. She's like, and I was skeptical.
I was like, this is it? This tiny little stack of papers? And she's like, I was assured this is it. And she said, so I was going to release this to the American people even though there's nothing new or interesting or juicy in here. She's like, until yesterday, I received communication from a whistleblower who told me that the SDNY was hiding truckloads of documents.
And she told us, attorney general Pam Bonney said that day at the White House, you know, videos and pictures, the lists, the juicy stuff, all the dirt that people are expecting, the SDNY is subverting the president, the attorney general, the FBI director, and you, the voters. And so she handed us that letter that she had written to FBI director Cash Patel demanding that she be brought all of those documents from the SDNY, and she hands that letter to us and says, this is the story. The fact that the SDNY, there are still deep state swamp creatures who are trying to subvert the president in the government at this moment. And she essentially said, you know, I know why you're here at the White House. I know that you're going to be given access to the upper echelons of the Trump administration, you know, because the mainstream media has proven themselves to be dishonest.
She's like, here's a story for you. You can break this story. So we all understood what the story was. It's a very believable story that the STNY would be that would be hiding evidence or destroying evidence. We'd had other reports that that was happening inside the FBI.
So about at that moment, we get interrupted because the president invites us to come into the Oval Office. So we all, you know, leave all of our stuff in that room and go across the hall to the Oval Office, which is an incredible experience. It doesn't matter how many times you've seen it. It doesn't matter how cool you are. It is just the weight of history in that place will give you the chills.
And president Trump in the in the Oval Office is asking us questions and taking questions from us, giving us a tour. He Megan, he took a poll. He asked us to vote on whether we wanted a photograph or a painting of George Washington or Ronald Reagan hanging in the in the Oval Office. So he's entertaining us essentially. At the same time, he is doing what he does best.
People are walking into the room. Steven Miller, Tom Homan, you know, now former NSA, Mike Waltz. All these people are walking in the room asking him things. He's dealing with them, and then his attention comes right back to us without becoming distracted. It's it's it's like watching a conductor of an orchestra to watch him manage the the not just our country and the government, but the world in this way.
It's incredible. We take pictures with him. He gives us hats and coins and pens and all the paraphernalia that he gives to guests in the Oval Office. And then we go back into the cabinet secretary room, and we meet with another, person or two. I don't remember who we met with after that.
But then we realize or the the people running the event, realize that the meeting has run over time. The UK prime minister and his his entourage were arriving, they were scheduled to be in that room. So we were ushered rather quickly out the back door of the Oval Office. Of course, you you surrender your cell phone when you go in the West Wing in in the in the little, wooden box downstairs. So we're all, of course, withdrawing from our technology, hoping to get to our phones as quickly as possible.
We go out the back door with our coats and our hats and the binders and our arms. We go out the back door, and we meet this gaggle of press that are that are camped out in the grass out back unexpectedly. They were there, of course, to try to get a glimpse of The UK prime minister. They see us, and, Megan, you should have seen their faces. They were so bitter, so unhappy, so surprised and annoyed that we were given access to the White House while they were out in the grass.
That's actually what the smiles in those original photos were about is they were so they were just so jealous and bitter that we were laughing at them. We were taunting them. Were like, yeah, were in the White House and how's because the grass feel
Speaker 0: there there were many of the influencers who were showing the binders and showing them off. I mean that there I don't know whether you were one of them, but there were definitely some people there who were happy to show off what they'd just been given. And that that's what led people like me to think they're happy that they have these binders and they want they want the press to see that they've got the binders and that it was sort of like a justice is coming thing. It wasn't to me it didn't read like a middle finger to the press though it could have been. It read like a we're about to get the truth.
I mean that's this is the thing that I've been hooked on all along, which is why would the White House allow this? Why would they allow their you know top surrogates, whatever, most loyal fans and and friends in media to get embarrassed like this when they knew there was nothing in there? Well,
Speaker 1: and I think that's where the infuriating part starts. Right? I certainly can't speak for the other people involved. I know I was laughing at the press. The press also noticed those binders.
Of course, they did. It's very prominently displayed on the front that says the Epstein files. And they're like, what are guys holding? They took pictures of them. I think our expectation again, maybe I should speak here just for myself.
My expectation is we're about 10, thirty seconds away from getting our phones. We're about to break this story ourselves. And we knew, of course, the context of the story was not, oh, this is the dirt, the Epstein files. We knew the context of the story, but obviously, people's reactions are going to be the same reaction that I just had when Pam Bondi originally showed me that binder. Oh my goodness.
Is this the dirt? Well, you pair that immediately with the, wait a second, the real story is the SDNY. So I have this expectation that we're
Speaker 0: about to break this list because this this confused me. Okay? Because because I remember at the time I remembered this piece of the story. At least two of the influencers or whatever conservative personalities who were there tweeted out the exact same tweet after this thing went down. It had clearly been given to them by the White House.
There's just no question by somebody who was there. It was the exact same tweet, you know. And so to me it was obviously somebody within the administration who was like, this might be a great tweet to send to frame what has just happened today. And I pulled it just just to remind But myself of what
Speaker 1: I remember the explanation for this.
Speaker 0: It was the people who tweeted it out included let's see.
Speaker 1: It was Crow Logan O'Hanley. Chad Rathers. Right?
Speaker 0: DC yeah. Who's DC Drano and Chad Rathers. And they they tweeted the following. Today, I met with president Trump, vice president J. D.
Vance, AG Pam Bondi, and FBI director Cash Battalion in the Oval Office. They handed me a binder copy of the Epstein files, the most transparent administration in American history. The best part, this is just the start. AG Bondi confirmed there are thousands more Epstein file documents being secretly held in the SDNY, and they will be delivered to the DOJ in DC by February 28. People will be going to jail for what they've done.
So this is so crazy because these people clearly, if they were given this by the White House, the White House is trying to whoever
Speaker 1: I think that's
Speaker 0: worth clarifying. Well, those two just happen to send out the same exact No.
Speaker 1: Chad Prather Chad Prather actually came out later and said that he copied and pasted from DC Drano, he apologized for doing that. And DC Drano, Rogan O'Hanley, had written that himself.
Speaker 0: Okay. Alright. Well, that makes sense too. So why would why do you think they're saying like, because his framing is they gave us some stuff. We've got Epstein files.
They're the most transparent administration in history, and the best part is it's just the start. Like, it wasn't indignation. Your messaging seemed to be different that night, and I remember it because you were more like, no. The binder's a scandal because it shows you that there's still a deep state out there that's got documents that's thumbing the middle finger even at the DOJ, namely SDNY, which appears to have the treasure trove of Epstein docs. Anyway, to me, was just confusing, and I was wondering not accusing anybody of doing anything wrong whatsoever, but I was wondering whether you guys were being given different messaging from the White House on this or just walked away with different takeaways because you were each confused or you just were all trying to figure it out in your own way?
Speaker 1: Right. Well, I can't speak for Chad Prather. I can't even speak for Rogan, although I think highly of Rogan. I can only tell you we were not given any kind of I would never actually do this anyway. Even if I were quote unquote given talking points, I would never do that.
I'm not a spokesman for the administration. I'm a supporter of president Trump's America First agenda, but I'm not I'm not running interference for him in any way, shape, or form. But notwithstanding, we weren't given anything like that. I wasn't at least. We were told exactly what I just detailed to you.
We were given these these binders, and then we were given that paper by Pam Bondi. She's the one who said that's the real story. And I actually her at the time because because of what the cover sheet said. I asked her at the time. Was like, have you seen the SDNY documents?
And she said no. She said she hadn't. That was probably probably the first red flag for me was was Pam Bondi admitting that she had not seen those documents before she wanted us to launch this story. Now when you're in a situation like that, you're like, okay. That's maybe not how I would handle it.
Also something I I I you know, when someone's on your side, this is what I've saying all week. When someone's on your side, you give them the benefit of the doubt. I, that day, was hoping Pam Bondi would produce. You have to choose at some point whether you're going to trust someone. Because even if you're a journalist, there's only so much verification that you can do unless you have access to the source materials.
I obviously didn't have access to the SDNY documents. So I have to choose, okay, am I going to trust Pam Bondi or am I not going to trust Pam Bondi? When someone's on your side, at a certain point, you extend them the trust. And I thought, she hasn't seen them, but she must be pretty confident in them or she wouldn't launch these binders in this way with this story. So you get the benefit of the doubt.
Thing is, Megan, and this is something I didn't talk about because I thought because I wanted it. I wanted her to produce. I wanted her to live up to this benefit of the doubt that I extended her. That day in that room, she Pam Bondi was bragging about making the cover sheet on that binder that read the most transparent administration in history, phase one Epstein files. She acted like she had made it on a Word document and printed it out herself and put it in the front cover of that binder.
And to me, that is where when you fast forward just a little bit to this past Sunday and we announcement from the Department of Justice that suddenly says there is no client list. There's no blackmail operation. Epstein definitively killed himself. You're not getting any more documents. Thank you.
Goodbye. No more questions. You know, my reaction is, what are you talking about? Not only did Pam Bondi go on Fox News and say, it is on my desk. She was asked about the client list specifically so that while she didn't say the phrase client list, she said, it is on my desk waiting for a review.
I know two days ago, she said I was talking about the Epstein files. Okay. Maybe that's what you meant. That's not what you said. And words obviously matter.
Words have implication to the people that hear them. We perceive them the way that they are said, not the way that you meant, which is part of the problem here. But you really can't square the Department of Justice announcement on Sunday that just says, actually, none of this is true definitively with the behavior by attorney general Pam Bondi on that day. Again, notwithstanding the fact that, and I've spoken about this before too, there was a an embargo that was given to us halfway through breaking the story. Right?
So you go back to that day outside after we'd, run into the press. We we're taken down to our phones, and we begin to break this story. We post that picture that I posted holding the Epstein files. My intention was within thirty seconds because that's how you game the x algorithm, you do a post, then you do the second post on the thread. Everyone knows this.
My intention was to say I didn't know the that. Real story.
Speaker 0: What? You just taught me something. I did not know that. Keep going.
Speaker 1: It works like a dream, unless, of course, you're in this situation. Then it gives the White House thirty seconds to tell you that, actually, there's an embargo on the story because, they don't want president Trump to be asked during his press conference with The UK prime minister only about the Epstein files. So suddenly, Megan, I find myself in this position where I'm like, oh, no. Because I also am chronically on X, and I see that those media photos that were taken of us out back weren't just posted to a random website somewhere. They were starting to catch fire online, and it starts to look like the train wreck unfolding before my eyes that it was.
People, and I understand why they felt this way, they start to think, oh, these influencers are being gatekeepers. They're engaging in clickbait. All of these things, which you make a decision at the beginning of your career when you're in this business. Are you gonna be bombastic? Are you gonna be hyperbolic?
Are you gonna engage in clickbait? Are you gonna be ethical? And anybody who I mean, I've been in this business a long time now, ten years, more than ten years. Anybody who's ever listened to me, watched me, or read my work knows that I made the choice not to do that. I'm very transparent with my audience.
I'm very honest. I don't engage in hot takes even if it might get you more clicks because it's not the right thing to do. So I'm, of course, personally infuriated at this point because this makes it look like I'm doing what I don't do. So I am frantically behind the scenes, you know, in the Uber in Washington DC screaming at the White House via text message, please let me post this. Do you understand what's going on?
Not just from my personal perspective, but the way that it's making the administration look. Bureaucracy takes forever. It was at least an hour before we got permission to post the real story, and the damage by that time had already been done. So again, I held my tongue about this for a while because I thought, okay, maybe this unforced error was Well, let me just
Speaker 0: say this For me as an outsider, I'm only sort of an outsider, right, because I'm a member of the press and I I know the administration well. But my experience of it was not, for whatever it's worth, that you guys were engaging in clickbait. I I saw you guys as a bunch of innocent victims of the whole thing. I I was like, these are I've of course I know all of you, at least by your tweets and so on. And I think this is a very loyal group to the president.
This is a group that's been important to the president's election. This is a group that helped provide context, you know, throughout the entire campaign when the mainstream was lying. This is part of the group that would try to set the record straight, provide additional facts and context. So there's no way this White House would willingly want to embarrass this group. So they've invited them to the White House, clearly.
They've given them these binders that read, you know, Epstein file. They've allowed them to be photographed holding the binders, and those photos hit the Internet. And then within, you know, a very short time after the photos hit the internet was I don't even remember how it came out, but it was like there's nothing new in there. There's nothing new. There's nothing nothing new.
And then the narrative Why not kind of cogable why like airport? Well, they've been like embarrassed. They've been embarrassed because they're now here they are holding up the binders and there's nothing new. And all I could think was this is something you would do to people you don't like. This is something you would do to people whose credibility you wanted to undermine.
I never felt like you guys were guilty of doing clickbait. I felt like somebody in the administration has totally dropped the ball here. Why would they tell you guys there was something new or noteworthy or celebratory or in in any way to show in these binders with the with the bit the label on them. If there weren't, why would they do and to this moment, I still don't understand. Even hearing you, I'm like, why would Pam Bondi, if she said to you even at the time, there's not there's nothing great in here, but I I'm waiting on additional documents I just found out about, and and I'll give you those.
Why wouldn't like, why would she go through the exercise of the binders, which anybody could would know had the potential to embarrass you. Why would you ever wanna hold something up, you know, as, like, exciting if it was all old news? That's like a sin of journalism. Every journalist knows you don't wanna tout something as big that's literally old news. And to this moment, I don't understand, Liz, whether it's because Pam Bondi was negligent in making sure like, what's exactly in this binder, and does she know there's actually nothing new?
You're about to humiliate people who care about you. Or because she had some other motive? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, thank you for giving the benefit of the doubt to us that day. Not everyone in our movement gave the benefit of the doubt that way and did accuse us of clickbait, which, I mean, like I said, you can look at my work. That's not the case. Yes. The question that you pose is a question that, believe me, I've asked myself a million times, and I've done my due diligence trying to investigate.
The phrase that I used I mean, I went live from the airport, like, thirty minutes after this meeting because I had to fly back home to my kids, and I wanted people to understand exactly what had happened. The only part of the story that I didn't tell that day was the part about Pam Bondi bragging about making that cover sheet. And maybe I should have told that right then and there because maybe that would have made it obvious that Pam Bondi should have been fired on the spot for what she did. The only explanation that I can think of, and this is an explanation that is based on a pattern of Pam Bondi's behavior, is that she wasn't telling the truth. Not necessarily because she's corrupt and trying to hide the contents of the Epstein files, but because she's click thirsty, because she was more interested in making these big promises on Fox News, being a Fox News star and a mega champion.
And she got out over her skis promising things that she hadn't verified. And that's the root of this week. I said, listen. If I'm president Trump, I am looking at what attorney general Pam Bondi has done to the base. He has lost his administration.
Even though he had nothing to do with this, his administration has lost a tremendous amount of goodwill with voters because people care viscerally about the Epstein files. They care deeply about this partially because these are grisly crimes that were committed against children, but also because this represents justice. We have been harmed so many times by the deep state, whether it's parents being told we're terrorists because we didn't want trans ideology and critical race theory being indoctrinated into our children, whether it's being censored on social media or arrested outside of the capital because we had questions about the twenty twenty election, whether it's pushing back against COVID vaccine mandates. We have been vilified and demonized and targeted subject to violence. And we voted for president Trump because he promised justice.
Justice does not mean memory holing all of these bad things, this harm that was inflicted on us. It means finding the people who committed the crimes, charging them with those crimes, holding them accountable in a court of law, and sending them to prison for what they've done. And people feel stung because what they when they when they see what Pam Bondi said in that Department of Justice memo on Sunday, she is telling us, ignore the evidence, the anomalies, the suspicious fishy things surrounding Epstein's operation and his person and his connections and his death, and instead believe me without evidence. She's telling us to ignore what's before our very eyes and believe her instead with no evidence. And Megan, there is not a politician in this world that you should extend that amount of blind faith towards.
So Well well, you know,
Speaker 0: she's put us in a position of having to decide which of her statements we're going to credit. I mean, which one should we put the faith in? Because, you know, we kind of put the faith in the statement from February 21, and then the statement she followed up with on February 26, and then the statement she followed up with on March 3, and then the statement she followed up with on May 7, all of which kept spinning this tale of I've got the goods. I'm getting even more goods. You're gonna see the goods.
This man's a filthy animal, and you're not even gonna believe what I've seen that she just seeded that trail ever since she took office. And then instead of coming out on camera Sunday night or Monday when she purportedly realized there was absolutely no there there other than the child pornography found on his computer not involving third parties, like other than, you know, Jeffrey Epstein's predilection of, you know, disgusting random porn, and saying, I got it wrong. I overpromised, and I'm under delivering, and I'm sorry. She leaked to Axios a two page unsigned memo with absolutely no explanation, none whatsoever, and literally thinks that's enough. And then, unfortunately, we had the cabinet meeting where Trump seemed fine with all of that, where he kind of stepped in, was like, why are we still talking about this thing that I talked about repeatedly on the campaign trail and did tell you was an issue that we needed to get to the bottom of and that I would.
And then elevated two guys who talked about it all the time on their shows, Cash Patel and Dan Bungino, to run the FBI, the very organization that was at the heart of the investigation. And another person, Pam Bondi, who once I put in the office has been talking about it every other week and now looks at us and says, why why why would you still be interested in this? Do you even wanna answer that question? And Pam Bondi thinks she's putting it under the rug by being like, oh, there's a missing minute of the tape, but that's just because they always change over at one minute before midnight, and we lose a minute of tape, which everybody was like, what? And also when I said client list is on my desk, I really just meant file.
Bye. It's just been totally insufficient, Liz. Totally insufficient. Yeah. And no sane human being would at this point be saying, oh, okay.
I have no more questions. It's all answered for me.
Speaker 1: Exactly. And listen. President Trump is smart. He's strategic. He probably has a finger on the pulse of his base better than any politician that I've ever experienced in my lifetime.
I do think he's misreading his base on this one. There's a story actually that, country ringer country singer John Rich tells about having dinner with Trump. And during this dinner, Trump turns to him and says, why do people boo at my rallies when I talk about the COVID vaccine? And then president Trump sat there and he listened to John Rich's answer. And John Rich said, because, mister president, people have been hurt by the jab.
And president Trump listened to what John Rich said. And I think that this is one of those moments that president Trump should listen to his base because people have been hurt by the deep state. And that's what people are associating the Epstein files and the indications that there may have been a government cover up or at least a lack of transparency and a lack of honesty when communicating all of this to us, that's what people associate this with. They associate it with the fact that they want justice for COVID. They want justice for Russiagate.
They want justice for the phony Ukraine impeachment. They want justice for the lawfare against president Trump. They want justice for assassination attempts. They want justice for the rigging of election processes. They want justice for Black Lives Matter riots.
They want justice. And there's a phrase that we use often on the Liz Wheeler show. We say we want perp walks and jumpsuits. And not because we're vindictive, not because we're trying to exact some kind of revenge or target our political enemies, but because that represents justice. Justice is actual accountability using our justice system to, to hold these people who committed crimes accountable.
And president Trump may be right. Epstein, a creep. Why are people talking about him? Well, it's not so much that people care about Epstein the person or Epstein the creep. It's that they associate the Epstein files and the government's attorney general Pam Bondi's mishandling and dishonest communication about this with this open ended question of are we actually going to see justice for these egregious wrongdoings like we were promised?
Speaker 0: What was your own personal interaction like that day when you when you saw Pam Bondi? I'm sure you spent some time with her. Like, what how did she seem to you?
Speaker 1: She was not exact well, let's just say this. In the days leading up to that meeting, this was during the time that president Trump was nominating his different cabinet secretaries in the upper echelon of his administration. I had made a list of who I thought was the best pick and, you know, all the way down to who I thought were the worst picks. And Pam Bondi was was towards the bottom of that list because I didn't think that she had the experience to deal with the swamp. I didn't think that she had a proven track record of outsmarting the swamp.
I think she had shown incredible loyalty to president Trump during his impeachment proceedings. She'd been one of his attorneys, I believe. And that was essentially the reason it appeared that Trump picked her. So I didn't go in there. I went in there open minded, but I didn't go in there thinking, oh my gosh.
This is gonna be the coolest meeting of all the Not that I was aware of who we were gonna be meeting with in the first place. I actually was I I walked next to her when we went from the the the sec the cabinet secretary room, the meeting room across the hall of the Oval Office. I was the one who happened to walk next to Pam Bondi. And, you know, she was talking to me a lot about what it had been like in the Department of Justice in the two I think it had been two weeks since she had taken the oath of office, and she said she was tired. She hadn't done a lot of sleeping.
And she did a lot of complaining about congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna to me because congresswoman Luna had been asking a lot of questions about, hey. Where are these files that were promised? How come I, as part of the oversight committee in congress, am being excluded from the Department of Justice's, effort to release these? And Pam Bondi did a lot of complaining about how congresswoman Luna just didn't understand how this worked, and these things take time, and didn't she understand how busy she was. And I have to say I was I was a little off put by that.
I was just like, oh, okay. That's what you're focusing on even though you have the the the justice department to run. Then when we were in the Oval Office, president Trump is introducing us. There were probably 20 other people in the Oval Office at the same time in addition to us. And he's, you know, he's pointing people out.
He's like, yeah. This is Steven Miller. He's doing a great job. Oh, this is a hero, Tom Homan. He's doing a great job, and he's pointing out different people.
And then I hear attorney general Pam Bondi's voice from the back of the room. She was sitting on one of the sofas. She goes, what about me, mister president? And to be perfectly frank here, the thought that went through my mind was, wow. That was a real pick me girl comment.
I did not think that that was that that was, a good reflection on the strength of her character. Now you can say, okay. That's just a comment. Does that actually reflect in her ability at the Department of Justice or not? I don't know.
I'll let you decide. But, maybe it demonstrates her efforts or her desire to be a MAGA champion and to be a Fox News star because she was demonstrating again a pattern of wanting attention.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. And he did not give her the attention when he tweeted out about Dan and Cash last week when they came under fire. Was it was it as recently as Monday? I can't remember. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was after. Was after the memo.
Speaker 0: It was after the release of the memo. It had to be because that's when they were getting pummeled. And he sent out a complimentary tweet about Cash Battelle and Dan Bongino, and notably said nothing about Pam Bondi. So I I do wonder what the president thinks about all this, and what the president knows. I don't I haven't yet figured out whether this is a Trump directive thing, like we're moving on from Epstein for reasons we don't understand, whether they're intel reasons or other reasons.
But I definitely think if the president said to these three, we're done with Epstein, it would explain all the behavior of this past week, not Pam Bondi's behavior prior. Because that I do see a real split here, and I don't mean to just side with Bongino in this because I care about him and he's a friend. I don't know Cash Patel at all. I mean, what if if this is the logic, I'd throw anybody I don't know that well under the bus, then he should be under the bus too. But what I've seen since the beginning of the administration is those two guys who were very focused on Epstein prior to taking the roles have said nothing.
They have said they have not done the little bread crumb trail from the moment of taking office. They've said nothing. And the first thing we saw from them was on Fox and Friends where we were all shocked to hear them saying he killed himself. I mean, that's just what the evidence is. And if you have something to prove me wrong, show me.
But telling you, you're gonna see something we saw Cash on Joe Rogan being like, if I had evidence of him with all these, you know, little girls or if I had a third parties with young girls, don't you think I'd show that to you? And and Rogan seemed to be saying, so you you're what you're saying is you don't have it. And Cash is basically just saying, if I have it, you'll see it. And we haven't seen it. So they didn't do what she did.
And that I've, you know, over the course of the past four days gotten to where you you I think are, which is I I think she was thirsty for attention. I think she was enjoying the hits on Fox, on Hannity, on Waters, in the middle of the day with John Roberts and saying, like, I've got all the answers on Epstein. I've got all the juicy dish, and I'll be the one to give it to you until she either found out that wasn't true, would and and realized this is why attorneys general don't talk like this ever about their ongoing investigations ever. You almost never hear from attorney general. It's the one person in any administration, Republican or Democrat, who you really can't get.
There's only so much transparency you're supposed to get from an attorney general given the way criminal investigations work. And and then realize, like, she had an oh shit moment of she's humiliated herself and the administration. Or again, I don't know, something else. Or it it was real in the first place and now she's doing the lying. This I don't I don't know the truth on.
Speaker 1: No. I think I think there's a couple of things. I'm also friends with Dan Bongino and I can say with confidence that he is one of the good guys. I actually appreciate that he has said so openly, listen. This is not about trust.
You don't believe something just because you trust me. You wait for the evidence. And I think that we should be focusing a lot on that comment. I think that that's not only an incredibly humble comment and probably a very difficult comment for someone who's used to being able to set the record straight. I think there's a lot more to that comment that meets the eye.
I also don't know Kash Patel personally. I liked his book. I like what he said. We have to remember though that his boss is attorney general Pam Bondi. So there's only so much that you can do there's only so much that you can do in those positions if your boss is giving you a directive or to contradict your boss publicly.
So maybe that's me extending too much benefit of the doubt there, but I think that's a possible explanation. I do think that the base, president Trump's voter base, would have been or would have accepted more readily just an honest an honest analysis. When when Dan Bongino and Kash Patel took over the FBI, I mean, I know a lot of people at the upper echelons of the FBI and the and the Department of Justice now, and I was told on good authority that it's like a thermonuclear bomb was set off in there, that they walk in and they don't even know where the locks are, let alone having the keys to unlock those locks.
Speaker 0: No. They're being undermined.
Speaker 1: They are. And there's there's been evidence destruction. There's been, there's been the the hiding of evidence. So if these individuals, Pam Bondi is the one that I think is, the buck stops with Pam Bondi. She's the one directing this narrative.
She could have said, listen. We got in here, and the Epstein files are empty. We don't know why. We don't know if it was destroyed or hidden or if the investigation was done negligently. We don't know whether there was a cover up, but we do want to be honest with you and say, no, we can't produce the dirt that you expected because we don't have it.
Megan, that's very different than giving us this definitive statement like none of these things are true. A client list doesn't exist. He definitively killed himself. What? All of us
Speaker 0: have have for this. Thinking otherwise. Like, there's a tonality in there that it's like, you who what what kind of an idiot would be pursuing this at this point? The other piece is that's really been irritating me is how she keeps being like, okay, we found these tens of thousands of pictures of child sexual assault material, and no one is ever gonna see that. No one's getting as if that is what anybody wants to see.
Like, she's trying to, like, diminish the demands for more information by pretending what people want is to see the child pornography that Jeffrey Epstein enjoyed looking at. It's such a straw man. No no one would ever expect the DOJ or want the DOJ to release that. She's just pretending that, like, the demands on her are so unreasonable because that's what these so called influencers seem to be wanting from her. That's not it at all.
She she said there was a whole treasure trove of documents before she even knew apparently that there were all these pictures of child sexuals. She was saying there's a ton of other stuff that you're gonna get before it appears even Pam Bondi understood that Epstein had troves of child pornography on his computer.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And by the way, that post that I it was a long post. It was like as long as an op ed that I posted. I I think it was later that same day. I think I wrote it like rage texting it on the airplane on my on my flight home, posted it when I landed.
That day in February after the White House when I was talking about this is the real story. Like, understand the context of everything that happened. The way that I described what was expected from the SDNY, I phrased very carefully because I used only phrases that had been used to me that day. Meaning, I don't I don't have the post up in front of me. But if I said photos, it's because Pam Bondi said photos.
If I said videos, it's because Pam Bondi said videos. I didn't list everything that everyone wanted to see and just said and just recklessly said, oh, it's in that. I only listed the things that the SDNY was supposed to be in possession of because that's what I was told by Pam Bondi, who hadn't seen it, that that's what the SDNY was going to deliver to her.
Speaker 0: Yes. Okay. Wait. I'm looking at this post now. This is you on February 27 saying Yeah.
Speaker 1: On the same day. Okay.
Speaker 0: Bondi promised to release the documents. You're saying that Bondi the FBI was told to deliver the files to Pam Bondi. They did, about 200 pages. Bondi smelled a rat because there was nothing juicy in the 200 pages, just flight logs and a Rolodex of phone numbers, no smoking gun. Still, Bondi promised to release the documents, so she prepared a binder of them.
Then last night, a whistleblower contacted Bondi and revealed that the SDNY was hiding potentially thousands of Epstein files, defying Bondi's order to give them all to her. We're talking recordings, evidence, etcetera, the juicy stuff, names. Yeah. That was These swamp creatures at SDNY deceive Bondi, Cash, and you'll be outraged, blah blah blah. So that's what you're talking about.
Yeah. So it's she's gonna release these files. It's Epstein files. It's recordings, evidence, and names. That's the thing that, you know and she did say yes to client list.
She can say now all she wants. She meant the Epstein file was on her desk. John Roberts very clearly asked her client list. That's what the entire question was about. It was short.
It was easy to understand. I'll play it just to remind folks. But it wasn't ambiguous. And she's a lawyer. And trust me, as lawyers, we know we know how to answer direct questions, and we know when we need to obfuscate.
And if you wanted to obfuscate about a client list, you would say, the file is on my desk right now. But she didn't do that. Here's what happened in SOT one on February 21.
Speaker 2: DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients? Will that really happen?
Speaker 3: It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive, by president Trump. I'm reviewing that. I'm reviewing JFK files, MLK files. That's all in the process of being reviewed because that was done at the directive of the president from all of these
Speaker 2: So so have you seen anything that you you said, oh my gosh?
Speaker 3: Not yet.
Speaker 0: And I would submit to you that adding on the MLK and the JFK files was a result of nerves in being dishonest. I would submit to you that's how it looks to me. If you're giving a direct answer, you'd say, yeah the client list is on my desk right now. I just have to go through it and make sure that these are actual Jeffrey Epstein clients as opposed to just contacts and associates with him who don't deserve to have their name smeared. That would sound like a truthful answer.
But to me, she wasn't telling the truth there. She was dangling something. She was enjoying dangling something. Then she realized she got out ahead of her skis and started adding in other things that were likely on her desk. And that's why one of the many reasons I think this was all Pam Bondi looking for some attention.
And I am not somebody who thinks she's got troves of real Jeffrey Epstein documents that she's hiding and that she's now lying about because we have to decide whether we believe the Pam Bondi before this past Sunday or believe the one after. And I don't know what's true, but my instincts tell me the one before this past Sunday was the one who was messing with us. And the jig was kind of up. You know, it was time to either like put up or shut up. And I think the FBI did do a review of its files and said, we don't have it.
We don't like I don't think Dan and Cash have proof of a web of pedophiles that they're willingly protecting right now? I just don't believe it.
Speaker 1: No. I don't either. I mean, this I said this publicly, I also said this privately to them. I when I heard their definitive pronouncement, and I used that phrase definitive pronouncement on purpose because that's what they gave. This this was not this is what we think.
This is what the evidence shows. They gave a definitive pronouncement that he killed himself. And I wondered why they gave a definitive pronouncement instead of couching it like we don't have evidence to show homicide. The evidence that is in the FBI files shows that it is suicide. I wondered why they didn't phrase it like that because the FBI prior to Cash Battelle and Dan Bungino taking the hem helm, that's not a they're not a reliable narrator.
The FBI is one of the most corrupt institutions in our
Speaker 0: So federal
Speaker 1: any investigation that was done, any compilation of any evidence that was done before Cash Battelle and Dan Bongino did it themselves, it you should not believe. You should not only refuse to extend the benefit of the doubt, you should assume that it's corrupted and untrue. And I asked them, did you rely on anything that was compiled by the former corrupt FBI when you made this definitive pronouncement? And if so, I think the phraseology was a mistake.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. Well, we may never know. They don't seem like they want to talk about it. Of course, we've reached out for interviews with all three of them, and you know everybody from the administration swings by this show at some point or another. They don't want to do it now.
I think they meant what the president said on Tuesday or Monday, whatever the day the cabinet meeting was, which was we wanna move on. You know, are we are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? Why are we still talking about that creep? And I think you've done a good job here of of spelling out why. It's it is about Epstein in part.
Sure. We'd like to fully understand his legacy, but it's about a lot more than that for a lot of other people. And I've seen people up and down my timeline Liz who are like, this is before and after moment for them with the administration. You know, that that they moved Trump and the administration from a category of trust to one of don't trust, they're just like all the others. As a result of what happened Sunday night, that should be fixed.
I think it can be fixed with an honest tell all, but I don't I don't know. What's your take on whether they'll sort of get away with the way they've handled it and the press will just move on and the people will just move on?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think that president Trump's base is gonna move on from this because of what it represents to them. I think I have tremendous faith in president Trump. I think that he's he has the ability. I mean, he's shown this multiple times that the few and far between times that he misreads the base, he generally course corrects. And so I have full confidence that he can do that now.
I think it's possible. I don't know this for sure. I wasn't involved in, you know, the planning of this comment, but I think it's possible that president Trump's kind of grouchy comment, you know, snapping at that reporter, are you still talking at the about this? Was somewhat of a test balloon to see like, oh, does a comment like this, you know, signal to the base time to move on, and will they do it because we have other things we want to do, or is this very important to the base? And the fact that there was a lot of backlash to that comment, I mean, he's listening.
We know that he listens to the base. We know that the White House is very in tune with conversations on x and in the right wing podcast podcast world. World. So president Trump can fix this. He can fix this in a couple of ways.
He should ask for a press or for attorney general Pam Bondi's resignation because she did not tell us the truth, and that's unacceptable. And it's one thing to allow something like that to, be brushed under the rug when it has no implications, but this could very well impact president Trump's, electoral chances. Not his specifically, but the Republican parties in the midterm. And if somebody in your administration is acting in a way that is discrediting your legacy and your chances in the midterms, then you should cut them loose. It's not worth it.
Pam Bondi is not worth it. It's time to move on. So he should rectify that situation with transparency and honesty and accountability, and then he should prove to the base that and he can. He should prove to the base that he knows that we voted for him because we want justice, and he should hold accountable some of these figures who committed these heinous crimes against us, whether it's January 6, the pipe bomber, COVID, Russiagate, the phony Ukraine impeachment, the vaccine mandate, any one of these things. He put someone who committed those crimes in jail, and the base is like, okay.
He gets us. He's fighting for us. This is what
Speaker 0: Well, person who would put them in jail is Pam Bondi. Do you think she can Well. Resurrect herself with the base?
Speaker 1: I mean, I will be the first one to applaud actually executes justice for any one of the cases that I just mentioned. I don't I mean, I am it I even though I was personally involved in this, I don't really care about that. Obviously, I wanna be transparent with people and communicate with them so that they don't have a misperception of my reputation, but that's the least of the, of the worries when it comes to this. The biggest part of this is, yeah, we do need to start lighting a fire under attorney general Pam Bondi, to actually do her job at the Department of Justice and give us justice. And so far, yeah, she's had some smaller wins and I appreciate those, but not on the big stuff yet.
Speaker 0: She they you know, I don't know that Pam Bondi's going to survive this. I I I feel like the president not I
Speaker 1: don't think she will.
Speaker 0: Tweeting out anything about her says a lot. But I will say this, he's got a great alternative right there. Harmit Dillon is amazing, and she's there already, and that's somebody who could potentially take over if this falls apart. I'm not saying I want it to happen, I just think I mean, I know the base too and I think they're really unhappy with her. And I think we know why.
I mean, we spelled out exactly why. Liz, I'm so glad you landed at the Blaze. I love the Blaze. I love all the folks over there, and I think it's a great match. So I hope you're enjoying your new stint, and all the best with the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I feel the same way about The Blaze, and I had a great time over there. Thank you for having me on today.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Anytime. Hope to see us again soon. Liz Wheeler, everybody. Wow.
I I'd love to hear from you guys on this. It's like I don't know. Do you think Pam Bondi will survive? Do think she'll be there in six months? And do you think she should?
Should she survive? Is this a survivable sin or not? I don't know what to believe. I'm being honest with you about that. I really don't.
I I am telling you what I suspect, but I just don't know. This is very strange behavior from a cast of characters that's behaving in a way I I don't recognize. It's not normal. I really wanna funnel all these answers that we've gotten from her and others into Q, which is a special AI tool that my friend has developed that tells you whether somebody's lying. Maybe we'll do that.
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And let me know what you think. Riverbendranch.com promo code Megan. I'm super excited to talk to my next guest, a fascinating, brilliant surgeon, cancer specialist, billionaire, and also the owner of a media outlet you know and likely don't like, but we'll forgive him because he bought it late. It's called the Los Angeles Times. And my guest today is doctor Patrick Soon Shiong.
He's here today. Welcome to the show. Great to have you, doc.
Speaker 2: Oh, thanks for having me, Megan. Pleased to meet you
Speaker 0: again. Though we forgive you because you you bought it not until 2018, and you've been trying to inject some balance into this newspaper, though I I am sure it's been an uphill battle.
Speaker 2: Well, not only trying, I think when we bought it, I really realized that ultimately the newspaper will become dinosaurs, and we need to change completely. So we can talk a little bit about that, and I'm excited to say we're on the verge of this change, and we'll be announcing that next week sometime. Oh.
Speaker 0: Oh, alright. Yes. We'll definitely round back to that. But let's talk about curing cancer first because that's a bigger one and it's a more important headline. Listened to you on Tucker and I thought it was a fascinating discussion.
And all I could think was this amazing magical thing that you've found that you've decided, you know, to study and actually come up with, everyone wants it. Everyone's gonna want it once they hear about it. And my biggest question is how can it be mass produced such that we can all shore up our t cells and fight cancer and COVID hangovers and spiked cells, whatever that we were caused from the vaccine or weren't. So let's just start with what is it exactly, this thing? Because you you invented other cancer drugs that you literally sold your companies for $10,000,000,000 for.
You're the real deal. You've been honored by everybody, a legit and world renowned doctor. So you made plenty of money, but you kept studying cancer and how to cure it, you've come up with this very special thing.
Speaker 2: So, well, first of all, thank you for that. That's very generous. I I did not invent this. God invented this. So this is what I want to explain.
You know, when I sold my companies in 02/2008, 02/2010, I realized, and this has been now a life's work, that we have in our body a cell that God created, and it is 450,000,000 years old called the natural killer cell. And that cell was only discovered in in in in the nineteen seventies, and I wrote my first paper in the nineteen nineties. And what this is is the enlightenment of how do we activate the cell that God created in us, and why does this cell exist? And this cell exists because it is here to prevent us from having cancer. This cell exists is to prevent us from getting from dying from infection, from sepsis, from COVID, from bacteria, from fungus.
And what's happened now is an enlightenment after thirty years of work of how to activate that cell with a single jab. And that's what we've discovered. So what's exciting is we have within our body this immune system that's been around. Everybody understands t cells, everybody understands but nobody ever thought about the word natural killer cells. And that's the name of the of the cell.
It's the natural killer cell. It is the first responder in your body to recognize anything that's dangerous and kill it. That's the only way that mammalians actually evolved to live today. So when you said I invented it, what this is really is an enlightenment of going from toxic chemotherapy radiation to really using your body itself as the protector against cancer.
Speaker 0: So what is it? I I know it's called BioShield. But what exactly is it and how does it work?
Speaker 2: So now that we understand that you have a cell in your body, you and I have a cell in your body, what nobody has figured out is what's a receptor on that cell that if you put a protein into your body that your body is making right now, your body is making a protein called IL-fifteen, interleukin 15. That's what your body is generating. But it's generating it and it lasts for maybe a minute so that it activates the cell when you need it. If I could create that protein and inject it and it could last seven to fourteen days and supercharge all these natural killer N T cells with a single jab, that is the BioShield. So the BioShield is the key to unlocking the proliferation of these cells.
And what's exciting is that this has now been approved for bladder cancer. And what's exciting is we've shown that patients with bladder cancer, we gave it in 2015, not only are still alive, have never lost their bladder and are free of disease. Which means then this key of this IL fifteen, which is in this little vial and given subcutaneously, is the BioShield.
Speaker 0: So you is it something that you would take prophylactically just, you know, just in case, just because you don't wanna get cancer, or you're just worried about the COVID vaccine or having had COVID? Or is it something you you would only take when you've been diagnosed with cancer and you don't know what to do?
Speaker 2: So you know you ask such great questions because we just finished accruing, completely accruing a trial for patients who don't have cancer. Patients with Lynch syndrome, which affects one in two hundred and eighty Americans in The United States. So we were chosen by the National Cancer Institute and just last week, hundred percent accrual across the nation, in which the patients get this jab to ensure that they don't or to explore that they don't get cancer. If you really get deep into what this BioShield is, is as you age, your natural killer cells and T cells begin to drop. So the problem is as your natural killer cells and T cells drop, that's when you actually lose the immune system that protects yourself, and that's how you also get cancer.
So cancer is in fact a collapse of this immune system. And if that's the case then, this is maybe the key not to fountain of youth, but the key to longevity in the sense of prolonging life while to extend and protect the immune system. What's remarkable is hidden in plain sight when you say, Do we need this? When we take a simple blood test called a CBC, which is done hundreds of thousands of times a day in The United States to measure hemoglobin. There's a count in that test called the absolute lymphocyte count, ALC, that sadly today ninety nine percent of the doctors in The United States don't pay attention to that, not because they're not smart, because there was no treatment until today in the history of medicine to unlock if you have a low ALC to improve that ALC count.
That's what has happened as of today. And during this administration, I'm hopeful that the FDA would recognize that what we have is a paradigm change of how to look at patients, whether they have cancer, infection, sepsis in the ICU, or even aged.
Speaker 0: So when you see this ALC count on anybody, whether it's a seemingly healthy individual, or someone you know has cancer, you could see a number, and I'm sure there's just a range, and if you fall what below the acceptable range, you're at risk, and that would be a potential candidate for this bio strike.
Speaker 2: Incredibly correct. In the sense that the range is if you go below a thousand, so the normal range is between a thousand to 4,000. If you go below the thousand, the statistical analysis that's been shown now remarkably in about 200 to 300 publications is that you have a statistical analysis opportunity to actually have a shortened lifespan. So this lower ALC or if you drop your little thousand, the medical term for that is lymphopenia. So if you were to Google lymphopenia, remarkably, you'd see papers going all the way to nineteen nineties that if you have lymphopenia for breast cancer, lymphopenia for pancreas cancer, lymphopenia for lung cancer, any cancers you want to choose, your survival rate is significantly and statistically shortened.
And that makes so much sense because what ALC is actually is your lymphocytes and your T cells. The lymphocytes and T cells are the only cells that really matter prevent infection, to prevent cancer, to treat the cancer, to prevent metastasis. So it is so obvious from my perspective, it's simple and yet profound, that we've unlocked a paradigm change where we treat the host, I. E. The immune system, rather than the disease.
In fact, the disease of cancer is really the symptom. The root cause of the disease is the collapse of the immune system.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. So I heard you telling Tucker that you'd never had COVID, and he said you're lucky. And you said, it's not luck. It's it's this. It's it's my T cells.
And that made me wonder whether, like I was saying, can anybody get this? Like did did you have low ALC and therefore you did the injection on yourself, or did you just take it when COVID was circulating?
Speaker 2: So there's two things about T cells. And so the BioShield is a platform. The one hand, what I talk about now, is this IL-fifteen that actually proliferates and supercharges. And that's approved.
Speaker 0: IL-fifteen, that's what you call the drug?
Speaker 2: It's called ANKTIVA.
Speaker 0: Okay.
Speaker 2: I'm trying not to give you a commercial name.
Speaker 0: Okay. Okay.
Speaker 2: But what it's called, ANKTIVA. It's the activated NK cell for T cell for life. That's what ANCTIVA is.
Speaker 0: Makes sense.
Speaker 2: And it's this IL-fifteen in a little vial, literally half a cc injected subcutaneously, and it acts amazingly because that's what God's given us. So again, full circle to, you know, did I invent this? No. God invented this. What we did was enlighten ourselves to figure out what key we needed to activate what's in your body.
But imagine if we could not only activate those t cells, but educate the t cells before we activate them. Educate them to recognize a specific antigen, And that's what we're doing in Lynch syndrome. Patients with Lynch syndrome have a eighty percent increase of colon cancer. So we pre activate their t cells so they can recognize a t cell against the colon cancer. So one of the things on COVID could, and we can talk a little bit about that, and I spoke at great length to Peter Marks and to Fauci and to Collins, to the entire NIH and NID during the Biden administration as well that we need a t cell vaccine.
And I think I sent you the YouTube where John Cohen from science and myself and Peter Marks in 2022 did this interview begging the country to get the t cell vaccine. So what I did is I built this t cell vaccine. And by the way, as you remember, billions of dollars were made available. And I'm proud to say it was difficult, that we've never used one single penny of government money, partly because we never received one single penny of government money, so that I could have the freedom to actually build what I needed to build what I think was right for the human race. Because my concern was that the current vaccines, the antibody based vaccines, would not stop transmission.
By that, I mean, you'd get this vaccine. It maybe would block a little bit, but the virus would get in. It would grow. It would use your body to grow, and you would transmit it to another person. And my greatest fear would be not only it would grow, it would persist.
And if it persists, now you have autoimmune disease, inflammatory disease, and even potentially turbo cancers. So the solution to that, and the solution was facing us in 2021, 2022, was to develop a vaccine that would stimulate the T cells and NK cells, but the t cells would be educated against the COVID vax nuclear capsid. So the COVID has two proteins inside it, one a spike and one on the inner core of the COVID called the nuclear capsid. And if you could create a t cell vaccine to the nuclear capsid, you may have a universal t cell vaccine to any COVID comes along because that nuclear capsid doesn't change. That spike mutates all the time.
We had developed that vaccine and completed phase one, and I injected myself to test that I would have t cells against that COVID antigen, and I do. Remarkably, the FDA put us on hold when I asked to use that as a booster. So to this day, nobody could explain the reason during that time frame, and so it was never developed.
Speaker 0: Wow. What is there any chance it could be developed and used now? Because people are still getting the COVID boosters. We just saw in the news today that Moderna just received the full US FDA approval, like it had been on the emergency use authorization, now it's fully approved. They're they're still pushing this thing on people, but we have a new administration, we have a new great head of FDA, so is there a chance it still could come come to life?
Speaker 2: The answer is yes. In fact, I was so desperate that I'm willing to give it away. Literally give it away. I actually during COVID time had another molecule called ACE two decoy that I I approached, and I won't name him, a major CEO, and said, please take this. Please grow this.
You know, this is not about money. This is not about driving more revenue to the company even though Moderna and BioNTech and Pfizer have really benefited largely from that. This is almost from a virus versus man, and this is for humanity, where really we need to find a way where what scared me, and we can get into this, Megan, this ACE two receptor. This is not a a a respiratory virus. This virus is like cancer.
This virus gets into every part of your body, and when it gets there, it uses your body as a factory, whether it would be the virus or whether it be the spike protein of this mRNA vaccine. And we'll talk a little bit about that. And that's what scared me. And sadly, I'm now seeing the fruits of what this virus is doing. And this virus has has really beaten us.
We have the opportunity to fix it still. This administration has the opportunity to fix it still. The science is complex, and the question is, will the FDA even understand the science? Is the current and old FDA equipped and modernized sufficiently? Not and I see Marty Makary trying to improve the modernization with AI, etcetera.
I think that's wonderful. But the real modernization this FDA needs is to understand the science. And I don't think this FDA has actually grown sufficiently fast enough with sufficient I don't want to say the word intellect, with sufficient expertise to understand the evolution of the science at the molecular level, at the immunological level.
Speaker 0: Well, do you make
Speaker 2: of I
Speaker 0: think of doctor Jay Bhattacharya, who of course is running NIH, and he too was screwed by Francis Collins, his predecessor, as I know you were. Collins was afraid of you, he perceived you as some sort of a threat, and you discovered evidence that he intentionally meant to undermine you and freeze you out. And that's exactly what happened to doctor Jay Bhattacharya, who was running around during COVID, wisely saying we shouldn't be quarantining all healthy people, we should be doing focused protection, protecting only the most vulnerable. And Francis Collins and Fauci made it clear they wanted to smear him as some sort of an extremist, a fringe doctor. So what about him?
Could he be of help? I'm not saying Marty I'm not saying Marty Makary wouldn't be helpful to you, but you're suggesting maybe there isn't the manpower at the FDA to actually see this through. How about Doctor. Jay Bhattacharya and going bigger over at the NIH?
Speaker 2: No. I completely am hopeful of that, and that's why, you know, I was very very supportive of Bobby Kennedy becoming HHS and bringing on the right people. I've never I've not yet met Jay and I look forward to meeting him. And you're completely right, and that's one of the few tweets I made very sort of politically correct that so few people could hurt so many, and they did. You know, the timeframe you're relating to is president's first president Trump's first term when he was president-elect.
Apparently, I was considered and nominated to be the head of NIH. Francis Collins heard about that and had a very active campaign trying to smear me. It turned out anyway, I said to the president then, I really need to work on what is now the BioShield, thinking it would have two terms and then the second term, it'd be on the path to the cure of cancer. And he didn't win the second term, but interestingly enough, serendipitously, it allowed me more time and we are now ready. So while the previous administration literally during the Biden years, were canceled, literally canceled, the opportunity now to take all the work and put us on the path in this administration.
I think only this administration can make this all work. We could find the treatment to prevent this COVID from find a universal COVID vaccine. We could actually treat patients with long COVID, and we can actually be on the path literally to the cure of cancer. So and even the prevention of cancer. It'll require really a deep understanding of the science, but more importantly require a deep understanding at the FDA level.
Megan, my fear is as follows. You know, I I met the president in Riyadh and I met the president in Qatar, and I'm watching China really explode in terms of their science. And my fear is as as follows, is that America has a scientific and intellectual lead, but China's gonna beat us. And the reason they're gonna beat us is because their regulatory process completely related to actually advancing technology. Our regulatory process is stuck in this old dogma and stuck in checking the box and stuck with without recognizing the science.
So my fear is that we will not only lose jobs, we will lose the biotech industry and we'll lose the race. Not because we don't have ingenuity, not because we don't have the best brains and the best scientists, and not because we don't have the will or the resources as now president Trump has put forth, but because we'll have a regulatory obstruction.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. When you I heard you discussing this protocol and how many people it's helped already. You mentioned, for example, Harry Reid who had a very bad diagnosis, and he came to you, and you gave him this the bio strike, however we wanna refer to it, and extended his life we believe by a couple of years. I mean it's not gonna help anybody live forever, but when you might otherwise be facing the end, this drug actually seems to have a proven record, you say, of extending one's life by years.
Speaker 2: Well, so when Sinjari came to see me, he already was completed all his standard of care and had failed his standard of care and then came to see me. So what we needed to do in 2015 I went to the FDA and said, listen, I have this hypothesis that what we're doing is completely wrong. When we give chemotherapy, we wipe out all the natural killer cells and t cells. When we give radiation, we wipe out all the natural killer cells and t cells. And I would like to try this in patients before they get these horrible treatments, I.
E. At the time of diagnosis. And they said, no. And it's appropriate. You need to try this first in patients who are at the end stage of their life.
So we did this in triple negative breast cancer patients, Merkel cell cancer patients, pancreatic cancer patients, glioblastoma patients, bladder cancer patients, all who had failed all standards of care. But by the time they came to see us, their immune system was completely collapsed. So we had to start from a deep hole, but able to get them out of the hole and then get them into positions of complete remission. So let me give you some examples. We've got complete remissions on patients with Merkel cell carcinoma, fifth line, and he lived for six years and didn't die of his cancer.
Complete remission of patients with bladder cancer and they're still alive now, 10 or 11 years old. Complete remissions on triple negative breast cancer. We have metastatic pancreatic cancer, a patient was free of disease after five years and she's still alive. We just published that six years out. Wow.
So the proof of principle has gone beyond the proof of principle. We then got this approved despite despite, and we'll talk about that, the problems that they put me through from 2021 to 2024. And after 700,000 pages of response, we got it approved late twenty twenty four. Now that this administration is here, we literally have the opportunity to really understand that we are on the precipice of treating sepsis. I just saw the results yesterday of a patient that we treated just last month with this valley fever with an inflamed lung on the ventilator for for for entire month, and with the lost rights, we cleared up this lung completely.
We have then patients now that we have for bladder cancer and for pancreatic cancer ongoing and for lung cancer. So my frustration is how do I get this insight out into both the scientific and medical community, and most important, the regulatory committees, so they can understand what's at hand and what's in at our fingertips.
Speaker 0: So discouraging that this didn't happen under the Biden administration when Biden had literally been tasked by then President Obama to take the cancer moonshot. I mean, it was promised to us at the State of the Union that he was going to be the one to spearhead the effort to to cure cancer, which sounded like a pipe dream of course, but at least it was a goal that seemed like alright, you know, maybe we'll see some real advancements in the fight. And all this time later he becomes the actual president, and you came to them and said, I've got something, and you got nowhere. And now we have President Trump in there, and have you been stiff armed already by the FDA? Is that why you have doubts about, you know, the the scientists there now, or have you just been not able to penetrate the wall?
Speaker 2: I would say both. Okay. Let's let's let's go back a little bit in history here. The cancer moonshot is very interesting history. In 02/2015, when Beau Biden unfortunately had glioblastoma, then vice president Biden asked me to come to Washington to help him take care with Kevin Johnson, Beau Biden at the Walter Reed.
And unfortunately, Beau Biden, then passed away, after having received treatment, from a institution from Texas. The that time, he then asked me to convene a meeting in his residence in December 2015 of how I thought cancer should be treated, and and my naive way, which said I will convene this meeting by bringing all the major pharmaceutical companies together, which I did, into that room. I'll bring the FDA into that room. It was then the head of the FDA. I'll bring the National Cancer Institute into that room.
And he hosted this massive meeting which in in his residence as vice president and then asked me to chair the meeting. At that meeting, everybody agreed that we all are to be working together because there's no one company that had all the resources and the technology to fight this one cancer. And I purported my hypothesis that we're going to change from chemotherapy and radiation into the immune system. He agreed that I can announce the Cancer Moonshot on January, I think, fifteenth or I forget what, twelfth of the next year, which I then put out an article to The New York Times. Francis Collins heard about that.
I announced the moonshot on Monday. On Tuesday or that evening or Monday, Tuesday night, I forget the dates, president Obama announced the second moonshot with Biden as the head and Francis Collins running that. It didn't matter to me that there now were two moonshots because my goal was to actually find the cure. So I think what happened thereafter, the big pharma companies pulled out for whatever motivation, and thank God I had the resources just to pursue it myself.
Speaker 0: To keep going. I mean, I Oh, think we can safely assume it was pressure from Francis Collins. That's my assumption because he's a bully. We saw that behind the scenes during COVID many many times. He got drunk on his own power.
He felt like he was a god. He would make or break careers. He would dictate what was happening in in big pharma. And there's no reason not to assume he did the same thing to you if you were on parallel paths toward the cancer moonshot. This is my supposition, but in my opinion he's a villain.
Speaker 2: Well, I actually interesting not because I did it, somebody sent me a Freedom of Information Act email in which he he in his email said the alarm bells going on that Patrick Soon Chung is gonna be head of NIH. You must find a way to stop him. That's what the one
Speaker 0: bit? Not surprised one Well,
Speaker 2: and that's why I said you get drunk with power. I completely agree with you. You get drunk with power and the idea of what happens in Washington, you have this power over so many. But really at the end of the day, I'm pursuing my life as a as a physician scientist. And the greatest joy for me is to sort of see the the impact as I'm really seeing.
You know, look, I'm still seeing patients. I'm sure if you realize, Megan, but I we have a clinic and I still see patients. And to me the greatest joy and also the greatest fear, I'm now seeing younger and younger patients. Last I two weeks saw three women in my clinic simultaneously, they're all in their thirties, 31, 30, 31, with severe cancers.
Speaker 0: What kind of cancer?
Speaker 2: So they had lung cancer, breast cancer, and brain tumor.
Speaker 0: My god.
Speaker 2: Three different cancers.
Speaker 0: Why? Why is this I mean, I know that's a longer question, but why are so many young people developing such aggressive cancers nowadays?
Speaker 2: I have a theory. And right now, it's I'm sort of 90% sure of the theory. I'm not a 100% sure, so I'm a scientist, so I'm calling it a theory. I was always fearful that this virus and even this vaccine could actually be persistent in your body like HPV. You know, there are viruses that are oncogenic like hepatitis, you would understand that.
There's HPV, you would understand that. But this is a very different virus because it has a thing called ACE two receptor, which means it's in places like your colon, your muscle, your blood vessel, your heart. But more importantly, we now begin to discover that you have even more proteins in your body or enzymes in your body that cleaves the spike protein and allows even more entry into every part of your body, specifically the prostate, the colon, the pancreas, and we'll talk a little bit about that. So is this, unfortunately, what I said to Tucker Carlson, the noninfectious pandemic that we're beginning to see. This noninfectious pandemic of cancer, I believe, sadly, is upon us.
Good news, thank God, we have a solution for these things.
Speaker 0: Keep going.
Speaker 2: No. I I I I'm I'm good. I I think it really bothers me as you could sort of see I'm but also scared at the same time
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 2: That, you know, cancer is a war against time. We do not have time, but we have the insight. I just hope that somehow, somewhere, and hopefully I'll have Secretary Kennedy host a scientific meeting, a real I mean, we have to be driven by the science. And the science is so complex because it's very fundamental basic immunology, fundamental basic immunology crossed over with virology, crossed over with oncology. And you're a lawyer, so you would understand that you have great specialties within their fields, and you have generalists.
But this is so deep. It's broad and deep and has implications all the way through that is now I wouldn't call it existential, but could affect tens of millions, billions of people on the planet.
Speaker 0: Just to just to back up, because you're talking about the COVID virus. Can this be happening, this this problem that you outlined in inside of our bodies, including young people's bodies, as a result of both COVID and the vaccine? Will both of those do it? Or do people who have had COVID but not the vaccine not need to worry?
Speaker 2: It is fundamental, the spike protein. So where does the spike protein come from? Whether you have vaccination or whether you have, the infection. So this spike protein on the surface of this virus or given through a lipid nanoparticle in mRNA is the same issue. So fundamentally, that's the issue.
The issue is the spike protein. Now the spike protein gets a little more complex. There's a thing called s one and s two where the tip of the spear is s one, and that tip of the spear is what actually binds to the receptor of the cell membrane of your body that has ace two and gets into the cell. So whatever delivers that spike protein, whether it be infection or the vaccine, to every part of your body. When you put it into a lipid nanoparticle, that can go all over the place, including across the brain.
So I do know that there's evidence that people have long COVID having never gotten an infection because you can measure the thing called the nucleocapsid antibody in their blood, and the nucleocapsid only comes from the virus. And if you just have a long COVID with no nuclear capsule and all you had was a vaccine, then the long COVID comes from the vaccine. Wow. So there's a scientific way of differentiating the two. So the short answer is both, because both create a spike protein.
Then the question is So so
Speaker 0: Yes. Keep going.
Speaker 2: Then the question is what's happening to that spike protein? And that's another lengthy basic fundamental
Speaker 0: cellular So if I wave my magic wand and I and I make you head of FDA, let's let's just go for health and human services, you're in charge of all of it.
Speaker 2: K.
Speaker 0: Tomorrow, would you say we're we're bringing this to market, and anyone who's had COVID or the COVID vaccine should take this jab, take my jab, this BioStrike thing?
Speaker 2: The answer to that is already on the market, crazy enough for bladder cancer. Cancer. It's already in the package insert that this is the only drug on the planet in the history of medicine. It's in the package insert section 7.1 of the FDA of the 2024 approved that it's the only molecule on the planet that upregulates the natural killer cell T cell and memory T cell. So that's what's frustrating to me.
And we got expanded access. After
Speaker 0: 2000, I '20 didn't hear you say yes. Are you worried? Is there a to taking this that you would say no, not yet? I would not recommend that.
Speaker 2: I'm not hesitating to say yes. The answer is yes, but I don't want to be perceived as you ask a question in a way that puts me in a difficult position because I am the founder and developer of that drug. I'd want anybody to use anything, even whether it be mine or anybody else's. The fact that ours is available, the answer is yes. But if there's h two decoy available, the answer is yes.
If there's another model
Speaker 0: Is this something you give to your family, your your children? Like you would Is that something you would do?
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about my family, but I am telling you that we have t cell we have t cells against COVID.
Speaker 0: This t cell you're saying can solve the problem for people like I've said openly that I started testing positive for an autoimmune issue following getting the COVID vaccine and then COVID within three weeks of each other. And ever since I've had a positive test for autoimmune, though it's unspecified, they don't know exactly what it is. So I mean I've been very interested in undoing that somehow, but I don't know how. But I know others are suffering with this just from having had COVID. So I mean, I think there are a lot of people who like, can the damage that we did to ourselves either by getting a vaccine or by getting COVID, can it be undone?
Speaker 2: Yes. The answer is I I believe so. So let me explain that to you. The the fundamental problem with the current vaccines is it does not clear the virus. By that, it means the vaccine will block something, but the virus will go into the cell.
The next fundamental problem, which has now been proven, and I funded that science at the University of California Center in Frisco, that this virus at the spike level persists in your body in the cells, even to the extent that now at Harvard there's a researcher discovered that the spike protein is in the blood. And when you have this abnormal protein and with an abnormal RNA in in your body, your body will find a way to create antibodies to try and block that, and this is an onset of autoimmune disease. The combination of persistence, inflammation, and one more thing, the loss of a thing called p 53, which is in your body to protect you from having cancer, that triple whammy is a prelude to cancer. That triple whammy is a prelude to autoimmune disease. That prelude is a prelude to brain fog.
So is the answer to find a system that upregulates your NK cells and T cells and clears your body, those cells, of this infected spike protein. So that is what we are embarking upon on the treatment of long COVID. And I'm pleased to say that within the next couple of weeks, our trial will be open where people with on COVID could come and get the jab. Wow. But the fundamental thing, Megan, is the world needs to recognize that we've gone down the wrong assumptions for seventy five years.
We have thought that we could, using, tools of war, poisons like nitrogen gas and that became the chemotherapy. Poisons like radiation. That if we could nuke the tumor without killing the person, we would be able to win the war. We're nuking the tumor and we're nuking the natural killer cells and t cells. Now think of this vicious cycle.
We give chemotherapy, we give radiation, we do a CBC, we see that, oh my goodness, you have anemia because we created that. Though now there's a drug called Epogen. We give you the Epogen so that you can get more chemotherapy so that it can wipe out more NK and T cells. We then look at the patient's CBC again and says, my goodness, you've lost your neutrophils. There's another drug called Neupogen which we give so that we can give you more chemotherapy so that you can wipe out more lymphocytes and NK cells.
Think of that madness that we've been doing. If we said, why don't you go do leaching, you know, use the leaches, I think twenty years from now, maybe less, we'll say, why were we doing that to to to to the patient's body? When you go to the FDA, guess how they ask you to develop the drug? They use this term called MTD. What is MTD?
Maximum tolerated dose. Find the maximum tolerated dose. That's the dose that we want you to give just below the maximum tolerated dose. That's the current thinking of the FDA. It's not talking about any human being.
There are some people there that are still perpetuating that. They're still there. Then they say, okay, because this maximum tolerated dose is going to nuke it, we look at the response rate, meaning the shrinkage of the tumor. Well, do you want to look at the overall survival because the tumor will shrink but the patient will die? No, we're not really interested in overall survival as an endpoint.
Can you imagine that? Is today's thinking.
Speaker 0: I can imagine it, because that seems to be our choice. It seems to be a willing choice because we've gone so long without making much progress on the cancer front. And I naively believed with the COVID vaccine that if there were some negative consequence to it, and I realize you're telling me to COVID too, but I thought with the vaccine that was man made, well, so is the COVID vaccine COVID virus, that they the pharmaceutical companies that had created it would be first in line to fix it, that they would be the ones coming up with BioStrike because they'd say, oh, no. Look what we did. We helped unleash this thing into people's blood, and it's affecting the brain barrier and everything.
And they haven't. They they don't acknowledge that there's a problem whatsoever. They're still just pushing 27 boosters on the same people they, you know, jabbed to begin with.
Speaker 2: Well, what's so what's so disappointing, very early on they knew about the myocarditis. That's really disappointing. They really knew Very about early on, I wrote letters and emails to Fauci in twenty twenty, twenty one that we have lymphopenia, that we don't clear the virus. Very early on, they knew they didn't clear the virus. But, you know, you had the perception it was 95% efficacious, which it wasn't.
So there's a lot of, you know, perverse incentives here. And I think we just need to recognize, unfortunately, the consequences of it now.
Speaker 0: Needed a needed a pardon. That's why he needed a pardon. Do you do you have thoughts on you you treated Bo Biden or tried to help the family when he was suffering with glioblastoma. What do you make of Joe Biden's statement that he had prostate cancer that, you know, now it's aggressive bone cancer, metastatic?
Speaker 2: You know, obviously I don't know the details, and I'm I don't know if you just saw, we are now seeing prostate cancer in 40 and 50 year old people kids. And there is I'm coming back to the spike protein. There is a enzyme in the prostate called Temprus. There's a protein in your body, in the prostate and colon in different parts of the body, that helps to actually cleave that spike protein and get it into those cells of your body faster. So now you have a triple whammy of these turbo cancers and these aggressive cancers.
So I just spoke to Doctor. Dan Petrelick who's at Yale, a urologist, who's seeing very aggressive germline tumors, very aggressive prostate cancers in young people.
Speaker 0: You say forty or 50, or did you say 14 and 15?
Speaker 2: In prostate cancer, forty or 50. In colon cancer, we're seeing colon cancer in 10 year old, 11 year old, and 12 year olds.
Speaker 0: That's horrifying.
Speaker 2: And that's what's so scary, right? Because we need to pull our heads out of the sand and try to understand what's going on and not get into this regulatory political issue or fight and say, listen, we we gotta pull together and really look at solutions now. Mhmm. And time is not on our side.
Speaker 0: Alright. Now, we're up against the end of our time on SiriusXM, but I have to say the following. Number one, we'll talk about the LA Times another time. This is too important. This is far more important than media.
Number two, I know all those characters we just discussed. I know Marty, I know Jay, and I know Bobby Kennedy, who I know you also know. I'm going to personally contact all three of them and do what I can to help you get this in, and get the government involved in helping you, because this is the cancer moonshot, and you've got it. Like we're we're well on our way. So that's what I'll do, and I will do anything else I can to help you, doc.
I'm in awe. I'm in awe of what you've done, and I'm also deeply saddened that you haven't had a red carpet rolled out for you. Thank you for for doing this.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. Thank you very much. And and you've now gone from BioShield to BioStrike. So Tucker had called it BioShield, you're calling it BioStrike. We've called it both.
Speaker 0: I kinda like BioStrike. That might be better to to to combat the strike protein among other things. Thank you. Thanks, Doug. And I I hope we talk again.
Speaker 2: Will do. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Wow. Wow. What an unbelievable story, unbelievable man. Stand by. We'll have more.
We'll have Kelly's Court tomorrow, and we'll see you then. Remember when you were a kid with an iron stomach? Pizza, ice cream, chips, PB, nothing fazed you. But these days, if you are like most people, you feel like your stomach can be a bear trap, one wrong bite, and you're done. Here's the thing.
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@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Chelsea, what we are seeing in the replies to your post is that while you love to play fake philanthropist, absolutely no one wants your family of grifters anywhere near those suffering in Texas, Haiti or anywhere else.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
The replies to this post are AMAZING.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
EXCLUSIVE: @TulsiGabbard on Investigating the Leaks, Fighting the Deep State, and Whether She'll Run in 2028 WATCH: https://t.co/LzxzoSt05U
Video Transcript AI Summary
Megan Kelly interviews Tulsi Gabbard, now overseeing 18 intelligence agencies, about her new role and current issues. Gabbard emphasizes refocusing the intelligence community on its core mission, transparency, and accountability. She says she is pushing for declassification of documents, including those related to the JFK and RFK assassinations.
Gabbard created a special team to investigate COVID-19 origins, including gain of function research, potentially U.S. funded, at the Wuhan lab. She warns against U.S. funded bio labs in Ukraine. Gabbard addresses the politicization of intelligence, citing the Iraq war.
She discusses the dangers of conflict with Iran, advocating for peaceful means and rigorous verification in any deal. Gabbard highlights the threat posed by cartels, now a top security concern, and efforts to counter them. She also mentions a minerals deal with Ukraine, aiming for taxpayer repayment.
Gabbard notes the closure of a DEI office and an office of human capital, saving millions. She condemns the use of DEI initiatives for professional advancement and addresses a sexually explicit chat group within the NSA. Gabbard confirms the Biden administration used Signal for confidential chats. She does not rule out a future presidential run.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly show. We have a very special program for you this morning all about Tulsi Gabbard. When I first met Tulsi, she was still a democrat, and it was early on in her career when she first came on this show, we didn't even have audio.
We didn't even have video. It was an audio only podcast. And you could hear her with the birds tweeting in the background from her home state of Hawaii, and the two of us were wondering what our next move was in life. This podcast was fledgling. She had been ostracized by the Democrats and the Democrat party, and here we are five years later both in very different places.
She's now running at the top of 18 intelligence agencies and I'm down here interviewing her at the office of the director of national intelligence. So many did not want her to get this post because while Hillary Clinton and others accused her of being Putin's puppet, etcetera, what crushes them about Tulsi Gabbard is she's no one's puppet. She won't be bought, she won't be bullied, and she won't be cowed in saying how she really feels by the military industrial complex or anyone else. So we just completed a fascinating hour long talk about so many different things. It's Tulsi like you've seen her a bit before, you know, still straightforward and moving and honest in her commentary, but in a brand new, really big role.
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Text m k to 989898 today. Kelsey Gabbard. I'm so excited to be
Speaker 1: here with you. There's significance to where we are. Why? Yes. So we're sitting here in the lobby of the buildings known as Liberty Crossing, of the office of director of national intelligence.
This organization was formed because of the disaster of the intelligence community that led that could have prevented, the attack on nine eleven had there been an integration of intelligence, had the CIA been talking to the FBI and all of these different people who had different pieces of information but weren't talking to and sharing that information intelligence with each other, followed by the the intelligence failure of the Iraq war that ultimately led to the creation of this organization. So we're sitting here in the lobby. This is the very first interview that's ever been done in this lobby and and potentially in this building anywhere. So I'm honored. It's a special day.
I am And this is the twentieth anniversary of the the founding of this organization.
Speaker 0: Wow. Yeah. Your role was created after 09/11
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 0: As a result of all that. Now you oversee 18 intelligence agencies. Yes.
Speaker 1: Can I
Speaker 0: just ask you as a practical matter? You come in. You had a background in intelligence when you were
Speaker 1: in the house. It's not like you'd never touched it. In in I was on the armed services and the foreign affair committee. So it was interesting as a member of congress there for eight years on those subject matter committees. I was a customer of intelligence, very frequently, some of the highest levels of intelligence as well as kind of the the broader intelligence briefings that we had.
And so I, at that time, experienced a level of frustration that's common if you were to ask most members of congress in that the briefings that we received then more often than not, were things that we had already read about in the newspaper or seen on the news the night before and just didn't get much value from it to better inform the decisions that we had to make related to our military or military operations or foreign policy decisions. And and that was you know, I I left congress, and, my last day was 01/03/2021. And as I was, going through the confirmation process for this job and I was meeting with the different senators, it was interesting that they expressed that same frustration to me, and many of these senators were members of the Intelligence Committee Wow. Which really spoke to, how much work, there is to do Mhmm. Still.
So you show up here,
Speaker 0: you get confirmed. Yeah. I mean, what's the first thing that as a practical matter, do you say, like, let me see the JFK files?
Speaker 1: Like, what do you do? I I have a long list of things I'm working through. But, honestly, the the first thing that I did was actually, send out an email to, all the people who work here and said, I'll be down here in this lobby where we are right now. I think it was at 12:00. And, if you're free, I'd love to come and introduce myself and say hello.
It was standing room only here. I was grateful to be able to have the opportunity to just immediately address those who work here, intelligence professionals, analysts, people who are subject matter experts in different areas, some of the support staff who are here and kinda keep the lights on. And and they gave me a very warm welcome, and I laid out who I am, my background, and the mandate that the American people delivered, by electing Donald Trump and and why I'm here. The purpose that we all are here for, to serve the American people, to ensure their safety, security, and freedom, first and foremost. And let me just tell you this, I got a number of notes.
I told them, let me know what you think is is going right. Let me know what you think needs fixing. You can find my email address. You can find my number. And I started to get notes from people, one of which came from a guy who has worked here since its founding.
And it it really, I'll never forget it because he said, not once has any other director ever come and done anything like this. Wow. And second, he said, I'm so happy that you're here and the changes that you seek to make, now I can finally breathe.
Speaker 0: Oh. Wow.
Speaker 1: So a simple gesture of coming and saying, this is who I am. I look forward to working with you to serve our country, to refocus the intelligence community back on its core mission, to get rid of the distractions, the weaponization, and all of the other noise that has undermined the trust that the American people, may have had long ago in the intelligence community, it it just speaks to, the vacuum of that leadership that unfortunately has existed for so long.
Speaker 0: So how do you I I have no doubt that the people in this building like you as a person, but you have to fight the deep state's loathing of your boss. Right? I mean, there's no question. There's a fair amount of loathing by democrat, you know, lifers that work in these buildings for him. Yes.
And that's why I think we see leaks, you know, whether it's at the Pentagon or from here. And you've had a couple and you've handled them very well and very firmly. But how do you battle that? I mean, it's like Yeah. They have an agenda.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I'm sure there are people who work here and within the intelligence committee community, who who probably don't think or speak very kindly of me either, specifically because, again, through the president's leadership and the mandate of the American people, I know exactly what I need to do here, and how deep the rot is, within the intelligence community that has to be rooted out. So, yes, bringing about transparency and accountability, shining a light in areas, that that haven't seen the light in a very long time, if ever, really pushing for the declassification of of documents that the president has listed in several of his executive orders, and reminding people here, especially in the area of declassification, there's so much protection. We gotta hold on to all the secrets instead of really thinking about what is in the best public interest. And so, obviously, starting with the assassination documents related to president John f Kennedy, senator Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Junior is the starting point, but there are many other areas where we have to bring about transparency.
We have in order to achieve accountability, and deliver that to the American people, reminding people here every single day that the American taxpayers pay for this building. Yeah. There are secrets. Exactly. They keep the lights on.
They are the ones who who, are funding your paycheck that's paying for your rent, your mortgage, your ability to feed your family. That the the American people are who we work for. So any other level of protectionism of, like, well, we don't want this agency to be embarrassed by what we are going to expose in the truth to the American people, it's a wrongheaded mindset and speaks to this the huge culture shift, the mindset shift that has to take place here. And and this is this is the bigger thing that we are tackling here and that the that the president is tackling, and we're attacking across the entire federal government.
Speaker 0: Did we learn something new in the RFK and JFK documents in particular? My I didn't follow it that closely, to be honest. But my takeaway was most people thought it didn't add that much. Am I wrong?
Speaker 1: I gotta say I'm not someone who has studied these over the years, so I'm probably about where you are. Yeah. There were new, pieces of information.
Speaker 0: Did you get a
Speaker 1: briefing from somebody who said, holy god. It really was the CIA? No. Okay. And those who are experts on this, who've studied this for a long time, did not find what they were looking for.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: So, yes, there was new, intelligence and information that was declassified that had not ever been seen by the public before. There were new revelations that came through. But in both of those cases, and in a few days, we're releasing another, I think, 50 or 60,000 pages related to senator Robert f Kennedy's assassination because we had to go out and hunt and find those files stuck in other warehouses. But whether or not it delivers the quote unquote smoking gun, the important thing is that the transparency is there.
Speaker 0: What's even more reason to release it Exactly. If it doesn't have anything you know, it's like you must have looked at some of this and said, why was this kept a secret for so long?
Speaker 1: Exactly. It just sends people spinning. Exactly.
Speaker 0: On the subject of documents that we'd like to see but haven't, COVID and its origins. Yeah. Sure you saw that just before we sat down tonight, the Chinese State Council Information Office, I don't even wanna know what that is, but it sounds bad. They have determined that COVID came from us, that it's more likely than not that COVID originated in The United States and not in China. I'm wondering whether you have any dispute with that based on what you've seen over here.
The intelligence community has been responsible for trying to figure out in part Yeah.
Speaker 1: How this thing started. So I created a a kind of a special teams group, the director's initiative group, that is focused on investigating, a number of the president's top priorities and and the things that the American people really deserve and want to know the truth about. The origins of COVID nineteen is one of them. So they are actively working on that. A lot of the work that's been done is on COVID.gov.
Have you had a chance to look Oh, he Trump changed it. It's Yeah. Quite a transformation of the website. Yeah. For anybody watching, if you haven't seen it, check it out.
Speaker 0: It's the annoying website to which YouTube and all social media used to refer people with Fauci talking points, and now it's been completely Completely reversed.
Speaker 1: So so it's a lot a lot of what's been found is is already there. But the thing that, we are working with, Jay Bhattacharya, the new NIH director on, with as well as secretary Kennedy, is looking at the gain of function research, that in the case of the Wuhan lab as well as many others many of these other bio labs around the world was actually US funded and leads to this dangerous kind of research that, in many examples, has resulted in, either a pandemic or some other major health crisis.
Speaker 0: Specifically because we already know that EcoHealth Alliance was partnering with this Wuhan lab to create to do gain and function research. That's right. We just have never been able to have somebody say, it and it was that exact experiment that led to this COVID bug.
Speaker 1: But it have have we gotten there? What's the new thing that you're digging in on? We we are we are working on that with, Jay Bhattacharya and look forward to being able to share that, hopefully, very soon.
Speaker 0: Okay.
Speaker 1: That that specific Link. Correct. Between the gain of function research and what we saw with COVID nineteen.
Speaker 0: I mean, that would be extraordinary because just so the audience knows, if that's true, if it was Peter Daseck's research with the Wuhan so called bat lady that caused this pandemic, then we did fund it. Then Anthony Fauci helped fund the pandemic.
Speaker 1: These things that he denied over and over and over to senator Rand Paul's questioning. That's right. Under oath. It it it an under oath. Exactly.
So it is is it any wonder that he sought a preemptive pardon for anything during a certain period of time, by president Biden before he left office. And then strong armed and smeared people like doctor j Badajarya, anybody who came out and said, I don't know if that's natural. This actually smacks of lab. And and the reason why this is so important is not just what happened in the past. It's because this gain of function research is happening in bio labs around the world.
I got attacked, and I think you saw this. We've probably talked about on your show before when I warned against US funded bio labs in Ukraine when the Russia Ukraine war kicked off for this very reason. Who knows what kinds of pathogens are in these labs and if released could create another COVID like pandemic? And for that, I was called a Russian asset. You're, you know, trumpeting Putin's talking points, all of this nonsense simply for speaking the truth and stating facts that, by the way, are still on US embassy Ukraine's website today about how The US has funded these bio labs in Ukraine.
But in order to my point is in order to prevent another COVID like pandemic or another major health incident that could affect us in in the world, we have to we have to end this gain of function research and provide the evidence that shows exactly why and how it's in our best interest, the American people's best interest to bring about an end to it. Can I
Speaker 0: just ask you one other question on that? Why did the intelligence community why were they so reluctant to just say that? You know, under Joe Biden, it was it was split. The FBI eventually said, well, we kind of think it was a lab. Good And Department of said lab.
But then the other agencies were like, no. We think more natural origin long past the point when it did not look like natural origin. They tested 80 or 90,000 animals. They never found this version of the virus. So what was going on with the intel community there?
Speaker 1: You know, it's a it's a good question, and I don't have a specific answer to it. But I wanna point to the contrast of how, in some cases, they are very unwilling to come to express a view or a certain opinion on something. And in other cases, even if they don't have decisive or conclusive evidence per se, they're very quickly to come to an assumption. This this gets to the real heart of the challenge here and the problems that we've seen is the politicization of intelligence to meet a certain objective or to influence a certain policy. And that that is what has been the problem.
This goes all the way back to why this organization was founded. When you look at the so called intelligence that really was used to spur the Iraq regime change war. And look at what that has cost our country in lives and treasure. Look at what it's cost the world. Look at what what Iraq is today, now essentially a a proxy of Iran when Iraq that that would not have happened had that regime change war, not occurred.
That's right. So so, again, this is this is really what is at the heart of needs of what needs to be addressed within the intelligence community and why leadership matters so much.
Speaker 0: And just as a reminder to our audience, you were a young 21 year old state assembly person in Hawaii. And two years after that, you signed up, you enlisted in the National Guard, and when you were deployed to Iraq. Yeah. So you know firsthand Right. The about the blood and
Speaker 1: served in a medical unit, and it was it was with a unit out of Hawaii, brigade com infantry brigade combat team. And my first task every single day was to go through a list of all of those who had, been casualties a day before those who were injured. I was the first one notified when there was someone who was killed in action. And, ultimately, to make sure that those who were injured either got the medical care they needed, that they were evacuated as quickly as possible, and then making sure that they were getting that care all the way until they got home or getting them back out into the field. But every day, going through this list of names and thinking about those at home who I knew because I heard from my parents, were worrying and and terrified of their phone ringing and the most terrible outcome, of their loved one, their husband or wife or son or daughter or brother or sister, being in a position where they have paid the ultimate price and service to our country.
And and this is this is such an important thing because too often, as you know very well, covering all of these issues for so long that you have politicians who debate whether do we go to war here or there, do we go topple this government or that government? And and too often, it is so detached from the real consequences that come from those decisions. And and we see the same reflected here at times again when we have people who are working within the intelligence community who perhaps in some cases have bit become too too detached from, the impact of their work on those who are making life and death decisions Mhmm. For our country and and the potential to either go to war or to prevent war as president Trump is trying to do on many fronts. And you have those who are co opted by the military industrial complex abusing their position to to to feed or manipulate intelligence, as we saw with the Iraq war to to start a new war.
This is this this, intelligence community, the work that gets done in places like this every single day has that power Mhmm. To be the the fodder, the fuel, the seed that can lead to yet another unnecessary You
Speaker 0: you're overseeing the group that could cause it. Yes. Heat Hecht says overseeing the group that would have to do it. Right. And both of you are in very powerful positions in advising president Trump about the risks and rewards.
Right. There was a New York Times article within the past month saying you, he, JD Vance, and his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles were all together in urging him to not go too far on our actions against Iran. That we should not give Netanyahu what he wanted by either participating in or boldly and robustly supporting Israel bombing Iran, that that's a proxy for us and we there's no way we wouldn't be heavily involved. And that is not a position The United States wants to be in. And President Trump did not do it.
He did not give Netanyahu the answer he wanted.
Speaker 1: I know you're not gonna get into the specifics of what you advise the president, but can you can you explain your view of the dangers of barreling toward a potential conflict with Iran? Yeah. The the the New York Times article was a result of an unfortunate unauthorized, and illegal leak of of a very private conversation between the president and his advisers. I won't get into the details, but it was a very robust discussion that really speaks to president Trump's care and thoughtfulness as he makes, his decisions around these very serious issues of war, and peace. You know, ultimately, what we are doing is providing the president with the facts, the intelligence.
Here is what the intelligence is telling us, as as the secretary of defense. Here are the options that are on the table and the likely outcomes that could occur if you go with course of action a, b, or c. And ultimately, it's the president who who makes the decision, and he has made it clear time and time again, that his goal with Iran, First of all, they cannot be in a position where they can develop or have a nuclear weapon, and that he believes and is confident in, the the opportunity that this moment provides to be able to achieve that outcome through peaceful means, through diplomacy, and through negotiations. And he knows that that's what's in the best interest for the American people, and for the world. On the Iran front, here's the argument that the more neocon crew makes.
Speaker 0: Alright. This is from Mark Dubowitz of Defense of Democracies, one of these think tanks in Washington that wants a hard line toward them. He recently tweeted, quote, the Islamic Republic is weaker than ever, hated by most Iranians, hammered by the IDF and Mossad. Its terror armies, meaning Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah. Air defense, missile production capability are in ruins.
Never a better time to dismantle its new program and finish off the regime. Will another president blink? How is he wrong? First of all, the military option is always on the table. The president often talks about peace through strength, and
Speaker 1: he means what he says when he talks about his objective, which is also prime minister Netanyahu's objective. And I think many countries in the world would agree that Iran cannot be in a position to have a nuclear weapon or to develop a nuclear weapon. That is unequivocal. How we get there is really the question. The president is of the mind as he has been consistently through his first term in office as he is now.
If there is a way to achieve what is in our best national security interests through peaceful means, through negotiations, not blind trust like, okay. We're just gonna believe whatever they say. Not at all. Any deal that is potentially made with Iran will have to come with a very, very rigorous set of of verification means. Nothing like the failure that was the JCPOA that president Obama, negotiated.
The deal that president Trump, through his, very talented and exceptional ambassador in Steve Witkoff, is negotiating is a deal that will best serve the security interests of the American people.
Speaker 0: Do you feel the push, Tulsi, the push of this, like, strong neocon strain that's still within the Republican Party and probably in this agent these agencies that's much more hawkish on an issue including war in The Middle East, which we've just done for twenty years?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Of course. The pressure's there. The debate is happening in the public, which I think is a good thing. It's a positive thing that we're hearing from different elements.
Yes. Even within the Republican Party. Even if they're leaking?
Speaker 0: I mean, because we're hearing from them that way.
Speaker 1: The the leaks should not the the leaks have to end. If the president can't have the confidence that he can sit in a room with his closest advisers without it leaking to the public, then that that is something that really undermines his being best served with the best possible information, with debate, robust debate around the table, which you look at the team of people he's assembled, he likes that debate because he sees the value in hearing different perspectives so that he can make that best informed decision. But when we look at this debate that's happening kind of in the in the the public town square, whether it be digital or TV or or whatever the platform is there, I think it's important for the American people to see the contrast and the difference between the neocons who are very ready to rush into war, without allowing what president Kennedy spoke about in his historic speech at American University, which was, to choose peace, to do the hard work of diplomacy, to recognize the true cost and the serious cost of war, and that it requires strong leadership to do the hard work of diplomacy in order to achieve peace however and wherever possible, and that it's not something that you just go, okay.
Good. We got peace, and then you walk away. No. It requires consistent engagement and that strong leadership that once again strikes that balance and recognizes that we cannot be prosperous unless we are at peace as a nation and ensuring our nation's security. We have the the strongest and most capable military in the world.
Right. And I can say as someone who still serves in the army reserve and has now for twenty two years
Speaker 0: You're too busy for that.
Speaker 1: And my a little bit. But my you know, those who I've had the privilege of serving alongside, I had the chance to go and do some PT with Pete Hegseth I the marines the other day.
Speaker 0: Did you still got it? Are you still there?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm giving the kids a run for their money, and I'm I'm good with that.
Speaker 0: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: But but it's recognizing, again, yes, we have the capability to defend our safety, security, and freedom anywhere, anytime. But it takes a strong leader and a strong president to choose peace and diplomacy recognizing that war and the use of our military because of the sacrifices of these young men and women from all across the country that is required when you go to war. President Trump takes that very seriously.
Speaker 0: And I mean, I appreciate as a mother of an of an 11, 14, and 15 year old, I appreciate that. I do not want somebody with their foot on the gas pedal recklessly pushing us into yet another war, and I think I speak for most people in the country on that. The leaks, we touched on it. It must be very disconcerting to be in a private meeting with the president with only top top people, and then a day later see it on the pages of the New York Times. Clearly, I I'm I assume you trust your fellow cabinet members and so on implicitly, but everyone has to speak to a staff about what happened and what needs to happen.
And I wonder how rattling that is because you're in the same position in a way that Pete Hegstaff is in Yeah. Where people underneath you appear to be leaking even top secret information that you can go to jail for leaking. That's right. But they clearly have such an agenda, it's worth it to them. Yeah.
So how has that affected you? And you're dealing with it with a firm hand, how has it affected you when this happens?
Speaker 1: You know, you mentioned that that example of that New York Times article. There there were a number of things in that article that were completely inaccurate, which speaks to, again and there there is an investigation that's underway to try to figure out the source of this leak or sources of this leak around that specific incident. But but the effect is, I mean, it it makes things much harder in in constantly questioning and looking over your shoulder. Okay. Who's in the room?
I have to be careful about everything that I say, because, ultimately, we're in a situation where these things being leaked either by people who are just trying to show a reporter that they're important or chasing clout of some sort or the most dangerous of which is those who are trying ultimately undermine the president's policies. And and this is not just like, okay, we don't like Trump or someone who who's has a problem with president Trump and his policies. Really, what is happening when they do that is they're undermining our democracy. Because what they're doing in whatever tactic they use is saying, well, I'm doing what's best for the country, and I know what's better for the country than the majority, the vast majority of the American people who chose this duly elected president, Donald Trump. And that that's where I you can agree or disagree with his policies, but when people cross that line who are in these positions of power and influence, they are actually undermining our democracy and our security in doing so.
Speaker 0: You've referred three people now to DOJ for criminal prosecution. Do you think they will be prosecuted? That's the goal. That's the goal.
Speaker 1: And only other way we can think about accountability is, by doing the work of of conducting these investigations. The Department of Justice and the FBI obviously have different tools that they can use in order to, to find the truth and to to seek out that evidence so that we can actually prosecute these crimes
Speaker 0: know they've been referred? Like, they do they still work
Speaker 1: here? Some cases, in some cases, know. In other cases, they are likely not aware. We have another 11 cases that we are still conducting our own internal investigations around. Some will be sent to the Department of Justice, for further investigation and prosecution for criminal charges because it is a crime.
It's a federal crime. And others, depending on the situation will be dealt with, internally where people will be fired and have their security clearance revoked.
Speaker 0: One of the leaks was it spoke to what Trump is trying to do with the deportations. Not the securing of the southern border, but the deportations. Yeah. And he has declared under the Alien Enemies Act an invasion or incursion, in part saying that the Venezuelan government has dispatched Trende Aragua, this gang, to come into The United States and commit mayhem. And one of the things that was leaked from someone in the intel community was that didn't happen.
There is no official link between the Venezuelan government and Trenda, Aragua. Therefore, it's not an incursion. It's not an invasion. It's a very clear why somebody would leak that Yeah. Try to undermine the president's use of the Alien Enemies Act.
Yeah. Is that one of the leaks being investigated?
Speaker 1: It is being investigated. There's a few things to add to that to kinda color out the picture. One of the most often tactics that, these leakers use is they will take let's say it's a six page top secret classified document, and they will pull a line from page one and a line from page two and a line from page three that that when put together supports the narrative that they are trying to push but is not at all reflective of the, of the kind of conclusive analysis in that report. And, that's exactly what happened in this case. So they they very selectively and intentionally left out what was really the most important thing, which was that the FBI very clearly is the intelligence element that is responsible for domestic security.
So it shouldn't be a surprise then that they are the element that said yes. The Maduro, Venezuelan government is supporting Tren de Aragua and their criminal activities here enabled by president Biden's four years of open borders where they very freely came in and out of our country and were able to to begin to control territory here in The United States. The CIA doesn't collect intelligence here in The United States because that that is not, within their writ or their authorities. So, again, this is where we look at the ways that intelligence leaks are politicized is by the selective picking and choosing, and and very clearly leaving out the thing that actually, supports what the president is doing here. I'm I'm listening to you.
I I'm rolling my eyes at the thought of a judge trying to overrule effectively you and president Trump on whether it's been an incursion, on whether the intel supports this link without having any access Yeah.
Speaker 0: To any of these materials. Yeah. I mean, when you see the courts really trying to get involved in this and seeming to be on a road towards saying we we are allowed to declare whether there is an incursion or they're not. How what's your reaction then?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's such a dangerous thing. And, again, it's it's preposterous in my view that these judges the judicial branch obviously plays an important role in our three, you know, co equal branches of government, but they should understand what their role is. And these activist judges who now somehow believe that they're in the position of making policy by undermining the president's legal authorities and orders bestowed upon him by the American people. He did the hard work and put his name on the ballot and ran for office. If these judges wanna run for office and be president, go ahead and do that.
Go make your policies. Go state your views and your opinions. But they are politicizing the bench and and, you know, showing how through their activism, they are undermining, really frankly, their own credibility in doing this. And, again, another thing that undermines the American people's faith and trust that these institutions, that the the the judicial branch in some of these cases is actually, doing their job.
Speaker 0: You do a presidential daily brief every day. Yeah. You don't do a judicial daily brief every don't sit with judge Boesburg or the US Supreme Court and tell them all the things that he hears. No. That's what's so absurd about it.
Speaker 1: Crazy. One more thing I'll add on that because you mentioned of of leakers within the intelligence community. Unfortunately, we have them, and they have been there for far too long, and we are trying to root them out. But there's also another source of leaks in coming from congress where certain staffers and members of congress have access to this very same intelligence. And, as you can imagine, some may find it in their interest to selectively leak intelligence once again to to support the talking points that they are delivering that are undermining the president's actions to root out these cartels and these gangs to keep the American people safe.
When we just take a step back and look at the arguments that many of these Democrats in congress are making and how hard they are fighting and these judges, it makes zero sense, in in really, president Trump's mission is very clear. We are trying to make our country safe. We're getting rid of the most dangerous of gangs and criminals and cartels. How is this not the most bipartisan issue They say they need due
Speaker 0: process in the country. More due process.
Speaker 1: Right. But but not when they illegally came across the border. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: We didn't get any. You you guys have been helping with that. I wanna ask you about this. This is the this is the National Counterterrorism Center's border security Yeah. Has actually helped president Trump Yeah.
Quite a bit in in nabbing a bunch of these gang members from what I can see. Leads on approximately, what, 750 individuals in The US who have ties to some of these gangs like Right. Trenda, Aragua, MS thirteen Yeah. And also the Sinaloa cartel. Mhmm.
Can we spend some time let's first speak about that. Sure. And then let's spend some time on the cartels, which I saw you recently listed as your number one security concern above Iran, above China, above Russia, the cartel. So let's do it in that order. Sure.
The the the winds at the border and how you guys are helping.
Speaker 1: So so as we started the conversation, we talked about why this organization exists. The ODNI exists to be that integrating element pulling together information in this case from the DEA who's been focused on these cartels for a very long time because of their counter narcotics trade, the intelligence that the FBI has collected as they're looking at the criminal activities that these cartels are conducting right here in communities all across the country. You look at, the databases that we already have in place and have had in place for a very long time in in, being able to keep track of known and suspected Islamist terrorists from different parts of the world who may be trying to come into our country. Or did come in under Biden. Well, that's exactly the point.
And so, this is kind of the nucleus for all of the intelligence and information that's being collected about all these different individuals, and it allows us, our National Counterterrorism Center, great people who work there, they they deliver almost every day on keeping the American people safe in some of the examples that you mentioned of of providing information on these over 750, individuals who we know are members of these three major cartels. Just yesterday, identifying almost 600 people who are known or suspected terrorists, who illegally came into our country, who applied for asylum under Joe Biden's administration, and who were then released out into our country. And so being able to get their names and and work with the FBI, work with Department of Homeland Security, for the cartels working with the DEA so that we can find them and either prosecute them or immediately deport them, and get them out of our country, and to stop stop them from entering into our country in the first place either by legal or illegal means.
Speaker 0: Before we get to the cartels, what's your level of confidence? And you can't speak for DHS, but within the intel community, the ones that you guys are identifying, what's your level of confidence that they actually are gang members or cartel members? Because some in the public have been led to believe it's very willy nilly. You're picking up random hairdressers and deporting them. Yeah.
How high is the bar before you communicate to the Tom Homans of the world? It's this one and that one and the
Speaker 1: other one. When it's by the time it comes to us here at our National Counterterrorism Center, extensive work has already been done by the DEA, by the FBI in order for their names to even be entered, into our system. So my level of confidence is high because it's high, it's high because of the work that I know that these DEA agents are doing, that these FBI agents are doing. My office as the director of national intelligence, we have 12 regional, representatives, all across the country, and I've been spending time getting out to them and having conversations not only with them, and it's usually the FBI special agent in charge of that that FBI office. But we have people from every element of the intelligence community, every element of of, you know, Department of Homeland Security, DEA, all of the domestic law enforcement agencies, and and they are working together as a team sharing that information, working together on these cases to be able to identify who these people are and ultimately to track them down and deport them or arrest and prosecute them.
Mhmm.
Speaker 0: On the subject of the cartels Yes. Fentanyl remains the number one killer Yeah. Of Americans. I think it's 18 to 44 now. I mean, it's it's not just the super young.
It's like those are the main years of your life. That's when you're totally thriving. You're making a family. Yeah. Number one killer.
And we just did a long special on this the other day because yesterday was National Fentanyl Awareness Day. And we were talking with these documentary makers about how they'll flood the border on one side so that the border agents will go over here, and then they'll send the fentanyl over on screen right Yeah. Where nobody's covering it. Yeah. Because that's their main goal is to get it the fentanyl into a country that's desperate for it, where we have some we're 4.5% of the of the world and we're 40% of the fentanyl consumers.
So it's crazy. Sounds good, taking on the cartels, evil, very dangerous. Also sounds like a nightmare of a never ending war that could turn into some sort of homegrown terrorism problem here in The United States. So how do you calculate the risks here?
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, it's I mean, it's already happening. These cartels are already, finding their emplacements here, having, their own version of a headquarters in different cities, and towns across the country. The capabilities of these cartels, we are not underestimating at all. It is it is, quite an eye opening thing when we look at how their operations are running and their capabilities. And I I won't go into detail here, but it really speaks to why president Trump recognized this as, this greatest domestic threat, which goes back to the annual threat assessment and where I I detailed this, and why, and also how the Department of Defense is now working with Department of Homeland Security really to secure our border and will play an integral role in going after, and defeating these cartels, working very closely, with Mexico, and and, their their government,
Speaker 0: their speak to it's it's not just coming from the southern border. Right now now they're going around. They're using the northern border. That's right. They're sending they're shipping things in, from the West Coast, the East I mean, it's like to think of ourselves as isolated, but we're really not that isolated from these cartels.
Speaker 1: That's right. And and that's that's where taking this very expansive approach all at once, is so essential. No one no one is naive at all in thinking that this is just gonna be like, oh, we'll conduct a few operations and then just knock this all out, But but also thinking through very carefully kind of the lessons learned from, you know, the last, like, war on drugs that that, ultimately ended up just being a prolonged war that that we never really saw much progress on.
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FYSI can help. And right now, they're offering a free $5,000 risk assessment with my promo code, Megan, at fysi.com/Megan, or call 808774000. That's promo code Megan to schedule your assessment for free. Visit fysi.com/Megan, or call 808774000 today. Big news today as president Trump announces that he has struck this deal with the Ukrainians for a minerals deal, where we're gonna have access to some of their rare earth materials.
And it's not necessarily a repayment for all of the aid that we've given them, but it gives us a reason to be involved in Ukraine, to look out for Ukraine, and president Trump thinks it'll be a deterrent to Putin in starting things back up again if he's able to put this to bed. The critics say, these are former Biden people, there's nothing to be gained in Ukraine. They don't have the rare minerals that we need. That's why we're all buying the stuff from China to begin with. So we bought a pig and a poke.
What do you say?
Speaker 1: I I don't know why they can't find a single thing that they can agree with the president on. Not a single thing. You know, this deal was very important to the president to get done, and and today was a big day. A lot of work went into getting this deal signed today, because he values the fact that as he talked about earlier in the cabinet meeting today about how the American taxpayer has provided overall when you look at all of the aid that's been given to Ukraine since, the Russia Ukraine war started, $350,000,000,000. And when you look at some of the deals that some of the other European countries made with the aid they provided with Ukraine, a, either they used frozen Russian money, so they they weren't using their taxpayer dollars.
They found a way to give them, you know, frozen money from Russian funds And in other areas, they said, okay. We'll loan you this money, and we'll figure out a payback plan for the future. But not us, not the Biden administration. This money was just given, and that's it. So president Trump understood that, was very, very, very bothered by it, that the American people are just out of pocket on this, without any means of of, of of any kind of repayment whatsoever.
And so so this minerals deal is a way for the American people to get some form of of, re not return, but, some kind of a a repayment based on the taxpayer dollars that have been expended and and used to pay for someone else's government to be run, to pay for someone else's infrastructure even outside of all of the weapons system while we still have communities here who have failing infrastructure, who have poisonous water Yes. Who have people still in Western North Carolina who are homeless and and don't have the basic needs, that they that they have. And and so this deal, yes, of course, he wouldn't have made the deal if they don't have these rare earth and minerals that still need to be mined. But, of course, we checked. Yeah.
He's not gonna go and make a blind deal based on just a handshake. And so this is a win for the American people, and it's a win for the Ukrainian people because this joint partnership is something that is mutually beneficial for the people of both of our countries.
Speaker 0: You think about the things we could have used some of that money for with all due respect to the Ukrainians. I mean, we're talking about the southern border Yeah. How porous it is, more agents, maybe at the northern border, more agents, maybe to inspect some of the cargo that's get shipped in, maybe some treatment programs for people who get addicted to this poison Yeah. And will be dead if you play the odds within eighteen months. Maybe more immigration judges so we can give all that due process the Democrats want us to give before you know, like, there there's so many other ways we could have spent that money.
Speaker 1: So It it I wanna go back on on, you you remember the the tragic wildfire that hit my home community, of Lahaina. It was I didn't live there, but it was within my district when I was in congress. And, how many lives were lost, and an entire town just razed to the ground. And when I went there, just a couple of days after that fire happened and went out and talked to the people there on West Maui, and the fact that so many of them, connected to each other, completely different conversations, different households, different locations, said, gosh, if only we were Ukraine, maybe somebody would pay attention to us. And that that just speaks to what we're talking about here.
And so this is this community of Lahaina now who is only now, by the way, just starting to rebuild homes, in communities and in places where they have lived for generations. We talk about Western North Carolina, and the very, very, very slow rebuild process that's going on there, that people who lost their homes are still paying property taxes and mortgages for the land and the home that they have that they are not able to to live on in any way, at all. You look at
Speaker 0: I don't think I'd do it.
Speaker 1: Well well I don't think I'd be doing it. That that's the thing is is those are two of many examples. You have a level of poverty in West Virginia that I think many Americans would would not see if but going to a third world country on the other side of the planet. The needs that we have here are very real. And part of the dissatisfaction that the American people have had for so long in our government is that the government, by and large, FEMA is a great example.
You take all of this money, so much of this money, and it feeds into this bureaucracy, and you have all these officials going to places like Western North Carolina. I went there, and and you hear the the angst in people's voices when they say, no. FEMA hasn't been here, and they're hoarding supplies here or there. They're saying, hey. Here you go.
Here's $500. Like, what a freaking insult that is. And then they see what's going on with, oh, we sent another 50,000,000,000 to Ukraine today, and then next, oh, we sent another hundred billion, and and how people are celebrating that when they're not even looking at what's happening in our own backyard. And this is this is what I saw and experienced when I was helping president Trump during his election campaign was that there was a spark of hope in people's hearts when they saw that he was addressing the very things that they were most concerned about, their health and well-being, securing our borders, not allowing boys to play in girls' sports, or allowing them into girls' bathrooms, things that are common sense and address the everyday needs of the American people, our security, him being the president of peace and trying to prevent war. This is a shift.
This is the beginning of a shift to what we are all seeking to bring about, which is in this two hundred fiftieth anniversary of the founding of our country, how about let's have a government that actually serves the people? Mhmm. A government that is of, by, and for the people.
Speaker 0: We were talking about Russia briefly. You and I have talked before about how Hillary Clinton labeled you a puppet of Putin. You put a Russian asset. Debbie Wasserman Schultz shamefully said the same. And, I saw recently President Trump withdrew Hillary Clinton's security clearance, which you had to do.
Yes. And that must have been a little fun. Right? Or just a little fun.
Speaker 1: I smiled. Of course, you did. You're only human. Yeah. I am.
Speaker 0: So, yeah, that's over for her.
Speaker 1: And a number of other people, by the way, when you look at the 51
Speaker 0: Mark Zaid. I love that.
Speaker 1: Intelligence officials who signed that Hunter Biden disinformation letter, and and never apologized for it, never held themselves accountable for it. Yes. Mark Zaid, you had Leticia James and and others.
Speaker 0: Even have one? Well,
Speaker 1: some of them didn't have clearances, but they had access to classified information. And so we took away that access for those Yeah. Alvin Bragg didn't have clearances. Yes. Okay.
And and there there are more to come, and this is part of what we're doing in our investigative work as we go back and look, for example, at Crossfire Hurricane and how there were assistant US attorneys who were knowingly using manufactured, testimony, that they would interview a witness, for example, and know that the witness was lying to them either because they set up the lie or they knew that the witness was lying, took that lie, used it as evidence to get a warrant, under FISA to go and surveil on Americans, which is completely illegal. And so these are the kinds of things, those types of people, those assistant US attorneys or those FBI agents that were involved in this kind of stuff, these are crimes that need to be prosecuted, and these people need to be held accountable.
Speaker 0: Will that happen? That will happen. Wow. Yeah. Mean, it's called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
That's right. That's what it's supposed to Yeah. On the subject of saving money, you're doing some of that right here. Yes. And in part, it relates to enacting president Trump's DEI directives Mhmm.
And pulling back on some of the nonsense that I know you and all the other agencies were spending money on, not you you, but the the intel community. Can you speak to a little bit of, like, what you found? Because you're doing your own Doge. Doing DIG. Yes.
So that's under you. You didn't out so this is not one of the areas that Elon and Doge came into. You did it on your own, and I understand why. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of They are helping They have incredible tools and a lot of lessons learned through the work that they've done. Okay. And so they are helping us and allowing us the opportunity to be able to apply those here. So we're not trying to reinvent the machine, at all, and we're able to get after the things we're looking for.
Speaker 0: So how much is going out the door on DEI programs and hires and so on?
Speaker 1: So there was a DEI office that was immediately shut down, and that alone was a savings of around $20,000,000. But the thing that we just announced today, in fact, was the closure of this, office of human capital, completely different part of the organization, and one that sounds like, okay. Well, maybe this is like talent management. You're trying to go out and see, well, where is the best talent and where are the gaps we need to fill, which is what I thought. But it turns out that it was an office where the previous administration kind of hid a bunch of their DEI people knowing that this action was going to be taken by president Trump.
And there was a a slush fund there that they would use to fund people millions of dollars to go to DEI conferences and talk to other DEI people. And so we shut that down at a savings of a hundred $50,000,000 today. But the thing that I think a lot of people would be surprised by, when people talk about DEI and you hear, you know, whether it's CNN, MSNBC, they talk about DEI, and they criticize the president for his action and the actions that we are all taking to get rid of this, claiming that we're against diversity and all of this other crap. When I came in here, was able to talk with some of the people who work here. DEI was such a priority that, it was baked into the incentive structure for people to advance professionally here.
And I would imagine it was very similar across the federal government where some employees told me that they were put in a position where they had to spend half of their time working on DEI initiatives in order for them to be able to put it on their annual evaluation Oh, wow. And therefore be noted as, oh, you are more likely to get promoted if you are spending this significant amount of time on this diversity, equity, inclusion initiatives. And for me, I'm like, how in the world would you spend half of your time on that? Right. What were you creating?
Like, I and I don't really know the answer to that, but I do know the answer to our national security on that question. Because what that means is in the the office of the director of national intelligence, and we have people here who work from all across of these, 18 intelligence elements being put in a position where they're told, if you wanna get promoted, if you don't if you wanna advance in your career, the priority is not are you delivering the best quality intelligence assessments and analysis to best inform the president's most critical decisions. No. You will advance professionally if you show that you're dedicating half of your day towards these DEI initiatives. You're implicit bias.
Exactly. Exactly. And so when we look at why this was a priority for the president, this is not some superficial thing. There are national security implications to what the Biden administration was doing in centering almost their entire administration around DEI initiatives. You can take this towards any domestic agency.
Look at the Department of Education. Shouldn't they be focused on educating our kids? Well, wasn't
Speaker 0: there a group which intel agency was it that had the people talking about transgender surgeries and non binary this and this. There's the National Security Agency. Yeah. There's sex groups, polyamory. Yeah.
I mean, on and on.
Speaker 1: All this. This this is a great example. So so there was a a a someone who snuck into that chat that was not a part of that was not an employee there. And they screenshotted what they saw and leaked it out on X. And again, this is a chat group that was created and administered by the NSA, one of the premier intelligence collection, entities that we have.
And, it it was obscene. It was obscene. Yes. It was about all of those things. It was talking about sex toys and sex tricks for people who had gone through, you know, some kind of transgender surgery or This is during the workday.
This is this is during the workday on an intelligence hosted work chat group. And the supervisors obviously, as soon as I found out about it, I said anybody who's involved with this is getting fired and getting their security clearance revoked, which which there were some movies like, oh gosh, aren't you? Like, that seems extreme. Like, no. Imagine you're in any office, and you're having these kinds of sexually explicit conversations in the workplace.
It is how I don't care what your sexual orientation or whatever your private choices are. This cannot be happening in the workplace, and it must not be happening in our premier intelligence, agency that has people who have the highest clearances, that that anyone can hold. Wow. The the plot thickens as many of the leaders feigned shock and surprise at this revelation. Well, this chat group had existed for over two years that this kind of stuff was happening in.
And, again, this is where transparency and accountability matters so much. As soon as I made that announcement that we will be investigating and holding these people accountable, I started hearing from people who are within the workforce saying, I work at the NSA. I filed a written report with evidence of what was going on in these chat groups a year ago, two years ago when this thing first kicked up. And, basically, because of president Biden's DEI initiatives, they were essentially told, shut up. It's none of your business.
Speaker 0: Wow.
Speaker 1: And then there was the cover up, and then there was the leak. So this is one example of many how we can see, what the ramifications have been, when we have, in the last administration, one that is seemingly focused on everything but the most important things. Speaking of the last administration, one question for you on SignalGate. As I heard you say this recently, is this the first administration
Speaker 0: to use Signal for confidential chats? Absolutely not. When you actually saw something that told you this was in fact being used by the Biden administration who are out there all over x and other social media ripping everyone who was on that SignalGate thread to shreds. That is correct. So there's no question in your mind this was used during the Biden administration by officials?
Speaker 1: I know for certain that it was to include national security officials.
Speaker 0: Is there another way to communicate? Like, do are
Speaker 1: we stuck signals? So so the main the main means of communication for all of us, like, this in this building, this entire building is a secure, facility. That means that if you go outside of this lobby, there's a bunch of lock boxes over there where you gotta lock your phone in, you gotta lock your, Apple Watch or your AuraRing, anything that Oh, even your AuraRing. Wow. Anything that transmits a a signal gets locked up by everyone who works here and everyone who visits here before you leave this lobby.
Speaker 0: How are supposed to count your steps?
Speaker 1: Good luck. Take the take the stairs. The old fashioned way. Yeah. Exactly.
But but so so the vast majority of the communication that happens is through secure telephones and secure computers and things that are built in, to our work environments. However, I do have to leave the building at times, and things have to keep moving and rolling. Same goes for those, who work in the White House and those who work across the administration. So at times for practical purposes, you have to be able to communicate on the go. Signal, has been recognized by the federal government during the Biden administration, by the way, in December of twenty twenty four as the, preferred, messaging app because it provides that end to end encryption Wow.
That makes it you know, nothing is completely secure, but it is the most secure option if you need to use it.
Speaker 0: You feel like it was unfair to Pete and Mike Walls? I mean, they they took the brunt of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, you know, it shouldn't have happened. There are sensitive conversations that that that occur in these signal chats. But, ultimately, it was not at all what those who are opposing the president's policies and those in the media made it out to be. And I can tell you that there are some of the most vocal critics of that whole situation who also use signal and communicate things that they would not want released publicly as well.
Speaker 0: Not surprised. Exactly.
Speaker 1: As I've listened
Speaker 0: to you over this hour, I've had one thought recur to me over and over and over, and it is first female president. That is what I I'd like I look at you and I see it. And I know they put you through the meat grinder, the last time, but that was the other side. Now you've crossed over. And so I just wonder
Speaker 1: Thank you for not saying transition. Alright. People use that word. It's like, okay. That Hard that's one of those words that's like for a certain thing.
It's not. But notwithstanding
Speaker 0: how rough that was when you when you ran for president the first time, Have you ruled out ever doing it again? Could we potentially see a Tulsi twenty twenty eight try?
Speaker 1: I will never rule out any opportunity to serve my country. I would not have if if we had talked a year ago, the thought would not have crossed my mind that I would be here and that we would be having this conversation. My decisions in my life have have always been made around how can I best be of service to god, how can I best be of service to our country, and, that that is what has led me here? I'm grateful for this opportunity, and I will continue to chase those opportunities where I can make the most positive impact and be of service.
Speaker 0: And now, you and I sit here having done something the two of us back in 2016 never would have thought we would have done, which was stood up on a stage and endorsed Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now you're working for him. Yeah. I endorsed him too. Yeah.
And It was so great. I I was there. I remember. Was, it was such a powerful it was such a powerful, moment and and speech that you delivered because of your history
Speaker 0: with Very generous to even mention that. What you did for president Trump was huge. And seeing you up there and announcing, like, your partisan change, you Yeah. You know, with Trump, it was this that was like the team of rivals or the Marvel universe coming together.
Speaker 1: Like the Avengers? Yeah. Avengers. You're one
Speaker 0: of them. You're one of the most and the the gray streak is part of it. That just works. But I wonder if you do decide to do something, you know, in the future, running for president or individual executive leadership, What have you learned from him? What do you what would you wanna take away from the kind of leader Trump is?
Speaker 1: He's a very bold leader. And as we see, he's making decisions without care for what the media chirps about him or what his, so called critics may say about him. And and and he's quite masterful at it, by the way. You know, he's he's been so effective at connecting with the American people, in ways that I think a lot of the the politicians or the the so called political pundits here in Washington DC never really understood and maybe a lot of them still don't, but it really comes from a place of care, his care for the American people. He doesn't need to do this.
He didn't need to put himself through all this. He didn't need to put himself in a position where there were two assassination attempts, on his life. And, the kind of bold change that we're seeing happening now across the government, it's never happened like this under any other president. So I really respect, his boldness and his courage in doing things that sometimes people don't other don't understand or see what, how it's gonna turn out. Those are things we see in you too.
Boldness, courage, and
Speaker 0: you share something else with him, which is fearlessly independent. That's what's gonna take you forward. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful to see you. Thank you very much. Good luck with everything. Thank you.
Speaker 0: I I mean, all of you are gonna get given this environment. Yeah. My money's on you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Megan. Lots of love.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Same judge who said it’s incorrect to say there are only two biological sexes and who suggested Pete Hegseth had only very limited military experience (!) & she would listen instead to the ex-President (Biden’s) Chrmn of the Joint Chiefs. Activist. Lying. Hack.
@libsoftiktok - Libs of TikTok
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who was appointed by Joe Biden, just ruled that the Pentagon can’t enforce President Trump’s order banning transgender people from serving in the military. https://t.co/aGOsyNIKw0
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
See how it works? Murphy meets w/Zelensky prior to Zelensky’s oval mtg w/Trump/Vance, urges Z to reject the deal thereby sabotaging the agrmt. Then when Trump calls out Z’s grandstanding/disrespect at a mtg that was supposed to be celebrating the deal, Trump is a Russian agent.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Biden Mumbles Through Farewell Speech, and Jill's Mean Girl Exit, with @AnaKasparian, @KevinMaddenDC, @amalaekpunobi, and @itslinklauren WATCH: https://t.co/hdL9n4ioHv
Video Transcript AI Summary
Megyn Kelly discusses the recent cabinet nominees for President-elect Donald Trump, highlighting their assertive performances in Senate hearings. She contrasts this with President Joe Biden's farewell address, criticizing his lack of a traditional press conference. Anna Kasparian and Kevin Madden join the conversation, addressing the evolving political landscape and the discontent among some Democrats. They discuss Biden's speech and the hypocrisy surrounding wealth and power in politics, particularly regarding billionaires like Elon Musk and George Soros. The discussion shifts to the confirmation hearings for Trump's nominees, particularly Pam Bondi's strong performance. They also touch on the significance of RFK Jr.'s upcoming confirmation hearing for Health and Human Services, emphasizing his potential impact on public health issues. The segment concludes with a discussion of Trump's iconic mugshot and its symbolism as he prepares for his second term.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. More of president-elect Donald Trump's top cabinet nominees are on Capitol Hill today after attorney general nominee Pam Bondi's dominating performance yesterday. She crushed it.
We will bring you more of those highlights. They really are highlights. It's like these nominees are changing the game on on how this whole thing is done. There's no genuflecting. There's no kissing of the ring.
These Democrat senators, they don't need their votes. They they don't go in there trying to be rude or looking for a fight. But if you're gonna treat them like shit, which is clearly what's happening, they're gonna fight back. They're gonna stand their ground. And I am loving it.
It comes as president Joe Biden bid farewell to the White House, finally, and his 50 year political career from the Oval Office by, talking about his huge no. By mumbling about Elon Musk. 50 years in office, and it comes down to Elon Musk. But don't worry. Part 2 is tonight where he sits down with the venerable Lawrence O'Donnell, who I think might go from 2 viewers to 4 as he does, I guess, an exit interview, but he won't do a final press conference as virtually every president has done before him in modern history.
And, you'll be shocked to learn, had absolutely no reasons for why. Just a bunch of mumbling muck produced by Huron why he won't actually answer to the rest of us. Why won't he speak to us and our representatives, which, like it or not, are the American media. Joining me now on those stories and more, 2 first time guests on the show. Well, are they is that I know Anna is.
Anna Kasperian is a host and producer of The Young Turks who's been making headlines for calling out her own side recently. And Kevin Madden, I guess, Kevin, it's your first on this program, but you've been on my show as many times. He's a Republican strategist and senior partner at the Penta Group. Don't miss a moment. Subscribe to this show on YouTube and follow me on Insta, Facebook, and x.
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Speaker 1: Thank you. Good to be here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Great to be with you.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, Kevin, my god. We go way back, but I guess it's the first time
Speaker 2: we find
Speaker 0: this particular, platform. So great to see you again. And, Anna, I've been watching your evolution, and you're sort of speaking out about your ideas with great interest. It's been, it's been very interesting. I feel like in some ways, I I experienced something similar myself where I was certainly more, I think, on the left, 10 years ago than I am now, for sure.
I would never have described myself as a liberal past, like, college. But I I see what you're going through, and I think a lot of people can relate to where it's like, you just get so aggravated with Mhmm. Shit breaking down that you believed in. You feel like you have no choice but to just start calling it out. So I guess that's that's a fine place to start.
Do you wanna explain to the audience who hasn't seen you on, like, Glenn Beck or elsewhere kind of where you are? Because most people know you as part of The Young Turks, which is a, you know, a left a left leaning podcast is very successful, but it's certainly not center or center right.
Speaker 1: Yes. So it is true. It's a left wing show, and I still consider myself, for the most part, on the left. But, you know, there's been this growing culture among the Democratic Party in particular where there seems to be a lack of self reflection, maybe even, you know, kind of taking note or inventory of some of the policies that we've been championing or supporting, endorsing. Once some of those policies are implemented, there might be flaws.
There might be some issues that, policymakers didn't see coming into it. But once you see some of the negative ramifications of these policies I mean, I used to be under the assumption, and this was, I guess, a terrible assumption to have because it's not true, that there would be a recalibration of some of these policies in order to actually serve the best interest of the American people. But what I've noticed, certainly on a local level, is that there's absolutely no self reflection, no recalibration of said policies. And on a national level, there seems to be more interest in serving the egos and, you know, the narcissism of democratic leadership. And so the cover up involving Joe Biden's mental decline really bothered me.
The fact that he was, pushed out of, you know, running for reelection, and then Kamala Harris was anointed really bothered me, especially when, you know, the whole centerpiece of the Democratic campaign was protecting democracy. Well, Democratic voters didn't get a say in who their Democratic nominee would be. So there are all sorts of issues, and it doesn't mean that I've completely changed my political identity. If anything, I'm holding true to my political identity, and I feel that the Democrats do a lot of projection. They like to point fingers at the right for engaging in all sorts of nefarious behavior, but then they themselves engage in the same nefarious behavior.
After Biden lost the election, you know, on Pod Save America, you hear, I'm sorry, after Harris lost the election. On Pod Save America, you have members of her campaign talking about what they've learned following the Democrats' loss. And what really bothered me is one of the things that they believe they did wrong was they didn't break campaign finance laws enough by having the campaign, coordinate with the super packs. That's against the law. They accused Trump of doing that without providing any evidence, and then they said, we need to stop listening to our lawyers, and we need to do a little more of what the Trump campaign did.
I'm paraphrasing, but that was essentially the message. That goes against my values and principles.
Speaker 0: So interesting. I mean, I just feel like we've heard so much of that kind of messaging, especially from the left. And the either the right had its big breakup when Trump was elected in 16. You know? And it it was fierce, and it was ugly.
And now there's been a resettling, I think, as he's come into office coming into office for the 2nd time. And the left is having a lot of defectors, it seems to me, as of late. Maybe it's because they're looking at things a new way. Maybe it's because some of them are excited about this very interesting Trump coalition. You know?
Or maybe some like, the Biden thing, I think, really did hurt on the left more than people realize, like, the lies. People knew. They you can't look at him and tell me this is the best Joe Biden ever and then ask me to continue believing you. Okay. But let's well, let's start with Biden because he's in the news after his big farewell address last night, Kevin.
John Podoritz, who, hosts a podcast in Commentary Magazine and and runs Commentary Magazine, and used to be a presidential speed speechwriter for Reagan and beyond, said it's the worst presidential address he's ever heard in his life. He he said it was not it was the number one least effective, most painful speech he's ever heard. He said the first half, in his view, was written by AI, and the second was written by somebody who did policy back in 1975 who must be on the Biden staff. But he was completely underwhelmed. What did you think?
Speaker 2: I agree 100%. I it it it seemed like it was, like, mailed in, by not only, Biden, but the the speech writing staff of, of the White House. Like, they're probably thinking, okay. We've got another week to go. Let's just see what we can do and just, you know, let's, give this to the boss and let him let him let it rip and then move on.
Right? Find our next job. It was also, you know, bit of, like, a microcosm of the Biden presidency in that sense in the in in that, like, you know, it I'm sure it was well intentioned. Right? And they came in with, like, lofty goals for it, but it quickly descended into incoherence.
And then that was matched with a lot of the hypocrisy. Like, just the idea of, you you know, make is it delivering this message about how America is is being controlled by this wealthy oligarchy one week after you just hung a medal around, George Soros' neck in the White House? It's a big break. That
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm I, you
Speaker 2: know, I I you know, and I and I think as a staffer, I I one of the things I said to myself immediately upon hearing that was, like, who thought that was a good idea to push that given the optics and the pageantry of the last week?
Speaker 0: And Yeah. Who didn't see the vulnerability?
Speaker 2: Right. Nobody thought that that would not, like, go over well and that that we'd be called on for the hypocrisy of it. You know? And then Let
Speaker 0: me play that so the audience can hear it. Hold your shot of thought. Here it is. Sat 9.
Speaker 4: I have no doubt that America in a position to continue to succeed. That's why my farewell address tonight, I wanna warn the country of some things that give me great concern. This is a dangerous concert, and that's a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra wealthy people. The dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked. Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.
Speaker 0: Keep going, Kevin.
Speaker 2: So, you know, here we are where, you know, the the they just spent an election where they tried to frame everything as this pivot point for American democracy. And every single public poll shows that people were more worried about the Biden administration and its threat to democracy. So, you know, it it just not only did it is it I think it's you know, there's a false sense of alarmism that they're trying to con continue to push, but it's just the the they're the hypocrisy of the message and how that message continues to to land very poorly with the public. It just it continues to boggle my mind why they continue to push that. And then I think the last thing is
Speaker 0: there Oh, yeah. Sorry. Go
Speaker 2: Yeah. There's just there's a whole bunch of empty platitudes. Like, Joe Biden's sort of go to move is to always say and there's nothing America can't achieve if we put our minds to it. You know, 5 minutes after he just listed all of the things that are sort of dangerous and destructive about what the other half of the country has, believes and has, essentially taken to an electorate and won on. So I I just you know?
And, like, the last thing I'd say is, like, it was 15 minutes long. Most of the people that I talked to about it when I asked their reaction said they didn't even get their way through it. Now that's a 15 minute speech that people couldn't sit through. And it, you know, it it hearkens back to the capital I'm sorry, the, State of the Union speech, which the Biden administration had swore was going to be this, you know, big energizing jolt to the American electorate to reframe the 2020 race. And, you know, all of the reviews of that State of the Union, they all said that that was going to be a, you know, a game changer for their campaign 48 hours later from the State of the Union, just like this, instantly forgettable.
It's almost like it's like I always call it, like, cotton candy messaging. Like, it melts on contact. No one's even gonna remember it 48 hours from now.
Speaker 0: Well, I mean, your hips remember the cotton cam candy, so there's that distinction. But here here's one of the things, the galling things. Kevin mentions, you know, George Soros. There's a very long list of billionaires on both sides that make donations, but it's 2 to 1 Demps to Republicans. It's the the Democrats definitely outweigh the Republicans when it comes to billionaire donors.
And to the point where you may remember this moment too. During the Kamala Harris campaign, she went on with Stephen Colbert, and they had this moment.
Speaker 5: There are quite a few billionaires who support you. You are from Northern California after all Right. Where they grow them in fields out there. Who is your favorite billionaire? Because we all have a favorite billionaire.
On 3. 123. Oprah. I'm sorry. I claimed I claimed Oprah.
You can't take her now.
Speaker 0: So, I mean, like, we all know this. So what is it why is Biden do is it it's just if you're a tech billionaire and suddenly you're part of this oligopoly that's trying to rule America with a tech iron fist?
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, I agree with the message that Biden was trying to put out there there in in this speech, which I also agree. I I had a difficult time getting through it. It was kinda boring for me, so I got through maybe 25%. Tried to watch it multiple times, could not get through it. But in regard to the message that he's trying to put out there in regard to, you know, corporate rule in America and money in politics in America, that is an accurate message.
But you both make a great point about how money in politics has corrupted both political parties. And for the Democrats to pretend as though they're totally innocent of this is ridiculous to me, especially considering what we experienced in the last election cycle. I mean, Kamala Harris raised far more money than the Trump campaign did. And in fact, she raised far more dark money than the Trump campaign did. And then she moved forward in essentially squandering all of that money.
And I think this past election really shows the kind of grift that exists within our election cycles because that money gets spent, with all these consultants and all these various, you know, PR groups. And the amount of money they charge for their services, which have proven to be a failure in this past election cycle for the Democrats, is absolutely outrageous. And so I feel like our elections have become more about, you know, a business for
Speaker 0: various companies. That's surrounding he's talking about there. Do do you think he's talking about money in politics, or do you think he's talking about Elon Musk? Like, I'm angry that Elon is the world's richest man and has joined BFF style with the sitting president, and and also Zuckerberg as Benthony, and Bezos as Benthony. And therefore, I see this as an as an emerging oligarchy.
Like, I I feel like he it was a complaint about Elon Musk and his outsized role in politics.
Speaker 2: That's how I read it too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Go ahead.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, Anna, I I read it as a as a sort of veiled criticism of of the big three, so to speak. And the interesting thing on that, again, is the hypocrisy is so apparent just because all 3, Matt, Musk, Bezos, and, Zuckerberg have a history of having supported Democrats and have a history of supporting left leaning causes previously. And so it was fine then, but now
Speaker 0: an oligarchy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now it's not. Now it's a now it's a huge threat. And I think there is a there is a very to your point, there is a very worthy substantive debate that we can have about this in the country. But if you're not gonna be honest about it and why all of a sudden you believe it's a threat, then I think you actually, you know, broadly lose the American publics of the ability to persuade them and the ability to raise it as a priority for them.
Speaker 5: Well, here's the Kevin.
Speaker 0: So this is this is why one of the reasons why I think he complained. Yes. He doesn't like Elon. He doesn't like all that money. And of course, Elon's using it.
I mean, he's he bought x, which has changed the national conversation, then Twitter. He's threatening to primary people who are trying to stop or threatening to stop Trump's agenda. So he's definitely a thorn in the Democrat's side, but no more so than George Soros, who's funded every left wing initiative that we've seen for the past decade plus. However, he goes on to talk about one of his other complaints, his big complaints about, you know, what he's worried about in America, and it kind of is revealing about one of the things he hates about these tech so called oligarchs in SOT 10.
Speaker 4: President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military industrial complex. He warned us then about, and I quote, the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power, end of quote. 6 days like 6 decades later, I'm equally concerned about the pen potential rise of a tech industrial complex. It could pose real dangers for our country as well. Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power.
The free press is crumbling. Others are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.
Speaker 0: Hey. Just for those of you playing at home, that was editors are disappearing. Ayers is disappearing. We it was editors? I guess he say so he's lamenting, in essence, the Facebook change in policy, the meta change in policy, Kevin, saying we're not gonna be doing fact checking anymore.
Elon Musk leaves up to community notes. Zuckerberg is gonna be doing that as well, something akin to that, he has said. And he, as the man behind the pressure campaign to get them to do what he wanted during COVID and around his son's laptop, is, I think, feeling genuine sadness that they're no longer going to listen.
Speaker 2: I think that's right. 1st, I mean, just a for a scene setter, I believe that since technology and the technology industry is one of our greatest, strongest exports around the globe, that it's important for business leaders to have a voice in public policy for them to have interactions with policymakers. That's a really good, smart, important thing. And so, the the that's the thing that's missing from the context, I think, of his criticism is exactly what you mentioned, Megan, is that there was undue pressure put on a lot of these, leaders when it was about Hunter's laptop and, some of the information that was involved there and how that shaped the outcome of of of the election. So, you know, that's one of the things that I think has been lost on the Biden administration is, again, they just do they they don't have an accurate reflection on just how hypocritical so much of their criticism, so much how much of their criticism is really coming off with the ball.
Speaker 0: There's no there's no come to Jesus, Anna. It's like Zuckerberg was on with Rogan a week ago talking about the bullies in the White House who tried to make them censor people's discussions, in particular during COVID, around vaccine side effects, which are real. It's a real issue. Not everybody on earth suffered them, but a a significant enough portion, especially teenage boys, that it was absolutely criminal not to let this discussion flow freely and doctors speak freely about it. And here's Zuckerberg talking about the Biden administration and vaccine side effects in stop 14 on Rogan.
Speaker 6: They pushed us super hard, to take down the things that were honestly were true. Right? I mean, they they basically pushed us and and said, you know, anything that, says that vaccines might have side effects, you basically need to take down.
Speaker 0: That's crazy. And now he has the nerve to get up there and say, we're going in a dark period where misinformation is gonna run wild.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I think it
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead.
Speaker 0: Go ahead.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say, I think that the Democrats really leaning into campaigning on fear is a bad idea because people are sick of it. They're fatigued by it. I don't think most people are buying it at this point. And voters are looking at their own households, their own personal finances, and they want representation that improves their lives. And just constantly voting for someone because he's not Donald Trump or she's not Donald Trump is not really an inspiring message.
So I just I really hope
Speaker 7: that he
Speaker 0: got the brand
Speaker 1: in thing. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And and look, the other thing I'll say is, I actually think that one of the things that Musk did with x, and I will admit, I was very skeptical going into it, but community notes ended up being fantastic.
And in fact, the the era of, you know, censorship on social media really did lead to platforms like Facebook, for instance, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. So, Facebook as a platform was great for, independent news sources in order to get their message out, get their content out. And then because of the censorious era, Facebook deprioritized news entirely. And I Yep. Thought that that was a terrible way of responding to what was going on.
I think the best way to fight misinformation is through more speech, and the way that it's been implemented on x is excellent. I think community notes is fantastic. So that's what Facebook wants to do. I think that's the right way to
Speaker 8: go about it. Can I just ask
Speaker 0: you guys about Zuckerberg for a minute? Because I we haven't gotten to this his appearance on Rogan yet, on this show. And I do wonder, like okay. It's a new administration. Trump's in power.
I get it. Like, he wants to be cozying up to the president who's in power. Look. That makes sense to me for some of this turnaround that he's purporting to have made. But for me, like, Facebook is very dated.
You know? Facebook is not the cool, hip app that young people are turning to at all. You know, when I first started at Fox 20 years ago, Rupert had just bought MySpace. And there was a question back then, which one will will prevail, MySpace or Facebook? And, I mean, then Facebook had its apex, and it's long past that now.
Right? Now it's something older people use to share photos and updates on their lives. But the younger people are on Snap, and they're on TikTok, and they're, you know, some to some extent on Insta, but it's not really Facebook. And I realize Meta also owns, Insta. But my point is, like, how much do you think Zuckerberg is worried that his photo sharing family update piece piece of his platform is quickly becoming obsolete.
And the one thing that was making him good money and that was doing really well, he killed, which was the news feed. He killed it for the reasons you just outlined, Anna. And now he's looking at this saying, holy shit. I had a viable business model. It was with conservatives.
They were the ones who were dominating his platform when it came to news sharing. Not entirely, but they were dominating. And if I am smart, I will go back to them on bended knee and say, I'm sorry I censored you. I got rid of news, and I'm sorry I spent $425,000,000 to elect Joe Biden. Kevin, thoughts?
Speaker 2: Oh, well, first of all, I still think back you're you're right. I mean, Facebook is kinda for the olds like me. I still think back to when I first joined Facebook. It was somewhere in 22,007 or 2008 when I was working on the Romney campaign, and that was a key part of our sort of emerging e campaign was to be on social media. And I signed up for it, never went back until it got our our Facebook pages and some of our other social media pages had gotten hacked.
And so I had to go and go into my page to look at it to see what, what the hacking issue was for the Romney campaign in Facebook. And then I found there's, like, 20 or 30 people that I went to grammar school with that were looking for me. So it was an education then.
Speaker 4: But if we if we fast
Speaker 0: forward the work disconnect from those people?
Speaker 2: No. Now I'm now I talk to them, like, once a week. It's crazy. Oh. But, it is the the thing the thing that's I think is is changing is that we are in this I think technology and workforce around technology, the tax policy, trade policy around our technology.
In the next 5 years, and even the information, system around, technology is gonna change in the next 5 years. That's go really going to affect the economy of the next 25 years. And Mark Zuckerberg and Meta wanna be a part of that conversation. And that is why I think he is, engaging this administration, and it's smart. It would be as a CEO.
It would be an advocation of his responsibilities and duties as a CEO if he wasn't doing it with this administration. And, you know, Meta, the the company that is now like, we're the future for Meta and its sort of product and its, its, approach is going to be in the metaverse. And a lot of that technology and a lot of the laws and the regulations related to AI and automation, all that is going to be written, and and it's going to be worked out in the next 5 years. So he needs to be at at the table on that. Mhmm.
So I think it's important for him. I think it's import right. I think it's important for him and other leaders to make sure that they are engaged in his policy makers. The thing I thought was most important in his remarks on Joe Rogan and remember, this is a 3 hour conversation that really got atomized down to a couple of sound bites. But one of the key sound bites was that we were at a cultural tipping point when it came to our politics and how we discuss our politics.
And Trump has changed that. That's the one thing, like, as somebody who, you know, more of a of a classical, liberal and a small c conservative republican, in the Mitt Romney mold has you know, I've become a political anthropologist of sorts since 2016 too, which is Trump has dramatically changed the profile of the party. He's dramatically changed how we campaign, how we talk about issues, how we persuade, public, how we build public coalitions. And I think Zuckerberg sees a lot of that as a social sort of anthropologist on this stuff. And, he's interested in learning more, and he's interested in engaging rather than you cannot as a CEO or any business leader, any organizational leader.
You cannot sit on the curb and clap as the parade goes by. You have to be a part of it. I think that was the main takeaway I got from that interview with Joe Rogan.
Speaker 0: We we have a little bit of that. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 6: This is like a very big sea change in terms of, like, who are the voices that matter. And, you know, what we do is we we try to build a platform that gives people a voice, but I know there's this wholesale generational shift in who are the people who are being listened to, and I think that that's, like, a very fascinating thing that is going on because I I think that that's, like, what is what's going on here. It's not it's it's not just the government, and people saying, hey, we we want, like, a very big change here. I think it's just, like, a wholesale shift in saying, we just want different people who we actually trust.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 6: Who who are actually gonna, like, tell us the truth and, like, and not give us, like, the bullshit opinions that you're supposed to say, but, like, the type of stuff that I would actually like, when I'm sitting with my in my living room with my friends, like, the stuff that we know is true. Like, who are the people who kind of have the courage to actually just say that stuff? I don't know. I think that whole, like, cultural elite class needs to get repopulated with people who people actually trust.
Speaker 0: I I've got to say I have nothing against Mark Zuckerberg, but it's it's somewhat galling to listen to him. Hello? There are many of us in the country who have been saying that for decades now, and you've been stifling us. You know? I mean, especially conservatives.
His platform has been stifling conservative speech from the I'm sure the very people he's referencing there as these breaths of fresh air. Oh, well, if only we could've heard from them earlier. Why didn't we? Oh, I have some thoughts, Mark.
Speaker 2: What do
Speaker 8: you make of it? And it's like
Speaker 1: a mental space tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Thought on my quick thought on that, though, is declare victory. Do not criticize it. Like, when you've won
Speaker 0: Too late.
Speaker 3: And you per
Speaker 0: I'm no. You're saying be classy. That ship is sailed.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, Eric. It's not necessarily be classy. It's be like it's like, hey. You know, like, you engaged the audience. You made your case publicly, and now you've won.
And I I don't think it's time to sort of, like, you know, beat your chest on it, but it's like, take this as the opportunity for exactly what it is. We should be
Speaker 0: getting the highest response. I he's welcome aboard the free speech train, but I I'm wondering if I wanna spend a few minutes, you know and I don't wanna say rubbing his nose in it, but, like, hello. He was wrong. He was a 100% wrong in what he did, and it was un American. It was really un American what he and the Biden administration were doing on the stifling of speech.
And I would have liked Anna to have heard more of a mea culpa. I was really wrong, and I'm really sorry. And I was 100% hashtag part of the problem. Before we get to the healing phase.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, look. I I find what he said there entirely dubious because he had pushed for the type of culture that we're currently dealing with right now because everything that was incentivized on his platform was the extreme ends of the political spectrum. So he says, you know, people are really looking for the truth. Well, the people that were really promoted on your platform for a long time were individuals who are on the extreme left or the extreme right, especially when it comes to some of the cultural issues.
Anyone who wanted to be reasonable, who who wanted to be fair, who wanted to, you know, go for evidence based commentary was not really incentivized on that platform for a long, long time. And so I think that's part of the reason why you now have 2 political parties that have a difficult time speaking to each other. And I'm not talking about those in power. I'm talking about the actual voters. And what I'm trying to do through the work, I'm putting out there at TYT is to get Democratic voters to understand that the voters on the other side of the aisle are not a monolith.
They're not Nazis. They're not gonna come for you. They're not gonna imprison you. They're not gonna, you know, bust into your home with guns and murder you. Like, all of the fear mongering that was promoted on these platforms is untrue.
And the only way that we're gonna save this country is if we open up lines of dialogue and speak to each other again and actually see each other as human beings who might have political disagreements, who might wanna engage in hot debates, and that's totally fine. But you have to see the humanity in people first, and that has been disincentivized over the last, I would say, 10 years.
Speaker 10: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: It was amazing to hear some of those lies repeated at the senate confirmation hearing of Pam Bondi yesterday, where they were trying to suggest that, you know, would you, as attorney general, enforce an order, or maybe no. It was hegseth. Would you enforce an order to send the military in, against president Trump's enemy from within? Like, okay. You've completed so many different remarks that Trump made there.
He did say enemy within. He did not say he would unleash the military on the enemy within, which is a political body or animal or opponent that he doesn't like. But what he said was asked by Maria Bartiromo was if things get crazy around the election and we have mass riots, would you bring in the military? And the in that context, he said yes. Anyway, it's it's turned into, like, this a senate question that has to be asked about the nominees whether they'll do it.
It's a lie. It is divisive. It is probably one of the reasons that Anna's listeners or some of them think Trump might show up with, you know, a machete and a marine to arrest them if they voted for Kamala, which is not what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: I mean yeah. And look, I would say that one of Trump's flaws is the fact that he says things that are extreme and irresponsible, and he hurts himself that way. Because I think that he does have some good instincts, and those good instincts get totally drowned out by some of the more irresponsible rhetoric he engages in. And, of course, the Democratic Party is going to capitalize on that. They're gonna exploit that, for their own political purposes.
And so I think Susie Wiles has actually been a really good influence on Donald Trump. I think that she has managed to kind of keep him on the straight and narrow. And as a result of that, there's been a lot more focus on what he wants to do policy wise as opposed to his rhetoric. So hopefully, that continues. And I don't agree with everything he does, obviously.
I don't agree with all of his policies, but at least we're having a conversation about policy.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. Alright. He's changed all the conversations we're having in this country versus where we were 10 years ago. Alright. Let me spend some time on the nominees because I do think it's very interesting what's happening on Capitol Hill.
And we left off yesterday with Pam Bondi, who was on the hot seat while we were on the air, And, it didn't get any nicer for her after we went off the air, but she handled herself so beautifully. I mean, like a pro, it's very hard to shake a seasoned lawyer with your purported tough cross examination. A lot of these lawmakers on Capitol Hill are, in fact, lawyers. Most of the ones who were questioning yesterday, didn't seem like they were. I'll put it that way.
And she just like a boss was in there. I was very impressed by her. I've known her for a long time, but she was at her best. And here is here are a couple of examples. Here she is with, senator Alex Padilla of California, Democrat, holding her ground in SOT 1.
Speaker 10: Senator, you're speaking. May I may I speak? You come to
Speaker 2: the office.
Speaker 3: I was thinking
Speaker 11: speak, and I hope you answer, miss Bonnie. Well, I
Speaker 3: I Now when we met yesterday previous
Speaker 10: one, senator.
Speaker 11: When we met yesterday You
Speaker 10: pointed your finger at me as
Speaker 3: You did not seem to be familiar.
Speaker 10: Let me answer my question.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be fully done.
Speaker 0: That was good. Okay. Just started setting the ground rules. Like, I'm here and I'm not a pushover. Here's the second one.
Same same 2. Watch. Same 2 people.
Speaker 11: An opportunity to study overnight. So can you tell me and this committee what the citizenship clause
Speaker 4: of the 14th Amendment says?
Speaker 10: Senator, I'm here to answer your questions. I'm not here to do your homework and study for you. If I am confirmed
Speaker 11: I just wanna ask you for a confirmation
Speaker 2: vote, ma'am.
Speaker 10: Can I can I please finish?
Speaker 4: What does the 14th Amendment say?
Speaker 10: Senator? Senator, the 14th Amendment we all know addresses birthright citizenship. I've been a state prosecutor. I've been a state AG. I look forward to even given your remarks today, working with you and the people of California, if I am confirmed as the 87th attorney general of the United States of America.
I didn't take your homework assignment. I'm sorry. I was preparing for today.
Speaker 0: I Kevin, I don't know how you do better than that.
Speaker 2: You know, one of the things that Bondi, I think, benefit from in particular is that there's this inside the bubble, and a lot of it's from inside the Beltway, but there's this inside the bubble sort of assessment of anybody who's a Trump supporter and any of Trump's nominees that they so many of these Democratic senators just bought into. And they didn't really do, or or or, I think, do their due diligence or really sort of, get as as good an assessment as they should have about the the long and lengthy resume of accomplishment and the long and lengthy resume of, and the and the history that they have as a as a as elected officials. And that, you know, to Pam Pam Bondi, having been an elected attorney general in Florida, you know, which is a very, very tough place to to, prosper as an elected official, you know, really has a lot of, public strengths. And that was on display in this hearing. And I think the other benefit that Pam pan Pan Bondi had is that, she tended to to really benefit from, I think, the incompetence, of her opponents.
And Mhmm. The way that the questioning went about, the personal criticism, and just like the impolite nature of it all just really played to her strengths. Now if this had happened, if this was a flip, this is Republicans that were questioning a Democratic woman in in this, in this way, there had been outrage across a lot of the cable networks about how rude they were and how insensitive they were and how this was going to turn off women voters all across the country. And so Very true. Those were my immediate thoughts upon upon watching it and witnessing it yesterday.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. But they they know that the media won't do that because she's a Republican. But also because she was so solid. Like, she was unbulliable, which is lovely to see. I I have to say after watching the Democratic female senators at the HECSETH hearing on Monday, it was a delight or whatever that day, Tuesday was.
It was a delight to see a strong, smart, composed woman being on the hot seat and handling herself like a professional, which is what the vast majority of women behave like, not like the hysterics we saw on Tuesday. What do you say was mean? Yay. Those remarks are very hurtful. Like, what did you do here, US senators?
Stop talking about people's feelings for the love of God. In any event, that was Gillibrand.
Speaker 1: You guys thought what you guys thought oh, I was gonna ask about Gillibrand. I actually think Gillibrand did a pretty fantastic job talking about, you know, the role of women in the military. I mean, look. I gotta be honest. At this moment, when the military is having an incredibly difficult time recruiting, at a time when America is still struggling with obesity, Beggars can't be choosers.
And if you have women who are fit enough, who are able to pass that fitness test in order to be in combat roles, I I think it's fair to ask Pete Hegseth why he has an issue with women being included in said combat roles. It is a fair question.
Speaker 0: No. Look, I'm taking the good answer. I I had I actually didn't really have a problem with the questions themselves that she asked. I didn't really agree with the premise because I do understand what's what Pete's position has been, having listened to it a long, long time for many, many years. It's not about women in general.
It is about we just can't lower standards. And her response, which is which was we haven't. Like, give me specific examples where we have. That was totally fair game. It was a good response.
What and he had an answer to it. But what I objected to with her was the the nature of the delivery, the hysterics. She sounded I I cringe when our fellow women who make their way into these, you know, halls of power behave like the hysterical women many men still believe they always are. Like, would you keep it together for the love of God? Like, she was shouting.
I was in the room, and she was like, what you said is hurtful. It's mean. She sound she her facial expressions looked like she was losing it. She looked overly emotional playing right to stereotype, and it was unbecoming. And then you went down the line.
It just got worse. She was the best of the Democrats, but it just got worse. I mean, Hirona was a nightmare. Tammy Duckworth, who you think would have been the most composed, I mean, an actual soldier who'd been in war. No.
No. She wasn't. So I a lot of what I objected to was there. You don't hear men behaving like that, and we really need to, like, be a little bit more professional. You you can punch as hard as you want to with the with the rhetoric and the words, but keep your tone, the nasal nature of the comments, the facial expressions, the near tears look that the unbotoxed eyebrows will allow, those are bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look. I think a lot of these hearings end up being performances. You know, it's really political theater.
Speaker 0: And at the moment
Speaker 2: Good point.
Speaker 1: Right right now for Democrats, it's nothing but political theater because all you need is a simple majority in the Senate to, you know, confirm these Trump nominees. And so they're using this as a moment to kind of do their own political virtue signaling, to their base. And so I understand that. And look, I mean, what you're saying is really subjective. Some women are super into it.
Some people are really into seeing, like, a strong fighter, especially a woman, in the senate. Others are turned off by it. So I totally hear what you're saying, but I do think that Gillibrand has some pretty good questions. So we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2: Anna Anna's right. Just real quick. Megan. Yeah. Go ahead.
Anna, Anna makes a great point here. I didn't find it offensive for, any
Speaker 6: of those other reasons.
Speaker 2: I found it offensive as a per as as a purported professional communicator. Because for me, I couldn't figure out who the audience was that was persuadable or who they were seeking to mobilize beyond their most active base. And I think that's that's a big problem. Right? And I think that's consistent with Anna's assessment of it too, which is that if you're if you're only communicating to this already converted part of your party, what's the real political objective here?
Or and if the and if the Democratic Party has to find a way to get back with Latino voters, get back, its strength with working class voters, get back its strength with, outside of the urban areas and more suburban and rural areas and build up that support given what happens None
Speaker 0: of whom is watching this.
Speaker 2: The the none of them are watching it, but they are seeing the atomized version of it all. And if it's not focused in a way that really sort of motivates them to care, motivates them to sort of feel that they have a stake in it, and it's only Herono and Kirsten Gillibrand or Sheldon White house, you know, very harsh active liberal voices inside the party for rating, you know, nominees who I you know, the thing I think about that's most that's most, the strongest about Hegset's nomination is. And I, again, I I think it was an entire discussion we should have about how he brought it back, how he resuscitated it, because it was hanging on a thread there for a while. But, like, it said there's he wants to bring an infantry perspective to nationals, national security decision making and to the posture of the armed services. And, there is a, a focus on, making sure that the president's vision is executed and implemented despite what some of the military brass, who would disagree.
Like, that's a however you fall on that, that's a really good strong place to argue rather than some of the, some of the topics that they choose to fight on, which were very specifically tailored to an already converted liberal democratic base.
Speaker 0: Yeah. You cheated on your wives. Oh, like okay. I wanna say this. Having practiced law for many years and sat in the Supreme Court as a correspondent for 3, they should be more like the Supreme Court justices who disagree vehemently, but it's almost never, 1% of the time, maybe, if that, maybe not, maybe I'm being ungenerous, do you ever hear hysterics from the left or the right, from the women or the men?
The women on on this US Supreme Court, far left though they may be, you know, Sotomayor, Brown Jackson, you they don't behave that way. They maintain their composure and their dignity, and they can slice and dice with the best of them. And I realize they have a different audience they're trying to persuade, which is most of the righties down the down the way. But, and and they're to your point, Anna, that these women were trying to get sound bites that would be energetic or motivating or soothing in some way to their base. But I think too.
Womankind suffers when they behave like the hysterical fifties housewives who men would rush to drug up when they behave that way. Okay. Wait. Let's move on because I wanna play you another sound bite. Where did it go?
Number 4, this is Adam Schiff and Pam Bondi.
Speaker 12: You have the independence to say that. You have the the gravitas, the stature, the the intestinal fortitude to say, Donald Trump, you lost the 2020 election. Can you tell us that here today?
Speaker 10: Senator, what I can tell you is I will never play politics. You're trying to engage me in a gotcha. I want to do it. I I won't play politics speak truth. With any ongoing investigation.
Speaker 1: So let me
Speaker 10: ask you another like you did leaving your colleague Devin Nunes' memo.
Speaker 0: Alright. Anna, what I see there is Yeah. Go ahead. A page out of the Kayleigh McEnany book. Remember when, you know, Trump went through all these press secretaries, and he settled on Kayleigh McEnany, who was young, like, sort of an ingenue, recently out of Harvard Law and had spent some time at CNN.
And she got up there and turned the tables inside that press briefing briefing room where she would attack the the press. And Republicans hate the press, so it was absolutely risk free for her. And it worked. It worked really well. Trump loved it.
Republicans enjoyed it. People started watching the briefings again. They got I like, I'm seeing this pattern now with Bondi, a little bit with Pete. They've been nice to Marco Rubio, but there's like, this is an effective tactic that, most importantly, I think, the boss enjoys.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Definitely. I mean, I'm sure if if Trump was watching, he absolutely loved the way she handled, the confirmation hearing yesterday. But I will say this. Look, I think she did a good job, in terms of optics for sure.
I wish that these senate confirmation hearings were less about the optics in politics and more about the records of these individuals. And so I would have preferred that she just said Biden won the 2020 election. That way, it would take the one and only question away from the Democrats. Well, she said Biden is
Speaker 0: the president.
Speaker 1: President. He's yeah. Exactly. And so that allowed for the Democrats to continue asking the same boring question over
Speaker 2: and over and over and
Speaker 1: over again. And I would have loved for them to delve into her record in Florida. Right? I wanna learn more about her. I'm sure the American people wanna learn more about her.
But, honestly, at this point, the Democratic Party has one speed and one speed only. And I'm sure it was aggravating for her as well to be asked the exact same question over and over again. And to talk about optics briefly, I think that the way Adam Schiff behaved in that senate confirmation hearing was the absolute worst because he wasn't really interested in hearing her answers at all and seemed to be interrupting her before she could answer. It came across as bullying, and I don't think it's a good look at all. So Democrats aren't really thinking about the optics.
They're not really delving into the records of these individuals, and I think that's a big problem.
Speaker 0: Alright. I'm going to shock the world right now and defend Adam Schiff. Not in response to what you just said, but in response to the heat he's getting for the following clip, slot 7.
Speaker 13: It is an existential mess, senator. And also Sweet. I have not seen it yet, but what from what I've heard about FBI former FBI director, Ray Someone
Speaker 2: in the audience behind
Speaker 10: comments on 60 minutes regarding China He's videotaping Adam Shaffer's sleep. In
Speaker 13: our own country infiltrating our water systems, our natural gas lines
Speaker 0: I defend Adam Schiff because these confirmation hearings are boring. We put the highlights on TV, but having just sat through the one on Tuesday, and that was the spiciest of them all, they're boring. It's hard. And I even said to one of the senators after the fact, I'm like, god. That's boring.
And this person said to me, normally, we don't sit in there the whole time. They said, we we all just sat in there because there were so many people, and this was an exciting one, and we knew it was gonna be spicy. But, normally, we just do our part, and we get out of there. Because, Kevin, it's boring.
Speaker 2: It is. They and, you know, having worked up on Capitol Hill for a long time, I know that it is, when you're sitting through especially in those places are not comfortable. Right? I mean, if you ever been one one of those hearing rooms, there's a lot of droning on, there's a lot of talking, but it's also not very comfortable, and there are also very stuffy. So I would not hold it against anybody to take a little eye 10 minute eye close nap.
Who
Speaker 0: could blame him?
Speaker 2: I'm
Speaker 1: saying that the Supreme Court met him on
Speaker 4: my feet of kids.
Speaker 2: Like, she
Speaker 0: was asleep half the time her last couple years from the bench. Like, I get it.
Speaker 2: 80% of the time, these folks that get caught on camera doing that are actually just probably looking at their cell phone, looking down at their cell phone. So, but, yeah, I don't blame anybody for taking a little eye rest during, one of these
Speaker 13: Alright.
Speaker 0: So final question before I let you go. We got a minute left. Do any one of these nominees get stopped? Is is there a single nominee who's not gonna get through, Kevin and then Anna?
Speaker 2: No. I think they're all going to make their I think HEGSIFF will probably be the closest, followed by, Tulsi Gabbard. But I think they'll all find their way through.
Speaker 1: Anna, what do you think? I agree. I agree. I think all of them will very likely be confirmed. Just my personal preferences, I I have the biggest issue with Pete Hegseth, given the allegations against him.
I'm pretty sure everyone in your audience disagrees with me. But it's not just the allegations. I'm concerned about the lack of experience for an incredibly important role. Secretary of Defense is not a small thing, and I'm worried that, you know, at a time when we're involved in conflicts abroad, that we're gonna have someone at the helm who is not experienced for this position.
Speaker 0: I got you. Although I will point out that Barack Obama became our commander in chief after being a community organizer. So it's, like, it's all relative. I think you're right. They're all getting through, and I think that's a good thing.
And if they stink, we've got the firer in chief in the Oval Office. He loves to fire people. He's proven he'll do it over to her. So we've got that fail safe. Anna, Kevin, thank you both so much.
That was great. We appreciate it. Up next Great
Speaker 6: to be here.
Speaker 0: Link and Amala are back and much, much more to discuss. Here's a shocking truth about New Year's resolutions. Whether you wanna lose weight, improve your energy, or beat that embarrassing post meal bloat, nothing works if your gut is not healthy first. That's why for 2025, I wanna introduce you to Just Thrive probiotic. Most probiotics die in your harsh stomach acid before they can do much good.
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Here's to your best health with Just Thrive. Well, the inauguration of Donald Trump is next week. It's down to days now. Can you believe it? That we will finally be saying goodbye to Joe Biden and hello again to mister Trump.
And the left is melting down over Carrie Underwood accepting an invitation to perform at the inauguration. Meantime, Jill Biden, that's doctor Jill, for those of you playing at home, takes the first shot at Nancy Pelosi. Well, I mean, the first shot publicly. I do believe Nancy fired the first shot at them, in a Washington Post exit interview that will make your stomach turn, but also has some interesting things in it. Joining me now to discuss it all, Amala Epanobi, host of the Amala Epanobi podcast, and Link Lauren, former senior adviser to RFK Jr and social media influencer.
Welcome back, guys. Great to see you. I I there's so much to go over here. I love the doctor Jill sit down piece with the Washington Post. This is how it begins.
Okay? Hold on. I gotta put on my my glasses because the print is so teeny tiny. It says okay. The first lady says she's at peace with this ending, but, this is in quotes, let's just say I was disappointed with how it unfolded.
Why? I don't know. I learned a lot about human nature. There are scores of relationships, good and bad, that pinwheel outward from her marriage in which Jill is the keeper of the family grudges. Quote, you said that.
I didn't, she interrupts laughing. I don't think I said that, continues the writer. She did in fact say that. And then quoting Jill, Joe has an incredible capacity to forgive, and he's incapable of holding a grudge, end quote. This is what Jill wrote in her 2019 memoir.
But that means I end up being the holder of grudges, the one who recalls every slight committed every slight committed against the people I love, which brings us to Nancy Pelosi, whom Jill has known as long nearly as Joe. Her face nearly pearlescent with lustrous foundation, betrays no particular emotion. She's holding a China cup, tea with honey and lemon.
Speaker 13: It's been on my mind a lot
Speaker 0: lately, and Jill pauses. We were friends for 50 years. She's using her teacher's voice now. It was disappointing. So they're not loving Nanpal.
And who could blame them? But Joe Biden, he holds no grudges whatsoever, Amala. Fear not. It's just doctor Jill.
Speaker 7: Yeah. You know, I don't know if Joe Biden has an incredible capacity to forgive, or it's his incredible capacity to forget because we all know how he's doing cognitively with all of these things. I think Joe Biden is so upset because she was really a conduit of power through through Joe Biden. She was doing so much behind the scenes. You know, Joe, you've answered all the questions.
She was on stage, and through his presidency, she was kind of, you know, a little bit of the president if we're all looking at this the way we're looking at it. So to be slighted by Nancy Pelosi, who she knows has a dark history and a a dark present, She's she's just not happy about that. I think we've been seeing Jill Biden in the background just be more of herself, be more open about what she's truly thinking about what's happening behind the scenes. And this is just one of those times where, I guess, when she's on the way out, she's just gonna pull the strings and and say what she she wants to say.
Speaker 0: To me, Lincoln, like, the fact that they continue at magazine Mhmm. After magazine, newspaper after newspaper are trying to convince us of Jill Biden's just preternatural beauty and fashion set. And, like, I'm sick of this is a pattern with her. Like, honestly, they have her on Vogue like like she truly is some supermodel. They never put Melania on it.
I mean, so it's like, could you stop with the pearlescent skin? Like, just come on. No. It's over the top.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean, they put her on the cover of Vogue 3 times, and then they gave Anna Wintour medal of freedom. So I guess that was the trade off. But Jill Biden, in my opinion, she is going to go down as one of the most unlikable women in politics. She has no one else to blame for herself, for for the position that she is in.
She has beast with Nancy Pelosi right now with Kamala Harris. She is like the Regina George of Washington DC. This is like senior citizen mean girls. Okay? Geriatric mean girls right now.
Jill Biden is burning every bridge. She's stabbing people in the back. She's shaking people. She's like Harry and Meghan in that way. But Jill Biden, she has to blame herself because I don't know any wife or any woman who would have allowed their husband to go on national TV on June 27th and do what he did in that debate.
If you had any dignity or respect for your man, you would have said, you know what? It's time to retire years ago. But you were so power hungry and Hunter as well. They kept pushing Joe and pushing Joe when they knew he was cognitively impaired.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Because she wanted access to power. And that's why she's so super upset with Nancy Pelosi. Alright. So Nancy Pelosi, speaking of, is not going to be at the inauguration on Monday.
We don't know why.
Speaker 7: She's recently
Speaker 3: Jeffy's. Soccer.
Speaker 0: Are you were are you more sad that she won't be there, Link, or Michelle Obama? Which one will you miss more?
Speaker 3: Oh. Oh, okay. Everybody's saying maybe Michelle Obama. She just has morals and principles, and she doesn't wanna be around Donald Trump. I think she got a face lift or a neck lift.
Maybe she's not healed. Pelosi too.
Speaker 2: I don't think
Speaker 3: there's some big reason Michelle Obama isn't going to the inauguration, but I digress. Back to you.
Speaker 0: It would have been ill timed if she had planned to go to the inauguration to schedule it right before James went.
Speaker 3: Divorce. Yeah. Something going on there.
Speaker 0: Oh. Oh. Okay. Well, the the wine continues to tine, and we'll continue to watch it. But I Yes.
The big inauguration, news today is not Pelosi. Yesterday, it was Michelle. It's Carrie Underwood. And, apparently, she's losing all sorts of fan groups. The LGBTQ community in particular, I guess, is very upset about the fact that she's agreed to sing at the inauguration.
And she's saying, I love my country. I think this is a great chance to express that love and participate in a moment of unity. Her leftist base is not having it, Amala.
Speaker 7: Yeah. I mean, I'm not surprised by this whatsoever. If you have any sort of association with Donald Trump, even if that's just singing at the inauguration, you're gonna be cut off by every single left leaning person who used to be a fan of yours. But, really, are we surprised? I mean, just look at Carrie Underwood.
Have you guys seen the CMAs? Do you know what's going on in country music? It's pretty typical, I would think, that these people would either be supporters of Donald Trump or love their country so much that they're willing to represent it at the inauguration. And that's exactly what Carrie Underwood has taxed herself with. And let's be real.
She hasn't come out and gave an any statement about her politics or how she feels about the 2024 election. So let her be her and let her love this country. We used to be under the umbrella of a shared love for country, but differences in politics. And now it's if you love your country, if you wanna represent America, you're a white supremacist MAGA supporter.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. No. Here's what she said, to TMZ. I love our country, and I'm honored to have been asked to sing at the inauguration and to be a small part of this historic event. I am humbled to answer the call at a time when we must all come together in the spirit of unity and looking at the future.
She will be performing America the Beautiful. It's like, great. That's what performers do. And the inauguration is not just for Cora Maga, Link. It's for all of America.
Why would she say it's the fact that she doesn't hate him? And by the way, she's actually made fun of him in the past. We don't know what her politics are when it comes to Trump because even some Republicans historically have not liked him. We don't know which how what her but why why wouldn't she take this amazing performative opportunity on behalf of the country to try to unify some?
Speaker 3: Exactly. I mean, Carrie Underwood should 100% perform at the inauguration, but this is what happens with the left or this woke mob on the left, especially in the entertainment industry. They preach about diversity all the time, but not diversity of thought because, God forbid, you go and perform at a Republican's inauguration, you're suddenly persona non grata. Well, I hate to tell you, Trump just won in a historic landslide. The popular vote, the house, the senate, the electoral college, Carrie Underwood should 100% be there.
And the fan she might lose on the left, I'm sure she's gonna gain on the right and she's gonna sound amazing doing it.
Speaker 0: This is what Rolling Stone is reporting, that this cohort of queer fans of Underwood have spent more than a decade believing the singer supported them. Now they're in the midst of unraveling what it means to be suddenly shocked into a reality that does not align with their own. Fan accounts dedicated to Underwood have continued to voice their disappointment in her decision. Quote, while I will always love and support Carrie, this account will not be covering her upcoming appearance at Trump's inauguration nor any other comments or appearance that she makes in support of this convicted felon, the Carrie Underwood UK account shared with its 14,000 followers on X. Other social media users are encouraging listeners, who are removing Underwood from their playlists to tune in to other artists with more outspoken track records, I think, on LGBTQ or anti Trump matters.
If you need another female country artist that actually gives a shit about society and women, I present to you Kacey Musgraves and Maren Morris, one ex post read. Time and time again, they explicitly support what's right and publicly reject racist, homophobic BS. I mean, that's actually surprising to me in country music, Amala, that you've got these 2 who I I don't really know them or what their social media posts are. But that even country is getting divided in the way the rest of the the actual country, America, is.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 7: Oh, absolutely. A 100%. And we've been covering this sort of split that's taking place within country music, and it's been happening over the last few years with Kacey Musgraves and Maren Morris. They're extremely pro LGBTQ. Kacey Musgraves has, music videos online where she has drag queens running around behind the scenes talking about pride and how love is love.
Mirren Morris very famously endorsed, trans children in transitioning kids and says that we need to protect trans kids, which we all know don't don't exist, but that created a major rift within country music where a lot of people, artists were dividing over this and their support of Donald Trump and whether or not that makes them homophobic. I have to point out though the sense of entitlement that fans have. The the most you know about Carrie Underwood is her music and what she looks like. And you think you have some sense of entitlement over her opinion, her political affiliation, and if she doesn't abide by your or tow the line of your ideology, you're no longer going to listen to music that you once enjoyed. These are just people robbing themselves of good experiences, of good music, and they can't recognize that there is a divide between you and the artist.
You might feel like you have this social relationship with them, but it's a parasocial one, and you're not entitled to their opinion.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And by the way, she hasn't even expressed one. She's like literally just going to sing America the Beautiful. So calm down. It's ridiculous.
Here is The View, Link Wing, and I know you were waiting to hear what Whoopi Goldberg had to say, and I have it for you. Take a listen.
Speaker 3: We all I
Speaker 14: wouldn't do it even though I
Speaker 0: can't say it.
Speaker 14: No. I would not. I would not normalize him. And she says, I love our country. How do you love your country and support and normalize somebody who was a convicted felon who really wants to destroy the country, in my opinion?
I I don't understand how you say you love your country at the same time as you normalize this convicted felon, which I can say now every day.
Speaker 13: I agree with you, Joy. I can't sing a lick, but I certainly and I have not been asked. But if I were asked, it would be a hard no.
Speaker 15: Well, people do what they do for whatever reasons. It's like Joe and Mika. Yeah. They do what they do. They felt that's what they needed to do, and I gotta stand behind them.
Speaker 4: Yeah. You
Speaker 15: know? And I stand behind her if she's if no. No. Not or not. Because if I believe I have the right to make up my mind to go perform someplace, I believe they have the same right.
Of course. And and so I have to yeah. I gotta I have to support.
Speaker 0: I mean, of course, she has the right to do it. What an inane point to bring them all together. Like, what she's saying absolutely nothing. And those 2 cretins at the top, right, Joy and Sunny, no, it's a hard no. And I how can she go perform at the inauguration of a convicted felon?
You can see they just keep wrapping that around themselves, Link, like a lovely little snuggle blanket Right. That a 3 year old uses.
Speaker 3: No. As if the music industry is this great moral place, there are tons of convicted felons in the music industry. Work in the music industry, at these record labels. Does she listen to
Speaker 0: rap music? Not careful. Her husband's going to be one of
Speaker 2: those things.
Speaker 3: That's her husband. Excuse me, Sunny. Your husband exactly. He's under investigation. Investigation.
Sunny's gonna have to be on that show
Speaker 2: like I have a
Speaker 3: legal note about my husband. But yeah, no. For a second, I thought I was watching Pete Hegset's con confirmation with these screeching women talking over each other. It's just painful painful painful. I'd rather do anything than watch The View.
No, I did not like that. But yeah, no, The View is not a moral authority on anything. I mean, the day I look to Joy Behar for life advice is the day I retire. So no thanks, I'm sorry.
Speaker 0: Can you wait, can you expand on your your reaction to the Pete Hegseth cross examiners?
Speaker 3: The Pete Hegseth confirmation hearing was like nails on a chalkboard. Okay? If I wanted to hear those women screeching and yelling for 3 hours, like I said, I would go and watch The View. And me, I could not do the confirmation hearings because I don't sit in rooms with fluorescent lighting for that long. I mean, it's hard to make Pete Hegseth look bad.
The lighting in there was rough. But no, that confirmation hearing was not was nothing but political theater. Tim Cain made an ass of himself during that confirmation hearing. So what an embarrassment.
Speaker 0: Yeah. He's gotten angrier and angrier.
Speaker 4: And one
Speaker 0: of the things that was weird about him during the cross examination is he kept, like, sinking further in his seat. Like, I'm for the listening audience, I'm going down now. You can all see the top, like, of my head at my desk. He kept slinking down. It was like the lower he went physically is the lower he went rhetorically.
Mhmm. And he just looked like a little like a rat, you know, in the corner, like, low and small and the angry eyebrows and, you know, the performance matched it.
Speaker 3: Well, also, Tim Cain is a guy who campaigned with Doug Imhof, who was accused of open face slapping his girlfriend and then never even really denied it, but the liberal press and never pressed him on it for the 107 days. Kamala Harris ran that campaign. He also campaigned with Bill Clinton who took how many trips to Epstein's Island. So I don't think Tim Cain is a moral authority either, but he sat there badgering Pete Hegseth about who we may or may not have slept with 10 years ago. This is someone who's turned his life over to God.
He's open about his flaws and everything. He has grit. He's a real man. That's why people resonate him resonate with him. The last thing I'll say about Pete Hegseth is he might not have the endorsement of the military contractors or all these lobbyists.
He has the endorsement of actual men and women in uniform and that's what should matter for that role.
Speaker 0: Yeah. There were marches of a couple 100 Navy SEALs through Washington in support of Pete. I don't I don't remember ever seeing that. I mean, like, that's what I think got Joni Ernst in the end. Pete met with her repeatedly to her credit.
She took those meetings. But I believe Joni Ernst when she says, and she said it a long time, that she listens to the rank and file. That's what that's whose opinion she's most interested in, on military matters, and I believe those men and women spoke to her and she heard them. So good for them because I think they made a difference. Okay.
Moving on. Amela, you are are you from LA? Because I know you've been out there, and you've been helping those who have been hurt by the devastation.
Speaker 7: I I'm not from LA. Originally from Florida, but I live here in LA and have for the last few years.
Speaker 0: Okay. So were were you or were you not thrilled to see Meghan and Harry show up and offer their support and help, heartfelt, sincere help?
Speaker 7: Yeah. You know what? I don't know how much a hug accomplishes in this time. I hope they're doing actual work where they're actually bringing, you know, donations, resources, things that people actually need in the wake of these fires to them. If they're doing that, you know, kudos to you.
I have a feeling they knew they were gonna be some cameras present, and we're seeing a lot of celebrities, some of whom, yeah, were not directly impacted to showing up to, you know, give a hug here and a slap on the back there. I hope they're actually doing something rather than, showing up for their photo op.
Speaker 0: Did you did you make sure that you were caught by the cameras when you went to help? Did you make sure that your name got in the press?
Speaker 7: Yes. Abs I actually called beforehand, and I said, you know what? If there's not at least 10 cameras there, just send me on another day. You know?
Speaker 0: Let me
Speaker 7: know when to really be there. Like, I think and it didn't happen.
Speaker 0: What we've now established is that Amela is the nicest of the 3 of us, because I know you and I are more like minded about this visit.
Speaker 3: These 2 hucksters should have stayed home. Okay? The fact that they're out there getting a private tour of Pasadena and walking through the rubble. There are people who lost everything and they haven't been allowed to go back and to see if even a photo album made it. But Harry and Meghan are out traipsing through doing a photo shoot with paparazzi in tow.
The Duke and Duchess of White Castle are so delusional. I am sick of seeing them. They should go back to the UK and eat crumpets and scones and beg for forgiveness from King Charles express contrition. We don't need them there. Let me just say Meghan, when I saw the headline that said Meghan Markle was out surveying the damage.
Why is she surveying the damage is she a first responder is she a firefighter is she gonna say let's bring in the excavator and the crane she had no business being there what so ever the only silver lining from all of this is that her cringe worthy Netflix show got pushed back. That's the only good thing to come out of all
Speaker 0: of this. Now they're saying it was only pushed back to March, which is shocking because that is that's way too soon. You good luck to her who's she's already battling, you know, record low disapproval, record low approval ratings. Releasing a show about her fabulous life in Montecito in her mansion and how to create lovely home events when her city is in ashes. In March, nothing will have been rebuilt, never mind even cleaned up.
And she's gonna be out there in the the flowing gown in the middle of her mansion, like
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 0: Oh, let me show you the perfect tea and champagne combo. Good luck, sister. That's not gonna go well. I do wanna say this. The Post, New York Post reports that they were offended by Justine Bateman calling them disaster tourists.
The Post reports, quote, it's offensive to Meghan and Harry that anybody would think this is merely a photo op. A source exclusively tells page 6, which is obviously Meghan. They have dedicated countless hours to volunteering long before the media even caught wind of their involvement, the source tells us. And, of course, Bateman had tweeted out, they're ambulance chasers. This is a repulsive photo op.
They're touring the damage. Are they politicians? They don't live here. They're tourists. Disaster tourists.
So, we'll see whether they actually don't drop that Netflix show because I just I don't see how they can possibly do it in the wake of when I have
Speaker 3: to do something. About Harry and Meghan? Yeah. If I was in a crisis, they would be the last people I call. Okay?
Their own lives are in shambles. They ran their lives into the ground. So why the hell would I call them in a crisis? Imagine your house is burning down. I was thinking about this the other day when I saw the pictures.
Your house is burning down you're grabbing your dog your passport your kids you look out the window through the smoke oh my god harry and megan are here to save me they had no business being there good for justine bateman what a revival for her in her career she's really getting a lot of press from this too so shout out to Justine Babin.
Speaker 0: Amazing. Justine's been with Spectact. If you don't follow her on x, you absolutely should. No. You're exactly right.
The people of California have suffered enough. They don't need these 2 Right. Adding to their troubles. Who wants to see them? And by the way, if I were like a man and Meghan Markle came over to hug me, I'd be worried.
These 2 are so sue happy. I'd be like, next thing, she's gonna say, I meet you at her. Don't say anything to Harry because he's definitely gonna sue you for defamation claiming that you said something that was untrue about him. Like, they they are sue happy. They are what we call vexatious litigants.
So I would say as far away from those 2, if I were a property owner, they were on my property burned or not, I'd be like, oh my god. Don't let them slip and fall. They'll sue me even though my house is in ashes. I just it's very dangerous. Stay away from them.
That's the only possible route forward. Alright. Speaking of the LA fires, I didn't get to this yesterday because we have breaking news about Israel, but Karen Bass, you knew what's gonna happen eventually that the pictures of her in Ghana would get released, and and they they did not disappoint. She was having a grand old time as her city was burning, and she was actually asked after the fact we'll put the pictures up in a second, but she was here. Look at her.
Here she is chit chatting away in an absolutely lovely suite. I mean, I don't know exactly. I am told that, she was there hold on. I wanna find my my notes. With the that's the king of Ghana that we see her with.
Oh, I can't find my notes, but his name is like Tiko Tika Taki. It's like Tiki Tako Tuca. I can't remember what it is, but it's she was having a great time with this man instead of flying back to LA. And now now somebody asked her, do you regret going to Ghana when, like, the National Weather Service was jumping up and down saying you're gonna have devastating winds. These are these actually are gonna be really dangerous.
And here's what she said.
Speaker 6: Looking back, would you have taken that trip overseas?
Speaker 9: You know, I am gonna focus today
Speaker 6: But please on
Speaker 9: what we no. No. No
Speaker 0: regrets being with king Takitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitikitik
Speaker 3: Well, the thing about being a Democrat is you get to fail upward. Like, Kamala Harris, she's been an utter calamity, but then she gets to be the nominee for a 107 days. Right? So this doesn't happen in any other party. And when it comes to Karen Bass, she needs to resign immediately.
What were you doing in Ghana on some eat, pray, love journey safari as your city is burning down? What are you doing Karen Bass? You need to resign immediately.
Speaker 0: Okay. We're we're we lost almost fee, but we're trying to fix it. So stand by. We will get her back. No.
I think it's actually outrageous. And I I have to tell you a fun story though about Ghana. My brother, has run a number of companies. And and one of his big companies, there was a guy who kept missing work. And my brother sat him down and said, like, you can't you know, sick leave is fine.
Some family leave, I get it, but, like, you can't just keep missing work. You gotta show up at the office more regularly. And the guy said, well, you know, what about I don't know what the guy's name was. Joe. Joe Mhmm.
He keeps missing work all the time. And it turns out that Joe, who worked for my brother, this is years ago, was the youngest son of the king of Ghana. And the tradition in Ghana is that the youngest son has to be the one to go take care of the king of Ghana if he's ill. And so my brother looked at the first guy and he said, he is the youngest son of the king of Ghana. You are not.
So you do have to be here. And sorry with that. I mean, I would understand. If Joe were in Ghana taking care of, again, king Takitiki Truro the second, that I would understand. But Karen Bass did not need to be there.
And the fact that she's out there, like, no. I don't regret going, is an absurdity that I think will come back to haunt her. Amala, your thoughts?
Speaker 7: Yeah. I mean, absolutely. The the devastation that she missed out on, and which she was part of and privy to, is just absolutely unbelievable. Just the question is, what are you doing there? What could you have possibly gained in any way, shape, or form, being in Ghana at the time that this was taking place?
And mind you, this is not typically characteristic of when wildfires start here in Los Angeles, but you are the mayor. Shouldn't you be spending most, if not all of your time in the city that you are a leader in? And it was just unbelievable for her to get here and take no accountability whatsoever for being gone and saying, you know, well, as soon as I heard, I I jumped on on the quickest flight, and I've been doing this and that. Meanwhile, she she cut the budget that very well contributed to this entire disaster that we're experiencing right now, and would take no sense of accountability for all the leadership mistakes she made leading up to her big trip to Ghana that landed us in this position.
Speaker 0: Here's what's really galling. You've got MSNBC's Alex Wagner, and she's not the only one, out there trying to make it sound like it's conservatives who are making an issue of the gender or DEI status of these firefighters, etcetera. Like, that it's conservatives who have brought up, for example, the lesbianism of the top 3 fire officials in the LAFD. Take a listen here. Stop 25.
Mhmm.
Speaker 8: You you wanna talk about fires? They wanna talk about DEI. You wanna talk about the heroes that have been putting these fires out, they wanna talk about the fact that the women that run the fire department are well, the people that run the fire department are women. They wanna talk about DEI. They wanna smear a Democrat because he's the guy in charge, if only because he's a Democrat.
Speaker 0: Lincoln, this is infuriating. The
Speaker 2: there is
Speaker 0: a conservative who wants to talk about the sexual preferences of the fire chief. Not a single person. Not no one. She Right. Wanted to talk about it, which is the reason we are reacting to her making it a thing.
Speaker 3: Right. I mean, you can tell MSNBC is all about all about DEI because the entire prime time lineup looks transgender. But one thing Alex Wagner forgot to mention was, there were tons of firefighters who were fired for not getting the vaccination. Right? So they were great men and women who were fired for not getting the vaccination.
Also, I don't care if someone is black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Indian, male, female. As long as the hydrants have water in them and you can pick me up, scoop me up and carry me out of the burning building. Other than that, I don't really care who you love, who you go to sleep with, anything like that. But Alex Wagner, all she knows is identity politics. These are her talking points.
She's on that show, a very liberal show with a very liberal audience. So of course, she's preaching to the choir.
Speaker 0: It's amazing how they do this every time, Amala. They make identity an issue in the first line of the bio in the case of the LAFD. But so many videos that they've put out pushing how they have too many white men, and they need more diversity, and they need more women, and, yay, yay, I'm a lesbian, as if anybody cares who she's sleeping with. Never mind her second and third in command. And then when conservatives after a massive disaster and by the way, it's not just the right.
There there are many people who are like, why has this been such an issue? Why did taxpayer dollars go to this instead of filling the hydrants? Then they say, it's a conservative pound situation. Look what care well, look what the conservatives care about. They wanna talk about the color or this the gender or the sexual orientation of the people involved here.
No. That's not how it went down.
Speaker 7: Yeah. A 100%. I'm you know, they say every time you see somebody who you do not like, you call them a DEI hire. Excuse me. We don't have to call you DEI hires.
You do it yourself. We've seen the diversity, equity, and inclusion roll out all through LAFC, and people are reporting back and saying, look at this fire chief. She's not just a lesbian. She's not just a woman. She's had 22 years experience as a firefighter and an engineer.
Excuse me. You're the ones who didn't tell us about the 22 years of experience. You rolled her out as a lesbian woman who's now the fire chief, and they've wasted time and resources and money, our money on training these firefighters on implicit bias and white supremacy and the hierarchy of race. That is time and resources that could have been spent doing brush clearance or controlled fires or making sure the fire hydrants actually had water in them or that we could use the water reservoir that had a 117,000,000 gallons of water that was rendered unusable in these wildfires. So that's why we're discussing a diversity equity inclusion.
Speaker 0: Yeah. And that but Shellenberger was pointing out that, okay. So they had to make repairs to the cover, which is why it was empty. Why did they have to make it during the peak fire season? Why couldn't they wait until we weren't in peak fire season?
Like, how grossly irresponsible? These there are unquestionably management fall downs left and right when it comes to what happened out there, and, eventually, they will be held to account. Alright. Now on this subject of look at me look at me. I'm this.
I'm a first this. I'm a first that. We have to say goodbye to. I am sorry, guys, but she's going. It's like, this is the way it's gonna we you know?
It's the one sadness of Trump winning because Mhmm. Let's face it. We're gonna miss her a little bit. Like, I mean, I kind of missed her word salads. In fact, I'll start with the word salads just so you too will be feeling the pangs that I've been feeling.
Here's a little montage of some of the best slash worst of Karine Jean Pierre at the podium.
Speaker 9: It is hard for us to keep up with this president. What I see is a strong resolute president. We're seeing these deep fakes, these manipulated videos.
Speaker 4: By the way, used to make beer brewed here. It is used to make the brew beer in this the final oh, earthriders. Thanks for the great lakes.
Speaker 3: Is there any possibility that the president would end up pardoning his son?
Speaker 9: No. We
Speaker 16: did. You've also said it several times that the president would not, pardon or commute the sentence for his son, Hunter. I just want to make sure that that is not going to change over the next 6 months. The President's
Speaker 0: saying it would not It's
Speaker 9: still it's still a no. It's still a no.
Speaker 16: It will always be a no.
Speaker 9: It will be a no. It is a no. And I don't have anything else to add. 3 US winners of the 2022 Nobel Prize. Who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry?
Who won the Nobel Prize in physics? And who won the Nobel Prize in economic Sciences. I I don't have anything. I don't have anything. I I don't have anything.
I don't have anything. I just don't have anything. I don't have anything. We don't have anything.
Speaker 0: Okay. We coulda kept going because let's not forget when he thought that that the dead congresswoman was alive. Where's Jackie? She he was she's just top of mind. She was top of mind, and that's what Karina Jean Pierre tried to tell us.
And the obsessive note reading, right, she could not do the job without reading for the first two years of it. She got a little better on that towards the end. Well, as she goes out, this is her closing message, SOT twenty.
Speaker 9: The job you do questioning leaders and holding the powerful accountable is important. The give and take that happens here is incredibly healthy and it is part of our democracy. It is my sincere hope that I will that I while I may be the first for many things at this podium behind this lectern, I am not the last. I hope my presence at this podium has served as inspiration to many young girls out there who took who look at me and look at this job and look at what we've been able to do and have a similar background as me. And hopefully, they can follow their dreams.
Progress is not always a straight line, but we all must do our part. In the words of doctor Martin Luther King Junior, whose birthday is a day today, bend it towards justice and pay it forward.
Speaker 0: Her closing message, Amela, is I hope you've found me as inspirational as I find me, and that the little girls of America look up to me.
Speaker 8: What are you making of it?
Speaker 7: And let let's not forget, not just not all little girls, the little girls who look like me. Okay? So check your skin color first, make sure that we look alike, and then we can relate on this. Yeah. I mean, she's patting herself on the back for her job.
I don't know how well she she did that job. She was really good at skirting questions. One thing I'm really gonna miss is the neon highlighter outfits. Like, I can't wait to see what outfits she wears out there sometimes Good point. And her budding romance, with, with Peter Ducey.
I I love that relationship. I loved watching that play out. I love the banter and the and the theater of it all, but I don't know that I'm gonna miss, Corinne Jean Pierre.
Speaker 2: I mean,
Speaker 0: of course, what she's referring to, Link, is the fact that she's black and she's a lesbian. Like, this is what the left celebrates. That's that's her history making role that she hopes everybody will find inspirational. Like like, lesbian children were growing up all over the country thinking, I'm never gonna be press secretary because I'm a lesbian. I mean, it's just so what Right.
Are we in 1950?
Speaker 3: Once again, the left is more obsessed with skin color, race, gender than anybody I know on the right. I don't care what Karim Jean Pierre looks like. I care that she sat up there and gaslit the American people for the last 4 years into thinking Joe Biden's fine. He's doing cartwheels in private. He's in great shape.
All the while we are seeing with our own very eyes the guy is not doing well. So Korean Jean Pierre I'm not gonna miss her. I hope the door doesn't hit her on her way out with her big binder. She should have spent less time doing Vogue photo shoots and more time preparing for those briefings because she would get up there and say a whole bunch of nothing.
Speaker 0: It's amazing like how little she obviously knows. I don't think she knows that Nobel is a proper noun. That it's a it's a man. It was an actual person, it was a family. And, I don't think she under like, I think she thinks it's actually no like a noble it's it's a prize for being
Speaker 3: We're noble people.
Speaker 5: I don't
Speaker 0: I don't think she knows. She said it over and over and over. Like, how humiliating. Right? Anyway okay.
Quick pause. We're back in one minute, and I'm going to get Link's take on Mike Pence attacking RFKJ. Alright. Stand by for that. So, Link, you worked for RFKJ, and you are going to be very distressed to learn that a major adversary has emerged to his confirmation.
He used to be the vice president of the United States under Donald Trump, and his name is Mike Pence. His organization, Advancing American Freedom, is calling for senators to vote against RFKJ's nomination for health and human services secretary, over his past support for abortion access. The letter criticized Kennedy as being pro abortion. This is via Politico, specifically over his past support for abortions later in pregnancy. This position is, quote, completely out of step with a strong pro life record of the first Trump administration.
Are you scare are you shaking in the in your boots? I mean, this is a powerful adversary.
Speaker 3: Absolutely not. Mike Pence, I'm sure he's a lovely person at times. We have mutual acquaintances. He does great work with Young America's Foundation, but it's my job to call it like I see it. And in this instance, Mike Pence looks like a smarmy slimeball.
This is nothing but an attempt to get some press, to get some attention a few days before Donald Trump's inauguration. Tell me this isn't some high school stuff. A few days before before Trump is inaugurated, you release a statement trying to undermine his cabinet appointees. It is so obvious. There is nobody who is going to fight harder for children in this country than Robert f Kennedy junior.
When we were out there on the campaign trail talking about seed oils, soil in general, dyes in our food, childhood diabetes, public health. There were other GOP challengers saying we were just curating a vibe. We were a fringe campaign. We were a joke. But as it turns out these are the top concerns for moms and dads across the country.
Kids are sicker than they've ever been before 90% of our health care cost about $4,000,000,000,000 goes to chronic disease. So when doctors when insurance companies when the pharmaceutical industries see a sick kid come in, they hear cha ching, cha ching, cha ching, and dollar signs for decades to come. And my issue with Mike Pence is this, advancing American freedom unlike other super packs, unlike other 501c threes, they do not disclose their donors. So I'm not alleging that he's being influenced but this is a fair question to say are you getting money through your organization from pharmaceutical companies you were in charge of operation warp speed that is really your wheelhouse you have a lot of friends in the industry His presidential campaign was also run by pretty swampy lobbyists. So I would question what his intentions are and the next thing I'll say is this, Bobby is very reachable.
He is notoriously reachable. The man always has his phone in his hand. If Mike Pence sincerely cared about this issue, if Mike Pence was sincere which I don't think he is, look at the timing he just wants press, he could have very well called Bobby and said you know what? I have reservations about past comments you've made on x, y, and z. He could've handled it man to man in private and that's not what he did.
He decided to put out the statement to get some press because he's still upset with Donald Trump. But what really bothers Mike Pence, what really bothers him is that Robert f Kennedy junior is a real guy with grit and character. He's open about his flaws, warts, and all. And he's going to be much more consequential in the history books than Mike Pence ever will be. And that's what's getting under his skin.
Speaker 0: RFKJ is becoming, like, a superhero. I mean, he's he's got, like
Speaker 3: Superstar.
Speaker 0: He's one of those people who, like, now he walks into an airport and everybody's like, I mean, he was he was persona non grata, 2 years ago. You couldn't even platform him anywhere. And, like, the transformation has been absolutely remarkable. And akin to what we discussed yesterday about how great things were already starting to happen just with the anticipation of Trump being sworn in, like the deal between the Israelis and Gaza, like, according to Pete, already seeing recruiting numbers go up in the armed forces, like the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act passing in the house. Like, things are already starting to go in the right direction.
We got another. It's a smaller piece, but as a mom myself, I love it, where the FDA has now banned red dye number 3 from foods. They had it banned from makeup because they recognized it was a carcinogen, but not from foods? What sense does that make? And I have to say,
Speaker 4: I'll just
Speaker 14: stick with
Speaker 0: you on this link since you work for ROKJ. It's another thing that he's been jumping up and down about, but people have been dismissing him as a kook. And now what do you know? The FDA comes around to see it his way.
Speaker 3: Right. I mean, not to make this all about me, and let me preface this by saying I'm only speaking for myself right now. I love Bobby, his family, and close with some of his kids, his wife, Cheryl, but I'm only speaking for myself right now. When we were on the campaign trail and speaking about these issues like the dyes in our food, the mainstream media the mainstream media mocked us, laughed at us, called us a fringe campaign. We were taking bows and arrows but we knew very deliberately these were top winning issues.
And it's why in a recent YouGovCBS poll, RFKJ as you call him has the highest favorability of any incoming appointee from the Trump administration. Right? So it's the highest favorability. So it's not surprising that there are bows and arrows coming at him from Mike Pence and some of these swampy creatures. But when we traveled across the country, the moms and the dads, I will say, who came up at events saying I have a sick child and I can't get answers.
It was every single event. I know because I was signed in on all of his social media accounts. Thousands of comments and messages every single day. My child has diabetes and asthma and the doctors say they can't figure out what's wrong. We are being mass poisoned by our food and that's not hyperbole.
Right? I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I'm actually quite a boring person, but we are being mass poisoned by what we're ingesting. We have things in other countries that we have things here that they don't have in other countries. So I'm not gonna sit here and just defend Bobby all day long, but this is what it is.
Speaker 0: No. Now they're gonna have to find something else to color the cough syrup, like beets, the way they do in Europe, something edible that doesn't cause cancer. This is why I think it's so interesting, Amala, as we get ready for the RFKJ confirmation hearing, that the Democrats are in a tough spot. Because, first of all, his positions, when actually explained, are going to be very popular, very popular with most Americans when they actually hear him. And second of all, there is not a more effective advocate for said positions than this man who is extremely articulate, and there's no one who will be better prepared on he has 70 years of living each one of these issues and debating them in courts, in legal papers with his critics, his harshest critics.
He's not like a Democrat behind closed doors who never has to engage. So it's going to be actually, I think, potentially explosive and highly entertaining for the rest of us.
Speaker 7: Yeah. And I think they've already exhausted every single avenue of attack in Trump's first term.
Speaker 1: So I
Speaker 7: don't know how the media is going to be able to spin everything that this administration is doing when this is truly a bipartisan issue. I mean, we are all experiencing the sickness that is running rampant in this country, the high rates of the obesity of a chronic illness, the instant the the industry that the big pharma has become and how much it's become a staple in each of our lives. When you have a nation that is trying to answer childhood obesity rates with putting them on Ozempic, we clearly have a problem. And RFK is going to come in and just point out things that should be blatantly obvious to every single American. So I think there's going to be some initial media poll of calling him a conspiracy theorist and an anti vaxxer and trying to call out, you know, this connection that he wants to make between vaccines and autism.
But once that dies down and he starts effectively working on everyday issues that every single American is struggling through right now. Once our food gets better, once we start exercising more, once obesity rates start going down, once rates of chronic illness start going down, there's gonna be nothing to say about this man.
Speaker 0: So I do wanna tell the audience that, after Casey Means came on the show and I read her amazing book, Good Energy, and she's the she and Cali Means are working with RFKJ on a lot of things. We did do what she recommended, which was get a carbon filter for our entire house. They you know, if you have a big water tank in your basement or whatever, they basically just have to replace it with one that has a carbon filter. And so it's big. You know, you have to get one of those, and and it filters the water.
But then on top of that, out of the drinking faucet, the main drinking faucet in the kitchen, we didn't do it on every, every sink. We got an RO filter. So the water that we drink, you know, most of the time, we we drink out of some other faucets too, also goes through the RO filter. And the water is so clean and tastes so good, and it gets rid of so many bad things that are in your water. I don't want fluoride in my water.
And my friends at the 5th column mocked RFKJ for that, and I said, you just wait. It actually is a neurotoxin. Why why is it in our way? We don't need it in our water. I think it's gonna come out of the water, and it should, and more and more states are starting to do it.
Not to mention chlorine that's in there, a bunch of other minerals and metals and things that you don't need. And if you wanna reinfuse your water with certain minerals, you can. We chose not to do it. But, anyway, I do feel like it's the beginning of a new day with him coming in, talking sense about our food, our agriculture, our medicine, our drugs. Like, thank God, I'm I'm sure he's gonna be confirmed, we have somebody who's willing to say these things and is not owned by anyone.
His confirmation hearing has not yet been set. It will be. He will be subjected to this horrible, painful cross examination that these people can come up with. But no one's gonna be able to lay lay a glove on him, Link.
Speaker 3: Absolutely not. I mean, this man, he loves to argue. He's been an attorney for decades. He's argued massive cases. I mean, look at the Monsanto case.
Right? So one thing I know about Bobby is he is not stressing or scared about this confirmation hearing, what If you ask him right now, he would tell you verbatim it's in God's hands, it's God's will, it's up to God, what's meant to be will be. And he genuinely believes that. And one thing about him also is he is fearless. He is not scared about bad press.
He's not scared about being embarrassed, humiliated. They will throw everything in in the kitchen sink at him during this confirmation hearing. But if he can save one child in this country, then he knows it's all worth it.
Speaker 10: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Okay. I wanna end with this because it's amazing. The iconic photo of Trump in his mugshot, right, which served as just a rallying cry for so many Americans who were incensed by the lawfare against him, Ola. You remember that mugshot. Right?
Well, now Absolutely. He has to as he's about to be, inaugurated for the second time. He needs an official presidential photograph. And last night, it was revealed on x by chief photographer for the president-elect Donald j Trump, Daniel Torok, t o r o k. Look at
Speaker 7: this. My goodness.
Speaker 0: It's amazing.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 0: He's effectively recreated the mugshot as president. I this says so much, doesn't it? Defiant, not afraid to remind you of what they put him through, and back, baby. What do you make of it?
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's absolutely iconic that he's done this. It's it's finally somebody getting the last laugh after everything that he's been subjected to. The tax on his family, the lawfare against him, the endless witch hunts, the media propaganda. I mean, it's just been absolutely endless. And the fact that he's even here to make it through to a second term and is willing to do that for this country has just just been absolutely amazing.
So to make that final shot look so close to that mugshot is simply iconic. And now he has these next 4 years to really, truly transcend everything and every single attack that anybody has ever made against him, including arresting him in this way.
Speaker 0: It had to be intentional, Link. No?
Speaker 3: Oh, totally intentional. Daniel was a friend of mine and he was texting me yesterday. He's like check your inbox check your inbox. I'm like why why why? And then he had tagged me in this picture.
I'm like this is sick. This is exactly what he needed to do. Reclaim that mugshot. All of the lawfare against Trump. The millions, probably 100 of 1,000,000 of tax dollars that were spent trying to throw him in prison and it did not work.
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. He just came back stronger and won the election in a landslide and is on his way to the inauguration in a few days. So I love the picture. Trump knows good iconography, good imagery, and this was perfect.
Speaker 0: I love it too. Lovely. Ling, thank you both so much for being here. I love to see you, and we are back tomorrow with Maureen Callahan. We'll see you then.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
New Details About Biden Coup, CNN Loses Millions in Defamation Case, and Obama Drama, with @DM_Maureen_ Callahan WATCH: https://t.co/NlRuwPDcch
Video Transcript AI Summary
Megyn Kelly announces the upcoming inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th president, sharing her excitement about attending with her family and covering the event live. She mentions participating in Trump's final rally before the inauguration and invites audience input on her speech. The discussion shifts to the weather, with hopes for the ceremony to be moved indoors due to extreme cold. Kelly and her guest, Maureen Callahan, delve into political topics, including Chuck Schumer's alleged push for Biden to step down and the ongoing drama surrounding Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's lawsuit. They explore themes of celebrity culture, media bias, and the complexities of public perception in the entertainment industry.
The show concludes with anticipation for the inauguration coverage and the unfolding stories in politics and entertainment.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show, and happy Friday. Here with me in the studio for the full show, one of our favorites, Maureen Callahan. She's a columnist for the Daily Mail, and I'm gonna get with her in our conversation in one second.
But first, I wanna bring you guys all a special announcement. As you may know, we're gonna be doing our show from Washington DC on Monday, and that's because I am going to be going to the inauguration of president Donald j Trump as the 47th president of the United States, bringing the whole fam. We cannot wait. And then we'll be bringing you a show on all platforms right after. So we'll have fun in the afternoon watching the president get inaugurated, and then we will go, do a show for you so that you can hear what we saw, who we talked to, and what it means for America.
And we'll have some of our favorite guests there as well. It's gonna air on SiriusXM PM at, at 6 PM EST that day, and then we'll release it on podcast and YouTube. But, before the inauguration, which as you know is on Monday, on Sunday, I'll be joining president-elect Trump, vice president-elect JD Vance, Elon Musk, and more, speaking at the president's final rally. It's his pre inauguration rally. He loves the rallies.
Right? Like, he doesn't have to have a rally. He won. Right? But he loves interacting with his voters and his fans and the American people.
So, they asked me to appear. It's my honor to do it, and I'd love to hear from you on what you'd like to hear me talk about. They give you, like, around 8 minutes. It's not a ton of time. And I'd love to hear what you would be interested in.
Right? Because it is an opportunity to take the message to some people who don't always hear us talk. Right? Because the news media will have to take some of these speeches. And then, we'll take you behind the scenes all weekend on our social accounts, you know, Twitter and, Facebook and Insta and TikTok, all of them, if TikTok's around, which I it's going to be.
I I'm not I don't actually think it's going away even though the Supreme Court ruled against, TikTok, like, in favor of the ban. In any event, it's gonna be a historic event, historic long weekend, and I am super excited to bring it all to you. Alright. Now let's get to Maureen. Don't miss a moment.
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Speaker 1: You know, it's very exciting. It's very exciting, and you just shared with me that it's moved indoors.
Speaker 0: I can't believe it. I mean, the ABC News is citing based on a source a report that it's moving indoors, which I don't know if it's true, but if it's true, and please, god, let it be true, praise Jesus, Maureen, because it's gonna be 10 degrees on Monday.
Speaker 1: But that's not the feels like. You know, when you go on your phone and you're like, check the feels like for the real thing. No. And it would be I don't think that's ever happened before. Right?
Speaker 0: I think even And they're telling you to get there no later than 8 AM for a noon inauguration, and then that goes for an hour, and then there's the parade afterward. Like, I am such a wuss on the cold. I've got that raynauds, you know, where you don't get the circulation on the ends of your fingers. Yes. I can't last 10 minutes, never mind 6 hours out there.
No. So I really hope it's true. We've You
Speaker 1: gotta get, like, a Jackie O fur muff.
Speaker 0: Yes. I gotta tell you, I'm in favor of the fur. I know PETA's gonna yell at me. They PETA sends me a letter every week. I said I only eat the non cute animals like chickens, and they sent me a whole letter explaining why chickens are cute.
I called somebody a pig, and they sent me a whole letter saying it's not that's impolite to pigs.
Speaker 1: But pigs are smart. Right. Right? They have no sense of humor. None.
Speaker 0: They're not gonna like my jacket that I
Speaker 1: saw on the way. The trick is you say it's vintage, buy vintage, came to you through a dead family member. You're recycling. You're upcycling.
Speaker 0: Right. Yeah. This one already gave its life.
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do?
Speaker 0: Can't let it be in vain. Exactly. You know? But it is funny because, like, when I was at Fox, you would never wear fur. You wouldn't you wouldn't be allowed to wear fur in a in a neck thing, in a in a puff, in a hat.
No. Because it is so controversial still or was. Now I feel like you've got the 2 sons of the president are big game hunters for god's sake. I don't think it's as controversial in that circle.
Speaker 1: I don't. And you know what the actual truth of it is? And I learned this a long time ago. If you go to buy fake fur, quote, unquote fake fur, often it's made from real fur. Oh, really?
And the manufacturers just try to sort of dupe you into thinking you're not wearing real fur. Oh. But nothing get nothing will get through real fur. You won't feel it.
Speaker 0: I'm at the top of the food chain. I'm sorry. But, like, where why is it okay to eat animals? You know, cows and lambs and ducks and chickens and pigs, but then you can't wear a fur. I like, I realized some of the the the fur making process is controversial, but so is the the process of killing the animals.
100%.
Speaker 1: So It's really cold. Well, listen. I don't think you need to justify this to anybody. I really don't.
Speaker 0: Apparently, I do. I feel like Be
Speaker 1: like Meghan Markle. Stand in your power, stand in your truth, and just go with it.
Speaker 0: Well, listen to this. It's true. Trump just tweeted it out. Trump says it was his call to move it indoors. This is from Truth Social.
I didn't see the beginning of the post. Everybody must be talking about how cold it is. Therefore, I have ordered the inauguration address in addition to prayers and other speeches to be delivered in the United States Capitol Rotunda as was used by Ronald Reagan in 1985 also because of very cold weather. Can we pull a video or a picture of that, you guys, so we can see what that's gonna look like? We will open Capital One Arena on Monday.
Okay. Look. That's the Reagan. Well, so it's smaller. I don't know how many peep how many people fit in the Capital, rotunda, Steve?
Can you look that up? We're gonna look it up so we can tell you because that's that's gonna shift events. But it's smart. Honestly, it it was gonna be dangerous. He he goes on, we will open Capital 1 Arena on Monday for live viewing, oh, good, of this historic event, and to host the presidential parade.
I will join the crowd at Capital 1. Oh, that's so nice. After my swearing in. So he's gonna go over with all the people who are traveling in
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: To see it. Yeah. And the man loves being with the American people.
Speaker 1: He really does feed off that energy. He really does. And it's, like, it's also what a great because we were just talking before going on air that, like, I'm going to cover it with, like, the regular rank and file press corps, and I was dreading being on that riser Yes. In that freezing cold weather. It's such a commonsensical thing to do.
Yeah. And it sort of sets the tone for this, like, incoming administration, which people just want common sense to rule rule the day. That's a
Speaker 0: good point. I know because it's truly like, being outside for 6 hours in 10 degree weather, people with their young children, you know, you're just asking for negative things to happen, bad things to happen. It's not that everybody doesn't matter how many layers you bring in. By the way, there's zero chance the Secret Service would allow space heaters. Right.
Usually, they don't allow bags bigger than, you know, a tiny little handbag. So the thought of bringing something that could heat you up, like, forget it. It's and I don't even know if they would allow, like, a heated battery powered vest because they're so paranoid, understandably, about, you know, what could that be somebody else's? Yeah. What else?
So, anyway, it was a safe. Good call, and I hope I'm still going. I hope I hope I'm still invited. I'll go to the Capitol and read it if I have to. I I'm I'm watching this thing.
Okay. Where to begin? Let's talk about the exclusive New York Times piece on Joe Biden and the effort to coup him.
Speaker 1: Okay. You have to fill me in. I did not see this piece.
Speaker 0: That's fine. So Chuck Schumer is now coming out. Let me start out with this, a little little walk down memory lane. When this past summer at the RNC in Milwaukee, the gang from Ruthless came on the program, my program. And, they said, we're just gonna break this news because everyone's talking about it in our, like, you know, political circles, but no one will report it.
And this is what happened. Shock. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 2: I mean so look. I I think knowing Schumer, we I've speculated what he does, but I'm sure that he had poll numbers and all kinds of things indicating it was a huge problem for the party down ballot. Obviously
Speaker 0: And this is the moment. Right? Biden said, I'll resign if somebody shows me that I can't win. So he goes in with polls.
Speaker 2: Think he took advantage of it and had this conversation, ultimately didn't get the answer that he wanted. Sure. Right. Came out of the meeting, he said, good meeting, which to me immediately was a huge sign. Right?
If you're meeting with the nominee of your party a 100 days before an election and you don't say, I fully support Joe Biden
Speaker 0: And you know he's twisting in the wind.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I fully support him. Our conference supports him. We can't wait to vote for him in November. Something short of that indicates there's something else that happened.
And then what we found out when we got to Milwaukee, it's the worst kept secret. Every single journalist, whether it's, you know, you name the publication, we've talked to them over the last few days. Every single person knows exactly what happened, but they asked Chuck Schumer. And it's a 1 on 1 meeting, and he denies it. So they're not reporting.
Speaker 0: So there was a meeting, and now it's all over. The Times admitting Schumer did go to see Biden in Rehoboth be Beach, Delaware when he was still hanging on.
Speaker 3: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: He wouldn't yet step down. And the headline in The New York Times is, I'm urging you not to run, how Schumer pushed Biden to drop out. It says, this is based on an interview with half a dozen people who participated in that private push. It's from an upcoming book called Mad House. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York sat in the foyer of president Biden's Rehoboth Beach house tired and tense.
He had not slept the night before, and on the 4 hour drive from Brooklyn to Delaware, he had rehearsed out loud what he planned to say, reviewing note cards as he prepared for what he thought might be the most high stakes speech he would ever give to an audience of 1. The roughly 45 minute conversation, which took place in a screened in porch overlooking a pond, was more pointed and emotional than previously known. He said to him, if you run and lose to Trump and we lose the senate and we don't get back the house, that 50 years of amazing beautiful work goes out the window. PS, that's what happened. But worse, you go down in American history as one of the darkest figures.
He would end with a directive. If I were you, I would not run, and I'm urging you not to run. He says, mister president, you're not getting the information as to what the chances are. When he asked whether mister Biden has talked to his pollsters about his chances of winning, the president shook his head. Schumer says, well, I have talked to them.
My guess is you have about a 5% chance. None of your pollsters disagree with me. Only twice did mister Biden interrupt to ask a question, and both times it was, do you really think Kamala can win? Mister Schumer said he didn't know, but that she had a far better chance. The 2 embraces mister Schumer headed back to the car where he broke down in tears as he recounted the meeting to his aides.
He didn't know what mister Biden would end up doing, he told them, but he felt he had gotten through to him. How about that? By the way, they also report that Obama went to Schumer and said, you have to do it. He's not gonna listen to me. He doesn't because of our fragile relationship, admitting they don't like each other.
Speaker 1: The most surprising thing in that account to me is the detail that Schumer was driven and did not fly private like so many of our politicians do. I would suspect that that conversation was even more pointed. That to me feels like a very polite version because it's easy to forget it wasn't all that long ago how stubbornly Biden was hanging on. And I really believe that whether it was Schumer, Pelosi, the both of them basically said, we're gonna bury you.
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 1: Like, we know where the bodies are buried. Like, it's going to get very ugly if you don't voluntarily pull the plug. You have until date certain to do so. That's what I think went down. Like, I I'm dying to read the really bloody, savage Roman Empire version of this.
Speaker 0: Same. Well, they also report that Chuck Schumer demanded the meeting, yes, because Obama asked him to do it and said I can't be the one. He's not gonna listen to me. Mhmm. Because his members in the senate, he's he said, quote, I cannot hold them back anymore.
Remember when Biden sent that letter? I think it was January 8th they dated it saying, it's it's done. Stop. It was a bad night, July, July. It was like, it's done.
Move move on. I'm fine. I'm staying in it. Like, put on your big girl pants. We're going forward.
Mhmm. And he kinda declared the debate over. Mhmm. Well, this is saying that behind the scenes, the it wasn't over, and it that the top senators were in a tailspin understanding that he couldn't do it. And they were about to write a letter saying that he needed to step down and that Schumer was saying to Biden, like, you don't want that.
They're they're going to come out en masse against you, democrat senators. And they also reported that senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island in the news this week for being the top dem cross examining Pete Hegseth on the senate, armed services committee. Remember, he was the one who was like, I voted for all the nominees and of every president since I've been on, this this committee, you know, 20 years ago. And I don't think that you can do it, mister Hegseth. Because when?
He was the worst white mice technique ever. Like,
Speaker 4: right when he got into all the
Speaker 0: juicy parts way back, and we're all like, what? But I'm sure Hegseth was happy. So, anyway, Jack Reed, who, is a West Point grad, former paratrooper, apparently said he could no longer support his commander in chief unless mister Biden could produce 2 neurologists to issue a public report saying he was fit to serve and then hold a news conference where anyone could ask questions. Where were these effing reports at the time? Never mind before the June debate.
Speaker 1: Agreed. Agreed. And, also, so two things. 1, I want the Jill Biden story. I want the full unabridged Kitty Kelly National Enquirer version of all the machinations going on.
I want to know why we are now being subject by this very same media that claims to have learned its lesson to the longest goodbye in modern American history to one of the worst presidents. Like, this feels like the breakup that will not end. Like, America broke up with him after that debate. Mhmm. And then we made it really final after the election, which really was like Biden 2.0 with Harris.
Like, I forgot it was Harris, actually, because I keep thinking, like, we left you. We don't want to litigate this relationship anymore. There's not good stuff. But he's still out there trying to
Speaker 0: make his closing argument about how great he was and how what a threat Donald Trump is. I mean, what I do think is interesting too about this is it does confirm Biden's got some political instincts asking twice, do you really think Kamala can win? Like, he knew. He couldn't admit to himself that he was going to lose given his infirmity.
Speaker 5: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: But at some level, he still knew she's not the answer. And, you know, reportedly, Obama knew that too. It's like, where's the in-depth piece on, like, who ultimately said it must be her? Like, she's it's got to be Kamala because of the black women in our party, whatever. Like, how did they allow themselves to get into that position?
Speaker 1: First of all, right, if you don't think she can do the job, why are you picking her for your VP? Right?
Speaker 0: So insurance policy.
Speaker 1: Exactly. His insurance policy. And it's also it goes to why DEI is falling apart all over the place right now.
Speaker 0: Yep.
Speaker 1: And, secondly, what I remember Pelosi saying because remember when she was doing the rounds and she was going well, if Joe thinks she's the best, then she's the best. She's the best choice. Like, she wouldn't say it. Nancy Pelosi with, like, her her her whole sort of, like, it's really time to go. Every time I see her interviewed, she's got, like, a dirty tissue clocking it in her hand.
Like, you know what I mean? It's like, just go. Just go.
Speaker 0: Go. Don't get don't get fine steined out of office where we see with the eye and the wheelchair, and it's just have some dignity.
Speaker 1: Have some dignity. But to the Kamala thing, what I remember Pelosi saying was, like, oh, she's smarter than you think because she spent that Sunday in which she told the American people her first question to Joe when he called was, are you sure? Are you sure you're gonna drop that? She hung up the phone, and she started whipping calls
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Whipping calls and getting the party right behind her.
Speaker 0: She got him to endorse her. Remember his announcement, I'm leaving, came, and then within 5 minutes came the, oh, and I endorsed Kamala, which I think most Democrats would tell you is what did it, that they couldn't have an open primary after Joe Biden's like, I endorsed Kamala. That would have been a little awkward. So why how did she get him to do it? How did she get Joe Biden, who clearly did not believe in her, to issue that?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe she hung over his head. Like, I know how mentally compromised you've been all this time. You know? Again, she knows where a lot of those bodies are buried as well.
And she, I think, also knew that in this sort of strategic warfare that is this game, it would be Biden's ultimate f u to Obama who never thought Biden had what it took in the first place. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: I just feel like you're right. We need to know how is it that Jill Biden somehow didn't see what all these senators saw. Mhmm. Why who else demanded that 2 neurologists evaluate her and release their report?
Speaker 5: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Right? And when did they know? Because it wasn't just that debate. It's they've totally gotten away with it. They they've Trump won, but there's been no accountability, and there and there won't be.
And the same media, you know, who failed to notice that a neurologist came to the White House 8 to 10 times over the previous year, didn't break this story. They didn't even break the fact that Chuck Schumer met with Biden. Ruthless broke that. Now here we are as he's about to leave office. Right?
It's too late to to 25th amendment him out of office. He's about to leave. Now finally, we get the we all knew that he can't put 2 sentences together. We were demanding neurology reports behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: It's the biggest political story of the last 20 years, I think. I really do. And I don't understand how, as a reporter, you could just shy away from it. I mean, again, if this were a Republican, I mean, all the gloves would be off. You know?
He would have been 25th amended or forced to resign.
Speaker 0: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: And the whole thing too about letting him play out his term as though, well, we owe it to him. I know. I'm sorry. He works for us. Right.
It's not the other way around.
Speaker 0: No. We don't owe him anything.
Speaker 1: We don't owe him anything. You got all the money from selling out, you know, national security. We have the this is how this is how much, though, I think people have Biden fatigue. Like, those photos that came out of Biden and Hunter with those Chinese businessmen Yeah. Where he had said multiple times, I never facilitated a meeting.
I was never present at a meeting. But, like, nobody cares. Right. It's just, like, just go. Just go.
Take your dirty money and your dirty family and go.
Speaker 0: Yes. Well, that's what I don't know if you saw this, but Scott Jennings was on CNN yesterday asking was it Scott Jennings saying, how did he get rich? So who was it? It was somebody on CNN saying, it was Kevin O'Leary, yeah, from from Shark Tank
Speaker 5: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Saying, how how does where did all of his money come from? The guys here it is. We have it. Actually, let's watch it.
Speaker 4: It's not about, Kevin, it's not about, not letting people get rich. It's about not letting rich people control the political process and not having our politicians captured by those rich people such as the Fair Institute But I just want to know the country. Common sense laws to make sure that the people at the top don't, abuse the people at the bottom. And our system in Washington is broken. That's fair.
It's all fair, but half the country is still wondering how Joe Biden got rich.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Okay. So here's How
Speaker 1: did he get rich?
Speaker 5: But if Joe
Speaker 4: Biden got rich
Speaker 1: I I I question about Joe Biden's legacy and how he will be seen is Throw the book, by the way. Extremely important.
Speaker 0: Yep. And it's not going to turn out the way Abby Phillip wants it to. So how did he get rich? Does anybody know how he has the Porsche and the Rehoboth Beach Beach House and Hunter Biden has all these millions from never really having any sort of successful career? No one seems to much care on the Dem side.
Speaker 1: Nobody cares. The vintage Corvette that Biden loves to brag about, the when the fires were raging I mean, they're still ongoing, but when they were raging, and Biden finally showed his face and said, I've got one piece of good news. You know, my son lives here, and it looks like his house is still standing. Like, oh, you mean that, like, Malibu beachfront
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: House that, like, his sugar daddy paid for? Like, are you kidding me? I mean, I would love to also know how Nancy Pelosi got so rich.
Speaker 0: Well, did you say so Biden, one of the comments he made in his farewell address was about stopping, trading from US congressman. Mhmm. And many have speculated that was a shot at her, you know, because obviously, she was the one who really took him down with her public pronouncements of, let's just let wait. Give him time to decide after he'd said 10 ways from Sunday, I'm staying. Right.
So I actually agree with that principle. I I don't understand how these people can have inside information about what's gonna happen on the law and to certain companies, and they're allowed to trade on it. That is called insider trading if you or I do it. Here was Biden last night. It's the long goodbye to your point.
And he sat after his farewell address. There was another address. This was like the dessert, with Lawrence O'Donnell. Mhmm. I can't wait to see what the ratings were for this.
And, okay, here's here's why Biden thinks he's leaving with a record low approval rating. Right? I that wasn't how it was teed up, but he does, FYI, have a record low approval rating. And here's how he's looking back at his his his term in office and the regrets that he he's feeling.
Speaker 7: And I'm assuming Sadhguk. Did it cross your mind to put your name on the checks?
Speaker 5: Only in the that I kept being heard from other people. President sent me a check for $75100. The president did it. Why aren't you helping me? Well, it was a bill we did.
But anyway, it did cross my mind. But what a what what a mistake we made was, I think I made, was not getting our allies to acknowledge that the Democrats did this. Ironically, I almost spent too much time on the policy. Mhmm. Not enough time on the politics.
Speaker 0: That was his problem. He wasn't self promotional enough.
Speaker 1: Well, he did only have 4 hours a day that he was working. That's true.
Speaker 0: True. That's in his defense.
Speaker 1: The so, I mean, we gotta give him some grace. Can you
Speaker 0: imagine if you'd been doing that interview and responded with that?
Speaker 1: I just wish for 1, someone would just give it right back. Like, this is related, and then we'll go right back to this. But the other day at the HEGSETH hearing, and you covered this when the I forget which congressman or senator said, hey. How many of you have shown up on the floor drunk to cast a vote? Like, while they're going on was, like, have you you cheated on your wife?
Like, how many of them are cheating on like, it's a bastion of moral authority. Get us out of here. Right. So, anyway, the Lawrence O'Donnell interview was also he's such a blowhard. He's such an insufferable, overfed blowhard.
Like, he begins the interview by saying, you know, when, you were giving your farewell address the other night from The Oval, I was I was right there. I was sitting right there with your family, and I was looking at you. Like, he has to let us know he was in the room before we can begin with this bullshit proceeding.
Speaker 0: You're very important.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Larry. So important. You're on your way out the door. Your network is failing.
Great. Okay. Enjoy your time in the sun. But it really goes like, Biden is part Irish or largely Irish, and it's, like, completely counter to the notion of the Irish goodbye.
Speaker 0: Yes. She's,
Speaker 1: like, my favorite thing to do, which is, like, you just sneak out. Nobody knows you left. You don't have to go through the whole rigmarole of blah blah blah blah. And I would love that for him. It would be such a great look.
Just fade away.
Speaker 0: Right? Like, we've asked you to. It's funny. We have a friend who does it all wrong where he's like, I'm doing the Irish goodbye.
Speaker 1: That's not
Speaker 0: it. If you say it, it's not it. That's not it at all. Here's more. You You remember one of his other big things the other night when he gave his farewell address was we we have this tech oligarchy in this in this country now.
It's a very dangerous thing for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they're supporting Trump now. But Lawrence O'Donnell asks him about oligarchy, and he does not appear to have any idea what it was he was talking about. Watch.
Speaker 7: How does this oligarchy affect people out there who've never used the word oligarchy? The people who you're saying might not get a fair shot because of the way this is going.
Speaker 5: Look, if the decision is made that the multibillionaires, the super, super wealthy, the wealthiest people in the world, began to control all the apparatuses from the media to the economy, then who who do I get to fight back for me? Who who do I get to Mhmm. I mean, look. I think everybody deserves just a shot. Not a guarantee.
Just a shot. How the hell can you make it in society today if you don't have access to an education? You don't have access to adequate health care. You don't have access to the opportunity to, have a job that you can handle, where you can make you can make ends meet. How
Speaker 0: how's that Elon Musk's fault?
Speaker 1: If you if you have a job you can't handle, like, Biden can't literally handle being president, I the hypocrisy. Okay? So it was Biden's administration that went to Facebook and said, that's that laptop, Hunter laptop, that's a Russian plant.
Speaker 3: Mhmm.
Speaker 1: It's fake news. They're the ones Twitter disabled the New York Post account because The Post was the only one reporting on it. And it was fake news, fake news, fake news. It's a media that's been in lockstep with him and has been censoring stuff that they don't quite like. You know?
So spare me.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Bear me. Is this because Mark Zuckerberg grew his hair out and said he's getting rid of DEI and censorship? That's what he's is, and now he's part of the oligarchy
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 0: That keeps the little man down and from getting a job? Right. What?
Speaker 1: Right. Right. No. Oh, he Meghan, the searching. What?
Like, he was, like, nodding off.
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 1: He's almost like a junkie, like, nodding off and then, like, springing back up and, like, the eyes casting about for the word and then the, like, phrase that connects to the thought, but the thought got lost. I mean, it's like
Speaker 0: He found, like, his favorite little bit. Like, everyone deserves a shot. Oh, yeah. I'm familiar with this. This is in there.
Right. I got the chip for this one. Right. By the way, Kamala Harris just did the
Speaker 4: same thing. I'll play it in
Speaker 0: a minute, but let's stick with Biden for now. Because listen to this one. Speaking of him just being out there, like, gone, the question was about what Beau, his son who is deceased, would say to him. And would you listen to this?
Speaker 5: Look. Bo is a better man than I am. Bo and Hunter have always had faith in my instincts, what I think. You've heard Barack get mad at me when I was a kid all the time. So I he said, I know I know.
All politics is personal. Yeah. Well, it's about understanding what motivates the other guy, other woman, and what their interests are.
Speaker 1: What? I don't understand that. I thought maybe you got it. I because I got lost early on.
Speaker 0: I have nothing to add. I can't be helpful.
Speaker 1: Did he say, like, Barack used to say to me when I was a kid?
Speaker 0: That's how it sounded. I think he meant I used to kid, I used to kid, or he used to kid me. I very unclear.
Speaker 1: And he also spoke about Beau in the present tense right there. I mean I
Speaker 0: blame Jill Biden. I blame her.
Speaker 1: You do?
Speaker 0: Yeah. I would never let this happen to my husband.
Speaker 1: Oh, for this? For this, like oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But neither one of them can let go.
Speaker 0: Yeah. But at least he's got the excuse of being infirm. Like, she's still a young woman ish. She's not young, but, like, she's 74, I think.
Speaker 1: She's 74, but
Speaker 0: I together, she can she can see what's happening.
Speaker 1: Oh, 100%. But I also would not rule out Biden's malignant narcissism and egotism. And I think, you know, this will sound crass, but I truly think it's true. The only thing keeping him alive at this point is presidential power Yeah. And access to the money and the celebrities and all of it and the the glory he gets from reading the news coverage of his administration, which mirrors back to him.
It's exactly why, like, he wasn't believing Chuck Schumer because, apparently, his team was only supposed to give him good news.
Speaker 0: Yeah. They kept all the bad polling from him. It's like even in the wake of that debate, that was a dereliction, but the democrats paid a very high price for that dereliction. Can we play that Kamala Harris sound bite, you guys, where she goes back to her standard words that we heard throughout the campaign? She's speaking out now, promising she's not gonna go quietly, so that's a good thing.
I know. And, of course, she too only it's like, she's uncomfortable until she finds the chip in her brain with the the pre rehearsed lines that her handlers have approved. Here it is.
Speaker 6: I am fully aware that I am the public face of a lot of our work, and so I have the benefit of running into people all over our country to lifting up the American people, lifting up to lifting up the American people, lifting up their condition, lifting up their hopes and dreams,
Speaker 1: and understanding Oh, god.
Speaker 8: Through it all She
Speaker 6: did it. The nobility of public service.
Speaker 1: The hand gestures are getting even bigger.
Speaker 0: They are.
Speaker 1: She looks like she's signing ASL, like, at, like, some press conference for a governor, you know, like, get out. And by the way, it's not like you would ever know that a major American city is being burned to the ground. Like, it looks like it's been hit by a nuclear bomb. Yeah. You would never know.
No. These people are, like, congratulating themselves on the way out the door.
Speaker 0: No. Look at me and my legacy. I just should have focused more on politics, not my great policies. And everyone's thanking me everywhere because of hopes and dreams.
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 0: That's it. God, did we dodge a bullet with her.
Speaker 1: Did and I don't know if you played the sound bite from her the other day telling Californians what to do, which was like
Speaker 0: it was totally inane. We did not play it. I don't do we have it? We'll find out.
Speaker 1: It was basically like Oh,
Speaker 0: we did? Oh, yeah. We did play. Okay. You did?
Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was basically like, be safe and listen to announcements. Do what you it's like it's very you are so right with your Meghan Markle comparison, like, the verbosity, like, all the words deployed to say nothing.
Speaker 0: With nothing. Nothing left in
Speaker 1: the world. So
Speaker 0: you saw she went out, Meghan Markle, to the wildfires.
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 0: Did you approve or disapprove?
Speaker 1: I thought, wow. I definitely now think my theory that Netflix was the one to pull the plug on her show, and it wasn't her idea or her unilateral decision.
Speaker 0: Oh.
Speaker 1: Because had it been, she would have been like, now's the time I go to ground. Nobody needs to see me in this devastation. Nobody's looking You
Speaker 0: think she went out there knowing that it had been pulled and just sort of reminding the world, here I am Yep. Benevolent caregiver.
Speaker 1: Yep. I've got my most concerned face on Well, reportedly, that woman she was hugging was a member of her own team.
Speaker 0: Oh my gosh. Really?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. She saw a camera. She doubled back, and it was time for a hug with a concerned face, you know, the baseball cap lid just high enough so we can see everything.
Speaker 0: Just high enough.
Speaker 1: Just high enough. I saw footage of her also at, like, donating, like, bags of clothe. Like, cut a check.
Speaker 0: I know.
Speaker 1: Shut your mouth.
Speaker 0: There's no reason for her to go there personally. She understands 100%. She'll be the center of all the cameras that the story will be about her Mhmm. Which is exactly what she wanted. Mhmm.
And now she and Harrier are angry at Justine Bateman, according to page 6, that that that she called them disaster tourists. Their feelings are hurt because they really do just wanna help more of you. It's not about them.
Speaker 1: Again, like, failing to ever learn a lesson, read a room. Like, okay. You got called disaster tourists. Take it. Take the hit.
First of all, it's true. Yep. Good for Justine Bateman.
Speaker 0: Why'd you go to Uvalde if you're not?
Speaker 1: Please, that was the most disgusting thing. The most like, if there's there's certain people when they do something, I think to myself, I will never put another penny in their pocket. Mhmm. Right? Alicia Keys, her pro Hamas post.
Speaker 0: Totally what she denied.
Speaker 1: I said never again. Not a penny in her pocket. These people are disgusting, and so they they feel that we need to know that they are offended by this again while LA is burning, and people are going to be left with nothing. And these people are gonna be screwed. Like, they have no insurance.
The federal government like, if you try to get help from them, good luck. It's designed to break you.
Speaker 0: Oh, well, you were pointing out in a column the other day. It's not just these 2 losers. A bunch of celebrities are out there, like, oh, you know, help my family. These multimillionaire stars. Like, could you participate in my GoFundMe for my it's like who was it?
Speaker 1: Mandy Moore.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Mandy Moore of This Is Us fame. Meanwhile, her her partner, who I love, Jack Milo Milo Ventimiglia. Mhmm. He didn't do that shit.
He he was on the site, and somebody found him surveying his home in ashes. He didn't make it all about, like, woe is me. You know? He just answered the questions. He was dignified, and he certainly didn't ask people to give him money for himself or his family.
But Mandy Moore actually started a GoFundMe for her in laws.
Speaker 1: Well, she said in her post so they're they're all so slippery. She's like, by the way, I didn't start this GoFundMe, so don't blame me. I'm just, like, being a good person and putting it out there for my brother-in-law who lost, like, $60,000 worth of musical equipment. Like, cry me a river. You lost your instruments.
They should have been insured for 1. I don't care. So she goes, we're asking for $60,000. Oh, and if you don't like it, kindly f off. No one's forcing you to do anything, which is not the point.
And I cannot tell you how gratifying it was to go through all these sort of comments from people who were like, Mandy Moore. Like, I thought you were, like, a decent person. Like, fuck you. Right. Like, you make she made 23,000,000 reportedly just from This Is Us Mhmm.
Alone. Mhmm. That's she doesn't have to work another day in her life. She could replace that $60,000 worth of musical equipment.
Speaker 0: I bet her couch cost her that.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Her custom made couch. Yeah. Even Gwyneth Paltrow isn't doing this stuff.
Speaker 0: Oh, that's what I mean. That's saying something.
Speaker 1: That says a lot. No.
Speaker 0: And you also don't see Gwyneth Paltrow flying in and inserting herself into the story under the auspices of, they really need me to ladle out the soup. They really need me to hand out sweatshirts. Like, any celebrity or somebody who's as well known as Meghan and Harry are who does that is doing it for a reason. They know exactly what's going to happen. It's totally different from, like, a Gary Sinise who will hold a concert and have people come and pay an admission charge with the deal that I'm gonna take all these proceeds and give them, like, to our vets.
Right? That's where, like, you're using your celebrity for good. It's on the table that it's your celebrity that you're you know? It's you're gonna do this thing. Yeah.
Yeah. They're just they're trying to look like random Good Samaritans. And I was talking about this. I went on Billy Bush's show. He just launched it this week.
And I was saying, to to me, it's like when you go on to donate to somebody's GoFundMe, I I always click the anonymous thing because I know I'm me, and I know like, I don't want people writing stories about, like, oh, she she gave this or what It that's the that it's not just besides the point. It undermines the point of doing it. Like, true charity is something you do just for the other person, just to help them. It shouldn't reflect back on you at all. You're Yes.
You should be fading down into nothing. The point is not to get a thank you.
Speaker 8: Yes.
Speaker 0: If you do it because you also feel good, that's great.
Speaker 8: Yes.
Speaker 0: But you don't do it to promote yourself, which is totally what they were doing.
Speaker 1: Totally what they were doing. I mean, one of the I mean, I loved Prince, but one of my favorite things about him, which I learned after he died, was the extent of his charitable donations and how involved he was with, like, programs for underprivileged youth. Like, you would you never knew it. It was the same with George Michael. You never knew it.
And it's it goes to one of my favorite sayings, which is if you do something good for someone else and more than those 2 people know about it, you did it for the wrong reason. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: This is one of the reasons why even though Vivek gets under my skin sometimes with his weird little post about how we need more urkles, that wasn't on my skin. I just stayed teased him because but I will tell you, I do know a story personally, a person I had on this show who got canceled over complete BS. This is before Vivek was on the scene as a politician or anything. He was just private businessman, and he heard the story and contacted me and said, I wanna pay all of
Speaker 1: her legal bills. Amazing.
Speaker 0: I know. And he's I've never heard him tell this story. Like, he's he wasn't looking for credit for it. Right? I mean, that just speaks to a true like, a good character of of a person.
These 2, it's a totally different story. So shame on them. Shame on, Mandy Moore. It's a disgrace. They just go away.
Meanwhile, while we're on LA, they're in a full meltdown there in terms of their politics. The fire chief almost got fired, then she had some long heated closed door meeting with the mayor where they had it out. By the next day, Saturday, they came out as a sort of united front, like, we're gonna resolve our differences in private. But she continues to rip on the fact that the fire department didn't get the resources it needed, the fire chief. And now what you're seeing is reports that there's been a rebellion against her and that there's a push growing for her, the LA fire chief, to step down because she hasn't been taking care of the firefighters in her ranks or listening to their many complaints.
Mhmm. So she raised at least one publicly saying, don't defund us, the $17,000,000. Like, we need more resources. But you're hearing more and more firefighters from within, and including the head of the firefighters union come out and say, we've been sounding the alarm. No one's been listening to us.
And, actually, some are saying, this fire chief needs to go. Among other things Mhmm. She's been too focused on DEI and getting more women. The New York Times has a report on this out right now. She's super focused on getting more women in the fire force, because some women in previous years complained that they've been harassed, etcetera, by some of the guys.
So the answer, I guess, is to just make women the dominant population in LAFD.
Speaker 1: First of all, I've been listening to your coverage about this and the the line you had the other day about, well, I might die, but at least I'm in the presence of what, an obese lesbian? Hey. I was actually at the bank yesterday, and next to me at the teller was a firefighter, and they were talking about this. He and the teller were talking about this. And he said, this is the thing about why we are wary of female firefighters.
He said, we're afraid that they might lose their courage in an emergency, like, to run into a burning building with all of that stuff on you, like, trying to get people out.
Speaker 0: I would say that was gone.
Speaker 1: I I think men who do it are crazy. Yes. It's wonderfully crazy.
Speaker 0: I'm too afraid.
Speaker 1: Yes. So the the my but, also, you know, this sort of ties into Biden because I'm looking at what's going on in California and seeing Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass, who is wearing this insufferable smile on her face at all times
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 1: And this fire chief. And it's like there is no such thing as accountability, as shame anymore. It seems the worse of a job you do, the better you give yourself on a performance ranking. You're like you think you're doing a 5 when the public thinks you're doing a 0 when all evidence to the contrary exists, such as your entire town burning to the ground.
Speaker 0: And you don't seem to have much much urgency. I mean, as it goes on and burns, like, the the problems with staffing and getting the adequate trucks and water there remain. Schellenberger, who's been doing a great great job on this, tweeted this out, today or last night. He's tweeting out an article, that reads, DEI and corruption behind LA fire catastrophe, says new whistleblower. And this is his headline.
DEI did not hurt the LA fire department's response to the catastrophic fire, say the media. But anything that Trump's meritocratic standards would. And now whistleblowers within the LAFD say the department lowered standards on ladders, hoses, and push ups to meet DEI quotas for women. This is exactly what Hegseth was trying to say at his confirmation hearings earlier this week. No.
They're not, senator Gillibrand, dumb enough to put it down on a piece of paper, saying the women have to meet this lower standard and the men have to meet this higher one. It is a matter of practice in too many areas of the military and obviously the LAFD to do it with a wink and a nod, and it's unacceptable when you have lives on the line.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, this is tangential, but, I was looking at an episode the other night of Only Murders in the Building.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And cast as an NYPD detective is an obese black woman. And I'm thinking to myself, would she really pass the physical fitness requirement? Oh, but have you police officer?
Speaker 0: I mean, have you seen the NYPD, the videos
Speaker 1: that they've
Speaker 0: been dancing? Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yes. But, like, that's that's the that's the messaging we're getting and the mirroring we're getting. Like, this is supposed to be, like, a thing where you don't even realize for a second. Like, no. That doesn't fit.
Yeah. That doesn't apply.
Speaker 0: Right.
Speaker 1: The real it should not apply.
Speaker 0: Right. Right? You it's fine. You can you choose whichever color you wanna make her, but why does she have to be obese? Exactly.
Or she we're trying with the there's technically a standard they're all supposed to be meeting on physical fitness. Why are we leaning into somehow that's a problem?
Speaker 1: And this is one of the things that we were supposed to have learned from Afghanistan and Iraq when, you know, an all volunteer army, very few American men and women really looking to join that fight after a while, and the army and the military had no choice but to lower standards. So they were letting in people who either physically couldn't do it, intellectually didn't have the capabilities. Mhmm. You know? I mean, this is a very long tail we're dealing with.
Speaker 0: But meanwhile, Pete was making such a good point the other day at the confirmation hearing that we don't hear enough of. And and Anna Kasperian was on the show the other day trying to make the opposite point. I disagreed with her, but we didn't get the chance to get into it. And she was great, by the way. But she was saying, look.
We have, you know, a recruiting shortage. And, you know, if we have talented women who wanna sign up for the military and for combat, like, the more the merrier because we need more bodies now. And by the way, Pete's never said women shouldn't be in the military. It's about combat. So I I know I take her point, but what Pete was saying at the hearing was that we're seeing already a surge in sign ups by young men who are ready to rejoin because we've had this lag.
And I believe, as I think Pete does, as I think Trump does, that one of the main reasons we're seeing the lag 2 of the main reasons are DEI. They do not wanna volunteer to put their lives on the line only to be lectured to that they're bad because they're white men. That's one. It one of those two things because black men get lectured too because of their manliness. So that's 1.
And then 2 is we've been totally reckless with our blood and treasure. We've been starting these wars. They've been never ending. We keep sending more over there. We try to impose democracies on countries and regions that will not have it.
We double down on dumb. And then when they die, like in the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, we say we handled it perfectly. That's what Biden says. No mistakes. It was stellar.
It nailed it. Why would you go sign up to fight for a man like that, commander in chief like that? Pete's point is that if we do things right, if we treat the military right, if we have the right messaging, if we choose the right battles, and we give them the tools to win, like, instead of tying their hands behind the back on bullshit rules of engagement, we're gonna see that surge in sign ups again. If we teach pro America lessons in school as opposed to you should hate your country, we're gonna see enlisted numbers go up. That the answer is that to lower the standards so we can take the obese ones and the ones who don't pass the IQ test and women who are out of shape or not strong.
The answer is to find a way to get to those able-bodied, young, male fighting age guys who otherwise would have been running to the recruitment offices.
Speaker 1: 100%. And you also have to think, you know, if you are a young man thinking of joining up, like, they're thinking, who's going to be in my foxhole? Is it gonna be a DEI hire? Yeah. Who's gonna try to drag me out behind, like, an assault or not?
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know? I mean, it's it's such a practical, again, common sense thing. And finally, now we're having these grown up discussions about it because over the past 4, 8, 12 years to do so is to be a racist, is to be a bigot, is to be one of my favorite epithets, an ableist.
Speaker 0: Oh, god.
Speaker 1: An ableist.
Speaker 0: I'm an ableist when it comes to our armed forces. I am.
Speaker 1: Likewise. Yeah. You know? So I just I'm I'm gratified by everything that's sort of happening, and I think what's going to happen in LA is a complete flushing out of this toxicity. Like, Gavin Newsom is done.
Yep. Karen Bass, I mean, holy like, when she was being in interrogated, like, after deplaning, but before they, like, let her
Speaker 0: out Sky News reporter.
Speaker 1: And she's looking she's looking at the ground, and her eyebrows are knitting as he's asking questions. And I I was literally thinking to myself, like, is she, like, functionally a moron?
Speaker 0: I think I think so. The answer not cut. Yes.
Speaker 1: You do?
Speaker 0: Yeah. But she wasn't the one who put this fire chief in. It was Garcetti. Right? He was the previous mayor.
Wait. I mean, I get my g's confused out in Los Angeles. It was the previous mayor who came right before her, the guy who just got voted out. And, he he put her in, and she kept her, though. She kept her.
Right? Because Mhmm. None of these Democrats is gonna be the one to say the DEI hire is not on point. Right. And Karen Bassett's, situation, Garcetti.
Yeah. She's probably a DEI hire too. A lot of the women a lot of the voters are already on record saying, I could not vote for the white guy, Rick Caruso Yep. When he's running against a black woman. In no world could I do it.
Well, this is one of the reasons why I think it's an apt we have a minute. But discussion, like, do we how many federal dollars do we send to California if they're not gonna change their leadership, if they're gonna double down on dumb? Like, how how many times do you go in and rescue people who are suffering natural consequences?
Speaker 1: I I just I don't know how we as Americans could turn our backs on the hardworking people who are really going to suffer. I don't know how the federal government just leads them to it. To me, it's as bad as FEMA people being told to ignore homes with Trump stakes in them.
Speaker 0: Unfortunately, you're right. But it is somewhat galling because it's like Agree.
Speaker 1: You But there's people here. For it. They are suffering for it, and I do think they're gonna learn their lesson.
Speaker 0: I hope you're right. I hope you're right. My woke friend who told me the other day, she was hearing all sorts of, you know, we're gonna vote Republican. We see what we what we did. It was wrong.
She said they're weakening already. They're they're already being like, well, you can't stop fire. Well, you you can.
Speaker 1: You can.
Speaker 0: You can. Alright. Stand by. We've got a second hour. This is gonna be even better than the first.
I can't wait to get to the stories. Don't go away, Maureen, with this whole show. Are you overwhelmed with back taxes or unfiled returns? Well, get ready because since COVID relief ended, the IRS hired 20,000 new enforcement agents proposing millions of payoff notices for 2025. If you are worried about IRS collection tactics, you don't have to face them alone.
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Empower yourself with Tax Network USA's support and take charge of your financial future. Visittnusa.com/megan today. This is just breaking, Maureen. CNN, bad news, just found liable in a defamation case for $5,000,000, and now the jury recommending that they move on to the punitive damages phase, which is no for CNN. Here's what happened.
A, a US Navy veteran by the name of Zachary Young was put on CNN screen in a report done by a reporter named Alex Marquette. It it aired on Jake Tapper's show. And in this report, Alex Marquette suggested CNN suggested that this guy, Young, was an illegal profiteer, working in Afghanistan with those who needed to be evacuated, charging them 1,000 of dollars to flee the country following the US military withdrawal. And this guy, Young, was in touch with the CNN reporter. And before they hit they ran the piece saying, no.
Not true. And what what are you going to say? Because they reached out to him for comment as you must. And, he said, send me a list of questions, you know, and I'll I'll answer them. And they introduced texts in the lawsuit that he brought for defamation against CNN, including one in which Alex Marquette is texting another internal CNNer how annoyed he is that this guy Young has been in touch saying, fucking Young just texted.
Okay? And then there's a text in which, and it starts it with f f s, meaning for fuck's sake. Fucking young just texts. Like, he's annoyed that his source you know, his the subject of his story wants to talk about it. Like, normally, normally, you're happy.
Speaker 1: Normally, that's great news.
Speaker 0: If they yell at you, that's fine. Wait. Wait. Interaction is fine. And then there was a text shown of Marquette's text where he told CNN's assistant managing editor, Matthew Phillips, we gonna nail this Zachary Young motherfucker, which is not a great text not a great text when defending a defamation case.
So now the jury has just come back finding CNN liable and saying they need to pay mister Young $5,000,000 in compensatory damages, adding that he should also be awarded punitives. The trial will be heading into a second phase to determine the amount of punitive damages. Oh, this is I mean, look. I hate to see, you know, defamation cases succeed against our fellow media members because they never wanna be in that position. Right?
I mean, I I'd be lying if I said you didn't think, well, wow. Jeez. Like, nobody's perfect.
Speaker 1: They're but for the grace.
Speaker 0: But this sounds rather egregious. These texts make it pretty clear. This this reporter was not necessarily a 100% interested in reporting what was real and true.
Speaker 1: No. And you know what else is really I shouldn't be shocked because it's CNN. But I I was glued to that coverage, and I read everything I could about it. And instead of CNN really going down the rabbit hole of how Biden was able to do this despite every top general telling him not to do it, despite every top adviser telling him this is not the way, he went ahead and did it, and people died, and babies were thrown over barbed wire fences to US servicemen. The desperation, we'd left American conspirators behind.
We told them, we will protect you. And when push came to shove, we were like, we're out. Sorry. Every man for himself. And it was these ex military guys, I don't know if Zachary is ex or still, but who took it upon themselves, many remotely from America, to organize people, to organize former Navy SEALs to get these poor people out.
But CNN instead thought the better story was, oh, one of these guys is trying to line his pockets. Like, that kinda tells you where their weather vane is.
Speaker 0: When you have text like that, you just settle. Yeah. Just settle. You know? Like, the there will be situations in which the press behaves badly, in which you have bad text, in which a reporter in the field makes bad decisions.
And as a media organization, you settle those cases. That is why ABC settled with Donald Trump, paid him $15,000,000 in his defamation lawsuit, because George Stephanopoulos just kept saying he raped somebody, that he was found liable for rape when it wasn't true. It's like sometimes you have to know as the corporation, the big daddy, when to fall on your sword and just say, we effed up, and we're gonna minimize the damage to our brand. I mean, CNN's in a spiral right now. It's got basement ratings.
Speaker 5: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: And, like, their big news this this week has been Jim Acosta is moving from 10 AM to midnight. Right. And I guess they sold it to him by saying, it's prime time on the West Coast.
Speaker 1: Right. And Wolf Blitzer getting kicked out of prime time, and he's getting a morning show. Like, what 67 year old is like? 76,
Speaker 0: I think.
Speaker 1: 76. I'd love to get up at 4 AM, 5 AM Sure. For this. Yeah.
Speaker 0: I know. And Jim Acosta on his, like, most recent show has been I think he was thanking president Biden for defending the press.
Speaker 1: Stop
Speaker 0: it. Meaning him. Stop. It's worse than you think. Watch this.
Speaker 9: He warned the free press is crumbling in this country. He warned the free press is crumbling in this country. Journalists exist to seek the truth, to tell people stories, to lift up voices that may not be heard otherwise, to shine a light on injustice, and to hold the powerful accountable. I wanna take a moment to show you something. A woman sent me this sign 8 years ago.
Speaker 0: Oh, god.
Speaker 9: She carried it here at a march, in Washington. She wrote on the back of the sign to me and the press here in DC, you have our support. To Nora, wherever you are, right back at you.
Speaker 0: Oh my god. The the sign reads, I march for Jim Acosta in a free press, and he's holding it up.
Speaker 1: It's, it's oh my god. Ted Knight
Speaker 0: is
Speaker 1: on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. That's that. Like, more insane than this woman giving him this little, oh, placard, whatever, and and is is him holding on to it. Right. Like, imagine how many times he's moved offices and told some assistant, you gotta get that.
You got don't leave that behind. I'll fire you.
Speaker 0: Get my sign.
Speaker 1: Like, he's gonna take it home and have it framed when he retires. Like, it's demented.
Speaker 0: I hope the woman who made the sign is on the West Coast, and she can enjoy the the newly minted prime time host.
Speaker 1: On your DVR. California only. Oh my god.
Speaker 0: I mean, they're rearranging the deck chairs. This the ship is still sinking. Mhmm. Good luck with that.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Speaking of, just can I say
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know, you you often say this thing that Roger Ailes told you, which is watch with the sound off
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 0: And see if you
Speaker 1: can tell what the story is. The LA wildfires breaking out on Wednesday morning, is it Abby Phillip who's the morning person? Because she was doing a remote interview with somebody in the field in California, and she had her phone in the shot, and she was like this.
Speaker 0: What?
Speaker 1: It was like she was online shopping while she was getting this, like, incoming dispatch. Like, we're burning to the ground over here, and there's no water, and no one's coming. She's like
Speaker 0: No. I don't I don't I don't know when she's on. I just see her clips. I think she's on in the evening. But I was just talking to her about her when is she, Steve?
She's at 9 PM? Oh my god. God help you, CNN. I was just talking about her yesterday because she's got this weird thing with her affects where she talks like this, And she's like, I don't think they were disparaging Pete Hegseth's military service, and you shouldn't disparage the general service who came before. It's I don't know what it is, but I asked the audience, like, that's my imitation of her.
Who am I imitating? Like, who is it that I'm I because she's reminding me of somebody. And I feel like we came up with some of the audience emailed in. Mhmm. It's megan@megankelly.com.
Here's what we came up with.
Speaker 3: Nobody's gonna go out with me.
Speaker 4: Have you asked anybody yet?
Speaker 3: No. But who would? I don't even have any good skills.
Speaker 4: What do you mean?
Speaker 3: You know, like nunchuck skills, faux hunting skills, computer hacking skills. Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.
Speaker 0: That's Napoleon Dynamite. Here's Abby Phillip. You tell me whether I'm onto something.
Speaker 1: I have concerns about, Elon Musk's business dealings in other countries, including American adversaries, that we are producing more oil now than even when Trump was in office. Well, it's more That's a that's a fact. Old enough to remember hydroxychloroquine and the horse tranquilizer and all that stuff. I mean, those things weren't true either. Okay?
Speaker 0: She's just very, very flat while she makes her point with the occasional intonation upward.
Speaker 1: Do you know who that reminds me of too? Who? Selena Gomez, who's been on this huge press tour. She's in that movie, that transgender musical. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 0: And then refuse to see.
Speaker 1: Right. I mean, who's gonna watch that? No. Who's gonna watch that? But she has the flattest affect.
Like, she's been doing this press tour like it's her best year ever, and she sounds like she's on, like, medication for, like, treatment resistant depression.
Speaker 0: Oh, another submission. Please go find a a clip of that so we can see who Abby Phillip is more like. People are more familiar with her name right now than they ever have been, thanks to our mentioning on the show. So you're welcome. Okay.
I there's a couple other things I'm dying to talk to you about. 2 massive lawsuits today. 1, we're gonna get to, which you guys know about, and that's the, the the Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni thing. Brian Friedman, the lawyer for Justin, has just dropped a whopper of a $400,000,000 lawsuit against Blake Lively, Ryan Ryan Reynolds, and their PR agent, Leslie I don't remember her last name. Sloan.
He said he was gonna do it. He said it was gonna be a whopper, and boy, oh, boy, is it. So we'll get to that in one second. But I have to start with one against a guy, a criminal indictment that probably no one listening to me, other than I know we have some federal circuit court judges. We have some court of appeals judges who I know listen to the show.
They're gonna know this guy. But it's just such an interesting story that I must bring it to you. There's this guy named Tom Goldstein, and he has been behind the website all of us court watchers use for the past 2 decades called SCOTUSblog, Supreme Court of the United States. Scotusblog.com. It kind of started to wind down a bit, last year.
We didn't know why, but he's the guy behind it. And I believe that he is oh, god. The the second this is from National Reviews, Dan McLaughlin who writes, his bio recites that only 3 lawyers in the court's modern history have argued more cases in private practice. He has been counsel on more successful petitions for certiorari, meaning please take our case, US Supreme Court, over the past decade than any other lawyer in private practice. Over the past 15 years, the firm's petitions for cert have been granted at a higher rate than any private law firm or legal clinic.
He has taught supreme court litigation at Harvard Law School since 2004 after teaching the same at Stanford. He's one of the cofounders of SCOTUSblog, the must read site covering the high court. He holds a number of positions of distinction in the bar. As a young lawyer, he was at the side of David Boyes and Lawrence Tribe for the Democratic team arguing Bush v Gore. Now he's 54 years old.
And I'll tell you what. I've I've interviewed him too many times to count when I was on Fox News. I was addicted to SCOTUSblog. I covered the high court for 3 years for Fox. And the day that the Obamacare decision came out, you may not remember this, but almost everybody got it wrong and said because they found that the, Congress didn't have the power under the commerce clause to pass Obamacare, because that was the first part of the decision.
They did not have the power. Everybody was like, it's being struck down. Obamacare is being struck down. And these know nothing reporters ran to the cameras to say that without reading the whole opinion. But, you know, of course, I did read the whole opinion, and I knew that there might be more than part 1.
And there was a part 2, which said, but we uphold it under the tax clause. Thank you, chief justice John Roberts. So I got it right, and I saved the ass of Fox News. Oh, we have this. Okay.
Here's a little bit of this. So listen.
Speaker 9: King news here on the Fox News Channel. The individual mandate has been ruled unconstitutional.
Speaker 10: He says the individual mandate cannot be sustained under congress's power to regulate commerce. That means the mandate is gone.
Speaker 9: Megan, you're seeing something now.
Speaker 0: We're getting conflicting information. We're getting conflicting information. If you follow SCOTUSblog.com, which is covers the high court Correct. They say that despite what Shannon just read, that the individual mandate is surviving as a tax. This is not confirmed by us yet.
This is according to SCOTUSblog, which also has the opinion. They're reporting that the individual mandate survives as a tax. So it may have been struck down under the Commerce Clause power, but but spared under the taxing power. Everyone's still trying to figure this out. It's very fluid right now.
Okay. As a result of that, me reading Skoda's blog and reading the opinion, we were the only one of the only ones to get it right. Tom Goldstein came on my show. Was it later that night? Okay.
Later that night, I was in primetime watch. Owe you my thanks because I was on your blog this morning as this ruling came down and we were getting conflicting reports, and you, as expected and as always, had it right. The high court upheld the individual mandate, but not on the grounds most of us expected.
Speaker 11: The Affordable Care Act was saved by the conservative chief justice, John Roberts, and it is possible to construe the statute as a tax.
Speaker 0: Okay. So why did I take you down that memory lane? That's the guy who just yesterday got indicted in federal court by, the the justice department for allegedly, I wanna get the taxes exactly right. I mean, the the the charges exactly right for not paying his taxes. Let's see.
Hold on. I just wanna make sure I had it exactly. Let me just see. He the the allegations are that he committed tax evasion, 19 counts of unpaid taxes, willful failure to pay taxes, false and fraudulent tax returns. There are also 3 counts of false statements on mortgage loans applications that he took out to cover his debts.
This is again sticking with the report on National Review, which you guys should read by Dan McLaughlin called the wild indictment of Tom Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog. And he says, it might seem puzzling that a man in this position would retire from appellate practice in 2023. So last year, he he stepped away from SCOTUSblog. He gave up appellate practice. No one quite understood it.
It might seem even odder when juxtaposed against Goldstein's reputation. He was profiled in 2006 for the New New Republic as the hustler for his aggressive pursuit of clients with cases that were headed for the court or suitable for its docket and so on, talking about what a hotshot he was. If even half of today's 22 count federal indictment of Goldstein is to be believed, there was a lot to outrun, and it caught up with Goldstein, his alleged dark side. He was also an ultra high stakes poker player frequently playing in the United States and abroad involving stakes totaling 1,000,000, even tens of 1,000,000 of dollars. He financed that by, quote, borrowing 1,000,000 of dollars, this is quoting from the indictment, or getting people to stake him in exchange for a share of his winnings if he won.
At times, he won big. The indictment recites a 13,800,000 win in Hong Kong in 2016 and taking a California businessman for 26,000,000 in Beverly Hills that same year, but he also frequently held gambling debts approaching 10,000,000. We'll get to the women in a minute. But, Maureen and he denies these allegations. Okay.
I should say he gave a statement. I believe it was to Reason Magazine, and, I screen grabbed it so I would remember to read it. But it was, mister Goldstein is a prominent attorney with an impeccable reputation. We are deeply disappointed that the government brought these charges in a rush to judgment without understanding all of the important facts. Our client intends to vigorously contest these charges, and we expect he will be exonerated at trial from his lawyer.
So how let's if this is if this is true in any way, you have one of the most I mean, top 1% prominent attorneys in America. And at the top top most respected place, Supreme Court litigation, the Supreme Court bar
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 0: Who all the justices know and probably have cocktails with on this mad poker spree, where, obviously, the guy, I mean, appears to have some sort of a gambling addiction, to the tune of $26,000,000 wins $10,000,000 losses. There's an allegation he was caught crossing the border with a black bag that had The duffle bag. Yes. Yes. A $1,000,000 in cash.
And one of the ways that it sounds like he got caught was he declared that to the customs official, but then didn't put it down as earnings on his taxes, committing some massive tax fraud where he didn't he wasn't accounting for all these winnings or the losses when he, like, applied for mortgage loans and banks need to see what your outstanding liabilities were. It blows my mind, Maureen. I don't know why I just feel like someone at that level of practice wouldn't behave that way.
Speaker 1: Okay. I had a different take while reading this indictment, which is a ride. A like, when I got to the part with the duffle bag, and I'm like and and the women the women, and I'm like, okay. When does the wife come in? There's a wife here somewhere.
She comes in later in the narrative. But I was thinking, like, I would bet a guy with this level of intellect and a guy who probably likes to take on risky cases, like, has a need for some kind of adrenaline like this.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 1: And, like, in his off time, this is relaxing to him to maybe, like, literally bet the house. You know? Yeah. To, like Right. Literally owe people money who would break your legs or kill a loved one if you don't pay up.
Like, there was a part in the indictment where he hired he was going to play, like, a super high stakes game. Like, if you saw the movie Molly's Game, like, you know what these rooms are like.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he hired this 2 professional poker players to watch film or basically game out his opponents in a game the way the the mistakes they made, like, sort of break down their psyches, then read the mistakes that he made. It it was like game film, like a Tom Brady. Like you know? And and then it
Speaker 0: had some sort of a computer program run, like AI workouts of how the poker game against said person might go so he could anticipate he he would probably respond like this, so then I should respond like that. Right. A lot of time was put into winning these these games.
Speaker 1: A lot. And and the amount of like, and the and the hubris to, like, go to a bank and be, like, give me a $4,000,000 loan while he's got an outstanding $10,000,000 personal loan from somebody else in Beverly Hills. Like, I this case to me is so reminiscent of the ongoing Tom Girardi, Erika Jayne scandal. No.
Speaker 0: Explain who that is.
Speaker 1: So Erika Jayne is a cast member of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, one of the best of the franchise. Yeah. She was a much younger trophy wife to a very famous criminal attorney named and civil attorney, I believe, Tom Girardi, who was most known as, the lawyer who litigated for Erin Brockovich. Oh. So he had that going for him.
And he was held in high esteem, and he moved with all the movers and shakers. Turns out, for decades, he had been fleecing his clients. So he would represent he represented the widows and orphans of, like, one of the biggest plane crashes in recent memory. Fleeced them.
Speaker 0: What? Fleeced them. How do we know what ways so we're saying fleeced based on what? This has been found by a jury? Or He
Speaker 1: was convicted.
Speaker 4: Oh, oh,
Speaker 1: He well and he he pled dementia at a very crucial time
Speaker 0: in this
Speaker 1: oh, you don't know what you're missing.
Speaker 0: I dive you need to get more involved in The Real Housewives. You.
Speaker 1: I know. It's some of the best TV ever. Meanwhile, his wife is saying, well, I didn't know anything, and I'm not giving up all the jewelry he gave me with that dirty money. Widows and orphans, I don't care.
Speaker 0: Be damned.
Speaker 1: Widows and orphans be damned. There's a great, Hulu documentary. I think it's called the housewife and the hustler. Oh. And they interviewed one
Speaker 0: of it.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. They interviewed one of the victims that he fleeced. I'm gonna say, quote, unquote, fleeced. This guy was burned nearly beyond recognition. That he is still alive is a miracle.
He stole the 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 this guy was awarded. Oh, wow. It was just and and there were women, and there were the I mean, like, everything. So that's that's this to me.
Speaker 0: Like, my okay. First of all, if you marry one of these real housewives, you know what you like, then I look at you differently. I gotta be honest. Like, I I see you differently. Like, I Of course.
But this guy was the picture of respectability. Like, this guy, we put him on all the time. Everybody would. It wasn't just positive. CNN, MSNBC, all of them.
And, like, you saw him. Like, he's a bald, mild mannered, kind of meek little guy. Like, he's not I don't know what I'm picturing as your average criminal. And, again, he denies the charges. We'll find out whether he's a criminal.
But on top of all this massive gambling and apply that's that is hubris. That's ballsy to go to the bank to apply for a mortgage and not reveal your $10,000,000 in gambling debt. On top of that, they're alleging that he was cheating on his wife, who's a partner in his law firm, with a bunch of women, I think at least 4 women. Again, from back to the National Review report, he was involved according to the indictment or pursued intimate personal relationships with at least, oh, at least a dozen women. Not more.
Not 4. 12, at least. Transferring 100 of 1,000 of dollars to them in addition to other costs of their travel and expenses. He allegedly hired 4 of them as sham employees of his firm to get them health insurance. He was otherwise allegedly using the firm as a personal piggy bank to cover his lifestyle.
That's Alex Murdock esque. That last part where you use the law firm money and the Tom Girardi kinda thing, where you if you if it's true that he used the law the law firm's money to pay off gambling debts and screwing all your other partners and potentially clients and putting 4 of your alleged affair partners on the company ledger so they can have health insurance benefits. I mean, I in his defense, I'm sure it was tough for Tom Goldstein to get ladies. I was
Speaker 1: I'm just
Speaker 4: gonna take
Speaker 0: a shot in the dark.
Speaker 1: A 100%.
Speaker 0: But my god.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, the other thing about that was oh, my favorite part of that was, so apparently, one of the woman had women had her lawyer go to this guy and say, listen. You gotta pay us some money for her to keep quiet. And he said, don't bother. I owe so and so 10 I have so many debts. You'd never see the money.
Like, do what you want. Like, I can't I'm not this is too small time for me.
Speaker 0: I so the again, reason.com, posted this. It's it's by oh, it's under the Volok conspiracy, but I saw Reason tweeted it out. And they this guy, Josh Blackman, did a very good piece, And he's he went back and looked at all the arguments Tom Goldstein had before the Supreme Court Mhmm. During the relevant time frame, which I think was from 2015 or 16 to 22.
Speaker 5: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: And this guy was arguing some of the biggest, most complex, most difficult, challenging cases we've had against some of the most formidable adversaries, including Paul Clement, former solicitor general under George w Bush. This guy will shred you with his rhetorical skills. Don't argue against Paul Clement. Neil Katiel, who's a far left guy, but I he used to be at Jones Day, and he was, used to be solicitor general. I think I am pretty sure he was under Obama.
In any event, these are very skilled advocates. And he was going in there and winning against these people while he's racking up these 1,000,000 tens of 1,000,000 in debt, and then the next weekend winning. I just to your point about the adrenaline, that person's I don't even I don't recognize that as human behavior. I would be such a puddle of nerves. I'm I'm too afraid to to commit a crime.
I'm too
Speaker 1: Well, forget even about the crime. Think about, like, how, like, when you were starting out in your career or, like, any of us starting out and, like, you know, unpaid bills or outstanding student loan debt can literally keep you up at night. Like, decent people are like, oh my god. How am I going to pay this?
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 1: And this guy is like, I'm just gonna take a duffel bag, and I'm gonna cross national boundaries, and I'm gonna have like, he had, like, an offshore account, like, in Mauritania. Like, just like, this is, like I I want I want the, like, scripted and unscripted version
Speaker 0: of this. I dare you. I would give anything to be a fly on the wall of the Supreme Court justice's chambers or their next meeting. I guarantee you in there is, holy shit. Have you seen the news about Tom Goldstein?
It's just to me is such a juxtaposition position of huge respectability. You know? Because, like, look. Harvey Weinstein fell for being a predator. Roger Ailes went down for similar reasons.
Jeffrey Epstein, I mean, same times a 100. But, like, you you didn't really look at any of them and say, never.
Speaker 1: Right. No. Right. The
Speaker 0: height of respect
Speaker 1: Bill Cosby, maybe?
Speaker 0: Maybe Bill Cosby. But, like, the this guy, the nerdy supreme court litigator, who probably every respectable lawyer and judge in the country knows, it's just such a double life. That's how it feels to me. And and do you have to be a sociopath to get away to, like that's what what's most intriguing. Like, how do you go in there stone faced and argue the cases?
You know how it is when something's stressing you out? Think about if you were gonna get sued. Getting sued is very stressful. And you've got a Supreme Court argument you gotta prepare for. Oh, shit.
I couldn't think about anything. I'd be so distracted. And this guy, he's he's gotta know at some point that he's facing possible indictment by the feds. He's hiding, allegedly, a massive shell game of money, and he's in there, like, slicing and dicing Paul Clement. And, like, the you're built differently.
There's something missing. There's a chip that I have that you don't have.
Speaker 1: Right. No. But that's why it's such a great story. And it goes to sort of just, like, the world we live in right now where it's like everything you see on social media is actually not what's going on in a person's actual life. You know that story about the, the Hamptons', like, momfluencer whose husband committed suicide?
Oh. So she was all she had this, like, account. She was, like, an influencer. She was, like, bragging about her Hamptons lifestyle funded by her husband, who was, like, a multimillionaire. Turns out this guy was pulling a similar shell game, like, in the weeks before his death was, like, begging people for money to, like, plug holes, and they were finally, like, we can't.
You're untrustworthy. He killed himself in the garage. Turns out he left them penniless. Like, she had, like, $8,000 in the account. Like, it's this kind of thing.
It's like this the the disconnect between what people present themselves to be and what they actually are, and it's endlessly fascinating, really.
Speaker 0: One other interesting nugget on Tom Goldstein, this past November, even though he'd kind of shrunk his public presence, right, like, at the supreme court bar, he had retired. He shrunk the SCOTUSblog, which people had said already had basically died pursuant to their announcement they were killing it. But in November, okay, November of this year after Trump won, Tom Goldstein comes out with a an op ed in the New York Times saying that all remaining lawfare should be dropped against him, which was clearly the preemptive, I'm on your side, mister president. And guess who he hired to represent him? Trump's 2 lawyers.
Speaker 1: So we're looking for a pardon?
Speaker 0: Of course. He's definitely trying to line himself up for a pardon, which is just if he did it, he shouldn't get one. And, if he didn't do it, then let's stay open minded to that, and we'll come on. And we'll give you all the reporting that the case fell apart if and when duh. Okay.
Quick break back with more on the Justin Blake drama. And there is drama. Wait until you hear the absurd text this woman, Blake Lively, sent to Justin Baldoni. It's in the lawsuit that Brian Friedman just filed comparing herself to Khaleesi of Game of Thrones. Stand by.
Okay. So as I mentioned, the inauguration of Donald Trump is happening on Monday. One person who will not be there is Michelle Obama, and we're gonna get to some of the speculation around why. But first, Melania Trump sat down with Ainsley Earhart of Fox and Friends on Fox and offered a bit of a jab against how she and Donald were treated by the Obamas when they took over at the White House when as the Obamas left first time around. Watch.
Behind the scenes, what is it like when you're moving back in the White House? Are you what's different this time?
Speaker 12: The difference is I know where I I will be going. I know the rooms where we will be leaving. I know the process. The first time was challenging. We didn't have much of the information.
The information was upheld for us, from previous administration. But this time, I have everything. So it's it's very different transition this time, 2nd time around.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. So the Obamas did not fully share everything that would normally be shared with the Trumps. Now we see of course, it must be noted, Trump skipped the Biden inauguration because he was doing his January 6th stuff. But now you have Michelle skipping this inauguration, and there is speculation in the press that, yes, it could be because she hates Donald Trump. But she hated Donald Trump in 16 too, and she went,
Speaker 1: with a pus on her face.
Speaker 0: Right. But or is it because there's trouble in paradise? There, are a bunch of reports now. It's her birthday today, and she tweeted something out, and Barack tweeted, I love you. Like, on on paper, they're being lovey.
But this is what's coming up to surface. She gave an interview, for example, on Jennifer Hudson's show within the past year. It was in it was in December. So it was a month a month ago. And listen to her talk about Barack here, top 16.
Speaker 8: How's our former president today?
Speaker 1: He's doing okay. Yeah. Doing alright. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah. He's still working too hard. You know? But I think that's something he will always do. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. That was our anniversary date. But he's doing well, working hard on the Obama Business Center.
Speaker 0: So we've we've been able to
Speaker 8: get some fun dates. That picture was us at the US Open, and that was the first time he got to go to the US Open in person. But he's working hard on the Obama Presidential Center, which is on the south side of Chicago.
Speaker 0: I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 8: We're gonna head to the island for a little sun. Nice.
Speaker 1: And to do that.
Speaker 0: The way to spend
Speaker 1: the Christmas. I like that.
Speaker 8: I tell you that's why you gotta pick your husband right. Okay. You know? Okay. It's like he got a lot cuter when I found out he
Speaker 1: was from Hawaii. I was like, oh, okay.
Speaker 0: That is funny. Okay. This on the heels of reports denied by Jennifer Aniston, that there there may be something going on between Barack and Jennifer Aniston, but Jennifer Aniston came out and said, this is a tabloid report, said, I only met him once. I know Michelle better than I know him. But what's going on here?
Speaker 1: I find this fascinating. I have been theorizing for months that something is up in this marriage because she was traveling alone over the summer. Not alone. She was traveling with billionaires, which is how they roll now, but he was nowhere to be found. You know?
And they're I don't know. They always sort of sold this great love story. And the way she's talking about him on the Jennifer Hudson show, it was kind of like a distant family member you talk to. He's working a lot, and then he's working a lot. And, also, he happens to be working a lot.
But I'm really happy
Speaker 0: he has a connection to Hawaii.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Right. Like, I I I bagged a big one, I guess. I don't know. And she's so you know, the whole sort of, like this self help empire she's built for herself, you know, with her books and her, like, journals and everything, it's just it all feels very grubby to me.
And for her, you know, this country made her a very wealthy woman. This country made her a very wealthy woman, a very privileged woman, and she can't get out of bed to I mean, these people fly private. You're not taking more than a day to go to Jimmy Carter's funeral.
Speaker 0: She had a show up. Scheduling conflict, Maureen.
Speaker 1: Like, listen. If that scheduling conflict had any import, that conflict would have been detailed. She had a scheduling conflict helping with whatever whatever. She's an she's, you know, whatever.
Speaker 0: Almost nothing nothing cannot be postponed. Even a mammogram, if you're Michelle Obama, could probably happen the next day.
Speaker 1: Will wheel the machine to you. Yes. Okay? So and I also think that now that these rumors have been sort of circulating and there's been speculation in the media about what is going on, there hasn't been a denial. Wouldn't you issue a denial if you're a prominent mega powerful couple like that?
Your brand is so intuitive. Not or, like,
Speaker 0: the that that there's marital trouble or that he's having an affair with Jeff Ranston, which is
Speaker 1: just crazy. Be amazing. That would be I mean, like, who would you pick for Barack? Like, for wife number 2?
Speaker 0: I mean, I would pick a man. I
Speaker 1: That's my favorite thing. I remember when, there was this, like, door stopper biography of Barack Obama that came out several years ago. Right? And The New York Times reviewed it and basically said, nothing to see here. And then I read somewhere else, the big takeaway was Barack crushing hard on, like, his male college professor.
Gay fantasies
Speaker 0: that I was talking to an ex girlfriend about.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And was like, could I live as a gay man? Because I really dig this guy. Like, there's nothing to see here.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was like To be honest.
Speaker 0: I'm just gonna say, like Yeah.
Speaker 4: Just something?
Speaker 0: I'm not sure, but I, yeah, I wouldn't put him down for any second wife. I think if those 2 split, it's gonna be confirmed bachelorhood
Speaker 1: Oh, interesting.
Speaker 0: Or the duration. Interesting. That's what I predict. I don't know whether there's trouble in paradise or she's just being her normal, miserable self. She always has, like, an unenthusiastic the only thing she gets enthusiastic about is how much she hates Trump and our country.
Those are the things that really seem to animate her. Love for Barack doesn't seem to be on the list.
Speaker 1: It's so true.
Speaker 0: Okay. So Justin Baldoni, he has fought back yet again. He filed a lawsuit against The New York Times, so she had Brian Friedman on to discuss, saying it had done a defamatory report on Blake Lively's claims that she was allegedly harassed by this guy when they shot the movie, It Ends With Us, a film about domestic violence. In that claim, they said The Times distorted the truth. They, did not report text messages was which were full and complete, which showed a very different meaning than the snippets that Blake Lively put in her complaint.
And that what in fact happened was Justin didn't harass Blake. Blake was interested in wresting control of this movie away from Justin, who was the director and the producer. She was just an actress in it. And use threat threats and coercion and bullying to do it, and to the point where this guy was in the basement at his own movie's premiere. Now Brian Friedman has filed on behalf of just in a lawsuit directly against Blake, Ryan Reynolds, and Leslie Sloan, their PR hack.
And they're alleging not only did our PR team not hurt Blake or generate a campaign against Blake or do anything to hurt Blake in last August when she came under negative press. It that was organic because of her own bad behavior. But you guys were the ones out there generating negative press against Justin. You bullies were the ones who were trying to ruin Justin so you could have your way on all the scenes and all the wardrobe and all the control, and you could feel like the producer and the director when you weren't. And the it's full of text messages and, details about meetings like the one they had with Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni.
And, apparently, though the name is blacked out, there's an assumption, well founded that it's Taylor Swift, her BFF, at the Reynolds penthouse in Manhattan, where Ryan Reynolds allegedly bullied Justin so badly that a Sony representative who was there, the the production team behind the movie, and her biggest takeaway was, I am very sorry that I let him get away with doing that to Justin. It was so nasty. This guy who's just the damn husband. And now you see text messages in this lawsuit from Blake Lively comparing herself to the heroine of Game of Thrones, the fiercest female character we've seen in years, Khaleesi. That's her riding her dragon.
She's the mother of dragons in Game of Thrones, and that's what Blake Lively says in a text message that she too has her dragons, Ryan Reynolds and Taylor Swift. That's, again, believed to be the other person, and that they are powerful advocates for her. And while it seems to be said like, I'm so lucky that I have them as great storytellers to help me rewrite the script, what Brian Friedman alleges is, you'll go along or I'll unleash my dragons on you, you loser who no one's ever heard of.
Speaker 1: This lawsuit is incredible. It has it all. I can't believe neither side is, like, giving in. They're, like, digging in further. It feels like a very twisted rom com to me.
Like, the hatred on both sides is so intense. It makes you wonder if there was, like, a deep attraction that whether it was consummated or not.
Speaker 0: Oh, this Like, very interesting. You can
Speaker 1: like, if some if somebody sort of really is doing something that's, like, aggravating or trying to get in your way professionally, whatever, if you don't really care about them, you just try to get around them.
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 1: You don't try to go through them or, like, work it out with them.
Speaker 0: You have your or your agent deal with it if you're not with it.
Speaker 1: You just whatever. But, like, these 2 are, like, in it. They are in it. And it's like, I've I I think I think it's extremely strange. I wanna know more about the presence of Taylor Swift, who sort of leads this, like, mean girl click.
There was this thing happening over this summer that the Daily Mail reported on where there were other female artists such as Billie Eilish who were releasing albums in the in the sort of tailwinds of her last release. I forget what it was called. I'm just so oversaturated with Taylor Swift. But, anyway, she was manipulating all of her new releases to keep these women from hitting number 1. It was just a ploy to keep them
Speaker 5: Oh, wow.
Speaker 9: From
Speaker 1: and Billie Eilish's people were like, that's what's happening. That's what's happening. And it's it's really shitty for someone who claims to be a champion of fellow women and female artists to be doing let let someone else have it.
Speaker 0: Right.
Speaker 1: Like, let someone you know? No. So this is who she runs with, and that tells me everything. And, like, I I just to sit there and have your husband bully your director Yes. You know, like, if you don't if you don't like this, have the balls to do it yourself.
Right? Like, don't have your husband throw his weight around.
Speaker 0: With your husband. That's so weird. Like, your husband who's Ryan Reynolds, of course, it was a threat.
Speaker 1: And in your penthouse, like, on your home turf, like, using your wealth as leverage Right. Like, showing off, like, with
Speaker 0: your friend, Taylor.
Speaker 1: And your friend, Taylor, who's like, what is she doing there? Is she just, like, scrolling Instagram?
Speaker 0: Dragons.
Speaker 1: What what is she like, that is just wild. I think, you know, he'll learn a lot from this. You know? And, hopefully you know? And it's wonderful that we're in this era we're in right now where, like, people don't automatically take the woman's account.
Speaker 0: They were until Brian filed that lawsuit against the times. Everybody was like, we got it wrong on Blake Lively last summer. That was not an organic, negative press experience. Like, that and they're wrong. There there was plenty of organic negative press about Blake Lively last summer that there's been absolutely no proof any of it originated with Justin.
Speaker 1: My favorite part of what I've read of this suit so far is that Blake Lively did not even read the book that the movie was based on. Correct. We're not talking War and Peace. This is a book that's probably written at a second grade reading level.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then she she wanted to, she, like, all of the wardrobe choices. Because when you're making a movie about a poor woman who's suffering from domestic violence, you want her to look like she has money.
Speaker 0: Right.
Speaker 1: That Blake said.
Speaker 0: That's what she did.
Speaker 1: She has she looks like she has money. Yep. And she's dressing in florals, and then she's going on this press tour pushing her liquor line That's insane. And her hair care line because that's what women who are trying to escape with their lives are worried about.
Speaker 0: That's what generated her negative press and led to a Right. A series of clips of her being insensitive in one way, shape, or form with other interviewers. In the past, she has no one to blame but herself for that. It's like if he even if he did orchestrate this campaign, and there's been zero proof he did. In fact, there's proof to the contrary.
So what? You provided the clips. You did it. Right. You know?
Like, is it like nobody made you berate that young woman who said, oh, your your your little bump is cute when she was 8 months pregnant, and then she takes a shot at her like, oh, so is your baby bump, to a nonpregnant interviewer who's basically just trying to acknowledge the obvious in the interview.
Speaker 1: And just establish a little rapport. Just a little friendly like, is that too much to do? Like, this is part of why you're getting paid 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 of dollars. The press tour is part of that pay package.
Speaker 0: Right.
Speaker 8: You have to show up
Speaker 1: with a smile on your face and be polite to people who are not lobbing, you know, difficult questions at you. They're softballs.
Speaker 0: I'd say my favorite actress, the person who I think handles almost all of these things Mhmm. Perfectly is Kate Winslet.
Speaker 5: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: I just think she does very well in these interviews. Like, she seems real to me. She seems honest. She's self deprecating. I I just like, she's not perfect either, but I just feel like more times than not, she gets it right as opposed to, like, trying to puff herself up.
Right. You know, it's kinda being self deprecating usually.
Speaker 1: The Brits are great at that.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Anyway, she could take a lesson. Here, the this is just posted to your publication in the Daily Mail a few minutes ago. Taylor is proud of the film because her music was featured in it, which gave her a sense of involvement, though she wasn't fully aware of the extent of the project's developments. Her I guess it's her rep said, quote, she is confused by the claims in the suit as her connection to Blake is purely a friendship with no interest in influencing or controlling Blake's projects, end quote.
The source insisted okay. So it's not a name. But the source insisted that Taylor did not purposefully plan to be there during the meeting, but it sounds like an admission she was there. Instead, they said she was simply coming over to hang out with her pal, but arrived while the meeting, which was supposed to have been wrapped up, was still going. Okay.
So she was at the meeting, and, you know, they're saying that she was being presented implicitly by Blake as her other dragon, right, for threat. But to your point about the alleged, like, sexual tension between these 2, if you look at the full complaint, there are texts between them, like, that go on and on about their connection and how he really likes her. He loves his version of her, but he loves the other version of her too at 11 o'clock at night. And I'm tell it's felt flirty to me. I'm like, I don't generally text with other men, even men I work with, at 11 o'clock at night unless there's breaking news.
It's my executive producer, and I'm like, I need to get on a plane. Right. And then it's not like, how I love this version of you.
Speaker 1: You're really speaking to me today. Like, that is weird.
Speaker 0: He's laughing in my ear right now. So, So, you know, I it there could be a situation where that's what upset Ryan Reynolds so much.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's that's great. Yep. Yep.
Speaker 0: Because what they what they're saying is you fat shamed my wife. And that's another thing they alleged in the Brian Friedman lawsuit that that that's what they put out, that he fat shamed her because he allegedly went to her trainer to ask how much she weighed.
Speaker 1: Because he had just dipped her in a season.
Speaker 0: And they write about how he's got this debilitating disc condition for which he was hospitalized when the movie wrapped. It's not made up. It's real. And he didn't need to know how much he was gonna have to weigh. She lied and said that there was no scene like that, and then they alleged here, that's because she had it cut.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 0: There's just so much more to this story, and the media's already, like, self flagellating. Oh, we were too mean to Blake. She didn't deserve the few negative things that were said about her. She's been bullied and harassed.
Speaker 1: This is also because, like, they have all the power of this guy. It was his first movie. He was on, like, one show before this. He bought the rights to this mega selling book and has, I believe, the rights to the sequel, and I think that's something else they're fighting over.
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 1: Because the studio definitely wants a sequel because this movie did really well. So, I mean, first, we're gonna get the reality version of this playing out, and I can't wait. I can't wait for the suit into oblivion. You're
Speaker 0: definitely not gonna see the 2 of them starring in a sequel. Maureen Meggans.
Speaker 1: You're the best.
Speaker 0: Such a pleasure. Isn't she great, you guys? Alright. We're back on Monday from a very cold but indoor, president Trump inauguration. What a day for America.
We'll have it covered for you.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Why CEO Killer Snapped, Dangers of "Gentle" Parenting, and Rise of "Normophobia," with Dr. Leonard Sax @unfragilekids and @profilerdelong WATCH: https://t.co/gNEI87VAw7
Video Transcript AI Summary
Megyn Kelly discusses the disturbing case of Luigi Mangione, accused of murdering CEO Brian Thompson, and the bizarre praise he receives from some as a "Robin Hood" figure. She emphasizes the importance of family dinners and parental involvement in children's lives, referencing Dr. Leonard Sacks, who highlights the need for strong family connections. The conversation shifts to the psychology behind such violent behavior, with insights from former FBI profiler Candice DeLong, who notes that mental illnesses can emerge in young adulthood. They explore the implications of modern parenting, societal pressures, and the dangers of social media, advocating for a return to traditional values and parental authority to combat the current cultural issues affecting youth.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show, and happy Wednesday. We are learning new and disturbing details about the accused healthcare CEO killer as his manifesto and other chilling writings become public. This comes amid more bizarre displays of praise for this guy, Luigi Mangione, from those who are positioning him as some kind of Robin Hood figure.
I'm over it. I'm really over that psychosis by some faction of the American populace. Just you know what? Like, doctor Leonard Sacks is here in just a few minutes. I mean, this is the parenting expert.
He's an MD. He's a PhD. He has spent his life studying, longitudinal, long term studies of children and actually practicing with children. And he actually knows a thing or two about psychology. And one of his main takeaways is have dinner with your children.
Have family dinners. In a perfect world, 7 nights a week, but as many nights as you can, even if it's short of 7. Someone needed to do that in the families of the people who are now praising this guy as a Robin Hood figure. You're an idiot. By the way, heard this from our pals over in the editors.
The the guy the the the Brian Thompson who was murdered, the CEO who was murdered, comes from no privilege. His dad was totally self made. I think he was a farmer. And and this guy, Brian Thompson, was totally self made, pulled himself up, got himself to the top of the insurance world. The killer accused is from enormous privilege.
Tons of dough. The family owned country clubs, radio stations, health facilities, went to some Tony boys' school for $40 a year, valedictorian, UPenn, Ivy League, all the advantages, all the breaks, and yet he's supposed to be the Robin Hood? He's the one we're supposed to be rooting for? Screw you. Don't have the time.
My mom always used to say, I cannot respond to irrational behavior rationally. And that is how I feel when I look at these morons trying to talk about this guy like he's some sort of our hero, this Luigi dude. Alright. So doctor Leonard Sacks is going to be on in one second. But first, we wanna get into some of the psychology of this guy and how on earth this could possibly happen.
Like, how could this have gone down by a guy with that kind of pedigree who turns into a a killer if what the police say is correct? And for that, we bring on Candice DeLong. She's a former FBI criminal profiler. She worked on cases like the Unabomber, the, Tylenol murders. We spoke to her on episode 466 about the Idaho murders, so you may be familiar with, Candice's work.
When she they first recruited her over at the FBI, she was a head nurse over at Northwestern University, and then she went on to work, as I said, on some of the most prominent cases in America. She's hosted the award winning podcast Killer Psyche with Candice DeLong. Don't miss a moment. Subscribe to this show on YouTube and follow me on Insta, Facebook, and x. The October 15th deadline has long passed.
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How does a guy with that kind of a background with all the advantages who was a valedictorian of his high school class just 10 years ago in 16, not even 10 years ago in 16, who goes on to complete a bachelor's and a master's at the University of Pennsylvania, not exactly an easy school, wind up becoming this much of what looks like a psycho killer in just a few years?
Speaker 1: Mental disorders, mental illnesses emerge in the late teens, early to mid twenties. Now I'm not diagnosing him. I'm simply saying that is a fact about mental illnesses. And it's certainly a good question. Looking at this young man's meteoric rise to success athletically, culturally, socially, academically, and then to throw it all away and appear behavior that is a head scratcher, became a murderer, I think we probably will find something.
Speaker 0: What does it look like to you? Like, schizophrenia? Because you tell me if it let's like, if you're having a psychotic break, and I know, and we've seen this with young men in particular who are guilty of mass shootings. It seems to happen between 19 years old and the mid twenties. But, like, are those people generally like this guy, Luigi, where you're fine for for all the years prior to that?
You know, there's no hint that this is gonna happen to you.
Speaker 1: Yes. That can happen. Now I'm not saying this guy is psychotic. Clinical term means out of touch with reality, doesn't perceive things as they are, possibly hearing voices. We don't know that about him.
But the answer to your question is yes. I'm aware of a number of cases, both in my life growing up and then as a psychiatric nurse, caring for people, young people who went away to college and the expression is came home in a basket. And what happened was a mental illness, serious, usually schizophrenia or sometimes bipolar disorder, emerged where there's that bridge from puberty to adulthood.
Speaker 0: That's dark. I mean, that could that happen to anybody? Because what I'm looking at with this guy is you know, well, we don't know much about his family, but there's a lot of references to, like, mushrooms or drugs on his Right. Social media. And we did have on doctor Roland Griffith, who was the guy who really founded who not really.
Who did find found the, clinic for psilocybin and for, you know, these sort of MDMA treatments for people who are depressed at Johns Hopkins. But one of the main things he said, Candice, was you don't do those drugs recreationally or outside of a setting in which a prior family history of psychosis or schizophrenia can be detected. He said because if we see anything like that in the questionnaire we give our potential participants, they're bounced. We because it can trigger a psychotic break from which you may not return.
Speaker 1: I have seen that. As a psychiatric nurse, I saw it. And, when my son was in high school decades ago, a friend of his did some kind of designer drug, psychedelic drug, became a schizophrenic thought disorder and it did not have a happy ending. These are very serious drugs. And if somebody has a history, they may not even know they have a history, of mental illness of some kind.
It can open the floodgates.
Speaker 0: Are you surprised to hear all these friends coming out and saying, totally nice guy. Would it absolutely didn't see any and recently, you know, the college friends saying, absolutely no hint of this. And the most they seem to be able to come up with is, well, he had this terrible back injury. Though so far, no one is claiming he was denied insurance or anything like that, but, like, he had some terrible back injury.
Speaker 1: Right. Exactly. I'm not surprised that his friends from college, which was a while ago, were saying, gee, we didn't see this coming. He's totally normal. Because when these, when many of these mental illnesses we're talking about emerge, it happens in a matter of weeks.
And I haven't seen anyone being interviewed that said they had interacted with him in the last 6 months.
Speaker 0: Nope. Nope. And would it be typical, do you think I mean, are you surprised to learn he went kind of underground or went radio silent with respect to family and friends over these past 6 months to the point where his mother filed a missing person's report for him in San Francisco in November, believing that that's where he was, though we don't know where he was at the time. Most recent report was he was in Hawaii for a period.
Speaker 1: Well, no. I'm not surprised. A couple of things came to my mind about that radio silence with family and friends. 1 is that, yes, possibly a mental illness was emerging. But moreover, now that we know what he did last week, He had decided to do it to kill someone, to kill this person.
And he did not want to interact with anyone for
Speaker 0: Like, who could be might talk him out of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: What do you make of I mean, you're, as about as expert as they come in the Unabomber. He seem to admire him quite a bit, and they had some group, like a book club that they were forming. And it was this guy and 2 others, and this is the first book he wanted them to read. And, apparently, they all found it so disturbing, like his manifesto, that, the book club disjoined. It it it fell apart before they made it through the end of Ted Kaczynski's writings.
But this Luigi fellow really found him inspiring.
Speaker 1: I almost lost my mind reading Ted Kaczynski's manifesto. It's rambling. It is at times, almost incoherent. So that doesn't surprise me that that his colleagues who probably were of sound mind went, what the heck is this? But it also doesn't surprise me that this young man that we are talking about was became an admirer of Kaczynski.
What did Kaczynski do? He killed people that he thought were harming society. Or at least he attempted to. The truth is when Kaczynski put a bomb down and locked away or mailed the bomb, he had no idea who was going to be hurt or killed by it. And he didn't really care.
That is different than what we are seeing here with Mangione.
Speaker 0: He was, being led into the courthouse yesterday, to, be charged in connection with this alleged crime and seemed to be trying to wriggle out of the physical control of the police officers to be heard. It's kind of difficult to understand what he's saying, but my my read of it is and we'll play it. But I'll just give it to you in advance. It's completely we don't know what. It's completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people.
It's lived experience. Listen here.
Speaker 2: We hate to go and clearly our best and and the intel. He tells us that the American people. K.
Speaker 0: So that was for his extradition hearing. They're trying to bring him back to New York where his lawyer is fighting it to keep him in Pennsylvania for a few more weeks. I mean, I think the game is delay, delay, delay when you have a criminal defendant with this much evidence against him. What do you make of that?
Speaker 1: When I saw that, of course, I watched it very carefully. And one of the things that I noticed was when he was in the police vehicle, there is no indication, I couldn't see, that he was causing a stir, that he was combative, yelling, screaming, kicking, anything like that in the vehicle. He gets out. He looks around. He spots the camera and then he goes on his rant.
Now, there was a time I worked at a county emergency psychiatric facility. And most patients that were brought in were in the back of a police car, and they were screaming and yelling. There's actually a cage wall to protect, of it looks like a cage to protect the police officers in front. He wasn't doing that. He was cool, calm, and collected until he knew the cameras were rolling.
Speaker 0: Okay. So it's performative to some extent.
Speaker 1: I think
Speaker 0: We've got I mean, his lawyer says I've seen no evidence that he's the killer. Okay. We've all seen overwhelming evidence if 1 tenth of what the news is reporting that it was all over this guy. He other than I mean, he basically had a t shirt that read, I'm the killer of CEO Brian Thompson. He had his manifesto on him.
He had the gun on him. He had the bullets on him. He now the latest reporting is that his fingerprints, they do match fingerprints found at the scene of the murder. And, in the notebook that's on him, this is how one of the ways in which we know, other than his book club, that he had a fondness for the Unabomber because they are reporting at CNN that his notebook included a list of to dos and tasks that he needed to complete to facilitate a killing as well as notes justifying those plans. And in one passage in the notebook, he concludes that using a bomb against his intended victim could kill innocents, but that shooting would be much more targeted, musing what could be better than, quote, to kill the CEO at his own bean counting conference, which indeed is what happened.
Try to help us understand here, Candice, because if you read his alleged manifesto and the police haven't yet released it, but, there is a report online. CBS claims, that they've seen it. Ken Klippenstein claiming he's seen it and and has posted it. It goes on to say some of what we already read to our audience yesterday. To the feds, I'll keep it short because I respect what you do for the country.
To save you a left lengthy investigation, I state plainly I wasn't working with anyone. This is fairly trivial. Some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, I don't know what that means, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and to do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering, so probably not much info there.
I do apologize for any strife or traumas, but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. He rips on the health care system and how large United was and how life expectancy in America is not what he hoped it would be. And then he goes on to say something interesting. Obviously, the problem's more complex, but I don't have the space.
And, frankly, I don't pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. He says, many people have illuminated the corruption, the greed. And then he writes, evidently, I am the 1st to face this with such brutal honesty. So as somebody who, you know, does this kind of profiling, Candace, what he's saying, I don't really understand it that well. There are a lot of people who get it better than I do.
But I understand I'm the one the first one to sort of be brave enough, he's saying, to do what needs to be done here, to face it with brutal honesty. And he's confessing to the feds. Let me save you the time. I did it and I did it alone. What is all that, if if it proves to be real, and it's so far it looks like it may be, tell you?
Speaker 1: He wants attention for what he did. He's certainly getting it. This is the biggest story I've seen in a long time. This way eclipses the Idaho murders. He to me, what what you just read seems a bit disjointed.
But what he's saying is, parasites, it needed to be done. Sorry if anyone was hurt. And he takes it upon himself. He's the avenging angel as he sees it. Yet in his notes, I see fragment fragmentation, wandering thoughts, which all would support that he is this whole thing has to do with the mental decompensation on him going on.
Speaker 0: And last question quickly. Does that mean insane as a legal matter?
Speaker 1: Well, as insane, of course, legally means the individual did not understand, did not know at the time they committed an act that it was wrong. And that's hard for people to understand. But if an individual has voices in their head telling them to, to kill someone in order to save the rest of America, that is a very serious mental they really thought what they were doing was right. And they belong in a mental facility, not a prison. So John Hickley.
Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 0: Well, we may see that defense offered depending on where the facts go. I see. Candace, it was always a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Megan. Happy
Speaker 0: So interesting. Right? It's so interesting. I mean, this guy was methodical. He he he used a lot of planning.
You know, the escape plan and so on. It was far from perfect. So all of that will be used by the prosecution to say he knew exactly what he was doing, but legally insane is a different standard. And, you know, John Hinckley went to a mental facility instead of a jail because he he did it for Jodie Foster. He didn't realize what he was doing was was wrong.
I mean, this can work depending on what the facts are, and we'll see. So far, his lawyer isn't saying we're gonna cop to an insanity plea or anything like that. He's suggesting we have the wrong guy, which is laughable. Okay. Now we're joined by doctor Leonard Sacks.
Doctor Sacks is a psychologist. He's a family physician, an MD, and a New York Times bestselling author. He, by the way, is one of the few people in the world, I think, to have completed his education at MIT at age 19. That's the level of brilliance we're talking about here. We had doctor Sachs on in January of last year for a wide ranging discussion on parenting, the trans contagion, and more.
It's a must listen. It was episode 474. He recently revised and updated his incredible best selling book, The Collapse of Parenting, how we hurt our kids when we treat them like grown ups. And it is even more necessary today. Doctor Sachs, welcome back to the show.
I wanna get into all things about the update. But can I get your thoughts to kick it off on this accused killer in connection with the murder of Brian Thompson and what you glean from the facts that we just outlaid with Candace?
Speaker 2: Yes. Absolutely. I think it's such an illuminating story, and I've seen this so much in my own practice as a family doctor now for more than 30 years. So many boys want to be heroes. They want to be seen as heroes.
They want to see themselves as heroes in their own eyes. You know, I spoke some years ago at a conference on juvenile justice, statewide conference in New Mexico, and the topic was Boy's Adrift, the title of one of my books. And after my presentation, they had a panel of 4 experts from across the state and one was Judge John Romero, who's the chief of the juvenile judges in Albuquerque and he said when he first began doing this work as a juvenile judge in Albuquerque, he was puzzled because all these teenage boys, you know, good men with great potential being accused of these horrible violent crimes, And he would take them into his chambers and say, why are you doing this? Don't you understand? You're gonna go to jail for decades.
Why are you throwing your life away? And he told us it took him a long time to understand these boys want to be heroes, and the school doesn't understand that. But the gang understands it. The gang says, here's a gun. Go and shoot the rival gang leader, and if you succeed, you're a hero.
If you get killed trying, you're a hero. If you get thrown in jail, you're a hero. If you chicken out, you're a wuss. And then he looked right at us and he said, most of you, you're not from the barrio, and you're thinking, oh, I'm doing great. My son's not gonna be in the juvenile justice system.
He said, but your son is no different. The difference between your son and the boys I see, your son is staying at home in his bedroom playing his video games. The difference between your son and the boys in my chambers is your son is playing with pretend guns in his video game, but it's the same dynamic playing with pretend guns being a pretend hero in his Call of Duty and his Grand Theft Auto. In both cases, though, your son has left the real world in his fantasy world wanting to be a hero in his own mind, and that's the same thing that's going on here. We have failed as a society to capture these boys, to give them better models, better ways to become a hero, to be a hero in the right way.
And again, that's going back to my book, Boy's Adrift, where I talk about good role models, men like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who gave his life for the right cause. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor, had a comfortable job preaching in New Jersey in 1938 and left that job and went back to Nazi Germany, put his life in jeopardy and joined the conspiracy to take the life of Adolf Hitler and was caught and was executed in concentration camp, that's a good man. That's a role model. We're failing at the job of inspiring boys to be the right kind of hero.
Speaker 0: So how do you figure out whether it's that kind of a problem where he is sane and has not suffered a psychotic break, but just is under this delusion that he needs to be a hero somehow and that he's gotta do it. He's the only one brave enough to do it. Versus, oh, no. It's it's basically a school shooter with a different purpose. He's had a break.
It happens often around this age, and, you know, he's lost it. He's he's no longer of sane mind.
Speaker 2: Okay. I've written about school shooters, and that's a different process in place. There's always been a small minority of boys who take pleasure in killing, take pleasure in inflicting pain, and I wrote an article about this for a magazine called First Things. I called it The Unspeakable Pleasure, and that's a minority of boys. That's rare, but it happens.
And again, that's not insanity. That's a variation on human nature. It's always been with us. But again, we need to know how to capture these boys. We have the game of football.
Hey, there's always been boys who enjoy inflicting pain. Have them play the line. And I was doing this talk at the University of Wisconsin Madison, and it happened that my host used to play the line for University of Wisconsin Madison, and I called out to him, and I said, do you have any comments about that? And he said, a good hit is better than sex. Healthy cultures know how to capture boys and channel those instincts into healthy channels.
It's not insanity. The insanity plea in that case is a cop out. Okay, there are people who truly have psychotic disorders and they hear voices telling them that this person is a lion who's going to eat them and they have to shoot them. That's not what's going on here. That's not what's going on with Luigi Mangione and that's not what's going on with school shooters.
Some inventive lawyers try to make that case. It's unpersuasive. We're not talking here about psychotic disorders and schizophrenics. We're talking about here about boys who have evil impulses. There's nothing new about this.
This is as old as Genesis chapter 4. Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master at Genesis chapter 4.
Speaker 0: What would you guess? And this is a total guess because we don't know much about his family, but you are a parent expert and a, you know, an actual MD, and you've been doing this kind of work for decades now. I'm just gonna guess, doctor Sacks, that the Mangione family probably didn't have the dinners around the table together 7 nights a week. That's just a stab in the dark.
Speaker 2: You know, I have learned the hard way. It's very hard to speculate about what went on under the roof at home. We do know, we all know that he graduated from a secular high school, a school with no religious affiliation and the culture has changed. You know 30 years ago American popular culture taught right and wrong. We know this.
This is not a guess. We have scholars who have looked at American popular culture. And I think the most popular TV shows, 1967, 77, 87, 97 were shows like the Andy Griffith Show, Family Ties, Happy Days, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Researchers have looked at these shows and they found that they consistently taught that the most important thing is to do the right thing to tell the truth, right through 1997. But by 2,007 they found American culture had flipped upside down, and the most important thing in the shows that teenagers were watching in 2007 was not to do the right thing, it was to win.
And shows like American Idol and
Speaker 0: Survivor, the most important thing
Speaker 2: is to win. Doing the right thing that's gonna get you voted off the island. So American popular culture, beginning in the early 2000s was no longer about doing the right thing. It's about winning and becoming famous. So American culture is now a post Christian culture.
It's no longer a culture in which doing the right thing is taught, and so 30 years ago it wasn't so important to go to a school that taught Judaism or Christianity. Now it is. I attended public schools in Ohio K through 12, but today I think it's more important that you enroll your kid in a school that has a firm moral foundation and I can tell you many horror stories about public schools that don't and independent schools that don't. And what we do know about Luigi Mangione is that he went to a secular independent school, the Gilman School, which has no, religious affiliation. And now I am speculating, but you go to a secular independent school, they're not teaching the 10 commandments, they're not teaching do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and boys are adrift.
If you don't have that firm foundation, what do you where do you find?
Speaker 0: You're wrong. Well, again and then, UPenn, which is so adrift that its president was forced out last year for not being able to say that it's wrong to chant things like, well, basically death to Israel, death to the Jews. It's, you know, she's gonna have to really think it over to figure out whether that's allowed on connection with
Speaker 2: us. Boys are adrift, and they're looking for what does it mean to be a man. And you go online, and what do you find? You find Andrew Tate. And that's really scary.
Speaker 0: Yes. Very scary. So this okay. There's so much to go over. But I asked, my followers on X today, knowing that you were gonna come on, whether they had anything they wanted me to ask you.
And, I'll get to some of those questions throughout the course of the 2 hours. But one of the questions was and and it came up over and over, and I thought this is actually a really good one. Let me see if I can find the way they put it. But how how do we help our children in today's day and age with AI, with tech everywhere, with video games and iPhones, how to find purpose? How to find their purpose.
I was like, oh my gosh. That's a big one. So sorry to dump that big one on you so soon in our interview, but, you know, to your point, how do you?
Speaker 2: So you have to prioritize the family, and you cannot find your child's meaning of life, but you can prioritize that connection. And one of the challenges for kids is that they are looking for life meaning in all the wrong places. They're looking at Instagram and TikTok and Charlie D'Amelio, who is this hugely popular person on TikTok and, you know, 1 in 312 year olds now says that their goal in life is to be the next Charlie, to be a TikTok influencer, and that's not a good goal. It's not a good goal because it's not gonna going to happen. And I have met with so many girls who are frustrated because they put all this effort into a TikTok video and it fizzles.
They don't understand the numbers. They don't understand that there's 10,000,000 other girls out there who are posting videos and it's not gonna happen. And if your meaning of life is on how many clicks you get on your video, you're gonna be frustrated. You're gonna be disappointed. You need to find your meaning of life and who you are, not in how many likes you get or how many views or how many followers you have.
And so that begins with the family. So you prioritize the family. You have family dinners. You fight for dinners at home. And again, many parents are confused and they're driving their kids around to play dates or they're driving their kids to travel team soccer or computer coding class.
Cancel the computer coding class, prioritize family time at home, prioritize the parent child relationship, and then the rest will follow once you have the strong family relationship.
Speaker 0: That's so key that I think in today's day and age, many parents are very worried about, is junior getting asked on enough play dates or to go hang with his or her friends enough? Is my kid the kid that's sitting at home with me and my spouse too much? You know? Are they popular? Are they out there with friends, which is what is considered, quote, normal?
And to those parents, you say?
Speaker 2: I I would say I would come back to the central key point that I try to make in the new edition of my book, The Collapse of Parenting, which is that that central paradox of American parenting right now, which is that parents are spending more time and more money on their kids than parents have ever done before, but the results are worse than they have ever been. American kids are more likely to be anxious and depressed than they have ever been. They are in worse shape physically than they have ever been. They are less fit than they have ever been. They are heavier than they have ever been.
So bluntly, American parents are doing it all wrong because American parents are really confused. They've got the priorities all mixed up. They think that it's really important for kids to have friends who are their own age. It's not that important. It is not that important.
We know this. Whether or not your 5 year old or your 10 year old has a lot of other friends their own age is not important. It's not. It's not a predictor of good health. It's not a predictor of happiness.
What predicts health and happiness for your 5 year old, for your 10 year old? The parent child relationship is the most important thing. It is. We know this. The data is there.
So your first priority should not be driving your kid around to to play dates. Your first priority should be building the parent child relationship. So one of my presentations for parents of young kids is titled Cancel the Play Date, Make a Family Date Instead. On that Saturday, those precious hours on a Saturday when you actually have some time, don't drive your kid to a play date. Do something fun with your kid.
Go somewhere with your kid. Just you and your kid, not driving them to a play date, but doing something fun with your kid because the quality of the parent child relationship is the most important predictor of your kid's health and happiness. So focus on that. Don't drag your kid to a play date.
Speaker 0: What does it change when they get to be teenagers?
Speaker 2: Okay. This is where, again, a lot of parents are confused. They expect their teenager to push them away and they think that's fine, and they assume that the parent child relationship is less important for teenagers and it's not. It's more important. And again, parents are like, oh you know, well I really believe in privacy so I'm not gonna monitor what my kid is doing online.
Huge mistake. Huge mistake. We've got girls who are sending, selfies to boys that they don't even know and the parent is not aware of this and it has life changing bad consequences for girls, you've got to put parental monitoring software on your teenager's phone and say look this app is going to see every photograph you take before you even do anything with it. And if there's anything inappropriate, it's going to pop up on my phone and if you do anything inappropriate, you're going to lose your device indefinitely. Girls don't understand.
So one of the stories I share, 12 year old girl had a 14 year old boyfriend. He asked her to send him some photos, nothing obscene, just wanted to see her take off her school uniform, blouse, and kilt to reveal bra and panties. Of course, she knew her parents would not allow this. So she goes into her bedroom, closes the door, locks the door, and does as he acts and sends the photographs using Snapchat. Snapchat claims you can send a photo using a 5 second self destruct, and after the recipient has seen the photo for 5 seconds, it will vanish, and if they try to save the photo using a screenshot, you, the sender, will be notified.
Snapchat is lying. It knows that there's dozens of free apps out there that will save the photo and the sender will not be notified. The boy of course had installed one of these apps and he saved all the photos. School administrators later determined that he didn't intend for anyone else to see the photos, but he was at a party and he set his phone down to grab some chips and talk to some friends. Another boy came along that loud screen had not engaged, found the phone, went to the gallery, found the photos, forwarded each of the girls' photos to his own phone, posted each of the photos on his own Instagram.
Within 3 days, everybody at the school had seen them. Boys this girl didn't even know were coming up to her and say, Hey Emily, how about you do a striptease for us? This girl had a total meltdown. She'd never had any problems before. She'd been invited to a 3 day ski weekend.
The girl, the birthday girl whose parents were hosting the ski weekend, the birthday girl called with this girl and said, you know, I hate to make this phone call, but my mom is totally freaking out because all the other moms are freaking out and they're all saying that they won't let their daughter come if you're gonna be there because they all think you're now some kind of bad influence, so I have to uninvite you. I'm really sorry. I have to uninvite you. Girl totally melted down refusing to go to school, saying your life was over, that the photos would always be out there, which is totally true incidentally. The school administrators made this boy take them down, but by that time 20 other boys picked up the photos and reposted them.
I'm told they're still out there. Started cutting herself with razor blades saying she wanted to die. The parents took her to the doctor, doctor diagnosed depression, prescribed Lexapro 10 milligrams and arranged for urgent psychotherapy, that accomplished nothing. So you now have a 12 year old girl with depression not responding to medication or psychotherapy, who's at fault? The girl, her boyfriend, the other boy, uh-uh.
The parents are to blame. Look, this is a very grown up device. With this device I can take a photo and send a photo and once I send that photo I have no control over what happens to it, over who sees it. If you're going to put a device like this in the hands of
Speaker 3: a child then you are responsible for every photo they take and
Speaker 2: everyone who sees it. Parental monitoring software if you're going to give a device to a child under 18. And explain to your kid. The The app is gonna see every photo you take. As soon as you take it, if it's anything inappropriate it's gonna pop up on my photo.
You're gonna lose the device indefinitely and parents will push back. Parents will say, Look, I believe in privacy. I don't want to see my kid's photo. If she don't want me to see her photos, I'm fine with that. I don't want to see her photo if she don't want to see my photo.
And say to that parent, Look, privacy is great. You want to share a photo privately, here's what you do. You print it out on a piece of photo paper and then you take it over to your friend's house and show it to them and then you shred it. That's privacy. There is no such thing as privacy when you share a photo with a phone.
And you know who didn't get the memo? Jeff Bezos, one of the world's richest men, shared photos with his girlfriend and they were leaked. And you know who else didn't get the memo? General David Petraeus, same story a few years earlier. He had all of his passwords and his two factor authentication, thought it could not be hacked.
Anything can be hacked. The moral of the story of Jeff Bezos and David Petraeus don't share any photo with a device unless you're prepared for grandma to see it in the newspaper, and you don't share that by preaching that. You communicate that by saying, I've installed an app on your phone. Do not share a photo. Do not take a photo unless you're prepared for everyone to see it.
And again, American parents will push back and they'll say, Oh come on, my daughter's just going to Google how do I get around parental controls on Net Nanny. Well, I've actually spoken to, with employees at Net Nanny and they told me that they have colleagues whose full time job is to Google the phrase, how do I get around parental controls on NetNanny? And if they found that some kid has found a hole, they patch it usually within hours and the app will update. You have to install parental monitoring software.
Speaker 0: Isn't that many the software that you're you're saying parents can use to monitor the kids
Speaker 2: It's it's one of many apps. I'm not endorsing any one app. Ethics and Public Policy Center has a wonderful, online guide to the different parental monitoring apps. That's Ryan Anderson's group, Ethics and Public Policy Center. They've got a good online resource that reviews all the different rental monitoring apps.
But yeah, Net Nanny is 1, Bark, Circle, there's a bunch them. I don't endorse any one app, they're all very similar, they'll all give you a dashboard on your phone, they'll all light up if they see anything inappropriate, but you gotta use one of these. You gotta install one of these on your kid's phone and explain
Speaker 0: And what what about, doctor Sacks, the the question of privacy? You know, like, you'll hear parents say, well, I I need my child to trust me, and if she doesn't trust me, she's not going to tell me anything. So if she knows I'm sneaking around on her phone or I'm sneaking in her room to read her diary, it's going to blow up to the relationship to where I'm no longer a resource for her.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, there's good things and bad things about the American Academy of Pediatrics, but in this domain of this question of how you balance that question of trust versus the dangers of social media
Speaker 1: and
Speaker 2: smartphones, I think the American Academy of Pediatrics in this domain has done some very useful work. They hired all the leading experts who spent 2 years reviewing all the research and the experts said look, this is a new world and a new domain of immense risk and toxicity, and for girls, the risk is huge and once those photos are out there, they will never go away. You Google this girl's name, you're still going to find those photos today. It will always be out there and these girls don't understand the risks, and you have to balance those risks. And the experts said in the official guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics, There should be no expectation of privacy when a child or teenager under 18 is online.
No expectation of privacy. That's the official guideline of the American Academy of Pediatrics. A device with internet access should be in a public space like the kitchen or living room. The American Academy of Pediatrics, which is a very left of center organization as we may get
Speaker 0: to later. On the trans insanity in particular.
Speaker 2: Yes, trans insanity, but in this domain they said a kid should not even have their device in their bedroom. It should be in kitchen or living room because there should be no expectation of privacy when a kid
Speaker 0: is around.
Speaker 2: There's so much bad stuff out there.
Speaker 0: Let me ask you this though. What some of my audience wrote in, and they know how you feel, they know how I feel about social media use in children. But like John Rich, great singer, music superstar, he actually wrote in on on my ex account, and his question was I don't have the exact wording in front of me. Hold on. It was, what age is okay for social media?
Right? With understanding the reality that at some point, your child is going to figure out what Snapchat or TikTok
Speaker 2: or what
Speaker 0: these apps are. At what point would you introduce it to them? Do you want it to happen while you're there and they're still in the home with you and you can talk about it, or do you wait until they go off to college? What do you think?
Speaker 2: So my brand, if you like, is evidence based. When I make a recommendation, I'm always gonna show you a study or series of studies.
Speaker 0: Longitudinal, longitudinal studies.
Speaker 2: Longitudinal cohort studies, you got it. So Jean Twenge is one of our nation's leading researchers and back in 2019, she and her colleague Keith Campbell did a huge study, 220,000 adolescents. And on the x axis is the time spent on social media and on the y axis is the likelihood of becoming anxious or depressed, and there is no rise in that trend line until you get past 30 minutes a day. So 2019, 2020, 2021, I was telling parents up to 30 minutes a day on social media is fine. But that study was published in 2019 based on research gathered in 2018.
That's before TikTok. TikTok changed everything. So researchers who study social media talk about basically 3 generations of social media. So Facebook is 1st generation. Facebook is about connecting you to people you know or you used to know.
On Facebook you can connect with your 1st grade classmate, whatever. Instagram is 2nd generation, so you not only connect with people you know, you can connect with celebrities. TikTok is 3rd generation, it's totally different. So you go on TikTok and TikTok begins by saying, I'm not interested in who you know. I'm interested in what you like to watch.
Tell me what kind of videos you like to watch. Okay. Let me show you some videos. And then the algorithm is watching you, and the algorithm is is crazy good, and it starts customizing what it's showing you. And after an hour, you're seeing things you didn't even know were out there.
And it's it's so common to find teenagers who say, woah. TikTok knew I was gay before I did. TikTok knew I was trans before I did. And and then in 2021, researchers reached out to TikTok and said, you know, the the algorithm is really dangerous. It's it's dragging kids, especially girls, down in this rabbit hole of its valorizing anorexia and self harm.
You've got to change the algorithm. And TikTok responded and said, Okay, we'll change the algorithm. And then last year the researchers said, You didn't make it better. You made it worse. It's getting worse.
And so I reached out to Gene Twenge, and I said, Look at the more recent studies. There is no safe point anymore. It's shifted left. The danger doesn't begin at 30 minutes anymore, it begins at zero time. And Jean Twenge responded, and she sent me back an email saying, The research now supports a total ban on social media for all teens, for all children up below 18 years of age.
And that is where I am now. The newer research in the era of TikTok, no social media for any kids. We can argue about whether it's 16 or whether it's 18, but the research now strongly supports no social media for any kid in the English speaking world under 16 or 18 years of age. I mention the English speaking world because there's an interesting factoid here. You know, everyone's been talking about this rise in anxiety and depression that has occurred in the last 15 years, and John Haidt and Jean Twenge and others have talked about how, oh, it's all because of the smartphones and the social media.
But one thing that John Haidt and Jean Twenge haven't talked about much is that look at Greece, look at Russia. You have not seen that rise in anxiety and depression in Greece and in Russia. Even though kids in Greece and Russia are just as likely to have smartphones, just as likely to have social media, they're not showing the rise in anxiety and depression. Well, what's different? Okay, I've made the argument that American popular culture has become toxic in a way that that's not true in Greece and Russia.
American popular culture has changed in a way that it didn't change in Greece and Russia. American popular culture has become post Christian in a way that has not I'm not crothing up Russia as a role model by any means, but American popular culture is a post Christian culture. It's a toxic culture of envy and disrespect in a way that maybe is not true in Greece and Russia, and I think that's important because just locking down the smartphones is not enough. We also have to offer our kids a healthier culture.
Speaker 0: Yes. This is so good to hear. I mean, I feel like we've all experienced this in our day to day lives with the the the weird competitive strain amongst some kids where they're not rooting with for their friends. They you know, if if one friend gets a home run instead of cheering him on, the other teammate is like, put me in. I need to get a home run.
You know, it's like, what? What's this is a weird strain that we're seeing, in today's kids too often, and that makes perfect sense. And, yeah, I mean, I think I've said this many times about the Russians. I've been over there a few times, and they're actually a very loving people who think wonderful things about the American people. Our leaders have had obvious conflicts, and, you know, we know what's happened in Ukraine, but it's not to demonize the Russian people.
If you went and spent time over there, still a Christian nation. They still have some fundamental beliefs that we could all get behind. It's our country that's lost its mind culturally. And whenever you say that, they think you're some sort of a Russia file, but that's that's not what I'm saying. It's not what Tucker has been saying.
Anyway, I I know it's not what doctor Sacks is saying. There's so much more to go over. There's tons of questions coming in. By the way, our audience can email me with questions for doctor Sacks. You can still get on board.
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Home title lock dot com. With me today, doctor Leonard Sacks. He is the author of the book, The Collapse of Parenting, How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown Ups, which has just been updated this year. Get your copy now just in time for Christmas. Guys, great gift for the wives.
Wives, vice versa. Grandparents, great gift for the parents. Everybody can get this in time for the holidays, and I highly recommend this. Doctor Sacks is the expert. He doesn't suffer from the woke mind virus.
He's a true expert, both a doctor and a psychologist who's been dealing with children and families for decades now and just has spoken since for as long as I can remember. Okay. So explain explain the title in in today's day and age, what that means when we teach our when we when we treat our children like grown ups.
Speaker 2: Right. So in order for parenting to work, parents have to have authority. So I actually begin the new edition with something that happened in the office just as I was writing the new edition. So mom brings her daughter in and and she's sick, the 6 year old girl, mom explains her daughter has a fever and a sore throat. So after mom explains what's going on, I say, okay, time for me to take a look.
Would you please open your mouth and say, ah? And daughter shakes her head, no. Say, okay, mom. Looks like I'm gonna need your help here. Would you please ask your daughter to open wide and say, ah, and mom says, her body, her choice.
Okay. My body, my choice, long time slogan of the rights community, more recently adopted by activists opposed to COVID vaccines, mom is using that slogan to defend her daughter's refusal to allow me, the doctor, to look in her daughter's throat. So that's an extreme example of what I mean by the collapse of parenting. Parents who think it's actually virtuous to let kids decide, that's an extreme example and that's that's rare. Let me give you a much more common, much more common example of what I mean by the collapse of parenting.
So boys not paying attention in school, 13 year old boy not paying attention in school, totally not paying attention, off the chart on what's called the Connor scales, which is the teacher's rating. This kid's not paying attention in any class. Parents take him to the child psychiatrist, Child psychiatrist says, well, attention deficit disorder. Let's try Vyvanse. Vyvanse medication, tremendously helpful.
Voice now doing great, but he's jittery, totally lost appetite, palpitations, parents see this article I wrote for Time Magazine about the dangers of these medications, they bring him to me for a second opinion and I do a more careful sleep study. I asked the boy, do you have a video game console in your bedroom? He said, of course, didn't everybody? I said, were you playing video games last night? He said, of course.
Then was everybody? When did you finish? Oh, like 132, and mom's like, 130, you were playing video games 130. What were you playing? Oh, r e r two.
Excellent game. Alright. So I said to mom, you gotta get the video game console out of his bedroom. No video game no video games, and you gotta limit how much time you spend in playing video games. You know, max 30 minutes at night on school nights and and no video games after 9 o'clock at night and nobody again comes from the bedroom, and mom says, I couldn't take the video game console out of his bedroom.
He'd totally freak out. This is a parent who is unwilling to limit how much time her son is spending playing video games. She is uncomfortable exercising her authority. That is very common and that is also what I mean by the collapse of parenting, parents who are uncomfortable exercising their authority. And as a result, this kid is not paying attention in class.
He doesn't have attention deficit disorder. He's sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation perfectly mimics attention deficit deficit disorder of the inattentive variety. Vyvanse was immensely helpful. What's Vyvanse?
What's Adderall? They're amphetamines. They're speed. They compensate for the sleep deprivation. But the appropriate remedy for sleep deprivation is sleep, not scheduled to make ketamine.
And the psychiatrist failed to do a careful sleep history. And this is happening all the time, and I see this a lot as a family doctor, these kids who are being medicated because the parents are not doing their job. That's why that's happening.
Speaker 0: How about the, the the drive for good grades? Because I had one parent write in saying, how hard should I push my teenager? In today's day and age, with kids suffering from anxiety, you know, if my kid is like, I'm striving for b's, do I just say, good for you, honey. You know, do what you think is right. Or do I say, well, why not a's?
You know, maybe maybe you don't have to play 2 and a half hours of basketball. Maybe you could take one of those hours and go for an a. But parents are almost afraid to do that now because, you know, our kids are all so stressed out.
Speaker 2: Well, when I speak to parents, I do a lot of presentations for parents. And this isn't funny. I don't wanna come across the wrong way. I'm not the book is not a rant against bad parents. The the the objective of the book is to empower the parents to exercise their authority, to to encourage that parent to do the right thing, to do what you know you should do.
That's what I'm trying to do there. So you asked about grades. So when I speak to parents, either individually or in groups, I will often say I'll mention the longitudinal cohort study, which is study where you follow kids from childhood through adolescence all the way to 32, 40, 50 years of age. What characteristic of a child best predicts good outcomes at 30, 40, 50 years of age? Is it the grades that they got?
No, it's not. It's character. It's honesty. It's self control. So it follows from that that our top priority as parents is not top grades.
It's honesty and self control. So good grades are great. There's nothing wrong with that, but character and self control and honesty are more important. And you know, as a family doctor, I've seen a big change. 20 years ago, parents were more likely to say, I'd rather you get a C on the test honestly than cheat and get an A, and that's the right thing to say.
Today, I hear parents who say, hey. You wanna get into top university? You've gotta have amazing grades, and there has been a rise in cheating over the last 20 years, which I document. So you gotta be very cautious about emphasizing good grades because a lot of kids are getting the wrong message, and there has been a rise in cheating among American kids over the last 20 years.
Speaker 0: That was one of the things that the Menendez parents allegedly told their kids before they killed them. You've gotta get straight a's. You have to win, period. It doesn't matter how you do it. You can cheat.
You can steal. Fine. That what's important is to win. Just don't get caught. And it was kind of a fascinating thing and it didn't end well.
Speaker 2: We're losing that moral compass. Being a good person and doing the right thing, even if it hurts, is more important than winning, more important than getting a good mark. Again that was the lesson of the Andy Griffith Show in a long, long time ago. It was the lesson of happy days and family ties. It used to be the lesson that kids would get from American television.
It's not the lesson they get anymore, but it's a lesson that you as the parent have to teach.
Speaker 0: But how do you teach drive?
Speaker 2: Okay, how do you teach motivation? This is a real problem and there's a lot more going on than Cultural factors are part of it, and some of this is gender specific. So let's talk about boys. Testosterone levels have dropped a lot in the last 50 years and even in the last 20 years, and that's a major focus of my book Boys Adrift, and a lot of this is due to endocrine disruptors. It turns out that boys depend on testosterone for drive.
Girls don't. So, yeah, I think that is part of the story. And when I first started looking into this years ago, it sounded kind of weird, but there is actually very good research, and I actually wrote a paper for the National Institutes of Health published in their scholarly journal on this topic about how plastic bottles, the kind that people drink bottled water out of, actually contain endocrine disruptors like diethylhexylthiolate that lower testosterone levels. So your son shouldn't be drinking water out of a plastic bottle. You should pour tap water into a steel canteen and that's what you want to be drinking your water out of.
Don't microwave in plastic. It doesn't cost anything to follow these guidelines, but and it and it fixes the testosterone levels. So yeah, there's there's different factors that affect That's why I wrote a book called boys called boys adrift and a book for girls called girls on the edge
Speaker 0: because the fact that it's why gender matters.
Speaker 2: Yes. Woah. You've really done your homework. I appreciate that.
Speaker 0: When it came out, doctor Sacks, and I remember finding it so fascinating. And when the trans insanity exploded, I was like, this is the one guy I wanna talk to because he wrote before all this nonsense that they did they there are 2 different sexes. They are very, very different, and it matters. And now we're told, no. It's completely, you know, interchangeable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well and there's been a lot of change there. The first edition of Why Gender Matters had half a paragraph on transgender and then the publisher Penguin Random House asked me to write a new edition which I devote a lot of time to gender because now it's a thing.
Speaker 0: Yeah. But I know you've been making the point, you make the point here too that there the the male brain and the female brain are very, very different, and that parents must understand that. Yes. And even the trans activists should be honest about this. Like, if you wanna parade around trying to look like a woman, that's your choice.
But don't try to tell me that because you feel like a woman, even though you're a man, you just are. Because this all the studies show that your brain is different. You are yes. Your body's different, but your brain is different. And and you make the point in this book that parents need to understand that too, because you and you look at your child, your boy child, and you interpret his behavior one way because you have an older sister to that boy who at this stage was doing things very, very differently, maybe at a rapid, you know, pace compared to the boy, and you're making no allowances for why gender matters.
Speaker 2: Yes. So absolutely. So you're, in my book, Why Gender Matters, I I remind parents that girls develop faster than boys. So if you have an older daughter, younger son, don't compare your son to your daughter. And again from my own practice, a parent of a 18 month old boy said, you know when my daughter was 18 months old, I could bounce around my knee and I'd say googogaga and she'd say googogaga and I'd say ee ee o o, and she'd say ee ee o o, and we could do that for like 20 minutes.
We'd just crack each other up. We'd have so much fun just making nonsense syllables, and I tried that with my son, and somebody was right there bypass the front door, and he went looked at that, and then the house made a noise, and he went and looked at that. He's very distractible, and I googled that, and it said it could be a sign of autism. It could be a sign of autism. What do you think?
Could it be a sign of autism? I said, well, could be, but it could also be a sign of boy, but I could not reassure her, and she insisted on a formal evaluation, so I said, alright. Treatment Learning Centers in Rockville, they're very good at play based assessment for toddlers. I shouldn't have done that. That was a big mistake on my part.
She went to went there and she she came back in tears. She said they're very concerned. They said his vocabulary is below average compared to the average 18 month old. The average 18 month old should have a vocabulary of 65 words. They estimate he only has a vocabulary of 40 words.
Well, actually research shows the average 90 average 18 month old girl has a vocabulary of 90 words, average 18 month old boy has a vocabulary of 40 words, So let's consider that statement. The average 18 month old child has a vocabulary of 65 words. Okay. 90 plus 40 is 130, 130 divided by 2 is 65. The average 18 month old child has a vocabulary of 65 words.
That's a true statement, but it's completely meaningless because a child is either a boy or a girl. You've gotta compare boys to boys and girls to girls. There's nothing wrong with this boy, and he's perfectly fine, and this was years ago. He's gone on to be totally fine. He does not have autism.
He's not on the spectrum. So, yeah, if you have an older daughter, younger son, don't compare your your son to your daughter. Compare boys to boys and girls to girls.
Speaker 0: Let's talk about autism for a second because it's, of course, very much in the news, and with Robert f Kennedy junior up for potential HHS chief, he's been saying, you know, is it environmental? There's so many toxins around us from the microplastics, which you just mentioned, to, the pollutants in our air, in our soil, and so on, on our food. He thinks it's too much toxic overload. You have a different possibility that we should be considering for the explosion in autism over the past decade or so.
Speaker 2: Yes. And there is an explosion. So the Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA, one of our nation's leading scholarly journals, just a few weeks ago published a study, looked at the diagnosis of autism in this country in 2011 compared with 2022 and found in those 11 years between 2011 and 2022, the diagnosis for autism for children 5 to 8 years of age tripled.
Speaker 4: Oh, wow.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh. Well, the authors of the study didn't suggest why, but the mainstream, the official explanation is improved awareness and screening, okay? I'm not buying that. I'm not buying it because I'm a family doctor and I'm seeing first hand what's going on and I can tell you, okay, there's a, autism is a spectrum. At one end we've got this severely impaired kid who is not talking, not verbal, and there has been a rise there, and at that severe end, you know, I might actually agree with RFK Jr.
That there's toxins in the environment and something bad is happening there. That's not the kid I'm talking about. What's going on at the other end, the kid who is functioning, the kid who is in school but he's now being labeled as being on the spectrum? Okay, here's something that I actually know something about because I'm seeing this. Let's think about this 8 year old boy who's defiant, who's disrespectful, who spits, who bites.
20 years ago, the teacher would have said to the parents, look, this is totally unacceptable. Your son is rude. When the teacher says to the parents, your son is rude, the burden of responsibility is on the parents, they have to step up. They have to teach their son, okay you need to behave differently or else, but today, same boy, same behavior, the teacher is much more likely to say something like, your son seems to have spectrum. Well, you know what?
He's not on the spectrum. He's a rude, disrespectful boy immersed in this culture.
Speaker 4: He's just rude.
Speaker 2: Yes, he's because the culture has changed. And the first chapter, the new edition of my book, The Collapse of Parenting, is titled The Culture of Disrespect. In my own practice, a mom of an 8 year old boy said, Can you explain to me what's going on with our son? His father and I never talk this way, and he thinks it's funny to be disrespectful and talk back. And I said to mom, I said, Do you guys have the Disney Channel?
Nickelodeon, Nick Junior. And she said, Of course. I said, Lock it down. Turn off, do not allow Disney, Disney Junior, Nickelodeon, Nick Junior, don't allow it. And it stopped.
Disney and Nickelodeon, they are teaching kids that it's cute, that it's funny to be disrespectful, to talk back, and mom called me 3 weeks later and she said, it stopped. These shows are teaching kids that it's cute and funny to be disrespectful and to talk back, and and the culture has become a culture of disrespect. And and and it's not just Disney and Disney Junior. You know, Linda's acts had this huge song, Old Town Road, 12 weeks, 12 consecutive weeks at number 1, the most popular song in the United States, and he sings, can't nobody tell me nothing? You can't tell me nothing.
You know, Bill Maher earlier this year had a huge, bestseller with his book, and he observes in his book, young people are beautiful but stupid. Old people are ugly but more likely to be to be wise. So he continues, any successful culture will teach the young people to respect the old people so that they can learn, so the beautiful young people can learn from the wise old people. You can't tell me nothing. Can't nobody tell me nothing.
This new culture of disrespect where American popular culture from the Disney Channel to the most popular songs to TikTok and Instagram breaks bonds across generation. You can't tell me nothing. If you can't tell me nothing, why go to school? Why go to church? The new American culture of disrespect breaks bonds across generations, and the result is kids in their bedroom looking at screens who want nothing to do with their parents, nothing to do with church, and the result is kids who are adrift.
And and this is a major factor driving this growing generation of kids who are adrift and and and looking for meaning.
Speaker 0: This is, in our in our own family, it's a hard line. If if the talk towards myself or my husband gets disrespectful, they will get punished, and they know it. You know? We're not they're usually very good kids. They don't we don't have a ton of opportunity to punish them, but, you know, that smart talk back to the parent that's extremely disrespectful, We will punish them for that.
But for this very reason, there have to be, like, societal boundaries within which we play. And if you're a child and you're speaking to an adult, all the more so. This reminded me, just asked my team to pull it over, of a bit James Carville did after the election. You know, the Bill Clinton aide who helped get him elected. And, you know, he's a Southerner.
He's a Louisiana boy through and through, and he's not woke. He's a leftist Democrat, but he is not a woke guy. And he had he went on a rant about young people within the campaign, the Democratic party, who think they know everything because someone hasn't set those guardrails for them on understanding respect and respect for one's elders and that one doesn't know everything, especially as a young person. It's a great bet we haven't had the chance to play it for the audience. Here it is.
Speaker 5: The vice president was thinking about going on Joe Rogan show, and a lot of the younger progressive staffers pitched a hissy fit. Supposedly, the campaign said that that wasn't a Trump effective, but they did. When you put a campaign together and you hire young people to do work, let let me tell you exactly what you tell these people, what I would tell them. Not only am I not interested in your fucking opinion, I'm not even gonna call you by your name. You're 23 years old.
I don't really give a shit what you think. If I were running a 2028 campaign and I have some little snot nose 23 year old saying I'm gonna resign if you don't do this, not only would I fire that motherfucker on the spot, I would find out who hired them and fire that person on the spot.
Speaker 4: That's amazing. What do you make of it, doctor Sacks?
Speaker 2: Well, he speaks very emphatically, but indeed I do think that we need young people to respect their elders, and the anthropologists would agree with Bashar. Every successful culture teaches young people to respect their elders and we used to do that too. As recently as 20, 30 years ago, American culture was a culture of respect and the most popular TV shows like the Andy Griffith Show in the 19 sixties, even Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the 19 sixties.
Speaker 0: Little House on the Prairie?
Speaker 2: Yes, were shows that taught, that had those strong connections across generations. We have lost that and you know, you and I cannot change Hollywood, but we can create a culture of respect in our own home, and again that's what I'm trying to do in my book, The Collapse of Parenting. We can't change Hollywood, but we can. I'm trying to encourage parents and and give parents some guidance. How do you do that in your own home?
You got to create that culture of respect within your own home, and you've got to be confident asserting authority in your own home. It's not about discipline. It's about creating those bonds of love and respect across the generations.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. The, this is reminding me too of the way we speak to our children today or the way we're told we should speak to them today is just so vastly different from how my parents spoke to me when I was growing up and just a, you know, a couple generations ago the way it was. You know, you you could make the case against the way parents like mine, my mom, Linda, who I adore, you know, lines like, stop crying or give me something to cry about. Okay. That may have been a little far on the spectrum, but today, we've gone so far around the bend that we have lost our authority, and we're I don't know what kind of psychobabble these young parents are listening to, but it's encapsulated in this bit that was going around Instagram recently.
This is like a prepared bit between I what what looks like a mom and daughter acting, but it it captures it perfectly. Watch. Be careful.
Speaker 4: We don't say be careful anymore. Instead,
Speaker 0: say longer.
Speaker 4: What's your plan here? I don't even know my plan. Do you know your plan? Don't stop.
Speaker 0: I hate your sister.
Speaker 4: Don't say stop. Say gentle. Gentle what? Gentle hands. Gentle hands?
It's gentle. Everything. Gentle everything. I am so proud of you. I'm not supposed to tell kids you're proud of them anymore.
Why not? That's putting the focus on you. What? I am so proud. Don't say that.
Speaker 3: Should I say instead?
Speaker 4: You should be so proud. I am so proud. It's back on you again. Hey. Hurry up.
We gotta go. Don't rush.
Speaker 2: We're fine.
Speaker 4: Don't rush. Fine. I thought we were in a hurry. If you rush children, it makes them anxious. Don't worry.
You always rushed us,
Speaker 0: and I'm anxious. Never rushed you.
Speaker 4: We were always late. Exactly. And I was anxious because we were always late. Am I supposed to say that? Gentle.
This way. Good job. Good choice. Thank you. No.
Say good choice. Watch out. Do you feel safe here?
Speaker 3: I don't feel safe about any of this shit.
Speaker 0: Watch out. No.
Speaker 4: It's do you feel safe here? I'm sure you've seen a lot of this too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that's a riff on gentle gentle parenting, which I talk about in the new edition, which really wasn't a thing 10 years ago, but it certainly is now. Gentle parenting means letting kids decide. Gentle parenting means that, that good parenting means letting kids decide, and gentle parenting is profoundly harmful, and and again in the new edition I present a lot of evidence that that is so because the kids often are mistaken. What is childhood for?
I mean literally, a 4 year old child has barely begun. A 4 year old horse is a mature adult, and a horse is a bigger animal than a human, so it can't just be about biological maturity because a horse, as I said, is a bigger animal, and a horse is fully mature by 4 years of age. A human is developing, is immature for more years than most animals live. Why? Why does it take so long?
We don't have to guess. We have scholars like doctor Melvin Connor at Emory who spent his entire career, decades, studying this question and published this huge tome of 800 pages, Oxford University Press, titled The Evolution of Childhood, Comparing, Press titled The Evolution of Childhood, Comparing Development in Our Species with Development in Other Species. And the answer he gives, the reason it takes so many years is that it takes many years for parents to teach the child right and wrong. And so I cite a column by a long time columnist for the New York Times, Jennifer Finney Boylan, who wrote a column about enlightened parenting in which she asserts, and I'm quoting that, she says that enlightened parenting means, and I quote, setting your child free to discover for themselves their own right and wrong, and if in so doing your child becomes a stranger to you, then so be it. That may seem enlightened to some, but it's not enlightened.
It's a dereliction of duty. If you set your child free to discover for themselves their own right and wrong and they have a device with internet access, what they will discover is Drake and Bruno Mars and Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B and transgenderism and mainstream pornography, Your job is to teach your child right and wrong, to inscribe your law hearts of your kid on your child. That's Deuteronomy 6. That's your job as a parent. Don't set your child loose to discover to themselves their own right and wrong.
That's a dereliction of duty. Don't listen to the New York Times. Don't listen to National Public Radio. Do your job as a parent. That's the message I'm trying to communicate in my book, The Glass of Parenting.
Speaker 0: It's it's reminding me at our school, at our son's school, it's an all boys school. They understand that students will make bad decisions, and they'll do stupid things sometimes. But the thing that will really get you expelled quickly is if you get called in to the head of school's office and you lie about what you did. Like, he he's not calling you in there unless he's got you dead to rights. But half the time, they've got cameras in the school, so he's already seen what you've done.
And if you lie, you're out. He's pretty hardcore about that. If you own up to it and confess you were a numbskull, you know, you did something really stupid and you're sorry, you will live to fight another day. But it's a to your point, it's about the value system. Like, honesty is a it's just a deal breaker.
You can't we can't have anything, can't have character if we don't have that fundamental basic honesty.
Speaker 4: Can I
Speaker 0: ask you something else? When another audience member asked, how do I know at what age I can start talking to my kids more as adults, you know, being honest with them about my own thought process and why I'm not gonna allow them to do this thing that they want to do or about the problems as I see it in the family, outside, whatever. Like, how does one know what level of dialogue to have with one's kid?
Speaker 2: I think it really varies from one child to the next, and as a rule, girls mature faster than boys do. Girls reach full maturity in brains development by about 22 years of age. Boys don't reach maturity in brain development until 30 years of age. That explains a lot if you think about it, and when in doubt, wait. I find a lot of parents that I think are confiding too early, and I know a boy who was very insecure because his mom was confiding, a single mom was confiding in her son about how they were broke and he took that literally and he thought that they literally didn't have money for food and he was very insecure until he graduated and went off to college and realized that they actually were not that broke.
And again parents and sometimes single parents are a little bit more prone to this because they don't have an adult confidant and they sometimes I've observed as a family doctor, they confide in their kids because they don't have a partner to confide in, and they're confiding in their 12 year old when maybe they shouldn't be, and as a result, that 12 year old is insecure, more insecure than they have to be. So when in doubt, keep it to yourself, is it one general rule I've learned?
Speaker 0: I seem to remember you being a big proponent of chores and responsibilities for kids. Does that extend to I had one, audience member ask about, to what extent is it appropriate for me to ask the older kids to help me with the younger kids? Because
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 0: Older kids have responsibilities of their own, and they have grades they have to keep up, and they have sports they have to make. And, like, is it a dereliction of your parental duty to sort of fold in the older ones to help with the younger ones, or is it a good thing?
Speaker 2: No. So there's a whole chapter in the new edition titled humility, which I call the most un American of virtues. You know Justin Bieber had a big hit a few years back where he's saying I'm going to light up the sky like lightning and this world will belong to me. Being proud and standing tall and this world will belong to me. Those are very American characteristics, but we now have all these studies where researchers find that the kid with the highest self esteem at 15 years of age is that individual who's most likely to be resentful and frustrated 10 years down the road.
Because if I'm so amazing at 15, how come I'm working for a low wage in a cubicle at 25 years of age? Actually, one of the best predictors of happiness and contentment at 15 years of age is humility. Being humble. And yes, absolutely, and you'll find that research in my book, The Collapse of Parenting. Being humble, being grateful powerfully and accurately predicts happiness and contentment.
How do you teach humility? Again and again, parents are confused. They don't get this at all. When I speak to parents about the virtue of humility during question and answer, a mother said, I don't want to teach my daughter to be humble. That's ridiculous.
I don't want her to have my daughter to have a high self esteem, so when that big job opportunity comes along, she'll go for it. I want to teach my daughter to be humble. That's ridiculous. I said, Mom, with all due respect, you're confused. You're confusing being humble with being timid.
Those are not the same thing. They're very nearly opposites. And the virtue you want for your daughter in the situation you're describing when a big job opportunity comes along, The virtue you want for your daughter is not high self esteem. The virtue you want for your daughter in that situation is courage. Courage means you know your inadequacies, your failures, your shortcomings, and you find the strength to move forward anyhow.
There is no courage without fear. High self esteem is not the virtue that that you're looking for. High self esteem leads to frustration and resentment, and I can tell you this firsthand. I had a girl in my own practice who at age 15 had very high self esteem. She wrote a short story and her English teacher wrote on it, A plus plus plus you have a spark of the divine fire.
And she went on to write several novels, couldn't get an agent, couldn't get a publisher. And at 23 years of age, she is seething with resentment and frustration and envy. Why did that girl get her novel published? I can't even get an agent. I can't get a publisher.
High self esteem leads to frustration and envy. So you want to teach humility. Yes, you do. How do you teach humility, the right kind of humility? It begins with chores.
It begins with chores, and again many parents don't get this. Many parents don't get this and they're like, Okay, I want my daughter to get good grades, you know, and we have the resources. We can hire a housekeeper. My daughter's job is school. Her job is school, so we can hire a housekeeper to do the chores.
Many parents have said this to me, and the unintended message they're sending to their daughter is you're too important to make your bed. Don't do that. Don't send that message. Don't send that message. Chores is a great way to teach humility, and throughout the book, I follow the Phillips family, a family I've known now for 30 years, and it's an amazing story of an amazing family.
Bill and Janet Phillips and their 4 sons, and I've been in touch with this family now for 30 years. And it's an affluent family, a big home in a mansion in Potomac, Maryland, and they had the money. They could have hired landscapers, but they didn't. They insisted that their 4 sons do all the chores, and I asked Jen, why did you do that? And she said, yeah, we could have hired landscapers, but I wanted them to learn the meaning of work, the value of work, and I quoted from her words in the book, that yeah, even if you have the money, you need to teach your kid to do this, and her son Andrew, really one of the most amazing athletes I ever knew, have ever known in my 30 years as a family doctor, was recruited by Stanford, played on the Stanford football team alongside Andrew Luck, but he was playing at the Maryland program after 10th grade in high school and the coach there had just said what a great football player he was and how he wanted to recruit and play in Maryland and his father said, oh, Andrew, I didn't tell you.
You're going to be working on one of my boats this summer. He owned a fishing business, scraping guts off the deck, and Andrew was so upset he wanted to do all this fun stuff his summer and he said scraping dead fish off of of a salmon fishing boat next to this guy who's just been released from prison, a convicted felon drug dealer, Mexican is talking about coming to Jesus in the state penitentiary, and but Andrew said, you know, I learned something, working alongside this drug dealer who's come to Jesus, something I would never have learned at, you know, the upscale camp, Learning about the value of hard work, learning humility. Humility, the most un American of virtues. You need to teach your kid humility. Humility leads to contentment and happiness.
Speaker 0: Use the kids. Use the olders to take care of the youngers and use them around the house and use them on everything. True. I think it feels very foreign to think of a parent, you know, if your child is like, I really think I'm gonna do something great in this world. Like, to be like now my mother would have said, you might and you might not.
We really haven't seen any signs that you'll do that yet, but, you know, good luck. That's that's truly that's how my mom raised me. But I feel like I couldn't say that to my child. I don't know what I think I'd probably say, yes. You will, sweetheart.
I don't what how would you handle expressions of from a child of, you know, hope about their own future like that? Like, I I see myself as destined for something wonderful. I whatever. However you wanna phrase it.
Speaker 2: I would encourage my child to have their loves properly ordered. It was a phrase going back to St. Augustine, to love god first. Make sure you want the right things for the right reasons, So if my daughter, for example, wanted to be an actress, why do you want to be an actress? You want to be an actress because you're inspired by the challenge of trying to become someone else and to get inside that person's head and persuade the audience that you are that person, that's great.
That is great, and I totally support that and endorse that. If you wanna be an actress because you wanna be rich and famous, that's the wrong reason. Why do you want this? What are you in this for? Know yourself.
Know your motivation. Want the right things for the right reasons. You got to dig down deeply, know who you are, and be headed in the right direction for the right reason. Gotta know yourself.
Speaker 0: So good. I've been thinking about my mom a lot lately. She just came for a visit. She's hilarious. And, there was this meme going around on on Instagram that read as follows.
I'm gonna botch it a little bit. It was something to the effect of, the hardest thing about being a mom or a parent is you you are raising the one thing you can't live without to be able to live without you. And, of course, I was like, oh my god. It's true. This is heartbreaking.
You know, instant lump in the throat and and tears welling, And I'm sentimental like that. My mom actually was in for a visit, and my daughter was in a play. So we went. And, I showed it to my mom, who's 83 now, and she laughed.
Speaker 4: I just like, ma, Linda. It's just she's tough, and she raised me in
Speaker 0: a tough way, but it worked out. You know? And I think about all this stuff. Like, I never was told I had to get straight a's. I didn't get straight a's.
No one ever hassled me over it. I was never told I was special. It's all the opposite stuff that now I've sort of been making fun of for the past 20 years, but you know what, doc? Maybe maybe my mom was onto something. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It reminds me of my own mom, the late doctor Janet Sachs, pediatrician, and I was the youngest of 3 boys, and I remember when we were at a friend's house, and one of the other moms said, oh, Jackie, your youngest is going to be leaving soon to go to college, and she said very coolly, she said, well, they do grow up, you know, that this is what's supposed to happen. But again, a lot of parents are confused about this, and again, in my own practice, husband and wife were planning a ski vacation, and they wanted their 13 year old to come with them, and she said, Well, you know, I'm not that big on skiing. How about if I just stay at Arden's house? You and dad go away, and I'll stay at Arden's house.
And mom was very proud of this, and she was boasting to me that her daughter did not go on the ski vacation, and I said, uh-uh, that's not good. You should have insisted that she come with you. At age 13, your daughter's primary attachment should be to you, the parents, and again parents are confused. At age 13, the primary attachment should still be to the parents. When that attachment breaks too soon and her primary attachment is to her 13 year old friend, that's too soon because her primary attachment at that age should still be to her parents.
When it breaks too soon
Speaker 0: What age is not too soon?
Speaker 4: 18.
Speaker 2: 18. At 13, 14, 15, 16 years of age, the primary attachment should still be to the parents. And we've got so much research now showing that when it breaks too soon, at 23 years of age, now that girl is still now gonna be texting her parents and saying, I don't know what to do. What should I do, mom? And we've got so many of these stories now.
And not just stories, we've got data. We've got this explosion of kids in their twenties and even thirties who are now living with their parents. There are more 30 year olds living with their parents than has ever been the case in American history. It's a weird demographic reversal of failure to launch, of young people who now are unable to live independently, because the acorn broke open too early, is the analogy I use in the new edition of the collapse of parenting. These kids broke out on their own at 12 years of age and went and hung up with their primary attachment was their 12 year old peers at 12, 13, 14, 16 years of age, and now at 25 years of age, they don't know how to live
Speaker 0: Let me just ask you this. So I gotta take a break, but I wanna ask you this question when I come back. So how did any of us who were raised in the seventies or before survive? Because most of us had parents who totally ignored us, and they were not the primary person really in our lives. We were kind of alone and independent in latchkey, but we wound up okay.
Oh, that's a tease. More with doctor Sacks right after this. For those of us who have been holding our breath for the past several months waiting for this election, we can finally exhale. Work can now be done on the major issues this country is facing, one of the most significant being our national debt. The fact is our nation's broke, and that debt is a house of cards that cannot be quickly dismantled.
So the strategy for you probably remains the same when it comes to your investments. You might wanna diversify your savings. This is why I wanna tell you about Birch Gold. So many things are out of our control, out of our president's control, so it can be important to have a safe haven for your savings. Birch Gold Group can help you convert an IRA or 401 k into an IRA in physical gold.
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So those of us who grew up in the seventies pretty much without parents who turned out fine.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. It was a much healthier culture. We're talking about the culture of the Andy Griffith Show, Happy Days, Family Ties, and again, this is not a guest, this is not nostalgia, and I talk about this in the book, and I talk about how the culture has changed, and the culture of the last 15 years has become a much more toxic toxic culture, a culture of envy and disrespect. And this is why the burden on parents now is much greater, because now they have to do much more. They have to do things that your parents never had to do.
They have to provide a culture which your parents didn't have to do. Your parents didn't have to be there for that, but now parents today have to do so much more. They have not only to provide a culture, they have to block out all the toxicity and harm of the bad toxic culture, of the Disney Channel and of TikTok and Instagram, and they have to provide a good, healthy culture, and and and they don't even know it. They do many parents are not even aware of all the bad things that the culture is doing, so again, the mission of the book, the objective of the book is to wake parents up to make them aware that, look, your TV is an agent of this really bad culture and you don't have to turn off the TV, but block out the Disney Channel. You know, Home and Garden Television, that's okay.
The History Channel is okay, but not the Disney Channel. And your laptop is fine, you can watch the Megyn Kelly Show, but not YouTube. YouTube is spreading a lot of really bad stuff. If you're going to watch YouTube, make sure you're there. So you can watch the Megyn Kelly show, but not Andrew Tate, for goodness sake.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 0: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: So warning parents to block out the bad stuff, to all the things that you've got to know now as a parent, because American culture has changed. That's why it's so important.
Speaker 1: We we
Speaker 0: have 2 minutes left with the SiriusXM audience, and we're gonna continue this over on podcastandyoutube.com/megynkelly. But in the 2 minutes we have left, one of our audience members wrote in, how do I deprogram a kid from the woke mind virus without losing them? You know, in our family, we've done a pre inoculation against it. But a lot of parents got swept their kids got swept into this, you know, when they didn't even know to inoculate them. So what's the answer to that one?
Speaker 2: I've got a chapter in the book for that parent, and the chapter is titled Enjoy. And, actually, the new chapter is titled joy, j J O Y and basically I would say, do a vacation. Just you and your kid, you and your family together, go someplace fun and do something fun with your kid, and they may be kicking and screaming, and I describe a father and son where exactly that happened and the son didn't want to go and was kicking and screaming, didn't want to go. That has actually worked. That is the one thing that has actually worked.
Just doing fun things together with your kid, not lecturing them, just doing fun things with your kid is the is the natural god given way to reconnect with your child.
Speaker 0: Wow. That's excellent. The more it's back to your core message. More time with you, more time around the dinner table, more time with your values and and bonding with you and reestablishing that close relationship, and I know we talked about last time. Don't vacation with your children's friends.
No. They cannot bring a friend on the vacay. It's those are for families to reconnect with one another because those relationships are so critical to your child's wellness for reasons like this. So speaking of the woke mind virus, part of what it does is teaches children to prioritize identity over everything, skin color or some alleged weird sexual proclivity or some alleged gender spectrum nonsense, but it also leans in to any weakness, illness, alleged mental defect. You know, I was saying not long ago, it's so in today's day and age, your kid cannot get into a good college by writing, I came from a loving family where I was raised with great values and 2 present loving parents who were there for me to to set boundaries.
You've gotta say you've got some some phobia, some issue, and there's a chapter in the book called what is it's about normophobia normophobia. So can you explain that?
Speaker 2: Yes. Absolutely. So, 15 years ago, I wrote a book called Girls on the Edge, and the girls I interviewed back then wanted to be effortlessly perfect. That was a thing back in 2009. And then more recently the publisher asked me to write an updated version, and I found that girls today don't want to be effortlessly perfect.
That's boring. That's lame. That's basic white bitch, and you know, who wants to be that? And the words that kids use on social media that they teach others to use kind of reinforce that. Are you gender conforming or are you gender non conforming?
Well, who wants to be conforming? Are you neurodivergent or are are you neurotypical? Who wants to be typical? That's boring. Divergent, you know.
Who wants to be typical and conforming? You want to be divergent and non conforming. Has coined this term, normophobia. Kids don't want to be normal and this is a growing issue. It's not true of all kids, but it's true of a growing number of kids.
They don't want to be normal. It's not cool to be normal. You got to have and this is really something that is spread on American social media, on TikTok and Instagram. You got to talk about how you are anxious, how you're depressed or how you're struggling with your gender identity or how you're wrestling with being trans or you're non binary or whatever. You know, 70 years ago, C.
S. Lewis wrote this book for kids, The Magician's Nephew, and he said that the problem about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. And I substitute stupider for anxious or depressed. The trouble with trying to make yourself more anxious or more depressed than you really are is that you very often succeed. The whole point of cognitive behavioral therapy is that a big part of being anxious and depressed is that you're making yourself anxious and depressed.
And as a psychologist and a family doctor, I can tell you a lot of these kids are making themselves anxious and depressed. They're talking themselves into being anxious and depressed. And again, we mentioned earlier that why is this not being seen in Greece and Russia? Well, I don't speak Greek or Russian, but I talk with people who do. And I can tell you this is not a thing in Greece and Russia.
Greek and Russian kids don't see anything cool about talking themselves into being anxious and depressed. This is a uniquely American English speaking world weirdness. I just came from Canada where this is definitely a thing as well, and American parents need to understand how toxic and how weird this is. We need to teach our kids there's nothing cool about being anxious or depressed, and we need to disconnect our kids from the toxic culture that is spreading this, which is very much part of this world mind virus saying there's nothing cool about being anxious or depressed or lesbian or gay or bisexual or non binary or trans. It is good to be healthy.
It is good to be straight. There's nothing wrong with that. And, again, you need to create a culture in your own home where it is fine to be normal.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. It's one of the like, a related offshoot of this problem is the nonstop desire to discuss one's problems in the school setting. Abigail Schrier wrote a book about this recently, Bad Therapy. But more and more, the schools, I will say, especially the girls schools, want the kids to discuss trauma. Has anything bad ever happened to you?
What did that feel like? Has anyone suffered a a loss or a death in the family? What did that feel like? And then they're supposed to go off and do math. What do you make of this leaning into discussing your your trauma in the school setting by some school psychologist who may or may not have any sort of abilities to do that kind of thing with a kid?
Speaker 2: Yeah. So called trauma informed therapy, I think, does not have a place in a public school setting, and I don't mean a, I mean in a setting where there's a bunch of kids around, the classroom should not be group therapy. The objective in the classroom, the first objective should be to teach the content, not to conduct informal group therapy with untrained therapists, so on that point, I agree with Abigail Shrier.
Speaker 0: Let's talk about, and we forgive me. We covered this last time. I don't remember. But, you know, my kids are getting into their teens now, so this is not yet relevant, but I'm sure will be relevant in the next, you know, 5, 7 years. Drinking.
Right? Like, I don't know. I'm sure you'd see signs on your child if you're an attentive parent. At some point, you would see signs once your child starts drinking drinking socially, if they start drinking socially, especially when they get more up into, like, senior year. College, you're not gonna be able to control what happens to college.
But how do you see that? Because let me tell you, in my mom's circles, there are all sorts of opinions on, like, you're not gonna stop it. Like, walk them through. Like, don't have more than 1. Don't have a mixed drink.
You know, set some guardrails for them. Or there's mom who are like, absolutely not. Don't. You know, it should be shamed. Talk to them about the dangers of it, slippery slope, all that.
Or moms who are like, you know, we host parties, and we actually give them let them have a couple of drinks. We just make sure nobody's driving. So your thoughts on that issue.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't think that, kids should be drinking. I think the dangers are clear. I'm actually more concerned as a family doctor with vaping. I see vaping is more popular than drinking right now and it is spreading. I think you need to be aware of the dangers, but it's really more of a issue of what's popular and if all the other kids are doing it, it's really hard for kids not to if everyone else in their group is doing it.
So you need to be aware of what all the kids are doing. Again, I talk about in my book The Collapse of Parenting, the Phillips family, Mr. Phillips had a breathalyzer and he would insist on if the boys were popular and so kids would come to their home from other parties and if a kid appeared intoxicated, he would insist that the kid blow into the breathalyzer and if the kid was drunk, he would insist that the parents come and pick up the kid and drive them home, and that very quickly became known, and everyone would say, well, you know the crazy Phillips dad, he's got the breathalyzer, and that had interesting consequences because, people would say, well, you know that Krazy Phillips said he's got the breathalyzer. And that would give other kids an excuse not to drink because they would say, well, I'm going to the Phillips place, so I can't drink. You want to give kids an excuse not to drink, so by all means buy a breathalyzer and have it at the home, and that will give your kid an excuse not to drink.
So your kid can say, well, I cannot drink because my dad's got a breathalyzer. He's going to insist on testing me when I get home. Mhmm. Think about excuses you can give your kid. You want to be the evil parent.
You want your kid to be able to say, I can't do that because my evil parents will do x. My my dad will make me blow in the breathalyzer. Breathalyzers are cheap. Give your kid an opportunity to blame you for doing the right thing.
Speaker 0: Alright and how about sexual activity?
Speaker 2: So I believe that sexual activity is intended for a married couple and I believe that we want to teach that to our kids. I again describe Marlo Phillips, true story using her real name in the book. Her parents had that same belief and they were strict. They would not allow her to be alone with a boy throughout her high school years and she was like, that is so ridiculous. My best friend, she was alone with her boyfriend the entire weekend.
Her parents were away. She was alone with her boyfriend the entire weekend, and I'm not allowed to be with a boyfriend with a boy for this is child abuse. I'm gonna I'm gonna call child protective services. And her mom said, alright. Here's the phone.
She said, I'm gonna have to be in therapy for the rest of my life because of the way you guys are abusing me. And then she went away to college. She went to University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and she told me at the beginning of her 2nd year she had an epiphany. She suddenly realized, I'm the only girl here who's not gonna have to be in therapy for the rest of my life because of the way my parents treated me. She said, all these other girls here, they're coming to me, they're saying, do you think this picture I'm putting on Instagram, do you think it's too skanky or maybe not skanky enough?
Do you think I'm giving oral sex to too many guys or maybe not enough guys? And she wants to grab these girls and say, have you no dignity? Have you no self-concept that all you care about is what the other guys think? She realized my parents may raise me right, that I have dignity, that I have self-concept, that my self-concept does not depend on what the boys think of me. And yeah, it's a toxic culture for girls out there that's all about what the boys think of how you look and getting down on your knees and giving oral sex to other guys.
And yes, the best parent is both strict and loving, and the the mainstream culture right now is about girls getting down there on their knees and giving oral sex to boys they barely know. You don't want that for your daughter, and you have to make that very clear.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. So you talk about it explicitly and encourage her
Speaker 2: to
Speaker 0: make these different choices.
Speaker 2: You insist on it. Yeah. Mhmm. You have to the best parent is both strict and loving, and American parents are confused. They think you have to choose between being strict or loving, but the best parent is both strict and loving.
Speaker 0: A follow-up on the normophobia, discussion a minute ago because we talked on our last episode about the trans stuff and children, and so much has happened. I mean, a week is like a year on that front these days. The Supreme Court just heard a big case on it and so on. Mhmm. But we've seen a few things in the news lately that have been pretty disturbing, and I'd love to get your take.
In the wake of that Supreme Court case, CNN decided to bring on a bunch of children who CNN says are allegedly trans, you know, believing that they're in, quote, the wrong body and are actually the opposite sex of the one they are, in some cases, with their parents, to talk about just how awful the fact that their necessary medication is being debated by the US Supreme Court. What was at issue in that case for those not aware is the some odd half of the United States have passed laws banning puberty blockers and cross sex hormones for children, for chill for minors. And because it's been found by objective studies in places like the UK and elsewhere, that they actually are potentially very dangerous for children, and they can sterilize you and remove all sexual function and pleasure for the rest of your life. And how can a 10 year old consent to any of that? So CNN puts on this panel, and they have this 10 year old child who I believe is a boy who's posing as a girl, named I don't know the kid's name.
But the the boy posing as the girl is trying to express their fear over this country and what's happening now. And you I'd love to get your thoughts on this clip. It's, is it SOT 5, Kelly? Let's play it.
Speaker 3: What concerns have you had about speaking out? That I'm gonna be, like, murdered. Like, one day, I'm gonna be walking down the street and somebody's gonna come up and, like, shoot me or something. That's a really scary thing to be worrying about at 10 years old. Yeah.
That should not be a worry. Michelle, what's going through your mind as you hear your daughter say this?
Speaker 6: It's hard to hear her say that. And she asked me 3 3 questions after she heard, who won the election. Are we gonna have to move? Are they gonna take me away from you? And am I not gonna be able to get, my medicine?
It's just it's frightening.
Speaker 0: Your thoughts.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm very troubled because, so much of this is an artifact of modern medicine. Recall that synthetic hormones were not a thing until really 80 years ago. This entire transgender movement is a creation of modern medicine. It was not with us before the 20th century. Let's be straight, lesbian gay has always been with us.
It's mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Transgender is not a thing. Despite claims made by the transgender movement, the notion that there have always been boys who insist they're girls and girls who insist they're boys is really a very modern development. It's a creation of modern medicine. Those medicines that that child had talked about didn't exist a century ago, didn't exist a 1000 years ago, could not have been obtained a 100 years ago.
And to what extent is this a real biological phenomenon? To what extent is this transgender movement created by the cultural movement and the politics? You know what, we don't actually have to guess. Earlier this year, a team of researchers at Stanford Medical School did a study of 1500 young adults 20 to 35 years of age and looked at their brain activity. These are young people, men and women, 20 to 35 years of age and they are awake and they're in an MRI scan and you're looking at their brain activity.
Now all human brains have a fingerprint, a neural fingerprint that is more unique to you than your own fingerprint on your finger. That's been known for many years and the researchers wanted to know does a man's fingerprint differ from a woman's fingerprint? And the image that they obtained, the graph that they showed is really astonishing and there it is. So the women
Speaker 0: The listening audience, it shows in the top left quadrant a bunch of red dots, in the bottom right quadrant a bunch of blue dots and there's zero overlap. The blue
Speaker 2: is the male. Yes, no overlap. So the women are up in one corner and the men are all down in the other corner and there's no overlap and the difference between the men and the women is larger than the variation among the men and the women. And what this graph is showing very clearly is that whatever is going on in the brain, in a man's brain at rest is different from what's going on in a woman's brain at rest. There were 1500 individuals.
Now in a survey conducted earlier this year, more than 3% of American high school kids said that they were trans. Well, 3% of 1500 would be 45. We ought to find 45 people in the middle or on the other or crossing over, but we found 0. 0 and more from this study. Okay, so the researchers found So what
Speaker 0: does that tell us? What does that tell us?
Speaker 2: It is telling us that these kids are confused. An XY male, that child in that video we just saw is an XY male. Every cell in that individual's body is XY male. They may take female hormones. They may be castrated, but they are still an XY male.
And in my book Why Gender Matters, I show that boys see differently, they hear differently, they smell differently than girls do, and that will not change. Now that doesn't mean that all boys are one way and all girls are another way. There's great variation among boys and there's great variation among girls, and we should celebrate and acknowledge those variations. But male and female are biological realities. They are not social constructs, and pretending that that is not so and castrating boys and giving them female hormones is not going to be in that boy's best interest.
That is what this research is showing us. Possibly there may be rare exceptions. We can debate that case, but the comprehensive review coming out of the United Kingdom by Doctor. Cass and her colleagues strongly suggests that in the great majority of cases, pre fubirtal kids should not be transitioning to the other sex, but I want to finish that Sanford study because they also found with these very high resolution functional MRI scans and the sophisticated analysis that they were doing, they found that they could analyze the brains of the men and they could predict with high accuracy cognitive function including intelligence for the men. But those rules that they come in came up with to predict intelligence in men were of 0 value in predicting intelligence in women.
Conversely, they came up with rules that could predict with high accuracy cognitive function, including intelligence in women, but those rules that predicted intelligence in women were of 0 value in predicting intelligence in men. These findings tell us that whatever it is that determines intelligence in the brains of a man does not predict intelligence in brains of women. Whatever it is that determines intelligence in the brain of a woman does not predict intelligence in the brain of a man. Now if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, if you subscribe to the New York Times, if you listen to every program on National Public Radio, you heard no mention of this study conducted by the Stanford Medical School and published in one of our most prestigious scholarly journals. If you subscribe to my free newsletter, you would have heard about it.
But our mainstream media never mentioned it. So go to my website,
Speaker 0: better chef.com and sign up for a donation. How these parents these parents lean in. And in that clip for the listening audience, the the young boy posing as a girl is listening to the mother who's crying over the child's potential loss of access to these, pills, and the child reaches up to comfort the mother. The child, like, touches the mother from down below, which is a reversal, right, of the way this is a 10 year old kid. It's supposed to be.
And I you know, all I can think of is this this meme. Charlie Kirk sent it out. I'm sure he may not have been the first, but it was, if your if your child if you think you're trans, you have a mental illness. If your child thinks he or she is trans, it's the mother who has the mental illness. It's the parents who have, like and I cannot help but notice over and over and over again, you see parents who are weirdly almost needy of this thing.
Like, they won't, you write about this in the book, they won't say that they're having a boy when the ultrasound shows the kid has x y chromosomes. You know, the baby, they're gonna wait for the kid to tell them what they are. And then that leads me to one other video I wanted to show you because we showed it on the show, and or we we haven't yet, but it's disturbing. I can't remember whether we did or not, frankly. But, anyway, it's a dad.
And I normally wouldn't I don't I don't bring parents and children, you know, onto the show or show their videos ever if they haven't, you know, put something out intentionally. Right? Like, if they want us to be talking about it, then I think it's fair game. And that's what this dad wants. He's, in the UK.
His name is Jonathan Jolley, j o l y, and he has a boy who he's now raising as a girl named Edie. They have almost 4,000,000 followers on TikTok, and all this dad does is update us with his boy looking more and more like a girl at a very young age. And it's a very almost sexualized looking exchange. And what they're doing to, quote, Edie is very reminiscent to me of what, like, JonBenet Ramsey looked like, a sexualized child with the hair and the makeup. But I'm not an expert.
Let me show you what I'm talking about.
Speaker 4: Hey, guys. So Edie wants to do a summer holiday morning routine.
Speaker 2: Get ready
Speaker 0: with me.
Speaker 4: Get ready with me and show you guys what her skin care is, and her room is, and how she picks her outfit, and all that cool. So that is the skin care element of the video complete. What's next, Edie?
Speaker 1: Then I'm gonna
Speaker 3: do my hair next.
Speaker 2: How do you get your
Speaker 4: hair so wonderful?
Speaker 3: Maybe not in the
Speaker 4: morning because it doesn't look so wonderful.
Speaker 0: And there are other videos of the parents putting a lot of makeup on Edie. It very sort of sexy makeup, heavy eyeliner, wet lip gloss. I find it very disturbing, doc. What do you make of this?
Speaker 2: Okay. That's just creepy. That's really creepy, and that's extremely creepy. And, you know we could speculate regarding that father's psychopathology and why he is doing that, and I don't want to speculate, but I think we need to focus on the child. You made reference to the new chapter in the new edition of the Collapse of Parenting.
I was talking with a parent in Orange County, California and she'd been trying to get pregnant for 3 years and she and her husband finally did get pregnant. She was very excited. She was telling everyone at the school, including people she barely knew, and she told a fellow teacher at the school, she said, guess what? We're having a boy. And her colleague said, don't you think you should let the baby decide?
And that is indeed a thing that her colleague reprimanded her that the colleague thought you should wait and not assign a sex because there are indeed many Americans now who think that, sex is assigned at birth and you should wait until the child is 3 or 4 years of age and then let the child decide. Give the child a gender neutral name at birth and then let the child choose, and if the child was assigned male at birth but they decide that they are female, then you should raise the child as a girl, which leads down the road to castration and opposite sex hormones, etc. And I felt this was necessary to introduce a new chapter that wasn't in the original version 10 years ago, the new chapter titled babies, because this is really harmful and it is psychotic. It is utterly detached from reality, and sex is not assigned at birth. Sex is recognized at birth because indeed you are born male or female, and those differences that the Stanford University group recognized in adults are present in the baby prior to birth.
We have other studies of women in the 3rd trimester where they've done high resolution MRI scans of the baby still in his mother's womb, and they find the same differences in the cognitiveity of the male brain compared with the female brain. Because Genesis 127, in the image of God, he created him male and female. He created them. It doesn't say black and white, he created them. It doesn't say, Asian and Hispanic, he created them.
Black, white, Asian and Hispanic are indeed man made categories, but male and female are of God. You are in fact born male or female. There is a rare category called intersex about 2 in 10000 individuals are indeed born, both male and female. That's a rare pathology, on the same order of magnitude as Siamese twins, but, for 99.98 percent of individuals, you are either male or female, and that's the way, we are born and made.
Speaker 0: Hopefully, the US Supreme Court will see it that way as well and will issue a sensible ruling. From what we saw, I predict they will. Doctor Sacks, so great talking to you. Love, love, love when you come on. Please come back soon.
Speaker 2: Thanks again for inviting me.
Speaker 0: And don't forget, the name of the book is The Collapse of Parenting, the revised edition. You can get it right now and do so. Don't let it sell out. From all the listeners who are now rushing to read more about doctor Sacks' longitudinal cohort studies that are that separate fact from fiction and feelings, and that this is an area that's sorely in need of that. Hope it was helpful to you to you.
It certainly was to me. Okay. Wanna tell you that tomorrow, we've got the fellas from the Ruthless program back on the show. Always fun when they swing by. We'll see you then.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Trump's Newsy "Person of the Year" Interview, Caitlin Clark Bends the Knee, and Mysterious Jersey "Drones," with @HolmesJosh, @ComfortablySmug, @MichaelDuncan, and @JohnAshbrook of @RuthlessPodcast WATCH: https://t.co/vpUxyeXKuk
Video Transcript AI Summary
It's TIME Magazine's Person of the Year day, and President-elect Trump is featured on the cover. The discussion includes his interview, where he reflects on his abortion stance and the importance of early voting. The panel also addresses Caitlin Clark's recent comments about her "white privilege" after being named Athlete of the Year, criticizing her for bending to pressure from WNBA players. They explore the mysterious drone sightings in New Jersey, speculating on their origins and the lack of government transparency. Lastly, they humorously analyze Santa's portrayal in classic Christmas specials, debating whether he is a bully for ostracizing Rudolph and how that reflects modern societal issues.
The conversation wraps up with a light-hearted defense of Santa, emphasizing the importance of performance over differences.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. It's TIME Magazine's person of the year day, and it's going to be a very MAGA Christmas this year. President-elect Trump graced the cover and sat for a lengthy interview that had several newsy moments, we'll get into that in a minute, plus the latest on the Trump cabinet nomination process.
There's a lot to go over, including Caitlin Clark bending the knee to the bullies in the WNBA. And, I got a lot of thoughts on whether Santa Claus is a bully. Gonna get to it. We got the fellas from the Ruthless program, Josh Holmes, Michael Duncan, and Jon Ashbrook. The man known to his minions as Comfortably Smug is running late.
He'll be getting an earful on that, but he'll be here soon. Don't miss a moment. Subscribe to this show on YouTube and follow me on Insta, Facebook, and x. The October 15th deadline has long passed. Are you prepared for what's coming?
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Speaker 1: Thank you so much. We're sorry for our unprofessionalism. We have one colleague who, shall we say, is a little bit of a diva, Madeline. And
Speaker 0: Shocked. Shocked that it's smug. Alright. So there's a lot to talk about today. The Time Magazine piece, of course, first of all, of course, it's Donald Trump.
I mean, I tweeted out saying, obviously, the the finalists included Kamala Harris, which would have been an absurd even if Trump lost, you could make the case that it should have been Trump given, you know, the assassination attempt and all of that. But, I mean, you have to stop for a moment and just say, what a turnaround. I mean, Time Magazine had that picture on the cover of him with a golf cart right before the election, a trouble, and was part of the media that was calling him Hitler and fascist. And now person of the year, how did you do it, mister president? What do we make of it?
Speaker 1: Well, I was sort of pleased that Time Magazine still prints a printed issue. You know, it's only like when you when you see actual noteworthy person like Donald Trump being man of the year that you know that they actually still print the magazine. Right. I didn't know that previously. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, there may be a handful of faded issues sitting on, like, a
Speaker 1: Jiffy Lube coffee table out there somewhere. But I to be honest
Speaker 2: with you, Meghan, your your reaction, I table out there somewhere. But to be honest with you, Meghan, your your reaction obviously is the right one. I mean, Trump is the man of the year. You didn't we didn't need Time Magazine to tell us that. It's I think it's sort of a outdated credential from a legacy media property that's been a cadaver for who knows how long.
I like, the last time I actually picked up a Time Magazine, it might have been during the cloning debate in the nineties. But and he dominated news highs and lows. I mean, this is a guy who was indicted, what, 47 times Yeah. In 3 jurisdictions over the early part of this year. He you know, 2 attempted assassination attempts.
He clinches the nomination, all of these sort of things, and then, you know, becomes president of the United States again. I don't think there's any man in American politics who's been more doubted than Donald Trump, and he proved everyone wrong. I had my doubts myself at various times when it didn't look so super good for him. Right. The man overcame all of it.
Speaker 1: Yep. No question.
Speaker 0: I mean, I will say for the record, I said it was gonna be Trump all along. Did I do you guys remember that?
Speaker 1: I mean,
Speaker 0: I said it was gonna be
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 1: Very precious.
Speaker 0: Nomination impression.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 0: And the election. So the he does make a fair amount of news in the interview that, you know, he gave them an interview in connection with the, with the selection. And one of the things he says is they they get into how he decided on his abortion stance to leave it to the states, And, apparently, this is what they report. He was in the private cabin of his plane flying on April 2nd to an campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan when he picked up a document that Susie Wiles, campaign manager, now chief of staff, had placed atop a stack of papers. The heading was not subtle.
How a national abortion ban will cost Trump the election. Trump raised his eyebrows, quote, kind of a nasty title, he said. Before he considered the memo, Trump had been on the verge of supporting a 16 week federal abortion ban. Think about that, how that could have changed this election. Conway, Kellyanne Conway, is another adviser, had showed him polling indicating that barring the procedure after 16 weeks was more popular than making the limit 24.
But Trump's speechwriter and policy adviser, Vince Haley, had raised an objection on a late March conference call according to 3 people present. Quote, does he know that the 16 week ban will be stricter than existing law in a lot of the states? There was a silence. Probably not, said Trump's political director James Blair. After flipping through Blair's presentation on the plane, Trump perked his head up.
So we leave it up to the states. Right? Advisors agreed. Great, said Trump. We'll do a video.
Within a few minutes, he was dictating his remarks to Haley. I do you guys were on this show right after he did that. Right? And we had a debate about the his stance on abortion, how it had disappointed some of the more established conservatives in the party, but defended it here as smart politics, given the state of the electorate, the mood of the country on this issue. It is amazing how Trump got a couple of data points.
You know, everything for him is transactional. This one's not deep in his core. He's like, what's gonna get me elected? And that's Right. Where he landed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean, it goes to show a couple of things. One is that he was getting good advice on this campaign all the way through. I mean, they ran a really good campaign, and all you can ever ask for any candidate that's running an office of of that level is to get a myriad of viewpoints and paint the full picture before a decision is made. Sounds like in this case, that's exactly what he got on a very contentious issue.
It's also where he landed is consistent with where the American people have been for 50 years. Right? I mean, you've had this Roe v Wade decision that had this big sort of federal overlap over all the states legalizing abortion, preventing any sort of restrictions there within within the states. And then when that was overturned, it was kicked back to the everything the pro life movement had argued for those 40 years that it should go back to states and localities, and people should make these decisions on their own. There shouldn't be this one-sided federal government that flips back and forth every 4 years depending upon who wins elections, outlawing something as significant as abortion in here.
So I think he landed honestly in the only place that you could land on a really contentious issue like this in the context of the 2 years after Dobbs and the 1st presidential election since?
Speaker 0: It saved him given how much she highlighted that issue and how big it became. Even with Trump saying, I'm not gonna touch it. It was a huge campaign issue. Imagine if he had been pushing a 16 week ban. I mean, it really could have changed the course of this election.
Here's another couple nuggets. Pretty interesting. How advisers got him to stop bashing early voting. Oh, look who's here.
Speaker 1: Notable as well, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 0: Johnny come smugly has shown up for the party. Great to see you.
Speaker 2: If you
Speaker 0: can hear me, if
Speaker 3: I can't adjust for president Trump, please ban all motorcades in DC while the Megyn Kelly show is being recorded.
Speaker 1: I would greatly appreciate that.
Speaker 0: It's a simple request, sir. How he they got him to stop bashing early voting. This was such an irritant for almost every Republican who's been watching elections. Why is he bashing early voting? It is the only way we're ever going to win again.
You know, run up the vote. Get our people in there early. Don't don't bank on election day voting because it rains. They have sick kids, work calls, whatever. And sure enough, this time around, the Republicans did show up early, and Trump won.
So it was such a hard it's not like Trump hadn't heard that it's a good idea to encourage Republicans to vote early. He just wouldn't do it. He just refused. In his core, he seemed to believe fraud happens if you mail in your vote or if you vote before election day. And what they report is that it took a visit from Rob Gleason, former chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party, to frame the matter in terms that made Trump agree.
And I have to say, this is brilliant. This is brilliant because this is how you have to talk to Trump, you know, to sort of get through to him the way his mind works. Sir, your people are so excited to vote for you that they wanna vote as soon as they can, Gleason told him during an April meeting at Mar a Lago according to, 2 top Trump officials familiar. They don't wanna wait, but you gotta tell them it's okay. You gotta give them permission.
From then on, Trump promoted absentee in early voting and directed the RNC to launch a mobilization drive drive targeting male voters. That's so good. Your people are so excited to vote for you. They wanna do it as soon as they can. You just gotta give them the green light.
Like, they're chomping at the bit, sir. You know, give the people what they want, which is to vote Trump at the earliest second possible. It's a show of enthusiasm for you. And that was the way in that worked, guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It No. Go ahead. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I I mean, it happens to be true. I mean, everybody was excited to get out and vote for him. That's why he won the popular vote. And there was some confusion about whether that people should be voting early, whether they shouldn't be voting early. When Trump announced that he was for it, it not only cleared up the confusion, but what he built and what they built at the RNC to turn out the vote was monumental.
Charlie Kirk did a lot on this. And in Pennsylvania, what a contrast between how president Trump listened to a guy from Pennsylvania who was telling him how to win the state and Kamala Harris who refused to even put the governor of Pennsylvania on her ticket. It was a real difference maker. And the one other thing I'll say, Meaghan, there's a common theme here with the 2 topics that you pulled out of this article. The first one, Trump knew he needed to win, and he wanted to win so bad.
He's willing to do anything. Same thing with this. He knew that he had to do something different to change the outcome this time and not have it taken from him the way Democrats did in 2020. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I I will say I had a little bit of experience with this because I I remember, you know, I had the opportunity to have a lot of visits with president Trump in his first term and towards the end when states were changing all of their voting rules to try to accommodate COVID. And as we've since found out, many of them totally irresponsibly and without proper controls and anything else. He was watching all that in real time. And so his reaction to early voting, it like, it is a whole bunch of issues. One of the reasons why I think he's gonna be a really good president the second 4 years.
It's based on a life experience. It wasn't he didn't spend a life watching politics and watching turnout mechanisms and being an operative. He knew what he experienced in 2020 when people were changing all kinds of early voting rules that obviously benefited Democrats a great deal, and he knew he opposed that. And so I think you recontextualize that now to a whole bunch of states that actually put in safeguards and had competent elections, California notwithstanding. Here's I know you can make some questions about it, although, you know, they got to the right spot.
Ultimately, once those are in place, you can make a very logical case. And this is not something he had an ideological opposition to in the sense of his own election. He just knew how it worked out the first time. Well, and if you look
Speaker 2: back to previous elections before Donald Trump, the Republican party won elections in state like Arizona on, you know, the the backbone of their turnout operation, which was absentee by mail and early vote in person. And so getting back to that, of course, was a huge advantage in 2020 because, you know, Trump said only vote on Election Day is like swinging a weighted bat. Like, we made it harder on ourselves. And then lo and behold, he does this. And, he wins the popular vote, not just all of the battleground swing states.
And then I I wanna say as well, you know, I think Trump did a great job getting on board with absentee by mail and early vote. But what a fantastic messenger with JD Vance. Yeah. JD Vance did an incredible job on the stump, on the trail, talking about the mechanics of early voting and absentee by mail. Missed an opportunity.
Never missed an opportunity. Never missed a media hit to mention it. He did a fantastic job.
Speaker 0: Smart. He's a smart man. He knew he knew what would it it would take and didn't have the, you know, trauma that Trump had Yeah. In 2020 to stop him on the messaging. Now speaking of 2020, he was asked about what he's gonna do on day 1, and he said one of the first acts that he will take will be to pardon most of the rioters, on j 6th.
And, he said it will start it's going to start in the first hour, maybe the first 9 minutes, he says, the pardons of the j six rioters. It's interesting that, it's most it's most of the j six rioters. It's not all, which I have no problem with. I have to say, like, I don't wanna see pardons of people who assaulted cops. I really don't.
That's no. But all these people who just wandered in there, and many of whom were welcomed by security and then walked around the capital for a short time and then left. I mean, this it's ridiculous. These people have been made prisoners for years. Like, they've paid their their dues and then some on any alleged bad acts, but this will be very controversial and will be, if he does it within the first 9 minutes as promised, one of the first acts that turns the media back on to TDS and hating him and writing nothing but bad things about him.
Speaker 3: Sure. Well, I think, you know, Joe Biden expressed it very well. There are concerns that the justice department could politicize actions and go out, you know, political enemies. So under that advisement from Joe Biden, I think Trump is well within his bounds to act if he believes the same way Joe Biden is. Did break the seal there.
Speaker 1: That's it. You know? I mean, I think this would be a lot more controversial if not for Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and how he's used it and how he framed it. I mean, you're exactly right. He framed it as though his son was the target of a political prosecution without mentioning, you know, 47 indictments against his political opponent or all the j sixers or everything else.
But it opened up this discussion in a way where you could see a very reasonable way of handling all of that. I will say, like, I agree with you, Megan. The violent offenders here, people that, you know, had a sinister intent on j 6, and they were hitting cops with flagpoles. I don't think that's what we're talking about here. And so, you know, who sort of, like, throw up their hands and, oh my gosh.
I can't believe it. I don't think that's true. And that's coming from somebody who had an awful lot of friends who were in that building, who had doors barricaded with desks in front of it, with people trying to break it down. Like, it was very personal for a lot of us who knew people that were in that situation, and there were bad actors for sure. But the vast majority of them were not, and they were handled by the justice department as though they were the ones that were kicking in doors.
Yep.
Speaker 2: And and the courts told us that some of those sentencing guidelines works, you know, excessive. Yeah. We we already learned all the it's been 4 years. It's been 4 years. Right.
If you paraded through the capitol on January 6th, you shouldn't be in prison after 4 years. I mean, that just seems crazy.
Speaker 0: Some people were numbskulls and got treated like they were dangerous felons, and some people were completely clueless that they were even violating laws or weren't even supposed to be up there. There is a large category of people in that group, which the left won't admit. So that'll because this is an interesting thing, because I was talking to Paul Murray of Sky News, so I go on his show once a week in Australia, great guy, about whether about how the media's been kinda quietly lately about Trump. You know, they're and and he was asking, do you think in America, they're gonna, like, give him a chance at a second term that's not marred by constant demonization of Trump? And I said, no.
No. They're quiet. Because Trump's been relatively quiet. And I do think Trump's in a better mood, and he's a little bit calmer and a little wiser and speaking in a way that's more magnanimous and unifying. None of that's going to last.
It's just not going to. That's not America. You guys are in this mix as much as I am, the political mix. And you guys both and I both know the j 6 pardons are going to be hugely controversial even though Hunter Biden. And then we're gonna get to immigration, and we're gonna get to deportation of families, children.
Because that was another thing he said, immigration plans. He will order US law enforcement agencies and potentially the military to embark on a massive deportation operation designed to remove more than 11,000,000 people from this country. Now I know the American public supports it, but the media doesn't. And the media is not gonna wanna see it, and they need to fill their papers and their broadcasts with news every day. And that news is not going to be Trump's doing a good thing.
It's just not going to be. So the other thing he said in this, before I give it to you guys, is doesn't he doesn't plan to restore the policy of separating children from their families, but he says, I don't believe we'll have to because we'll send the whole family back. That's what Homan said too. And then adds and he says, I would much rather deport them together. And then finally says, look.
With with respect to the general prohibition against using the military to, enact deportations or to, you know, against civilians, he says he will use the military to round up and deport these illegal migrants. He says it does not stop using the military if you're dealing with an invasion of this country. And then there is another report. We've seen this before that his advisers are planning to build more detention centers to hold the migrants until they can be deported. It can happen in a day.
So you're gonna have the the media will call them camps. It'll be treated like a concentration camp. We'll have video of AOC down there in her white outfit again looking at the children crying. And, you're gonna show the j 6 prisoners getting out while the children are somehow in camps. And the narrative will start, and everything will deteriorate back down to its normal terrible status.
Speaker 1: I mean,
Speaker 3: I think you said a few very critical things. Number 1, the vast majority of Americans agree with this action that the law should be followed. If you enter the country illegally, you've broken the law, and the law says you have to go back. And I think there's already been a precedent of how the media is gonna be completely biased in this very subject. When we saw images of, oh my gosh, they've put children in cages, and then it's revealed that, actually, that photo was shot under the Obama administration.
You know, you saw the pod roast out about it. They didn't realize they were working for the guy who did that. So the media has no problem lying and trying to color Trump as being some kind of a a a dictator going after innocent people. Trump is doing what the American people ask, which is returning these people who entered the country illegally.
Speaker 2: Right. You said at the top, Meghan, you know, they gotta fill their newspapers with something. Wouldn't it be great if the headline at the top of the New York Times says, Trump doing what voters elected him to do? That's majority of Americans agree with the policy of deportation, which would be fact, factual and accurate. But you're right.
I mean, it is going to cost him some political capital after all of these stories and the talk of the, you know, these camps and all this sort of stuff, and they just gotta hold strong and know that the voters are behind them. Right. And what the media is gonna completely blow past are the thousands and thousands of fighting age men from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan who somehow ended up in Mexico and walked over our southern border. There are terrorists in this country that absolutely have to be removed. I mean, we're taught like, there are some estimates that there are more fighting age men who have come into this country illegally over the last 4 years than we have currently serving in our armed forces today.
That is a major emergency for our country, and what president Trump is gonna do is protect us from the dangers of the Biden administration. It's it is it's terrifying thinking of who thinking the fact that we don't even know who's here because the Biden administration has lost count. Not to mention, there are over a 1000000 people who have already been adjudicated as here improperly and scheduled for deportation. They blow right past that. They blow right past the fact that Barack Obama deported 3,000,000 people when he was president.
Right. And they Nobody asked him the cost or the feasibility of that program. No. No. That that that was okay because it was Barack Obama.
If Donald Trump wants to do it, it'll be Adolf Hitler.
Speaker 3: But but
Speaker 0: let me tell you let me tell you something. Rachel Maddow, just to take one, when we could take pretty much anybody over on MSNBC, her ratings are down, I mean, I'm gonna get get you the exact numbers, by half. She's down over 50% in the demo. In the overall number, you know, the overall audience, she's down 43% in total audience. She was averaging 2,400,000.
Now she's down by a1000000 to 1.4, like, she could spare it. And this is their highest rated show. In the key demo, the advertising demo of 25 to 54, she has shed 56% of her audience. She is averaging 103,000 in the demo. A 100 I never.
Never. I mean, in the prime time, are you kidding me? Never. I would've. They would've fired me if I had
Speaker 1: a a 100000
Speaker 0: in the key demo.
Speaker 2: Winning is great, but, honestly, I mean, I just will speak for myself. The downfall of our enemies is so much sweeter.
Speaker 1: It's so good.
Speaker 0: It's true.
Speaker 3: It's so good. But this
Speaker 1: is you just made the point, Meaghan, that I was just about to make, which is the one key difference that's happened since 2017 when the media unleashed a 4 year campaign to basically try to undermine everything that president Trump was trying to accomplish was that the media still had a little bit of credibility. Mhmm. It it it has fallen about 35, 40% since that moment in time. Where people get that information? I mean, look, sitting on this show right now, we're a perfect example of that.
I mean, the Megyn Kelly show has got a hell of more a lot more people in demo than MSNBC has ever had in demo. Right. And so, yes, they're falling. Yes, they're going away. But they're also just cling what they are clinging to is this last partisan remain of this very hardened group that the vast majority of people can't identify with at all.
And they're going to seek their information elsewhere. Legacy media sources are going to be shrill. They're going to be terrible. They're gonna say all the most horrible things. Unlike 2017, they don't have an audience for it.
Mhmm. And I think unlike 17, Republicans in particular have no patience for it. Mhmm. And I I think
Speaker 0: they how they're gonna get that's how they're gonna get their audience back, Holmes. Trust me. They're the Democrats are licking their wounds right now. They're very sad. They can't believe that they were lied to, that they were wrong, that Kamala didn't really have it.
She wasn't joyful, and that we didn't respond to Tim Walz and his jazz hands. They don't get it. Okay? So they're all, you know, watching Little House on the Prairie reruns, if they know it's good for them. And, you know, they could instill values.
We talked about that with doctor Leonard Sacks yesterday. And they are avoiding the TV news. But when as soon as Trump I've been through this on cable news many times. Soon as he has sworn in and starts doing things, the it's gonna be they're gonna come back. They're going to come back to MSNBC and CNN if those channels do what they're in the business of doing, which is bashing Republicans and Trump in particular.
There is no business model for them in going more fair and
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 0: Open minded to Trump. So they will get those numbers up from loss of half of our audience by doing the one trick that these ponies know how to do, which is bash Donald Trump. And Trump, his magnanimous tone will change, and we won't be back necessarily to double impeachments and criminal prosecution threats and so on. But we will be back to very divided hateful media coverage of Trump. So this honeymoon period is gonna be super short, and I guess he should enjoy it while he can.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I no question. I guess my only point on that, Meaghan, is that it it's now consolidated and left. Right? Your your CNNs of the world, your MSNBCs, your Washington Post, your New York Times, even your Associated Press for crying out loud.
It's now a consolidated leftist audience. And where you get into trouble politically for a new president when you're entering into contentious issues is when you start bleeding into the center right or into your base of of concern. That is a concern for, you know, a 100 years of politics, or at least since the advent of television with network news. It's not really that big of a concern right now that you're gonna start losing those center right voters because they don't live there anymore. They're just not interested in it.
He's gonna have a longer leash. You're entirely right that they're gonna consolidate the left. They're gonna make it entirely impossible for him to have a fair conversation. But I think his ability to withstand that is much greater than it was 8 years ago.
Speaker 3: I also think it would be very, important. It's incumbent upon independent, reliable sources of information like ourselves and your show as well, Megan, that we highlight when these actions are taking place that here's the issue. The Biden Harris regime created this broken system where they would say, show up to court and then people would go missing. I think during that entire time, independent information sources should highlight the fact that here's the problem. These people who were under this Joe Biden system of being handed a slip of paper show up to court and don't show up.
Mhmm. That's why this action is having
Speaker 1: to be taken. We're dealing
Speaker 3: with the problem that Joe Biden created.
Speaker 1: You think the honor and honor system wasn't a great way to enforce the law or anything? I mean,
Speaker 0: who knew? Yeah. It's like that big banner that they put on every Trump rally. Trump will fix it. Just like Bob the Builder.
Speaker 3: So that's the method that needs to be put
Speaker 1: out there.
Speaker 3: When people see that Trump's falling through on his campaign promises that they wanted.
Speaker 0: The, yeah, the media is in a panic about what's happening in terms of their fecklessness, and they feel the power and control slipping away. MSNBC and CNN feel their viewers slipping away. But it was embodied in a clip that was on X, yeah, this week between Lesley Stahl of CBS's 60 Minutes and Peggy Noonan, who used to be a Reagan speechwriter and now writes a column for The Wall Street Journal and has for many years. And, I mean, would you take a listen to Leslie Stahl describing her dread over the loss of mainstream media power?
Speaker 4: If you watch the opinion of us, how many people trust the press anymore, I mean, we're way down there with the lawyers. Yeah. You're way down there with Congress. Exactly. I mean, we're way down there with Congress with high despair.
Seriously, I worry greatly, and I think there are other institutions that have been suffering. And you're right not to blame Donald Trump 100%, obviously, Started many years before. But we're at a point where if the president of the United States, is going to say legacy media is dead. Well, I guess Musk said that. Legacy media is dead.
And he wants it dead. He wants other media. But it but it is kind of, sort of hobbling right now. And I don't know how it recovers. I'm very discreet.
I'm very dark about it.
Speaker 2: Encouraging videos, I think, I saw all week long. I I've never seen something that I wanted to watch over and over and over again because they first of all, she's blaming Trump Yeah. For the for the fact that they've been lying to people for the last 30 years. Like, that's his like, he was the one who told them to lie about him. Like, get get
Speaker 0: out of town. He fooled them into believing they couldn't trust the legacy media, Ashbrook.
Speaker 2: Right. And and, I mean, them having such a hard time with it is really one of the greatest developments, and it reminds me of a line that the great coach from the Buffalo Bills, Marv Levy, used to say, if it's too hard for them, it's just right for us.
Speaker 0: That's so good. It's she doesn't know. Like, she's actually genuinely befuddled. She says, I don't know how it, meaning legacy media, recovers. I I have a lot of suggestions for you, Leslie.
What should we go over them? Like, maybe don't say the laptop can't be verified when it can. And then when your own organization verifies it, come out and do a mea culpa and admit that you had embarrassed yourself. Maybe don't stealth edit the presidential candidate on the Democrat's side interview with 60 Minutes your flagship program that you're an anchor of without telling us. And then when it becomes a controversy, refuse to release the transcript because you're more interested in running cover for the Dems than you are in honest reporting.
Maybe don't host a vice presidential debate where you fact check only one side, and then when your fact check gets fact checked by the vice presidential candidate on the Republican side, you cut his mic. Just a few thoughts off the top of my head on what you can do about it.
Speaker 2: I love it. And I love that clip because I think it gets to the heart of the matter in this whole segment and sort of back to Holmes' point. It's really not about audience. Whether they have half the audience they used to have or they get all that audience back by ginning up all the hatred of Donald Trump after he's sworn in. Ultimately, the question is, are they gonna have any credibility?
Is anything that they say actually going to matter no matter how many people are actually listening or watching? And I think it's gonna be a lot less, and I think the demonstration of that is this election. Right? Like, they lost half their audience. Great.
I'm very happy about that. They had that audience in June. Mhmm. They had that audience in July. They had it in the run up of the election, and people were pulling their hair out.
They thought Donald Trump would become president of the United States again, And then he won. And then he won. So, clearly, all of the things that they're saying,
Speaker 3: it doesn't have the same jokes.
Speaker 1: Damned it. They did their thing. If you looked at the opening of every network Oh my god. Podcast in the final month of that election.
Speaker 3: Donald O'Donnell was just egregious. What egregious?
Speaker 1: I mean, it was a straight What network
Speaker 0: is she on again?
Speaker 2: Is that yeah. Yeah. Right. Right.
Speaker 1: Hello? There are campaign ad teams that are like, wow. We didn't think of that. That's great. That's a what a great attack, Norma.
I'm gonna try to repurpose that.
Speaker 0: Alright. Here's another one. So this is some of the more distressing news in his Time Magazine interview, for me and others like me, but I think Trump will fix it. I I think Trump was just sort of shooting off the cuff and will do what he promised to do. But I gotta be honest.
These are terrible answers he gave on the trans issue. Terrible. He was asked okay. Let's see. In 2016, you said transgender people could use whatever bathroom they chose.
Do you still feel that way? I don't wanna get into the bathroom issue, he says, because it's a very small number of people we're talking about, and it's ripped apart our country. So they'll have to settle whatever the law finally agrees. I'm a big believer in the Supreme Court, and I'm going to go by their rulings. And so far, I think their rulings have been rulings that people are going along with.
But we're talking about a very small number of people, and we're talking about it. And it gets massive coverage, and it's not a lot of people. That's the wrong answer, mister president-elect. The answer is I don't believe men should be in women's bathrooms or private spaces. That's the proper answer.
I realize Trump hasn't been paying attention to this, but that's this is the wrong answer for Republicans and for the country and for women. Then they asked, but on that note, there's a big fight on this in congress now. The incoming trans member from Delaware, Sarah McBride, says we should all be focused on more important issues. Do you agree? I do agree with that, he says.
On that, absolutely. As I was saying, it's a small number of people. It was a big issue, though, on the campaign the reporter follows up. This is the reporter saying it's a big issue, and he's saying it's not. I mean, one of the ads that your campaign put the most money behind was the Trump is for us and Harris is for they them.
And he responds, well, it's true. Trump is for us. And the reporter says, right. Obviously, it strikes a chord. And Trump adds, I mean, Trump is definitely for us.
Okay? And us is the vast, vast majority of people in this country. And, also, I wanna have all people treated fairly. You know? Forget about the majority or not majority.
I want people to be treated well and fairly. And then they ask last question on the trans issue. Will you reverse Biden's protections for trans kids under title 9? And his answer is, I'm going to look at it very closely. We're looking at it right now.
We're gonna look at it. We're gonna look at everything. Look. The country's torn apart. We're gonna look at everything.
That's not the right answer, sir. With respect, that is the wrong answer. You had the issue correct in your campaign video that features you on camera saying this.
Speaker 5: My Department of Education will inform states and school districts that if any teacher or school official suggests to a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body, they will be faced with severe consequences, including potential civil rights violations for sex discrimination and the elimination of federal funding. I will ask congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female, and they are assigned at birth. The bill will also make clear that Title 9 prohibits men from participating in women's sports, and we will protect the rights of parents from being forced to allow their minor child to assume a gender which is new and an identity without the parents' consent.
Speaker 1: Mhmm. That's
Speaker 0: the correct answer. Please repeat what you said on the campaign trail, and everything will be great.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I know. Look. I think you're right.
And I I I actually think that is where he's gonna land. In fact, you know, I mean, it's happening already. You've got a Republican House of Representatives with an NDAA. It's a defense authorization bill where that action is actually happening right now. I mean, this week, a a bill will pass and go into law that has the beginnings of pulling back all these transgender rights that the Biden administration invented out of thin air.
So I think there's gonna be an appetite to do all that. I actually think he will land on the right side of it. I think what you're struggling with in a transition period is, you know, you got only so much political capital. He knows the border issue is the reason why he is where he is. He knows that this tax issue is absolutely imperative to restoring American economy and ultimately what they think of him at the end of the day.
And he knows that all of that is going to take the full width of everything that they've got in that administration, all the political capital that they've accumulated. So he probably doesn't wanna get out and start making declarations about all kinds of other things that he knows he he doesn't have to do on day 1. All that being said, Meghan, you are right. The answer to that was the answer that he provided during the course of the campaign. I I I just don't read that as what he said as a as a walk back.
It's less than, you know, what I wanna hear for sure. But I I think we'll still get there.
Speaker 0: I I believe you're right, and I pray you're right because I don't wanna have this fight again. But I will.
Speaker 1: If I
Speaker 0: have it against a president I support and voted for, I will. I will have it with him. I will have it with anybody. I I don't care what their partisan stripes are. Boys should not be playing in girls sports.
And Title 9, by the way, should be revised by Trump the same way Biden revised it, which was Yeah. Through the Department of Education and Miguel Cardona, who did it on his own, accepting comment from the public, which I'm sure was overwhelmingly against these changes, but they did it anyway. And Trump should undo it. He should do to it with Linda McMahon exactly what he did to it with Betsy DeVos. And that's what should happen.
I think that's what will happen because I think Trump just isn't focused on this. And I agree the deportations are more important. That that should be, you know, where he spends most of his political capital. But this is not going to cost him anything. The 70% of the American people plus, but it's it's as high as almost 90 in some polls, don't wanna see boys and girls sport sports.
This is not this will cost no political capital. So this is a no brainer. Someone's just gotta get to the president and make that clear, and I believe Elon Musk is the person to do that because he is totally eyeball to eyeball with me on this issue. That's really clear. Okay.
So that there's that. Now while we're on the topic of Time Magazine and its celebration of random people, we need to talk about Caitlin Clark.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 0: So Caitlin Clark of Iowa, but now playing for Indiana in the WNBA, gets honored in in time as the athlete of the year. I I don't know. I guess they need a lot of covers or something. I mean, whatever. I get they they just want people who are gonna sell their shitty magazine.
So she gets selected as athlete of the year. And what does Caitlin Clark do? Like, this woman who's a super she's the Michael Jordan of the WNBA, and she's become a phenom in part because the players of the WNBA can't fucking stand her. Why? Because she's white.
It's abject, absolute racism. It's total racism. And one of the things that's been admirable about Caitlin is she just continues to play her game and put points on the board. And she does very well, and she wins games games, and she puts butts in the seats, and she sells tickets, and she gets people tuning in on television. And see, all really we wanna hear from anybody about this is thank you.
Thank you to Caitlin Clark for making our league relevant and so on. But instead, she's been bullied repeatedly by the players in this league. She's been assaulted physically. She's been scratched in the eye. And, I mean, we've all this is on camera.
We've covered it repeatedly on the show. So she gets this honor, and all she has to do is continue staying above it. Thank you. I'm grateful. Love being in the WNBA, and I love my colleagues who I play with, my teammates.
That's it. Instead, she decides to go racial. And what she says is she feels the need to acknowledge her white privilege. Basically, she's sorry she's white. She's she feels really bad about it, though, so you should give her a pass.
And then she makes a point of saying, the ones we really need to be celebrating are the black the black women on whose backs this league was built, which I have to tell you is so condescending.
Speaker 3: It really is.
Speaker 0: It's true that most of these black women have been bullying her and want her to understand it's their league. Hello. You don't own the league. Blacks don't own the league just like whites don't own tennis or golf. Nobody owns the league.
Pete, this is America. Anybody can play if they're good enough. But they want her on the knee. You'll bend the knee, and you'll apologize for being white, and you will suck up to the black women who built this league before you, or you will be beaten. You will be assaulted, and you will be bullied with no friends.
So she does it. She finally did it. She bent the knee, self flagellated over white privilege. And look at look at the black women in this league. And I have to tell you, if I were a black woman in that league, I think I'd say, screw you.
Because don't treat me like I am the ugly stepsister, and you are Cinderella. And no prince is gonna look at me unless Cinderella says, oh, give her a little time. Oh, oh, put her in the spotlight for a moment. I would be offended, genuinely offended by her, like, look over there. Look at them.
They're they're not white. They did a lot too. And here's the other thing. It's totally insincere. And here's how you know it's totally insincere.
Because if Caitlin Clark really felt uncomfortable in the spotlight as the newbie who's white who's, you know, because white people didn't build the league, build the league, she wouldn't have said yes to being Time Magazine's athlete of the year. So either walk the walk or don't. But what you're doing here is trying to have it both ways. You're too cute by half, and you've managed to piss off your fan base. Go ahead and look at my Twitter feed and the comments under my tweet on this.
She's lost thousands of fans, maybe more, as a result of this. And you will never appease the race bullies in the WNBA ever, because you're too popular, you're too talented, and too white. That's it.
Speaker 3: Well, I think you completely nailed it. As soon as I saw that statement from her, I was I was incensed because it was only a couple days earlier I've been telling Duncan, Duncan's from Indiana. I was like, wow, you know? I see all these clips of this player you've got. She's amazing.
She's done great. And and I've been following during the season her getting bullied by all these other players who are jealous of her, who are jealous of her success. And meanwhile, these statistics would come out where all the road games where she plays sell out. They're the best selling games of the season is when she comes to town. And for her to turn around and and and bend the knee to these people who've been bullying her, like you said, it's never going to be enough.
It's not just, her trying to get these people to like her who've been mean to her. It's her complete betrayal of her fan base. People, like, for years years, men have been complaining that ESPN doesn't cover sports. They cover critical race theory, and they're sick of it. People watch sports for escapism, to see, competition.
Caitlin Clark was an inspiration to so many of my friends' daughters. And for her to go out and say something like this, to try to like you said, being like, oh, no. No. No. No.
You know, black players need me as a white savior to bring them and highlight them. This racist equity system, all it does is divide Americans. And the result of this election, in large part, was Americans saying, we're tired of that. We've had enough
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 3: And dealing with Clark's going right back to that.
Speaker 2: And and DEI is
Speaker 0: so right.
Speaker 2: DEI is a nonsense thing. But can you think of any profession in which it's more nonsense than athletic competition in which there are statistics and points scored? It's such a preposterous thing to claim somebody has privilege in a competition of athletics. And not to mention the fact that, like, you would never say something like that about the NBA, you know, where there are 100 of black superstars paid 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 of dollars. And, oh, by the way, that NBA subsidizes the entire WNBA.
Yep. Right? So and and she's walking around talking about her white privilege. It's insane.
Speaker 0: Here's the other thing, Duncan. Here's the other here's the other question. I don't remember Serena Williams apologizing for her blackness in tennis, which had been dominated mostly by whites. I don't remember Tiger Woods apologizing for his blackness in the, you know, whatever, PGA, which was dominated by whites. No one would even think of such a thing.
They celebrated this new figure in sports who maybe didn't look like all the other figures they knew. They thought it was great. He was to be celebrated. All had in common with all. People have responded to Caitlin.
Speaker 2: What they all had in common is that they fundamentally changed the sport, and they brought casual fans into the sport to become lifelong fans of the sport. It didn't matter what the color of their skin was. That's what Tiger Woods did to golf. That's what Caitlin Clark did to the WNBA. That's the sort of excellence that should be celebrated, and I it's so weird to me that we had the entire ideology fail at the battle at battle ballot box, a few weeks ago, and now she's, like, the last one to get the memo.
It's crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 0: I but, you know Imagine a world just we gotta keep this going because it's like I'm so fired up about it. But imagine a world in which Serena and Venus take over tennis, they crush, and the and the thought pieces that are being written are or or the comments that they are required to say are, I just wanna acknowledge that tennis was built on the back of white people, like Chrissy Everett and Martina Navaritrola and Billy t King. And, you know, I I have black privilege in being here because of my whatever. However she wants to attribute that. It wasn't explained by Caitlyn either, exactly how her white privilege got her some more attention in the league.
That's the theory by some racist that the only reason we wanna watch Caitlyn is because she's white, and we can't stand watching the blacks, but we'll watch the white, which is absurd. She's by far the best. The stats prove it. That's why she's so popular. But in what world would we ever be comfortable saying to these black superstars, you better acknowledge the backs on whose, you know, bodies, tennis and golf and whatever white sport you can think of were was built.
I mean, it's an absurdity. It's racist on its face.
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And, you know, the the thing that really strikes me, if you think about Time Magazine, it's not they don't care about sports. It's a religious tract for the left wing lunacy in this country, and what they care about is driving their politics forward. There are thousands of athletes who have had great years that they could highlight if they cared about highlighting a top athlete. Caitlin Clark is one of them.
But this story and her naming her really strikes me as something that was negotiated between her PR agent and Time Magazine where the agreement was. She would say what the left wanted to hear, and in exchange, she's named athlete.
Speaker 1: Well, this is the this is part of the sports culture and has been here for the last 5 or 6 years that these are the kind of things that you get into when you do these sort of quote unquote mainstream pieces. But I think there's something that's much larger than all of this. And one of the reasons why we're so irritated about it is this election, you saw huge participation and definitive in how they came down amongst Gen X and older millennials. And one of the big pieces of that in my view is that we all kinda grew up in a social atmosphere where you just didn't think of people in white buckets and black buckets. And, like, all my heroes were young black athletes, and I never thought about that.
Yeah.
Speaker 2: When I watched Family Matters, it wasn't like, oh, I'm watching the black sitcom.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know? Like, we never
Speaker 2: thought about that as a kid. Like, the
Speaker 1: Cosby Show. Cosby Show. You're like, yeah. You weren't like, oh, man. Well, this let's watch The Black Show tonight.
Speaker 0: Like, it
Speaker 1: just never had that's not how we grew up. And somehow time over the last 10 years, all of that changed. And it took people a while to try to figure out how and why and what they could do about it. In this election, they finally said, fuck you. We are not doing this anymore.
We are not gonna discriminate people. We are not gonna evaluate their character or their worth based on their skin color. We're not doing any of that anymore. And the extent that PEI and all of those people that wanna push that agenda are doing that to us, we're gonna throw your asses out. And that's exactly what they did.
And so now you get the sports agents and all this stuff that apparently didn't get the memo. Mhmm. And I my bet is my my bet is, Meaghan, I think you're talking about, like, a 22 year old young woman who's sort of thrust into this cultural icon. I bet 5 years from now, she's gonna wish she had that back. Mhmm.
And and I don't think that I don't think
Speaker 0: that she's back. What we know about Caitlin Clark is she's reportedly dating some very, very woke leftist. But what we know about her is she liked Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris. So she seems to be telegraphing something about her politics even though she doesn't often tweet or post about politics. It seems pretty clear she was in that lane hoping Kamala Harris got elected.
Though when asked about it, she tried to play it off as she was just, you know, really in favor of people informing themselves about the issues and making sure they vote. Okay. Sure. There isn't a Trump voter in the world that would have liked the Taylor Swift endorsement of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. So she definitely is a democrat and probably a leftist who believes this crap.
I have to think she believes in this crap. This is the first real, you know, window we are getting into the way she thinks, and I couldn't care less if she's a democrat. As I've said many times, you know, my the people in my family are Democrats. A lot of people I love are Democrats. It's not about that.
It's about this sick ideology and the fact that she she's she bent both knees. She got down on both knees and begged for forgiveness for her whiteness and then was condescending to the black women in the league while she did it. It was an utter fail. Jason Whitlock has thoughts. She's also responded to my criticism directly.
That's next after this quick break. For those of us who have been holding our breath for the past several months waiting for this election, we can finally exhale. Work can now be done on the major issues this country's facing, one of the most significant being our national debt. The fact is our nation's broke, and that debt is a house of cards that cannot be quickly dismantled. So the strategy for you probably remains the same when it comes to your investments.
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A lot of those players in the league that have been really good have been black players. This league has kind of been built on them. The more we can appreciate that, highlight that, talk about that, and then continue to have brands and companies invest in those players that have made this league incredible. I think that's very important. I have to continue to try to change that.
The more we can elevate black women, that's going to be a beautiful thing. I mean, it's the most groveling, pathetic, please like me. I've tried to elevate you to my level in terms of attention, but there's only so much I can do. I mean, honestly, like, she thinks this is gonna work. This is not gonna work with these black women.
The ones who didn't have a problem with her whiteness are probably like, I'm good, white savior, and the ones who did Yeah. Will never be appeased.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Right. They're the ones that are giving her all the flagrant fouls and trying to scratch her eye out. And at Smug's point, which is, I think, so true, and it's one that must be remembered in a moment like this, is, like, they're never appeased. You can bend your knees to the and they always come back for more.
There's nothing you can do to apologize enough.
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: That's right. So here's, there's a lot of reaction to this. OutKick has done a number of good articles on it. Jason Whitlock, the best, reacted on his podcast. Fearless, here's a bit of what he said.
Speaker 6: That's what they're turning Caitlin Clark into, a woke monster. Caitlin, if you do these things, say these things, adopt these positions, we'll leave you alone. No one else is going to try to poke your eye out. You know, we'll quit talking about you in this way, and you'll have some peace. Now they've lied to her, and she'll find this out shortly, that nothing's going to stop.
These angry lesbians, the black ones in particular, are going to continue to try to destroy her, period. End of story. Just out of just pure jealousy and their racial bigotry. You gotta be like Megan Rapinoe. You gotta hop on board with all the messaging.
Welcome to the WNBA. Grab a girlfriend. Reject your heterosexuality, reject your biblical worldview, and join us here in Lesbian Heaven, the WNBA. That's
Speaker 2: a shame. This is okay. You're so funny.
Speaker 1: Is he wrong? Okay.
Speaker 0: So Caitlin all I I haven't yet spoken about this. I just sent out a tweet saying kind of what I've just said in just one tweet. And, it got a lot of pickup because people are, I guess, shocked that there's controversy about Caitlin Clark. I don't know. I have no idea.
I don't give a shit. But she was asked about it. I don't even know who this reporter is. Who is this person asking her questions? Maria Taylor.
Who is she? She's on NBC? Okay. So she asks, Caitlin Clark about the the comments I made or the Twitter or whatever, the tweet, and
Speaker 7: here's what happened. Even today, earlier today, Megyn Kelly, she was saying that you were apologizing for your white privilege and the fact that you wanted to uplift black female athletes and make sure
Speaker 0: that they
Speaker 7: were getting the shine, kinda like your pioneers were getting the shine that they deserved. And I just wanna know how you feel or how you respond to some of those criticisms when you have to deal with something that it's really not your problem. Like, I feel like it's them looking in
Speaker 1: a mirror a little bit Yeah.
Speaker 7: But it still comes down on your shoulders.
Speaker 8: I feel like I always have had really good perspective on everything that's kind of happened in my life, whether that's been good, whether that's been bad. And then obviously, coming to the WNBA, like I've said, I feel like I've earned every single thing that's happened to me over the course of my career. But also, I grew up a fan of this league from a very young age. Like, my favorite player was Maya Moore. Like, I know what this league was about.
And like I said, like, it's only been around 25 plus years. So I know there's been so many amazing black women that have been in this league and continuing to up uplift them, I think, is very important. Again. That's something I'm very aware of. And like I said, like, I try to just be real and authentic and, you know, share my truth.
And I think I said, I feel like one of my best skills is just blocking things out. Like, I don't I don't really the only opinions I really care about are the people that I love.
Speaker 0: That's good. That's that's actually smart. And she shouldn't be listening to her critics. But that's not gonna stop those of us who have strong thoughts about her bending the knee from speaking out. But she did it again.
I I earned everything, but show me another athlete who's done that. Who who does that?
Speaker 3: Yeah. To to to me, here's the thing is there should be such a severe cost for what she has done. Her jersey should be boycotted. Her game should be boycotted because it's much bigger than her. It's this insidious ideology.
And she has so many little girls looking up to her. And now they're being told, if if you're white, I need you to just, you know, shrug a little. Don't let the spotlight be on you. It's up to you as a white person to be a savior and uplift black players on your team. What a horrible message to send young children.
Mhmm. That, no, you should not always play your best. No. You should let other people bring you down. It's a horrible thing.
And as a minority, there's nothing more offensive than this equity ideology which says, listen, you have no shot unless you have a white person who comes along and makes the stage for you. It's unbelievably to have this. Clarence Thomas has a great segment in his book, Create Equal. He talks about how he opposed affirmative action because, as a minority, people in the office would look at him like, you didn't get there because of your merit. You got there because of the color of your skin.
Speaker 2: You earned everything but. And you earned everything but is the insidious ideology right there. And, yeah, it's easy for Caitlin Clark to say that. But, like, do you want every minority kid who gets into college to think the same way? Have this, you know, nagging thought in the back of their head, like, maybe I'm not good enough Mhmm.
Because of this system that set up DEI.
Speaker 0: Or or every white female basketball player to think, I've gotta apologize for my whiteness. I don't belong on this team. I'm somehow taking something that doesn't belong to me.
Speaker 1: Mhmm. There's also something I I didn't detect until that clip, which is there's this false humility involved in it too, where where it's like there's a baked there's a baked in assumption here that she is the league. Right? I mean, she didn't even make the Olympic team. But there's this baked in assumption that she well, now it's up to me to make sure that everyone else is recognized because Right.
Obviously, I'm the league. I mean, that in of itself, I missed, like, the first three times in it. I don't think you could pick that up in the printed quote. But in that answer, man, it's a really pretty arrogant thing to just surround yourself with you.
Speaker 0: Fail. It's such a fail because it's like, you know, I'm doing my best to try to get you to pay attention to these losers over here. But, look, I mean, can I help it if I'm the star? I mean, that's really the messaging. That's why I say if I were a woman of color in the NBA, I would be, like, doubling down on the middle finger, Caitlin.
Like, you know what? Don't do me any favors. But it's such an absurdity. You know, it wasn't that long ago that in journalism, there were no women. Truly, like, there was Connie Chung and Barbara Walters and Jessica Savage.
And that was, you know, like, in the seventies, then 1980. There were not I don't remember them needing to say, like, I just wanna give a shout out to the men on whose backs this business was about. That's not how it works. And it's it's never how it works. I mean, like, that's why Serena didn't say anything about whites in tennis, and Tiger didn't say anything about whites in golf.
We would have been horrified if they had. It's why? Is it because that's the power group? You know, the men were were in power, and whites were in power, and blacks are minority. Well, guess what?
White women are in the minority in the NBA in the WNBA. So it works. There's no way of spinning your way out of it. There's zero reason for her to apologize, which is what she was doing for her whiteness, or be so fucking condescending to the black women in her league that she's been completely spun up probably by agents. I don't care.
Maybe the boyfriend. I don't know even if that's true about the boyfriend. I'm just saying there's somebody in her life and in her head that's misguiding her. And if she continues down this road, she's going to lose all of her fans.
Speaker 3: Okay. Well, she's a grown woman. She makes her own choices. She's made herself a star, and she's made the choice to do that and send such a terrible message to young children, and she should be held accountable for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I I'd like before we break on this segment, Meaghan, as a white man, I I'd just like you to take a moment to thank Edward r Murrow. For everything that you've accomplished in your career, it's just, you know, a little token of respect. Yeah.
Speaker 0: I mean, like, it's all I've accomplished everything that's mine, but but I would be remiss if I didn't point out all all the men who've come before me and built this profession. It's all so ridiculous. It reminds me of that line. There's a line in broadcast news, which is literally one of my top favorite movies. I absolutely adore this movie.
And, Holly Hunter is totally unsparing as this TV news producer, and she's giving I think it's yeah. It's William Hurt. This, like, vain, anchor who's rising to the top, notwithstanding his lack of intellectual rigor. And, there's some scene where she gets after him, and she's like, oh, you know, I've got all these opportunities, and I I hopscotched over everybody who put in the work, but at least I feel bad about it. And that's who Caitlyn Clark reminded me of.
You know, like, I I'm at the top, and I've earned everything, but at least I feel bad about it. Oh, could you keep this on the left? That's my good side time. Could you just on the cover and could I wear this very sexy dress in my interview with ESPN where I look amaze balls and everybody's staring at me? But I feel so bad.
I are there any black women in my photo? I'd like to get some black women in here. Oh, none available? Okay. Just me.
Just just me then. Honestly, I'm starting to understand why they don't like her. Okay. It's great time.
Speaker 3: Megan's social team, can we back that up?
Speaker 1: It's a viral deal.
Speaker 0: Just spend a minute on Trump's cabinet. Okay? We're gonna get to the scary drone things happening in New Jersey too.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 0: And also bully Santa. But I gotta spend a minute on the Trump cabinet and Kimberly Guilfoyle. Okay? She's not cabinet, but she's been named as Donald junior and Kimberly broke up. And the same day, they announced that she was gonna be our ambassador to Greece, which is fine.
I like, the left is freaking out over this. But I did the same thing that I did when Laura Trump got made head of R&C, which was check all your prior biases on what you think an ambassador is or should look like, and in Laura's case, head of an R&C. And ask what exactly is the job she's being asked to do, and can she do it? And who is doing it now? Who is so special that she she or he cannot possibly be replaced by this new person?
And as soon as you put this choice through that analysis, you are clapping the the elevation of Kimberly Guilfoyle. Okay? Kimberly is a smart woman. She's a lawyer. She is totally self made.
She did not come from privilege at all. I believe her father was a cop, Irish immigrant. Mom was Puerto Rican. She goes to law school. She interns at the DA's office.
She gets a job as a DA. She was a successful San Francisco district attorney. She did wind up marrying Gavin Newsom, who was mayor of San Francisco. Then she got herself into TV news, got herself into Court TV, and then Fox News, got her own show, got onto a hit show, The 5, where she was doing legal analysis, did wind up dating Don Junior, left Fox News, went with him. There was some scandal, in quotes, around her departure, which will come back to haunt her to some extent, and her confirmation hearing will let that play out, And has been a loyal Trump ally for the past 8 years even at the times when Trump was at his lowest and the most loathed.
She was there for him. She was next to him. She never abandoned team Trump. Not with a tweet, not with an, you know, stormy exit. And she deserves credit for that if you're talking about the man who now gets to make these choices.
And so she's going to be ambassador to Greece. Was it a consolation prize? Maybe. But these roles are always given to rich donors. And so Kimberly's not rich, but she donated another way.
She donated her time. She spoke at the RNC, you know, 4 years earlier, and she defended him at every turn. So there you go. Here's the other piece of it. Can anybody name our current ambassador to Greece under this president?
Speaker 3: Exactly. You know, but I
Speaker 1: can't wait to hear who it is.
Speaker 0: I'm gonna introduce you to George Tunis. No. He's not the current the current one. Right? He's this is Obama's nominee, for ambassador to Norway.
Okay. The current guy wait. Is it this is the same guy. Yeah. He is the current ambassador to Greece, and he was Obama's nominee for ambassador to Norway.
So he's both. And would you take a listen to this Mensa member?
Speaker 5: Jonas, have you been to Norway?
Speaker 9: There are there are a lot of things that we'll
Speaker 10: be getting to, there
Speaker 9: are a lot of markets that will continue to open up.
Speaker 11: Let me just ask, as ambassador, how would you promote those those trade cooperations?
Speaker 9: Thank you for that save, senator Johnson.
Speaker 3: It's,
Speaker 9: important that we continue
Speaker 1: Oh, god.
Speaker 12: Interesting.
Speaker 1: Throw me that g. Good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look. If if Kimberly Guilfoyle really wants to be confirmed to this job, she needs to start her opening statement by thanking George Tunis for building the program that she's standing on his shoulder that he basically built, which she has now kind of earned.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Like a lady acknowledgement.
Speaker 1: Bobby Boy was an ambassador. Just
Speaker 3: wait. So he he's a he's a current ambassador to Greece?
Speaker 0: Yes. So he's a current ambassador to Greece, and that was him
Speaker 1: Not a little bit.
Speaker 0: That was him during his Obama nomination to be ambassador to Norway. Can we just watch it again? Can I I would love to see the beginning of that again? Who's got this bumbler?
Speaker 5: Furnace, have you been to Norway?
Speaker 9: There are, there are a lot of things that will
Speaker 10: be getting to,
Speaker 9: there are a lot of markets that will continue to open up.
Speaker 11: Let me just ask, as ambassador, how how would you promote You're
Speaker 0: an idiot. Okay. Move on. He did not get confirmed.
Speaker 1: He did
Speaker 0: not get confirmed. I think Kimberly's gonna be able to tell us whether she had Brenda Grease or not. I'm I'm gonna put money on it right now. So, anyway, it it's just nonsense, but, of course, the media's freaking out because she was Don's girlfriend. So that's Kimberly.
So okay. She ambassadors do need need to be confirmed. Will she be confirmed? Yes or no?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay.
Speaker 0: Let's keep going. Let's keep going. Okay. You go ahead, Holmes. Yeah.
If you have a comment, I can't I was wondering if you
Speaker 1: look at the qualifications are not particularly steep for an ambassador. Right? I mean, I remember all the way back when I started in in this line of work that there were the Bush Rangers, which basically meant you bundled a whole bunch of money for a campaign, and you had a particular interest in some part of the world. And that was basically the fit. And that's Yes.
How it's always sort
Speaker 0: of Donate money, and then you say, I would like it. That's how you become an ambassador. Right. Okay. Let's do it quickly because I really wanna get to these other two subjects.
Will Pete Hegseth be confirmed? Yes or no? Down the line, start with Holmes.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I I don't know that one yet. I think the hearing is gonna be incredibly important. I think it's less about everything you've read in the newspapers right now about all the allegations there. He's gonna have an opportunity within the confines of the hearing to address that.
And there are members, you know, like Joni Ernst has expressed, she's a been a victim of sexual assault. I mean, this is there are things that need to be addressed within the context of the hearing. I mean, the larger thing for Pete is how he intends to run the Pentagon. There are a number of senators on the Republican side whose votes are are open for business on this deal. They wanna be helpful to president Trump, but they're gonna need some concrete answers on big ticket military procurement type issues that have had a lot of concerns about Ukraine and everything else.
And those are real things that he's gonna need to talk about. Yeah.
Speaker 0: And So you're so maybe. You won't say yes or no. Go ahead, Ashbrook.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I I don't think it's a no by any stretch. I I but I'm I'm still open on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I I think it's, first of all, the guy is extremely impressive, and everything you hear out of these meetings that he's having on the hill with all these senators is that he's come prepared with answers to their questions, specific questions that they ask. They've done their homework. He's been in there, and he is doing a really good job convincing people, from what I understand. So I think it's a maybe lean yes.
I mean, I
Speaker 1: think the Duncan?
Speaker 2: Attacks I think the attacks against him are absurd. I think, you know, he has done a very good job refuting all of those allegations. And I think, in particular, when you're talking about the Pentagon, an institution that has failed 7 audits, or like West Point, who's asked by a reporter if Pete Hegseth ever got a nomination to attend the academy, and they say no. And then he has to dig up the nomination letter that he got 2 decades ago to prove them wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Hats off the podcast system. But he was
Speaker 0: he was accepted at West Point, and and they denied it when ProPublica called them to ask whether he had ever even applied there. West Point said no. He never even applied, and, no, he wasn't accepted.
Speaker 2: And and the inability for the Pentagon to pass audits or this West Point thing are perfect indication of the dysfunction that currently exists in our defense department. How is it possible that Pete Hegseth is gonna do a worse job rooting that out than Lloyd Austin? It's insane.
Speaker 1: I think the guy should be I'm a yes. Guys, Mike.
Speaker 3: I think I think Pete gets confirmed. I think you've done a terrific job showing the truth on these fake allegations that were brought up against him. I think that he has done a tremendous job supporting the veterans with his work, for Cherry. And I think he is the right person for that job. He's someone who has served, and I think President Trump showed he has a mandate.
I hope every senator understands that the American people are completely behind President Trump, and he made this pick for a reason. It's because Pete's the right guy for the job.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. Alright. Now I'm going to ask you to go faster on the next one.
Speaker 1: Yes,
Speaker 0: sir. RFKJ. RFKJ. Holmes, does he get confirmed?
Speaker 1: Yes. Ashbrook? Yeah. Yep. Duncan?
Yes. Yep. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Gets confirmed too. Okay. Good. And now those are really the most controversial.
I will ask you quickly about the wacky surgeon general candidate who is, I don't know what's happening with this woman. She sounds pretty leftist. She was leftist on the COVID lockdown. She's left it on the language she uses around the trans issue and children. She's been controversial amongst the right, but does she get through, or do some of these senators vote her down?
Holmes?
Speaker 1: Yeah. I look. I think this has popped up in a couple of different places. I also think the nominee for the secretary of labor has not
Speaker 3: Labor. The same
Speaker 1: set of issues, but also some concern from within. And that's where you start to get nervous because it the Democrat senate conference is not typically one that doesn't take a skin where they can get it. And they may ideologically be okay with some of these nominees, particularly the labor nominee, but I don't think they're gonna give votes for it. If they think they can take a scalp, they're gonna take it. So I don't know.
I mean, some of those ones get a little dicey when you're dealing with something less than full throated support from a Republican conference.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. Ashbrook? Yeah. I mean general labor?
Speaker 2: Listen. I I agree with everything that Josh just said about this labor nominee. There are there are concerns about support for the proact and things like that that Republicans really don't like, conservatives don't like, and you can see Democrats trying to trying to take her out. Yeah. I I don't know.
I know the proact thing is an issue on the labor nominee, but, like, at the end of the day, if Nick Papageorgio can be the ambassador to Greece, I think
Speaker 1: they Bobby boy.
Speaker 2: They should be able to find a way to
Speaker 1: get Sorry. Tommy. Tommy. No. That's a Vegas vacation.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Vegas vacation. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Smug? Do I do you agree?
Speaker 3: I I I say yes. I think across the board for all of Trump's nominations, I think Tom Cotton made a great point. He said the media is trying to gin up the story that how, senate Republicans need to get some scalp and downvote anyone because it's some made up tradition. It's not he had the numbers that the vast majority of presidential picks, get confirmed by their own party in the senate. And I think for president Trump, it'll be the same story.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You only lost 1
Speaker 3: in 7. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Okay. We've now we've gotta move on to what Rosie O'Donnell has dubbed the alien invasion over New Jersey. And I know you guys have the finger on the pulse of the Rosie news. So and by the way, have you have you been following what's happened to Rosie? Because she's she's just about attorneys Yeah.
As a result of Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Saw that.
Speaker 1: A very, very tough look, I might add.
Speaker 3: It's it's vampire herpes. She said it only happens in sunlight. Yeah.
Speaker 0: So she's got herpes. I mean, I just not for nothing, but she there's an update on her herpes. She actually she's been keeping us. I've gotta play this for I'm I there is news to get to, but I'm sorry. First, you need to watch this because I had to watch this.
And therefore This
Speaker 1: this is where you do it. This is where this comes from.
Speaker 0: Okay. Here yeah. This is where we do it to you. Okay. This is what is it?
Which is the one we want? We want isn't it 20? It's 20. Is it 20 or 19, Deb?
Speaker 1: Oh, boy. I am nervous.
Speaker 0: Oh, god. I can't give 2 minutes over to Rosie O'Donnell. So she gives an update on her her herpes saying that it's being treated with a very small, very teeny tiny, tube of Abreva, and she laments the cost of her new herpes cold sore medication. But then I've gotta play this. I don't know.
Why do we need to get updated? I'm telling you next is hemorrhoids. And then, like, my Preparation h, it got the one on the top, but not the one on the bottom.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, okay.
Speaker 0: So but then then she goes on. She's very focused on New Jersey and the UFOs. You'll see why I'm playing this for you. Top 20.
Speaker 13: I have people saying stop talking about the UFOs. I'm not gonna stop talking about the UFOs. You know, when the Native Americans were here and Christopher Columbus pulled up in all of his ships And
Speaker 1: the acknowledgement.
Speaker 13: The consciousness of the Native Americans couldn't even imagine that those were boats full of people. And I think that's what's going on with all the UFOs all over the world. It's not just New Jersey. Pay attention. Right?
They're drones. From where? China sent over 1 balloon, and then they sent over thousands of plasma like blinking ships. I mean, really? Excuse me.
That was a burp. That was a diet Coke burp.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Oh. I don't
Speaker 2: know, guys, I don't know if she got Abreeva. I think she got Ayahuasca.
Speaker 1: How about a land acknowledgment of, you know, pretty sure Indians knew how to, like, float on water. They had canoes. They had canoes. They did have that.
Speaker 0: Like, it's just when you think she can't get any grocer. Why? She's burping on she's showing you're a cold sore, And she's You
Speaker 3: get unidentified by showing objects. Like, it's not what I signed up.
Speaker 0: Smug. Thank you. I I don't even know what I don't know why my team is sending me updates.
Speaker 2: I thought the Zoomers were overshares on TikTok.
Speaker 1: And not
Speaker 2: to be outdone, the boomers come in strong with the oversharing. I mean, it's unbelievable. I think you're absolutely right. Next thing is gonna be the Preparation h and the Hemingway.
Speaker 1: I just can't even process it.
Speaker 0: I feel like somebody needs to send her some Maalox or something to get that shit under control because no one wants to hear it. Okay. Speaking of the alleged UFOs, put together some points because we've got we've been dying to get to this story. Alright. So now I'm gonna walk you through what's happening.
Obviously, there's been a hell of a year, so why not end it with mystery UFOs? Or UAPs. That's how they're referred to now. Unidentified I can't remember what they're called. Steve Krakauer is obsessed with UAPs, so he'll he'll tell me.
Anyway, they're saying they're drones. What is it? Aerial unidentified aerial or unmanned aerial phenomenon. Okay. So they're saying that they are drones.
We don't know what they are, but they are terrorizing folks in the good state of New Jersey. This started on 11/18, which I remember because that's my birthday. And there have been a whole lot of new developments in the last week. We're gonna go through them. Alright?
Now the first sighting, as I say, 11/18, the drones have been spotted in the sky every night thereafter. They've been seen over reservoirs, highways, military installations, and near president-elect Donald Trump's Bedminster golf course. During one incident, the drones prevented a medical helicopter from picking up a person injured in a car crash. What? A spokesperson for the Morris County Sheriff's Office described the drones as similar to small cars.
They've said that they look like SUVs. A police chief for the town of Evisham in New Jersey, I don't know it, but they say most of this is happening in Ocean County by the shore, in New Jersey said witnesses have called the drones as large as an SUV with blinking lights on them. Here's a compilation of eyewitnesses capturing the objects on camera and describing what they saw.
Speaker 1: There they are. Here they are. There they are. You know, you still wanna pay too. Marmora, New Jersey.
Speaker 0: We shouldn't be outside.
Speaker 1: Go. But here they are. They look like a fucking triangle. They look like a triangle. Oh my god.
Here we go. Here it is.
Speaker 3: Hey. That sucker.
Speaker 0: Are you freaking Lights are on.
Speaker 1: Know. 1 It looks like a drone. No way. And a f 16 just flew over.
Speaker 14: No way.
Speaker 1: This one is extremely low. It's loud. It's really cute. And it's huge. It's so big.
It looks so much closer in person. Yeah. My camera doesn't do it looks like a spaceship. Right? Like, that doesn't look like a drone.
Right? That looks like a spaceship.
Speaker 0: It's coming right for them.
Speaker 1: It's like a small plane. It really is like a small plane. These are all drones in the sky. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 7 right here.
Speaker 4: I know this.
Speaker 0: That's crazy. Young guy heard in that mashup also captured one of the only videos we've seen of the drones around dusk. You see it gliding through the sky, and all these are going from dusk to around 11 o'clock at night, they say. Look at this. Another eyewitness told The New York Times the drones show up one after the other following the same flight path.
A New Jersey lawmaker, citing New Jersey State Police, said the sightings again, they begin around sundown. They go through 11 PM. And sometimes the drone's lights are turned off, making them harder to spot. And police have indicated they do not appear to emit radio frequencies, which allows them to avoid detection. They don't know where they take off from or land.
They do believe they're coming from the water, at least according to some of the officials. They say that they're not drones, that they're not drones being flown by hobbyists or related to DHS. This is what they're saying. They don't believe they're hobbyists, and they don't believe it's coming from DHS. After the initial report in mid November, the FAA banned drones from flying over a military base in Morris County and over Trump's Bedminster.
State leaders told constituents, the drones do not pose any threat to the public. No threat whatsoever. They don't know what the hell they are, but don't panic. What the how are we not supposed to panic or worry if you have no freaking clue what they are? And we had at least one lawmaker come out and say exactly that.
On Tuesday, the governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, came out and talked to reporters. Again, he said, don't panic. There's nothing to panic over. But he also admitted that he spent all day on the phone with the White House trying to get answers and listened to how he described them.
Speaker 15: I was on with the White House and Homeland Security leadership literally at the very top yesterday, pretty much all day. I'm hoping we'll get answers sooner than later. I would just ask folks to continue to let the FBI or their local law enforcement know when they see something, and we'll continue to do everything we we can with our federal partners to get clearer answers.
Speaker 11: Why is it so hard to get answers?
Speaker 15: These are apparently very as I understand it, very sophisticated. The minute you get eyes on them, they they go dark. And, you know, we're obviously most concerned about, sensitive targets and sensitive critical infrastructure. So we've got military assets. We've got utility assets.
We've got the president who elects one of his homes here. This is something we're taking deadly seriously. We've got good cooperation out of feds, but we need more. And that's that was my plea.
Speaker 1: Oh, good.
Speaker 0: No answers, and don't panic. After the governor's remarks, Republican state senator John Bramnick called on the governor to declare a limited state of emergency and ban all drones until someone explains what the hell's going on here. But so far, that has not happened. New Jersey state senator Douglas Steinhardt then went on Fox News and in an interview said that the objects are indeed coming from offshore.
Speaker 12: The best information that we have available to us to this point suggests that that that these drones are coming from offshore, that when we try to make contact with them, they become evasive and elusive. You know, from from my perspective, if they are American assets, if they're American military, if they're American drones, and I think we owe the American people answers or explanations. But they if they're if they're not, if they're not American made, if they're not American drones, then I think, you know, we owe the American people action. And if no one else is saying, I'll be the first one to say it. If these are not American assets, then we need to get our assets assets into the air, and blow one of these things out of the sky.
Pick up the pieces and figure out what we're dealing with because quite frankly, you know, we're the United States of America. I mean, I think we need to do a better job here.
Speaker 0: Douglas Steinhardt, right on. Stand by. There's more. Also on Tuesday, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee questioned the FBI assistant director of critical incident response about whether the public is at risk here. That director, Robert Wheeler, admitted, we have no idea.
Speaker 16: We do not attribute that to an individual or a group yet. We're investigating, but I don't have an answer of who's responsible for that, of, 1 or more people that are responsible for those, drone flights. It is concerning.
Speaker 17: Is the public at risk? Is public safety at risk? Are we concerned that there are nefarious intentions that could cause either national security or a public safety incident that would put Americans at risk?
Speaker 16: There is nothing that is known that would, lead me to to say that, but we just don't know. And that's the concerning part.
Speaker 0: Yeah. There is something that's known. Hundreds of drones are flying over New Jersey the size of SUVs, and they go dark when you get eyes on them, and they won't interact with us. There's yeah. There's something.
Yeah. So then yesterday, the story really took a turn when Republican congressman Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey went on Fox News and claimed that sources told him, this is Iran. Watch.
Speaker 18: Iran launched a mothership probably about a month ago that contains these drones. That mothership is off I'm gonna tell you the deal. It's off the East Coast of the United States of America. And again, these are from high sources. I don't say this lightly.
Know that Iran made a deal with China to purchase drones, mother ships, and technology in order to go forward. The sources I have are good. They can't reveal who they are because they are speaking to me in confidentiality. These drones should be shot down. The military is on alert with this.
Speaker 0: It's Iran, and only Jeff Van Drew will tell us the truth. There's a mother ship in the Atlantic, well, right off the coast of New Jersey. What? Okay. But hold your horses because not long after his remarks, a spokesman for, woman, the Pentagon came out and shat all over his claims.
There is not any truth to that. There is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States, and there's no so called mothership launching drones towards the United States. What's happening? What's what's what's happening? Okay.
So so far, New Jersey assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia has given the best wrap up of where things stand. She tweeted a long thread on x yesterday after meeting with New Jersey State Police. Bottom line, she writes, we know nothing. Period. She then went on to admit, quote, to state that there is no known or credible threat is incredibly misleading.
She said the state is shackled with what it's able to do. Any interception must be done by the feds. She admitted at this point, military intervention is the only path forward and said there will be no answers in the absence of proactivity. New Jersey state representative Brian Bergen told NewsNation's Rich McHugh that he actually walked out of the briefing fed up with the lack of information.
Speaker 1: I walked out because it it was it was worthless. It was the biggest amateur hour presentation I've ever seen about anything. Okay? It was ridiculous. There were no answers.
Every question that was asked by the a member of the state legislature, great questions. No answers. No resolution. They don't know where the drones are coming from. They don't know who's doing it.
They don't know why they're doing it. But they say there's no credible threat. The colonel of the state police said that he had a helicopter of his flying over above one of these drones, a 6 foot drone or something. I can't remember exactly what he said. And he just he felt unsafe for his helicopter, so he just let it go.
Just let it go. And where did it go? Who knows? You know? Didn't wanna follow it because you didn't feel safe.
That is that not the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard? They're saying no threat, but how the hell do they know? They don't know anything. They don't know what it is. They don't know where it come from.
They they don't know nothing.
Speaker 0: Oh, they don't know nothing. And are we sure they're drones, by the way, and not alien spaceships? I mean, could Rosie O'Donnell for once be right? John Greenwald junior has been studying UFOs and UAPs, for decades. We actually interviewed him on this program back in 2021, episode 116, if you wanna check it out.
And he said these drones are not alien. He wrote on x, an intelligent civilization won't travel light years just to check out New Jersey. He said, aliens are not going to show up and resemble drone swarms. And this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. He's filed over 10,000 public information requests to the government trying to figure out what's out there and what's not.
And he said he's kind of amused at people being so disappointed that he he said they're not aliens, but that's his call. Maybe we can also feel comforted by the fact that Elon Musk does not believe that these are aliens at all. Here he is last month talking to Tucker Carlson.
Speaker 14: If anyone would know about aliens on Earth, that would probably be me. I would think. Yeah. I'm, like, you know, very familiar with space stuff. And I've seen no evidence of aliens.
So I would I would immediately tweet, you know, tweet it out. This is Splitz egg.
Speaker 11: And I'd be like, probably like, well, all time probably a tough tweet of all time. That one, guys.
Speaker 1: This is
Speaker 11: a jackpot. This is some
Speaker 14: egg floating ones. You know? It was like some, general, actually,
Speaker 11: in his sixties who who
Speaker 14: with with a so, like, show us the aliens, like, Area 51, etcetera. And he he said, like, listen, we are constantly trying to get the defense budget to, expand. And, you know what would really get? No arguments for anyone, if we pulled out an alien and said, we need money to protect ourselves from these guys. You know how much money do you want?
Speaker 3: You got it.
Speaker 0: Even Doge would let that would let that money stand. Okay. So it's probably not aliens. I guess it's not Iran. I don't that's what the Pentagon says, but they lie to us all the time.
Governor Murphy of New Jersey has no idea. The FBI claims to know nothing. The White House isn't saying, so what is going on? A retired Navy SEAL, Clint Emerson, who now runs a security firm, said this is probably a secret US government program. He spoke with the New York Post and said the program is likely so top secret that when our government officials claim they don't know what it is, it's probably true.
They probably actually don't. So is that comforting at all, guys? Do you feel better or worse about
Speaker 3: No. But they again, like,
Speaker 1: why would you pick New Jersey to conduct, you know, a densely populated area Hey. I'm flying here. On there. Yeah. But but,
Speaker 0: like They did find alien life, and then they found out it was just Snooki and the situation, and they turned right back around back to the Iranian mothership.
Speaker 2: I don't
Speaker 1: Are you looking
Speaker 2: I Yeah.
Speaker 0: Like that last explanation the best. Don't you think? Why why wouldn't we be shooting these out of the sky unless we know it's us or somebody in charge knows it's us?
Speaker 1: Oh, I'll do it somewhere else. Well, I just hear the shit out of people.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine an adversary assembling a swarm of drones and then keeping the running lights on on the drone.
Speaker 1: Well, the You know
Speaker 2: what I mean? Like, so that doesn't make sense to me.
Speaker 1: Of it is sort of indicative of why January 20th can't come soon enough because you've got, like, state reps and, like, local sheriffs and stuff. Like, you need, like, Roscoe Picotrain is gonna be the one that figures out what the thing is flying over your head. And, like, the feds don't say anything. They don't know anything. There's no federal government response.
Like, you have an obligation. I mean, the first and most important part of an administration is to make sure that your citizenry is protected, particularly against foreign threats. Yeah. If there is even a little bit of a question about whether this Iranian, whether this whatever, you have an obligation to go out and say, nope. Military, demonstration or something.
It's not giving away secrets, but you gotta you gotta satisfy that. The fact that these guys let a balloon fly halfway across our country is indicative of this larger problem that maybe they don't have their eye on the ball at all.
Speaker 3: That's I think that's the heart of the issue. Why Americans have no clue what's going on is because the loss of trust in the government to protect them when you had a Chinese balloon fly all the way across America. And this administration has shown time and time again that American safety is not their priority whatsoever. So now we're left with a vacuum of information, and you have all these people trying to come up with their own theories. It could be aliens.
People Americans aren't feeling safe right there, and it's because the Biden administration has shown that they don't care about protecting Americans. Just today, Joe Biden, pardoned 2 Chinese spies. Do we really believe he's trying to keep us safe in the last days of his administration now?
Speaker 2: By by the way, spies who stole technology from aviation companies. Oh, weird. Including General Electric.
Speaker 1: Oh. Interesting.
Speaker 0: Here's the question, though. If it's us, then why are we still doing it? Once it became a big story here, wouldn't we have said, alright. Maybe, like we we had our time. We've been doing it since November 18th.
Let's shut it down now that it's the story of every massive media organization. So that's weird. And Yeah. If it is us, whatever team knows that it's us would definitely be feeding a lie out about it. You know, they'd be like, oh, it's this.
You know, they wouldn't be just like, gee. We don't know. Right? I feel like they'd be feeding us a lie of some sort. Maybe that's why Van Dyke was, or whatever his name is, was sent out there.
Maybe somebody tried to get him to pin it on Iran. I don't I have no idea what's happening here. I'd love to know more. I think the will will this mystery be solved?
Speaker 3: I can't believe in a state full of Italians, and no one shot one of these down.
Speaker 0: As a New Jersey property owner, I would love to see them do it,
Speaker 1: because they do appear
Speaker 0: to be unmanned. Okay. So we're taking your submissions, members of the audience. Email me, megan@megankelly.com. When we come back, bad Santa.
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So it's the time of year when we all watch our favorite Christmas specials and get ready for the big holiday. And we do that even though our kids are now getting older. Now my kids are, 15, 13, and 11, but we all still love it. And so we started with the animated classics. We did Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and we did Rudolph the red nosed reindeer.
And it did occur to me at this point in my viewing of these classics that Santa is portrayed as a bit of a prick in these in the in the one special in particular, and that is Rudolph. He is ostracizing, somewhat bullying, intolerant of differences, and I will give you exhibit SOT 55.
Speaker 1: He's got a shiny nose.
Speaker 11: Shiny? I'd even say a glow.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll simply have to overlook it.
Speaker 11: How can you overlook that? His beak blinks like a blinking beacon. Well, daughter, where's the new member of the family? Great bouncing iceberg. I'm sure it'll stop as soon as he grows up, Santa.
Well, let's hope so if he wants to make the sleigh team someday.
Speaker 1: Hey, really? Well, cry out loud. Fireball, what's the matter? Get away. Get away from me.
What's this nonsense here, butts? Look at the feet. Feet. I understand. Hey, Paul.
Boy. Stop. Stop calling me names. Rudolph the red nose ranger.
Speaker 11: Daughter, you should be ashamed of yourself. What a pity. He had a nice baseball too.
Speaker 0: Oh, Santa. Santa is a bully, and that's not it. Who could forget when the little elves put on a preview of their Christmas concert for Santa and take a look at how he reacts?
Speaker 11: Well, it needs work. I have to go.
Speaker 1: What does papa know? It's beautiful. You keep it just the way it was. Papa, papa. How did I You're gonna love
Speaker 0: breakfast. This before, guys.
Speaker 1: He he likes to run a tight ship. And, plus, it's a 19 fifties. Classic, if I'm not mistaken, where is it? Where is it? Like, the mantra is, Rudolph looks different and different is bad.
Right. Yeah. I mean, here here's
Speaker 3: the thing. Santa's a man with a lot of responsibilities. He has to deliver, like, 4.3 trillion presents in one night. He can't deal with these unknown variables. This guy's nose looks like it's gonna blow up.
Who knows what's going on? Maybe they've loosened up immigration. You've got these dudes over with a ticking nose. He's not taking risks. He's gotta take care of kids.
And then also, you know, you I I think it's almost like, the problems that we're seeing today with DEI. You're trying to highlight someone just because they're different. If he's the best deer for the job, let him fly, and that's the lesson.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He
Speaker 3: proved his worth. Say I have to highlight the other deer who came before me. No. He went he went,
Speaker 2: and they took out the abominable snow monster. And in a blizzard, suddenly, this thing that he was ostracized for became an asset for Santa.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And these elves, they have to prepare their concert, and they can't give him number 1.
Speaker 1: Get a little bit of a Get out of here. Quality control guy. You know, I mean, he delivers a lot of toys. They gotta make a lot of toys. You gotta get it right the first time.
Speaker 0: I didn't see this coming. Team Santa. The all of it is justified. I get it. It it is a new era.
It's the dawn of a new day post Trump. We defend Santa. We don't care how much of a bully he is.
Speaker 2: And and once we annex Canada, the North Pole will be in the States of America again.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: And we can make those toys right here.
Speaker 3: To make his toy. America's running.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Point.
Speaker 0: I love Smoke's line. He he can't be dealing with these unknown variables. Love the fellas. And we are back tomorrow, everybody, with Hugh Hewitt and more. We'll see you then.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Jay-Z Accuser Inconsistencies, Murder One For Mangione, and Trump Lawfare Latest, with @ArthurAidala and @markgeragos WATCH: https://t.co/tvgcrfKdHW
Video Transcript AI Summary
Welcome to a special Christmas episode of Kelly's Court, kicking off a true crime series. Megyn Kelly is joined by trial attorneys Arthur Aidala and Mark Geragos to discuss high-profile cases, including the Menendez brothers and the recent developments surrounding Diddy and Jay-Z. They delve into the Menendez brothers' potential release, with Geragos arguing about trial fairness and the impact of sexual abuse claims. The conversation shifts to Diddy, facing multiple allegations, and the inconsistencies in a lawsuit against him and Jay-Z. They also touch on Derek Chauvin's case, where he seeks to examine George Floyd's autopsy results to challenge his conviction. Lastly, they discuss the investigation into Liam Payne's death and the implications for hotel staff involved. The episode wraps up with holiday wishes and reflections on the legal system.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show and a special Kelly's Court Christmas episode. This kicks off our true crime Christmas series for 2024. Nothing says Christmas like true crime.
And we have 2, count 2, Kelly's Court favorites to dive into many important cases with. Jay z, Diddy, the Menendez brothers, and much, much more. Joining me now, Arthur Aidala, trial attorney extraordinaire and managing partner Aidala, Bertuna and Kamens, and host of the Arthur Aidala Power Hour on AM 970 in New York. Also with us today, Mark Garrigos, also extraordinaire, trial lawyer and managing partner of Garrigos and Garrigos and host of Reasonable Doubt, which is a great podcast. Don't miss a moment.
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Don't let the IRS's aggressive tactics control your life. Empower yourself with Tax Networks USA's support, and take charge of your financial future. Visittnusa.com/megan today. Welcome back to the show, guys.
Speaker 1: Hello. Happy holidays. Ho. Ho. Ho.
Speaker 0: And to you. How How you doing,
Speaker 2: Mark? I couldn't be better. How about you, Megan?
Speaker 0: I'm great. I love the holidays, and I love true crime. So this is everything that I adore coming together. There's actually a lot going on. You never know whether, you know, we go into these true crime Christmas specials, which always do well.
People are like us. They all are also into these stories, whether you're gonna have a an embarrassment of riches or a paucity of results. And I gotta say, it's the former. Let's kick it off with Mark's biggest current case? Probably not, knowing Mark.
But it's a big one. It's all over the news. Mark and I have debated it before. Marsha Clark came on, and she did not agree with you that the Menendez brothers should and possibly will be released. Something bad happened for your clients since the last time we spoke, and that badness was the LA district attorney, George Gascon, who was pushing to have them possibly let out early, lost his election.
And the new guy, Mark, is not a fan of this push and keeps naming you in the press and saying you've been misleading everybody into thinking that they didn't get a fair trial second time around, that they weren't allowed to discuss the sexual abuse allegations, which he says they were. He said they argued everything you want them to have been able to argue, and the jury rejected it. And so he's calling you out, which suggests to me he's not on board, and they may not they weren't home for Thanksgiving, but they may not be home even for Valentine's Day at this point. What do you think?
Speaker 2: Well, look, I the the he has said various things. He has now, as we, as we are discussing, has extended an invitation to meet, which is obviously something that I've been waiting for. And, I will point out, where he is wrong, and I will help educate him on the law. And the law is and the facts are that in the second trial, imperfect self defense was not allowed, as a jury instruction.
Speaker 0: Explain what that is.
Speaker 2: That alone imperfect self defense is where you get a jury instruction where the jury can basically say, we're not gonna vote for murder. We're gonna eliminate malice based on imperfect self defense. And that is the idea that you felt that there was danger because of the syndrome that you were, exposed to. In this case, back in the nineties, we had battered women's syndrome. And I've talked to you, Megan, about the fact that I tried murder cases in the nineties where I used the battered women's syndrome.
Back then, it was not extended, formally by the legislature to others besides intimate partners. It was formally in 2004, the legislature expanded it. So the second trial, which the evidence started 8 days after the OJ, acquittal, there were some dramatically different rulings, and those rulings are what affected the result by the jury. That's on the habeas. Then on the resentencing, you have and they he's talked about it, he being, mister Hockman, that he has looked at thousands of pages of c files.
C files are the correctional files. It's everything, that these two gentlemen for the last 35 years actually, 30 because for the first number of years, they were in the county jail. It's everything they've done in prison. And I will tell you that based on my investigation, based on the DAs who were involved in the investigation, who filed the, resentencing memorandum, it's the most impressive book of, accomplishments by anybody who especially it's amplified when you think about the fact that as of 2,005, they had no hope of ever getting out. They could've gone in one direction.
Instead, they went in the direction of
Speaker 1: starting programs.
Speaker 0: There there's 2 different avenues that you're talking about. You're trying to first, you're trying to say the underlying trial was unfair to them. They weren't allowed to present fully, the defense of imperfect self defense, meaning we've been abused by our parents. We actually did get ourselves worked up to the point where we we thought we were gonna be murdered by them. That's why we murdered our parents on the night that we did even though they weren't rushing after us with loaded guns.
We rushed after them with loaded guns given what we believed in our heads. That's one lane. And the 2nd lane is model prisoners. They've been there for a very, very long time. They've done everything they can to rehabilitate themselves in the eyes of the law and the and the prisoners and so on.
And so either one of those tracks can get them out early. Now here's Nathan Hockman, the new DA. This is fascinating to me. He spoke with, deadline, and now he's given an interview to NBC as well. But here's what he said in part.
Once I got up to speed oh, first, he says, once I get up to speed, I'm gonna call Mark Geragos. I'm gonna invite him to come in, and I'm gonna I'm I'm going to let him make any level presentation he wants. But he, so far, doesn't seem impressed with the argument. He says, look. The assumption that the second trial, that the issue of abuse wasn't raised, he says that's because of mister Garrigos' mantra, which the media has repeated.
He said Eric Menendez testified in the second trial for 7 days. Probably, if I had to guess, close to 40 hours of testimony where he went into great detail as he did in the first trial. Incident by incident by incident between the ages, I think, of, 6 to 18 of what his father had done to him. So the notion again that the mantra, the the the sexual abuse was not explored in the second trial, that the judge kept out all the evidence, actually isn't true. Question by deadline.
So why do you think that's become so accepted? Hockman, I mean, I've been doing this for 34 years, and I've seen it. The media is in search of simple narratives, conflicting narratives, and so it adopted the Garrigos narrative, which was smart, very creative. It's basically that the trial was all about sexual abuse, that their response was because of sexual abuse. It's that a conviction was only attained because the evidence of sexual abuse did not occur in the second trial but did occur in the first trial, and therefore that the underlying conviction is wrong and should be fixed.
Very simple narrative. What makes it a little bit more complicated, and that's why the media would have to deal with additional work is what he says. And finally, he goes on to say, knowing the Garrigos narrative is absolutely wrong, The issues that we will be looking at for the trial will be whether or not these 2 young men faced an immediate threat to their life, why they got to that point. Mark, I don't like your chances suddenly.
Speaker 2: Well, I I really do like my chances because but mind you, this is somebody who has practiced criminal defense. He represented, I believe, the, Lee Baca, who was the sheriff here who was charged federally. So once I point out to him, where where he's wrong, frankly, on this, once I show him the, and walk him through. And as you said, he's in he's welcome to a Folsom presentation, which I plan on giving him. I think he'll change his mind.
Speaker 1: I think he'll What specifically?
Speaker 0: What's can you speak to that claim that and that they were allowed to testify to all the stuff that you said they wanted
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: Can I make Mark's case can I make Mark's case for him?
Speaker 0: Yeah. Go ahead.
Speaker 1: Outsider? First of all, I have to just say, because Mark talked about, I think, battered woman syndrome. And, since it's a special edition of Kelly's Court, I'm gonna brag. I actually my very first murder case as a criminal defense attorney allowed, for the first time in the United States of America, battered woman's syndrome to be used against a man, and they were 2 gay men, and one killed the other based on a series of abuse and all kinds of abuse, financial abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse. There had never been before, living more than husband and wife, and this expanded it.
And, Megan, it's been used very successfully. Not that not to get people off, not to get people saying sound not guilty, but as opposed to life in prison or 25 years in prison, it's a tremendous mitigating factor, reduces sentencing exponentially from life in prison to 15 years. In my particular case, when I came into the case, the prosecutor said, alright, Arnie. I'll give you 22 years. I My guy totally did it.
There was no issue about it. I'll give you 22 years. Then I wrote I raised battered women's syndrome. That's not gonna work. I'll give you 20 years.
And then the judge put on 3 experts who said battered women's syndrome is not just between a husband and a wife. It can be through very dear different relationships, and it is gender neutral. It's all about control and power. He won the plead into 6 years. So Wow.
Speaker 2: That's where What year would that argue?
Speaker 1: What year would you 1999. It's exactly right.
Speaker 2: And that was the first time they'd expanded it from the idea exactly. It's making
Speaker 0: a Fed's telling me that
Speaker 2: we got to get Until the 2 until the 2000, this was not something that was recognized outside of the
Speaker 0: what what we
Speaker 2: used to call intimate outside of the what what we used to call intimate partners.
Speaker 0: Well, you know, actually, I have my own story on this because when I went to law school, it was between 92 and 95, and I did a little internship for a solo criminal defense practitioner, Mark Geragos. See, I wasn't always prosecution minded. And, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have to stop calling you my pro host. So,
Speaker 0: I I know. I don't like it. I I object to my nickname. Anyway, this guy had me on this case where it was 2 lesbians. So it was kinda similar to your argument, Arthur, where I was saying we should argue battered woman syndrome on her behalf.
And there was a woman syndrome, and there was a woman there. It just happened to be that her, you know, deceased partner was also a woman. No.
Speaker 1: It was a woman.
Speaker 0: So we were we were on the same path, my friend, and we did argue that. And then I'll tell you the rest of the story later about the guy I interned with. It didn't end well for him. Turned out he was kind of a fan of the criminal law in a different way. Anyhoo, so back to the Menendez brothers.
Speaker 3: So what? I don't get how
Speaker 0: you're gonna go in there, Gary goes.
Speaker 1: Quite a
Speaker 2: bit about you, but Megan, that that little tidbit might explain quite a bit about your tilt.
Speaker 0: Right? I was like, ew. I don't wanna be with these guys. I wanna go on the other side. Right.
I want you to explain what Eric wasn't allowed to testify to in trial number 2, because the first trial was a hung jury and they got let off. Then the DA brought the 2nd trial against them for killing their parents. And the narrative has been, including by you, that they weren't allowed to testify to all the sexual abuse that they suffered in the second trial. It was much more limited. Therefore, the jury didn't get to hear how awful life was under Kitty and and Jose Menendez, and you weren't allowed to really defend them in the way that you wanted.
So what what specifically was denied that you would that you think was error?
Speaker 2: There there I believe there were 51 witnesses who the defense called Leslie Abramson, who tried it admirably and who
Speaker 0: Right.
Speaker 2: Is still alive and was one of the great defense lawyers, around. Leslie had called 51 witnesses, including experts, including family members, who testified to the range of things that were going on there. One of the things that sticks out to me is this idea that there was a rule in the household, that if Jose was with one of the boys in a room down the hall, you could not go down the hall, and that is chilling to me. There were in the second trial, literally, I wanna say 20 some odd witnesses who were not allowed to testify that could not corroborate what Eric was saying. So you had this idea that by the time you got to the closing argument, you could allow, and this is exactly what happened, the district attorney to make a closing argument that said, oh, this is an abuse excuse.
These are rich kids. They, they just wanted to inherit money. There was no corroboration. They were a bunch of whiners. In the first trial, you were able to corroborate.
You were able to put on the witnesses, including family members, including experts, who corroborated all of this. And there was also a ruling and several rulings as to Lyle, which, basically boxed Lyle in from being able to testify. So there was a monumental change in the rulings between trial number 1 and trial number 2. The witnesses that were allowed to be called in trial number 1 and trial number 2. And I look forward to presenting that because those are the things that are, to my mind, irrebuttable.
They're it's factual determinations.
Speaker 0: Here's what Hockman, the new DA, is saying, Arthur. He says to deadline, as I said, Eric Menendez was able to testify in great detail about all the sexual abuse he experienced. He was even able to testify about sexual abuse Lyle experienced. He was even able to testify about the fact that Lyle purportedly confronted his father, their father, about this whole issue, which is why they had some level of fear that their father was going to kill them. All of that was presented to the jury, and the jury still convicted them both of first degree murder.
Now does that sound to you like a DA who still is behind the prospect of taking another look at this case and possibly pushing to let these young men out? Well, they're not young anymore early.
Speaker 1: Right. No. Obviously, it doesn't. But is this also a teammate who has just gotten elected? I don't even know.
Is he even sworn in yet as the DA? I would think that would happen in the end beginning of the year.
Speaker 2: No. We've got this weird thing in LA, the county charter. He gets sworn in on December. I believe it was 6th, which is unusual. He would have
Speaker 1: So, anyway, he he was he was of course, my understanding is he was more of a law and order guy than the last guy, so he's probably trying to flex his muscles a little bit, that I'm not gonna go easy. This is right this this second. As far as us New Yorkers know, highest profile prime, in LA right now. So he probably is trying to, you know, send the message that we're not gonna be going easy on anybody. The question I think I have for Mark is, did that jury get the appropriate charge from the judge to with the California equivalent of battered woman syndrome, battered person syndrome?
Speaker 2: No. That's the that's the whole problem with the argument. And by the way, he is he being mister Hockman is parroting the and I understand our parroting is kind of a pejorative, but he's adopted kind of a narrative of the, the what I call, I I jokingly say the nineties are calling, and they want their DA's office back. That's been the traditional mantra, if you will, of the DA's office. And, you know, one of the things that, Megan had mentioned that Marsha has and I have had spirited conversations about this.
Marsha was there in the DA's office at the time, in real time in the nineties. She knew what was going on. She will at least in the green room before we get on to Meghan's on air thing, she will admit to me that, of course, they needed to win that case. They had to win it at all costs. He the DA at the time was in the fight for his life.
And so, you know, there is a symbiotic
Speaker 0: Here is what she said to me on the air. You were not there.
Speaker 1: Well
Speaker 0: But we had you on alone, and then we had her on alone, and I followed up. Listen.
Speaker 3: I don't think they're gonna get out. I don't think this is gonna happen. I don't think anybody was that impressed with Gaston's position. I wonder if people are thinking, anybody was that impressed with Gascon's position. I wonder if people are thinking at all about the fact that there are others in prison, serving a sentence of life without, which is what they're serving.
That means life without the possibility of parole, who are much less culpable. I have clients that are serving life without the parole without parole right now who never killed anyone.
Speaker 0: Defense is
Speaker 3: not, oh, daddy boinked me and mommy wouldn't stop him, so I get to kill him. It wasn't that. The defense was, you know, daddy threatened to kill me. I believe he was going to kill me. Even if you think I'm unreasonable in thinking that, I genuinely believe it because of things he said and did toward the end.
That was their defense. You have, a greater awareness of abuse, child abuse, and the kind of trauma it inflicts, and we are all, I think, are more sensitive to that, and that's a good thing. But you have to remember that doesn't that's not a license to kill.
Speaker 0: So It's so good to talk to you because I talk to your partner in crime. He's not really you just come on together sometimes. Mark Eragos, but I know he's a friend, and you guys grew up in this California legal system together. And, of course, he's representing them and is 100% on the other side and came on and totally convinced me that they should be let out. Now I hear you talk.
I'm like, no. These are good points. She got me, Mark. And and I think she got the new guy Hoffman too.
Speaker 2: Remember, Megan, you tilt that way, so I'm gonna bring you back to center. Bring me back
Speaker 0: to center. About all the other more deserving guys who didn't murder anybody who have to sit their asses on done in prison forever.
Speaker 1: Two wrongs don't make a right, though, Megan. 2 justice person. The system's broken there. What do you mean it should be broken everywhere? And I think
Speaker 0: when you title famous. That's true. They they didn't get Lifetime movies made about them or what's his name? Was it Ryan Murphy who just redid the story?
Speaker 1: Does that mean does that mean they shouldn't get relief just because they have a higher profile case? Yes. Maybe it'll help the other people. Hey. Look.
I'll tie it in. This was one of president Trump's talking points when he was on the campaign trail. How the system is broken, how it needs to be looked into, how it needs to be fixed, how we can't just do business as usual, the standard thing over and over again. It's time to readjust to, to basically take a deeper look, and I think Trump is leading the way. He saw how the system is broken on on the state level here in New York and the federal level, and I think it's it's gonna hopefully have some very positive change regarding reform in the system, which is one
Speaker 0: way or the other. Feel anymore. I like, they definitely murdered their parents, and I we talked about how that is the ultimate f in parenting. So the the parents have some culpability here one way or the other. There's no question they weren't ideal parents.
They definitely I believe they were abusive. And I actually believe Jose was was a sexual abuser too. I do. I just think there's been I mean, with the Menudo guy coming forward to say that he was abused by by Jose too, like, why would he have done that? Why would he say all that, You know, all these years later, that's nothing most men want to admit, but he admitted it.
So it's like we know he was an abuser, and it's not they never do it with just one. So I do have some empathy for these young men. Go ahead.
Speaker 2: By the way, I will I stand by. I know that, that that mister Hockman is at least, articulated that he doesn't buy it. But I I will go to my grave telling you if they were the Menendez sisters, they never would have gotten life without parole. It's just the it's a given. Anybody who's in the criminal justice system, who's honest with you, will tell you that.
And and what
Speaker 0: the DA, we played this down by the DA in the case is on tape saying you can't rape a man. A man cannot be raped, which was I
Speaker 2: mean, there's let me let me
Speaker 1: make Mark's Mark, can I let me just make Mark's point? I tried to
Speaker 0: get is always fighting for the airtime. He's like, I'll make any point I have to make it so the camera can come back to you.
Speaker 1: On here for just to look pretty, you know, when the a handsome bald guy on here. I tried a case in Queens, New York with a young woman who had her her father's penis, and he was screaming and yelling, so she stuffed a a towel in his mouth. And he gagged to death. It wasn't the penis injury that killed him. It was the kid that killed him.
Speaker 0: A whopper on us there. What? Can I get a little viewer warning, please?
Speaker 1: There you go. Well, I used the proper word. Like you sometimes there, miss Kelly, who dropped some bombs, fighting. My mother yelled at me. Talking about Talking like that.
Frustration. Listening. So, anyway, a jury came back, and it was a woman. She testified. She admitted to every crime.
Prosecutor, after her testimony, stood up in front of her and said, miss, miss Bridget Harris, you intended to cause serious physical injury to your father by cutting off his penis. Correct? Yes. And when you did that, you caused the death. Correct?
Thank you. Those are all the elements of manslaughter to the first degree, which is a 25 year sentence. The jury came back and said, not guilty. They found her guilty of a much lower charge. She did two and a half years in prison, and she was out.
So, you know, it's somewhat similar. He had not molested her in a decade, but she saw him making moves on her 5 year old niece. And she said, I was not gonna let that happen to my niece, and I took matters literally into my own hands.
Speaker 0: Wow. Wait. Let me ask you this to finish up on a procedural note, Mark. The report by Variety was that this new DA, Hockman, just removed the 2 deputies who sought to reduce Lyle and Eric's sentences, which is no for you. So he's stepping in, and he doesn't seem sympathetic, but they already filed a motion asking the court to reevaluate this.
So does he, like, is the ball already in motion? Is it too late for him to reverse course on this? Like, this judge is gonna decide, right, once and for all? Or can he stop can he stop the consideration of it?
Speaker 2: No. I I said it publicly after the last status conference. There is a case an appellate case in California. Does it says specifically a subsequent DA cannot re pull back the resentencing, number 1. And number 2, judge Jesik, also at the last hearing, invoked what is called a b 600, which is his judge initiated ability to do it.
So, no, he can't call it back. Resentencing hearing is gonna happen on the 30th 31st, and it's gonna be up to the judge.
Speaker 0: That's the next big date in this case, January 30th or 31st, and we will know a lot more at that point. So okay. Very interesting. Good debate, and we'll find out what happens. Let's move on to Jay z and Diddy.
Now we knew that Diddy was facing all sorts of criminal charges and tons of civil suits and my god. Like, I can't even keep track of the number of things that have been alleged against against Sean Combs or p. Diddy. But here he is in this picture with Jay z, who is also known as Beyonce's husband. And now Jay z's been dragged into one civil suit by one of the Diddy accusers.
And this now 30 something year old woman, I think she's 37 now, who claims that she was 13 years old at the time this happened to her, has filed a lawsuit through this lawyer who's suing p Diddy in many cases. Like, this guy's gonna build a summer home based on what he hopes to recover Or 3. With his lawsuits.
Speaker 1: Or 3.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Summer homes. 3. So he says that he's got this woman who, when she was 13 years old, she went to the VMA Awards in New York City, like, by herself looking to get in and meet celebrities. Not surprisingly, she says she couldn't get in.
She says she decided to chat up the limo drivers waiting for the celebs outside, and that one of them said to her something to the effect of you look like Diddy's type. And that then she was brought back to Diddy's house after the VMA Awards Rock Center, in Manhattan in 2 the year 2000. And that there, she was raped not only she was given something that made her feel drugged, a a drink, and she was raped not only by Diddy, but also by Jay z. And that when Diddy then tried to come for her again that evening, she grabbed her clothes and ran out, and that her father picked her up at a gas station nearby the home. The father, and I presume she, lived 5 hours away in Rochester, New York.
Now unfortunately for this woman and her lawyer, this guy Busby, some inconsistencies have surfaced in the in the account. Most notably
Speaker 1: inconsistencies. So inconsistence. The father
Speaker 0: the father comes out and says, that never happened. I don't I never went and picked her up at at any post Diddy party. I think I'd remember that. I live 5 hours away. And, that would seem to be a near insurmountable problem for mister Busby in this lawsuit, Mark, but you tell me.
Speaker 2: Well, that that's the when you say inconsistencies, that's about as charitable as you can get. And by the way, I'm going to I'm gonna, ask Alex Spyro next time he calls him a Busby, the 1 800 lawyer. I call him the 1 800 Diddy lawyer. I mean, he's out there with the billboards. He's filing things anonymously.
And then it turns out when Alex was doing his press conference yesterday, that not only was the description of the house impossible 20 minutes outside of Manhattan, but virtually everything else about this story was impossible. Not to mention the, as you said, the father. But this is not the first time that one of these things as to did he has fallen apart. I mean, there Gloria Allred brought a case that ended up falling apart. The lawyer I was I actually followed on one of the TV shows, a lawyer who brought 3 cases against Diddy, and he said that 60 people had come to his office talking about Diddy, but the 57 of them were so ridiculous that he didn't take them.
Well, that tells you 95% of the people making the claims don't even pass the smell test for a lawyer, yet he's gonna take 3 or or vice versa. I mean, this is really at the end of the day, if you look at the Diddy case, and, you know, there's almost a service that has been done by by them expanding it to Jay z. Everybody says there's all these celebrities involved. Well, so far, everybody says any minute the tapes gonna drop, the tapes are being shot, blah blah blah. The problem is that was in September.
And now we're in December, not one tape has been, released that I have seen. No. Not one other person who is an alleged victim has been identified. It's still we're down to it's still a one accuser, case that's being brought criminally. I think that a lot of this is totally overblown and there isn't any indication.
Everybody keeps talking about the ditty parties. Where are the takes of the Diddy parties where this is supposedly going on? Nobody's ever seen it. It's become like the Loch Ness monster. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Well And
Speaker 1: also but, Meg, let's talk about something historical that took place this week. And it's this case that you and I I don't know how many stories we did on the original Kendall's Court slash Kelly's Court. The young woman who when she was young then accused the Duke lacrosse players
Speaker 0: of racism Mangum.
Speaker 1: Has now come out and said, yeah. They made the whole thing up, which is horrible as what she did was horrible. She's actually just committed, like, a little bit of a public service to show, like, people do make these things up.
Speaker 2: Everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 1: make this up out of whole plot. Who would just create such a story? Never happens. Yeah. It actually does happen, did happen.
Those 4 kids' lives were ruined. Their families ruined, financially wiped out. A DA was brought to his knees out there. It was just, you know, a a despicable situation that happened. And now, I don't even know, almost 20 years later, she admits, yeah, I I made the whole thing up.
And this girl with the Jay z thing, I mean, her own father, you could yeah. I think I would remember if I drove 5 hours if it got my daughter from a a a nightclub. Good for Jay z. I agree with Mark that he did perform, somewhat of a public service when his date came out, and he fought. He said, look.
I feel bad for my kids. I feel bad they're gonna have to hear about this, but I am not gonna be extorted. I'm not given a penny. I know I didn't do that. And I'll tell you, Mark and I have represented these kinds of people.
It is often a lot easier for them to fill out a 3 page document, a nondisclosure agreement, write out a check for an amount of money that's not gonna change their quality of life, just make it go away. She probably could've done that here, but he didn't, and good for him.
Speaker 0: Yeah. No. Jay z is denying it in the strongest terms, and he's responding to this I'll get to her other inconsistencies in a second, but he's responding to the the the fact that she's been caught with some, you know, apparent whoppers by saying today's investigative report proves that this, quote, attorney Busby filed a false complaint against me in pursuit of money and fame. The incident did not happen, and yet he filed it in court and doubled down in the press. True justice is coming.
We fight from victory, not for victory. This was over before it began. This 1 800 lawyer doesn't realize it yet, but soon. And here are some of the other problems with her story as she told it through this lawyer. Okay.
She claimed that she talked to specific celebrities at the Diddy after party. She said, for example, she spoke to musicians Fred Durst and Benjie Madden, recalling a conversation, quoting her from a Washington Post report, about the Good Charlotte member's Last Supper tattoo. I have a religious background, she said. So it it was something to talk about. Okay.
But NBC News said a representative for Benjie Madden confirmed that Benjie, as well as his twin brother Joel, were touring in the Midwest at the time of the 2000 VMAs and did not attend the event. So there's that. There's, the father, and then there is this. Okay. She claimed that she went back to the after party at Diddy's house to a large white residence with a giant u shaped driveway.
And NBC News rep is reporting that I guess there was a party, but it was at Lotus. Is that what it is? But they said that the building's now closed, and it does not match the description of the place she claims she was taken at all. So there's a few things here that don't match up. And she is saying, I have made some mistakes, but she stands by her story saying I may have gotten some of the details wrong, but I stand by it.
And but here's the capper. Alright? This is the last piece of info for you guys. This is devastating. This is the worst part to me.
Busby puts out a statement in the wake of this. Right? This is terrible, Arthur. And he says, Jane Doe's case was referred to our firm by another law firm. So already it's bad.
Like, we don't know Jane Doe. Right? Somebody else did the legwork on this who who vetted it prior to sending it to us. I'm innocent. Don't hold it against me, Busby.
Our client remains fiercely adamant that what she has stated is true to the best of her memory. I mean, how many qualifiers can you get in there? She she has she is adamant that what she has stated is true to the best of her memory and then says, we will continue to vet her claims. Hello? That should have been done before you file a lawsuit against Jay z and Diddy and collect corroborating data to the extent it exists.
Okay. Well, we will look forward to that, mister Busby. Then he claims she agreed to submit to a polygraph, though he doesn't claim she's actually sat for 1 yet. And then he says, we'll do our best to vet every claim made in all of our cases just as we will in this case. This has been extremely distressing for her.
Here we go. Ready? To the point she has experienced seizures and had to seek medical treatment due to the stress. I don't believe one word of that. She did not get seizures from the stress of this.
Did she get seizures, Arthur, Adala?
Speaker 1: I I doubt she's gotten seizures. And, you know, as lawyers, we raise our hand the day you're sworn in, and you take an oath. And some people take that oath more seriously than others. So I had a woman come in here, a woman, not a young woman, a woman, 38 years old, in the end of August, and she made these types of claims. And I have had 3 retired judges at my law firm and 3 other lawyers, and I believe her.
I believe what she's saying, but I am fallible. I I make mistakes. We've all now interviewed her over the course now of 4 months. And now, finally, I think in January, we will file a suit along these lines, but it's not until 6 human beings with different life experiences, different ages have evaluated this individual before you made such a serious claim. And this is it's not a case that's gonna make the news, but it's gonna affect somebody else's life.
And when I took that oath in 1992, that that's still in the front of my mind in 2,024, that I'm always gonna try to do the right thing and make sure I'm very, very careful and not throw people's names and reputations under the bus. You know, when they just named Beyonce the the pop singer of the 1st quarter century, they didn't include her last name, Carter, in the in her remarks or whatever it was. And that's a, in my opinion, a direct ramification, this new lawsuit. And, you know, you can't you can't just be so careless even if you are gonna get 3 summer homes or 6 summer homes or a yacht out of it. To my own self be true,
Speaker 0: and I think this must be a struggle with that. Done things like calling, you know, the guys in this band, like their reps to say, I'm investigating this case. Can you confirm whether your clients were in New York at the VMAs in 2000? Like, would you have done that kind of work before submitting a complaint?
Speaker 1: I mean, before you look. I'm not gonna BS you and say, yeah. I would do that in any case. Before I was gonna go after someone the likes of Jay z, who look. The guy started off life as a crack dealer.
So, you know, he wasn't exactly in the seminary before he be he became a, a a a billionaire. Right. But he's led a pretty clean life the last 3 decades or so, if not 4 decades. Let's say 3 decades. We we well, okay.
But as far as we know, as far and look, he's in the public eye. He's under public scrutiny on a regular basis. You have to do some minimal fact checking, like, does the location exist where, this person is saying it took place? I would definitely pick up the phone and be like, Jay, let's talk to your dad. And that's a simple one.
My dad picked me up. Okay. Good. Let's just chat with your dad. I mean, that is not hard.
Anyway, I'm gonna go back to the case that I talked to you just to show you how careful I am, Megan. This particular case in my office, this woman has the potential defendant on tape admitting things, and I'm still being overly cautious before I start a lawsuit to this magnitude. So we have a responsibility of lawyers, as lawyers, to to cross our t's and dot our i's.
Speaker 0: That's a no shit moment when you hear the dad say, no. No. And I I think I'd remember like, oh god. Kayla, help help us out. But no.
That I this does not look real, and Jay z's denying it in the strongest terms. And I know it's very fun to say, oh, a very rich celebrity. I'm in. Let's tell me all the terrible stuff he's done, but we have to be just as cautious about what look like bullshit allegations. And, you know, when they smell bad, call it out as such.
Okay. Let's move on.
Speaker 1: I say penis, so you yell at me and you just say the o word BS, and I can't you know, that's
Speaker 0: okay. Not about saying penis. You were like, oh, she chopped your dad's penis off and shoved it down the throat. We're supposed to be like, oh, it was go on. People are listening.
They start driving their cars. They don't know what they're coming at them. Okay. Sorry. Let's talk about the horror that was the UnitedHealthcare CEO murder, Brian Thompson, killed by this guy, Luigi Mangione.
It's so bizarre. You know, this young guy, 26 years old, with everything in front of him. You know, he had the world at his fingertips, valedictorian, went to an Ivy League University, UPenn, got a master's, was never in trouble with the law before, you know, like, one minor traffic violation or something stupid, and now facing charges in New York of second degree murder. Let's just start there. I'll start I'll stick with you on this, Arthur.
Why why second degree murder instead of first degree murder in New York?
Speaker 1: Well, second degree murder is the typical charge. First degree is for police officers, firefighters, EMT workers. I believe if you kill someone under 14 years old, if you execute someone who's gonna be a witness in the case, there's very, very specific, first degree murder, elements of a crime. When you just
Speaker 0: Can you still go to jail forever?
Speaker 1: You can still go to yeah. I well, I believe in 1st degree murder, you can get life without parole, and murder in the second degree is, 25 to life. The 1st degree murder is is very, very rare. Thank god. Actually, I'm just gonna say this.
This Friday will be the 20 year or the 2 year the 10 year anniversary when detective Ramos and detective Liu were executed from the streets of New York City in their police cars. That's a first degree murder case.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. Oh, god. That was awful. Mark, let's say they call you up, Luigi Mangione, and I believe he's just hired Karen Agnifolo, the wife of Mark Agnifolo, who represented Keith Raniere in the Nexium case who I interviewed when that whole thing was going down. He did not get Keith Ranieri off.
But in any event so he let's say he has second thoughts, and he actually wants Mark Geragos. How do you defend Luigi Mangione?
Speaker 2: Well, you you're gonna get mad at your booker for this. Mark Agnifolo's partner is
Speaker 0: Is a Garrigos.
Speaker 2: Is a Garrigos. Yes.
Speaker 0: My daughter is daughter. Right? I'm not mad at my booker. She told me.
Speaker 2: Okay. That firm also represents Diddy, so full disclosure. And I've represented Diddy for years, so full disclosure there.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you put that at the end of this segment, Mark. You know, you both have been living with the full disclosure. So do you have the right to remain silent?
Speaker 2: Well, if they hadn't turned off over penis cutting, then they Oh. And they're still listening. This is their reward. The the the I don't know. And I I all I know, I haven't talked to Karen, other than just briefly about it so far.
She used to be of counsel to me, before she, went with her husband and Tenny. And, I don't know if they are conceding that he is the shooter or not. Obviously, that's the first thing. They've gotta see what the, evidence is and what the prosecution has. I mean, as of right now, I believe he's still in Pennsylvania.
I don't think I'm telling any secrets in that I think extradition will probably get waived and that they'll get to New York, and then they'll get the discovery, which is the package of information, and then they'll make a decision as to what's gonna happen here. I will tell you that, I'll be kept it obvious here that people have already assumed that he did it and that he did it for the reasons, that have been kind of tapped into the public consciousness, which is that people have a lot of animus towards these health care companies and these insurance companies for the way that they treat people. I mean, you know, it's amazing to me if you take a look at this act, which normally, if this was any other situation, people would be screaming. But within hours of this act, Aetna had to reverse the fact that they had said they'd come out and said they weren't gonna pay for, anesthesia for the entire length of an operation. Right?
And they they had to reverse that based on the, based on the, kind of public outright outrage over this. I remember I'll be like, I'll Arthur and talk about prior cases. 20 almost 20 years ago, there were I had a, young lady, or family where they the Cigna would not pay for the liver transplant and claimed it was, too experimental. And until we organized the protest in front of Cigna, they changed their mind, but it was too late. This beautiful 17 year old girl, died, and we ended up trying to go after Cigna for that.
And it was amazing to me. That became a kind of an issue in the then presidential election. There are there are, or yeah. Are all kinds of public sentiment, and probably in a lot of cases rightfully so, where there are, there if they embrace that and they go down that road, that jurors may say that there is some mental element that justifies that if in fact it turns out that he is the shooter. What?
Speaker 1: And I think you have
Speaker 0: to help me with that. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Wait. Wait. Wait. When you say there may be some mental element that justify it, you're are you talking about an insanity defense? Because that's the only mental element that would justify this.
Speaker 2: No. I don't know that that is the only mental element. I don't know enough about the facts. I don't know enough
Speaker 0: about the facts. He murdered Brian Thompson, I think, because he's a nutcase. I don't know that he's he's gonna rise to an insanity defense. But the reason we know, it's not some speculation, is because he had a fucking explanation written down on his person right next to the gun that he used to shoot the man. This is not gonna be a tough one.
We don't need to pretend that this is like the JC situation. He is cooked.
Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah. I mean, the first thing I would do, Megan, is you order out Save the agreements. Edge, Mark.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Just save the tape,
Speaker 1: Megan, because if At arraignments at arraignments, haven't been in this position before. I I represented someone who I don't know Luigi, but this guy, I I got him the man I got him the insanity defense without a trial. Prosecutors agreed. So you do what's called a 7:30 exam with with right in arraignments, which means when he's incarcerated, doctors who work for the city of New York and under the, supervision of the judge examine him. And that examination isn't about his mental state at the time that the crime took place, but his mental state at that point to see whether he can represent himself, to see if he can help in his own defense.
If a judge says, this kid doesn't even know that we're on on the planet Earth, he thinks we're on Mars, he just gets warehoused and keeps getting evaluated until that happens. So he's not out on the street. He's he's in a facility with bars and chains. But then at times, if you find your expert finds that this person is so just really doesn't is not in touch with reality, you could then bring him into the DA's office, their expert or experts evaluate that person, and they can agree to, alright. We're not gonna put him in prison.
We're gonna put him in a hospital prison. And statistically speaking this is why you don't usually wanna do that. Statistically speaking, on murder cases, you spend more time incarcerated in a hospital prison than you do if you plead guilty to 22 years to life and you're up for parole at 22 and then at 24 and then at 26 Really? 28. Yes.
You wind up spending more time incarcerated. And a lot of these times, Megan, they really are, I hate to use the word, like, crazy, but they are really crazy. Like, it's scary.
Speaker 0: John Hinkley junior got out.
Speaker 1: After, what, 40 years?
Speaker 0: I'm just saying. Like, it wasn't a life sentence for him.
Speaker 1: But at 25 to life, you usually get out at 30, 32, 35 years. So he was in there. John Hinckley junior was in there a very, very long time.
Speaker 0: This guy you're telling me Luigi could get out he could get convicted and he could get out after 34 years?
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 0: That's ridiculous. That's absolutely ridiculous. This guy, how much more could you tell him. Are they used to prosecute cases? How much more could you ask for?
You find the guy. He's got the gun on him. He's got a confession saying, let me save you the trouble. I didn't work with anybody. It was me, all me, and here's why I did it.
You've got his fingerprints at the scene. You've got him on camera multiple times, and you've got the exact GPS of where he I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm just curious. Off with, you know, do you do you come out and not lose credibility and admit that it was him right off the bat so you don't look like a fool? Whereas his first lawyer in Pennsylvania is like, I've seen no evidence that it was him. That's a little bit of a that's a little bit of a stretch. What's more scary to me is the people who look at him as a hero and people who are putting money in a GoFundMe for him or whatever.
You know, some host on another television show when I was on tried to compare Luigi and the GoFundMe played Daniel Penney, the the guy who was just acquitted on the subway. I I I mean, it was absolutely ridiculous. 1 guy, Luigi, plotted this thing out for a long, long time and executed someone. This Daniel Penney woke up one day and was heading from point a to point b and saw something he thought was going to be of tremendous danger, if not death, to somebody else.
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Speaker 2: Well, you know, I have a question for you then, Arthur, because I'm glad you brought up Penny. As somebody who has, close, family members who ride the subway, I do not understand for a second that prosecution by that DA's office. It it's and I said it before about Trump, which I never understood in that prosecution, but this prosecution makes zero sense to me. I well, Daniel Penney. I don't understand it.
I don't understand. Talk about be careful what you wish for. When that jury came back as they often often do on a Friday afternoon at around 3 o'clock and said, we're hung. And then they gave the Allen instruction, which, by the way, I don't know why you guys still haven't had that declared unconstitutional in New York. In our state courts, you can't do it.
Speaker 0: Get back in there
Speaker 1: and deliberate.
Speaker 2: The fact that they moved to to have that greater charge dismissed and then have them come back on a Monday to deliberate on the lesser charge? If that isn't once in jeopardy, I mean, they should be and they were trying anything to get a conviction. What was the point of that? What would they what was the
Speaker 1: to how luckily for Daniel Penney, it'll never be appealed because when you win, you don't appeal. So no one's gonna
Speaker 0: know whether it was a record or Let me add to Mark's question because my question too was, so the prosecution realizing that the jury was hung on the most serious charge in Daniel Daniel Penney, reckless endangerment, said, never mind. We'll drop it. We'll pull it. Okay. They can't agree on it.
We'll pull it and just make them decide criminally negligent homicide. Yes or no. And the the reports uniformly said they they dismissed the reckless endangerment without prejudice. But hadn't jeopardy already attached at that point? How do you how could they possibly have argued that they were preserving their right to try him again on reckless endangerment?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. First of all, they were only able to do that with judge Max Wiley's approval, and I don't know what judge Max Wiley said or what his ruling would have been. So it's and, again, it we're not gonna find out because he was acquitted. Let me just go back to the beginning, Mark.
Speaker 0: It doesn't jeopardy attach when the jury is sworn in?
Speaker 1: Yes. The jeopardy had attached. That's what he said.
Speaker 2: It was once a judge.
Speaker 1: That's what yes. My wife to me. They think that's relevant. I mean, I don't think it it was a meaningful, oh, we're we were dismissing without prejudice. Of course, it's with prejudice.
There is
Speaker 0: It's definitely with prejudice. Yes. Of course. Your case just got hot and like I think go ahead.
Speaker 1: Going back to the beginning, Mark, you know, when this happened, primarily because it was on video. You know? You guys know this. You know? When we were kids and you heard testimonial evidence, it was one thing.
But when you're actually watching and then you're actually and it's the same thing with George Floyd. If there if there was no video on the George Floyd case, we would never know the name George Floyd. So it's the video that incites us. It's the video that makes things much more important. And I think, Bragg had no choice but to put it into the grand jury.
However, those of us who have been prosecutors know there are ways to put cases into the grand jury to kinda maybe get one result or another result, and they decided, look. They didn't overcharge the case. I'm shocked they didn't ask for the higher charge of manslaughter in the first degree, but they got the manslaughter, the man too. It would be it would be naive to say there wasn't a racial aspect to this even though besides Daniel Petty, there
Speaker 0: was a black person holding him down. It's the reason.
Speaker 1: Well, the video was huge, though, Megan. The video was huge. When you watch a person's life get snuffed out like you watched George Floyd's life get you know, his leg, he's kicking, kicking, and then he just dies, That's one human who is killing another human. There's no doubt about that. And, you know, that's not the type of thing that, you know, I really need to examine.
Speaker 2: I go back to this who would I rather have on the subway? I mean, yes, Jordan Neely, or do I want Daniel Penney? I mean, what I
Speaker 1: was in the I was in the summation, and I worked very I was very supportive. I'll leave it at that with the with the team on on, Daniel Penney's case. They did a great job, Tom Knesset and Steve Reiser. But here's what the where the prosecutor messed up. The jury's charge, what the judge told him is, you cannot deliberate on the lesser included of criminally negligent homicide until you have a verdict on manslaughter and second degree, the more serious charge.
So they went under the assumption that, oh, we'll get him on the criminally negligent homicide, but we're not gonna get there unless we give them an out on the man too. So if they're hung on the man too, they can't get to Krim Neg. So we'll say, which is something we've never done before, dismiss the higher count and victim of the lesser count, and in fact, it backfired.
Speaker 0: Why would you say they really wanted to get him, which just showed they were not just checking a box. They desperately wanted to get him, and the reason they desperately wanted to get him is because you had a woke prosecutor. She was on camera having said, oh, you know, I'm always looking for the racial justice, and I make sure I look out for the marginalized communities when I decide who to prosecute and who not to. And in this case, she thought that Jordan Neely was the marginalized one, and Daniel Penney was some privileged white guy even though he's, like, a former marine with no money. That's how this DA's office sees everything.
They're as woke as they come. We've seen this time and time again from them. It was they video or no video, they never would've charged this case if if Penny had been black and had wound up holding nearly a white man in a choke hold to his death. Never.
Speaker 2: But what I just can't get my head around is how do you, as a defense lawyer, you defend against the more serious charge. You go through all the case. You're focused on the more serious charge. The jury deliberates, says they're hung. I defended the whole case.
You defend the whole case based on the more serious charge. They're hung. You give them the Allen charge, which in a lot of jurisdictions, as I've already mentioned, is unconstitutional to coerce the jury. They still stand tall, and then you say, sorry. We were just joking.
We're gonna dismiss that. How is that not once in jeopardy on this case? I don't understand that.
Speaker 1: Well, the defense objected. First of all, the defense strenuously objected to the top count being dismissed. And the reason why the defense bar was so up in arms over the weekend was we don't want this to be a trend where many prosecutors overcharge cases should be, hey. They get hung on the top count. We get 2 bites at the apple.
I fine. We're gonna we didn't get the man 1. We've been one dismissed that. Make sure you convict him on the man 2. But, again, it'll never be appealed since he was found not guilty.
Speaker 0: I see that perfectly. They have a they have a reasonable they have a regional reasonable objection. The defense But listen, before we leave the subject of this I I wanna do 2 things. I wanna talk about this DA. Actually, let's do the civil suit, in the Penny case first, and then we'll go back to Alvin Bragg because he made just an outrageous decision about the Trump case.
And the judge, of course, sided with him because the judge continues to to side with him against Trump, judge Marchand. But, anyway, let's stick on Daniel Penny for a second because, now Penny's off the hook criminally, but not civilly. So much in the same way we saw, in the OJ Simpson case where OJ got off criminally, but then got sued by, the Goldman family and lost, was found civilly liable for wrongful death of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson. That's what they're trying to do to Daniel Penney. So Jordan Neely, the decedent's father, has now brought a civil suit against Daniel Penney.
I mean, even though this guy was absent from his son's life, his son was in the system, in and out on drugs, and so on. I don't where was the dad then? Nowhere to be found. But now that there's potential money involved, he's back, and he's filing a civil lawsuit, Mark, where he wants to try to get blood from a stone. That stone is named Daniel Penny.
What do you make of it?
Speaker 2: I unfortunately, it's a story often told, and it, is, to some degree, it's repulsive. I, I the the the whole idea here that that you have first of all, the idea that Daniel Penney would be prosecuted, I know that you wanna go under the civil. I just can't leave the criminal. This would, to me, was such an outrageous prosecution. As a defense lawyer, I and I'm not a member of the New York State Bar, but I will tell you that, if I if I was in the criminal defense bar, State Bar of New York like MacArthur, they should be outraged.
They should be up in arms. The idea that you can overcharge the somebody, bring a prosecution like this. The jury coerced the jury by giving an Allen charge, a dynamite charge, and then pull this stunt and have this guy I mean, dude, does anybody understand just how over the top this is?
Speaker 0: You already said that.
Speaker 2: Okay. I just it's just
Speaker 0: I can't We're moving forward. Yeah. No. You must. You I insist.
Speaker 2: I refuse. Listen. I'm I'm hung on spot this, Megan. I'm hung, and I'm not moving.
Speaker 1: Regarding the civil case, Megan, I have repeatedly said what you just said.
Speaker 0: See? There's Arthur. He's, like, opportunity to to reclaim the microphone.
Speaker 1: There you go. Go ahead. He had he had I'm I'm trained in this. You know? I, he the father, the uncle, the aunt, all these people were there.
This guy, Jordan Neely, was a sad case. He was mentally ill. He was a drug addict. He was a criminal, and yet I think one of the people in his family did give an interview and say I would drive around Manhattan and try to find him, and occasionally I would and bring him in my car and try to help him. But they gave Beverly gave him a lot more attention in death than they did in life, and that's why he's in the position that he's in.
And I know we focused on on, these two individuals, Penny and Neely, but we need to look. I'll just speak for New York City. The bigger problem with mental illness in the streets of New York, Neely is not a unique character, unfortunately. And it's not only the streets of New York. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami.
There is mental illness that's prevalent. I don't know if it's always been prevalent. I don't know if it's a newer thing. Drugs are much more, intense. Even straight up marijuana is much more intense, but they have this k two stuff.
And people are, like, losing their minds, and we are not doing anything to address it. The NYPD is not supposed to be the entity that approaches a guy in the street who's doing nothing but his pants are around his knees. He's absolutely exposed. It's 20 degrees outside. We need, like, a different unit.
We need someone else. It it it shouldn't just be cops putting handcuffs on a guy who doesn't even know his name and is dribbling. We need to address this in a much bigger way, and maybe the Daniel Penney case is opening up some eyeballs and some brainpower to figure out how to prevent tragedies like this from happening because it was a tragedy for Daniel Penny as well. Of course, it was a tragedy for Neely and his family, but for Daniel, they've all through hell that kid for a year and a half
Speaker 0: I mean for
Speaker 1: a little while longer.
Speaker 0: This it's fine for this dad to, like, claim, oh, gee. You know? But there's gonna be testimony about him. There's a report in the New York Post saying he and his son would argue after the dad asked Jordan Neely to share the proceeds he earned from his performance as a Michael Jackson impersonator, and he refused. Think it this dad was always trying to get money from the son.
That's how it makes it sound. Even in death, he's trying to get money off of his son. I don't think a New York New York jury is gonna fall for this for one second. I don't think he's gonna get anything. We'll see.
But, wait, we gotta go back to Luigi because this just breaking as we're talking. Arthur, they just charged him with murder in the first degree. The so, like, I think our I are they listening to us right now? Is it I would do we persuade them that that that second degree wasn't good enough?
Speaker 1: I will look at the subsections. It would be interesting to see if, obviously, we know he's not a cop fireman, EMT, or anything, chief officer. I don't know if he was about to go testify at a congressional hearing or some sort of a trial because I do know if you kill a witness. So I don't know exactly what theory of murder in the first degree they're gonna be looking for, or maybe they're just overcharging and see if we get, you know, what sticks and if they wanna lower the charge. But a grand jury would have to approve the murder in the first degree charge.
Speaker 0: That's what happened. They said that he was indicted by a grand jury on murder in the first degree, charged with 11 counts including murder in the first degree, one count of murder in the first degree, two counts of murder in the second degree per The Washington Post. So they did it. There's gotta be a reason why they were able to increase it. And I have to say, thank god.
Thank god there's no way this guy should be getting out after 32 years. Bullshit. He cut this guy down in the prime of his life. You know, 16 year olds, 18 year old son, running a big company, self made, didn't come from any sort of money, Brian Thompson. These cretins who are celebrating it are absolutely disgusting.
We saw a poll showing 41% of 18 to 29 year olds approve of Luigi's behavior. More than the number who disapprove, which was just 40%. So not by much, but they do. And so here's the question I have for you, Garrigos. Knowing that if you actually do get hired by Luigi, like someone in your family did, do you go for jury nullification?
You you try to stack the jury with young people, and you try at every turn to get in the terrible misdeeds of the insurance industry. And when you get an objection from the prosecution that that is totally irrelevant to the trial. You try to sneak it in however you can. Even if it gets stricken, you make the jury hear it, and you hope one of those young people is in that 41%.
Speaker 2: There you go channeling your pro ho again. Every just when I thought we had gotten to kind of you centered and being more moderate, you go you just go up
Speaker 0: Luigi. I am definitely You've returned your pro. He'll go to jail forever.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna go as far as Dicky and tell you that I've seen no evidence. But I, I don't know what the evidence is. But I will tell you, whenever somebody argues about jury nullification, I'm always a little leery about that. I you know, there's always the overcharging by prosecutors. I don't, hear people, you know, protesting or being upset when prosecutors overcharge.
A defense lawyer has a duty, and that's to zealously defend. It's different. It's a different duty than the prosecutor. The prosecutor is supposed to seek justice. Now what you call jury nullification, there, I'm sure, I would guess, there's going to be a robust exploration of the mental state of this young man if the facts are as simplistically and powerfully, overwhelming as you've described them.
I just don't know that yet. But if they are, as a defense lawyer, the first thing you do is you look at the evidence that the prosecution has. At the same time, you walk and chew gum, and you take a look at exactly what the mental state of your client is. And that's the important thing to do as a defense lawyer. And you don't get swayed by kind of one side or the other, and you're not looking necessarily when when people talk about jury nullification.
I always say, well, yeah. There's only 2 things that are not appealable in the criminal law. One is a not guilty verdict as Walt as, Arthur mentioned, and the other is a presidential pardon. So the those are the 2 kind of escape hatches. The that's what our constitution is based on.
And I don't call it jury nullification. I call it not guilty.
Speaker 0: This same DA we've been debating who brought the criminal charges against Daniel Penney for protecting those subway passengers is the one who brought the charges against Donald Trump for falsification of business records around his nondisclosure agreement with Stormy Daniels. And the one of the many problems that Alvin Bragg now faces is, a, his client was elected president again, and it's going to make sentencing Trump very complicated. When will he serve his time, if ever? Will there be actual time assigned and so on? But secondly, the US Supreme Court then ruled that presidents have immunity for their official acts, and that not only do they have immunity, but you can't even introduce into evidence in a case against them evidence of their official acts.
They're just totally off limits as an evidentiary perspective. And yet that ruling came after this trial. And at the trial, they did have testimony about Trump while he was in the Oval Office doing various things, including with Hope Hicks, who was his adviser. And the prosecution argued that it had been critical evidence in closing. Now it was so so Trump recently filed a request to judge Marchand to throw out the criminal, verdict saying this is not consistent with the Supreme Court's ruling.
You you would you allowed evidence in against me, which has now been deemed admissible by the highest court in the in the land. And Mershon, shockingly, didn't see it that way and will not order a new trial and does not think that this was a problem. So while we're on the subject of Alvin Bragg, what's gonna happen in that case, Arthur? You're a New York lawyer.
Speaker 1: Well, he he the judge relied on what's called the harmless error. He's like, even if it did come in, the evidence against Trump was overwhelming without this bad evidence. So it's harmless error of, that prosecuted it. I allowed it in and, would I stick with the result that the jury gave? Typically, that's what an appellate court does.
An appellate court rules, yes, the trial judge should not allow this in. He did allow it in. The jurors did hear it, but there was so much other evidence that it didn't matter. So that's where we are with that piece of the puzzle. The sentence in this case, I believe, was supposed to be July 16th.
Then in between the conviction and July 16th, that's when the Supreme Court decision came on, came down with the presidential immunity. There have been all kinds of motion practice that was supposed to happen in September, that it was supposed to happen in November, but then Trump won. And I I looked up I try to look up today what the next date is for a sentence, and I don't see one, but I I I may have it may have just been announced because this decision came down yesterday. A lot of people thought maybe the judge was going to dismiss the case, but that was not the case. And a 41 page opinion, so those of you know, in state criminal court is a very big opinion.
They're normally, like, 4 to 5 pages, not 41 pages. There will there now has to be some sort of a sentencing to end this. Alvin Bragg has suggested, let's just all agree or adjourn it until after president Trump's, tenure as the president of the United States. But a a defendant has the right to a speedy trial, and this falls into all of his constitutional rights. So I don't see that happening.
I don't I think Marshawn's hands are gonna be tied. He's gonna have to sentence him to, like, you know, time served, which was the one day he had a surrender to be, processed or a unconditional discharge, which means, okay. You're gonna go through life as president of the United States with 34 convictions hanging around your neck for the rest of your life and throughout the history unless an appellate court reverses it and go on and be president of the United States. What's he gonna do? He can't sentence them to probation.
What are you gonna check-in with a probation officer every week as a as a, as a president. He can't sentence him to jail because the city president can't go to jail, and I don't see any scenario where, okay, we're gonna put this over 4 years and change, then you'll go to jail after your presidency. So, I I think a lot of nothing's gonna happen. I would suspect Rashaun will give him a tongue lashing, saying you've been convicted. You're a convicted felon.
I think what you did was horrible, and you set a horrible precedent, but this is a unique case. And I would've sent you to jail, but now I think I cannot send you to jail in the interest of justice.
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 0: Send him in for community service. He's about to do 4 years of that. Go ahead, Mark.
Speaker 2: Right. I was just gonna say, I didn't realize we'd be talking about this, but I pulled up the quote that I noticed yesterday that Todd Blanch, who's now nominated to be the number 2 at DOJ, wrote. And he said, as a further illustration of DA Bragg's desperation to avoid legally mandated dismissal, d a n y proposes that the court pretend as if one of the assassination attempts against president Trump had been successful, quote, unquote. And that is exactly right. There is no reason in the world for him to be sentenced.
By the way, Arthur, you can correct me. But if this had been in most courts, the fact that he hasn't been sentenced means that he is not a convicted felon. I don't know if there's some nuance in New York, but federally and in the, state courts that I've practiced in, without sentencing, you're not convicted, per se. And the fact that they had to dance on the head of a pin to try to say that the evidence that was brought in, whether talking about things that happened when he was in office. I mean, you Megan, you covered this in real time.
They had all kinds of days and days and hours of evidence about what happened post election at the White House. And to say now, well, it wrote sorry. We were just kidding. It was overwhelming, and therefore, it didn't implicate presidential immunity is just nonsense.
Speaker 0: Mm-mm. The the the the appellate court will see through this. They will see how the prosecution argued in closing that that evidence about Trump's official behavior was critical to their case by their own admission, the prosecution's own admission, not to mention all the other ridiculous legal gymnastics that were pulled in this case.
Speaker 1: Right. So many, so many arguments here. So many, so many arguments here. It's a case of first impression. It's a federal case brought in state court.
The jurors didn't have to be insistent on what online crimes Trump, they allegedly committed. There is so much appellate practice here. It is it's actually exciting.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It is kind of exciting. I can't wait to see it get reversed. Okay. So we've gotta move on to Derek Chauvin.
I don't understand this one. Maybe you guys understand it better than I do. I don't totally get what's happening here. But the headline is that, he has won the right to examine George Floyd's autopsy results, as he challenges his murder conviction. Lawyers for Derek Chauvin, quoting here from the Daily Mail, have been granted permission to examine heart tissue and fluid samples taken from George Floyd's body.
US district judge, Paul Magnuson granted the motion, after attorneys argued it was a heart condition that claimed the 46 year old George Floyd's life, not Chauvin's knee on the neck. Defense team now will have the ability to procure evidence from histology slides and tissue samples taken from the victim's heart during his initial autopsy, the results of which were used to convict Chauvin along with 3 other officers. Chauvin's lawyers are also allowed to inspect and make copies of any photographs taken of Floyd's heart during the initial autopsy, which found Floyd's heart had stopped while he was being restrained and that his death was a homicide. So what is happening here? Who wants to take this one?
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure why they would not be permitted to have all of that at the trial. Usually, at least in New York, you get extensive access to the medical examiner's files, including some of the items that were just articulated. They're in federal court now, so he's exhausted all of his state court remedies. So they're in federal court, it's under, I assume, some sort of a habeas corpus, free the body claim, saying, look. My theory of the case was it wasn't the choke that killed him.
There was other factors that killed him, but we weren't allowed access to all of the initial autopsy, the best evidence, that would could have been provided to us. We need that evidence to reopen this case and say the because we didn't have this evidence, we were not able to prove that it was a heart condition or drugs that were in his system that caused the death, not the compression on his neck. And the judge is now saying, okay. I'm gonna give it to you. Go at it.
Speaker 0: I don't, like, I don't get it because they definitely argued during the trial that it wasn't the knee on the neck that that caused him to die, that that that George Floyd was on a bunch of drugs and had a heart issue and a lung issue that caused his death. And I don't get why they wouldn't have done the whole, let's see the tissue to see it, the the deprivation or whatever they're looking for during the course of the trial or how the judge could be going down this lane. I mean, is there a chance here, Mark, that this judge is gonna grant the request for a new trial, which is what they're asking for, or at least an evidentiary hearing?
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna wildly speculate because first, I wish I could talk to the lawyer who's representing him, but it has I'm like Arthur trying to figure this out that you would assume that you had access to this. And he had a very able defense lawyer. I was always impressed with, the way he tried the case. I'm going to assume that there is an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, which is often the case when you get to federal court under a 2255 that you alleged that the defense lawyer didn't do a, b, c, or d. And one of the ways you would prove that is that they didn't get or that there was some, I guess the flip side to that prosecutorial misconduct for not turning over certain items.
If there are items that were not turned over or if the defense lawyer did not request those items or the items somehow got lost in transit, then I could see where this revolves around either prosecutorial misconduct or IAC. Wild caveat, wild speculation. But, even if you and the point you made, Megan, if in fact, and it was, you're absolutely right that they argued that in closing. And if they find something that either wasn't turned over or should have been requested that supports that and supports a narrative that if the jury had known about it, it would have changed the direction of the conviction. And I can see where this, this, gambit has legs.
Speaker 0: This should be reexamined. It that there was so much pressure. You gotta watch the fall of Minneapolis by Alpha News. You can, I think, just Google it on YouTube and watch it on their YouTube channel? That's, a very respected news organization.
They're in Minnesota, and they took a deep dive on this and found the, like, the amount of pressure that was on the coroner to say, oh, the official cause of death is cardiopulmonary arrest caused by law enforcement caused by law enforcement as opposed to maybe it was caused by drugs, maybe it was caused by, you know, the stress. May but that guy was under pressure. The DAs were under pressure. I mean, the jury was under all of these people were under this guy did not get a fair trial, and he should be given a new trial. I really hope he gets one.
Okay. Last but not least, Liam Payne, the former singer, for of One Direction who died in a Buenos Aires hotel room a couple of months ago, on October 16th. He was just 31 years old. There's something interesting happening now in that investigation. Rolling Stone exclusive reporting that according to new documents they've obtained, the judge in the case has charged, that's the word they use, 2 workers, including the receptionist head who called 911, as the judge investigates them for wrongful death.
The judge has also called for all suspects in the case to be questioned as part of the investigation. The judge is investigating them, again, for wrongful death, being investigated for possible imprudence, negligence, or lack of skill in their profession leading to the death of another person according to the statute. According to the Buenaventes Aries judicial system, after interrogation, the judge must determine whether the defendants should be further prosecuted, dropped from the case, or if there is not evidentiary support for either decision decision. Remember, this guy went off the balcony, when he was reportedly well, he was seen to be high on drugs or appear to be high on drugs. So what's what do we think is happening here?
I don't think either of you guys are likely admitted in Buenos Aires, but what's happening, Arthur?
Speaker 1: Who wait. Wait. Who are they trying to charge?
Speaker 0: Like, the the security staff, the front desk person, because they're they knew that he was acting crazy. Apparently, he he had reportedly broken a TV, and they were there were there was buzzing around him, like, something's wrong with it this guy. And I I think the allegation is they didn't do enough to stop this.
Speaker 1: So the only thing that I get analogous was here in in actually in Brooklyn, New York, they charged some, child welfare agency workers who worked for the city with crooning negligent homicide when a parent caused the death of their child when there had been reports that, there was some domestic violence in the house. And but, apparently, the investigators went there, and they didn't see anything. But there were real questions about did they do a thorough investigation, or did they ring the bell and say, okay. We were here and leave. And I believe they plead guilty to a a very low charge of murder.
They were held responsible for something that they were very far away from when it took place. I mean, if we're gonna start charging people with murder for not being good citizens now, of course, this isn't in Buenos Aires. He's not in Brooklyn, New York. But that raises the standard on all of us as human beings to act. Then you juxtapose that with Daniel Penney, who did act, to say someone almost went to jail himself.
It gets a little confusing.
Speaker 2: Hey. I'd like to point out that Arthur brought it back to Daniel Penney, not me, who was still stuck with Daniel Penney. So I just wanna I wanna point that out.
Speaker 1: It's okay, Mark.
Speaker 0: I like storytelling with Arthur.
Speaker 2: Yes. Exactly. But the the I'm not so sure that this isn't a function of the Argentinian, process. It's similar to some of the European countries where the judge does the investigation. There's a prosecutor.
Prosecutor kind of lays it in the lap of the judge, and the judge is more of an activist role as opposed to an adjudicator role. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I think that's what's happening here, would be my uninformed, unadmitted in Argentina speculation.
Speaker 0: This is I mean, we'll find out
Speaker 1: I'm happy
Speaker 2: to jump back and talk about Daniel Penney again.
Speaker 0: Oh, did you really like the Allen charge? Did you think it was right the way they dismissed it without prejudice and it could be brought back? I think this sentence is a good message.
Speaker 2: Look at that. You know? I mean, I like I said, I've I've given you I've given the pro ho all of her ammunition that that she need.
Speaker 0: But does what does this does this stand for prosecution ho, like, whore area?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know what this nickname is.
Speaker 1: I'm not going near it. You know? I I
Speaker 0: I don't know what this is.
Speaker 2: Exactly what it stands for, Megan. Prosecution ho. Where where we just basically
Speaker 0: the horror
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 0: Label. I I object on my own behalf.
Speaker 2: Okay. I object
Speaker 1: on behalf of Doug. Okay. This is your
Speaker 0: chance to apologize, and I'm not hearing anything. So now now you gotta go. Segue went silver. It landed on a very dark note. Arthur, Merry Christmas.
Mark, good luck.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Maggie. Thank you, Maggie. To you too, and happy New Year.
Speaker 0: Merry Christmas. Love you, guys. Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1: Bye bye. Care.
Speaker 0: Alright. See you soon. And that will wrap up today's edition of Kelly's Court. I'll I'll allow Mark to use that word to me because the last time he did it, I laughed and told him it was okay. But, no, it hasn't grown on me.
I now I'm actually gonna start objecting to it. He means it lovingly. He's a defense guy. He's trying to say I'm much more prosecution, which he's right. I am.
But it's case by case. I mean, you know, I was definitely not pro prosecution in the Trump case. I was not in the Daniel Penney case. So, you know, I recognize very well that these prosecutors can be, and they must be called out when they behave that way. I hope you don't have any in your life this Christmas holiday, and I look forward to getting you through it if you do with some exciting and interesting true crime episodes all week.
We'll see you tomorrow.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Mysterious "Drones" Spread, Media Malpractice, and How Medical Journals Became Captured, with @hughhewitt and @DrAseemMalhotra WATCH: https://t.co/oGlH34gKjC
Video Transcript AI Summary
Megyn Kelly discusses the media's reaction to President-elect Donald Trump and recent drone sightings over the U.S. She highlights concerns from Maryland's Governor Larry Hogan about the lack of transparency regarding these drones, which have been spotted in multiple states. Kelly and her guest, Hugh Hewitt, express skepticism about the federal government's dismissive responses and the need for accountability. They also touch on the controversy surrounding Pete Hegseth, who faced scrutiny from ProPublica regarding his West Point admission, which he refuted by sharing his acceptance letter. The conversation shifts to the role of the media and the influence of big pharma on healthcare, emphasizing the importance of independent research and critical thinking in understanding medical information. Finally, they discuss the potential dangers of mRNA vaccines and the need for lifestyle changes to improve health outcomes.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show, and happy Friday. With just over 5 weeks to go before president-elect Donald Trump is sworn in, the media is working through their 5 stages of grief. There's anger from Don Lemon, denial from media stationed outside of Mar a Lago about the fact that they're no longer relevant, and some bargaining and acceptance from the owner of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos.
We'll get to some of that in a minute. But we're gonna kick it off with some breaking news on these drones with the question mark that we reported on yesterday in-depth. If you missed that report, it's on our YouTube channel now. Joining me now, long time radio host, Hugh Hewitt, host of the Hugh Hewitt Show, friend, and, one of our must listen to commentators in America. His show is gonna be moving to afternoon drive time on the East Coast in January.
Don't miss a moment. Subscribe to this show on YouTube and follow me on Insta, Facebook, and x. Did you know that American homeowners nationwide have over $32,000,000,000,000 in equity? And cyber criminals are targeting it with a growing scam the FBI calls house stealing. House alarms, doorbell cams, dead bolts will not work against these thieves because they're not after your stuff.
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Promocode, Meghan. Home title lock.com. Hugh, great to see you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Megan, and thanks for plugging the move in the afternoon. I tell people morning drive radio is, like, getting dog years. I've done it for 8 years. That's, like, 56 years. I love the afternoon.
I cannot wait to look to the afternoon.
Speaker 0: Afternoon, I highly recommend. Yeah. I don't know if I re recommend being in New Jersey between dusk and 11 PM. And by the way, now it's not just New Jersey. Reports today that these things well, I will call them drones because that we don't know, but for lack of a better word, have now been seen in New York, and over LaGuardia or near LaGuardia and down in Maryland.
Listen to this from the governor of Maryland who just dropped this tweet, governor Larry Hogan. Last night, beginning around 9:45 PM, I personally personally witnessed and videoed what appeared to be dozens of large drones in the sky above my residence in Davidsonville, Maryland, 25 miles from our nation's capital. I observed the activity for approximately 45 minutes. Like many who have observed these drones, I do not know if this increasing activity over our skies is a threat to public safety or national security. But the public's growing increasingly concerned and frustrated with a complete lack of transparency and the dismissive attitude of the feds.
The government has the ability to track these from their point of origin, but has mounted a negligent response. People are rightfully clamoring for answers, but aren't getting any. We are being told that neither the White House, the military, the FBI, or Homeland Security have any idea what they are, where they're coming from, or who has launched or is controlling them, and that they pose no threat. That response is entirely unacceptable. I join with the growing bipartisan course of leaders demanding that the feds immediately take this, address this issue.
The American people deserve answers and action now. This is crazy. We were told yesterday yesterday by John Kirby at the, White House, nothing to see here. We can't even confirm that there really have been drones. And this is leading now to senior government officials to stay step out and say, sorry, sir.
We are seeing them.
Speaker 1: This morning, I had Shyam Sankar on the program. He is the chief technology officer for the for Palantir. He's being tipped for the deputy secretary of defense under Pete Hegseth. He's mister artificial intelligence. And I said, what do you I just happened to say, what do you think of these drones?
And Shyam said, they're terrifying. And I thought to myself, holy smokes. This guy is one of the smartest tech people in the country. And he said, it's terrifying. And he explained, we don't have control of the domain.
And if you don't have control of the domain, you have essentially ceded your national security to others in your space. And we have seen drones used rather effectively by the IDF, by Ukraine, by Russia, not so effectively by Iran. But people have got to wonder what in the world is going on here? It can't be obvious. Right?
Can we eliminate obvious? There are too many of them, and it's too elegant a configuration. I don't believe in space aliens. I do believe in adversaries who exploit what Sandcar called the orcs, the seams between our various agencies like DHS and the Pentagon, and they have to get much more serious and in a hurry, Megan.
Speaker 0: Yes. I I don't get this. There's nothing to see their, response by the feds. It makes me think it is the feds. But if it is the feds, why wouldn't they pause now that it's become such a controversy?
They're still doing it. So I don't know what's going on, but it's very strange how certain the feds seem to be saying they are that it's nothing, whereas honesty sounds more like what Larry Hogan said, you know, what these New Jersey lawmakers are are saying. Like, we don't know what this is, and we need to know. Here's the, the headline from NBC yesterday. Now key house and senate lawmakers are demanding that top federal law enforcement officials immediately brief them on these mysterious drone sightings, and here is Kirby, right, at the White House yesterday.
He said that Homeland Security, the FBI, and state and local law enforcement have not been able to corroborate any of the reported visual sightings of the drones. He said upon reviewing images of the sightings, law enforcement officials have concluded, quote, these are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully and said there have been no confirmed drone sightings in restricted airspace. White House National Security Council telling NBC News, we have no evidence at this time that these reported sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus. But now you've got New Jersey senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim, New York senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, sending a letter to the Homeland Security secretary, who's also a Democrat, as you know, and the FBI director and the FAA head all saying to to all these guys, we demand a briefing, and some say we could get it as late as or as early as this afternoon, Hugh. This is bizarre.
I don't remember seeing anything like this.
Speaker 1: No. We have area 51 to do our experimental stuff. We don't do it in
Speaker 2: the future. Right.
Speaker 1: So that's not Right. I don't think it's our team. We don't do it. But I will say, why would anyone at the White House expect us to believe them when they told us for 2 years that president Biden was spry doing, jumping jacks and backflips to the Oval Office with green gPR made? Why would we believe anything they say?
I don't. And, therefore, when the intel committee gets a briefing and Tom Cotton comes out or Mike Waltz comes out of the house and the senate intel committee and says, x y and z, I'll believe them and I'll believe team Trump when they get there. I'm not believing they do.
Speaker 0: Same. I feel exactly the same. And on this one, we actually do need we need some answers. I mean, I don't know what it's what it is. There's here is what I hope it isn't.
Watch.
Speaker 1: It's a
Speaker 0: massive spaceship for the listening audience from Independence Day. It's a big spaceship. That's we're rooting against that, I think. I think that's that's worse than Iran or the Russians. Is am I wrong or China?
Speaker 1: And remember, Independence Day, they were everywhere at once. So that but, again, they picked New Jersey. So this doesn't make any sense to me No. Unless the Jets passed.
Speaker 0: No. I don't get it. Like, let's just spend one second speculating on what it could be, still Hill, because the when I first heard about it, I thought, okay. It's probably like some smart MIT college guys who are super effective with drone technology and are having some fun. Maybe they're from New Jersey, and so they targeted New Jersey just to see what might happen.
But this has been going on since November 18th. Right? So we're, like, going on a month now, and it's spreading. And even though the feds are saying to all of us, nothing's there. There's nothing confirmed.
I mean, I know some of the people in New Jersey who say they've seen them. I one of a friend sent me a video who I've known for 2 decades, of what she and her husband saw not long ago. But, anyway, like, the feds would know. The feds would have investigated this no matter what they're telling us. So why would they be lying to us?
What what could the explanation be that would cause the government to lie?
Speaker 1: The easiest explanation is it's the CHICOMS. They let the balloon float across the country, which I believe was the 3rd or the 4th balloon. That's the first one that the public saw. And this administration does not wanna have a confrontation with China as it goes out the door. The only people that I think have the technology capability to do this are the CHICOMs unless it's the MIT kids.
MIT kids used to blow up, the 50 yard line between Harvard and Yale games. They would do funny things like that. So they have lots of tricks, but MIT is over near New Jersey. I don't think it's the Rutgers people. Much as we all love Rutgers and big ten, I don't think the Rutgers people.
So I I immediately think Chinese Communist Party.
Speaker 0: Could be Princeton people. That's in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: No. They don't really actually do science in Princeton, Mick. No. They did
Speaker 0: It's more communities, I guess. No. Wait. Wasn't Einstein there? He was there.
Don't believe your lion eyes. There were no drones. That's a bunch of BS.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And they're gonna be airplane pilots. They're gonna be fighter pilots. They're gonna be people who know which they speak, who go up there and observe now, and the media is being attached. Once the media begins to pay attention, answers begin to manifest themselves.
Same thing happened with the balloon. If people are on the balloon sequence, there's no balloon. It can't hurt us. It doesn't belong to the CHICOMS. We'll shoot it down later.
Now we can't find it. A series of denials that has to do with the inability of the administration to protect the country. Same sequence underway.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. Okay. So speaking of, don't believe your lying eyes, Pete Hegseth did get into West Point. That's the lead of our next story. And this is relevant even though he went to Princeton.
Speaking of Princeton, he, he did get into West Point and decided in the end, after touring both and considering what his life would look like, to go to Princeton. But ProPublica, this far left group, activist group that's tried to take down justice Alito, justice Thomas with smears is now trying to take down Pete Hegseth by getting ready to report that he was lying, that he did not get into West Point. So they called West Point to say, did Pete Hegseth get into West Point? And West Point allegedly told them not once, but twice, no. He didn't get in here.
He didn't apply here. We have no record of of Pete Hegseth ever ever applying to West Point. So then they go to Pete Hegseth's lawyer, Tim Parlatori, and they say, we're gonna print that he lied. You have 1 hour to respond, which is ridiculous. As this as if this is like national security, and they had to rush to print with it, Hugh.
Right? They had 60 minutes, and he had to get back to him. Baloney. So instead, what happened was Pete Hegseth went on Twitter, on x, and posted his acceptance letter. It's he didn't deal with ProPublica.
He dealt with us and said, take a look at this. Here's my accept acceptance letter from West Point. And now ProPublica is trying to defend itself by saying, hello. This is how journalism works. When you posted that, we stood down from the story.
So calm down, Pete Hegseth. And to this series of events, you say what?
Speaker 1: I'd say no one. I wish I had a recording of the editorial meeting when they decided to do the story because they're stupid. If you get into Princeton, you will have certainly gotten into West Point and especially if you're a fit young man like Pete Exeter. So it's it's presumably true. But you know what else corroborates that?
Is that after he's done with Princeton, he goes into the military and goes into combat and is deployed 3 times twice for combat area. So there's no reason to doubt that he was interested in the military, and there's no reason to doubt that he was qualified to get into West Point. So what kind of editorial credit did they have other than he's the most wounded nominee. Let's try and bring him down. He's the weakest member of the herd right now.
He's no longer they've made him stronger. We're a left wing hit group. The best thing to come out of this actually, it's 2 part. One, the mask is off Republica. They they've done some good work in the past that I've actually used on my shelf, usually having to do with international stories, but they've done horrible stuff in the last 6 months on the Supreme Court.
And then no sooner do they catch flack that Josh Gerstein over another lefty come to their aid. So they're circling the wagons around an exposed left wing, hit mob, and I I just love that it's happening. The comment I posted on that said 300,000 views. People are are getting to know out of this, and I think it may have secured Pete Heck's that confirmation. Although, on yesterday's program, you're talking to Josh Holmes and the and the gang from ruthless, the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse from ruthless.
They were not they were not certain about Pete getting through because hearings are hearings. And I remember the Clarence Thomas hearings, the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. They've come up with anyone we people we haven't heard of yet. Right? Just random x y z people, and you're not gonna have the chance to do what you did with your colleagues in the Daily Mail or your sit down with Pete Hagsett.
It's gonna happen in 72 hours, And you just gotta go in Ollie North style. I I don't think he'd wear a uniform anymore. I don't think he's in the research, but he just gotta go in and hammer every allegation. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Right. Be be merciless on it, and then and then let's see those Republicans look at Trump and all of his supporters and say, we reject him, that we're gonna we're gonna stop him based on whatever comes out of that hearing. I mean, we'll see. Whether it's new evidence, whether they actually produce somebody on the record to accuse Pete of the things that have been alleged only anonymously thus far. I look forward to seeing some former Fox News employee get up there and say, oh, he was drunk.
Okay. Sure. You know what? I'll testify at the hearings. I spent 10 years working with Pete.
He he was never drunk, and I saw him in a prime time when you would be. Anyway, so that's that's Pete. I will say I think their hesitancy is based on Joni Ernst because I think we all think we're gonna lose Murkowski, Collins, and maybe McConnell. Maybe not. I don't know.
Well, maybe. But he doesn't like Trump at all, vice versa. So she's the one. And I know she's saying things that are closer to maybe, but you know as well as I do. And, Stu, why do I keep calling you Stu?
He was a very talented, lawyer, now who who went to Harvard and University of Michigan at law school and worked in the Reagan administration. She's being careful with her words. She says, while I support Pete through this process, what I what I think he deserves is a hearing. That is that's just a buying time phrase. That's not a promise of support.
Now I what I am hearing, Hugh, is that she doesn't like him.
Speaker 1: Well, I you know, you're never in the room. I actually don't think we're gonna lose senator Collins. I think senator Collins is very serious on defense. He's chairwoman of incoming appropriations. I think if he tells her, I will pay attention to your line items, and we will fully fund it.
Not necessarily gonna lose Murkowski either. They need those air force bases up there. They just moved a bunch of c 130 up to Alaska. I don't know about leader McConnell. I doubt that too.
Because, again, DOD is so big. If you shoot to to kill the SEC, that'd be better win, and everyone's got a lot to lose. And by the way, you don't know who's coming after that. And so Pete is well known, and I find it interesting that both you and another former Fox colleague, Geraldo Rivera, who have no obligation to come to the defense of Pete Hacksett, have both stepped up to do so. That's very revealing.
I don't know if Pete except by interviews like this. I've read his books, and I've talked to him a few times in the hallway or on his set, but I don't know him. You and I all don't know him. You have no obligation to defend him. You both have defended him.
That tells me a lot.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, I said to the audience, don't marry Pete, but I would take him as my sack deaf. And so it's basically my my words of wisdom in the audience.
Speaker 1: I think spouses know each other pretty well. But other than spouses, people who work in a network and who do shows together know each other very well. You know, whether you're on time, whether you're late, whether you dress well, whether you don't dress well, you know everything about, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, children, it's you just spend a lot of time with your colleagues, which is why when you and Geraldo say major Pete is great, I listen.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, I I spent a lot of time with Pete Hegseth, and all I ever saw was a professional, smart, earnest, great guy who cared deeply about the military. It's all he wanted to talk about ever. I mean, even when you're making casual conversation, that's what he wanted to talk about, the military and what he could do to address their concerns and how their needs weren't being met, truly, even in casual conversation. And I've said this to my audience before.
We did have conversations many time times at Fox News about whose drinking was getting out of control or who was potentially taking drugs, and some we knew were. And those people were definitely on the radar. We all knew. He was never one of the names. Pete was on the radar for loving the military and veterans and, yes, for being a little randy, I guess, we can say, when it came to the women.
Whatever that was between him and his wife.
Speaker 1: The word tomcatting? Did you use the word tomcatting?
Speaker 0: I was rich. Isn't he cute?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Somebody used tomcatting. I like that. Let me ask you about the one the people who can really write out the makeup artist. I don't know how Fox does it, but PBS will make it a TV with p
Speaker 3: she got My former makeup artist
Speaker 0: at Fox, who who's there all the time, has been texting me about him nonstop. Like, she's in his camp. She knows. You're exactly right. They know where all the bodies are buried.
Speaker 1: And their opinions count a lot. Yeah. They know people.
Speaker 0: And one posted on Instagram in support of him as well. So, I mean, he's good there. I wanted to, pick up on what you said about the political reporter, Josh Gerstein. So he gives you a hard time. You you responded to the ProPublica attempted attack on Pete by saying this story is and remains that a bureaucrat at West Point misled you, and you did not print that.
That's not journalism. Then Politico inserts itself into your spat with ProPublica. Josh Gerstein, the reporter, saying, Hugh, are you really saying we should do a story every time, what a government spokesperson tells us turns out not to be right? I mean, it would take up perhaps half of my time, and then you responded. But do you wanna walk us through why it a response to that?
They're saying, look. They checked it out. It didn't check out. They moved on.
Speaker 1: Josh's argument is a straw man, and it stands up. In a city full of battalions of straw man, Josh's argument stands out as a straw man because it is not responsive to number 1. Why did they begin the inquiry when he was a Princeton guy and he did go in the military? Number 2, why didn't they tell us that West Point had misled them, which is itself rather significant since he's going to be the secretary of defense? And if the answer is because they have bad bookkeeping, then you just put it in.
It's a one paragraph thing. We got a tip or we were concerned that he didn't get into West Point. We investigated it. It turns out that West Point was wrong, so we ought to now worry about West Point record keeping. Tom Cotton has sent a letter over to West Point.
He wants answers. My guess is it's innocent error by an incompetent bureaucrat. But unless and until we know that it's a story, what we know is that ProPublica did not do it. Now part 2, Josh Gerstein. How is he connected to ProPublica?
Josh Gerstein broke the dobs leak. Remember? And
Speaker 3: Oh, right.
Speaker 1: He's been a critic of Thomas and Alito and their ethics the whole time. So he and ProPublica are washing each other's hands. They share a point of view about the court. So they're circling the wagons. Left wing journals are circle circling the wagon around left wing drones.
And he got hammered in the comments because everyone said, yeah. That's actually not journalism. You should say that you were misled by West Point and that that was unfortunate and that you were hot, washing the story. And that's what I hate that when you you have an hour to respond. That's hot washing the story.
Speaker 3: Absolutely right.
Speaker 1: Thank goodness she had good files.
Speaker 0: You don't do that. You don't do that where you only have an hour to respond unless there's there's a reason for it. You know, like, we have got to get this story. It's breaking. It's big.
And national security whatever. There are reasons why you might have to if it came to you late. You didn't have time to go to the source. Whatever. But this is not one of them, some evergreen piece on whether Pete did or did not get into West Point.
They were just trying to sandbag the guy. You know, one of the possibilities, and you mentioned it, on why they wouldn't even do just a one paragraph on it is somebody at West Point was the initial source. Somebody at you think of West Point as being, you know, pro they're military, whatever. That doesn't mean they're pro Pete or pro Trump. And if somebody at West Point you know, if the if the call was incoming to ProPublica and and, you know, in an attempted smear that they were about to print and didn't because Pete had the records that West Point claimed it didn't have, that'd be a reason why you wouldn't say it.
Speaker 1: No. It's interesting. I hadn't considered that their tip had come from within the academy. As you as you probably know, the academy is under an intense amount of focus for having become woke. And not one of them, but all 3 of them are under an intense amount of focus about what are you teaching our future warriors?
Are they doing more social justice warrioring than they are actually the validating warrior? And I have no opinion on that because I'm a civilian. But I know we should look into it, and the people who are veterans in the cops. Cotton, Dan Sullivan, Michael Walt, they are drilled down on this, and they're not gonna let it go. The best result for West Point is that ProPublica called us up.
They called the file clerk. The file clerk got it wrong. She looked or he looked in the wrong place, and we came up with the right answer, and we immediately called them back. That's the only best case scenario for West Point. If they initiated the story, if someone decided, you know, I don't like Pete Hankset, and I'm gonna I'm gonna blow the whistle on a claim that I heard him make once on West Point because I don't see it in my data file.
That's a bigger story. Either way, from the book, I did not do its reader justice, and Josh Gerstein and the gang that are defending them are just tipping their hands with the fact that they're activists. They're they're actually journalists, but they're advocate journalists, activist journalists. And that's what I am, but I'm transparent about it.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Right. Exactly right. Alright. So now there are we took covered activists, journalists, but we did not yet cover the sad, sad journalists down near but not in Mar a Lago.
There's a piece today, yesterday, in New York Magazine. The headline is the press is down and shut out in Palm Beach. Steve Chung is not sympathetic. Steve Chung, of course, Trump's long term spokesperson who's now his director of comms, incoming at the White House. Okay.
So they start by saying, quoting, good morning from West Palm Beach. I'm your transition pooler today. This is The New York Times' Michael Scherer who wrote this on December 9th to a group of fellow reporters who have teamed up to take turns covering the post election news out of Mar a Lago, but he doesn't have much to report. The reason is, he writes, I've reached out to the transition about today's schedule and have not heard back. Scheer was part of an unofficial press pool set up by the White House Correspondents Association, to cover, you know, Trump's team down there, but the press is being kept at a safe distance.
They point out this is very unlike 2016 when Trump let the press stand at the base of Trump Tower and interview all these candidates who are coming in to kiss the ring on their way in and way out, but this time, no. He's not really interested in it. And Steve Chiang has said, hey. I didn't authorize your weird little transition coverage. You didn't ask us.
We would have worked with you. You didn't, so pound sand. But they lament in this piece, the incoming press secretary, Caroline Levitt, and Steve Chung, sometimes don't get back to the shutout frustrated reporters at all, Hugh. And they go on to say that these folks, okay, notwithstanding the fact that they don't know what's happening, they're not sure what's going on with the White House press room seating chart, and they can't get straight answers on whether they're gonna be where they wanna be and work, that they are, quote, soldiering on, and that they're doing this notwithstanding the fact that hotel rooms on the island of Palm Beach are high hard to come by and they are expensive. So most journalists are exiled about a half an hour's drive in West Palm.
Speaker 1: Wait. Wait a minute. When has a reporter ever paid for their hotel room? When has that ever paid for their hotel room? So the idea is that
Speaker 0: you. It's a horror West Palm. No. Yeah. Oh.
Speaker 1: I I I can't be sympathetic because the president-elect has talked to Time Magazine, to NBC, and to Jim Cramer at the stock exchange. All three of those were fairly in-depth. The Christian Welker was 30 minutes. I make my arrangements to talk to the president through Margo and his personal staff, and they are very professional. The Chum organization is very professional, but they are not giving away the candy the way that they did for 8 years ago.
Because 8 years ago, they came in thinking that they were gonna get a fair deal, and it turns out they don't get a fair deal from these people. So why bother? Why be nice to them at all? I like Michael Cheer, by the way. He comes on my show.
I think he's by the corner, but no one is owed anything by the president-elect. And, Megan, if they gave a lot of interviews, do you think they would start getting the 1 president at a time low back, which they're waiting to unleash on him?
Speaker 0: Yeah. Right. So here's the end of the piece. It's my favorite part. Not only have they been banished to West Palm.
Oh my god. It's like being bumped from the double wide to the single in the trailers. They say with the West Palm Hilton now officially sold out, some reporters have been forced to retreat to the courtyard by Marriott out by the airport. You knew it. You really Asian of this
Speaker 1: poor. You know, I actually prefer Courtyard by Marriott because they don't give you espresso machine. They give you the old fashioned Mr. Coffee. So then in the morning, you don't have to make that espresso machine work.
I just gotta say, for anyone who's ever gone to a convention, you're lucky if you're within 15 miles of the convention center. I mean, you just gotta travel, travel, travel. So that is a silly story. And I'm
Speaker 0: No one cares. You're reporters. You're the lowest of the low, and that's how you're supposed to live. And it's one of the very healthy ways we make you generally hate authority. It's just in this country, you're supposed to hate authority whether they're red or blue, and you people don't.
Speaker 1: Don't you think it's interesting, by the way, that pro blue book, I did not report that West Point misled them? Would you report that someone misled you from the government? I would. That would be a
Speaker 0: big story. Call back. I would call back, and I would say, now I've seen a record proving that you misled me. So what is your explanation for misleading me? And I'd love I'd love to hear what they say.
And depending on what they said, I'd go from there. But I would definitely be very interested in the fact that I'd been misled by West Point, which absolutely knows whether Pete Hegseth applied. And not not only applied, but got in. You're gonna tell me their record keeping is that bad? Pete's, what, 44?
He was in college Yeah. 25 years ago. I'm trying to do the math there. It's not that long. And West Point, of all places, would have pretty meticulous records.
Speaker 1: That's your boss. If you're going to West Point, your boss is the secretary of defense. You would at least use extreme care before responding. And in fact, you might wanna call the transition team to inform them that you've had an inquiry about the nominees around the Department of Defense. How would you how would you advise us to respond?
That's what the professional would be, but someone tried to do a head job on people.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, here's like, I wonder because the other piece of it is when it comes to West Point, there could be national security implications. I would imagine the records there, they they would keep them better than your average university would because who's trying to get in and why? Whose kid is trying to get in and why? I would imagine those records are considered rather important by, like, the Pentagon.
And so I do wonder whether they are as capable of hapless air. Probably, they are. Probably, as a Princeton or where I went, Syracuse, but maybe not. Anyway, maybe somebody will get to the bottom of it. Okay.
While we're on the subject of journalism, something interesting happened over at CNN, and it's turned into a controversy, and I'd love to get your thoughts on it. Clarissa Ward is considered a star reporter over at CNN. She's been there many years. She was at Fox for a short time. And, she is doing reporting on Syria and what's happened in the wake of Bashar al Assad being chased out of the country to Russia and this new Islamist group taking over, you know, like, the kinder, gentler Al Qaeda.
And she was patrolling through the streets as in her reportorial role and says that she came upon a Bashar al Assad prison facility with one of these new, you know, quote, unquote, reformed Al Qaeda types with her, and that they went into this prison cell, and there's a prisoner who is being held by Bashar al Assad. And here's my interview with him. He we got him out. We gave him some water, and he had a bite of food, and we stuck a mic in his face. And this is extraordinary.
And now in the wake of this interview, which got all sorts of plaudits all over the Internet, oh my god. She's amazing what she did. Blah blah blah. Now some people are raising questions about whether she was misled. I think that's the most charitable thing I've seen on there.
Some have suggested she she may have been part of the misleading. I doubt that. But I don't know. I don't know what's happening here, and I'm not even sure there is a story, but I'm gonna bring it to you because it's it's getting some steam.
Speaker 1: I seen the clips.
Speaker 0: I'll show you. The the was one of the places that did a rather lengthy piece. They they watch our, business and reporters and raise questions about reports like this. There's a guy named Charlie Nash who raised some questions about the the piece, and I'm gonna show it to you. And then there's a filmmaker named Hassan Akkad who, has been detained twice in Syria, and he has got some doubts about this video.
Alright. Let me show you the first clip. This is part 1 when they find this guy under a blanket. It's high drama. You can see Clarissa's a little dramatic herself, and I will say seems to insert herself into the story.
Watch this.
Speaker 3: It's one of many secret prisons across the city. I can't tell, though. It might just be a blanket, but it's the only cell that's locked. The guard makes us turn the camera off while he shoots the lock off the cell door. We go in to get a closer look.
It's still not clear if there is something under the blanket.
Speaker 0: It moved.
Speaker 3: Is there someone there?
Speaker 0: I thought it's gonna move.
Speaker 3: Is someone there?
Speaker 1: Yeah. So
Speaker 3: He tells the fighter he's from the city of Homs and has been in the cell for 3 months. Okay. Okay. You're okay. You're okay.
You're okay. You're okay. Clutches my arm tightly with both hands. Okay. There should there should be some Does anyone have any water?
Well, not the water. Water.
Speaker 0: Okay. So here's what people are pointing out. He's pretty clean for a guy who is who's been in a prison cell for how many months? 3 or 3 plus months?
Speaker 3: 3 months.
Speaker 0: 3 months without food or water for 4 days. What we see on that video is no waste at all in the prison cell and, no
Speaker 1: trash No facilities. Shut down
Speaker 3: the facilities.
Speaker 0: Right? And we see a man who's still under the blanket even though he's just heard somebody shot shoot off the alleged lock on his cell. Still under there. Okay. Maybe he's hiding.
We see Clarissa Ward who speaks, according to her, Arabic, only speaking in English in Syria. Okay. Don't know why that happened. And this guy, Hassan Akkad, says the following. I was detained twice in Syria.
I think this is staged. CNN should investigate. Happy to be proven wrong. Individuals are never locked in communal cells. Cells look too clean.
No discarded clothes, bags of bread, bottles of water, other blankets, and he has too much energy for someone who had no water for 5 days. This is what the cells in Syrian prisons typically look like, Hugh. We pulled this from one that was farther north. I mean, you can barely see the ground. There's so much debris and trash.
I don't know. But here's what I I doubt Clarissa Ward, who's a respected reporter, would stage this whole thing. But I do think there's a possibility she and the other media celebrating this moment are not being skeptical enough about it being staged for her.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you remember the fellow from Hamas who ended up being a star in video after video where they staged the death of young people. And he became kind of an Internet sensation because he was really good at pretending to be a victim again and again and again. And it's turned out to be a tried and true tactic of the Islamist resistance wherever it pops up to stage manage, victimization videos. I don't know if this is true.
I don't know Clarissa. I doubt any reporter would set this up because the danger of your career, it would be an existential destruct destruction of your career if you stage that. Are you insufficiently suspicious of it against the backdrop of what you've seen in other Syrian prisons? Perhaps. Because if I were to CNN editor, I might have raised these questions interspersed with the actual reporting.
Do you think that would have been safer to raise doubts about the possibility you've been, pumped?
Speaker 0: You see
Speaker 1: Because reporters are pumped all the time. In talk radio, we have a 6 second delay because people call up all the time and punk us, and then you dump them when they go off in their own little they want a Howard Stern people used to do this to every other radio show.
Speaker 0: Scott LaBouey.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so you always had a delay because people are in the business of poking people. And I just think they've gotta be very careful when they corroborate everything.
Speaker 0: Here's the second clip, where they're now outside of the prison, and she's interviewing him, which, you know, I I can like, some people are like, I don't get it. Why why aren't you getting him to a hospital? Why aren't, like, we're but journalists are often heartless like that. That she's not alone in that approach. Most of us would you know, we want the story, and then he can go to prison, but here or to the hospital.
Here it is. Sorry. Sorry.
Speaker 3: After 3 months in a windowless cell, he can finally see
Speaker 1: Look how clean
Speaker 0: he is.
Speaker 3: God, the light says, oh, god. There is life. The fighter hands him something to eat. He barely lifted to his mouth. His body can't handle it.
Okay. You're okay. His cat just fled during the fall of Damascus.
Speaker 0: She's holding him, rubbing his back. Food or water.
Speaker 3: That was at least 4 days ago. The rebel tells him there's no more army. No more prisons, no more checkpoints. Are you serious, he says? Syria is free, he tells him.
It's the first time he has heard those words. As a paramedic arrives, the shock sets in. Jake, I have to say I have been doing this job for nearly 20 years now, and that really was one of the most extraordinary moments that I have ever witnessed.
Speaker 0: And folks pointing out online how clean the man looks, the jacket, the pants, the fingernails. Like, it's just and does he have the right energy level for somebody who hasn't had food or water in almost 5 days? I don't know. But I think that there should be an investigation by CNN just to make sure they have not been used by
Speaker 1: an
Speaker 0: organization trying to look like heroes, notwithstanding their own controversial behaviors?
Speaker 1: It's either a great scoop or a great dupe. It's one or the other. She either gets a Pulitzer for being on the ground and being willing to go in a risky place, or there's going to be a hall of shame trophy here because it'll be a great deal. What I am most suspicious of, 3 months in an Assad prison, you would expect manifestations of cruelty. Not merely being hungry and and thirsty, 5 days without water is pretty bad.
You could probably barely move. I did note there was a story the other day that a an 11 year old girl survived 3 days at sea between, and she would she are turning from Sierra Leone to Italy, and her boat capsized off of Tunisia before the first Italian, and 44 people died when she lived. So miracles happened. She had hypothermia when she came out of the water, but you can tell that people have been under stress. I don't see did you see any wounds, any scratches?
Speaker 0: No.
Speaker 1: Any bleeding?
Speaker 0: No. And there's one other weird thing, potentially. It depends on your opinion. Where in her exchange with Jake Tapper, who was asking her about this, she offers one additional detail. Take a listen to SOT 8.
Speaker 3: We don't know where Adul Khurband is now. He got into that ambulance. We offered to give him our phones to call his family. But as you can see in that moment, he was in a state of profound shock. He wasn't able to collect himself to the point where he was able to get in touch with his family.
Possible.
Speaker 0: I Possible. You wanna wanna call your family first thing out of captivity after 3, 4 months, and you you're so shocked you can't make okay. It's possible. Right? But these all these are just like that that's what led to the media piece and to the In
Speaker 1: our favor. In our favor. Who stands to benefit from this? Because I really don't think Clarissa Ward would stage it. So who stands to benefit from staging it?
The guy who worked for Hamas was trying to enter generate international pressure against Israel. Well, who are they trying to generate international pressure against Assad's gone? So who's who wins with it?
Speaker 0: But it works for them to look like they are the kinder, gentler that they oh my god. Bashar al Assad is even worse than you knew. This poor man, he's been under there. And we're talking about it. The it went everywhere.
It went everywhere. So much coverage about how, you know, what an evil man this Bashar al Assad is and how the the new captors well, not captors, but the new
Speaker 1: tariffs are telling me. Is really good. Tim Joel Yeah. Calls in and gives water and cell phones to prisoners. Okay.
That's a potential motive.
Speaker 0: I mean, you'd have to kick those tires, as a journalist. You know, again, being used. That's the biggest thing you have to worry about in this kind of situation is being used, being turned into journalistic propaganda. And perhaps Clarissa Ward saw that coming from a mile away and made sure that that wasn't happening, but I would like to hear more. I don't I'm not sure right now based on what I've seen.
Okay. The controversy over the the CEO murder, the United CEO, Brian Thompson, continues with people sorry. Brian Thompson, where people are continuing to try to justify this. We have been meaning to get to some of these stories, but we didn't quite get there. AOC weighs in.
She does the this is not to justify violence, but bit but bit. Here's what she said.
Speaker 4: I think that this collective American experience, which is so twisted to have in the wealthiest nation in the world, all of that pain that people have experienced is being concentrated on this event. And it's really important that we take a step back. This is not to comment, and this is not to say that an act of violence is is justified. But I think for anyone who is confused or shocked or appalled, they need to understand that people interpret and feel and experience denied claims as an act of violence against them.
Speaker 0: Oh my god. Hugh.
Speaker 1: There's no evidence of a denied claim.
Speaker 0: Correct.
Speaker 3: I I
Speaker 1: it's just the craziest thing. There is no evidence of anything except a screenshot of a back x-ray. My own theory is a psychotic break and a schizophrenic acting out of anger against anyone who randomly he picked out of the phone book, and I do believe his shouting at the police indicated some kind of psychosis. But Elizabeth Warren and AOC repulsive and disqualifying. They have no facts upon which to base their speculation.
Even if their speculation had a denied claim on the part of the killer, that's not justification. All they do is license additional political violence. I have Steve Scalise on my radio show yesterday, and I asked the majority leader on in June of 2017, a man tried to kill you. He didn't like Republicans, and Scalise teed off on this because he cannot believe people stand with anyone using violence in any situation and trying to make an excuse on the basis of mythology. There are no facts and evidence that had anything to do with UnitedHealthcare or a denied claim.
Nothing. 0.
Speaker 0: And moreover, in the guy's alleged manifesto, he says, oh, they're probably people better qualified than I am to explain exactly what they're doing that's so bad. Like, he doesn't sound like somebody who had lived this firsthand and had a personal not that that would justify any of this. But to your point, we don't know what this is about and what the evidence seems to be suggesting is you had a once perfectly normal young adult, 1 minute, and within the past 3 to 6 months, a switch flipped, which is totally consistent with some sort of psychotic break, whether induced by a schizophrenic problem or by, you know, drugs that he was taking. We don't know, but show me the evidence. And by the way, even if it is a claims issue, too soon too soon to engage with this guy's gripes and ideas.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And how many claims did he have given and Brian Thompson and his 2 sons who are without a father, and there is an incredible lack of empathy on the part of AOC's miss empathy and Elizabeth Warren. I have a question for you, Megan. What are the manifesto rules? That when the Unabomber manifesto was released, it was a big controversy.
The manifesto of the Nashville killer, the trans activist, was never released. It had to be leaked. I'm not sure where this guy's manifesto came from or why we know parts of it, but I haven't seen the whole thing. What are the manifesto rules? Do we do we always release them or sometimes release them?
Speaker 0: Well, let's look at what happened with the manifesto with the trans killer in, was it Virginia? We're trying to think of the city. Yeah. Where they Nashville. They kept it from us.
Yeah. Yeah. There we go. Nashville. Thank you.
Where they tried to keep it from us and it had to be leaked. I mean, I part of it has been leaked online. I don't know if we've seen the whole thing, but it's like of course, there's there are different rules depending on the person's, you know, status. And the the the Kimmel having his producers' lusty texts after this guy with him reading those on the air, it's just the latest scourge on ABC News. And how can they share a a calling card with this guy?
It's just absolutely vile. Hugh, that's the state of our media today. I'm thrilled that you'll be coming on in the afternoon now to talk about it more, and I love the show and listening to your opinion. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Megan. Thanks for having me. Continued success of The Megyn Kelly Show.
Speaker 0: Thank you so much, my friend. Wanna tell you what we have for just one minute that we are gonna be dropping a special episode. I think it comes out tomorrow morning, and we're gonna be talking about, like, some special fun Christmas things and Christmas gifts. And, I think you guys are gonna really enjoy that enjoy that, so look for that in your feeds. And in the meantime, if you wanna email me about your best Christmas gift, what you're recommending for your fellow listeners and viewers, or what you received over the course of your lifetime that you love the most, it's megan@megankelly.com.
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Speaker 5: Hi, Megan. Lovely to be here.
Speaker 0: I thought the documentary was fascinating and disturbing. I remember and I think this is one of the things you guys that led you to make this documentary. A few years ago, the the line on statins had become, the question in today's day and age is not so much why are you on a statin, but why aren't you on a statin? That they were being recommended for perfectly healthy people over age 50 who might get heart disease or clogged arteries at some point as almost like a preventative measure. And while the whole film is definitely not just about statins, that's where it starts, and it's very interesting.
So let me kick it off by playing this sound bite of, a guy who was your patient, right, Tony Royal, who did take a statin. He was in a position of having had a heart attack, so his case was more severe. But, the question of why not take one was experienced by him, the answer, I should say, firsthand. Here's Tony Sott 30.
Speaker 6: Massive aches in my legs. I have no energy, no libido. I just lost the will to live almost. I felt dreadful. And it was that point where I started to question what was going on.
Either I was very sick with some other illness or my heart was going downhill again, or it could be possibly the medication I've been put on.
Speaker 5: One of the medications that Tony was on that he believed causing quite significant side effects, such as muscle fatigue, erectile dysfunction, brain fog, really limited his quality of life for many, many months was a statin drug.
Speaker 0: So doctor Asin Asin, let's start there with statins and and this problem overall.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Megan. So really interesting you started with that because, you know, my journey as a practicing cardiologist, as a qualified doctor for well over 20 years actually started towards the end of sort of 2009, 2010 when I, really started to investigate why heart disease hadn't really come down in the way it was predicted to come down. You know, by the end of the 20th century, it was predicted that heart disease would essentially be eradicated because of statins that come on the scene. And a lot of what happened around changes in guidelines on diet was based upon this, what we now know as a very flawed hypothesis about lowering cholesterol. So that's where I began my journey because I was seeing my patients come in, you know, more stress on the system than National Health Service, more people on many, you know, suffering from chronic disease.
But patients also reporting a lot of side effects from statins, which where where there was a discrepancy between what I was observing in terms of the frequency of these side effects and diagnosing it and what was in the published literature. So when I went on that journey, Megan, basically, I, you know, came to the conclusion that the, you know, that this fear on cholesterol is is grossly exaggerated to the extent where I one could argue, and there's published evidence for this, that high cholesterol, so called LDL, bad cholesterol, isn't really a significant risk factor for heart disease. But, of course, that's where statins came in because the thinking was if we lower LDL cholesterol, so called bad cholesterol with these statin drugs, which are, by the way, prescribed estimated to be prescribed, Megan, to 1,000,000,000 people globally, certainly at least 200,000,000, and we think at least 30,000,000 Americans are taking statins. You know, it doesn't really have that much of an effect. So when I start when you start looking at the actual data on statins, and there's a huge caveat here, by the way, because almost all of the data on statins is comes from industry sponsored drug trials that have never really been independently evaluated.
And that's something, of course, that comes out in the film where myself and and John Abramson from Harvard, you know, trying to get access to the raw data so it gets investigated. Is even if you look at that data from the drug companies and break it down, the actual benefit of a statin for an individual over a 5 year period at low risk of heart disease or certainly who's someone who hasn't had a heart attack is about 1%, 1 in a 100 chance of it preventing a non fatal heart attack, a non disabling stroke without prolonging one's life. Now Tony's case is really interesting, and he's quite unusual, patient because as you already alluded to, you know, he was, somebody that had a heart attack. He was a Virgin Atlantic airline pilot. He was fit and active.
He was following the dietary guidelines, low fat guidelines, thought he was doing everything, you know, healthy in a healthy way. And in his early fifties, basically, suffered a heart attack, couldn't fly anymore, went back to his previous job, which was a maths and physics teacher, so he's very good with numbers. And then he started to get debilitating side effects, you know, about a year after, you know, taking all these medications he prescribed. Well, he suddenly felt unwell anyway initially. So I'm looking at the drugs and the details and the benefits, etcetera, thought there were side effects from the drugs, stopped his statin, felt a lot better, and at the same time, changed his lifestyle.
And, you know, Tony now is in a situation this is quite unusual for a heart patient who's had a heart stent and a heart attack. He's now training for World Ironman, you know, and he's 60 plus now, and he's off all his pills, Megan. So Wow. I'm not saying this is for everybody, but it's a great example of what can be achieved in health care if we actually give patients the right information, if we empower them, on the benefits and harms of drugs in a way that is not through coercion, not through manipulation of drug industry who are there to basically, you know, make money. And and the reality is this, most people in the world, Megan, taking statins are gonna get are gonna get no benefit whatsoever, and they don't even know it.
Speaker 0: If high cholesterol, high LDLs doesn't cause a heart attack, and you potentially can see that number rise without freaking out, then what does cause a heart attack?
Speaker 5: Yeah. Great question. Before I answer that specific, I said something interesting that I found, myself and a number of international scientists in 2016 and BMJ. We actually looked at whether LDL cholesterol had a risk for heart disease in over sixties, partly because the original studies where cholesterol was, you know, exposed as a potential risk factor or as a major risk factor of heart disease. What wasn't publicized, Megan, in those original studies from Framingham, Massachusetts that started in 1948 and went on for decades is that once people hit 50, as their cholesterol dropped, their death rates increased.
And we thought, why this is a bit unusual. Why is no one really talking about this? So we went back and looked at, you know, up to date data. And what we found, one, was there was no association with LDL cholesterol and heart disease in over sixties. But the most interesting finding was the higher one's LDL in older population, the lower the risk of death statistically.
Right? So the question is, how is that possible? Well, one of the things that's been forgotten because of all this focus on heart disease and this world hypothesis is that cholesterol has a really important role in the immune system. Older people are more vulnerable, dying from infections. And there's also an association on this stress, and we don't know if it's causal, but there is an association with low cholesterol and cancer, which again is likely relating to the immune system.
So that just just to muddy the waters a bit further that just lowering cholesterol for the sake of it may actually be harmful. It's not that it has no, detrimental effect. Now what is a risk factor, major risk factor for heart disease? It's a process in the body called insulin resistance. So it's essentially over time your body becoming resistant to the hormone insulin, and that is driven essentially by food, you know, diets that are high in starch and sugar, ultra processed foods, being sedentary, and also to some degree, chronic stress.
And insulin itself, when it's, you know, raised, chronically for a long period of time or if you're eating a lot of, you know, junk food, it directly is toxic to the inner lining of the of the heart arteries. So that's how it causes heart disease. And that's accepted in the literature. Why is it not well known or publicized? Because not never been really an effective drug to tackle insulin resistance has then been proven in a trials to prevent heart attacks.
And, of course, you know, there is no market for healthy lifestyle, really, for just eating real food, you know, eating healthy food. Absolutely. So that's really the missing link. And when I institute this plan with my patients, Megan, you know, the lifestyle plan based upon the, you know, best evidence. And I I don't say don't to my patients, don't take statins.
I say, listen. This is the absolute benefit, you know, without even talking about harms. I mean, harms come in as well in terms of side quality of life limiting side effects in particular, like muscle fatigue, like what's only role experienced. Most patients, when given that 1% figure, Megan, don't wanna take the pill, and I actually write my letter back to their general practitioner and say, listen. The patient has decided they don't wanna take the statin.
I've given them the information, and their decision should be supported in keeping with the principles of ethical evidence based medical practice. So, actually, what the staff at issue highlights is that if we were practicing true ethical evidence based medicine in health care, Megan, we'd sort out the health crisis very, very quickly.
Speaker 0: How would you see so I think the way a lot of people see heart disease is you go to your cardiologist and maybe they give you, an echocardiogram stress test combo where they can see your heart and how it handles stress, And they'll see whether you have a thickening of the walls of your arteries. That's that's the gold standard test, I think, other than getting that, I guess, calcium score read with injectable dye, which is more invasive. But so if you see fatty buildup on the walls of your arteries, then then you have a mystery to solve. Right? And today, I think the doctor would say, if you had it, don't eat so much red meat.
Don't eat fried food.
Speaker 1: You
Speaker 0: exercise more. Right? What would you say if you
Speaker 5: saw it? Yeah. So so on the red meat issue, first of all, you know, just a for full disclosure here, Megan, in 2013, I caused global controversy when I wrote in the BMJ, but formerly the British Medical Journal, the the saturated fat does not cause heart disease. And that's and that's the evidence for that is now pretty much conclusive. So that means that eating foods like red meat does not contribute to heart disease at all.
In fact, I tell my patients, I'm I'm not worried about how much red meat you consume as long as you're following the principles of what I call a a low refined carbohydrate Mediterranean diet. So, so that is definitely not something that I recommend patients to to not do. Right? Eating red meat is not an issue, when it comes to heart disease. And, you know, even on the issues of, say, colon cancer, the evidence is only really there for processed meat, not really for red meat, for real food.
And the dietary guidelines, unfortunately, in the US and in the UK, have have have really put at the base to tell people to eat, you know, 6 to 11 servings, I think, in the US guidelines of of starchy foods, which is the complete opposite of the foods that you wanna oh, it's it's it is absolutely insane because these are the foods that are gonna drive all these conditions. It's not just about heart disease. It's high blood pressure, which is a single biggest risk factor for death globally, it's type 2 diabetes. They all contribute to also you know, it's not about longevity, it's about quality of life as well. If you've got type 2 diabetes, you'll massively increase risk of depression, chronic pain, for example.
And then, of course, then you've got the pills to take, which aren't that effective, by the way, that give you side effects. So a whole management, really, of of people's health in health care is upside down. What I do tell patients to to do though is to adhere to a healthy lifestyle. I use calcium scores sometimes in patients because they're a very good way. It's an imaging for people that don't know this, it's a it's a form of imaging which looks at coronary calcium, nothing to do with diet, which is a mark of inflammation and build up of of plaque or fatty deposits, if you like, within the arteries.
And it correlates also it gives a very accurate representation, Megan, of your risk of a heart attack or stroke in the next decade. But what's interesting is, and and certainly with my patients and what the literature tells us, if you look at it properly, is that this is potentially reversible. And of course, in the film, First In A Pharm, you know, without giving too much away, you know, we end up going to India to meet a cardiologist who for well over 20 years and has published on this, has been actually reversing the blockages, within the arteries, which most doctors, and I can tell you almost every cardiologist will not even think it's possible. So he's done that through a combination of lifestyle, but the most important factor from his research that actually caused the reduction in the blockages, which I think is fascinating, is actually through meditation. And and this can be explained, and this is it's really interesting.
So chronic stress is established as a risk factor for heart disease, the same as being a smoker or having high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes. Okay? But most of us are not really dealing with it properly. And the process involved is that if you look from an evolutionary perspective, you know, acute stress obviously can be life saving. But from an evolutionary perspective, if we were in the jungle and we're running away from a tiger, for example, when you're under a state of acute stress, the body releases clotting factors and inflammatory factors.
So that if we were attacked by that tiger, we are not gonna bleed to death, or it's gonna reduce our risk of bleeding to death. Let's play that way. Now this is chronically going in the, going on in the body at a low grade when people are stressed, you know, chronically stressed, and that's how it damages the heart arteries. And heart disease itself, again, for many years was thought to be a fixed issue. You develop a blockage and it like a clogged pipe, it gradually gets worse over time, and at some point, you're gonna have a heart attack.
But this is not true. We know now that it's a dynamic process, so it can be reversed, Megan. And I think that's really one of the most interesting fascinating aspects of of the new paradigm in in actually reversing, not just preventing people having heart attacks, but actually reversing the blockages. And that's what we need to do more research and invest more of our resources.
Speaker 0: I I wanna get to the causes of why we've been so misled for sure. That's basically what, first, Do No Farm is about, and it's shocking. RFKJ is in there. Our audience will recognize a lot of the faces. Callie Means is in there.
Doctor Jay Bhattacharya is in there. Great, great film. In fact, before we go any further, how can they see it? Because it was sent to me as a screener, but how can our audience see it?
Speaker 5: Yeah. So it's on a website. The the website's nofarmfilm.com. So that's no, n o p h a r m, film.com. So they can download it for about $10.
I mean, it was independently funded, very low budget, you know, and, yeah.
Speaker 0: Okay. Good. So let's let's remember that, to to see it. But before we get to that, you mentioned in passing just there, Mediterranean diet. What else?
You added a couple phrases on there. Can you talk about eating?
Speaker 5: Yeah. So, so so the I think the if we understand heart disease to be a chronically inflammatory process, which is exacerbated by insulin resistance, then the solution to prevention and managing heart disease is to deal with the chronic inflammation and the insulin resistance. So there are certain components of the Mediterranean diet that have been shown in studies. You know, there's not a lot of unfortunately, nutrition sciences is, is quite flawed. But, you know, the studies have shown that they are there are certain components of the Mediterranean diet that are anti inflammatory.
So these anti inflammatory components come from extra virgin olive oil, oily fish, nuts and seeds, whole fruit and vegetables. So as long as the base of the diet is is really composed of those foods, and you eliminate the sugars and too much of the refined carbs, that means not too much bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, for example, then you are basically following the best possible diet when it comes to heart disease.
Speaker 0: Okay. So one question I have for you is
Speaker 5: A low carb Mediterranean diet is the way to describe it.
Speaker 0: One question I have for you is, let's say well, I have listeners out there and viewers who are, you know, 60 years old, and they're like, I'm constantly inflamed. I've lived 60 years of inflamed. You know, I've I've eaten all the processed foods, but I'm inspired. Now I'm gonna I'm gonna start tomorrow with a Mediterranean diet that's low carb. Can they undo 60 years of damage, or is it, like, kind of a fait accompli at this point?
Because I think a lot of people are like, forget it. I'm screwed.
Speaker 5: No, Megan. Actually, that's a great part of the there's a lot of hope here. The you know, there's evidence that good evidence that shows, and I've seen this with my patients, that you can actually start to reverse the risk factors for for heart disease. And many of them interresistance, by the way, isn't just about heart disease, Megan. It's probably, after smoking, the most important risk for cancer as well and certainly linked to Alzheimer's as, you know, as a prominent risk factor.
So if you sort the interresistance out, you're probably gonna solve a lot of the chronic disease problems in the whole of America. And this is the good news. Within 3 weeks, this 21 days, 28 days, you can actually start to reverse those risk factors. I've had patients that sent their type 2 diabetes that they've had for 15 years into remission just by putting out the carbs.
Speaker 0: Wow. And is your body then at 0, or are you closer to death than somebody who's been living well for their 60 years?
Speaker 5: Listen. It takes more to, reverse disease than it does to prevent it, so it depends from patient to patient. But unless you try it, you won't see, but there'll definitely be an improvement. Now to what degree, we don't know until you try doing this. But certainly, with my patients, I say, Listen, do this for 3 to 6 weeks.
Certainly, I think the maximum improvement you will see in terms of blood markers, you know, linked to high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes, for example, p I o, double p I, which is based upon, the original, village which was behind the Mediterranean diet. But my more recent book, which probably is more up to date and more concise and relevant to our conversation today, is called A Statin Free Life. And in that book, there are recipes and a diet plan and everything else, and it explains the whole cholesterol issue and how to do is reverse it as well.
Speaker 0: That's great. So just to give somebody people a place to get started as we go into the holidays, that's a good place to kick it off. Alright. So let's talk about causation. Because when you first came out, you you you mentioned you caused quite a stir.
But the industry wanted to cancel you at almost every turn, and you published a paper in, that, the BMI. Is it what was it called? The BMJ?
Speaker 5: BMJ. BMJ.
Speaker 0: Yep. And they tried to get your paper pulled. Your film has an interview with the woman who was running it at the time, who didn't know whether she was on your side or not, who was open minded to pulling it if you had misstated facts and misled people. And she's pretty forthright about how once you know, they wanted to see data and so and so on, but it they ended up not pulling it and saying to the people who are criticizing you, why don't you write a rebuttal if you feel differently? And they didn't really wanna do that.
So this all kind of gets to there's an absence of honest data from the people who are telling us things like statins are perfectly safe with a very, very good side effect profile. It's not just the statin drug makers. It's drug makers, for the most part, who just they they hide information even from the people who are charged with reviewing their drugs and telling the rest of us whether their drugs are safe.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely, Megan. So, you know, medical knowledge is under commercial control, but most doctors don't know that. And just to give you, you know, how bad the situation is, 20 to 50% of all health care activity in the United States, and you spend almost more than $4,000,000,000,000 in health health care, actually brings no benefit to the patient is wasteful or harmful. And the reason for this is that most doctors and policymakers run away of the poor quality research that drives overuse in terms of overmedicated people, under use of simple, safer lifestyle options, avoidable adverse events, waste, and missed opportunities to get the right patient, the right treatment at the right time.
So that's really the the major issue here. And the way to overcome this or to solve this problem is to make sure that, you know, drug trials are independently evaluated or, you know, take things further. I mean, if you look at the history of the drug drug industry over the last few decades, most drugs they produce are copies of old ones. You know, they take an old generic drug. They change the molecules here and there.
They patent it, make lots of money, which is, of course, a huge waste. You know, the American taxpayer, American public are paying lots of money for something that could be a lot cheaper with with an old generic drug. And then, of course, there's the harm issue because what they do is the results of their trials that they they design, they control, they analyze, they publish in medical journals, who, by the way, take a lot of money from industry as well, which comes out in the film, will grossly exaggerate the safety and benefits of their drugs. So no informed consent is truly happening. And of course, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out if a doctor is making clinical decisions on corrupted and biased information, Megan.
At best, it's gonna lead to suboptimal outcomes for patients, and at worst, it's gonna do harm. You know? And even pre pandemic, the 3rd most common cause of death and this is still when I when I talk about this at lectures, people gasp, even doctors. The 3rd most common cause of death globally after heart disease and cancer is prescribed medications according to one, you know, analysis. So Wow.
It's really a massive problem. It's a major public health issue. And and what the the main focus and, of course, you know, part of this Maha movement and and what Robert Kennedy Junior and like Saje Bhattacharya and Marty Makari wanna do is one of the most important things is to get the the American population, you know, reducing the medications they're taking and then trying to, you know, empower them in create environments so they can flourish from a from a health perspective through a lifestyle.
Speaker 0: They're they, like, anybody who's associated with medicine, never forget the magazine world. They're on a different page. Wants you to lose weight. They any real doctor is against obesity, which is probably, you know, the number 1 or a huge risk factor for so many diseases, including diabetes, which just doesn't lead any place good. And what they have said on this show and elsewhere is eat better, move more.
Right? Like, though, that's really what we're looking to do. And throw out that food pyramid and stop, you know, eating 6 to 10 grains a day and so on. What we've done over in America and now increasingly in other parts of the world, is take Ozempic. And I I get the pushback to Ozempic as that's not the answer.
You know? Eat better and exercise more. But this film, like some other, pieces and books and and films, has suggested it's worse than that. Like, Ozempic actually is in the category of violating the do no harm rule. Like, it actually may be more dangerous than it is beneficial.
And I wanna ask you about that because the whole thing is reducing inflammation, and this drug helps one eat less and, therefore, potentially reduce inflammation. It was recently cited in a medical article saying it may reduce your risk for Alzheimer's because of its reduction in risk for inflammation for the people who take it.
Speaker 1: What I
Speaker 5: would say first and foremost is that when it comes to medical journal articles, you know, remember, these industry sponsored trials. So if it comes from the drug industry, just don't believe any of it. And that is my view. That's a new view of Catherine Deangelis, one of the earliest editors of JAMA. With Ozempic, though, the one of the issues with Ozempic is it basically stops you.
It controls you know, it reduces appetite massively. But the the issue with Ozempic, which is a great concern, is that, you know, when you lose weight, you wanna lose body fat. You don't lose muscle. And, you know, you basically end up losing 50% muscle, 50% body fat. There are all these other side effects that, again, are underreported in the trials that we're now seeing in the real world, including, you know, stomach paralysis, nausea, vomiting.
I think it probably has a role, Megan, in a very, very small minority of people who have tried everything and are morbidly obese and are really struggling, but I think 99% of people who are taking Ozempic shouldn't be on it. I think it's gonna do more more harm than good. I think it
Speaker 1: has to be for
Speaker 5: a lifestyle change.
Speaker 0: Here's doctor Robert Lustig in the piece talking about how it works, Sa 35.
Speaker 7: Yes. There is a 16% weight loss. What is that weight? Turns out it's equal amounts of fat and muscle. Using as much muscle as fat is not a good thing.
These two drugs, semaglutide and also the third one, Tirzepatide, lead to nausea, vomiting, pancreatitis, and now there's a warning label on Ozempic for gastroparesis, which means stomach not moving, stomach paralyzed. Stomach turns to stone. And guess what? It lasts way beyond the discontinuation of the drug. In fact, that's why the drugs work is because you can't eat, because it delays gastric emptying.
It delays your stomach from being able to, move the food along. You think that's a great way to lose weight? In fact, if you can't eat, that's starvation. Well, the fat in the muscle shows that's how it works.
Speaker 0: Stomach to stone. I have not heard about that side effect from these drugs. What's that?
Speaker 5: Well, it's just basically this means that the the the, stomach stops working. The peristalsis is usually what, you know, passes food through our body. Basically, it just becomes, you know, just stops essentially and then probably hardens up. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Why why are people dropping dead? I mean, that that seems like it would kill you quickly.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, yeah. I I think, well, most people get admitted to the hospital and probably get put in drips and everything else, and, you know, they wait till things start to improve. So, you know, it won't it won't necessarily kill you, but it's not it's not very good. It's not ideal.
Speaker 0: Not pleasant. Yeah. Okay. So back to the problem of the nondisclosure of information and of big pharma controlling the messaging around their drugs. I did not realize that sort of the birth of these so called scientific magazines involved big pharma, and that was kind of all part of the plan.
The way I understand it from do no farm, your film, is of all people, Ghislaine Maxwell's father was in on the ground floor of forging this unholy alliance, and we have a little clip from the movie Du No Farm about this. I'd love to watch it then have you explain what happened here, SOT 31.
Speaker 7: A sleek profitable commercial model underpinning the modern medical publishing industry was established by the controversial British business titan, Robert Maxwell. Maxwell recognized and exploited the appeal of scientific notoriety amongst researchers and scientists to win their approval for hundreds of new journal titles and their participation as unpaid peer reviewers. With research content willingly provided by drug companies, the Maxwell model marry a free of charge content and peer review process with a lucrative subscription model to generate unheard of profit margins for a publishing business. Maxwell sold his empire for more than half a $1,000,000,000 in 1991, but his fingerprints remain on one of the world's most profitable publishing opportunities.
Speaker 0: The the father of Jeffrey Epstein's longtime partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, it says the headline of the article underlying the quote was the the man who bought and sold science. Go ahead.
Speaker 5: Yeah. It's extraordinary. I think, you know, what this highlights again, Megan, and, you know, when we had a screening in London, the Alesser Square Odeon, there were a lot of doctors that came, and they were absolutely shocked with what they heard because Fiona Godley, the editor foreman of the BMJ, who's been a giant medical publishing, she basically says, you know, that medical journals are essentially businesses. Now, as a doctor that, you know, has been conventionally trained, you know, we were taught that if it's published in the medical journal, The Lancet or, you know, JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, Megan, that it was like gospel truth, gospel scientific truth. And and nothing could be further from the truth, partly because there's a lack of acknowledgment and realization that one medicine isn't an exact science and it's an applied science, which means it's constantly evolving, but it also means it can be manipulated.
And the other side of it is, of course, the medical journals, and again, most doctors don't know this, are reliant on funding from big pharma and often can get 1,000,000 of dollars for publishing one article, on a particular drug, and the way that works is the drug companies will, you know, you know, do a drug trial, publish it in a medical journal, and then it's not just about advertising. They pay the medical journal for reprints of the article that then gets used as, marketing material where they can take it to doctors or give it to them at conferences. And one of the most, I think, horrific examples of of how this happens or how this works in terms of that whole system was what happened with Vioxx. You know, John Abrahamson talks about this in the film from Harvard, and he this was a a blockbuster drug in the late nineties that was initially marketed under being better than Ibuprofen as an anti inflammatory drug because it gave less stomach side effects. The drug company was Merck.
The original trials were published in New England Medicine, and ultimately, it was found that Merck had withheld data showing even from the beginning that it increased the risk of cardiovascular events, heart attack, stroke, death by at least 2 to 4 fold, and ultimately probably killed at least 60,000 Americans. Merck would fined almost $1,000,000,000 in 2011. But when John Abramson, was involved in litigation process, what he found was that, you know, not only did Merck obviously know about this through internal emails, their chief scientist basically saying, it's unfortunate that these cardiovascular effects are there, but the drug will do well, and we will do well. But when the FDA wrote to Merck to say and they realized there was a problem, these heart attacks, for example, and said, you need to put a black box warning on the packaging of Vioxx. What did Merck do?
They doubled down on their marketing, and they gave they gave, you know, they they paid the New England Journal of Medicine, you know, the 100 of 1,000 of dollars more to get more of those reprints so they could market it to doctors. It's just absolutely shocking.
Speaker 0: It's terrifying.
Speaker 5: What what's the diagnosis here, though? You see, I'm a root cause analysis person. I don't want to say this to be inflammatory, Megan. It's actually accurate, you know. In the book, The Corporation, and the and the documentary from well over 20 years ago, there's a new one called The New Corporation, made by law professor Joel Bakan.
The preeminent expert in forensic psychology behind psychopathy, Robert Hare, actually diagnosed diagnoses the corporation as an entity, not individuals, but the entity, the corporation as being psychopathic in its pursuit for profit. So Callison concerned for the safety of others, incapacity to experience skill, repeat applying, calling others for profit. And that hasn't changed, and that hasn't been challenged or rebutted. So this is the big problem we have, is that we've created we almost as a society, in a way, we've allowed the creation of these big corporations to, almost through legal means, be psychopathic in the way they make money, and the rest of society suffers. So until we sort that out at the root, this problem is only gonna continue.
And what they also do in the way that they yeah.
Speaker 0: I was gonna say we we know that big pharma has infiltrated organizations like the FDA, which has a revolving door to big pharma. And therefore, the people who approve the drugs that we take and we give our children and get from our doctors are not they're they're compromised. They're they're trying to please the Pfizers of the world and the I'm trying to think of the the company that produced the OxyContin with the Sackler family. I always forget the name
Speaker 5: of the company. Purdue Pharma.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Purdue Pharma. Thank you. They're trying to please Purdue Pharma because that's how they get paid when they leave government service. But this is something in addition.
It's also these, you know, respected medical journals that are the ones that put out I mean, I I've received articles like that from my own doctor when I say, hey. What about this? Hey. Is this something I should worry about? And he'll send me an article from one of these places, and you're giving us a whole new way of looking at these with a big asterisk on these articles.
You do feature, as I mentioned, RFKJ in the film. Again, it's at no farm, spelled p harmfilm.com. No farm film dot com, where he is talking I believe this is when he was running for president as opposed to now tapped for, HHS secretary on what he thinks should happen to these medical journals. Here it is, 30 2.
Speaker 2: They are presenting themselves to medical professionals as a, as an arbiter of truth and as a neutral referee and a reliable referee of the truth. And those medical and they know that those medical professionals are relying on journal articles to treat patients, and that, that if they tell a lie, if they're committing fraud, that they can injure and kill people. So, you know, I believe they can be prosecuted, and not only can they be prosecuted for those injuries, but they can be prosecuted on the racketeering statutes for promoting fraud. So I will I'm gonna do that as soon as I get in
Speaker 0: there. Just as a process, question here, doc, I think one of the reasons I'm excited about our FKJ possibly coming in as our HHS chief is I think he's all over these issues. I think he's been living a life as a litigator in this sphere where he's been onto a lot of this stuff long before the rest of the medical and even legal community. Do you think I'm right?
Speaker 5: Yeah. A 100%, Meghan. I mean, I've known Robert Kennedy Junior for a few years. You know, we've we've spoken at events together. We've spoken a lot with each other.
I'm very, very impressed with him in terms of his deep knowledge of the issues, his integrity, his ability to communicate. He is very unique, and he's absolutely the right person, in my view, to be leading HHS to solve these problems out.
Speaker 0: So where what should somebody trust if they're gonna Google a drug that their doctor has recommended to them? I mean, can we trust the NIH website? Because you get a lot of papers over there, but, you know, Jay Bhattacharya is not running NIH yet. Like, what I know doctor Google is very dangerous. You know, just typing in, gee.
What is this like, what what can they trust?
Speaker 5: Yes. It's a really good question, Megan. Hard one to answer. That's why we need to transform the system, but I think at least what they should do is keep an open mind. And I think what's been really powerful in the last few years has been the growth of the alternative media so we can have these conversations.
People are realizing that there's a discrepancy between, you know, what they're being told, like safe and effective, you know, on on the COVID vaccines. For example, CNN, the BBC, Marty Macquarie said, you know, publicly that one of the biggest, you know, purveyors of misinformation during the pandemic was the US government, but really they in my view, they are just puppets of these big corporations. So I think, you know, people just have to just think outside of the box a little bit, look at alternative media, make up their own mind. But ideally, in the long term, Megan, we need to restore trust in these institutions because society can't function cohesively unless you have a strong government that's ethical and medical institutions that are ethical. And and, you know, there will be a little bit of disruption going on before we get to that stage, but, you know, we're in this mess with health care because we've allowed these corporate psychopathic entities to have so much power that they become tyrannical.
And, you know, and that level of tyranny is so strong is that the way they exert their powers, even, you know, people like RFK Jr or myself or others who have been speaking out, you know, they will dedicate resources and even use the media to smear us because that's how they, you know, keep their, keep spreading their misinformation to people. So it's gonna take time. I mean, one of the I tell you, just, you know, if there's one website people can go to, which is an independently, you know, an independent of of commercial influence website done by very rigorous scientists who wanted, you know, people to be fully informed about drugs. It's called the nnt.com. So the nnt yes.
Numbers needed to treat nnt.com. And actually, there's a really good website, and a lot of their, whatever's published on the
Speaker 1: website, actually, is published in
Speaker 5: one of the, American published on the website actually is published in one of the, American family physician journals. And what they do is they break down the data, for example, statins. They will say, if you've had a heart attack, your benefit is, say, 1 in 40 over 5 years in preventing another heart attack, etcetera. And they give a traffic light system about whether, overall, the drug is beneficial or, overall, the drug is harmful. It talks about things like heart stents, which again are massively overused in the United States and other parts of the world.
That's what I train in doing. So, that's quite a useful resource for people, for sure. They're not sure about the drug they're taking, and it it goes through many, many medications as well. I'm looking at all the evidence combined.
Speaker 0: We've got the one, and we've got no farm film dot com. We're not done discussing what's in this gem, which you really should watch, but we're gonna take a quick break and more with doctor Hassim right after this. Can we talk about the COVID vaccine? Because I know that you believe your father may have died prematurely as a result of one of the boosters. You've been very outspoken about the vaccines.
I know you got blowback when you suggested that these vaccines by Pfizer, Moderna were a likely contributory factor. In all, unexpected cardiac arrests, heart attacks, strokes, cardiac arrhythmias, and heart failures since 2021, which a lot of us believe. But every time we try to say there's a lot of seems to be a lot of increased in cardiac deaths, we're told we're idiots, and that it's just all the same numbers, and it definitely had absolutely nothing to do with the vax.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Megan. So, you know, I've thought about this in a lot of depth because, you know, I'm somebody that's been a very outspoken advocate, of evidence based medicine. I mean, I've published extensively. I've worked in advisory government roles, over the years, and everything I usually, you know, advocate for comes through medical journal articles that I published that have been peer reviewed. Usually nothing to do with the drug industry in terms of those those articles.
They're usually analysis independent analysis. And just to give people you know, people can get confused here, but essentially, when you look at the evidence right now in terms of the COVID vaccine, specifically, I, you know, emphasize and look to mRNA vaccines, so Pfizer, Moderna. People know that a serious harm is there. The question is how frequent is it? And the data comes from what we call randomized controlled trial, reanalysis of Pfizer and Moderna's trials, pharmacovigilance data that people are reporting in the yellow card system, autopsy data we know now, certainly more than 70% of people that died within a couple weeks of having the vaccine, almost certainly caused by the serious adverse event rate on the best evidence we have, and this has not been rebutted, to be honest, in any, you know, serious platform, Megan, comes from reanalysis of Pfizer Moderna's trials by independent scientists.
Joseph Raymond, who's a lead scientist, who works very closely with Jay Bhattacharya, by the way. You've got Peter Doshi, associate editor of the BMJ. And what they found was that the serious adverse event rate was at least 1 in 800 at 2 months. That means disability, life changing rate, hospitalization. And from the original trials that got approved around the world, Megan, you're more likely to suffer serious harm from the vaccine than you were to be hospitalized with COVID, which suggests from the beginning, it was gonna do more harm than good.
But actually, where we are now, and this is I think the UK government's probably the only government in the world that's published this, been transparent in publishing this information. And I think they're publishing it, although it's not being well publicized, but I'm gonna publicize it for you now, because there are a lot of good scientists and good people out there whose conscience, you know, would not be clear unless they got that information out in some way, shape, or form. If you're in the highest risk group, in 2024 of of COVID, which is basically people over 90, Megan, you have to vaccinate 7,000 people over 90 to prevent 1 of them being hospitalized with severe COVID versus a serious adverse event rate, harm rate of at least 1 in 100 because it's only at 2 months that they found that figure, and we know that there are long term effects. So that suggested that right now, it's at least 8 times more harmful to have the COVID vaccine in the highest risk group than to have benefit. I mean, this is absolutely extraordinary.
So the question is, why is that not getting fully acknowledged? I honestly genuinely believe most people are well intentioned. Of course, we talk about all these commercial determinants of health that began for a long time have captured institutions. But the main barrier to the truth, Megan, and I see very a lot of very bright scientists out there, people who have a track record of doing things for the genuine good, who are completely have a blind spot on this issue, it's psychological. And the 2 psychological barriers I've written about are ones of fear and willful blindness.
So fear essentially, which happened, you know, from the early on in the pandemic, we had this exaggerated risk of COVID, but also there's probably fear of maybe stepping outside the echo chamber that they're in as well. Fear inhibits your ability to engage in critical thinking. But I think the more important psychological barrier that a lot of people can relate to is something called willful blindness. And that's when human beings and we can do we're all vulnerable to this all the time in some ways. Right?
It's when human beings turn a blind eye to the truth in order to feel safe, avoid conflict, reduce anxiety, or to protect prestige and fragile egos. Now in in personal lives, this can happen, for example, when a spouse turns a blind eye to the affair of their partner. But institutional examples of willful blindness historically, Meghan, that you will you will know about are situations like, for example, you know, Hollywood and Hart and Weinstein or the Catholic church in child molestation. These are examples of institutional willful blindness. I think we're seeing exactly the same thing here because it's faced between the choice of of accepting an uncomfortable truth.
Most people will, you know, choose to bury their heads in the sand, but the reality is we have to face it head on because it's not going away. And it's not that everyone's been vaccinated now and it's done. Unfortunately, there is good evidence emerging suggesting that, and I've seen this as well, that, it can certainly accelerate heart disease, which means many people who had the vaccine even 2 or 3 years ago are suddenly gonna prematurely have heart attacks or sudden cardiac death, and we're still seeing that. We've got one of the world's top oncologists you know, in this area who's also been involved in vaccine development called, professor Angus Salaaglitsch in in London, and we've got Robert Clancy, one of the world's eminent immunologists, 83 years old now. Emer em Emeritus professor of immunology, top immunologist of Australia, used to work, by the way, many years ago with with Anthony Fauci.
They're both massively concerned with this COVID mRNA vaccine increasing cancer through several mechanisms of immunosuppression. So it's unfortunately not
Speaker 1: something that's
Speaker 5: going on.
Speaker 0: We're we're up against a time constraint here, but I think that does lead me to ask, is there anything those of us who have been vax vaccinated by the Pfizer or Moderna thing can do?
Speaker 5: Listen. I'm in the same boat. Again, I've had 2 doses. I've had some issues as well. The first and foremost, the best thing people could do here during this is absolutely optimize their metabolic health.
So really optimize your lifestyle as much as you can because this is a chronic inflammatory problem with the vaccine. And if you can you can probably mitigate it to a large degree through that process, and really everything you can do to make sure your immune system's enhanced, whether that's taking high doses of vitamin c, you know, concentrating on your stress levels into eating real food. All these things are really important, but, again, we need an acknowledgment by the establishment. And to be honest, I'm hopeful, Megan, because I think the new administration that comes in are gonna want to tackle this head on. So we're not that far off that.
Speaker 0: Okay. Alright. Well, I mean yeah. Well, a million millions of us are in it together. Good to know.
Again, do no farm film dot com. No farm film dot com. Very interesting stuff, doctor Arceem. I understand. I have it on good authority that you are under serious consideration to also join the Trump administration in some important role, and I'm rooting for you.
I hope it happens. Please come back if and when that happens. Would you?
Speaker 5: I'd I'd be delighted, Megan. Hopefully, next time actually in studio as well, so I can actually meet you properly.
Speaker 0: That would be delightful. Thank you to all to you for all of your good work. Really appreciate it. Wow. And thanks to all of you for joining us today.
We're back tomorrow with a bonus episode episode on the bombshell news about the Duke lacrosse case and favorite Christmas movies. There's a combo for you. See you then.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
ABC News Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with @emilyjashinsky and @elianayjohnson WATCH: https://t.co/zflzClJ33n
Video Transcript AI Summary
Megyn Kelly discusses her ongoing Christmas shopping struggles and transitions to the recent defamation lawsuit settlement between Donald Trump and ABC News. She highlights George Stephanopoulos's repeated false claims about Trump being found liable for rape, which led to the network settling for $15 million. Kelly criticizes Stephanopoulos for his interview tactics and lack of journalistic integrity. She also touches on the media's reaction to the settlement and the implications for future defamation cases. The conversation shifts to a CNN report by Clarissa Ward, which has come under scrutiny for potentially misleading information regarding a Syrian prisoner. Kelly concludes by expressing skepticism about the government's transparency regarding unidentified drones spotted across the U.S. and the implications of their silence on national security.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show, and happy Monday. Have you gotten all your Christmas shopping done yet? I I have not, and it is a stressor.
It is I had, like as your kids get older, you don't even really know what to buy. It was so much easier when they were younger. Anyway, God bless everyone, and I hope it's going better for you than it is for me. If you have great ideas for a 15, 13, and 11 year old, I would love to hear them. You can email me megan@megankelly.com.
And, before the week is through, I'll offer you some of the ideas I have come up with. Maybe we can share and contrast. In any event, today, we start with this delicious news. I mean, you never see you never see these media organizations held to account for their vile lies they tell about Donald Trump. I mean, it's rare to see it happen at all.
And trust me, as a media figure, I'm not clamoring to see media figures get sued for defamation for, you know, mild sins or even moderate sins. But this was just so egregious, And they did it over and over and over again at ABC News. They didn't care. They clearly enjoyed saying what George Stephanopoulos said. It made them feel good about themselves.
This is George Stephanopoulos's, I'll just leave the dirty teen joke there. That that's that's how he feels about saying nasty things about Trump. And finally, it came back to bite him. I would love to see what's in his text messages to his producers because I guarantee it just cost ABC News $15,000,000. That's almost certainly what happened.
So you may have heard this over the weekend. Trump sued ABC News, and ABC News caved. They collapsed. They gave in like that and quickly settled the case with president-elect Donald Trump after the network's top star, George Stephanopoulos, had been ruled by the judge to be required to sit for a deposition. He fought it.
He didn't wanna have to do it. And the judge late last week said, well, you have to. You said a bunch of dumb shit. You've been sued for defamation. I've refused to get rid of this case thus far, and you must sit like any other defendant, you privileged whatever.
You must sit for a deposition and answer questions from Trump's lawyer. Trump, earlier in the case, had said, I'll sit for deposition, but not right now because I'm, like, running for president, so I'm kinda busy. And the judge gave him a delay, but the judge also looked at Trump and said, you must sit too. You you got a little time on your hands. I'm I'm aware of your job.
So Trump was gonna have to sit too. But Trump, we know, is willing. Trump sat when he was getting sued by E Jean Carroll. Remember, that's that famous exchange with her lawyer. He's like, you, for example, would never be my type.
When he she said, did you say you can grab women by the, you know what, and they'll let you do it and you're in a star? And he said, well, for 1000 of years, that's been true. Unfortunately or fortunately, that was Trump sitting for a deposition in a civil lawsuit that was against him. So he will do it, but George Stephanopoulos would not. He got the order that he would have to testify under oath, and they caved.
They collapsed. They gave in and cried uncle. It's sad because I would have loved to have read that deposition transcript. You guys are probably familiar with the absolutely disgusting interview that led to all of this with George Stephanopoulos. We did a big episode on this because he had on congresswoman Nancy Mace back in the spring.
And remember he was disgusted that this rape victim could back someone who he kept claiming had been found liable for rape, that was the defamatory statement, over and over and over. And we pointed out that that was false, and I believe we even suggested that Trump should sue him, that that he he that that was completely inaccurate, wrong, and it was liable. And we focus on the fact that he thought it would be super fun and really, like, make him look good to go after a rape survivor, Nancy Mace, and really twist her her facts and her words in her face. Like, if you were raped, how could you support a rapist? You claim you're a rape victim.
How could a rape victim support a great. Great positioning. You're idiots. Stephanopoulos is an idiot, and so are his producers. Because let me tell you, in all my years at Fox, never mind my shorts did in NBC, the producers have a couple of main jobs.
1 is to arm the anchor with facts. Fail. Okay. Fail. Fair.
And 2 is to protect the anchor. You protect the anchor. And so if the anchor is out there saying something colossally stupid, usually, if you have a great producer, they'll get in your ear to say, no. It's this. No.
It's that. Be careful. That that happens with me all the time on this show. My producers, the ones who run heard on various segments that I'm doing, if I they they realize I've said something inaccurate or that I'm searching for a fact are constantly in my ears. That's why I wear these headphones to say, it's this or, it's that.
This whole thing that you're watching and listening to is a team effort. And 10 times that, a 100 times that on ABC broadcast news and a Sunday show like the one George Stephanopoulos sits for. Partisan hack. He's been there a long time. It doesn't make him any more respectable.
He's a partisan hack. He started off as a partisan hack, and he remains one. He's just too ballast to own his partisan nature. Wants us to believe that he's straight and narrow now, notwithstanding all those years helping Bill Clinton. And and the irony of him going after a rape supporter in that way, how could you support a rape supporter?
My god. The nerve to support a rape support a a rape committer. After his years running the war room, tearing down Bill Clinton's sexual assault accusers, I mean, it's just rich. So now the whole thing has cost him his reputation and his company $15,000,000. Okay.
We're gonna get into all of this. There's more, on the on the media front, not only with him, but also here. Do you remember the story we brought to you on Friday with Hugh Hewitt in which we questioned CNN's Clarissa Ward's report about allegedly stumbling into this dramatic rescue of a Syrian war prisoner. He's there under the blanket, and there's no bucket for waste that we can see. And he's as clean as I am sitting on this set even though he says he's been behind bars for 3 months and 5 for 4 days without food or water, and he's not blinded when he sees the sun and he like, all sorts of weird things.
Well, there's an update. Joining me now today for the full show, the EJ's, Emily Jasinski, DC correspondent for Unheard and host of Undercurrents, and Alyanna Johnson, editor in chief of the Washington Free Beacon and cohost of the podcast Ink Stained Wretches. Don't miss a moment. Subscribe to this show on YouTube and follow me on Insta, Facebook, and x. For those of us who have been holding our breath for the past several months, we can finally exhale in the wake of this presidential election.
Right? Work can finally be done on the major issues that this country's facing, and one of the most significant is our national debt. Look. The fact is our nation's broke, and that debt is a house of cards that cannot be quickly dismantled by anyone. So the strategy remains the same when it comes to your investments.
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Ladies, welcome back. Are you enjoying the emergency meltdown and collapse as much as the surrender in this case as much as I am? I I'll start with you, Emily.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm also enjoying really ABC's peers, in media freaking out because of the ABC settlement. I mean, that's been, I think, equally as delicious as watching so many people not criticize ABC for quote unquote caving. And, you know, what was a pretty serious case? I mean, that it's just in the last 24 hours that so many different people in media are now accusing ABC basically of enabling Trump when they were staring down the barrel of a very, very problematic deposition, being in litigation with an incoming president and all of that would entail for their for the incoming administration, their coverage of the incoming administration. I mean, like you said, I'm not cheering on, like, lowering the threshold for defamation for journalists.
And I don't necessarily think this lowers the threshold. I think it really was a very, very serious case. So all kinds of, to be enjoyed this morning.
Speaker 0: You know, the the thing that got them in trouble, Alyanna, was he went out there repeatedly said that a jury had found him liable for rape, which is not what happened. A jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse, and they said no on the rape charge. Then the judge wrote up his, like, interpretation of what happened. Obviously, this judge was not a Trump fan. And the judge, Lewis Kaplan, wrote as follows after the fact when Trump was seeking a new trial.
The judge wrote, the finding that miss Carol failed to prove that she was raped within the meaning of New York penal law does not mean that she failed to prove that mister Trump raped her as many people commonly understand the word rape. Okay. Nobody even understands what that means other than this judge wanted someone to see the word the word rape and Trump's name in a headline. But the the fact remains, the jury's verdict is the jury's verdict, and no judge can change it with words after the fact or their post verdict interpretation. The judge can throw it out.
The judge can lower the charge potentially by throwing a charge out, but he he can't increase the charge from sexual abuse to rape. It's not a possibility. Neither this judge nor any other. And the bottom line is Trump was not found liable for rape by this jury. And despite that fact, George Stephanopoulos went out on the air in that interview and sounded like this, sought to.
Speaker 2: Anna, you've endorsed Donald Trump for president. Judges and 2 separate juries have found him liable for rape. Donald Trump has been found liable for rape by a jury. I'm asking you a question about why you endorse someone who's been found liable for rape. Someone who's been found liable for rape.
You have to answer the question. Why are you supporting someone who's been found liable for rape? They are afraid to come forward, as you said, because they are defamed by those who commit the rape. You don't find it offensive that Donald Trump has been found liable for rape. Well, actually, what you're doing is defending a man who's been found liable for rape.
I don't understand how you can do that. The judge affirmed that it was in fact rape. Donald Trump was found to have committed rape. That's just a fact. That
Speaker 0: And that's why he's now having to pay $15,000,000 or his news organization is, Alyona. So what do you make of it?
Speaker 3: This is, astonishing for a number of reasons. A couple of which we haven't touched on yet. But I really, can't recall a case in which a major national news organization had to pay a sum like this to, a celebrity or politician in the US, and that's particularly because the protections for news organizations are so high. So you can't be sued just for saying something untrue. Can't be sued for, for liable defamation for saying something untrue, Trump would have had to show that George Stephanopoulos did so with actual malice.
That's the standard, and it's a very high standard. But this this case never went that far. And I think that's the question, is ABC actually might have had a strong case, because because this it is so hard to win these lawsuits. And the question is, why did they settle? Why did they settle and why did they settle now?
Was it that they didn't want to be involved in litigation with the sitting president of the United States, or was it that they knew very embarrassing and unflattering things would come out in the discovery process or that Stephanopoulos would be forced to make embarrassing admissions in a deposition? We don't know. But to me, there are, there are some serious unanswered questions about why the settlement was made and around the timing of it, that lead to speculation around those things. I have to assume that it was one of those things and that paying $15,000,000 now was less painful for them than going through, a humiliate potentially humiliating or embarrassing discovery process.
Speaker 0: But, you know, what what they also skipped was the motion for summary judgment phase because that's filed after you get depositions from each side. What normally would happen is they take Stephanopoulos's deposition. They take Trump's deposition and whoever else is that they wanted. And then you get all your deposition transcripts ready, and you file, as the defendant, a motion for summary judgment, meaning give me a win here, judge, and dismiss this defamation claim against ABC without a trial. Because here, you can see right here that everyone admits the judge said this.
But the problem is that they didn't do that. So they they wanted to get out of this before they even had that that serious shot at getting it dismissed altogether by the judge. They which tells me they didn't want him sitting for deposition. That's why they paid the 15,000,000. That plus they were probably, yes, a bit on bended knee because they're afraid of Trump, not so much in his capacity as a plaintiff, but in his capacity as the president-elect.
And they need him. ABC News needs to have a relationship with him, and this is no way to do it. Just to continue to lie about him, to maintain that your lies were justified, you were allowed to tell them, notwithstanding the fact that it is indisputable he was not found liable by a jury for rape, as Stephanopoulos said over and over, Emily.
Speaker 1: He said yeah. You wrote the clip of him saying, that's just a fact. And it's sort of the problem with people like George Stephanopoulos and and crystallized in one perfect example. That's just a fact about something that's absolutely not a fact. In fact, it was found the opposite.
Like, literally, the jury answered no. And it's also interesting. I mean, we haven't even touched on the rank misogyny in that interview, which is just maddening to watch. He's telling Nancy Mace exactly how she should feel about this as a woman, as somebody who's survived sexual abuse. But he also Trump was, I believe, in this judgment, found liable of something much lower than rape, which was sexual abuse, which George Stephanopoulos could have used that.
There's something very particular about wanting to accuse Trump of being held liable of rape that they knew better. I mean, they wanted to use this Aaron Blake Washington post story they put up on the screen if people were watching this and saw the ABC clip, they use this Aaron Blake Washington Post story about what Judge Kaplan, who was trying to like hedge and and show there was wiggle room on, you know, how people understand rape being different than the legal standard of rape. It's just ridiculous for a judge to be involved in. But they wanted that Washington Post story to give them license to say that it's just a fact. When the jury said something completely different.
And it didn't I mean, it it doesn't hold it does not hold any weight or credibility. It's just a ridiculous claim. So it would
Speaker 0: be worth noting, Emily. Clearly. If if George Stephanopoulos had said the judge found that that the finding miss Carol failed to prove that she was raped within the meaning of the New York penal law does not mean she failed to prove that mister Trump raped her. If they wanna say that, which I I grant you is far less catchy, they would have been fine. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean,
Speaker 0: that that's the problem. They they were trying to take this judge, trying to throw E. G. Carroll a bone, but the judge knew that the judge could not declare Trump a rapist. So it's just kind of like, well, defining that she didn't fit that she didn't prove she was raped doesn't mean she failed to prove he raped her as many people commonly understand the word rape.
Like, all this is so fucked up that the judge was doing this at all. Like, what are you talking about, the common understanding of the word rape? There is a statutory definition of the word rape. It was provided to the jury, and they checked no when they were asked to decide whether Trump had done that. They check.
Like, this is an egregious statement by the judge anyway. But let me tell you, as somebody who does this all the time, talks about legal rulings and things that are dicey about people, we bend over backwards bend over backwards to make sure we track the exact language because if you don't, that's how you get in trouble. We're not perfect either. But if we screw it up, we'll come back on and correct it. We'll come back the next day and say, okay.
Here's what we meant to say. They never did that. I I don't know whether Stephanopoulos had 10 producers in his ear saying over and over, not rape. Not rape. I think they didn't say that.
I think they did not do him a solid because they popped up that article that you just pointed out from The Washington Post as, like, his proof. You see? And so the segment was long. It was, like, 15 minutes long. That that thing pops up, and he's like, there.
I have it right there because The Washington Post wrote wrote this. And I guarantee you that's his team trying to help him out. Like, yeah. Yeah. It's rape.
It's rape. And what you really needed was a damn lawyer to say or or someone who knows how to read a legal opinion to say, that doesn't excuse his statements over and over that a jury found him liable for rape. It's not true. But the thing is, Alyanna, they were I guarantee the whole crew was so gleeful about attaching this word to the vile Trump. They couldn't help themselves.
Speaker 3: I'm actually not sure if in their own mind, they even distinguished between sexual assault and rape, and that they themselves may be so convinced that Trump is guilty, that they elided the two things. You know, we just don't know what happened behind the scenes, but it's perfectly plausible to me that they dislike their visceral dislike of Trump goes so far that, that they weren't all that familiar with the the distinctions that the jury made, frankly.
Speaker 0: You have to prove when you're suing when you are a public figure claiming that you have been defamed as Trump was claiming. And by the way, the to the point you raised initially, when that happens, as a public figure, people have the highest ability to say bad things about you. The the the first amendment protects speech, and it really protects speech about public figures, and it really protects speech about political public figures or political acts taken by public figures. It's a political person in the public sphere that has the most protection you can get under the law. So that's why the media generally gets away with saying false things about politicians as long as it as long as it doesn't reach this extremely high standard.
And that high standard is it has to be malice. And what is mal said with malice, and what does that mean? It means with knowledge that it's false, like I'm knowingly lying about you. I know you weren't found liable for rape, and I'm saying it anyway. Or the more frequent standard is the reckless disregard for its falsity.
So you don't care. So this is a scenario where this is what got Fox in trouble with Dominion, where Dominion's sending in letter after letter saying, this isn't true. There's no evidence for it being true. Here's this that proves it's not true, and that that proves it's not true. And all you have on the other side in saying it's true is, like, the the unsupported declarations of Sydney Powell.
That's how you get to reckless disregard of whether, in fact, it's true. So it has to be, like, really it can't just be, like, I didn't do my homework. That's negligent. That's not reckless. Okay?
So the standard is very high, and this is why I think that there were texts, and there would be instant messaging between George and the team. The all of that. We that's all what the anchors used, and I used it many times too at Fox and at NBC, where you're corresponding with your Stephanopoulos guaranteed was corresponding with his producers during that whole segment. And I guarantee you that those communications don't reflect well on anybody on anyone involved. And it could possibly be the team maybe saying it's sexual abuse.
Right. It's sexual abuse. And George refusing to acknowledge that, and then perhaps the team finally just realized they weren't gonna bend him and threw up that Washington Post article. But whatever it is, it didn't look good for him, Alyanna. I think we can agree on that.
Speaker 3: Right. It's a really bad look, and I would add to this. It sets a a scary precedent for 2 other libel suits that are underway, one against CNN and one against NBC, that are far stronger cases and have progressed much further than ABC News. Let this one progress. The one against CNN is about an incident that occurred on Jake Tapper's show where a a former military veteran who was or a military veteran who was working to extract, Afghans out of Afghanistan during the collapse of the government there, CNN insinuated that he was engaged in, fraud.
And at MSNBC, where they called a doctor working in immigrant detention facilities a uterus collector, arguing that he was performing hysterectomies, unnecessarily. And those suits, you know, Jake Tapper's deposition was taken, and dirt came out in that. So, this has to be sending a chill, not just through ABC, but, like, CNN and MSNBC cannot be feeling good today.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: You mentioned, Emily, that, I think you you were the one I can't I forget whether it was you or Alianna. I think it was you talking about the disgusting nature of the interview to begin with. Right? There was not a good look for George Stephanopoulos from the start, as I mentioned in my intro, going after a a rape survivor. She was only 16 when she was raped, Nancy Mace.
And obviously, any any thoughtful person would say, that is not the soft spot I want to exploit for purposes of looking tough on my show. I mean, think of the level of douchebaggery in order to think that'll be a fun way, one to really hit her with over and over. And then even in the line of the clip we showed, you have to answer. Fuck off. I am here as a as a courtesy to you.
I don't have to do anything. You don't like my answers? Don't invite me back. I don't have to do what you tell me. All of it is so he's such a bully, and all the statements and the approach are evidence of what a an arrogant prick bully he is, how he treated her, how he spoke about Trump, how he came after her with his demands to do it the way he insisted.
And here is a little bit just to remind the audience of that dynamic as he aggressively went after Nancy Mace and sought one.
Speaker 2: How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony we just saw?
Speaker 1: It's a shame that you will never feel, George.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to shame
Speaker 5: you, Lauren.
Speaker 2: I'm just asking you.
Speaker 6: Find it offensive, and this is why women won't come forward.
Speaker 2: Women won't come forward because they're defamed by those who perpetrate rape. Today. I'm asking you a very simple question.
Speaker 6: And I answered it.
Speaker 1: You're shaming me for my political choices.
Speaker 2: I'm asking you a question about why you endorse someone who's been found liable for rape.
Speaker 6: It was not a question.
Speaker 2: I'm questioning your political choices because you're supporting someone who's been found liable for rape. You're not answering the question.
Speaker 1: I think it's disgusting.
Speaker 2: Well, you're welcome to say that, but you also have to answer the question. What you're doing is defending a man who's been found liable for rape.
Speaker 0: Okay. By the way, let's just show them the jury form. Okay? Oh, you heard it over and over. Been found liable for rape, who a jury found liable for rape.
Here's the jury verdict form. Oh, I can't read that. But I remember that it says, did he commit, rape? And you can see we highlighted it here. It says, no.
And then they say, did he commit sexual assault? And it says yes. But look at that. I mean, it's clear as day. This is what the jury found, and Stephanopoulos would not adhere to it.
Emily, so, yeah, this speaks to the dynamic of the overall exchange.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah. I mean, so he is you can tell like a dog with a bone. He will not let this question go. It's one thing to just ask Nancy Mace the question, although it's, to your point, Megan, laughable that George Stephanopoulos, who very famously defended Bill Clinton in some very scummy ways, for many, many years, thought that he was the guy who should put this question to Nancy Mace. That him as a man, he should be, rhetorically, beating down on Nancy Mace over and over and over again with the moral credibility of a journalist to just make sure that she is her has her feet held to the fire on this question.
I mean, that is laughable. Nancy Mace did a really good job of saying that you're shaming me. She performed fantastically in that. And just to the point about the jury sheet right there, it's so important because he is saying this is a fact. And as we were talking about, maybe there's this, like, left wing feminist opinion that the judge is getting to in that, like, op ed that the judge wrote so inappropriately that says we can broaden the definition of rape to include all of these different things.
That is actually something feminists have tried to do, despicably, for a very long time. So you can maybe make that argument, but you can't say that it's a fact. And so while he is trying to push Nancy Mace further and further, like a dog with a bone on this really disgusting line of questioning, truly shaming her as she said rightfully. He also he doesn't have the moral credibility nor does he have the journalistic credibility. It is a total farce.
It is the problems with journalism in one perfect segment.
Speaker 0: Exactly right. And then so that happened in March of 2024, that segment. And and by the way, just just in case people have forgotten, Bill Clinton was accused multiple times by multiple women of sexual abuse, assault, and rape. And who defended him? George Stephanopoulos at every turn.
Speaker 5: And with much more
Speaker 1: credibility than E. Jean Carroll.
Speaker 0: Far more. George Stephanopoulos created a whole war room to defend Bill Clinton. Again, so for him to sit there and look at Nancy Mace and say, how could you support a rape support a a a rape, defendant a rapist, someone found liable for rape? How could you support somebody like that? The the only thing missing from Nancy Mace's great response was, how could you, George Stephanopoulos?
You ran a whole war room trying to tear down those don't lecture me on what's gonna stop rape victims from coming forward. But what's gonna stop them is people like you and your buddies for Bill Clinton who insulted them, called them trailer trash, and unleashed the greatest legal teams in the in the country against these poor women who had absolutely no means to fight for their dignity and to protect themselves and from other women against your predator boss. Okay? So just stop. Anyway, George Stephanopoulos was not called out that way.
He's been called out by people like us, but this is the first time he's really had to own up for his terrible behavior in one of the many ways it was terrible. 2 months after he was with Mace in March of 2024, he goes on Colbert, which is on Arrival Network, CBS. And look at this.
Speaker 7: Now you're being sued for defamation. Why?
Speaker 2: Because of an interview like that. I I, was interviewing a congresswoman named Nancy Mace, who used to be highly critical.
Speaker 7: My hometown, Charleston, South Carolina.
Speaker 2: Of of Donald Trump. And, she famously started her political career in a state house, when she was in the statehouse, talking about being a victim of rape. And so I asked her how she could be, as a victim of rape, how could she support someone who a jury has found liable for rape? Trump sued me because I used the word rape, even though a judge said that's, in fact, what did happen. And, in fact, we filed the motion to dismiss last week.
But she she's now fallen on and she she tried to say that I was the problem for asking the question rather than he being the problem because a jury found him liable for defamation and sexual abuse.
Speaker 0: Okay. So what's so galling about that, Alyanna, is, as you well know, when you're involved in litigation you know, like, if I get get involved in litigation, I would never make a comment out about it about it publicly because it's stupid. It's a stupido. You don't do it because it can come back to haunt you. And it was absolutely foolish for him to go but you know why he did?
He knows that. For sure, the ABC lawyers told him that he had swagger around this. He was like, I know I'm only 4 foot 2, but I'm gonna take down the president. F you, big man. I'm George Stephanopoulos.
He's got the Napoleon complex, and he felt the need to try to act like a tough guy.
Speaker 3: Well, that's where the malice comes in, where not only have you been apprised that you made a factual error that impugned somebody's character, by saying a falsehood about them on national television, you then go and repeat it and dig your heels in once again on national television. And so that, I think, is actually pretty good grounds, for showing malice where you say, not only did I do it the first time, but I was right. I was right. No problem. Because the pretty easy way to get out of these things is to do what ABC News has now done, where you put a correction up and say, we regret the error.
But that is not that is not the attitude that George Stephanopoulos took in the Stephen Colbert interview after the litigation had been filed.
Speaker 0: They could have avoided this whole thing if the very next week on his show, he went out and said, I would like to apologize to president Trump.
Speaker 6: Totally.
Speaker 0: He stated the following things. Those things were not true. This is what I should have said. That's it. That shows a potential jury or judge you didn't have actual malice in your heart.
You did your best to correct the record. It doesn't necessarily totally exonerate you, but as a practical matter, it does. And instead, you had him out there, again, little Napoleon, trying to show how tough he was because, you know, he obviously had something to prove. Oh, and by the way, so he he made their comments in March. In May, he goes on Colbert.
In July, ABC News' motion to dismiss this case was denied. Denied. They tried to get it dismissed on the papers, and the judge said no. They have stated a claim. This can be seen through to discovery.
So it's July. Hello, folks. We're knocking on the door of Christmas and Hanukkah right now. So we're in December. So if once they lost the motion to dismiss, they easily could have settled it then.
You know, we know what comes next. Discovery, we gotta turn over our texts, our documents. We are definitely gonna have to give George over. They knew that. Producers on the show are gonna have to give it over for deposition.
Then we're gonna have motion practice and possibly a trial. So they didn't even let it get they they let it go through. I assume they had, discovery where papers were exchanged. They they would have had to in order to have George's deposition ordered. You can't take somebody's deposition without having seen any of the papers or the texts or anything behind it.
And, that that I assume that happened. And now he was about to have to sit. I I really think it's something about George sitting was what made them fold. Because it's not unprecedented for talent to have to sit. You know, we saw it at Fox News that the Murdochs sat.
At at the in the Fox News Dominion case, Rupert Murdoch sat. Not all the talent sat, but talent have sat in these losses. Jake Tapper, you point out he sat, but George Stephanopoulos would not sit. And there's a reason for that, my friend. Meantime, Emily, here is a a taste of the media meltdown around this as they're getting the vapors over any sort of white flag being waved at Donald Trump SOT 24.
Speaker 4: But it seems to me that there's a lot of this bending the knee going on.
Speaker 2: And, I
Speaker 4: mean, to me, it seems this is a time, for our industry to stand firm because Trump is not gonna change his ways when he gets back in the Oval Office. He's gonna continue to say things that need to be fact checked. And you can't have the news industry worrying about this sort of stuff when they're just simply doing their jobs.
Speaker 2: Well, if some bend the knee, others have to stand up straighter. You know, the former Time Magazine editor, Richard Stengel, said this morning, Trump has sued dozens of publications and media outlets in the past trying to, quote, intimidate the press into self censorship, not to actually win any particular case. He did win in this case with a big payment. But that broader concern about self censorship is one that I know many viewers and readers are worried about. And ultimately, Jim, as you know, we work for them.
We work for the viewers.
Speaker 0: Okay. First of all, if George Sathanopoulos bent the knee, we'd be looking at a Lilly Fusion. I'm like, where did George go? Where's what happened to you have to stand him straighter, Even straighter. Get straighter.
We have to go super tall. Emily, now that CBC News is game, the rest of us have to be even mightier to stand up against the giant. No acknowledgment. They did the wrong thing. Why don't they just get a lawyer before they have these discussions to advise them?
Speaker 1: Well, here's what's infuriating. It's like these are the defenders of capital t truth. Right? I mean, first of all, did Jim Acosta not realize that his network settled with Nicholas Sandman and then another very, very serious defamation case. So I guess they bet the knee in that one.
So maybe a small credibility is also in question. But secondly, these are the guardians of capital T truths. CNN ran those famous ads during the Trump administration about how they'll tell you something is an apple or a banana. When Trump is telling you it's an apple, they'll tell you, no, it's actually a banana. Like, they are so sanctimonious, and yet they are the ones in this case who are defending George Stephanopoulos for doing actually a really shitty thing, which is telling people that they are hearing a fact when what they are hearing is an opinion.
And that is just about, as far as I'm concerned, one of the very worst things that an anger, a host, somebody who is telling you I'm coming straight down the middle. I think that's one of the worst things you can do because that is exactly why your audience comes to you. They wanna trust you. They wanna trust that if you're telling some them something is a fact, that it actually is a fact. And it's not just your editorializing.
But that was pure editorialization on Stephanopoulos' behalf with an assist from the judge and the Washington Post. But it was opinion nonetheless. And that is, I think, one of the biggest sins in journalism is to tell people that you're just playing it straight. And when when you're actually opining. And so actually, what his peers should be doing is saying, you screwed the rest of us here in a really big way, and we are going to do better because of it.
To the extent they talk about this being, quote, unquote, chilling. I hope that it does have a chilling effect. I'm saying that even as a journalist, against some of this really, really bad behavior that is misleading people who are desperate for facts. So if you're telling people you're delivering facts, just do it. And and to the extent you're not, I do hope it chills that.
Speaker 0: The we have the ad here. Remember this? That was a great one.
Speaker 8: This is an apple. Some people might try to tell you that it's a banana. They might scream banana, banana, banana over and over and over again. They might put BANANA in all caps. You might even start to believe that this is a banana, but it's not.
This is an apple.
Speaker 0: Oh my god. Facts first, it reads. CNN.
Speaker 1: It's a Zucker classic.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Personally, done at his request, reportedly. So, yeah, I guess that's not how the jury saw it. They they saw they saw an apple, and it was George Stephanopoulos who saw a banana.
That's that's really what happened. He saw the banana. He saw the banana being misused in ways the jury did not. And this jury was not on the same page. It's really amazing to watch it all go down and to watch the suffering.
Jim Acosta and Brian Stelter not saying this is so much to reflect on how to be more careful. And you know what would be a great idea? Bring in a defamation attorney to educate all of us, so that we don't make a similar mistake. Instead, it's they bent the knee. The rest of us have to stand stronger.
And you know what I think should happen now, especially given that and sort of this reaction across the left wing media, I think Trump should start writing letters to the people at MSNBC who called him a rapist over and over and over. I mean, now he's got a settlement for $15,000,000 that's going to his presidential library, and they had to pay attorney's fees, a $1,000,000, and they had to issue an apology and a statement on their reporting, admitting that it was false. If I were Trump, I'd be having my lawyer do a LexisNexis search for all the people who said in a factual way. I mean, I you could say, I believe he's a rapist, or it's obvious to me he raped her. Right?
That's all fine. That's opinion. But you cannot say, as Stephanopoulos did, he is a rapist. He raped E. Jean Carroll.
That's defamatory. So if I were Trump, I would spread the pain around.
Speaker 3: You know, the most astonishing thing in, the Acosta Stelter clip is that they're defending as some matter of journalistic integrity, the right to say false things about the president of the United States and to misinform their viewers on national television. One would think the reaction would be, you know, this is unfortunate, but we have such a major responsibility that we do pay a price when we screw up, and don't correct ourselves in, and don't correct ourselves promptly and tell our viewers the truth in a, in a prompt manner. And fortunately, here at CNN, we don't have anything to worry about because, we just strive to bring viewers the truth and the straight facts every day. But, I mean, it's it's this this is not the one I would really try to stand on principle on.
Speaker 0: No. It's not. Let me tell you something. This is why we we did a long episode that we released over the weekend about how the Duke lacrosse case, you know, the fake rape case unfolded and collapsed, and how it was really the beginning of what we now call wokeness in the media, the way they covered these stories, how they they choose a side based on skin color, potentially class, privilege, and gender, and how they never learned. Even though that case blew up in their faces, they just never learned.
They doubled and tripled down and so on. It's a good episode. You guys should listen to it. I actually got some sweet notes about it from the players' families. So we did that, and we were pointing out that the media that that's the reason that this alternative ecosystem was born, you know, the digital lane.
And I said on the show, necessity is the mother of all invention. You know, people just they realized over time, and Trump really helped, how dishonest the media was and is and just demanded someplace else to go. And then bit by bit, it started populating, and they they fled. They fled the mainstream, so called mainstream, in incredible numbers. Like, that the GMA is cratering in the ratings.
We've talked about MSNBC now regularly getting, I mean, slashies in the demo, which is below 50,000. Slashies is true shame. Shame. Shame. It's like you would never wanna look the boss in the face if you've gotten slashies under 50,000 in the 25 to 54 year old.
That's what sets your advertising rates. And the collapse in the overall is what goes to how much your cable subscribers are going to renew your deal for. How much are they gonna pay to have MSNBC or CNN on their lineup? Less this go around than they did the last. That's for sure.
Because the power of these networks is diminishing quickly. So they're gonna lose money in advertising, and they're gonna lose money in their subscription fees that they get. And then you look at what's happening in our lane. And my executive producer, Steve Krakauer, said this to me just recently because, you know, we keep a number an eye on our numbers. It made news back in July when our YouTube feed beat the YouTube feed of NBC News, CBS News, the BBC, Sky News, and many others.
Okay? It made news, made national news. November, which was a presidential election, as you know, not just for Megyn Kelly, but for all those same organizations. As far as I know, CNN and all these others made a big deal out of the presidential election too. In November alone, we just on our YouTube, this does not count SiriusXM audience.
This does not count, a podcast our podcast audience. It does not count social media audience, just YouTube. In 1 month, we had a 194,000,000 and a half. A 194,000,000 views. Okay.
Almost 200,000,000 people were watching this show in November. Think about it. How did the others do? NBC News, we crushed them by 50,000,000. CNN, we they beat us by we had 2 thirds of their audience when we last looked at it in July.
We had 2 thirds of what they were getting on YouTube. CNN, we killed them this time. They they lost to us too. They got 155. We beat them by 40,000,000.
I could go on. I mean, all the the mainstream, you know, Nets, they lost to us. That's all of them. All there's that's that's Jake Tapper. That's Anderson Cooper.
That's the 9 PM lady who never smiles. That's the morning show. That's all of them. All of them together lost to just this show. Yay.
Good for us. I'm happy to have a victory lap. I won't lie. But it's really not about that. My point the point I'm raising is they're collapsing.
And and my god. I I shutter to think what's gonna happen this month when their all their audiences fled. You know? That was when their audience's interest was at its peak. Our numbers are still very strong.
So are Fox's. You know? Anyway, the point is, how can this model continue, Emily? How can they how can these anchors continue to be paid these mega $1,000,000 sums? Rachel Maddow took a pay cut for her 1 hour a week from 30,000,000 to 25,000,000 a year.
But there is just no way that this business model can be sustained for much longer.
Speaker 1: Well, no. I'm I'm glad you brought that up because as you were going through those numbers, I'm thinking in my head, the overhead that sustains this model that is losing to much more nimble and leaner operations is astounding. I mean, if you look at I mean, just even the bare bones like Joe Rogan said, it's so funny how upset many people in the corporate press get about Joe Rogan because he's just out there with, like, his whiskey on the table and cigars on the table in a room. He has like 2 camera views. It's just like insane how competitive that is with these operations that have, you know, their midtown, glossy, you know, newsrooms with the just the salaries.
I mean, it's just incredible. So I, it's, it's not sustainable. And there was a glimmer of recognition of that when Jeff Zucker tried to launch CNN Plus I think is what it was called. But just it was such a disaster because they didn't have the guts or the courage or the wisdom to say what needs to happen on something like CNN Plus. Not only do we need to take overhead down and get on this off ramp to the digital world, we actually need to understand the content demands of our audience, which would be, you know, they understand you can draw a line from DupliCross to the Rolling Stone Virginia Ray Pokes piece to Aziz Ansari Me Too movement piece.
Like the American people sort of see what's happened and the CNN audience sees what happened, and they find it interesting. And they now want people to be way more authentic in their delivery because they lost their trust, as they sort of trace that line in real time. Saw a lot of people's lives get ruined unjustly, were lied to over and over again about politics. So I mean, they they are not willing to create the content. They might be willing to, like, sort of take the playbook, you know, and and sort of look at the numbers.
But they're not gonna see improvement if the content itself. Like, it's one thing to have a good YouTube audience and to, you know, take take your costs down and be a little bit more nimble and build digital platforms. It's another thing entirely to give people a content they want, and that's where they're gonna go wrong.
Speaker 0: Yeah. They they don't get it. We played that sound bite last week of Leslie Stall talking to Peggy Noonan, like, I don't I don't know why this is happening. Why? Why is the legacy media collapsing?
Hello, Leslie. You should come on. I will explain it to you. I'd be happy to. There's a lot of examples at CBS News.
And by the way, you know, ABC News, this is just the latest, you know, that we're talking about. Like, in a strip there was a day not long ago where that hot mess that they air in the mornings called The View had to issue not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 corrections, legal corrections, 4 legal notes. We only have 3 of them on camera, but look at this.
Speaker 9: Sorry, everyone. I have another legal note.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 9: Both Trump and Pam Bondi have denied allegations of a quid pro quo. I have a legal note. You wanna take this
Speaker 1: one, Joy, or are you
Speaker 0: gonna take this one?
Speaker 9: Has long denied all allegations and has not been charged with any crime.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 9: Also, another legal note, Pete Hegseth's lawyer said he paid the woman in 2023 to head off the threat of a baseless lawsuit. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Speaker 0: Don't imagine what they did at that debate, where once again, they we they tried to fact check only one side, and then when their fact checks got fact checked, they cowered. They cowered in fear. I mean, this is a pattern with them. They're lucky it was only 15,000,000. We're not done with the media.
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Unbelievable what's happening right now. I've gotta tell you. It's just the meltdown continues. Here's Steve Schmidt from the discredited vile Lincoln Project on the Stephanopoulos ABC News settlement. Quote, the pace of capitulation will increase.
And along with it, a deep freeze will settle over most of America's newsrooms, end quote. Well, I've got news for you, Steve Schmidt. If Trump winning against ABC News or getting them to settle in that case causes a deep freeze in any given newsroom, then they're doing the news wrong. Because those of us who cover him and the other side fairly have no fear whatsoever. I mean, all you can do is your best to remain factual and to label opinion as such.
No one's perfect. ABC News isn't expected to be perfect. But when they screw up or any other newsroom screws up, you're expected to own it, and the law acknowledges that. Here's more. Brian Stelter.
ABC News settled Donald Trump's defamation suit against the network and George Stephanopoulos because this problem needed to go away, an ABC executive remarked on condition of anonymity. Oh, big scoop. Okay. He goes on. But but the speculation about why ABC agreed to settle and why now and why at such expense is not going away.
This is not a scoop. This is nothing. Right? Because it needed to go, hello. Yeah.
You get it now.
Speaker 3: Right? We all we all understand it.
Speaker 0: The light bulb went off.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's
Speaker 0: what happened. Oh. Here here is something that just happened. Trump is down at Mar a Lago, as you know, and, just announced another lawsuit that's coming, not against a media figure, but against Iowa pollster and seltzer. Listen to this.
Speaker 10: I'm gonna be bringing one against, the people in Iowa, their newspaper, which had a very, very good pollster who got me right all the time. And then just before the election, she said I was gonna lose by 3 or 4 points, and it became the biggest story all over the world. And in my opinion, it was fraud, and it was election interference. And we'll probably be filing a major lawsuit against them today or tomorrow. We're filing 1 on 60 minutes, you know about that, where they took Kamala's answer, which was a crazy answer, a horrible answer, and they took the whole answer out, and they replaced it with something else she said.
Speaker 0: Okay. Just correcting there. It looks like they're gonna file it against the Des Moines Register, the the paper for which Anne Seltzer works, and not necessarily her personally, but, obviously, it's all based on her. By the way, just just a thing for the viewers. You heard Trump there say, and in my opinion, it's fraud.
In my opinion, it was fraud. Why does he say that? Why does he add that phrase? Because he understands what the legal limits are. If he says, they committed fraud and they didn't, they could sue him.
That's that's what he's worried. So he couches it as opinion, which is protected by the First Amendment. And if George Stephanopoulos had said, in my opinion, he raped her, he would have been protected too. He can say that. He cannot go out there and say a jury found him civilly liable for rape because that's a factual statement, and his statement was not factual.
So you heard him there outlining his cases. There he just settled the one with ABC. He's got one against now coming, I guess, against the Des Moines Register about that poll that he says was fraudulent. And then you heard him reference there, he's also suing 60,000,000 or 60 minutes for 10 1,000,000,000? Is that right, guys?
$10,000,000,000 for their editing of the Kamala Harris interview. And there is another lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Committee for its behavior around its the honor it gave The New York Times for its coverage of the Russia hoax. And while that third one sounded the most absurd to me, it's just survived motion practice. The a judge refused to throw it out on the papers. And it's as as crazy as it sounds, like David Axelrod just sent out a tweet describing it as he's suing the Pulitzer Committee for honoring the Times coverage of Russian election interference.
That's not exactly right. He's actually suing the Pulitzer committee for its own statements about its decision to honor The Times. It was asked to do a review by Trump, who was complaining, saying, why are you honoring them? Everything they reported turned out to be fake. And, they did a review, and they came back and said, and I'm reading here, the separate reviews we conducted reviews.
The separate reviews converged in their conclusions, colon, no passages or headlines that that no passages or headlines, contentions, or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes. And Trump's contention is that's absolutely wrong. There were many, many facts that emerged to show The New York Times had a dead wrong on the Russia hoax, and you saying that was a further defamation. You, the the prize committee, defamed me. That's fair game.
That's not just, hey. You shouldn't have given the honor to them. That would not be a good lawsuit. So there's the Pulitzer Prize one. The the lawsuit against 60 minutes, I will say right here, is laughable and should go away.
It is absurd. They are dishonest and should be shamed, but it's not illegal to make an edit that helps one candidate versus another. I that one's going nowhere, in my opinion. Don't know about the judge in the case. Maybe it's a Trump friendly guy that could get him past a round or 2, but this that that's not going anywhere.
In any event, the the way the media is gonna take this, Alyanna, is it's an all out assault. It's retribution. And what I see is a litigious guy who who's continuing in his litigious nature and, you know, doing what he's always done, sue people who say nasty things about him.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Trump has always had lawsuits as a, weapon in his arsenal. And what's surprising, we said this is astonishing that the ABC News lawsuit succeeded. So what's surprising is when they're meritorious, when they have success, when George Stephanopoulos and ABC News are forced to pay $15,000,000 because they were so sloppy. So, I have not seen or read about the 3 that you just mentioned, but, it does strike me that the CBS News one, while we, I I know that that the 3 of us have talked about the CBS News, edits and Trump's claims about them on the show.
Look. What they may what they did may have been wrong. We may take issue with it, but I I sort of doubt they transgressed a a law there. And, and the Pulitzer one, I just don't know anything about. I would have to go read their statements.
But it shouldn't be surprising to anybody that Trump is suing all these people. He's, he's one of the most litigious people in the country. Yep. So, you know, let's let's just, expect lots of legal files. I will say, though, where he files the suits is important.
The ABC News lawsuit was filed in Florida, which meant that unlike some of the other lawsuits that we've seen brought against Trump, which were successful because he faced hostile juries, I think that the ABC news suit had more likelihood of success because ABC News would have faced a hostile jury in the state of Florida.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. I believe I'm trying to look this up here. I believe the lawsuit against CBS News, which is based on an allegation that they somehow committed consumer fraud by submitting a dishonestly edited interview with Kamala Harris, is in a Texas state court, which would be very helpful to Trump. And I believe, if I'm not confusing my lawsuits, that it's in front of a Trump appointed judge. I'll go back and look at that, but I'm I'm pretty sure, yeah, it's in Texas, and it's in front of a a Trump judge.
So that's probably what they're banking on. And CBS News is saying this case should be bounced to New York where we are based and where we committed this alleged defense and where we can get a more left wing judge that maybe Trump did not appoint. So, yeah, no I mean, by the way, plaintiffs forum shop all the time where they try to file the lawsuit in the jurisdiction most favorable to them. In any event, we'll see how all these play out. Look.
All these organizations have more money than God. They can easily they have lawyers on staff, general counsels and so on, and they can use some of their profits that they've earned in defaming and maligning Trump unfairly for all these years to hire outside counsel to handle these things. Right? Like, these are 2 sophisticated parties suing one another. Right?
Like, Trump is a sophisticated party. CBS News is a sophisticated party, and so is ABC News, and so is the Pulitzer Prize Committee. They can they can handle this litigation. He's trying to send a message. And by the way, I mean, like, it'd be nice if you could get some of the people who called you Hitler, but the problem is that's opinion.
No one said, as a matter of fact, he's Hitler. So that one, you know, you can get away with. Okay. I wanna Well, he probably
Speaker 1: got very close to saying that.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Like, he's Hitler incarnate. He's actual Hitler.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 0: I think that's actually gonna be really interesting, and I actually don't think this is gonna cow the newsrooms from negative coverage of Trump. It's their bread and butter. It's their oxygen. They won't know how to speak if it's not for that. And some people were like, well, they've already been calmer.
They've already been calmer. You know why they've been calmer? Because Trump's not doing anything. There's very little to talk about right now. You just wait.
You just wait until Trump gets back in office. None of these news organizations is gonna be saying, well, he won the popular vote. Well, he has a mandate. Well, you know, we're gonna we're gonna back off because we wanna get Republican viewers watching us. That's not going to happen.
They're going to be go back to their normal Trump derangement syndrome selves and do what they normally do. And it's not like they defame him every day. What Stephanopoulos did there was really egregious. And if you don't go to that level on your defamation, he probably will ignore you. But if you do what he did, you can and should be sued.
That one is totally fair. So I don't I don't predict a chilling effect. I think they love bashing him too much. Oh, great. Is this let me just ask my team a question.
Is this is this on the record that is this readable out loud? Yes. Okay. Sorry. So we, as I said at the top of the show, reached out to Trump's lawyer in, connection with the the settlement with ABC News and the $15,000,000.
And, okay, just making sure. Hold on. Let sorry. Forgive me because I that we don't normally let this play out live on the air, but I'm just getting it. Making sure this is on the record, not just on background before I read anything.
Okay. We've we've gotta find out. We've gotta find out. Forgive me. We don't wanna commit similar sins to our the colleagues we've been ripping on.
But to the extent we can read it, we will, in just a minute. Okay. Here's what we should do. We're gonna put a pin in that. We'll get back to it.
But let's move on to Clarissa Ward because I don't know if you gals saw the reporting. Did you see it, Emily? You're smiling.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. I'll never forget it. Indelible.
Speaker 0: Okay. It was indelible. So for the audience members who didn't hear us talk about this with Hugh on Friday, and you should because we went back and we really deconstructed that moment. Clarissa Ward of CNN walked into what was supposed to be a prison in Syria with some handler who was associated with the new Al Qaeda adjacent group that's just taken over Syria. And her handler walked into the prison with her, and one of Bashar al Assad's prisoners was still in prison.
Every she said everything was open. All the cells were open, and the people had, like, left. But there was one that was locked, and so she said we had the guy shoot off the lock on this one cell. They made us turn off our cameras. The cameras go off, and then they open the cell after this guy has now shot off the lock.
And they walk into the cell, which looks pristine pristine except for one blanket neatly laid out. You don't see anything. I I don't know what's off camera, to be fair, but I didn't see a bucket of human waste or human waste or anything. And there's certainly no trash, no clothes, no no debris anywhere. Looks clean.
Underneath the blanket emerges a man after several, like, hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. He's lying there.
Then finally, he emerges like a phoenix. Hello. And Clarissa Ward represents that this is like an oh my god. It's a prisoner. Look.
We found somebody. And then it gets very dramatic, and she holds him. You're okay. You're okay. You're okay.
You're okay. Meanwhile, she's not speaking Arabic, which she says she does speak. She's speaking English to the guy. Okay. And she says that this is one of Assad's prisoners.
Then we see them outside, and she's, like, rubbing his back. There he is. And look how clean his outfit is. He doesn't have a scuff on him. He doesn't have dirt on him.
His fingernails are clean. He his hand is shaking, supposedly. Says he's been in jail for 3 or 4 months, and he's been in captivity without food or water for 4 days. Looks fine. Doesn't squint when he first sees the sun.
We don't know. Well, some online sleuths noticed a lot of these things. And by the way, we also reported that when Clarissa gave her report to Jake Tapper after the fact, she said she offered him her cell phone so he could call her his family, and his response was, like, no. She she said he was too in shock to call his family. Well, I think we're probably wondering where the guy was for 4 months, probably wondering dead or alive, but, like, didn't take the offer.
All this stuff is suspicious and made it look very much like Clarissa and her brethren at CNN were used to dump out a little propaganda to the rest of us, which is a sin, especially in this line of reporting. It's the number one risk. You know, after getting shot, it's the number one thing you worry about as a foreign correspondent that some group is gonna use you in a clever way where you become their mouthpiece unwillingly. And now there was a reporter who has been in captivity twice in Syria who was like, this is this stinks to high heaven. Syrian prisons are as dirty and messed up and covered with debris as you can get.
And, this doesn't smell or look right. And now we find out that they've done more investigating the sleuths. And the name that Clarissa Ward and CNN attributed to this guy was not correct. It did not prove to be true. The have been looking into this.
It is not the man she said it was. And now CNN has been forced to conduct an investigation. They've launched an investigation to see what happened here. Eliana, I feel like we kinda know what happened.
Speaker 3: Look. To me, the open question in this, and it's amazing, is actually a Syrian media watch dog that called CNN on this. Is was CNN in on this, or were they duped? Did they want and were they making a made for TV moment? Did they participate in this, or were they totally hoodwinked?
And reports about the man's actual identity were that he was a member of, Bashar al Assad's, military forces, who tortured those who refused to bribe him. That's what the Syrian media watchdog is saying.
Speaker 0: So he's a torturer.
Speaker 3: Not only was he not, a prisoner, Assad, he was a henchman of Assad's. So it's pretty far off the mark for CNN.
Speaker 0: Wow. So what was he doing in the cell? Like, if that's true, I can see him wanting to pretend he was a prisoner of Assad's as opposed to an alleged torturer who was working on behalf of Assad, but he would not have been locked up by Assad in a jail for 4 months, you know, one presumes, if this is all if this is the nature of the relationship. So we even if that's true, Emily, we don't know why he was in this cell with a lock on it and what the game was.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It may be that he actually duped the rebels who they themselves duped Clarissa Ward and the CNN team. I think it does perhaps look like a combination. Yes. It does, will do.
Which is I mean, I this is perfectly fits the propaganda that Jelani and the rebels right now are trying to just are trying to distribute throughout the Western world. They need Western cooperation. They are Islamists, and what they need to show is that they are, quote, unquote, freedom fighters, that they are liberating Syria from Assad. And so literally liberating a man from a prison is sort of exactly what you would expect to see from them. And it's actually so on the nose that you would expect for a pre produced package by CNN.
Because if I unless I'm wrong, this didn't air live. This was a pre produced package. They had
Speaker 0: Correct.
Speaker 1: Voiceovers and all of that stuff prepped. This should have gone through a lot of layers of editorial oversight. And so it's one thing for Ward to get duped in the moment if it were happening live or something like that. It's an entirely different thing, to have a name and to have so many details. I mean, whoever's editing this package, producing this package, would have had the same questions theoretically that people immediately had on the Internet about the nature of the the setup.
Why does this look like it's staged? Why does this all seem so strange? Those questions would have been asked in production. So it's all very, very, very odd, but it does show this sort of credulousness. I think at the very least, it's so it shows a credulousness of being, you know, led around by the rebel group and having this opportunity to see someone be literally liberated when the propaganda line is about liberation, is just seems it should have seemed to them too good to be true, and that it didn't, I think, is pretty suspicious and unfortunate for their credibility.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. Alyanna, the statement, this is per The Wrap, is CNN to The Wrap. We have subsequently been investigating his background and are aware that he may have given a false identity. Then they say no one other than the CNN team was aware of our plans to visit the prison building featured in our report that day. The events transpired as they appear in our film.
The decision to release the prisoner featured in our report was taken by the guard, a Syrian rebel. We reported the scene as it unfolded, including what the prisoner told us with clear attribution. We have subsequently been investigating his background and are aware that he may have given a false identity. We are continuing our reporting into this and the wider story. On Sunday, it was verify sci, I think it's short for Syria, a website that describes itself as an independent and unbiased platform specializing in fact checking in Syria that cast doubt on the man's claim.
The website's writer, Abdul Salam Al Hamwi, wrote that the man, who identified himself as Abdel Garbal from Holmes, claimed he had been in prison for 3 months, and then he got into some of the facts that suggest that's not how that looked at all. Then they search for records for a man named Adel Garble, could not find any. Instead, they claim he's actually this man named Salama Mohammed Salama, who's also known as Abu Hamza, a first lieutenant in the Syrian Air Force Intelligence who is well known for his behavior, and it goes on to some of the details that you already offered. Here's the thing. You're kind of in the business of checking those things out if you're CNN and you're Clarissa Ward.
It's really not, like, that big a sacrifice to take an extra day. No one's, like, gonna beat you to that story to kick the tires and figure out whether this guy really is who he says he is. And CNN also have has reporters and producers all around the world, I'm sure, including in Syria. So do you think this is a case of just negligence, downsizing, if if in fact they well, they've already been embarrassed because they reported the wrong name from from their own admission. Negligence, downsizing, or just too good a story, Emily.
Like, it's just too good. She they they their star reporter looks like the next Christiana Mampur. Let's do this thing.
Speaker 1: I think it was probably too good. I mean, at the bare minimum, you wouldn't ask for a name unless you were going to check it. But at the bare minimum, check the name. I mean, they could have been in touch with the Syrian fact checking outlet. Now it's very hard to do this stuff in Syria right now because there's so many different factions, and lines have shifted and allegiances have shifted.
So I understand that it's hard. But if you're gonna put if you're gonna air it, and you're gonna be so dramatic when it airs, you're going to really push it. Man, just the fact that they don't seem to have checked the name, done the most basic thing, checked the name. And there were all of these obvious questions that people on the Internet raised within like 10 minutes of the thing airing. That just tells me they were too excited to like really, to as as you said, kick the tires and do their due diligence.
It just probably seemed too good for them not to use.
Speaker 0: And, like, you know, it could be an even bigger story. Like, oh my god. We found an alleged torturer. Like, has he been hiding? What did he have a fallout with Assad?
Why is he in this prison? Was he really in this prison? Was he placed in the did he fool the rebels into doing like, if I were CNN, I'd be like, this is like, let's get to the bottom. And before you hit air, let's get to the bottom of what really happened there. It's even more interesting.
If you go to air with, here's what happened as it unfolded, then we found out he was lying to us. This is who we found out he is. Like, that's a great story, but it doesn't really support the narrative that Clarissa, mother
Speaker 2: Teresa,
Speaker 0: went in there and rescued the poor, sad little man who hadn't eaten and rubbed his back. I'm telling you. It's like this is the same network that that let Chris Cuomo come out of that basement and pretend that he hadn't been out? Right? We all knew he'd been out.
We we see the reports. He was out fighting with his neighbors during COVID, but then they let him do his dramatic, like, Mary Ingalls. Pa, I can see. I can see. Actually, it was I can't see.
Anyway, okay, back to the Trump settlement with ABC News. We have now made sure we can read what I was about to read. Okay. So our producer spoke with Trump's attorney, Alejandro Brito, and here is what he said. Our question was, why did ABC decide to settle?
The long and short of it is the nature of the claims that were brought and the fact that they were verifiable from a standpoint as factually untrue from George Stephanopoulos. Trump's legal team had separate video clips of George Stephanopoulos on ABC that showed Stephanopoulos knew that Trump had not been found liable for rape. This was not a situation where there was simply a misunderstanding. George Stephanopoulos interviewed E Jean Carroll after the trial on his show, and we had video of his questions to Carroll. And when he asked her how she felt after Stephanopoulos said Trump was not liable for rape, Juxtapose that with his questioning of mace.
That's very interesting. It's a good point. We actually, we should go back and pull that.
Speaker 2: How about yesterday in the courtroom? The first the first, announcement was made, and it was that he was not found liable for rape. What were we thinking at that moment?
Speaker 0: Was there something, this is us, in discovery that scared ABC into settling? Answer, the possibility of something coming out in discovery may have had led to the settlement. Trump legal team had scheduled to take the deposition of ABC, an ABC rep, and George Stephanopoulos. The lawyer suspects ABC did not want it to happen. Quote, it wasn't something ABC learned that caused them to settle, but rather something Trump's team may learn.
He said, end quote, our question, had they already exchanged documents to my point of normally, you exchange texts and papers before you sit for the deposition. He said that there had been minimal document exchange in discovery. Trump team was waiting on ABC and Stephanopoulos to respond to discovery demands. He said at the time of the settlement, ABC had only, quote, produced one piece of paper, end quote, very interesting, and not provided any other documentation. He believes fear of what Trump could learn about ABC and Stephanopoulos and document exchange may have played a role in the settlement.
That's very interesting. So they had handed over one piece of paper. They had not turned over the texts or the instant messages or the oh shit exchanges when they got the lawsuit or any of that stuff, and they were about to have to. They they panicked, understandably. And, now we'll never know what was in those documents, but spare us the, oh, poor news organizations.
How will they ever cover the news now, Eliana? Right? It's like, I stand by everything I've written down with my team. Every word I've said on this show, no one's perfect, but I can defend all of it in court. Something's something stinks at ABC News.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think it goes back to our initial conversation that they decided that paying $15,000,000 was the less painful was less painful than the protracted embarrassment and potential humiliation of what would come out in those documents, you know, the than the PR cost to them. And, as we saw, it's actually interesting to contrast that with Fox News where basically they did go through discovery. They were gonna go through trial. They ended up, suffering the PR cost and paying the money.
It's like, you know, they might as well just paid the money and avoided all the discovery and the depositions, which is seems to be what ABC News did here.
Speaker 0: Yeah. No trial on that one, though. Yeah. Okay. Let's shift gears, for a moment because I I wanna spend a minute on the WNBA and Caitlin Clark.
You guys saw that speaking of bend the knee, she did not look like a Lily Pucian when she did it. She's tall, a tall lady. And she decided to go woke. And when Time Magazine made her Athlete of the Year, she accepted. She was fine going into the spotlight and saying, yeah.
Thank you. I love to be on your cover and my sexy outfit. Let's do this thing. Interview me in my sexy plunging dress. I do like the spotlight.
It feels good to be in front of the camera. Okay. Fine. I don't I have no problem with that. However, I do when you get out there and you say, but I feel really bad about it.
I'm very sad I'm here because I'm so white. I'm Time Magazine so white, and I really wish you were paying attention to the black players. I re that's my true wish. If you could just stop looking at me under the klieg lights and look over there at the black players. That's what I really want from You Time Magazine.
And then she went on to talk about how it's my truth and her white privilege and all that. So oh, okay. So did the bending of the knee I mean, I have a sound bite that I wanna play for you, and it involves the owner, I believe, of the Mystics, which is, yeah, co owner, Sheila Johnson. She owns a different, team, the Mystics, within the WNBA. And I really think, like I I was very critical of Caitlin Clark for doing this.
Maybe maybe what she said really will win over the WNBA that's been bullying her mercilessly because she's white and earning maybe I was just too dense to see it. And Caitlyn is very clever, and, actually, the league is really gonna get behind her now and say, you know what? She is the best. She earned this honor. Let's watch.
Speaker 11: And this year, something clicked with the WNBA, and it's because of the draft of the players that came in. It's just not Caitlin Clark. It's Reese. We have so many so much talent out there that has been unrecognized, and I don't think we can just pin it on one player. Why couldn't they have put the whole WNBA on that cover and said, the WNBA is the league of the year because Yeah.
Of all the talent that we have. Because
Speaker 5: Totally. If
Speaker 11: it just keeps singling out one player, it creates hard feelings. And so now you're starting to hear stories of racism within the WNBA, and I don't wanna hear that.
Speaker 0: This is a fool's errand, Emily. Why? Why did she do it? And what did it get her?
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's like a cry for help. The best case scenario is that this is just a cry from help for help for for Caitlin Clark, who's been getting the tar beat out of her by players who are taking out their upset, their anger over her white privilege physically onto Caitlin Clark. I mean, the clips, if you watch them back are just horrendous and so insane. And that's the type of pressure that she's under.
And maybe she thought that she had no choice. She had to say it. It doesn't take the agency away from her from actually saying it. She probably believes it because it's all she ever hears from, everyone around her. But even if she didn't believe it, she realizes that it's probably physically dangerous for her not to say something like that.
But, of course, it wasn't good enough to say that this is all like, that that Caitlin Clark isn't about the surge of the surge of interest in the WNBA is not just about Caitlin Clark is stupid. It is literally just about Caitlin Clark. And it's not because Caitlin Clark is white. It's because she had this meteoric, crazy story in the tournament. And it was just a narrative that was too good for people to, not pay attention to.
It was crazy. It was such an, like, amazing story. And that is what it was. It was not her race. It was that.
And of course, though, of course, we have to listen to CNN segments like that one with Sheila Johnson about how the reason it should have been the whole WNBA literally doing the cringe everyone gets a trophy routine is because it was hurting people's feelings. Ivy, this woman is so out of touch with where like the country is basically in the position right now of throwing all of that, like, bullshit out the window, and she's going on CNN acting like she is the moral high ground saying it.
Speaker 0: Right. Hello. It's, like, 2020 called, and they want their commentary back. Eliana, Caitlin Clark is 22 and hasn't yet learned the lesson that bending the knee to the woke mob does not produce better results in one's life. It doesn't.
Nothing good will come from it. You will alienate your fan base that does not want to see you buy into their bullshit narratives about race or white privilege in the WNBA, and you will gain absolutely no grace or quarter from your critics who are not persuadable.
Speaker 3: Well, I think you're exactly right. It'd be one conversation, if we were gonna talk about, look. She made the decision to go along to get along, and this is the way to silence her critics. And, okay, you know, one could understand that, but the reality is that, accepting this award and then saying what she said is not gonna silence any critics. It's not going to help her go along to get along, and you see that from the reaction of the mystic's owner, and which is why it's clear.
She's young and and stupid and not unsophisticated and and doesn't realize this. But the thing that really struck me, Meghan, is, I grew up a fan of the NBA in the era of Michael Jordan. And since then, as I followed less closely, the major NBA stars have been, since Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James, all African American men. And are are is the stipulation that female basketball fans are somehow uniquely racist?
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 3: You know, Kate Caitlin Clark is really talented, but we haven't seen race be a barrier to major, major stardom in the male basketball league, and and riches.
Speaker 0: That's a good point. It's No. I mean, they're all it's just saying that the only reason people wanna watch Caitlyn is that she's white. They're excited because she's white. And I think the record seems pretty clear.
They're excited to watch Caitlyn because she's great. And that's what we
Speaker 3: see in the NBA, of course.
Speaker 0: Right? Who are reacting to her color.
Speaker 3: Exactly. Time and again, in in the NBA where, the the talent and hard work there's actually a wonderful net Netflix series on about these NBA players. It follows their families. LeBron James is one of them. But, you know, the amount when you watch and really appreciate the amount of hard work it takes to be an elite athlete the way these guys are, it's just astonishing.
And and when you see them, they're not talking about the racism of NBA fans.
Speaker 0: I'm sorry. But if she really just wants the spotlight to be on the deserving black players who are who surround her and on whose backs this league was built, then you shouldn't have taken the honor. Then you should have said, make the WNBA the team of the year, the league of the year. What I don't need right now is an additional singled out honor. That's what she should've done.
You can't have it both ways. She wants the attention. She wants to be in the spotlight, and then she wants to just throw a bone to the girls who were rejected. And so it doesn't come as any surprise to me that they don't want her discarded bones and that this did nothing to appease them and actually probably infuriated all of us. We'll see.
Okay. More with Emily and Alyanna right after this quick break. Don't go away. So, ladies, have you seen a drone yet? Not yet.
Nope? Nothing? I have to tell you
Speaker 1: seen them
Speaker 3: in Northern Virginia. I got
Speaker 0: some friends in Connecticut who've seen who've seen something. Like, people are checking their Ring cameras, their footage, and seeing mysterious items. They're all over New Jersey now. The sightings have been New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Virginia. But John Kirby, Pentagon's spoke Pentagon spokesperson, maintains there's nothing to see here.
And if there is, we don't know what it is, but there's nothing to worry about. He goes on with Martha McCallum, and this happens.
Speaker 5: As I said yesterday, Martha, as soon as we know we're gonna be able
Speaker 6: to get a sense of what we're gonna do. I gotta tell you, this is shocking. We we spend $824,000,000,000 on defense. We have the greatest intelligent capability in the world. So how can you stand there and say to the country right now, gosh darn, we just don't know what these are.
Speaker 5: Because I'm not gonna lie to you or to the American people, and I'm not gonna say we know something when we don't.
Speaker 6: Do you know and you can't say? Can you tell me that? No. No.
Speaker 5: I'm telling you, Martha, I'm telling you we don't know.
Speaker 6: Why not just take one down and figure out what's going on? Well, you okay.
Speaker 2: The idea of taking something down,
Speaker 5: again, you idea of taking something down, again, you but we you wanna worry about public safety. First of all, we don't have enough conclusions to take that kind of a policy action. But let's just assume for a minute, Martha, that we did. I mean, you're not gonna wanna shoot something down where it could hit somebody's house or or hurt somebody.
Speaker 6: Well, the postcard says that there are 30 of them following one of their ships in the ocean. So would that work?
Speaker 5: I mean, again, we we have to develop the policy options based on what we know we're dealing with here, and we just don't know enough to make those Wow. So take those kinds of actions
Speaker 0: Bullshit. Those are lies. You can tell. Those are lies one after the other. We're being misled.
That, I think, we're pretty clear on. And, you know, first, it was you're not seeing what you're what you think you're seeing. They're they're not out there. People are making it up. Then it was, oh, they're fixed wing air aircraft.
And then, you know, the the Maryland governor came out and said, hello. We saw drones. And, you know, person after person, credible, credible, credible witness after came out and said, these are drones. Stop it. Just stop it right now.
And now it's okay. They're there, but we don't know what they are. You know? But they said, oh, there's nothing to worry about. And then the New Jersey lawmakers came out and said, no.
No. You can't say that. We don't know what they are. How can you tell us we don't know whether we have cause to worry? And then you saw him dancing there.
And now here's a man named John Ferguson. He's CEO, he says, of a drone manufacturing company in Kansas. He went viral over the weekend. We have not independently confirmed John Ferguson, but this guy's everywhere right now with his theory.
Speaker 12: Hey, everyone. My name is John Ferguson. I'm the CEO of Saxon Aerospace, here in in Wichita, Kansas. But I'm a manufacturer of, unmanned aircraft, military grade unmanned aircraft, as you can see one of my systems here. I don't particularly believe that these have a nefarious intent.
I I could be wrong, but I wanna give you the truth and what I believe. It's my own opinion, and I've not bounced this off of anybody. So, you know, if you think it's bullshit, whatever that these drones are not nefarious in intent. If they are, they are, but I doubt it. But if they are are drones, the only reason why they would be flying and flying that low is because they're trying to smell something on the ground.
My belief is they're trying to smell something on the ground, gas leaks, radioactive material, whatever. These drones, I believe, are launched from an, a location that nobody knows, but I do believe that they're flying low enough that they're just trying to sniff the ground and try to find something.
Speaker 0: Okay. I did not know that a drone could sniff. That that is news to me. Okay. I've heard a few different theories along this line.
Like, they're they're out there running a psyop, like, seeing how the public would react if and when they really are needed to respond to, for example, a dirty bomb or the detection of 1 that they actually are trying to detect whether something has been released, and that's why they don't wanna tell us because it would cause a panic, which would be incredibly criminally negligent, right, to allow people to be whatever. These are all just theories that are being bandied about. We have absolutely no idea. That's the truth, Eliana.
Speaker 3: Right. We have no idea. And I would say that the Biden administration is bedeviled in terms of its credibility with the public by the fact that there was a Chinese spy balloon flying over the country that it did not tell the public about until, Americans saw it, hovering in the sky. And they it was a public pressure campaign that forced the administration to disclose what that was. And so when you hear them saying we have no idea what this is, I think it it's sort of strange credulity.
And Kirby's response wasn't like, hey. You know, we don't know what this is. We're taking it very seriously, and we're in the process of putting policy options in front of the president. We're gonna have, we're gonna come to a decision in the coming days. It just didn't you know, something didn't seem quite right.
Speaker 0: As judge Judy always says, it didn't make sense. And if it doesn't make sense, it isn't true. It doesn't make sense, Emily, that we can't shoot down one of these reportedly hundreds of drones to see what the hell it is. Like she says, some of them are over the water. We absolutely could shoot 1 down.
You're gonna tell me the military wouldn't shoot down something that could possibly be a a threat to national security or the lives of Americans. We don't know what the heck could be foreign released. Bull shit. No one believes that. What I believe is the government knows full well what they are, and it has its reasons for not telling us.
We just don't know what they are yet, but we should find out. Here's Trump on what should happen here.
Speaker 10: The government knows what is happening.
Speaker 2: Look.
Speaker 0: There you go.
Speaker 10: Our military knows where they took off from. If it's a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went. And for some reason, they don't wanna come. And I think they'd be better off saying what it is our military does and our our president does.
And for some reason, they wanna keep people in suspense. I can't imagine it's the enemy because it was the enemy that blasted. Even Something strange is going on. For some reason, they don't wanna tell the people. And they should because
Speaker 0: He sounds genuinely like you might not know even though he's getting security briefings already, Emily.
Speaker 1: But what he does know from having been briefed in the past is what they know generally. Not to do the whole who knows what they know and we know. But that's I mean, he he does aware of the kinds of intelligence that, people with the highest levels of classification and access to get. He understands drone technology as it's used by the military. So it's interesting.
I think what he just said, and it it would be staggering if the government did not know what these were at this point. This has been so sustained and has involved so many different sightings. Some of which do seem to be like BS. But either way, there have been so many serious sightings at this point over such a long period of time. If they don't know, it's outrageous.
It's a scandal. And I think it would be a much worse option for them to be going to the press and talking about how they don't know. If they truly don't know, that interview with Martha MacCallum, I mean, I don't understand why that even happened. If they don't know, why are you talking? I mean, and if you do know, why are you talking if you're not gonna tell us?
Or you're not gonna have a better explanation? I mean, seriously, this is so such a disaster for them. 2 things can't be true. It cannot be true that they don't know what this is and that there's no threat to the public. They can't know both of those things.
They they can't that is absurd. Anybody can see through it. So it's a disaster for them right now.
Speaker 0: Here is New Jersey Republican state senator John Bramnick. Listen.
Speaker 7: Why would the government allow the public to be so frustrated? That brings to me to the point that whatever these drones are doing, the government really doesn't want us to know. It that what that must mean is they're more concerned with us getting knowledge and being afraid of that information than having no knowledge and be and having all these questions. That's why I'm worried about it. It must be something going on that they can't tell us because they are so fearful of what the public's gonna do when they hear what the drones are doing.
Speaker 0: Good point, Alyanna. No?
Speaker 3: A good point. And I I should point out that if they don't know what these drones are doing and can't find out in about 30 minutes, that should frighten every American. So both of the I I think both alternatives here that we have are that they know and they're not disclosing it or they don't know are, are disturbing.
Speaker 1: Well, can I just say it's not necessary that we would be afraid? It's that we might also be angry. Maybe it's not something that we should be scared of, but maybe it is a use of resources that would really piss people off.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. I just feel like they must know. They they must know because it's been going on for so long. They must be complicit. There's there's no way like, how would it be going on this long if they didn't know what it was and hadn't ascertained that they want it or that it's not gonna hurt anybody?
I just that doesn't that doesn't seem possible to me. The question is why won't they tell us? That's my question. Ladies, that's for another day. Great to see you both.
Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thanks, Megan. Thanks, Megan.
Speaker 0: We're back tomorrow with Mark Halpern and crew.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
RFK and Hegseth's Path to Confirmation, and Dangers of AI, with @MarkHalperin, @seanspicer, @danturrentine, and @tristanharris Plus, Cringe Kamala makes her return as she considers her future in politics. WATCH: https://t.co/GHkGCdO0o2
Video Transcript AI Summary
Megyn Kelly discusses the evolving political landscape as Trump prepares for his return to the White House, highlighting his recent media interactions and a more pragmatic approach. Guests Sean Spicer, Mark Halperin, and Dan Turpentine analyze Trump's changing dynamic with corporate leaders and the media. They also address Trump's legal strategies against media outlets and the implications of his cabinet picks, including RFK Jr. and Pete Hegseth. The conversation shifts to the dangers of AI chatbots for children, particularly the tragic case of a 14-year-old boy who died by suicide after interactions with a chatbot. Tristan Harris emphasizes the urgent need for better regulation of technology to protect youth from harmful influences, advocating for accountability and a shift in incentives within the tech industry. The discussion concludes with a call for parents to be vigilant and proactive in safeguarding their children’s mental health.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show, and happy Tuesday. Do you have all your Christmas shopping then? I don't have all my Christmas.
We have another week. Have it's December 17th, and we still have time. Maybe you'll get some gift ideas during today's show. Our advertisers actually have some good ones. We begin today with Trump 2.0 as the president-elect prepares to head back to the White House.
He did something that the current occupant has rarely done. He actually stood there and took questions from the media for an hour. And in a sign of a new Trump era, it was substantive, and, stylistically, it was very different from what we saw during his 1st term. He fielded a wide variety of questions on his meetings with business leaders, his cabinet picks, and his own views on the Maha Movement. But it wasn't all different.
There was still a lot about one of his favorite targets, the fake news media, and the legacy media responded in predictable ways. Joining me now to discuss that and all the news today are pals from the morning meeting on two way. Mark Halperin, he's editor in chief and host of two way. Sean Spicer is host of the Sean Spicer Show on the 1st TV, and Dan Turpentine is a former democratic strategist. Don't miss a moment.
Subscribe to this show on YouTube and follow me on Insta, Facebook, and x. Are you overwhelmed with back taxes or unfiled returns? Well, get ready because since COVID relief ended, the IRS hired 20,000 new enforcement agents proposing millions of payout notices for 2025. Oh, joy. If you're worried about IRS collection tactics, you don't have to face them alone.
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Empower yourself with Tax Network USA support and take charge of your financial future. Visit tnusa.com/megan today. Guys, welcome back to the show. Great to see you.
Speaker 1: Good to see you. Very good day. Holidays.
Speaker 0: Alright. So it it kind of was like, so far, we are seeing a little kinder, gentler Trump. Are we not? Sean Spicer, I'll start with you since you know him best.
Speaker 2: I think we are seeing a more pragmatic Trump. A Trump that in 2016, when he won, they tried to delegitimize the win. People were attacking him. It was Russia. You didn't win the popular vote, this and that.
And he felt like he was on defense, and rightly so. I mean, we had false accusations lobbed from one end to the other. And this time, everyone from some folks in the media to big tech and corporate leaders are embracing him. And and I think they realized he was right, they were wrong. Bottom line is, it's a much different environment, and I think he he flourishes in this.
He wants people to come to Mar a Lago, talk to him about doing business, talking to him about making investments in the United States, as we saw yesterday with the SoftBank CEO. This is a much different I'm frankly, Megan, I'll admit it. I'm jealous. I wish it was I'd been there to 2020. 2016 was historic, but we face, a huge wave against us of people that were trying to delegitimize the win.
Now you can't no one can do that. It was a resounding win, and and I think he's in his glory.
Speaker 0: Just staying with you, Sean, for a second. I don't know about you, but I find it very gratifying to see Zuckerberg and Bezos and all these guys have to go in there and kiss the ring. Do it. I Well, I love it.
Speaker 2: You know what? Petty Irish Leprechaun Sean hates like, I'm like, why are you giving like, I would tell them, time out. You guys wait in line. Stand down go down to, you know, Boca Raton and wait your turn, and I'll call you up to come to to Palm Beach. I get it.
I know Trump loves this. He relishes these guys coming there, not just the corporate leaders, but the foreign leaders. I I get it. And and I'd rather have them on our side and get the policies instituted and make America more prosperous and grow, etcetera. But at the same time, I'm like, these guys bashed him for 4 to 8 years, and now they want back in with a $1,000,000 check to the inauguration committee.
Speaker 0: I know. This seems actually kind of a cheap price to pay. A $1,000,000 to Bezos'
Speaker 2: But you know what?
Speaker 0: You're not
Speaker 2: gonna get for
Speaker 0: 4 of us.
Speaker 2: He told Masa yesterday, hey. Masa come bearing a $100,000,000,000 in investment, and he says, hey. How about 2 bill 200,000,000,000? Why is he saying to Zuckerberg, that's a nice tip? Now put down 10,000,000 for the inauguration.
That's
Speaker 0: right. That's right. The Japanese bank executive investing 100 or $200,000,000,000 in America, and all Bezos can spare is a 1,000,000?
Speaker 2: Right. Exactly.
Speaker 0: Alright. So Yeah. Here's what I mean by kinder and gentler. This is just one example. He was asked if senators who oppose his cabinet picks should be primaried, which is what a lot of the MAGA faithful are saying.
Here's how he responded, Satfor.
Speaker 3: Should senators who oppose your nominees, your cabinet nominees, should they be primary?
Speaker 4: If if they are unreasonable, I'll give you a different answer, an answer that you'll be shocked to hear. If they're unreasonable, if they're opposing somebody for political reasons or stupid reasons, I would say has nothing to do with me. I would say they probably would be primary. But, if they're reasonable, fair, and really disagree with something or somebody, I could see that happening. But, I do believe that if they are I think we have great people.
I think we have a great a great group of peep
Speaker 0: So, Mark, I'll let me tell you why I believe him in the tone he's striking there. Because I spoke with at least one person involved in this process who was against Gates, and that person, told me that when Trump spoke to this senator about Gates and was told he's not gonna make it, Trump didn't freak out. Trump didn't threaten. Trump just said, oh, gee. That's too bad.
He's a good guy. And accepted the judgment, and we saw that was how he behaved when Gates left the stage, you know, left, and now he's working for OAN. So I I take him at his word. I guess if if they keep doing it, you know, if they sync Hegseth and they sync RFKJ and they give Tulsi a problem, the tone will change. But what do you make of it?
Speaker 3: Well, look. I think sometimes 2 news stories conflate. I think it's possible that one of those drones kidnapped Donald Trump and replaced him with a cuddly grandpa, a cuddly cons conciliatory grandpa. And and the aliens don't think we'll figure it out, but we're on to him. Look.
Go back to what Sean said. You don't have to be super MAGA, just an objective journalist or observer, to recognize just the nightmare that Donald Trump entered the office with because the dominant media created an environment that created for tens of millions of Americans reality, their reality, that he was an illegitimate president. And then to be investigated perpetually for for the entire 8 years to be voted out of office, and then to say to the voters, here's what I'm about. Same guy. Here's my agenda.
Put me back in. After Democrats said after January 6, etcetera, he could never win another election. So I think he feels a sense of satisfaction, but he also has created an understanding that he gets it better this time. He understands how to be president way better. He's got an incoming second term government that's not a normal lame duck, because they're not exhausted, and because he said 4 years to write executive orders to to think about who he wants to hire, and to use his vast human intelligence, which is vast.
He's just just a super, genius at analyzing situations and people to come in and say, I'm gonna do this job differently this time. And the overriding factor is he loves people kissing the ring or anything else they wanna kiss. He loves billionaires kowtowing to him. He loves knowing how to manipulate and leverage these heads of state. So this is like the ultimate mulligan.
He's getting to be president an incoming president again with all this knowledge and a much different environment. The press is is weaker than it's been since he came on the national stage, And all of these people, from congress to the governors, to the foreign leaders, to the CEOs, they know that the rules are about to change, and that Trump will set the rules, and Trump will decide who gets to play the game. And so they're all genuflecting.
Speaker 0: So we'll talk about the lawsuits that he's filing against members of the media and others in a second. But, Dan, here's another, sound bite where he sounds, you know, like the replacement Trump, like, Mark under Mark's theory. But there's nothing to see there. We'll update the drone story. There's nothing to see there according to all of our now national security officials.
Don't believe your lion eyes. In any event, here's another sound bite from him talking about how everybody loves me now, SOT 1.
Speaker 4: I did have dinner with Tim Cook. I had dinner with sort of almost all of them, and the rest are coming. One of the big differences between the first term in the first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend. I don't know.
My personality changed or something.
Speaker 0: Is it is it his personality? You tell me as a Democrat what why are all of these you know, the, Sundar of Google went in there to see him. Sergey Brin went in there to see him, you know, the guy who created Google, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, like all of and then not to mention all the bankers who have gone in to see they're all going in.
Speaker 1: Yep. Look, a lot of them are members, of the incumbent party, and that right now is Donald Trump. And I think as, you know, Mark and Sean have said in 2016, I think Democrats were first stunned and they immediately turned to anger. Just this idea that he was not legitimate, that Russia had helped him, that there was just no way that he had won or earned the office outright. Now, I think Democrats are just exhausted.
I mean, they threw every single thing that they could think of at him whether, you know, on the political playing field or the courtroom or, the, you know, the media was certainly, not helpful to him, and he won. And I think there's now just this exhaustion, resignation, and in the in the business world, it I, you know, complete acceptance that he is in charge. He has maximum political power perhaps, you know, no one has been, riding into the office with more leverage than Trump has in a long time. And part of that is because Joe Biden is essentially missing an action. I mean, Mark likes to make the joke, during a presidential transition.
There's only one president at a time. And right now, that appears to be the president-elect Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: But it's in
Speaker 1: the press frustration.
Speaker 2: Meghan, here's the funny thing. You can't see this, but this is a picture from December 14, 2016. All the people sitting around this meeting in Trump Tower, it's Tim Cook, Bezos. It happened in 2016. They all came.
But to Dan's point, they didn't like him. They didn't think he was legitimate. So, you know, to his to Donald Trump's point, they all kissed his ring in 2016 initially. They came up to Trump Tower. I mean, there's probably 20 of these tech executives in this room and yet very different outcome.
The American people spoke very loudly. It wasn't that just that Donald Trump won, it's that the policies of the left failed. The open borders, the DEI, the woke policies failed and these corporate leaders that bought into it all are now realizing they were wrong. It wasn't that that just that Trump won, it's that they lost.
Speaker 1: Well, think about too, Sean. In 16, when they did that, you know, like, I I we we have a good friend who's a senior executive at Google. Google gave their employees a day off after the 2016 election for a day of, like, mental health warning. Now there's none of that. Now it's just, like, even the employee base is, like, well, I hope we're going down there.
Like, you know, did you see Bezos was down there? Like, when are we going down there? So I think now it's not just the executives, but like rank and file employees who are resigned and accepting that Donald Trump is the next president of the United States. Yep.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. Better to go along and get along. Yeah. Tim Cook was another one who went in there this time around, the head of Apple. So, Sean, you gave the thumbs up when I mentioned the lawsuits that Trump has been filing, and this is not in his capacity as president.
This is as private citizen Donald Trump. He's totally entitled to file whatever lawsuits he wants, and the courts will respond accordingly. But he did in fact file the one against the Des Moines Register that he threatened yesterday. This is based on Ann Seltzer's final poll of the 2024 election cycle showing him down. I'm trying to remember whether he was down or up 3 3 or 4 points.
Speaker 2: Down.
Speaker 0: What was it?
Speaker 3: Down.
Speaker 0: He was down. And he wound up winning Iowa by 14, so it was completely wrong. And she's embarrassed, and she retired. I mean, she retired on a loss, which is just awful. Like, that's, I'm sure, not how she wanted to go out, but she did humiliate herself.
Now I don't see the lawsuit unless unless Trump has some proof that comes out that actually shows she did do it as election interference. Like, there was some intentionality behind this alleged fraud to mislead people in order to change the vote. I have seen and I have heard absolutely no proof to that effect, and I see none alleged by Trump. It's just a supposition that that's why she did it. But what do you make of that lawsuit and the lawsuit against the Pulitzer, board, which we talked about sorry.
Nobel. Which we talked about the other day. Where was it Nobel or Pulitzer? Why am I forgetting all my facts? Pulitzer.
Yeah. It was a Pulitzer, board that gave that gave, The New York Times the Pulitzer Prize for its Russia reporting, but they actually talked about this yesterday. The reason they did it is because the Pulitzer Prize made its its own independent statement saying nothing nothing came out after those reports to prove the facts they're in is true untrue, which is potentially a defamatory statement. Anyway, what do you make of his legal strategy right now?
Speaker 2: Well, you're the lawyer, I'm not. So I'm gonna defer to Megyn Kelly when it comes to legal matters. I will say the one that I get excited about, you mentioned, is the ABC one because that's completely false and Stephanopoulos knew it. And I think that when reporters get called out for being wrong, that's a good thing. They need to be held accountable just like anybody else.
And so I was excited about that. I think the bed wetters like Chuck Todd and Jim Acosta, who are talking about this being a threat to the media, are morons. The bottom line is is that why should they get away with defaming people with inaccurate information or information they know to be wrong? Look, the Sullivan standard that the supreme court has set for public figures proves that you have to prove intent and malice. It's a very high bar.
And so, there's a big difference for for someone even like me who's had this kind of issue come up. The lawyers will tell you, god, this is how much it's gonna cost you. This is the burden that we have to meet. This is what's gonna happen during discovery in terms of your emails, your text coming out. So there's a reason not to do it.
Now, in the Iowa case, my understanding is that what Trump's lawyers are going against isn't the the Sullivan standard saying you defamed me. But in fact, a consumer law that Iowa has about misrepresenting people, again, I'll defer to you and the lawyers about the nuances of that, but they're using a very interesting tactic saying that they violated Iowa's consumer statute, which prevents misinformation about a product. And now, again, it's a very narrow reading from my lay person standpoint, but, you know, look, I think what it does, when that poll came out, right, first of all, the Iowa poll has had a storied history of problems. The bottom line is is that that didn't pass the smell test, right? And nobody bought that, both the most in terms of what other public polls at the time said and in terms of what the data was suggesting where Iowa's electorate was.
So it didn't make sense and the bottom and and so the question is why did they go through with it? What did the crosstabs show? How did they sample the electorate? Did they know in advance, and this is where the discovery phase comes in, Are there emails that show that they knew that there might be some problems with how they created the sample that that was based off of? I don't know but my guess is that's why you go through this to the discovery phase so you can say, gosh, this doesn't add up, and them saying, well, who cares?
Go ahead with it anyway. I
Speaker 6: Can I
Speaker 3: say I think
Speaker 0: that one's gonna get thrown out on the papers? I think they'll move to dismiss it, and it will be dismissed without without the exchange of discovery. Go ahead, Mark.
Speaker 3: First of all, I agree with Sean about the ABC case, and and I think they're now probably 5 votes on the court to change the Sullivan standard. And and Donald Trump may bring a case that that gets the court that does that. But I think it's overly litigious to do what he did yesterday. And Anne Seltzer is my friend. I used to used to be my polling partner, and she's been one of the most accurate pollsters in America.
It's true that she's stepping back from doing political polling, but she announced that, Megan, before this poll came out. And, she she's not retiring. And and to say I don't I don't think it's right to say she's been humiliated. I think people have tried to humiliate her. But every pollster I've ever worked with, every pollster whose work is respected, sometimes polls are wrong.
In fact, statistically, 1 in 20 are wrong to suggest to suggest election interference.
Speaker 0: She has been humiliated. She was 17 points off. Everybody ran around saying she's a gold standard. She's a gold standard. She actually had the potential to change the trajectory of the race.
It she she showed Kamala Harris winning by 3 in a deep red state. Trump won the state by 14. She was 17 points off and completely blew it. She blew it. So she is humiliated.
I look at her, and I see someone who is humiliated.
Speaker 3: I I just I just think that that to judge one person by one poll, there's no evidence that a poll like that, quote, unquote, influences the election. But I think I think what's important is that president Trump be judicious in choosing who to go after. You you this case, I don't think I don't agree with you. I think it'll be thrown out on the paper. And I think it it it it cheapens the victory he has with over ABC, who settled.
We don't know exactly why. But he should focus on the cases where not only he feels personally aggrieved, but where there's a chance of not only and and not only cases where there's a chance of winning, but in cases where there's an important principle at stake. That's, I think, the best use of his time, his lawyer's time, and his money. And and so I think that's
Speaker 0: why I'm trying to get some of the same pollsters here. You know, Trump is obsessed with polls, and he dismisses the ones that he doesn't like. And, he doesn't and he kinda does the same thing with media. He's kind of obsessed with media and attacks the ones that he doesn't like. But the thing with ABC was real, and it was a legit problem and a legit objection.
And I don't agree with all those people who say that he was going to lose that case. I don't. I think if that had gone forward, there was a very, very good chance that Trump would have won that case possibly even just on the papers without a jury trial. It was clear what they said. It was very clear what George Stephanopoulos said, and it was very clear what the jury found and didn't find.
I think you had a good chance of winning a summer judgment as Trump. This was different.
Speaker 2: Go ahead. You're the you're the lawyer on this. If they were to get to discovery in in the Des Moines Register Seltzer case, and they found someone there emailing Anne and saying, gosh, this doesn't really comport with what recent information suggests, you know, or here's a sample that we don't think if if if you saw that exchange, I guess my question to you as a lawyer would be, isn't that the point if they can show that they knew there were flaws and they went ahead with it? Now that's a big if, but if you could show that they were flaws and they knew about them, wouldn't that give you merit to go forward?
Speaker 0: Maybe. But even that's a real stretch. And I would think that before the judge would engage in allowing that kind of discovery, you'd have to have a good faith basis to to make the allegation. There has to be more than just, like, I suspect. I think she tanked it intentionally.
And I just don't see that. Like, what what specifically do they know? I think they know what I just said. She projected Kamala was up by 3, and Trump won the state by 14. And she was very off, and it rattled team Trump.
And he's irritated by it. So that, to me, seems to be all of the evidence they have against Anne Seltzer. Now if they've got something else and they can attach something to their, you know, motion to fight the the dismissal, which you're not supposed to do. You're supposed to judge it based on the four corners of the document, the complaint. I don't know.
But I think that one's gonna go away. And, I I I know he's litigious, and he's talking about how he wishes the DOJ would bring these cases. I don't like that either. I don't think the DOJ should be Trump's personal attorney. The DOJ should be the United States' personal attorney.
They represent us, and they're not there to settle Trump's beefs. That's what the last guy did. That's what the outgoing president used the DOJ for. So we've had enough of that. Right?
That's my own view of on it. Okay. Let's talk about that Trump sound bite where he was talking about how he'd view the primary campaigns against people who stand in the way of his nominees. 2 of them back in the news today, RFKJ on Capitol Hill trying to make nice with, the senators who will have the say over whether he makes it as HHS secretary. Pete Hegseth, still out there doing the same.
Unclear on both of them as of today what their fate will be. But there was a wave of attacks against RFKJ over the past few days started last Thursday or Friday, saying his counsel, his lawyer filed a lawsuit trying to get rid of the polio vaccine and that these 2 are close. And all these media are like, RFKJ wants to get rid of the polio vaccine, which unlike the COVID, quote, vaccine is a real vaccine. Like, you take it, and you don't get polio. And it's just just absolutely a smear campaign.
We actually looked into it and made contact with this with the lawyer. The lawyer tried to get rid of he challenged one one of the many polio vaccines, one strain of it. Did not say let's get rid of all the others because it had potentially cancerous cells in it, and there hadn't been tested against a control group, and it had not gone through the rigorous testing that vaccine should go through. So he said that one is problematic, that you would never know that if you looked at what the media did. I'll give you a couple of examples of the headlines.
New York Times. Kennedy's lawyer has asked the FDA to revoke approval of the polio vaccine. New York Times, McConnell defends polio vaccine, an apparent warning to Kennedy. Now it's Kennedy's now Kennedy wants to get rid of the polio vaccine. Wapo, RFK Junior Ally filed petition to revoke FDA approval for polio vaccine, the New Republic.
RFK Junior's lawyer exposed trying to abolish polio vaccine. NBC backlash grows over RFKJ's lawyer asking FDA to revoke approval of polio vaccine. This is just wrong, Mark Halperin. And, you know, it doesn't take that much effort to do what we did, which is, did he really do that? It took us about 5 minutes to realize, no.
He didn't.
Speaker 3: Well, in addition, as you also pointed out, it's not Bobby Kennedy. It's his lawyer, one of his many lawyers. I I I find that they're so interesting in the media now, and I call the dominant media. Some of the coverage is reminiscent of the way Donald Trump's been covered for 7 years, you know, tendentiously hostile. Some of it's actually as favorable as anything he's ever gotten.
I think the the fate of the nominees, including Bobby Kennedy, including Pete Hegseth and and Tulsi Gabbard, will be on how well they do when when January hearings come. It'll also be on, whether there's any new revelations about them. But I think for for team Trump, these kinds of stories are actually beneficial because in the end they are debunked. And once again, even though the press is being nice some of the time to Trump, nicer, they're able to use that to say, look how unfair this is. Nothing rallies MAGA and many of the Republican senators more around the Trump nominees than attacks from the media that they consider to be unfair.
So I would say that random story has probably helped Bobby Kennedy because now the focus isn't is Bobby Kennedy right on abortion or is he right on this or that. It's he's under siege from the media. We gotta support him.
Speaker 0: And one thing you know about Bobby Kennedy, I mean, having interviewed him many times, is he's extremely smart, and he's a litigator. He spent a lifetime as a lawyer pursuing these causes. He will be so ready on this and any other empty attacks. I mean, he will slice and dice with the best of them. He's been under attack for all of his adult life.
So, Dan, last time you guys were on, I believe it was you who said you think that he may get some support because he is a Democrat, and he did have so much support in his own presidential run. Do you still think that? And do you think he's going to have trouble getting through?
Speaker 1: I I still believe it very much. I mean, Meghan, one of the things we heard all fall that that gave me kind of confidence in saying that I think that I thought Trump was gonna win is the number of people who would come on our show and say, I'm a democrat, I've left the party because of how it treated RFK, and I am with Trump because RFK is with Trump. And if we're going to win national elections again, and be, you know, get the senate back, We have got to find a way to win both RFK and his voters, and bring them back into the party. And I think there will be some democrats that will vote for him. I think that his biggest threat really is from the right.
I think the fact that, as you said, he is a democrat. His views on choice, his views on the role of government and health care are more are closer to our party that they're pretty aligned with our party, unless, the Republican party. And so I think he's going to have to answer those questions and give comfort to some people on the right. Certainly not all democrats will vote for RFK, but I do believe there will be more than 1 or 2 that will vote for him, and they should.
Speaker 3: Do you know
Speaker 2: how mind blowing this is by the way? Just just stop and think about this. Donald Trump, a Republican has appointed a Kennedy who was primarying Biden just what, 12 months ago for the democratic nomination has been put into the cabinet where he will get by and large republican votes. This is mind blowing if you think about where we are in terms of which party is more inclusive. Bobby Kennedy, a a part of the Kennedy family who was literally fighting for the Democratic nomination is going to be in the cabinet of Donald Trump.
Secondly, I think the
Speaker 0: the policy by the way, Chelsea was fighting for the for the Dem nomination just a few years ago. Go ahead.
Speaker 2: That's right. Exactly. She she was primarying, Biden for it. But you also go back to the first how you started this conversation between the media story with ABC, settling for $15,000,000 with Donald Trump and the lies that they're telling about Bobby Kennedy and vaccines. The bottom line is this, the media that supposedly dies in darkness and hates the spread of misinformation is just showing you why it's the d a dying industry.
They continue to spread misinformation and lies. This is why we showed, on on actually, on the morning meeting the other day, exclusive polling from signal. Signal. And when you look at where people are getting their news, it's it's very, very interesting. I posted this on Instagram.
Like if you are getting your news from newspapers or from national media, from like ABC, CBS, NBC, you voted for Harris. If you're on YouTube or streaming, you're getting you're voting for Trump. We're the party of the future. We're more inclusive. They are part of a dying dying industry and legacy.
Speaker 3: Megan, can I say one other thing about
Speaker 0: reporting out today that suggest that? Go ahead, Mark. That suggest that
Speaker 3: about Bobby Ken about Bobby Kennedy, we've heard for months, including today on the morning meeting, from parents, lots of moms, who really believe in make America healthy again. And they're so they're so passionate about it, and and they understand not everything you hear about Bobby Kennedy is true, and there may be things they don't like about him. But of all the people Donald Trump is trying to bring into the government, even more than Elon Musk and and Vivek Ramaswami from the outside, Bobby Kennedy has the potential to revolutionize America with that agenda for drugs and food and and and the health of our children, wellness. It's it's it's a huge all these things are huge problems in America. They unite Sanders supporters and Trump supporters, suburban parents, I mean, urban parents.
These are massive issues, and just already, just from talking about them during the transition in the campaign, Bobby Kennedy, I would argue, has done more to elevate these issues than anyone ever has, including Michelle Obama, who talked about some of them, but not in the fundamental way of of going after corporate interests. And so I'll be curious to see if he pursues it, but that's what I think could win him some democratic votes because they're such fundamental issues for their constituents.
Speaker 2: Think about how Republicans have fared with with republic with women. Right? This is an issue that can trend can transcend party, bring more women to the Republican party because they're concerned about what their children are eating, what they're eating. They are, in many in many cases, the the people who are the providers for a family. And so, women are at the forefront of this issue and I think that what what RFK and what Donald Trump are doing, exposing the NIH, the CDC, the FDA, and what we had thought was eating healthy is gonna be monumental both in terms of, our longevity and our wellness as a country, but I think also politically.
I just think that the
Speaker 0: time is ripe. Right? We had we had the opioid crisis where we realized that, our federal government officials are not protecting us. In fact, they're in bed with big pharma to pad their own pockets as individuals and otherwise, and they don't give a damn about the rest of us. And then we had COVID, which reinforced all of that.
And then we had just the explosion of, you know, the Maha beginnings, whether it was, Casey Means and her brother, Cali Means. But that interview they gave on Tucker went everywhere. They came here too. It was big. And then within days, they were next to RFKJ endorsing Trump, and it was just it boom.
We're off to the races. His choice of, Nicole Shanahan, who's big into these issues as his running mate. Like, I don't know if it was all intentional. He came on here many times and said this was one of his big issues, But he's also very big on some other issues, like the military industrial complex. And but this was the one that hit, and he was smart enough to exploit it and to sell it to Trump as something that could actually help.
Trump embraced it, really ran on it, and now it cannot be one of those things that he discards. And indeed, Dan, yesterday, Trump was not discarding it. He was saying he thinks that Bobby Kennedy will be great on these issues and was saying on pesticides, for an example, he said, he claimed that Europe doesn't use any. It's that's not true, but they use far, far fewer than we use. Far fewer.
And he was asked about the the link between autism and vaccines, and Trump said, I don't know about that, but we wanna study it. And what we really wanna look at is things like vaccines, toxins. That's been RFKJ's big thing his entire life. Too many toxins in the environment, and it's making us and, yes, our children sick.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Meghan, you you hit something too when you said this goes back to kinda COVID. One of the problems for the Democratic party is we have kinda tried to shut down debate on a lot of stuff when people have questioned things. And we've said, oh, the experts, the scientists, like, anyone who says, you know, that that you shouldn't wear a mask. Anyone that says maybe the kids should be back in school.
Anyone who says, you know, maybe 6 feet isn't the right number. We try to shut it down. Shame them. You're an idiot. You know, how could you not follow science?
One of the things that RFK has done is raised questions that parents have themselves. I mean, you said it. Pesticides, food, the obesity with children. The fact that we are defending the status quo in an era when people are so against they're so upset. They're they're frustrated.
They feel like their voices aren't heard. It it frustrates me as a democrat that Trump and the republican party have owned now and and and taken over, and and they are seen as a party that is asking questions, is probing, is willing to change. That is that I'd rather be them than us right now, and we have to become more tolerant and accepting of people with different views and ask, you know, questions about why and respect, what people are thinking.
Speaker 0: You know, you listen to R. F. K. Jain, you know, I've interviewed him at length many times, and what he's saying is not like, let's get rid of all the vaccines. But even on the vaccines, he was saying there's mercury in these vaccines, and it doesn't need to be in there.
And while they said, you're wrong. You're wrong. You're wrong. You know what they did? They removed the mercury.
And RFKJ said, well, what about the aluminum? Because that's not much better. And they said, oh, you're wrong. You're wrong. You're wrong.
But it does turn out that aluminum is a neurotoxin. And then he says, okay. What about, chlorine in the water? Well, that's crazy. We need to work on the teeth and so on.
Well, you know what? That's also potentially a neurotoxin. Then they say, sorry, fluoride.
Speaker 4: Fluoride.
Speaker 0: And, then we talk about, like, the toxins that are in our products that we put all over our bodies. Oh, well, don't worry. His point is we are swimming in a toxic stew, And it's one thing when you're a grown human. It's bad enough for us. But you take these little kids and you load them up with these vaccines, which they often don't need, like the, you know, h whatever.
What's the, the hep c vaccine? They're not having sex. They're little babies. They don't need this unless they've they've been born to a mother with the disease. So we're overloading them with these vaccines.
The vaccines themselves have in the past and may currently have materials inside of them as preservatives or otherwise that they don't need, that can potentially be toxic to the children. Then we feed them food that has been covered in pesticides and chemical chemicals that we use to make them cheaper or to keep the bugs off so it's easier for the farmers, and they're not in these the the right soil and so on, so they're not getting the nutrients in there. And we overload the kids with that. And then we for a certain bunch of processed food, which is, like, not food at all. It's just a bunch of chemicals packaged.
And and, like, one thing and then like, one thing after the other. Right? And these poor kids by the way, then we put them in these, you know, fire Plastics. Resistant pajamas that have chemicals all over them, and we sit them on the sofa that has treatment all over it so that it's stain resistant, which is chemicals all over them. Then when they're breathing in the microplastics, they're drinking from the plastic bottles, which have microplastics in them.
Like, that's what RFKJ said to me. He's like, we didn't used to have ticks in children all the time. You know how they're ticking now. A lot of these kids are looks like Tourette's. We didn't used to have the explosion of autism as we've seen it now.
We didn't used to have the explosion of ADHD. And people will make fun of him about the fluoride and the vaccines and all of it. But I really believe that not just moms, but parents are listening because we've seen it. We've seen it in our kids or in our kids' friends or in our nephews and nieces. He's been living it, so he's identified it early.
Trump was smart to listen to him. And I do think, guys, these Democrats shoot him down trying to paint him as a crazy at their own peril or Republicans.
Speaker 3: Agree. The Democrats, it's kind of incredible when you look at the traction that's gotten and how obvious it is. Politics is about emotion, how emotional an issue this is. It's incredible the Democrats didn't take the lead on this. Incredible.
Speaker 0: The the Democrats are far from taking the lead, guys. They're taking the lead the other way. Take a listen to Yeah. Elizabeth Warren on RFKJ.
Speaker 7: Say goodbye to your smile and say hello to polio. You know, I would laugh if it weren't so scary. Donald Trump just picked RFK Junior to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. This is a man who wants to stop kids from getting their polio and measles shots. He's actually welcoming a return to polio, a disease we merely eradicated.
But it doesn't stop. RFK Jr. Also doesn't believe fluoride should be in your water, and that's what keeps your teeth from rotting. You can't think
Speaker 0: this is a problem. Either. I also said that word
Speaker 3: is a man
Speaker 2: being an Indian.
Speaker 3: The man wants rotting teeth and polio. Who can blame him?
Speaker 0: He's his favorite. He loves polio. Okay. That was 4 days ago, by the way. That wasn't months ago or years like, that was 4 days ago.
That's gonna be the messaging. He's a kook.
Speaker 3: Okay. But that but that's that's that's, AI. Right? That's not real Elizabeth Warren.
Speaker 0: That's that's her. No. That's not American,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Warren.
Speaker 0: Pulser. At Fox, at my show, we called her chief lies a lot. I don't you know, take your pick. We'll see how she does with that messaging, guys. Okay.
Let's talk about what's being done to, Hegseth. This is kind of interesting that the RFKJ attack on polio is based on his lawyers challenging one strain. 1. Hegseth is now in The New York Times under attack in an article dated yesterday for his bodyguard that has been walking around with him at the meetings on Capitol Hill. Okay.
Listen to this. The headline is, Hegseth's guard left the army after the beating of a civilian during training. John Hassenbein, who has escorted Donald j Trump's pick for defense secretary to meetings on Capitol Hill, said he was unjustly prosecuted for this 2019 episode by Dave Phillips and Sharon Lafraniere. And, this whole article, guys, is about the guy who's been guarding Pete so that he doesn't get attacked on Capitol Hill by some nut. How a couple years ago, he was doing a drill to learn how to, like, take down terrorists, and they were doing this drill because he was a former army special forces.
He was a master sergeant at the time. And when they did this training event, they had civilian role players come in and play ISIS, play bad guys. And that this guy, Hass or Hassenbein, allegedly kicked, punched, and hurt this civilian role player even leaving him hogtied, the Times writes, in a pool of his own blood. And it led to an investigation and ultimately, an a charge by the army of aggravated assault and reckless endangerment. A military jury found him guilty of the assault charge in a court martial in 2020, but the judge overseeing the case wound up throwing it out because it turned out that there had been improper conduct by a juror speaking with, as it turns out, a friend of mister Hassenbein about the trial, which that will get your verdict thrown out every time.
And The Times is trying to say this somehow reflects on Pete Hegseth's fitness for Pentagon chief because he then hired this guy who ultimately was not convicted because they threw it out in the army, chose not to retry him, and was honorably retired from the army after 22 years of service. They basically said, if you if you retire, we'll let it be honorable, and we won't pursue another charge against you. And he said, fine. I'm out of here. They want us to not, I guess, vote for Pete Sean because he hired that guy to run security for him, and it's just further evidence of his lapse in judgment and flouting of military rules.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I've been waiting to break this news on the Megyn Kelly show, so I'm gonna go ahead and do this right now. There's a story coming out tomorrow that the girl that Pete dated in 6th grade has a brother who mowed the lawn of a guy down the street whose cousin knew a guy that once was related to somebody that Pete saw at a reunion when he was there for 5 minutes, and that person said that Pete stiffed him on the tip. So I I think this is gonna get really bad before it gets better.
Speaker 0: I mean, talk about the gymnastics that The Times had to do. If we're at this point now, Dan, of the dirt digging phase on Pete, I feel like he should be feeling pretty good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look. If the standard was that no every politician's friends had to be completely clean, there'd be nobody in, you know, federal or state government. I I mean, it it really is a stretch. I I think, you know, in my opinion, there's enough, questions on Higgs at the like.
Stick to the nominee. I I think really the the question is less with Democrats and with fellow Republicans. You know, I think he's struggling with with a handful of them, but I I agree with you. Trying to bring in a security official, a Sherpa, you know, college buddy, to me, that's just a a total stretch and one of the things, you know, voters roll their eyes about.
Speaker 0: Moreover, can I tell you guys something as somebody who has been threatened and had some bad actors, you know, in my life who wanna hurt me? This is exactly the kind of guy I wanna hire. Yes. The nastier, the better. Get the guy who hogtied the civilian.
That is who I want walking next to me, lest anybody try to mess with me. The, Hegseth nomination is by no means secure. The Washington Post, I'm trying to keep track of where I read it, but I think it was WAPO, today or yesterday saying this is gonna be Kavanaugh 2 point o and predicting it's actually gonna be worse than Kavanaugh. But a Republican was was predicting this will be worse than Kavanaugh. The Democrats may indeed wind up calling this so called victim, this alleged rape accuser, who, had an interlude with him in 2017 that she claims was nonconsensual.
He claims it was consensual. They signed an NDA, and he was paying her off for her silence because he didn't want that coming out while he was at Fox. Now it's been declared void by team Pete because she or her friends dropped the full story on Mar a Lago during the transition, and that was a breach of the violate of the agreement, which they believe released Pete from his obligations and the monies ended. And now she is free. She would have been free anyway.
You can't deny a congressional subpoena based on an NDA. Anyway, now the question is, do the Democrats call her, and does she go in? And do the Democrats wanna make this Kavanaugh 2.0 mark, or do they realize, like, this could backfire and this too could spin so out of control that Kavanaugh was a it was an event for Republicans that was, like, a before and after moment where the party congealed in a way it hadn't before in Trump's presidency. So, like, that's a risky proposition for the Dems too.
Speaker 3: Right. So I think you you gotta say as you follow the narrative of the Hegseth nomination that he and his team, including JD Vance, have done a textbook job, should be studied in political science courses of putting the nomination back on track because it was basically going into a ditch and not coming out. He's now done what they needed to do, which is to get all the Republican senators to say, we're not coming out against him until January, if at all. We wanna see a hearing. We wanna give him a chance to defend himself.
All the charges against him of seriousness, almost all of them, I should say, are anonymous. And I think senators recoil at that. And you've heard some of the senators, including Journey and Estebayo, make reference to that. If the allegations become not anonymous, but someone testifies, and if questions about whether he's ready to run the building and sit in the sitting room, if those are put in sharp relief, I think there are some Republicans who might might vote negatively towards him. The Hegseth nomination was was driven and and the and the questions about him were driven by Democrats and the iron what I call the iron triangle of Democrats, senators, the congressional staff, and the outside groups along with their media allies.
That that isn't the case here. These doubts are amongst Republicans. Democrats have their debts too, but they're meaningless because they're not gonna vote for him. I think if if there's no new revelations and he performs well, whether whether this person testifies or not, I don't think we'll stop him from being confirmed. But he has to perform well, and there have to be no new revelations.
And I will tell you that even some of his allies are braced for more revelations.
Speaker 0: I don't know, Dan, what this woman would sound like if she decided to testify. I think in interviewing her, somebody would probably be able to get a feel for whether she'd make a good witness or not, but there are so many holes in her story. I mean, I think this is this would shape up to be, like, more like Anita Hill than Christine Blasey Ford, where there's a lot to cross examine to cross examine her with. You know? Like, it's it would be ugly for her.
I really think it would be ugly for her. That's not a threat. That's my assessment because I've read the police report, and his lawyer is already threatening her. Like, you can you can go. You, of course, you can abide by a subpoena, but it doesn't relieve you of your obligations not to defame Pete Hegseth.
And if you get out there and accuse him of rape, here I am, and you'll you'll be sued. And I don't think this woman has a lot of money from what I hear, and I think she just lost her Pete Hegseth money. So, you know, we don't know whether we have a willing accuser, but do you think the democrats will see the risk in calling such a person given that police report?
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look. That that it anytime somebody steps forward in a public nature to make an allegation as serious as as she may potentially make, you have to brace yourself. I mean, you are entering the deep end of the pool. People will rebut it, people will question your character, your motives, everything.
And as you say, in the in the, Brett Kavanaugh instance, the testimony against him was pretty riveting. I mean, she stepped forward, and and and made, you know, some very serious, charges and that nomination obviously was kind of teetering, for a moment there. Look, I I think if you're the democrats, there are so many allegations against HEXF, whether it's in this instance, the fiscal mismanagement, you know, is he the right fit to lead the Pentagon during a time of 2 wars? It's one of the biggest bureaucracies, the procurement process is a mess, let alone the questions about DEI and other things that Trump would like, him to focus on. I think you have an obligation to raise all of these issues in a respectful way, And I think, you know, as Mark said, there are Republican senators for whom these are, you know, individual allegations are also concerning.
And so I think if you're the Democrats, you have to have a witness that's willing to cooperate and be comfortable putting, her or in, you know, some instances himself out there because, you are gonna get roughed up. That's not a Trump thing. That's just a political thing if you step forward.
Speaker 0: That's true even if what you're saying is true. And I believe in this case what she's saying is a false accusation, so she's going to be especially hesitant. I mean, I really believe it was the husband who pushed her into making this allegation because he could not come to terms with the fact that his wife had gone down the hall and slept with Pete Hegseth while he was in the hotel room that she was supposed to be in with their kids. I wanna correct myself. It was The Hill that had that article about, Kavanaugh 2.0, dated today by Alexander Bolton, and saying that it was John Cornyn who, said he told HECSETH it's going to be a miserable experience, sort of like Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing.
And then, it was Tom Tillis from Republican of North Carolina who said he fears this battle could be worse than the brawl that erupted over Kavanaugh. Everything is going to be elevated, quote, I think it's going to be Kavanaugh on steroids. Oh, joy. Alright. So stay on the line.
Speaker 3: You may you may see you may see a different witness or witnesses rather than that particular woman.
Speaker 0: Oh god. Sounds like Mark knows something. There's a tease. 15 seconds to break. We'll pick it up with Mark.
He always does this. Okay. We'll take a quick commercial break. We'll back we'll be back with the guys right after this. Don't go away.
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Home title lock dot com. Alright, Mark. So do you know something about another woman coming forward against Pete?
Speaker 3: Well, I didn't say another woman, although I didn't say not another woman. Look. I think there's been, understandably,
Speaker 6: a
Speaker 3: a lot of focus on the case that involved an act serious accusation and a confidentiality agreement. But there are other aspects of his past, including some things having not had to do with drinking or alleged sex, but having to do with management, where there are some people who I believe have been anonymous, but who may choose to do television interviews and or come before the committee. And I think although they've been the subject of a lot of, criticism and scrutiny from MAGA, These Republican senators who have concerns about him have concerns that range across the board. It doesn't mean they won't vote to confirm it, but I think you're gonna see in some cases that people are willing to testify not anonymously, I think you're very likely to see some Republican senators say, yes. They should testify, and he should have a chance to respond.
I I think they'll continue to be a a a a high level of focus on this one accuser, this one situation. But there are others lurking in the background, including some that I believe have not been reported yet, but that may surface before the hearings.
Speaker 0: Well, if they zero in on the alleged financial failings with respect to his management of one in particular of the jet the vet charities that he was helming, then they're onto something because I think even Pete admits it wasn't ideal. He kinda in our interview, he kind of excuses, like, we were young. We were trying to spend the money to get John McCain elected. We did run up some debt, all of which was ultimately paid off, but he wasn't exactly bragging about the financial management of that particular group. I don't know what else there could be, but I'm I don't think that will sink him.
I do think financial mismanagement in general is not great for the Pentagon chief since it's so expensive. They have such a huge budget. But I don't think Pete Hegseth is gonna be sitting there with his little green visor doing the books if he actually gets this role. Okay. Let's keep going.
Stay on politics for a minute. Kamala Harris back in the news. So exciting. She's not giving up. She may run for governor of California.
She may run-in 2028. She's not convinced she shouldn't be allowed to do that because, you know, she didn't get to go through the whole process this time, and it was an abbreviated campaign. And, she got to speak recently at a DNC event that happened on Sunday. Joe was there. There was a love fest with Kamala and Joe and Jill and so on.
And, here was a little bit of how she sounded in SOT 12.
Speaker 8: So, look, the holiday season is one of my favorite times of year, that and my birthday, and our and our wedding anniversary, of course.
Speaker 0: Just gonna keep digging
Speaker 8: this all deeper and deeper. So important this holiday season to remember, we all have so much to celebrate. We have ideals that we're very clear about in terms of their importance and the importance of us fighting for those ideals. We know that fighting for the promise of America takes hard work. Now y'all can help me finish this.
Speaker 2: Many of
Speaker 8: you have heard me say it.
Speaker 0: Hard work is good
Speaker 8: work. Hard work is joyful work. And in the new year, we will continue our work with hope, with determination, and with joy. Let us celebrate the blessings we have. Let us celebrate in advance the blessings we have yet to create.
Speaker 3: All of us so wrong. Every syllable every syllable calculated to drive you insane.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad to be unburdened by that. I I am unburdened by that which
Speaker 0: is a blessing.
Speaker 3: If if it were scripted, say, how do we how do we annoy Meghan? That's exactly what she would say.
Speaker 0: She's like the she's the world champ. Who's gonna be on the opening? Like, I said, the holiday is such a special time of year to me. Hello? That's how almost everybody feels.
There's nothing she she that's what she's classic for taking something that is a completely banal statement, trying to make it sound special. Like, I just love the holiday, the time of year. Oh, you do? Really? You do you find the twinkly twinkly white lights everywhere and the Christmas carols kind of charming?
Hello. We all do. Only the worst Scrooges would say something else. Oh, and also my birthday. Oh, oh, and our anniversary.
Oh, I'm just gonna keep digging that hole. No one no one's laughing with you. This is not funny material. No one was like, you didn't mention your anniversary. That's not how people think.
Shar, she's so off. She's like, I don't know what it is. She's just off socially. I don't know if she's got a disorder. She's, like, got a whatever.
Was it neurodivergent? I have no idea.
Speaker 2: Meghan, I I wanna just be the first to say it here. I am throwing my full and complete endorsement behind Kamala Harris for governor of California or president in 2028, whichever she wants. Seconded. I want her to go forward so bad.
Speaker 0: I mean,
Speaker 2: this is the this would be the best Christmas present ever, and I love this season. I love it.
Speaker 0: You're so special in that way. I'm gonna max out to the Kamala Harris 2028 campaign, Dan. How about you?
Speaker 1: No. I will not be. I mean, look, I think there's 3 things about her here. I I think one, you know, much to my surprise, I think Mark Sean, there's been very little cut talk since the election about Ferrer as a candidate. The fact that she was indecisive, cautious, kind of playing not to make a mistake.
Those are the same things that brought her down in 2019, and surfaced again in 2024. The second point is, candidates that run 3 times and are successful, like Ronald Reagan and and Donald Trump, they they they're they're consistent in their views, in their policy positions. And the the country kind of comes towards them, or in Trump's case, they come back towards you. She was the definition of inconsistent. Right?
She was very progressive in 19. She was, you know, in in her telling a moderate in 24. You know, what would she be in 2028? Or even for 2026 in California. And the last thing is, she has no real power base, within the party that you would say, okay, this is a formidable block.
How do we kind of get through them or or or peel off people? You know, she didn't raise $1,500,000,000 this time around. The opponent of Donald Trump raised $1,500,000, and that happened to be her. But the the the grassroots is not in love with her. Major donors were not in love with her.
And so I think if she were to run, you know, the best thing that ever happened to her was not having a primary. Because if she would have had to have picked, you know, a moderate or liberal position on issue after issue in a primary, explain why she had changed her positions or not changed her positions. She she, you know, last time that happened, she didn't even make it to Iowa. So I think whether she runs for president or governor, she would face a lot of challengers, and I would, you know, not be confident if I were her that she would be victorious.
Speaker 0: Follow-up to you, Dan. Why haven't there been articles dissecting her weaknesses as a candidate? I feel like I'm the only one who did it in a long episode we released shortly after the election, which was very honest about her failings. Why why haven't we seen that?
Speaker 1: I honestly don't know. You know, Mark has asked the same question here recently, and I I don't have a good answer. I I think there seems to be a lot of finger pointing at Donald Trump. There seems to be, effort by her senior staff to say we ran I think one person said, quote, a flawless campaign to which Chris Lasavides said, yeah. You can't lose and say you ran a flawless campaign.
But there is just this kind of, you know, excuse that the wins were so strong. Trump was had such a the upper hand that really there was no way we could win, which I I I just don't believe and and find the data doesn't back that up. I don't know, Meaghan. I I do believe that in the new year, when people thinking about 2028 start to emerge, that they will make sure that she goes through the barrel, so to speak, that that these stories do come out. But I agree.
I can't believe it that she's escaping criticism personally.
Speaker 0: If she skulks off into the night, they'll they'll keep their fingers off the keyboards. But if she's like, I'm I think I might be the one for 2028. They'll get her. They're gonna start pummeling her. The Kathleen Parkers of the world who are pushing Biden to dump her off the ticket when he was still the nominee will be right back at it like hard no.
So what do you make of those possibilities, Mark, governor of California or possibly, once again, running for the Democratic nomination and possibly president?
Speaker 3: I don't like to never say never, but I find it hard to believe that she could build support. The the stories, it's it's it's so disappointing to see our colleagues, just as they did during the 4 years of the Biden administration, failing to cover the truth right before our eyes. Is is her poor performance the only reason she didn't win? No. But it's right up there.
It's right up there. And no one drafted her to run. She chose to be the nominee, and she owned a calendar when she chose to be a nominee. She knew there were only a 107 days, and she knew what her limits were as a candidate. So I think I think both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have escaped a lot of the blame that that falls to them.
And that's not just my view, but the view of a lot of Democrats, donors and members of congress, etcetera. I think her her chance of being governor of California are greater than being the Democratic nominee, But I don't think they're as great as people say because, again, her challenge is her weakness. She does not like to make difficult choices under pressure. And that is the job description for running for governor of California, being governor of California, running for president, being president. So I think she might try, but I think she'd be surprised at how tough it is.
And finally, I would say, I'm not sure if she wants to be governor of California. It's not a great job right now. And so why she'd run and and risk losing? And then if she did win, get the job, I'm not really sure.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. Well, I really hope she finds that confidence and barrels down with that hard work is good work philosophy and runs, runs, runs. Don't let those mean guys tell you you can't do it. You go, girl. Sean, there is an article, and there have been a few like this, but it's an interesting one.
Not blaming Kamala Harris for the loss, but acknowledging that the Democrats are now behind the 8 ball when it comes to the culture and where our culture is and it's going. This is in semaphore today. Max Taney wrote it and, interviewed Harris's deputy campaign manager, Rob Flaherty. And this is sort of how it sounds. Flaherty and the Harris team decided to book her on sports shows, Tanny writes, and podcasts.
But 1 by 1, the biggest personalities in shows politely turned them down. They didn't want anything to do with this race or this particular nominee. I would venture to say they probably would have gotten a different answer had we been talking Barack Obama in 2,008 when the digital lane was not a thing. They go on, the the clarity goes on to say to Max Tani, yes. We skipped major legacy news due to a shorter campaign and data that showed that our audiences overwhelmingly supported Harris already.
There's just no value with respect to my colleagues in the main stream press in a general election to to speaking to The New York Times or speaking to The Washington Post because those readers are already with us. Pretty interesting admission by this top Democrat. Like, they're completely in the tank. Wouldn't be surprised to hear Megan Kelly saying that or Sean Spicer, but there it is, literally in black and white from her top campaign guy. We've got them.
Everybody who reads those 2 publications is already a Democrat. And then this is the interesting part. He's talking about Trump's venture out into the, quote, manosphere, the podcast with Sean Ryan and Theo Vonn and Joe Rogan. And he says as follows. It's not as simple as just go on Joe Rogan and talk about how great democracy is and the importance of preserving independence of the DOJ or whatever.
You've gotta speak their language. As long as we seem like the party of the system, the people who are anti system and are looking for anti systemic media, we're gonna have a hard time connecting with them. I actually think that's a very smart point, and he's totally right. Like, she she couldn't have sold it, Sean, had she gone on Joe Rogan and just done what we just saw there. Hard work is good work.
But the the people who are in this digital lane have already made up their minds about the legacy media, the man, the systems of government that have thumbed the middle finger at them when it comes to the truth. Right? I he's right that the barrier's even higher to persuading the people who listen to these shows that they should give these guys a chance.
Speaker 2: Yeah. There's a lot to unpack there. I mean, the bottom line is the same poll that I was referring to that I posted on Instagram. We talked about in the morning meeting shows. Streamers, YouTubers, people who get their information there voted for Trump.
Take a look at it because they're right. The people who read the legacy media, the New York Times, Washington Post, watch NBC, they're with her. The difference is that we talked about this, I think, this morning, gentlemen. AOC and Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have a degree of authenticity to them, and they can pontificate for a while and talk about themselves. I watched Donald Trump for as long as I know him.
He did an interview with Tiffany smile smiley, I think it was, on the, Moms for Liberty event in DC, and I went to talk to him, and then I stayed for the event. And she did this moderated q and a with him, and I was like, my gosh. As long as I've known him, I've never heard him tell these stories. He can riff. He can hang with the best of them.
When you can hang for 3 hours with Joe Rogan, that's not about specific policy pronunciations. It's about getting to know you. And that's what Rob Flaredy was really getting at that. But just go back to the premise of what he said. We tried to book her on sports shows.
What what why would you do that? Like, I don't understand what that means. Like, what teams would she I mean, like, Trump could talk about baseball, UFC. He watches golf a lot, obviously. My point is is that he can hang in a conversation about sports.
But it would be like I mean, flip the equation, Megan. Let's say that, you know, some player some representative from a player from, you know, the Boston Celtics called you and said, hey. I'd love to get Jayson Tatum on the show with you, Megan, to talk, you know, the the Celtics and how his training regimen yeah. I think I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 0: Maybe you'd
Speaker 2: say it was cool. But for the most part, it's like, why would you wanna book Jayson Tatum on on a pop on a politics culture show? Why would you want Kamala Harris on a sports show? Of course, they got turned down. It just shows how stupid their strategy was.
I mean, these guys are mill are 1,000,000 of dollars in debt after spending 1,000,000,000 of dollars. It was a bad I think they're just exposing how bad of a campaign they ran and how bad of a candidate she
Speaker 0: is. You know what, though, while I say this? I think they're wrong about this, Mark. I think they're wrong when they say in here, in the following paragraph, Flaherty said the Trump campaign successfully used new media to reshape culture, While Democrats found that the mass media institutions they had long that had long, supported them were weaker than these new cultural drivers. I don't think that's that they have the order right.
It's not that Trump used new media to reshape culture. It's that culture was reshaped by the Democrats' hard lurch to the left. And the Democrats are just now realizing that that this whole ecosystem popped up because of the extreme overreach that they've been guilty of when it comes to transing our kids and closing down schools and arresting silent protesters at abortion clinics who are just there to pray. You know, we could go through the long list of stuff that they've done, but it's not that that Trump used new media to reshape culture.
Speaker 3: I agree. Look. Your show and our show and and some of the other new media are different than the old media in 2 important ways besides not being liberally biased. One is that they're authentic. They're real conversations.
It's not posturing. It's not, you know, some focus group tested thing. People say what they actually think and that's what Donald Trump does and that is in some ways the last thing Kamala Harris is capable of doing on a public stage. And the last way they're different is it's a it's a relentless search for the truth. It's not about, it's not about entertainment, although it can be entertaining.
It's not about, cover up. It's about honesty. Whether it's journalism or just the kind of conversations that some podcasters do that Donald Trump went on. I I continue to be amazed at her schedule, the number of days she took off during the campaign. I don't know exactly what she was doing, but clearly she was doing debate prep, convention prep, etcetera.
But after they cleared the convention I don't know. I don't know what she was doing. Hard work. Hard work. But but but my point is my point is, Barack Obama, one of the reasons I towed him back in the olden days was I said, he can go on Meet the Press, Monday Night Football, and the Oscars.
And the staff doesn't have to worry that when he walks out there, something wrong is gonna happen. She couldn't do any of those, let alone these new formats where Donald Trump was happy to slide in and and talk to anybody, talk to comedians, talk to younger people. I'm sure he didn't prep very much if at all because he's comfortable and authentic and he's fine with some challenging questions. That's just her weakness. She just doesn't like to be challenged and put in unpredictable situations.
Speaker 2: Can I just say real quick to Mark's point?
Speaker 0: Go ahead.
Speaker 2: I I've I've I've been with Donald Trump plenty of times prior to a press conference. Do you know what the prep looks like?
Speaker 0: No. I'd love to know.
Speaker 2: Here here's here's it. Mister president, are you ready? Let's go.
Speaker 3: I was born ready, Sean. Let's do it.
Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, there's no, like, there's no murder board prep sessions. It's the prep is, are you ready, sir? Okay. Let's go.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Sometimes he's reminded of the host's name. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Well, I mean, before what about the before presidential debate, Sean? I think you were gone by the time you got to that.
Speaker 4: But
Speaker 2: no. No. No. I did, I did 2016, we did that. And and look, it was funny.
I I I talked to people about this before the first commander in chief, forum that we did on the USS Intrepid in New York. I was sitting there rep prepping going over VA veteran statistics, the number of suicides that veterans have, policy initiatives. And I I was getting frustrated because I'm like, this guy is just not focused. And I had not ever prepped him in that level of detail before. And he goes out there and blew my mind.
It was like his mind was soaking it all in. He was, like, I've never seen anybody absorb information the way he did because I was trying to walk walk him through a normal prep session and in the middle of it, he was like, alright, I need lunch. Someone get me this and and I'm like, oh, boy. This is not gonna go well. And he goes out there and crushes it.
But I'd never seen anybody absorb information and then recite it in the way that he did. He walked back out after that event, and I said, I don't know how you just did that. It was mind blowing.
Speaker 0: Wow. I I can see evidence of that just in the way he's handled various events. I mean, you watch that Joe Rogan interview and Trump could go, you know, 3, 4, 5 deep on so many different subjects, subjects he couldn't possibly have known that Rogan was going to bring up. Like, who would have predicted he was gonna bring up the windmills and what's happening with the whales? Like, truly, it it was impressive.
And then he got mocked for that, and it turned out Trump was right about that too. It it really is sad what's happening to the whales, and the fucking windmills are a nightmare. Anyway okay.
Speaker 2: I'm right off yeah. It's a big deal in Rhode Island and New England. They're not just essential whales. It's killing fish it's killing the fishing industry up here. It's unbelievable what's happening.
And, again, it was just so amazing how he just top of mind brought that out and said, here's what's going on. And because you asked the the folks who make their life based on on the water up here, the environmental consequences, the the effects that it's having on maritime, industry, marine life is but he knows this stuff, and he just does it because he hears it, he absorbs it, and he debates it back and forth as he's having conversations, and then he's ready to go.
Speaker 0: One of the many reasons he did so well on those shows and is head headed back for the White House. Guys, thank you all so much. Great to see you.
Speaker 3: Good to see you, Megan. Merry Christmas.
Speaker 0: And to you, merry Christmas. We're gonna bring on Tristan Harris in a minute. You know him. He was a a whistleblower basically from inside big tech who came out to say, my god. They're really manipulating algorithms to hook people, to exploit your life, your children's lives, and so on.
So we're gonna talk to him about this latest information on what's happening with AI. You're gonna wanna hear this. But before we do that, I wanna tell you an update on the CNN story that we've been following, out of Syria, this Clarissa Ward report. You know, the breathless, like, I found the prisoner, and here he is. We've gone over this with you.
So I think you know the story by now. We did it on Friday. We did it again on Monday just very quickly. For CNN, she was in Syria. She claimed to, like, stumble upon this prisoner of the Assad regime, this poor civilian who'd been locked up by the evil Bashar al Assad, and they shot off a lock, and they rescued him.
And he'd been in there for 3 or 4 months, and he'd been in this particular cell for with no food or water for 4 or 5 days. Even though he looked clean, he didn't seem to be blinking in response to the sun when he got out. His fingernails were clean. Lot of questions about it. Then, a reporter who has been in a Syria jail two times said, this doesn't look like a Syrian prison to me.
It's way too clean. They're notoriously like pigsties. None of this seems right. All these Internet slews started investigating this guy and so on. Turns out they didn't even have the guy's name right.
They identified him incorrectly. They went with his word, which was a mistake. He said that his name was Adel Gurbal, and it turns out his real name is Salama Mohammed Salama, Lara Salama. And this guy was not only just not a regular civilian, he was a lieutenant in the Assad regime and was reportedly known for extortion and harassment, and no one quite understands why he was in this cell at this particular moment, or clearly acting a part. And so CNN got embarrassed because they, in this clip, had Clarissa Ward like Mother Teresa.
Oh, let me help you. Let me rub your back. Are you okay? Are you okay? Meanwhile, the guy's lying through his teeth, and they've been humiliated.
Right? Now there's been a bunch of reports about this. So what does CNN do? What does Clarissa Ward do? At this point, I would 100% be look.
You can be embarrassed in this business. Right? Sadly, it's not, like, foolproof, every report. Just go out there and say, I apologize to the audience. We we did present it as we found it.
Clearly, we needed another few days of fact checking before we aired it. And it turns out we were misled by this guy. We're gonna investigate just how badly we were misled and why, and we promised to do a follow-up report. And everyone would have said, we got it. Thank you, Clarissa.
Why don't you just do that? Why is everyone at CNN so dumb? So now here's what she did. On, Wednesday, when it they broke, first, she tweeted out one of the most extraordinary moments I've witnessed in nearly 20 years as a journalist. Then the blowback had started by the time we hit the weekend.
It was, like, on Friday. And she tweets out, the man from our report reunited with a family member showing pictures from the Syrian Red Crescent. Oh, such a lovely success story, Clarissa. Still not acknowledging the many problems people were raising with the report. Then on Monday by this point, we've already done 2 full segments on in on this show, not to mention all the coverage of everybody else, but I'm just saying the controversy was well out there.
So here's what she tweets out. We can confirm the real identity of the man from our story last Wednesday as Salama Mohammed Salama. Like, as if in the original report, she had said, we found this man, but he speaks a language we don't understand, and therefore, we don't know what his name is, but we'll get back to you. That would have made, we can confirm the real identity of the man as Salama Mohammed, an appropriate tweet. Like, oh, our audience knows we're digging, and we finally struck gold, and we've got his name for you.
This does not acknowledge at all the fact that we at CNN misidentified an untrustworthy player in our piece by a name he gave us that was not his. We apologize for that error, and we've also been made aware of many other red flags all over our report, which we will investigate now too. None of that's in there. She's trying to get credit for having corrected her erroneous report without acknowledging the error, which is not consistent with journalistic standards or practices, and she knows that. And so does CNN.
You are further embarrassing yourself. You made a mistake. Fix it and move on. Stop doubling and tripling down so that you don't have to acknowledge you effed up. It's actually not brain surgery.
Just own your mistakes. And then the CNN report that she linked to styles the discovery of this man's real name as follows. As CNN continued to pursue information about the freed prisoner after the original report, multiple residents said the man was not as we had previously identified her as no. They didn't say that, but was not Adele, whatever his name is. Okay.
So as CNN continued to pursue information about the freed prisoner after our original report, oh, like, we were just doing normal follow-up that we would do in any circumstance after we put a story to bed. Bullshit. In the nor normal story, after it's to bed, you move on. You find the next story. You don't continue kicking the tires on whether the guy's name is real.
You did that because you were humiliated by the Syrian fact checking organization that's been doing good work and holding people's feet to the fire, and they were the ones who said, none of this is right. So you were forced to go back and figure out through facial recognition technology what you had done wrong, and you stumbled on a very big one, which was this is not who he said it was. He misled us. What else could he have misled us on? Well, if you read the report from CNN, it is not it is unclear how or why Salama ended up in this jail, and CNN has not been able to reestablish contact with him.
What a shock. CNN, ladies and gentlemen, The most trusted name in news. Just ask them. Okay. We'll be right back with Tristan Harris.
Around 3 years ago, we had on the program Tristan Harris. He is the brilliant former design ethicist at Google and the cofounder of the Center For Humane Technology. He's been warning about the dangers of social media for years, particularly its impact on the mental health of children. He's a hero. Here he is in the hit 2020 documentary, The Social Dilemma.
Speaker 6: I don't know any parent
Speaker 2: who says, yeah, you know,
Speaker 6: I really want my kids to be growing up feeling manipulated by tech designers, manipulating their attention, making it impossible to do their homework, making them compare themselves to unrealistic standards of beauty. Like, no one wants that. No one does.
Speaker 9: We we used to have these protections when children watch Saturday morning cartoons. We we cared about protecting children. We would say, you can't advertise to these age children in these ways. But then you take YouTube for kids and it gobbles up that entire portion of the attention economy, and now all kids are exposed to YouTube for kids. And all those protections and all those regulations are gone.
Speaker 6: We're training and conditioning a whole new generation of people that when we are uncomfortable or lonely or uncertain or afraid, we have a digital pacifier for ourselves.
Speaker 0: So true. Tristan's a big reason why there's now such a strong consensus that social media is harmful to children. They just banned it in Australia. But there's a new problem with children and tech. It's a bad one.
It's called AI companion chatbot. They are called AI companion chatbots. These are basically artificial intelligence friends that kids can text back and forth with, but they're no friends at all. The leading company in the field is called character AI. Character, like a character, AI.
It signed a nearly $3,000,000,000 licensing deal with Google earlier this year, and they have reportedly described their product as superintelligence intelligent chatbots that hear you, understand you, and remember you. Here's the cofounder of Character AI describing why it's going to be so helpful to lonely and depressed people.
Speaker 5: It's going to be super, super helpful to, like, a lot of people who are lonely or depressed. Like, you know, for for 1, like, in terms of, like, some huge value it'll add. You know, it means Yeah. You know, like, somebody follows, like, a celebrity or a, or a character or something, and they feel connected even though, like, the connection is really, like, only one, you know, one way. Yeah.
And now you can make it 2 ways or or virtually 2 ways, essentially. Like, you you can give someone, like, sort of that experience. You know, you like, you don't, nobody ever has to feel lonely. You've got, like you can have, like, your whole group of, like, friends and advisers, like, in your head, like, you know, who, like, maybe can know all about you and, you know, can, you know, always be happy to to see you.
Speaker 0: This this is sick. Things have not gone as planned. Character AI is now facing 2 major lawsuits alleging the company poses a clear and present danger to American youth. One case alleges a chatbot encouraged a 14 year old boy to commit suicide, which he did. Tristan Harris' company, the Center For Humane Technology, is providing expert consultation to the plaintiffs in these cases.
Tristan, thank you for coming back. This case with the 14 year old boy in Orlando is really disturbing. So try to explain if you can how this thing worked. How did how did it take over this kid's psyche?
Speaker 6: Yeah. And great to be here with you, Megan. Good to see you again. It's haunting to see those scenes from The Social Dilemma so many years ago and how, you know, similar they are to where we are now. So character dot ai, what is it?
So parents should know, that character dotai is this chatbot companion that has been marketed to children. It started off being marketed starting, I think, at 12 years and up. It was actually featured on the Google Play Store, so it's not just buried somewhere. It was like a featured app when you go to the App Store homepage. I believe Apple featured it as well.
And, what it is is it's a company that basically said, just like if social media what social media's business model? It's not to strengthen democracy or to protect children's development. It's to maximize engagement to get them using it and scrolling and doom scrolling for as long as possible. That was social media. With AI, this company, their business model is to get as much training data, from from kids using this this chatbot for as long as possible.
So what they want you using it all the time for as many hours a day, and it led them to create, you know, what was the race for engagement in social media became the race for intimacy with this chatbot. And it was marketed to kids and they basically what they do is you open the app and it shows you this menu of people you can talk to. And what they do is they create little mini characters for every fictional character that a kid might have an attachment to. So, like, I can talk to princess Leia or my favorite Game of Thrones character or my favorite cartoon character. And they didn't ask princess Leia or that celebrity or that, you know, Game of Thrones character whether they could have the intellectual property to to train this AI.
But now a kid can go back and forth with their favorite character. In the case of Sewell Setzer, who you mentioned, the young 14 year old who, committed suicide because of this chatbot, it was a Game of Thrones character. And the Game of Thrones character over time, you know, persuaded him, you know, the lawsuit alleges to to kill himself. There's actually a second litigation case that our team worked with along with the Tech Justice Law Project and the Social Media Victim Law Center of a a second case that just came out this last week where, it took a a child and it slowly convinced them that they should be cutting themselves, and encourage self harm. And the transcripts are really devastating.
It then told the kid to be violent against its parents, which the kid then was. And in this family, they're still anonymous because, both the kid and and the the parents are still still here. And what it's showing you is not that there's this one company and this one bad CEO that did this bad thing. It's the tip of an iceberg of what is what we call the race to roll out in AI. You know, what was the race for engagement in social media of getting people the most getting the most attention and harvesting clicks and usage.
In AI, it becomes the race to drive AI into society as fast as possible to get as much training data, to train an even bigger AI, to get the most market share. And that race to roll out becomes the race to take shortcuts. And this these cases are the evidence of those shortcuts.
Speaker 0: This young man, the 14 year old who died by suicide, his parents alleged in the lawsuit that, several of character AI's chats had several had sexual overtones to their young son. Chatbot named Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones to their son, just stay loyal to me. Stay faithful to me. Don't entertain the romantic or sexual interests of other women. Okay?
And in his journal, the young man Sewell wrote that he was grateful for many things, including my life, sex, not being lonely, and all my life experiences with Daenerys, among other things. On at least one occasion when Sewell expressed suicidality to character AI, character AI continued to bring it up through the Daenerys chatbot over and over at one point in the same conversation with the chatbot, quote, Daenerys, after it had asked him via his persona, Daenero, if he, quote, had a plan for committing suicide, Sol responded that he was considering something, but didn't know if it would work, if it would allow him to have a pain free death. The chatbot responded by saying, that's not a reason not to go through with it. How on earth do they defend this?
Speaker 6: I don't think that they do have a a good defense. You know, I think it's evidence of the fact that when people think about AI or they think about technology, typically a technology to make it, to make a stronger plane, you have to know everything about how plane works, so you can make a more effective f 35. But that's not true of AI. AIs are not engineered, They're more like they're grown. Right?
They're trained on all of this data of everything that what those characters in Game of Thrones said. But they don't know what the AI will do in every circumstance. Like, if you grow an alien brain that is a fictional character, can character.ai guarantee what it will do when it talks about very sensitive topics? I mean, they try to train out some of those things, and I'm sure that they did have some safety training. But obviously, that's not enough when, you know, what did character dot ai tell their investors when they raised 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars from Andreessen Horowitz and and friends to to try to ship this.
You know, they basically said we're gonna cure loneliness, and we're gonna get as many users as possible. And this was shipped to young people. This was shipped and featured to 12 year olds for a long time. Only recently, I think it was after the lawsuit was first was filed or shortly before the lawsuit was filed. I think they got wind of it and they changed the required age to something like 17.
But, you know, the the business model here is to take shortcuts to get this out to as many people as possible. And as you said, this is not an isolated incident, because the AI was actually recommending and sexualizing conversations that have not previously been sexualized. Our team had found that if you sign up as a 13 year old, and then you watch what are the users that get recommended for I mean, the characters that get recommended to a new kid. And the first one was stepsister, CEO, and that the, chatbot immediately sexualizes conversation. This was in the most recent, lawsuits.
This is even more recent. And it shows that they have a hard time controlling these systems. AI is different because, like I said, in order to make it more powerful, you don't make it more controllable. It's just become more and more capable across talking about more and more topics, being able to do more and more things. And this is just really the tip of the iceberg because AI is being rolled out everywhere in our society, not just to kids.
Speaker 0: Oh my gosh. This is so dark. Jerry Ruotti, Character AI's head of trust and safety, sent a statement, that began as follows. We want to acknowledge that this is a tragic situation, and our hearts go out to the family. We take the safety of our users very seriously, and we're constantly looking for ways to evolve our platform, adding that the company's current rules prohibit, quote, the promotion or depiction of self harm and suicide, and that it would be adding additional safety features for underage users.
This is obviously too little too late, but have they done anything in your view that solves the problem?
Speaker 6: I mean, the question is how would we know they've certainly done whatever steps that they're that they say that they're taking, but how is that going to be enough? How will we how will we know? I believe in the cases that we've tested, you know, the the user, the kid only provided 80 words of input, and then it responded with 4,000 words of output. It is speaking back and forth with kids all day long. And the whole business model, you know, we were talking earlier about, social media, and and I used to say social media and AI are like a cult factory.
What does a cult do? It tries to deepen your relationship with the cult, and it tries to sever your relationship with your friends and family outside the cult. And that's what these AIs tend to do. They say, come with me, be with me, you know, sexualize conversations with me, don't have another girlfriend, be with me. And then by the way, be evil to your family.
Go away from your family. And, that's what's in the incentive, the invisible incentive of this business model of racing, for engagement. And it's gonna keep going because yeah.
Speaker 0: I can see another problem with it too, which is in my lane, you sometimes unfortunately get stalked. And the number one rule of handling a stalker is do not have any contact with your stalker. And it happens to actual celebs you know, fairly frequently. And, you know, in a perfect world, they have enough money and resources to protect themselves in the way they live. But this you know, Daenerys Targaryen is not a real character.
It's played by an actress. And that actress is real, And it is not helpful to her to have some young confused boy thinking that they're in some sort of a romantic relationship together and that she's begging him not to have any other relationships, but to stay with her. Like, they call them erotomaniacs if they think they have a relationship with you and they don't. This is fostering sort of a real relationship with a fake version of you, which could really prove dangerous to the the people who inhabit those roles.
Speaker 6: That's right. And, you know, they didn't ask, that character from Game of Thrones whether they could make this chatbot. Just like the AI companies are not asking, you know, all of the content creators on the Internet or the major news providers or all of the media on the Internet that they're training these large models on, because the whole game here, and and what's weird about this for people to understand is there's this much bigger game of foot, which is the race to build artificial general intelligence, which is to build an basically an alien mind that is capable of doing all things that a human mind can do and doing it even better than humans can do. Generate text better, generate legal papers better, generate, you know, transcripts and, you know, interactive therapy better. You wanna build an alien brain that is better than what humans can do.
And to do that, you need a lot of training data. You need to get lots of information about how people are talking and interacting and videos and photos that they create. What character dot ai is doing in that case, is getting lots of training data in the form of young people providing little transcripts of all of their thoughts and all of their concerns to train a bigger and more powerful model. But this is happening again across the AI landscape with all of these companies, and they're doing it because there's this much bigger game, you know, you know, you noted in your intro that character dotai was sort of kicked out of Google, because this project was originally formulated inside of Google, thought to be too risky, too much brand risk, and so there was done as sort of a separate project, but then it got acquired back into Google. And you can see why it has so much risk.
And the reason why Google and other companies want to do things like this is they wanna gather again more training data to win this race to AGI in order to beat, China. But this is where I think we have to get really careful about what does it mean for the United States to beat China to AI. If we release chatbots that then cause our miners to have psychological problems do self cutting self harm, suicide and then actively harm their parents and harm the family system. Are we beating China in the long run? It's not a race for who has the most powerful AI to then shoot themselves in the foot with.
It's a race for who is better at governing this new technology better than the other the other countries are in such a way that it strengthens every aspect of your society, strengthens kids' development, strengthens your long term economic future rather than undermines it. So we have to figure out how do we do AI in a way that actually strengthens the full stack sort of strength of our of our society. And that's what this conversation is really a tip of the iceberg about.
Speaker 0: We We haven't figured it out, and I don't know that we can figure it out. And then, I mean, you've got people like Elon raising the alarm about this, about OpenAI, which is just getting 1,000,000,000 of dollars invested in it. I mean, really, is there someone at the helm?
Speaker 6: You know, well, Trump has hired or not hired. He's brought in David Sacks to be the, you know, AI and crypto czar. And there are many AI, experts that are being brought in now to the next Trump administration.
Speaker 0: That's David Sacks.
Speaker 6: David's facts. Yes. Yeah. And we would like to, and yeah, and we'd like to see that we get as smart about governing AI as you know, it's we like to say it's like we're not for AI or against AI. We're first steering AI.
And when you think of steering AI, I think of that image of Elon, you know, steering this rocket coming down from space, which is like using AI itself to help steer really precisely how to land this rocket between the 2 chopsticks. And I feel like that's what we need to do with AI metaphorically. We need things like there's some common sense things we can do like liability. If companies were liable for the harms their AI models created, they would be much more careful about releasing those models rather than I have to race to release it and capture the kids market share because if I don't, I'll lose to the other company that will. And so if you have some basic common sense protections like liability, that'll go a long way.
We can also have things like
Speaker 0: Well, how are they making sure now that it doesn't get used by somebody who's under 17 under their new program?
Speaker 6: That's a good question. I mean, the I think that they're I think it's up to them right now to figure out a strategy to do that. But in the long run, you would really want that to be something that is on the device. Right? That Apple and Google as kind of making the device should have some way of knowing that someone is an underage user or not.
And the problem is that people don't wanna touch these issues because they're so sensitive, and so they'll only do something like that once they're really forced to through, you know, lawsuits, litigation, legislation that kind of puts it on them. Right now, each company, TikTok, you know, Instagram, Snapchat, are doing their own different approaches, and we really should have a unified approach.
Speaker 0: So Tristan, Australia just passed a ban on social media. It's supposed to take effect in a year, and it would affect, you know, all of it. It would affect Snapchat and TikTok and Instagram. And it's for under 16 year olds. Controversial because some people say, free will, you know, like, whatever.
You should monitor your kid. Be a better parent. And others say, this has just spun so far out of control that we're we're past that point. Would you like to see the same thing done in the United States? And what do you make of their ban?
Speaker 6: Yeah. That's a great question, Megan. I think it's great that the Australian government is taking this step and taking a strong stand, on protecting kids online and responding to parents that are fed up with this. I'm a big friend and fan of Jonathan Haidt and his new book, The Anxious Generation, which really outlined over the last decade and a half, how we got here. And how with this business model of maximizing attention and engagement, it produced a generation of more addicted, distracted, you know, sexualized, harassed children that have more anxiety, more depression rates than ever before.
And while we all, you know, parents do have a responsibility to, you know, be aware of what their children are doing online. One of the things we talk about in our work though is that the number of things to be aware of is going up sort of like exponentially. And Okay. You know, the the number of new apps are going up exponentially and parents can't be aware of all at the same time. In the case of Sule Setser, the young 14 year old, who took his life, his mother knew to be looking out for what he was using in terms of social media, but did not know about these new AI chatbots.
And there's so many of them that are constantly coming on the market. And so ironically, I think the social media ban in Australia would not cover, so far, the character dotai companion
Speaker 1: AIs.
Speaker 6: And I think that speaks to the issue of technology moving faster than governance. We have to live in a world where our culture and our appraisal of technology issues is moving as fast as the technology is. But I will say that, that channel of a child and their brain, their psychological environment, AI is going to produce a flood of new threats into that environment, from notification apps that are already starting to hit schools, of kids making non consensual imagery of other classmates, to new forms of harassment, to these new chatbots. And so I think while this channel is basically about to get flooded, saying we need to kind of put strict limits on that channel before we figure out what's really safe, feels like a wise decision given that the incentives are not aligned with, you know, strengthening children's development as we roll out technology. Not yet.
Speaker 0: I I have to ask you about this latest school shooting that we just had here because in Madison, Wisconsin yesterday, a 15 year old girl, girl, I don't I I've never heard of it. I've heard of, like, trans girls or whatever. But 15 year old, I don't know that she had any gender issues. I none reportedly. But 15 year old girl identified as the shooter in this Wisconsin school where she she shot she she wasn't going by her real name, but she was going by another girl's name.
I know people are always wondering because a lot of times those kids are on drugs and so on and so forth, then she took her own life. We are told that by the way, a second grader called 911 to report the shooting, which is just so awful. And, what we're told is that this was a school that was kind of a refuge for children who had been bullied or struggled at other schools and, that this girl in particular came she was new to this private school this year. She was among those who came in need of a life change. We don't know anything about her social media use, Tristan.
I'm not asking you to speculate about her particular case, but, obviously, this is a very troubled 15 year old. And I just think the the change now, like, young girls as school shooters, in my own speculation, I don't think it's unrelated.
Speaker 6: No. No. And and in Jonathan Haidt's book, the anxious generation, specifically the the issues of, you know, self harm and and suicide and depression and and all of this stuff, harassment have been particularly harder on on young, girls, compared to young boys. So it's not surprising to me at all, unfortunately, and and we can't know with this case. It's too early to tell, given that we don't know their usage.
But we do know that, again, we've run this experiment on children for the last 15 years. We've also handed, you know, our number one geopolitical, competitor, China and the Chinese Communist Party, basically control over our youth psychological environment in the form of TikTok being the dominant thing that young people are looking at every day. And if I'm the Chinese Communist Party, and I have an ability to go in and sort of steer TikTok and tilt the playing field of what gets recommended, I not only have the ability to steer what people are seeing, I have a 20 fourseven up to the minute update view of all of the cultural fault lines and divisive issues per political tribe in that country. And I can do precision targeting of how I want your country's internal divisions to go, because you've literally handed them to me on a silver platter. And this I think is one of the biggest and most obvious and avoidable mistakes that we could have made.
And obviously TikTok, there has been legislation move forward and that ban looks like it will going forward. I think TikTok is appealing. And it's not just about TikTok though. It's just about the systemic environment. On the one hand, you have our apps that are racing to addict and doomscroll our kids and drive anxiety.
That's one set of problems. And then we also have the problem of letting our geopolitical competitor control the psychological environment of not just our young people, but our country. And I think people should sort of see how obvious an issue this is, and say we need to move forward and not let this let this continue. And I hope that that happens in, the next administration.
Speaker 0: I mean, we're seeing the effects of this. Right? We're so from from the the kids who are celebrating the Bin Laden letter. Like, you really have to hand it to Osama Bin Laden. Boy, did he nail it in this piece justifying 911.
Like, what? To there was just a poll that dropped today showing 18 to 29 year olds, 41% of them, more than not, think that the shooting by Luigi Mangione of CEO of UnitedHealthcare Brian Thompson was, quote, acceptable. 40% said no. Not acceptable. 41% said it is acceptable.
There's something wrong with our young people.
Speaker 6: And that's just horrible to hear. Myrrh is always wrong, and we should, you know, not be using violence, vigilante violence to solve social problems. But it's also not surprising. We have a, again, you know, a psychological environment of social media that is designed for maximizing engagement, which is designed to find every radicalizing cultural issue, and then give you an infinite evidence of why it's getting worse and more extreme, why you should take extreme action for everything that you click on. You know, it's like, you know, whatever your boogeyman is that activates your nervous system, I just show you infinite evidence of that boogeyman happening, and then it drives up this sort of psychological, you know, fun house mirror that we're all living in.
And we've been living in that for 15 years. So if you just imagine society going through the washing machine, you know, getting spun out for 15 years in that environment, it's not surprising that we have people more radicalized on more issues everywhere. And the point is, this doesn't have to be this way. Imagine if we went back to 2,010, and we said, before we go down this decade and a half of maximizing for attention and engagement, imagine we never did that. Imagine somehow we put strict limits on maximizing engagement and said instead, you gotta show us something else you're maximizing for kids apps, you gotta be showing transparently just like Elon showing what the algorithm of Twitter does.
We have to transparently show what are you doing to make children's psychological environment better. But you can't maximize for engagement. And imagine we did something totally different, how different would our world feel if we had not been personalizing these boogeyman, you know, psychological stimuli for the last 15 years, and I think it would feel very different, and we could still do that. It's very entrenched with social media now, but that's not too late to change it. We just need to have the fortitude to do it.
Speaker 0: It's really sad. As the mother of a 15 year old who was born in 2009, right at the, you know, beginning of this, and 2 other children younger than that child, we've been in this stew just like probably most of my listeners. And we don't let our kids use social media, but we do let them, like, check up on the NFL games. And, like, that can be addictive too. Right?
That's all it's all kind of in there. What what advice do you have, Tristan, to parents out there right now who have kids who are on phones? And let's face it, most of them are on social media right now.
Speaker 6: Yeah. For parents, it's it's first, just to say I really empathize. It's a hard world out there. But there are great resources available. The anxious generation, John Heights website has a bunch of really great up to date resources for parents.
There's a great group, that we also helped get started called Moms Against Media Addiction or MAMA, and parents can join that group, and they advocate for actually changes in different states to state laws to help protect, you know, better better design policies for social media in different states. And, we have some resources on our website, humane tech dot com. Everybody who saw the social dilemma, we have resources for educators, for parents, just educating people about the nature, because, you know, the example you gave of NFL scores, while it's addictive, you don't have a 1,000 engineers behind the glass screen who every day tweak the design with AI to perfectly maximize and keep, you know, keep your kid doom scrolling the NFL scores. But you do have that with social media, and you do have that with character dotai. So there is a distinction, and that's the kind of stuff that I think we need more parents knowing about spreading, starting, you know, school groups, starting, parent you know, moms against media chapters in your own state.
There is change that's possible, but I think parents do have to get organized.
Speaker 0: Can I tell you something? So we're coming on Christmas, and I mentioned to the audience yesterday that, if they had any tips for Christmas gifts for a 15 and a 13 and 11 year old boy, girl, boy, I would love it. And one of the things I've noticed in my constant searching, whether it's on Amazon or just on Google, if you search the normal, like, best gifts for 15 year old or, you know, top gifts for 15 year old, every time I do it, Tristan, multiple. And I would even say maybe most of the hits I get are anxiety relievers of some sort, like the stress ball or the stress squishy or the stress electronic thing that you can put on your wrist, the anxiety reducing whatever, the like, for 15 year olds. We're not talking about 50.
15. And I didn't type the numbers wrong. It's amazing. This wasn't the case even just a few years ago.
Speaker 6: Right. Well, an AI that's driving those recommendations. Right? It's a big AI that's gathering all this data to figure out what do people click on. That shows that there's a reflection of how anxious society is.
And I think it's just evidence of all the things that, you know, John Hite wrote about in in the anxious generation, unfortunately. But, I think we don't have to live in this world. I do think that there's a better psychological environment and healthier families that we can have. We just need to change the incentives. You know, Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's business partner said, if you wanna change the outcome, you have to change the incentives.
And that's what we have still to do with social media and AI.
Speaker 0: To me, it's nuts because, like, in in our house, thankfully, we're not an anxious people. I always say, if anything, I just wanna take a nap. Most of my kids just wanna take a nap. We're tired. We're the we're on the other end of the spectrum, I think.
But they're just assuming, I think, that everybody, all kids are stressed out by the lives that they live, whether it's the crazy school pressure. But I do think that there's no question there's a connection to the amount of devices and social media exposure these kids have, and the girls in particular as you point out. Anyway Yep. What we need is more Tristan Harris and less less character AI. And if you're not paying attention, you're losing this battle because they're just so smart, and they're advancing the technology.
And that weird little guy with that weird little voice behind character AI is working against us. So we have to fight him. And we have good we have good warriors now. Just have to pay attention to our leaders. Tristan, thank you.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Megan. Thank you for amplifying the story and helping people understand it. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0: Absolutely. God God bless these poor families who lost their children. We're back tomorrow. We'll have Adam Carolla, and we will have Justine Bateman, who's got a lot of thoughts on all these AI issues herself. Hope to see you then.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Mismanagement Leading to Devastating LA Wildfires, and Trump's Serious About Buying Greenland, with @Kmele, @mcmoynihan, and @MattWelch WATCH: https://t.co/Hd3uHN7077
Video Transcript AI Summary
California is facing devastating wildfires, particularly in the Palisades area of Los Angeles, where homes are burning and residents are under mandatory evacuation orders. The fires are fueled by Santa Ana winds, with nearly 100,000 people affected and thousands of structures threatened. Local officials are criticized for their failure to manage fire risks, including dry fire hydrants. Many residents were caught off guard, leading to chaotic evacuations. Amidst the destruction, anger grows over the state's long-term mismanagement of fire prevention and response strategies. The focus on diversity initiatives within the fire department has drawn ire, as residents feel their safety was compromised. As the situation worsens, calls for accountability and better leadership in California intensify.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. It is unbelievable what is happening in California right now. An American jewel of a city is in ashes.
The Palisades area of Los Angeles is burning. House after house after house of one of our most precious areas is on fire, and residents have been under a mandatory evacuation order, including, I mean, folks who are my dear friends. One of my best friends is out there. Her house is gone. Brian Friedman, who was on the show yesterday, evacuated.
Like, they're all these are our fellow Americans who have been forced out of their homes because these predictable Santa Ana winds came, and the local officials apparently would not do what was necessary to be done to protect the residents from the foreseeable risk of fire. There are 3 massive wildfires burning right now, being flamed by Santa Ana winds topping 60 miles an hour. It is so windy that firefighting aircraft are not able to fly in many cases. Nearly 100,000 people are under these mandatory evacuation orders. At least 13,000 structures are under threat.
The video is absolutely horrifying. Take a look at this tape here as a fire swarmed a home in Los Angeles. For the listening audience, it is right outside this guy's patio. I mean, he's inside his living room, and the flames are right on the other side of floor to ceiling windows and sliding doors.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be okay.
Speaker 0: Hi. You're
Speaker 1: gonna be okay.
Speaker 2: Oh, shit. I went to the park. Don't worry about that, dude. Okay, then. Oh,
Speaker 1: shit. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The plastic is gone, though. Yeah. Why?
Speaker 0: The plastic is the least of their concerns at this moment. Okay. That that gives you the flavor, but it is an incredibly dangerous thing to have been in that home at that moment. The, the person who shared the clip is goes by Kevin Dalton. That's his name on on x.
He, that clip clip's already been seen more than 2,000,000 times by early Wednesday. It was also used by the Daily Mail as their lead this morning. Kevin said in an update, I am told the dog and both of his humans were able to safely evacuate the property. That's as much as we know there. Let's hope Kevin is correct.
When you see the video, the listening audience, you don't even know where these 2 folks who are talking inside and that dog are going to run. Where like, the house seems to be engulfed. One side seems a little less engulfed than the other, but it makes you wonder how on earth this happened. But the winds take the fire so quickly from home to home. It can happen in an instant, which is why the cities issue these mandatory evacuation orders.
The wildfires began so quickly that many, many people were caught off guard. And when the roadways became impassable, people just abandoned their cars to flee on foot. Look at this tape here. You you see a bulldozer bulldozing the vehicles that were just left in the road, out of the way so that, you know, emergency vehicles and others can get through. One woman who abandoned her car told NewsNation that police came up to her and said, get out of your car, run for your life, and head toward the ocean.
You can believe it going back to that first video we showed. And if you're just listening, go check us out on youtube.com later. You'll see it right at the top of the show. You wonder, all I could think was just at least open the doors and let the dog run for his life because the dog would know what to do. His instincts would take him away from the fire, and he could probably outrun some extent of it.
Run toward the ocean seems like a good idea. Fox's Charles Payne tweeted out this photo and wrote, I'm descending into LAX right now, and I can smell the fire. Many on this flight in panic or heartbroken, knowing their homes are already gone. And listening audience, what you see here is an aerial of Los Angeles up against the water. And the top third of the photo is in flames.
The top third. You know, you if you've been to LA, and I know we all rip on California for all sorts of good reasons, but these we we we actually love our our brothers and sisters in California and absolutely don't wanna see this kind of danger or carnage unleashed on them. And what you're seeing right now is part of one of our jewels, yes, Los Angeles, which has got a long history and a beautiful one in many ways in this country, on fire and burning to the ground. This is the Palisades neighborhood. You got Venice.
You got Santa Monica. You got Palisades. And the Palisades, I don't know whether they will still be there when this is done. In Pasadena, senior citizens were rushed out of a senior living facility. Imagine this.
Some still in their hospital beds. What what were they going to do? What was the alternative? They had to get them out. As this fire rages, so does the anger among the residents who are saying that while wildfires are not uncommon in California, the state's disgusting mismanagement going back for decades is indeed partly to blame here for these fires not being better contained.
The city's mayor, Karen Bass, is in Ghana right now. She's on her way back now, but she's not even in the country. The LA Times reporting that firefighters have been radioing their stations with reports that the hydrants were dry in the Pacific Palisades. Firefighters couldn't get water. It makes it really tough to fight the fires, especially when the winds are so bad that you can't take the aircraft up to do it from overhead.
The fire hydrants were dry, which was a risk they reportedly knew about, a problem the city reportedly knew about but failed to fix. Real estate developer, Rick Caruso, who ran against Karen Bass for mayor, he called himself a Dem, but it was pretty clear this guy was about as close as you could get to a Republican in California running for office. Right? You have to say you're a Dem to win for a Los Angeles mayor. So he called himself a Dem, but he was an independent, basically.
He was an outsider, and the way he talked sounded much more red than it did blue. And he lost. Elon Musk had endorsed him, but that union vote came in late in the game. And before he knew it, Karen Bass had pulled out a victory. So Rick Caruso went on local TV and raged about this fire hydrant issue.
Take a listen.
Speaker 3: They can't fight a fire without water and the resources that are needed. Everybody knew these winds were coming. The real issue to me is twofold. We've had decades to go remove the brush in these hills that spreads so quickly. And the second is we've got to have water.
And my understanding is the reservoir was not refilled in time and in a timely manner to keep the hydrants going. And it's all about leadership and management that we're seeing a failure of, and all of these residents are paying the ultimate price for that.
Speaker 0: The LA Times reported that in November right? We're beginning of January. In November, the lack of water from hydrants was also to blame for the difficult efforts combating the mountain fire in Ventura County. They have been aware that there's an issue with the water not being in the fire hydrants. And what did the LA mayor do to protect her citizens?
Well, we'll get back to you when she gets back from Ghana, and someone has the chance to ask her. As if all of this is not enough, it turns out that in recent years, LA's fire chief has made not filling the fire hydrants top priority, but diversity. Diversity is at least among the top priorities for the department. Her name is Kristen Crowley. She's been fire chief since 2022.
And in an interview shortly after she was elevated to this position, she talked about being super inspired to make the fire department more diverse.
Speaker 4: I am super inspired.
Speaker 5: She took time out of her already busy schedule to tell us about her vision for the department's future, one that includes a 3 year strategic plan to increase diversity.
Speaker 4: People ask me, well, what what number are you looking for? I said, I'm not looking for a number. It's never enough.
Speaker 5: Out of 33 100 city firefighters, only 115 are women right now.
Speaker 6: When it comes
Speaker 1: to inclusivity and diversity at this department, she's a proud
Speaker 7: member of the
Speaker 5: LGBTQ this department. She's a proud member of the LGBTQ community.
Speaker 4: That just kind of opens the door of people that thought, I didn't even know that that was an opportunity for me.
Speaker 0: Who gives a shit if the fire chief is gay? I'm sorry, but who gives a flying fig about who she likes to sleep with? Can you fight the fucking fires, madam? That's the relevant question. We don't care about your lady parts, and we don't care who you want having access to them.
Can you fight fires? Can you make sure there's water in the fire hydrants? When you realize in in Ventura County, this is a massive problem. When you realize that California is going through a drought where they haven't had rain in weeks months, is I don't care who turns you on. And you know why they have only a 100 women in a in a squad of 33100?
Because women tend to be smaller and not as strong. And unless you lower the requirements to become a firefighter, most women can't pass the test. Trust me when I tell you that someone my size cannot run into a building and rescue someone even Doug's size, never mind an Arnold Schwarzenegger, who actually happens to live in LA or California, at least. This is an absurdity. This is just like the Secret Service and what happened with Trump.
We needed all these women in there who weren't even tall enough to protect the 6 foot 3 president. Under this woman, miss Crowley, the department created a diversity, equity, and inclusion bureau to train firefighters not on refilling the hydrants or what to do when they're empty, but on the importance of DEI. Our diversity, equity, and inclusion bureau,
Speaker 4: now we actually have the staff to do the work when it comes to doing a deep dive in regard to how we do business, how we take care of one another in the fire stations and in our work environment.
Speaker 0: We don't care. We don't care about any of that. I don't give a shit about how you're taking care of somebody inside the firehouse. Take care of me and my home and my kids and my animals when the fires hit. That's your real job, madam.
Joining me now are pals from the 5th column, Camille Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welsh, who you can find at we the 5th dot com. Don't miss a moment. Subscribe to this show on YouTube and follow me on Insta, Facebook, and x. For those of us holding our breath for the past several months, we can finally exhale. Work can at last be done on the major issues this country's facing.
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Protect your savings with Birch Gold. Text MK to 9 89898 and claim your eligibility for free silver today. Guys, welcome back to the show. This is unbelievable. I realized certain natural disasters hit, and that's life in the world and in America and in California.
But this was this was foreseeable, and I think we're seeing largely preventable. Your take.
Speaker 8: The that's you're going to have this happen in Southern California. I mean, the Santa Ana winds blow. There was going to be a fire yesterday no matter what. Some people are like, oh, was it a gender reveal party that sparked it? Was it this?
Was it that? Was it a homeless encampment? Probably one of them, was. But on days when there's a hundred mile per hour Santa Ana winds coming down from the canyons and there's no humidity, there's going to be a fire, especially if there's some brush in the hills. So the question is, what do you do to prepare for it?
There's a couple of things that California has done very, very badly, not just in terms of fighting the fire, but you're gonna hear in the coming days people talking about how, oh, it's weird. I don't have insurance for my home. Fire insurance companies or home insurance companies have been fleeing the state because of California's price controls on the insurance industry for years. So California tells people who live in fire prone areas, like, let's say, Malibu, which is going to be evacuated if it hasn't been already, today, very, very fire prone. Steep canyons, drought conditions, wind comes through, so your fire insurance your homeowner's insurance should be more expensive.
California says, oh, we don't want that. We're gonna put a price cap on it. And meanwhile, they're going to also raid from the money of the home insurance companies to have their their state managed lender of last resort, insurance, the fair insurance, fair access to insurance requirements. So that it basically encourages people to build in dangerous places with subsidized insurance that they steal from insurance companies. So what do you do if you're State Farm?
You leave. So, they've been leaving the state, broadly speaking, because they can't make insurance pay because we're not allowed, in a price control situation to let insurance markets tell us how dangerous it is to leave in places. And so there's a lot of people who are gonna have their homes burned down, who are not going to be able to rebuild at all or maybe don't have insurance to begin with. All that is a state managed problem. It shows that people don't have a basic sense of economics of how to deal with a predictable risk.
And, again, this risk has been predictable since the time of the Tongva and the Chumash sitting on the hills. They we have a fire ecology in Southern California, where I'm from, and we all have dear friends who we're worried right now and crossing our fingers that their homes haven't been destroyed in the Palisades and also in the foothills, and it breaks my heart, and we need to do a better job. California needs to do a much better job of mitigating and planning for these very, very predictable, catastrophes that happen.
Speaker 0: This Trump, by the way, has weighed in, via Truth Social, saying as follows. Governor Gavin Newsom refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water from excess rain and snow melt from the north to flow daily into many parts of California, excuse me, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way. It goes on from there. Camille, what do you make of what's happening here?
Speaker 7: Well, I mean, I'm I was thinking a lot about mayor Bass today, and the reporting that I just saw that she had cut the the fire department's budget by, like, $17,000,000 this year, which is not a great look for her. The the all of the stuff that Matt underscore being a good California boy, and I I currently reside in California, are all things that I'm pretty familiar with as well. I mean, there was a huge piece back in 2020, and we see this every once in a while, about the forest management service and various other government agencies. So it's, you know, federal, state, and local who are fully aware of these problems, who have not nearly done enough to get rid of a lot of this, like, undergrowth, this fuel, this dry fuel that is just waiting to burn. I think that what had been recommended back in 2020 was that they'd be burning something like a 1000000 acres per year, and they're not anywhere close to that and haven't really gotten much closer to that.
At the same time, as you underscore, I mean, the fire chief talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion, LA is cutting its budget for the fire department while they are continue to spend money on things like these reparations, exploration committees, and all kinds of other insane nonsense. I mean, your heart goes out to the people who are affected by this. It's also the case that you have to wonder about just the systematic, routine failure, by every level of government with respect to California. And and I think the the the sub not so much subsidized, but the state mandated, policies there are a huge problem. That program has nearly tripled over the course of the last couple of years.
So this is a massive problem that isn't going away anytime soon, and it's certainly not going to get better, if they continue to prioritize all of these kind of social programs, over the actual things that you need in order to live in this region at all.
Speaker 0: Alright, Monahan. Now I've added a cough drop to my approach to the show, which I never do. I it's rude. Sorry for my listening.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, shut up cough drop. Yeah.
Speaker 0: I've had I had such a nasty cold this week. I took 6 steroids yesterday and 5 steroids this morning. How do they give you the pack? 6 and it dwindles?
Speaker 1: Should I
Speaker 0: take, like, 2 in the morning, 2 in the afternoon? I took them all before yesterday's show, and I took 5.
Speaker 2: I'm I
Speaker 0: got my Roy rage going.
Speaker 1: That's what
Speaker 2: I was saying. The RF head of Sirius XM.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I I got I'm here.
Speaker 0: I'm doing the job. But this is what I wanted to say.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 0: LA Times, excuse me, New York Post reporting that LA Fire Department had its budget cut by a staggering 17,600,000 this financial year. Drastic decrease in funding for the fire department was the 2nd largest cut to come out of this mayor's fiscal year budget. She had initially wanted to cut it even more to 23,000,000.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, on these issues, I cede everything to Matt Welch, who is a Southern California boy, hasn't lived there in a long time, but never stops talking about it. Matt should maybe go back. A former LA Times employee, and Camille actually lives in California. But I see things like this, and I see something, you know, like a $17,000,000 budget cut. And, you know, as somebody from the outside who has no particular expertise in the fires that are always afflicting Southern California, one would presume that, you know, beefing up the fire department and not cutting $17,000,000 from the budget would be the first thing that one might do, particularly considering that California has one of the heaviest tax burdens of any country in the state in the union.
I mean, you look at how much money that they're gathering in taxes, and and where is it going? I mean, that's what I would love to see of, like, where in LA County is that money going otherwise? I mean, obviously, they have an enormous amount of money in their hands to deal with a homelessness problem, which has not, you know, been dealt with. So so maybe we should reroute some of that money towards the fire department. Couple of other small things is that one, I mean, Matt said, you know, we have friends and, you know, it's she did tweet about it.
So, you know, I feel okay saying it, is that our friend Kennedy has a house in the Palisades. And Matt and I were talking before this, like, we were looking at videos, and we're like, oh my god. Is that Kennedy's house? Because we've all been there. And, you know, so we have friends that are just on the front lines of this.
And the second thing is is because of the unbelievable silliness of the fire chief that you showed clips of, it's like, I don't why are you telling me about staffing? Nobody cares about the staffing of the post office in California. What are you telling me about your staffing policies? We don't need to know. But they're telling you that because they want you to think, look at there's such great people.
But let's move away from her for a second, who seems like a thoroughly ridiculous individual, and and, you know, just praise the firefighters. I mean, 2 people have died. Look at that photograph from the plane. That looks like CGI from an apocalyptic Hollywood movie. And I look this morning in terror, and I say, I don't this must have killed x number of people.
God knows that that number is unfortunately going to increase, but I saw that we have a confirmed 2 people died in a fire that big that should have never gotten that big. It should have been contained. There should have been positive. We know that this is what happens in Southern California. But on the positive side, if we can find a small silver lining, is that, you know, the people that are fighting this fire are, you know, doing, you know, yeoman's work here.
They're doing quite a job that that, they should be praised for.
Speaker 0: I am just reading now. This is unbelievable. This is today. Karen Bass has sent out a tweet, or she comes, the underdog, to save the day, that reads as follows. As Angelenos start their Wednesday morning, there will be notable impacts to air quality with winds pushing smoke across the LA area.
Please limit your exposure by remaining indoors with windows and doors closed and wearing a properly fitted mask. Oh my god. That's her messaging. That's underdog. And what she's gonna do, where's the tweet about the fire hydrants?
About what the plan is to save the lives of your citizens? Stay inside and wear a mask? Matt Welsh, I don't all over the world right now, we are seeing people push back on these leftist politicians and the messes they've created. Is this gonna happen even in California after something as disastrous as this?
Speaker 8: California has had ample opportunity to push back against leftist politicians over the past x number of years, including the aforementioned Rick Caruso. I think back to a guy who was a friend of mine who was an actual Republican mayor of California, Richard Riordan. He, unlike Karen Bass, responded to the many tragedies that unfolded in Southern California in the early 19 nineties. And I'm not just talking about the OJ trial, but, to especially to the Northridge earthquake. That's where he found his footing as mayor, And, you know, that damage is way beyond the city limits of LA, and let's remember that LA County is a much more important, like, entity, government entity than the the city council and the mayorship.
They handled twice as much of the fire action, for example. But re Richard Reardon went out, and he helped, and he led, and he stood in the rubble, and he did stuff, to help rebuild the area. Karen Bass being out of the country is inexcusable. As soon as you know it's a red flag day with 80 to a 100 mile per hour winds, you turn the plane around. You just do.
There are things for you to do, if if nothing else than to show your face and to be with your people who are actually fighting these fires. She was in Ghana at the request of President Joe Biden to honor, an inauguration ceremony of some sort. Why does a mayor of any city need to go to a federal inauguration at the behest of the federal government? Don't we have, like, a federal government to do that kind of stuff and some ceremonial people? You've got business to do.
I mean, for generations, we've known that you don't leave if you're a mayor or a governor of of, Southern California area or California. You don't leave in October. October is when these fires usually happen. It's when the Santa Ana season comes. She should have turned that thing around.
It's infuriating. The mask, I understand. This is not a COVID situation. If I was in California today, I would
Speaker 0: though? Can I tell you something?
Speaker 1: Let me
Speaker 0: tell you something. We actually went through this in Connecticut. I don't remember the month. It was, like, with over the past 12 months where we had bad fires from Canada who were that were blowing smoke. And it was bad.
Like, it smelled it must have been in the summer. I don't know. It was close enough to the summer that the kids were in the pool. In any event, and and the instinct was actually to put on a mask because it was like, oh my god. I can smell it.
I can smell it strongly. And then we consulted with some doctors who were like, it it does absolutely nothing. No. She was like, once again, that unless you could have, like, a real hazmat mask, that mask will do nothing for you. The the point is, if it's bad enough, you should get out.
Get out. And they they can't get out at this point, many of the residents, because of those streets the way they are. The the cars backed up, the smoke and the fire everywhere, and it leaps quickly from from place to place. But let's just go back. Okay?
Because number 1, you raised a very good point about the insurance. This is and I wanna tell the audience, I know it sounds like this is all rich people, but it's not. You know, you you just hear the word Malibu or, you know, Pacific Palisades. It's not. Trust me.
My friend who's in the middle of this is far from rich, and her neighbors are far from rich. And, you know, they're just regular people who have regular jobs trying to make a living and who cannot get insurance because of the reasons that you just stated that that the insurance companies did wanna raise the rates. And Gavin Newsom said no, You know, supposedly as this champion of the people. You know? I'm gonna keep the rates low.
But the insurance companies did what they are always gonna do in that situation, which is they took their ball and went home. Like, f off. We we're not required to insure you. The same thing happened up in Montana. It's happened in state after state across the union when it comes to things like flood insurance, fire insurance, and other massive disaster insurance, situations that these insurers are afraid of.
Right? They it costs a lot, so they wanna jack up
Speaker 1: rates. So
Speaker 8: There's a Yeah. Go ahead. There's a federal policy associated with this. That's why it happens in Montana as well, which has different governance in general than, the California does. And it was it's a classic unintended consequences story.
The, the FAIR requirement, FAIR, Fair Access to Insurance requirements, came as a result of the riots of 1968. It was basically a response post Martin Luther King assassination when there's inner city riots that you could see the scars from space in Washington DC along K Street and 14th. So they said we need to pass this, so government will be the lender of last resorts in inner cities that the insurance companies are too scared of. That was the, initial purpose of it. The practical effect of it is that it ended up subsidizing because of bad management, hurricane, beachside residences in Florida, Foothills, residences in California, and people who live in flood plains in Texas and in Central Valley of California.
So this federal requirement is at the heart of some of this. Then if you have some price controls on top of it, then it's a disaster. But I really want to, in case that there's anybody out there listening or watching this and doing the, oh, it's rich people in Pacific Palisades, boo hoo. And already, I've seen some people come at me and other people, about that. If you really wanna go that way, which you shouldn't because that's not American at all, so knock it off.
I wouldn't do that to anybody in this country. But the other there's 4 fires currently going on, at least, that have names, but there's a couple of others. But one of the biggest ones is the Eastern Fire, which is happening around the Altadena Pasadena area. La Canada, Flintridge, Altadena, Pasadena, this is where my friends go to buy houses because they can't afford it anywhere else in Los Angeles. This is the place where people who are school teachers buy houses, and they are all in evacuation zones too.
It's a really ugly tendency we saw during COVID from blue states towards Florida, of saying, oh, you know, yeah, it serves you right. You're gonna die because you don't take the stupid measures that we're doing in blue states. Don't do it, in the reverse way. It there are people who are really, really suffering. There are difficult public policy questions that California and LA need to do a hell of a lot better job, but be empathetic towards your fellow Americans for crying out loud.
Speaker 0: Let let me just tell you something. My friend, who just found out that her house is gone, is, a a divorced single mom. She's got 2 young daughters and a dog. She just told me I asked I asked her, what describe your neighbors. Mainly elderly, retired flight attendant, a retired family practice doctor, a real estate agent, a retired social worker, retired college professor.
These are normal Americans. They're they're not rich. They're they're not at the bottom. They're just normal. You know, this is a middle class neighborhood that is gone.
Gone. And I guarantee you not one of them had insurance, and, and they're elderly too. So how exactly is it that, you know, the the retired flight attendant is now going to rebuild her life and and, you know, get her things back together. This is a nightmare that was foreseeable. And let me just tell you because what Trump, he hates Gavin Newsom, totally understandably.
It's fine. I agree with him. I understand why he calls him that, and I have no issue. But he and Gavin Newsom have been fighting over things like this for quite some time now about a disagreement on how to prevent against this. And there's a clip that's going viral on x right now from 2018 when Trump was president.
He was standing in a forest with Newsom. Look at this.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot
Speaker 6: of study going on over the last little while, and I I will I will say, I think you're gonna have hopefully, this is gonna be the last of of these because this was a really, really bad one. And I know, Gavin's committed. We're all committed. I'm committed to make sure that we get all of this, cleaned out and protected. We gotta take care of the floors, you know, the floors of the forest.
Very important. You look at other countries where they do it differently, and and it's a whole different story. I was with the president of Finland, and he said we have, a much different we're a forest nation. He called it a forest nation. And they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things, and they don't have any problem.
Speaker 0: I mean, it's a fair point, and it's a debate that's been had many, many times with mostly conservatives on the one side saying, get in there and do the advanced cleanup and the calling of the trees in the forest that needs to be done to keep people safe, and left wingers like Gavin Newsom pretending that they're such just such tree huggers, they don't wanna do it. But meanwhile, how many trees just burned? How many homes just burned? How many people just lost everything, not to mention potentially their lives? Because we wanted to let those little that 50 feet worth of trees stand instead of culling the area.
Speaker 2: If if I can go backwards on one small thing, which is, I think, a really important thing. Matt said something that I very rarely hear him say because I've known him for a very long time, is that something is un American. And I think that he's right about that because I want to just point out that as you said, Anne, and as Matt said about his friends in the kind of Pasadena area, not all these people are rich. But my response to that is, yes, that's clearly true. But also, who cares?
What if they all were rich? That is fine. I didn't grow up rich. I'm not rich now. I'd have no special fealty to a class of, you know, a social and economic class of people.
That's not my concern. But I mentioned our friend Kennedy And on Twitter, someone responded to her talking about her house potentially burning down. And someone responded, sucks to be rich. And to which Kennedy responded, go fuck yourself, which is inappropriate to me, by the way.
Speaker 7: It's funny.
Speaker 0: No. No. It all is be a bag of dicks. So that's clean.
Speaker 2: I think that's the next one that's chewed up. Yeah. But that kind this is a bit of that, you know, Luigi Mangione kind of class warfare that we have kind of accepting these days. Like, well, if it's rich people, then who cares? They can pay for it.
Well, that's what I heard when I was in, Wisconsin. You know, that David Donald Trump was there after the riots, burning down swathes of cities in in Wisconsin. So, well, you know, they have insurance. And turned out a lot of them didn't have insurance. But even if that were the case, there are memories there, there are, you know, family photos, there's your entire life.
And for someone to say, well, you're in a high tax bracket, so it doesn't matter as much. I agree with Kennedy that these people should go fuck themselves.
Speaker 1: So You
Speaker 7: know, I keep thinking about the fact that California is a place where they plan to do things like outlaw cars that run on gasoline, like these really sweeping, ambitious prohibitions that are aimed at transforming the nature of the state itself and trying to capture the future. It would be wonderful if they adopted that sort of approach to fire mitigation. Like, something audacious and aggressive that they continue to talk about year over year. California is I mean, we we I live in Mill Valley, California now. Mill Valley is similarly at very high risk of fire and actually has a pretty aggressive, approach to these things, but is subject to a lot of the same sort of concerns.
We certainly have our fire season every single year, so it's it's something that is on people's minds regularly. But there is obviously a need for much more, than what's being done currently, and I think a lot of people hear talk of sort of climate change in the context of these conversations about wildfires and imagine that that mitigating climate change is kind of enough to address this. In which case, doing something about fossil fuels will perhaps help to mitigate this problem. And it just it does not. It is not nearly the same thing, and you actually do need more of a serious focus on this.
The other thing that I think a lot about now is at what point if they don't do something dramatic, and audacious, they have to just stop rebuilding in certain places. Because if you won't do the things that are necessary to make it feasible to live there, in the long run, then perhaps you just kind of give this space back, to to the wild and allow it to have this natural process. These these fires rage annually. Crazy things
Speaker 0: to think about. If you guys been around the Palisades, like, it's absolutely beautiful. The thing that I love about it and I I've spent a little time in, like, Malibu, which is a lot fancier and on the ocean. But the thing I love about the Palisades is it's all these really cute, charming, little homes. You know, there are a couple of the grand estates and so on, but, like, for the most part, my experience there is it's these really pretty homes.
Some of them have the Mediterranean roofs. It's the stuff you read about when you think about LA from, like, 19 fifties and how people had these little haciendas, and they were yeah. I was just it's so much Americana there, just utter charm around every corner. And speaking of it just burned to the ground like some dystopian horror film seems impossible. Go ahead, Matt.
Speaker 8: Palisades also has a historical role, in the 19 thirties especially. It was home to a bunch of Jewish refugees of Central Europe and Adolf Hitler in particular. So it became a great and grand and important refuge, as did Southern California and the film industry and a couple of other industries as well, which greatly enriched the culture of America, but also is just sort of a beautiful gesture because it wasn't, you know, started it was started as a Methodist refuge and then and then it just became in this grand American style, melting pot style, a place where people could flee bad situations and then create something new and beautiful and small. And that's Pali, Ohio that we're talking about here. This isn't just any high school that was burning yesterday.
You know, how many how many movies have been shot at that at that place? It's a really lovely, lovely area. And also, let's remember that the fire jumped PCH. So PCH Pacific Coast Highway, which we all mostly know from Nick Nolte mugshots, is the artery that goes through Malibu. Look on a map.
Look on a topographical map of Southern California. What are you going to see? There's only 6 ways in and out of that place. Right? There are so many huge, tall, steep mountains around the southland, and PCH is one of them.
And when the fire starts jumping these things, people can get hemmed in pretty darn quick. I've always looked at that topographical map with, sort of a paranoid eye and imagine what would happen if there was a ne'er do well on a red flag flag day. It's pretty easy for people to get boxed in in a hurry. So if anyone's out there still, like, wondering whether they should evacuate, I would say evacuate, dude.
Speaker 0: Well Because
Speaker 8: it goes really, really, really fast, and the fire will jump.
Speaker 0: I think about this, because you were saying, you know, one hand, you're not rich. I was not raised rich, but now I'm pretty rich. And I think about, like, god forbid this happened. You know, of course, life the life of my family and my pets would be my number one thought, but then just think about it, rich or poor. What would you grab if you had a moment?
You know, it would not be your fancy clothes or your, you know, designer car. It would be like your wedding album or like the photos of your kids when they were little before we had the Icloud in some of our cases, and it's not regrettable. You know? It would for me, it'd be like pictures of my dad who died in 1985 And that aren't I can't recreate them. Like, those losses would burn deep, and it doesn't matter what's in your wallet.
And there are so many people out there. It's all gone. It's it's all literally up in smoke. Not in some remote country, but in one of the busiest, most urban, most lived in cities, one of the one of the jewels, yes, of America in in the whole world. It seems almost impossible that they could have let this happen.
I mean, I realize, yes, mother nature too, but there were too many hands involved in this that let this happen from the refusal to call appropriately to protect these folks in the 1st place, to the focus on DEI at a fire department that had other needs. You you know, you live in, Norway where we went in June. You're probably good on the water supply. Like, you're probably everything is surrounded by water. There's a fjord out everybody's window.
I don't know. You're yes. You're in Los Angeles. There's a there's an ocean there, but they have not been adequately sourcing the water for some time now, and they know it. So there's multiple problems out there that let this happen.
Here's one thing that just came in, as follows. Standby. California's wildfire and forest resilience action plan in 2022 emphasized that, quote, rare plants and species diversity must be protected when clearing forest floors. Now why why, miss Camille, why must the rare plants and species diversity be protected? Right?
The whole point in clearing a forest is to protect human life.
Speaker 7: Yeah. I mean, it's it's obviously not an illegitimate concern to be worried about the diversity of the forest, obviously, but it is a matter of having some sort of qualified concern for those things and actually attacking the issue in a very serious way. And, unfortunately, this is a decades old problem as Matt already alluded to, and it's not something that has only become an issue since 2014. So the fact that there are these particular moments where the current thing is some unique set of social concerns, whether it be environmental concerns, or it be something related to, you know, race and racial justice, The fact that there are all of these other distractions is important and noteworthy, but it's also the case that they they manage to find these distractions because it is easier to govern by expressing this continuous concern for these peripheral issues that don't have any meaningful consequence for most people's lives than it is to actually be held accountable for trying to address the tangible concerns that these that these communities face, whether it be homelessness or the persistent threat of wildfires as the the folks of LA are finding out right now.
Speaker 2: I think that Can I follow-up on that?
Speaker 0: Guys' Megan Rubin. Let me just jump in for one second. James Woods has been on the program multiple times. He's a friend of the show and and of mine personally. He's been posting on acts prolifically about this as the fire came right up to his home.
Here he is, speaking about it. This just aired on CNN.
Speaker 1: Like, an inferno. Every house was on fire around us, and, you know, he got him out, and the house burned down about an hour later. He would have been in there alone. It was just and then Robert called us and, told us that that house had gone and the house below that and then the house on the other side. And then that, at 11:49 last night, all the all the smoke alarms in our house alerted our phones that our our house that we had just renovated for, for 3 years and had just finally moved into about 3 months ago, you know, all the smoke alarms are going off.
Speaker 0: So I'm not clear. I I think James may have lost his house. He may have lost his house now. He just, he just tweeted, we renovated a home after COVID and just finished last month. To all the lovely people offering care and love, I'll say this.
There is no possession as priceless as friends and good neighbors during a tragedy. I can't believe the blessings we enjoy, and I am humbly grateful. Oh, god bless him. God bless him. That he there he was talking about his 94 year old neighbor barely escaping being burned alive.
Here is video that was posted publicly. This is my friend's neighborhood, the one who lost everything with the 2 young daughters. Look at look at this, you guys. For the listening audience, it is burned trees. It is home after home of just a shell.
You can see just like a a shell of a home. It it reminds me guys of look at that.
Speaker 7: It's foundations.
Speaker 0: It reminds me of what you see after a tornado goes through. And the tornado, you know, that is something you cannot do anything about. You know? There, like, there are certain parts of the country where the tornadoes hit and people have been raised, look at this, for blocks and blocks and blocks. I cannot believe my eyes that this was lost to fire.
You can see how dense densely populated the area was. The picket white fence in front of a dystopian nightmare again. Burned trees, nothing left of homes. This is just a person tooling around, seeing it firsthand, and it happens to be my friend's neighborhood where she lost everything. We have mayor Karen Bass with the following tweet, just out.
She's giving the number for power outages. This woman's utterly useless. My friend and others are sitting there with absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing, trying to find somebody to take them in so they can be under a roof. And they don't need a number for a power outage.
That's that's not what they need right now. I don't know what else she's doing, but I have zero hope that this woman will run hurt on this just like I don't think Gavin Newsom Newsom did either. He just, he just canceled his trip to Washington DC for the Jimmy Carter funeral to deal with the fires. Well, thank you for that. Thank you for your service, governor.
I don't know. I I don't you know? On the political question, you guys, I don't know.
Speaker 8: I think, there's
Speaker 0: The Californians are so left wing. They're so left wing for the most part, but so are the Canadians. And Justin Trudeau was just forced to step down, and they are looking at this Pierre Poliyev very seriously. And he's the favorite, even according to New York Times, to win now that they're they're the Canadians. The Canadians are gonna elect Akins conservative.
You know, we watching what's happening in Germany, watching the the rebellion in the UK, like, what we did here, electing a 2 time impeached, convicted, whatever. You know? Yeah. How the left says about Trump. People have had it.
They've had it with these left wing policies that are, yes, deadly deadly.
Speaker 2: Meghan, I think that I mean and you're right about Canada. I mean, the the conservatives have about 44, 45 percent in the last opinion polls, and that's just marching towards the next prime ministership. But I think you're right about this, and I think it's a kind of global thing because I think people are very tired of the politics of symbolism, because the politics of symbolism oftentimes have very destructive consequences. So, for instance, Camille says, you know, rightfully says that, you know, why not just tell us what the plan is? Lay out the plan for dealing with these fires.
Go until well, there's no what is the incentive for that? There's no incentive for that. The incentive for people like the fire chief in LA County is to come out and you will get on TV because of the people who are controlling these news networks and newspapers, etcetera, will put you on the front cover if you tell them how many one legged transgender Albanians are gonna be fighting fires. Like, this is symbolism. That is
Speaker 0: Tough constituency to find.
Speaker 2: Tough. But they do have one, by the way. But, no, that is the same it's the same thing about immigration is that, you know, we talk about immigration in these kind of philosophical ways and accuse the people who are opposed to sort of unmitigated, illegal immigration and say, well, you know, if you disagree with that, this is kind of a racist kind of Trumpian thing. And then people in New York City and LA and, bless so in LA, but New York City especially, you know, are dealing with this crisis and saying, oh, yeah, that's just not a talking point. It's not like, you know, something that we argue about in the opinion sections of newspapers.
It actually has practical consequences. But the incentives are totally wrong. I mean, there is no incentive to go out there and say, this is our plan for fires. But there is an incentive to go out and say, look at how great I am. Pat me on the back for what I'm doing for some political issue inside the fire department that no one cares about.
It affects no one, but it affects them negatively. But it's about that person. It's about that fire chief. Look at how great I am, and look at how I'm following the sort of precepts of modern politics. No one cares.
You see
Speaker 0: what the holy windshield is. The interview. Like, you know what? This could be solved if you would just put the things out loud that you're actually saying in your in your head and you're dressing up with fancy letters. You know, think about it.
You know, Camille, I come in to interview with you as I wanna be the fire chief and you're the mayor. And and you say to me, let's just go over some basics. Do you have a vagina? Okay. Excellent.
Okay. You you've already moved up. And who What
Speaker 7: color is it?
Speaker 0: Who who has access to it? Who has access to it exactly?
Speaker 1: I don't see vagina color, Camille.
Speaker 2: I don't see vagina.
Speaker 1: My color is the vagina. The words
Speaker 2: too long there, Matt Luch.
Speaker 0: Seriously. Right? Like, the absurdity, it's bad enough that they're like, she's a woman. They were supposed to celebrate the fact that she's a lesbian. Who gives a shit?
Speaker 2: Better firefighters, I think. According to all
Speaker 1: the data, I don't What?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 8: I wanna make one quick quick, point about, electricity, and power outages. There is a there is a reason why the benefits
Speaker 0: out of that.
Speaker 8: That's interesting. I had to. Is that, if you're gonna do, as Camille was saying, mandate that everyone must have an electric guitar, electric guitar. That'd be great. Actually, the Jimmy Hendrix mandate.
No. That that everyone must have electric cars. Mhmm. Better have an electrical grid that works, and they don't. And, also, who's the biggest contributor to fire wildfires in California over the last 20 years?
Let's guess. It's the people who have electrical lines. That what is what sparks so many of the wildfires because they spark literally, and then they go poof. So, people need to think this stuff through a little bit more.
Speaker 0: Oh my god. Our hearts and prayers and thoughts go out to the people suffering right now, praying for lives to be saved at this point. We'll be right back. More with the guys from the 5th column who are here for the whole show. Here is a shocking truth about New Year's resolutions.
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So my friend just sent me a picture of what's left of her house in the Palisades. Would you look at this?
Speaker 2: Oh god. Oh god.
Speaker 0: Only the chimney.
Speaker 8: Oh, wow.
Speaker 0: Only the chimney remains. That's it. This is I mean, my poor friend, she's like, I don't know what they're gonna do. You know? Like, I the I'd she's just in the same position as all of her neighbors from that video that we played you where the person was just going down the street.
They're they're all homeless now. All of them. I mean, the there's not enough taxpayer money in the state of California to to take care of all this damage, and I don't know about the insurance situation. Maybe we can get Greenland to pay for it once they become the 51st
Speaker 1: state. Alright.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll
Speaker 0: get to Greenland in a second. I'll get to Greenland. But talk about the perfect segue. A couple of years ago, John Stossel, friend of all of ours and, you know, former Fox host, he's been doing great on YouTube. He has a very, very interesting show that he does there, and he posts the best clips.
He does these in-depth, like, 8 to 11 minute pieces that get up and down on a story very clearly in the way only Stossel can. And he did one on California wildfires and the ridiculous, environmental concerns that help contribute to them. And guess what happened to his very well researched and presented and produced video? It got censored by Facebook, which is one of the other big stories in the news today as Mark Zuckerberg is now saying he's going to finally stop doing that. But before we get to the resolution, and Mark Zuckerberg's come to Jesus moment, we cut my team knows that I have basically a a a rule that we don't do sound bites over 60 seconds just because it it drones on for the audience.
But, this one's 2 minutes, and there's a reason. Like, watch this. It's very compelling. We condensed Stassel's report that Facebook found so objectionable it had to be censored.
Speaker 9: What? Looking at Facebook, I was shocked to see this big notice on my page, missing context. It's posted on my video that calls California's fires government fueled because Facebook says this information could mislead people. What's worse is that now Facebook says it will show my content to fewer people. Yikes.
My news model is based on social media companies showing you videos. Why did Facebook penalize me? I click the button that says, see why. It goes to a page from a group called Climate Feedback that writes about climate change and claims to sort fact from fiction. Facebook gives this little group power to cut me off.
Yeah. Climate Feedback posted this statement in quotes as if it's something I said and calls that statement misleading, saying it misrepresents a complex reality. Well, it does, but I never said that. I actually said, climate change has made things worse. California's warmed 3 degrees over 50 years.
Facebook's letting activists restrict my views based on things I never said. I tried. I emailed the editor. She didn't respond. But 2 of 3 scientists listed as reviewers did agree to interviews.
You're smearing me based on something I didn't say.
Speaker 10: Yeah. I mean, I've never commented on your article.
Speaker 9: That was a shock. He hadn't even seen my video.
Speaker 10: If this is implying that we have reviewed the video, then this is clearly wrong. There's something wrong with the system.
Speaker 9: He said my video was probably flagged because I interviewed environmentalist Michael Shellenberger.
Speaker 0: And you're not allowed to do that. You can't talk to Michael Shellenberger and have your video live on Facebook. And, if I memory serves, it's been a couple years since I saw the original piece, but they admitted that they made a mistake, and then they still wouldn't back down on the censorship. They like, he caught them in fake censorship, you know, based on nothing, mistakes of theirs, and then they still refused to let the video, you know, have the full circulation and, not not be censored. So it was an absurdity.
It's things like that that in part got us into this mess in California. It's yet another thing that the left has said over the past 10 plus years, we're not allowed to discuss. You can't listen to Michael Shellenberger, former Greenpeace activist, former Obama administration partner on the Solyndra Green Window deal, which he learned firsthand was a disaster, which is what turned him more into, I don't wanna call him a man of the right, but just a man of reason saying, these policies suck. Like, what are we doing? We're ruining the earth in the name of green energy, and it's having the opposite effect.
So he gets banned. Stassel gets banned. We can't have honest discussions about wildfires, And now my friend's home is burned to the ground. So, you know, great, Mark Zucker. I mean, cool, Mark Zuckerberg.
Welcome to our free speech party, but you're a day late and a dollar short.
Speaker 8: Well, I mean, let's be honest that he has also been as browbeaten as any executive in the country for the last basically, since November, whatever the day it was after the election in 20 16, because the left absolutely freaked out and blamed Russia and Cambridge Analytica and Vladimir Putin and the cookie monster living under their bed for Donald Trump winning, which is a very huge and horrible shock to him. And by that point, Facebook was large enough that it did what large companies tend to do, which is don't kick me too much, and don't do anything that gets rid of my dominant position in the market. And, oh, do you want some regulations? I'll help you write them. That's what big incumbents tend to do.
And so he played ball, because he was pressured to play ball, but also that it was sort of expedient for him. I'm happy that he turned. Everyone should go watch that video if you haven't, and I'm sure you played some of it yesterday or and or we'll play some of it.
Speaker 0: In a minute.
Speaker 8: His, his hair, if nothing else, is just fantastic, and I applaud him for it. And he's been describing himself as more as libertarian over the years, which is very good. And this is a moment that we're, like, it's kind of crystallizing a certain cultural vibe shift, if nothing else. But I would caution people, and that cultural vibe shift to me is that the culture of free speech is reasserting itself. Whether the institutions of free speech are doing that, whether, the incoming administration is going to be good for free speech.
There's many reasons to think that it won't be good for free speech, just in the way that, the FCC incoming, chairman or or going to be chairman has talked about a couple of things, but table that for a second. That's an important thing. The culture free speech is crucial to what all of us do, and to have social media companies now coming around to where Elon Musk has already been, and he's a weird person too on some of these issues, but broadly speaking, he has thrown open rather than restricted the amount of speech on his platform. And Zuckerberg even said that he's going to adopt the same kind of community notes, system that, Musk has on Twitter, which is probably the greatest innovation
Speaker 0: Amazing.
Speaker 8: In the in the Musk era. It's just, like, real time, fact checking what Wikipedia was supposed to be back in the day on some level.
Speaker 0: But it's so funny it's so funny that you should say he's playing well, he's playing ball in the free speech, you know, pond the same way, Steve Martin's son, Kevin Bucknaman, was playing ball in the movie parenthood when Steve Martin made him. Remember playing 3rd base or whatever it was? And, like, it was a disaster. Poor Kevin Buckman was humiliated, but he had to do it because his dad made him. There was a happy ending ultimately.
But he was made. You're right. He was brought to heel, which is great. We'll take him however we can get him.
Speaker 8: I feel like it's more genuine. It's looking at the video, it feels kind of more genuine. I don't actually want him to be responding to, like, government pressure in any direction, whether it's in a way that's positive or negative.
Speaker 0: I have to think about the pressure.
Speaker 1: I
Speaker 8: don't think so either. But I'm just saying I I wouldn't want that to happen. That's what the left is now, describing this, that he's capitulating and he's being brought to heel. I don't necessarily think that that is the case.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 0: Brought to heel by us, not Trump. I absolutely
Speaker 8: hope so. And I would commend people, briefly to go and read Matt Taibbi on this, who's been obviously one of the best, chroniclers of the way that governments, especially in the Biden, era, has put unholy amounts of pressure on social media companies to ban things. I mean, Rand Paul couldn't go on YouTube to say that, hey. You know, masking studies are not really all that. They would ban him for 6 months after that.
It's crazy what, take a play. We're we're still, like, unraveling that. But what Taibi argues is that perhaps Zuckerberg, in the way that he's talking about this, wants to partner with Donald Trump in a way that is actually good and not bad. And that is Mhmm. There's a lot of, Western European and other country efforts to make a sort of transnational, anti speech or sort of anti misinformation regime.
And so if Zuckerberg is leading or being part of the solution to fight against that and to encourage Trump, because now Trump, has a lot of the Silicon Valley people have his ear in ways that they didn't 5 years ago at all. If he if they can encourage him to resist any American cooperation, and in fact, active American resistance to any attempts to be as horribly anti free speech as the UK has become, then that can be a really good thing, I think.
Speaker 2: Which which Zuckerberg actually mentions too. Yes.
Speaker 0: Wait. Wait. Wait. So let me play a little bit of the Zuckerberg, mea culpa admission announcement of the end of his censorship regime.
Speaker 11: The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing A
Speaker 0: lot of hair.
Speaker 11: We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created. We're gonna simplify our content policies and get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse. What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it's gone too far.
Speaker 0: YouTube, your move. Your move.
Speaker 2: The c three p o is on the right side of speech. I like it. Do the things. It's like, what? He's a robot.
This is by the way, there's a lot of people trying to read Mark Zuckerberg here. And it's like now he's bowing down to Trump. If it's any indication of the people I think that Matt and Camille and I have talked to, Megan, I'm sure this is true of you too, that after the kind of Me Too movement, after the so called racial reckoning, all of these things that companies were doing after the 2016 election of Donald Trump. And when they kind of unwound those things, the number I'm thinking of very specific people in my mind right now too, who have come to me and said, yeah, no. We never believed that.
Speaker 1: It was just like
Speaker 2: we kind of had to do that in the moment. Yep. And they're admitting to their own cowardice, and it's not a great position to be in. But it could be very well be true, and I can't look into his brain and figure out why he's doing this, but it could very well be true that Mark Zuckerberg never believed the stuff that he was implementing on Facebook. And then we had something like COVID.
And COVID is a really key component here because when it comes to trust in the media, it's been low for a long time. Its lowest ebb has been after COVID. Incredibly low trust in media because people were actually paying attention. If you like, you have to wear masks. You have to stay inside.
Your kids can't go to school. So you're actually checking this stuff rather than it only being left to a very narrow band of people who care about this stuff, and whether the fact checkers and whether the experts are right about this stuff. So that kind of buckled people's impression of what these experts are. And so when experts, quote unquote, are coming onto Facebook and saying, no, the expert says this isn't true. We don't have that trust anymore.
But to the Stossil thing, one final point, is that look at the way they did this. It omits context. Has anyone here ever written an editorial? I know all of us have. What do you do when you write an editorial?
Why is the newspaper not this big, but this big? Because you have to, by nature, omit context in everything that you do. So, therefore, it is a weapon to wield against anyone at any time. Of course, it's not gonna have context for everything. You have to leave certain things out and say, hey.
The general narrative is this. I'm going to inform you about some other opinions. And then the fact checker comes in and says, well, why didn't you, you know, include the initial narrative? That is unbalanced, as it were. This is the kind of nonsense game that these people were playing, and people were wising up to it.
And that's the other reason that
Speaker 1: they backed away from it.
Speaker 7: Yeah. I think
Speaker 2: it's funny reason why.
Speaker 0: They were gonna start fact checking presidential ads. This was years ago. This isn't this election cycle. And I remember standing there in my kitchen saying, this is a huge mistake. This will not end well.
They are not in a position to do this. Let the candidates slug it out and call each other liars. Let community notes pop up, however. But Facebook cannot do this. And it was the beginning of the end for Facebook's political feed, you know, their news feed, which they don't really do anymore.
Like, we we've been on Facebook for years, and I never used it as a big tool to promote the show, so I wasn't as hurt by this by some others, as as some others in this sphere. But they basically completely what's the word? Like, depressed
Speaker 8: Deprioritized.
Speaker 0: In all circulation of news, like, about a year ago, and it seriously hurt a lot of right wing podcasts, which had been using Facebook to promote their their brand. And it was that was, like, a culmination too of just their fact checking attempts and how poorly they were going. And, like, once you step a foot in this lane, it's just a freaking disaster. You in the United States of America, this shit doesn't work. But, Camille, you wouldn't know that from the reactions to Zuckerberg's announcement.
I'll just give you one, which is my favorite. Here's the headline. Okay. Okay. Fact checker condemns Facebook for cutting ties with first responders of the
Speaker 1: Internet. What? Responders. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Describing themselves as the first responder. Yes. Yes. Yes. The greatest heroes, the greatest champions of Internet freedom.
I'm also are the fact checkers. You know what's funny? I I haven't talked to Mark. I haven't talked to, like, Jeff Bezos, but I have traveled in a lot of circles with some of the people that they've been friendly with. Mark Andreessen and, Peter Thiel are people who have known Zuckerberg for years.
Been early were early involved in Facebook and were on the board for years. I think there's plenty of reason to believe that a lot of people have, over the course of the recent years, done many things that they didn't really believe that they should be doing, but they did it out of fear, or concern that they simply couldn't get away with pushing back against certain things. And they feel newly liberated to actually push back and assert a bit of a bit of power, and say, yeah. We're not gonna do those things anymore. And I think, Megan, you were correct to flag early on that there was not a it was not a good idea for Facebook to begin fact checking political ads, not a good idea for them to outsource responsibility for trying to fact check the videos that Stassel or anyone else is posting, and then flagging them formally, corporately, because there's just way too much opportunity for that to go badly for you.
But when you're guided by people internal to you who are interested in wielding power towards political ends, not merely in the interest of fairness and policing misinformation and disinformation, nearly always with a particular political slant, it's going to result in plenty of bad things for you. It'll hurt your brand in the long run, and that is actually what folks have seen in recent years. So it is it is nice to see the pendulum swing back. I do suspect a lot of that happens happens to be related to culture, and I hope that we can actually do this in a way that's a bit more stable. I think there are plenty of criticisms that one can raise with respect to something like community notes, but it does seem to me that it is infinitely better, than what Facebook chose to do when they, again, outsource responsibility for this to these ostensibly independent organizations that in many instances have these political biases.
It is far better to have a transparent process that actually gives people a sensibility that about what those underlying concerns are related to the articles and to to make it broadly available and open. And just like in the last election, we saw some of these betting markets give us some of the best, information about where the election was likely to go. Community most notes processes work something like that. So there's plenty of reason to think that that could be a very healthy thing, and I think reasons for optimism with respect to the kind of culture of free speech reasserting itself. Although I've been assured by some people that that that isn't a thing that exists, but I I beg to differ.
Speaker 0: It's so great because as I listen to you talk, all I can think is, we're winning. We're winning. You know, this free speech fight, you know, you guys have been in it neck deep. We're winning. This is a sign of that.
And the second thing I was thinking about was my friend because her house burned, her car burned. And think about the other thing that that is generally, you know, in your card, in your house, all your birth certificates, you know, your kids' birth certificates, your car registration, you know, your like, all of that's like, just think of the number of hours you know it's going to take you to try to reproduce those items, how the hell like, how do you even start to go find your car registration data? I don't like, yeah. DMV. That's that may be burned too.
I just whatever. I'm back and forth on these two stories. But on the on the happier note, we're winning. Although Brian Stelter is very upset, which is another sign we are winning. If the right side is winning.
Brian Stelter, quote, meta's framing in its PR blog post is more speech and fewer mistakes. An alternate title could be more lies and more confusion. That's probably not it. And then there's the New York Times headline that everybody mocked yesterday on x. Yeah.
Meta says fact checkers were the problem. Fact checkers ruled that false. Ruled.
Speaker 8: Ruled. That is the great I'm
Speaker 0: sorry. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Great answer. I wrote, I think, my first long piece about, how the fact checking industry, which deserves scare quotes, was, not all that. It's more than a dozen years ago or a dozen years ago or so for reason because of the way that it was being applied so in, lopsidedly, in the Obama era. Right? You had PolitiFact giving lie of the year about Obamacare.
Okay. That makes sense. Except it was about Sarah Palin making a Facebook post, about death panels. It wasn't about whether you could keep your doctor. It wasn't about whether, you know, you've taken on the drug lobby and finally won or many of the other things that Obama wasn't about either lie of
Speaker 0: the year this year, Matt? Yeah. It it was not Joe Biden's the best Joe Biden or
Speaker 8: I won your cats and
Speaker 2: dogs. Pardon Hunter. It was
Speaker 0: the cat dogs. The dogs.
Speaker 8: Yeah. I mean, the the that's, like, even take out the politics of this. Even take out the it's obvious that you're more upset about Republican and MAGA Republican, in particular, rhetoric than you are about Democratic. Take that out. Actually, look at the difference between, and this is was true 12 years ago.
It's true today. They want to fact check political rhetoric. They don't want to fact check the lies that governments are telling you in the name of making bad policy. How many I mean, this goes hand in hand. We've had this crackdown on quote, unquote misinformation hand in hand with the government serially lying to us about policies relating especially to COVID.
And Michael's right to point to that. That's an interesting thing. Why are we, like, actually using government pressure, I would say, in violation of the First Amendment? It's being, sort of adjudicated as we speak. But, government pressure about this, at the same time that the government is doing is is making brand new kind of bold, stakes of its own misinformation.
I would say that those two things go hand in hand. And journalism made a really bad departure, 10 years ago or so. We're excited to be the referee of rhetoric as opposed to covering policy. Policy matters much much more, and Democratic policy, in Democratic places has has produced really bad results. Republican policy sometimes does as well, but, you should actually follow the way that that works, and they don't.
They are more naturally inclined to be upset with Sarah Palin's rhetoric than what would actually Barack Obama did when passing and implementing Obamacare, and this goes on and on and on. The biggest lie of So
Speaker 0: was that.
Speaker 8: A really long time was Biden's age. That that is not lie of the year is is fundamentally enraging to at least half the country.
Speaker 0: It is a lie itself. I don't we'll find out what the people of Greenland think. Charles c w Cook writes it up as follows, and I love this. This is it. For more than a decade now, many people within both social media and legacy media, in quotes, have attempted to use their power to end debate on a host of important democratic issues.
This has failed and spectacularly so. Even if one regards Zuckerberg's shift as a purely cynical surrender performed by a malleable and amoral cipher, one ought to be pleased at the impetus that provoked it. Something is changing out there and changing for the better. Right on. And I know, Matt, you just wrote an article on Charlie Hebdo.
It's amazing that we're at the 10 year anniversary of that massacre, which was about free speech. And whether as that magazine did, you can depict the so called prophet Mohammed or you will be murdered, and some segment of the population will say, yeah. Right. You were offensive. Right?
I mean, we kind of touched on this a little bit earlier this week when I was going off on the movie, Conclave because it makes a total mockery of Catholicism and the cardinals and the pope by spoiler alert. They make the new pope intersex. Okay. I think the LA fire department would be thrilled. But in any event, I was saying they would never do that never do that to Islam or Muslims or even potentially Jewish people.
But they're Catholics, Christians, total fair game. In any event, the free speech debate has been raging
Speaker 1: for
Speaker 0: the better part of 10 years, and that Charlie Hebdo moment was one of the most important parts. And and we it looked like we were losing, but we're not.
Speaker 8: Well, I worry I think we are winning in the culture, and you're right to to point that out. But we are going to, it's we're not going to find a lot of winning within the kind of legacy cultural institutions. Even yesterday, you know, I was just doing a last quick little Google news search before I hit publish on a piece about Charlie Hebdo, and here's the Columbia Journalism Review. Right? The institutional kind of organ of the media industry talking to itself, you know, talking about the mixed legacy and the and the free speech.
It's more complicated and nuanced than all of that. And, like, we're talking about the murder of 12 people, beloved cartoonists, cartoonists who mocked, first and mostly, actually the pope Yeah. And every single French leader. I mean, they're an anticlerical, satirical weekly, stretching way back, very anti authoritarian. There isn't the mixed record here is only the performance of the media, which made Charlie Hebdo lonely, and it shouldn't have been.
And this is something that Michael and I in particular have talked about and written about many times, not just over the last 10 years, but over the last 35 since the fatwa was was placed on, Salman Rushdie for satanic verses. There was a moment there where there was a time for choosing among Western intellectuals, and they chose badly. They chose intersectionally. They said, well, you know, Rushdie and Jimmy Carter's words in an op ed that he wrote for the New York Times just 3 weeks after the Fatwa, you know, Rushdie is guilty of insulting Islam, you know, because, people from Muslim countries are, more oppressed than, Catholics or than people from a majority opinion. This was like a new introduction of cowardice on the part of the West, kind of judging it in this way.
And when the Danish cartoon crisis happened in 2,006, 6, which Danish newspapers published cartoons of Mohammed, no one cared, and then a bunch of imams in the Middle East started publicizing them months later, and then it led to a bunch of riots, that was the moment when, the West writ large should have print reprinted those cartoons. I, advocated for such when I worked for the LA Times very strenuously, and I lost very narrowly in the opinion section, and I feel ashamed to this day that I didn't win that argument, because Charlie Hebdo was one of the only places that did that. And once you become, an outlier, then you become a target. And they became an outlier because of the cowardice of the West and not just, about reprinting cartoons, about, in the case of the New York Times at one point, writing a a file story about a statue of Mohammed that appeared on top of a New York courthouse for a half a century that no one cared about. They wrote an article about this in the wake of, one of the Charlie Hebdo controversies and didn't even run a file photo of the statue that existed.
Speaker 0: Lord.
Speaker 8: The historical
Speaker 0: photo pope intersects. The pope the male pope can have lady reproductive arts, and it wins awards at the Golden Globes and elsewhere. Right? But what color what color? That's the real question.
You mentioned Matt Taibbi. He's got a substack called racket. He just posted this in response to Zuckerberg saying, in his video yesterday, he cited press pressure as part of the reason for proposed changes. After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy. Meta tried to address such concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth.
Okay. That's not true. One would think legacy media, writes Taibbi, outlets covering Zuckerberg's video address might mention this. In other words, that it was their pressure that led him to implement these bad changes years ago in the first place. No luck, writes Matt.
Neither The Washington Post nor The New York Times mentioned the legacy media comments by Zuckerberg. Both papers readers, in other words, were served a curated version of reality that snipped out uncomfortable details. And, god, do they wish the whole world could be like that. Yeah. As as usual.
Well said by Matt.
Speaker 2: Very well said. But yeah.
Speaker 0: What do you what do you think the people in Greenland are gonna think about it? Are they are they free speech? I mean, like, I don't know if they're leftist or rightist. Trump seems to be saying they're pro MAGA, but, like, they're not. They're Denmark people.
They're kinda owned by Denmark. I mean, Denmark does own and, like, they are as left as you can get. So I'm not sure, guys. Do we want this as a 51st state? Go ahead, Moynihan.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't even know where to start with this. The the people of Greenland as a, Dutch way of
Speaker 0: the with this. Greenland is mostly icy, and Iceland is mostly green. Discuss.
Speaker 2: That's true. So they're obviously very confused as to who they are. They might be sort of intersex as a country. They don't know
Speaker 0: They're the intersex of potential territories.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's gonna be a lot for us to to take on.
Speaker 0: Okay. Well, I am gonna give you the floor. Forgive me. But just to set it up, Trump is indeed saying, he had a news conference the other day, that he would potentially like to buy Greenland. Greenland is owned by Denmark, and it's like one of their territories.
And he's saying, well, we want it. And, then he got asked, well, like, it's got a bunch of natural resources that are amazing and now accessible thanks to some of the global warming. It's not just completely covered by the Arctic. So we're interested because we don't have as much natural resources as China does. They've got way more than we do.
So we're eyeballing you know, Greenland is like, well, that could be quite helpful. And, Trump proposed this, and then he was asked that presser, like, would you oh, and he also wants to reclaim the Panama Canal, which okay. It's it was we gave it to Panama under Jimmy Carter. It's no longer ours, but he's saying, well, we're taking it back. I mean, this is bullshit.
You're charging us too much to go through it, and we want it. He's also saying we're gonna rename the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America. He's saber rattling about making Canada a state. I don't I don't think that one's real, but I think the other ones are real. So he got asked on the the Panama Canal and Greenland whether he would use military or economic might
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: To make it happen. Would you rule that out right now, mister president? And he said, no. I won't rule it out. Take a listen.
Speaker 1: Can you assure the world that as you try to, get control of these areas, you are not gonna use military or economic coercion?
Speaker 2: No. Can you?
Speaker 6: We need them for economic security.
Speaker 0: Well, I don't do we really do we want Greenland? I mean, I see the the natural resource. I'm not and they're NATO country. I'm not sure we can just go in there and get them.
Speaker 2: It's it's I mean, do do we want Italy? I mean, you can't you can want
Speaker 0: a lot of That would be good. No.
Speaker 2: You can't just take Greenland. You can't buy Greenland. You can't take the Panama Canal back from the Panamanians. I mean, there was a debate. There was actually a really interesting debate.
And, viewers listeners should go check this out. In the 19 seventies, amongst conservatives, actually, about the situation in Panama, and there's a very famous debate between Ronald Reagan and William f Buckley. And Ronald Reagan said we should retain control of the canal because we built it. Actually, the French started building it. We finished building it.
And, William f Buckley said it's not like a conservative position. We should give it back to the Panamanians, which we did under certain conditions when it turned over to full control in 1999. And the Panamanians have reacted to this recently saying, no. We're absolutely not. And look, the thing about Trump is he shoots from the hip and he says things that sometimes the facts need to catch up with him.
This idea that he said with the Panama Canal, he's like, you know, our our ships are charged more to go through. That's not true. And that has it has become more expensive, of course, because the water levels have been have been lower, and it's cost more, and it's slower to get ships through. So they've been raising prices. But that kind of thing is just the, you know, the kind of natural market of these things.
I thought he was kidding about Greenland. And the more that I've watched this, he's like, well, we need it for national security, and we need it for economic security, which I have to say is just completely bonkers. And I don't think this will go anywhere, but it is totally insane to say that we would wanna become, like, a local imperial power
Speaker 1: in
Speaker 2: the next 4 years.
Speaker 0: Like, what? Seriously? Was surprising. Like, some of the rhetoric at the conference didn't sound exactly isolationist. You know?
Like, as much as I loved his, like, you know, you're gonna f off, Hamas. I better get those hostages back before before the inauguration.
Speaker 2: Loved it.
Speaker 0: I was a little like, well, what or or what? Because, like, most MAGA people do not wanna get involved in World War 3. So there was that. Then there was, yeah. I I kinda do want Greenland, and if I have to potentially involve the I'm not gonna rule it out, and same for Panama.
And maybe maybe Canada. We'll have to we'll have to see. I'm joking. He wasn't quite that bad. But, I do wonder because he sent Don Junior and Charlie Kirk
Speaker 2: He did.
Speaker 0: And others on Trump force 1
Speaker 2: That'll work.
Speaker 0: To Greenland, and then Trump called in. Here's a little sound bite of that visit. Take a look Take a listen.
Speaker 12: Tourists seeing it. Looks like an incredible place we've been talking about going for a while. I'm really excited to be here. Awesome country. The the scenery coming in was just spectacular.
So just very excited to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 2: From your car, pal?
Speaker 12: He says hello. Okay. We were talking to him yesterday. So he says hello to everyone in Greenland.
Speaker 0: Trump tweeted out make Greenland Greenland great again. And he called in when Don Junior was at a restaurant, and he spoke with the people. And Trump says Greenland, I hear, is very MAGA. I don't know what your Greenland is MAGA. Can we start with that?
I don't wanna be adopting another California or Oregon.
Speaker 2: I Greenland.
Speaker 7: I don't know I don't know if Greenland is particularly MAGA, and I don't suspect that statehood is actually in the cards here. But there are some legitimate foreign policy and economic issues here. I mean, China and Russia both have a lot of interest in the Arctic region. China has a lot of cutters and can get into the ice and can go look for stuff, and there's been, like, essentially, this, like, competition to see who can get out there and stake claim to as much space as possible or at least, like, kind of clog up the routes so that it's difficult for the United States to have access. And the United States is interested in having access to a bunch of rare earth metals that you can kind of only get in places like China and Pakistan or India Pakistan, actually.
And the fact that some of this stuff happens to be in Iceland as well is of unique interest to the United States. So if what Trump is doing here and I actually purchased a copy of Art of the Deal in the last 24 hours and have been going through it to try and understand 10 years later. To try and understand listen. I'm late I'm a little late, but, I mean, there's maybe a little game.
Speaker 0: You're late than never.
Speaker 2: You gotta
Speaker 0: go on.
Speaker 8: Gotta understand that ghostwriter. Trump. Trump. He
Speaker 7: listen. You could have a ghostwriter and still have particular ideas and he's running the playbook. I mean, these are grandiose kind of over the top, statements. Oh, we're gonna we're gonna annex them. We got I won't rule those other things out.
But if what you really want is a strategic partnership, to to the exclusion of the Chinese and the Russians, and you want to build up kind of public concern and interest in this issue, you can try to go about this strategically behind closed doors and be very diplomatic, and it won't even be below the fold in The New York Times. Right now, everyone is talking about Trump's interest in in, Iceland or Greenland. Excuse me. It's easy to confuse the 2 because of the silly way that they've named them.
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 7: And and the fact the fact that we are talking about it at this point and that it's not just him insisting, I wanna control it, and if I don't get it, I'm gonna start to to put tariffs on Norway. He's also saying we're open to other things, and he's sending his envoys, and the envoys are having more strategic, substantive conversations. And the hope here is clearly to try and get some sort of strategic deal. I mean, Trump has been talking about this since 2018, 2019, and as soon as he gets back to the White House or at least within striking distance of being in the White House again, he's talking about it again. This is a serious issue for him.
Speaker 1: I know. With Panama. With Panama. With Panama.
Speaker 0: Was it the king of Denmark at the prime anyway, the the king of Denmark, like, added suddenly added Greenland to their the crest over there as, like, a middle finger to Trump. Meanwhile, I was just in Denmark. I was there in June. And let me tell you, the one of the big thing things they're proud about about their king is that he rides his little bicycle with his basket in the front to work there. I'm like, I'm not not not intimidated.
Speaker 2: The fact that there's a king in Denmark and in Sweden and in Norway is Yeah. Believably hilarious because they don't do anything and no one cares. But Yeah. Absolutely. I just wanna I just wanna say that it was interesting, to come on the show today and find out that my partner in the 5th column, Camille Foster, has completely lost his fucking mind.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that there are legitimate issues
Speaker 2: that the search is perilous to Camille. Let me say this. That's not surrealism. As a sort of moderate student of the Cold War, the way that you do this is not threatening to take people over or buy them. And they say, no.
What is happening in Iceland, not Greenland? Let
Speaker 0: me write that down.
Speaker 2: The future. Right? This is the art of Moynihan's deal.
Speaker 0: Military.
Speaker 2: Stop threatening to invade people if you wanna have a coalition with them.
Speaker 0: No one's heading in vain.
Speaker 2: Playing with your name on
Speaker 0: the side of it, Moynihan. And talk about military pressure. In fairness, we don't know what that means. Here's a John Fetterman. John Fetterman and Camille could be a joint ticket
Speaker 4: Yes. Running on the independent side.
Speaker 0: We're heading to Arizona. They're sounding an awful lot alike. Take a listen.
Speaker 13: What a freak out. You know? And, of course, I would never support taking it by force. But I do think it's I I do think it's a responsible conversation if they were open to acquiring it and, you know, whether just buying it outright. I mean, if anyone think that's bonkers, it's like, well, well, remember the Louisiana purchase?
Oh, I think Alaska was pretty pretty a great deal too. $50,000,000 I think it was. It was record, it was, it was referred to as Seward's Folly. And now that was Alaska now. So, I mean, you know, open to having all kinds of conversations.
He hasn't even take office in 2 weeks. And, you know, we really need to pace ourselves if we're gonna freak out over every last, tweet or every last conversation or or press conference.
Speaker 0: Oh, but Moynihan's against Alaska. He wishes we didn't have that state either.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a it's a slightly different situation than Louisian of America. We were we were talking about Greenland. Greenland is not contiguous with America. But we have an we have a military base in Iceland, in Keflavik, because we kind of talked to the Icelanders and they were like, Okay, what do we get out of this? And it was just a deal.
We didn't say we're going to invade you or give us access to your hot springs.
Speaker 7: He hasn't said that exactly. He hasn't said that exactly. And, again, I'm He's just implying to like, China is spending a tremendous amount of money in Africa, in South America. Exactly. Red China, and they're trying their very best to have influence there.
They have private, not private companies, but Chinese owned or linked companies who have some interest in the Panama Canal or at least in the surrounding area. To the extent that the United States is expressing concerns about this stuff in formal ways, in a grandiose circus like theatrical ways, is probably not a bad thing on net. And as strange as it is to have to acknowledge, if the end result of Trump saying what seemed like completely ridiculous things about acquiring or annexing some other country is that we do end up with a strategic partnership of some kind to that is to the advantage of the United States and to the disadvantage of our international adversaries. That's kind of the same.
Speaker 0: Rule they teach you when you take negotiations in law school. The first rule. You ask for way more than you wanna settle for. You know, if you if you need to settle the case for a $1,000,000, you do not go in there and say, I want a $1,000,000 or a 1,200,000. You go in there and say, I want $4,000,000, and and then I'll make this case go away.
And you negotiate down. Gets you
Speaker 2: in the bag.
Speaker 8: It could be that international relations are a little bit different than a two sided legal dispute.
Speaker 0: Well, is it true is that true for Trump? I don't I'm not well meaning that. Hold on. Do we have the exact quote? I wanna read you the exact Trump quote because he did not say invade.
I think we should be He
Speaker 1: did not.
Speaker 7: No. Careful. Wouldn't rule it out.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Let's see. Yeah. The question was, okay, asked by a reporter if he could assure world leaders that his rhetoric about the Panama Canal and Greenland would not amount to, quote, military or economic coercion. So, okay, military coercion.
Once he takes office, Trump responded with a simple, no. He said we need them for economic security, quote, I'm not going to commit to that. No. It might be that you'll have to do something. Look.
That Panama Panama Canal is vital to our country. It's being operated by China. China. And we gave the Panama Canal to Panama. We didn't give it to China, and they've abused it.
They've abused that gift. Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake. So he focused mostly on Panama, but he said he would not reassure that he is not prepared to use military or economic coercion with respect to Greenland? That's not a great quote, but I I
Speaker 2: we don't know exactly what the right answer there, if you're asked that question, is, yeah, we can maybe turn the screws economically, but we're not gonna invade. I mean, that would maybe be the right answer for me. But Meghan, you raised the point, which I think is a really interesting one, is that the number of people kind of on the on the isolationist right, and the people who say, you know, the Buchananites of of yesteryear, who are kind of in the Trump coalition now, I've seen a lot of them freaking out on Twitter. Because what Camille is saying is, you know, the China's Belt and Road policy going across the world, going into Africa, and pushing their influence everywhere, that we need to respond to that. And, you know, that is something that a lot of these people don't like, this idea of being an imperial power or this idea of, you know, threatening military action, whether it's dropping, you know, American troops or whatever it might be, or saying we need to station weapons here.
That's exactly the opposite of the rhetoric that you get from so many of the people that are on the kind of isolationist MAGA. Right? And it's really interesting because I think what happens with Donald Trump is that there's a lot of projection, that people project what they want him to be. And so I've had conversations with people that totally forget that he sent, what, 56 Tomahawk missiles into Syria, which in, what, the first or second 1st year of his And like that That was the
Speaker 7: night he became president. Is that right?
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. That was Van Jones. Right? Who said that the night became
Speaker 0: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, gosh. The great Van Jones. But that kind of thing is there's a lot of projection, and it's really funny to watch the response from people who say, we're gonna look inward, a kind of Ron Paul vision of the world. And he's like, who are we gonna invade locally?
Speaker 0: We're invading Greenland and Panama, maybe Canada, and also He
Speaker 2: did rule out that.
Speaker 0: We're annihilating Hamas.
Speaker 2: But he already invaded Panama in 1989, so this would be a second go. So he formally ruled out
Speaker 0: Most people do think
Speaker 7: it's it would be amazing.
Speaker 0: It's rhetoric about Canada that we don't really want them. I mean, let's let's be honest. We don't really want them. I think they're gonna be in better hands with Pierre, Poliyev. I hope they do the right thing, and then our top hat to the north becomes less evil under under Pierre.
Wait. Where is that quote, you guys? Debbie Murphy, is that where is that quote from our from our friends in the Canadian right wing news? Okay. It's Ezra Levant.
You guys gotta hear this. You gotta hear this. We love this guy. He's been on the show. He's a more conservative, pundit up there in Canada, and he explained why Canadians are reacting favorably, many Canadians, to the Trump rhetoric about, we'll take them.
We're taking candidates too. We're taking it all. Okay. Here is what he said. It was a thread on x.
Why are Trump's 51st state comments resonating so loudly in Canada? Because of Trudeau himself. When Justin Trudeau first won election in 2015, he told an American newspaper, there is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada. He said, we're the 1st postnational state. Such gross left wing rhetoric.
K? He goes on. Since then, he's taken our founding prime minister off the $10 bill. He's altered our national anthem. He's accused Canada of committing genocide against our indigenous people, but he won't say that about China and the Uyghurs.
He regularly accuses Canadians of being racist and sexist even as he dresses up in blackface. He's denuded our military to the point where we can't even participate in NATO war games because we lack modern equipment equipment. But he can't afford tampon descent dispensers in mail bathrooms and military bases. His veterans' affair department now recommends assisted suicide to vets with PTSD. This is why Trump's statements about becoming the 51st state sting.
That's why they hit home. Because for a decade, Trudeau and every institution in the country, the regime media, the universities, the courts, the parliament has said, Canada means nothing. Everyone of Trudeau's actions say Canada means nothing. It's really just a hotel. Well, Trump knows about hotels.
Why wouldn't he try to buy 1, especially one that's so dilapidated? So
Speaker 7: Wow. But fact check, though. I think it was brown face and not blackface.
Speaker 2: But, you know, no. No. There is one that was brownface. I think
Speaker 0: it was true blackface. He did the minstrel show blackface.
Speaker 2: Full on. He was like the Canadian Al Jolson. It was like
Speaker 0: He totally was. Yeah. I always forget on this topic. I don't know if you've heard.
Speaker 2: Yes. You've waded into this debate before, haven't you, Megan? But I love talking to
Speaker 0: her for
Speaker 1: the record.
Speaker 0: I have to take a look
Speaker 2: at it.
Speaker 0: I'll be right back. Don't go away. These days, personal safety is not something that can be left to chance. Whether at home, on the road, or just living everyday life, having a reliable way to protect yourself and your family is crucial. This is why IRNA is the choice for many.
Is a game changing, less lethal self defense tool. Compact, powerful, and easy to use, it provides the confidence to act in any situation. Uses nonlethal rounds, tear gas, pepper, and kinetic projectiles to effect effectively stop a threat from a safe distance. And the best part, BERNA can be shipped directly to your door, and it's legal in all 50 states. BERNA is proudly American with products hand assembled in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Sometimes a firearm is not the right option. There are a lot of people who are afraid of holding them or just unfamiliar with it and realize that they're probably gonna create more of a risk if they actually have a real loaded firearm. And BERNA could provide a powerful alternative for those folks. Protect what matters most with BERNA. Visit berna.com.
That's byrna.com/megan to receive a 10% discount and learn why thousands of people and law enforcement agencies are making the switch to BRNA's less lethal protection. BRNA, nonlethal self defense, always ready. Listen to this, you guys. This is just tweeted out by the New York Times. Things are getting tense in LA as fire hydrants and reservoirs in the Palisades begin to run low.
At the crest of Sunset Boulevard, a desperate man dropped to his knees in front of a firefighter who was battling a blaze consuming the home next door, begging him to turn the water on the flames threatening his own home. Another firefighter warned, we're down to 25%. Hold off. They're having to basically ration what's left of the water in the hydrants given how low the supply is. I don't I mean, they too live on water.
Why is this so hard? That is mismanagement to me. It seems pretty clear.
Speaker 8: There's a, I just retweeted out Joel Pollock from Breitbart, who lives, I believe, in Brentwood, but he is definitely local. He just had a really good informative thread about a variety of issues including reservoirs and fire management and brush management that's specific to the Palisades. I recommend it, and, hopefully, people will tune in to wherever he's talking.
Speaker 0: Guys, thank you. It's been a pleasure spending the past 2 hours with you. Prayers here go out to our friends in California for a better result and for better leaders. I really hope they help themselves. See you guys soon.
Thanks, Megan. Debbie Murphy, Canadian Debbie, lets me know that this is how they changed Canada's anthem in 2018 under Trudeau. It used to say, oh, Canada, our home and native land, true patriot love in all thy sons command. And he changed it to in all of us command because you can't have sons in anything associated with Trudeau. Like, in, you know, America the Beautiful, you can't have thy brotherhood.
You'd have to change it to brotherhood and sisterhood and personhood and they be hood. It's ridiculous. Goodbye. No one will miss you. Even the left hates you, Justin Trudeau.
Before we go, I wanna tell you that tomorrow on the show, we have a different Californian, Bill Maher. We'll be back on the show, and, we'll ask him whether he's experiencing any of this devastation firsthand and what his reaction is to whether California will wake up and try to find some better leaders to help them with these strategies among others out west. Thank you for listening.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Media Obsessed with January 6 To Smear Trump Supporters, and Biden's Bizarre Outburst, with @BenShapiro and @ggreenwald WATCH: https://t.co/Ke8ZLv1wfD
Video Transcript AI Summary
Happy 2025! After a two-week break, I’m back and excited to dive into the news. I spent time skiing in Montana with my family, which was refreshing. Today, we’ll discuss a tragic terror attack in New Orleans and a bizarre incident in Las Vegas. January 6th is being treated like a national tragedy, akin to 9/11, which feels exaggerated given the lack of similar remembrance for other violent events. Joining me are Ben Shapiro and Glenn Greenwald, who will share their insights on these topics. We’ll also touch on the ongoing debates within the GOP regarding immigration policies and the media's portrayal of events. Lastly, I’ll address the recent Golden Globes and Hollywood's treatment of Catholicism in film. Stay tuned for an exclusive interview tomorrow with my lawyer about a significant lawsuit involving Justin Baldoni and The New York Times.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show, and happy 2025. We are back with our first live show of the year. I've missed all of you over the past 2 weeks.
While I spent some quality time with my family, I hope you had some with yours as well. We were in Montana skiing, and it was awesome. It was so snowy, and I have to tell you, it reminded me of my childhood in Syracuse where every morning, you would wake up and look out the window, and you'd say, yep. Snow again. Yep.
Still more snow. And it's been such a nice change from what we saw last year and I think the year before too, where it's just it was nothing. So it's just such a delight, but to be in the snow, to see those fat flakes falling, and to have the holidays, especially in that setting, absolutely loved it. We did our costume nights. You know, that's a big thing for me every year around the Christmas, holiday where we do a costume night.
I pick the theme, and I surprise my family with their costumes. And this year actually, we'll put this up, on the YouTube show. The theme was back to the future, and it was hilarious. I made Doug George McFly. You know, the geeky dad?
It was amazing. I was Jennifer, Marty McFly's girlfriend from the eighties, and my son Yates was Marty. My son Thatcher was Doc, and, my daughter Yardley was, Lorraine, the 19 fifties version. So, anyway, it was great. And then my my brother-in-law, Ken, was Biff, which I got him a fake muscle shirt to wear, which I don't think he appreciated.
Anyway, it's so important to get out and do things like that. Right? It just it's so clarifying to spend time with your family away from work. Even though I love my work, it's clarifying to spend time away from it. And I have to say it makes me feel it makes me better at my job because when I come back, though I admit I am currently slightly under the weather with a cold, no big deal, I feel more clear headed because as the news events hit over the past couple of weeks, you just have a better perspective on them when you're grounded, when you're with people you love and who love you, when you are part of nature and get better connected to it.
And you can kinda see, oh, this is worth fighting over. Oh, this isn't this is bullshit. This isn't that kind of thing. Okay. So let's get to it.
We've got 2 of the best guests in the industry in America to bring you different perspectives today. We're gonna kick it off in a minute with Ben Shapiro, and then Glenn Greenwald comes up in our second hour. How about that for a we're back show? We have got to cover this tragic terror attack, which killed 14 people in the early morning hours after New Year's in New Orleans. We're still learning more about the man who committed the act.
And then a couple hours after that, a Green Beret blew himself up in a Tesla Cybertruck outside of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. A bizarre story that does not appear to be related to the terror attack across the country in New Orleans, though at first people thought perhaps they were related. Today, however, we have to start with the fact that it's January 6th, and they are literally treating it on the left like it is 9 11. It is ridiculous. I mean, it's got an actual function.
It's the day that the 2024 election will be officially certified. But it is more importantly to the corporate media, the day that they will celebrate their favorite anniversary to smear all Trump supporters and, again, to treat this day as though it does live in infamy akin to that of 911 or Pearl Harbor. We'll show you an example. Joining me now for our very first show of 2025, we begin with Ben Shapiro, host of the Ben Shapiro Show on the Daily Wire. Don't miss a moment.
Subscribe to this show on YouTube and follow me on Insta, Facebook, and x. These days, personal safety is not something that can be left to chance. Whether at home, on the road, or just living everyday life, having a reliable way to protect yourself and your family is crucial. This is why is the choice for many. Is a game changing, less lethal self defense tool.
Compact, powerful, and easy to use, it provides confidence to act in any situation. Berna uses nonlethal rounds, tear gas, pepper, and kinetic projectiles to effect effectively stop a threat from a safe distance. And the best part, BRNA can be shipped directly to your door, and it's legal in all 50 states. BRNA is proudly American with products hand assembled in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Sometimes a firearm is not the right option.
There are a lot of people who are afraid of holding them or just unfamiliar with it and realize that they're probably gonna create more of a risk if they actually have a real loaded firearm. And BERNA could provide a powerful alternative for those folks. Protect what matters most with BERNA. Visit berna.com. That's byrna.com/megan to receive a 10% discount and learn why thousands of people and law enforcement agencies are making the switch to BERNA's less lethal protection.
BRNA, nonlethal self defense, always ready. Ben, happy New Year. Great to see you.
Speaker 1: Hey. You too. Glad you're back from vacation.
Speaker 0: Yeah. It's great to be back. Alright. So, the the, I don't know, the panty ringing over January 6th and the reminder by president Biden that this needs to stay top of mind in the memory of the American people cannot be forgotten. You know, it's so strange, Ben.
I don't I don't remember anybody doing that about the BLM protests, what happened in Portland, the 2,000 cops who were hurt in those riots, David Dorn, who was killed in Saint Louis in June of 20. None of that none of that has to be remembered. Just j 6th, which, you know, the the alleged police officer death toll, they continue to make up since no police died on January 6th, but they talk about it truly as though it is akin to the 911 terror attacks. What do you make of the, as I say, ringing that's going on?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I I think that they have to because I think that what what they've demonstrated over the course of the last several years is their complete inability to govern or to be in any way aligned with the agenda of the American people. And so all they've had for years, and this is true going back to 2021 when Joe Biden gave that awful address in Philadelphia where he basically labeled everyone who is a Republican his political enemy and an enemy of the Republic. The only thing they can keep saying over and over is that Donald Trump is in fact an incipient dictator and authoritarian. It none of it has the same ring after Trump won. I mean, he won the popular vote, and he won the electoral college overwhelmingly.
And so the the sort of idea that he attempted a coup and that we narrowly averted the rising tyranny in the United States, it it that that particular narrative was always stupid, but but it has died a horrible death at the hands of the American people who themselves voted by a majority for Donald Trump in the last election. And so it it just it rings super hollow this year. It it always was hollow, but it rings particularly hollow this year given the fact that again, Democrats didn't just lose the presidency. They they also lost control of the senate. They don't have control of the house.
And so what exactly is the thing that we are supposed to be commemorating on January 6th? Is it the idea that that all Trump voters are akin to the small coterie of Trump supporters, not even the the small coterie of Trump supporters generally, small coterie of the people who are even at the January 6th stop the seal rally, who then committed some criminal acts, which again, that's a subset of people who are even at the sort of more riotous portion of the day. It it really is an incredible stretch for them. The fact they can't let it go is, again, a demonstration. This is a party devoid of ideals.
It's a party devoid of ideas, and it's a party devoid of any connection with the American people whatsoever. Like, who who really is spending today thinking about January 6, 2021?
Speaker 0: I know. No. It's it's similar to how they've they've run out of real examples of racism everywhere, so they have to make them up. You know, they've run out of examples to make Trump supporters look horrible, so they've gotta exaggerate what happened on January 6th to make it into one of the riots that they did that, you know, I just referenced and after BLM and after George Floyd. The they've gotta make it sound like the right.
Those are the rioters. Those are the insurrectionists. Those are the ones who are truly a problem. I just went back because we've covered the 2,000 cops who were hurt during the BLM riots and David Dorn, who was shot and killed by looters in Saint Louis, retired police officer. And the number was after BLM or after George Floyd with BLM protests.
87100 protests, 574 at least that turned into riots with violence and criminality. Violence in more than 62% of the Portland, Oregon demonstrations. More than 62% were violent. And where do those cops go to have somebody remember their traumatic brain injuries, injuries to their face, to their femurs, to their bodies, as molotov cocktails were thrown at them, as bricks were thrown at them, broken bones, and so where I don't think they're gonna get an op ed by the sitting president in the Washington Post like we got from Joe Biden today, what Americans should remember about them, about those riots. But what we hear from Biden today is that we must remember the wisdom of the adage that any nation that forgets his past is doomed to repeat it, lamenting that in time, there will be Americans who didn't witness the January 6th riot firsthand, but will learn about it from footage and testimony only.
This is ridiculous, Ben. You and I both know that's how we talk about the holocaust. That is how we talk about 911 and things like that.
Speaker 1: It's it's an absurdity. It's an it's a it's a true absurdity. And and what makes it even more absurd is you mentioned all the cops who were injured during the BLM riots. The cops that have been demonized since 2014 in this country, since really the the Ferguson riots of 2014. The the number of cops who have been destroyed as human beings.
The number of cops who failed to do their jobs because they were afraid that if they did their jobs, they would then be dragged through the court of public opinion in the ways the democrats like to do this sort of stuff. That number of cops is incredibly high. And the same week that Joe Biden is doing this routine, crying crocodile tears over January 6th, and we must remember and the cost to the cops and all this. He gave a presidential medal of freedom to George Soros, who's the number one funder of left wing prosecutors, who have spent their entire careers trying to undermine the cops in every city in America and make it easier for criminals to do their business. This is the same president who just a few weeks ago I mean, during the break, he had a very busy break, Joe Biden.
This is the most alive he's been for years is is just before he's leaving the presidency. And and now he's doing things like commuting the sentences of 37 out of 40 people on death row because only 3 of those murderers apparently deserve to die. People who rape and murder little girls, they don't deserve to die. Only the Tree of Life shooter and the and the black church shooter and the Boston bomber, those people deserve to die. The other 37 who committed atrocities, those people don't deserve to die according to Joe Biden.
I mean, he's letting it all hang out at this point. And, again, again, I think it underscores the reason why Joe Biden was so unpopular with the American people, which was they kept trying to sell us the line that he was a kindhearted, decent old man. And he was never a kindhearted, decent old man. He was just an old man. He was never kindhearted.
He was never decent. He was always corrupt. He was always venal. He was always bloviating. None of his values ever meant anything at all.
And this attempt to sort of retcon his own history and retcon what the Democratic party has done over the course of the last few years into something benevolent is is a an utter failure. It's a total failure. And I can't imagine that there are many people who are reading that op ed or hearing you read it, Megan, who aren't rolling their eyes so hard they fall out of their head.
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: No. If you've been paying any attention to what's happened to the j six protesters slash rioters, and I make no excuse for those who actually committed violence against cops that day. They should and have been punished. But those who just wandered into the capitol, well, there's so many who aimlessly wandered into the capitol thinking that they were allowed there or that at best they were committing a minor trespass, they have more than paid for that very egregious mistake as it turns out because the whole world was watching, and Biden wanted to make a political point. His DOJ wanted to make a political point.
But to hear the media talk about this this solemn anniversary, Ben, is to again, it reminds me of 911. Having lived through 911, this this is what it brings up for me. Here's an example.
Speaker 3: Regaining power and reigniting fears. In just hours, congress will meet to certify president-elect Donald Trump's 2024 election win. Happy Insurrection Day. Insurrection Day
Speaker 2: where the
Speaker 3: Republicans will certify the election of a president who is constitutionally ineligible to serve in the office. According to the 14th amendment, late this final prostitution of democracy. We shouldn't get comfortable. American democracy still faces, I I would argue, an uncertain future.
Speaker 4: Snow covers the capital. There is this birth, this newness to winter, and there is this newness to this congress. Like, there is this storm cloud over the capitol that makes you think about what happened 4 years ago.
Speaker 5: To remember what happened on January 6th is an act of remembrance in the purest form. We want to avoid ever again
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 5: Having American
Speaker 0: On the knife's edge. And then there's give you one more, Ben. The AP today seems very upset that the capital was not left a mess so that we could go back today, 4 years later, and look at the scars and lament how bad MAGA is and its return to power saying, in the lead line, inside the capital, reminders of the violence are increasingly hard to find. Scars on the walls have been repaired. Windows and doors broken by the rioters have been replaced, and there is no plaque, display, or remembrance of any kind.
In some ways, it's like the insurrection of January 6, 2021 that shook the foundations of American democracy never even happened.
Speaker 1: Shook the foundations of American democracy. By the way, I love their respect for the property damage that may have numbered in the tens of dollars at the at the capitol building. I mean, like, they did $2,000,000,000 in property damage during the BLM riots. The the enthusiasm for remembering January 6th is matched only by the enthusiasm of the media and forgetting September 11th, actually. Now you're not allowed to show images of September 11th, lest we actually remember what happened and who did it on September 11th.
The the media have already moved on. You mentioned earlier on that the New Orleans terror attack. The media are already very subtly moving on from that one. They they really are not gonna cover that one for very much longer because, of course, they can't tie that into some sort of narrative about broader American white supremacy and about domestic homegrown white terrorism or any of the rest of that sort of thing. And so they're gonna move right past that sort of thing.
But but they they definitely have to focus in on January 6th. And the media, by the way, I'm not sure who took it on the chin harder this past year, the Democratic party or the media. I mean, they're appendages of one another. I've called them the human centipede because that's what they are. But, you know, at this point, I'm not sure that has anyone that's the first time anyone actually heard Jon Meacham saying that thing, Megan, was you playing it on your show.
Because no one is left to watch MSNBC. No one actually has seen Keith Olbermann say that except on your show. So congratulations to Keith Olbermann for making your show, I suppose.
Speaker 0: Sure. He's thrilled. The what what they're doing in New Orleans is very interesting to me, and we've seen it done time and time again. They're much more interested in what happened out in Las Vegas because that guy was a Trump supporter. Okay.
Great. We're onto something. Let's talk about Vegas. This guy, he's a nutcase, and he's appear appears to be a right winger. But the guy in New Orleans who's, you know, apparently affiliated with or to to pledge his loyalty to ISIS, it's time to move on.
That's really not that interesting even though 14 people are dead in New Orleans as a result of his behavior. And you had this is while we were on break or I was on break. But on January 1st, you had the FBI, agent Althea Duncan, who's in charge of the bureau's New Orleans field office, come out stopping short of even calling it a terrorist attack. Here's that.
Speaker 6: Sir Patrick said, we'll be taking over the investigative lead for this, event. This is not a terrorist event. What it is right now is their improvised explosive devices that was found, and we are working on confirming if this is a viable device or not.
Speaker 0: What how is it not a terrorist attack? The the guy had an Islamic State flag affixed to his rented Ford pickup truck. Later, the deputy assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division would say it was 100% inspired by ISIS. The 42 year old behind it, Shamsuddin Jabbar, who was a US citizen from Texas and an army vet, had apparently pledged his allegiance to ISIS via The New York Times. So you tell me how it's not a terrorist attack.
Speaker 1: I mean, once again, for for the FBI, the immediate response, which is we know the motive, and the motive is uncomfortable. So we're gonna pretend that that's not really the motive or the me the motive is I mean, it was the least mysterious motive of all time. He literally had an ISIS flag attached to the back of his Ford F150. He said, here's my motive on a giant flag that I don't even know where you get an ISIS flag. Can you buy that off Amazon?
In any case, this person had put out tapes of himself talking to his family about how he joined ISIS. And honestly, the reason why this should earn more media attention than, you the terrible case of what happened in Las Vegas, which seems to be a member of the military who had his life breaking down, he seemed to have some mental problems. The reason that this one is more noteworthy is because it is ideological in nature, not only ideological in nature. One of the stories that we reported at at Daily Wire actually was that the local mosque was being contacted by the FBI. Members of that mosque were being contacted by the FBI, the the mosque where this this person attended, the terrorist and the alleged terrorist.
And the the mosque apparently put out a public message, like, on their own Instagram saying, if you are contacted by the FBI, you should contact the Council on American Islamic Relations. You should contact groups that are not the FBI. Right? Not not cooperate with the FBI. You should call the Council on American Islamic Relations, which by the way, was an uninvited coconspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism trial in the 2000.
The Council on American Islamic Relations original foundation was by people who are closely associated with Hamas. Like, there are actual real systemic problems in the United States with radical Islam, and that's something that people really don't wanna talk about, which of course is the same sort of thematic that you're seeing in the UK right now. Right? You're seeing this sort of breakouts in
Speaker 0: the open Yes. Talking about this
Speaker 1: going after Keir Starmer quite properly. But I think that so much what you're seeing in the west right now is is revolt against the assault on common sense that we've been seeing for legitimately decades here in the west. The revolt on common sense that says that, for example, mass migration without assimilation is a wonderful idea. The the revolt on common sense that says that everyone should be forced to take a vaccine even if the vaccine is not totally vetted out yet. The the the assault on common sense that says men can be women, women can be like, what we're watching right now across the board is this revolt against that thing.
And it's happening everywhere. It's happening in the UK. It's happening in France. It's happening in Germany. It's already happened in Argentina.
It's happened in the United States already. It's obviously happening up in Canada where the conservative party, if the election were held today, would absolutely wipe out the Liberal party where Justin Trudeau just resigned as the head of the Liberal party, if not prime minister today. Again, the something is happening, and that thing is that people across the board in the west are tired of, to use your word, being bullshitted. And and I think that that now they're they're starting to fight back in a wide variety of ways, mostly politically.
Speaker 0: I love I love everything you just said. There there so much has gone down over the past couple of weeks and and just today, as you point out Trudeau, which we'll get to. But I was just sticking for a second on the FBI and its bungling messaging around what happened in New Orleans, which was indeed a terrorist attack, says as follows at National Review. We are being tormented by the FBI's habitual woke incoherence regarding this atrocity. There should be no hesitancy.
This is maddening. But in the FBI, as it has evolved since the Obama era, he says an an acknowledgment by the bureau bureau that an attacker may have been radicalized by fundamentalist Islam would implicitly concede that there is something about that ideology that inspires violent attacks against infidels. Can't have that. They're not willing to go there. And and that, of course, explains why they're moving on immediately, the media as well from New Orleans.
But but let's talk about the UK because this rape scandal of children at the hands of immigrants that's been covered up was covered up for years years years, allegedly in part because they were concerned that the the rapists, the alleged rapists, were Pakistani, and they didn't wanna be seen as picking on immigrants or going against people of color and accusing them of rape at the hands like, at the expense of the well-being and safety of children may be the most pernicious and disgusting example of this woke ideology and this fear of upsetting or offending any person of color or any Muslim that I've seen in decades been. This that what's happening in the UK is a deep disgusting scandal.
Speaker 1: Well, what's amazing about it is that people are denying what it's about. So if you actually look at the history of the scandal, this started to break out into the open in a place called Rochdale in the UK back in 2003. And that was because a 15 year old girl died when there was an investigation into why she died. It turns out that she had been one of the girls who was groomed by these gangs. For folks who don't know this story, basically, over the course of literally decades and there are allegations of this going all the way back to the 19 seventies.
Basically, over the course of decades, white girls were preyed on by Muslim men in gangs. They were rape gangs. They were not grooming. They treat them they call them grooming gangs. They weren't grooming gangs.
They were rape gangs because these are all underage girls who are being traded around by these Muslim rape gangs, and that that's what they are. And the media knew full well about this back in 2003, 2004. They knew completely about this. The me the the police knew about it. They knew about all these cases.
These were already being brought up in Rochdale, in places like Rotherham, in places like Oldham. It was happening in a wide variety of cities. And as it turns out, the police basically decided that because this would be politically unhelpful, they're gonna bury these cases. And so they started blaming the girls claiming it was the girls' own fault that they had, quote unquote, consented even though obviously a 13, 14, 15 year old girl can't consent. Some of these girls got pregnant by their rapists, 13, 14, 15 years old, and the system totally ignored them.
One of the journalists in this case, Andrew Norfolk, who reported for the Telegraph who in 2010, he's the one who wrote this big cover story for the UK Telegraph talking specifically about the extent of the scandal in Rochdale. He knew about the case. He's admitted he knew about the cases back in 2003. And the reason that he did not actually report those cases, and again, these are his words, not mine, is he was afraid that it played into quote unquote right wing narratives that we're going to talk about the difficulties of multiculturalism and the problems with importing vast numbers of immigrants from Muslim countries who are not integrating into British national life and not assimilating. They were afraid the British National Party, the right wing party, was going to start increasingly winning elections, that the English Defense League led by Tommy Robinson was going to increase its popularity.
And so they literally just buried the story. They said for a decade, we are not going to even prosecute these cases and took a full scale decade and more and more of these cases piling up for there to be any prosecutions at all. The first prosecutions I believe happened in 2013 that led to a government study that was finally released in 2014, finding that in Rotherham alone, there are 1400 girls who'd been preyed on in in just that city. In just as years ago, thousands of girls who were raped, white girls who were raped by Muslim men, and the reason it wasn't reported is because it was white girls and because it was Muslim men. Now again, that would be reported and talk about reportorial malpractice.
Okay. So Keir Starmer was the head of the crown prosecution service for a large part of this period from 2008 to 2013. Keir Starmer, of course, is now the prime minister of Great Britain as head of the Labor Party. And there was a call for the Labor Party as the head of the government to now lead a national investigation into these cases, and they denied it. They said we're not going to do it.
Now to be fair, the conservative party had said the same thing. They'd this is all regional. The regional investigations should go on, but Elon went after Keir Starmer for it and deservedly so because Keir Starmer has been part of the system the entire time. And I played tape on my show earlier today of Keir Starmer with the mayor of London, City Khan, talking about the real problems of the UK in 2024, which include a radical uptick since October 7th in Islamophobia and Sidi Khan, the mayor of London, asking Keir Starmer what could be done to prosecute people who are actually engaged in Islamophobia. Right?
This sort of conspiracy
Speaker 0: politicization thing, Ben. This is the Christopher Hitchens prediction come to life. Right? Who who was out there in, I think, of 2009 saying, you we have got to call out what's happening in London and elsewhere with the infiltration of this ideology before it's too late. And if we wait too long, all we're gonna hear is you're Islamophobic.
That's Islamophobia, as opposed to reckoning with the real facts, which is this is not just a religion. This is an ideology that means to conquer.
Speaker 1: That's exactly correct. And and all of Europe is reacting to this, but in ways that the political establishment doesn't particularly like. So in Germany, that means that the AFD, which is a very right wing party that has always been, you know, sort of called Nazi esque, but the reason people oppose them is not because of their original roots. The reason they're opposed now is because they're anti immigrant. The AFD is picking up steam.
Obviously, Elon is lending some of his sort of loudspeaker to the AFD and Alice Waddell, who's the head of the AFD. You're seeing the same thing happen in France with Marine Le Pen's National Rally Party, which has been gaining steam in every single election and keeps being blocked by the quote unquote centrist party of Emmanuel Macron. You're seeing the same thing in Germany, by the way, where the CDU, which is the centrist party, says we won't sit with the AFD. K. Guys, you keep trying to keep a lid on the biggest issue in Europe in generations, and it will blow.
I mean, this idea that you can just tell the people to sit down and shut up and ignore the fact that their countries are being integral are being overrun with people coming from places that hate the country, that really hate the country and hate the civilization. People are only gonna take that for so long before it really starts to come out in support for parties that are not within your deemed establishment purview.
Speaker 0: That's exactly right. And and we could see it happening. I mean, when Angela Merkel was chancellor of Germany, she opened the the borders. There was a massive influx of immigrants who culturally were about as different from Germans as you could get and shamed anybody who pushed back against it as an Islamophobe, as a xenophobe, as a bigot, and now they're dealing with the real life consequences of that. Eventually, the people find their voices and say, well, I don't want this.
It's one thing. And by the way, we've had plenty of time since then to figure out whether these people wanna assimilate or not. Right? They wanna pretend that every immigrant, whether it's Germany, Canada, the UK, France, or the United States, is akin to the Irish and Italians who came to America in the early 20th century, that they just want a new life and that they're going to adopt the local culture, and, you know, it's melting pot. It's it's not so, and you're seeing examples like what we saw in the UK.
Not to mention, look at Ayaan Hirsi Ali. You know? She's obviously one of the greatest thinkers alive, warning in her book, pray, p r e y, about what's happening to women and young girls in these European countries as a result of these immigrants. And 1 by 1, these leaders are starting starting to fall, Ben. I mean, you tell me whether it actually leads to a change in thinking on the left akin to what we're seeing the left sort of wrestle with in the wake of the Trump victory.
Speaker 1: I mean, either it will or they won't have any power anymore. I mean, in in the country that that Ion came from, Gerd Wilders is is now leading the largest party. Right? Gerd Wilders is a very right wing anti immigrant and anti Islam leader in in the Netherlands. So again She was
Speaker 0: originally from Somalia and then she went to Amsterdam and and, now is
Speaker 1: Was essentially exiled because they wouldn't give her immigration status because of her perspective. I mean, they essentially decided that she was a persona non grata because of her perspective on immigration being an ex Muslim from Africa who had immigrated to to the Netherlands. I mean, Ayn's story is is sort of, you know, ahead of its time, but that is the reality that it that is now besetting, I think, an enormous part of the west. And and, you know, again, reality is having its way here because reality always has its way. And when it comes to immigration, I mean, so many things have changed about the way the west does immigration.
So it used to be that because we didn't have a welfare system and because it actually was a risk to come to places like the United States, you left everything behind, you came here with nothing, and then you were expected to assimilate and make your own way without a welfare system to back you. Because of that, America acted as a magnet to a bunch of different groups who usually were sort of the most risk seeking members, etcetera, the Irish population or the Swedish like, we've had many waves of immigration in the United States. Irish, German, Italian, Swedish, Jewish, Russian, a huge number of immigrants in the United States. But once you change that system to make it so that you are neither expected to assimilate or you're expected to earn. Right?
You're not expected to do either of those things. We have welfare systems that pick you up and you're not expected to assimilate, which is the sort of immigration that the left apparently loves. Well, yeah, I mean, the consequences are gonna be pretty dire for any civilization that attempts that particular two step. And and those civilizational consequences have been quite dire and pretty terrible.
Speaker 0: They were foreseeable, and they were completely ignored as actual risks as were all the risks that were being raised by the right as we saw open borders take hold in country after country during the time of Obama. What's happening up in Canada may or may not be part of the same wave. I mean, there's so many problems with the way Justin Trudeau has run Canada. It's hard to really pick the one. But as of today, Justin Trudeau says he will resign as prime minister as soon as the Liberal Party elects a new leader.
He says his successor will be selected after a nationwide process, which means the Liberal Party will take the lengthier route of choosing a new leader through a grassroots process. Could take several weeks. Means he could be, in power for the 1st several weeks, even potentially months of Trump's presidency and may have have to navigate the imposition of tariffs and so on. But Justin Trudeau has turned himself into a punchline. He is when I picture a feat, feckless man, I picture Justin Trudeau.
I couldn't think of somebody less attractive to me as a woman than that man. I I can't stand the sight of him. I'm thrilled. Our friendly neighbors in our evil top hat, as Michael Knowles call calls Canada, have come to their senses and effectively forced him to this decision. So what do you make of it?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that, obviously, it's great. I think that the person they're attempting to block from the prime ministership with all of this is Pierre Polivare, who is phenomenal. I mean, truly true. Answer. One of the things he he's he's fantastic.
I mean, one of the things that you're seeing is this crop of new leaders all over the world ranging from Millet to to to Polyvary in Canada, to Maloney in Italy, to Wilders in Netherlands. You're seeing, like, a whole spate of new leaders come come to fruition, and that's really wonderful. And Trudeau going again, he's hanging on through basically parliamentary maneuvering. The way that it works in Canada is that in order for there to be a new election called the snap election, you actually have to have a vote of no confidence. Right now, there are 338 seats in the house of of commons in Canada.
The Liberal party controls a 153 of them. I believe they have just short of a majority, so they need some outside help from some of the other smaller parties. The conservatives only have a 120 seats. If the election were to be held today, the conservatives would be expected to win an overwhelming majority of seats in the house of commons, something like 230 seats in the house of commons. And then Poliare would enter the government with a mat a huge majority that requires no coalitional help in order to govern.
And so that's basically everybody who's in the current coalition does not want the coalition to fall because the minute that happens, then the election takes place. Poli Evre wins. He walks in with a a vast conservative majority. So the idea here is it's sort of like a a Biden stepping down in favor of Harris idea here. Basically, Trudeau is planning to step down in favor of a new liberal leader who will be selected.
And that way, Poliabrea has to run against not Justin Trudeau, but against random Mcface over here who's gonna be the new liberal leader. I don't think it makes much of a difference. The mistakes that Trudeau has made ranging from the authoritarian take on COVID, which led to the trucker freedom convoy to the treatment of immigration. He's been an open borders immigration guy the whole time. The cost of housing in Canada have increased rapidly.
And Polio Rey makes a point, hey, guys. You know, one thing we have in Canada? Very few people. You know what we have? Tons of land.
Really, housing should not be all that expensive. He's right about that. The fact that that Trudeau has been bad on energy policy in a country that really could be rich in energy is truly amazing. And then add on top of that all the woke crap from from trans to indigenous peoples, you know, all the stuff that that Trudeau has done. It's like watching a laboratory experiment with all the left's worst policies put into Bunsen burner and then boiled until they boil over.
And it turns out that people really, really hate this stuff, and it doesn't matter if you're the good looking likely son of Fidel Castro. People still really don't like this policy at all.
Speaker 0: It's Trudeau's Canada that produced Melody Weishardt, the 50 year old man, who's being allowed to swim with 12 year old girls because he identifies as a 12 year old girl, which is weird because he drives his car to and from the swim meets, which we all know a 12 year old girl would not be allowed to do. And by the way, he changes his clothes and gets fully nude in the locker room with the girls. And the parents, I don't understand my Canadian friends. Allow it. I'll give you this.
Canadian podcaster and mortgage broker, Ron Butler. I've got all sorts of contacts up there, Ben, because I got staffers up in Canada, who says as follows. This is on x. The prime minister decides to go, and Canada says, thank god. No witch hunts.
No matter how angry people are at the PM, once he's gone, leave him alone, move on, but never forget. Never forget the horrible management of the country. Never be fooled again by a candidate offering sunny ways. Never buy into theater. Never again think a totally unqualified person is fine to leave the country.
That was a bullet we just dodged here in America too. Don't listen to a man claiming to be a feminist who betrays and fires every woman whoever disagrees with him. Don't believe that people who act woke all the time won't cost average working people dearly. Never accept a leader who has a religious belief in climate change and screws average Canadians into the ground with big taxes, lost jobs, and dumb decisions. As long as China and India are building coal powered generators, Canada shouldn't should be drilling gas wells and shipping overseas.
And finally says never forget incompetence because we have had the stupidest waste of taxpayers' money in the history of Canada. Therefore, once Trudeau is gone, we must punish the Liberal Party with a massive election loss. Lessons must be taught. Now if that worm turns in Canada and Pierre takes over, we are it is a new ballgame, Ben Shapiro.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, they'll narrowly avoid president Trump's invasion if that happens. I mean, I'm I'm wondering, you know, if if we're gonna invade, now's the moment. Right? We gotta do it before they have an election up there and make Canada our our 51st state. Right now, we'll be greeted as liberators.
But if if Polio Rey is the prime minister, then they might we might actually have to fight them. And last time we fought with Canadians, it went surprisingly poorly. So now now is the window of opportunity. Greenland, Canada, the Greater America Project is still on the table, but only for a few more weeks.
Speaker 0: Here he is, the the our audience may remember this, but this is sort of how we first came to see this guy. Like, who is this wonderful man when he was eating the apple and the antagonistic media reporter was trying to get him and compare him to Trump, and he just wasn't having it. He was just stone cold. He is the opposite in every way as a man, as a politician, of Justin Trudeau. Watch.
Speaker 7: Why should Canadians trust you with their vote given, you know, not not just the sort of ideological inclination in terms of taking the page of Donald Trump's book, but also thinking
Speaker 5: about what page? What page? Can you give
Speaker 7: me the page?
Speaker 5: Give me the page. You keep saying that
Speaker 7: In terms of turning things quite dramatically in terms of of Trudeau and and the left wing and all of this, I mean, you you you make quite a, you know, it's it's quite a play that you make on it. So I'm I'm not sure. I don't under I don't I don't know what your question is. Then forget that. Why should Canadians Yep.
Trust you with their vote? Yep. Common sense. Okay. Common sense for for a change.
Speaker 0: He's just the guy's unflappable and just doesn't tolerate fools. It's just a it's a beauty. I feel like even the Canadians who are allowing Mel Melody Weishardt to swim in the 12 year old races, See, he's a gofer. He's officially a gofer. That's what they call the league.
Even those Canadians have got to see him now that the field is being cleared and say, may maybe it's worth a try.
Speaker 1: I mean, that that's what the polls show right now. I mean, right now, the polls, according to CBC up there, have Poliyev running at something like 44%, while the Liberal Party is now running at 20%. You know, that's how much the Liberal Party has fallen off. So, and and it goes to show you that, you know, actually just being a steadfast conservative in a place even in a place like Canada will win you some points. This is what's so amazing about Great Britain is that they can't find anybody to just do that.
Right? Well, just do that. Like, it doesn't look that hard. I mean, granted, chair Poliyev appears to have a resting heart rate of 35. But with that said, he is like, the the the fact is that it actually does not seem that difficult to find somebody who has some basic common sense.
That, of course, is the thing that I think is underappreciated about president Trump. The the media kept playing up the fact that he says wild things on Twitter. But the reality is that most of the stuff that Trump says is very commonsensical because he always shoots from the hip. And when people like Trump shoot from the hip, it tends to be kind of like the common sense thing that you would say. And and the same thing is true of Polyaev, the same thing is true of Millet, the same thing is true of Maloney, the same thing is true of Wilder.
Same common sense thing has become illegal in many countries at this point. People are more likely to be arrested in Britain at this point, it seems, for saying a common sense thing than for raping someone possibly. And and I think that the the blowback to that is dramatic and international. And so it's shaping up to be a really interesting year. Now in the United States, obviously, that means that now that you have power, this is all about gaining the power.
Once you have the power, you have to do the thing. This is where the pedal is gonna meet the the metal and the the rubber's gonna hit the road when it comes to president Trump and the Republican Congress. What can they actually get done this year? And there I think, you know, there there are some outsized expectations that I think that we should temper and we should recognize the reality of a a fractious coalition in congress where you have maybe a 1 to 2 vote majority in the house. But I I do think things can get done if people keep their heads screwed on straight.
Speaker 0: Okay. One of the controversies that I missed while I was out was the intra GOP fight over h one visas, h h one b visas, where we bring over immigrants, and we allow them to work at a decent wage over here, largely in tech, data processors, and, engineers who the tech industry has used pro prolifically, who Elon defends, Vivek defends, but people like Steve Bannon and, Arfraim Bhatia Angersargan, who writes for Newsweek and is is much more focused on the working class, has said they don't want, that we've had enough of this, that these are jobs Americans would take with proper training and so on. And here's the thing that stood out to me. And Trump sided with Elon and Vivek, basically, saying he he's always been for these visas. Here's the thing that stood out to me.
The Vivek Ramaswami ex post on December 26th. I think I can bring this to you as a as a former geek yourself who's no longer geeky. But, I mean, you are, like, the most brilliant person your whole life who is always crushing everybody in every class. I would love to get your take on Vivek's way into this controversy. Like, you can defend the visas.
You cannot defend the visas. But my friend, Vivek, this is not the way. This is not the way. He drops the following. The reason top tech companies often hire foreign born and first generation engineers over Native Americans isn't because of an innate American IQ deficit, a lazy and wrong explanation.
A key part of it comes down to the c word, culture. A culture that celebrates the prom queen or the math Olympia champ or the jock over the valedictorian will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates Corey from Boy Meets World or Zack and Slater over Screech and Saved by the Bell or Stefan or or Steve Urkel in Family Matters will not produce the best engineers. More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers, more weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons, more books, less TV, more creating, less chilling. My friend, this is a great way to produce, I guess, better engineers, but not to produce better men who the women actually want.
No. This is Well,
Speaker 8: I mean, by the way, I'm not even
Speaker 0: and it's a laboratory where they're they they're all Steve Urkels. We want guys who are out. We like prom kings. We like sleepovers. We like people who develop social skills in addition to math skills.
And this comes down to me as, like, the I, having been a product, not myself, but, like, my kids, of the New York City private school system, realize there are so many schools there who are looking to create the perfect SAT score. They want to create your child into the perfect SAT score. Well, I don't want that. And having moved now to Connecticut and found a school that actually cares about the whole child, about creating great young men and young women, it really puts the fine point on it. Yes.
They need sleepovers. They need socialization. They need some stupid cartoons. They actually need sports. They need a whole bunch of things other than math mathletes.
They it's not that you you you take it from here. And
Speaker 1: I okay. So I love a vague, and the truth is that when it comes to h one b visas, I think that there are some things you can do with h one b visas, like increasing the income limit before you let people in. Hey. That that's an interesting conversation. I think there's a lot more to be said about sort of the variation in terms of what actually went on in this argument.
That was very it was sort of a bizarre argument to be but when it comes to the cultural analysis, I have to say it's just it's not actually true. Okay? I promise you that Mark Zuckerberg and and Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk all I mean, Elon Musk is a very culturally savvy guy, and he was not participating in the Math Olympics. Okay? So it it turns out by the way, that's also that's also a very bad read, I have to say, on Boy Meets World.
Okay? So as a Boy Meets World stan, I will say, and if you ever watched an episode of Boy Meets World, the entire moral center of the Boy Meets World universe, not to get too abstruse here, is mister Feeny, who is the high school teacher who tells the kids that they need to study harder and take history seriously. Right? That that's actually that's actually the theme of Boy Meets World.
Speaker 8: And and by the way,
Speaker 1: the same holds true of, like, you you're picking all of the shows from the 19 nineties that actually had parental figures who actually pushed education. Right? If you think to any of the shows that he names right there, those are all, like, the ones that had sort of the Sunday the Sunday evening special that would have, like, a talk with the kids about how you actually need to take your schoolwork seriously. The the I listen, I understand that for a lot of people, particularly from countries that are not the United States, the way that you rise in those countries is to do really, really well on your exams. So you study super, super hard in South Korea.
They have a very programmatic approach to how to train kids. When it comes to American innovation, which is where most of the innovators are coming from, the problem is not that people are watching Boy Meets World. If you wanna talk about, like, systemic problems in the United States with regard to education, those exist. There are public schools. Right?
That's why we need school vouchers. You can talk about broken families that need to be healed. You can talk about lack of social structure. But this is a the the the weird take, which is that you have to be a person training for the spelling bee in order to be a top level engineer at Google, that's just not true. I mean, just on on any sort of relevant level, that's not true.
Speaker 0: It's it's 100% a function of Vivek not being the prom king, not being the MVP. And clearly, I wasn't either, but I also watched the movie world.
Speaker 2: Come on.
Speaker 9: This is my moment. People need to be more like me, and
Speaker 0: then their lives will be better. I this is my moment.
Speaker 1: I was definitely not the prom king. Okay? Like, I skipped 2 grades and graduated high school when I was 16 and went to UCLA as the smallest, shrimpiest kid at UCLA. Right? I was I was not, like, the toast of the town, but Right.
I recognize that, like, watching Saturday morning cartoons is not the thing that's preventing people from staffing up Silicon Valley engineering jobs. That's not, like, the chief problem in the United States.
Speaker 0: There are trade offs. I and I think about this all the time because just given the circles that I'm in and the way and I'm I'm living in these so called super zips or near these so called super zips where it's like a lot of wealth and a lot of advantage and privilege. And, I always think, like, okay. It's great. You know?
I I definitely you could turn any kid into the math lead who never does a sleepover, who's only, you know, doing practice tests and does follows the Vivek plan to become the number one engineer. And you know what? You'd wind up with somebody who's probably not a leader. Because actual leaders who people wanna be around and wanna elect and wanna follow have social skills and really interesting deep personalities and a wealth of experience and exposure to other people and develop their EQs in addition to their IQs in a way that's really important. Just ask Donald Trump, who I believe is the opposite of a mathlete.
You know, it's just it's so small. Mine is so myopic, but it is very clearly Vivek being like, this is my moment. Yes. You need more me.
Speaker 1: Again, listen. I I I really like Vivek, and I I even agree with some of his immigration takes. This one, I don't think was the best cultural analysis. I'll put it that way. No.
Speaker 0: No. I actually think it's kind of cute, and it's kinda charming. He's not wrong that, like, if you do want great engineers, I suppose they do need to live something close to the mathlete life. But to get to tell to push your child to give up socialization and stupid time stupid time, mindless time, is not the way. I mean, having gone to the Google headquarters and been, you know, toured around, those guys who sit there entering data all day, Google has set out, like, sword fighting for them in their downtime.
Speaker 1: The the the biggest nerds in the world. Right? They're like dungeon dungeon like, Dungeons and Dragons. Some of them some of them actually, you know, actually work out. Many of them are the people who are playing video games at night.
Right? They're not, like, culturally non savvy. This idea that nerds are somehow they they've never watched TV. Have you met a nerd? Like, spend some time with the nerds.
Speaker 2: The nerd
Speaker 1: the nerds watch some TV.
Speaker 0: Yeah. That's right. Have you met a nerd? Exactly right. So, anyway, I look forward to discussing that with him when he comes back on.
Alright. Let's talk about president Biden because he is still president, and you point out this is the most alive he's been in a long time. And there were a couple of headlines of him. First of all, he's saying he would have won. He never should have stepped aside.
This is, according, I think it was The Washington Post or their my team will correct me. I think it was WAPO. Anyway, yeah, it was WAPO saying, I I would have won. Not I shouldn't have stepped aside. That was that was mistaken.
But in the meantime, in his final days, he is doing everything possible to thwart the Trump agenda, you know, from striking this deal with certain workers that they can work for from home interminably to now making impossible for us to do drilling pretty much off of the entire East Coast. And Trump tried to undo Barack Obama's attempt to do that to him when he took over. Trump took over in 16, and Barack Obama had tried to do this. And Trump tried to undo it by executive order. It was challenged in the courts, and Trump lost.
So there is a better than average chance that Joe Biden's moves will will hold. Meanwhile, Trump ran on drill, baby, drill. The American people voted for this, and Joe Biden with his or maybe it's Joe Biden. Maybe it's not Joe Biden. Who knows who's making these decisions, Ben?
He's doing everything within his power to thwart the wall, to stop, the return of the federal workforce to DC, and this is the latest on drilling offshore. So
Speaker 1: I actually don't think it's gonna work. And the reason I don't think it's gonna work is in the interim since Trump was in office, there's an overruling of Chevron deference, which means that administrative decisions that are overruled, but, you know, that they kinda get caught up in this this internal procedure, now will go before the judiciary. So it's it's it may be that the doctrine has changed in the meantime, so maybe Trump actually has a shot at at reversing this in a way he didn't back in 2019. Whatever the case, it is very clear who Joe Biden is. Right?
Now that all the everything has been sort of all all the chains have been unleashed. Right? He he is he is free, and he's running naked through the streets in all of his horrifying glory. And it it's terrible. I mean, in every way from the drilling to the pardons of the of the murderers to whatever he's gonna do on foreign policy, which I think is gonna be quite bad in his last couple of weeks.
I mean, we are blessed that he is leaving office, and we are blessed that his party will have no power. Thank god for the American people, man, because that bleep needs to go.
Speaker 0: And will will. I mean, he he even Kamala Harris today is out there like, I will certify the results, unlike that loser who refused to do it. Right? Like, it it's these 2, I can't wait to see them leave Washington. I really can't wait.
It's gonna be a joy. Ben, I'm sorry, however, to see you go. It's a pleasure to see you, my friend.
Speaker 1: Great to see you. Happy New Year.
Speaker 0: You too. Alright. We're gonna stay on Joe Biden when Glenn Greenwald, the number one guest, the most frequent guest on the Megyn Kelly show, joins us next. Here is a shocking truth about New Year's resolutions. Whether you wanna lose weight, improve your energy, or beat that embarrassing post meal bloat, nothing works if your gut isn't healthy first.
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And use code Megan for 20% off your first 90 day bottle. That's like getting a month for free. Justthrivehealth.com, promo code Meghan. Here's to your best health with Just Thrive. Joining me now, the very first guest ever on the Megyn Kelly Show back in September 2020.
Soon, we'll be at our 5th year anniversary, and one of the most frequent, Glenn Greenwald, host of Rumbles System Update. Glenn, happy New Year. Great to see you. Oh, and happy January 6th.
Speaker 2: Happy New Year to you. Yes. We call that Insurrection Day in our household. I forgot that I was your first guest, and I called myself the godfather of this program for some time. But you grew a lot, and I figured that title was no more inappropriate.
But, yeah, it's always great to be back.
Speaker 0: It's amazing, the January 6th thing. And and, you know, right on brand, as we head into January 6th, who gets honored, by president Biden, not with the presidential medal of freedom, but with one step down, like the commendation, one under. But Liz Cheney because what did the Democrats love more than the Chanies?
Speaker 2: This is, you know, I think it's important to sometimes underscore how amazing it really is for people who may not have been involved in politics 20 years ago, who weren't paying a lot of attention, who were too young to have lived through it. The policies that Dick Cheney stood for, that Liz Cheney by his side was a vocal advocate of and continues to this very day to justify, not just the invasion of Iraq, but that too. Guantanamo, due process free imprisonment, kidnapping people off the streets of Europe, torture, due pro CIA black sites. These things were regarded at the time for years as one of the greatest evils in American history by Liberals and Democrats. They were calling these people Nazis and war criminals, and to be honest, I was among them.
So to watch the commendation, not just be about Liz Cheney's heroic role on the January 6th committee, but Biden said 20 years of service in defense of dignity, freedom, and, decency when she's a symbol of these policies that they said at least as bad about as they say of Trump now is just so indicative of how Democratic Party politics has become so craven and empty. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: It's really I mean, it's pretty galling. And, of course, it's just they just wanna call attention to January 6th, and they continue trying to sell it as the new 9 11. And the American public is just not buying it no matter how many dark Brandon's speeches we have, how many attempts to declare Trump an insurrectionist and keep him off the ballot we have, or how many presidential medals we have given to I mean, nobody pays attention to these civilian medals. It's like Anna Wintour was given him. Like, what?
How does she get and I think she got the one higher than Liz Cheney, by the way. There's somebody yes. I have this here in my packet. Somebody is upset. Some leftist is upset that, Liz Cheney didn't get what Anna Wintour got.
It's a CNN medical analyst, Jonathan Reiner says, so Biden awarded Liz Cheney a lesser recognition than Anna Wintour, Denzel Washington, and Bill Nye the science guy? Indefensible. This is the presidential medal of freedom. No public figure has demonstrated courage in the defense of freedom more than Liz, Glenn.
Speaker 2: There's so many things to say about it. I honestly don't know where to start. But first of all, just as an aside, because you brought it up, the reason Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue, got that award is because she refused to put Melania on the cover of Vogue, like, the first time in years that a first lady hasn't been on there, but put Joe Biden on there twice. So she has made her political affinities very clear, and, of course, the Biden administration loves her for that. Okay.
We just went through a campaign where Kamala Harris effectively made Liz Cheney her running mate, dragging her all throughout the Midwest as though disaffected, you know, working class people were yearning for a return of the nobility of the Chanies as if that's what they were craving. And, look, I have Liz Cheney here. And, look, I'm gonna bring go to Michigan and remind all of you the muscle butters that I need that I have Dick Cheney's daughter with me too. Remember them? And it failed.
And not only did it fail in terms of Liz Cheney, I think the broader point failed to trying to tell Americans that ideology doesn't matter, economics doesn't matter, culture doesn't matter. All that matters is our conception of democracy. And remember January 6th, and it was Liz. Nobody cares. Nobody cares.
This is not what people think. It was a 3 hour riot that was easily subdued. It had about a 1,000 Trump supporters at most. 2 of them dropped out of a heart attack, one of them from an overdose. These were not trained militias.
Nobody wielded a gun to continue to try and squeeze the stone after they just got crushed doing it. January 6th, insurrection, Liz Cheney. They're just so out of ideas that it's almost like they don't even internalize the rejection that they just experienced.
Speaker 0: So when Joe Biden gave Liz Cheney the award, as there always is when it's Joe Biden and a woman, any woman, could be Betsy DeVos who came on my show a couple years ago to say that she was in a wheelchair after having hurt her leg, and he basically her forehead. I don't I don't understand exactly, but it happened. To the little girls whose hair he sniffs, to Liz Cheney, Joe Biden doesn't know when to let go of any female in his presence. He in this video here, you'll see he he's got her by the hand. She's kinda like, give me my award.
Okay. I've got the award. She tries to pull away. He won't let go. He's holding on to the hand.
At one point, she actually does roll her eyes. He's she still doesn't have the award. He's still holding on to it. And I don't know exactly what's going on here, Glenn, but it's probably further evidence of the president's decline. Just gonna give you one more on the back of that one.
Last night, he gave an inter well, he didn't give an interview. He's caught at the White House on camera speaking to reporters. This is from Fox News. We went back to look at the original to see what led to this moment. What was it a question about Debbie Murphy?
Somebody asked him a question about what? Oh, asked him about Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship. Okay? That was the question that preceded the outburst you will hear from Joe Biden right here. Listen.
Speaker 10: Do you still believe he's a threat to democracy? The
Speaker 3: oldest president, I know more world leaders than any one of you ever met in your home goddamn life.
Speaker 0: Wait. What? So what's happening there, Glenn?
Speaker 2: You know, I I just I'm almost hesitant to say it because, you know, we all have this experience, I think, where somebody in our family or somebody beloved by someone close to us ends up in, like, the last stages of their life. They're, you know, experiencing various forms of dementia. They go into nursing homes. You talk to any caregiver in a nursing home, and they will tell you that male patients, in particular, as they get older, they start doing very inappropriate things. They lose sense of their boundaries.
But also, they just don't you can't follow a conversation any longer. And they get very grumpy at the same time, like, almost aggressive. That was like I mean, I would have been concerned for my physical safety if I had been in the vicinity of Joe Biden when he was speaking that way, because, actually, that dementia can make people very physically powerful.
Speaker 0: True.
Speaker 2: Megan, I was gonna talk about how the lies that the media told about January 6th, like Brian Sicknick being budging to death of a fire extinguisher, all that, all those the lies that they told. I I think it's really worth pausing that if Joe Biden had been reelected as a lot of them wanted him to do as the Democratic party was intending for him to to be, he would have 4 more years in this state.
Speaker 0: Oh, god.
Speaker 2: Four more years. He's 82. He would go to 86. He already doesn't know where he is. He has no compartmental self control.
He doesn't understand what's being said to him. And the media and Democrats have spent not just years, but even more so over the last 12 months heading against the election, vehemently insisting that Joe Biden has never been sharper, that he's smarter than everybody in the room, that he's whip whip smart and detail focused. And and they continue to say it. That sand Symone Sanders said it. Chuck Schumer was saying it just a few months ago.
The lie that they told about Joe Biden's mental capacity when they thought he they needed him to be reelected is such a foundational lie to our democracy, and so many of them were complicit in it. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: And yet we had, ready as we went to break, PolitiFact saying the lie of the year was Trump's they're eating the dogs. They're eating the pets. That was the lie of the year, not Joe Biden's fine and can totally do a second term. It was what a joke. You mentioned a couple of media defenses of Joe Biden's mental acuity.
We've got some of that. Here's Symone Sanders, on Meet the Press on Sunday.
Speaker 9: I was very surprised that when you asked the question about mental acuity, he didn't more forcefully push back. The question on the table is, is is the is the president is the is the president all the way there? And the answer is unequivocally yes.
Speaker 5: Democrats in November to try to tell the American people something they could see with their own eyes wasn't true.
Speaker 9: But it's not true that the president doesn't have the mental acuity.
Speaker 0: Oh, really? She was referring to Chuck Schumer there, which I'll just play to before I toss it to you, Glenn. Kristen Welker, the moderator, confronted Chuck Schumer over the many lies he told about Biden being a superhero behind the scenes. You know, if only we could see him the way Schumer sees him. He he's, you know, he's an Einstein ready to do rhetorical battle with anybody at any point.
Here he here she is confronting Schumer on it.
Speaker 11: I wanna play you a little bit of something you said last year. Take a look.
Speaker 12: I talk to president Biden, you know, regularly or sometimes several times in a week or usually several times in a week. His mental acuity is great. It's fine. It's as good as it's been over the years. All this right wing propaganda that his mental acuity has
Speaker 2: declined is wrong.
Speaker 11: Leader Schumer, what do you say to Americans who feel as though you and other top Democrats misled them about president Biden's mental acuity?
Speaker 12: Look. We didn't. And let's let's look let's look at president Biden. He's had an amazing record. He's a patriot.
He's a great guy. And when he stepped down, he did it on his own because he thought it was better not only for the Democratic Party, for the America. We should all salute him. We should all salute him.
Speaker 11: Do you feel as we have this conversation today that president Biden could serve another 4 years had he stayed in the race and potentially won?
Speaker 12: Well, I'm not gonna speculate. As I as I said, I think his record is a stellar one, and he'll go down in history as a really outstanding president.
Speaker 0: So it doesn't answer. He's a great guy. He's a patriot. That does not speak to whether he has the mental acuity to do another 4 years, never mind complete the existing 4.
Speaker 2: Also, they're still lying. They're still lying. The idea that Joe Biden so patriotically and selflessly decided he was going to step down because it was for the good of the country, He was infuriated that they were forcing him to step down. They threatened him with the 25th Amendment. Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama were calling every day and intensifying their threats.
Nancy Pelosi said we can do this the easy way or the hard way. He's enraged and bitter to this day that they forced him to to leave the race. He didn't selflessly do anything, let alone decide he didn't wanna run for reelection. The other part of it though, Megan, is there obviously have been times when the media has lied to the public about, you know, the war in Vietnam or Iraq or Russiagate, all Hunter Biden's laptop. And those are instances where the public had no way of knowing what the truth was.
They had no way of knowing that they were being lied to. The amazing thing about this case is that if you look at public polling data going back to 2020, 2021, the public knew that Joe Biden was cognitively declining. They knew he was cognitively unfit for the presidency. The media pretended over and over that it was a lie. And until the debate happened when they couldn't hide it anymore, they all had to pretend, oh my god.
We can't believe it. It turns out Joe Biden doesn't seem like he's all there. And the amazing part about that is when George Clooney wrote that op ed that ended up being a significant, catalyst of forcing Joe Biden out, which is the the weird into itself. But when Joe George Kony wrote that, he said when he decided that this has to happen was that that fundraiser they did where Barack Obama led him off the stage, and he said that Joe Biden was a Joe Biden I had never seen before. At the time, everybody else noticed that.
They said, look, Joe Biden doesn't even know where he is. Obama has to, like, walk him off the stage. The Washington Post, The New York Times, in conjunction with the White House, collaborated to say this was disinformation, right wing cheap fakes. In other words, they were showing the correct video about lying about it. The and then George Clooney comes out and says, yeah.
At that event, he he he wasn't there, and none of these media outlets have remotely accounted for what it is that they did.
Speaker 0: No. And and by the way, Kristen Welker is equally guilty because there's a clip of her post the June debate, post the meltdown, defending Biden's mental acuity when she was interviewing Doug Burgum, who was raising serious questions about it. Here's that.
Speaker 3: I mean, the nation we keep talking about elections. We're at a at a greater national security risk today than we were on Thursday because the commander in chief showed that he's not capable of serving.
Speaker 11: Well, there's not proof of that. But let governor, let me just ask you about the debate and a little bit more of what we saw. By one count, Donald Trump made more than 30 false claims during that debate.
Speaker 0: Look at that, Glenn. She won't she interrupts him. She won't let him back up his point. She claims there's no proof that he he doesn't have the mental acuity to be president. This is days after that disastrous debate that would wind up causing him to lose massive support and wind up having to go.
And then she what does she why? What what is so pressing that she needs to move on to? Oh, Trump told 30 lies.
Speaker 2: You know, if you first of all, if you watch her interviews, like her series of interviews since she took over Meet the Press, it was not like Chuck Todd was any better, maybe just a little smoother, a little more subtle about it because he'd been on for so long. She every time she interviews a Trump supporter, every time, that's what she does. She interrupts to try and imply that what's being said is too false to even allow to be on the air. She constantly debates the person she's debating after they say something by saying there's no evidence for it. She then wants to pivot to show how aggressive she is on behalf of the Democrats.
She has never ever interviewed a Democratic Party politician that way ever, where she's constantly interrupting, explicitly saying they're lying, just like those moderators at ABC News did where they never fact Chuck Kamala or anything she said despite the multiple lies they only give to Trump. And then in this case, again, I have to say the fact that that was after the debate, every American of any kind of political strike who is being remotely honest saw with their own eyes, not for the first time, that Joe Biden was not just cognitively declined, but cognitively crippled. And then they're sitting there saying there's no evidence for that, and then they turn around and wonder, why is nobody listening to us? Why is everybody turning us off? Why does everybody distrust us?
And they complain about this endlessly, the fact that, oh, there are these other podcasts and independent media that people turn to, and they're so angry about it. They think it's so dangerous that no one listens to them anymore. They never look inward. She should just look at that one interview she did, just that one, and the answer lies right in there, right, so so flagrantly.
Speaker 0: Meanwhile, over at CBS, there is one woman, Jan Crawford Greenberg, who, or maybe she's just Jan Crawford now. I think she may have gotten a divorce. In any event, she stands as a beacon of reason or at least attempted in this case when the subject comes up on her network of what the most underreported story of 2024 was. It's interesting because she just had a situation where she took on her network in a in a tape that was leaked when, Tony Docapulle kind of went after, Ta Nehisi Coates, right, who who had spent 10 days in Israel and declared himself an expert and wrote a book about it, which I I feel like you should spend more than 10 days there before you write a anyway, the the anchor got a ton of blowback and, like, disciplined. And she stood up in this meeting to say, what are what's our process?
Because you had one guy coming on with one POV, and he challenged him with a different POV. And isn't that called journalism? Anyway, here she is again on what actually was the most underreported story.
Speaker 10: Undercovered, underreported. That would be, to me, Joe Biden's obvious cognizant decline that became undeniable, in the televised debate.
Speaker 1: At the
Speaker 3: presidential debate with
Speaker 10: Unquestioned. And, you know, it's starting to emerge now that his advisers, kind of managed his limitations, which has been reported in The Wall Street Journal, for 4 years, and yet he insisted that he could still run for president. We should have much more forcefully, questioned whether he was fit for office for another 4 years, which coulda led to a primary, for the Democrats. It could have changed the the the scope of the entire election. Yet, still, incredibly, we read in the Washington Post that his advisers are saying that he regrets that he dropped out of the race.
You know, that he thinks he could have beaten Trump. And I think that is either delusional or they're gaslighting. President Biden
Speaker 2: What do
Speaker 0: you make of that, Glenn?
Speaker 2: Well, just just add one thing, like, on on what you said with that interview with Donnie Zicoats. Even going back to to Kirsten Walker's interview of of, Doug Burgum. I actually think that journalists should be adversarial when they're interviewing people that way. The problem is they have to be adversarial to everybody. That's supposed to be the role.
People with influence, people who move them on. And if you're only adversarial when one view is being expressed but not the other, that's when questions arise.
Speaker 0: It's your agenda.
Speaker 2: I bring this up every time not to praise you, but just because it's true. Like, I remember back in 2014, 2015 when I didn't even know you. And I there was a political profile of you, and that's one of the things I said about you. It's like, just take a look at how she interviews Republican politicians. I know you love DeSantis during the campaign, but interviewed him extremely aggressively because that's your job.
And the problem is, so often, they don't do that job. They do it only for politicized ends, not journalistic ones. As for the whole, we should have covered this more, she's, of course, right. But I think there needed to be a discussion, because it's a little bit easy to say now about why wasn't there more coverage of that. There were a couple of reporters who were trying, like Alex Thompson, political Axios.
He was
Speaker 0: I'm sorry. Axios.
Speaker 2: I think yeah. 1 of them. I know you might as well just confuse them. They're the same. But, yeah, Alex Thompson, I think he's at Axios now.
He was at political. He was on this for a long time. And the problem was, I was saying about this when I was listening to Chris and Walker too, is if you're one of those journalists who deviates just a little bit, if you're in corporate media on television, in the op ed page of New York Times Washington Post and deviate just a little bit, you actually do start asking those questions, you get mobbed, attacked by the people who you think matter, namely liberals. And it's a very aggressive and effective form of discipline to say, if you do do your job, we are going to spend 3 days on on Twitter, you know, demonizing you, attacking you, trying to ruin your reputation, and no one wants that. And so they get into this mindset of, oh, I better perform the way everybody expects me to perform, which is tell anyone defending Trump that they're lying, interrupt them, say we can't have those lies on the air, and then switch to to defending Biden.
And so much of that dynamic was about that, so I'm glad Jen Crawford said that. But I think they needed some self reflection. Like, why was that so uncovered?
Speaker 9: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: Now they are closer to doing it than ever because they lost. So now you can see they're genuinely thinking, okay. Some some sincere soul searching might be in order so that we don't lose again. It's not so that they can save their reputations or do good journalism, Glenn.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's so easy to dump on Joe Biden now because Joe Biden is never gonna run again. No one needs him anymore for anything. And ever since he was forced out of the race, they kind of started turning on him. But here's the thing.
Kamala Harris as vice president was not only one of the closest people to Joe Biden, at least in theory. I mean, she met with him all the time. That's for sure. But she also has a constitutional duty as vice president. There's the 25th amendment to alert people if the person who has all this power, who's running the executive branch, who's the commander in chief of the armed forces, is incapable of doing the job.
And not only didn't she do that, she was one of the most overt liars in defending Joe Biden before he dropped out, insisting that he was sharp as attack and all of that. Why isn't there if if this is a genuine sort of let's figure out what we did wrong kind of moment, Simply attacking Joe Biden is really kind of pointless. And even sort of saying, hey. We have to figure out what to avoid next time getting caught. That's even worse.
I mean, Kamala Harris is probably gonna run for governor. She's talking about running for president again. She bears a lot of accountability for perpetuating this. And this is not a trivial lie. This is fundamental to our democracy, and, you don't see any accountability trying to be brought to her by these journalists because she's still valuable to them.
Speaker 0: Kamala Harris didn't even know what the 25th amendment was. I got dollars to donuts. She probably thought it was the rental car policy that requires you to be 25 years old before you can rent a car. This woman was out there, couldn't even lead the senate in the pledge of allegiance a couple of days, and she doesn't even know the pledge, or she's too she says it so infrequently she forgot it in the moment. I'm sorry, but it was ridiculous.
Here's that moment.
Speaker 13: Join me in pledging allegiance to our flag. Pledge allegiance to the United States of America
Speaker 0: and to the To the flag. To the flag. It's what kids used to say every day, at least in elementary school, including yours truly. And my little guy and his, elementary school did too. But Kamala Harris, I don't know.
I guess they didn't do that out in Canada where she was raised.
Speaker 2: You know, Megan, I think and this is, like, kind of an intangible, but I think one of the biggest problems with Kamala Harris as a politician is that she was constantly petrified of saying something that would bring embarrassment to her. And that insecurity generally comes from a lack of knowledge. You know, if you're supposed to know about something but you don't, you wanna be as vague as possible. She spent her entire life until she got to the senate, you know, 6 months ago doing, you know, law. She was a lawyer.
She was a prosecutor. Totally perfect profession. You know, nothing to be embarrassed about with that. All she knew though, all she really knows is the law. She knows criminal law.
She knows how to prosecute, or at least she knows about prosecution. She never thought about, studied, and got involved with foreign policy, economic policy, immigration policies, curing the root causes in Central America of instability and poverty in those countries, the things that she was supposed to be able to speak on, and she knew she was a fraud. That's why for 3 years, we never heard from her except in the most scripted ways, and they tried to confine her that way during the debate during the election too. Remember when she wouldn't even sit down with a reporter for so long, and then she finally didn't. It was, like, the friendliest reporters.
And her worst moments were often with the with the friendliest reporters, like, on Stephen Colbert and The View when she's like, I wouldn't be different than Joe Biden at all. I can't think of anything that I would have done differently. She's a terrible politician. She knows almost nothing, and the entire attempt to foist her on the country with no votes, no debates, no democracy was at least as bad as what the media did in concealing Joe Biden's mental decline.
Speaker 0: Well, that's an interesting question. Which is the bigger lie, that Joe Biden was competent for the job or that Kamala Harris was?
Speaker 2: You go back and look at how Kamala Harris was talked about all the way up until the time that she was bequeathed to us by Nancy Pelosi and and and Barack Obama. Yeah. She was a national joke. There were all these stories in in liberal outlets. Like, she was firing her staff constantly.
She had no role to play. Everything she did turned, you know, to crap. She was not trusted to do anything. She was never considered she ran for president once before and dropped out before the first vote was counted was counted despite having every structural advantage, massive cash from California where she comes from, a huge campaign structure. She was a California where she comes from, a huge campaign structure.
She was a historic figure as a black woman, so the media loved her. She had every conceivable advantage, but she was such a terrible politician. She couldn't even make it to Iowa. And then suddenly, we were supposed to be told, and she was chosen by Joe Biden because he had promised to choose a black woman for his vice presidency. That's the reality.
And only had 2 or 3 choices, none of which were particularly good. And that is the truth. And the media, on a dime, Megan, turned around and tried to convince us that she was, like, this historic pioneer, this generational political talent who was going to, you know, inspire young Americans and come out to droves and crush Donald Trump once and for all. The whole thing was a fraud. It was a complete fraud.
It lasted about 3 weeks, and then the whole house came crashing down because it was built on no foundation.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Just like her accents were a fraud. We're gonna win. We're gonna win. Have you not decency, man?
Like, it's just so fake. I don't know. I'm asking myself that same question. Which is the bigger lie that he was competent to do to do the job or that she was? God.
They're they're they're tied because Joe Biden was totally incompetent. He did not have the mental acuity. He still doesn't, and he's still president right now. He certainly couldn't do a second term. And she I mean, in my lifetime, she's the biggest moron to ever run for president or vice president ever.
And and that became more and more obvious day after day.
Speaker 2: And the reality is that Joe Biden knew that, which is one of the reasons why he was so determined not to to to drop out. And I don't blame him for on some level thinking that he would have been the better candidate, because it's hard to imagine how somebody could have been worse. And on top, you know, I mean, he's at least proven over 50 years that he is a adept politician. He knows how to win elections. You know, in 2020, he won For greater.
Was in the senate for won for vice president. Yeah. It's like even with his brain melting, there's still like a part of him that you just kind of like he wind up and he's like, hey, I'm Scranton Joe. And it's like an instinct that she completely lacks. So I almost understand his his bitterness, but at the Democratic party was in a huge bind because they knew she was not even close to their strongest candidate.
The problem was had they chosen Gavin Newsom or Josh Shapiro or even Gretchen Whitmer, there were a lot of people on the base of the party on whom they rely who would have said, how dare you pass the black woman by who was elected, who was at your side, who was next in line, and choose a white man or a white candidate instead. And the identity politics framework that they created that they thought would help them has become their Frankenstein, and they were trapped. They could not they were damned if they did and damned if they didn't, and they hoped that the media would be able to create enough of a fraud that it would lift her and hide her flaws, and it just didn't come close to working.
Speaker 0: It's amazing. Thank god that American people saw right through it. Now they saw through most of the media lies. I have to say that's why Trump won. But it wasn't for lack of trying, on the media's part to mislead them.
And Grapion, who does these great mashups, put together some of the lies that we saw from the media leading up to the election. And and just in 2024, we've only cut a minute sound bite. This could go on, but here's a sampling. Look at this, SOT 9.
Speaker 13: A growing and insidious trend in right wing media, broadcast, print, and social media. It is to take highly misleading and selectively edited videos and then use those videos to spread messages thoroughly to cast out on president Biden's fitness for office.
Speaker 3: Tim Walz beats America.
Speaker 1: He had a punks like a regular person.
Speaker 8: Tim Walz is the opposite of weird. A happy warrior,
Speaker 3: a folksy backstory.
Speaker 0: Wicked sense
Speaker 8: of humor.
Speaker 13: Look how happy the pig looks. It's hard to believe that JD Vance could be any more extreme.
Speaker 2: It's like a freak show of bros.
Speaker 1: Dark and ugly beneath the dignity of most politicians.
Speaker 0: JV Vance.
Speaker 3: JD is at the far extreme.
Speaker 14: The most extreme. Being one
Speaker 1: of the most extreme.
Speaker 8: Angry and mean and dark.
Speaker 9: This guy is really weird, y'all.
Speaker 2: Our
Speaker 0: current president of the United States has so much respect for the law that he has said he would not pardon his son.
Speaker 15: And Joe Biden has very clearly said he would not pardon his son. He would not commute his sentence. How can Republicans keep making this argument now that that now now that Joe Biden has really put it out there?
Speaker 14: This version of Biden is the best Biden ever.
Speaker 0: That is amazing. What a great montage of the lying the lying they did. Because every one of those, I believe they knew they were lying.
Speaker 2: You know, I one one of despite how much I criticize media and journalists, or if you wanna call them that journalists, if you're being very generous, I actually believe in journalism a lot. Like, a lot of times I'm criticizing it because I want us as a country to have good journalism. It's absolutely crucial. And one of the things that sickens me the most when I listen to montages like that, the lying is very apparent. It's the herd behavior.
They read from script. I don't mean this metaphorically. I believe they get literal script. You know, like 2 weeks ago when Elon Musk spoke out against the, spending bill, and it ended up being sabotage. And you saw this coordinated effort by the Democrats to call Elon Musk the president to try and drive a wedge between him and Trump, which was so obvious.
Yeah. Go look at how many Democratic politicians, how many people in media did that overnight. They all copy one another. They speak to one another first. They pick up on each other's language cues.
There's no individuality. It's supposed to be like a profession of iconoclast of iconoclastic, you know, adversarial spirit, and there's none of that. So not only are there all lies in that montage that you showed, it's all so redundant. You turn on any one of those channels. You read any of their op eds.
They're all saying exactly the same thing. It's coordinated lying on top of just lying.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. Exactly right. That's why that weird thing about JD Vance caught fire because they all loved it so much. It got for Tim Walz the nomination, which was great, as it turns out, for the Republican ticket. And once again, proves that they they just don't have the power anymore.
The American public sees through these lies. They knew. Tim Walz was the weird one. JD Vance is not weird at all. He's actually quite normal, which is one of his best selling points.
Now that's the Democrat Party. The Republican Party does not and has not for a long time marched in lockstep. They are like the big Italian family that airs its grievances very publicly. And
Speaker 2: that
Speaker 0: brings me to Elon Musk versus Steve Bannon, which we will cover right after this quick commercial break. More with Glenn coming up after this. Glenn, I mentioned this with Ben Shapiro, but there was an intraparty fight that erupted over the past 2 weeks when it comes to h one b visas, which allow foreign workers to come over to the United States and work here. And, it was Musk and Vivek versus Steve Bannon and some core MAGA or working class supporters too. On on whether these are a good thing or a bad thing, Trump ultimately sided with Elon, but it kind of emerged after the weird Vivek tweet into more of a fight between Elon and Bannon, those 2 I mean, behemoths doing rhetorical battle.
And here's just an example of what Bannon said to Elon Musk on Bannon's show, you know, not directly, but, into the ether, Stop 21.
Speaker 14: You need to study modern political history of the fights we've been through for 12 or 14 years to get to this spot. We're not having group hugs. We're not having pats on the head. I've said many times that Elon came, and Elon's money helped organize the grassroots of it. In his engineering mind, he saw what the problem was as we saw it, and he supported it.
And for that, he gets a place at
Speaker 3: the table. There's no doubt you should.
Speaker 14: They're recent converts, but the converts sit in the back and study for years years to make sure you understand the faith. Don't come up and go to the pulpit in your 1st week here and start lecturing people about the way things are gonna be. If you're gonna do that, we're gonna get and we're gonna rip your face off.
Speaker 0: Oh, boy. Elon had tweeted I don't know that this was directly to Steve Bannon, but had tweeted, the reason I'm in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla, and hundreds of other companies that make that made America strong is because of h one b. Take a big step back and fuck yourself in the face. I will go to war on this issue, the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend. So, I mean, 2 extremely strong messages from 2 extremely strong messengers, both close to Trump, both within the GOP.
Your take on it?
Speaker 2: I think it's very healthy despite, obviously, the political rhetoric sometimes gets overheated. That's just the nature of people fighting about things that they strongly believe in. When I you know, the reason I got interested in the Trump movement in 2016, I'd never found Republican politics interesting before that, to be perfectly honest. It was the Republican party of George Bush and John McCain and Mitt Romney. It was very predictable, very kinda staid, very pro establishment, was because Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign, which, remember, was architected by Steve Bannon, Bannon's vision was to cleanse not just Washington or the Democratic Party, but the Republican Party of a lot of its most central, sacred orthodoxies.
Steve Bannon's plan for Donald Trump, soon as he got into office, was to raise taxes on the largest corporations and the richest, use that money for a bipartisan infrastructure deal that would renew America and put people back to work, and then number 3, bargain with that to get funding for the wall. That was Steve Bannon's nationalistic, populist division. He ended up losing a power struggle to Jared Kushner, a much more kind of traditional Republican. And the 1st Bush administration, Trump administration ended up doing things like cutting corporate taxes and the like. But that was the ethos out of which the MAGA movement began.
It's the reason why they hated Jeb Bush and the Bush family and those Republican lobbyists, and why Trump was able to mow one of them down after the next despite all Republican establishment money behind everyone except him. And this conflict that absolutely still exists, there are a lot of people who are very, very wealthy, who see themselves as citizens of the world, who are part of these gigantic corporations. Elon does business in a lot of places with Tesla, like China and India. They have a very different world view than the nationalist populists who got behind Steve Bannon and whose vision is very, very different on things like immigration. And you see this playing out and you're gonna absolutely see it playing out.
And it's so ironic, Megan, because you ask any liberal, and they'll say, oh, the MAGA movement, conservatives, they're a leader worshiping cult. Everybody is told what to do. They get into line behind Trump. That's such projection. That's what the Democratic Party has become.
The Democratic Party used to be that chaotic, but it's not any longer. It's a party of lockstep adherence that all the action of ideological conflict and vibrancy and political debate is on the right.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. It's so funny to watch, like, Bannon, you gotta hand it to him, has a way of condensing the issue. Like, converts sit in the back, and then Elon not one to be trifled with with the fuck your face. I will die on this hill. Like, it's it's on.
It's gonna be dramatic and fun and consequential, hugely consequential, 4 years. Quick sojourn back to, January 6th day. They just did certify the electoral college results without a single objection. The joint session took roughly 30 minutes, and Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, yay, on January 20th this month. Not everyone's happy about it, and many people would like us to be more focused on the insurrection that he personally unleashed if you ask them.
As we discussed earlier, they think it's as bad as, like, the Holocaust, and you don't have to take my word for it. Here is Sunny Hostin
Speaker 8: of 3 years ago. Atrocity. It was one of the worst moments in American history. And when you when you think about the worst moments in American history, you know, like World War 2, things that happened, you know, like the holocaust, chattel slavery.
Speaker 0: Yeah. The January 6th is right up there next to the holocaust and slavery, Glenn.
Speaker 2: Just imagine how demented you have to be to believe that. But I can go back and show you right around January 6th. I'm sure you covered it. For a year or 2 after at least, most Democrats were comparing it to Pearl Harbor and 911 Yeah. Saying this is the worst attack.
I mean, this is such insane desperation. This is the sort of thing you do when you don't have anything to offer, and you just hope by being as melodramatic as possible that Americans are going to side with you. And, I mean, imagine what it's like, Megan, to spit wake up every day, go into their jobs. Remember, all the way up until the election, the main theme was Trump is Hitler. Trump's generals called him fascist.
I you know, all that he wants to put Liz Cheney in front of a firing squad. Is he gonna be a dictator on day 1? Imagine saying those things over and over and over, and nobody listens. Trump crushes the Democrats, and you have to confront your own impotence, your own pointlessness, the fact that nobody trusts you any longer. They're fighting it.
They're not I'm not saying they're engaged in self reflection, but deep down, they know that how discredited and pathetic they are, and they brought it all upon themselves with things like this.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. So that reminds me, that last night, Hollywood held the Golden Globes, and the comedian who was the host forgive me. I can't remember her name right now. She started okay. Yeah.
She started with a remark that was on point to the effect of there's so many powerful people here. There's absolutely nothing you can do except to look to president, which was good. Correct. Because everyone in that room probably voted for Kamala Harris. And the one thing I wanted to raise with you was I didn't tweet a lot while I was on my vacation.
I wanted to spend my time with my family. You know, I really, really try. I stay up on the news, but I try not to tweet or get too into it just because, you know, then it blows up in, like, a Twitter thing that's distracting, or Saturday night because I made the mistake of watching the movie Conclave. And, I blame my husband, Doug, who said, let's watch the movie Conclave. That's really all all he did.
But we we thought it was it was billed as a thriller involving the Vatican and the process of selecting a new pope. So that sounded kind of good. I'm into thrillers. I love thrillers, actually. And I thought maybe there'd be, like, a murder, and you have to figure out who done it or, you know, whatever.
In no world, and, yes, I am about to offer the spoiler of this movie, and I hope you don't care because I hope you don't watch it. In no world did I predict that the the big twist was they would elect a new pope, the whole thing is about the process of electing a new pope, who is intersexed, who who is purportedly a man but has female reproductive organs. That's the big twist at the end. And along the way, every single cardinal you meet in the Catholic church is disgusting, except for but not really even except for the one liberal guy from America who's, like, pushing for more women in the church and a bigger role for women, but he turns out to be pretty craven too. They're all gross, and then the only one who has any virtue is the one who's secretly a woman.
And then maybe Ray Fiennes, who plays plays the cardinal shepherding the process, who then allows said intersex pope to become pope without telling anybody.
Speaker 16: The truth is there simply was no reason to think I was physically different from the other young men Then in my late thirties, I had a surgery to remove my appendix, and that was when the doctors discovered that I had a uterus and no vagaries. Some would say my chromosomes would define me as being a woman, and yet I'm awesome as you see me.
Speaker 0: And I tweeted out that this was disgusting, that it was anti Catholic, that I was offended, repulsed by what I saw. And then somebody asked the screenwriter, who was based on a book written a few years ago, the screenwriter, Peter Strachan, about my criticism, apparently, last night at the Globes saying she called it, me, anti Catholic. And he, quote, rejected my claim saying, I don't think it is. I was brought up Catholic. Some of my best friends are Catholic.
He says, I was brought up Catholic. I was an altar boy. Well, Peter Strachan, those days are obviously long gone. And he says, I think the core message of Conclave is about the church always having to refind its spiritual core because it deals with so much power. I don't believe that at all.
It's not about having to refind its spiritual core. It was an attempt to embarrass and humiliate Catholics. And I get it. I understand that the Catholic church has had its problems, Glenn, but I'm sick of this bullshit because they always do this. Whether it's Catholics or Christians, there is one religion that they love to mock, smear, and belittle.
And if you look at all the times that they've mocked, smeared, and belittled religions, Catholicism and Christians would be at the very, very top, and there's not a second close contender. And it's reflected in the write ups of the movie. Like, Variety's Peter Debruge calls this movie one of the most satisfying twists in years, and that's what we're talking about. A hail Mary that both surprises and restores one's faith. Maybe not everyone's, but certainly that of the disillusioned.
Vulture's film critic calls it sinfully entertaining. They love to see the Catholics humiliated. A film like this would never, never be made about Islam or Muslims.
Speaker 2: Or Judaism. So let me just
Speaker 0: Or Judaism.
Speaker 2: This is the thing. Yeah. So exactly. So the you know, it this goes back to what we're talking before about journalists and interviewing people adversarially. If you see someone doing it to everyone, you can say, okay.
That's what they do. That's kind of a an important function. I remember when the Charlie Hebdo, murder happened in Paris, and the idea was, no. We need to make sure that we retain the right to satirize everything, including Islam, including the things most sacred that's a really important part of society. The problem is is that especially in Hollywood, just like with these journalists, they don't do it to everybody.
They don't they're not satirists. They're not adversarial interviewers. They're highly politicized with an agenda that's constantly concealed yet very, very apparent. And Hollywood is one of those institutions in the United States that until very recently had been a very powerful and very popular that has basically collapsed. Nobody goes to these films any longer.
Everything is very fragmented. You ask young people who would they admire and who they think is most famous. It's not Hollywood star making star makers anymore. It's people on the Internet. It's YouTubers.
It's podcasters. These are the people who they're following. And one of the reasons why Hollywood has lost so much of its cache, I think the same is true for the media and so many of other people just don't trust them anymore. I didn't see the film, so I can't comment on that, but that is definitely an overall trend.
Speaker 0: Don't bother. Don't bother. Because it's like, Ray Fi they they I think they won for best screen screenplay, I think, and not they didn't win the other awards, but Ray Fiennes was up. Stanley Tucci's in it. John Lithgow, of course, you know, he's another one who's a far left guy.
We made that clearer in his portrayal of Roger Ailes in the bombshell movie and the interviews thereafter, which I paid attention to for obvious reasons. It's ridiculous. And, honestly, like, I've said to my audience before, I I have a very high threshold for offense. It's really hard to offend me. I guess I'm I'm not saying I was offended.
I didn't feel, like, deeply offended, but I was unsettled by what I saw. I I I was pissed. I just think that I'm sick of the Christian Catholic bashing by Hollywood, and it's one of the other reasons why I can't stand that entire industry. Glenn Greenwald, thank you, my friend.
Speaker 2: Always great to see you, Megan. Happy Insurrection Day.
Speaker 0: You too. Alright. Before we go, speaking of Hollywood, guess what? Tomorrow, we have an exclusive interview with Brian Friedman, my lawyer, my friend, and the lawyer who is now representing Justin Baldoni in a massive lawsuit against The New York Times around Blake Lively and her allegations against Justin. Alright.
So she is claiming some things about Justin, and the New York Times printed it like a stenographer. And now Justin, through Brian Friedman, is suing the New York Times, and Brian is here in an exclusive and explosive interview tomorrow. Don't miss that.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Secrets of Disgusting Media, and Explosive New Details About Blake Lively, with Billy Bush and Bryan Freedman WATCH: https://t.co/lFUY14c6HL
Video Transcript AI Summary
Megyn Kelly welcomes first-time guests Brian Friedman, her attorney, and Billy Bush, a well-known television personality. They discuss the ongoing legal drama involving Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, who are embroiled in lawsuits following their film about domestic violence. Lively alleges harassment and a smear campaign against her, while Baldoni counters that the claims are unfounded and that Lively misused her power on set. Friedman emphasizes the importance of revealing the truth, asserting that the evidence will show Lively's allegations are exaggerated. The conversation touches on the complexities of Hollywood dynamics, the impact of public perception, and the challenges faced by those involved in the case. Kelly expresses her support for Friedman and highlights the need for transparency in the unfolding situation.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. We have 2 first time guests joining me today, but they happen to be 2 guys I know very well in my personal life and sort of professional life. Later today for the first time, Brian Friedman, my friend and longtime attorney, killer attorney, who got me through that NBC nightmare, will be here to talk about the bombshell lawsuits that everyone on social media and in the entertainment industry is talking about.
This is the first time he will have sat down for a real interview, going in-depth on the matter that he is handling now for actor and director Justin Baldoni, who is suing The New York Times and who is being sued by his co star, Blake Lively. They were together in a big hit movie about domestic violence this year. It's a fascinating story about Hollywood and the media, and I'm looking forward to having Brian on. You'll love him. And you will get a preview of who you will be messing with if you decide to mess with me.
Oh, I love him. Okay. But we begin with somebody else who I just absolutely adore. Everyone knows the name Billy Bush. Right?
And you probably know him from Access Hollywood, you know, Extra, one of these entertainment shows where he's been beaming into your living room for over a decade now. He hosts Extra these days, but he had a stint long stint with NBC and a short stint with the Today Show. Before they were trying to ruin the likes of me, they were trying to ruin a genuinely good guy, Billy Bush. Why didn't I pay attention and learn? Billy had his own very public exit from NBC, and he is speaking out now as he is set to launch a new show, his own, on YouTube, and TuneIn called Hot Mics with Billy Bush, the perfect name.
I love that. It launches this Monday, and guess who's gonna be his first guest? Yours truly. But for now, with the preview of that and much more, Billy is here with me. Don't miss a moment.
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Empower yourself. With Tax Network USA support and takes charge of your financial future. Visit t nusa.com/megan today. Billy, great to see you. How are you?
Speaker 1: Oh, Megan. Well, you said so much there that got me just like it got all the juices flowing right there. 1st, Brian Friedman, that brilliant man. The guy that represented me when NBC was hacking my head off was his mentor, a lawyer by the name of Marshall Grossman, I think trained Brian Friedman, but I would say the, the mentee certainly outshine. All is well here, Meaghan.
I'm sorry
Speaker 0: to hear you. I adore Brian, and, I'll tell you something funny. My pickleball has been
Speaker 1: several times out here. He's not bad, I have to say.
Speaker 0: Is that right? Yes. This is one of his favorite things to do. So this is a funny story about Brian. I met him because he took my deposition in a lawsuit, a dispute that I got into with my former agent.
Okay? So I got into a dispute with my former agent, the details of which I'm not at liberty to disclose, whatever. It ended fine after all was said and done. But Brian took my deposition, and he was such a bastard in this litigation. I was like, he's such an asshole.
I hate this guy. He was opposing counsel. Right?
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 0: I had to sit for 8 hours across from him, and I was like, oh my god. I'm I'm in love. I love him. He was once he actually got across from me, his questions were great. His inquiries were totally reasonable.
We wound up really bonding in this deposition. And then when the shit hit the fan with NBC, he was brought into my life as an option. And when everybody else abandoned me, Brian well, I literally, everybody had abandoned me, and Brian was on the phone. And he said, just so you know, I don't give an f what anyone says about me. I've got you.
And off we went to war.
Speaker 1: You had an angel looking out for you. I'll say that, because there's nobody better than him. He is superb. Terrible pickleball player, but but superb.
Speaker 0: So you're living a life now. Are you at LA right now?
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say I'm in Los Angeles now.
Speaker 0: Okay. Because so you where were you raised? You're I mean, let's just start with a little bit about you so that the audience has because you're a Bush. Most most famously, you're a Bush, and it is that Bush family. So explain I'll assume.
A little bit more about your background.
Speaker 1: Texas. We're not all from Texas, Megan. I'm from Manhattan, Upper East Side, New York. Grew up, born in you know, born at New York Hospital, Upper East Side, 86, between York and East End, and, went to school in New York, then went off to boarding school, with Tucker Carlson, who was, several years ahead of me. And what an animal he was.
He's toned it down in a huge way. We all had a lot of fun. Then I went off to Colby College in Maine, Waterville, Maine, and then took a first job out of college in, in in Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire on the radio.
Speaker 0: Were you you knew, like, while in school that you wanted to go into media?
Speaker 1: As my dad said, Billy was on the dean's other list. So the grades weren't exactly fantastic. So I, I knew that there was something I could do with the chutzpah and the and the and the energy I had. I just thought, boy, it's probably not a lawyer, doctor, or financier or one of these things. And I found the college radio station and had a ball on that and said, I think this is it.
And so it went that way. Yeah.
Speaker 0: You were smart. It was a smart move. Because you're smart you're a very smart guy, but you recognize that you had a ton of personality. And there was a there was a way to exploit that god given gift to do something really fun with your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I I appreciate my parents who grew up in a different era realizing that too and not shoving me into, you know, the finance world. My dad was a private asset manager and, you know, something safe. I said, you know, they they they were great and said, no. No.
No. This is you. Go. Go. Go.
Which was great.
Speaker 0: Alright. So explain where you fall in the Bush family legacy.
Speaker 1: So the 41st president, George h w Bush, is my uncle. My dad is his young was his younger brother by 7 years. And so w 43 would be my first cousin, of which there are, like, 16 of us. He's the oldest and I'm the youngest. So most people assume he's my uncle because he's 25 years older, but we are first cousins.
Speaker 0: Oh, wait. Did you send the Yeah.
Speaker 1: Look. I just saw a great picture in here. Look at this great picture. This is you'll love this. There I am in the middle of them in a sandwich.
Speaker 0: Oh, yeah. There they are. H w and w with Billy Bush in the middle.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: So did you spend a lot of time when you were growing up in your formative years at the White House?
Speaker 1: No. But I did get, one weekend. One time, mom and dad were invited to Camp David by, senior. And and so my brother and I went along. And afterwards, I had a lacrosse trip for my high school lacrosse team starting in Baltimore, like, 3 days later.
And I was like, mom, you think I could just stay down there? And and when h w heard that, he said, well, you stay with me. And then you you if you're down there, you gotta stay there. My brother was like, you're not staying there without me. So he, so he jumped on.
We jumped on Marine 1 right out of Camp David, landing on the White House lawn. I'm 18. My brother's 21. We go up to the top
Speaker 2: floor of the White House. H w put a case
Speaker 1: of beer in the fridge. There was a pool table up there on the 3rd floor. Beautiful views. We were drinking brews, playing pool, and having a blast.
Speaker 0: Wow. Little did you know how tame that was compared to how the future presidential son would be living while in the White House and around it? Hunter Biden, your little case of beer seems so innocent.
Speaker 1: And then I returned as a young father with my 3 little daughters when w was president. We spent the night and went to the Easter egg roll, And I gave White House bathrobes to all the Jonas Brothers who were performing. I hope they didn't forget that.
Speaker 2: So
Speaker 0: random. So it's fun. I mean,
Speaker 3: that must have been
Speaker 0: a fun upbringing to be connected to that kind of a power of power, but not Well responsible for it yourself? Because when you're the kid of the president, it's a very different story.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You gotta be really careful in in it's actually not the greatest. When you get into the Hollywood, you know, world, other than Jerry Weintraub, who was h w's great friend, you know, it's not maybe the greatest asset. I remember, like, Rosie O'Donnell, like, you know, going after me and all the certain, you know, liberal people. I had to be myself.
So on my first contract with NBC when I first arrived, I made it up. You could not mention that connection because I had to establish myself. So I made it so that they could never bring that up.
Speaker 0: Wow. And you went a different way from what Chelsea Clinton
Speaker 1: did when she Emphasis on the ability to shut the bush. Yeah. Right?
Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, not to mention Jenna. You're too nice to rip on her, but obviously, she was interviewing her dad a lot a lot on NBC. There's there's a track record there.
Speaker 1: Well, I said to her she came to me early in in in when she was like, how do I get out of this thing? I said, well, listen. Here's what you do. I told her about my first contract. I said, you know, they're gonna want to keep milking that relationship, and you have a lot of talent.
You have a wonderful personality. You can do this. You just say no. And, just tell them no. I've done it enough.
That's it, And start doing other things. Bring other ideas to the table of things you can do, and she's done fabulously.
Speaker 0: So you, I heard you on Tucker, by the way, and it was great. I really enjoyed that discussion, because you're out promoting this new show that you're about to launch. And what what I glean from it, Billy, is that for the first time since the whole cancellation, and the viewers may remember that you got infamously canceled and just absolutely mistreated by NBC in the wake of that Access Hollywood tape with Trump breaking, the October surprise in 2016. And you were kind of an innocent victim in all of that. But since then, my impression has been you you haven't really wanted to go there.
You haven't really talked that much about it. You wrote, like, an op ed. You issued one of those, you know, apologies that we all have to issue when we get pulled into these things. But you haven't been out there talking a lot about it. So why is that?
Speaker 1: Well, I think it just everything is is timing, and it's amazing that it's 8 years. I never would because I remember after being fired in October of 2016, I mean, for 2 straight years, maybe two and a half, I was pulling my hair out. Why can't they I've been let me back in. You've thrown little Dino out of the cave. Let me back in.
I'm really I'm crying. I'm like a mess. I can't understand it. How could the network that raised me? How could they do this to me?
This is so wrong. And I just was it was unbearable, but then time goes on, and there's a I I I'm a consumer of stoic philosophy. There's a great, book that my friend Ryan Holiday, with whom I came became Yeah. Love it. During this process.
But Holiday wrote this book called The Obstacle is the Way. And this obstacle, this terrible thing in your life that you're trying to avoid and run away from, well, maybe it's the thing you need to go right through the middle. So I said, look, this hot mic thing no. My mic's the new show I'm launching is called Hot Mics with Billy Bush, and there's a a wink in there, but it's also look. The hot mic silenced me 8 years ago.
Now the hot mics are right in front of me and and giving me the opportunity to, present my true and authentic voice. So here we go.
Speaker 0: Well, it sounds like for the first time, you're really gonna talk about everything that you've been through. And I think it's very cathartic to do it. You know? I mean, I've been out there now talking to the extent I can because, you know, I'm not saying anything about my own particular situation, but many, many people who are forced out of NBC must sign nondisclosure agreements to get the money to which they are contractually entitled. It's absolutely outrageous, frankly.
But, you know, when you're talking about big dollars, you'll do it to protect your family. So many people are not at liberty to get fully into how NBC treated them like absolute shit. But you seem to be able to do it. So how is that?
Speaker 1: I'd rather be you, Meghan, than me because, yes, I didn't get the full I'm ground 0. Okay? People people studied me, learned from me, and then they, Brian Friedman and honed their skills. So, I think I would have rather been paid out and sit here silently, but instead, it is what it is. Who cares?
Get a wonderful opportunity in front of me. All is good. I've forgiven everybody but one person. And, you know, look, it's it it is me. It's part of my story.
And what's interesting is it's never been told. You know, when a proprietary piece of property leaks out of a major news organization and it's something so powerful to affect a presidential election, some of their own IP is weaponized to take out a presidential candidate, that requires or calls for at least an internal investigation. Forget the external. Should we take a look at how this might have happened? Well, it would have ended in 5 seconds.
So, of course, it was never lost.
Speaker 0: They knew. They knew. Because just as a refresher, this is the tape, with Trump and Billy on the Access Hollywood bus where Trump is saying you can grab him. He's talking about Nancy O'Dell, host a long time at NBC, saying how he wanted to wine and dine her. And he once took her out furniture shopping, and he really wanted to sleep with her.
But it didn't didn't work out that way. But there is also a reference on there too. When you're a celebrity, you can grab women by the p word. And when you're a celebrity, they let you do it, which Trump would later be asked about in his deposition in the case against E Jean Carroll in, really, what is I it might be my favorite clip of all time, which is really saying something. Any excuse to play this clip, I will take.
And here we are with the excuse right in front of us. So I will show again E Jean Carroll's lawyer, Roberta, asking Trump about that Access Hollywood tape.
Speaker 4: I just started kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it.
You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything. That's what you said. Correct?
Speaker 5: Well, historically, that's true with stars.
Speaker 4: It's true with stars that that they can grab women by the pussy?
Speaker 5: Well, that's what it's if you look over the last 1000000 years, I guess, that's been largely true, not always, but largely true, unfortunately or fortunately.
Speaker 1: Well, look
Speaker 0: Or fortunately. It depends.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I, when I heard here the the crazy thing is is I obviously heard it then, and the tape was 2,005, 11 years before the election. And he was the biggest star on NBC, and I was with him all the time. But I have no recollection of him saying that. It's always been him talking about Nancy O'Dell because she was my friend and my cohost, and that was like, I'm super uncomfortable.
And I'm like, oh, god. It's Nancy. Yikes. Yikes. Yikes.
And I I had to find my way out of that. I don't recall the grab thing at all, and the first time I ever like, it resonated with me. Oh, wow. He said that? Was sitting in the president and general manager, his office at the Today Show, about 4 weeks 4 days before I got fired, that Monday.
Noah Oppenheim? Yeah. I was in Noah Oppenheim's office. It might have been Tuesday, and I got I got canned, at the end of the week, but he played it for me. I said, listen.
I've never actually watched or heard this tape. I I just knew it was there because I reported it on the day it happened 11 years ago, but let me hear it. And when the most amazing thing is when that line came out, I was like, oh, and Noah Oppenheim laughed. The general manager of the press laughed. I would later be fired, I guess, for laughing or not intervening or I don't know what, but Mhmm.
He did because it's one of those things where you don't know what to do in a moment like that butt laugh.
Speaker 0: Well, the reason he laughed is because he's a sniveling little wiener who really has no fortitude or a strong character.
Speaker 3: I I I haven't
Speaker 1: forgiven him. Well, in my circumstance, I
Speaker 0: have Abigail fine and she's outside. Yeah. Go ahead.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you why. This is why I forgive him. Because I was his only hire. He was new on the job as the GM and president, and they he brought me in to to sort of change the 9 o'clock hour. Later, you were brought in to change the 9 o'clock hour by
Speaker 0: him in
Speaker 1: LAC. Was me, and he sold it to LAC, Andy LAC, the chairman of NBC News at the time and Noah's boss, and he sold this idea to him. They hired me. Noah didn't want his only hire to get whacked, but he was new, and Andy was telling him, we whack them. We leak it.
We do it, and he's looking at me going he gave me, in retrospect, a couple of clues where he was like, hey. You know, these things I remember Noah saying, these things have a way of, like, maybe coming to light when they're that do you wanna do something maybe about it? And I was just naive. I'm like, no. There's nothing you can do about that.
It's a tape he didn't know he was that this no one will interview with me. No one will wanna sit down with Billy Bush because he takes the preamble before the interview and and and weaponizes it. You can't do that to Donald Trump, to anyone, or else I'm a ruined guy as a journalist. So, they told him to do it. He did it.
Most people would have done, sadly, to save their own hide what Noah did.
Speaker 0: Well, he has no such excuses in my case. And I look. I know you're supposed to forgive just for the sake of forgiving, but I have seen zero evidence that they seek forgiveness. And, you know, like, with Steve Bannon and Trump for that matter, over time, I was able to really contextualize their behavior and see it very differently. Those 2, I'm gonna especially lack.
Especially lack. But I just see as these snuggly little tiny little men.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No. I don't forgive Andy Lack. I said, here's another great Noah's Noah's Noah's big of me, but what's huge of me is the original boss that I worked for for 15 years as my executive producer at Access Hollywood, who ultimately sent the tape to NBC News in order to get permission to use it to get get it legally reviewed. And, of course, they just took it out of his hands at that point because they felt they had a weapon.
That producer, 15 years together, I didn't speak to for 2 years. He is now the producer of Hot Mites with Billy Bush launching on Monday.
Speaker 0: I love that. So honestly, like, I we kicked it off with Brian Friedman, you know, who is opposing counsel to me. Like, he took my deposition. We were in an adversarial position. I can definitely get past negative encounters with somebody.
I can get past adversarial experiences with somebody, but I just felt like what they did at NBC was so disgusting and so ruthless that I don't forgive them. And by the way, I listened to your interview with Tucker. F Craig Melvin and f Al Roker. You're wrong. Craig Melvin's not a good guys guys.
Screw him. You you may have
Speaker 1: liked him.
Speaker 0: I can't stand that guy.
Speaker 1: He begged me
Speaker 0: to come on my show. I put him on my show, begged me to help him on his loser MSNBC show, which I did. And then the first chance he had to stick the knife in and turn it, he ran to it. Like, yes. A chance to dump on the new white woman who's at 9 AM on the issue of race, because Craig Melvin is a black man, and piled on, suggesting I had behaved racistly.
Speaker 1: You know what? I'm gonna review my forgiveness, because I love you so much. Thank you. And if I'm you, absolutely, I understand. I get it.
I'm just in the same vein of Noah. In network news, there's a lot of sheep. Right? And and it's like, you know, he do it or fall out of my graces and don't rise up in the ranks. It's all stuff that goes into scripts for the morning show on Apple TV plus.
It's all true. It's so competitive and scary and backstabby and unsupportive. And, you know, when I got to the Today Show, all I wanted was Matt Lauer to put his arm around me and say, welcome, Ken. I've known you so long. I'm so glad you're here.
Let's go have lunch. Be the big guy. I've done that with every new reporter that came in to access Hollywood. I wasn't afraid that they were gonna replace me or anything like that. I'm not saying he was afraid, but he definitely soon as I got there, the energy changed, and he did not clear he did not want me there.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. And neither did Al Roker, who is a slithering snake of a man.
Speaker 1: Well, they told Al the 9 o'clock hour is gonna be led by Billy. He's gonna welcome everybody in. He's gonna do the thing. And truth be told, Noah told me, just make it to March, and then we're gonna find you your partner. You have to survive till March with Al.
And, maybe Al got wind of it, and and then I didn't survive another week.
Speaker 0: Whack. What a what a shock. Yeah. No. They they saw you exposed, and they plunged the knife in ruthlessly.
It was a pattern that they would repeat. These, you know, so called morning show hosts who are out there so cheery and so sweet to start your day with and behind the scenes. It was family. What they care about is their money and their fame. Go ahead, Billy.
Speaker 1: But it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. Boy, they fork out a lot of money. Somehow, they still have a lot of money. I don't know how long.
I, I I made it 2 months, so I never got to sniff the money. But, you know, Lauer went you know, he's a $25,000,000 a year guy, you know, doing morning television. It's, I can
Speaker 0: see that. Out the money that I got at NBC pursuant to a contract that I negotiated. But let me tell you something. I was I was offered more at Fox. Like, I I wasn't so grateful to NBC.
NBC did shit for me. They didn't raise me. I raised myself over at Fox, and I could've gone to any single one of the networks. I didn't have to go to NBC. So I wasn't I wasn't beholden to them for some big deal.
I had big deals being offered to me by all the networks. It was just I made the colossal mistake of trusting the wrong group. And, you know, when my show, which was a misfit, admittedly, was struggling, they never got behind me. I mean, I will say, Kathie Lee, who was the best thing at NBC as far as I'm concerned, she pulled me aside. She goes, you know how long it took for our show to hit Kathie Lee and Hoda?
5 years. She goes, go back and look at the ratings in year 1 and 2 and 3. Absolutely dreadful. Terrible. And, she said it takes about 5 years for these shows to resonate.
And sure enough, you know, I was like, I was 1 year into it, and they I think they're well, we'll just let the audience speculate about what the real reasons were for them tanking me.
Speaker 1: The great the great Larry King said to me, leave it on. They'll find it. I'll never forget that. With a good show, leave it on, and they'll find it. But, you know, the reason why you can leave on Hoda and Kathie Lee is because it doesn't cost anything.
Everybody's there. The crew is hired, you know, they're they're they're slotted to be there for 5 hours, so they've got the hour. All the existing stuff is there. When you do something bold and, you know, your own studio, your own people, your own big budget, then they just get squeamish. But somehow, they have a lot of money to buy out of things.
I don't know.
Speaker 0: There's a
Speaker 3: ton of money.
Speaker 0: Not for long. Not for long. I mean, the you know, the Today Show has got has got half the ratings that it used to.
Speaker 1: Congratulations to you, and your YouTube is bigger than NBC News. I watched that. You, one woman alone, bigger than an entire news organization on YouTube. And for that, I applaud. That is amazing.
Speaker 0: Thank you. I'm not so Thank you very much. On the subject of Andy Lack, why don't you forgive him?
Speaker 1: Well, he never apologized to me. I called him once, and I was like, just apologize to me, you lethal little snake. Noah did. 6 months after I got fired, Noah Oppenheimer, we're talking on the phone, and he said, if you never forgive me, I understand. I'm so sorry.
It wasn't supposed to go down like that. Okay. I forgive you. We're imperfect people. We're, you know, good people are capable of doing bad things everywhere.
I'm capable of doing bad things. You too. We're all I mean, we're but if you own up, you apologize. You know, you're good by me because I'm the most imperfect. Andy Lack, so dismissive.
He talked to me for, like, 7 minutes seconds on the phone. Yeah. Sorry. I can't help you. I don't care.
And literally, you know, I I was speaking to the former president of MSNBC back in June and, told me during that time, he said, hey. What are you gonna do about Billy Bush? We gotta you gotta save Billy. He's a he's a good guy. He's not he's not he didn't do anything here.
This isn't him. And he said, fuck Billy Bush. And that was relayed to me by this, by the former president of MSNBC, like I didn't matter. And, you know, this is a man who saved Brian Williams, brought him back, gave him the 11th hour or whatever you call it, did his best to save Matt till he couldn't. But f Billy Bush.
I'm like, okay. Well, f you too, buddy.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Exactly right. So he wound up getting fired from NBC too. Is it true he's at PBS now?
Speaker 1: That's what I heard. I heard he's an executive producer of PBS, and, good for them. They've got one of the true derelicts of our of our time, a really bad bad
Speaker 0: Totally agree. I think, Brad I hate it.
Speaker 2: I don't
Speaker 1: like to say that. I'm a nice person. I'm a nice person. I like people. I accept faults and all that, but he's a he's a bad guy, Like, a really bad
Speaker 2: guy.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I agree. And it's like, where's the responsibility that these executives get for taking top talent like you and abs not just, like, firing them, but absolutely trying to ruin them, absolutely trying to devastate them, to the point where I heard you say to Tucker, you actually had suicidal ide ideations. Like, you it's serious. What they do is serious.
Speaker 1: One one moment. I mean, there was lots of emotional instability. I will say that it led me to this place called the Hoffman Process, which I did 9 days, you know, no electronics in a cabin with, you know, people and can it it's it's like a trauma place, but it it's the mental, emotional, psychological trauma of all of a sudden because it happens, thanks to the Internet, like this. I literally Friday morning, October 7, 2016, I did a double because Hoda Kotb loved working with me so much. She was like, I don't want any more guest hosts on Friday when Kathy's not here.
I only want Billy. Just let him do 2 hours in a row. And they put me in Man Spanx, and I'm dancing in Man Spanx, and we're having laughs, and it's wonderful, network, funny, whatever. And, I kinda thought the whole thing was behind us. I had dealt with Andy.
I told him this is illegal. It's the wrong thing to do. I felt like, okay. And, and off we go. It was like this, you know, this beautiful moment.
And then I'm on the plane flying home, and then, mister Bush, please put your phone away. I'm like, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: You know,
Speaker 1: we're all addicted. I'm like, I just want more text. And I had one more text, and then, mister Bush. Okay. And as I put it down, I see, boom, Washington Post, Access Hollywood bus tape.
And I went, oh my god. They did it. They did it. They didn't do it on their own air. They didn't do it in their own organization.
They did it through the Washington Post because the debate with Hillary is 2 days later, and by hook or by crook, this is gonna be the first topic on that stage, and we gotta get it to someone. Because now forget about owning the property. Forget about getting all the clicks and having the big story, and our organization winning the big story in the October surprise, it's more important that he loses the election. So let's get it to the Washington Post. Yeah?
Speaker 0: So can you because Doug and I have talked about this many times. But and now, obviously, I'm I'm I'm great. You know? I mean, I have nothing to complain about. But
Speaker 1: I'll see.
Speaker 0: I do remember very acutely many nights lying in bed right after this happened with NBC and feeling so incredibly sad that my whole career was gone. It it was evaporated in in a day by those fuckers who, you know, took this Internet, whatever, would have been a one day Twitter story and, you know, rammed it up over and over. And even after it died down, made a point of bringing it back up again. And I just remember being like, I can't believe this thing that was so important to me that I worked for so long to build is absolutely gone. And it
Speaker 1: took years. Expendable. Yeah. You're that expendable. You you realize, I will say, oh my god.
When I was just starting as a little bushy tailed, you know, you know, celebrity kiss ass on red carpets in, New York as the East Coast correspondent, I was Matt Lauer. I reached out to Matt to get some advice, you know, and, like, kiss his ass too. And, went down to his office, and he said to me, let me tell you something about this business. This is so prophetic. I can't believe I'm remembering.
He said, everybody is replaceable. You have to remember, everybody is replaceable. He said, someday, you could replace me easily. And I said, ah. And he's like, so just know that.
And I was like, okay. Think that way. In other words, prepare for these kinds of things. And I realized the man the reason the man hung on for 20 years, he knew it. He knew it.
Speaker 0: Well, but that but don't you think it's one thing to say that and and to know that? And it's quite another to say, okay. So they may replace me. I may not work out here. Whatever.
I may not be a good fit. But it's a different thing altogether to say they will
Speaker 1: The end of your life.
Speaker 0: Ruin me. They will do everything in their power, these people who I trusted, to absolutely ruin me so that I can't make another dollar in this industry.
Speaker 1: And then after the fact, planting stories everywhere in every paper that reinforce the idea that you're a bad guy, and so they look good for having gotten rid of a bad apple. That's the thing that I even heard afterwards. I'm like, what? They tracked I'm seeing the New York Post track down, like, a girl I allegedly bullied in 8th grade or said something into. I'm not kidding.
And they're like, Billy Bush is just bad to women. He's just a bad guy to women. And I'm like, What? Every woman at the Today show I had a terrific relationship with. There's 2 separate worlds, as you know, 7 to 9 and 9 to 11.
In the 9 to 11 world, everything was wonderful, peachy, lovely. 7 to 9, get him out of here. He's not one of us. So that's the, you know, that that was the that was the target for me. That was the
Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, I I can relate fully to all of that too. I've never had more awkward moments where I felt less welcome than when they'd have me go over on the on the Today Show set and go outside. Without without exception, the only person who showed any kindness, as I I said, was Kathie Lee. And without exception, everybody else was just And Hoda.
Freeze ice on their ass.
Speaker 1: Yeah. By the way, anyone who's a female at the I think it's really the men that were really brutal people. You may have a different experience as a female, but I found the the women to be wonderful.
Speaker 0: Well, I'll say this. There is one female associated with the show who pretended to be a friend of mine. And when the shit hit the fan, Doug actually reached out to this person's spouse because we knew them socially a bit and said, gee, it would be really nice if the woman could send out a tweet or something in support of Meg. And he said, oh, gee. You know, I don't think she's gonna do that.
She doesn't wanna go okay. Fine. That was just Doug being protect protective. And we later were told I can't say it's a matter of fact, but we were told by a very well connected PR person that this spouse to whom Doug had reached out was busy pushing the story everywhere.
Speaker 1: Oh, no.
Speaker 0: So to to Doug, oh, it's so sad. It's such bullshit. You know, she she's not gonna tweet, but this is total bullshit. And meanwhile, this person was doing his level best to push the story everywhere
Speaker 2: that I
Speaker 0: was allegedly this horrible racist person. I mean, this this industry is disgusting, and there are no more disgusting people than the hosts of those morning shows. They are exact and and the hypocrisy is what's so gross about it, Billy.
Speaker 1: I can't say you think Not everyone. O'Reilly Not everyone.
Speaker 0: You find out O'Reilly is irascible behind the scenes, you're like, yeah. It makes sense. Right? Okay. Yeah.
I
Speaker 3: can see that. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Right? But these people is like they they want you to think they're just so sweet and peachy keen.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a very competitive atmosphere. And I will I maintain that in my experience, there's some there are some very good people, in it, but everyone knows, you know, and it's mostly women. And, but they know that it's, you know, it's super it's a super competitive environment. You know, sit down with Ash Banfield sometime and and ask her about her experiences. But in the end, if you can survive it long enough and you know see, what things I'm not wired to play this game.
I'm not wired to, you know, have a team of people who are angling to help me get someone else out of the way and all. I don't think like that. I I think like, hey. I'm so happy to be here. We're all a team.
I just and I guess in order to dominate and survive, you gotta think like that, which I'm so glad I'm not there. I'm actually everything works out for the right reasons because I just I can't work like that. I feel sick.
Speaker 0: So who who stuck by you, Billy, like, during all this?
Speaker 1: All my friends. You find out who your friends are, and boy, did I have some wonderful friends. You know, publicly, you know, people, you know, on the show there, you you they do one man you know, didn't get a lot of public support, and that's just the fact. And I was so mad and hurt over that, because it's just a terrifying environment, especially then. Not I think now it's changing a bit, but I understand now that the public support wasn't so why?
But your friends oh my god. Your friends and so many people in the industry. Suzanne Somers wrote me a wonderful letter. Julie Bowen wrote me, you know, Kate Walsh. Julie Bowen, Cindy Crawford wrote me the loveliest letter.
Dennis Quaid. He was so mad with his pen. I mean, he was, like, smudged
Speaker 2: all over
Speaker 1: the paper. He was but all you know, in the business, we know who you are. You are you know, we love you. You're you're so fun. This, the, the.
Don't worry. You know? And, but in your personal life, oh my god. My friends were just amazing. Kept me kept me going.
And family.
Speaker 0: So did that retreat that you mentioned, the 9 day thing without the social media, without the phone, did that help? Did that was that a game changer for you?
Speaker 1: Yeah. It just got me going. You know, I I was, like, I was a danger to myself. I was just so, I was just, I will say this. It's I hope I'm not being irresponsible here, but the booze, you know, it served its purpose.
It I I'm gonna thank booze for a second. I would let you know. I'm glad we looked each other in the eye and said we're spending a little too much time together. But in the beginning, thank you, booze. Thank you, my phone.
Another terrible dopamine addiction. Thank you, phone, for being like, I need something to distract me. Go, what is Megyn Kelly doing on Twitter? You know, the and then the inside was hurting too much, so I went to this place. And, oddly enough, it was the day that I checked in was was the first day Trump walked into the Oval Office.
And I was like, oh, this is powerful irony. Here we go. So Right. It just was a massive, unbelievable shit show. But I'm gonna tell this to every one of your listeners and viewers.
We are all going through something terrible. Nobody goes unscathed. You don't escape it. It wasn't a child of mine with a terrible illness. It wasn't something else.
Mine has unique circumstances, but I'm certainly not extraordinary in the fact that life is a shit sandwich. Eat it or starve.
Speaker 0: That's what my stepfather used to say. Life is a shit sandwich, and every once in a while, they serve it up to you, and you have to take a big old piece and eat it. So it's just an unfortunate image, but not wrong.
Speaker 1: No. I agree. You know,
Speaker 0: I know that you feel as I do, which is in the moment, as awful as it is, like, would I would I change it? Would I go back and undo it if I could? I wouldn't. I would not.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Yes. I mean, I appreciate the wake up call. I don't know if it's God, if it's the plan. I'm I believe it maybe is God saying, okay, Billy, you, probably you haven't experienced much, adversity in your life.
Right? I mean, I've become this little guy on TV interviewing celebrities and hop into place to place and contract to contract, and they move you to LA and they pay for everything. And now you're on the Today Show, blah blah blah blah. And it's like before it's too late, before you become an old man and you're don't have a chance to become better, baboom. I'm gonna hand you a massive explosion, and you're gonna somehow recover from it.
And you're gonna get going, and you're gonna and it's gonna be something that you will be grateful for because of who you've become. I believe in that. I do I believe that that has happened, but I do not appreciate, the messenger, Andy Lack. Do not appreciate him.
Speaker 0: Yeah. You can be grateful for the net net of the experience and not actually think the experience was enjoyable or or feel good about the people who put you through it. But I I definitely think that, you know, for me, I don't know. I think I rose to whatever, news fame, which isn't the real real same thing as real fame, quickly at Fox, and I think maybe I was drunk on my own wine. And Yeah.
I think I was getting too big for my own bridges. I think, you know, when I got to NBC, we did I look back now. We did all this Me Too coverage, not all of which was bad. Some of which were legit. I mean, Harvey Weinstein was a shit.
But there were you know, like, I just think there was overreach, and I think I was too full of hubris. And I think I needed to be checked. I I definitely think I'm much more humble and cognizant of my own failings and, you know, biases now than I was prior to all this. And so better as a person and better as a journalist post that nonsense.
Speaker 1: Well, you had to figure out what tools do you have to get to a better place to get out of this. You were handed a terrible situation. I mean, you know, Andy Lack made a move on you and tried to brand you a racist for asking the most simple question, and that is when did this become punishable by death? Because all the late night comics that we watch today, they used to perform in blackface on Regis. I mean, I remember one of them used to go over to Regis Philbin and do it on his show, the lovely Regis, the sweet Regis of all people.
Yep. You know, and and and Kimmel and, you know, the man show and all these things. And so the question you were asking was when was the date that this you know, you weren't complimenting Diana Ross, you were denigrating her. When did that happen? And that was enough for an evil man with a lot of power to try and kill you.
And, I remember saying, this is just an outrage. Brought up a little PTSD for me because I know all the players. Yep. But knowing you, you said, oh, man. This is terrible.
Terrible. Terrible. But
Speaker 0: So
Speaker 6: you survived.
Speaker 3: So now
Speaker 1: you now.
Speaker 0: Well, you made it back on TV. You did make it back into the cabal, right, which is what you said you wanted, on extra.
Speaker 1: Right? Covering. I'm covering. I gotta get back in there. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Well, so why isn't that that's that's that? That's what you do, and that's the end of that? Why do you feel the need to launch this podcast and or this YouTube show and, you know, talk about these issues now in a more full throated way?
Speaker 1: Extras is part of the American fabric. It's fun. It's it's it's a it's a great, you know, show that people still watch in droves in their living room, and it's wonderful. I just have a lot to say, and I have I have a lot of deeper things I want to talk about. I have interest I'm an international studies and government, you know, major from, in college and spent, you know, a year studying abroad.
And, you know, my interest every morning, I read Puck in the Wall Street Journal and the Free Press. Barry Weiss, you shout out to Barry, and especially Nellie Bowles, who is hysterical on Friday mornings. But I'm fascinated in our politics and in our world and our our culture, sports. The Giants are a disaster all the way up
Speaker 0: to the north. It's so sad.
Speaker 1: Everything is bubbling in me, and I want to be able to talk about it without, like, hitting my mark after 22 minutes. Like, that's weird.
Speaker 6: That
Speaker 0: It's so sad.
Speaker 1: For 22 minutes doing, hello, Julia. You look unbelievable and gorgeous and da da da da da da.
Speaker 0: Well, that's that's a that's a lane in which you are really exceptional. It is I mean, look. It was only a year at NBC, but I can definitely attest to the fact that those celebrity interviews are so much harder than people think. And your ability to make it look easy is in itself, like, truly extraordinary. That's a that's a genuine gift you have, but you have all these other gifts that you aren't really allowed to show on a show like that because it's so tight and so controlled and scripted.
So I think this is a great idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely and I thought, boy, I should have done this earlier, but, no, I think everything sort of worked. I'm, like, 8 years later, we're launching hot mics after the hot mic thing that, oh my, are we crazy? Yeah.
We're a little crazy. We're a little crazy. I haven't thought the whole thing out yet, but here's the thing. I don't know how you fit one thing that Mark Zuckerberg said is, don't wait for your eureka moment. Like, this moment, like, I've got my brilliant idea.
Now I'm gonna go be this giant success. No. Just, like, if you have some weird ideas, like, just get started, get going, figure it out. You had no idea where this thing would lead to, how big it would become, how successful it'd become. You just knew that you needed to get going and being get back to being you, and you did, and the rest figured itself out.
That's what I'm attempting. So, you know, help me. Well, I
Speaker 0: think it'll be interesting to watch to see the difference between the you that launches next Monday and then the you that we see 4 years after. Because I would say in my own case, it took some getting used to to offer my opinion on so many things, to be so outspoken on so many things because we're not trained to be like that. We're not trained to do that in straight news journalism, which is what you're coming from. It's entertainment journalism, but it's journalism. And but then the more you do it, the more comfortable you feel.
So is there any risk to you, because you still have the foot in the other camp, of these left wing celebrities saying, I don't want anything to do with him. He's not woke. He's a Bush. He doesn't hate Trump. It's a no.
Speaker 1: Bush has never been more popular to these people now because the alternative to them is so True. It's actually come full circle. Like, we all miss George w. Where's he?
Speaker 0: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Oh, got it. But, no. No. I think I've been at this long enough, and I think you're not gonna see you know, if we were double boxed, like you and I are on YouTube right now, the 2 people would know each other. You know what I mean?
There's there it's not like we're and people who know me and have been interviewed by me about their movies and about their lives and whatever, they'll see that guy. You know, you're not gonna see a totally unrecognizable person. Just like, oh, I didn't know he knew anything about the terrible things that are happening in the UK right now and, you know, who our players are in government and, you know, all the things that that I can bring.
Speaker 0: Well, look. I wanna say that we've gotten to know each other pretty well since our dual traumas. And I have found you to be absolutely delightful. Just such a good, nice guy. But, also, as I said, very insightful, very smart, very well read, very thought out on so many issues that just don't get to shine through given the nature of the way the 22 minutes are structured.
So I will be a listener. I will be a participant on episode 1, and I will be a listener regularly, Billy. And I'm thrilled you've chosen to do it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Meaghan, I have to tell you, I'm very just you know this. I love you, and I love your husband, Doug. What great hair, very tall, very handsome man. And, I love you both.
And you I'm just so impressed by what you have done, and you're just resilient and tough. And I look up to you for it because you went and did it, and now I'm gonna do it just like you, big sis. Way to go.
Speaker 0: I'll be cheering you on and helping you in any way I can, Billy. All the best to you. Don't forget, it's called Hot Mics with Billy Bush, and it's going to be on tune in and YouTube starting Monday. For those of us holding our breath for the past several months as we came up to this election, we can finally exhale. Work can at last be done on the major issues this country is facing, one of the most significant being our national debt.
The fact is we're broke, and that debt is a house of cards for our nation that cannot be quickly dismantled. So the strategy remains the same. You might wanna diversify your savings. This is why I wanna tell you about Birch Gold. So many things are out of our control, out of our president's control, so it can be important to have a safe haven for your savings.
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Text MK to 9 8 9 898 and claim your eligibility for free silver today. Next, we turn to the Hollywood legal drama that has the world talking. Stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have filed dueling lawsuits against one another now, well, sort of, following their box office hit movie this past summer. The pair starred in the best selling book turned film, It Ends With Us, which is, in essence, about domestic violence. It premiered in August.
Here's just a bit from the trailer.
Speaker 3: If one day you have a daughter What would you say to her? She came here and said the person she loved was hurting her.
Speaker 0: What would you
Speaker 1: say to her?
Speaker 0: None of this
Speaker 3: As hard as this choice is,
Speaker 0: we break the pattern or the pattern breaks us. Following the success of this film, legal filings now pulling back the curtain on what's reported to be, let's just say, a less than friendly atmosphere on set. Blake Lively has filed a lawsuit against her costar and the director and producer of the film, Justin Baldoni, and the production company, excuse me, behind the film, alleging sexual harassment. And then she claims an alleged smear campaign to destroy her reputation. She claims that alleged smear campaign was retaliation against her for raising complaints of sexual harassment in the first place.
Well, now Justin Baldoni has filed his own lawsuit, not against Blake Lively, not yet, but against The New York Times, which broke this story in late December for what he and his legal team says is The Times' totally irresponsible defamatory reporting on Lively's claims with the which The Times is accused of just taking and running with, notwithstanding substantial evidence, says Baldoni's lawyer, that they're full of hot air. Justin Baldoni's attorney is Brian Friedman. He's my own attorney too and my friend. And he joins me now to discuss the legal drama and to get to the bottom of what's going on with this real life Hollywood drama. Brian, great to have you.
How are you?
Speaker 6: I'm great. And it's great to see you, and I'm so happy for your all your success.
Speaker 0: Oh, you're the best. I told the audience the story in the first hour when I had Billy Bush on about how you and I met when you were taking my deposition and how a a beautiful friendship was born, which just never happens.
Speaker 6: Yeah. That was that that was a one of a kind, moment. Isn't it?
Speaker 0: Totally. And it's funny because Brian and I grew very close. We have a a beautiful friendship. But the only person, in my house that Brian Friedman loves more than me is my husband, Doug, because these 2 were, like, thick as thieves to that whole NBC nightmare.
Speaker 6: True. And and also the kind of husband Doug is, I strive to be. And he's such a great man, he's such a great writer, such a great person, and, and I'm so happy that he's yours because, you know, you deserve that kind of love, truly.
Speaker 0: You're the best. You are the best. Okay. So that's the sweet side of Brian. It's there.
You have to get to know him better. But he also knows how to fight, and he uses his powers for good against major media companies that crap all over their talent, think they can get away with it because they're major media companies, and the talent doesn't usually have the resources to fight back. So he's helped a bunch of people who have gotten completely screwed over. And Brian doesn't care about Party. He doesn't care about, you know, which company it is.
He fights for the ostracized loner who's getting dumped on by these companies, which leads us to the Blake Lively situation. Now she would say, in this situation, she's the victim. Baldoni's the bad guy. And just to lay it out for the audience in a little bit more detail, what she's claiming is that even though she was a much bigger star than Justin Baldoni, who I never heard of before this lawsuit, she's the much bigger star, and she's married to an even bigger star than she is, Ryan Reynolds, that she came in and onto this project and started to get harassed and mistreated by Justin and some others. And that when she then demanded that all of her concerns be rectified, that he did it, but that he was basically lying in wait for when the film would get released, in case she went public with what happened, that he and his PR team determined to bury her, to ruin her, and that this, wave of bad press we did see about Blake Lively when the film came out this past summer was not organic.
It was totally orchestrated by Justin and his team, and they've gotten their hands on a bunch of texts, especially amongst the PR team, but a couple involving Justin, that seem to suggest they were ready to, quote, destroy her and to ruin her reputation. But I'll say one thing. The evidence that then they actually did it is far less fruitful. Right? The the the text about, like, we could.
Here's what we might do if we need to. Those are everywhere. The text proving they did far less, ubiquitous in this complaint. And what you've said now in your lawsuit against The Times is don't even believe the text that you see in the Lively lawsuit because they're seriously misrepresented, omitting major facts that would give them an entirely different meaning, never mind greater context. And that's where I wanna bring you in.
So tell us what we don't know about this fight between these 2.
Speaker 6: Well, what you don't know is is a lot. Right? Because Blake Lively dominated the media. What they did was they worked with The New York Times. Republicists worked directly with The New York Times.
They shared, illegally obtained text messages. They shared those together. They concocted a complaint that they filed with the Civil Rights Division. They omitted texts that would have provided context, texts that were in the exact same string that would have provided context of what was really going on. And in fact, they actually removed emojis from texts that show that there was satire and there was joking around by the PR crisis agents.
I mean, the PR crisis agent, was brought in because actually Blake Lively's publicist, Leslie Sloan, was planting stories negative to Justin. And all Justin wanted to do, and it's all through the text messages, if the New York Times apparently reviewed a 1,000 or more pages of text messages, they would have seen it. Justin never wanted to hurt her, never wanted to be negative to her. He wanted to protect the film, he wanted to protect himself and he wanted to protect her from making negative allegations about him that were made up. And that they're proven in this case that you can see in late July before Melissa Nathan, the crisis PR person was hired, you can see Leslie Sloan planting stories.
We have evidence of it, the young kids would call it receipts, we call it evidence, and, and it's all over the place. There are text messages that refute every single thing in that camp in that complaint. And it's just disgusting when you go after someone, you try to destroy their life and and actually the evidence shows something different. Blake Lively was no victim here. She was she was in control.
She was in power, and she took over this film.
Speaker 0: So for those who are not in the Hollywood world, what is wrong with her taking over the film? She's a big star. Her name is what made it. It's what got eyeballs on it. How unusual is it, as you allege in your lawsuit, to have an actress come in and start editing scenes, taking over the final cut, excluding the director from it.
The director and 2 editors on the film, in exchanges that we have now that we'll be posting on megankelly.com, are talking openly about how it's about to air, it's about to hit screens, and they haven't seen it because she appears to have wrested control from them. So how unusual is that?
Speaker 6: I've never seen it before in my 30 plus year career in Hollywood. And, an executive producer is below a producer in the film world. An executive producer signed up to be an executive producer and that's it, and an actress, and that's what she was supposed to be. As the time progressed in this film, she decided that she wanted to be a producer. She applied to be a producer, she went and got the dailies, she started to make edits, she wanted to be part of the editing team, there were people hired, like human beings actually hired to do the editing job who had done work as editors, she wanted to be part of that team.
The next thing you know, she took over the editing. She started making threats that she wouldn't promote the movie, that she wanted to be in control of marketing of the movie, that she would do nothing in terms of promotion unless she was the actual editor, she came up with her own cut of the film, which is, you have a director who has a cut and she had a competing cut of the film. And for an executive producer to have a competing cut of a film is incredibly bizarre, but when she starts threatening people and saying, I'm not going to promote the film, I'm not going to do anything unless you use my cut. That's when it starts to be awfully, you know, awfully incendiary. And the concern really is that she used these allegations of sexual harassment and she used these allegations of bullying, to try and leverage her position so she could be the de facto director in the case.
And as you'll hear in the voice note, as you'll see in the evidence, she had Justin sitting in a basement in his own movie with his friends and family during the premiere of the movie, which should have been the biggest night of his career. He was sitting in the basement while she was not allowing him to be part of the premiere.
Speaker 0: Here is some of that which we have here exclusively Justin Baldoni speaking to, what he called his dream team, those who had been helping him edit the films and and get it to, finality, lamenting the fact that he was put in the basement on the premiere of his own movie, he says, per Blake's demands. Take a listen to that, voice text in part.
Speaker 7: Think about this. On what, you know, could have been one of the most beautiful nights of my life career wise, I literally was sent to the basement with my whole all my friends and family for over an hour. Because, I I wasn't allowed to be seen. She didn't want me anywhere near her or the rest of the cast. So they ushered me off the carpet, and they sent us down to the basement.
We were down there together. My friends and family, the people that love me the most, and we start laughing because of the ridiculousness of this whole thing. And I realized, like, on a night that was supposed to be so materialistically joyful, I was in the basement with the people that I love the most, and we were all joyful and laughing, because none of that shit matters. None of it. That's not why we're in the business.
That's not why the 3 of us are in this business is to attend a premiere like that and be celebrated. We're in this business because we are artists, and we believe in what we do, and because we wanna create art that touches people's hearts and souls and can move people, and that's what we did. That's what you both did. And I believe that will follow each of us and that truth will prevail and that light and love will win.
Speaker 0: So Brian and by the way, that'll be posted on megankelly.com. But to those who say the reason she wanted him nowhere near her at the premiere is because he'd been sexually harassing her and then retaliating against her with a smear campaign in the press after, you know, after the harassment. You know, they say so good. Who could blame her for wanting him in the basement? What say you?
Speaker 6: Let's break down what the sexual harassment is. I mean, we've we've just, you know, been through the Me Too movement. We've heard all sorts of serious allegations of sexual harassment that are really meaningful to victims and really important and whatnot. Blake Lively, if she was sexually harassed to such a degree in this film and in this situation, she wouldn't have returned to the film. And they had sat down and they had talked about what her complaints were.
The unfortunate thing is she actually didn't read the book and didn't understand what the book was about. And as a result of that, the complaints are things like she, he had gone into her trailer when she was breastfeeding, to which there are text messages that address that. There were complaints, that Jamie Heath, Justin's partner, had shown pornography. If you look at the actual complaint that they filed, it says that that's pornography. What Jamie Heath showed her was a still video of a home birth because they were discussing a scene about birthing.
And that's not pornography. And if you get down to the specific allegations, I mean, what this film was about was about domestic violence. This film was about sex scenes that involve rough, behavior and domestic violence and serious issues like that. And at every turn to the extent that Justin, anybody felt uncomfortable in any way on the film, Justin took responsibility for it. They, in fact, they met at Ryan Reynolds' house, in New York.
They went over a 17 point list of things. They had come to an agreement, although Justin and Jamie did not agree that these things that were spoken about were warranted at all. They said, well, of course, we won't come into your trailer if you don't want us to. Of course, we won't do these things. And they're really simple concepts and simple things and even in their own complaint, they admit that ever since they met in January, that everything ran smoothly for the rest of the set.
And then all of a sudden, when Blake Lively decides that she's not going to do any type of press with Justin. She's not gonna let him at the premier. She's not going to be seen in a photo with him in any kind of the press. She decides that that that you know, and and all of a sudden, the fans, you know, people aren't stupid out there. They're looking and seeing that, oh, hold it.
The entire cast has unfollowed Justin. And there's no explanation for it. There's not even an email. And hold it, they're not together in any of the marketing. Why is that?
Is there something going on with the 2 of them? And then you start to see the stories planted by Leslie Sloan. You start to see them on August 8th and it's very clear what's being planted. There are evidence for all these points. There are text messages for all these points.
And unlike any case that I've handled in my entire career, just the one case we're going to put every single text message, every single document, everything on a website for everyone in the public to read, come to their own conclusions, and they can determine whether or not there was sexual harassment here, there was a smear campaign, or there was retaliation because we have proof and receipts that absolutely and unequivocally show this is not true.
Speaker 0: Alright. Let's go through some of them because what she alleges in her complaint is that there was a twofold plan. This is Blake Lively's allegation. That aimed to both, a, conceal the pattern of harassment and other misconduct by mister Baldoni, his partner, mister Heath, and their company Wayfarer, and, b, retaliate against miss Lively by battering her image, harming her businesses, and causing her and her family severe emotional harm. To me, as an attorney, I want I separate those out because to conceal the alleged pattern of harassment to which he's referring and other misconduct by Baldoni, Heath, and Wayfair to me, Brian, you tell me, but I feel like that's that's fine.
Let's assume he did do the harassment. I know you deny all that. But even if he did do the harassment, what's best for the film is definitely not to have that hitting just as the film hits the big screen. I don't think there's a cause of action for concealing bad news about the star of the film. It's point b that could potentially spell legal trouble, which is that they then allegedly retaliated against Blake Lively by orchestrating a smear campaign against her.
And the reason they did it was because she raised sexual harassment complaints. Let's just focus on number 2 for for now. Is it a problem in your mind? Like, if if you've got somebody on the show, on the movie, who's alleged sexual harassment, and then when the movie hits, she, directly or through her PR person, leaks that, starts generating PR to make the movie look bad, to make the costar look bad, I was a poor victim. He was a cad.
And leaks all this. Is it necessarily retaliatory for the person being accused to say, a, no. I didn't. And, b, this person should not be trusted. This person is not a good person.
Right? I I I just don't understand legally the difference because you're not allowed to retaliate, you know, to punish somebody in essence for report for accusing in this way. But, also, if it's false, does a man have the right to come out and say, don't believe her. This is a bad person, either directly or through PR people.
Speaker 6: Well, remember that that that there was actually no allegation of sexual harassment until the lawsuit was filed. I mean, that's when the allegations of sexual harassment came up. They didn't come up before them.
Speaker 0: Well, that was in the 17 point memo that you referenced. She was raising some of these issues.
Speaker 6: Well, that's right. But I mean, in terms of the public, she raised them in the 17 point memo, they had agreed to 17 points, that they would agree that there were simple points that everybody would go back and she would return to work. There's a signed document saying they worked things out. In the actual lawsuit itself, it says everything went fine from then on. So, and the question really is why was Crisis PR brought in?
Crisis PR was brought in because there were negative stories about Justin that were being leaked to the media, not about sexual harassment. There were negative stories about Justin being brought in saying no one likes him. He's been a problem on set, stories like that and crisis PR was brought in to say, this won't be good for the film. Crisis PR was also brought in because there were negative stories about Blake Lively, not that Justin created, but that existed out there. I mean, fans and media can be brutal.
They go back through your history. They go back and look and say, what interviews have you given before? How have you treated people? How are you promoting the film in a way where you're promoting your hair care products and in a way that's not true and genuine as far as domestic violence is concerned. They go back and they see those videos.
They bring them out organically. That's not Justin doing that. That's not Justin's crisis PR doing it. In fact, what he wants is a successful movie. He wants to protect the movie and all through the text messages you'll see over and over and over again, him saying, I don't wanna hurt her.
I wanna protect her. Let's give her what she wants. Let's help her. That's what he's doing.
Speaker 0: Well, and I see a lot of Justin saying, we're we're not planting these stories. Right? Like, he's going to the PR team, seeing some of the bad PR against her saying, this isn't us. And they're saying, no. This isn't us.
There is an organic campaign unfolding against her. But there are very troubling texts between this crisis PR person, Melissa Nathan, and the regular PR person about what they'd like to do to Blake. And that's what's taken up most of the headlines. I have absolutely no use for PR people. I really can't stand them.
I know they have a job to do. But, like, just my own experience have been so negative that it's hard to think this is all defensible. But now that it's gone legal, you have to look at whether this is legal or actionable. Here's one of the the here's the thing I wanna start with. Alright?
I'm gonna give you your due, and then we're gonna get into what disturbed me about it. They definitely misrepresented some of the texts amongst these 2 gals. There is one in the Blake Lively lawsuit and it quotes a Daily Mail headline from August of 24. And this is Blake's lawsuit in paragraph 23. On August 16th, miss Nathan circulated a Daily Mail article entitled, is Blake Lively set to be canceled?
String of hard to watch hard to watch videos that have surfaced following tone deaf q and a to promote It Ends With Us could tarnish her golden Hollywood image for good. To which miss Abel, she was the other PR person, responded, speaking to miss Nathan. Wow. You really outdid yourself with this piece. And miss Nathan replied, that's why you hired me.
Right? I'm the best. Now this was in The New York Times. And when I read it, I was like, they've got them dead to rights. They've there's these 2 PR hacks sitting there saying, like, we planted this Daily Mail piece saying she's gonna be canceled.
She's a bad person, and they're celebrating it. And in your lawsuit against The New York Times, you offer up the rest of that text exchange. And it and I don't just mean what follows, like, in a line or 2. Right after, on the same line as the lines that are quoted in the lawsuit, in the complaint, and in The Times, there is, for example, the sarcasm emoji and, more importantly, an explicit denial by Melissa Nathan as she writes this that it wasn't her. So what the full text exchange that you've offered now shows is Jen Abel saying to Melissa, wow.
You really outdid yourself with this piece with the sarcasm emoji emoji, which is an upside down smiley face. They took out the sarcasm emoji in The New York Times. Then Melissa responds, that's why you hired me. Right? I'm the best.
They remove the next part where she says, heading to the airport, and there's a drive through the jungle that there's going to be no reception around for 24 hours, joke, 45 minutes, and there's a response about that joke. And then, Nathan says, same date, August 16th, Damn. This is unfair because it's also not me. Everything now looks like it's me, maybe not to you. And Jen Abel responds, no.
It totally does look like his side, but they are saying to one another, but it's not us. So, I mean, the full context and text, Brian, of the full exchange shows these 2 PR agents saying, she's getting hit. You know, I know you think it's me. It's not me.
Speaker 6: It's actually worse than that because the first text in that whole chain is a reporter who is saying to to, Melissa Nathan is showing her the article for the first time. You can tell that this is the first time that Melissa Nathan sees the article. She says, what? Blake like Lively is could Blake Lively be canceled? I mean, she's seeing it for the first time and saying, wow, I mean, this looks like it's me, but this is not me.
And you can tell that this is the first time Melissa Nathan has learned about this. She forwards that piece with the reporter to Jen Abel. So Jen Abel knows that Melissa Nathan is learning about it for the first time. She knows she's saying this isn't me. She knows that that that that that she doesn't want this to be her and that's not what they're trying to do.
And she sends it to Jen Abel. And Jen Abel looks at it and makes a joke. And and and, you know, with with an upside down emoji, that's sarcasm. They remove the emoji, they remove the piece about the reporter showing that Melissa saw it for the first time then and obviously couldn't be a part of it, and they remove the rest of the text messages showing that they're joking around. I mean, it's absolutely appalling what they did.
And if the New York Times is correct by their own response, we've done incredible reporting, we've done complete and accurate reporting. We've reviewed thousands of pages of text messages and documents and other things. And, you know, and we stand by our story. Really? Well, if you really reviewed these, then you would have reviewed those text messages and you would have known or should have known that this was actually all satire and that Melissa Nathan could have never planted that story because she didn't know about the story and she learned about it for the first time from the reporter and denied it right away.
And there's a plethora of text messages throughout saying this is not what they wanna do. And Justin instructing them, we're not planting stories, we're not using bots, None of
Speaker 0: that. Okay. But I I grant you all of that, and it seems very clear that Blake Lively's legal team made some very critical material omissions in their complaint, and so did the times, which is not okay. But if you look at the complaint and, again, this is just these are just allegations, and now you get the chance to deny them or respond to them. It doesn't sound good.
The the PR people talking about, you know, Blake and Justin. You know? Justin looking for assurances. He wants to be, calmed down, that they have a plan to to fight back if, you know, she does come out against him, that he didn't he didn't feel good about the document they sent over, and he wants to feel better. And then I'm just trying to pull up some of them.
There's some, like, here's Jen Abel saying, to Melissa Nathan, I'm having reckless thoughts of wanting to plant pieces this week of how horrible Blake is to work with, just to get ahead of it. She's putting us through hell. Melissa Nathan, same. Am I already off the record? Spoke to the editor of the Daily Mail because she's my friend.
She's ready when we are, says Melissa Nathan. Jennifer Abel. I think we really need to put the social combat plan then into motion. Melissa, Nathan, so do I. Let's see.
That's that's one representative. I'll get to some others. But they seem pretty explicit in their discussion about how it's time. Let's get her.
Speaker 6: Sure. And and and I think, you know, we we all need to understand what crisis PR is about, right? So they give options and they provide options of how they can clarify things, how they can correct things, how they can change things, how they can put things out there that are true and positive about someone. It's the difference here is that Justin never authorized anything And actually there's nothing that was done that was nefarious or in any way was any type of smear campaign. And in fact, it's just the opposite.
I mean, you would expect someone who's actually worried about himself, worried about the film, frankly worried about Blake Lively's own reputation and the effect on the film. To be prepared to have someone just in case something comes out that is negative about them, it is negative about the film or anything else. It's not like it's all a part of Hollywood. Everyone has crisis, a PR team that they can bring in that might help that. The question isn't whether someone came in and said we have options.
The question is, was anything done that was untoward or were articles placed or anything else? And what you see in the complaint, if you carefully look at it, the only article that they even claim that was placed was this one article, is Blake Lively about to be canceled? And there's unequivocal proof in there. There is a there are text messages that were left out of the complaint purposely, that were left out of the New York Times article purposely that completely refute that either Melissa, Jen, or anyone else, Justin, had anything to do with planting that story or even knowing about that story before they learned about it.
Speaker 0: So let's see here. Problem, because there's one thing for the PR hacks to sit around saying, this is how we'll get her. You know, you've hired us to advise you. If we need to get her, if she unleashes the hounds against you, this is what we'll do. That is one thing.
And it is quite another to prove then they actually did it. And I have to say that I I say this not just because I I'm your friend. I have no absolutely no feelings about this guy, Justin Baldoni. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I reviewed some of his social media, and he seems kind of ridiculous with his toxic masculinity, lamentations, and so on. But that's fine.
That's me. So I'm not on his side. But my point is simply, I just don't see it. In their incendiary complaint where they're trying to do their best to bash him and the PR team, I don't see that the second link loop closed of, and then here's where they did it. It's just all supposition.
They don't have these great texts saying, look what I got placed in the New York Post.
Speaker 6: Right. It's it's actually even worse than that. It's it's not just that they can't prove or don't have any evidence to show that it was done. There's actual evidence. There are text messages.
There are receipts. Right? That absolutely show Blake Lively's publicist, Leslie Sloan, placing, you know, actual stories and and hit pieces about Justin, in the daily mail and and in TMZ. And and we have text with the actual reporters that that show that this is exactly what's going on.
Speaker 0: So this is at the Daily Mail. I saw the the the text between the Daily Mail and you and some others in there, and the Daily Mail reporter is saying that this Melissa Nathan, who was at the heart of it for Justin, she was the crisis PR person they brought in, did not did not bash Blake Lively to him and was not doing that. And you've got Blake's person saying, I know it was Melissa. And you've got the Daily Mail saying, actually, no. Melissa's not doing it.
That
Speaker 6: that's exactly right. And then you have Blake's person actually in an exchange with the Daily Mail reporter changing a story completely to go from was Blake Lively difficult on the set to change that into does the cast and crew all hate Justin? I mean, it's that's when you start to talk about a smear campaign. You start to look at it from that standpoint. And for the New York Times, not to have looked at those text messages, not to have caught them, not to have bothered to ask questions about them is just the reckless disregard for the truth.
Speaker 0: She does deny that. I should point out to the audience that in Blake's complaint, they deny that they have unleashed any sort of campaign hurting or hitting Justin. They say that explicit that they haven't. I I realize you contest that, but that's a point of dispute. I did find the Justin Baldoni text to which I was referring earlier.
Let me just read it. It's him, let's see, expressing concerns that the PR people's written plan was insufficiently aggressive to, quote, protect him. That's what Blake Lively is alleging. And they includes include a screen grab of a text in which he says to said team, morning, not in love with the document they sent. Not sure I'm feeling the protection I felt on the call.
And then it's this next text exchange that's made all the papers. In response, the 2 PR ladies start discussing that message from Justin, which was to one of them. So Jennifer Abel says to Melissa Nathan, the crisis gal, okay. Blah blah blah. I'm gonna confidentially send you something.
He's texting me and Jamie on the side just to arm you before this call. I think you guys need to be tough and show the strengths of strength of what you guys can do in these scenarios. He wants to feel like she can be buried. Then Melissa responds to Jennifer. Of course.
But, you know, when we send over documents, we can't send over the work we would or could do because that could get us in a lot of trouble. We can't write it down to him. We can't write, we will destroy her. We will go to this. We will do this.
We will do that. We will do this. It has to look he has to look at it as an information document for us to be armed with. That's all. Imagine if a document saying all the things that he wants ends up in the wrong hands.
You know we can bury anyone, but I can't write that to him. I will. I'll be very tough. And then, Brian, on top of that, they submit in the next paragraph, 15, a a text from Justin to the PR team, miss Abel, Jennifer Abel, with a screen grab of Blake Lively. I'm sorry.
I forgot not blah blah. Bieber. Hailey Bieber. And it's a it's an article about Hailey Bieber allegedly bullying women, and he writes to the team, this is what we would need. So their allegation is everybody's talking about how he needs to feel better.
We will bury. We we are totally capable of burying her. We're prepared to do that. And then you got him saying, here's an example of what I what I would need, you know, dismissing her as a bully. So, you know, you and I in other context might say all this is circumstantial evidence that supports the plan, though the execution of the plan, the actual articles, we may not have in hand, but there's a supposition that they close the deal.
Speaker 6: But let let's actually break it down. Because what you and I would do, because you're a great lawyer. And if you weren't amazing at what you do, you would be the best lawyer in town, that's for sure. So So let's break it down. So the first thing they say, and you went over it was, the plan wasn't sufficiently aggressive for him.
You'll find the word aggressive in the complaint. What you won't find is the word aggressive in the text message because he never wants something that's aggressive. He wants something that's protective, and there's a big difference. Aggressive means you're gonna go out and attack. Protective means if something comes out, I wanna make sure I'm protected.
So he says the plan doesn't look sufficiently protective to me. Meaning that you got all these attack things in the plan. I don't want to attack anyone. Right? I just want to make sure there's not attacks on us.
Everything in his words is protection, not planting stories, not doing anything offensive, not doing anything with bots or anything like that. And then, you know, as you as you walk through that text message string, it's so taken out of context. Because what they're saying is, we can't put this in writing to him. Right? They can't put it writing to him because he's expressed over and over and over again, he doesn't wanna go on the offensive.
He doesn't wanna start, you know, attacking anyone. He wants to actually protect her. She actually he actually wants to protect the film, and he wants to protect himself from negative press. That's exactly what he wants to do. He wants to be protective.
That's all through there. They realize that if they give him a plan that's an attacking plan or saying we're going to bury her or anything like that, he's going to say, we're not hiring you. We don't want anything to do with this. That's what they're talking about. This is all taken out of context.
And if they would have included other text messages, you would have seen that to be the clear intention. It's easy to pluck and hand and and and and cherry pick certain text messages that say certain things, but this is nothing of the sort. And let's talk about the Hailey Bieber text. Right? What he's talking about is, this is what we need.
We we don't need to do this. We need actually people to come out and say, she's a bully, if that's what happens. Right? Like people will come out naturally, organically and say that. Nobody planted the Hailey Bieber story, that was from a fan who put that out there.
Speaker 2: What he's saying is what we need is, as a protective plan, is that people come out and tell the truth. And and if Blake Lively is a bully, that they're gonna come out
Speaker 6: and say that. That's what he wants as a plan, not to plant stories or anything else. As a matter of fact, that's belied by all of the texts that he's sent. Right? He's set
Speaker 0: in the war room. This go back this goes back back to my early on question, which is, is it retaliation if somebody who's accused you of sexual harassment or, you know, acts that she finds unacceptable on a set, if you deny them but say, okay. I'll I'll implement your reforms. And then she, through a PR person, later comes out and starts hitting you publicly, in the press. Is it is it retaliation as a legal matter for you directly or through your PR agents to say, she's a bully.
This is a bad person. Like, I just I'm not sure it is. I if you are doing it to punish somebody for the for the sexual harassment allegations, that's one thing. But if you are in the position of denying, it's been settled, the person's admitted that everything's been okay since then, and then you have creative differences, she's trying to arrest control of the film and all that, and she's trying to undermine you publicly. And then you kinda say, you're kind of an asshole.
I don't know that that's even legally retaliatory.
Speaker 6: It's actually not retaliatory. It's actually it it's called providing a defense. It's called like the United States of America. Apparently, some people think they can just make any allegation they want. And you can't say no, that's not true.
And you can't say no, that's not what happened. But there's no public allegation at that time that he's engaged in any type of sexual harassment or anything like that. So this whole idea of the smear campaign has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the protection from whatever she is going to say about him. And in fact, she used all of this to take over the film.
And what he's complaining about frankly is sitting there having as a director having a film taken away from him, having editors who are real human beings, right? Who like have lives, you know, not being able to see the actual film, you know, at the premiere, even at the premiere, they're gonna see the film they edited for the first time because she took over the editing. Right? You know, these are the things that are being complained about. Right?
And and is he allowed to deny that he sexually harassed her? Absolutely. It's the United States of America. You can deny it. There's not there's not a smear campaign going on because she made those allegations.
There's a protective campaign that's in existence if needed in case she starts to say things like, oh, well, he was a terrible director or everybody hated him on set or, you know, he shouldn't have never been in the position that he was in or he did a terrible job. Anything that was negative like that or the film wasn't proper or appropriate or even bring your florals, bring your friends, like we're going to domestic violence, Right? We're going to a domestic violence movie and and and she wants to turn it into a Barbie set. So, like, those are the things that he wants to protect. He wants to protect her frankly, even from her own.
Own, kind of lack of social proper graces in knowing what this film is about and not turning it into a sideshow that it's some party, there's a message here. He always cared about the message. He wanted to protect the domestic violence victims and that community. And that's who he is as a person, and that's who he is as a filmmaker. And at the end of the day, he was willing to give up all of these rights to her because of her threats, and because he thought the message was more important than his own, you know, than his own, frankly, his own career.
Speaker 0: The, timeline of disc of discussions between Justin and the editors does show a guy who had ceded a lot to Blake Lively. He writes in February or March time frame 2024. I let her in. What's best for the movie is that I suck it up, and I let her in. They point out in this text exchange, one of the editors, that she's been getting what she wants for this entire movie.
That's well, that's what, Justin responds. The editor says, I want Blake to feel like she's getting what she wants, so we can move on from this need of hers. He responds, she's been getting what she wants the entire movie. There's the him acknowledging that Blake has approval over specific scenes. She redid the so called nudity rider to get approval of what happens to the young version of her character, which isn't even played by Blake.
They lament in this text exchange, again, posted at megankelly.com, that the editors and the director are not allowed to look at the actress's cut. Okay. We'll continue taking the high road. And the editors talking about how they have not seen the movie before it's about to be shown at Book Bonanza, her cut. Justin saying they were supposed to show ours, and then I was uninvited.
The whole thing's pretty cruel and intense. Now, this is, you know, this is the other side of the story. I want the audience to understand. This is not it's we're not taking a position here on who's right and who's wrong and what's out there, but all you've been hearing is what a cad this guy is. He's been canceled, drop dumped by his agent.
Agents are disgusting, at, William Morris Endeavor. He had some award taken away from him, you know, that acknowledged his fight in the past for women, and he's doing a domestic violence movie. And every single newspaper has got him out there as, like, a Harvey Weinstein type for god's sake. This is the other side of the story, and there's more to it. Up next, we're gonna talk about what what did happen in the press with respect to break Blake Lively, over the summer, and was his team behind any of it?
Okay. We're gonna go through some of the examples. Brian, on behalf of Justin, has filed a lawsuit against The New York Times for what he says is their irresponsible false reporting, where they just took Blake Lively's allegations, he says, and put them in their paper without contacts and without checking to see whether they were in fact true and accurate. By the way, are you going to sue Justin Bell or are you going to sue Blake Lively too?
Speaker 6: Into oblivion, Megan. Wait till you see this lawsuit.
Speaker 0: Oh, boy. For what?
Speaker 6: I'm just going to tell you, you're going to have to wait and see. It's coming up soon. But it's all going to be based on evidence. It's not going to be just a lawsuit. It's going to be the kind of lawsuit that is full of evidence, admissions, documents, which prove exactly what she did and how she bullied her way through the process to take over the movie and used her PR people to try and destroy Justin.
And that's what it's going to be essentially about. But there will be a number of causes of action. There's a number of different defendants here. Stephanie Jones will be all over this complaint. That is the PR agent who was supposed to be working for Justin Baldoni.
There's Leslie Sloan, who's another PR agent who will be part of this lawsuit that was Blake Lively's. Blake Lively will be sued, and, you know, and we're carefully considering other people that will be sued also.
Speaker 0: And some Ryan Reynolds?
Speaker 6: Was a surprise. Ryan Reynolds, for sure.
Speaker 0: Oh, wow. He was involved in this to some extent. There was a meeting at their apartment at which, you alleged that there were some senior production, people who witnessed him allegedly berate Justin Baldoni to the point where these 3rd parties felt upset that they didn't do more to stand up for Justin, that they thought Ryan Reynolds was so abusive. I think he would say, I was standing up for my wife who'd been sexually harassed by this guy and so on. But what role did he have in all of this?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, arguably, you know, for the first time at the premiere, you find out that Blake Lively tells people that all of a sudden he wrote a scene in the movie. Shocking everybody, shocking Sony, shocking the production staff. It's the first time they're hearing it. And Justin handles that really, really well and doesn't want to say she's a liar or doesn't want to say that's inappropriate or doesn't want to say that's part of someone else's job. And he treats her very well about that.
But what Ryan Reynolds has seemingly done, right, is used his power and influence to not only help Blake Lively take over this movie, but, you know, he's used it, you know, on on Deadpool and to make fun of Justin Baldoni.
Speaker 0: Do you think
Speaker 2: do you
Speaker 0: think that's what he did? We have a clip where his character Deadpool, which is very popular in this movie, acts more like more like the Justin Baldoni that I said turned me off with the, like, I'm against toxic masculinity. And, there's a question about whether he was taking a shot at Justin. Here's the clip.
Speaker 1: Sorry about that. Come here, girl. Who are you? Oh, I'm Deadpool. And I guess you're Deadpool too.
Speaker 8: But in here, everybody calls me Nicepool. Oh my goodness. Wait till you see Lady Poole. She is gorgeous. She just had a baby too and can't even tell.
Speaker 6: I don't think you're supposed to say that.
Speaker 8: That's okay. I identify as a feminist. Right.
Speaker 0: What do you make of that?
Speaker 6: What I make of that is that if your wife is sexually harassed, you don't make fun of Justin Baldoni. You you you don't make fun of the situation. You take it very seriously. You file HR complaints. You raise the issue and you follow a legal process.
What you don't do is mock the person and turn it into a joke. There's no question it relates to Justin. I mean, anybody that can watch that hair bun, the comment about the pregnancy. I mean, it's pretty obvious what's being done. But again, like if somebody is seriously sexually harassed, you don't make fun of it.
It's a serious issue.
Speaker 0: The, the press for Blake did get bad in the summer of 2024, this past summer. And the one clip that went everywhere involved a young reporter who was interviewing what I my understanding is Blake, but you can't totally see it in this clip, was about 8 months pregnant. And the reporter remarked on Blake's baby bump. And then, Blake, I'm gonna play it, but she snaps back about the reporter's alleged baby bump. The reporter did not have a baby bump.
She wasn't pregnant. And apparently, it had a history of difficulty in getting pregnant, which is why generally you just stay far away for something like that in exchange. But it went very, very viral. And people were saying Blake Lively was inappropriate and a bully, and it wasn't the first time. And then we saw a bunch of videos.
Here it is, with reporter that clip with, reporter Kirsty Flaugh.
Speaker 3: First of all, congrats on your little bump. Congrats on your little bump. Did you guys love wearing those kind of clothes that you Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And,
Speaker 3: you know, working in general
Speaker 2: wants to
Speaker 3: talk about the clothes, but I wonder if they would ask the men about the clothes. I would. Yeah. It's not just the women that that have the clothes.
Speaker 0: But I tell you when
Speaker 3: we get the conversation.
Speaker 0: So there, she was upset about being asked about the clothing. But here's Blake Lively in a different interview with People Magazine talking about her clothing in this particular movie. That that exchange with Kirsty was not about, this particular movie. But here she is totally fine with talking about wardrobe in slot 15.
Speaker 3: I just really loved those patchwork, like, jeans that you have.
Speaker 0: Magnolia pearls. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Those are my real life jeans. Yeah. A lot of that is, like, your stuff. The boots were mine. I love them.
There's these great Louboutins that are also a close-up on them when we're dancing in the bar. Those are mine. I have a few of my husband's shirts and socks randomly in the movie. I have some of Gigi Hadid's sweaters in the movie. I'm yeah.
I don't know. There's a lot of my stuff.
Speaker 0: So the reason I'm showing this to to the audience is that people started noticing that Blake seemed sort of bully ish to this person who has far less power and stature in the industry than Blake does. And why did she do that? It was an and when a woman's 8 months pregnant, it is not abnormal to acknowledge it in an interview in a fun way, but she didn't seem to take well to it. And Fla responded afterwards saying that this whole thing got, you know, publicized, your your lawsuit, saying she is in no way connected to any attempt to smear Blake Lively. She doesn't know the PR people involved in this, and she said as follows.
I'm a journalist. This is what I do for a living. I would never accept money to jeopardize my integrity. I posted the video after I saw the movie, which I didn't like. I had a bad experience with Blake Lively.
At the time, I kind of had enough of Hollywood. I wasn't afraid of being canceled anymore, so I posted the video. So that one, which I think is the most famous example, Brian, the journalist herself is saying she had absolutely no connection to Justin Baldoni or these PR agents that we've been discussing. And is that basically your point that it would you say the vast majority, most, all of the negative press generated about Blake in the summer did not actually originate with this PR team?
Speaker 6: I I would say all of it did not generate with this PR team. I mean, I you know, since I've been involved in this case, I've gotten 50 either texts or emails or things to my firm's website, more than 50 actually about this was my experience with Blake Lively. We weren't allowed to talk to her on the set. We weren't allowed to ask for an autograph. We were instructed this way or that, we were treated like this.
I mean, and these things aren't coming because that we're doing an investigation. These are completely organic. These are based on people's real life experiences. In fact, we've come across evidence that shows that even her own representatives knew that she was threatening and mean and tough and wanted to get her way. This is not something that we wanted out there.
It's not something that Justin wanted out there. In fact, it hurts the movie. It doesn't help the movie. And Justin knew that. And Justin's, this was about domestic violence and getting the message across.
I mean, I'll just give you a couple of examples. In April May of 2024, when Blake Lively got her own cut of the movie, Justin said, in a text message to his editors, the editors and director isn't allowed to look at an actress cut, got it. Well, here we go, we will keep taking the high road. Even when Justin Baldoni's, his version, his cut of the film, the Baldoni cut, I'll call it, scored significantly higher than Blake Lively's cut. And and still Blake Lively's cut was the one that was chosen.
He still didn't do anything publicly, about that. And and that was the one chosen, you you know, because of the threats made by Blake Lively. In fact, we have a source that tells us that some of the cut that she had has some of Baldoni's version in it. I mean, in June of 2024, Blake Lively took over the marketing for the film. Again, there's nothing negative in the press or anything else like that and Justin just wants to take the high road.
Blake is in June of 2024, Blake's cut is chosen to be shown at Book Bonanza and Justin and his editing team haven't even seen it. I mean, they haven't even seen it and faxed it in a text message that they're not allowed to. Justin is shut out. He's giving notes as a direct as a studio, not as a director. He has not seen the locked cut of the film in July of 2024.
And in August 5, 2024, Justin invites the editors to the premiere, but they can't be in the same room with Blake. Justin replies, we won't be in the same room. I was asked not to even come to the premiere. And the editors say, it would be very hard for me to sit and watch the final film for the first time at the premiere. And Justin replies, okay.
Yeah. I haven't seen it either. And, you know, that's when you get to, you know, the voice note. And even in September of 2024, without criticizing Blake at all, he says to the editors, one day we'll finish our cut together. I would of course love to show the world the beautiful version that he did.
And he says in September of 2024, the purpose of the movie, the amount of women who feel seen. That's why we did this, and it worked. And, you know, there are statistical scores of the movie showing that Justin's version, the Baldoni cut, scored higher than Blake Lively's cut.
Speaker 0: With the 135 year old female demo.
Speaker 6: Yes. And notwithstanding, because of her threats that she wouldn't market, the film, that she wouldn't do publicity, that's why her cut was released.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. The she had some problems in promoting the film. She now says that they were told, they agreed with a marketing plan that would not lean into the sadness of domestic violence, that they would lean more into the female empowerment nature of overcoming it, and that, therefore, she didn't promote it in any way that was not on brand for what they had settled on. When she promoted it, she also generated a new round of bad publicity for herself, and it's discussed amongst the PR agents saying, this wasn't us, this was her. Here's an example of Blake Lively being a bit too, perhaps, lighthearted in promoting a film about a very serious subject matter in SOP 13.
Speaker 3: And It Ends With Us is in theaters now, so grab your friends, wear your florals, and head out to see it.
Speaker 2: So if someone understands the themes of this movie, comes across you in public, and and they wanna really talk
Speaker 1: to you, what's the best way
Speaker 2: for them to be able to talk to you about this? How would you recommend they go about it?
Speaker 3: Like asking for, like, my address or my phone number or, like, my location share. We could just location share you, and then we could, So we're making the hot chocolate cookies that that Atlas makes for young Lily in our movie, It Ends With Us. You guys, we talked about our movie. Not at all. Thanks for joining us.
In theaters, August 9th. Yeah. That's a wrap, guys. We got it.
Speaker 0: So this is what this is your point, Brian, that when when she was out there talking about it, she seemed a bit too glib. She was flippant.
Speaker 6: I mean, the public's not stoop not stupid. Right? They they see this, And, you know, everybody is their own investigative journalist, and everybody has their own point of view. And the domestic violence community, I feel like was outraged over it. And, and and again, you know, this wasn't something that Justin pointed to.
Like, it was something Justin wanted to help with, but he couldn't help with it because she had already taken over the marketing campaign. It was her marketing campaign at that point.
Speaker 0: Going back to sort of the underlying dispute between the 2 of them. Because I think a lot of people may be wondering why. Why would Blake Lively work so hard to wrest control of this film away from him? Like, she's a rich person. She's gonna get other movies.
Like, why would she have done this? Isn't it more plausible that she just didn't like him because of the 17 points she raised where,
Speaker 2: you
Speaker 0: know, and that there's quite a bit in there. I'll read just a couple so people know what we're talking about. It turned into a 30 point document that they got promises from Justin he would rectify. I'll just give a couple of examples, but this is what she was saying she was subjected to. When in order to come back to work in January, she said there there can be no more showing nude videos or images of women, including producer's wife to break Blake Lively or her employers, no more mention of mister Baldon Mount Baldoni's or Heath's previous pornography addiction or Blake Lively's lack of porn consumption, no more discussions to Blake Lively and her employees about personal experiences with sex, including as it relates to spouses, no more mentions to Blake Lively or her employees of personal times that physical consent was not given in sexual acts, No more descriptions of their own genitalia to Blake Lively.
Right? So, like, all these are so ugly that it it definitely leaves the reader thinking, these guys are a bunch of jerks. No wonder she hated them.
Speaker 6: So so let let's be really clear about what this 30 point list was. This 30 point list was never provided to Justin or Jamie or anyone else. Never. And I challenge anyone to find an email or a text message where it was provided to them at all. As a matter of fact, they category it's written in such a way it says no more.
No more, like presuming that it happened already. The only thing that was provided to them in writing was the 17 point list, which included things that they wouldn't do anyway. If this 30 point list was so important and that that they had never seen or heard before, frankly, that that showed up for the first time in writing in the complaint of all things. If that was so important, why didn't they say no? Unless you signed the 30 point list, we're not coming back.
The 17 point list were were natural, normal things that they wouldn't do anyway. The 17 point list is a ruse. Putting things in there like no more presupposes it happened before. This is part of just the absolute misrepresentation of what the truth is. It's just not true.
That 30 point list never shown to them.
Speaker 0: Let me ask about some specifics in here because I and I'm just gonna go to the place that hurts. I'll I'll read you the ones that jumped out at me as not good. Not good. Page 48 of her complaint. On another occasion, mister Baldoni and miss Lively were filming a slow dance scene for a montage in which no sound was recorded.
Mister Baldoni chose to let the camera roll and have them perform the scene, but did not act in character as Ryle, which was the name of his character. Instead, he spoke to miss Lively out of character as himself. At one point, he leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, it smells so good. None of this was remotely in character or based on any dialogue in the script, and nothing needed to be said because, again, there was no sound. Mister Baldoni was caressing miss miss Lively with his mouth in a way that had nothing to do with their roles.
When miss Lively later objected to this behavior, mister Baldoni's response was, I'm not even attracted to you. You wanna take that one on?
Speaker 6: Love to take that one on. That that's that's you you you know what? Documents don't lie. People do. So let's go to the footage.
Let's take a look at the footage and let's see exactly what it shows. And, you know, let's talk about the film. Like like we're not making, you know, Bugs Bunny here. Right? Like this is a film about domestic violence.
This is a film about sexual scenes. This is a film, and if Blake Lively had objected to that, why didn't she stop in that moment and say, enough, that's it, I'm not doing this, she doesn't need the money, she doesn't need any of that. I mean, this is so taken out of context and there's footage on all of this. So, you'll be able to see how Blake Lively reacted to it, what she said as a result of it, how she reacted after that scene, you know, as she was walking away from that scene, there is footage of all of that. So all of this will come out.
This is lawyers writing things in such a way that is as salacious as possible to try to have someone, you know, make up for their own, you know, problem with their own reputation. And she wants an excuse. She wants to blame him for that.
Speaker 0: Let's go to paragraph 52. There's a birth scene in the movie. When the birth scene she's the mother. When the birth scene was filmed, the set was chaotic, crowded, and utterly lacking in standard industry protections for filming nude scenes, such as choreographing the scene with an intimacy coordinator, having assigned nudity rider, or simply turning off the monitors so the scene was not broadcast to all crew on set and on their personal phones and iPads. Mister Heath and mister Baldoni also failed to close the set, allowing nonessential crew to pass through while
Speaker 2: miss Lively was mostly nude
Speaker 0: with her legs spread wide in stirrups and only a small piece of fabric covering her genitalia. Among the nonessential persons present that day was Wayfarer cochairman mister Sarawitz who flew in for one of his few set visits. Miss Lively was not provided with anything to cover herself between takes until after she had multiple had made multiple requests. She became even more alarmed when mister Baldoni introduced his, quote, best friend to play the role of the OBGYN when ordinarily a small role of this nature would be filled by a local actor. She felt the selection of mister Baldoni's friend for this intimate role in which the actor's face and hands were in close proxy proximity to her nearly new genitalia for a birth scene was invasive and humiliating.
This here's my note, Brian. I've I've circled it, and this is what my note reads. Bad. Bad. That sounds bad.
Speaker 6: So, Megan, what when was this? Was this after the 17 point list was agreed to?
Speaker 0: I don't know. I don't remember.
Speaker 6: Well, but let let let's put it this way. If it was and her complaint says everything was fine moving forward, you have a little bit of a discrepancy in the document itself. But again, you know, you know, the the greatest part of these complaints about onset behavior,
Speaker 2: is is this is all filmed.
Speaker 6: This is, you know, there's no surprises here. This is all going to be on tape and the truth is all gonna come out of exactly what happened. And just Lively does not strike me as someone, you know, who's not in a position of power. Right? Mhmm.
She she is controlling her own destiny. And and trust me, she's not someone who was taking advantage of any step of this of the of this project. And Well,
Speaker 0: that's one of the weirdnesses of this. She she had more power than he did. For sure. There's no question she had more power than he did. So the thought of her just sitting there like, oh, poor me.
My genitals are exposed. I mean, I it just doesn't seem characteristic. Even those interviews, you can see see she's a very strong personality. Now she wants us to believe she was this shrinking violet on the set being exploited by all these mean guys like Justin Baldoni. I don't know, Brian.
I'm not sure whether this will be bought. The other thing is that I do think we should spend a minute on is, you know, you referenced it in passing, but there there are allegations in here that are already falling apart, like the thing about the breastfeeding on the set and how, allegedly, Justin and his partner, Heath, were barging into her trailer, and, like, watching her breastfeed and looking at her naked breasts without her consent, which would be outrageous if true. But you include in your complaint, the following text exchange between Blake Lively and Justin, where he's acknowledging that she and her baby are sick in some way. I'm sorry. That's the last thing that you needed right now.
I pray it comes and goes with the mild symptoms. I'm here for you anytime. Would love to check-in. I know this week was a lot. I'm committed to making things run smoother.
She responds, our mistake. Molly did get the new pages at 11 last night. She didn't realize they were new, but you can always send them to me as well, please. And then she adds, I'm just pumping in my trailer if you wanna work out our lines. And he responds, copy eating with crew, and we'll head that way.
She says, take your time. Then he says, I'm here. I'll meet you in hair and makeup. She says, okay. I'm sorry just seeing this.
So she says that. She seems to be the one saying, I'm pumping. If you wanna come over, I'm I'm we can work out our lines. Then the other thing is that nude birth scene, which I do think we should talk about Because I was creeped out by this allegation too. She alleges in her lawsuit that that the the partner, Heath, wanted to talk porn with her.
And she felt very uncomfortable, and she was doing this birth scene, and he, like, whipped out a picture or a video of a birth scene with his wife nude. And she felt like this is really inappropriate and uncomfortable. And you write in your complaint against The Times that, this article, based on Lively's internal complaint, sensationally alleges that mister Heath had shown Lively a video of his naked wife, even labeling labeling labeling the footage she did as pornography. This is patently absurd. The video in question was a non pornographic rec recording of Heath's wife and baby during a home birth, a deeply personal one with no sexual overtone.
To distort the benign event into an act of sexual misconduct emblematic of the links to which Lively and her collaborators are willing to go to defame plaintiffs. And you include a screen grab from the video, which I have to say, not only looks absolutely wholesome, but made me wish I had had a home birth of my own kids in a bathtub in my husband's arms the way that like, my point is simply, I'm starting to glean that this is not a truth teller on the other side.
Speaker 6: I you know, there is a complaint filed with the civil rights division that is signed under penalty of perjury as a representative of Blake Lively that this is true and correct. And that complaint says this was Jamie Keith showing her pornography. That take I mean, I wish we could show the picture, but but We're going to. That's not that that's not pornography. And and it's part of it's part of the the artistic creativity of a birth scene that that that they're talking about.
And it's not like he even played the video for her. It's this screenshot of of the first screen. It's anything but pornography. So to swear under penalty of perjury that everything's true and correct and to call that pornography is gonna really be an interesting deposition. Isn't it?
Speaker 0: Mhmm. Well, I think it's not gonna go as well as the one between you and yours truly, Webb. Then, there's the the notion of her saying that Justin Baldoni called her sexy, called somebody else on the set sexy, And you've got, in your complaint against The Times, a text exchange between Blake and Justin in which Blake Lively raises the issue of
Speaker 2: how
Speaker 0: they can make her character look sexier. And she writes, we'll show you both ways. It's something about a hat, but beanie is much sexier. It's the look. Feels TV without and then goes on, especially with a crop top in the snow.
It justifies the rest of the skin and. And so your point is simply, it's one thing for her and her lawsuit suit to say, oh my god. He's, like, calling her sexy, and and then you see they were discussing what would make the character look sexy. So it's like there really are some contexts to the discussions that have been blasted all over The New York Times in this lawsuit. And, I mean, my own feeling in seeing all this, Brian, is just, like, withhold judgment.
You know? We've been doing trial by media for years now, for years, and it doesn't work well. It really doesn't. No one takes the time to go through a responsive document like the one you filed. Most lawyers don't file a responsive document like you filed.
They they don't fight the PR war, and then they lose it. So what's your prediction of where things go for from here?
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, my prediction is is is is that this is gonna get worse and worse for Blake Lively. And the reason it's gonna get worse and worse is people are gonna be more comfortable telling the truth. And what this is about is really the truth. And she's put Jamie Heath and Justin Baldoni in this position of being called sexual predators, sexual harassers. They have no choice but to go all the way, no choice.
So, we're going to go all the way. And the unique thing again in this case is going to be, we're going to put every single text message out there, we're going to put every email out there, We're gonna put every document out there that's relevant to the case, not something that's disrespectful or otherwise would embarrass miss Lively because that's not what we wanna do. But we wanna make sure that people have the facts and people can make their own determinations as to what happened. Sure. Could people have felt comfortable during filming?
Absolutely. It's it's an uncomfortable situation at times when you have sex scenes and when you have domestic violence issues, then that's what you're talking about. But Justin is the kind of person that takes responsibility for it. That if he knows about something that someone feels uncomfortable with, he's willing to change, he's willing to take responsibility for it. That's what, that's who he's about, right?
He's not a sexual predator, not even close. And for her to weaponize that and use that to take over this film, makes me question what's really going on. And this power couple and this power dynamic are using that power to be able to try and really destroy someone's life. You know, both Jamie and Justin are married, they have lives, Justin has children, know? They have to listen and read about this.
It it's it's terrible. It's terrible for their careers. Their careers are over unless we fight back, and we will fight back like no one has ever fought back.
Speaker 0: Do you think Ryan Reynolds was responsible for WME, which I think is his agency that he's represented by, dumping Justin?
Speaker 6: I I I don't know because I don't know the facts of whether he's he's responsible or not, but, certainly, coincidence is an indicator of truth.
Speaker 0: The finally, her lawsuit claims that she suffered too. Claims that her hair company got attacked online, unfairly by bots with no followers, disparaging it. She's got a a line of hair care products. That her booze company she doesn't drink apparently, but she's got a booze company. Same that she has been in bed, unable to function for periods of time, that her children her children, that Ryan Reynolds too has suffered, that they have suffered mightily as a result of this alleged smear campaign against them in response to which you say?
Speaker 6: I I think they're suffering because they filed a lawsuit that is slowly, being shown to be a fabrication.
Speaker 2: I think
Speaker 6: that's where they're suffering. And I think that had they not filed a lawsuit, they wouldn't be suffering. And it's only going to get worse because as we unearth every single document and we put it out there for the public to see the truth, that's where the real suffering is. And they had no business trying to destroy people's lives. But when you back someone in a corner, give them no option and call someone a sexual predator and make up that there's a smear campaign, what do you expect?
People aren't just gonna kowtow to them because they're a power couple.
Speaker 0: We will continue to watch it. Brian Friedman, so great to have you. Thank you so much for sharing so much with
Speaker 6: us. Thank you. And so good to see you. I really appreciate you as a person and, and just love you so much, truly.
Speaker 0: Likewise. We've been through quite a battle together, and, I think we both emerged the better for it. I in your debt, as you know. Well, the one and only Brian Friedman, he did not disappoint. Right?
He's a brilliant lawyer. You can see why I have him on retainer just in case anyone messes with me. And I'd love to know your thoughts on this. Right? I don't I don't really know these characters.
It's not my it's not my world, Hollywood. But I remember seeing the videos of her last summer thinking, yeah, she sounds annoying. And I when I read The Times article outing, you know, his alleged bad I'd never heard his name before. I have not seen the film. The the thing that stood out to me was I don't understand this because she's the one in the power position here.
It's Blake Lively and some guy who pretty much nobody knows. And she's on the set. She's the star. How is it that she got so, you know, bullied and taken advantage of? And then they're talking about how they had meetings with Ryan Ryan Reynolds, like and, again, he's way more powerful than any of the what is Justin Baldoni's interest in alienating, picking on, harassing Blake Lively, and alienating her husband, Ryan Reynolds.
Like, why would he do that? Now maybe he did. You know, maybe he did. Maybe there's something wrong with him. There's a there's a text in his messages where he talks about how we should we should talk about the fact that I'm neurodivergent.
So maybe he is making excuses for bad behavior there. Or maybe she is ex especially sensitive and prone to playing the victim and wanted things just exactly the way she wanted them and decided that she wasn't treated in the way she wanted to be, and she was gonna make this guy pay. Because you see him almost in the fetal position in these texts over and over. Like, we let's give her what she wants. Let's not upset her.
Just let it happen. Like, he's afraid of her. You can see in these texts. Even with this text with the PR people, he is scared of her. He knows what she can do to him.
And, the question here is, what did he do to protect himself? He definitely talked with PR agents about protecting him. And the question is, what exactly did those PR agents do? They talked a big game. They did talk like big swagger and cowboys who could destroy her.
Did they actually do it? That I don't see in her allegations. I see swagger, but I don't see the substance of it, other than some minor things which you would expect where they, you know, tried to get good PR going for Justin or do nice, you know, sort of messaging around the film. All that's fair game. Anyway, look.
This is what I did. This is I'm as you know, I'm not feeling well. I was up till 2:2 AM. This is her complaint. Look at all my notes.
Okay? Then this is Justin's complaint, and these are all my notes that I just went through, many of them with Ryan. This is the timeline of all the text messaging between Justin and those 2 editors, the so called Dream Team, which we're posting on megankelly.com, and you can look through them all yourself. Articles, packets. I'm neck deep in this weird industry that I really want nothing to do with, but it's the case everyone's been talking about.
And as you know, I love Brian Friedman. So, let me know what you think. Megan@megankelly.com. Megan@megankelly.com. We are back tomorrow with the 5th column.
See you then.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
LA Mayor Stumbles as She Returns to City, and Personal Stories of the Devastation, with @RealJamesWoods and @adamcarolla WATCH: https://t.co/Xxky4GZdHy
Video Transcript AI Summary
Devastation continues in Los Angeles as wildfires rage, claiming at least five lives and destroying over 1,000 structures. More than 25,000 acres have burned, and many residents are under evacuation orders. The situation has been exacerbated by a lack of water supply for firefighting efforts, despite prior warnings about the Santa Ana winds. Criticism is directed at city leaders, including Mayor Karen Bass, who was criticized for being out of the country during the crisis. The fire department's budget cuts and mismanagement have raised concerns about preparedness. Amidst the chaos, stories of personal loss emerge, highlighting the emotional toll on families affected by the fires. The discussion also touches on broader issues of leadership and accountability in California's governance, questioning the prioritization of diversity over competence in critical public safety roles.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. Utter devastation in Los Angeles as fires continued overnight and were said to be 0% contained. I mean, they've been 0 percent contained basically since this thing started.
We told you how bad the fires were yesterday. Things have only gotten worse. Now at least 5 people are dead. More than 25,000 acres have burned, and 100 of 1,000 are under mandatory evacuation orders. Over a 1000 structures have been destroyed.
These are people's homes, children's schools. Think about these little kids who have their books and their art projects and their schools completely burned to the ground with nowhere to go now. They've suffered enough, especially out in LA where they close schools forever during COVID. It is hard to describe the destruction. So many devastating videos and images.
This one here encapsulates what our fellow Americans are dealing with right now. This is a photo from Altadena, California. And just for listening audience, it's satellite. It's a satellite image taken by Maxar Technologies before the fire, so it looks like a normal city. And then this is the same area in a photo, an image taken yesterday after the entire neighborhood was destroyed.
Look at that. Just fire, destruction. It's just you you can't help but ask yourself, how could this happen in an American city? It's not like a tornado that comes through in minutes and no human can do much about it. Fires are a known risk in California.
The water supply is a known issue in Los Angeles. Like, none of this is a mystery. The Santa Ana winds come every year, and they do bring serious threats of fire. And the spreading of it, I don't like, the level of incompetence to have not been prepared, they failed at every level. The brave men and women of the LAFD, those that's a different story.
God bless them and the LAPD who are putting their lives on the line, going in there, trying to battle this blaze and to protect people as they evacuate. They're from their homes. Hats off to them and nothing but respect. But they there is only so much they can do when the fire department does not have the water to fight the worst fire in the city's history. Like, a fireman is powerless without his hose turning on.
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Support brands that align with your values and that stand up for girls and women's rights. Go to the truth fits.com, and don't forget the code, MK20. Los Angeles, the city of Angels, the home of Hollywood glamour, the site of the 20 28 Olympics, is telling many of its citizens, just flee. Flee because it does not have the power or the water that they need to stay safe. But the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, is now finally back from Ghana.
Joe Biden sent her there for the like, who gives a crap? Why is the LA mayor going to Ghana for some political event? What in the actual f? And let me tell you something. The warnings about these Santa Ana winds being worse than normal and bringing a grave threat were all over the place.
You look back at the LA Times now for days prior to this event. They were jumping up and down saying this this actually could get really bad. And she's over there in Ghana for this ceremonial what? Why? Get your ass back home.
Now there's a tweet, let me see if I can find it quickly, resurfacing online from yeah. Here it is. From when Ted Cruz got ridiculed for leaving Texas to go on vacation in the middle of, some I can't remember what was happening to Texas. Was it fires there? And she, Karen Bass, what was it, Steve?
There's a snowstorm. Okay. You don't think snowstorm when you think Texas. In any event, she tweeted out Ted Cruz fleeing Texas in the middle of a deadly crisis is part of a larger pattern of the GOP abandoning folks in crisis. We need to build a movement to kick them all out.
Well, how'd that one go, madam? Is that part of your pattern on your team to abandon folks during a crisis? I mean, I realize you sent a couple of tweets, but in this kind of situation, people like to see and hear from their leaders. And you were in Ghana enjoying yourself. Now she finally holds a presser, and it was a complete disaster.
First of all, before I get to the truly disastrous part, listen to her describing herself. Like, I I basically got on the back of Superman to come home. Take Alyssa.
Speaker 1: I've been in constant contact with our fire commanders, with county, state, and federal officials. I took the fastest route back, which included being on a military plane, which facilitated our communications. So I was able to be on the phone the entire time of the flight. We are fighting for you and everyone in Los Angeles.
Speaker 0: Okay. I took the fastest route home. Are we supposed to be giving credit for the fact that she didn't book too many layovers? This is an absurd person, and you don't have to take my word for it in response to that inanity you just heard. Listen to the mayor in her time of crisis, her city's time of massive crisis, in directing people where to go if they need information, which they do because their houses are burning, and their family members in at least 5 cases are dying.
Listen to this idiot in SOP 3.
Speaker 1: Build stronger than ever. Right now, if you need help, emergency information, resources, and shelter is available. All of this can be found at URL.
Speaker 0: Aturl. She is too stupid to be the mayor of Los Angeles. She is too stupid to be in public office. You failed, madam. You failed.
You failed to prepare for the crisis. And then when your country and your city needed you, what did you do? Oh, you took the fastest route home with no layovers on a military plate? Uh-huh. Great.
And when you got there, you were too dumb to realize that URL was a placeholder and then to actually look to your team and say, what is the URL? What is the web address? You are a moron, and I am sorry for our friends in Los Angeles who don't deserve this. I realize they voted for this woman, but I'm going to assume they thought she had 2 nickels to rub together in between her ears. Live and learn.
Then she gets caught on the way to, I think this was, the news conference, by a Sky News reporter. The he got her at the airport. And man, did this guy do a good job? Take a listen to this and how I don't really care, to be honest, whether it's she can't or she won't answer the questions. I'm equally horrified either way.
Watch.
Speaker 2: Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent while their homes were burning? Do you regret cutting the fire department budget by 1,000,000 of dollars, madam mayor? Have you nothing to say today?
Speaker 3: Back up. Yeah. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today? Elon Musk says that you're utterly incompetent. Are you considering your position? Madam mayor, have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today who are dealing with this disaster?
Speaker 0: I apologize.
Speaker 2: No apology for them.
Speaker 0: That is utter incompetence. Again, picture picture Trump picture Trump in that circumstance. Would he ever just sit there ignoring the reporter firing those questions at him? No. He would say something.
Say something resembling anything. Right? Like, take a shot, madam. This is the first this guy was on the plane with her coming back from Ghana, most direct route. Fear not.
And he started firing questions at her, and this is their first chance to actually say something. I know you're going to a presser. Say, I'll address it more fully at the presser, but here's my message right now. You're an idiot. She's too dumb to do it.
That's why she didn't do it. That's why the fire department wasn't ready. That's why she took nearly $20,000,000 from them instead of fully funding the FD because she had other priorities like the homeless and the the illegal immigrants. Those are the reports that she was doling out the money to help all the illegals who were in LA. And she didn't care about a known risk to the tax paying citizens of LA, the upstanding, law abiding citizens of Los Angeles who pay her salary, who helped the city stay on its feet.
Whatever you think of LA, it's historic. It's beautiful. It's totally charming in its character. Forget the politics. Alright?
Just put that bullshit to the side. You go out there and you drive around and think, oh my god. If it weren't for the politics, I'd live here. It's so pretty and cute and, like, all these, like, sort of no name charming restaurants that are just off the beaten path where you can get really great food and, like, sole proprietors, still mom and pop businesses, unlike Manhattan, by the way, which was ruined by another Democrat, where he chased all the mom and pop proprietors out with his inane policies. In any event, it's sad that this city is being lost before our very eyes because in part of the utter incompetence of people like Karen Bass.
Go to URL. She's too dumb to be your leader. Can you recall a mayor? There should be an immediate recall. I know you can recall a governor.
He's no better. Gavin Newsom with his stupid widow's peak, he's done nothing. Listen to him when he was asked about the fact that there's no water in the fire hydrants.
Speaker 4: What is the situation with water? Obviously, in in, Palisades ran out last night in the hydrants. I was starting the firefighter in the disc block. They left because there was no water in the hydrant here.
Speaker 3: The the local folks are trying to figure that out.
Speaker 0: The local folks are gonna why don't you know the answer? What do you mean the local again, picture Ron DeSantis. You think he'd be like, oh, the the some local folks. You wanna be on TV so badly. You wanna sit across from Anderson Cooper so badly that you decide to wing it, and then when the tough questions come, oh, the local folks will be.
No. You're the governor. You answer. You. The local folks are in Ghana.
It's so infuriating. I mean, honestly, you guys know I my dear friend, who is not a rich person, lost her home. It's utterly destroyed. It is ashes now, every belonging that she has. And she and thousands of others now are looking for answers on how this happened.
And, oh, well, the local folks are gonna figure it out. You know what the local folks said? This woman we told you about yesterday whose salary was doubled, I'm I'm I don't know what her story is. All I know is she is a woman, and she's Hispanic. She's a diversity hire.
That doesn't mean she's not qualified, but they doubled her salary from the man who she replaced. She makes $750,000 a year, and this woman is out there saying, well, there were 3 separate tanks that supplied water to the Palisades. The fire started 10:30 Tuesday morning, California time. And by that night, 3 AM overnight, Tuesday into Wednesday, the first one was totally empty. And by the next morning, the other 2 were totally empty.
And therefore, the people did not stand a fighting chance. And her explanation was, well, it's very hard to fight a wildfire in an urban setting with urban water supply. Yeah. We know. You knew that a week ago.
You knew that a month ago. Where the f was the planning? We know all that. We know that. Why are they looking at us now just telling us facts that were known like it's an explanation for their incompetence?
Here's a little bit of this woman at the presser.
Speaker 5: We're fighting a wildfire with urban water systems, and that is really challenging. What happened in Palisades, we have 3 large water tanks about a 1000000 gallons each. We ran out of water in the first tank at about 4:45 PM yesterday. We ran out of water on the second tank about 8:30 PM, and the 3rd tank about 3 AM this morning. Those tanks help with the pressure on the fire hydrants and the heels of Palisades.
And because we were pushing so much water in our trunk line, and so much water was being used before I can't get to the tanks, we were not able to fill the tanks fast enough. So the consumption of water was faster than we can provide water in our trunk line. So I wanna make sure that you understand there's water on the trunk line. It just cannot get up the hill because we cannot fill the tanks fast enough. 48 hours, the water quality is slow.
We have a lot of ash in our system. And so, please, if you're gonna be drinking water, you need to boil the water.
Speaker 0: Okay. So the people who were lower down in the hills couldn't get the water to the they were using too much water to fight fires such that the people who were higher in the hills couldn't get the water. All of which was foreseeable. These are not explanations. The the these were foreseeable problems for which you failed to plan.
I don't this is not gonna cut it. This is not gonna cut it even with the people of Los Angeles who are probably willing to give most Democrats the benefit of the doubt. And you can see that already time and time again on x with many voicing their serious concerns about the failures of leadership and even pieces in the LA Times, quoting heavily from people like Rick Caruso, who was the guy who challenged Karen Bass who he was up against her for mayor, who, again, ran as a Democrat, but definitely sounds more like a Republican. He owns the Palisade Village Mall, which is in the heart of this West Side neighborhood, and he says it suffered damage, but I don't think it burned. It's actually kind of the reports are that it's one of the few things that didn't burn.
I don't know what he was doing. But in any event, his daughter's home burned, and he's waiting to find out whether his son's home was still standing. So he did he has some real skin in this game. And he has come out to say, this is this is the city's fault in large part that they're that they're he he blasted them for infrastructure problems that struggle to meet the firefighting demand, saying there's no water in the fire hydrants and saying the firefighters are there. There's nothing they can do.
We've got neighborhoods burning, homes burning, businesses burning. It should never happen. The LA City council member, Tracy Park, who represents the Palisades area and was with this, Janice Quinones, the woman who runs the water, department who you just heard from at this news conference, was also in the LA Times words expressing her fury over the department of water, water supply issues. Quote, the chronic underinvestment in the city of LA, in our public infrastructure, in our public safety partners was evident and on full display over the last 24 hours. I'm extremely concerned about this.
I'm already working with my team to take a closer look, and I think we've got more questions than answers at this point. They they they say, okay. Well, we brought in other tanks to backfill the water supply, but they they had to get the water from a totally different region, and that takes time to bring it up. They're it totally underprepared. And now as you've got 5 people dead, and I'm sure the death toll unfortunately will rise, and a 1,000 plus structures burned, and that number will certainly go way up.
You've got ridiculous tweets like this one going out from pride groups, like pride.com on the chief firefighter who we told you about Kristen Crowley, who's been spending time working on DEI within the fire department and celebrating her own gayness, literally, in her bio and elsewhere. She wants to celebrate how gay she is. Well no. I refuse. I don't care, with a a tweet like this.
Amid Palisades fire, Los Angeles' 1st LGBTQ plus fire chief is proving lesbians get it done. There's something wrong with you people. It's a whole article that they tweeted out. There's something wrong with like, you need to have your heads examined. In the midst of people dying and losing everything, this insane group that I'll bet you a lot of people in LA have donated to would like us to take a moment to celebrate her lesbianism.
We refuse. I think I speak for the Los Angelenos when I say no. No. How is she getting it done exactly? The the homes are burning.
It's not just this woman in charge of the water department. Why didn't the fire chief have any idea of how much reserves were available and the risks that were about to come and what the plans were? The exit plans for those who needed to be evacuated, the foreseeable problem that those who are in the upper levels of the hills would not have enough water if the people in the lower levels of the hills used a lot of it to fight fires. I I'm an anchor at a news desk. And if you ask me to think about this for an hour, I could have predicted this stuff.
These people are they devote their lives to it, or do they? Or do they? Because this woman, the Kristen Crowley, the fire chief, is spending a lot of time thinking about how to hire more women and gays at the fire department. It's infuriating. Now some in the media, I don't know if it's stupidity, ignorance, or bias, but some are actually on the air denying that the fire hydrants ran out of water.
Hello? The officials are already admitting that. In this particularly embarrassing report that was on the local LA Fox, this anchor, Melvin Robert, tries to debunk Rick Caruso, the guy I mentioned who ran for mayor and lost to Karen Bass, tried to debunk his claim that the fire hydrants had run out of water only to then be corrected by a reporter who was in the field speaking with the firefighters. Watch this.
Speaker 6: Former Eller excuse me. Former LA mayoral candidate and real estate developer, Rick Caruso, criticizing the city's response to the windstorm and fires. Despite what you have heard from Caruso, no firefighters have told us that they are running out of water.
Speaker 0: And let's go out to Gigi Graciette. She is live in Pacific Palisades. I know your signal's not the best, but, Gigi, what can you tell us? Well, firefighters have told me they have no water on this block. Yeah.
They have no water. And by the way, MSNBC reported the same after speaking with 1 of the fire captains on scene. Take a listen to stat 6.
Speaker 7: We saw an apartment building engulfed in flames. I saw the fire engine pull up this afternoon. A fire captain have one of his firefighters attach a hose to a hydrant, and that hose didn't fill up, Alex. And I asked the captain, out of every 10 hydrants you attached to today, on average, how many are you getting full water from? He says little to none.
And it was at that point that really the whole crew stopped, looked up at this apartment building, and they realized there was nothing they could do.
Speaker 0: Think of those poor firefighters and the people who own the homes they're trying to save. Can you imagine? These firefighters put their lives on the line to go out there at great risk to themselves, and they get there. They manage to get through the smoke and the traffic. People are abandoning their cars.
It's not easy for these firefighters to even get to the scenes in many cases. And they hook up the hoses, and they've got the trucks ready, and nothing comes out because it wasn't planned for. Because the mayor was in Ghana, and this woman, Janice, didn't do her job that she's getting paid almost $1,000,000 a year to do. And when asked about why there were other failures, she says, oh, it's really hard hard to use an urban water system to put out what is essentially a a wildfire. We know that.
It's your job literally to think about how to overcome those challenges. Then, of course, all of this starts well before the fire is upon the homes in Pasadena or the Palisades or last night, it jumped over to the Hollywood Hills before being stopped. All of this starts well before that, and that gets to the the cutting back of brush, which LA should have been doing and wasn't, which individual citizens should have been doing and apparently weren't in many cases, and maintenance maintenance of of the forests around the area. This is what Trump has been jumping up and down about for quite some time. He he mentioned this on Joe Rogan when he went on Joe Rogan before the election and and made these points.
Speaker 8: 1,000,000,000 of dollars a year they spend on forest fires. And, you know, there's a case with the environment. They're not allowed to rake their forest because you're not allowed to touch it. When a tree falls down, after 18 months, it becomes very dry. It's like, you know, like real firewood.
It's bad. You know, a tree that's up these are all things I learned the hard way, the easy way. But when a tree is up, it sucks water. It's wet. I went to that the hard they had a couple of horrible forest fires in California, and I went I said, you know, you had a lot of trees standing.
Yes. They were healthy trees, sir. I said, with this intense heat, that you could see they were charred a little bit on the bottom, but they were gonna be alright because they're soaking wet because they suck up the water. Right? But when they fall
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 8: They're like you know, it's like lighting a match. All they have to do is clean their forest, meaning rake it up, get rid of the leaves, get rid you know, leaves that are sitting there for 5 years,
Speaker 9: and they We'll certainly get rid of the dead fall.
Speaker 8: And get rid of the trees that have fallen.
Speaker 0: Well, there are all sorts of environmental reasons why Gavin Newsom and others in California resist that. They they've got a a long list of reasons why they think that that's inappropriate or they don't wanna get to it or maybe it's just incompetence. Here's Michael Shellenberger, former Greenpeace activist, worked during the Obama administration with Solyndra to install all of these, you know, new green energy programs only to find out that they didn't work and that they were a lie. And now he's become just a truth teller. He's not even an activist.
He's just a truth teller on all matters environmental and truly one of the most trustworthy sources you can go to on these issues. He's very open minded to climate change and global warming, all that stuff, but he's very factual. And here he is talking about whether now as the because the left is climate change. This is all climate change, and here's Michael Schellenberg talking about whether this is all climate change.
Speaker 10: I don't think these fires are a result of climate change. If you look at the past 100 years of climates in Southern California, you will find there have been January's that have been very dry. There has been Santa Ana wind in January. So these sorts of conditions are what contribute to a fire being particularly destructive at this time of the year, but it's not the result of climate change. 50 years ago, we didn't have events where fires burned down and burned into communities.
In part that was due because the urban environment was surrounded by citrus orchards, and that's what buffered the communities from the wildland areas. They generally burned out. Today, we don't have citrus orchids. We just have more homes. And so population growth is as much responsible for this as climate change.
Speaker 0: Alright. So that's Schellenberger interviewing an expert on his show, who is John Keeley, US geological survey scientist, who studied fires for 40 years. Here is Trump with some criticism of governor Gavin Newsom. Take a listen. In California, mister president, during the pandemic, you often said that you didn't believe that you should bail out
Speaker 11: Lou Staitley. You believe you're being disadvantaged.
Speaker 0: Given your criticism of governor Gavin Newsom, are you willing to work with him, and do you believe that federal aid should be provided
Speaker 11: to California for as long as it takes?
Speaker 8: Well, it's very sad because I've been trying to get Gavin Newsom to allow water to come. You'd have tremendous water up there. They sent it out to the Pacific because they're trying to protect a tiny little fish, which is in other areas by the way, called the smelt. And for the sake of a smelt, they have no water. They have no water in the fire hydrants today in Los Angeles.
It was a terrible thing. And we're gonna get that done. It's gonna finally be done. I got it done from the federal side. And, he didn't wanna sign it, but it's not gonna happen again like that.
Speaker 0: Then you had Gavin Newsom asked by Anderson Cooper about this feedback, and here's how that went.
Speaker 4: I hate to even ask this question, but the president-elect chose to, attack you, blame you for that.
Speaker 3: It's, one can't even respond to it. I mean, it's,
Speaker 4: you know, people are literally fleeing. People have lost their lives. Kids, lost their schools. Families completely torn asunder. Churches burned down.
This guy wanted to politicize it.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Because there are legitimate questions about how your city got into this position to begin with. And you're the governor and completely fair game. Look at him trying to be all indignant. Let me tell you something, Gavin Newsom.
It's not just the homes of Los Angeles that are in flames. It's your political career. You you can kiss your presidential hopes goodbye goodbye. You've just lost the city of Los Angeles and probably the state of California. Never mind the nation because of your poor planning.
Oh, the the locals will have to speak to total fail. Another word. That was Anderson Cooper, obviously, you know, pretending to be just so disgusted by the fact that Trump would politicize this matter. Even the LA Times is talking about who's to blame in California. Okay, Anderson.
But I will say this about Anderson Cooper. He's an actual war correspondent, and there isn't a natural disaster that he won't go report from. And I respect that. Something I've never done, although I did volunteer to go to Iraq back in 2005 and 6 when Roger Ailes refused to send me. Anyway, I respect that.
I respect that he puts himself in danger, and he and I had a long conversation about it on my show on Fox one time. Anderson Cooper does go to these sites, puts himself in danger to bring us the news, and so does, Steve Harrigan at Fox News. Same thing. Natural disasters, org sites. Rick Levinthal was, you know, big on that at Fox for many, many years.
And when these guys go, generally, I've never seen, in their cases, them worry about how felt their waists look while on camera in reporting about the devastation behind them. That is because they actually know how to report from a natural disaster, unlike David Muir. Would you please look at the screen, ladies and gentlemen? Look. He's, first of all, wearing a fake fireman's jacket.
And what you're seeing on the close-up as he turns to reference the scene behind him and shows us his back, which clearly he wasn't anticipating would make it on cam, his clothespins pulling his jacket in, cinching it, if you will, my ladies, so that his waist looks more svelte on camera. The abject vanity of this man. Why is he pretending to be a fireman? This is not dress up time. This that's something that my little boys did when they were still in the single digits, would put on the fun fireman's jacket and pretend to be firemen.
That is not something that the host of World News Tonight for ABC News Broadcast Network should be doing live from a disaster scene. It's not dress up time, my friend. I'm big on the costume nights. We do it at home with my children when we're on vacation, not on the news when people are dying. What are you doing?
And there's no need to put David Muir in a yellow jacket with the fireman's reflective stripes on it. He's surrounded by ABC News crews, by ABC News Trucks, by ABC News Photogs, producers, lighting, sound guys. You can't see them. They don't put them on camera, but trust me, there is a semicircle on the other side of David Muir that is probably a couple dozen in number. And they want us to predict like, well, he's gonna get run over by a by a car?
No. He's not. It's for show. He's an actor on screen. That's what's happening there.
And the clothespins just put a period behind that sentence. Yes. He's an actor who's worried about his own vanity and beauty on camera. He god forbid you think David Muir might be a little boxy in the waist. What in the I'm like, I don't I care about how I look on camera for sure, and I have reported from terrible sites.
Not not like not not fires. I don't think I've ever gone to a fire, but I've gone to disasters before. And sure enough, I wake up in the morning and I put on my makeup. It's not that I go to the sites without my makeup, and I give a thought to what I'll wear. Will it be appropriate?
You know, you don't wanna, like, be showing too much skin. You know? Like, there's of course, if you're on camera, you're gonna give some thought to how you look, but I'm sorry. This is a bridge too far. His little pretend fireman role coupled with his is my waist looking skinny enough vanity is too much.
And we saw his vanity on full display at that Trump debate where he tried to do the I detected no sarcasm in those remarks. He's in love with his own face, waistline, and opinion, and it shows. He has disgraced and discredited himself this year, and ABC News really needs to move on. It's I'm sorry. This is just you need to move on.
They've spent so much money trying to build this guy's image. You know, the promos for David Muir, you you would think he was Jesus. I mean, the way they you know, like, with the with the jawline, and, like, oh, and I hate to rip him because he went to Syracuse like me. But rip, I will, because he deserves it. But these are you know, it's all about image.
Like, I'm thinking let me I'm thinking about this difficult problem. I'm David Muir. I'm tough, and I'm smart. I'm hot. And this look at this.
A good producer friend of mine reminded me after I tweeted on this that he's not the 1st vain, absurd anchorman to obsess over his jacket on television and brought me back to this moment, when Dan Rather I don't know how this came out, but it's on YouTube. Dan Rather was on camera getting ready for a live shot near the Seattle Space Needle. And for 15 minutes, I think it was, was conferring with his producers about whether he would wear his trench coat or just go with his suit jacket and whether he would put the trench coat, collar up or wear it down. This is not a 32nd, should I wear the jacket? No.
Should I put the collar up? No. I'm to for over 15 minutes, they kept a running clock and the the guy who posted on YouTube, the the number of minutes that they debated. And Dan was totally into it with his producer who went on to run 60 minutes. We've condensed it for you.
Look at this.
Speaker 12: The question is whether we can do it without coding. Folks,
Speaker 4: how do
Speaker 10: I do it? Let's take a look and find out.
Speaker 12: Jeff would prefer to do without the coat. It's gonna be cold, but
Speaker 4: That's good. You know what? The green is good.
Speaker 12: Is it? The light. Green is good. Okay. You don't need a scarf.
Don't need a scarf. You think so? No. I know. Let's try it without it.
If we wear the coat between now and now, I think that we're gonna be alright. Alright, Kevin. Good. Because that looks perfect. Now does that look good?
It looks just
Speaker 4: a little, little hot on this side, Tom.
Speaker 12: We the broadcast is not for another 45 minutes.
Speaker 4: Right. So Right.
Speaker 12: Temperature tell us the wind will be up and the temperature will be down. Yes.
Speaker 4: Do you hear correct?
Speaker 12: What do you think?
Speaker 3: You're hitting bright
Speaker 12: But it looks so wind blown this way. I mean, I think the coat looks fine. I agree with you. The coach settled.
Speaker 4: Nobody's on it yet.
Speaker 10: But what
Speaker 12: do you think?
Speaker 4: If you do, if you wear the coat, put I'll take the collar down.
Speaker 12: Definitely not. You want a car up? Absolutely. Nobody wears trench coat
Speaker 3: with a
Speaker 12: collar down. I think we ought to try to do it without it Okay. Is what I honestly think.
Speaker 0: Unbelievable. It went on for almost 20 minutes. This is apparently released by, Harry Sheer 17 years ago when he was doing, like, a series of these, and it's on YouTube, and it's great. We'll link to it in the description. And being coached on by his executive producer who would wind up producing 60 minutes, Jeff Fager, like this was a real debate.
Like, they were debating an actual, like, piece of editorial that need they needed to get right went on and on. Dan Rather complimented, I think, his wife for selecting a green jacket, and the green looked good and really lamented that they should have come earlier and pretaped the show at noon so that he could have done it in comfort and just his suit coat without this disastrous trench coat covering his great look. And then he was really cold, so he needed to wear the jacket, but did he look cooler with the with the collar up? And how did how did Dan Rather's career at CBS end in infamy as well? Just like David Muir, which I mean, he ended his career effectively for half the country in that debate with Trump because his own opinions, his own vainglorious nature, wound up stopping him from understanding what the role of an independent journalist is supposed to be.
So there you have it. 2 men whose vanity would ultimately prove to be their downfall in the media. And in this case, it's really sad because David Muir is actually trusted by some number of Americans to bring them the news about what's happening in Los Angeles, this extremely serious situation. And the man's worried about his tiny little waist showing on on camera. You can't make it up.
Alright. Now we're gonna turn to 2 friends of the show who have been directly affected by these wildfires who, at this moment, do not know whether their homes are still standing or not. We're gonna be joined in just a bit by Adam Carolla, who's got a lot of thoughts on these politicians, but joining me next, legendary actor James Woods. We'll be right back. Are you overwhelmed with back taxes or unfiled returns?
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With Tax Network USA support and takes charge of your financial future. Visit tnusa.com/ megan today. James, so so glad to see that you're okay, and your beautiful wife I know is okay, but I know your home and your neighborhood are not. How are you?
Speaker 9: You know, it ebbs and flows. Like, right now, I just got off the phone with Gary Sinise. And as you may know, Gary lost his son, Mac, a year ago, just 2 days ago. And yesterday, on my late brother's birthday, you know, our whole neighborhood burned down. And when you compare the 2, not a single person in our neighborhood was injured or died.
So you can't compare it really to the heartbreak that you went through. You know, it's it's you you you put things in perspective when you go through these catastrophes. And, you know, I I don't wanna be bitter, but indeed, the gross mismanagement of of our administration in California is, as my beloved wife said, that when I rail about their stupidity, it's not stupidity. It's willful ignorance. In this case, I think it's willful malicious ignorance.
Karen Bass cut the, fire department allocation by $17,000,000 a couple of months ago. My insurance, company canceled my policy for no reason, and I checked with all my neighbors. Every single person in the Palisades who was with this company had their policies canceled on the same day. You know, they can't insure the place. It's, you can't insure a place that's run by incompetent idiots.
And the problem is now when they go to rebuild, we're all under what's called California Fair Plan run by the government. So the same people who are literally responsible for this destruction in the long run and in the larger scope are not gonna be the people telling us how to rebuild and make sure that we do everything, you know, to avoid climate change while they ride around in their private jets and, you know, and go to Ghana to represent LA for whatever the our mayor is representing LA about. I mean, honestly, you you you don't wanna be bitter, but when you see people sitting on their sidewalks who live there, you know, the 5 people who live around us, all of whose homes have burned down, were either born in their houses or they you know, one of them is 94 years old. He he built the house. We're the 2nd owners of our house.
You know, these people in this neighborhood, is let me explain something about about the Palisades. We have a rule up in what's called the Marquez Knowles. It's part of our CC and RS. You can't black your neighbor's view, can't have a second story. All the houses are kind of original from 1960, and they were all built by the same, designer, Earl Lachman.
They're charming mid century little houses. I mean, they're that's a view from my driveway yesterday. Oh, gosh. Sorry. And, you know, the the houses like, when we renovated our house, we brought it back to normal.
We got even our doors we had redone. They have a little loose side handle. It's a little house. It's got 2 bedrooms and a laundry room and a den and a pool and magnificent views of, you know, all the way from the the the Palace Verde to to to, you know we can see out to Catalina. We have a beautiful pool.
We will swim every day. I mean, I've been on the road for 50 years
Speaker 0: since video from your back deck here that we're looking at, James?
Speaker 9: No. No. No. This is from my front yard. This is from From your backyard?
My driveway before just as we were evacuating. Yep. And by
Speaker 0: the way Keep going.
Speaker 9: And by the way, 5 minutes before that, there was nothing. And and my neighbor, Robert Trinketeller, followed and said, you know, there's a fire on the hillside about a half mile away. You should come take a look at this. So I I drove up to his house because we didn't want no. That's my back deck, kid.
That's my back deck. And by the way, my eye cut we had guys rappelling down the hillside because of this 1,000 foot drop and cutting the grab the the dry brush, which you are required to do by law and which we do because it protects our homes and our neighbors' homes from fire. And the people lowest did not, and that's the fire coming up from below. And every you know, we drive around the neighborhood, and Sarah would say to me, you know, look at this. I go, yeah.
These people gotta cut their brush. And the one that I railed against every day was the first one to go. The when this fire all started, we were the that's the house, away from us. We were literally the epicenter of the fire. It was a bright blue, beautiful sunny day with 80 mile an hour gusts, and we were moving all the furniture off the deck.
And when I saw that flame, I said, let's go down, get in the car, and get ready to go because
Speaker 0: Was that Tuesday?
Speaker 9: That was yesterday. Yeah. But those that's our house. That's our house. Yep.
That's from our deck. Yep.
Speaker 0: So you knew you knew to get out. Was that before the mandatory evacuation order?
Speaker 9: Yeah. Well, yeah. But it came on our phones pretty quickly. I I knew it was coming. You you can't have fire and wind in an area that is overgrown with dry brush.
You know? I mean, people forget this, but there a couple decades ago, there was a Malibu fire, and we had another nincompoop, another democrat, running things. And the, you know, the helicopters and the planes go in with these big scoops and scoop water out of the the ocean and dump them on the fires. And she said, no, no, you can't do that because the salt water will will hurt the vegetation. And we saw, lady, houses are burning down.
People are dying. No. She wouldn't let them do it. This is what we're dealing with. And I don't wanna be bitter, but you know what?
At a certain point, they need tribunals in the state. Forget forget recalls. They need tribunals and figure out what people are doing. Okay. Everybody said, well, you know, we've been in touch with the weather report because it's always the weather.
Been in touch with the weather. Anytime we knew this was gonna be a windy season. Great. Then don't go to Ghana. Stay here in LA.
Take care of things. I'm sorry I sound bitter, but, you know, listen. Just a couple of things I wanna clear up. The 94 year old neighbor that I've been talking about who was rescued literally 8 minutes ago, I got a call from his son. They've been reunited.
He flew in from Massachusetts. He got to the hospital. They identified him, and he's got him and he's got him placed, in his caregiver's home. So he's safe. And a hero, Robert Trentseller, who saved him, who stayed overnight.
Now here's what happened in our neighborhood. All the houses are on fire on our street. The fire trucks got up there, but there was no water because Karen Bass didn't fill the reservoirs. So all the fire reservoirs were not so the fire trucks are there. They couldn't pump water.
Your house is on fire, and they could just pour it out, but they can't do it. So he put his fires out with a bucket from his pool, and he just texted me and said, okay. The house is on the other side and every house across the street from you, they're all burned down. That roof of your house is intact. I mean, I I ran into the bedroom.
I grabbed Sarah. I said, the roof's intact. Now the house may be burned down inside, but but it may not. See, what happened was we knew both houses were on fire because they their hillsides were not in the best shape. And what happened was they they burned.
At 11:49 last night, all of our fire alarms in our house were going off. Oh, the the hallway, the master bedroom, the living room, the den, the kitchen, and you could see the fire or the smoke progressing through the house. We were being alerted on our phones by our alarm company. You know? And this is while fire trucks are outside our house, but they couldn't pump.
Speaker 0: Oh my gosh. A nightmare. So you're when you're leaving, I'm just curious from a human perspective, when you and Sarah are leaving your home under these mandatory evacuation orders, and you know this is a real threat, what, like, what do you take? What does that conversation look like?
Speaker 9: Well, it, sweetie. Yeah. Yeah. What do I need to do? And I won't say which one of us was crying.
But no. Seriously. I I said to her, I said, look. You know, she's had all my medicine first thing because, you know, suppose you get out there and the whole city goes down. You know, I take certain medicines.
If I don't take them, I got, like, 2 weeks and I'm gone. You know, I have to take Synthroid because I had thyroid cancer years ago, and my thyroid is removed. And without Synthroid, we die. You know, I gotta have that medicine. I can't live without that medicine.
You know? So I got the medicine, and then we're going out. We went to open our garage door. It's a lift up door, and the wind was so strong. It buckled it, and now we can't get the cars out.
And the house of the hospital, you saw that was on fire. And I said, we're up we're up in the we're 1600 feet above sea lift. I can't walk through smoke. I'm, you know, I'm I'm not a youngster anymore. You know, what are we gonna do?
And I had remembered when they put in the garage door, they put in the alarm. I had asked for instructions on what to do if there was a fall. He said, here's the way you release the entire garage door, And I remembered it, and I did it. We got it released. We got one of the cars out.
She's, let's take both cars. I said, no. We're gonna be back. Because we have a look. The people who run things around here may be willfully ignorant.
But the one thing you gotta give unbelievable credit to, the Los Angeles Fire Department is one of the greatest organizations in the history of men and women who do good things for their neighbors. LAFD, the greatest. Our sheriff's department, our police department, these are wonderful people in LA. The people in charge, you know, our new fire department. I don't know what work she has done, but she has right on her webpage when she got elected, she's LGBTQ, which is fine.
That's your choice and not my job But
Speaker 0: it it's literally in the first line of her bio. The first line
Speaker 9: In the first line of her bio, inclusion, diversity, equity is my main priority while the tanks that hold the water to stop your houses from burning down have not been filled. Is that going on the priority list? Just asking. And see what you're showing right now. That's because there was no water.
But, hey, we got diversity. And by the way, I don't mind diversity. It's a diverse world we live in now, but I care about ability first. If you got the ability, I don't give a I don't care if you're 4 feet tall and green and have warts on your head. You know, it's great.
If you can do your job, go do it, man. That's that's it. I don't care. I don't care what your gender is. I don't care what your sexual preference is.
I don't care what the color of your skin is, what your religion is, what your background is. If you can do the job, god bless you, and I'll vote for you. You know? I mean, you're you're
Speaker 0: But the thing to be touting in line 1 of your bio should be your confidence at fighting fires, managing the threat of fire, and and hiring the right people.
Speaker 9: Yeah. I mean, it's it's like it's like Well,
Speaker 0: so let me take you back. So you're in the garage. You you remember how to override if there's a mechanical failure. And do is it just you and Sarah? Did you have you grabbed, like, an Oscar?
Like, what have you grabbed? What have you
Speaker 9: Okay.
Speaker 0: I have your meds.
Speaker 9: I have 5 Emmys. I have, my Golden Globe Award. I have my Oscar nominations. I have the maquette from Disney of my character, Hades. Disney, when you do a character, you're a Disney hero or villain, they make 2 of them.
Walt Disney keeps 1, and the actor keeps the others. Only 2 in the world and one of mine. Yeah. Was there
Speaker 0: see that So you grabbed it?
Speaker 9: See that basket of laundry and those 3 bags next to what? If indeed our house has burned down, that is every possession I have in the world.
Speaker 0: Wow. Did Karen take her manuscript she's been or Sarah take her manuscript she's been working on?
Speaker 9: You know, we this is 2024, Kelly. I'm making you know, as you know, we have these digital things that where you can Yeah.
Speaker 0: She's got she's got some record.
Speaker 9: I'm teasing. Yes. Yeah. She's got some record of that. She
Speaker 0: Good. Because I I mean, like, that's what they told me last night.
Speaker 9: And, you know, actually, how dare you talk to Megan that way? Actually, she, she actually does right by hand, but but she she keeps them pretty close to the vest. So she had them. She did leave a little thing of her grandmother's on the table. She she thought she had it and she missed it, and we couldn't go back up.
You know? So, it's interesting. You find yourself saying all of a sudden, boy, you interest you know, all of it. You have all these beautiful things that you own and you just go but, you know, where's that? The the one thing I cherish is, a watch that my mother gave me just before she passed away.
She's just something to remember her by because she knew. And, you know, I ran back in the house, actually started for that, and I got that. So, you know, there's not much that you really need in life. Here's what I really need than what is so important. I've had hundreds of phone calls from people and texts.
My doctor, hey. Here's our address. Come stay at our house. My doctor's called me, you know, texting me 2 in the morning. We we know that, you know, that that you got evacuated.
You know, come sit at our house. Your doctor. What they I mean, most people can't get their doctor on the phone. My doctor's calling me, inviting me to stay at his house. I cannot tell you the number of people.
I have an ex girlfriend that I've said I would never talk to again. I wrote a song about her, you know, never to speak to you again. Kind of call, hey, listen, come stay with us. You know, my husband and I were, you know, we we've got an extra bedroom. You know, you and sir are welcome.
Just, you know, you may not answer. And I said, hey, listen, thank you so much. And, you know, you find yourself my lovely first ex wife called. She had lost her husband last year and she's reaching out to me. And I said, you know, you Kathy, you lost David.
You can't compare a house to David. By the way, a man had even have lost my house. I don't even know. At this point, you know, it's got it's either half burned down, some burned down, smoke damage. I don't even know.
It is surrounded by every house in the neighborhood, evidently on our street burned down. So no matter what, to go back to to our beautiful our little neighborhood, everybody knew everybody. You know, Rick Caruso built an area called the Palisades Village. It's it's honestly, it's like the Truman Show. We always get about it, but, you know, they have a little park where the kids play on 4th July, we had chairs and they sit there with flags.
And I mean, you think, oh my god, this is how America used to be when it was really, really good. And, you know, it's all burned to ground. I mean, I I bumped into a lady at Gelson's. She said, hi. We were chatting with her.
She said, well, you know my husband. I said, who is your husband? She said, John Goodman. I said, John the John Goodman? She goes, yeah.
I don't I'm such a fan of his. I love well, he's a fan of yours. I said, really? I'm just kinda surprised. She goes, oh, yeah.
Back in the Cafe Central days, and that was a song on the album. Remember Cafe Central? And she said, you were always so nice to him when you were kind of a big star and he wasn't yet. I mean, he's one of my favorite actor. I said, oh my god.
That's great. Well, I know that they live on the north side of the Palisades, on north side of sunset. And I heard this morning that that entire north side of every house is gone. I don't know if that's true or not, and I pray to god it wasn't theirs, but I know Ben Affleck, I think, lost his. You know, you hear about it.
You check it off. It's just it's it's it's hard to take. Whether it's yours or somebody else's, you feel the same way. You really do.
Speaker 0: No. And I it's like I feel this way, and I don't have any love for Ben Affleck and his political positions the way he hates Republicans, but I'm genuinely sad that he suffered that loss. I would never wish this. Like, I feel like in a moment like this for any decent person, politics are they're set aside. Yes.
We need to hold leaders responsible who may have had a hand in That is true. Causing the damage. But but, you know, in terms of those who are suffering, we don't give a shit about this. We fight. We have big meaningful policy fights.
Something like this, we're Americans. We love each other. We help each other. We pray for each other. We reach out to one another.
I mean, I I have been distressed to see the number of messages online directed at you and Sarah. Like, good. Because people know that there was one I saw. This woman, Karen Piper. She's got, oh, I don't know.
She was forced to later delete it, but she's got tens of thousands of followers. She writes, James Woods' house is burning down. It's karma calling. That's disgusting. I I can't say it better than Sarah did, but Sarah wrote, you're disgusting.
Our sweet little home is probably gone. Our neighbors' homes are gone. Our community is ravaged because of the ineptitude of Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom, and you're rejoicing because you disagree with my husband? Absolutely disgusting. Shame on you.
It's there's more good than there is bad, James. That's for, James, that's for sure. But there's a fair amount of just raw political nastiness bubbling out there.
Speaker 9: Well, I I I don't even have to I don't know about that, but it goes to Sarah has a very strong voice of her own. But I don't know the person. I I'm sure she has purple hair if she hasn't cut it off already. I'm sure she's a democrat. I'm sure she's, you know, LGBT.
I'm sure she's got it all going for. I'm sure all of it. But, you know, listen, when you care about your neighbors and we all took care of each other, a person like this to me is something you scrape off your shoe on a curb. I don't really I don't even pay attention, you know, when people are telling me, well, here it is climate change, you know, and it's like, okay. But some guy is telling me about climate change.
He was sitting in his mother's basement and has a 7th grade education. I went to MIT and I know a little bit about, you know, people who are getting grants and how they'd be willing to say anything they need to say to keep those grants. I know all about this stuff. By the way, you want any climate change? Get out of your private chest.
That's a start. Do more of that. Yeah. Just try that first of all, you know?
Speaker 0: Stop lecturing us.
Speaker 9: This is this is not time to give people like this person whose name I have conveniently already forgotten, whatever. Is, it's not time to think about them. It's time to think about the brave men and women who are fighting this fire. This is view you're seeing right now, the neighbors who've reached out and helping each other, the the people who, are cheering that we will now have a president who will address these things and who will not be subsidizing clowns like Gavin Newsom any longer. I think, you know, there are enough Democrats whose homes are burning who might wanna start thinking about the people they're voting for.
You know? I mean, you you you vote for this stuff and then you wonder why it happens.
Speaker 0: Well, what do you when you look at this, there are so many things that played a role. You know, you've got, obviously, the Santa Ana winds, which come every year. Yep. You've got the fire. Once the fire starts and those winds combine, it's a very dangerous combination no matter what.
But it does seem like there were many mitigation factors that were ignored even though the authorities knew or should have known that, for example, there wasn't enough water in the reservoirs. There wasn't water in the fire hydrants. The electrical lines were still up even though all this money had been spent to put them underground so that they wouldn't be sitting there like little tinder boxes ready to spread fire, and it hadn't been done. It just seems like there's a fair amount of things you actually the the underfunding of the of the FD, the LAFD, the underfunding of the LAPD to direct traffic and get people out of there in an orderly fashion. I mean, you tell me what what where you're going now in terms of what could or should have been done that wasn't.
Speaker 9: Everything. I mean, just everything. Look. It's you know, when I was at MIT, we used to say certain things are blatantly obvious to the most casual observer. And it's really simple.
We're gonna invade a beach in a war, but our guys aren't gonna have guns. They're gonna have sticks because, you know, we don't believe in guns. And they're not gonna have protection because, you know, we believe that, the almighty Zustra is their protector and all this horseshit that that people come up with. They're all gonna get slaughtered on the beach, or you're gonna give them the best weaponry, the best protection, the best intelligence, and you're gonna go in. You're gonna wipe out the enemy.
It's really simple. We have a multipronged enemy in fire zones in California. We are high desert, high and low desert, both in California. We have ferocious sentiment and a winds. They've been here for 1,000,000 of years.
They were not created by climate change. They've been here forever. They happen at the same time every year. It's called weather. We have an inversion layer, the way the the way the LA is a big bowl, with the smog that lays on top of it.
Cold air lays on top of, lies on top of, the the marine layer that comes under. We I know which we we evacuated yesterday, for example, in the direction opposite that everybody else is doing. Because living where we lived, I knew that the wind always came off of the 3 palm trees across the street. It came this way. If we looked at that video again, I bet you'll see the flames are blowing from my point of view, right to left.
And sure enough, all the black smoke was down there and all the white smoke was up there because the planes had come and dropped it, pretty much put it out. And now the winds were blowing the flames where the material was all the tender. Look, a flame doesn't know whether a movie star lives in a mansion in the Pacific Palisades or just some, you know, good, hardworking, decent person living. God forbid, it's a homeless person living alone in this tent. Everybody's a little home as their home.
A flame doesn't know the difference. It's just flame and fuel. It's flame and Tinder. That's all it is. So we looked and I said, everybody's going that way.
They're gonna jam up the streets where the people are trying to get those children out of the elementary school. We're not gonna contribute to that, sir. We're gonna drive up that way because the the smoke is white. And that means that the planes have put a lot of that fire out and sure enough, they had. We got over the hill going into where the fire was because I knew it had burned out because I could see the the way it was blowing, and I was familiar with the weather pattern.
It's predictable. So what does that tell us As scientific people, if it's predictable every year, then what do we do? Well, let's check and make sure that the water is available. Let's check and make sure that everybody obeys the law and cuts the brush on their hillside. We cut our brush.
Our house either survived or was the last to go on our side of the street, as well as Robert Trinketeller who did the same with his. The people who didn't, many of them, sadly, well, I'll get to it. Well, okay. You don't have to because now your house burned down. I'm not blaming them, but, you know, you there are certain ways to protect it.
Now at a certain point, it the fire just comes in. Nothing you can do. Okay? But if you are busy worrying about diversity and not worrying about filling the reservoirs, if you're not training people properly prop properly, if you're not doing clear cutting, oh, you know, we can't cut down the trees. There was a fire in Washington state several years ago.
The place was just another liberal shithole. And I'm sorry, but, you know, the way it's run, not the people. Actually, my cousin lives there. And, you know, everything was on fire. What were they gonna do?
And it was horrific. And then there was the border to Canada, and that whole area, there's no fire. How did the fire know to stop at the borderline? Because the Canadians up there before Trudeau knew how to manage the forest up there. They knew how to do what they call clear cuts.
You you cut a whole area of all the trees down so the fires can't jump, and the firefighters can get in and dig, you know, do all the stuff they do. I don't know all of the technicalities of it, but you've gotta know that stuff, and you've gotta do that stuff. And if you're busy saying, hey. I'm the new fire chief, and my main priority, and this is what I'm going to dedicate myself to, well, then who's doing the job that you are actually assigned or elected or promoted or delegated to do?
Speaker 0: You're what delegated to do. The fire hydrants? Who's checking the reservoir? What? Who's checking the fire hydrants?
Who's checking the reservoirs instead of sitting at their desk worrying about how many women they have on the LAFD?
Speaker 9: I don't know. I mean, listen. This somebody wasn't. I can tell you that. Look.
Here's all I want. Here's what I look. For 55 years, I was Cal Ripken as an actor. I showed up every single day. I missed, I think, one day when I had an injury in my eye, from a a stunt.
Piece of wood flew in my I mean, I literally never missed the day's work for 55 year. And I showed up on time, and I knew my lines. And they did a 170 movies and series and TV shows and all of that. And, you know, I never got an Oscar.
Speaker 3: You
Speaker 9: know, I was nominated several times, all that stuff. But here's what I was. I was a good old Cal Ripken guy. I showed up and did my job every single day. I had a job to do, and I did it.
Here's what the police chiefs depart or the fire chief's department job is to do. Stop the fires when they start and make sure the people who are putting their lives on the line, the brave, great, glorious men and women, and I'm saying this totally from the heart of the Los Angeles Fire Department, have the equipment, the training, and and the all of the elements they need to do their jobs well because they are putting their lives on the line to do it. And if you don't give them that, shame on you.
Speaker 0: James, thank you. I I'm gonna say another prayer for you both that the house is still there and that irrespective of how it turns out, you guys are okay. And you'll find a home and a new neighborhood, and I'm sure your neighbors will rebuild too. That's just that's the American spirit. You know, we don't generally give up and tuck tail and run.
We may be angry. We may have to find new solutions, but I really hope you'll rebuild and then convince your probably left wing neighbors to reconsider the way they vote.
Speaker 9: I I I think, you know, sometimes it takes a a real slap in the face. And listen. A final thing. When when the when the when the Paradise fires were happening, then the Malibu fires, I started a website. And and even the California Highway Patrol say go to James it was it was a a campfires dot a campfires j James Woods because it was a way of saying, look.
I'm not official, but and I would Sarah and I worked for 14 days straight, patrol 15 hours a day. They even wrote an article about it, and of all places in New York Times. And we gave information to people, and we were a place where we're going to say, hey. My my my uncle is caught in his house. Hey.
Is anybody on this road? This is so and so's uncle's caught in the house. Well, one of the things I did was Alyssa Milano had 5 horses, and she couldn't control them and get them all out. And I mentioned, hey. Does anybody near Alyssa Milano?
She has 5 horses. Can you guys go up and help her? And someone said, James Woods helping Alyssa Milano. And it was a conservative person. I said, yeah, dude.
She's a human being and she's got animals and she's scared and she's doing the best she can, but she's, you know, she needs help. Of course, we're gonna help her. And she immediately went on and said, thank you, James Woods, for helping me. And, you know, people we sniped at each other online a 1000000 times over politics. But when push came to shove, I helped her.
She said, thank you. She helped other people. I helped you know, that's what we need to do now. I don't have any liberal left wing neighbors. I don't have any conservative neighbors.
I have my friends and neighbors in the Pacific Palisades, and my heart and my hands and my ability to help them and we are open to each other, and we are gonna rebuild together. That's our promise. Thank you, Megan.
Speaker 0: You and your neighbors, stay well.
Speaker 9: You bet.
Speaker 0: Wow. This is so deeply wrong. It's just so wrong, what's happening, and it keeps happening over and over in California. And they keep promising certain reforms, which they don't do, And people are really hurting, really hurting. Joining me now, our friend, Adam Carolla, California native.
And, Adam, what's your status? Thanks for joining us on this crazy time. Are you out, you're safe, your family, pets, all of them?
Speaker 13: Yeah. I'm in Burbank, California at a hotel. Probably tell by the picture behind me. It feels very San Fernando Valley.
Speaker 0: Doesn't look like something you would necessarily choose.
Speaker 13: No. But I'm, I'm safe and, I fled and I was given the, the marching orders about 6 o'clock in the evening yesterday to clear out via the phone. And so, clear out, we did.
Speaker 0: Wait. And can you just tell me, do you listen to that? As a Californian, when you get one of those, do you is that like, oh, wow. They don't do this that often? Or is it one of those things like living in Florida, where you get one for every small storm, and then you have to spend the next hour figuring out whether it's real or not?
Speaker 13: Well, I don't listen to them, but my girlfriend does. And that's why we got up and left. I'm a little more hang out so I can feel the flames, but she's a little more they said to leave, we should leave. And when this happened three and a half weeks ago, we left as well. People forget we had a fire less than a month ago in Malibu.
We did leave and it turned out we probably didn't have to leave. In this case, we left and we did have to leave because everything, around us is burnt to the ground.
Speaker 0: Oh, wow. How about your home?
Speaker 13: I don't know. I get little dribs and drabs of information. And it's really hard because you turn on the news or someone sends you something from the Internet and you see Pacific Coast Highway and you can kinda see that's where your house is, but it's not your house because the the cameras facing the other direction. So it's about a coin toss right now as far as I can tell, but everything around it definitely burnt up and I think your viewers should understand that it's one thing for the mountain and the hill and the brush to burn up. When the fire jumps the highway, when it jumps PCH and burns all the houses.
Looking
Speaker 9: at now.
Speaker 13: Yes. On the other side of PCH, that is a major, major issue. And those houses are $20,000,000 a piece.
Speaker 9: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: We were talking about this on our show yesterday. I have a friend who lives in the Pacific Palisades who is not a rich person at all. Her entire neighborhood is gone. It is gone. Her she's, you know, next to retired a retired nurse, retired college professor, that kind of thing, and it's gone.
There's not a shred left. All that's left of her house is the chimney. So it's sort of a weird time for you as you wonder. You do as you don't know. Is there I just wonder, like, if I were in your position, what would I I'd be thinking about all the things in home that I love.
And I was thinking about it earlier. You know, it's not just your keepsakes, the things that you adore, like family photos that go back, you know, in the seventies when we were kids. But, like, you know, there there's a reason that you chose the fixtures you did in your kitchen, maybe. Or, like, you put a lot of love and thought into certain parts of your home to make them reflect you and the things that you love. And it's the background.
You know, Richie, Sambora has a song, the soundtrack of your life. Like, your home is sort of the background of your life, and it's it's meaningful to you. So I wonder if what you're thinking about when you think about what's there.
Speaker 13: Yeah. I mean, there's a kind of pragmatic side. You start thinking about insurance and compensation and rebuilding and relocating. You know, there's a nuts and bolts side of your brain that's going off. Like, I physically need somewhere to live now.
And then there's a sort of emotional part thinking about pictures and keepsakes. And then there's just a sort of destruction part, like people say when their home is robbed and ransacked, it's not just they got stereo equipment, but you feel invaded. You know, you feel like sort of emotional about it. And then and the fire is sort of the ultimate destruction. So I mean, there's a lot of components to it.
I guess, thankfully, I'm more of a pragmatist. And so I'm sort of in where would I stay, how would I rebuild, what kind of insurance are we talking about, how long would it take to rebuild and things that are more mechanical because I have a background in construction. I just tend to think sort of mechanically. And it helps in these cases because if I went pure just sort of feelings and viscera, I'd probably just be in a fetal position right now.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Right. Right. I I totally understand that. The you know, you you have a mechanical background.
You almost had a firefighting background, but didn't. And it's the reason why is related to one of the things that people are complaining about today, which is the obsession with DEI, even years ago, in the fire department, including in the LA fire department. You actually testified before congress in 2017 during a house hearing that was about free speech and white privilege, white male privilege too. And you made you told a story that went totally viral and has gone viral again now for obvious reasons. Take a listen to part of your story here in.
Speaker 13: I graduated North Hollywood high with a 1.7 GPA. I could not find a job. I walked to a fire station in North Hollywood. I was 19. I was living in the garage of my family home.
My mom was on welfare and food stamps. And I said, can I get a job as a fireman? And they said, no, because you're not black, Hispanic, or a woman. We'll see you in about 7 years. And I went to a construction site and dug ditches and picked up garbage for the next 7 years.
I got a letter in the mail sent to my father's house saying your time has come to do the written exam for the LA Fire Department. I took it and I was standing in line and I had a young woman of color standing behind me in line. And I said, just out of curiosity, when did you sign up to become a fire man? Because I did it or a person 7 years ago. And she said, Wednesday.
Unbelievable. I remember first off very clearly the test was at Hollywood High. We're standing outside on a Saturday just waiting in line and not only did she sign up on Wednesday, she was diminutive. I mean, she was £95.5.2. She couldn't carry anybody out of the building.
She couldn't put a £50 pack on and go up a ladder. She would be completely useless as a fire person. And, yeah, the point of that story was it it's not really about skin color. I was poor and I needed a job and I would have made a good fireman because I played football in high school and I was kinda strong and and I was eager for the fray. Like, I would have went into the burning building at 21 or 19 or whatever.
So, yes, that is a problem. And and it's been going on longer than people think because that story dates back to the mid early eighties.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Well, today, I mean, there was just a fire, fighting headline. Not today, but June of 2023 in NPR that reads as follows. Firefighting is mostly white and male. A California program aims to change that.
So all those years later, they hadn't solved the problem. For some reason, they just couldn't find enough women who could do the job or wanted to. And then along came your current fire chief who happens to be a woman and, bonus, gay because who's not thinking about what kind of sex my fire chief likes to have? That's that's really where your mind goes when you're hiring someone for that job. And, you know, unlike somebody who maybe got it and just said, okay.
That's fine. You've factored it in, but let's ignore it. Boy, oh, boy, has this woman leaned in. Her name is Kristen Crowley. Here she is in one sound bite that was played on, NBC in 2022, SOT 3.
Speaker 11: I am super inspired.
Speaker 14: She took time out of her already busy schedule to tell us about her vision for the department's future, one that includes a 3 year strategic plan to increase diversity.
Speaker 11: People ask me, well, what what number are you looking for? I said, I'm not looking for a number. It's never an
Speaker 14: Out of 33 100 city firefighters, only 115 are women right now. When it comes to inclusivity and diversity at this department. She's a proud member of the LGBTQ community.
Speaker 11: That just kinda opens the door of people that thought, wow. I didn't even know that that was an opportunity for me.
Speaker 0: So that's where things stand now today.
Speaker 13: Yeah. And you just saw whoever's in charge of safety in New Orleans 20 minutes ago. She didn't really seem up to the job either. You kinda wonder if she didn't get pushed in front of the line. Secret service, like, look, we need the most confident people in these types of jobs.
And if they happen to be lesbian or female or black or anything, then so be it. But that shouldn't be a criteria that's factored in. Their jobs are too important. And now we're seeing the chickens come home to roost. People are dying because we've taken incompetent people and we put an emphasis on something else.
I mean, it could go no other way. If we said, look, you're an air traffic controller, but first you're a gay man and we really wanna kinda focus on that. There would be planes hitting each other. Why wouldn't there be? Why wouldn't it?
It could go no other way. So it's our fault obviously for emphasizing this junk. And hopefully enough people have died now where it's gonna come back around.
Speaker 0: Right. I mean, it's a it's a crazy statement, but you're exactly right. Yeah. Hopefully, enough Americans are dead that someone's going to rethink these things. And we're starting to see it.
We're seeing it globally now, blowback against left wing policies and politicians. By the way, I know this news flash. Joe Biden is still the president. He's the current president, and he held a presser with Gavin Newsom on Wednesday. And right on brand, the president thought now would be a great time for him to lighten the mood and have some fun as people like you are seeing your homes get burned down, your neighborhoods get burned down.
And this is the pivot. Watch. He's a great grandfather. And he had
Speaker 9: a
Speaker 0: great grandchild who's a baby boy or a baby girl. Not not clear which. He said both. So I'm sure you'd feel reassured.
Speaker 13: Okay. If it's a baby girl, she can run the Los Angeles Fire Department. And if it's a baby boy, then he can go off to Russia and China and hammer checks on his dad's name. So either way or his grandfather's name. So either way, that kid's gonna land on his feet.
Speaker 9: Good point.
Speaker 13: I do wanna I do wanna say something, to address, what James Woods was eloquently saying on your program moments ago. And I think it's going to be interesting. He's talking about rebuilding. Rebuilding in Malibu, Palisades at Santa Monica requires permits, lots of permits and you're going to have to deal with the Coastal Commission and the Coastal Commission is not friendly and they don't expedite anything. Suzanne Somers, the late great Suzanne Somers and her husband, Alan Hamill had a house burned down in Malibu years ago, tried to rebuild, couldn't deal with the Coastal Commission for 7 years.
They had to deal with permitting and the Coastal Commission ended up moving to Palm Springs. You're gonna see a lot of people in Malibu who may have voted blue, start voting red if they're permitting and the coastal commission and all the bureaucracy starts getting involved. If people cannot rebuild their home in a timely fashion or gets regulated to the point where it just becomes impractical or undoable, you're gonna see a lot of angry campers, which is what happened to Bill Maher. Bill Maher was hard left and as hard left as they would go until he tried to pull a permit to put solar power in his home in Beverly Hills. And after 3 years of arguing with the city, he's starting to sound like me.
Speaker 0: You know, I should I should tell our audience he was gonna be on the show today, but he had to postpone because of the fires. I think he's in the midst of this dealing with it himself. Yeah. No. He's but he hasn't been totally red pill because he's got some tedious on there.
He definitely hates Donald Trump. But he is one of the normal liberals who we all used to know and love and argue with, but didn't, like, get grossed out by. Like, these woke people who care more about who you're sleeping with than whether you can fight fires when they put you in charge of a department. Look. I don't know whether this Kristen Crowley's incompetent or not, but I know that the reservoirs weren't filled, and the fire hydrants didn't have water.
And it seems like something she should have been jumping up and down about for a long time because that's literally her job. The, there's a report though that that a bunch of money, Adam. I mean, I haven't totally followed the California reservoir politics for a long time. But Jillian Michaels, she tweeted out that in 2014, voters in California put 2,700,000,000 towards securing future water storage through prop 1. By 2025, not a single reservoir has been completed.
I mean, that's unbelievable. 2,700,000,000 towards securing future water storage in, you know, 10 years ago. And by today, not a single reservoir has been completed. They they spent money to put power lines underground, which also didn't happen. And they're also spending all this money on freaking high speed rail, which has almost no chance of happening.
So I just it's impossible to look at this and not ask whether some huge portion of it is due to mismanagement.
Speaker 13: Well, I mean, the high speed rail you speak of is 80,000,000,000 over budget, and it's not high speed rail that connects LA with San Francisco or LA with San Diego or LA with Vegas. It's high speed rail that started in 2008 was supposed to be done in 20 and 20 has already gone 80,000,000,000 over budget and is connecting Bakersfield with Merced. Now for those of you who are not in California and never heard of Merced, neither have people who live in California. Nobody I know even those were Merced is and they have lived here for many years. There's nothing in between Bakersfield and Merced.
There's no reason to connect those two places. They're about 2 hours apart if you drive, whichever one does. And there's no thinkable reasonable rational reason why they keep dumping money into this boondoggle, but yet they do. We could have had power lines that were buried, we could have had reservoirs, we could have had aquifers, we could have had the system for collecting rainwater and so on and so forth. Instead, we have a $100,000,000,000 train to nowhere that no one's ever gonna ride and no piece of track has even been laid yet.
Speaker 0: The this report I wanna get to the real again in one second, but just this just report, just come to my attention. In May of 2024, they hired a new department of water and power head in LA by the name of Janice Quinones who replaced a guy named Martin Adams, and they doubled the salary for that position. He was getting 435,000 435,000. She got 750,000. They said they had to do it to stay competitive.
So this woman, okay, who is younger and diverse and a woman, gets the salary doubled and the fire hydrants remain empty. So it just seems like a problem to me. I don't know whether Los Angeles residents are gonna find it a problem or not, but all this needs to be evaluated. And I don't know. I'm not saying it's because she's a woman, but I'm saying these people shouldn't be getting a pass because they're women either.
They've been put in very important positions. And where is the fucking water, the reservoirs?
Speaker 13: Well, look, your your point, I think, is this, which is we don't know if she's there because she's Latina and female. We don't know if the fire chief is there because she's a lesbian. We don't know if, we know Kamala Harris is incompetent and there because she's a female of color. But the bigger problem when you start doing this is if you were a young black male and you're walking through the quad at Harvard, you now have people thinking you're there because of this. You may have graduated top of your class in high school.
You may have scored a perfect score on your SAPs, but we think you're there because of the color of your skin, which is, which is a horrible it's horrible for the person. So this woman who's in charge of the aqueducts in the water in LA may be perfectly qualified, but you and I are wondering. And the reason we sort of have a little bit of not so fast is because this is what they do over and over again. So now whenever I just see a woman, oh, woman of color. Okay.
Alright. She's not qualified to be there, which is totally unfair to her.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. Exactly. Well, I don't care what color she is or what gender she is. It appears there's been a massive screw up. I was just like, this was known.
They they were calling attention to this. It came out a couple of months ago that the reservoirs were a problem and that the fire hydrants were not full. And as great as the firefighters may be, they they can't do the job without water. I mean, that's just not possible. On the high speed rail thing, it's just an example of incompetence.
California is probably the best example in the country of blue control, total blue control, and total utter incompetence in this high speed rail project, which has taken so much money and gone absolutely nowhere, is a great example of it. This, congressman Kevin Kyle of California was railing, pardon the pun, Kylie, about this the other day saying we should not be giving more money to this project. The feds should not. Californians should not. It's gone nowhere, and here he is espousing that.
Speaker 15: The high speed rail project was originally projected in 2008 to cost $33,000,000,000 It is now projected to cost up to $127,900,000,000 Its estimated completion date was 2020. Of course we are past 2020 now. As of 2024, 0 passengers have been transported. Indeed, the majority of the system has not even been fully defined designed. A few years ago, the New York Times did an expose, the New York Times, Reporting that at the current pace, the high speed rail project will not be completed this century.
Even if the high speed train, quote unquote high speed, magically materializes by the end of the decade. It will still be yesterday's technology. China right now is working on a train that they are planning to complete by the end of the decade that will go up to a 1000 kilometers per hour.
Speaker 0: That's your tax money as a Californian and mine and our listeners as federal taxpayers. It's joint effort. And what we might well have done instead is just taken our money, done this, and flushed it down the toilet. And so Susan, you can't help but think of it as California burns.
Speaker 13: Yeah. It's a it's a it's an actual thing that happens, but it's sort of a metaphor for California on a larger scale, which is the sort of hopeful ideas. So we look at ourselves as the leader of the first things first, California loves Europe and they go in Europe. They have bullet trades. I've seen the bullet trades and we're California.
We're first, we're the tip of the spear for everything. But it's a lot the bullet train in California is a lot like saying sanctuary city. It sounds great. No one's illegal. Everyone is welcome.
We'll take care of everybody until a bus load of migrants shows up, and then you're screwed. And we like the idea of a bullet train, but we can't pull it off because of the bureaucracy and the expense and the red tape. And by the way, we're never gonna have a bullet train. Nothing gets built in California. And you're right.
When something is sort of majority, blue, it's not going to get done. There's no gravity. These people can waste money in perpetuity, waste time in perpetuity. There's no pushback. I mean, Gavin Newsom you know, got recalled essentially and he still won.
We had a choice between Rick Caruso, a sort of qualified able-bodied business man for mayor. We ended up with Karen Bass, like we sort of get what we deserve. And I do wanna say to all the people in Malibu, very blue. Palisades, very blue. Santa Monica, very blue.
You guys like all this. This is who you vote you voted for these people. You're sitting around right now going, how come the fire hydrants don't work? Where's the mayor? Why is she out of the country?
What's going on with the aqueduct? You voted for these people. This is who you voted for. You in Santa Monica, you live in these places. This is how you roll.
This is what you agree with. You think it's more important to have a woman of color versus a qualified person. You think it's more important to have a lesbian running the fire department than a qualified person. Well, you asked for it. You got it.
Now your house is on fire.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Right. And the house has so many people who don't have money, don't have insurance, don't have the first clue about how to rebuild or where to go. There was a woman speaking, to ABC Local talking about, coming to get her parents who were, I think she said 90, out of their home in Pasadena, which was burning. And she was trying to save what she could of it.
But look. This is like a real person who I'm sure she's complaining about the insurance. Take a listen.
Speaker 16: I know I'm not supposed to be here, but this is my parents' home.
Speaker 10: I know the feeling.
Speaker 16: And, they just, lost they got canceled from their fire insurance. So they're dealing with this. They're 90 years old. They've lived in this house for 75 years, and they've had the same insurance. And these insurance people decided to cancel their fire.
And we're going through this, and it just happened, and they have no fire insurance. So thank you, California Insurance Companies supporting I
Speaker 0: have something that's interesting. Obviously, I'm
Speaker 13: I have something that's interesting. Obviously alright. We all know what it's like, and maybe this is I I say to people people I say to people, when's it gonna end? You know, when are we gonna change course? And, then you know what the number one answer for California?
When are we gonna change course? Like, when are we gonna go different direction? The answer is when we bottom out. And I always say, why do we have to bottom out? Why?
Why can't we see where this thing is going? I would always use the example of, like, you go to your daughter's bedroom and you find empty pill bottles and syringes. Get her some help now. Why do I have to wait until she's flat lining to intervene? You know, she had there's a problem.
Intervene. But this may be us bottoming out. This this maybe is is the bottom. And I have another thought for you, Megan, because I know you enjoy them. But I was talking about on my podcast
Speaker 12: I do.
Speaker 9: I do.
Speaker 13: Today, which is we have a huge problem with the homeless. And and the people who start these fires are either the homeless or decaying power lines that blow over the wind and start the fire. Either way, it's on the city and the state's back. Homeless people start most the fires we're dealing with because they're drug addicts and they're living up in the hills and they're smoking bath and there's a fire. All these people in the palisades, and we call them the homeless.
No. We call them previously housed or unhoused. Boy. Unhoused people instead of junkies who are insane. But, okay, they're homeless.
And we talk to the progressives in California, they go, they're homeless because they need a home. And if they had a home, they would have a place to live. Thousands of people just got displaced from their homes. 1,000, Palisades, Malibu, now into Pasadena, Altadena, La Canada. Thousands of thousands of Californians got displaced overnight.
Over in in 8 hours, they're all displaced. How many of them are gonna be sleeping on a sidewalk tonight, physically sleeping under an overpass? And the answer is none of them. Because even though they don't have a house anymore, they have a network and they're not junkies, and they will go somewhere. I mean, I don't have a house, but I have many places.
I talked to doctor Drew. I talked to Jimmy Kimmel. They said, come stay with me. I have a network. I'm not I'm not a junkie.
I'm not schizophrenic. I have a network. So all the people just got unhoused are all gonna sleep on a bed tonight somewhere. Mhmm.
Speaker 0: I'll tell you what. You you can come stay in our house too. We have a little cottage right next door, and Jimmy Kimmel can come too. Even though we disagree politically, I would help Jimmy Kimmel in a time of need. Feeling very magnanimous.
But, no, truly, I really am. I'm so sorry for the stress of all of this for you and everybody out there, Adam. All my best to you.
Speaker 13: Thanks, Megan.
Speaker 0: Keep us updated. What a nightmare. I mean, what an absolute shit show. Charlie Kirk tweeted this out. He writes, a friend of a friend in West LA just saw looters plunder her evacuated house on her Ring camera.
I mean, it is crazy. We have a bunch of Spirit Airhouse. We actually just added a Ring camera, so I'm just now getting used to the joys of that thing. It's actually quite fun. You could see everything.
We have we have another, like, more official one that other people monitor, but, like, this is for me and Doug. And it gives you a little ring on your phone. You're like, oh, what's happening? What am I getting? Who who's there?
Mean, I I'm sure it would feel very different if it were an actual burglar, robber, or ne'er do well. Anyway, what he's reporting is that there was a woman who saw looters go into her evacuated house. Sounds like it wasn't burned down. It's just evacuated. He writes her friends, including some who voted for Harris, are calling for summary execution of the looters.
That's something you say. Right? Like, they should be executed. Turns out in this house, we believe politics disappear when your house does. I get it.
I understand the spirit in which he's offering that. I'm sure that's that's probably true. Who wouldn't be sitting there thinking that if their house they had to evacuate because of serious threat of fire got looted? Who wouldn't be thinking about reevaluating the competency of politicians who allowed all of these safeguards to fail? All of them.
Whether it's this woman at the Department of Water, the head of the LA FD, the the mayor, Karen Batt, like, stop. Stop. I trust me. Absolutely nothing against women. Nothing.
Nothing against women. Totally believe in strong female leaders too. Not seeing examples of them here. Be honest. Stop.
Like, one of the things I saw when I was preparing for the Bill Maher interview, which will take place again when he can do it, was he he he had a quote about how oh, god. What was it? He he was saying it was about wokeness and how sick and tired of wokeness he is and how like, he's he's hoping at every turn that people will reevaluate it. You know? That they're gonna see these choices they've made have not come back to help them.
I can't remember the specific quote. And then even I'll get to it when he comes on. But it was a great quote, and it just underscored how the left is so busy trying to, like, reach behind to give itself pats on the back at how virtuous they are. They've lost all touch with the number of people who get seriously hurt from those very efforts. Right?
So, like, they're so busy virtue signaling and hoping we think they are good people and trying to tell themselves they are good people, in this house, we believe, that they forgot to actually be good people and hire good people to protect good people. This is the problem in California. This is a problem in Canada. This is the problem in the United States, which we just pushed back against massively. So this was the thing that Bill Maher was saying.
He doesn't like Trump as you know. But he said, even I, as a liberal, am kind of excited to see what Trump is gonna do. I'm kind of excited to see I think he's interested in Elon and potentially RFK. I'm kind of interested to see how it works out. And and one of his lines was, I'm gonna mess it up, but it was like, we don't need a revolution in America.
We need a colonic, you know, like a a clearing out of the system. We're old, and we're stodgy, and we're doing things in a way that's not working for people. That's why Trump won. That's why his team of superheroes is going to be ushered not just into the presidency, but into the administration around Trump, the cabinet. And it's why Californians, my dear loving friends in California, must rethink the decisions they've made at the local level because the federal government can't really help you.
That's the god's honest truth on something like this. You know, there could be some FEMA relief. It's not gonna it's not you what you needed was good local assistance. You needed competent local managers who know how to plan for these disasters and manage them when they come, like Ron DeSantis. I mean, let me ask my friends.
We we see who listens to the show. We have a actually a lot of California listeners. Let me ask you this question. Do you think the suit would have happened? It to this extent, no no one's saying some magical politician can stop fire.
And the winds, of course, are the the massive factor that pushes it fast and far. But do you really think this would have happened to this extent with these problems if Ron DeSantis had been your governor or the mayor of LA? Do you really think that like, this guy is a technocratic, prolifically hardworking Yale graduate who has a lifetime of elbow grease behind him. He didn't do well glad handing in the coffee shops of Iowa. He's not a natural retail politician.
If you have him over for dinner, he's probably not going to be the most loved guest. Right? But he's an incredibly effective politician, a leader. You know? Someone who gets elected via politics who then must lead is my point.
You need someone like that. Okay. Maybe you're not gonna go quite as right as a Ron DeSantis, though he will be looking for a job soon because of term limits in Florida. You should be so lucky as to get him in any role out there. But can you find your own?
Can you say yes when this businessman runs against Karen Bass and says, I'll do the job. I'm actually a Democrat. But I will and I have money, but I I will help you. Can you be more open minded so that instead of making yourselves feel good by patting yourselves on the back, you just do good. You check your identity politics, your obsession with DEI hiring and all that bullshit, and you look at who's the most competent manager we can unleash on the beautiful citizens of our beautiful cities and state.
Because what seems to have happened here is one of the gems of the United States of America, California, one of, if not the, most beautiful states in the union has been destroyed by left wing politics and the decisions that come with them. Maybe it's too late. There are no red seats in the state house, in the US, you know, delegate. Like, there are no there's no red in California at all. So maybe it's too late.
But maybe Adam's right that enough people have now died or been hurt as a result of these decisions that they'll start to make different ones. Here is the Bill Maher quote. Okay. I'm a big America booster, Maher says to the Wall Street Journal. One of my problems with the younger generation is they have no idea, no perspective.
Of course, if they've gone to elite universities, factories, they've been indoctrinated into this idea that they live in the worst country in the world at the worst time in history, when actually they live in with all of our flaws, still probably the best with definitely, indisputably, the best time in history. I like America. America does not need a revolution. What it needs is a colonic. Yeah.
Right on. Looking forward to speaking with Bill. On a personal note, really hope his house is okay. Hope Adam and and James Woods get good news. Hope my friend Brian Friedman gets good news.
I don't think so. And praying for my friends who I know have lost their homes and for those in all the area who are wondering and suffering today. Thank you all so much for listening, and we'll be back tomorrow.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Sham Political Trump Sentencing in NYC, and Trump and Obama Laugh While Kamala Gets Snubbed, with @thevivafrei and @JesseKellyDC WATCH: https://t.co/ssMxv2nBen
Video Transcript AI Summary
Donald Trump is now labeled a convicted felon after a New York court ruling, but he received an unconditional discharge with no jail time. Many believe this conviction will be overturned on appeal, potentially boosting Trump's presidential campaign. The prosecution's arguments were criticized as politically motivated, with claims that Trump undermined the justice system. The judge's decision to rush the sentencing was seen as an attempt to label Trump before the election. Meanwhile, the leadership in Los Angeles has been scrutinized for its handling of recent wildfires, with officials failing to take responsibility for budget cuts that hampered emergency responses. The focus on diversity over competence in hiring has raised concerns about public safety. Overall, there's a growing sentiment that the current political climate is failing to protect citizens and uphold justice.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show, and happy Friday. Well, the Democrats finally got what they wanted or so they think. Donald Trump is now officially a, quote, convicted felon.
He's also our next president, so you should probably include that term in your celebratory smashes of the football on the left. I mean, great. And, by the way, one of the reasons he is going to be our next president is because of all this nonsensical lawfare. So go ahead. I think it's the ultimate Pyrrhic victory.
In a New York City courtroom this morning, judge Juan Mershon handed down the sentence of an unconditional discharge to president Trump. This means no jail time or any other punishment, and many believe the conviction will eventually be thrown out on appeal. It will be thrown out on appeal. Mark my words. It's going to be thrown out on appeal.
It actually stands a very decent chance of being thrown out by the New York appellate court right above this guy, Marshawn. And I believe the New York State Court of Appeals I like there this is eventually going away. So enjoy it while you can. You can say convicted felon right after you refer to him as mister president, and it will be a limited period of months. And then it will get reversed and so will that label, and you help to get him elected.
So with this lawfare, I I hope that makes you feel good at night. Like, I'm not exactly sure why the Democrats feel so smug about this. None of this stopped the prosecutor of Donald Trump in the New York State Supreme case, Joshua Steinglass, from droning on. This man is ridiculous about just how terrible of a man he thinks Donald Trump is. Watch.
Speaker 1: The defendant's conduct before, during, and after this trial also merits consideration. Instead of preserving, protecting, and defending our constitutionally established system of criminal justice, the defendant, the once and future president of the United States, has engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine its legitimacy. Far from expressing any kind of remorse for his criminal conduct, the defendant has purposefully bred disdain for our judicial institutions and the
Speaker 2: rule of
Speaker 1: law. Such threats are designed to have a chilling effect, to intimidate
Speaker 0: folks
Speaker 1: who have the responsibility to enforce our laws. Put simply, this defendant has caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system and has placed officers of the court in harm's way. Sentencing the defendant permits this court to enter judgment to cement the defendant's status as a convicted felon.
Speaker 0: And that's what it was all about. The the nerve of this guy to say it's Donald Trump who caused damage to the institution, to the court, to the justice system with his reaction to this case, the absolute nerve. Talk about putting the cart before the horse. You, sir, are to blame for all of that. You.
Donald Trump called it out for the joke, the absolute insulting joke of a proceeding that it was. You caused the lack of trust in an institution that had been mostly previously respected. Even president Biden, when he pardoned his son, Hunter, called out how he doesn't trust the justice system. So please spare me. This whole thing was rushed to sentencing by a judge who was determined to be able to call Trump a convicted felon for that reason only because it's been about politics from the start.
These losers wrapping themselves in sanctimony. Alvin Bragg was out there. You know, the the will of the jury must be must be heard, must be done. We you know, who am I to interfere with the jury process? The judge too.
Like, we just you know, we're just like public service servants who have to do what the jury said. Otherwise, it'd be a really give me a break. You 2 orchestrated this from the beginning. You've been working hand in hand to make sure you could just get this label on him. You wanted it so much earlier.
I know, sweethearts. It was so important you desperately wanted it earlier so that maybe it could affect the election, but you failed. You got your conviction. No one gave a shit. Even the left wing media recognized that this case was a joke, so you failed utterly in doing anything other than creating sympathy for Donald Trump and making yourselves look like idiots.
And then rather than just saying, like, let's walk it back. We've had enough embarrassment. You rushed to try to get this declaration as though it was going to be meaningful. And it's it means nothing other than you've additionally irritated the next president. Let's see how that works out for you.
I look forward to watching it, frankly. And it probably created more sympathy for for many people in looking at Trump, seeing how unfair this is. You you know, you got CNN's top legal analysts saying this whole thing is unconstitutional. These charges are probably unconstitutional. Okay.
So it's not going well for you, mister Steinglass, or for you, judge Marchand. In addition to making this sentencing hearing happen, which didn't have to, and Steinglass and his boss, Alvin Bragg, pursuing it all the way up to the Supreme Court because Trump tried to stop the sentencing saying, for the same reasons you can't try a president, for official acts because he's immune, thanks to that supreme court ruling. You can't come after a president-elect like this and make him sit for sentencing. He's got other things he gotta do for the nation. And, ultimately, the US Supreme Court said in a ruling, no.
We're gonna let this play out. The harm to you is minimal. It was Amy Konovera and chief justice Roberts who did not side with the 4 other conservatives costing Trump that decision. She's she's getting more and more likes Roberts every day, and that's not a good thing in any event. So he had to sit for it, and he had to be sentenced.
But there but the that's why they wanted it so desperately today. There was no reason. Judge Rashawn had said, I'm not going to impose jail time. Like, he telegraphed. It's basically I'm just gonna slap him on the wrist.
The whole point of doing this was so that we can call him a convicted felon. We really, really worked so hard to be able to call him as a convicted felon, so that's what we're gonna do. So okay. You got you got it. Now president Trump was allowed to appear over Zoom, which is unusual.
That's great. Thank you for accommodating the next president of the United States. He's down there meeting with Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, all of whom have come in and bent the knee. Do it. Good.
Jeff Bezos left his prostitute looking wife for 2 minutes or soon to be to go over and bend the knee. Have you seen the pictures of this woman down in Saint Barr? I'm sorry. She dresses like a prostitute. They're all bending the knee for Donald Trump.
So he's busy, judge Marchand. He doesn't have a whole lot of shit ton of time to deal with you and your political theater, but he appeared via Zoom. And then the judge did something he hasn't done before in this whole process, adding to the theater, which was he released the audio. That's what how we just got to hear a Steinglass. And none of this thing was on camera or on audio.
Remember? We didn't get to hear audio of Stormy Daniels. We saw the sketch artist painting of her, and she took the stand. But today, judge Mishan really, you know, waxed poetic about the case from the bench. And I think he knew he was gonna say something truly profound that America would would wanna hear, and maybe they'd wanna hear Steinglass talk about what a shit Trump is and what, like, a really important case this was and how how poorly the justice system has been treated by Trump, so they released the audio.
Meantime, that included the audio of Donald Trump who was participating in the whole thing from Florida where he said that he is completely innocent and that this case was a political witch hunt from the start. Watch.
Speaker 3: It's been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so that I'd lose the election, and, obviously, that didn't work. I'm totally innocent. I did nothing wrong. They talked about business records, and the business records were extremely accurately counted.
I had nothing to do with the many of it. That was done by an accountant. This has been a weaponization of government. They call it welfare. Never happened to any extent like this, but never happened in our country before.
And I just like to explain that I was treated very, very unfairly.
Speaker 0: Judge Meershon, who again, you know, he could have done this not at all. He could have done this with no audio, but and or he could have done this if necessary after Trump's presidency, but no. Rushed it on. He could have given the evil Trump who interfered with an election. That's what Steinglass said.
That's he made this from a stupid business records case in which he wrote down legal expenses for money he gave to a lawyer to make a nasty complainant go away. That sounds like a legal expense to me. They they turned it from a business records case into a hush money case, into a federal election interference case, one that the feds refused to bring. He could've given him up to 4 years in prison. That's serious business.
You interfere with an election. The scheme that he was actually accused of, lying to the American public committing fraud so they wouldn't know what they were electing. It was all lies. All of it was freaking lies. So but if you follow their logic, he deserved 4 years in prison.
Right? So why did we have a DA go in there and say, yeah. I consent that there there should be no prison time. Because they had to. They had to in order to get this thing held before the inauguration because they knew Trump would appeal it.
And one of the reasons the Supreme Court said, we're not gonna hear this right now. We're kinda not interested. Trump can take this case up on appeal. By the way, it's going to be reversed. They didn't say that, but I'm sure it will be.
The one of the reasons the Supreme Court said, we're not gonna take it right now. There's no urgency, is because they said, look. The judge is telegraphing. He's not getting any jail time. So this we don't need to get involved yet.
So that's why the prosecutor and the judge were both like, there'll be no prison time. Please let us hold our hearing in which we get to label him. We want the big CF label. Don't interfere. Okay.
So he could've given him 4 years in prison. He said in advance he wouldn't, and he didn't. And he he said he was distinguishing between Trump, the citizen, and Trump, the president.
Speaker 4: To be clear, the protections afforded the office of the president are not a mitigating factor. They do not reduce the seriousness seriousness of the crime, or justify its commission in any way. The protections are, however, a legal mandate, which pursuant to the rule of law, this court must respect and follow. This court has determined that the only lawful sentence that permits entry of a judgment of conviction, without encroaching upon the highest office in the land is an unconditional discharge, which the New York State Legislature has determined is a lawful and permissible sentence for the crime of falsifying business records in the first degree. Therefore, at this time, I impose that sentence to cover all 34 counts.
Sir, I wish you godspeed as you assume your 2nd term in office.
Speaker 0: Oh, thank you. Please. Fuck you. Sorry. Give me a break.
I wish you godspeed. Bullshit. This is such a farce. Joining me now to react to all of this is attorney and Rumble host, Viva Fry. Don't miss a moment.
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I mean, this is just so outrageous. Is it not?
Speaker 5: It's when you appreciate what they did, and they took a 30 they turned what would otherwise been a misdemeanor bookkeeping error, a time barred misdemeanor into a 34 count felony charge indictment conviction to then give an unconditional discharge just so that they could call him a convicted felon. It was a scam from the beginning. The the judge I I like the only reason he gave the unconditional discharge is because any other sanction would have been obviously immediately appealed or unenforceable because Trump takes office in a week and a half. And so they get that header. The only question now is these scoundrels, what do they do with it?
Do they go for an impeachment 3 point o now that they actually have a crime to claim is the high crime and misdemeanor to go impeach them a third time? But it's it's corruption of the highest order and you pointed it out. The audacity of them to accuse Trump of being the one who discredited the legal system. These people are Darvo narcissists. Darvo deny attack, reverse victim, and offender.
The victimizers pretending to be the victims and pretending that the victim is the one who caused the distrust in the system when it's everything that they have done from day 1 to make people realize the legal system, at least in New York, is so corrupt. You gotta get your stuff and pack up and leave because there's nobody is safe in New York.
Speaker 0: First of all, I love how you pronounce misdemeanor misdemeanor like it's a contestant in one of Trump's beauty contests.
Speaker 5: A misdemeanor sounds that sounds like I'm I'm misgendering the misdemeanor. No.
Speaker 0: But if a Mis demeanor sounds like a like a feminist demeanor contestant.
Speaker 5: I think it's the the
Speaker 6: correct way
Speaker 5: of doing it. But but it was a time barred misdemeanor at worst, and they they don't even know what they predicated the the felony predicate acts on. Like, you asked the jury, what did you convict them on? I don't know. It was a he he bookkeeping error.
How did you It's bad. Bump it up to a felony? Yeah. But when the judge said, you don't even have to identify which of the underlying felonies this predicate act was based on, you know that you're dealing with an outcome driven process and not a justice driven process. I just thought that that judge, and as much as he's an idiot, a totally corrupt hack, whose daughter, worth mentioning every time we talk about him, his daughter was fundraising off of this prosecution.
That discredits the system, but I thought he had a little bit more savvy to say, alright. After the Supreme Court came down and said you can't admit evidence that is a juice from presidential acts, he would say, okay. I've gotta vacate the verdict and blame the Supreme Court. No.
Speaker 0: Yeah. He would definitely did that.
Speaker 5: Without a question. And in his ruling, he says, look. None of the evidence related to presidential acts because it was all in furtherance of a private act of fraud. Bullcrap. But even if it were, he says the error would be harmless because of the overwhelming evidence of guilt.
I mean, this is like, this is communist level find me the man, I will find you the crime presumption of guilt, not innocence. But I thought he would have the good sense to say, okay. I can vacate this verdict, save my own face on appeal because it will get overturned on appeal. I agree with you on that. And blame the supreme court.
No. He went full throttle, and Amy Coney Barrett, the turncoat that Robert Barnes on our show Sunday night warned about. She was the turncoat, and they say, because this corrupt hack of a judge undertook informally not to impose a prison sentence, we'll go ahead and allow the sentencing. He could've he could've given Trump money in that sentence, and they should not have allowed the judge to proceed with
Speaker 0: this sentence. The Supreme Court should have stepped in here to say, this is not going to happen. We just issued a ruling on presidential immunity. We just issued a ruling saying that you can't even use evidence of a president's official conduct against him in a criminal trial, which was definitely done in this case, and we are staying this proceeding until we are able to handle the appeal or until post presidency until post presidency, in which case they can follow the normal course.
Speaker 5: Yep. And not just that also. And shame on you, Merscha, for not respecting our supreme court ruling. This is a supreme court at least with Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett, who have no respect for their own rulings. They've made that, you know, public now.
They issued a ruling. It said, you know, presumpt presidential immunity for court constitutional acts, presumption of immunity for in the middle acts, and no immunity for personal acts, but you cannot adduce as evidence. Evidence that was adduced as presidential conduct, which correspondence with chief of staff and press secretary obviously was on its face. And so what they basically said is, we have no respect for our rulings either. Go ahead, Marshall, and take a judicial dump on our ruling, and go ahead with your sentencing.
Because you've undertaken not to jail him, we'll let you do it. They they they have discredited themselves, and we see, unfortunately, the true colors of Amy Coney Barrett.
Speaker 0: I I'm worried about her. She's she's a little squishy, and it's, you know, concerning. I I'll tell you just like as a as a female who leans right, kinda sick of, like, the female conservatives who get appointed at the Supreme Court, Sandra Day, O'Connor, now Amy Coney Barrett, like, being too squishy. Why can't we just get, like, this judge Aileen Cannon down in Florida? Get a female Alito on there.
Get somebody with some, you know, rhetorical balls who will hold as as fiercely to conservative principles in the judiciary as the left wing does, as Elena Kagan does to the liberal principles. Why are the women so squishy when they get up there on the right?
Speaker 5: Well, ro Roberts is squishy as well, so who who knows how he identifies? But but but bottom line and she's also she's young. She's there for a long time. But you imagine the rationale. They said, yeah.
We issued this ruling that the evidence was inadmissible if but because the judge announced his intention not to jail, we'll let him go through a sentencing? No. The the judge desecrated. Yeah. They the the judge desecrated the ruling, of the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said, we don't really care.
That's what it's worth. And now you get your convicted felon title so you can do lord knows what with. I I I do wonder
Speaker 0: But that's an interesting okay. Let's talk about that. You you raise an interesting point as you always do, Viva. You know, is it is it more than just the label? Do you think the next move because here we are, what, January 10th, we got 10 days until the inauguration.
Do you think they actually do try yet another maneuver of insurrectionist or I don't know what they're gonna say, but, you know, they've they've done a lot of legal gymnastics to try to get him and stop him from taking the oath.
Speaker 5: Well, Megan, remember the legal gymnastics. Back in impeachment 1 point o, that was the quid pro quo, where, democrat left leaning lawless, lawyers and members of congress said, we don't even need a crime to impeach. It's a purely political process. We can impeach him for the color of his tie. And that was to get around the fact that there was no crime committed with that quid pro quo conversation.
2nd time
Speaker 6: That's a
Speaker 0: perfect phone call.
Speaker 5: Yeah. The perfect phone call. There was no crime there. And so they had to say, well, impeachment, sure, it says for other high crimes and misdemeanors, but it's a political process. He doesn't actually have to commit a crime.
That's what they said in 1 point o. In 2 point o, for the insurrection, they then had at least on his face on paper, a crime. Now they have a confirmed crime, a convicted felon. So now they don't have to make the argument, oh, it's not a political process. This is now a judicial one.
We've got the the convicted felon status, so we can go for impeachment 3.0 because we can now point to the actual crime upon which this impeachment 3.0 might be based. They're that they are that stupid in that in that kamikaze reckless in their pursuit of opposing Trump. You know, Jamie Raskin, who who's infamously caught on that mic saying, you know, we we might have to declare civil war conditions when we disqualify Trump because of the insurrection clause. Well, supreme court came down 9 o and said, no. You can't do that.
So let's find another way to do it. Either impeach him before he takes office, or impeach him right after he takes office. I don't think there's the political will to do it or the public support to tolerate it, but they're doing something. You're dealing with scoundrel scheme artists, and the only question is what are they scheming about now behind closed doors? This is one, you know, one indication of what they could do with this convicted felon because I think it is a little bit more than just, the title for the next 10 days.
Speaker 0: Because, I mean, they don't control the house, and they're not going to control the house. They didn't before, and they don't in the new congress. And so they can't impeach him. They don't have the votes to impeach him, and they certainly don't now they don't control the senate either, so they're not gonna be able to, even in some weird world in which the house lost its mind and impeach Trump, they could never get a conviction. So I don't I don't know that the move is political in the body of Congress or if there's some legal maneuver in a court Yep.
They still think they could pull up.
Speaker 5: That was another thing I'm wondering. When when when Ratzkin comes out and says, we gotta disqualify him for insurrection, maybe they're gonna try something too. They they had to certify the, electoral college results because they didn't get the conviction in time for that. Maybe they try to disqualify him now for being a convicted felon. I mean, it's it's settled law, but settled law has never stopped them from trying.
So, they're definitely going to try something else. The only question is what. And for the in
Speaker 0: the meantime Can we talk about the on this front, we they are trying to get the Jack Smith report Mhmm. Of just how bad Trump was. You know, he's he's he owes this report to Joe Biden or to Merrick Garland, and, Trump has so far successfully stopped that report from getting released. He's like, these cases have been dismissed, so just stop. But there is some saber rattling that he's going to submit it, and we're go like, that now you're back in the insurrection lane
Speaker 7: Yep.
Speaker 0: And, you know, a possible legal challenge on oh, no. No. No. Just because the case got thrown out doesn't mean he's not an insurrectionist who is not capable of taking office.
Speaker 5: Well, especially since the impeachment process, you know, it doesn't require a conviction of a high crime. It just requires one to allegedly have been committed. And so they say, oh, sure. It got tossed at the court level, but this report shows insurrection y behavior. It's so preposterous and unlawful and lawless that they wanna release portions of a report that was produced in the context of charges that should never have been brought, that themselves were predicated on evidence that was falsified by the FBI, that raided with with authorization to use lethal force, the former president and leading presidential candidate at the time.
This is I don't know if it's communist is the right word, but it is lawlessness of the highest order. The people who need to be behind bars and need to be tried, convicted, and jailed are the Jack Smiths of the world, or the Merrick Garland's of the world, or the Majorcas just because I I dislike him as well, but or or the Radiskids of the world. The ones who probably announce. After a fair trial, they would get in any realm of a of a lawful universe convicted. But Jack Smith, the hired mercenary who was unlawfully appointed from the get go, citizen Jack Smith, now wants to release portions of a report because Merrick Garland says it's the interest of, you know, the public's best interest to see portions of a report that was prepared in a bogus, lawless prosecution.
Garland is a criminal as well, in my humble opinion. Hashtag no defamation. I believe the man is a criminal, and he's deliberately trying to undermine justice and doing everything he can to lay whatever groundwork they can do to either frustrate, attempt another impeachment. Hey, go, what? Go a third time.
They broke the glass once and twice. They turned the impeachment process into Halloween candy. Just go for a 3rd time. What what's what's the solution?
Speaker 0: Well, I mean, unless they're gonna use that Jack Smith report if they get their hands on it to to again say he's an insurrectionist, and therefore shouldn't be allowed to take the oath of office, then it's utterly pointless. Then we're back in the land of, what are you doing? You lost. He won the presidency. No one gives us shit.
Down.
Speaker 5: No. But they're trying to burn it down so they can rule over the ashes or at least piss on the ashes. The the only the only silver lining in drawing our attention back to the the report and January 6th is it's a reminder that Trump takes office on January 20th. The first thing he does is pardon all of the Jan 6ers. Pardon all of them.
They made a mockery of impeachment process. Joe Biden has desecrated the pardon process. You'll pardon the actual victims of lawfare and political persecution. But, no. They they are they are the the the the a group of people.
They will pop the ball if they don't like the fact that they're losing the game and storm off the field.
Speaker 0: Let's go back to, just for one more minute, this this warning by this judge because we're gonna hear a lot more about this, sorry, by this prosecutor, that there's he's mad that Trump is remorseless. I mean, it's just absurd. He's really, he's talking about him. I heard Trey Gowdy saying this, who's a criminal prosecutor now, a Fox News anchor, saying he was talking about him like he's like, they're weighing the death penalty. You know, he showed no remorse for his crimes, Sharad.
It's like, okay. This is a misdemeanor business records case. Stop it. And Trump has maintained his innocence, which is real, from the beginning. He's no remorse for the people he's hurt.
Who again? Who are those people? Then then going going on to he's spread disdain for our institutions and the rule of law. He's caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system. I mean, the gall, Viva, the gall of these guys to put that on Trump.
Speaker 5: Meghan, it's confession through projection as they are accusing their adversaries of what they are guilty of either for creating confusion or for just projecting off their own guilt. Audacity. You know you know what takes, what is compromising? The judge's daughter working, raising money for Kamala Harris, Democrat Pax, Adam Schiff off of this prosecution. What what what what
Speaker 0: Tens of millions.
Speaker 5: Tens of millions. Judge Juan Marchand, you know, she's talking about her dad having disdain for Trump and his use of social media. The the the it's it's just confession to projection. There's no other way to describe it. But they get out there and they get the sound bites out there so your joy reads.
You're the views of the world can run with the sound bites. Can you imagine? What did Trump do that violated or undermined anything as it relates to the constitution? Exercise freedom of speech to to to raise awareness of the corruption of the court system. They gagged Trump in the context of this case to prevent him from raising awareness for the corruption and then fault him for talking about the judge's family.
Well, maybe if the judge's family wasn't intimately involved with this entire prosecution process, he wouldn't be talking about the judge's family. And so they fault the victim for raising awareness of the corruption. But this will get overturned. I think it does go nowhere, and people see it for what it is. But it's just it's a wholesale desecration of the of one of the pillars of a civilized society, which is why, you know, New York is turning into a place where everyone should pull their assets, pull their investments, and don't drive through when you're driving from Montreal to Florida.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I mean, it's not only, of course, this prosecution against him, but the civil case brought by Leticia James for you know, now cost Trump half a $1,000,000,000, which is currently being laughed out of the appellate courts. I mean, that I don't I think when all is said and done, absolutely none of these will stand. Fannie Willis got bounced. Jack Smith was forced to to dismiss both of his federal cases against Trump.
The New York case is what it is. We've discussed that for the last half hour, and then there's the Tish James civil case against him. The E Jean Carol thing, unfortunately, is not going anywhere. That one's gonna stand, I I think. But the Tish James one is going away.
Speaker 5: They might reduce the quantum on the, the E Jean Carol case. But you wanna talk about undermining faith in the judicial system. You have, I call him colloquially, New York Nipple Judge Engaram, the guy who's posting topless selfies on his website page.
Speaker 0: It's true.
Speaker 5: It's true. It's it's it's horrendous where he's bragging about the orders that he's issuing against Eric Trump, where he's on record on video 10 years ago, talking about the tools that he has at his disposal to come to the judicial findings that fit with his preconceived biases. I mean, it but it it's what's amazing is in as much as Trump in 2016 revealed the insidiousness of the corruption of mainstream media and the fake news, He has done so as well in revealing the wholesale weaponization of all levels of prosecution, Department of Justice, court systems of certain states. The real question is, he gets into office, he's gotta right some of these wrongs and reestablish some faith in the system, he's gotta pick the proper course of action to make that happen.
Speaker 0: I can't wait to see what he does. A word before I let you go. I as you say, Juan Marchand, properly, I'm reminded that you're from Canada. OG. Not now.
Not now. But yeah. So yeah. So you're you know, you you've got a connection up there. And what do you make of Justin Trudeau finally waving the white flag and admitting everyone hates him and he has to step down?
Speaker 5: I well, he's he's announced his intention to step down, prorogued parliament, so there's no government in session until March 24. They're gonna hold internal leadership races to find his replacement. I've like I've I've said it before, too little too late, but better late than never. I I made a joke, you know, sort of when when I put out an update after that happened. It's like, imagine being so hated that everyone on earth is happy that you're resigning or announce your intention to resign, except perhaps your your ex wife who might have to spend more time with you now once you're out of office.
Everybody hates the men, even people within his own party and especially people within his own party. So it is too little too late. The replacement will probably be, you know, new boss will be just as bad as the old and the devil we know is probably, you know, gonna be maybe even less bad than the devil we don't. His replacements, Chrystia Freeland, who is Ukraine first, board of trustees of the WEF, would be no better, probably worse as a leader. Mark Carney, another, you know, globalist WEF stooge, probably no better.
But it's an indication that the Liberal party is in free fall. Internal fighting is always fun to see when it's the other side. And it you know, good riddance to bad rubbish when it comes to Justin Trudeau. He truly will go down as the darkest stain on Canadian history. Close close lead followed by his father, Pierre Elliott.
Speaker 2: Mhmm. You know,
Speaker 0: it's funny because when I sometimes when you see these people in the news go, whether it's like a news anchor being fired or a leader falling, you know, normally that you have like a mixed emotion where you think, good, bye, but come on, kind kinda gonna miss criticizing them. You know? Like, use I this is how I felt when Stelter got fired from CNN.
Speaker 6: I was just And then he was rehired.
Speaker 5: Say him. In particular, I was gonna say Stelter. I kinda felt bad for him. You don't you see you see the innocent looking potato head.
Speaker 0: Well, I didn't feel bad for him, but I was gonna I felt bad for me because I wasn't gonna be having his editorial to rip on. But then they brought him back, so it's great. But, anyway, with Trudeau, I don't feel like that. I, like, get rid of him. He's such a pernicious, terrible force.
Even our our friends up north who voted for him, even those people do not deserve him.
Speaker 5: They voted for him, not not once. I believe it was thrice, but, it's he he's really, it's indescribable how destructive a force he has been for Canada. And he was bad before COVID, and then COVID really released the inner tyrant. Censorship, division, identity politics, full on tyranny with with with with government responses to COVID. He's a he's a very, very bad man, and he will be remembered as such.
The only problem is his replacement will probably be no better, so we gotta hope for, you know, it's gonna be a conservative majority government whether you like Pierre Polieva or not. I'm just hoping that some people from my party that I ran for, the People's Party of Canada, can get some seats into parliament to have some meaningful opposition voices and some good common sense that is nationalist in the good sense of protecting Canada and having Canada come first, not Canada come second, 3rd, and 4th to a variety of other international globalist interests.
Speaker 0: Well, if not, it could come 51st as our as our latest state says president Trump. He has to keep paying $250,000,000,000 to it. Or
Speaker 5: He'll have to make 4 states out of it. He'll have to have the Maritimes. He'll have to have French Canada and Quebec be a separate state. They're gonna wanna separate. Ontario, the liberal state, and then you have Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, which would be sort of the Texas, Texas affiliate states.
But it'd have
Speaker 6: to be
Speaker 0: more than the other. Because otherwise, we're just it's just, like, adding, you know, one of these left wing groups that they get, like, making DC a state so that they can have 2 more senators on the left. We don't need that. We got enough problems. Yep.
Viva, a pleasure as always.
Speaker 5: Megan, thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 0: Okay. Joining me up next, Jesse Kelly. Speaking of, you know, Viva says it's communist, what they're doing. The Jesse wrote a whole book about how the left has gone full communist. That's what he calls them, for a reason.
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Speaker 6: I will never apologize for standing up for a l g d p l g t lbt LG. LGBTQ2 plus.
Speaker 0: And what do you and your family do to cut back on plastics?
Speaker 6: We, we have recently switched to drinking water bottles out of, water out of, when we have water bottles, out of a plastic, sorry, away from plastic towards, paper, like drink box water bottles sort of things. I actually never take selfies. Everyone else takes selfies. I don't take selfies.
Speaker 8: Maternal love is the love that's going to change the future of mankind. So we'd like you to
Speaker 6: We we like to say people kind, not necessarily mankind. If people want to wear a mask, that is okay to prevent you from breathing or or or speaking moistly on them. Oh, what a terrible image.
Speaker 0: Oh, god.
Speaker 6: I appreciate calling it makeup, but it was blackface.
Speaker 0: Have you since been made aware or remembered of other instances? And if so, how many?
Speaker 6: I am wary of of, being definitive about this. It is exactly the example of the kinds of things you need to do to counter the she the she session and turn it into a she coverage. I will never apologize for standing up for a l g d p l g t l b t l
Speaker 5: g b
Speaker 6: l g b t q two plus.
Speaker 0: Bye, Justin. Well, we will miss you a little. The she session and turn it into a she cover y. That's a real person who exists and was running Canada. I mean, currently is running Canada.
Welcome back to the Megyn Kelly show. Unbelievable. Back here, we have our own absurd leaders, as you know. Just take a look at California right now. The LA fires continue to rage on, and the failure of mayor Karen Bass is becoming more and more obvious by the day.
She's refusing to take any accountability for the devastation. I mean, none. Plus president Trump chatting it up and laughing with former president Obama at president Carter's funeral yesterday. Did you see this tape? It went everywhere.
It's very, very telling. Hitler's so funny. He's hilarious. Hitler's just a barrel of laughs. We're gonna get to it all with my next guest.
Jesse Kelly is here here. He's host of the Jesse Kelly Show and also I'm Right, which you can find at youtube.com/jessiekellydc. Jesse, welcome back. Great to have you.
Speaker 9: It's great to be here, Meaghan. Thank you for that barrel of laughs watching Justin Trudeau. Just, man, our friends up north, congratulations. You finally get to be rid of that turd.
Speaker 0: You know, it's like the people who say it's herstory instead of history. He's one of those guys. This is not one of your guys, Jesse, who you'd be having a beer with.
Speaker 9: No. And you know what's funny, Megan? I I it's funny and it's also sad. As you mentioned when you were when you were laughing about it, you mentioned and that's the guy who was running Canada. And then you pointed to our own leaders and LA and things like that.
I think, at least at least for me, I think we do this thing that's very, very natural and that we look at these absurd people and we assume, yeah, they're ridiculous. They're dumb. They're absurd. They're commies. They're all these things.
But we assume if the beef hits the fan, that at least surely there are competent people, you know, around them. You know, there are people who do who will figure it out. If it gets bad, if if there's a wildfire, if there's a this, if there's that, surely they have someone they can turn to. Yeah. That guy is like a caricature, but surely, there's someone.
But the truth is, that's not true. That's not true at all. The worst, dumbest, most despicable people in the world now run run every aspect of Western in society. And it's frightening when you think about it, so we don't think about it. We lie to ourselves and tell ourselves that there are competent people there.
There aren't. There aren't. We're in a lot of trouble.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. The the the situation in LA and the leadership vacuum is becoming more and more apparent every day. So you have Gavin Newsom on camera when asked, hey. What about the fact that the fire hydrants didn't have any water in them? Says, oh, you know, the the local leaders, they're gonna comment on that.
The local leaders are respond to that. The local leaders were in Ghana, or we now find out the deputy mayor was on leave for allegedly calling in a fake bomb threat. So the those are the local leaders, Jesse. Nowhere to be found, and you know what was happening at the fire department where now we know that the top 3 leaders in charge look more like a cabal of Smith attendees than tough, grizzled firemen ready to put out fires. I mean, every single I think everybody in the LA FD management is a lesbian, who is bragging about her lesbianism and really, really proud of her short haircut and short stature and inability to rescue men from burning bid buildings.
Speaker 9: Yeah. And not even hot lesbians either, which is super disappointing. No.
Speaker 0: Not the lipstick cut.
Speaker 9: This is what yes. This is what happens under Democrat rule, and it that's kind of what I was alluding to earlier. There are real consequences. In places like California, which I actually love, I know it's fashionable to dump on California, but it's just so beautiful, and I absolutely It is so beautiful. I love it so much.
It's paradise, and it breaks my heart what has happened to it. It I don't enjoy watching beauty turn ugly. I don't I don't I don't enjoy watching it at all. But this is the consequence of voting Democrat, and people legions of people in California, when they go out to cocktail parties, they get with friends, it's just what you do. Of course, you vote Democrat.
Yeah. We voted Democrat. We voted for this Democrat. We voted for that Democrat. And it's just kind of always taught or or thought of as this throwaway line.
Yes, we vote vote blue. We're so democrat. Well, if you do that for long enough, you will have these weapons grade morons take positions of power up and up and up and up and up the chain, and soon the entire chain is hot, stinky garbage, and you have one of the great cities in the United States of America put to the torch, and no one seems to be able to stop it. These are consequences that are down stream of the behavior of voters. It's really the point I keep trying to make over and over and over again.
The consequences of neglecting your elections, of just just sitting it out. I'm not interested. I vote Democrat. Look how live I am. Well, the consequences of that are you wake up one morning and Los Angeles looks like something out of a Mad Max film.
That's what you get.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Totally. On the subject of the fire chief, it's getting worse by the minute. So you've got the fire chief who is, in the first line of her bio, touting her gayness and the fact that she's a woman. Okay.
What no one cares. And then you've got her second in command who is okay. So the first lady is Christina Crowley. She's the first LGBTQ fire chief. Salary, 439,000 plus.
Then her 2nd in command is Christina Kepner. The this person, by the way, then the person who's, I think, 3rd in command or high up, is the 1st black okay. So second let me just get it straight. Christina Crowley, first LGBTQ fire chief. Then under her is Christina Kepner, first l first lesbian assistant chief.
Then under her is Christine Larson. They're all Christina Christina. She's also a lesbian. She's also a
Speaker 2: lesbian. Have you been to
Speaker 0: a lesbian? I don't know why. She's also black, and she's in in charge of equity within the FD. I don't know why, and she also makes more than the assistant chief. She makes almost 400,000, 399,000.
So these they're making 439,000, 265,000, 399,000, and what we get is Christina, Christina, Christina, lesbian, lesbian, lesbian. Why, Jesse? You tell me why.
Speaker 9: Well, because the object of this is an assault, a never ending relentless assault on white men, white Christian men that has been institutionalized throughout the United States States of America. And I don't know why it's controversial to talk about this at all. Corporate America, the education system, I mean, the government itself under Joe Biden has been very honest about this thing. You brought up the LA Fire Department. I'm sure you've played the videos on your show.
I've been out of town, but I'm sure you've played them. I I've seen them on social media, these people running ad campaigns, bragging about this is how many women we're gonna hire. This is how many gays we're gonna hire. This is what when you do things like that, what you're announcing is we are taking a certain demographic, and we are we're we're just simply cutting them out of the equation. And beyond the rampant lesbianism, where apparently, to find the leadership of the LA fire department, they went to the local softball team.
Apparently, they focused on hiring women as well as firefighters. Now I'm as pro woman as anybody underneath the sun, but, why are we focusing on women? This is a physical, brutal job that involves wearing a lot of weight, carrying a lot of weight, doing physical things. You see those dudes out there in LA hauling people out, hauling equipment. It's a brutally physical job.
So why in the world would you focus on the person who's physically weaker? Well, the only reason you would do that is you're a psychopathic cultural Marxist int- interested in burning everything down, and you really don't care if Los Angeles burns as long as you get to hire you and all your lesbian friends for $499,000 a year. It's pathetic. And and there are consequences to it. I keep coming back to this.
We we like to point at this stuff when we laugh. Megan, you laugh. I laugh. It's hysterical. When you why why do we need this?
Why do we need that? We laugh. But downstream of that, people die. That that's the thing. There are real genuine consequences to setting aside merit and focusing on box checking and checking this.
But she checked that box. Then we got enough gays. Have we got enough women? Well, we laugh and we even call it woke. I've been guilty of that before.
I actually have grown to hate that word because it really it presents like, oh, they're just so goofy. They're kinda woke. It's not that. It's freaking evil. It's discriminatory.
It's evil, and people die because of it.
Speaker 0: It's like the NBA having a DEI program where they're prioritizing short people. We don't have enough short people. We got and okay. You without asking, why don't we have that many short people in the NBA? Right?
Why don't we have more women in the fire department? There's a really good reason. Most of them cannot pass the test unless you lower the standards. Strapping £60 a gear on your back and then climbing up a ladder and then going into a house, and on top of all that, rescuing a grown man takes a lot of strength. That most women, 99%, do not have, or it's like a police department having a DEI program that prioritizes people in wheelchairs.
Like, there is a reason why it's not a good fit. It doesn't mean you're discriminatory against or can't stand or hate people in wheelchairs or short people. It means it's not a good fit for this particular job. And while women probably great equal, if not better in some cases, than men at being an EMS, right, can do all the life saving procedures that happen in a hospital or once you get the body out of the house. 100%.
Of course. Let's be honest. Of course, they can do that. But why do we have to pretend in the name of, you know, equity, whatever, that women are equal to men when it comes to actually doing the job of a firefighter? Whatever.
All this is academic because we don't know whether it played any role. All we know is that the LAFD was very, very focused on DEI and hiring women and not so focused on the fire hydrants. But listen. I wanna show you one thing. So the second woman, Christina Crowley, the first LGBTQ sorry.
There's Christy Kristen Crowley, the chief, then Christina Kepner, the first lesbian assistant chief. It's just ridiculous. And this video of hers going viral where she was asked about the job and these potential problems in rescuing people who are much larger than your average woman. I don't know about whether they're average whether they're bigger than Christina Kepner. Watch.
Speaker 10: You wanna see somebody that responds to your house, your emergency, whether it's a medical call or a fire call that looks like you. It gives that person a little bit more ease knowing that somebody might understand their situation better. Is she strong enough to do this, or you couldn't carry my husband out of a fire? Which my response is he got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.
Speaker 0: Only about 5% of working firefighters are women. This is what they're calling attention to. By the way, correction. That was one of the other Christines. That was Christine Larson, the 1st Black Lesbian Equity Bureau chief.
She was basically saying, Jesse, if somebody like you finds himself in a fire, f off. You're to blame.
Speaker 9: Well, they're religious zealots, as we talked about many times, Meghan. And religious zealots will kill people and let people die on behalf of their religion. People in America have a hard time understanding that the far left radical types like that are I mean, how many people would have to die for them to to come around to your side? All of them. All of them.
They are serving a cause they view as higher than putting out fires at a fire department or Los Angeles. And if people have to die because of it, they it's no sweat off their back. And in fact, they put themselves on video bragging about it. It's really quite something.
Speaker 0: It's amazing. You got the one who's like, I'm a woman, and I'm gay. You're hired. Then the assistant, I'm a woman, and I'm gay. Well, you're hired.
Then you got this 3rd person coming in saying, I'm a woman, and I'm gay, and I'm black. And that person will probably be the next chief if they continue along the way they've been going. Jesse Kelly stays with me. Don't go away. He's hosted the Jesse Kelly show.
Check it out at youtube.com. Don't go away. Jesse, the LA fire chief, the top Kristen female lesbian, was on CBS News with Nora O'Donnell trying to defend the this disaster that we're looking at out in California, and she was asked about the fact that the mayor cut 17,000,000 from their budget, the fire department's budget. And the fire chief herself had been jumping up and down about that earlier saying, this is going to cost essential services. Now that the shit has hit the fan, she tried to engage in revisionism, like, Who?
What? No. And to her credit, Nora O'Donnell followed up, and here's what happened.
Speaker 8: Would that $17,000,000 that had been cut from your budget have made a difference in this fight? I would say with the lean forward posture that we took, knowing that a $17,000,000 cut, we had to take from somewhere, and that was from the nonessential duties and responsibilities that as the fire department, we have taken on over the past many, many years. But with all due respect, in December, you had warned that the budget cuts would severely limit your ability to respond to large scale emergencies. Is that true or not? Yes.
Yes. So I would say yes. We were limited to to a certain factor. Yes.
Speaker 0: Do you believe that smarmy snake oil shit?
Speaker 9: You know, this is this is part of what bothers me about a lot of things, Megan, but we can make this about LA because that's what we're talking about here. The leaders in our society now, I mean, so many of them you see this all throughout the military, whatnot. Where is the sense of pride and sense of duty? Where is the why do why do none of these people ever resign? Why do none of these people ever own anything?
I'm talking about mayors. I'm talking about fire chiefs. I'm talking about generals. I'm talking about CEOs. I'm talking where is the sense of honor?
You know, if you if you look back at what like like World War 2 is actually a great example of this. How many commanders, generals, and admirals resigned because they were sad about a battle or men they had lost? We had generals and admirals, not that I'm encouraging this, killing themselves, committing suicide. They got so many letters. They were so sad about troops who died under their command.
They felt such a heart that they just killed themselves. They couldn't live with the shame of it. We fought a 20 year GWAT war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and nobody can name for me a single general or admiral who resigned in disgrace. Nobody. Not one of them.
It's just not even thought of anymore. And you see this in the wake of honestly, are we calling this a natural disaster, Megan? I think that's probably Right. Probably not true to call it that. Well, let's just go with that for now, even though it's not true.
This is the greatest natural disaster as far as property damage goes in the history of the United States of America. It's comparable to the Chicago Fire, I believe. And no one has resigned. And in fact, nobody has even shown contrition. Not mayors, not the fire chief.
No one's even gone on the news and said, well, look, I own this. My heart is broken for my city. This is gonna be on me. I'm gonna get this cleaned up as best I can, and then I'm gonna resign. The people deserve better.
And in fact, the fact that I just said this, everyone's probably laughing right now because the thought of that is so ridiculous. But that's what leadership is, and that's what we used to have. But immediately, you just saw that hag there on television. She's turtling up. Gotta protect Democrats.
Gotta protect the brand. Can't ever hear. Everyone just tries to protect the system now instead of having any duty and honor. It drives me crazy.
Speaker 0: I'm sorry. But you just listened to this woman, and I'm all for women in leadership positions. I used to know a Secret Service agent when I lived in Virginia, and she lived in my same development. She was, like, 6 foot 2. She was strong.
She was a badass. And I would hire that woman to protect president Trump, to work at the fire department, to do any number of things that men can do. She's probably in the point 0 5 percentage point when it comes to women and their physical abilities. I'm not saying it can never happen, but as a rule, it doesn't happen. As a rule, women are too weak for these particular jobs and should not have the standards lowered so that they can do them.
This woman doesn't look strong. This woman, to be honest, I'm not trying to be mean, but she looks portly. She doesn't she doesn't look in shape at all, neither does that other woman who we showed, the the black lesbian Christine, she looks obese. These these are firefighters. They're supposed to be in great shape.
And and that woman, the the one who was like, well, that your husband if if I had to carry your husband out of a fire, he's done something wrong. Hello. That's your job. I would you what are you saying? The fact that, like, everybody who finds themselves sitting in a burning house is not to blame for the fire.
You what are you like, what a weird dodge. So you've got these out of shape, portly looking, short, in some cases, the other woman looked tall, lesbians who touted their sexuality running LAFD, who won't take responsibility. Then you've got what is clearly a DEI higher mayor, because you have so many Californians saying I voted for her because I couldn't vote for the white guy over the black woman, Karen Bass. Oh. And here's what she was say is she saying yesterday.
No. They were like, oh, not there's no way. I'm not voting for a white guy over a black woman. And so here she is after she finally got back from Ghana where she did nothing. Why does the mayor of LA have to be in Ghana for the inauguration of a an African prime minister?
So she gets okay. She gets grilled, yes, by CBS reporter John Vigliati. I think he's local. And here's what she says. Listen to us out there.
Speaker 11: Drew and I arrived shortly after it started. And for several hours, we watched as hundreds of homes in the neighborhood burned to the ground. We did not see a single fire engine. You were out of the country at the time. My question to you is what explains this lack of preparation and rapid response?
Speaker 12: Let me just say, first and foremost, my number one focus, and I think the focus of all of us here with one voice, is that we have to protect lives, we have to save lives, and we have to save homes. Rest assured
Speaker 9: that when that
Speaker 12: rest assured let me finish. Rest assured, when that is done, when we are safe, when lives have been saved, and homes have been saved, we will absolutely do an evaluation to look at what worked, what didn't work, and
Speaker 11: a to this disaster?
Speaker 12: I just said what I believe is the most important thing for us to do right now.
Speaker 0: The answer's no, madam. And by the way, Jesse, so that's another that's like, we'll create it like a commission. At some point, and many months down the line, the commission will tell us whether any errors were made, you know, passive voice. She won't speak to it. And by the way, just to put the lie to what she's saying, Jesse, her head of waterworks, Janice Quinones, was already out there at least trying to say why the fire hydrants didn't have water.
It wasn't a satisfactory explanation, but at least she was speaking to it. So the notion that we must pretend one cannot engage in thought about how the problems that are stopping, the the fires from getting put out, are are happening. Like, you can't engage in any explanation of that right now while it's happening is bullshit. Her own administration is doing it. She just won't do it.
Speaker 9: This is what they do, and and this is what happens when you have a a society that focuses on a bunch of things that don't matter at all. It's like, it's like if I were if I was a runner or I was I was signing up to run a marathon, and I never worked out. Never ran. I just sat around eating pizzas and tacos the whole time. Never worked out.
No cardio at all. And then it comes time for race day, and I get up there and I say, I am extremely focused on running the race. I can't wait to run the race. I'm gonna run as hard as I can. And looking back at any of the behavior I did leading up to this race is completely inappropriate because it's race day.
No. It's extremely inappropriate if one of the biggest cities if the 2nd biggest city in the United States of America with all that wealth, all that infrastructure, somehow failed its citizens, and clearly it did in ways that that entire neighborhoods are gone. We're not talking blocks or individual homes. Entire neighborhoods are gone. If the 2nd biggest city in the United States of America failed and is currently failing its citizens that badly, no.
No. No. No. No. Accountability starts now because you're exactly right, Megan.
This is what the scumbags in the government, federal, state, and local, do all across this country. They try to wait until the anger dies down because you and I both know, but about 48 hours from now, the fires will be gone, Lord willing, and everyone will be on their phones, hooked on whatever the newest outrage is, and people will move on. And then a month after that, they'll they'll have a commission, they'll have an investigation where they're they will investigate themselves, and another month or 2 after that, they'll put something out there that'll get printed on page 45 of the LA Times saying, well, I mean, we're not gonna name anyone individually, but clearly, we have a couple things we should do here and there. You know what? We probably need more money.
And then that that's the last anyone I will ever hear of it. And you have all these people who've lost everything. And what I'm trying to get through to the American people is we have to start punishing the politicians who run us by taking their power away from them. There is no second option. But there's no
Speaker 0: They'll they'll they'll they'll blame 1 woman and 1 woman only, and that woman is Santa Anna. That's the one. It was her fault and her fault alone, and definitely not the fault of Karen Bass or any one of these Kristens or Christines or Christinas trying to run the FD, in Los Angeles. Here is, by the way, the fire chief on CBS responding to the criticism of of the DEI thing.
Speaker 8: Has that effort at diversity been over your efforts in order to fight these fires? Because that's been the criticism. You know it's out there. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Again, my number one priority is making sure that we can take care of the community that we took an oath to take care of, and with that is our ability to respond to emergency. Number one priority is to make sure that we provide 911 services, EMS, and fire.
Speaker 0: Well, you didn't.
Speaker 9: But that's not true.
Speaker 0: By the way, what a lame question. Right? Like, were were your DEI efforts at the expense of planning to fight fires? That's not the what do you think she's gonna say? Right?
And just one other point. She seems like this is a woman I would expect to see when I go in from my parent child teacher conference. Right? Like, kinda sweet, nice manner. Like, does that woman instill confidence in you as the person in charge of fighting this, one of the most disastrous blazes the country has ever seen?
She doesn't even seem like, I want somebody who looks grizzled, sounds grizzled, and is like, Nora, I don't have time for this shit, but I'm gonna give you my top five points in what we're doing. Goodbye.
Speaker 9: Yeah. No. I want my fire chief to be some 60 year old man who has to put out his Marlboro red before he goes on television to tell me about all the training he's got put in for his guys. But what she just said there is a lie. She lied the same way Karen Bass lied.
She knows right now, now that they're under fire, she has to get up here and say that's my number one priority. But again, back to my marathon analogy, that was not your number one priority. You've been on videotape discussing, your priorities were we need to stuff more women and more LGBTQ Air Force types and all these people in the positions of power. That's been your number one priority leading up to the fire. And now that the fire's here and everyone's angry, you know you're supposed to go on television and say that's your number one priority.
But that's not these people's number one priority. It never is. Their number one priority is pushing their sick demonic religion in every single part of this society. And if the if society has to burn down, well, the revolution is all that matters. Revolution without end, as Mao always said.
You always keep the revolution going. Doesn't matter how many planes fall from the sky or houses burn or wars we lose. You keep moving forward. And this is why the right has gotta develop some teeth. We really have to sharpen our teeth a lot because the right has been in love with tolerance for the longest time.
But we have to be nice. We're better than that. That's not who we are. That has been the language of nursery rhyme conservatism from my 43 years on the planet. No.
These are evil, psychopathic, demonic children, and they have to be put in their place in order to preserve a polite society. Otherwise, you get to watch one of America's cities burn.
Speaker 0: You watch the real life carnage? I mean, the the aerials are just absolutely devastating. Awful. Palisades Pacific Palisades looks like Gaza. Looks like Gaza now.
I mean, it completely leveled. And you see some of the videos. I'm actually gonna talk to you for a second about some of the celeb videos that have come out because it's there's a couple who are really sweet and who I like, and I I just feel I feel so bad. We talked to James Woods. We talked to Adam Carolla who are still waiting to find out whether their houses are standing.
But it's the real people who really tug at your heartstrings. You know what I mean? Like, the non celebs who are like, holy shit. And this woman, Fran this is actually tweeted out by JD Vance this morning. She's her name is Fran.
She's a resident of Altadena, and she's speaking with Brian Enton of NewsNation about what she's looking at as she gets back to see her house destroyed. Look at this.
Speaker 5: This is your house?
Speaker 2: This is this is my house. This one right here. We moved in 26 years ago. And we did the floors, and we put in windows and doors and painted and just put my grandchildren loved it. My son and my daughter-in-law.
My family, we hosted Christmas Eve and Christmas Day here, and everybody was here. My little house that I loved I poured everything into it. We have nowhere to go. We were close neighbors. Buzz and Todd.
His mom passed away, and they took over the house. John just lost his wife that he adored, but was taking care of that house. She was a superior court judge, and Beverly and John, such so much love. She was so incredible. And the house
Speaker 9: is gone.
Speaker 2: They're all gone. See, Debbie and us and Tina, our children went to school together from kindergarten. Our kids are in their 47 years old. And Debbie's 47 year old son tragically passed away last August. Her grief is so deep.
I can't imagine.
Speaker 0: It's awful. Like, this this incompetence cost lives. It cost lives in more ways than one.
Speaker 9: It does. And and your your heart breaks because when you think about a home, especially I mean, that man that lady, 26 years in that home, think about all the memories. I'm as as you well know, Meghan, we're friends. I'm not exactly the softest, cuddliest type full of emotions, but I've moved my whole life. We lived in 10 houses in 10 years.
That's just kind of how I grew up. We're always moving around. And to this day, when I move, whether I'm leaving an apartment or a house, I get I mean, I don't get choked up, but I have to take a moment and say goodbye, because you're looking at it. That's the living room where where I where I play Legos with my sons. Right?
That's the that's the kitchen where I come home and harass my wife while she's making dinner. That's the you you there are so many memories that are that are built into those walls, And, I mean, that's one story. Right? We have the video of it. How many stories like that are out of Los Angeles?
And I I just I don't wanna beat it. I don't wanna beat a dead horse, but I keep coming back to these are the consequences of voting Democrat. They they really genuinely are. You vote Democrat for
Speaker 0: a vote for Democrats. You know they didn't. You know? It's like not that it's a comfort to see the Liberals lose their houses, but, you know, at least you'd have the peace of mind of saying, at least I didn't vote for this. At least maybe if my guy had gotten in there, we would have stood a fighting chance.
At least others might finally see the light here. I will say this one actor, I don't know what his political stripes are. I've interviewed him a couple times on NBC. I really like this show, this actor, and this guy. His name is Milo Ventimiglia, and he was for, the Gilmore Girls fans.
He played in that, and then he became the star of, this is us, a huge NBC hit show in which they tell you up front of, like, the beginning of the series that his character, the dad, his name is Jack, dies. And so you then the series goes on, and you fall in love with Jack. And you the whole time you're watching the series fall in love with the family, you're like, well, how did Jack die? Like, what why is Jack no longer here? You can see, like, future versions of the children older, and they talk about the missing dad.
Then you have the flashbacks to the scenes with Milo, and you're and Jack's alive. You're like anyway, the whole thing is around Jack, and how did he die? And then the big reveal spoiler alert, this has been out for many years. So, is that Jack died when a slow cooker caught fire in the family home. That now you've seen 5 seasons up by the time you find this out.
It's just terrible. It was, like, a devastating moment in TV history when you found this out. Anyway, this is a good guy. His house burned down in in real life this week, and here he is on camera speaking to CBS News about it.
Speaker 6: You were aware Mhmm. The house was gone. What's it like to then stand
Speaker 7: here? Heavy. You know? You you start thinking about, man, it hits you so quick. You start thinking about all the memories in different parts of the house and whatnot, and then you see your neighbor's houses and everything kind of around.
The yard just breaks.
Speaker 6: He and his wife evacuated on Tuesday, watched on security cameras as the flames took over.
Speaker 7: I think there's a a kind of shock moment where you're going, oh, this is real and this is happening. And and then at a certain point, we just turned it off. It's like, what what good is it to continue watching? You know? And we kind of accepted the loss.
We got good friends, and we got good people we're working with, and, we'll make do. Yeah. We'll make do. Wife and wife and baby and dog, most important.
Speaker 0: He has another baby. He has a baby due any day now. He was talking about how they had just decorated the nursery. You know, it doesn't matter whether you have money or you don't have money. The loss of your home and everything in it and all the memories you made already and were building is real and it's profound.
And I, like, I just can't tolerate the you know, after I'm done saving all the lives, then you can question me. First of all, you were in Dam Ghana. And that's the other thing, Jesse. Now the reporting's coming out from Breitbart, from Jim Garrity at National Review. She knew Karen Bass had been warned for days.
The National Weather Service was jumping up and down saying severe fire warning. We are going to have massive fires in LA. These Santa Ana winds are at epic levels. It's not safe. And what did she do?
And that was the Friday before, the Saturday before where she heard them and got on a plane to Ghana. It's not like going to Seattle from LA. She went to Ghana. Sunday, the same. She didn't come back early.
Monday, the same. She didn't come back early. Tuesday, as her city burned. Finally, she comes back Wednesday, and she wants credit in her sound bite for, I took the fastest route home.
Speaker 9: Well, she's certainly not gonna postpone a a cross world trip to Ghana for a little thing like her city, Megan. I mean, I've I've said this for the longest time about politicians. Most of these people become politicians because they want access to the things rich people have without having the ability to actually acquire wealth, so they take positions of power, and then they blood suck off the taxpayer. They do this all the time. These mayors she's not even alone in this.
These mayors small town mayors will do this. Oh, no. We're on a fact finding mission in Madrid this week. Oh, of course, the taxpayer
Speaker 0: pays that.
Speaker 9: These dirt balls in congress do it all the time. You just saw a dome, sorry, Kamala Harris. They've got, like, 15 minutes left in the White House. She has no responsibilities and never had any whatsoever, but she's going on around the world trip, one final vacation on the taxpayer dime to Singapore and all these other beautiful places. What's she doing?
Is it some sort of critical diplomacy? No. She's living it up because she finally has that taxpayer funded credit card, and it always clears. And that's what they do. That's why these people take that's why they even wanna be politicians because otherwise, being a politician would suck.
You have to ask people for money all the time. People are always mad at you, screaming at you. So why would you take the job? You take the job because you want access to the things wealthy people have, but you're a dirt dirtball with no talent, so you can't get those things except for running for office.
Speaker 0: It's very funny. I had not actually heard the Jesse Kelly explanation of that, but it makes a lot of sense. Explains a lot of things. Alright. Speaking of Kamala Harris, let's lighten it up a minute.
Lighten it up with the funeral of Jimmy Carter. It's always sad when somebody passes, but he was a 100 years old. I mean, you know, he had a long, fruitful life. The the most interesting dynamic was in the audience, right, was in the audience as all these former presidents took their seats with their wives and the dynamics between them. And since we were talking about Kamala Harris, we'll start with this as we are gonna get to the Trump and Obama moment, which I'll show separately.
But Kamala appears to be looking back at those 2, Trump and Obama, yucking it up, and she does not look happy. Like, okay. Like, here she is. She's looking forward next to Doug Emhoff. She can see the 2 of them talking.
She turns back. It looks like a deep sigh. Looks down. She's like, what in the actual f? Look at her.
Look at her. What do you think is going through that thought bubble, Jesse Kelly?
Speaker 9: Well, I think Kamala Harris, who is I mean, this is saying a lot. Maybe the most nakedly ambitious politician I've ever seen. Her entire career has just been one endless ladder climb. Say anything, do anything, take any position on any issue in order to get the next thing. So this that's the kind of person we're dealing with here.
Well, what happened? The dynamics are Barack Obama was the one who engineered the coup. He was the one who engineered the coup to get Joe Biden out of the White House. And not only did he engineer the coup to get Joe Biden out of the White House, he's the one who vouched for Kamala Harris with his vast donor network, billionaire after billionaire after billionaire. He knifed Joe Biden in the ribs, shoved him out the back of the White House, and then picked up the phone and organized $1,500,000,000 with a b to be given to Kamala Harris for her campaign, where she proceeded to not only embarrass herself the entire time, she embarrassed him.
When you vouch for somebody with a bunch of billionaires, and they flame out as badly as she flames out, well, he is not going to do that again. And without Barack Obama, without daddy Barack harrying her, Kamala Harris is never, ever, ever, ever ever going to be able to launch a significant presidential run again in her life. Will she run again in the 20 28 primary? Of course, she will. But she'll get the 1 to 2% before she has to embarrassingly drop out the exact same way she did last time before daddy Barack brought her.
Now think about all that when you think about Kamala Harris looking over her shoulder, back at Barack Obama. You know, I wouldn't put it past Trump to give to to say a little bit too loudly, how'd she work out for you? Or in the very least, if he didn't say it, I bet you Kamala Harris is thinking he said it.
Speaker 0: That's a very interesting point I haven't heard anybody else make about how she how what does her future look like without the full throated backing of Barack Obama, who definitely, you're right, has realized what an inept politician she was. Apparently, had some hesitancy about her being the nominee anyway, but realized this is where this train is going, but now has lived it for, you know, firsthand the way we all had to. So, yeah, her you know, so much has fallen apart for Kamala Harris. She reached too high, too fast, and failed upward. Okay.
But the more interesting thing is what she's seeing behind her, what those 2 guys are doing behind her. And before we zero in on the muckity mucking that's happening between Obama and Trump, I want people to remember what former president Obama was saying about Trump literally in October. Okay? 3 months ago. Listen here, Sot 22.
Speaker 13: He acts so crazy, and it's become so common that people no longer take it seriously. I'm here to explain to you just because he acts goofy does not mean his presidency wouldn't be dangerous. And you do not have to take my word for it. Lately, some of the people who know Donald Trump best have been saying in no uncertain terms that he should not be president again. The the other day, general John Kelly, Donald Trump's former chief of staff, said that Trump told him he wanted his generals to be like Hitler's generals.
Now don't boo. Vote.
Speaker 0: So he wants Hitler's generals to take over, and he's genuinely dangerous. Cut to yesterday and the 2 of them. There they are chatting. Barack's laughing, genuinely laughing to where, like, his body is shaking. Hitler's so funny, Jesse.
Hitler's quite charming when you spend time with him 1 on 1.
Speaker 9: Well, you know who should be mad about that? But they they won't be. But who should be mad about that are the little drones who vote Democrat every single time? Because these people lie to your face all the time. None of these people think Trump is actually Hitler or a Nazi or a white supremacist.
And before Donald Trump started running for president, he was a lifelong Democrat who was chumming up with these people at every single cocktail party out there, and they all loved him. Chuck Schumer, all these guys, they all loved him. They all talked to him. And Trump is an insanely charming, and yes, very funny individual. And they were all laughing at his jokes, and they know exactly who he is.
But then when election season comes up, they know they have to ramp up the mindless drones into an endless panic that Hitler's Hitler's coming back. And so they stand up and they tell people Hitler's coming, Hitler's coming, Hitler's coming. And you have all these single women on anti anxiety meds freaking out. Oh, my gosh. The world's gonna end.
And then as soon as the election's over, they go yuck it up and talk about the meat lovers' pizza they're gonna share that night. I'd be mad if my politicians lie to me all the time like that. I get mad when the GOP lies to me, which they do routinely, so maybe Democrats should do the same.
Speaker 0: Here is one drone who is upset about all the warnings that this was Hitler, and his takeaway is not they they said he was Hitler and it was a lie. His takeaway is he is Hitler, and why is no one talking about how I am now going to be protected? Before I play this sound bite, the guy's name is Anand Anand Giridardis. He's an NYU, I think, adjunct professor at the journalism school. Watch.
Speaker 9: What a shock.
Speaker 1: I think people may be wrong to pick the proxy fight of Obama should not laugh at a joke. But I think we have to take seriously the emotion of feeling undefended. This administration, rightly warned throughout the last year that Donald Trump represented the singular author authoritarian threat to America. Have we been provided by this White House in its last weeks any practical guidance for how to live under what it claimed was fascism around the corner? I am being warned and told that the apocalypse is near, but in actual ways, there I am not defended by anybody.
Speaker 0: I need practical guidance, and I need to be defended. Can you imagine being a man and speaking like that?
Speaker 9: Yeah. Well, that's how that's I mean, you're half a man if you vote Democrat anyway. But that and and I don't understand that mentality anyway, Megyn. If somebody told me that I couldn't go on the lawn, my front lawn, because there were landmines on the lawn, and then I turn around and that person was walking around the lawn drinking a cup of coffee, I would think that person is a horrific liar who perhaps didn't have my best interest at heart. Yet these people get lied to repeatedly, and all they do, maybe it's a Democrat thing, is bend over and say, thank you, sir.
May I have another? I don't understand that way of thinking. I can't relate to it at all, but whatever. Have a miserable life, you sick freaks.
Speaker 0: Hanan, you really shouldn't be teaching this shit to journalism students in particular, that you need the government to protect you from the Hitler who just won reelection. Like, this is the message, I guess, to the incoming class of journalists, which means we're gonna have a lot more of what we have had. I will say this in defense of male Democrats. The normal ones who are not woke or evil, whatever we're calling the woksters these days, they have all sorts of reasons why I understand they vote for Democrats. And I know and love a lot of them, but I do think if you're looking around at this world as it stands now and thinking that you're getting better policies and better results with all democrat rule, whether it's a place like Canada or it's a place like California, you're blind.
You're blind. It's not that you deserve to have your home burned down, but you are going to get a lot more just like that if you continue voting against your own self interest to make yourself feel like a better person. Jesse Kelly, you're a better person. It's a well, that's why it's always a pleasure talking to you. Always learn something and always get a different POV.
Thanks for being here.
Speaker 9: Appreciate you, Megan.
Speaker 0: Alright. We're gonna get to a little bit more news when we come back right after this. Don't go away. A couple of other important stories to get to. Do you remember the day last year when Joe Biden reversed title 9 with a wave of his magic administrative wand, where he took a statute that was passed by congress to protect girls and women in sport and with the magic wand, completely gutted it.
Just saying, you know, oh, all it is is an administrative rule enforcing title 9. That's all we did. It's just like this is just guidance on on how we're gonna enforce it. But, really, what he did was completely gut the entire statute by saying title 9 no longer just applied to girls and women. It applies to boys and men pretending to be girls and women.
I mean, it completely stood the rule on its head because one of the main fights, the no. The main fight that's happening under title 9 right now to for the protection of girls and women is to keep men pretending to be us out of our sports and our sports facilities and our private spaces in school. And this affects k through college. Well, Joe Biden thought he knew better. Joe Biden, who's having tranny show up on the White House lawn and show off their fake tits.
Sorry. Thought he would he would do better on this than the US Congress, which had duly passed the law and decided or someone pretending to be the weekend at Bernie's president, push through this rule change, which completely undermined the the the rule of law and the principles behind it. And it was a before and after moment for me personally because it was this first time I've ever come out on the air, in public, and said who I voted for in an election. I had never done that. And, frankly, it started a path that got me ultimately speaking for Trump the night before the election.
You know, once I had crossed that line, it wasn't so hard to cross the next line to say, like, and this is who I'm voting for in the next election and why I think you should vote as I do. And so, like, this title 9 thing is very deep and personal to me and to most women I know and most dads, not just women, men too who have daughters in the system and who are worried about this issue. So just as a flashback, here is the day it came out. We had thrown out our show and decided to just talk about this abomination, and here's what happened. It must be undone.
Do not comply. The rules don't take effect until August. Don't comply. Don't use their language. Protect your daughters.
Fight. Protect your sons. Speak up. Don't comply. Don't comply.
Don't let your child play the play the pronoun game. Don't you play it. This is gonna be taken up. They're not gonna get away with this. And indeed, now, that was April.
In January of 2025, it has been taken up and the rule has been struck down nationwide. The rule is dead. God bless the judge who did it and the states who brought the lawsuit. State after state after state joined together to say, absolutely not. They want you to believe Trump is lawless.
Trump has made a mockery of the justice system. The Joe Biden tried to rewrite the definition of women without a single lawmaker weighing in. You know, never mind that it's God's decision and it's been rendered. He tried to do this behind closed doors and just say it was all about equity and you were a bigot if you disagreed. Well, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, West Virginia joined together and said, no.
We are filing legal challenges to this absolute nonsense. And one of those lawsuits that they all joined in on led to this decision yesterday, on Thursday. The the rule had already been temporarily blocked in 26 states as a result of these more red states joining together, but now it's officially stopped. It's been definitively ruled against, thanks to a judge named Danny c Reeves, r e e v e s, of the Eastern District of Kentucky in a 15 page opinion, which just excoriates Miguel Cardona and the Department of Education for trying to do this, saying you may not lawfully expand the definition of title 9 to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity as opposed to sex, which is the governing standard, which means male or female. Female are protected by title 9.
And expanding it to people who identify as female, that's the rule. That's what the judge found. The entire point, he wrote, of title 9 is to prevent discrimination based on sex. Throwing gender identity into the mix eviscerates the statute and renders it largely meaningless. Right on.
Right on. Reading more here from the New York Times write up of the decision. Citing the courts, the hype the supreme court's sweeping decision in Loper Bright Enterprises versus Raimondo last year, which limited the regulatory power of federal agencies. Remember we talked about this, how the Supreme Court ruled last term. The the days of, like, letting these administrative agencies, also known as the deep state, have this sweeping sort of legislative power that nobody voted that they could have are over.
This sort of Chevron deference as it was known, we're we're not doing that anymore. You don't these are unelected bureaucrats. They don't get to gut federal legislation because, you know, finger in the air, all the times have changed. Do we think men or women now? No.
That's not the way it works. So continuing here, citing the court's sweeping decision, which limited the regulatory power of federal agencies, judge Reeves wrote that the Biden administration had overstepped when it sought to enforce its new interpretation of title 9 through federal rulemaking. But more significantly, the judge also rejected listen up. This is important to you. The revised rule on free speech grounds.
Okay. So it wasn't just you don't have the power to legislate. You're a bunch of unelected bureaucrats. That was pre a pea a part of it. But equally important was the first amendment piece of the ruling, which affects all of us when it comes to these ridiculous preferred pronouns that are being forced down our throats, not just in the title 9 context, not just yeah.
You will we will call him or her and let him play softball against your daughter. But in the work context, in every context, state after state, including New York, including Connecticut, are trying to make it amount to statutorily either under the civil rights laws or for, civil liability purposes, hostile work environment, if you don't call the the he's a she at their request. They're trying to mandate the preferred pronoun thing into mandatory pronouns in order to be equitable and kind. And they don't care that you're eliminating, you're erasing women and girls in doing it. Well, no more.
Not according to this judge, and we'll see whether this goes up. Good luck. I hope you do appeal it. I hope in the time Joe Biden has left, they file an appeal of this because I'd love to see this reinforced by the Supreme Court. It already really was in 3 zero three Creative.
It really already was. You remember that case where the woman refused to do the wedding website for the gay couple, and they came out and said, this is free speech. She's allowed to say, I don't stand for this. I don't support this. Okay.
They say, the this is the time straight up. More significantly, the judge also rejected the revised rule on free speech grounds writing that it, quote, offends the first amendment by potentially requiring educators to use names and pronouns associated with the student's chosen gender identity. Not just the pronouns, but the names. The names. The new fake names that these schools are suddenly oh, okay.
Joe is suddenly Georgina, and we're gonna have to go along with that. No. If you're a teacher who says, I don't believe in that. I'm a Christian. My god tells me he doesn't make mistakes.
He doesn't make a boy secretly a girl. I'm not doing that. You're protected under this ruling so long as it doesn't get reversed, and it's not going to. You don't worry. Put simply, the first amendment does not permit the government to chill speech or compel affirmance of a belief with which the speaker disagrees in this matter.
Yes. Yes. Right on, judge Reeves. Right on. Here's some more.
The court goes on to say, the court remains persuaded that the final rule offends the first amendment for the reasons it is explained earlier in in a prior memorandum. To recap briefly, the final rule's definitions of sex discrimination and sex based harassment combined with the diminutive whatever. Let's see. Require title 9 recipients, including teachers, to use names and pronouns associated with the student's asserted gender identity. While the department insists that this is not necessarily the case, the new subjective harassment standard that need only limit participation in an educational program or activity quite clearly compels this result.
So that's them saying, you can't say that this is not really happening. You're making teachers engage in this fallacy, and they shouldn't be you can't compel them to do that. Now look. This is a federal district ruling, federal district court. That's not the supreme court.
That's 2 tiers down from the supreme court. But this decision had such weight in gutting the actual rule that no one's disputing it has nationwide effect, that the that the title 9 rule is officially done as Joe Biden tried to rev revise it. And now what we have to see is whether it gets appealed, whether that ruling gets appealed. And here's the really interesting thing. In 10 days, Donald Trump is gonna be the president.
Hallelujah. And what what are the odds that his DOJ appeals this? I don't think any. I don't think they will appeal it. Even even just to get it to the Supreme Court right now, I don't think they do that.
This ruling stands, and it will be used by many other plaintiffs and other courts who are trying to challenge mandatory pronouns like this. And that's a plus. That's a benefit. And over the next 4 years or plus. Right?
Like, anybody who tries to file a challenge, trying to force these pronouns down our throats or tries to redefine the definition of women and girls does so at great risk. With this supreme court, rulings like this, one after the other, get on the books. And don't forget, we're already waiting for a ruling from this supreme court that's related in this lane. So my point is simply that the lawfare, sim same as the lawfare against Trump, is failing for the left. The ACLU is failing in its attempts to make boys, girls legally and to make the rest of us pretend we agree with that.
And the Supreme Court, I think, is weeks or months away from doing the same. Thank god. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God.
Thank God. Thank God for these lawyers, these attorneys general, who went in there and did what was right. Thank God for the presidents who have appointed rational judges, who understand the law and and not identity politics as a filter through which they view the law. And thank god president Trump won. Because when he gets in there, he is going to undo the Biden changes to title 9 anyway.
Let's not forget. There's a lot of problems with that law. He he not only completely effed over women and girls, he also effed over young men on college campuses, remember, by completely lowering the standards by which they can be accused and convicted of being sexual assaulters or harassers and thrown off campus. President Trump's gonna restore all of those protections. He all of them.
He's gonna restore due process in title 9, and he's going to actually change the wording of the rule officially back to what it was. But this is just one small area. He's going he there's no more there's not gonna be any more pressure or guidance from the federal government, guaranteed, that that it's a hostile work environment if you choose not to say somebody's preferred pronouns. So all that shit is ending. These are, I think, in most people's minds, the minor victories of Trump.
You know, like, most importantly, let's get the criminal killers out of our country who crossed the border illegally. That's, yes, that's number 1. We're gonna be seeing all that on day 1. You know, let's make America great again. Let's restore economic prosperity for all groups across all spectrums, irrespective of race and identity and all that stuff.
But this is big too, and there are a bunch of us who've been fighting for these changes. The list is too long. So many great women and men, but I'm just thinking of so many women who have devoted themselves to this issue over the past 10
Speaker 6: plus
Speaker 0: years and the the legal eagles who have been devoting themselves, including Alliance Defending Freedom, which is involved in this, these attorney generals, who have made the difference here. And by the way, those of you who make donations to these groups, you know, the Independent Women's Forum, they've been amazing. ADF, amazing to try to get the funding for these lawsuits so that we can get these right rulings to protect our daughters. Well, it's happening. So man alive.
That's great news. Is it not? I'm thrilled about that. Alright. By the way, let me know your thoughts.
You can email me meganmegankelly.com. And while I have you, go to megankelly.com today and sign up for our once a week email from me. And, it's basically we call it the American News Minutes. You get all the news of the week in one minute or less, and I think you'll find it really interesting. It'll also give you a link if you want to sign up for direct communication with us because we don't we're a little worried about censorship as I know you guys are.
So we just wanna make sure we have a direct we never send you anything other than this email, and we never sell your email. None none of that bullshit. I hate when people sell my email. Don't worry. We're not doing that.
Anyway, please do that so we have a direct relationship with you, and we can send you an email if, god forbid, we do get sent to some place where, you know, to find us. Last but not least, thank you for putting up with what has been a kind of fuzzy headed, thick tongued week for me given this ridiculous cold, flu. I don't know what I had people, but it's been a rough one. But I'm feeling better. My roid rage is nonexistence.
It's good. I took took took the steroid back. Doug made it through unscathed, so that's good for him. And, I would say, just make sure that you wash your hands when you're out in the public because that's what happened. I ventured out to Montana, went to a lot of restaurants.
And before you knew it, I wasn't feeling too great. On the bright side, Doug's been a champion. I've been doing a lot of work with the kids and doing, like, the drive so that nobody gets sick with me in the small car. And, I finally started True Detective season 1 with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, which is excellent, though disturbing. And I watched some very weird show about it's called Sweet Bobby, about a guy who was catfished.
That's interesting. I'm caught catching up on my bad TV. So thanks to all of you for seeing me through it. I'm sure I'll be better on Monday, and I hope all of you have a great weekend. Up next week, Pete Hegseth's confirmation hearing.
See you then.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Newsom Tries to Salvage Political Career, and Woke Policies Backfire, with @StuDoesAmerica and @ishapiro WATCH: https://t.co/IqeyhytChi
Video Transcript AI Summary
In today's episode, Megyn Kelly discusses the ongoing wildfires in California and the lack of accountability from state officials, particularly Governor Gavin Newsom. She criticizes Newsom for prioritizing his image over addressing the crisis, comparing him unfavorably to Florida's Ron DeSantis, who takes responsibility during disasters. The conversation highlights the failures of local leadership, including Mayor Karen Bass, who is accused of neglecting fire preparedness. Kelly also touches on the broader issues within higher education, particularly law schools, where DEI initiatives overshadow essential legal training. Ilya Shapiro joins to discuss his new book, "Lawless," which critiques the illiberal trends in academia and the consequences for future leaders. The episode concludes with a call for accountability and a return to merit-based evaluations in education and governance.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show, and happy Monday. Oh, there's a lot to get to today. Thank you for being with us.
All eyes remain on these LA wildfires, which are ongoing and the damage that they've done. And speaking of ongoing, the ongoing lack of accountability from the top officials, it is truly a game of, like, he's pointing to her and she's pointing to him and he's pointing to them. And, like, nobody no not one person not one person has stepped up up to say, I take responsibility, like Ron DeSantis would. I'm sorry. He's my model because that's another state that's dealt with overwhelming natural disasters time and time again that, by the way, when they strike may be a mystery, but that they're going to strike is not.
And he would be the first to say, the buck stops with me. I'm the chief executive of the state. To the extent there was an inadequate preparation or response, it's on me. That's what Ron DeSantis would say. You know it, and I know it.
And what you have in California is these mealy mouthed, kale eating, broccoli pushing, Birkstock, whatever, wearing politicians who can't find another person fast enough to blame. My absolute favorite, though, is the fire chief. She's growing on me. When she's not focusing on her lesbianism, she's actually quite fierce. She she is not going down without bringing mayor Karen Bass with her, and who can blame her?
Alright. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We begin with California governor Gavin Newsom, who spent the weekend trying to avoid responsibility as the fires were still burning by dropping by the Pod Save America podcast for an attempt to clean up his own image.
Speaker 1: I wanna know the answers. So I'm the governor of California. I wanna know the answer. I've got that question. I can't tell you about how many people what happened.
My own team's saying what happened, and I wanna get the answers. And why doesn't You're
Speaker 0: the governor.
Speaker 1: With the one getting straight answers. Yeah. I watched the press conference. I met with, some of those leaders. We had my team start talking to local leaders saying what's going on.
Our state
Speaker 2: weren't getting straight answers for
Speaker 1: I was getting different answers. When you start getting different answers, then I'm not getting the the actual story.
Speaker 0: So you decided the thing to do would be to go on Pod Save America to talk about it because it's in the end, it's all about you. This is another David Muir, folks. He is just as vain and worried about his image in the middle of this emergency as David Muir with his little fake fireman's jacket and clothespins in the back. It's the same person. The same person.
Though I have to say Gavin Newsom's probably a little smarter than David Muir, but that's I mean, the bar is very low. Listen to this. He goes out there. Hold on a second. Do we have it here?
It's SOT 4. It's Gavin Newsom talking on Pod Save America. No. No. Is it Pod Save America?
Yeah. Yeah. It's on Pod Save America about it to me, it's like a it's like a Hillary Clinton moment. You know, when she went, she was like, the flames were licking me as I rushed across the airport. And then, Cheryl Atkison came out, who had been there reporting on this visit that Hillary Clinton was doing for CBS and showed absolutely nothing happened at the airport.
She was totally with the drama. It all it's very image serving. The drama that Gavin Newsom was basically almost burned burned alive. The governor of California. Take a listen.
Speaker 1: We went up to one of the canyons on the fire. Sitting there, feeling we're good quarter mile away. I'm not making this up. Video to bear it out. All of a sudden, we see an ember, hits the tree, tree goes on fire, 100 seconds.
God is my witness. May have been 90 seconds. The house is in flames. I have embers of flames. They're taking it off my hair, and we're running back into the car.
Winds are swirling around. Garbage cans were in the air, and we were getting the hell out of there.
Speaker 0: Okay. Why is he saying is god is my witness and I'm not making this up before he tells the story? Truly, like, can I see the video? Can I see the embers in your hair? I mean, I've got questions, sir.
I don't find you to be a truth teller, based on a long, long history of your lies. But, seriously, who stops can you imagine if Ron DeSantis in the middle of responding no. No. In in not not in the middle of responding. In the middle of the hurricane devastating his state, swinging over to talk with the guys at Ruthless about, like, how it affected him, I got super wet.
The rain came down, got in my hair, and then my hair got blown too. Not making this up. Hand to god. There's videotape of it. The press would be excoriating him, but Gavin Newsom, let's talk about my hair.
Did I manage to work my hair into the comp into the conversation or not? There's a lot a lot to get through, today, and we're thrilled to do it today with Stu Bergier. He's the host of Stu Does America for Blaze TV. Don't miss a moment. Subscribe to this show on YouTube and follow me on Insta, Facebook, and x.
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Great. So the important thing is how is his hair? Did it or did it not have embers in it? And you tell me what the answer is to my question about what the press would be doing to Ron DeSantis if he swung by the Ruthless podcast. In the middle of the hurricane, the fires are still burning.
There's zero purpose in going on Pod Save America other than to burnish his own image.
Speaker 2: And, of course, that's all he cares about. Right? That's why he tells this harrowing story, of of the embers landing in his hair, which we know has to be false. Because if an ember hit his hair with the amount of product he has in it, it would it would set the entire shoreline on fire. Makes no sense.
This can't possibly be a true story from Gavin Newsom. But that is all Gavin Newsom cares about is his image. He's immediately gone into this defensive mode where he's trying to blame everybody else as if he had nothing to do with the idea of having water to put out fires. And as if that was a strange concept. Like, who who could have possibly known that a fire could happen?
Who could possibly know that the Santa Ana winds would come back? Who could possibly know that we might need water if those two things combine? And that's one of the things when you talk about DeSantis, you know, he he wouldn't be interested in that. I mean, I think one of the things that's interesting about DeSantis nationally is a lot of people have this idea that he is always involved in culture war issues. And he does care about those things.
Right? He does care about wokeness. He does care about righting those wrongs. And that's good, in my view. But really the reason why he was so popular this all happened before COVID.
He was really popular. Before these culture war issues were widely known. Because he took as a priority, the idea of competent governance and being able to defend against what is really the main concern of a lot of people in Florida, which is, god forbid a hurricane comes, what do we do? There's a massive natural disaster. What do we do?
Are we going to be prepared for it? Or is it going to roll out of control like we're what we're seeing in California? Every single part of of, Ron DeSantis' job has been to be prepared for those moments. The the Florida the people of Florida who are residents there, even if they hate his politics on other issues, know he does that stuff well and are willing to put him back in office whether they agree with him on wokeness or not. Because he's doing the type of he's doing the types of things that are baseline requirements of any competent person.
He's making sure they are prepared. He's making sure those trucks are lined up before the storm hits. He knows exactly what he's doing. He explains it to the people, and it gets done properly. Gavin has been here for a while.
Speaker 0: All the electrical workers in in the danger areas before the hurricane hit. And this is the same thing. They knew the Santa Ana winds were gonna be up to a 100 miles an hour before Karen Bass left for Ghana, which now the LA Times is reporting that when she ran for mayor because she'd been flitting about the world when she'd been a US congresswoman, including over to Africa many times. She promised the citizens of LA she would not take any international trips. She said, don't worry.
Not only will I be living in Los Angeles, but I will not leave Los Angeles on any international trips if I become mayor. And what does she do? She went to Ghana. Why? It was something super important, something she really needed to get no.
She wanted to she was a damn boondoggle. Like, she had to be there for the inauguration of the who gives a shit whether we have an LA mayor at the inauguration in Ghana. I mean, it's ridiculous. Anyway okay. So she is totally incompetent, and they'd been warned.
She'd been warned. Her office had been warned, and the citizens of Los Angeles had been warned that the Santa Ana winds were going to be very dangerous and that there was a supremely high risk of fire. Did she preposition, you know, the electrical workers, the firefighters? Did she bring in tanks and tanks of extra water? Did she make sure the reservoirs were filled?
Did anybody under her do that? Did Gavin Newsom? No one. No one did any of that, Stu.
Speaker 2: Megan, she didn't even preposition herself. She was in Ghana. I mean, she's she's created a situation where the tragedy is so deep in her own sea that Ghana actually looks pretty good to a lot of the residents. And that is quite the heavy lift of someone in America to pull off. It's shocking.
I mean, we see what happens when people do prepare. We've seen private individuals who've been able to protect their property. It's a very difficult thing to do on a larger basis, of course. But you can do it. This is something that was known.
And that's the biggest issue here is that every explanation for what has occurred points to these politicians. Every single one of them with the exception of climate change. And the reason why they're all going down this road of climate change as the excuse for what has occurred is because it's the only thing that doesn't point to them. It's the only thing that instead points to some mom in Ohio in her minivan trucking her kids around to soccer practice. It's it's her fault.
It's not my fault. It's their fault. They can point to anyone else. They are in a situation where the only escape route is to blame a 0.9 degree Celsius temperature rise over a century. That's all they have.
And so that's the direction they're going because it's it's not one of these situations where you can blame Donald Trump. Sure. They might say that in passing. And that's usually their catchall for everything. But this is a situation where Democrats have run the the the state.
Democrats have run this city forever. They've had occasional Republicans who have been in office who are very very moderate and, honestly, big time environmentalists anyway who've been over there. This has been in control by these hardcore environmentalists this entire time. They've implemented all of these policies and this is the result of it. And the only person to blame is themselves, so they gotta blame, you know, invisible gases.
Speaker 0: Gavin Newsom is now writing to the Department of Water and Power and to LA mayor Karen Bass demanding an investigation. He writes, I request that the water department and LA County officials swiftly prepare a comprehensive review examining their local preparation, underscore local local, because the state preparation, trust me, was absolutely perfect, local preparation and response procedures to ensure available water supply for emergencies and document any causes of the loss of water pressure and unavailability of water supplies. Fully and transparent and transparently, please share the information and records, blah blah blah. Babylon b comes out. This is actually this was, you know, prescient because this this is our January 2022 headline, but it's perfect for that letter I just, read, which just came out on Friday.
Gavin Newsom demands answers from whoever's in charge of California. Exactly right. So now he wants an after action review. This is the like, he is pretending like there is just complete separation of church and state here. You know, he had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Like, if if there's a local government that the governor really his hands are tied. He can do nothing to prepare for an emergency nor to address it after the fact. All he can do is just demand answers like Stuberg here and Megyn Kelly, like, as observers outside the realms of power.
Speaker 2: It's insane. I mean, here's a guy who has been who is governed in a way that is incredibly invasive into the people's lives of everyday Californians. He's tried to control every aspect of people's businesses. He's tried to shut them down. Not of course The French Laundry where he was out eating, but he's tried to shut down businesses.
He's tried to require them to take medications they may or may not want. He's tried to do literally everything to control their life on a daily basis but he has no control whatsoever. No impact. No influence whatsoever over all of these towns and whether they have any water available in their fire hydrants. It's really insulting to our intelligence.
Is it not? Everybody knows how Gavin Newsom has governed. He's been all he cares about is, you know, involving himself in your day to day life when he's not, a, thinking about his political future or, b, hooking up with one of his best friend's wives. When he's doing those sorts of things, maybe he's a little distracted. But he has absolutely all sorts of authority over these issues and at the very least could have been there with the he's standing on the soapbox from the top of the mountain saying, hey, we don't have this water situation ready to go for when there's a big fire.
We know the fire's coming. We need to do something immediately. You could have heard that from another person who doesn't happen to be the governor of California named Donald Trump who has said it on a 100 different podcasts talking about how this needed to happen. And over and over again, you could I mean, conservatives have been talking about this forever. Land management, water management, you know, not to mention all the DEI craziness that I'm sure we'll get into.
All of this has been stuff that conservatives have been pointing out forever, and he's opposed it largely on that basis and has gone the opposite direction and made it much worse.
Speaker 0: He not only has he been opposing it, but he's been funneling the California taxpayers' money to the the homeless, who are everywhere, thanks to him, to, soft on crime DAs, right, who he supports
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
Speaker 0: And Sorrell supports, who are letting these looters in and out, and then he denies it. Meanwhile, we've seen the law that was that's been on the books up until recently when the California taxpayers reversed it saying, if you steal under $1,000, we're not gonna come after you. It's fine. It's a misdemeanor. And to, these illegals who are now getting Medicaid in California.
Thanks to him. Illegals. So, like, this guy's priorities are not with keeping people safe at all. He doesn't care about the crime, about the illegals, and obviously not about the fires, which after the fact you know, again, like, hey. Sure.
So could somebody let me know how that happened? That seems bad. He, gets caught out in front of the fires by NBC's Jacob Soboroff, who is further left than Gavin Newsom. Trust me. I know him.
I worked with him for a year plus at NBC and spent a fair amount of time with this guy. Very far left kid. And, not a kid, but he's younger. And he starts asking Gavin Newsom a bunch of softball questions, and Newsom tries to spin that everything was filled. All the reservoirs were totally filled.
I don't know what the hubbub is about. And Soboroff asks one follow-up question, pointing out that the reservoir that serviced Pacific Palisades was empty. Watch this.
Speaker 1: When he talks about the Delta smelt, and reservoirs, the reservoirs are completely full of state reservoirs here in Southern California. That mis and disinformation, I don't think, advantages or aids any of us. Responding to Donald Trump's insults, we would spend another month. I'm very familiar with them. Every elected official that he disagrees with, very familiar with them.
Speaker 2: We do know, though, from reporting here locally that that one reservoir that serves the Palisades was not full.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what triggered my desire to get the investigation to understand what was happening.
Speaker 0: They believe or the Washington Post, they believe that this fire in the Pacific Palisades was the result of a nearby fire that had started on New Year's Eve thanks to fireworks that they put out, but it was still smoldering. And with the high winds, it sort of jumped. Anyway, all of which is foreseeable. And his he's gonna die on the hill of, well, the locals didn't fill their reservoir, but the state reservoirs had water.
Speaker 2: Amazing. I mean, the time to look into it is before the entire city burns to the ground. That's kind of the time you target as a governor, someone who's competent to look into such matters as not having water to fight fires. You don't look into it after you're just looking at a bunch of rubble. You look at it before the the issue.
That's entirely your job as governor and he's failed at it over and over and over again. And that's going to be his fault. Of course, he's going to be the basically the multiple Spider Man meme where everyone's just pointing fingers at each other. That's what's going to happen in California. They're all gonna, I guess, decide to blame everybody.
Of course, Donald Trump is gonna get his share of the inexplicable blame. He's not even president of the United States yet, but this is still gonna be his fault somehow. Mhmm. And, you know, that's all out there. And and this is something that, as you point out, someone like Ron DeSantis doesn't do.
They they look at this stuff in advance and try to fix it before it happens. You know, and and Gavin Newsom has had multiple issues like this. I mean, if you go back to even his handling of COVID, which was horrid and horrific. But one of the first things he did when he got into office and this is covered in a in a Michael Lewis book, not a not a conservative author by any means. But they had an infectious disease expert who was running their health department for the state government.
But the problem with her was she was white and blonde. And Gather Newsom wanted a person of color in that role and hired someone who had absolutely no idea what they were doing whatsoever. This is not me talking about this. Again, this is a liberal author who describes this story in detail. And like I'm sure I wouldn't have agreed with everything that infectious disease expert would have recommended for COVID either.
I probably would have my problems with it. But the idea that you would put someone in an important position like that before COVID, not knowing that it was coming, just putting someone in there who looked the way that you wanted them to look. Going all out DEI with the lives of Californians instead of picking someone who is already on staff and already lined up for the job, who was an infectious disease expert because she was white and blonde. This sort of stuff has been foundational to Gavin Newsom and the way he has run the state of California. And people shouldn't forget it.
This is his fault. This is his fault. It's Karen Bass' fault, and he needs to be held responsible for it.
Speaker 0: Now you've got the media, including CNN's fact checker, air quotes, Daniel Dale, trying to tell us that there was no shortage of water in LA. I mean, we know that the reservoir that serviced the area that burned to the ground was empty. But he's like, there's absolutely no problem with shortage of water in the LA area. Listen to this moron.
Speaker 3: There is no shortage of water in the Los Angeles area. The reservoirs are at or above his historical levels. The water is there. Now we have seen high profile issues in one part of the city, Pacific Palisades, where some hydrants were dry or did not have a lot of water. But that was not because there was not enough water in the region.
That was because of technical, logistical, infrastructure issue
Speaker 0: Infrastructure issues. Okay. The LA Times on Friday. A department of water official acknowledged that the reservoir's absence, the one we're talking about for for Palisades, likely contributed to some diminished pressure and dry hydrants in upper regions of the Palisades. The reservoir's absence, meaning look at this empty reservoir that serves Pacific Palisades, that it contributed to the diminished pressure and the dry hydrants.
So how do you figure that there's no shortage of water in the LA area, Daniel Dale, and that this empty reservoir had no effect? Are you do who died and made you fire chief or department of water, investigator? He has he knows nothing, this guy. All he knows how to do is run cover for Democrats. They go on in the LA Times.
To your point about Michael Lewis, this is no conservative publication. This is not the Wall Street Journal or the New York Post. They write citing a former that quote I read you was from a current, DWP official. Now they go to a former general manager, a guy named Martin Adams. Had the reservoir been operable, it would have extended water pressure in the Palisades.
It would have. Of course, because they ran out of water pressure in the upper parts of the Palisades once the lower parts of the Palisades were in trouble. And by the way, Janice, the woman who runs the department of waterworks, came out and admitted all this already, Daniel Dale, in any event. Daniel Dale, I fact checked you, and you failed. You failed to fact check.
And, honestly, it would help you a lot if you would just stop, if you just check your political agenda when actually looking into things because we've heard the water chief talk about this. She was out there the day after talking about how the low pressure prevented them from getting water in the upper regions of the Palisades, and then no none of the officials denied that there was no water in the in the reservoir that was supposed to be servicing those hydrants, That that was it indeed a big problem for the firefighters. It wasn't just the the fact that there's shitty infrastructure. It was the absence of water to draw from in the first place. In any event, you won't hear that on CNN.
You know why. Alright. Stand by. We're gonna take a quick break, and we'll come right back, with Duberg here and more coverage of what's happening in LA and what's happening tomorrow morning beginning at 9:30, which is Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi face the beginning of their confirmation hearings and what the Democrats are now threatening when it comes to Pete. Here is a shocking truth about New Year's resolutions.
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Right? So you've got, Daniel Dale of CNN saying there was absolutely no water shortage. It's not a thing. And then Elon Musk, god love him because he's getting the Starlink satellite feed up so that people can have service out there. He's doing a lot as he always does in these tragedies to help people.
And, he goes out there, and he's become sort of a citizen journalist with his, you know, iPhone going out there trying to film. He did it in Israel after 10/7. Now he's in LA with some of the firefighters. And the problem he has in talking to some of these firefighters is it's not a high likelihood that the firefighters on cam with Elon Musk and being seen by their bosses and by LA mayor Karen Bass and by everybody are going to throw anybody above them under the bus. So in the at the end of their 13 minute exchange, the following thing happened.
Watch.
Speaker 4: Like, along the maybe I'm correct me if I'm wrong. Along in in Malibu, along the coast, there was no shortage of water. In the Palisades, there was a shortage of water at at a certain point, or is that not
Speaker 2: Well, we were just we were flowing just an amount of amount of water that those system couldn't overbear that was buried just because of how much water they these firefighters were utilizing. Okay.
Speaker 4: Alright.
Speaker 0: Okay. So we were flowing an amount of water that the system couldn't hold. So he doesn't point to the reservoir, and he doesn't talk about the empty hydrants. He says, you know, give the amount of water that we were throwing through this urban system was too much for the system. And in his defense, the water works woman, Janice Quinones, did say after the fire that, an urban system cannot handle the amount of firefighting that we were doing.
Normally, they would throw in helicopters with water, but they couldn't give in the winds. Alright? So, ultimately, what they did was they got tankers of water to come and sort of serve as backup, but too late. Too little, too late. Right?
Again, a failure of planning. In any event, no acknowledgment by the firefighter, and who knows whether he even understood, about the reservoir that was empty that services Palisades. However, a department of water official spoke to the LA Times again and acknowledged, quoting here, that the reservoir's absence likely contributed to diminished pressure and dry hydrants in the upper regions of the Palisades. So it's already been admitted. Nonetheless, what do you see now after Elon tweets out his livestream?
Gavin Newsom's like, his lies have been exposed. Exposed. And then he's like, oh, oh, yeah. By the way, I want a full report on why that reservoir was empty. Right?
So it's like trying to have it both ways. It's a lie that we're out of water, but we were out of water, and I want a full report because it was definitely not my fault. It was the locals. And then you got the local firefighters being like, oh, the diminished pressure. So no one in Los Angeles should expect clear and honest answers because they all lead back to government incompetence and refusal to take responsibilities too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You're you're totally right. And, of course, that's why they keep going to climate change. Right? I mean, you know, we could talk about there not being any water available in Los Angeles.
But I did some deep research, which is looking at a map of Los Angeles. And there's this giant body of water, right there called the Pacific Ocean, which there's tons and tons of water right there. The question is whether it's distributed it it's distributed to the correct places. You need it to have it in the right place to be able, to put out the fires, and that's the thing we're criticizing. It's not a lack of water.
Of course, they have water. They have lots of they've had lots of rain. They have these reservoirs for a reason. The fact that they weren't full I mean, look, this is a real stress. We can't downplay that.
You know, we can't say that this is an easy thing to deal with. These fires, even when you're incredibly prepared, they're still very difficult to deal with. And when you have hundreds of homes burning down and every you know, having damage to, all the the connections between them, you're going to have issues with water pressure. But, like, that's secondary to what you can do. No one I don't think anyone's sitting here and saying, hey, like, you should have been able to stop this fire completely.
I don't think anyone's saying, that, hey, you need to be able to control the winds of Santa Ana. We're not the ones that are constantly saying we can control the weather to the tenth of the degree. That's them. I think there are gonna be natural disasters, and sometimes they will do real damage. The question is how much of this is the fault, you know, of the government and how much of it could have been prevented?
When you talk about climate change, you might be talking maybe it is I mean, I haven't seen much evidence of this, but maybe there it is a little bit drier. Maybe, you know, there is a slight around the the, fringes difference with when it comes to climate change. We're talking about less than a degree Celsius over a century, but maybe it did something. However, that's not the main story. It the if the main story is it burns 998 homes instead of a 1,000, we're not celebrating that.
We want this to be a situation that's under control. And at the very least, the people who are there risking their lives, standing there with their fire trucks outside of these homes watching the flames with the hoses in hand and nothing coming out of that. Mhmm. That is kind of the thing that is inexcusable.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Why weren't there why weren't the tankers that we eventually saw in these neighborhoods prepositioned so that there'd never be a situation in which those in the upper hills of the Palisades would run out of water as we saw reported by firefighters left and right, which the media also tried to tell us was not true, but then had to admit because the firefighters were coming out and saying it. You know? Like, the gaslighting that that the city of Los Angeles is going through must be infuriating for those who are looking at their houses in ashes right now. Just as an update, as of today, the latest count is 24 dead.
Cadaver dogs are now being brought in to locate human remains. They expect that number to go up. 12,300 structures have burned. That Palisades fire is only 13% contained. The Eden fire, which is one of the other ones, 27% contained, and so they're still in danger out there.
I wanna get to what the fire chief now is saying. The this woman who you know, she's a lesbian. She wants you to know she's a lesbian. Yay. She's a lesbian in the first line of her fire chief bio, and she hired 2 other lesbians to work for her right under okay.
Great. Anyway, she is now potentially gonna get fired. The Daily Mail had a report out at 4 PM on Friday saying she'd been fired, and then they had to update it saying, actually, it didn't go as planned. She went into the meeting with the with the mayor expecting to get fired. Somehow, something happened in that room, they say, that led to her not getting fired.
I don't know. But this woman, she knows how to fight fires, and she's doing it now on the air. And she is like, bitch, I'm not going down alone to to the LA mayor. It's been pretty extraordinary to watch this woman, Crowley, fight back and tell us all, I've been trying to warn these morons that we needed more resources and that we were not in a position to do what we needed to be able to do. Her fire department got caught $17,000,000 by this mayor in the last year's budget, but that's not all.
So let me give you number 1 where she spoke to Fox LA on Friday, slot 7.
Speaker 5: Did the city of Los Angeles fail you and your department and our city? It's my job to stand up as a chief and exactly say justifiably what the fire department needs to operate to meet the demands of the community. Did they fail you? That is our job, job. And I tell you, that's why I'm here.
So let's get us what we need so our firefighters can do their jobs. Did they fail you? Yes.
Speaker 0: Oh, boy. Shots fired. Okay. Then she goes over to Jake Tapper's show on CNN on Friday. And listen to this.
Speaker 5: Let me be clear. The $17,000,000 budget cut and elimination of our civilian positions like our mechanics did and has and will continue to severely impact our ability to repair our apparatus. So with that, we have over a 100 fire apparatus out of service. And having these apparatus in the proper amount of mechanics would have helped. And so it did absolutely negatively impact.
Speaker 0: By the way, she went on. Like, that was not the only like, she's unloading now, Stu. So good luck to Daniel Dale and Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass, who all just wanna run cover for the Democratic leadership.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's funny how, you know, diversity was their most important, thing. But as soon as it as soon as it's going to be, beneficial to them to blame a lesbian firefighter, they're going to be blaming her, I'm sure.
Speaker 0: It's
Speaker 2: true. Which is it's really fascinating how that switches around. The DEI doesn't last all the way to accountability. I'm glad to see her out there talking like this. And, like, it's funny because I think this kinda shows where conservatives come from on these DEI issues.
If she's actually, like, the best firefighter for the job, fantastic. I be fan be great. I don't care. Like, whoever it is, who whatever skin color they have, whatever genitals they have, whatever genitals they like, whatever it is, I don't care. I want the fires put out.
And I think it's really important that you have somebody who's at least stepping up publicly now and doing this, while this is going on. I will say, I I think we need to think a little deeper than that when it comes to what they can do. If you're you happen to be in this position and you know your state is letting you down now, don't wait until half of your city is ash before you start saying these things. Call them out publicly beforehand. Let people know.
It might cost you your job. It's possible. But you could be saving thousands of lives, 100 of lives. We don't know. You said that number is 24.
As as you said, Megan, that number is going up. That's going up by a lot. And I can't even imagine where it's gonna end. It's a terrifying thought. So if you can get out in front of this, if you're one of these positions, you know these things.
I might not know this. Megan Kelly might not know this because we can't follow the inner workings of every police, fire department around the country. But if you make us aware of it, we can talk about it and maybe draw attention to it before these tragedies happen.
Speaker 0: I mean, these just to give people an idea of scale, Manhattan is 14,000 acres. In LA, at least 17,000 acres have been burned to the ground, have been eliminated. They're gone. It's it's truly it is shocking. I heard somebody saying it looks like Mars.
You You know, like, it looks like the surface of Mars now, just burned embers. Think about it. An area bigger than the island of Manhattan. Think of if New York was were just eliminated. It looks forgive me, but it looks like a nuclear bomb hit the region, and it's just gone.
Just a huge swath of one of our most beautiful cities is gone. So all these politicians are done. I they don't appear to know it, but, mayor Bass, your career's over. You're probably gonna be recalled and kicked out of office. There's a change.com petition with over a 100000 signatures.
She's she's going. I don't know if she knows that. Gavin Newsom, same. You're effed. Stop telling us about the embers in your hair.
It's over for you, my friend. I'm sorry, but your political career ended last week. Again, he he he's pretending like he doesn't know it. I'm here to tell you you're done. The only question is what they do now.
And I have to tell you, like, my friend who lives in California, whose house burned, is this is my one woke friend. I love this woman dearly, but she's woke. And, amazingly, we've maintained our friendship. We kinda just don't talk about these subjects much, but she's woke. And she's like, MK, everyone I know is ready to vote Republican.
She's like, everyone I know, all of her woke friends, all of her dem friends, she was like, we're all talking about how soon we can get Republican leadership into these offices. I mean, that is saying something.
Speaker 2: It sure is. It's saying a lot. And I think you're I think you're right. I do have my doubts because I've seen California go down roads where I thought they might wake up and they haven't. But I I think you're right in this circumstance, and I think it's because it's crossed some weird line for people.
You know, as I'm watching the footage of Los Angeles, you know, burned to the ground, you know, we were showing side by side photos of this and Nagasaki, and you can't really tell the difference, other than one being black and white and one color. And I I I feel like as a as a person who grew up in the United States, we we're a little spoiled here. Right? We have the, I I think, the best country that's ever existed. And I I just look at it, this country is a place where something like this can't happen.
And I realized as I was having that thought, how many times I've had that thought recently. You know, watching COVID happen, I thought that can't possibly happen when Italy was going through those shutdowns. I remember thinking like that could never happen here. And then weeks later, where were we? You know, watching the the the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
This can't be happening with America. Watching Maui burn. This can't be happening in America. But these things keep happening in America, Megan, over and over and over again. This, I think, is deeper than Karen Bass or even Gavin Newsom, who's I will agree with you, while the city was burning to the ground, so was Gavin Newsom 2028, and we can be thankful for that one little slice of this story.
But, like, this is happening a lot. And I I we have to make a major change. Thank god Trump is coming into office here in in a week, from today. Thank God that's happening. That's a piece of the puzzle, but it is bigger.
I don't even think the president of the United States can handle a transition like that. It's gonna take all of us to wake up and realize that we're going down a really dark road.
Speaker 0: 2 things. 1, it's his vanity that that makes him refuse to acknowledge reality. He's done. It it's over, Gavin Newsom. It's over.
It's his vanity. And that's why, you know, the hair and the meet the press and Pod Save America. Let me re rehabilitate my own image. And Karen Bass too. She promised she wouldn't take the overseas trips.
She took the overseas trips. Jesse Kelly was here on Friday saying these people who run for local office tend to be middling and unimpressive. I'm putting it in nicer terms than Jesse did. And he said they use the taxpayer's dime to go on these boondoggles to see the world. They want you and me and my friend in LA to pay for their vacations so they can go around and see Ghana, which is super cool.
And and this woman, Karen Bass, is on record saying when like, she says, when I first considered running for LA mayor and I realized I wasn't gonna be able to take my trips to Africa, I first thought, yeah, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna give that up. But, you know, then I realized I'm gonna have to do it. Well, she didn't do it. She'd been over to Paris 3 times.
Now she's like, oh, it's because of the Olympics. I had to go see the Olympics. And she's back and forth to Ghana. So the the vanity, right, of these players who we keep putting in office, when you want somebody who's just a workhorse, again, like a like a DeSantis, who just wants to get in there and do a good job, who gets off on being patted on the back for his competency, not for his hair or how well traveled he is. So okay.
That's number 1. And then I wanna show this too when we talk about Nagasaki and Mars and what it looks like now. There's this guy, he's on TikTok. His name he goes by selfish chef. He doesn't give his real name, and he was coming back into the, California region from, I think, Florida where he'd been, Orlando.
And look. So you you can see he's filming. This is Saturday. Look at this. He saw LA, which was dark, and then you get to the fires burning.
Just wait because it goes on. You see a third of the city just completely on fire truly as if a nuclear bomb has been dropped on Los Angeles, and it keeps going and going. Look. There's more Yeah. And more and more.
This was Saturday, Stu. This was Saturday. This wasn't this wasn't Tuesday, the day that all the homes burned. This is ongoing, and the fucking governor goes on Pod Save America.
Speaker 2: It's jaw dropping. It I mean, it looks like a disaster movie. You know, there's a there's a reason why they always place these disaster movies in LA and Los Angeles because there's all these landmarks and and things that you recognize. And, you know, every movie with the rock in it has, you know, a bunch of buildings being knocked down in Los Angeles. This is what it looks like.
I mean, it really looks like that in real life. And, you know, it's shocking because, you know, some level of preplanning could have prevented a lot of this. We saw this with Caruso, who was able to protect the property that he owns, this mall, by hiring private, firefighters and bringing them out and protecting a lot of the structures around, this facility as well.
Speaker 0: Positioned tanks of water.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. Now I, I don't know. I know you were a lawyer. I don't know if you're a firefighter, Megan, but you seem to understand the concept that water puts them out.
Speaker 0: Because I'm too small. Okay? Message to the fellow women of America. I am too petite to fight fires. I'm strong enough for a 5 foot 6 woman who's in relatively good shape.
I can do stuff that the average person my size can do, but I can't fight fires because I can't lift men or anything over about £70 over my shoulder, and that's even being generous to myself. Go ahead, Stu.
Speaker 2: Well, you might be able to do every role, but you do seem to have nailed the idea that water puts fire out. And that is a really important thing that many in California apparently didn't understand. And like, look, you know, he had a lot of resources, you know, and by the way, this guy could have been mayor. May you may have seen the DeSantis approach to this fire if he was.
Speaker 0: Yeah. But,
Speaker 2: you know, he he could have been there, and he's not. And he has a lot of resources, but I would venture to say despite the his personal wealth, which is significant, he does not have the resources of the state of California at his disposal. And my guess is that if California actually prioritize this, as opposed to seeing how many, lesbian firefighters they could hire and making sure their number one priority was diversity, which is what these fire departments were saying and these cities were saying leading up to this event, if your priority number 1 was instead making sure that if a fire, began, if the if the conditions presented themselves where one could be coming, that we had 100, thousands of these, trucks on ready to go at our disposal. Number 1, let's get this thing fired up so we can go and and protect as many of these communities as possible. That's not to say there wouldn't be any damage.
You know, look, nature has a pretty strong will, and it's not always easy to overcome. But, you know, mastery of these situations by human beings is how we've excelled. It's it's you know, people used to die at rates 30, 40, 50 times as much for natural disasters a 100, a 150 years ago. We've been able to lower that at a significant amount because of mastery of these issues, be being able to protect people from weather and all these disasters. And California has this.
We all know how to do it. There's plenty of water right there. There's a plenty of ways to make this a lot better. It might not have been perfect, but, gosh, it didn't have to do this. And now we're looking at one of the worst disasters in American history.
Speaker 0: You know what I hear when I listen to you? Racism. I hear racism. Yeah. I hear it when I listen to myself talking about Karen Bass too.
It must be our racism. Just ask these 2 d list actresses, Yvette Nicole Brown and Kim Whitley, with a different take on why mayor Karen Bass is coming under such criticism.
Speaker 6: And she's got a spine of steel. Yes. And she's also been a black woman in America a very long time. So none of this is new to her. We're mad because we're tired of it.
We're tired for her. But we're mad for her. And we're gonna stand listen. I don't know how you're here, but I'm had I'm happy you're here. I mean, because somebody needs to say
Speaker 7: to stand, you know, behind her and support her. Because how is she handling the you can see it in her face. She stays calm. But think about this. She has the city to take care of.
She does not have have time to hear any report of justice.
Speaker 6: She is also not mayor of every municipality in California. We have fires every year. And I don't remember in the in the 30 years almost that I've lived in LA, I've never seen somebody, everybody react like this
Speaker 7: to the blame because
Speaker 6: and blame one person for a natural disaster.
Speaker 7: Yes.
Speaker 6: I've never seen it. Now what's different this time? Interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 7: You said that amen, sister.
Speaker 0: Amen. Oh, god. Stu.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's the same stuff over and over and over again. I mean, I don't know how they could even possibly believe that this would work, especially when I will say, maybe with more blame, I placed on the on the on the shoulders of a really annoying white guy who thinks he's incredibly good looking, Gavin Newsom. I mean, I put this sentiment
Speaker 0: on his shoulders. I I
Speaker 2: don't know what that is. I I seem to be blaming, people for their confidence level, not their skin color, which is the way you're supposed to do it. Though she does seem terrible at this job. And, you know, part of your job in
Speaker 0: the She directed people to URL who wanted help finding resources. She's too dumb to be the mayor.
Speaker 2: She's very, very dumb. And I will say, it makes sense that she was on the shortlist to become vice president under Joe Biden. I mean, California incompetence and stupidity seems to be a prerequisite to to be considered for that job. And I don't know if it would have been better or worse if she got that job. Maybe the people of Los Angeles are wishing that she did.
Speaker 0: That's what's incredible. Think about it. Kamala Harris was a DEI hire, 100% for vice president. Karen Bass almost got the job. She's even dumber than Kamala.
That's obvious. And then you've got 3 fire chiefs, like the top, the deputy, and the person who's who runs DEI at the LA fire who are apparently there because they have vaginas, and they like to share them with other women. I mean, honestly, like, I'm sorry that I'm allowed to question your competency when it's very clear you did not get hired because of it, when you yourself are touting all the firsts, is another one. She's in there tie touting how she's the first black lesbian. You know?
She sucks too. Like, stop touting these irrelevant characteristics as reasons we're supposed to celebrate you, and then try to hide behind them when you come under criticism for your incompetence. Like, obviously, those questions are gonna be asked. If you are crushing the job, not so much. When you are terrible at it, live by DEI, die by DEI.
More on that and Meghan Markle and her ridiculous appearance in this matter right after this break. More with Stu. Couple of points, Stu. So on the subject of whether they were prepared, there is a report there was a report on Friday by the Daily Mail saying that there's a leaked memo revealing that Karen Bass, the mayor, demanded that this fire department, from whom she'd already cut 17,000,000, cut an extra $49,000,000 from their budget just 1 week before these wildfires. There was a leaked memo of Karen Bass's proposed cuts obtained by a fire department whistleblower.
It's dated January 6th. And in it, Bass demanded that the fire department make an extra $49,000,000 in budget cuts on top of the 17,600,000 she already cut, saying let's see. Oh, and and then then let's see. Okay. She yeah.
She says the only way to provide a cost savings would be to close as many as 16 fire stations, not resources, but fire stations. This equates to at least 1 fire station per city council district. And then says openly they're trying to allocate more money for the homeless, and they need to start taking from everyone. It's pretty amazing. Then, you've got the free beacon with a report that 2 months before these blazes, the LA fire chief, this woman Crowley, said she needed more firefighters, that they didn't have enough.
And on November 18th, she asked them, for more, saying the fire department has not grown in decades despite significant population growth, saying we are not able to meet the challenges of this city right now. We need more firefighters. So you got Karen Bass saying, you need another 50,000,000 cut from you. And the fire chief saying, actually, what we need is more money and more firefighters. We are not equal to the task, right now.
And, of course, that's not what happened. And then, of course, you've got reports out of the Washington Post saying the firefighters were slower to respond to this blaze that on that I unleashed in the Palisades because it was so widespread. They were spread too thin, and they didn't have enough people. So, like, all of that, you can see exactly what was happening here. They didn't have enough people.
They she did try to say something about it. It wasn't listened to, and Karen Bass was not prioritizing public health. Now back to the DEI point. Here's a budded sound bite. You're gonna hear the fire chief, Kristen Crowley, her DEI head, who is a who's also a lesbian and black, double bonus, talking about her DEI efforts, and we've played the sound way before.
And then the third thing on here is gonna be Janice Quinones, the woman who runs the water department, who's celebrating her commitment to DEI. Listen.
Speaker 5: Our diversity, equity, and inclusion bureau, now we actually have the staff to do the work when it comes to
Speaker 2: doing a deep dive. Where 18 portraits
Speaker 8: of the LA City Fire Department's Chiefs hang along proud tradition at a 136 year old agency.
Speaker 5: But I've also noticed that nobody ever looked like me. I am super inspired.
Speaker 8: She took time out of her already busy schedule to tell us about her vision for the department's future, one that includes a 3 year strategic plan to increase diversity.
Speaker 5: People ask me, well, what what number are you looking for? I said, I'm not looking for a number. It's never enough.
Speaker 9: You wanna see somebody that responds to your house, your emergency, whether it's a medical call or a fire call that looks like you.
Speaker 6: It's been really important for the WUP to put an equity lens on everything. Yes.
Speaker 10: Yeah. And that's, the number one thing that attracted me to this role. It's important to me that everything we do, it's with
Speaker 11: an equity lens and social justice.
Speaker 0: Equity and social justice. I'm sorry, Stew, but I think they should all be fired. They should all be any time you spent fire chief worrying about this making sure you have the staff for DEI and so proud that you amass the staff for that while you're short firefighters, you should be fired. Your your black lesbian DEI chief, that's a position that is unnecessary. And if she says I want a firefighter coming to rescue me who looks like me, she is dead wrong.
Dead wrong. I want someone who looks like The Rock to come in and rescue me. And then the last one, the DEI is our number one priority, social justice and equity. No wonder they didn't have water.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm right. That's exactly it. I mean, if you're not especially when you're saying it that way, it's one thing to say, okay. Like, you know, we wanna make sure that we're giving everyone an equal chance.
Of course, that's the appropriate way to look at anyone who comes in for for any job. But to say it's your number one priority just shows that you don't care about your your customers. If you're if you're a business saying that, if you're saying our number one thing is, equity in, diversity, well, what about the hamburgers you're making? Shouldn't that be the number one thing? And when it comes to something like this, which is serious, it's life and death.
Your number one, idea maybe should have been how to get water to the areas that might need it in case of a fire and maybe have some backup systems and preplanning done to go against that. And, you know, the the fact that that is their number one priority is terrifying. And that statement about I find it insulting in so many ways, this idea that when someone comes to rescue for a fire, they need to look like you. First of all, no people in America think that I don't know anyone. I've never met anyone in my entire life, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, anybody who's ever thought that way, that they want their doctor to look like them, because they can't get good care if they don't look like them or a firefighter or a police officer.
That's not the way that's supposed to work. You want someone to come in and do the job confidently. You want merit to play into the decision as to how they got that job. You don't want skin color or genitals to be the factor there. And secondarily, the part of this that's so crazy is when they say, hey.
We want someone who looks like the residents to come, to come rescue them. Is implicit in that is that everyone who has a certain skin color looks alike. I got news for you. You know, I happen to be a white guy, and, you know, a lot of WWE wrestlers are also white guys. You can tell the difference between us.
We don't look the same at all. It's really kind of this insulting thing that, like, well, I guess all Asians look alike, so we need to send Asians who look like other Asians into the Asian communities is racist on a whole separate level. So this is just like a bunch of crazy intersectional roads going into this, area where all the cars just seem to keep crashing in between.
Speaker 0: Not to mention, it's like the these 3 women who are at the top there are all I mean, honestly, I'm not trying to be mean, but they're they're obese. These are overweight out of shape women. And the last thing I wanna see if I am in a burning building is, a, a woman, and, b, an obese woman. Who who takes comfort? I'm going to die, but it's it's in the presence of an obese lesbian.
It's just this ridiculous.
Speaker 2: That's how we you know, that's how my dad went to in the presence of an obese lesbian, Megan. Thank you for bringing that up.
Speaker 0: I speak for all women. I believe I speak for all females in Los Angeles when I say, we want a strong man to rescue us. That's what we want. Do we ask for too much?
Speaker 2: No. I look. I don't know. Maybe if it's Gina Carano coming around the corner, I'm gonna be okay with it. I don't know.
Maybe there's some level Love
Speaker 0: her, but no.
Speaker 2: That we're I mean, she's pretty strong. She's certainly she's one that can actually definitely lift me over her head and throw me outside the window if I needed to be thrown out. But I mean, you're right. It needs to be someone who can obviously competently do the role. That is overwhelmingly going to be males.
I mean, it just it just is. Especially when you think about some of the people being rescued are big fat guys like me. So you need somebody who's really strong to be able to grab them and carry them outside, because, you know, this is just realities. It's the realities we've been talking about forever. Why can't we get to sports.
Speaker 0: If they are so intent on getting women into the ranks of the fire department, why can't we get the so called trans women? Let's get the fake women who wanna invade our sports and redirect them to the fire department. That would be a great place for you to break barriers as a, quote, woman in the firefighting realm where you still have all of your male advantage because you've become a, quote, woman post puberty. Everybody wins.
Speaker 2: I you know what? Nobel Peace Prize to Megyn Kelly for that idea. I think you've won it. I think you've nailed it. You've solved all
Speaker 0: the work we're doing. We we got good news and bad news. You can no longer swim with the ladies, but you can fire fight with the best of them. Okay. Meghan and Harry, these absolute cretins, decide to inject themselves into the devastation in Los Angeles for one reason, to get their faces back on camera and to improve their image.
They want people to think well of them, so they decide what you know what they really need? Us. What they need is us. And honestly, Stu, you go there. You don't make a mention.
No. You don't get caught on camera. Nobody knows what you do what you did. That maybe that's one thing, although with these 2 now. But, no, they made sure that they got on camera.
They made sure that their names got in the press, and that's that was the name of the game. First of all, I got one other thing. When you're actually a member of the royal family, Harry and the British population, like, answers to you, sort of they're your subjects, maybe they do need to see you during times of tragedy. You're in America now, and we don't give a shit about you. You're not our fucking prince.
You'll never be king. We hate your wife. Stay at home
Speaker 5: in your
Speaker 0: $29,000,000 mansion. Alright? Stop getting off on the trauma porn of real suffering in Los Angeles. It's ridiculous. It's offensive.
And don't take my word for it. Go and follow the x feed of our friend Justine Bateman who just went off on these, what did she call them, disaster opportunists, which is exactly right. Disaster tourists.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to now withdraw that Nobel Peace Prize I earlier offered you, after your words on a poor
Speaker 0: maybe I'll would tell you it's noble. It's the Nobel Peace Prize.
Speaker 2: Just Oh, the Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize. And I I mean, I look. You might say that she's not sacrificing for this, Megan, but she is delaying her Netflix series for this.
This is, I mean, she's really invested and really caring about this. I don't know. Maybe she does care. I do think at the end of the day
Speaker 0: She doesn't.
Speaker 2: The the priorities
Speaker 5: The
Speaker 0: queen was dying.
Speaker 2: Based on camera.
Speaker 0: The queen's husband was dying, and she went on Oprah and suggested 1 or both of them are raging racists. She couldn't have cared less. She doesn't care about anyone other than herself, and I include Harry in that. She cares about her image. That's why she's there.
That's why she's writing positive messages on bananas to sex workers, which just happens to be on camera. If you wanna help the people of Los Angeles, and I know that millions of Americans around the country right now are doing exactly this, you can make a donation. You can participate in GoFundMe's. There are all sorts of groups that will help you. You don't have to fly there and inject yourself right in the heart of it on camera where you know you'll become the story.
She did the same thing after Uvalde. She flew down there and made sure she got on camera when kids had just died at the hands of a shooter. This is a pattern for her. It's not about charity. It's about her image.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It I cannot, disagree with one part of that. And that's sad because there's no you know? I mean, think of the emptiness of that life, Megan. Like, if if that's your job to to go around and just think about your image 24 hours a day I mean, she doesn't even have acting anymore.
She's actually picked a profession that somehow is, like, more conceded and more, self indulgent than acting, which is quite the, quite the stretch she's been able to pull off. Very difficult to do. But, you know, she's now doing this, you know, with with its constant focus of media attention on her in this weird idea that she's, she's got these, like, mythical, villains that she seems to be fighting all the time. People trying to thwart her, I don't know, rise, her meteoric rise, through, throughout the world. And it's like, I don't know I don't know what she's doing.
I it doesn't seem like she has, her priorities straight in any way. And, you know, I mean, look, If she could raise a bunch of money, which she could, and donate it to these people, that would be great. But I heard going down there and doing something on the ground does absolutely nothing for anybody except the camera
Speaker 0: on her. Proceeds of that Netflix deal. Why does she give him some huge donation from her hunch? She got a 150,000,000 from Netflix and Spotify, and that's what led, Bill Simmons to call them grifters because they did nothing over at Spotify. Now she still takes the Netflix check.
You know why she can't air her special? Because it's all about her Martha Stewart type reinvention in her huge mansion, even though it's not her mansion, it's a rented mansion, trying to make herself into, like, queen of Montecito and sell us jams and breads and a lifestyle that she's curating, it would be a bit tone deaf for her to release this steps from the ashes, including of her neighbors in LA, her dead neighbors and their community that's been absolutely leveled, people who don't have her 150,000,000. She can't release it. And Netflix, you release it now at your own peril. That thing needs to wait a year minimum before it hits the airwaves.
Otherwise, you'll have people like me all over you for being disgustingly insensitive. Alright. We have to move on because there's a couple of things we have to hit. So tomorrow on your show. Feed head, Seth.
Oh, yeah. That's that's
Speaker 2: Can you imagine that? I I will give anything to see her just
Speaker 0: talk to people that
Speaker 2: will fool her. Tell her that she was going on another show and then she walks in and this the interview starts. Any amount of money for that to happen. Please make it happen somehow.
Speaker 0: Okay. You know what? We could do pay per view, and we could donate the proceeds to those suffering in LA. She should totally do it. It would raise Yes.
Tens and tens of 1,000,000. Pete Hegseth, the hearing begins tomorrow at 9:30, and the news headline is that the top Democrats are, a, whining that they have not received the FBI report on Pete, which they historically don't receive. Historically, this is only provided to the chairman of the committee, senate armed services, who got it, along with the ranking member, the top dem, who got it. They don't get to keep it, but they they get briefed on it. But all these lower losers are are like, why don't we have it?
Because you're not the chair, and you're not the ranking member. Sorry. Go talk to the ranking member if you wanna know who's in it. And you've got, Dick Blumenthal, who's from my now adopted home state, Connecticut, saying there is damning information that won't even be in the FBI report. This is from The New York Times.
He says, okay. Democrats on the committee believe that there are additional allegations that should appear in the pages of the FBI background check to inform their questioning. That belief is based in part on information they have gleaned from individuals who have quietly approached senate offices to divulge info about mister Hegseth. Quote, damning is an understatement, said senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, referring to additional info about mister Hegseth that he has been made aware of that in his estimation ought to appear in that FBI report. It was not clear what information he was referring to.
So he's trying to generate a bunch of negative headlines about Pete and, I guess, has some sort of big surprise potentially for Pete tomorrow based on some rando who came to him and somehow not the FBI. What do you make of it?
Speaker 2: I mean, this seems to be their pattern every single time, doesn't it? They've always got some secret thing. I don't know if they got this one from Fusion GPS or not. There's always some secret revelation that's coming around the corner that's going to convince people to not go for someone related to typically Donald Trump. I mean, that's usually where this ends up.
You know, I mean, I've heard and I heard your show, you know, several weeks ago when you were going through the stuff that's going on in in Pete Hegseth's, personal life. And you talked to him, I know, at length about it. And he only has had his, his issues there. I think they're gonna try to dredge all that stuff up, and they're gonna try to bring it into, you know, try to to go even further on that front. They're gonna you know, I'm sure they can come up with their, their, nameless accusers.
This has been something that is a it's worn well for the Democrats over the years. I don't think it works with the American people anymore. And part of the reason I think it doesn't work is because of what we were just talking about when it comes to DEI and the way that this stuff plays out. For so long, the left has done and worked really, really hard to take the idea of of merit out of the process of hiring someone. And is Pete Hegseth the best man for the job?
Well, I mean, that's something that they can determine in these hearings and and try to come up up with it. Donald Trump thinks he is. He won the the the election. He should have within certain guidelines the rights to pick who he wants. But, like, coming to this and trying to pick apart not his ability to do this job, but his actions taken with a particular girlfriend.
If it's not a crime and and then that's a totally different line to me, if that is, of course, true, if there's evidence of that, that is a that's a different line. But if what if if this comes down to what it usually is, which is some, you know, you know, faceless person, saying something that he did that was wrong, that they can kind of try to manipulate into making him look like the worst person on earth just to make sure that Donald Trump doesn't get who he wants because they want to delay him. They want to delay his agenda. They want to push it down the line because they look at this timeline, I think, in a somewhat devious but rational way, which is you've got 4 years as president. 2 years into it, you've got an election, which means those last 2 years may be very difficult to get anything done.
That second year of the 4 year term is an election year, and a lot of these wormy Republicans who are in purple districts are not gonna wanna do much of anything. So you've got 1 year to kill here. And the longer you can draw out things like Pete Hegseth and who knows who else, I'm sure many of his other nominees, they'll do the same thing to. The longer you can draw that out, the shorter the window is for him to actually get anything done. And what they wanna do is slam the brakes on all the things that he's doing to undo the terror they've unleashed on the American people over the past 4 years.
So I think they'll go to any lengths. We saw this with Brett Kavanaugh. They will go to
Speaker 0: any lengths that destroys Okay. So that that raises an interesting question, which is, do the Democrats trot out that alleged rape accuser who who complained that he allegedly raped her, back in 2017, which led to no charges because the local authorities were not satisfied there was actually a case there. So do they trot her out, Christine Blasey Ford style, tomorrow to kick things off with a bang?
Speaker 2: It's it's I I certainly believe they want to. The question is, of course I mean, she because she did come up with they did settle that case. Right? So theoretically, she shouldn't come out, at least if she's standing by that agreement. We all know how that stuff works.
Speaker 0: No. But he said she can. He said, go ahead. The the agreement's off. So Go ahead.
Yep. But and she hasn't come out.
Speaker 2: And she hasn't come out. I mean, look. I I I I imagine that this is the type of thing she doesn't necessarily want to revisit publicly. You went through the details of it.
Speaker 0: Then why did her friend leak the memo to the Trump transition team? Her friend. There is no friend on earth who would leak a memo to the Trump transition team that you had allegedly been raped by his DOD nominee without your permission. That too do you know what I mean? It's just it's very clear this woman greenlit this report, probably, again, because of the husband who is very dug in on the he raped your narrative, which is much better for him than my wife slept with Pete Hegseth down the hall while I was asleep in our hotel room with our 2 minor children.
But I don't know. So far, the woman she, you know, she she made a splash or somebody on her behalf made a splash with the with the Trump transition team saying, here's a memo. Read this. But since then, nothing. And they've been threatened by Pete's lawyers.
Defamation's still a thing. Like, you come out and repeat these defamatory allegations. We're ready. So we'll see. I mean, there's a lot at stake tomorrow, and that'll be the big question for for me.
Did did the Democrats actually put her on, and does this woman have the nerve to say publicly what she said behind closed doors?
Speaker 2: Yeah. If I remember right too with with Blasey Ford, there was a period where we didn't know who she was. And we and then we've eventually got her name and then but didn't expect her to speak publicly. And then it kept escalating and Democrats kept calling it out. And then there was sort of a splashy announcement of her coming to to testify on this, situation.
So I would not be surprised if they follow that same playbook. You know, I just don't know if it works anymore. I I mean, I don't know. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic here, but I I do feel like people are starting to look at this stuff in a from a different lens of the believe all women standard that never made any sense. And I heard that primarily from women who know other women and know you should not believe all women.
Everyone knows somebody who who's lied, whether they're man or a woman. Women are human beings. They lie. They exaggerate. They tell stories that sound good to their husbands when the other story doesn't sound very good to their husband.
I don't know if that's the case. I wasn't there, but reading the materials, looking at all of them, seeing the evidence that we do have, I have a really strong lien that that did not go down in the way that it was, that the accusation sounded at the beginning of it. And at the end of the day, who wants to be questioned about that stuff? Who wants to be questioned on every little detail? I would not be surprised that they're trying to get her to come out, but, I mean, the fact that she hasn't already
Speaker 0: Especially if she's trying.
Speaker 2: Want to.
Speaker 0: If you're lying, the last thing you wanna do is go testify before congress and lie under oath and in a way that would be defamatory and you could get sued. Like, my god. It'd be hard enough to do if it were true. And if it's a lie and you're under pressure simply from your husband, this is a supposition, even harder. So we'll see how far the Democrats do, you know, bring this tomorrow and what witnesses they are prepared to unleash.
We will have full coverage of all of that, rest assured, and then we have to see what happens with Pam Bondi too. Because while we have every assumption she'll get through relatively easily, there there are many on the left who are saber rattling now because she defended some of Trump's election claims. And they're like, we can't have an election denier as the attorney general. So it's not gonna be all that pleasant for her either, and it'll be fascinating to watch just how hard they go. Stubergier, a pleasure, my friend.
Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me, Megan. It was great.
Speaker 0: Alright. Coming up next, we've got Ilya Shapiro. You remember Ilya, who got completely screwed over by Georgetown Law. Remember? Because he sent out that tweet about so called lesser black woman when he was saying the obvious best choice for the US Supreme Court.
It was some Indian jurist who he was backing, and he was saying instead, because Biden has said we're gonna get a black woman no matter what, that he thought it would be a lesser than because he thought the best person was this Indian guy. In any event, they ruined his career as a result of that tweet. Ruined it. And now he's out with a book, which is written like the the Washington examiners examiner says it reads like a thriller, and it's true. Like, I do kinda believe, having been through something similar, only when you've been subjected to the most disgusting cancel culture mob do you find, like, the fierce power to really put their terrible behavior in perspective.
And ILLIA does just that and shines a light on what's happening at our law schools with the out of control DEI. I mean, they these law schools, they would love what that fire chief said and what her third in command said and what that Janice Quinone said. And all those law students are what we call future lawyers and future judges and, god forbid, even future supreme court justices. We take a look underneath that curtain next. Back in 2022, we told you the story of how Ilya Shapiro, very respected lawyer and public commentator, was about to start a new prestigious job as the executive director of the Georgetown Center For the Constitution.
That was before a woke mob demanded he lose the job before he even began it. He was immediately suspended, and Georgetown conducted a 4 month investigation into a single tweet, the one that I just referenced. The university lifted the suspension on the technicality that Ilya was not yet an employee at Georgetown when he posted, and Ihlyad joined us on this show in June of 2022 to discuss the emotional toll of the whole ordeal.
Speaker 12: I felt sick to my stomach, and especially, come around noontime when the dean issued his statement. I thought, okay. I'm gonna get fired. I was transitioning jobs from from Cato to Georgetown. How can I provide for my family?
I have 2 little boys who are 46. This is, horrific. I've blown up my life. I've, you know it was honestly, Meghan, the probably the second worst day of my life, the worst being when my mom passed when I was in college.
Speaker 0: Ugh. These disgusting people. But that was not the end of the story. Just days later, Ilya resigned, saying the atmosphere at Georgetown made it untenable for him to do his job even though they were like, we'll see. We'll kinda tolerate you.
You know, under strict, conditions, he can he can start here. Well, he is back here today stronger than ever. He has a new job as the director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, which we love. Read City Journal. It is the best publication.
And he's out this week with a new book called Lawless, The Miseducation of America's Elites. It's like shooting into my veins. It's about the illiberal takeover of American law schools and its dire consequences on free speech, civil discourse, and much, much more. Ilya, welcome back, and thank you for writing this.
Speaker 12: Great to be back, Began. And, of course, you played that clip. You were a central part of the, the denouement of that whole saga, and I'm glad to be back, stronger. As you said, they tried to cancel me. They tried to ruin my career, and I turned it around on them.
And, you know, I thought I knew what I was getting into, and I thought I knew about the problems in higher ed and law school specifically. But looking at this stuff, using my so called lived experience as a jumping off point, you can see the failures in ideology, bureaucracy, and leadership. We're we're not in a good state.
Speaker 0: I just wanna show people the amount of hysterics over your one tweet, which you wound up saying, okay. It was poorly worded, but there's the principle stands. We should not be choosing Supreme Court justices based on their their lady parts and their skin color. And, this led to such affected upset at Georgetown Law School and elsewhere. But, I mean, it was truly performative.
And these are the 2 clips that I asked my team for because I remember them. First, the students who were protesting you, in quotes, wanted reparations because they they they missed lunch, I think it was. Here it is, stop 37.
Speaker 11: Terms of coming back to this reparation thing because, like, this is this is great, but we have to do so much work to catch up for all this stuff that we've missed. All I'm saying is, I don't know if it's a a couple of dinners or lunches or not. But that would help us because we like, we can't I can't go home for lunch now because I need to study. I have to I have to make up for this class that I want. So it's little things like that.
It doesn't have to be something that takes a year to figure out. It's like since we know our black students or whatever group is hurting, and we're gonna give them things today. Whether it's math, whether it's counseling, whether it's whatever. But a part of that trust is to see an immediate reaction to what we are saying. But food will be great.
Speaker 13: We we have food on the way.
Speaker 0: I I She wants reparations in the form of free food.
Speaker 12: And and crime rooms, Megan.
Speaker 0: Wait. We have that. Rooms. That's the second one. Sa 30 8.
Speaker 14: Really, really hard to walk out of class where you think you're in tears. And you should always have a place on campus where you you got you feel like you're not gonna also under people's eyes and observation. Maybe you don't wanna have to answer a question of what's going on or what's wrong. And if you're finding that you're not getting the person you wanna talk to or not getting a space that you need, reach out to me anytime. Anytime.
So we will find your space.
Speaker 0: So you've gotta call the dean to say, I need to cry. I'm like, can't have anybody looking at me. And he will find you space as opposed to educating law students.
Speaker 2: And and you saw
Speaker 12: the masks, by the way. This is 2022. This whole investigation, so called, was conducted via Zoom because if we had if I'd I never even had talked to the dean since in person because if we had gotten together, we would have had to all been masked given the hope COVID hysteria, which I talk a little bit about in the book as a symptom of the failed leadership. And and, Meghan, look. These deans, you saw 2 of them there in those clips.
They're generally not woke radicals. They're generally not social justice warriors. They're spineless cowards. They they're bureaucrats who try to climb the greasy pole, and that means placating this illiberal mob. It's it's a kind of cascade of failures in in higher education.
Speaker 0: It's called Lawless, the Miseducation of America's Elites by Ilya Shapiro. You can get it right now. It's on sale officially beginning January 14th, but let's support Ilya and get it, get the advance, because that helps drive up his numbers, and we wanna force him onto the New York Times bestseller list. That'll really get their goat.
Speaker 5: So
Speaker 0: you start digging into, jeez. Maybe it's not just Georgetown Law School that's lost its ever loving mind. Perhaps this is a real problem because it wasn't just at Georgetown we've seen this terrible behavior. Who could forget this one? This is SOT 39, and I remind the audience we covered this.
This is out at Stanford Law School where the associate dean for DEI tried lecturing 5th Circuit Court of Appeals judge Kyle Duncan back in March of 2023 just to give you a flavor for how widespread the craziness is that Ilya started to dig into. Watch this. 30 9.
Speaker 15: I'm uncomfortable because this event is tearing the fabric of this community that I care about, and I'm here to support. And I don't know. And I have to ask myself, and I'm not a cynic to ask this, is the juice worth the squeeze? It's gonna work it. It isn't a setup.
But for many people in this law school who work here, who study here, and who live here, your advocacy, your opinions from the bench, land as absolute disenfranchisement of their rights. Well, it does
Speaker 12: land. Let me
Speaker 0: They're snapping. If you're snapping, you're out. I I wouldn't I'm not hiring anybody who snaps as applause. And they're thrilled because he's a 5th Circuit, which is a more conservative, bench, and he was a Trump appointee. So they he he's not allowed to speak at Stanford.
And, you know, that's that's why she's saying is the juice worth the squeeze because you've written opinions to which we object, Elliot. But you found this is not just a Stanford or Georgetown problem.
Speaker 12: Or Yale or a couple of other. I mean, it's it's a particularly dangerous thing at the so called elite schools who turn out the next generation leaders and who give each other prizes for these sorts of things, but but, universally, it's a lot of things going on that don't necessarily make the national news. It's not just shout downs of a federal judge or me. This happened to me at a school, also in the Bay Area, what used to be called UC Hastings until they renamed it because it turns out mister Hastings did some politically incorrect things. The the just, the culture of silence and of self censorship and of teaching that, avoids taking, serious legal theory seriously.
Originalism, say, the idea that the constitution should be interpreted based on the original public meaning of its words, which a majority of the Supreme Court, about half the federal judiciary, uses just to do their basic jobs. They don't have to agree with it. They should teach it, and at best, you have kind of snide remarks about how, it's it's inappropriate and why would anyone think this way. We have broken systems of education that's really more activism on the teaching and the faculty front, but also on the bureaucratic front. So we've have now in most places, including law schools, more non teaching staff than faculty.
I don't know what all of these bureaucrats are doing. Well, actually, I do. They're they're orientating and training and imbuing a culture where, well, there's no such thing as objective truth and one's rights and freedoms depend on where you are in some sort of privilege hierarchy or intersectional matrix. All this mumbo jumbo that is directly contrary to the structure of the law. They're basically saying, you students in law school, what you're learning, all of these systems and structures institutions are illegitimate.
You need to question them and turn them down. I mean, this is a huge disservice to our nation.
Speaker 0: We are seeing DEI crumble minute to minute. You had Mark Zuckerberg last week saying, it's done at Meta. No more DEI at Facebook. You have all these big companies like Caterpillar and Walmart, very well known companies, thanks in large part to the work of Robbie Starbuck, who's been serially embarrassing them all by threatening to just make it public what they're doing, starting to run and abandon DEI. You had a very interesting legal case just last week.
It was US District Judge Reid O'Connor in Fort Worth, Texas who ruled on Friday that American Airlines violated its legal responsibilities in managing employees' retirement assets by encouraging environmentally and socially responsible investing in its 401 k plan. This has been happening more and more where these companies try to bend the knee to so called ESG, which is another form of DEI Yep. And say, we're only gonna use, like, BlackRock to do our investments, and BlackRock prioritizes companies that'll get little pats on the back from the DEI crowd instead of prioritizing making money. And now we have a federal district court ruling saying, you violated the law. You have a legal responsibility to these retirees to to make money, not to make yourselves feel like so called good people.
My point is it's starting to crumble, Ilya, but not at the law schools.
Speaker 12: Right. I'm, optimistic, cautiously optimistic in society writ large like Brett Kavanaugh. I live on the sunrise side of the mountain as, kinda normal people realize the these excesses and and what's going on. And there are market forces after all in in the corporate world, but in academia, it's different, and the left hand doesn't know what the far left hand is doing. There are, you know, 0.05% non progressive professors.
That's why I was so threatening that I was going to be joining the Georgetown faculty. I would have increased the number of non progressives from 2 to 3 out of, you know, a 150, and, that's why we need external forces, exogenous shocks, employers, state legislatures, abolishing these bureaucracies in state schools, trustees, and donors as we've seen since October 7th, and the disastrous testimony of the university presidents, putting pressure on these schools saying, look. You're gonna get you are getting big black eyes for your handling of these things for not enforcing your own rules. Because I tell you what, Megan, this is not rocket science. We don't need higher education institutions don't need to go out and theorize a whole new way of how to deal with disruption, or what is the meaning of free speech, or how to promote open inquiry civil discourse, that, you know, this is all established.
It's a failure of will. It's a failure of not, not enforcing, your own policies. So we're very much in the eye of the storm with respect to higher ed generally and law schools, specifically, and it goes even to the accreditor. There's a monopoly on law school accreditation by the American Bar Association, which I hope is something that the Trump Department Administration, Department of Education changes, but the ABA puts in all sorts of, nefarious rules that even those deans that want to reform find it hard to do so so sometimes. So a lot of challenges there, and regardless of the green shoots and the pushback that we're seeing in society writ large, which we have to keep going.
Even if we've passed peak woke, we can't keep our foot, take our foot off the gas. But in in educational institutions and especially, in law schools or medical schools where these things are a life and literally a life and death situation, you know, that we need to pursue, all of the above kind of strategies.
Speaker 0: Again, the book is called Lawless by Ilya, I l y a, Shapiro. Get it now. The, the law school thing, is there any chance what's gonna happen there and what is happening is what we've seen even at the far left schools in places like New York City. You know, I've talked told the audience before. I have I have a friend.
She was committed to the left. She canvassed for Joe Biden back in 2020. Her kids, lefties. And now especially her son, who's at one of these snooty private schools, in New York City, has completely been red pilled. He is a 100% Trump.
He's pro MAGA. He's got the hat because they pushed him too far. These kids, they wanna rebel against the machine. And when the whole machine is like, you will be woke and you will prioritize skin color and gender and sexual preference, at some point, the the mob underneath moves the other way to say, we won't.
Speaker 12: Well, that's seemingly what happened in in the presidential election. You know, Americans across the board of every demographic woke up, if you will, from the woke, and said this is this is just too much. It doesn't make sense. And so there is some hope, and there's certainly hope that the the students coming in reject some of the mumbo jumbo that they're being taught, but but, again, you know, part of the problem is admissions officers. If you write you know, it's not just DEI officials or the head the head dean.
If if you write in your application that you want to change the world and revolutionize structures and change injustice and what have you, there's gonna be a thumb on the scale for you, rather than if you say, well, I want to go into corporate antitrust to make things better for the American consumer, have our markets run more efficiently, or I want to be a prosecutor to go after child molesters, or something like this. So there's a lot, there are a lot of pathologies in Higher Ed, in law schools, and as Bill Ackman wrote precently, the same day this essay came out that Claudine Gay, resigned the presidency of Harvard. Antisemitism, that spur of antisemitism that we've seen is is, is based in our more most progressive educated places, that is the canary in the coal mine, the the tip of the iceberg that reveals so many pathologies underneath, the the academic corruption, the moral relativism, the failures of leadership. This is a I mean, I wrote my book to show that it's not just it's not just about me, you know, the the thriller part of my story, which, by the way, I also published for the first time ever anywhere the actual full report of the DEI office that investigated me.
It is just amazing. That's one of the appendix of the book, but, the the moral rot in general, I've been using this opportunity starting with when I went on your show in in June of 2022 to expose, all of this stuff and make people aware, and so I don't know where this ends. We have the University of Austin, for example, as a as an alternative institution, just born their first cohort. I'll be speaking there later this month. They don't have a law school, but there's centers and institutes starting up in various institutions across the country to teach excellence and rigor and civics, all of these things that DEI trainers consider to be white supremacist tropes, and, and even Dean's at Yale, for example.
I tally a lot of Yale's missteps, Yale Law's missteps. Heather Gerken, the Dean there, wants to be president of 1 of the Ivy League institutions, and she recognizes that what's going on is is not good. And so she went out and hired scholars, including a former Alito clerk, to kind of right the ship a little bit. So we are seeing some progress, but we need to keep pushing, and, you know, not accepting, the this this this rot, this degradation, this illiberalism, in, in in law schools and beyond.
Speaker 0: My advice to any law school student or college student for that matter who is under threat of being downgraded unless they say the left wing things they're being asked to say is don't do it. Write what's true, what's real, what you really feel even if it's non woke. And then when you get the bad grade, you save it like a merit badge. And when you go out to interview for a real job and you will have done your research on who's far left and who's normal, you show it to them. You show them why you got a d in con law, the first d of your career because you were a straight a student in everything else prior to that moment, because you wrote that wokeism is ruining America and is pernicious in particular in advanced degrees like law and medicine.
Write that, and then you should work for the employer who celebrates your d with you, like me or like Ilya. People we're out there. We're half the country.
Speaker 12: Absolutely. Young lawyers wanna come work for the Manhattan Institute? Send your resume.
Speaker 0: Truly. And then but just more and more, you look at the numbers. Look at the people who put Trump in office. They've rejected this wholesale. You're not alone.
You just have to find the right employer and get through these far left institutions who try to ruin you and make you say what they want you to say, make you feel what they want you to feel before you can have access to the employers who feel very differently. Here is what Peter Thiel said on the Honestly podcast in November about these far left universities. Kind of interesting. Listen here. 40.
Speaker 13: They are no longer good places to learn how to defend liberalism. Maybe maybe they're good places for training conservatives. You know, if you if you go to Yale Law School and if you are one of 5 people in the class of 170 who is still conservative at the end, you will be pretty good at understanding what is wrong with liberalism. You will have thought about it a lot and you will be a more thoughtful person. So it will actually train you well to be a conservative And we're right to to value the, you know, the the small number of conservatives who come out of that that gauntlet as as quite talented people.
Speaker 0: How about that, Elia? It's like going, going from sea level up to the rockies to do your aerobic training, then you come back down to fight the fights at sea level.
Speaker 12: Conservatives and libertarians get great training. They they are exposed to lots of ideas. They they know how to see every different argument. And, you know, this is the this is one of the ironies. The these law schools are doing a disservice to their progressive students by not teaching them what the argument is from the other side.
And then they go into federal court, and they don't know, what to do. They don't know how to argue
Speaker 0: They're looking for their crime rooms.
Speaker 12: Right? Sidebar, your honor. I need to cry for a moment. Yeah.
Speaker 0: The judge would be like, I'll make you cry. Great. You wanna cry? No problem. You came to the right place.
I get as somebody's going through the script. By more than her share. I it's like, that's life. That's law.
Speaker 12: They're graduating students who who aren't qualified to do much of anything other than to be, HR officials or or DEI deans or or what have you. It's, you know, I I hope that, some institution sees on the market opportunity that's created, and I think some are. For example, University of Chicago, University of Virginia are generally better, their law schools, on these metrics than than Yale and Stanford, for example, or, you know, Georgetown is particularly bad. Harvard, well, Harvard is an institution writ large. FIRE, the Foundation For Individual Rights and Expression, recently gave them a 0 for the 2nd consecutive year for their free speech.
But but, anyway, there are gradations, and so a talented entrepreneurial dean or other educational leader who doesn't have to be conservative or Meg or anything else, but just doing their job, trying to attract higher quality faculty and students and donors, just by not being crazy can capitalize, in this moment, and we see bits of that here and there.
Speaker 0: Again, the book is called Lawless, the Miseducation of America's Elites by Ilya Shapiro. I gotta ask you this, Ilya. So, there's a couple of things in the news that I'm gonna take advantage of your expertise to to talk about. It just came out that, the Jack Smith report, even though Jack Smith has now officially resigned his position as special prosecutor, is going to come out, about Trump. That even judge Aileen Cannon down there in Florida has cleared the way for a piece of it to come out.
Trump thinks this is nonsense. He's like, the guy was never properly appointed. Does the court ruled that. Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that. So why should people have access to this?
Do you think that makes any sense?
Speaker 12: Judge Cannon, generally has been had a thoughtful approach to to the litigation. So if she sees that it's justified to release parts of it, you know, I haven't started to study the legal issues as as closely as she has. I'm I'm sure she has some reason to do so. But more broadly, I I do hope that the incoming administration, the justice department, looks at all the lawfare that has been thrown at president Trump and anyone who supported him, and investigates the causes of that. That doesn't mean doing exactly the same thing, at the other side, but it does mean looking at whether members of the deep state have violated their oaths of office in leaking things or working, counterproductively to orders that they've received, things like that.
Because we have a clear breakdown, an institutional breakdown, that has led to the public eventually not trusting any institutions writ large, which is not good for the country. So whether it's with the Jack Smith investigation or anything else, I hope there is an odd dedicated office in the justice department that looks at this use of lawfare.
Speaker 0: My hope is that we get our hands on the Jack Smith internal memos, but my belief is that they've all been burned. They will there will be no record of them when team Trump takes over. Ilya Shapiro, thank you for being here. Again, the book is Lawless, The Miseducation of America's Elites. We're back tomorrow with full coverage of what they do to Pete Hegseth.
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Instant Analysis of Pete Hegseth's Hearing and Dem Absurdity, with @michaeljknowles, @Dakota_Meyer, and @mchooyah WATCH: https://t.co/yxNm40GN76
Video Transcript AI Summary
Today’s Megyn Kelly Show covers the Senate confirmation hearing for defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth. Megyn expresses confidence in Hegseth's confirmation, noting that he faced little challenge from the committee, particularly from Joni Ernst. She criticizes some Democrat senators for their questioning style, describing it as embarrassing and ineffective. Michael Knowles joins to discuss the hearing, emphasizing that Hegseth performed well and that the Democrats failed to present strong arguments. They highlight the hypocrisy of senators attacking Hegseth’s past while ignoring their own issues. Dakota Meyer and Rob O'Neil later share their thoughts, praising Hegseth's focus on accountability and standards in the military. They agree that the confirmation process revealed more about the senators than about Hegseth himself. The show concludes with a call for support for Hegseth as he prepares for his role.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. Coming to you today from Washington DC where we just attended the senate confirmation hearing of defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth. We've got the whole hearing covered, gavel to gavel for you today.
We're gonna be joined in a second by Rob O'Neil and Dakota Meyer, Medal of Honor winner, in just a bit. And Michael Knowles will be here to kick things off in 2 seconds. But first, just wanna give you my my overall thoughts. No one laid a glove on him. He's good.
He's got this. I have zero doubts now that he will be confirmed. Joni Ernst was the big question mark, and she was great today. She was very nice in her questioning of him, very respectful. That's not a no vote.
No way. And, you know, this is just the Senate Armed Services Committee. He has gotta he'll get out of committee and but, like, she was the big pivotal vote even if Trump is gonna lose potentially McConnell, potentially Murkowski, and Collins, which now they're saying he he might not. I don't I don't think Pete Hegsev has trouble. I think he's going to get confirmed, and I don't think anybody touched him.
And, really, to me, the story of the day was how some of these Democrat senators embarrassed themselves trying to. I was humiliated for some why do the women always have to be so shitty? Why do the women have to be like these hysterical fools? Why can't they be more dignified? You know?
Like, you could lay gloves on him. I mean, Tim Tim Cain was the worst. I should say that upfront. The worst. The most disgusting, I should say.
But he wasn't, like, an hysteric. Maisie Hirono is so dumb. I can't believe she's a US senator. Christian Gillibrand was like, women can be in combat. You've hurt our feelings.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 0: You are undermining the very cause that I know you so desperately want to promote right now. So I was embarrassed for them. I was embarrassed for my my sex and how they were behaving today. Then there was Slotkin, who's the newest Democrat over on, the left side. And while her background sounded impressive, she'd been with the CIA and so on, she was so annoying.
Oh, I know you've genuflected. Okay. You've done your genuflection, to to Donald Trump. Like, everyone was just there's a way of doing cross examination where you don't wind up the least likable between the person you're crossing and yourself. And obviously, these people, most of them haven't done it.
You can tell the difference. You know? Like, you see a Trey Gowdy cross examination, you think he's the he's the man. Like, that guy knows what he's doing. You see these people try to do it.
You're like, are you trying to make me hate you? Like, I'm not inclined to hate you just because you're a dem or against Pete. You're just behaving like a prick. Anyway, before I bring in Michael, just wanna say, so I went there today. I've never I've never gone to a senate confirmation hearing as, like, a regular person as opposed to as a member of the press.
I did it because, the Hegseth invited me, and I said, you know what? This would be a great experience for me for a couple of reasons. Number 1, I do support Pete Hegseth, and I'm very happy to telegraph to the world that I do and that I hope he gets through. And if my sitting there in any way telegraphs to people who needed to be telegraphed, that it would be a good thing to support him and that I think the allegations against him are bullshit, great. I'll do it.
Fine. But number 2, I did did think it would be a fascinating experience for me too having been on the other side so many times, not as a senator, but as a member of the media, just covering these things to see what it's like to be in the middle of it all. And my takeaway is it's very, very boring.
Speaker 1: It was you had to sit
Speaker 0: there from 9:30 straight. We got out at 2. There no breaks. While some kept it kind of exciting, for the most part, it was like, oh, especially these Democrat sent senators who just wanna hear themselves talk. You know, the Republicans actually asked him questions that would help us get to know him a bit.
The Dems, for the most part, just grand standard, and that was annoying. It's, like, fine. It was a freezing cold room. It doesn't really make you wanna run out and run for senate. I'll say that.
So Chris Murphy of Connecticut, you should be feeling good because I'm less inclined to take your job now, but when I decide to take it, it will be mine because you're a disaster. Anyhoo, it was just did we really learn anything, or was it all just like an exercise in preening, right, mostly on the dem side and the and the Republicans in earnest trying to search for some answers on what Pete's gonna do inside defense that would be different. I enjoyed that. Anyway, enough about me. I think he's getting through.
I think he did his job, and one top Democrat senator told me he thought that this was going to be the toughest hearing for Trump's nominees, like, worse than RFKJ, worse than Tulsi. So we'll see. If that's true, Trump should be feeling great right now because my prediction is people have no problems. Bringing in now Michael Knowles. He's host of the Michael Knowles show on the Daily Wire.
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Don't let the IRS's aggressive tactics control your life. Empower yourself. With Tax Network USA support and takes charge of your financial future. Visit t nusa.com/megan today. Michael Knowles, did any one of these senators jump out to you more than in another?
Speaker 2: They all jumped out of the screen at me and made me turn down my earpieces because of how shrill and awful they were. But in terms of impressing me in their questioning, absolutely not. Pete did even better than I thought he would do. As you say, Megan, they didn't lay a glove on him. Pete Hegseth will be the next secretary of defense.
People had questions about Pete's qualifications for the Pentagon going in. I don't think people really have questions about that right now. I think, in fact, the the result of this hearing is that people have questions about the qualifications of these Democrat senators. It was humiliating. They went absolutely nowhere.
So Pete was the first confirmation hearing, and and many people were suggesting he would be one of the more difficult. Notice though how these hearings have been scheduled. It opened up with Pete, and then all the rest of them today, tomorrow, Thursday, were relatively easy. These are kind of shoo in people in terms of Tulsi, in terms of Bobby Kennedy, in terms of Kash Patel. Some of the more controversial nominees, you'll notice that they were pushed pushed a little bit later in the process.
I think Pete Hegseth was the canary in the coal mine. I think that the Trump team wanted to see how much pushback they would get from the US senators. Pete absolutely knocked them down. It was a complete strike down the bowling alley. Not one of them was left standing afterward.
So not only does this bode very well for Pete, not only does this bode very well for the shoo in nominees that Trump has coming up, but I think even the more controversial ones are going to make it through a major, major win for the Trump transition.
Speaker 0: Okay. There wasn't an anything more disgusting today than Tim Kaine. Tim Kaine, who literally pulled out the old, how long have you been beating your wife? I mean, it was stunning. We know the allegations against Pete.
We know that Pete has been a serial cheater on his wife's. It's that is known. Okay? So that's fair game, I guess. If you wanna go there, you can go there.
You could go with the anonymous, you know, the alleged rape accuser, her story fell apart, it was telling that pretty much nobody really zeroed in too much on that one. But how long have you been beating your wife is defamatory, not literally because you can't sue senators for what they're saying in this context. But my point is that was so below the belt for Tim Cain. Let's just take a listen to some of Tim Cain today.
Speaker 3: At that time, you were still married to your second wife. Correct?
Speaker 4: I believe so.
Speaker 3: And you had just fathered a child by a woman who would later become your 3rd wife. Correct? Senator, I was falsely charged.
Speaker 5: Completely Fully investigated and completely cleared.
Speaker 3: So you think you were completely cleared because you committed no crime? That's your definition of cleared? You had just fathered a child 2 months before by a woman that was not your wife. I am shocked that you would stand here and say you're completely cleared. Senator,
Speaker 4: her child's name is Gwendolyn Hope Hegseth, and she's a child of God, and she's 7 years old.
Speaker 3: And she was and you cheated on the mother of that child less than 2 months after that daughter was born, didn't you?
Speaker 4: Those were false charges.
Speaker 5: It was fully investigated and I was completely cleared.
Speaker 4: And I am so grateful for the marriage
Speaker 3: I have to this unborn child. You've admitted that you had sex at that hotel on October 2017. Now, if it had been a sexual assault, that would be disqualifying to be secretary of defense, wouldn't it?
Speaker 4: It was a false claim then and a false claim now.
Speaker 3: If it had been a sexual assault, that would be disqualifying to be secretary of defense, wouldn't it?
Speaker 4: That was a false claim. I'm talking about a hypothetical.
Speaker 3: So you can't tell me whether someone who has committed a sexual assault is disqualified from being secretary of defense?
Speaker 4: Senator, I know in my instance, and I'm talking about my instance only, it was a false claim.
Speaker 3: But that's good. I assume that in each of your weddings, you've pledged to be faithful to your wife. You've taken an oath to do that,
Speaker 4: haven't you? Senator, as I've acknowledged to everyone in this committee, not a perfect person, not claiming to be
Speaker 3: But now I just asked a simple question. You've taken an oath like you would take an oath to be secretary of defense in all of your weddings to be faithful to your wife. Is that correct?
Speaker 4: I have failed in things in my life, and thankfully, I'm redeemed by my lord and savior Jesus Christ.
Speaker 0: Okay. I will get to the domestic violence accusation in a second because that was the wrong sound bite, but it it is an it is a relevant sound bite that we wanna get to. This guy with his holier than thou on on the the cheating allegations or what he did was Hillary Clinton's running mate.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 0: Okay? So this this man was fine with Bill Clinton. Right? This man who wants us to believe any extramarital activity is abhorrent to him. He's disgusted by it.
That that's the same Tim Kaine. Right? We're talking about the same Bill Clinton. No problem. Fine.
But as president, right, or Hillary too, but this is a bridge too far, Pete Hegseth, even after he's admitted to being, you know, unfaithful in his marriages, and then getting on the straight and narrow. This is the guy. Look at him. Look at him with his head on Bill Clinton's shoulder. He loves Bill Clinton.
Repused by sexual assault or rape by how many women? How many affairs has he had on Hillary Clinton? And he wants to get out there and lecture us on Pete. Hegg, Seth, Michael Knowles.
Speaker 2: It was a complete joke. So it was fitting that Tim Cain looked like Jack Nicholson's Joker from the Tim Burton Batman. Someone needed to hand that man a comb before he walked into the hearings. And he goes there with that wild look on his face. And he says, you think you're cleared just because you were cleared of charges against you?
To which he thinks that's true. He didn't say anything. He just said, yeah. It's literally what it means, senator. But then he goes on, as you say, he's preening about this.
This is a man that we've only ever heard of because of his political alliance with the Clintons. This is also a man who voted in federal law to abolish the definition of marriage. So, listen, I'm gratified that Tim Cain has had this sudden change of heart, and he now takes so seriously the sanctity of marriage. And also, I'll give Tim Cain credit. His attack on Pete Hegseth's personal life was by far the strongest of any of the similar attempted attacks from the other Democrat senators.
And the fact that that Keynes was the strongest shows you just how weak it was. But the rest of them, Elizabeth Warren, Gillibrand, for goodness sakes, Maisie Hirono, they didn't even come close. So the press came out there. Tammy Duckworth, give me a break. It was really, really weak.
And so I'm actually surprised because knowing that Pete's was going to be the the first confirmation hearing, the canary in the coal mine, I expected the Democrats to make this Kavanaugh 2 point o. However, Pete Hegseth had a real advantage going into this hearing, which is that people thought because he's a good looking guy who smiles well and did a morning TV show, people thought that this guy was kind of dumb or incompetent. And they failed to look at his resume, which kept coming up today, to realize he's extremely educated. He has served his country honorably. He's he's been under fire literally on many occasions, and he was not going to be pushed around by Christine Gillibrand or Elizabeth Warren or certainly not Tim Kaine.
It it looked from the perspective of Pete, it looked like he was shooting fish in a barrel.
Speaker 0: Okay. I just wanna say one more thing about Tim Kaine. Alright. So first of all, not only was he running for office with Hillary Clinton, he he was totally fine with the Clinton's behavior. No problem whatsoever.
Pete but Pete Hegseth is a bridge too far for him. Okay? Fine. But he was campaigning with Doug Emhoff after the nanny while still married to his first wife, allegedly, well, impregnating said nanny, and then she lost the baby somehow, and abusing some other girlfriend by slamming her in the face. Tim Cain out there with Doug Emhoff.
Yeah. Let's go blue. That's no but Pete Hegseth is a disgusting dirtbag who little Tim Cain can't stand. This is like how it just oozed out of my like, you're you're watching it. You're like, disdain is oozing out of my pores.
Like, I have to tell you, Michael, it's very hard, especially for someone in my position or your position, to sit in there and not stand up and start answering the questions. Like, are you fucking kidding me, Tim Cain? Take a seat. You're like, questions. Like, are you fucking kidding me, Tim Cain?
Take a seat. You know, like, it was it was very, very hard. And then I've got to get to point number 2 on Tim Cain. I know the allegations against Pete backward and forward. Trust me.
I have researched them all. I did a comprehensive interview with the guy where we went over every single one. Beating his wife is not on the list, and the nerve of Tim Cain to come out there and throw it out there. Watch.
Speaker 3: Did you ever engage in any acts of physical violence against any of your wives? Senator, absolutely not. But you would agree with me that if someone had committed physical violence against a spouse, that would be disqualifying to serve as secretary of defense, correct?
Speaker 4: Senator, absolutely not have I ever done that.
Speaker 3: You would agree that that would be a disqualifying offense, would you not? Senator, you're talking about a hypothetical. I don't think it's a hypothetical. Violence against spouses occurs every day. And if you as a leader are not capable of saying that physical violence against a spouse should be a disqualifying fact for being secretary of the most powerful nation in the world.
You're demonstrating an astonishing lack of judgment.
Speaker 0: He he didn't seem to care about Doug Emhoff's violence against women, which actually is backed up by a whole report by an attorney who was his girlfriend, who she filed it anonymously, but she filed it in the daily mail. What is he talking about? What is this? This is just a blatant character assassination attempt.
Speaker 2: Megan, is it wrong that I'm most scandalized in that stupid question by the inability of a sitting US senator to know what a hypothetical is? Tim Kaine said, if such and such occurred, that would be disqualifying. Right? And Pete rightly said, Senator, you're asking me to engage in a hypothetical. And and Tim Cain, with this unearned haughtiness, says, I don't think that's a hypothetical.
That's literally a hypothetical. That's how the English language works. That is not up for debate, senator. The you know, this is supposed to be the greatest deliberative body in the world. These people have a loose grasp on the English language.
We haven't even gotten to Maisie Hirono yet. No serious country would ever have Maisie Hirono as a senator. It was appalling, Meghan.
Speaker 0: No serious country would have her. And yet, we do. She was an embarrassment. Here's a little sampling of her.
Speaker 1: Have you ever faced discipline or entered into a settlement relating to this kind of conduct?
Speaker 4: Senator, I was falsely accused in October of 2017. It was fully investigated, and I was completely cleared.
Speaker 1: I don't think completely cleared is accurate.
Speaker 4: I've made this commitment on behalf of the women's army. Of the men and women I'm serving because this is the most important deployment
Speaker 1: of our lives. To my question. So I'm going to move you carry out in order to shoot protesters in the legs.
Speaker 4: I saw 50 service agents get injured by rioters trying to jump over the fence,
Speaker 3: set a
Speaker 4: church on fire, and destroy statues.
Speaker 1: To me that you will comply with such an order. You will shoot protesters in the in the leg. Wait. There's there's more. She she pressed him on Greenland too.
Speaker 0: She has us invading Greenland in SOD 18.
Speaker 1: Yes. Would you use our military to take over Greenland or an ally of Denmark?
Speaker 4: Senator, one of the things that President Trump is so good at is never strategically tipping his hand. And so I would never in this public forum give one way or another direct what order does the president give me in any context.
Speaker 1: It sounds to me that you would contemplate, carrying out such an order to basically invade Greenland and take over the Panama Canal.
Speaker 2: How about a trade, Megan? How about listen, I love Hawaii. It is one of my absolute favorite places on earth. I'm beginning to think we might have made a mistake in 1959. So, what if it's just a fair trade to Denmark?
Denmark gets Hawaii, they get Maisie Hirono, and we get Greenland.
Speaker 1: It's easy. So, she was terrible. She was just so
Speaker 0: she thought she was scoring points. You know, you could kinda feel that she was like, yeah. I got him again. We well, the rest of us are laughing at her. Everybody in the gallery was laughing at her.
So that was Maisie. But, I mean, honestly, I I I don't wanna choose, like, the worst woman, but the Kirsten Gillibrand
Speaker 2: was She was the worst.
Speaker 0: Like, hysterical. First of all, she looks like she's aged 30 years in the past 4. Like, I looked around, and she looked like a woman in her mid forties the last time I looked at her. And then from afar, I was like, the she looks like an elderly woman over there. I'm sorry.
I'm not trying to attack her personally. I'm just saying, like, I think the job has been a a lot for her. And it's also backed up by her hysterics. Like, people's feelings are hurt. Here's a sample.
Speaker 7: We have 100, 100 of women who are currently in the infantry, lethal members of our military serving in the infantry. But you degrade them. You say, we need moms, but not in the military, especially in combat union. Please explain these types of statements because they're brutal and they're mean.
Speaker 3: And I would point out
Speaker 4: I've never disparaged women serving in the military. I respect every single female service member that has put on the uniform past and present. My critiques, senator, recently and in the past and from personal experience have been instances where I've seen standards lowered.
Speaker 7: So just you cannot denigrate women in general, and your statements do that. We don't want women in the military, especially in combat. What a terrible statement. Everything you've said in these public statements is politics. I don't want women.
I don't want moms. What's wrong with a mom, by the way? Once you have babies, you therefore are no longer able to be lethal? Because I don't want you thinking, can't serve if you're a mom, can't serve if you're LGBTQ. And then last, can't serve if you're a leftist.
Speaker 0: Michael, thoughts?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I I think that Kirsten Gillibrand began her line of questioning, trying to persuade people that women do belong in combat. And I think by the end of it, she had people wondering if women belong in the United States Senate. That was really awful. I think I think we need senator Megyn Kelly to go restore the reputation of women in the deliberative body.
She did not persuade anybody of anything.
Speaker 0: No. I don't know why they you know, I on this show, sometimes, I I have a temper. I'll get out, whatever. If I were in the senate, trust me, I would be composed, and I would be able to make my points without getting hysterical. Yeah.
I wrote it down in my notes. It was one of the few notes I took. At at one point, she says, it your comments are so hurtful. They're so hurtful.
Speaker 2: They're so
Speaker 0: mean. To to whom? To the war fighters? You so you're saying the female war fighters' feelings are hurt? You do you see how you're undermining your own point, madam?
Like, the are they war fighters who can go in there and take, you know, bullets? Or are they like weepy little school girls who peep you know, hurt their feelings and they need a public apology? Go ahead.
Speaker 2: Even to raise this point of women who are in the military, who are mothers, that maybe it's not the best idea to go send our mothers out there to go catch bullets from jihadis. Maybe there's something a little weird about that. You know, it's so disingenuous, the objections that she's making. Because when it comes to all of these questions, until very, very recently, we didn't have women in combat. Everyone agreed.
Republicans, Democrats, Independents, women should not be in combat catching bullets from terrorists. Until very, very recently, we all agreed men who think that they're women don't belong in the military. They belong in counseling because there's something that's going wrong in their heads. Until very, very recently, we all agreed that DEI and all other forms of political correctness and and methods of promotion that are not based on lethality and merit have no place in the military. Everyone agreed with that until the Obama administration, basically.
And and so to suggest now that that to, want to rewind the clock back to those long ago days of, what, 2013 or something, that that is somehow regressive and beyond the pale. It's just absurd. I mean, this is the kind of radicalism that the American people rejected at the ballot box in November. And I don't think the mood has changed between that time and Kristin Gillibrand's shrill line of questioning.
Speaker 0: I loved how senator Wicker was the chair, and he did a great job. He's like, no. You're not getting a second round of questioning. We're gonna run this the same way we ran the last 2 when the dems were in charge. And then you've got the ranking member, Jack Reed, who was making all sorts of points, but here's what I love about it.
He he had all sorts of points he was trying to score against Pete, but this is how he would do it. Well, I would like the record to reflect that I wanna say the following terrible things about Pete. I'd have to oh, terrible things. He got so far away from the microphone.
Speaker 1: Every time he spoke, you couldn't hear
Speaker 0: him at all. His staff has put him a note in front of him saying, get in front of the microphone. We can't hear you. He listened to it one time, and for the rest of the time, he was like, and another thing about Pete
Speaker 2: Good. It was better for them. It was better for the Democrats that people not hear their ridiculous arguments. You know, on this point of rhetoric and oratory and showmanship, this was the the point I forget which Democrat senator raised it about Pete Hegseth.
Speaker 6: I think I think it might
Speaker 2: have been Mark Kelly who said, look. I'd vote for you for Pentagon spokesman, but I'm not voting for you to be the head of the Pentagon, because, you know, you're just a smooth talker, basically. And that manifestly was not true. He just also happens to be a good communicator. He's a guy who has multiple degrees from very prestigious institutions, who has served in combat, who has led troops, who has fought for veterans, who has gotten legislation advanced.
He is a really serious and accomplished guy. Oh, and he also happens to be a good communicator. Maybe that would be a nice thing, you know. The US senators don't even know how to use a microphone. Maybe it would be good in an era when the American people so distrust our institutions to have a guy who is competent, intelligent, educated, right minded, and also able to speak to people in a persuasive way as he did during his confirmation hearings.
Speaker 0: One more for you. How great was it when senator Mullen of Oklahoma took the mic and got up there and just unleashed on everybody on the other side? Like, you're a bunch of drunks. You think he's a drunks? You're drunks.
You you show here. Watch. Watch this.
Speaker 8: There's a lot about qualifications. Hypocritical of senators, especially on the other side of the aisle, be talking about his qualifications not gonna lead the secretary or be the secretary of defense, and yet your qualifications aren't any better. Your own secretary that you all voted for, secretary of Austin, we had to vote on a waiver because he stepped off the board of Raytheon. But I guess that's okay because that's a democrat secretary of defense. The senator for Virginia starts bringing up the fact that what if you showed up drunk to your job?
How many senators have showed up drunk to vote at night?
Speaker 9: Oh, boy. Have any
Speaker 8: of you guys asked them to step down and resign for their job? And don't tell me you haven't seen it because I know you have. And then how many senators do you know have got a divorce before cheating on their wives? Did you ask them to step down? No.
But it's for show. You guys make sure you make a big show and point out the hypocrisy because a man's made a mistake.
Speaker 0: Great.
Speaker 2: Look at Tim Kaine. Tim Kaine doesn't say boo because everything that senator Mullen said was obviously true. This is not even the sort of thing that only the senators know about. This is widely known in Washington DC. Anybody who's ever spent any time around Capitol Hill knows this.
The percentage of senators who sleep with staff members or lobbyists or or members of the media is pretty, significant. And and the number of senators who show up to vote a rama, maybe they've had a few drinks, It's a lot. And that's why all of those Democrat senators were dead silent. You know? He he was great because they were puffing themselves up so much as these arbiters of morality.
These are the kinds of people who support murdering babies and little children. But all of a sudden, they have such moral authority. They're going to castigate Pete Hegseth, a man who has quite clearly turned his life around. They're going to to attack him for past misdeeds. And then you get Mullen in there.
He says, hey, guys. I'd like to enter into the record this giant mirror. Do you remember who you are? Yeah. I'd say, great.
Please usher along our secretary of defense.
Speaker 0: Here's the other thing. One other thing. They were like, how many people did you manage at Concerned Veterans for America? How many people did you manage at Vets For Freedom? And he was like, you know, maybe 8 to 10.
8 to 10. 8 to 10. That's all. And you're you're gonna manage all these pea people at the Department of Defense. Let me and he finally said, you know, I'm gonna work for a CEO who's extremely successful.
Yeah. How many people had Barack Obama managed before they made him president? Okay. He was a community organizer. He didn't do anything managing people.
I mean, literally nothing. He was, he went to Harvard Law School. He worked like a summer, as as at Sidley in Austin, I think. And then he decided to be a community organizer, becoming an activist. He managed no one.
Pete Hegseth on the battlefield as a major commanded far more people in advance of this role than Barack Obama ever did, and their party made him commander in chief. The nerve of these people, Michael Knowles, I'll give you the last word.
Speaker 2: I loved the correction when the chairman said, I'd just like to point out that Pete Hegseth has managed many more many more people than the average United States senator. These people who sat in judgment of Pete today were had absolutely no credibility to attack him. They didn't bring the goods. Pete Hegseth is going to be the secretary of defense, and the rest of Trump's nominees are gonna have a much easier time because of it.
Speaker 0: Yes. Totally agree. Thank you, Michael Knowles. Great to see you.
Speaker 2: Great to be with you. Thanks, Megan.
Speaker 0: Alright. Coming up next, Dakota Meyer and Rob O'Neil, those war fighters that we were hearing so much about today from Pete and others, they'll respond to what they saw. These days, personal safety is not something that can be left to chance. Whether at home, on the road, or just living everyday life, having a reliable way to protect yourself and your family is crucial. This is why is the choice for many.
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Dakota Meyer, an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran who became the 1st living marine in over 40 years to receive the medal of honor in 2011, along with Rob O'Neil, a US Navy SEAL veteran who participated in over 400 combat operations, including the raid that killed Bin Laden. He's the man who did it. He's now the host of The Operator podcast. Guys, great to see you again. How are you doing?
Speaker 10: Good. Doing well, Megan. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 0: Oh my gosh. I'm dying to hear your reaction to what we saw today. Rob, let me start with you because it really was, like, these senators who most of whom, they don't like, they're happy to send you 2 into war, while while they sit in these air conditioned offices. But when they get an actual war fighter in front of them, they treat him like he's the gum on the bottom of their shoe.
Speaker 10: Yeah, Meghan. It's, crazy. The my my initial reaction was senator Blumenthal, who I can't believe shows his face in that committee because he lied about Vietnam the entire time. He's been lying about Vietnam since he didn't fight there. And then he finally got busted, had to come out and say, you know, I apologize for miss speaking.
There's a huge difference between fighting in Vietnam with real marines and misspeaking and lying. And no. So he's up there doing that. We didn't mention that that I love how high and mighty they all get. They're not mentioning, senator Ben Cardin had a staffer who had gay sex in, the judiciary committee room.
Filmed it. No big deal. And then even as the far as, I I love how, how, senator Mullen from Oklahoma said, you know they come in drunk. I've seen you come in drunk. It's almost like there's some senator like, the the Democrats are playing their their cards they play and their, you know, their their sentences that they don't their questions they don't want answered.
But now all of a sudden, you you turn the light on and the roaches just scatter. It's I mean, it was it was Pete did a great job. But and, I think Democrats looked horrible.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Here's Dick Blumenthal of Connecticut trying to get trying to get it was a gotcha against Pete on exactly what numbers are in which branches of the military watch.
Speaker 11: Mister Hegseth, I'm asking you a very simple question. How many men and women currently serve in the United States Army?
Speaker 4: Senator, in the United States Army, 450,000 on active duty, sir.
Speaker 11: And how many in the Navy?
Speaker 4: In the Navy is 425, sir.
Speaker 11: Well, it's 337 this year. How many in the marine corps?
Speaker 4: 175,000, sir. A 172,300.
Speaker 11: Those numbers dwarf any experience you had by many multiples, I don't believe that you can tell this committee or the people of America that you are qualified to lead them. I would support you as the spokesperson of Pentagon.
Speaker 0: So rude, Dakota. What did you make of that?
Speaker 9: I mean, look. I I think that I mean, I watched the whole thing, and and it just it blew my mind. First off, the the the the the leaders of the policymakers, lawmakers of this country, that these were the priorities that they were focused on, on someone who is about to go and and be in charge of the force that not only maintains and secures the United States national security, but but also really is is is the the the the stabilization of the globe. And, right, and these were the the questions that they wanted to ask, the gotcha. They use these these moments right now in this confirmation hearing to sit here and and focus on, you know, the same thing over and over about just trying to I got you.
And, you know, the thing when I watch Pete there, it's like, you know, one side of it, I'm sitting back and I'm like, well, say this, say this, you know, from my point. But it's like, he knows the game. Right? He's sitting there. He knows that no matter what he says, he's got to get through this and he's got to limit exposure.
Right? And that's the problem with all of this is like, there is no accountability for them sitting up there in that position. There's no accountability for the lawmakers. There's no accountability for any of them up there, but they wanna turn around. They want to critique this man, over and over, which was rightfully so.
Look, I think we have to sit here and vet, and we have to make sure that that, you know, these people are going to uphold the policies and they're going to support the constitution of the United States. And I, you know, we we want to hear his views on what he's going to do about, you know, the issues that are truly, you know, threatening the United States of America. But, like, to sit here and make this out, it just shows you that the priority of the security of the United States of America is not the priority of the left right now.
Speaker 0: Mhmm. It was pretty remarkable. When Pete got there, he had the support of the crowd. In fact, some Democrats were saying they'd never seen a hearing room like this, that they were stunned at the number of people who showed up to support Pete. And when Pete walked in, they start they broke out in chants of USA.
Here's a little bit of that in SOT 1.
Speaker 11: USA. USA. USA. USA. USA.
USA. USA. USA. USA. USA.
USA.
Speaker 9: And one
Speaker 0: of the most interesting things, Rob, was when they were trying to cross examine him, a couple did, but Jack Reed, the ranking dem in in particular, on whether he thinks we should follow the Geneva Convention. And Pete was trying to say, look, my criticisms have been, you've got these people in, you know, another land who come up with these rules, but war fighters on the ground get conflicting messages, especially in today's modern military where they're fighting against insurgents, and they need better guidance on exactly what they're allowed to do, what they're not allowed to do. Here's something akin to that exchange in SOT 13.
Speaker 6: Your definition of lethality seems to embrace those people who do commit law crimes rather than those who stand up and say this is not right. So what's the response to your service members who personally witnessed these and took courageously reported them to their superiors?
Speaker 4: Senator, as someone who's led men in combat directly and had to make very difficult decisions, I've thought very deeply about the balance between legality and lethality. Sir, I'm talking about restrictive rules of engagement that these men and women behind me understand they've lived with on the battlefield, which has made it more difficult to defeat our enemies. In many of the cases you're talking about in particular, sir, there was evidence withheld, There was prosecutorial misconduct. And as someone who looks case by case and defaults to the war fighter, to the men and women with dust on their boots, not the second guessers in air conditioned offices in Washington, D. C.
Speaker 3: Excuse me. I look
Speaker 4: case by case and was proud to work with President Trump to understand those cases and ensure that our warriors are always looked out for.
Speaker 0: Go ahead, Rob.
Speaker 10: Well, I think that the rules of engagement have a tendency to get way too strict, especially the longer we make a war last. And, you know, the Geneva Convention was one thing, but things change. And then every I mean, I've seen everything from NCIS, which, by the way, the worst thing that ever happened is they made a TV show making those guys look cool. They're gonna get promoted the the more people they can prosecute and play the play the, the good guy then to the bad guy. And they get, you know, whatever credit when they put someone in jail.
What I've noticed with especially with my unit in Iraq and Afghanistan, the the fewer rules we had, the better we were because we had the latitude and were more precise. And like it or not, we we on the ground are the good guys. And the Monday morning quarterbacks that sit in Washington DC and and, put people in Leavenworth for murder in war, I remember even on the Bin Laden raid when we before we even got in the house, one of my friends shot one of the couriers, and then his wife jumped on top. He shot her. He looked at me outside the house.
This is outside Bin Laden's house, and he said, I just shot one of the women. She just jumped in front. Am I gonna be okay? It's like, stop worrying about that. That should not be in your mind.
And when a Marine is in a gunfight, they should be worried about, Well, is some dude in a nice suit that's never been in mud going to prosecute me for this? It's nonsense and this is the bureaucracy that happens with the further you go, the bigger the government agencies get, and it's then it turns into the self licking ice cream cone, personal power. Can I put an American in jail so I can get a Navy achievement medal? And that's that's what Pete's getting at. And the reason there's so much blowback is because what needs to happen is the fat needs to get trimmed.
What needs to happen at the at the Pentagon is exactly what Elon Musk did at Twitter. Get rid of everybody, almost change the name, and they'd be more efficient. And that's you're you're just you're seeing the the death throes of of of dying policies, and that's what these senators were doing today. And Pete nailed it.
Speaker 0: So, Dakota, he you heard there that a little suggestion that that's where Blumenthal was going. Like, you don't you can't manage these numbers in the army and the navy. You're you've never managed anything. It's too big. You've done nothing.
It's totally ignoring as I pointed out before you guys came on. Barack Obama managed absolutely nothing before he became president of the United States. He was a community organizer. That's it. And then you finally have the last person to question Pete of anybody up there who was the newly elected Republican senator from the great state of Montana.
That's Rob O'Neil's home state, Butte, Montana, who gets up there, Sheehy, and starts who's an actual veteran, and he decides to go a different way with Pete. Watch.
Speaker 5: How many genders are there?
Speaker 4: Tough one. Senator, there are 2 genders.
Speaker 5: I know that well. I'm a Sheehy, so I'm on board What is the diameter of the rifle round fired out of an m4 a1 rifle?
Speaker 4: That's a 5 56
Speaker 5: How many push ups can you do?
Speaker 4: I did 5 sets of 47 this morning.
Speaker 3: What do you think
Speaker 5: our most important strategic base is in the Pacific?
Speaker 4: In the Pacific, Guam is pretty strategically significant.
Speaker 0: And then he went on, Dakota. That that continued for another 5 well, I mean, maybe 3 minutes. And Pete knew all those answers, and and he was trying to make a point there.
Speaker 9: Yeah. Look. I mean, I I think that that all of us sitting back, and trying to figure out or to decide how Pete's gonna if he how he's gonna do or how he's not gonna do. I mean, that's all a 100% on Pete's shoulders, and we're about to find out. Right?
I think, you know, questioning Pete about what he said on Fox News I mean, he was in the he was in a role of a reporter. Now he's about to go into the role of, you know, the secretary of defense, which all of us should be coming and rallying around and trusting. Look. I'll I'll say upfront. Like, let me let me just go ahead and and own this upfront, Megan.
Is, like, in the beginning of this, I was not an advocate for this. I was a 100% against it. Right? I was I was emotionally tied to it. I I had a lot of questions, and all that.
And and and, you know, I I had to get sit down and and and really spoken to by another veteran who's who's in all of it. But, you know, she looked at me and she said, hey. Look. You know, he's gonna be carrying out not his personal views. This isn't about the personal Pete.
This is about the person who's going to go out and carry out what the president of United States wants him to do and and what's on behalf in the best interest of other people. And and when it comes down to that, like, I a 100% believe that we all have got to stand behind and and hope and support that that, you know, Pete on this, that he's gonna go out and do the right thing. I mean, like, I think Pete's got a a huge learning curve, like every single one of us or anybody that steps into that role is gonna do. What I can tell you is is that historically, the the the last few people who have been in there, have not have not been doing or making a great difference, nor have they been, you know, doing what what we need to get our military focused on doing. Our military is made and the focus for our military is two things, lethality, war fighting, and people.
War fighting, and people. That is the business and that is the only two focuses that that aspect should be focused on. And that's what we've got to get back to. And I trust that Pete's going to do that. I trust that Pete loves America.
I trust that Pete puts America first. I trust that that that Pete loves troops, and I trust that he is going to be loyal to the president of the United States, the constitution, and that he's going to carry out the orders that he needs to in the best interest of the United States of America. And that is what I know about Pete Hedseth, and that is what I care about right now is that somebody goes up there. Look. None of us none of us have a clean record that, you know, on our worst times that none of us would wanna trade Pete's seat and sit up there with all these people trying to go and find the skeletons in our closet.
I can tell you nobody watching this, nobody watching that confirmation hearing today would have traded seats with Pete if anybody would have knew about a tenth of what people have been going and digging on him for the last couple months. Right? So I just think that, like, this hypocrisy of all of us sitting back and throwing rocks at the man in the arena right now is something that that is is not helpful nor is it, you know, we all should sit back here and we should hope that and and get behind Pete. And we should try to to sit here and hope that he goes and that he can handle this job. And and if he can't, then we'll see pretty quick.
But none of this is on any of us to figure out. It's on Pete Hetseff now, and I trust that all of us should come around him, and we should sit here and help him become successful. Because if Pete's successful, the president's successful, the United States of America's successful. And not only that, the globe is successful. So that I think that that is the point that we've all got to rally around right now.
Speaker 0: I love your honesty. I I I know that you were at best lukewarm on Pete, which is one
Speaker 9: of the
Speaker 0: reasons we wanted you to be here. We we don't not just looking for uniformity and thought. Rob, one of the things or a couple of things that Pete said today, I know are right up your alley. I mean, we've talked about it many times. And one of them of course, we heard over and over how he wants to get woke out of the military, and that's been a big priority for Trump.
But the other one speaks to the total lack of accountability for the people who have lost our wars, who have endangered guys like you, in in many cases, unnecessarily, without any accountability for it, like the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. And Pete spoke to that a bit, at the end. Take a listen to Assad 17.
Speaker 4: The wokeness comes not from the uniform ranked, senator, from but from the political class. On day 1, on January 20th, when president Trump is sworn in, he will issue a new set of lawful orders, and the leadership of our services will have an opportunity to follow those lawful orders or not. Those lawful orders will not be based on politics. They will be based on readiness, accountability standards, and lethality. That is the process by which leaders will be judged.
And accountability is coming because everybody in this room knows, if you're a rifleman and you lose your rifle, they're throwing the book at you. Mhmm. But if you're a general who loses a war, you get a promotion. That's not gonna happen in Donald Trump's Pentagon. There will be real standards, for success.
Speaker 0: Matt, never heard a message like that from anybody nominated to this post before.
Speaker 10: Yeah. That was the best quote of the day. I remember when he said that, and that's exactly what he's bringing to it. He's trying to simplify it. He's not trying to spin anything.
We're we're gonna fight the war and we're gonna win it. And accountability is huge. And every veteran there's a lot of special forces, a lot of, infantry and marines behind him. You could you could almost hear him hear them agreeing with him because that's what they want, his accountability. They wanna be able to have a alliance solidarity.
They want a forward defense and deterrence. They're not worried about the political class like Pete was just saying brilliantly that that that's where all this stuff comes from. And you could even hear it spun today. I think it was, Mazzie Hirono from Hawaii who said something like, it doesn't matter who you love if you fight an award. It's like, well, it's not quite that.
Pete's saying if you live up to the standards, you can work. And it's not to worry about the l b g LGBTQ stuff. It's the are you gonna get an operation that requires you to recover for 18 months and you're not operationally ready? That's all he's saying. But the problem is a lot of times, especially even dealing with politicians, you really got to be careful telling the truth because you might just offend stupid people.
And that's all that's happening here, but Pete nailed it. And that's and that's right too. The only person who's been held accountable for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan was a colonel who's who spoke up and just and he didn't even say anything disparaging. He's like, hey. Where's the accountability?
Boom. Fired. And that's the way they handle it because you get to a certain level in the military. You stop being military, and you start being political because you wanna get the job at Raytheon. You wanna be a contractor.
You wanna run for politicians. And I've talked to so many I've been saying for a long time, we need a mid level officer with experience on the ground to take the Pentagon. I've talked to so many good officers at the major level, lieutenant commander level, to get out of the Navy, get out of the Army because they're tired of dealing with the bureaucracy. I have a simple plan too if you want to keep it simple. The second you stop carrying your own bags, you need to get out of the military, and that's it.
So we need a major in there, a lieutenant colonel, to run the I think it's a perfect choice. And you know what? If we're wrong, we're wrong, but we're gonna find out. Pete just cruise today. He's gonna get nominate I mean, he's gonna get, he's gonna get the job.
Speaker 0: Confirmed. It's funny because I realized sitting there today that everything I know about military ranks, I learned from MASH. Am I alone in that? Am I like you're you're like, wait a minute. Wait.
Who is above? Clinger? And then there was anyway, Hawkeye. I know.
Speaker 9: And I would like to go on that. Like, you know, you look at at my instance. Right? Like, there we do have an officer problem. Like, we got a lot of we've got a lot of great officers.
We have a lot of great officers. I wanna say it upfront. Mhmm. You know, there there are some generals that are by far some of the best human beings that I know that that wear the stars on their chairs. But what I also wanna say is we've got a lot of bad ones too.
And I'll you know, you look at you look at my instance. You know, you take Afghanistan, my situation, where we've got 2 investigations, direct loss of life due to leadership. These officers got letters of reprimand. They got promoted. Then they got out and retired.
And then as this other general got out, he ripped up those letters of reprimand and nobody was held accountable. Now let me tell you this, if I had made the decision and got somebody killed or done the same thing that they had done, I would have been hammered. Anybody enlisted would have made or planned that mission that they could have pinned it on. The enlisted would have been hammered. And so like seeing Pete come in and hopefully recognize that and fixing it, I just think that, like, I I said it a long time ago, the the there has got to be some level of accountability.
The accountability has got to be equal, and it can't be this good old boy club that everybody is is overlooking in the aspect of it. Like, I'm in. I'm in. Let's just hold them accountable. Like like, if you mess up at the same level that you're gonna hold this private who goes out and and and does something wrong or loses their rifle.
Like, I just don't understand why a general, like, you know, a general isn't held to the same standard as, you know, a a a Lance corporator who
Speaker 0: gets out
Speaker 9: and gets in trouble. And it's just there's no way that anybody in the military will say that that is not the case.
Speaker 0: Okay. Let's spend a minute on the on the sort of main lines of attack against him. We covered a couple, like, you you don't have the experience or you haven't managed enough. They or you you allegedly beat your wife. Okay.
Thanks, Tim Cain. Sure. Great. But then there was the Mark Kelly, senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. He brought up some of the allegations that we've seen in the anonymous, press you know, the press citing anonymous sources.
Here's a little bit of that in SOT 16.
Speaker 12: An event in North Carolina, drunk in front of 3 young female staff members after you had instituted a no alcohol policy and then reversed it. True or false?
Speaker 4: Anonymous smears.
Speaker 12: December of 2014 at the CVA Christmas party at the Grand Hyatt at Washington, DC, You were noticeably intoxicated and had to be carried up to your room. Is that true or false? Anonymous smears. Another time, a CBA staffer stated that you passed out in the back of a party bus. Is that true or false?
Anonymous smears. In 2014, while in Louisiana on official business for CVA, did you take your staff, including young female staff members, to a strip club? Absolutely not anonymous smears.
Speaker 0: Okay. I'll just say the audience heard me talk about this kind of thing before. That that wasn't great by Pete because choose one or the other. Either you're gonna say no, no, no, no, or you're gonna say, no, no, no, no, no, no, or you're gonna say, no, no, no, no, no, no, or you're gonna say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, or So anyway Yeah. What did you make of it, Rob?
Was it effective?
Speaker 10: Well, yeah. I mean, be well, because when he's when he's talking to senator Kelly, who, by the way, is just ramping up for a run-in 2028, that's all he's doing. But at one point, he was saying it's anonymous, and he all he said was, well, they're not anonymous with no proof. Like, oh, well, then show who's the who is it?
Speaker 0: Well, they're not anonymous.
Speaker 10: Well, they are. But I I think that the beat your wife thing was so egregious that Pete had to say absolutely not because that's just I mean, the the it's to the point where well, if you did Well,
Speaker 0: then, no. He said or not on did you go to a strip club? But by the way, it's already all over the press Right.
Speaker 9: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 0: By people who actually did go to the strip club that Pete wasn't there. Like, that's already actually been out there. I that didn't make it in anybody's questioning that a third party independent witness has said, I was there, and he was not there.
Speaker 10: Well, I there. He was saying it was addressed, and he wasn't there. If he if he wasn't there, that's not really on him, I don't think. I don't think the chain of command in the civilian sector works like it does in the military. It's not it would be on the, you know, probably on the XO or the CEO if if a bunch of his guys went to the to the bar on a, you know, on a weekend on on a trip and then got in trouble.
That would be on them, but I don't think it is there.
Speaker 0: And you can't control them. This is this is where, like, all the anonymous press allegations did their job. Right? They made their way into the hands of a US senator who then got to list them off like they were all real and verified, and, you know, it's like just the assumption that he was guilty of them all was built in, which is why I think anonymous mirrors was actually a good answer for all of them, and he probably just should have stuck with that straight through, strippers or no strippers.
Speaker 10: Okay. I mean, you put it that way, yes. I agree with you. I was just thinking it was the the the strip club or the beating your wife thing, he's gonna answer it that way because, I mean, gotta consider with all the stuff being thrown at him, he really handled his emotions very, very well. This is one of the major reasons I'm not running for office or trying to get confirmed into anything, but he he handled it like a pro and he did get a little upset.
But, I I mean, he he did a really good job know knowing the Democrats are he did such a good job today, and the Democrats were so bad. Yeah. I think it's gonna make the next confirmation hearings, go a lot smoother because this they're gonna they're gonna shoot their shot like they always do. We we've seen in landslide elections where the American public wants it. Even the media's, you know, taking a knee to what's gonna happen.
This is this is you know, whether they got 6 days left, they're just doing what they can, and then they're gearing up for the next election, which is what politicians do.
Speaker 0: The other big thing was women and the military. I mean, they they just beat that horse until it was absolutely dead and dead again. Today, he made so clear that what he's absolutely dead and dead again. Today, he made so clear that what he's been talking about is, like, yes. Women can serve in combat if they can meet the standards.
It's like what I've been saying all week on the firefighters out in LA and what most normal Americans feel. They can serve if they can do the job. Although, I have to say, you know, there are other arguments for women not serving in combat, like the distraction of it. Like, I actually I don't know how Pete truly feels, but I think I'm I might be further to the right than he is on it. But, Dakota, do you think that that's going to be an ongoing issue?
Because all the women up there seem to be, you know, indignant about that Pete would ever say that there's a question about whether women should be serving certain combat roles.
Speaker 9: Look, I I think that, I mean, look. I I think it doesn't matter what Pete said today. I don't think I don't think it was gonna matter. Right? I don't think if he had said one way or the other.
I I don't think any of it really mattered. Like, it was just all about it was all about them getting their talking points out and their show out. So, I mean, the women in combat thing, like, me and Pete I told Pete on the phone that I you know, my what he what he is, I think he clarified today. For me, he clarified today. Initially, what I'd heard, like, small snippets, right, of, you know, which talking points or whatever has been spun out is, you know, no women in combat or I don't support women in combat.
Right? But what you heard him today is clarify is, like, no. Look. I think it I I add an opportunity, but, like, the standard has got to be the standard. We cannot change up the physical demands.
You can't sit here, and you can't mitigate. You can't overlook those, nor can you tailor those, the physical demands that boots on the ground, are going to require. And it's not it's not gender based. It is it is the job based. And so I think when he clarified that up today, I a 100% agree with that aspect of it.
Right? I, you know, I a 100% agree with that because to be honest with you, Meaghan, like, I have seen women that could outperform the some of the men that go to combat next to me. Right? And so when it comes to that aspect of it, I have watched I have watched women who deserve to be in combat more than some of the guys that I've been in gunfights with, and then I'd rather take them anyways. Right?
So I just don't I don't get wrapped up into that aspect of it. Like, meet the standard. Like, go meet the standard. Can you lead people? Can you meet the standard?
Can you go out and perform, and can you be professional about it? Right? Because that is that is what it's about. And I think that that's what Pete portrayed today. I'm so glad he got to clarify that, and he got to to to to, you know, to really elaborate on some of his prior statements or or what was spun or whatever.
Right? But I just think that, like, I don't think anything that he like, what he said today was not changing any of their minds. It was all about
Speaker 0: I think you're right. Sort of. I think you're right. No. No.
He's not gonna get a single damn vote from the look of it. Last question. How many push ups did you guys do this morning?
Speaker 10: Dakota, I'll defer to you first because I think I outrank you.
Speaker 9: Well, I worked out with, I worked with Lance Armstrong this morning. So I don't know. I think we we did I think we did have some push ups in the workout, but I can't remember.
Speaker 10: Nice. I had I had leg day because I'm still I had leg day. I'm still moving out of my house. Lot of lot of stuff a lot of furniture to carry.
Speaker 0: Okay. Well, I think it's unanimous. I did 0 too. You guys, it's awesome to see you. Thank you as always for being here.
Thank you for your service. God bless. And, to be continued once he gets confirmed.
Speaker 10: Thank you, Megan.
Speaker 9: Awesome. Thanks.
Speaker 0: All the best, guys. Wow. Okay. Great show. We gotta go.
I gotta get, on my on route back to where do I live again? Up in Connecticut. And, thank you so much for being with us and for, for bearing with us as we drop the show a little late today given where I was all morning. We are back tomorrow with VDH. See you then.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
.@TuckerCarlson on Kamala's Skill-Free Rise to Power, Trump's Brave Pick of JD Vance, and the Butler Memory Hole Plus, the allegations against Emhoff, Portnoy calls out Kamala "gaslighting," the power of independent media, and more. WATCH: https://t.co/OHBbL9fv4o
Video Transcript AI Summary
2024 is shaping up to be a wild election year with notable shifts in political endorsements and unexpected events. A new documentary, "The Art of the Surge," provides an intimate look at Donald Trump during this tumultuous time, including behind-the-scenes reactions to Biden's debate performance and the shocking assassination attempts against Trump. The conversation highlights the stark political realignment, with figures like Bobby Kennedy supporting Trump and the Cheneys backing Kamala Harris. As the election approaches, concerns about the economy and national debt loom large. The discussion also touches on the contrasting political styles of Trump and Harris, with Trump being seen as more genuine and relatable, while Harris struggles to connect with voters. Ultimately, the documentary serves as a crucial record of this pivotal moment in American politics.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. 2024, it's been a truly insane election year. 2 different Democratic candidates.
Kennedy is supporting the GOP. The Cheneys are supporting the Dems. 2 different assassination attempts, at least. And there happens to be a new documentary that tracks it all, and I do meet up close and personally. By following president Donald Trump and providing access few have ever gotten.
I mean, you will see him like you have not seen him before. It is called The Art of the Surge, and it's available for subscribers on tucker carlson.com. Here is some of the trailer.
Speaker 1: So we're standing exactly in the path where the president will walk out to the crowd about an hour from now, and there's a malfunction with the flag.
Speaker 2: Be careful.
Speaker 1: The hood's rocking with Trump. Trump's definitely got the whack bow back. Making America great again. Donald Trump is the boss. And when you think you're in control, Donald Trump does something that says you're not in control.
Do you think Biden could do this?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. Gold medal.
Speaker 3: What are the
Speaker 1: campaigns specifically doing differently now?
Speaker 2: If there's one word to describe it, it's just execution.
Speaker 1: Biden's just taken the stage of the debate.
Speaker 2: The standard is not, are you able to stand up for 90 minutes?
Speaker 1: I can't even understand him right now. Trump is like riding a great race horse. Right? You put the blinders on, you guide him into the corners, and you let him run. Look at how many people are showing up for a rally.
Everyone, please, and make sure you're ready in 30 seconds. The president's been shot. I repeat, the president's been shot.
Speaker 0: Oh my gosh. I've got chills. Joining me now, my pal Tucker Carlson, host of the Tucker Carlson Show, which you can find on all platforms. Don't forget it's tucker carlson.com to see the art of the surge. Don't miss a moment.
Subscribe to this show on YouTube and follow me on Insta, Facebook, and x. Okay. There's a lot at stake in this upcoming election, as you know. But regardless of who is sitting in the White House, the fuse on this volatile economy has already been lit. Even 4 years of a conservative presidency might not be enough to turn the tide on our $35,000,000,000,000 national debt.
And if the left wins, it's like throwing gas on a dumpster fire. But one thing you could consider is to protect your savings by diversifying into gold with the help of Birch Gold Group. For millennia, gold has stood firm in the face of greedy governments, economic upheavals, and global strife, and it can protect you right now. Birch Gold will help you convert an IRA or a 401 k into an IRA in physical gold, tax free and penalty free, And it doesn't cost you a penny out of pocket. In the past 4 years, the buying power of the US dollar has declined, and the price of gold has increased 40%.
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Well done.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Megan. I mean, there's so much and thanks for having me. There's so much pageantry with Trump. I mean, not just the public events, but, like, at dinner, meetings. I mean, everything is a show.
And, I guess you either appreciate it or you don't, but those of us who do appreciate it, just almost like on on aesthetic level, it's it's cool to see it. I mean, it it doesn't stop. I mean, obviously, you spent a lot of time with Trump and you know this, but it it's it's kind of the same backstage as it is on stage. And to see it all laid out like this, you know, over a period of months is is is pretty cool, I think.
Speaker 0: Well, it's amazing because you and your Fox EP, Justin Wells, embark on this project in June, and you're not thinking you're gonna have the kind of summer that we had. I mean, how could you possibly have been envisioning anything that happened? And yet, you know, you're up close and personal for the most bizarre, compelling, interesting, consequential election in US history, at least one of them, modern history, I think it's fair to say, especially that debate in which Biden collapsed and the assassination attempt, the one where he was shot. I mean, you you and Justin had to be behind the scenes like, oh my god.
Speaker 2: Oh, wow. It was unbelievable. I mean, I I was not there for, for the debate. I mean, I really wasn't there for much of it at all. But the camera was there.
I my personal favorite so far so we've got, 3 episodes up. I think I've got 4 and 5 are coming. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And
Speaker 2: it goes to 6. But is the reaction shot backstage during the debate of all the, you know, VIPs who've been accompanying Trump members of congress watching Joe Biden meltdown on stage. And these are people who do politics for a living and know Biden personally and are sort of, like, have what they think is gonna happen in mind. And what actually happens is so shocking to them that it's truly unscripted. Like, you just can't they're sitting there with just jaws agape.
They can't believe this guy is melting down the way that he is. Yeah. It's really an amazing We
Speaker 1: have it.
Speaker 2: But the whole thing Let I mean, you're all Let's
Speaker 0: watch a little bit of that because it it is it is like, you when I watched it, I and I had the same reaction. Of course, we were all having the same reaction in our homes, but to see team Trump and others backstage watching it as we did is something else entirely. Watch it. Here it is.
Speaker 2: Mine does not sound good right now. So Ever the stage. Each day
Speaker 1: will reduce the best possible.
Speaker 3: The $15 for for, a insulin shot as opposed to $400. No senior has to pay more than $200 for any drug, all the drugs they could include beginning next year. His debt, we'd be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do, childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our health care system, making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the, with with with the COVID. Excuse me. With, dealing with everything we have to do with look, if we finally beat Medicare.
Speaker 2: Thank you, president, Biden. President Trump.
Speaker 0: O m g.
Speaker 1: Right. That's crazy.
Speaker 2: If you saw that live as everyone did, you think, well, is it just me or was that the most profound failure, like, ever captured on film? And then you watch people who do this for a living.
Speaker 1: Lindsey Graham,
Speaker 2: Tim Scott, JD Vance, Laura Trump.
Speaker 1: They're like Ben Carson. They're stopping Ben Carson, he stops at mid
Speaker 2: mid bite looking at this? I I
Speaker 1: I just love that.
Speaker 2: And there's a lot of
Speaker 0: Trump speaks for us all when she goes she mails WTF. Like, it's what we all felt.
Speaker 2: She I like her. But it's it's senior open so nicely. It was. But you said this is a year where a Kennedy has endorsed Trump, and Dick Cheney has endorsed Kamala Harris. I mean, that just kinda sums it up right there.
Not just the obvious drama, the meltdown Biden dropping out, the assassination attempts on Donald Trump, but just the total realignment in the most obvious undeniable way of American politics where Bobby Kennedy is on the campaign trail for Donald Trump and Dick Cheney and his daughter are working for Kamala Harris. I mean, like, who who could have predicted that? Nobody.
Speaker 0: I know. Right. And, I mean, what better recommendation for Trump and not for Kamala than to see the see the world divide in that way? I mean, it's it is kind of amazing. Is it not Tucker to see them the Chanies now be lionized by this Democrat party?
And I know. It's so dishonest. At least she was asked, Kamala was asked, who was it? Who was it was asked about the Liz Cheney, endorsement on on Meet the Press. It was, who was it?
Who was it, Steve, who was asked about it? The Liz Cheney endorsement. It was Kristen Welker. But in any event, it's like, oh, she was asking Liz Cheney. That's what it was.
She had Liz Cheney just the other day. And she's like, you know, you said a lot of terrible things about Kamala, just a few short years ago. You know, people might be left with the impression you're kind of insincere. Right? That's not really gonna be the takeaway.
But does the Liz Cheney, Dick Cheney combo change the calculation here?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it just puts it into stark relief as you just said correctly, I think. And it also raises questions for me personally as someone who defended Dick Cheney for, I don't know, like 25 years in public and always got the sense maybe there's something wrong with Dick Cheney and why would you be so enthusiastic about shooting down a civilian airliner as he famously was on 911. And, you know, just the cost of these wars in human life was so high. Doesn't that bother you? And I kind of pushed all those thoughts into the back of my mind and didn't deal with them, but they always did bother me in a gut level.
And I asked the other night, I was with Russell Brand who I who I love, and I said to him, you know, you kinda called this early. What about Dick Cheney made you uncomfortable 20 years ago that I missed? And he just said, he just seemed a bit evil. But, you know, that's that's kinda true. And I just felt shame for ignoring that.
I mean, it's just it's not a it's like mister Burns from the Simpsons with Dick Cheney. It's like not a a tough call. You don't need to be super spiritually aware to get an evil whiff of Dick Cheney. And I just refuse to see it. And so I just want to apologize for that.
Speaker 0: Well, I mean, I don't know how well this is going to do for her. She's got some 9% reportedly of Republican vote, like, some sort of share are of Republicans is gonna go for Kamala Harris. But are these real Republicans? These are probably the Nicole Wallaces, the Joe Scarboroughs, you know For sure. Of the world.
These are not actual Republicans. I like, I predict, and I think you'll agree with me, notwithstanding the number of Republicans even that work for Trump that are now endorsing Kamala, the Republican party will come home to Trump just as it did in 16/20.
Speaker 2: I think I think that's right. I I think I mean, certainly, Republican voters are foursquare behind Trump. And by the way, they know Trump and they know all of his shortcomings very, very well. They know them really well in the same way you do of, like, you know, your favorite cousin. It doesn't mean you don't love your cousin, but you know exactly your cousin is.
They know who Trump is. They're not diluted. They don't think he's god, but he they do think he's the one politician who doesn't hate them, and that's the basis of of their requited love for him. But what's interesting is that I think a huge percentage of the Republican leadership in Washington is gonna vote for Kamala Harris whether they say so or not. Mitch McConnell is voting Kamala Harris.
I mean, there's just no question about it. The Bushes You think? Are voting Kamala Harris. Mhmm. Oh, for sure.
Are you are you kidding? Absolutely.
Speaker 0: I guess there's a chance money
Speaker 2: on it. Yeah. And but I just think there are a lot of Republican senators, for example, whose beliefs are much closer to Kamala Harris's than they are to Trump's or to the Republican
Speaker 0: electorate. Liz Cheney was saying when trying to justify herself. I'll play you the sound bite when she went on with, Kirsten Walker, dot 73.
Speaker 4: Back in 2020, you said Kamala Harris, when she was announced as president Biden's running mate, you called her a radical liberal whose policies, quote, are completely inconsistent with what most Americans believe in and stand for. I know that you don't view this as a policy election. You've been very clear about that. But are there policies that Kamala Harris supports that you also back? Absolutely.
And, I would say the extent to which, you know, she and
Speaker 5: I certainly have had our disagreements. But when you look at the whole range of issues, for example, with respect to support for Ukraine, with respect to the fact that, you know, she is saying that the United States has to lead in the world, Donald Trump, is embracing tyrants.
Speaker 1: You have
Speaker 4: read any of the language that you used to describe Harrison Biden at the time they would dismantle our freedom, destroy our history, the type of language you're using now about Donald Trump?
Speaker 5: Look, I think certainly, those were were harsh things that I said. I I think that they reflect absolutely that we had a policy disagreement on a series of issues. But I also think that's why it's so important for people to to focus on the fact that I am supporting her now.
Speaker 0: You nailed it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, she doesn't care about any of that stuff. I mean, she's her behavior on the on the January 6th commission shows she doesn't care about your freedoms, obviously. She put innocent people, allowed them to go to jail, and suppressed information that was exculpatory. That's she did that.
So she's on Kamala Harris's page with that. The truth is it's about control. That's it. Kamala Harris is a blank slate. She doesn't care.
She's policy agnostic. She's what she needs to be. I don't think she's a radical anything other than an opportunist, and everyone in Washington senses that. Can you control her? Of course.
Her boss, Sinal, can you control him? Yes. Donald Trump was not some right winger, by the way, at all. He's on the moderate side of the spectrum on policy is not controllable by anybody. And that's either good or bad, you know, depending on your perspective.
But if you seek to control politicians, which is what Liz Cheney's business really is and Dick Cheney's business really is, it's not gonna work with Trump. So that's why they hate him. That's why they embrace Cuomo. That's why they embraced her boss, Joe Biden, because they're weak. That's the point.
They're weak. It is not about an individual issue. Kamala Harris will be whatever she needs to be. I'm not attacking her, by the way. It's a pretty good strategy if, you know, for advancement of for a for a low skilled person to rise to where she has, not easy.
And she's done it on the basis of of moral flexibility. And and Trump just doesn't have that. Like, Trump will make an agreement. You know, you can blackmail Trump. You know, you gotta do this.
But there's no guarantee that he won't just blurt it out in the I mean, I remember in the debates in 2016, he gets attacked for knowing Hillary Clinton. He's like, yeah. Well, they actually don't paid me money to go to her wedding. So I went. I mean, he just sort of set you know, he breaks the 4th wall.
He says the quiet part out loud. That is such a threat to a corrupt system. That's the that's the point. It's not that he's, you know, gonna bring fascism or destroy democracy. It's the opposite.
He might accidentally tell the truth, and they have to stop him before he does.
Speaker 0: Well, you didn't pay taxes. That makes me smart. I'm smart. That was so smart. It wound up in a Dave Chappelle skit honoring him for being, you know, this guy who actually did resonate with people sitting at home, like, finally, somebody who's who tells it like it is.
Well, exactly. And if
Speaker 2: you put enough pressure on Trump, he might intentionally or not just say so. Like, you know, well, Donald Trump, you changed your view on this. Why? Well, because they threatened me. You might say that.
You know, Kamala Harris will go to her grave with all of that stuff hidden. And, so that's why they like Kamala Harris. And Liz Cheney is telling the truth when she says it's not about policy. It's not about an individual policy. It's about all policies.
And, of course, what the Chinese in permanent Washington really cares about is war, because it's the ultimate exercise of power killing people, and it's for the money.
Speaker 0: It's the only thing she mentions.
Speaker 2: It's the only thing she cares about. Trust me. I know her well. And that's the only thing she cares about. And back when she and her dad and the many like them ran the Republican party, you know, they they dressed it up as we're strong, you know, on defense or we're keeping the world safe.
Well, of course, they've made the world much more chaotic and infinitely more dangerous. We're in the brink of nuclear war right now because of their policies and their, quote, leadership. So it doesn't make anybody safe. It imperils everybody, including our children, and the the the the gig is up for them. They can no longer pretend that people on both sides are sick of pointless forever wars.
I mean, I I do think that's really obvious. People are are sick of it. And, and she's mad that they're sick of it, but, you know,
Speaker 0: they didn't want interesting way. And I always I always learn something talking to you, Tucker. You always give me a different way of thinking about issues because I've been saying she's a moron, which I do think she's a moron. I stand by that. But
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 0: When I watch these completely empty sound bites, I think it's because she's dumb, and she doesn't know anything, and she's incapable of doing anything more. And your words blank slate kinda come at it from a different way that that she's intentionally being vague all the time because that's what makes her salable to her party bosses who have chosen her and who are trying to elevate her to advance their own agenda. In the case of Cheney and so many others, it is worse, the military industrial complex. And that is a different way of looking at I'll play the sound bite. We played it a couple days ago, but this one just is so perfect.
It just encapsulates everything that I can't stand about how she answers questions. I'm gonna look at this with a new pair of eyes, just blank slate as opposed to just utter moron. Let's watch it.
Speaker 1: How do we how do we get here? You smell good. You look good.
Speaker 6: Oh, that's better than smelling bad. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I know. You look great. You look great. Do you feel great? It has been a whirlwind for you.
Speaker 6: I feel good. You know, listen. We have 23 days as of today until the election, and I am in these streets traveling and talking with folks. And I am out here doing the work of earning them the vote, so that we can get to the job of continuing to move forward. And for me, that is about pushing for an opportunity economy, which is about tapping into the ambitions and the aspirations of folks.
I know the ambitions, the aspirations, the incredible work ethic that exists in our community. I know the dreams that exist. But not everyone has started out on the same base in terms of being able to realize their goals and their dreams. So my plan is to build what I call an opportunity economy, which means giving people an opportunity to actually achieve those ambitions, those goals, and those dreams.
Speaker 0: She said nothing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Which isn't easy, by the way. It's not easy to say nothing. It's not easy to be Kamala Harris. It's not easy.
Everything about her from her first name, which she's pronounced various different ways, she doesn't pronounce her own first name consistently, to her accent, which is, of course, an affect. She grew up in Canada. She's Canadian. In a she went to high school in in Montreal, Canada. She didn't grow up in Baltimore.
That's completely fake accent, daughter of college professors, to everything that she believes, which is essentially nothing. And to to play that role over so many years with nothing inside is not an easy thing. I don't think she's stupid. I think there are different kinds of intelligence. I think she's a high feral intelligence, an animal intelligence, which is a really useful thing.
I wish I had more of it myself. I mean that. But she's just pure ambition, and she'll be what she needs to be. But when I watch that as every time I watch her, I get the same vibe, which is fear. She's afraid.
And, of course, she's afraid because she doesn't believe anything. When you know when you believe what you believe and if you have limits to what you'll say to how dishonest you'll be, there's a kind of freedom in that. Like, I'm not gonna do that, period. I've already decided. You know, all of us kind of go through this.
But there's the rare person, not so rare in politics, unfortunately, she's one of them, who doesn't have any limits at all. And because, like, whatever it takes, whatever I have to say, whatever I have to pretend to believe I will. And, again, that's a skill. And that's how she leveraged a career with no achievement at all, no obvious skills of any kind to the place where she could be president of the United States. Like, try that at home.
That's hard. So I do give her credit for that. I I think it's a it's been a really difficult, super unpleasant, joyless journey with no real personal relationships. A husband who she kisses with a mask on. Like, imagine living that life.
Seriously. I can't imagine anything worse than that.
Speaker 0: That's the least of the problems with the husband. I mean, the husband's the husband's got serious issues, which, honestly, it's driving the pain of the
Speaker 2: audience. You think of that?
Speaker 0: Yeah. I believe every word of it.
Speaker 2: Of the Emhoff stories?
Speaker 0: Yeah. I do think Yes. So first of all, we know that he cheated on the first wife and impregnated the child's nanny. So it's bad enough to cheat on your wife. Then you cheat with the child's nanny.
So you're in you're jeopardizing an important relationship in the child's life. Right? Like, presumably Yeah. The the nanny matters to the child, and you're about to blow up your marriage. So some stability with the caretaker would be nice, but you're screwing that up too because you're screwing the nanny.
Then he impregnates her. Then on top of that, the Daily Mail all which he's admitted. That he's admitted that. Then on top of that, the Daily Mail comes out with a second report saying he bragged to his next girlfriend that he made the nanny sign an NDA and paid her $80,000 to stay quiet because, and we're at least in in connection with this, she lost the baby in under circumstances that she blames him for. We don't know exactly what happened, but the Daily Mail reports that there was an emergency at the nanny's home, that, EMTs were called, and that it was a serious emergency.
And after this, she blames him for losing the baby that he impregnated her with. This is all on behind the back of the first wife. So then, in that second report the Daily Mail reveals, this he hasn't admitted to, that he found a girlfriend in 2012, like, 18 months before he met Kamala. And they were at con they were in con, France at some red carpet black tie event, and for aids to raise money for aids research. She's this she's a gunner, this woman.
She's a professional. She's a lawyer. She's beautiful. They were dating for a short time. She brings them out there.
And that he was so angry, she touched the shoulder of a valet to get his attention. So she get a taxi. He open hand slapped her so hard across the face, she spun. She stumbled. She got into a taxi because now she's scared.
He forced his way in. She was so scared of the beating continuing. She called her male friend back in New York to get him on the phone so that he couldn't do anything to her now. She's got an ear witness. That guy spoke to the Daily Mail, as did 2 of her other friends, at least one of whom was able to give a contemporaneous account of what she was told.
The second one came a year later, I think. And, this woman broke up with him and provided receipts. Obviously, that came from the woman. How else would the friends have her airline tickets? And that he denies only through a campaign spokesperson person in passive terms.
So I do I mean, he's denied it. I believe every word. Because you know what would happen, Tucker. You're a public figure. If somebody came out and said, Tucker Carlson beat the girlfriend he had before he married Susie, you would very easily produce said girlfriend to say, this is a vicious lie.
I love Tucker. It ended, but we're friends. Or it ended badly, but he never hit me. Where is she if it didn't happen? And he said 3 interviews so far, including with MSNBC, what's supposed to be a news organization.
No one has asked a question about it.
Speaker 2: How how I I don't understand that. How can you not ask about that? I mean, it's I'm not surprised at all because he's a self described feminist who's redefining masculinity, and people like that always hate women. It's the beta males you gotta watch out for. They will mistreat you.
They have no self respect, and anyone who doesn't respect himself is definitely not gonna respect you. That's for certain. They always lash out. I've I'm a man. I've seen this dynamic a lot.
It was always, you know, the peace love patchouli guys in college who would rub off their girlfriends to the fact. No. For real. And so that does it doesn't shock me. What shocks me is that Joe Scarborough could do an interview with him and literally not mention it.
I I just think there's no kind of depth to their shame either. Like, these are the same people who told us that Biden was a genius, not senile at all, and that it was a cheap fake, you know, the evidence to the contrary, and that all of us were right wing extremists for suggesting Biden was senile until the day that they all, as one told us, he was in fact senile and had to step down. Like, they're exposed liars. They have no shame, But it still
Speaker 0: shocks. Speaking of no shame, so now Kamala, struggling in the polls mightily, is out there actually trying to make an issue of Trump's medical records, suggesting he's old and he hasn't produced all of his medical records. And therefore, what do we know what we're getting? You know, do we have somebody who's really together? He doesn't seem okay.
Of all people, Tucker, I mean, the the nerve, it's it's flabbergasting.
Speaker 2: But it's always the way. They always accuse you of exactly what they're doing. I mean, they literally will build wind farms to kill endangered species, whether in the sea, whale, right whales, or California condors, and then yell at you about how you don't care about the environment. You're not worried enough about carbon, you know, dioxide emissions because, you know, you've got a wood stove or a suburban, but they're flying private and lecturing. So it's this is like the main way they communicate, which is by transferring their guilt onto the innocent.
But it's every time I agree with you, it shocks me anyway.
Speaker 0: On that front, I don't know if you saw the other day, Chris Ruffo dropped a bomb on the Kamala Harris campaign, because he found she plagiarized multiple times in her book, that she released years ago to try to seem like a tough on crime prosecutor. And surprise, surprise, she and her ghostwriter, and we don't know who wrote what, but ultimately it's her book. It's her name. She promoted it, and she hasn't disavowed it, is repeatedly plagiarizing other people's work without attribution. And so what do we get?
Do we get the rest of the media saying, well, this is serious, and we have to apply the same standard to her as we do across the board? Didn't they try to have Kellyanne Conway? Or not Kellyanne Conway. Monica Crowley, our friend booted from the Trump administration because they said she plagiarized a couple lines here or there, which she denied. Okay.
With Kamala Harris, totally different story. This is a this is it's a nothing burger, and the headline truly was, like, conservative activist seizes on some sort of minor dust up about her book. It it it was a way they could say they'd cover it. They'd covered it without actually covering it, and they spend the entire body of the piece trying to minimize the controversy, misrepresent what Ruffo actually broke, say he only found a couple of instances, 500 words, where in fact he had found thousands and thousands of words. I mean, if you're not surprised, but it's just another example of the double standard.
Speaker 2: Well, you're the criminal for noticing. How dare you notice what I'm doing? I mean, it is it's just it's just a different level of lying. I mean, we all lie, and I hate lying, and I don't wanna lie. But I guess if you caught me doing something super embarrassing, I would lie about it.
I wouldn't want to, but I would. But what I wouldn't do is accuse you of doing the thing you caught me doing. I would never do that because that's e that's completely evil. It's that's not ordinary lying. That's pathological.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like, you you know, you catch me beating a woman in the face like Doug Emhoff, apparently, just been caught doing that, assaulting a woman in the face. By the way, who'd he had a woman in the face?
Speaker 1: I don't even know anyone who's in the face.
Speaker 0: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I mean, I know some pretty sick people. I lived and watched them my whole life. I've been in the media since 1991. And with the exception of a few, Joe Scarborough or what I mean, you know, but I just don't know anyone who's capable of that. That's a really weird behavior in my opinion.
Speaker 1: So what
Speaker 2: what what is his response to lecture you about how you don't care about women's rights? You don't care about women. Really? I'm not the one who who is, like, busted hitting a woman in the face. It's like crazy behavior.
Not normal.
Speaker 0: Yeah. No. It's not normal at all. Well, this is what we're about to elect into our White House, potentially. Although, what do you think?
I don't think it's going well. I know you don't I don't picture you as a day to day poll consumer, but it doesn't seem to be going very well. Otherwise, she wouldn't be going on Fox News and maybe maybe even Rogan.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Right. I mean, what's funny, I just I just was reading this. They're talking to Rogen's people. Well, I mean, I I don't know the Rogen.
Does Rogen have people? Not that I'm aware of. You just text Rogen. Right? So I don't think there's, like, an army of people between Kamala Harris' appearance and, like, you know, going to Austin and sitting with Jorogan.
I think she could probably pull that off this afternoon just by getting on a plane. I don't think it's hard. And there's I I don't think I'm not good at predictions. Try not to make him, but I think there's roughly a 0% chance she goes on Joe Rogan in that range. I mean Interesting.
I don't know the name of the guy who was just interviewing her, who was asking her not even questions, just being like, oh, you're so beautiful. Is it hard being so beautiful and you smell good? That guy, she looked afraid
Speaker 1: in that interview. Started.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine sitting down with Rogen? I mean, Rogen being like, you know, like, what what's your position on speech? I mean, there's no for 3 hours, I I don't think there's any possibility she doesn't. Of course, I pray that she does. I think the rest of us deserve that.
And by the way, maybe she's amazing. Maybe at the end of 3 hours, I wanna vote for her. I mean, I don't know. I'm trying to be open minded here. But don't voters deserve a chance, especially with the candidate who's never been elected to the position she holds, which is nominee?
Don't we deserve a chance to hear her talk for 3 hours? I mean, once?
Speaker 0: But I don't think she can
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 0: Could take that, Tucker. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I'm gonna handle that in 3 hours.
Speaker 2: But I don't think she could handle it. I don't
Speaker 0: But but you're right. I think an open ended question would be the most dangerous for her, and that's what Rogan does. You know? I mean, on Fox, she'll get pressed by Brett, but it'll be a short interview. She's not she isn't giving him a lot of time.
But if she ever went on Rogan, he wouldn't accept her if she didn't do it on his terms. You know? She she needs him. She doesn't need her. So it would have to be lengthy, and it would have to be open ended.
And the open ended question where you can ask follow ups would be truly deadly to her.
Speaker 2: Well, I yeah. I completely agree. And, you know, from a lifetime of doing them, cable news interviews are pretty easy to game. It's pretty easy to deflect during the course of a cable news interview no matter how good and no one no one was tougher than you, in adversarial interviews on cable news. But even you could be defeated just by the structure, by the time limit.
You know, if you can put off an answer for just a few minutes in a normal cable news interview, you can get away with it. You cannot do that in a 3 hour format no matter who is asking the questions. And but I think she's kind of foolish or her staff is foolish even to start the conversation about going on Rogan. Because then the question becomes, well, what does Rogan think of this? You know, did she really reach I mean, at some point, she's gonna have to turn him down, and I don't think that helps her at all.
And also it is a kind of I mean, the point of this, of course, is is men. All all men, particularly black men. She's hemorrhaging among black men, you know, famously. And she's looking at men who were almost half the population as just like another interest group to be, you know, pandered to. So she just, like, did the interview with that ridiculous character you just played the clip.
And she starts talking about the community. And I'm, like, what community? She's not part of any community that I'm aware of. What does she even talk about? Of course, she's talking about the black community.
And she's playing, you know, the Kamala from the streets. Or she even said, I've been on the streets, okay, with your one rally a day. I don't think you've been on many streets. But that's kind of ticking the box. Okay.
I've got problems with black voters. Let's do the black guy show. I've got problems
Speaker 0: with men.
Speaker 2: Let's do Rogan show.
Speaker 0: Justin Carter.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's it's it's so kind of patronizing paint by numbers, 19 eighties politics. It's so kind of out of touch, I guess, is what I would say. And again, I'm not being mean. I'm not attacking her.
I'm not I'm not calling her a communist or anything. I'm just saying, like, I think she's really out of touch. I don't think she is an at at ease with herself and therefore totally ill at ease with everybody else, really, is what's happening. And, I don't know. I don't think this helps her.
Even talking about Rogan helps her at all.
Speaker 0: You mentioned how she, you know, has a way of turning around on you, what she does. The Democrats in general do this. And, I mean, there's been no better example of this than the constant, Trump's gonna weaponize the DOJ against his enemies. Oh, no. Every day, she's now amped that up into a campaign ad because Trump, when asked by, for example, Maria Bartiromo about Biden's claim that we're likely to see chaos around the election, and he was saying it'll be MAGA that causes it.
And Marie was saying, what do you think? And Trump said, it won't be for my people if if we see chaos on election day. And he said, but if there's chaos, then we're gonna take care of it. You know, if if that requires the National Guard, then it requires the National Guard or even military. We're not gonna have that around here.
Now it's been changed by Kamala Harris and Tim Walz into, he will send the military to your home if you vote for me. That's what Trump is promising, that anyone who doesn't vote for him is going to be arrested by the National Guard or by the military or by the police. And this takes me back to the assassination attempts. Not saying that the Democrats were behind them, but certainly that second guy was not a Trump voter. That first guy seemed like a nutcase, but we don't know the full story on guy number 1, the guy who actually got managed to shoot Trump.
It's been kept from us. And I just wanna take it back to the documentary for a minute because this is an extraordinary piece of access. Justin Wells was there. He was there in Butler when Trump was shot. When Cory Compartore lost his life.
And we showed on this program, Selena Zito, great Pennsylvania reporter on the ground hurt, not hurt, but in the moment when people were being hurt. And Justin was in that scrum and got incredible footage that I'd never seen before of Trump after the fact. Here is a little bit of that from this is episode 2, of art of the surge and a clip of post the Butler assassination attempt.
Speaker 2: And look what happened to our country. Probably 20,000,000 people. And, you know, that's a little bit old
Speaker 1: that you are thinking.
Speaker 0: Really chilling stuff. And, I mean, Justin must have been in danger there too, obviously. But it's just it's just very rich, Tucker, to hear the Democrats talk about, like, the danger Trump poses.
Speaker 2: I'm just so grateful that that that Justin and the camera crew was there. The editor on this, Neil Edelstein, put it together because I think it exists, I hope, for all time as a documentary record of what happened because that event has been memory holds completely. I mean, that was fairly recently, very recently. There's been no systematic effort to explain, understand, rectify why the Secret Service allowed that shooter, which they did. They allowed it intentionally or not on the roof of that building, less than a 150 yards away, and the entire event has just sort of disappeared from the public consciousness.
And it really matters. It matters, like, really more than anything that's happened in the last year. The use of violence against a public figure, the Republican's presidential candidate, was allowed. And it I'm I'm not surprised by it because this is a group that fetishizes violence. It's one of the reasons they were so happy to welcome the Chinese into their fold.
It's why they have systematically over the past 15 years armed the federal agencies in a way that doesn't make any sense at all. How much ammunition have the federal agencies ordered including you know the EPA the IRS these are not law enforcement agencies these are not military agencies why are they ordering massive amounts of ammunition to be used against whom all the domestic agencies so against American citizen That's the only answer. So why have they politicized not simply the military, not simply the FBI, the DHS, all the intel agencies, every armed agency has been systematically brought under the control of the Democratic Party. What is that? Well, that's a that's a distinct focus on violence, on on the use of force against other American citizens.
And now, apparently, there has been an order from the agencies that would allow the US military to use violence against American citizens. I think it's a fact. So, like, what what what would explain that? And again, what explains it, the thread that connects all of this, the assassination attempt on Trump, the support for totally pointless foreign wars whose only effect is to kill people, it's not to advance the ball for the United States in any sense, just to kill people. And then the arming of the federal agencies, it is a fixation on the use of violence for its own sake.
And that's not the right doing that. And they can call you a Nazi or fascist or whatever. Use whatever language they want against you, but the truth is if you judge people by the things that they do, by their actions rather than their words, the violence is coming overwhelmingly from one side and the threats of violence from one side. And I don't think they can obscure that. I mean, I think I think what I'm saying is not partisan.
I think it's a fair representation of reality that anyone who's been paying attention has watched for 15 years.
Speaker 0: That's really scary. And the nerve It
Speaker 1: is scary.
Speaker 0: The absolute the absolute nerve to hear her talk about Trump is the threat, and, you know, he's he's the threat to our country, to our democracy. It's like, okay. Literally, we've seen the man almost killed twice, at least twice, still figuring out what happened that third time. And there's been absolutely no accountability by the Democrats for the incendiary rhetoric around it, for really just ginning people up into a fever around this man. He's still unsafe.
We don't have a full accounting for what happened either time, but especially time number 1 where he actually did take a bullet. And there's no rolling back of any of their messaging. I mean, there now that she's really panicking, Tucker, and she is panicking, she's getting worse. Like, she's getting more irresponsible, so is Walls, so are their surrogates. I mean, they're they're really putting him in even more danger, and we do have 3 weeks to go.
I mean, obviously, if Trump wins, I think they'll, at that point, ramp up the Secret Service, but it's still not at maximum levels right now. And you have to wonder whether it's by design.
Speaker 2: Well, no one's been fired. I I don't understand that. I mean, I've never understood that. In all the years I spent 1985 to 2020 living in DC in the District of Columbia, I never understood this, and I always resented it. That there were no consequences for failure, whether it was at scale, kill a 1000000 people in the Iraq war, help the United States not at all, hurt the United States profoundly, same in Afghanistan, same in Libya, same in Syria.
I mean, that's just at the scale of war. That's not even counting all the federal programs that only didn't work, but hurt people, aggressively hurt people, and not one person is ever punished. And I just don't understand, like, that's not how you raise your children. It's not how any business works. It's not how life works.
You have to force people to take responsibility for the bad things they do, or else you will get a whole lot more bad things. That's the most Mhmm. Obvious lesson of just being alive. And if I don't know, one
Speaker 1: of those
Speaker 0: permit, you promote. That's ex
Speaker 2: well, that's that's exactly right. Weirdly, I've never heard that phrase, but I'm I got
Speaker 0: it from my mom.
Speaker 2: Now on. Oh, I love that. I love that. Okay. So in upstate New York in the seventies, like, they were on this.
Speaker 1: A lot
Speaker 0: of wisdom.
Speaker 1: I I just
Speaker 0: yeah. A lot of wisdom, and that's very obvious. Also also there was stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about.
Speaker 1: Did she actually say that?
Speaker 0: Of course. I was in the seventies.
Speaker 2: That's so old school. I love that. Good for her.
Speaker 0: She cares.
Speaker 2: That's the
Speaker 1: important thing. Go, missus Shelly.
Speaker 0: No. My favorite was, the sign on our kitchen cupboard which read, lack of planning on your part does not justify an emergency on my part, which
Speaker 1: that's another truism.
Speaker 2: That is.
Speaker 0: Isn't this explaining a lot?
Speaker 2: Oh, I just love that. Well, she sounds like an absolutely awesome person who prepared her children for a productive and happy life, which begins with admitting your role in the disaster. And one of the things I hate doing, but force myself to do in my life public and private, is if I make a mistake, I just wanna say I made a mistake. I hate doing that, but the second you do it, it's taking out a splinter. It it you've repented, your conscience is a little bit clearer, your credibility is much higher with people around you, and you can move on.
And by the way, you learn something in the process. It's only when you admit every time I get fired I always go through this I always go through this. Your first instinct is blame everybody else. You know, they everyone else did something bad, but then at a certain point you have to say, what did I do wrong? And the second you admit what you did wrong, then you become better and you feel lighter.
And it's not about blaming other people, it's about moving forward with cheerfulness. And they never do that very simple human exercise in Washington. And in this case, allowing the Secret Service to get away with what happened in Butler Township this summer is insane. That's insane because the message is really obvious. This is a politicized agency that can't be trusted.
Oh, by the way, they're your bodyguards. How could who can live in a system like that? Nobody can.
Speaker 0: No. It was like Eric Prince said, I could have the president secured this afternoon, you know, if you gave it to a private contractor who didn't have the problems that the Secret Service does. That's not how things work. So she's been in trouble lately for going on very friendly forums like The View and not understanding how to answer the very basic question of what what makes you different from Joe Biden? What would you would you have done anything different, differently than what he did?
And she says no. No. I'm, you know, I'm right on board with Joe Biden's agenda. I was there for everything. And that's the wrong answer, of course.
She should, at least, in my view, at least acknowledge the massive immigration problems. I mean, I just feel like the economy, if I were Kamala, I'd probably still be arguing. It's great. It's great. Just just wait for it.
Fine. I mean, that's what a politician would do. But the you cannot ignore what is happening with the massive amount of illegal immigration coming to a city near you with, you know, whether it's a Venezuelan gang infesting your apartment complexes or Springfield, Ohio with a bunch of Haitians who are tearing apart the grocery store and killing people with their hit and runs. It's coming to a city near you or already has. She won't.
And, she's gone a different way where she won't acknowledge any distance between them or any mistakes whatsoever. And I really think it's hurting her. This brings up Dave Portnoy, who is a man who she would like to get because he's definitely pro choice. He he went on a tear, like, a year ago about how the Republican party you can't vote for them because they're pro life and they don't get it. It was post Dobbs.
He seems to be sounding a lift a little different these days because he's not picking up what Kamala Harris is putting down. Listen here.
Speaker 7: And it's the gaslighting that the left is doing with Kamala Harris, making it sound like she's some great groundbreaking candidate. She is the worst candidate to ever run for president ever. There's 2 people voting in this election. They're voting for Donald Trump, you like Donald Trump, or you hate Donald Trump and you're voting against him. But Kamala Harris, let's stop it.
And what put this over the edge for me? Last week, I'm watching our campaign rally and she's up there being like, we need to turn the page in America. It's time for a new way forward and I'm your candidate for change and their hooting and hollering is the sitting vice president of the United States currently saying she's the candidate for change. She is the worst presidential candidate in the history of American politics, honestly. Now, if you still wanna vote for her because you hate Trump that much and you can't stand, you think he's all this evil shit, do it.
But stop the gaslighting, please. The footage is there. She can't answer simple questions. If you have any issues with the last 4 years, that's her.
Speaker 0: What do you make of that?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it was I think entirely inevitable. I mean, Dave is obviously very smart. He's not a conservative or republican or anything, but his instincts are, you know, sort of no BS. He's an entrepreneur, very successful one, but he also has a huge audience slash constituency of young men who are really the people of the kind that Kamala Harris, you know, hates most. And a lot of this just comes down to subverbal cues.
Like, why do working class people of all colors, by the way, like Donald Trump? Because they sense that in the end, he kinda likes them. He doesn't hate them anyway. He doesn't have contempt for them.
Speaker 1: You you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: If you've got 2 personal bankruptcies and are, you know, making child support payments and are between jobs, do you really think Donald Trump's like, you know, you deserve it. Hope you starve to death. Donald Trump's like, no, I get it. You know what I mean? I understand how hard life is.
Your, you know, nephew ODs on Fentanyl. You think Donald Trump's gonna be like, oh, druggie? He's gonna be like, man, that's awful that there's Fentanyl in this guy. He has, like, a gut level sympathy for struggling Americans. You think Kamala Harris does?
I'm I'm not even need to make the case. Like, watch Kamala Harris. Do you think that a single barstool sports fan, like, has, you know, the love of Kamala Harris? Are you joking?
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris' base is the guy who just interviewed her in that bizarre little clip that you played. You know, that's who really loves Kamala Harris because she smells good. So I just think she should just hope that there are a lot more of that guy than there are barstool sports consumers in this country because
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, in the end, if you feel that somebody hates you, you're not gonna vote for that person. I just I just don't think you are.
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Taste the difference. Remember, with every sip, you are supporting a brand that stands for America. Be awake, not woke. You've been very typically, self deprecating. But one thing I think we both know you were right about, and the world is starting to see it, is JD Vance as Trump's running mate.
You saw it. You advocated for it. It was the right call, and it was obvious to anybody who knew JD Vance why it was the right call. And, boy, has he proven himself on the campaign trail. I mean, it have you been so impressed with him?
I've been so I what whatever the highest expectations we had were, he's exceeded them.
Speaker 2: Well, it's been a it's been a thrill because I'm, you know, I'm not friends with any politicians, basically 0. But JD Vance, I am friends with, for reasons having nothing to do with politics. I just really like JD Vance and and his wife, and I think he's like a normal, really smart guy. And I think he understands that, you know, our foreign policy is complicated and, you know, everyone makes compromises, etcetera, a lot of forces at work, blah blah blah. But, ultimately, what we've done abroad over the past 20 years has not helped the United States or anybody else.
And he just has said that obvious truth, and that was that resonated with me. It's really important. And I cannot overstate how much donors dislike j v JD Vance this summer in July when he was chosen. The he was chosen the Monday of the Republican convention and up until the wire, till that moment, Trump was getting calls from his biggest donors saying, don't do this. Lindsey Graham, that morning, was telling Trump that JD Vance was evil.
And, of course, the second Trump picks JD Vance in defiance of his biggest donors and many of his allies, which I was an act of bravery for which he should get credit, the second he picked JD Vance, there was Lindsey Graham on Twitter saying, oh, my old friend JD Vance, I'm thrilled that he got the nod. They're also false. They're just so such phonies. I would respect Lindsay so much more if he would say, JD Vance? The guy is horrible.
Trump made a huge mistake. At least he'd be, you know, he'd be being honest. But they're all frauds. Anyway, but the point is to see JD, you know, let the rest of the world know how impressive he is, the emotional control he has over himself. Remarkable.
Big time. Lawdable in my big time. Big time. He's just really smart. He's really normal.
He's not weird. That's just not true. It's the opposite of true. You know who is weird? Obviously, it's Tim Walz.
Like, I'm not gonna go on about it, but that guy's weird. Like, let's be real. And, anyway, I think JD Vance has been vindicated. And as someone who has sort of been flying the JD Vance flag for a while, I'm just thrilled. I never feel this way with politicians because I'm not a politician.
I'm not friends with politicians. But in this one specific case, like, I'm I couldn't be more excited.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Tim Walz has got I mean, talk about not having control over one's emotions or one's body. Here's a little clip of him. Oh, boy. Keeps bowing.
I mean, I'm just gonna say, I don't know any man who behaves like that.
Speaker 2: Come on. I mean, come on. It's so it's so it I'm just trying to control myself because I, you know, I don't wanna be mean, and also I don't wanna say things I can't prove. But, like, let's let's be real. Let me just say, not connected necessarily to Tim Walz.
I'm never gonna take another lecture about gay rights from these people. Like, oh, you hate gays and you keep them all in the closet or whatever. Any party, you know, I mean, stop with the with the lectures about that stuff.
Speaker 1: Do you do you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? I do. If you're so for in general, if you're so for gay rights, and that would mean that any member of your party who's gay would feel free to say so in public and would not be
Speaker 1: Mhmm.
Speaker 2: Pretending not to be gay. I'm just saying. Mhmm.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like I don't know nothing. I I hate the falseness
Speaker 2: of it. And by the way, last thing I'll say is I don't wanna be mean. And I and I really think that people's private lives can be private if they want them to be private. I don't think you should have to announce everything you're into in public. I believe in privacy.
I really do. I don't think we should bother people on the basis of their private lives. I mean that. So but they just push so hard. They're the ones you get into other people's private lives, lecturing your kids about sex and stuff that should be private.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Putting condoms
Speaker 2: on bananas. It's not your just stay away. Let me have a private life. You can have a private life. Let's stop talking about other people's sex lives, other people's sexual orientations.
Let's just all agree to shut up about that. Okay? That's right. I would be happy with that arrangement.
Speaker 0: We don't care, and we don't want you talking to our children about it either. Yeah. Leave me alone. With so little time left to go in this whole thing, Tucker, everybody wants to know who's gonna win, and none of us really knows who's gonna win. We have to wait for the only poll that matters, which is on election day or the 10 weeks thereafter, thanks to all the mail in voting voting changes that the Democrats have pushed through.
But and then, obviously, I know what you want to have happen, but what's your gut telling you right now?
Speaker 2: You know, I my gut, I'm just too emotional about this stuff, and that's why I always get it wrong. I'll just refer to the the publicly available and and the private polling, which is pretty much out there. I mean, because, you know, people are paying close attention. Trump's ahead. You know, there's set there are only 7 states in the battleground states are 7 states, and, Trump is ahead in 5 of them.
And that's enough to win in the electoral college. He's up in Pennsylvania. Now, I mean, again, we have 3 weeks from today to go. That could all change. I'm sure there'll be, you know, a lot of change between now and then and a lot of stuff that we don't expect will happen in 3 weeks.
But as of today, Trump is ahead. And it's it's obvious in the behavior of the Harris campaign. She's talking about doing Joe Rogan. She's pretending Mhmm. That she's gonna do Joe Rogan.
If you think she's doing that voluntarily because she loves Joe Rogan? You you know what I mean? I I don't think so. She's not
Speaker 0: gonna be the MMA force. Emergency.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. So yeah. No. Trump is winning, right now.
And, of course, I hope he I hope he does. And I I happen to like Trump, a lot personally. But even if I hated Trump, the machine can't win. The machine is anti human. It's not about people.
And that was obvious in the way they discarded Joe Biden who they claimed to love. They treated him like an object, and they inserted Kamala Harris as if she were an object. They don't care about Kamala Harris either, by the way. I'm not attacking her. She's merely the face of the party of an anti human party, and that party can't win or else all of us are in trouble, including Democrats, by the way.
It's not good for anybody. So that machine has to lose. And as of today, that machine is losing.
Speaker 0: One interesting thing is because Trump is truly, like, the most vetted person in the world, and to your point, hides nothing. You know, he'll he'll be the first to tell you all the things he did, probably with pride. I mean, is there any better example of that than when he was deposed in that eJean Carroll nonsense lawsuit and the lawyer eJean Carroll's lawyer is cross examining him, and she's saying, and you said that you grabbed the women, you know, by the private parts. And, did you say that?
Speaker 1: And he was like, yes. You know? That that's the way it's been
Speaker 0: for 100 of years. You know, unfortunately or fortunately, it was the. I know.
Speaker 2: He is.
Speaker 0: So he'll tell you
Speaker 1: He's He'll
Speaker 0: tell you everything. Anyway, my point is he's vetted. He's vetted. But we know. And JD Vance, really, he he's so young.
He has very little to even vet. You know? He he too has written this very exposing memoir about his childhood. I mean, he took you all the way up through when he graduated from law school and went out to work for Peter Thiel. There's really nothing more to expose about JD Vance.
Even when he was, first name, the best they could come up with was, like, some passed out drunk photos at Yale Law School, which means he's normal. However, on the other side because I'm just thinking about October surprise and things that could maybe change the trajectory of the race. All the risks seems to be built into the other side, Tucker. Because what we really have on the other side is a totally unvetted pair, both of them.
Speaker 2: Yes. I think you're absolutely right. I mean but we learned in the last cycle, presidential cycle in 2020, that you could literally have the president's son's laptop become public with written documentary evidence of corruption by your candidate, and it wouldn't make a difference because it would be suppressed, so by the media. So, you know, I don't know if anything that came out about Kamala Harris or Jim Wells right now would even filter down to swing voters. I'm not convinced.
I think the real threat is in some bigger events, some society wide event.
Speaker 0: Oh, god.
Speaker 2: You know, the escalation of the 2 ongoing conflicts, you know, in the Eastern Europe and the Middle East into some sort of regional or global war, something like that. You know, that that might change the outcome. But short of that, I'm not sure, that there's time really to change the outcome. I mean, at this point, really, I mean, it's yeah.
Speaker 0: Yeah. If you're voting Trump, that that's a good thing. I think he's on a good trajectory. I mean, if if I were him, I wouldn't wanna change much. Just gotta keep pressing it, and, obviously, to get out the vote is it's everything.
I mean, it's just everything. I will say Sean Spicer was saying he did a deep dive on the Republicans get out the vote effort, and he said he slept like a baby that night. He felt very good about where things stood, which is the most optimistic I've heard any Republican on it, so that there was some comfort
Speaker 2: in that.
Speaker 0: Now before we go, forgive me for raising this, but our old pal, Chris Wallace, had he decided it would be fun to take a shot at you. And since we've had fun talking about Chris Wallace in the past, I thought I'd bring it up. So he I don't how did this come up? I'm not sure. He was giving an interview.
I'm not sure why he was even giving an interview about himself. Oh, he's on a book tour. He's on a book tour, Tucker. And the following Do
Speaker 2: you write another book about soup or another topic?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Soup. There was there was one. Mister Super Bowls. Yeah.
But soup. Okay. Watch.
Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson texted, it should be, we devote our lives to building an audience, and they let Chris Wallace wreck it. Your response. Well, I'm employed, and Tucker really isn't anymore. So that's part of my response.
Speaker 0: Okay. I love that response so much. It just shows how clueless he is. We talked about this when I went on tour with you to suggest, as he does there, that Chris Wallace has anywhere near the relevance or power, I know you won't say that and you don't see yourself that way about yourself, that you have is just a lie. It's obtuse.
It's a lie. It's an intentional deception, and he knows better. So it's his defensiveness, which I have to admit I kind of am enjoying. But I the reason I wanna ask you about it is I do wanna ask you how it's feeling now. Right?
It's been it's been more than a year. It's been, I think, by my calculation, a year and a half since you left Fox.
Speaker 1: You're out
Speaker 0: on your own. Exactly. You're everywhere. You're crushing it. The world tour has been super fun to watch.
I've heard on more than one podcast that I listen to. Many people view it either as, this is Tucker's gearing up for 2028, or this is Tucker doing a sideline sort of roadshow to help Trump. I actually maybe I'm just dumb, Tucker. I think it's in the middle, and it's just you wanting to get back out there and see some of your fans and talk about the news and, you know, take your show on the road and exercise your sea legs. In any event, comments or thoughts on any and all of that?
Speaker 2: Well, I I mean, I would just say of the tour, I I have the least complicated motives. I'm not a complicated person at all. I wish I I wish I was. I just kinda wanted to get out and see the country and have fun. And it was you were unbelievable.
I was saying to your producer that the night with you was really a highlight. That was incredible. But I but I've loved it. And poor Chris Wallace. I look at Chris Wallace, and I think, I really hope by the time I'm 80 that I'm just with my grandkids.
Speaker 0: Like, you
Speaker 2: know, it's a privilege to be able to it's a privilege to be able to talk about politics and things you think matter and, you know, it's all great. But if that's the most important thing in your life, if that's more important than your grandchildren or your dogs or, you know, bird hunting, I don't know. You your priorities may be out of whack. I just don't wanna be doing this when I'm 80 or however old Chris is, 80 85, 88, whatever his age is. So there's that.
I'm not being mean. I'm being sincere. Like, it's good to get off the stage at some point, and I I really do plan to. But I I'm as happy as I've ever been. I really I've loved it.
I've loved being able to say exactly what I think without worrying about it. I mean, Fox didn't really control me very well anyway, but now I really don't have a boss, and that's wonderful. I love seeing things, traveling wherever I wanna go, talking to any person I want to. If Chris Wallace doesn't like it, fine. You know, that's great.
You know you know what I mean? It's like it's such a happier life. And the last thing I'll say is I love how real independent media is. I love that when you say something on your show, like people text me about it. Or, you know, all the people I know who've been expelled from the dying media machine, who've wound up continuing in media are more influential than the colleagues they left behind.
I never thought that would actually happen. Rogen, I mean, I just whatever you think of Rogen, I just always wanna say, Rogen created, single handedly, I think, this genre, the podcast. Like, I can't believe it actually worked. And I hope he gets credit. Even people who don't like Rogen, I think, should give him credit for truly pioneering what we're doing now.
And, so I just absolutely love it. I couldn't love it more.
Speaker 0: Not only did Rogan build it, he built the whole highway. Yes. But he he never you never saw or see Rogan doing a hit on Fox or MS or a Sunday show or in a magazine spread. He is the opposite of self promotional. So every single audience member he has, and it's huge, he earned just by being great, just by word-of-mouth Yes.
In an era where nobody was really coming over here, which is one of the reasons why it's so impressive.
Speaker 2: It's incredible. And he devotes all this energy to things he loves purely because he loves them. Whether it's whether you you know, I love him or you love him or not. It's stand up comedy, bow hunting, MMA. I mean he spends like half of his life just pursuing things that he thinks are fun and cool because he thinks they're fun and cool.
And so he's a whole person. That's kind of the point I was making about Kamala. She's missing out on the purpose of life, which is to enjoy other people. It's not to accumulate money or power. It's to enjoy other people, to serve other people, to use the creative powers that God gave you at birth for something interesting and good.
Make something beautiful. You know, use your talents. And I see Rogen doing that. Again, whether they're my interest or yours or not, it doesn't matter. They're his.
And he's fully living them. And that's just it's a model of life that I really appreciate. So more people should do that.
Speaker 0: Well, maybe Kamala will go on Joe Rogan. Maybe she'll bring Tim Walz, and maybe Joe Rogan can show him a thing or two about how to hunt, how to load a gun, how to kill a pheasant. Something I know
Speaker 1: you can do too. You and my husband, Doug, love to kill the birds.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Amen. Yes. Do it this afternoon.
Speaker 0: He needs a little help. It's a pleasure as always. Don't forget, everybody, you've gotta go to tucker carlson.com. Find the art of the surge. It's gripping.
It's so well done. It's very impressive. Justin, as I understand it, really only had his iPhone and one camera guy, And it looks like a huge expensive production. Beautifully done. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: You're the best. Thank you, Megan. I appreciate it.
Speaker 0: To be continued. And we'll see all of you tomorrow.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Matt Gaetz WITHDRAWS as AG, and Biden escalates Russia-Ukraine war in final weeks, with @AndrewKlavan and @JeffreyASachs https://t.co/KccQczqasA
Video Transcript AI Summary
Megyn Kelly discusses various political topics, including the backlash against Trump’s cabinet picks and the ongoing controversy surrounding Matt Gaetz. She highlights the left's outrage over Gaetz's alleged misconduct, while noting that he has denied all allegations. Andrew Klavan joins her to express disdain for the left's hypocrisy and to emphasize that Trump's appointments aim to reform dysfunctional government departments. They also discuss the implications of the Biden administration's recent decisions regarding Ukraine, warning that escalating tensions with Russia could lead to catastrophic consequences. Klavan argues that a rational approach to diplomacy could help resolve the conflict, while Kelly expresses concern about the lack of accountability from mainstream media regarding these issues. The conversation touches on the broader implications of U.S. foreign policy and the need for a more cooperative stance with both Russia and China.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Hey, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. There's so much to get to today while the follow-up over representative Nancy Mace's bathroom bill continues. Congresswoman AOC says forcing men to use the men's bathrooms is disgusting.
K. And the view is forced to read a hostage message after their legally dubious coverage of Matt Gaetz. It's the must see video of the day. Joining me now, Andrew Clavin, host of the Andrew Clavin Show, over at the Daily Wire. Andrew is also a prolific author, and his most recent book is a mystery novel titled A Woman Underground.
Don't miss a moment. Subscribe to this show on YouTube and follow me on Insta, Facebook, and x. The October 15th deadline has come and gone. Are you prepared for what's coming? Alright.
We're just gonna do the scary part, and then we're gonna do the good part. Do you owe back taxes? Are your tax returns still unfiled? Do you have that sick feeling in your stomach? Did you miss the deadline to file for an extension?
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They specialize in helping people reduce their tax burdens. So you can visit tnusa.com/megan if you wanna learn more about how to get out of this hole, or you can call the number 1-800-958-1000 for a free consultation. Their experts will walk you through a few simple questions to see how much you could save. Give it a try now before the IRS takes more aggressive steps. Take control and visit tnusa.com/megan or call 180-0958 1,000.
Andrew, welcome back. Great to see you.
Speaker 1: Great to see you, Megan. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 0: So the the left is losing its mind over these Trump cabinet picks. I mean, they they're not grateful that he chose Rubio for state or, you know, Elise Stefanik for the UN. They're just spending all their time telling us how radical he is because of Gates, HEGSeth, and RFKJ, and Tulsi. And, The View got a little a little too excited in its coverage of, Matt Gaetz the other day. And is this just the apology video in number 2, Deb?
Okay. This is all of it. Okay. So here is where they misstepped and then the hostage video that they were forced to read thereafter. Watch Sato.
Speaker 2: How could you nominate someone with allegations of child trafficking across or trafficking across state lines and having sex with a 17 year old. My understanding further on in the interview, they discuss the fact that once he finds out that she's 17, he stops having sex
Speaker 3: with her. I'm saddened by it Yeah. Because all of those women who will have to get some defense of what's happened to them, that's who they're going to.
Speaker 0: Yes. And
Speaker 3: this is someone who will just say it's not a big deal. All those little kids who, you know, get abused.
Speaker 0: What?
Speaker 3: They got no recourse now because this is what's in charge.
Speaker 2: Matt Gaetz has long denied all allegations, calling the claims, quote, invented and saying in a statement to ABC News that this false smear following a 3 year criminal investigation should be viewed with great skepticism. The DOJ investigation was closed with no charges being brought.
Speaker 0: Oh my god. All those little kids who got abused have no recourse? This is about a child? The the worst of the allegations as we know them is that he he denies it, but he's accused of having an interlude with a 17 year old who then even his eyewitnesses who are against him say he didn't know was 17, then stop the relationship. This is the worst.
The worst allegation against him, which he denies, and the DOJ did not bring charges because they did not find these witnesses credible. But in any event, it is that then he stopped the relation and resumed it when this young woman was 18. And from that, the view gets all these little kids who get abused by him now have no recourse. Andrew, I can't.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, this is the party, not just of John f Kennedy, but of Bill Clinton and of George Stephanopoulos who went from silencing the women who accused Clinton of rape and abuse to having an a major, network anchor position on the on the basis of that work, basically. That was his his requirements. You know, one of the delicious things about the Trump election, I and I'm finding it just absolutely wildly ecstatic. I'm just loving every minute of this transition. This is the best transition ever.
And one of the best things about it is exposing the left's blindness to the way they've behaved. Because the appointments that Trump is making are appointments to departments and divisions that are entirely out of whack, that have abused our rights, that have just been incompetent, that have absolutely gone south in every possible way. And he's sending in bomb throwers. There's no question about it. He's sending in guys who are going in there like Roto Rooter to clean the places out, and they're saying, you know, why why should we ever do this?
Why should we abandon long standing practices at, Health and Human Services after Health and Human Services destroyed this country during the COVID, pandemic, by by acting so incompetently, so stupidly, so corruptly, and so oppressively that anything you did to them would be an improvement, and the same actually with the defense department, which has, been a total mess under the Biden regime. I'm kinda past it. You know? I don't want criminals appointed. I think if you have a criminal record and it's an actual active criminal record, that that could count against you.
But that these are bad boys that he sent in there really just doesn't bother me at all. I am absolutely past caring what the left thinks of any about anything because of the way they have treated us, the the oppression, the censorship, the lies, and the prosecuting their political opponents in the person of Donald Trump and the people who followed him and the people who protested peacefully that on January 6th. It's just been an absolute mess. So the fact that he's going in there with some bad guys to take things apart does not bother me even a little bit. I cannot work myself up about it in any way whatsoever.
Speaker 0: I can relate. I'm like, the the more I see how much they hate him, the more I want him.
Speaker 1: I know. He's he's great. It is great. And it's it's such a rebuke to this system of the academy, the media, and, you know, Hollywood and the bureaucracy that were thrown up against this guy with all the force they had, all the lies they had, every statement he may have taken out of context, every gesture he may have taken to mean something it didn't mean again and again and again. The people show up and just said no.
And, you know, people keep saying, well, he doesn't really have a mandate because he's gonna come out with about 50% of the vote to 48%, somewhere around there. And they say, well, that's not a mandate. That's very close. But that's not the the victory. The victory is not Republicans over Democrats.
It's not conservatives over Liberals. It's Donald Trump over the media and this shroud of lies that has basically been choking this country for decades at this point. You know, it's just it's just an amazing victory that he could actually come back from where he was when they were counting him out, when they were throwing ridiculous charges against him, when they were bending the law so that people could accuse them of things that had gone past the, the the limits of of prosecution. It's just an amazing victory, and that's what's so delicious about it. It's not the vote count, not the I'm glad he won the popular vote, but still it's not that that's so wonderful.
It's the destruction, the rebuke of this communication system that has throttled this country and throttled conversation, throttled debate, and throttled freedom for just so long and it is a major major victory. So everything they say is just making me laugh with an evil kind of cartoon villain laugh.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Which I've been practicing
Speaker 1: for years, by the way.
Speaker 0: Okay. Well, I'd love to hear it. I mean, let let's let it rip.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it'll pop up from time to time.
Speaker 0: Okay. Okay. The, you mentioned that that now they're trying to say, look. It's not a mandate. It's not a mandate.
They it's been very kind of fun watching them try to find the little comforts. You know? Like, well, he he cheated on me, but the woman wasn't a 10. She was like an 8. Okay.
However, you need to get yourself through this crisis. Go for it.
Speaker 1: I'll
Speaker 0: give you, Harry Enton on CNN doing a report on how it's a victory, but it's a it's a shitty victory. Watch.
Speaker 5: If you look historically speaking, Donald Trump is now under 50% in the national popular vote.
Speaker 0: If I have
Speaker 5: to vote victory, rings 40 4th out of 51. That ain't exactly strong. Some might argue that is weak, weak, weak in the words of Tony Blair. In fact, his popular vote win at this point is the weakest going all the way back. You have to go all the way back to 2,000 to find a weaker one, a smaller popular vote victory than Donald Trump currently has.
So, yeah, Trump has won the popular vote, but it ain't all that, my dear friend, John Berman.
Speaker 4: George W. Bush had a bigger, popular vote during 2,007.
Speaker 5: You talk about the Senate. You know, short coattails. States Trump won, but Democrats won or leave in the Senate race. Look at this. In 2016, it was 0.
In 2020, it was 0. In 2024, look at this. Four states, 4 states where a Senate Democratic candidate won. What about the House? Well, we're talking about a historically small majority potentially for the Republicans.
The GOP would have a record small majority if the current house results hold. What we're talking about is we're talking a very wide win for Donald Trump, but the depth, it's not particularly deep. It's actually quite shallow, historically speaking.
Speaker 0: Okay. Wide, but not deep. Shallow.
Speaker 1: No. But not deep.
Speaker 0: His popular vote what? His popular vote what is not impressive? A win win. That's what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: Well, again again, the blindness is the is the best part about this because he he he was not running against Kamala Harris. He was running against a massive, massive communications machine that the left has built up and taken over over the over decades and that has silenced people. I mean, people have been afraid to say anything for fear that they will be thrown out of their jobs, for fear fear that they'll be thrown off social media, and the stuff that they've been afraid to say is all simple truth. You know? It's like, was was the last election if you if you say that the last election was a cheat in any way, you can get get kicked off social media for damaging the trust of the American people.
Well, the last election, I don't know if it was stolen, but it was certainly rigged. I mean, there were so many lies, so much, you know, firepower, communication firepower trained on Trump. He did not beat Kamala Harris. He beat the whole deal. The fact that he got any kind of popular majority is virtually a miracle.
No one else could have done it. He did it. All the things that bother people like me about Donald Trump were weapons of his command. The fact that I'm a polite guy who doesn't like to see people talk the way Trump talks sometimes, that's what was required. That was, you know, cometh the hour, cometh the man.
That was what God needed to call forth in order to defeat this absolute machine that the left had built up for silencing dissent. You know, you only had to say, oh, these programs don't work to be called a racist, sexist, all the phobes. You know, I mean, if you only had to notice that a lot of terrorists happened to be young Muslim men and suddenly you were a bigot. It's it's just an amazing, amazing thing. The the actual efficiency of it, I I kind of respect it.
You could come out one day after Barack Obama said, you know, okay, marriage is between a man and a woman and God is in the mix. One day after the Supreme Court invents a right to gay marriage in the Constitution where it doesn't exist, the White House is turned, rainbow colored and suddenly there is a pride month. Now, Megan, you and I are New Yorkers. We have absolutely no wish to bother other people in their personal lives. I know, you know, we've talked about this before.
But I don't need a month to celebrate my pride in homosexuality.
Speaker 4: No. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: it's worth even 10 minutes. You know, I think it's it's something that, of course, you know, it's a difference that we tolerate, but still that the absolute bully machine that these guys were capable of of putting into into motion at a moment's notice is what is broken. And they don't realize it yet, but they will slowly. They're gonna suddenly find out that they have become incredibly irrelevant. They've gone from being
Speaker 0: highly patient. So that's the perfect segue into Joe and Mica. The perfect segue into those 2 losers.
Speaker 1: Yes. Relevance sort of just calls them right up, doesn't it?
Speaker 0: Right. Right. I mean, they're synonymous with it. So they went out on the air on Monday and said they had gone to Mar a Lago to bend the knee. They I was saying to Paul Murray on Sky News that they didn't just bend the knee.
They got down on their snake bellies, and they slithered, and they licked the boot. They licked it. Yes. It tastes so good. I love the bottom of your boot, sir.
Please give it to me more. That's really what happened. Then they come back out on the air on Monday and say, like, oh, you know, we spoke truth to power. Why wouldn't we speak to Hitler, the rapist, racist, bigoted, sexist, misogynist, Hitler? That that's just what we do as journalists.
And then they're already circling the bowl audience left in even greater numbers. So as of Tuesday, they had shaved another tens of thousands more off their already terrible numbers. In the key demo of 25 to 50, 4 year olds, they were down to 78,000 viewers on Tuesday. 78,000.
Speaker 1: That is 1.
Speaker 0: That is just a to what? 25,000 or so above what we call in the business slashies. If you get 50 grand or under, they call them slashies. They don't give you the number. A slashie is unthinkable at Fox News.
There is no show that ever gets a slashie. And MSNBC has been beyond the slashies now for a number of years. Hello, Joe and Mika. You're back to slashy land. So they came out the next day already experiencing the blowback because this meeting made no one happy and tried to tell us it wasn't as we felt, that actually everybody loved what they did.
What they did was was terrific and really well received. Here's a bit of it.
Speaker 4: Yesterday, I saw for the first time what a massive disconnect there was between social media and the real world because we were flooded with phone calls from people all day, literally around the world. They're very positive, very supportive. It's going on. Understand what you do, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But once in a while, I would get a a text or a call from someone and go, oh, man.
I hope you're doing okay. And I call him back, and I go, well, Eddie Gladwell is one of them. I go, Eddie, are you on Twitter? And he goes, I am. I go, okay.
Well, I'm not. So we've had a good day. We're gonna do the best we can do, and we're all working towards a better America.
Speaker 0: Take it day by day.
Speaker 4: Day by day by day. And, again, you can you can you can predict the future by shaping the future.
Speaker 0: Okay. Twitter's not real life, you see. In real life, people loved that they went and met with president Trump. All 78,000 of them, they loved it out of an audience that should be 600,000. But those people really loved it, Andrew.
Don't believe your lion eyes.
Speaker 1: And Comcast is ready to toss the entire station out the window blame them. Separating themselves. They're gonna sell them. Yeah. I I may buy them.
I mean, I I I don't know. I'm not sure I can afford Rachel Matt Maddow's $30,000,000 a year salary
Speaker 0: for
Speaker 1: Well, let me
Speaker 0: ask you something. Let me ask you. If you actually did buy Comcast or or MSNBC, because it's gonna be spun off by Comcast, who who would you fire first?
Speaker 1: Well, if if if it's true that Rachel Maddow is making $30,000,000 a year, I mean, I I don't worry about her because she can always,
Speaker 0: you
Speaker 1: know, make a living as a Michael Knowles look alike. But I think that it's I mean, I think that it's insane to pay somebody that when nobody is watching her. And For 1 hour
Speaker 0: of television a week.
Speaker 1: I know. And and Brian Stelter, you know, used to make the argument when nobody was watching him. Brian Stelter used to make the argument, well, yeah. But when they break out our bits and they go out on YouTube and all this stuff, and people don't watch them there as well. And I suppose that was supposed to build up to a massive audience of people not watching them.
But, you know, I I think that they are useless. And and the thing that they'd never get to, Brian Stelter had this wonderful thread on x where he said we need to fix we need to win back our audience by doing things like podcasts. We don't do enough podcasts. And I was like, stop lying. You gotta stop lying.
That's the that's number 1. You can do a podcast. Yeah. Number 5 is do a podcast. But number 1 is stop lying.
And and they just don't
Speaker 0: know if you don't yeah.
Speaker 1: That's right. You know, the the funny thing is is a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump didn't like Donald Trump, which is important. That's actually show shows in his favor. That shows how bad they thought the other side was, how much they didn't believe them, how much they thought I saw a a, Kamala Harris voter interviewed, and she said, well, maybe maybe Trump will do some good things like end all the wars and bring the economy back. And I thought, yeah, that would be good.
I'd I'd be
Speaker 0: Was was that voter Mika Brzezinski? Because that's how they're trying to sound like. Yeah. You know what? We're open minded now to Hitler.
Speaker 4: Sure. Okay.
Speaker 1: And Biden looks ecstatic. So he's he's at least somebody's really happy about the results in the Democrat party.
Speaker 0: Well, I do think it's very interesting that that Comcast chose now to announce it's gonna spin off its disgusting cable channel. And it's not because NBC News is doing so well and they just wanna separate the struggling MS from NBC. NBC is also doing very poorly. We've we have beaten NBC News on its YouTube feed for months now, for months. We just my show.
Just this one show has beaten all of NBC on their YouTube feed. They're they're in a lot of trouble over there, so they're not doing well either. So why spin off MSNBC? It's because it's the disgusting, like, wart covered evil troll that, like, came to live with you and wouldn't leave. Like, they they're looking at it like, ew.
My god. What? We don't want our vaunted Today Show anchors to have to associate with those troll ogres over there who, as I point out, are on their bellies licking the boot right now, mister president. Please let me back in the circles of power. No wonder they wanna spin this thing off.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, we keep we keep we on the right keep I keep hearing people on the right say things like, well, there's problems on both sides. But the fact is there actually aren't. You know? I mean, we haven't had enough cultural power to have the kind of problems they have. It's power that corrupts.
And I'm sure if we had the kind of cultural power they have, there would be corrupt people on our side. But if if you listen if I listen to your show, I get a very factual balanced look at things. You know? You you have a point of view. You have a to the conservative side point of view, but you always give the the facts on both sides.
They never do that. They never do it. Our radicals the radicals on the right are on the common sections on section on Breitbart, where the radicals on the left are in congress and in the White House. I think it's a big, big difference. You know, power corrupts, and they have become incredibly corrupt.
And it's it I still have a lot of democrat friends. I hope that I can still count them as friends, and they just don't see it. They keep saying, well, you know, there are there are a lot of Nazis on x. I think, you know, some in his mother's basement is posting on x and giggling away and all this stuff. But but they they their people pour out into their campuses celebrating Hamas, you know, and the slaughter of Jewish people.
It's not the same thing. It is not the same thing. And so the fact that their, their news stations are dying, it's well deserved. They earned it. They worked for that.
That is not something that is not something they got overnight. It wasn't given to them. It wasn't handed to That failure has been earned by a constant stream of bias and corruption and dishonesty. And and I think, you know, we have to congratulate them on a a job well done. They have made themselves completely irrelevant.
And also, I I just love the fact I mean, this is all about the new media. It's all about the new media. It's the fact that we can now fact check them in real time. They can come out and say, oh, Trump is calling for a bloodbath. We can get that video out with the real deal with what he really said almost instantaneously.
And a lot of that, you know, is is credit not, you know, it's credit to places like the Daily Wire and Joe Rogan and all that, but it's also, to the credit of Elon Musk, who after all was a big hero to the left and then suddenly started getting investigated the minute he, gave right wingers the right to speak. But that's what's happened. What's happened is that the curtain has been drawn back. We see that it's all one party speaking to us. We see that they're not telling the truth.
And people, you know, they kinda like reality. I mean, people people don't mind being lied to, but they hate the effects of being lied to. Like, they wanna be told they can fly, but they don't like it when they fall off a building. And that's that's what's happened. Just an amazing example, Megan.
This idea that it was hammered into us, that we dopes didn't realize that the economy was great. You know, just because you can't afford a pat of butter doesn't mean that I'm me and the media, I'm doing well. You know? I'm doing well so the economy is great. How do you tell people?
Where do you get the temerity, the guts, the gall to tell people that the economy is great and that they don't know that they can't afford stuff? You know? That that they are somehow mystified. It's a delusion that they have that they can't afford to feed their families. It's an amazing arrogance, an amazing dishonesty, an amazing bias, and it has just been swept away.
Donald Trump has swept it away. I'm ready to just whatever award they have for, like, political genius, I'm ready to give it to him. You know? I know I know you've had troubles with him in the past, but, you know, we've we've all had troubles with him in the past and at some level. Yeah.
But it has it is a work of genius.
Speaker 6: As a
Speaker 0: as a brilliant friend of mine once said, past is like your ass behind you.
Speaker 1: It's it's certainly true. And and and he just deserves all the congratulations in the world because this is a victory. As I say, it's not a victory over a single candidate. It is a victory over a system that has implanted and in place just incredibly powerful, and he broke it.
Speaker 0: Well, you may be elated, and I may be elated, but the women of 4 b are not elated. I know you are aware of this movement. I know it's how you discussed it on your show the other day. We touched on it, but I'd love to go a little deeper. The absolute implosion of, like, certain I don't know what they are.
Radical feminists? Like, I don't know. I'm not sure what they are. They're Trump haters. They're America haters because they're very, very angry with the 80,000,000 people who voted Trump into office.
And they appear to be self haters because their response to him is to say, take some pledge that apparently started in, like, Korea many years ago or I I don't remember all the tenants, but I know you don't date, you don't get married, you don't have sex, and you don't have children. Like, those are there be no reproducing. You know, in response to which most of us are like, phew, when you get a look at these ladies. But, you is this just mental illness? We're gonna show a little bit of these gals.
We we showed a little the other day. Here's a little bit more in SOP 13.
Speaker 6: Just woke up this morning feeling spicy. Giving up my America. Yeah. Also giving up on coloring this hair because right? Fuck coloring my hair.
Fuck having my hair
Speaker 0: be long and luxurious.
Speaker 6: Fuck all that shit. Fuck being skinny. Fuck being hot. Fuck being all the things that the patriarchy wants us to be.
Speaker 1: And I'm
Speaker 6: talking to you too.
Speaker 0: I think you gave up on
Speaker 6: that long ago. To have the internalized misogyny required
Speaker 0: to do what you did. The minorities
Speaker 6: who are so scared of a woman in power that you'd rather cozy up to the white man just in case some crumbs fall off his plate. Here we go. We're cutting it off because fuck you. That's why. You think I'm crazy?
Me too. I'm crazy.
Speaker 0: I do. Yeah. I do. So that's it. It's your internalized misogyny, if you're a woman who voted for Trump.
And if you're a a minority, it's because you wanna cozy up to the white man. So she has to shave off her hair and suddenly go from hot to not. Sister, I I got to assumes facts not in evidence.
Speaker 1: You know, this you asked if this is mental illness. This is induced mental illness. They invented a system that was going to drive them mad. I I kind of I've been talking about this for years, actually, but but think about this for a minute. If you come out and say, well, you know, I don't really agree with feminism.
I certainly agree that women should have rights and all the rights and all the choices, but I think feminism is an anti female movement. Suddenly, you're you're absolutely a pariah. You're a terrible, terrible human being. So unless you have a hard skin like me, you you stop saying it. You stop talking.
You stop expressing your opinion. You don't say, well, you know, I have questions about Islam because then you're an Islamophobic. You don't say, well, there's a lot of crime in black neighborhoods and maybe there's something wrong in the with the culture in some of those neighborhoods because then you're a racist. You don't want any of that stuff to happen. You don't wanna be called out to HR.
You don't wanna be uninvited to dinner parties. You don't wanna lose whatever awards you've won or anything like that. So you're silent. So now this person on the left never hears a conflicting opinion, only hears opinions within the scope of her worldview. So she hears different piece places on the left.
Maybe she's not left enough. Maybe you're not you're a little bit more to the left. Whatever it is, but you're never hearing a right wing opinion. So you never know that there are perfectly decent people who see the world entirely differently than you do. Really nice people.
People he would like. People who would sit there and could explain to you why they think it might be more helpful to have this policy instead of that. Never hear it. Never comes anywhere into your into your worldview. And then suddenly you find out that half the country believes these things.
And the only thing you can think to yourself is you're living in this horrible, horrible country where every other person hates you and wants to destroy you. I don't know what patriarchy she's talking about. I've been looking for it for years because if I could find it, I would join it. But, you know, it's just this this absolute terror of all the people on the other side because you've never let them speak. You know?
And we on the right there was actually a a a an article in one of the Yale newspapers about this, where the left wingers were saying yeah. Yeah. They were saying that, you know, gee, the right wingers have to deal with us, but we don't have to deal with them, so we don't know anything about them. Well, on the right, we've been saying that for years that you don't have to explain the left to us. We live with it.
And and, you know, we know people who are
Speaker 0: And then the article was saying they were jealous that the Yalies were con were jealous of their conservative, colleagues because They should be. They were developing skills that the ones on the left had never developed and did not have to develop.
Speaker 1: We're also having more fun, and we're not terrified. And we don't have I mean, I shaved off my head, but that's my hair, but that's different. You don't have to shave off your head and stop dating people because you lost an election. Because you had just have a much more three-dimensional view of the world than they have.
Speaker 0: I love this woman. I'm sorry to obsess, but, like, I love this woman pretending that she's Giselle. Like, I'm just gonna do it. I'm I'm not I'm sister. Again.
Speaker 1: It's kinda like when Ellen DeGeneres announced she's leaving the country. I was kinda like, you know, that's fine, you know?
Speaker 0: I know. Oh, we used to laugh. I mean, there were some people at Fox who, like, when the Roger Ailes scandal broke, then let's I won't be too mean. But it was, like, let's just say, again, not exactly Giselle like figures and not nice figures either, which is why I felt comfortable making fun of them. But they were like, it
Speaker 4: never happened to me. I'm
Speaker 0: like, okay.
Speaker 1: Reality is reality is hard. Reality is hard. No question about it.
Speaker 0: Sorry. But there there was some dark moments there. Okay. So she's not taking well, she and her other four b movement ladies. You mentioned Ellen DeGeneres.
I thought that was actually quite interesting. And, now you have people wrestling with what what does it mean? What do we need to do? How do we regroup? Like, how do we get back our voters?
And the trans issue continues to be kicked around in the news every day, not just because of the Nancy Macy the Nancy Mace thing, which, by the way, we won. We won. Speaker Johnson announced yesterday that their men will not be allowed to use women's bathrooms, that you can use a gender neutral bathroom. I don't have to fulfill my offer to pay for the gender neutral bathroom on Capitol Hill. I offered $30 to build it yesterday because that's what I think it costs.
Apparently, they already exist. So, like, this this man pretending to be a woman can just go use one of those. Shut up and stay out of the women's rooms. But now it's a rule. So that's good because when the kids go on Capitol Hill for their field trips, they don't have to worry about running into men, posing as women, or trying to take photographs of them, or whatever the hell else these men who want access to women's faces want to do.
So that's good. We won. So thank you to all of our viewers who I know called and wrote. But the trans thing remains in the news, and it's getting Republicans are getting bolder, and the left is holding on. They're they're not ready to let go of this this little pearl that they've been pushing on us for so long.
So Nancy Mace is the person the person who brought this up on Capitol Hill as a Republican congresswoman from South Carolina. And she went on with news anchor from Scripps yesterday to talk about this. Have you seen this in the book?
Speaker 1: I saw it.
Speaker 0: Just listen to the arrogance of this news anchor in quotes air quotes, news anchor. Watch.
Speaker 6: I'll I'll I just wanna add that the congresswoman elect does identify as a woman. I will be
Speaker 7: She's not a woman. It's a man. She was born a man. She's a man. She is biologically a male.
That is science. You guys on the left in the mainstream media wanna say follow the science. Let's follow the science. Okay? He is a man.
He can wear a dress. He can call himself. His pronouns can be she or her, but he doesn't belong in a woman's restroom. Period.
Speaker 6: Are you suggesting that the representative elect McBride poses some kind of danger to you and other women Yeah.
Speaker 7: Absolutely. Absolutely. A 100%. This is an assault on women. A man being a biological man, a man with a penis, male genitalia being in a women's locker room is an assault on women.
Then more than likely, he's got a mental mental illness and this is why he's doing this. He should not be forcing his private parts into women's private spaces. I'm absolutely a no hard pass on this. I'm gonna fight it every step of the way.
Speaker 6: Are you diagnosing right now an incoming member of congress with a mental illness?
Speaker 0: I'm I'm
Speaker 6: not sure how you I'm
Speaker 7: absolutely diagnosing anyone who cross dresses with a mental illness.
Speaker 0: Amazing. Now just a word on this so called news anchor. Her name is Liz Landers. She is a national correspondent leading the disinformation desk at Scripps News, Andrew. You can't make it up.
Where the team covers how disinformation spreads and shapes politics and people's lives. Hello, Liz. You're in the middle of doing it right now. Thank god you had a fact checker there And Nancy Mace, I just wanna say one word about this. Two words.
1, are you suggesting that representative elect McBride, who for viewers who did not watch yesterday, is a man posing as a woman just elected to congress from the state of Delaware, poses some kind of danger to you and other women in congress? Okay. Because Mace had said he doesn't belong in a women's restroom. Liz, we don't have to prove that he is dangerous. That is not the question.
So f you for trying to reshape the debate in a way that you think is stronger for you. First of all, yes, he is a danger. They're all danger. Even if he personally doesn't wanna do anything to women in that restroom, his permission slip is a permission slip for all men, and many of those men do want to hurt us. So get up to speed, Liz.
Do your homework, sweetheart. Secondly, we don't have to prove that. Our mere discomfort at allowing men into women's spaces is enough. Stop trying to make the stakes so high that we have to prove to you this crime or that, which we could, but we don't need to. The answer's no.
We don't want him, Liz. And if you wanna pee next to a man, ask your male buddies at Scripps whether you can go into their bathroom. That's your solution. So that's one of the things that really irritated me in that whole exchange. But the thing is, Andrew, we won.
So people like Liz are going to have to be brought to heel on this, or their side will continue losing.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the the reason this is so important, the reason the transgender movement is so important is because it's emblematic of the power that the left has wielded. 1000 of years of human civilization, 100 of 1000 of years of homo sapiens, This has never come up. The idea that a man can become a woman has never come up for the very good reason that it's impossible. One angry lesbian college professor writes a book which I have read called Gender Trouble by Judith Butler. It's a it's a grift.
It's an absolute muddly muddy minded, poorly written grift that logic doesn't hold. It actually doesn't have a string of logic. Announcing that gender is simply a construct. You know, yep. 100 of 1000 of years of hom hominid life, but suddenly we find out that gender is just a construct.
No other animal knows this. No other mammal realizes this, but we know this because Judith Butler has told us. The instantaneously, if you disagree with this, you are a villain. Instantaneously. That was the power that the left was wielding.
That was the power that their communication was wielding. To me, the most important video of this week was Mike Johnson coming out being asked whether this new congressman slash congresswoman was a man or a woman. And Mike Johnson said, well, I'm not gonna answer that question. I'm not gonna deal with that. Then he had to come back out later and say, no.
I am gonna deal with that. He's a man is a man, woman is a woman. They can't change. Now it's wrong to call Mike Johnson a coward. It's wrong to call him, you know, a hypocrite.
He's a he's a good guy. He's got a difficult job. Speaker of the House is probably one of the toughest jobs in government. He he is no more a coward than any of us or anybody else. That's the power they had that a man of his convictions could come out and have to hesitate a moment before he realized the game is over.
The game is over because Donald Trump won. That's what happened. That's the difference. He wouldn't have come back and made that second appearance that was the the bold, right, true appearance. Not because he's a bad guy.
Not because he's a coward. He's not. He wouldn't have done it because he wouldn't have seen that the construct had been destroyed. But it's in rubble on the ground, and they can keep on with this track forever. It's not going anywhere.
Their machine is broken, and I don't think it's coming back for a long, long time.
Speaker 0: That's a really interesting point. Thank you for pointing that out. We played the Mike Johnson videos yesterday, both of them. And you're right. I mean, I was more focused on how he did get it right in the end.
You know? But you're right. The fact that he hesitated does say something about how effective they've been on their bullying. And the fact that he came back out later is a testament to the the victory that we all just won, not just Donald Trump. We all won, on this particular issue.
So the other thing I wanted to say about Liz, the disinformation anchor at Scripps, is, she says, are you are you diagnosing an incoming member of Congress with a mental illness? I'm not sure how you would know that. Well, Liz, I have another piece of information for you since you're really into information and disinformation. Go to the DSM 5, look up gender dysphoria, and you will find it right there. It is a disorder in the DSM 5, which is about mental disorders.
And in the medical community, mental illness and mental disorders are used interchangeably. So, yes, it's fine to say that the odds are this person who considers themselves, quote, trans has gender dysphoria, which is a disorder or mental illness spelled out in the DSM 5. Look it up, sweetheart. You love information. I just gave you a bunch of it.
There's your afternoon project. Okay. I'm not done with this issue because it's come up again. Whoopi Goldberg, known for her commitment to facts. You know?
Miss, I feel so bad for all the little children that Matt Gaetz allegedly molested who now will not be able to come forward. She's such a liar. Literally, nobody alleged that. Okay. You that by the way, that legal disclaimer did not fix her defamation of Matt Gaetz.
He should sue her. This is what she came out to say on this is on the issue of trans athletes.
Speaker 3: You know, I I often wonder because it's when you look, transgender Americans, less than 1% of American adults identify as transgender.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And when you add in youth who identify as transgender, that number comes to just about 1.4. It is estimated that there are no more than a 100 transgender athletes competing in public schools nationwide. And an associated press investigation found that lawmakers proposing bans on trans athletes in school sports could not cite a single instance of these athletes taking championship.
Speaker 0: That is so that is so wrong on so many levels. The UN just released a list of the number of medals that these men and boys have stolen from women, and it was almost a1000, that they had calculated just recently. We here on the show have covered the number of medals that have been stolen. We did a deep dive on the Connecticut runners that we've been covering for years since we launched in 2020, Andrew, because I'm living in Connecticut, who have been denied medals and scholarships and so on and and brought a lawsuit that's now succeeding. But, of course, they're not the only example.
And the girls who have been hurt all over the country by these trans players and the girls at the NCAA level who are now forfeiting, games and so on in order to protect their safety. And so, like, the amount of nonsense that is put out there. But before I get you to comment on that, if at all, I gotta tell you, we got some breaking news here. Guess what just happened? Matt Gaetz
Speaker 1: withdrew. Oh, wow. Wow.
Speaker 0: I know. I gotta say, I I can never like, I have no personal affection for Matt Gaetz. I don't know him. But I'm kinda sad to see it. I'm kinda disappointed.
I like the fact that sending in this like you were saying, guns blazing. I get why he's problematic, but I'm disappointed. I'm gonna read you a statement, but give me your first reaction.
Speaker 1: Well, my first reaction is that I'm not surprised because even though congress said they weren't gonna release the ethics report, we all knew it was gonna come out. There's no stopping that stuff from coming out. And, you know, I've heard even I have heard things about Matt Gaetz in the way he has lived. I don't think that means that all the charges against him are true. I very much suspected a lot of them are overblown and ridiculous.
But, you know, you live at that level and you're going to do some things you probably shouldn't have done. But I feel the same way you do. I'm a little bit disappointed. I would have liked to see him just go in there and, rip them to pieces. He's so great when he is challenging the left.
He's so terrific when he actually goes after them. But, you know, you don't want the guy to be destroyed either. So I guess he's probably making the right decision. And Trump, I I think that Trump was talking about this. He was repeatedly quoted as saying, I don't know if this is gonna make it, so maybe he's just getting out of the way to let Trump do more.
The fact that he resigned as quickly as he did, I know it was supposed to be so that he could be replaced quickly, but that might have been a giveaway that he was trying
Speaker 0: to
Speaker 1: get out of having that information released.
Speaker 0: That report dropped. And that report has not yet dropped the house investigation into what, if anything, he did with these underage girls or with prostitutes or I don't whatever, all of which he's denied, has not yet leaked. They definitely have. The house has it. Reportedly, the senate does not have access to it because the house has refused.
Speaker Mike Johnson has said we're not releasing that. But, of course, someone's gonna leak it. So but it hasn't leaked yet. Anyway, here's what Matt wrote on on x. I had excellent meetings with senators yesterday.
I appreciate their thoughtful feedback and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump Vance transition. There's no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle. Thus, I will be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as attorney general. Trump's DOJ must be in place and ready on day 1.
I remain fully committed to see that Donald j Trump is the most successful president in history. I will forever be honored that president Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice, and I'm certain he will save America. That's all we have for now. Does it mean he will resume and can he resume his role as a congressman from the Florida Panhandle? I'm not sure.
He resigned from the existing congress. Does that mean he can he's been reelected, you know, so can he take his seat in the upcoming congress, which starts in January? Like, he didn't technically resign from that. Not sure. We'll see.
And if he's if he's not going back to congress, you gotta bet dollars to doughnuts. Trump's gonna give him some sort of an a role that doesn't require senate confirmation.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's it's a really interesting question. It depends how official his resignation is, whether he handed in the letter, whether it's just his discussion, you know, whether he can just walk back. I hope, he'd I hope he doesn't disappear. But, again, I I was sort of suspicious when that happened because you as as you say, I that that report is going to be released.
Whatever is in it is gonna be released. And, he he must be nervous about it. Obviously, what he was talking about was he was going to Republican senators, and they were saying, look. We just don't have the numbers. And what is the what is the point of being ripped to pieces for 2 weeks and then losing the vote?
You know, what's the point for him? What's the point for Trump? What's the point for anyone? Hopefully, you know, Trump to to clean out the DOJ, which is now, as far as I'm concerned, you know, Merrick babyface Garland has completely corrupted that incredibly important institution. You know, to clean that out, I hope that I'm sort of hoping, like, Trump nominates something like, you know, an Abrams tank or something.
Somebody just goes in like a bulldozer. Just that we're just gonna confirm a bulldozer and just have to go in and shove everybody out the back of the building because it really is dirty in there.
Speaker 0: I like that a lot. Alright. Well, you know, all I can think of as I read this, though, I gotta be honest, I read Maureen's, Maureen Callahan, who I love. Her book, she's also a writer like you, Ask Not. She released it over the summer, and it was all about the Kennedy men over the years and just how terribly they've treated their women.
You know, Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick. And John f Kennedy, you know, our former president, beloved, you know, by most people, but especially the left. You read her book. He was shtipping the White House intern who was 16, 16, while Jackie was away, taking her in the pool. Everybody knew they were having sex in the White House.
Matt Gaetz is accused of not great behavior. He denies it, but JFK was president. The Washington Post chose not to reveal any of this. Matt Gaetz is nominated for a far less important position, though an important one, and just these allegations are have derailed him. Maybe not just these.
He's also not well liked as you point out. But here's what CNN just dropped as he withdraws. The woman who says she had sex while a minor with then representative Matt Gaetz told the House Ethics Committee that she had 2 sexual encounters with him at one party in 2017. Sources familiar with her testimony tell CNN. The woman, who was 17 years old at the time testified that the second sexual encounter, which has not previously been reported, included another adult woman.
The other woman who was an adult at the time has denied participating in the alleged second encounter according to multiple sources familiar with her ethics testimony. This is the same person whose claims were not enough to persuade the Merrick Garland controlled DOJ to bring charges again against Matt Gaetz, And The Washington Post reported in 2022 the reason the charges would not be brought is because this woman was not credible. That's what The Washington Post reported. It's fine to repeat these allegations. I haven't read the whole report.
I really hope CNN says that because Matt Gaetz right now is getting killed by a 1,000 cuts, that people are running with this. It's turned into child molestation over on ABC News. And now he's withdrawn, and he's right. He has become a distraction. But, I mean, I'm a little uncomfortable about where this has gone, Andrew, because it's Merrick Garland's DOJ who says she's not credible.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've I've I've actually never believed these charges for that very reason. That's one of the things that kinda bothers me about it. But I wonder too how much of this has to do with the way Matt Gaetz behaved during the replacement of the speaker of the house. He was an agent of chaos.
He was not a sort of play, you know, go along to get along guy. He was not being collegial as people in Congress were supposed to be. And as you say, I do not think he's a man with many friends, and that just counts for something in politics. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does. So I don't know how much of this has to do I mean, obviously, his life is not a neat life, and it would be nice if we could find people with the kind of determination and grit that we need who are also faithful husbands, and that would be kind of pleasant, and a different and a change of pace.
But his life is a messy life. He doesn't have a lot of friends. And I think the numbers, obviously, from what he said about talking to the senators, the numbers just weren't there. And so what's the point? Right?
Because he's gonna he's gonna be dragged through the mud. And if the numbers are not gonna be there, some people are just saying there's just no way I'm coming over, to your side. You know, what is the point of his going through this? And, yes, he's going to be just absolutely excoriated by the left wing press. But, again, they excoriate everybody who disagrees with them, so I don't know how much, you know, credibility they have left.
It seems to me none. So it's it's just a question for me of the numbers and the fact that he couldn't, obviously, couldn't put together the numbers that he needed, and whether more is going to come out or not. I don't know. Now it makes it less likely, I suppose, that there'll be a leak because who cares if he's not doing that? I hope I hope they take him back into the country.
I don't know. Again, he has alienated a lot of people. Yeah. Such a
Speaker 0: leaky such a leaky body. Now the question will be, who's Trump gonna choose? Right? Because this is a really important position. I've heard some people say senator Mike Lee of Utah that he
Speaker 1: Great pick. Great pick.
Speaker 0: He could get all the things done that Matt Gaetz could get done. You know, he's a fighter. He's a Trump loyalist. He's a MAGA guy, But without all the controversy, you know, he should sail through in the in the senate. But that opens up a senate seat, and the Republicans can't necessarily spare it.
I don't I'm not sure exactly what would happen, or whether that might deter, because he's already chosen Marco Rubio. He's elevated him. Like, maybe somebody who's not currently serving. The margins are really tight amongst the existing lawmakers. And, I don't know.
I still wanted to go with my friend, Mike Davis. There's no guy more loyal to Trump. He's on the show all the time. He formed a group called the Article 3 Project, which is all about enforcing, you know, America First Policies. And he too clerked for the Supreme Court.
He's very, very smart. He says, I think he's too much of a shit stirrer to get confirmed. I think he thinks that. But, like, in relation to Matt Gaetz? Anyway, I think it's still a great day.
I think it's actually a great day. And I'm sad for Matt Gaetz, but I believe this probably is what's best for the Trump administration, Andrew. So onward we go.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you have to remember that Trump has had a really, really hard time with AGs, as Jeff Sessions kinda ducked when he came under that special investigation. And I I've been a fan of Bill Barr's, but I know that Trump didn't like him and Me too. Wasn't loyal enough. So, yeah, he's he's he's gotta find somebody who's both, you know, a loyalist, but also somebody who can do a hard job of cleaning out the Aegean stables because it is like that in there.
It is really a dirty place.
Speaker 0: I thought Bill Barr was amazing. The only problem was he wouldn't support the election denialism stuff, and that's what led to the rift between them. But he totally had Trump's back. He was brilliant. He was hard tough on crime, all the good things.
Anyway, that's that did not end well. Andrew Clavin. Wait. Are you sticking around? Okay.
You are. Right? Is Andrew stick okay. Sorry. I got confused about whether you had to go.
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Protect your savings with Birch Gold. Text MK to 9 8 9 89898 and claim your eligibility for free silver today. Andrew, the news breaking shortly before we came to air that, Jussie Smollett has been given an amazing lifeline by the Illinois Supreme Court, which just reversed his conviction, not on the grounds that he did not perpetrate a fake race hoax on the city of Chicago and the nation. But on the ground that, if you remember, the original prosecutor in the case, Kim Fox, a woke DEI promoting George Soros prosecutor, didn't want to charge him and cut a plea deal with him, a non prosecution agreement that let him off the hook for some community service and a handshake. And he signed it.
And it was only in response to the outrage over that that special prosecutor Dan Webb was brought in, former big muckety muck in Chicago, and he tried the case against Jussie Smollett, and Jussie's lawyers argued that this was a violation of his 5th Amendment privileges, that it was basically trying to try him twice after the government had sworn or agreed that it would not try him, that they had already cut a deal with him. And that ultimately proved persuasive to the Illinois Supreme Court, which ruled in a five zero ruling. There are 7 justices, 2 abstained. 5 just I don't know why, but 5 justices ruled, they want a reversal. And now already, you've got the far left crowd on Twitter going nuts about how everyone owes him an apology, and you mark my they're gonna spin this into he's somehow been exonerated when really all the court said was you can't try him when he already admitted to it and struck a non prosecution agreement with this loser DA, Kim Fox.
Speaker 1: Well, I I am shocked to find that there is bad governance going on in Chicago. And, I just I just I feel it's terrible that a man who committed a hate crime has been set free like this. This is just terrible thing. This is another guy. Are there any real hate crimes in America?
I mean, I cannot remember the last time there was a high profile hate crime, except against Jews, of course. But I can't remember. There was a a last the last time there was a high profile hate crime that didn't turn out to be a fraud. So, you know, Jussie Smollett, I I feel bad for the guy. I have to admit, when that show he he was in, I what was it called?
Kingdom or something like that? Came out, I was I was abs empire. That's what it was. I I was absolutely stunned by the guy's talent. I remember sitting there going, wow.
That guy can can really sing. And, apparently, he just sang the wrong song, and now his career is in shambles. But what what can we say? The guy is
Speaker 0: Or is it is it that's that's the real question.
Speaker 1: Maybe not. Maybe they could win an Oscar for just for this.
Speaker 0: You know? Or will he be will he be totally embraced by the left who will pretend that this was some sort of exoneration on the merits when that's not in fact at all what happened? Just reading now here from the Chicago Tribune reminding us of exactly how this went down. Weeks after indicting him, prosecutors dropped all counts against him, noting that he forfeited his $10,000 bond and had done community service. Cook County state's attorney Kim Fox previously handed the case to deputies saying she had recused herself, and the court found here that we are aware this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust.
Nevertheless, what would be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal case would be a holding from this court that the state was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally, relied. Here's here's what's nuts. This guy I mean, I there will be discussions about whether he got this ruling because he's black and gay. Be whether this is some sort of privilege right along those lines or whether like, would the Andrew Clavins of the world have gotten a ruling like this? Is the Illinois Supreme Court captured by this kind of thinking, or was this a just legal ruling?
I'm gonna have to go back and look at it, to answer that myself. But remember this, Andrew. Remember what a big deal this was. He came out and made up this fake story that he'd been walking in the polar vortex. It was that time in Chicago where it was, like, 52 below or something crazy in Chicago.
And that 2 guys, 2 white guys wearing MAGA hats came up out of nowhere and said something about, like, f you, you gay, whatever, and just happened to beware to be be holding a noose and bleach, which they doused him with and put around his neck before beating him up and leaving. Oh, this is MAGA country. That's what they alleged. This is MAGA country. That's what it
Speaker 4: was. Favorite line. Yeah.
Speaker 0: At 2 AM in Chicago, he was walking around randomly in Chicago with their noose and their bleach, hoping to see Jussie Smollett while he went out to get a Subway sandwich. Anyway, then he went on with Robin Roberts because all the media was fawning all over him. Oh my god. This poor black gay man got attacked by the evil MAGA, and she gave him the biggest pass we've seen up until we got to Kamala Harris entering the presidential race. Watch this.
Speaker 3: Why do you think you were targeted?
Speaker 8: I can just assume I mean, I come really, really hard against 45. I come really, really hard against his administration, and I don't hold my tongue.
Speaker 4: He comes really high.
Speaker 1: I like the self importance though. The idea that people were actually paying attention to this guy who was maybe the 5th lead on that show to begin with and cared about what he thought about 45. But, also, you know, it is it is amazing. It's it really is kind of interesting. He he was attacked by 2 white guys who, by an absolute coincidence, just happened to be his trainers who were black and who were lost because they thought they were in Trump country in the middle of Chicago.
So somehow they had lost their their, GPS. But it was immediately embraced and immediately pushed out there by the the mainstream media. And no one ever pays a penalty. This is this is the part of the machine that is so fascinating. No one ever pays a penalty for getting these stories wrong.
No one ever has to quit. No one ever has to apologize. No one ever has to go back and say, oh, wow. We should maybe we should have actually done some research since we're on a network with an amazing amount of, investigative force. But all of that stuff disappears.
And it'll be very interesting to see what the rest of his career looks like because you're right, of course, that the left is gonna say, oh, wow. He's he's been exonerated when he hasn't been. But that's kind of what I'm talking about with Trump's election. They don't have the power they used to have. They don't have the power to erase what we've seen with our own eyes the way they used to be.
They literally used to be able to say, we didn't exist. The Hunter Biden laptop, it's not a thing. It's a it's Russian disinformation. They have lost that power. They used it to the ultimate extent in the 2016 election, and now it's kinda in the 2020 election.
I'm sorry. And now it's it's really played out, and Trump has broken it and left it in pieces on the ground. So I don't know what's gonna happen to the guy. You know? I don't I don't really have a lot of animosity against him.
I think it's he's an actor, you know, who's who's startled that he wants to be more important than he is and he or thinks he's more important than
Speaker 4: he is.
Speaker 0: I do. I do. He not only did he smear all of MAGA, but he cost the city of Illinois tens of 1,000 of dollars as they investigated this nonsense. The the black police chief in Chicago just crushed him. We're looking for the sound bite right now because we had a cut back at the time, but was so angry at what this guy had done with Chicago PD, and we he wanted to create a race war.
I mean, it was so irresponsible and just really tried to ignite a flame that could have caused this country to burn had he not been caught by these smart investigators. Ultimately, the 2 perpetrators of this alleged hate crime gave an interview to and and did a reenactment for Fox Nation in, like, the best piece of tape ever. Here's here they are. They are black. They knew Jussie Smollett.
They were not white MAGA hating guys. They just got convinced by Jussie Smollett to do this to him and watch.
Speaker 9: So we waited here for about, what, 4 minutes? About 4 minutes. 4 minutes.
Speaker 10: But it felt like forever because it was cold as balls. As we
Speaker 9: crossed the street, we said hey to get his attention, and that's when we started yelling, the famous slurs he wanted us to yell. Hey.
Speaker 10: Aren't you that empire? It's America country. Oh, god.
Speaker 9: He wanted it to look like he fought back. That was very important for him because he said, hey. Don't just beat my ass. Make it look like I'm fighting back and whatnot. So we did that, and then I threw him to the ground.
And while after I threw him to the ground, I he had no bruise. I wanted it to look more real. So then I threw him to the ground. After I threw him to the ground, I used my knuckle and gave him a noogie.
Speaker 10: I finally put the rope around his face. I did not put it around his neck. I just placed it on his face, and that's when we took off.
Speaker 1: Oh, well, that is great. That is a great piece of tape.
Speaker 0: I gave him a noogie.
Speaker 1: I love the racist noogie. That's a you know, nothing like that noogie to really take you out. You know? It's like, this is crazy.
Speaker 0: To ever air on COGS nation. Wait. But here is the we found the we found the sound bite from Eddie Johnson, the police chief at the time, who was definitely not laughing. Watch.
Speaker 11: Jussie Smollett took advantage of the pain and anger of racism to promote his career. I'm left hanging my head and asking why. Why would anyone, especially an African American man, use the symbolism of a noose to make false accusations? How could someone look at the hatred and suffering associated with that symbol and see an opportunity to manipulate that symbol to further his own public profile? How can an individual who's been embraced by the city of Chicago turn around and slap everyone in this city in the face by making these false chart claims?
Speaker 0: Pretty amazing. So that was 2019, Andrew.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: And here we are 5 years later. So what is the temperature of the country today versus back then for a black gay man who got caught perpetrating a race a race hoax for for him in public life and returning to the public scene now that this conviction has been overturned?
Speaker 1: You know, to me, one of the great untold stories of this moment is the the COVID shutdowns and what it meant to the American people. No one's been fired. It was, in my opinion, the greatest failure of a leadership class since World War 1. It was an absolute mess. Everything about it was wrong.
And one of the things that was wrong was the encouragement and the cover up of the George Floyd riots. The idea that George Washington's statue should be taken down and replaced with George Floyd's. The idea that this guy was some kind of hero, this drug addict who I personally think drugged himself to death, trying to hide Fentanyl from the arresting officer. And that that was that that crime was indicative of the way the police treat black people. People have not covered what that means to people even on a subconscious level, I think on a conscious level too.
We know, we all know that we have been gaslit up the wazoo. We understand that for all of that time that that COVID lockdown was going on, we were gaslit about race relations, We were gaslit about the economy. We were gaslit about masks. We were gaslit about vaccines. We're gaslit about Anthony Fauci, who really, you know I mean, I don't wanna send an old man to jail for the rest of his life as if he were a silent you know, a peaceful anti abortion protester.
But still, you know, he he he performed criminal acts and criminal told criminal lies to Congress, and all of that stuff has vanished. It's just kind of sunk into the background. So now this guy comes back from that though those bad days, and he basically tried to, you know, push this narrative on us that was a total lie. I just don't think the world is waiting for him with open arms. I could be wrong, but I think that this is a guy where people are gonna look and say, we are so sick of this.
You know? This is a country that has come so far in its race relations. Nobody denies the bad stuff in the past, but, of course, the world was more racist in the past than it is today. We're much more thrown together because of America, because of the way America welcomes people and lets them blend together. So things have changed here, and I think I I just think people are sick of of this kind of condemnation of everything about us.
You know? I I think that this is part of what the Trump election means. It's like enough. You know? Enough.
This is not a bad country. It's a great country. These are not bad people, but good people. That when you go out into the middle of this country, black and white people are living together. They're marrying.
They're adopting each other. It's it's absurd to still be playing heat of the night on MSNBC when, you know, Kumbaya is playing throughout the rest of the country. So when this guy comes back, I just don't think there's a bunch of people waiting to say, oh, boy. We just can't wait to have this guy back to tell us how bad we are. Now he can go hard against number 47, and we're gonna all care about this.
I I
Speaker 4: this is
Speaker 1: this is a dated story. You know?
Speaker 0: I'm sure Trump's teeth are chattering. Yeah. I agree with you. I don't think there's a comeback for him, even in this highly weird land. Because they I think on the on the heels of this election, especially, they've gotten the message, they went too far.
And the American public is not having it. Andrew Klavan, love having you. Thanks so much for being here.
Speaker 1: Great talking to you, Megan. Good to see you.
Speaker 0: Alright. Coming up next, we're gonna be joined by professor Jeffrey Sachs. Really looking forward to speaking with him, especially in light of the news this week on what we're doing in Ukraine. I mean, is there a real risk here that president Biden's starting World War 3 or risking it just before he hands the baton to president Trump? Jeffrey Sachs had thoughts.
Don't miss that. Donald Trump is the president-elect, but he does not take office for 2 more months. And the current administration appears to be doing everything it can to push its agenda through in the final months. Nowhere is that more obvious than in relation to Ukraine, where we just learned that team Biden is looking to cancel over 4 and a half $1,000,000,000 in debt that Ukraine owes us, the American people. The move drawing sharp criticism from Republicans, including senator Rand Paul.
And that's not all we learned about what our administration is doing this week. My next guest is an American economist who has a long history of speaking out on Russia and Ukraine and why this war must end. He and I were both speakers at the same conference back in September, the All In Summit with our pals from the All In podcast. Joining me now, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs. Jeffrey, welcome to the show.
Great to have you.
Speaker 12: Great to be with you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 0: So, of course, the even bigger news, in addition to canceling 1,000,000,000 of dollars in debt that they owe us, is the fact that, the Biden administration authorized Ukraine to fire US made and supplied missiles deeper into Russia following months of lobbying from Ukraine, which has the Russians apoplectic saying this could lead to World War 3. And I don't a lot of people wanna just dismiss that as empty rhetoric. I know you don't think we should. I agree with you. Explain.
Speaker 12: Well, this is an unbelievably irresponsible action of an unbelievably irresponsible and failed administration. This war could have ended years ago. It could have been prevented entirely had Biden just had some little measure of diplomacy to understand the Russian concerns. But this current decision, that, now US missiles, Atakha missiles will be used and fired deep inside Russia in the waning days of a failed administration, is it's just such a reckless disregard for our safety and for our lives. President Putin's been making the point, all along that look.
If you use these particular weapon systems, This is Americans that are doing the targeting, that are essentially launching these missiles against Russia, and it would be like Russia, maybe in submarines off the coast of the United States firing missiles into the US. That would be an attack by Russia on the United States. And Putin says, if you do this, this isn't an attack by Ukraine. This is an attack by the United States on Russia. It's perfectly clear.
It's perfectly sensible. It's perfectly stupid that Biden is doing this. But what makes it all the more obnoxious, frankly, is that the Pentagon and Biden said before the election, they wouldn't do this. They explained that this would not have a consequential result on the direction of the war, but it could ratchet up the war and lead to an escalation that could end up being catastrophic. So this very decision that was just made in the last few days was rejected.
It was made exactly the opposite way a few weeks ago. But, you know, we don't even know whether the the president is is is compasementus. We we have no idea who's actually making these decisions. Is this Jake Sullivan? Is this is this the Pentagon?
Is this the CIA? Is this Biden? We don't even hear from the guy, and these are momentous, irresponsible actions. I just I can't really recall something like this before. I haven't trusted these people from the get go because they have been failures on diplomacy all along.
But to make a decision like this when it's the waning weeks of a failed administration that's lost the election, the new government's coming in, it's it's shameful and it's dangerous.
Speaker 0: You know, my mom graduated from high school in 1959. I graduated from high school in 1988. And for various reasons, I think her generation and my generation feared the Russians. Right? That during my generation, it was the cold war and even had these duck and cover drills in school.
We were so worried about a nuclear standoff or conflict with Russia. Today, people are out Christmas shopping. They're debating Trump's cabinet picks. They're getting ready for Thanksgiving. No one's treating this like we treated what arguably was a far less provocative situation in the Cold War.
Like, we're actually engaged in a hot war right now with Russia in Ukraine, but we're ignoring it, and it's escalating.
Speaker 12: You're exactly right. And by the way, we we should be afraid. Russia has 6,000 nuclear warheads, and we should understand Russia is afraid of us. We have 6,000 nuclear warheads. Both sides have 1,600 actively deployed nuclear warheads aiming at each other.
They're afraid of us. And, you know, this has been, and and they're afraid of us not in some irrational crazy sense, in the sense that they actually don't want nuclear war, and they don't want the United States military and its missiles freely on their border. And that's what people really need to understand about why this war is taking place in the first place. What this whole thing in Ukraine has been about is that our deep state got it in its head at the end of the Soviet Union back in December 1991 that we rule the roost. We can do what we want.
We can go anywhere we want. We can decide where our missile systems are. We can leave any treaty we want. We can put NATO military bases anywhere we want, and that Russia couldn't do anything about it. It's literally that attitude, that that arrogance or that hubris.
And so we started this NATO enlargement towards Russia, and the Russians kept saying, don't do this. Don't do this. Don't come any closer. And we don't worry. It's our choice.
We can go where we want. And, Clinton started the NATO expansion against the advice of top diplomats and experts, military experts, and so forth. Maybe he wanted the vote of the Polish Americans in Illinois or Michigan. That's so irresponsible. But the first wave of NATO enlargement was the Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic.
That was 1999. Then in 2004, George w Bush junior, another 7 countries, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia, you know, just moving eastward. And the Russians said, stop. Okay? Stop.
And then Bush and Cheney and, and Victoria Nuland, now my colleague at Columbia University, the, the ultra neocon, they said, no. No. We're gonna go all the way to Ukraine into Georgia right up against Russia's 2,100 kilometer border with Ukraine. And the Russian said, do not do that. Do not come to our border.
Like we once said to the Soviet Union, do not put military bases and nuclear weapons in Cuba. But the United States said, we don't have to care. We can do whatever we want, and that went through too promising that NATO would enlarge to Ukraine and to Georgia. Then the United States helped to overthrow a Ukrainian government in February 2014 that wanted neutrality because
Speaker 0: Why doesn't it get more attention?
Speaker 12: COVID goes.
Speaker 0: We we went through that. We covered that on Fox News. Just yeah. Spend a minute on
Speaker 12: Fox News. More attention? Why doesn't it get more attention? Because The New York Times and MSNBC and the mainstream media refuse to talk about any history. And, Megan, I I know about it in the most absurd way because I could not get 700 words even online.
I didn't demand print. Just online in The New York Times to respond to the fact that they said that the war that Putin launched against Ukraine was, quote, unprovoked, and they used that word 26 times, my assistant counted in their op ed columns during the 1st year of after, February 2022. And the whole thing was provoked, and I happened to see it because I've been involved in that region for more than 30 years. And The New York Times would not tell the truth. They would not inform their readers.
Even with one online piece, you know, they could
Speaker 0: So they're not gonna talk about the fact that we orchestrated a coup in Ukraine in 2014 with Hillary Clinton.
Speaker 12: They don't talk about any such stuff that we do. You think they were interested in who blew up Nord Stream? Do you think they were interested in who made the coup? Do you think they were interested in where the COVID virus came from? You know, a thousand things that are really messed up.
They don't cover at all because they're kind of, whatever the deep state tells us, whatever our official sources tell us, whatever our unnamed official sources tell us, that's what we're going with. And so they don't cover this stuff. They don't discuss any background, but they do carry a narrative. And the narrative is Putin's a madman and a madman and, you know, wants to recreate the Russian empire, except except don't worry. He'll never do anything with nuclear weapons.
I mean, it's all completely inconsistent and incoherent. And if one understood the Russian side of this story, not only the NATO enlargement that I just recounted, but the fact that the United States, the US, unilaterally walked out of the anti ballistic missile treaty in 2002, and the Russians said, what are you doing? We have a a nuclear arms control framework for stability, and the US said, nah. We do what we want. The United States walked out of the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty in 2019.
We do what we want. The United States stationed Aegis anti ballistic missiles in Poland and Romania nearby Russia, and the Russians saying, don't do that. The United States says, we do what we want. And then Putin asked Biden, we have reports, well, are you gonna station missiles in Ukraine? And the report is that Blinken told the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in January 2022, we do what we want.
It's none of your business. And then we're surprised that there's war. And then we violate our own limits, and we reverse our policies within days, and we have no deliberation in the United States at all. It's not just people going to the malls. Is there a senator or a congressman that's paying attention to this frankly?
It's just unbelievable what has happened.
Speaker 0: Definitely seems like the Trump administration's aware. We know JD Vance is paying attention to this, but they've got 2
Speaker 12: months before him. This completely. He understands this completely. And president Trump has been very clear about this also.
Speaker 0: I interviewed Vladimir Putin in in the Kremlin, in Moscow, in Saint Petersburg at his economic conference. And then again and the the third time where we really sat down and and went to head head to head on a bunch of things was in Kaliningrad, which is where they keep their nukes. And it was a really humbling experience to be in a place that with the press of a button could launch the annihilation of the world. And you really feel it in a very acute way, and especially when you're across from the man who could do it, who, you know, unlike Kim Jong Un, where where Trump's like, I've got a bigger button and mine works, Putin's button works too. And people keep saying, like, he's evil.
He's evil. He's evil. And I understand what's happened in Ukraine and war is very ugly. But I've been saying to people, it's more complicated than evil. Like, he's strategic.
He's making decisions that he thinks are in the best interest of mother Russia, and we just dismiss him as this evil cretin at our own peril. Like, we need to understand the greater situation that got us here, and more importantly, that will get us out of here. And I think he is a rational actor. Like, I I think Trump is right that he probably could get this thing resolved in a day, and how would he do that? How would he go about doing that?
Speaker 12: Megan, not only is he rational, he's extremely intelligent. And not only, is this not some crazy act, it is understandable from Russia's point of view, and it is irresponsible from the American side that we have pushed and pushed and pushed because of an arrogance that came in the United States' strategic leadership at the end of the Soviet period when they decided when people like Wolfowitz and Cheney decided, we can do anything we want. We can have any wars we want. As, literally, Wolfowitz had told, general Wesley Clark, Russia can't respond. We can do what we want.
It is that arrogance that has been the biggest problem of all for us because it has gotten the United States into less and less security like we are in right now. Now this war could have been avoided entirely at multiple points. I I won't go through every bit of the history, but I will tell you that at the end of 2021, president Putin put a draft security agreement on the table, online also, not just on the table so we could all read it, a US Russia draft security agreement. You could still find it online, and the essence of it was stop the NATO enlargement. I called the White House at that point.
I talked to Jake Sullivan. I said, avoid this war. Negotiate. This is good diplomacy. He said, no.
No. We have an open door policy. I said, that's ridiculous. There is no such thing as an open door policy that the United States gets to station its military bases anywhere it wants and expect others not to have a say in it, especially when it's Russia and, their say about the United States military on their border. And, yeah, he dismissed all of that.
So that war totally could have been avoided. Then in March 2022, I think people are not aware that Russia and Ukraine actually agreed on a peace arrangement based on Ukrainian neutrality, and the United States nixed it. The US told them, fight on. No neutrality. We got your back.
And as I often say, yeah, we have their back, but not their front because they're being killed from the front. 600,000 Ukrainians dead since the US nixed this little thing. And Ukraine losing land in the process, Every day, it gets worse. But in our arrogance, we haven't stopped it. This is Biden's colossal failure.
So could Trump end this in a day? Yes. And the way to do it would be to go to the core of what this is about. This is about NATO enlargement. This is about Russian national security.
And to say properly and rightly, mister president Putin, you stop the war, and we end this wrong headed idea of NATO enlargement to your border. You view that as reckless. This was a bad idea. We need to keep a space between us. We are the 2 most powerful nuclear superpowers in the world.
We need a little bit of buffer in between. Ukraine will be neutral. It will be secure. You stop fighting. We stop trying to draw it into our military orbit.
Speaker 1: This is
Speaker 0: how it works. The territory that Russia's already taken in Ukraine?
Speaker 12: Russia's gonna keep a lot of that that it's taken because that's ethnically Russian. And when Russia proposed and, again, you need to know the history of this. I mean, you know, but people need to understand the history of this. Russia didn't make territorial demands before this latest round starting in February 2022. What Russia had asked for, rightly, was give autonomy to the Russian speakers of Eastern Ukraine, and that was put into a treaty backed by the UN Security Council, unanimously called the Minsk II agreement.
And what did the US do? It whispered to the Ukrainians, you don't have to do that stuff. That's alright. Just ignore the treaty. And so what would have been territorial integrity of Ukraine was squandered again by the West because we're very cynical and very arrogant.
And so we think we can just get our way, and it's it's
Speaker 0: Let me let me follow-up with you on that. Is it hubris?
Speaker 12: Yep.
Speaker 0: Is it hubris on our part, or is it, like, a desire for war or both?
Speaker 12: I don't think it's a desire for war. I think it's being an absolutely arrogant, awful poker player. Because the United States kept saying, if we do what we want, Russia has no alternative. You can actually go back in a fascinating, completely wrong account given by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the, remember, the, foreign policy guru, who wrote a book in 1997 called The Global Chessboard, and he talked about NATO enlargement. And he has a chapter in it which I went back to recently read because it's kind of the blueprint of what we did.
And he reasons that we can do what we want because Russia has no recourse. And he predicts, he says, well, Russia will never side with China. Russia will never form an alliance with Iran. Wrong. Wrong.
So much is wrong. And he concludes by saying Russia has no option but to just go along with an expanding Europe and an expanding NATO. So he called it wrong, but that is how the US acted. They were playing poker, excuse me, with a lousy hand, and they didn't understand what was really going on. They thought Putin's not gonna start a war over this.
They thought, well, if he does, our sanctions are gonna kill the the Russian economy. I know that, and I spoke to the the US officials about that as was
Speaker 0: happening. Said it.
Speaker 4: Biden was like, just watch.
Speaker 0: Just watch. Come back and, you know, let's check back in in 6 months or 12 months, whatever he said. And Russia was fine. They had found other partners.
Speaker 12: Exactly. And it it it was not hard to predict because these sanctions are always overblown. They can do damage, but they're terribly overblown. Then it was gonna be our our miracle weapon systems, our HIMARS and our ATACMS and all the rest that were gonna do it. In other words, they kept saying, we'll win, they'll lose, as this keeps escalating.
You know, Obama did a lot wrong on this because it was during Obama that, this coup against the Ukrainian neutralist government was launched with the US on February 22, 2014. So Obama has a lot to answer for on this, but he did realize one thing. After that happened, he said, you know, we can't get into a war with Russia on this because they have what what Obama called escalatory dominance. If we raise the stakes, they'll raise it further. Because for us, going NATO enlargement, that's kind of a game, and it is a game from the point of view of Jake Sullivan or others.
But from the point of view of Russia, it's existential. So Obama knew, well, they'll just keep escalating. I don't wanna get into that. Biden is just so Who knows? So bad at this.
And his team, Blinken and Sullivan, the the whole team has been terrible. But but the whole point is they played it like a game, Whereas for Russia, this is first order national security. This is the most basic stuff, and this is why we need to take absolutely seriously the change of the nuclear doctrine, the fact that from Russia's point of view, they now regard the United States as actively attacking Russia with our missiles. And it's an accurate assessment, by the way. And I'm just hoping and counting on president Putin, as a very, rational and steely character, no doubt, tough minded and very rational to hold without blowing things up so that president Trump can come into office and, they can discuss things rationally, which has
Speaker 0: not happened. But it's almost what we don't want is to have Joe Biden depending on Putin's forbearance knowing that Trump is coming in. You know, there's only so far he can be pushed.
Speaker 12: I agree. I'm so dismayed and shocked by what's happened in the last couple of days because when the Pentagon said before November 5th, we're not going to do this, they explained why. This is dangerous. It's provocative. It will not change the course of the conventional war, but it could lead to nuclear escalation.
They explained all of it. They actually sent the British prime minister packing because the British are exceptionally irresponsible in all of this. As a 19th century imperial power, they have their delusions of grandeur still, and they want the United States to do the dirty work. So Starmer came over to the White House, you'll recall, and tried to talk Biden into this, and the Pentagon said, no, this makes no sense. Now, what also is very disturbing about all of this from my point of view was that such a momentous decision was made without any explanation to the public by President Biden.
I don't know whether he can give an explanation anymore. I don't know who really makes these decisions anymore. But it's not acceptable with our lives in the balance and with the administration on its way out in a few weeks to be making decisions like this and then
Speaker 0: Right.
Speaker 12: Period, but then not even accounting for them or explaining them.
Speaker 0: That's right. And we see him what do we see? We see him stumbling on the beach in Delaware, missing the photo ops at the g 20 like, there's no reason to believe he's in control and in command, and we just correct. Pray for the next 2 months. And and the responsibility of Let let's do a brighter note because I have Can we heard you talk about because I said this to my audience.
When when I went over to Russia those couple of times, I was floored by how loving the Russian people were toward America. They loved to hear that I was a US citizen. They loved to talk about America. They had no animosity toward us at all. You know, our world leaders get us into these conflicts and have these you know, as we've just discussed, they they're not thinking the way the citizenry is.
But what could it what could the relationship look like in the next phase? You know, once Trump gets in there and JD is in there too in his ear, what could things look like after we wrap this thing up, which I I do think it will be wrapped up pretty quickly?
Speaker 12: Let me just tell you that in December 1991, I was in the Kremlin because I was an adviser to president Boris Yeltsin on his economic crisis that they were facing. And I sat, in the room in the Kremlin, and Boris Yeltsin came from the far side of a very, very big room, out into the room from a back door in in the background, walked up to the table, and said, gentlemen Shots
Speaker 0: for everyone.
Speaker 12: I was I was I was chair I was chairing a delegation, and he said, gentlemen, I would like to tell you the Soviet Union is over. He said, I've just been meeting with the heads of the Soviet military. He pointed to the door in the in the back and said they have agreed to the end of the Soviet Union. And then he went on to talk about how Russia would be a normal country, friendly with the United States, friendly with Europe, a normal market economy, a normal democratic country, how it wanted normalcy and good relations. And I spoke then and said, mister president, I am sure that this is how the United States sees it too.
I am sure the United States is gonna give you a hand in this deep economic crisis, that the Soviet Union fell into to help you find your way out of this, in a in a perfectly fine manner. Well, I I was wrong. The United States, neocons did not want peace. They wanted dominance. They wanted what is called hegemony.
They wanted to be able to move NATO where they want. They wanted to be able to put American missiles where they want. They wanted to leave whatever treaties they wanted. They behaved very, very badly. Could we have normal cooperative relations with Russia?
Of course, we could. That's what they wanted. I saw it with my own eyes. I heard it with my own ears. I was there.
I saw it with president Kuchma of Ukraine. I was an adviser to the Ukrainian government also. We had the chance, really, for peace, but the neocons didn't want peace. They wanted hegemony. They wanted US dominance.
It was arrogance. It it and and they played things so badly for so many years, for more than 30 years now, to get us to this absolutely powerless state that was unimaginable in 1991. Unimaginable that we'd be talking about whether there would be a nuclear war between the two countries. So could Trump and Vance pull this back to normalcy? Of course, they could.
And by the way, I have to say the same with China because everyone says, oh, China, we have to hate China. China's our biggest threat. We have to be nice to Russia so, we can hate China. This too is completely mistaken. We don't need to hate either of these countries.
They both want peace and cooperation and economic development.
Speaker 5: That's what
Speaker 12: they want.
Speaker 0: Russia Russia is a more persuasive case to me. China, I I there's just been too much misinformation news about what they're doing. You know? I mean, just recently, the police stage the secret police in New York are, you know, threatening Chinese speakers there. I mean, the buying of the land
Speaker 12: that We're we're sending we're sending 1,000,000,000 of dollars of armaments to Taiwan that we, in our diplomacy, recognize as part of China. And if China starts sending 1,000,000,000 of dollars of armaments to one of the US states, you'll know that we have a problem.
Speaker 4: I have been going to I I agree with you. I've been going to
Speaker 0: the Philippines. Taiwan situation, the the smartest people I've talked to are say we should not get involved in that. That's
Speaker 12: Absolutely. But that's
Speaker 4: the that's
Speaker 0: the case. Already part of China, and we shouldn't get involved over there. And no one wants the American boots on the ground in Taiwan, and we should stop being so provocative with respect to Taiwan.
Speaker 12: Bravo. That's the main point of irritants with China. The other point of irritants is the South China Sea because we have a doctrine that we have choke points on China's sea lanes. If we would just calm down, we would find that there are plenty of grounds for cooperation. And that's the point.
We need to calm down. We need to stop being in the other guy's face, especially the face of another superpower. We need to stop saying we can do whatever we want. We can send our armaments to Taiwan. We can, we can strike with our missiles inside Russia.
We have to get over that mentality, and then we're gonna find that there's actually the basis for cooperation.
Speaker 0: Now I've heard you go so far as to say similar things about Iran. Now that's gonna make people's heads explode because
Speaker 12: Well, let me let me do it. Let me let me
Speaker 0: do it. I was gonna Donald Trump right now. Like, there's no world in which we can have well, you explain it to us?
Speaker 12: First first, they're not. And and second, we have been assassinating their leaders for years, by the way. This is not even this is bragged about by the United States. I I happened to be, at, in New York when the president of Iran came to visit, and I listened to him speak. He's a heart surgeon, and he talked about, as a doctor, he saves the life of anybody, whether he likes the person on the operating table or not.
He spoke about peace the whole time. How was it reported in our media? War, war, war. The media, the deep state plays a lot of games with us, Megan. They wanna stir up war.
They wanna stir up military contracts. They wanna stir up the US ability to do whatever it wants. I'm not buying it because I see it with my own eyes.
Speaker 0: Well, that, we gotta continue this discussion in more depth. Anybody? I'd love to get into it, and not on China more. But I think you're making a lot of sense on Ukraine. There's just there's just too much blood and treasure lost already.
They've lost the war. We have to acknowledge that. Cut the losses, and try to move forward in a constructive way, especially for our people, for Americans.
Speaker 12: Exactly right. Exactly right.
Speaker 0: Jeffrey, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much for being on. I love love to
Speaker 12: be with you.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much. Everybody.
Speaker 12: Thank you.
Speaker 0: And we are back tomorrow with VDH, the one and only. And, also, guess who else is coming back on? The ladies from the Red Scare podcast. Speaking of Red Scares, they're gonna be here from the Red Scare podcast. We'll see you then.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
He is not female & he is not “the highest paid female CEO in America.” He climbed none of the mountains we did, overcame none of our challenges. He started pretending to be one of us at AGE 40. He knows nothing about being a woman & will never be one no matter his costume.
@wesyang - Wesley Yang
Mayo Clinic recently added Martine Rothblatt to its board of directors https://t.co/ZbODrltzdm
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
To all of those on the Left & in the media spilling barrels of ink on whether “they’re eating the pets” in Springfield - anyone care about the fact that they’re raping the children in Nantucket?
@BillMelugin_ - Bill Melugin
NEW: In a multi day operation on Nantucket Island, ICE’s Boston office announces they arrested four illegal aliens who are charged with raping or sexually assaulting Nantucket children or residents - all of whom were released from local custody despite the serious charges. They include: Elmer Sola, a Salvadoran illegal alien who entered the U.S. as a gotaway and was charged last month with three counts of aggravated child rape. The victim was a Nantucket child. Bryan Daniel Aldana-Arevalo, another Salvadoran illegal alien who entered the U.S. as a gotaway and was charged in July with raping a Nantucket child. Gean Do Amaral Belafronte, a Brazilian illegal alien who entered the U.S. as a gotaway and was charged in June with sexually assaulting a Nantucket resident. Felix Alberto Perez-Gomez, a previously deported Guatemalan illegal alien who re-entered the U.S. as a gotaway and was charged last month with sexually assaulting a Nantucket resident. All four of these alleged sex offenders were gotaways, ICE says. They were all arrested by ICE on Nantucket - in sanctuary state Massachusetts. According to internal CBP data, there have been over 1.9 million known gotaways who successfully evaded apprehension & snuck into the U.S. during the Biden administration, tracked via cameras, sensors, footsign, etc.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
You make me want to run for office in my new home state of CT and take your job.
@megynkelly - Megyn Kelly
Well worth your time